THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 f 
 
 WILLIAM E. CHANNING, D.D. 
 
 )ttft an Entrotwction. 
 
 NEW AND COMPLETE EDITION, REARRANGED. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 
 
 1877.
 
 The writings ^/"CHANNING, whiyn Bunsen has characterized 
 as " the grand Christian Saint and Matt of God, nay, also, a 
 prof het of the Christian consciousness regarding the future," are 
 becoming yearly more known and more welcome, among English- 
 speaking people in all parts of the globe ; and translations of them 
 have been, either wholly or in part, published in the German, French, 
 Italian, Hungarian, Icelandic, and Russian languages. 
 
 The AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION, desiring to signalize 
 this closing year of the .first half century of its existence, issues this 
 volume for gratuitous distribution in its missionary work, and to 
 place within the reach of all in portable form, at the lowest possible 
 cost, the writings of one who, in his noble service of spiritual free- 
 dom and pure Christianity, is yet in the early prime of his growing 
 fame and beneficent influence. 
 
 BOSTON, Jan. i, 1875. 
 
 Cambridge : 
 Press cf John Wilson and Son.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS . r 
 
 SELF-CULTURE f 12 
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES 36 
 
 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN 67 
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR 73 
 
 ON PREACHING THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR 88 
 
 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION OF MR. ROBERT C. WATERSTON, AS 
 
 MINISTER AT LARGE 93 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE 99 
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION 116 
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE 124 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS 138 
 
 THE PRESENT AGE 159 
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 172 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO SOCIETY 187 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY : Part 1 188 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY: Part II 204 
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION 220 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION 233 
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY 246 
 
 MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY 254 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 257 
 
 THE DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY 269 
 
 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION , 279 
 
 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REV. JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT . 283 
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD 291 
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST 302 
 
 THE IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER 310 
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST: First Discourse 316 
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST : Second Discourse . . . 322 
 
 PREACHING CHRIST 328 
 
 SELF-DENIAL : First Discourse 336 
 
 SELF-DENIAL : Second Discourse 343 
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN 347 
 
 IMMORTALITY 354 
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE 359 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 367 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY 384 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED 401 
 
 2064493
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 48 
 
 THE CHURCH 428 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 447 
 
 THE MORAL ARGUMENT AGAINST CALVINISM 459 
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM 468 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION AND DENUNCIATION IN RELIGION .... 478 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER ON CREEDS 486 
 
 THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN 489 
 
 DAILY PRAYER . . . 493 
 
 REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF JOHN MILTON . . . 496 
 
 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE . 522 
 
 REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF FENELON .... 559 
 A DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE REV. JOSEPH 
 
 TUCKERMAN, D.D 578 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST : A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. 
 
 NOAH WORCESTER, D.D. 599 
 
 A DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. FOLLEN . 607 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISON, ESQ 618 
 
 NOTICE OF THE REV. S. C. THACHER 625 
 
 THE UNION 629 
 
 WAR : DISCOURSE BEFORE THE CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS OF MASSA- 
 CHUSETTS, BOSTON, 1816 642 
 
 WAR: DISCOURSE DELIVERED JAN. 25, 1835 654 
 
 LECTURE ON WAR 664 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN IN TIMES OF TRIAL OR DANGER 679 
 
 SLAVERY: Introduction, 688; I. Property, 692; II. Rights, 697; III. 
 
 Explanations, 704; IV. The Evils of Slavery, 707; V. Scripture, 723; 
 
 VI. Means of Removing Slavery, 725 ; VII. Abolitionism, 731 ; 
 
 VIII. Duties, 737. 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS : A LETTER TO JAMES G. BIRNEY 743 
 
 A LETTER TO THE HON. HENRY CLAY, ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES 752 
 
 REMARKS ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION, IN A LETTER TO JONATHAN 
 
 PHILLIPS, ESQ 782 
 
 EMANCIPATION 820 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES ; OR, REMARKS SUGGESTED BY THE 
 
 CASE OF THE "CREOLE." Part 1 853 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES; OR, REMARKS SUGGESTED BY THE 
 
 CASE OF THE "CREOLE." Part II 871 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT LENOX, ON THE IST OF AUGUST, 1842, 
 
 BEING THE ANNIVERSARY OF EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST 
 
 INDIES 907 
 
 INDEX 
 
 925
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 
 WILLIAM E. CHANNING, D. D. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 THE following tracts, having passed 
 through various editions at home and 
 abroad, are now collected to meet the 
 wishes of those who may incline to pos- 
 sess them in a durable form. In common 
 with all writings which have obtained a 
 good degree of notice, they have been 
 criticised freely; but as they have been 
 published not to dictate opinions, but to 
 excite thought and inquiry, they have 
 not failed of their end, even when they 
 have provoked doubt or reply. They 
 have, I think, the merit of being earnest 
 expressions of the writer's mind, and of 
 giving the results of quiet, long-contin- 
 ued thought. 
 
 Some topics will be found to recur 
 often, perhaps the reader may think too 
 often ; but it is in this way that a writer 
 manifests his individuality, and he can 
 in no other do justice to his own mind. 
 Men are distinguished from one another, 
 not merely by difference of thoughts, but 
 often more by the different degrees of 
 relief or prominence which they give to 
 the same thoughts. In nature, what an 
 immense dissimilarity do we observe in 
 organized bodies, which consist of the 
 same parts or elements, but in which 
 these are found in great diversity of 
 proportions ! So, to learn what a man 
 is, it is not enough to dissect his mind, 
 and see separately the thoughts and feel- 
 ings which successively possess him. 
 The question is, what thoughts and feel- 
 ings predominate, stand out most dis- 
 tinctly, and give a hue and impulse to 
 the common actions of his mind ? What 
 are his great ideas ? These form the 
 man, and by their truth and dignity he is 
 very much to be judged. 
 
 The following writings will be found 
 to be distinguished by nothing more 
 than by the high estimate which they 
 express of human nature. A respect for 
 the human soul breathes through them. 
 The time may come for unfolding my 
 views more fully on this and many con- 
 nected topics. As yet, I have given but 
 fragments ; and, on this account, I have 
 been sometimes misapprehended. The 
 truth is. that a man, who looks through 
 the present disguises and humbling cir- 
 cumstances of human nature, and speaks 
 with earnestness of what it was made for 
 and what it may become, is commonly set 
 down by men of the world as a romancer, 
 and, what is far worse, by the religious 
 as a minister to human pride, perhaps 
 as exalting man against God. A few 
 remarks on this point seem, therefore, a 
 proper introduction to these volumes. 
 
 It is not, however, my purpose in this 
 place to enter far into the consideration 
 of the greatness of human nature, and 
 of its signs and expressions in the inward 
 and outward experience of men. It will 
 be sufficient here to observe, that the 
 greatness of the soul is especially seen 
 in the intellectual energy which discerns 
 absolute, universal truth, in the idea of 
 God, in freedom of will and moral power, 
 in disinterestedness and self-sacrifice, in 
 the boundlessness of love, in aspirations 
 after perfection, in desires and affections, 
 which time and space cannot confine, and 
 the world cannot fill. The soul, viewed 
 in these lights, should fill us with awe. 
 It is an Immortal germ, which may 
 be said to contain now within itself 
 what endless ages are to unfold. It 
 is truly an image of the infinity of God,
 
 IN TROD UCTOR Y REMA RKS. 
 
 and no words can do justice to its gran- 
 deur. There is, however, another and 
 very different aspect of our nature. 
 When we look merely at what it now is, 
 at its present development, at what falls 
 under present consciousness, we see in 
 it much of weakness and limitation, and 
 still more, we see it narrowed and de- 
 graded by error and sin. This is the 
 aspect under which it appears to most 
 men ; and so strong is the common feel- 
 ing of human infirmity, that a writer, 
 holding higher views, must state them 
 with caution, if he would be listened to 
 without prejudice. My language, I trust, 
 will be sufficiently measured, as my ob- 
 ject at present is not to set forth the 
 greatness of human nature, but to remove 
 difficulties in relation to it, in the minds 
 of religious people. 
 
 From the direction which theology has 
 taken, it has been thought that to as- 
 cribe any thing to man was to detract so 
 much from God. The disposition has 
 been, to establish striking contrasts be- 
 tween man and God, and not to see and 
 rejoice in the likeness between them. It 
 has been thought that to darken the crea- 
 tion was the way to bring out more clearly 
 the splendor of the Creator. The human 
 being has been subjected to a stern criti- 
 cism. It has been forgotten that he is 
 as yet an infant, new to existence, un- 
 conscious of his powers : and he has 
 been expected to see clearly, walk firmly, 
 and act perfectly. Especially in estimat- 
 ing his transgressions, the chief regard 
 has been had, not to his finite nature and 
 present stage of development, but to the 
 infinity of the Being against whom he had 
 sinned ; so that God's greatness, instead 
 of being made a ground of hope, has 
 been used to plunge man into despair. 
 
 I have here touched on a great spring 
 of error in religion, and of error among 
 the most devout. I refer to the tendency 
 of fervent minds to fix their thoughts ex- 
 clusively or unduly on God's infinity. It 
 is said, in devotional writings, that ex- 
 alted and absorbing views of God enter 
 into the very essence of piety ; that our 
 grand labor should be, to turn the mind 
 from the creature to the Creator ; that 
 the creature cannot sink too low in 
 our estimation, or God fill too high a 
 sphere. God, we are told, must not be 
 limited : nor are his rights to be re- 
 strained by any rights in his creatures. 
 These are made to minister to their 
 
 Maker's glory, not to glorify themselves. 
 They wholly depend on him, and have 
 no power which they can call their own. 
 His sovereignty, awful and omnipotent, 
 is not to be kept in che-ck, or turned from 
 its purposes, by any claims of his sub- 
 jects. Man's place is the dust. The 
 entire prostration of his faculties is the 
 true homage he is to offer God. He is 
 not to exalt his reason or his sense of 
 right against the decrees of the Almighty. 
 He has but one lesson to learn, that he 
 is nothing, that God is All in All. Such 
 is the common language of theology. 
 
 These views are exceedingly natural. 
 That the steady, earnest contemplation 
 of the Infinite One should so dazzle the 
 mind as to obscure or annihilate all 
 things else, ought not to surprise us. 
 By looking at the sun, we lose the power 
 of seeing other objects. It was, I con- 
 ceive, one design of God in hiding him- 
 self so far from us, in throwing around 
 himself the veil of his works, to prevent 
 this very evil. He intended that our 
 faculties should be left at liberty to act 
 on other things besides himself, that the 
 will should not be crushed by his over- 
 powering greatness, that we should be 
 free agents, that we should recognize 
 rights in ourselves and in others as well 
 as in the Creator, and thus be introduced 
 into a wide and ever-enlarging sphere of 
 action and duty. Still the idea of the 
 Infinite is of vast power, and the mind, 
 in surrendering itself to it. is in danger 
 of becoming unjust to itself and other 
 beings, of losing that sentiment of self- 
 respect which should be inseparable from 
 a moral nature, of degrading the intellect 
 by the forced belief of contradictions 
 which God is supposed to sanction, and 
 of losing that distinct consciousness of 
 moral freedom, of power over itself, 
 without which the interest of life and the 
 sense of duty are gone. 
 
 Let it not be imagined from these re- 
 marks, that I would turn the mind from 
 God's Infinity. This is the grand truth ; 
 but it must not stand alone in the mind. 
 The finite is something real as well as 
 the infinite. We must reconcile the two 
 in our theology. It is as dangerous to 
 exclude the former as the latter. God 
 surpasses all human thought : yet human 
 thought, mysterious, unbounded, " wan- 
 dering through eternity,' 1 is not to be con- 
 temned. God's sovereignty is limitless ; 
 still man has rights. God ; s power is ir-
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 resistible : still man is free. On God we 
 entirely depend ; yet we can and do act 
 from ourselves, and determine our own 
 characters. These antagonist ideas, if so 
 they may be called, are eqflally true, and 
 neither 'can be spared. It will not do 
 for an impassioned or an abject piety to 
 wink one class of them out of sight. In 
 a healthy mind they live together ; and 
 the worst error in religion has arisen 
 from throwing a part of them into ob- 
 scurity. 
 
 In most religious systems, the ten- 
 dency has been to seize exclusively 
 on the idea of the Infinite, and to 
 sacrifice to this the finite, the created, 
 the human. This I have said is very 
 natural. To the eye of sense, man is 
 such a mote in the creation, his imper- 
 fections and sins are so prominent in his 
 history, the changes of his life are so 
 sudden, so awful, he vanishes into such 
 darkness, the mystery of the tomb is so 
 fearful, all his outward possessions are 
 so fleeting, the earth which he treads on 
 so insecure, and all surrounding nature 
 subject to such fearful revolutions, that 
 the reflective and sensitive mind is prone 
 to see nothingness inscribed on the hu- 
 man being and on all things that are 
 made, and to rise to God as the only re- 
 ality. Another more influential feeling 
 contributes to the same end. The mind^ 
 of man, in its present infancy and blind- 
 ness, is apt to grow servile through fear, 
 and seeks to propitiate the Divine Being 
 by flattery and self-depreciation. Thus 
 deep are the springs of religious error. 
 To admit all the elements of truth into 
 our system, at once to adore the infinity 
 of God and to give due importance to 
 our own free moral nature, is no very 
 easy work. But it must be done. Man's 
 free activity is as important to religion 
 as God's infinity. In the kingdom of 
 Heaven, the moral power of the subject 
 is as essential as the omnipotence of the 
 sovereign. The rights of both have the 
 same sacredness. To rob man of his 
 dignity is as truly to subvert religion as 
 to strip God of his perfection. We must 
 believe in man's agency as truly as in 
 the Divine, in his freedom as truly as in 
 his dependence, in his individual being 
 as truly as in the great doctrine of his 
 living in God. Just as far as the desire 
 of exalting the Divinity obscures these 
 conceptions, our religion is sublimated 
 into mysticism or degraded into servility. 
 
 In the Oriental world, the human mind 
 has tended strongly to fix on the idea of 
 the Infinite, the Vast, the Incompre- 
 hensible. In its speculations it has 
 started from God. Swallowed up in his 
 greatness, it has annihilated the creature. 
 Perfection has been thought to lie in self- 
 oblivion, in losing one's self in the Divin- 
 ity, in establishing exclusive communion 
 with God. The mystic worshipper fled 
 from society to wildernesses, where not 
 even nature's beauty might divert the 
 soul from the Unseen. Living on roots, 
 sleeping on the rocky floor of his cave, 
 he hoped to absorb himself in the One 
 and the Infinite. The more the con- 
 sciousness of the individual was lost, and 
 the more the will and the intellect be- 
 came passive or yielded to the universal 
 soul, the more perfect seemed the piety. 
 
 From such views naturally sprung 
 Pantheism. No being was at last rec- 
 ognized but God. He was pronounced 
 the only reality. The universe seemed 
 a succession of shows, shadows, evan- 
 escent manifestations of the One Inef- 
 fable Essence. The human spirit was 
 but an emanation, soon to be reabsorbed 
 in its source. God, it was said, bloomed 
 in the flower, breathed in the wind, flowed 
 in the stream, and thought in the human 
 soul. All our powers were but move- 
 ments of one infinite force. Under the 
 deceptive spectacle of multiplied indi- 
 viduals intent on various ends, there was 
 but one agent. Life, with its endless 
 changes, was but the heaving of one and 
 the same eternal ocean. 
 
 This mode of thought naturally gave 
 birth or strength to that submission to 
 despotic power which has characterized 
 the Eastern world. The sovereign, in 
 whom the whole power of the state was 
 centred, became an emblem of the One 
 Infinite Power, and was worshipped as 
 its representative. An unresisting qui- 
 etism naturally grew out of the contem- 
 plation of God as the all-absorbing and 
 irresistible energy. Man, a bubble, aris- 
 ing out of the ocean of the universal 
 soul, and fated soon to vanish in it again, 
 had plainly no destiny to accomplish 
 which could fill him with hope or rouse 
 him to effort. In the East the individ- 
 ual was counted nothing. In Greece 
 and Rome he was counted much, and he 
 did much. In the Greek and the Roman 
 the consciousness of power was indeed 
 too little chastened by religious rever-
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 ence. Their gods were men. Their 
 philosophy, though in a measure bor- 
 rowed from or tinctured with the East- 
 ern, still spoke of man as his own master, 
 as having an independent happiness in 
 the energy of his own will. As far as 
 they thus severed themselves from God, 
 they did themselves great harm ; but 
 in their recognition, however imper- 
 fect, of the grandeur of the soul, lay 
 the secret of their vast influence on 
 human affairs. 
 
 In all ages of the church, the tendency 
 of the religious mind to the exclusive 
 thought of God, to the denial or forget- 
 fulness of all other existence and power, 
 has come forth in various forms. The 
 Catholic church, notwithstanding its 
 boasted unity, has teemed with mys- 
 tics, who have sought to lose them- 
 selves in God. It would seem as if 
 the human mind, cut off by this church 
 from free, healthful inquiry, had sought 
 liberty in this vague contemplation of 
 the Infinite. In the class just referred 
 to were found many noble spirits, espe- 
 cially Fe'ne'lon, whose quietism, with all 
 its amiableness, we must look on as a 
 disease. 
 
 In Protestantism, the same tendency 
 to exalt God and annihilate the creature 
 has manifested itself, though in less pro- 
 nounced forms. We see it in Quaker- 
 ism, and Calvinism, the former striving 
 to reduce the soul to silence, to suspend 
 its action, that in its stillness God alone 
 may be heard; and the latter making God 
 the only power in the universe, and anni- 
 hilating the free will, that one will alone 
 may be done in heaven and on earth. 
 
 Calvinism will complain of being 
 spoken of as an approach to Panthe- 
 ism. It will say that it recognizes dis- 
 tinct minds from the Divine. But what 
 avails this, if it robs these minds of self- 
 determining force, of original activity ; 
 if it makes them passive recipients of 
 the Universal Force ; if it sees in human 
 action only the necessary issues of for- 
 eign impulse. The doctrine that God 
 is the only Substance, which is Panthe- 
 ism, differs little from the doctrine that 
 God is the only active power of the uni- 
 verse. For what is substance without 
 power ? It is a striking fact that the 
 philosophy which teaches that matter is 
 an inert substance, and that God is the 
 force which pervades it, has led men to 
 question whether any such thing as mat- 
 
 ter exists ; whether the powers of attrac- 
 tion and repulsion, which are regarded 
 as the indwelling Deity, be not its whole 
 essence. Take away force, and sub- 
 stance is a shadow, and might as well 
 vanish from the universe. Without a 
 free power in man, he is nothing. The 
 divine agent within him is every thing. 
 Man acts only in show. He is a phe- 
 nomenal existence, under which the One 
 Infinite Power is manifested ; and is this 
 much better than Pantheism ? 
 
 One of the greatest of all errors is the 
 attempt to exalt God, by making him 
 the sole cause, the sole agent in the 
 universe, by denying to the creature 
 freedom of will and moral power, by 
 making man a mere recipient and trans- 
 mitter of a foreign impulse. This, if 
 followed out consistently, destroys all 
 moral connection between God and his 
 creatures. In aiming to strengthen the 
 physical, it ruptures the moral bond 
 which holds them together. To extin- 
 guish the free will is to strike the con- 
 science with death, for both have but 
 one and the same life. It destroys re- 
 sponsibility. It puts out the light of the 
 universe ; it makes the universe a ma- 
 chine. It freezes the fountain of our 
 moral feelings, of all generous affection 
 and lofty aspirations. Pantheism, if it 
 leave man a free agent, is a compara- 
 tively harmless speculation ; as we see 
 in the case of Milton. The denial of 
 moral freedom, could it really be be- 
 lieved, would prove the most fatal of 
 errors. If Edwards's work on the Will 
 could really answer its end ; if it could 
 thoroughly persuade men that they were 
 bound by an irresistible necessity, that 
 their actions were fixed links in the chain 
 of destiny, that there was but one agent, 
 God, in the universe ; it would be one 
 of the most pernicious books ever issued 
 from our press. Happily it is a demon- 
 stration which no man believes, which 
 the whole consciousness contradicts. 
 
 It is a fact worthy of serious thought 
 and full of solemn instruction, that many 
 of the worst errors have grown out of 
 the religious tendencies of the mind. 
 So necessary is it to keep watch over 
 our whole nature, to subject the highest 
 sentiments to the calm, conscientious 
 reason. Men starting from the idea of 
 God, have been so dazzled by it as to for- 
 get or misinterpret the universe. They 
 have come to see in him the only force
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 5 
 
 in creation, and in other beings only 
 signs, shadows, echoes of this. Abso- 
 lute dependence is the only relation to 
 God which they have left to human 
 beings. Our infinitely nobler relations, 
 those which spring from the power of 
 free obedience to a moral law, their the- 
 ory dissolves. The moral nature, of 
 which freedom is the foundation and 
 essence, which confers rights and im- 
 poses duties, which is the ground of 
 praise and blame, which lies at the 
 foundation of self-respect, of friendship 
 between man and man, of spiritual con- 
 nection between man and his Maker, 
 which is the spring of holy enthusiasm 
 and heavenly aspiration, which gives to 
 life its interest, to creation its glory ; 
 this is annihilated by the mistaken piety, 
 which, to exalt God, to make him All in 
 All, immolates to him the powers of the 
 universe. 
 
 This tendency, as we have seen, gave 
 birth in former ages to asceticism, drove 
 some of the noblest men into cloisters 
 or caverns, infected them with the fatal 
 notion that there was an hostility be- 
 tween their relations to God and their 
 relations to his creatures, and of course 
 persuaded them to make a sacrifice of 
 the latter. To this we owe systems of 
 theology degrading human nature, deny- 
 ing its power and grandeur, breaking it 
 into subjection to the priest through 
 whom alone God is supposed to ap- 
 proach the abject multitude, and placing 
 human virtue in exaggerated humilia- 
 tions. The idea of God, the grandest 
 of all, and which ought above all to ele- 
 vate the soul, has too often depressed 
 it and led good minds very far astray, 
 a consideration singularly fitted to 
 teach us tolerant views of error, and to 
 enjoin caution and sobriety in religious 
 speculation. 
 
 I hope that I shall not be thought 
 wanting in a just tolerance in the strict- 
 ures now offered on those systems of 
 theology and philosophy which make 
 God the only power in the universe and 
 rob man of his dignity. Among the 
 authors of these may be' found some of 
 the greatest and best men. To this 
 class belonged Hartley, whose work on 
 Man carries indeed the taint of materi- 
 alism and necessity, but still deserves 
 to be reckoned among the richest con- 
 tributions ever made to the science of 
 mind, whilst it breathes the profoundest 
 
 piety. Our own Edwards was as emi- 
 nent for religious as for intellectual 
 power. The consistency of great error 
 with great virtue is one of the lessons 
 of universal history. But error is not 
 made harmless by such associations. 
 The false theories of which I have spo- 
 ken, though not thoroughly believed, 
 have wrought much evil. They have 
 done much, I think, to perpetuate those 
 abject views of human nature which keep 
 it where it is, which check men's aspira- 
 tions, and reconcile them to their pres- 
 ent poor modes of thought and action 
 as the fixed unalterable laws of their 
 being. 
 
 Many religious people fall into the 
 error, which I have wished to expose, 
 through the belief that they thus glorify 
 the Creator. " The glory of God," they 
 say, " is our chief end ; " and this is ac- 
 complished as they suppose by taking 
 all power from man and transferring all 
 to his Maker. We have here an exam- 
 ple of the injury done by imperfect ap- 
 prehension and a vague, misty use of 
 Scripture language. The " glory of 
 God " is undoubtedly to be our end ; 
 but what does this consist in ? It means 
 the shining forth of his perfection in his 
 creation, especially in his spiritual off- 
 spring ; and it is best promoted by 
 awakening in these their highest fac- 
 ulties, by bringing out in ourselves and 
 others the image of God in which all are 
 made. An enlightened, disinterested 
 human being, morally strong, and ex- 
 erting a wide influence by the power of 
 virtue, is the clearest reflection of the 
 divine splender on earth ; and we glo- 
 rify God in proportion as we form our- 
 selves and others after this model. The 
 glory of the Maker lies in his work. We 
 do not honor him by breaking down the 
 human soul, by connecting it with him 
 only by a tie of slavish dependence. By 
 making him the author of a mechanical 
 universe, we ascribe to him a low kind 
 of agency. It is his glory that he cre- 
 ates beings like himself, free beings, not 
 slaves ; that he forms them to obedi- 
 ence, not by physical agency, but by 
 moral influences ; that he confers on 
 them the reality, not the show of power ; 
 and opens to their faith and devout striv- 
 ings a futurity of progress and glory with- 
 out end. It is not by darkening and 
 dishonoring the creature, that we honor 
 the Creator. Those men glorify God
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 most, who look with keen eye and lov- 
 ing heart on his works, who catch in all 
 some glimpses of beauty and power, who 
 have a spiritual sense for good in its 
 dimmest manifestations, and who can 
 so interpret the world, that it becomes 
 a bright witness to the Divinity. 
 
 To such remarks as these it is com- 
 monly objected, that we thus obscure, 
 if we do not deny, the doctrine of en- 
 tire dependence on God, a doctrine 
 which is believed to be eminently the 
 foundation of religion. But not so. On 
 the contrary, the greater the creature, 
 the more extensive is his dependence ; 
 the more he has to give thanks for, the 
 more he owes to the free gift of his 
 Creator. No matter what grandeur or 
 freedom we ascribe to our powers, if we 
 maintain, as we ought, that they are 
 bestowed, inspired, sustained by God ; 
 that he is their life ; that to him we owe 
 all the occasions and spheres of their 
 action and all the helps and incitements 
 by which they are perfected. On ac- 
 count of their grandeur and freedom 
 they are not less his gifts ; and in as 
 far as they are divine, their natural ten- 
 dency is not towards idolatrous self-re- 
 liance, but towards the grateful, joyful 
 recognition of their adorable source. 
 The doctrine of dependence is in no 
 degree impaired by the highest views 
 of the human soul. 
 
 Let me further observe, that the doc- 
 trine of entire dependence is not, as is 
 often taught, the fundamental doctrine of 
 religion, so that to secure this all other 
 ideas must be renounced. And this 
 needs to be taught, because nothing has 
 been more common with theologians 
 than to magnify our dependence at the 
 expense of every thing elevated in our 
 nature. Man has been stripped of free- 
 dom, and spoken of as utterly impotent, 
 lest he should trench on God's sole, 
 supreme power. To eradicate this error, 
 it should be understood that our depend- 
 ence is not our chief relation to God, 
 and that it is not the ground of religion, 
 if by religion we understand the sen- 
 timent of faith, reverence, and love 
 towards the Divinity. That piety may 
 exist, it is not enough to know that God 
 alone and constantly sustains all beings. 
 This is not a foundation for moral feel- 
 ings towards him. The great question 
 on which religion rests is, What kind 
 of a universe does he create and sustain ? 
 
 Were a being of vast power to give birth 
 to a system of unmeasured, unmitigated 
 evil, dependence on him would be any 
 thing but a ground of reverence. We 
 should hate it, and long to flee from it 
 into non-existence. The great question, 
 I repeat it, is, What is the nature, the 
 end, the purpose of the creation which 
 God upholds ? On this, and on the rela- 
 tions growing out of this, religion wholly 
 rests. True, we depend on the Creator ; 
 and so does the animal ; so does the 
 clod ; and were this the only relation, 
 we should be no more bound to worship 
 than they. We sustain a grander rela- 
 tion, that of rational, moral, free beings 
 to a Spiritual Father. We are not mere 
 material substances, subjected to an 
 irresistible physical law, or mere animals 
 subjected to resistless instincts ; but are 
 souls, on which a moral law is written, 
 in which a divine oracle is heard. Take 
 away the moral relation of the created 
 spirit to the universal spirit, and that of 
 entire dependence would remain as it is 
 now : but no ground and no capacity 
 of religion would remain : and the splen- 
 dor of the universe would fade away. 
 
 We must start in religion from our 
 own souls. In these is the fountain of 
 all divine truth. An outward revelation 
 is only possible and intelligible on the 
 ground of conceptions and principles 
 previously furnished by the soul. Here 
 is our primitive teacher and light. Let 
 us not disparage it. There are, indeed, 
 philosophical schools of the present day, 
 which tell us that we are to start in all 
 our speculations from the Absolute, the 
 Infinite. But we rise to these concep- 
 tions from the contemplation of our own 
 nature ; and even if it were not so, of 
 what avail would be the notion of an 
 Absolute. Infinite existence, an Un- 
 caused Unity, if stripped of all those 
 intellectual and moral attributes which 
 we learn only from our own souls ? 
 What but a vague shadow, a sounding 
 name, is the metaphysical Deity, the 
 substance without modes, the being 
 without properties, the naked unity, 
 which performs such a part in some of 
 our philosophical systems ? The only 
 God whom our thoughts can rest on, 
 and our hearts can cling to, and our 
 consciences can recognize, is the God 
 whose image dwells in our own souls. 
 The grand ideas of Power, Reason, 
 W r isdom, Love, Rectitude, Holiness,
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Blessedness, that is, of all God's attri- 
 butes, come from within, from the action 
 of our own spiritual nature. Many in- 
 deed think that they learn God from 
 marks of design and skill in the outward 
 world : but our ideas of design and skill, 
 of a determining cause, of an end or pur- 
 pose, are derived from consciousness, 
 from our own souls. Thus the soul is 
 the spring of our knowledge of God. 
 
 These remarks might easily be. ex- 
 tended, but these will suffice to show, 
 that in insisting on the claims of our 
 nature to reverence, I have not given 
 myself to a subject of barren specula- 
 tion. It has intimate connections with 
 religion ; and deep injury to religion has 
 been the consequence of its neglect. I 
 have also felt and continually insisted, 
 that a new reverence for man was essen- 
 tial to the cause of social reform. As 
 long as men regard one another as they 
 now do, that is as little better than the 
 brutes, they will continue to treat one 
 another brutally. Each will strive, by 
 craft or skill, to make others his tools. 
 There can be no spirit of brotherhood, 
 no true peace, any farther than men 
 come to understand their affinity with 
 and relation to God and the infinite pur- 
 pose for which he gave them life. As 
 yet these ideas are treated as a kind of 
 spiritual romance ; and the teacher who 
 really expects men to see in themselves 
 and one another the children of God, is 
 smiled at as a visionary. The reception 
 of this plainest truth of Christianity 
 would revolutionize society, and create 
 relations among men not dreamed of at 
 the present day. A union would spring 
 up, compared with which our present 
 friendships would seem estrangements. 
 Men would know the import of the 
 word Brother, as yet nothing but a 
 word to multitudes. None of us can 
 conceive the change of manners, the new 
 courtesy and sweetness, the mutual 
 kindness, deference, and sympathy, the 
 life and energy of efforts for social mel- 
 ioration, which are to spring up, in pro- 
 portion as man shall penetrate beneath 
 the body to the spirit, and shall learn 
 what the lowest human being is. Then 
 insults, wrongs, and oppressions, now 
 hardly thought of, will give a deeper 
 shock than we receive from crimes, 
 which the laws punish with death. Then 
 man will be sacred in man's sight ; and 
 to injure him will be regarded as open 
 
 hostility towards God. It has been 
 under a deep feeling of the intimate 
 connection of better and juster views of 
 human nature with all social and relig- 
 ious progress, that I have insisted on it so 
 much in the following tracts, and I hope 
 that the reader will not think that I have 
 given it disproportionate importance. 
 
 I proceed to another sentiment, which 
 is expressed so habitually in these writ- 
 ings as to constitute one of their char- 
 acteristics, and which is intimately con- 
 nected with the preceding topic. It is 
 reverence for liberty, for human rights, 
 a sentiment which has grown with my 
 growth, which is striking deeper root in 
 my age, which seems to me a chief ele- 
 ment of true love for mankind, and 
 which alone fits a man for intercourse 
 with his fellow-creatures. I have lost 
 no occasion for expressing my deep at- 
 tachment to liberty in all its forms, civil, 
 political, religious, to liberty of thought, 
 speech, and the press, and of giving 
 utterance to my abhorrence of all the 
 forms of oppression. This love of free- 
 dom I have not borrowed from Greece 
 or Rome. It is not the classical enthu- 
 siasm of youth, which, by some singular 
 good fortune, has escaped the blighting 
 influences of intercourse with the world. 
 Greece and Rome are names of little 
 weight to a Christian. They are warn- 
 ings rather than inspirers and guides. 
 My reverence for human liberty and 
 rights has grown up in a different school, 
 under milder and holier discipline. 
 Christianity has taught me to respect 
 my race, and to reprobate its oppressors. 
 It is because I have learned to regard 
 man under the light of this religion, that 
 I cannot bear to see him treated as a 
 brute, insulted, wronged, enslaved, made 
 to wear a yoke, to tremble before his 
 brother, to serve him as a tool, to hold 
 property and life at his will, to surren- 
 der intellect and conscience to the 
 priest, or to seal his lips or belie his 
 thoughts through dread of the civil 
 power. It is because I have learned the 
 essential equality of men before the 
 common Father, that I cannot endure to 
 see one man establishing his arbitrary 
 will over another by fraud, or force, or 
 wealth, or rank, or superstitious claims. 
 It is because the human being has moral 
 powers, because he carries a law in his 
 own breast, and was made to govern 
 himself, that I cannot endure to see him
 
 8 
 
 INTRO D UCTOR Y REMARKS. 
 
 taken out of his own hands and fashioned 
 into a tool by another's avarice or pride. 
 It is because I see in him a great nature, 
 the divine image, and vast capacities, that 
 I demand for him means of self-develop- 
 ment, spheres for free action ; that I call 
 society not to fetter, but to aid his growth. 
 Without intending to disparage the out- 
 ward, temporal advantages of liberty, I 
 have habitually regarded it in a higher 
 light, as the birthright of the soul, as 
 the element in which men are to put 
 themselves forth, to become conscious 
 of what they are, and to fulfil the end of 
 their being. 
 
 Christianity has joined with all history 
 in inspiring me with a peculiar dread 
 and abhorrence of the passion for power, 
 for dominion over men. There is noth- 
 ing in the view of our divine teacher so 
 hostile to his divine spirit, as the lust of 
 domination. This we are accustomed 
 to regard as eminently the sin of the 
 arch-fiend. " By this sin fell the angels." 
 It is the most Satanic of all human pas- 
 sions, and it has inflicted more terrible 
 evils on the human family than all 
 others. It has made the names of king 
 and priest the most appalling in history. 
 There is no crime which has not been 
 perpetrated for the strange pleasure of 
 treading men under foot, of fastening 
 chains on the body or mind. The 
 strongest ties of nature have been rent 
 asunder, her holiest feelings smothered, 
 parents, children, brothers murdered, to 
 secure dominion over man. The people 
 have now been robbed of the necessaries 
 of life, and now driven to the field of 
 slaughter like flocks of sheep, to make 
 one man the master of millions. Through 
 this passion, government, ordained by 
 God to defend the weak against the 
 strong, to exalt right above might, has 
 up to this time been the great wrong- 
 doer. Its crimes throw those of private 
 men into the shade. Its murders reduce 
 to insignificance those of the bandits, 
 pirates, highwaymen, assassins, against 
 whom it undertakes to protect society. 
 How harmless at this moment are all 
 the criminals of Europe, compared with 
 the Russian power in Poland. This 
 passion for power, which in a thousand 
 forms, with a thousand weapons, is war- 
 ring against human liberty, and which 
 Christianity condemns as its worst foe, I 
 have never ceased to reprobate with what- 
 ever strength of utterance God has given 
 
 me. Power trampling on right, whether 
 in the person of king or priest, or in the 
 shape of democracies, majorities, and re- 
 publican slaveholders, is the saddest sight 
 to him who honors human nature and de- 
 sires its enlargement and happiness. 
 
 So fearful is the principle of which I 
 have spoken, that I have thought it right 
 to recommend restrictions on power, and 
 a simplicity in government, beyond what 
 most approve. Power, I apprehend, 
 should not be suffered to run into great 
 masses. No more of it should be con- 
 fided to rulers than is absolutely neces- 
 sary to repress crime and preserve public 
 order. A purer age may warrant larger 
 trusts; but the less of government now 
 the better, if society be kept in peace. 
 There should exist, if possible, no office 
 to madden ambition. There should be 
 no public prize tempting enough to con- 
 vulse a nation. One of the tremendous 
 evils of the world is the monstrous accu- 
 mulation of power in a few hands. Half 
 a dozen men may, at this moment, light 
 the fires of war through the world, may 
 convulse all civilized nations, sweep earth 
 and sea with armed hosts, spread deso- 
 lation through the fields and bankruptcy 
 through cities, and make themselves 
 felt by some form of suffering through 
 every household in Christendom. Has 
 not one politician recently caused a large 
 part of Europe to bristle with bayonets ? 
 And ought this tremendous power to be 
 lodged in the hands of any human being ? 
 Is any man pure enough to be trusted 
 with it ? Ought such a prize as this to 
 be held out to ambition ? Can we won- 
 der at the shameless profligacy, intrigue, 
 and the base sacrifices of public inter- 
 ests, by which it is sought, and, when 
 gained, held fast? Undoubtedly great 
 social changes are required to heal this 
 evil, to diminish this accumulation of 
 power. National spirit, which is virtual 
 hostility to all countries but our own, 
 must yield to a growing humanity, to a 
 new knowledge of the spirit of Christ. 
 Another important step is, a better com- 
 prehension by communities that gov- 
 ernment is at best a rude machinery, 
 which can accomplish but very limited 
 good, and which, when strained to accom- 
 plish what individuals should do for 
 themselves, is sure to be perverted by 
 selfishness to narrow purposes, or to 
 defeat through ignorance its own ends. 
 Man is too ignorant to govern much, to
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 form vast plans for states and empires. 
 Human policy has almost always been 
 in conflict with the great laws of social 
 well-being : and the less we rely on it the 
 better. The 'less of power, given to man 
 over man, the better. I speak, of course, 
 of physical, political force. There is a 
 power which cannot be accumulated to 
 excess, I mean moral power, that of 
 truth and virtue, the royalty of wisdom 
 and love, of magnanimity and true relig- 
 ion. This is the guardian of all right. 
 It makes those whom it acts on free. It 
 is mightiest when most gentle. In the 
 progress of society this is more and more 
 to supersede the coarse workings of 
 government. Force is to fall before it. 
 
 It must not be inferred from these 
 remarks, that I am an enemy to all 
 restraint. Restraint in some form or 
 other is an essential law of our nature, 
 a necessary discipline, running through 
 life, and not to be escaped by any art 
 or violence. Where can we go, and 
 not meet it ? The powers of nature 
 are, all of them, limits to human power. 
 A never-ceasing force of gravity chains 
 us to the earth. Mountains, rocks, prec- 
 ipices, and seas forbid our advances. 
 If we come to society, restraints mul- 
 tiply on us. Our neighbor's rights limit 
 our own. His property is forbidden 
 ground. Usage restricts our free action, 
 fixes our manners, and the language we 
 must speak, and the modes of pursuing 
 our ends. Business is a restraint, set- 
 ting us wearisome tasks, and driving 
 us through the same mechanical routine 
 day after day. Duty is a restraint, 
 imposing curbs on passion, enjoining 
 one course and forbidding another, 
 with stern voice, with uncompromising 
 authority. Study is a restraint, com- 
 pelling us. if we would learn any thing, 
 to concentrate the forces of thought, 
 and to bridle the caprices of fancy. 
 All law, divine or human, is, as the 
 name imports, restraint. No one feels 
 more than I do the need of this ele- 
 ment of human life. He* who would 
 fly from it must live in perpetual con- 
 flict with nature, society, and himself. 
 
 But all this does not prove that lib- 
 erty, free action, is not an infinite 
 good, and that we should seek and 
 guard it with sleepless jealousy. For 
 if we look at the various restraints of 
 which I have spoken, we shall see that 
 liberty is the end and purpose of all. 
 
 Nature's powers around us hem us in, 
 only to rouse a free power within us. 
 It acts that we should react. Burden? 
 press on us, that the soul's elastic force 
 should come forth. Bounds are set, 
 that we should clear them. The weight, 
 which gravitation fastens to our limbs, 
 incites us to borrow speed from winds 
 and steam, and we fly where we seemed 
 doomed to creep. The sea, which first 
 stopped us, becomes the path to a new 
 hemisphere. The sharp necessities of 
 life, cold, hunger, pain, which chain 
 man to toil, wake up his faculties, and 
 fit him for wider action. Duty restrains 
 the passions, only that the nobler fac- 
 ulties and affections may have freer 
 play, may ascend to God, and embrace 
 all his works. Parents impose re- 
 straint, that the child may learn to go 
 alone, may outgrow authority. Gov- 
 ernment is ordained, that the rights and 
 freedom of each and all may be invio- 
 late. In study thought is confined, 
 that it may penetrate the depths of 
 truth, may seize on the great laws of 
 nature, and take a bolder range. Thus 
 freedom, ever-expanding action, is the 
 end of all just restraint. Restraint, 
 without this end, is a slavish yoke. 
 How often has it broken the young 
 spirit, tamed the heart and the intellect, 
 and made social life a standing pool. 
 We were made for free action. This 
 alone is life, and enters into all that is 
 good and great. Virtue is free choice 
 of the right ; love, the free embrace of 
 the heart ; grace, the free motion of the 
 limbs ; genius, the free, bold flight of 
 thought ; eloquence, its free and fer- 
 vent utterance. Let me add, that so- 
 cial order is better preserved by liberty 
 than by restraint. The latter, unless 
 most wisely and justly employed, frets, 
 exasperates, and provokes secret re- 
 sistance ; and still more, it is rendered 
 needful very much by that unhappy 
 constitution of society which denies to 
 multitudes the opportunities of free 
 activity. A community, which should 
 open a great variety of spheres to its 
 members, so that all might find free 
 scope for their powers, would need 
 little array of force for restraint. Lib- 
 erty would prove the best peace-officer. 
 The social order of New England, 
 without a soldier and almost without 
 a police, bears loud witness to this 
 truth. These views may suffice to ex-
 
 10 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 plain the frequent recurrence of this 
 topic in the following tracts. 
 
 I will advert to one topic more, and do 
 it briefly, that I may not extend these 
 remarks beyond reasonable bounds. 
 I have written once and again on war, 
 a hackneyed subject, as it is called, 
 yet, one would think, too terrible ever 
 to become a commonplace. Is this 
 insanity never to cease ? At this mo- 
 ment, whilst .1 write, two of the freest 
 and most enlightened nations, having 
 one origin, bound together above all 
 others by mutual dependence, by the 
 interweaving of interests, are thought 
 by some to be on the brink of war. 
 False notions of national honor, as 
 false and unholy as those of the duel- 
 list, do most towards fanning this fire. 
 Great nations, like great boys, place 
 their honor in resisting insult and in 
 fighting well. One would think the 
 time had gone by in which nations 
 needed to rush to arms to prove that 
 they were not cowards. If there is 
 one truth, which history has taught, it 
 is, that communities in all stages of 
 society, from the most barbarous to the 
 most civilized, have sufficient courage. 
 No people can charge upon its con- 
 science that it has not shed blood 
 enough in proof of its valor. Almost 
 any man,, under the usual stimulants 
 of the camp, can stand fire. The poor 
 wretch, enlisted from a dram-shop and 
 turned into the ranks, soon fights like 
 a ' hero." Must France, and England, 
 and America, after so many hard-fought 
 fields, go to war to disprove the charge 
 of wanting spirit ? Is it not time that 
 the point of honor should undergo some 
 change, that some glimpses at least of 
 the true glory of a nation should be 
 caught by rulers and people ? " It is 
 the honor of a man to pass over a 
 transgression," and so it is of states. 
 To be wronged is no disgrace. To 
 bear wrong generously, till every means 
 of conciliation is exhausted ; to recoil 
 with manly dread from the slaughter 
 of our fellow-creaures ; to put confi- 
 dence in the justice which other na- 
 tions will do to our motives ; to have 
 that consciousness of courage which 
 will make us scorn the reproach of 
 cowardice ; to feel that there is some- 
 thing grander than the virtue of sav- 
 ages ; to desire peace for the world as 
 well as ourselves, and to shrink from 
 
 kindling a flame which may involve the 
 world ; these are the principles and 
 feelings which do honor to a people. 
 Has not the time come when a nation 
 professing these may cast itself on the 
 candor of mankind ? Must fresh blood 
 flow for ever, to keep clean the escutch- 
 eon of a nation's glory ? For one, I 
 look on war with a horror which no words 
 can express. I have long wanted pa- 
 tience to read of battles. Were the 
 world of my mind, no man would fight 
 for glory ; for the name of a com- 
 mander, who has no other claim to 
 respect, seldom passes my lips, and 
 the want of sympathy drives him from 
 my mind. The thought of man, God's 
 immortal child, butchered by his broth- 
 er ; the thought of sea and land stained 
 with human blood by human hands, of 
 women and children buried under the 
 ruins of besieged cities, of the resources 
 of empires and the mighty powers of 
 nature all turned by man's malignity 
 into engines of torture and destruction ; 
 this thought gives to earth the sem- 
 blance of hell. I shudder as among 
 demons. I cannot now, as I once did, 
 talk lightly, thoughtlessly of fighting 
 with this or that nation. That nation 
 is no longer an abstraction to me. It 
 is no longer a vague mass. It spreads 
 out before me into individuals, in a 
 thousand interesting forms and rela- 
 tions. It consists of husbands and 
 wives, parents and children, who love 
 one another as I love my own home. 
 It consists of affectionate women and 
 sweet children. It consists of Chris- 
 tians, united with me to the common 
 Saviour, and in whose spirit I reverence 
 the likeness of his divine virtue. It 
 consists of a vast multitude of labor- 
 ers at the plough and in the workshop, 
 whose toils 1 sympathize with, whose 
 burden I should rejoice to lighten, and 
 for whose elevation I have pleaded. 
 It consists of men of science, taste, 
 genius, whose writings have beguiled 
 my solitary hours, and given life to my 
 intellect and best affections. Here is 
 the nation which I am called to fight 
 with, into whose families I must send 
 mourning, whose fall or humiliation I 
 must seek through blood. I cannot do 
 it, without a clear commission from 
 God. I love this nation. Its men and 
 women are my brothers and sisters. I 
 could not, without unutterable pain,
 
 INTRO D UCTOR Y RE MA RKS. 
 
 II 
 
 thrust a sword into their hearts. If, 
 indeed, my country were invaded by 
 hostile armies, threatening without dis- 
 guise its rights, liberties, and dearest* 
 interests, I should strive to repel them, 
 just as I should repel a criminal who 
 should enter my house to slay what I 
 hold most dear, and what is intrusted 
 to my care. But I cannot confound 
 with such a case the common instances 
 of war. In general, war is the work of 
 ambitus men, whose principles have 
 gained no strength from the experience 
 of public life, whose policy is colored if 
 not swayed by personal views or party in- 
 terests, who do not seek peace with a sin- 
 gle heart, who, to secure doubtful rights, 
 perplex the foreign relations of the state, 
 spread jealousies at home and abroad, 
 enlist popular passions on the side of 
 strife, commit themselves too far for 
 retreat, and are then forced to leave to 
 the arbitration of the sword what an 
 impartial umpire could easily have ar- 
 ranged. The question of peace and 
 war is too often settled for a country 
 by men in whom a Christian, a lover of 
 his race, can put little or no trust ; and, 
 at the bidding of such men, is he to 
 steep his hands in human blood ? But 
 this insanity is passing away. This 
 savageness cannot endure, however 
 hardened to it men are by long use. 
 The hope of waking up some from their 
 lethargy has induced me to recur to 
 this topic so often in my writings. 
 
 I might name other topics, which 
 occupy a large space in the following 
 tracts, but enough has been said here. 
 I will only add, that I submit these vol- 
 umes to the public with a deep feeling 
 of their imperfections. Indeed, on such 
 subjects as God, and Christ, and duty, 
 and immortality, and perfection, how 
 faint must all human utterance be ! In 
 another life, we shall look back on our 
 present words as we do on the lispings 
 of our childhood. Still these lispings 
 conduct the child to higher speech. Still, 
 amidst our weakness, we may learn 
 something, and make progress, and 
 quicken one another by free communi- 
 cation. We indeed know and teach 
 comparatively little : but the known is 
 not the less true or precious, because 
 there is an infinite unknown. Nor ought 
 our ignorance to discourage us, as if we 
 were left to hopeless scepticism. There 
 are great truths, which every honest 
 
 heart may be assured of. There is such 
 a thing as a serene, immovable convic- 
 tion. Faith is a deep want of the soul. 
 We have faculties for the spiritual as 
 truly as for the outward world. God, 
 the foundation of all existence, may be- 
 come to the mind the most real of all 
 beings. We can and do see in virtue 
 an everlasting beauty. The distinctions 
 of right and wrong, the obligations of 
 goodness and justice,. the divinity of con- 
 science, the moral connection of the 
 present and future life, the greatness of 
 the character of Christ, the ultimate 
 triumphs of truth and love, are to mul- 
 titudes not probable deductions, but in- 
 tuitions accompanied with the conscious- 
 ness of certainty. They shine with the 
 clear, constant brightness of the lights 
 of heaven. The believer feels himself 
 resting on an everlasting foundation. It 
 is to this power of moral or spiritual 
 perception that the following writings 
 are chiefly addressed. I have had testi- 
 mony that they have not been wholly 
 ineffectual in leading some minds to a 
 more living and unfaltering persuasion 
 of great moral truths. Without this, I 
 should be little desirous to send them 
 out in this new form. I trust that they 
 will meet some wants. Books which are 
 to pass away, may yet render much ser- 
 vice by their fitness to the intellectual 
 struggles and moral aspirations of the 
 times in which they are written. If in 
 this or in any way I can serve the cause 
 of truth, humanity, and religion, I shall 
 regard my labors as having earned the 
 best recompense which God bestows on 
 his creatures. 
 
 W. E. C. 
 BOSTON, April i8//*, 1841. 
 
 P. S. I intended to say, that some of 
 the following tracts savor of the periods 
 in which they were written, and give 
 opinions which time has disproved. In 
 the article on Napoleon Bonaparte, fears 
 are expressed which have in a good 
 measure passed away. In the same 
 Review, the conqueror of Waterloo is 
 spoken of as having only the merit of 
 a great soldier. No one then believed 
 that his opponents were soon to acknowl- 
 edge his eminence in civil as in military 
 affairs. The article is left as it was, 
 from the difficulty of remodelling it, and 
 because it may be useful as a record of 
 past impressions.
 
 SELF-CULTURE: 
 
 i 
 
 An Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, delivered at 
 
 Boston, Sept. 1838. 
 
 [THIS Address was intended to make two lectures ; but the author was led to abridge it and deliver 
 it as one, partly by the apprehension that some passages were too abstract for a popular address, partly 
 to secure the advantages of presenting the whole subject at once and in close connection, and for other 
 reasons which need not be named. Most of the passages which were omitted are now published. The 
 author respectfully submits the discourse to those for whom it was particularly intended, and to the 
 public, in the hope that it will at least bring a great subject before the minds of some who may not as 
 yet have given to it the attention it deserves.] 
 
 MY RESPECTED FRIENDS, By the in- 
 vitation of the committee of arrangements 
 for the Franklin Lectures, I now appear 
 before you to offer some remarks intro- 
 ductory to this course. My principal 
 inducement for doing so is my deep in- 
 terest in those of my fellow-citizens for 
 whom these lectures are principally de- 
 signed. I understood that they were to 
 be attended chiefly by those who are 
 occupied by manual labor ; and, hearing 
 this, I did not feel myself at liberty to 
 decline the service to which I had been 
 invited. I wished by compliance to ex- 
 press my sympathy with this large por- 
 tion of my race. I wished to express my 
 sense of obligation to those from whose 
 industry and skill I derive almost all the 
 comforts of life. I wished still more to 
 express my joy in the efforts they are 
 making for their own improvement, and 
 my firm faith in their success. These 
 motives will give a particular character 
 and bearing to some of my remarks. I 
 shall speak occasionally as among those 
 who live by the labor of their hands. 
 But I shall not speak as one separated 
 from them. I belong rightfully to the 
 great fraternity of working men. Hap- 
 pily in this community we all are bred 
 and born to work ; and this honorable 
 mark, set on us all. should bind together 
 the various portions of the community. 
 
 I have expressed my strong interest 
 in the mass of the people ; and this is 
 
 founded, not on their usefulness to the 
 community, so much as on what they are 
 in themselves. Their condition is indeed 
 obscure ; but their importance is not on 
 this account a whit the less. The mul- 
 titude of men cannot, from the nature of 
 the case, be distinguished ; for the very 
 idea of distinction is, that a man stands 
 out from the multitude. They make lit- 
 tle noise and draw little notice in their 
 narrow spheres of action ; but still they 
 have their full proportion of personal 
 worth and even of greatness. Indeed 
 every man, in every condition, is great. 
 It is only our own diseased sight which 
 makes him little. A man is great as a 
 man, be he where or what he may. The 
 grandeur of his nature turns to insignifi- 
 cance all outward distinctions. His pow- 
 ers of intellect, of conscience, of love, of 
 knowing God, of perceiving the beau- 
 tiful, of acting on his own mind, on 
 outward nature, and on his fellow-creat- 
 ures, these are glorious prerogatives. 
 Through the vulgar error of undervalu- 
 ing what is common, we are apt indeed 
 to pass these by as of little worth. But 
 as in the outward creation, so in the soul, 
 the common is the most precious. Sci- 
 ence and art may invent splendid modes 
 of illuminating the apartments of the 
 opulent ; but these are all poor and 
 worthless compared with the common 
 light which the sun sends into all our 
 windows, which he pours freely, impar-
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 tially over hill and valley, which kindles 
 daily the eastern and western sky : and 
 so the common lights of reason, and con- 
 science, and love, are of more worth and 
 dignity than the rare endowments which 
 give celebrity to a few. Let us not dis- 
 parage that nature which is common to 
 all men ; for no thought can measure its 
 grandeur. It is the image of God, the 
 image even of his infinity, for no limits 
 can be set to its unfolding. He who 
 possesses the divine powers of the soul 
 is a great being, be his place what it may. 
 You may clothe him with rags, may im- 
 mure him in a dungeon, may chain him 
 to slavish tasks. But he is still great. 
 You may shut him out of your houses ; 
 but God opens to him heavenly man- 
 sions. He makes no show indeed in the 
 streets of a splendid city ; but a clear 
 thought, a pure affection, a resolute act 
 of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite 
 another kind, and far higher than ac- 
 cumulations of brick and granite and 
 plaster and stucco, however cunningly 
 put together, or though stretching far 
 beyond our sight. Nor is this all. If 
 we pass over this grandeur of our com- 
 mon nature, and turn our thoughts to 
 that comparative greatness, which draws 
 chief attention, and which consists in the 
 decided superiority of the individual to 
 the general standard of power and char- 
 acter, we shall find this as free and fre- 
 quent a growth among the obscure and 
 unnoticed as in more conspicuous walks 
 of life. The truly great are to be found 
 everywhere, nor is it easy to say in what 
 condition they spijng up most plenti- 
 fully. Real greatness has nothing to do 
 with a man's sphere. It does not lie in 
 the magnitude of his outward agency, 
 in the extent of the effects which he 
 produces. The greatest men may do 
 comparatively little abroad. Perhaps 
 the greatest in our city at this moment 
 are buried in obscurity. Grandeur of 
 character lies wholly in force of soul, 
 that is, in the force of thought, moral 
 principle, and love, and this may be 
 found in the humblest condition of life. 
 A man brought up to an obscure trade, 
 and hemmed in by the wants of a grow- 
 ing family, may, in his narrow sphere, 
 perceive more clearly, discriminate more 
 keenly, weigh evidence more wisely, 
 seize on the right means more deci- 
 sively, and have more presence of mind 
 in difficulty, than another who has ac- 
 
 cumulated vast stores of knowledge by 
 laborious study ; and he has more of in- 
 tellectual greatness. Many a man, who 
 has gone but a few miles from home, 
 understands human nature better, de- 
 tects motives and weighs character more 
 sagaciously, than another who has trav- 
 elled over the known world, and made a 
 name by his reports of different coun- 
 tries. It is force of thought which meas- 
 ures intellectual, and so it is force of 
 principle which measures moral great- 
 ness, that highest of human endow- 
 ments, that brightest manifestation of 
 the Divinity. The greatest man is he 
 who chooses the right with invincible 
 resolution, who resists the sorest temp- 
 tations from within and .without, who 
 bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, 
 who is calmest in storms, and most fear- 
 less under menace and frowns, whose 
 reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is 
 most unfaltering ; and is this a greatness 
 which is apt to make a show, or which 
 is most likely to abound in conspicuous 
 station ? The solemn conflicts of rea- 
 son with passion ; the victories of moral 
 and religious principle over urgent and 
 almost irresistible solicitations to self-in- 
 dulgence : the hardest sacrifices of duty, 
 those of deep-seated affection and of the 
 heart's fondest hopes ; the consolations, 
 hopes, joys, and peace of disappointed, 
 persecuted, scorned, deserted virtue : 
 these are of course unseen ; so that the 
 true greatness of human life is almost 
 wholly out of sight. Perhaps in our 
 presence, the most heroic deed on earth 
 is done in some silent spirit, the loftiest 
 purpose cherished, the most generous 
 sacrifice made, and we do not suspect 
 it. I believe this greatness to be most 
 common among the multitude, whose 
 names are never heard. Among com- 
 mon people will be found more of hard- 
 ship borne manfully, more of unvar- 
 nished truth, more of religious trust, 
 more of that generosity which gives 
 what the giver needs himself, and more 
 of a wise estimate of life and death, than 
 among the more prosperous. And 
 even in regard to influence over other 
 beings, which is thought the peculiar 
 prerogative of distinguished station, I 
 believe that the difference between the 
 conspicuous and the obscure does not 
 amount to much. Influence is to be 
 measured, not by the extent of surface 
 it covers, but by its kind. A man may
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 spread his mind, his feelings, and opin- 
 ions, through a great extent ; but if his 
 mind be a low one, he manifests no 
 greatness. A wretched artist may fill a 
 city with daubs, and by a false, showy 
 style achieve a reputation ; but the man 
 of genius, who leaves behind him one 
 grand picture, in which immortal beauty 
 is embodied, and which is silently to 
 spread a true taste in his art, exerts an 
 incomparably higher influence. Now 
 the noblest influence on earth is that 
 exerted on character ; and he who puts 
 forth this does a great work, no matter 
 how narrow or obscure his sphere. The 
 father and mother of an unnoticed fam- 
 ily, who, in their seclusion, awaken the 
 mind of one child to the idea and love of 
 perfect goodness, who awaken in him a 
 strength of will to repel all temptation, 
 and who send him out prepared to profit 
 by the conflicts of life, surpass in influ- 
 ence a Napoleon breaking the world to 
 his sway. And not only is their work 
 higher in kind ; who knows but that they 
 are doing a greater work even as to ex- 
 tent of surface than the conqueror ? 
 Who knows but that the being whom 
 they inspire with holy and disinterested 
 principles may communicate himself to 
 others : and that, by a spreading agency, 
 of which they were the silent origin, im- 
 provements may spread through a nation, 
 through the world ? In these remarks 
 you will see why I feel and express a 
 deep interest in the obscure, in the mass 
 of men. The distinctions of society van- 
 ish before the light ot these truths. I 
 attach myself to the multitude, not be- 
 cause they are voters and have political 
 power : but because they are men, and 
 have within their reach the most glori- 
 ous prizes of humanity. 
 
 In this country the mass of the people 
 are distinguished by possessing means 
 of improvement, of self-culture, pos- 
 sessed nowhere else. To incite them to 
 the use of these is to render them the 
 best service they can receive. Accord- 
 ingly, I have chosen for the subject of 
 this lecture Self-culture, or the care 
 which every man owes to himself, to the 
 unfolding and perfecting of his nature. 
 I consider this topic as particularly ap- 
 propriate to the introduction of a course 
 of lectures, in consequence of a common 
 disposition to regard these and other like 
 means of instruction as able of them- 
 selves to carry forward the hearer. Lect- 
 
 ures have their use. They stir up many 
 who, but for such outward appeals, might 
 have slumbered to the end of life. But 
 let it be remembered that little is to be 
 gained simply by coming to this place 
 once a week, and giving up the mind for 
 an hour to be wrought upon by a teacher. 
 Unless we are roused to act upon our- 
 selves, unless we engage in the work of 
 self-improvement, unless we purpose 
 strenuously to form and elevate our own 
 minds, unless what we hear is made a 
 part of ourselves by conscientious reflec- 
 tion, very little permanent good is re- 
 ceived. 
 
 Self-culture, I am aware, is a topic too 
 extensive for a single discourse, and I 
 shall be able to present but a few views 
 which seem to me most important. My 
 aim will be, to give first the idea of self- 
 culture, . next its means, and then to 
 consider some objections to the leading 
 views which I am now to lay before you. 
 
 Before entering on the discussion, let 
 me offer one remark. Self-culture is 
 something possible. It is not a dream. 
 It has foundations in our nature. With- 
 out this conviction, the speaker will but 
 declaim, and the hearer listen without 
 profit. There are two powers of the hu- 
 man soul which make self-culture possi- 
 ble, the self-searching and the self- 
 forming power. We have hrst the faculty 
 of turning the mind on itself : of recalling 
 its past, and watching its present opera- 
 tions; of learning its various capacities 
 and susceptibilities, what it can do and 
 bear, what it can enjoy and suffer ; and 
 of thus learning in general what our nat- 
 ure is, and what it was made for. It is 
 worthy of observation, that we are able 
 to discern not only what we already are, 
 but what we may become, to see in our- 
 selves germs and promises of a growth 
 to which no bounds can be set, to dart 
 beyond what we have actually gained to 
 the idea of perfection as the end of our 
 being. It is by this self-comprehending 
 power that we are distinguished from 
 the brutes, which give no signs of look- 
 ing into themselves. Without this there 
 would be no self-culture, for we should 
 not know the work to be clone: and one 
 reason why self-culture is so little pro- 
 posed is, that so few penetrate into their 
 own nature. To most men, their own 
 spirits are shadowy, unreal, compared 
 with what is outward. When they hap- 
 pen to cast a glance inward, they see
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 there only a dark, vague chaos. They 
 distinguish, perhaps, some violent pas- 
 sion, which has driven them to injurious 
 excess ; but their highest powers hardly 
 attract a thought : and thus multitudes 
 live and die as truly strangers to them- 
 selves as to countries of which they have 
 heard the name, but which human foot 
 has never trodden. 
 
 But self-culture is possible, not only 
 because we can enter into and search 
 ourselves. We have a still nobler power, 
 that of acting on, determining, and form- 
 ing ourselves. This is a fearful as well 
 as glorious endowment, for it is the 
 ground of human responsibility. We 
 have the power not only of tracing our 
 powers, but of guiding and impelling 
 them : not only of watching our passions, 
 but of controlling them : not only of see- 
 ing our faculties grow, but of applying 
 to them means and influences to aid their 
 growth. We can stay or change the 
 current of thought. We can concentrate 
 the intellect on objects which we wish 
 to comprehend. We can fix our eyes 
 on perfection, and make almost every 
 thing speed towards it. This is, in- 
 deed, a noble prerogative of our nature. 
 Possessing this, it matters little what or 
 where we are now, for we can conquer 
 a better lot, and even be happier for 
 starting from the lowest point. Of all 
 the discoveries which men need to make, 
 the most important, at the present mo- 
 ment, is that of the self-forming power 
 treasured up in themselves. They little 
 suspect its extent, as little as the savage 
 apprehends the energy which the mind 
 is created to exert on the material world. 
 It transcends in importance all our power 
 over outward nature. There is more of 
 divinity in it than in the force which 
 impels the outward universe ; and yet 
 how little we comprehend it ! How it 
 slumbers in most men unsuspected, 
 unused ! This makes self-culture pos- 
 sible, and binds it on us as a solemn duty. 
 
 I. I am first to unfold the idea of 
 self-culture : and this, in its most gen- 
 eral form, may easily be seized. To 
 cultivate any thing, be it a plant, an 
 animal, a mind, . is to make grow. 
 Growth, expansion, is the end. Noth- 
 ing admits culture but that which has a 
 principle of life, capable of being ex- 
 panded. He, therefore, who does what 
 he can to unfold all his powers and 
 capacities, especially his nobler ones, 
 
 so as to become a well-proportioned, 
 vigorous, excellent, happy being, prac- 
 tices self-culture. 
 
 This culture, of course, has various 
 branches corresponding to the different 
 capacities of human nature ; but. though 
 various, they are intimately united, and 
 make progress together. The soul, 
 which our philosophy divides into vari- 
 ous capacities, is still one essence, one 
 life ; and it exerts at the same moment, 
 and blends in the same act, its various 
 energies of thought, feeling, and voli- 
 tion. Accordingly, in a wise self-cult- 
 ure, all the principles of our nature 
 grow at once by joint, harmonious ac- 
 tion, just as all parts of the plant are 
 unfolded together. When, therefore, 
 you hear of different branches of self- 
 improvement, you will not think of them 
 as distinct processes going on indepen- 
 dently of each other, and requiring each 
 its own separate means. Still a distinct 
 consideration of these is needed to a 
 full comprehension of the subject, and 
 these I shall proceed to unfold. 
 
 First, self-culture is moral, a branch 
 of singular importance. When a man 
 looks into himself, he discovers two dis- 
 tinct orders or kinds of principles, which 
 it behoves him especially to comprehend. 
 He discovers desires, appetites, pas- 
 sions, which terminate in himself, which 
 crave and seek his own interest, gratifi- 
 cation, distinction ; and he discovers 
 another principle, an antagonist to these, 
 which is impartial, disinterested, uni- 
 versal, enjoining on him a regard to the 
 rights and happiness of other beings, 
 and laying on him obligatipns which 
 must be discharged, cost what they may, 
 or however they may clash with his 
 particular pleasure or gain. No man, 
 however narrowed to his own interest, 
 however hardened by selfishness, can 
 deny that there springs up within him 
 a great idea in opposition to interest, 
 the idea of duty, that an inward voice 
 calls him, more or less distinctly, to 
 revere and exercise impartial justice 
 and universal good-will. This disinter- 
 ested principle in human nature we 
 call sometimes reason, sometimes con- 
 science, sometimes the moral sense or 
 faculty. But, be its name what it may, 
 it is a real principle in each of us, and' 
 it is the supreme power within us, to be 
 cultivated above all others, for on its 
 culture the right development of all
 
 i6 
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 others depends. The passions indeed 
 may be stronger than the conscience, 
 may lift up a louder voice ; but their 
 clamor differs wholly from the tone 
 of command in which the conscience 
 speaks. They are not clothed with its 
 authority, its binding power. In their 
 very triumphs they are rebuked by the 
 moral principle, and often cower before 
 its still, deep, menacing voice. No part 
 of self-knowledge is more important than 
 to discern clearly these two great prin- 
 ciples, the self-seeking and the disinter- 
 ested ; and the most important part of 
 self-culture is to depress the former, 
 and to exalt the latter, or to enthrone 
 the sense of duty within us. There are 
 no limits to the growth of this moral 
 force in man, if he will cherish it faith- 
 fully. There have been men, whom no 
 power in the universe could turn from 
 the right, by whom death in its most 
 dreadful forms has been less dreaded 
 than transgression of the inward law of 
 universal justice and love. 
 
 In the next place, self-culture is re- 
 ligious. When we look into ourselves, 
 we discover powers which link us with 
 this outward, visible, finite, ever-chang- 
 ing world. We have sight and other 
 senses to discern, and limbs and various 
 faculties to secure and appropriate the 
 material creation. And we have, too, a 
 power which cannot stop at what we 
 see and handle, at what exists within the 
 bounds of space and time, which seeks 
 for the Infinite, Uncreated Cause, which 
 cannot rest till it ascend to the Eternal, 
 All-comprehending Mind. This we call 
 the religious principle, and its grandeur 
 cannot be exaggerated by human lan- 
 guage ; for it marks out a being destined 
 for higher communion than with the vis- 
 ible universe. To develop this is emi- 
 nently to educate ourselves. The true 
 idea of God, unfolded clearly and liv- 
 ingly within us, and moving us to adore 
 and obey him, and to aspire after like- 
 ness to him, is the 'noblest growth in 
 human, and, I may add, in celestial 
 natures. The religious principle and 
 the moral are intimately connected, and 
 grow together. The former is indeed 
 the perfection and highest manifestation 
 of the latter. They are both disinter- 
 ested. It is the essence of true religion 
 to recognize and adore in God the attri- 
 butes of Impartial Justice and Univer- 
 sal Love, and to hear him commanding 
 
 us in the conscience to become what 
 we adore. 
 
 Again. Self-culture is intellectual. 
 We cannot look into ourselves without 
 discovering the intellectual principle, the 
 power which thinks, reasons, and judges, 
 the power of seeking and acquiring truth. 
 This, indeed, we are in no danger of 
 overlooking. The intellect being the 
 great instrument by which men compass 
 their wishes, it draws more attention 
 than any of our other powers. When 
 we speak to men of improving them- 
 selves, the first thought which occurs 
 to them is, that they must cultivate their 
 understanding, and get knowledge and 
 skill. By education, men mean almost 
 exclusively intellectual training. For 
 this, schools and colleges are instituted, 
 and to this the moral and religious dis- 
 cipline of the young is sacrificed. Now 
 I reverence, as much as any man, the in- 
 tellect ; but let us never exalt it above 
 the moral principle. With this it is 
 most intimately connected. In this its 
 culture is founded, and to exalt this is 
 its highest aim. Whoever desires that 
 his intellect may grow up to soundness, 
 to healthy vigor, must begin with moral 
 discipline. Reading and study are not 
 enough to perfect the power of thought. 
 One thing above all is needful, and that 
 is, the disinterestedness which is the 
 very soul of virtue. To gain truth, which 
 is the great object of the understanding, 
 I must seek it disinterestedly. Here is 
 the first and grand condition of intel- 
 lectual progress. I must choose to re- 
 ceive the truth, no matter how it bears 
 on myself. I must follow it, no matter 
 where it leads, what interests it opposes, 
 to what persecution or loss it lays me 
 open, from what party it severs me, or to 
 what party it allies. Without this fair- 
 ness of mind, which is only another 
 phrase for disinterested love of truth, 
 great native powers of understanding are 
 perverted and led astray ; genius runs 
 wild ; " the light within us becomes 
 darkness." The subtilest reasoners. for 
 want of this, cheat themselves as well as 
 others, and become entangled in the web 
 of their own sophistry. It is a fact well 
 known in the history of science and 
 philosophy, that men, gifted by nature 
 with singular intelligence, have broached 
 the grossest errors, and even sought to 
 undermine the grand primitive truths on 
 which human virtue, dignity, and hope
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 depend. And, on the other hand, I have 
 known instances of men of naturally 
 moderate powers of mind who, by a dis- 
 interested love of truth and their fellow- 
 creatures, have gradually risen to no 
 small force and enlargement of thought. 
 Some of the most useful teachers in the 
 pulpit and in schools have owed their 
 power of enlightening others, not so 
 much to any natural superiority as to the 
 simplicity, impartiality, and disinterest- 
 edness of their minds, to their readiness 
 to live and die for the truth. A man 
 who rises above himself looks from an 
 eminence on nature and providence, on 
 society and life. Thought expands, as 
 by a natural elasticity, when the pressure 
 of selfishness is removed. The moral 
 and religious principles of the soul, 
 generously cultivated, fertilize the intel- 
 lect. Duty, faithfully performed, opens 
 the mind to truth, both being of one 
 family, alike immutable, universal, and 
 everlasting. 
 
 I have enlarged on this subject, be- 
 cause the connection between moral and 
 intellectual culture is often overlooked, 
 and because the former is often sacrificed 
 to the latter. The exaltation of talent, 
 as it is called, above virtue and religion, 
 is the curse of the age. Education is 
 now chiefly a stimulus to learning, and 
 thus men acquire power without the 
 principles which alone make it a good. 
 Talent is worshipped ; but, if divorced 
 from rectitude, it will prove more of a 
 demon than a god. 
 
 Intellectual culture consists, not 
 chiefly, as many are apt to think, in 
 accumulating information, though this is 
 important, but in building up a force of 
 thought which may be turned at will on 
 any subjects on which we are called to 
 pass judgment. This force is manifested 
 in the concentration of the attention, in 
 accurate, penetrating observation, in re- 
 ducing complex subjects to their ele- 
 ments, in diving beneath the effect to 
 the cause, in detecting the more subtile 
 differences and resemblances of things, 
 in reading the future in the present, and 
 especially in rising from particular facts 
 to general laws or universal truths. This 
 last exertion of the intellect, its rising to 
 broad views and great principles, consti- 
 tutes what is called the philosophical 
 mind, and is especially worthy of culture. 
 What it means, your own observation 
 must have taught you. You must have 
 
 taken note of two classes of men, the 
 one always employed on details, on par- 
 ticular facts, and the other using these 
 facts as foundations of higher, wider 
 truths. The latter are philosophers. For 
 example, men had for ages seen pieces 
 of wood, stones, metals falling to the 
 ground. Newton seized on these par- 
 ticular facts, and rose to the idea that all 
 matter tends, or is attracted, towards all 
 matter, and then defined the law accord- 
 ing to which this attraction or force acts 
 at different distances, thus giving us a 
 grand principle, which, we have reason 
 to think, extends to and controls the 
 whole outward creation. One man reads 
 a history, and can tell you all its events, 
 and there stops. Another combines 
 these events, brings them under one 
 view, and learns the great causes which 
 are at work on this or another nation, 
 and what are its great tendencies, 
 whether to freedom or despotism, to one 
 or another form of civilization. So, one 
 man talks continually about the particu- 
 lar actions of this or another neighbor ; 
 whilst another looks beyond the acts to 
 the inward principle from which they 
 spring, and gathers from them larger 
 views of human nature. In a word, one 
 man sees all things apart and in frag- 
 ments, whilst another strives to discover 
 the harmony, connection, unity of all. 
 One of the great evils of society, is, that 
 men, occupied perpetually with petty 
 details, want general truth's, want broad 
 and fixed principles. Hence many, not 
 wicked, are unstable, habitually incon- 
 sistent, as if they were overgrown chil- 
 dren rather than men. To build up that 
 strength of mind which apprehends and 
 cleaves to great universal truths, is the 
 highest intellectual self-culture ; and 
 here I wish you to observe how entirely 
 this culture agrees with that of the moral 
 and the religious principles of our nature, 
 of which I have previously spoken. In 
 each of these, the improvement of the 
 soul consists in raising it above what is 
 narrow, particular, individual, selfish, to 
 the universal and unconfined. To im- 
 prove a man is to liberalize, enlarge him 
 j in thought, feeling, and purpose. Nar- 
 rowness of intellect and heart, this is the 
 degradation from which all culture aims 
 to rescue the human being. 
 
 Again. Self-culture is social, or one 
 of its great offices is to unfold and purify 
 the affections which spring up instinc-
 
 18 
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 tively in the human breast, which bind 
 together husband and wife, parent and 
 child, brother and sister : which bind a 
 man to friends and neighbors, to his 
 country, and to the suffering who fall 
 under his eye, wherever they belong. 
 The culture of these is an important part 
 of our work, and it consists in converting 
 them from instincts into principles, from 
 natural into spiritual attachments, in 
 giving them a rational, moral, and holy 
 character. For example, our affection 
 for our children is at first instinctive ; 
 and if it continue such, it rises little 
 above the brute's attachment to its 
 young. But when a parent infuses into 
 his natural love for his offspring moral 
 and religious principle ; when he comes 
 to regard his child as an intelligent, 
 spiritual, immortal being, and honors 
 him as such, and desires first of all to 
 make him disinterested, noble, a worthy 
 child of God and the friend of his race, 
 then the instinct rises into a generous 
 and holy sentiment. It resembles God's 
 paternal love for his spiritual family. A 
 like purity and dignity we must aim to 
 give to all our affections. 
 
 Again. Self-culture is practical, or it 
 proposes, as one of its chief ends, to fit 
 us for action, to make us efficient in 
 whatever we undertake, to train us to 
 firmness of purpose and to fruitfulness 
 of resource in common life, and espe- 
 cially in emergencies, in times of diffi- 
 culty, danger, 'and trial. But passing over 
 this and other topics for which I have 
 no time, I shall confine myself to two 
 branches of self-culture which have been 
 almost wholly overlooked in the educa- 
 tion of the people, and which ought not 
 to be so slighted. 
 
 In looking at our nature, we discover, 
 among its admirable endowments, the 
 sense or perception of beauty. We see 
 the germ of this in every human being, 
 and there is no power which admits 
 greater cultivation ; and why should it 
 not be cherished in all ? It deserves re- 
 mark, that the provision for this princi- 
 ple is infinite in the universe. There is 
 but a very minute portion of the creation 
 which we can turn into food and clothes, 
 or gratification for the body ; but the 
 whole creation may be used to minister 
 to the sense of beauty. Beauty is an 
 all-pervading presence. It unfolds in 
 the numberless flowers of the spring. It 
 waves in the branches of the trees and 
 
 the green blades of grass. It haunts 
 the depths of the earth and sea, and 
 gleams out in the hues of the shell and 
 the precious stone. And not only these 
 minute objects, but the ocean, the moun- 
 tains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, 
 the rising and setting sun, all overflow 
 with beauty. The universe is its tem- 
 ple ; and those men who are alive to it 
 cannot lift their eyes without feeling 
 themselves encompassed with it on every 
 side. Now this beauty is so precious, 
 the enjoyments it gives are so refined 
 and pure, so congenial with our tender- 
 est and noble feelings, and so akin to 
 worship, that it is painful to think of the 
 multitude of men as living in the midst 
 of it, and living almost as blind to it as 
 if, instead of this fair earth and glorious 
 sky, they were tenants of a dungeon. 
 An infinite joy is lost to the world by 
 the want of culture of this spiritual en- 
 dowment. Suppose that I were to visit 
 a cottage, and to see its walls lined with 
 the choicest pictures of Raphael, and 
 every spare nook filled with statues of 
 the most exquisite workmanship, and 
 that I were to learn that neither man, 
 woman, nor child ever cast an eye at 
 these miracles of art, how should I feel 
 their privation ! how should I want to 
 open their eyes, and to help them to 
 comprehend and feel the loveliness and 
 grandeur which in vain courted their 
 notice ! But every husbandman is living 
 in sight of the works of a diviner Artist ; 
 and how much would his existence be 
 elevated could he see the glory which 
 shines forth in their forms, hues, pro- 
 portions, and moral expression ! I have 
 spoken only of the beauty of nature ; but 
 how much of this mysterious charm is 
 found in the elegant arts, and especially 
 in literature ! The best books have 
 most beauty. The greatest truths are 
 wronged if not linked with beauty, 
 and they win their way most surely and 
 deeply into the soul when arrayed in this 
 their natural and fit attire. Now no man 
 receives the true culture of a man in 
 whom the sensibility to the beautiful is 
 not cherished : and I know of no condi- 
 tion in life from which it should be ex- 
 cluded. Of all luxuries, this is the 
 cheapest and most at hand : and it seems 
 to me to be most important to those 
 conditions where coarse labor tends to 
 give a grossness to the mind. From the 
 diffusion of the sense of beauty in ancient
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 Greece, and of the taste for music in 
 modern Germany, we learn that the 
 people at large may partake of refined 
 gratifications, which have hitherto been 
 thought to be necessarily restricted to 
 a few. 
 
 What beauty is, is a question which 
 the most penetrating minds have not 
 satisfactorily answered : nor, were I able, 
 is this the place for discussing it. But 
 one thing I would say ; the beauty of 
 the outward creation is intimately re- 
 lated to the lovely, grand, interesting 
 attributes of the soul. It is the emblem 
 or expression of these. Matter becomes 
 beautiful to us when it seems to lose its 
 material aspect, its inertness, finiteness, 
 and grossness, and by the ethereal light- 
 ness of its forms and motions seems to 
 approach spirit ; when it images to us 
 pure and gentle affections ; when it 
 spreads out into a vastness which is a 
 shadow of the Infinite ; or when in more 
 awful shapes and movements it speaks 
 of the Omnipotent. Thus outward 
 beauty is akin to something deeper and 
 unseen, is the reflection of spiritual at- 
 tributes : and of consequence the way to 
 see and feel it more and more keenly is 
 to cultivate those moral, religious, intel- 
 lectual, and social principles of which I 
 have already spoken, and which are the 
 glory of the spiritual nature ; and I name 
 this that you may see, what I am anx- 
 ious to show, the harmony which sub- 
 sists among all branches of human 
 culture, or how each forwards and is 
 aided by all. 
 
 There is another power, which each 
 man should cultivate according to his 
 ability, but which is very much neg- 
 lectecl in the mass of the people, and 
 that is, the power of utterance. A man 
 was not made to shut up his mind in it- 
 self : but to give it voice and to exchange 
 it for other minds. Speech is one of our 
 grand distinctions from the brute. Our 
 power over others lies not so much in 
 the amount of thought within us as in 
 the power of bringing it out. A man of 
 more than ordinary intellectual vigor 
 may, for want of expression, be a cipher, 
 without significance, in society. And 
 not only does a man influence others, 
 but he greatly aids his own intellect by 
 giving distinct and forcible utterance to 
 his thoughts. We understand ourselves 
 better, our conceptions grow clearer, by 
 the very effort to make them clear to 
 
 another. Our social rank, too, depends 
 a good deal on our power of utterance. 
 The principal distinction between what 
 are called gentlemen and the vulgar lies 
 in this, that the latter are awkward in 
 manners, and are especially wanting in 
 propriety, clearness, grace, and force of 
 utterance. A man who cannot open his 
 lips without breaking a rule of grammar, 
 without showing in his dialect or brogue 
 or uncouth tones his want of cultivation, 
 or without darkening his meaning by a 
 confused, unskilful mode of communica- 
 tion, cannot take the place to which, 
 perhaps, his native good sense entitles 
 him. To have intercourse with respect- 
 able people, we must speak their lan- 
 guage. On this account, I am glad that 
 grammar and a correct pronunciation are 
 taught in the common schools of this 
 city. These are not trifles ; nor are 
 they superfluous to any class of people. 
 They give a man access to social advan- 
 tages, on which his improvement very 
 much depends. The power of utterance 
 should be included by all in their plans 
 of self-culture. 
 
 I have now given a few views of the 
 culture, the improvement, which every 
 man should propose to himself. I have 
 all along gone on the principle that a 
 man has within him capacities of growth 
 which deserve and will reward intense, 
 unrelaxing toil. I do not look on a hu- 
 man being as a machine, made to be 
 kept in action by a foreign force, to 
 accomplish an unvarying succession of 
 motions, to do a fixed amount of work, 
 and then to fall to pieces at death, but 
 as a being of free spiritual powers ; and 
 I place little value on any culture but 
 that which aims to bring out these, and 
 to give them perpetual impulse and ex- 
 pansion. I am aware that this view is 
 far from being universal. The common 
 notion has been, that the mass of the 
 people need no other culture than is 
 necessary to fit them for their various 
 trades ;* and, though this error is pass- 
 ing away, it is far from being exploded. 
 But the ground of a man's culture lies 
 in his nature, not in his calling. His 
 powers are to be unfolded on account of 
 their inherent dignity, not their outward 
 direction. He is to be educated, because 
 he is a man, not because he is to make 
 shoes, nails, or pins. A trade is plainly 
 not the great end of his being, for his 
 mind cannot be shut up in it ; his force
 
 20 
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 of thought cannot be exhausted on it. 
 He has faculties to which it gives no 
 action, and deep wants it cannot answer. 
 Poems, and systems of theology and 
 philosophy, which have made some noise 
 in the world, have been wrought at the 
 work-bench and amidst the toils of the 
 field. How often, when the arms are 
 mechanically plying a trade, does the 
 mind, lost in reverie or day-dreams, 
 escape to the ends of the earth ! How 
 often does the pious heart of woman 
 mingle the greatest of all thoughts, that 
 of God, with household drudgery ! Un- 
 doubtedly a man is to perfect himself in 
 his trade, for by it he is to earn his 
 bread and to serve the community. But 
 bread or subsistence is not his highest 
 good ; for, if it were, his lot would be 
 harder than that of the inferior animals, 
 for whom nature spreads a table and 
 weaves a wardrobe, without a care of 
 their own. Nor was he made chiefly to 
 minister to the wants of the community. 
 A rational, moral being cannot, without 
 infinite wrong, be converted into a mere 
 instrument of others' gratification. He 
 is necessarily an end, not a means. A 
 mind, in which are sown the seeds of 
 wisdom, disinterestedness, firmness of 
 purpose, and piety, is worth more than 
 all the outward material interests of a 
 world. It exists for itself, for its own 
 perfection, and must not be enslaved to 
 its own or others' animal wants. You 
 tell me that a liberal culture is needed 
 for men who are to fill high stations, but 
 not for such as are doomed to vulgar 
 labor. I answer, that man is a greater 
 name than president or king. Truth 
 and goodness are equally precious, in 
 whatever sphere they are found. Be- 
 sides, men of all conditions sustain 
 equally the relations which give birth to 
 the highest virtues and demand the 
 highest powers. The laborer is not a 
 mere laborer. He has close, tender, re- 
 sponsible connections with God and his 
 fellow-creatures. He is a son, Misband, 
 father, friend, and Christian. He be- 
 longs to a home, a country, a church, a 
 race ; and is such a man to be cultivated 
 only for a trade ? Was he not sent into 
 the world for a great work ? To edu- 
 cate a child perfectly requires pro- 
 founder thought, greater wisdom, than 
 to govern a state ; and for this plain rea- 
 son, that the interests and wants of the 
 latter are more superficial, coarser, and 
 
 more obvious than the spiritual capaci- 
 ties, the growth of thought and feeling, 
 and the subtile laws of the mind, which 
 must all be studied and comprehended 
 before the work of education can be 
 thoroughly performed ; and yet to all 
 conditions this greatest work on earth 
 is equally committed by God. What 
 plainer proof do we need that a higher 
 culture than has yet been dreamed of is 
 needed by our whole race ? 
 
 II. I now proceed to inquire into the 
 means by which the self-culture just 
 described may be promoted ; and here 
 I know not where to begin. The sub- 
 ject is so extensive, as well as impor- 
 tant, that I feel myself unable to do 
 any justice to it, especially in the limits 
 to which I am confined. * I beg you to 
 consider me as presenting but hints, 
 and such as have offered themselves 
 with very little research to my own 
 mind. 
 
 And, first, the great means of self- 
 culture, that which includes all the rest, 
 is to fasten on this culture as our great 
 end, to determine deliberately and sol- 
 emnly that we will make the most and 
 the best of the powers which God has 
 given us. Without this resolute pur- 
 pose, the best means are worth little, 
 and with it the poorest become mighty. 
 You may see thousands, with every op- 
 portunity of improvement which wealth 
 can gather, with teachers, libraries, and 
 apparatus, bringing nothing to pass, 
 and others, with few helps, doing won- 
 ders ; and simply because the latter are 
 in earnest, and the former not. A man 
 in earnest finds means, or, if he cannot 
 find, creates them. A vigorous purpose 
 makes much out of little, breathes 
 power into weak instruments, disarms 
 difficulties, and even turns them into 
 assistances. Every condition has means 
 of progress, if we have spirit enough 
 to use them. Some volumes have re- 
 cently been published, giving examples 
 or histories of " knowledge acquired 
 under difficulties ; " and it is most ani- 
 mating to see in these what a resolute 
 man can do for himself. A great idea, 
 like this of self-culture, if seized on 
 clearly and vigorously, burns like a liv- 
 ing coal in the soul. He who deliber- 
 ately adopts a great end, has, by this 
 act, half accomplished it, has scaled the 
 chief barrier to success. 
 
 One thing is essential to the strong
 
 SELF-CULTURE, 
 
 21 
 
 purpose of self-culture now insisted on ; 
 namely, faithMn the practicableness of 
 this culture. A great object, to awaken 
 resolute choice, must be seen to be 
 within our reach. The truth, that prog- 
 ress is the very end of our being, 
 must not be received as a tradition, but 
 comprehended and felt as a reality. 
 Our minds are apt to pine and starve, 
 by being imprisoned within what we have 
 already attained. A true faith, looking up 
 to something better, catching glimpses 
 of, a distant perfection, prophesying to 
 ourselves improvements proportioned to 
 our conscientious labors, gives energy 
 of purpose, gives wings to the soul ; 
 and this faith will continually grow, by 
 acquainting ourselves with our own 
 nature, and with the promises of Divine 
 help and immortal life which abound in 
 Revelation. 
 
 Some are discouraged from proposing 
 to themselves improvement, by the false 
 notion that the study of books, which 
 their situation denies them, is the all- 
 important and only sufficient means. 
 Let such consider that the grand volumes, 
 of which all our books are transcripts, 
 I mean nature, revelation, the human 
 soul, and human life, are freely un- 
 folded to every eye. The great sources 
 of wisdom are experience and observa- 
 tion ; and these are denied to none. 
 To open and fix our eyes upon what 
 passes without and within us is the 
 most fruitful study. Books are chiefly 
 useful as they help us to interpret 
 what we see and experience. When 
 they absorb men, as they sometimes 
 do, and turn them from observation of 
 nature and life, they generate a learned 
 folly, for which the plain sense of the 
 laborer could not be exchanged but at 
 great loss. It deserves attention that 
 the greatest men have been formed 
 without the studies which at present 
 are thought by many most needful to 
 improvement. Homer, Plato, Demos- 
 thenes, never heard the name of chem- 
 istry, and knew less of the solar system 
 than a boy in our common schools. 
 Not that these sciences are unimpor- 
 tant ; but the lesson is, that human 
 improvement never wants the means, 
 where the purpose of it is deep and 
 earnest in the soul. 
 
 The purpose of self-culture, this is 
 the life and strength of all the methods 
 we. use for our own elevation. I reiter- 
 
 ate this principle on account of its great 
 importance ; and I would add a remark 
 to prevent its misapprehension. When 
 I speak of the purpose of self-culture, I 
 mean that it should be sincere. In other 
 words, we must make self-culture really 
 and truly our end, or choose it for its 
 own sake, and not merely as a means 
 or instrument of something else. And 
 here I touch a common and very per- 
 nicious error. Not a few persons de- 
 sire to improve themselves only to get 
 property and to rise in the world ; but 
 such do not properly choose improve- 
 ment, but something outward and for- 
 eign to themselves ; and so low an 
 impulse can produce only a stinted, 
 partial, uncertain growth. A man, as 
 I have said, is to cultivate himself be- 
 cause he is a man. He is to start with 
 the conviction that there is something 
 greater within him than in the whole 
 material creation, than in all the worlds 
 which press on the eye and ear ; and 
 that inward improvements have a worth 
 and dignity in themselves quite distinct 
 from the power they give over outward 
 things. Undoubtedly a man is to labor 
 to better his condition, but first to bet- 
 ter himself. If he knows no higher 
 use of his mind than to invent and 
 drudge for his body, his case is des- 
 perate as far as culture is concerned. 
 
 In these remarks, I do not mean to 
 recommend to the laborer indifference 
 to his outward lot. I hold it important 
 that every man in every class should 
 possess the means of comfort, of health, 
 of neatness in food and apparel, and 
 of occasional retirement and leisure. 
 These are good in themselves, to be 
 sought for their own sakes ; and, still 
 more, they are important means of the 
 self-culture for which I am pleading. 
 A clean, comfortable dwelling, with 
 wholesome meals, is no small aid to 
 intellectual and moral progress. A 
 man living in a damp cellar or a garret 
 open to rain and snow, breathing the 
 foul air of a filthy room, and striving 
 without success to appease hunger on 
 scanty or unsavory food, is in danger 
 of abandoning himself to a desperate, 
 selfish recklessness. Improve, then, 
 your lot. Multiply comforts, and, still 
 more, get wealth if you can by honor- 
 able means, and if it do not cost too 
 much. A true cultivation of the mind 
 is fitted to forward you in your worldly
 
 22 
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 concerns, and you ought to use it for 
 this end. Only, beware lest this end 
 master you ; lest your motives sink as 
 your condition improves ; lest you fall 
 victims to the miserable passion of vy- 
 ing with those around you in show, 
 luxury, and expense. Cherish a true 
 respect for yourselves. Feel that your 
 nature is worth more than every thing 
 which is foreign to you. He who has 
 not caught a glimpse of his own rational 
 and spiritual being, of something within 
 himself superior to the world and allied 
 to the Divinity, wants the true spring of 
 that purpose of self-culture on which 
 I have insisted as the first of all the 
 means of improvement. 
 
 I proceed to another important means 
 of self-culture ; and this is the control 
 of the animal appetites. To raise the 
 moral and intellectual nature, we must 
 put down the animal. Sensuality is the 
 abyss in which very many souls are 
 plunged and lost. Among the most 
 prosperous classes, what a vast amount 
 of intellectual life is drowned in luxuri- 
 ous excesses ! It is one great curse of 
 wealth, that it is used to pamper the 
 senses ; and among the poorer classes, 
 though luxury is wanting, yet a gross 
 feeding often prevails, under which the 
 spirit is whelmed. It is a sad sight to 
 walk through our streets, and to see 
 how many countenances bear marks 
 of a lethargy and a brutal coarseness, 
 induced by unrestrained indulgence. 
 Whoever would cultivate the soul must 
 restrain the appetites. I am not an 
 advocate for the doctrine that animal 
 food was not meant for man ; but that 
 this is used among us to excess, that 
 as a people we should gain much in 
 cheerfulness, activity, and buoyancy of 
 mind, by less gross and stimulating 
 food, I am strongly inclined to believe. 
 Above all, let me urge on those who 
 would bring out and elevate their higher 
 nature, to abstain from the use of spir- 
 ituous liquors. This bad habit is distin- 
 guished from all others by the ravages 
 it makes on the reason, the intellect ; 
 and this effect is produced to a mourn- 
 ful extent, even when drunkenness is 
 escaped. Not a few men, called tem- 
 perate, and who have thought them- 
 selves such, have learned, on abstaining 
 from the use of ardent spirits, that for 
 years their minds had been clouded, 
 impaired by moderate drinking, without 
 
 their suspecting the injury. Multitudes 
 in this city are bereft of half their intel- 
 lectual energy, by a degree of indul- 
 gence which passes for innocent. Of 
 all the foes of the working class, this 
 is the deadliest. ' Nothing has done 
 more to keep down this class, to destroy 
 their self-respect, to rob them of their 
 just influence in the community, to ren- 
 der profitless the means of improve- 
 ment within their reach, than the use 
 of ardent spirits as a drink. They are 
 called on to withstand this practice, 
 as they regard their honor, and would 
 take their just place in society. They 
 are under solemn obligations to give 
 their sanction to every effort for its 
 suppression. They ought to regard as 
 their worst enemies (though uninten- 
 tionally such), as the enemies of their 
 rights, dignity, and influence, the men 
 who desire to flood city and country 
 with distilled poison. I lately visited 
 a flourishing village, and on expressing 
 to one of the respected inhabitants the 
 pleasure I felt in witnessing so many 
 signs of progress, he replied that one 
 of the causes of the prosperity I wit- 
 nessed was the disuse of ardent spirits 
 by the people. And this reformation 
 we may be assured wrought something 
 higher than outward prosperity. In 
 almost every family so improved, we 
 cannot doubt that the capacities of the 
 parent for intellectual and moral im- 
 provement were enlarged, and the 
 means of education made more effect- 
 ual to the child. I call on working men 
 to take hold of the cause of temperance 
 as peculiarly their cause. These re- 
 marks are the more needed, in conse- 
 quence of the efforts made far and wide 
 to annul at the present moment a re- 
 cent law for the suppression of the sale 
 of ardent spirits in such quantities as 
 favor intemperance. I know that there 
 are intelligent and good men who be- 
 lieve that, in enacting this law, govern- 
 ment transcended its limits, left its true 
 path, and established a precedent for 
 legislative interference with all our pur- 
 suits and pleasures. No one here looks 
 more jealously on government than my- 
 self. But I maintain that this is a case 
 which stands by itself, which can be 
 confounded with no other, and on which 
 government, from its very nature and 
 end, is peculiarly bound to act. Let it 
 never be forgotten that the great end
 
 SELF-CUL TURE. 
 
 of government, its highest function, is, 
 not to make roads, grant charters, orig- 
 inate improvements, but to prevent or 
 repress crimes against individual rights 
 and social order. For this end it or- 
 dains a penal code, erects prisons, and 
 inflicts fearful punishments. Now, if it 
 be true that a vast proportion of the 
 crimes which government is instituted 
 to prevent and repress have their ori- 
 gin in the use of ardent spirits ; if our 
 poor-houses, work-houses, jails, and pen- 
 itentiaries, are tenanted in a great degree 
 by those whose first and chief impulse 
 to crime came from the distillery and 
 dram-shop ; if murder and theft, the 
 most fearful outrages on property and 
 life, are most frequently the issues and 
 consummation of intemperance, is not 
 government bound to restrain by legis- 
 lation the vending of the stimulus to 
 these terrible social wrongs ? Is gov- 
 ernment never to act as a parent, never 
 to remove the causes or occasions of 
 wrong-doing ? Has it but one instru- 
 ment for repressing crime ; namely, 
 public, infamous punishment, an evil 
 only inferior to crime ? Is government 
 a usurper, does it wander beyond its 
 sphere, by imposing restraints on an 
 article which does no imaginable good, 
 which can plead no benefit conferred 
 on body or mind, which unfits the cit- 
 izen for the discharge of his duty to 
 his country, and which, above all, stirs 
 up men to the perpetration of most of 
 the crimes from which it is the highest 
 and most solemn office of government 
 to protect society ? 
 
 I come now to another important 
 measure of self-culture, and this is, 
 intercourse with superior minds. I 
 have insisted on our own activity as 
 essential to our progress ; but we were 
 not made to live or advance alone. 
 Society is as needful to us as air or 
 food. A child doomed to utter loneli- 
 ness, growing up without sight or sound 
 of human beings, would not put forth 
 equal power with many brutes ; and a 
 man, never brought into contact with 
 minds superior to his own, will prob- 
 ably run one and the same dull round 
 of thought and action to the end of life. 
 
 It is chiefly through books that we 
 enjoy intercourse with superior minds, 
 and these invaluable means of commu- 
 nication are in the reach of all. In the 
 best books great men talk to us, give 
 
 us their most precious thoughts, and 
 pour their souls into ours. God be 
 thanked for books. They are the voices 
 of the distant and the dead, and make 
 us heirs of the spiritual life of past 
 ages. Books are the true levellers. 
 They give to all who will faithfully use 
 them the society, the spiritual pres- 
 ence, of the best and greatest of our 
 race. No matter how poor I am. No 
 matter though the prosperous of my 
 own time will not enter my obscure 
 dwelling. If the Sacred Writers will 
 enter and take up their abode under 
 my roof ; if Milton will cross my thresh- 
 old to sing to me of Paradise, and 
 Shakspeare to open to me the worlds 
 of imagination and the workings of the 
 human heart, and Franklin to enrich 
 me with his practical wisdom, I shall 
 not pine for want of intellectual com- 
 panionship, and I may become a culti- 
 vated man though excluded from what 
 is called the best society in the place 
 where I live. 
 
 To make this means of culture effect- 
 ual, a man must select good books, such 
 as have been written by right-minded and 
 strong-minded men, real thinkers, who, 
 instead of diluting by repetition what 
 others say, have something to say for 
 themselves, and write to give relief to 
 full, earnest souls ; and these works 
 must not be skimmed over for amuse- 
 ment, but read with fixed attention and 
 a reverential love -of truth. In selecting 
 books, we may be aided much by those 
 who have studied more than ourselves. 
 But, after all, it is best to be determined 
 in this particular a good deal by our 
 own tastes. The best books for a man 
 are not always those which the wise 
 recommend, but oftener those which 
 meet the peculiar wants, the natural 
 thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken 
 interest and rivet thought. And here 
 it may be well to observe, not only in 
 regard to books but in other respects, 
 that self-culture must vary with the 
 individual. All means do not equally 
 suit us all. A man must unfold himself 
 freely, and should respect the peculiar 
 gifts or biases by which nature has dis- 
 tinguished him from others. Self-cult- 
 ure does not demand the sacrifice of 
 individuality. It does not regularly ap- 
 ply an established machinery, for the 
 sake of torturing every man into one 
 rigid shape, called perfection. As the
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 human countenance, with the same 
 features in us all, is diversified without 
 end in the race, and is never the same 
 in any two individuals, so the human 
 soul, with the same grand powers and 
 laws, expands into an infinite variety 
 of forms, and would be wofully stinted 
 by modes of culture requiring all men 
 to learn the same lesson or to bend to 
 the same rules. 
 
 I know how hard it is to some men, 
 especially to those who spend much time 
 in manual labor, to fix attention on 
 books. Let them strive to overcome 
 the difficulty by choosing subjects of 
 deep interest, or by reading in company 
 with those whom they love. Nothing 
 can supply the place of books. They 
 are cheering or soothing companions in 
 solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth 
 of both continents would not compensate 
 for the good they impart. Let every 
 man, if possible, gather some good books 
 under his roof, and obtain access for him- 
 self and family to some social library. 
 Almost any luxury should be sacrificed 
 to this. 
 
 One of the very interesting features of 
 our times is the multiplication of books, 
 and their distribution through all con- 
 ditions of society. At a small expense, 
 a man can now possess himself of the 
 most precious treasures of English litera- 
 ture. Books, once confined to a few by 
 their costliness, are now accessible to the 
 multitude ; and in this 4 way a change of 
 habits is going on in society, highly favor- 
 able to the culture of the people. Instead 
 of depending on casual rumor and loose 
 conversation for most of their knowledge 
 and objects of thought ; instead of form- 
 ing their judgments in crowds, and re- 
 ceiving their chief excitement from the 
 voice of neighbors, men are now learning 
 to study and reflect alone, to follow out 
 subjects continuously, to determine for 
 themselves what shall engage their 
 minds, and to call to their aid the knowl- 
 edge, original views, and reasonings of 
 men of all countries and ages ; and the 
 results must be, a deliberateness and 
 independence of judgment, and a thor- 
 oughness and extent of information, un- 
 known in former times. The diffusion 
 of these silent teachers, books, through 
 the whole community, is to work greater 
 effects than artillery, machinery, and 
 legislation. Its peaceful agency is to 
 supersede stormy revolutions. The cult- 
 
 ure which it is to spread, whilst an un- 
 speakable good to the individual, is also 
 to become the stability of nations. 
 
 Another important means of self-cult- 
 ure is to free ourselves from the power 
 of human opinion and example, except 
 as far as this is sanctioned by our own 
 deliberate judgment. We are all prone 
 to keep the level of those we live with, 
 to repeat their words, and dress our 
 minds as well as bodies after their 
 fashion ; and hence the spiritless tame- 
 ness of our characters and lives. Our 
 greatest danger is not from the grossly 
 wicked around us, but from the worldly, 
 unreflecting multitude, who are borne 
 along as a stream by foreign impulse, and 
 bear us along with them. Even the in- 
 fluence of superior minds may harm us, 
 by bowing us to servile acquiescence and 
 damping our spiritual activity. The 
 great use of intercourse with other 
 minds is to stir up our own, to whet 
 our appetite for truth, to carry our 
 thoughts beyond their old tracks. We 
 need connections with great thinkers to 
 make us thinkers too. One of the chief 
 arts of self-culture is to unite the child- 
 like teachableness, which gratefully wel- 
 comes light from every human being 
 who can give it, with manly resistance 
 of opinions however current, of influ- 
 ences however generally revered, which 
 do not approve themselves to our delib- 
 erate judgment. You ought, indeed, pa- 
 tiently and conscientiously to strengthen 
 your reason by other men's intelli- 
 gence, but you must not prostrate it 
 before them. Especially if there springs 
 up within you any view of God's word or 
 universe, any sentiment or aspiration 
 which seems to you of a higher order 
 than what you meet abroad, give rever- 
 ent heed to it ; inquire into it earnestly, 
 solemnly. Do not trust it blindly, for it 
 may be an illusion : but it may be the 
 Divinity moving within you, a new rev- 
 elation, not supernatural, but still most 
 precious, of truth or duty ; and if, after 
 inquiry, it so appear, then let no clamor, 
 or scorn, or desertion turn you from it. 
 Be true to your own highest convictions. 
 Intimations from our own souls of some- 
 thing more perfect than others teach, if 
 faithfully followed, give us a conscious- 
 ness of spiritual force and progress, 
 never experienced by the vulgar of high 
 life or low life, who march, as they are 
 drilled, to the step of their times.
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 Some, I know, will wonder that I 
 should think the mass of the people ca- 
 pable of such intimations and glimpses 
 of truth as I have just supposed. These 
 are commonly thought to be the pre- 
 rogative of men of genius, who seem 
 to be born to give law to the minds of 
 the multitude. Undoubtedly nature has 
 her nobility, and sends forth a few to be 
 eminently "lights of the world." But it 
 is also true that a portion of the same 
 divine fire is given to all ; for the many 
 could not receive with a loving reverence 
 the quickening influences of the few, 
 were there not essentially the same 
 spiritual life in both. The minds of the 
 multitude are not masses of passive mat- 
 ter, created to receive impressions unre- 
 sistingly from abroad. They are not 
 wholly shaped by foreign instruction ; 
 but have a native force, a spring of 
 thought in themselves. Even the child's 
 mind outruns its lessons, and overflows 
 in questionings which bring the wisest 
 to a stand. Even the child starts the 
 great problems, which philosophy has 
 labored to solve for ages. But on this 
 subject I cannot now enlarge. Let me 
 only say that the power of original 
 thought is particularly manifested in 
 those who thirst for progress, who are 
 bent on unfolding their whole nature. A 
 man who wakes up to the consciousness 
 of having been created for progress and 
 perfection, looks with new eyes on him- 
 self and on the world in which he lives. 
 This great truth stirs the soul from its 
 depths, breaks up old associations of 
 ideas, and establishes new ones, just as 
 a mighty agent of chemistry, brought 
 into contact with natural substances, 
 dissolves the old affinities which had 
 bound their particles together, and ar- 
 ranges them anew. This truth particu- 
 larly aids us to penetrate the mysteries 
 of human life. By revealing to us the 
 end of our being, it helps us to compre- 
 hend more and more the wonderful, the 
 infinite system, to which we belong. A 
 man in the common walks of life, who has 
 faith in perfection, in the unfolding of 
 the human spirit, as the great purpose of 
 God, possesses more the secret of the 
 universe, perceives more the harmonies 
 or mutual adaptations of the world with- 
 out and the world within him, is a wiser 
 interpreter of Providence, and reads 
 nobler lessons of duty in the events 
 which pass before him, than the pro- 
 
 foundest philosopher who wants this 
 grand central truth. Thus illuminations, 
 inward suggestions, are not confined to 
 a favored few, but visit all who devote 
 themselves to a generous self-culture. 
 
 Another means of self-culture may be 
 found by every man in his condition or 
 occupation, be it what it may. Had I 
 time, I might go through all conditions 
 of life, from the most conspicuous to 
 the most obscure, and might show how 
 each furnishes continual aids to im- 
 provement. But I will take one exam- 
 ple, and that is, of a man living by 
 manual labor. This may be made the 
 means of self-culture. For instance, in 
 \ almost all labor, a man exchanges his 
 | strength for an equivalent in the form 
 of wages, purchase-money, or some other 
 product. In other words, labor is a 
 system of contracts, bargains, imposing 
 mutual obligations. Now the man who, 
 in working, no matter in what way, 
 strives perpetually to fulfil his obliga- 
 tions thoroughly, to do his whole work 
 faithfully, to be honest, not because hon- 
 esty is the best policy but for the sake 
 of justice, and that he may render to 
 every man his due, such a laborer is 
 continually building up in himself one 
 of the greatest principles of morality 
 and religion. Every blow on the anvil, 
 on the earth, or whatever material he 
 works upon, contributes something to 
 the perfection of his nature. 
 
 Nor is this all. ' Labor is a school of 
 benevolence as well as justice. A man, 
 to support himself, must serve others. 
 He must do or produce something for 
 their comfort or gratification. This is 
 one of the beautiful ordinations of 
 Providence, that, to get a living, a man 
 must be useful. Now this usefulness 
 ought to be an end in his labor as truly 
 as to earn his living. He ought to think 
 of the benefit of those he works for, as 
 well as of his own ; and in so doing, in 
 desiring amidst his sweat and toil to 
 serve others as well as himself, he is 
 exercising and growing in benevolence, 
 as truly as if he were distributing bounty 
 with a large hand to the poor. Such a 
 motive hallows and dignifies the com- 
 monest pursuit. It is strange that labor- 
 ing men do not think more of the vast 
 usefulness of their toils, and take a be- 
 nevolent pleasure in them on this account. 
 This beautiful city, with its houses, fur- 
 niture, markets, public walks, and num-
 
 26 
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 berless accommodations, has grown up 
 under the hands of artisans and other 
 laborers; and ought they not to take a 
 disinterested joy in their work ? One 
 would think that a carpenter or mason, 
 on passing a house which he had reared, 
 would say to himself, " This work of 
 mine is giving comfort and enjoyment 
 every day and hour to a family, and will 
 continue to be a kindly shelter, a domes- 
 tic gathering-place, an abode of affec- 
 tion, for a century or more after I sleep 
 in the dust ; " and ought not a generous 
 satisfaction to spring up at the thought ? 
 It is by thus interweaving goodness with 
 common labors that we give it strength, 
 and make it a habit of the soul. 
 
 Again. Labor may be so performed 
 as to be a high impulse to the mind. 
 Be a man's vocation what it may, his 
 rule should be to do its duties perfectly, 
 to do the best he can, and thus to make 
 perpetual progress in his art. In other 
 words, perfection should be proposed ; 
 and this I urge not only for its useful- 
 ness to society, nor for the sincere pleas- 
 ure which a man takes in seeing a work 
 well done. This is an important means 
 of self-culture. In this way the idea of 
 perfection takes root in the mind, and 
 spreads far beyond the man's trade. He 
 gets a tendency towards completeness in 
 whatever he undertakes. Slack, slov- 
 enly performance in any department of 
 life is more apt to offend him. His 
 standard of action rises, and every thing 
 is better done for his thoroughness in 
 his common vocation. 
 
 There is one circumstance attending 
 all conditions of life which may and 
 ought to be turned to the use of self- 
 culture. Every condition, be it what it 
 may, has hardships, hazards, pains. We 
 try to escape them ; we pine for a shel- 
 tered lot, for a smooth path, for cheering 
 friends, and unbroken success. But 
 Providence ordains storms, disasters, 
 hostilities, sufferings ; and the great 
 question, whether we shall live to any 
 purpose or not, whether we shall grow 
 strong in mind and heart, or be weak 
 and pitiable, depends on nothing so much 
 as on our use of these adverse circum- 
 stances. Outward evils are designed to 
 school our passions, and to rouse our 
 faculties and virtues into intenser action. 
 Sometimes they seem to create new 
 powers. Difficulty is the element, and 
 resistance the true work of a man. Self- 
 
 culture never goes on so fast as when 
 embarrassed circumstances, the opposi- 
 tion of men or the elements, unexpected 
 changes of the times, or other forms of 
 suffering, instead of disheartening, throw 
 us on our inward resources, turn us for 
 strength to God, clear up to us the great 
 purpose of life, and inspire calm reso- 
 lution. No greatness or goodness is 
 worth much unless tried in these fires. 
 Hardships are not on this account to be 
 sought for. They come fast enough of 
 themselves, and we are in more danger 
 of sinking under than of needing them. 
 But when God sends them, they are 
 noble means of self-culture, and as such 
 let us meet and bear them cheerfully. 
 Thus all parts of our condition may be 
 pressed into the service of self-improve- 
 ment. 
 
 I have time to consider but one more 
 means of self-culture. We find it in our 
 free government, in our political rela- 
 tions and duties. It is a great benefit of 
 free institutions, that they do much to 
 awaken and keep in action a nation's 
 mind. We are told that the education 
 of the multitude is necessary to the sup- 
 port of a republic ; but it is equally true, 
 that a republic is a powerful means of 
 educating the multitude. It is the peo- 
 ple's university. In a free state, solemn 
 responsibilities are imposed on every 
 citizen ; great subjects are to be dis- 
 cussed ; great interests to be decided. 
 The individual is called to determine 
 measures affecting the well-being of 
 millions and the destinies of posterity. 
 He must consider not only the internal 
 relations of his native land, but its con- 
 nection with foreign states, and judge of 
 a policy which touches the whole civil- 
 ized world. He is called, by his partic- 
 ipation in the national sovereignty, to 
 cherish public spirit, a regard to the 
 general weal. A man who purposes to 
 discharge faithfully these obligations, is 
 carrying on a generous self-culture. The 
 great public questions which divide opin- 
 ion around him and provoke earnest dis- 
 cussion, of necessity invigorate his 
 intellect, and accustom him to look 
 beyond himself. He grows up to a 
 robustness, force, enlargement of mind, 
 unknown under despotic rule. 
 
 It may be said that I am describing 
 what free institutions ought to do for the 
 character of the individual, not their 
 actual effects ; and the objection, I must
 
 SELF-CUL TURE. 
 
 own, is too true. Our institutions do 
 not cultivate us, as they might and 
 should ; and the chief cause of the fail- 
 ure is plain. It is the strength of party- 
 spirit ; and so blighting is its influence, 
 so fatal to self-culture, that I feel my- 
 self bound to warn every man against it, 
 who has any desire of improvement. I 
 do not tell you it will destroy your coun- 
 try. It wages a worse war against 
 yourselves. Truth, justice, candor, fair 
 dealing, sound judgment, self-control, 
 and kind affections, are its natural and 
 perpetual prey. 
 
 I do not say that you must take no 
 side in politics. The parties which pre- 
 vail around you differ in character, 
 principles, and spirit, though far less 
 than the exaggeration of passion affirms ; 
 and, as far as conscience allows, a man 
 should support that which he thinks 
 best. In one respect, however, all par- 
 ties agree. They all foster that pesti- 
 lent spirit which I now condemn. In 
 all of them party-spirit rages. Asso- 
 ciate men together for a common cause, 
 be it good or bad, and array against 
 them a body resolutely pledged to an 
 opposite interest, and a new passion, 
 quite distinct from the original senti- 
 ment which brought them together, a 
 fierce, fiery zeal, consisting chiefly of 
 aversion to those who differ from them, 
 is roused within them into fearful activ- 
 ity. Human nature seems incapable of 
 a stronger, more unrelenting passion*. It 
 is hard enough for an individual, when 
 contending all alone for an interest or 
 an opinion, to keep down his pride, wil- 
 fulness, love of victory, anger, and other 
 personal feelings. But let him join a 
 multitude in the same warfare, and, 
 without singular self-control, he receives 
 into his single breast the vehemence, 
 obstinacy, and vindictiveness of all. 
 The triumph of his party becomes im- 
 measurably dearer to him than the prin- 
 ciple, true or false, which was the 
 original ground of division. The con- 
 flict becomes a struggle, not for prin- 
 ciple but for power, for victory; and 
 the desperateness, the wickedness of 
 such struggles, is the great burden of 
 history. In truth, it matters little what 
 men divide about, whether it be a foot 
 of land or precedence in a procession. 
 Let them but begin to fight for it, and 
 self-will, ill-will, the rage for victory, 
 the dread of mortification and defeat, 
 
 make the trifle as weighty as a matter 
 of life and death. The Greek or East- 
 ern empire was shaken to its foundation 
 by parties which differed only about the 
 merits of charioteers at the amphithe- 
 atre. Party-spirit is singularly hostile 
 to moral independence. A man, in pro- 
 portion as he drinks into it, sees, hears, 
 judges by the senses and understand- 
 ings of his party. He surrenders the 
 freedom of a man, the right of using and 
 speaking his own mind, and echoes the 
 applauses or maledictions with which 
 the leaders or passionate partisans see 
 fit that the country should ring. On all 
 points, parties are to be distrusted : but 
 on no one so much as on the character 
 of opponents. These, if you may trust 
 what you hear, are always men without 
 principle and truth, devoured by selfish- 
 ness, and thirsting for their own eleva- 
 tion, though on their country's ruin. 
 When I was young, I was accustomed 
 to hear pronounced with abhorrence, 
 almost with execration, the names of 
 men who are now hailed by their former 
 foes as the champions of grand princi- 
 ples, and as worthy of the highest public 
 trusts. This lesson of early experience, 
 which later years have corroborated, will 
 never be forgotten. 
 
 Of our present political divisions I 
 have of course nothing to say. But, 
 among the current topics of party, there 
 are certain accusations and recrimina- 
 tions, grounded on differences of social 
 condition, which seem to me so un- 
 friendly to the improvement of individ- 
 uals and the community, that I ask the 
 privilege of giving them a moment's 
 notice. On one side we are told, that 
 the rich are disposed to trample on the 
 poor : and, on the other, that the poor 
 look with evil eye and hostile purpose 
 on the possessions of the rich. These 
 outcries seem to me alike devoid of 
 truth and alike demoralizing. As for 
 the rich, who constitute but a handful of 
 our population, who possess not one 
 peculiar privilege, and, what is more, 
 who possess comparatively little of the 
 property of the country, it is wonderful 
 that they should be objects of alarm. 
 The vast and ever-growing property of 
 this country, where is it ? Locked up 
 in a few hands ? hoarded in a few strong 
 boxes ? It is diffused like the atmos- 
 phere, and almost as variable, changing 
 hands with the seasons, shifting from
 
 28 
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 rich to poor, not by the violence but by 
 the industry and skill of the latter class. 
 The wealth of the rich is as a drop in 
 the ocean ; and it is a well-known fact, 
 that those men among us who are noted 
 for their opulence exert hardly any 
 political power on the community. That 
 the rich do their whole duty ; that they 
 adopt, as they should, the great object of 
 the social state, which is the elevation 
 of the people in intelligence, character, 
 and condition, cannot be pretended ; but 
 that they feel for the physical sufferings 
 of their brethren, that they stretch out 
 liberal hands for the succor of the poor, 
 and for the support of useful public 
 institutions, cannot be denied. Among 
 them are admirable specimens of human- 
 ity. There is no warrant for holding 
 them up to suspicion as the people's 
 foes. 
 
 Nor do I regard as less calumnious 
 the outcry against the working classes, 
 as if they were aiming at the subversion 
 of property. When we think of the 
 general condition and character of this 
 part of our population ; when we recol- 
 lect that they were born and have lived 
 amidst schools and churches, that they 
 have been brought up to profitable in- 
 dustry, that they enjoy many of the 
 accommodations of life, that most of 
 them hold a measure of property and 
 are hoping for more, that they possess 
 unprecedented means of bettering their 
 lot, that they are bound to comfortable 
 homes by strong domestic affections, 
 that they are able to give their children 
 an education which places within their 
 reach the prizes of the social state, that 
 they are trained to the habits and famil- 
 iarized to the advantages of a high civil- 
 ization : when we recollect these things, 
 can we imagine that they are so insanely 
 blind to their interests, so deaf to the 
 claims of justice and religion, so profli- 
 gately thoughtless of the peace and 
 safety of their families, as to be pre- 
 pared to make a wreck of social 'order, 
 for the sake of dividing among them- 
 selves the spoils of the rich, which 
 would not support the community for a 
 month ? Undoubtedly there is insecu- 
 rity in all stages of society, and so there 
 must be until communities shall be 
 regenerated by a higher culture, reach- 
 ing and quickening all classes of the 
 people ; but there is not, I believe, a 
 spot on earth where property is safer 
 
 than here, because nowhere else is it so 
 equally and righteously diffused. In 
 aristocracies, where wealth exists in 
 enormous masses, which have been en- 
 tailed for ages by a partial legislation on 
 a favored few, and where the multitude, 
 after the sleep of ages, are waking up to 
 intelligence, to self-respect, and to a 
 knowledge of their rights, property is 
 exposed to shocks which are not to be 
 dreaded among ourselves. Here, in- 
 deed, as elsewhere, among the less pros- 
 perous members of the community, there 
 are disappointed, desperate men, ripe for 
 tumult and civil strife ; but it is also 
 true, that the most striking and honor- 
 able distinction of this country is to be 
 found in the intelligence, character, and 
 condition of the great working class. 
 To me it seems that the great danger to 
 property here is not from the laborer, 
 but from those who are making haste to 
 be rich. For example, in this Common- 
 wealth, no act has been thought by the 
 alarmists or the conservatives so sub- 
 versive of the rights of property as a 
 recent law authorizing a company to 
 construct a free bridge in the immediate 
 neighborhood of another which had been 
 chartered by a former legislature, and 
 which had been erected in the expecta- 
 tion of an exclusive right. And with 
 whom did this alleged assault on prop- 
 erty originate ? With levellers ? with 
 needy laborers ? with men bent on the 
 prostration of the rich ? No ; but with 
 men of business, who are anxious to 
 push a more lucrative trade. Again, 
 what occurrence among us has been so 
 suited to destroy confidence, and to stir 
 up the people against the moneyed class, 
 as the late criminal mismanagement of 
 some of our banking institutions ? And 
 whence came this ? from the rich, or 
 the poor ? From the agrarian, or the 
 man of business ? Who, let me ask, 
 carry on the work of spoliation most 
 extensively in society? Is not more 
 property wrested from its owners by 
 rash or dishonest failures than by pro- 
 fessed highwaymen and thieves ? Have 
 not a few unprincipled speculators some- 
 times inflicted wider wrongs and suf- 
 ferings than all the tenants of a state 
 prison ? Thus property is in more dan- 
 ger from those who are aspiring after 
 wealth than from those who live by the 
 sweat of their brow. I do not believe, 
 however, that, the institution is in serious
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 danger from either. All the advances 
 of society in industry, useful arts, com- 
 merce, knowledge, jurisprudence, frater- 
 nal union, and practical Christianity, 
 are so many hedges around honestly 
 acquired wealth, so many barriers against 
 revolutionary violence and rapacity. Let 
 us not torture ourselves with idle alarms, 
 and, still more, let us not inflame our- 
 selves against one another by mutual 
 calumnies. Let not class array itself 
 against class, where all have a common 
 interest. One way of provoking men to 
 crime is to suspect them of criminal 
 designs. We do not secure our prop- 
 erty against the poor by accusing them 
 of schemes of universal robbery ; nor 
 render the rich better friends of the 
 community by fixing on them the brand 
 of hostility to the people. Of all par- 
 ties, those founded on different social 
 conditions are the most pernicious ; and 
 in no country on earth are they so 
 groundless as in our own. 
 
 Among the best people, especially 
 among the more religious, there are 
 some who, through disgust with the 
 violence and frauds of parties, with- 
 draw themselves from all political ac- 
 tion. Such, I conceive, do wrong. 
 God has placed them in the relations, 
 and imposed on them the duties, of cit- 
 izens : and they are no more authorized 
 to shrink from these duties than from 
 those of sons, husbands, or fathers. 
 They owe a great debt to their country, 
 and must discharge it by giving support 
 to what they deem the best men and 
 the best measures. Nor let them say 
 that they can do nothing. Every good 
 man, if faithful to his convictions, ben- 
 efits his country. All parties are kept 
 in check by the spirit of the better por- 
 tion of people whom they contain. 
 Leaders are always compelled to ask 
 what their party will bear, and to mod- 
 ify their measures, so as not to shock 
 the men of principle within their ranks. 
 A good man, not tamely subservient to 
 the body with which he acts, but judg- 
 ing it impartially, criticising it freely, 
 bearing testimony against its evils, and 
 withholding his support from wrong, 
 does good to those around him, and is 
 cultivating generously his own mind. 
 
 I respectfully counsel those whom I 
 address to take part in the politics of 
 their country. These are the true dis- 
 cipline of a people, and do much for 
 
 their education. I counsel you to labor 
 for a clear understanding of the sub- 
 jects which agitate the community, to 
 make them your study, instead of wast- 
 ing your leisure in vague, passionate 
 talk about them. The time thrown 
 away by the mass of the people on the 
 rumors of the day might, if better spent, 
 give them a good acquaintance with 
 the constitution, laws, history, and in- 
 terests of their country, and thus estab- 
 lish them in those great principles by 
 which particular measures are to be 
 determined. In proportion as the peo- 
 ple thus improve themselves, they will 
 cease to be the tools of designing pol- 
 iticians. Their intelligence, not their 
 passions and jealousies, will be ad- 
 dressed by those who seek their votes. 
 They will exert, not a nominal, but a 
 real influence on the government and 
 the destinies of the country, and at 
 the same time will forward their own 
 growth in truth and virtue. 
 
 I ought not to quit this subject of 
 politics, considered as a means of self- 
 culture, without speaking of newspa- 
 pers ; because these form the chief 
 reading of the bulk of the people. 
 They are the literature of multitudes. 
 Unhappily, their importance is not un- 
 derstood ; their bearing on the intel- 
 lectual and moral cultivation of the 
 community little thought of. A news- 
 paper ought to be conducted by one of 
 our most gifted men, and its income 
 should be such as to enable him to se- 
 cure the contributions of men as gifted 
 as himself. But we must -Jake news- 
 papers as they are ; and a man, anxious 
 for self-culture, may turn them to ac- 
 count, if he will select the best within 
 his reach. He should exclude from his 
 house such as are venomous or scurril- 
 ous, as he would a pestilence. He should 
 be swayed in his choice, not merely by 
 the ability with which a paper is con- 
 ducted, but still more by its spirit, by its 
 justice, fairness, and steady adherence 
 to great principles. Especially, if he 
 would know the truth, let him hear both 
 sides. Let him read the defence as well 
 as the attack. Let him not give his ear 
 to one party exclusively. We condemn 
 ourselves, when we listen to reproaches 
 thrown on an individual and turn away 
 from his exculpation ; and is it just 
 to read continual, unsparing invective 
 against large masses of men, and refuse
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 them the opportunity of justifying them- 
 selves ? 
 
 A new class of daily papers has 
 sprung up in our country, sometimes 
 called cent papers, and designed for 
 circulation among those who cannot 
 afford costlier publications. My inter- 
 est in the working class induced me 
 some time ago to take one of these, 
 and I was gratified to find' it not want- 
 ing in useful matter. Two things, how- 
 ever, gave me pain. The advertising 
 columns were devoted very much to 
 patent medicines ; and when I consid- 
 ered that a laboring man's whole for- 
 tune is his health, I could not but lament 
 that so much was done to seduce him 
 to the use of articles more fitted, I fear, 
 to undermine than to restore his consti- 
 tution. 1 was also shocked by accounts 
 of trials in the police court. These 
 were written in a style adapted to the 
 most uncultivated minds, and intended 
 to turn into matters of sport the most 
 painful and humiliating events of life. 
 Were the newspapers of the rich to 
 attempt to extract amusement from the 
 vices and miseries of the poor, a cry 
 would be raised against them, and very 
 justly. But is it not something worse, 
 that the poorer classes themselves should 
 seek occasions of laughter and merri- 
 ment in the degradation, the crimes, the 
 woes, the punishments of their brethren, 
 of those who are doomed to bear like 
 themselves the heaviest burdens of life, 
 and who have sunk under the tempta- 
 tions of poverty ? Better go to the 
 hospital, and laugh over the wounds 
 and writhings of the sick or the ravings 
 of the insane, than amuse ourselves 
 with brutal excesses and infernal paV 
 sions, which not only expose the crim- 
 inal to the crushing penalties of human 
 laws, but incur the displeasure of Heav- 
 en, and, if not repented of, will be fol- 
 lowed by the fearful retribution of the 
 life to come. 
 
 One important topic remains. That 
 great means of self-improvement, Chris- 
 tianity, is yet untouched, and its great- 
 ness forbids me now to approach it. I 
 will only say, that if you study Chris- 
 tianity in its original records, and not 
 in human creeds ; if you consider its 
 clear revelations of God, its life-giv- 
 ing promises of pardon and spiritual 
 strength, its correspondence to man's rea- 
 son, conscience, and best affections, and 
 
 its adaptation to his wants, sorrows, anx- 
 ieties, and fears ; if you consider the 
 strength of its proofs, the purity of its 
 precepts, the divine greatness 'of the 
 character of its author, and the immor- 
 tality which it opens before us, you will 
 feel yourselves bound to welcome it joy- 
 fully, gratefully, as affording aids and 
 incitements to self-culture which would 
 vainly be sought in all other means. 
 
 I have thus presented a few of the 
 means of self-culture. The topics now 
 discussed will, I hope, suggest others 
 to those who have honored me with 
 their attention, and create an interest 
 which will extend beyond the present 
 hour. I owe it, however, to truth to 
 make one remark. I wish to raise no 
 unreasonable hopes. I must say, then, 
 that the means now recommended to 
 you, though they will richly reward 
 every man of every age who will faith- 
 fully use them, will yet not produce 
 their full and happiest effect, except in 
 cases where early education has pre- 
 pared the mind for future improvement. 
 They whose childhood has been neg- 
 lected, 'though they may make progress 
 in future life, can hardly repair the loss 
 of their first years ; and I say this, that 
 we may all be excited to save our chil- 
 dren from this loss, that we may pre- 
 pare them, to the extent of our power, 
 for an effectual use of all the means of 
 self-culture which adult age may bring 
 with it. With these views, I ask you 
 to look with favor on the recent exer- 
 tions of our legislature and of private 
 citizens in behalf of our public schools, 
 the chief hope of our country. The 
 legislature has of late appointed a board 
 of education, with a secretary, who is 
 to devote his whole time to the improve- 
 ment of public schools. An individual 
 more fitted to this responsible office 
 than the gentleman who now fills it * 
 cannot, I believe, be found in our com- 
 munity ; and if his labors shall be 
 crowned with success, he will earn a 
 title to the gratitude of the good peo- 
 ple of this State unsurpassed by that 
 of any other living citizen. Let me 
 also recall to your minds a munificent 
 individual, f who, by a generous dona- 
 tion, has encouraged the legislature to 
 resolve on the establishment of one or 
 more institutions called Normal Schools, 
 
 * Horace Mann, Esq. 
 t Edmund Dwight, Esq.
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 the object of which is to prepare ac- 
 complished teachers of youth, a work 
 on which the progress of education de- 
 pends more than on any other measure. 
 The efficient friends of education are 
 the true benefactors of their country, 
 and their names deserve to be handed 
 down to that posterity for whose highest 
 wants they are generously providing. 
 
 There is another mode of advancing 
 education in our whole country, to which 
 I ask your particular attention. You are 
 aware of the vast extent and value of 
 the public lands of the Union. By an- 
 nual sales of these, large amounts of 
 money are brought into the national 
 treasury, which are applied to the cur- 
 rent expenses of the government. For 
 this application there is no need. In 
 truth, the country has received detri- 
 ment from the excess of its revenues. 
 Now, I ask, why shall not the public 
 lands be consecrated (in whole or in 
 part, as the case may require) to the 
 education of the people ? This meas- 
 ure would secure at once what the 
 country most needs : that is, able, ac- 
 complished, quickening teachers of the 
 whole rising generation. The present 
 poor remuneration of instructors is a 
 dark omen, and the only real obstacle 
 which the cause of education has to 
 contend with. We need for our schools 
 gifted men and women, worthy, by their 
 intelligence and their moral power, to 
 be intrusted with a nation's youth : and, 
 to gain these, we must pay them liber- 
 ally, as well as afford other proofs of 
 the consideration in which we hold 
 them. In the present state of the 
 country, when so many paths of wealth 
 and promotion are opened, superior men 
 cannot be won to an office so responsi- 
 ble and laborious as that of teaching, 
 without stronger inducements than are 
 now offered, except in some of our large 
 cities. The office of instructor ought 
 to rank and be recompensed as one of 
 the most honorable in society ; and I 
 see not how this is to be done, at least 
 in our day, without appropriating to it 
 the public domain. This is the people's 
 property, and the only part of their 
 property which is likely to be soon de- 
 voted to the support of a high order of 
 institutions for public education. This 
 object, interesting to all classes of soci- 
 ety, has peculiar claims on those whose 
 means of improvement are restricted by 
 
 ! narrow circumstances. The mass of 
 i the people should devote themselves to 
 j it as one man, should toil for it with one 
 | soul. Mechanics, farmers, laborers ! let 
 I the country echo with your united cry. 
 I "The Public Lands for Education." 
 [ Send to the public councils men who 
 will plead this cause with power. No 
 party triumphs, no trades-unions, no 
 associations, can so contribute to ele-. 
 vate you as the measure now proposed. 
 Nothing but a higher education can 
 raise you in influence and true dignity. 
 The resources of the public domain, 
 wisely applied for successive genera- 
 1 tions to the culture of society and of 
 the individual, would create a new peo- 
 ple, would awaken through this commu- 
 nity intellectual and moral energies, 
 such as the records of no country dis- 
 play, and as would command the re- 
 spect and emulation of the civilized 
 world. In this grand object, the work- 
 ing men of all parties, and in all di- 
 visions of the land, should join with 
 an enthusiasm not to be withstood. 
 They should separate it from all nar- 
 row and local strifes. They should not 
 suffer it to be mixed up with the 
 schemes of politicians. In it, they and 
 their children have an infinite stake. 
 May they be true to themselves, to pos- 
 terity, to their country, to freedom, to 
 the cause of mankind ! 
 
 III. I am aware that the whole doc- 
 trine of this discourse will meet with op- 
 position. There are not a few who will 
 say to me, " What you tell us sounds 
 well ; but it is impracticable. Men who 
 dream in their closets spin beautiful 
 theories ; but actual life scatters them, 
 a the wind snaps the cobweb. You 
 would have all men to be cultivated ; 
 but necessity wills that most men shall 
 work ; and which of the two is likely to 
 prevail ? A weak sentimentality may 
 shrink from the truth ; still it is true 
 that most men were made, not for self- 
 culture, but for toil." 
 
 I have put the objection into strong 
 language, that we may all look it fairly 
 in the face. For one I deny its validity. 
 Reason, as well as sentiment, rises up 
 against it. The presumption is certainly 
 very strong, that the All-wiss Father, 
 who has given to every human being 
 reason and conscience and affection, in- 
 tended that these should be unfolded ; 
 and it is hard to believe that He who,
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 by conferring this nature on all men, has 
 made all his children, has destined the 
 
 freat majority to wear out a life of 
 rudgery and unimproving toil, for the 
 benefit of a few. God cannot have made 
 spiritual beings to be dwarfed. In the 
 body we see no organs created to shrivel 
 by disuse ; much less are the powers of 
 the soul given to be locked up in per- 
 petual lethargy. 
 
 Perhaps it will be replied, that the 
 purpose of the Creator is to be gathered, 
 not from theory, but from facts ; and 
 that it is a plain fact, that the order and 
 prosperity of society, which God must 
 be supposed to intend, require from the 
 multitude the action of their hands, and 
 not the improvement of their minds. I 
 reply, that a social order demanding the 
 sacrifice of the mind is very suspicious, 
 that it cannot, indeed, be sanctioned by 
 the Creator. Were I, on visiting a 
 strange country, to see the vast majority 
 of the people maimed, crippled, and 
 bereft of sight, and were I told that 
 social order required this mutilation, I 
 should say, Perish this order. Who 
 would not think his understanding as 
 well as best feelings insulted, by hear- 
 ing this spoken of as the intention of 
 God ? Nor ought we to look with less 
 aversion on a social system which can 
 only be upheld by crippling and blinding 
 the minds of the people. 
 
 But to come nearer to the point. Are 
 labor and self-culture irreconcilable to 
 each other? In the first place, we have 
 seen that a man, in the midst of labor, 
 may and ought to give himself to the 
 most important improvements, that he 
 may cultivate his sense of justice, his 
 benevolence, and the desire or perfection. 
 Toil is the school for these high princi- 
 ples ; and we have here a strong pre- 
 sumption that, in other respects, it does 
 not necessarily blight the soul. Next, 
 we have seen that the most fruitful 
 sources of truth and wisdom are not 
 books, precious as they are, but experi- 
 ence and observation ; and these belong 
 to all conditions. It is another important 
 consideration, that almost all labor de- 
 mands intellectual activity, and is best 
 carried on by those who invigorate their 
 minds ; s*o that the two interests, toil and 
 self-culture, are friends to each other. 
 It is mind, after all. which does the 
 work of the world, so that the more there 
 is of mind, the more work will be ac- 
 
 complished. A man, in proportion as 
 he is intelligent, makes a given force ac- 
 complish a greater task, makes skill take 
 the place of muscles, and, with less labor, 
 gives a better product. Make men in- 
 telligent, and they become inventive. 
 They find shorter processes. Their 
 knowledge of nature helps them to turn 
 its laws to account, to understand the 
 substances on which they work, and to 
 seize on useful hints, which experience 
 continually furnishes. It is among work- 
 men that some of the most useful ma- 
 chines have been contrived. Spread 
 education, and, as the history of this 
 country shows, there will be no bounds 
 to useful inventions. You think that a 
 man without culture will do all the better 
 what you call the drudgery of life. Go, 
 then, to the Southern plantation. There 
 the slave is brought up to be a mere 
 drudge. He is robbed of the rights of a 
 man, his whole spiritual nature is starved, 
 that he may work, and do nothing but 
 work ; and in that slovenly agriculture, 
 in that worn-out soil, in the rude state of 
 the mechanic arts, you may find a com- 
 ment on your doctrine, that, by degrad- 
 ing men, you make them more productive 
 laborers. 
 
 But it is said, that any considerable 
 education lifts men above their work, 
 makes them look with disgust on their 
 trades as mean and low, makes drudgery 
 intolerable. I reply, that a man becomes 
 interested in labor just in proportion as 
 the mind works with the hands. An en- 
 lightened farmer, who understands agri- 
 cultural chemistry, the laws of vegetation, 
 the structure of plants, the properties of 
 manures, the influences of climate, who 
 looks intelligently on his work, and 
 brings his knowledge to bear on exigen- 
 cies, is a much more cheerful, as well as 
 more dignified laborer, than the peasant 
 whose mind is akin to the clod on which 
 he treads, and whose whole life is the 
 same dull, unthinking, unimproving toil. 
 But this is not all. Why is it, 1 ask, 
 that we call manual labor low, that we 
 associate with it the idea of meanness, 
 and think that an intelligent people must 
 scorn it ? The great reason is, that, in 
 most countries, so few intelligent people 
 have been engaged in it. Once let cul- 
 tivated men plough, and dig, and follow 
 the commonest labors, and ploughing, 
 digging, and trades will cease to be 
 mean. It is the man who determines the
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 33 
 
 dignity of the occupation, not the oc- 
 cupation which measures the dignity of 
 the man. Physicians and surgeons per- 
 form operations less cleanly than fall to 
 the lot of most mechanics. I have seen 
 a distinguished chemist covered with 
 dust like a laborer. Still these men were 
 not degraded. Their intelligence gave 
 dignity to their work, and so our labor- 
 ers, once educated, will give dignity to 
 their toils. Let me add, that I see little 
 difference in point of dignity between the 
 various vocations of men. When I see 
 a clerk spending his days in adding 
 figures, perhaps merely copying, or a 
 teller of a bank counting money, or a 
 merchant selling shoes and hides, I can- 
 not see in these occupations greater re- 
 spectableness than in making leather, 
 shoes, or furniture. I do not see in them 
 greater intellectual activity than in sev- 
 eral trades. A man in the fields seems to 
 have more chances of improvement in 
 his work than a man behind the counter, 
 or a man driving the quill. It is the sign 
 of a narrow mind to imagine, as many 
 seem to do, that there is a repugnance 
 between the plain, coarse exterior of a 
 laborer, and mental culture, especially 
 the more refining culture. The laborer, 
 under his dust and sweat, carries the 
 grand elements of humanity, and he may 
 put forth its highest powers. I doubt 
 not there is as genuine enthusiasm in the 
 contemplation of nature, and in the pe- 
 rusal of works of genius, under a home- 
 spun garb as under finery. We have 
 heard of a distinguished author who 
 never wrote so well as when he was full 
 dressed for company. But profound 
 thought and poetical inspiration have 
 most generally visited men when, from 
 narrow circumstances or negligent habits, 
 the rent coat and shaggy face have made 
 them quite unfit for polished saloons. A 
 man may see truth, and may be thrilled 
 with beauty, in one costume'or dwelling 
 as well as another ; and he should re- 
 spect himself the more for the hardships 
 under which his intellectual force has 
 been developed. 
 
 But it will be asked, how can the la- 
 boring classes find time for self-culture ? 
 I answer, as I have already intimated, 
 that an earnest purpose finds time or 
 makes time. It seizes on spare mo- 
 ments, and turns large fragments of 
 leisure to golden account. A man who 
 follows his calling with industry and 
 
 spirit, and uses his earnings econom- 
 ically, will always have some portion of 
 the day at command ; and it is astonish- 
 ing how fruitful of improvement a short 
 season becomes, when eagerly seized 
 and faithfully used. It has often been 
 observed, that they who have most time 
 at their disposal profit by it least. A 
 single hour in the day, steadily given to 
 the study of an interesting subject, brings 
 unexpected accumulations of knowl- 
 edge. The improvements made by well- 
 disposed pupils in many of our country 
 schools, which are open but three months 
 in the year, and in our Sunday schools, 
 which are kept but one 'or two hours in 
 the week, show what can be brought to 
 pass by slender means. The affections, 
 it is said, sometimes crowd years into 
 moments, and the intellect has something 
 of the same power. Volumes have not 
 only been read, but written, in flying 
 journeys. I have known a man of vig- 
 orous intellect, who had enjoyed few 
 advantages of early education, and whose 
 mind was almost engrossed by the details 
 of an extensive business, but who com- 
 posed a book of much original thought, 
 in steamboats and on horseback, while 
 visiting distant customers. The suc- 
 cession of the seasons gives to many of 
 the working class opportunities for intel- 
 lectual improvement. The winter brings 
 leisure to the husbandman, and winter 
 evenings to many laborers in the city. 
 Above all, in Christian countries, the 
 seventh day is released from toil. The 
 seventh part of the year, no small por- 
 tion of existence, may be given by 
 almost every one to intellectual and 
 moral culture. Why is it that Sunday 
 is not made a more effectual means of 
 improvement ? Undoubtedly the seventh 
 day is to have a religious character ; 
 but religion connects itself with all the 
 great subjects of human thought, and 
 leads to and aids the study of all. God 
 is in nature. God is in history. In- 
 struction in the works of the Creator, so 
 as to reveal his perfection in their har- 
 mony, beneficence, and grandeur ; in- 
 struction in the histories of the church 
 and the world,- so as to show in all 
 events his moral government, and to 
 bring out the great moral lessons in 
 which human life abounds ; instruction 
 in the lives of philanthropists, of saints, 
 of men eminent for piety and virtue, 
 all these branches of teaching enter into
 
 34 
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 religion, and are appropriate to Sunday ; 
 and, through these, a vast amount of 
 knowledge may be given to the people. 
 Sunday ought not to remain the dull 
 and fruitless season that it now is to 
 multitudes. It may be clothed with a 
 new interest and a new sanctity. It 
 may give a new impulse to the nation's 
 soul. I have thus shown that time may 
 be found for improvement ; and the fact 
 is, that among our most improved peo- 
 ple a considerable part consists of per- 
 sons who pass the greatest portion of 
 every day at the desk, in the counting- 
 room, or in some other sphere, chained 
 to tasks which have very little tendency 
 to expand the mind. In the progress of 
 society, with the increase of machinery, 
 and with other aids which intelligence 
 and philanthropy will multiply, we may 
 expect that more and more time will be 
 redeemed from manual labor for intel- 
 lectual and social occupations. 
 
 But some will say, " Be it granted that 
 the working classes may find some lei- 
 sure ; should they not be allowed to 
 spend it in relaxation? 'Is it not cruel 
 to summon them from toils of the hand 
 to toils of the mind ? They have earned 
 pleasure by the day's toil, and ought to 
 partake it." Yes, let them have pleas- 
 ure. Far be it from me to dry up the 
 fountains, to blight the spots of verdure, 
 where they refresh themselves after life's 
 labors. But I maintain that self-culture 
 multiplies and increases their pleasures, 
 that it creates new capacities of enjoy- 
 ment, that it saves their leisure from 
 being, what it too often is, dull and 
 wearisome, that it saves them from rush- 
 ing for excitement to indulgences de- 
 structive to body and soul. It is one of 
 the great benefits of self-improvement, 
 that it raises a people above the grati- 
 fications of the brute, and gives them 
 pleasures worthy of men. In conse- 
 quence of the present intellectual cult- 
 ure of our country, imperfect as it is, a 
 vast amount of enjoyment is communi- 
 cated to men, women, and children, of 
 all conditions, by books, an enjoy- 
 ment unknown to ruder times. At this 
 moment, a number of gifted writers are 
 employed in multiplying entertaining 
 works. Walter Scott, a name conspic- 
 uous among the brightest of his day, 
 poured out his inexhaustible mind in 
 fictions, at once so sportive and thrilling, 
 that they have taken their place among 
 
 the delights of all civilized nations. 
 How many millions have been chained 
 to his pages ! How many melancholy 
 spirits has he steeped in forgetfulness of 
 their cares and sorrows ! What multi- 
 tudes, wearied by their day's work, have 
 owed some bright evening hours and 
 balmier sleep to his magical creations ? 
 And not only do fictions give pleasure. 
 In proportion as the mind is cultivated, 
 it takes delight in history and biography, 
 in descriptions of nature, in travels, in 
 poetry, and even graver works. Is the 
 laborer then defrauded of pleasure by 
 improvement ? There is another class 
 of gratifications to which self-culture 
 introduces the mass of the people. I 
 refer to lectures, discussions, meetings 
 of associations for benevolent and liter- 
 ary purposes, and to other like methods 
 of passing the evening, which every year 
 is multiplying among us. A popular 
 address from an enlightened man, who 
 has the tact to reach the minds of the 
 people, is a high gratification, as well as 
 a source of knowledge. The profound 
 silence in our public halls, where these 
 lectures are delivered to crowds, shows 
 that cultivation is no foe to enjoyment. 
 I have a strong hope, that by the prog- 
 ress of intelligence, taste, and morals 
 among all portions of society, a class of 
 public amusements will grow up among 
 us, bearing some resemblance to the 
 theatre, but purified from the gross evils 
 which degrade our present stage, and 
 which, I trust, will seal its ruin. Dra- 
 matic performances and recitations are 
 means of bringing the mass of the peo- 
 ple into a quicker sympathy with a 
 writer of genius, to a profounder com- 
 prehension of his grand, beautiful, touch- 
 ing conceptions, than can be effected by 
 the reading of the closet. No commen- 
 tary throws such a light on a great poem 
 or any impassioned work of literature, 
 as the voice of a reader or speaker who 
 brings to the task a deep feeling of his 
 author and rich and various powers of 
 expression. A crowd, electrified by a 
 sublime thought, or softened into a 
 humanizing sorrow, under such a voice, 
 partake a pleasure at once exquisite and 
 refined; and 1 cannot but believe that 
 this and other amusements, at which the 
 delicacy of woman and the purity of the 
 Christian can take no offence, are to 
 
 Sow up under a higher social culture. 
 :t me only add, that, in proportion as
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 35 
 
 culture spreads among a people, the 
 cheapest and commonest of all pleas- 
 ures, conversation, increases in delight. 
 This, after all, is the great amusement 
 of life, cheering us round our hearths, 
 often cheering our work, stirring our 
 hearts gently, acting on us like the 
 balmy air or the bright light of heaven, 
 so silently and continually, that we 
 hardly think of its influence. This 
 source of happiness is too often lost to 
 men of all classes for want of knowl- 
 edge, mental activity, and refinement of 
 feeling : and do we defraud the laborer 
 of his pleasure by recommending to him 
 improvements which will place the daily, 
 hourly blessings of conversation within 
 his reach ? 
 
 I have thus considered some of the 
 common objections which start up when 
 the culture of the mass of men is in- 
 sisted on as the great end of society. 
 For myself, these objections seem wor- 
 thy little notice. The doctrine is too 
 shocking to need refutation, that the 
 great majority of human beings, en- 
 dowed as they are with rational and 
 immortal powers, are placed on earth 
 simply to toil for their own animal sub- 
 sistence, and to minister to the luxury 
 and elevation of the few. It is mon- 
 strous, it approaches impiety, to sup- 
 pose that God has placed insuperable 
 barriers to the expansion of the free, 
 illimitable soul. True, there are ob- 
 structions in the way of improvement. 
 But in this country, the chief obstruc- 
 tions lie, not in our lot, but in ourselves ; 
 not in outward hardships, but in our 
 worldly and sensual propensities ; and 
 one proof of this is, that a true self- 
 culture is as little thought of on ex- 
 change as in the workshop, as little 
 among the prosperous as among those 
 of narrower conditions. The path to 
 perfection is difficult to men in every 
 lot ; there is no royal road for rich or 
 poor. But difficulties are meant to 
 rouse, not discourage. The human 
 spirit is to grow strong by conflict. 
 And how much has it already over- 
 come ! Under what burdens of oppres- 
 sion has it made its way for ages ! 
 What mountains of difficulty has it 
 cleared ! And with all this experience, 
 shall we say that the progress of the 
 mass of men is to be despaired of; that 
 the chains of bodily necessity are too 
 strong and ponderous to be broken by 
 
 the mind ; that servile, unimproving 
 drudgery is the unalterable condition 
 of the multitude of the human race ? 
 
 I conclude with recalling to you the 
 happiest feature of our age, and that is, 
 the progress of the mass of the people 
 in intelligence, self-respect, and all the 
 comforts of life. What a contrast does 
 the present form with past times ! Not 
 many ages ago, the nation was the 
 property of one man, and all its inter- 
 ests were staked in perpetual games of 
 war, for no end but to build up his fam- 
 ily, or to bring new territories under 
 his yoke. Society was divided into two 
 classes, the high-born and the vulgar, 
 separated from one another by a great 
 gulf, as impassable as that between the 
 saved and the lost. The people had no 
 significance as individuals, but formed 
 a mass, a machine, to be wielded at 
 pleasure by their lords. In war, which 
 was the great sport of the times, those 
 brave knights, of whose prowess we 
 hear, cased themselves and their horses 
 in armor, so as to be almost invulner- 
 able, whilst the common people on foot 
 were left, without protection, to be hewn 
 in pieces or trampled down by their 
 betters. Who that compares the con- 
 dition of Europe a few years ago with 
 the present state of the world, but must 
 bless God for the change ? The grand 
 distinction of modern times is, the 
 emerging of the people from brutal 
 degradation, the gradual recognition of 
 their rights, the gradual diffusion among 
 them of the means of improvement and 
 happiness, the creation of a new power 
 in the state, the power of the people. 
 And it is worthy remark, that this rev- 
 olution is due in a great degree to rer 
 ligion, which, in the hands of the crafty 
 and aspiring, had bowed the multitude 
 to the dust, but which, in the fulness of 
 time, began to fulfil its mission of free- 
 dom. It was religion which, by teach- 
 ing men their near relation to God, 
 awakened in them the consciousness of 
 their importance as individuals. It was 
 the struggle for religious rights which 
 opened men's eyes to all their rights. 
 It was resistance' to religious usurpation 
 which led men to withstand political 
 oppression. It was religious discussion 
 which roused the rrfinds of all classes 
 to free and vigorous thought. It was 
 religion which armed the martyr and 
 patriot in England against arbitrary
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 power, which braced the spirits of our 
 fathers against the perils of the ocean 
 and wilderness, and sent them to found 
 here the freest and most equal state on 
 earth. 
 
 Let us thank God for what has been 
 gained. But let us not think every 
 thing gained. Let the people feel that 
 they have only started in the race. How 
 much remains to be done ! What a 
 vast amount of ignorance, intemperance, 
 coarseness, sensuality, may still be found 
 in our community ! What a vast amount 
 of mind is palsied and lost ! When we 
 think that every house might be cheered 
 by intelligence, disinterestedness, and 
 refinement, and then remember in how 
 many houses the higher powers and 
 affections of human nature are buried 
 as in tombs, what a darkness gathers 
 over society ! And how few of us are 
 moved by this moral desolation ! How 
 few understand, that to raise the de- 
 pressed, by a wise culture, to the dig- 
 nity of men, is the highest end of the 
 social state ? Shame on us, that the 
 worth of a fellow-creature is so little felt. 
 
 I would that I could speak with an 
 awakening voice to the people of their 
 wants, their privileges, their responsi- 
 
 bilities. I would say to them, You can- 
 not, without guilt and disgrace, stop 
 where you are. The past and the pres- 
 ent call on you to advance. Let what 
 you have gained be an impulse to some- 
 thing higher. Your nature is too great 
 to be crushed. You were not created 
 what you are, merely to toil, eat, drink, 
 and sleep, like the inferior animals. If 
 you will, you can rise. No power in 
 society, no hardship in your condition 
 can depress you, keep you down, in 
 knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but 
 by your own consent. Do not be lulled 
 to sleep by the flatteries which you hear, 
 as if your participation in the national 
 sovereignty made you equal to the no- 
 blest of your race. You have many 
 and great deficiencies to be remedied ; 
 and the remedy lies, not in the ballot- 
 box, not in the exercise of your political 
 powers, but in the faithful education of 
 yourselves and your children. These 
 truths you have often heard and slept 
 over. Awake ! Resolve earnestly on 
 Self-culture. Make yourselves worthy 
 of your free institutions, and strengthen 
 and perpetuate them by your intelligence 
 and your virtues. 
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING 
 
 CLASSES. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 THE following lectures were prepared 
 for two meetings of mechanics, one of 
 them consisting of apprentices, the other 
 of adults. For want of strength they 
 were delivered only to the former, 
 though, in preparing them, I had kept 
 the latter also in view. " The Mechanic 
 Apprentices' Library Association," at 
 whose request the lectures are pub- 
 lished, is an institution of much prom- 
 ise, not only furnishing a considerable ' 
 means of intellectual improvement, but 
 increasing the self-respect and conduc- 
 ing to the moral safety of the members. 
 
 When I entered on this task, I 
 thought of preparing only one lecture 
 of the usual length. But I soon found 
 that 1 could not do justice to my views 
 
 in so narrow a compass. I therefore 
 determined to write at large, and to 
 communicate through the press the re- 
 sults of my labor, if they should be 
 thought worthy of publication. With 
 this purpose, I introduced topics which 
 I did not deliver, and which I thought 
 might be usefully presented to some 
 who might not hear me. I make this 
 statement to prevent the objection, that 
 the lectures are not, in all things, 
 adapted to those to whom they were 
 delivered. Whilst written chiefly for a 
 class, they were also intended for the 
 community. 
 
 As the same general subject is dis- 
 cussed in these lectures as in the 
 " Lecture on Self-Culture," published 
 last winter, there will, of course, be
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 37 
 
 found in them that coincidence of 
 thoughts which always takes place in 
 the writings of a man who has the in- 
 culcation of certain great principles 
 much at heart. Still, the point of view, 
 the mode of discussion, and the choice 
 of topics, differ much in the two pro- 
 ductions ; so that my state of mind 
 would be given very imperfectly were 
 the present lectures withheld. 
 
 This is, probably, the last opportu- 
 nity I shall have for communicating 
 with the laboring classes through the 
 press. I may, therefore, be allowed to 
 express my earnest wishes for their 
 happiness, and my strong hope that 
 they will justify the confidence of their 
 friends, and will prove by their example 
 the possibility of joining with labor all 
 the improvements which do honor to 
 our nature. W. E. C. Boston, Feb. 
 \ith, 1840. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 IT is with no common pleasure that 
 I take part in the present course of lect- 
 ures. Such a course is a sign of the 
 times, and very interesting to all who 
 are interested in the progress of their 
 fellow-creatures. We hear much of the 
 improvements of our age. The won- 
 ders achieved by machinery are the 
 common talk of every circle ; but I 
 confess that, to me, this gathering of 
 mechanics' apprentices, whose chief 
 bond of union is a library, and who 
 come together weekly to refresh and 
 improve themselves by the best instruc- 
 tion which the state of society places 
 within their reach, is more encouraging 
 than all the miracles of the machinist. 
 In this meeting I see, what I desire 
 most to see, that the mass of the peo- 
 ple are beginning to comprehend them- 
 selves and their true happiness, that 
 they are catching glimpses of the great 
 work and vocation of human beings, 
 and are rising to their true place in the 
 social state. The present meeting 
 indicates a far more radical, more im- 
 portant change in the world than the 
 steam-engine, or the navigation of the 
 Atlantic in a fortnight. That members 
 of the laboring class, at the close of 
 a day's work, should assemble in such 
 a hall as this, to hear lectures on sci- 
 ence, history, ethics, and the most stir- 
 ring topics of the day, from men whose 
 
 education is thought to fit them for the 
 highest offices, is a proof of a social 
 revolution to which no bounds can be 
 set, and from which too much cannot 
 be hoped. I see in it a repeal of the 
 sentence of degradation passed by ages 
 on the mass of mankind. I see in it 
 the dawn of a new era, in which it will 
 be understood that the first object of 
 society is to give incitements and means 
 of progress to all its members. I see 
 in it the sign of the approaching tri- 
 umph of men's spiritual over their out- 
 ward and material interests. In the 
 hunger and thirst for knowledge and 
 for refined pleasures which this course 
 of lectures indicates in those who labor, 
 I see that the spirit of man is not al- 
 ways to be weighed down by toils for 
 animal life and by the appetite for ani- 
 mal indulgences. I do attach great im- 
 portance to this meeting, not for its 
 own sake or its immediate benefits, but 
 as a token and pledge of a new impulse 
 given to society through all its condi- 
 tions. On this account, I take more 
 pleasure in speaking here than I should 
 feel in being summoned to pronounce 
 a show-oration before all the kings and 
 nobles on earth. In truth, it is time to 
 have done with shows. The age is too 
 stirring, we are pressed on by too sol- 
 emn interests, to be justified in making 
 speeches for self-display or mere amuse- 
 ment. He who cannot say something 
 in sympathy with, or in aid of, the great 
 movements of humanity, might as well 
 hold his peace. 
 
 With these feelings and convictions, 
 I am naturally, almost necessarily, led 
 to address you on a topic which must 
 insure the attention of such an audi- 
 ence ; namely, the elevation of that 
 portion of the community who subsist 
 by the labor of the hands. This work, 
 I have said, is going on. I may add, 
 that it is advancing nowhere so rapidly 
 as in this city. I do not believe that, 
 on the face of the earth, the spirit of 
 improvement has anywhere seized so 
 strongly on those who live by the sweat 
 of the brow as among ourselves. Here 
 it is nothing rare to meet the union of 
 intellectual culture and self-respect with 
 hard work. Here the prejudice against 
 labor as degrading has very much given 
 way. This, then, is the place where 
 the subject which I have proposed 
 should be discussed. We ought to
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 consider in what the true elevation of 
 the laboring portion consists, how far 
 it is practicable, and how it may be 
 helped onward. The subject, I am 
 aware, is surrounded with much preju- 
 dice and error. Great principles need 
 to be brought out, and their application 
 plainly stated. There are serious ob- 
 jections to be met, fears to be disarmed, 
 and rash hopes to be crushed. I do 
 not profess to have mastered the topic. 
 But I can claim one merit, that of com- 
 ing to the discussion with a feeling of 
 its importance, and with a deep interest 
 in the class of people whom it concerns. 
 I trust that this expression of interest 
 will not be set down as mere words, or 
 as meant to answer any selfish purpose. 
 A politician who professes attachment 
 to the people is suspected to love them 
 for their votes. But a man who neither 
 seeks nor would accept any place within 
 their gift may hope to be listened to 
 as their friend. As a friend, I would 
 speak plainly. I cannot flatter. I see 
 defects in the laboring classes. I think 
 that, as yet, the greater part of them 
 have made little progress ; that the 
 prejudices and passions, the sensuality 
 and selfishness of multitudes among 
 them, are formidable barriers to im- 
 provement ; that multitudes have not 
 waked as yet to a dim conception of 
 the end for which they are to struggle. 
 My hopes do not blind me to what ex- 
 ists : and with this clear sense of the 
 deficiencies of the multitude -of men, 
 I cannot, without guilt, minister to their 
 vanity. Not that they alone are to be 
 charged with deficiencies. Look where 
 we may, we shall discern in all classes 
 ground for condemnation ; and who- 
 ever would do good ought to speak the 
 truth of all, only remembering that he 
 is to speak with sympathy, and with a 
 consciousness of his own fallibleness 
 and infirmity. 
 
 In giving my views of the elevation of 
 the laboring multitude, I wish that it 
 may be understood that I shall often 
 speak prospectively, or of changes and 
 improvements which are not to be ex- 
 pected immediately, or soon ; and this I 
 say, that I may not be set down as a 
 dreamer, expecting to regenerate the 
 world in a day. I fear, however, that 
 this explanation will not shield me from 
 this and like reproaches. There are men 
 who, in the face of all history, of the great 
 
 changes wrought in men's condition, and 
 of the new principles which are now 
 acting on society, maintain that the 
 future is to be a copy of the past, and 
 probably a faded rather than bright copy. 
 From such I differ, and did I not differ 
 I would not stand here. Did I expect 
 nothing better from human nature than 
 I see, I should have no heart for the pres- 
 ent effort, poor as it may be. I see the 
 signs of a better futurity, and especially 
 signs that the large class by whose toil 
 we all live are rising from the dust ; and 
 this faith is my only motive to what I 
 now offer. 
 
 The elevation of the laboring portion 
 of society : this is our subject. I shall 
 first consider in what this consists. I 
 shall then consider some objections to 
 its practicableness, and to this point shall 
 devote no small part of the discussion ; 
 and shall close the subject with giving 
 some grounds of my faith and hope in re- 
 gard to the most numerous class of our 
 fellow-beings. 
 
 I. What is to be understood by the 
 elevation of the laboring class ? This is 
 our first topic. To prevent misappre- 
 hension, I will begin with stating what is 
 not meant by it, in what it does not con- 
 sist. I say, then, that by the elevation 
 of the laborer, I do not understand that 
 he is to be raised above the need of labor. 
 I do not expect a series of improvements, 
 by which he is to be released from his 
 daily work. Still more, I have no desire 
 to dismiss him from his workshop and 
 farm, to take the spade and axe from his 
 hand, and to make his life a long holiday. 
 I have faith in labor, and I see the good- 
 ness of God in placing us in a world 
 where labor alone can keep us alive. I 
 would not change, if I could, our sub- 
 jection to physical laws, our exposure to 
 hunger and cold, and the necessity of 
 constant conflicts with the material world. 
 I would not, if I could, so temper the 
 elements, that they should infuse into us 
 only grateful sensations, that they should 
 make vegetation so exuberant as to an- 
 ticipate every want, and the minerals so 
 ductile as to offer no resistance to our 
 strength and skill. Such a world would 
 make a contemptible race. Man owes 
 his growth, his energy, chiefly to that 
 striving of the will, that conflict with 
 difficulty, which we call effort. Easy, 
 pleasant work does not make robust 
 minds, does not give men a conscious-
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 39 
 
 ness of their powers, does not train them 
 to endurance, to perseverance, to steady 
 force of will, that force without which all 
 other acquisitions avail nothing. Man- 
 ual labor is a school in which men are 
 placed to get energy of purpose and char- 
 acter, a vastly more important endow- 
 ment than all the learning of all other 
 schools. They are placed, indeed, under 
 hard masters, physical sufferings and 
 wants, the power of fearful elements, and 
 the vicissitudes of all human things ; but 
 these stern teachers do a work which 
 no compassionate, indulgent friend could 
 do for us : and true wisdom will bless 
 Providence for their sharp ministry. I 
 have great faith in hard work. The ma- 
 terial world does much for the mind by 
 its beauty and order : but it does more 
 for our minds by the pains it inflicts ; by 
 its obstinate resistance, which nothing 
 but patient toil can overcome ; by its vast 
 forces, which nothing but unremitting 
 skill and effort can turn to our use ; by 
 its perils, which demand continual vigil- 
 ance ; and by its tendencies to decay. I 
 believe that difficulties are more impor- 
 tant to the human mind than what we 
 call assistances. Work we all must, if we 
 mean to bring out and perfect our nat- 
 ure. Even if we do not work with the 
 hands, we must undergo equivalent toil 
 in some other direction. No business or 
 study which does not present obstacles, 
 tasking to the full the intellect and the 
 will, is worthy of a man. In science, he 
 who does not grapple with hard ques- 
 tions, who does not concentrate his whole 
 intellect in vigorous attention, who does 
 not aim to penetrate what at first repels 
 him, will never attain to mental force. 
 The uses of toil reach beyond the pres- 
 ent world. The capacity of steady, 
 earnest labor is, I apprehend, one of our 
 great preparations for another state of 
 being. When I see the vast amount of 
 toil required of men, I feel that it must 
 have important connection with their 
 future existence ; and that he who has 
 met this discipline manfully has laid one 
 essential foundation of improvement, ex- 
 ertion, and happiness in the world t8 
 come. You will here see that to me labor 
 has great dignity. It is not merely the 
 grand instrument by which the earth is 
 overspread with fruitfulness and beauty, 
 and the ocean subdued, and matter 
 wrought into innumerable forms for com- 
 fort and ornament. It has a far higher 
 
 function, which is to give force to the 
 will, efficiency, courage, the capacity of 
 endurance, and of persevering devotion 
 to far-reaching plans. Alas, for the man 
 who has not learned to work ! He is a 
 poor creature. He does not know him- 
 self. He depends on others, with no 
 capacity of making returns for the sup- 
 port they give ; and let him not fancy 
 that he has a monopoly of enjoyment. 
 Ease, rest, owes its deliciousness to toil ; 
 and no toil is so burdensome as the rest 
 of him who has nothing to task and 
 quicken his powers. 
 
 I do not, then, desire to release the 
 laborer from toil. This is not the ele- 
 vation to be sought for him. Manual 
 labor is a great good ; but, in so saying, 
 I must be understood to speak of labor 
 in its just proportions. In excess it 
 does great harm. It is not a good, 
 when made the sole work of life. It 
 must be joined with higher means of 
 improvement, or it degrades instead of 
 exalting. Man has a various nature, 
 which requires a variety of occupation 
 and discipline for its growth. Study, 
 meditation, society, and relaxation 
 should be mixed up with his physical 
 toils. He has intellect, heart, imagina- 
 tion, taste, as well as bones and mus- 
 cles ; and he is grievously wronged 
 when compelled to exclusive drudgery 
 for bodily subsistence. Life should be 
 an alternation of employments, so di- 
 versified as to call the whole man into 
 action. Unhappily our present civiliza- 
 tion is far from realizing this idea. It 
 tends to increase the amount of manual 
 toil, at the very time that it renders this 
 toil less favorable to the culture of the 
 mind. The division of labor, which 
 distinguishes civilized from savage life, 
 and to which we owe chiefly the per- 
 fection of the arts, tends to dwarf the 
 intellectual powers, by confining the 
 activity of the individual to a narrow 
 range, to a few details, perhaps to the 
 heading of pins, the pointing of nails, 
 or the tying together of broken strings ; 
 so that while the savage has his facul- 
 ties sharpened by various occupations, 
 and by exposure to various perils, the 
 civilized man treads a monotonous, stu- 
 pefying round of unthinking toil. This 
 cannot, must not, always be. Variety 
 of action, corresponding to the variety 
 of human powers, and fitted to develop 
 all, is the most important element of
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 human civilization. It should be the 
 aim of philanthropists. In proportion 
 as Christianity shall spread the spirit of 
 brotherhood, there will and must be a 
 more equal distribution of toils and 
 means of improvement. That system 
 of labor which saps the health, and 
 shortens life, and famishes intellect, 
 needs, and must receive, great modifica- 
 tion. Still, labor in due proportion is 
 an important part of our present lot. 
 It is the condition of all outward com- 
 forts and improvements, whilst, at the 
 same time, it conspires with higher 
 means and influences in ministering to 
 the vigor and growth of the soul. Let 
 us not fight against it. We need this 
 admonition, because at the present mo- 
 ment there is a general disposition to 
 shun labor ; and this ought to be re- 
 garded as a bad sign of our times. 
 The city is thronged with adventurers 
 from the country, and the liberal pro- 
 fessions are overstocked, in the hope 
 of escaping the primeval sentence of 
 living by the sweat of the brow ; and 
 to this crowding of men into trade we 
 owe not only the neglect of agriculture, 
 but, what is far worse, the demoraliza- 
 tion of the community. It generates ex- 
 cessive competition, which of necessity 
 generates fraud. Trade is turned to 
 gambling ; and a spirit of mad specula- 
 tion exposes public and private interests 
 to a disastrous instability. It is, then, 
 no part of the philanthropy which would 
 elevate the laboring body, to exempt 
 them from manual toil. In truth, a 
 wise philanthropy would, if possible, 
 persuade all men of all conditions to 
 mix up a measure of this toil with their 
 other pursuits. The body as well as 
 the mind needs vigorous exertion, and 
 even the studious would be happier 
 were they trained to labor as well as 
 thought. Let us learn to regard manual 
 toil as the true discipline of a man. 
 Not a few of the wisest, grandest spir- 
 its have toiled at the work-bench and 
 the plough. 
 
 I have said that, by the elevation of 
 the laboring mass, I do not mean that 
 they are to be released from labor. I 
 add, in the next place, that this eleva- 
 tion is not to be gained by efforts to 
 force themselves into what are called 
 the upper ranks of society. I wish 
 them to rise, but I have no desire to 
 transform them into gentlemen or la- 
 
 dies, according to the common accep- 
 tation of these terms. I desire for 
 them not an outward and showy, but 
 an inward and real change ; not to give 
 them new titles and an artificial rank, 
 but substantial improvements and real 
 claims to respect. I have no wish to 
 dress them from a Parisian tailor's shop, 
 or to teach them manners from a danc- 
 ing-school. I have no desire to see 
 them, at the end of the day, doff their 
 working dress, that they may play a 
 part in richly attired circles. I have no 
 desire that they should be admitted to 
 luxurious feasts, or should get a taste 
 for gorgeous upholstery. There is 
 nothing cruel in the necessity which 
 sentences the multitude of men to eat, 
 dress, and lodge plainly and simply, 
 especially where the sentence is exe- 
 cuted so mildly as in this country. In 
 this country, where the demand for 
 labor is seldom interrupted, and the 
 openings for enterprise are numerous 
 beyond precedent, the laboring class, 
 with few exceptions, may well be sat- 
 isfied with their accommodations. Very 
 many of them need nothing but a higher 
 taste for beauty, order, and neatness, to 
 give an air of refinement and grace as 
 well as comfort to their establishments. 
 In this country, the mass of laborers 
 have their share of outward good. 
 Their food, abundant and healthful, 
 seasoned with the appetite which labor 
 gives, is, on the whole, sweeter as 
 well as healthier than the elaborate 
 luxuries of the prosperous : and their 
 sleep is sounder and more refreshing 
 than falls to the lot of the less em- 
 ployed. Were it a possible thing, I 
 should be sorry to see them turned into 
 men and women of fashion. Fashion 
 is a poor vocation. Its creed, that idle- 
 ness is a privilege, and work a disgrace, 
 is among the deadliest errors. Without 
 depth of thought, or earnestness of feel- 
 ing, or strength of purpose, living an 
 unreal life, sacrificing substance to 
 show, substituting the factitious for the 
 natural, mistaking a crowd for society, 
 finding its chief pleasure in ridicule, 
 and exhausting its ingenuity in expedi- 
 ents for killing time, fashion is among 
 the last influences under which a human 
 being, who respects himself or who 
 comprehends the great end of life, 
 would desire to be placed. I use 
 strong language, because I would com-
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 bat the disposition, too common in the 
 laboring mass, to regard what is called 
 the upper class with envy or admira- 
 tion. This disposition manifests itself 
 among them in various forms. Thus, 
 when one of their number prospers, he 
 is apt to forget his old acquaintance, 
 and to work his way, if possible, into 
 a more fashionable caste. As far, in- 
 deed, as he extends his acquaintance 
 among the intelligent, refined, generous, 
 and truly honorable, he makes a sub- 
 stantial improvement of his condition ; 
 but if, as is too often the case, he is 
 admitted by way of favor into a circle 
 which has few claims beyond those of 
 greater luxury and show, and which 
 bestows on him a patronizing, conde- 
 scending notice, in exchange for his 
 old, honorable influence among his 
 original associates, he does any thing 
 but rise. Such is not the elevation I 
 desire for the laborer. I do not desire 
 him to struggle into another rank. Let 
 him not be a servile copyist of other 
 classes, but aim at something higher 
 than has yet been realized in any body of 
 men. Let him not associate the idea 
 of dignity or honor with certain modes 
 of living, or certain outward connec- 
 tions. I would have every man stand 
 on his own ground, and take his place 
 among men according to personal en- 
 dowments and worth, and not according 
 to outward appendages ; and I would 
 have every member of the community 
 furnished with such means of improve- 
 ment, that, if faithful to himself, he 
 may need no outward appendage to 
 attract the respect of all around him. 
 
 I have said, that the people are not to 
 be elevated by escaping labor, or by 
 pressing into a different rank. Once 
 more, I do not mean by the elevation of 
 the people, that they should become self- 
 important politicians ; that, as individ- 
 uals or a class, they should seize on 
 political power ; that by uniting their 
 votes they should triumph over the more 
 prosperous : or that they should succeed 
 in bending the administration of govern- 
 ment to their particular interests. An 
 individual is not elevated by figuring in 
 public affairs, or even by getting into 
 office. He needs previous elevation to 
 save him from disgrace in his public re- 
 lations. To govern one's self, not others, 
 is true glory. To serve through love, 
 not to rule, is Christian greatness. Office 
 
 is not dignity. The lowest men, because 
 most faithless in principle, most servile 
 to opinion, are to be found in office. I 
 am sorry to say it, but the truth should 
 be spoken, that, at the present moment, 
 political action in this country does little 
 to lift up any who are concerned in it. 
 It stands in opposition to a high morality. 
 Politics, indeed, regarded as the study 
 and pursuit of the true, enduring good 
 of a community, as the application of 
 great unchangeable principles to public 
 affairs, is a noble sphere of thought and 
 action ; but politics, in its common sense, 
 or considered as the invention of tem- 
 porary shifts, as the playing of a subtile 
 game, as the tactics of party for gaining 
 power and the spoils of office, and for 
 elevating one set of men above another, 
 is a paltry and debasing concern. The 
 laboring class are sometimes stimulated 
 to seek power as a class, and this it is 
 thought will raise them. But no class, 
 as such, should bear rule among us. All 
 conditions of society should be repre- 
 sented in the government, and alike pro- 
 tected by it ; nor ^:an any thing be ex- 
 pected but disgrace to the individual and 
 the country from the success of any 
 class in grasping at a monopoly of politi- 
 cal power. I would by no means dis- 
 courage the attention of the people to 
 politics. They ought to study in earnest 
 the interests of the country, the princi- 
 ples of our institutions, the tendencies 
 of public measures. But the unhappiness 
 is, they do not study ; and, until they do, 
 they cannot rise by political action. A 
 great amount of time, which, if well used, 
 would form an enlightened population, 
 is now wasted on newspapers and con- 
 versations, which inflame the passions, 
 which unscrupulously distort the truth, 
 which denounce moral independence as 
 treachery to one's party, which agitate 
 the country for no higher end than a 
 triumph over opponents ; and thus mul- 
 titudes are degraded into men-worship- 
 pers or men-haters, into the dupes of the 
 ambitious, or the slaves of a faction. To 
 -rise, the people must substitute reflection 
 for passion. There is no other way. By 
 these remarks, I do not mean to charge 
 on the laboring class all the passionate- 
 ness of the country. All classes partake 
 of the madness, and all are debased by it. 
 The fiery spirits are not confined to one 
 portion of the community. The men, 
 whose ravings resound through the halls
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 of Congress, and are then circulated 
 through the country as eloquence, are 
 not taken from among those who toil. 
 Party prejudices break out as fiercely on 
 the exchange, and even in the saloon, as 
 in the workshop. The disease has spread 
 everywhere. Yet it does not dishearten 
 me, for I see that it admits of mitigation, 
 if not of cure. I trust that these lectures, 
 and other sources of intellectual enjoy- 
 ment now opening to the public, will 
 abate the fever of political excitement, 
 by giving better occupation to the mind. 
 Much, too, may be hoped from the 
 growing self-respect of the people, which 
 will make them shrink indignantly from 
 the disgrace of being used as blinded 
 partisans and unreflecting tools. Much 
 also is to be hoped from the discovery, 
 which must sooner or later be made, that 
 the importance of government is enor- 
 mously overrated, that it does not de- 
 serve all this stir, that there are vastly 
 more effectual means of human happi- 
 ness. Political institutions are to be less 
 and less deified, and to shrink into a 
 narrower space ; and "just in proportion 
 as a wiser estimate of government pre- 
 vails, the present frenzy of political ex- 
 citement will be discovered and put to 
 shame. 
 
 I have now said what I do not mean by 
 the elevation of the laboring classes. It 
 is not an outward change of condition. It 
 is not release from labor. It is not strug- 
 gling for another rank. It is not polit- 
 ical power. I understand something 
 deeper. I know but one elevation of a 
 human being, and that is elevation of 
 soul. Without this, it matters nothing 
 where a man stands or what he pos- 
 sesses ; and with it, he towers, he is one 
 of God's nobility, no matter what place 
 he holds in the social scale. There is 
 but one elevation for a laborer, and for 
 all other men. There are not different 
 kinds of dignity for different orders of 
 men, but one and the same to all. The 
 only elevation of a human being consists 
 in the exercise, growth, energy of the 
 higher principles and powers of his soul. . 
 A bird may be shot upward to the skies 
 by a foreign force ; but it rises, in the 
 true sense of the word, only when it 
 spreads its own wings and soars by its 
 own living power. So a man may be 
 thrust upward into a conspicuous place 
 by outward accidents ; but he rises, only 
 in so far as he exerts himself, and ex- 
 
 ' pands his best faculties, and ascends by 
 j a free effort to a nobler region of thought 
 | and action. Such is the elevation 1 de- 
 I sire for the laborer, and I desire no other. 
 This elevation is indeed to be aided by 
 an improvement of his outward condi- 
 tion, and in turn it greatly improves his 
 outward lot ; and thus connected, out- 
 ward good is real and great ; but sup- 
 posing it to exist in separation from 
 inward growth and life, it would be 
 nothing worth, nor would I raise a finger 
 to promote it. 
 
 I know it will be said, that such eleva- 
 tion as I have spoken of is not and can- 
 not be within the reach of the laboring 
 multitude, and of consequence they 
 ought not to be tantalized with dreams 
 of its attainment. It will be said, that 
 the principal part of men are plainly de- 
 signed to work on matter for the acquisi- 
 tion of material and corporeal good, and 
 that, in such, the spirit is of necessity 
 too wedded to matter to rise above it. 
 This objection will be considered by and 
 by ; but 1 would just observe, in passing, 
 that the objector must have studied very 
 carelessly the material world, if he sup- 
 pose that it is meant to be the grave of 
 the minds of most of those who occupy 
 it. Matter was made for spirit, body for 
 mind. The mind, the spirit, is the end 
 of this living organization of flesh and 
 bones, of nerves and muscles ; and the 
 end of this vast system of sea and land, 
 and air and skies. This unbounded 
 creation of sun, and moon, and stars, 
 and clouds, and seasons, was not or- 
 dained merely to feed and clothe the 
 body, but first and supremely to awaken, 
 nourish, and expand the soul, to be the 
 school of the intellect, the nurse of 
 thought and imagination, the field for 
 the active powers, a revelation of the 
 Creator, and a bond of social union. We 
 were placed in the material creation, not 
 to be its slaves, but to master it, and to 
 make it a minister to our highest powers. 
 It is interesting to observe how much the 
 material world does for the mind. Most 
 of the sciences, arts, professions, and 
 occupations of life, grow out of our con- 
 nection with matter. The natural phi- 
 losopher, the physician, the lawyer, the 
 artist, and the legislator, find the objects 
 or occasions of their researches in mat- 
 ter. The poet borrows his beautiful im- 
 agery from matter. The sculptor and 
 painter express their noble conceptions
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 43 
 
 through matter. Material wants rouse 
 the world to activity. The material 
 organs of sense, especially the eye, wake 
 up infinite thoughts in the mind. To 
 maintain, then, that the mass of men are 
 and must be so immersed in matter, that 
 their souls cannot rise, is to contradict 
 the great end of their connection with 
 matter. I maintain that the philosophy 
 which does not see, in the laws and 
 phenomena of outward nature, the means 
 of awakening mind, is lamentably short- 
 sighted ; and that a state of society 
 which leaves the mass of men to be 
 crushed and famished in soul by exces- 
 sive toils on matter is at war with God's 
 designs, and turns into means of bondage 
 what was meant to free and expand the 
 soul. 
 
 Elevation of soul, this is to be desired 
 for the laborer as for every human being ; 
 and what does this mean ? The phrase, 
 I am aware, is vague, and often serves 
 for mere declamation. Let me strive to 
 convey some precise ideas of it ; and in 
 doing this, I can use no language which 
 will save the hearer from the necessity of 
 thought. The subject is a spiritual one. 
 It carries us into the depths of our own 
 nature, and I can say nothing about it 
 worth saying, without tasking your pow- 
 ers of attention, without demanding some, 
 mental toil. I know that these lectures 
 are meant for entertainment rather than 
 mental labor : but, as I have told you, I 
 have great faith in labor, and I feel that 
 I cannot be more useful than in exciting 
 the hearer to some vigorous action of 
 mind. 
 
 Elevation of soul, in what does this 
 consist ? Without aiming at philoso- 
 phical exactness, I shall convey a suffi- 
 ciently precise idea of it, by saying that 
 it consists, first, in force of thought 
 exerted for the acquisition of truth ; 
 secondly, in force of pure and generous 
 feeling ; thirdly, in force of moral pur- 
 pose. Each of these topics needs a lect- 
 ure for its development. I must confine 
 myself to the first ; from which, however, 
 you may learn in a measure my views of 
 the other two. Before entering on this 
 topic, let me offer one preliminary re- 
 mark. To every man who would, rise in 
 dignity as a man, be he rich or poor, 
 ignorant or instructed, there is one es- 
 sential condition, one effort, one purpose, 
 without which not a step can be taken. 
 He must resolutely purpose and labor to 
 
 free himself from whatever he knows to 
 be wrong in his motives and life. He 
 who habitually allows himself in any 
 known crime or wrong-doing, effectually 
 bars his progress towards a higher in- 
 tellectual and moral life. On this point 
 every man should deal honestly with 
 himself. If he will not listen to his con- 
 science, rebuking him for violations of 
 plain duty, let him not dream of self- 
 elevation. The foundation is wanting. 
 He will build, if at all, in sand. 
 
 I now proceed to my main subject. I 
 have said that the elevation of a man is 
 to be sought, or rather consists, first, 
 in force of thought exerted for the ac- 
 quisition of truth ; and to this I ask your 
 serious attention. Thought, thought, is 
 the fundamental distinction of mind, and 
 the great work of life. All that a man 
 does outwardly is but the expression and 
 completion of his inward thought. To 
 work effectually, he must think clearly. 
 To act nobly, he must think nobly. In- 
 tellectual force is a principal element of 
 the soul's life, and should be proposed 
 by every man as -X principal end of his 
 being. It is common to distinguish be- 
 tween the intellect and the conscience, 
 between the power of thought and virtue, 
 and to say that virtuous action is worth 
 more than strong thinking. But we mu- 
 tilate our nature by thus drawing lines 
 between actions or energies of the soul, 
 which are intimately, indissolubly bound 
 together. The head and the heart are 
 not more vitally connected than thought 
 and virtue. Does not conscience include, 
 as a part of itself, the noblest action of 
 the intellect or reason ? Do we not de- 
 grade it by making it a mere feeling ? Is 
 it not something more ? Is it not a wise 
 discernment of the right, the holy, the 
 good ? Take away thought from virtue, 
 and what remains worthy of a man ? Is 
 not high virtue more than blind instinct ? 
 Is it not founded on, and does it not in- 
 clude clear, bright perceptions of what is 
 lovely and grand in character and action ? 
 Without power of thought, what we call 
 conscientiousness, or a desire to do right, 
 shoots out into illusion, exaggeration, 
 pernicious excess. The most cruel deeds 
 on earth have been perpetrated in the 
 name of conscience. Men have hated 
 and murdered one another from a sense 
 of duty. The worst frauds have taken 
 the name of pious. Thought, intelli- 
 gence, is the dignity of a man, and no
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 man is rising but in proportion as he is 
 learning to think clearly and forcibly, or 
 directing the energy of his mind to the 
 acquisition of truth. Every man, in 
 whatsoever condition, is to be a student. 
 No matter what other vocation he may 
 have, his chief vocation is to Think. 
 
 I say every man is to be a student, a 
 thinker. This does not mean that he is 
 to shut himself within four walls, and 
 bend body and mind over books. Men 
 thought before books were written, and 
 some of the greatest thinkers never en- 
 tered what we call a study. Nature, 
 Scripture, society, and life, present per- 
 petual subjects for thought ; and the 
 man who collects, concentrates, employs 
 his faculties on any of these subjects 
 for the purpose of getting the truth, is 
 so far a student, a thinker, a philosopher, 
 and is rising to the dignity of a man. It 
 is time that we should cease to limit to 
 professed scholars the titles of thinkers, 
 philosophers. Whoever seeks truth with 
 an earnest mind, no matter when or how, 
 belongs to the school of intellectual men. 
 
 In a loose sense of the word, all men 
 may be said to think ; that is, a suc- 
 cession of ideas, notions, passes through 
 their minds from morning to night ; but 
 in as far as this succession is passive, 
 undirected, or governed only by acci- 
 dent and outward impulse, it has little 
 more claim to dignity than the experi- 
 ence of the brute, who receives, with 
 like passivenes, sensations from abroad 
 through his waking hours. Such thought, 
 if thought it may be called, having no 
 aim, is as useless as the vision of an 
 eye which rests on nothing, which flies 
 without pause over earth and sky, and 
 of consequence receives no distinct im- 
 age. Thought, in its true sense, is an 
 energy of intellect. In thought, the 
 mind not only receives impressions or 
 suggestions from without or within, but 
 reacts upon them, collects its attention, 
 concentrates its forces upon them, 
 breaks them up and analyzes them like 
 a living laboratory, and then combines 
 them anew, traces their connections, 
 and thus impresses itself on all the ob- 
 jects which engage it. 
 
 The universe in which we live was 
 plainly meant by God to stir up such 
 thought as has now been described. It 
 is full of difficulty and mystery, and 
 can only be penetrated and unravelled 
 by the concentration of the intellect. 
 
 Every object, even the simplest in nat- 
 ure and society, every event of life, is 
 made up of various elements subtly 
 bound together ; so that, to understand 
 any thing, we must reduce it from its 
 complexity to its parts and principles, 
 and examine their relations to one an- 
 other. Nor is this all. Every thing 
 which enters the mind not only contains 
 a depth of mystery in itself, but is con- 
 nected by a thousand ties with all other 
 things. The universe is not a disor- 
 derly, disconnected heap, but a beau- 
 tiful whole, stamped throughout with 
 unity, so as to be an image of the One 
 Infinite Spirit. Nothing stands alone. 
 All things are knit together, each ex- 
 isting for all and all for each. The 
 humblest object has infinite connec- 
 tions. The vegetable, which you saw 
 on your table to-day, came to you from 
 the first plant which God made to grow 
 on the earth, and was the product of 
 the rains and sunshine of six thousand 
 years. Such a universe demands thought 
 to be understood ; and we are placed in 
 it to think, to put forth the power within, 
 to look beneath the surface of things, 
 to look beyond particular facts and 
 events to their causes and effects, to 
 their reasons and ends, their mutual 
 .influences, their diversities and resem- 
 blances, their proportions and harmo- 
 nies, and the general laws which bind 
 them together. This is what I mean 
 by thinking ; and by such thought the 
 mind rises to a dignity which humbly 
 represents the greatness of the Divine 
 intellect : that is, it rises more and more 
 to consistency of views, to broad gen- 
 eral principles, to universal truths, to 
 glimpses of the order and harmony and 
 infinity of the Divine system, and thus 
 to a deep, enlightened veneration of the 
 Infinite Father. Do not be startled, as 
 if I were holding out an elevation of 
 mind utterly to be despaired of ; for 
 all thinking, which aims honestly and 
 earnestly to see things as they are, to 
 see them in their connections, and to 
 bring the loose, conflicting ideas of the 
 mind into consistency and harmony, all 
 such thinking, no matter in what sphere, 
 is an approach to the dignity of which 
 I speak. You are all capable of the 
 thinking which I recommend. You 
 have all practised it in a degree. The 
 child, who casts an inquiring eye on a 
 new toy, and breaks it to pieces that
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 45 
 
 he may discover the mysterious cause 
 of its movements, has begun the work 
 of which I speak, has begun to be a 
 philosopher, has begun to penetrate the 
 unknown, to seek consistency and har- 
 mony of thought ; and let him go on 
 as he has begun, and make it one great 
 business of life to inquire into the ele- 
 ments, connections, and reasons of 
 whatever he witnesses in his own breast, 
 or in society, or in outward nature, and, 
 be his condition what it may, he will 
 rise by degrees to a freedom and force 
 of thought, to a breadth and unity of 
 views, which will be to him an inward 
 revelation and promise of the intel- 
 lectual greatness for which he was cre- 
 ated. 
 
 You will observe, that in speaking of 
 force of thought as the elevation of the 
 laborer and of every human being, I 
 have continually supposed this force to 
 be exerted for the purpose of acquiring 
 truth. I beg you never to lose sight 
 of this motive, for it is essential to in- 
 tellectual dignity. Force of thought 
 may be put forth for other purposes, 
 to amass wealth for selfish gratification, 
 to give the individual power over oth- 
 ers, to blind others, to weave a web of 
 sophistry, to cast a deceitful lustre on 
 vice, to make the worse appear the bet- 
 ter cause. But energy of thought, so 
 employed, is suicidal. The intellect, in 
 becoming a pander to vice, a tool of 
 the passions, an advocate of lies, be- 
 comes not only degraded, but diseased. 
 It loses the capacity of distinguishing 
 truth from falsehood, good from evil, 
 right from wrong ; it becomes as worth- 
 less as an eye which cannot distinguish 
 between colors or forms. Woe to that 
 mind which wants the love of truth ! 
 For want of this, genius has become a 
 scourge to the world, its breath a poi- 
 sonous exhalation, its brightness a se- 
 ducer into paths of pestilence and 
 death. Truth is the light of the Infi- 
 nite Mind, and the image of God in 
 his creatures. Nothing endures but 
 truth. The dreams, fictions, theories, 
 which men would substitute for it, soon 
 die. Without its guidance effort is 
 vain, and hope baseless. Accordingly, 
 the love of truth, a deep thirst for it, 
 a deliberate purpose to seek it and hold 
 it fast, may be considered as the very 
 foundation of human culture and dig- 
 nity. Precious as thought is, the love 
 
 of truth is still more precious ; for with- 
 out it, thought thought wanders and 
 wastes itself, and precipitates men into 
 
 fuilt and misery. There is no greater 
 efect in education and the pulpit than 
 that they inculcate so little an impar- 
 tial, earnest, reverential love of truth, 
 a readiness to toil, to live and die for 
 .it. Let the laboring man be imbued in 
 a measure with this spirit : let him learn 
 to regard himself as endowed with the 
 power of thought, for the very end of 
 acquiring truth ; let him learn to re- 
 gard truth as more precious than his 
 daily bread : and the spring of true and 
 perpetual elevation is touched within 
 him. He has begun to be a man ; he 
 becomes one of the elect of his race. 
 Nor do I despair of this elevation of 
 the laborer. Unhappily little, almost 
 nothing, has been done as yet to inspire 
 either rich or poor with the love of 
 truth for its own sake, or for the life, 
 and inspiration, and dignity it gives to 
 the soul. The prosperous have as little 
 of this principle as the laboring mass. 
 I think, indeed, that the spirit of lux- 
 urious, fashionable life, is more hostile 
 to it than the hardships of the poor. 
 Under a wise culture, this principle 
 may be awakened in all classes, and 
 wherever awakened, it will form phi- 
 losophers, successful and noble think- 
 ers. These remarks seem to me par- 
 ticularly important, as showing how 
 intimate a union subsists between the 
 moral and intellectual nature, and how 
 both must work together from the be- 
 ginning. All human culture rests on a 
 moral foundation, on an impartial, dis- 
 interested spirit, on a willingness to 
 make sacrifices to the truth. Without 
 this moral power, mere force of thought 
 avails nothing towards our elevation. 
 
 I am aware that I shall be told that 
 the work of thought which I have in- 
 sisted on is difficult, that to collect 
 and concentrate the mind for the truth is 
 harder than to toil with the hands. Be 
 it so. But are we weak enough to hope 
 to rise without toil ? Does any man, 
 laborer or not, expect to invigorate 
 body or mind without strenuous effort ? 
 Does not the child grow and get 
 strength by throwing a degree of hard- 
 ship and vehemence and conflict into 
 his very sports ? Does not life with- 
 out difficulty become insipid and joy- 
 less ? Cannot a strong interest turn
 
 4 6 
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 difficulty into pleasure ? Let the love 
 of truth, of which I have spoken, be 
 awakened, and obstacles in the way to 
 it will whet, not discourage, the mind, 
 and inspire a new delight into its acqui- 
 sition. 
 
 I have hitherto spoken of force of 
 thought in general. My views will be 
 given more completely and distinctly,, 
 by considering, next, the objects on 
 which this force is to be exerted. 
 These may be reduced to two classes, 
 matter and mind, the physical world 
 which falls under our eyes, and the 
 spiritual world. The working man is 
 particularly called to make matter his 
 study, because his business is to work 
 on it, and he works more wisely, effect- 
 ually, cheerfully, and honorably, in pro- 
 portion as he knows what he acts upon, 
 knows the laws and forces of which he 
 avails himself, understands the reason 
 of what he does, and can explain the 
 changes which fall under his eye. Labor 
 becomes a new thing when thought is 
 thrown into it, when the mind keeps 
 pace with the hands. Every farmer 
 should study chemistry, so as to under- 
 stand the elements or ingredients which 
 enter into soils, vegetation, and manures, 
 and the laws according to which they 
 combine with and are loosened from 
 one another. So, the mechanic should 
 understand the mechanic powers, the 
 laws of motion, and the history and 
 composition of the various substances 
 which he works on. Let me add, that 
 the farmer and the mechanic should cul- 
 tivate the perception of beauty. What a 
 charm and new value might the farmer 
 add to his grounds and cottage, were he 
 a man of taste ? The product of the 
 mechanic, be it great or small, a house 
 or a shoe, is worth more, sometimes 
 much more, if he can succeed in giv- 
 ing it the grace of proportion. In 
 France, it is not uncommon to teach 
 drawing to mechanics, that they may get 
 a quick eye and a sure hand, and may 
 communicate to their works the attrac- 
 tion of beauty. Every man should aim 
 to impart this perfection to his labors. 
 The more of mind we carry into toil, the 
 better. Without a habit of thought, a 
 man works more like a brute or machine 
 than like a man. With it, his soul is 
 kept alive amidst his toils. He learns 
 to fix an observing eye on the processes 
 of his trade, catches hints which abridge 
 
 labor, gets glimpses of important dis- 
 coveries, and is sometimes able to per- 
 fect his art. Even now, after all the 
 miracles of invention which honor our 
 age, we little suspect what improve- 
 ments of machinery are to spring from 
 spreading intelligence and natural sci- 
 ence among workmen. 
 
 But I do not stop here. Nature is to 
 engage our force of thought, not simply 
 for the aid which the knowledge of it 
 gives in working, but for a h'igher end. 
 Nature should be studied for its own 
 sake, because so wonderful a work of 
 God, because impressed with his per- 
 fection, because radiant with beauty, 
 and grandeur, and wisdom, and benef- 
 icence. A laborer, like every other 
 man, is to be liberally educated, that is, 
 he is to get knowledge, not only for his 
 bodily subsistence, but for the life, and 
 growth, and elevation of his mind. Am 
 I asked, whether I expect the laborer 
 to traverse the whole circle of the phys- 
 ical sciences ? Certainly not ; nor do 
 I expect the merchant, or the lawyer, 
 or preacher to do it. Nor is this at 
 all necessary to elevation of soul. The 
 truths of physical science, which give 
 greatest dignity to the mind, are those 
 general laws of the creation which it has 
 required ages to unfold, but which an 
 active mind, bent on self-enlargement, 
 may so far study and comprehend, 
 as to interpret the changes of nature 
 perpetually taking place around us, as 
 to see in all the forces of the universe 
 the workings of one Infinite Power, and 
 in all its arrangements the manifestation 
 of one unsearchable wisdom. 
 
 And this leads me to observe the sec- 
 ond great object on which force of 
 thought is to be exerted, and that is mind, 
 spirit, comprehending under this word 
 God and all his intelligent offspring. 
 This is the subject of what are called 
 the metaphysical and moral sciences. 
 This is the grand field for thought ; 
 for the outward, material world is the 
 shadow of the spiritual, and made to 
 minister to it. This study is of vast 
 extent. It comprehends theology, met- 
 aphysics, moral philosophy, political 
 science, history, literature. This is a 
 formidable list, and it may seem to in- 
 clude a vast amount of knowledge which 
 is necessarily placed beyond the reach 
 of the laborer. But it is an interesting 
 thought, that the key to these various
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 47 
 
 sciences is given to every human being 
 in his own nature, so that they are pe- 
 culiarly accessible to him. How is it 
 that I get my ideas of God, of my fel- 
 low-creatures, of the deeds, suffering, 
 motives, which make up universal his- 
 tory ? I comprehend all these from the 
 consciousness of what passes in my own 
 soul. The mind within me is a type 
 representative of all others, and there- 
 fore I can understand all. Whence come 
 my conceptions of the intelligence, and 
 justice, ' and goodness, and power of 
 God ? It is because my own spirit con- 
 tains the germs of these attributes. The 
 ideas of them are first derived from my 
 own nature, and therefore I comprehend 
 them in other beings. Thus the foun- 
 dation of all the sciences which treat 
 of mind is laid in every man's breast. 
 The good man is exercising in his 
 business and family faculties and affec- 
 tions which bear a likeness to the attri- 
 butes of the Divinity, and to the energies 
 which have made the greatest men 
 illustrious ; so that in studying himself, 
 in learning the highest principles and 
 laws of his own soul, he is in truth 
 studying God, studying all human his- 
 tory, studying the philosophy which has 
 immortalized the sages of ancient and 
 modern times. In every man's mind 
 and life all other minds and lives are 
 more or less represented and wrapped 
 up. To study other things, I must go 
 into the outward world, and perhaps go 
 far. To study the science of spirit, I 
 must come home and enter my own 
 soul. The profoundest books that have 
 ever been written do nothing more than 
 bring out, place in clear light, what is 
 passing in each of your minds. So near 
 you, so within you, is the grandest truth. 
 I have, indeed, no expectation that the 
 laborer is to understand in detail the 
 various sciences which relate to mind. 
 Few men in any vocation do so under- 
 stand them. Nor is it necessary ; though, 
 where time can be commanded, the thor- 
 ough study of some particular branch, 
 in which the individual has a special 
 interest, will be found of great utility. 
 What is needed to elevate the soul is. 
 not that a man should know all that has 
 been thought and written in regard to 
 the spiritual nature, not that a man 
 should become an encyclopaedia, but 
 that the great ideas, in which all dis- 
 coveries terminate, which sum up all 
 
 sciences, which the philosopher extracts 
 from infinite details, may be compre- 
 hended and felt. It is not the quantity, 
 but the quality of knowledge, which de- 
 termines the mind's dignity. A man of 
 immense information may, through the 
 want of large and comprehensive ideas, 
 be far inferior in intellect to a laborer, 
 who, with little knowledge, has yet seized 
 on great truths. For example, I do not 
 expect the laborer to study theology in 
 the ancient languages, in the writings of 
 the Fathers, in the history of sects, &c., 
 &c. ; nor is this needful. All theology, 
 scattered as it is through countless vol- 
 umes, is summed up in the idea of God ; 
 and let this idea shine bright and clear 
 in the laborer's soul, and he has the es- 
 sence of theological libraries, and a far 
 higher light than has visited thousands 
 of renowned divines. A great mind is 
 formed by a few great ideas, not by an 
 infinity of loose details. I have known 
 very learned men who seemed to me 
 very poor in intellect, because they had 
 no grand thoughts. What avails it that 
 a man has studied ever so minutely 
 the histories of Greece and Rome, if 
 the great ideas of freedom, and beauty, 
 and valor, and spiritual energy, have 
 not been kindled by these records into 
 living fires in his soul ? The illumina- 
 tion of an age does not consist in the 
 amount of its knowledge, but in the 
 broad and noble principles of which that 
 knowledge is the foundation and inspirer. 
 The truth is, that the most laborious and 
 successful student is confined in his re- 
 searches to a very few of God's works ; 
 but this limited knowledge of things may 
 still suggest universal laws, broad princi- 
 ples, grand ideas, and these elevate the 
 mind. There are certain thoughts, prin- 
 ciples, ideas, which, by their nature, rule 
 over all knowledge, which are intrinsi- 
 cally glorious, quickening, all-compre- 
 hending, eternal, and with these I desire 
 to enrich the mind of the laborer and of 
 every human being. 
 
 To illustrate my meaning, let me give 
 a few examples of the great ideas which 
 belong to the study or science of mind. 
 Of course, the first of these, the grand- 
 est, the most comprehensive, is the idea 
 of God. the Parent Mind, the Primitive 
 and Infinite Intelligence. Every man's 
 elevation is to be measured first and 
 chiefly by his conception of this Great 
 Being ; and to attain a just, and bright,
 
 4 8 
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 and quickening knowledge of Him, is 
 the highest aim of thought. In truth, 
 the great end of the universe, of revela- 
 tion, of life, is to develop in us the idea 
 of God. Much earnest, patient, labori- 
 ous thought is required to see this In- 
 finite Being as He is, to rise above the 
 low, gross notions of the Divinity, which 
 rush in upon us from our passions, from 
 our selfish partialities, and from the low- 
 minded world around us. There is one 
 view of God particularly suited to ele- 
 vate us. I mean the view of Him as the 
 " Father of our spirits ;" as having cre- 
 ated us with great powers to grow up to 
 perfection ; as having ordained all out- 
 ward things to minister to the progress 
 of the soul ; as always present to inspire 
 and strengthen us, to wake us up to in- 
 ward life, and to judge and rebuke our 
 wrong-doing ; as looking with parental 
 joy on our resistance of evil ; as desiring 
 to communicate himself to our minds for 
 ever. This one idea, expanded in the 
 breast of the laborer, is a germ of eleva- 
 tion more fruitful than all science, no 
 matter how extensive or profound, which 
 treats only of outward finite things. It 
 places him in the first rank of human 
 beings. You hear of great theologians. 
 He only deserves the name, be his con- 
 dition what it may, who has, by thought 
 and obedience, purified and enlarged his 
 conception of God. 
 
 From the idea of God, I proceed to 
 another grand one, that of man, of 
 human nature ; and this should be the 
 object of serious, intense thought. Few 
 men know, as yet. what a man is. They 
 know his clothes, his complexion, his 
 property, his rank, his follies, and his 
 outward life. But the thought of his in- 
 ward being, his proper humanity, has 
 hardly dawned on multitudes ; and yet, 
 who can live a man's life that does not 
 know what is the distinctive worth of a 
 human being ? It is interesting to ob- 
 serve how faithful men generally are to 
 their idea of a man ; how they act up to 
 it. Spread the notion that courage is 
 true manhood, and how many will die 
 rather than fall short of that standard ; 
 and hence, the true idea of a man, 
 brought out in the laborer's mind, ele- 
 vates him above every other class who 
 may want it. Am I asked for my con- 
 ception of the dignity of a human being ? 
 I should say, that it consists, first, in 
 that spiritual principle, called sometimes 
 
 the reason, sometimes the conscience, 
 which, rising above what is local and 
 temporary, discerns immutable truth and 
 everlasting right ; which, in the midst of 
 imperfect things, conceives of perfec- 
 tion ; which is universal and impartial, 
 standing in direct opposition to the par- 
 tial, selfish principles of human nature ; 
 which says to me with authority, that my 
 neighbor is as precious as myself, and 
 his rights as sacred as my own : which 
 commands me to receive all truth, how- 
 ever it may war with my pride, a'nd to do 
 all justice, however it may conflict with 
 my interest ; and which calls me to re- 
 joice with love in all that is beautiful, 
 good, holy, happy, in whatever being 
 these attributes may be found. This 
 principle is a ray of Divinity in man. 
 ! We do not know what man is, still some- 
 ! thing of the celestial grandeur of this 
 principle in the soul may be discerned. 
 There is another grand view of man, in- 
 cluded indeed in the former, yet deserv- 
 ing distinct notice. He is a free being ; 
 created to act from a spring in his own 
 breast, to form himself and to decide his 
 own destiny ; connected intimately with 
 nature, but not enslaved to it ; connected 
 still more strongly with God, yet not en- 
 slaved even to the Divinity, but having 
 power to render or withhold the service 
 due to his Creator ; encompassed by a 
 thousand warring forces, by physical ele- 
 ments which inflict pleasure and pain, by 
 dangers seen and unseen, by the influ- 
 ences of a tempting, sinful world, yet en- 
 dued by God with power to contend with 
 all, to perfect himself by conflict with the 
 very forces which threaten to overwhelm 
 him. Such is the idea of a man. Happy 
 he in whom it is unfolded by earnest 
 thought ! 
 
 Had I time, I should be glad to speak 
 of other great ideas belonging to the 
 science of mind, and which sum up and 
 give us, in one bright expression, the 
 speculations of ages. The idea of hu- 
 man life, of its true end and greatness ; 
 the idea of virtue, as the absolute and 
 ultimate good ; the idea of liberty, which 
 is the highest thought of political sci- 
 ence, and which, by its intimate pres- 
 ence to the minds of the people, is the 
 chief spring of our country's life and 
 greatness, all these might be enlarged 
 on ; and I might show how these may be 
 awakened in the laborer, and may give 
 him an elevation which many who are
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 49 
 
 above labor want. But, leaving all these, 
 I will only refer to another, one of the 
 most important results of the science of ! 
 mind, and which the laborer, in common j 
 with every man, may and should receive, 
 and should strengthen by patient thought. 
 It is the idea of his importance as an in- 
 dividual. He is to understand that he 
 has a value, not as belonging to a com- 
 munity, and contributing to a general 
 good which is distinct from himself, but 
 on his own account. He is not a mere 
 part of a machine. In a machine the 
 parts are useless, but as conducing to 
 the end of the whole, for which alone 
 they subsist. Not so a man. He is not 
 simply a means, but an end, and exists 
 for his own sake, for the unfolding of 
 his nature, for his own virtue and happi- 
 ness. True, he is to work for others, 
 but not servilely, not with a broken spirit, 
 not so as to degrade himself ; he is to 
 work for others from a wise self-regard, 
 from principles of justice and benevo- 
 lence, and in the exercise of a free will 
 and intelligence, by which his own char- 
 acter is perfected. His individual dignity, 
 not derived from birth, from success, 
 from wealth, from outward show, but 
 consisting in the indestructible princi- 
 ples of his soul, this ought to enter 
 into his habitual consciousness. I do 
 not speak rhetorically or use the cant of 
 rhapsoclists, but I utter my calm, delib- 
 erate conviction, when I say that the 
 laborer ought to regard himself with a 
 self-respect unknown to the proudest 
 monarch who rests on outward rank. 
 
 I have now illustrated what I mean by 
 the great ideas which exalt the mind. 
 Their worth and power cannot be exag- 
 gerated. They are the mightiest influ- 
 ences on earth. One great thought 
 breathed into a man may regenerate 
 him. The idea of freedom in ancient 
 and modern republics, the idea of in- 
 spiration in various religious sects, the 
 idea of immortality, how have these tri- 
 umphed over worldly interests ! How 
 many heroes and martyrs have they 
 formed ! Great ideas are mightier than 
 the passions. To awaken them is the 
 highest office of education. As yet it 
 has been little thought of. The educa- 
 tion of the mass of the people has con- 
 sisted in giving them mechanical habits, 
 in breaking them to current usages and 
 modes of thinking, in teaching religion 
 and morality as traditions. It is time 
 
 that a rational culture should take the 
 place of mechanical ; that men should 
 learn to act more from ideas and princi- 
 ples, and less from blind impulse and 
 undiscerning imitation. 
 
 Am I met here by the constantly 
 recurring objection, that such great 
 thoughts as have now been treated of 
 are not to be expected in the multitude 
 of men whose means of culture are so 
 confined ? To this difficulty I shall 
 reply in the next lecture ; but I wish to 
 state a fact, or law of our nature, very 
 cheering to those who,~with few means, 
 still pant for generous improvement. 
 It is this, that great ideas come to us 
 less from outward, direct, laborious 
 teaching, than from indirect influences, 
 and from the native working of our 
 own minds ; so that those who want 
 the outward apparatus for extensive 
 learning are not cut off from them. 
 Thus, laborious teachers may instruct 
 us for years in God, and virtue, and the 
 soul, and we may remain nearly as ig- 
 norant of them as at the beginning ; 
 whilst a look, a tone, an act of a fellow- 
 creature, who is kindled by a grand 
 thought, and who is thrown in our path 
 at some susceptible season of life, will, 
 do much to awaken and expand this 
 thought within us. It is a matter of 
 experience that the greatest ideas often 
 come to us, when right-minded, we 
 know not how. They flash on us as 
 lights from heaven. A man seriously 
 given to the culture of his mind in 
 virtue and truth finds himself under 
 better teaching than that of man. Rev- 
 elations of his own soul, of God's inti- 
 mate presence, of the grandeur of the 
 creation, of the glory of disinterested- 
 ness, of the deformity of wrong-doing, 
 of the dignity of universal justice, of 
 the might of moral principle, of the 
 immutableness of truth, of immortality, 
 and of the inward sources of happiness ; 
 these revelations, awakening a thirst for 
 something higher then he is or has, 
 come of themselves to an humble, self- 
 improving man. Sometimes a common 
 scene in nature, one of the common re- 
 lations of life, will open itself to us 
 with a brightness and pregnancy of 
 meaning unknown before. Sometimes 
 a thouglit of this kind forms an era in 
 life. It changes the whole future 
 course. It is a new creation. And 
 these great ideas are not confined to
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 men of any class. They are communi- 
 cations of the Infinite Mind to all minds 
 which are open to their reception ; and 
 labor is a far better condition for their 
 reception than luxurious or fashionable 
 life. It is even better than a studious 
 life, when this fosters vanity, pride, and 
 the spirit of jealous competition. A 
 childlike simplicity attracts these rev- 
 elations more than a selfish culture of 
 intellect, however far extended. Per- 
 haps a caution should be added to these 
 suggestions. In speaking of great ideas, 
 as sometimes springing up of them- 
 selves, as sudden illuminations, I have 
 no thought of teaching that we are to 
 wait for them passively, or to give up 
 our minds unthinkingly to their con- 
 trol. We must prepare ourselves for 
 them by faithfulness to our own powers, 
 by availing ourselves of all means of 
 culture within our reach ; and, what is 
 more, these illuminations, if they come, 
 are not distinct, complete, perfect views, 
 but glimpses, suggestions, flashes, given 
 us, like all notices and impressions from 
 the outward world, to be thought upon, 
 to be made subjects of patient reflec- 
 tion, to be brought by our own intellect 
 and activity into their tme connection 
 with all our other thoughts. A great 
 idea, without reflection, may dazzle 
 and bewilder, may destroy the balance 
 and proportion of the mind, and impel 
 to dangerous excess. It is to awaken 
 the free, earnest exertion of our powers, 
 to rouse us from passiveness to activity 
 and life, that inward inspirations, and 
 the teachings of outward nature, are 
 accorded to the mind. 
 
 I have thus spoken at large of that 
 force of thought which the laborer is 
 to seek as his true elevation : and I will 
 close the subject with observing, that 
 on whatever objects, or for whatever 
 purposes this force may be exerted, one 
 purpose should be habitually predomi- 
 nant, and that is, to gain a larger, 
 clearer comprehension of all the duties 
 of life. Thought cannot take too wide 
 a range ; but its chief aim should be to 
 acquire juster and brighter perceptions 
 of the right and the good, in every 
 relation and condition in which we may 
 be placed. Do not imagine that I am 
 here talking professionally, or sliding 
 unconsciously, by the force of habit, 
 into the tone of the pulpit. The sub- 
 ject of duty belongs equally to all pro- 
 
 fessions and all conditions. It were as 
 wise to think of living without breath, 
 or of seeing without light, as to exclude 
 moral and religious principle from the 
 work of self-elevation. And I say this, 
 because you are in danger of mistak- 
 ing mere knowledge for improvement. 
 Knowledge fails of its best end when 
 it does not minister to a high virtue. 
 I do not say that we are never to think, 
 read, or study, but for the express pur- 
 pose of learning our duties. The mind 
 must not be tied down by rigid rules. 
 Curiosity, amusement, natural tastes, 
 may innocently direct reading and study 
 to a certain extent. Even in these 
 cases, however, we are bound to 
 improve ourselves morally as well as 
 intellectually, by seeking truth and re- 
 jecting falsehood, and by watching 
 against the taint which inheres in al- 
 most all human productions. What 
 avails intellectual without moral power? 
 How little does it avail us to study the 
 outward world, if its greatness inspire 
 no reverence of its Author, if its benefi- 
 cence awaken no kindred love towards 
 our fellow-creatures ! How little does 
 it avail us to study history, if the past 
 do not help us to comprehend the dan- 
 gers and duties of the present : if from 
 the sufferings of those who have gone 
 before us, we do not learn how to suf- 
 fer, and from their great and good deeds 
 how to act nobly ; if the development 
 of the human heart, in different ages 
 and countries, do not give us a better 
 knowledge of ourselves ! How little 
 does literature benefit us, if the sketches 
 of life and character, the generous sen- 
 timents, the testimonies to disinterest- 
 edness and rectitude, with which it 
 abounds, do not incite and guide us to 
 wiser, purer, and more graceful action ! 
 How little substantial good do we de- 
 rive from poetry and the fine arts, if 
 the beauty, which delights the imagina- 
 tion, do not warm and refine the heart, 
 and raise us to the love and admiration 
 of what is fair, and perfect, and lofty, 
 in character and life ! Let our studies 
 be as wide as our condition will allow ; 
 but let this be their highest aim, to in- 
 struct us in our duty and happiness, in 
 the perfection of our nature, in the true 
 use of life, in the best direction of our 
 powers. Then is the culture of intel- 
 lect an unmixed good, when it is sa- 
 credly used to enlighten the conscience,
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 to feed the flame of generous senti- 
 ment, to perfect us in our common em- 
 ployments, to throw a grace over our 
 common actions, to make us sources of 
 innocent cheerfulness and centres of 
 holy influence, and to give us courage, 
 strength, stability, amidst the sudden 
 changes and sore temptations and trials 
 of life. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Ix my last lecture I invited your atten- 
 tion to a subject of great interest, the 
 elevation of the laboring portion of the 
 community. I proposed to consider, first, 
 in what this elevation consists ; secondly, 
 the objections which may be made to 
 its practicableness ; thirdly, the circum- 
 stances which now favor it, and give us 
 hope that it will be more and more ac- 
 complished. In considering the first 
 head, I began with stating in what the 
 elevation of the laboring class does not 
 consist, and then proceeded to show posi- 
 tively what it is, what it does consist in. 
 I want time to retrace the ground over 
 which we then travelled. I must trust 
 to your memories. I was obliged by my 
 narrow limits to confine myself chiefly 
 to the consideration of the intellectual 
 elevation which the laborer is to pro- 
 pose ; though, in treating this topic, I 
 showed the moral, religious, social im- 
 provements which enter into his true 
 dignity. I observed that the laborer was 
 to be a student, a thinker, an intellectual 
 man, as well as a laborer ; and suggested 
 the qualifications of this truth which are 
 required by his peculiar employment, by 
 his daily engagement in manual toil. I 
 now come to consider the objections 
 which spring up in many minds, when 
 such views of the laborer's destiny are 
 given. This is our second head. 
 
 First, it will be objected, that the la- 
 boring multitude cannot command a va- 
 riety of books, or spend much time in 
 reading ; and how, then, can they gain 
 the force of thought, and the great ideas, 
 which were treated of in the former lect- 
 ure ? This objection grows out of the 
 prevalent disposition to confound intel- 
 lectual improvement with book-learning. 
 Some seem to think that there is a kind 
 of magic in a printed page, that types 
 give a higher knowledge than can be 
 gained from other sources. Reading is 
 considered as the royal road to intel- 
 
 lectual eminence. This prejudice I have 
 virtually set aside in my previous rf 
 marks ; but it has taken so strong a hold 
 of many as to need some consideration. 
 I shall not attempt to repel the objection 
 by decrying books. Truly good books 
 are more than mines to those who can 
 understand them. They are the breath- 
 ings of the great souls of past times. 
 Genius is not embalmed in them, as is 
 sometimes said, but lives in them per- 
 petually. But we need not many books 
 to answer the great ends of reading. A 
 few are better than many, and a little 
 time given to a faithful study of the few 
 will be enough to quicken thought and 
 enrich the mind. The greatest men 
 have not been book-men. Washington, it 
 has often been said, was no great reader. 
 The learning commonly gathered from 
 books is of less worth than the truths 
 we gain from experience and reflection. 
 Indeed, most of the knowledge from 
 reading, in these days, being acquired 
 with little mental action, and seldom or 
 never reflected on and turned to use, is 
 very much a vain show. Events stirring 
 the mind to earnest thought and vigorous 
 application of its resources, do vastly 
 more to elevate the mind than most of 
 our studies at the present time. Few of 
 the books read among us deserve to be 
 read. Most of them have no principle 
 of life, as is proved by the fact that they 
 die the year of their birth. They do not 
 come from thinkers, and how can they 
 awaken thought ? A great proportion 
 of the reading of this city is useless, I 
 had almost said pernicious. I should be 
 sorry to see our laborers exchanging 
 their toils for the reading of many of our 
 young ladies and young gentlemen, who 
 look on the intellect as given them for 
 amusement, who read, as they visit, for 
 amusement, who discuss no great truths 
 and put forth no energy of thought on 
 the topics which fly through their minds. 
 With this insensibility to the dignity of 
 the intellect, and this frittering away of 
 the mind on superficial reading, I see not 
 with what face they can claim superior- 
 ity to the laboring mass, who certainly 
 understand one thing thoroughly, that 
 is, their own business, and who are do- 
 ing something useful for themselves and 
 their fellow-creatures. The great use of 
 books is to rouse us to thought ; to turn 
 us to questions which great men have 
 been working on for ages ; to furnish us
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 with materials for the exercise of judg- 
 ment, imagination, and moral feeling ; to 
 breathe into us a moral life from higher 
 spirits than our own ; and this benefit of 
 books may be enjoyed by those who have 
 not much time for retired study. 
 
 It must not be forgotten, by those who 
 despair of the laboring classes because 
 they cannot live in libraries, that the 
 highest sources of truth, light, and eleva- 
 tion of mind, are not libraries, but our 
 inward and outward experience. Human 
 life, with its joys and sorrows, its bur- 
 dens and alleviations, its crimes and virt- 
 ues, its deep wants, its solemn changes, 
 and its retributions, always pressing on 
 us ; what a library is this ! and who 
 may not study it ? Every human being 
 is a volume worthy to be studied. The 
 books which circulate most freely through 
 the community are those which give us 
 pictures of human life. How much more 
 improving is the original, did we know 
 how to read it ? The laborer has this 
 page always open before him ; and, still 
 more, the laborer is every day writing a 
 volume more full of instruction than all 
 human productions, I mean his own 
 life. No work of the most exalted gen- 
 ius can teach us so much as the revela- 
 tion of human nature in the secrets of 
 our own souls, in the workings of our 
 own passions, in the operations of our 
 own intelligence, in the retributions 
 which follow our own good and evil 
 deeds, in the dissatisfaction with the 
 present, in the spontaneous thoughts and 
 aspirations which form part of every 
 man's biography. The study of our own 
 history from childhood, of all the stages 
 of our development, of the good and bad 
 influences which have beset us, of our 
 mutations of feeling and purpose, and of 
 the great current which is setting us to- 
 wards future happiness or woe, this is a 
 study to make us nobly wise ; and who 
 of us has not access to this fountain of 
 eternal truth ? May not the laborer 
 study and understand the pages which 
 he is writing in his own breast ? 
 
 In these remarks, I have aimed to re- 
 move the false notion into which laborers 
 themselves fall, that they can do little 
 towards acquiring force and fulness jof 
 thought, because in want of books. I 
 shall next turn to prejudices more con- 
 fined to other classes. A very common 
 one is, that the many are not to be 
 called to think, study, improve their 
 
 minds, because a privileged few are in- 
 tended by God to do their thinking for 
 them. "Providence," it is said, "raises 
 up superior minds, whose office it is to 
 discover truth for the rest of the race. 
 Thinking and manual toil are not meant 
 to go together. The division of labor is 
 a great law of nature. One man is to 
 serve society by his head, another by 
 his hands. Let each class keep to its 
 proper work." These doctrines I pro- 
 test against. I deny to any individual 
 or class this monopoly of thought. Who 
 among men can show God's commission 
 to think for his brethren, to shape pas- 
 sively the intellect of the mass, to stamp 
 his own image on them as if they were 
 wax ? As well might a few claim a 
 monopoly of light and air, of seeing and 
 breathing, as of thought. Is not the in- 
 tellect as universal a gift as the organs 
 of sight and respiration ? Is not truth 
 as freely spread abroad as the atmos- 
 phere or the sun's rays ? Can \ve 
 imagine that God's highest gifts of intel- 
 ligence, imagination, and moral power, 
 were bestowed to provide only for ani- 
 mal wants ? to be denied the natural 
 means of growth, which is action ? to be 
 starved by drudgery ? Were the mass 
 of men made to be monsters ? to grow 
 only in a few organs and faculties, and 
 to pine away and shrivel in others ? 
 or were they made to put forth all the 
 powers of men, especially the best and 
 most distinguishing ? No man, not the 
 lowest, is all hands, all bones and muscles. 
 The mind is more essential to human 
 nature, and more enduring, than the 
 limbs ; and was this made to lie dead ? 
 Is not thought the right and duty of all ? 
 Is not truth alike precious to all ? Is 
 not truth the natural aliment of the 
 mind, as plainly as the wholesome grain 
 is of the body ? Is not the mind adapt- 
 ed to thought, as plainly as the eye to 
 light, the ear to sound ? Who dares to 
 withhold it from its natural action, its 
 natural element and joy ? Undoubtedly 
 some men are more gifted than others, 
 and are marked out for more studious 
 lives. But the work of such men is not 
 to do others' thinking for them, but to 
 help them to think more vigorously and 
 effectually. Great minds are to make 
 others great. Their superiority is to be 
 used, not to break the multitude to intel- 
 lectual vassalage, not to establish over 
 them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 53 
 
 them from lethargy, and to aid them to 
 judge for themselves. The light and 
 life which spring up in one soul are to 
 be spread far and wide. Of all treasons 
 against humanity, there is no one worse 
 than his who employs great intellectual 
 force to keep down the intellect of his 
 less favored brother. 
 
 It is sometimes urged by those who 
 consider the multitude as not intended 
 to think, that at best they can learn but 
 little, and that this is likely to harm 
 rather than to do them good. " A little 
 learning," we are told, "is a dangerous 
 thing." " Shallow draughts " of knowl- 
 edge are worse than ignorance. The 
 mass of the people, it is said, can go to 
 the bottom of nothing ; and the result of 
 stimulating them to thought will be the 
 formation 'of a dangerous set of half- 
 thinkers. To this argument I reply, 
 first, that it has the inconvenience of 
 proving too much ; for, if valid, it shows 
 that none of any class ought to think. 
 For who, I would ask, can go to 
 the bottom of any thing ? Whose 
 " learning " is not " little " ? Whose 
 " draughts " of knowledge are not 
 " shallow " ? Who of us has fathomed 
 the depths of a single product of nature 
 or a single event in history ? Who of us 
 is not baffled by the mysteries in a grain 
 of sand ? How contracted the range of 
 the widest intellect ! But is our knowl- 
 edge, because so little, of no worth ? 
 Are we to despise the lessons which are 
 taught us in this nook of creation, in this 
 narrow round of human experience, 
 because an infinite universe stretches 
 around us, which we have no means of 
 exploring, and in which the earth, and 
 sun, and planets, dwindle to a point ? We 
 should remember that the known, how- 
 ever little it may be, is in harmony with 
 the boundless unknown, and a step tow- 
 ards it. We should remember, too, that 
 the gravest truths may be gathered from 
 a very narrow compass of information. 
 God is revealed in his smallest work as 
 truly as in his greatest. The principles 
 of human nature may be studied better 
 in a family than in the history of the 
 world. The finite is a manifestation of 
 the infinite. The great ideas, of which 
 I have formerly spoken, are within the 
 reach of every man who thirsts for 
 truth, and seeks it with singleness of 
 mind. I will only add, that the labor- 
 ing class are not now condemned to 
 
 draughts of knowledge so shallow as to 
 merit scorn. Many of them know more 
 of the outward world than all the philos- 
 ophers of antiquity ; and Christianity 
 has opened to them mysteries of the spir- 
 itual world which kings and prophets 
 were not privileged to understand. And 
 are they, then, to be doomed to spiritual 
 inaction, as incapable of useful thought ? 
 It is sometimes said, that the multi- 
 tude may think on the common busi- 
 ness of life, but not on higher subjects, 
 and especially on religion. This, it is 
 said, must be received on authority ; on 
 this, men in general can form no judg- 
 ment of their own. But this is the last 
 subject on which the individual should 
 be willing to surrender himself to others' 
 dictation. In nothing has he so strong 
 an interest. In nothing is it so impor- 
 tant that his mind and heart should be 
 alive and engaged. In nothing has he 
 readier means of judging for himself. 
 In nothing, as history shows, is he more 
 likely to be led astray by such as assume 
 the office of thinking for him. Relig- 
 ion is a subject open to all minds. Its 
 great truths have their foundation in the 
 soul itself, and their proofs surround 
 us on all sides. God has not shut up 
 the evidence of his being in a few 
 books, written in a foreign language, 
 and locked up in the libraries of col- 
 leges and philosophers ; but has written 
 his name on the heavens and on the 
 earth, and even on the minutest animal 
 and plant ; and his word, taught by 
 Jesus Christ, was not given to scribes 
 and lawyers, but taught to the poor, to 
 the mass of men, on mountains, in streets, 
 and on the sea-shore. Let me not be told 
 that the multitude do actually receive 
 religion on authority, or on the word of 
 others. I reply, that a faith so received 
 seems to me of little worth. The pre- 
 cious, the living, the effectual part of a 
 poor man's faith, is that of which he 
 sees the reasonableness and excellence ; 
 that which approves itself to his intelli- 
 gence, his conscience, his heart ; that 
 which answers to deep wants in his own 
 soul, and of which he has the witness in 
 his own inward and outward experience. 
 All other parts of his belief, those which 
 he takes on blind trust, and in which he 
 sees no marks of truth and divinity, do 
 him little or no good. Too often they do 
 him harm, by perplexing his simple rea- 
 son, by substituting the fictions and arti-
 
 54 
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 ficial systems of theologians for the plain 
 precepts of love, and justice, and humil- 
 ity, and filial trust in God. As long as it 
 was supposed that religion is to benefit 
 the world by laying restraints, awaken- 
 ing fears, and acting as a part of the 
 system of police, so long it was natural 
 to rely on authority and tradition as the 
 means of its propagation ; so long it was 
 desirable to stifle thought and inquiry 
 on the subject. But now that we have 
 learned that the true office of religion is 
 to awaken pure and lofty sentiments, 
 and to unite man to God by rational 
 homage and enlightened love, there is 
 something monstrous in placing religion 
 beyond the thought and the study of the 
 mass of the human race. 
 
 I proceed to another prejudice. It is 
 objected, that the distinction of ranks 
 i3* essential to social order, and that 
 this will be swept away by calling forth 
 energy of thought in all men. This 
 objection, indeed, though exceedingly 
 insisted on in Europe, has nearly died 
 out here ; but still enough of it lingers 
 among us to deserve consideration. I 
 reply, then, that it is a libel on social 
 order to suppose that it requires for its 
 support the reduction of the multitude 
 of human beings to ignorance and ser- 
 vility ; and that it is a libel on the Cre- 
 ator to suppose that He requires, as the 
 foundation of communities, the sys- 
 tematic depression of the majority of 
 his intelligent offspring. The suppo- 
 sition is too grossly unreasonable, too 
 monstrous, to require labored refuta- 
 tion. I see no need of ranks, either 
 for social order or for any other pur- 
 pose. A great variety of pursuits and 
 conditions is indeed to be desired. 
 Men ought to follow their genius, and 
 to put forth their powers in every useful 
 and lawful way. I do not ask for a 
 monotonous world. We are far too 
 monotonous now. The vassalage of 
 fashion, which is a part of rank, pre- 
 vents continually the free expansion of 
 men's powers. Let us have the great- 
 est diversity of occupations. But this 
 does not imply that there is a need 
 of splitting society into castes or ranks, 
 or that a certain number should arro- 
 gate superiority, and stand apart from 
 the rest of men as a separate race. 
 Men may work in different departments 
 of life, and yet recognize their brotherly 
 relation, and honor one another, and hold 
 
 friendly communion with one another. 
 Undoubtedly, men will prefer as friends 
 and common associates those with 
 whom they sympathize most. But this 
 is not to form a rank or caste. For 
 example, the intelligent seek out the 
 intelligent ; the pious, those who rever- 
 ence God. But suppose the intellectual 
 and the religious to cut themselves off 
 by some broad, visible distinction from 
 the rest of society, to form a clan of 
 their own, to refuse admission into their 
 houses to people of inferior knowledge 
 and virtue, and to diminish as far as 
 possible the occasions of intercourse 
 with them ; would not society rise up, 
 as one man, against this arrogant ex- 
 clusiveness ? And if intelligence and 
 piety may not be the foundations of a 
 caste, on what ground shall they, who 
 have no distinction but wealth, supe- 
 rior costume, richer equipages, finer 
 houses, draw lines around themselves 
 and constitute themselves a higher 
 class ? That some should be richer 
 than others is natural, and is necessary, 
 and could only be prevented by gross 
 violations of right. Leave men to the 
 free use of their powers, and some will 
 accumulate more than their neighbors. 
 But to be prosperous is not to be supe- 
 rior, and should form no barrier between 
 men. Wealth ought not to secure to 
 the prosperous the slightest consider- 
 ation. The only distinctions which 
 should be recognized are those of the 
 soul, of strong principle, of incorrupti- 
 ble integrity, of usefulness, of culti- 
 vated intellect, of fidelity in seeking 
 for truth. A man, in proportion as he 
 has these claims, should be honored 
 and welcomed everywhere. I see not 
 why such a man, however coarsely if 
 neatly dressed, should not be a re- 
 spected guest ' in the most splendid 
 mansions, and at the most brilliant 
 meetings. A man is worth infinitely 
 more than the saloons, and the cos- 
 tumes, and the show of the universe. 
 He was made to tread all these be- 
 neath his feet. What an insult to hu- 
 manity is the present deference to dress 
 and upholstery, as if silk-worms, and 
 looms, and scissors, and needles could 
 produce something nobler than a man ! 
 Every good man should protest against 
 a caste founded on outward prosperity, 
 because it exalts the outward above the 
 inward, the material above the spir-
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 55 
 
 itual ; because it springs from and 
 cherishes a contemptible pride in su- 
 perficial and transitory distinctions ; 
 because it alienates man from his 
 brother, breaks the tie of common 
 humanity, and breeds jealousy, scorn, 
 and mutual ill-will. Can this be needed 
 to social order ? 
 
 It is true, that in countries where the 
 mass of the people are ignorant and 
 servile, the existence of a higher and 
 a worshipped rank tends to keep them 
 from outrage. It infuses a sentiment 
 of awe, which prevents more or less 
 the need of force and punishment. 
 But it is worthy of remark, that the 
 means of keeping order in one state 
 of society may become the chief ex- 
 citement of discontent and disorder in 
 another, and this is peculiarly true of 
 aristocracy or high rank. In rude ages, 
 this keeps the people down ; but when 
 the people by degrees have risen to 
 some consciousness of their rights and 
 essential equality with the rest of the 
 race, the awe of rank naturally subsides, 
 and passes into suspicion, jealousy, and 
 sense of injury, and a disposition to 
 resist. The very institution which once 
 restrained, now provokes. Through 
 this process the Old World is now pass- 
 ing. The strange illusion, that a man, 
 because he wears a garter or a riband, or 
 was born to a title, belongs to another 
 race, is fading away ; and society must 
 pass through a series of revolutions, 
 silent or bloody, until a more natural 
 order takes place of distinctions which 
 grew originally out of force. Thus, 
 aristocracy, instead of giving order to 
 society, now convulses it. So impos- 
 sible is it for arbitrary human ordina- 
 tions permanently to degrade human 
 nature, or subvert the principles of 
 justice and freedom. 
 
 I am aware that it will be said, "that 
 the want of refinement of manners and 
 taste in the lower classes will neces- 
 sarily keep them an inferior caste, even 
 though all political inequalities be re- 
 moved." I acknowledge this defect of 
 manners in the multitude, and grant 
 that it is an obstacle to intercourse with 
 the more improved, though often exag- 
 gerated. But this is a barrier which 
 must and will yield to the means of 
 culture spread through our community. 
 The evil is not necessarily associated 
 with any condition of human life. An 
 
 intelligent traveller* tells us, that in 
 Norway, a country wanting many of 
 our advantages, good manners and po- 
 liteness are spread through all condi- 
 tions ; and that the " rough way of 
 talking t^> and living with each other, 
 characteristic of the lower classes of 
 society in England, is not found there." 
 Not many centuries ago, the intercourse 
 of the highest orders in Europe was 
 sullied by indelicacy and fierceness ; 
 but time has worn out these stains, and 
 the same cause is now removing what 
 is repulsive among those who toil with 
 their hands. I cannot believe that 
 coarse manners, boisterous conversa- 
 tion, slovenly negligence, filthy customs, 
 surliness, indecency, are to descend by 
 necessity from generation to genera- 
 tion in any portion of the community. 
 I do not see why neatness, courtes^, 
 delicacy, ease, and deference to others' 
 feelings, may not be made the habits of 
 the laboring multitude. A change is 
 certainly going on among them in re- 
 spect to manners. Let us hope that it 
 will be a change for the better ; that 
 they will not adopt false notions of re- 
 finement ; that they will escape the 
 servile imitation of what is hollow and 
 insincere, and the substitution of out- 
 ward shows for genuine natural courtesy. 
 Unhappily they have but imperfect 
 models on which to form themselves. 
 It is not one class alone which needs 
 reform in manners. We all need a new 
 social intercourse, which shall breathe 
 genuine refinement ; which shall unite 
 the two great elements of politeness, 
 self-respect, and a delicate regard to the 
 rights and feelings of others ; which 
 shall be free without rudeness, and 
 earnest without positiveness ; which 
 shall be graceful, yet warm-hearted ; 
 and in which communication shall be 
 frank, unlabored, overflowing, through 
 the absence of all assumption and pre- 
 tence, and through the consciousness 
 of being safe from heartless ridicule. 
 This grand reform, which I trust is to 
 come, will bring with it a happiness 
 little known in social life ; and whence 
 shall it come ? The wise and disinter- 
 ested of all conditions must contribute 
 to it ; and I see not why the laboring 
 classes may not take part in the work. 
 Indeed, when I consider the greater 
 
 * See Laing's Travels in Norway.
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 simplicity of their lives and their greater 
 openness to the spirit of Christianity, 
 I am not sure but that the "golden 
 age " of manners is to begin among 
 those who are now despaired of for 
 their want of refinement. , 
 
 In these remarks, I have given the name 
 of " prejudices" to the old opinions re- 
 specting rank, and respecting the need 
 of keeping the people from much thought. 
 But allow these opinions to have a 
 foundation in truth ; suppose high fences 
 of rank to be necessary to refinement of 
 manners ; suppose that the happiest of 
 all ages were the feudal, when aristoc- 
 racy was in its flower and glory, when 
 the noble, superior to the laws, com- 
 mitted more murders in one year than 
 the multitude in twenty. Suppose it 
 best for the laborer to live and die in 
 thoughtless ignorance. Allow all this, 
 and that we have reason to look with 
 envy on the past ; one thing is plain, the 
 past is gone, the feudal castle is dis- 
 mantled, the distance between classes 
 greatly reduced. Unfortunate as it may 
 be, the people have begun to think, to 
 ask reasons for what they do and suffer 
 and believe, and to call the past to ac- 
 count. Old spells are broken, old reli- 
 ances gone. Men can no longer be kept 
 down by pageantry, state-robes, forms, 
 and shows. Allowing it to be best that 
 society should rest on the depression of 
 the multitude, the multitude will no 
 longer be quiet when they are trodden 
 under foot, but ask impatiently for a 
 reason why they too may not have a 
 share in social blessings. Such is the 
 state of things, and we must make the 
 best of what we cannot prevent. Right 
 or wrong, the people will think ; and is 
 it not important .that they should think 
 justly ? that they should be inspired with 
 the love of truth, and instructed how to 
 seek it ? that they should be established 
 by wise culture in the great principles 
 on which religion and society rest, and 
 be protected from scepticism and wild 
 speculation by intercourse with enlight- 
 ened and virtuous men? It is plain 
 that, in the actual state of the world, 
 nothing can avail us but a real improve- 
 ment of the mass of the people. No 
 stable foundation can be laid for us but 
 in men's minds. Alarming as the truth 
 is, it should be told, that outward institu- 
 tions cannot now secure us. Mightier 
 powers than institutions have come into 
 
 play among us, the judgment, the opin- 
 ions, the feelings of the many ; and all 
 hopes of stability which do not rest on 
 the progress of the many must perish. 
 
 But a more serious objection than any 
 yet considered, to the intellectual ele- 
 vation of the laboring class, remains to 
 be stated. It is said, "that the laborer 
 can gain subsistence for himself and his 
 family only by a degree of labor which 
 forbids the use of means of improve- 
 ment. His necessary toils leave no time 
 or strength for thought. Political econ- 
 omy, by showing that population out- 
 strips the means of improvement, passes 
 an irrepealable sentence of ignorance and 
 degradation on the laborer. He can live 
 but for one end, which is to keep him- 
 self alive. He cannot give time and 
 strength to intellectual, social, and moral 
 culture, without starving his family, and 
 impoverishing the community. Nature 
 has laid this heavy law on the mass of 
 the people, and it is idle to set up our 
 theories and dreams of improvement 
 against nature." 
 
 This objection applies with great force 
 to Europe, and is not without weight 
 here. But it does not discourage me. 
 I reply, first, to this objection, that it 
 generally comes from a suspicious source. 
 It comes generally from men who abound, 
 and are at ease ; who think more of 
 property than of any other human inter- 
 est ; who have little concern for the mass 
 of their fellow-creatures ; who are willing 
 that others should bear all the burdens 
 of life, and that any social order should 
 continue which secures to themselves 
 personal comfort or gratification. The 
 selfish epicure and the thriving man of 
 business easily discover a natural neces- 
 sity for that state of things which accu- 
 mulates on themselves all ihe blessings, 
 and on their neighbor all the evils, of 
 life. But no man can judge what is good 
 or necessary for the multitude but he 
 who feels for them, and whose equity 
 and benevolence are shocked by the 
 thought that all advantages are to be 
 monopolized by one set of men, and all 
 disadvantages by another. I wait for 
 the judgment of profound thinkers and 
 earnest philanthropists on this point, a 
 judgment formed after patient study of 
 political economy, and human nature and 
 human history ; nor even on such au- 
 thority shall I readily despair of the mul- 
 titude of my race.
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 57 
 
 In the next place, the objection under 
 consideration is very much a repetition 
 of the old doctrine, that what has been 
 must be ; that the future is always to re- 
 peat the past, and society to tread for 
 ever the beaten path. But can any thing 
 be plainer than that the present condition 
 of the world is peculiar, unprecedented ? 
 that new powers and new principles are 
 at work ? that the application of science 
 to art is accomplishing a stupendous rev- 
 olution ? that the condition of the laborer 
 is in many places greatly improved, and 
 his intellectual' aids increased? that 
 abuses, once thought essential to so- 
 ciety, and which seemed entwined with 
 all its fibres, have been removed ? Do 
 the mass of men stand where they did a 
 few centuries ago ? And do not new 
 circumstances, if they make us fearful, 
 at the same time keep us from despair ? 
 The future, be it what it may, will not 
 resemble the past. The present has 
 new elements, which must work out new 
 weal or woe. We have no right, then, 
 on the ground of the immutableness of 
 human affairs, to quench, as far as we 
 have power, the hope of social progress. 
 
 Another consideration, in reply to the 
 objection that the necessary toils of life 
 exclude improvement, maybe drawn not 
 only from general history, but from the 
 experience of this country in particular. 
 The working classes here have risen 
 and are still rising intellectually, and 
 yet there are no signs of starvation, nor 
 are we becoming the poorest people on 
 earth. By far the most interesting view 
 of this country is the condition of the 
 working multitude. Nothing among us 
 deserves the attention of the traveller 
 so much as the force of thought and 
 character, and the self-respect awakened 
 by our history and institutions in the 
 mass of the people. Our prosperous 
 classes are much like the same classes 
 abroad, though, as we hope, of purer 
 morals ; but the great working multitude 
 leave far behind them the laborers of 
 other countries. No man of observa- 
 tion and benevolence can converse with 
 them without being struck and delighted 
 with the signs they give of strong and 
 sound intellect and manly principle. 
 And who is authorized to set bounds to 
 this progress ? In improvement the 
 first steps are the hardest. The diffi- 
 culty is to wake up men's souls, not to 
 continue their action. Every accession 
 
 of light and strength is a help to new 
 acquisitions. 
 
 Another consideration, in reply to the 
 objection, is, that as yet no community 
 has seriously set itself to the work of 
 improving all its members, so that what 
 is possible remains to be ascertained. 
 No experiment has been made to deter- 
 mine how far liberal provision can be 
 made at once for the body and mind of 
 the laborer. The highest social art is 
 yet in its infancy. Great minds have 
 nowhere solemnly, earnestly undertaken 
 to resolve the problem, how the multi- 
 tude of men may be elevated. The trial 
 is to come. Still more, the multitude 
 have nowhere comprehended distinctly 
 the true idea of progress, and resolved 
 deliberately and solemnly to reduce 
 it to reality. This great thought, how- 
 ever, is gradually opening on them, 
 and it is destined to work won- 
 ders. From themselves their salvation 
 must chiefly come. Little can be done 
 for them by others, till a spring is 
 touched in their own breasts ; and this 
 being done, they cannot fail. The peo- 
 ple, as history shows us, can accomplish 
 miracles under the power of a great 
 idea. How much have they often done 
 and suffered in critical moments for 
 country, for religion ! The great idea 
 of their own elevation is only beginning 
 to unfold itself within them, and its 
 energy is not to be foretold. A lofty 
 conception of this kind, were it once 
 distinctly seized, would be a new life 
 breathed into them. Under this impulse 
 they would create time and strength for 
 their high calling, and would not only 
 regenerate themselves, but the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Again, I am not discouraged by the 
 objection, that the laborer, if encouraged 
 to give time and strength to the eleva- 
 tion of his mind, will starve himself and 
 impoverish the country, when I con- 
 sider the energy and efficiency of mind. 
 The highest force in the universe is 
 mind. This created the heavens and 
 earth. This has changed the wilder- 
 ness into fruitfulness, and linked distant 
 countries in a beneficent ministry to one 
 another's wants. It is not to brute 
 force, to physical strength, so much as 
 to art, to skill, to intellectual and moral 
 energy, that men owe their mastery 
 over the world. It is mind which has 
 conquered matter. To fear, then, that
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 by calling forth a people's mind, we 
 shall impoverish and starve them, is to 
 be frightened at a shadow. I believe, 
 that with the growth of intellectual and 
 moral power in the community, its pro- 
 ductive power will increase, that indus- 
 try will become more efficient, that a 
 wiser economy will accumulate wealth, 
 that, unimagined resources of art and 
 nature will be discovered. I believe 
 that the means of living will grow easier, 
 in proportion as a people shall become 
 enlightened, self-respecting, resolute, 
 and just Bodily or material forces 
 can be .measured, but not the forces of 
 the soul ; nor can the results of in- 
 creased mental energy be foretold. 
 Such a community will tread down ob- 
 stacles now deemed invincible, and turn 
 them into helps. The inward moulds 
 the outward. The power of a people 
 lies in its mind ; and this mind, if forti- 
 fied and enlarged, will bring external 
 things into harmony with itself. It will 
 create a new world around it, corre- 
 sponding to itself. If, however, I err in 
 this belief ; if, by securing time and 
 means for improvement to the multi- 
 tude, industry and capital should be- 
 come less productive, I still say, Sacrifice 
 the wealth, and not the mind of a peo- 
 ple. Nor do I believe that the physical 
 good of a community would in this way 
 be impaired. The diminution of a coun- 
 try's wealth, occasioned by general at- 
 tention to intellectual and moral culture, 
 would be followed by very different 
 effects from those which would attend 
 an equal diminution brought about by 
 sloth, intemperance, and ignorance. 
 There would indeed be less production 
 in such a country, but the character and 
 spirit of the people would effect a much 
 more equal distribution of what would 
 be produced ; and the happiness of a 
 community depends vastly more on the 
 distribution than on the amount of its 
 wealth. In thus speaking of the future, 
 I do not claim any special prophetical 
 gift. As a general rule, no man is able 
 to foretell distinctly the ultimate, per- 
 manent results of any great social 
 change. But as to the case before us, 
 we ought not to doubt. It is a part of 
 religion to believe that by nothing can a 
 country so effectually gain happiness 
 and lasting prosperity as by the eleva- 
 tion of all classes of its citizens. To ques- 
 tion this seems an approach to crime. 
 
 " If this fail, 
 
 The pillar 1 d firmament is rottenness, 
 And earth's base built on stubble." 
 
 I am aware that, in reply to all that 
 has been said in favor of the possibility 
 of uniting self-improvement with labor, 
 discouraging facts may be brought for- 
 ward from our daily experience. It 
 may be said that in this country, under 
 advantages unknown in other lands, 
 there is a considerable number on whom 
 the burden or toil presses very heavily, 
 who can scarcely live with all their 
 efforts, and who are cut off by their 
 hard condition from the means of intel- 
 lectual culture ; and if this take place 
 now, what are we to expect hereafter 
 in a more crowded population ? I ac- 
 knowledge that we have a number of 
 depressed laborers, whose state is ex- 
 ceedingly unpropitious to the education 
 of the mind : but this argument will 
 lose much of its power when we inquire 
 into the causes of this evil. We shall 
 then see that it comes, not from outward 
 necessity, not from the irresistible ob- 
 stacles abroad, but chiefly from the 
 fault or ignorance of the sufferers them- 
 selves ; so that the elevation of the 
 mind and character of the laborer tends 
 directly to reduce, if not remove, the evil. 
 Of consequence, this elevation finds 
 support in what is urged against it. In 
 confirmation of these views, allow me 
 just to hint at the causes of that de- 
 pression of many laborers which is said 
 to show that labor and self-improvement 
 cannot go on together. 
 
 First, how much of this depression is 
 to be traced to intemperance ? What a 
 great amount of time, and strength, and 
 money, might multitudes gain for self- 
 improvement, by a strict sobriety ! That 
 cheap remedy, pure water, would cure 
 the chief evils in very many families of 
 the ignorant and poor. Were the sums 
 which are still lavished on ardent spirits 
 appropriated wisely to the elevation of 
 the people, what a new world we should 
 live in ! Intemperance not' only wastes 
 the earnings, but the health and the 
 minds of men. How many, were they 
 to exchange what they call moderate 
 drinking for water, would be surprised 
 to learn that they had been living under 
 a cloud, in half-stupefaction, and would 
 become conscious of an intellectual en- 
 ergy of which they had not before 
 dreamed ! Their labors would exhaust
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 59 
 
 them less ; and less labor would be 
 needed for their support : and thus their 
 inability to cultivate their high nature 
 would in a great measure be removed. 
 The working class, above all men, have an 
 interest in the cause of temperance, and 
 they ought to look on the individual who 
 lives by scattering the means and ex- 
 citements of drunkenness not only as the 
 general enemy of his race, but as their 
 own worst foe. 
 
 In the next place, how much of the I 
 depression of laborers may be traced to 
 the want of a strict economy ! The pros- 
 perity of this country has produced a 
 wastefulness that has extended to the 
 laboring multitude. A man, here, turns 
 with scorn from fare that in many coun- 
 tries would be termed luxurious. It is, 
 indeed, important that the standard of 
 living in all classes should be high ; that 
 is, it should include the comforts of life, 
 the means of neatness and order in our 
 dwellings, and such supplies of*our wants 
 as are fitted to secure vigorous health. 
 But how many waste their earnings on 
 indulgences which may be spared, and 
 thus have no resource for a dark day, 
 and are always trembling on the brink of 
 pauperism ! Needless expenses keep 
 many too poor for self-improvement. 
 And here let me say, that expensive 
 habits among the more prosperous labor- 
 ers often interfere with the mental cult- 
 ure of themselves and their families. 
 How many among them sacrifice im- 
 provement to appetite ! How many 
 sacrifice it to the love of show, to the 
 desire of outstripping others, and to 
 habits of expense which grow out of 
 this insatiable passion ! In a country 
 so thriving and luxurious as ours, the 
 laborer is in danger of contracting arti- 
 ficial wants and diseased tastes ; and to 
 gratify these he gives himself wholly to 
 accumulation, and sells his mind for 
 gain. Our unparalleled prosperity has 
 not been an unmixed good. It has in- 
 flamed cupidity, has diseased the imagi- 
 nation with dreams of boundless success, 
 and plunged a vast multitude into exces- 
 sive toils, feverish competitions, and 
 exhausting cares. A laborer having 
 secured a neat home and a wholesome 
 table, should ask nothing more for the 
 senses ; but should consecrate his leisure, 
 and what may be spared of his earnings, 
 to the culture of himself and his family, 
 to the best books, to the best teaching, 
 
 to pleasant and profitable intercourse, to 
 sympathy and the offices of humanity, 
 and to the enjoyment of the beautiful in 
 nature and art. Unhappily, the laborer, 
 if prosperous, is anxious to ape the rich 
 man, instead of trying to rise above 
 him, as he often may, by noble acquisi- 
 tions. The young in particular, the ap- 
 prentice and the female domestic, catch 
 a taste for fashion, and on this altar 
 sacrifice too often their uprightness, and 
 almost always the spirit of improvement, 
 dooming themselves to ignorance, if not 
 to vice, for a vain show. Is this evil 
 without remedy ? Is human nature 
 always to be sacrificed to outward dec- 
 oration ? Is the outward always to 
 triumph over the inward man? Is noble- 
 ness of sentiment never to spring up 
 among us ? May not a reform in this 
 particular begin in the laboring class, 
 since it seems so desperate among the 
 more prosperous ? Cannot the laborer, 
 whose condition calls him so loudly to 
 simplicity of taste and habits, take his 
 stand against that love of dress which 
 dissipates and corrupts so many minds 
 among the opulent ? Cannot the labor- 
 ing class refuse to measure men by out- 
 ward success, and pour utter scorn on all 
 pretensions founded on outward show or 
 condition ? Sure I am that, were they 
 to study plainness of dress and simplicity 
 of living, for the purpose of their own 
 true elevation, they would surpass in in- 
 tellect, in taste, in honorable qualities, 
 and in present enjoyment, that great 
 proportion of the prosperous who are 
 softened into indulgence or enslaved to 
 empty show. By such self-denial, ho\v 
 might the burden of labor be lightened, 
 and time and strength redeemed for im- 
 provement ! 
 
 Another cause of the depressed con- 
 dition of not a few laborers, as I believe, 
 is their ignorance on the subject of 
 health. Health is the working man's 
 fortune, and he ought to watch over it 
 more than the capitalist over his largest 
 investments. Health lightens the efforts 
 of body and mind. It enables a man to 
 crowd much work into a narrow com- 
 pass. Without it, little can be earned, 
 and that little by slow, exhausting toil. 
 For these reasons I cannot but look on 
 it as a good omen that the press is cir- 
 culating among us cheap works, in which 
 much useful knowledge is given of the 
 structure, and functions, and laws of the
 
 6o 
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 human body. It is in no small measure 
 through our own imprudence that disease 
 and debility are incurred, and one rem- 
 edy is to be found in knowledge. Once 
 let the mass of the people be instructed 
 in their own frames ; let them under- 
 stand clearly that disease is not an acci- 
 dent, but has fixed causes, many of 
 which they can avert, and a great amount 
 of suffering, want, and consequent intel- 
 lectual depression will be removed. I 
 hope I shall not be thought to digress 
 too far, when I add, that were the mass 
 of the community more enlightened on 
 these points, they would apply their 
 knowledge, not only to their private 
 habits, but to the government of the 
 city, and would insist on municipal regu- 
 lations favoring general health. This 
 they owe to themselves. They ought to 
 require a system of measures for effect- 
 ually cleansing the city ; for supplying 
 it with pure water, either at public ex- 
 pense or by a private corporation ; and for 
 prohibiting the erection or the letting of 
 such buildings as must generate disease. 
 What a sad thought is it, that in this 
 metropolis, the blessings which God 
 pours forth profusely on bird and beast, 
 the blessings of air, and light, and water, 
 should, in the case of many families, be 
 so stinted or so mixed with impurities, 
 as to injure instead of invigorating the 
 frame ! With what face can the great 
 cities of Europe and America boast of 
 their civilization, when within their lim- 
 its thousands and ten thousands perish 
 for want of God's freest, most lavish 
 gifts ! Can we expect improvement 
 among people who are cut off from 
 nature's common bounties, and want 
 those cheering influences of the ele- 
 ments which even savages enjoy ? In 
 this city, how much health, how many 
 lives are sacrificed to the practice of 
 letting cellars and rooms which cannot 
 be ventilated, which want the benefits 
 of light, free air, and pure water, and the 
 means of removing filth ! We forbid by 
 law the selling of putrid meat in the 
 market. Why do we not forbid the 
 renting of rooms in which putrid, damp, 
 and noisome vapors are working as sure 
 destruction as the worst food ? Did 
 people understand that they are as truly 
 poisoned in such dens as by tainted 
 meat and decaying vegetables, would 
 they not appoint commissioners for 
 houses as truly as commissioners for 
 
 markets ? Ought not the renting of un- 
 tenantable rooms, and the crowding of 
 such numbers into a single room as must 
 breed disease, and may infect a neigh- 
 borhood, be as much forbidden as the 
 importation of a pestilence ? I have 
 enlarged on this point, because I am 
 persuaded that the morals, manners, 
 decencies, self-respect, and intellectual 
 improvement, as well as the health and 
 physical comforts of a people, depend on 
 no outward circumstances more than on 
 the quality of the houses in which they 
 live. The remedy of the grievance now 
 stated lies with the people themselves. 
 The laboring people must require that the 
 health of the city shall be a leading ob- 
 ject of the municipal administration, and 
 in so doing they will protect at once the 
 body and the mind. 
 
 I will mention one more cause of the 
 depressed condition of many laborers, 
 and that is, sloth, " the sin which doth 
 most easily beset us." How many are 
 there who, working languidly and re- 
 luctantly, bring little to pass, spread 
 the work of one hour over many, shrink 
 from difficulties which ought to excite 
 them, keep themselves poor, and thus 
 doom their families to ignorance as well 
 as to want ! 
 
 In these remarks I have endeavored 
 to show that the great obstacles to the 
 improvement of the laboring classes 
 are in themselves, and may therefore 
 be overcome. They want nothing but 
 the will. Outward difficulty will shrink 
 and vanish before them, just as far as 
 they are bent on progress, just as far as 
 the great idea of their own elevation 
 shall take possession of their minds. 
 I know that many will smile at the sug- 
 gestion, that the laborer may be brought 
 to practise thrift and self-denial, for the 
 purpose of becoming a nobler being. 
 But such sceptics, having never expe- 
 rienced the power of a grand thought 
 or generous purpose, are no judges of 
 others. They may be assured, how- 
 ever, that enthusiasm is not wholly a 
 dream, and that it is not wholly unnat- 
 ural for individuals or bodies to get the 
 idea of something higher and more in- 
 spiring than their past attainments. 
 
 III. Having now treated of the ele- 
 vation of the laborer, and examined the 
 objections to it, I proceed, in the last 
 place, to consider some of the circum- 
 stances of the times which encourage
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 61 
 
 hopes of the progress of the mass of 
 the people. My limits oblige me to 
 confine myself to very few. And, 
 first, it is -an encouraging circumstance, 
 that the respect for labor is increasing, 
 or rathe* that the old prejudices against 
 manual toil, as degrading a man or put- 
 ting him in a lower sphere, are wearing 
 away : and the cause of this change is 
 full of promise ; for it is to be found 
 in the progress of intelligence, Chris- 
 tianity, and freedom, all of which cry 
 aloud against the old barriers created 
 between the different classes, and chal- 
 lenge especial sympathy and regard for 
 those who bear' the heaviest burdens, 
 and create most of the comforts of 
 social life. The contempt of labor of 
 which I have spoken is a relic of the 
 old aristocratic prejudices which for- 
 merly proscribed trade as unworthy of 
 a gentleman, and must die out with 
 other prejudices of the same low origin. 
 And the results must be happy. It is 
 hard for a class of men to respect them- 
 selves who are denied respect by all 
 around them. A vocation looked on as 
 degrading will have a tendency to de- 
 grade those who follow it. Away, then, 
 with the idea of something low in man- 
 ual labor. There is something sho^ck- 
 ing to a religious man in the thought 
 that the employment which God has 
 ordained for the vast majority of the 
 human race should be unworthy of any 
 man, even of the highest. If, indeed, 
 there were an employment which could 
 not be dispensed with, and which yet 
 tended to degrade such as might be de- 
 voted to it, I should say that it ought 
 to be shared by the whole race, and 
 thus neutralized by extreme division, 
 instead of being laid, as the sole voca- 
 tion, on one man or a few. Let no 
 human being be broken in spirit or 
 trodden under foot for the outward 
 prosperity of the State. So far is 
 manual labor from meriting contempt 
 or slight, that it will probably be found, 
 when united with true means of spir- 
 itual culture, to foster a sounder judg- 
 ment, a keener observation, a more 
 creative imagination, and a purer taste, 
 than any other vocation. Man thinks 
 of the few, God of the many ; and the 
 many will be found at length to have 
 within their reach the most effectual 
 means of progress. 
 
 Another encouraging circumstance of 
 
 the times is the creation of a popular 
 literature, which puts within the reach 
 of the laboring class the means of 
 knowledge in whatever branch they 
 wish to cultivate. Amidst the worthless 
 volumes which are every day sent from 
 the press for mere amusement, there 
 are books of great value in all depart- 
 ments, published for the benefit of the 
 mass of readers. Mines of inestimable 
 truth are thus open to all who are re- 
 solved to think and learn. Literature 
 is now adapting itself to all wants ; and 
 I have little doubt that a new form of 
 it will soon appear for the special ben- 
 efit of the laboring classes. This will 
 have for its object to show the progress 
 of the various useful arts, and to pre- 
 serve the memory of their founders, 
 and of men who have laid the world 
 under obligation by great inventions. 
 Every trade has distinguished names in 
 its history. Some trades can number, 
 among those who have followed them, 
 philosophers, poets, men of true gen- 
 ius. I would suggest to the members 
 of this Association whether a course of 
 lectures, intended to illustrate the his- 
 tory of the more important trades, and 
 of the great blessings they have con- 
 ferred on society, and of the eminent 
 individuals' who have practised them, 
 might not do much to instruct, and, at 
 the same time, to elevate them. Such 
 a course would carry them far into the 
 past, would open to them much inter- 
 esting information, and at the same time 
 introduce them to men whom they may 
 well make their models. I would go 
 farther. I should be pleased to see the 
 members of an important trade setting 
 apart an anniversary for the commem- 
 oration of those who have shed lustre 
 on it by their virtues, their discoveries, 
 their genius. It is time that honor 
 should be awarded on higher principles 
 than have governed the judgment of 
 past ages. Surely the inventor of the 
 press, the discoverer of the compass, 
 the men who have applied the power of 
 steam to machinery, have brought the 
 human race more largely into their 
 debt than the bloody race of con- 
 querors, and even than many benefi- 
 cent princes. Antiquity exalted into 
 divinities the first cultivators of wheat 
 and the useful plants, and the first 
 forgers of metals : and we, in these 
 maturer ages of the world, have still
 
 62 
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 greater names to boast in the records 
 of useful art. Let their memory be 
 preserved to kindle a generous emula- 
 tion in those who have entered into their 
 labors. 
 
 Another circumstance, encouraging 
 the hope of progress in the laboring 
 class, is to be found in the juster views 
 they are beginning to adopt in regard 
 to the education of their children. On 
 this foundation, indeed, our hope for all 
 classes must chiefly rest. All are to 
 rise chiefly by the care bestowed on the 
 young. Not that I would say, as is 
 sometimes rashly said, that none but the 
 young can improve. I give up no age as 
 desperate. Men who have lived thirty, 
 or fifty years, are not to feel as if the 
 door was shut upon them. Every man 
 who thirsts to become something better 
 has in that desire a pledge that his labor 
 will not be in vain. None are too old 
 to learn. The world, from our first to 
 our last hour, is our school, and the 
 whole of life has but one great purpose, 
 education. Still, the child, uncor- 
 rupted, unhardened, is the most hopeful 
 subject ; and vastly more, I believe, is 
 hereafter to be done for children, than 
 ever before, by the gradual spread of a 
 simple truth, almost too simple, one 
 would think, to need exposition, yet up 
 to this day wilfully neglected ; namely, 
 that education is a sham, a cheat, unless 
 carried on by able, accomplished teach- 
 ers. The dignity of the vocation of a 
 teacher is beginning to be understood ; 
 the idea is dawning on us that no office 
 can compare in solemnity and impor- 
 tance with that of training the child ; that 
 skill to form the young to energy, truth, 
 and virtue, is worth more than the 
 knowledge of all other arts and sci- 
 ences ; and that, of consequence, the 
 encouragement of excellent teachers is 
 the first dtity which a community owes 
 to itself. I say the truth is dawning, 
 and it must make its way. The instruc- 
 tion of the children of all classes, espe- 
 cially of the laboring class, has as yet 
 been too generally committed to unpre- 
 pared, unskilful hands, and of course the 
 school is in general little more than a 
 name. The whole worth of a school lies 
 in the teacher. You may accumulate 
 the most expensive apparatus for in- 
 struction ; but without an intellectual, 
 gifted teacher, it is little better than 
 rubbish ; and such a teacher, without 
 
 apparatus, may effect the happiest re- 
 sults. Our university boasts, and with 
 justice, of its library, cabinets, and phil- 
 osophical instruments ; but these are 
 lifeless, profitless, except as made effect- 
 ual by the men who use them. A few 
 eminent men, skilled to understand, 
 reach, and quicken the minds of the 
 pupils, are worth all these helps. And 
 I say this, because it is commonly 
 thought that the children of the labor- 
 ing class cannot be advanced, in con- 
 sequence of the inability of parents to 
 furnish a variety of books and other 
 apparatus. But in education, various 
 books and implements are not the great 
 requisites, but a high order of teachers. 
 In truth, a few books do better than 
 many. The object of education is not 
 so much to give a certain amount of 
 knowledge, as to awaken the faculties, 
 and give the pupil the use of his own 
 mind ; and one book, taught by a man 
 who knows how to accomplish these ends, 
 is worth more than libraries as usually 
 read. It is not necessary that much 
 should be taught in youth, but that a 
 little should be taught philosophically, 
 profoundly, livingly. For example, it is 
 not necessary that the pupil be carried 
 over the history of the world from the 
 deluge to the present day. Let him be 
 helped to read a single history wisely, 
 to apply the principles of historical evi- 
 dence to its statements, to trace the 
 causes and effects of events, to pene- 
 trate into the motives of actions, to 
 observe the workings of human nature 
 in what is done and suffered, to judge 
 impartially of action and character, to 
 sympathize with what is noble, to detect 
 the spirit of an age in different forms 
 from our own, to seize the great truths 
 which are wrapped up in details, and to 
 discern a moral Providence, a retribu- 
 tion, amidst all corruptions and changes ; 
 let him learn to read a single history 
 thus, and he has learned to read all his- 
 tories ; he is prepared to study, as he 
 may have time in future life, the whole 
 course of human events : he is better 
 educated by this one book than he 
 would be by all the histories in all lan- 
 guages as commonly taught. The edu- 
 cation of the laborer's children need 
 never stop for want of books and appa- 
 ratus. More of them would do good, but 
 enough may be easily obtained. What 
 we want is, a race of teachers acquainted
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 with the philosophy of the mind, gifted 
 men and women, who shall respect 
 human nature in the child, and strive 
 to touch and gently bring out his best 
 powers and sympathies ; and who shall 
 devote themselves to this as the great 
 end of life. This good, I trust, is to 
 come, but it comes slowly. The estab- 
 lishment of normal schools shows that 
 the want of it begins to be felt. This 
 good requires that education shall be 
 recognized by the community as its 
 highest interest and duty. It requires 
 that the instructors of youth shall take 
 precedence of the money-getting classes, 
 and that the woman of fashion shall fall 
 behind the female teacher. It requires 
 that parents shall sacrifice show and 
 pleasure to the acquisition of the best 
 possible helps and guides for their chil- 
 dren. Not that a great pecuniary com- 
 pensation is to create good teachers ; 
 these must be formed by individual im- 
 pulse, by a genuine interest in educa- 
 tion ; but good impulse must be sec- 
 onded by outward circumstances ; and 
 the means of education will always bear 
 a proportion to the respect in which the 
 office of teacher is held in the commu- 
 nity. 
 
 Happily, in this country, the true idea 
 of education, of its nature and supreme 
 importance, is silently working and gains 
 ground. Those of us who look back 
 on half a century, see a real, great 
 improvement in schools and in the 
 standard of instruction. What should 
 encourage this movement in this coun- 
 try is, that nothing is wanting here to 
 the intellectual elevation of the laboring 
 class but that a spring should be given 
 to the child, and that the art of thinking 
 justly and strongly should be formed in 
 early life ; for, this preparation being 
 made, the circumstances of future life 
 will almost of themselves carry on the 
 work of improvement. It is one of the 
 inestimable benefits of free institutions, 
 that they are constant stimulants to the 
 intellect ; that they furnish, in rapid suc- 
 cession, quickening subjects of thought 
 and discussion. A whole people at the 
 same moment are moved to reflect, rea- 
 son, judge, and act on matters of deep 
 and universal concern ; and where the 
 capacity of thought has received wise 
 culture, the intellect, unconsciously, by 
 an almost irresistible sympathy, is kept 
 perpetually alive. The mind, like the 
 
 body, depends on the climate it lives in, 
 on the air it breathes ; and the air of 
 freedom is bracing, exhilarating, ex- 
 panding, to a degree not dreamed of 
 under a despotism. This stimulus of 
 liberty, however, avails little, except 
 where the mind has learned to think for 
 the acquisition of truth. The unthink- 
 ing and passionate are hurried by it into 
 ruinous excess. 
 
 The last ground of hope for the ele- 
 vation of the laborer, and the chief and 
 the most sustaining, is the clearer de- 
 velopment of the principles of Chris- 
 tianity. The future influences of this 
 religion are not to be judged from the 
 past. Up to this time it has been made 
 a political engine, and in other ways 
 perverted. But its true spirit, the spirit 
 of brotherhood and freedom, 'is begin- 
 ning to be understood, and this will 
 undo the work which opposite princi- 
 ples have been carrying on for ages. 
 Christianity is the only effectual remedy 
 for the fearful evils of modern civiliza- 
 tion, a system which teaches its mem- 
 bers to grasp at every thing, and to rise 
 above everybody, as the great aims of 
 life. Of such a civilization the natural 
 fruits are, contempt of others' rights, 
 fraud, oppression, a gambling spirit in 
 trade, reckless adventure, and commer- 
 cial convulsions, all tending to impover- 
 ish the laborer and to render every con- 
 dition insecure. Relief is to come, and 
 can only come, from the new application 
 of Christian principles, of universal jus- 
 tice and universal love, to social institu- 
 tions, to commerce, to business, to active 
 life. This application has begun, and 
 the laborer, above all men, is to feel its 
 happy and exalting influences. 
 
 Such are some of the circumstances 
 which inspire hopes of the elevation of 
 the laboring classes. To these might 
 be added other strong grounds of en- 
 couragement, to be found in the princi- 
 ples of human nature, in the perfections 
 and providence of God, and in the pro- 
 phetic intimations of his word. But 
 these I pass over. From all I derive 
 strong hopes for the mass of men. I do 
 not, cannot see, why manual toil and 
 self-improvement may not go on in 
 friendly union. I do not see why the 
 laborer may not attain to refined habits 
 and manners as truly as other men. I 
 do not see why conversation under his 
 humble roof may not be cheered by wit
 
 6 4 
 
 ON THE ELEVATION OF 
 
 and exalted by intelligence. I do not 
 see why, amidst his toils, he may not 
 cast his eye around him on God's glo- 
 rious creation, and be strengthened and 
 refreshed by the sight. 1 do not see 
 why the great ideas which exalt human- 
 ity those of the Infinite Father, of 
 perfection, of our nearness to God, and 
 of the purpose of our being may not 
 grow bright and strong in the laborer's 
 mind. Society, I trust, is tending tow- 
 ards a condition in which it will look 
 back with astonishment at the present 
 neglect or perversion of human powers. 
 In the development of a more enlarged 
 philanthropy, in the diffusion of the 
 Christian spirit of brotherhood, in the 
 recognition of the equal rights of every 
 human being, we have the dawn and 
 promise of a better age, when no man 
 will be deprived of the means of ele- 
 vation but by his own fault ; when the 
 evil doctrine, worthy of the arch-fiend, 
 that social order demands the depression 
 of the mass of men, will be rejected with 
 horror and scorn; when the great object 
 of the community will be to accumulate 
 means and influences for awakening and 
 expanding the best powers of all classes; 
 when far less will be expended on the 
 body and far more on the mind ; when 
 men of uncommon gifts for the instruc- 
 tion of their race will be sent forth to 
 carry light and strength into every sphere 
 of human life ; when spacious libraries, 
 collections of the fine arts, cabinets of 
 natural history, and all the institutions 
 by which the people may be refined and 
 ennobled, will be formed and thrown 
 open to all ; and when the toils of life, 
 by a wise intermixture of these higher 
 influences, will be made the instruments 
 of human elevation. 
 
 Such are my hopes of the intellectual, 
 moral, religious, social elevation of the 
 laboring class. I should not, however, 
 be true to myself, did I not add that I 
 have fears as well as hopes. Time is 
 not left me to enlarge on this point ; but 
 without a reference to it I should not 
 give you the whole truth. I would not 
 disguise from myself or others the true 
 character of the world we live in. Hu- 
 man imperfection throws an uncertainty 
 over the future. Society, like the nat- 
 ural world, holds in its bosom fearful 
 elements. Who can hope that the storms 
 which have howled over past ages have 
 spent all their force ? It is possible 
 
 that the laboring classes, by their reck- 
 lessness, their passionateness, their jeal- 
 ousies of the more prosperous, and their 
 subserviency to parties and political 
 leaders, may turn all their bright pros- 
 pects into darkness, may blight the 
 hopes which philanthropy now cherishes 
 of a happier and holier social state. It 
 is also possible, in this mysterious state 
 of things, that evil may come to them 
 from causes which are thought to prom- 
 ise them nothing but good. The pres- 
 ent anxiety and universal desire is to 
 make the country rich, and it is taken 
 for granted that its growing wealth is 
 necessarily to benefit all conditions. But 
 is this consequence sure ? May not a 
 country be rich, and yet great numbers 
 of the people be wofully depressed ? In 
 England, the richest nation under heav- 
 en, how sad, how degraded the state of 
 the agricultural and manufacturing 
 classes ! It is thought that the institu- 
 tions of this country give an assurance 
 that growing wealth will here equally 
 benefit and carry forward all portions of 
 the community. I hope so ; but I am 
 not sure. At the present time a mo- 
 mentous change is taking place in our 
 condition. The improvement in steam 
 navigation has half annihilated the space 
 between Europe and America, and by 
 the progress of invention the two con- 
 tinents are to be more and more placed 
 side by side. We hail this triumph of 
 the arts with exultation. We look for- 
 ward to the approaching spring, when 
 this metropolis is to be linked with 
 England by a line of steamboats, as a 
 proud era in our history. That a great 
 temporary excitement will be given to 
 industry, and that our wealth and num- 
 bers will increase, admits no dispute ; 
 but this is a small matter. The great 
 question is, Will the mass of the people 
 be permanently advanced in the com- 
 forts of life, and, still more, in intelli- 
 gence and character, in the culture of 
 their highest powers and affections ? It 
 is not enough to grow, if our growth is 
 to resemble that of other populous 
 places. Better continue as we are, bet- 
 ter even decline, than tread in the steps 
 of any great city, whether of past or 
 present times. I doubt not that, under 
 God's providence, the approximation of 
 Europe and America is ultimately to be 
 a blessing to both ; but without our vig- 
 ilance, the nearer effects may be more
 
 THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 or less disastrous. It cannot be doubted 
 that for a time many among us, espe- 
 cially in the prosperous classes, will be 
 more and more infected from abroad, 
 will sympathize more with the institu- 
 tions, and catch more the spirit and 
 manners, of the Old World. As a people 
 we want moral independence. We bow 
 to " the great " of other countries, and 
 we shall become for a time more and 
 more servile in our imitation. But this, 
 though bad, may not be the worst result. 
 I would ask, What is to be the effect 
 of bringing the laboring classes of 
 Europe twice as near us as they now 
 are ? Is there no danger of a competi- 
 tion that is to depress the laboring 
 classes here ? Can the workman here 
 stand his ground against the half- 
 famished, ignorant workmen of Europe, 
 who will toil for any wages, and who 
 never think of redeeming an hour for 
 personal improvement ? Is there no 
 danger that, with increasing intercourse 
 with Europe, we shall import the strik- 
 ing, fearful contrasts which there divide 
 one people into separate nations ? Soon- 
 er than that our laboring class should 
 become a European populace, a good 
 man would almost wish that perpetual 
 hurricanes, driving every ship from the 
 ocean, should sever wholly the two hem- 
 ispheres from each other. Heaven pre- 
 serve us from the anticipated benefits 
 of nearer connection with Europe, if 
 with these must come the degradation 
 which we see or read of among the 
 squalid poor of her great cities, among 
 the overworked operatives of her manu- 
 factories, among her ignorant and half- 
 brutalized peasants ! Any thing, every 
 thing should be done to save us from 
 the social evils which deform the Old 
 World, and to build up here an intelli- 
 gent, right-minded, self-respecting popu- 
 lation. If this end should require us to 
 change our present modes of life, to 
 narrow our foreign connections, to desist 
 from the race of commercial and manu- 
 facturing competition with Europe : if 
 it should require that our great cities 
 should cease to grow, and that a large 
 portion of our trading population should 
 return to labor, these requisitions ought 
 to be obeyed. One thing is plain, that 
 our present civilization contains strong 
 tendencies to the intellectual and moral 
 depression of a large portion of the com- 
 munity ; and this influence ought to be 
 
 thought of, studied, watched, withstood, 
 with a stern, solemn purpose of with- 
 holding no sacrifice by which it may 
 be counteracted. 
 
 Perhaps the fears now expressed 
 may be groundless. I do not ask you 
 to adopt them. My end will be gained 
 if I can lead you to study, habitually 
 and zealously, the influence of changes 
 and measures on the character and 
 condition of the laboring class. There 
 is no subject on which your thoughts 
 should turn more frequently than on 
 this. Many of you busy yourselves 
 with other questions, such as the prob- 
 able result of the next election of Pres- 
 ident, or the prospects of this or that 
 party. But these are insignificant, com- 
 pared with the great question, Whether 
 the laboring classes here are destined 
 to the ignorance and depression of the 
 lower ranks of Europe, or whether they 
 can secure to themselves the means of 
 intellectual and moral progress. You 
 are cheated, you are false to yourselves, 
 when you suffer politicians to absorb 
 you in their selfish purposes, and to 
 draw you away from this great question. 
 Give the first place in your thoughts to 
 this. Carry it away with you from the 
 present lecture ; discuss it together ; 
 study it when alone ; let your best 
 heads work on it ; resolve that nothing 
 shall be wanting on your part to secure 
 the means of intellectual and moral 
 well-being to yourselves, and to those 
 who may come after you. 
 
 In these lectures, I have expressed a 
 strong interest in the laboring portion 
 of the community ; but I have no par- 
 tiality to them considered merely as 
 laborers. My mind is attracted to them 
 because they constitute the majority of 
 the human race. My great interest is 
 in human nature, and in the working 
 classes as its most numerous represent- 
 atives. To those who look on this 
 nature with contempt or utter distrust, 
 such language may seem a mere form, 
 or may be construed as a sign of the 
 predominance of imagination and feel- 
 ing over the judgment. No matter. 
 The pity of these sceptics I can return. 
 Their wonder at my credulity cannot 
 surpass the sorrowful astonishment with 
 which I look on their indifference to 
 the fortunes of their race. In spite of 
 all their doubts and scoffs, human nat- 
 ure is still most dear to me. When I
 
 66 ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES. 
 
 behold it manifested in its perfect pro- 
 portions in Jesus Christ, I cannot but 
 revere it as the true temple of the 
 Divinity. When I see it as revealed 
 in the great and good of all times, I 
 bless God for those multiplied and 
 growing proofs of its high destiny. 
 When I see it bruised, beaten down, 
 stifled by ignorance and vice, by op- 
 pression, injustice, and grinding toil, I 
 weep for it, and feel that every man 
 should be ready to suffer for its redemp- 
 tion. I do and I must hope for its 
 progress. But in saying this, I am not 
 blind to its immediate dangers. I am 
 not sure that dark clouds and desolat- 
 ing storms are not even now gathering 
 over the world. When we look back 
 on the mysterious history of the human 
 race, we see that Providence has made 
 use of fearful revolutions as the means 
 of sweeping away the abuses of ages, 
 and of bringing forward mankind to 
 their present improvement. Whether 
 such revolutions may not be in store 
 for our own times, I know not. The 
 present civilization of the Christian 
 world presents much to awaken doubt 
 and apprehension. It stands in direct 
 hostility to the great ideas of Christian- 
 ity. It is selfish, mercenary, sensual. 
 Such a civilization cannot, must not, 
 endure for ever. How it is to be sup- 
 planted, I know not. I hope, however, 
 that it is not doomed, like the old Ro- 
 man civilization, to be quenched in 
 blood. ! trust that the works of ages 
 are not to be laid low by violence, rap- 
 ine, and the all-devouring sword. I 
 trust that the existing social state con- 
 tains in its bosom something better 
 than it has yet unfolded. I trust that a 
 brighter future is to come, not from the 
 desolation, but from gradual, meliorating 
 changes of the present. Among the 
 changes to which I look for the salva- 
 tion of the modern world, one of the 
 chief is the intellectual and moral ele- 
 vation of the laboring class. The im- 
 pulses which are to reform and quicken 
 society are probably to come, not from 
 its more conspicuous, but from its ob- 
 scurer divisions ; and among these I 
 see with joy new wants, principles, and 
 aspirations beginning to unfold them- 
 selves. Let what is already won give 
 us courage. Let faith in a parental 
 Providence give us courage ; and if we 
 
 are to be disappointed in the present, 
 let us never doubt that the great inter- 
 ests of human nature are still secure 
 under the eye and care of an Almighty 
 Friend. 
 
 Note for the third head. Under the 
 third head of the lectures, in which 
 some of the encouraging circumstances 
 of the times are stated, I might have 
 spoken of the singular advantages and 
 means of progress enjoyed by the laborer 
 in this metropolis. It is believed that 
 there cannot be found another city in the 
 world in which the laboring classes are 
 as much improved, possess as many 
 helps, enjoy as much consideration, exert 
 as much influence, as in this place. Had 
 I pursued this subject, I should have 
 done what I often wished to do ; I 
 should have spoken of the obligations 
 of our city to my excellent friend, James 
 Savage, Esq., to whose unwearied efforts 
 we are chiefly indebted for two inesti- 
 mable institutions, the Provident In- 
 stitution for Savings and the Primary 
 Schools ; the former giving to the laborer 
 the means of sustaining himself in times 
 of pressure, and the latter placing almost 
 at his door the means of instruction for 
 his children from the earliest age. The 
 union of the Primary Schools with the 
 Grammar Schools and the High Schools 
 in this place constitutes a system of 
 public education unparalleled, it is be- 
 lieved, in any country. It would not be 
 easy to name an individual to whom our 
 city is under greater obligations than to 
 Mr. Savage. In the enterprises which 
 I have named, he was joined and greatly 
 assisted by the late Elisha Ticknor, Esq., 
 whose name ought also to be associated 
 with the Provident Institution and the 
 Primary Schools. The subject of these 
 lectures brings to my mind the plan of 
 an institution which was laid before me 
 by Mr. Ticknor, for teaching at once 
 agriculture and the mechanic arts. He 
 believed that a boy might be made a 
 thorough farmer, both in theory and 
 practice, and might at the same time 
 learn a trade, and that by being skilled 
 in both vocations he would be more 
 useful, and would multiply his chances 
 of comfortable subsistence. I was inter- 
 ested by the plan, and Mr. Ticknor's 
 practical wisdom led me to believe that 
 it might be accomplished.
 
 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 i PETER ii. 17: "Honor all men." 
 
 AMOXG the many and inestimable 
 blessings of Christianity, I regard as not 
 the least the new sentiment with which 
 it teaches man to look upon his fellow- 
 beings ; the new interest which it awak- 
 ens in us towards every thing human ; 
 the new importance which it gives to the 
 soul ; the new relation which it estab- 
 lishes between man and man. In this 
 respect it began a mighty revolution, 
 which has been silently spreading itself 
 through society, and which, I believe, is 
 not to stop until new ties shall have taken 
 the place of those which have hitherto, 
 in the main, connected the human race. 
 Christianity has as yet but begun its 
 work of reformation. Under its influ- 
 ences a new order of society is advancing, 
 surely though slowly ; and this benefi- 
 cent change it is to accomplish in no 
 small measure by revealing to men their 
 own nature, and teaching them to " honor 
 all" who partake it. 
 
 As yet Christianity has done little, 
 compared with what it is to do, in es- 
 tablishing the true bond of union between 
 man and man. The old bonds of society 
 still continue in a great degree. They 
 are instinct, interest, force. The true 
 tie, which is mutual respect, calling forth 
 mutual, growing, never-failing acts of 
 love, is as yet little known. A new rev- 
 elation, if I may so speak, remains to be 
 made ; or rather, the truths of the old 
 revelation in regard to the greatness of 
 human nature are to be brought out 
 from obscurity and neglect. The soul 
 is to be regarded with a religious rever- 
 ence hitherto unfelt ; and the solemn 
 claims of every being to whom this divine 
 principle is imparted are to be established 
 on the ruins of those pernicious princi- 
 ples, both in church and state, which 
 have so long divided mankind into the 
 classes of the abject many and the self- 
 exalting few. 
 
 There is nothing of which men know 
 so little as themselves. They understand 
 incomparably more of the surrounding 
 creation, of matter, and of its laws, than 
 of that spiritual principle to which mat- 
 tor was made to be the minister, and 
 
 without which the outward universe 
 would be worthless. Of course, no man 
 can be wholly a stranger to the soul, for 
 the soul is himself, and he cannot but 
 be conscious of its most obvious work- 
 ings. But it is to most a chaos, a region 
 shrouded in ever-shifting mists, baffling 
 the eye and bewildering the imagination. 
 The affinity of the mind with God, its 
 moral power, the purposes for which its 
 faculties were bestowed, its connection 
 with futurity, and the dependence of its 
 whole happiness on its own right action 
 and progress, these truths, though 
 they might be expected to absorb us, are 
 to most men little more than sounds, and 
 to none of us those living realities which, 
 I trust, they are to become. That con- 
 viction, without which we are all poor, 
 of the unlimited and immortal nature of 
 the soul, remains in a great degree to be 
 developed. Men have as yet no just re- 
 spect for themselves, and of consequence 
 no just respect for others. The true 
 bond of society is thus wanting ; and 
 accordingly there is a great deficiency of 
 Christian benevolence. There is, indeed, 
 much instinctive, native benevolence, 
 and this is not to be despised ; but the 
 benevolence of Jesus Christ, which con- 
 sists in a calm purpose to suffer, and, if 
 need be, to die, for our fellow-creatures, 
 the benevolence of Christ on the cross, 
 which is the true pattern to the Christian, 
 this is little known ; and what is the 
 cause? It is this. We see nothing in 
 human beings to entitle them to such 
 sacrifices ; we do not think them worth 
 suffering for. Why should we be mar- 
 tyrs for beings who awaken in us little 
 more of moral interest than the brutes ? 
 I hold that nothing is to make man 
 a true lover of man but the discovery 
 of something interesting and great in 
 human nature. We must see and feel 
 that a human being is something impor- 
 tant, and of immeasurable importance. 
 We must see and feel the broad distance 
 between the spiritual life within us and 
 the vegetable or animal life which acts 
 around us. I cannot love the flower, 
 however beautiful, with a disinterested 
 affection which will make me sacrifice to
 
 68 
 
 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 it my own prosperity. You will in vain 
 exhort me to attach myself, with my 
 whole strength of affection, to the in- 
 ferior animals, however useful or attrac- 
 tive ; and why not ? They want the 
 capacity of truth, virtue, and progress. 
 They want that principle of duty which 
 alone gives permanence to a being ; and 
 accordingly they soon lose their indi- 
 vidual nature, and go to mingle with the 
 general mass. A human being deserves 
 a different affection from what we bestow 
 on inferior creatures, for he has a rational 
 and moral nature, by which he is to en- 
 dure for ever, by which he may achieve 
 an unutterable happiness, or sink into 
 an unutterable woe. He is more inter- 
 esting, through what is in him, than the 
 earth or heavens : and the only way to 
 love him aright is to catch some glimpse 
 of this immortal power within him. Until 
 this is done, all charity is little more 
 than instinct ; we shall embrace the 
 great interests of human nature with 
 coldness. 
 
 It may be said, that Christianity has 
 done much to awaken benevolence, and 
 that it has taught men to call one another 
 brethren. Yes, to call one another so ; 
 but has it as yet given the true feeling of 
 brotherhood ? We undoubtedly feel our- 
 selves to be all of one race, and this is 
 well. We trace ourselves up to one pair, 
 and feel the same blood flowing in our 
 veins. But do we understand our spirit- 
 ual brotherhood ? Do we feel ourselves 
 to be derived from one Heavenly Parent, 
 in whose image we are all made, and 
 whose perfection we may constantly ap- 
 proach ? Do we feel that there is one 
 divine life in our own and in all souls ? 
 This seems to me the only true bond of 
 man to man. Here is a tie more sacred, 
 more enduring, than all the ties of this 
 earth. Is it felt, and do we in conse- 
 quence truly honor one another ? 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, we see men giving 
 sincere, profound, and almost unmeas- 
 ured respect to their fellow-creatures ; 
 but to whom ? To great men ; to men 
 distinguished by a broad line from the 
 multitude ; to men pre-eminent by genius, 
 force of character, daring effort, high 
 station, brilliant success. To such honor 
 is given ; but this is not to " honor all 
 men ; " and the homage paid to such is 
 generally unfriendly to that Christian es- 
 timate of human beings for which I am 
 now pleading. The great are honored at 
 
 the expense of their race. They absorb 
 and concentrate the world's admiration, 
 and their less gifted fellow-beings are 
 thrown by their brightness into a deeper 
 shade, and passed over with a colder 
 contempt. Now I have no desire to 
 derogate from the honor paid to great 
 men, but I say, Let them not rise by the 
 depression of the multitude. I say, that 
 great men, justly regarded, exalt our es- 
 timate of the human race, and bind us 
 to the multitude of men more closely ; 
 and when they are not so regarded, when 
 they are converted into idols, when they 
 serve to wean our interest from ordinary 
 men, they corrupt us, they sever the 
 sacred bond of humanity which should 
 attach us to all, and our characters be- 
 come vitiated by our very admiration of 
 greatness. The true view of great men 
 is, that they are only examples and mani- 
 festations of our common nature, show- 
 ing what belongs to all souls, though 
 unfolded as yet only in a few. The light 
 which shines from them is, after all, but 
 a faint revelation of the power which is 
 treasured up in every human being. They 
 are not prodigies, not miracles, but nat- 
 ural developments of the human soul. 
 They are indeed as men among children, 
 but the children have a principle of 
 growth which leads to manhood. 
 
 That great men and the multitude of 
 minds are of one family, is apparent, I 
 think, in the admiration which the great 
 inspire into the multitude. A sincere, 
 enlightened admiration always springs 
 from something congenial in him who 
 feels it with him who inspires it. He 
 that can understand and delight in 
 greatness was created to partake of it ; 
 the germ is in him ; and sometimes this 
 admiration, in what we deem inferior 
 minds, discovers a nobler spirit than 
 belongs to the great man who awakens 
 it ; for sometimes the great man is so 
 absorbed in his own greatness as to 
 admire no other ; and I should not hes- 
 itate to say, that a common mind, which 
 is yet capable of a generous admira- 
 tion, is destined to rise higher than the 
 man of eminent capacities, who can 
 enjoy no power or excellence but his 
 own. When I hear of great men, I 
 wish not to separate them from their 
 race, but to blend them with it. I es- 
 teem it no small benefit of the philos- 
 ophy of mind, that it teaches us that 
 the elements of the greatest thoughts
 
 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 69 
 
 of the man of genius exist in his hum- 
 bler brethren, and that the faculties 
 which the scientific exert in the pro- 
 foundest discoveries are precisely the 
 same with those which common men 
 employ in the daily labors of life. 
 
 To show the grounds on which the 
 obligation to honor all men rests, I 
 might take a minute survey of that hu- 
 man nature which is common to all, 
 and set forth its claims to reverence. 
 But, leaving this wide range, I observe 
 that there is one principle of the soul 
 which makes all men essentially equal, 
 which places all on a level as to means 
 of happiness, which may place in the 
 first rank of human beings those who 
 are the most depressed in worldly con- 
 dition, and which therefore gives the 
 most depressed a title to interest and 
 respect. I refer to the sense of duty, 
 to the power of discerning and doing 
 right, to the moral and religious prin- 
 ciple, to the inward monitor which 
 speaks in the name of God, to the ca- 
 pacity of virtue or excellence. This 
 is the great gift of God. We can con- 
 ceive no greater. In seraph and arch- 
 angel, we can conceive no higher energy 
 than the power of virtue, or the power 
 of forming themselves after the will 
 and moral perfections of God. This 
 power breaks down all barriers between 
 the seraph and the lowest human being ; 
 it makes them brethren. Whoever has 
 derived from God this perception and 
 capacity of rectitude, has a bond of 
 union with the spiritual world stronger 
 than all the ties of nature. He pos- 
 sesses a principle which, if he is faith- 
 ful to it, must carry him forward for 
 ever, and insures to him the improve- 
 ment and happiness of the highest 
 order of beings. 
 
 It is this moral power which makes 
 all men essentially equal, which anni- 
 hilates all the distinctions of this world. 
 Through this, the ignorant and the poor 
 may become the greatest of the race ; 
 for the greatest is he who is most true 
 to the principle of duty. It is not im- 
 probable that the noblest human beings 
 are to be found in the least favored 
 conditions of society, among those 
 whose names are never uttered beyond 
 the narrow circle in which they toil and 
 suffer, who have but " two mites " to 
 give away, who have perhaps not even 
 that, but who " desire to be fed with 
 
 the crumbs which fall from the rich 
 man's table ; " for in this class may 
 be found those who have withstood the 
 severest temptation, who have prac- 
 tised the most arduous duties, who 
 have confided in God under the heav- 
 iest trials, who have been most wronged 
 and have forgiven most ; and these are 
 the great, the exalted. It matters noth- 
 ing what the particular duties are to 
 which the individual is called, how 
 minute or obscure in their outward 
 form. Greatness in God's sight lies, 
 not in the extent of the sphere which 
 is filled, or of the effect which is pro- 
 duced, but altogether in the power of 
 virtue in the soul, in the energy with 
 which God's will is chosen, with which 
 trial is borne, and goodness loved and 
 pursued. 
 
 The sense of duty is the greatest gift 
 of God. The idea of right is the 
 primary and the highest revelation of 
 God to the human mind, and all out- 
 ward revelations are founded on and 
 addressed to it. All mysteries of sci- 
 ence and theology fade away before the 
 grandeur of the simple perception of 
 duty which dawns on the mind of the 
 little child. That perception brings 
 him into the moral kingdom of God. 
 That lays on him an everlasting bond. 
 He in whom the conviction of duty is 
 unfolded becomes subject from that 
 moment to a law which no power in the 
 universe can abrogate. He forms a 
 new and indissoluble connection with 
 God, that of an accountable being. 
 He begins to stand before an inward 
 tribunal, on the decisions of which his 
 whole happiness rests ; he hears a 
 voice which, if faithfully followed, will 
 guide him to perfection, and in neglect- 
 ing which he brings upon himself in- 
 evitable misery. We little understand 
 the solemnity of the moral principle in 
 every human mind. We think not how 
 awful are its functions. We forget that 
 it is the germ of immortality. Did we 
 understand it, we should look with a 
 feeling of reverence on every being to 
 whom it is given. 
 
 Having shown, in the preceding re- 
 marks, that there is a foundation in the 
 human soul for the honor enjoined in 
 our text towards all men, I proceed to 
 observe, that, if we look next into Chris- 
 tianity, we shall find this duty enforced 
 by new and still more solemn consider-
 
 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 ations. This whole religion is a testi- 
 mony to the worth of man in the sight 
 of God, to the importance of human 
 nature, to the infinite purposes for 
 which we were framed. God is there 
 set forth as sending to the succor of 
 his human family his Beloved Son, the 
 bright image and representative of his 
 own perfections ; and sending him, not 
 simply to roll away a burden of pain 
 and punishment (for this, however mag- 
 nified in systems of theology, is not his 
 highest work), but to create men after 
 that divine image which he himself 
 bears, to purify the soul from every 
 stain, to communicate to it new power 
 over evil, and to open before it immor- 
 tality as its aim and destination, im- 
 mortality, by which we are to understand, 
 not merely a perpetual, but an ever-im- 
 proving and celestial being. Such are 
 the views of Christianity. And these 
 blessings it proffers, not to a few, not 
 to the educated, not to the eminent, but 
 to all human beings, to the poorest and 
 the most fallen ; and we know that, 
 through the power of its promises, it 
 has in not a few instances raised the 
 most fallen to true greatness, and given 
 them in their present virtue and peace 
 an earnest of the Heaven which it un- 
 folds. Such is Christianity. Men, 
 viewed in the light of this religion, are 
 beings cared for by God, to whom he 
 has given his Son, on whom he pours 
 forth his Spirit, and whom he has cre- 
 ated for the highest good in the uni- 
 verse, for participation in his own 
 perfections and happiness. My friends, 
 such is Christianity. Our scepticism 
 as to our own nature cannot quench the 
 bright light which that religion sheds 
 on the soul and on the prospects of 
 mankind ; and just as far as we receive 
 its truth, we shall honor all men. 
 
 I know I shall be told that Christian- 
 ity speaks of man as a sinner, and thus 
 points him out to abhorrence and scorn. 
 I know it speaks of human sin, but it 
 does not speak of this as indissolubly 
 bound up with the soul, as entering into 
 the essence of human nature, but as a 
 temporary stain, which it calls on us to 
 wash away. Its greatest doctrine is, 
 that the most lost are recoverable, that 
 the most fallen may rise, and that there 
 is no height of purity, power, felicity in 
 the universe, to which the guiltiest 
 mind may not, through penitence, at- 
 
 tain. Christianity, indeed, gives us a 
 deeper, keener feeling of the guilt of 
 mankind than any other religion. By 
 the revelation of perfection in the char- 
 acter of Jesus Christ, it shows us how 
 imperfect even the best men are. But 
 it reveals perfection in Jesus, not for 
 our discouragement, but as our model, 
 reveals it only that we may thirst for and 
 approach it. From Jesus I learn what 
 man is to become, that is, if true to this 
 new light ; and true he may be. 
 
 Christianity, I have said, shows man 
 as a sinner, but I nowhere meet in it 
 those dark views of our race which 
 would make us shrink from it as from 
 a nest of venomous reptiles. Accord- 
 ing to the courteous style of theology, 
 man has been called half brute and 
 half devil. But this is a perverse and 
 pernicious exaggeration. The brute, as 
 it is called, that is, animal, appetite is 
 indeed strong in human beings ; but is 
 there nothing within us but appetite ? 
 Is there nothing to war with it ? Does 
 this constitute the essence of the soul ? 
 Is it not rather an accident, the result 
 of the mind's union with matter? Is 
 not its spring in the body, and may it 
 not be expected to perish with the 
 body ? In addition to animal propen- 
 sities, I see the tendency to criminal 
 excess in all men's passions. I see not 
 one only, but many tempters in every 
 human heart. Nor am I insensible to 
 the fearful power of these enemies to 
 our virtue. But is there nothing in 
 man but temptation, but propensity to 
 sin ? Are there no counterworking 
 powers ? no attractions in virtue ? no 
 tendencies to God ? no sympathies with 
 sorrow ? no reverence for greatness ? 
 no moral conflicts ? no triumphs of 
 principle ? This very strength of temp- 
 tation seems to me to be one of the 
 indications of man's greatness. It 
 shows a being framed to make progress 
 through difficulty, suffering, and con- 
 flict : that is, it shows a being designed 
 for the highest order of virtues ; for 
 we all feel by an unerring instinct that 
 virtue is elevated in proportion to the 
 obstacles which it surmounts, to the 
 power with which it is chosen and held 
 fast. I see men placed by their Crea- 
 tor on a field of battle, but compassed 
 with peril that they may triumph over 
 it ; and, though often overborne, still 
 summoned to new efforts, still privi-
 
 HO IVOR DUE TO, ALL MEN. 
 
 leged to approach the Source of all 
 Power, and to seek "grace in time of 
 need," and still addressed in tones of 
 encouragement by a celestial Leader, 
 who has himself fought and conquered, 
 and holds forth to them his own crown 
 of righteousness and victory. 
 
 From these brief views of human 
 nature and of Christianity, you will see 
 the grounds of the solemn obligation 
 of honoring all men, of attaching infi- 
 nite importance to human nature, and of 
 respecting it, even in its present infant, 
 feeble, tottering state. This sentiment 
 of honor or respect for human beings 
 strikes me more and more as essential 
 to the Christian character. I conceive 
 that a more thorough understanding 
 and a more faithful culture of this 
 would do very much to carry forward the 
 church and the world. In truth, I attach 
 to this sentiment such importance, that 
 I measure by its progress the progress 
 of society. I judge of public events 
 very much by their bearing on this. I 
 estimate political revolutions chiefly by 
 their tendency to exalt men's concep- 
 tions of their nature, and to inspire 
 them with respect for one another's 
 claims. The present stupendous move- 
 ments in Europe naturally suggest, and 
 almost force upon me, this illustration 
 of the importance which I have given 
 to the sentiment enjoined in our text. 
 Allow me to detain you a few moments 
 on this topic. 
 
 What is it, then, I ask, which makes 
 the present revolutionary movement 
 abroad so interesting ? I answer, that 
 I see in it the principle of respect for 
 human nature and for the human race 
 developing itself more powerfully, and 
 this to me constitutes its chief interest. 
 I sec in it proofs, indications, that the 
 mind is awakening to a consciousness 
 of what it is, and of what it is made 
 for. In this movement I see man be- 
 coming to himself a higher object. I 
 see him attaining to the conviction of 
 the equal and indestructible rights of 
 every human being. I see the dawning 
 of that great principle, that the individ- 
 ual is not made to be the instrument of 
 others, but to govern himself by an in- 
 ward law, and to advance towards his 
 proper perfection ; that he belongs to 
 himself and to God, and to no human 
 superior. I know, indeed, that, in the 
 present state of the world, these con- 
 
 ceptions are exceedingly unsettled and 
 obscure ; and, in truth, little effort has 
 hitherto been made to place them in a 
 clear light, and to give them a definite 
 and practical form in men's minds. 
 The multitude know not with any dis- 
 tinctness what they want. Imagination, 
 unschooled by reason and experience, 
 dazzles them with bright but baseless 
 visions. They are driven onward with 
 a perilous violence, by a vague con- 
 sciousness of not having found their 
 element ; by a vague yet noble faith in 
 a higher good than they have attained ; 
 by impatience under restraints which 
 they feel to be degrading. In this vio- 
 lence, however, there is nothing strange, 
 nor ought it to discourage us. It is, 
 I believe, universally true, that great 
 principles, in their first development, 
 manifest themselves irregularly. It is 
 so in religion. In history we often 
 see religion, especially after long de- 
 pression, breaking out in vehemence 
 and enthusiasm, sometimes stirring up 
 bloody conflicts, and through struggles 
 establishing a calmer empire over soci- 
 ety. In like manner, political history 
 shows us that men's consciousness of 
 their rights and essential equality has at 
 first developed itself passionately. Still 
 the consciousness is a noble one, and 
 the presage of a better social state. 
 
 Am I asked, what I hope from the pres- 
 ent revolutionary movements in Europe ? 
 I answer, that I hope a good which in- 
 cludes all others, and which almost hides 
 all others from my view. I hope the sub- 
 version of institutions by which the true 
 bond between man and man has been 
 more or less dissolved, by which the will 
 of one or a few has broken down the will, 
 the heart, the conscience of the many ; 
 and I hope that, in the place of these, 
 are to grow up institutions which will 
 express, cherish, and spread far and wide 
 a just respect for human nature, which 
 will strengthen in men a consciousness 
 of their powers, duties, and rights, which 
 will train the individual to moral and re- 
 ligious independence, which will propose 
 as their end the elevation of all orders of 
 the community, and which will give full 
 scope to the best minds in this work of 
 general improvement. I do not say that 
 I expect it to be suddenly realized. The 
 sun, which is to bring on a brighter day, 
 is rising in thick and threatening clouds. 
 Perhaps the minds of men were never
 
 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 more unquiet than at the present moment. 
 Still I do not despair. That a higher 
 order of ideas or principles is beginning 
 to be unfolded ; that a wider philan- 
 thropy is beginning to triumph over the 
 distinctions of ranks and nations ; that 
 a new feeling of what is due to the igno- 
 rant, poor, and depraved, has sprung up ; 
 that the right of every human being to 
 such an education as shall call forth his 
 best faculties, and train him more and 
 more to control himself, is recognized as 
 it never was before ; and that govern- 
 ment is more and more regarded as in- 
 tended not to elevate the few, but to 
 guard the rights of all ; that these great 
 revolutions in principle have commenced 
 and are spreading, who can deny ? and to 
 me they are prophetic of an improved 
 condition of human nature and human 
 affairs. O, that this melioration might 
 be accomplished without blood ! As a 
 Christian, I feel a misgiving, when I re- 
 joice in any good, however great, for 
 which this fearful price has been paid. 
 In truth, a good so won is necessarily 
 imperfect and generally transient. War 
 may subvert a despotism, but seldom 
 builds up better institutions. Even when 
 joined, as in our own history, with high 
 principles, it inflames and leaves behind 
 it passions which make liberty a feverish 
 conflict of jealous parties, and which ex- 
 pose a people to the tyranny of faction 
 under the forms of freedom. Few things 
 impair men's reverence for human nature 
 more than war : and did I not see other 
 and holier influences than the sword 
 working out the regeneration of the race, 
 I should indeed despair. 
 
 In this discourse I have spoken of the 
 grounds and importance of that honor or 
 respect which is due from us, and en- 
 joined on us, towards all human beings. 
 The various forms in which this princi- 
 ple is to be exercised or manifested, I 
 want time to enlarge on. I would only 
 say, " Honor all men." Honor man, 
 from the beginning to the end of his 
 earthly course. Honor the child. Wel- 
 come into being the infant, with a feel- 
 ing of its mysterious grandeur, with the 
 feeling that an immortal existence has 
 begun, that a spirit has been kindled 
 which is never to be quenched. Honor 
 the child. On this principle all good 
 education rests. Never shall we learn 
 to train up the child till we take it in 
 our arms, as Jesus did, and feel distinctly 
 
 that " of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 In that short sentence is taught the spirit 
 of the true system of education ; and for 
 want of understanding it, little effectual 
 aid, I fear, is yet given to the heavenly 
 principle in the infant soul. Again. 
 Honor the poor. This sentiment of re- 
 spect is essential to improving the con- 
 nection between the more and less 
 prosperous conditions of society. This 
 alone makes beneficence truly godlike. 
 Without it, almsgiving degrades the re- 
 ceiver. We must learn how slight and 
 shadowy are the distinctions between us 
 and the poor ; and that the last in out- 
 ward condition may be first in the best 
 attributes of humanity. A fraternal union, 
 founded on this deep conviction, and in- 
 tended to lift up and strengthen the ex- 
 posed and tempted poor, is to do infinitely 
 more for that suffering class than all our 
 artificial associations ; and till Christi- 
 anity shall have breathed into us this 
 spirit of respect for our nature, where- 
 ever it is found, we shall do them little 
 good. I conceive that, in the present 
 low state of Christian virtue, we little 
 apprehend the power which might be 
 exerted over the fallen and destitute by 
 a benevolence which should truly, thor- 
 oughly recognize in them the image of 
 God. 
 
 Perhaps none of us have yet heard or 
 can comprehend the tone of voice in 
 which a man, thoroughly impressed with 
 this sentiment, would speak to a fellow- 
 creature. It is a language hardly known 
 on earth ; and no eloquence, I believe, 
 has achieved such wonders as it is des- 
 tined to accomplish. I must stop, though 
 I have but begun the application of the 
 principle which I have urged. I will 
 close as I began, with saying, that the 
 great revelation which man now needs 
 is a revelation of man to himself. The 
 faith which is most wanted is a faith in 
 what we and our fellow-beings may be- 
 come, a faith in the divine germ or 
 principle in every soul. In regard to 
 most of what are called the mysteries of 
 religion, we may innocently be ignorant. 
 But the mystery within ourselves, the 
 mystery of our spiritual, accountable, 
 immortal nature, it behoves us to explore. 
 Happy are they who have begun to pene- 
 trate it, and in whom it has awakened 
 feelings of awe towards themselves, and 
 of deep interest and honor towards their 
 fellow-creatures.
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 73 
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR: 
 
 Discourse delivered before the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, 
 Boston, April 9, 1835. 
 
 LUKE iv. 18 : " The spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
 because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel 
 to the poor." 
 
 WE are met together on the first an- 
 niversary of the Benevolent Fraternity 
 of Churches, an institution formed for 
 the purpose of providing a ministry for 
 the poor, and of thus communicating 
 moral and spiritual blessings to the most 
 destitute portion of the community. We 
 may well thank God for living in a state 
 of society in which such a design finds 
 cordial support. We should rejoice in 
 this token of human progress. Man has 
 always felt for the outward wants and 
 sufferings of man. This institution 
 shows that he is alive to the higher ca- 
 pacities, the deeper cravings, of his fel- 
 low-beings. This institution is one of 
 the forms in which the spirit of Christi- 
 anity is embodied, a spirit of reverence 
 and love for the human soul, of sympathy 
 with its fall, of intense desire for its re- 
 demption. 
 
 On this occasion there is but one topic 
 of which I can speak, and that is the 
 claims of the poor as moral, spiritual 
 beings ; and it is a topic on which I 
 enter with a consciousness of insuffi- 
 ciency. The claims of outward and world- 
 ly things I can comprehend. I can look 
 through wealth, pomp, rank. I can meet 
 unmoved the most imposing forms of 
 earthly dignity ; but the immortal princi- 
 ple in the heart of the poorest human 
 being I approach with awe. There I 
 see a mystery in which my faculties are 
 lost. I see an existence, before which 
 the duration of the world and the out- 
 ward heavens is a span. I say that I 
 see it. I am not surrendering myself to 
 imagination ; I have a consciousness of 
 truth, or rather a consciousness of fall- 
 ing beneath the truth. I feel, then, my 
 incompetency to be just to this subject. 
 But we must do what we can. No testi- 
 mony, however feeble, if lifted up in 
 
 sincerity in behalf of great principles, is 
 ever lost. Through weak man, if sancti- 
 fied by a simple, humble love of truth, a >. 
 higher Power than man's is pleased to 
 work. May that Power overshadow us, 
 and work within us, and open every soul 
 to truth ! 
 
 To awaken a spiritual interest in the 
 poor, this is my object. I wish not to 
 diminish your sympathy with their out- 
 ward condition ; I would increase it. 
 But their physical sufferings are not 
 their chief evils. The great calamity of ; 
 the poor is not their poverty, understand- 
 ing this word in the usual sense, but the 
 tendency of their privations, and of their 
 social rank, to degradation of mind. Give 
 them the Christian spirit, and their lot- 
 would not be intolerable. Remove from 
 them the misery which they bring on 
 themselves by evil-doing, and separate 
 from their inevitable sufferings the ag- 
 gravations which come from crime, and 
 their burden would be light compared 
 with what now oppresses them. 
 
 The outward condition of the poor is 
 a hard one. I mean not to criticise it 
 with the apathy of the stoic, to deny 
 that pain is an evil, privation a loss of 
 good. But when I compare together 
 different classes as existing at this mo- 
 ment in the civilized world, I cannot 
 think the difference between the rich 
 and the poor, in regard to mere physical 
 suffering, so great as is sometimes im- 
 agined. That some of the indigent 
 among us die of scanty food is undoubt- 
 edly true ; but vastly more in this com- 
 munity die from eating too much than 
 from eating too little ; vastly more from 
 excess than starvation. So as to cloth- 
 ing, many shiver from want of defences 
 against the cold ; but there is vastly 
 more suffering among the rich from ab- 
 surd and criminal modes of dress, which 
 fashion has sanctioned, than among the 
 poor from deficiency of raiment. Our
 
 74 
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 daughters are oftener brought to the 
 grave by their rich attire than our beg- 
 gars by their nakedness. * So the poor 
 are often overworked ; but they suffer 
 less than many among the rich who have 
 no work to do, no interesting object to 
 fill up life, to satisfy the infinite cravings 
 of man for action. According to our 
 present modes of education, how many 
 of our daughters are victims of ennui, a 
 misery unknown to the poor, and more 
 intolerable than the weariness of exces- 
 sive toil ! The idle young. man spend- 
 ing the day in exhibiting his person in 
 the street ought not to excite the envy 
 of the overtasked poor ; and this cum- 
 berer of the ground is found exclusively 
 among the rich. 
 
 I repeat it, the condition of the poor 
 deserves sympathy ; but let us not, by 
 exaggeration of its pains, turn away our 
 minds from the great inward sources of 
 their misery. In this city, the condition 
 of a majority of the indigent is such as 
 would be thought eligible elsewhere. 
 Insure to a European peasant an abun- 
 dance of wheaten bread through every 
 season of the year, and he would bless 
 his easy lot. Among us, many a poor 
 family, if doomed to live on bread, would 
 murmur at its hard fare ; and accord- 
 ingly the table of the indigent is daily 
 spread with condiments and viands 
 hardly known in the cottage of the trans- 
 atlantic laborer. The Greenlander and 
 Laplander, dwelling in huts, and living 
 on food compared with which the accom- 
 modations of our poor are abundant, are 
 more than content. They would not ex- 
 change their wastes for our richest soils 
 and proudest cities. It is not, then, the 
 physical suffering of the poor, but their 
 relation to the rest of society, the want 
 of means of inward life, the degrading 
 influences of their position, to which 
 their chief misery is to be traced. 
 
 Let not the condition of the poor be 
 spoken of as necessarily wretched. Give 
 them the Christian spirit, and they would 
 find in their lot the chief elements of 
 good. For example, the domestic affec- 
 tions may and do grow up among the 
 poor, and these are to all of us the chief 
 springs of earthly happiness. And it 
 deserves consideration that the poor 
 have their advantages as well as disad- 
 vantages in respect to domestic ties. 
 Their narrow condition obliges them to 
 do more for one another than is done 
 
 among the rich ; and this necessity, as is 
 well known, sometimes gives a vigor 
 and tenderness to the love of parents 
 and children, brothers and sisters, not 
 always found in the luxurious classes, 
 where wealth destroys this mutual de- 
 pendence, this need of mutual help. Nor 
 let it be said that the poor cannot enjoy 
 domestic happiness for want of the means 
 of educating their children. A sound 
 moral judgment is of more value in edu- 
 cation than all wealth and all talent. 
 For want of this, the children of men of 
 genius and opulence are often the worst 
 trained in the community ; and if, by our 
 labors, we can communicate this moral 
 soundness to the poor, we shall open 
 among them the fountain of the only 
 pure domestic felicity. 
 
 In this country, the poor might enjoy 
 the most important advantages of the 
 rich had they the moral and religious 
 cultivation consistent with their lot. 
 Books find their way into every house, 
 however mean ; and especially that book 
 which contains more nutriment for the 
 intellect, imagination, and heart, than all 
 others, I mean, of course, the Bible. 
 And I am confident that among the poor 
 are those who find in that one book 
 more enjoyment, more awakening truth, 
 more lofty and beautiful imagery, more 
 culture to the whole soul, than thousands 
 of the educated find in their general 
 studies, and vastly more than millions 
 among the rich find in that superficial, 
 transitory literature which consumes all 
 their reading hours. 
 
 Even the pleasures of a refined taste 
 are not denied to the poor, but might 
 easily be opened to them by a wise 
 moral culture. True, their rooms are 
 not lined with works of art ; but the 
 living beauty of nature opens on the eyes 
 of all her children ; and we know, from 
 the history of self-educated genius, that 
 sometimes the inhabitant of a hovel, 
 looking out on the serene sky, the 
 illumined cloud, the setting sun, has re- 
 ceived into his rapt spirit impressions 
 of divine majesty and loveliness, to 
 which the burning words of poetry give 
 but faint utterance. True, the rich may 
 visit distant scenery, and feed their eyes 
 on the rarest and most stupendous mani- 
 festations of creative power ; but the earth 
 and common sky reveal, in some of their 
 changeful aspects, a grandeur as awful 
 as Niagara or the Andes ; and nothing
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 75 
 
 is wanting to the poor man in his ordi- 
 nary walks but a more spiritual eye to 
 discern a beauty which has never yet 
 been embodied in the most inspired 
 works of sculpture or painting. 
 
 Thus for the poor, as for all men, 
 there are provisions for happiness ; and 
 it deserves remark that their happiness 
 has a peculiar dignity. It is more hon- 
 orable to be content with few outward 
 means than with many ; to be cheerful 
 amidst privation than amidst overflowing 
 plenty. A poor man, living on bread 
 and water, because he will not ask for 
 more than bare sustenance requires, and 
 leading a quiet, cheerful life through his 
 benevolent sympathies, his joy in duty, 
 his trust in God, is one of the true he- 
 roes of the race, and understands better 
 the meaning of happiness than we, who 
 cannot be at ease unless we clothe our- 
 selves " in purple, and fare sumptuously 
 every day," unless we surround, de- 
 fend, and adorn ourselves with all the 
 products of nature and art. His scanti- 
 ness of outward means is a sign of in- 
 ward fulness, whilst the slavery in which 
 most of us live to luxuries and accom- 
 modations shows the poverty within. 
 
 I have given the fair side of the poor 
 man's lot. I have shown the advantages 
 placed within his reach ; but I do not 
 therefore call him happy. His advan- 
 tages are too commonly lost for want of 
 inward culture. The poor are generally 
 wretched, with many means of good. 
 Think not that I mean to throw one 
 false color on their actual state. It is 
 miserable enough to awaken deep sym- 
 pathy ; but their misery springs not 
 so much from physical causes, which 
 cannot be withstood, as from moral 
 want. The moral influences of their 
 condition, of their rank in society, of 
 their connection with other classes, 
 these are more terrible than hunger or 
 cold, and to these I desire to turn your 
 chief regard. 
 
 What, then, are the moral influences 
 of poverty, its influences on character, 
 which deserve our chief attention ? As 
 one of its most fatal effects, I would 
 observe, in the first place, that it im- 
 pairs, often destroys, self-respect. I 
 know, and rejoice to know, that the in- 
 stitutions of this country do much to 
 counteract this influence of poverty ; but 
 still it exists and works frequent debase- 
 ment. It is hard for any of us to inter- 
 
 pret justly our own nature, and how 
 peculiarly hard for the poor ! Unin- 
 structed in the import and dignity of 
 their rational and moral powers, they 
 naturally measure themselves by their 
 outward rank. Living amidst the wor- 
 shippers of wealth, they naturally feel 
 as if degraded by the want of it. They 
 read in the looks, tones, and manners 
 of the world the evidences of being re- 
 garded as an inferior race, and want 
 inward force to repel this cruel, dis- 
 heartening falsehood. They hear the 
 word respectable confined to other con- 
 ditions, and the word low applied to 
 their own. Now, habitual subjection to 
 slight or contempt is crushing to the 
 spirit. It is exceedingly hard for a hu- 
 man being to comprehend and appre- 
 ciate himself amidst outward humiliation. 
 There is no greater man than he who is 
 true to himself when all around deny 
 and forsake him. Can we wonder that 
 the poor, thus abandoned, should iden- 
 tify themselves with their lot, that in 
 their rags they should see the sign of 
 inward as well as outward degrada- 
 tion ? 
 
 Another cause which blights their self- 
 respect is their dependence for pecu- 
 niary aid. It is hard to ask alms and 
 retain an erect mind. Dependence 
 breeds servility, and he who has 
 stooped to another cannot be just to 
 himself. The want of self-respect is a 
 preparation for every evil. Degraded 
 in their own and others' esteem, the 
 poor are removed from the salutary re- 
 straint of opinion ; and, having no caste 
 to lose, no honor to forfeit, often aban- 
 don themselves recklessly to the gross- 
 est vice. 
 
 2. The condition of the poor is un- 
 friendly to the action and unfolding of 
 the intellect, a sore calamity to a ra- 
 tional being. In most men, indeed, the 
 intellect is narrowed by exclusive cares 
 for the body. In most, the conscious- 
 ness of its excellence is crushed by the 
 low uses to which it is perpetually 
 doomed. But still, in most, a degree of 
 activity is given to the mind by the vari- 
 ety and extent of their plans for wealth 
 or subsistence. The bodily wants of 
 most carry them in a measure into the 
 future, engage them in enterprises re- 
 quiring invention, sagacity, and skill. 
 It is the unhappiness of the poor that 
 they are absorbed in immediate wants,
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 in provisions for the passing day, in ob- 
 taining the next meal, or in throwing off 
 a present burden. Accordingly their 
 faculties "live and move," or rather 
 pine and perish, in the present moment. 
 Hope and imagination, the wings of the 
 soul, carrying it forward and upward, 
 languish in the poor ; for the future is 
 uninviting. The darkness of the pres- 
 ent broods over coming years. The 
 great idea which stirs up in other men 
 a world of thought, the idea of a better 
 lot, has almost faded from the poor 
 man's mind. He almost ceases to hope 
 for his children, as well as for himself. 
 Even parental love, to many the chief 
 quickener of the intellect, stagnates 
 through despair. Thus poverty starves 
 the mind. 
 
 And there is another way in which it 
 produces this effect, particularly worthy 
 the notice of this assembly. The poor 
 have no society beyond their own class, 
 that is, beyond those who are con- 
 fined to their own narrow field of thought. 
 We all know that it is contact with other 
 minds, and especially with the more 
 active and soaring, from which the in- 
 tellect receives its chief impulse. Few 
 of us could escape the paralyzing in- 
 fluence of perpetual intercourse with 
 the uncultivated, sluggish, and narrow- 
 minded ; and here we see what I wish 
 particularly to bring to view how the 
 poor suffer from the boasted civilization 
 of our times, which is built so much on 
 the idea of property. In communities 
 little advanced in opulence, no impassa- 
 ble barrier separates different classes, as 
 among ourselves. The least improved 
 are not thrown to a distance from those 
 who, through natural endowment or pe- 
 culiar excitement, think more strongly 
 than the rest ; and why should such di- 
 vision exist anywhere ? How cruel and 
 unchristian are the pride and prejudice 
 which form the enlightened into a caste, 
 and leave the ignorant and depressed to 
 strengthen and propagate ignorance and 
 error without end ! 
 
 3. I proceed to another evil of pov- 
 erty, its disastrous influence on the 
 domestic affections. Kindle these affec- 
 tions in the poor man's hut, and you 
 five him the elements of the best earthly 
 appiness. But the more delicate sen- 
 timents find much to chill them in the 
 abodes of indigence. A family crowded 
 into a single and often narrow apart- 
 
 ment, which must answer at once the 
 ends of parlor, kitchen, bed-room, nur- 
 sery, and hospital, must, without great 
 energy and self-respect, want neatness, 
 order, and comfort. Its members are 
 perpetually exposed to annoying, petty 
 interference. The decencies of life can 
 be with difficulty observed. Woman, a 
 drudge, and in dirt, loses her attractions. 
 The young grow up without the modest 
 reserve and delicacy of feeling in which 
 purity finds so much of its defence. 
 Coarseness of manners and language, 
 too sure a consequence of a mode of life 
 which allows no seclusion, becomes the 
 habit almost of childhood, and hardens 
 the mind for vicious intercourse in fut- 
 ure years. The want of a neat, orderly 
 home is among the chief evils of the 
 poor. Crowded in filth, they cease to 
 respect one another. The social affec- 
 tions wither amidst perpetual noise, 
 confusion, and clashing interests. In 
 these respects, the poor often fare worse 
 than the uncivilized. True, the latter 
 has a ruder hut, but his habits and tastes 
 lead him to live abroad. Around him is 
 a boundless, unoccupied nature, where 
 he ranges at will, and gratifies his pas- 
 sion for liberty. Hardened from in- 
 fancy against the elements, he lives in 
 the bright light and pure air of heaven. 
 In the city, the poor man must choose 
 between his close room and the narrow 
 street. The appropriation of almost 
 every spot on earth to private use, and 
 the habits of society, do not allow him to 
 gather his family, or meet his tribe, un- 
 der a spreading tree. He has a home, 
 without the comforts of home. He can- 
 not cheer it by inviting his neighbors to 
 share his repast. He has few topics of 
 conversation with his wife and children, 
 except their common wants. Of conse- 
 quence, sensual pleasures are the only 
 means of ministering to that craving for 
 enjoyment which can never be destroyed 
 in human nature. These pleasures, in 
 other dwellings, are more or less refined 
 by taste. The table is spread with neat- 
 ness and order ; and a decency pervades 
 the meal, which shows that man is more 
 than a creature of sense. The poor 
 man's table, strewed with broken food, 
 and seldom approached with courtesy 
 and self-respect, serves too often to 
 nourish only a selfish, animal life, and 
 to bring the partakers of it still nearer to 
 the brute. I speak not of what is nee-
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 77 
 
 essary and universal ; for poverty, under 
 sanctifying influences, may find a heaven 
 in its narrow home ; but I speak of ten- 
 dencies which are strong, and which only 
 a strong religious influence can over- 
 come. 
 
 4. I proceed to another unhappy in- 
 fluence exerted on the poor. They live 
 in the sight and in the midst of innu- 
 merable indulgences and gratifications 
 which are placed beyond their reach. 
 Their connection with the affluent, 
 though not close enough for spiritual 
 communication, is near enough to in- 
 flame appetites, desires, wants, which 
 cannot be satisfied. From their cheer- 
 less rooms they look out on the abodes 
 of luxury. At their cold, coarse meal, 
 they hear the equipage conveying others 
 to tables groaning under plenty, crowned 
 with sparkling wines, and fragrant with 
 the delicacies of every clime. Fainting 
 with toil, they meet others unburdened, 
 as they think, with a labor or a care. 
 They feel that all life's prizes have fallen 
 toothers. Hence burning desire. Hence 
 brooding discontent. Hence envy and 
 hatred. Hence crime, justified in a 
 measure to their own minds, by what 
 seem to them the unjust and cruel in- 
 equalities of social life. Here are some 
 of the miseries of civilization. The un- 
 civilized man is not exasperated by the 
 presence of conditions happier than his 
 own. There is no disproportion between 
 his idea of happiness and his lot. Among 
 the poor the disproportion is infinite. 
 You all understand how much we judge 
 our lot by comparison. Thus the very 
 edifices, which a century ago seemed 
 to our fathers luxurious, seem now to 
 multitudes hardly comfortable, because 
 surrounded by more commodious and 
 beautiful dwellings. We little think of 
 the gloom added to the poor by the con- 
 tiguity of the rich. They are preyed on 
 by artificial wants, which can only be 
 gratified by crime. They are surrounded 
 by enjoyments, which fraud or violence 
 can make their own. Unhappily the 
 prevalent I had almost said the whole 
 spirit of the rich increases these temp- 
 tations of the poor. Very seldom does 
 a distinct, authentic voice of wisdom 
 come to them from the high places of 
 society, telling them that riches are not 
 happiness, and that a felicity which 
 riches cannot buy is within reach of all. 
 Wealth-worship is the spirit of the pros- 
 
 perous, and this is the strongest possible 
 inculcation of discontent and crime on 
 the poor. The rich satisfy themselves 
 with giving alms to the needy. They 
 think little of more fatal gifts, which 
 they perpetually bestow. They think 
 little that their spirit and lives, their self- 
 indulgence and earthliness, their idolatry 
 of outward prosperity, and their con- 
 tempt of inferior conditions, are perpet- 
 ually teaching the destitute that there is 
 but one good on earth, namely, property, 
 the very good in which the poor have 
 no share. They little think that by these 
 influences they do much to inflame, em- 
 bitter, and degrade the minds of the poor, 
 to fasten them to the earth, to cut off 
 their communication with Heaven. 
 
 5. I pass to another sore trial of the 
 poor. Whilst their condition, as we 
 have seen, denies them many gratifica- 
 tions which on every side meet their 
 view and inflame desire, it places 
 within their reach many debasing gratifi- 
 cations. Human nature has a strong 
 thirst for pleasures which excite it above 
 its ordinary tone, which relieve the mo- 
 notony of life. This drives the prosper- 
 ous from their pleasant homes to scenes 
 of novelty and stirring amusement. How 
 strongly must it act on those who are 
 weighed down by anxieties and priva- 
 tions ! How intensely must the poor 
 desire to forget for a time the wearing 
 realities of life ! And what means of 
 escape does society afford or allow them ? 
 What present do civilization and science 
 make to the poor ? Strong drink, ardent 
 spirits, liquid poison, liquid fire, a type 
 of the fire of hell ! In every poor man's 
 neighborhood flows a Lethean stream, 
 which laps him for a while in oblivion of 
 all his humiliations and sorrows ! The 
 power -of this temptation can be little 
 understood by those of us whose thirst 
 for pleasure is regularly supplied by a 
 succession of innocent pleasures, who 
 meet soothing and exciting objects wher- 
 ever we turn. The uneducated poor, 
 without resource in books, in their fam- 
 ilies, in a well-spread board, in cheer- 
 ful apartments, in places of fashionable 
 resort, and pressed down by disappoint- 
 ment, debt, despondence, and exhausting 
 toils, are driven, by an impulse dread- 
 fully strong, to the haunts of intemper- 
 ance ; and there they plunge into a 
 misery sorer than all the tortures in- 
 vented by man. They quench the lighj
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 of reason, cast off the characteristics of 
 humanity, blot out God's image as far 
 as they have power, and take their place 
 among the brutes. Terrible misery ! 
 And this, I beg you to remember, comes 
 to them from the very civilization in 
 which they live. They are victims to 
 the progress of science and the arts: for 
 these multiply the poison which destroys 
 them. They are victims to the rich ; for 
 it is the capital of the rich which erects 
 the distillery, and surrounds them with 
 temptations to self-murder. They are 
 victims to a partial advancement of so- 
 ciety, which multiplies gratifications and 
 allurements, without awakening propor- 
 tionate moral power to withstand them. 
 
 Such are the evils of poverty. It is 
 a condition which offers many and pe- 
 culiar obstructions to the development of 
 intellect and affection, of self-respect 
 and self-control. The poor are pecul- 
 iarly exposed to discouraging views of 
 themselves, of human nature, of human 
 life. The consciousness of their own 
 intellectual and moral power slumbers. 
 Their faith in God's goodness, in virtue, 
 in immortality, is obscured by the dark- 
 ness of their present lot. Ignorant, de- 
 sponding, and sorely' tempted, have they 
 not solemn claims on their more privi- 
 leged brethren for aids which they have 
 never yet received ? 
 
 I have thus shown, as I proposed, that 
 the chief evils of poverty are moral in 
 their origin and character ; and for these 
 I would awaken your concern. With 
 physical sufferings we sympathize. 
 When shall the greater misery move our 
 hearts ? Is there nothing to startle us 
 in the fact that in every large city dwells 
 a multitude of human beings, falling or 
 fallen into extreme moral degradation, 
 living in dark, filthy houses, or in damp, 
 unventilated cellars, where the eye lights 
 on no beauty and the ear is continually 
 wounded with discord, where the out- 
 ward gloom is a type of the darkened 
 mind, where the name of God is heard 
 only when profaned, where charity is 
 known only as a resource for sloth, 
 where the child is trained amidst coarse 
 manners, impure words, and the fumes 
 of intemperance, and is thence sent 
 forth to prowl as a beggar ? From these 
 abodes issues a louder, more piercing 
 cry for help and strength than physical 
 want ever uttered. I do not mean that 
 all the poor are such as I have described. 
 
 Far from it. Among them are the " salt 
 of the earth," the "lights of the world," 
 the elect of God. There is no neces- 
 sary connection of poverty and crime. 
 Christianity knows no distinction of rank, 
 and has proved itself equal to the wants 
 of all conditions of men. Still poverty 
 has tendencies to the moral degradation 
 which I have described ; and to counter- 
 act these should be esteemed one of the 
 most solemn duties and precious priv- 
 ileges bequeathed by Christ to his fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 From the views now given of the 
 chief evils of poverty, it follows that 
 moral and religious culture is the great 
 blessing to be bestowed on the poor. 
 By this it is not intended that their 
 physical condition demands no aid. 
 Let charity minister to their pressing 
 wants and sufferings. But let us bear 
 it in mind that no charity produces per- 
 manent good but that which goes be- 
 neath the body, which reaches the mind, 
 which touches the inward springs of im- 
 provement, and awakens some strength 
 of purpose, some pious or generous 
 emotion, some self-respect. That char- 
 ity is most useful which removes ob- 
 structions to well-doing and temptations 
 to evil from the way of the poor, and 
 encourages them to strive for their own 
 true good. Something, indeed, may be 
 done for the moral benefit of the in- 
 digent by wise legislation ; I do not 
 mean by poor-laws, but by enactments 
 intended to remove, as far as possible, 
 degrading circumstances from their con- 
 dition. For example, the laws should 
 prohibit the letting of an apartment to 
 a poor family which is not tenantable, 
 which cannot but injure health, which 
 cannot be ventilated, which wants the 
 necessary means of preventing accumu- 
 lations of filth. Such ordinances, con- 
 nected with provisions for cleansing 
 every alley, and for carrying pure, 
 wholesome water in abundance to every 
 dwelling, would do not a little for the 
 health, cleanliness, and self-respect of 
 the poor ; and on these their moral 
 well-being in no small degree depends. 
 
 Our chief reliance, however, must be 
 placed on more direct and powerful 
 means than legislation. The poor need 
 and must receive moral and religious 
 culture, such as they have never yet 
 enjoyed. I say culture ; and I select 
 this term because it expresses the de-
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 79 
 
 velopment of inward principles ; and 
 without this, nothing effectual can be 
 done for rich or poor. Unhappily, re- 
 ligion has been, for the most part, 
 taught to the poor mechanically, super- 
 ficially, as a tradition. It has been 
 imposed on them as a restraint, or a 
 *-form ; it has been addressed to the 
 senses, or to the sensual imagination, 
 and not to the higher principles. An 
 outward hell, or an outward heaven, 
 has too often been the highest motive 
 brought to bear on their minds. But 
 something more is wanted ; a deeper 
 work, an inward culture, the develop- 
 ment of the reason, the conscience, the 
 affections, and the moral will. True 
 religion is a life unfolded within, not 
 something forced on us fr6m abroad. 
 The poor man needs an elevating power 
 within to resist the depressing tenden- 
 cies of his outward lot. Spiritual cult- 
 ure is the only effectual service we can 
 send him, and let his misery plead with 
 us to bestow it to the extent of our 
 power. 
 
 Had 1 time, I might show that moral 
 and religious principles, as far as they 
 are strengthened in the breasts of the 
 poor, meet all the wants and evils which 
 have now been portrayed ; that they 
 give them force to bear up against all 
 the adverse circumstances of their lot, 
 inspire them with self-respect, refine 
 their manners, give impulse to their in- 
 tellectual powers, open to them the 
 springs of domestic peace, teach them 
 to see without murmuring the superior 
 enjoyments of others, and rescue them 
 from the excesses into which multitudes 
 are driven by destitution and despair. 
 But these topics are not only too exten- 
 sive, but are to a degree familiar, though 
 by no means felt as they should be. I 
 conceive that I shall better answer the 
 purpose of awakening a spiritual inter- 
 est in this class of society, by confining 
 myself to a single point, by showing 
 that the moral and religious culture 
 which I claim for the poor is the high- 
 est cultivation which a human being 
 can receive. We are all of us, I fear, 
 blinded on this subject by the errors 
 and prejudices of our own education. 
 We are apt to imagine that the only im- 
 portant culture of a human being comes 
 from libraries, literary institutions, and 
 elegant accomplishments ; that is, from 
 means beyond the reach of the poor. 
 
 Advantages offered by wealth seem to 
 us the great and essential means of 
 bringing forward the human mind. Per- 
 haps we smile at hearing the word cul- 
 tivation applied to the poor. The best 
 light which their condition admits seems 
 darkness compared with the knowledge 
 imparted by our seminaries of learning ; 
 and the highest activity of mind to 
 which they can be excited is scornfully 
 contrasted with what is called forth in 
 their superiors by works of philosophy 
 and genius. There is, among not a 
 few, a contemptuous estimate of the 
 culture which may be extended to the 
 poor, of the good which they are capa- 
 ble of receiving ; and hence much of 
 the prevalent indifference as to furnish- 
 ing them the means of spiritual growth. 
 Now this is a weak and degrading prej- 
 udice. I affirm that the highest culture 
 is open alike to rich and poor. I affirm 
 that the rich may extend their most 
 precious acquisitions to the poor. There 
 is nothing in indigence to exclude the 
 noblest improvements. The impartial 
 Father designs his best gifts for all. 
 Exclusive good, or that which only a 
 few can enjoy, is comparatively worth- 
 less. Essential good is the most freely 
 diffused. It is time to put away our 
 childish notions as to human improve- 
 ment ; it is time to* learn that advan- 
 tages which are a monopoly of the few 
 are not necessary to the development 
 of human nature, that the soul grows 
 best by helps which are accessible to all. 
 The truth is, that there is no cultiva- 
 tion of the human being, worthy of the 
 name, but that which begins and ends 
 with the moral and religious nature. 
 No other teaching can make a man. 
 We are striving, indeed, to develop the 
 soul almost exclusively by intellectual 
 stimulants and nutriment, by schools 
 and colleges, by accomplishments and 
 fine arts. We are hoping to form men 
 and women by literature and science ; 
 but all in vain. We shall learn in time 
 that moral and religious culture is the 
 foundation and strength of all true cul- 
 tivation ; that we are deforming human 
 nature by the -means relied on for its 
 growth, and that the poor who receive 
 a care which awakens their consciences 
 and moral sentiments, start under hap- 
 pier auspices than the prosperous, who 
 place supreme dependence on* the edu- 
 cation of the intellect and the taste.
 
 8o 
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 It is common to measure the cultiva- 
 tion of men by their knowledge ; and 
 this is certainly an important element 
 and means of improvement. But knowl- 
 edge is various, differing in different 
 men according to the objects which 
 most engage their minds ; and by these 
 objects its worth must be judged. It is 
 not the extent but the kind of knowl- 
 edge which determines the measure of 
 cultivation. In truth, it is foolish to 
 talk of any knowledge as extensive. 
 The most eminent philosopher is of 
 yesterday, and knows nothing. New- 
 ton felt that he had gathered but a few 
 pebbles on the shores of a boundless 
 ocean. The moment we attempt to 
 penetrate a subject, we learn that it has 
 unfathomable depths. The known is 
 a sign of the infinite unknown. Every 
 discovery conducts us to an abyss of 
 darkness. In every thing, from the 
 grain of sand to the stars, the wise man 
 finds mysteries, before which his knowl- 
 edge shrinks into nothingness. It is 
 the kind not the extent of knowledge 
 by which the advancement of a human 
 being must be measured ; and that kind 
 which alone exalts a man is placed 
 within the reach of all. Moral and re- 
 ligious truth, this is the treasure of 
 the intellect, and all are poor without 
 it. This transcends physical truth as 
 far as mind transcends matter, or as 
 heaven is lifted above earth. Indeed, 
 physical science parts with its chief 
 dignity when separated from morals, 
 when it is not used to shadow forth, 
 confirm, and illustrate spiritual truth. 
 
 The true cultivation of a human being 
 consists in the development of great 
 moral ideas ; that is, the ideas of God, 
 of duty, of right, of justice, of love, of 
 self-sacrifice, of moral perfection as 
 manifested in Christ, of happiness, of 
 immortality, of Heaven. The elements 
 or germs of these ideas belong to every 
 soul, constitute its essence, and are in- 
 tended for endless expansion. These 
 are the chief distinctions of our nature ; 
 they constitute our humanity. To un- 
 fold these is the great work of our 
 being. The light in which these ideas 
 rise on the mind, the love which they 
 awaken, and the force of will with 
 which they are brought to sway the out- 
 ward and inward life, here, and here 
 only, are 'the measures of human culti- 
 vation. 
 
 These views show us that the highest 
 culture is within the reach of the poor. 
 It is not knowledge poured on us from 
 abroad, but the development of the ele- 
 mentary principles of the soul itself, 
 which constitutes the true growth of a 
 human being. Undoubtedly knowledge 
 from abroad is essential to the awaken- ' 
 ing of these principles.' But that which 
 conduces most to this end is offered 
 alike to rich and poor. Society and 
 experience, nature and revelation, our 
 chief moral and religious teachers, and 
 the great quickeners of the soul,, do not 
 open their schools to a few favorites, 
 do not initiate a small caste into their 
 mysteries, but are ordained by God to 
 be lights and blessings to all. 
 
 The highest culture, I repeat it. is in 
 reach of the poor, and is sometimes at- 
 tained by them. Without science, they 
 are often wiser than the philosopher. 
 The astronomer disdains them, but they 
 look above his stars. The geologist 
 disdains them, but they look deeper 
 than the earth's 'centre ; they pene- 
 trate their own souls, and find there 
 mightier, diviner elements than up- 
 heaved continents attest. In other 
 words, the great ideas of which I have 
 spoken may be, and often are, unfolded 
 more in the poor man than among the 
 learned or renowned ; and in this case 
 the poor man is the most cultivated. 
 For example, take the idea of justice. 
 Suppose a man, eminent for acquisi- 
 tions of knowledge, but in whom this 
 idea is but faintly developed. By jus- 
 tice he understands little more than re- 
 spect for the rights of property. That it 
 means respect for all the rights, and es- 
 pecially for the moral claims, of every 
 human being, of the lowest as well as 
 the most exalted, has perhaps never en- 
 tered his mind, much less been ex- 
 panded and invigorated into, a broad, 
 living conviction. Take now the case 
 of a poor man. to whom, under Christ's 
 teaching, the idea of the Just has be- 
 come real, clear, bright, and strong ; 
 wh.o recognizes, to its full extent, the 
 right of property, though it operates 
 against himself ; but who does not stop 
 here ; who comprehends the higher 
 rights of men as rational and moral 
 beings, their right to exercise and un- 
 fold all their powers, their right to the 
 means of improvement, their right to 
 search for truth and to utter their hon-
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 81 
 
 est convictions, their right to consult 
 first the monitor in their own breasts, 
 and to follow wherever it leads, their 
 right to be esteemed and honored ac- 
 cording to their moral efforts, their 
 right, when injured, to sympathy and suc- 
 cor against every oppressor. Suppose, 
 I say, the poor man to rise to the com- 
 prehension of this enlarged justice, to 
 revere it, to enthrone it over his actions, 
 to render to every human being, friend 
 or foe, near or far off, whatever is his 
 dW, to abstain conscientiously, not only 
 from injurious deeds, but from injuri- 
 ous thoughts, judgments, feelings, and 
 words. Is he not a more cultivated 
 man, and has he not a deeper founda- 
 tion and surer promise of truth, than 
 the student, who, with much outward 
 knowledge, does not comprehend men's 
 highest rights, whose scientific labors 
 are perhaps degraded by injustice tow- 
 ards his rivals, who, had he the power, 
 would fetter every intellect which threat- 
 ens to outstrip his own ? 
 
 The great idea on which human culti- 
 vation especially depends is that of God. 
 This is the concentration of all that is 
 beautiful, glorious, holy, blessed. It 
 transcends immeasurably in worth and 
 dignity all the science treasured up in 
 cyclopaedias or libraries ; and this may 
 be unfolded in the poor as truly as in 
 the rich. It is not an idea to be elabo- 
 rated by studies, which can be pursued 
 only in leisure or by opulence. Its ele- 
 ments belong to every soul, and are es- 
 pecially to be found in our moral nature, 
 in the idea of duty, in the feeling of rev- 
 erence, in the approving sentence which 
 we pass on virtue, in our disinterested 
 affections, and in the wants and aspira- 
 tions which carry us towards the Infi- 
 nite. There is but one way of unfolding 
 these germs of the idea of God, and that 
 is,' faithfulness to the best convictions 
 of duty and of the Divine Will which 
 we have hitherto gained. God is to 
 be known by obedience, by likeness, 
 by sympathy ; that is, by moral means, 
 which are open alike to rich and poor. 
 Many a man of science has not known 
 Him. The pride of science, like a thick 
 cloud, has hidden from the philosopher 
 the Spiritual Sun, the only true light, 
 and for want of this quickening ray he 
 has fallen in culture far, very far, below 
 the poor. 
 
 These remarks have been drawn from 
 
 me by the proneness of our times to 
 place human culture in physical knowl- 
 edge, and especially in degrees of it 
 denied to the mass of the people. To 
 this knowledge I would on no account 
 deny great value. In its place, it is an 
 important means of human improve- 
 ment. I look with admiration on the 
 intellectual force which combines and 
 masters scattered facts, and by analy- 
 sis and comparison ascends to the gen- 
 eral laws of the material universe. But 
 the philosopher who does not see in 
 the force within him something nobler 
 than the outward nature which he ana- 
 lyzes, who, in tracing mechanical and 
 chemical agencies, is unconscious of a 
 higher action in his own soul, who is 
 not led by all finite powers to the Om- 
 nipotent, and who does not catch, in 
 the order and beauty of the universe, 
 some glimpses of spiritual perfection, 
 stops at the very threshold ' of the tem- 
 ple of truth. Miserably narrow .is the 
 culture which confines the soul to mat- 
 ter, which turns it to the outward as to 
 something nobler than itself. I fear the 
 spirit of science at the present day is 
 too often a degradation rather than the 
 true culture of the soul. It is the bow- 
 ing down of the heaven-born spirit be- 
 fore unthinking mechanism. It seeks 
 knowledge rather for animal, transitory 
 purposes, than for the nutriment of the 
 imperishable inward life ; and yet the 
 worshippers of science pity or contemn 
 the poor, because denied this means of 
 cultivation. Unhappy poor ! shut out 
 from libraries, laboratories, and learned 
 institutes ! In view of this world's wis- 
 dom, it avails you nothing that your 
 own nature, manifested in your own 
 and other souls, that God's word and 
 works, that the ocean, earth, and sky, 
 are laid open to you ; that you may ac- 
 quaint yourselves with the Divine Per- 
 fections, with the character of Christ, 
 with the duties of life, with the virtues, 
 the generous sacrifices, and the beautiful 
 and holy emotions, which are a revela- 
 tion and pledge of heaven. All these 
 are nothing, do not lift you to the rank 
 of cultivated men, because the mysteries 
 of the telescope and microscope, of the 
 air-pump and crucible, are not revealed 
 to you ! I would they were revealed to 
 you. I believe the time is coming when 
 Christian benevolence will delight in 
 spreading all truth and all refinements
 
 82 
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 through all ranks of society. But mean- 
 while be not discouraged. One ray of 
 moral and religious truth is worth all the 
 wisdom of the schools. One lesson from 
 Christ will carry you higher than years 
 of study under those who are too en- 
 lightened to follow this celestial guide. 
 
 My hearers, do not contemn the poor 
 man for his ignorance. Has he seen 
 the right ? Has he felt the binding 
 force of the everlasting moral law ? 
 Has the beauty of virtue, in any of its 
 forms, been revealed to him ? Then he 
 has entered the highest school of wis- 
 dom. Then a light has dawned within 
 him worth all the physical knowledge 
 of all worlds. It almost moves me to 
 indignation when I hear the student 
 exalting his science, which at every 
 step meets impenetrable darkness, above 
 the idea of duty and above veneration 
 for goodness and God. It is true, and 
 ought to be understood, that outward 
 nature, however tortured, probed, dis- 
 sected, never reveals truths so sublime 
 or precious as are wrapped up in the 
 consciousness of the meanest individual, 
 and laid open to every eye in the word 
 of Christ. 
 
 I trust it will not be inferred from 
 what I have said of the superiority of 
 moral and religious culture to physical 
 science, that the former requires or in- 
 duces a neglect or disparagement of the 
 latter. No ; it is the friend of all truth, 
 the enemy of none. It is propitious to 
 intellect, and incites to the investigation 
 of the laws and order of the universe. 
 This view deserves a brief illustration, 
 because an opposite opinion has some- 
 times prevailed, because reproach has 
 sometimes been thrown on religious cult- 
 ure, as if it narrowed the mind and 
 barred it against the lights of physical 
 science. There cannot be a more 
 groundless charge. Superstition con- 
 tracts and darkens the mind ; but that 
 living faith in moral and religious truth, 
 for which I contend as the highest cult- 
 ure of rich and poor, is in no respect 
 narrow or exclusive. It does not fasten 
 the mind for ever on a few barren doc- 
 trines. In proportion to its growth, it 
 cherishes our whole nature, gives a wide 
 range to thought, opens the intellect to 
 the true, and the imagination to the 
 beautiful. The great principles of moral 
 and religious science are, above all 
 others, fruitful, life-giving, and have in- 
 
 timate connections with all other truth. 
 The love towards God and man, which 
 is the centre in which they meet, is the 
 very spirit of research into nature. It 
 finds perpetual delight in tracing out the 
 harmonies and vast and beneficent ar- 
 rangements of creation, and inspires an 
 interest in the works of the universal 
 Father, more profound, intense, endur- 
 ing, than philosophical curiosity. I con- 
 ceive, too, that faith in moral and 
 religious truth has strong affinities with 
 the scientific spirit, and thus contributes 
 to its perfection. Both, for example, 
 have the same objects, that is, uni- 
 versal truths. As another coincidence, 
 I would observe that it is the highest 
 prerogative of scientific genius to inter- 
 pret obscure signs, to dart from faint 
 hints to sublime discoveries, to read in 
 a few fragments the history of vanished 
 worlds and ages, to detect in the falling 
 apple the law which rules the spheres. 
 Now it is the property of moral and 
 religious faith to see in the finite the 
 manifestation of the Infinite, in the 
 present the germ of the boundless 
 future, in the visible the traces of the 
 Incomprehensible Unseen, in the powers 
 and wants of the soul its imperishable 
 destiny. Such is the harmony between 
 the religious and the philosophical 
 spirit. It is to a higher moral and re- 
 ligious culture that I look for a higher 
 interpretation of nature. The laws of 
 nature, we must remember, had their 
 origin in the mind of God. Of this they 
 are the product, expression, and type ; 
 and I cannot but believe that the human 
 mind which best understands, and which 
 partakes most largely of the divine, has 
 a power of interpreting nature which 
 is accorded to no other. It has har- 
 monies with the system which it is to 
 unfold. It contains in itself the princi- 
 ples which gave birth to creation. As yet, 
 science has hardly penetrated beneath 
 the surface of nature. The principles of 
 animal and vegetable life, of which all 
 organized beings around us are but 
 varied modifications, the forces which 
 pervade or constitute matter, and the 
 links between matter and mind, are as 
 yet wrapped in darkness ; and how little 
 is known of the adaptations of the phys- 
 ical and the spiritual world to one 
 another ! Whence is light to break in 
 on these depths of creative wisdom ? 
 I look for it to the spirit of philosophy,
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 baptized, hallowed, exalted, made pierc- 
 ing by a new culture of the moral and 
 religious principles of the human soul. 
 The topic opens before me as I advance. 
 The superiority of moral and religious 
 to all other culture is confirmed by a 
 throng of arguments not yet touched. 
 The peculiar wisdom which this culture 
 gives, by revealing to us the end, the 
 ultimate good of our being, which 
 nothing else teaches ; the peculiar power 
 which it gives, power over ourselves, so 
 superior to the most extensive sway 
 over the outward universe ; the neces- 
 sity of moral and religious culture to 
 make knowledge a blessing, to save it 
 from being a curse ; these are weighty 
 considerations which press on my mind, 
 but cannot be urged. They all go to 
 show that the culture which the poor 
 may receive is worth all others ; that in 
 sending among them religious and moral 
 influences, you send the highest good of 
 the universe. 
 
 My friends, I have now set before 
 you the chief evils of the poor, and 
 have shown you the greatness and 
 dignity of the culture which is within 
 their reach ; and the great conviction 
 which I wish by these views to carry home 
 to every mind is, that we are solemnly 
 bound to cherish and manifest a 
 strong moral and religious interest 
 in the poor, and to give them, as far 
 as we have power, the means of moral 
 and religious cultivation. Your sym- 
 pathies with their bodily wants and 
 pains I, of course, would not weaken. 
 We must not neglect their bodies under 
 pretence of caring for their souls ; nor 
 must we, on the other hand, imagine 
 that, in providing for their outward 
 wants, we have acquitted ourselves of 
 all Christian obligations. To scatter 
 from our abundance occasional alms is 
 not enough ; we must bring them to our 
 minds as susceptible of deeper evils 
 than hunger and cold, and as formed for 
 higher good than food or the cheering 
 flame. The love of Christ towards 
 them should seem to us no extravagance, 
 no blind enthusiasm, but a love due to 
 human nature in all its forms. To look 
 beyond the outward to the spiritual in 
 man is the great distinction of Christian 
 love. The soul of a fellow-creature 
 must come out, if I may so say, and be- 
 come more visible and prominent to us 
 than his bodily frame. To see and esti- 
 
 mate the spiritual nature of the poor is 
 greater wisdom than to span earth or 
 heaven. To elevate this is a greater 
 work than to build cities. To give moral 
 life to the fallen is a higher achievement 
 than to raise the dead from their graves. 
 Such is the philanthropy which char- 
 acterizes our religion ; and without this 
 we can do little effectual good to the 
 poor. 
 
 I am here teaching a difficult but great 
 duty. To acquire and maintain an un- 
 affected conviction of the superiority of 
 the spiritual in man to every thing out- 
 ward, is a hard task, especially to the 
 prosperous, and yet among the most 
 essential. In the poor man, walking 
 through our streets with a haggard 
 countenance and tottering step, we 
 ought to see something greater than all 
 the opulence and splendor which sur- 
 round him. On this foundation of re- 
 spect for every soul are built all social 
 duties, and none can be thoroughly per- 
 formed without it. On this point I feel 
 that I use no swollen language. Words 
 cannot exaggerate the worth of the soul. 
 We have all felt, when looking above us 
 into the atmosphere, that there was an 
 infinity of space which we could not ex- 
 plore. When I look into man's spirit, 
 and see there the germs of an immortal 
 life, I feel more deeply that an infinity 
 lies hid beyond what 1 see. In the idea 
 of duty, which springs up in every hu- 
 man heart, I discern a law more sacred 
 and boundless than gravitation, which 
 binds the soul % to a more glorious uni- 
 verse than that to which attraction binds 
 the body, and which is to endure though 
 the laws of physical nature pass away. 
 Every moral sentiment, every intellect- 
 ual action, is to me a hint, a prophetic 
 sign, of a spiritual power to be expanded 
 for ever, just as a faint ray from a dis- 
 tant star is significant of unimaginable 
 splendor. And if this be true, is not a 
 human being wronged, greatly wronged, 
 who awakens in his fellow-creatures no 
 moral concern, who receives from them 
 no spiritual care ? 
 
 It is the boast of our country that the 
 civil and political rights of every human 
 being are secured, that impartial law 
 watches alike over rich and poor. But 
 man has other, and more important, than 
 civil rights ; and this is especially true 
 of the poor. To him who owns nothing, 
 what avails it that he lives in a country
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 where property is inviolable ; or what 
 mighty boon is it to him, that every citi- 
 zen is eligible to office, when his condi- 
 tion is an insuperable bar to promotion ? 
 To the poor, as to all men, moral rights 
 are most important ; the right to be re- 
 garded according to their nature, to be 
 regarded, not as animals or material in- 
 struments, but as men ; the right to be 
 esteemed and honored, according to their 
 fidelity to the moral law ; and their right 
 to whatever aids their fellow-beings can 
 offer for their improvement, for the 
 growth of their highest powers. These 
 rights are founded on the supremacy of 
 the moral nature, and until they are rec- 
 ognized the poor are deeply wronged. 
 
 Our whole connection with the poor 
 should tend to awaken in them the con- 
 sciousness of their moral powers and 
 responsibility, and to raise them in spirit 
 and hope above their lot. They should 
 be aided to know themselves, by the es- 
 timate we form of them. They should 
 be rescued from self-contempt, by seeing 
 others impressed with the great purpose 
 of their being. We may call the poor 
 unfortunate, but never call them low. If 
 faithful to their light, they stand among 
 the high. They have no superiors, but 
 in those who follow a brighter, purer 
 light ; and to withhold from them re- 
 spect, is to defraud their virtue of a 
 support which is among the most sacred 
 rights of man. Are they morally fallen 
 and lost? They should still learn, in 
 our unaffected concern, the worth of the 
 fallen soul, and learn that nothing seems 
 to us so fearful as its degradation. 
 
 This moral, spiritual interest in the 
 poor, we should express and make effect- 
 ual, by approaching them, by establish- 
 ing an intercourse with them, as far as 
 consists with other duties. We must 
 live with them, not as another race, but 
 as brethren. Our Christian principles 
 must work a new miracle, must exorcise 
 and expel the spirit of caste. The out- 
 ward distinctions of life must seem to 
 us not "a great gulf," but superficial 
 lines, which the chances of a day may 
 blot out, and which are broad only to the 
 narrow-minded. How can the educated 
 and improved communicate themselves 
 to their less favored fellow-creatures 
 but by coming near them ? The strength, 
 happiness, and true civilization of a com- 
 munity are determined by nothing more 
 than by this fraternal union among all 
 
 conditions of men. Without this, a civil 
 war virtually rages in a state. For the 
 sake of rich as well as poor, there should 
 be a mutual interest binding them to- 
 gether ; there should be but one caste, 
 that of humanity. 
 
 To render this connection interesting 
 and useful, we must value and cultivate 
 the power of acting morally on the poor. 
 There is no art so divine as that of 
 reaching and quickening other minds. 
 Do not tell me you are unequal to this 
 task. What ! call yourselves educated, 
 and yet want power to approach and aid 
 your unimproved fellow-creatures ! Of 
 what use is education, if it do not fit us 
 to receive and give freely in our various 
 social connections ? How wasted has 
 been our youth, if it has taught us only 
 the dialect and manners of a select class, 
 and not taught us the language of hu- 
 manity, not taught us to mix with and 
 act on the mass of our fellow-creatures ! 
 How far are you raised above the poor, 
 if you cannot comprehend, guide, or 
 sway them ? The chief endowment of 
 a social being I mean the power 
 of imparting what is true and good in 
 your own souls you have yet to learn. 
 You cannot learn it too soon. 
 
 Yes, 1 call you to seek and use the 
 power of speaking to the minds of the ig- 
 norant and poor, and especially of the 
 poor child. Strive, each of you, to bring 
 at least one human being to the happi- 
 ness for which God made him. Awaken 
 him to some inward moral activity ; for 
 on this, not on mere outward teaching, 
 the improvement of rich and poor alike 
 depends. Strive to raise him above the 
 crushing necessities of the body, by 
 turning him to the great, kindling pur- 
 pose of his being. Show him that the 
 fountain of all happiness is within us, 
 and that this fountain may be opened 
 alike in every soul. Show him how 
 much virtue and peace he may gain by 
 fidelity to his domestic relations ; how 
 much progress he may make by devout 
 and resolute use of his best opportuni- 
 ties ; what a near union he may form 
 with God ; how beneficent an influence 
 he may exert in his narrow sphere ; 
 what heroism may be exercised amidst 
 privations and pains ; how suffering may 
 be turned to glory ; how heaven may 
 begin in the most unprosperous condi- 
 tion on earth. Surely he who can carry 
 such truths to any human being is
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 charged with a glorious mission from 
 above. 
 
 In these remarks I have urged on 
 all who hear me a personal interest in 
 the moral well-being of the poor. I am 
 aware, however, that many can devote 
 but little personal care to this work. 
 But what they cannot do themselves, 
 they can do by others ; and this I hold 
 to be one of our most sacred duties 
 as Christians. If we cannot often 
 visit the poor ourselves, we may send 
 those who are qualified to serve them 
 better. We can support ministers to 
 study and apply the means of enlight- 
 ening, comforting, reforming, and sav- 
 ing the ignorant and depressed. Every 
 man whom God has prospered is bound 
 to contribute to this work. The Chris- 
 tian ministry is indeed a blessing to all, 
 but above all to the poor. We, who 
 have leisure and quiet homes, and can 
 gather round us the teachers of all ages 
 in their writings, can better dispense 
 with the living teacher than the poor, 
 who are unused to learn from books, 
 and unaccustomed to mental effort, who 
 can only learn through the eye and ear, 
 through the kind look and the thrill- 
 ing voice. Send them the ministers of 
 God's truth and grace. And think not 
 that this office may be filled by any who 
 will take it. There are some, I know, 
 perhaps not a few, who suppose the 
 most common capacities equal to the 
 Christian ministry in general, and who, 
 of course, will incline to devolve the 
 office of teaching the ignorant and 
 destitute on men unfit for other voca- 
 tions. Away with this disgraceful 
 error ! If there be an office worthy of 
 angels, it is that of teaching Christian 
 truth. The Son of God hallowed it, by 
 sustaining it in his own person. All 
 other labors sink before it. Royalty 
 is impotence and a vulgar show, com- 
 pared with the deep and quickening 
 power which many a Christian teacher 
 has exerted on the immortal soul. Pro- 
 found intellect, creative genius, thrill- 
 ing eloquence, can nowhere find such 
 scope and excitement as in the study 
 and communication of moral and relig- 
 ious truth, as in breathing into other 
 minds the wisdom and love which were 
 revealed in Jesus Christ ; and the time 
 will come when they will joyfully con- 
 secrate themselves to this as their true 
 sphere. That the ministry of the poor 
 
 may be sustained by a man wanting 
 some qualifications for a common con- 
 gregation, is true ; but he needs no 
 ordinary gifts, a sound judgment, a 
 clear mind, an insight into human nat- 
 ure, a spirit of patient research, the 
 power of familiar and striking illustra- 
 tion of truth, a glowing heart, an un- 
 affected self-devotion to the service of 
 mankind. Such men we are bound to 
 provide for the poor, if they can be 
 secured. He who will not contribute 
 to the moral and religious culture of 
 the destitute is unworthy to live in 
 Christendom. He deserves to be ban- 
 ished beyond the light which he will 
 not spread. Let him deny his religion 
 if he will ; but to believe in it, and yet 
 not seek to impart it to those who can 
 receive no other treasure, is to cast 
 contempt on its excellence, and to 
 harden himself against the most sacred 
 claims of humanity. 
 
 My friends, it is a cause of gratitude 
 that so much has been done in this city 
 to furnish such a ministry as now has 
 been described. The poor, I believe, 
 are provided for here as in no other 
 place in our country. The Fraternity 
 of Churches, which I address, have in 
 their service three ministers for this 
 work, and the number, it is expected, 
 will be increased ; and we all know 
 that they have not labored in vain. 
 Their good influence we cannot doubt. 
 The cause has been signally prospered 
 by God. Since the institution of this 
 ministry, it has not only carried in- 
 struction, counsel, reproof, hope, and 
 moral strength to multitudes who would 
 otherwise have heard no encouraging 
 voice, would have met no outward 
 remembrances of Christian duty, it 
 has produced in other classes of so- 
 ciety still more promising effects ; it 
 has produced a connection of the rich 
 with the poor, a knowledge of their 
 real state and wants, a sympathy with 
 them, an interest in their well-being, 
 which are the signs of a lasting im- 
 provement in society. Th.s ministry 
 has not been lifeless machinery. It 
 has vitality, earnestness, force. It 
 does not rest in a round of regular 
 services, but seeks new means of reach- 
 ing the poor. It particularly seeks to 
 act on the children. Not content with 
 gathering them in Sunday-schools, it 
 forms congregations of them for wor-
 
 86 
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 ship, and adapts to them the ordinary 
 services of the church, so as to fix 
 attention and touch thft heart. What 
 an invaluable service to humanity ! 
 Formerly, these children, unprovided 
 with the means of public worship, 
 never guided by their parents to the 
 house of prayer, wasted and worse 
 than wasted the Sunday in the streets, 
 and found or made this holy season a 
 day of peculiar temptation and crime. 
 Whilst the ministers of the poor are 
 faithful to the adult, they give a spe- 
 cial care to children, and through the 
 child often reach the parent's heart. 
 Through their efforts, the young who 
 had been brought up to beg have often 
 been sent to the public school or the 
 Sunday-school, and in this way many 
 a heedless foot, going down to ruin, 
 has been turned to the path of duty. 
 It is confidently stated that, since the 
 establishment of this ministry a few 
 years ago, street beggary has decreased, 
 notwithstanding the rapid growth of 
 our population. Happily, men of in- 
 telligence and noble hearts are willing 
 to enter this field, and new laborers 
 are needed. It is important that the 
 ministers of the poor should extend 
 their care beyond the most indigent, 
 to that class from which the ranks of 
 indigence are recruited, I mean to 
 that class of laborers who are hov- 
 ering over the brink of poverty, who 
 depend on each day's toil for each 
 day's food, and whom a short sickness 
 or deficiency of employment reduces 
 to want. Among these, the degrading 
 infidelity of our days finds many of its 
 victims, and on this account they pe- 
 culiarly need to be visited by Christian 
 friendship and the light of truth. To 
 connect these with regular congrega- 
 tions, and to incite them to contribute 
 to the support of public worship some 
 part of what they now too generally ex-, 
 pend in pernicious indulgences, would 
 be to render an essential service to 
 morals and religion. 
 
 The work of a minister for the poor 
 covers much ground, and it demands 
 superior minds. This body of men are 
 set apart, not only to act on individuals, 
 but to study poverty in all its aspects, 
 in its causes, its influences, its various 
 shapes, its growth, and its decline, and 
 thus to give light to the legislator and 
 philanthropist in the great work of its 
 
 prevention and cure. To me, this min- 
 istry is peculiarly interesting, regarded 
 as the beginning of a series of opera- 
 tions for banishing from society its 
 chief calamity and reproach, and for 
 changing the face of the civilized and 
 Christian world. I see in it the ex- 
 pression of a silently growing purpose, 
 that Christian communities shall not 
 always be deformed and disgraced by 
 the presence of an ignorant, destitute, 
 miserable horde ; that in the bosom of 
 civilization there shall no longer exist 
 a more wretched, degraded portion of 
 human beings than can be found in sav- 
 age life. This horrible contrast of con- 
 dition, which all large cities present, 
 has existed too long. Shall it endure 
 for ever ? My friends, we all, as well 
 as others, have hitherto been dreadfully 
 insensible to this sorest evil under the 
 sun. Long use has hardened us to it. 
 We have lived comfortably, perhaps 
 luxuriously, in our dwellings, whilst 
 within a stone's throw were fellow- 
 creatures, the children of our Father 
 in heaven, as nobly born and gifted as 
 ourselves, in whose countenances might 
 be read brutal ignorance, hopeless mis- 
 ery, and degrading vice. We have 
 passed them in the street, not only 
 without a tear but without a thought. 
 Oh, how seldom has a pang shot through 
 our hearts at the sight of our ruined 
 fellow-creatures ! Shall this insensi- 
 bility continue for ever ? Shall not a 
 new love succeed to this iron hardness 
 of heart ? Do not call the evil reme- 
 diless. Sure I am, that at this moment 
 there is enough of piety, philanthropy, 
 and moral power in this community 
 to work deep changes in the poorer 
 classes, could these energies, now 
 scattered and slumbering, be brought 
 to bear wisely and perseveringly on 
 the task. Shall we decline this work ? 
 If so, we decline the noblest labor cf 
 philanthropy. If so, we must surfer, 
 and we ought to suffer. Society ought 
 to be troubled, to be shaken, yea con- 
 vulsed, until its solemn debt to the 
 ignorant and poor be paid. Poor there 
 will be, but they need not, must not, 
 exist as a degraded, hopeless caste. 
 They need not, must not, be cut off 
 from the brotherhood of humanity. 
 Their children must not be left to inherit 
 and propagate their crimes and woes. 
 To put an end to such a class is the
 
 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 
 
 highest office of Christian philanthropy. 
 Do you ask how it is to be done ? I 
 answer, Christianity has wrought mighty 
 revolutions, and in these we have an 
 earnest of what it is able and destined 
 to accomplish. Let us bring this into 
 new contact with the poor. Let us 
 send forth men, imbued with its spirit, 
 to preach it to the poor, and still more 
 to study poverty in all its forms, that 
 the moral pestilence which has so long 
 ravaged the Christian world may at last 
 be stayed. 
 
 I now see before me the representa- 
 tives of several congregations of this 
 city, which have united to support the 
 ministry for the poor. Thanks to God 
 for this manifestation of the spirit and 
 power of Christianity. This connec- 
 tion, framed only for purposes of Chris- 
 tian philanthropy, looking only to the 
 spiritual relief of our depressed fel- 
 low-creatures, and incapable of being 
 perverted to the accumulation of eccle- 
 siastical power, is the happiest means 
 which could be devised to bring our 
 churches into stronger sympathy and 
 closer friendship, without infringing, in 
 the smallest degree, that principle of 
 independence or self-government on 
 which they are built. Is it not a plain 
 truth, that every Christian congregation, 
 besides providing for its own spiritual 
 wants, is bound to devote itself to the 
 general cause of Christianity, and to 
 provide for spreading its own light and 
 privileges to the destitute ? By this 
 fraternity we are discharging, in part, 
 this sacred obligation. May it be sus- 
 tained with increasing zeal, with un- 
 shaken faith, with glorious success ! 
 
 My friends, is it necessary that I 
 should urge you to contribute of your 
 substance to the work which has now 
 been laid before you ? I am speaking 
 to the prosperous. Let the Goodness 
 which has prospered you teach you the 
 spirit in which your wealth or compe- 
 tence should be used. What is the true 
 use of prosperity ? Not to minister to 
 self-indulgence and ostentation ; not to 
 widen the space between you and the 
 less prosperous ; not to multiply signs 
 of superior rank ; not to raise us to an 
 eminence, whence we may look down on 
 the multitude as an inferior race : but to 
 multiply our bonds of union with our 
 fellow-creatures, to spread our sympa- 
 
 thies far and wide, to give us nobler 
 spheres of action, to make us more 
 eminently the delegates and represent- 
 atives of divine beneficence. What is 
 the true use of increasing wealth in a 
 city ? It is not that more magnificent 
 structures should be reared, but that our 
 dwellings should be inhabited by a more 
 intelligent and virtuous people ; that in- 
 stitutions for awakening intellectual and 
 moral life should be brought to bear on 
 the whole community ; that the individ- 
 ual may be carried forward to his true 
 happiness and perfection ; that society 
 may be bound together by stronger and 
 purer bonds, and that the rigid laws of 
 earthly governments may be more and 
 more superseded by the law of love. 
 Without such influences, wealth is 
 turned into a snare and curse. If, in- 
 deed, our prosperity is to be used to 
 spread luxurious and selfish modes of 
 life, to form a frivolous class of fashion, 
 to produce more striking contrasts be- 
 tween unfeeling opulence and abject 
 penury, to corrupt manners and harden 
 the heart, better were it for us that, by 
 the just judgment of God, it should be 
 sunk into the depths of the sea. It 
 avails little that intercourse is more pol- 
 ished, and a new grace is thrown over 
 life. The simple question is, Do we 
 better understand and more strongly 
 feel our relations to God and to our fel- 
 low-creatures ? Without this, our boasted 
 civilization is a whited sepulchre, fair to 
 the eye, but inwardly " full of dead men's 
 bones and all uncleanness." But I can- 
 not end this discourse with the voice of 
 warning. You deserve to hear the voice 
 of encouragement and hope. One good 
 work you are carrying on, as this anni- 
 versary testifies. One institution for 
 instructing the ignorant and raising up 
 the fallen, you have sustained. Let it 
 not fall. Extend and strengthen it. 
 Make it permanent. Bind it up with 
 the institutions which you support for 
 your own religious improvement. Trans- 
 mit it to your children. Let your chil- 
 dren learn, from this your example, to 
 take part in the cause of Christ, of 
 prophets and apostles, of holy men of 
 all ages, in the work of regenerating 
 society, and of extending to the whole 
 human family the light and blessings of 
 the Christian faith.
 
 88 
 
 ON PREACHING TO THE POOR- 
 
 ON PREACHING THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR: 
 
 Charge at the Ordination of Charles F. Barnard and Frederick T. Gray, 
 as Ministers at Large, in Boston. 
 
 You have now been set apart to the 
 Christian ministry, according to the rites 
 of the Congregational Church. A princi- 
 pal design of these is to impress you with 
 the importance and responsibleness of 
 your office. That this impression may 
 be strengthened, and that the duties now 
 imposed on you may be brought dis- 
 tinctly to your minds, I have been ap- 
 pointed by the Council, here convened, 
 to deliver to you the usual Charge. 
 From the various topics which naturally 
 occur to me on this occasion, 1 can se- 
 lect but a few. For full instruction in 
 your sacred calling, I refer you to the 
 Scriptures, to the example of Christ, 
 the first and only perfect teacher of his 
 religion, to the labors and sufferings of 
 the Apostles, and to the precepts relat- 
 ing to the ministry scattered through 
 their writings. These are able " to fur- 
 nish you unto every good work, and to 
 make you wise unto salvation." 
 
 Preaching and private intercourse 
 with the poor are henceforth to be the 
 labors of your lives. First, you are to 
 preach ; and in performing this office, 
 let me exhort you to the scrupulous 
 observance of a plain but often neg- 
 lected precept. It is this, reverence 
 truth. Preach what approves itself 
 clearly to your own minds as true, and 
 preach nothing else. Teach nothing 
 because others teach it. Inculcate noth- 
 ing about which you have doubts, be- 
 cause expected to inculcate it. Speak 
 from no human master, from no human 
 creed. Speak from your own calm con- 
 victions, and from nothing else. Do 
 not use stronger language than your 
 own minds warrant, for the sake of 
 making greater impression. Do not 
 seek the reputation of eloquence, by 
 assuming a bold, confident tone, which 
 exceeds your private belief. Exaggerate 
 nothing. Paint nothing beyond the life. 
 Be true, the hardest lesson to the min- 
 
 ister. Preach nothing, however gratify- 
 ing to the imagination or the heart, which 
 cannot stand the scrutiny of the deliber- 
 ate judgment. Distort no truth for the 
 sake of effect. Never hope to make the 
 sword of the spirit more powerful by any 
 human alloy. I have said, beware of 
 exaggeration. Beware also of the op- 
 posite vice, of softening down, diluting, 
 obscuring the truth, till its power and 
 pungency are gone, in order to accom- 
 modate it to the prejudices and passions 
 of men. No man is fit to preach who 
 is not ready to be a martyr to truth. 
 We indeed recommend to you pru- 
 dence ; but the great office of prudence 
 is not to disfigure or conceal the truth, 
 but to secure it against misapprehen- 
 sion, and to place it before men's minds 
 in the light which will probably gain 
 for it the readiest reception. Be pru- 
 dent for the truth's sake, not for your 
 own sake, not for the sake of popu- 
 larity, not from weakness or timidity. 
 Be cautious lest you be over-cautious. 
 Fear to stifle any great truth. Let your 
 preaching be the frank expression of the 
 workings and convictions of your own 
 minds. There is a peculiar freshness, 
 charm, energy, in perfect sincerity. The 
 preaching which manifests a profound 
 reverence for truth, which is seen and 
 felt to spring from an inward fountain, 
 which reveals the real and whole mind 
 of the speaker, wins confidence, and 
 works conviction, far more than the 
 most vehement outpourings of imagi- 
 nation and passion. 
 
 I have said, preach what approves 
 itself to your own minds as true, and 
 nothing else. I now say, preach it in 
 your own style. Give it forth in the 
 form to which your own minds prompt 
 you. Be not imitators. Be not anx- 
 ious to wield other men's weapons. Do 
 not think that the mode of preaching 
 which is effectual in another will there-
 
 OA T PREACHING TO THE POOR. 
 
 8 9 
 
 fore succeed in you. You surely would 
 not mimic his tones, because they pen- 
 etrate his hearers. Look at subjects 
 with your own eyes. Utter them in 
 your own words. Be yourselves. Be 
 natural. There is no other road to the 
 human heart. 
 
 Would you be increasingly useful ? 
 Then be just to your own minds. Let 
 them act freely. Form yourselves from 
 within more than from without. You 
 ought, indeed, to seek benefit by hear- 
 ing other preachers ; but be benefited 
 through sympathy, and by catching from 
 them generous impulses, and not by 
 making them models. So you must 
 read what others have written ; but 
 read, that the action of other minds may 
 awaken your own intellectual activity, 
 and not be a substitute for it. Listen in 
 the first place to the whispers of truth in 
 your own souls, and prize them more 
 than the teachings of your fellow-creat- 
 ures. Whenever you catch a new 
 glimpse of God's character, of human 
 nature, of human perfection, of life, of 
 futurity, of the Christian spirit ; when- 
 ever a familiar truth rises before you in 
 a new aspect ; whenever a new princi- 
 ple dawns on you from a number of 
 facts, which had before lain with- 
 out connection in your minds ; when- 
 ever a sentence in a human work, or 
 a text of Scripture, reveals to you, as by 
 a flash, some depths in your own souls, 
 or scatters suddenly the mist which had 
 before hung over some important doc- 
 trine ; whenever a new light of this 
 kind gleams on you, prize it more than 
 volumes or libraries. Feel that a higher 
 teacher than man has approached you. 
 Pray to the Father of lights that this 
 new ray may brighten within you. It is 
 by this welcome to truth, springing up 
 in our own souls, that we are to grow 
 in energy of thought and feeling ; and 
 growth is the great condition of in- 
 creasing usefulness. We charge you, 
 then, to be just and generous to your 
 own minds. Cherish every divine inspi- 
 ration. Be no man's slaves. Seek truth 
 for yourselves. Speak it from your- 
 selves. Speak it in your own natural 
 tones. You, of course, desire to avoid 
 the greatest of all defects in a preacher, 
 that of being tame and dull ; and your 
 security from this is to be found, not in 
 starts and exclamations, not in noise 
 and gesture, not in the commonplaces 
 
 of passion, but in keeping your minds 
 and hearts in free and powerful action. 
 This inward life will give life to style 
 and delivery, and nothing else will. 
 This is the only secret of eloquence. 
 Eloquence is not a trick of words. It 
 is the utterance of great truths, so clearly 
 discerned, so deeply felt, so bright, so 
 burning, that they cannot be confined, 
 that they create for themselves a style 
 and manner which carry them far into 
 other souls ; and of this eloquence there 
 is but one fount, and that is inward life, 
 force of thought, force of feeling. 
 
 Perhaps it may be said that these re- 
 marks apply little to ministers of the 
 poor ; that the poor are as children ; 
 and that little spiritual energy is re- 
 quired for their instruction. We charge 
 you, my friends, to beware of this com- 
 mon error. Do not dishonor your high 
 calling by supposing it to require little 
 force of thought and feeling. The poor 
 are generally ignorant, but in some re- 
 spects they are better critics than the 
 rich, and make greater demands on their 
 teachers. A congregation of the more 
 affluent and educated can be satisfied 
 with proprieties of style and manner, 
 can be held together by local attach- 
 ment, by the elegance or fashionable- 
 ness of the edifice in which it worships, 
 or by the strong bonds of a creed or 
 sect. The poor care for none of these 
 things. Proprieties of style and man- 
 ner, local feeling, fashion, show, or sec- 
 tarian zeal are not attractions to them. 
 They can only be brought and held 
 together by a preaching which fastens 
 their attention, or pierces their con- 
 sciences, or moves their hearts. They 
 are no critics of words, but they know 
 when they are touched or roused, and 
 by this test a far truer one than 
 you find in fastidious congregations 
 they judge the minister, and determine 
 whether to follow or forsake him. The 
 duty of preaching to the poor is ac- 
 cordingly a difficult one. Their minis- 
 ter has much to learn, and, what is 
 harder, much to forget. He must forget 
 the modes of address under which he 
 was himself educated. He is to speak 
 to those who cannot find a meaning in 
 the vague language which he has gen- 
 erally heard from the pulpit. He must 
 find a new tongue. He must reach the 
 understanding through the imagination 
 and the heart. He must look, not upon
 
 ON PREACHING TO THE POOR. 
 
 his notes, but into the eyes of his hear- 
 ers. He must appeal to the simple, uni- 
 versal principles of human nature. There 
 must be a directness, freedom, earnest- 
 ness of manner, which are not required 
 in the church of more refined worship- 
 pers. To accomplish all this, books will 
 do him little good. His best study is 
 the poor man's narrow room. His best 
 teacher is a keen observation of the 
 workings of the poor man's heart, of his 
 passions, perils, and spiritual wants. 
 We charge you to beware of aiming to 
 resemble ministers in other situations. 
 You must invent modes of action for 
 yourselves. You must make a new 
 path. Cultivate by perpetual practice 
 the power of extemporaneous address. 
 Take your texts, as your Master did, 
 from scenes, events, objects which are 
 pressing on the notice of your hearers. 
 Find your way to their minds and hearts. 
 Be any thing but formal and mechanical. 
 Better forsake your ministry than make 
 it a monotonous repetition of the com- 
 mon modes of teaching and action. 
 
 But preaching is not your whole or 
 chief work. Private intercourse is to you 
 a more important instrument than the 
 pulpit. You must not wait for the poor in 
 the church. Go to them in their houses. 
 Go where no other will go. Let no 
 squalidness, or misery, or crime, repel 
 you. Seek the friendless, the forsaken, 
 the desponding, the lost. Penetrate the 
 depths of poverty, the haunts of intem- 
 perance, the strongholds of sin. Feel 
 an attraction in what others shun, in the 
 bleak room open to the winter's wind, in 
 the wasted form and the haggard coun- 
 tenance, in the very degradation of your 
 race. Go where suffering and guilt sum- 
 mon you ; and what weapon shall you 
 take with you for this contest with phys- 
 ical and moral evil ? You will be told 
 to arm yourselves with caution, to be- 
 ware of deception, to take the shield of 
 prudence, and to put on the breastplate 
 of distrust ; and this lesson is indeed 
 important ; but prudence and caution are 
 only defensive armor. They will be se- 
 curity to yourselves ; they give no power 
 over misery, poverty, and vice. That 
 power is to be found in a higher princi- 
 ple ; and take heed lest this be quenched 
 by that distrust in which you will be so 
 plentifully instructed. The only power 
 to oppose to evil is love, strong, en- 
 during love, a benevolence which no 
 
 crime or wretchedness can conquer, and 
 which therefore can conquer all. Misera- 
 ble indeed will be your office, if this spirit 
 do not possess you, if a deep sympathy 
 with your suffering fellow-creatures do 
 not compel you, as it were, to seek their 
 abodes, and do not identify you with 
 them. Nothing but Christ's spirit, that 
 which carried him to his cross, can carry 
 you through your work. Go, then, with 
 his love ; and it will be mightier than the 
 sword of the magistrate, or the armies 
 of monarchs, to conquer evil. It will 
 touch the heart which has hardened it- 
 self against all other influences. It will 
 pierce the conscience which is impreg- 
 nable against the most vehement rebuke. 
 It will say to the reckless transgressor, 
 in the only language he can under- 
 stand, that he is not an outcast from 
 his race ; and it will reveal to the de- 
 sponding sufferer a love higher than 
 your own, and bring back his lost faith 
 in God. Love gives a new tongue, 
 the only one which all men can compre- 
 hend. But by this I mean something 
 more than the common kindness of the 
 world. I mean the spirit of Christ and 
 his Apostles, a love not born on the 
 earth, but which came from heaven in the 
 person of the Saviour, and is only to be 
 nourished by communion -with heaven. 
 Seek it as your chief power. Guard it 
 against the contagion of the spirit of this 
 world. Cherish it by meditation and 
 prayer, by intimacy with Christ and his 
 true disciples, and by perpetual exercise 
 in your intercourse with the poor. 
 
 You must love the poor ; you must 
 also respect them ; and, in truth, respect 
 is the very soul of the love which I have 
 enjoined. Honor the poor man. Let 
 not his poverty for a moment hide you 
 from his participation of your own nat- 
 ure and of the divine image. Never let 
 the man be lost in the beggar. If you 
 have not power to penetrate to the spirit 
 within him, and to reverence that divine 
 principle more than all outward magnifi- 
 cence, you are unfit for your office. If 
 there seem to you exaggeration, or a false 
 sentimentality, in the language which 
 pronounces the soul of one poor man 
 worth more than the wealth of worlds, 
 or than all material nature, then you 
 want the spirit of your function, and can- 
 not lay it aside too soon. Go to the 
 poor, to awaken in them the conscious- 
 ness of their relation to God, and of
 
 ON PREACHING TO THE POOR. 
 
 their immortality. Do not go as the 
 representatives of the richer classes, to 
 keep them in order ; but go in the name 
 of Christians, to make them partakers 
 of the highest distinctions and blessings 
 in which any of us rejoice. Carry to 
 them the gospel, not for purposes of 
 worldly policy, but as a life-giving truth, 
 imparted by God to lift them above all 
 worldly greatness, to subject them to a 
 nobler'law than that of the state, to make 
 them citizens of heaven. Present relig- 
 ion to them in a generous form. Carry 
 to them the very truths you would bear 
 to the most prosperous and enlightened. 
 Stir up the poor man to be active for his 
 own improvement, and teach him that 
 the power of improvement is communi- 
 cated to him as liberally as to his pros- 
 perous neighbor. Because he is poor, 
 do not think that he is put into your 
 hands as a passive material, to be shaped 
 at your pleasure. Remember that he is 
 as free as yourselves, and can only be 
 carried forward by a spring of improve- 
 ment in his own soul. The work of 
 his salvation you cannot do for him. 
 Awaken him to strive, watch, and pray 
 for himself. Do not depress him. Do 
 not, through a false sympathy, speak 
 discouragingly of his condition. Show 
 him that in his poverty he still has God's 
 best gifts, an immortal soul, and the 
 means of its redemption and glory. 
 Show him how much can be done for 
 human nature in the humblest lot. Teach 
 him that his condition has all the ele- 
 ments of virtue and of the only durable 
 happiness ; that suffering may be the 
 occasion and incitement of fervent 
 prayer, filial trust, and fervent forti- 
 tude ; that the dews of God's spirit de- 
 scend alike on rich and poor ; that every 
 grace may strike root in the soil of pen- 
 ury, and may gain strength from life's 
 storms ; that, like the poor widow in the 
 gospel, he can give even more gener- 
 ously, can be more charitable in the 
 sight of God, than the richest of his 
 race ; and that even greatness is within 
 his reach, for greatness lies not in what 
 is outwardly done, but in strength of 
 love and holy purpose put forth under 
 sore temptation. Beware of depressing 
 or degrading the poor, by giving them a 
 low form of religion, or low views of 
 their lot. Christ has pronounced bless- 
 ings on them, and help them to put faith 
 in his life-giving words. 
 
 There is one particular on which I 
 cannot forbear speaking. Would you 
 promote the present as well as future 
 happiness of the poor ? Then labor 
 much, let it be a leading aim, to cherish 
 among them the domestic and benev- 
 olent affections. Whoever knows the 
 poor, must know how greatly the aspect 
 of their abodes would be changed, and 
 what a large proportion of their suffer- 
 ings would be removed, by the substi- 
 tution of a true love for selfishness, 
 passion, and envy, for unkind words and 
 unkind deeds. Open within them the 
 fountain of kindness. Urge on them 
 Christianity as a spring of disinterested 
 and tender affection. Teach the poor 
 that we who are prosperous find our 
 chief earthly happiness in our domestic 
 and other social bonds, and not in 
 wealth ; and that without love mag- 
 nificence is a vain show, and the palace 
 embosoms less peace than many a hovel. 
 I insist on this, because it is the common 
 doctrine of the day, that the poor are to 
 be raised by being taught to save, to 
 hoard, to economize their scanty earn- 
 ings. By all means teach prudence, but 
 do not make the poor anxious, selfish, 
 sordid. Teach prudence ; but still more 
 teach love ; and so doing you will teach 
 economy. Inspire the poor with strong 
 and tender affections towards their fam- 
 ilies and fellow-creatures, and they will 
 deny themselves, and practise thrift 
 with a cheerfulness and fidelity, not 
 often learned from the maxims of worldly 
 wisdom. 
 
 I must not enlarge more on particular 
 duties. In general, I would say to you, 
 Honor your work. Think of it rever- 
 ently. I use no exaggeration when I 
 give it a place among the most impor- 
 tant labors of the times ; for it bears on 
 the very evil from which the social state 
 has most to fear. We are accustomed to 
 speak of the improvement of society ; 
 but its progress has been attended with 
 one disastrous circumstance, which at 
 times almost makes us doubt whether 
 the good has not been too dearly bought. 
 I refer to the fact that the elevation of 
 one part of the community has been 
 accompanied with the depression of 
 another. Society has not gone fonvard 
 as a whole. By the side of splendid 
 dwellings you descry the abodes of 
 squalid poverty ; and within the city 
 walls, which enclose the educated and
 
 9 2 
 
 ON PREACHING TO THE POOR. 
 
 refined, you may meet a half-civilized 
 horde, given up to deeper degradation 
 than the inhabitants of the wilderness. 
 In England, the country advanced above 
 all others in agriculture, manufactures, 
 refinement, and literary institutions, are 
 miserable multitudes, degraded by de- 
 pendence, uninstructed even in the being 
 of a God, and dying of want before their 
 time ; and such is the tendency of mod- 
 ern civilization through the world. Soci- 
 ety is not only disfigured but endangered 
 by the poverty, and ignorance, and vice 
 of a multitude of its members ; and its 
 security and happiness demand nothing 
 so imperiously as that this wretched 
 mass should be enlightened, elevated, 
 redeemed. Here is the chief sphere for 
 philanthropy. Inequalities of property 
 must indeed exist. But can it be neces- 
 sary that multitudes of human beings 
 should writhe under wants and hard- 
 ships which palsy and almost extinguish 
 their spiritual and moral power ? This 
 greatest social evil is beginning to arrest 
 the attention of the statesman as well 
 as of the philanthropist and Christian. 
 A louder and louder cry is beginning to 
 break forth through the civilized world 
 for a social reform which shall reach the 
 most depressed ranks of the community. 
 I see and rejoice to see in your office, 
 my friends, a sign of this new move- 
 ment, an earnest of this grand and holy 
 revolution. I see in it a recognition of 
 the right of every human being to the 
 means of spiritual development, of moral 
 and intellectual life. This is the most 
 sacred right of humanity. Blessed are 
 our eyes which see the day of its recog- 
 nition. Feel, then, that you are conse- 
 crated to the greatest work of your age ; 
 and feel that you will be sustained in it 
 by the prayers and zeal of our churches 
 and their pastors. If, indeed, your min- 
 istry for the poor should be suffered to 
 decline and fail, it would be a melan- 
 choly proof that our ministry for the 
 rich is of little avail. If in this age, 
 when the improvement of society is the 
 theme even of the unbeliever ; if, with 
 every help from the spirit of the times, 
 we, the pastors of these churches, can- 
 not awaken in them a sensibility to the 
 
 intellectual and moral wants of multi- 
 tudes around them, cannot carry home 
 to their consciences and hearts the duty 
 of raising up their depressed fellow- 
 creatures, of imparting Christian light, 
 strength, and comfort to the ignorant 
 and poor, then it is time that we should 
 give up our pulpits to others who will 
 better understand and inculcate the 
 spirit of Christ and his Apostles. It is 
 time that our lips should be closed, if 
 we can do nothing towards breathing 
 into men the peculiar benevolence of 
 the gospel, a benevolence which feels 
 for. and seeks to elevate and save, the 
 human soul. It is time, too, that as a 
 class of Christians we should disappear, 
 if we will not take our part in the great 
 work of regenerating society. It is 
 the order of nature that the dead should 
 be buried ; and the sooner a dead, life- 
 less, soulless sect is buried and forgotten 
 the better. But, my friends, I cannot 
 fear that you will be abandoned. Chris- 
 tian love, I trust, has called you to this 
 work, and will cheer and strengthen 
 you in your heavenly mission. 
 
 Go forth, then, my friends, with a con- 
 fiding spirit. Go forth in the strength 
 of faith, hope, and charity. Go forth to 
 increase the holiness of earth and the 
 happiness of heaven. Go to the dark 
 alleys and the darker dwellings of the 
 poor. Go in the spirit of that God to 
 whom the soul of the poor man is as 
 precious as your own. Go in the spirit 
 of him who for our sakes was poor, and 
 had not where to lay his head. Go in 
 reliance on that omnipotent grace which 
 can raise up the most fallen, cleanse the 
 most polluted, enrich the poorest with 
 more than royal wealth, console the 
 deepest sorrows, and sanctify the sorest 
 trials of life. Go cheerfully, for into 
 the darkest dwellings you carry the light 
 of life. And think not that you alone 
 visit these humble habitations. God is 
 there, Christ is there, angels are 
 there. Feel their presence ; breathe 
 their love ; and through your wise, un- 
 wearied, effectual labors, may the poor 
 man's dwelling become a consecrated 
 place, the abode of love, " the house of 
 God and the gate of heaven ! "
 
 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION OF REV. R, C. WATERSTON. 93 
 
 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION OF MR. ROBERT C. 
 WATERSTON, AS MINISTER AT LARGE, 
 
 November 24, 1839. 
 
 [The following Charge, although prepared for the occasion, was not delivered, on account of the 
 
 Author's state of health.] 
 
 MY YOUNG FRIEND AND BROTHER, 
 The Council here assembled for your 
 ordination have assigned me the office of 
 giving you the Charge ; and I perform 
 this work the more cheerfully, because of 
 the relation which has long subsisted be- 
 tween you and myself. You have grown 
 up from childhood under my ministry, 
 and you have given me reason to believe 
 that impressions received in the church 
 where you have worshipped have, in con- 
 currence with other causes, led you to 
 this consecration of yourself to the pas- 
 toral office. Another consideration, which 
 renders this occasion still more interest- 
 ing, is, that you seem now to be placed, 
 by a kind Providence, in the sphere for 
 which you are particularly fitted, and in 
 which all your faculties and affections 
 may be expected to act and unfold freely, 
 cheerfully, vigorously, and beneficially to 
 yourself and others. I remember how, 
 long ago, you felt the attraction of this 
 ministry ; how a thirst for it followed 
 you to your place of business, and over- 
 came the spirit of gain ; and how pa- 
 tiently you have labored to furnish your- 
 self thoroughly for the work. These are 
 good auguries, and they shed a bright 
 hope over these solemnities. Listen now, 
 my brother, to a few counsels which may 
 help you to fulfil our hopes. Many 
 topics, belonging to this occasion, I 
 formerly enlarged upon, in the Charge 
 given to your predecessor, to which I 
 refer you. There are others, then omitted 
 or slightly touched upon, to which I now 
 ask attention. 
 
 You are now set apart to be a Minister 
 at Large. This is the distinction of your 
 office. Whilst other ministers gather 
 worshippers into their churches from all 
 the conditions of life, you expect to labor 
 chiefly among the less prosperous, the 
 
 destitute. It may be thought, at first, 
 that this peculiarity must make a wide 
 distinction between your office and the 
 common ministry ; that it must demand 
 almost a totally different style of preach- 
 ing ; that all your labors must take a hue 
 and impress from the condition of those 
 whom you teach. I counsel you not to 
 be misled by this natural impression. I 
 see no great distinction between you and 
 other ministers. I advise you to bring 
 habitually to your mind, not the outward 
 condition of men, but their spiritual nat- 
 ure, their participation of that "divine 
 humanity" which is the only wealth of 
 rich or poor. The distinction of rich and 
 poor, what is it in the eye of reason ? 
 And what should it be to the Christian 
 teacher ? It does not penetrate the skin, 
 but is a distinction of clothes, fuel, meat, 
 and drink. During life, it avails little or 
 nothing against pain, illness, bereave- 
 ment. Death turns it to utter scorn. 
 The costliest winding-sheet, the most 
 splendid coffin, cannot shut out the worm 
 or protect against the humiliation of the 
 tomb. In the next world, how often will 
 present distinctions be reversed ! The 
 first will be last ; the last first. It be- 
 longs, then, to the Christian teacher to 
 look through, and for the most part to 
 forget, outward distinctions. To the 
 Christian teacher all men of all ranks are 
 much the same ; all rational, spiritual, 
 immortal ; all stained with guilt ; all 
 needing to be born again. Undoubtedly 
 he is to adapt himself to differences of 
 age and education. But in all there is 
 the same human heart ; in all the same 
 deep wants, the same chords to be 
 touched, the same mighty obstacles to 
 purity to be overcome. They all need 
 essentially the same truths, though modi- 
 fied slightly as to phraseology and form.
 
 94 
 
 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION 
 
 There are not different gospels for differ- 
 ent conditions of men ; but one and the 
 same truth for all ; just as the same sun 
 sheds the same beams into every hu- 
 man dwelling, and is equally needed and 
 equally welcome wherever he shines. 
 
 I would not have any class habitually 
 addressed with reference to outward con- 
 dition. It is a great object in all preach- 
 ing, no matter to whom addressed, to 
 raise the hearer above his outward con- 
 dition, to make it seem as nothing to him 
 in comparison with his immortal spirit 
 and his inward wants. The poor should 
 be spoken to as men, and as standing 
 on the same ground with all other men. 
 They are not to be condoled with as ob- 
 jects of peculiar commiseration, but ad- 
 dressed as those who have the essential 
 goods of life, who may do its great work, 
 and win its highest prize. The deepest 
 vice of our present civilization is, that 
 we count the distinction between wealth 
 and poverty the greatest on earth. Do 
 you show that you count it as nothing. 
 
 My brother, look on your hearers as 
 children and heirs of God ; and remem- 
 ber that your work is to call out and to 
 build up the divine nature within them ; 
 and let such thoughts give you a con- 
 sciousness of the dignity of your office. 
 Do not measure this by the outward con- 
 dition of those to whom you preach. 
 Measure it by their souls, and feel that 
 these are the equals of the most favored 
 in outward lot. Some of the community 
 undoubtedly think of you as having little 
 more to do than to aid in keeping order 
 in the city. You look infinitely above 
 the order of the city, though that in its 
 right place is not to be despised. Your 
 function is to bring men to obey, not the 
 laws of the land, but the eternal, immu- 
 table, celestial law of righteousness ; not 
 to make them quiet citizens, but members 
 of the universal kingdom of God. It is 
 in seeking this highest end that you will 
 secure the lower. Religion only serves 
 the state when it is infinitely exalted 
 above the state, and taught and cherished 
 for its own peerless worth. Nothing has 
 so stripped Christianity of its power as 
 the conversion of it into a state machine, 
 as the polluting touch of the politician, 
 who has caused it to be preached to the 
 lower ranks, and to be professed by the 
 higher, in order that the old polity, with 
 its inveterate abuses, may stand fast, and 
 that the accumulation of property in a 
 
 few hands may be undisturbed. Relig- 
 ion, taught for such ends, is among the 
 worst foes of social progress. It loses 
 its vitality ; it paralyzes the intellect ; it 
 strives to crush by persecution or dis- 
 abilities those who would restore its 
 primitive purity, or unfold more distinctly 
 its higher truths ; it teaches pretence to 
 the great, and breathes servility into the 
 multitude whom it ought especially to 
 imbue with nobleness of mind. You, 
 my young friend, have learned that re- 
 ligion has a higher work to accomplish 
 than that of police ; that its aim is to 
 bring the individual, be his rank what it 
 may, to a comprehension of his relation 
 to the Infinite Father and the everlast- 
 ing world, and to inspire him with dis- 
 interested love of God and man ; and that 
 in this way alone it makes good citizens, 
 tender and faithful husbands and wives, 
 parents and children, brothers and sisters, 
 neighbors and friends. 
 
 In these remarks I do not mean that 
 you are never to allude to outward dis- 
 tinctions. The poor have peculiar diffi- 
 culties ; but they must never be left to 
 imagine that they have all the difficulties of 
 life. Their burden is heavy, but there are 
 still heavier on earth ; and the same high 
 truths are needed to sustain all the suffer- 
 ing children of humanity. So they have 
 peculiar temptations ; and yet, tempta- 
 tions to the very vices which abound 
 most among the poor are exceedingly 
 powerful among the more prosperous. 
 The poor, it is said, are peculiarly incited 
 by their condition to envy ; and yet are 
 we sure that there is less envy among the 
 rich, that there are fewer jealousies and 
 heartburnings growing out of competi- 
 tions and neglects in fashionable life, than 
 spring from indigence ? I am not sure 
 that there is more discontent among the 
 needy than among those who abound. I 
 incline to think that, on the whole, there 
 is among the latter less submission to 
 God's providence ; and for this plain 
 reason, that success and abundance in- 
 crease self-will. You must not, there- 
 fore, preach to your congregation as if 
 they monopolized any vice ; but speak to 
 all as partakers of the universal corrup- 
 tion. Never expect to reclaim men from 
 a vice by singling them out for denun- 
 ciation ; but by addressing to them those 
 solemn truths and motives which are to 
 stir up all men to resist moral evil. 
 
 The sum of what I have now said is,
 
 OF REV. R. C. WATERSTON. 
 
 95 
 
 do nothing to discourage your hearers. 
 If cheering, animating language is to be 
 used anywhere, it is among the poor. 
 As a minister of Christ, you are to en- 
 courage. Unhappily the gospel is too 
 often "used to break men's spirits. The 
 gospel, as too often preached, instead of 
 being glad tidings, is the saddest news 
 ever told on earth. From your lips may 
 it raise the dispirited to effort, and reveal 
 to the indigent their boundless wealth ! 
 
 At the beginning of this ministry, it 
 was thought that its chief benefit would 
 come from visiting ; and little compara- 
 tively was expected from the pulpit. Ex- 
 perience, however, has proved that public 
 preaching is a powerful instrument for 
 the moral recovery of the poor. The 
 multitudes who throng the Chapel where 
 you are to labor, and who devour with 
 earnest attention the words of the min- 
 ister, indicate that this is a sphere of 
 action to which you are to devote much 
 of your energies. You must labor to 
 perfect yourself as a preacher. I say to 
 perfect yourself ; for you will do little 
 unless you aim at perfection. I might, 
 had I time, repeat many exhortations as 
 to preaching ; but two short rules may 
 suffice you. They are these : Preach the 
 truth, and preach it as the truth. 
 
 First ; Preach the truth, and for this 
 end you must seek and get it ; and this 
 is among the hardest labors of life. To 
 see things as they are, to see them 
 through a clear, uncolored medium, to 
 strip them of every disguise, to put to 
 silence our own passions and prejudices, 
 to resist the intolerance, the servility, 
 the established errors and earthly modes 
 of thought, the arrogant pretensions and 
 the nervous fears of the multitude around 
 us, and, amidst all these hindrances and 
 obscurations, to discern the truth in its 
 simplicity and majesty, this is a labor 
 which turns to sport the toil of the hands 
 and the sweat of the brow ; and to hold 
 fast this truth openly, fearlessly, amidst 
 outcry, scorn, desertion, persecution, is 
 a heroism before which the exploits of 
 conquerors grow vulgar and tame. 
 
 It is a common notion that it is no 
 great task to acquire religious truths in 
 a country which enjoys, as we do, a rev- 
 elation from God. The revelation is 
 thought to save us the trouble of re- 
 search, to do our work for us. But 
 this is a great error. You should learn 
 that the very familiarity of a revelation 
 
 hides its truths from us, or is an obstacle 
 to clear comprehension. Abstract words, 
 continually sounded in our ears, lose 
 their meaning and force, and are among 
 the last words which we really under- 
 stand. The language of Christianity, 
 which has come clown from distant ages ; 
 which in every age has received a color- 
 ing from prevalent errors, passions, and 
 corruptions ; on which men of different 
 conditions, interest, feelings, and mental 
 powers, have fastened different interpre- 
 tations ; which we heard before we could 
 think, and to which we attached the nar- 
 row, earthly conceptions of the opening 
 intellect : this language it is an immense 
 toil to divest of all false associations, 
 and to restore to its original significance. 
 Add to this the difficulty which springs 
 from the refined, spiritual, sublime char- 
 acter of moral and religious truth, and 
 you will learn what you must do to seize 
 this pearl of great price. What a work 
 is it to form a true idea of God ; to 
 separate from Him all material forms and 
 attributes, all human passions and hu- 
 man limitations ! How hard to separate 
 from Him all self-reference and arbitrari- 
 ness, all love of rule, of homage, and 
 kingly power ! How hard to contemplate 
 Him as calm, unimpassioned reason; 
 as impartial, disinterested, all-compre- 
 hending love ; as having no will but 
 the everlasting law of righteousness ; as 
 having no favorites ; as the ever-present 
 inspirer and judge of every soul ! How 
 hard to look through the multiplied 
 forces and agencies of the universe, to 
 one central, all-pervading Power ; be- 
 yond the endless mutations and conflicts 
 of human life to one unchangeable, all- 
 reconciling Wisdom ! The true idea of 
 God, that highest thought of angels, de- 
 mands for its development the study of 
 a life. How hard, too, is it to attain 
 to the true idea of Christian duty; to 
 purify this from all debasing mixtures ; 
 to keep it from being stained by the 
 sophistry of the passions, by the inter- 
 pretations of theologians, by the moral 
 standard of our age, by the spirit and 
 practice of the world and the church ! 
 How hard, again, to attain to the true 
 idea of a man ; to discern the greatness 
 of our nature, and its affinity with God, 
 amidst its present ruins ; to comprehend 
 it as revealed in the character and life 
 of Christ ! 
 
 My brother, do not think that you
 
 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION 
 
 know the truth because you are familiar 
 with the words which envelop it. I re- 
 peat it, the very commonness of Chris- 
 tianity throws over it a mist not easily 
 penetrated. You have to break the spell 
 of habit, the spell of mental associations 
 stronger than adamant. You must put 
 forth more force of thought on the relig- 
 ion, because it is so familiar. A true 
 faith is as hard an attainment now as in 
 the first age of Christianity. A revela- 
 tion is not given to deliver us from the 
 toil of seeking truth. This is the great 
 work of every rational being, especially 
 the great work of him who aspires to be 
 a teacher. Thirst for the truth. Study, 
 inquire, and pray for it. Welcome it 
 from whatever quarter it may shine. Be 
 willing to pay for it the price of ease, 
 honor, life. Of all crimes, dread none 
 more than that of shutting out God's 
 light from your mind. 
 
 But it is not enough to get the 
 truth ; you must preach it as the truth. 
 Christianity is often preached as false, 
 or at least as a matter of doubt. God, 
 Christ, duty, immortality, the soul, its 
 greatness, its destiny, these are spoken 
 of as vague rumors which the teacher 
 has chanced to hear, and not as realities ; 
 not as what he knows ; not as matters of 
 deliberate and deep conviction. Preach- 
 ing is too often traditional, conventional, 
 professional, the repetition of what is 
 expected, of what it is the custom to 
 say ; not the free, natural utterance of 
 persuasion, of experience, of truths 
 which have a substantial being within 
 our souls. Undoubtedly the hearer is 
 culpable for remaining dead under the 
 light of God's word ; but how often does 
 the want of life in the teacher put down 
 the life of the taught ! Do you ask me, 
 how you may come to feel the reality of 
 the spiritual truth you are to dispense ? 
 I answer, do not hope to accomplish this 
 end by the methods commonly used by 
 fanatics ; that is, by inflaming the im- 
 agination ; by representing to yourself, 
 in material forms, God, heaven, hell, 
 the suffering of Christ ; or by applying 
 perpetual stimulants to the passions. 
 You must unite the forces of the intellect, 
 the heart, and the life, and bring them 
 all to bear on-this great end. You must 
 accustom yourself to concentrate thought 
 on the truth which you have gained ; 
 you must cultivate the hard but neces- 
 sary art of meditation ; and must exalt 
 
 meditation into prayer to the Father of 
 light for his quickening spirit. Nor is 
 this all. You must inwardly and out- 
 wardly live up to the truth. You must 
 strive against those appetites and pas- 
 sions which cloud the inward eye and 
 shut the inward ear. You must be 
 true without compromise to your con- 
 victions of duty. You must cherish 
 and express disinterested affection. It 
 is only by this joint and vigorous action 
 of the moral and intellectual nature that 
 spiritual vision becomes clear ; that the 
 spiritual world is opened to us ; that 
 God, and duty, and immortality come 
 forth from the clouds which ordinarily 
 envelop them into clear and beautiful 
 light ; that God's spirit becomes a dis- 
 tinct voice in the soul. You cannot 
 labor too devoutly that the religion 
 which you preach may become thus real 
 to you, may live in your understanding 
 and heart. Without this, preaching is 
 a tinkling cymbal, a vain show. With- 
 out it, there may be prodigies of theo- 
 logical learning. Without it, there may 
 be eloquent declaimers, much admired 
 and run after. But they work on the 
 surface only. They show themselves, 
 not the truth. They may excite transient 
 emotions, but do not strike the deep 
 fountains of thought and feeling in the 
 human soul. He, alone, within whom 
 Christian truth is a living, substantial 
 presence, can give it forth in fresh, ge- 
 nial, natural, quickening tones. Covet, 
 as the minister s best gift, the divine art 
 of speaking the truth as truth. Do not 
 speak as a machine, an echo, but from a 
 living soul. 
 
 So important do I hold it to speak 
 the truth, as truth, that, were I able, I 
 would describe more particularly this 
 style of preaching. But words do little 
 to make it intelligible. I might say, 
 that the truth-preacher is free from all 
 artifices and affectation of style and 
 manner ; that he is distinguished by 
 simplicity, earnestness, naturalness, free- 
 dom. But your own observation and 
 consciousness can alone explain to you 
 the characteristics of that truth in 
 preaching which all feel, though none 
 can describe. I would observe, how- 
 ever, that all who are distinguished by 
 this stvle bear one mark. They preach 
 with faith, hope, confidence. Truth, 
 when seen as a reality, always breathes 
 faith and trust. Doubt and despondence
 
 OF REV. R. C. WATERSTON. 
 
 97 
 
 belong to error or superficial views. 
 Truth is of God, and is bright with 
 promise of that infinite good which all 
 his perfections make sure to his crea- 
 tion. God's supreme interest and joy 
 in moral excellence ; the immutable 
 glory and the omnipotence of rectitude 
 and disinterested love ; and the utter 
 feebleness of human passion and prej- 
 udice, of sects and armies, of opinion 
 and physical force, when arrayed against 
 the cause of holiness, of Christ, of God, 
 these are among the clearest manifes- 
 tations of truth, and indeed its very 
 essence ; and, of consequence, he who 
 knows the truth must be strong in faith, 
 must tread doubt and fear underfoot, and 
 must speak with the energy of a living 
 hope. One great reason of the inefficacy 
 of the ministry is, the want of faith in a 
 higher operation of Christianity, in a 
 higher development of humanity, than is 
 now witnessed. As long as the present 
 wretched condition of the Christian 
 world shall be regarded as ultimate ; as 
 long as our religion shall be thought to 
 have done already its chief work on 
 earth ; as long as the present corruptions 
 of the church and the state shall be 
 acquiesced in as laws of nature, and 
 shall stir up no deep, agonizing desire 
 of reform, so long the ministry will be 
 comparatively dead. 
 
 My brother, may you receive from 
 Christ and his disciples this glorious 
 inheritance, a spirit of faith ! May you 
 read every truth of the gospel with a 
 prophet's eye, and see in it the prom- 
 ise of that new spiritual creation which 
 Christ came to accomplish on earth 1 
 May you discover in God's attributes, 
 in the perfection of the Saviour, in the 
 virtues of eminent men, and in the 
 workings and aspirations of your own 
 soul, pledges, omens, predictions of a 
 higher state of the church and of hu- 
 manity ! This is indeed to know the 
 truth, and this is the knowledge which 
 gives power to preaching. Alas for 
 that community, civil or religious, which 
 binds itself to the past, and has no 
 faith in a higher futurity ! That com- 
 munity which ceases to grow, begins 
 to decay. In losing hope, it loses the 
 breath of life. Where there is no faith 
 there is no courage, and, of consequence, 
 no victory over evil. You, in particular, 
 will need faith ; for you will have con- 
 tinually to do with what is to many 
 
 minds full of discouragement, I mean 
 with pauperism, that dark cloud which 
 hangs ominously over our modern civil- 
 ization. But fear not. Study this great 
 social evil, its causes, its prevention, its 
 cure, with full confidence that in soci- 
 ety, as in the natural body, there is a 
 healing power, and that no evil is des- 
 perate except despair. 
 
 Had I time, I might suggest several 
 rules or cautions particularly needed in 
 such a ministry as yours. I will offer 
 but one or two suggestions. In one 
 important respect your work is to differ 
 from the common ministry, that is, in 
 the distribution of your time. Your life 
 is to be spent, not in retired study, but 
 very much in visits from house to house ; 
 and this has its advantages. It will 
 bring you near to the poor, awaken your 
 sympathies with them, acquaint you with 
 their wants, and give them a confidence 
 in your attachment which will open their 
 hearts to your public instructions. But 
 it has, too, its disadvantages. There is 
 danger that your mind may be frittered 
 away by endless details, by listening 
 continually to frivolous communications 
 and suspicious complaints. To escape 
 these narrowing influences, you should 
 steadily devote a part of every day to 
 solitary study ; and, still more, you 
 should make it your rule to regard the 
 events and experiences of every day as 
 lessons, and strive to extract from them 
 general truths, so that the intellect may 
 enlarge itself in the midst of the hum- 
 blest concerns. In the meanest hovel, 
 the great principles of human nature and 
 of God's moral providence will be set 
 before you for study and observation. 
 Every man is a volume, if you know how 
 to read him. To seize the universal in 
 the particular is the great art of wisdom, 
 and this is especially important to one 
 who is to live amidst details. 
 
 Another peculiarity of your ministry 
 is, that you are to see human nature 
 more undisguised, naked, than as it falls 
 under our common notice. You are to 
 go among those who have not learned 
 to cover up the deformities of the soul 
 by courtesy and graceful speech. You 
 will see more of the coarser appetites 
 and passions. Not that you are to meet 
 more guilt than the rest of us. The self- 
 ishness and deceit of the exchange or 
 of fashionable life, however wrapped up 
 in refined manners, are not a whit the
 
 98 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION OF REV. R. C. WATERSTON. 
 
 fairer in God's sight than the artful or 
 grasping habits of the poor. Still we 
 are in peculiar danger of losing our re- 
 spect for human nature when it offers 
 itself to us in repulsive, uncouth, vulgar 
 forms and language. Remember to be 
 candid and just to the poor. Treasure 
 up in memory the instances, which you 
 will often meet among them, of generos- 
 ity, patience, domestic love and self-con- 
 trol ; and do not forget that their desti- 
 tution and suffering add to these virtues 
 a moral worth not belonging to the good 
 deeds of prosperous life. Look beneath 
 the outward to the spiritual, the immor- 
 tal, the divine. Feel that each of the 
 poor is as dear to God as the most ex- 
 alted in condition, and approach them 
 with humanity and respect. I do not 
 mean by this that you should use flat- 
 tering words. Be true, honest, plain. 
 Speak to them your mind. Rebuke 
 wrong-doing openly, firmly. The re- 
 spect won by manly courage and sim- 
 plicity will give you greater power than 
 any attachment gained by soft and sooth- 
 ing words. Be rough rather than affect- 
 edly complacent. But with plain dealing 
 you can join a sympathizing heart, and 
 in the union or these you will find 
 strength. 
 
 I might multiply instructions, and in- 
 deed I know not where to stop ; but I 
 have already transgressed the usual lim- 
 its of this service, and I will add but a 
 single admonition, which, if followed, 
 will render all others useless. Go to 
 Jesus Christ for guidance, inspiration, 
 and strength in your office. This pre- 
 cept is easily uttered, but not easily 
 obeyed. Nothing, indeed, is harder than 
 to place ourselves near Jesus Christ. 
 The way to him is blocked up on every 
 side. Interpreters, churches, sects, past 
 and present, creeds, authorities, the in- 
 fluences of education, all stand in our 
 way. So many voices, declaring what 
 Christ has said, break on our ears, that 
 his own voice is drowned. The old cry 
 still resounds, " Lo here ! and lo there ! " 
 How hard is it to get near the true 
 Christ, to see him as he was and is, to 
 hear his own voice, and to penetrate 
 beneath his works and words to his 
 spirit, to his mind and heart, to the 
 great principles of his religion, to the 
 grand spiritual purpose of all which he 
 said and did ! How hard to escape our 
 age, to penetrate through the disguises 
 
 in which works of art and of theology 
 have wrapped up Jesus, and to receive 
 immediate, unmixed impulses from his 
 teaching and life ! And yet the privilege 
 of communing with such a spirit is so 
 great, and the duty of going from man 
 to Christ is so solemn, that you must 
 spare no effort to place yourself nearer 
 and nearer to the Divine Master. Learn 
 from him how to look on men, how to 
 feel for them, how to bear with them, 
 how to meet them courageously yet ten- 
 derly, how to awaken in them the con- 
 sciousness of their spiritual nature and 
 destiny, and how to stir them up to the 
 desire and pursuit of a new, inward, 
 everlasting life. 
 
 My brother, I conclude with remind- 
 ing you of your great responsibilities. 
 Your office is important , but this is not 
 all. You enter on it at a critical mo- 
 ment. The ministry for the poor has 
 indeed ceased to be an experiment ; its 
 success has surpassed our hopes ; and 
 yet it is not established as firmly as it 
 should be. It awakens little interest in 
 our churches. It receives little aid 
 from them. The contributions to it 
 from most of our congregations are 
 small, and do little honor to us as a 
 body of Christians. The success of the 
 ministry thus far is due, under Provi- 
 dence, not to the zeal of the churches, 
 but to the devotion, the martyr-spirit of 
 the men who have been charged with its 
 duties. More faithful laborers, I believe, 
 are not to be found in the ranks of 
 the ministry through Christendom. Our 
 brother, that faithful servant of God, who 
 began this work, still lives ; but almost, 
 if not quite, worn down by unremitted 
 toils, he is waging a doubtful conflict 
 with disease brought on him in the pulpit 
 and in the hovels of the poor. How his 
 successor has labored you need not be 
 told. And now you are to enter into the 
 labors of these faithful men. and to com- 
 mend by like labors the cause for which 
 they have struggled to the honor and 
 confidence of our churches. Whether 
 this good work shall go on, rests not a 
 little with you. This I say, not to stim- 
 ulate you to labors beyond your strength. 
 I beseech you not to waste in a few spas- 
 modic efforts the strength and useful- 
 ness of years. I beseech you to regard 
 the care of your health as a duty to 
 yourself, to us, and to the poor. But, 
 within this limit, work with life, with
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 99 
 
 courage, with strength of purpose, with 
 unfaltering faith in God. My brother, 
 go forth to your labors with the spirit 
 and power of him who first preached 
 the gospel to the poor ; and may you, in 
 fulfilment of his promise, perform greater 
 works than those outward miracles 
 which signalized his earthly ministry ! 
 
 Through your teaching, may the spirit- 
 ually blind see and the deaf hear, the 
 lost be found and the dead raised ! May 
 the blessing of them that are ready to 
 perish come upon you ! May the poor, 
 consoled, strengthened, sanctified by 
 your ministry, be your crown and joy 
 in the day of the Lord ! 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE: 
 
 Delivered by request of the Council of the Massachusetts Temperance 
 Society, at the Odeon, Boston, February 28, 1837, the day appointed 
 for the simultaneous Meeting of the Friends of Temperance through- 
 out the World. 
 
 I SEE before me the representatives 
 of various societies for the promotion 
 of temperance. It is a good and great 
 cause, and I shall be grateful to God if, 
 by the service now allotted me, I can 
 in any degree encourage them in their 
 work, or throw new light on their path. 
 The present occasion may well animate 
 a Christian minister. What a noble 
 testimony does this meeting bear to the 
 spirit and influences of the Christian 
 faith ! Why is this multitude brought 
 together ? Not for selfish gratification, 
 not for any worldly end, but for the 
 purpose of arresting a great moral and 
 social evil, of promoting the virtue, 
 dignity, well-being of men. And whence 
 comes this sympathy with the fallen, the 
 guilty, the miserable ? Have we derived 
 it from the schools of ancient philos- 
 ophy, or from the temples of Greece and 
 Rome ? No. We inherit it from Jesus 
 Christ. We have caught it from his 
 lips, his life, his cross. This meeting, 
 were we to trace its origin, would carry 
 us back to Bethlehem and Calvary. The 
 impulse which Christ gave to the human 
 soul, having endured for ages, is now 
 manifesting itself more and more in new 
 and increasing efforts of philanthropy 
 for the redemption of the world from 
 every form of evil. Within these walls 
 the authority of Christ has sometimes 
 been questioned, his character traduced. 
 To the blasphemer of that holy name, 
 what a reply is furnished by the crowd 
 which these walls now contain ! A re- 
 
 ligion, which thus brings and knits men 
 together for the help, comfort, salvation 
 of their erring, lost fellow-creatures, 
 bears on its front a broad, bright, un- 
 ambiguous stamp -of Divinity. Let us 
 be grateful that we were born under its 
 light, and more grateful still if we have 
 been, in any measure, baptized into 
 its disinterested and divine love. 
 
 I cannot hope, in the present stage of 
 the temperance effort, to render any 
 important aid to your cause by novelty 
 of suggestion. Its friends have thor- 
 oughly explored the ground over which 
 I am to travel. Still every man who is 
 accustomed to think for himself, is nat- 
 urally attracted to particular views or 
 points in the most familiar subject ; and, 
 by concentrating his thoughts on these, 
 he sometimes succeeds in giving them 
 a new prominence, in vindicating their 
 just rank, and in securing to them an 
 attention which they may not have re- 
 ceived, but which is their due. 
 
 On the subject of intemperance, I 
 have sometimes thought, perhaps with- 
 out foundation, that its chief, essential 
 evil was not brought out as thoroughly 
 and frequently as its secondary evils, and 
 that there was not a sufficient conviction 
 of the depth of its causes and of the rem- 
 edies which it demands. With these im- 
 pressions, I invite your attention to the 
 following topics: the great essential 
 evil of intemperance, the extent of its 
 temptations, its causes, the means 
 of its prevention or cure.
 
 100 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 I. I begin with asking, What is the 
 great, essential evil of intemperance ? 
 The reply is given when I say that in- 
 temperance is the voluntary extinction 
 of reason. The great evil is inward or 
 spiritual. The intemperate man divests 
 himself, for a time, of his rational and 
 moral nature, casts from himself self- 
 consciousness and self-command, brings 
 on frenzy, and, by repetition of this in- 
 sanity, prostrates more and more his 
 rational and moral powers. He sins im- 
 mediately and directly against the rational 
 nature, that divine principle which dis- 
 tinguishes between truth and falsehood, 
 between right and wrong action, which 
 distinguishes man from the brute. This 
 is the essence of the vice, what con- 
 stitutes its peculiar guilt and woe, and 
 what should particularly impress and 
 awaken those who are laboring for its 
 suppression. All the other evils of in- 
 temperance are light compared with this, 
 and almost all flow from this ; and it is 
 right, it is to be desired, that all other 
 evils should be joined with and follow 
 this. It is to be desired, when a man 
 lifts a suicidal arm against his highest 
 life, when he quenches reason and con- 
 science, that he and all others should re- 
 ceive solemn, startling warning of the 
 greatness of his guilt ; that terrible out- 
 ward calamities should bear witness to 
 the inward ruin which he is working ; 
 that the handwriting of judgment and 
 woe on his countenance, form, and whole 
 condition, should declare what a fearful 
 thing it is for a man, God's rational off- 
 spring, to renounce his reason and be- 
 come a brute. It is common for those 
 who argue against intemperance to de- 
 scribe the bloated countenance of the 
 drunkard, now flushed and now deadly 
 pale. They describe his trembling, pal- 
 sied limbs. They describe his waning 
 prosperity, his poverty, his despair. 
 They describe his desolate, cheerless 
 home, his cold hearth, his scanty board, 
 his heart-broken wife, the squalidness of 
 his children ; and we groan in spirit 
 over the sad recital. But it is right that 
 all this should be. It is right that he 
 who, forewarned, puts out the lights of 
 understanding and conscience within 
 him, who abandons his rank among 
 God's rational creatures, and takes his 
 place among brutes, should stand a 
 monument of wrath among his fellows, 
 should be a teacher wherever he is seen, 
 
 a teacher, in every look and motion, 
 of the awful guilt of destroying reason. 
 Were we so constituted that reason 
 could be extinguished, and the counte- 
 nance retain its freshness, the form its 
 grace, the body its vigor, the outward 
 condition its prosperity, and no striking 
 change be seen in one's home, so far 
 from being gainers, we should lose some 
 testimonies of God's parental care. His 
 care and goodness, as well as his justice, 
 are manifested in the fearful mark He 
 has set on the drunkard, in the blight 
 which falls on all the drunkard's joys. 
 These outward evils, dreadful as they 
 seem, are but faint types of the ruin 
 within. We should see in them God's 
 respect to his own image in the soul, his 
 parental warnings against the crime of 
 quenching the intellectual and moral life. 
 
 We are too apt to fix our thoughts on 
 the consequences or punishments of 
 crime, and to overlook the crime itself. 
 This is not turning punishment to its 
 highest use. Punishment is an outward 
 sign of inward evil. It is meant to reveal 
 something more terrible than itself. The 
 greatness of punishment is a mode of 
 embodying, making visible, the magni- 
 tude of the crime to which it is attached. 
 The miseries of intemperance, its loath- 
 someness, ghastliness, and pains, are not 
 seen aright, if they do not represent to 
 us the more fearful desolation wrought 
 by this sin in the soul. 
 
 Among the evils of intemperance, 
 much importance is given to the poverty 
 of which it is the cause. But this evil, 
 great as it is, is yet light in comparison 
 with the essential evil of intemperance, 
 which I am so anxious to place distinctly 
 before you. What matters it that a man 
 be poor, if he carry into his poverty the 
 spirit, energy, reason, and virtues of a 
 man ! What matters it that a man must, 
 for a few years, live on bread and water T 
 How many of the richest are reduced by 
 disease to a worse condition than this ! 
 Honest, virtuous, noble-minded poverty 
 is a comparatively light evil. The ancient 
 philosopher chose it as the condition of 
 virtue. It has been the lot of many a 
 Christian. The poverty of the intem- 
 perate man owes its great misery to its 
 cause. He who makes himself a beggar, 
 by having made himself a brute, is mis- 
 erable indeed. He who has no solace, 
 who has only agonizing recollections and 
 harrowing remorse, as he looks on his
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 101 
 
 cold hearth, his scanty table, his ragged 
 children, has indeed to bear a crushing 
 weight of woe. That he suffers, is a 
 light thing. That he has brought on 
 himself this suffering by the voluntary 
 extinction of his reason, this is the ter- 
 rible thought, the intolerable curse. 
 
 We are told that we must keep this or 
 that man from drunkenness, to save him 
 from " coming on the town," from being 
 a burden to the city. The motive is not 
 to be overlooked ; but I cannot keep my 
 thoughts fixed for a moment on the few 
 hundred or thousand dollars which the 
 intemperate cost. When I go to the 
 poor-house, and see the degradation, 
 the spiritual weakness, the abjectness, 
 the half-idiot imbecility written on the 
 drunkard's countenance, I see a ruin 
 which makes the cost of his support a 
 grain of dust in the scale. I am not 
 sorry that society is taxed for the drunk- 
 ard. I would it were taxed more. I 
 would the burden of sustaining him were 
 so heavy, that we should be compelled to 
 wake up, and ask how he may be saved 
 from ruin. It is intended, wisely in- 
 tended by God, that sin shall spread its 
 miseries beyond itself, that no human 
 being shall suffer alone, that the man 
 who falls shall draw others with him, if 
 not into his guilt, at least into a portion 
 of his woe. If one member of the social 
 body suffer, others must suffer too ; and 
 this is well. This is one of the depend- 
 encies by which we become interested 
 in one another's moral safety, and are 
 summoned to labor for the rescue of the 
 fallen. 
 
 Intemperance is to be pitied and ab- 
 horred for its own sake much more than 
 for its outward consequences. These 
 consequences owe their chief bitterness 
 to their criminal source. We speak of 
 the miseries which the drunkard carries 
 into his family. But take away his own 
 brutality, and how lightened would be 
 these miseries ! We talk of his wife and 
 children in rags. Let the rags continue ; 
 but suppose them to be the effects of an 
 innocent cause. Suppose the drunkard 
 to have been a virtuous husband and an 
 affectionate father, and that sickness, 
 not vice, has brought his family thus 
 low. Suppose his wife and children 
 bound to him by a strong love, which a 
 life of labor for their support and of un- 
 wearied kindness has awakened : sup- 
 pose them to know that his toils for 
 
 their welfare had broken down his frame ; 
 suppose him able to say, " We are poor 
 in this world's goods, but rich in affec- 
 tion and religious trust. I am going 
 from you : but I leave you to the Father 
 of the fatherless and to the widow's 
 God." Suppose this, and how changed 
 these rags ! How changed the cold, 
 naked room ! The heart's warmth can 
 do much to withstand the winter's cold ; 
 and there is hope, there is honor, in this 
 virtuous indigence. What breaks the 
 heart of the drunkard's wife ? It is not 
 that he is poor, but that he is a drunkard. 
 Instead of that bloated face, now dis- 
 torted with passion, now robbed of every 
 gleam of intelligence, if the wife could 
 look on an affectionate countenance, 
 which had for years been the interpreter 
 of a well-principled mind and faithful 
 heart, what an overwhelming load would 
 be lifted from her ! It is a husband 
 whose touch is polluting, whose infirm- 
 ities are the witnesses of his guilt, who 
 has blighted all her hopes, who has 
 proved false to the vow which made her 
 his ; it is such a husband who makes 
 home a hell, not one whom toil and dis- 
 ease and providence have cast on the 
 care of wife and children. 
 
 We look too much at the conse- 
 quences of vice, too little at the vice 
 itself. It is vice which is the chief 
 weight of what we call its consequence, 
 vice which is the bitterness in the 
 cup of human woe. 
 
 II. I proceed now to offer some re- 
 marks on the extent of temptations to 
 this vice. And on this point I shall 
 not avail myself of the statistics of 
 intemperance. I shall not attempt to 
 number its victims. I wish to awaken 
 universal vigilance, by showing that 
 the temptations to this excess are 
 spread through all classes of society. 
 We are apt to speak as if the laborious, 
 uneducated, unimproved, were alone in 
 danger, and as if we ourselves had no 
 interest in this cause, except as others 
 are concerned. But it is not so ; mul- 
 titudes in all classes are in danger. In 
 truth, when we recall the sad histories 
 of not a few in every circle, who once 
 stood among the firmest and then 
 yielded to temptation, we are taught 
 that none of us should dismiss fear. 
 that we too may be walking on the edge 
 of the abyss. The young are exposed 
 to intemperance, for youth wants fore-
 
 102 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 thought, loves excitement, is apt to 
 place happiness in gayety, is prone to 
 convivial pleasure, and too often finds 
 or makes this the path to hell ; nor are 
 the old secure, for age unnerves the 
 mind as well as the body, and silently 
 steals away the power of self-control. 
 The idle are in scarcely less peril than 
 the over-worked laborer ; for uneasy 
 cravings spring up in the vacant mind, 
 and the excitement of intoxicating 
 draughts is greedily sought as an es- 
 cape from the intolerable weariness of 
 having nothing to do. Men of a coarse, 
 unrefined character fall easily into in- 
 temperance, because they see little in 
 its brutality to disgust them. It is a 
 sadder thought that men of genius 
 and sensibility are hardly less exposed. 
 Strong action of the mind is even more 
 exhausting than the toil of the hands. 
 It uses up, if I may so say, the finer 
 spirits, and leaves either a sinking of 
 the system which craves for tonics, or 
 a restlessness which seeks relief in 
 deceitful sedatives. Besides, it is nat- 
 ural for minds of great energy to hun- 
 ger for strong excitement ; and this, 
 when not found in innocent occupation 
 and amusement, is too often sought in 
 criminal indulgence. These remarks 
 apply peculiarly to men whose genius 
 is poetical, imaginative, allied with, 
 and quickened by, peculiar sensibility. 
 Such men, living in worlds of their own 
 creation, kindling themselves with ideal 
 beauty and joy, and too often losing 
 themselves in reveries, in which imag- 
 ination ministers to appetite, and the 
 sensual triumphs over the spiritual nat- 
 ure, are peculiarly in danger of losing 
 the balance of the mind, of losing calm 
 thought, clear judgment, and moral 
 strength of will, become children of 
 impulse, learn to despise simple and 
 common pleasures, and are hurried to 
 ruin by a feverish thirst of high-wrought, 
 delirious gratification. In such men, 
 these mental causes of excess are often 
 aggravated by peculiar irritableness of 
 the nervous system. Hence the rec- 
 ords of literature are so sad. Hence 
 the brightest lights of the intellectual 
 world have so often undergone disas- 
 trous eclipse ; and the inspired voice 
 of genius, so thrilling, so exalting, has 
 died away in the brutal or idiot cries 
 of intemperance. I have now been 
 speaking of the highest order of intel- 
 
 lectual men ; but it may be said of men 
 of education in general, that they must 
 not feel themselves beyond peril. It 
 is said that as large a proportion of 
 intemperate men can be found among 
 those who have gone through our col- 
 leges as among an equal number of 
 men in the same sphere of life who 
 have not enjoyed the same culture. It 
 must not, however, be inferred that the 
 cultivation of the intellect affords no 
 moral aids. The truth is. that its good 
 tendencies are thwarted. Educated men 
 fall victims to temptation as often as 
 other men, not because education is 
 inoperative, but because our public 
 seminaries give a partial training, being 
 directed almost wholly to the develop- 
 ment of the intellect, and very little to 
 moral culture, and still less to the 
 invigoration of the physical system. 
 Another cause of the evil is probably 
 this, that young men, liberally educated, 
 enter on professions which give at first 
 little or no occupation, which expose 
 them, perhaps for years, to the tempta- 
 tions of leisure, the most perilous in an 
 age of inexperience and passion. Ac- 
 cordingly, the ranks of intemperance 
 are recruited from that class which 
 forms the chief hope of society. And 
 I would I could stop here. But there 
 is another prey on which intemperance 
 seizes, still more to be deplored, and 
 that is woman. I know no sight on 
 earth more sad than woman's counte- 
 nance, which once knew no suffusion 
 but the glow of exquisite feeling, or 
 the blush of hallowed modesty, crim- 
 soned, deformed by intemperance. Even 
 woman is not safe. The delicacy of 
 her physical organization exposes her 
 to inequalities of feeling which tempt 
 to the seductive relief given by cor- 
 dials. Man with his iron nerves lit- 
 tle knows what the sensitive frame of 
 woman suffers, how many desponding 
 imaginations throng on her in her sol- 
 itudes, how often she is exhausted by 
 unremitting cares, and how much the 
 power of self-control is impaired by 
 repeated derangements of her frail sys- 
 tem. The truth should be told. In 
 all our families, no matter what their 
 condition, there are endangered indi- 
 viduals, and fear and watchfulness in 
 regard to intemperance belong to all. 
 
 Do not say that I exaggerate your 
 exposure to intemperance. Let no man
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 103 
 
 say, when he thinks of the drunkard, 
 broken in health and spoiled of intel- 
 lect, " I can never so fall." He thought 
 as little of falling in his earlier years. 
 The promise of his youth was as bright 
 as yours ; and even after he began his 
 downward course he was as unsus- 
 picious as the firmest around him, and 
 would have repelled as indignantly the 
 admonition to beware of intemperance. 
 The danger of this vice lies in its almost 
 imperceptible approach. Few who per- 
 ish by it know its first accesses. Youth 
 does not see or suspect drunkenness 
 in the sparkling beverage which quick- 
 ens all its susceptibilities of joy. The 
 invalid does not see it in the cordial 
 which his physician prescribes, and 
 which gives new tone to his debilitated 
 organs. The man of thought and gen- 
 ius detects no palsying poison in the 
 draught which seems a spring of inspi- 
 ration to intellect and imagination. The 
 lover of social pleasure little dreams 
 that the glass which animates conver- 
 sation will ever be drunk in solitude, 
 and will sink him too low for the inter- 
 course in which he now delights. In- 
 temperance comes with noiseless step, 
 and binds its first cords with a touch too 
 light to be felt. This truth of mournful 
 experience should be treasured up by 
 us all, and should influence the habits 
 and arrangements of domestic and so- 
 cial life in every class of the commu- 
 nity. 
 
 Such is the extent of the temptations 
 of this vice. It is true, however, that 
 whilst its ravages maybe traced through 
 all conditions, they are chiefly to be 
 found in the poorer and laboring por- 
 tions of society. Here its crimes and 
 woes swell to an amount which startles 
 and appals us. Here the evil is to be 
 chiefly withstood. I shall, therefore, 
 in my following remarks, confine my- 
 self very much to the causes and rem- 
 edies of intemperance in this class of 
 the community. 
 
 III. Among the causes of intemper- 
 ance in the class of which I have spo- 
 ken, not a few are to be found in the 
 present state of society, which every 
 man does something to confirm, and 
 which brings to most of us many priv- 
 ileges. On these I shall now insist, 
 because they show our obligation to do 
 what we can to remove the evil. It is 
 just that they who receive good should 
 
 aid those who receive harm from our 
 present social organization. Undoubt- 
 edly, the primary cause of intemper- 
 ance is in the intemperate themselves, 
 in their moral weakness and irresolu- 
 tion, in the voluntary surrender of 
 themselves to temptation. Still, so- 
 ciety, by increasing temptation and 
 diminishing men's power to resist, 
 becomes responsible for all v/ide-spread 
 vices, and is bound to put forth all its 
 energy for their suppression. This 
 leads me to consider some of the causes 
 of intemperance which have their foun- 
 dation in our social state. 
 
 One cause of the commonness of 
 intemperance in the present state of 
 things is the heavy burden of care and 
 toil which is laid on a large multitude 
 of men. Multitudes, to earn subsist- 
 ence for themselves and their families, 
 are often compelled to undergo a degree 
 of labor exhausting to the spirits and 
 injurious to health. Of consequence, 
 relief is sought in stimulants. We dd 
 not find that civilization lightens men's 
 toils ; as yet it has increased them ; 
 and in this effect I see the sign of a 
 deep defect in what we call the prog- 
 ress of society. It cannot be the de- 
 sign of the Creator that the whole of 
 life should be spent in drudgery for the 
 supply of animal wants. That civiliza- 
 tion is very imperfect in which the mass 
 of men can redeem no time from bod- 
 ily labor for intellectual, moral, and 
 social culture. It is melancholy to 
 witness the degradation of multitudes 
 to the condition of beasts of burden. 
 Exhausting toils unfit the mind to with- 
 stand temptation. The man, spent with 
 labor, and cut off by his condition from 
 higher pleasures, is impelled to seek a 
 deceitful solace in sensual excess. How 
 the condition of society shall be so 
 changed as to prevent excessive pres- 
 sure on any class, is undoubtedly a 
 hard question. One thing seems plain, 
 that there is no tendency in our pres- 
 ent institutions and habits to bring re- 
 lief. On the contrary, rich and poor 
 seem to be more and more oppressed 
 with incessant toil, exhausting fore- 
 thought, anxious struggles, feverish 
 competitions. Some look to legislation 
 to lighten the burden of the laboring 
 class. But equal laws and civil liberty 
 have no power to remove the shocking 
 contrast of condition which all civilized
 
 104 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 communities present. Inward, spirit- 
 ual improvement, I believe, is the only 
 sure remedy for social evils. What we 
 need is a new diffusion of Christian, 
 fraternal love, to stir up the powerful 
 and prosperous to succor liberally and 
 encourage the unfortunate or weak, and 
 a new diffusion of intellectual and moral 
 force to make the multitude efficient 
 for their own support, to form them to 
 self-control, and to breathe a spirit of 
 independence which will scorn to ask 
 or receive unnecessary relief. 
 
 Another cause, intimately connected 
 with the last, is the intellectual depres- 
 sion and the ignorance to which many 
 are subjected. They who toil from 
 morning to night, without seasons of 
 thought and mental improvement, are 
 of course exceedingly narrowed in their 
 faculties, views, and sources of grat- 
 ification. The present moment, and 
 the body, engross their thoughts. The 
 pleasures of intellect, of imagination, 
 of taste, of reading, of cultivated so- 
 ciety, are almost entirely denied them. 
 What pleasures but those of the senses 
 remain ? Unused to reflection and 
 forethought, how dim must be their 
 perceptions of religion and duty, and 
 how little fitted are they to cope with 
 temptation ! Undoubtedly in this coun- 
 try this cause of intemperance is less 
 operative than in others. There is less 
 brutal ignorance here than elsewhere ; 
 but, on the other hand, the facilities of 
 excess are incomparably greater, so 
 that for the uneducated the temptation 
 to vice may be stronger in this than in 
 less enlightened lands. Our outward 
 prosperity, unaccompanied with pro- 
 portionate moral and mental improve- 
 ment, becomes a mighty impulse to 
 intemperance, and this impulse the 
 prosperous are bound to withstand. 
 
 I proceed to another cause of intem- 
 perance among the poor and laboring 
 classes, and that is the general sensu- 
 ality and earthliness of the community. 
 There is, indeed, much virtue, much 
 spirituality, in the prosperous classes, 
 but it is generally unseen. There is a 
 vastly greater amount in these classes 
 of worldliness, of devotion to the senses, 
 and this stands out in bold relief. The 
 majority live unduly for the body. 
 Where there is little intemperance, 
 in the common acceptation of that 
 term, there is yet a great amount of 
 
 excess. Thousands, who are never 
 drunk, place their chief happiness in 
 pleasures of the table. How much of 
 the intellect of this community is pal- 
 sied, how much of the expression of 
 the countenance blotted out, how much 
 of the spirit buried, through unwise 
 indulgence ! What is the great lesson 
 which the more prosperous classes 
 teach to the poorer ? Not self-denial, 
 not spirituality, not the great Christian 
 truth that human happiness lies in the 
 triumphs of the mind over the body, 
 in inward force and life. The poorer 
 are taught by the richer that the great- 
 est good is ease, indulgence. The 
 voice which descends from the pros- 
 perous contradicts the lessons of Christ 
 and of sound philosophy. It is the 
 sensuality, the earthliness of those who 
 give the tone to public sentiment, which 
 is chargeable with a vast amount of the 
 intemperance of the poor. How is the 
 poor man to resist intemperance ? Only 
 by a moral force, an energy of will, a 
 principle of self-denial in his soul. And 
 where is this taught him ? Does a 
 higher morality come to him from those 
 whose condition makes them his supe- 
 riors ? The great inquiry which he hears 
 among the better educated is, What 
 shall we eat and drink, and wherewithal 
 shall we be clothed ? Unceasing strug- 
 gles for outward, earthly, sensual good, 
 constitute the chief activity which he 
 sees around him. To suppose that the 
 poorer classes should receive lessons 
 of luxury and self-indulgence from the 
 more prosperous, and should yet resist 
 the most urgent temptations to excess, 
 is to expect from them a moral force in 
 which we feel ourselves to be sadly 
 wanting. In their hard conflicts, how 
 little of life-giving truth, of elevating 
 thought, of heavenly aspiration, do they 
 receive from those above them in worldly 
 condition ! 
 
 Another cause of intemperance is the 
 want of self-respect which the present 
 state of society induces among the poor 
 and laborious. Just as far as wealth is 
 the object of worship, the measure of 
 men's importance, the badge of distinc- 
 tion, so far there will be a tendency 
 to self-contempt and self-abandonment 
 among those whose lot gives them no 
 chance of its acquisition. Such naturally 
 feel as if the great good of life were de- 
 nied them. They see themselves neg'
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 105 
 
 lected. Their condition cuts them off 
 from communication with the improved. 
 They think they have little stake in the 
 general weal. They do not feel as if 
 they had a character to lose. Nothing 
 reminds them of the greatness of their 
 nature. Nothing teaches them that in 
 their obscure lot they may secure the 
 highest good on earth. Catching from 
 the general tone of society the ruinous 
 notion that wealth is honor as well as 
 happiness, they see in their narrow lot 
 nothing to inspire self-respect. In this 
 delusion they are not more degraded 
 than the prosperous : they but echo the 
 voice of society ; but to them the de- 
 lusion brings a deeper, immediate ruin. 
 By sinking them in their own eyes it robs 
 them of a powerful protection against 
 low vices. It prepares them for coarse 
 manners, for gross pleasures, for descent 
 to brutal degradation. Of all classes of 
 society, the poor should be treated with 
 peculiar deference, as the means of 
 counteracting their chief peril, I mean, 
 the loss of self-respect. But to all their 
 other evil is added peculiar neglect. Can 
 we then wonder that they fall ? 
 
 I might name other causes in our so- 
 cial constitution favoring intemperance ; 
 but I must pass them, and will suggest 
 one characteristic of our times which in- 
 creases all the tendencies to this vice. 
 Our times are distinguished by what is 
 called a love of excitement ; in other 
 words, by a love of strong stimulants. 
 To be stimulated, excited, is the univer- 
 sal want. The calmness, sobriety, plod- 
 ding industry of our fathers, have been 
 succeeded by a feverish restlessness. 
 The books that are read are not the 
 great, standard, immortal works of gen- 
 ius, which require calm thought, and in- 
 spire deep feeling ; but ephemeral works, 
 which are run through with a railroad 
 rapidity, and which give a pleasure not 
 unlike that produced by exhilarating 
 draughts. Business is become a race, 
 and is hurried on by the excitement of 
 great risks, and the hope of great profits. 
 Even religion partakes the general rest- 
 lessness. In some places, extravagant 
 measures, which storm the nervous sys- 
 tem, and drive the more sensitive to the 
 borders of insanity, are resorted to for 
 its promotion. Everywhere people go 
 to church to be excited rather than im- 
 proved. This thirst for stimulants can- 
 not be shut up in certain spheres. It 
 
 spreads through and characterizes the 
 community. It pervades those classes 
 who, unhappily, can afford themselves 
 but one strong stimulus, intoxicating 
 liquor; and among these the spirit of 
 the age breaks out in intemperance. 
 
 IV. I have now set before you some 
 of the causes of intemperance in our pres- 
 ent social state ; and this I have done 
 that you may feel that society, in all its 
 ranks, especially in the highest, is bound 
 in justice to resist the evil ; and not only 
 justice, but benevolence pleads with us 
 to spare no efforts for its prevention or 
 cure. The thought that in the bosom 
 of our society are multitudes standing 
 on the brink of perdition, multitudes who 
 are strongly tempted to debase and de- 
 stroy their rational nature, to sink into 
 brutal excess, to seal their ruin in this 
 world and in the world to come, ought 
 to weigh on us as a burden, ought to in- 
 spire deeper concern than the visitation 
 of pestilence, ought to rouse every man 
 who has escaped this degradation to do 
 what he may to rescue the fallen, and, 
 still more, to save the falling. 
 
 The question now comes, How shall 
 we arrest, how suppress, this great evil ? 
 Such is our last inquiry, and to this I 
 answer, there are two modes of action. 
 To rescue men, we must act on them 
 inwardly or outwardly. We must either 
 give them strength within to withstand 
 the temptations to intemperance, or we 
 must remove these temptations without. 
 We must increase the power of resist- 
 ance, or diminish the pressure which is 
 to be resisted. Both modes of influence 
 are useful, but the first incalculably the 
 most important. No man is safe against 
 this foe but he who is armed with moral 
 force, with strength in his own soul, 
 with the might of principle, and a virtu- 
 ous will. The great means, then, of re- 
 pressing intemperance in those portions 
 of society which are most exposed to it, 
 is to communicate to them, or awaken 
 in them, moral strength, the power of 
 self-denial, a nobler and more vigorous 
 action of conscience and religious prin- 
 ciple. In other words, to save the labor- 
 ing and poor from intemperance, we 
 must set in action amongst them the 
 means of intellectual, moral, and relig- 
 ious improvement. We must strive to 
 elevate them as rational and moral be- 
 ings, to unfold their highest nature. It 
 i is idle to think that, whilst these classes
 
 io6 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 remain the same in other respects, they 
 can be cured of intemperance. Intem- 
 perance does not stand alone in their 
 condition and character. It is a part or 
 sign of general degradation. It can only 
 be effectually removed by exalting their 
 whole character and condition. To heal 
 a diseased limb or organ, you must re- 
 lieve and strengthen the whole body. 
 So it is with the mind. We cannot, if 
 we would, remove those vices from the 
 poor which are annoying to ourselves, 
 and leave them, in other respects, as 
 corrupt as before. Nothing but a gen- 
 eral improvement of their nature can 
 fortify them against the crimes which 
 make them scourges alike to themselves 
 and to their race. 
 
 And how may moral strength, force 
 of principle, be communicated to the 
 less prosperous classes of society ? I 
 answer, first, the surest means is to in- 
 crease it among the more favored. All 
 classes of a community have connections, 
 sympathies. Let selfishness and sen- 
 suality reign among the prosperous and 
 educated, and the poor and uneducated 
 will reflect these vices in grosser forms. 
 That man is the best friend to temper- 
 ance, among high and low, whose char- 
 acter and life express clearly and strongly 
 moral energy, self-denial, superiority to 
 the body, superiority to wealth, elevation 
 of sentiment and principle. The greatest 
 benefactor to society is not he who serves 
 it by single acts, but whose general char- 
 acter is the manifestation of a higher 
 life and spirit than pervades the mass. 
 Such men are the salt of the earth. The 
 might of individual virtue surpasses all 
 other powers. The multiplication of 
 individuals of true force and dignity of 
 mind would be the surest of all omens 
 of the suppression of intemperance in 
 every condition of society. 
 
 Another means is, the cultivation of a 
 more fraternal intercourse than now ex- 
 ists between the more and less improved 
 portions of the community. Our pres- 
 ent social barriers and distinctions, in 
 so far as they restrict sympathy, and 
 substitute the spirit of caste, the bigotry 
 of rank, for the spirit of humanity, for 
 reverence of our common nature, ought 
 to be reprobated as gross violations 
 of the Christian law. Those classes 
 of society which have light, strength, 
 and virtue, are bound to communicate 
 these to such as want them. The 
 
 weak, ignorant, falling and fallen, ought 
 not to be cut off from their more favor- 
 ed brethren, ought not to be left to act 
 continually and exclusively on one an- 
 other, and thus to propagate their 
 crimes and woes without end. The 
 good should form a holy conspiracy 
 against evil, should assail it by separate 
 and joint exertion, should approach it, 
 study it. weep and pray over it, and 
 throw all their souls into efforts for its 
 removal. My friends, you whom God 
 has prospered, whom He has enlight- 
 ened, in whose hearts He has awakened 
 a reverence for Himself, what are you 
 doing for the fallen, the falling, the mis- 
 erable of your race ? When an improved 
 Christian thinks of the mass of unpit- 
 ied, unfriended guilt in this city, must 
 he not be shocked at the hardness of 
 all our hearts ? Are we not all of one 
 blood, one nature, one heavenly de- 
 scent ; and are outward distinctions, 
 which to-morrow are to be buried for 
 ever in the tomb, to divide us from 
 one another, to cut off the communi- 
 cations of brotherly sympathy and aid ? 
 In a Christian community, not one 
 human being should be left to fall, 
 without counsel, remonstrance, sym- 
 pathy, encouragement, from others more 
 enlightened and virtuous than himself. 
 Say not this cannot be done. I know it 
 cannot be done without great changes 
 in our habits, views, feelings ; but these 
 changes must be made. A new bond 
 must unite the scattered portions of 
 men. A new sense of responsibility 
 must stir up the enlightened, the pros- 
 perous, the virtuous. Christianity de- 
 mands this. The progress of society 
 demands it. I see blessed omens of 
 this, and they are among the brightest 
 features of our times. 
 
 Again, to elevate and strengthen the 
 more exposed classes of society, it is 
 indispensable that a higher education 
 should be afforded them. We boast of 
 the me^ns of education afforded to the 
 poorest here. It may be said with truth, 
 in regard to both rich and poor, that 
 these means are very deficient. As to 
 moral education, hardly any provisions 
 are made for it in our public schools. 
 To educate is something more than to 
 teach those elements of knowledge 
 which are needed to get a subsistence. 
 It is to exercise and call out the higher 
 faculties and affections of a human
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 107 
 
 being. Education is not the authori- 
 tative, compulsory, mechanical training 
 of passive pupils, but the influence of 
 gifted and quickening minds on the 
 spirits of the young. Such education 
 is, as yet, sparingly enjoyed, and can- 
 not be too fervently desired. Of what 
 use, let me ask, is the wealth of this 
 community, but to train up a better 
 generation than ourselves ? Of what 
 use, I ask, is freedom, except to call 
 forth the best powers of all classes and 
 of every individual ? What, but human 
 improvement, is the great end of society ? 
 Why ought we to sustain so anxiously 
 republican institutions, if they do not 
 tend 'to form a nobler race of men, and 
 to spread nobleness through all condi- 
 tions of social life ? It is a melancholy 
 and prevalent error among us, that per- 
 sons in the laboring classes are denied 
 by their conditions any considerable 
 intellectual improvement. They must 
 live, it is thought, to work, not to fulfil 
 the great end of a human being, which 
 is to unfold his divinest powers and 
 affections. But it is not so. The poor- 
 est child might and ought to have liberal 
 means of self-improvement ; and were 
 there a true reverence among us for 
 human nature and for Christianity, he 
 would find them. In a letter recently 
 received from a most intelligent travel- 
 ler in Germany, I am informed that in 
 certain parts of that country there is 
 found, in the most depressed classes, a 
 degree of intellectual culture not gen- 
 erally supposed to consist with their 
 lot ; that a sense of the beautiful in 
 nature and art produces much happiness 
 in a portion of society which among us 
 is thought to be disqualified for this in- 
 nocent and elevated pleasure ; that the 
 teaching in Sunday-schools is in some 
 places more various than here, and 
 that a collection of books and a de- 
 gree of scientific knowledge may be 
 met in cottages far inferior to the dwell- 
 ings of our husbandmen. "In short," 
 my friend adds, " I have seen abundant 
 proof that intellectual culture, as found 
 here, spreads its light and comfort 
 through a class that hardly exists at 
 all with us, or, where it does exist, is 
 generally supposed to labor under a 
 degree of physical wretchedness incon- 
 sistent with such culture." Information 
 of this kind should breathe new hope 
 into philanthropic labors for the intel- 
 
 lectual and moral life of every class in 
 society. How much may be done in 
 this city to spread knowledge, vigor of 
 thought, the sense of beauty, the pleas- 
 ures of the imagination and the fine 
 arts, and, above all, the influences of 
 religion, through our whole community ! 
 Were the prosperous and educated to 
 learn that, after providing for their fami- 
 lies, they cannot better employ their 
 possessions and influence than in for- 
 warding the improvement and elevation 
 of society, how soon would this city be 
 regenerated ! How many generous spir- 
 its might be enlisted here by a wise 
 bounty in the work of training their fel- 
 low-creatures ! Wealth cannot be bet- 
 ter used than in rescuing men of vig- 
 orous and disinterested minds from 
 worldly toils and cares, in giving them 
 time and opportunity for generous self- 
 culture, and in enabling them to devote 
 their whole strength and being to a like 
 culture of their race. The surest mark 
 of a true civilization is, that the arts 
 which minister to sensuality decrease, 
 and spiritual employments are multi- 
 plied, or that more and more of the 
 highest ability in the state is withdrawn 
 from labors for the animal life, and con- 
 secrated to the work of calling forth the 
 intellect, the imagination, the conscience, 
 the pure affections, the moral energy of 
 the community at large, and especially 
 of the young. What is now wasted 
 among us in private show and luxury, 
 if conscientiously and wisely devoted to 
 the furnishing of means of generous 
 culture to all classes among us, would 
 render this city the wonder and joy of 
 the whole earth. What is thus wasted 
 might supply not only the means of edu- 
 cation in the sciences, but in the refined 
 arts. Music might here be spread as 
 freely as in Germany, and be made a 
 lightener of toil, a cheerer of society, a 
 relief of loneliness, a solace in the poor- 
 est dwellings. Still more, what we now 
 waste would furnish this city, in a course 
 of years, with the chief attractions of 
 Paris, with another Louvre, and with a 
 Garden of Plants, where the gifted of 
 all classes might have opportunity to 
 cultivate the love of nature and art. 
 Happily, the cause of a higher educa- 
 tion begins to find friends here. Thanks 
 to that enlightened and noble-minded 
 son of Boston, whose ashes now slum- 
 i ber on a foreign shore, but who has left
 
 io8 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 to his birthplace a testimony of filial 
 love, in his munificent bequest for the 
 diffusion of liberal instruction through 
 this metropolis. Honored be the name 
 of Lowell, the intellectual benefactor of 
 his native city ! A community, directing 
 its energies chiefly to a higher educa- 
 tion of its rising members, to a generous 
 development of human nature, would 
 achieve what as yet has not entered 
 human thought ; and it is for this end 
 that we ought to labor. Our show and 
 our luxury, how contemptible in com- 
 parison with the improvement of our 
 families, neighborhood, and race ! 
 
 Allow me here to express an earnest 
 desire that our legislators, provoked to 
 jealousy by the spirit of improvement in 
 other states, and moved by zeal for the 
 ancient honor of this Commonwealth, 
 may adopt some strong measures for 
 the advancement of education among us. 
 We need an institution for the formation 
 of better teachers ; and until this step is 
 taken we can make no important prog- 
 ress. The most crying want in this 
 Commonwealth is the want of accom- 
 plished teachers. We boast of our 
 schools ; but our schools do compara- 
 tively little, for want of educated instruc- 
 tors. Without good teaching, a school is 
 but a name. An institution for training 
 men to train the young would be a 
 fountain of living waters, sending forth 
 streams to refresh present and future 
 ages. As yet, our legislators have de- 
 nied to the poor and laboring classes 
 this principal means of their elevation. 
 We trust they will not always prove 
 blind to the highest interest of the state. 
 
 We want better teachers and more 
 teachers for all classes of society, for 
 rich and poor, for children and adults. 
 We want that the resources of the com- 
 munity should be directed to the procur- 
 ing of better instructors, as its highest 
 concern. One of the surest signs of the 
 regeneration of society will be the ele- 
 vation of the art of teaching to the high- 
 est rank in the community. When a 
 people shall learn that its greatest bene- 
 factors and most important members are 
 men devoted to the liberal instruction of 
 all its classes, to the work of raising 
 to life its buried intellect, it will have 
 opened to itself the path of true glory. 
 This truth is making its way. Socrates 
 is now regarded as the greatest man in 
 an age of great men. The name of 
 
 King has grown dim before that of 
 Apostle. To teach, whether byword or 
 action, is the highest function 'on earth. 
 It is commonly supposed that instruc- 
 tors are needed only in the earlier years 
 of life. But ought the education of a 
 human being ever to cease ? And may 
 it not always be forwarded by good in- 
 struction ? Some of us, indeed, can dis- 
 pense with all teachers save the silent 
 book. But to the great majority the 
 voice of living teachers is an indispen- 
 sable means of cultivation. The discov- 
 ery and supply of this want would give 
 a new aspect to a community. Nothing 
 is more needed than that men of supe- 
 rior gifts and of benevolent spirit should 
 devote themselves to the instruction of 
 the less enlightened classes in the great 
 end of life, in the dignity of their nature, 
 in their rights and duties, in the history, 
 laws, and institutions of their country, 
 in the philosophy of their employments, 
 in the laws, harmonies, and productions 
 of outward nature, and especially in the 
 art of bringing up children in health of 
 body and in vigor and purity of mind. 
 We need a new profession or vocation, 
 the object of which shall be to wake up 
 the intellect in those spheres where it 
 is now buried in habitual slumber. We 
 honor, and cannot too much honor, the 
 philanthropist, ft who endows permanent 
 institutions for the relief of human suf- 
 fering ; but not less good, I apprehend, 
 would be accomplished by inquiring for 
 and seizing on men of superior ability 
 and disinterestedness, and by sending 
 them forth to act immediately on soci- 
 ety. A philanthropist who should lib- 
 erally afford to one such man the means 
 of devoting himself to the cultivation of 
 the poorer classes of society would con- 
 fer invaluable good. One gifted man, 
 with his heart in the work, who should 
 live among the uneducated, to spread 
 useful knowledge and quickening truth, 
 by conversation and books, by frank and 
 friendly intercourse, by encouraging 
 meetings for improvement, by forming 
 the more teachable' into classes, and 
 giving to these the animation of his 
 presence and guidance, by bringing 
 parents to an acquaintance with the 
 principles of physical, intellectual, and 
 moral education, by instructing families 
 in the means and conditions of health, by 
 using, in a word, all the methods which 
 an active, generous mind would discover
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 or invent for awakening intelligence and 
 moral life ; one gifted man, so devoted, 
 might impart a new tone and spirit to a 
 considerable circle ; and what would be 
 the result were such men to be multi- 
 plied and combined, so that a community 
 might be pervaded by their influence ! 
 We owe much to the writings of men of 
 genius, piety, science, and exalted virtue. 
 But most of these remain shut up in nar- 
 row spheres. We want a class of liberal 
 instructors, whose vocation it shall be to 
 place the views of the most enlightened 
 minds within the reach of a more and 
 more extensive portion of their fellow- 
 creatures. The wealth of a community 
 should flow out like water for the prep- 
 aration and employment of such teach- 
 ers, for enlisting powerful and generous 
 minds in the work of giving impulse to 
 their race. Jesus Christ, in instituting 
 the ministry, laid the foundation of the 
 intellectual and moral agency which I 
 now urge. On this foundation we ought 
 to build more and more, until a life-giv- 
 ing influence shall penetrate all classes 
 of society. What a painful thought is 
 it, that such an immense amount of in- 
 tellectual and moral power, of godlike 
 energy, is this very moment lying dead 
 among us ! Can we do nothing for its 
 resurrection ? Until this be done, we 
 may lop off the branches of intemper- 
 ance, but its root will live ; and happy 
 shall we be if its poisonous shade do not 
 again darken our land. Let it not be 
 said that the laborious can find no time 
 for such instruction as is now proposed. 
 More or less leisure, if sought, can be 
 found in almost every life. Nor let it 
 be said that men. able and disposed to 
 carry on this work, must not be looked 
 for in such a world as ours. Christianity, 
 which has wrought so many miracles of 
 beneficence, which has sent forth so 
 many apostles and martyrs, so many 
 Howards and Clarksons, can raise up 
 laborers for this harvest also. Nothing 
 is needed but a new pouring out of the 
 spirit of Christian love, nothing but a 
 new comprehension of the brotherhood 
 of the human race, to call forth efforts 
 which seem impossibilities in a self- 
 seeking and self-indulging age. 
 
 I will add but one more means of 
 giving moral power and general im- 
 provement to those portions of the 
 community in which intemperance finds 
 its chief victims. We must not only 
 
 promote education in general, but es- 
 pecially send among them Christian 
 instruction, Christian teachers, who 
 shall be wholly devoted to their spirit- 
 ual welfare. And here I cannot but 
 express my joy at the efforts made for 
 establishing a ministry among the poor 
 in this and other cities. Though not 
 sustained as it should be, it yet subsists 
 in sufficient vigor to show what it can 
 accomplish. I regard this institution 
 as among the happiest omens of our 
 times. It shows that the spirit of him 
 who came to seek and to save that 
 which was lost is not dead among us. 
 Christianity is the mighty power before 
 which intemperance is to fall. Chris- 
 tianity, faithfully preached, assails and 
 withstands this vice, by appealing, as 
 nothing else can, to men's hopes and 
 fears, by speaking to the conscience 
 in the name of the Almighty Judge, 
 by speaking to the heart in the name 
 of the Merciful Father, by proffering 
 strength to human weakness and par- 
 don to human guilt, by revealing to men 
 an immortal nature within, and an eter- 
 nal state before them, by spreading 
 over this life a brightness borrowed 
 from the life to come, by -awakening 
 generous affections, and binding man 
 by new ties to God and his race. But 
 Christianity, to fulfil this part of its 
 mission, to reach those who are most 
 exposed to intemperance, must not only 
 speak in the churches, where these are 
 seldom found, but must enter their 
 dwellings in the persons of its minis- 
 ters, must commune with them in the 
 language of friendship, must take their 
 children under its guardianship and con- 
 trol. The ministry for the poor, sus- 
 tained by men worthy of the function, 
 will prove one of the most powerful 
 barriers ever raised against intemper- 
 ance. 
 
 The means of suppressing this vice, 
 on which I have hitherto insisted, have 
 for their object to strengthen and ele- 
 vate the whole character of the classes 
 most exposed to intemperance. I would 
 now suggest a few means fitted to ac- 
 complish the same end, by diminishing 
 or removing the temptations to this 
 vice. 
 
 The first means which I shall suggest 
 of placing a people beyond the temp- 
 tations to intemperance, is to furnish 
 them with the means of innocent pleas-
 
 110 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 ure. This topic, I apprehend, has not 
 been sufficiently insisted on. I feel its 
 importance and propose to enlarge upon 
 it, though some of the topics which I 
 may introduce may seem to some hardly 
 consistent with the gravity of this oc- 
 casion. We ought not, however, to 
 respect the claims of that gravity which 
 prevents a faithful exposition of what 
 may serve and improve our fellow-creat- 
 ures. 
 
 I have said, a people should be 
 guarded against temptation to unlawful 
 pleasures by furnishing the means of 
 innocent ones. By innocent pleasures 
 I mean such as excite moderately ; such 
 as produce a cheerful frame of mind, 
 not boisterous mirth ; such as refresh, 
 instead of exhausting, the system ; 
 such as occur frequently, rather than 
 continue long ; such as send us back 
 to our daily duties invigorated in body 
 and in spirit ; such as we can partake 
 in the presence and society of respect- 
 able friends ; such as consist with, and 
 are favorable to, a grateful piety ; such 
 as are .chastened by self-respect, and 
 are accompanied with the conscious- 
 ness that life has a higher end than to 
 be amused.' In every community there 
 must be pleasures-, relaxations, and 
 means of agreeable excitement ; and 
 if innocent ones are not furnished, 
 resort will be had to criminal. Man 
 was made to enjoy, as well as to labor ; 
 and the state of society should be 
 adapted to this principle of human 
 nature. France, especially before the 
 revolution, has been represented as a 
 singularly temperate country, a fact 
 to be explained, at least in part, by the 
 constitutional cheerfulness of that peo- 
 ple, and by the prevalence of simple 
 and innocent gratifications, especially 
 among the peasantry. Men drink to 
 excess very often to shake off depres- 
 sion, or to satisfy the restless thirst 
 for agreeable excitement, and these 
 motives are excluded in a cheerful com- 
 munity. A gloomy state of society, in 
 which there are few innocent recrea- 
 tions, may be expected to abound in 
 drunkenness, if opportunities are af- 
 forded. The savage drinks to excess, 
 because his hours of sobriety are dull 
 and unvaried ; because, in losing the 
 consciousness of his condition and his 
 existence, he loses little which he wishes 
 to retain. The laboring classes are 
 
 most exposed to intemperance, because 
 they have at present few other pleas- 
 urable excitements. A man who, after 
 toil, has resources of blameless recre- 
 ation, is less tempted than other men to 
 seek self-oblivion. He has too many of 
 the pleasures of a man to take up with 
 those of a brute. Thus, the encourage- 
 ment of simple, innocent enjoyments 
 is an important means of temperance. 
 
 These remarks show the importance 
 of encouraging the efforts which have 
 commenced among us for spreading 
 the accomplishment of music through 
 our whole community. It is now pro- 
 posed that this shall be made a regular 
 branch in our schools ; and every friend 
 of the people must wish success to the 
 experiment. I am not now called to 
 speak of all the good influences of mu- 
 sic, particularly of the strength which 
 it may and ought to give to the religious 
 sentiment, and to all pure and generous 
 emotions. Regarded merely as a re- 
 fined pleasure, it has a favorable bear- 
 ing on public morals. Let taste and 
 skill in this beautiful art be spread 
 among us, and every family will have 
 a new resource. Home will gain a new 
 attraction. Social intercourse will be 
 more cheerful, and an innocent public 
 amusement will be furnished to the 
 community. Public amusements, bring- 
 ing multitudes together to kindle with 
 one emotion, to share the same inno- 
 cent joy, have a humanizing influence ; 
 and among these bonds of society per- 
 haps no one produces so much unmixed 
 good as music. What a fulness of en- 
 joyment has our Creator placed within 
 our reach, by surrounding us with an 
 atmosphere which may be shaped into 
 sweet sounds ! And yet this goodness 
 is almost lost upon us, through want of 
 culture of the organ by which this pro- 
 vision is to be enjoyed. 
 
 Dancing is an amusement which has 
 bee'n discouraged in our country by 
 many of the best people, and not with- 
 out reason. Dancing is associated in 
 their minds with balls ; and this is one 
 of the worst forms of social pleasure. 
 The time consumed in preparation for 
 a ball, the waste of thought upon it, 
 the extravagance of dress, the late 
 hours, the exhaustion of strength, the 
 exposure of health, and the languor of 
 the succeeding day, these and other 
 evils, connected with this amusement,
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 are strong reasons for banishing it from 
 the community. But dancing ought not 
 therefore to be proscribed. On the con- 
 trary, balls should be discouraged for 
 this among other reasons, that dancing, 
 instead of being a rare pleasure, re- 
 quiring elaborate preparation, may be- 
 come an every-day amusement, and 
 may mix with our common intercourse. 
 This exercise is among the most health- 
 ful. The body as well as the mind feels 
 its gladdening influence. No amuse- 
 ment seems more to have a foundation 
 in our nature. The animation of youth 
 overflows spontaneously in harmonious 
 movements. The true idea of dancing 
 entitles it to favor. Its end is, to real- 
 ize perfect grace in motion : and who 
 does not know that a sense of the grace- 
 ful is one of the higher faculties of our 
 nature ? It is to be desired that dan- 
 cing should become too common among 
 us to be made the object of special 
 preparation as in the ball ; that mem- 
 bers of the same family, when confined 
 by unfavorable weather, should recur to 
 it for exercise and exhilaration ; that 
 branches of the same family should en- 
 liven in this way their occasional meet- 
 ings ; that it should fill up an hour in 
 all the assemblages for relaxation in 
 which the young form a part. It is to 
 be desired that this accomplishment, 
 should be extended to the laboring 
 classes of society, not only as an in- 
 nocent pleasure, but as a means of 
 improving the manners. Why shall 
 not gracefulness be spread through the 
 whole community ? From the French 
 nation we learn that a degree of grace 
 and refinement of manners may pervade 
 all classes. The philanthropist and 
 Christian must desire to break down 
 the partition-walls between human be- 
 ings in different conditions ; and one 
 means of doing this is to remove the 
 conscious awkwardness which confine- 
 ment to laborious occupations is apt to 
 induce. An accomplishment, giving 
 free and graceful movement, though 
 a far weaker bond than intellectual or 
 moral culture, still does something to 
 bring those who partake it near each 
 other. 
 
 I approach another subject, on which 
 a greater variety of opinion exists than 
 on the last, and that is the theatre. In 
 its present state, the theatre deserves 
 no encouragement. It is an accumula- 
 
 tion of immoral influences. It has nour- 
 ished intemperance and all vice. In 
 saying this, I do not say that the amuse- 
 ment is radically, essentially evil. I can 
 conceive of a theatre which would be 
 the noblest of all amusements, and would 
 take a high rank among the means of 
 refining the taste and elevating the char- 
 acter of a people. The deep woes, the 
 mighty and terrible passions, and the 
 sublime emotions of genuine tragedy, 
 are fitted to thrill us with human sym- 
 pathies, with profound interest in our nat- 
 ure, with a consciousness of what man 
 can do and dare and suffer, with an awed 
 feeling of the fearful mysteries of life. 
 The soul of the spectator is stirred from 
 its depths ; and the lethargy in which 
 so many live is roused, at least for a 
 time, to some intenseness of thought 
 and sensibility. The drama answers a 
 high purpose when it places us in the 
 presence of the most solemn and strik- 
 ing events of human history, and lays 
 bare to us the human heart in its most 
 powerful, appalling, glorious workings. 
 But how little does the theatre accom- 
 plish its end ! How often is it disgraced 
 by monstrous distortions of human nat- 
 ure, and still more disgraced by profane- 
 ness, coarseness, indelicacy, low wit, 
 such as no woman, worthy of the name, 
 can hear without a blush, and no man 
 can take pleasure in without self-degra- 
 dation ! Is it possible that a Christian and 
 a refined people can resort to theatres 
 where exhibitions of dancing are given 
 fit only for brothels, and where the most 
 licentious class in the community throng 
 unconcealed to tempt and destroy ? 
 That the theatre should be suffered to 
 exist in its present degradation is a re- 
 proach to the community. Were it to 
 fall, a better drama might spring up in 
 its place. In the mean time, is there 
 not an amusement, having an affinity 
 with the drama, which might be usefully 
 introduced among us ? I mean recita- 
 tion. A work of genius, recited by a 
 man of fine taste, enthusiasm, and 
 powers of elocution, is a very pure and 
 high gratification. Were this art culti- 
 vated and encouraged, great numbers, 
 now insensible to the most beautiful 
 compositions, might be waked up to their 
 excellence and power. It is not easy to 
 conceive of a more effectual way of spread- 
 .ing a refined taste through a community. 
 The drama, undoubtedly, appeals more
 
 112 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 strongly to the passions than recitation ; 
 but the latter brings out the meaning of 
 the author more. Shakspeare, worthily 
 recited, would be better understood than 
 on the stage. Then, in recitation, we 
 escape the weariness of listening to poor 
 performers, who, after all, fill up most 
 of the time at the theatre. Recitation, 
 sufficiently varied, so as to include pieces 
 of chaste wit, as well as of pathos, beauty, 
 and sublimity, is adapted to our present 
 intellectual progress as much as the 
 drama falls below it. Should this exhi- 
 bition be introduced among us success- 
 fully, the result would be that the power 
 of recitation would be extensively called 
 forth, and this would be added to our 
 social and domestic pleasures. 
 
 I have spoken in this discourse of in- 
 tellectual culture, as a defence against 
 intemperance, by giving force and eleva- 
 tion to the mind. It also does great 
 good as a source of amusement ; and on 
 this ground should be spread through 
 the community. A cultivated mind may 
 be said to have infinite stores of inno- 
 cent gratification. Every thing may be 
 made interesting to it, by becoming a 
 subject of thought or inquiry. Books, 
 regarded merely as a gratification, are 
 worth more than all the luxuries on earth. 
 A taste for literature secures cheerful 
 occupation for the unemployed and lan- 
 guid hours of life ; and how many per- 
 sons, in these hours, for want of in- 
 nocent resources, are now impelled to 
 coarse and brutal pleasures ! How many 
 young men can be found in this city 
 who, unaccustomed to find a companion 
 in a book, and strangers to intellectual 
 activity, are almost driven, in the long, 
 dull evenings of winter, to haunts of in- 
 temperance and depraving society ! It 
 is one of the good signs of the times 
 that lectures on literature and science 
 are taking their place among our public 
 amusements, and attract even more than 
 theatres. This is one of the first fruits 
 of our present intellectual culture. What 
 a harvest may we hope for from its 
 wider diffusion ! 
 
 In these remarks, I have insisted on 
 the importance of increasing innocent 
 gratifications in a community. Let us 
 become a more cheerful and we shall 
 become a more temperate people. . To 
 increase our susceptibility of innocent 
 pleasure, and to remove many of the 
 sufferings which tempt to evil habits, it 
 
 would be well if physical as well as 
 moral education were to receive greater 
 attention. There is a puny, half-healthy, 
 half-diseased state of the body too com- 
 mon among us, which, by producing 
 melancholy and restlessness, and by 
 weakening the energy of the will, is a 
 strong incitement to the use of hurtful 
 stimulants. Many a case of intemper- 
 ance has had its origin in bodily infirm- 
 ity. Physical vigor is not only valuable 
 for its own sake, but it favors temper- 
 ance, by opening the mind to cheerful 
 impressions, and by removing those in- 
 describable feelings of sinking, disquiet, 
 depression, which experience alone can 
 enable you to understand. I have 
 pleaded for mental culture ; but nothing 
 is gained by sacrificing the body to the 
 mind. Let not intellectual education be 
 sought at the expense of health. Let 
 not our children in their early years be 
 instructed, as is too common, in close, 
 unventilated rooms, where they breathe 
 for hours a tainted air. Our whole 
 nature must be cared for. We must be- 
 come a more cheerful, animated people ; 
 and for this end we must propose, in our 
 systems of education, the invigoration 
 of both body and mind. 
 
 I am aware that the views now ex- 
 pressed may not find unmixed favor with 
 all the friends of temperance. To some, 
 perhaps to many, religion and amuse- 
 ment seem mutually hostile, and he who 
 pleads for the one may fall under sus- 
 picion of unfaithfulness to the other. 
 But to fight against our nature is not to 
 serve the cause of piety or sound morals. 
 God, who gave us our nature, who has 
 constituted body and mind incapable of 
 continued effort, who has implanted a 
 strong desire for recreation after labor, 
 who has made us for smiles much more 
 than for tears, who has made laughter 
 the most contagious of all sounds, whose 
 Son hallowed a marriage feast by his 
 pre'sence and sympathy, who has sent 
 the child fresh from his creating hand 
 to develop its nature by active sports, 
 and who has endowed both young and 
 old with a keen susceptibility of enjoy- 
 ment from wit and humor, He. who 
 has thus formed us, cannot have intended 
 us for a dull, monotonous life, and can- 
 not frown on pleasures which solace our 
 fatigue and refresh our spirits for coming 
 toils. It is not only possible to recon- 
 cile amusement with duty, but to make
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 it the means of more animated exertion, 
 more faithful attachments, more grateful 
 piety. True religion is at once author- 
 itative and benign. It calls us to suffer, to 
 die, rather than to swerve a hair's breadth 
 from what God enjoins as right and 
 good ; but it teaches us 'that it is right 
 and good, in ordinary circumstances, to 
 unite relaxation with toil, to accept God's 
 gifts with cheerfulness, and to lighten 
 the heart, in the intervals of exertion, 
 by social pleasures. A religion, giving 
 dark views of God, and infusing super- 
 stitious fear of innocent enjoyment, in- 
 stead of aiding sober habits, will, by 
 making men abject and sad, impair their 
 moral force, and prepare them for in- 
 temperance as a refuge from depression 
 or despair. 
 
 Two other means remain to be men- 
 tioned for removing the temptations to 
 intemperance, and these are the dis- 
 couragement of the use and the dis- 
 couragement of the sale of ardent spirits 
 in the community. 
 
 First, we should discourage the use of 
 ardent spirits in the community. It is 
 very plain too plain to be insisted on 
 that to remove what intoxicates is to 
 remove intoxication. In proportion as 
 ardent spirits are banished from our 
 houses, our tables, our hospitalities ; in 
 proportion as those who have influence 
 and authority in the community abstain 
 themselves, and lead their dependants 
 to abstain, from their use ; in that pro- 
 portion the occasions of excess must be 
 diminished, the temptations to it must 
 disappear. It is objected, I know, that, 
 if we begin to give up what others will 
 abuse, we must give up every thing, be- 
 cause there is nothing which men will 
 not abuse. I grant that it is not easy to 
 define the limits at which concessions 
 are to stop. Were we called on to re- 
 linquish an important comfort of life, be- 
 cause others were perverting it into an 
 instrument of crime and woe, we should 
 be bound to pause and deliberate before 
 we act. But no such plea can be set up 
 in the case before us. Ardent spirits 
 are not an important comfort, and in no 
 degree a comfort. They give no strength : 
 they contribute nothing to health : they 
 can be abandoned without the slightest 
 evil. They aid men neither to bear the 
 burden nor to discharge the duties of 
 life ; and in saying this, I stop short of 
 the truth. It is not enough to say that 
 
 they never do good ; they generally 
 injure. In their moderate use, they act, 
 in general, unfavorably on body and 
 mind. According to respectable physi- 
 cians, they are not digested like food, 
 but circulate unchanged like a poison 
 through the system. Like other poisons, 
 they may occasionally benefit as medi- 
 cines ; but when made a beverage by 
 the healthy, they never do good ; they 
 generally are pernicious. They are no 
 more intended by Providence for drink 
 than opium is designed for food. Con- 
 sider next, that ardent spirits are not 
 only without benefit when moderately 
 used, but that they instigate to immod- 
 erate use ; that they beget a craving, a 
 feverish thirst, which multitudes want 
 power to resist ; that in some classes of 
 society great numbers become their vic- 
 tims, are bereft by them of reason, are 
 destroyed in body and soul, destroyed 
 here and hereafter ; that families are 
 thus made desolate, parents hurried to a 
 premature grave, and children trained 
 up to crime and shame. Consider all 
 this, and then judge, as in the sight of 
 God, whether you are not bound to use 
 your whole influence in banishing the 
 use of spirits, as one of the most perni- 
 cious habits, from the community. If 
 you were to see, as a consequence of 
 this beverage, a loathsome and mortal 
 disease breaking out occasionally in all 
 ranks, and sweeping away crowds in the 
 most depressed portion of society, would 
 you not lift up your voices against it ? 
 And is not an evil more terrible than pes- 
 tilence the actual frequent result of the 
 use of spirituous liquors ? That use you 
 are bound to discourage ; and how ? By 
 abstaining wholly yourselves, by exclud- 
 ing ardent spirits wholly from your tables, 
 by giving your whole weight and author- 
 ity to abstinence. This practical, solemn 
 testimony, borne by the good and re- 
 spectable, cannot but spread a healthful 
 public sentiment through the whole com- 
 munity. This is especially our duty at 
 the present moment, when a great com- 
 bined effort of religious and philanthropic 
 men is directed against this evil, and 
 when an impression has been made on 
 the community surpassing the most san- 
 guine hopes. At the present moment, 
 he who uses ardent spirits, or introduces 
 them into his hospitalities, virtually ar- 
 rays himself against the cause of tem- 
 perance and humanity. He not merely
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 gives an example to his children and his 
 domestics, which he may one day bitterly 
 rue ; he withstands the good in their 
 struggles for the virtue and happiness of 
 mankind. He forsakes the standard of 
 social reform, and throws himself into 
 the ranks of its foes. 
 
 After these remarks, it will follow that 
 we should discourage the sale of ardent 
 spirits. What ought not to be used as 
 a beverage, ought not to be sold as such. 
 What the good of the community re- 
 quires us to expel, no man has a moral 
 right to supply. That intemperance is 
 dreadfully multiplied by the number of 
 licensed shops for the retailing of spir- 
 its, we all know. That these should be 
 shut, every good man desires. Law, 
 however, cannot shut them except in a 
 limited extent, or only in a few favored 
 parts of the. country. Law is here the 
 will of the people, and the legislature 
 can do little unless sustained by the 
 public voice. To form, then, an enlight- 
 ened and vigorous public sentiment, 
 which will demand the suppression of 
 these licensed nurseries of intemper- 
 ance, is a duty to which every good man 
 is bound, and a service in which each 
 may take a share. And not only should 
 the vending of spirits in these impure 
 haunts be discouraged ; the vending of 
 them by respectable men should be re- 
 garded as a great public evil. The re- 
 tailer takes shelter under the wholesale 
 dealer, from whom he purchases the per- 
 nicious draught ; and has he not a right 
 so to do ? Can we expect that he should 
 shrink from spreading on a small scale 
 what others spread largely without re- 
 buke ? Can we expect his conscience 
 to be sensitive, when he treads in the 
 steps of men of reputation ? Of the 
 character of those who vend spirits I 
 do not judge. They grew up in the be- 
 lief of the innocence of the traffic, and 
 this, conviction they may sincerely retain. 
 But error, though sincere, is error still. 
 Right and wrong do not depend on hu- 
 man judgment or human will. Truth 
 and duty may be hidden for ages ; but 
 they remain unshaken as God's throne ; 
 and when, in the course of His provi- 
 dence, they are made known to one or a 
 few, they must be proclaimed, whoever 
 may be opposed. Truth, truth, is the 
 hope of the world. Let it be spoken in 
 kindness, but with power. 
 
 Some of the means of withstanding 
 intemperance have now been stated. 
 Other topics, were there time. I should 
 be glad to offer to your attention. But 
 I must pause. 1 will only add, that 
 every lover of his race has strong en- 
 couragement to exert himself for the 
 prevention of intemperance. The strik- 
 ing success of societies instituted for 
 this end should give animation and hope. 
 But even had these associations and 
 these efforts failed, I should not de- 
 spair^ From the very terribleness of the 
 evil, we may derive incitement and hope 
 in our labors for its suppression. It 
 cannot be that God has created moral 
 beings to become brutes, or placed them 
 in circumstances irresistibly impelling 
 them to this utter renunciation of the 
 proper good of their nature. 1 here are, 
 there must be, means of prevention or 
 cure for this deadliest moral disease. 
 The unhappiness is, that too many of 
 us, who call ourselves the friends of 
 temperance, have not virtue and love 
 enough to use powerfully the weapons 
 of the spirit for the succor of the tempted 
 and fallen. We are ourselves too sen- 
 sual to rescue others from sensuality. 
 The difference between us and the in- 
 temperate man is too small to fit us for 
 his deliverance. But that there are 
 means of withstanding intemperance ; 
 that it is the design and tendency of 
 Christianity to raise up men fit and 
 worthy to wield these means ; and that 
 there are always some who are prepared 
 to lead the way in this holy work. 1 can- 
 not doubt. 1 see, indeed, a terrible en- 
 ergy in human appetites and passions. 
 But I do not faint. Truth is mightier 
 than error ; virtue, than vice ; God, than 
 the evil man. In contending earnestly 
 against intemperance, we have the help 
 and friendship of Him who is Almighty. 
 We have allies in all that is pure, ra- 
 tional, divine in the human soul, in the 
 progressive intelligence of the age, in 
 whatever elevates public sentiment, in re- 
 ligion, in legislation, in philosophy, in the 
 yearnings of the parent, in the prayers 
 of the Christian, in the teaching of 
 God's house, in the influences of God's 
 Spirit. With these allies, friends, help- 
 ers, let good men not despair, but be 
 strong in the faith that, in due time, 
 they shall reap, if they faint not
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 I have spoken of the causes of intem- 
 perance which are found in our state of 
 society. I should wrong, however, the 
 community to which I belong were I to 
 leave the impression that our social con- 
 dition offers nothing but incitements to 
 this vice. It presents obstacles as well 
 as affords facilities to it. And this 
 ought to be understood, as an encour- 
 agement to the efforts which, according 
 to the preceding remarks, we are bound 
 to make for its suppression. The growth 
 of intelligence among us is a powerful 
 antagonist to intemperance. In propor- 
 tion as we awaken and invigorate men's 
 faculties, we help them to rise above a 
 brutal life ; we take them out of the 
 power of the present moment, enlarge 
 their foresight, give them the means of 
 success in life, open to them sources of 
 innocent pleasure, and prepare them to 
 bear part in respectable society. It is 
 true, that intelligence or knowledge is 
 not virtue. It may not overcome sel- 
 fishness ; but it makes our self-love 
 wiser and more reflecting, gives us a 
 better understanding of our own inter- 
 ests, teaches prudence if not generosity, 
 and, in this way, is a powerful guardian 
 against ruinous excess. We have an- 
 other defence against intemperance in 
 our freedom. Freedom nourishes self- 
 respect, and, by removing all obstruc- 
 tions to exertion, by opening to men the 
 means of bettering their lot, favors an 
 animited, hopeful industry, thus rescu- 
 ing a people from depression, despond- 
 ence and languor, which are among the 
 chief temptations to brutalizing excess. 
 It is indeed said that freedom generates 
 all forms of licentiousness, and, conse- 
 quently, intemperance. But it is, I be- 
 lieve, a wall established fact that this 
 vice has decreased since our struggle for 
 independence. The habits and manners 
 of the last generation were more perilous 
 to temperance than our own. Social in- 
 tercourse was more deformed by excess. 
 Men in mature life visited taverns, and 
 the young could not meet without the 
 danger of drowning reason in wine. It 
 is a false notion that we are wholly 
 indebted for our present reform in 
 this particular to temperance societies. 
 These have done great good, and deserve 
 great praise ; but the influence which is 
 now carrying us on preceded them. 
 They are its effects, not causes. An 
 
 important change of habits had com- 
 menced before their institution, and this 
 seems to me an important view, and one 
 of the chief encouragements to joint 
 and individual exertion for the suppres- 
 sion of this vice. Did I believe that our 
 present social condition offered nothing 
 but materials to intemperance, that it 
 excluded all contrary influences, and 
 that our whole hope for stemming this 
 evil rested on the temperance societies, 
 I should be tempted to despond. Such 
 societies can avail little, except when 
 they act in concurrence with causes in 
 the condition of society. Such causes 
 exist, and one great use of temperance 
 societies is to bring them into more en- 
 ergetic and extensive action. 
 
 I have not insisted on one of the 
 means of temperance on which great 
 stress has been laid, that is, the in- 
 fluence of public opinion. To bring 
 this to bear against intemperance has 
 been regarded by not a few as the chief 
 method of subduing the evil. Too much, 
 I think, is hoped from it. One obvious 
 remark is, that the classes most exposed 
 to intemperance are removed very much 
 from the power of public opinion. But, 
 passing over this, I think we generally 
 look to this influence for more than it 
 can accomplish. We lay upon it a 
 greater weight than it can bear. Public 
 opinion may even work against the 
 cause which it is meant to support, 
 when made a substitute for individual 
 exertion. A man, temperate because pub- 
 lic opinion exacts it, has not the virtue 
 of temperance, nor a stable ground 
 of temperance habits. The remark is 
 especially applicable to these times. 
 Opinion, in former days, was more per- 
 manent than at present. There were few 
 or no causes in operation to unsettle 
 general conviction. Society was cast 
 into fixed forms. Ages passed away, 
 and slight changes were seen in man- 
 ners and in modes of thinking. But the 
 present is a revolutionary age. Society, 
 breaking from its old moorings, is tossed 
 on a restless and ever-stormy ocean. 
 Opinion no longer affords that steady 
 guidance which in former times supplied 
 the place of private judgment and indi- 
 vidual principle. There is no truth 
 which sophistry does not now assail, 
 no falsehood which may not become a 
 party bond. The great work to which 
 religion and benevolence are now called
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 is, not to sweep away multitudes by 
 storm, not to lay on men the tempo- 
 rary, brittle chains of opinion, but to fix 
 deep, rational conviction in individuals, 
 to awaken the reason to eternal truth and 
 the conscience to immutable duty. We 
 are apt to labor to secure to virtue the 
 power of fashion. We must secure to 
 it the power of conviction. It is the 
 essence of fashion to change. Nothing 
 is sure but truth. No other foundation 
 can sustain a permanent reform. The 
 temperance which rests on other men's 
 opinions and practice is not a man's 
 own virtue, but a reflection of what 
 exists around him. It lies on the sur- 
 face. It has not penetrated the soul. 
 
 That opinion may exert a great and 
 useful influence is not denied ; but it 
 must be enlightened opinion, appealing 
 to the reason and the conscience of the 
 individual ; not to passion, interest, or 
 fear, nor proscribing all who differ. We 
 want public opinion to bear on temper- 
 ance, but to act rationally, generously, 
 not passionately, tyrannically, and with 
 the spirit of persecution. Men cannot 
 be driven into temperance. Let the 
 temperate become a party, and breathe 
 the violence of party, and they will raise 
 up a party as violent as their own. The 
 friends of truth must not call passion to 
 their aid, for the erroneous and vicious 
 have a greater stock of passion than 
 they, and can wield this weapon to more 
 effect. It is not by numbers or a louder 
 cry that good men are to triumph over 
 the bad. Their goodness, their con- 
 sciousness of truth and universal love, 
 must be manifested in clear, strong, 
 benevolent appeals to the reason and 
 
 heart. They must speak in the tone of 
 the friend of their race. This will do 
 infinitely more than the clamor of hosts. 
 
 It seems to me an important remark 
 that public opinion cannot do for virtue 
 what it does for vice. It is the essence 
 of virtue to look above opinion. Vice is 
 consistent with, and very often strength- 
 ened by, entire subserviency to it. It 
 is a motive to be cautiously used, be- 
 cause the mind, which passively yields 
 to it, will find it a debilitating rather 
 than an invigorating influence. The 
 moral independence which can with- 
 stand public sentiment is men's only 
 safety. Whenever public sentiment 
 shall be enlightened enough to pro- 
 mote this superiority to itself, it will 
 be a noble spring. In proportion as it 
 wars against this self-subsistence, it 
 subverts the only foundation of sub- 
 stantial, enduring reform. 
 
 It is sometimes very hazardous to at- 
 tempt to extirpate a common vice by 
 making it disgraceful, and passing on it 
 a sentence of outlawry. If. indeed, the 
 vice be confined to the poor and obscure, 
 the brand of infamy may easily be fixed 
 on it ; but when it spreads higher, and 
 is taken under the protection of fashion, 
 it can not only parry the weapon of dis- 
 grace in the hand of its adversaries, but 
 turn this against them. Fashion is 
 singularly expert in the use of ridicule. 
 What it wants in reason it can supply 
 in sneers and laughter. Sometimes it 
 puts on -indifference as a coat of mail. 
 It has especially the art of attaching the 
 idea of vulgarity to a good cause ; and 
 what virtue has courage to encounter 
 this most dreaded form of opinion ? 
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 [" American Annals of Education and Instruction." 
 Edited by William C. Woodbridge. Boston. 8vo.] 
 
 THE work, of which we have placed 
 the title at the head of this article, is 
 devoted to what is generally acknowl- 
 edged to be the most important interest 
 of families and of the state. It has, 
 therefore, no ordinary claims to pat- 
 ronage, especially as it is the only 
 work of the kind published in the coun- 
 
 try. We learn, however, that the sup- 
 port now given it not only falls short of 
 its just claims, but is so insufficient that, 
 unless its circulation can be extended, 
 it must be abandoned. We are not only 
 grieved at this, but somewhat disap- 
 pointed ; for, although we knew the 
 ruling passion in the community for 
 light and amusing reading, we did hope 
 that the acknowledged importance of
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 117 
 
 education, and the necessity laid on 
 every parent to watch over and guide 
 the young, would overcome the repug- 
 nance to mental labor, and would com- 
 municate an interest to details which, 
 separate from their end, would be dry 
 and repulsive. It seems, however, that 
 the community are more disposed to talk 
 of education in general than to enter 
 patiently and minutely into its principles 
 and methods, more disposed to laud 
 it than to labor for it ; and on this ac- 
 count we feel ourselves bound to say 
 something, however briefly and rapidly, 
 of the obligation of regarding it as the 
 paramount object of society, and of giv- 
 ing encouragement to those who make it 
 their task, or who devote themselves to 
 its promotion. We know that we are 
 repeating a thrice-told tale, are inviting 
 attention to principles which the mul- 
 titude most courteously acknowledge, 
 and as readily forget. But all great 
 truths are apt to grow trite ; and if the 
 moral teacher should fail to enforce 
 them, because they are worn by repeti- 
 tion, religious and moral teaching would 
 well nigh cease. 
 
 One excellence of the periodical work 
 before us is, that it is pledged to no par- 
 ticular system of education, but starts 
 with the acknoXvledgment of the great 
 defects of all systems, and with the dis- 
 position to receive new lights, come 
 from what quarter they may. It is no 
 partisan. It is the instrument of no 
 sect. It is designed to improve our 
 modes of training the young ; to give 
 more generous views of the objects of 
 education and of the discipline by which 
 they may be attained ; to increase the 
 efficiency of existing institutions, and to 
 aid in forming new ones more suited to 
 our age and country : to unfold and dif- 
 fuse those great universal principles in 
 which men of all parties may be expected 
 to agree and, to point out the applica- 
 tion of them in our families and schools. 
 Its pages are open to original sugges- 
 tions, to discoveries, to the zealous re- 
 former, and even to the too sanguine 
 innovator. Its aim is to be a medium 
 of communication for all who think on 
 the subject of education, to furnish new 
 facts to the philosopher, and to make 
 known the results of successful experi- 
 ments. Its liberality gives it one strong 
 claim to support. 
 
 Perhaps, if it were more confined in 
 
 its views, if it were designed to answer 
 the purposes of a party or sect, it would 
 be better sustained. Were it to pro- 
 scribe one class, and to pander to the 
 bad passions of another, it would not 
 perhaps be obliged to sue for more gen- 
 erous patronage. But is it true that a 
 work on education cannot find readers 
 without assuming the badge of party ? 
 Cannot the greatness of its object se- 
 cure attention to its teachings ? In 
 what class of society ought it not to find 
 friends ? What parent has not a deep 
 interest in the improvement of public 
 and private education ? What philan- 
 thropist does not see in this the chief 
 preparation of a people for his schemes 
 of usefulness ? What patriot does not 
 see in this the main security of free in- 
 stitutions ? This cause is commended 
 alike to our private and public affections ; 
 and must the only periodical devoted to 
 it die through neglect ? 
 
 We are aware that there are some 
 who take an attitude of defence when 
 pressed with earnest applications on the 
 subject of education. They think its 
 importance overrated. They say that 
 circumstances chiefly determine the 
 young mind, that the influence of par- 
 ents and teachers is very narrow, and 
 that they sometimes dwarf and distort, 
 instead of improving the child, by tak- 
 ing the work out of the hand of nature. 
 These remarks are not wholly unfound- 
 ed. The power of parents is often ex- 
 aggerated. To strengthen their sense 
 of responsibility, they are often taught 
 that they are competent to effects which 
 are not within their reach, and are often 
 discouraged by the greatness of the task 
 to which they are summoned. Nothing 
 is gained by exaggeration. It is true, 
 and the truth need not be disguised, that 
 parents cannot operate at pleasure on 
 the minds and characters of the young. 
 Their influence is limked by their own 
 ignorance and imperfection, by the 
 strength and freedom of the will of the 
 child, and by its connection, from its 
 breath, with other objects and beings. 
 Parents are not the only educators of 
 their offspring, but must divide the work 
 with other and numerous agents. And 
 in this we rejoice ; for, were the young 
 confined to domestic influences, each 
 generation would be a copy of the pre- 
 ceding, and the progress of society would 
 cease. The child is not put into the
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION, 
 
 hands of parents alone. It is not born 
 to hear but a few voices. It is brought 
 at birth into a vast, we may say an in- 
 finite, school. The universe is charged 
 with the office of its education. In- 
 numerable voices come to it from all 
 that it meets, sees, feels. It is not con- 
 fined to a few books anxiously selected 
 for it by parental care. Nature, society, 
 experience, are volumes opened every- 
 where and perpetually before its eyes. 
 It takes lessons from every object within 
 the sphere of its senses and its activity, 
 from the sun and stars, from the flowers 
 of spring and the fruits of autumn, from 
 every associate, from every smiling and 
 frowning countenance, from the pur- 
 suits, trades, professions of the commu- 
 nity in which it moves, from its plays, 
 friendships, and dislikes, from the vari- 
 eties of human character, and from the 
 consequences of its actions. All these, 
 and more than these, are appointed to 
 teach, awaken, develop the mind of the 
 child. It is plunged amidst friendly and 
 hostile influences, to grow by co-operat- 
 ing with the first, and by resisting the 
 last. The circumstances in which we 
 are placed form, indeed, a most impor- 
 tant school, and by their help some men 
 have risen to distinction in knowledge 
 and virtue, with little aid from parents, 
 teachers, and books. 
 
 Still, the influence of parents and 
 teachers is great. On them it very 
 much depends whether the circum- 
 stances which surround the child shall 
 operate to his good. They must help 
 him to read, interpret, and use wisely 
 the great volumes of nature, society, 
 and jexperience. They must fix his 
 volatile glance, arrest his precipitate 
 judgment, guide his observation, teach 
 him to link together cause and effect 
 in the outward world, and turn his 
 thoughts inward on his own more mys- 
 terious nature. The young, left to the 
 education of circumstances, left with- 
 out teaching, guidance, restraint, will, 
 in all probability, grow up ignorant, 
 torpid in intellect, strangers to their 
 own powers, and slaves to their pas- 
 sions. The fact that some children, 
 without aid from parents or schools, 
 have struggled into eminence, no more 
 proves such aid to be useless than the 
 fact that some have grown strong under 
 physical exposures which would destroy 
 the majority of the race, would prove 
 
 the worthlessness of the ordinary pre- 
 cautions which are taken for the se- 
 curity of health. 
 
 We have spoken of parents as pos- 
 sessing, and as bound to exert, an im- 
 portant influence on the young. But 
 they cannot do the whole work of edu- 
 cation. Their daily occupation, the 
 necessity of labors for the support of 
 their families, household cares, the 
 duty of watching over the health of 
 their children, and other social rela- 
 tions, render it almost impossible for 
 parents to qualify themselves for much 
 of the teaching which the young re- 
 quire, and often deny them time and 
 opportunity for giving instruction to 
 which they are competent. Hence the 
 need of a class of persons who shall 
 devote themselves exclusively to the 
 work of education. In all societies, 
 ancient and modern, this want has been 
 felt ; the profession of teachers has 
 been known : and to secure the best 
 helps of this kind to children is one of 
 the first duties of parents, for on these 
 the progress of their children very much 
 depends. 
 
 One of the discouraging views of 
 society at the present moment is, that 
 whilst much is said of education, hardly 
 any seem to feel the necessity of secur- 
 ing to it the best rninds in the com- 
 munity, and of securing them at any 
 price. A juster estimate of this office 
 begins to be made in our great cities ; 
 but, generally, it seems to be thought 
 that anybody may become a teacher. 
 The most moderate ability is thought 
 to be competent to the most important 
 profession in society. Strange, too, as 
 it may seem, on this point parents in- 
 cline to be economical. They who 
 squander thousands on dress, furniture, 
 amusements, think it hard to pay com- 
 paratively small sums to the instructor ; 
 and through this ruinous economy, and 
 this ignorance of the dignity of a teach- 
 er's vocation, they rob their children of 
 aid for which the treasures of worlds 
 can afford no compensation. 
 
 There is no office higher than that 
 of a teacher of youth, for there is noth- 
 ing on earth so precious as the mind, 
 soul, character of the child. No office 
 should be regarded with greater re- 
 spect. The first minds in the com- 
 munity should be encouraged to assume 
 it. Parents should do all but impover-
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 119 
 
 ish themselves to induce such to be- 
 come the guardians and guides of their 
 children. To this good, all their show 
 and luxury should be sacrificed. Here 
 they should be lavish, whilst they 
 straiten themselves in every thing else. 
 They should wear the cheapest clothes, 
 live on the plainest food, if they can in 
 no other way secure to their families 
 the best instruction. They should have 
 no anxiety to accumulate property for 
 their children, provided they can place 
 them under influences which will awaken 
 their faculties, inspire them with pure 
 and high principles, and fit them to bear 
 a manly, useful, and honorable part in 
 the world. No language can express 
 the cruelty or folly of that economy 
 which, to leave a fortune to a child, 
 starves his intellect, impoverishes his 
 heart. There should be no economy 
 in education. Money should never be 
 weighed against the soul of a child. It 
 should be poured out like water for the 
 child's intellectual and moral life. 
 
 Parents should seek an educator for 
 the young of their families who will 
 become to them a hearty and efficient 
 friend, counsellor, coadjutor, in their 
 work. If their circumstances will allow 
 it, they should so limit the school that 
 the instructor may know intimately ev- 
 ery child, may become the friend of 
 each, and may converse frequently with 
 them in regard to each. He should be 
 worthy of their confidence, should find 
 their doors always open, should be 
 among their most welcome guests, and 
 should study with them the discipline 
 which the peculiarities of each pupil 
 may require. He should give the par- 
 ents warning of the least obliquity of 
 mind which he discovers at school, 
 should receive in return their sugges- 
 tions as to the injudiciousness of his 
 own methods in regard to one or 
 another child, and should concert with 
 them the means of arresting every evil 
 at its first manifestation. Such is the 
 teacher we need, and his value cannot 
 be paid in gold. A man of distinguished 
 ability and virtue, whose mind should 
 be concentrated in the work of training 
 as many children as he can thoroughly 
 understand and guide, would shed a 
 light on the path of parents for which 
 they often sigh, and would give an im- 
 pulse to the young little comprehended 
 under our present modes of teaching. 
 
 No profession should receive so liberal 
 remuneration. We need not say how 
 far the community fall short of this 
 estimate of the teacher's office. Very 
 many send their children to school, and 
 seldom or never see the instructor who 
 is operating daily and deeply on their 
 minds and characters. With a blind 
 confidence, perhaps they do not ask how 
 that work is advancing on which the 
 dearest interests of the family depend. 
 Perhaps they put the children under the 
 daily control of one with whom they do 
 not care to associate. Perhaps, were 
 they told what they ought to pay for 
 teaching, they would stare as if a proj- 
 ect for robbing them were on foot, or 
 would suspect the sanity of the friend 
 who should counsel them to throw away 
 so much money in purchasing that 
 cheapest of all articles, that drug in every 
 market, instruction for their children. 
 
 We know not how society can be 
 aided more than by the formation of a 
 body of wis^e and efficient educators. 
 We know not any class which would 
 contribute so much to the stability of 
 the state, and to domestic happiness. 
 Much as we respect the ministry of 
 the gospel, we believe that it must 
 yield in importance to the office of train- 
 ing the young. In truth, the ministry 
 now accomplishes little for want of 
 that early intellectual and moral dis- 
 cipline by which alone a community 
 can be prepared to distinguish truth 
 from falsehood, to comprehend the in- 
 structions of the pulpit, to receive 
 higher and broader views of duty, and 
 to apply general principles to the diver- 
 sified details of life. A body of cul- 
 tivated men, devoted, with their whole 
 hearts, to the improvement of educa- 
 tion, and to the most effectual training 
 of the young, would work a fundamen-_ 
 tal revolution in society. They would 
 leaven the community with just princi- 
 ples. Their influence would penetrate 
 our families. Our domestic discipline 
 would no longer be left to accident and 
 impulse. What parent has not felt the 
 need of this aid, has not often been 
 depressed, heart-sick, under the con- 
 sciousness of ignorance in the great 
 work of swaying the youthful mind ! 
 
 We have spoken of the office of the 
 education of human beings as the no- 
 blest on earth, and have spoken delib- 
 erately. It is more important than that
 
 120 
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 of the statesman. The statesman may 
 set fences round our property and dwell- 
 ings ; but how much more are we in- 
 debted to him who calls forth the powers 
 and affections of those for whom our 
 property is earned, and our dwellings are 
 reared, and who renders our children 
 objects of increasing love and respect ! 
 We go farther. We maintain that higher 
 ability is required for the office of an 
 educator of the young than for that of a 
 statesman. The highest ability is that 
 which penetrates farthest into human 
 nature, comprehends the mind in all its 
 capacities, traces out the laws of thought 
 and moral action, understands the per- 
 fection of human nature and how it may 
 be approached, understands the springs, 
 motives, applications, by which the child 
 is to be roused to the most vigorous and 
 harmonious action of all its faculties, un- 
 derstands its perils, and knows how to 
 blend and modify the influences which 
 outward circumstances exert on the 
 youthful mind. The speculations of 
 statesmen are shallow compared with 
 these. It is the chief function of the 
 statesman to watch over the outward 
 interests of a people, that of the edu- 
 cator to quicken its soul. The statesman 
 must study and manage the passions and 
 prejudices of the community ; the ed- 
 ucator must study the essential, the 
 deepest, the loftiest principles of hu- 
 man nature. The statesman works with 
 coarse instruments for coarse ends ; the 
 educator is to work by the most refined 
 influences on that delicate, ethereal es- 
 sence, the immortal soul. 
 
 Nothing is more common than mis- 
 takes as to the comparative importance 
 of the different vocations of life. Noisy, 
 showy agency, which is spread over a 
 great surface, and therefore seldom pen- 
 etrates beneath the surface, is called 
 flory. Multitudes are blinded by official 
 ignity, and stand wondering at a pygmy, 
 because he happens to be perched on 
 some eminence in church or state. So 
 the declaimer, who can electrify a crowd 
 by passionate appeals, or splendid im- 
 ages, which give no clear perceptions to 
 the intellect, which develop no general 
 truth, which breathe no firm, disinterested 
 purpose, passes for a great man. How 
 few reflect, that the greater man is he 
 who, without noise or show, is wisely 
 fixing in a few minds broad, pregnant, 
 generous principles of judgment and ac- 
 
 tion, and giving an impulse which will 
 carry them on for ever ! Jesus, with that 
 divine wisdom which separates him from 
 all other teachers, declared that the first 
 requisite for becoming "great in his 
 kingdom," which was another phrase 
 for exerting a great moral influence, 
 was humility ; by which he meant a 
 spirit opposed to that passion for con- 
 spicuous station with which he saw his 
 disciples inflamed, a spirit of deep, 
 unpretending philanthropy, manifested 
 in sympathy with the wants of the mind, 
 and in condescension to any efforts by 
 which the ignorant and tempted might 
 be brought to truth and virtue. Ac- 
 cording to these views, we think it a 
 greater work to educate a child, in the 
 true and large sense of that phrase, than 
 to rule a state. 
 
 Perhaps the direction which benevo- 
 lence is taking at the present day has 
 some influence in turning from the office 
 of education the high honor which is its 
 due. Benevolence is now directing it- 
 self very much to public objects, to the 
 alleviation of misery on a grand scale, to 
 the conversion of whole nations, to the 
 instruction of large bodies, and in this 
 form it draws the chief notice and ad- 
 miration of multitudes. Now we are far 
 from wishing to confine this action of 
 charity. We respect it, and recognize 
 in it one of the distinctive fruits of 
 Christianity. But it must not be for- 
 gotten that the purest benevolence is 
 that which acts on individuals, and is 
 manifested in our particular social do- 
 mestic relations. It requires no great 
 improvement in charity to sympathize 
 with the degradation and misery into 
 which the millions of India are sunk by 
 the worship of Juggernaut, and other 
 superstitions. It is a higher action of 
 the intellect and heart to study and un- 
 derstand thoroughly the character of an 
 individual who is near us, to enter into 
 his mind, to trace his defects and suffer- 
 ings to their true spring, to bear quietly 
 and gently with his frowardness and re- 
 lapses, and to apply to him patiently and 
 encouragingly the means of intellectual 
 and moral elevation. It is not the high- 
 est attainment to be benevolent to those 
 who are thousands of miles from us, 
 whose miseries make striking pictures 
 for the imagination, who never cross our 
 paths, never interfere with our interests, 
 never try us by their waywardness, never
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 121 
 
 shock us by their coarse manners, and 
 whom we are to assist by an act of 
 bounty which sends a missionary to 
 their aid. The truest mode of enlarging 
 our benevolence is not to quicken our 
 sensibility towards great masses or wide- 
 spread evils, but to approach, compre- 
 hend, sympathize with, and act upon, a 
 continually increasing number of individ- 
 uals. It is the glory of God to know, 
 love, and act on every individual in his in- 
 finite creation. Let us, if we can, do good 
 far and wide. Let us send light and joy, 
 if we can, to the ends of the earth. The 
 charity which is now active for distant 
 objects is noble. We only wish to say 
 that it ranks behind the obscurer phi- 
 lanthropy which, while it sympathizes 
 with the race, enters deeply into the 
 minds, wants, interests of the individ- 
 uals within its reach, and devotes itself 
 patiently and wisely to the task of bring- 
 ing them to a higher standard of intel- 
 lectual and moral worth. 
 
 We would suggest it to those who are 
 anxious to do good on a grand and im- 
 posing scale, that they should be the 
 last to cast into the shade the labors of 
 the retired teacher of the young ; be- 
 cause education is the germ of all other 
 improvements, and because all their 
 schemes for the progress of society 
 must fail without it. How often have 
 the efforts of the philanthropist been 
 foiled by the prejudices and brutal ig- 
 norance of the community which he has 
 hoped to serve, by their incapacity of 
 understanding him, of entering into and 
 co-operating with his views ! He has 
 cast his seed on the barren sand, 
 and of course reaped no fruit but dis- 
 appointment. Philanthropists are too 
 apt to imagine that they can accomplish 
 particular reformations, or work partic- 
 ular changes in a society, although no 
 foundation for these improvements has 
 been laid in its intellectual and moral 
 culture. They expect a people to think 
 and act wisely in special cases, although 
 generally wanting in intelligence, sound 
 judgment, and the capacity of under- 
 standing and applying the principles of 
 reason. But this partial improvement 
 is a vain hope. The physician who 
 should spend his skill on a diseased 
 limb whilst all the functions were de- 
 ranged, and the principle of life almost 
 extinguished, would get no credit for 
 skill. To do men permanent good, we 
 
 must act on their whole nature, and es- 
 pecially must aid, foster, and guide their 
 highest faculties at the first period of 
 their development. If left in early life 
 to sink into intellectual and moral torpor, 
 if suffered to grow up unconscious 
 of their powers, unused to steady and 
 wise exertion of the understanding, and 
 strangers to the motives which ought to 
 stir and guide human activity, they 
 will be poor subjects for the efforts of 
 the philanthropist. Benevolence is short- 
 sighted, indeed, and must blame itself 
 for failure, if it do not see in education 
 the chief interest of the human race. 
 
 One great cause of the low estimation 
 in which the teacher is now held may 
 be found in narrow views of education. 
 The multitude think that to educate a 
 child is to crowd into its mind a given 
 amount of knowledge, to teach the mech- 
 anism of reading and writing, to load 
 the memory with words, to prepare a 
 boy for the routine of a trade. No 
 wonder, then, that they think almost 
 everybody fit to teach. The true end of 
 education, as we have again and again 
 suggested, is to unfold and direct aright 
 our whole nature. Its office is to call 
 forth power of every kind, power of 
 thought, affection, will, and outward 
 action ; power to observe, to reason, to 
 judge, to contrive ; power to adopt good 
 ends firmly, and to pursue them effi- 
 ciently. : power to govern ourselves, and 
 to influence others ; power to gain and 
 to spread happiness. Reading is but 
 an instrument, education is to teach 
 its best use. The intellect was created 
 not to receive passively a few words, 
 dates, facts, but to be active for the 
 acquisition of truth. Accordingly, edu- 
 cation should labor to inspire a profound 
 love of truth, and to teach the processes 
 of investigation. A sound logic by 
 which we mean the science or art which 
 instructs us in the laws of reasoning 
 and evidence, in the true methods of 
 inquiry, and in the sources of false 
 judgments is an essential part of a 
 good education. And yet how little is 
 done to teach the right use of the in- 
 tellect in the common modes of training 
 either rich or poor ! As a general rule, 
 the young are to be made, as far as pos- 
 sible, their own teachers, the discover- 
 ers of truth, the interpreters of nature, 
 the framers of science. They are to be 
 helped to help themselves. They should
 
 122 
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 be taught to observe and study the world 
 in which they live, to trace the connec- 
 tions of events, to rise from particular 
 facts to general principles, and then to 
 apply these in explaining new phenom- 
 ena. Such is a rapid outline of the in- 
 tellectual education which, as far as 
 possible, should be given to all human 
 beings ; and with this moral education 
 should go hand in hand. In proportion 
 as the child gains knowledge, he should 
 be taught how to use it well, how to 
 turn it to the good of mankind. He 
 should study the world as God's world, 
 and as the sphere in which he is to form 
 interesting connections with his fellow- 
 creatures. A spirit of humanity should 
 be breathed into him from all his studies. 
 In teaching geography, the physical and 
 moral condition, the wants, advantages, 
 and striking peculiarities of different 
 nations, and the relations of climates, 
 seas, rivers, mountains, to their char- 
 acters and pursuits, should be pointed 
 out, so as to awaken an interest in man 
 wherever he dwells. History should be 
 constantly used to exercise the moral 
 judgment of the young, to call forth 
 sympathy with the fortunes of the hu- 
 man race, and to expose to indigna- 
 tion and abhorrence that selfish ambi- 
 tion, that passion for dominion, which 
 has so long deluged the earth with 
 blood and woe. And not only should 
 the excitement of just moral feeling be 
 proposed in every study. The science 
 of morals should form an important 
 part of every child's instruction. One 
 branch of ethics should be particularly 
 insisted on by the government. Every 
 school, established by law, should be 
 specially bound to teach the duties of 
 the citizen to the state, to unfold the 
 principles of free institutions, and to 
 train the young to an enlightened pa- 
 triotism. From these brief and imper- 
 fect views of the nature and ends of a 
 wise education, we learn the dignity of 
 the profession to which it is intrusted, 
 and the importance of securing to it the 
 best minds of the community. 
 
 On reviewing these hints on the ex- 
 tent of education, we see that one im- 
 portant topic has been omitted. We 
 have said that it is the office of the 
 teacher to call into vigorous action the 
 mind of the child. He must do more. 
 He must strive to create a thirst, an 
 insatiable craving for knowledge, to 
 
 give animation to study and make it 
 a pleasure, and thus to communicate an 
 impulse which will endure when the in- 
 structions of the school are closed. The 
 mark of a good teacher is, not only that 
 he produces great effort in his pupils, 
 but that he dismisses them from his 
 care conscious of having only laid the 
 foundation of knowledge, and anxious 
 and resolved to improve themselves. 
 One of the sure signs of the low state 
 of instruction among us is, that the 
 young, on leaving school feel as if the 
 work of intellectual culture were done, 
 and give up steady, vigorous effort 
 for higher truth and wider knowledge. 
 Our daughters at sixteen and our sons 
 at eighteen or twenty have finished their 
 education. The true use of a school is, 
 to enable and dispose the pupil to learn 
 through life ; and if so, who does not 
 see that the office of teacher requires 
 men of enlarged and liberal minds, and of 
 winning manners, in other words, that 
 it requires as cultivated men as can be 
 found in society. If to drive and to 
 drill were the chief duties of an instruc- 
 tor ; if to force into the mind an amount 
 of lifeless knowledge, to make the child 
 a machine, to create a repugnance to 
 books, to mental labor, to the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge, were the great ob- 
 jects of the school-room, then the teach- 
 er might be chosen on the principles 
 which now govern the school-commit- 
 tees in no small part of our country. 
 Then the man who can read, write, 
 cipher, and whip, and will exercise his 
 gifts at the lowest price, deserves the 
 precedence which he now too often 
 enjoys. But if the human being be 
 something more than a block or a brute ; 
 if he have powers which proclaim him a 
 child of God, and which were given for 
 noble action and perpetual progress, 
 then a better order of things should 
 begin among us, and truly enlightened 
 men should be summoned to the work 
 of education. 
 
 Leaving the subject of instruction, we 
 observe that there is another duty of 
 teachers which requires that they should 
 be taken from the class of improved, 
 wise, virtuous men. They are to gov- 
 ern as well as teach. They must pre- 
 serve order, and for this end must inflict 
 punishment in some of its forms. We 
 know that some philanthropists wish to 
 banish all punishment from the school.
 
 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 123 
 
 We would not discourage their efforts 
 and hopes ; but we fear that the time 
 for this reform is not yet come, and that 
 as long as the want of a wise discipline 
 at home supplies the teacher with so 
 many lawless subjects, he will be com- 
 pelled to use other restraints than kind- 
 ness and reason. Punishment, we fear, 
 cannot be dispensed With ; but that it 
 ought to be administered most deliber- 
 ately, righteously, judiciously, and with 
 a wise adaptation to the character of 
 the child, we all feel ; and can it then 
 be safely intrusted, as is too much the 
 case, to teachers undisciplined in mind 
 and heart ? Corporal punishment at 
 present has a place in almost all our 
 schools for boys, and perhaps in some 
 for girls. It may be necessary. But ought 
 not every parent to have some security 
 that his child shall not receive a blow 
 unless inflicted in wisdom, justice, and 
 kindness ? And what security can he 
 have for this but in the improved char- 
 acter of the instructor ? We have 
 known mournful effects of injudicious 
 corporal punishment. We have known 
 a blow to alienate a child from his 
 father, to stir up bitter hatred towards 
 his teacher, and to indispose him to 
 study and the pursuit of knowledge. 
 We cannot be too unwilling to place our 
 children under the care of passionate 
 teachers, who, having no rule over their 
 own spirits, cannot of course rule others, 
 or of weak and unskilful teachers, who 
 are obliged to supply by severity the 
 want of a wise firmness. It is wonder- 
 ful how thoughtlessly parents expose 
 their children to corporal punishment. 
 Our laws have expunged whipping from 
 the penal code, and the felon is ex- 
 empted from this indignity. But how 
 many boys are subjected to a whipper 
 in the shape of a schoolmaster, whose 
 whole mystery of discipline lies in the 
 ferule ! The discipline of a school is 
 of vast importance in its moral influence. 
 A boy compelled for six hours each day 
 to see the countenance and hear the 
 voice of an unfeeling, petulant, passion- 
 ate, unjust teacher, is placed in a school 
 of vice. He is all the time learning les- 
 sons of inhumanity, hard-heartedness, 
 and injustice. The English are con- 
 sidered by the rest of Europe as inclined 
 to cruelty. Their common people are 
 said to be wanting in mercy to the infe- 
 rior animals and to be ferocious in their 
 quarrels ; and their planters enjoy the 
 
 bad pre-eminence of being the worst 
 masters in the West Indies, with the 
 exception of the Dutch. It is worth 
 consideration, whether these vices, if 
 they really exist, may not be ascribed 
 in part to the unrestrained, barbarous 
 use of whipping in their schools. Of 
 one thing we are sure, that the disci- 
 pline of a school has an important in- 
 fluence on the character of a child ; and 
 that a just, mild, benevolent teacher, who 
 procures order by methods which the 
 moral sense of his pupils approves, is 
 perpetually spreading around him his 
 own virtues. Should not our teachers, 
 then, be sought from the class of the 
 most enlightened and excellent men ? 
 
 Our limits allow us to add but one 
 more remark on the qualifications of 
 teachers. It is important that they 
 should be able to co-operate with par- 
 ents in awakening the religious principle 
 in the young. We would not of course 
 admit into schools the peculiarities of 
 the denominations which divide the 
 Christian world. But religion in its 
 broadest sense should be taught. It 
 should indirectly mix with all teaching. 
 The young mind should be guided 
 through nature and human history to 
 the Creator and Disposer of the uni- 
 verse ; and, still more, the practical prin- 
 fiples and spirit of Christianity should 
 be matters of direct inculcation. We 
 know no office requiring greater wisdom, 
 and none but the wise and good should 
 be invited to discharge it. 
 
 We know that it will be objected to 
 the views now given, that few, very few, 
 will be able to pay for such teachers as 
 we recommend. We believe, however, 
 that there is a large class who, if they 
 had the will, and would deny themselves 
 as they ought, might procure excellent 
 instructors for their children ; and as for 
 the rest, let them do their best, let them 
 but throw their hearts into this cause 
 and improvements will be effected which 
 have not been anticipated, perhaps not 
 conceived. We acknowledge, however, 
 that our remarks have been intended 
 chiefly for the opulent. Let an interest 
 in education be awakened in this class, 
 and let more generous means for its pro- 
 motion be employed, and we are satisfied 
 that the teaching of all classes will be 
 advanced, the talent of the country will 
 be more and more directed to the office 
 of instruction, and the benefit will spread 
 through the whole community.
 
 124 
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 [Review of a Discourse concerning the Influence of 
 America on the Mind ; being the Annual Oration 
 delivered before the American Philosophical Soci- 
 ety, at the University in Philadelphia, October 18, 
 1823. By C. J. Ingersoll.] 
 
 WE shall use the work prefixed to this 
 article as ministers are sometimes said 
 to use their texts. We shall make it a 
 point to start from, not the subject of 
 our remarks. Our purpose is to treat 
 of the importance and means of a Na- 
 tional Literature. The topic seems to 
 us a great one, and to have intimate 
 connections with morals and religion, as 
 well as with all our public interests. 
 Our views will be given with great free- 
 dom ; and if they serve no other pur- 
 pose than to recommend the subject to 
 more general attention, one of our prin- 
 cipal objects will be accomplished. 
 
 We begin with stating what we mean 
 by national literature. We mean the 
 expression of a nation's mind in writing. 
 We mean the production among a peo- 
 ple of important works in philosophy,, 
 and in the departments of imagination 
 and taste. We mean the contributions 
 of new truths to the stock of human 
 knowledge. We mean the thoughts of 
 profound and original minds, elaborated 
 by the toil of composition, and fixed and 
 made immortal in books. We mean the 
 manifestation of a nation's intellect in 
 the only forms by which it can multiply 
 itself at home, and send itself abroad. 
 We mean that a nation shall take a 
 place, by its authors, among the lights 
 of the world. It will be seen that we 
 include under literature all the writings 
 of superior minds, be the subjects what 
 they may. We are aware that the term 
 is often confined to compositions which 
 relate to human nature and human life ; 
 that it is not generally extended to phys- 
 ical science ; that mind, not matter, is 
 regarded as its main subject and sphere. 
 But the worlds of matter and mind are 
 too intimately connected to admit of 
 exact partition. All the objects of hu- 
 man thought flow into one another. 
 Moral and physical truths have many 
 
 bonds and analogies, and, whilst' the 
 former are the chosen and noblest 
 themes of literature, we are not anxious 
 to divorce them from the latter, or to 
 shut them up in a separate department. 
 The expression of superior mind in 
 writing we regard, then, as a nation's 
 literature. We regard its gifted men, 
 whether devoted to the exact sciences, 
 to mental and ethical philosophy, to his- 
 tory and legislation, or to fiction and 
 poetry, as forming a noble intellectual 
 brotherhood ; and it is for the purpose 
 of quickening all to join their labors for 
 the public good that we offer the pres- 
 ent plea in behalf of a national literature. 
 To show the importance which we at- 
 tach to the subject, we begin with some 
 remarks on what we deem the distinction 
 which a nation should most earnestly 
 covet. We believe that more distinct 
 apprehensions on this point are needed, 
 and that, for want of them, the work of 
 improvement is carried on with less en- 
 ergy, consistency, and wisdom, than may 
 and should be brought to bear upon it. 
 The great distinction of a country, then, 
 is, that it produces superior men. Its 
 natural advantages are not to be dis- 
 dained. But they are of secondary im- 
 portance. No matter what races of ani- 
 mals a country breeds, the great question 
 is, Does it breed a noble race of men ? 
 No matter what its soil may be. the 
 great question is, How far is it prolific 
 of moral and intellectual power ? No 
 matter how stern its climate is, if it 
 nourish force of thought and virtuous 
 purpose. These are the products by 
 which a country is to be tried, and insti- 
 tutions have value only by the impulse 
 which they give to the mind. It has 
 sometimes been said that the noblest 
 men grow where nothing else will grow. 
 This we do not believe, for mind is not 
 the creature of climate or soil. But 
 were it true, we should say that it were 
 better to live among rocks and sands 
 than in the most genial and productive 
 region on the face of the earth.
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 125 
 
 As yet, the great distinction of a na- 
 tion on which we have insisted has been 
 scarcely recognized. The idea of form- 
 ing a superior race of men has entered 
 little into schemes of policy. Invention 
 and effort have been expended on matter 
 much more than on mind. Lofty piles 
 have been reared ; the earth has groaned 
 under pyramids and palaces. The thought 
 of building up a nobler order of intellect 
 and character has hardly crossed the 
 most adventurous statesman. We beg 
 that we may not be misapprehended. 
 We offer these remarks to correct what 
 we deem a clisproportioned attention to 
 physical good, and not at all to condemn 
 the expenditure of ingenuity and strength 
 on the outward world. There is a har- 
 mony between all our great interests, 
 between inward and outward improve- 
 ments ; and by establishing among them 
 a wise order, all will be secured. We 
 have no desire to shut up man in his own 
 spiritual nature. The mind was made 
 to act on matter, and it grows by ex- 
 pressing itself in material forms. We 
 believe, too, that in proportion as it shall 
 gain intellectual and moral power, it will 
 exert itself with increased energy and 
 delight on the outward creation ; will 
 pour itself forth more freely in useful 
 and ornamental arts ; will rear more 
 magnificent structures, and will call 
 forth new beauties in nature. An intelli- 
 gent and resolute spirit in a community 
 perpetually extends its triumphs over 
 matter. It can even subject to itself 
 the most unpromising region. Holland, 
 diked from the ocean, Venice, rising 
 amidst the waves, and New England, 
 bleak and rock-bound New England, 
 converted by a few generations from a 
 wilderness into smiling fields and opu- 
 lent cities, point us to the mind as the 
 great source of physical good, and teach 
 us that, in making the culture of man 
 our highest end, we shall not retard but 
 advance the cultivation of nature. 
 
 The question which we most solicit- 
 ously ask about this country is, what 
 race of men it is likely to produce. We 
 consider its liberty of value only as far 
 as it favors the growth of men. What 
 is liberty? The removal of restraint 
 from human powers. Its benefit is, that 
 it opens new fields for action and a wider 
 range for the mind. The only freedom 
 worth possessing is that which gives en- 
 largement to a people's energy, intellect, 
 
 and virtues. The savage makes his 
 boast of freedom. But what is its worth ? 
 Free as he is, he continues for ages in 
 the same ignorance, leads the same com- 
 fortless life, sees the same untamed 
 wilderness spread around him. He is 
 indeed free from what he calls the yoke 
 of civil institutions. But other and worse 
 chains bind him. The very privation of 
 civil government is in effect a chain ; 
 for, by withholding protection from prop- 
 erty, it virtually shackles the arm of 
 industry, and forbids exertion for the 
 melioration of his lot. Progress, the 
 growth of power, is the end and boon of 
 liberty ; and, without this, a people may 
 have the name, but want the substance 
 and spirit of freedom. 
 
 We are the more earnest in enlarging 
 on these views, because we feel that our 
 attachment to our country must be very 
 much proportioned to what we deem its 
 tendency to form a generous race of 
 men. We pretend not to have thrown 
 off national feeling : but we have some 
 stronger feelings. We love our country 
 much, but mankind more. As men and 
 Christians, our first desire is to see the 
 improvement of human nature. We de- 
 sire to see the soul of man wiser, firmer, 
 nobler, more conscious of its imperish- 
 able treasures, more beneficent and 
 powerful, more alive to its connection 
 with God, more able to use pleasure and 
 prosperity aright, and more victorious 
 over poverty, adversity, and pain. la 
 our survey of our own and other coun- 
 tries, the great question which comes to 
 us is this, Where and Bunder what insti- 
 tutions are men most likely to advance ? 
 Where are the soundest minds and the 
 purest hearts' formed ? What nation 
 possesses, in its history, its traditions, 
 its government, its religion, its manners, 
 its pursuits, its relations to other com- 
 munities, and especially in its private 
 and public means of education, the in- 
 struments and pledges of a more resolute 
 virtue and devotion to truth, than we 
 now witness ? Such a nation, be it where 
 it may, will engage our warmest interest. 
 We love our country, but not blindly. 
 In all nations we recognize one great 
 family, and our chief wish for our native 
 land is, that it may take the first rank 
 among the lights and benefactors of the 
 human race. 
 
 These views will explain the vast im- 
 portance which we attach to a national
 
 126 
 
 REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. 
 
 literature. By this, as we have said, we 
 understand the expression of a nation's 
 mind in writing. It is the action of the 
 most gifted understandings on the com- 
 munity. It throws into circulation through 
 a wide sphere the most quickening and 
 beautiful thoughts which have grown up 
 in men of laborious study or creative 
 genius. It is a much higher work than 
 the communication of a gifted intellect 
 in discourse. It is the mind giving to 
 multitudes, whom no voice can reach, its 
 compressed and selected thoughts in the 
 most lucid order and attractive forms 
 which it is capable of inventing. In 
 other words, literature is the concen- 
 tration of intellect for the purpose of 
 spreading itself abroad and multiplying 
 its energy. 
 
 Such being the nature of literature, it 
 is plainly among the most powerful meth- 
 ods of exalting the character of a nation, 
 of forming a better race of men : in 
 truth, we apprehend that_ it may claim 
 the first rank among the means of im- 
 provement. We know nothing so fitted 
 to the advancement of society as to bring 
 its higher minds to bear upon the multi- 
 tude ; as to establish close connections 
 between the more or less gifted ; as to 
 spread far and wide the light which 
 springs up in meditative, profound, and 
 sublime understandings. It is the ordi- 
 nance of God, and one of his most bene- 
 volent laws, that the human race should 
 be carried forward by impulses which 
 originate in a few minds, perhaps in an 
 individual ; and in this way the most in- 
 teresting relations and dependencies of 
 life are framed. When a great truth is 
 to be revealed, it does not flash at once 
 on the race, but dawns and brightens on 
 a superior understanding, from which it 
 is to emanate and to illumine future ages. 
 On the faithfulness of great minds to 
 this awful function, the progress and 
 happiness of men chiefly depend. The 
 most illustrious benefactors of the race 
 have been men who, having risen to 
 great truths, have held them as a sacred 
 trust for their kind, and have borne wit- 
 ness to them amid general darkness, 
 under scorn and persecution, perhaps in 
 the face of death. Such men, indeed, 
 have not always made contributions to 
 literature, for their condition has not al- 
 lowed them to be authors ; but we owe 
 the transmission, perpetuity, and im- 
 mortal power of their new and high 
 
 thoughts to kindred spirits, which have 
 concentrated and fixed them in books. 
 
 The quickening influences of liter- 
 ature need not be urged on those who 
 are familiar with the history of modern 
 Europe, and who of course know the 
 spring given to the human mind by the 
 revival of ancient learning. Through 
 their writings, the great men of antiq- 
 uity have exercised a sovereignty over 
 these later ages not enjoyed in their 
 own. It is more important to observe 
 that the influence of literature is per- 
 petually increasing ; for, through the 
 press and the spread of education, its 
 sphere is indefinitely enlarged. Read- 
 ing, once the privilege of a few, is now 
 the occupation of multitudes, and is to 
 become one of the chief gratifications 
 of all. Books penetrate everywhere, 
 and some of the works of genius find 
 their way to obscure dwellings which, a 
 little while ago, seemed barred -against 
 all intellectual light. Writing is now 
 the mightiest instrument on earth. 
 Through this the mind has acquired 
 a kind Of omnipresence. To literature 
 we then look, as the chief means of 
 forming a better race of human beings. 
 To superior minds, which may act 
 through this, we look for the impulses 
 by which their country is to be carried 
 forward. We would teach them that 
 they are the depositaries of the highest 
 power on earth, and that on them the 
 best hopes of society rest. 
 
 We are aware that some may think 
 that we are exalting intellectual above 
 moral and religious influence. They 
 may tell us that the teaching of moral 
 and religious truth, not by philosophers 
 and boasters of wisdom, but by the 
 comparatively weak and foolish, is the 
 great means of renovating the world. 
 This truth we indeed regard as " the 
 power of God unto salvation." But 
 let none imagine that its chosen tem- 
 ple is an uncultivated mind, and that 
 it selects, as its chief organs, the lips 
 of the unlearned. Religious and moral 
 truth is indeed appointed to carry for- 
 ward mankind ; but not as conceived 
 and expounded by narrow minds, not 
 as darkened by the ignorant, not as 
 debased by the superstitious, not as 
 subtilized by the visionary, not as thun- 
 dered out by the intolerant fanatic, not 
 as turned into a drivelling cant by the 
 hypocrite. Like all other truths, it re-
 
 REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. 
 
 127 
 
 quires for its full reception and power- 
 ful communication a free and vigorous 
 intellect. Indeed, its grandeur and in- 
 finite connections demand a more ear- 
 nest and various use of our faculties 
 than any other subject. As a single 
 illustration of this remark, we may ob- 
 serve that all moral and religious truth 
 may be reduced to one great and cen- 
 tral thought, perfection of mind, a 
 thought which comprehends all that is 
 glorious in the divine nature, and which 
 reveals to us the end and happiness of 
 our own existence. This perfection 
 has as yet only dawned on the most 
 gifted human beings, and the great pur- 
 pose of our present and future exist- 
 ence is to enlarge our conceptions of 
 it without end, and to embody and 
 make them manifest in character and 
 life. And is this sublime thought to 
 grow within us, to refine itself from 
 error and impure mixture, to receive 
 perpetual accessions of brightness from 
 the study, of God, man, and nature, 
 and especially to be communicated 
 powerfully to others, without the vig- 
 orous exertion of our intellectual nat- 
 ure ? Religion has been wronged by 
 nothing more than by being separated 
 from intellect : than by being removed 
 from the province of reason and free 
 research into that of mystery and au- 
 thority, of impulse and feeling. Hence 
 it is that the prevalent forms or exhi- 
 bitions of Christianity are compara- 
 tively inert, and that most which is 
 written on the subject is of little or no 
 worth. Christianity was given, not to 
 contradict and degrade the rational nat- 
 ure, but to call it forth, to enlarge its 
 range and its powers. It admits of 
 endless development. It is the last 
 truth which should remain stationary. 
 It ought to be so explored and so ex- 
 pressed as to take the highest place in 
 a nation's literature, as to exalt and 
 purify all other literature. From these 
 remarks it will be seen that the efficacy 
 which we have ascribed to literary or 
 intellectual influence in the work of 
 human improvement, is consistent with 
 the supreme importance of moral and 
 religious truth. 
 
 If we have succeeded in conveying 
 the impressions which we have aimed 
 to make, our readers are now prepared 
 to inquire with interest into the con- 
 dition and prospects of literature among 
 
 ourselves. Do we possess, indeed, what 
 may be called a national literature ? 
 Have we produced eminent writers in 
 the various departments of intellectual 
 effort ? Are our chief resources of 
 instruction and literary enjoyment fur- 
 nished from ourselves ? We regret 
 that the reply to these questions is so 
 obvious. The few standard works which 
 we have produced, and which promise 
 to live, can hardly, by any courtesy, be 
 denominated a national literature. On 
 this point, if marks and proofs of our 
 real condition were needed, we should 
 find them in the current apologies for 
 our deficiencies. Our writers are ac- 
 customed to plead in our excuse our 
 youth, the necessities of a newly settled 
 country, and the direction of our best 
 talents to practical life. Be tht* pleas 
 sufficient or not, one thing they prove, 
 and that is, our consciousness of having 
 failed to make important contributions 
 to the interests of the intellect. We 
 have few names to place by the side of 
 the great names in science and literature 
 on the other side of the ocean. We 
 want those lights which make a country 
 conspicuous at a distance. Let it not 
 be said that European envy denies our 
 just claims. In an age like this, when 
 the literary world forms a great family, 
 and the products of mind are circulated 
 more rapidly than those of machinery, 
 it is a nation's own fault if its name be 
 not pronounced with honor beyond it- 
 self. We have ourselves heard, and 
 delighted to hear, beyond the Alps, our 
 country designated as the land of Frank- 
 lin. This name had scaled that mighty 
 barrier, and made us known where our 
 institutions and modes of life were 
 hardly better understood than those of 
 the natives of our forests. 
 
 We are accustomed to console our- 
 selves for the absence of a commanding 
 literature by urging our superiority to 
 other nations in our institutions for 
 the diffusion of elementary knowledge 
 through all classes of the community, 
 We have here just cause for boasting, 
 though perhaps less than we imagine. 
 That there are gross deficiencies in our 
 common schools, and that the amount 
 of knowledge which they communicate, 
 when compared with the time spent in 
 its acquisition, is lamentably small, the 
 community begin to feel. There is a 
 crying need for a higher and more
 
 128 
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 quickening kind of instruction than the 
 laboring part of society have yet* re- 
 ceived, and we rejoice that the cry be- 
 gins *o be heard. But, allowing our 
 elementary institutions to be ever so 
 perfect, we confess that they do not sat- 
 isfy us. We want something more. A 
 dead level of intellect, even if it should 
 rise above what is common in other 
 nations, would not answer our wishes 
 and hopes for our country. We want 
 great minds to be formed among us, 
 minds which shall be felt afar, and 
 through which we may act on the world. 
 We want the human intellect to do its 
 utmost here. We want this people to 
 obtain a claim on the gratitude of the 
 human race, by adding strength to the 
 foundation, and fulness and splendor to 
 the development, of moral and religious 
 truth ; by originality of thought, by dis- 
 coveries of science, and by contribu- 
 tions to the refining pleasures of taste 
 and imagination. 
 
 With these views, we do and must 
 lament that, however we surpass other 
 nations in providing for, and spreading 
 elementary instruction, we fall behind 
 many in provision for the liberal training 
 of the intellect, for forming great scholars, 
 for communicating that profound knowl- 
 edge, and that thirst for higher truths, 
 which can alone originate a commanding 
 literature. The truth ought to be known. 
 There is among us much superficial 
 knowledge, but little severe, persevering 
 research ; little of that consuming pas- 
 sion for new truth which makes outward 
 things worthless ; little resolute devotion 
 to a high intellectual culture. There is 
 nowhere a literary atmosphere, or such 
 an accumulation of literary influence, as 
 determines the whole strength of the 
 mind to its own enlargement, and to the 
 manifestation of itself in enduring forms. 
 Few among us can be said to have fol- 
 lowed out any great subject of thought 
 patiently, laboriously, so as to know 
 thoroughly what others have discovered 
 and taught concerning it, and thus to 
 occupy a ground from which new views 
 may be gained. Of course, exceptions 
 are to be found. This country has pro- 
 duced original and profound thinkers. 
 We have named Franklin, and we may 
 name Edwards, one of the greatest men 
 of his age, though unhappily his mind 
 was lost, in a great degree, to literature, 
 and we fear to religion, by vassalage to 
 
 a false theology. His work on the Will 
 throws, indeed, no light on human nat- 
 ure, and, notwithstanding the nobleness 
 of the subject, gives no great or elevated 
 thoughts ; but, as a specimen of logical 
 acuteness and controversial power, it 
 certainly ranks in the very highest class 
 of metaphysical writings. We might 
 also name living authors who do honor 
 to their country. Still, we may say \ve 
 chiefly prize what has been done among 
 us as a promise of higher and more ex- 
 tensive effort. Patriotism, as well as 
 virtue, forbids us to burn incense to 
 national vanity. The truth should be 
 seen and felt. In an age of great intel- 
 lectual activity, we rely chiefly for in- 
 tellectual excitement and enjoyment on 
 foreign minds ; nor is our own mind felt 
 abroad. Whilst clamoring against de- 
 pendence on European manufactures, 
 we contentedly rely on Europe for the 
 nobler and more important fabrics of the 
 intellect. We boast of our political in- 
 stitutions, and receive our chief teach- 
 ings, books, impressions, from the school 
 of monarchy. True, we labor under dis- 
 advantages. But, if our liberty deserves 
 the praise which it receives, it is more 
 than a balance for these. We believe 
 that it is. We believe that it does open 
 to us an indefinite intellectual progress. 
 Did we not so regard it, we should value 
 it little. If hereditary governments min- 
 ister most to the growth of the mind, it 
 were better to restore them than to cling 
 to a barren freedom. Let us not expose 
 liberty to this reproach. Let us prove, 
 by more generous provisions for the dif- 
 fusion of elementary knowledge, for the 
 training of great minds, and for the joint 
 culture of the moral and intellectual 
 powers, that we are more and more in- 
 structed by freedom in the worth and 
 greatness of human nature, and in the 
 obligation of contributing to its strength 
 and glory. 
 
 We have spoken of the condition of our 
 literature. We now proceed to the con- 
 sideration of the causes which obstruct 
 its advancement ; and we are immedi- 
 ately struck by one so prevalent as to 
 deserve distinct notice. We refer to the 
 common doctrine that we need, in this 
 country, useful knowledge, rather than 
 profound, extensive, and elegant litera- 
 ture, and that this last, if we covet it, 
 may be imported from abroad in such 
 variety and abundance as to save us the
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 129 
 
 necessity of producing it among our- 
 selves. 'How far are these opinions just ? 
 This question we purpose to answer. 
 
 That useful knowledge should receive 
 our first and chief care we mean not to 
 dispute. But in our views of utility we 
 may differ from some who take this po- 
 sition. There are those who confine 
 this term to' the necessaries and com- 
 forts of life, and to the means of pro- 
 ducing them. And is it true that we 
 need no knowledge but that which 
 clothes and feeds us ? Is it true that 
 all studies may be dispensed with but 
 such as teach us to act on matter, and 
 to turn it to our use ? Happily, human 
 nature is too stubborn to yield to this 
 narrow utility. It is interesting to ob- 
 serve how the very mechanical arts, 
 which are especially designed to min- 
 ister to the necessities and comforts of 
 life, are perpetually passing these limits, 
 how they disdain to stop at mere con- 
 venience. A large and increasing pro- 
 portion of mechanical labor is given to 
 the gratification of an elegant taste. 
 How simple would be the art of build- 
 ing, if it limited itself to the construc- 
 tion of a comfortable shelter ! How 
 many ships should we dismantle, and how 
 many busy trades put to rest, were dress 
 and furniture reduced to the standard 
 of convenience ! This " utility " would 
 work a great change in town and country, 
 would level to the dust the wonders of 
 architecture, would annihilate the fine 
 arts, and blot out innumerable beauties 
 which the hand of taste has spread over 
 the face of the earth. Happily, human 
 nature is too strong for the ultilit'arian. 
 It cannot satisfy itself with the con- 
 venient. No passion unfolds itself sooner 
 than the love of the ornamental. The 
 savage decorates his person, and the 
 child is more struck with the beauty than 
 the uses of its raiment. So far from 
 limiting ourselves to convenient food 
 and raiment, we enjoy but little a repast 
 which is not arranged with some degree 
 of order and taste ; and a man who 
 should consult comfort alone in his 
 wardrobe, would find himself an unwel- 
 come guest in circles which he would 
 very reluctantly forego. We are aware 
 that the propensity to which we have re- 
 ferred often breaks out in extravagance 
 and ruinous luxury. We know that the 
 love of ornament is often vitiated by 
 vanity, and that, when so perverted, it 
 
 impairs, sometimes destroys, the sound- 
 ness and simplicity of the mind and the 
 relish for true glory. Still it teaches, 
 even in its excesses, that the idea of 
 beauty is an indestructible principle of 
 our nature, and this single truth is enough 
 to put us on our guard against vulgar no- 
 tions of utility. 
 
 We have said that we prize, as highly 
 as any, useful knowledge. But by this 
 we mean knowledge which answers and 
 ministers to our complex and various 
 nature ; we mean that which is useful, 
 not only to the animal man, but to the 
 intellectual, moral, and religious man, 
 useful to a being of spiritual faculties, 
 whose happiness is to be found in their 
 free and harmonious exercise. We 
 grant that there is primary necessity 
 for that information and skill by which 
 subsistence is earned and life is pre- 
 served ; for it is plain that we must live 
 in order to act and improve. But life is 
 the means ; action and improvement the 
 end ; and who will deny that the noblest 
 utility belongs to that knowledge by 
 which the chief purpose of our creation 
 is accomplished ? According to these 
 views, a people should honor and culti- 
 vate, as unspeakably useful, that litera- 
 ture which corresponds to, and calls 
 forth, the highest faculties ; which ex- 
 presses and communicates energy of 
 thought, fruitfulness of invention, force 
 of moral purpose, a thirst for the true, 
 and a delight in the beautiful. Accord- 
 ing to these views, we attach special 
 importance to those branches of litera- 
 ture which relate to human nature, and 
 which give it a consciousness of its 
 own powers. History has a noble use, 
 for it shows us human beings in various 
 and opposite conditions, in their strength 
 and weakness, in their progress and re- 
 lapses, and thus reveals the causes and 
 means by which the happiness and vir- 
 tue of the race may be enlarged. Poetry 
 is useful, by touching deep springs in 
 the human soul ; by giving voice to its 
 more delicate feelings ; by breathing 
 out, and making more intelligible, the 
 sympathy which subsists between the 
 mind and the outward universe ; by 
 creating beautiful forms of manifesta- 
 tions for great moral truths. Above all, 
 that higher philosophy, which treats of 
 the intellectual and moral constitution 
 of man, of the foundation of knowledge, 
 of duty, of perfection, of our relations
 
 130 
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 to the spiritual world, and especially to 
 God ; this has a usefulness so peculiar 
 as to throw other departments of knowl- 
 edge into obscurity ; and a people 
 among whom this does not find honor 
 has little ground to boast of its superi- 
 ority to uncivilized tribes. It will be 
 seen from these remarks that utility, 
 with us, has abroad meaning. In truth, 
 we are slow to condemn as useless any 
 researches or discoveries of original and 
 strong minds, even when we discern in 
 them no bearing on any interests of 
 mankind ; for all truth is of a prolific 
 nature, and has connections not imme- 
 diately perceived ; and it may be that 
 what we call vain speculations may, at 
 no distant period, link themselves with 
 some new facts or theories, and guide a 
 profound thinker to the most important 
 results. The ancient mathematician, 
 when absorbed in solitary thought, lit- 
 tle imagined that his theorems, after 
 the lapse of ages, were to be applied by 
 the mind of Newton to the solution of the 
 mysteries of the universe, and not only 
 to guide the astronomer through the 
 heavens, but the navigator through the 
 pathless ocean. For ourselves, we in- 
 cline to hope much from truths which 
 are particularly decried as useless ; for 
 the noblest and most useful truth is 
 of an abstract or universal nature ; and 
 yet the abstract, though susceptible of 
 infinite application, is generally, as we 
 know, opposed to the practical. 
 
 We maintain that a people which has 
 any serious purpose of taking a place 
 among improved communities, should 
 studiously promote within itself every 
 variety of intellectual exertion. It should 
 resolve strenuously to be surpassed by 
 none. It should feel that mind is the 
 creative power through which all the re- 
 sources of nature are to be turned to ac- 
 count, and by which a people is to spread 
 its influence, and establish the noblest 
 form of empire. It should train within 
 itself men able to understand and to 
 use whatever is thought and discovered 
 over the whole earth. The whole mass 
 of human knowledge should exist among 
 a people, not in neglected libraries, but 
 in its higher minds. Among its most 
 cherished institutions should be those 
 which will ensure to it ripe scholars, 
 explorers of ancient learning, profound 
 historians and mathematicians, intel- 
 lectual laborers devoted to physical and 
 
 moral science, and to the creation of a 
 refined and beautiful literature. 
 
 Let us not be misunderstood. We 
 have no desire to rear in our country 
 a race of pedants, of solemn triflers, of 
 laborious commentators on the myste- 
 ries of a Greek accent or a rusty coin. 
 We would have men explore antiquity, 
 not to bury themselves in its dust, but 
 to learn its spirit, and so to commune 
 with its superior minds as to accumu- 
 late on the present age the influences 
 of whatever was great and wise in 
 former times. What we want is, that 
 those among us whom God has gifted 
 to comprehend whatever is now known, 
 and to rise to new truths, may find aids 
 and institutions to fit them for their 
 high calling, and may become at once 
 springs of a higher intellectual life to 
 their own country, and joint workers 
 with the great of all nations and times 
 in carrying forward their race. 
 
 We know that it will be said that 
 foreign scholars, bred under institu- 
 tions which this country cannot sup- 
 port, may do our intellectual work, and 
 send us books and learning to meet our 
 wants. To this we have much to an- 
 swer. In the first place, we reply that, 
 to avail ourselves of the higher litera- 
 ture of other nations, we must place 
 ourselves on a level with them. The 
 products of foreign machinery we can 
 use without any portion of the skill that 
 produced them. But works of taste 
 and genius, and profound investigations 
 of philosophy, can only be estimated 
 and enjoyed through a culture and 
 power corresponding to that from which 
 they sprung. 
 
 In the next place, we maintain that it 
 is an immense gain to a people to have 
 in its own bosom, among its own sons, 
 men of distinguished intellect. Such 
 men give a spring and life to a com- 
 munity by their presence, their society, 
 their fame ; and, what deserves remark, 
 such men are nowhere so felt as in a 
 republic like our own : for here the dif- 
 ferent classes of society flow together 
 and act powerfully on each other, and 
 a free communication, elsewhere un- 
 known, is established between the gift- 
 ed few and the many. It is one of the 
 many good fruits of liberty that it in- 
 creases the diffusiveness of intellect ; 
 and accordingly a free country is, above 
 all others, false to itself in withholding
 
 REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITER A TURE. 
 
 from its superior minds the means of 
 enlargement. 
 
 We next observe and we think the 
 observation important that the facility 
 with which we receive the literature of 
 foreign countries, instead of being 4 a 
 reason for neglecting our own, is a 
 strong motive for its cultivation. We 
 mean not to be paradoxical, but we be- 
 lieve that it would be better to admit no 
 books from abroad than to make them 
 substitutes for our own intellectual ac- 
 tivity. The more we receive from 
 other countries, the greater the need 
 of an original literature. A people into 
 whose minds the thoughts of foreigners 
 are poured perpetually, needs an energy 
 within itself to resist, to modify this 
 mighty influence, and, without it, will 
 inevitably sink under the worst bond- 
 age, will become intellectually tame and 
 enslaved. We have certainly no desire 
 to complete our restrictive system by 
 adding to it a literary non-intercourse 
 law. We rejoice in the increasing in- 
 tellectual connection between this coun- 
 try and the Old World ; but sooner 
 would we rupture it than see our coun- 
 try sitting passively at the feet of for- 
 eign teachers. It were better to have 
 no literature than form ourselves un- 
 resistingly on a foreign one. The true 
 sovereigns of a country are those who 
 determine its mind, its modes of think- 
 ing, its tastes, its principles ; and we 
 cannot consent to lodge this sover- 
 eignty in the hands of strangers. A 
 country, like an individual, has dignity 
 and power only in proportion as it is 
 self-formed. There is a great stir to 
 secure to ourselves the manufactur- 
 ing of our own clothing. We say, let 
 others spin and weave for us, but let 
 them not think for us. A people whose 
 government and laws are nothing but 
 the embodying of public opinion, should 
 jealously guard this opinion against for- 
 eign dictation. We need a literature to 
 counteract, and to use wisely the litera- 
 ture which we import. We need an in- 
 ward power proportionate to that which 
 is exerted on us, as the means of self- 
 subsistence. It is particularly true of 
 a people whose institutions demand for 
 their support a free and bold spirit, 
 that they should be able to subject to a 
 manly and independent criticism what- 
 ever comes from abroad. These views 
 seem to us to deserve serious attention. 
 
 We are more and more a reading peo- 
 ple. Books are already among the most 
 powerful influences here. The question 
 is, shall Europe, through these, fashion 
 us after its pleasure ? Shall America 
 be only an echo of what is thought and 
 written under the aristocracies beyond 
 the ocean ? 
 
 Another view of the subject is this. 
 A foreign literature will always, in a 
 measure, be foreign. It has sprung 
 from the soul of another people, which, 
 however like, is still not our own soul. 
 Every people has much in its own char- 
 acter and feelings which can only be 
 embodied by its own writers, and which, 
 when transfused through literature, 
 makes it touching and true, like the 
 voice of our earliest friend. 
 
 We now proceed to an argument in 
 favor of native literature, which, if less 
 obvious, is, we believe, not less sound 
 than those now already adduced. We 
 have hitherto spoken of literature as the 
 expression, the communication, of the 
 higher minds in a community. We now 
 add that it does much more than is com- 
 monly supposed to form such minds, so 
 that, without it, a people wants one of 
 the chief means of educating or perfect- 
 ing talent and genius. One of the great 
 laws of our nature, and a law singularly 
 important to social beings, is, that the 
 intellect enlarges and strengthens itself 
 by expressing worthily its best views. 
 In this, as in other respects, it is more 
 blessed to give than to receive. Supe- 
 rior minds are formed, not merely by 
 solitary thought, but almost as much 
 by communication. Great thoughts are 
 never fully possessed till he who has 
 conceived them has given them fit ut- 
 terance. One of the noblest and most 
 invigorating labors 6f genius is to clothe 
 its conceptions in clear and glorious 
 forms, to give them existence in other 
 souls. Thus literature creates, as well 
 as manifests, intellectual power, and, 
 without it, the highest minds will never 
 be summoned to the most invigorating 
 action. 
 
 We doubt whether a man ever brings 
 his faculties to bear with their whole 
 force on a subject until he writes upon 
 it for the instruction or gratification of 
 others. To place it clearly before others, 
 he feels the necessity of viewing it more 
 vividly himself. By attempting to seize 
 his thoughts, and fix them in an endur-
 
 132 
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 ing form, he finds them vague and un- 
 satisfactory to a degree which he did 
 not suspect, and toils for a precision and 
 harmony of views of which he had never 
 before felt the need. He places his 
 subject in new lights, submits it to a 
 searching analysis, compares and con- 
 nects with it his various knowledge, 
 seeks for it new illustrations and anal- 
 ogies, weighs objections, and through 
 these processes often arrives at higher 
 truths than he at first aimed to illustrate. 
 Dim conceptions grow bright. Glorious 
 thoughts, which had darted as meteors 
 through the mind, are arrested, and 
 gradually shine with a sunlike splendor, 
 with prolific energy, on the intellect and 
 heart. It is one of the chief distinctions 
 of a great mind that it is prone to rush 
 into twilight regions, and to catch faint 
 glimmerings of distant and unbounded 
 prospects ; and nothing perhaps aids it 
 more to pierce the shadows which sur- 
 round it than the labor to unfold to other 
 minds the indistinct conceptions which 
 have dawned on its own. Even where 
 composition yields no such fruits, it is 
 still a great intellectual help. It always 
 favors comprehensive and systematical 
 views. The laborious distribution of a 
 great subject, so as to assign to each 
 part or topic its just position and 
 due proportion, is singularly fitted to 
 give compass and persevering force of 
 thought. 
 
 If we confine ourselves simply to the 
 consideration of style, we shall have rea- 
 son to think that a people among whom 
 this is neglected wants one important 
 intellectual aid. In this, great power is 
 exerted, and by exertion increased. To 
 the multitude, indeed, language seems 
 so natural an instrument, that to use 
 it with clearness and energy seems no 
 great effort. It is framed, they think, 
 to the writer's hand, and so continually 
 employed as to need little thought or 
 skill. But in nothing is the creative 
 power of a gifted writer seen more than 
 in his style. True, his words may be 
 found in the dictionary. But there they 
 lie disjointed and dead. What a won- 
 derful life does he breathe into them 
 by compacting them into his sentences ! 
 Perhaps he uses no term which has not 
 yet been hackneyed by ordinary writ- 
 ers ; and yet with these vulgar materials 
 what miracles does he achieve ! What a 
 world of thought does he condense into 
 
 a phrase ! By new combinations of com- 
 mon words, what delicate hues or what 
 a blaze of light does he pour over his 
 subject ! Power of style depends very 
 little on the structure or copiousness of 
 the language which the writer of genius 
 employs, but chiefly, if not wholly, on 
 his own mind. The words, arranged in 
 his dictionary, are no more fitted to de- 
 pict his thoughts than the block of mar- 
 ble in the sculptor's shop to show forth 
 the conceptions which are dawning in 
 his mind. Both are inert materials. 
 The power which pervades them comes 
 from the soul ; and the same creative 
 energy is manifested in the production 
 of a noble style as in extracting beauti- 
 ful forms from lifeless stone. How un- 
 faithful, then, is a nation to its own 
 intellect, in which grace and force of 
 style receive no culture ! 
 
 The remarks now made on the im- 
 portance of literature as a means of 
 educating talent and genius, we are 
 aware, do not apply equally to all sub- 
 jects or kinds of knowledge. In the 
 exact or physical sciences, a man may 
 acquire much without composition, and 
 may make discoveries without register- 
 ing them. Even here, however, we be- 
 lieve that, by a systematic development 
 of his views in a luminous style, he will 
 bring great aid to his own faculties, as 
 well as to others'. It is on the vast 
 subjects of morals and human nature 
 that the mind especially strengthens 
 itself by elaborate composition ; and 
 these, let it be remembered, form the 
 staple of the highest literature. Moral 
 truth, under which we include every 
 thing relating to mind and character, 
 is of a refined and subtile, as well as 
 elevated nature, and requires the joint 
 and full exercise of discrimination, in- 
 vention, imagination, and sensibility, to 
 give it effectual utterance. A writer 
 who would make it visible and power- 
 ful, must strive to join an austere logic 
 to a fervent eloquence ; must place it 
 in various lights ; must create for it in- 
 teresting forms ; must wed it to beauty ; 
 must illuminate it by similitudes and 
 contrasts ; must show its correspond- 
 ence with the outward world ; perhaps 
 must frame for it a vast machinery of 
 fiction. How invigorating are these 
 efforts ! Yet it is only in writing, in 
 elaborate composition, that they are 
 deliberately called forth and sustained,
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 133 
 
 and without literature they would al- 
 most cease. It may be said of many 
 truths, that greater intellectual energy 
 is required to express them with effect 
 than to conceive them ; so that a nation 
 which does not encourage this expres- 
 sion impoverishes so far its own mind. 
 Take, for example, Shakspeare's Ham- 
 let. This is a development of a singu- 
 larly interesting view of human nature. 
 It shows us a mind to which life is a 
 burden ; in which the powers of medita- 
 tion and feeling are disproportioned to 
 the active powers ; which sinks under 
 its own weight, under the conscious- 
 ness of wanting energies commensurate 
 with its visions of good, with its sore 
 trials, and with the solemn task which 
 is laid upon it. To conceive clearly 
 this form of human nature, shows in- 
 deed the genius of the writer. But 
 what a new power is required to bring 
 it out in such a drama as Shakspeare's ; 
 to give it life and action ; to invent for 
 it circumstances and subordinate char- 
 acters, fitted to call it forth ; to give it 
 tones of truth and nature ; to show the 
 hues which it casts over all the objects 
 of thought ! This intellectual energy 
 we all perceive ; and this was not merely 
 manifested in Shakspeare's work, but, 
 without such a work, it would not have 
 been awakened. His invention would 
 have slumbered, had he not desired to 
 give forth his mind in a visible and en- 
 during form. Thus literature is. the 
 nurse of genius. Through this, genius 
 learns its own strength, and continually 
 accumulates it ; and of course, in a 
 country without literature, genius, how- 
 ever liberally bestowed by the Creator, 
 will languish, and will fail to fulfil its 
 great duty of quickening the mass 
 amidst which it lives. 
 
 We come now to our last and what 
 we deem a weighty argument in fa- 
 vor of a native literature. We desire 
 and would cherish it, because we hope 
 from it important aids to the cause of 
 truth and human nature. We believe 
 that a literature, springing up in this 
 new soil, would bear new fruits, and, 
 in some respects, more precious fruits, 
 than are elsewhere produced. We know 
 that our hopes may be set down to the 
 account of that national vanity which, 
 with too much reason, is placed by for- 
 eigners among our besetting sins. But 
 we speak from calm and deliberate con- 
 
 viction. We are inclined to believe 
 that, as a people, we occupy a position 
 from which the great subjects of liter- 
 ature may be viewed more justly than 
 from those which most other nations 
 hold. Undoubtedly we labor under dis- 
 advantages. We want the literary ap- 
 paratus of Europe, her libraries, her 
 universities, her learned institutions, 
 her race of professed scholars, her 
 spots consecrated by the memory of 
 sages, and a thousand stirring associ- 
 ations which hover over ancient nur- 
 series of learning. But the mind is not 
 a local power. Its spring is within it- 
 self, and, under the inspiration of lib- 
 eral and high feeling, it may attain and 
 worthily express nobler truth than out- 
 ward helps could reveal. 
 
 The great distinction of our country 
 is, that we enjoy some peculiar advan- 
 tages for understanding our own nature. 
 Man is the great subject of litera- 
 ture, and juster and profounder views of 
 man may be expected here than else- 
 where. In Europe, political and arti- 
 ficial distinctions have, more or less, 
 triumphed over and obscured our com- 
 mon nature. In Europe, we meet kings, 
 nobles, priests, peasants. How much 
 'rarer is it to meet men; by which we 
 mean human beings conscious of their 
 own nature, and conscious of the utter 
 worthlessness of all outward distinctions 
 compared with what is treasured up in 
 their own souls. Man does not value 
 himself as man. It is for his blood, his 
 rank, or some artificial distinction, and 
 not for the attributes of humanity, that 
 he holds himself in respect. The institu- 
 tions of the Old World all tend to throw 
 obscurity over what we most need to 
 know, and that is, the worth and claims 
 of a human being. We know that great 
 improvements in this respect are going 
 on abroad. Still the many are too often 
 postponed to the few. The mass of men 
 are regarded as instruments to work 
 with, as materials to be shaped for the 
 use of their superiors. That conscious- 
 ness of our own nature which contains, 
 as a germ, all nobler thoughts, which 
 teaches us at once self-respect and re- 
 spect for others, and which binds us to 
 God by filial sentiment and hope, this 
 has been repressed, kept down by es- 
 tablishments founded in force ; and lit- 
 erature, in all its departments, bears, we 
 think, the traces of this inward degrada-
 
 134 
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 tion. We conceive that our position 
 favors a juster and profounder estimate 
 of human nature. We mean not to 
 boast, but there are fewer obstructions 
 to that moral consciousness, that con- 
 sciousness of fcumanity, of which we 
 have spoken. Man is not hidden from 
 us by so many disguises as in the Old 
 World. The essential equality of all 
 human beings, founded on the posses- 
 sion of a spiritual, progressive, immortal 
 nature, is, we hope, better understood ; 
 and nothing more than this single con- 
 viction is needed to work the mightiest 
 changes in every province of human life 
 and of human thought. 
 
 We have stated what seems to us our 
 most important distinction. But our 
 position has other advantages. The 
 mere circumstance of its being a new 
 one gives reason to hope for some new 
 intellectual activity, some fresher views 
 of nature and life. We are not borne 
 down by the weight of antiquated insti- 
 tutions, time-hallowed abuses, and the 
 remnants of feudal barbarism. The ab- 
 sence of a religious establishment is an 
 immense gain, as far as originality of 
 mind is in question ; for an establish- 
 ment, however advantageous in other 
 respects, is, by its nature, hostile to dis- 
 covery and progress. To keep the mind 
 where it is, to fasten the notions of one 
 age on all future time, is its aim and 
 proper business ; and if it happened, as 
 has generally been the case, to grow up 
 in an age of strife and passion, when, as 
 history demonstrates, the church was 
 overrun with error, it cannot but per- 
 petuate darkness and mental bondage. 
 Among us, intellect, though far from 
 being free, has broken some of the 
 chains of other countries, and is more 
 likely, we conceive, to propose to itself 
 its legitimate object, truth, everlast- 
 ing and universal truth. 
 
 We have no thought of speaking con- 
 temptuously of the literature of the Old 
 World. It is our daily nutriment. We 
 feel our debt to be immense to the 
 glorious company of pure and wise 
 minds which in foreign lands have be- 
 queathed us in writing their choicest 
 thoughts and holiest feelings. Still, we 
 feel that all existing literature has been 
 produced under influences which have 
 necessarily mixed with it much error 
 and corruption ; and that the whole of it 
 ought to pass, and must pass, under rig- 
 
 orous review. For example, we think 
 that the history of the human race is to be 
 rewritten. Men imbued with the preju- 
 dices which thrive under aristocracies 
 and state religions cannot understand it. 
 Past ages, with their great events and 
 great men, are to undergo, we think, a 
 new trial, and to yield new results. It is 
 plain that history is already viewed un- 
 der new aspects, and we believe that the 
 true principles for studying and writing 
 it are to be unfolded here, at least as 
 rapidly as in other countries. It seems 
 to us that in literature an immense work 
 is yet to be done. The most interesting 
 questions to mankind are yet in debate. 
 Great principles are yet to be settled in 
 criticism, in morals, in politics ; and, 
 above all, the true character of religion 
 is to be rescued from the disguises and 
 corruptions of ages. We want a refor- 
 mation. We want a literature, in which 
 genius will pay supreme if not undi- 
 vided homage to truth and virtue ; in 
 which the childish admiration of what 
 has been called greatness will give place 
 to a wise moral judgment ; which will 
 breathe reverence for the mind, and 
 elevating thoughts of God. The part 
 which this country is to bear in this 
 great intellectual reform we presume 
 not to predict. We feel, however, that, 
 if true to itself, it will have the glory 
 and happiness of giving new impulses 
 to the human mind. This is our cher- 
 ished hope. We should have no heart 
 to encourage native literature, did we 
 not hope that it would become instinct 
 with a new spirit. We cannot admit 
 the thought that this country is to be 
 only a repetition of the Old World. 
 We delight to believe that God, in the 
 fulness of time, has brought a new con- 
 tinent to light, in order that the human 
 mind should move here with a new free- 
 dom, should frame new social institu- 
 tions, should explore new paths, and 
 reap new harvests. We are accustomed 
 to estimate nations by their creative 
 energies : and we shall blush for our 
 country if, in circumstances so pecul- 
 iar, original, and creative, it shall sat- 
 isfy itself with a passive reception and 
 me'chanical reiteration of the thoughts 
 of strangers. 
 
 We have now completed our remarks 
 on the importance of a native literature. 
 The next great topic is, the means of pro- 
 ducing it. And here our limits forbid us
 
 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 135 
 
 to enlarge ; yet we cannot pass it over 
 in silence. A primary and essential 
 means of the improvement of our litera- 
 ture is, that, as a people, we should feel 
 its value, should desire it, should de- 
 mand it, should encourage it, and should 
 give it a hearty welcome. It will come 
 if called for ; and, under this conviction, 
 we have now labored to create a want 
 for it in the community. We say that 
 we must call for it ; by which we mean 
 not merely that we must invite it by good 
 wishes and kind words, but must make 
 liberal provision for intellectual educa- 
 tion. We must enlarge our literary in- 
 stitutions, secure more extensive and 
 profound teaching, and furnish helps and 
 resources to men of superior talent for 
 continued laborious research. As yet, 
 intellectual labor, devoted to a thorough 
 investigation and a full development of 
 great subjects, is almost unknown among 
 us ; and, without it, we shall certainly 
 rear few lasting monuments of thought. 
 We boast of our primary schools. We 
 want universities worthy of the name, 
 where a man of genius and literary zeal 
 may possess himself of all that is yet 
 known, and may strengthen himself by 
 intercourse with kindred minds. We 
 know it will be said that we cannot 
 afford these. But it is not so. We are 
 rich enough for ostentation, for intem- 
 perance, for luxury. We can lavish 
 millions on fashion, on furniture, on 
 dress, on our palaces, on our pleasures ; 
 but we have nothing to spend for the 
 mind. Where lies our poverty ? In the 
 purse, or in the soul ? 
 
 We have spoken of improved insti- 
 tutions as essential to an improved lit- 
 erature. We beg, however, not to be 
 misunderstood, as if these were invested 
 with a creating power, or would neces- 
 sarily yield the results which we desire. 
 They are the means, not causes, of ad- 
 vancement. Literature depends on indi- 
 vidual genius, and this, though fostered, 
 cannot be created by outward helps. No 
 human mechanism can produce original 
 thought. After all the attempts to ex- 
 plain by education the varieties of intel- 
 lect, we are compelled to believe that 
 minds, like all the other products of 
 nature, have original and indestructible 
 differences ; that they are not exempted 
 from that great and beautiful law which 
 joins with strong resemblances as strong 
 diversities ; and, of consequence, we be- 
 
 lieve that the men who are to be the 
 lights of the world bring with them their 
 commission and power from God. Still, 
 whilst institutions cannot create, they 
 may and do unfold genius : and, for 
 want of them, great minds often slum- 
 ber or run to waste, whilst a still larger 
 class, who want genius, but possess ad- 
 mirable powers, fail of that culture 
 through which they might enjoy and 
 approach their more gifted brethren. 
 
 A people, as we have said, are to give 
 aid to literature by founding wise and 
 enlarged institutions. They may do 
 much more. They may exert a nobler 
 patronage. By cherishing in their own 
 breasts the love of truth, virtue, and 
 freedom, they may do much to nurse 
 and kindle genius in its favored posses- 
 sors. There is a constant reaction be- 
 tween a community and the great minds 
 which spring up within it, and they form 
 one another. In truth, great minds are 
 developed more by the spirit and char- 
 acter of the people to which they belong 
 than by all other causes. Thus, a free 
 spirit, a thirst for new and higher knowl- 
 edge in a community, does infinitely 
 more for literature than the most splen- 
 did benefactions under despotism. A 
 nation under any powerful excitement 
 becomes fruitful of talent. Among a 
 people called to discuss great questions, 
 to contend for great interests, to make 
 great sacrifices for the public weal, we 
 always find new and unsuspected ener- 
 gies of thought brought out. A mer- 
 cenary, selfish, luxurious sensual people, 
 toiling only to secure the pleasures of 
 sloth, will often communicate their own 
 softness and baseness to the superior 
 minds which dwell among them. In 
 this impure atmosphere the celestial 
 spark burns dim ; and well will it be if 
 God's great gift of genius be not impi- 
 ously prostituted to lust and crime. 
 
 In conformity with the views now 
 stated, we believe that literature is to be 
 carried forward, here and elsewhere, 
 chiefly by some new and powerful im- 
 pulses communicated to society ; and it 
 is a question naturally suggested by this 
 discussion, from what impulse, principle, 
 excitement, the highest action of the 
 mind may now be expected. When we 
 look back, we see Miat literature has 
 been originated and modified by a vari- 
 ety of principles ; by patriotism and 
 national feeling, by reverence for an-
 
 136 
 
 REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. 
 
 tiquity, by the spirit of innovation, by 
 enthusiasm, by scepticism, by the pas- 
 sion for fame, by romantic love, and by 
 political and religious convulsions. Now, 
 we do not expect from these causes any 
 higher action of the mind than they have 
 yet produced. Perhaps most of them 
 have spent their force. The very im- 
 provements of society seem to forbid 
 the manifestation of their former energy. 
 For example, the patriotism of antiquity 
 and the sexual love of chivalrous ages, 
 which inspired so much of the old litera- 
 ture, are now seen to be feverish and 
 vicious excesses of natural principles, 
 and have gone, we trust, never to re- 
 turn. 
 
 Are we asked, then, to what impulse 
 or power we look for a higher literature 
 than has yet existed ? We answer, to a 
 new action or development of the relig- 
 ious principle. This remark will prob- 
 ably surprise not a few of our readers. 
 It seems to us that the energy with 
 which this principle is to act on the in- 
 tellect is hardly suspected. Men identify 
 religion with superstition, with fanati- 
 cism, with the common forms of Chris- 
 tianity ; and seeing it arrayed against 
 intellect, leagued with oppression, fet- 
 tering inquiry, and incapable of being 
 blended with the sacred dictates of rea- 
 son and conscience, they see in its prog- 
 ress only new encroachments on free 
 and enlightened thinking. Still man's 
 relation to God is the great quickening 
 truth, throwing all other truths into in- 
 significance, and a truth which, however 
 obscured and paralyzed by the many 
 errors which ignorance and fraud have 
 hitherto linked with it, has ever been 
 a chief spring of human improvement. 
 We look to it as the true life of the in- 
 tellect. No man can be just to himself 
 can comprehend his own existence, 
 can put forth all his powers with an 
 heroic confidence, can deserve to be the 
 guide and inspirer of other minds till 
 he has risen to communion with the 
 Supreme Mind ; till he feels his filial 
 connection with the Universal Parent ; 
 till he regards himself as the recipient 
 and minister of the Infinite Spirit ; till he 
 feels his consecration to the ends which 
 religion unfolds ; till he rises above hu- 
 man opinion, and is moved by a higher 
 impulse than fame. 
 
 From these remarks it will be seen 
 that our chief hopes of an improved 
 
 literature rest on our hopes of an im- 
 proved religion. From the prevalent 
 theology which has come down to us 
 from the dark ages, we hope nothing. 
 It has done its best. All that can grow 
 up under its sad shade has already been 
 brought forth. It wraps the divine nat- 
 ure and human nature in impenetrable 
 gloom. It overlays Christianity with 
 technical, arbitrary dogmas. True faith 
 is of another lineage. It comes from 
 the same source with reason, conscience, 
 and our best affections, and is in har- 
 mony with them all. True faith is essen- 
 tially a moral conviction ; a confidence 
 in the reality and immutableness of 
 moral distinctions ; a confidence in dis- 
 interested virtue or in spiritual excel- 
 lence as the supreme good ; a confidence 
 in God as its fountain and Almighty 
 Friend, and in Jesus Christ as having 
 lived and died to breathe it into the 
 soul ; a confidence in its power, triumphs, 
 and immortality ; a confidence, through 
 which outward changes, obstructions, 
 disasters, sufferings, are overcome, or 
 rather made instruments of perfection. 
 Such a faith, unfolded freely and power- 
 fully, must " work mightily " on the 
 intellect as well as on practice. By 
 revealing to us the supreme purpose 
 of the Creator, it places us, as it were, 
 in the centre of the universe, from which 
 the harmonies, true relations, and bright- 
 est aspect of things are discerned. It 
 unites calmness and enthusiasm, and 
 the concord of these seemingly hostile 
 elements is essential to the full and 
 healthy action of the creative powers of 
 the soul. It opens the eye to beauty 
 and the heart to love. Literature, under 
 this influence, will become more ingen- 
 uous and single-hearted ; will penetrate 
 farther into the soul ; will find new in- 
 terpretations of nature and life ; will 
 breathe a martyr's love of truth, tem- 
 pered with a never-failing charity ; and, 
 whilst sympathizing with all human suf- 
 fering, will still be pervaded by a health- 
 ful cheerfulness, and will often break 
 forth in tones of irrepressible joy, re- 
 sponsive to that happiness which fills 
 God's universe. 
 
 We cannot close our remarks on the 
 means of an improved literature without 
 offering one suggestion. We earnestly 
 recommend to our educated men a more 
 extensive acquaintance with the intel- 
 lectual labors of continental Europe.
 
 REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. 
 
 137 
 
 Our reading is confined too much to 
 'English books, and especially to the 
 more recent publications of Great Brit- 
 ain. In this we err. We ought to know 
 the different modes of viewing and dis- 
 cussing great subjects in different na- 
 tions. We should be able to compare 
 the writings of the highest minds in a 
 great variety of circumstances. Nothing 
 can favor more our own intellectual inde- 
 pendence and activity. Let English lit- 
 erature be ever so fruitful and profound, 
 we should still impoverish ourselves by 
 making it our sole nutriment. We fear, 
 however, that at the present moment 
 English books want much which we 
 need. The intellect of that nation is 
 turned now to what are called practical 
 and useful subjects. Physical science 
 goes forward, and, what is very encour- 
 aging, it is spread with unexampled zeal 
 through all classes of the community. 
 Abuses of government, of the police, 
 of the penal code, of charity, of poor- 
 laws, and corn-laws, are laboriously ex- 
 plored. General education is improved. 
 Science is applied to the arts with bril- 
 liant success. We see much good in 
 progress. But we find little profound 
 or fervid thinking expressed in the 
 higher forms of literature. The noblest 
 subjects of the intellect receive little at- 
 tention. We see an almost total indif- 
 ference to intellectual and moral science. 
 In England there is a great want of 
 philosophy, in the true sense of- that 
 word. If we examine her reviews, in 
 which much of the intellectual power of 
 the nation is expended, we meet per- 
 petually a jargon of criticism, which 
 shows a singular want of great and gen- 
 eral principles in estimating works of 
 art. We have no ethical work of any 
 living English writer to be compared 
 with that of Degerando, entitled " Du 
 Perfectionnement Moral ; " and, although 
 we have little respect for the rash gen- 
 eralizations of the bold and eloquent 
 Cousin, yet the interest which his meta- 
 physics awaken in Paris is, in our esti- 
 mation, a better presage than the lethargy 
 which prevails on such topics in Eng- 
 land. In these remarks we have no 
 desire to depreciate the literature of 
 England, which, taken as a whole, we 
 regard as the noblest monument of the 
 human mind. We rejoice in our de- 
 scent from England, and esteem our 
 free access to her works of science and 
 
 genius as among our high privileges. 
 Nor do we feel as if her strength were 
 spent. We see no wrinkles on her 
 brow, no decrepitude in her step. At 
 this moment she has authors, especially 
 in poetry and fiction, whose names are 
 " familiar in our mouths as household 
 words," arid who can never perish but 
 with her language. Still, we think that 
 at present her intellect is laboring more 
 for herself than for mankind, and that 
 our scholars, if they would improve our 
 literature, should cultivate an intimacy 
 not only with that of England, but of 
 continental Europe. 
 
 We have now finished our remarks 
 on the importance and means of an im- 
 proved literature among ourselves. Are 
 we asked what we hope in this particular? 
 We answer, much. We see reasons for 
 anticipating an increased and more effi- 
 cient direction of talent to this object. 
 But on these we cannot enlarge. There 
 is, however, one ground of expectation, 
 to which we will call a moment's atten- 
 tion. We apprehend that literature is 
 to make progress through an important 
 change in society, which civilization and 
 good institutions are making more and 
 more apparent. It seems to us that, 
 through these causes, political life is 
 less and less regarded as the only or 
 chief sphere for superior minds, and 
 that influence and honor are more and 
 more accumulated in the hands of liter- 
 ary and thinking men. Of consequence, 
 more and more of the intellect of com- 
 munities is to be drawn to literature. 
 The distinction between antiquity and 
 the present times, in respect to the im- 
 portance attached to political life, seems 
 to us striking ; and it is not an acci- 
 dental difference, but founded on per- 
 manent causes which are to operate with 
 increased power. In ancient times, every 
 thing, abroad and at home, threw men 
 upon the public, and generated an in- 
 tense thirst for political power. On the 
 contrary, the improvement of later pe- 
 riods inclines men to give importance to 
 literature. For example, the instability 
 of the ancient republics, the unsettled 
 relations of different classes of society, 
 the power of demagogues and orators, 
 the intensity of factions, the want of 
 moral and religious restraints, the want 
 of some regular organ for expressing the 
 public mind, the want of precedents and 
 precise laws for the courts of justice,
 
 138 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 these and other circumstances gave to 
 the ancient citizen a feeling as if revo- 
 lutions and convulsions were inseparable 
 from society, turned his mind with un- 
 remitting anxiety to public affairs, and 
 made a participation of political power 
 an important, if not an essential, means 
 of personal safety. Again, the ancient 
 citizen had no home, in our sense of the 
 word. He lived in the market, the forum, 
 the place of general resort, and of course 
 his attention was very much engrossed 
 by affairs of state. Again, religion, 
 which now more than all things throws 
 a man upon himself, was in ancient times 
 a public concern, and turned men to po- 
 litical life. The religion of the heart and 
 closet was unknown. The relation of the 
 gods to particular states was their most 
 prominent attribute ; and to .conciliate 
 their favor to the community, the chief 
 end of worship. Accordingly, religion 
 consisted chiefly in public and national 
 rites. In Rome, the highest men in the 
 state presided at the altar, and, adding 
 to their other titles that of Supreme 
 Pontiff, performed the most solemn 
 functions of the priesthood. Thus the 
 whole strength of the religious principle 
 was turned into political channels. The 
 gods were thought to sustain no higher 
 office than a political one, and of conse- 
 quence this was esteemed the most glo- 
 rious for men. Once more, in ancient 
 times political rank was vastly more effi- 
 cient, whether for good or for evil, than 
 at^present, and of consequence was the 
 object of a more insatiable ambition. It 
 was almost the only way of access to the 
 multitude. The public man held a sway 
 
 over opinion, over his country, perhaps 
 over foreign states, now unknown. It is 
 the influence of the press and of good 
 institutions to reduce the importance of 
 the man of office. In proportion as pri- 
 vate individuals can act on the public 
 mind ; in proportion as a people read, 
 think, and have the means of expressing 
 and enforcing their opinions ; in propor- 
 tion as laws become fixed, known, and 
 sanctioned by the moral sense of the 
 community ; in proportion as the inter- 
 est of the state, the principles of admin- 
 istration, and all public measures are 
 subjected to free and familiar discussion, 
 government becomes a secondary influ- 
 ence. The power passes into the hands 
 of those who think, write, and spread 
 their minds far and wide. Accordingly, 
 literature is to become more and more 
 the instrument of swaying men, of doing 
 good, of achieving fame. The contrast 
 between ancient and modern times, in 
 the particulars now stated, is too obvious 
 to need illustration, and our great infer- 
 ence is equally clear. The vast improve- 
 ments which, in the course of ages, have 
 taken place in social order, in domestic 
 life, in religion, in knowledge, all con- 
 spire to one result, all tend to introduce 
 other and higher influences than political 
 power, and to give to that form of intel- 
 lectual effort which we call literature do- 
 minion over human affairs. Thus truth, 
 we apprehend, is more and more felt ; 
 and from its influence, joined with our 
 peculiar condition and free institutions, 
 we hope for our country the happiness 
 and glory of a pure, deep, rich, beautiful, 
 and ennobling literature. 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 [i. Fourth Annual Report to the American Unitarian 
 Association, read and accepted May 26, 1829, 
 with the Addresses at the Annual Meeting. 
 
 2. The Second Annual Report of the Executive Com- 
 
 mittee of the American Society for the Promo- 
 tion of Temperance, presented January 28, 1829. 
 
 3. First Annual Report of the General Union for Pro- 
 
 moting the Observance of the Christian Sab- 
 bath, adopted May 12, 1829.] 
 
 WE have affixed to this article the 
 titles of several reports of societies, not 
 so much for the purpose of discussing 
 the merits of the several institutions 
 
 whose labors they celebrate, as with the 
 more general design of offering some 
 remarks on the disposition which now 
 prevails to form associations, and to ac- 
 complish all objects by organized masses. 
 A difference of opinion on this point has 
 begun to manifest itself, and murmurs 
 against the countless societies which 
 modestly solicit or authoritatively claim 
 our aid, which now assail us with fair 
 promises of the good which they pur-
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 139 
 
 pose, and now with rhetorical encomi- 
 ums on the good they have done, begin 
 to break forth from the judicious and 
 well disposed, as well as from the queru- 
 lous and selfish. These doubts and com- 
 plaints, however, are most frequently 
 excited by particular cases of unfair or 
 injurious operations in societies. As 
 yet no general principles have been 
 established, by which the value of this 
 mode of action may be determined, or 
 the relative claims of different associa- 
 tions may be weighed. We will not 
 promise to supply the deficiency, but we 
 hope to furnish some help to a sounder 
 judgment than yet prevails on the subject. 
 That the subject deserves attention, 
 no man who observes the signs of the 
 times can doubt. Its importance forces 
 itself on the reflecting. In truth, one of 
 the most remarkable circumstances or 
 features of our age is the energy with 
 which the principle of combination, or 
 of action by joint forces, by associated 
 numbsrs, is manifesting itself. It may 
 be said, without much exaggeration, that 
 every thing is done now by societies. 
 Men have learned what wonders can be 
 accomplished in certain cases by union, 
 and seem to think that union is compe- 
 tent to every thing. You can scarcely 
 name an object for which some institu- 
 tion has not been formed. Would men 
 spread one set of opinions or crush an- 
 other ? They make a society. Would 
 they improve the penal code, or -relieve 
 poor debtors ? They make societies. 
 Would they encourage agriculture, or 
 manufactures, or science ? They make 
 societies. Would one class encourage 
 horse-racing, and another discourage 
 travelling on Sunday ? They form soci- 
 eties. We have immense institutions 
 spreading over the country, combining 
 hosts for particular objects. We have 
 minute ramifications of these societies, 
 penetrating everywhere except through 
 the poor-house, and conveying resources 
 from the domestic, the laborer, and even 
 the child, to the central treasury. This 
 principle of association is worthy the 
 attention of the philosopher, who simply 
 aims to understand society and its most 
 powerful springs. To the philanthropist 
 and the Christian it is exceedingly in- 
 teresting, for it is a mighty engine, and 
 must act either for good or for evil, to 
 an extent which no man can foresee or 
 comprehend. 
 
 It is very easy, we conceive, to explain 
 this great development of the principle 
 of co-operation. The main cause is, the 
 immense facility given to intercourse by 
 modern improvements, by increased com- 
 merce and travelling, by the post-office, 
 by the steam-boat, and especially by 
 the press, by newspapers, periodicals, 
 tracts, and other publications. Through 
 these means, men of one mind, through 
 a whole country, easily understand one 
 another, and easily act together. The 
 grand manoeuvre to which Napoleon 
 owed his victories we mean the con- 
 centration of great numbers on a single 
 point is now placed within the reach 
 of all parties and sects. It may be said 
 that, by facilities of intercourse, men are 
 brought within one another's attraction, 
 and become arranged according to their 
 respective affinities. Those who have 
 one great object find one another out 
 through a vast extent of country, join 
 their forces, settle their mode of opera- 
 tion, and act together with the uniform- 
 ity of a disciplined army. So exten- 
 sive have coalitions become, through the 
 facilities now described, and so various 
 and rapid are the means of communi- 
 cation, that, when a few leaders have 
 agreed on an object, an impulse may be 
 given in a month to the whole country, 
 whole states may be deluged with tracts 
 and other publications, and a voice like 
 that of many waters be called forth from 
 immense and widely separated multi- 
 tudes. Here is a new power brought to 
 bear on society, and it is a great moral 
 question how it ought to be viewed, 
 and what duties it imposes. 
 
 That this mode of action has advan- 
 tages and recommendations is very ob- 
 vious. The principal arguments in its 
 favor may be stated in a few words. 
 Men, it is justly said, can do jointly 
 what they cannot do singly. The union 
 of minds and hands works wonders. 
 Men grow efficient by concentrating 
 their powers. Joint effort conquers nat- 
 ure, hews through mountains, rears pyr- 
 amids, dikes out the ocean. Man, left 
 to himself, living without a fellow, if 
 he could indeed so live, would be one 
 of the weakest of creatures. Associated 
 with his kind, he gains dominion over the 
 strongest animals, over the earth and the 
 sea, and, by his growing knowledge, may 
 be said to obtain a kind of property in the 
 universe.
 
 140 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 Nor is this all. Men not only accu- 
 mulate power by union, but gain warmth 
 and earnestness. The heart is kindled. 
 An electric communication is estab- 
 lished between those who are brought 
 nigh and bound to each other in com- 
 mon labors. Man droops in solitude. 
 No sound excites him like the voice of 
 his fellow-creature. The mere sight of 
 a human countenance, brightened with 
 strong and generous emotion, gives new 
 strength to act or suffer. Union not 
 only brings to a point forces which be- 
 fore existed, and which were ineffectual 
 through separation, but, by the feeling 
 and interest which it rouses, it becomes 
 a creative principle, calls forth new 
 forces, and gives the mind a conscious- 
 ness of powers which would otherwise 
 have been unknown. 
 
 We have here given the common 
 arguments by which the disposition to 
 association is justified and recommend- 
 ed. They may be summed up in a few 
 words ; namely, that our social princi- 
 ples and relations are the great springs 
 of improvement, and of vigorous and 
 efficient exertion. That there is much 
 truth in this representation of the influ- 
 ences of society we at once feel. That, 
 without impulses and excitements from 
 abroad, without sympathies and com- 
 munication with our fellow-creatures, we 
 should gain nothing and accomplish noth- 
 ing, we mean not to deny. Still, we appre- 
 hend that on this subject there is a want 
 of accurate views and just discrimination. 
 We apprehend that the true use of so- 
 ciety is not sufficiently understood ; that 
 the chief benefit which it is intended to 
 confer, and the chief danger to which 
 it exposes us, are seldom weighed, and 
 that errors or crude opinions on these 
 points deprive us of many benefits of 
 our social connections. These topics 
 have an obvious bearing on the subject 
 of this article. It is plain that the bet- 
 ter we understand the true use, the chief 
 benefit, and the chief peril of our social 
 principles and relations, the better we 
 shall be prepared to judge of associa- 
 tions which are offered to our patron- 
 age. On these topics, then, we propose 
 first to give our views ; and in so doing 
 we shall allow ourselves a considerable 
 latitude, because, in our judgment, the 
 influences of society at present tend 
 strongly to excess, and especially men- 
 ace that individuality of character for 
 
 which they can yield no adequate com- 
 pensation. 
 
 The great principle from which we 
 start in this preliminary discussion, and 
 in which all our views of the topics 
 above proposed are involved, may be 
 briefly expressed. It is this : Society 
 is chiefly important as it ministers to, 
 and calls forth, intellectual and moral 
 energy and freedom. Its action on the 
 individual is beneficial in proportion as 
 it awakens in him a power to act on 
 himself, and to control or withstand the 
 social influences to which he is at first 
 subjected. Society serves us by fur- 
 nishing objects, occasions, materials, 
 excitements, through which the whole 
 soul may be brought into vigorous ex- 
 ercise, may acquire a consciousness of 
 its free and responsible nature, may be- 
 come a law to itself, and may rise to the 
 happiness and dignity of framing and 
 improving itself without limit or end. 
 Inward, creative energy is the highest 
 good which accrues to us from our 
 social principles and connections. The 
 mind is enriched, not by what it pas- 
 sively receives from others, but by its 
 own action on what it receives. We 
 would especially affirm of virtue that it 
 does not consist in what we inherit, or 
 what comes to us from abroad. It is of 
 inward growth, and it grows by nothing 
 so much as by resistance of foreign in- 
 fluences, by acting from our deliberate 
 convictions, in opposition to the princi- 
 ples of sympathy and imitation. Ac- 
 cording to these views, our social nature 
 and connections are means. Inward 
 power is the end, a power which is 
 to triumph over and control the influence 
 of society. 
 
 We are told that we owe to society 
 our most valuable knowledge. And true 
 it is, that were we cast from birth into 
 solitude we should grow up in brutal 
 ignorance. But it is also true that the 
 knowledge which we receive is of little 
 value any farther than it is food and 
 excitement to intellectual action. Its 
 worth is to be measured by the energy 
 with which it is sought and employed. 
 Knowledge is noble, in proportion as it 
 is prolific, in proportion as it quick- 
 ens the mind to the acquisition of higher 
 truth. Let it be rested in passively, and 
 it profits us nothing. Let the judgment 
 of others be our trust, so that we cease 
 to judge for ourselves, and the intellect
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 141 
 
 is degraded into a worthless machine. 
 The dignity of the mind is to be esti- 
 mated by the energy of its efforts for 
 its own enlargement. It becomes heroic 
 when it reverences itself and asserts its 
 freedom in a cowardly and servile age ; 
 when it withstands society through a 
 calm but invincible love of truth, and 
 a consciousness of the dignity and pro- 
 gressiveness of its powers. 
 
 The indispensable necessity of in- 
 struction from our fellow-creatures we 
 in no degree question. But perhaps 
 few are aware how imperfect are the 
 conceptions received from the best in- 
 structor, and how much must be done 
 by our own solitary thinking to give 
 them consistency and vividness. It may 
 be doubted whether a fellow-creature 
 can ever impart to us apprehensions of 
 a conjplex subject which are altogether 
 just. Be the teacher ever so unerring, 
 his language can hardly communicate 
 his mind with entire precision ; for few 
 words awaken exactly the same thoughts 
 in different men. The views which we 
 receive from the most gifted beings are 
 at best an approximation to truth. We 
 have spoken of unerring teachers ; but 
 where are these to be found ? Our daily 
 intercourse is with fallible beings, most 
 of whom are undisciplined in intellect, 
 the slaves of prejudice, and unconscious 
 of their own spiritual energies. The 
 essential condition of intellectual prog- 
 ress in such a world is the resistance 
 of social influences, or of impressions 
 from our fellow-beings. 
 
 What we have said of intellectual is 
 still more true of moral progress. No 
 human being exists whose character can 
 be proposed as a faultless model. But, 
 could a perfect individual be found, we 
 should only injure ourselves by indis- 
 criminate, servile imitation ; for much 
 which is good in another is good in him 
 alone, belongs to his peculiar constitu- 
 tion, has been the growth of his peculiar 
 experience, is harmonious and beautiful 
 only in combination with his other at- 
 tributes, and would be unnatural, awk- 
 ward, and forced in a servile imitator. 
 The very strength of emotion which in 
 one man is virtue in another would be 
 defect ; for virtue depends on the bal- 
 ance which exists between the various 
 principles of the soul ; and that intense- 
 ness of feeling which, when joined with 
 force of thought and purpose, is health- 
 
 ful and invigorating, would prove a dis- 
 ease, or might approach insanity, in a 
 weak and sensitive mind. No man 
 should part with his individuality, and 
 aim to become another. No process 'is 
 so fatal as that which would cast all 
 men into one mould. Every human 
 being is intended to have a character 
 of his own, to be what no other is, to 
 do what no other can do. Our common 
 nature is to be unfolded in unbounded 
 diversities. It is rich enough for infi- 
 nite manifestations. It is to wear in- 
 numerable forms of beauty and glory. 
 Every human being has a work to carry 
 on within, duties to perform abroad, in- 
 fluences to exert which are peculiarly 
 his, and which no conscience but his 
 own can teach. Let him not, then, en- 
 slave his conscience to others, but act 
 with the freedom, strength, and dignity 
 of one whose highest law is in his own 
 breast. 
 
 We know that it may be replied to 
 us, that Providence, by placing us at 
 birth in entire subjection to social in- 
 fluences, has marked out society as the 
 great instrument of determining the 
 human mind. The child, it is said, is 
 plainly designed to receive passively, 
 and with unresisting simplicity, a host 
 of impressions, thoughts, and feelings 
 from those around him. This we know. 
 But we know, too, that childhood is 
 not to endure for ever. We know that 
 the impressions, pleasures, pains, which 
 throng and possess the infant mind, are 
 intended to awaken in it an energy by 
 which it is to subject them to itself ; by 
 which it is to separate from the crude 
 mass what is true and pure ; by which it 
 is to act upon, and modify, and throw 
 into new combinations, the materials 
 forced upon it originally by sensation 
 and society. It is only by putting forth 
 this inward and self-forming power that 
 we emerge from childhood. He who 
 continues to be passively moulded pro- 
 longs his infancy to the tomb. There 
 is deep wisdom in the declaration of 
 Jesus, that, to be his disciple, we must 
 "hate father and mother;" or, in other 
 words, that we must surrender the preju- 
 dices of education to the new lights 
 which God gives us ; that the love of 
 truth must triumph over the influences 
 of our best and earliest friends ; that, 
 forsaking the maxims of society, we 
 must frame ourselves according to the
 
 142 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 standard of moral perfection set before 
 us in the life, spirit, and teachings of 
 Jesus Christ. It is interesting to ob- 
 serve how the Creator, who has sub- 
 jected the child at first to social influ- 
 ences, has, even at that age, provided 
 for its growing freedom, by inspiring it 
 with an overflowing animation, an inex- 
 pressible joy, an impatience of limits, a 
 thirst for novelty, a delight in adventure, 
 an ardent fancy, all suited to balance 
 the authority of the old, and gradually 
 mingling with the credulity of infancy 
 that questioning, doubting spirit, on 
 which intellectual progress chiefly de- 
 pends. 
 
 The common opinion is, that our dan- 
 ger from society arises wholly from its 
 bad members, and that we cannot easily 
 be too much influenced by the good. 
 But, to our apprehension, there is a 
 peril in the influence both of good -and 
 bad. What many of us have chiefly to 
 dread from society is, not that we shall 
 acquire a positive character of vice, but 
 that it will impose on us a negative 
 character ; that we shall live and die 
 passive beings ; that the creative and self- 
 forming energy of the soul will not be 
 called forth in the work of our improve- 
 ment. Our danger is, that we shall sub- 
 stitute the consciences of others for our 
 own, that we shall paralyze our faculties 
 through dependence on foreign guides, 
 that we shall be moulded from abroad 
 instead of determining ourselves. The 
 pressure of society upon us is constant 
 and almost immeasurable ; now open 
 and direct in the form of authority and 
 menace, now subtile and silent in the 
 guise of blandishment and promise. 
 What mighty power is lodged in a frown 
 or a smile, in the voice of praise and 
 flattery, in scorn or neglect, in public 
 opinion, in domestic habits and preju- 
 dices, in the state and spirit of the com- 
 munity to which we belong ! Nothing 
 escapes the cognizance of society. Its 
 legislation extends even to our dress, 
 movements, features ; and the individual 
 bears the traces, even in countenance, 
 air, and voice, of the social influences 
 amidst which he has been plunged. We 
 are in great peril of growing up slaves 
 to this exacting, arbitrary sovereign ; of 
 forgetting, or never learning, our true 
 responsibility ; of living in unconscious- 
 ness of that divine power with which 
 we are invested over ourselves, and 
 
 in which all the dignity of our nature 
 is concentred ; of overlooking the sa- 
 credness of our minds, and laying them 
 open to impressions from any and all 
 who surround us. Resistance of this 
 foreign pressure is our only safeguard, 
 and is essential to virtue. All virtue 
 lies in individual action, in inward 
 energy, in self-determination. There is 
 no moral worth in being swept away by 
 a crowd, even towards the best ob- 
 jects. We must act from an inward 
 spring. The good as well as the bad 
 may injure us, if through that intoler- 
 ance which is a common infirmity of the 
 good, they impose on us authoritatively 
 their own convictions, and obstruct our 
 own intellectual and moral activity. A 
 state of society in which correct habits 
 prevail, may produce in many a mechan- 
 ical regularity and religion wliich is 
 any thing but virtue. Nothing morally 
 great or good springs from mere sym- 
 pathy and imitation. These principles 
 will only forge chains for us, and per- 
 petuate our infancy, unless more and 
 more controlled and subdued by that 
 inward lawgiver and judge, whose au- 
 thority is from God, and whose sway 
 over our whole nature alone secures its 
 free, glorious, and everlasting expan- 
 sion. 
 
 The truth is, and we need to feel it 
 most deeply, that our connection with 
 society, as it is our greatest aid, so it is 
 our greatest peril. We are in constant 
 danger of being spoiled of our moral 
 judgment, and of our power over our- 
 selves ; and, in losing these, we lose 
 the chief prerogatives of spiritual beings. 
 We sink, as far as mind can sink, 
 into the world of matter, the chief 
 distinction of which is, that it wants 
 self-motion, or moves only from foreign 
 impulse. . The propensity in our fellow- 
 creatures which we have most to dread 
 is that which, though most severely con- 
 demned by Jesus, is yet the most fre- 
 quent infirmity of his followers, we 
 mean the propensity to rule, to tyrannize, 
 to war with the freedom of their equals, 
 to make themselves standards for other 
 minds, to be lawgivers, instead of breth- 
 ren and friends, to their race. Our great 
 and most difficult duty, as social beings, 
 is, to derive constant aid from society 
 without taking its yoke ; to- open our 
 minds to the thoughts, reasonings, and 
 persuasions of others, and yet to hold
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 143 
 
 fast the sacred right of private judg- 
 ment ; to receive impulses from our 
 fellow-beings, and yet to act from our 
 own souls ; to sympathize with others, 
 ancl yet to determine our own feelings ; 
 to act with others, and yet to follow our 
 own consciences ; to unite social defer- 
 ence and self-dominion ; to join moral 
 self-subsistence with social dependence ; 
 to respect others without losing self- 
 respect ; to love our friends and to rev- 
 erence our superiors, whilst our su- 
 preme homage is given to that moral 
 perfection which no friend and no supe- 
 rior has realized, and which, if faithfully- 
 pursued, will often demand separation 
 from all around us. Such is our great 
 work as social beings, and to per- 
 form it, we should look habitually to 
 Jesus Christ, who was distinguished by 
 nothing more than by moral independ- 
 ence, than by resisting and overcom- 
 ing the world. 
 
 The reverence for our own moral 
 nature, on which we have now insisted, 
 needs earnest and perpetual inculcation. 
 This virtue finds few aids from abroad. 
 All religions and governments have 
 more or less warred with it. Even 
 that religion which came from God to 
 raise man to a moral empire over him- 
 self, has been seized on by the selfish 
 and intolerant principles of human nat- 
 ure, and all its sanctions have been 
 brought to bear against that free, inde- 
 pendent action of thought and" con- 
 science which it was chiefly intended to 
 promote. In truth, men need to be in- 
 structed in nothing more than in what 
 they owe to their own spiritual faculties. 
 The sacredness of the moral principle in 
 every human breast ; its divine right of 
 dominion ; the jealousy with which it 
 ought to be protected against our own 
 passions and the usurpations of society ; 
 the watchful care with which it should 
 be unfolded, refined, and fortified, by 
 communion with ourselves, with great 
 and good minds, with that brightest 
 manifestation of God, Jesus Christ, and 
 with God Himself ; the awe with which 
 its deliberate dictates should be heard ; 
 the energy which it may and should put 
 forth in opposition to pleasure and pain, 
 to human frowns or smiles ; the sublime 
 tranquillity to which it may ascend ; the 
 conscious union with God which it may 
 attain, and through which it seems to 
 partake of his omnipotence, these 
 
 prerogatives of the moral nature, of 
 that element and spark of divinity in 
 the soul, are almost forgotten in the 
 condition of servitude to which the 
 multitude are reduced by the joint tyr- 
 anny of the passions and of society. 
 
 It is interesting and encouraging to 
 observe, that the enslaving power of 
 society over the mind is decreasing, 
 through what would seem at first to 
 threaten its enlargement; we mean, 
 through the extension of social inter- 
 course. This is a distinction of our 
 age, and one of its chief means of im- 
 provement. Men are widening their 
 bounds, exchanging thoughts and feel- 
 ings with fellow-beings far and wide, 
 with inhabitants of other countries, with 
 subjects of other governments, with pro- 
 fessors of other modes of faith. Distant 
 nations are brought near, and are acting 
 on one another with a new power ; and 
 the result is, that these differing and 
 often hostile influences balance or neu- 
 tralize one another, and almost compel 
 the intellect to act, to compare, to judge, 
 to frame itself. This we deem an immense 
 benefit of the multiplication of books at 
 the present day. The best books con- 
 tain errors, and deserve a very limited 
 trust. But wherever men of thought 
 and genius publish freely, they will per- 
 petually send forth new views, to keep 
 alive the intellectual action of the world ; 
 will give a frequent shock to received 
 opinions ; will lead men to contemplate 
 great subjects from new positions, and 
 by thus awakening individual and inde- 
 pendent energy, will work higher good 
 than by the knowledge which they 
 spread. The same effect is to be an- 
 ticipated from the study of different lan- 
 guages, which occupies more and more 
 space in our systems of education : and 
 we believe this to be the happiest effect. 
 A great man used to say that, in learn- 
 ing a new language, he had gained a new 
 soul, so fresh and original were the views 
 which it opened to him. A new lan- 
 guage, considered in itself, or without 
 reference to the writings which it con- 
 tains, seems to us a valuable possession, 
 on account of the new combinations of 
 thought which its vocabulary presents ; 
 and when regarded as the key to the 
 minds of a people whose institutions, 
 education, climate, temperament, relig- 
 ion, and history differ from our own, 
 and in whom, of consequence, our com-
 
 144 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 mon nature is taking a new form, it is, 
 to one who has power to understand its 
 use, an invaluable acquisition. In truth, 
 we cannot express too strongly the im- 
 portance we attach to an enlarged inter- 
 course with other minds, considered as 
 the means of freeing and quickening 
 our own. This is the chief good of ex- 
 tensive institutions for education. They 
 place us under diversified social influ- 
 ences ; connect us with the dead as 
 well as with the living ; accumulate for 
 us the thoughts of all ages and na- 
 tions ; take us out of the narrow circle 
 of a neighborhood, or church, or com- 
 munity ; make us fellow-citizens with 
 the friends of truth under the whole 
 heaven, and, through these various and 
 often hostile influences, aid and en- 
 courage us to that independent moral 
 judgment and intellectual discrimination 
 by which our views are more and more 
 purified and enlarged. 
 
 We regret that religion has not done 
 more to promote this enlarged inter- 
 course of minds, the great means, as 
 we have seen, of reconciling social aids 
 with personal independence. As yet, 
 religion has generally assumed a sec- 
 tarian form, and its disciples, making 
 narrowness a matter of conscience, have 
 too often shunned connection with men 
 of different views as a pestilence, and 
 yielded their minds to the exclusive in- 
 fluences of the leaders and teachers of 
 their separate factions. Indeed, we fear 
 that in no department of life has the so- 
 cial principle been perverted more into 
 an instrument of intellectual thraldom 
 than in religion. We could multiply 
 proofs without end, but will content our- 
 selves with a single illustration drawn 
 from what are called " revivals of relig- 
 ion." We have many objections to these 
 as commonly conducted ; but nothing 
 offends us more than their direct and 
 striking tendency to everwhelm the mind 
 with foreign influences, and to strip it 
 of all self-direction. In these feverish 
 seasons, religion, or what bears the 
 name, is spread, as by contagion, and to 
 escape it is almost as difficult as to avoid 
 a raging epidemic. Whoever knows any 
 thing of human nature, knows the effect 
 of excitement in a crowd. When sys- 
 tematically prolonged and urged onward, 
 it subverts deliberation and self-control. 
 The individual is lost in the mass, and 
 borne away as in a whirlwind. Tha 
 
 prevalent emotion, be it love or hatred, 
 terror or enthusiasm, masters every 
 mind which is not fortified by a rare 
 energy, or secured by a rare insensi- 
 bility. In revivals, a multitude are sub- 
 jected at once to strong emotions, which 
 are swelled and perpetuated by the most 
 skilful management. The individual is 
 never suffered to .escape the grasp of the 
 leading or subordinate agents in the 
 work.* A machinery of social influ- 
 ences, of " inquiry meetings," of " anx- 
 ious meetings," of conferences, of prayer 
 meetings, of perpetual private or public 
 impulses, is brought to bear on the dis- 
 eased subject, until, exhausted in body 
 and mind, he becomes the passive, power- 
 less recipient of whatever form or im- 
 pressions it may be thought fit to give 
 him. Happily for mankind, our nature 
 loses its sensibility to perpetual stimu- 
 lants, and of consequence a revival is 
 succeeded by what is called "a dull, 
 dead, stupid season." This dull time is 
 a merciful repose granted by Providence 
 to the overwrought and oppressed mind, 
 and gives some chance for calm, delib- 
 erate, individual thought and action. 
 Thus the kindness of nature is perpetu- 
 ally counterworking the excesses of men, 
 and a religion which begins in partial in- 
 sanity is often seen to attain by degrees 
 to the calmness and dignity of reason. 
 
 In the preceding remarks we have 
 stated, at greater length than we in- 
 tended, our views of the true and high- 
 est benefits of society. These seem to 
 us great, unspeakably great. At the 
 same time, like all other goods, they are 
 accompanied with serious perils. So- 
 ciety too often oppresses the energy 
 which it was meant to quicken and 
 exalt. We now pass to our principal 
 subject ; to the associations for public 
 purposes, whether benevolent, moral, or 
 religious, which are so multiplied in the 
 present age. And here we must confine 
 ourselves to two remarks ; the first in- 
 tended to assign to such associations 
 their proper place or rank, and the 
 second, to suggest a principle by which 
 
 * We recollect seeing the following direction gravely 
 given for managing revivals, in the book of a minister 
 experienced in this work : "Be careful never to 
 kindle more fires than you can tend." In other words, 
 Do not awaken and alarm more persons than you can 
 place under constant inspection, and beset with per- 
 petual excitements. What a strange rule for persons 
 who profess to believe that these fires" are "kin- 
 dled supernal urally by the Holy Spirit!
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 145 
 
 useful societies may be distinguished 
 from such as are pernicious, and by 
 which we may be aided in distributing 
 among them our favor and patronage. 
 
 Our first remark is, that we should 
 beware of confounding together, as of 
 equal importance, those associations 
 which are formed by our Creator, which 
 spring from our very constitution, and 
 are inseparable from our being, and 
 those of which we are now treating, 
 which man invents for particular times 
 and exigencies. Let us never place our 
 weak, short-sighted contrivances on a 
 level with the arrangements of God. 
 We have acknowledged the infinite im- 
 portance of society to the development 
 of human powers and affections. But 
 when we speak thus of society, we mean 
 chiefly the relations in which God has 
 placed us ; we mean the connections of 
 family, of neighborhood, of country, and 
 the great bond of humanity, uniting us 
 with our whole kind, and not mission- 
 ary societies, peace societies, or charita- 
 ble societies, which men have contrived. 
 These last have their uses, and some do 
 great good ; but they are no more to be 
 compared with the societies in which 
 nature places us, than the torches which 
 we kindle on earth in the darkness of 
 night are to be paralleled with the all- 
 pervading and all-glorifying light of the 
 sun. We make these remarks, because 
 nothing is more common than for men 
 to forget the value of what is familiar, 
 natural, and universal, and to ascribe 
 undue importance to what is extraordi- 
 nary, forced, and rare, and therefore 
 striking. Artificial associations have 
 their use, but are not be named with 
 those of nature ; and to these last, there- 
 fore we are to give our chief regard. 
 
 We can easily illustrate by examples 
 the inferiority of human associations. 
 In Boston, there are two asylums for 
 children, which deserve, we think, a 
 high place among useful institutions. 
 Not a little time is spent upon them. 
 Hundreds conspire to carry them on, 
 and we have anniversaries to collect 
 crowds for their support. And what is 
 the amount of good accomplished ? Be- 
 tween one and two hundred children are 
 provided for, a number worthy of all the 
 care bestowed on these charities. But 
 compare this number with all the chil- 
 dren of this city, with the thousands 
 who throng our streets and our schools. 
 
 And how are these fed, clothed, edu- 
 cated ? We hear of no subscriptions, 
 no anniversaries for their benefit ; yet 
 how they flourish compared with the 
 subjects of asylums ! These are pro- 
 vided for by that unostentatious and 
 unpraised society, which God has insti- 
 tuted, a family. That shelter, home, 
 which nature rears, protects them, and 
 it is an establishment worth infinitely 
 more than all the institutions, great or 
 small, which man has devised. In truth,- 
 just as far as this is improved, as its 
 duties are performed and its blessings 
 prized, all artificial institutions are su- 
 perseded. Here, then, is the sphere for 
 the agency of the wise and good. Im- 
 prove the family, strengthen and purify 
 the relations of domestic life, and more 
 is done for the happiness and progress 
 of the race than by the most splendid 
 charities. Let us take another example, 
 the hospital in the samai metropolis ; a 
 noble institution, worthy of high praise. 
 But where is it that the sick of our city 
 are healed ?. Must you look for them 
 in the hospital ? You may find there, 
 perhaps, and should rejoice to find there, 
 fifty or sixty beds for the poor. The 
 thousands who sicken and die among us 
 are to be found in their homes, watched 
 over by the nursing care of mothers and 
 sisters, surrounded by that tenderness 
 which grows up only at home. Let us 
 take another example, missionary so- 
 cieties. This whole country is thrown 
 into excitement to support missions. 
 The rich are taxed, and the poor bur- 
 dened. We do not say that they are 
 burdened without object ; for Christi- 
 anity is so infinite a blessing that we 
 consent to any honest methods of send- 
 ing it abroad. But what is the amount 
 of good effected ? A few missionaries, 
 we know not the precise number, are 
 supported, of whom most have hitherto 
 brought little to pass. Who can compare 
 associations for this object with churches, 
 or those congregations of neighbors for 
 regular worship which Christianity has 
 instituted, and to which nature has al- 
 ways prompted the professors of the same 
 faith ? Through these, incalculable aid 
 is given to the support and diffusion of 
 Christianity ; and yet. through the pro- 
 pensity of human nature to exaggerate 
 what is forced and artificial, one mis- 
 sionary at a distance is thought of more 
 importance than a hundred ministers 
 
 10
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 near, and the sending of him abroad is 
 extolled as an incomparably greater ex- 
 ploit of piety than the support of our 
 own places of worship. We mean not to 
 discourage missionary societies ; but the 
 truth is, that Christianity is to be dif- 
 fused incomparably more by caring for 
 and promoting it in our natural relations, 
 in our homes, in our common circles and 
 churches, than by institutions endowed 
 with the revenues of nations for sending 
 it to distant lands. The great obstruc- 
 tion to Christianity among foreign na- 
 tions is its inoperativeness among the 
 nations which profess it. We offer 
 others a religion which, in their appre- 
 hension, has done the givers no great 
 good. The true course is to rely less 
 on our machinery of cent societies and 
 national societies, and to rely more on 
 the connections and arrangements of nat- 
 ure or of God. 
 
 We beg not to be misunderstood. 
 We would on no account discourage 
 the asylum, the hospital, the mission- 
 ary society. All receive our cheerful 
 support. We only mean to say that 
 our great sources of improvement and 
 happiness are our natural relations and 
 associations, and that to understand 
 these better, and to attach ourselves 
 more faithfully to their duties, are the 
 great social means of carrying forward 
 the world. A striking confirmation of 
 these remarks may be found in the 
 Romish Church. The probability is, 
 that, under the Catholic religion in the 
 dark ages, there were larger contribu- 
 . tions to the relief of the distressed, in 
 proportion to the wealth of communi- 
 ties, than at present, and contributions 
 by associations which regarded alms- 
 giving as one of their main duties, 
 we mean the monasteries. But the 
 monks, who quitted the relations of 
 nature, the society which God has in- 
 stituted, in order to form new and arti- 
 ficial bonds, more favorable, as they 
 thought, to doing good, made a sad 
 mistake. Their own characters were 
 injured, and the very charities doled out 
 from convents increased the beggary 
 which they hoped to relieve. So sacred 
 is nature, that it cannot be trampled on 
 with impunity. We fear that some- 
 thing similar to the error just noticed 
 among Catholics is spreading among 
 Protestants, the error of exalting so- 
 cieties of human device above our nat- 
 
 ural relations. We have been told that 
 cases occur among us, and are not rare, 
 in which domestic claims on kindness 
 are set aside for the sake of making 
 contributions to our great societies, and 
 especially to foreign missions. So pos- 
 sessed are the minds of multitudes with 
 the supreme importance of this object, 
 that there seems to them a piety in 
 withholding what would otherwise have 
 been thought due to a poor relative, 
 that it may be sent across oceans to 
 Pagan lands. We have heard that deli- 
 cate kindnesses, which once flowed from 
 the more prosperous to the less prosper- 
 ous members of a large family, and which 
 bound society together by that love 
 which is worth all bonds, are diminished 
 since the late excitement in favor of the 
 heathen. And this we do not wonder 
 at. In truth, -we rather wonder that 
 any thing is done for the temporal com- 
 fort of friends, where the doctrine on 
 which modern missions chiefly rest is 
 believed. We refer to the doctrine that 
 the whole heathen world are on the 
 brink of a bottomless and endless hell ; 
 that thousands every day, and millions 
 every year, are sinking into this abyss 
 of torture and woe ; and that nothing 
 can save them but sending them our 
 religion. We see not how they who so 
 believe can give their families or friends 
 a single comfort, much less an ornament 
 of life. They must be strongly tempted, 
 one would think, to stint themselves and 
 their dependants to necessaries, and to 
 cast their whole remaining substance 
 into the treasury of missionary socie- 
 ties. 
 
 We repeat it, let us not be misunder- 
 stood. Missionary societies, established 
 on just principles, do honor to a Chris- 
 tian community. We regard them with 
 any feeling but that of hostility. The 
 readers of this work cannot have for- 
 gotten the earnestness with which we 
 recommended the support of a mission 
 in India, at a time when we thought 
 that peculiar circumstances invited ex- 
 ertion in that quarter. We only oppose 
 the preference of these institutions to 
 the natural associations and connec- 
 tions of life. An individual who thinks 
 that he is doing a more religious act in 
 contributing to a missionary society than 
 in doing a needful act of kindness to 
 a relative, friend, or neighbor, is leav- 
 ing a society of God's institution for
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 147 
 
 one of man's making. He shows a 
 perverted judgment in regard to the 
 duties of his religion and in regard to 
 the best means of spreading it. All 
 that has been done, or ever will or can 
 be done, by associations for diffusing 
 Christianity, is a mere drop of the 
 bucket compared with what is done 
 silently and secretly by the common 
 daily duties of Christians in their fam- 
 ilies, neighborhoods, and business. The 
 surest way of .spreading Christianity is 
 to improve Christian communities : and, 
 accordingly, he who frees this religion 
 from corruption, and makes it a more 
 powerful instrument of virtue where it 
 is already professed, is the most effect- 
 ual contributor to the great work of its 
 diffusion through the world. 
 
 We now proceed to our second re- 
 mark, in which we proposed to suggest 
 a principle by which the claims of dif- 
 ferent associations may be estimated. 
 It is this : The value of associations 
 is to be measured by the energy, the 
 freedom, the activity, the moral power, 
 which they encourage and diffuse. In 
 truth, the great object of all benevo- 
 lence is to give power, activity, and 
 freedom to others. We cannot,'in the 
 strict sense of the word, make any be- 
 ing happy. We can give others the 
 means of happiness, together with mo- 
 tives to the faithful use of them : but 
 on this faithfulness, on the free and full 
 exercise of their own powers, their hap- 
 piness depends. There is thus a fixed, 
 impassable limit to human benevolence. 
 It can only make men happy through 
 themselves, through their own freedom 
 and energy. We go further. We be- 
 lieve that God has set the same limit 
 to his own benevolence. He makes no 
 being happy in any other sense than in 
 that of giving him means, powers, mo- 
 tives, and a field for exertion. We have 
 here, we think, the great consideration 
 to guide us in judging of associations. 
 Those are good which communicate 
 power, moral and intellectual action, 
 and the capacity of useful efforts to the 
 persons who form them, or to the per- 
 sons on whom they act. On the other 
 hand, associations which in any degree 
 impair or repress the free and full ac- 
 tion of men's powers, are so far hurt- 
 ful. On this principle, associations for 
 restoring to men health, strength, the 
 use of their limbs, the use of their 
 
 senses, especially of sight and hearing, 
 are highly to be approved, for such en- 
 large men's powers ; whilst charitable 
 associations, which weaken in men 
 the motives to exertion, which offer a 
 bounty to idleness, or make beggary 
 as profitable as labor, are great calam- 
 ities to society, and peculiarly calam- 
 itous to those whom they relieve. On 
 the same principle, associations which 
 are designed to awaken the human 
 mind, to give to men of all classes a 
 consciousness of their intellectual pow- 
 ers, to communicate knowledge of a 
 useful and quickening character, to en- 
 courage men in thinking with freedom 
 and vigor, to inspire an ardent love and 
 pursuit of truth, are most worthy of 
 patronage ; whilst such as are designed 
 or adapted to depress the human intel- 
 lect, to make it dependent and servile, 
 to keep it where it is, to give a limited 
 amount of knowledge, but not to give 
 impulse and an onward motion to men's 
 thoughts, all such associations, how- 
 ever benevolent their professions, should 
 be regarded as among the foes and ob- 
 structions to the best interests of soci- 
 ety. On the same principle, associations 
 aiming to purify and ennoble the char- 
 acter of a people, to promote true vir- 
 tue, a rational piety, a disinterested 
 charity, a wise temperance, and espe- 
 cially aiming to accomplish these ends 
 by the only effectual means, that is, by 
 calling forth men's own exertions for 
 a higher knowledge of God and duty, 
 and for a new and growing control 
 of themselves, such institutions are 
 among the noblest ; whilst no encour- 
 agement is due to such as aim to make 
 men religious and virtuous by paralyz- 
 ing their minds through terror, by fas- 
 tening on them a yoke of opinions or 
 practices, by pouring upon them influ- 
 ences from abroad which virtually an- 
 nihilate their power over themselves, 
 and make them instruments for others 
 to speak through and to wield at pleas- 
 ure. We beg our readers to carry with 
 them the principle now laid down in 
 judging of associations ; to inquire how 
 far they are fitted to call forth energy, 
 active talent, religious inquiry, a free 
 and manly virtue. We insist on these 
 remarks, because not a few associations 
 seem to us exceedingly exceptionable, 
 on account of their tendency to fetter 
 men, to repress energy, to injure the
 
 148 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 free action of individuals and society, 
 and because this tendency lurks, and is 
 to be guarded against, even in good in- 
 stitutions. On this point we cannot but 
 enlarge, for we deem it of the highest 
 importance. 
 
 Associations often injure free action 
 by a very plain and obvious operation. 
 They accumulate power in a few hands, 
 and this takes place just in proportion to 
 the surface over which they spread. In 
 a large institution, a few men rule, a few 
 do every thing ; and, if the institution 
 happens to be directed to objects about 
 which conflict and controversy exist, a 
 few are able to excite in the mass strong 
 and bitter passions, and by these to ob- 
 tain an immense ascendency. Through 
 such an association, widely spread, yet 
 closely connected by party feeling, a few 
 leaders can send their voices and spirit 
 far and wide, and, where great funds are 
 accumulated, can league a host of in- 
 struments, and by menace and appeals 
 to interest can silence opposition. Ac- 
 cordingly, we fear that in this country 
 an influence is growing up, through 
 widely spread societies, altogether at 
 war with the spirit of our institutions, 
 and which, unless jealously watched, 
 will gradually but surely encroach on 
 freedom of thought, of speech, and of 
 the press. It is very striking to observe 
 how, by such combinations, the very 
 means of encouraging a free action of 
 men's minds may be turned against it. 
 We all esteem the press as the safeguard 
 of our liberties, as the power which is to 
 quicken intellect by giving to all minds an 
 opportunity to act on all. Now, by means 
 of tract societies spread over a whole 
 community, and acting under a central 
 body, a few individuals, perhaps not 
 more than twenty, may determine the 
 chief reading for a great part of the 
 children of the community, and for a 
 majority of the adults, and may deluge 
 our country with worthless sectarian 
 writings, fitted only to pervert its taste, 
 degrade its intellect, and madden it 
 with intolerance. Let associations de- 
 voted to any objects which excite the 
 passions be everywhere spread and 
 leagued together for mutual support, 
 and nothing is easier than to establish a 
 control over newspapers. We are per- 
 suaded that, by an artful multiplication 
 of societies, devoted apparently to dif- 
 ferent objects, but all swayed by the 
 
 same leaders, and all intended to bear 
 against a hated party, as cruel a perse- 
 cution may be carried on in a free coun- 
 try as in a despotism. Public opinion 
 may be so combined, and inflamed, and 
 brought to bear on odious individuals or 
 opinions, that it will be as perilous to 
 think and speak with manly freedom as 
 if an inquisition were open before us. 
 It is now discovered that the way to 
 rule in this country is by an array of 
 numbers which a prudent man will not 
 like to face. Of consequence, all asso- 
 ciations aiming or tending to establish 
 sway by numbers ought to be opposed. 
 They create tyrants as effectually as 
 standing armies. Let them be withstood 
 from the beginning. No matter whether 
 the opinions which they intend to put 
 down be true or false. Let no opinion 
 be put down by such means. Let no 
 error be suppressed by an instrument 
 which will be equally powerful against 
 truth, and which must subvert that free- 
 dom of thought on which all truth de- 
 pends. Let the best end fail if it cannot 
 be accomplished by right and just means. 
 For example, we would have criminals 
 punished, but punished in the proper 
 way, and by a proper authority. It 
 were better that they should escape 
 than be imprisoned or executed by any 
 man who may think fit to assume the 
 office ; for sure we are that, by this 
 summary justice, the innocent would 
 soon suffer more than the guilty ; and, 
 on the same principle, we cannot con- 
 sent that what we deem error should be 
 crushed by the joint cries and denuncia- 
 tions of vast societies directed by the 
 tyranny of a few ; for truth has more to 
 dread from such weapons than false- 
 hood, and we know no truth against 
 which they may not be successfully 
 turned. In this country, few things are 
 more to be dreaded than organizations 
 or institutions by which public opinion 
 may be brought to bear tyrannically 
 against individuals or sects. From the 
 nature of things, public opinion is often 
 unjust ; but, when it is not embodied 
 and fixed by pledged societies, it easily 
 relents, it may receive new impulses, it 
 is opened to influences from the injured. 
 On the contrary, when shackled and 
 stimulated by vast associations, it is 
 in danger of becoming a steady, unre- 
 lenting tyrant, brow-beating the timid, 
 proscribing the resolute, silencing free
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 149 
 
 speech, and virtually denying the dear- 
 est religious and civil rights. We say 
 not that all great associations must be 
 thus abused. We know that some are 
 useful. We know, too, that there are 
 cases in which it is important that pub- 
 lic opinion should be condensed, or act 
 in a mass. We feel, however, that the 
 danger of great associations is increased 
 by the very fact that they are sometimes 
 useful. They are perilous instruments. 
 They ought to be suspected. They are 
 a kind of irregular government created 
 within our constitutional government. 
 Let them be watched closely. As soon 
 as we find them resolved or disposed to 
 bear down a respectable man or set of 
 men, or to force on the community 
 measures about which wise and good 
 men differ, let us feel that a dangerous 
 engine is at work among us, and oppose 
 to it our steady and stern disapproba- 
 tion. 
 
 We have spoken of the tendency of 
 great institutions to accumulate power in 
 a few hands. These few they make 
 more active ; but they tend to produce 
 dependence, and to destroy self-origi- 
 nated action in the vast multitudes who 
 compose them, and this is a serious in- 
 jury. Few comprehend the extent of 
 this evil. Individual action is the highest 
 
 ?ood. What we want is, that men should 
 o right more and more from their own 
 minds, and less and less from imitation, 
 from a foreign impulse, from sympathy 
 with a crowd. This is the kind of ac- 
 tion which we recommend. Would you 
 do good according to the gospel ? Do it 
 secretly, silently; so silently, that the left 
 hand will not know what the right hand 
 doeth. This precept does not favor the 
 clamorous and far-published efforts of a 
 leagued multitude. We mean not to 
 sever men from others in well-doing, for 
 we have said there are many good ob- 
 jects which can only be accomplished by 
 numbers. But, generally speaking, we 
 can do most good by individual action, 
 and our own virtue is incomparably more 
 improved by it. It is vastly better, for 
 example, that we should give our own 
 money with our own hands, from our 
 own judgment, and through personal 
 interest in the distresses of others, 
 than that we should send it by a sub- 
 stitute. Second-hand charity is not as 
 good to the giver or receiver as im- 
 mediate. There are, indeed, urgent 
 
 cases where we cannot act immediately, 
 or cannot alone do the good required. 
 There let us join with others ; but 
 where we can do good secretly, and sep- 
 arately, or only with some dear friend, 
 we shall almost certainly put forth in 
 this way more of intellect and heart, more 
 of sympathy and strenuous purpose, 
 and shall awaken more of virtuous 
 sensibility in those whom we relieve, 
 than if we were to be parts of a multi- 
 tude in accomplishing the same end. 
 Individual action is the great point to 
 be secured. That man alone under- 
 stands the true use of society who learns 
 from it to act more and more from his 
 own deliberate conviction, to think more 
 for himself, to be less swayed by num- 
 bers, to rely more on his own powers. 
 One good action, springing from our 
 own minds, performed from a principle 
 within, performed without the excite- 
 ment of an urging and approving voice 
 from abroad, is worth more than hun- 
 dreds which grow from mechanical im- 
 itation, or from the heat and impulse 
 which numbers give us. In truth, all 
 great actions are solitary ones. All the 
 great works of genius come from deep, 
 lonely thought. The writings which 
 have quickened, electrified, regenerated 
 the human mind, did not spring from as- 
 sociations. That is most valuable which 
 is individual, which is marked by what 
 is peculiar and characteristic in him who 
 accomplishes it. In truth, associations 
 are chiefly useful by giving means and 
 opportunities to gifted individuals to act 
 out their own minds. A missionary 
 society achieves little good, except when 
 it can send forth an individual who wants 
 no teaching or training from the soci- 
 ety, but who carries his commission and 
 chief power in his own soul. We urge 
 this, for we feel that we are all in danger 
 of sacrificing our individuality and inde- 
 pendence to our social connections. We 
 dread new social trammels. They are 
 too numerous already. From these views 
 we learn that there is cause to fear and 
 to withstand great associations, as far 
 as they interfere with, or restrain, indi- 
 vidual action, personal independence, 
 private judgment, free, self -originated 
 effort. We do fear, from not a few 
 associations which exist, that power is 
 to be accumulated in the hands of a few, 
 and a servile, tame, dependent spirit to 
 be generated in the many. Such is the
 
 ISO 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 danger of our times, and we are bound 
 as Christians and freemen to withstand it. 
 
 We have now laid down the general 
 principles which, as we think, are to 
 be applied to associations for public 
 objects. Another part of our work 
 remains. We propose to offer some 
 remarks on a few societies which at this 
 time demand our patronage or excite 
 particular attention. In doing this, we 
 shall speak with our customary freedom ; 
 but we beg that we may not be under- 
 stood as censuring the motives of those 
 whose plans and modes of operation we 
 condemn. 
 
 The associations for suppressing in- 
 temperance form an interesting feature 
 of our times. Their object is of un- 
 doubted utility, and unites the hearts of 
 all good men. They aim to suppress 
 an undoubted and gross vice, to free its 
 victims from the worst bondage, to raise 
 them from brutal degradation to the lib- 
 erty and happiness of men. There is 
 one strong presumption in favor of the 
 means which they have used. We have 
 never heard of their awakening enmity 
 and counteraction. In one particular, 
 some of them may have erred. We re- 
 fer to the compact formed by their mem- 
 bers for abstaining from wine. When 
 we consider that wine is universally ac- 
 knowledged to be an innocent and often 
 salutary beverage, that Jesus sanctioned 
 its use by miraculously increasing it at 
 the marriage feast, that the Scriptures 
 teach us to thank God for it as a good 
 gift, intended to " gladden the heart of 
 man," and when to these considerations 
 we add that wine countries are distin- 
 guished for temperance, we are obliged 
 to regard this pledge as injudicious ; and 
 we regret it, because it may bring dis- 
 trust and contempt on an excellent in- 
 stitution, and because its abandonment 
 for it cannot long continue may be 
 construed by some as a warrant for re- 
 turning to inebriating liquors. In one 
 view, the success of the efforts against 
 intemperance affords us peculiar satis- 
 faction. It demonstrates a truth, little 
 felt, but infinitely precious ; namely, the 
 recoverableness of human nature from 
 the lowest depths of vice. It teaches 
 us never to despair of a human being. 
 It teaches us that there is always some- 
 thing to work on, a germ to be unfolded, 
 a spark which may be cherished, in the 
 human soul. Intemperance is the most 
 
 hopeless state into which a man can 
 fall ; and yet instances of recovery from 
 this vice have rewarded the recent la- 
 bors of the philanthropist. Let philan- 
 thropy then rejoice in the belief that the 
 capacity of improvement is never lost, 
 and let it convert this conviction into 
 new and more strenuous efforts for the 
 recovery of the most depraved. 
 
 We proceed now to Bible societies. 
 These need no advocates. Their object 
 is so simple, unexceptionable, benefi- 
 cent, that all Protestants, at least, con- 
 cur in their support. By spreading the 
 Bible without note or comment, they es- 
 pecially assert the right of private judg- 
 ment, and are thus free from the great 
 reproach of trenching on Christian free- 
 dom. Perhaps they have not always 
 been conducted with sufficient pru- 
 dence. We have particularly feared 
 that they might be open to the charge 
 of indiscreet profusion. We believe it 
 to be a good rule, that where the poor 
 can give any thing for a Bible, no mat- 
 ter how little, they should be encour- 
 aged and incited to pay this part of the 
 price. We believe that it will be more 
 valued, and more carefully preserved, 
 where it has cost something. We do 
 not think of the Bible, as the supersti- 
 tious among Catholics and heathens do 
 of relics and charms, as if its mere pres- 
 ence in a family were a necessary good. 
 We wish some pledge that it will be 
 treated with respect, and we fear that 
 this respect has been diminished by the 
 lavishness with which it has been be- 
 stowed. One cause of the evil is, that 
 societies, like individuals, have a spice 
 of vanity, and love to make a fair show 
 in their annual reports ; and accordingly 
 they are apt to feel as if a favor were 
 conferred when their books are taken 
 off their hands. W T e think that to se- 
 cure respect to the Bible is even more 
 important than to distribute it widely. 
 For this purpose, its exterior should be 
 attractive. It should be printed in a 
 fair, large type, should be well bound, 
 and be provided with a firm case. This 
 last provision seems to us especially im- 
 portant. The poor have no book-cases. 
 Their Bibles too often lie on the same 
 shelves with their domestic utensils: 
 nor can it be doubted that, when soiled, 
 torn, dishonored by this exposure, they 
 are regarded with less respect than if 
 protected with peculiar care.
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 We have a still more important remark 
 to make in reference to Bible societies. 
 In our last number we noticed an edi- 
 tion of the New Testament recently 
 published in Boston, and differing from 
 those in common use, by a new transla- 
 tion of those passages of the Greek 
 original, of which the true reading was 
 lost or neglected when the received 
 English version was made. This edi- 
 tion of the New Testament we stated 
 to be undoubtedly more correct, more 
 conformed to the original, than our com- 
 mon editions. On this point we speak 
 strongly, because we wish to call to it 
 the attention of Bible societies, and of 
 all conscientious Christians. To such 
 we say, Here is a translation undoubt- 
 edly more faithful to the original than 
 that in common use. You have here in 
 greater purity what Jesus Christ said, 
 and what his apostles wrote : and, if so, 
 you are bound by your allegiance to 
 Christ to substitute this for the common 
 translation. We know that uneducated 
 Christians cannot settle this question. 
 We therefore respectfully, and with so- 
 lemnity, solicit for it the attention of 
 learned men, of Christian ministers, 
 of professors of theology of every sect 
 and name. We ask for the calmest and 
 most deliberate investigation, and if, as 
 we believe, there shall be but one opin- 
 ion as to the claims of the version which 
 we have recommended ; if all must ac- 
 knowledge that it renders moce faith- 
 fully the words of the inspired and au- 
 thorized teachers of Christianity, then 
 we see not how it can be denied the re- 
 ception and diffusion which it deserves. 
 We conceive that, to Bible societies, 
 this is a great question, and not to be 
 evaded without unfaithfulness to our 
 common Master, and without disrespect 
 to the Holy Scriptures. We fear that 
 there is a want of conscientiousness on 
 this subject. We fear that the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society has forfeited, 
 in a measure, its claims to the gratitude 
 and admiration of the church, by neg- 
 lecting to secure the greatest possible 
 accuracy and fidelity to the new trans- 
 lations which they have set forth. We 
 hear continual expressions of reverence 
 for the Bible ; but the most unambigu- 
 ous proofs of it we mean, unwearied 
 efforts to purify it from human addi- 
 tions, mutilations, and corruptions 
 remain to be given. 
 
 Before leaving the consideration of 
 Bible societies, we cannot but refer to a 
 very singular transaction in relation to 
 the Scriptures in which some of them 
 are thought to be implicated. In some 
 of our cities and villages, we are told 
 that the rich as well as the poor have 
 been visited for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining whether they own the Bible. 
 The object of this domiciliary inves- 
 tigation we profess not to understand. 
 We cannot suppose that it was intended 
 to lavish on the rich the funds which were 
 contributed for spreading the Script- 
 ures among the poor. One thing we 
 know, that a measure more likely to irri- 
 tate and to be construed into an insult 
 could not easily be contrived. As a 
 sign of the times it deserves our notice. 
 After this step, it ought not to surprise 
 us should an inquisition be established, 
 to ascertain who among us observe, and 
 who neglect, the duties of private and 
 family prayer. We might smile at this 
 spirit, could we tell where it would stop. 
 But it is essentially prying, restless, and 
 encroaching, and its first movements 
 ought to be withstood. 
 
 We now proceed to another class of 
 associations, those which are designed 
 to promote the observance of the Sab- 
 bath. The motives which gave birth to 
 these we respect. But we doubt the 
 rectitude and usefulness of the object, 
 and we fear that what has begun in con- 
 scientiousness may end in intolerance 
 and oppression. We cannot say of these 
 associations, as of those which we have 
 just noticed, that they aim at an unques- 
 tionable good, about which all good men 
 agree. Not a few of the wisest and 
 best men dissent from the principle on 
 which these societies are built ; namely, 
 that the Jewish Sabbath is binding on 
 Christians. Not a few of the pro- 
 foundest divines and most exemplary 
 followers of Christ have believed, and 
 still believe, that the Sabbath enjoined 
 in the fourth commandment is a part of 
 Judaism, and not of the gospel ; that it 
 is essentially different from the Lord's- 
 day ; and that to enforce it on Christians 
 is to fall into that error which Paul with- 
 stood even unto death, the error of 
 adulterating Christianity by mixtures of 
 a preparatory and very inferior religion. 
 We beg to be understood. All Chris- 
 tians, whom we know, concur in the 
 opinion and the desire that the Lord's-
 
 152 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 day, or the first day of the week, should 
 be separated to the commemoration of 
 Christ's resurrection, to public worship, 
 to public Christian instruction, and in 
 general to what are called the means of 
 religion. This we gratefully accept and 
 honor as a Christian rite. But not a 
 few believe that the Lord's-day and the 
 ancient Sabbath are not the same insti- 
 tution, and ought not to be confounded ; 
 that the former is of a nobler character, 
 and more important than the latter ; and 
 that the mode of observing it is to be 
 determined by the spirit and purposes 
 of Christianity, and not by any preced- 
 ing law. This is a question about which 
 Christians have differed for ages. We 
 certainly wish that it may be debated 
 till it is settled. But we grieve to see a 
 questionable doctrine made the founda- 
 tion of large societies, and to see Chris- 
 tians leagued to pass the sentence of 
 irreligion on men equally virtuous with 
 themselves, and who perhaps better un- 
 derstand the mind of Christ in regard to 
 the Sabbath. 
 
 We know that it is confidently affirmed 
 thaUGod, at an earlier period than the 
 Jewish law, enjoined the Sabbath as a 
 perpetual, universal, irrepealable law for 
 the whole human race. But can this 
 position be sustained ? For ourselves, 
 we cannot see a trace of it in the Script- 
 ures, those only sure records of God's 
 revelation to mankind. We do, indeed, 
 incline to believe what many wise men 
 have questioned that there are appear- 
 ances of the institution of the Sabbath 
 at the beginning of the human race. 
 We know that these are faint and few ; 
 yet we attach importance to them, be- 
 cause nature and reason favor the sup- 
 position of a time having been set apart 
 from the first as a religious memorial. 
 Whilst, however, we incline to this view 
 as most probable, we see no proofs of 
 the perpetuity of the institution in the 
 circumstance of its early origin. On the 
 contrary, an ordinance or rite, given in 
 the infancy of the human race, may be 
 presumed to be temporary, unless its 
 unchangeableness is expressly taught, 
 or is necessarily implied in its very nat- 
 ure. The positive or ritual religion, 
 which was adapted to the earlier, can 
 hardly suit the maturer periods of the 
 race. Man is a progressive being, and 
 needs a progressive religion. It is one 
 of the most interesting and beautiful 
 
 features of the sacred writings, and 
 one of the strong evidences of their 
 truth, that they reveal religion as a 
 growing light, and manifest the Divine 
 Legislator as adapting himself to the 
 various and successive conditions of the 
 world. Allowing, then, the Sabbath to 
 have been given to Adam, we could no 
 more infer its perpetuity than we can 
 infer the perpetuity of capital punish- 
 ment, as an ordinance of God, because 
 He said to Noah, the second parent of 
 the human race, " Whoso sheddeth 
 man's blood, by man shall his blood be 
 shed." 
 
 Our opinion leans, as we have said, to 
 the early institution of the Sabbath ; but, 
 we repeat it, the presumptions on which 
 our judgments rest are too uncertain to 
 authorize confidence, much less denun- 
 ciation. The greater part of the early 
 fathers of the church, according to Cal- 
 met, believed that the law of the Sab- 
 bath was not given before Moses; and 
 this, as we have observed, is the opinion 
 of some of the most judicious and pious 
 Christians of later times. Whilst dis- 
 posed to differ from these, we feel that 
 the subject is to be left to the calm 
 decision of individuals. We want no 
 array of numbers to settle a doubtful 
 question. One thing is plain, that, before 
 Moses, not one precept is given in rela- 
 tion to the Sabbath, nor a hint of its un- 
 changeableness to the end of the world. 
 One thing is plain, that the question of 
 the perpetuity of this institution is to be 
 settled by the teachings of Jesus Christ, 
 the great Prophet, who alone is author- 
 ized to determine how far the institutions 
 of religion which preceded him are bind- 
 ing on his followers. For ourselves, we 
 are followers of Christ, and not of Moses, 
 or Noah, or Adam. We call ourselves 
 Christians, and the gospel is our only 
 rule. Nothing in the Old Testament 
 binds us, any further than it is recog- 
 nized by, or incorporated into, the New. 
 The great and only question, then, is, 
 Does the New Testament, does Chris- 
 tianity, impose on us the ancient Sab- 
 bath ? 
 
 To aid us in settling this question, 
 we may first inquire into the nature 
 and design of this institution ; and 
 nothing can be plainer. Words can- 
 not make it clearer. According to the 
 Old Testament, the seventh, or last day 
 of the week, was to be set apart, or sane-
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 153 
 
 tified, as a day of rest, in commemora- 
 tion of God's having rested on that day 
 from the work of creation.* The dis- 
 tinguishing feature of the institution is 
 rest. The word Sabbath means rest. 
 The event to be commemorated was 
 rest. The reason for selecting the sev- 
 enth was, that this had been to the 
 Creator a day of rest. The chief meth- 
 od prescribed for sanctifying the day 
 was rest. The distinctive character of 
 the institution could not have been 
 more clearly expressed. Whoever reads 
 the fourth commandment will see that 
 no mode of setting apart the day to 
 God is there prescribed, except in imi- 
 tation of his rest. How far this consti- 
 tuted the sanctification of the Sabbath 
 will be seen from such passages as the 
 following : " You shall keep the Sab- 
 bath, for it is holy unto you. Every one 
 that defileth it shall surely be put to 
 death. For whosoever doeth any work 
 therein, that soul shall be cut off from 
 among his people." f A still more re- 
 markable proof that the sanctification 
 of the Sabbath consisted in resting after 
 the example of God, is furnished by 
 Christ, who says, that " on the Sabbath- 
 days the priests in the Temple profane 
 the Sabbath." \ So essential was rest 
 to the hallowing of that day, that the 
 work of offering victims, though pre- 
 scribed by God Himself, is said to profane 
 it. There are, indeed, some expressions 
 of Moses, indicating other methods of 
 observing the day, for he calls it " a holy 
 convocation ; " but whether this phrase 
 applies to other places besides the Tem- 
 ple is uncertain. It is not improbable, 
 indeed, that the people resorted to the 
 
 * We beg our readers to observe that we are now 
 simply stating the account of the Sabbath which is 
 given in the Old Testament. How this account is 
 to be interpreted is a question not involved in our 
 present subject. We would, however, observe that 
 the rest here ascribed to God must be understood 
 in a figurative sense. Properly speaking, God, who is 
 incapable of fatigue, and whose almighty agency is un- 
 ceasing, never rests In finishing the work of crea- 
 tion, He did not sink into repose, or for a moment 
 desist from the exercise of his omnipotence. A par- 
 ticular mode of his agency was discontinued ; and, in 
 accommodation to an uncultivated age, this discon- 
 tinuance was called rest. It seems to us, that the 
 Sabbath bears one mark of a temporary institution, 
 in the fact of its being founded on a representation 
 of God which is true only in a figurative or popular 
 sense, and which gives something like a shock to a 
 mind which has exalted its conceptions of the Divinity. 
 Such an institution does not carry the impress of a 
 perpetual and universal law. 
 
 t Exod. xxxi 14 ; also Jer. xvii. 22. 
 
 t Matt, xii 5. 
 
 Levites and prophets on the Sabbath 
 rather than other days ; but we find no 
 precept to this effect : and it is well 
 known that no synagogues or places of 
 worship were built through Judea until 
 after the captivity. Rest, then, was 
 the great distinction of the day. This 
 constituted it a memorial, and gave it 
 its name ; and we conceive that the 
 chief stress was laid on this circum- 
 stance, because the Sabbath was in- 
 tended to answer a humane as well as 
 religious end ; that is, to give relief to 
 persons in servitude, and to inferior ani- 
 mals, a provision very much needed 
 in an unrefined and semi-barbarous age, 
 when slavery had no acknowledged 
 rights, and when little mercy was shown 
 to man or beast. In conformity to these 
 views, we find the Jewish nation always 
 regarding the Sabbath as a joyful 
 day, a festival. In the time of Christ, 
 we find him bidden to a feast on the 
 Sabbath-day, and accepting the invita- 
 tion ; * and our impression is, that now, 
 as in past times, the Jews divide the day 
 between the synagogue and social en- 
 joyment. 
 
 The nature and end of the Sabbath 
 cannot be easily misunderstood. It 
 was the seventh or last day of the week, 
 set apart by God as a day of rest, in 
 imitation and in commemoration of his 
 having rested on that day from the cre- 
 ation. That other religious observances 
 were with great propriety introduced in- 
 to the day, and that they were multiplied 
 with the progress of the nation, we do 
 not doubt. But the distinctive observ- 
 ance, and the only one expressly en- 
 joined on the whole people, was rest. 
 Now we ask, Is the dedication of the 
 seventh or last day of the week to rest, 
 in remembrance of God's resting on 
 that day, a part of the Christian relig- 
 ion ? The answer seems to us plain. 
 We affirm, in the first place, what none 
 will contradict, that this institution is 
 not enjoined in the New Testament, 
 even by the faintest hint or implication ; 
 and, in the next place, we maintain that 
 the Christian world, so far from finding 
 it there, have by their practice disowned 
 its authority. 
 
 This last position may startle some of 
 our readers. But it is not therefore less 
 true. We maintain that the Christian 
 
 * Luke xiv.
 
 154 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIA TIONS. 
 
 world have in practice disowned the ob- 
 ligation of the Sabbath established by 
 the fourth commandment. There is, 
 indeed, a body of Christians called Sab- 
 batarians, who strictly and religiously 
 observe the fourth commandment. But 
 they are a handful ; they are lost, swal- 
 lowed up in the immense majority of 
 Christians, who have for ages ceased to 
 observe the Sabbath prescribed from 
 Sinai. True, Christians have their sa- 
 cred day, which they call a Sabbath. 
 But is it in truth the ancient Sabbath ? 
 We say, no ; and we call attention to 
 this point. The ancient Sabbath, as we 
 have seen, was the last day of the week, 
 set apart for rest, in commemoration of 
 God's resting on that day. And is the 
 first day of the week, a day observed 
 in remembrance of Christ's resurrection 
 from the dead, the same institution with 
 this ? Can broader marks between two 
 ordinances be conceived ? Is it possible 
 that they can be confounded ? Is not 
 the ancient Sabbath renounced by the 
 Christian world ? Have we not thus 
 the testimony of the Christian world to 
 its having passed away ? Who of us 
 'can consistently plead for it as a uni- 
 versal and perpetual law ? 
 
 We know that it is said that the an- 
 cient Sabbath remains untouched ; that 
 Christianity has only removed it from 
 the last to the first day of the week, and 
 that this is a slight, unessential change, 
 leaving the old institution whole and 
 unbroken. To this we have several re- 
 plies. In the first place, this change of 
 days, which Christianity is supposed to 
 make, is not unessential, but vital, and 
 subversive of the ancient institution. 
 The end of the ancient Sabbath was the 
 commemoration of God's resting from 
 his works ; and, for this end, the very 
 day of the week on which He rested 
 was most wisely selected. Now we 
 maintain, that to select the first day of 
 the week, the very day on which He be- 
 gan his works, and to select and sepa- 
 rate this in commemoration of another 
 event, of Christ's resurrection, is 
 wholly to set aside the ancient Sabbath. 
 We cannot conceive of a more essential 
 departure from the original ordinance. 
 This substitution, as it is called, is a 
 literal as well as virtual abolition. Such 
 is our first remark. We say, secondly, 
 that not a word is uttered in the New 
 Testament of the first day being substi- 
 
 tuted for the seventh. Surely so strik- 
 ing a change would not have been made 
 in a universal and perpetual law of God 
 without some warning. W r e ask for some 
 hint of this modification of the fourth 
 commandment. We find not a syllable. 
 We say, thirdly, that the first Chris- 
 tians knew nothing of this substitution. 
 Our evidence here is complete. The 
 first converts to Christianity were Jews, 
 and these converts had at first no con- 
 ception of the design of Christianity to 
 supersede the law of Moses. This law 
 they continued to observe for years, and 
 to observe it as rigorously as ever. 
 When Paul visited Jerusalem, after 
 many labors among the Gentiles, the 
 elders said unto him, " Thou seest, 
 brother, how many thousands of Jews 
 there are which believe, and they are all 
 zealous of the law." * Of course they 
 all observed the Jewish Sabbath, or sev- 
 enth day of rest, the greatest of Jewish 
 festivals, whilst, as we all believe, they 
 honored also the first day, the remem- 
 brancer of Christ's resurrection. This 
 state of things existed for years in the 
 primitive church. The two days were 
 observed together. Nothing more seems 
 necessary to disprove unanswerably the 
 common doctrine that the Apostles en- 
 joined the substitution of the first for 
 the seventh day. We will add one 
 more argument. Paul commands the 
 Colossian Christians to disregard the 
 censures of those who judged or con- 
 demned them for not observing the 
 Sabbath. " Let no man judge you in 
 meat, or in drink, or in respect of an 
 holy day, or of the new moon, or of 
 the Sabbath days." f This passage 
 is very plain. It is evaded, however, 
 by the plea that the word " Sabbath " 
 was used to express not only the sev- 
 enth day, but other festivals or days of 
 rest. But when we recollect that the 
 word is used by Paul in this place with- 
 out any exception or limitation, and that 
 it was employed at that time, most fre- 
 quently and almost wholly, to express 
 the seventh day, or weekly Sabbath, we 
 shall see that we have the strongest 
 reason for supposing this institution to 
 be intended by the Apostle. That a 
 Christian, after reading this passage, 
 should " judge " or condemn his breth- 
 ren for questioning or rejecting his 
 
 * Acts xxi. 20. 
 
 t Col. ii. 16.
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 155 
 
 particular notion of the Sabbath, is a 
 striking proof of the slow progress of 
 tolerant and liberal principles among 
 men. We need not add, after these 
 remarks, how unjustifiable we deem it 
 to enforce particular modes of observ- 
 ing this day by an array of associations. 
 Having thus stated what seem to us 
 strong reasons against the perpetuity of 
 the ancient Sabbath, perhaps some of 
 our readers may wish to know our views 
 of the Lord's-day ; and, although the 
 subject may seem foreign to the present 
 article, we will give our opinion in a few 
 words. We believe that the first day of 
 the week is to be set apart for the pub- 
 lic worship of God, and for the promo- 
 tion of the knowledge and practice of 
 Christianity, and that it was selected for 
 this end in honor of the resurrection of 
 Christ. To this view we are led by 
 the following considerations : Wherever 
 the gospel was preached, its professors 
 were formed into churches or congrega- 
 tions, and ministers were appointed for 
 their instruction or edification. Wher- 
 ever Christianity was planted, societies 
 for joint religious acts and improvement 
 were instituted, as the chief .means of 
 establishing and diffusing it. Now it is 
 plain that for these purposes regular 
 times must have been prescribed ; and, 
 accordingly, we find that it was the cus- 
 tom of the primitive Christians to hold 
 their religious assemblies on the first 
 day of the week, the day of Christ's 
 resurrection. This we learn from the 
 New Testament, and from the universal 
 testimony of the earliest ages of the 
 church. Wherever Christianity was 
 spread, the first day was established 
 as the season of Christian worship and 
 instruction. Such are the grounds on 
 which this institution rests. We regard 
 it as altogether a Christian institution, 
 as having its origin in the gospel, 
 as peculiar to the new dispensation ; 
 and we conceive that the proper ob- 
 servation of it is to be determined 
 wholly by the spirit of Christianity. 
 We meet in the New Testament no 
 precise rules as to the mode of spend- 
 ing the Lord's-day, as to the mode of 
 worship and teaching, as to the distri- 
 bution of the time not given to public 
 services. And this is just what might 
 be expected ; for the gospel is not a re- 
 ligion of precise rules. It differs from 
 Judaism in nothing more than in its free 
 
 character. It gives great principles, 
 broad views, general, prolific, all-com- 
 prehensive precepts, and intrusts the 
 application of them to the individual. 
 It sets before us the perfection of our 
 nature, the spirit which we should cher- 
 ish, the virtues which constitute " the 
 kingdom of heaven within us," and 
 leaves us to determine for ourselves, in 
 a great measure, the discipline by which 
 these noble ends are to be secured. 
 Let no man, then, bind what Christ has 
 left free. The modes of worship and 
 teaching on the Lord's-day are not pre- 
 scribed, and who will say that they can- 
 not be improved ? One reason of the 
 neglect and limited influence of this in- 
 stitution is that, as now observed, it 
 does not correspond sufficiently to the 
 wants of our times ; and we fear that it 
 might even fall into contempt among 
 the cultivated, should attempts be pros- 
 ecuted to carry it back to the supersti- 
 tious rigor by which it was degraded in 
 a former age. 
 
 The associations for promoting the 
 observance of the Sabbath propose sev- 
 eral objects, in which, to a certain ex- 
 tent, we heartily concur, but which, 
 from their nature, are not susceptible 
 of precise definition or regulation, and 
 which, therefore, ought to be left, where 
 Christianity has left them, to the con- 
 sciences of individuals. They undoubt- 
 edly intend to discountenance labor on 
 Sunday. Now, generally speaking, ab- 
 stinence from labor seems to us a plain 
 duty of the day ; for we see not how its 
 ends can otherwise be accomplished to 
 any considerable extent. We do not 
 believe, indeed, that this abstinence was 
 rigidly practised by the first Christians 
 at Jerusalem, who, as we have seen, 
 gave up the seventh day to entire rest, 
 and whose social duties could hardly 
 have admitted the same appropriation 
 of the following day. Neither do we 
 believe that the converts, who were 
 made among the class of slaves in 
 heathen countries, abstained from labor 
 on the first day of the week ; for, in so 
 doing, they would have exposed them- 
 selves to the severest punishments, even 
 to death, and we have no intimation 
 that this portion of believers were regu- 
 larly cut off by martyrdom. We know, 
 however, that the early Christians, in 
 proportion as they were relieved from 
 the restrictions of heathenism and Juda-
 
 5 6 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 ism, made the Lord's-day a season of 
 abstinence from labor ; and the argu- 
 ments for so doing are so obvious and 
 strong, that later Christians have con- 
 curred with them with hardly a dissent- 
 ing voice. On this point there is, and 
 can be, no difference. The change of 
 Sunday into a working-day we should 
 condemn as earnestly as any of our 
 brethren. At the same time, we feel 
 that, in this particular, a Jewish rigor is 
 not to be imposed on Christians, and 
 that there are exigencies justifying toil 
 on the first day, which must be left to 
 individual judgment. The great pur- 
 poses of this festival may certainly be 
 accomplished without that scrupulous, 
 anxious shunning of every kind of work 
 which marked a Jewish Sabbath, and 
 which, however proper under a servile 
 dispensation, and in an age of darkness, 
 would be in us superstition. We do 
 not, for example, think Christians bound 
 to prepare on Saturday every meal for 
 the following day, or to study through 
 the week how to remove the necessity 
 of every bodily exertion on the ap- 
 proaching Sunday. We think, too, that 
 cases may occur which justify severe 
 toil on this day ; and we should judge a 
 man unfaithful to himself and his fam- 
 ily, ungrateful to Providence, and su- 
 perstitious, who should lose a crop 
 rather than harvest it during the por- 
 tion of time ordinarily set apart for 
 Christian worship. On these points, 
 Christianity has left us free. The in- 
 dividual must be his own judge, and we 
 deprecate the attempts of societies to 
 legislate on this indefinite subject for 
 their fellow-Christians. 
 
 Another purpose of the associations of 
 which we speak is to stop the mail on 
 Sunday. On this point a great differ- 
 ence of opinion prevails among the 
 most conscientious men. It may be 
 remembered that, in a former number 
 of this work, there was an article on the 
 Sabbath, discouraging this attempt to 
 interrupt the mail. We think it right 
 to say, that among the contributors to 
 this work, and among its best friends, a 
 diversity of sentiment exists in regard 
 to this difficult question. In one re- 
 spect, however, we all agree ; and that 
 is, in the inexpediency of organizing, in 
 opposition to the Sunday mail, a vast 
 association, which may be easily per- 
 verted to political purposes, which, from 
 
 its very object, will be tempted to med- 
 dle with government, and which, by 
 setting up a concerted and joint cry, 
 may overpower and load with reproach 
 the most conscientious men in the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Another purpose of these associations 
 is to discourage travelling on the Lord's- 
 day. Nothing can well be plainer than 
 that unnecessary travelling on this day 
 is repugnant to its duties and design, 
 and is to be reproved in writing, preach- 
 ing, and conversation. By unnecessary 
 travelling, we mean that which is not 
 required by some particular exigency. 
 When we consider, however, that in 
 such a community as ours, distin- 
 guished by extent and variety of in- 
 tercourse, exigencies must continually 
 occur, we feel that here is another 
 point with which societies have no right 
 to interfere, and which must be left to 
 the conscience of the individual. In 
 such a community as ours, how many 
 persons may be found on every Sunday, 
 the state of whose health, the state of 
 whose families, the state of whose 
 affairs, may require them to travel ? 
 It may happen that another's property 
 confided to our care may be lost, that a 
 good object may fail, that some dying 
 or departing friend may go from us un- 
 seen, if on this day we will not begin 
 or pursue a journey. How often is it 
 difficult for the traveller to find an inn, 
 the quiet and comforts of which make 
 it a fit residence for Sunday ? An as- 
 sociation against travelling on Sunday 
 seems to us a very hazardous expedient ; 
 and its members, we think, will be for- 
 tunate if they escape the guilt of cen- 
 soriousness and dictation on a subject 
 which Providence has plainly exempted 
 from human legislation. We know that 
 it will be said that the license which we 
 give by these remarks will be abused ; 
 and of this we have no doubt. We 
 know no truth,' no privilege, no power, 
 no blessing, no right, which is not 
 abused. But is liberty to be denied to 
 men because they often turn it into 
 licentiousness ? We have read of cer- 
 tain sects which have denounced indis- 
 criminately all sports and relaxations, 
 because these, if allowed, will be carried 
 to excess ; and of others, which have 
 prescribed by laws the plainest, coarsest 
 dress, because ornament, if in any meas- 
 ure tolerated, would certainly grow up
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 157 
 
 into extravagance and vanity. And is 
 this degrading legislation never to end ? 
 Are men never to be trusted to them- 
 selves ? Is it God's method to hem 
 them in with precise prescriptions ? 
 Does Providence leave nothing to in- 
 dividual discretion ? Does Providence 
 withhold every privilege which may be 
 abused ? Does Christianity enjoin an 
 exact, unvarying round of services, be- 
 cause reason and conscience, if allowed 
 to judge of duty, will often be misguided 
 by partiality and passion ? How liberal, 
 generous, confiding, are nature, Provi- 
 dence, and Christianity, in their dealings 
 with men ! And when will men learn to 
 exercise towards one another the same 
 liberal and confiding spirit ? 
 
 We have thus considered some of the 
 particular purposes of the association 
 for promoting the observance of the 
 Sabbath. We say their "particular 
 purposes." We apprehend there is a 
 general one, which lurks in a portion of 
 their members, which few perhaps have 
 stated very distinctly to themselves, but 
 which is not therefore the less real, and 
 of which it is well to be forewarned. 
 We apprehend that some, and not a 
 small party, have a vague instinctive 
 feeling that the kind of Christianity 
 which they embrace requires for its dif- 
 fusion a gloomy Sabbath, the Puritan 
 Sabbath : and we incline to believe that 
 they are desirous to separate the Lord's- 
 day as much as possible from all other 
 days, to make it a season of rigid re- 
 straint, that it may be a preparation for 
 a system of theology, which the mind, 
 in a natural, free, and cheerful state, 
 can never receive. The Sabbath of the 
 Puritans and their Calvinistic peculiari- 
 ties go together. Now we wish the 
 return of neither. The Puritans, meas- 
 ured by their age, have indeed many 
 claims on respect, especially those of 
 them who came to this country, and 
 who, through their fortunate exile, es- 
 caped the corruption which the civil war 
 and the possession of power engendered 
 in the Puritan body of England. But 
 sincere respect for the men of early 
 times may be joined with a clear per- 
 ception of their weaknesses and errors ; 
 and it becomes us to remember, that 
 errors, which in them were innocent, be- 
 cause inevitable, may deserve a harsher 
 appellation if perpetuated in their pos- 
 terity. 
 
 We have no desire, it will be seen, to 
 create huge associations for enforcing 
 or recommending the Lord's-day. We 
 desire, however, that this interesting 
 subject may engage more attention. 
 We wish the Lord's-day to be more 
 honored and more observed ; and we 
 believe that there is but one way for 
 securing this good, and that is to make 
 the day more useful, to turn it to better 
 account, to introduce such changes into 
 it as shall satisfy judicious men that it 
 is adapted to great and happy results. 
 The Sunday which has come down to 
 us from our fathers seems to us exceed- 
 ingly defective. The clergy have nat- 
 urally taken it very much into their own 
 hands, and we apprehend that as yet 
 they have not discovered all the means 
 of making it a blessing to mankind. It 
 may well excite surprise how little 
 knowledge has been communicated on 
 the Lord's-day. We think that the 
 present age admits and requires a more 
 extensive teaching than formerly, a 
 teaching not only in sermons, but in 
 more instructive exercises, which will 
 promote a critical and growing ac- 
 quaintance with the Scriptures ; will 
 unfold morality or duty, at once in its 
 principles and vast details ; will guide 
 the common mind to larger views, and 
 to a more religious use of nature and 
 history ; and will reveal to it its own 
 godlike powers. We think, too, that 
 this great intellectual activity may be 
 relieved and cheered by a mixture of 
 greater benevolent activity ; by attention 
 to public and private charities, and by 
 domestic and social kindnesses.* It 
 seems to us that we are waking up to 
 understand the various uses to which 
 Sunday may be applied. The present 
 devotion of a considerable portion of it 
 to the teaching of children makes an 
 important era in the history of the insti- 
 tution. The teaching of the ignorant 
 and poor, we trust, is to follow. On this 
 subject we cannot enlarge, but enough 
 has been said to show in what way Sun- 
 day is to be recommended to the under- 
 standings and consciences of men. 
 
 In these remarks we have expressed 
 our reverence for the Lord's-day. To 
 
 * Would not the business of our public charities be 
 done more effectually on the Lord's-day than on any 
 other, and would not such an appropriation of a part 
 of this time accord peculiarly with the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity ?
 
 I 5 8 
 
 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 us it is a more important day, and con- 
 secrated to nobler purposes, than the 
 ancient Sabbath. We are bound, how- 
 ever, to state that we cannot acquiesce 
 in the distinctions which are often made 
 between this and other days, for they 
 seem to us at once ungrounded and per- 
 nicious. We sometimes hear, for exam- 
 ple, that the Lord's-day is set apart from 
 our common lives to religion ? What ! 
 Are not all days equally set apart to re- 
 ligion ? Has religion more to do with 
 Sunday than with any other portion of 
 time? Is there any season over which 
 piety should not preside ? So the day 
 is sometimes distinguished as "holy." 
 What ! Is there stronger obligation to 
 holiness on one day than on another ? 
 Is it more holy to pray in the church 
 than to pray in the closet, or than to 
 withstand temptation in common life ? 
 The true distinction of Sunday is, that 
 it is consecrated to certain means or 
 direct acts of religion. But these are 
 not holier than other duties. They are 
 certainly not more important than their 
 end, which is a virtuous life. There is, 
 we fear, a superstition on this point, un- 
 worthy of the illumination of Chris- 
 tianity. We earnestly recommend the 
 Lord's-day, but we dare not esteem its 
 duties above those of other days. We 
 prize and recommend it as an institu- 
 tion through which our whole lives are 
 to be sanctified and ennobled ; and, 
 without this fruit, vain, and worse than 
 vain, are the most rigid observances, the 
 most costly sacrifices, the loudest and 
 most earnest prayers. We would on 
 no account disparage the offices of the 
 Lord's-day. We delight in this peace- 
 ful season, so fitted to allay the feverish 
 heat and anxieties of active life, to cher- 
 ish self-communion, and communion 
 with God and with the world to come. 
 It is good to meet, as brethren, in the 
 church to pray together, to hear the 
 word of God, to retire for a time from 
 ordinary labors, that we may meditate 
 on great truths more deliberately, and 
 with more continuous attention. In 
 these duties we see a fitness, excel- 
 lence, and happiness ; but still, if a com- 
 
 parison must be made, they seem to us 
 less striking proofs of piety and virtue 
 than are found in the disinterestedness, 
 the self-control, the love of truth, the 
 scorn of ill-gotten wealth, the unshaken 
 trust in God, the temperate and grateful 
 enjoyment, the calm and courageous suf- 
 ferings for duty, to which the Christian 
 is called in daily life. It is right to 
 adore God's goodness in the hour of 
 prayer ; but does it not seem more ex- 
 cellent to carry in our souls the convic- 
 tion of this goodness, as our spring and 
 pattern, and to breathe it forth in acts 
 conformed to the beneficence of our 
 Maker ? It is good to seek strength 
 from God in the church : but does it 
 not seem more excellent to use well this 
 strength in the sore conflicts of life, and 
 to rise through it to a magnanimous and 
 victorious virtue ? Such comparisons, 
 however, we have no pleasure in making, 
 and they are obviously exposed to error. 
 The enlightened Christian "esteemeth 
 every day alike." To him all clays 
 bring noble duties ; bring occasions of 
 a celestial piety and virtue ; bring trials, 
 in wrestling with which he may grow 
 strong ; bring aids and incitements, 
 through which he may rise above him- 
 self. All days may be holy, and the 
 holiest is that in which he yields him- 
 self, with the most single-hearted, un- 
 shrinking, uncompromising purpose, to 
 the will of God. 
 
 We intended to add remarks on some 
 other associations, particularly on the 
 Peace society. But we have exceeded 
 our limits, and must forbear. Our re- 
 marks have been free, but, we trust, 
 will not be misunderstood. We look 
 with interest and hope on the spirit 
 of association which characterizes our 
 times. We rejoice in this, as in every 
 manifestation of a desire for the im- 
 provement of mankind. We have done 
 what we could to secure this powerful 
 instrument against perversion. Through 
 a wise and jealous care, we doubt not 
 that it will minister to that only sure 
 good, the intellectual and moral prog- 
 ress of the human race.
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 159 
 
 THE PRESENT AGE: 
 
 An Address delivered before the Mercantile Library Company of 
 Philadelphia, May n, 1841. 
 
 [To my venerable Friend, John Vaughan, Esq., who has made the past generation and the present 
 his debtors by unwearied well-doing, this Address is affectionately and respectfully inscribed. 
 W. E. C.] 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE MERCANTILE 
 LIBRARY COMPANY, I beg you to 
 consider my appearance in this place 
 as an expression of my interest in this 
 and in kindred institutions. I welcome 
 them as signs of the times, as promises 
 and means of increased intellectual ac- 
 tivity. I shall be glad, if a good word 
 or a friendly effort on my part can serve 
 them. I know that the lectures deliv- 
 ered before such societies are called 
 superficial ; but this does" not discour- 
 age me. All human productions, even 
 those of genius, are very superficial, 
 compared with the unfathomable depths 
 of truth. The simple question is, Do 
 these lectures rouse the mind to new 
 action ? Do they give it new objects of 
 thought, and excite a thirst for knowl- 
 edge ? I am sure that they do ;. and 
 therefore, though the field is sometimes 
 called humble, I enter it with- pleasure. 
 Will you allow me to observe, that 
 to render lectures useful one condition 
 is necessary ; they must be frank, hon- 
 est, free. He who speaks must speak 
 what he thinks, speak courteously, but 
 uncompromisingly. What makes our 
 communications unprofitable in this 
 country is, the dread of giving offence, 
 now to the majority, and now to the 
 fashionable or refined. We speak with- 
 out force because not true to our con- 
 victions. A lecturer will, of course, 
 desire to wound no man's prejudices 
 or feelings ; but his first duty is to 
 truth ; his chief power lies in simple, 
 natural, strong utterance of what he 
 believes ; and he should put confidence 
 in his hearers that the tone of manly 
 sincerity will be responded to by can- 
 dor and good-will. 
 
 The subject to which I call your at- 
 tention is the Present Age, a vast 
 
 theme, demanding volumes. An age 
 is needed to expound an age ; and, of 
 course, little is to be expected in a brief 
 hour. I profess no great understand- 
 ing of the subject, though I have given 
 it much thought. In truth, it cannot 
 be grasped, as yet, by the highest in- 
 tellect. This age is the result, issue, 
 of all former ages. All are pouring 
 themselves into it. The struggles, pas- 
 sions, discoveries, revolutions of all for- 
 mer time survive in their influences on 
 the present moment. To interpret the 
 present thoroughly we must understand 
 and unfold all the past. This work I 
 shall not undertake. I am not now to 
 be a historian. Do not fear that I shall 
 compel you to journey backward to the 
 Deluge or to Paradise. I shall look 
 only at the present ; nor do I think of 
 unfolding all the present. I shall seize 
 on a single characteristic of our age, 
 if not the profoundest, yet the most 
 prominent, and the best fitted to an 
 address like the present. In perform- 
 ing this task my aim will be to speak 
 the simple truth. I wish to say what 
 the age is, not to be its advocate ; and 
 yet I hope to lead you to look tenderly 
 and trustfully on it, to love it, and to 
 resolve, with generous, stout hearts, 
 that you will serve it, as far as God 
 may give you ability. 
 
 In looking at our age I am struck im-- 
 mediately with one commanding char- 
 acteristic, and that is, the tendency in 
 all its movements to expansion, to dif- 
 fusion, to universality. To this I ask 
 your attention. This tendency is di- 
 rectly opposed to the spirit of exclusive- 
 ness, restriction, narrowness, monopoly, 
 which has prevailed in past ages. Hu- 
 man action is now freer, more uncon- 
 fined. All goods, advantages, helps,
 
 i6o 
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 are more open to all. The privileged, 
 petted individual is becoming less, and 
 the human race are becoming more. 
 The multitude is rising from the dust. 
 Once we heard of the few, now we 
 hear of the many ; once of the pre- 
 rogatives of a part, now of the rights 
 of all. We are looking as never before 
 through the disguises, envelopments of 
 ranks and classes to the common nat- 
 ure which lies below them, and are be- 
 ginning to learn that every being who 
 partakes of it has noble powers to cul- 
 tivate, solemn duties to perform,, inal- 
 ienable rights to assert, a vast destiny 
 to accomplish. The grand idea of hu- 
 manity, of the importance of man as 
 man, is spreading silently but surely. 
 Not that the worth of the human being 
 is at all understood as it should be ; 
 but the truth is glimmering through the 
 darkness. A faint consciousness of it 
 has seized on the public mind. Even 
 the most abject portions of society are 
 visited by some dreams of a better con- 
 dition for which they were designed. 
 The grand doctrine, that every human 
 being should have the means of self- 
 culture, of progress in knowledge and 
 virtue, of health, comfort, and happi- 
 ness, of exercising the powers and 
 affections of a man, this is slowly 
 taking its place as the highest social 
 truth. That the world was made for 
 all, and not for a few ; that society is 
 to care for all ; that no human being 
 shall perish but through his own fault ; 
 that the great end of government is to 
 spread a shield over the rights of all, 
 these propositions are growing into 
 axioms, and the spirit of them is com- 
 ing forth in all the departments of life. 
 
 If we look at the various movements 
 of our age, we shall see in them this 
 tendency to universality and diffusion. 
 Look first at science and literature. 
 Where is science now ? Locked up in a 
 few colleges, or royal societies, or inac- 
 cessible volumes ? Are its experiments 
 mysteries for a few privileged eyes ? 
 Are its portals guarded by a dark phrase- 
 ology which to the multitude is a foreign 
 tongue ? No ; science has now left her 
 retreats, her shades, her selected com- 
 pany of votaries, and with familiar tone 
 begun the work of instructing the race. 
 Through the press, discoveries and the- 
 ories, once the monopoly of philosophers, 
 have become the property of the multi- 
 
 tude. Its professors, heard not long 
 ago in the university or some narrow 
 school, now speak in the mechanic in- 
 stitute. The doctrine that the laborer 
 should understand the principles of his 
 art, should be able to explain the laws 
 and processes which he turns to account, 
 that, instead of working as a machine, 
 he should join intelligence to his toil, is 
 no longer listened to as a dream. Sci- 
 ence, once the greatest of distinctions, 
 is becoming popular. A lady gives us 
 Conversations on Chemistry, revealing 
 to the minds of our youth vast laws of 
 the universe which fifty years ago had 
 not dawned on the greatest minds. The 
 school-books of our children contain 
 grand views of the creation. There are 
 parts of our country in which lyceums 
 spring up in almost every village for the 
 purpose of mutual aid in the study of 
 natural science. The characteristic of 
 our age, then, is not the improvement 
 of science, rapid as this is, so much as 
 its extension to all men. 
 
 The same characteristic will appear, if 
 we inquire into the use now made of 
 science. Is it simply a matter of spec- 
 ulation, a topic of discourse, an employ- 
 ment of the intellect ? In this case, the 
 multitude, with all their means of in- 
 struction, would find in it only a hurried 
 gratification. But one of the distinc- 
 tions of our time is, that science has 
 passed from speculation into life. In- 
 deed, it is not pursued enough for its 
 intellectual and contemplative uses. It 
 is sought as a mighty power, by which 
 nature is not only to be opened to 
 thought, but to be subjected to our 
 needs. It is conferring on us that do- 
 minion over earth, sea, and air, which 
 was prophesied in the first command 
 given to man by his Maker ; and this 
 dominion is now employed, not to exalt 
 a few, but to multiply the comforts and 
 ornaments of life for the multitude of 
 men. Science has become an inexhaust- 
 ible mechanician ; and by her forges, 
 and mills, and steam-cars, and printer's 
 presses, is bestowing on millions, not 
 only comforts, but luxuries which were 
 once the distinction of a few. 
 
 Another illustration of the tendency of 
 science to expansion and universality 
 may be found in its aims and objects. 
 Science has burst all bounds and is aim- 
 ing to comprehend the universe, and 
 thus it multiplies fields of inquiry for
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 all orders of minds. There is no prov- 
 ince of nature which it does not invade. 
 Not content with exploring the darkest 
 periods of human history, it goes behind 
 the birth of the human race, and studies 
 the stupendous changes which our globe 
 experienced for hundreds of centuries, to 
 become prepared for man's abode. Not 
 content with researches into visible nat- 
 ure, it is putting forth all its energies to 
 detect the laws of invisible and imponder- 
 able matter. Difficulties only provoke 
 it to new efforts. It would lay open the 
 secrets of the polar ocean and of un- 
 trodden barbarous lands. Above all, it 
 investigates the laws of social progress, 
 of arts and institutions of government 
 and political economy, proposing as its 
 great end the alleviation of all human 
 burdens, the weal of all the members of 
 the human race. In truth, nothing is 
 more characteristic of our age than the 
 vast range of inquiry which is opening 
 more and more to the multitude of men. 
 Thought frees the old bounds to which 
 men used to confine themselves. It 
 holds nothing too sacred for investiga- 
 tion. It calls the past to account ; and 
 treats hoary opinions as if they were of 
 yesterday's growth. No reverence drives 
 it back. No great name terrifies it. The 
 foundations of what seems most settled 
 must be explored. Undoubtedly this is 
 a perilous tendency. Men forget the 
 limits of their powers. They question 
 the infinite, the unsearchable, with an 
 audacious self-reliance. They shock pi- 
 ous and revering minds, and rush into 
 an extravagance of doubt more unphilo- 
 sophical and foolish than the weakest 
 credulity. Still, in this dangerous wild- 
 ness we see what I am stating, the ten- 
 dency to expansion in the movements of 
 thought. 
 
 I have hitherto spoken of science ; and 
 what is true of science is still more true 
 of literature. Books are now placed 
 within reach of all. Works once too 
 costly except for the opulent are now to 
 be found on the laborer's shelf. Genius 
 sends its light into cottages. The great 
 names of literature are become house- 
 hold words among the crowd. Every 
 party, religious or political, scatters its 
 sheets on all the winds. We may la- 
 ment, and too justly, the small compara- 
 tive benefit as yet accomplished by this 
 agency ; but this ought not to surprise 
 or discourage us. In our present stage 
 
 of improvement, books of little worth, 
 deficient in taste and judgment, and 
 ministering to men's prejudices and pas- 
 sions, will almost certainly be circulated 
 too freely. Men are never very wise 
 and select in the exercise of a new 
 power. Mistake, error, is the discipline 
 through which we advance. It is an 
 undoubted fact that, silently, books of a 
 higher order are taking place of the 
 worthless. Happily, the instability of 
 the human mind works sometimes for 
 good as well as evil. Men grow tired at 
 length even of amusements. Works of 
 fiction cease to interest them ; and they 
 turn from novels to books which, having 
 their origin in deep principles of our 
 nature, retain their hold of the human 
 mind for ages. At any rate, we see in 
 the present diffusion of literature the 
 tendency to universality of which I have 
 spoken. 
 
 The same tendency will appear, if we 
 consider the kind of literature which is 
 obtaining the widest favor. The works 
 of genius of our age breathe a spirit of 
 universal sympathy. The great poet of 
 our times, Wordsworth, one of the few 
 who are to live, has gone to common 
 life, to the feelings of our universal nat- 
 ure, to the obscure and neglected por- 
 tions of society, for beautiful and touch- 
 ing themes. Nor ought it to be said that 
 he has shed over these the charms of 
 his genius, as if in themselves they had 
 nothing grand or lovely. Genius is not 
 a creator, in the sense of fancying or 
 feigning what does not exist. Its dis- 
 tinction is to discern more of truth than 
 common minds. It sees under disguises 
 and humble forms everlasting beauty. 
 This it is the prerogative of Wordsworth 
 to discern and reveal in the ordinary 
 walks of life, in the common human 
 heart. He has revealed the loveliness 
 of the primitive feelings, of the universal 
 affections of the human soul. The grand 
 truth which pervades his poetry is, that 
 the beautiful is not confined to the rare, 
 the new, the distant, to scenery and 
 modes of life open only to the few ; but 
 that it is poured forth profusely on the 
 common earth and sky, that it gleams 
 from the loneliest flower, that it lights 
 up the humblest sphere, that the sweet- 
 est affections lodge in lowly hearts, that 
 there is sacredness, dignity, and loveli- 
 ness in lives which few eyes rest on ; 
 that, even in the absence of all intellect- 
 
 ii
 
 162 
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 ual culture, the domestic relations can 
 quietly nourish that disinterestedness 
 which is the element of all greatness, 
 and without which intellectual power is 
 a splendid deformity. Wordsworth is 
 the poet of humanity ; he teaches rever- 
 ence for our universal nature ; he breaks 
 down the factitious barriers between hu- 
 man hearts. 
 
 The same is true, in an inferior de- 
 gree, of Scott, whose tastes, however, 
 were more aristocratic. Scott had a 
 childish love of rank, titles, show, pa- 
 geants, and, in general, looked with 
 keener eye on the outward life than into 
 the soul. Still, he had a human heart, 
 and sympathized with his race. With 
 few exceptions, he was just to all his 
 human brethren. A reconciling spirit 
 breathes through his writings. He seizes 
 on the interesting and beautiful features 
 in all conditions of life ; gives us bursts 
 of tender and noble feelings even from 
 rude natures ; and continually knits some 
 new tie between the reader and the vast 
 varieties of human nature which start 
 up under his teeming pen. He delighted, 
 indeed, in Highland chiefs, in border 
 thieves and murderers, in fierce men 
 and fierce encounters. But he had an 
 eye to catch the stream of sweet affec- 
 tions as it wound its way through hum- 
 ble life. What light has Jeanie Deans 
 shed on the path of the obscure ! He 
 was too wanting in the religious senti- 
 ment to comprehend the solemn bearing, 
 the stern grandeur of the Puritans. But 
 we must not charge with narrowness a 
 writer who embodied in a Jewish maiden 
 his highest conceptions of female noble- 
 ness. 
 
 Another writer illustrating the liberal- 
 izing, all-harmonizing tendency of our 
 times is Dickens, whose genius has 
 sought and found subjects of thrilling 
 interest in the passions, sufferings, vir- 
 tues of the mass of the people. He 
 shows that life in its rudest forms may 
 wear a tragic grandeur ; that, amidst 
 follies and sensual excesses provoking 
 laughter or scorn, the moral feelings do 
 not wholly die ; and that the haunts of 
 the blackest crimes are sometimes light- 
 ed up by the presence and influence 
 of the noblest souls. He has, indeed, 
 greatly erred in turning so often the 
 degradation of humanity into matter of 
 sport ; but the tendency of his dark pict- 
 ures is to awaken sympathy with our 
 
 race, to change the unfeeling indiffer- 
 ence which has prevailed towards the 
 depressed multitude into sorrowful and 
 indignant sensibility to their wrongs and 
 woes. 
 
 The remarks now made on literature 
 might be extended to the fine arts. In 
 these we see, too, the tendency to uni- 
 versality. It is said that the spirit of 
 the great artists has died out ; but the 
 taste for their works is spreading. By 
 the improvements of engraving, and the 
 invention of casts, the genius of the 
 great masters is going abroad. Their 
 conceptions are no longer pent up in 
 galleries open to but few, but meet us 
 in our homes, and are the household 
 pleasures of millions. Works designed 
 for the halls and eyes of emperors, 
 popes, and nobles, find their way, in no 
 poor representations, into humble dwell- 
 ings, and sometimes give a conscious- 
 ness of kindred powers to the child of 
 poverty. The art of drawing, which lies 
 at the foundation of most of the fine 
 arts, and is the best education of the 
 eye for nature, is becoming a branch of 
 common education, and in some coun- 
 tries is taught in schools to which all 
 classes are admitted. 
 
 I am reminded by this remark of the 
 most striking feature of our times, and 
 showing its tendency to universality, 
 and that is, the unparalleled and con- 
 stantly accelerated diffusion of educa- 
 tion. This greatest of arts, as yet little 
 understood, is making sure progress, 
 because its principles are more and more 
 sought in the common nature of man ; 
 and the great truth is spreading, that 
 every man has a right to its aid. Ac- 
 cordingly education is becoming the 
 work of nations. Even in the despotic 
 governments of Europe, schools are 
 open for every child without distinc- 
 tion ; and not only the elements of 
 reading and writing, but music and 
 drawing are taught, and a foundation 
 is laid for future progress in history, 
 geography, and physical science. The 
 greatest minds are' at work on popular 
 education. The revenues of states are 
 applied most liberally, not to the uni- 
 versities for the few, but to the common 
 schools. Undoubtedly much remains to 
 be done ; especially a new rank in so- 
 ciety is to be given to the teacher ; but 
 even in this respect a revolution has 
 commenced, and we are beginning to
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 163 
 
 look on the guides of the young as the 
 chief benefactors of mankind. 
 
 I thought that I had finished my illus- 
 trations on this point ; but there has 
 suddenly occurred to me another sign 
 of the tendency to universal intellectual 
 action in this country, a sign which we 
 are prone to smile at, but which is yet 
 worthy of notice. I refer to the com- 
 monness among us of public speaking. 
 If we may trust our newspapers, we are 
 a nation of orators. Every meeting 
 overflows with eloquence. Men of all 
 conditions find a tongue for public de- 
 bate. Undoubtedly there is more sound 
 than sense in our endless speeches be- 
 fore all kinds of assemblies and socie- 
 ties. But no man, I think, can attend 
 our public meetings without being struck 
 with the force and propriety of expres- 
 sion in multitudes whose condition has 
 confined them to a very imperfect cult- 
 ure. This exercise of the intellect, 
 which has almost become a national 
 characteristic, is not to be undervalued. 
 Speech is not merely the dress, as it 
 is often called, but the very body of 
 thought. It is to the intellect what the 
 muscles are to the principle of physical 
 life. The mind acts and strengthens it- 
 self through words. It is a chaos till 
 defined, organized by language. The 
 attempt to give clear, precise utterance 
 to thought is one of the most effectual 
 processes of mental discipline. It is, 
 therefore, no doubtful sign of the grow- 
 ing intelligence of a people when the 
 power of expression is cultivated exten- 
 sively for the purpose of acting on mul- 
 titudes. We have here one invaluable 
 influence of popular institutions. They 
 present at the same moment to a whole 
 people great subjects of thought, and 
 bring multitudes to the earnest discus- 
 sion of them. Here are, indeed, moral 
 dangers ; but still, strong incitements to 
 general intellectual action. It is in such 
 stirring schools, after all, that the mind 
 of a people is chiefly formed. Events 
 of deep general interest quicken us more 
 than formal teaching ; and by these the 
 civilized world is to be more and more 
 trained to thought. 
 
 Thus we see in the intellectual move- 
 ments of our times the tendency to 
 expansion, to universality ; and this 
 must continue. It is not an accident, 
 or an inexplicable result, or a violence 
 on nature ; it is founded in eternal 
 
 truth. Every mind was made for growth, 
 for knowledge ; and its nature is sinned 
 against when it is doomed to ignorance. 
 The divine gift of intelligence was be- 
 stowed for higher uses than bodily labor, 
 than to make hewers of wood, drawers 
 of water, ploughmen, or servants. Every 
 being so gifted is intended to acquaint 
 himself with God and his works, and to 
 perform wisely and disinterestedly the 
 duties of life. Accordingly, when we 
 see the multitude of men beginning to 
 thirst for knowledge, for intellectual 
 action, for something more than an 
 animal life, we see the great design of 
 nature about to be accomplished ; and 
 society, having received this impulse, 
 will never rest till it shall have taken 
 such a form as will place within every 
 man's reach the means of intellectual 
 culture. This is the revolution to which 
 we are tending ; and without this all 
 outward political changes would be but 
 children's play, leaving the great work 
 of society yet to be done. 
 
 I have now viewed the age in its intel- 
 lectual aspects. If we look next at its 
 religious movements, we shall see in 
 these the same tendency to universality. 
 It is more and more understood that 
 religious truth is every man's property 
 and right ; that it is committed to no 
 order or individual, to no priest, minis- 
 ter, student, or sage, to be given or kept 
 back at will ; but that every man may 
 and should seek it for himself ; that 
 every man is to see with his own mind, 
 as well as with his own eyes ; and that 
 God's illuminating spirit is alike prom- 
 ised to every honest and humble seeker 
 after truth. This recognition of every 
 man's right of judgment appears in the 
 teachings of all denominations of Chris- 
 tians. In all, the tone of authority is 
 giving place to that of reason and per- 
 suasion. Men of all ranks are more and 
 more addressed as those who must weigh 
 and settle for themselves the grandest 
 truths of religion. 
 
 The same tendency to universality is 
 seen in the generous toleration which 
 marks our times, in comparison with 
 the past. Men, in general, cannot now 
 endure to think that their own narrow 
 church holds all the goodness on the 
 earth. Religion is less and less regarded 
 as a name, a form, a creed, a church, 
 and more and more as the spirit of 
 Christ, which works under all forms
 
 164 
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 and all sects. True, much intolerance 
 remains ; its separating walls are not 
 fallen ; but, with a few exceptions, 
 they no longer reach to the clouds. 
 Many of them have crumbled away, 
 till the men whom they sever can shake 
 hands, and exchange words of fellow- 
 ship, and recognize in one another's 
 faces the features of brethren. 
 
 At the present day the grand truth 
 of religion is more and more brought 
 out, I mean the truth, that God is 
 the Universal Father, that every soul 
 is infinitely precious to Him, that He 
 has no favorites, no partial attach- 
 ments, no respect of persons, that He 
 desires alike the virtue and everlasting 
 good of all. In the city of Penn I can- 
 not but remember the testimony to this 
 truth borne by George Fox and his fol- 
 lowers, who planted themselves on the 
 grand principle that God's illuminating 
 spirit is shed on every soul, not only 
 within the bounds of Christendom, but 
 through the whole earth. This universal, 
 impartial love of God is manifested to us 
 more and more by science, which re- 
 veals to us vast, all-pervading laws of 
 nature, administered with no favoritism, 
 and designed for the good of all. I 
 know that this principle is not univer- 
 sally received. Men have always been in- 
 clined to frame a local, partial, national, 
 or sectarian God, to shut up the Infinite 
 One in some petty enclosure ; but at 
 this moment larger views of God are 
 so far extended that they illustrate the 
 spirit of the age. 
 
 If we next consider by whom religion 
 is taught, we shall see the same ten- 
 dency to diffusion and universality. 
 Religious teaching is passing into all 
 hands. It has ceased to be a monopoly. 
 For example, what an immense amount 
 of instruction is communicated in Sun- 
 day-schools ! These are spreading over 
 the Christian world, and through these 
 the door of teaching is open to crowds, 
 to almost all, indeed, who would bear 
 a part in spreading religion. In like man- 
 ner, associations of vast extent are spring- 
 ing up in our cities for the teaching of 
 the poor. By these means woman, es- 
 pecially, is becoming an evangelist. She 
 is not only a priestess in her own 
 home, instilling with sweet, loving voice 
 the first truths of religion into the 
 opening mind, but she goes abroad 
 on missions of piety. Woman, in one 
 
 age made man's drudge, and in an- 
 other his toy, is now sharing more 
 and more with him the highest labors. 
 Through the press, especially, she is 
 heard far and wide. The press is a 
 mightier power than the pulpit. Books 
 outstrip the voice ; and woman, avail- 
 ing herself of this agency, becomes the 
 teacher of nations. In churches, where 
 she may not speak, her hymns are sung ; 
 the inspirations of her genius are felt. 
 Thus our age is breaking down the 
 monopolies of the past. 
 
 But a more striking illustration re- 
 mains. One of the great distinctions 
 of our times is found in the more clear 
 and vital perception of the truth, that 
 the universal, impartial love which is 
 the glory of God is the characteristic 
 spirit and glory of Christianity. To 
 this we owe the extension of philan- 
 thropic and religious effort beyond all 
 former experience. How much we are 
 better on the whole than former times I 
 do not say ; but that benevolence is 
 acting on a larger scale, in more va- 
 rious forms, to more distant objects, 
 this we cannot deny. Call it preten- 
 sion, or enthusiasm, or what you will, 
 the fact remains ; and it attests the 
 diffusive tendencies of our times. Be- 
 nevolence now gathers together her ar- 
 mies. Vast associations are spread 
 over whole countries for assailing evils 
 which it is thought cannot be met by 
 the single-handed. There is hardly a 
 form of evil which has not awakened 
 some antagonist effort. Associated be- 
 nevolence gives eyes to the blind and 
 ears to the deaf, and is achieving even 
 greater wonders ; that is, it approaches 
 the mind without the avenues of eye 
 and ear, and gives to the hopelessly 
 blind and deaf the invaluable knowledge 
 which these senses afford to others. 
 Benevolence now shuts out no human 
 being, however low, from its regard. 
 It goes to the cell of the criminal with 
 words of hope, and is laboring to miti- 
 gate public punishment, to make it 
 the instrument, not of vengeance, but re- 
 form. It remembers the slave, pleads 
 his cause with God and man, recognizes 
 in him a human brother, respects in 
 him the sacred rights of humanity, and 
 claims for him, not as a boon, but as a 
 right, that freedom without which hu- 
 manity withers and God's child is de- 
 graded into a tool or a brute. Still
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 I6 5 
 
 more, benevolence now is passing all 
 limits of country and ocean. It would 
 send our own best blessing to the ends 
 of the earth. It would make the wilder- 
 ness of heathenism bloom, and join all 
 nations in the bonds of one holy and 
 loving faith. Thus, if we look at the 
 religious movements of the age, we see 
 in them that tendency to diffusion and 
 universality which I have named as its 
 most striking characteristic. 
 
 Let me briefly point out this same 
 tendency in government. Here, indeed, 
 it is too obvious for illustration. To 
 what is the civilized world tending ? 
 To popular institutions, or, what is the 
 same thing, to the influence of the peo- 
 ple, of the mass of men, over public 
 affairs. A little while ago, and the peo- 
 ple were unknown as a power in the 
 state. Now they are getting all power 
 into their hands. Even in despotisms, 
 where they cannot act through institu- 
 tions, they act through public opinion. 
 Intelligence is strength ; and in propor- 
 tion as the many grow intelligent they 
 must guide the world. Kings and no- 
 bles fill less and less place in history ; 
 and the names of men who once were 
 lost amidst the glare of courts and ti- 
 tles are now written there imperishably. 
 Once history did not know that the 
 multitude existed, except when they 
 were gathered together on the field of 
 battle to be sabred and shot down for 
 the glory of their masters. Now' they 
 are coming forward into the foreground 
 of her picture. It is now understood 
 that government exists for one end, and 
 one alone ; and that is, not the glory 
 of the governor, not the pomp and 
 pleasure of a few, but the good, the 
 safety, the rights of all. Once gov- 
 ernment was an inherited monopoly, 
 guarded by the doctrine of divine right, 
 of an exclusive commission from the 
 Most High. Now office and dignity 
 are thrown open as common things, 
 and nations are convulsed by the mul- 
 titude of competitors for the prize of 
 public power. Once the policy of gov- 
 ernments had no higher end than to 
 concentrate property into a few hands, 
 and to confirm the relation of depend- 
 ant and lord. Now it aims to give to 
 each the means of acquiring property, 
 and of carving out his fortune for him- 
 self. Such is the political current of 
 our times. Many look on it with dark 
 
 forebodings, as on a desolating torrent ; 
 while others hail it as a fertilizing 
 stream. But in one thing both agree ; 
 whether torrent or stream, the mighty 
 current exists, and overflows, and can- 
 not be confined ; and it shows us in 
 the political, as in the other movements 
 of our age, the tendency to universality, 
 to diffusion. 
 
 I shall notice but one more move- 
 ment of the age as indicating the ten- 
 dency to universality, and this is, its 
 industry. How numberless are the 
 forms which this takes ! Into how 
 many channels is human labor pouring 
 itself forth ! How Widely spread is 
 the passion for acquisition, not for 
 simple means of subsistence, but for 
 wealth ! What vast enterprises agi- 
 tate the community ! What a rush into 
 all the departments of trade ! How 
 next to universal the insanity of spec- 
 ulation ! What new arts spring up ! 
 Industry pierces the forests, and star- 
 tles with her axe the everlasting silence. 
 To you, gentlemen, commerce is the 
 commanding interest ; and this has no 
 limits but the habitable world. It no 
 longer creeps along the shore, or lin- 
 gers in accustomed tracks ; but pene- 
 trates into every inlet, plunges into the 
 heart of uncivilized lands, sends its 
 steam-ships up unexplored rivers, gir- 
 dles the earth with railroads, and thus 
 breaks down the estrangements of na- 
 tions. Commerce is a noble calling. 
 It mediates between distant nations, 
 and makes men's wants, not, as for- 
 merly, stimulants to war, but bonds of 
 peace. The universal intellectual ac- 
 tivity of which I have spoken is due, 
 in no small degree, to commerce, which 
 spreads the thoughts, inventions, and 
 writings of great men over the earth, 
 and gathers scientific and literary men 
 everywhere into an intellectual repub- 
 lic. So it carries abroad the mission- 
 ary, the Bible, the Cross, and is giving 
 universality to true religion. Gentle- 
 men, allow me to express an earnest 
 desire and hope that the merchants of 
 this country will carry on their calling 
 with these generous views. Let them 
 not pursue it for themselves alone. Let 
 them rejoice to spread improvements 
 far and wide, and to unite men in more 
 friendly ties. Let them adopt maxims 
 of trade which will establish general 
 confidence. Especially, in their inter-
 
 1 65 
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 course with less cultivated tribes, let 
 them feel themselves bound to be har- 
 bingers of civilization. Let their voy- 
 ages be missions of humanity, useful 
 arts, science, and religion. It is a pain- 
 ful thought that commerce, instead of 
 enlightening and purifying less priv- 
 ileged communities, has too often made 
 the name of Christian hateful to them, 
 has carried to the savage, not our use- 
 ful arts and mild faith, but weapons of 
 war and the intoxicating draught. I 
 call not on God to smite with his light- 
 nings, to overwhelm with his storms, 
 the accursed ship which goes to the 
 ignorant, rude hative, freighted with 
 poison and death ; which goes to add 
 new ferocity to savage life, new licen- 
 tiousness to savage sensuality. I have 
 learned not to call down fire from heav- 
 en. But, in the name of humanity, of 
 religion, of God, I implore the mer- 
 chants of this country not to use the 
 light of a higher civilization to corrupt, 
 to destroy our uncivilized brethren. 
 Brethren they are, in those rude huts, 
 in that wild attire. Establish with them 
 an intercourse of usefulness, justice, 
 and charity. Before they can under- 
 stand the name of Christ, let them see 
 his spirit in those by whom it is borne. 
 It has been said that the commerce of 
 our country is not only corrupting un- 
 civilized countries, but that it wears a 
 deeper, more damning stain ; that, in 
 spite of the laws of the land and the 
 protest of nations, it sometimes lends 
 itself to the slave-trade ; that, by its 
 capital and accommodations, and swift 
 sailers, and false papers, and prosti- 
 tuted flag, it takes part in tearing the 
 African from his home and native shore, 
 and in dooming him, first to the hor- 
 rors of the middle passage, and then 
 to the hopelessness of perpetual bond- 
 age. Even on men so fallen I call 
 down no curse. May they find for- 
 giveness from God through the pains 
 of sincere repentance ! but, continuing 
 what they are, can I help shrinking 
 from them as among the most infa- 
 mous of their race ? 
 
 Allow me to say a word to the mer- 
 chants of our country on another sub- 
 ject. The time is come when they are 
 particularly called to take yet more gen- 
 erous views of their vocation, and to 
 five commerce a universality as yet un- 
 nown. I refer to the juster principles 
 
 which are gaining ground on the subject 
 of free trade, and to the growing dispo- 
 sition of nations to promote it. Free 
 trade ! this is the plain duty and plain 
 interest of the human race. To level 
 all barriers to free exchange ; to cut 
 up the system of restriction, root and 
 branch ; to open every port on earth to 
 every product ; this is the office of en- 
 lightened humanity. To this a free 
 nation should especially pledge itself. 
 Freedom of the seas ; freedom of har- 
 bors ; an intercourse of nations, free 
 as the winds ; this is not a dream of 
 philanthropists. We are tending to- 
 wards it, and let us hasten it. Under 
 a wiser and more Christian civilization 
 we shall look back on our present re- 
 strictions as we do on the swaddling 
 bands by which in darker times the hu- 
 man body was compressed. The grow- 
 ing freedom of trade is another and 
 glorious illustration of the tendency of 
 our age to universality. 
 
 I have thus aimed to show in the prin- 
 cipal movements of our time the charac- 
 ter of diffusion and universality, and in 
 doing this I have used language imply- 
 ing my joy in this great feature of our 
 age. But you will not suppose that I 
 see in it nothing but good. Human 
 affairs admit no unmixed good. This 
 very tendency has its perils and evils. 
 To take but one example : the opening 
 of vast prospects of wealth to the mul- 
 titude of men has stirred up a fierce 
 competition, a wild spirit of speculation, 
 a feverish, insatiable cupidity, under 
 which fraud, bankruptcy, distrust, dis- 
 tress are fearfully multiplied, so that 
 the name of American has become a 
 by-word beyond the ocean. I see the 
 danger of the present state of society, 
 perhaps as clearly as any one. But still 
 I rejoice to have been born in this age. 
 It is still true that human nature was 
 made for growth, expansion ; this is 
 its proper life, and this must not be 
 checked because it has perils. The 
 child, when it shoots up into youth, ex- 
 changes its early repose and security 
 for new passions, for strong emotions, 
 which are full of danger ; but would 
 we keep him for ever a child ? Danger 
 we cannot avoid. It is a grand element 
 of human life. We always walk on 
 precipices. It is unmanly, unwise, it 
 shows a want of faith in God and hu- 
 manity, to deny to others and ourselves
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 I6 7 
 
 free scope and the expansion of our 
 best powers because of the possible 
 collisions and pains to be feared from 
 extending activity. Many, indeed, sigh 
 for security as the supreme good. But 
 God intends us for something better, 
 for effort, conflict, and progress. And 
 is it not well to live in a stirring and 
 mighty world, even though we suffer 
 from it ? If we look at outward nat- 
 ure, we find ourselves surrounded with 
 vast and fearful elements, air. sea, 
 and fire, which sometimes burst all 
 bounds, and overwhelm man and his 
 labors in ruin. But who of us would 
 annihilate these awful forces, would 
 make the ocean a standing pool, and 
 put to silence the loud blast, in order 
 that life may escape every peril ? This 
 mysterious, infinite, irresistible might 
 of nature, breaking out in countless 
 forms and motions, makes nature the 
 true school for man, and gives it all 
 its interest. In the soul still mightier 
 forces are pent up, and their expansion 
 has its perils. But all are from God, 
 who has blended with them checks, 
 restraints, balances, reactions, by which 
 all work together for good. Let us 
 never forget that, amidst this fearful 
 stir, there is a paternal Providence, 
 under which the education of our race 
 has gone on, and a higher condition of 
 humanity has been achieved. 
 
 There are, however, not a few who 
 have painful fears of evil from" the 
 restless, earnest action which we have 
 seen spreading itself more and more 
 through all departments of society. 
 They call the age wild, lawless, pre- 
 sumptuous, without reverence. All men, 
 they tell us, are bursting their spheres, 
 quitting their ranks, aspiring selfishly 
 after gain and pre-eminence. The 
 blind multitude are forsaking their nat- 
 ural leaders. The poor, who are the 
 majority, are contriving against the 
 rich. Still more, a dangerous fanat- 
 icism threatens destruction to the world 
 under the name of reform ; society tot- 
 ters : property is shaken ; and the uni- 
 versal freedom of thought and action, 
 of which so many boast, is the precur- 
 sor of social storms which only des- 
 potism can calm. Such are the alarms 
 of not a few ; and it is right that fear 
 should utter its prophecies, as well as 
 hope. But it is the true office of fear 
 to give a wise direction to human effort, 
 
 not to chill or destroy it. To despair 
 of the race, even in the worst times, is 
 unmanly, unchristian. How much more 
 so in times like the present ! What 
 I most lament in these apprehensions 
 is the utter distrust of human nature 
 which they discover. Its highest pow- 
 ers are thought to be given only to be 
 restrained. They are thought to be 
 safe only when in fetters. To me, 
 there is an approach to impiety in think- 
 ing so meanly of God's greatest work. 
 Human nature is not a tiger which 
 needs a constant chain. In this case 
 it is the chain which makes the tiger. 
 It is the oppressor who has made man 
 fit only for a yoke. 
 
 When I look into the great move- 
 ments of the age. particularly as mani- 
 fested in our own country, they seem 
 to me to justify no overwhelming fear. 
 True, they are earnest and wide spread- 
 ing ; but the objects to which they are 
 directed are pledges against extensive 
 harm. For example, ought the general 
 diffusion of science and literature and 
 thought to strike dread ? Do habits 
 of reading breed revolt ? Does the 
 astronomer traverse the skies, or the 
 geologist pierce the earth, to gather ma- 
 terials for assault on the social state ? 
 Does the study of nature stir up re- 
 bellion against its Author ? Is it the 
 lesson which men learn from history, 
 that they are to better their condition 
 by disturbing the state ? Does the 
 reading of poetry train us to insurrec- 
 tion? Does the diffusion of a sense 
 of beauty through a people incline them 
 to tumult ? Are not works of genius 
 and the fine arts soothing influences ? 
 Is not a shelf of books in a poor man's 
 house some pledge of his keeping the 
 peace ? It is not denied that thought, 
 in its freedom, questions and assails 
 the holiest truth. But is truth so weak, 
 so puny, as to need to be guarded by 
 bayonets from assault ? Has truth no 
 beauty, no might? Has the human 
 soul no power to weigh its evidence, 
 to reverence its grandeur ? Besides, 
 does not freedom of thought, when 
 most unrestrained, carry a conserva- 
 tive power in itself ? In such a state 
 of things the erring do not all embrace 
 the same error. Whilst truth is one 
 and the same, falsehood is infinitely 
 various. It is a house divided against 
 itself, and cannot stand. Error soon
 
 i68 
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 passes away, unless upheld by restraint 
 on thought. History tells us, and the 
 lesson is invaluable, that the physical 
 force which has put down free inquiry 
 has been the main bulwark of the 
 superstitions and illusions of past 
 ages. 
 
 In the next place, if we look at the 
 chief direction of the universal activity 
 of the age, we shall find that it is a con- 
 servative one, so as to render social 
 convulsion next to impossible. On what, 
 after all, are the main energies of this 
 restlessness spent ? On property, on 
 wealth. High and low, rich and poor, 
 are running the race of accumulation. 
 Property is the prize for which all strain 
 their nerves ; and the vast majority com- 
 pass in some measure this end. And is 
 such a society in danger of convulsion ? 
 Is tumult the way to wealth ? Is a state 
 of insecurity coveted by men who own 
 something and hope for more ? Are 
 civil laws, which, after all, have prop- 
 erty for their chief concern, very likely 
 to be trodden under foot by its worship- 
 pers ? Of all the dreams of fear, few 
 seem to me more baseless than the dread 
 of anarchy among a people who are pos- 
 sessed almost to a man with the pas- 
 sion for gain. I am especially amused 
 when, among such a people, I sometimes 
 hear of danger to property and society 
 from enthusiastic, romantic reformers 
 who preach levelling doctrines, equality 
 of wealth, quaker plainness of dress, 
 vegetable food, and community-systems 
 where all are to toil and divide earnings 
 alike. What ! Danger from romance and 
 enthusiasm in this money-getting, self- 
 seeking, self-indulging, self-displaying 
 land ? I confess that to me it is a com- 
 fort to see some outbreak of enthusiasm, 
 whether transcendental, philanthropic, 
 or religious, as a proof that the human 
 spirit is not wholly engulfed in matter 
 and business, that it can lift up a little 
 the mountains of worldliness and sense 
 with which it is so borne down. It will 
 be time enough to fear when we shall 
 see fanaticism of any kind stopping, 
 ever so little, the wheels of business or 
 pleasure, driving, ever so little, from 
 man's mind the idea of gain, or from 
 woman's the love of display. Are any 
 of you dreading an innovating enthusi- 
 asm ? You need only to step into the 
 streets to be assured that property and 
 the world are standing their ground 
 
 against the spirit of reform as stoutly as 
 the most worldly man could desire. 
 
 Another view which quiets my fear as 
 to social order, from the universal ac- 
 tivity of the times, is the fact that this 
 activity appears so much in the form of 
 steady labor. It is one distinction of 
 modern over ancient times, that we have 
 grown more patient of toil. Our danger 
 is from habits of drudgery. The citi- 
 zens of Greece and Rome were above 
 work. We seem to work with some- 
 thing of the instinct of the ant and the 
 bee ; and this is no mean security against 
 lawlessness and revolt. 
 
 Another circumstance of our times 
 which favors a quiet state of things is 
 the love of comforts which the progress 
 of arts and industry has spread over the 
 community. In feudal ages and ancient 
 times the mass of the population had no 
 such pleasant homes, no such defences 
 against cold and storms, no such decent 
 apparel, no such abundant and savory 
 meals, as fall to the lot of our popula- 
 tion. Now it must be confessed, though 
 not very flattering to human nature, that 
 men are very slow to part with these 
 comforts even in defence of a good 
 cause, much less to throw them away in 
 wild and senseless civil broils. 
 
 Another element of security in the 
 present is the strength of 'domestic 
 affection. Christianity has given new 
 sacredness to home, new tenderness to 
 love, new force to the ties of husband 
 and wife, parent and child. Social or- 
 der is dear to us all, as encircling and 
 sheltering our homes. In ancient and 
 rude times the family bond was compar- 
 atively no restraint. We should all pause 
 before we put in peril beings whom we 
 hold most dear. 
 
 Once more : Christianity is a pledge 
 of social order which none of us suffi- 
 ciently prize. Weak as its influence 
 seems to be, there are vast numbers into 
 whom it has infused sentiments of jus- 
 tice, of kindness, of reverence for God, 
 and of deep concern for the peace and 
 order of the state. Rapine and blood- 
 shed would awaken now a horror alto- 
 gether unknown in ages in which this 
 mild and divine truth had not exerted 
 its power. 
 
 With all these influences in favor of 
 social influence, have we much to fear 
 from the free, earnest, universal move- 
 ments of our times ? I believe that the
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 169 
 
 very extension of human powers is to 
 bring with it new checks against their 
 abuse. 
 
 The prosperous part of society are, of 
 course, particularly liable to the fear of 
 which I have spoken. They see danger 
 especially in the extension of power and 
 freedom of all kinds to the laboring 
 classes of society. They look with a 
 jealous eye on attempts to elevate these, 
 though one would think that to improve 
 a man was the surest way to disarm his 
 violence. They talk of agrarianism. 
 They dread a system of universal pil- 
 lage. They dread a conspiracy of the 
 needy against the rich. Now the man- 
 ual laborer has burdens enough to bear 
 without the load of groundless suspicion 
 or reproach. It ought to be understood 
 that the great enemies to society are 
 not found in its poorer ranks. The 
 mass may, indeed, be used as tools ; but 
 the stirring and guiding powers of insur- 
 rection are found above. Communities 
 fall by the vices of the prosperous ranks. 
 We are referred to Rome, which was 
 robbed of her liberties and reduced to 
 the most degrading vassalage by the 
 lawlessness of the Plebeians, who sold 
 themselves to demagogues, and gave 
 the republic into the hands of a dic- 
 tator. But what made the Plebeians 
 an idle, dissolute, rapacious horde ? It 
 was the system of universal rapine which, 
 under the name of conquest, had been 
 carried on for ages by Patricians, by 
 all the powers of the state, a system 
 which glutted Rome with the spoils 
 of the pillaged world ; which fed her 
 population without labor, from the pub- 
 lic treasures, and corrupted them by 
 public shows. It was this which helped 
 to make the metropolis of the earth a 
 sink of crime and pollution such as the 
 world had never known. It was time 
 that the grand robber-state should be 
 cast down from her guilty eminence. 
 Her brutish populace, which followed 
 Caesar's car with shouts, was not worse 
 than the venal, crouching senate which 
 registered his decrees. Let not the 
 poor bear the burden of the rich. At 
 this moment we are groaning over the 
 depressed and dishonored state of our 
 country ; and who, let me ask, have 
 shaken its credit, and made so many of 
 its institutions bankrupt ? The poor or 
 the rich ? Whence is it that the in- 
 comes of the widow, the orphan, the 
 
 aged, have been narrowed, and multi- 
 tudes on both sides of the ocean brought 
 to the brink of want ? Is it from an 
 outbreak of popular fury ? Is it from 
 gangs of thieves sprung from the mob ? 
 We know the truth, and it shows us 
 where the great danger to property 
 lies. 
 
 Communities fall by the vices of the 
 great, not the small. The French Revo- 
 lution is perpetually sounded in our ears 
 as a warning against the lawlessness of 
 the people. But whence came this 
 Revolution ? Who were the regicides ? 
 Who beheaded Louis the Sixteenth ? 
 You tell me the Jacobins ; but history 
 tells a different tale. I will show you 
 the beheaders of Louis the Sixteenth. 
 They were Louis the Fourteenth, and 
 the Regent who followed him, and Louis 
 the Fifteenth. These brought their de- 
 scendant to the guillotine. The priest- 
 hood who revoked the edict of Nantz, 
 and drove from France the skill and 
 industry and virtue and piety which 
 were the sinews of her strength ; the 
 statesmen who intoxicated Louis the 
 Fourteenth with the scheme of univer- 
 sal empire ; the profligate, prodigal, 
 shameless Orleans ; and the still more 
 brutalized Louis the Fifteenth, with his 
 court of panders and prostitutes ; 
 these made the nation bankrupt, broke 
 asunder the bond of loyalty, and over- 
 whelmed the throne and altar in ruins. 
 We hear of the horrors of the Revolu- 
 tion ; but in this, as in other things, we 
 recollect the effect without thinking of 
 the guiltier cause. The Revolution was 
 indeed a scene of horror ; but when I 
 look back on the reigns which preceded 
 it, and which made Paris almost one 
 great stew and gaming-house, and when 
 I see altar and throne desecrated by a 
 licentiousness unsurpassed in any form- 
 er age, I look on scenes as shocking to 
 the calm and searching eye of reason 
 and virtue as the tenth of August and 
 the massacre of September. Blood- 
 shed is indeed a terrible spectacle ; 
 but there are other things almost as 
 fearful as blood. There are crimes that 
 do not make us start and turn pale like 
 | the guillotine, but are deadlier in their 
 workings. God forbid that I should 
 say a word to weaken the thrill of hor- 
 ror with which we contemplate the out- 
 rages of the French Revolution ! But 
 when I hear that Revolution quoted to
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 frighten us from reform, to show us the 
 danger of lifting up the depressed and 
 ignorant mass, I must ask whence it 
 came ; and the answer is, that it came 
 from the intolerable weight of misgov- 
 ernment and tyranny, from the utter 
 want of culture among the mass of the 
 people, and from a corruption of the 
 great too deep to be purged away ex- 
 cept by destruction. I am also com- 
 pelled to remember that the people, in 
 this their singular madness, wrought far 
 less woe than kings and priests have 
 wrought, as a familiar thing, in all ages 
 of the world. All the murders of the 
 French Revolution did not amount, I 
 think, by one-fifth, to those of the Mas- 
 sacre of St. Bartholomew's. The priest- 
 hood and the throne, in one short night 
 and day, shed more blood, and that the 
 best blood of France, than was spilled 
 by Jacobinism and all other forms of 
 violence during the whole Revolution. 
 Even the atheism and infidelity of 
 France were due chiefly to a licentious 
 priesthood and a licentious court. It 
 was religion, so called, that dug her 
 own grave. In offering this plea for 
 the multitude I have no desire to trans- 
 fer to the multitude uncontrolled politi- 
 cal power. I look at power in all hands 
 with jealousy. I wish neither rich nor 
 poor to be my masters. What I wish 
 is, the improvement, the elevation of 
 all classes, and especially of the most 
 numerous class, because the most nu- 
 merous, because, the many are mankind, 
 and because no social progress can be 
 hoped but from influences which pene- 
 trate and raise the mass of men. The 
 mass must not be confined and kept 
 down through a vague dread of revolu- 
 tions. A social order requiring such a 
 sacrifice would be too dearly bought. 
 No order should satisfy us but that 
 which is in harmony with universal im- 
 provement and freedom. 
 
 In the general tone of this discourse 
 it may be thought that I have proposed 
 to vindicate the present age. I have 
 no such thought. I would improve, not 
 laud it. I feel its imperfections and 
 corruptions as deeply as any, though I 
 may be most shocked by features that 
 give others little pain. The saddest 
 aspect of the age, to me, is that which 
 undoubtedly contributes to social order. 
 It is the absorption of the multitude of 
 men in ouiward, material interests ; it 
 
 is the selfish prudence which is never 
 tired of the labor of accumulation, and 
 which keeps men steady, regular, re- 
 spectable drudges from morning to 
 night. The cases of a few murders, 
 great crimes, lead multitudes to ex- 
 claim, How wicked this age ! But the 
 worst sign is the chaining down of al- 
 most all the minds of a community to 
 low, perishable interests. It is a sad 
 thought, that the infinite energies of the 
 soul have no higher end than to cover 
 the back, and fill the belly, and keep 
 caste in society. A few nerves, hardly 
 visible, on the surface of the tongue, 
 create most of the endless stir around 
 us. Undoubtedly, eating and drink- 
 ing, dressing, house-building, and caste- 
 keeping, are matters not to be despised ; 
 most of them are essential. But surely 
 life has a higher use than to adorn this 
 body which is so soon to be wrapped in 
 grave-clothes, than to keep warm and 
 flowing the blood which is so soon to 
 be cold and stagnant in the tomb. I 
 rejoice in the boundless activity of the 
 age, and I expect much of it to be given 
 to our outward wants. But over all 
 this activity there should preside the 
 great idea of that which is alone our- 
 selves, of our inward, spiritual nat- 
 ure ; of the thinking, immortal soul ; of 
 our supreme good, our chief end, which 
 is to bring out, cultivate, and perfect 
 our highest powers, to become wise, 
 holy, disinterested, noble beings, to 
 unite ourselves to God by love and 
 adoration, and to revere his image in 
 his children. The vast activity of this 
 age, of which I have spoken, is too 
 much confined to the sensual and ma- 
 terial, to gain and pleasure and show. 
 Could this activity be swayed and puri- 
 fied by a noble aim, not a single com- 
 fort of life would be retrenched, whilst 
 its beauty and grace and interest would 
 be unspeakably increased. 
 
 There is another dark feature of this 
 age. It is the spirit of collision, con- 
 tention, discord, which breaks forth in re- 
 ligion, in politics, in business, in private 
 affairs, a result and necessary issue 
 of the selfishness which prompts the 
 endless activity of life. The mighty 
 forces which are this moment acting in 
 society are not and cannot be in har- 
 mony, for they are not governed by 
 love. They jar ; they are discordant. 
 Life now has little music in it. It is
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 I/I 
 
 not only on the field of battle that men 
 fight. They fight on the exchange. 
 Business is war, a conflict of skill, 
 management, and, too often, fraud ; to 
 Snatch the prey from our neighbor is 
 the end of all this stir. Religion is 
 war ; Christians, forsaking their one 
 Lord, gather under various standards 
 to gain victory for their sects. Politics 
 are war, breaking the whole people into 
 fierce and unscrupulous parties, which 
 forget their country in conflicts for office 
 and power. The age needs nothing 
 more than peace-makers, men of serene, 
 commanding virtue, to preach in life 
 and word the gospel of human brother- 
 hood, to allay the fires of jealousy and 
 hate. 
 
 I have named discouraging aspects of 
 our time to show that I am not blind to 
 the world I live in. But I still hope for 
 the human race. Indeed, I could not 
 live without hope. Were I to look on 
 the world as many do, were I to see in 
 it a maze without a plan, a whirl of 
 changes without aim, a stage for good 
 and evil to fight without an issue, an 
 endless motion without progress, a 
 world where sin and idolatry are to 
 triumph for ever, and the oppressor's 
 rod never to be broken, I should turn 
 from it with sickness of heart, and care 
 not how soon the sentence of its de- 
 struction were fulfilled. History and 
 philosophy plainly show to me in human 
 nature the foundation and promise of a 
 better era, and Christianity concurs with 
 these. The thought of a higher con- 
 dition of the world was the secret fire 
 which burned in the soul of the great 
 Founder of our religion, and in his first 
 followers. That he was to act on all 
 future generations, that he was sowing 
 a seed which was to grow up and spread 
 its branches over all nations, this great 
 thought never forsook him in life and 
 death. That under Christianity a civil- 
 ization has grown up containing in itself 
 nobler elements than are found in earlier 
 forms of society, who can deny ? Great 
 ideas and feelings, derived from this 
 source, are now at work. Amidst the 
 prevalence of crime and selfishness, 
 there has sprung up in the human heart 
 a sentiment or principle unknown in 
 earlier ages, an enlarged and trustful 
 philanthropy, which recognizes the right 
 of every human being, which is stirred 
 by the terrible oppressions and corrup- 
 
 tions of the world, and which does not 
 shrink from conflict with evil in its 
 worst forms. There has sprung up, 
 too, a faith, of which antiquity knew 
 nothing, in the final victory of truth and 
 right, in the elevation of men to a clearer 
 intelligence, to more fraternal union, and 
 to a purer worship. This faith is taking 
 its place among the great springs of hu- 
 man action, is becoming even a passion 
 in more fervent spirits. 1 hail it as a 
 prophecy which is to fulfil itself. A 
 nature capable of such an aspiration 
 cannot be degraded for ever. Ages 
 rolled away before it was learned that 
 this world of matter which we tread on 
 is in constant motion. We are begin- 
 ning to learn that the intellectual, moral, 
 social world has its motion too, not fixed 
 and immutable like that of matter, but 
 one which the free will of men is to 
 carry on, and which, instead of return- 
 ing into itself like the earth's orbit, is 
 to stretch forward for ever. This hope 
 lightens the mystery and burden of life. 
 It is a star which shines on me in the 
 darkest night ; and I should rejoice to 
 reveal it to the eyes of my fellow-creat- 
 ures. 
 
 I have thus spoken of the present 
 age. In these brief words what a 
 world of thought is comprehended ! 
 what infinite movements ! what joys 
 and sorrows ! what hope and despair ! 
 what faith and doubt ! what silent grief 
 and _loud lament ! what fierce conflicts 
 and ' subtle schemes of policy ! what 
 private and public revolutions ! In the 
 period through which many of us have 
 passed what thrones have been shaken ! 
 what hearts have bled ! what millions 
 have been butchered by their fellow- 
 creatures ! what hopes of philanthropy 
 have been blighted ! And, at the same 
 time, what magnificent enterprises have 
 been achieved ! what new provinces 
 won to science and art ! what rights 
 and liberties secured to nations ! It is 
 a privilege to have lived in an age so 
 stirring, so pregnant, so eventful. It is 
 an age never to be forgotten. Its voice 
 of warning and encouragement is never 
 to die. Its impression on history is in- 
 delible. Amidst its events, the Ameri- 
 can Revolution, the first distinct, solemn 
 assertion of the rights of men, and the 
 French Revolution, that volcanic force 
 which shook the earth to its centre, are 
 never to pass from men's minds. Over
 
 172 
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 this age the night will, indeed, gather 
 more and more as time rolls away ; but 
 in that night two forms will appear, 
 Washington and Napoleon, the one a 
 lurid meteor, the other a benign, serene, 
 and undecaying star. Another Amer- 
 ican name will live in history, your 
 Franklin ; and the kite which brought 
 lightning from heaven will be seen sail- 
 ing in the clouds by remote posterity, 
 when the city where he dwelt may be 
 known only by its ruins. There is, 
 however, something greater in the age 
 than its greatest men ; it is the appear- 
 ance of a new power in the world, the 
 appearance of the multitude of men on 
 that stage where as yet the few have 
 acted their parts alone. This influence 
 is to endure to the end of time. What 
 more of the present is to survive ? Per- 
 haps much, of which we now take no 
 note. The glory of an age is often hid- 
 den from itself. Perhaps some word 
 has been spoken in our day which we 
 have not deigned to hear, but which 
 is to grow clearer and louder through 
 
 all ages. Perhaps some silent thinker 
 among us is at work in his closet whose 
 name is to fill the earth. Perhaps there 
 sleeps in his cradle some reformer who 
 is to move the church and the world, 
 who is to open a new era in history, who 
 is to fire the human soul with new hope 
 and new daring. What else is to sur- 
 vive the age ? That which the age has 
 little thought of, but which is living in 
 us all, I mean the soul, the immortal 
 spirit. Of this all ages are the unfold- 
 ings, and it is greater than all. We 
 must not feel, in the contemplation of 
 the vast movements of our own and 
 former times, as if we ourselves were 
 nothing. I repeat it, we are greater 
 than all. We are to survive our age, to 
 comprehend it, and to pronounce its 
 sentence. As yet, however, we are en- 
 compassed with darkness. The issues 
 of our time how obscure ! The future 
 into which it opens who of us can fore- 
 see ? To the Father of all ages I 
 commit this future with humble, yet 
 courageous and unfaltering hope. 
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM: 
 
 Discourse preached at tJve Annual Election, May 26, 1830. 
 
 JOHN viii. 31, 32, 36: "Then said Jesus to those 
 Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my 
 word, then are ye my disciples indeed ; and ye shall 
 know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." 
 " If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall 
 be free indeed." 
 
 THE Scriptures continually borrow 
 from nature and social life illustrations 
 and emblems of spiritual truth. The 
 character, religion, and blessings of 
 Jesus Christ are often placed before us 
 by sensible images. His influences on 
 the mind are shadowed forth by the 
 light of the sun, by the vital union of 
 the head with the members, by the shep- 
 herd bringing back the wandering flock, 
 by the vine which nourishes and fructi- 
 fies the branches, by the foundation 
 sustaining the edifice, by bread and 
 wine invigorating the animal frame. In 
 our text we have a figurative illustra- 
 tion of his influence on religion, pecu- 
 
 liarly intelligible and dear to this com- 
 munity. He speaks of himself as giving 
 freedom, that great good of individuals 
 and states ; and by this similitude he 
 undoubtedly intended to place before 
 men, in a strong and attractive light, 
 that spiritual and inward liberty which 
 his truth confers on its obedient disci- 
 ples. Inward spiritual liberty, this is 
 the great gift of Jesus Christ. This 
 will be the chief topic of the present 
 discourse. I wish to show that this 
 is the supreme good of men, and that 
 civil and political liberty has but little 
 worth but as it springs from and invig- 
 orates this. 
 
 From what I have now said the gen- 
 eral tone of this discourse may be easily 
 anticipated. I shall maintain that the 
 highest interest of communities, as well 
 as individuals, is a spiritual interest ;
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 173 
 
 that outward and earthly goods are of ' 
 little worth but as bearing on the mind, 
 and tending to its liberation, strength, 
 and glory. And I am fully aware that 
 in taking that course I lay myself open 
 to objection. I shall be told that I 
 show my ignorance of human nature 
 in attempting to interest men by such 
 refined views of society ; that I am too 
 speculative ; that spiritual liberty is too 
 unsubstantial and visionary to be pro- 
 posed to statesmen as an end in legisla- 
 tion ; that the dreams of the closet 
 should not be obtruded on practical 
 men ; that gross and tangible realities 
 can alone move the multitude ; and that 
 to talk to politicians of the spiritual in- 
 terests of society as of supreme impor- 
 tance, is as idle as to try to stay with a 
 breath the force of the whirlwind. 
 
 I anticipate such objections. But 
 they do not move me. I firmly believe 
 that the only truth which is to do men 
 lasting good is that which relates to 
 the soul, which carries them into its 
 depths, which reveals to them its pow- 
 ers and the purposes of its creation. 
 The progress of society is retarded 
 by nothing more than by the low 
 views which its leaders are accus- 
 tomed to take of human nature. Man 
 has a mind as well as a body, and this 
 he ought to know ; and till he knows 
 it, feels it, and is deeply penetrated by 
 it, he knows nothing aright. His body 
 should, in a sense, vanish away before 
 his mind : or, in the language of Christ, 
 he should hate his animal life in com- 
 parison with the intellectual a.nd moral 
 life which is to endure for ever. This 
 doctrine, however, is pronounced too 
 refined. Useful and practical truth, ac- 
 cording to its most improved exposi- 
 tors, consists in knowing that we have 
 an animal nature, and in making this 
 our chief care ; in knowing that we 
 have mouths to be filled, and limbs to 
 be clothed ; that we live on the earth, 
 which it is our business to till ; that we 
 have a power of accumulating wealth, 
 and that this power is the measure of the 
 greatness of the community ! For such 
 doctrines I have no respect. I know 
 no wisdom but that which reveals man 
 to himself, and which teaches him to 
 regard all social institutions, and his 
 whole life, as the means of unfolding 
 and exalting the spirit within him. All 
 policy which does not recognize this 
 
 truth seems to me shallow. The states- 
 man who does not look at the bearing 
 of his measures on the mind of a nation 
 is unfit to touch one of men's great 
 interests. Unhappily, statesmen have 
 seldom understood the sacredness of 
 human nature and human society. 
 Hence policy has become almost a 
 contaminated word. Hence govern- 
 ment has so often been the scourge of 
 mankind. 
 
 I mean not to disparage political 
 science. The best constitution and 
 the best administration of a state are 
 subjects worthy of the profoundest 
 thought. But there are deeper foun- 
 dations of public prosperity than these. 
 The statesman who would substitute 
 these for that virtue which they ought 
 to subserve and exalt will only add his 
 name to the long catalogue which his- 
 tory preserves of baffled politicians. It 
 is idle to hope, by our short-sighted 
 contrivances, to insure to a people a 
 happiness which their own character 
 has not earned. The everlasting laws 
 of God's moral government we cannot 
 repeal ; and parchment constitutions, 
 however wise, will prove no shelter 
 from the retributions which fall on a 
 degraded community. 
 
 With these convictions, I feel that no 
 teaching is so practical as that which 
 impresses on a people the importance of 
 their spiritual interests. With these 
 convictions, I feel that I cannot better 
 meet the demands of this occasion than 
 by leading you to prize, above all other 
 rights and liberties, that inward free- 
 dom which Christ came to confer. To 
 this topic I now solicit your attention. 
 
 And first, I may be asked what I mean 
 by inward spiritual freedom. The com- 
 mon and true answer is, that it is 
 freedom from sin. I apprehend, how- 
 ever, that to many, if not to most, these 
 words are too vague to convey a full 
 and deep sense of the greatness of the 
 blessing. Let me, then, offer a brief 
 explanation ; and the most important 
 remark in illustrating this freedom is, 
 that it is not a negative state, not the 
 mere absence of sin ; for such a free- 
 dom maybe ascribed to inferior animals, 
 or to children before becoming moral 
 agents. Spiritual freedom is the attri- 
 bute of a mind in which reason and 
 conscience have begun to act, and which 
 is free through its own energy, through
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 fidelity to the truth, through resistance 
 of temptation. I cannot, therefore, bet- 
 ter give my views of spiritual freedom, 
 than by saying that it is moral energy 
 or force of holy purpose put forth 
 against the senses, against the pas- 
 sions, against the world, and thus lib- 
 erating the intellect, conscience, and 
 will, so that they may act with strength 
 and unfold themselves for ever. The 
 essence of spiritual freedom is power. 
 A man liberated from sensual lusts by a 
 palsy would not therefore be free. He 
 only is free who, through self-conflict and 
 moral resolution, sustained by trust in 
 God, subdues the passions which have de- 
 based him, and, escaping the thraldom of 
 low objects, binds himself to pure and 
 lofty ones. That mind alone is free which, 
 looking to God as the inspirer and re- 
 warder of virtue, adopts his law, writ- 
 ten on the heart and in his word, as its 
 supreme rule, and which, in obedience 
 to this, governs itself, reveres itself, 
 exerts faithfully its best powers, and 
 unfolds itself by well-doing in what- 
 ever sphere God's providence assigns. 
 
 It has pleased the All-wise Disposer 
 to encompass us from our birth by diffi- 
 culty and allurement, to place us in a 
 world where wrong-doing is often gain- 
 ful, and duty rough and perilous, where 
 many vices oppose the dictates of the 
 inward monitor, where the body presses 
 as a weight on the mind, and matter, by 
 its perpetual agency on the senses, be- 
 comes a barrier between us and the 
 spiritual world. We are in the midst 
 of influences which menace the intellect 
 and heart ; and to be free is to withstand 
 and conquer these. 
 
 I call that mind free which masters 
 the senses, which protects itself against 
 animal appetites, which contemns pleas- 
 ure and pain in comparison with its own 
 energy, which penetrates beneath the 
 body and recognizes its own reality and 
 greatness, which passes life, not in ask- 
 ing what it shall eat or drink, but in 
 hungering, thirsting, and seeking after 
 righteousness. 
 
 I call that mind free which escapes 
 the bondage of matter, which, instead of 
 stopping at the material universe and 
 making it a prison wall, passes beyond 
 it to its Author, and finds in the radiant 
 signatures which it everywhere bears of 
 the Infinite Spirit, helps to its own spir- 
 itual enlargement. 
 
 I call that mind free which jealously 
 guards its intellectual rights ami powers, 
 which calls no man master, which does 
 not content itself with a passive or 
 hereditary faith, which opens itself to 
 light whencespever it may come, which 
 receives new truth as an angel from 
 heaven, which, whilst consulting others, 
 inquires still more of the oracle within 
 itself, and uses instructions from abroad 
 not to supersede but to quicken and ex- 
 alt its own energies. 
 
 I call that mind free which sets no 
 bounds to its love, which is not impris- 
 oned in itself or in a sect, which recog- 
 nizes in all human beings the image of 
 God and the rights of his children, which 
 delights in virtue and sympathizes with 
 suffering wherever they are seen, which 
 conquers pride, anger, and sloth, and 
 offers itself up a willing victim to the 
 cause of mankind. 
 
 I call that mind free which is not pas- 
 sively framed by outward circumstances, 
 which is not swept away by the torrent 
 of events, which is not the creature of 
 accidental impulse, but which bend? 
 events to its own improvement, and 
 acts from an inward spring, from im- 
 mutable principles which it has delib- 
 erately espoused. 
 
 I call that mind free which protects 
 itself against the usurpations of society, 
 which does not cower to human opinion, 
 which feels itself accountable to a higher 
 tribunal than man's, which respects a 
 higher law than fashion, which respects 
 itself too much to be the slave or tool of 
 the many.or the few. 
 
 I call that mind free which, through 
 confidence in God and in the power of 
 virtue, has cast off all fear but that of 
 wrong-doing, which no menace or peril 
 can enthrall, which is calm in the midst 
 of tumults, and possesses itself though 
 all else be lost. 
 
 I call that mind free which resists the 
 bondage of habit, which does not me- 
 chanically repeat itself and copy the 
 past, which does not live on its old virt- 
 ues, which does not enslave itself to 
 precise rules, but which forgets what is 
 behind, listens for new and higher mo- 
 nitions of conscience, and rejoices to 
 pour itself forth in fresh and higher ex- 
 ertions. 
 
 I call that mind free which is jealous 
 of its own freedom, which guards itself 
 from being merged in others, which
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 175 
 
 guards its empire over itself as nobler 
 than the empire of the world. 
 
 In fine, I call that mind free which, 
 conscious of its affinity with God, and 
 confiding in his promises by Jesus 
 Christ, devotes itself faithfully to the 
 unfolding of all its powers, which passes 
 the bounds of time and death, which 
 hopes to advance for ever, and which 
 finds inexhaustible power, both for ac- 
 tion and suffering, in the prospect of 
 immortality. 
 
 Such is the spiritual freedom which 
 Christ came to give. It consists in 
 moral force, in self-control, in the en- 
 largement of thought and affection, and 
 in the unrestrained action of our best 
 powers. This is the great good of 
 Christianity, nor can we conceive a 
 greater within the gift of God. I know 
 that to many this will seem too refined 
 a good to be proposed as the great end 
 of society and government. But our 
 scepticism cannot change the nature of 
 things. I know how little this freedom 
 is understood or enjoyed, how enslaved 
 men are to sense, and passion, and the 
 world ; and I know, too, that through 
 this slavery they are wretched, and that 
 while it lasts no social institution can 
 give them happiness. 
 
 I now proceed, as I proposed, to show 
 that civil or political liberty is of little 
 worth but as it springs from, expresses, 
 and invigorates this spiritual freedom. 
 I account civil liberty as the chief good 
 of states, because it accords with, and 
 ministers to, energy and elevation of 
 mind. Nor is this a truth so remote 
 or obscure as to need laborious proof or 
 illustration. For consider what civil lib- 
 erty means. It consists in the removal 
 of all restraint but such as the public 
 weal demands. And what is the end 
 and benefit of removing restraint ? It 
 is that men may put forth their powers 
 and act from themselves. Vigorous and 
 invigorating action is the chief fruit of 
 all outward freedom. Why break the 
 chains from the captive but that he 
 may bring into play his liberated limbs ? 
 Why open his prison but that he may 
 go forth and open his eyes on a wide 
 prospect, and exert and enjoy his vari- 
 ous energies ? Liberty, which does not 
 minister to action and the growth of 
 power, is only a name, is no better than 
 slavery. 
 
 The chief benefit of free institutions 
 
 is clear and unutterably precious. Their 
 chief benefit is that they aid freedom of 
 mind, that they give scope to man's fac- 
 ulties, that they throw him on his own 
 resources, and summon him to work out 
 his own happiness. It is that, by remov- 
 ing restraint from intellect, they favor 
 force, originality, and enlargement of 
 thought. It is that, by removing re- 
 straint from worship, they favor the 
 ascent of the soul to God. It is that, 
 by removing restraint from industry, 
 they stir up invention and enterprise to 
 explore and subdue the material world, 
 and thus rescue the race from those 
 sore physical wants and pains which 
 narrow and blight the mind. It is that 
 they cherish noble sentiments, frank- 
 ness, courage, and self-respect. 
 
 Free institutions contribute in no 
 small degree to freedom and force of 
 mind, by teaching the essential equal- 
 ity of men, and their right and duty to 
 govern themselves ; and I cannot but 
 consider the superiority of an elective 
 government as consisting very much in 
 the testimony which it bears to these 
 ennobling truths. It has often been 
 said that a good code of laws, and not 
 the form of government, is what deter- 
 mines a people's happiness. But good 
 laws, if not springing from the commu- 
 nity, if imposed by a master, would lose 
 much of their value. The best code is 
 that which has its origin in the will of 
 the people who obey it ; which, whilst 
 it speaks with authority, still recognizes 
 self-government as the primary right 
 and duty of a rational being ; and 
 which thus cherishes in the individual, 
 be his condition what it may, a just 
 self-respect. 
 
 We may learn that the chief good 
 and the most precious fruit of civil 
 liberty is spiritual freedom and power, 
 by considering what is the chief evil 
 of tyranny. I know that tyranny does 
 evil by invading men's outward inter- 
 ests, by making property and life inse- 
 cure, by robbing the laborer to pamper 
 the noble and king. But its worst in- 
 fluence is within. Its chief curse is 
 that it breaks and tames the spirit, 
 sinks man in his own eyes, takes away 
 vigor of thought and action, substitutes 
 for conscience an outward rule, makes 
 him abject, cowardly, a parasite, and a 
 cringing slave. This is the curse of 
 tyranny. It wars with the soul, and
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 thus it wars with God. We read in 
 theologians and poets of angels fight- 
 ing against the Creator, of battles in 
 heaven. But God's throne in heaven 
 is unassailable. The only war against 
 God is against his image, against the 
 divine principle in the soul, and this is 
 waged by tyranny in all its forms. We 
 here see the chief curse of tyranny ; 
 and this should teach us that civil free- 
 dom is a blessing, chiefly as it rever- 
 ences the human soul and ministers to 
 its growth and power. 
 
 Without this inward spiritual free- 
 dom outward liberty is of little worth. 
 What boots it that I am crushed by no 
 foreign yoke if, through ignorance and 
 vice, through selfishness and fear, I 
 want the command of my own mind ? 
 The worst tyrants are those which es- 
 tablish themselves in our own breast. 
 The man who wants force of principle 
 and purpose is a slave, however free 
 the air he breathes. The mind, after 
 all, is our only possession, or, in other 
 words, we possess all things through 
 its energy and enlargement ; and civil 
 institutions are to be estimated by the free 
 and pure minds to which they give birth. 
 
 It will be seen from these remarks, 
 that 1 consider the freedom or moral 
 strength of the individual mind as the 
 supreme good, and the highest end of 
 government. I am aware that other 
 views are often taken. It is said that 
 government is intended for the public, 
 for the community, not for the individ- 
 ual. The idea of a national interest 
 prevails in the minds of statesmen, and 
 to this it is thought that the individual 
 may be sacrificed. But I would main- 
 tain, that the individual is not made for 
 the state so much as the state for the 
 individual. A man is not created for 
 political relations as his highest end, 
 but for indefinite spiritual progress, and 
 is placed in political relations as the 
 means of his progress. The human 
 soul is greater, more sacred, than the 
 state, and must never be sacrificed to 
 it. The human soul is to outlive all 
 earthly institutions. The distinction of 
 nations is to pass away. Thrones, which 
 have stood for ages, are to meet the 
 doom pronounced upon all man's works. 
 But the individual mind survives, and 
 the obscurest subject, if true to God, 
 will rise to a power never wielded by 
 earthly potentates. 
 
 A human being is a member of the 
 community, not as a limb is a member 
 of the body, or as a wheel is a part of 
 a machine, intended only to contrib- 
 ute to some general, joint result. He 
 was created, not to be merged in the 
 whole, as a drop in the ocean, or as a 
 particle of sand on the sea-shore, and 
 to aid only in composing a mass. He 
 is an ultimate being, made for his own 
 perfection as the highest end, made to 
 maintain an individual existence, and 
 to serve others only as far as consists 
 with his own virtue and progress. Hith- 
 erto governments have tended greatly 
 to obscure this importance of the indi- 
 vidual, to depress him in his own eyes, 
 to give him the idea of an outward in- 
 terest more important than the invisible 
 soul, and of an outward authority more 
 sacred than the voice of God in his 
 own secret conscience. Rulers have 
 called the private man the property of 
 the state, meaning generally by the state 
 themselves, and thus the many have 
 been immolated to the few, and have 
 even believed that this was their high- 
 est destination. These views cannot 
 be too earnestly withstood. Nothing 
 seems to me so needful as to give to 
 the mind the consciousness, which gov- 
 ernments have done so much to sup- 
 press, of its own separate worth. Let 
 the individual feel that, through his im- 
 mortality, he may concentrate in his 
 own being a greater good than that of 
 nations. Let him feel that he is placed 
 in the community, not to part with his 
 individuality or to become a tool, but 
 that he should find a sphere for his 
 various powers, and a preparation for 
 immortal glory. To me, the progress 
 of society consists in nothing more 
 than in bringing out the individual, 
 in giving him a consciousness of his 
 own being, and in quickening him to 
 strengthen and elevate his own mind. 
 
 In thus maintaining that the individ- 
 ual is the end of social institutions. I 
 may be thought to discourage public 
 efforts and the sacrifice of private in- 
 terests to the state. Far from it. No 
 man, I affirm, will serve his fellow-be- 
 ings so effectually, so fervently, as he 
 who is not their slave, as he who, 
 casting off every other yoke, subjects 
 himself to the law of duty in his own 
 mind. For this law enjoins a disinter- 
 ested and generous spirit as man's glory
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 177 
 
 and likeness to his Maker. Individu- 
 ality, or moral self-subsistence, is the 
 surest foundation of an all-compre- 
 hending love. No man so multiplies 
 his bonds with the community as he 
 who watches most jealously over his 
 own perfection. There is a beautiful 
 harmony between the good of the state 
 and the moral freedom and dignity of 
 the individual. Were it not so, were 
 these interests in any case discordant, 
 were an individual ever called to serve 
 his country by acts debasing his own 
 mind, he ought not to waver a moment 
 as to the good which he should prefer. 
 Property, life, he should joyfully sur- 
 render to the state. But his soul he 
 must never stain or enslave. From 
 poverty, pain, the rack, the gibbet, he 
 should not recoil ; but for no good of 
 others ought he to part with self-con- 
 trol or violate the inward law. We 
 speak of the patriot as sacrificing him- 
 self to the public weal. Do we mean 
 that he sacrifices what is most prop- 
 erly himself, the principle of piety and 
 virtue ? Do we not feel that, however 
 great may be the good which, through 
 his sufferings, accrues to the state, a 
 greater and purer glory redounds to 
 himself, and that the most precious 
 fruit of his disinterested services is the 
 strength of resolution and philanthropy 
 which is accumulated in his own soul ? 
 
 I have thus endeavored to illustrate 
 and support the doctrine that spiritual 
 freedom, or force and elevation of soul, 
 is the great good to which civil freedom 
 is subordinate, and which all social in- 
 stitutions should propose as their su- 
 preme end. 
 
 I proceed to point out some of the 
 means by which this spiritual liberty 
 may be advanced ; and, passing over a 
 great variety of topics, I shall confine 
 myself to two, religion and govern- 
 ment. 
 
 I begin with religion, the mightiest 
 agent in human affairs. To this be- 
 longs pre-eminently the work of freeing 
 and elevating the mind. All other means 
 are comparatively impotent. The sense 
 of God is the only spring by which the 
 crushing weight of sense, of the world, 
 and temptation, can be withstood. With- 
 out a consciousness of our relation to 
 God, all other relations will prove ad- 
 verse to spiritual life and progress. I 
 have spoken of the religious sentiment 
 
 as the mightiest agent on earth. It has 
 accomplished more it has strengthen- 
 ed men to do and suffer more -than all 
 other principles. It can sustain the mind 
 against all other powers. Of all prin- 
 ciples it is the deepest, the most inerad- 
 icable. In its perversion, indeed, it has 
 been fruitful of crime and woe ; but the 
 very energy which it has given to the 
 passions, when they have mixed with 
 and corrupted it, teaches us the omnip- 
 otence with which it is imbued. 
 
 Religion gives life, strength, elevation 
 to the mind, by connecting it with the 
 Infinite Mind ; by teaching it to regard 
 itself as the offspring and care of the 
 Infinite Father, who created it that He 
 might communicate to it his own spirit 
 and perfections, who framed it for truth 
 and virtue, who framed it for himself, 
 who subjects it to sore trials, th'at by 
 conflict and endurance it may grow 
 strong, and who has sent his Son to 
 purify it from every sin, and to clothe it 
 with immortality. It is religion alone 
 which nourishes patient, resolute hopes 
 and efforts for our own souls. Without 
 it we can hardly escape self-contempt 
 and the contempt of our race. Without 
 God our existence has no support, our 
 life no aim, our improvements no per- 
 manence, our best labors no sure and 
 enduring results, our spiritual weakness 
 no power to lean upon, and our noblest 
 aspirations and desires no pledge of be- 
 ing realized in a better state. Struggling 
 virtue has no friend ; suffering virtue no 
 promise of victory. Take away God, and 
 life becomes mean, and man poorer than 
 the brute. I am accustomed to speak 
 of the greatness of human nature ; but 
 it is great only through its parentage ; 
 great, because descended from God, 
 because connected with a goodness and 
 power from which it is to be enriched 
 for ever ; and nothing but the conscious- 
 ness of this connection can give that 
 hope of elevation through which alone 
 the mind is to rise to true strength and 
 liberty. 
 
 All the truths of religion conspire to 
 one end, spiritual liberty. All the ob- 
 jects which it offers to our thoughts are 
 sublime, kindling, exalting. Its funda- 
 mental truth is the existence of one God, 
 one Infinite and Everlasting Father: and 
 it teaches us to look on the universe as 
 pervaded, quickened, and vitally joined 
 into one harmonious and beneficent 
 
 12
 
 1 7 8 
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 whole, by his ever-present and omnip- 
 otent love. By this truth it breaks the 
 power of matter and sense, of present 
 pleasure and pain, of anxiety and fear. 
 It turns the mind from the visible, the 
 outward and perishable, to the Unseen, 
 Spiritual, and Eternal, and, allying it 
 with pure and great objects, makes it 
 free. 
 
 I well know that what I now say may 
 seem to some to want the sanction of 
 experience. By many religion is per- 
 haps regarded as the last principle to 
 give inward energy and freedom. I may 
 be told of its threatenings, and of the 
 bondage which they impose. I acknowl- 
 edge that religion has threatenings, and 
 it must have them ; for evil, misery, is 
 necessarily and unchangeably bound up 
 with wrong-doing, with the abuse of moral 
 power. From the nature of things, a 
 mind disloyal to God and duty must 
 suffer ; and religion, in uttering this, 
 only re-echoes the plain teaching of con- 
 science. But let it be remembered that 
 the single end of the threatenings of 
 religion is to make us spiritually free. 
 They are all directed against the passions 
 which enthrall and degrade us. They 
 are weapons given to conscience, with 
 which to fight the good fight and to es- 
 tablish its throne within us. When not 
 thus used, they are turned from their 
 end ; and if by injudicious preaching 
 they engender superstition, let not the 
 fault be laid at the door of religion. 
 
 I do not indeed wonder that so many 
 doubt the power of religion to give 
 strength, dignity, and freedom to the 
 mind. What bears this name too often 
 yields no such fruits. Here, religion is 
 a form, a round of prayers and rites, an 
 attempt to propitiate God by flattery and 
 fawning. There, it is terror and sub- 
 jection to a minister or priest : and there, 
 it is a violence of emotion, bearing away 
 the mind like a whirlwind, and robbing 
 it of self-direction. But true religion 
 disclaims connection with these usurpers 
 of its name. It is a calm, deep convic- 
 tion of God's paternal interest in the im- 
 provement, happiness, and honor of his 
 creatures. a practical persuasion that 
 He delights in virtue and not in forms 
 and flatteries, and that He especially 
 delights in resolute effort to conform 
 ourselves to the disinterested love and 
 rectitude which constitute his own glory. 
 It is for this religion that I claim the 
 
 honor of giving dignity and freedom to 
 the mind. 
 
 The need of religion to accomplish 
 this work is in no degree superseded by 
 what is called the progress of society. 
 I should say that civilization, so far from 
 being able of itself to give moral strength 
 and elevation, includes causes of degra- 
 dation which nothing but the religious 
 principle can withstand. It multiplies, 
 undoubtedly, the comforts and enjoy- 
 ments of life ; but in these I see sore 
 trials and perils to the soul. These 
 minister to the sensual element in hu- 
 man nature, to that part of our constitu- 
 tion which allies and too often enslaves 
 us to the earth. Of consequence, 
 civilization needs that proportional aid 
 should be given to the spiritual element 
 in man, and I know not where it is to 
 be found but in religion. Without this 
 the civilized man. with all his properties 
 and refinements, rises little in true dignity 
 above the savage whom he disdains. 
 You tell me of civilization, of its arts 
 and sciences, as the sure instruments of 
 human elevation. You tell me, how by 
 these man masters and bends to his use 
 the powers of nature. I know he mas- 
 ters them, but it is to become in turn 
 their slave. He explores and cultivates 
 the earth, but it is to grow more earthly. 
 He explores the hidden mine, but it is to 
 forge himself chains. He visits all re-- 
 gions, but therefore lives a stranger to 
 his own soul. In the very progress of 
 civilization I see the need of an antag- 
 onist principle to the senses, of a power 
 to free man from matter, to recall him 
 from the outward to the inward world ; 
 and religion alone is equal to so great a 
 work. 
 
 The advantages of civilization have 
 their peril. In such a state of society 
 opinion and law impose salutary re- 
 straint, and produce general order and 
 security. But the power of opinion 
 grows into a despotism which more 
 than all things represses original and 
 free thought, subverts individuality of 
 character, reduces the community to a 
 spiritless monotony, and chills the love 
 of perfection. Religion, considered 
 simply as the principle which balances 
 the power of human opinion^ which 
 takes man out of the grasp of custom 
 and fashion, and teaches him to refer 
 himself to a higher tribunal, is an infi- 
 nite aid to moral strength and elevation.
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 179 
 
 An important benefit of civilization, 
 of which we hear much from the polit- 
 ical economist, is the division of labor, 
 by which arts are perfected. But this, 
 by confining the mind to an unceasing ' 
 round of petty operations, tends to ' 
 break it into littleness. We possess 
 improved fabrics, but deteriorated men. 
 Another advantage of civilization is, 
 that manners are refined and accom- 
 plishments multiplied ; but these are 
 continually seen to supplant simplicity 
 of character, strength of feeling, the 
 love of nature, the love of inward beauty 
 and glory. Under outward courtesy we 
 see a cold selfishness, a spirit of calcu- 
 lation, and little energy of love. 
 
 I confess I look round on civilized 
 society with many fears, and with more 
 and more earnest desire that a regener- 
 ating spirit from heaven, from religion, 
 may descend upon and pervade it. I 
 particularly fear that various causes are 
 acting powerfully among ourselves to 
 inflame and madden that enslaving and 
 degrading principle, the passion for 
 property. For example, the absence 
 of hereditary distinctions in our coun- 
 try gives prominence to the distinction 
 of wealth, and holds up this as the chief 
 prize to ambition. Add to this the epi- 
 curean self indulgent habits which our 
 prosperity has multiplied, and which 
 crave insatiably for enlarging wealth as 
 the only means of gratification. - This 
 peril is increased by the spirit of our 
 times, which is a spirit of commerce, 
 industry, internal improvements, me- 
 chanical invention, political economy, 
 and peace. Think not that I would dis- 
 parage commerce, mechanical skill, and 
 especially pacific connections among 
 states. But there is danger that these 
 blessings may by perversion issue in a 
 slavish love of lucre. It seems to me 
 that some of the objects which once 
 moved men most powerfully are grad- 
 ually losing their sway, and thus the 
 mind is left more open to the excite- 
 ment of wealth. For example, military 
 distinction is taking the inferior place 
 which it deserves ; and the consequence 
 will be, that the energy and ambition 
 which have been exhausted in war will 
 seek new directions ; and happy shall 
 we be if they do not flow into the chan- 
 nel of gain. So I think that political 
 eminence is to be less and l^ss coveted ; 
 and there is danger that the energies 
 
 absorbed by it will be spent in seeking 
 another kind of dominion, the domin- 
 ion of property. And if such be the 
 result, what shall we gain by what is 
 called the progress of society ? What 
 shall we gain by national peace if men, 
 instead of meeting on the field of battle, 
 wage with one another the more inglori- 
 ous strife of dishonest and rapacious 
 traffic ? What shall we gain by the 
 waning of political ambition if the in- 
 trigues of the exchange take place of 
 those of the' cabinet, and private pomp 
 and luxury be substituted for the splen- 
 dor of public life ? I am no foe to civ- 
 ilization. I rejoice in its progress. But 
 I mean to say that, without a pure re- 
 ligion to modify its tendencies, to inspire 
 and refine it, we shall be corrupted, not 
 ennobled by it. It is the excellence of 
 the religious principle, that it aids and 
 carries forward civilization, extends 
 science and arts, multiplies the conven- 
 iences and ornaments of life, and at 
 the same time spoils them of their en- 
 slaving power, and even converts them 
 into means and ministers of that spirit- 
 ual freedom which, when left to them- 
 selves, they endanger and destroy. 
 
 In order however, that religion should 
 yield its full and best fruits, one thing is 
 necessary ; and the times require that I 
 should state it with great distinctness. 
 It is necessary that religion should be 
 held and professed in a liberal spirit. 
 Just as far as it assumes an intolerant, 
 exclusive, sectarian form, it subverts, 
 instead of strengthening, the soul s free- 
 dom, and becomes the heaviest and 
 most galling yoke which is laid on the 
 intellect and conscience. Religion must 
 be viewed, not as a monopoly of priests, 
 ministers, or sects ; not as conferring 
 on any man a right to dictate to his 
 fellow-beings ; not as an instrument by 
 which the few may awe the many : not 
 as bestowing on one a prerogative which 
 is not enjoyed by all ; but as the prop- 
 erty of every human being, and as the 
 great subject for every human mind. It 
 must be regarded as the revelation of a 
 common Father to whom all have equal 
 access, who invites all to the like imme- 
 diate communion, who has no favorites, 
 who has appointed no infallible ex- 
 pounders of his will, who opens his 
 works and word to every eye. and calls 
 upon all to read for themselves, and to 
 follow fearlessly the best convictions of
 
 i8o 
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 their own understandings. Let religion 
 be seized on by individuals or sects, as 
 their special province ; let them clothe 
 themselves with God's prerogative of 
 judgment : let them succeed in enforc- 
 ing their creed by penalties of law or 
 penalties of opinion ; let them succeed 
 in fixing a brand on virtuous men, whose 
 only crime is free investigation ; and 
 religion becomes the most blighting 
 tyranny which can establish itself over 
 the mind. You have all heard of the 
 outward evils which religion, when thus 
 turned into tyranny, has inflicted ; how 
 it has dug dreary dungeons, kindled 
 fires for the martyr, and invented instru- 
 ments of exquisite torture. But to me 
 all this is less fearful than its influence 
 over the mind. When I see the super- 
 stitions which it has fastened on the 
 conscience, the spiritual terrors with 
 which it has haunted and subdued the 
 ignorant and susceptible, the dark, ap- 
 palling views of God which it has spread 
 far and wide, the dread of inquiry which 
 it has struck into superior understand- 
 ings, and the servility of .spirit which it 
 has made to pass for piety, when I 
 see all this, the fire, the scaffold, and 
 the outward inquisition, terrible as they 
 are, seem to me inferior evils. I look 
 with a solemn joy on the heroic spirits 
 who have met freely and fearlessly pain 
 and death in the cause of truth and hu- 
 man rights. But there are other victims 
 of intolerance on whom I look with un- 
 mixed sorrow. They are those who, 
 spell-bound by early prejudice, or by 
 intimidations from the pulpit and the 
 press, dare not think ; who anxiously 
 stifle every doubt or misgiving in regard 
 to their opinions, as if to doubt were a 
 crime ; who shrink from tlie seekers 
 after truth as from infection ; who deny 
 all virtue which does not wear the liv- 
 ery of their own sect ; who, surrendering 
 to others their best powers, receive un- 
 resistingly a teaching which wars against 
 reason and conscience ; and who think 
 it a merit to impose on such as live with- 
 in their influence the grievous bondage 
 which they bear themselves. How much 
 to be deplored is it that religion, the 
 very principle which is designed to raise 
 men above the judgment and power of 
 man, should become the chief instru- 
 ment of usurpation over the soul. 
 
 Is it said that in this country, where 
 the rights of private judgment, and of 
 
 speaking and writing according to our 
 convictions, are guaranteed with every 
 solemnity by institutions and laws, re- 
 ligion can never degenerate into tyr- 
 anny ; that here its whole influence 
 must conspire to the liberation and dig- 
 nity of the mind ? I answer, we dis- 
 cover little knowledge of human nature 
 if we ascribe to constitutions the power 
 of charming to sleep the spirit of intol- 
 erance and exclusion. Almost every 
 other bad passion may sooner be put to 
 rest ; and for this plain reason, that in- 
 tolerance always shelters itself under 
 the name and garb of religious zeal. 
 Because we live in a country where the 
 gross, outward, visible chain is broken, 
 we must not conclude that we are neces- 
 sarily free. There are chains not made 
 of iron, which eat more deeply into the 
 soul. An espionage of bigotry may as 
 effectually close our lips and chill our 
 hearts as an armed and hundred-eyed 
 police. There are countless ways by 
 which men in a free country may en- 
 croach on their neighbors' rights. In 
 religion, the instrument is ready made 
 and always at hand. I refer to opinion 
 combined and organized in sects and 
 swayed by the clergy. We say we have 
 no Inquisition. But a sect skilfully or- 
 ganized, trained to utter one cry, com- 
 bined to cover with reproach whoever 
 may differ from themselves, to drown 
 the free expression of opinion by de- 
 nunciations of heresy, and to strike 
 terror into the multitude by joint and 
 perpetual menace, such a sect is as 
 perilous and palsying to the intellect as 
 the Inquisition. It serves the ministers 
 as effectually as the sword. The pres- 
 ent age is notoriously sectarian, and 
 therefore hostile to liberty. One of the 
 strongest features of our times is the 
 tendency of men to run into associa- 
 tions, to lose themselves in masses, to 
 think and act in crowds, to act from the 
 excitement of numbers, to sacrifice indi- 
 viduality, to identify themselves with 
 parties and sects. At such a period we 
 ought to fear and cannot too much 
 dread lest a host should be marshalled 
 under some sectarian standard, so nu- 
 merous and so strong as to overawe 
 opinion, stifle inquiry, compel dissenters 
 to a prudent silence, and thus accom- 
 plish the end, without incurring the 
 odium, of penal laws. We have indeed 
 no small protection against this evil in
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 181 
 
 the multiplicity of sects. But let us not 
 forget that coalitions are as practicable 
 and as perilous in church as in state ; 
 and that minor differences, as they are 
 called, may be sunk for the purpose of 
 joint exertion against a common foe. 
 Happily, the spirit of this people, in 
 spite of all narrowing influences, is es- 
 sentially liberal. Here lies our safety. 
 The liberal spirit of the people, I trust, 
 is more and more to temper and curb 
 that exclusive spirit which is the beset- 
 ting sin of their religious guides. 
 
 In this connection I may be permitted 
 to say and I say it with heartfelt joy 
 that the government of this Common- 
 wealth has uniformly distinguished itself 
 by the spirit of religious freedom. In- 
 tolerance, however rife abroad, has 
 found no shelter in our halls of legis- 
 lation. As yet, no sentence of proscrip- 
 tion has been openly or indirectly passed 
 on any body of men for religious opin- 
 ions. A wise and righteous jealousy 
 has watched over our religious liberties, 
 and been startled by the first movement, 
 the faintest sign, of sectarian ambition. 
 Our Commonwealth can boast no higher 
 glory. May none of us live to see it 
 fade away ! 
 
 I have spoken with great freedom of 
 the sectarian and exclusive spirit of our 
 age. I would earnestly recommend lib- 
 erality of feeling and judgment towards 
 men of different opinions. But, in so 
 doing, I intend not to teach that opin- 
 ions are of small moment, or that we 
 should make no effort for spreading 
 such as we deem the truth of God. I 
 do mean, however, that we are to spread 
 them by means which will not enslave 
 ourselves to a party or bring others into 
 bondage. We must respect alike our 
 own and others' minds. We must not 
 demand a uniformity in religion which 
 exists nowhere else, but expect, and be 
 willing, that the religious principle, like 
 other principles of our nature, should 
 manifest itself in different methods and 
 degrees. Let us not forget that spirit- 
 ual, like animal life, may subsist and 
 grow under various forms. Whilst ear- 
 nestly recommending what we deem the 
 pure and primitive faith, let us remem- 
 ber that those who differ in word or 
 speculation may agree in heart ; that the 
 spirit of Christianity, though mixed and 
 encumbered with error, is still divine ; 
 and that sects which assign different 
 
 ranks to Jesus Christ may still adore 
 that godlike virtue which constituted 
 him the glorious representative of his 
 Father. Under the disguises of Papal 
 and Protestant creeds, let us learn to 
 recognize the lovely aspect of Christi- 
 anity, and rejoice to believe that, amidst 
 dissonant forms and voices, the common 
 Father discerns and accepts the same 
 deep filial adoration. This is true free- 
 dom and enlargement of mind, a lib- 
 erty which he who knows it would not 
 barter for the widest dominion which 
 priests and sects have usurped over the 
 human soul. 
 
 I have spoken of religion ; I pass to 
 government, another great means of 
 promoting that spiritual liberty, that 
 moral strength and elevation, which we 
 have seen to be our supreme good. I 
 thus speak of government, not because 
 it always promotes this end, but because 
 it may and should thus operate. Civil 
 institutions should be directed chiefly to 
 a moral or spiritual good, and until this 
 truth is felt they will continue, I fear, to 
 be perverted into instruments of crime 
 and misery. Other views of their design, 
 I am aware, prevail. We are some- 
 times told that government has no pur- 
 pose but an earthly one; that whilst 
 religion takes care of the soul, govern- 
 ment is to watch over outward and 
 bodily interests. This separation of 
 our interests into earthly and spiritual 
 seems to me unfounded. There is a 
 unity in our whole being. There is one 
 great end for which body and mind were 
 created, and all the relations of life were 
 ordained ; one central aim, to which our 
 whole being should tend ; and this is 
 the unfolding of our intellectual and 
 moral nature ; and no man thoroughly 
 understands government but he who 
 reverences it as a part of God's stupen- 
 dous machinery for this sublime design. 
 I do not deny that government is insti- 
 tuted to watch over our present inter- 
 ests. But still it has a spiritual or 
 moral purpose, because present inter- 
 ests are, in an important sense, spirit- 
 ual ; that is, they are instruments and 
 occasions of virtue, calls to duty, sources 
 of obligation, and are only blessings 
 when they contribute to the health of 
 the soul. For example, property, the 
 principal object of legislation, is the 
 material, if I may so speak, on which 
 justice acts, or through which this car-
 
 182 
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 dinal virtue is exercised and expressed ; 
 and property has no higher end than to 
 invigorate, by calling forth, the principle 
 of impartial rectitude. 
 
 'Government is the great organ of civil 
 society, and we should appreciate the 
 former more justly if we better under- 
 stood the nature and foundation of the 
 latter. I say, then, that society is 
 throughout a moral institution. It is 
 something very different from an as- 
 semblage of animals feeding in the same 
 pasture. It is the combination of ra- 
 tional beings for the security of right. 
 Right, a moral idea, lies at the very 
 foundation of civil communities ; and 
 the highest happiness which they confer 
 is the gratification of moral affections. 
 We are sometimes taught that society is 
 the creature of compact and selfish cal- 
 culation ; that men agree to live together 
 for the protection of private interests. 
 But no. Society is of earlier and higher 
 origin. It is God's ordinance, and an- 
 swers to what is most godlike in our 
 nature. The chief ties that hold men 
 together in communities are not self- 
 interests, or compacts, or positive in- 
 stitutions, or force. They are invisible, 
 refined, spiritual ties, bonds of the mind 
 and heart. Our best powers and affec- 
 tions crave instinctively for society as the 
 sphere in which they are to find their life 
 and happiness. That men may greatly 
 strengthen and improve society by writ- 
 ten constitutions, I readily grant. There 
 is, however, a constitution which pre- 
 cedes all of men's making, and after 
 which all others are to be formed ; a 
 constitution, the great lines of which are 
 drawn in our very nature ; a primitive 
 law of justice, rectitude, and philan- 
 thropy, which all other laws are bound 
 to enforce, and from which all others 
 derive their validity and worth. 
 
 Am I now asked how government is 
 to promote energy and elevation of moral 
 principle ? I answer, not by making the 
 various virtues matters of legislation, not 
 by preaching morals, not by establishing 
 religion ; for these are not its appro- 
 priate functions. It is to serve the 
 cause of spiritual freedom, not by teach- 
 ing or persuasion, but by action ; that 
 is, by rigidly conforming itself, in all 
 its measures, to the moral or Christian 
 law ; by the most public and solemn 
 manifestations of reverence for right, 
 for justice, for the general weal, for 
 
 the principles of virtue. Government 
 is the most conspicuous of human in- 
 stitutions, and were moral rectitude 
 written on its front, stamped conspicu- 
 ously on all its operations, an immense 
 power would be added to pure principle 
 in the breasts of individuals. 
 
 To be more particular, a government 
 may, and should, ennoble the mind of 
 the citizen, by continually holding up 
 to him the idea of the general good. 
 This idea should be impressed in char- 
 acters of light on all legislation ; and a 
 government directing itself resolutely 
 and steadily to this end, becomes a 
 minister of virtue. It teaches the citi- 
 zen to attach a sanctity to the public 
 weal, carries him beyond selfish regards, 
 nourishes magnanimity, and the purpose 
 of sacrificing himself, as far as virtue 
 will allow, to the commonwealth. On 
 the other hand, a government which 
 wields its power for selfish interests, 
 which sacrifices the many to a few, or 
 the state to a party, becomes a public 
 preacher of crime, taints the mind of 
 the citizen, does its utmost to make 
 him base and venal, and prepares him, 
 by its example, to sell or betray that 
 public interest for which he should be 
 ready to die. 
 
 Again, on government, more than on 
 any institution, depends that most im- 
 portant principle, the sense of justice 
 in the community. To promote this, it 
 should express in all its laws a rever- 
 ence for right, and an equal reverence 
 for the rights of high and low, of rich 
 and poor. It should choose to sacrifice 
 the most dazzling advantages rather than 
 break its own faith, rather than unsettle 
 the fixed laws of property, or in any way 
 shock the sentiment of justice in the 
 community. 
 
 Let me add one more method by which 
 government is to lift up and enlarge the 
 minds of its citizens. In its relations to 
 other governments it should inviolably 
 adhere to the principles of justice and 
 philanthropy. By its moderation, sin- 
 cerity, uprightness, and pacific spirit to- 
 wards foreign states, by abstaining from 
 secret arts and unfair advantages, by 
 cultivating free and mutually beneficial 
 intercourse, it should cherish among its 
 citizens the ennobling consciousness of 
 belonging to the human family, and of 
 having a common interest with the whole 
 human race. Government only fulfils
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 its end when it thus joins with Christi- 
 anity in inculcating the law of universal 
 love. 
 
 Unhappily, governments have seldom 
 recognized as the highest duty the obli- 
 gation of strengthening pure and noble 
 principle in the community. I fear they 
 are even to be numbered among the chief 
 agents in corrupting nations. Of all the 
 doctrines by which vice has propagated 
 itself, I know none more pernicious than 
 the maxim that statesmen are exempted 
 from the common restraints of morality, 
 that nations are not equally bound with 
 individuals by the eternal laws of justice 
 and philanthropy. Through this doc- 
 trine vice has lifted its head unblush- 
 ingly in the most exalted stations. Vice 
 has seated itself on the throne. The 
 men who have wielded the power and 
 riveted the gaze of nations have lent the 
 sanction of their greatness to crime. In 
 the very heart of nations, in the cabinet 
 of rulers, has been bred a moral pesti- 
 lence which has infected and contami- 
 nated all orders of the state. Through 
 the example of rulers, private men have 
 learned to regard the everlasting law as 
 a temporary conventional rule, and been 
 blinded to the supremacy of virtue. 
 
 That the prosperity of a people is in- 
 timately connected with this reverence 
 for virtue which I have inculcated on 
 legislators, is most true, and cannot be 
 too deeply felt. There is no foundation 
 for the vulgar doctrine, that a state may 
 flourish by arts and crimes. Nations 
 and individuals are subjected to one 
 law. The moral principle is the life of 
 communities. No calamity can befall a 
 people so great as temporary success 
 through a criminal policy, as the hope 
 thus cherished of trampling with im- 
 punity on the authority of God. Sooner 
 or later, insulted virtue avenges itself 
 terribly on states as well as on private 
 men. We hope, indeed, security and 
 the quiet enjoyment of our wealth from 
 our laws and institutions. But civil laws 
 find their chief sanction in the law writ- 
 ten within by the finger of God. In 
 proportion as a people enslave them- 
 selves to sin, the fountain of public 
 justice becomes polluted. The most 
 wholesome statutes, wanting the sup- 
 port of public opinion, grow impotent. 
 Self-seekers, unprincipled men, by flat- 
 tering bad passions, and by darkening 
 the public mind, usurp the seat of judg- 
 
 ment and places of power and trust, and 
 turn free institutions into lifeless forms 
 or instruments of oppression. I espe- 
 cially believe that communities surfer 
 sorely by that species of immorality 
 which the herd of statesmen have in- 
 dustriously cherished as of signal util- 
 ity, I mean, by hostile feeling towards 
 other countries. The common doctrine 
 has been, that prejudice and enmity to- 
 wards foreign states are means of foster- 
 ing a national spirit, and of confirming 
 union at home. But bad passions, once 
 instilled into a people, will never ex- 
 haust themselves abroad. Vice never 
 yields the fruits of virtue. Injustice to 
 strangers does not breed justice to our 
 friends. Malignity, in every form, is a 
 fire of hell, and the policy which feeds 
 it is infernal. Domestic feuds and the 
 madness of party are its natural and 
 necessary issues ; and a people hostile 
 to others will demonstrate, in its history, 
 that no form of inhumanity or injustice 
 escapes its just retribution. 
 
 Our great error as a people is, that 
 we put an idolatrous trust in our free 
 institutions ; as if these, by some magic 
 power, must secure our rights, however 
 we enslave ourselves to evil passions. 
 We need to learn that the forms of lib- 
 erty are not its essence ; that whilst the 
 letter of a free constitution is preserved 
 its spirit may be lost ; that even its 
 wisest provisions and most guarded 
 powers may be made weapons of tyr- 
 anny. In a country called free, a ma- 
 jority may become a faction, and a 
 proscribed minority may be insulted, 
 robbed, and oppressed. Under elec- 
 tive governments, a dominant party 
 may become as truly a usurper, and as 
 treasonably conspire against the state, 
 as an individual who forces his way by 
 arms to the throne. 
 
 I know that it is supposed that politi- 
 cal wisdom can so form institutions as 
 to extract from them freedom, notwith- 
 standing a people's sins. The chief ex- 
 pedient for this purpose has been to 
 balance, as it is called, men's passions 
 and interests against each other : to use 
 one man's selfishness as a check against 
 his neighbor's ; to produce peace by the 
 counteraction and equilibrium of hostile 
 forces. This whole theory I distrust. 
 The vices can by no management or 
 skilful poising be made to do the work 
 of virtue. Our own history has al-
 
 1 84 
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 ready proved this. Our government was 
 founded on the doctrine of checks and 
 balances ; and what does experience 
 teach us ? It teaches, what the prin- 
 ciples of our nature might have taught, 
 that whenever the country is divided in- 
 to two great parties, the dominant party 
 will possess itself of both branches of 
 the legislature, and of the different de- 
 partments of the state, and will move 
 towards its objects with as little check, 
 and with as determined purpose, as if 
 all powers were concentrated in a sin- 
 gle body. There is no substitute for 
 virtue. Free institutions secure rights 
 only when secured by, and when invig- 
 orating that spiritual freedom, that moral 
 power and elevation, which I have set 
 before you as the supreme good of our 
 nature. 
 
 According to these views, the first 
 duty of a statesman is to build up the 
 moral energy of a people. This is their 
 first interest ; and he who weakens it 
 inflicts an injury which no talent can 
 repair ; rior should any splendor of ser- 
 vices, or any momentary success, avert 
 from him the infamy which he has 
 earned. Let public men learn to think 
 more reverently of their function. Let 
 them feel that they are touching more 
 vital interests than property. Let them 
 fear nothing so much as to sap the 
 moral convictions of a people by un- 
 righteous legislation or a selfish policy. 
 Let them cultivate in themselves the 
 spirit of religion and virtue, as the first 
 requisite to public station. Let no ap- 
 parent advantage to the community, any 
 more than to themselves, seduce them 
 to the infraction of any moral law. Let 
 them put faith in virtue as the strength 
 of nations. Let them not be disheart- 
 ened by temporary ill success in up- 
 right exertion. Let them remember 
 that, while they and their contempora- 
 ries live but for a day, the state is to 
 live for ages ; and that Time, the un- 
 erring arbiter, will vindicate the wis- 
 dom as well as the magnanimity .of the 
 public man who, confiding in the power 
 of truth, justice, and philanthropy, as- 
 serts their claims, and reverently fol- 
 lows their monitions, amidst general 
 disloyalty and corruption. 
 
 I have hitherto spoken of the general 
 influence which government should ex- 
 ert on the moral interests of a people, 
 by expressing reverence for the moral 
 
 law in its whole policy and legislation. 
 It is also bound to exert a more particu- 
 lar and direct influence. I refer to its 
 duty of preventing and punishing crime. 
 This is one of the chief ends of govern- 
 ment, but it has received as yet very 
 little of the attention which it deserves. 
 Government, indeed, has not been slow 
 to punish crime, nor has society suf- 
 fered for want of dungeons and gib- 
 bets. But the prevention of crime and 
 the reformation of the offender have 
 nowhere taken rank among the first 
 objects of legislation. Penal codes, 
 breathing vengeance, and too often 
 written in blood, have been set in array 
 against the violence of human passions, 
 and the legislator's conscience has been 
 satisfied with enacting these. Whether 
 by shocking humanity he has not mul- 
 tiplied offenders, is a question into 
 which he would do wisely to inquire. 
 
 On the means of preventing crime I 
 want time, and still more ability, to en- 
 large. I would only say that this ob- 
 ject should be kept in view through the 
 whole of legislation. P'or this end, laws 
 should be as few and as simple as may 
 be ; for an extensive and obscure code 
 multiplies occasions of offence, and 
 brings the citizen unnecessarily into 
 collision with the state. Above all, let 
 the laws bear broadly on their front the 
 impress of justice and humanity, so that 
 the moral sense of the community may 
 become their sanction. Arbitrary and 
 offensive laws invite offence, and take 
 from disobedience the consciousness of 
 guilt. It is even wise to abstain from 
 laws which, however wise and good in 
 themselves, have the semblance of in- 
 equality, which find no response in the 
 heart of the citizen, and which will be 
 evaded with little remorse. The wis- 
 dom of legislation is especially seen in 
 grafting laws on conscience. I add, 
 what seems to me of great importance, 
 that the penal code should be brought 
 to bear with the sternest impartiality on 
 the rich and exalted as well as on the 
 poor and fallen. Society suffers from 
 the crimes of the former not less than 
 by those of the latter. It has been truly 
 said, that the amount of property taken 
 by theft and forgery is small compared 
 with what is taken by dishonest insol- 
 vency. Yet the thief is sent to prison, 
 and the dishonest bankrupt lives per- 
 haps in state. The moral sentiment of
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 I8 5 
 
 the community is thus corrupted ; and, 
 for this and other solemn reasons, a re- 
 form is greatly needed in the laws which 
 respect insolvency. I am shocked at 
 the imprisonment of the honest debtor ; 
 and the legislation which allows a cred- 
 itor to play the tyrant over an innocent 
 man would disgrace, I think, a barbar- 
 ous age. I am not less shocked by the 
 impunity with which criminal insolvents 
 continually escape, and by the lenity of 
 the community towards these transgres- 
 sors of its most essential laws. 
 
 Another means of preventing crime is 
 to punish it wisely ; and by wise punish- 
 ment I mean that which aims to reform 
 the offender. I know that this end of 
 punishment has been questioned by 
 wise and good men. But what higher 
 or more practicable end can be pro- 
 posed ? You say we must punish for 
 example. But history shows that what 
 is called exemplary punishment cannot 
 boast of great efficiency. Crime thrives 
 under severe penalties, thrives on the 
 blood of offenders. The frequent exhi- 
 bition of such punishments hardens a 
 people's heart, and produces defiance 
 and reaction in the guilty. Until re- 
 cently, government seems to have la- 
 bored to harden the criminal by throw- 
 ing him into a crowd of offenders, into 
 the putrid atmosphere of a common 
 prison. Humanity rejoices in the re- 
 form which, in this respect, is spreading 
 through our country. To remove the 
 convict from bad influences is an essen- 
 tial step to his moral restoration. It is, 
 however, but a step. To place him un- 
 der the aid of good influence is equally 
 important ; and here individual exertion 
 must come to the aid of legislative pro- 
 visions. Private Christians, selected at 
 once for their judiciousness and philan- 
 thropy, must connect themselves with 
 the solitary prisoner, and by manifesta- 
 tions of a sincere fraternal interest, by 
 conversation, books, and encourage- 
 ment, must touch within him chords 
 which have long ceased to vibrate ; 
 must awaken new hopes : must show 
 him that all is not lost, that God, and 
 Christ, and virtue, and the friendship of 
 the virtuous, and honor, and immortality, 
 may yet be secured. Of this glorious 
 ministry of private Christianity I do not 
 despair. I know I shall be told of the 
 failure of all efforts to reclaim criminals. 
 They have not always failed. And be- 
 
 sides, has philanthropy, has genius, has 
 the strength of humanity, been fairly 
 and fervently put forth in this great 
 concern ? I find in the New Testament 
 no class of human beings whom charity 
 is instructed to forsake. I find no ex- 
 ception made by Him who came to seek 
 and save that which was lost. I must 
 add, that the most hopeless subjects are 
 not always to be found in prisons. That 
 convicts are dreadfully corrupt, I know ; 
 but not more corrupt than some who 
 walk at large, and are not excluded 
 from our kindness. The rich man who 
 defrauds is certainly as criminal as the 
 poor man who steals. The rich man 
 who drinks to excess contracts deeper 
 guilt than he who sinks into this vice 
 under the pressure of want. The young 
 man who seduces innocence deserves 
 more richly the house of correction than 
 the unhappy female whom he allured 
 into the path of destruction. Still more, 
 I cannot but remember how much the 
 guilt of the convict results from the 
 general corruption of society. When I 
 reflect how much of the responsibility 
 for crimes rests on the state, how many 
 of the offences which are most severely 
 punished are to be traced to neglected 
 education, to early squalid want, to 
 temptations and exposures which soci- 
 ety might do much to relieve, I feel 
 that a spirit of mercy should temper 
 legislation ; that we should not sever 
 ourselves so widely from our fallen 
 brethren ; that we should recognize in 
 them the countenance and claims of 
 humanity ; that we should strive to win 
 them back to God. 
 
 I have thus spoken of the obligation 
 of government to contribute by various 
 means to the moral elevation of a peo- 
 ple. I close this head with expressing 
 sorrow that an institution, capable of 
 such purifying influences, should so 
 often be among the chief engines of a 
 nation's corruption. 
 
 In this discourse I have insisted on 
 the supreme importance of virtuous 
 principle, of moral force, and elevation 
 in the community ; and I have thus 
 spoken, not that I might conform to 
 professional duty, but from deep per- 
 sonal conviction. I feel as I doubt not 
 many feel that the great distinction of 
 a nation, the only one worth possessing, 
 and which brings after it all other bless- 
 ings, is the prevalence of pure principle
 
 1 86 
 
 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 among the citizens. I wish to belong 
 to a state in the character and institu- 
 tions of which I may find a spring of 
 improvement, which I can speak of with 
 an honest pride, in whose records I may 
 meet great and honored names, and 
 which is making the world its debtor 
 by its discoveries of truth, and by an 
 example of'virtuous freedom. Oh, save 
 me from a country which worships 
 wealth and cares not for true glory : in 
 which intrigue bears rule ; in which 
 patriotism borrows its zeal from the 
 prospect of office ; in which hungry syc- 
 ophants besiege with supplications all 
 the departments of state ; in which pub- 
 lic men bear the brand of vice, and the 
 seat of government is a noisome sink of 
 private licentiousness and political cor- 
 ruption ! Tell me not of the honor of 
 belonging to a free country. I ask, does 
 our liberty bear generous fruits ? Does 
 it exalt us in manly spirit, in public 
 virtue, above countries trodden under 
 foot by despotism ? Tell me not of the 
 extent of our territory. I care not how 
 large it is if it multiply degenerate men. 
 Speak not of our prosperity. Better be 
 one of a poor people, plain in manners, 
 revering God and respecting themselves, 
 than belong to a rich country which 
 knows no higher good than riches. 
 Earnestly do 1 desire for this country 
 that, instead of copying Europe with an 
 undiscerning servility, it may have a 
 character of its own, corresponding to 
 the freedom and equality of our institu- 
 tions. One Europe is enough. One 
 Paris is enough. How much to be de- 
 sired is it that, separated as we are from 
 the eastern continent by an ocean, we 
 should be still more widely separated by 
 simplicity of manners, by domestic pu- 
 rity, by inward piety, by reverence for 
 human nature, by moral independence, 
 by withstanding that subjection to fash- 
 ion and that debilitating sensuality, 
 which characterize the most civilized 
 portions of the Old World. ., 
 
 Of this country I may say with pecu- 
 liar emphasis that its happiness is bound 
 
 up in its virtue. On this our union can 
 alone stand firm. Our union is not like 
 that of other nations, confirmed by the 
 habits of ages and riveted by force. It 
 is a recent, and. still more, a voluntary 
 union. It is idle to talk of force as 
 binding us together. Nothing can re- 
 tain a member of this confederacy when 
 resolved on separation. The only bonds 
 that can permanently unite us are moral 
 ones. That there are repulsive powers, 
 principles of discord, in these States, 
 we all feel. The attraction which is to 
 counteract them is only to be found in a 
 calm wisdom, controlling the passions, 
 in a spirit of equity and regard to the 
 common weal, and in virtuous patriot- 
 ism, clinging to union as the only pledge 
 of freedom and peace. The union is 
 threatened by sectional jealousies and 
 collisions of local interests, which can 
 be reconciled only by a magnanimous lib- 
 erality. It is endangered by the prosti- 
 tution of executive patronage, through 
 which the public treasury is turned into 
 a fountain of corruption, and by the lust 
 for power which perpetually convulses 
 the country for the sake of throwing 
 office into new hands ; and the only 
 remedy for these evils is to be found in 
 the moral indignation of the community, 
 in a pure, lofty spirit, which will over- 
 whelm with infamy this selfish ambition. 
 To the chief magistrate of this Com- 
 monwealth, and to those associated with 
 him in the executive and legislative de- 
 partments, I respectfully commend the 
 truths which have now been delivered ; 
 and, with the simplicity becoming a 
 minister of Jesus Christ, I would re- 
 mind them of their solemn obligations 
 to God, to their fellow-creatures, and 
 to the interests of humanity, freedom, 
 virtue, and religion. We trust that, in 
 their high stations, they will seek, not 
 themselves, but the public weal, and 
 will seek it by inflexible adherence to 
 the principles of the constitution, and 
 still more to the principles of God's 
 everlasting law.
 
 IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO SOCIETY. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO SOCIETY. 
 
 FEW men suspect, perhaps no man 
 comprehends, the extent of the support 
 given by religion to the virtues of ordi- 
 nary life. No man, perhaps, is aware 
 how much our moral and social sentij 
 ments are fed from this fountain ; how 
 powerless conscience would become 
 without the belief of a God ; how pal- 
 sied would be human benevolence, were 
 there not the sense of a higher benevo- 
 lence to quicken and sustain it ; how 
 suddenly the whole social fabric would 
 quake, and with what a fearful crash it 
 would sink into hopeless ruins, were the 
 ideas of a Supreme Being, of account- 
 able ness, and of a future life, to be 
 utterly erased from every mind. Once 
 let men thoroughly believe that they are 
 the work and sport of chance ; that no 
 superior intelligence concerns itself with 
 human affairs ; that all their improve- 
 ments perish for ever at death ; that the 
 weak have no guardian and the injured 
 no avenger ; that there is no recompense 
 for sacrifices to uprightness and the pub- 
 lic good ; that an oath is unheard in 
 heaven ; that secret crimes have no .wit- 
 ness but the perpetrator ; that human 
 existence has no purpose, and human 
 virtue no unfailing friend ; that this 
 brief life is every thing to us, and death 
 is total, everlasting extinction; once 
 let men thoroughly abandon religion, 
 and who can conceive or describe the 
 extent of the desolation which would 
 follow ? We hope perhaps, that human 
 laws and natural sympathy would hold 
 society together. As reasonably might 
 we believe that, were the sun quenched 
 in the heavens, our torches could illumi- 
 nate and our fires quicken and fertilize 
 the earth. What is there in human nat- 
 ure to awaken respect and tenderness, 
 if man is the unprotected insect of a 
 day ? and what is he more, if atheism be 
 true ? Erase all thought and fear of 
 Gocl from a community, and selfishness 
 and sensuality would absorb the whole 
 man. Appetite knowing no restraint, 
 and poverty and suffering having no 
 solace or hope, would trample in scorn 
 
 on the restraints of human laws. Virtue, 
 duty, principle, would be mocked and 
 spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sor- 
 did self interest would supplant every 
 other feeling, and man would become in 
 fact, what the theory of atheism declares 
 him to be, a companion for brutes. 
 
 It particularly deserves attention in 
 this discussion, that the Christian re- 
 ligion is singularly important to free 
 communities. In truth, we may doubt 
 whether civil freedom can subsist with- 
 out it. This at least we know, that equal 
 rights and an impartial administration of 
 justice have never been enjoyed where 
 this religion has not been understood. 
 It favors free institutions, first, because 
 its spirit is the very spirit of liberty ; 
 that is, a spirit of respect for the inter- 
 ests and rights of others. Christianity 
 recognizes the essential equality of man- 
 kind ; beats down with its whole might 
 those aspiring and rapacious principles 
 of our nature which have subjected the 
 many to the few ; and, by its refining 
 influence, as well as by direct precept, 
 turns to God, and to him only, that su- 
 preme homage which has been so im- 
 piously lavished on crowned and titled 
 fellow-creatures. Thus its whole ten- 
 dency is free. It lays deeply the only 
 foundations of liberty, which are the 
 principles of benevolence, justice, and 
 respect for human nature. The spirit of 
 liberty is not merely, as multitudes im- 
 agine, a jealousy of our own particular 
 rights, an unwillingness to be oppressed 
 ourselves, but a respect for the rights of 
 others, and an unwillingness that any 
 man, whether high or low, should be 
 wronged and trampled under foot. Now 
 this is the spirit of Christianity ; and 
 liberty has no security, any farther than 
 this uprightness and benevolence of sen- 
 timent actuates a community. 
 
 In another method religion befriends 
 liberty. It diminishes the necessity of 
 public restraints, and supersedes in a 
 great degree the use of force in admin- 
 istering the laws ; and this it does by 
 making men a law to themselves, and by
 
 i88 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 repressing the disposition to disturb and 
 injure society. Take away the purify- 
 ing and restraining influence of religion, 
 and selfishness, rapacity, and injustice 
 will break out in new excesses ; and 
 amidst the increasing perils of society 
 government must be strengthened to 
 defend it, must accumulate means of re- 
 pressing disorder and crime ; and this 
 strength and these means may be, and 
 often have been, turned against the free- 
 dom of the state which they were meant 
 to secure. Diminish principle, and you 
 increase the need of force in a com- 
 munity. In this country government 
 needs not the array of power which you 
 meet in other nations, no guards of 
 soldiers, no hosts of spies, no vexatious 
 
 regulations of police ; but accomplishes 
 its beneficent purposes by a few unarmed 
 judges and civil officers, and operates so 
 silently around us, and comes so seldom 
 in contact with us, that many of us enjoy 
 its blessings with hardly a thought of 
 its existence. This is the perfection of 
 freedom ; and to what do we owe this 
 condition ? I answer, to the power of 
 those laws which religion writes on our 
 hearts, which unite and concentrate pub- 
 lic opinion against injustice and oppres- 
 s,ion, which spread a spirit of equity and 
 good-will through the community. Thus 
 religion is the soul of freedom, and no 
 nation under heaven has such an inter- 
 est in it as ourselves. 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ROMANS i. 16 : "I am not ashamed of the Gospel 
 of Christ." 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THESE words of Paul are worthy of 
 his resolute and disinterested spirit. In 
 uttering them he was not an echo of 
 the multitude, a servile repeater of es- 
 tablished doctrines. The vast majority 
 around him were ashamed of Jesus. 
 The cross was then coupled with in- 
 famy. Christ's name was scorned as a 
 malefactor's, and to profess his religion 
 was to share his disgrace. Since that 
 time what striking changes have oc- 
 curred ! The cross now hangs as an 
 ornament from the neck of beauty. It 
 blazes on the flags of navies and the 
 standards of armies. Millions bow be- 
 fore it in adoration, as if it were a shrine 
 of the divinity. Of course, the tempta- 
 tion to be ashamed of Jesus is very much 
 diminished. Still it is not wholly re- 
 moved. Much of the homage now paid 
 to Christianity is outward, political, 
 worldly, and paid to its corruptions much 
 more than to its pure and lofty spirit ; 
 and accordingly its conscientious and 
 intrepid friends must not think it a 
 strange thing to be encountered with 
 occasional coldness or reproach. We 
 may still be tempted to be ashamed of 
 
 our religion, by being thrown among 
 sceptics who deny and deride it. We 
 may be tempted to be ashamed of the 
 simple and rational doctrines of Christ, 
 by being brought into connection with 
 narrow zealots, who enforce their dark 
 and perhaps degrading peculiarities as 
 essential to salvation. We may be 
 tempted to be ashamed of his pure, 
 meek, and disinterested precepts, by 
 being thrown among the licentious, self- 
 seeking, and vindictive. Against these 
 perils we should all go armed. To be 
 loyal to truth and conscience under 
 such trials is one of the signal proofs of 
 virtue. No man deserves the name of 
 Christian but he who adheres to his 
 principles amidst the unbelieving, the 
 intolerant, and the depraved. 
 
 " I am not ashamed of the gospel of 
 Christ." So said Paul. So would I 
 say. Would to God that I could catch 
 the spirit as well as the language of the 
 Apostle, and bear my testimony to Chris- 
 tianity with the same heroic resolution ! 
 Do any ask, why I join in this attesta- 
 tion to the gospel ? Some of my reasons 
 I propose now to set before you : and, 
 in doing so, I ask the privilege of speak- 
 ing, as the Apostle has done, in the first 
 person ; of speaking in my own name, 
 and of laying open my own mind in the
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 189 
 
 most direct language. There are cases 
 in which the ends of public discourse 
 may be best answered by the frank ex- 
 pression of individual feeling ; and this 
 mode of address, when adopted with 
 such views, ought not to be set down to 
 the account of egotism. 
 
 I proceed to state the reasons why I 
 am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ ; 
 and I begin with one so important that 
 it will occupy the present discourse. 
 
 I am not ashamed of the gospel of 
 Christ, because it is true. This is my 
 first reason. The religion is true, and 
 no consideration but this could induce 
 me to defend it. I adopt it, not because 
 it is popular, for false and ruinous sys- 
 tems have enjoyed equal reputation ; nor 
 because it is thought to uphold the order 
 of society, for I believe that nothing but 
 truth can be permanently useful. It is 
 true ; and I say this not lightly, but 
 after deliberate examination. I am not 
 repeating the accents of the nursery. I 
 do not affirm the truth of Christianity 
 because I was so taught before I could 
 inquire, or because I was brought up in 
 a community pledged to this belief. It 
 is not unlikely that my faith and zeal 
 will be traced by some to these sources ; 
 and believing such imputations to be 
 groundless, fidelity to the cause of truth 
 binds me to repel them. The circum- 
 stance of having been born and educated 
 under Christianity, so far from disposing 
 me to implicit faith, has often been to 
 me the occasion of serious distrust of 
 our religion. On observing how com- 
 mon it is for men of all countries and 
 names, whether Christians, Jews, or 
 Mahometans, to receive the religion of 
 their fathers, I have again and again 
 asked myself whether I too was not a 
 slave, whether I too was not blindly 
 walking in the path of tradition, and 
 yielding myself as passively as others to 
 an hereditary faith. I distrust and fear 
 the power of numbers and of general 
 opinion over my judgment ; and few 
 things incite me more to repel a doctrine 
 than intolerant attempts to force it on 
 my understanding. Perhaps my Chris- 
 tian education and connections have 
 inclined me to scepticism, rather than 
 bowed my mind to authority. 
 
 It may still be said that the pride and 
 prejudices and motives of interest which 
 belong to my profession as a Christian 
 minister throw a suspiciousness over my 
 
 reasoning and judgment on the present 
 subject. I reply, that to myself I seem 
 as free from biases of this kind as the 
 most indifferent person. I have no 
 priestly prepossessions. I know and 
 acknowledge the corruptions and per- 
 versions of the ministerial office from 
 the earliest age of the church. I repro- 
 bate the tyranny which it exercises so 
 often over the human mind. I recognize 
 no peculiar sanctity in those who sus- 
 tain it. I think, then, that I come to the 
 examination of Christianity with as few 
 blinding partialities as any man. I in- 
 deed claim no exemption from error ; I 
 ask no implicit faith in my conclusions ; 
 I care not how jealously and thoroughly 
 my arguments are sifted. I only ask 
 that I may not be prejudged as a servile 
 or interested partisan of Christianity. 
 I ask that I may be heard as a friend of 
 truth, desirous to aid my fellow-creat- 
 ures in determining a question of great 
 and universal concern. I appear as the 
 advocate of Christianity, solely because 
 it approves itself to my calmest reason 
 as a revelation from God, and as the 
 purest, brightest light which He has 
 shed on the human mind. I disclaim 
 all other motives. No policy, no vas- 
 salage to opinion, no dread of reproach 
 even from the good, no private interest, 
 no desire to uphold a useful superstition, 
 nothing, in short, but a deliberate con- 
 viction of the truth of Christianity in- 
 duces me to appear in its ranks. I 
 should be ashamed of it did I not be- 
 lieve it true. 
 
 In discussing this subject, I shall ex- 
 press my convictions strongly ; I shall 
 speak of infidelity as a gross and peril- 
 ous error. But in so doing I beg not to 
 be understood as passing sentence on the 
 character of individual unbelievers. I 
 shall show that the Christian religion is 
 true, is from God ; but I do not therefore 
 conclude that all who reject it are the 
 enemies of God, and are to be loaded 
 with reproach. I would uphold the 
 truth without ministering to unchari- 
 tableness. The criminality, the damna- 
 ble guilt of 'unbelief in all imaginable 
 circumstances, is a position which I 
 think untenable ; and persuaded as I 
 am that it prejudices the cause of Chris- 
 tianity, by creating an antipathy between 
 its friends and opposers which injures 
 both, and drives the latter into more de- 
 termined hostility to the truth, I think it
 
 1 90 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 worthy of a brief consideration in this 
 stage of the discussion. 
 
 I lay it down as a principle that unbe- 
 lief, considered in itself, has no moral 
 quality, is neither a virtue nor a vice, 
 but must receive its character, whether 
 good or bad, from the dispositions or 
 motives which produce or pervade it. 
 Mere acts of the understanding are 
 neither right nor wrong. When I speak 
 of faith as a holy or virtuous principle, 
 I extend the term beyond its primitive 
 meaning, and include in it not merely 
 the assent of the intellect, but the dis- 
 position or temper by which this assent 
 is determined, and which it is suited to 
 confirm ; and I attach as broad a signifi- 
 cation to unbelief, when I pronounce it 
 a crime. The truth is, that the human 
 mind, though divided by our philosophy 
 into many distinct capacities, seldom or 
 never exerts them separately, but gen- 
 erally blends them in one act. Thus, 
 in forming a judgment, it exerts the will 
 and affections, or the moral principles 
 of our nature, as really as the power of 
 thought. Men's passions and interests 
 mix with, and are expressed in, the 
 decisions of the intellect. In the Script- 
 ures, which use language freely, and 
 not with philosophical strictness, faith 
 and unbelief are mental acts of this 
 complex character, or joint p/oducts of 
 the understanding and heart : and on 
 this account alone they are objects of 
 approbation or reproof. In these views, 
 I presume, reflecting Christians of every 
 name agree. 
 
 According to these views, opinions 
 cannot be laid down as unerring and 
 immutable signs of virtue and vice. The 
 very same opinion may be virtuous in 
 one man and vicious in another, sup- 
 posing it, as is very possible, to have 
 originated in different states of mind. 
 For example if through envy and malig- 
 nity, I should rashly seize on the slight- 
 est proofs of guilt in my neighbor, my 
 judgment of his criminality would be 
 morally wrong. Let another man arrive 
 at the same conclusion, in consequence 
 of impartial inquiry and love of truth, 
 and his decision would be morally right. 
 Still more, according to these views, it 
 is possible for the belief of Christianity 
 to be as criminal as unbelief. Undoubt- 
 edly the reception of a system so pure 
 in spirit and tendency as the gospel 
 is to be regarded in general as a favor- 
 
 able sign. But let a man adopt this 
 religion because it will serve his interest 
 and popularity ; let him shut his mind 
 against objections to it, lest they should 
 shake his faith in a gainful system ; let 
 him tamper with his intellect, and for 
 base and selfish ends exhaust its strength 
 in defence of the prevalent faith, and he 
 is just as criminal in believing as another 
 would be in rejecting Christianity under 
 the same bad impulses. Our religion is 
 at this moment adopted and passionately 
 defended by vast multitudes, on the 
 ground of the very same pride, worldl:- 
 ness, love of popularity, and blind devo- 
 tion to hereditary prejudices, which led 
 the Jews and Heathens to reject it in 
 the primitive age ; and the faith of the 
 first is as wanting in virtue as was the 
 infidelity of the last. 
 
 To judge of the character of faith and 
 unbelief, we must examine the times 
 and the circumstances in which they 
 exist. At the first preaching of the 
 gospel, to believe on Christ was a strong 
 proof of an upright mind ; to enlist 
 among his followers was to forsake ease, 
 honor, and worldly success ; to confess 
 him was an act of signal loyalty to truth, 
 virtue, and God. To believe in Christ 
 at the present moment has no such sig- 
 nificance. To confess him argues no 
 moral courage. It may even betray a 
 servility and worldliness of mind. These 
 remarks apply in their spirit to unbelief. 
 At different periods, and in different 
 conditions of society, unbelief may ex- 
 press very different states of mind. Be- 
 fore we pronounce it a crime and doom 
 it to perdition, we ought to know the 
 circumstances under which it has sprung 
 up, and to inquire with candor whether 
 they afford no palliation or defence. 
 When Jesus Christ was on earth, wh.en 
 his miracles were wrought before men's 
 eyes, when his voice sounded in their 
 ears, when not a shade of doubt could 
 be thrown over the reality of his super- 
 natural works, and not a human corrup- 
 tion had mingled with his doctrine, there 
 was the strongest presumption against 
 the uprightness and the love of truth 
 of those who rejected him. He knew, 
 too, the hearts and lives of those who 
 surrounded him, and saw distinctly in 
 their envy, ambition, worldliness. sensu- 
 ality, the springs of their unbelief : and 
 accordingly he pronounced it a crime. 
 Since that period, what changes have
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 taken place ! Jesus Christ has left the 
 world. His miracles are events of a 
 remote age, and the proofs of them, 
 though abundant, are to many perfectly 
 unknown ; and, what is incomparably 
 more important, his religion has under- 
 gone corruption, adulteration, disastrous 
 change, and its likeness to its Founder 
 is in no small degree effaced. The clear, 
 Consistent, quickening truth, which came 
 from the lips of Jesus, has been ex- 
 changed for a hoarse jargon and vain 
 babblings. The stream, so pure at the 
 fountain, has been polluted and poisoned 
 through its whole course. Not only 
 has Christianity been overwhelmed by 
 absurdities, but by impious doctrines, 
 which have made the Universal Father, 
 now a weak and vain despot, to be pro- 
 pitiated by forms and flatteries, and now 
 an almighty torturer, foreordaining mul- 
 titudes of his creatures to guilt, and then 
 glorifying his justice by their everlasting 
 woe. When I think what Christianity 
 has become in the hands of politicians 
 and priests, how it has been shaped into a 
 weapon of power, how it has crushed the 
 human soul for ages,* how it has struck 
 the intellect with palsy and haunfed the 
 imagination with superstitious phantoms, 
 how it has broken whole nations to the 
 yoke, and frowned on every free thought ; 
 when I think how, under almost every 
 form of this religion, its ministers have 
 taken it into their own keeping, 'have 
 hewn and compressed it into the shape 
 of rigid creeds, and have then pursued 
 by menaces of everlasting woe whoever 
 should question the divinity of these 
 works of their hands ; when I consider, 
 in a word, how, under such influences, 
 Christianity has been and still is exhib- 
 ited, in forms which shock alike the 
 reason, conscience, and heart, I feel 
 deeply painfully, what a different system 
 it is from that which Jesus taught, and 
 I dare not apply to unbelief the terms 
 of condemnation which belonged to the 
 infidelity of the primitive age. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to go further. Per- 
 haps I ought to say that to reject Chris- 
 tianity under some of its corruptions is 
 rather a virtue than a crime. At the 
 present moment, I would ask whether 
 it is a vice to doubt the truth of Chris- 
 tianity as it is manifested in Spain and 
 Portugal ? When a patriot in those 
 benighted countries, who knows Chris- 
 tianity only as a bulwark of despotism, 
 
 as a rearer of inquisitions, as a stern 
 jailer immuring wretched women in the 
 convent, as an executioner stained and 
 reeking with the blood of the friends of 
 freedom ; I say, when the patriot, who 
 sees in our religion the instrument of 
 these crimes and woes, believes and 
 affirms that it is not from God, are we 
 authorized to charge his unbelief on 
 dishonesty and corruption of mind, and 
 to brand, him as a culprit ? May it not 
 be that the spirit of Christianity in his 
 heart emboldens him to protest with his 
 lips against what bears the name ? And 
 if he thus protest, through a deep sym- 
 pathy with the oppression and suffer- 
 ings of his race, is he not nearer the 
 kingdom of God than the priest and 
 inquisitor who boastingly and exclu- 
 sively assume the Christian name ? 
 Jesus Christ has told us that " this is 
 the condemnation " of the unbelieving, 
 'that they love darkness rather than 
 light ; " and who does not see that this 
 ground of condemnation is removed just 
 in proportion as the light is quenched, 
 or Christian truth is buried in darkness 
 and debasing error ? 
 
 I know I shall be told that a man in 
 the circumstances now supposed would 
 still be culpable for his unbelief, be- 
 cause the Scriptures are within his 
 reach, and these are sufficient to guide 
 him to the true doctrines of Christ. 
 But in the countries of which I have 
 spoken, the Scriptures are not com- 
 mon ; and if they were, I apprehend 
 that we should task human strength too 
 severely, in requiring it, under every 
 possible disadvantage, to gain the truth 
 from this source alone. A man, born 
 and brought up in the thickest dark- 
 ness, and amidst the grossest corrup- 
 tions of Christianity, accustomed to hear 
 the Scriptures disparaged, accustomed 
 to connect false ideas with their princi- 
 pal terms, and wanting our most com- 
 mon helps of criticism, can hardly be 
 expected to detach from the mass of 
 error which bears the name of the gos- 
 pel, the simple principles of the primi- 
 tive faith. Let us not exact too much 
 of our fellow-creatures. In our zeal 
 for Christianity let us not forget its 
 spirit of equity and mercy. In these 
 remarks I have taken an extreme case. 
 I'have supposed a man subjected to the 
 greatest disadvantages in regard to the 
 knowledge of Christianity. But obsta-
 
 192 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 cles less serious may exculpate the un- 
 believer. In truth, none of us can draw 
 the line which separates between inno- 
 cence and guilt in this particular. To 
 measure the responsibility of a man 
 who doubts or denies Christianity, we 
 must know the history of his mind, his 
 capacity of judgment, the early influ- 
 ences and prejudices to which he was 
 exposed, the forms under which the 
 religion and its proofs first fixed his 
 thoughts, and the opportunities'since en- 
 joyed of eradicating errors, which struck 
 root before the power of trying them 
 was unfolded. We are not his judges. 
 At another and an unerring tribunal he 
 must give account. 
 
 I cannot, then, join in the common 
 cry against infidelity as the sure mark 
 of a corrupt mind. That unbelief often 
 has its origin in evil dispositions I can- 
 not doubt. The character of the unbe- 
 liever often forces us to acknowledge 
 that he rejects Christianity to escape 
 its rebukes ; that its purity is its chief 
 offence ; that he seeks infidelity as a 
 refuge from fear and virtuous restraint. 
 But to impute these unholy motives to 
 a man of pure life is to judge rashly, 
 and it may be unrighteously. I cannot 
 look upon unbelief as essentially and 
 unfailingly a crime. But I do look 
 upon it as among the greatest of ca- 
 lamities. It is the loss of the chief aid 
 of virtue, of the mightiest power over 
 temptation, of the most quickening 
 knowledge of God, of the only unfail- 
 ing light, of the only sure hope. The 
 unbeliever would gain unspeakably by 
 parting with every possession for the 
 truth which he doubts or rejects. And 
 how shall we win him to the faith ? 
 Not by reproach, by scorn, by tones of 
 superiority ; but by paying due respect 
 to his understanding, his virtues, and 
 his right of private judgment ; by set- 
 ting before him Christianity in its simple 
 majesty, its reasonableness, and won- 
 derful adaptation to the wants of our 
 spiritual nature ; by exhibiting its proofs 
 without exaggeration, yet in their full 
 strength : and, above all, by showing in 
 our own characters and lives that there 
 is in Christianity a power to purify, 
 elevate, and console, which can be 
 found in no human teaching. These 
 are the true instruments of conversion. 
 The ignorant and superstitious may 
 indeed be driven into a religion by 
 
 menace and reproach. But the reflect- 
 ing unbeliever cannot but distrust a 
 cause which admits such weapons. He 
 must be reasoned with as a man, an 
 equal, and a brother. Perhaps we may 
 silence him for a time by spreading 
 through the community a fanatical ex- 
 citement and a persecuting hatred of 
 infidelity. But as by such processes 
 Christianity would be made to take a 
 more unlovely and irrational form, its 
 secret foes would be multiplied ; its 
 brightest evidence would be dimmed, 
 its foundation sapped, its energy im- 
 paired ; and whenever the time should 
 arrive for throwing off the mask (and 
 that time would come), we should learn 
 that in the very ranks of its nominal 
 disciples there had been trained a host 
 of foes, who would burn to prostrate 
 the intolerant faith which had so long 
 sealed their lips, and trampled on the 
 rights and freedom of the human mind. 
 
 According to these views, I do not 
 condemn the unbeliever, unless he bear 
 witness against himself by an immoral 
 and irreligious life. It is not given me 
 to search his heart. But this power is 
 given to himself, and, as a friend, I call 
 upon him to exert it ; I ask him to look 
 honestly into his own mind, to question 
 his past life, and to pronounce impartial 
 sentence on the causes of his unbelief. 
 Let him ask himself whether he has 
 inquired into the principles and proofs 
 of Christianity deliberately and in the 
 love of truth ; whether the desire to 
 discover and fulfil his duties to God 
 and his fellow-creatures has governed 
 his examination ; whether he has sur- 
 rendered himself to no passions or pur- 
 suits which religion and conscience 
 rebuke, and which bar the mind and 
 sear the heart against the truth. If, 
 thus self questioned, his heart acquit 
 him, let no man condemn him, and let 
 him heed no man's condemnation. But 
 if conscience bear witness against him, 
 he has cause to suspect and dread his 
 unbelief. He has reason to fear that 
 it is the fruit of a depraved mind, and 
 that it will ripen and confirm the de- 
 pravity from which it sprung. 
 
 I know that there are those who will 
 construe what they will call my lenity 
 towards unbelief into treachery towards 
 Christianity. There are those who think 
 that unless scepticism be ranked among 
 the worst crimes, and the infidel be
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 193 
 
 marked out for abhorrence and dread, 
 the multitude of men will lose their 
 hold on the gospel. An opinion more 
 discreditable to Christianity cannot ea- 
 sily be advanced by its friends. It 
 virtually admits that the proofs of our 
 religion, unless examined under the 
 influence of terror, cannot work con- 
 viction ; that the gospel cannot be left, 
 like other subjects, to the calm and 
 unbiassed judgment of mankind. It 
 discovers a distrust of Christianity with 
 which I have no sympathy. And here 
 I would remark that the worst abuses 
 of our religion have sprung from this 
 cowardly want of confidence in its 
 power. Its friends have feared that it 
 could not stand without a variety of 
 artificial buttresses. They have im- 
 agined that men must now be bribed 
 into faith by annexing to it temporal 
 privileges, now driven into it by mena- 
 ces and inquisitions, now attracted by 
 gorgeous forms, now awed by mysteries 
 and superstitions ; in a word, that the 
 multitude must be imposed upon, or the 
 religion will fall. I have no such dis- 
 trust of Christianity ; I believe in its 
 invincible powers. It is founded in our 
 nature. It meets our deepest wants. 
 Its proofs as well as principles are 
 adapted to the common understandings 
 of men, and need not to be aided by 
 appeals to fear or any other passion, 
 which would discourage inquiry or dis- 
 turb the judgment. I fear nothing for 
 Christianity if left to speak in its own 
 tones, to approach men with its un- 
 veiled, benignant countenance. I do 
 fear much from the weapons of policy 
 and intimidation which are framed to 
 uphold the imagined weakness of Chris- 
 tian truth. 
 
 I now come to the great object of this 
 discourse, an exhibition of the proofs 
 of Christianity: and I begin with a topic 
 which is needed to prepare some, if not 
 many, to estimate these proofs fairly, 
 and according to their true weight. I 
 begin with the position, that there is 
 nothing in the general idea of revelation 
 at which reason ought to take offence, 
 nothing inconsistent with any established 
 truth, or with our best views of God and 
 nature. This topic meets a prejudice 
 not very rare. I repeat it, then, revela- 
 tion is nothing incredible, nothing which 
 carries contradiction on its face, nothing 
 at war with any great principles of rea- 
 
 son or experience. On hearing of God's 
 teaching us by some other means than 
 the fixed order of nature, we ought not 
 to be surprised, nor ought the suggestion 
 to awaken resistance in our minds. 
 
 Revelation is not at war with nature. 
 From the necessity of the case, the 
 earliest instruction must have come to 
 human beings from this source. If our 
 race had a beginning (and nothing but 
 the insanity of atheism can doubt this), 
 then its first members, created as they 
 were without human parentage, and hav- 
 ing no resource in the experience of 
 fellow-creatures who had preceded them, 
 required an immediate teaching from 
 their Creator ; they would have perished 
 without it. Revelation was the very 
 commencement of human history, the 
 foundation of all later knowledge and 
 improvement. It was an essential part 
 of the course of Providence, and must 
 not then be regarded as a discord in 
 God's general system. 
 
 Revelation is not at war with nature. 
 Nature prompts us to expect it from the 
 relation which God bears to the human 
 race. The relation of Creator is the 
 most intimate which can subsist ; and it 
 leads us to anticipate a free and affec- 
 tionate intercourse with the creature. 
 That trie Universal Father should be 
 bound by a parental interest to his off- 
 spring, that He should watch over and 
 assist the progress of beings whom He 
 has enriched with the divine gifts of 
 reason and conscience, is so natural a 
 doctrine, so accordant with his charac- 
 ter, that various sects, both philosophical 
 and religious, both anterior and subse- 
 quent to Christianity, have believed not 
 only in general revelation, but that God 
 reveals himself to every human soul. 
 When I think of the vast capacities of 
 the human mind, of God's nearness to 
 it and unbounded love towards it, I am 
 disposed to wonder, not that revelations 
 have been made, but that they have not 
 been more variously vouchsafed to the 
 wants of mankind. 
 
 Revelation has a striking agreement 
 with the chief method which God has 
 instituted for carrying fonvard individ- 
 uals and the race, and is thus in 
 harmony with his ordinary operations. 
 Whence is it that we all acquire our chief 
 knowledge ? Nob from the outward uni- 
 verse, not from the fixed laws of 
 material nature, but from intelligent
 
 194 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 beings more advanced than ourselves. 
 The teachings of the wise and good are 
 our chief aids. Were our connection 
 with superior minds broken off, had we 
 no teacher but nature, with its fixed laws, 
 its unvarying revolutions of night and 
 day and seasons, we should remain for 
 ever in the ignorance of childhood. Nat- 
 ure is a volume which we can read only 
 by the help of an intelligent interpreter. 
 The great law under which man is placed 
 is that lie shall receive illumination and 
 impulse from beings more improved than 
 himself. Now revelation is only an ex- 
 tension of this universal method of car- 
 rying forward mankind. In this case, 
 God takes on himself the office to which 
 all rational beings are called. He be- 
 comes an immediate teacher to a few, 
 communicating to them a higher order 
 of truths than had before been attained, 
 which they in turn are to teach to their 
 race. Here is no new power or element 
 introduced into the system, but simply 
 an enlargement of that agency on which 
 the progress of man chiefly depends. 
 
 Let me next ask you to consider why 
 or for what end God has ordained, as 
 the chief means of human improvement, 
 the communication of light from superior 
 to inferior minds ; and if it shall then ap- 
 pear that revelation is strikingly adapted 
 to promote a similar though more im- 
 portant end, you will have another mark 
 of agreement between revelation and his 
 ordinary providence. Why is it that 
 God has made men's progress dependent 
 on instruction from their fellow-beings ? 
 Why are the more advanced commis- 
 sioned to teach the less informed ? A 
 great purpose, I believe the chief pur- 
 pose, is to establish interesting relations 
 among men, to bind them to one another 
 by generous sentiments, to promote af- 
 fectionate intercourse, tot call forth a 
 purer love than could spring from a com- 
 munication of mere outward gifts. Now 
 it is rational to believe that the Creator 
 designs to bind his creatures to himself 
 as truly as to one another, and to awaken 
 towards himself even stronger gratitude, 
 confidence, and love ; for these senti- 
 ments towards God are more happy and 
 ennobling than towards any other being ; 
 and it is plain that revelation, or immedi- 
 ate divine teaching, serves as effectually 
 to establish these ties between God and 
 man as human teaching to attach men 
 to one another. We see, then, in revela- 
 
 tion an end corresponding to what the 
 Supreme Being adopts in his common 
 providence. That the end here affirmed 
 is worthy of his interposition, who can 
 doubt ? His benevolence can propose 
 no higher purpose than that of raising 
 the minds and hearts of his creatures to 
 himself. His parental character is a 
 pledge that he must intend this ineffable 
 happiness for his rational offspring ; and 
 revelation is suited to this end, not only 
 by unfolding new doctrines in relation 
 to God, but by the touching proof which 
 it carries in itself of the special interest 
 which He takes in his human family. 
 There is plainly an expression of deeper 
 concern, a more affectionate character, 
 in this mode of instruction, than in 
 teaching us by the fixed order of nature. 
 Revelation is God speaking to us in our 
 own language, in the accents which hu- 
 man friendship employs. It shows a 
 love, breaking through the reserve and 
 distance, which we all feel to belong to 
 the method of teaching us by his works 
 alone. It fastens our minds on him. 
 We can look on nature, and not think of 
 the Being whose glory it declares ; but 
 God is indissolubly connected with, and 
 indeed is a part of, the idea of revelation. 
 How much nearer does this direct inter- 
 course bring him to the mass" of man- 
 kind ! On this account revelation would 
 seem to me important, were it simply to 
 repeat the teachings of nature. This 
 reiteration of great truths in a less 
 formal style, in kinder, more familiar 
 tones, is peculiarly fitted to awaken the 
 soul to the presen.ce and benignity of its 
 heavenly Parent. I see, then, in revela- 
 tion a purpose corresponding with that 
 for which human teaching was instituted. 
 Both are designed to bring together the 
 teacher and the taught in pure affec- 
 tions. 
 
 Let me next ask you to consider what 
 is the kind of instruction which the 
 higher minds among men are chiefly 
 called to impart to the inferior. You 
 will here see another agreement be- 
 tween revelation and that ordinary 
 human teaching which is the great in- 
 strument of improving the race. What 
 kind of instruction is it which parents, 
 which the aged and experienced, are 
 most anxious to give to the young, and 
 on which the safety of this class mainly 
 depends ? It is instruction in relation 
 to the future, to their adult years, such
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 195 
 
 as is suited to prepare them for the life 
 that is opening before them. It is 
 God's will, when He gives us birth, that 
 we should be forewarned of the future, 
 stages of our being, of approaching 
 manhood or womanhood, of the scenes, 
 duties, labors, through which we are to 
 pass ; and for this end He connects us 
 with beings who have traversed the 
 paths on which we are entering, and 
 whose duty it is to train us for a more 
 advanced age. Instruction in regard to 
 futurity is the great means of improve- 
 ment. Now the Christian revelation has 
 for its aim to teach us on this very sub- 
 ject, to disclose the life which is be- 
 fore us, and to fit us for it. A future 
 state is its constant burden. That God 
 should give us light in regard to that 
 state, if He designs us for it, is what we 
 should expect from his solicitude to 
 teach us in regard to what is future in 
 our earthly existence. Nature thirsts 
 for, and analogy almost promises, some 
 illumination on the subject of human 
 destiny. This topic I shall insist on 
 more largely hereafter. I wish now 
 simply to show you the agreement of 
 revelation, in this particular, with the 
 ordinary providence of God. 
 
 I proceed to another order of reflec- 
 tions, which to my own mind is particu- 
 larly suited to meet the vague idea that 
 revelation is at war with nature. To 
 judge of nature, we should look at its 
 highest rank of beings. We should in- 
 quire of the human soul, which we all 
 feel to be a higher existence than mat- 
 ter. Now I maintain that there are in 
 the human soul wants, deep wants, which 
 are not met by the influences and teach- 
 ing which the ordinary course of things 
 affords. I am aware that this is a topic 
 to provoke distrust, if not derision, in 
 the low-minded and sensual ; but I 
 speak what I do know ; and nothing 
 moves me so little as the scoffs of men 
 who despise their own nature. One of 
 the most striking views of human nature 
 is the disproportion between what it 
 conceives and thirsts for, and what it 
 finds or can secure in the range of the 
 present state. It is prone to stretch be- 
 yond its present bounds. Ideas of ex- 
 cellence and happiness spring up which 
 it cannot realize now. It carries within 
 itself a standard, of which it daily and 
 hourly falls short. This self-contradic- 
 tion is the source of many sharp pains. 
 
 There is, in most men, a dim conscious- 
 ness, at least, of being made for some- 
 thing, higher than they have gained, 
 a feeling of internal discord, a want of 
 some stable good, a disappointment in 
 merely outward acquisitions ; and in 
 proportion as these convictions and 
 wants become distinct, they break out 
 in desires of illumination and aids from 
 God not found in nature. I am aware 
 that the wants of which I have spoken 
 are but faintly developed in the major- 
 ity of men. Accustomed to give their 
 thoughts and strength to the outward 
 world, multitudes do not penetrate and 
 cannot interpret their own souls. They 
 impute to outward causes the miseries 
 which spring from an internal fountain. 
 They do not detain, and are scarcely con- 
 scious of, the better thoughts and feel- 
 ings which sometimes dart through their 
 minds. Still there are few who are not 
 sometimes dissatisfied with themselves, 
 who do not feel the wrong which they 
 have done to themselves, and who do 
 not desire a purer and nobler state of 
 mind. The suddenness with which the 
 multitude are thrilled by the voice of 
 fervent eloquence, when it speaks to 
 them of the spiritual world in tones of 
 reality, shows the deep wants of human 
 nature even amidst ignorance and deg- 
 radation. But all men do not give them- 
 selves wholly to outward things. There 
 are those, and not a few, who are more 
 true to their nature, and ought therefore 
 to be regarded as its more faithful rep- 
 resentatives ; and in such the wants of 
 which I have spoken are unfolded with 
 energy. There are those who feel pain- 
 fully the weight of their present imper- 
 fection ; who are fired by rare examples 
 of magnanimity and devotion ; who de- 
 sire nothing so intensely as power over 
 temptation, as elevation above selfish 
 passions, as conformity of will to the in- 
 ward law of duty, as the peace of con- 
 scious rectitude and religious trust : who 
 would rejoice to lay down the present 
 life for that spotless, bright, disinter- 
 _ested virtue, of which they have the 
 type or germ in their own minds. Such 
 men can find no resource but in God, 
 and are prepared to welcome a revela- 
 tion of his merciful purposes as an un- 
 speakable gift. \ say, then, that the 
 human mind has wants which nature 
 does not answer. And these are not 
 accidental feelings, unaccountable ca-
 
 196 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 prices, but are deep, enduring, and 
 reproduced in all ages under one or 
 another form. They breathe through 
 the works of genius ; they burn in the 
 loftiest souls. Here are principles im- 
 planted by God in the highest order of 
 his creatures on earth, to which revela- 
 tion is adapted ; and I say, then, that 
 revelation is any thing but hostility to 
 nature. 
 
 I will offer but one more view in illus- 
 tration of this topic. I ask you to con- 
 sider on what principle of human nature 
 the Christian revelation is intended to 
 bear and to exert influence, and then to 
 inquire whether the peculiar importance 
 of this principle be not a foundation for 
 peculiar interposition in its behalf. If 
 so, revelation may be said to be a de- 
 mand of the human soul, and its imag- 
 ined incongruity with nature will disap- 
 pear. For what principle or faculty of 
 the mind, then, was Christianity in- 
 tended ? It was plainly not given to 
 enrich the intellect by teaching philos- 
 ophy, or to perfect the imagination and 
 taste by furnishing sublime and beauti- 
 ful models of composition. It was not 
 meant to give sagacity in public life, or 
 skill and invention in common affairs. 
 It was undoubtedly designed to develop 
 all these faculties, but secondarily, and 
 through its influence on a higher prin- 
 ciple. It addresses itself primarily, and 
 is especially adapted, to the moral power 
 in man. It regards and is designed for 
 man as a moral being, endued with con- 
 science or the principle of duty, who is 
 capable of that peculiar form of excel- 
 lence which we call righteousness or 
 virtue, and exposed to that peculiar evil, 
 guilt. Now the question offers itself, 
 Why does God employ such extraordi- 
 nary means for promoting virtue rather 
 than science, for aiding conscience 
 rather than intellect and our other pow- 
 ers ? Is there a foundation in the moral 
 principle for peculiar interpositions in 
 its behalf ? I affirm that there is. I 
 affirm that a broad distinction exists 
 between our moral nature and our other 
 capacities. Conscience is the supreme 
 power within us. Its essence, its grand 
 characteristic, is sovereignty. It speaks 
 with a divine authority. Its office is to 
 command, to rebuke, to reward ; and 
 happiness and honor depend on the 
 reverence with which we listen to it. 
 All our other powers become useless, 
 
 and worse than useless, unless controlled 
 by the principle of duty. Virtue is the 
 supreme good, the supreme beauty, the 
 .divinest of God's gifts, the healthy and 
 harmonious unfolding of the soul, and 
 the germ of immortality. It is worth 
 every sacrifice, and has power to trans- 
 mute sacrifices and sufferings into crowns 
 of glory and rejoicing. Sin, vice, is an 
 evil of its own kind, and not to be con- 
 founded with any other. Who does not 
 feel at once the broad distinction be- 
 tween misfortune and crime, between 
 disease of body and turpitude of soul ? 
 Sin, vice, is war with the highest power 
 in our own breasts, and in the universe. 
 It makes a being odious to himself, and 
 arms against him the principle of recti- 
 tude in God and in all pure beings It 
 poisons or dries up the fountains of 
 enjoyment, and adds unspeakable weight 
 to the necessary pains of life. It is not 
 a foreign evil, but a blight and curse 
 in the very centre of our being. Its 
 natural associates are fear, shame, and 
 self-torture ; and, whilst it robs the 
 present of consolation, it leaves the 
 future without hope. Now I say that 
 in this peculiar ruin wrought by moral 
 evil, and in this peculiar worth of moral 
 goodness, we see reasons for special 
 interpositions of God in behalf of virtue, 
 in resistance of sin. It becomes the 
 Infinite Father to manifest peculiar 
 interest in the moral condition and wants 
 of his creatures. Their great and con- 
 tinued corruption is an occasion for 
 peculiar methods of relief ; and a reve- 
 lation given to restore them, and carry 
 them forward to perfection, has an end 
 which justifies, if it does not demand, 
 this signal expression of parental love. 
 
 The preceding views have been of- 
 fered, not as sufficient to prove that a 
 revelation has been given, but for the 
 purpose of removing the vague notion 
 that it is at war with nature, and of 
 showing its consistency with the spirit 
 and principles of the divine administra- 
 tion. I proceed now to consider the 
 direct and positive proofs of Christian- 
 ity, beginning with some remarks on the 
 nature and sufficiency of the evidence on 
 which it chiefly relies. 
 
 Christianity sprung up about eighteen 
 hundred years ago. Of course its evi- 
 dences are to be sought in history. We 
 must go back to the time of its birth, 
 and understand the condition in which
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 197 
 
 it found the world, as well as the cir- 
 cumstances of its origin, progress, and 
 establishment ; and happily, on these 
 points, we have all the light necessary 
 to a just judgment. We must not imag- 
 ine that a religion which bears the date 
 of so distant an age must therefore be 
 involved in obscurity. We know enough 
 of the earliest times of Christianity to 
 place the question of its truth within 
 our reach. The past may be known as 
 truly as the present ; and I deem this 
 principle so important in the present 
 discussion that I ask your attention 
 to it. 
 
 The past, I have said, may be known ; 
 nor is this all ; we derive from it our 
 most important knowledge. Former 
 times are our chief instructors. Our 
 political as well as religious institutions, 
 our laws, customs, modes of thinking, 
 arts of life, have come down from ear- 
 lier ages, and most of them are unintel- 
 ligible without a light borrowed from 
 history. 
 
 Not only are we able to know the 
 nearest of past ages, or those which 
 touch on our own times, but those which 
 are remote. No educated man doubts 
 any more of the victories of Alexander 
 or Caesar, before Christ, than of Napo- 
 leon's conquests in our own day. So 
 open is our communication with some 
 ages of antiquity, so many are the rec- 
 ords which they have transmitted, that 
 we know them even better than nearer 
 times ; and a religion which grew up 
 eighteen hundred years ago may be 
 more intelligible and accompanied with 
 more decisive proofs of truth or false- 
 hood, than one which is not separated 
 from us by a fourth part of that dura- 
 tion. 
 
 From the nature of things, we may 
 and must know much of the past ; for 
 the present has grown out of the past, 
 is its legacy, fruit, representative, and 
 is deeply impressed with it. Events do 
 not expire at the moment of their occur- 
 rence. Nothing takes place without 
 leaving traces behind it ; and these are 
 in many cases so distinct and various as 
 to leave not a doubt of their cause. We 
 all understand, how, in the material 
 world, events testify of themselves to 
 future ages. Should we visit an un- 
 known region, and behold masses of 
 lava covered with soil of different de- 
 grees of thickness, and surrounding a 
 
 blackened crater, we should have as firm 
 a persuasion of the occurrence of re- 
 mote and successive volcanic eruptions 
 as if we had lived through the ages in 
 which they took place. The chasms 
 of the earth would report how terribly 
 it had been shaken, and the awful might 
 of long-extinguished fires would be 
 written in desolations which ages had 
 failed to efface. Now conquest, and 
 civil and religious revolutions, leave 
 equally their impressions on society, 
 leave institutions, manners, and a vari- 
 ety of monuments, which are inexpli- 
 cable without them, and which, taken 
 together, admit not a doubt of their 
 occurrence. The past stretches into 
 the future, the present is crowded with 
 it, and can be interpreted only by the 
 light of history. 
 
 But besides these effects and remains 
 of earlier times, we have other and more 
 distinct memorials of the past, which, 
 when joined with the former, place it 
 clearly within our knowledge. I refer 
 to books. A book is more than a monu- 
 ment of a preceding age. It is a voice 
 coming to us over the interval of cen- 
 turies. Language, when written, as 
 truly conveys to us another's mind as 
 when spoken. It is a species of per- 
 sonal intercourse. By it the wise of 
 former times give us their minds as 
 really as if by some miracle they were 
 to rise from the dead and communicate 
 with us by speech. 
 
 From these remarks we learn that 
 Christianity is not placed beyond the 
 reach of our investigations by the re- 
 moteness of its origin ; and they are 
 particularly applicable to the age in 
 which the gospel was first given to 
 the world. Our religion did not spring 
 up before the date of authentic history. 
 Its birth is not hidden in the obscurity 
 of early and fabulous times. We have 
 abundant means of access to its earliest 
 stages ; and, what is very important, 
 the deep and peculiar interest which 
 Christianity has awakened has fixed the 
 earnest attention of the most learned 
 and sagacious men on the period of 
 its original publication, so that no age 
 of antiquity is so thoroughly understood. 
 Christianity sprung up at a time when 
 the literature and, philosophy of Greece 
 was spread far and wide, and had given 
 a great impulse to the human mind ; and 
 when Rome, by unexampled conquests,
 
 198 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 had become a centre and bond of union 
 to the civilized world and to many half- 
 civilized regions, and had established a 
 degree of communication between distant 
 countries before unknown. We are not, 
 then, left to grope our way by an un- 
 steady light. Our means of information 
 are various and great. We have incon- 
 testable facts in relation to the origin of 
 our religion, from which its truth may be 
 easily deduced. A few of these facts, 
 which form the first steps of our reason- 
 ing on this subject, I will now lay before 
 you. 
 
 1. First, then, we know with certainty 
 the time when Christianity was foundea. 
 As to this fact, there is and can be no 
 doubt. Heathen and Christian histo- 
 rians speak on this point with one voice. 
 Christianity was first preached in the aga 
 of Tiberius. Not a trace of it exists 
 before that period, and afterwards the 
 marks and proofs of its existence are 
 so obvious and acknowledged as to need 
 no mention. Here is one important fact 
 placed beyond doubt. 
 
 2. In the next place, we know the 
 place where Christianity sprung up. No 
 one can dispute the country of its birth. 
 Its Jewish origin is not only testified by 
 all history, but is stamped on its front 
 and* woven into its frame. The lan- 
 guage in which it is conveyed carries us 
 at once to Judea. Its name is derived 
 from Jewish prophecy. None but Jews 
 could have written the New Testament. 
 So natural, undesigned, and perpetual 
 are the references and allusions of the 
 writers to the opinions and manners 
 of that people, so accustomed are they 
 to borrow from the same source the 
 metaphors, similitudes, types, by which 
 they illustrate their doctrines, that Chris- 
 tianity, as to its outward form, may be 
 said to be steeped in Judaism. We have, 
 then, another established fact. We know 
 where it was born. 
 
 3. Again, we know the individual by 
 whom Christianity was founded. We 
 know its Author, and from the nature 
 of the case this fact cannot but be 
 known. The founder of a religion is 
 naturally and necessarily the object of 
 general inquiry. Wherever the new 
 faith is carried, the first and most eager 
 questions are, " From whom does it 
 come ? On whose authority does it 
 rest ? " Curiosity is never more intense 
 than in regard to the individual who 
 
 claims a divine commission and sends 
 forth a new religion. He is the last 
 man to be overlooked or' mistaken. In 
 the case of Christianity especially, its 
 Founder may be said to have been 
 forced on men's notice, for his history 
 forms an essential part of his religion. 
 Christianity is not an abstract doctrine, 
 which keeps its Author out of sight. He 
 is its very soul. It rests on him, and 
 finds its best illustration in his life. 
 These reflections, however, may be 
 spared. The simple consideration that 
 Christianity must have had an author, 
 and that it has been always ascribed to 
 Jesus, and to no one else, places the 
 great fact which I would establish be- 
 yond doubt. 
 
 4. I next observe, that we not only 
 know the Founder of Christianity, but 
 the ministers by whom he published and 
 spread it through the world. A new 
 religion must have propagators, first 
 teachers, and with these it must be- 
 come intimately associated. A com- 
 munity can no more be ignorant as to 
 the teachers who converted it to a new 
 faith, than as to the conqueror who sub- 
 jected it to a new government ; and 
 where the art of writing is known and 
 used for recording events, the latter 
 fact will not more certainly be trans- 
 mitted to posterity than the former. 
 We have the testimony of all ages that 
 the men called Apostles were the first 
 propagators of Christianity, nor have 
 any others been named as sustaining 
 this office ; and it is impossible that, 
 on such a point, such testimony should 
 be false. 
 
 5. Again, we know not only when, 
 and where, and by whom Christianity 
 was introduced ; we know, from a great 
 variety of sources, what in the main this 
 religion was, as it came from the hands 
 of its Founder. To assure ourselves on 
 this point, we need not recur to any 
 sacred books. From the age following 
 that of Christ and the Apostles, down 
 to the present day, we have a series, 
 and an almost numberless host, of 
 writers on the subject of Christianity; 
 and whilst we discover in them a great 
 diversity of opinions and opposite inter- 
 pretations of some of Christ's teachings, 
 yet on the whole they so far agree in 
 the great facts of his history, and in 
 certain great principles of his religion, 
 that we cannot mistake as to the general
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 199 
 
 character of the system which he taught. 
 There is not a shadow of reason for the 
 opinion that the original system which 
 Jesus taught was lost, and a new one 
 substituted and fastened on the world 
 in his name. The many and great cor- 
 ruptions of Christianity did not and 
 could not hide its principal features. 
 The greatest corruptions took place in 
 the century which followed the death of 
 the Apostles, when certain wild and 
 visionary sects endeavored to establish 
 a union between the new religion and 
 the false philosophy to which they had 
 been wedded in their heathen state. 
 You may judge of their character and 
 claims, when I tell you that they gen- 
 erally agreed in believing that the God 
 who made the world, and who was wor- 
 shipped by the Jews, was not the su- 
 preme God, but an inferior and imperfect 
 deity, and that matter had existed from 
 eternity, and was essentially and un- 
 changeably evil. Yet these sects en- 
 deavored to sustain themselves on the 
 writings which the great body of Chris- 
 tians received and honored as the works 
 of the Apostles ; and, amidst their de- 
 lusions, they recognized and taught the 
 miracles of Christ, his resurrection, and 
 the most important principles of his re- 
 ligion ; so that the general nature of 
 Christianity, as it came from its Found- 
 er, may be ascertained beyond a doubt. 
 Here another great point is fixed. 
 
 6. I have now stated to you several 
 particulars relating to Christianity which 
 admit no doubt ; and these indisputa- 
 ble facts are of great weight in a dis- 
 cussion of the Christian evidences. 
 There is one point more, of impor- 
 tance, which cannot be settled so expe- 
 ditiously as these. I hope, however, 
 enough may be said to place it beyond 
 doubt, without exceeding the limits of 
 a discourse ; and I invite to it your 
 serious attention. I say, then, that we 
 not only know in general what Chris- 
 tianity was at its first promulgation ; 
 but we know precisely what its first 
 propagators taught, for we have their 
 writings. We have their religion under 
 their own hands. We have particu- 
 larly four narratives of the life, works, 
 and words of their Master, which put 
 us in possession of his most private as 
 well as public teaching. It is true that 
 without those writings we should still 
 have strong arguments for the truth of 
 
 Christianity ; but we should be left in 
 doubt as to some of its important prin- 
 ciples ; and its internal evidence, which 
 corroborates, and, as some think, ex- 
 ceeds the external, would be very much 
 impaired. The possession of the writ- 
 ings of the first propagators of the gos- 
 pel must plainly render us great aid in 
 judging of its claims. These writings, 
 I say, we have, and this point I would 
 now establish. 
 
 I am aware that the question to which 
 I now ask your attention is generally 
 confined to professed students. But it 
 is one on which men of good sense are 
 competent to judge, and its great im- 
 portance gives it a claim to the serious 
 consideration of every Christian. 
 
 The question is, whether the four 
 Gospels are genuine, that is, whether 
 they were written by those to whom 
 they are ascribed. To answer it, let 
 us consider how we determine the 
 genuineness of books in general. I 
 begin with the obvious remark that to 
 know the author of a work, it is not 
 necessary that we should be eye-wit- 
 nesses of its composition. Perhaps of 
 the numberless publications of the pres- 
 ent day, we have not seen one growing 
 under the pen of the writer. By far 
 the greater number come to us across 
 the ocean, and yet we are as confident 
 in regard to their authors as if we had 
 actually seen them first committed to 
 paper. The ascription of a book to an 
 individual, during his life, by those who 
 are interested in him, and who have 
 the best means of knowing the truth, 
 removes all doubts as to its author. A 
 strong and wide-spread conviction of 
 this kind must have a cause, and can 
 only be explained by the actual produc- 
 tion of the work by the reputed writer. 
 It should here be remembered that 
 there is a strong disposition in men to 
 ascertain the author of an important 
 and interesting work. We have had a 
 remarkable illustration of this in our 
 own times. The author of "Waver- 
 ley " saw fit to wrap himself for a 'time 
 in mystery ; and what was the conse- 
 quence ? No subject in politics or 
 science was agitated more generally 
 than the question to whom the work 
 belonged. It' was not only made a 
 topic in almost every periodical publi- 
 cation, but one book was expressly 
 written to solve the problem. The in-
 
 200 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 stance, I know, was remarkable ; but 
 this inquisitiveness in regard to books 
 is a principle of our nature, and is par- 
 ticularly active when the book in de- 
 bate is a work of singular authority. 
 
 I have spoken of the confidence 
 which we feel as to the authors of 
 books published in our own times. 
 But our certainty is not confined to 
 these. Every reading man is as sure 
 that Hume and Robertson wrote the 
 histories which bear their names, as 
 that Scott has in our own time sent out 
 the " Life of Bonaparte." Those emi- 
 nent men were born more than a hun- 
 dred years ago, and they died before 
 the birth of most to whom I speak ; 
 but the communication between their 
 times and our own is so open and vari- 
 ous, that we know their literary labors 
 as well as those of the present day. 
 Not a few persons now living have had 
 intercourse with some of the contem- 
 poraries of these historians ; and through 
 this channel in particular we of this 
 generation have the freest access to the 
 preceding, and know its convictions in 
 regard to the authors of interesting 
 books as fully as if we had lived in it 
 ourselves. That the next age will have 
 the same communication with the pres- 
 ent as the present has with the past, 
 and that these convictions of our pre- 
 decessors will be transmitted by us to 
 our immediate successors, you will eas- 
 ily comprehend ; and you will thus learn 
 the respect which is due to the testi- 
 mony of the third generation on such a 
 subject. 
 
 In what has now been said, we see 
 with what confidence and certainty we 
 determine the authors of writings pub- 
 lished in our own age or in the times 
 nearest our own. These remarks may 
 be easily applied to the productions of 
 antiquity. When the question arises, 
 whether an ancient book was written 
 by the individual whose name it bears, 
 we must inquire into the opinion of his 
 contemporaries, or of those who suc- 
 ceeded his contemporaries so nearly as 
 to have intimate communication with 
 them. The competency of these to a 
 just judgment on the subject we have 
 seen : and if they have transmitted their 
 convictions to us in undisputed writ- 
 ings, it ought to be decisive. On this 
 testimony, we ascribe many ancient 
 books to their authors with the firmest 
 
 faith ; and, in truth, we receive as genu- 
 ine many works of antiquity on far in- 
 ferior proofs. There are many books 
 of which no notice can be found for 
 several ages after the time of their re- 
 puted authors. Still the fact that, as 
 soon as they are named, they are as- 
 cribed undoubtingly, and by general 
 consent, to certain authors, is esteemed 
 a sufficient reason for regarding them 
 as their productions, unless some oppo- 
 site proof can be adduced. This gen- 
 eral reception of a work as having come 
 from a particular writer is an effect 
 which requires a cause ; and the most 
 natural and obvious explanation of his 
 being named, rather than any other 
 man, is that he actually composed it. 
 
 I now proceed to apply these princi- 
 ples to the four histories of Christ, com- 
 monly called Gospels. The question 
 is, What testimony respecting their au- 
 thors has come down to us from the 
 age of their reputed authors, or from 
 times so near it and so connected with 
 it, as to be faithful representatives of 
 its convictions ? By this testimony, as 
 we have seen, the genuineness of the 
 books must be decided. And I begin 
 with admitting that no evidence on the 
 subject is to be derived from contem- 
 porary writers. No author, living in 
 the age of the first propagators of 
 Christianity, has named the Gospels. 
 The truth is, that no undisputed writ- 
 ings of their immediate converts have 
 been preserved. A few tracts, bearing 
 the name of men acquainted with the 
 Apostles, have indeed come down to us ; 
 but so much uncertainty hangs over 
 their origin that I am unwilling to 
 ground on them any reasoning. Nor 
 ought we to wonder that the works of 
 private Christians of the primitive age 
 are wanting to us ; for that was an age 
 of persecution, when men were called to 
 die rather than -write for their religion. 
 I suppose, too, that during the times of 
 the Apostles, little importance was at- 
 tached to any books but such as were 
 published or authorized by these emi- 
 nent men; and, of course, what was 
 written by others was little circulated, 
 and soon passed away. 
 
 The undisputed writings of the early 
 Christians begin about seventy years 
 after the times of the Apostles. At 
 that period there probably remained 
 none of the first converts or contempo-
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 2O I 
 
 raries of the Apostles. But there were 
 living not a few who had been acquainted 
 with the last survivors of that honored 
 generation. When the Apostles died, 
 they must have left behind a multitude 
 who had known them : and of these not 
 a few must have continued many years, 
 and must have had intercourse with the 
 new generation which sprung up after 
 the apostolic age. Now in the times of 
 this generation, the series of Christian 
 authors begins. Although, then, we have 
 no productions of the apostolic age to 
 bear witness to the Gospels, we have 
 writings from the ages which immedi- 
 ately followed it, and which, from their 
 connection with it, ought, as we have 
 seen, to be regarded as most credible 
 witnesses on such a subject. What, 
 then, do these writings teach ? I an- 
 swer, their testimony is clear and full. 
 We learn from them not only that the 
 Gospels existed in those times, but that 
 they were widely diffused, that they were 
 received as the writings of the men whose 
 names they bear, and that they were re- 
 garded with a confidence and veneration 
 yielded to no other books. They are 
 quoted as books given by their revered 
 authors to the Christian community, to 
 be public and enduring records of the 
 religion : and they are spoken of as read 
 in the assemblies which were held for 
 the inculcation and extension of the 
 faith. I ask you to weigh this testi- 
 mony. It comes to us from times con- 
 nected intimately with the first age. 
 Had the Gospels been invented and first 
 circulated among the generation which 
 succeeded the Apostles, could that gen- 
 eration have received them as books 
 known and honored before their time, 
 and as the most authoritative and preci- 
 ous records transmitted to them from 
 their fathers and predecessors ? The 
 case may seem too plain to require ex- 
 planation ; but as many are unaccus- 
 tomed to inquiries of this kind, I will 
 offer an example. You well know that 
 nearly a century ago a great religious 
 excitement was spread through this 
 country chiefly.by the ministry of White- 
 field. Suppos'e, now, that four books 
 were at this moment to come forth, 
 bearing the names of four of the most 
 distinguished men of that period, of 
 Whitefield, of the venerable Edwards, 
 and of two others intimately associated 
 with them in their religious labors ; and 
 
 suppose these books not only to furnish 
 narratives of what then took place, but 
 to contain principles and rules urged 
 with all possible earnestness and au- 
 thority on the disciples or admirers of 
 these religious leaders. Do you think 
 it possible that their followers of the 
 present day, and the public, could be 
 made to believe that these books had 
 been published by their pretended au- 
 thors, had been given as standards to 
 a religious community, and had been 
 handed down as venerated books, when 
 no such works had been heard of be- 
 fore ? This is but a faint illustration ; 
 for Whitefield and Edwards are names 
 of little weight or authority, Compared 
 with what the Apostles possessed in the 
 primitive church. 
 
 We have, then, strong and sufficient 
 reasons for believing that the histories 
 called Gospels were received, in the 
 times of the Apostles, as works of those 
 whose names they bear ; and were 
 handed down as theirs with veneration 
 by their contemporaries. Will any say 
 that all this may be true, but that, during 
 the lives of the Apostles, books forged in 
 their names may have obtained general 
 currency ? To this extravagant suppo- 
 sition it would be sufficient to reply, ac- 
 cording to my previous remarks, that the 
 general ascription of a book to an author 
 during his life is the ground on which 
 the genuineness of the most unques- 
 tioned works depends. But I would 
 add that this evidence is singularly con- 
 clusive in the present case. The orig- 
 inal propagators of Christianity, to whom 
 the Gospels were ascribed, were, from 
 their office, among the public men of 
 their age. They must have travelled 
 extensively. They must have been con- 
 sulted by inhabitants of various coun- 
 tries on the subject of the new religion. 
 They must have been objects of deep 
 interest to the first converts. They 
 lived in the world's eye. Their move- 
 ments, visits, actions, words, and writ- 
 ings must have awakened attention. 
 Books from their hands must have pro- 
 duced a great sensation. We cannot 
 conceive a harder task than to impose 
 writings, forged in their name, on Chris- 
 tians and Christian communities thus 
 intimately connected with them, and so 
 alive to their efforts for the general 
 cause. The opportunities of detecting 
 the falsehood were abundant ; and to
 
 2O2 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 imagine falsehood to prosper under such 
 circumstances argues a strange igno- 
 rance of literary history and of human 
 nature. 
 
 Let me add, that the motives of the 
 first Christians to ascertain distinctly 
 whether writings ascribed to the Apos- 
 tles were truly theirs, were the strongest 
 which can be conceived. I have men- 
 tioned, in my previous remarks, the 
 solicitude of the world to learn the 
 author of " Waverley." The motive 
 was mere curiosity ; and yet to what 
 earnest inquiries were multitudes im- 
 pelled. The name of the author was of 
 little or no moment. The book was the 
 same, its portraits equally vivid, its de- 
 velopments of the human heart equally 
 true and powerful,, whether the author 
 were known or not. So it is with most 
 works. Books of science, philosophy, 
 morals, and polite literature, owe their 
 importance and authority, not to their 
 writers, but to their contents. Now, the 
 four Gospels were different in this re- 
 spect. They were not the same to the 
 first converts, come from whom they 
 might. If written by Apostles or by 
 their associates, they had an authority 
 and sacredness which could belong to 
 them on no other condition. They 
 became books of laws to the Christian 
 community, became binding on their 
 consciences and lives. To suppose 
 such books received blindly and with- 
 out inquiry, by great numbers who had 
 all the means of ascertaining their true 
 origin, is to suppose the first converts 
 insane or idiots, a charge which I be- 
 lieve their worst enemies will not think of 
 urging against them, and which the vast 
 superiority of their religious and moral 
 system to all the philosophical systems 
 of the times abundantly disproves. 
 
 I have now finished what is called the 
 historical or external evidence of the 
 genuineness of the four Gospels, that 
 is, the evidence drawn from their being 
 received and revered as the writings of 
 the Apostles in the first and succeeding 
 ages of Christianity. But before leav- 
 ing this head, I would notice a difficulty 
 which may press on some minds. I 
 suppose that many of you have heard 
 that very early, probably about the be- 
 ginning of the second century, writings 
 were forged in the name of the Apos- 
 tles ; and some may ask why the four 
 Gospels may not belong to this descrip- 
 
 tion. The answer is, that the Gospels, 
 as we have seen, were received and hon- 
 ored by the great body of Christians, in 
 the first and succeeding ages of Christi- 
 anity, as writings of Apostles or their as- 
 sociates. The forgeries are known to be 
 forgeries, because they were not so re- 
 ceived, because they were held in no ven- 
 eration, but were rejected as fictitious 
 by the Christian community. Here is a 
 broad line of distinction. It must not 
 surprise us that, in the great excitement 
 produced by the first publication and 
 triumphs of Christianity, a variety of 
 extravagant notions should spring up, 
 and that attempts should be made to 
 blend the new religion with established 
 systems ; and as the names of the first 
 propagators of the gospel were held in 
 peculiar reverence, we cannot wonder 
 that the leaders of sects should strive 
 to attach an apostolic sanction to their 
 opinions, by sending abroad partly true 
 and partly false accounts of the preach- 
 ing of these eminent men. Whether 
 these writings were sent forth as com- 
 positions of the Apostles, or only as 
 records of their teaching, made by their 
 hearers, is a question open to debate ; 
 but as to their origin there can be little 
 doubt. We can account for their exist- 
 ence, and for the degree of favor which 
 they obtained. They were generally 
 written to give authority to the dreams 
 or speculations of some extravagant 
 sects, to which they were very much 
 confined, and with which most of them 
 passed away. There is not a shadow of 
 reason for confounding with these our 
 Gospels, which were spread from the 
 beginning through the Christian world, 
 and were honored and transmitted as the 
 works of the venerated men by whose 
 names they were called. 
 
 Having now given the historical argu- 
 ment in favor of the genuineness of the 
 Gospels, that is, in favor of their being 
 written by their reputed authors, I now 
 add that there are several presumptive 
 and internal proofs of the same truth, 
 which, taken alone, have great weight, 
 and, when connected with the preceding, 
 form an amount of evidence not easily 
 withstood. I have time to glance at 
 only a few of these. 
 
 It is a presumption in favor of the 
 claims of an author, that the book as- 
 cribed to him has never been assigned 
 to any other individual. Now I am not
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 203 
 
 aware that unbelief has in any age named 
 any individuals to whom the Gospels 
 may be traced rather than to those whose 
 names they bear. We are not called 
 upon to choose between different writers. 
 In common cases, this absence of rival 
 claims is considered as decisive in favor 
 of the reputed author, unless the books 
 themselves give ground to suspect an- 
 other hand. Why shall not this prin- 
 ciple be applied to the Gospels as well 
 as to all other works ? 
 
 Another presumption in favor of the 
 belief that these histories were written 
 by the first propagators of Christianity, 
 arises from the consideration that such 
 books were to be expected from them. 
 It is hardly conceivable that the Apos- 
 tles, whose zeal carried abroad their 
 system through so many nations, and 
 who lived in an age of reading and 
 writing, should leave their doctrines to 
 tradition, should neglect the ordinarypre- 
 caution of embodying them in the only 
 permanent form, the only one in which 
 they could be accurately transmitted, 
 and by which all other systems were 
 preserved. It is reasonable to suppose 
 that they wrote what they taught ; and 
 if so, it is hardly possible that their 
 writings should be lost. Their accounts 
 must have been received and treasured 
 up just as we know the Gospels were 
 cherished ; and hence arises a strong 
 presumption in favor of the genuineness 
 of these books. 
 
 Again, these books carry one strong 
 mark of having been written in the time 
 of the Apostles. They contain no trace 
 of later times, nothing to indicate that 
 the authors belonged to another age. 
 Now, to those of you who are acquainted 
 with such subjects, it is hardly necessary 
 to observe how difficult it is for a writer 
 to avoid betraying the period in which 
 he lives ; and the cause is very obvious. 
 Every age has its peculiarities, has 
 manners, events, feelings, words, phrases 
 of its own ; and a man brought up among 
 these falls so naturally under their influ- 
 ence, and incorporates them so fully with 
 his own mind, that they break out and 
 manifest themselves, almost necessarily 
 and without his consciousness, in his 
 words and writings. The present makes 
 an impression incomparably more vivid 
 than the past, and accordingly traces of 
 the real age of a writer may almost 
 always be discovered by a critical eye, 
 
 however anxious he may be to assume 
 the style and character of a preceding 
 age. Now the Gospels betray no marks 
 of the feelings, manners, contentions, 
 events of a period later than that in 
 which the Apostles lived ; and when we 
 consider that, with the exception of 
 Luke's history, they have all the appear- 
 ance of having come from plain men, 
 unused to composition, this argument 
 applies to them with peculiar force. 
 Under this head, I might place before 
 you the evidence of the genuineness of 
 these books derived from the language, 
 dialect, idiom, in which they are written. 
 You can easily understand that by these 
 helps the country and age of a writing 
 may often be traced ; but the argument 
 belongs to the learned. It may, how- 
 ever, be satisfactory to know, that the 
 profoundest scholars see in the dialect 
 and idiom of the Gospels a precise 
 accordance with what might be expected 
 of Jews, writing in the age of the Apos~ 
 ties. 
 
 Another internal proof, and one within 
 the reach of all, may be gathered from 
 the style and character of the evangelical 
 narratives. They are written with the 
 simplicity, minuteness, and ease which 
 are the natural tones of truth, which 
 belong to writers thoroughly acquainted 
 with their subjects, and writing from 
 reality. You discover in them nothing 
 of the labor, caution, and indistinctness 
 which can scarcely be escaped by men 
 who are assuming a character not their 
 own, and aiming to impose on the world. 
 There is a difference which we have all 
 discerned and felt, though we cannot 
 describe it, between an honest, simple- 
 hearted witness, who tells what he has 
 seen or is intimately acquainted with, 
 and the false witness, who affects an 
 intimate knowledge of events and indi- 
 viduals, which are in whole or in part 
 his own fabrication. Truth has a native 
 frankness, an unaffected freedom, a style 
 and air of its own, and never were narra- 
 tives more strongly characterized by 
 these than the Gospels. It is a striking 
 circumstance in these books, that whilst 
 the life and character which they portray 
 are the roost extraordinary in history, 
 the style is the most artless. There is 
 no straining for epithets or for elevation 
 of language to suit the dignity of the 
 great personage who is the subject. 
 You hear plain men telling you what
 
 204 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 they know, of a character which they 
 venerated too much to think of adorning 
 or extolling. It is also worthy of remark, 
 that the character of Jesus, though the 
 most peculiar and exalted in history, 
 though the last to be invented and the 
 hardest to be sustained, is yet unfolded 
 through a great variety of details and 
 conditions with perfect unity and con- 
 sistency. The strength of this proof 
 can only be understood by those who 
 are sufficiently acquainted with literary 
 history to appreciate the difficulty of 
 accomplishing a consistent and success- 
 ful forgery. Such consistency is, in the 
 present case, an almost infallible test. 
 Suppose four writers, of a. later age, to 
 have leagued together in the scheme of 
 personating the first propagators of 
 Christianity, and of weaving, in their 
 name, the histories of their Master's 
 life. Removed as these men would have 
 been from the original, and having no 
 model or type of his character in the 
 elevation of their own minds, they must 
 have portrayed him with an unsteady 
 hand, must have marred their work with 
 incongruous features, must have brought 
 down their hero on some occasion to the 
 ordinary views and feelings of men, and 
 in particular must have been warped in 
 their selection and representation of in- 
 cidents by the private purpose which 
 led them to this singular co-operation. 
 That four writers, under such circum- 
 stances, should sustain throughout so 
 peculiar and elevated a character as 
 Jesus, and should harmonize with each 
 other in the delineation, would be a 
 prodigy which no genius, however pre- 
 eminent, could achieve. I say, then, 
 that the narratives bear strong internal 
 marks of having been drawn from the 
 living original, by those who had the best 
 means of knowing his character and life. 
 So various, strong, sufficient are the 
 proofs that the four Gospels are the 
 works of the first preachers of Chris- 
 tianity, whose name they bear. I will 
 only add that the genuineness of few 
 ancient books is supported by proofs 
 equally strong. Most of the works 
 which have come down to us from an- 
 tiquity, and which are ascribed to their 
 reputed writers with undoubting con- 
 fidence, are so ascribed on evidence 
 inferior to that on which the claims of 
 the Evangelists rest. On this point, 
 therefore, not a doubt should remain. 
 
 Here I pause. The proofs of Chris- 
 tianity which are involved in or founded 
 on the facts now established, will be the 
 subjects of future discussion. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 I HAVE now stated some of the great 
 facts relating to the origin of Christian- 
 ity of which we have clear and full proof. 
 We know when and where this religion 
 sprung up. We know its Author, and 
 the men whom he employed as the first 
 propagators of his doctrine. We know 
 the great features of the religion as it 
 was originally taught ; and still more, 
 we have the writings of its first teachers, 
 by which its precise character is placed 
 beyond doubt. I now proceed to lay 
 before you some of the arguments in 
 support of Christianity which are in- 
 volved in or are founded on these facts. 
 I must confine myself to a few, and will 
 select those to which some justice may 
 be done in the compass of a discourse. 
 
 I. I believe Christianity to be true, 
 or to have come from God, because it 
 seems to me impossible to trace it to 
 any other origin. It must have had a 
 cause, and no other adequate cause can 
 be assigned. The incongruity between 
 this religion and all the circumstances 
 amidst which it grew up is so remark- 
 able, that we are compelled to look 
 beyond and above this world for its 
 explanation. When I go back to the 
 origin of Christianity, and place myself 
 in the age and country of its birth, I can 
 find nothing in the opinions of men, or 
 in the state of society, which can account 
 for its beginning or diffusion. There 
 was no power on earth to create or 
 uphold such a system. There was noth- 
 ing congenial with it in Judaism, in 
 heathenism, or in the state of society 
 among the most cultivated communities. 
 If you study the religions, governments, 
 and philosophical systems of that age, 
 you will discover in them not even a 
 leaning towards Christianity. It sprung 
 up in opposition to all, making no com- 
 promise with human prejudice or pas- 
 sion : and it sprung up, not only superior 
 to all, but possessing at its very begin- 
 ning a perfection which has been the- 
 admiration of ages, and which, instead 
 of being dimmed by time, has come 
 forth more brightly, in proportion to 
 the progress of the human mind.
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 205 
 
 I know, indeed, that at the origin of 
 our religion, the old heathen worship 
 had fallen into disrepute among the 
 enlightened classes through the Roman 
 Empire, and was gradually losing its 
 hold on the populace. Accordingly, 
 some have pretended that Christianity 
 grew from the ruins of the ancient faith. 
 But this is not true ; for the decline of 
 the heathen systems was the product 
 of causes singularly adverse to the orig- 
 ination of such a system as Christianity. 
 One cause was the monstrous depravity 
 of the age, which led multitudes to an 
 utter scorn of religion in all its forms 
 and restraints, and which prepared 
 others to exchange their old worship 
 for still grosser and more licentious 
 superstitions, particularly for the mag- 
 ical arts of Egypt. Surely this corrup- 
 tion of manners, this wide-wasting moral 
 pestilence, will not be considered by 
 any as a germ of the Christian religion. 
 Another principal agent in loosening 
 the foundations of the old systems was 
 philosophy, a noble effort, indeed, of 
 the human intellect, but one which did 
 nothing to prepare the way for Chris- 
 tianity. The most popular systems of 
 philosophy at the birth of Christianity 
 were the Sceptical and the Epicurean, 
 the former of which turned religion into 
 a jest, denied the possibility of arriving 
 at truth, and cast the mind on an ocean 
 of doubt in regard to every subject of 
 inquiry ; whilst the latter placed hap- 
 piness in ease, inculcated a calm indif- 
 ference both as to this world and the 
 next, and would have set down the 
 Christian doctrine of self-sacrifice, of 
 suffering for truth and duty, as absolute 
 insanity. Now I ask in what single 
 point do these systems touch Christi- 
 anity, or what impulse could they have 
 given to its invention ? There was, 
 indeed, another philosophical sect of a 
 nobler character, I mean the Stoical. 
 This maintained that virtue was the 
 supreme good, and it certainly nurtured 
 some firm and lofty spirits amidst the 
 despotism which then ground all classes 
 in the dust. But the self-reliance, 
 sternness, apathy, and pride of the 
 Stoic, his defiance and scorn of man- 
 kind, his want of sympathy with human 
 suffering, and his extravagant exagger- 
 ations of his own virtue, placed this 
 sect in singular opposition to Chris- 
 tianity ; so that our religion might as 
 
 soon have sprung from Scepticism and 
 Epicureanism, as from Stoicism. There 
 was another system, if it be worthy of 
 the name, which prevailed in Asia, and 
 was not unknown to the Jews, often 
 called the oriental philosophy. But this, 
 though certainly an improvement on the 
 common heathenism, was visionary and 
 mystical, and placed happiness in an 
 intuition or immediate perception of 
 God, which was to be gained by con- 
 templation and ecstasies, by emaciation 
 of the body, and desertion of the world. 
 I need not tell you how infinitely re- 
 moved was the practical, benevolent 
 spirit of Christianity from this spurious 
 sanctity and profitless enthusiasm. I 
 repeat it, then, that the various causes 
 which were silently operating against 
 the established heathen systems in the 
 time of Christ had no tendency to sug- 
 gest and spread such a religion as he 
 brought, but were as truly hostile to it 
 as the worst forms of heathenism. 
 
 We cannot find, then, the origin of 
 Christianity in the heathen world. Shall 
 we look for it in the Jewish ? This topic 
 is too familiar to need much exposition. 
 You know the character, feelings, ex- 
 pectations of the descendants of Abra- 
 ham at the appearing of Jesus : and you 
 need not be told that a system more 
 opposed to the Jewish mind than that 
 which he taught cannot be imagined. 
 There was nothing friendly to it in the 
 soil or climate of Judea. As easily might 
 the luxuriant trees of our forest spring 
 from the sands of an Arabian desert. 
 There was never perhaps a national 
 character so deeply stamped as the Jew- 
 ish. Ages after ages of unparalleled 
 suffering have done little to wear away 
 its indelible features. In the time of 
 Jesus the whole influence of education 
 and religion was employed to fix it in 
 every member of the state. In the 
 bosom of this community, and among 
 its humblest classes, sprung up Chris- 
 tianity, a religion as unfettered by 
 Jewish prejudices, as untainted by the 
 earthly, narrow views of the age, as if it 
 had come frorn another world. Judaism 
 was all around it, but did not mar it by 
 one trace, or sully its brightness by a 
 single breath. Can we find, then, the 
 cause of Christianity in the Jewish any 
 more than in the heathen world ? 
 
 Christianity, I maintain, was not the 
 growth of any of the circumstances,
 
 2O6 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 principles, or feelings of the age in 
 which it appeared. In truth, one of the 
 great distinctions of the Gospel is, that 
 it did not grow. The conception which 
 filled the mind of Jesus, of a religion 
 more spiritual, generous, comprehensive, 
 and unworldly than Judaism, and des- 
 tined to take its place, was not of grad- 
 ual formation. We detect no signs of 
 it, and no efforts to realize it, before his 
 time ; nor is there an appearance of its 
 having been gradually matured by Jesus 
 himself. Christianity was delivered from 
 the first in its full proportions, in a style 
 of singular freedom and boldness, and 
 without a mark of painful elaboration. 
 This suddenness with which this religion 
 broke forth, this maturity of the system 
 at the very moment of its birth, this ab- 
 sence of gradual development, seems to 
 me a strong mark of its divine original. 
 If Christianity be a human invention, 
 then I can be pointed to something in 
 the history of the age which impelled 
 and fitted the mind of its author to its 
 production ; then I shall be able to find 
 some germ of it, some approximation to 
 it, in the state of things amidst which it 
 first appeared. How was it that from 
 thick darkness there burst forth at once 
 meridian light ? Were I told that the 
 sciences of the civilized world had 
 sprung up to perfection at once, amidst 
 a barbarous horde, I should pronounce it 
 incredible. Nor can I easily believe that 
 Christianity, the religion of unbound- 
 ed love, a religion which broke down 
 the barrier between Jew and Gentile, and 
 the barriers between nations, which pro- 
 claimed one Universal Father, which 
 abolished forms and substituted the wor- 
 ship of the soul, which condemned alike 
 the false greatness of the Roman and 
 the false holiness of the Jew, and which 
 taught an elevation of virtue that the 
 
 f rowing knowledge of succeeding ages 
 as made more admirable, I say, I 
 cannot easily believe that such a religion 
 was suddenly, immediately struck out by 
 human ingenuity, among a people dis- 
 tinguished by bigotry and narrowness 
 of spirit, by superstitious reliance on 
 outward worship, by hatred and scorn 
 of other nations, and by the proud, im- 
 patient hope of soon bending all nations 
 to their sway. 
 
 Christianity, I repeat it, was not the 
 growth of the age in which it appeared. 
 It had no sympathy with that age. It 
 
 was the echo of no sect or people. It 
 stood alone at the moment of its birth. 
 It used not a word of conciliation. It 
 stooped to no error or passion. It had 
 its own tone, the tone of authority and 
 superiority to the world. It struck at 
 the root of what was everywhere called 
 glory, reversed the judgments of all for- 
 mer ages, passed a condemning sentence 
 on the idols of this world's admiration, 
 and held forth, as the perfection of hu- 
 man nature, a spirit of love, so pure and 
 divine, so free and full, so mild and for- 
 giving, so invincible in fortitude yet so 
 tender in its sympathies, that even now 
 few comprehend it in its extent and 
 elevation. Such a religion had not its 
 origin in this world. 
 
 I have thus sought to unfold one of 
 the evidences of Christianity. Its in- 
 congruity with the age of its birth, its 
 freedom from earthly mixtures, its orig- 
 inal, unborrowed, solitary greatness, and 
 the suddenness with which it broke forth 
 amidst the general gloom, these are to 
 me strong indications of its divine de- 
 scent. I cannot reconcile them with a 
 human origin. 
 
 II. Having stated the argument in 
 favor of Christianity, derived from the 
 impossibility of accounting for it by the 
 state of the world at the time of its 
 birth, I proceed, in the second place, to 
 observe that it cannot be accounted for 
 by any of the motives which instigate 
 men to the fabrication of religions. Its 
 aims and objects are utterly irreconcil- 
 able with imposture. They are pure, 
 lofty, and worthy of the most illustrious 
 delegate of heaven. This argument de- 
 serves to be unfolded with some par- 
 ticularity. 
 
 Men act from motives. The invent- 
 ors of religions have purposes to answer 
 by them. Some systems have been 
 framed by legislators to procure rever- 
 ence to their laws, to bow the minds of 
 the people to the civil power ; and some 
 have been forged by priests; to establish 
 their sway over the multitude, to form 
 themselves into a dominant caste, and 
 to extort the wealth of the industrious. 
 Now, I affirm that Christianity cannot 
 be ascribed to any selfish, ambitious, 
 earthly motive. It is suited to no pri- 
 vate end. Its purpose is generous and 
 elevated, and thus bears witness to its 
 heavenly origin. 
 
 The great object which has seduced
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 207 
 
 men to pretend to inspiration, and to 
 spread false religions, has been power, 
 in one form or another, sometimes 
 political power, sometimes spiritual, 
 sometimes both. Is Christianity to be 
 explained by this selfish aim ? I answer, 
 No. I affirm that the love of power is 
 the last principle to be charged on the 
 Founder of our religion. Christianity is 
 distinguished by nothing more than by 
 its earnest enforcement of a meek and 
 humble spirit, and by its uncompromis- 
 ing reprobation of that passion for do- 
 minion which had in all ages made the 
 many the prey of the few, and had been 
 worshipped as the attribute and impulse 
 of the greatest minds. Its tone on this 
 subject was original, and altogether its 
 own. Jesus felt, as none had felt before, 
 and as few feel now, the baseness of self- 
 ish ambition, and the grandeur of that 
 benevolence which waives every mark of 
 superiority, that it may more effectually 
 bless mankind. He taught this les- 
 son, not only in the boldest language, 
 but, accommodating himself to the em- 
 blematical mode of religious instruction 
 prevalent in the East, he set before his 
 disciples a little child as their pattern, 
 and himself washed their feet. His 
 whole life was a commentary on his 
 teaching. Not a trace of the passion 
 for distinction and sway can be detected 
 in the artless narratives of his historians. 
 He wore no badge of superiority, ex- 
 acted no signs of homage, coveted no 
 attentions, resented no neglect. He 
 discouraged the ruler who prostrated 
 himself before him with nattering salu- 
 tations, but received with affection- 
 ate sensibility the penitent who bathed 
 his feet with her tears. He lived with 
 his obscure disciples as a friend, and 
 mixed freely with all ranks of the com- 
 munity. He placed himself in the way 
 of scorn, and advanced to meet a death 
 more suited than any other imaginable 
 event to entail infamy on his name. 
 Stronger marks of an infinite superiority 
 to what the world calls glory cannot be 
 conceived than we meet in the history of 
 Jesus. 
 
 I have named two kinds of power, po- 
 litical and spiritual, as the ordinary ob- 
 jects of false religions. I wish to show 
 you more particularly the elevation of 
 Christianity above these aims. That 
 the gospel was not framed for political 
 purposes is too plain to require proof ; 
 
 I but its peculiarity in this respect is not 
 ! sufficiently considered. In ancient times 
 I religion was everywhere a national con- 
 | cern. In Judea the union between re- 
 j ligion and government was singularly 
 ! close ; and political sovereignty was one 
 i of the chief splendors with which the Jew- 
 | ish imagination had surrounded the ex- 
 I pected Messiah. That in such an age 
 | and country a religion should arise 
 which hardly seems to know that gov- 
 ernment exists ; which makes no refer- 
 ence to it exoept in a few general incul- 
 cations of obedience to the civil powers ; 
 which says not a word nor throws out 
 a hint of allying itself with the state ; 
 which assumes to itself no control of 
 I political affairs, and intermeddles with 
 no public concerns ; which has no ten- 
 dency, however indirect, to accumulate 
 power in particular hands ; which pro- 
 vides no form of national worship as a 
 substitute for those which it was in- 
 tended to destroy ; and which treats the 
 distinctions of rank and office as worth- 
 less in comparison with moral influence 
 and an unostentatious charity ; that 
 such a religion should spring up in such 
 a state of the world is a remarkable fact. 
 We here see a broad line between Chris- 
 tianity and other systems, and a striking 
 proof of its originality and elevation. 
 Other systems were framed for commu- 
 nities ; Christianity approached men as 
 individuals. It proposed, not the glory 
 of the state, but the perfection of the 
 individual mind. So far from being 
 contrived to build up political power, 
 Christianity tends to reduce and gradu- 
 ally to supplant it, by teaching men to 
 substitute the sway of truth and love for 
 menace and force, by spreading through 
 all ranks a feeling of brotherhood alto- 
 gether opposed to the spirit of domina- 
 tion, and by establishing principles which 
 nourish self-respect in every human be- 
 ing, and teach the obscurest to look with 
 an undazzled eye on the. most powerful 
 of their rac; 
 
 Christianity bears no mark of the 
 hands of a politician. One of its main 
 purposes is to extinguish the very spirit 
 which the ambitious statesman most 
 anxiously cherishes, and on which he 
 founds his success. It proscribes a 
 narrow patriotism, shows no mercy to 
 the spirit of conquest, requires its disci- 
 ples to love other countries as truly as 
 their own, and enjoins a spirit of peace
 
 208 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and forbearance in language so broad 
 and earnest, that not a few of its profes- 
 sors consider war in every shape and 
 under all circumstances as a crime. The 
 hostility between Christianity and all the 
 political maxims of that age cannot easily 
 be comprehended at the present day. No 
 doctrines were then so rooted as that con- 
 quest was the chief interest of a nation, 
 and that an exclusive patriotism was the 
 first and noblest of social virtues. Chris- 
 tianity, in loosening the tie which bound 
 man to the state, that it might connect 
 him with his race, opposed itself to what 
 was deemed the vital principle of na- 
 tional safety and grandeur, and com- 
 menced a political revolution as original 
 and unsparing as the religious and moral 
 reform at which it aimed. 
 
 Christianity, then, was not framed for 
 political purposes. But I shall be asked 
 whether it stands equally clear of the 
 charge of being intended to accumulate 
 spiritual power. Some may ask, whether 
 its Founder was not instigated by the 
 passion for religious domination, 
 whether he did not aim to subdue men's 
 minds, to dictate to the faith of the 
 world, to make himself the leader of a 
 spreading sect, to stamp his name as a 
 prophet on human history, and thus to 
 secure the prostration of multitudes to 
 his will, more abject and entire than 
 kings and conquerors can achieve ? 
 
 To this I might reply by what I have 
 said of the character of Jesus, and of 
 the spirit of his religion. It is plain 
 that the Founder of Christianity had a 
 perception quite peculiar to himself of 
 the moral beauty and greatness of a 
 disinterested, meek, and self-sacrificing 
 spirit ; and such a person was not likely 
 to meditate the subjugation of the world 
 to himself. But, leaving this topic, I 
 observe that, on examining Christianity, 
 we discover none of the features of a 
 religion framed for spiritual domination. 
 One of the infallible marks of such a 
 system is, that it makes some terms 
 with the passions and prejudices of 
 men. It does not cannot provoke 
 and ally against itself all the powers, 
 whether civil or religious, of the world. 
 Christianity was throughout uncompro- 
 mising and exasperating, and threw it- 
 self in the way of hatred and scorn. 
 Such a system was any thing but a 
 scheme for seizing the spiritual empire 
 of the world. 
 
 There is another mark of a religion 
 which springs from the love of spiritual 
 domination. It infuses a servile spirit. 
 Its author, desirous to stamp his name 
 and image on his followers, has an inter- 
 est in curbing the free action of their 
 minds, imposes on them arbitrary doc- 
 trines, fastens on them badges which 
 may separate them from others, and 
 besets them with rules, forms, and dis- 
 tinctive observances, which may perpet- 
 ually remind them of their relation to 
 their chief. Now I see nothing in 
 Christianity of this enslaving legisla- 
 tion. It has but one aim, which is, not 
 to exalt its teacher, but to improve the 
 disciple ; not to fasten Christ's name on 
 mankind, but to breathe into them his 
 spirit of universal love. Christianity is 
 not a religion of forms. It has but two 
 ceremonies, as simple as they are ex- 
 pressive ; and these hold so subordinate 
 a place in the New Testament that some 
 of the best Christians question or deny 
 their permanent obligation. Neither is 
 it a narrow creed, or a mass of doctrines 
 which find no support in our rational 
 nature. It may be summed up in a few 
 great, universal, immutable principles, 
 which reason and conscience, as far as 
 they are unfolded, adopt and rejoice in 
 as their own everlasting laws, and which 
 open perpetually enlarging views to the 
 mind. As far as I am a Christian, I am 
 free. My religion lays on me not one 
 chain. It does not prescribe a certain 
 range for my mind beyond which nothing 
 can be learned. It speaks of God as the 
 Universal Father, and sends me to all 
 his works for instruction. It does not 
 hem me round with a mechanical ritual, 
 does not enjoin forms, attitudes, and 
 hours of prayer, does not descend to 
 details of dress and food, does not put 
 on me one outward badge. It teaches 
 and enkindles love to God, but com- 
 mands no precise expressions of this 
 sentiment. It prescribes prayer: but 
 lays the chief stress on the prayer of 
 the closet, and treats all worship as 
 worthless but that of the mind and 
 heart. It teaches us to do good, but 
 leaves us to devise for ourselves the 
 means by which we may best serve 
 mankind. In a word, the whole relig- 
 ion of Christ may be summed up in the 
 love of God and of mankind, and it 
 leaves the individual to cherish and 
 express this spirit by the methods most
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 209 
 
 accordant with his own condition and 
 peculiar mind. Christianity is eminently 
 the religion of freedom. The views 
 which it gives of the parental, impartial, 
 universal goodness of God, and of the 
 equal right of every human being to 
 inquire into his will, and its inculcations 
 of candor, forbearance, and mutual re- 
 spect, contribute alike to freedom of 
 thought and enlargement of the heart. 
 I repeat it, Christianity lays on me no 
 chains. It is any thing but a contriv- 
 ance for spiritual domination. 
 
 I am aware that I shall be told that 
 Christianity, if judged by its history, has 
 no claim to the honorable title of a re- 
 ligion of liberty. I shall be told that no 
 system of heathenism ever weighed more 
 oppressively on men's souls ; that the 
 Christian ministry has trained tyrants, 
 who have tortured, now the body with 
 material fire, and now the mind with the 
 dread of fiercer flames, and who have 
 proscribed and punished free thought 
 and free speech as the worst of crimes. 
 I have no disposition to soften the feat- 
 ures of priestly oppression ; but I say, 
 let not Christianity be made to answer 
 for it. Christianity gives its ministers 
 no such power. They ha"ve usurped it 
 in the face of the sternest prohibitions, 
 and in opposition to the whole spirit of 
 their Master. Christianity institutes no 
 priesthood, in the original and proper 
 sense of that word. It has not the name 
 of priest among its officers ; nor does it 
 confer a shadow of priestly power. It 
 invests no class of men with peculiar 
 sanctity, ascribing to their intercessions 
 a special influence over God, or sus- 
 pending the salvation of the private 
 Christian on ceremonies which they 
 alone can administer. Jesus, indeed, ap- 
 pointed twelve of his immediate disciples 
 to be the great instruments of propagat- 
 ing his religion ; but nothing can be 
 simpler than their office. They went 
 forth to make known through all nations 
 the life, death, resurrection, and teach- 
 ings of Jesus Christ ; and this truth 
 they spread freely and without reserve. 
 They did not give it as a mystery to a 
 few who were to succeed them in their 
 office, and according to whose direction 
 it was to be imparted to others. They 
 communicated it to the whole body of 
 converts, to be their equal and common 
 property, thus securing to all the invalu- 
 able rights of the mind. It is true, they 
 
 i appointed ministers or teachers in the va- 
 rious congregations which they formed ; 
 and in that early age, when the religion 
 was new and unknown, and when oral 
 teaching was the only mode of com- 
 municating it, there seems to have been 
 no way for its diffusion but this appoint- 
 ment of the most enlightened disciples 
 to the work of instruction. But the 
 New Testament nowhere intimates that 
 these men were to monopolize the priv- 
 ilege of studying their religion or of 
 teaching it to others. Not a single man 
 can claim under Christianity the right to 
 interpret it exclusively, or to impose his 
 interpretation on his brethren. The 
 Christian minister enjoys no nearer ac- 
 cess to God, and no promise of more 
 immediate illumination, than other men. 
 He is not intrusted with the Christian 
 records more than they, and by these 
 records it is both their right and duty to 
 try his instructions. I have here pointed 
 out a noble peculiarity of Christianity. 
 It is the religion of liberty. It is in no 
 degree tainted with the passion for spirit- 
 ual power. " Call no man master, for ye 
 are all brethren," is its free and gener- 
 ous inculcation, and to every form of 
 freedom it is a friend and defence. 
 
 We have seen that Christianity is not 
 to be traced to the love of power, that 
 master passion in the authors of false 
 religions. I add, that no other object of 
 a selfish nature could have led to its in- 
 vention. The Gospel is not of this 
 world. At the time of its origin no in- 
 genuity could have brought it to bear 
 on any private or worldly interest. Its 
 spirit is self-denial. Wealth, ease, and 
 honor it counts among the chief perils 
 of life, and it insists on no duty more 
 earnestly than on that of putting them 
 to hazard and casting them from us if 
 the cause of truth and humanity so re- 
 quire. And these maxims were not 
 mere speculations or rhetorical common- 
 places in the times of Christ and his 
 Apostles. The first propagators of 
 Christianity were called upon to prac- 
 tise what they preached, to forego every 
 interest on its account. They could not 
 but foreknow that a religion so uncom- 
 promising and pure would array against 
 them the world. They did not merely 
 take the chance of suffering, but were 
 sure that the whole weight of scorn, 
 pain, and worldly persecution would de- 
 scend on their heads. How inexplicable,
 
 210 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 then, is Christianity by any selfish ob- 
 ject or any low aim ! 
 
 The Gospel has but one object, and 
 that too plain to be mistaken. In read- 
 ing the New Testament, we see the 
 greatest simplicity of aim. There is no 
 lurking purpose, no by-end, betraying 
 itself through attempts to disguise it. 
 A perfect singleness of design runs 
 through the records of the religion, and 
 is no mean evidence of their truth. 
 This end of Christianity is the moral 
 perfection of the human soul. It aims 
 and it tends, in all its doctrines, pre- 
 cepts, and promises, to rescue men 
 from the power of moral evil ; to unite 
 them to God by filial love, and to one 
 another in the bonds of brotherhood ; 
 to inspire them with a philanthropy as 
 meek and unconquerable as that of 
 Christ ; and to kindle intense desire, 
 hope, and pursuit of celestial and im- 
 mortal virtue 
 
 And now, I ask, what is the plain 
 inference from these views ? If Chris- 
 tianity can be traced to no selfish or 
 worldly motive, if it was framed, not 
 for dominion, not to compass any pri- 
 vate purpose, but to raise men above 
 themselves, and to conform them to 
 God, can we help pronouncing it wor- 
 thy of God ? And to whom but to God 
 can we refer its origin ? Ought we not 
 to recognize in the first propagators 
 of such a faith the holiest of men, the 
 friends of their race, and the messen- 
 gers of Heaven ? Christianity, from 
 its very nature, repels the charge of 
 imposture. It carries in itself the proof 
 of pure intention. Bad men could not 
 have conceived it, much less have 
 adopted it, as the great object of their 
 lives. The supposition of selfish men 
 giving up every private interest to spread 
 a system which condemned themselves, 
 and which tended only to purify man- 
 kind, is an absurdity as gross as can 
 be found in the most irrational faith. 
 Christianity, therefore, when tried by 
 its motives, approves itself to be of 
 God. 
 
 III. I now proceed to another and 
 very important ground of my belief in 
 the divfne origin of Christianity. Its 
 truth was attested by miracles. Its first 
 teachers proved themselves the minis- 
 ters of God by supernatural works. 
 They did what man cannot do, what 
 bore the impress of a divine power, and 
 
 what thus sealed the divinity of their 
 mission. A religion so attested must 
 be true. This topic is a great one, and 
 I ask your patient attention to it. 
 
 I am aware that a strong prejudice 
 exists in some minds against the kind 
 of evidence which I have now adduced. 
 Miracles seem to them to carry a con- 
 futation in themselves. The presump- 
 tion against them seems next to infinite. 
 In this respect, the present times differ 
 from the past. There have been ages 
 when men believed any thing and every 
 thing ; and the more monstrous the 
 story, the more eagerly was it received 
 by the credulous multitude. In the 
 progress of knowledge, men have come 
 to see that most of the prodigies and 
 supernatural events in which their fore- 
 fathers believed were fictions of fancy, 
 or fear, or imposture. The light of 
 knowledge has put to flight the ghosts 
 and witches which struck terror into 
 earlier times. We now know that not a 
 few of the appearances in the heavens 
 which appalled nations, and were inter- 
 preted as precursors of divine ven- 
 geance, were natural effects. We have 
 learned, too, that a highly excited im- 
 agination can work some of the cures 
 once ascribed to magic ; and the lesson 
 taught us by these natural solutions of 
 apparent miracles is, that accounts of 
 supernatural events are to be sifted 
 with great jealousy and received with 
 peculiar care. 
 
 But the result of this new light 
 thrown on nature and history is, that 
 some are disposed to discredit all mira- 
 cles indiscriminately. So many having 
 proved groundless, a sweeping sentence 
 of condemnation is passed on all. The 
 human mind, by a natural reaction, has 
 passed from extreme credulousness to 
 the excess of incredulity. Some per- 
 sons are even hardy enough to deride 
 the very idea of a miracle. They pro- 
 nounce the order of nature something 
 fixed and immutable, and all suspen- 
 sions of it incredible. This prejudice, 
 for such it is, seems to deserve particu- 
 lar attention ; for, until it is removed, 
 the evidences of Christian miracles will 
 have little weight. Let us examine it 
 patiently and impartially. 
 
 The sceptic tells me that the order 
 of nature is fixed. I ask him, By whom 
 or by what is it fixed ? By an iron fate ? 
 by an inflexible necessity ? Does not
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 211 
 
 nature bear the signatures of an intelli- 
 gent Cause ? Does not the very idea 
 of its order imply an ordaining or dis- 
 posing Mind ? Does not the universe, 
 the more it is explored, bear increasing 
 testimony to a Being superior to itself ? 
 Then the order of nature is fixed by a 
 Will which can reverse it. Then a 
 power equal to miracles exists. Then 
 miracles are not incredible. 
 
 It may be replied, that God indeed 
 can work miracles, but that he will not. 
 He will not ? And how does the scep- 
 tic know this ? Has God so told him ? 
 This language does not become a being 
 of our limited faculties ; and the pre- 
 sumptuousness which thus makes laws 
 for the Creator, and restricts his agency 
 to particular modes, is as little the spirit 
 of true philosophy as of religion. 
 
 The sceptic sees nothing in miracles 
 but ground of offence. To me, they 
 seem to involve in their very nature a 
 truth so great, so vital, that I am not 
 only reconciled to them, but am dis- 
 posed to receive joyfully any sufficient 
 proofs of their having been performed. 
 To the sceptic, no principle is so impor- 
 tant as the uniformity of nature, the 
 constancy of its laws. To me, there is 
 a vastly higher truth, to which miracles 
 bear witness, and to which I welcome 
 their aid. What I wish chiefly to know 
 is, that mind is the supreme power in 
 the universe ; that matter is its instru- 
 ment and slave ; that there is a will to 
 which nature can offer no obstruction ; 
 that God is unshackled by the laws of 
 the universe, and controls them at his 
 pleasure. This absolute sovereignty of 
 the Divine Mind over the universe is 
 the only foundation of hope for the 
 triumph of the human mind over mat- 
 ter, over physical influences, over im- 
 perfection and death. Now, it is plain 
 that the strong impressions which we 
 receive through the senses from the 
 material creation, joined to our experi- 
 ence of its regularity, and to our instinc- 
 tive trust in its future uniformity, do 
 obscure this supremacy of God, do 
 tempt us to ascribe a kind of omnipo- 
 tence to nature's laws, and to limit our 
 hopes to the good which is promised by 
 these. There is a strong tendency in 
 men to attach the idea of necessity to 
 an unchanging regularity of operation, 
 and to imagine bounds to a being who 
 keeps one undeviating path, or who re- 
 
 peats himself perpetually. Hence I say 
 that I rejoice in miracles. They show 
 and assert the supremacy of mind in 
 the universe. They manifest a spiritual 
 power which is in no degree enthralled 
 by the laws of matter. I rejoice in 
 these witnesses to so great a truth. I 
 rejoice in whatever ' proves that this 
 order of nature, which so often weighs 
 on me as a chain, and which contains 
 no promise of my perfection, is not 
 supreme and immutable, and that the 
 Creator is not restricted to the narrow 
 modes of operation with which I am 
 most familiar. 
 
 Perhaps the form in which the objec- 
 tion to miracles is most frequently ex- 
 pressed is the following: ' It is deroga- 
 tory," says the sceptic, " to the perfect 
 wisdom of God, to suppose him to break 
 in upon the order of his own works. It 
 is only the unskilful artist who is 
 obliged to thrust his hand into the 
 machine for the purpose of supplying 
 its defects, and of giving it a new im- 
 pulse by an immediate agency." To this 
 objection I reply that it proceeds on false 
 ideas of God and of the creation. God 
 is not an artist, but a moral Parent and 
 Governor ; nor is the creation a machine. 
 If it were, it might be urged with greater 
 speciousness that miracles cannot be 
 needed or required. One of the most 
 striking views of the creation is the con- 
 trast or opposition of the elements of 
 which it consists. It includes not only 
 matter but mind, not only lifeless and 
 unconscious masses, but rational beings, 
 free agents ; and these are its noblest 
 parts and ultimate objects. The mate- 
 rial universe was framed not for itself, 
 but for these. Its order was not ap- 
 pointed for its own sake, but to instruct 
 and improve a higher rank of beings the 
 intelligent offspring of God ; and when- 
 ever a departure from this order, that 
 is whenever miraculous agency can con- 
 tribute to the growth and perfection of 
 his intelligent creatures, it is demand- 
 ed by his wisdom, goodness, and all his 
 attributes. If the Supreme Being pro- 
 posed only such ends as mechanism can 
 produce, then He might have framed a 
 machinery so perfect and sure as to 
 need no suspension of its ordinary move- 
 ments. But He has an incomparably 
 nobler end. His great purpose is to 
 educate to rescue from evil, to carry for- 
 ward for ever the free, rational mind or
 
 212 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 soul : and who that understands what a 
 free mind is, and what a variety of teach- 
 ing and discipline it requires, will pre- 
 sume to affirm that no lights or aids but 
 such as come to it through an invariable 
 order of nature, are necessary to unfold 
 it? 
 
 Much of the difficulty in regard to 
 miracles, as I apprehend, would be re- 
 moved if we were to consider more par- 
 ticularly that the chief distinction of 
 intelligent beings is moral freedom, the 
 power of determining themselves to evil 
 as well as good, and consequently the 
 power of involving themselves in great 
 misery. When God made man, He framed 
 not a machine, but a free being, who was 
 to rise or fall according to his use or 
 abuse of his powers. This capacity, at 
 once the most glorious and the most 
 fearful which we can conceive, shows us 
 how the human race may have come into 
 a condition to which the illumination of 
 nature was inadequate. In truth, the 
 more we consider the freedom of intelli- 
 gent beings, the more we shall question 
 the possibility of establishing an un- 
 changeable order which will meet fully 
 all their wants ; for such beings, having 
 of necessity a wide range of action, may 
 bring themselves into a vast variety of 
 conditions, and of course may come to 
 need a relief not contained in the re- 
 sources of nature. The history of the 
 human race illustrates these truths. At 
 the introduction of Christianity, the hu- 
 man family were plunged into gross and 
 debasing error, and the light of nature 
 had not served for ages to guide them 
 back to truth. Philosophy had done its 
 best, and failed. A new element, a new 
 power, seems to have been wanting to 
 the progress of the race. That in such 
 an exigence miraculous aid should be 
 imparted accords with our best views of 
 God. I repeat it, were men mechanical 
 beings, an undeviating order of nature 
 might meet all their wants. They are 
 free beings, who bear a moral relation to 
 God, and as such may need, and are 
 worthy of, a more various and special 
 care than is extended over the irrational 
 creation. 
 
 When I examine nature, I see reasons 
 for believing that it was not intended by 
 God to be the only method of instruct- 
 ing and improving mankind. I see rea- 
 sons, as I think, why its order or regular 
 course should be occasionally suspended, 
 
 and why revelation should be joined to 
 it in the work of carrying forward the 
 race. I can offer only a few considera- 
 tions on this point, but they seem to me 
 worthy of serious attention. The first 
 is, that a fixed, invariable order of nat- 
 ure does not give us some views of God 
 which are of great interest and impor- 
 tance, or at least it does not give them 
 with that distinctness which we all de- 
 sire. It reveals him as the Universal 
 Sovereign who provides for the whole or 
 for the general weal, but not, with suffi- 
 cient clearness, as a tender father, in- 
 terested in the individual. I see, in 
 this fixed order, his care of the race, 
 but not his constant, boundless concern 
 for myself. Nature speaks of a general 
 divinity, not of the friend and benefactor 
 of each living soul. This is a necessary 
 defect attending an inflexible, unvary- 
 ing administration by general laws ; and 
 it seems to require that God, to carry 
 forward the race, should reveal himself 
 by some other manner than by general 
 laws. No conviction is more important 
 to human improvement than that of 
 God's paternal interest in every human 
 being ; and how can He communicate 
 this persuasion so effectually as by 
 suspending nature's order, to teach, 
 through an inspired messenger, his pa- 
 ternal love ? 
 
 My second remark is, that, whilst 
 nature teaches many important lessons, 
 it is not a direct, urgent teacher. Its 
 truths are not prominent, and conse- 
 quently men may neglect it, and place 
 themselves beyond its influence. For 
 example, nature holds out the doctrine 
 of One God, but does not compel atten- 
 tion to it. God's name is not written in 
 the sky in letters of light which all na- 
 tions must read, nor sounded abroad in 
 a voice deep and awful as thunders, so 
 that all must hear. Nature is a gentle 
 I had almost said a reserved teacher, 
 demanding patient thought in the learner, 
 and may therefore be unheeded. Men 
 may easily shut their ears and harden 
 their hearts against its testimony to God. 
 Accordingly we learn that, at Christ's 
 coming, almost all nations had lost the 
 knowledge of the true glory of the Crea- 
 tor, and given themselves up to gross 
 superstitions. To such a condition of 
 the world nature's indirect and unim- 
 posing mode of instruction is not fitted, 
 and thus it furnishes a reason for a
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 2I 3 
 
 more immediate and impressive teach- 
 ing. In such a season of moral dark- 
 ness, was it not worthy of God to kindle 
 another and more quickening beam ? 
 When the long-repeated and almost 
 monotonous language of creation was 
 not heard, was it unworthy of God to 
 speak with a new and more startling 
 voice ? What fitter method was there 
 for rousing those whom nature's quiet 
 regularity could not teach, than to in- 
 terrupt its usual course ? 
 
 I proceed to another reason for ex- 
 pecting revelation to be added to the 
 light of nature. Nature, I have said, 
 is not a direct or urgent teacher, and 
 men may place themselves beyond its 
 voice. I say, thirdly, that there is one 
 great point, on which we are deeply 
 concerned to know the truth, and which 
 is yet taught so indistinctly by nature, 
 that men, however disposed to learn, 
 cannot by that light alone obtain full 
 conviction. What, let me ask, is the 
 question in which each man has the 
 deepest interest ? It is this : Are we 
 to live again, or is this life all ? Does 
 the principle of thought perish with the 
 body, or does it survive ? And if it 
 survive, where ? how ? in what condi- 
 tion ? under what law ? There is an 
 inward voice which speaks of judgment 
 to come. Will judgment indeed come ? 
 and if so, what award may we hope or 
 fear? The future state of man, this 
 is the great question forced on us by 
 our changing life and by approaching 
 death. I will not say that on this topic 
 nature throws no light. I think it does ; 
 and this light continually grows brighter 
 to them whose eyes revelation has 
 "pouched and made strong to see. But 
 nature alone does not meet our wants. 
 I might prove this by referring you to 
 the ages preceding Christ, when the 
 anxious spirit of man constantly sought 
 to penetrate the gloom beyond the 
 grave. when imagination and philoso- 
 phy alike plunged into the future, but 
 found no resting-place. But every man 
 must feel that, left to nature as his only 
 guide, he must wander in doubt as to 
 the life to come. Where but from God 
 himself can I learn my destination ? I 
 ask at the mouth of the tomb for intelli- 
 gence of the departed, and the tomb 
 gives me no reply. I examine the vari- 
 ous regions of nature, but I can discover 
 no process for restoring the mouldering 
 
 body, and no sign or track of the spirit's 
 ascent to another sphere. I see the 
 need of a power above nature to restore 
 or perpetuate life after death ; and if 
 God intended to give assurance of this 
 life, I see not how He can do it but by 
 supernatural teaching, by a miraculous 
 revelation. Miracles are the appropri- 
 ate, and would seem to be the only, mode 
 of placing beyond doubt man's future 
 and immortal being ; and no miracles 
 can be conceived so peculiarly adapted 
 to this end as the very ones which hold 
 the highest place in Christianity, I 
 mean the resurrection of Lazarus, and, 
 still more, the resurrection of Jesus. 
 No man will deny that, of all truths, a 
 future state is most strengthening to 
 virtue and consoling to humanity. Is 
 it, then, unworthy of God to employ 
 miracles for the awakening or the con- 
 firmation of this hope ? May they not 
 even be expected if nature, as we have 
 seen, sheds but a faint light on this most 
 interesting of all verities ? 
 
 I add one more consideration in sup- 
 port of the position that nature was not 
 intended to be God's only method of 
 teaching mankind. In surveying the 
 human mind, we discover a principle 
 which singularly fits it to be wrought 
 upon and benefited by. miraculous agen- 
 cy, and which might therefore lead us 
 to expect such interposition. I refer to 
 that principle of our nature by which 
 we become in a measure insensible or 
 indifferent to what is familiar, but are 
 roused to attention and deep interest by 
 what is singular, strange, supernatural. 
 This principle of wonder is an important 
 part of our constitution ; and that God 
 should employ it in the work of our 
 education is what reason might antici- 
 pate. I see, then, a foundation for 
 miracles in the human mind ; and, when 
 I consider that the mind is God's noblest 
 work, I ought to look to this as the in- 
 terpreter of his designs. We are plainly 
 so constituted that the order of nature, 
 the more it is fixed, excites us the less. 
 Our interest is blunted by its ceaseless 
 uniformity. On the contrary, departures 
 from this order powerfully stir the soul, 
 break up its old and slumbering habits 
 of thought, turn it with a new solicitude 
 to the Almighty Interposer, and prepare 
 it to receive with awe the communica- 
 tions of his will. Was it unworthy of 
 God, who gave us this sensibility to the
 
 214 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 wonderful, to appeal to it for the recovery 
 of his creatures to himself? 
 
 I here close my remarks on the great 
 objection of scepticism, that miracles 
 are inconsistent with the divine perfec- 
 tions : that the Supreme Being, having 
 established an order of operation, cannot 
 be expected to depart from it. To me 
 such reasoning, if reasoning it may be 
 called, is of no weight. When I con- 
 sider God's paternal and moral relation 
 to mankind, and his interest in their 
 progress ; when I consider how accord- 
 ant it is with his character that He 
 should make himself known to them by 
 methods most fitted to awaken the mind 
 and heart to his goodness ; when I con- 
 sider the need we have of illumination 
 in regard to the future life, more distinct 
 and full than the creation affords ; when 
 I consider the constitution and condition 
 of man, his free agency, and the corrup- 
 tion into which he had fallen ; when I 
 consider how little benefit a being so 
 depraved was likely to derive from an 
 order of nature to which he had grown 
 familiar, and how plainly the mind is 
 fitted to be quickened by miraculous 
 interposition ; I say, when I take all 
 these things into view, I see, as I think, 
 a foundation in nature for supernatural 
 light and aid, and. I discern in a miracu- 
 lous revelation such as Christianity a 
 provision suited at once to the frame 
 and wants of the human soul, and to the 
 perfections of its Author. 
 
 There are other objections to miracles, 
 though less avowed, than that which I 
 have now considered, yet perhaps not 
 less influential, and probably operating 
 on many minds so secretly as to be un- 
 perceived. At two of these I will just 
 glance. Not a few, I am confident, have 
 doubts of the Christian miracles, because 
 they see none now. Were their scep- 
 ticism to clothe itself in language, it would 
 say,*" Show us miracles, and we will be- 
 lieve them. We suspect them, because 
 they are confined to the past." Now this 
 objection is a childish one. It may be 
 resolved into the principle, that nothing 
 in the past is worthy of belief which is 
 not repeated in the present. Admit this, 
 and where will incredulity stop ? How 
 many forms and institutions of society, 
 recorded in ancient history, have passed 
 away ? Has history, then, no title to 
 respect ? If, indeed, the human race 
 were standing still ; if one age were 
 
 merely a copy of preceding ones : if each 
 had precisely the same wants, then the 
 miracles required at one period would 
 be reproduced in all. But who does not 
 know that there is a progress in human 
 affairs ? that formerly mankind were in 
 a different stage from that through which 
 they are now passing ? that of course 
 the education of the race must be varied ? 
 and that miracles, important once, may 
 be superfluous now ? Shall we bind the 
 Creator to invariable modes of teaching 
 and training a race whose capacities 
 and wants are undergoing a perpetual 
 change ? Because in periods of thick 
 darkness God introduced a new religion 
 by supernatural works, shall we expect 
 these works to be repeated, when the 
 darkness is scattered and their end 
 attained ? Who does not see that mira- 
 cles, from their very nature, must be 
 rare, occasional, limited ? Would not 
 their power be impaired by frequency ? 
 and would it not wholly cease, were they 
 so far multiplied as to seem a part of 
 the order of nature ? 
 
 The objection I am now considering 
 shows us the true character of scep- 
 ticism. Scepticism is essentially a nar- 
 rowness of mind, which makes the 
 present moment the measure of the 
 past and future. It is the creature of 
 sense. In the midst of a boundless 
 universe, it can conceive no mode of 
 operation but what falls under its imme- 
 diate observation. The visible, the pres- 
 ent, is every thing to the unbeliever. 
 Let him but enlarge his views : let him 
 look round on the immensity of the uni- 
 verse ; let him consider the infinity of 
 resources which are comprehended in 
 omnipotence : let him represent to him- 
 self the manifold stages through which 
 the human race is appointed to pass ; 
 let him remember that the education of 
 the ever-growing mind must require a 
 great variety of discipline ; and espe- 
 cially let him admit the sublime thought, 
 of which the germ is found in nature, 
 that man was created to be trained for, 
 and to ascend to, an incomparably higher 
 order of existence than the present. 
 and he will see the childishness of mak- 
 ing his narrow experience the standard 
 of all that is past and is to come in 
 human history. 
 
 It is strange, indeed, that men of sci- 
 ence should fall into this error. The 
 improved science of the present day
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 215 
 
 teaches them that this globe of ours, 
 which seems so unchangeable, is not 
 now what it was a few thousand years 
 ago. They find proofs, by digging into 
 the earth, that this globe was inhabited 
 before the existence of the human race 
 by classes of animals which have per- 
 ished, and the ocean peopled by races 
 now unknown, and that the human race 
 are occupying a ruined and restored 
 world. Men of science should learn to 
 free themselves from the vulgar narrow- 
 ness which sees nothing in the past but 
 the present, and should learn the stu- 
 pendous and infinite variety of the dis- 
 pensations of God. 
 
 There is another objection to miracles, 
 and the last to be now considered, which 
 is drawn from the well-known fact, that 
 pretended miracles crowd the pages of 
 ancient history. No falsehoods, we are 
 told, have been more common than ac- 
 counts of prodigies, and therefore the 
 miraculous character of Christianity is a 
 presumption against its truth. I acknowl- 
 edge that this argument has its weight ; 
 and I am ready to say, that, did I know 
 nothing of Christianity but that it was a 
 religion full of miracles ; did I know 
 nothing of its doctrines, its purpose, its 
 influences, and whole history, I should 
 suspect it as much as the unbeliever. 
 There is a strong presumption against 
 miracles, considered nakedly, or sepa- 
 rated from their design and from all cir- 
 cumstances which explain and support 
 them. There is a like presumption 
 against events not miraculous, but of an 
 extraordinary character. But this is 
 only a reason for severe scrutiny and 
 slow belief, not for resisting strong and 
 multiplied proofs. I blame no man for 
 doubting a report of miracles when first 
 brought to his ears. Thousands of ab- 
 surd prodigies have been created by 
 ignorance and fanaticism, and thousands 
 more been forged by imposture. I 
 invite you, then, to try scrupulously the 
 miracles of Christianity ; and, if they 
 bear the marks of the superstitious leg- 
 ends of false religions, do not spare 
 them. I only ask for them a fair hear- 
 ing and calm investigation. 
 
 It is plainly no sufficient argument for 
 rejecting all miracles that men have be- 
 lieved in many which are false. If you 
 go back to the times when miraculous 
 stories were swallowed most greedily, 
 and read the books then written on his- 
 
 tory, geography, and natural science, you 
 will find all of them crowded with error ; 
 but do they therefore contain nothing 
 worthy your trust ? Is there not a vein 
 of truth running through the prevalent 
 falsehood ? And cannot a sagacious 
 mind very often detach the real from the 
 fictitious, explain the origin of many mis- 
 takes, distinguish the judicious and hon- 
 est from the credulous or interested 
 narrator, and by a comparison of testi- 
 monies detect the latent truth ? Where 
 will you stop if you start with believing 
 nothing on points where former ages 
 have gone astray ? You must pronounce 
 all religion and all morality to be delu- 
 sion, for on both topics men have grossly 
 erred. Nothing is more unworthy of a 
 philosopher than to found a universal 
 censure on a limited number of unfavor- 
 able facts. This is much like the rea- 
 soning of the misanthrope, who, because 
 he sees much vice, infers that there is no 
 virtue, and, because he has sometimes 
 been deceived, pronounces all men hyp- 
 ocrites. 
 
 I maintain that the multiplicity of false 
 miracles, far from disproving, gives sup- 
 port to those on which Christianity rests ; 
 for, first, there is generally some foun- 
 dation for falsehood, especially when it 
 obtains general belief. The love of truth 
 is an essential principle of human nature ; 
 men generally embrace error on account 
 of some precious ingredient of truth 
 mixed with it, and for the time insepa- 
 rable from it. The universal belief of 
 past ages in miraculous interpositions is 
 to me a presumption that miracles have 
 entered into human history. Will the 
 unbeliever say that it only shows the 
 insatiable thirst of the human mind for 
 the supernatural ? I reply, that in this 
 reasoning he furnishes a weapon against 
 himself; for a strong principle in the 
 human mind, impelling men to seek for 
 and to cling to miraculous agency, affords 
 a presumption that the Author of our 
 being, by whom this thirst for the super- 
 natural was given, intended to furnish 
 objects for it, a,nd to assign it a place in 
 the education of the race. 
 
 But I observe, in the next place, and 
 it is an observation of great importance, 
 that the exploded miracles of ancient 
 times, if carefully examined, not only 
 furnish a general presumption in favor 
 of the existence of genuine ones, but 
 yield strong proof of the truth of those
 
 2l6 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 in particular upon which Christianity 
 rests. I say to the sceptic, You affirm 
 nothing but truth in declaring history to 
 abound in false miracles ; I agree with 
 you in exploding by far the greater part 
 of the supernatural accounts of which 
 ancient religions boast. But how do we 
 know these to be false ? We do not so 
 judge without proofs. We discern in 
 them the marks of delusion. Now I ask 
 you to examine these marks, and then to 
 answer me honestly, whether you find 
 them in the miracles of Christianity. Is 
 there not a broad line between Christ's 
 works and those which we both agree in 
 rejecting ? I maintain that there is, and 
 that nothing but ignorance can confound 
 the Christian miracles with the prodigies 
 of heathenism. The contrast between 
 them is so strong as to forbid us to refer 
 them to a common origin. The miracles 
 of superstition carry the brand of false- 
 hood in their own nature, and are dis- 
 proved by the circumstances under which 
 they were imposed on the multitude. 
 The objects for which they are said to 
 have been wrought are such as do not 
 require or justify a divine interposition. 
 Many of them are absurd, childish, or 
 extravagant, and betray a weak intellect 
 or diseased imagination. Many can be 
 explained by natural causes. Many are 
 attested by persons who lived in differ- 
 ent countries and ages, and enjoyed no 
 opportunities of inquiring into their truth. 
 We can see the origin of many in the 
 self-interest of those who forged them, 
 and can account for their reception by 
 the condition of the world. In other 
 words, these spurious miracles were the 
 natural growth of the ignorance, pas- 
 sions, prejudices, and corruptions of the 
 times, and tended to confirm them. Now 
 it is not enough to say, that these various 
 marks of falsehood cannot be found in 
 the Christian miracles. We find in them 
 characters directly the reverse. They 
 were wrought for an end worthy of God ; 
 they were wrought in an age of improve- 
 ment : they are marked by a majesty, 
 beneficence, unostentatious simplicity, 
 and wisdom, which separate them im- 
 measurably from the dreams of a dis- 
 ordered fancy, or the contrivances of 
 imposture. They can be explained by 
 no interests, passions, or prejudices of 
 men. They are parts of a religion which 
 was singularly at variance with estab- 
 lished ideas and expectations, which 
 
 breathes purity and benevolence, which 
 transcended the improvements of the 
 age, arid which thus carries with it the 
 presumption of a divine original. Whence 
 this immense distance between the two 
 classes of miracles ? Will you trace 
 both to one source, and that a polluted 
 one ? Will you ascribe to one spirit 
 works as different as light and darkness, 
 as earth and heaven ? I am not, then, 
 shaken in my faith by the false miracles 
 of other religions. I have no desire to 
 keep them out of sight ; I summon them 
 as my witnesses. They show me how 
 naturally imposture and superstition 
 leave the stamp of themselves on their 
 fictions. They show how man, when he 
 aspires to counterfeit God's agency, be- 
 trays more signally his impotence and 
 folly. When I place side by side the 
 mighty works of Jesus and the prodigies 
 of heathenism, I see that they can no 
 more be compared with one another than 
 the machinery and mock thunders of the 
 theatre can be likened to the awful and 
 beneficent powers of the universe. 
 
 In the preceding remarks on miracles, 
 I have aimed chiefly to meet those gen- 
 eral objections by which many are preju- 
 diced against supernatural interpositions 
 universally, and are disinclined to weigh 
 any proof in their support. Hoping that 
 this weak scepticism has been shown to 
 want foundation in nature and reason, I 
 proceed now to state more particularly 
 the principal grounds on which I be- 
 lieve that the miracles ascribed to Jesus 
 and the first propagators of Christianity 
 were actually wrought in attestation of 
 its truth. 
 
 The evidences of facts are of two 
 kinds, presumptive and direct, and both 
 meet in support of Christian miracles. 
 First, there are strong presumptions in 
 its favor. To this class of proofs be- 
 long the views already given of the 
 accordance of revelation and miracles 
 with the wants and principles of human 
 nature, with the perfections of God, with 
 his relations to his human family, and 
 with his ordinary providence. These I 
 need not repeat. I will only observe 
 that a strong presumption in support of 
 the miracles arises from the importance 
 of the religion to which they belong. 
 If I were told of supernatural works 
 performed to prove that three are more 
 than one, or that human life requires 
 food for its support, I should know
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 217 
 
 that they were false. The presumption 
 against them would be invincible. The 
 Author of nature could never supersede 
 its wise and stupendous order to teach 
 what falls within the knowledge of every 
 child. Extraordinary interpositions of 
 God suppose that truths of extraordi- 
 nary dignity and beneficence are to be 
 imparted. Now, in Christianity I find 
 truths of transcendent importance, which 
 throw into shade all the discoveries of 
 science, and which give a new character, 
 aim, and interest to our existence. Here 
 is a fit occasion for supernatural inter- 
 position. A presumption exists in favor 
 of miracles, by which a religion so wor- 
 thy of God is sustained. 
 
 But a presumption in favor of facts 
 is not enough. It, indeed, adds much 
 force to the direct proofs ; still these are 
 needed, nor are they wanting to Chris- 
 tianity. The direct proofs of facts are 
 chiefly of two kinds ; they consist of 
 testimony, oral or written, and of effects, 
 traces, monuments, which the facts have 
 left behind them. The Christian miracles 
 are supported by both. We have, first, the 
 most unexceptionable testimony, nothing 
 less than that of contemporaries and eye- 
 witnesses, of the companions of Jesus, 
 and the first propagators of his religion. 
 We have the testimony of men who 
 could not have been deceived as to the 
 facts which they report ; who bore their 
 witness amidst perils and persecutions ; 
 who bore it on the very spot where their 
 Master lived and died ; who had nothing 
 to gain, and every thing to lose, if their 
 testimony were false ; whose writings 
 breathe the sincerest love of virtue and 
 of mankind ; and who at last sealed 
 their attestations with their blood. More 
 unexceptionable witnesses to facts can- 
 not be produced or conceived. 
 
 Do you say, " These witnesses lived 
 ages ago ; could we hear these accounts 
 from their own lips, we should be satis- 
 fied " ? I answer, You have something 
 better than their own lips, or than their 
 own word taken alone. You have, as 
 has been proved, their writings. Per- 
 haps you hear with some surprise that a 
 book may be a better witness than its 
 author ; but nothing is more true, and I 
 will illustrate it by an imaginary case in 
 our own times. 
 
 Suppose, then, that a man claiming to 
 be an eye-witness should relate to me the 
 events of the three memorable days of 
 
 July, in which the last revolution of 
 France was achieved; suppose, next, 
 that a book, a history of that revolution, 
 published and received as true in France, 
 should be sent to me from that country. 
 Which is the best evidence of the facts ? 
 I say the last. A single witness may 
 deceive ; but that a writer should pub- 
 lish in France the history of a revolu- 
 tion which never occurred there, or 
 which differed essentially from the true 
 one, is in the highest degree improbable ; 
 and that such a history should obtain 
 currency, that it should not be instantly 
 branded as a lie, is utterly impossible. A 
 history received by a people as true, not 
 only gives us the testimony of the writer, 
 but the testimony of the nation among 
 whom it obtains credit. It is a concen- 
 tration of thousands of voices, of many 
 thousand witnesses. I say, then, that the 
 writings of the first teachers of Christi- 
 anity, received as they were by the mul- 
 titude of Christians in their own times 
 and in those which immediately fol- 
 lowed, are the testimonies of that mul- 
 titude as well as of the writers. 
 Thousands nearest to the events, join 
 in bearing testimony to the Christian 
 miracles. 
 
 But there is another class of evidence, 
 sometimes more powerful than direct 
 witnesses, and this belongs to Chris- 
 tianity. Facts are often placed beyond 
 doubt by the effects which they leave 
 behind them. This is the case with the 
 miracles of Christ. Let me explain this 
 branch of evidence. I am told, when 
 absent and distant from your city, that 
 on a certain day a tide, such as had 
 never been known, rose in your harbor, 
 overflowed your wharves, and rushed 
 into your streets ; I doubt the fact ; but 
 hastening here, I see what were once 
 streets strewed with sea-weed, and 
 shells, and the ruins of houses, and I 
 cease to doubt. A witness may deceive, 
 but such effects cannot lie. All great 
 events leave effects, and these speak di- 
 rectly of the cause. What, I ask, are 
 the proofs of the American revolution ? 
 Have we none but written or oral testi- 
 mony ? Our free constitution, the whole 
 form of our society, the language and 
 spirit of our laws, all these bear witness 
 to our English origin, and to our suc- 
 cessful conflict for independence. Now 
 the miracles of Christianity have left 
 effects which equally attest their reality,
 
 218 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and cannot be explained without them. 
 I go back to the age of Jesus Christ, and 
 I am immediately struck with the com- 
 mencement and rapid progress of the 
 most remarkable revolution in the an- 
 nals of the world. I see a new religion, 
 of a character altogether its own, which 
 bore no likeness to any past or existing 
 faith, spreading in a few years through 
 all civilized nations, and introducing a 
 new era, a new state of society, a change 
 of the human mind, which has broadly 
 distinguished all following ages. Here 
 is a plain fact, which the sceptic will not 
 deny, however he may explain it. I see 
 this religion issuing from an obscure, 
 despised, hated people. Its Founder 
 had died on the cross, a mode of pun- 
 ishment as disgraceful as the pillory or 
 gallows of the present day. Its teachers 
 were poor men, without rank, office, or 
 education, taken from the fishing-boat 
 and other occupations which had never 
 furnished teachers to mankind. I see 
 these men beginning their work on the 
 spot where their Master's blood had 
 been shed, as of a common malefactor ; 
 and I hear them summoning first his 
 murderers, and then all nations and all 
 ranks, the sovereign on the throne, the 
 priest in the temple, the great and the 
 learned, as well as the poor and the ig- 
 norant, to renounce the faith and the 
 worship which had been hallowed by 
 the veneration of all ages, and to take 
 the yoke of their crucified Lord. I see 
 passion and prejudice, the sword of the 
 magistrate, the curse of the priest, the 
 scorn of the philosopher, and the fury of 
 the populace, joined to crush this com- 
 mon enemy ; and yet, without a human 
 weapon and in opposition to all human 
 power, I see the humble Apostles of 
 Jesus winning their way, overpowering 
 prejudice, breaking the ranks of their 
 opposers, changing enemies into friends, 
 breathing into multitudes a calm spirit 
 of martyrdom, and carrying to the 
 bounds of civilization, and even into 
 half-civilized regions, a religion which 
 has contributed to advance society more 
 than all other causes combined. Here 
 is the effect. Here is a monument more 
 durable than pillars or triumphal arches. 
 Now I ask for an explanation of these 
 effects. If Jesus Christ and his Apos- 
 tles were indeed sent and empowered 
 by God, and wrought miracles in attes- 
 tation of their mission, then the estab- 
 
 lishment of Christianity is explained. 
 Suppose them, on the other hand, to 
 have been insane enthusiasts, or selfish 
 impostors, left to meet the whole strength 
 of human opposition, with nothing but 
 their own power, or rather their own 
 weakness, and you have no cause for 
 the stupendous effect I have described. 
 Such men could no more have changed 
 the face of the world than they could 
 have turned back rivers to their sources, 
 sunk mountains into valleys, or raised 
 valleys to the skies. Christianity, then, 
 has not only the evidence of unexcep- 
 tionable witnesses, but that of effects, 
 a proof which will grow stronger by com- 
 paring its progress with that of other 
 religions, such as Mahometanism, which 
 sprang from human passions, and were 
 advanced by human power. 
 
 IV. Having given my views on the 
 subject of Christian miracles, I now 
 pass to the last topic of this discourse. 
 Its extent and importance will lead me 
 to enlarge upon it in a subsequent dis- 
 course ; but a discussion of Christian 
 evidences in which it should find no 
 place would be essentially defective. I 
 refer to the proof of Christianity derived 
 from the character of its Author. The 
 character of Jesus was original. He 
 formed a new era in the moral history of 
 the human race. His perfection was 
 not that of his age, nor a copy of the 
 greatness which had long engrossed the 
 world's admiration. Jesus stood apart 
 from other men. He borrowed from 
 none and leaned on none. Surrounded 
 by men of low thoughts, he rose to the 
 conception of a higher form of human 
 virtue than had yet been realized or 
 imagined, and deliberately devoted him- 
 self to its promotion, as the supreme 
 object of his life and death. Conscious 
 of being dedicated to this great work, he 
 spoke with a calm dignity, an unaffected 
 elevation, which separated him from all 
 other teachers. Unsupported, he never 
 wavered : sufficient to himself, he re- 
 fused alliance with wealth or power. 
 Yet, with all this self- subsistence and 
 uncompromising energy, his character 
 was the mildest, the gentlest, the most 
 attractive, ever manifested among men. 
 It could not have been a fiction for who 
 could have conceived it, or who could 
 have embodied the conception in such a 
 life as Jesus is said to have led in ac- 
 tions, words, manners, so natural and
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 219 
 
 unstudied, so imbued with reality, so 
 worthy of the Son of God ? 
 
 The great distinction of Jesus was a 
 philanthropy without mixture and with- 
 out bounds ; a philanthropy uniting 
 grandeur and meekness in beautiful 
 proportions ; a philanthropy as wise as 
 it was fervent, which comprehended the 
 true wants and the true good of man, 
 which compassionated, indeed, his suf- 
 ferings from abroad, but which saw in 
 the soul the deep fountain of his miser- 
 ies, and labored, by regenerating this, 
 to bring him to a pure and enduring 
 happiness. So peculiar, so unparalleled 
 was the benevolence of Jesus, that it 
 has impressed itself on all future times. 
 There went forth a virtue, a beneficent 
 influence from his character, which op- 
 erates even now. Since the death of 
 Christ, a spirit of humanity, unknown 
 before, has silently diffused itself over 
 a considerable portion of the earth. A 
 new standard of virtue has gradually 
 possessed itself of the veneration of 
 men. A new power has been acting on 
 society, which has done more than all 
 other causes combined to disarm the self- 
 ish passions, and to bind men strongly 
 to one another and to God. What a 
 monument have we here to the virtue 
 of Jesus ! and if Christianity has such 
 a Founder, it must have come from 
 Heaven. 
 
 There are other remarkable proofs 
 of the power and elevation of the 
 character of Christ. It has touched 
 and conciliated not a few of the de- 
 termined adversaries of his religion. 
 Infidelity, whilst it has laid unsparing 
 hands on the system, has generally 
 shrunk from offering violence to its 
 Author. In truth, unbelievers have 
 occasionally borne eloquent testimony 
 to the benignant and celestial virtues 
 of Jesus ; and I record this with pleas- 
 ure, not onjy as honorable to Chris- 
 tianity, but as showing that unbelief 
 does not universally sear the moral 
 feelings, or breathe hostility to good- 
 ness. Nor is this all. The character 
 of Christ has withstood the most deadly 
 and irresistible foe of error and un- 
 founded claims, I mean Time. It 
 has lost nothing of its elevation by the 
 improvements of ages. Since he ap- 
 peared, society has gone forward, men's 
 views have become enlarged, and phil- 
 osophy has risen to conceptions of far 
 
 purer virtues than were the boast of 
 antiquity. But, however the human 
 mind may have advanced, it must still 
 look upward if it would see and under- 
 stand Christ. He is still above it. 
 Nothing purer, nobler, has yet dawned 
 on human thoughts. Then Christianity 
 is true. The delineation of Jesus in 
 the Gospels, so warm with life, and so 
 unrivalled in loveliness and grandeur, 
 required the existence of an original. 
 To suppose that this character was 
 invented by unprincipled men, amidst 
 Jewish and heathen darkness, and was 
 then imposed as a reality in the very 
 age of the Founder of Christianity, 
 argues an excess of credulity, and a 
 strange ignorance of the powers and 
 principles of human nature. The char- 
 acter of Jesus was real : and if so, 
 Jesus must have been what he professed 
 to be, the Son of God, and the revealer 
 of his mercy and his will to mankind. 
 
 I have now completed what I pro- 
 posed in this discourse. I have laid 
 before you some of the principal evi- 
 dences of Christianity. I have aimed 
 to state them without exaggeration. 
 That an honest mind, which thoroughly 
 comprehends them, can deny their force, 
 seems to me hardly possible. Stronger 
 proofs may, indeed, be conceived ; but 
 it is doubtful whether these could be 
 given in consistency with our moral 
 nature, and with the moral government 
 of God. Such a government requires 
 that truth should not be forced on the 
 mind, but that we should be left to gain 
 it by an upright use of our understand- 
 ings, and by conforming ourselves to 
 what we have already learned. God 
 might, indeed, shed on us an overpow- 
 ering light, so that it would be impos- 
 sible for us to lose our way ; but in so 
 doing He would annihilate an impor- 
 tant part of our present probation. It 
 is, then, no objection to Christianity 
 that its evidences are not the very 
 strongest which might be given, and 
 that they do not extort universal assent. 
 In this respect it accords with other 
 great truths. These are not forced on 
 our belief. Whoever will may shut his 
 eyes on their proofs and array against 
 them objections. In the measure of 
 evidence with which Christianity is ac- 
 companied, I see a just respect for the 
 freedom of the mind, and a wise adap- 
 tation to that moral nature which it is
 
 220 
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 the great aim of this religion to carry 
 forward to perfection. 
 
 I close as I began. I am not ashamed 
 of the gospel of Christ, for it is true. 
 It is true ; and its truth is to break 
 forth more and more gloriously. Of 
 this I have not a doubt. I know, indeed, 
 that our religion has been questioned, 
 even by intelligent and good men ; but 
 this does not shake my faith in its 
 divine* original or in its ultimate tri- 
 umphs. Such men have questioned it, 
 because they have known it chiefly by 
 its corruptions. In proportion as its 
 original simplicity shall be restored, the 
 doubts of the well-disposed will yield. 
 I have no fears from infidelity ; espe- 
 cially from that form of it which some 
 are at this moment laboring to spread 
 through our country, I mean that in- 
 sane, desperate unbelief which strives 
 to quench the light of nature as well as 
 of revelation, and to leave us, not only 
 without Christ, but without God. This 
 I dread no more than I should fear the 
 efforts of men to pluck the sun from his 
 sphere, or to storm the skies with the 
 artillery of the earth. We were made 
 for religion ; and unless the enemies of 
 our faith can change our nature, they 
 will leave the foundation of religion un- 
 shaken. The human soul was created 
 to look above material nature. It wants 
 a Deity for its love and trus^t, an immor- 
 tality for its hope. It wants consola- 
 
 tions not found in philosophy, wants 
 strength in temptation, sorrow, and 
 death, which human wisdom cannot 
 minister ; and knowing, as I do, that 
 Christianity meets these deep wants of 
 men, I have no fear or doubt as to its 
 triumphs. Men cannot long live with- 
 out religion. In France there is a 
 spreading dissatisfaction with the scep- 
 tical spirit of the past generation. A 
 philosopher in that country would now 
 blush to quote Voltaire as an authority 
 in religion. Already atheism is dumb 
 where once it seemed to bear sway. 
 The greatest minds in France are work- 
 ing back their way to the light of truth. 
 Many of them, indeed, cannot yet be 
 called Christians ; but their path, like 
 that of the wise men of old, who came 
 star-guided from the East, is towards 
 Christ. I am not ashamed of the gos- 
 pel of Christ. It has an immortal life, 
 and will gather strength from the vio- 
 lence of its foes. It is equal to all the 
 wants of men. The greatest minds 
 have found in it the light which they 
 most anxiously desired. The most sor- 
 rowful and broken spirits have found 
 in it a healing balm for their woes. It 
 has inspired the sublimest virtues and 
 the loftiest hopes. For the corruptions 
 of such a religion I weep, and I should 
 blush to be their advocate ; but of the 
 gospel itself I can never be ashamed. 
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION: 
 
 Discourse before the University in Cambridge, at the Dudleian 
 Lecture, iqth March, 1821. 
 
 JOHN iii. 2 : "The same came to Jesus by night, 
 and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a 
 teacher come from God ; for no man can do these 
 miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." 
 
 THE evidences of revealed religion 
 are the subject >)f this lecture, a sub- 
 ject of great extent as well as of vast 
 importance. In discussing it, an im- 
 mense variety of learning has been 
 employed, and all the powers of the 
 intellect been called forth. History, 
 
 metaphysics, ancient learning, criticism, 
 ethical science, and the science of hu- 
 man nature, have been summoned to 
 the controversy, and have brought impor- 
 tant contributions to the Christian cause. 
 To condense into one discourse what 
 scholars and great men have written on 
 this point is impossible, even if it were 
 desirable ; and I have stated the extent 
 of speculation into which our subject 
 has led, not because I propose to give
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 221 
 
 an abstract of others' labors, but be- 
 cause I wish you to understand that the 
 topic is one not easily despatched, and 
 because I would invite you to follow me 
 in a discussion which will require con- 
 centrated and continued attention. A 
 subject more worthy of attention than 
 the claims of that religion which was 
 impressed on our childhood, and which 
 is acknowledged to be the only firm 
 foundation of the hope of immortality, 
 cannot be presented ; and our minds 
 must want the ordinary seriousness of 
 human nature, if it cannot arrest us. 
 
 That Christianity has been opposed is 
 a fact implied in the establishment of 
 this lecture. That it has had adversa- 
 ries of no mean intellect, you know. I 
 propose in this discourse to make some 
 remarks on what seems to me the great 
 objection to Christianity, on the general 
 principle on which its evidences rest, 
 and on some of its particular evidences. 
 
 The great objection to Christianity 
 the only one which has much influence 
 at the present day meets us at the ! 
 very threshold. We cannot, if we would, j 
 evade it, for it is founded on a primary \ 
 and essential attribute of this religion. | 
 The objection is oftener felt than ex- 
 pressed, and amounts to this, that 
 miracles are incredible, and that the 
 supernatural character of an alleged 
 fact is proof enough of its falsehood. 
 So strong is this propensity to doubt of 
 departures from the order of nature, 
 that there are sincere Christians who 
 incline to rest their religion wholly on 
 its internal evidence, and to overlook 
 the outward extraordinary interposition 
 of God by which it was at first estab- 
 lished. But the difficulty cannot in this 
 way be evaded ; for Christianity is not 
 only confirmed by miracles, but is in it- 
 self, in its very essence, a miraculous 
 religion. It is not a system which the 
 human mind might have gathered in the 
 ordinary exercise of its powers from 
 the ordinary course of nature. Its doc- 
 trines, especially those which relate to 
 its Founder, claim for it the distinction 
 of being a supernatural provision for 
 the recovery of the human race. So 
 that the objection which I have stated 
 still presses upon us, and, if it be well 
 grounded, it is fatal to Christianity. 
 
 It is proper, then, to begin the dis- 
 cussion with inquiring whence the dis- 
 position to discredit miracles springs, 
 
 and how far it is rational. A prelimi- 
 nary remark of some importance is, that 
 this disposition is not a necessary part 
 or principle of our mental constitution, 
 like the disposition to trace effects to 
 adequate causes. We are indeed so 
 framed as to expect a continuance of 
 that order of nature which we have uni- 
 formly experienced ; but not so framed 
 as to revolt at alleged violations of that 
 order, and to account them impossible 
 or absurd. On the contrary, men at 
 large discover a strong and incurable 
 propensity to believe in miracles. Al- 
 most all histories, until within the two 
 last centuries, reported seriously super- 
 natural facts. Scepticism as to miracles 
 is comparatively a new thing, if we ex- 
 cept the Epicurean or atheistical sect 
 among the ancients ; and so far from 
 being founded in human nature, it is re- 
 sisted by an almost infinite preponder- 
 ance of belief on the other side. 
 
 Whence, then, has this scepticism 
 sprung? It may be explained by two 
 principal causes. I. It is now an ac- 
 knowledged fact among enlightened 
 men that in past times and in our own 
 a strong disposition has existed, and 
 still exists, to admit miracles without 
 examination. Human credulity is found 
 to have devoured nothing more eagerly 
 than reports of prodigies. Now it is 
 argued that we discover here a principle 
 of human nature, namely, the love of 
 the supernatural and marvellous, which 
 accounts sufficiently for the belief of 
 miracles wherever we find it ; and that 
 it is, consequently, unnecessary and un- 
 philosophical to seek for other causes, 
 and especially to admit that most im- 
 probable one, the actual existence of 
 miracles. This sweeping conclusion is 
 a specimen of that rash habit of gen- 
 eralizing which rather distinguishes our 
 times, and shows that philosophical rea- 
 soning has made fewer advances than we 
 are apt to boast. It is true that there is 
 a principle of credulity as to prodigies 
 in a considerable part of society, a dis- 
 position to believe without due scrutiny. 
 But this principle, like every other in 
 our nature, has its limits : acts accord- 
 ing to fixed laws ; is not omnipotent, 
 cannot make the eyes see, and the ears 
 hear, and the understanding credit de- 
 lusions under all imaginable circum- 
 stances ; but requires the concurrence 
 of various circumstances and of other
 
 222 
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 principles of our nature in order to its 
 operation. For example, the belief of 
 spectral appearances has been very com- 
 mon ; but under what circumstances and 
 in what state of mind has it occurred ? 
 Do men see ghosts in broad day and 
 amidst cheerful society ? or in solitary 
 places ; in grave-yards ; in twilights or 
 mists, where outward objects are so un- 
 defined as easily to take a form from 
 imagination ; and in other circumstances 
 favorable to terror, and associated with 
 the delusion in question ? The princi- 
 ple of credulity is as regular in its op- 
 eration as any other principle of the 
 mind ; and is so dependent on circum- 
 stances and so restrained and checked by 
 other parts of human nature, that some- 
 times the most obstinate in credulity 
 is found in that very class of people 
 whose easy belief on other occasions 
 moves our contempt. It is well known, 
 for example, that the efficacy of the 
 vaccine inoculation has been encoun- 
 tered with much more unyielding scep- 
 ticism among the vulgar than among 
 the improved ; and in general it may be 
 affirmed, that the credulity of the igno- 
 rant operates under the control of their 
 strongest passions and impressions, and 
 that no class of society yield a slower 
 assent to positions which manifestly 
 subvert their old modes of thinking and 
 most settled prejudices. It is, then, 
 very unphilosophical to assume this 
 principle as an explanation of all mira- 
 cles whatever. I grant that the fact, 
 that accounts of supernatural agency so 
 generally prove false, is a reason for 
 looking upon them with peculiar dis- 
 trust. Miracles ought on this account 
 to be sifted more than common facts. 
 But if we find that a belief in a series 
 of supernatural works has occurred un- 
 der circumstances very different from 
 those under which false prodigies have 
 been received, under circumstances most 
 unfavorable to the operation of credulity, 
 then this belief cannot be resol-ved into 
 the common causes which have blinded 
 men in regard to supernatural agency. 
 We must look for other causes, and if 
 none can be found but the actual exist- 
 ence of the miracles, then true philos- 
 ophy binds us to believe them. I close 
 this head with observing that the pro- 
 pensity of men to believe in what is 
 strange and miraculous, though a pre- 
 sumption against particular miracles, is 
 
 not a presumption against miracles uni- 
 versally, but rather the reverse : for great 
 principles of human nature have generally 
 a foundation in truth, and one explana- 
 tion of this propensity so common to man- 
 kind is obviously this, that in the earlier 
 ages of the human race miraculous in- 
 terpositions, suited to man's infant state, 
 were not uncommon, and, being the most 
 striking facts of human history, they 
 spread through all future times a belief 
 and expectation of miracles. 
 
 I proceed now to the second cause of 
 the scepticism in regard to supernatural 
 agency which has grown up, especially 
 among the more improved, in later times. 
 These later times are distinguished, as 
 you well know, by successful researches 
 into nature ; and the discoveries of sci- 
 ence have continually added strength to 
 that great principle, that the phenomena 
 of the universe are regulated by general 
 and permanent laws, or that the Author 
 of the universe exerts his power accord- 
 ing to an established order. Nature, 
 the more it is explored, is found to be 
 uniform. We observe an unbroken suc- 
 cession of causes and effects. Many 
 phenomena, once denominated irregular, 
 and ascribed to supernatural agency, are 
 found to be connected with preceding 
 circumstances as regularly as the most 
 common events. The comet, we learn, 
 observes the same attraction as the sun 
 and planets. When a new phenomenon 
 now occurs, no one thinks it miraculous, 
 but believes that, when better under- 
 stood, it may be reduced to laws already 
 known, or is an example of a law not 
 yet investigated. 
 
 Now this increasing acquaintance with 
 the uniformity of nature begets a distrust 
 of alleged violations of it, and a rational 
 distrust too ; for, while many causes of 
 mistake in regard to alleged miracles 
 may be assigned, there is but one ade- 
 quate cause of real miracles that is, the 
 power of God : and the regularity of nat- 
 ure forms a strong presumption against 
 the miraculous exertion of this power, 
 except in extraordinary circumstances, 
 and for extraordinary purposes, to which 
 the established laws of the creation are 
 not competent. But the observation of 
 the uniformity of nature produces, in 
 multitudes, not merely this rational dis- 
 trust of alleged violations of it, but a 
 secret feeling, as if such violations were 
 impossible. That attention to the pow-
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 223 
 
 ers of nature which is implied in sci- 
 entific research tends to weaken the 
 practical conviction of a higher power : 
 and the laws of the creation, instead of 
 being regarded as the modes of Divine 
 operation, come insensibly to be con- 
 sidered as fetters on his agency, as 
 too sacred to be suspended even by their 
 Author. This secret feeling, essentially 
 atheistical, and at war with all sound 
 philosophy, is the chief foundation of 
 that scepticism which prevails in regard 
 to miraculous agency, and deserves our 
 particular consideration. 
 
 To a man whose belief in God is 
 strong and practical, a miracle will appear 
 as possible as any other effect, as the 
 most common event in life ; and the 
 argument against miracles, drawn from 
 the uniformity of nature, will weigh with 
 him only as far as this uniformity is a 
 pledge and proof of the Creator's dis- 
 position to accomplish his purposes by 
 a fixed order or mode of operation. 
 Now it is freely granted that the Crea- 
 tor's regard or attachment to such an 
 order maybe inferred from the steadiness 
 with which He observes it ; and a strong 
 presumption lies against any violation 
 of it on slight occasions, or for purposes 
 to which the established laws of nature 
 are adequate. But this is the utmost 
 which the order of nature authorizes us 
 to infer respecting its Author. It forms 
 no presumption against miracles univer- 
 sally, in all imaginable cases ; but may 
 even furnish a presumption in their 
 favor. 
 
 We are never to forget that God's 
 adherence to the order of the universe 
 is not necessary and mechanical, but in- 
 telligent and voluntary. He adheres to 
 it, not for its own sake, or because it 
 has a sacredness which compels him to 
 respect it, but because it is most suited 
 to accomplish his purposes. It is a 
 means, and not an end ; and, like all 
 other means, must give way when the 
 end can best be promoted without it. 
 It is the mark of a weak mind to make 
 an idol of order and method ; to cling 
 to established forms of business when 
 they clog instead of advancing it. If, 
 then, the great purposes of the universe 
 can best be accomplished by departing 
 from its established laws, these laws 
 will undoubtedly be suspended : and 
 though broken in the letter, they will be 
 observed in their spirit, for the ends for 
 
 which they were first instituted will be 
 advanced by their violation. Now the 
 question arises, For what purposes were 
 nature and its order appointed ? and 
 there is no presumption in saying that 
 the highest of these is the improvement 
 of intelligent beings. Mind (by which 
 we mean both moral and intellectual 
 powers) is God's first end. The great 
 purpose for which an order of nature is 
 fixed, is plainly the formation of mind. 
 In a creation without order, where events 
 would follow without any regular suc- 
 cession, it is obvious that mind must be 
 kept in perpetual infancy ; for, in such 
 a universe, there could be no reasoning 
 from effects to causes, no induction to , 
 establish general truths, no adaptation 
 of means to ends ; that is, no science 
 relating to God, or matter, or mind ; no 
 action ; no virtue. The great purpose 
 of God, then, I repeat it, in establishing 
 the order of nature, is to form and ad- 
 vance the mind ; and if the case should 
 occur in which the interests of the mind 
 could best be advanced by departing 
 from this order, or by miraculous agency, 
 then the great purpose of the creation, 
 the great end of its laws and regularity, 
 would demand such departure ; and 
 miracles, instead of warring against, 
 would concur with nature. 
 
 Now we Christians maintain that such 
 a case has existed. We affirm that, 
 when Jesus Christ came into the world, 
 nature had failed to communicate in- 
 structions to men in which, as intel- 
 ligent beings, they had the deepest 
 concern, and on which the full develop- 
 ment of their highest faculties essen- 
 tially depended ; and we affirm, that there 
 was no prospect of relief from nature ; 
 so that an exigence had occurred in 
 which additional communications, su- 
 pernatural lights, might rationally be 
 expected from the Father of spirits. 
 Let me state two particulars out of 
 many in which men needed intellectual 
 aids not given by nature. I refer to the 
 doctrine of one God and Father, on 
 which all piety rests : and to the doc- 
 trine of immortality, which is the great 
 spring of virtuous effort. Had I time 
 to enlarge on the history of that period, 
 I might show you under what heaps of 
 rubbish and .superstition these doctrines 
 were buried. But I should reoeat only 
 what you know familiarly. The works 
 of ancient genius, which form your
 
 224 
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 studies, carry on their front the brand 
 of polytheism, and of debasing error 
 on subjects of the first and deepest 
 concern. It is more important to ob- 
 serve, that the very uniformity of nature 
 had some tendency to obscure the doc- 
 trines which I have named, or at least 
 to impair their practical power, so that 
 a departure from this uniformity was 
 needed to fasten them on men's minds. 
 That a fixed order of nature, though 
 a proof of the One God to reflecting 
 and enlarged understandings, has yet a 
 tendency to hide him from men in gen- 
 eral, will appear, if we consider, first, 
 that as the human mind is constituted, 
 what is regular and of constant occur- 
 rence excites it feebly ; and benefits 
 flowing to it through fixed, unchanging 
 laws, seem to come by a kind of neces- 
 sity, and are apt to be traced up to 
 natural causes alone. Accordingly, re- 
 ligious convictions and feelings, even 
 in the present advanced condition of 
 society, are excited not so much by the 
 ordinary course of God's providence, as 
 by sudden, unexpected events which 
 rouse and startle the mind, and speak 
 of a Power higher than nature. There 
 is another way in which a fixed order of 
 nature seems unfavorable to just im- 
 pressions respecting its Author. It dis- 
 covers to us in the Creator a regard to 
 general good rather than an affection 
 to individuals. The laws of nature, 
 operating as they do with an inflexible 
 steadiness, never varying to meet the 
 cases and wants of individuals, and in- 
 flicting much private suffering in their 
 stern administration for the general 
 weal, give the idea of a distant, reserved 
 sovereign much more than of a tender 
 parent ; and yet this last view of God 
 is the only effectual security from su- 
 perstition and idolatry. Nature, then, 
 we fear, would not have brought back 
 the world to its Creator. And as to the 
 doctrine of immortality, the order of 
 the natural world had little tendency to 
 teach this, at least with clearness and 
 energy. The natural world contains no 
 provisions or arrangements for reviving 
 the dead. The sun and the rain, which 
 cover the tomb with verdure, send no 
 vital influences to the mouldering body. 
 The researches of science detect no 
 secret processes for restoring the lost 
 powers of life. If man is to live again, 
 he is not to live through any known 
 
 laws of nature, but by a power higher 
 than nature ; and how, then, can we be 
 assured of this truth but by a mani- 
 festation of this power, that is, by 
 miraculous agency, confirming a future 
 life ? 
 
 I have labored in these remarks to 
 show that the uniformity of nature is no 
 presumption against miraculous agency 
 when employed in confirmation of such 
 a religion as Christianity. Nature, on 
 the contrary, furnishes a presumption 
 in its favor. Nature clearly shows to 
 us a power above itself, so that it proves 
 miracles to be possible. Nature re- 
 veals purposes and attributes in its 
 Author with which Christianity remark- 
 ably agrees. Nature, too, has deficien- 
 cies, which show that it was not in- 
 tended by its Author to be his whole 
 method of instructing mankind ; and in 
 this way it gives great confirmation to 
 Christianity, which meets its wants, 
 supplies its chasms, explains its mys- 
 teries, and lightens its heart-oppressing 
 cares and sorrows. 
 
 Before quitting the general consider- 
 ation of miracles, I ought to take some 
 notice of Hume's celebrated argument 
 on this subject ; not that it merits the 
 attention which it has received, but 
 because it is specious, and has de- 
 rived weight from the name of its 
 author. The argument is briefly this, 
 " That belief is founded upon and 
 regulated by experience. Now we often 
 experience testimony to be false, but 
 never witness a departure from the 
 order of nature. That men may de- 
 ceive us when they testify to miracles, 
 is therefore more accordant with experi- 
 ence than that nature should be irregu- 
 lar ; and hence there is a balance of 
 proof against miracles, a presumption 
 so strong as to outweigh the strongest 
 testimony." The usual replies to this 
 argument I have not time to repeat. 
 Dr. Campbell's work, which is acces- 
 sible to all, will show you that it rests 
 on an equivocal use of terms, and will 
 furnish you with many fine remarks on 
 testimony and on the conditions or 
 qualities which give it validity. I will 
 only add a few remarks which seem to 
 me worthy of attention. 
 
 I. This argument affirms that the 
 credibility of facts or statements is to 
 be decided by their accordance with the 
 established order of nature, and by this
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 22$ 
 
 standard only. Now, if nature compre- 
 hended all existences and all powers, 
 this position might be admitted. But 
 if there is a Being higher than nature, 
 the origin of all its powers and motions, 
 and whose character falls under our 
 notice and experience as truly as the 
 creation, then there is an additional 
 standard to which facts and statements 
 are to be referred ; and works which 
 violate nature's order will still be credi- 
 ble, if they agree with the known prop- 
 erties and attributes of its Author ; 
 because for such works we can assign 
 an adequate cause and sufficient rea- 
 sons, and these are the qualities and 
 conditions on which credibility de- 
 pends. 
 
 2. This argument of Hume proves 
 too much, and therefore proves nothing. 
 It proves too much ; for if I am to 
 reject the strongest testimony to mira- 
 cles because testimony has often de- 
 ceived me, whilst nature's order has 
 never been found to fail, then I ought 
 to reject a miracle, even if I should see 
 it with my own eyes, and if all my 
 senses should attest it ; for all my 
 senses have sometimes given false re- 
 ports, whilst nature has never gone 
 astray ; and, therefore, be the circum- 
 stances ever so decisive or inconsistent 
 with deception, still I must not believe 
 what I see, and hear, and touch, 
 what my senses, exercised according to 
 the most deliberate judgment, declare 
 to be true. All this the argument re- 
 quires ; and it proves too much ; for 
 disbelief in the case supposed is out of 
 our power, and is instinctively pro- 
 nounced absurd ; and what is more, it 
 would subvert that very order of nature 
 on which the argument rests ; for this 
 order of nature is learned only by the 
 exercise of my senses and judgment, 
 and if these fail me in the most un- 
 exceptionable circumstances, then their 
 testimony to nature is of little worth. 
 
 Once more ; this argument is built on 
 an ignorance of the nature of testimony. 
 Testimony, we are told, cannot prove a 
 miracle. Now the truth is that testi- 
 mony of itself and immediately proves 
 no facts whatever, not even the most 
 common. Testimony can do nothing 
 more than show us the state of another's 
 mind in regard to a given fact. It can 
 only show us that the testifier has a 
 belief, a conviction, that a certain phe- 
 
 nomenon or event has occurred. Here 
 testimony stops : and the reality of the 
 event is to be judged altogether from the 
 nature and degree of this conviction, and 
 from the circumstances under which it 
 exists. This conviction is an effect, which 
 must have a cause, and needs to be ex- 
 plained ; and if no cause can be found but 
 the real occurrence of the event, then this 
 occurrence is admitted as true. Such is 
 the extent of testimony. Now a man 
 who affirms a miraculous phenomenon 
 or event, may give us just as decisive 
 proofs, by his character and conduct, of 
 the strength and depth of his conviction, 
 as if he were affirming a common occur- 
 rence. Testimony, then, does just as 
 much in the case of miracles as of com- 
 mon events ; that is. it discloses to us 
 the conviction of another's mind. Now 
 this conviction in the case of miracles 
 requires a cause, an explanation, as much 
 as in every other ; and if the circum- 
 stances be such that it could not have 
 sprung up and been established but by 
 the reality of the alleged miracle, then 
 that great and fundamental principle of 
 human belief, namely, that every effect 
 must have a cause, compels us to admit 
 the miracle. 
 
 It may be observed of Hume and of 
 other philosophical opposers of our re- 
 ligion, that they are much more inclined 
 to argue against miracles in general than 
 against the particular miracles on which 
 Christianity rests. And the reason is 
 obvious. Miracles, when considered in 
 a general, abstract manner, that is, when 
 divested of all circumstances, and sup- 
 posed to occur as disconnected facts, to 
 stand alone in history, to have no expla- 
 nations or reasons in preceding events, 
 and no influence on those which follow, 
 are indeed open to great objection, as 
 wanton and useless violations of nat- 
 ure's order ; and it is accordingly against 
 miracles, considered in this naked, gen- 
 eral form, that the arguments of infidel- 
 ity are chiefly urged. But it is great 
 disingenuity to "class under this head 
 the miracles of Christianity. They are 
 palpably different. They do not stand 
 alone in history ; but are most inti- 
 mately incorporated with it. They were 
 demanded by the state of the world 
 which preceded them, and they have left 
 deep traces on all subsequent ages. In 
 fact, the history of the whole civilized 
 world, since their alleged occurrence,
 
 226 
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 has been swayed and colored by them, 
 and is wholly inexplicable without them. 
 Now such miracles are not to be met, 
 and disposed of by general reasonings, 
 which apply only to insulated, unim- 
 portant, uninfluential prodigies. 
 
 I have thus considered the objections 
 to miracles in general ; and I would 
 close this head with observing, that 
 these objections will lose their weight 
 just in proportion as we strengthen our 
 conviction of God's power over nature 
 and of his parental interest in his creat- 
 ures. The great repugnance to the 
 belief of miraculous agency is founded 
 in a lurking atheism, which ascribes 
 supremacy to nature, and which, whilst 
 it professes to believe in God, questions 
 his tender concern for the improvement 
 of men. To a man who cherishes a sense 
 of God, the great difficulty is, not to 
 account for miracles, but to account for 
 their rare occurrence. One of the mys- 
 teries of the universe is this, that its 
 Author retires so continually behind 
 the veil of his works, that the great and 
 good Father does not manifest himself 
 more distinctly to his creatures. There 
 is something like coldness and repul- 
 siveness in instructing us only by fixed, 
 inflexible laws of nature. The inter- 
 course of God with Adam and the patri- 
 archs suits our best conceptions of the 
 relation which He bears to the human 
 race, and ought not to surprise us more 
 than the expression of a human parent's 
 tenderness and concern towards his off- 
 spring. 
 
 After the remarks now made to re- 
 move the objection to revelation in gen- 
 eral, I proceed to consider the evidences 
 of the Christian religion in particular ; 
 and these are so numerous that should I 
 attempt to compress them into the short 
 space which now remains, I could give 
 but a syllabus, a dry and uninteresting 
 index. It will be more useful to state to 
 you, with some distinctness, the gen- 
 eral principle into which all Christian 
 evidences may be resolved, and on which 
 the whole religion rests, and then to 
 illustrate it in a few striking partic- 
 ulars. 
 
 All the evidences of Christianity may 
 be traced to this great principle, that 
 every effect must have an adequate cause. 
 We claim for our religion a divine orig- 
 inal, because no adequate cause for it 
 can be found in the powers or passions 
 
 of human nature, or in the circumstances 
 under which it appeared ; because it 
 can only be accounted for by the interpo- 
 sition of that Being to whom its first 
 preachers universally ascribed it, and 
 with whose nature it perfectly agrees. 
 
 Christianity, by which we mean not 
 merely the doctrines of the religion, but 
 every thing relating to it. its rise, its 
 progress, the character of its Author, the 
 conduct of its propagators, Christi- 
 anity, in this broad sense, can only be 
 accounted for in two ways. It either 
 sprung from the principles of human 
 nature, under the excitements, motives, 
 impulses of the age in which it was first 
 preached, or it had its origin in a higher 
 and supernatural agency. To which of 
 these causes the religion should be 
 referred is not a question beyond our 
 reach ; for, being partakers of human 
 nature, and knowing more of it than of 
 any other part of creation, we can judge 
 with sufficient accuracy of the operation 
 of its principles, and of the effects to 
 which they are competent. It is indeed 
 true that human powers are not exactly 
 defined, nor can we state precisely the 
 bounds beyond which they cannot pass ; 
 but still, the disproportion between hu- 
 man nature and an effect ascribed to 
 it may be so vast and palpable as to sat- 
 isfy us at once that the effect is inex- 
 plicable by human power. I know not 
 precisely what advances may be made by 
 the intellect of an unassisted savage ; 
 but that a savage in the woods could not 
 compose the " Principia " of Newton, is 
 about as plain as that he could not create 
 the world. I know not the point at which 
 bodily strength must stop ; but that a 
 man cannot carry Atlas or Andes on his 
 shoulders, is a safe position. The ques- 
 tion, therefore, whether the principles of 
 human nature, under the circumstances 
 in which it was placed at Christ's birth, 
 will explain his religion, is one to which 
 we are competent, and is the great ques- 
 tion on which the whole controversy 
 turns. 
 
 Now we maintain that a great variety 
 of facts belonging to this religion, 
 such as the character of its Founder; 
 its peculiar principles ; the style and 
 character of its records ; its progress ; 
 the conduct, circumstances, and suffer- 
 ings of its first propagators ; the recep- 
 tion of it from the first on the ground of 
 miraculous attestations ; the prophecies
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 227 
 
 Avhich it fulfilled and which it contains ; 
 its influence on society, and other cir- 
 cumstances connected with it are ut- 
 terly inexplicable by human powers and 
 principles, but accord with, and are fully 
 explained by, the power and perfections 
 of God. 
 
 These various particulars I cannot 
 attempt to unfold. One or two may be 
 illustrated to show you the mode of ap- 
 plying the principles which I have laid 
 down. I will take first the character of 
 Jesus Christ. How is this to be ex- 
 plained by the principles of human nat- 
 ure ? We are immediately struck with 
 this peculiarity in the Author of Chris- 
 tianity, that, whilst all other men are 
 formed in a measure by the spirit of the 
 age, we can discover in Jesus no impres- 
 sion of the period in which he lived. 
 We know with considerable accuracy 
 the state of society, the modes of think- 
 ing, the hopes and expectations of the 
 country in which Jesus was born and 
 grew up ; and he is as free from them, 
 and as exalted above them, as if he had 
 lived in another world, or with every 
 sense shut on the objects around him. 
 His character has in it nothing local or 
 temporary. It can be explained by 
 nothing around him. His history shows 
 him to us a solitary being, living for 
 purposes which none but himself com- 
 prehended, and enjoying not so much 
 as the sympathy of a single mind. 
 His Apostles, his chosen companions, 
 brought to him the spirit of the age ; 
 and nothing shows its strength more 
 strikingly than the slowness with which 
 it yielded in these honest men to the 
 instructions of Jesus. 
 
 Jesus came to a nation expecting a 
 Messiah ; and he claimed this character. 
 But instead of conforming to the opin- 
 ions which prevailed in regard to the 
 Messiah, he resisted them wholly and 
 without reserve. To a people anticipat- 
 ing a triumphant leader, under whom 
 vengeance as well as ambition was to be 
 glutted by the prostration of their op- 
 pressors, he came as a spiritual leader, 
 teaching humility and peace. This un- 
 disguised hostility to the dearest hopes 
 and prejudices of his nation ; this dis- 
 dain of the usual compliances by which 
 ambition and imposture conciliate ad- 
 herents ; this deliberate exposure of 
 himself to rejection and hatred, cannot 
 easily be explained by the common 
 
 principles of human nature, and ex- 
 cludes the possibility of selfish aims in 
 the Author of Christianity. 
 
 One striking peculiarity in Jesus is 
 the extent, the vastness, of his views. 
 Whilst all around him looked for a 
 Messiah to liberate God's ancient peo- 
 ple, whilst to every other Jew, Judea was 
 the exclusive object of pride and hope, 
 Jesus came, declaring himself to be 
 the deliverer and light of the world, 
 and in his whole teaching and life you 
 see a consciousness which never for- 
 sakes him, of a relation to the whole 
 human race. This idea of blessing man- 
 kind, of spreading a universal religion, 
 was the most magnificent which had 
 ever entered man's mind. All previous 
 religions had been given to particular 
 nations. No conqueror, legislator, phil- 
 osopher, in the extravagance of ambition, 
 had ever dreamed of subjecting all na- 
 tions to a common faith. 
 
 This conception of a universal relig- 
 ion, intended alike for Jew and Gentile, 
 for all nations and climes, is wholly in- 
 explicable by the circumstances of Jesus. 
 He was a Jew, and the first and deepest 
 and most constant impression on a Jew's 
 mind was that of the superiority con- 
 ferred on his people and himself by the 
 national religion introduced by Moses. 
 The wall between the Jew and the Gen- 
 tile seemed to reach to heaven. The 
 abolition of the peculiarity of Moses, 
 the prostration of the temple on Mount 
 Zion, the erection of a new religion, in 
 which all men would meet as brethren, 
 and which would be the common and 
 equal property of Jew and Gentile, these 
 were of all ideas the last to spring up in 
 Judea, the last for enthusiasm or im- 
 posture to originate. 
 
 Compare next these views of Christ 
 with his station in life. He was of hum- 
 ble birth and education, with nothing in 
 his lot, with no extensive means, no 
 rank, or wealth, or patronage, to infuse 
 vast thoughts and extravagant plans. 
 The shop of a caq^enter, the village of 
 Nazareth, were not spots for ripening a 
 scheme more aspiring and extensive 
 than had ever been formed. It is a 
 principle of human nature that, except 
 in case of insanity, some proportion is 
 observed between the power of an indi- 
 vidual and his plans and hopes. The 
 purpose to which Jesus devoted him- 
 self was as ill suited to his condition as
 
 228 
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 an attempt to change the seasons, or to 
 make the sun rise in the west. That a 
 young man in obscure life, belonging to 
 an oppressed nation, should seriously 
 think of subverting the time-hallowed 
 and deep-rooted religions of the world, 
 is a strange fact ; but with this purpose 
 we see the mind of Jesus thoroughly 
 imbued ; and, sublime as it is, he never 
 falls below it in his language or conduct, 
 but speaks and acts with a conscious- 
 ness of superiority, with a dignity and 
 authority, becoming this unparalleled 
 destination. 
 
 In this connection I cannot but add 
 another striking circumstance in Jesus, 
 and that is, the calm confidence with 
 which he always looked forward to the 
 accomplishment of his design. He fully 
 knew the strength of the passions and 
 powers which were arrayed against him, 
 and was perfectly aware that his life was 
 to be shortened by violence ; yet not a 
 word escapes him implying a doubt of 
 the ultimate triumphs of his religion. 
 One of the beauties of the Gospels, and 
 one of the proofs of their genuineness, 
 is found in our Saviour's indirect and 
 obscure allusions to his approaching 
 sufferings, and to the glory which was 
 to follow, allusions showing us the 
 workings of a mind thoroughly con- 
 scious of being appointed to accomplish 
 infinite good through great calamity. 
 This entire and patient relinquishment 
 of immediate success, this ever-present 
 persuasion that he was to perish before 
 his religion would advance, and this 
 calm, unshaken anticipation of distant 
 and unbounded triumphs, are remark- 
 able traits, throwing a tender and sol- 
 emn grandeur over our Lord, and wholly 
 inexplicable by human principles, or by 
 the circumstances in which he was 
 placed. 
 
 The views hitherto taken of Christ 
 relate to his public character and office. 
 If we pass to what may be called his 
 private character, we shall receive the 
 same impression of inexplicable excel- 
 lence. The most striking trait in Jesus 
 was, undoubtedly, benevolence ; and, al- 
 though this virtue had existed before, 
 yet it had not been manifested in the 
 same form and extent. Christ's benev- 
 olence was distinguished first by its ex- 
 pansiveness. At that age an unconfined 
 philanthropy, proposing and toiling to 
 do good without dist!nction of country 
 
 or rank, was unknown. Love to man 
 as man, love comprehending the hated 
 Samaritan and the despised publican, 
 was a feature which separated Jesus 
 from the best men of his nation and of 
 the world. Another characteristic of 
 the benevolence of Jesus was its gentle- 
 ness and tenderness, forming a strong 
 contrast with the hardness and ferocity 
 of the spirit and manners which then 
 prevailed, and with that sternness and 
 inflexibility which the purest philosophy 
 of Greece and Rome inculcated as the 
 perfection of virtue. But its most dis- 
 tinguishing trait was its superiority to 
 injury. Revenge was one of the recog- 
 nized rights of the age in which he 
 lived ; and though a few sages, who had 
 seen its inconsistency with man's dig- 
 nity, had condemned it, yet none had 
 inculcated the duty of regarding one's 
 worst enemies with that kindness which 
 God manifests to sinful men, and of re- 
 turning curses with blessings and pray- 
 ers. This form of benevolence, the most 
 disinterested and divine form, was, as 
 you well know, manifested by Jesus 
 Christ in infinite strength, amidst in- 
 juries and indignities which cannot be 
 surpassed. Now this singular eminence 
 of goodness, this superiority to the de- 
 grading influences of the age, under which 
 all other men suffered, needs to be ex- 
 plained ; and one thing it demonstrates, 
 that Jesus Christ was not an unprincipled 
 deceiver, exposing not only his own life 
 but the lives of confiding friends in an 
 enterprise next to desperate. 
 
 I cannot enlarge on other traits of the 
 character of Christ. I will only observe 
 that it had one distinction which more 
 than any thing forms a perfect char- 
 acter. It was made up of contrasts ; 
 in other words, it was a union of excel- 
 lences which are not easily reconciled, 
 which seem at first sight incongruous, 
 but which, when blended and duly pro- 
 portioned, constitute moral harmony, 
 and attract with equal power love and 
 veneration. For example, we discover 
 in Jesus Christ an unparalleled dignity 
 of character, a consciousness of great- 
 ness never discovered or approached by 
 any other individual in history ; and yet 
 this was blended with a condescension, 
 lowliness, and unostentatious simplicity 
 which had never before been thought 
 consistent with greatness. In like man- 
 ner, he united an utter superiority to the
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 229 
 
 world, to its pleasures and ordinary in- 
 terests, with suavity of manners and 
 freedom from austerity. He joined 
 strong feeling and self-possession ; an 
 indignant sensibility to sin, and compas- 
 sion to the sinner ; an intense devotion 
 to his work, and calmness under opposi- 
 tion and ill success ; a universal philan- 
 thropy, and a susceptibility of private 
 attachments ; the authority which be- 
 came the Saviour of the world, and the 
 tenderness and gratitude of a son. Such 
 was the Author of our religion. And 
 is his character to be explained by im- 
 posture or insane enthusiasm ? Does it 
 not bear the unambiguous marks of a 
 heavenly origin ? 
 
 Perhaps it may be said this character 
 never existed. Then the invention of 
 it is to be explained, and the reception 
 which this fiction met with ; and these 
 perhaps are as difficult of explanation on 
 natural principles as its real existence. 
 Christ's history bears all the marks of 
 reality ; a more frank, simple, unlabor- 
 ed, unostentatious narrative was never 
 penned. Besides, his character, if in- 
 vented, must have been an invention of 
 singular difficulty, because no models ex- 
 isted on which to frame it. He stands 
 alone in the records of time. The concep- 
 tion of a being, proposing such new and 
 exalted ends, and governed by higher 
 principles than the progress of society had 
 developed, implies singular intellectual 
 power. That several individuals should 
 join in equally vivid conceptions of this 
 character, and should not merely de- 
 scribe in general terms the fictitious be- 
 ing to whom it was attributed, but should 
 introduce him into real life, should 
 place him in a great variety of cir- 
 cumstances, in connection with various 
 ranks of men, with friends and foes, and 
 should in all preserve his identity, show 
 the same great and singular mind always 
 acting in harmony with itself ; this is a 
 supposition hardly credible, and, when 
 the circumstances of the writers of the 
 New Testament are considered, seems 
 to be as inexplicable on human prin- 
 ciples as what I before suggested, the 
 composition of Newton's "Principia" 
 by a savage. The character of Christ, 
 though delineated in an age of great 
 moral darkness, has stood the scrutiny of 
 ages ; and, in proportion as men's moral 
 sentiments have been refined, its beauty 
 has been more seen and felt. To suppose 
 
 it invented is to suppose that its authors, 
 outstripping their age, had attained to a 
 singular delicacy and elevation of moral 
 perception and feeling. But these at- 
 tainments are not very reconcilable with 
 the character of its authors, supposing 
 it to be a fiction ; that is, with the char- 
 acter of habitual liars and impious de- 
 ceivers. 
 
 But we are not only unable to discover 
 powers adequate to this invention. There 
 must have been motives for it ; for men 
 do not make great efforts without strong 
 motives ; and, in the whole compass of 
 human incitements, we challenge the in- 
 fidel to suggest any which could have 
 prompted to the work now to be ex- 
 plained. 
 
 Once more, it must be recollected that 
 this invention, if it were one, was re- 
 ceived as real at a period so near to the 
 time ascribed to Christ's appearance 
 that the means of detecting it were in- 
 finite. That men should send out such 
 a forgery, and that it should prevail 
 and triumph, are circumstances not eas- 
 ily reconcilable with the principles of 
 our nature. 
 
 The character of Christ, then, was 
 real. Its reality is the only explanation 
 of the mighty revolution produced by 
 his religion. And how can you account 
 for it, but by that cause to which he 
 always referred it, a mission from the 
 Father ? 
 
 Next to the character of Christ, his 
 religion might be shown to abound in 
 circumstances which contradict and re- 
 pel the idea of a human origin. For 
 example, its representations of the pater- 
 nal character of God ; its inculcation of 
 a universal charity ; the stress which it 
 lays on inward purity ; its substitution 
 of a spiritual worship for the forms 
 and ceremonies which everywhere had 
 usurped the name and extinguished the 
 life of religion ; its preference of humil- 
 ity, and of the mild, unostentatious, 
 passive virtues, to the dazzling qualities 
 which had monopolized men's admira- 
 tion ; its consistent and bright discover- 
 ies of immortality ; its adaptation to the 
 wants of man as a sinner ; its adaptation 
 to all the conditions, capacities, and 
 sufferings of human nature ; its pure, 
 sublime, yet practicable morality ; its 
 high and generous motives ; and its fit- 
 ness to form a character which plainly 
 prepares for a higher life than the pres-
 
 230 
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION, 
 
 ent ; these are peculiarities of Chris- 
 tianity, which will strike us more and 
 more in proportion as we understand 
 distinctly the circumstances of the age 
 and country in which this religion ap- 
 peared, and for which no adequate hu- 
 man cause has been or can be assigned. 
 Passing over these topics, each of 
 which might be enlarged into a dis- 
 course, I will make but one remark on 
 this religion, which strikes my own 
 mind very forcibly. Since its introduc- 
 tion, human nature has made great 
 progress, and society experienced great 
 changes ; and in this advanced condi- 
 tion of the world Christianity, instead of 
 losing its application and importance, is 
 found to be more and more congenial 
 and adapted to man's nature and wants. 
 Men have outgrown the other institu- 
 tions of that period when Christianity 
 appeared, its philosophy, its modes of 
 warfare, its policy, its public and private 
 economy ; but Christianity has never 
 shrunk as intellect has opened, but has 
 always kept in advance of men's facul- 
 ties, and unfolded nobler views in pro- 
 portion as they have ascended. The 
 highest powers and affections which our 
 nature has developed find more than ad- 
 equate objects in this religion. Christi- 
 anity is indeed peculiarly fitted to the 
 more improved stages of society, to the 
 more delicate sensibilities of refined 
 minds, and especially to that dissatis- 
 faction with the present state which al- 
 ways grows with the growth of our moral 
 powers and affections. As men advance 
 in civilization, they become susceptible 
 of mental sufferings to which ruder ages 
 are strangers ; and these Christianity is 
 fitted to assuage. Imagination and in- 
 tellect become more restless ; and Chris- 
 tianity brings them tranquillity, by the 
 eternal and magnificent truths, the sol- 
 emn and unbounded prospects, which it 
 unfolds. This fitness of our religion to 
 more advanced stages of society than 
 that in which it was introduced, to wants 
 of human nature not then developed, 
 seems to me very striking. The relig- 
 ion bears the marks of having come from 
 a Being who perfectly understood the 
 human mind, and had power to provide 
 for its progress. This feature of Chris- 
 tianity is of the nature of prophecy. It 
 was an anticipation of future and dis- 
 tant ages ; and, when we consider among 
 whom our religion sprung, where, but in 
 
 God, can we find an explanation of this 
 peculiarity ? 
 
 I have now offered a few hints on the 
 character of Christ, and on the charac- 
 ter of his religion : and before quitting 
 these topics I would observe, that they 
 form a strong presumption in favor of 
 the miraculous facts of the Christian his- 
 tory. These miracles were not wrought 
 by a man whose character in other re- 
 spects was ordinary. They were acts 
 of a being, whose mind was as singular 
 as his works, who spoke and acted with 
 more than human authority, whose moral 
 qualities and sublime purposes were in 
 accordance with superhuman powers. 
 Christ's miracles are in unison with his 
 whole character, and bear a proportion 
 to it like that which we observe in the 
 most harmonious productions of nature ; 
 and in this way they receive from it 
 great confirmation. And the same pre- 
 sumption in their favor arises from his 
 religion. That a religion carrying in it- 
 self such marks of divinity, and so inex- 
 plicable on human principles, should 
 receive outward confirmations from 
 Omnipotence, is not surprising. The 
 extraordinary character of the religion 
 accords with and seems to demand ex- 
 traordinary interpositions in its behalf. 
 Its miracles are not solitary, naked, un- 
 explained, disconnected events, but are 
 bound up with a system which is worthy 
 of God, and impressed with God : which 
 occupies a large space, and is operating, 
 with great and increasing energy, in 
 human affairs. 
 
 As yet I have not touched on what 
 seem to many writers the strongest 
 proofs of Christianity, I mean the di- 
 rect evidences of its miracles ; by which 
 we mean the testimony borne to them, in- 
 cluding the character, conduct, and con- 
 dition of the witnesses. . These I have not 
 time to unfold ; nor is this labor needed ; 
 for Paley's inestimable work, which is one 
 of your classical books, has stated these 
 proofs with great clearness and power. 
 I would only observe that they may all 
 be resolved into this single principle ; 
 namely, that the Christian miracles 
 were originally believed under such cir- 
 cumstances that this belief can only be 
 explained by their actual occurrence. 
 That Christianity was received at first 1 
 on the ground of miracles, and that its 
 first preachers and converts proved the 
 depth and strength of their conviction
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 231 
 
 of these facts by attesting them in suf- 
 ferings and in death, we know from the 
 most ancient records which relate to this 
 religion, both Christian and heathen ; 
 and, in fact, this conviction can alone 
 explain their adherence to Christianity. 
 Now, that this conviction could only 
 have sprung from the reality of the mir- 
 acles, we infer from the known circum- 
 stances of these witnesses, whose pas- 
 sions, interests, and strongest prejudices 
 were originally hostile to the new relig- 
 ion ; whose motives for examining with 
 care the facts on which it rested were as 
 urgent and solemn, and whose means 
 and opportunities of ascertaining their 
 truth were as ample and unfailing, as 
 can be conceived to conspire ; so that 
 the supposition of their falsehood can- 
 not be admitted without subverting our 
 trust in human judgment and human 
 testimony under the most favorable cir- 
 cumstances for discovering truth ; that 
 is, without introducing universal scepti- 
 cism. 
 
 There is one class of Christian evi- 
 dences to which I have but slightly 
 referred, but which has struck with pe- 
 culiar force men of reflecting minds. I 
 refer to the marks of truth and reality 
 which are found in the Christian rec- 
 ords ; to the internal proofs which the 
 books of the New Testament carry with 
 them of having been written by men who 
 lived in the first age of Christianity, who 
 believed and felt its truth, who bore a 
 part in the labors and conflicts which 
 attended its establishment, and who 
 wrote from personal knowledge and 
 deep conviction. A few remarks to il- 
 lustrate the nature and power of these 
 internal proofs, which are furnished by 
 the books of the New Testament, I will 
 now subjoin. 
 
 The New Testament consists of his- 
 tories and epistles. The historical books, 
 namely, the Gospels and the Acts, are a 
 continued narrative, embracing many 
 years, and professing to give the history 
 of the rise and progress of the religion. 
 Now it is worthy of observation that 
 these writings completely answer their 
 end ; that they completely solve the 
 problem, how this peculiar religion grew 
 up and established itself in the world ; 
 that they furnish precise and adequate 
 causes for this stupendous revolution in 
 human affairs. It is also worthy of re- 
 mark that they relate a series of facts 
 
 which are not only connected with one 
 another, but are intimately linked with 
 the long series which has followed them, 
 and agree accurately with subsequent 
 history, so as to account for and sustain 
 it. Now, that a collection of fictitious 
 narratives, coming from different hands, 
 comprehending many years, and spread- 
 ing over many countries, should not only 
 form a consistent whole, when taken by 
 themselves, but should also connect and 
 interweave themselves with real history 
 so naturally and intimately as to furnish 
 no clue for detection, as to exclude the 
 appearance of incongruity and discord- 
 ance, and as to give an adequate ex- 
 planation, and the only explanation, of 
 acknowledged events, of the most im- 
 portant revolution in society ; this is a 
 supposition from which an intelligent 
 man at once revolts, and which, if ad- 
 mitted, would shake a principal founda- 
 tion of history. 
 
 I have before spoken of the unity and 
 consistency of Christ's character as de- 
 veloped in the Gospels, and of the agree- 
 ment of the different writers in giving 
 us the singular features of his mind. 
 Now there are the same marks of truth 
 running through the whole of these nar- 
 ratives. For example, the effects pro- 
 duced by Jesus on the various classes 
 of society ; the different feelings of ad- 
 miration, attachment, and envy, which 
 he called forth ; the various expressions 
 of these feelings ; the prejudices, mis- 
 takes, and gradual illumination of his 
 disciples ; these are all given to us with 
 such marks of truth and reality as could 
 not easily be counterfeited. The whole 
 history is precisely such as might be 
 expected from the actual appearance of 
 such a person as Jesus Christ, in such a 
 state of society as then existed. 
 
 The Epistles, if possible, abound in 
 marks of truth and reality even more 
 than the Gospels. They are imbued 
 thoroughly with the spirit of the first 
 age of Christianity. They bear all 
 the marks of having come from men 
 plunged in the conflicts which the new 
 religion excited, alive to its interests, 
 identified with its fortunes. They be- 
 tray the very state of mind which must 
 have been generated by the peculiar 
 condition of the first propagators of the 
 religion. They are letters written on 
 real business, intended for immediate 
 effects, designed to meet prejudices and
 
 232 
 
 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 passions which such a religion must at 
 first have awakened. They contain not 
 a trace of the circumstances of a later 
 age, or of the feelings, impressions, and 
 modes of thinking by which later times 
 were characterized, and from which later 
 writers could not easily have escaped. 
 The letters of Paul have a remarkable 
 agreement with his history. They are 
 precisely such as might be expected 
 from a man of a vehement mind, who 
 had been brought up in the schools of 
 Jewish literature, who had been con- 
 verted by a sudden, overwhelming mir- 
 acle, who had been intrusted with the 
 preaching of the new religion to the Gen- 
 tiles, and who was everywhere met by 
 the prejudices and persecuting spirit of 
 his own nation. They are full of ob- 
 scurities growing out of these points of 
 Paul's history and character, and out of 
 the circumstances of the infant church, 
 and which nothing but an intimate ac- 
 quaintance with that early period can 
 illustrate. This remarkable infusion of 
 the spirit of the first age into the Chris- 
 tian records cannot easily be explained 
 but by the fact that they were written in 
 that age by the real and zealous propa- 
 gators of Christianity, and that -they are 
 records of real convictions and of actual 
 events. 
 
 There is another evidence of Chris- 
 tianity still more internal than any on 
 which I have yet dwelt, an evidence 
 to be felt rather than described, but not 
 less real because founded on feeling. I 
 refer to that conviction of the divine 
 original of our religion which springs up 
 and continually gains strength in those 
 who apply it habitually to their -tempers 
 and lives, and who imbibe its spirit and 
 hopes. In such men there is a con- 
 sciousness of the adaptation of Chris- 
 tianity to their noblest faculties, a 
 consciousness of its exalting and con- 
 soling influences, of its power to confer 
 the true happiness of human nature, to 
 
 give that peace which the world cannot 
 give ; which assures them that it is not 
 of earthly origin, but a ray from the 
 Everlasting Light, a stream from the 
 Fountain of heavenly wisdom and love. 
 This is the evidence which sustains the 
 faith of thousands who never read and 
 cannot understand the learned books of 
 Christian apologists, who want, perhaps, 
 words to explain the ground of their 
 belief, but whose faith is of adamantine 
 firmness, who hold the Gospel with a 
 conviction more intimate and unwavering' 
 than mere argument ever produced. 
 
 But I must tear myself from a subject 
 which opens upon me continually as I 
 proceed. Imperfect as this discussion 
 is, the conclusion, I trust, is placed be- 
 yond doubt, that Christianity is true. 
 And, my hearers, if true, it is the greatest 
 of all truths, deserving and demanding 
 our reverent attention and fervent grati- 
 tude. This religion must never be con- 
 founded with our common blessings. It 
 is a revelation of pardon which, as sin- 
 ners, we all need. Still more, it is a 
 revelation of human immortality, a 
 doctrine which, however undervalued 
 amidst the bright anticipations of inex- 
 perienced youth, is found to be our 
 strength and consolation, and the only 
 effectual spring of persevering and vic- 
 torious virtue, when the realities of life 
 have scattered our visionary hopes ; 
 when pain, disappointment, and tempta- 
 tion press upon us ; when this world's 
 enjoyments are found unable to quench 
 that deep thirst of happiness which 
 burns in every breast ; when friends, 
 whom we love as our own souls, die ; 
 and our own graves open before us. 
 To all who hear me, and especially to 
 my young hearers, I would say, let the 
 truth of this religion be the strongest 
 conviction of your understandings ; let 
 its motives and precepts sway with an 
 absolute power your characters and 
 lives.
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 233 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 ROMANS i. 16 : "I am not ashamed of the Gospel 
 of Christ." 
 
 SUCH was the language of Paul ; and 
 every man will respond to it who com- 
 prehends the character and has felt the 
 influence of Christianity. In a former 
 discourse, I proposed to state to you 
 some reasons for adopting as our own 
 the words of the Apostle, for joining in 
 his open and resolute testimony to the 
 gospel of Christ. I observed that I was 
 not ashamed of the gospel, first, because 
 it is true, and to this topic the discourse 
 was devoted. I wish now to continue 
 the subject, and to state another ground 
 of undisguised and unshaken adhe- 
 rence to Christianity. I say, then, I am 
 not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, be- 
 cause it is a rational religion. It agrees 
 with reason ; therefore I count it worthy 
 of acceptation ; therefore I do not blush 
 to enroll myself among its friends and 
 advocates. The object of the present 
 discourse will be the illustration of this 
 claim of Christianity. I wish to show 
 you the harmony which subsists be- 
 tween the light of God's word and that 
 primitive light of reason which He has 
 kindled within us to be our perpetual 
 guide. If, in treating this subject, I 
 shall come into conflict with any class 
 of Christians, I trust I shall not be con- 
 sidered as imputing to them any moral 
 or intellectual defect. I judge men by 
 their motives, dispositions, and lives, 
 and not by their speculations or peculiar 
 opinions ; and I esteem piety and virtue 
 equally venerable whether found in 
 friend or foe. 
 
 Christianity is a rational religion. 
 Were it not so, I should be ashamed 
 to profess it. I am aware that it is 
 the fashion with some to decry reason, 
 and to set up revelation as an opposite 
 authority. This error, though counte- 
 nanced by good men, and honestly main- 
 tained for the defence of the Christian 
 cause, ought to be earnestly withstood ; 
 for it. virtually surrenders our religion 
 into the hands of the unbeliever. It 
 saps the foundation to strengthen the 
 
 building. It places our religion in hos- 
 tility to human nature, and gives to' its 
 adversaries the credit of vindicating the 
 rights and noblest powers of the mind. 
 
 We must never forget that our ra- 
 tional nature is the greatest gift of God. 
 For this we owe him our chief gratitude. 
 It is a greater gift than any outward aid 
 or benefaction, and no doctrine which 
 degrades it can come from its Author. 
 The development of it is the end of our 
 being. Revelation is but a means, and 
 is designed to concur with nature, prov- 
 idence, and God's spirit, in carrying for- 
 ward reason to its perfection. I glory 
 in Christianity because it enlarges, in- 
 vigorates,, exalts my rational nature. If 
 I could not be a Christian without ceas- 
 ing to be rational, I should not hesitate 
 as to my choice. I feel myself bound 
 to sacrifice to Christianity property, 
 reputation, life ; but I ought not to 
 sacrifice to any religion that reason 
 which lifts me above the brute and 
 constitutes me a man. I can conceive 
 no sacrilege greater than to prostrate or 
 renounce the highest faculty which we 
 have derived from God. In so doing 
 we should offer violence to the divinity 
 within us. Christianity wages no war 
 with reason, but is one with it, and is 
 given to be its helper and friend. 
 
 I wish, 'in the present discourse, to 
 illustrate and confirm the views now 
 given. My remarks will be arranged 
 under two heads. I propose, first, to 
 show that Christianity is founded on 
 and supposes the authority of reason, 
 and cannot therefore oppose it without 
 subverting itself. My object in this 
 part of the discourse will be to expose 
 the error of those who hope to serve 
 revelation by disparaging reason. I 
 shall then, in the second place, compare 
 Christianity and the light of reason, to 
 show their accordance ; and shall prove, 
 by descending to particulars, that Chris- 
 tianity is eminently a rational religion. 
 My aim, under this head, will be to vin- 
 dicate the gospel from the reproaches of 
 the unbeliever, and to strengthen the
 
 234 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 faith and attachment of its friends. 
 Before 1 begin, let me observe that 
 this discussion, from the nature of the 
 subject, must assume occasionally an 
 abstract form, and wilt demand serious 
 attention. I am to speak of reason, the 
 chief faculty of the mind ; and no sim- 
 plicity of language in treating such a 
 topic can exempt the hearer from the 
 necessity of patient effort of .thought. 
 
 I am to begin with showing that the 
 Christian revelation is founded on the 
 authority of reason, and consequently 
 cannot oppose it ; and here it may be 
 proper to settle the meaning of the 
 word reason. One of the most impor- 
 tant steps towards the truth is to de- 
 termine the import of terms. Very 
 often fierce controversies have sprung 
 from obscurity of language, and the 
 parties, on explaining themselves, have 
 discovered that they have been spend- 
 ing their strength in a war of words. 
 What, then, is reason ? 
 
 The term reason is used with so much 
 latitude that to fix its precise limits is 
 not an easy task. In this respect it 
 agrees with the other words which ex- 
 press the intellectual faculties. One 
 idea, however, is always attached to it. 
 All men understand by reason the high- 
 est faculty or energy of the mind. With- 
 out laboring for a philosophical definition 
 that will comprehend all its exercises, I 
 shall satisfy myself with pointing out 
 two of its principal characteristics or 
 functions. 
 
 First, it belongs to reason to compre- 
 hend universal truths. This is among 
 its most important offices. There are 
 particular and there are universal truths. 
 The last are the noblest,* and the ca- 
 pacity of perceiving them is the distinc- 
 tion of intelligent beings ; and these 
 belong to reason. Let me give my 
 meaning by some illustrations. I see 
 a stone falling to the ground. This is 
 a particular truth ; but I do not stop 
 here. I believe that not only this par- 
 ticular stone falls towards the earth, but 
 that every particle of matter, in what- 
 ever world, tends, or, as is sometimes 
 said, is attracted towards all other mat- 
 ter. Here is a universal truth, a prin- 
 ciple extending to the whole material 
 creation, and essential to its existence. 
 This truth belongs to reason. Again, I 
 see a man producing some effect, a 
 manufacture, a house. Here is a par- 
 
 ticular truth. But I am not only capa- 
 ble of seeing particular cai'ses and 
 effects ; I am sure that every thing which 
 begins to exist, no matter when or where, 
 must have a cause, that no change ever 
 has taken place or ever will take place 
 without a cause. Here is a universal 
 truth, something true here and every- 
 where, true now and through eternity ; 
 and this truth belongs to reason. Again, 
 I see with my eyes, I traverse with my 
 hands, a limited space ; but this is not 
 all. I am sure that, beyond the limits 
 which my limbs or senses reach, there 
 is an unbounded space ; that, go where 
 I will, an infinity will spread around me. 
 Here is another universal truth, and this 
 belongs to reason. The idea of infinity 
 is indeed one of the noblest conceptions 
 of this faculty. Again, I see a man con- 
 ferring a good on another. Here is a 
 particular truth or perception. But my 
 mind is not confined to this. I see and 
 feel that it is right for all intelligent be- 
 ings, exist when or where they may, to 
 do good, and wrong for them to seek 
 the misery of others. Here is a univer- 
 sal truth, a law extending from God 
 to the lowest human being ; and this 
 belongs to reason. I trust I have con- 
 veyed to you my views in regard to the 
 first characteristic of this highest power 
 of the soul. Its office is to discern uni- 
 versal truths, great and eternal princi- 
 ples. But it does not stop here. Reason 
 is also exercised in applying these uni- 
 versal truths to particular cases, beings, 
 events. For example, reason teaches 
 me, as we have seen, that all changes 
 without exception require a cause ; and, 
 in conformity to this principle, it prompts 
 me to seek the particular causes of the 
 endless changes and appearances which 
 fall under my observation. Thus reason 
 is perpetually at work on the ideas fur- 
 nished us by the senses, by conscious- 
 ness, by memory, associating them 
 with its own great truths, or investing 
 them with its own universality. 
 
 I now proceed to the second function 
 of reason, which is indeed akin to the 
 first. Reason is the power which tends 
 and is perpetually striving to reduce our 
 various thoughts to unity or consistency. 
 Perhaps the most fundamental convic- 
 tion of reason is, that all truths agree 
 together, that inconsistency ^ the 
 mark of error. Its intensest, most ear- 
 nest effort is to bring concord into the
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 235 
 
 intellect, to reconcile what seem to be 
 clashing views. On the observation of 
 a new fact, reason strives to incorporate 
 it with former knowledge. It can allow 
 nothing to stand separate in the mind. 
 It labors to bring together scattered 
 truths, and to give them the strength 
 and beauty of a vital order. Its end 
 and delight is harmony. It is shocked 
 by an inconsistency in belief, just as a 
 fine ear is wounded by a discord. It 
 carries within itself an instinctive con- 
 sciousness that all things which exist 
 are intimately bound together ; and it 
 cannot rest until it has connected what- 
 ever we witness with the infinite whole. 
 Reason, according to this view, is the 
 most glorious form or exercise of the 
 intellectual nature. It corresponds to 
 the unity of God and the universe, and 
 seeks to make the soul the image and 
 mirror of this sublime unity. 
 
 I have thus given my views of reason ; 
 but, to prevent all perversion, before I 
 proceed to the main discussion, let me 
 offer a word or two more of explana- 
 tion. In this discourse, when I speak 
 of the accordance of revelation with 
 reason, I suppose this faculty to be used 
 deliberately, conscientiously, and with 
 the love of truth. Men often baptize 
 with the name of reason their prejudices, 
 unexamined notions, or opinions adopted 
 through interest, pride, or other unwor- 
 thy biases. It is not uncommon to 
 hear those who sacrifice the plainest 
 dictates of the rational nature to im- 
 pulse and passion, setting themselves up 
 as oracles of reason. Now, when I say 
 revelation must accord with reason, I do 
 not mean by the term the corrupt and 
 superficial opinions of men who have 
 betrayed and debased their rational 
 powers. I mean reason calmly, hon- 
 estly exercised for the acquisition of 
 truth and the invigoration of virtue. 
 
 After these explanations, I proceed to 
 the discussion of the two leading prin- 
 ciples to which this discourse is de- 
 voted. 
 
 First, I am to show that revelation is 
 founded on the authority of reason, and 
 cannot therefore oppose or disparage it 
 without subverting itself. Let me state 
 a few of the considerations which con- 
 vince me of the truth of this position. 
 The -first is, that reason alone makes us 
 capable of receiving a revelation. It 
 must previously exist and operate, or 
 
 we should be wholly unprepared for the 
 communications of Christ. Revelation, 
 then, is built on reason. You will see 
 the truth of these remarks if you will 
 consider to whom revelation is sent. 
 Why is it given to men rather than to 
 brutes ? Why have not God's messen- 
 gers gone to the fields to proclaim his 
 glad tidings to bird and beast ? The 
 answer is obvious. These want reason ; 
 and wanting this, they have no capacity 
 or preparation for revealed ttuth. And 
 not only would revelation be lost on the 
 brute ; let it speak to the child, before 
 his rational faculties have been awak- 
 ened, and before some ideas of duty 
 and his own nature have been devel- 
 oped, and it might as well speak to a 
 stone. Reason is the preparation and 
 ground of revelation. 
 
 This truth will be still more obvious if 
 we consider not only to whom, but in 
 what way, the Christian revelation is 
 communicated. How is it conveyed ? 
 In words. Did it make these words ? 
 No. They were in use ages before its 
 birth. Again I ask, Did it make the 
 ideas or thoughts which these words 
 express ? No. If the hearers of Jesus 
 had not previously attached ideas to the 
 terms which he employed, they could 
 not have received his meaning. He 
 might as well have spoken to them in a 
 foreign tongue. Thus the ideas which 
 enter into Christianity subsisted be- 
 fore. They were ideas of reason ; so 
 that to this faculty revelation owes the 
 materials of which it is composed. 
 
 Revelation, we must remember, is not 
 our earliest teacher. Man is not born 
 with the single power of reading God's 
 word, and sent immediately to that 
 guide. His eyes open first on another 
 volume, that of the creation. Long 
 before he can read the Bible he looks 
 round on the earth and sky. He reads 
 the countenances of his friends, and 
 hears and understands their voices. He 
 looks, too, by degrees, within himself, 
 and acquires some ideas of his own soul. 
 Thus his first school is that of nature 
 and reason, and this is necessary to 
 prepare him for a communication from 
 heaven. Revelation does not find the 
 mind a blank, a void, prepared to receive 
 unresistingly whatever may be offered ; 
 but finds it in possession of various 
 knowledge from nature and experience, 
 and, still more, in possession of great
 
 236 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION, 
 
 principles, fundamental truths, moral 
 ideas, which are derived from itself, and 
 which are the germs of all its future im- 
 provement. This last view is peculiarly 
 important. The mind does not receive 
 every thing from abroad. Its great 
 ideas arise from itself, and by those na- 
 tive lights it reads and comprehends the 
 volumes of nature and revelation. We 
 speak, indeed, of nature and revelation 
 as making known to us an intelligent 
 First Gauge ; but the ideas of intelli- 
 gence and causation we derive originally 
 from our own nature. The elements of 
 the idea of God we gather from our- 
 selves. Power, wisdom, love, virtue, 
 beauty, and happiness, words which 
 contain all that is glorious in the uni- 
 verse and interesting in our existence, 
 express attributes of the mind, and 
 are understood by us only through con- 
 sciousness. It is true, these ideas or 
 principles of reason are often obscured 
 by thick clouds and mingled with many 
 and deplorable errors. Still, they are 
 never lost. Christianity recognizes them, 
 is built on them, and needs them as its 
 interpreters. If an illustration of these 
 views be required, I would point you to 
 what may be called the most funda- 
 mental idea of religion, I mean the 
 idea of right, of duty. Do we derive 
 this originally and wholly from sacred 
 books ? Has not every human being, 
 whether born within or beyond the 
 bounds of revelation, a sense of the dis- 
 tinction between right and wrong ? Is 
 there not an earlier voice than revela- 
 tion approving or rebuking men accord- 
 ing to their deeds ? In barbarous ages is 
 not conscience heard ? And does it not 
 grow more articulate with the progress of 
 society ? Christianity does not create, 
 but presupposes the idea of duty ; and 
 the same may be said of other great 
 convictions. Revelation, then, does not 
 stand alone, nor is it addressed to a 
 blank and passive mind. It was meant 
 to be a joint worker with other teachers, 
 with nature, with Providence, with con- 
 science, with our rational powers ; and 
 as these all are given us by God, they 
 cannot differ from each other. God 
 must agree with himself. He has but 
 one voice. It is man who speaks with 
 jarring tongues. Nothing but harmony 
 can come from the Creator ; and, accord- 
 ingly, a religion claiming to be from God 
 can give no surer proof of falsehood than 
 
 by contradicting those previous truths 
 which God is teaching by our very nat- 
 ure. We have thus seen that reason 
 prepares us for a divine communication, 
 and that it furnishes the ideas or mate- 
 rials of which revelation consists. This 
 is my first consideration. 
 
 I proceed to a second. I affirm, then, 
 that revelation rests on the authority of 
 reason, because to this faculty it submits 
 the evidences of its truth, and nothing 
 but the approving sentence of reason 
 binds us to receive and obey it. This is 
 a very weighty consideration. Chris- 
 tianity, in placing itself before the tribu- 
 nal of reason, and in resting its claims 
 on the sanction of this faculty, is one of 
 the chief witnesses to the authority and 
 dignity of our rational nature. That I 
 have ascribed to this faculty its true and 
 proper office may be easily made to 
 appear. I take the New Testament in 
 hand, and on what ground do I receive 
 its truths as divine ? I see nothing on 
 its pages but the same letters in which 
 other books are written. No miraculous 
 voice from heaven assures me that it is 
 God's word, nor does any mysterious 
 voice within my soul command me to 
 believe the supernatural works of Christ. 
 How, then, shall I settle the question of 
 the origin of this religion ? I must 
 examine it by the same rational faculties 
 by which other subjects are tried. I 
 must ask what are its evidences, and I 
 must lay them before reason, the only 
 power by which evidence can be weighed. 
 I have not a distinct faculty given me 
 for judging a revelation. I have not 
 two understandings, one for inquiring 
 into God's word and another into his 
 works. As with the same bodily eye I 
 now look on the earth, now on the heav- 
 ens, so with the same power of reason I 
 examine now nature, now revelation. 
 Reason must collect and weigh the 
 various proofs of Christianity. It must 
 especially compare this system with those 
 great moral convictions which are writ- 
 ten by the finger of God on the heart, 
 and which make man a law to himself. 
 A religion subverting these it must not 
 hesitate to reject, be its evidences what 
 they may. A religion, for example, 
 commanding us to hate and injure soci- 
 ety, reason must instantly discard, with- 
 out even waiting to examine its proofs. 
 From these views we learn, not only that 
 it is the province of reason to judge of
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 237 
 
 the truth of Christianity, but, what is 
 still more important, that the rules or 
 tests by which it judges are of its own 
 dictation. The laws which it applies in 
 this case have their origin in itself. No 
 one will pretend that revelation can pre- 
 scribe the principles by which the ques- 
 tion of its own truth should be settled ; 
 for, until proved to be true, it has no 
 authority. Reason must prescribe the 
 tests or standards to which a professed 
 communication from God should be re- 
 ferred ; and among these none are more 
 important than that moral law which be- 
 longs to the very essence and is the 
 deepest conviction of the rational nature. 
 Revelation, then, rests on reason, and 
 in opposing it would act for its own 
 destruction. 
 
 I have given two views. I have shown 
 that revelation draws its ideas or mate- 
 rials from reason, and that it appeals to 
 this power as the judge of its truth. I 
 now assert, thirdly, that it rests on the 
 authority of reason, because it needs 
 and expects this faculty to be its inter- 
 preter, and without this aid would be 
 worse than useless. How is the right 
 of interpretation, the real meaning, of 
 Scriptures to be ascertained ? I answer, 
 by reason. I know of no process by 
 which the true sense of the New Tes- 
 tament is to pass from the page into my 
 mind without the use of my rational 
 faculties. It will not be pretended that 
 this book is so exceedingly plain, its 
 words so easy, its sentences so short, 
 its meaning so exposed on the surface, 
 that the whole truth may be received in 
 a moment and without any intellectual 
 effort. There is no such miraculous 
 simplicity in the Scriptures. In truth, 
 no book can be written so simply as to 
 need no exercise of reason. Almost 
 every word has more than one meaning, 
 and judgment is required to select the 
 particular sense intended by the writer. 
 Of all books, perhaps the Scriptures 
 need most the use of reason for their 
 just interpretation ; and this, not from 
 any imperfection, but from the strength, 
 boldness, and figurative character of 
 their style, and from the distance of the 
 time when they were written. I open 
 the New Testament and my eye lights on 
 this passage : " If thy right hand offend 
 thee, cut it off and cast it from thee." 
 Is this language to be interpreted in its 
 plainest and most obvious sense ? Then 
 
 I must mutilate my body, and become a 
 suicide. I look again, and I find Jesus 
 using these words to t"he Jews : " Fill ye 
 up the measure of your iniquities." Am 
 I to interpret this according to the letter 
 or the first ideas which it suggests ? 
 Then Jesus commanded his hearers to 
 steep themselves in crime, and was him- 
 self a minister of sin. It is only by a 
 deliberate use of reason that we can 
 penetrate beneath the figurative, hyper- 
 bolical, and often obscure style of the 
 New Testament, to the real meaning. 
 Let me go to the Bible, dismissing my 
 reason and taking the first impression 
 which the words convey, and there is no 
 absurdity, however gross, into which I 
 shall not fall. I shall ascribe a limited 
 body to God, and unbounded knowledge 
 to man, for I read of God having limbs, 
 and of man knowing all things. Noth- 
 ing is plainer than that I must compare 
 passage with passage, and limit one by 
 another, and especially limit all by those 
 plain and universal principles of reason 
 which are called common-sense, or I 
 shall make revelation the patron of every 
 folly and vice. So essential is reason to 
 the interpretation of the Christian rec- 
 ords. Revelation rests upon its author- 
 ity. Can it then oppose it, or teach us 
 to hold it in light esteem ? 
 
 I have now furnished the proofs of 
 my first position, that revelation is 
 founded on reason ; and in discussing 
 this, I have wished not only to support 
 the main doctrine, but to teach you to 
 reverence, more perhaps than you have 
 done, your rational nature. This has 
 been decried by theologians, until men 
 have ceased to feel its sacredness and 
 dignity. It ought to be regarded as 
 God's greatest gift. It is his image 
 within us. To renounce it would be to 
 offer a cruel violence to ourselves, to 
 take our place among the brutes. Better 
 pluck out the eye, better quench the 
 light of the body than the light within 
 us. We all feel that the loss of reason, 
 when produced by disease, is the most 
 terrible calamity of life ; and we look 
 on a hospital for the insane as the re- 
 ceptacle for the most pitiable of our 
 race. But, in one view, insanity is not 
 so great an evil as the prostration of 
 reason to a religious sect or a religious 
 chief : for the first is a visitation of 
 Providence, the last is a voluntary act, 
 the work of our own hands.
 
 238 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 I am aware that those who have spoken 
 most contemptuously of human reason 
 have acted from a good motive, their 
 aim has been to exalt revelation. They 
 have thought that by magnifying this as 
 the only means of divine teaching, they 
 were adding to its dignity. But truth 
 gains nothing by exaggeration ; and 
 Christianity, as we have seen, is under- 
 mined by nothing more effectually than 
 by the sophistry which would bring dis- 
 credit on our rational powers. Revela- 
 tion needs no such support. For myself, 
 I do not find that to esteem Christianity, 
 I must think it the only source of in- 
 struction to which I must repair. I 
 need not make nature dumb to give 
 power or attraction to the teaching of 
 Christ. The last derives new interest 
 and confirmation from its harmony with 
 the first. Christianity would furnish a 
 weapon against itself, not easily repelled, 
 should it claim the distinction of being 
 the only light vouchsafed by God to 
 men ; for, in that case, it would repre- 
 sent a vast majority of the human race 
 as left by their Creator without guidance 
 or hope. I believe, and rejoice to be- 
 lieve, that a ray from heaven descends 
 on the path of every fellow-creature. 
 The heathen, though in darkness when 
 compared with the Christian, has still 
 his light ; and it comes from the same 
 source as our own, just as the same sun 
 dispenses, now the faint dawn, and now 
 the perfect day. Let not nature's teach- 
 ing be disparaged. It is from God as 
 truly as his word. It is sacred, as truly 
 as revelation. Both are manifestations 
 of one infinite mind, and harmonious 
 manifestations ; and without this agree- 
 ment the claims of Christianity could 
 not be sustained. 
 
 In offering these remarks, I have not 
 forgotten that they will expose me to 
 the reproach of ministering to " the 
 pride of reason ; " and I may be told 
 that there is no worse form of pride than 
 this. The charge is so common as to 
 deserve a moment's attention. It will 
 appear at once to be groundless, if you 
 consider that pride finds its chief nour- 
 ishment and delight in the idea of our 
 own superiority. It is built on some- 
 thing peculiar and distinctive, on some- 
 thing which separates us from others 
 and raises us above them, and not on 
 powers which we share with all around 
 us. Now, in speaking as I have done 
 
 of the worth and dignity of reason, I 
 have constantly regarded and repre- 
 sented this faculty as the common prop- 
 erty of all human beings. I have spoken 
 of its most important truths as universal 
 and unconfined, such as no individual 
 can monopolize or make the grounds of 
 personal distinction or elevation. I have 
 given, then, no occasion and furnished 
 no nutriment to pride. I know, indeed, 
 that the pride of reason or of intellect 
 exists ; but how does it chiefly manifest 
 itself ? Not in revering that rational 
 nature which all men have derived from 
 God ; but in exaggerating our particular 
 acquisitions or powers, in magnifying 
 our distinctive views, in looking con- 
 temptuously on other minds, in making 
 ourselves standards for our brethren, in 
 refusing new lights, and in attempting 
 to establish dominion over the under- 
 standings of those who are placed within 
 our influence. Such is the most common 
 form of the pride of intellect. It is a 
 vice confined to no sect, and perhaps 
 will be found to prevail most where it is 
 most disclaimed. 
 
 I doubt not that they who insist so 
 continually on the duty of exalting 
 Scripture above reason, consider them- 
 selves as particularly secured against 
 the pride of reason. Yet none, I appre- 
 hend, are more open to the charge. 
 Such -persons are singularly prone to 
 enforce their own interpretations of 
 Scripture on others, and to see peril 
 and crime in the adoption of different 
 views from their own. Now, let me ask, 
 by what power do these men interpret 
 revelation ? Is it not by their reason ? 
 Have they any faculties but the rational 
 ones by which to compare Scripture 
 with Scripture, to explain figurative lan- 
 guage, to form conclusions as to the will 
 of God ? Do they not employ on God's 
 word the same intellect as on his works ? 
 And are not their interpretations of both 
 equally results of reason? It follows, 
 that in imposing on others their expli- 
 cations of the Scriptures, they as truly 
 arrogate to themselves a superiority of 
 reason as if they should require con- 
 formity to their explanations of nature. 
 Nature and Scripture agree in this, that 
 they cannot be understood at a glance. 
 Both volumes demand patient investiga- 
 tion, and task all our powers of thought. 
 Accordingly, it is well known that as 
 much intellectual toil has been spent on
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 239 
 
 theological systems as on the natural 
 sciences : and unhappily it is not less 
 known that as much intellectual pride 
 has been manifested in framing and 
 defending the first as the last. I fear, 
 indeed, that this vice has clung with 
 peculiar obstinacy to the students of 
 revelation. Nowhere, I fear, have men 
 manifested such infatuated trust in their 
 own infallibility, such overweening fond- 
 ness for their own conclusions, such 
 positiveness, such impatience of contra- 
 diction, such arrogance towards the ad- 
 vocates of different opinions, as in the 
 interpretation of the Scriptures ; and 
 yet these very men, who so idolize their 
 own intellectual powers, profess to 
 humble reason, and consider a criminal 
 reliance on it as almost exclusively 
 chargeable on others. The true defence 
 against the pride of reason is, not to 
 speak of it contemptuously, but to rever- 
 ence it as God's inestimable gift to every 
 human being, and as given to all for 
 never-ceasing improvements, of which 
 we see but the dawn in the present 
 acquisitions of the noblest mind. 
 
 I have now completed my views of 
 the first principle which I laid down in 
 this discourse ; namely, that the Chris- 
 tian revelation rests on the authority of 
 reason. Of course, it cannot oppose 
 reason without undermining and de- 
 stroying , itself. I maintain, however, 
 that it does not oppose, that it per- 
 fectly accords with reason. It is a 
 rational religion. This is my second 
 great position, and to this I ask your 
 continued attention. This topic might 
 easily be extended to a great length. I 
 might state, in succession, all the prin- 
 ciples of Christianity, and show their 
 accordance with reason. But I be- 
 lieve that more general views will be 
 more useful, and such only can be 
 given within the compass of a dis- 
 course. 
 
 In the account which I gave you of 
 reason in the beginning of this dis- 
 course, I confined myself to two of its 
 functions ; namely, its comprehension 
 of universal truths, and the effort it 
 constantly makes to reduce the thoughts 
 to harmony or consistency. Universal- 
 ity and consistency are among the chief 
 attributes of reason. Do we find these 
 in Christianity ? If so, its claim to the 
 character of a rational religion will be 
 established. These tests I will there- 
 
 fore apply to it, and I will begin with 
 consistency. 
 
 That a religion be rational, nothing 
 more is necessary than that its truths 
 should consist or agree with one an- 
 other, and with all other truths, whether 
 derived from outward nature or our own 
 souls. Now I affirm that the Christian 
 doctrines have this agreement ; and the 
 more we examine, the more brightly 
 this mark of truth will appear. I go to 
 the gospel, and I first compare its vari- 
 ous parts with one another. Among 
 these I find perfect harmony : and what 
 makes this more remarkable is, that 
 Christianity is not taught systematically 
 or like a science. Jesus threw out, if 
 I may so speak, his precepts and doc- 
 trines incidentally, or as they were re- 
 quired by the occasion, and yet, when 
 they are brought together, they form a 
 harmonious whole. I do not think it 
 necessary to enlarge on this topic, be- 
 cause I believe it is not questioned by 
 infidelity. I will name but one example 
 of this harmony in Christianity. All 
 its doctrines and all its precepts have 
 that species of unity which is most 
 essential in a religion, that is, they all 
 tend to one object. They all agree in a 
 single aim or purpose, and that is to 
 exalt the human character to a height 
 of virtue never known before. Let the 
 sceptic name, if he can, one Christian 
 principle which has not a bearing on 
 this end. A consistency of this kind 
 is the strongest mark of a rational re- 
 ligion which can be conceived. Let me 
 observe, in passing, that, besides this 
 harmony of the Christian doctrines with 
 one another, there is a striking and 
 beautiful agreement between the teach- 
 ings of Jesus and his character, which 
 gives confirmation to both. Whatever 
 Jesus taught, you may see embodied in 
 himself. There is perfect unity be- 
 tween the system and its Founder. 
 His life republished what fell from his 
 lips. With his lips he enjoined ear- 
 nestly, constantly, a strong and disin- 
 terested philanthropy ; and how har- 
 moniously and sublimely did his cross 
 join with his word in enforcing this 
 exalted virtue ! With his lips he taught 
 the mercy of God to sinners ; and of 
 this attribute he gave a beautiful illus- 
 tration in his own deep interest in the 
 sinful, in his free intercourse with the 
 most fallen, and in his patient efforts
 
 240 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 to recover them to virtue and to filial 
 reliance on their Father in heaven. 
 So, his preaching turned much on the 
 importance of raising the mind above 
 the world ; and his own life was a con- 
 stant renunciation of worldly interests, 
 a cheerful endurance of poverty that he 
 might make many truly rich. So, his 
 discourses continually revealed to man 
 the doctrine of immortality ; and in his 
 own person he brought down this truth 
 to men's senses, by rising from the 
 dead and ascending to another state of 
 being. I have only glanced at the unity 
 which subsists between Jesus and his 
 religion. Christianity, from every point 
 of view, will be found a harmonious 
 system. It breathes throughout one 
 spirit and one purpose. Its doctrines, 
 precepts, and examples have the con- 
 sistency of reason. 
 
 But this is not enough. A rational 
 religion must agree not only with itself, 
 but with all other truths, whether re- 
 vealed by the outward creation or our 
 own souls. I take, then, Christianity 
 into the creation ; I place it by the side 
 of nature. Do they agree ? I say, 
 Perfectly. I can discover nothing, in 
 what claims to be God's word, at vari- 
 ance with his works. This is a bright 
 proof of the reasonableness of Christi- 
 anity. When I consult nature with the 
 lights modern science affords, I see 
 continually multiplying traces of the 
 doctrine of One God. The more I ex- 
 tend my researches into nature, the 
 more I see that it is a whole, the pro- 
 duct of one wisdom, power, and good- 
 ness. It bears- witness to one Author ; 
 nor has its testimony been without 
 effect ; for although the human mind 
 has often multiplied its objects of wor- 
 ship, still it has always tended towards 
 the doctrine of the divine unity, and 
 has embraced it more and more firmly 
 in the course of human improvement. 
 The heathen, while he erected many 
 altars, generally believed in one su- 
 preme divinity, to whom the inferior 
 deities were subjected and from whom 
 they sprung. Need I tell you of the 
 harmony which subsists between nature 
 and revelation in this particular ? To 
 Christianity belongs the glory of hav- 
 ing proclaimed this primitive truth with 
 new power, and of having spread it 
 over the whole civilized world. Again : 
 Nature gives intimation of another 
 
 truth, I mean of the universal, im- 
 partial goodness of God. When I look 
 round on the creation, I see nothing to 
 lead me to suspect that its Author con- 
 fines his love to a few. The sun sends 
 no brighter beam into the palace of the 
 proudest king than into the hut of the 
 meanest peasant. The clouds select 
 not one man's -fields rather than his 
 neighbor's, but shed down their bless- 
 ings on rich and poor, and, still more, 
 on the just and the unjust. True, there 
 is a variety of conditions among men ; 
 but this takes place, not by any interpo- 
 sition of God, but by fixed and general 
 laws of nature. Impartial, universal 
 goodness is the character in which God 
 is revealed by his works, when they are 
 properly understood ; and need I tell 
 you how brightly this truth shines in 
 the pages of Christianity, and how this 
 religion has been the great means of 
 establishing it among men ? Again : 
 When I look through nature, nothing 
 strikes me more than the union which 
 subsists among all its works. Nothing 
 stands alone in the creation. The hum- 
 blest plant has intimate connections 
 with the air, the clouds, the sun. Har- 
 mony is the great law of nature, and 
 how strikingly does Christianity coin- 
 cide here with God's works ! for what 
 is the design of this religion but to 
 bring the human race, the intelligent 
 creation of God, into a harmony, union, 
 peace, like that which knits together 
 the outward universe ? I will give an- 
 other illustration. It is one of the 
 great laws of nature that good shall 
 come to us through agents of God's 
 appointment ; that beings shall receive 
 life, support, knowledge, and safety 
 through the interposition and labors 
 and sufferings of others. Sometimes 
 whole communities are rescued from 
 oppression and ruin chiefly by the 
 efforts and sacrifices of a wise, disin- 
 terested, and resolute individual. How 
 accordant with this ordination of nature 
 is the doctrine of Christianity, that our 
 heavenly Father, having purposed our 
 recovery from sin and death, has insti- 
 tuted for this end the agency and medi- 
 ation of his Son ; that He has given an 
 illustrious deliverer to the world, through 
 whose toils and sufferings we may rise 
 to purity and immortal life. I say, 
 then, that revelation is consistent with 
 nature, when nature is truly interpreted
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 241 
 
 by reason. I see it bringing out with 
 noonday brightness the truths which 
 dawn in nature ; so that it is reason in 
 its most perfect form. 
 
 I have thus carried Christianity abroad 
 into nature. I now carry it within, and 
 compare it with the human soul ; and is 
 it consistent with the great truths of 
 reason which I discover there ? I affirm 
 that it is. When I look into the soul, I 
 am at once struck with its immeasurable 
 superiority to the body. I am struck 
 with the contrast between these different 
 elements of my nature, between this 
 active, soaring mind, and these limbs 
 and material organs which tend perpet- 
 ually to the earth, and are soon to be 
 resolved into dust. How consistent is 
 Christianity with this inward teaching ! 
 In Christianity, with what strength, with 
 what bold relief, is the supremacy of the 
 spiritual nature brought out ! What 
 contempt does Jesus cast on the body 
 and its interests, when compared with 
 the redemption of the soul ! Another 
 great truth dawns on me when I look 
 within. I learn more and more that the 
 great springs of happiness and misery 
 are in the mind, and that the efforts of 
 men to secure peace by other processes 
 than by inward purification are vain 
 strivings ; and Christianity is not only 
 consistent with, but founded on, this 
 great truth ; teaching us that the king- 
 dom of heaven is within us, and propos- 
 ing, as its great end, to rescue the mind 
 from evil, and to endue it with strength 
 and dignity worthy its divine origin. 
 Again : When I look into the soul I 
 meet intimations of another great truth. 
 I discern in it capacities which are not 
 fully unfolded here. I see desires which 
 find no adequate good on earth. I see 
 a principle of hope always pressing for- 
 ward into futurity. Here are marks of 
 a nature not made wholly for this world ; 
 and how does Christianity agree with 
 this teaching of our own souls ? Its 
 great doctrine is that of a higher life, 
 where the spiritual germ within us will 
 open for ever, and where the immortal 
 good after which the mind aspires will 
 prove a reality. Had I time, I might 
 survey distinctly the various principles 
 of the soul, the intellectual, moral, 
 social, and active, and might show you 
 how Christianity accords with them all, 
 enlarging their scope and energy, pro- 
 posing to them nobler objects, and aid- 
 
 ing their development by the impulse of 
 a boundless hope. But, commending 
 these topics to your private meditation, 
 I will take but one more view of the soul. 
 When I look within, I see stains of sin, 
 and fears and forebodings of guilt ; and 
 how adapted to such a nature is Chris- 
 tianity, a religion which contains 
 blood-sealed promises of forgiveness to 
 the penitent, and which proffers heavenly 
 strength to fortify us in our conflict with 
 moral evil ! I say, then, Christianity con- 
 sists with the nature within us as well 
 as with nature around us. The highest 
 truths in respect to the soul are not 
 only responded to, but are carried out 
 by Christianity, so that it deserves to be 
 called the perfection of reason. 
 
 I have now shown, in a variety of 
 particulars, that Christianity has the 
 character of consistency, and thus satis- 
 fies the first demand of reason. It does 
 not divide the mind against itself, does 
 not introduce discord into the intellect, 
 by proposing doctrines which our con- 
 sciousness and' experience repel. But 
 these views do not exhaust the present 
 topic. It is not enough to speak of Chris- 
 tianity as furnishing views which harmo- 
 nize with one another, and with all known 
 truth. It gives a new and cheering con- 
 sistency to the views with which we are 
 furnished by the universe. Nature and 
 providence, with all their beauty, regu- 
 larity, and beneficence, have yet perplex- 
 ing aspects. Their elements are often 
 seen in conflict with one another. Sun- 
 shine and storms, pleasure and pain, suc- 
 cess and disaster, abundance and want, 
 health and sickness, life and death, 
 seem to ordinary spectators to be mixed 
 together confusedly and without aim. 
 Reason desires nothing so earnestly, so 
 anxiously, as to solve these discordant 
 appearances, as to discover some great, 
 central, reconciling truth, around which 
 they may be arranged, and from which 
 they may borrow light and harmony. 
 This deep want of the rational nature 
 Christianity has supplied. It has dis- 
 closed a unity of purpose in the seem- 
 ingly hostile dispensations of providence, 
 and opened to the mind a new world of 
 order, beauty, and benevolent design. 
 Christianity, revealing, as it does, the 
 unbounded mercy of God to his sinful 
 creatures ; revealing an endless futurity, 
 in which the inequalities of the present 
 state are to be redressed, and which re- 
 
 16
 
 242 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 duces by its immensity the sorest pains 
 of life to light and momentary evils ; re- 
 vealing a moral perfection which is worth 
 all pain and conflicts, and which is most 
 effectually and gloriously won amidst 
 suffering and temptation; revealing in 
 Jesus Christ the sublimity and rewards 
 of tried and all-enduring virtue ; re- 
 vealing in him the Founder of a new 
 moral kingdom or power, which is des- 
 tined to subdue the world to God ; and 
 proffering the Holy Spirit to all who 
 strive to build up in themselves and 
 others the reign of truth and virtue ; 
 Christianity, I say, by these revelations, 
 has poured a flood of light over nature 
 and providence, and harmonized the in- 
 finite complexity of the works and ways 
 of God. Thus it meets the first want of 
 the rational nature, the craving for con- 
 sistency of views. It is reason's most 
 effectual minister and friend. Is it not, 
 then, eminently a rational faith ? 
 
 Having shown that Christianity has 
 the character of consistency, I proceed 
 to the second mark or stamp of reason 
 on a religion, that is, universality ; and 
 this I claim for Christianity. This, in- 
 deed, is one of the most distinguishing 
 features of our religion, and so obvious 
 and striking as to need little illustration. 
 When I examine the doctrines, precepts, 
 and spirit of Christianity, I discover, in 
 them all, this character of universality. 
 I discover nothing narrow, temporary, 
 local. The gospel bears the stamp of 
 no particular age or country. It does 
 not concern itself with the perishable 
 interests of communities or individuals ; 
 but appeals to the spiritual, immortal, 
 unbounded principle in human nature. 
 Its aim is to direct the mind to the In- 
 finite Being, and to an infinite good. It 
 is not made up, like other religions, of 
 precise forms and details ; but it incul- 
 cates immutable and all-comprehending 
 principles of duty, leaving every man to 
 apply them for himself to the endless 
 variety of human conditions. It sepa- 
 rates from God the partial, limited views 
 of Judaism and heathenism, and holds 
 him forth in the sublime attributes of 
 the Universal Father. In like manner, 
 it inculcates philanthropy without ex- 
 ceptions or bounds, a love to man as 
 man, a love founded on that immortal 
 nature of which all men partake, and 
 which binds us to recognize in each a 
 child of God and a brother. The spirit 
 
 of bigotry, which confines its charity to a 
 sect, and the spirit of aristocracy, which 
 looks on the multitude as an inferior 
 race, are alike rebuked by Christianity ; 
 which, eighteen hundred years ago, in a 
 narrow and superstitious age, taught, 
 what the present age is beginning to 
 understand, that all men are essentially 
 equal, and that all are to be honored, 
 because made for immortality and en- 
 dued with capacities of ceaseless im- 
 provement. The more I examine Chris- 
 tianity, the more I am struck with its 
 universality. I see in it a religion made 
 for all regions and all times, for all 
 classes and all stages of society. It is 
 fitted, not to the Asiatic or the Euro- 
 pean, but to the essential principles of 
 human nature, to man under the trop- 
 ical or polar skies, to all descriptions of 
 intellect and condition. It speaks a lan- 
 guage which all men need and all can 
 understand ; enjoins a virtue which is 
 man's happiness and glory in every age 
 and clime ; and ministers consolations 
 and hopes which answer to man's uni- 
 versal lot, to the sufferings, the fear, 
 and the self-rebuke which cleave to our 
 nature in every outward change. I see 
 in it the light, not of one nation, but of 
 the world ; and a light reaching beyond 
 the world, beyond time, to higher modes 
 of existence and to an interminable 
 futurity. Other religions have been 
 intended to meet the exigencies of par- 
 ticular countries or times, and there- 
 fore society in its progress has outgrown 
 them ; but Christianity meets more and 
 more the wants of the soul in propor- 
 tion to the advancement of our race, 
 and thus proves itself to be eternal 
 truth. After these remarks, may I not 
 claim for Christianity that character of 
 universality which is the highest dis- 
 tinction of reason ? To understand fully 
 the confirmation which these views give 
 to the gospel, you must compare it with 
 the religions prevalent in the age of 
 Christ, all of which bore the marks of 
 narrow, local, temporary institutions. 
 How striking the contrast! And how 
 singular the fact, that amid this dark- 
 ness there sprung up a religion so con- 
 sistent and universal as to deserve to be 
 called the perfection of reason ! 
 
 I do and must feel, my friends, that 
 the claim of Christianity to the honor of 
 being a rational religion is fully estab- 
 lished. As such I commend it to you.
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 243 
 
 As such it will more and more approve 
 itself in proportion as you study and 
 practise it. You will never find cause 
 to complain that by adopting it you 
 have enslaved or degraded your highest 
 powers. Here, then, I might stop, and 
 might consider my work as done. But 
 I am aware that objections have been 
 made to the rational character of our 
 religion which may still linger in the 
 minds of some of my hearers. A brief 
 notice of these may aid the purpose, and 
 will form a proper conclusion, of this 
 discourse. 
 
 I imagine that were some who are 
 present to speak, they would tell me 
 that if Christianity be judged by its 
 fruits, it deserves any character but that 
 of rational. I should be told that no 
 religion has borne a more abundant 
 harvest of extravagance and fanaticism. 
 I should be told that reason is a calm, 
 reflecting, sober principle, and I should 
 be asked whether such is the character 
 of the Christianity which has overspread 
 the world. Perhaps some of you will 
 remind me of the feverish, wild, pas- 
 sionate religion which is now systemat- 
 ically dispersed through our country, 
 and I shall be asked whether a system 
 under which such delusions prevail can 
 be a rational one. 
 
 To these objections I answer, You 
 say much that is true. I grant that 
 reason is a calm and reflecting princi- 
 ple, and I see little calmness or reflection 
 among many who take exclusively the 
 name of Christ. But I say, you have no 
 right to confound Christianity with its 
 professors. This religion, as you know, 
 has come down to us through many ages 
 of darkness, during which it must have 
 been corrupted and obscured. Common 
 candor requires that you should judge 
 of it as it came from its Founder. Go, 
 then, to its original records ; place your- 
 selves near Jesus ; and tell me if you 
 ever found yourselves in the presence 
 of so calm a teacher. We indeed dis- 
 cern in Jesus great earnestness, but 
 joined with entire self-control. Sensi- 
 bility breathes through his whole teach- 
 ing and life, but always tempered with 
 wisdom. Amidst his boldest thoughts 
 and expressions, we discover no marks 
 of ungoverned feeling or a diseased im- 
 agination. Take, as an example, his 
 longest discourse, the Sermon on the 
 Mount. How weighty the thoughts ! 
 
 How grave and dignified the style ! You 
 recollect that the multitude were aston- 
 ished, not at the passionate vehemence, 
 but at the authority, with which he 
 spoke. Read next the last discourse of 
 Jesus to his disciples in St. John's Gos- 
 pel. What a deep yet mild and subdued 
 tenderness mingles with conscious great- 
 ness in that wonderful address ! Take 
 what is called the Lord's Prayer, which 
 Jesus gave as the model of all prayer to 
 God. Does that countenance fanatical 
 fervor or violent appeals to our Creator ? 
 Let me further ask, Does Jesus any- 
 where place religion in tumultuous, un- 
 governed emotion ? Does he not teach 
 us, that obedience, not feeling, marks 
 and constitutes true piety, and that the 
 most acceptable offering to God is to 
 exercise mercy to our fellow-creatures ? 
 When I compare the clamorous preach- 
 ing and passionate declamation too com- 
 mon in the Christian world, with the 
 composed dignity, the deliberate wisdom, 
 the freedom from all extravagance, which 
 characterized Jesus, I can imagine no 
 greater contrast ; and I am sure that 
 the fiery zealot is no representative of 
 Christianity. 
 
 I have done with the first objection ; 
 but another class of objections is often 
 urged against the reasonable character 
 of our religion. It has been strenuous- 
 ly maintained that Christianity contains 
 particular doctrines which are irrational, 
 and which involve the whole religion to 
 which they are essential in their own 
 condemnation. To this class of objec- 
 tions I have a short reply. I insist that 
 these offensive doctrines do not belong 
 to Christianity, but are human additions, 
 and therefore do not derogate from its 
 reasonableness and truth. What is the 
 doctrine most frequently adduced to fix 
 the charge of irrationality on the gos- 
 pel ? It is the Trinity. This is pro- 
 nounced by the unbeliever a gross offence 
 to reason. It teaches that there is one 
 God, and yet that there are three divine 
 persons. According to the doctrine 
 these three persons perform different 
 offices, and sustain different relations to 
 each other. One is Father, another his 
 Son. One sends, another is sent. They 
 love each other, converse with each 
 other, and make a covenant with each 
 other ; and yet, with all these distinc- 
 tions, they are. according to the doc- 
 trine, not different beings, but one
 
 244 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 being, one and the same God. Is this 
 a rational doctrine ? has often been the 
 question of the objector to Christianity. 
 I answer, No. I can as easily believe 
 that the whole human race are one man, 
 as that three infinite persons, performing 
 such different offices, are one God. But 
 I maintain that, because the Trinity is 
 irrational, it does not follow that the 
 same reproach belongs to Christianity ; 
 for this doctrine is no part of the Chris- 
 tian religion. I know there are passages 
 which are continually quoted in its de- 
 fence; but allow me to prove doctrines 
 in the same way, that is, by detaching 
 texts from their connection and inter- 
 preting them without reference to the 
 general current of Scripture, and I can 
 prove any thing and every thing from 
 the Bible. I can prove that God has 
 human passions. I can prove transub- 
 stantiation, which is taught much more 
 explicitly than the Trinity. Detached 
 texts prove nothing. Christ is called 
 God ; the same title is given to Moses 
 and to rulers. Christ has said, " I and 
 my Father are one ; " so he prayed that 
 all his disciples might be one, meaning 
 not one and the same being, but one in 
 affection and purpose. I ask you, be- 
 fore you judge on this point, to read the 
 Scriptures as a whole, and to inquire 
 into their general strain and teaching in 
 regard to Christ. I find him uniformly 
 distinguishing between himself and God, 
 calling himself, not God the Son, but 
 the Son of God, continually speaking 
 of himself as sent by God, continually 
 referring his power and miracles to God. 
 I hear him saying that of himself he can 
 do nothing, and praying to his Father 
 under the character of the only true 
 God. Such I affirm to be the tenor, the 
 current, the general strain of the New 
 Testament ; and the scattered passages 
 on which a different doctrine is built 
 should have no weight against this host 
 of witnesses. Do not rest your faith on 
 a few texts. Sometimes these favorite 
 texts are no part of Scripture. For 
 example, the famous passage on which 
 the Trinity mainly rests, " There are 
 three that bear record in heaven, the 
 Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, 
 and these three are one," this text, I 
 say, though found at present in John's 
 Epistle, and read in our churches, has 
 been pronounced by the ablest critics a 
 forgery ; and a vast majority of the 
 
 educated ministers of this country are 
 satisfied that it is not a part of Scripture. 
 Suffer no man, then, to select texts for 
 you as decisive of religious contro- 
 versies. Read the whole record for 
 yourselves, and possess yourselves of its 
 general import. I am very desirous to 
 separate the doctrine in question from 
 Christianity, because it fastens the charge 
 of irrationality on the whole religion. It 
 is one of the great obstacles to the pro- 
 pagation of the gospel. The Jews will 
 not hear of a Trinity. I have seen in 
 the countenance, and heard in the tones 
 of the voice, the horror with which that 
 people shrink from the doctrine that 
 God died on the cross. Mahometans, 
 too, when they hear this opinion from 
 Christian missionaries, repeat the first 
 article of their faith, " There is one 
 God ; " and look with pity or scorn on 
 the disciples of Jesus as deserters of the 
 plainest and greatest truth of religion. 
 Even the Indian of our wilderness, who 
 worships the Great Spirit, has charged 
 absurdity on the teacher who has gone 
 to indoctrinate him in a Trinity. How 
 many, too, in Christian countries, have 
 suspected the whole religion for this one 
 error. Believing, then, as I do, that it 
 forms no part of Christianity, my alle- 
 giance to Jesus Christ calls me openly to 
 withstand it. In so doing I would wound 
 no man's feelings. I doubt not, that 
 they who adopt this doctrine intend, 
 equally with those who oppose it, to 
 render homage to the truth and service 
 to Christianity. They think that their 
 peculiar faith gives new interest to the 
 character and new authority to the teach- 
 ing of Jesus. But they grievously err. 
 The views by which they hope to build 
 up love towards Christ detract from the 
 perfection of his Father ; and I fear 
 that the kind of piety which prevails 
 now in the Christian world bears witness 
 to the sad influence of this obscuration 
 of the true glory of God. We need not 
 desert reason or corrupt Christianity to 
 insure the purest, deepest love towards 
 the only true God, or towards Jesus 
 Christ, whom He has sent for our re- 
 demption. 
 
 I have named one doctrine which is 
 often urged against Christianity as irra- 
 tional. There is one more on which I 
 would offer a few remarks. Christianity 
 has often been reproached with teaching 
 that God brings men into life totally de-
 
 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 245 
 
 praved, and condemns immense multi- 
 tudes to everlasting misery for sins to 
 which their nature has irresistibly im- 
 pelled them. This is said to be irra- 
 tional, and consequently such must be 
 the religion which teaches it. I cer- 
 tainly shall not attempt to vindicate this 
 theological fiction. A more irrational 
 doctrine could not, I think, be con- 
 trived : and it is something worse, it 
 is as immoral in its tendency as it is un- 
 reasonable. It is suited to alienate men 
 from God and from one another. Were 
 it really believed (which it cannot be), 
 men would look up with dread and de- 
 testation to the Author of their being, 
 and look round with horror on their 
 fellow-creatures. It would dissolve so- 
 ciety. Were men to see in one another 
 wholly corrupt beings, incarnate fiends, 
 without one genuine virtue, society 
 would become as repulsive as a den of 
 lions or a nest of vipers. All confi- 
 dence, esteem, love, would die ; and 
 without these the interest, charm, and 
 worth of existence would expire. What 
 a pang would shoot through a parent's 
 heart, if he were to see in the smiling 
 infant a moral being continually and 
 wholly propense to sin, in whose mind 
 were thickly sown the seeds of hatred 
 to God and goodness, and who had com- 
 menced his existence under the curse of 
 his Creator ! What good man could 
 consent to be a parent, if his offspring 
 were to be born to this infinitely wretched 
 inheritance ? I say, the doctrine is of 
 immoral tendency : but I do not say that 
 they who profess it are immoral. The 
 truth is, that none do or can hold it in 
 its. full and proper import. I have seen 
 its advocates smile as benignantly on 
 the child whom their creed has made a 
 demon as if it were an angel ; and I have 
 seen them mingling with their fellow- 
 creatures as cordially and confidingly as 
 if the doctrine of total depravity had 
 never entered their ears. Perhaps the 
 most mischievous effect of the doctrine 
 is the dishonor which it has thrown on 
 Christianity. This dishonor I would 
 wipe away. Christianity teaches no 
 such doctrine. Where do you find it in 
 the New Testament ? Did Jesus teach 
 it, when he took little children in his 
 arms and blessed them, and said, " Of 
 such is the kingdom of God ? " Did 
 Paul teach it when he spoke of the Gen- 
 tiles, who have not the law or a written 
 
 revelation, but who do by nature the 
 things contained in the law ? Christi- 
 anity indeed speaks strongly of human 
 guilt, but always treats men as beings 
 who have the power of doing right, and 
 who have come into existence under the 
 smile of their Creator, 
 
 I have now completed my vindication 
 of the claim of the gospel to the char- 
 acter of a rational religion ; and my aim 
 has been, not to serve a party, but the 
 cause of our common Christianity. At 
 the present day, one of the most urgent 
 duties of its friends is, to rescue it from 
 the reproach of waging war with reason. 
 The character of our age demands this. 
 There have been times when Christi- 
 anity, though loaded with unreasonable 
 doctrines, retained its hold on men's 
 faith ; for men had not learned to think. 
 They received their religion as children 
 learned the catechism ; they substituted 
 the priest for their own understandings, 
 and cared neither what nor why they 
 believed. But that day is gone by, and 
 the spirit of freedom which has suc- 
 ceeded it is subjecting Christianity to a 
 scrutiny more and more severe ; and if 
 this religion cannot vindicate itself to 
 the reflecting, the calm, the wise, as 
 a reasonable service, it cannot stand. 
 Fanatical sects may, for a time, spread 
 an intolerant excitement through a com- 
 munity, and impose silence on the objec- 
 tions of the sceptical. But fanaticism is 
 the epidemic of a season ; it wastes it- 
 self by its own violence. Sooner or later 
 the voice of reflection will be heard. 
 Men will ask, What are the claims of 
 Christianity ? Does it bear the marks 
 of truth ? And if it be found to war 
 with nature and reason, it will be, and it 
 ought to be, abandoned. On this ground, 
 I am anxious that Christianity should be 
 cleared from all human additions and 
 corruptions. If, indeed, irrational doc- 
 trines belong to it, then I have no desire 
 to separate them from it. I have no 
 desire, for the sake of upholding the 
 gospel, to wrap up and conceal, much 
 less to deny, any of its real principles. 
 Did I think that it was burdened with 
 one irrational doctrine, I would say so, 
 and I would leave it, as I found it, with 
 this mill-stone round its neck. But I 
 know none such. I meet, indeed, some 
 difficulties in the narrative part of the 
 New Testament ; and there are argu- 
 ments in the Epistles which, however
 
 246 
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 suited to the Jews, to whom they were 
 first addressed, are not apparently 
 adapted to men at large ; but I see not 
 a principle of the religion which my 
 reason, calmly and impartially exercised, 
 pronounces inconsistent with any great 
 truth. I have the strongest conviction 
 that Christianity is reason in its most 
 perfect form, and therefore I plead for 
 its disengagement from the irrational ad- 
 ditions with which it has been clogged 
 for ages. 
 
 With these views of Christianity, I do 
 and 1 must hold it fast. I cannot sur- 
 render it to the cavils or scoffs of infi- 
 delity. I do not blush to own it, for it 
 is a rational religion. It satisfies the 
 wants of the intellect as well as those 
 of the heart. I know that men of strong 
 minds have opposed it. But, as if Prov- 
 idence intended that their sophistry 
 
 should carry a refutation on its own 
 front, they have generally fallen into 
 errors so gross and degrading as to 
 prove them to be any thing rather than 
 the apostles of reason. When I go 
 from the study of Christianity to their 
 writings, I feel as if I were passing from 
 the warm, bright sun into a chilling twi- 
 light which too often deepens into utter 
 darkness. I am not, then, ashamed of 
 the gospel. I see it glorified by the 
 hostile systems which are reared for its 
 destruction. I follow Jesus, because he 
 is eminently " the Light ; " and I doubt 
 not that, to his true disciples, he will be 
 a guide to that world where the obscuri- 
 ties of our present state will be dis- 
 persed, and where reason as well as 
 virtue will be unfolded under the quick- 
 ening influence and in the more manifest 
 presence of God. 
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY: 
 
 Discourse at the Installation of the Rev. M. I. Motte, Boston, 1828. 
 
 2 TIMOTHY i. 7 : " For God hath not given us the 
 spirit of fear ; but of power, and of love, and of a 
 sound mind." 
 
 WHY was Christianity given ? Why 
 did Christ seal it with his blood ? Why 
 is it to be preached ? What is the great 
 happiness it confers ? What is the chief 
 blessing for which it is to be prized ? 
 What is its pre-eminent glory, its first 
 claim on the gratitude of mankind ? 
 These are great questions. I wish to 
 answer them plainly, according to the 
 light and ability which God has given 
 me. I read the answer to them in the 
 text. There I learn the great good 
 which God confers through Jesus Christ. 
 " He hath given us, not the spirit of 
 fear, but of power, and of love, and of 
 a sound mind." The glory of Chris- 
 tianity is the pure and lofty action 
 which it communicates to the human 
 mind. It does not breathe a timid, ab- 
 ject spirit. If it did, it would deserve 
 no praise. It gives power, energy, 
 courage, constancy to the will ; love, 
 disinterestedness, enlarged affection to 
 
 the heart ; soundness, clearness, and 
 vigor to the understanding. It rescues 
 him who receives it from sin, from the 
 sway of the passions ; gives him the 
 full and free use of his best powers ; 
 brings out and brightens the divine im- 
 age in which he was created ; and in 
 this way not only bestows the prorm'se 
 but the beginning of heaven. This is 
 the excellence of Christianity. 
 
 This subject I propose to illustrate. 
 Let me begin it with one remark which 
 I would willingly avoid, but which seems 
 to me to be demanded by the circum- 
 stances in which I am placed. I beg 
 you to remember that in this discourse 
 I speak in my own name and in no 
 other. I am not giving you the opinions 
 of any sect or body of men, but my own. 
 I hold myself alone responsible for what 
 I utter. Let none listen to me for the 
 purpose of learning what others think. 
 I indeed belong to that class of Chris- 
 tians who are distinguished by believ- 
 ing that there is one God, even the Fa- 
 ther, and that Jesus Christ is not this
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 247 
 
 one God, but his dependent and obe- 
 dient Son. But my accordance with 
 these is far from being universal, nor 
 have I any desire to extend it. What 
 other men believe is to me of little mo- 
 ment. Their arguments I gratefully 
 hear. Their conclusions I am free to 
 receive or reject. I have no anxiety 
 to wear the livery of any party. I in- 
 deed take cheerfully the name of a 
 Unitarian, because unwearied efforts 
 are used to raise against it a popular 
 cry ; and I have not so learned Christ 
 as to shrink from reproaches cast on 
 what I deem his truth. Were the name 
 more honored I should be glad to throw 
 it off , for I fear the shackles which a 
 party connection imposes. I wish to 
 regard myself as belonging not to a 
 sect, but to the community of free 
 minds, of lovers of truth, of followers 
 of Christ, both on earth and in heaven. 
 I desire to escape the narrow walls of 
 a particular church, and to live under 
 the open sky, in the broad light, look- 
 ing far and wide, seeing with my own 
 eyes, hearing with my own ears, and 
 following truth meekly, but resolutely, 
 however arduous or solitary be the path 
 in which she leads. I am, then, no or- 
 gan of a sect, but speak from myself 
 alone ; and I thank God that I live at 
 a time and under circumstances which 
 make it my duty to lay open my whole 
 mind with freedom and simplicity. 
 
 I began with asking, What is the 
 main design and glory of Christianity ? 
 and I repeat the answer, that its design 
 is to give, not a spirit of fear, but of 
 power, of love, and of a scrund mind. 
 In this its glory chiefly consists. In 
 other words, the influence which it is 
 intended to exert on the human mind 
 constitutes its supreme honor and hap- 
 piness. Christ is a great Saviour, as he 
 redeems or sets free the mind, cleansing 
 it from evil, breathing into it the love of 
 virtue calling forth its noblest faculties 
 and affections, enduing it with moral 
 power, restoring it to order, health, and 
 liberty. Such was his great aim. To 
 illustrate these views will be the object 
 of the present discourse. 
 
 In reading the New Testament I 
 everywhere meet the end here ascribed 
 to Jesus Christ. He came, as I am there 
 taught, not to be an outward but inward 
 deliverer : not to rear an outward throne, 
 but to establish his kingdom within us. 
 
 He came, according to the express lan- 
 guage and plain import of the sacred 
 writers, "to save us from sin," "to 
 bless us by turning us from our iniqui- 
 ties," " to redeem us " from corruptions 
 " handed down by tradition," to form "a 
 glorious and spotless church " or com- 
 munity, to " create us anew after the im- 
 age of God," to make us by his "prom- 
 ises partakers of a divine nature," and 
 to give us pardon and heaven by calling 
 us to repentance and a growing virtue. 
 In reading the New Testament I every- 
 where learn that Christ lived, taught, 
 died, and rose again, to exert a purify- 
 ing and ennobling influence on the hu- 
 man character ; to make us victorious 
 over sin, over ourselves, over peril and 
 pain ; to join us to God by filial love, 
 and, above all, by likeness of nature, 
 by participation of his spirit. This is 
 plainly laid down in the New Testament 
 as the supreme end of Christ. 
 
 Let me now ask, Can a nobler end be 
 ascribed to Jesus ? I affirm that there 
 is, and can be, no greater work on earth 
 than to purify the soul from evil, and 
 to kindle in it new light, life, energy, and 
 love. I maintain that the true measure 
 of the glory of a religion is to be found 
 in the spirit and power which it com- 
 municates to its disciples. This is one 
 of the plain teachings of reason. The ' 
 chief blessing to an intelligent being, 
 that which makes all other blessings 
 poor, is the improvement of his own 
 mind. Man is glorious and happy, not 
 by what he has, but by what he is. He 
 can receive nothing better or nobler 
 than the unfolding of his own spiritual 
 nature. The highest existence in the 
 universe is mind ; for God is mind ; and 
 the development of that principle which 
 assimilates us to God must be our su- 
 preme good. The omnipotent Creator, 
 we have reason to think, can bestow 
 nothing greater than intelligence, love, 
 rectitude, energy of will and of benevo- 
 lent action ; for these are the splendors 
 of his own nature. We adore him for 
 these. In imparting these, he imparts, 
 as it were, himself. We are too apt to 
 look abroad for good. But the only 
 true good is within. In this outward 
 universe, magnificent as it is, in the 
 bright day and the starry night, in the 
 earth and the skies, we can discover 
 nothing so vast as thought, so strong as 
 the unconquerable purpose of duty, so
 
 248 
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 sublime as the spirit of disinterestedness 
 and self-sacrifice. A mind which with- 
 stands all the powers of the outward 
 universe, all the pains which fire and 
 sword and storm can inflict, rather than 
 swerve from uprightness, is nobler than 
 the universe. Why will we not learn 
 the glory of the soul ? We are seeking 
 a foreign good. But we all possess 
 within us what is of more worth than the 
 external creation. For this outward sys- 
 tem is the product of mind. All its har- 
 mony, beauty, and beneficent influences 
 are the fruits and manifestations of 
 thought and love ; and is it not nobler 
 and happier to be enriched with these 
 energies, from which the universe 
 springs, and to which it owes its mag- 
 nificence, than to possess the universe 
 itself ? It is not what we have, but what 
 we are, which constitutes our glory and 
 felicity. The only true and durable 
 riches belong to the mind. A soul, nar- 
 row and debased, may extend its pos- 
 sessions to the ends of the earth, but is 
 poor and wretched still. It is through 
 inward health that we enjoy all outward 
 things. Philosophers teach us that the 
 mind creates the beauty which it ad- 
 mires in nature ; and we all know that, 
 when abandoned to evil passions, it can 
 blot out this beauty, and spread over the 
 "fairest scenes the gloom of a dungeon. 
 We all know that by vice it can turn the 
 cup of social happiness into poison, and 
 the most prosperous condition of life 
 into a curse. From these views we learn 
 that the true friend and saviour is not 
 he who acts for us abroad, but who acts 
 within, who sets the soul free, touches 
 the springs of thought and affection, 
 binds us to God, and, by assimilating us 
 to the Creator, brings us into harmony 
 with the creation. Thus the end which 
 we have ascribed to Christ is the most 
 glorious and beneficent which can be ac- 
 complished by any power on earth or in 
 heaven. 
 
 That the highest purpose of Chris- 
 tianity is such as has now been affirmed, 
 might easily be shown from a survey of 
 all its doctrines and precepts. It might 
 be shown that every office with which 
 Jesus Christ is invested was intended to 
 give him power over the human character ; 
 and that his great distinction consists in 
 the grandeur and beneficence of his in- 
 fluence on the soul. But a discussion of 
 this extent cannot be comprehended in 
 
 a single discourse. Instead of a general 
 survey of the subject, I shall take one 
 feature of it, a primary and most im- 
 portant one, and shall attempt to show 
 that the great aim of this is to call forth 
 the soul to a higher life to a nobler ex- 
 ercise of its power and affections. 
 
 This leading feature of Christianity is 
 the knowledge which it gives of the 
 character of God. Jesus Christ came to 
 reveal the Father. In the prophesies 
 concerning him in the Old Testament, 
 no characteristic is so frequently named 
 as that he should spread the knowledge 
 of the true God. Now I ask. What con- 
 stitutes the importance of such a revela- 
 tion ? Why has the Creator sent his 
 Son to make himself known ? I answer, 
 God is most worthy to be known, be- 
 cause He is the most quickening, puri- 
 fying, and ennobling object for the mind ; 
 and his great purpose in revealing him- 
 self is that He may exalt and perfect 
 human nature. God, as He is manifested 
 by Christ, is another name for intellec- 
 tual and moral excellence ; and in the 
 knowledge of him our intellectual and 
 moral powers find their element, nutri- 
 ment, strength, expansion, and happi- 
 ness. To know God is to attain to the 
 sublimest conception in the universe. 
 To love God is to bind ourselves to a 
 being who is fitted, as no other being is, 
 to penetrate and move our whole hearts ; 
 in loving whom we exalt ourselves ; in 
 loving whom we love the great, the good, 
 the beautiful, and the infinite ; and under 
 whose influence the soul unfolds itself 
 as a perennial plant under the cherishing 
 sun. This constitutes the chief glory of 
 religion. It ennobles the soul. In this 
 its unrivalled dignity and happiness con- 
 sist. 
 
 I fear that the world at large think 
 religion a very different thing from 
 what has now been set forth. Too 
 many think it a depressing rather than 
 an elevating service : that it breaks 
 rather than ennobles the spirit : that it 
 teaches us to cower before an almighty 
 and irrresistible being ; and I must 
 confess that religion, as it has been 
 generally taught, is any thing but an 
 elevating principle. It has been used 
 to scare the child and appal the adult. 
 Men have been virtually taught to glo- 
 rify God by flattery rather than by 
 becoming excellent and glorious them- 
 selves, and thus doing honor to their
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 249 
 
 Maker. Our dependence on God has 
 been so taught as to extinguish the 
 consciousness of our free nature and 
 moral power. Religion, in one or an- 
 other form, has always been an engine 
 for crushing the human soul. . But such 
 is not the religion of Christ. If it 
 were, it would deserve no respect. We 
 are not we cannot be bound to 
 prostrate ourselves before a deity who 
 makes us abject and base. That moral 
 principle within us which calls us to 
 watch over and to perfect our own 
 souls, is an inspiration which no teach- 
 ing can supersede or abolish. But I 
 cannot bear, even in way of argument, 
 to speak of Christianity as giving views 
 of God depressing and debasing to the 
 human mind. Christ hath revealed to 
 us God as the Father, and as a Father 
 in the noblest sense of that word. He 
 hath revealed him as the author and 
 lover of all souls, desiring to redeem all 
 from sin, and to impress his likeness 
 more and more resplendently on all : as 
 proffering to all that best gift in the 
 universe, his " holy spirit ; " as having 
 sent his beloved Son to train us up, and 
 to introduce us to an " inheritance, in- 
 con" iptible, undefiled, and unfading in 
 the heavens." Such is the God of Jesus 
 Christ ; a being not to break the spirit, 
 but to breathe trust, courage, constancy, 
 magnanimity, in a word, all the senti- 
 ments which form an elevated mind. 
 
 This sentiment, that the knowledge 
 of God as given by Christ is important 
 and glorious, because quickening and 
 exalting to the human soul, needs to be 
 taught plainly and forcibly. The main 
 ground of the obligation of being re- 
 ligious, I fear, is not understood among 
 the multitude of Christians. Ask them 
 why they must know and worship God ? 
 and I fear that, were the heart to speak 
 the answer would .be, Because he can 
 do with us what he will, and conse- 
 quently our first concern' is to secure 
 his favor. Religion is a calculation of 
 interest, a means of safety. God is 
 worshipped too often on the same prin- 
 ciple on which flattery and personal 
 attentions are lavished on human supe- 
 riors, and the worshipper cares not how 
 abjectly he bows, if he may win to his 
 side the power which he cannot resist. 
 I look with deep sorrow on this com- 
 mon perversion of the highest principle 
 of the soul. My friends, God is not to 
 
 be worshipped because he has much to 
 give, for on this principle a despot who 
 should be munificent to his slaves would 
 merit homage. He is not to be adored 
 for mere power ; for power, when joined 
 with selfishness and crime, ought to be 
 withstood ; and the greater the might 
 of an evil agent, the holier and the 
 loftier is the spirit which will not bend 
 I to him. True religion is the worship of 
 a perfect being, who is the author of 
 perfection to those who adore him. On 
 this ground, and on no other, religion 
 rests. 
 
 Why is it, my hearers, that God has 
 discovered such solicitude, if I may use 
 the word, to make himself known and 
 obtain our worship ? Think you that 
 he calls us to adore him from a love of 
 homage or service ? Has God man's 
 passion for ruling, man's thirst for ap- 
 plause, man's desire to have his name 
 shouted by crowds ? Could the accla- 
 mations of the universe, though con- 
 centrated into one burst of praise, give 
 our Creator a new or brighter conscious- 
 ness of his own majesty and goodness ? 
 Oh ! no. He has manifested himself 
 to us because in the knowledge and 
 adoration of his perfections our own in- 
 tellectual and moral perfection is found. 
 What he desires is, not our subjection, 
 but our excellence. He has no love of 
 praise. He calls us as truly to honor 
 goodness in others as in himself, and 
 only claims supreme honor because he 
 transcends all others, and because he 
 communicates to the mind which re- 
 ceives him a light, strength, purity, 
 which no other being can confer. God 
 has no love of empire. It could give 
 him no pleasure to have his footstool 
 worn by the knees of infinite hosts. It 
 is to make us his children m the highest 
 sense of that word, to make us more and 
 more the partakers of his own nature, 
 not to multiply slaves, that he hath sent 
 his Son to make himself known. God 
 indeed is said to seek his own glory ; 
 but the glory of a creator must consist 
 in the glory of his works ; and we may 
 be assured that he cannot wish any 
 recognition of himself but that which 
 will perfect his noblest, highest work, 
 the immortal mind. 
 
 Do not, my friends, forget the great 
 end for which Christ enjoins on us the 
 worship of God. It is not that we may 
 ingratiate ourselves with an almighty
 
 250 
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 agent whose frown is destruction. It 
 is that we may hold communion with 
 an intelligence and goodness infinitely 
 surpassing our own ; that we may rise 
 above imperfect and finite natures ; that 
 we may attach ourselves by love and 
 reverence to the best Being in the uni- 
 verse ; and that, through veneration and 
 love, we may receive into our own minds 
 the excellence, disinterestedness, wis- 
 dom, purity, and power which we adore. 
 This reception of the divine attributes 
 I desire especially to hold forth as the 
 most glorious end for which God reveals 
 himself. To praise him is not enough. 
 That homage which has no power to 
 assimilate us to him is of little or no 
 worth. The truest admiration is that 
 by which we receive other minds into 
 our own. True praise is a sympathy 
 with excellence, gaining strength by 
 utterance. Such is the praise which 
 God demands. Then only is the pur- 
 pose of Christ's revelation of God ac- 
 complished when, by reception of the 
 doctrine of a Paternal Divinity, we are 
 quickened to " follow him, as dear chil- 
 dren," and are ''filled with his fulness," 
 and become " his temples," and " dwell 
 in God, and have God dwelling in our- 
 selves." 
 
 I have endeavored to show the great 
 purpose of the Christian doctrine re- 
 specting God, or in what its importance 
 and glory consist. Had I time I might 
 show that every other doctrine of our 
 religion has the same end. I might par- 
 ticularly show how wonderfully fitted are 
 the character, example, life, death, res- 
 urrection, and all the offices of Christ, 
 to cleanse the mind from moral evil, 
 to quicken, soften, elevate, and trans- 
 form it into the divine image ; and 
 I might show that these are the influ- 
 ences which true faith derives from him, 
 and through which he works out cur 
 salvation. But I cannot enter on this 
 fruitful subject. Let me only say that I 
 see everywhere in Christianity this great 
 design of liberating and raising the hu- 
 man mind on which I have enlarged. I 
 see in Christianity nothing narrowing or 
 depressing, nothing of the littleness of 
 the systems which human fear, and 
 craft, and ambition have engendered. 
 I meet there no minute legislation, no 
 descending to precise details, no arbi- 
 trary injunctions, no yoke of ceremo- 
 nies, no outward religion. Every thing 
 
 breathes freedom, liberality, enlarge- 
 ment. I meet there not a formal, rigid 
 creed, binding on the intellect through 
 all ages the mechanical, passive repeti- 
 tion of the same words and the same 
 ideas ; but I meet a few grand, all-com- 
 prehending truths, which are given to 
 the soul to be developed and applied by 
 itself ; given to it as seed to the sower, 
 to be cherished and expanded by its 
 own thought, love, and obedience into 
 more and more glorious fruits of wisdom 
 and virtue. I see it everywhere incul- 
 cating an enlarged spirit of piety and 
 philanthropy, leaving each of us to mani- 
 fest this spirit according to the monitions 
 of his individual conscience. I hear it \ 
 everywhere calling the soul to freedom I 
 and power, by calling it to guard against I 
 the senses, the passions, the appetites, I 
 through which it is chained, enfeebledj 
 destroyed. I see it everywhere aiming 
 to give the mind power over the outward 
 world, to make it superior to events, to 
 suffering, to material nature, to persecu- 
 tion, to death. 1 see it everywhere aim- 
 ing to give the mind power over itself, 
 to invest it with inward sovereignty, to 
 call forth within us a mighty energy for 
 our own elevation. I meet in Chris- 
 tianity only discoveries of a vast, bold, 
 illimitable character, fitted and designed 
 to give energy and expansion to the soul 
 By its doctrine of a Universal Father, 
 it sweeps away all the barriers of sect, 
 party, rank, and nation in which men 
 have labored to shut up their love ; 
 makes us members of an unbounded 
 family ; and establishes sympathies be- 
 tween man and the whole intelligent 
 creation. In the character of Christ it 
 sets before us moral perfection, that 
 greatest and most quickening miracle in 
 human history, a purity which shows no 
 stain or touch of the earth, an excel- 
 lence unborrowed, wnconfined, bearing 
 no impress of any age or any nation, > 
 the very image of the Universal Father ; j 
 and it encourages us. by assurances of I 
 God's merciful aid, to propose this en- 
 larged, unsullied virtue as the model and ^ 
 happiness of our moral nature. By the 
 cross of Christ it sets forth the spirit of 
 self-sacrifice with an energy never known 
 before, and, in thus crucifying selfish- 
 ness, frees the mind from its worst 
 chain. By Christ's resurrection it links 
 this short life with eternity, discovers to 
 us in the fleeting present the germ of an
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 251 
 
 endless future, reveals to us the human 
 mind ascending to other worlds, breath- 
 ing a freer air, forming higher connec- 
 tions, and summons us to a force of holy 
 purpose becoming such a destination. 
 To conclude, Christianity everywhere 
 sets before us God in the character of 
 infinitely free, rich, boundless grace, in 
 a clemency which is " not overcome by 
 evil, but overcomes evil with good ; " 
 and a more animating and ennobling 
 truth who of us can conceive ? I have 
 hardly glanced at what Christianity con- 
 tains. But who does not see that it was 
 sent from heaven, to call forth and exalt 
 human nature, and that this is its great 
 glory ? 
 
 It has been my object in this discourse 
 to lay open a .great truth, a central, 
 all-comprehending truth of Christianity. 
 Whoever intelligently and cordially em- 
 braces it obtains a standard by which to 
 try all other doctrines, and to measure 
 the importance of all other truths. Is it 
 so embraced ? I fear not. I apprehend 
 that it is dimly discerned by many who 
 acknowledge it, whilst on many more it 
 has hardly dawned. I see other views 
 
 Erevailing, and prevailing in a greater or 
 :ss degree among all bodies of Chris- 
 tians, and they seem to me among the 
 worst errors of our times. Some of 
 these I would now briefly notice. 
 
 I. There are those who, instead of 
 placing the glory of Christianity in the 
 pure and powerful action which it gives 
 to the human mind, seem to think that 
 it is rather designed to substitute the ac- 
 tivity of another for our own. They im- 
 agine the benefit of the religion to be that 
 it enlists on our side an Almighty Being 
 who does every thing for us. To dis- 
 parage human agency seems to them the 
 essence of piety. They think Christ's 
 glory to consist not in quickening free 
 agents to act powerfully on themselves, 
 but in changing them by an irresistible 
 energy. They place a Christian's hap- 
 piness not so much in powers and affec- 
 tions unfolded in his own breast, as in a 
 foreign care extended over him, in a 
 foreign wisdom which takes the place of 
 his own intelligence. Now the great 
 purpose of Christianity is not to pro- 
 cure or offer to the mind a friend on 
 whom it may passively lean, but to make 
 the mind itself wise, strong, and efficient. 
 Its end is not that wisdom and strength, 
 as subsisting in another, should do every 
 
 thing for us, but that these attributes 
 should grow perpetually in our own souls. 
 According to Christianity, we are not 
 carried forward as a weight by a foreign 
 agency ; but God, by means suited to our 
 moral nature, quickens and strengthens 
 us to walk ourselves. The great design 
 of Christianity is to build up in our own 
 souls a power to withstand, to endure, 
 to triu'mph. Inward vigor is its aim. 
 That we should do most for ourselves 
 and most for others ; this is the glory 
 it confers, and in this its happiness is 
 found. 
 
 2. I pass to another illustration of the 
 insensibility of men to the great doc- 
 trine, that the happiness and glory of 
 Christianity consist in the healthy and 
 lofty frame to which it raises the mind. 
 I refer to the propensity of multitudes 
 to make a wide separation between re- 
 ligion or Christian virtue and its rewards. 
 That the chief reward lies in the very 
 spirit of religion, they do not dream. 
 They think of being Christians for the 
 sake of something beyond the Christian 
 character, and something more precious. 
 They think that Christ has a greater 
 good to give than a strong and generous 
 love towards God and mankind, and 
 would almost turn from him in scorn if 
 they thought him only a benefactor to 
 the mind. It is this low view which 
 dwarfs the piety of thousands. Multi- 
 tudes are serving God for wages distinct 
 from the service,, and hence superstition, 
 slavishness, and formality are substi- 
 tuted for inward energy and spiritual 
 worship. 
 
 3. Men's ignorance of the great truth 
 stated in this discourse is seen in the 
 low ideas attached by multitudes to the 
 word salvation. Ask multitudes what is 
 the chief evil from which Christ came to 
 save them, and they will tell you, " From ) 
 hell, from penal fires, from future pun- 1 
 ishment." Accordingly, they think that! 
 salvation is something which another 
 may achieve for them, very much as a 
 neighbor may quench a conflagration 
 that menaces their dwellings and lives. 
 That word hell, which is used so sel- 
 dom in the sacred pages, which in a 
 faithful translation would not once occur 
 in the writings of Paul, and Peter, and 
 John, which we meet only in four or five 
 discourses of Jesus, and which all per- 
 sons acquainted with Jewish geography 
 know to be a metaphor, a figure of
 
 252 
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 speech, and not a literal expression, 
 this word, by a perverse and exaggerat- 
 ed use, has done unspeakable injury to 
 Christianity. It has possessed and dis- 
 eased men's imaginations with outward 
 tortures, shrieks, and flames ; giving 
 them the idea of an outward ruin as 
 what they have chiefly to dread ; turned 
 their thoughts to Jesus as an outward 
 deliverer ; and thus blinded them to his 
 true glory, which consists in his setting 
 i free and exalting the soul. Men are 
 [flying from an outward hell, when in 
 ' truth they carry within them the hell 
 which they should chiefly dread. The 
 I salvation which man chiefly needs, and 
 ' that which brings with it all other de- 
 liverance, is salvation from the evil of 
 his own mind. There is something far 
 worse than outward punishment. It is 
 sin ; it is the state of the soul which has 
 revolted from God, and cast off its al- 
 legiance to conscience and the divine 
 word ; which renounces its Father, and 
 hardens itself against Infinite Love ; 
 which, endued with divine powers, en- 
 thralls itself to animal lusts ; which 
 makes gain its god ; which has capac- 
 ities of boundless and ever-growing love, 
 and shuts itself up in the dungeon of 
 private interests ; which, gifted with 
 a self -directing power, consents to be 
 a slave, and is passively formed by 
 custom, opinion, and changing events ; 
 which, living under God's eye, dreads 
 man's frown or scorn, and prefers hu- 
 man praise to its own calm conscious- 
 ness of virtue ; which tamely yields to 
 temptation, shrinks with a coward's 
 baseness from the perils of duty, and 
 sacrifices its glory and peace in parting 
 with self control. No ruin can be com- 
 pared to this. This the impenitent man 
 carries with him beyond the grave, and 
 there meets its natural issue and inevi- 
 table retribution, in remorse, self-torture, 
 and woes unknown on earth. This we 
 cannot too strongly fear. To save, in the 
 highest sense of that word, is to lift the 
 fallen spirit from this depth, to heal 
 the diseased mind, to restore it to en- 
 ergy and freedom of thought, conscience, 
 and love. This was chiefly the salva- 
 tion for which Christ shea his blood. 
 For this the holy spirit is given ; and to 
 this all the truths of Christianity conspire. 
 4. Another illustration of the error 
 which I am laboring to expose, and 
 which places the glory and importance 
 
 of Christianity in something besides its 
 quickening influence on the soul, is af- 
 forded in the common apprehensions 
 formed of heaven, and of the methods 
 by which it may be obtained. Not a 
 few, I suspect, conceive of heaven as a 
 foreign good. It is a distant country to 
 which we are to be conveyed by an out- 
 ward agency. How slowly do men learn 
 that heaven is the perfection of the 
 mind, and that Christ gives it now just 
 as far as he raises the mind to celestial 
 truth and virtue. It is true that this 
 word is often used to express a future 
 felicity ; but the blessedness of the fut- 
 ure world is only a continuance of what 
 is begun here. There is but one true 
 happiness, that of a mind unfolding 
 its best powers, and attaching itself to 
 great objects ; and Christ gives heaven 
 only in proportion as he gives this eleva- , 
 tion of character. The disinterested- 
 ness, and moral strength, and filial piety I 
 of the Christian, are not mere means 
 of heaven, but heaven itself, and heaven 
 now. 
 
 The most exalted idea we can form 
 of the future state is that it brings and 
 joins us to God. But is not approach 
 to this great Being begun on earth ? 
 Another delightful view of heaven is 
 that it unites us with the good and great 
 of our own race, and even with higher 
 orders of beings. But this union is one 
 of spirit, not of mere place : it is accord- 
 ance of thought and feeling, not an 
 outward relation ; and does not this 
 harmony begin even now ? and is not 
 virtuous friendship on earth essentially 
 the pleasure which we hope hereafter ? 
 /What place would be drearier than the 
 (future mansions of Christ to one who 
 I should want sympathy with their inhab- 
 itants, who could not understand their 
 Klanguage, who would feel himself a for- 
 eigner there, who would be taught, by 
 the joys which he could not partake, his 
 own loneliness and desolation ? These 
 views, I know, are often given with 
 greater or less distinctness ; but they 
 seem to me not to have brought home 
 to men the truth, that the fountain of 
 happiness must be in our own souls. 
 Gross ideas of futurity still prevail. I 
 should not be surprised if to some 
 among us the chief idea of heaven were 
 that of a splendor, a radiance, like that 
 which Christ wore on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration. Let us all consider
 
 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 253 
 
 and it is a great truth that heaven has 
 no lustre surpassing that of intellectual 
 and moral worth ; and that, were the 
 effulgence of the sun and stars concen- 
 trated in the Christian, even this would 
 be darkness compared with the pure 
 beamings of wisdom, love, and power 
 from his mind. Think not, then, that 
 Christ has come to give heaven as some- 
 thing distinct from virtue. Heaven is 
 the freed and sanctified mind, enjoying 
 God through accordance with his attri- 
 butes, multiplying its bonds and sym- 
 pathies with excellent beings, putting 
 forth noble powers, and ministering, in 
 union with the enlightened and holy, 
 to the happiness and virtue of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 My friends, I fear I have been guilty 
 of repetition. But I feel the greatness 
 of the truth which I deliver, and I am 
 anxious to make it plain. Men need to 
 be taught it perpetually. They have al- 
 ways been inclined to look to Christ for 
 something better, as they have dreamed, 
 than the elevation of their own souls. 
 The great purpose of Christianity to 
 unfold and strengthen and lift up the 
 mind, has been perpetually thrown out of 
 sight. In truth, this purpose has been 
 more than overlooked. It has been 
 reversed. The very religion given to 
 exalt human nature has been used to 
 make it abject. The very religion which 
 was given to create a generous hope 
 has been made an instrument of servile 
 and torturing fear. The very religion 
 which came from God's goodness- to en- 
 large the human soul with a kindred 
 goodness has been employed to narrow 
 it to a sect, to rear the Inquisition, and 
 to kindle fires for the martyr. The very 
 religion given to make the understand- 
 ing and conscience free has, by a crim- 
 inal perversion, served to break them 
 into subjection to priests, ministers, and 
 human creeds. Ambition and craft have 
 seized on the solemn doctrines of an 
 omnipotent God and of future punish- 
 ment, and turned them into engines 
 against the child, the trembling female, 
 the ignorant adult, until the sceptic has 
 been emboldened to charge on religion 
 the chief miseries and degradation of 
 human nature. It is from a deep and 
 sorrowful conviction of the injuries in- 
 flicted on Christianity and on the human 
 soul by these perversions and errors, 
 
 that I have reiterated the great truth of 
 this discourse. I would rescue our holy 
 faith from this dishonor. Christianity 
 has no tendency to break the human 
 spirit or to make man a slave. It has 
 another aim ; and, as far as it is under- 
 stood, it puts forth another power. God 
 sent it from heaven, Christ sealed it with 
 his blood, that it might give force of 
 thought and purpose to the human mind, 
 might free it from all fear but the fear 
 of wrong-doing, might make it free of 
 its fellow-beings, might break from it 
 every outward and inward chain. 
 
 My hearers, I close with exhorting 
 you to remember this great purpose of 
 our religion. Receive Christianity as 
 given to raise you in the scale of spirit- 
 ual being. Expect from it n good any 
 farther than it gives strength and worth 
 to your characters. Think not, as some 
 seem to think, that Christ has a higher 
 gift than purity to bestow, even pardon 
 to the sinner. He does bring pardon. 
 But once separate the idea of pardon 
 from purity ; once imagine that forgive- 
 ness is possible to him who does not 
 forsake sin ; once make it an exemption 
 from outward punishment, and not the 
 admission of the reformed mind to favor 
 and communion with God ; and the doc- 
 trine of pardon becomes your peril, and 
 a system so teaching it is fraught with 
 evil. Expect no good from Christ any 
 farther than you are exalted by his char- 
 acter and teaching. Expect nothing from 
 his cross unless a power comes from it 
 strengthening you to " bear his cross," 
 to "drink his cup," with his own uncon- 
 querable love. This is its highest influ- 
 ence. Look not abroad for the blessings 
 of Christ. His reign *and chief blessings 
 are within you. The human soul is his 
 kingdom. There he gains his victories, 
 there rears his temples, there lavishes 
 his treasures. His noblest monument is 
 a mind redeemed from iniquity, brought 
 back and devoted to God. forming itself 
 after the perfection of the Saviour, great 
 through its power to suffer for truth, 
 lovely through its meek and gentle virt- 
 ues. No other monument does Christ 
 desire ; for this will endure and increase 
 in splendor when earthly thrones shall 
 have fallen, and even when the present 
 order of the outward universe shall have 
 accomplished its work and shall have 
 passed away.
 
 254 
 
 MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 WE live at a time when the obligation 
 of extending Christianity is more felt 
 than in many past ages. There is much 
 stir, motion, and zeal around us in this 
 good cause. Even those who seem not 
 to be burdened by an excess of piety 
 themselves are in earnest to give it to 
 others. The activity of multitudes is 
 taking strongly this direction ; and as 
 men are naturally restless, and want 
 room for action, and will do mischief 
 rather than do nothing, a philanthropist 
 will rejoice that this new channel is 
 opened for carrying off the superabun- 
 dant energies of multitudes, even if no 
 other good should result from it. 
 
 We hope, however, much other good. 
 We trust that, whilst many inferior mo- 
 tives and many fanatical impulses are 
 giving birth and action to large associa- 
 tions in Christendom ; whilst the love of 
 sway in some, and the love of congre- 
 gating in others, and the passion for 
 doing something great and at a distance 
 in all, are rearing mighty institutions 
 among us, still many sincere Chris- 
 tians are governed in these concerns by 
 a supreme desire of spreading Christi- 
 anity. They have found the gospel an 
 infinite good, and would communicate it 
 to their fellow-beings. They have drunk 
 from the Fountain of Life, and would 
 send forth the stream to gladden every 
 wilderness and solitary place, and to as- 
 suage the thirst of every anxious and 
 afflicted mind. They turn with contin- 
 ual pleasure to the prophetic passages 
 of Scripture, and, interpreting them by 
 their wishes, hope a speedy change in 
 the moral state of the world, and are im- 
 patient to bear a part in this stupendous 
 renovation. That they are doing good 
 we doubt not. though perhaps not in the 
 way which they imagine or would prefer. 
 The immediate and general success of 
 their attempts would perhaps be ulti- 
 mately injurious to Christianity. They 
 are sending out, together with God's 
 word, corrupt interpretations of some 
 parts of it. which considerably neutral- 
 ize its saving power, and occasionally 
 
 make it a positive injury. They are per- 
 haps to do good not by success so much 
 as by failure. Almost all great enter- 
 prises are accomplished gradually, and 
 by methods which have been learned 
 from many unsuccessful trials, from a 
 slow accumulation of experience. The 
 first laborers often do little more than 
 teach those who come after them what 
 to avoid and "how to labor more effect- 
 ually than themselves. But be the issue 
 what it may, sincere Christians who em- 
 bark in this good work, not from party- 
 spirit and self-conceit, as if they and 
 their sect were depositaries of all truth 
 and virtue, but from unaffected philan- 
 thropy and attachment to Jesus Christ, 
 will have their reward. Even a degree 
 of extravagance in such a cause may 
 be forgiven. Men are willing that the 
 imagination should be kindled on other 
 subjects ; that the judgment should 
 sometimes slumber, and leave the af- 
 fections to feed on hopes brighter 
 than reality ; that patriotism, and phi- 
 lanthropy, and the domestic affections, 
 should sometimes break out in chival- 
 rous enterprises, and should seek their 
 ends by means on which the reason 
 may look coldly. Why, then, shall we 
 frown on every deviation from the strict- 
 est judiciousness in a concern which ap- 
 peals so strongly to the heart as the 
 extension of Christianity ? Men may be 
 too rational as well as too fervent ; and 
 the man whose pious wish of the speedy 
 conversion of the world rises into a 
 strong anticipation of the event, and 
 who, taking his measure of duty from 
 the primitive disciples, covets sacrifices 
 in so good a cause, is an incomparably 
 nobler'spirit than he who believing that 
 the moral condition of the world is as 
 invariable as the laws of material nature, 
 and seeking pretexts for sloth in a heart- 
 chilling philosophy, has no concern for 
 the multitudes who are sitting in dark- 
 ness, and does nothing to spread the re- 
 ligion which he believes to have come 
 from heaven. 
 
 There is one danger, however, at a
 
 MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 255 
 
 period like the present, when we are 
 aiming to send Christianity to a dis- 
 tance, which demands attention. It is 
 the danger of neglecting the best meth- 
 ods of propagating Christianity, of over- 
 looking much plainer obligations than 
 that of converting heathens, of forget- 
 ting the claims of our religion at home 
 and by our firesides. It happens that 
 on this, as on almost every subject, our 
 most important duties are quiet, retired, 
 noiseless, attracting little notice, and 
 administering little powerful excitement 
 to the imagination. The surest efforts 
 for extending Christianity are those 
 which few observe, which are recorded 
 in no magazine, blazoned at no anniver- 
 saries, immortalized by no eloquence. 
 Such efforts, being enjoined only by 
 conscience and God, and requiring 
 steady, patient, unwearied toil, we are 
 apt to overlook, and perhaps never more 
 so than when the times furnish a popu- 
 lar substitute for them, and when we 
 can discharge our consciences by labors 
 which, demanding little self-denial, are 
 yet talked of as the highest exploits of 
 Christian charity. Hence it is that when 
 most is said of labors to propagate Chris- 
 tianity, the least may be really and effect- 
 ually done. We hear a torrent roaring, 
 and imagine that the fields are plenti- 
 fully watered, when the torrent owes its 
 violence to a ruinous concentration of 
 streams which before moved quietly in 
 a thousand little channels, moistening 
 the hidden roots, and publishing their 
 course, not to the ear but to the eye, by 
 the refreshing verdure which grew up 
 around them. It is proper, then, when 
 new methods are struck out for sending 
 Christianity abroad, to remind men often 
 of the old-fashioned methods of promot- 
 ing it, to insist on^he superiority of the 
 means which are in almost every man's 
 reach, which require no extensive asso- 
 ciations, and which do not subject us to 
 the temptations of exaggerated praise. 
 We do not mean that any exertion which 
 promises to extend our religion in any 
 tolerable state of purity is to be declined. 
 But the first rank is to be given to the 
 efforts which God has made the plain 
 duties of men in all ranks and condi- 
 tions of life. Two of these methods 
 will be briefly mentioned. 
 
 First, every individual should feel 
 that, whilst his influence over other 
 men's hearts and character is very 
 
 bounded, his power over his own heart 
 is great and constant and that his zeal 
 for extending Christianity is to appear 
 chiefly in extending it through his own 
 mind and life. Let him remember that 
 he as truly enlarges God s kingdom by 
 invigorating his own moral and religious 
 principles, as by communicating them 
 toothers. Our first concern is at home, 
 our chief work is in our own breasts. 1 1 is 
 idle to talk of our anxiety for other men's 
 souls if we neglect our own. Without 
 personal virtue and religion we cannot, 
 even if we would, do much for the cause 
 of Christ. It is only by purifying our 
 own conceptions of God and duty that 
 we can give clear and useful views to 
 others. We must first feel the power 
 of religion, or we cannot recommend it 
 with an unaffected and prevalent zeal. 
 Would we, then, promote pure Christi- 
 anity ? Let us see that it be planted 
 and take root in our own minds, and 
 that no busy concern for others take us 
 from the labor of self-inspection and the 
 retired and silent offices of piety. 
 
 The second method is intimately con- 
 nected with the first. It is example. 
 This is a means within the reach of all. 
 Be our station in life what it may, it has 
 duties in performing which faithfully 
 we give important aid to the cause of 
 morality and piety. The efficacy of this 
 means of advancing Christianity cannot 
 be easily calculated. Example has an in- 
 sinuating power, transforming the ob- 
 server without noise, attracting him 
 without the appearance of effort. A 
 truly Christian life is better than large 
 contributions of wealth for the propaga- 
 tion of Christianity. The most promi- 
 nent instruction of Jesus on this point 
 is that we must let men " see our good 
 works," if we would lead them to "glo- 
 rify our Father in heaven." Let men 
 see in us that religion is something real, 
 something more than high-sounding and 
 empty words, a restraint from sin, a 
 bulwark against temptation, a spring of 
 upright and useful action ; let them see 
 it not an idle form, nor a transient feel- 
 ing, but our companion through life, in- 
 fusing its purity into our common pur- 
 suits, following us to our homes, setting 
 a guard round our integrity in the re- 
 sorts of business, sweetening our tem- 
 pers in seasons of provocation disposing 
 us habitually to sympathy with others, 
 to patience and cheerfulness under our
 
 256 
 
 MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 own afflictions, to candid judgment, and 
 to sacrifices for others' good ; and we 
 may hope that our light will not shine 
 uselessly, that some slumbering con- 
 science will be roused by this testimony 
 to the excellence and practicableness of 
 religion, that some worldly professor of 
 Christianity will learn his obligations 
 and blush for his criminal inconsistency, 
 and that some, in whom the common 
 arguments for our religion may have 
 failed to work a full belief, will be 
 brought to the knowledge of the truth 
 by this plain practical proof of the 
 heavenly nature of Christianity. Every 
 man is surrounded with beings who are 
 moulded more or less by the principles 
 of sympathy and imitation ; and this 
 social part of our nature he is bound to 
 press into the service of Christianity. 
 
 It will not be supposed from these re- 
 marks on the duty of aiding Christianity 
 by our example, that religion is to be 
 worn ostentatiously, and that the Chris- 
 tian is studiously to exhibit himself and 
 his good works for imitation. That 
 same book which enjoins us to be pat- 
 terns, tells us to avoid parade, and even 
 to prefer entire secrecy in our charities 
 and our prayers. Nothing destroys the 
 weight of example so much as labor to 
 make it striking and observed. Good- 
 ness, to be interesting, must be humble, 
 modest, unassuming, not fond of show, 
 not waiting for great and conspicuous 
 occasions, but disclosing itself without 
 labor and without design in pious and 
 benevolent offices, so simple, so minute, 
 so steady, so habitual, that they will 
 carry a conviction of the singleness and 
 purity of the heart from which they 
 proceed. Such goodness is never lost. 
 It glorifies itself by the very humility 
 which encircles it, just as the lights of 
 heaven often break with peculiar splen- 
 dor through the cloud which threatened 
 to obscure them. 
 
 A pure example, which is found to be 
 more consistent in proportion as it is 
 more known, is the best method of 
 preaching and extending Christianity. 
 Without it, zeal for converting men 
 brings reproach on the cause. A bad 
 man, or a man of only ordinary good- 
 ness, who puts himself forward in this 
 work, throws a suspiciousness over the 
 efforts of better men, and thus the world 
 come to set down all labor for spreading 
 Christianity as mere pretence. Let not 
 
 him who will not submit to the toil of 
 making himself better, become a re- 
 former at home or abroad. Let not him 
 who is known to be mean, or -dishonest, 
 or intriguing, or censorious, or unkind 
 in his neighborhood, talk of his concern 
 for other men's souls. His life is an 
 injury to religion, which his contribu- 
 tions of zeal, or even of wealth, cannot 
 repair, and its injuriousness is aggra- 
 vated by these very attempts to expiate 
 its guilt, to reconcile him to himself. 
 
 It is well known that the greatest 
 obstruction to Christianity in heathen 
 countries is the palpable and undeniable 
 depravity of Christian nations. They 
 abhor our religion because we are such 
 unhappy specimens of it. They are un- 
 able to read our books, but they can 
 read our lives ; and what wonder if they 
 reject with scorn a system under which 
 the vices seem to have flourished so 
 luxuriantly. The Indian of both hemi- 
 spheres has reason to set down the 
 Christian as little better than himself. 
 He associates with the name perfidy, 
 fraud, rapacity, and slaughter. Can we 
 wonder that he is unwilling to receive a 
 religion from the hand which has chained 
 or robbed him ? Thus, bad example is 
 the great obstruction to Christianity 
 abroad as well as at home ; and perhaps 
 little good is to be done abroad until we 
 become better at home, until real Chris- 
 tians understand and practise their re- 
 ligion more thoroughly, and by their 
 example and influence spread it among 
 their neighbors and through their coun- 
 try, so that the aspect of Christian 
 nations shall be less shocking and re- 
 pulsive to the Jew, Mahometan, and 
 Pagan. Our first labor should be upon 
 ourselves ; and indeed if our religion 
 be incapable of bearing more fruit 
 among ourselves, it hardly seems to 
 deserve a very burning zeal for its prop- 
 agation. The question is an important 
 one, Would much be gained to hea- 
 then countries were we to make them 
 precisely what nations called Christians 
 now are? That the change would be 
 beneficial, we grant ; but how many dark 
 stains would remain on their characters ! 
 They would continue to fight and shed 
 blood as they now do. to resent injuries 
 hotly, to worship present gain and dis- 
 tinction, and to pursue the common 
 business of life on the principles of un- 
 disguised selfishness ; and they would
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 257 
 
 learn one lesson of iniquity which they 
 have not yet acquired, and that is, to 
 condemn and revile their brethren who 
 should happen to view the most per- 
 plexed points of theology differently 
 from themselves. The truth is, Chris- 
 tian nations want a genuine reformation, 
 one worthy of the name. They need to 
 have their zeal directed, not so much to 
 the spreading of the gospel abroad, as 
 to the application of its plain precepts 
 to their daily business, to the education 
 of their children, to the treatment of 
 their domestics and dependants, and to 
 their social and religious intercourse. 
 They need to understand that a man's 
 piety is to be estimated, not so much by 
 his professions or direct religious exer- 
 cises, as by a conscientious surrender 
 of his will, passions, worldly interests, 
 and prejudices, to the acknowledged 
 duties of Christianity, and especially by 
 a philanthropy resembling in its great 
 features of mildness, activity, and en- 
 durance, that of Jesus Christ. They 
 
 need to give up their severe inquisition 
 into their neighbors' opinions, and to 
 begin in earnest to seek for themselves, 
 and to communicate to others, a nobler 
 standard of temper and practice than 
 they have yet derived from the Script- 
 ures. In a word, they need to learn the 
 real value and design of Christianity by 
 the only thorough and effectual process ; 
 that is, by drinking deeply into its spirit 
 of love to God and man. If, in this age 
 of societies, we should think it wise to 
 recommend another institution for the 
 propagation of Christianity, it would be 
 one the members of which should be 
 pledged to assist and animate one an- 
 other in living according to the Sermon 
 on the Mount. How far such a meas- 
 ure would be effectual we venture not 
 to predict ; but of one thing we are 
 sure, that, should it prosper, it would do 
 more for spreading the gospel than all 
 other associations which are now re- 
 ceiving the patronage of the Christian 
 world. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY: 
 
 Discourse at the Dedication of Divinity Hall, Cambridge, 1826. 
 
 LUKE iv. 32 : " His word was with power." 
 
 WE are assembled to set apart and 
 consecrate this building to the education 
 of teachers of the Christian religion. 
 Regarding, as we do, this religion as 
 God's best gift to mankind, we look on 
 these simple walls, reared for this holy 
 and benevolent work, with an interest 
 which more splendid edifices, dedicated 
 to inferior purposes, would fail to in- 
 spire. We thank God for the zeal which 
 has erected them. We thank him for 
 the hope that here will be trained, and 
 hence will go forth, able ministers of 
 the New Testament. God accept our 
 offering and fulfil our trust ! May He 
 shed on this spot the copious dew of his 
 grace, and compass it with his favor as 
 with a shield ! 
 
 To what end do we devote this build- 
 ing ? How may this end be accom- 
 
 plished ? These questions will guide 
 our present reflections. 
 
 To what end is this edifice dedicated ? 
 The answer to this question may be 
 given in various forms or expanded into 
 various particulars. From this wide 
 range of topics I shall select one which, 
 from its comprehensiveness and impor- 
 tance, will be acknowledged to deserve 
 peculiar attention. I say, then, that this 
 edifice is dedicated to the training of 
 ministers, whose word, like their Mas- 
 ter's, shall be "with power" Power, 
 energy, efficiency, that is the endow- 
 ment to be communicated most assidu- 
 ously by a theological institution. Such 
 is the truth which I would now develop. 
 My meaning may easily be explained. 
 By the power of which I have spoken 
 I mean that strong action of the un- 
 derstanding, conscience, and heart, on
 
 2 5 8 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 moral and religious truth, through which 
 the preacher is quickened and qualified 
 to awaken the same strong action in 
 others. I mean energy of thought and 
 feeling in the minister, creating for itself 
 an appropriate expression, and propa- 
 gating itself to the hearer. What this 
 power is all men understand by experi- 
 ence. All know how the same truth 
 differs when dispensed by different lips ; 
 how doctrines, inert and uninteresting as 
 expounded by one teacher, come fraught 
 with life from another, arrest atten- 
 tion, rouse emotion, and give a new 
 spring to the soul. In declaring this 
 power to be the great object of a theo- 
 logical institution, I announce no dis- 
 covery. I say nothing new. But this 
 truth, like many others, is too often ac- 
 knowledged only to be slighted. It 
 needs to be brought out, to be made 
 prominent, to become the living, guid- 
 ing principle of education for the minis- 
 try. Power, then, I repeat it, is the 
 great good to be communicated by theo- 
 logical institutions. To impart knowl- 
 edge is indeed their indispensable duty, 
 but not their whole, nor most arduous, 
 nor highest Work. Knowledge is the 
 means, power the end. The former, 
 when accumulated, as it often is, with 
 no strong action of the intellect, no viv- 
 idness of conception, no depth of con- 
 viction, no force of feeling, is of little 
 or no worth to the preacher. It comes 
 from him as a faint echo, with nothing 
 of that mysterious energy which strong 
 conviction throws into style and utter- 
 ance. His breath, which should kindle, 
 .chills his hearers, and the nobler the 
 truth with which he is charged the less 
 he succeeds in carrying it far into men's 
 souls. We want more than knowledge. 
 We want force of thought, feeling, and 
 purpose. What profits it to arm the 
 pupil with weapons of heavenly temper, 
 unless his hands be nerved to wield 
 them with vigor and success ? The 
 word of God is indeed "quick and pow- 
 erful, and sharper than any two-edged 
 sword ; " but when committed to him 
 who has no kindred energy, it does not 
 and cannot penetrate the mind. Power 
 is the attribute which crowns all a min- 
 ister's accomplishments. It is the cen- 
 tre and grand result in which all his 
 studies, meditations, and prayers should 
 meet, and without which his office be- 
 comes a form and a show. And yet how 
 
 seldom is it distinctly and earnestly pro- 
 posed as the chief qualification for the 
 sacred office ! How seldom do we meet 
 it ! How often does preaching remind 
 us of a child's arrows shot against a 
 fortress of adamant ! How often does 
 it seem a mock fight ! We do not see 
 the earnestness of real warfare ; of men 
 bent on the accomplishment of a great 
 good. We want powerful ministers, not 
 graceful declaimers, not elegant essay- 
 ists, but men fitted to act on men, to 
 make themselves felt in society. 
 
 I have said that the communication of 
 power is the great end of a theological 
 institution. Let not this word give 
 alarm. I mean by it, as you must have 
 seen, a very different power from that 
 which ministers once possessed, and 
 which some still covet. There have 
 been times when the clergy were rivals 
 in dominion with kings ; when the 
 mitre even towered above the diadem ; 
 when the priest, shutting God's word 
 on the people, and converting its threat- 
 enings and promises into instruments 
 of usurpation, was able to persuade men 
 that the soul's everlasting doom hung 
 on his ministry, and even succeeded in 
 establishing a sway over fiery and fero- 
 cious spirits which revolted against all 
 other control. This power, suited to 
 barbarous times, and, as some imagine, 
 a salutary element of society in rude, 
 lawless ages, has been shaken almost 
 everywhere by the progress of intel- 
 lect ; and in Protestant countries it is 
 openly reprobated and renounced. It is 
 not to re-establish this that these walls 
 have been reared. We trust that they 
 are to be bulwarks against its encroach- 
 ments, and that they are to send forth 
 influences more and more hostile to 
 every form of spiritual usurpation. 
 
 Am I told that this kind of power is 
 now so fallen and so contemned that to 
 disclaim or to oppose it seems a waste 
 of words ? I should rejoice to yield 
 myself to this belief. But unhappily 
 the same enslaving and degrading power 
 may grow up under Protestant as under 
 Catholic institutions. In all ages and 
 all churches terror confers a temendous 
 influence on him who can spread it ; 
 and through this instrument the Prot- 
 estant minister, while disclaiming Papal 
 pretensions, is able, if so minded, to 
 build up a spiritual despotism. That 
 this means of subjugating the mind
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 259 
 
 should be too freely used and dread- 
 fully perverted, we cannot wonder, when 
 we consider that no talent is required to 
 spread a panic, and that coarse minds 
 and hard hearts are signally gifted for 
 this work of torture. The progress of 
 intelligence is undoubtedly narrowing 
 the power which the minister gains by 
 excessive appeals to men's fears, but 
 has by no means destroyed it ; for as 
 yet the intellect, even in Protestant 
 countries, has exerted itself compara- 
 tively little on religion ; and ignorance 
 begetting a passive, servile state of 
 mind, the preacher, if so disposed, 
 finds little difficulty in breaking some, 
 if not many, spirits by terror. The 
 effects of this ill-gotten power are 
 mournful on the teacher and the taught. 
 The panic-smitten hearer, instructed 
 that safety is to be found in bowing to 
 an unintelligible creed, and too agitated 
 for deliberate and vigorous thought, re- 
 signs himself a passive subject to his 
 spiritual guides, and receives a faith by 
 which he is debased. Nor does the 
 teacher escape unhurt ; for all usurpa- 
 tion on men's understandings begets in 
 him who exercises it a dread and resist- 
 ance of the truth which threatens its 
 subversion. Hence ministers have so 
 often fallen behind their age, and been 
 the chief foes of the master-spirits who 
 have improved the world. They have 
 felt their power totter at the tread of 
 an independent thinker. By a kind of 
 instinct, they have fought against the 
 light before which the shades of su- 
 perstition were vanishing, and have 
 received their punishment in the dark- 
 ness and degradation of their own minds. 
 To such power as we have described 
 we do not dedicate these walls. We 
 would not train here, if we could, agents 
 of terror to shake weak nerves, to dis- 
 ease the imagination, to lay a spell on 
 men's faculties, to guard a creed by 
 fires more consuming than those which 
 burned on Sinai. Believing that this 
 method of dominion is among the chief 
 obstructions to an enlightened faith, 
 and abhorring tyranny in the pulpit as 
 truly as on the throne, we would con- 
 secrate this edifice to the subversion, 
 not the participation, of this unhallowed 
 power. 
 
 Is it. then, asked what I mean by the 
 power which this institution should aim 
 to communicate ? I mean power to act 
 
 on intelligent and free beings, by means 
 proportioned to their nature. I mean 
 power to call into healthy exertion the 
 intellect, conscience, affections, and 
 moral will of the hearer. I mean force 
 of conception, and earnestness of style 
 and elocution. I mean that truth should 
 be a vital principle in the soul of the 
 teacher, and should come from him as 
 a reality. I mean that his whole moral 
 and intellectual faculties should be sum- 
 moned to his work ; that a tone of force 
 and resolution should pervade his ef- 
 forts ; that, throwing his soul into his 
 cause, he should plead it with urgency, 
 and should concentrate on his hearers 
 all the influences which consist with 
 their moral freedom. 
 
 Every view which we can take of the 
 ministry will teach us that nothing less 
 than the whole amount of posver in the 
 individual can satisfy its demands. This 
 we learn, if we consider, first, the weight 
 and grandeur of the subjects which the 
 minister is to illustrate and enforce. 
 He is to speak of God, the King and 
 Father Eternal, whose praise no tongue 
 of men or angels can worthily set forth. 
 He is to speak of the soul, that ray of 
 the Divinity, the partaker of God's own 
 immortality, to which the outward uni- 
 verse was made to minister, and which, 
 if true to itself, will one day be clad with 
 a beauty and grandeur such as nature's 
 loveliest and sublimest scenery never 
 wears. He is to speak not of this world 
 only, but of invisible and more advanced 
 states of being ; of a world too spir- 
 itual for the fleshly eye to see, but of 
 which a presage and earnest may be. 
 found in the enlightened and purified 
 mind. He has to speak of virtue, of 
 human perfection, of the love which is 
 due to the Universal Father and to 
 fellow-beings, of the intercourse of the 
 soul with its Creator, and of all the 
 duties of life as hallowed and elevated 
 by a reference to God and to the future 
 world. He has to speak of sin, that 
 essential evil, that only evil, which, by 
 its unutterable fearfulness, makes all 
 other calamities unworthy of the name. 
 He is to treat not of ordinary life, nor 
 of the most distinguished agents in 
 ordinary history, but of God's super- 
 natural interpositions ; of his most sen- 
 sible and immediate providence : of 
 men inspired and empowered to work 
 the most important revolutions in soci-
 
 260 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 ety ; and especially of Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God, the theme of prophecy, the 
 revealer of grace and truth, the Saviour 
 from sin, the conqueror of death, who 
 hath left us an example of immaculate vir- 
 tue, whose love passeth knowledge, and 
 whose history combining the strange 
 and touching contrasts of the cross, the 
 resurrection, and a heavenly throne 
 surpasses all other records in interest 
 and grandeur. He has to speak not of 
 transitory concerns, but of happiness 
 and misery transcending in duration and 
 degree the most joyful and suffering 
 condition of the present state. He has 
 to speak of the faintly shadowed but 
 solemn consummation of this world's 
 eventful history ; of the coming of the 
 Son of Man, the resurrection, the judg- 
 ment, the retributions of the last day. 
 Here are subjects of intense interest. 
 They claim and should call forth the 
 mind's whole power, and are infinitely 
 wronged when uttered with cold lips 
 and from an unmoved heart. 
 
 If we next consider the effects which, 
 through these truths, the minister is to 
 produce, we shall see that his function 
 demands and should be characterized by 
 power. The first purpose of a minister's 
 function, which is to enlighten the un- 
 derstanding on the subject of religion, 
 is no easy task; for all religious truth 
 is not obvious, plain, shining with an 
 irresistible evidence, so that a glance of 
 thought will give the hearer possession 
 of the teacher's mind. We sometimes 
 talk, indeed, of the simplicity of religion, 
 as if it were as easy as a child's book, as 
 if it might be taught with as little labor 
 as the alphabet. But all analogy for- 
 bids us to believe that the sublimest 
 truths can be imparted or gained with 
 little thought or effort, and the. prevalent 
 ignorance confirms this presumption. 
 Obstacles neither few nor small to a 
 clear apprehension of religion are found 
 in the invisibleness of its objects ; in 
 the disproportion between the Infinite 
 Creator and the finite mind ; in the 
 proneness of human beings to judge of 
 superior natures by their own, and to 
 transfer to the spiritual world the prop- 
 erties of matter and the affections of 
 sense ; in the perpetual pressure of out- 
 ward things upon the attention ; in the 
 darkness which sin spreads over the in- 
 tellect ; in the ignorance which yet pre- 
 vails in regard to the human mind ; and, 
 
 though last not least, in the errors and 
 superstitions which have come down to 
 us from past ages, and which exert an 
 unsuspected power on our whole modes 
 of religious thinking. These obstacles 
 are strengthened by the general indis- 
 position to investigate religion freely 
 and thoroughly. The tone of authority 
 with which it has been taught, the terror 
 and obscure phraseology in which it has 
 been shrouded, and the unlovely aspect 
 which it has been made to wear, have 
 concurred to repel from it deliberate and 
 earnest attention, and to reconcile men 
 to a superficial mode of thinking which 
 they would scorn on every other subject. 
 Add to this, that the early inculcation 
 and frequent repetition of religion, by 
 making it familiar, expose it to neglect. 
 The result of all these unfavorable in- 
 fluences is, that religious truth is more 
 indistinctly apprehended, is more shad- 
 owy and unreal to the multitude, than 
 any other truth ; and, unhappily, this 
 remark applies with almost equal truth 
 to all ranks of society and all orders 
 of intellect. The loose conceptions of 
 Christianity which prevail among the 
 high as well as the low, do not deserve 
 the name of knowledge. The loftiest 
 minds among us seldom put forth their 
 strength on the very subject for which 
 intelligence was especially given. A 
 great revolution is needed here. The 
 human intellect is to be brought to act 
 on religion with new power. It ought 
 to prosecute this inquiry with an intense- 
 ness with which no other subject is in- 
 vestigated. And does it require no en- 
 ergy in the teacher to awaken this power 
 and earnestness of thought in others, to 
 bring religion before the intellect as its 
 worthiest object, to raise men's tradi- 
 tional, lifeless, superficial faith into de- 
 liberate, profound conviction ? 
 
 That the ministry should be charac- 
 terized by power and energy will be 
 made more apparent, if we consider that 
 it is instituted to quicken not only the 
 intellect but the conscience ; to enforce 
 the obligations as well as illustrate the 
 truth of religion. It is an important 
 branch of the minister's duty to bring 
 home the general principles of duty to 
 the individual mind ; to turn it upon 
 itself ; to rouse it to a resolute, impar- 
 tial survey of its whole responsibili- 
 ties and ill deserts. And is not energy 
 needed to break through the barriers
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 261 
 
 of pride and self-love, and to place the 
 individual before a tribunal in his own 
 breast as solemn and searching as that 
 which awaits him at the last day ? It is 
 not, indeed, so difficult to rouse in the 
 timid and susceptible a morbid suscep- 
 tibility of conscience, to terrify weak 
 people into the idea that they are to 
 answer for sins inherited from the first 
 fallen pair, and entailed upon them by a 
 stern necessity. But this feverish action 
 of the conscience is its weakness, not its 
 strength ; and the teacher who would 
 rouse the moral sense to discriminating 
 judgment and healthful feeling, has need 
 of a vastly higher kind of power than is 
 required to darken and disease it. 
 
 Another proof that the ministry should 
 be characterized by power, is given to us 
 by the consideration that it is intended 
 to act on the affections ; to exhibit re- 
 ligion in its loveliness and venerableness, 
 as well as in its truth and obligation ; to 
 concentrate upon it all the strength of 
 moral feeling. The Christian teacher 
 has a great work to do in the human 
 heart. His function has .for its highest 
 aim to call forth towards God the pro- 
 foundest awe, attachment, trust, and joy, 
 of which human nature is capable. Re- 
 ligion demands that He who is supreme 
 in the universe should be supreme in 
 the human soul. God, to whom belongs 
 the mysterious and incommunicable at- 
 tribute of infinity ; who is the fulness 
 and source of life and thought, of beauty 
 and power, of love and happiness ; on 
 whom we depend more intimately than 
 the stream on the fountain, or the plant 
 on the earth in which it is rooted, this 
 Great Being ought to call forth peculiar 
 emotions, and to move and sway the 
 soul, as He pervades creation, with un- 
 rivalled energy. It is his distinction, 
 that He unites in his nature infinite 
 majesty and infinite benignity, the most 
 awful with the most endearing attri- 
 butes, the tenderest relations to the in- 
 dividual with the grandeur of the uni- 
 versal sovereign ; and, through this 
 nature, He is fitted to act on the mind 
 as no other being can, to awaken a 
 love more intense, a veneration more 
 profound, a sensibility of which the soul 
 knows not its capacity until it is pene- 
 trated and touched by God. To bring 
 the created mind into living union with 
 the Infinite Mind, so that it shall re- 
 spond to him through its whole being, 
 
 is the noblest function which this har- 
 monious and beneficent universe per- 
 forms. For this revelation was given. 
 For this the ministry was instituted. 
 The Christian teacher is to make more 
 audible, and to interpret, the voice in 
 which the beauty and awfulness of nat- 
 ure, the heavens, the earth, fruitful sea- 
 sons, storms and thunders, recall men 
 to their Creator. Still more, he is to 
 turn them to the clearer, milder, more 
 attractive splendors in which the Divin- 
 ity is revealed by Jesus Christ. His 
 great purpose, I repeat it, is to give 
 vitality to the thought of God in the 
 human mind ; to make his presence 
 felt ; to make him a reality, and the 
 most powerful reality to the soul. And 
 is not this a work requiring energy of 
 thought and utterance ? Is it easy, in 
 a world of matter and sense, amidst 
 crowds of impressions rushing in from 
 abroad, amidst the constant and visible 
 agency of second causes, amidst the 
 anxieties, toils, pleasures, dissipations, 
 and competitions of life, in the stir and 
 bustle of society, and in an age when 
 luxury wars with spirituality, and the 
 development of nature's resources is 
 turning men's trust from the Creator, 
 is it easy, amidst these gross interests 
 and distracting influences, to raise men's 
 minds to the invisible Divinity, to fix im- 
 pressions of God deeper and more en- 
 during than those which are received 
 from all other beings, to make him the 
 supreme object, spring, and motive of 
 the soul ? 
 
 We have seen how deep and strong 
 are the affections which the minister is 
 to awaken towards God. But strength 
 of religious impression is not his whole 
 work. From the imperfections of our 
 nature this very strength has its dan- 
 gers. Religion, in becoming fervent, 
 often becomes morbid. It is the min- 
 ister's duty to inculcate a piety char- 
 acterized by wisdom as much as by 
 warmth ; to mediate, if I may so speak, 
 between the reason and the affections, 
 so that, with joint energy and in blessed 
 harmony, they may rise together and 
 offer up the undivided soul to God. 
 Whoever understands the strength of 
 emotion in man's nature, and how hardly 
 the balance of the soul is preserved, 
 need not be told of the arduousness of 
 this work. Devout people, through love 
 of excitement, and through wrong views
 
 262 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 of the love of God, are apt to cherish 
 the devotional feelings, at the expense, 
 if not to the exclusion, of other parts 
 of our nature. They seem to imagine 
 that piety, like the Upas tree, makes a 
 desert where it grows, that the mind, 
 if not the body, needs a cloister. The 
 natural movements of the soul are re- 
 pressed ; the social affections damped ; 
 the grace, and ornament, and innocent 
 exhilarations of life frowned upon ; and 
 a gloomy, repulsive religion is culti- 
 vated, which, by way of compensation 
 for its privations, claims a monopoly of 
 God's favor, abandoning all to his wrath 
 who will not assume its own sad liv- 
 ery and echo its own sepulchral tones. 
 Through such exhibitions religion has 
 lost its honor ; and though the most 
 ennobling of all sentiments, dilating the 
 soul with vast thoughts and an un- 
 bounded hope, has been thought to 
 contract and degrade it. The minister 
 is to teach an earnest but enlightened 
 religion, a piety wnich, far from wast- 
 ing or eradicating, will protect, nourish, 
 freshen the mind's various affections 
 and powers ; which will add force to 
 reason, as well as ardor to the heart ; 
 which will at once bind us to God, and 
 cement and multiply our ties to our 
 families, our country, and mankind ; 
 which will heighten the relish of life's 
 pleasures, whilst it kindles an unquench- 
 able thirst for a purer happiness in the 
 life to come. Religion does not muti- 
 late our nature. It does not lay waste 
 our human interests and affections, that 
 it may erect for God a throne amidst 
 cheerless and solitary ruins, but widens 
 the range of thought, feeling, and en- 
 joyment. Such is religion ; and the 
 Christian ministry, having for its end 
 the communication of this healthful, 
 well-proportioned, and all-comprehend- 
 ing piety, demands every energy of 
 thought, feeling, and utterance which 
 the individual can bring to the work. 
 
 The time would fail me to speak of 
 the other affections and sentiments 
 which the ministry is instituted to ex- 
 cite and cherish, and I hasten to another 
 object of the Christian teacher, which, 
 to those who know themselves, will 
 peculiarly illustrate the power which 
 his office demands. It is his duty to 
 rouse men to self-conflict, to warfare 
 with the evil in their own hearts. This 
 is, in truth, the supreme evil. The sorest 
 
 calamities of life sickness, poverty, 
 scorn, dungeons, and death form a less 
 amount of desolation and suffering than 
 is included in that one word, sin, in 
 revolt from God, in disloyalty to con- 
 science, fn the tyranny of the passions, 
 in the thraldom of the soul's noblest 
 powers. To redeem men from sin was 
 Christ's great end. To pierce them with 
 a new consciousness of sin, so that they 
 shall groan under it, and strive against 
 it, and, through prayer and watching, 
 master it, is an essential part of the 
 ministers work. Let him not satisfy 
 himself with awakening by his elo- 
 quence occasional emotions of grati- 
 tude or sympathy. He must rouse the 
 soul to solemn, stern resolve against 
 its own deep and cherished corruptions, 
 or he only makes a show of assault, 
 and leaves the foe intrenched and un- 
 broken within. We see. then, the ardu- 
 ousness of the minister's work. He 
 is called to war with the might of the 
 human passions, with the whole power 
 of moral evil. He is to enlist men, 
 not for a crusade, nor for extermination 
 of heretics, but to fight a harder battle 
 within, to expel sin in all its forms, and 
 especially their besetting sins, from the 
 strongholds of the heart. I know no 
 task so arduous, none which demands 
 equal power. 
 
 I shall take but one more view of the 
 objects for which the Christian min- 
 istry was instituted, and from which we 
 infer that it should be fraught with 
 energy. It is the duty of the Christian 
 teacher to call forth in the soul a con- 
 viction of its immortality, a thirst for 
 a higher existence, and a grandeur and 
 elevation of sentiment becoming a being 
 who is to live, enjoy, and advance for 
 ever. His business is with men, not as 
 inhabitants of this world, but as related 
 to invisible beings and to purer and 
 happier worlds. The minister should 
 look with reverence on the human soul 
 as having within itself the germ of 
 heaven. He should recognize, in the 
 ignorant and unimproved, vast spiritual 
 faculties given for perpetual enlarge- 
 ment, just as the artist of genius sees 
 in the unhewn marble the capacity of 
 being transformed into a majesty and 
 grace which will command the admira- 
 tion of ages. In correspondence with 
 these views, let him strive to quicken 
 men to a consciousness of their inward
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 263 
 
 nature and of its affinity with God, and 
 to raise their steadfast aim and hope to 
 its interminable progress and felicity. 
 Such is his function. Perhaps I may 
 . be told that men are incapable of ris- 
 ing, under the best instruction, to this 
 height of thought and feeling. But let 
 us never despair of our race. There 
 is, I am sure, in the human soul a deep 
 consciousness, which responds to him 
 who sincerely, and with the language of 
 reality, speaks to it of the great and 
 everlasting purposes for which it was 
 created. There are sublime instincts 
 in man. There is in human nature a 
 want which the world cannot supply ; 
 a thirst for objects on which to pour 
 forth more fervent admiration and love 
 than visible things awaken ; a thirst 
 for the unseen, the infinite, and the 
 everlasting. Most of you who hear 
 have probably had moments when a 
 new light has seemed to dawn, a new 
 life to stir within you ; when you have 
 aspired after an unknown good ; when 
 you have been touched by moral great- 
 ness and disinterested love ; when you 
 have longed to break every chain of 
 selfishness and sensuality, and enjoy a 
 purer being. It is on this part of our 
 nature that religion is founded. To 
 this Christianity is addressed. The 
 power to speak to this is the noblest 
 which God has imparted to man or 
 angel, and should be coveted above all 
 things by the Christian teacher. 
 
 The need of power in the ministry has 
 been made apparent, from the greatness 
 of the truths to be dispensed and the 
 effects to be wrought by the Christian 
 teacher. The question then comes, 
 How may the student of theology be 
 aided in gaining or cherishing this 
 power ? Under what influences should 
 he be placed ? What are the springs 
 or foundations of the energy which he 
 needs ? How may he be quickened and 
 trained to act most efficiently on the 
 minds of men ? In answering these 
 questions, we of course determine the 
 character which belongs to a theological 
 institution, the spirit which it should 
 cherish, the discipline, the mode of 
 teaching, the excitements, which it 
 should employ. From this wide range 
 I shall select a few topics which are 
 recommended at once by their own im- 
 portance and by the circumstances in 
 which we are now placed. 
 
 i. To train the student to power of 
 thought and utterance, let him be left, 
 and, still more, encouraged, to free in- 
 vestigation. Without this a theological 
 institution becomes a prison to the in- 
 tellect and a nuisance to the church. 
 The mind grows by free action. Con- 
 fine it to beaten paths, prescribe to it 
 the results in which all study must end, 
 and you rob it of elasticity and life. It 
 will never spread to its full dimensions. 
 Teach the young man that the instruc- 
 tions of others are designed to quicken, 
 not supersede his own activity ; that he 
 has a divine intellect for which he is to 
 answer to God. and that to surrender it 
 to another is to cast the crown from his 
 head, and to yield up his noblest birth- 
 right. Encourage him in all great ques- 
 tions to hear both sides, and to meet 
 fairly the point of every hostile argu- 
 ment. Guard him against tampering 
 with his own mind, against silencing its 
 whispers and objections, that he may 
 enjoy a favorite opinion undisturbed. 
 Do not give him the shadow for the 
 substance of freedom, by telling him to 
 inquire, but prescribing to him the con- 
 victions at which he must stop. Better 
 show him honestly his chains than mock 
 the slave with the show of liberty. 
 
 I know the objection to this course. 
 It puts to hazard, we are told, the relig- 
 ious principles of the young. The ob- 
 jection is not without foundation. The 
 danger is not unreal. But I know no 
 method of forming a manly intellect or 
 a manly character without danger. Peril 
 is the element in which power is devel- 
 oped. Remove the youth from every 
 hazard, keep him in leading-strings lest 
 he should stray into forbidden paths, 
 surround him with down lest he should 
 be injured by a fall, shield him from 
 wind and storms, and you doom him to 
 perpetual infancy. All liberty is peril- 
 ous as the despot truly affirms ; but who 
 would therefore seek shelter under a 
 despot's throne ? Freedom of will is 
 almost a tremendous gift ; but still a 
 free agent, with all his capacity of 
 crime, is infinitely more interesting and 
 noble than the most harmonious and 
 beautiful machine. Freedom is the 
 nurse of intellectual and moral vigor. 
 Better expose the mind to error than 
 rob it of hardihood and individuality. 
 Keep not the destined teacher of man- 
 kind from the perilous field where the
 
 264 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 battle between truth and falsehood is 
 fought. Let him grapple with difficulty, 
 sophistry, and error. Truth is a con- 
 quest, and no man holds her so fast as 
 he who has won her by conflict. 
 
 That cases of infidelity may occur in 
 institutions conducted on free princi- 
 ples is very possible, though our own 
 experience gives no ground for fear. 
 But the student who, with all the aids 
 to Christian belief which are furnished 
 in a theological seminary, still falls a 
 prey to scepticism, is not the man to be 
 trusted with the cause of Christ. He is 
 radically deficient. He wants that con- 
 geniality with spiritual 'and lofty truths 
 without which the evidences of religion 
 work no deep conviction, and without 
 which the faith that might be instilled 
 by a slavish institution would be of little 
 avail. An upright mind may indeed be 
 disturbed and shaken for a time by the 
 arguments of scepticism ; but these will 
 be ultimately repelled, and, like con- 
 quered foes, will strengthen the princi- 
 ple by which they have been subdued. 
 
 Nothing. I am sure, can give power 
 like a free action of the mind. Accumu- 
 late teachers and books, for these are 
 indispensable. But the best teacher is 
 he who awakens in his pupils the power 
 of thought, and aids them to go alone. 
 It is possible to weaken and encumber 
 the mind by too much help. The very 
 splendor of a teacher's talents may injure 
 the pupil ; and a superior man, who is 
 more anxious to spread his own creed 
 and his own praise than to nourish a 
 strong intellect in others, will only waste 
 his life in multiplying poor copies, and 
 in sending forth into the churches tame 
 mimics of himself. 
 
 To free inquiry, then, we dedicate 
 these walls. We invite into them the 
 ingenuous young man, who prizes liberty 
 of mind more than aught within the gift 
 of sects or of the world. Let heaven's 
 free air circulate, and heaven's unob- 
 structed light shine here, and let those 
 who shall be sent hence go forth, not to 
 echo with servility a creed imposed on 
 their weakness, but to utter, in their 
 own manly tones, what their own free 
 investigation and deep conviction urge 
 them to preach as the truth of God. 
 
 2. In the second place, to give power 
 to the teacher, he should be imbued, by 
 all possible inculcation and excitement, 
 with a supreme and invincible love of 
 
 truth. This is at once the best defence 
 against the perils of free inquiry, and 
 the inspirer of energy both in thought 
 and utterance. The first duty of a 
 rational being is to his own intellect ; 
 for it is through soundness and honesty 
 of intellect that he is to learn all other 
 duties. I know no virtue more impor- 
 tant and appropriate to a teacher, and 
 especially a religious teacher, than fair- 
 ness and rectitude of understanding, 
 than a love of truth stronger than the 
 love of gain, honor, life ; and yet, so far 
 from being cherished, this virtue has 
 been warred against, hunted down, driven 
 to exile, or doomed to the stake, in almost 
 every Christian country, by ministers, 
 churches, religious seminaries, or a mad- 
 dened populace. In the glorious com- 
 pany of heroes and martyrs, a high rank 
 belongs to him who, superior to the 
 frowns or the sneers, the pity or the 
 wrath, which change of views would 
 bring upon him, and in opposition to the 
 warping influences of patronage, of pri- 
 vate friendship, or ambition, keeps his 
 mind chaste, inviolate, a sacred temple 
 for truth, ever open to new light from 
 heaven ; and who, faithful to his delib- 
 erate convictions, speaks simply and 
 firmly what his uncorrupted mind be- 
 lieves. This love of truth gives power, 
 for it secures a growing knowledge of 
 truth ; and truth is the mighty weapon 
 by which the victories of religion are to 
 be wrought out. This endures, whilst 
 error carries with it the seeds of decay. 
 Truth is an emanation from God, a beam 
 of his wisdom, and immutable as its 
 source ; and although its first influences 
 may seem to be exceeded by those of 
 error, it grows stronger, and strikes 
 deeper root, amidst the fluctuations and 
 ruins of false opinions. Besides, this 
 loyalty to truth not only leads to its 
 acquisition, but, still more, begets a 
 vital acquaintance with it, a peculiar con- 
 viction, which gives directness, energy, 
 and authority to teaching. A minister 
 who has been religiously just to his own 
 understanding speaks with a tone of 
 reality, of calm confidence, of conscious 
 uprightness, which cannot be caught by 
 the servile repeater of other men's no- 
 tions, or by the passionate champion of 
 an unexamined creed. A look, an accent, 
 a word, from a single-hearted inquirer 
 after truth, expressing his deliberate 
 convictions, has a peculiar power in for-
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 265 
 
 tifying the convictions of others. To 
 the love of truth, then, be these walls 
 consecrated, and here may every influ- 
 ence be combined to build it up in the 
 youthful heart ! 
 
 3. To train powerful ministers, let an 
 institution avail itself of the means of 
 forming a devotional spirit, and imbuing 
 the knowledge of the student with re- 
 ligious sensibility. Every man knows 
 that a cultivated mind, under strong and 
 generous emotion, acquires new com- 
 mand of its resources, new energy and 
 fulness of thought and expression ; whilst 
 in individuals of a native vigor of intel- 
 lect feeling almost supplies the place of 
 culture, inspiring the unlettered teacher 
 with a fervid, resistless eloquence, which 
 no apparatus of books, teachers, criti- 
 cism, ancient languages, and general 
 literature can impart. This power of 
 sensibility to fertilize and vivify the in- 
 tellect is not difficult of explanation. A 
 strong and pure affection concentrates 
 the attention on its objects, fastens on 
 them the whole soul, and thus gives 
 vividness of conception. It associates 
 intimately all the ideas which are con- 
 genial with itself, and thus causes a rush 
 of thought into the mind in moments of 
 excitement. Indeed, a strong emotion 
 seems to stir up the soul from its foun- 
 dations, and to attract to itself, and to 
 impregnate with its own fire, whatever 
 elements, conceptions, illustrations, can 
 be pressed into its own service. Hence 
 it is that even ordinary men, strongly 
 moved, abound in arguments, analogies, 
 and fervent appeals, which nothing but 
 sensibility could have taught. Every 
 minister can probably recollect periods 
 when devotional feeling has seemed to 
 open a new fountain of thought in the 
 soul. Religious affection instinctively 
 seeks and seizes the religious aspect of 
 things. It discerns the marks of God, 
 and proofs and illustrations of divine 
 truth, in all nature and providence ; and 
 seems to surround the mind with an 
 atmosphere which spreads its own warm 
 hues on every object which enters it. 
 This attraction, or affinity, if I may so 
 say, which an emotion establishes among 
 the thoughts which accord with itself, 
 is one of the very important laws of the 
 mind, and is chiefly manifested in poetry, 
 eloquence, and all the higher efforts of 
 intellect by which man sways his fellow- 
 beings. Religious feeling, then, is indis- 
 
 pensable to a powerful minister. Without 
 it learning and fancy may please, but 
 cannot move men profoundly and per- 
 manently. It is this which not only 
 suggests ideas, but gives felicity and 
 energy of expression. It prompts "the 
 words that burn " those mysterious 
 combinations of speech, which send the 
 speaker's soul like lightning through his 
 hearers, which breathe new life into old 
 and faded truths, and cause an instan- 
 taneous gush of thought and feeling in 
 susceptible minds. 
 
 We dedicate this institution, then, to 
 religious feeling. Here let the heart 
 muse till the fire burns. Here let pray- 
 er, joined with meditation on nature 
 and Scripture, and on the fervid writ- 
 ings of deVout men, awaken the whole 
 strength of the affections. But on no 
 point is caution more needed than on 
 this. Let it never be forgotten that we 
 want genuine feeling ; not its tones, 
 looks, and gestures, not a forced ardor 
 and factitious zeal. Woe to that insti- 
 tution where the young man is expected 
 to repeat the language of emotion 
 whether he feel it or not ; where per- 
 petual pains are taken to chafe the 
 mind to a warmth which it cannot sus- 
 tain! The affections are delicate, and 
 must not be tampered with. They can- 
 not be compelled. Hardly any thing is 
 more blighting to genuine sensibility 
 than to assume its tones and badge 
 where it does not exist. Exhort the 
 student to cherish devout feeling by 
 intercourse with God, and with those 
 whom God has touched. But exhort 
 him as strenuously to abstain from every 
 sign of emotion which the heart does 
 not prompt. Teach him that nothing 
 grieves more the Holy Spirit, or sooner 
 closes the mind against heavenly influ- 
 ences, than insincerity. Teach him to 
 be simple, ingenuous, true to his own 
 soul. Better be cold than affect to feel. 
 In truth, nothing is so cold as an as- 
 sumed, noisy enthusiasm. Its best em- 
 blem is the northern blast of 'winter, 
 which freezes as it roars. Be this spot 
 sacred to Christian ingenuousness and 
 sincerity ! Let it never be polluted by 
 pretence, by affected fervor, by cant 
 and theatric show ! 
 
 4. Another source of power in the 
 ministry is faith ; by which we mean, 
 not a general belief in the truths of 
 Christianity, but a confidence in the
 
 266 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 great results which this religion and the 
 ministry are intended to promote. It 
 has often been observed, that a strong 
 faith tends to realize its objects ; that all 
 things become possible to him who 
 thinks them so. Trust and hope breathe 
 animation and force. He who despairs 
 of great effects never accomplishes 
 them. All great works have been the 
 results of a strong confidence inspiring 
 and sustaining strong exertion. The 
 young man who cannot conceive of 
 higher effects of the ministry than he 
 now beholds, who thinks that Chris- 
 tianity has spent all its energies in pro- 
 ducing the mediocrity of virtue which 
 characterizes Christendom, and to whom 
 the human soul seems to have put forth 
 its whole power and to have reached 
 its full growth in religion, has no call 
 to the ministry. Let not such a man 
 put forth his nerveless hands in de- 
 fence of the Christian cause. A voice 
 of confidence has been known to rally a 
 retreating army and to lead it back to 
 victory ; and this spirit-stirring tone be- 
 longs to the leaders of the Christian 
 host. The minister, indeed, ought to 
 see and feel, more painfully than other 
 men, the extent and power of moral 
 evil in individuals, in the church, and in 
 the world. Let him weep over the rav- 
 ages of sin. But let him feel, too, that 
 the mightiest power of the universe is 
 on the side of truth and virtue ; and 
 with sorrow and fear let him join an 
 unfaltering trust in the cause of human 
 nature. Let him look on men as on 
 mysterious beings endued with a spir- 
 itual life, with a deep central principle 
 of holy and disinterested love, with an 
 intellectual and moral nature which was 
 made to be receptive of God. To nour- 
 ish this hopeful spirit, this strengthen- 
 ing confidence, it is important that the 
 minister should understand and feel 
 that he is not acting alone in his efforts 
 for religion, but in union with God and 
 Christ, and good beings on earth and in 
 heaven. Let him regard the spiritual 
 renovation of mankind as God's chief 
 purpose, for which nature and prov- 
 idence are leagued in holy co-operation. 
 Let him feel himself joined in counsel 
 and labor with that great body of which 
 Christ is the head, with the noble broth- 
 erhood of apostles and martyrs, of the 
 just made perfect, and, I will add, of 
 angels ; and speaking with a faith be- 
 
 coming this sublime association, he will 
 not speak in vain. To this faith, to 
 prophetic hope, to a devout trust in the 
 glorious issues of Christianity, we ded- 
 icate these walls ; and may God here 
 train up teachers worthy to mingle and 
 bear k part with the holy of both worlds 
 in the cause of man's redemption ! 
 
 5. Again, that the ministry may be 
 imbued with new power, it needs a spirit 
 of enterprise and reform. They who 
 enter it should feel that it may be im- 
 proved. We live in a stirring, advanc- 
 ing age ; and shall not the noblest 
 function on earth partake of the general 
 progress ? Why is the future ministry 
 to be a servile continuation of the past ? 
 Have all the methods of operating on 
 human beings been tried and exhausted ? 
 Are there no unessayed passages to the 
 human heart ? If we live in a new era, 
 must not religion be exhibited under 
 new aspects, or in new relations ? Is 
 not scepticism taking a new form ? Has 
 not Christianity new foes to contend 
 with ? And are there no new weapons 
 and modes of warfare by which its tri- 
 umphs are to be insured ? If human 
 nature is manifesting itself in new lights, 
 and passing through a new and most 
 interesting stage of its progress, shall it 
 be described by the commonplaces, and 
 appealed to exclusively by the motives, 
 which belonged to earlier periods of 
 society ? May not the mind have be- 
 come susceptible of nobler incitements 
 than those which suited ruder times ? 
 Shall the minister linger behind his age, 
 and be dragged along, as he often has 
 been, in the last ranks of improvement ? 
 Let those who are to assume the minis- 
 try be taught that they have something 
 more to do than to handle old topics in 
 old ways, and to walk in beaten and 
 long-worn paths. Let them inquire if 
 new powers and agents may not be 
 brought to bear on the human charac- 
 ter. Is it incredible that the progress 
 of intellect and knowledge should de- 
 velop new resources for the teacher of 
 religion as well as for the statesman, the 
 artist, the philosopher? Are there no 
 new combinations and new uses of the 
 elements of thought as well as of the 
 elements of nature ? Is it impossible 
 that in the vast compass of Scripture, of 
 nature, of Providence, and of the soul, 
 there should be undisclosed or dimly- 
 defined truths which may give a new
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 267 
 
 impulse to the human mind ? We ded- 
 icate this place not only to the contin- 
 uance but to the improvement of the 
 ministry ; and let this improvement be- 
 gin, at once, in those particulars where 
 the public, if not the clergy, feel it to be 
 wanted. Let those who are to be edu- 
 cated here be admonished against the 
 frigid eloquence, the school-boy tone, 
 the inanimate diction too common in the 
 pulpit, and which would be endured 
 nowhere else. Let them speak in tones 
 of truth and nature, and adopt the style 
 and elocution of men who have an urgent 
 work in hand, and who are thirsting for 
 the regeneration of individuals and so- 
 ciety. 
 
 6. Another source of power, too ob- 
 vious to need elucidation, yet too im- 
 portant to be omitted, is an indepen- 
 dent spirit. By which I mean not an 
 unfeeling defiance of the opinions and 
 usages of society, but that moral cour- 
 age which, through good report and evil 
 report, reverently hears and fearlessly 
 obeys the voice of conscience and God. 
 He who would instruct men must not 
 fear them. He who is to reform society 
 must not be anxious to keep its level. 
 Dread of opinion effeminates preaching 
 and takes from truth its pungency. The 
 minister so subdued may flourish his 
 weapons in the air to the admiration of 
 spectators, but will never pierce the con- 
 science. The minister, like the good 
 knight, should be without fear. Let him 
 cultivate that boldness of speech for 
 which Paul prayed. Let him not flatter 
 great or small. Let him not wrap up re- 
 proof in a decorated verbiage. Let him 
 make no compromise with evil because 
 followed by a multitude, but for this 
 very cause lift up against it a more 
 earnest voice. Let him beware of the 
 shackles which society insensibly fastens 
 on the mind and the tongue. Moral 
 courage is not the virtue of our times. 
 The love of popularity is the all-taint- 
 ing vice of a republic. Besides the in- 
 creasing connection between a minister 
 and the community, whilst it liberalizes 
 the mind and counteracts professional 
 prejudices, has a tendency to enslave 
 him to opinion, to wear away the energy 
 of virtuous resolution, and to change 
 him from an intrepid guardian of virtue 
 and foe of sin into a merely elegant and 
 amiable companion. Against this dis- 
 honorable cowardice, which smoothes 
 
 the thoughts and style of the teacher, 
 until they glide through the ear and the 
 mind without giving a shock to the most 
 delicate nerves, let the young man be 
 guarded. We dedicate this institution 
 to Christian independence. May it send 
 forth brave spirits to the vindication of 
 truth and religion ! 
 
 7. I shall now close with naming the 
 chief source of power to the minister, 
 one, indeed, which has been in a meas- 
 ure anticipated, and all along implied, 
 but which ought not to be dismissed 
 without a more distinct annunciation. I 
 refer to that spirit, or frame, or senti- 
 ment, in which the love of God, the love 
 of men, the love of duty, meet as their 
 highest result, and in which they are 
 perfected and most gloriously displayed ; 
 I mean the spirit ot self-sacrifice, the 
 spirit of martyrdom. This was the per- 
 fection of Christ, and it is the noblest 
 inspiration which his followers derive 
 from him. Say not that this is a height 
 to which the generality of ministers must 
 not be expected to rise. This spirit is 
 of more universal obligation than many 
 imagine. It enters into all the virtues 
 which deeply interest us. In truth, there 
 is no thorough virtue without it. Who 
 is the upright man ? He who would 
 rather die than defraud. Who the good 
 parent ? He to whom his children are 
 dearer than life. Who the good patriot ? 
 He who counts not life dear in his coun- 
 try's cause. Who the philanthropist ? 
 He who forgets himself in an absorbing 
 zeal for the mitigation of human suffer- 
 ing, for the freedom, virtue, and illu- 
 mination of men. It is not Christianity 
 alone which has taught self-sacrifice. 
 Conscience and the divinity within us 
 have in all ages borne testimony to its 
 loveliness and grandeur, and history bor- 
 rows from it her chief splendors. But 
 Christ on his cross has taught it with a 
 perfection unknown before, and his glory 
 consists in the power with which he 
 breathes it. Into this spirit Christ's mean- 
 est disciple is expected to drink. How 
 much more the teachers and guides of 
 his church ! He who is not moved with 
 this sublime feature of our religion, who 
 cannot rise above himself, who cannot, 
 by his own consciousness, comprehend 
 the kindling energy and solemn joy 
 which pain or peril in a noble cause has 
 often inspired, he to whom this lan- 
 guage- is a mystery wants one great
 
 268 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 mark of his vocation to the sacred office. 
 Let him enlist under any standard rather 
 than the cross. To preach with power, 
 a man must feel Christianity to be worthy 
 of the blood which it has cost ; and, es- 
 pousing it as the chief hope of the human 
 race, must contemn life's ordinary inter- 
 ests, compared with the glory and hap- 
 piness of advancing it. This spirit of 
 self-exposure and self-surrender throws 
 into preachers an energy which no other 
 principle can give. In truth, such power 
 resides in disinterestedness, that no 
 man can understand his full capacity of 
 thought and feeling his strength to do 
 and suffer until he gives himself, with 
 a single heart, to a great and holy cause. 
 New faculties seem to be created, and 
 more than human might sometimes im- 
 parted, by a pure, fervent love. Most 
 of us are probably strangers to the re- 
 sources of power in our own breasts, 
 through the weight and pressure of the 
 chains of selfishness. We consecrate 
 this institution, then, to that spirit of 
 martyrdom, of disinterested attachment 
 to the Christian cause, through which it 
 first triumphed, and for want of which 
 its triumphs are now slow. In an age 
 of luxury and self indulgence, we would 
 devote these walls to the training of 
 warm, manly, generous spirits. May 
 they never shelter the self-seeking 
 slaves of ease and comfort, pupils of 
 Epicurus rather than of Christ ! God 
 send from this place devoted and effi- 
 cient friends of Christianity and the hu- 
 man race ! 
 
 My friends, I have insisted on the 
 need, and illustrated the sources, of 
 power in the ministry. To this end may 
 the institution in whose behalf we are 
 now met together be steadily and sacredly 
 devoted. I would say to its guardians 
 and teachers, Let this be your chief 
 aim. I would say to the students, Keep 
 this in sight in all your studies. Never 
 forget your great vocation, that you are 
 to prepare yourselves for a strong, deep, 
 and beneficent agency on the minds of 
 your fellow-beings. Everywhere I see 
 a demand for the- power on which I 
 have now insisted. The cry comes to 
 me from society and from the church. 
 The condition of society needs a more 
 efficient administration of Christianity. 
 Great and radical changes are needed in 
 the community to make it Christian. 
 There are those, indeed, who, mistaking 
 
 the courtesies and refinements of civil- 
 ized life for virtue, see no necessity of 
 a great revolution in the world. But 
 civilization, in hiding the grossness, does 
 not break the power of evil propensities. 
 Let us not deceive ourselves. Multi- 
 tudes are living with few thoughts of 
 God, and of the true purpose and glory 
 of their being. Among the nominal be- 
 lievers in a Deity and in a judgment to 
 come, sensuality and ambition, arid the 
 love of the world, sit on their thrones 
 and laugh to scorn the impotence of 
 preaching. Christianity has yet a hard 
 war to wage and many battles to win ; 
 and it needs intrepid, powerful ministers, 
 who will find courage and excitement, 
 not dismay, in the strength and number 
 of their foes. 
 
 Christians, you have seen in this dis- 
 course the purposes and claims of this 
 theological institution. Offer your fer- 
 vent prayers for its prosperity. Be- 
 siege the .throne of mercy in its behalf. 
 Cherish it as the dearest hope of our 
 churches. Enlarge its means of useful- 
 ness, and let your voice penetrate its 
 walls, calling aloud and importunately 
 for enlightened and powerful teachers. 
 Thus joining in effort with the directors 
 and instructors of this seminary, doubt 
 not that God will here train up ministers 
 worthy to bear his truth to present and 
 future generations. If, on the contrary, 
 you and they slumber, you will have 
 erected these walls, not to nourish en- 
 ergy, but to be its tomb, not to bear 
 witness to your zeal, but to be a melan- 
 choly monument of fainting effort and 
 betrayed truth. 
 
 But let me not cast a cloud over the 
 prospects of this day. In hope I began, 
 with hope I will end. This institu- 
 tion has noble distinctions, and has 
 afforded animating pledges. It is emi- 
 nently a free institution, an asylum 
 from the spiritual despotism which, in 
 one shape or another, overspreads the 
 greatest part of Christendom. It has 
 already given to the churches a body of 
 teachers who, in theological acquisitions 
 and ministerial gifts, need not shrink 
 from comparison with their predeces- 
 sors or contemporaries. I see in it 
 means and provisions, nowhere sur- 
 passed, for training up enlightened, free, 
 magnanimous, self-sacrificing friends of 
 truth. In this hope let us then proceed 
 to the work which has brought us to-
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 269 
 
 gether. With trust in God, with love 
 to mankind, with unaffected attachment 
 to Christian truth, with earnest wishes 
 for its propagation through all lands and 
 its transmission to remotest ages, let us 
 
 now, with one heart and one voice, ded- 
 icate this edifice to the One living and 
 true God, to Christ and his Church, to 
 the instruction and regeneration of the 
 human soul. 
 
 THE DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE 
 MINISTRY: 
 
 Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. E. S. Gannett, Boston, 1824. 
 
 MATTHEW x. 16 : " Behold I send you forth as 
 sheep in the midst of wolves : be ye therefore wise as 
 serpents and harmless as doves.'' 
 
 THE communication of moral and re- 
 ligious truth is the most important office 
 committed to men. The Son of God 
 came into the world not to legislate for 
 nations, not to command armies, not to 
 sit on the throne of universal monarchy ; 
 but to teach religion, to establish truth 
 and holiness. The highest end of hu- 
 man nature is duty, virtue, piety, excel- 
 lence, moral greatness, spiritual glory ; 
 and he who effectually labors for these 
 is taking part with God, in God's noblest 
 work. The Christian ministry, then, 
 which has for its purpose men's spirit- 
 ual improvement and salvation, and 
 which is intrusted for this end with 
 weapons of heavenly temper and power, 
 deserves to be ranked amongst God's 
 most beneficent institutions and men's 
 most honorable labors. The occasion 
 requires that this institution should be 
 our principal topic. 
 
 How happy a change has taken place 
 since the words of Christ in the text 
 were spoken ! Ministers are no longer 
 sent forth into the midst of wolves. 
 Through the labors, sufferings, and tri- 
 umphs of apostles, martyrs, and good 
 and great men in successive ages, Chris- 
 tianity has become the professed and 
 honored religion of the most civilized 
 nations, and its preachers are exposed 
 to very different temptations from those 
 of savage persecution. Still our text 
 has an application to the present time. 
 We see our Saviour commanding his 
 Apostles to regard in their ministry the 
 circumstances of the age in which they 
 
 lived. Surrounded with foes, they were 
 to exercise the wisdom or prudence of 
 which the serpent was in ancient times 
 the emblem, and to join with it the in- 
 nocence and mildness of the dove. And, 
 in like manner, the Christian minister is 
 at all periods to regard the signs, the 
 distinctive marks and character of the 
 age to which he belongs, and must ac- 
 commodate his- ministry to its wants and 
 demands. Accordingly, I propose to 
 consider some of the leading traits of 
 the present age, and the influence which 
 they should have on a Christian teacher. 
 I. The state of the world, compared 
 with the past, may be called enlight- 
 ened, and requires an enlightened min- 
 istry. It hardly seems necessary to 
 prove that religion should be dispensed 
 by men who at least keep pace with the 
 intellect of the age in which they live. 
 Some passages of Scripture, however, 
 have been wrested to prove that an 
 unlearned ministry is that which God 
 particularly honors. He always chooses, 
 we are told, " the foolish things of the 
 world to confound the wise." But texts 
 of this description are misunderstood 
 through the very ignorance which they 
 are adduced to support. The wise, who 
 are spoken of contemptuously in the 
 New Testament, were not really enlight- 
 ened men, but pretenders to wisdom, 
 who substituted dreams of imagination 
 and wild hypotheses for sober inquiry 
 into God's works, and who knew com- 
 paratively nothing of nature or the 
 human mind. The present age has a 
 quite different illumination from that in 
 which ancient philosophy prided itself. 
 It is marked by great and obvious im-
 
 270 
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 provements in the methods of reason- 
 ing and inquiry, and by the consequent 
 discovery and diffusion of a great mass 
 of physical and moral truth wholly un- 
 known in the time of Christ. Now we 
 affirm that such an age demands an 
 enlightened ministry. We want teach- 
 ers who will be able to discern and 
 unfold the consistency of revealed re- 
 ligion with the new lights which are 
 breaking in from nature ; and who will 
 be able to draw, from all men's discov- 
 eries in the outward world and in their 
 own souls, illustrations, analogies, and 
 arguments for Christianity. We have 
 reason to believe that God, the Author 
 of nature and revelation, has established 
 a harmony between them, and that their 
 beams are intended to mingle and shed 
 a joint radiance ; and, consequently, 
 other things being equal, that teacher is 
 best fitted to dispense Christianity whose 
 compass of mind enables him to com- 
 pare what God is teaching in his works 
 and in his word, and to present the 
 truths of religion with those modifica- 
 tions and restraints which other ac- 
 knowledged truths require. Christianity 
 now needs dispensers who will make 
 history, nature, and the improvements 
 of society tributary to its elucidation 
 and support ; who will show its adap- 
 tation to man as an ever-progressive 
 being ; who will be able to meet the 
 objections to its truth which will natu- 
 rally be started in an active, stirring, 
 inquiring age ; and, though last not 
 least, who will have enough of mental 
 and moral courage to detect and re- 
 nounce the errors in the church on 
 which such objections are generally 
 built. In such an age, a ministry is 
 wanted which will furnish discussions 
 of religious topics, not inferior at least 
 in intelligence to those which people 
 are accustomed to read and hear on 
 other subjects. Christianity will suffer 
 if, at a time when vigor and acuteness 
 of thinking are carried into all other 
 departments, the pulpit should send 
 forth nothing but wild declamation pos- 
 itive assertion, or dull commonplaces, 
 with which even childhood is satiated. 
 Religion must be seen to be the friend 
 and quickener of intellect. It must be 
 exhibited with clearness of reasoning 
 and variety of illustration : nor ought it 
 to be deprived of the benefits of a pure 
 and felicitous diction and of rich and 
 
 glowing imagery, where these gifts fall 
 to the lot of the teacher. It is not meant 
 that every minister must be a man of 
 genius, for genius is one of God's 
 rarest inspirations ; and of all the breath- 
 ings of genius, perhaps the rarest is 
 eloquence. I mean only to say that the 
 age demands of those who devote them- 
 selves to the administration of Chi.s- 
 tianity, that they should feel themselves 
 called upon for the highest cultivation 
 and fullest development of the intellect- 
 ual nature. Instead of thinking that the 
 ministry is a refuge for dulness, and 
 that whoever can escape from the plough 
 is fit for God's spiritual husbandry, we 
 ought to feel that no profession demands 
 more enlarged thinking and more vari- 
 ous acquisitions of truth. 
 
 In proportion as society becomes en- 
 lightened, talent acquires influence. In 
 rude ages bodily strength is the most 
 honorable distinction, and in subsequent 
 times military prowess and skill confer 
 mastery and eminence. But as society 
 advances, mind, thought, becomes the 
 sovereign of the world ; and accordingly, 
 at the present moment, profound and 
 glowing thought, though breathing only 
 from the silent page, exerts a kind of 
 omnipotent and omnipresent energy. It 
 crosses oceans and spreads through 
 nations ; and, at one and the same mo- 
 ment, the conceptions of a single mind 
 are electrifying and kindling multitudes 
 through wider regions than the Roman 
 eagle overshadowed. This agency of 
 mind on mind, I repeat it, is the true 
 sovereignty of the world, and kings and 
 heroes are becoming impotent by the 
 side of men of deep and fervent thought. 
 In such a state of things, religion would 
 wage a very unequal war if divorced 
 from talent and cultivated intellect, if 
 committed to weak and untaught minds. 
 God plainly intends that it should be 
 advanced by human agency ; and does 
 He not then intend to summon to its 
 aid the mightiest and noblest power with 
 which man is gifted ? 
 
 Let it not be said that Christianity has 
 an intrinsic glory, a native beauty, which 
 no art or talent of man can heighten ; 
 that Christianity is one and the same 
 by whatever lips it is communicated, 
 and that it needs nothing but the most 
 naked exposition of its truths to accom- 
 plish its saving purposes. W T ho does 
 not know that all truth takes a hue and
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 271 
 
 form from the soul through which it 
 passes, that in every mind it is invested 
 with peculiar associations, and that, con- 
 sequently, the same truth is quite a 
 different thing when exhibited by men 
 of different habits of thought and feel- 
 ing ? Who does not know that the sub- 
 limast doctrines lose in some hands all 
 their grandeur, and the loveliest all their 
 attractiveness ? Who does not know 
 how much the diffusion and power of 
 any system, whether physical, moral, or 
 political, depend on the order according 
 to which it is arranged, on the broad and 
 consistent views which are given of it, 
 on the connections which it is shown to 
 hold with other truths, on the analogies 
 by which it is illustrated, adorned, and 
 enforced, and, though last not least, on 
 the clearness and energy of the style in 
 which it is conveyed ? " Nothing is 
 needed in religion," some say, "but the 
 naked truth." But I apprehend that 
 there is no such thing as naked truth, at 
 least as far as moral subjects are con- 
 cerned. Truth which relates to God, 
 and duty, and happiness, and a future 
 state, is always humanized, if I may so 
 use the word, by passing through a 
 human mind; and when communicated 
 powerfully, it always comes to us in 
 drapery thrown round it by the imag- 
 ination, reason, and moral feelings of 
 the teacher. It comes to us warm and 
 living with the impressions and affec- 
 tions which it has produced in the soul 
 from which it issues : and it ought so to 
 come ; for the highest evidence of moral 
 truth is found in the moral principles and 
 feelings of our nature, and therefore it 
 fails of its best support unless it is seen to 
 accord with and to act upon these. The 
 evidence of Christianity which operates 
 most universally is not history nor mir- 
 acles, but its correspondence to the 
 noblest capacities, deepest wants, and 
 purest aspirations of our nature, to the 
 cravings of an immortal spirit; and 
 when it comes to us from a mind in 
 which it has discovered nothing of this 
 adaptation, and has touched none of these 
 springs, it wants one of its chief signa- 
 tures of divinity. Christianity is not, 
 then, to be exhibited nakedly. It owes 
 much of its power to the mind which 
 communicates it ; and the greater the 
 enlargement and development of the 
 mind of which it has possessed itself 
 and from which it flows, the wider and 
 
 deeper will be its action on other 
 souls. 
 
 It maybe said without censoriousness, 
 that the ordinary mode in which Chris- 
 tianity has been exhibited in past times 
 does not suit the illumination of the 
 present. That mode has been too nar- 
 row, technical, pedantic. Religion has 
 been made a separate business, and 
 a dull, unsocial, melancholy business, 
 too, instead of being manifested as a 
 truth which bears on and touches every 
 thing human, as a universal spirit which 
 oughj; to breathe through and modify 
 all our desires and pursuits, all our 
 trains of thought and emotion. And 
 this narrow, forbidden mode of exhibit- 
 ing Christianity is easily explained by 
 its early history. Monks shut up in 
 cells ; a priesthood cut off by celibacy 
 from the sympathies and most interest- 
 ing relations of life ; and universities 
 enslaved to a scholastic logic, and taught 
 to place wisdom in verbal subtilties and 
 unintelligible definitions ; these took 
 Christianity into their keeping, and at 
 their chilling touch this generous relig- 
 ion, so full of life and affection, became 
 a dry, frigid, abstract system. Chris- 
 tianity, as it came from their hands, and 
 has been transmitted by a majority of 
 Protestant divines, reminds us of the 
 human form compressed by swathing- 
 bands, until every joint is rigid, every 
 movement constrained, and almost all 
 the beauty and grace of nature obliter- 
 ated. Instead of regarding it as a heav- 
 enly institution, designed to perfect our 
 whole nature, to offer awakening and 
 purifying objects to the intellect, imag- 
 ination, and heart, to develop every 
 capacity of devout and social feeling, to 
 form a rich, various, generous virtue, 
 divines have cramped and tortured the 
 gospel into various systems, composed 
 in the main of theological riddles and 
 contradictions ; and this religion of love 
 has been made to inculcate a monkish 
 and dark-visaged piety, very hostile to 
 the free expansion and full enjoyment 
 of all our faculties and social affections. 
 Great improvements indeed in this par- 
 ticular are taking place among Chris- 
 tians of almost every denomination. 
 Religion has been brought from the cell 
 of the monk and the school of the ver- 
 bal disputant into life and society ; and 
 its connections with all our pursuits and 
 feelings have been made manifest. Still,
 
 2/2 
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 Christianity, I apprehend, is not viewed 
 in sufficiently broad lights to meet the 
 spirit of an age which is tracing con- 
 nections between all objects of thought 
 and branches of knowledge, and which 
 cannot but distrust an alleged revelation, 
 in as far as it is seen to want harmonies 
 and affinities with other parts of God's 
 system, and especially with human nature 
 and human life. 
 
 II. The age in which we live demands 
 not only an enlightened but an earnest 
 ministry, for it is an age of earnestness 
 and excitement. Men feel and think at 
 present with more energy than formerly. 
 There is more of interest and fervor. 
 We learn now from experience what 
 might have been inferred from the pur- 
 poses of our Creator, that civilization 
 and refinement are not, as has been 
 sometimes thought, inconsistent with 
 sensibility ; that the intellect may grow 
 without exhausting or overshadowing 
 the heart. The human mind was never 
 more in earnest than at the present 
 moment. The political revolutions which 
 form such broad features and distinc- 
 tions of our age have sprung from a new 
 and deep working in the human soul. 
 Men have caught glimpses, however 
 indistinct, of the worth, dignity, rights, 
 and great interests of their nature ; and 
 a thirst for untried good and impatience 
 of long endured wrongs have broken 
 out wildly, like the fires of Etna, and 
 shaken and convulsed the earth. It is 
 impossible not to discern this increased 
 fervor of mind in every department of 
 life. A new spirit of improvement is 
 abroad. The imagination can no longer 
 be confined to the acquisitions of- past 
 ages, but is kindling the passions by 
 vague but noble ideas of blessings never 
 yet attained. Multitudes, unwilling to 
 wait the slow pace of that great inno- 
 vator, Time, are taking the work of re- 
 form into their own hands. Accordingly, 
 the reverence for antiquity and for age- 
 hallowed establishments, and the pas- 
 sion for change and amelioration, are 
 now arrayed against each other in open 
 hostility, and all great questions affect- 
 ing human happiness are debated with 
 the eagerness of party. The character 
 of the age is stamped very strongly on 
 its literary productions. Who that can 
 compare the present with the past is not 
 struck with the bold and earnest spirit 
 of the literature of our times ? It re- 
 
 fuses to waste itself on trifles or to min- 
 ister to mere gratification. Almost all 
 that is written has now some bearing on 
 great interests of human nature. Fic- 
 tion is no longer a mere amusement ; 
 but transcendent genius, accommodating 
 itself to the character of the age, has 
 seized upon this province of literature 
 and turned fiction from a toy into a 
 mighty engine ; and under the light tale 
 is breathing through the community 
 either its reverence for the old or its 
 thirst for the new, communicates the 
 spirit and lessons of history, unfolds 
 the operations of religious and civil 
 institutions, and defends or assails new 
 theories of education or morals by ex- 
 hibiting them in life and action. The 
 poetry of the age is equally character- 
 istic. It has a deeper and more impres- 
 sive tone than comes to us from what 
 has been called the Augustan age of 
 English literature. The regular, elab- 
 orate, harmonious strains, which de- 
 lighted a former generation, are now 
 accused, I say not now justly, of playing 
 too much on the surface of nature and 
 of the heart. Men want and demand 
 a more thrilling note, a poetry which 
 pierces beneath the exterior of life to 
 the depths of the soul, and which lays 
 open its mysterious workings, borrowing 
 from the whole outward creation fresh 
 images and correspondences with which 
 to illuminate the secrets of the world 
 within us. So keen is this appetite, that 
 extravagances of imagination, and gross 
 violations both of taste and moral sen- 
 timent are forgiven, when conjoined with 
 what awakens strong emotion ; and un- 
 happily the most stirring is the most 
 popular poetry, even though it issue 
 from the desolate soul of a misanthrope 
 and a libertine, and exhale poison and 
 death. 
 
 Now, religion ought to be dispensed 
 in accommodation to this spirit and char- 
 acter of our age. Men desire excite- 
 ment, and religion must be communi- 
 cated in a more exciting form. It must 
 be seen not only to correspond and to 
 be adapted to the intellect, but to fur- 
 nish nutriment and appeals to the highest 
 and profoundest sentiments of our nat- 
 ure. It must not be exhibited in the 
 dry, pedantic divisions of a scholastic 
 theology ; nor must it be set forth and 
 tricked out in the light drapery of an 
 artificial rhetoric, in prettinesses of style,
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 273 
 
 in measured sentences with an insipid 
 floridness, and in the form of elegantly 
 feeble essays. No ; it must come from 
 the soul in the language of earnest con- 
 viction and strong feeling. Men will 
 not now be trifled with. They listen 
 impatiently to great subjects treated 
 with apathy. They want a religion 
 which will take a strong hold upon them ; 
 and no system, I am sure, can now main- 
 tain its ground which wants the power of 
 awakening real and deep interest in the 
 soul. It is objected to Unitarian Chris- 
 tianity that it does not possess this heart- 
 stirring energy ; and if so, it will, and 
 still more, it ought, to fall ; for it does 
 not suit the spirit of our times, nor the 
 essential and abiding spirit of human 
 nature. Men will prefer even a fanat- 
 icism which is in earnest, to a pretended 
 rationality which leaves untouched all 
 the great springs of the soul, which 
 never lays a quickening hand on our love 
 and veneration, our awe and fear, our 
 hope and joy. 
 
 It is obvious, I think, that the spirit 
 of the age, which demands a more excit- 
 ing administration of Christianity, begins 
 to be understood, and is responded to by 
 preachers. Those of us whose memory 
 extends back but a little way, can see a 
 revolution taking place in this country. 
 " The repose of the pulpit " has been 
 disturbed. In England, the Established 
 Church gives broad symptoms of awak- 
 ing ; and the slumbering incumbents of 
 a state religion, either roused by sym- 
 pathy, or aware of the necessity of self- 
 defence, are beginning to exhibit the 
 energy of the freer and more zealous 
 sects around them. 
 
 In such an age, earnestness should 
 characterize the ministry ; and by this 
 I mean not a louder voice or a more 
 vehement gesture ; I mean no tricks of 
 oratory ; but a solemn conviction that 
 religion is a great concern, and a solemn 
 purpose that its claims shall be felt by 
 others. To suit such an age, a minister 
 must communicate religion not only 
 as a result of reasoning but as a matter 
 of experience with that inexpressible 
 character of reality, that life and power 
 which accompany truths drawn from a 
 man's own soul. We ought to speak of 
 religion as something which we ourselves 
 know. Its influences, struggles, joys, 
 sorrows, triumphs, should be delineated 
 from our own history. The life and sen- 
 
 sibility which we would spread should 
 be strong in our own breasts. This is 
 the only genuine, unfailing spring of an 
 earnest ministry. Men may work them- 
 selves for a time into a fervor by artifi- 
 cial means ; but the flame is unsteady, 
 " a crackling of thorns " on a cold hearth ; 
 and, after all, it is hard for the most suc- 
 cessful art to give, even for a time, that 
 soul-subduing tone to the voice, that air 
 of native feeling to the countenance, and 
 that raciness and freshness to the concep- 
 tions, which come from an experimental 
 conviction of religious truth ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, I would suggest that the most 
 important part of theological education, 
 even in this enlightened age, is not the 
 communication of knowledge, essential 
 as that is, but the conversion and exalta- 
 tion of religious knowledge into a living, 
 practical, and soul-kindling convrction. 
 Much as the age requires intellectual 
 culture in a minister, it requires still 
 more that his acquisitions of truth should 
 be instinct with life and feeling ; that he 
 should deliver his message, not mechan- 
 ically and " in the line of his profession," 
 but with the sincerity and earnestness 
 of a man bent on great effects ; that he 
 should speak of God, of Christ, of the 
 dignity and loveliness of Christian vir- 
 tue, of heaven and redemption, not as 
 of traditios and historical records about 
 which he has only read, but as of reali- 
 ties which he understands and feels in 
 the very depths of his soul. 
 
 III. The present is an age of free and 
 earnest inquiry on the subject of relig- 
 ion, and, consequently, an age in which 
 the extremes of scepticism and bigotry, 
 and a multiplicity of sects, and a diver- 
 sity of interpretations of the Sacred 
 Volume, must be expected : and these 
 circumstances of the times influence and 
 modify the duties of the ministry. Free 
 inquiry cannot exist without generating 
 a degree of scepticism ; and against this 
 influence, more disastrous than any error 
 of any sect, a minister is bound to erect 
 every barrier. The human mind, by a 
 natural reaction, is undoubtedly tending, 
 after its long vassalage, to licentious 
 speculation. Men have begun to send 
 keen, searching glances into old insti- 
 tutions, whether of religion, literature, 
 or policy; and have detected so many 
 abuses, that a suspicion of what is old 
 has in many cases taken place of the 
 veneration for antiquity. In such an 
 
 18
 
 2/4 
 
 DEMANDS OF THE ACE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 age Christianity must be subjected to a 
 rigid scrutiny. Church establishments 
 and state patronage cannot screen it 
 from investigation ; and its ministers, 
 far from being called to remove it from 
 the bar of reason, where God has chosen 
 that it should appear, are only bound 
 to see that its claims be fairly and fully 
 made known ; and to this they are sol- 
 emnly bound ; and, consequently, it is 
 one of their first duties to search deeply 
 and understand thoroughly the true 
 foundations and evidences on which 
 the religion stands. Now it seems to 
 me, that just in proportion as the human 
 mind makes progress, the inward evi- 
 dences of Christianity, the marks of 
 divinity which it wears on its own brow, 
 are becoming more and more important. 
 I refer to the evidences which are drawn 
 from -its excellence, purity, and happy 
 influences ; from its adaptation to the 
 spiritual wants, to the weakness and 
 the greatness of human nature ; from the 
 original. and unborrowed character, the 
 greatness of soul, and the celestial love- 
 liness of its Founder ; from its unbound- 
 ed benevolence, corresponding with the 
 spirit of the universe ; and from its 
 views of God's parental character and 
 purposes, of human duty and perfection, 
 and of, a future state, views manifestly 
 tending to the exaltation amd perpet- 
 ual improvement of our nature, yet 
 wholly opposed to the character of the 
 age in which they were unfolded. The 
 historical and miraculous proofs of 
 Christianity are indeed essential and 
 impregnable ; but, without superseding 
 these, the inward proofs of which I 
 speak are becoming more and more 
 necessary, and exert a .greater power, 
 in proportion as the moral discernment 
 and sensibilities of men are strength- 
 ened and enlarged. And, if this be 
 true, then Christianity is endangered, 
 and scepticism fortified by nothing so 
 much as by representations of the re- 
 ligion which sully its native lustre and 
 darken its inward signatures of a heav- 
 enly origin ; and, accordingly, the first 
 and most solemn duty of its ministers 
 is to rescue it from such perversions ; 
 to see that it be not condemned for doc- 
 trines for which it is in no respect re- 
 sponsible ; and to vindicate its character 
 as eminently a rational religion, that is, 
 a religion consistent with itself, with the 
 great principles of human nature, with 
 
 God's acknowledged attributes, and with 
 those indestructible convictions which 
 spring almost instinctively from our 
 moral constitution, and which grow 
 stronger and stronger as the human 
 mind is developed. A professed rev- 
 elation, carrying contradiction on its 
 front, and wounding those sentiments 
 of justice and goodness which are the 
 highest tests of moral truth, cannot 
 stand ; and those who thus exhibit 
 Christianity, however pure their aim, 
 are shaking its foundations more deeply 
 than its open and inveterate foes. 
 
 But free inquiry not only generates 
 occasional scepticism, but much more 
 a diversity of opinion among the be- 
 lievers of Christianity ; and to this the 
 ministry must have a special adaptation. 
 In such an age the ministry must in a 
 measure be controversial. In particu- 
 lar, a minister who, after serious inves- 
 tigation, attaches himself to that class 
 of Christians to which we of this re- 
 ligious society are known to belong, 
 cannot but feel that the painful office of 
 conflict with other denominations is laid 
 upon him ; for, whilst we deny the 
 Christian name to none who acknowl- 
 edge Jesus as their Saviour and Lord, 
 we do deliberately believe that, by 
 many who confess him, his religion is 
 mournfully disfigured. We believe that 
 piety at present is robbed in no small 
 degree of its singleness, energy, and 
 happiness, by the multiplication in the 
 church of objects of supreme worship ; 
 by the division of the One God into 
 three persons, who sustain different re- 
 lations to mankind ; and above all, by 
 the dishonorable views formed of the 
 moral character and administration of 
 the Deity. Errors relating to God seem 
 to us among the most pernicious that 
 can grow up among Christians ; for 
 they darken, and, in the strong language 
 of Scripture, " turn into blood " the 
 Sun of the Spiritual Universe. Around 
 just views of the Divine character all 
 truths and all virtues naturally gather ; 
 and although some minds of native 
 irrepressible vigor may rise to great- 
 ness in spite of dishonorable concep- 
 tions of God, yet, as a general rule, 
 human nature cannot spread to its just 
 and full proportions under their appall- 
 ing, enslaving, heart-withering control. 
 We discover very plainly, as we think, 
 in the frequent torpor of the conscience
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 2/5 
 
 and heart in regard to religious obliga- 
 tion, the melancholy influences of that 
 system, so prevalent among us, which 
 robs our heavenly Father of his pa- 
 rental attributes. Indeed it seems im- 
 possible for the conscience, under such 
 injurious representations of the divine 
 character, to discharge intelligently its 
 solemn office of enforcing love to God 
 as man's highest duty ; and, accord- 
 ingly, when religious excitements take 
 place under this gloomy system, they 
 bear the marks of a morbid action 
 much more than of a healthy restora- 
 tive process of the moral nature. 
 
 These errors a minister of liberal 
 views of Christianity will feel himself 
 bound to withstand. But let me not be 
 understood as if I would have the min- 
 istry given chiefly to controversy, and 
 would turn the pulpit into a battery for 
 the perpetual assault of adverse sects. 
 Oh, no. Other strains than those of 
 warfare should predominate in this sa- 
 cred place. A minister may be faithful 
 to truth without brandishing perpetually 
 the weapons of controversy. Occa- 
 sional discussions of disputed doctrines 
 are indeed demanded by the zeal with 
 which error is maintained. But it be- 
 comes the preacher to remember that 
 there is a silent, indirect influence more 
 sure and powerful than direct assault 
 on false opinions. The most effectual 
 method of expelling error is not to 
 meet it sword in hand, but gradually to 
 instil great truths with which it cannot 
 easily coexist, and by which the mind 
 outgrows it. Men who have been re- 
 covered from false systems will gener- 
 ally tell you that the first step of their 
 deliverance was the admission of some 
 principle which seemed not to menace 
 their past opinions, but which prepared 
 the mind for the entrance of another 
 and another truth, until they were 
 brought, almost without suspecting it, 
 to look on almost every doctrine of 
 religion with other eyes, and in an- 
 other and more generous light. The 
 old superstitions about ghosts and 
 dreams were not expelled by argument, 
 for hardly a book was written against 
 them : but men gradually outgrew them ; 
 and the spectres which had haunted the 
 terror-stricken so*ul for ages, fled before 
 an improved philosophy, just as they 
 were supposed to vanish before the 
 rising sun. And in the same manner 
 
 the errors which disfigure Christianity, 
 and from which no creed is free, are to 
 yield to the growth of the human mind. 
 Instead of spending his strength in track- 
 ing and refuting error, let the minister 
 who would serve the cause of truth labor 
 to gain and diffuse more and more en- 
 larged and lofty views of our religion, 
 of its nature, spirit, and end. Let him 
 labor to separate what is of universal 
 and everlasting application from the 
 local and the temporary ; to penetrate 
 beneath the letter to the spirit ; to de- 
 tach the primary, essential, and all- 
 comprehending principles of Christi- 
 anity from the incrustations, accidental 
 associations, and subordinate append- 
 ages by which they are often obscured ; 
 and to fix and establish these in men's 
 minds as the standard by which more 
 partial views are to be tried. Let him 
 especially set forth the great moral pur- 
 pose of Christianity, always teaching 
 that Christ came to deliver from the 
 power still more than from the punish- 
 ment of sin ; that his most important 
 operation is within us ; and that the 
 highest end of his mission is the erec- 
 tion of God's throne in the soul, the 
 inspiration of a fervent filial piety, a 
 piety founded in confiding views of 
 God's parental character, and manifest- 
 ed in a charity corresponding to God's 
 unbounded and ever-active love. In 
 addition to these efforts, let him strive 
 to communicate the just principles of 
 interpreting the Scriptures, that men, 
 reading them more intelligently, . may 
 read them with new interest, and he 
 will have discharged his chief duty in 
 relation to controversy. 
 
 It is an interesting thought that, 
 through the influences now described, 
 a sensible progress is taking place in 
 men's conceptions of Christianity. It 
 is a plain matter-of-fact that the hard 
 features of that religious system which 
 has been " received by tradition from 
 our fathers " are greatly softened ; and 
 that a necessity is felt by those who 
 hold it, of accommodating their repre- 
 sentations of it more and more to the im- 
 proved philosophy of the human mind, 
 and to the undeniable principles of nat- 
 ural and revealed religion. Uncondi- 
 tional election is seldom heard of among 
 us. The imputation of Adam's sin to 
 his posterity is hastening to join the 
 exploded doctrine of transubstantiation.
 
 276 
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 The more revolting representations of 
 man's state by nature are judiciously 
 kept out of sight ; and, what is of still 
 greater importance, preaching is incom- 
 parably more practical than formerly. 
 And all these changes are owing not to 
 theological controversy so much as to 
 the general progress of the human mind. 
 This progress is especially discernible 
 in the diminished importance now as- 
 cribed to the outward parts of Christi- 
 anity. Christians, having grown up to 
 understand that their religion is a spirit 
 and not a form, are beginning to feel the 
 puerility as well as guilt of breaking 
 Christ's followers into factions, on such 
 questions as these, How much a bishop 
 differs from a presbyter ? and, How 
 great a quantity of water should be 
 used in baptism ? And, whilst they 
 desire to ascertain the truth in these 
 particulars, they look back on the un- 
 charitable heat with which these and 
 similar topics were once discussed with 
 something of the wonder which they 
 feel on recollecting the violence of the 
 Papists during the memorable debate, 
 Whether the Virgin Mary were born 
 with original sin ? It is a consoling and 
 delightful thought that God, who uses 
 Christianity to advance civilization and 
 knowledge, makes use of this very ad- 
 vancement to bring back Christianity to 
 a purer state, thus binding together and 
 carrying forward by mutual action the 
 cause of knowledge and the cause of 
 religion, and strengthening perpetually 
 their blended and blessed influences on 
 human nature. 
 
 IV. The age is in many respects a 
 corrupt one, and needs and demands in 
 the ministry a spirit of reform. The 
 age, I say, is corrupt ; not because I 
 consider it as falling below the purity 
 of past times, but because it is obviously 
 and grossly defective when measured by 
 the Christian standard and by the lights 
 and advantages which it enjoys. I know 
 nothing to justify the cry of modern de- 
 generacy, but rather incline to the belief 
 that here at least the sense of religion 
 was never stronger than at present. In 
 comparing different periods as to virtue 
 and piety, regard must be had to differ- 
 ence of circumstances. It would argue 
 little wisdom or candor to expect the same 
 freedom from luxury and dissipation in 
 this opulent and flourishing community as 
 marked the first settlement of our coun- 
 
 try, when the inhabitants, scarcely shel- 
 tered from the elements, and almpst 
 wholly cut off from intercourse with the 
 civilized world, could command little 
 more than the necessaries of life ; and 
 yet it is through superficial comparisons 
 in such particulars that the past is often 
 magnified at the expense of the present. 
 I mean not to strike a balance between 
 this age and former ones. I look on 
 this age in the light of Christianity, as a 
 minister ought to look upon it ; and 
 whilst I see much to cheer and encour- 
 age, I see much to make a good man 
 mourn-, and to stir up Christ's servants 
 to prayer and toil. That our increased 
 comforts, improved arts, and overflowing 
 prosperity are often abused to licentious- 
 ness ; that Christianity is with multi- 
 tudes a mere name and form ; that a 
 practical atheism, which ascribes to nat- 
 ure and fortune the gifts and operations 
 of God, and a practical infidelity, which 
 lives and cares and provides only for 
 the present state, abound on every side 
 of us ; that much which is called moral- 
 ity springs from a prudent balancing of 
 the passions and a discreet regard to 
 worldly interests ; that there is an insen- 
 sibility to God which, if our own hearts 
 were not infected by it, would shock and 
 amaze us ; that education, instead of 
 guarding and rearing the moral and re- 
 ligious nature as its supreme care, often 
 betrays and sacrifices it to accomplish- 
 ments and acquisitions which relate only 
 to the present life ; that there is a mourn- 
 ful prevalence of dissoluteness among 
 the young, and of intemperance among 
 the poor ; that the very religion of peace 
 is made a torch of discord ; and that the 
 fires of uncharitableness and bigotry, 
 fires kindled from hell, often burn on 
 altars consecrated to the true God : 
 that such evils exist, who does not 
 know ? What Christian can look round 
 him and say that the state of society 
 corresponds to what men may and should 
 be under the light of the gospel, and in 
 an age of advanced intelligence ? As 
 for that man who, on surveying the 
 world, thinks its condition almost as 
 healthy as can be desired or hoped ; 
 who sees but a few superficial blots on 
 the general aspect of society : who thinks 
 the ministry established for no higher 
 end than to perpetuate the present state 
 of morals and religion ; whose heart is 
 never burdened and sorrow-smitten by
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 2/7 
 
 the fearful doom to which multitudes 
 around him are thoughtlessly hasten- 
 ing : Oh ! let not that man take on 
 him the care of souls. The physician, 
 who should enter a hospital to congrat- 
 ulate his dying patients on their pleas- 
 ant sensations and rapid convalescence, 
 would be as faithful to his trust as the 
 minister who sees no deep moral mala- 
 dies around him. No man is fitted to 
 withstand great evils with energy unless 
 he be impressed by their greatness. No 
 man is fitted to enter upon that warfare 
 with moral evil to which the ministry is 
 set apart who is not pained and pierced 
 by its extent and woes, who does not 
 burn to witness and advance a great 
 moral revolution in the world. 
 
 Am I told that "romantic expecta- 
 tions of great changes in society will do 
 more harm than good ; that the world 
 will move along in its present course, 
 let the ministry do what it may ; that 
 we must take the present state as God 
 has made it, and not waste our strength 
 in useless lamentation for incurable 
 evils " ? I hold this language, though 
 it takes the name of philosophy, to be 
 wholly unwarranted by experience and 
 revelation. If there be one striking 
 feature in human nature, it is its sus- 
 ceptibleness of improvement ; and who 
 is authorized to say that the limit of 
 Christian improvement is reached ? that, 
 whilst science and art, intellect and im- 
 agination, are extending their domains, 
 the conscience and affections, the moral 
 and religious principles of our nature, 
 are incapable of increased power and 
 elevation ? Have we not pledges in 
 man's admiration of disinterested, heroic 
 love ; in his power of conceiving and 
 thirsting for unattained heights of excel- 
 lence ; and in the splendor and sub- 
 limity of virtue already manifested in 
 not a few who " shine as lights " in the 
 darkness of past ages, that' man was 
 created for perpetual moral and religious 
 progress ? True, the minister should not 
 yield himself to romantic anticipations ; 
 for disappointment may deject him. Let 
 him not expect to break in a moment 
 chains of habit which years have riv- 
 eted, or to bring back to immediate 
 intimacy with God souls which have 
 wandered long and far from him. This 
 is romance ; but there is something to 
 be dreaded by the minister more than 
 this, I mean that frigid lameness of 
 
 mind, too common in Christian teach- 
 ers, which confounds the actual and 
 the possible ; which cannot burst the 
 shackles of custom ; which never kin- 
 dles at the thought of great improve- 
 ments of human nature ; which is 
 satisfied if religion receive an outward 
 respect, and never dreams of enthroning 
 it in men's souls ; which looks on the 
 strongholds of sin with despair ; which 
 utters by rote the solemn and magnifi- 
 cent language of the gospel, without 
 expecting it to " work mightily ; " which 
 sees in the ministry a part of the mech- 
 anism of society, a useful guardian of 
 public order, but never suspects the 
 powers with which it is armed by Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 The ministry is indeed armed with 
 great powers for great effects. The 
 doctrines which Christianity commits to 
 its teachers are mighty engines. The 
 perfect character of God ; the tender 
 and solemn attributes which belong to 
 him as our Father and Judge ; his pur- 
 poses of infinite and everlasting mercy 
 towards the human race : the character 
 and history of Christ ; his entire, self- 
 immolating devotion to the cause of 
 mankind ; his intimate union with his 
 followers ; his sufferings and cross, his 
 resurrection, ascension, and interces- 
 sion ; the promised aids of the Holy 
 Spirit ; the immortality of man ; the 
 retributions which await the unrepent- 
 ing, and the felicities and glories of 
 heaven, here are truths able to move 
 the whole soul and to war victoriously 
 with its host of passions. The teacher 
 to whom are committed the infinite 
 realities of the spiritual world, the sanc- 
 tions of eternity, " the powers of the life 
 to come," has instruments to work with 
 which turn to feebleness all other means 
 of influence. There is not heard on 
 earth a voice so powerful, so penetrat- 
 ing, as that of an enlightened minister, 
 who, under the absorbing influence of 
 these mighty truths, devotes himself a 
 living sacrifice, a whole burnt-offering, 
 to the cause of enlightening and saving 
 his fellow-creatures. 
 
 No ; there is no romance in a minis- 
 ter's proposing and hoping to fonvard a 
 great moral revolution on the earth : for. 
 the religion which he is appointed to 
 preach was intended and is adapted to 
 work deeply and widely, and to change 
 the face of society. Christianity was
 
 278 
 
 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 
 
 not ushered into the world with such a 
 stupendous preparation ; it was not fore- 
 shown through so many ages by enrapt- 
 ured prophets ; it was not proclaimed 
 so joyfully by the songs of angels : it 
 was not preached by such holy lips, and 
 sealed by such precious blood, to be 
 only a pageant, a form, a sound, a show. 
 Oh, no. It has come from heaven, 
 with heaven's life and power, come to 
 "make all things new," to make "the 
 wilderness glad and the desert blos- 
 som as the rose," to break the stony 
 heart, to set free the guilt-burdened and 
 earth-bound spirit, and to " present it 
 faultless before God's glory with exceed- 
 ing joy." With courage and hope be- 
 coming such a religion, let the minister 
 bring to his work the concentrated pow- 
 ers of intellect and affection, and God, 
 in whose cause he labors, will accom- 
 pany and crown the labor with an 
 almighty blessing. 
 
 My brother, you are now to be set 
 apart to the Christian ministry. I bid 
 you welcome to its duties, and implore 
 for you strength to discharge them, a 
 long and prosperous course, increasing 
 success, and everlasting rewards. I also 
 welcome you to the connection which is 
 this day formed between you and myself. 
 I thank God for an associate in whose 
 virtues and endowments I have the 
 promise of personal comfort and relief, 
 and still more, the pledges of usefulness 
 to this people. I have lived too long to 
 expect unmingled good in this or in any 
 relation of life ; nor am I ignorant of the 
 difficulties and trials which are thought 
 to attend the union of different minds 
 and different hands in the care of the 
 same church. God grant us that single- 
 ness of purpose, that sincere concern 
 for the salvation of our hearers, which 
 will make the success of each the hap- 
 piness of both ! I know, for I have 
 borne, the anxieties and sufferings which 
 belong to the first years of the Christian 
 ministry, and I beg you to avail yourself 
 of whatever aid my experience can give 
 you. But no human aid can lift every 
 burden from your mind ; nor would the 
 truest kindness desire for you exemption 
 from the universal lot. May the disci- 
 pline which awaits you give purity and 
 loftiness to your motives ; give energy 
 
 and tenderness to your character?" and 
 prepare you to minister to the wants of 
 a tempted and afflicted world, with that 
 sympathy and wisdom which fellowship 
 in suffering can alone bestow ! May 
 you grow in grace and in the spirit of 
 the ministry as you grow in years ; and 
 when the voice which now speaks to you 
 shall cease to be heard within these 
 walls, may you, my brother, be left to 
 enjoy and reward the confidence, to 
 point out the path and the perils, to for- 
 tify the virtues, to animate the piety, to 
 comfort the sorrows, to save the souls 
 of this much-loved people ! 
 
 Brethren of this Christian society ! I 
 rejoice in the proof which this day 
 affords of your desire to secure the ad- 
 ministration of Christ's word and ordi- 
 nances to yourselves and your children ; 
 and I congratulate you on the prcspects 
 which it opens before you. The recol- 
 lections which rush upon my mind of 
 your sympathy and uninterrupted kind- 
 ness through the vicissitudes of my 
 health and the frequent suspensions of 
 my labors, encourage me to anticipate for 
 my young brother that kindness and 
 candor on which the happiness of a min- 
 ister so much depends. I cannot ask 
 for him sincerer attachment than it has 
 been my lot to enjoy. I remember, 
 however, that the reciprocation of kind 
 feelings is not the highest end of the 
 ministry ; and, accordingly, my most 
 earnest desire and prayer to God is. that 
 with a new pastor He may send you new 
 influences of his Spirit, and that, through 
 our joint labors, Christianity, being root- 
 ed in your understandings and hearts, 
 may spring up into a rich harvest of uni- 
 versal goodness. May a more earnest 
 concern for salvation, and a thirst for 
 more generous improvement, be excited 
 in your breasts ! May a new life breathe 
 through the worship of this house, and 
 a new love join the hearts of the wor- 
 shippers ! May our ministry produce 
 everlasting fruits ; and on that great 
 day which will summon the teacher and 
 the taught before the judgment- seat of 
 Christ, may you, my much-loved and re- 
 spected people, be " our joy and crown ; " 
 and may we. when all hearts shall be re- 
 vealed, be seen to have sought your good 
 with unfeigned and disinterested love !
 
 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 279 
 
 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION: 
 
 Being Extracts from Observations on the Proposition for Increasing 
 the Means of stick Education at the University in Cambridge. 
 
 1816. 
 
 As a proposition is now before the 
 public for increasing the means of theo- 
 logical education at Harvard University, 
 it is thought that a few observations on 
 the subject may be acceptable to those 
 who have not been able to give to it 
 much attention, and whose aid and pat- 
 ronage may be solicited. 
 
 It may perhaps be asked by some, 
 though I hope the question will be con- 
 fined to a few, Why ought we to be so 
 solicitous for the education of ministers ? 
 The answer is obvious. The object of 
 the ministry is peculiarly important. To 
 the Christian minister are intrusted in a 
 measure the dearest and most valuable 
 interests of the human race. He is 
 called to watch over the morals of soci- 
 ety, and to awaken and cultivate the 
 principles of piety and virtue in the 
 hearts of individuals. He is set apart 
 to dispense that religion which, as we 
 believe, came from God, which was given 
 to reform, exalt, and console us, and on 
 the reception of which the happiness of 
 the future life depends. Ought we not 
 to be solicitous for the wise and effect- 
 ual training of those by whom this relig- 
 ion is to be unfolded and enforced, and 
 to whose influence our own minds and 
 those of our children are to be so often 
 exposed ? 
 
 Our interest in a minister is very pe- 
 culiar. He is to us what no other pro- 
 fessional man can be. We want him, not 
 to transact our business and to receive 
 a compensation, but to be our friend, our 
 guide, an inmate in our families: to en- 
 ter our houses in affliction; and to be 
 able to give us light, admonition, and 
 consolation, in suffering, sickness, and 
 the last hours of life. 
 
 Our connection with men of other 
 professions is transient, accidental, rare. 
 With a minister it is habitual. Once in 
 the week, at least, we are to meet him 
 
 and sit under his instructions. We are 
 to give up our minds in a measure to his 
 influence, and to receive from him im- 
 pressions on a subject which, more than 
 all others, concerns us, and with which 
 our improvement and tranquillity through 
 life and our future peace are intimately 
 connected. 
 
 We want the minister of religion to 
 address our understandings with clear- 
 ness ; to extend and brighten our moral 
 and religious conceptions ; to throw 
 light over the obscurities of the Sacred 
 Volume ; to assist us in repelling those 
 doubts which sometimes shake our con- 
 victions of Christian truth ; and to es- 
 tablish us in a firm and rational belief. 
 
 We want him not only to address the 
 understanding with clearness, but, still 
 more, to speak to the conscience and 
 heart with power ; to force, as it were, 
 our thoughts from the world ; to rouse 
 us from the slumbers of an unreflecting 
 life ; to exhibit religion in an interesting 
 form, and to engage our affections on 
 the side of duty. Such are the offices 
 and aids which we need from the Chris- 
 tian minister. Who does not see in a 
 moment that much preparation of the 
 intellect and heart is required to render 
 him successful in these high and gen- 
 erous labors ? 
 
 These reasons for being interested in 
 the education of ministers grow out of 
 the nature and importance of religion. 
 Another important remark is, that the 
 state of our country demands that greater 
 care than ever should be given to this 
 object. It will not be denied, I presume, 
 that this country is, on the whole, ad- 
 vancing in intelligence. The means of 
 improvement are more liberally and more 
 generally afforded to the young than in 
 former times. A closer connection sub- 
 sists with the cultivated minds in other 
 countries. A variety of institutions are
 
 280 
 
 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 awakening our powers, and communicat- 
 ing a degree of general knowledge which 
 was not formerly diffused among us. 
 Taste is more extensively cultivated, 
 and the finest productions of polite lit- 
 erature find their way into many of our 
 families. Now, in this state of things, 
 in this increasing activity of intellect, 
 there is peculiar need of an enlightened 
 ministry. Religion should not be left to 
 feeble and ignorant advocates, to men 
 of narrow and unfurnished minds. Its 
 ministers should be practical proofs that 
 it may be connected with the noblest 
 improvements of the understanding ; and 
 they should be able to convert into 
 weapons for its defence the discoveries 
 of philosophy and the speculations of 
 genius. Religion must be adapted, in 
 its mode of exhibition, to the state of 
 society. The form in which we present 
 it to the infant will not satisfy and in- 
 terest the advanced understanding. In 
 the same manner, if in a cultivated age 
 religious instruction does not partake the 
 general elevation, it will be slighted by 
 the very minds whose influence it is 
 most desirable to engage on the side of 
 virtue and piety. 
 
 I have observed that an enlightened 
 age requires an enlightened ministry. 
 On the other hand, it may be observed, 
 that an enlightened ministry is a power- 
 ful agent in continuing and accelerating 
 the progress of light, of refinement, and 
 of all social improvements. The limits 
 of this essay will not admit the full 
 development of this sentiment. I will 
 only observe, that perhaps the most 
 reflecting men are not aware how far a 
 society is indebted for activity of in- 
 tellect, delicacy of manners, and the 
 strength of all its institutions, to the 
 silent, subtile influence of the thoughts 
 and feelings which are kept alive in the 
 breasts of multitudes by religious in- 
 struction. 
 
 There is another most important con- 
 sideration for promoting an enlightened 
 ministry. Religious teachers there cer- 
 tainly will be, of one description or 
 another : and if men of well furnished 
 minds cannot be found for this office, 
 we shall be overwhelmed by the ignorant 
 and fanatical. The human heart is dis- 
 posed, by its very nature, to religious 
 impressions, and it wants guidance, 
 wants direction, wants the light and 
 fervor of other minds, in this most inter- 
 
 esting concern. Conscious of weakness, 
 and delighting in excitement, it will fol- 
 low the blindest guide who speaks with 
 confidence of his communications with 
 God, rather than advance alone in the 
 religious life. An enlightened ministry 
 is the only barrier against fanaticism. 
 Remove this, and popular enthusiasts 
 would sweep away the multitude as with 
 a torrent, would operate with an unre- 
 sisted power on the ardent imagination 
 of youth, and on the devotional sus- 
 ceptibility of woman, and would even 
 prostrate cultivated minds in which feel- 
 ing is the most prominent trait. Few 
 of us consider the proneness of the 
 human heart to extravagance and fanat- 
 icism, or how much we are all indebted 
 for our safety to the good sense and 
 intellectual and religious improvement 
 of ministers of religion. 
 
 Ignorant ministers are driven almost 
 by necessity to fanaticism. Unable to 
 interest their hearers by appeals to the 
 understanding, and by clear, judicious, 
 and affecting delineations of religion, 
 they can only acquire and maintain the 
 ascendency which is so dear to them by 
 inflaming the passions, by exciting a 
 distempered and ungoverned sensibility, 
 and by perpetuating ignorance and error. 
 Every man of observation must have 
 seen melancholy illustrations of this 
 truth ; and what an argument does it 
 afford in favor of an enlightened min- 
 istry ! 
 
 Nothing more is needed to show the 
 great interest which the community 
 ought to feel in the education of young 
 men for the ministry. But it will be 
 asked, Are not our present means suffi- 
 cient ? Are not our pulpits filled with 
 well furnished and enlightened teachers ? 
 Why seek to obtain additional aids for 
 this important end ? I answer, first, 
 that a sufficient number of enlightened 
 ministers is not trained for our pulpits. 
 There is a demand beyond the supply, 
 even if we look no farther than this 
 Commonwealth ; and if we look through 
 the whole country, we shall see an im- 
 mense tract of the spiritual vineyard 
 uncultivated, and uncultivated for want 
 of laborers. I answer, in the second 
 place, that whilst in our pulpits we have 
 ministers whose gifts and endowments 
 entitle them to respect, we yet need and 
 ought to possess a more enlightened 
 ministry. Many of our religious teach-
 
 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 28l 
 
 ers will lament to us the deficiencies of 
 their education, will lament that the nar- 
 rowness of their circumstances com- 
 pelled them to too early an entrance on 
 their work, will lament that they were 
 deprived, by the imperfection of our 
 institutions, of many aids which the 
 preparation for the ministry requires. 
 We have indeed many good ministers. 
 But we ought to have better. We may 
 have better. But unless we will sow 
 more liberally, we cannot expect a richer 
 harvest. The education of ministers 
 decides very much their future charac- 
 ter, and where this is incomplete, we 
 must not expect to be blessed with pow- 
 erful and impressive instruction. The 
 sum is, we need an increase of the 
 means of theological education. 
 
 But it will be asked, Why shall we 
 advance funds for the education of min- 
 isters rather than of physicians or law- 
 yers ? Why are such peculiar aid and 
 encouragements needed for this profes- 
 sion ? Will not the demand for ministers 
 obtain a supply, just as the demand for 
 every other species of talent ? This 
 reasoning is founded on a principle gen- 
 erally true, that demand creates a supply ; 
 but every general rule has its exceptions, 
 and it is one of the highest offices of 
 practical wisdom to discern the cases 
 where the rule fails in its applica- 
 tion. 
 
 All reasoning should give place to 
 fact. Now it is an undeniable fact, that 
 whilst the other learned professions in 
 our country are crowded and overstocked, 
 whilst the supply vastly surpasses the 
 demand, the profession of the ministry 
 is comparatively deserted, and candi- 
 dates of respectable standing, instead 
 of obtruding themselves in crowds, are 
 often to be sought with a degree of care 
 and difficulty. 
 
 The reason of this is to be found in 
 the difference between the ministry and 
 other professions. Other professions 
 hold out the strong lures of profit and 
 distinction. They appeal to the ambi- 
 tion, the love of gain, the desire of rising 
 in the world, which are so operative on 
 youthful minds. These lures are not, 
 and ought not to be t exhibited by the 
 ministry. This profession makes its 
 chief appeal to the moral and religious 
 feelings of the young ; and we all know 
 how much fainter these are than those 
 which I have previously mentioned. Can 
 
 we wonder, then, that the ministry is less 
 crowded ? 
 
 I proceed to another remark. The 
 professions of law and medicine do not 
 imperiously demand any high moral 
 qualifications in those who embrace 
 them. A young man, whose habits are 
 not altogether pure, or whose character 
 is marked by levity, may enter on the 
 study of these professions without in- 
 curring the reproach of impropriety or 
 inconsistency of conduct. The ministry, 
 on the other hand, demands not merely 
 unexceptionable morals, but a serious- 
 ness of mind, and a propensity to con- 
 templative and devout habits, which are 
 not the ordinary characteristics of that 
 age when a choice must be made of the 
 business of life. On this account, the 
 number of the young who are inclined 
 by their own feelings, and advised by 
 others, to enter the ministry, is com- 
 paratively small. 
 
 I am now led to another reflection, 
 growing out of the last. The profes- 
 sion of the ministry has an aspect not 
 inviting to the young. Youth is the 
 period of animation and gayety. But, 
 to the hasty observation of youth, there 
 is a gloominess, a solemnity, a painful 
 self-restraint belonging to the life of a 
 minister. Even young men of pure 
 morals and of devotional susceptibility 
 shrink from an employment which they 
 think will separate them from the world, 
 and impose a rigorous discipline and 
 painful circumspection. That path, 
 which they would probably find most 
 tranquil and most flowery, seems to 
 them beset with thorns. Do we not 
 see many obstructions to a sufficient 
 supply of students of theology ? 
 
 I now proceed to another most im- 
 portant consideration. We have seen 
 that a large number of young men, 
 qualified by their habits and feelings 
 for the ministry, is not to be expected. 
 It is also a fact, and a very decisive 
 fact, that young men thus qualified gen- 
 erally belong to families whose circum- 
 stances are confined, and whose means 
 of educating their children are exceed- 
 ingly narrow. From this class of soci- 
 ety the ministerial profession, as is well 
 known, receives its largest supplies. 
 Do we not at once discover from this 
 statement, that this profession demands 
 from the community peculiar encourage- 
 ment ? Let me briefly repeat what I
 
 282 
 
 THEOLOGICAL EDUCA TION. 
 
 have said. From the nature of the 
 ministry, but a small proportion of the 
 young are disposed or fitted to enter it, 
 and of this number a considerable part 
 are unable to defray the expenses of 
 their education ; and yet the community 
 has the highest possible interest in giv- 
 ing them the best education which the 
 improvements of the age and the opu- 
 lence of the country will admit. Is it 
 not clear that there ought to be pro- 
 vided liberal funds for this most valu- 
 able object ? 
 
 Will it here be asked, why the candi- 
 date for the ministry cannot borrow 
 money to defray the charges of his 
 education ? I answer, it is not always 
 easy for him to borrow. Besides, a 
 debt is a most distressing incumbrance 
 to a man who has a prospect of a salary 
 so small that, without exertions foreign 
 to his profession, it will hardly support 
 him. Can we wonder that the profes- 
 sion is declined, in preference to such a 
 burden ? 
 
 Where this burden, however, is chos- 
 en, the effect is unhappy, and the cause 
 of religion is often a sufferer. The 
 candidate, unwilling to contract a larger 
 debt than is indispensable to his object, 
 hurries through his studies, and enters 
 unfurnished and unprepared on the min- 
 istry. His first care is, as it should be, 
 to free himself from his pecuniary obli- 
 gations ; and for this end he endeavors 
 to unite some secular employment with 
 his sacred calling. In this way the 
 spirit of study and of his profession is 
 damped. He forms negligent habits 
 in his preparation for the pulpit, which 
 he soon thinks are justified by the 
 wants of a growing family. His im- 
 perfect education, therefore, is never 
 completed. His mind remains station- 
 ary. A meagre library, which he is un- 
 able to enlarge, furnishes the weekly 
 food for his flock, who are forced to 
 
 subsist on an uninteresting repetition of 
 the same dull thoughts. 
 
 This is the melancholy history of too 
 many who enter the ministry. Few 
 young men among us are in fact suffi- 
 ciently prepared, and the consequence 
 is that religious instruction is not what 
 it should be. The community at large 
 cannot perhaps understand how exten- 
 sive a preparation the ministry requires. 
 There is one idea, however, which should 
 teach them that it ought to be more 
 extensive than that which is demanded 
 for any other profession. A lawyer and 
 physician begin their employment with 
 a small number of clients or patients, 
 and their practice is confined to the 
 least important cases within their re- 
 spective departments. They have there- 
 fore much leisure for preparation after 
 entering on their pursuits, and gradu- 
 ally rise into public notice. Not so the 
 minister. He enters at once on the 
 stage. All the duties of a parish im- 
 mediately devolve upon him. His con- 
 nection at the first moment extends to 
 as large a number as he will ever be 
 called to serve. His station is at first 
 conspicuous. He is literally burdened 
 and pressed with duties. The mere 
 labor of composing as many sermons as 
 are demanded of him is enough to ex- 
 haust his time and strength. If, then, 
 his education has been deficient, how is 
 it to be repaired ? Amidst these dis- 
 advantages, can we wonder that the 
 mind loses its spring, and soon be- 
 comes satisfied with very humble pro- 
 ductions ? How important is it that a 
 good foundation should be laid, that the 
 theological student should have time to 
 accumulate some intellectual treasures, 
 and that he should be trained under 
 circumstances more suited to give him 
 an unconquerable love of his profes- 
 sion, of study, and of the cause to which 
 he is devoted !
 
 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION OF REV. J. S. DWIGHT. 283 
 
 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REV. 
 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT, 
 
 As Pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Northampton, 
 MassacJiusetts, May 20, 1840. 
 
 MY YOUNG FRIEXD, The Ecclesias- 
 tical Council, assembled here to intro- 
 duce you to the office of a Christian 
 minister, according to the simple and 
 affecting rites of the Congregational 
 churches, have appointed me to deliver 
 the Charge ; or, in other words, to ex- 
 pound to you and to enforce the duties 
 of the sacred office. In doing this, I 
 claim no right to dictate to your faith, I 
 ask no passive obedience or assent ; and 
 yet there is an authority of divine truth, 
 and in proportion as a man is possessed 
 by it, he cannot but speak with the en- 
 ergy of a divine messenger, and with the 
 consciousness of a right to respectful 
 attention. 
 
 I shall confine myself to your duties 
 as a public teacher of religion ; not that 
 the more private labors of your office 
 want importance ; but because it will be 
 more useful to enter with some thor- 
 oughness into a part, than to give su- 
 perficial notices of the whole, of your 
 functions. 
 
 It is well to start with some compre- 
 hensive .view of our work, be it what it 
 may ; and I therefore begin with observ- 
 ing that the great idea which ought to 
 shine out in all preaching is that of 
 moral perfection. This is the very es- 
 sence of God ; our highest conception 
 of the divinity being that of absolute, 
 unbounded, eternal, omnipotent recti- 
 tude and love. Of this perfection, Christ 
 is the bright, unsullied image. To bring 
 men to this was the grand purpose of 
 his coming, teaching, miracles, and cross. 
 In this we have the explanation of our 
 present being, the end of all its duties, 
 temptations, conflicts, and pains. This 
 is, in truth, the everlasting life, the 
 heaven, which he came to unfold and 
 promise to mankind. Your fitness for 
 your office is to be measured by your 
 
 comprehension of this perfection, by 
 your faith in it, by your aspirations 
 after it, by the power with which this 
 supreme beauty smites and stirs your 
 soul, and by your power of awakening 
 the thought and desire of it in the souls 
 of others. Your work, then, is to preach 
 the perfect. Preach the perfection of 
 God, that He may. be loved, not with 
 passion or selfish regards, but with en- 
 lightened, disinterested, ever-growing 
 love. Preach the perfection of Christ. 
 Strive to seize the true idea of his char- 
 acter, to penetrate the mists with which 
 the errors of ages have shrouded him, 
 to see him in his simple majesty, to 
 trace in his history the working of his 
 soul, the peculiarity of his love, the 
 grandeur of his purpose. Be not anx- 
 ious to settle his rank in the universe, 
 but to comprehend the divinity of his 
 spirit, that you may awaken towards 
 him generous, purifying affections. 
 Preach the perfection to which man 
 is called by Christianity. Preach the 
 nobleness and beauty of human virtue. 
 Believe in man as destined to make prog- 
 ress without end. Help him to under- 
 stand his- high calling as a Christian, 
 and to see God working within and 
 around him for his perfection. These 
 views might easily be extended, but 
 these are sufficient to show you the 
 grandeur of thought which belongs to 
 your profession. Moral perfection is 
 its beginning and end. How sublime 
 and awakening the theme of the min- 
 istry ! And yet religion, in consequence 
 of its being so familiar, and of its having 
 been cramped so long in human creeds, 
 shrinks in most minds into a small com- 
 pass, and wears any form but that of 
 grandeur. You have seen in schools the 
 solar system, with its majestic worlds, 
 represented by circles of wire and balls
 
 284 
 
 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION 
 
 of pith. In like manner, religion is 
 dwarfed and degraded. Strive to think 
 of it nobly, justly, vividly, and hold it 
 forth as the sublimest reality. 
 
 You are to preach the perfect ; and 
 for what end ? Not simply that men 
 may discern and admire it. This is but 
 the beginning of your work. The great 
 aim must be to stir up men to the sol- 
 emn, stern, invincible purpose of doing, 
 of becoming, what they acknowledge 
 and admire, of realizing their conceptions 
 of the right, the perfect, the divine. 
 The highest office of the ministry is to 
 breathe this energy, this indomitable 
 force of will. It is not enough to awaken 
 enthusiasm by touching manifestations 
 of moral beauty, of Christian greatness 
 of soul. Sensibility without moral res- 
 olution avails nothing. All duties, and 
 especially the highest, are resisted in the 
 breasts of our hearers, by strong temp- 
 tations, by the senses, the passions, by 
 selfish hopes and fears, by bad habits 
 and sins ; and unless you can awaken 
 energy to put down this resistance, you 
 preach in vain. It is the existence of 
 this mighty antagonist force to virtue in 
 human nature which makes Christianity 
 necessary, which makes the ministry 
 necessary. The grand purpose of all 
 the doctrines, teachings, promises, in- 
 stitutions, and spiritual aids of our re- 
 ligion, is to infuse an all-conquering will 
 in opposition to temptatioji, to bind the 
 soul to the choice and pursuit of perfec- 
 tion in the face of pleasure, pain, honor, 
 interest, loss, and death. Propose dis- 
 tinctly to yourself, as your grand work, 
 the excitement of this energy of the 
 will ; and this single thought will do 
 much to give a living power to your 
 preaching. 
 
 Having spoken of the end of the 
 Christian teacher, I proceed to consider 
 the means by which it is to be accom- 
 plished. His great instrument is the 
 truth revealed by God through Jesus 
 Christ, and through his own soul. To 
 gain this must, of course, be the labor 
 of his life ; and he is to gain it chiefly 
 by study and by inward experience. A 
 minister must be a student, a patient, 
 laborious student. There are those, in- 
 deed, who seem to think that religious 
 truth comes by inspiration ; and it is 
 certain that light often flashes on the 
 mind as from heaven. But inspiration 
 does not visit the idle, passive mind. 
 
 We receive it in the use and faithful use 
 of our powers. You must study, you 
 must work. Your parish must contain 
 no harder laborer than yourself. To 
 study is not to read, that we may know 
 what others have thought ; but to put 
 forth the utmost strength of our facul- 
 ties for the acquisition of just, strong, 
 living convictions of truth. It is to con- 
 centrate the mind ; to pierce beneath 
 the apparent and particular, to the real 
 and permanent and universal ; to grap- 
 ple with difficulties ; to separate false 
 associations and accidental adjuncts 
 from the truth. Study human nature 
 and the divine. Study human life, that 
 you may penetrate through its mysteries 1 
 and endless mutations to its one all-com- 
 prehending design. Study God's works, 
 that amidst their infinite agencies you 
 may discern the one power and spirit 
 from which all spring. Study, espe- 
 cially, the Holy Scriptures, the records 
 of God's successive revelations to the 
 human race. Strive to gain profound, 
 generous, and fruitful conceptions of 
 Christianity ; to penetrate into the im- 
 port of its records ; to seize its distinc- 
 tive character, and to rise above what 
 was local, temporary, partial in Christ's 
 teaching, to his universal, all-compre- 
 hending truth. To gain this knowledge 
 of Christianity, your first and chief re- 
 sort will be, of course, to the New 
 Testament ; but remember, that there 
 are difficulties in the way of a just inter- 
 pretation of this venerable record. Other 
 books are left to act on our minds freely 
 and without control, to exert on us their 
 native, genuine influence; but such a 
 host of interpreters thrust themselves 
 between the sacred volume and the 
 reader, so many false associations of 
 ideas with its phraseology are formed 
 from the cradle, and long familiarity has 
 so hardened us to its most quickening 
 passages, that it is more difficult to bring 
 ourselves into near communication with 
 a sacred writer than with any other. 
 The student in theology must labor 
 earnestly to escape the power of habit, 
 and to receive immediate impressions 
 from the Scriptures ; and when by his 
 efforts he is able to catch the spirit 
 which had before lain hid beneath the 
 letter ; to feel a new power in words 
 which had often fallen lifelessly on his 
 ear ; to place himself in the midst of the 
 past, and thus to pierce into the heart of
 
 OF REV. J. S. D WIGHT. 
 
 285 
 
 passages which he had been accustomed 
 to interpret according to modern modes 
 of thought ; he ought to rejoice as in 
 the acquisition of untold treasure, and 
 to feel that he is arming himself with the 
 most effectual weapons for his spiritual 
 warfare. 
 
 You will, of course, read other books 
 besides the Bible ; but beware lest these 
 diminish your power. Perhaps in no 
 department of literature are works of 
 vigorous and original thought rarer 
 than in theology. No profession is so 
 overwhelmed with commonplace, weak, 
 worthless books as ours. No text has 
 been so obscured and oppressed by un- 
 discerning commentators as the Bible. 
 In theology, as in all branches of knowl- 
 edge, confine yourself very much to the 
 works of men who have written not 
 from tradition or imitation, but from 
 consciousness, experience, reflection, 
 and research ; and study these, that 
 your own faculties may be roused to a 
 kindred energy. Especially beware of 
 giving yourself up to the popular liter- 
 ature of the day ; which, however inno- 
 cent or useful as an amusement, is the 
 last nutriment to form a powerful mind, 
 and which, I fear, is more pernicious 
 to men of our profession than of any 
 other. 
 
 Study laboriously, for much is to be 
 learned. Do not destroy your intellect- 
 ual life by imagining that all truth is 
 discovered, and that you have nothing 
 to do but to repeat what others have 
 taught. I know not a more fatal mistake 
 to a teacher. It were better for you to 
 bum your books, and to devote yourself 
 to solitary, painful researches after truth, 
 than to sleep on others' acquisitions, than 
 to make the activity of others' minds a 
 substitute for your own. It is intended 
 by our Creator that truth should be our 
 own discovery, and therefore He has sur- 
 rounded us with fallible beings, whom we 
 are impelled to distrust. Paradoxical as 
 it may seem, we ought to discover the 
 truths which we have been taught by 
 others ; for the light which our own 
 earnest free thought will throw on these 
 will make them so different from what 
 they were when first passively received, 
 that they will be virtually rediscovered 
 by ourselves. 
 
 Study laboriously, for much is to be 
 learned. Do ribt feel as if Christianity 
 had spoken its last word, and had noth- 
 
 ing more to say. It is the characteristic 
 of divine truth that it is inexhaustible, 
 infinitely fruitful. It does not stand 
 alone in the mind, but combines with, 
 explains, irradiates our other knowledge. 
 It is the office of a great moral truth to 
 touch the deep springs of thought within 
 us, to awaken the soul to new activity, 
 to start a throng of suggestions to be 
 followed out by patient contemplation. 
 An arid, barren religion, which reveals a 
 precise, rigid doctrine, admitting no ex- 
 pansion, and kindling no new life in the 
 intellect, cannot be from God. It wants 
 an essential mark of having come from 
 the Creator of the human soul, for the 
 great distinction of soul is its desire to 
 burst its limits and grow for ever. 
 
 But I need not in this town urge the 
 importance of study. Can a minister 
 breathe the atmosphere in which Ed- 
 wards lived, and content himself with 
 taking passively what others teach ? I 
 exhort you to visit the spot where Ed- 
 wards brought forth his profound works ; 
 and let the spiritual presence of that in- 
 tensest thinker of the New World and 
 of the age in which he lived stir you up 
 to energy of thought. His name has 
 shed a consecration over this place. In 
 many things, indeed, you differ from 
 him ; but you will not therefore rever- 
 ence the less his single-hearted and un- 
 wearied devotion of his great powers to 
 the investigation of truth ; and in the 
 wide and continued influence of his 
 writings you will learn that secret study, 
 silent thought, is, after all, the mightiest 
 agent in human affairs. 
 
 I have enlarged beyond my purpose 
 on study ; I proceed to observe that 
 something more than the action of intel- 
 lect is needed to secure to you a living 
 knowledge of Christian truth. On moral 
 subjects no study can avail us without 
 inward experience. To comprehend re- 
 ligion, you must be religious, A new 
 revelation of truth is gained by bringing 
 the truth to bear on our own hearts and 
 lives. Study the best books ; but re- 
 member that no " tongue of men or an- 
 gels," no language of heaven or earth, 
 can give you that intimate perception of 
 God, that faith in the invisible, which 
 comes from inward purity, from likeness 
 to the Divinity. There is a light to which 
 others are strangers, that visits the in- 
 ward eye of the man who contends with 
 evil in himself, and is true to his convic-
 
 286 
 
 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION 
 
 tions of duty. This is the highest in- 
 spiration, surpassing that of prophets ; 
 for the ancient prophet comprehended 
 but imperfectly the revelation with which 
 he was charged, and sometimes shrank 
 from communicating it to the world. 
 Christian truth will .never become your 
 own until something congenial with it is 
 unfolded in your own soul. We learn 
 the Divinity through a divine principle 
 within ourselves. We learn the majesty 
 and happiness of virtue by conscious- 
 ness, by experience, by giving up all to 
 virtue, and in no other way. Disinter- 
 ested, impartial love is the perfection of 
 the intellect as well as of the heart. 
 Without it, thought is barren and super- 
 ficial, clinging to things narrow, selfish, 
 and earthly. This love gave being, 
 unity, harmony to the universe, and is 
 the only light in which the universe can 
 be read. Preach from this highest in- 
 spiration, and you will preach with 
 power. Without this inward experi- 
 ence, intellect, imagination, passion, 
 rhetoric, genius, may dazzle, and be 
 rapturously praised and admired, but 
 they cannot reach the depths of the 
 human soul. Watch, then, over your 
 own spiritual life ; be what you preach ; 
 know by consciousness what you incul- 
 cate. Remember that the best prepara- 
 tion for enforcing any Christian virtue 
 is to bring it into vigorous action in your 
 own breast. Let the thirst for perfec- 
 tion grow up in you into a holy enthusi- 
 asm, and you will have taken the most 
 effectual step towards perfecting them 
 that hear you. 
 
 I have now spoken of the two princi- 
 pal means of obtaining Christian truth ; 
 they are study and inward experience. 
 Having thus sought the truth, how shall 
 it be communicated ? A few sugges- 
 tions only can be made. I exhort you, 
 first, to communicate it with all possible 
 plainness and simplicity. Put confi- 
 dence in the power of pure, unsophisti- 
 cated truth. Do not disguise or distort 
 it, or overlay it with ornaments or false 
 colors, to make it more effectual. Bring 
 it out in its native shape and hues, 
 and, if possible, in noonday brightness. 
 Beware -of ambiguous words, of cant, 
 of vague abstractions, of new-fangled 
 phrases, of ingenious subtilties. Es- 
 pecially exaggerate nothing for effect, 
 that most common sin of the pulpit. Be 
 willing to disappoint your hearers, to be 
 
 unimpressive, to seem cold, rather than 
 to "o'erstepthe modesty" of truth. In 
 the long run, nothing is so strong as 
 simplicity. Do not, to be striking, dress 
 up truth in paradoxes. Do not make it 
 virtually falsehood, by throwing it out 
 without just modification and restraint. 
 Do not destroy its fair proportions by 
 extravagance. Undoubtedly strong emo- 
 tion often breaks out in hyperboles. It 
 cannot stop to weigh its words ; and this 
 free, bold language of nature I do not 
 mean to condemn ; for this, even when 
 most daring, is simple and intelligible. 
 I would caution you, not against nature, 
 but against artificial processes, against 
 distrust of simple truth, against strain- 
 ing for effect, against efforts to startle 
 or dazzle the hearer, against the quack- 
 ery which would pass off old thoughts 
 for new, or common thoughts for more 
 than their worth, by means of involved 
 or ambitious phraseology. Prefer the 
 true to the dazzling, the steady sunlight 
 to the meteor. Truth is the power which 
 is to conquer the world ; and you cannot 
 toil too much to give clear perceptions 
 of it. I may seem to waste words on so 
 plain a point ; but I apprehend that few 
 ministers understand the importance of 
 helping men to see religious truth dis- 
 tinctly. No truth, I fear, is so faintly 
 apprehended. On the subject of relig- 
 ion, most men walk in a mist. The 
 words of the Bible and of the preacher 
 convey to multitudes no definite import. 
 Theology, being generally taught with- 
 out method, and as a matter of authority, 
 and before the mind can comprehend it, 
 is too often the darkest and most con- 
 fused of all the subjects of thought. 
 How little distinct comprehension is 
 carried away by multitudes from our 
 most important discourses ! My brother, 
 help men to see. Christianity was called 
 light, and you will be its worthy teacher 
 only by being, like its first ministers, a 
 "light of the world." It is a common 
 error that,*to avoid dulness, the most 
 unpardonable sin of the pulpit, the 
 preacher can find more effectual means 
 than the clear expression of simple 
 truth. Accordingly, some have recourse 
 to crude novelties ; some to mysticism, 
 as if truth, to be imposing, must be en- 
 throned in clouds : some to vehemence ; 
 some to strong utterance of feeling. Of 
 course, I would say nothing in dispar- 
 agement of feeling ; but I am satisfied
 
 OF REV. J. S. D WIGHT. 
 
 287 
 
 that there is no more effectual security 
 against dulness than the unfolding of 
 truth distinctly and vividly, so that the 
 hearer can lay a strong hold on great 
 principles, can take in a larger extent of 
 thought, and can feel that he has a rock 
 for faith and opinion to rest on. In the 
 natural world it is light that wakes us in 
 the morning, and keeps us awake through 
 the day ; and I believe that to bring light 
 into God s house is one of the surest 
 ways of driving slumber out of its walls. 
 Let me add, that to give at once clear- 
 ness and interest to preaching, nothing 
 is more necessary than that comprehen- 
 sive wisdom which discerns what is 
 prominent and commanding in a sub- 
 ject, which seizes on its great points, its 
 main features, and throws lesser matters 
 into the background, thus securing unity 
 and, of consequence, distinctness of im- 
 pression. Nothing is so dull as a dead 
 level, as monotony, as want of relief and 
 perspective, want of light and shade ; 
 and this is among the most common 
 causes of the dulness of the pulpit. 
 
 The remarks made under the present 
 head are liable to a misapprehension, 
 which may be usefully guarded against. 
 I have condemned affected and obscure 
 phraseology. Do not imagine that I 
 would recommend to you a hackneyed 
 style. The minister, to give distinct, 
 vivid impression, must especially beware 
 of running the round of . commonplace 
 expressions. He must break away from 
 the worn-out phraseology of the pulpit. 
 He must not confine himself to terms 
 and modes of speech which familiarity 
 has deadened. So mighty is the influ- 
 ence of time and habit in emptying 
 words of life and significance, that truth 
 in every age needs new forms, fresh 
 manifestations. Happy the teacher who 
 is able to give out truth in language 
 original and bold, yet simple and un- 
 forced, and such as causes no offence to 
 cultivated taste or religious feeling. 
 
 Perhaps it may be objected to the 
 advice now given, that I have recom- 
 mended a plainness and distinctness not 
 to be attained by the preacher. It may 
 be said that religion relates to the Infi- 
 nite ; that its great object is the Incom- 
 prehensible God ; that human life is 
 surrounded with abysses of mystery and 
 darkness ; that the themes on which the 
 minister is to speak stretch out beyond 
 the power of imagination, and of course 
 
 j do not admit of mathematical precise- 
 \ ness of statement ; that he has aspira- 
 , tions and feelings too high, and deep, 
 and vast, to be accurately defined ; that 
 at times he only catches glimpses of 
 truth, and cannot set it forth in all its 
 proportions. All this is true. But it is 
 also true that a minister speaks to be 
 : understood ; and if he cannot ma'ke him- 
 self intelligible he should hold his peace. 
 ! Language has but one function, and that 
 is to help another to understand what 
 passes in the speaker's breast. What 
 though he is surrounded with the in- 
 comprehensible ? Is he, therefore, au- 
 thorized to speak in an unknown tongue ? 
 Amid the vague and the obscure, are 
 there not facts, principles, realities, of 
 unutterable moment, on which he and 
 others may lay hold ? Even when he 
 catches broken glimpses, he can report 
 these simply and faithfully, so as to be 
 apprehended by a prepared mind. The 
 more difficult the subject, the more anx- 
 iously the art of clear expression should 
 be cultivated ; and the pulpit, which 
 gathers together the multitude, and ad- 
 dresses its rapid instruction to the ear, 
 demands such culture above all other 
 spheres. This is the last place for dark 
 sayings ; and yet he who carefully studies 
 expression will find the pulpit a place for 
 communicating a great amount of pro- 
 found and soul-stirring thought to the 
 world. 
 
 I have said, you must preach plainly. 
 I now add, preach with zeal, fervor, 
 earnestness. To rouse, to quicken, is 
 the end of all preaching, and plainness 
 which does not minister to this is of 
 little worth. This topic is too familiar 
 to need expansion ; and I introduce it 
 simply to guard you against construing 
 it too narrowly. The minister is often 
 exhorted to be earnest in the pulpit. 
 You will be told that fervor in delivering 
 your discourse is the great means of 
 impression. I would rather exhort you 
 to be fervent in preparing it. Write 
 with earnestness, and you will find little 
 difficulty in preaching earnestly : and if 
 you have not poured out your soul in 
 writing, vehemence of delivery will be 
 of little avail. To enunciate with voice 
 of thunder and vehement gestures a cold 
 discourse, is to make it colder still. The 
 fire which is to burn in the pulpit must 
 be kindled in the study. Preach with 
 zeal. But let it be a kindly zeal. Al-
 
 288 
 
 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION 
 
 ways speak in love. Let not earnestness 
 be a cover for anger, or for a spirit of 
 menace and dictation. Always speak 
 as a brother. With the boldest, stern- 
 est, most scornful, most indignant re- 
 proofs of baseness and crime, let the 
 spirit of humanity, of sorrowful concern 
 be blended. In too much of the zeal of 
 the pulpit there is a hardness, unfeel- 
 ingness, inhumanity, more intolerable 
 to a good mind than sleepy dulness or 
 icy indifference. 
 
 I have said, preach plainly and preach 
 earnestly ; I now say, preach with moral 
 courage. Fear no man, high or low, 
 rich or poor, taught or untaught. Honor 
 all men ; love all men ; but fear none. 
 Speak what you account great truths 
 frankly, strongly, boldly. Do not spoil 
 them of life to avoid offence. Do not 
 seek to propitiate passion and prejudice 
 by compromise and concession. Beware 
 of the sophistry which reconciles the 
 conscience to the suppression, or vague, 
 lifeless utterance of unpopular truth. 
 Do not wink at wrong deeds or unholy 
 prejudices, because sheltered by custom 
 or respected names. Let your words 
 breathe a heroic valor. You are bound 
 indeed to listen candidly and respect- 
 fully to whatever objections may be 
 urged against your views of truth and 
 duty. You must also take heed lest 
 you baptize your rash, crude notions, 
 your hereditary or sectarian opinions, 
 with the name of Christian doctrine. 
 But having deliberately, conscientiously 
 sought the truth, abide by your con- 
 viction at all hazards. Never shrink 
 from speaking your mind through dread 
 of reproach. Wait not to be backed by 
 numbers. Wait not till you are sure of 
 an echo from a crowd. The fewer the 
 voices on the side of truth, the more 
 distinct and strong must be your own. 
 Put faith in truth as mightier than error, 
 prejudice, or passion, and be ready to 
 take a place among its martyrs. Feel 
 that truth is not a local, temporary in- 
 fluence, but immutable, everlasting, the 
 same in all worlds, one with God, and 
 armed with his omnipotence. Courage 
 even on the side of error is power. 
 How must it prove on the side of truth ! 
 A minister speaking not from selfish 
 calculation, but giving out his mind in 
 godly sincerity, uttering his convictions 
 in natural tones, and always faithful to 
 the light which he has received, however 
 
 he may give occasional offence, will not 
 speak in vain ; he will have an ally in 
 the moral sense, the principle of justice, 
 the reverence for virtue, which is never 
 wholly extinguished in the human soul. 
 
 You are peculiarly called to cherish 
 moral courage, because it is not the 
 virtue of our times and country, and 
 because ministers are especially tempted 
 to moral weakness. The Protestant 
 minister, mixing freely with society, 
 sustaining all its relations, and depend- 
 ing on opinion for bread, has strong 
 inducements to make a compromise with 
 the world. Is there not reason to fear 
 that, under these influences, religion and 
 the world often shake hands ? Is there 
 not a secret understanding that the min- 
 istry, while it condemns sin in the mass, 
 must touch gently the prejudices, wrongs, 
 and abuses which the community has 
 taken under its wing ? Is not preaching 
 often disarmed by this silent, almost 
 unconscious, concession to the world ? 
 Whether a ministry sustained as it now 
 is can be morally free, is a problem yet 
 to be solved. If not, the minister must 
 now, as of old, leave all for Christ, look- 
 ing solely for aid to those, however few 
 or poor, who share his own deep interest 
 in the Christian cause. Better earn 
 your bread with the sweat of your brow, 
 than part with moral freedom. 
 
 It is natural that you should desire to 
 win the affection of your people ; but 
 beware lest this interfere with moral 
 courage. There is always danger to 
 dignity and force of character in aiming 
 to win the hearts of others. Dear as 
 affection is, we must be able to renounce 
 it, to live without sympathy, to forfeit 
 this man's confidence and that man's 
 friendship by speaking truth. I exhort 
 you to prize respect more than affection. 
 Respect, gradually won by faithfulness 
 to principle, is more unwavering than 
 personal attachment, and secures more 
 intelligent attention to preaching. We 
 are indeed told that truth is never so 
 effectual as from the lips of him whom 
 we love. But it is to be desired that 
 truth should be received for its own 
 sake, that it should have its root in the 
 hearer's reason and conscience, and not 
 in the partiality of friendship. I wish 
 for you the love of this congregation ; 
 but still more that they may reverence 
 you as ever ready to sacrifice human 
 love and honor to principle and truth.
 
 OF REV. J. S. D WIGHT. 
 
 289 
 
 Hitherto I have guarded you against 
 selfish fear. There is a more refined 
 fear, to which ingenuous minds are liable. 
 I refer to the apprehension which springs 
 from a consciousness of inferiority and 
 inability. This often disheartens the 
 minister, subdues his voice, tames his 
 countenance, dims the eye, throws an 
 air of constraint over his form and mo- 
 tions, locks up his soul, suffering no 
 sensibility to gush out, no quickening 
 communication to be established be- 
 tween his own and other souls. To 
 defend yourself from this fear, impress 
 yourself deeply with the divine original 
 and the infinite dignity of the religion 
 you are to preach. You will, indeed, 
 often stand before your superiors in age 
 and acquisitions. But do not fear. Re- 
 member that you are preaching a religion, 
 in the presence of which all human wis- 
 dom ought to be humble, and that you 
 are teaching a virtue which ought to 
 strike a conviction of deep deficiency 
 into the most improved, and by which 
 the most gifted and powerful are soon 
 to be judged. In the contemplation of 
 the majesty of Christian truth, of the 
 work which it is appointed to accom- 
 plish, and of the omnipotence by which 
 it is sustained, you should forget your- 
 self ; you should forget the world's 
 ephemeral dignities, and speak with the 
 native, unaffected authority of a witness 
 to immortal verities, of a messenger of 
 the Most High. 
 
 I am aware that what has been said 
 to encourage a spirit of fearlessness and 
 independence is liable to atjuse. There 
 are those who confound moral courage 
 with defiance of established opinion, and 
 Christian independence with an over- 
 weening fondness for their own conceits. 
 I trust to your humility and soundness 
 of mind for a sober construction of my 
 counsels. I trust you will feel such a 
 respect for past times, and for the max- 
 ims and institutions of the society to 
 which you belong, as will induce you to 
 weigh cautiously and with self-distrust 
 whatever peculiar views spring up in 
 your mind. You are too wise to bolt 
 from the beaten path, in order to prove 
 that you do not tamely follow others' 
 steps ; too wise to be lawless, that you 
 may escape the reproach of servility. 
 The authority of usage is a wholesome 
 restraint on the freaks, follies, and rash 
 experiments of youth and inexperience. 
 
 I But usage must not restrain the intellect 
 and heart. Whilst deferring to the rules 
 which society has settled, you must still 
 act from your own convictions. You 
 must stand out as an individual, and not 
 be melted in the common mass. Whilst 
 you honor antiquity, you must remem- 
 ber that the past has not done and could 
 not do the work of the present ; that in 
 [ religion, as in all things, progress is the 
 I law and happiness of the race ; that our 
 I own time has its task, and has wants 
 I which the provisions of earlier times 
 cannot satisfy. Remember, too, that 
 each man has his own way of working, 
 and can work powerfully in no other, 
 and do not anxiously and timidly model 
 yourself after those whom you admire. 
 To escape the sin of presumption, do 
 not be mechanical. To escape eccen- 
 tricity, do not shut your eyes on what 
 is peculiar in your lot, and fear to meet 
 it by peculiar efforts. The minister too 
 often speaks feebly, because his voice 
 is only the echo of echoes, because he 
 dares not trust to the inspirations of his 
 own soul. To conclude this head, be 
 humble, be modest, but be not weak. 
 Fear God and not man. Respect your 
 deliberately consulted conscience. This 
 energy of spirit will give a greater power 
 to your ministry than all the calculations 
 of selfish prudence or all the compro- 
 mises of selfish fear. 
 
 My brother, one exhortation more. 
 Feel the greatness of your office. Let 
 not its humble exterior, or the opinion 
 of the world, or its frequent inefficacy, 
 hide from you its unspeakable dignity. 
 Regard it as the highest human voca- 
 tion, as greater than thrones, or any 
 other distinctions which relate merely 
 to the present life. The noblest work 
 on earth, or in heaven, is to act on the 
 soul ; to inspire it with wisdom and 
 magnanimity, with reverence for God, 
 and love towards man. This is the 
 highest function of sages and inspired 
 poets, and also of statesmen worthy of 
 the name, who comprehend that a na- 
 tion's greatness is to be laid in its soul. 
 Glory in your office. Feel that it asso- 
 ciates you with the elect of past ages, . 
 with Jesus Christ, and apostles, and 
 confessors, and martyrs, and reformers ; 
 with all who have toiled and suffered' 
 to raise men to intelligence and moral 
 greatness ; and let the consciousness 
 of this spiritual brotherhood fortify you.
 
 290 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION OF REV. J. S. D WIGHT. 
 
 for like suffering and toil. Glory in 
 your office. You delight in poetry and 
 the fine arts ; but remember that the 
 divinest art is that which studies and 
 creates the beauty, not of outward form, 
 but of immortal virtue ; which creates 
 not statues and pictures, but holy and 
 disinterested men; which awakens the 
 godlike in the breast of our brother. 
 No poem is so glorious as a Christian 
 life ; and he who incites a fellow-creat- 
 ure to this produces a work which will 
 outlast all other works of the mind. 
 Glory in your office, especially, as in- 
 stituted to carry forward the human 
 soul to wider and higher action than it 
 has yet attained. Other men are labor- 
 ing with instruments, the power of 
 which can be measured ; but who can 
 measure the energy which resides in 
 Christian truth, or the spiritual life and 
 elevation which this truth, rightly ad- 
 ministered, may communicate ? Regard 
 your office as meant not to perpetuate 
 what exists, but to introduce a higher 
 condition of the church and the world. 
 Christ was eminently the Reformer ; 
 and reform is the spirit of the ministry. 
 Without this spirit, our churches are 
 painted sepulchres, and the preaching 
 in them but sounding brass, or a tink- 
 ling cymbal. Comprehend the great- 
 ness of your spiritual function. You 
 are intrusted with a truth that is to 
 create a new heaven and a new earth, 
 to prostrate the abuses and corruptions 
 of ages, to unite men by new ties to 
 God and to one another, to revive the 
 Divine Image in the human soul. Keep 
 your mind in harmony with this great 
 end. Let not pleasures, cares, honors, 
 common example, or opinion, or any 
 worldly interest, sever you from it. 
 Cherish a living faith in a higher opera- 
 tion of Christianity than is yet seen in 
 any community or any church. This 
 faith is far from being universal, and 
 for want of it the ministry is weak. 
 But is there no ground for it ? Is it an 
 illusion ? I know not a weightier ques- 
 tion for a minister to answer. Other 
 points of controversy will solicit your 
 attention. But the greatest question 
 which you have to determine is, Whether 
 Christianity has done its work and spent 
 its force, or whether a more regenerat- 
 ing manifestation of truth is not to be 
 hoped ? whether a new application of 
 the Christian law to private and public 
 life is not to be longed for, and prayed 
 
 for, and confidently expected ? whether 
 Christendom is not to wear another 
 aspect ? whether the idea of perfection, 
 of disinterested virtue, which shone 
 forth in the character of Jesus, is not 
 to possess more livingly the human 
 soul, and to be more and more realized 
 in human life ? Your answer to this 
 question will decide very much whether 
 your ministry shall be a mechanical 
 round, a name, a sleep, or be fraught 
 with life and power. In answering it, 
 do not consult with flesh and blood ; 
 but listen to the prophetic words of 
 Jesus Christ ; listen to the aspirations 
 of your own soul ; listen to that deep 
 discontent with the present forms of 
 Christianity which is spreading in the 
 community, which breaks out in mur- 
 murs, now of scorn, now of grief, and 
 which hungers and thirsts for a new 
 coming of the kingdom of God. 
 
 My brother, much might be added, 
 but I hasten to the close of this unusu- 
 ally protracted service. We wish you 
 prosperity. May you establish your- 
 self in the hearts of this people ! May 
 you find a lasting home in this beauti- 
 ful part of our land ! Here may you 
 live in peace, here grow old in honor, 
 here close your eyes amid the tears of 
 a grateful people ! This we hope ; and 
 we have ground of hope in the spirit of 
 the congregation to which you are to 
 minister. But we cannot speak of your 
 prospects as sure. You live in a trying 
 day. The spirit of change which char- 
 acterizes our times has penetrated the 
 church, and shaken the old stability of 
 the ministry. In no profession are men 
 exposed to greater changes than in 
 ours. Prepare yourself for the worst, 
 while you hope for the best. Cherish, 
 as among the first virtues of your 
 office, a firm, manly, self-denying spirit. 
 Let not the comforts of life grow into 
 your soul. Be simple in your habits, in 
 food, raiment, pleasures. Be frugal, 
 that you may be just, may "have to 
 give to him that needeth," and may be 
 fitted to sustain privations with dignity. 
 Build up in yourself an energy of pur- 
 pose, an iron strength of principle, a 
 loftiness of sentiment, which will dis- 
 arm outward changes, and give power 
 to your ministry, whether in a prosper- 
 ous or adverse lot. " Be strong in the 
 Lord, and in the power of his might." 
 " Be thou faithful unto death, and he 
 I shall give thee a crown of life."
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 291 
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD: 
 
 Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. F. A. Farley, Providence, R. /., 
 
 1828. 
 
 EPHESIANS v. i : " Be ye therefore followers of 
 God, as dear children." 
 
 To promote true religion is the pur- 
 pose of the Christian ministry. For 
 this it was ordained. On the present 
 occasion, therefore, when a new teacher 
 is to be given to the church, a discourse 
 on the character of true religion will not 
 be inappropriate. I do not mean that I 
 shall attempt, in the limits to which I 
 am now confined, to set before you all 
 its properties, signs, and operations ; 
 for in so doing I should burden your 
 memories with divisions and vague gen- 
 eralities as uninteresting as they would 
 be unprofitable. My purpose is to 
 select one view of the subject which 
 seems to me of primary dignity and im- 
 portance ; and I select this because it 
 is greatly neglected, and because I at- 
 tribute to this neglect much of the ineffi- 
 cacy and many of the corruptions of 
 religion. 
 
 The text calls us to follow or imitate 
 God, to seek accordance with or like- 
 ness to him ; and to do this not fear- 
 fully and faintly, but with the spirit and 
 hope of beloved children. The doctrine 
 which I propose to illustrate is derived 
 immediately from these words, and is 
 incorporated with the whole New Tes- 
 tament. I affirm, and would maintain, 
 that true religion consists in proposing, 
 as our great end, a growing likeness to 
 the Supreme Being. Its noblest influ- 
 ence consists in making us more and 
 more partakers of the Divinity. For 
 this it is to be preached. Religious 
 instruction should aim chiefly to turn 
 men's aspirations and efforts to that 
 perfection of the soul which constitutes 
 it a bright image of God. Such is the 
 topic now to be discussed ; and I im- 
 plore Him whose glory I seek to aid me 
 in unfolding and enforcing it with sim- 
 plicity and clearness, with a calm and 
 pure zeal, and with unfeigned charity. 
 
 I begin with observing, what all in- 
 deed will understand, that the likeness 
 to God, of which I propose to speak, 
 belongs to man's higher or spiritual nat- 
 ure. It has its foundation in the orig- 
 inal and essential capacities of the mind. 
 In proportion as these are unfolded by 
 right and vigorous exertion, it is ex- 
 tended and brightened. In proportion 
 as these lie dormant, it is obscured. In 
 proportion as they are perverted and 
 overpowered by the appetites and pas- 
 sions, it is blotted out. In truth, moral 
 evil, if unresisted and habitual, may so 
 blight and lay waste these capacities, 
 that the image of God in man may seem 
 to be wholly destroyed. 
 
 The importance of this assimilation 
 to our Creator is a topic which needs no 
 labored discussion. All men, of what- 
 ever name, or sect, or opinion, will meet 
 me on this ground. All, I presume, will 
 allow that no good in the compass of 
 the universe, or within the gift of om- 
 nipotence, can be compared to a resem- 
 blance of God, or to a participation of 
 his attributes. I fear no contradic- 
 tion here. Likeness to God is the su- 
 preme gift. He can communicate noth- 
 ing so precious, glorious, blessed as 
 himself. To hold intellectual and moral 
 affinity with the Supreme Being, to par- 
 take his spirit, to be his children by 
 derivations of kindred excellence, to bear 
 a growing conformity to the perfection 
 which we adore,' this is a felicity 
 which obscures and annihilates all other 
 good. 
 
 It is only in proportion to this like- 
 ness that we can enjoy either God or 
 the universe. That God can be known 
 and enjoyed only through sympathy or 
 kindred attributes, is a doctrine which 
 even Gentile philosophy discerned. That 
 the pure in heart can alone see and 
 commune with the pure Divinity, was 
 the sublime instruction of ancient sages
 
 292 
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 as well as of inspired prophets. It is 
 / indeed the lesson of daily experience. 
 | To understand a great and good being, 
 we must have the seeds of the same 
 excellence. How quickly, by what an 
 instinct, do accordant minds recognize 
 one another ! No attraction is so power- 
 ful as that which subsists between the 
 truly wise and good; whilst the brightest 
 excellence is lost on those who have 
 nothing congenial in their own breasts. 
 God becomes a real being to us in pro- 
 portion as his own nature is unfolded 
 within us. To a man who is growing in 
 the likeness of God, faith begins even 
 here to change into vision. He carries 
 within himself a proof of a Deity, which 
 can only be understood by experience. 
 He more than believes, he feels the 
 Divine presence ; and gradually rises to 
 an intercourse with his Maker, to which 
 it is not irreverent to apply the name of 
 friendship and intimacy. The Apostle 
 John intended to express this truth, when 
 he tells us that he in whom a principle 
 of divine charity or benevolence has be- 
 come a habit and life "dwells in God 
 and God in him." 
 
 It is plain, too, that likeness to God is 
 the true and only preparation for the 
 enjoyment of the universe. In propor- 
 tion as we approach and resemble the 
 mind of God, we are brought into har- 
 mony with the creation ; for in that pro- 
 portion we possess the principles from 
 which the universe sprung ; we carry 
 within ourselves the perfections of which 
 its beauty, magnificence, order, benev- 
 olent adaptations, and boundless pur- 
 poses are the results and manifestations. 
 God unfolds himself in his works to a 
 kindred mind. It is possible that the 
 brevity of these hints may expose to the 
 charge of mysticism what seems to me 
 the calmest and clearest truth. I think, 
 however, that every reflecting man will 
 feel that likeness to God must be a prin- 
 ciple of sympathy or accordance with his 
 creation ; for the creation is a birth and 
 shining forth of the Divine Mind, a work 
 through which his spirit breathes. In 
 | proportion as we receive this spirit we 
 / possess within ourselves the explanation 
 of what we see. We discern more and 
 more of God in every thing, from the 
 frail flower to the everlasting stars. 
 Even in evil, that dark cloud which hangs 
 over the creation, we discern rays of 
 light and hope, and gradually come to 
 
 see, in suffering and temptation, proofs 
 and instruments of the sublimest pur- 
 poses of wisdom and love. 
 
 I have offered these very imperfect 
 views that I may show the great im- 
 portance of the doctrine which I am 
 solicitous to enforce. I would teach 
 that likeness to God is a good so unut- 
 terably surpassing all other good, that 
 whoever admits it as attainable must ac- 
 knowledge it to be the chief aim of life. 
 I would show that the highest and hap- 
 piest office of religion is to bring the 
 mind into growing accordance with God ; 
 and that by the tendency of religious 
 systems to this end their truth and worth 
 are to be chiefly tried. 
 
 I am aware that it may be said that 
 the Scriptures, in speaking of man as 
 made in the image of God, and in call- 
 ing us to imitate him, use bold and fig- 
 urative language. It may be said that 
 there is danger from too literal an inter- 
 pretation ; that God is an unapproach- 
 able being ; that I am not warranted in 
 ascribing to man a like nature to the 
 divine ; that we and all things illustrate 
 the Creator by contrast, not by resem- 
 blance ; that religion manifests itself 
 chiefly in convictions and acknowledg- 
 ments of utter worthlessness ; and that 
 to talk of the greatness and divinity of 
 the human soul is to inflate that pride 
 through which Satan fell, and through 
 which man involves himself in that 
 fallen spirit's ruin. 
 
 I answer that, to me, Scripture and 
 reason hold a different language. In 
 Christianity, particularly, I meet perpet- 
 ual testimonies to the divinity of human 
 nature. This whole religion expresses 
 an infinite concern of God for the hu- 
 man soul, and teaches that He deems 
 no methods too expensive for its recov- 
 ery and exaltation. Christianity, with 
 one voice, calls me to turn my regards 
 and care to the spirit within me, as of 
 more worth than the whole outward 
 world. It calls us to " be perfect as our 
 Father in heaven is perfect ; " and every- 
 where, in the sublimity of its precepts, 
 it implies and recognizes the sublime 
 capacities of the being to whom they 
 are addressed. It assures us that hu- 
 man virtue is " in the sight of God of 
 great price," and speaks of the return of 
 a human being to virtue as an event 
 which increases the joy of heaven. In 
 the New Testament, Jesus Christ, the
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 293 
 
 Son of God, the brightness of his glory, 
 the express and unsullied image of the 
 Divinity, is seen mingling with men as a 
 friend and brother, offering himself as 
 their example, and promising to his 
 true followers a share in all his splen- 
 dors and joys. In the New Testament 
 God is said to communicate his own 
 spirit and all his fulness to the human 
 soul. In the New Testament man is 
 exhorted to aspire after " honor, glory, 
 and immortality ; " and heaven, a word 
 expressing the nearest approach to God 
 and a divine happiness, is everywhere 
 proposed as the end of his being. In 
 truth, the very essence of Christian faith 
 is that we trust in God's mercy as re- 
 vealed in Jesus Christ, for a state of 
 celestial purity in which we shall grow 
 for ever in the likeness and knowledge 
 and enjoyment of the Infinite Father. 
 Lofty views of the nature of man are 
 bound up and interwoven with the whole 
 Christian system. Say not that these are 
 at war with humility ; for who was ever 
 humbler than Jesus, and yet who ever 
 possessed such a consciousness of great- 
 ness and divinity ? Say not that man's 
 business is to think of his sin and not 
 of his dignity ; for great sin implies a 
 great capacity ; it is the abuse of a noble 
 nature ; and no man can be deeply and 
 rationally contrite but he who feels that 
 in wrong-doing he has resisted a divine 
 voice, and warred against a divine prin- 
 ciple in his own soul. I need not, I 
 trust, pursue the argument from revela- 
 tion. There is an argument from nature 
 and reason which seems to me so con- 
 vincing, and is at the same time so fitted 
 to explain what I mean by man's pos- 
 session of a like nature to God, that I 
 shall pass at once to its exposition. 
 
 That man has a kindred nature with 
 God, and may bear most important and 
 ennobling relations to him, seems to me 
 to be established by a striking proof. 
 This proof you will understand by con- 
 sidering, for a moment, how we obtain 
 our ideas of God. Whence come the 
 conceptions which we include under 
 that august name ? Whence do we de- 
 rive our knowledge of the attributes 
 
 / and perfections which constitute the 
 Supreme Being? I answer, we derive 
 
 \ them from our own souls. The divine 
 attributes are first developed in our- 
 selves, and thence transferred to our 
 Creator. The idea of God, sublime and 
 
 awful as it is, is the idea of our own 
 spiritual nature, purified and enlarged to 
 infinity. In ourselves are the elements 
 of the Divinity. God, then, does not 
 sustain a figurative resemblance to man. 
 It is the resemblance of a parent to a 
 child, the likeness of a kindred nature. 
 
 We call God a Mind. He has re- 
 vealed himself as a Spirit. But what 
 do we know of mind but through the 
 unfolding of this principle in our own 
 breasts ? That unbounded spiritual 
 energy which we call God is conceived/ 
 by us only through consciousness/ 
 through the knowledge of ourselves. 
 We ascribe thought or intelligence to 
 the Deity, as one of his most glorious 
 attributes. And what means this lan- 
 guage ? These terms we have framed 
 to express operations or faculties of our 
 own souls. The Infinite Light would be 
 for ever hidden from us did not kindred 
 rays dawn and brighten within us. God 
 is another name for human intelligence 
 raised above all error and imperfection, 
 and extended to all possible truth. 
 
 The same is true of God's goodness. 
 How do we understand this but by the 
 principle of love implanted in the hu- 
 man breast ? Whence is it that this 
 divine attribute is so faintly compre- 
 hended, but from the feeble development 
 of it in the multitude of men ? Who 
 can understand the strength, purity, ful- 
 ness, and extent of divine philanthropy, 
 but he in whom selfishness has been 
 swallowed up in love ? 
 
 The same is true of all the moral per- 
 fections of the Deity. These are com- 
 prehended by us only through our own 
 moral nature. It is conscience within 
 us which, by its approving and condemn- 
 ing voice, interprets to us God's love of 
 virtue and hatred of sin ; and without 
 conscience, these glorious conceptions 
 would never have opened on the mind. 
 It is the law-giver in our own breasts 
 which gives us the idea of divine author- 
 ity, and binds us to obey it. The soul, 
 by its sense of right, or its perception 
 of moral distinctions, is clothed with 
 sovereignty over itself, and through this 
 alone it understands and recognizes the 
 Sovereign of the universe. Men, as by 
 a natural inspiration, have agreed to 
 speak of conscience as the voice of God, 
 as the Divinity within us. This princi- 
 ple, reverently obeyed, makes us more 
 and more partakers of the moral perfec-
 
 294 
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 tion of the Supreme Being, of that very 
 excellence which constitutes the right- 
 fulness of his sceptre, and enthrones 
 him over the universe. Without this 
 inward law we should be as incapable of 
 receiving a law from heaven as the 
 brute. Without this, the thunders of 
 , Sinai might startle the outward ear, but 
 ; would have no meaning, no authority to 
 the mind. I have expressed here a 
 great truth. Nothing teaches so en- 
 couragingly our relation and resem- 
 blance to God ; for the glory of the 
 Supreme Being is eminently moral. 
 We blind ourselves to his chief splen- 
 dor if we think only or mainly of his 
 power, and overlook those attributes of 
 rectitude and goodness to which He 
 subjects his omnipotence, and which 
 are the foundations and very substance 
 of his universal and immutable law. 
 And are these attributes revealed to us 
 through the principles and convictions 
 of our own souls ? Do we understand 
 through sympathy God's perception of 
 the right, the good, the holy, the just ? 
 Then with what propriety is it said that 
 in his own image He made man ! 
 
 I am aware that it may be objected to 
 these views, that we receive our idea of 
 God from the universe, from his works, 
 and not so exclusively from our own 
 souls. The universe, I know, is full 
 of God. The heavens and earth de- 
 clare his glory. In other words, the 
 effects and signs of power, wisdom, 
 and goodness, are apparent through the 
 whole creation. But apparent to what ? 
 Nqt_ to the outward eye ; not to the 
 I ac'utest organs of sense ; but to a kin- 
 j dred mind, which interprets the universe 
 by itself. It is only through that energy 
 of thought by which we adapt various 
 and complicated means to distant ends, 
 and give harmony and a common bear- 
 ing to multiplied exertions, that we un- 
 derstand the creative intelligence which 
 has established the order, dependencies, 
 and harmony of nature. We see God 
 around us because He dwells within us. 
 It is by a kindred wisdom that we dis- 
 cern his wisdom in his works. The 
 brute, with an eye as piercing as ours, 
 looks on the universe ; and the page, 
 which to us is radiant with characters 
 of greatness and goodness, is to him a 
 blank. In truth, the beauty and glory 
 of God's works are revealed to the mind 
 by a light beaming from itself. We dis- 
 
 cern the impress of God's attributes in 
 the universe by accordance of nature, 
 and enjoy them through sympathy. I 
 hardly need observe that these remarks 
 in relation to the universe apply with 
 equal if not greater force to revelation. 
 
 I shall now be met by another objec- 
 tion, which to many may seem strong. 
 It will be said that these various attri- 
 butes of which I have spoken exist in 
 God in infinite perfection, and that this 
 destroys all affinity between the human 
 and the divine mind. To this I have 
 two replies. In the first place, an attri- 
 bute by becoming perfect does not part 
 with its essence. Love, wisdom, power, 
 and purity do not change their nature 
 by enlargement. If they did, we should 
 lose the Supreme Being through his 
 very infinity. Our ideas of him would 
 fade away into mere sounds. For ex- 
 ample, if wisdom in God, because un- 
 bounded, have no affinity with that at- 
 tribute in man, why apply to him that 
 term ? It must signify nothing. Let 
 me ask what we mean when we say that 
 we discern the marks of intelligence in 
 the universe ? We mean that we meet 
 there the proofs of a mind like our own. 
 We certainly discern proofs of no other; 
 so that to deny this doctrine would be to 
 deny the evidences of a God, and utterly 
 to subvert the foundations of religious 
 belief. What man can examine the 
 structure of a plant or an animal, and 
 see the adaptation of its parts to each 
 other and to common ends, and not feel 
 that it is the work of an intelligence 
 akin to his own, and that he traces these 
 marks of design by the same spiritual 
 energy in which they had their origin ? 
 
 But I would offer another answer to 
 this objection, that God's infinity places 
 him beyond the resemblance and ap- 
 proach of man. ! affirm, and trust that 
 I do not speak too strongly, that there 
 are traces of infinity in the human mind ; 
 and that, in this very'respect, it bears a 
 likeness to God. The very conception 
 of infinity is the mark of a nature to 
 which no limit can be prescribed. This 
 thought, indeed, comes to us not so i 
 much from abroad as from our own 
 souls. We ascribe this attribute to God, 
 because we possess capacities and wants 
 which only an unbounded being can fill, 
 and because we are conscious of a ten- 
 dency in spiritual faculties to unlimited 
 expansion. We believe in the divine
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 295 
 
 infinity through something congenial 
 with it in our own breasts. I hope I 
 speak clearly, and if not, I would ask 
 those to whom I am obscure to pause 
 before they condemn. To me it seems 
 that the soul, in all its higher actions, in 
 original thought, in the creations of 
 genius, in the soarings of imagination, 
 in its love of beauty and grandeur, in its 
 aspirations after a pure and unknown 
 joy, and especially in disinterestedness, 
 in the spirit of self-sacrifice, and in en- 
 lightened devotion, has a character of 
 infinity. There is often a depth in hu- 
 man love which may be strictly called 
 unfathomable. There is sometimes a 
 lofty strength in moral principle which 
 all the power of the outward universe 
 cannot overcome. There seems a might 
 within which can more than balance all 
 might without. There is, too, a piety 
 which swells into a transport too vast 
 for utterance, and into an immeasurable 
 joy. I am speaking, indeed, of* what is 
 uncommon, but still of realities. We 
 see, however, the tendency of the soul 
 to the infinite in more familiar and or- 
 dinary forms. Take, for example, the 
 delight which we find in the vast scenes 
 of nature, in prospects which spread 
 around us without limits, in the immen- 
 sity of the heavens and the ocean, 
 and especially in the rush and roar of 
 mighty winds waves, and torrents when, 
 amidst our deep awe, a power within 
 seems to respond to the omnipotence 
 around us. The same principle is seen 
 in the delight ministered to us by works 
 of fiction or of imaginative art, in which 
 our own nature is set before us in more 
 than human beauty and power. In truth, 
 the soul is always bursting its limits. It 
 thirsts continually for wider knowledge. 
 It rushes forward to untried happiness. 
 It has deep wants, which nothing limited 
 can appease. Its true element and end 
 is an unbounded good. Thus, God's 
 infinity has its image in the soul ; and 
 through the soul, much more than through 
 the universe, we arrive at this concep- 
 tion of the Deity. 
 
 In these remarks I have spoken strong- 
 ly. But I have no fear of expressing too 
 strongly the connection between the di- 
 vine and the human mind. My only fear 
 is that I shall dishonor the great subject. 
 The danger to which we are most ex- 
 posed is that of severing the Creator 
 from his creatures. The propensity of 
 
 human sovereigns to cut off communica- 
 tion between themselves and their sub- 
 jects, and to disclaim a common nature 
 with their inferiors, has led the multi- 
 tude of men, who think of God chiefly 
 under the character of a king, to con- 
 ceive of him as a being who places 
 his glory in multiplying distinctions be- 
 tween himself and all other beings. The 
 truth is, that the union between the 
 Creator and the creature surpasses all 
 other bonds in strength and intimacy. 
 He penetrates all things, and delights to 
 irradiate all with his glory. Nature, in 
 all its lowest and inanimate forms, is 
 pervaded by his power ; and when quick- 
 ened by the mysterious property of life, 
 how wonderfully does it show forth the 
 perfections of its Author ! How much 
 of God may be seen in the structure of 
 a single leaf, which, though so frail as 
 to tremble in every wind, yet holds con- 
 nections and living communications with 
 the earth, the air, the clouds, and the dis- 
 tant sun, and, through these sympathies 
 with the universe, is itself a revelation 
 of an omnipotent mind ! God delights 
 to diffuse himself everywhere. Through 
 his energy unconscious matter clothes 
 itself with proportions, powers, and 
 beauties, which reflect his wisdom and 
 love. How much more must He delight 
 to frame conscious and happy recipients 
 of his perfections, in whom his wisdom 
 and love may substantially dwell, with 
 whom He may form spiritual ties, and 
 to whom He may be an everlasting 
 spring of moral energy and happiness ! 
 How far the Supreme Being may com- 
 municate his attributes to his intelligent 
 offspring, I stop not to inquire. But 
 that his almighty goodness will impart 
 to them powers and glories of which the 
 material universe is but a faint emblem, 
 I cannot doubt. That the soul, if true 
 to itself and its Maker, will be filled with 
 God, and will manifest him more than 
 the sun, I cannot doubt. Who can 
 doubt it, that believes and understands 
 the doctrine of human immortality ? 
 
 The views which I have given in this 
 discourse respecting man's participation 
 of the Divine nature, seem to me to re- 
 ceive strong confirmation from the title 
 or relation most frequently applied to 
 God in the New Testament ; and I 
 have reserved this as the last corrobo- 
 ration of this doctrine, because, to my 
 own mind, it is singularly affecting.
 
 296 
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 In the New Testament God is made 
 known to us as a Father ; and a brighter 
 feature of that book cannot be named. 
 Our worship is to be directed to him as 
 our Father. Our whole religion is to 
 take its character from this view of the 
 Divinity. In this He is to rise always 
 to our minds. And what is it to be a 
 father ? It is to communicate one's 
 own nature, to give life to kindred be- 
 ings ; and the highest function of a 
 father is to educate the mind of the 
 child, and to impart to it what is noblest 
 and happiest in his own mind. God is 
 our Father, not merely because He 
 created us, or because He gives us en- 
 joyment ; for He created the flower and 
 the insect, yet we call him not their 
 Father. This bond is a spiritual one. 
 This name belongs to God, because He 
 frames spirits like himself, and delights 
 to give them what is most glorious and 
 blessed in his own nature. Accord- 
 ingly, Christianity is said with special 
 propriety to reveal God as the Father, 
 because it reveals him as sending his 
 Son to cleanse the mind from every 
 stain, and to replenish it for ever with 
 the spirit and moral attributes of its 
 Author. Separate from God this idea 
 of his creating and training up beings 
 after his own likeness, and you rob him 
 of the paternal character. This rela- 
 tion vanishes, and with it vanishes the 
 flory of the gospel, and the dearest 
 opes of the human soul. 
 The greatest use which I would make 
 of the principles laid down in this dis- 
 course, is to derive from them just and 
 clear views of the nature of religion. 
 What, then, is religion ? I answer, it 
 is not the adoration of a God with whom 
 we have no common properties ; of a 
 distinct, foreign, separate being ; but of 
 an all-communicating Parent. It recog- 
 nizes and adores God as a being whom 
 we know through our own souls ; who 
 has made man in his own image ; who 
 is the perfection of our own spiritual 
 nature ; who has sympathies with us as 
 kindred beings ; who is near us, not in 
 place only like this all-surrounding at- 
 mosphere, but by spiritual influence and 
 love ; who looks on us with parental 
 interest, and whose great design it is to 
 communicate to us for ever, and in 
 freer and fuller streams, his own power, 
 goodness, and joy. The conviction of 
 this near and ennobling relation of God 
 
 to the soul, and of his great purposes 
 towards it, belongs to the very essence 
 of true religion ; and true religion mani- 
 fests itself chiefly and most conspicu- 
 ously in desires, hopes, and efforts, 
 corresponding to this truth. It desires 
 and seeks supremely the assimilation of 
 the mind to God, or the perpetual un- 
 folding and enlargement of those powers 
 and virtues by which it is constituted 
 his glorious image. The mind, in pro- 
 portion as it is enlightened and pene 
 trated by true religion, thirsts and 
 labors for a godlike elevation. What 
 else, indeed, can it seek if this good be 
 placed within its reach ? If I am capa- 
 ble of receiving and reflecting the intel- 
 lectual and moral glory of my Creator, 
 what else in comparison shall I desire ? 
 Shall I deem a property in the outward 
 universe as the highest good, when I 
 may become partaker of the very mind 
 from which it springs, of the prompting 
 love, tlnte disposing wisdom, the quick- 
 ening power, through which its order, 
 beauty, and beneficent influences sub- 
 sist ? True religion is known by these 
 high aspirations, hopes, and efforts. 
 And this is the religion which most 
 truly honors God. To honor him is 
 not to tremble before him as an unap- 
 proachable sovereign, not to utter bar- 
 ren praise which leaves us as it found 
 us. It is to become what we praise. 
 It is to approach God as an inexhausti- 
 ble fountain of light, power, and purity. 
 It is to feel the quickening and trans- 
 forming energy of his perfections. It 
 is to thirst for the growth and invigora- 
 tion of the divine principle within us. 
 It is to seek the very spirit of God. It 
 is to trust in, to bless, to thank him for 
 that rich grace, mercy, love, which was 
 revealed and proffered by Jesus Christ, 
 and which proposes as its great end the 
 perfection of the human soul. 
 
 I regard this view of religion as in- 
 finitely important. It does more than 
 all things to make our connection with 
 our Creator ennobling and happy ; and, 
 in proportion as we want it, there is 
 danger that the thought of God may 
 itself become the instrument of our 
 degradation. That religion has been 
 so dispensed as to depress the human 
 mind, I need not tell you ; and it is a 
 truth which ought to be known, that 
 the greatness of the Deity, when sepa- 
 rated in our thoughts from his parental
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 297 
 
 character, especially tends to crush hu- 
 man energy and hope. To a frail, de- 
 pendent creature, an omnipotent Creator 
 easily becomes a terror, and his wor- 
 ship easily degenerates into servility, 
 flattery, self-contempt, and selfish cal- 
 culation. Religion only ennobles us, in 
 as far as it reveals to us the tender and 
 intimate connection of God with his 
 creatures, and teaches us to see in the 
 very greatness which might give alarm 
 the source of great and glorious com- 
 munications to the human soul. You 
 cannot, my hearers, think too highly of 
 the majesty of God. But let not this 
 majesty sever him from you. Remem- 
 ber that his greatness is the infinity 
 of attributes which yourselves possess. 
 Adore his infinite wisdom ; but remem- 
 ber that this wisdom rejoices to diffuse 
 itself, and let an exhilarating hope spring 
 up at the thought of the immeasurable 
 intelligence which such a Father must 
 communicate to his children. In like 
 manner adore his power. Let the bound- 
 less creation fill you with awe and ad- 
 miration of the energy which sustains 
 it. But remember that God has a no- 
 bler work than the outward creation, 
 even the spirit within yourselves ; and 
 that it is his purpose to replenish this 
 with his own energy, and to crown it 
 with growing power and triumphs over 
 the material universe. Above all, adore 
 his unutterable goodness. But remem- 
 ber that this attribute is particularly 
 proposed to you as your model ; that 
 God calls you, both by nature and reve- 
 lation, to a fellowship in his philanthro- 
 py ; that he has placed you in social 
 relations for the very end of rendering 
 you ministers and representatives of 
 his benevolence ; that he even summons 
 you to espouse and to advance the sub- 
 limest purpose of his goodness, the 
 redemption of the human race, by ex- 
 tending the knowledge and power of 
 Christian truth. It is through such 
 views that religion raises up the soul, 
 and binds man by ennobling bonds to 
 his Maker. 
 
 To complete my views of this topic, 
 I beg to add an important caution. I 
 have said that the great work of relig- 
 ion is to conform ourselves to God, or 
 to unfold the divine likeness within us. 
 Let none infer from this language that 
 I place religion in unnatural effort, in 
 straining after excitements which do 
 
 not belong to the present state, or in 
 any thing separate from the clear and 
 simple duties of life. I exhort you to 
 no extravagance. I reverence human 
 nature too much to do it violence. I 
 see too much divinity in its ordinary 
 operations to urge on it a forced and 
 vehement virtue. To grow in the like- 
 ness of God we need not cease to be 
 men. This likeness does not consist in 
 extraordinary or miraculous gifts, in 
 supernatural additions to the soul, or 
 in any thing foreign to our original con- 
 stitution ; but in our essential faculties, 
 unfolded by vigorous and conscientious 
 exertion in the ordinary circumstances 
 assigned by God. To resemble our 
 Creator we need not fly from society, 
 and entrance ourselves in lonely con- 
 templation and prayer. Such processes 
 might give a feverish strength to one 
 class of emotions, but would result in 
 disproportion, distortion, and sickliness 
 of mind. Our proper work is to ap- 
 proach God by the free and natural 
 unfolding of our highest powers, of 
 understanding, conscience, love, and the 
 moral will. 
 
 Shall I be told that, by such lan- 
 guage, I ascribe to nature the effects 
 which can only be wrought in the soul 
 by the Holy Spirit ? I anticipate this 
 objection, and wish to meet it by a sim- 
 ple exposition of my views. I would 
 on no account disparage the gracious 
 aids and influences which God imparts 
 to the human soul. The promise of the 
 Holy Spirit is among the most precious 
 in the Sacred Volume. Worlds could 
 not tempt me to part with the doctrine 
 of God's intimate connection with the 
 mind, and of his free and full com- 
 munications to it. But these views are 
 in no respect at variance with what I 
 have taught, of the method by which 
 we are to grow in the likeness of God. 
 Scripture and experience concur in 
 teaching that, by the Holy Spirit, we 
 are to understand a divine assistance 
 adapted to our moral freedom, and ac- 
 cordant with the fundamental truth that 
 virtue is the mind's own work. By the 
 Holy Spirit, I understand an aid which 
 must be gained and made effectual 
 by our own activity ; an aid which 
 no more interferes with our faculties 
 than the assistance which we receive 
 from our fellow-beings ; an aid which 
 silently mingles and conspires with all
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 other helps and means of goodness ; an 
 aid by which we unfold our natural 
 powers in a natural order, and by which 
 we are strengthened to understand and 
 apply the resources derived from our 
 munificent Creator. This aid we can- 
 not prize too much, or pray for too ear- 
 nestly. But wherein, let me ask, does 
 it war with the doctrine that God is to 
 be approached by the exercise and un- 
 folding of our highest powers and affec- 
 tions, in the ordinary circumstances of 
 human life ? 
 
 I repeat it, to resemble our Maker 
 we need not quarrel with our nature or 
 our lot. Our present state, made up 
 as it is of aids and trials, is worthy of 
 God, and may be used throughout to as- 
 similate us to him. For example, our 
 domestic ties, the relations of neighbor- 
 hood and country, the daily interchanges 
 of thoughts and feelings, the daily oc- 
 casions of kindness, the daily claims 
 of want and suffering. these and the 
 other circumstances of our social state 
 form the best sphere and school for 
 that benevolence which is God's bright- 
 est attribute ; and we should make a 
 sad exchange, by substituting for these 
 natural aids any self-invented artificial 
 means of sanctity. Christianity, our 
 great guide to God, never leads us away 
 from the path of nature, and never 
 wars with the unsophisticated dictates 
 of conscience. We approach our Cre- 
 ator by every right exertion of the 
 powers He gives us. Whenever we in- 
 vigorate the understanding by honestly 
 and resolutely seeking truth, and by 
 withstanding whatever might warp the 
 judgment ; whenever we invigorate the 
 conscience by following it in opposition 
 to the passions ; whenever we receive 
 a blessing gratefully, bear a trial pa- 
 tiently, or encounter peril or scorn with 
 moral courage ; whenever we perform 
 a disinterested deed ; whenever we lift 
 up the heart in true adoration to God ; 
 whenever we war against a habit or 
 desire which is strengthening itself 
 against our higher principles ; when- 
 ever we think, speak, or act, with moral 
 energy and resolute devotion to duty, 
 be the occasion ever so humble, ob- 
 scure, familiar; then the divinity is 
 growing within us, and we are ascend- 
 ing towards our Author. True religion 
 thus blends itself with common life. 
 We are thus to draw nigh to God with- 
 
 out forsaking men. We are thus, with- 
 out parting with our human nature, to 
 clothe ourselves with the divine. 
 
 My views on the great subject of 
 this discourse have now been given. I 
 shall close with a brief consideration 
 of a few objections, in the course of 
 which I shall offer some views of the 
 Christian ministry, which this occasion 
 and the state of the world seem to me 
 to demand. I anticipate from some an 
 objection to this discourse, drawn as 
 they will say from experience. I may 
 be told that I have talked of the god- 
 like capacities of human nature, and 
 have spoken of man as a divinity ; and 
 where, it will be asked, are the warrants 
 of this high estimate of our race ? I 
 may be told that I dream, and that I 
 have peopled the world with the creat- 
 ures of my lonely imagination. What ! 
 Is it only in dreams that beauty and 
 loveliness have beamed on me from the 
 human countenance, that I have heard 
 tones of kindness which have thrilled 
 through my heart, that I have found 
 sympathy in suffering, and a sacred joy 
 in friendship ? Are all the great and 
 good men of past ages only dreams ? 
 Are such names as Moses, Socrates, 
 Paul, Alfred, Milton, only the fictions 
 of my disturbed slumbers ? Are the 
 great deeds of history, the discoveries 
 of philosophy, the creations of genius, 
 only visions ? Oh, no. I do not dream 
 when I speak of the divine capacities 
 of human nature. It is a real page in 
 which I read of patriots and martyrs, 
 of Fe'ne'lon and Howard, of Hampden 
 and Washington. And tell me not 
 that these were prodigies, miracles, im- 
 measurably separated 'from their race ; 
 for the very reverence which has treas- 
 ured up and hallowed their memories, 
 the very sentiments of admiration and 
 love with which their names are now 
 heard, show that the principles of their 
 greatness are diffused through all your 
 breasts. The germs of sublime virtue 
 are scattered liberally on our earth. 
 How often have I seen in the obscurity 
 of domestic life a strength of love, of 
 endurance, of pious trust, of virtuous 
 resolution, which in a public sphere 
 would have attracted public homage ! 
 I cannot but pity the man who recog- 
 nizes nothing godlike in his own nature. 
 I see the marks of God in the heavens 
 and the earth, but how much more in a
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 299 
 
 liberal intellect, in magnanimity, in un- 
 conquerable rectitude, in a philanthropy 
 which forgives every wrong, and which 
 never despairs of the cause of Christ 
 and human virtue ! I do and I must 
 reverence human nature. Neither the 
 sneers of a worldly scepticism nor the 
 groans of a gloomy theology disturb my 
 faith in its godlike powers and ten- 
 dencies. I know how it .is despised, 
 how it has been oppressed, how civil 
 and religious establishments have for 
 ages conspired to crush it. I know its 
 history. I shut my eyes on none of its 
 weaknesses and crimes. I understand 
 the proofs by which despotism demon- 
 strates that man is a wild beast, in want 
 of a master, and only safe in chains. 
 But injured, trampled on, and scorned 
 as our nature is, I still turn to it with 
 intense sympathy and strong hope. The 
 signatures of its origin and its end are 
 impressed too deeply to be ever wholly 
 effaced. I bless it for its kind affec- 
 tions, for its strong and tender love. I 
 honor it for its struggles against op- 
 pression, for its growth and progress 
 under the weight of so many chains 
 and prejudices, for its achievements in 
 science and art, and still more for its 
 examples of heroic and saintly virtue. 
 These are marks of a divine origin and 
 the pledges of a celestial inheritance ; 
 and I thank God that my own lot is 
 bound up with that of the human race. 
 
 But another objection starts up. It 
 may be said, " Allow these views to be 
 true ; are they fitted for ,the pulpit ? 
 fitted to act on common minds ? They 
 may be prized by men of cultivated in- 
 tellect and taste ; but can the multitude 
 understand them ? Will the multitude 
 feel them ? On whom has a minister to 
 act ? On men immersed in business, 
 and buried in the flesh ; on men whose 
 whole power of thought has been spent 
 on pleasure or gain ; on men chained 
 by habit and wedded to sin. Sooner 
 may adamant be riven by a child's touch 
 than the human heart be pierced by re- 
 fined and elevated sentiment. Gross 
 instruments will alone act on gross 
 minds. Men sleep, and nothing but 
 thunder, nothing but flashes from the 
 everlasting fire of hell, will thoroughly 
 wake them." 
 
 I have all along felt that such objec- 
 tions would be made to the views I have 
 urged. But they do not move me. I 
 
 answer, that I think these views singu- 
 larly adapted to the pulpit, and I think 
 them full of power. The objection is 
 that they are refined. But I see God 
 accomplishing his noblest purposes by 
 what may be called refined means. All 
 the great agents of nature : attraction, 
 heat, and the principle of life are re- 
 fined, spiritual, invisible, acting gently, 
 silently, imperceptibly ; and yet brute 
 matter feels their power, and is trans- 
 formed by them into surpassing beauty. 
 The electric fluid, unseen, unfelt, and 
 everywhere diffused, is infinitely more 
 efficient, and ministers to infinitely no- 
 bler productions, than when it breaks 
 forth in thunder. Much less can I be- 
 lieve that in the moral world noise, 
 menace, and violent appeals to gross 
 passions, to fear and selfishness, are 
 God's chosen means of calling forth 
 spiritual life, beauty, and greatness. It 
 is seldom that human nature throws off 
 all susceptibility of grateful and gen- 
 erous impressions, all sympathy with 
 superior virtue ; and here are springs 
 and principles to which a generous 
 teaching, if simple, sincere, and fresh 
 from the soul, may confidently appeal. 
 
 It is said men cannot understand the 
 views which seem to me so precious. 
 This objection I am anxious to repel, 
 for the common intellect has been griev- 
 ously kept down and wronged through 
 the belief of its incapacity. The pulpit 
 would do more good were not the mass 
 of men looked upon and treated as chil- 
 dren. Happily for the race, the time is 
 passing away in which intellect was 
 thought the monopoly of a few, and the 
 majority were given over to hopeless 
 ignorance. Science is leaving her sol- 
 itudes to enlighten the multitude. How 
 much more may religious teachers take 
 courage to speak to men on subjects 
 which are nearer to them than the prop- 
 erties and laws of matter. I mean their 
 own souls. The multitude, you say, 
 want capacity to receive great truths 
 relating to their spiritual nature. But 
 what, let me ask you, is the Christian 
 religion ? A spiritual system, intended 
 to turn men's minds upon themselves, to 
 frame them to watchfulness over thought, 
 imagination, and passion, to establish 
 them in an intimacy with their own 
 souls. What are all the Christian virt- 
 ues which men are exhorted to love and 
 seek ? I answer, pure and high motions
 
 300 
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 or determinations of the mind. That 
 refinement of thought which, I am told, 
 transcends the common intellect, belongs 
 to the very essence of Christianity. In 
 confirmation of these views, the human 
 mind seems to me to be turning itself 
 more and more inward, and to be grow- 
 ing more alive to its own worth and its 
 capacities of progress. The spirit of 
 education shows this, and so does the 
 spirit of freedom. There is a spreading 
 conviction that man was made for a 
 higher purpose than to be a beast of 
 burden, or a creature of sense. The 
 divinity is stirring within the human 
 breast, and demanding a culture and a 
 liberty worthy of the child of God. Let 
 religious teaching correspond to this 
 advancement of the mind. Let it rise 
 above the technical, obscure, and frigid 
 theology which has come down to us 
 from times of ignorance, superstition, 
 and slavery. Let it penetrate the human 
 soul, and reveal it to itself. No preach- 
 ing, I believe, is so intelligible as that 
 which is true to human nature, and helps 
 men to read their own spirits. 
 
 But the objection which I have stated 
 not only represents men as incapable of 
 understanding, but still more of being 
 moved, quickened, sanctified, and saved, 
 by such views as I have given. If by 
 this objection nothing more is meant 
 than that these views are not alone or of 
 themselves sufficient, I shall not dispute 
 it ; for, true and glorious as they are, 
 they do not constitute the whole truth, 
 and I do not expect great moral effects 
 from narrow and partial views of our 
 nature. I have spoken of the godlike 
 capacities of the soul. But other and 
 very different elements enter into the 
 human being. Man has animal propen- 
 sities as well as intellectual and moral 
 powers. He has a body as well as mind. 
 He has passions to war with reason, and 
 self-love with conscience. He is a free 
 being, and a tempted being, and thus 
 constituted he may and does sin, and 
 often sins grievously. To such a being 
 religion, or virtue, is a conflict, requiring 
 
 freat spiritual effort, put forth in ha- 
 itual watchfulness and prayer ; and all 
 the motives are needed by which force 
 and constancy may be communicated to 
 the will. I exhort not the preacher to 
 talk perpetually of man as " made but a 
 little lower than the angels." I would 
 not narrow him to any class of topics. 
 
 Let him adapt himself to our whole and 
 various nature. Let him summon to his 
 aid all the powers of this world and the 
 world to come. Let him bring to bear 
 on the conscience and the heart God's 
 milder and more awful attributes, the 
 promises and threatenings of the divine 
 word, the lessons of history, the warn- 
 ings of experience. Let the wages of 
 sin here and hereafter be taught clearly 
 and earnestly. But amidst the various 
 motives to spiritual effort which belong 
 to the minister, none are more quick- 
 ening than those drawn from the soul 
 itself, and from God's desire and pur- 
 pose to exalt it by every aid consistent 
 with its freedom. These views I con- 
 ceive are to mix with all others, and 
 without them all others fail to promote 
 a generous virtue. Is it .said that the 
 minister's proper work is to preach 
 Christ, and not the dignity of human 
 nature ? I answer, that Christ's great- 
 ness is manifested in the greatness of 
 the nature which he was sent to redeem ; 
 and that his chief glory consists in this, 
 that he came to restore God's image 
 where it was obscured or effaced, and 
 to give an everlasting impulse and life 
 to what is divine within us. Is it said 
 that the malignity of sin is to be the 
 minister's great theme ? I answer, that 
 this malignity can only be understood 
 and felt when sin is viewed as the ruin 
 of God's noblest work, as darkening a 
 light brighter than the sun, as carrying 
 discord, bondage, disease, and death into 
 a mind framed for perpetual progress 
 towards its Author. Is it said that ter- 
 ror is the chief instrument of saving the 
 soul ? I answer, that if by terror be 
 meant a rational and moral fear, a con- 
 viction and dread of the unutterable evil 
 incurred by a mind which wrongs, be- 
 trays, and destroys itself, then I am 
 the last to deny its importance. But a 
 fear like this, which regards the debase- 
 ment of the soul as the greatest of evils, 
 is plainly founded upon and proportioned 
 to our conceptions of the greatness of 
 our nature. The more common terror 
 excited by vivid images of torture and 
 bodily pain is a very questionable means 
 of virtue. When strongly awakened, it 
 generally injures the character, breaks 
 men into cowards and slaves, brings the 
 intellect to cringe before human author- 
 ity, makes man abject before his Maker, 
 and, by a natural reaction of the mind,
 
 LIKENESS TO GOD. 
 
 301 
 
 often terminates in a presumptuous con- 
 fidence altogether distinct from virtuous 
 self-respect, and singularly hostile to the 
 unassuming, charitable spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. The preacher should rather 
 strive to fortify the soul against phys- 
 ical pains than to bow it to their mas- 
 tery, teaching it to dread nothing in 
 comparison with sin, and to dread sin as 
 the ruin of a noble nature. 
 
 Men, I repeat it, are to be quickened 
 and raised by appeals to their highest 
 principles. Even the convicts of a 
 prison may be touched by kindness, 
 generosity, and especially by a tone, 
 look, and address, expressing hope and 
 respect for their nature. I know that 
 the doctrine of ages has been that ter- 
 ror, restraint, and bondage are the chief 
 safeguards of human virtue and peace. 
 But we have begun to learn that affec- 
 tion, confidence, respect, and freedom 
 are mightier as well as nobler agents. 
 Men can be wrought upon by generous 
 influences. I would that this truth were 
 better understood by religious teachers. 
 From the pulpit generous influences too 
 seldom proceed. In the church men too 
 seldom hear a voice to quicken and 
 exalt them. Religion, speaking through 
 her public organs, seems often to for- 
 get her natural tone of elevation. The 
 character of God, the principles of his 
 government, his relations to the human 
 family, the purposes for which He 
 brought us into being, the nature which 
 He has given us, and the condition in 
 which He has placed us, these and the 
 like topics, though the sublimest which 
 can enter the mind, are not unfrequently 
 so set forth as to narrow and degrade 
 the hearers, disheartening and oppress- 
 ing with gloom the timid and sensitive, 
 and infecting coarser minds with the 
 unhallowed spirit of intolerance, pre- 
 sumption, and exclusive pretension to 
 the favor of God. I know, and rejoice 
 to know, that preaching in its worst 
 forms does good ; for so bright and 
 piercing is the light of Christianity that 
 it penetrates in a measure the thickest 
 clouds in which men contrive to involve 
 it. But that evil mixes with the good, 
 I also know ; and I should be unfaithful 
 to my deep convictions did I not say 
 that human nature requires for its ele- 
 vation more generous treatment from 
 the teachers of religion. 
 
 I conclude with saying, let the min- 
 
 ister cherish a reverence for his own 
 nature. Let him never despise it even 
 in its most forbidding forms. Let him 
 delight in its beautiful and lofty mani- 
 festations. Let him hold fast, as one of 
 the great qualifications for his office, a 
 faith in the greatness of the human soul, 
 that faith which looks beneath the 
 perishing body, beneath the sweat of 
 the laborer, beneath the rags and igno- 
 rance of the poor, beneath the vices of 
 the sensual and selfish, and discerns in 
 the depths of the soul a divine principle, 
 a ray of the Infinite Light, which may 
 yet break forth and " shine as the sun " 
 in the kingdom of God. Let him strive 
 to awaken in men a consciousness of 
 the heavenly treasure within them, a 
 consciousness of possessing what is of 
 more worth than the outward universe. 
 Let hope give life to all his labors. Let 
 him speak to men as to beings liberally 
 gifted and made for God. Let him al- 
 ways look round on a congregation with 
 the encouraging trust that he has hear- 
 ers prepared to respond to the simple, 
 unaffected utterance of great truths, and 
 to the noblest workings of his own mind. 
 Let him feel deeply for those in whom 
 the divine nature is overwhelmed by the 
 passions. Let him sympathize tenderly 
 with those in whom it begins to struggle, 
 to mourn for sin, to thirst for a new life. 
 Let him guide and animate to higher and 
 diviner virtue those in whom it has gained 
 strength. Let him strive to infuse cour- 
 age, enterprise, devout trust, and an in- 
 flexible will into men's labors for their 
 own perfection. In one word, let him 
 cherish an unfaltering and growing faith 
 in God as the Father and quickener of 
 the human mind, and in Christ as its 
 triumphant and immortal friend. That 
 by such preaching he is to work mir- 
 acles, I do not say. That he will rival 
 in sudden and outward effects what is 
 wrought by the preachers of a low and 
 terrifying theology, I do not expect or 
 desire. That all will be made better, I 
 am far from believing. His office is to 
 act on free beings, who, after all, must 
 determine themselves ; who have power 
 to withstand all foreign agency ; who 
 are to be saved, not by mere preaching, 
 but by their own prayers and toil. Still 
 I believe that such a minister will be a 
 benefactor beyond all praise to the hu- 
 man soul. I believe, and know, that on 
 those who will admit his influence he
 
 302 
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 will work deeply, powerfully, gloriously. 
 His function is the sublimest under 
 heaven ; and his reward will be a grow- 
 
 ing power of spreading truth, virtue, 
 moral strength, love, and happiness, 
 without limit and without end. 
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 MATTHEW rvii. 5 : "This is my beloved Son, in whom 
 I am well pleased." 
 
 THE character of Christ may be stud- 
 ied for various purposes. It is singularly 
 fitted to call forth the heart, to awaken 
 love, admiration, and moral delight. As 
 an example, it has no rival. As an evi- 
 dence of his religion, perhaps it yields 
 to no other proof ; perhaps no other has 
 so often conquered unbelief. It is chiefly 
 to this last view of it that I now ask 
 your attention. The character of Christ 
 is a strong confirmation of the truth of his 
 religion. As such, I would now place it 
 before you. I shall not, however, think 
 only of confirming your faith ; the very 
 illustrations which I shall adduce for 
 this purpose will show the claims of 
 Jesus to our reverence, obedience, im- 
 itation, and fervent love. 
 
 The more we contemplate Christ's 
 character, as exhibited in the gospel, 
 the more we shall be impressed with its 
 genuineness and reality. It was plainly 
 drawn from the life. The narratives of 
 the Evangelists bear the marks of truth 
 perhaps beyond all other histories. They 
 set before us the most extraordinary 
 being who ever appeared on earth, and 
 yet they are as artless as the stories of 
 childhood. The authors do not think of 
 themselves. They have plainly but one 
 aim, to show us their Master; and they 
 manifest the deep veneration which he 
 inspired by leaving him to reveal him- 
 self, by giving us his actions and say- 
 ings without comment, explanation, or 
 eulogy. You see in these narratives no 
 varnishing, no high coloring, no attempts 
 to make his actions striking, or to bring 
 out the beauties of his character. We 
 are never pointed to any circumstance 
 as illustrative of his greatness. The 
 Evangelists write with a calm trust in 
 his character, with a feeling that it 
 needed no aid from their hands, and 
 with a deep veneration, as if comment 
 or praise of their own were not worthy 
 
 to mingle with the recital of such a 
 life. t 
 
 It is the effect of our familiarity with 
 the history of Jesus that we are not 
 struck by it as we ought to be. We 
 read it before we are capable of under- 
 standing its excellence. His stupendous 
 works become as familiar to us as the 
 events of ordinary life, and his high 
 offices seem as much matters of course 
 as the common relations which men bear 
 to each other. On this account, it is fit 
 for the ministers of religion to do what 
 the Evangelists did not attempt, to offer 
 comments on Christ's character, to bring 
 out its features, to point men to its 
 higher beauties, to awaken their awe by 
 unfolding its wonderful majesty. In- 
 deed, one of our most important func- 
 tions, as teachers, is to give freshness 
 and vividness to truths which have be- 
 come worn, I had almost said tarnished, 
 by long and familiar handling. We 
 have to fight with the power of habit. 
 Through habit men look on this glorious 
 creation with insensibility, and are less 
 moved by the all-enlightening sun than 
 by a show of fire-works. It is the duty 
 of a moral and religious teacher almost 
 to create a new sense in men, that they 
 may learn in what a world of beauty and 
 magnificence they live. And so in re- 
 gard to Christ's character ; men become 
 used to it, until they imagine that there 
 is something more admirable in a great 
 man of their own day a statesman or 
 a conqueror than in him the latchet 
 of whose shoes statesmen and con- 
 querors are not worthy to unloose. 
 
 In this discourse I wish to show that 
 the character of Christ, taken as a whole, 
 is one which could not have entered the 
 thoughts of man, could not have been 
 imagined or feigned ; that it bears every 
 mark of genuineness and truth : that it 
 ought, therefore, to be acknowledged as 
 real and of divine original. 
 
 It is all-important, my friends, if we
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 303 
 
 would feel the force of this argument, 
 to transport ourselves to the times when 
 Jesus lived. We are very apt to think 
 that he was moving about in such a city 
 as this, or among a people agreeing with 
 ourselves in modes of thinking and hab- 
 its of life. But the truth is, he lived in 
 a state of society singularly remote from 
 our own. Of all nations, the Jewish 
 was the most strongly marked. The 
 Jew hardly felt himself to belong to the 
 human family. He was accustomed to 
 speak of himself as chosen by God, holy, 
 clean ; whilst the Gentiles were sinners, 
 dogs, polluted, unclean. His common 
 dress, the phylactery on his brow or 
 arm, the hem of his garment, his food, 
 the ordinary circumstances of his life, as 
 well as his temple, his sacrifices, his ab- 
 lutions, all held him up to himself as a 
 peculiar favorite of God, and all sepa- 
 rated him from the rest of the world. 
 With other nations he could not eat or 
 marry. They were unworthy of his 
 communion. Still, with all these no- 
 tions of superiority, he saw himself con- 
 quered by those whom he despised. He 
 was obliged to wear the shackles of 
 Rome, to see Roman legions in his ter- 
 ritory, a Roman guard near his temple, 
 and a Roman tax-gatherer extorting, for 
 the support of an idolatrous government 
 and an idolatrous worship, what he re- 
 garded as due only to God. The hatred 
 which burned in the breast of the Jew 
 towards his foreign oppressor perhaps 
 never glowed with equal intenseness in 
 any other conquered state.' He had, 
 however, his secret consolation. The 
 time was near, the prophetic age was at 
 hand, when Judea was to break her 
 chains and rise from the dust. Her 
 long-promised king and deliverer was 
 near, and was coming to wear the crown 
 of universal empire. From Jerusalem 
 was to go forth his law, and all nations 
 were to serve the chosen people of God. 
 To this conqueror the Jews indeed as- 
 cribed the office of promoting religion ; 
 but the religion of Moses, corrupted 
 into an outward service, was to them 
 the perfection of human nature. They 
 clung to its forms with the whole en- 
 ergy of their souls. To the Mosaic in- 
 stitution they ascribed their distinction 
 from all other nations. It lay at the 
 foundation of their hopes of dominion. 
 I believe no strength of prejudice ever 
 equalled the intense attachment of the 
 
 Tew to his peculiar national religion. 
 You may judge of its power by the fact 
 of its having been transmitted through 
 so many ages, amidst persecution and 
 sufferings which would have subdued 
 any spirit but that of a Jew. You must 
 bring these things to your mind. You 
 must place yourselves in the midst of 
 this singular people. 
 
 Among this singular people, burning 
 with impatient expectation, appeared 
 Jesus of Nazareth. His first words were, 
 " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven 
 is at hand." These words we hear 
 with little emotion ; but to the Jews, 
 who had been watching for this king- 
 dom for ages, and who were looking for 
 its immediate manifestation, they must 
 have been awakening as an earthquake. 
 Accordingly, we find Jesus thronged 
 by multitudes which no building could 
 contain. He repairs to a mountain, as 
 affording him advantages for addressing 
 the crowd. I see them surrounding 
 him with eager looks, and ready to 
 drink in every word from his lips. And 
 what do I hear ? Not one word of 
 Judea, of Rome, of freedom, of con- 
 quest, of the glories of God's chosen 
 people, and of the thronging of all na- 
 tions to the temple on Mount Zion. Al- 
 most every word was a death-blow to 
 the hopes and feelings which glowed 
 through the whole people, and were 
 consecrated under the name of religion. 
 He speaks of the long-expected kingdom 
 of heaven ; but speaks of it as a felicity 
 promised to, and only to be partaken 
 by, the humble and pure in heart. The 
 righteousness of the Pharisees, that 
 which was deemed the perfection of re- 
 ligion, and which the new deliverer was 
 expected to spread far and wide, he pro- 
 nounces worthless, and declares the 
 kingdom of heaven, or of the Messiah, 
 to be shut against all who do not culti- 
 vate a new, spiritual, and disinterested 
 virtue. Instead of war and victory, he 
 commands his impatient hearers to love, 
 to forgive, to bless their enemies ; and 
 holds forth this spirit of benignity, 
 mercy, peace, as the special badge of 
 the people of the true Messiah. In- 
 stead of national interests and glories, 
 he commands them to seek first a spirit 
 of impartial charity and love, unconfined 
 by the bounds of tribe or nation, and 
 proclaims this to be the happiness and 
 honor of the reign for which they hoped.
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 Instead of this world's riches, which 
 they expected to flow from all lands into 
 their own, he commands them to lay up 
 treasures in heaven, and directs them to 
 an incorruptible, immortal life, as the 
 true end of their being. Nor is this all. 
 He does not merely offer himself as a 
 spiritual deliverer, as the founder of a 
 new empire of inward piety and univer- 
 sal charity ; he closes with language 
 announcing a more mysterious office. 
 " Many will say unto me in that day, 
 Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in 
 thy name ? and in thy name done many 
 wonderful works ? And then will I pro- 
 fess unto them, I never knew you, de- 
 part from me, ye that work iniquity." 
 Here I meet the annunciation of a char- 
 acter as august as it must have been 
 startling. I hear him foretelling a do- 
 minion to be exercised in the future 
 world. He begins to announce, what 
 entered largely into his future teaching, 
 that his power was not bounded to this 
 earth. These words I better under- 
 stand when I hear him subsequently 
 declaring that, after a painful death, he 
 was to rise again and ascend to heaven, 
 and there, in a state of pre-eminent 
 power and glory, was to be the advo- 
 cate and judge of the human race. 
 
 Such are some of the views given by 
 Jesus of his character and reign in the 
 Sermon on the Mount. Immediately 
 afterwards I hear another lesson from 
 him, bringing out some of these truths 
 still more strongly. A Roman centurion 
 makes application to him for the cure of 
 a servant whom he particularly valued ; 
 and on expressing, in a strong manner, 
 his conviction of the power of Jesus to 
 heal at a distance, Jesus, according to the 
 historian, " marvelled, and said to those 
 that followed, Verily I say unto you, I 
 have not found so great faith in Israel ; 
 and I say unto you, that many shall 
 come from the east and the west, and 
 shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, 
 and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven ; 
 but the children of the kingdom " (that 
 is, the Jews) " shall be cast out." Here 
 all the hopes which the Jews had cher- 
 ished of an exclusive or peculiar posses- 
 sion of the Messiah's kingdom were 
 crushed ; and the reception of the de- 
 spised Gentile world to all his blessings, 
 or. in other words, the extension of his 
 pure religion to the ends of the earth, 
 began to be proclaimed. 
 
 Here I pause for the present, and I 
 ask you whether the character of Jesus 
 be not the most extraordinary in history, 
 and wholly inexplicable on human prin- 
 ciples. Review the ground over which 
 we have gone. Recollect that he was 
 born and grew up a Jew, in the midst of 
 Jews, ^ people burning with one passion, 
 and throwing their whole souls into the 
 expectation of a national and earthly 
 deliverer. He grew up among them in 
 poverty, seclusion, and labors fitted to 
 contract his thoughts, purposes, and 
 hopes ; and yet we find him escaping 
 every influence of education and society. 
 We find him as untouched by the feel- 
 ings which prevailed universally around 
 him, which religion and patriotism con- 
 curred to consecrate, which the mother 
 breathed into the ear of the child, and 
 which the teacher of the synagogue 
 strengthened in the adult, as if he had 
 been brought up in another world. We 
 find him conceiving a sublime purpose, 
 such as had never dawned on sage or 
 hero, and see him possessed with a con- 
 sciousness of sustaining a relation to 
 God and mankind, and of being invested 
 with powers in this world and the world 
 to come such as had never entered the 
 human mind. Whence now, I ask, came 
 the conception of this character ? 
 
 Will any say it had its origin in im- 
 posture, that it was a fabrication of 
 a deceiver ? I answer, the character 
 claimed by Christ excludes this suppo- 
 sition by its very nature. It was so 
 remote from all the ideas and anticipa- 
 tions of the times, so unfit to awaken 
 sympathy, so unattractive to the heathen, 
 so exasperating to the Jew, that it was 
 the last to enter the mind of an impostor. 
 A deceiver of the dullest vision must 
 have foreseen that it would expose him 
 to bitter scorn, abhorrence, and persecu- 
 tion, and that he would be left to carry 
 on his work alone, just as Jesus always 
 stood alone, and could find not an indi- 
 vidual to enter into his spirit and design. 
 What allurements an unprincipled, self- 
 seeking man could find to such an 
 enteq^rise, no common ingenuity can 
 discover. 
 
 I affirm next, that the sublimity of the 
 character claimed by Christ forbids us 
 to trace it to imposture. That a selfish, 
 designing, depraved mind could have 
 formed the idea and purpose of a work 
 unparalleled in beneficence, in vastness,
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 305 
 
 and in moral grandeur, would certainly 
 be a strange departure from the laws of 
 the human mind. I add, that if an im- 
 postor could have lighted on the con- 
 ception of so sublime and wonderful a 
 work as that claimed by Jesus, he could 
 not I say, he could not have thrown 
 into his personation of it the air of truth 
 and reality. The part would have been 
 too high for him. He would have over- 
 acted it or fallen short of it perpetually. 
 His true character would have rebelled 
 against his assumed one. We should 
 have seen something strained, forced, 
 artificial, awkward, showing that he was 
 not in his true sphere. To act up to a 
 character so singular and grand, and one 
 for which no precedent could be found, 
 seems to me utterly impossible for a man 
 who had not the true spirit of it, or who 
 was only wearing it as a mask. 
 
 Now, how stands the case with Jesus ? 
 Bred a Jewish peasant or carpenter, he 
 issues from obscurity and claims for 
 himself a divine office, a superhuman 
 dignity, such as had not been imagined ; 
 and in no instance does he fall below 
 the character. The peasant, and still 
 Tnore the Jew, wholly disappears. We 
 feel that a new being, of a new order of 
 mind, is taking a part in human affairs. 
 There is a native tone of grandeur and 
 authority in his teaching. He speaks as 
 a being related to the whole human race. 
 His mind never shrinks within the ordi- 
 nary limits of human, agency. A nar- 
 rower sphere than the world never enters 
 his thoughts. He speaks in a natural, 
 spontaneous style of accomplishing the 
 most arduous and important change in 
 human affairs. This unlabored manner 
 of expressing great thoughts is particu- 
 larly worthy of attention. You never 
 hear from Jesus that swelling, pom- 
 pous, ostentatious language which almost 
 necessarily springs from an attempt to 
 sustain a character above our powers. 
 He talks of his glories as one to whom 
 they were familiar, and of his intimacy 
 and' oneness with God, as simply as a 
 child speaks of his connection with his 
 parents. He speaks of saving and 
 judging the world, of drawing all men 
 to himself, and of giving everlasting 
 life, as we speak of the ordinary powers 
 which we exert. He makes no set 
 harangues about the grandeur of his 
 office and character. His conscious- 
 ness of it gives a hue to his whole 
 
 language, breaks out in indirect, unde- 
 signed expressions, showing that it was 
 the deepest and most familiar of his 
 convictions. This argument is only to 
 be understood by reading the Gospels 
 with a wakeful mind and heart. It does 
 not lie on their surface, and it is the 
 stronger for lying beneath it. When I 
 read these books with care, when I 
 trace the unaffected majesty which runs 
 through the life of Jesus, and see him 
 never falling below his sublime claims 
 amidst poverty and scorn, and in his 
 last agony, I have a feeling of the 
 reality of his character which I cannot 
 express. I feel that the Jewish carpen- 
 ter could no more have conceived and 
 sustained this character under motives 
 of imposture than an infant's arm could 
 repeat the deeds of Hercules, or his 
 unawakened intellect comprehend and 
 rival the matchless works of genius. 
 
 Am I told that the claims of Jesus 
 had their origin not in imposture but in 
 enthusiasm ; that the imagination, kin- 
 dled by strong feeling, overpowered 
 the judgment so , far as to give him 
 the notion of being destined to some 
 strange and unparalleled work ? I know 
 that enthusiasm, or a kindled imagi- 
 nation, has great power ; and we are 
 never to lose sight of it, in judging 
 of the claims of religious teachers. 
 But I say first, that, except in cases 
 where it amounts to insanity, enthu- 
 siasm works, in a greater or less degree, 
 according to a man's previous concep- 
 tions and modes of thought. In Judea, 
 where the minds of men were burning 
 with feverish expectation of a Messiah, 
 I can easily conceive of a Jew imag- 
 ining that in himself this ardent con- 
 ception, this ideal of glory, was to be 
 realized. I can conceive of his seating 
 himself in fancy on the throne of David, 
 and secretly pondering the means of 
 his appointed triumphs. But that a 
 Jew should fancy himself the Messiah, 
 and at the same time should strip that 
 character of all the attributes which 
 had fired his youthful imagination and 
 heart, that he should start aside from 
 all the feelings and hopes of his age. 
 and should acquire a consciousness of 
 being destined to a wholly new career, 
 and one as unbounded as it was new, - 
 this is exceedingly improbable ; and 
 one thing is certain, that an imagination 
 so erratic, so ungoverned, and able to
 
 306 
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 generate the conviction of being des- 
 tined to a work so immeasurably dis- 
 proportioned to the power of the indi- 
 vidual, must have partaken of insanity. 
 Now, is it conceivable that an individ- 
 ual, mastered by so wild and fervid an 
 imagination, should have sustained the 
 dignity claimed by Christ, should have 
 acted worthily the highest part ever 
 assumed on earth ? Would not his 
 enthusiasm have broken out amidst the 
 peculiar excitements of the life of Jesus, 
 and have left a touch of madness on 
 his teaching and conduct ? Is it to such 
 a man that we should look for the in- 
 culcation of a new and perfect form of 
 virtue, and for the exemplification of 
 humanity in its fairest form ? 
 
 The charge of an extravagant, self- 
 deluding enthusiasm is the last to be 
 fastened on Jesus. Where can we find 
 the traces of it in his history ? Do we 
 detect them in the calm authority of his 
 precepts ; in the mild, practical, and 
 beneficent spirit of his religion ; in the 
 unlabored simplicity of the language 
 with which he unfolds his high powers, 
 and the sublime truths of religion ; or in 
 the good sense, the knowledge of human 
 nature, which he always discovers in 
 his estimate and treatment of the differ- 
 ent classes of men with whom he acted ? 
 Do we discover this enthusiasm in the 
 singular fact that, whilst he claimed 
 power in the future world, and always 
 turned men's minds to heaven, he never 
 indulged his own imagination, or stimu- 
 lated that of his disciples, by giving vivid 
 pictures or any minute description of 
 that unseen state ? The truth is that, 
 remarkable as was the character of Jesus, 
 it was distinguished by nothing more 
 than by calmness and self-possession. 
 This trait pervades his other excellen- 
 cies. How calm was his piety ! Point 
 me, if you can, to one vehement, passion- 
 ate expression of his religious feelings. 
 Does the Lord's Prayer breathe a fever- 
 rsh enthusiasm ? The habitual style of 
 Jesus on the subject of religion, if intro- 
 duced into many churches of his follow- 
 ers at the present day, would be charged 
 with coldness. The calm and the rational 
 character of his piety is particularly 
 seen in the doctrine which he so ear- 
 nestly inculcates, that disinterested love 
 and self-denying service to our fellow- 
 creatures are the most acceptable wor- 
 ship we can offer to our Creator. 
 
 His benevolence, too, though singularly 
 earnest and deep, was composed and 
 serene. He never lost the possession 
 of himself in his sympathy with others ; 
 was never hurried into the impatient 
 and rash enterprises of an enthusiastic 
 philanthropy ; but did good with the 
 tranquillity and constancy which mark 
 the providence of God. The depth of 
 his calmness may best be understood by 
 considering the opposition made to his 
 claims. His labors were everywhere 
 insidiously watched and industriously 
 thwarted by vindictive foes, who had 
 even conspired to compass through his 
 death the ruin of his cause. Now, a 
 feverish enthusiasm, which fancies itself 
 to be intrusted with a great work of God, 
 is singularly liable to impatient indigna- 
 tion under furious and malignant opposi- 
 tion. Obstacles increase its vehemence ; 
 it becomes more eager and hurried in 
 the accomplishment of its purposes in 
 proportion as they are withstood. Be 
 it therefore remembered that the malig- 
 nity of Christ's foes, though never sur- 
 passed, and for the time triumphant, 
 never robbed him of self-possession, 
 roused no passion, and threw no vehe- 
 mence or precipitation into his exertions. 
 He did not disguise from himself or his 
 followers the impression made on the mul- 
 titude by his adversaries. He distinctly 
 foresaw the violent death towards which 
 he was fast approaching. Yet, confiding 
 in God, and in the silent progress of his 
 truth, he possessed his soul in peace. 
 Not only was he calm, but his calm- 
 ness rises into sublimity when we con- 
 sider the storms which raged around 
 him, and the vastness of the prospects 
 in which his spirit found repose. I say, 
 then, that serenity and self possession 
 were peculiarly the attributes of Jesus. 
 I affirm that the singular and sublime 
 character claimed by Jesus can be traced 
 neither to imposture nor to an ungov- 
 erned, insane imagination. It can only 
 be accounted for by its truth, its reality. 
 I began with observing how our long 
 familiarity with Jesus blunts our minds 
 to his singular excellence. We probably 
 have often read of the character which 
 he claimed, without a thought of its ex- 
 traordinary nature. But I know nothing 
 so sublime. The plans and labors of 
 statesmen sink into the sports of chil- 
 dren when compared with the work which 
 Jesus announced, and to which he de-
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 307 
 
 voted himself in life and death, with a 
 thorough consciousness of its reality. 
 The idea of changing the moral aspect 
 of the whole earth, of recovering all na- 
 tions to the pure and inward worship of 
 one God, and to a spirit of divine and 
 fraternal love, was one of which we meet 
 not a trace in philosopher or legislator 
 before him. The human mind had given 
 no promise of this extent of view. The 
 conception of this enterprise, and the 
 calm, unshaken expectation of success, 
 in one who had no station and no wealth, 
 who cast from him the sword with ab- 
 horrence, and who forbade his dis- 
 ciples to use any weapons but those 
 of love, discover a wonderful trust in 
 the power of God and the power of 
 love ; and when to this we add that 
 Jesus looked not only to the triumph 
 of his pure faith in the present world, 
 but to a mighty and beneficent power 
 in heaven, we witness a vastness of pur- 
 pose, a grandeur of thought and feeling, 
 so original, so superior to the workings 
 of all other minds, that nothing but our 
 familiarity can prevent our contempla- 
 tion of it with wonder and profound awe. 
 I confess, when I can escape the dead- 
 ening power of habit, and can receive 
 the full import of such passages as the 
 following, " Come unto me, all ye that 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest," ''I am come to seek 
 and to save that which was lost," " He 
 that confesseth me before men, him will 
 I confess before my Father in heaven," 
 " Whosoever shall be ashamed of me 
 before men of him shall the Son of Man 
 be ashamed when he cometh in the glory 
 of the Father with the holy angels," 
 " In my Father's house are many man- 
 sions ; I go to prepare a place for you ;" 
 I say, when I can succeed in realiz- 
 ing the import of such passages, I feel 
 myself listening to a being such as never 
 before and never since spoke in human 
 language. I am awed by the conscious- 
 ness of greatness which these simple 
 words express ; and when I connect this 
 greatness with the proofs of Christ's 
 miracles which I gave you in a former 
 discourse, I am compelled to exclaim 
 with the centurion, " Truly, this was the 
 Son of God." 
 
 I have thus, my friends, set before you 
 one view of Jesus Christ which shows 
 him to have been the most extraordinary 
 being who ever lived. I invite your at- 
 
 tention to another ; and I am not sure 
 but that it is still more striking. You 
 have seen the consciousness of greatness 
 that Jesus possessed ; I now ask you to 
 consider how, with this consciousness, 
 he lived among men. To convey my 
 meaning more distinctly, let me avail 
 myself of an imaginary case. Suppose 
 you had never heard the particulars of 
 Christ's history, but were told m general 
 that, ages ago, an extraordinary man ap- 
 peared in the world, whose mind was 
 wholly possessed with the idea of hav- 
 ing come from God, who regarded him- 
 self as clothed with divine power and 
 charged with the sublimest work in the 
 universe, who had the consciousness 
 of sustaining a relation of unexampled 
 authority and beneficence, not to one 
 nation or age but to all nations and all 
 times, and who anticipated a spiritual 
 kingdom and everlasting power beyond 
 the grave. Suppose you should be told 
 that, on entering the world, he found 
 not one mind able to comprehend his 
 views, and felt himself immeasurably 
 exalted in thought and purpose above 
 all around him ; and suppose you should 
 then be asked what appearance, what 
 mode of life, what tone, what air, what 
 deportment, what intercourse with the 
 multitude seemed to you to suit such a 
 character, and were probably adopted 
 by him ; how would you represent him 
 to your minds ? Would you not suppose 
 that, with this peculiar character, he 
 adopted some peculiar mode of life, ex- 
 pressive of his superiority to and sep- 
 aration from all other men ? Would 
 you not expect something distinctive in 
 his appearance ? Would you not ex- 
 pect him to assume some badge, and to 
 exact some homage ? Would you not 
 expect that, with a mind revolving such 
 vast thoughts, and raised above the 
 earth, he would look coldly on the ordi- 
 nary gratifications of men ? that, with a 
 mind spreading itself over the world, 
 and meditating its subjection to his 
 truth, he would take little interest in 
 ordinary individuals ? and that possess- 
 ing, in his own doctrine and character, 
 a standard of sublime virtue, he would 
 attach little importance to the low attain- 
 ments of the ignorant and su;>erst tious 
 around him ? Would you not make him 
 a public character, and expect to see 
 him laboring to establish his ascendancy 
 among public men ? Would you not
 
 308 
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 expect to see his natural affections ab- 
 sorbed in his universal philanthropy ; and 
 would not private attachments seem to 
 you quite inconsistent with his vast su- 
 periority, and the immensity of his pur- 
 poses ? Would you not expect him to 
 avail himself of the best accommoda- 
 tions the world could afford ? Would 
 you not expect the great Teacher to se- 
 lect the most sacred spots for his teach- 
 ing, and the Lord of all to erect some 
 conspicuous seat from which should go 
 forth the laws which were to reach the 
 ends of the earth ? Would you not, in 
 a word, expect this extraordinary person- 
 age to surround himself with extraor- 
 dinary circumstances, and to maintain a 
 separation from the degraded multitude 
 around him ? 
 
 Such, I believe, would be the expec- 
 tation of us all ; and what was the case 
 with Jesus ? Read his history. He 
 comes with the consciousness of more 
 than human greatness to accomplish an 
 infinite work ; and where do you find 
 him ? What is his look ? what his man- 
 ner ? How does he converse, how live 
 with men ? His appearance, mode of 
 life, and intercourse are directly the re- 
 verse of what we should have supposed. 
 He comes in the ordinary dress of the 
 class of society in which he had grown 
 up. He retreats to no solitude, like 
 John, to strike awe, nor seeks any spot 
 which had been consecrated in Jewish 
 history. Would you find him ? Go to 
 the house of Peter, the fisherman. Go 
 to the well of Samaria, where he rests 
 after the fatigues of his journey. Would 
 you hear him teach ? You may find him, 
 indeed, sometimes in the temple, for 
 that was a place of general resort ; but 
 commonly you may find him instructing 
 in the open air, now from a boat on the 
 Galilean lake, now on a mount, and now 
 in the streets of the crowded city. He 
 has no place wherein to lay his head, 
 nor will he have one. A rich ruler 
 comes and falls at his feet. He says, 
 " Go, sell what thou hast, and give to 
 the poor, and then come and follow me." 
 Nor was this all. Something more 
 striking remains to be told. He did not 
 merely live in the streets, and in the 
 houses of fishermen. In these places, 
 had he pleased, he might have cleared a 
 space around him, and raised a barrier 
 between himself and others. But in 
 these places, and everywhere, he lived 
 
 with men as a man, a brother, a friend, 
 sometimes a servant ; and entered, with 
 a deep, unexampled sympathy, into the 
 feelings, interests, wants, sorrows of in- 
 dividuals, of ordinary men, and even of 
 the most depressed, despised, and for- 
 saken of the race. Here is the most 
 striking view of Jesus. This combina- 
 tion of the spirit of humanity in its 
 lowliest, tenderest form, with the con- 
 sciousness of unrivalled and divine glo- 
 ries, is the most wonderful distinction 
 of this wonderful character. Here we 
 learn the chief reason why he chose 
 poverty, and refused every peculiarity of 
 manner and appearance. He did this 
 because he desired to come near to the 
 multitude of men, to make himself ac- 
 cessible to all, to pour out the fulness 
 of his sympathy upon all, to know and 
 weep over their sorrows and sins, and to 
 manifest his interest in their affections 
 and joys. 
 
 I can offer but a few instances of this 
 sympathy of Christ with human nature 
 in all its varieties of character and con- 
 dition. But how beautiful are they ! At 
 the very opening of his ministry we find 
 him present at a marriage to which 
 he and his disciples had been called. 
 Among the Jews this was an occasion of 
 peculiar exhilaration and festivity ; but 
 Jesus did not therefore decline it. He 
 knew what affections, joys, sorrows, and 
 moral influences are bound up in this 
 institution, and he went to the celebra- 
 tion, not as an ascetic, to frown on its 
 bright hopes and warm congratulations, 
 but to sanction it by his presence and to 
 heighten its enjoyments. How little 
 does this comport with the solitary dig- 
 nity which we should have pronounced 
 most accordant with his character, and 
 what a spirit of humanity does it breathe ! 
 But this event stands almost alone in his 
 history. His chief sympathy was not 
 with them that rejoice, but with the 
 ignorant, sinful, sorrowful ; and with 
 these we find him cultivating an habit- 
 ual intimacy. Though so exalted in 
 thought and purpose, he chose unedu- 
 cated men to be his chief disciples : and 
 he lived with them, not as a superior 
 giving occasional and formal instruction, 
 but became their companion, travelled 
 with them on foot, slept in their dwell- 
 ings, sat at their tables, partook their 
 plain fare, communicated to them his 
 truth in the simplest form ; and though
 
 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 .309 
 
 they constantly misunderstood him, and 
 never received his full meaning, he was 
 never wearied with teaching them. So 
 familiar was his intercourse, that we 
 find Peter reproving him with an affec- 
 tionate zeal for announcing his approach- 
 ing death, and we find John leaning on 
 his bosom. Of his last discourse to 
 these disciples I need not speak. It 
 stands alone among all writings for the 
 union of tenderness and majesty. His 
 own sorrows are forgotten in his solici- 
 tude to speak peace and comfort to his 
 humble followers. 
 
 The depth of his human sympathies 
 was beautifully manifested when chil- 
 dren were brought to him. His dis- 
 ciples, judging as all men would judge, 
 thought that he who was sent to wear 
 the crown of universal empire had too 
 great a work before him to give his time 
 and attention to children, and reproved 
 the parents who brought them ; but 
 Jesus, rebuking his disciples, called to 
 him the children. Never, I believe, did 
 childhood awaken such deep love as at 
 that moment. He took them in his 
 arms and blessed them, and not only 
 said that " of such was the kingdom of 
 heaven," but added, *' He that receiveth 
 a little child in my name receiveth me ; " 
 so entirely did he identify himself with 
 this primitive, innocent, beautiful form 
 of human nature. 
 
 There was no class of human beings 
 so low as to be beneath his sympathy. 
 He not merely taught the publican and 
 sinner, but, with all his consciousness 
 of purity, sat down and dined with them, 
 and, when reproved by the malignant 
 Pharisee for such companionship, an- 
 swered by the touching parables of the 
 Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son, and 
 said, " I am come to seek and to save 
 that which was lost." 
 
 No personal suffering dried up this 
 fountain of love in his breast. On his 
 way to the cross he heard some women 
 of Jerusalem bewailing him, and at the 
 sound, forgetting his own grief, he 
 turned to them and said, "Women of 
 Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep 
 for yourselves and your children." On 
 the cross, whilst his mind was divided 
 between intense suffering and the con- 
 templation of the infinite blessings in 
 which his sufferings were to issue, his 
 eye lighted on his mother and John, and 
 the sensibilities of a son and a friend 
 
 mingled with the sublime consciousness 
 of the universal Lord and Saviour. 
 Never before did natural affection find 
 so tender and beautiful an utterance. 
 To his mother he said, directing her to 
 John, ''Behold thy son; I leave my be- 
 loved disciple to take my place, to per- 
 form my filial offices, and to enjoy a 
 share or that affection with which you 
 have followed me through life ; " and to 
 John he said, ''Behold thy mother; I 
 bequeath to you the happiness of min- 
 istering to my dearest earthly friend." 
 Nor is this all. The spirit of humanity 
 had one higher triumph. Whilst his ene- 
 mies surrounded him with a malignity 
 unsoftened by his last agonies, and, *o 
 give the keenest edge to insult, reminded 
 him scoffingly of the high character and 
 office which he had claimed, his only 
 notice of them was the prayer, " Father, 
 forgive them, they know not what they 
 do." 
 
 Thus Jesus lived with men ; with the 
 consciousness of unutterable majesty he 
 joined a lowliness, gentleness, humanity, 
 and sympathy, which have no example 
 in human history. I ask you to con- 
 template this wonderful union. In pro- 
 portion to the superiority of Jesus to 
 all around him was the intimacy, the 
 brotherly love, with which he bound 
 himself to them. I maintain that this 
 is a character wholly remote from hu- 
 man conception. To imagine it to be 
 the production of imposture or enthu- 
 siasm shows a strange unsoundness of 
 mind. I contemplate it with a venera- 
 tion second only to the profound awe 
 with which I look up to God. It bears 
 no mark of human invention. It was 
 real. It belonged to and it manifested 
 the beloved Son of God. 
 
 But I have not done. May I ask your 
 attention a few moments more ? We 
 have not yet reached the depth of 
 Christ's character. We have not touched 
 the great principle on which his won- 
 derful sympathy was founded, and which 
 endeared to him his office of universal 
 Saviour. Do you ask what this deep 
 principle was ? I answer, it was his 
 conviction of the greatness of the hu- 
 man soul. He saw in man the impress 
 and image of the Divinity, and therefore 
 thirsted for his redemption, and took the 
 tenderest interest in him, whatever might 
 be the rank, character, or condition in 
 which he was found. This spiritual view
 
 3io 
 
 IMITADLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. 
 
 of man pervades and distinguishes the 
 teaching of Christ. Jesus looked on 
 men with an eye which pierced beneath 
 the material frame. The body vanished 
 before him. The trappings of the rich, 
 the rags of the poor, were nothing to 
 him. He looked through them, as 
 though they did not exist, to the soul ; 
 and there, amidst clouds of ignorance 
 and plague-spots of sin, he recognized a 
 spiritual and immortal nature, and the 
 germs of power and perfection which 
 might be unfolded for ever. In the 
 most fallen and depraved man he saw 
 a being who might become an angel of 
 light. Still more, he felt that there was 
 nothing in himself to which men might 
 not ascend. His own lofty conscious- 
 ness did not sever him from the multi- 
 tude ; for he saw in his own greatness 
 the model of what men might become. 
 So deeply was he thus impressed, that 
 again and again, in speaking of his fut- 
 ure glories, he announced that in these 
 his true followers were to share. They 
 were to sit on his throne and partake of 
 his beneficent power. 
 
 Here I pause, and indeed I know not 
 what can be added to heighten the 
 wonder, reverence, and love, which are 
 due to Jesus. When I consider him, not 
 only as possessed with the conscious- 
 ness of an unexampled and unbounded 
 majesty, but as recognizing a kindred 
 nature in human beings, and living and 
 dying to raise them to a participation of 
 his divine glories ; and when I see him 
 under these views allying himself to 
 
 men by the tenderest ties, embracing 
 them with a spirit of humanity which no 
 insult, injury, or pain could for a moment 
 repel or overpower, I am filled with 
 wonder as well as reverence and love. 
 I feel that this character is not of hu- 
 man invention, that it was not assumed 
 through fraud or struck out by enthu- 
 siasm ; for it is infinitely above their 
 reach. When I add this character of 
 Jesus to the other evidences of his re- 
 ligion, it gives to what before seemed 
 so strong a new and a vast accession of 
 strength ; I feel as if I could not be de- 
 ceived. The Gospels must be true ; 
 they were drawn from a living original ; 
 they were founded on reality. The 
 character of Jesus is not a fiction ; he 
 was what he claimed to be, and what 
 his followers attested. Nor is this all. 
 Jesus not only was, he is still the Son 
 of God, the Saviour of the world. He 
 exists now ; he has entered that heaven 
 to which he always looked forward on 
 earth. There he lives and reigns. With 
 a clear, calm faith, I see him in that 
 state of glory ; and I confidently expect, 
 at no distant period, to see him face to 
 face. We have indeed no absent friend 
 whom we shall so surely meet. Let us 
 then, my hearers, by imitation of his 
 virtues and obedience to his word, pre- 
 pare ourselves to join him in those pure 
 mansions where he is surrounding him- 
 self with the good and pure of our race, 
 and will communicate to them for ever 
 his own spirit, power, and joy. 
 
 THE IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHAR- 
 ACTER. 
 
 i PETER ii. 21 : " Christ also suffered for us, leaving 
 us an example, that ye should follow his steps." 
 
 THE example of Jesus is our topic. 
 To incite you to follow it is the aim of 
 this discourse. Christ came to give us 
 a religion, but this is not all. By a 
 wise and beautiful ordination of Provi- 
 dence he was sent to show forth his re- 
 ligion in himself. He did not come to 
 sit in a hall of legislation, and from some 
 
 commanding eminence to pronounce laws 
 and promises. He is not a mere channel 
 through which certain communications 
 are made from God ; not a mere mes- 
 senger appointed to utter the words 
 which he had heard, and then to dis- 
 appear, and to sustain no further con- 
 nection with his message. He came not 
 only to teach with his lips but to be a 
 living manifestation of his religion, to
 
 IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. 
 
 be, in an important sense, the religion 
 itself. 
 
 Tins is a peculiarity worthy of atten- 
 tion. Christianity is not a mere code of 
 laws, not an abstract system such as 
 theologians frame. It is a living, em- 
 bodied religion. It comes to us in a 
 human form ; it offers itself to our eyes 
 as well as ears ; it breathes, it moves in 
 our sight. It is more than precept ; it 
 is example and action. 
 
 The importance of example, who 
 does not understand ? How much do 
 most of us suffer from the presence, 
 conversation, spirit of men of low minds 
 by whom we are surrounded ! The 
 temptation is strong to take as our 
 standard the average character of the 
 society in which we live, and to satisfy 
 ourselves with decencies and attain- 
 ments which secure to us among the 
 multitude the name of respectable men. 
 On the other hand, there is a power 
 (have you not felt it ?) in the presence, 
 conversation, and example of a man of 
 strong principle and magnanimity, to 
 lift us, at least for the moment, from 
 our vulgar and tame habits of thought, 
 and to kindle some generous aspirations 
 after the excellence which we were 
 made to attain. I hardly need say to 
 you that it is impossible to place our- 
 selves under any influence of this nat- 
 ure so quickening as the example of 
 Jesus. This introduces us to the high- 
 est order of virtues. This is fitted to 
 awaken the whole mind. Nothing has 
 equal power to neutralize ' the coarse, 
 selfish, and sensual influences amidst 
 which we are plunged, to refine our con- 
 ception of duty, and to reveal to us the 
 perfection on which our hopes and 
 most strenuous desires should habitually 
 fasten. 
 
 There is one cause which has done 
 much to defeat this good influence of 
 Christ's character and example, and 
 which ought to be exposed. It is this. 
 Multitudes I am afraid great multi- 
 tudes think of Jesus as a being to be 
 admired rather than approached. They 
 have some vague conceptions of a glory 
 in his nature and character which makes 
 it presumption to think of proposing 
 him as their standard. He is thrown 
 so far from them that he does them 
 little good. Many feel that a close re- 
 semblance of Jesus Christ is not to be 
 expected ; that this, like many other 
 
 topics, may serve for declamation in the 
 pulpit, but is utterly incapable of being 
 reduced to practice. I think I am 
 touching here an error which exerts a 
 blighting influence on not a few minds. 
 Until men think of the religion and 
 character of Christ as truly applicable 
 to them, as intended to be brought into 
 continual operation, as what they must 
 incorporate with their whole spiritual 
 nature, they will derive little good from 
 Christ. Men think, indeed, to honor 
 Jesus when they place him so high as 
 to discourage all effort to approach 
 him. They really degrade him. They 
 do not understand his character ; they 
 throw a glare over it which hides its 
 true features. This vague admiration 
 is the poorest tribute which they can 
 pay him. 
 
 The manner in which Jesus Christ is 
 conceived and spoken of by many re- 
 minds me of what is often seen in 
 Catholic countries, where a supersti- 
 tious priesthood and people imagine that 
 they honor the Virgin Mary by loading 
 her image with sparkling jewels and the 
 gaudiest attire. A Protestant of an un- 
 corrupted taste is at first shocked, as 
 if there was something like profanation 
 in thus decking out, as for a theatre, 
 the meek, modest, gentle, pure, and 
 tender mother of Jesus. It seems to 
 me that something of the same super- 
 stition is seen in the indefinite epithets 
 of admiration heaped upon Jesus ; and 
 the effect is that the mild and simple 
 beauty of his character is not seen. 
 Its sublimity, which had nothing gaudy 
 or dazzling, which was plain and un- 
 affected, is not felt ; and its suitable- 
 ness as an example to mankind is dis- 
 credited or denied. 
 
 I wish, in this discourse, to prevent 
 the discouraging influence of the great- 
 ness of Jesus Christ ; to show that, 
 however exalted, he is not placed be- 
 yond the reach of our sympathy and 
 imitation. 
 
 I begin with the general observation 
 that real greatness of character, great- 
 ness of the highest order, far from 
 being repulsive and discouraging, is 
 singularly accessible and imitable, and, 
 instead of severing a being from others, 
 fits him to be their friend and model. 
 A man who stands apart from his race, 
 who has few points of contact with 
 other men, who has a style and manner
 
 312 
 
 IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. 
 
 which strike awe and keep others far i 
 from him, whatever rank he may hold 
 in his own and others' eyes, wants, 
 after all, true grandeur of mind ; and 
 the spirit of this remark I think may 
 be extended beyond men to higher 
 orders of beings, to angels and to Jesus 
 Christ. A great soul is known by its 
 enlarged, strong, and tender sympathies. 
 True elevation of mind does not take a 
 being out of the circle of those who 
 are below him, but binds him faster to 
 them, and gives them advantages for 
 a closer attachment and conformity to 
 him. 
 
 Greatness of character is a com- 
 municable attribute, I should say, 
 singularly communicable. It has noth- 
 ing exclusive in its nature. It cannot 
 be the monopoly of an individual, for 
 it is the enlarged and generous action 
 of faculties and affections which enter 
 into and constitute all minds, I mean 
 reason, conscience, and love, so that 
 its elements exist in all. It is not a 
 peculiar or exclusive knowledge, which 
 can be shut up in one or a few under- 
 standings, but the comprehension of 
 great and universal truths, which are 
 the proper objects of every rational 
 being. It is hot a devotion to peculiar 
 exclusive objects, but the adoption of 
 public interests, the consecration of the 
 mind to the cause of virtue and happi- 
 ness in the creation, that is, to the very 
 cause which all intelligent beings are 
 bound to espouse. Greatness is not a 
 secret, solitary principle, working by 
 itself and refusing participation, but 
 frank and open-hearted, so large in 
 its views, so liberal in its feelings, so 
 expansive in its purposes, so beneficent 
 in its labors, as naturally and neces- 
 sarily to attract sympathy and co-oper- 
 ation. It is selfishness that repels men ; 
 and true greatness has not a stronger 
 characteristic than its freedom from 
 every selfish taint. So far from being 
 imprisoned in private interests, it covets 
 nothing which it may not impart. So 
 far from being absorbed in its own dis- 
 tinctions, it discerns nothing so quickly 
 and joyfully as the capacities and pledges 
 of greatness in others, and counts no 
 labor so noble as to call forth noble sen- 
 timents,, and the consciousness of a di- 
 vine power, in less improved minds. 
 
 I know that those who call themselves 
 great on earth are apt to estrange them- 
 
 selves from their inferiors ; and the mul- 
 titude, cast down by their high bearing, 
 never think of proposing them as ex- 
 amples. But this springs wholly from 
 the low conceptions of those whom We 
 call the great, and shows a mixture of 
 vulgarity of mind with their superior en- 
 dowments. Genuine greatness is marked 
 by simplicity, unostentatiousness, self- 
 forgetfulness, a hearty interest in others, 
 a feeling of brotherhood with the human 
 family, and a respect for every intellec- 
 tual and immortal being as capable of 
 progress towards its own elevation. A 
 superior mind, enlightened and kindled 
 by just views of God and of the creation, 
 regards its gifts and powers as so many 
 bonds of union with other beings, as 
 given it not to nourish self-elation, but 
 to be employed for others, and still more 
 to be communicated to others. Such 
 greatness has no reserve, and especially 
 no affected dignity of deportment. It is 
 too conscious of its own power to need, 
 and too benevolent to desire, to entrench 
 itself behind forms and ceremonies : and 
 when circumstances permit such a char- 
 acter to manifest itself to inferior beings, 
 it is beyond all others the most winning, 
 and most fitted to impart itself or to call 
 forth a kindred elevation of feeling. I 
 know not in history an individual so 
 easily comprehended as Jesus Christ, 
 for nothing is so intelligible as sincere, 
 disinterested love. I know not any be- 
 ing who is so fitted to take hold on all 
 orders of minds ; and accordingly he 
 drew after him the unenlightened, the 
 publican, and the sinner. It is a sad 
 mistake, then, that Jesus Christ is too 
 great to allow us to think of intimacy 
 with him, and to think of making him 
 our standard. 
 
 Let me confirm this truth by another 
 order of reflections. You tell me, my 
 hearers, that Jesus Christ is so high that 
 he cannot be your model; I grant the 
 exaltation of his character. I believe 
 him to be a more than human being. 
 In truth, all Christians so believe him. 
 Those who suppose him not to have ex- 
 isted before his birth do not regard him 
 as a mere man, though so reproached. 
 They always separate him by broad dis- 
 tinctions from other men. They con- 
 sider him as enjoying a communion with 
 God, and as having received gifts, en- 
 dowments, aid, lights from him. granted 
 to no other, and as having exhibited a
 
 IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST S CHARACTER. 
 
 313 
 
 spotless purity, which is the highest dis- 
 tinction of heaven. All admit, and joy- 
 fully admit, that Jesus Christ, by his 
 freatness and goodness, throws all other 
 uman attainments into obscurity. But 
 on this account he is not less a standard, 
 nor is he to discourage us, but, on the 
 contrary, to breathe into us a more ex- 
 hilarating hope ; for though so far above 
 us he is still one of us, and is only an 
 illustration of the capacities which we 
 all possess. This is a great truth. Let 
 me strive to unfold it. Perhaps I can- 
 not better express my views than by 
 saying that I regard all minds as of one 
 family. When we speak of higher or- 
 ders of beings, of angels and archangels, 
 we are apt to conceive of distirict kinds 
 or races of beings, separated from us 
 and from each other by impassable bar- 
 riers. But it is not so. All minds are 
 of one family. There is no such par- 
 tition in the spiritual world as you see 
 in the material. In material nature you 
 see wholly distinct classes of beings. A 
 mineral is not a vegetable, and makes 
 no approach to it ; these two great king- 
 doms of nature are divided by immeas- 
 urable spaces. So, when we look at 
 different races of animals, though all 
 partake of that mysterious property, life, 
 yet what an immense and impassable dis- 
 tance is there between the insect and 
 the lion. They have no bond of union, 
 no possibility of communication. Dur- 
 ing the lapse of ages, the animalcules 
 which sport in the sunbeams a summer's 
 day and then perish have made no ap- 
 proximation to the king of the forests. 
 But in the intellectual world there are 
 no such barriers. All minds are essen- 
 tially of one origin, one nature, kindled 
 from one divine flame, and are all tend- 
 ing to one centre, one happiness. This 
 great truth, to us the greatest of truths, 
 which lies at the foundation of all relig- 
 ion and all hope, seems to me not only 
 sustained by proofs which satisfy the 
 reason, but to be one of the deep in- 
 stincts of our nature. It mingles, un- 
 perceived, with all our worship of God, 
 which uniformly takes for granted that 
 He is a Mind having thought, affection, 
 and volition like ourselves. It runs 
 through false religions ; and whilst, by 
 its perversion, it has made them false, it 
 has also given to them whatever purify- 
 ing power they possess. But passing 
 over this instinct, which is felt more and 
 
 more to be unerring as the intellect is 
 improved, this great truth of the . unity 
 or likeness of all minds seems to me 
 demonstrable from this consideration, 
 that truth, the object and nutriment of 
 mind, is one and immutable, so that the 
 whole family of intelligent beings must 
 have the same views, the same motives, 
 and the same general ends. For ex- 
 ample, a truth of mathematics is not a 
 truth only in this world, a truth to our 
 minds, but a truth everywhere, a truth 
 in heaven, a truth to God, who has in- 
 deed framed his creation according to 
 the laws of this universal science. So, 
 happiness and misery, which lie at the 
 foundation of morals, must be to all in- 
 telligent beings what they are to us, the 
 objects, one of desire and hope and the 
 other of aversion ; and who can doubt 
 that virtue and vice are the same every- 
 where as on earth, that in every com- 
 munity of beings the mind which de- 
 votes itself to the general weal must be 
 more reverenced than a mind which 
 would subordinate the general interest 
 to its own ? Thus all souls are one in 
 nature, approach one another, and have 
 grounds and bonds of communion with 
 one another. I am not only one of the 
 human race ; I am one of the great in- 
 tellectual family of God. There is no 
 spirit so exalted with which I have not 
 common thoughts and feelings. That 
 conception which I have gained of One 
 Universal Father, whose love is the 
 fountain and centre of all things, is the 
 dawn of the highest and most magnifi- 
 cent views in the universe : and if 1 look 
 up to this Being with filial love, I have 
 the spring and beginning of the noblest 
 sentiments and joys which are known 
 in the universe. No greatness, there- 
 fore, of a being separates me from him 
 or makes him unapproachable by me. 
 The mind of Jesus Christ, my hearer, 
 and your mind are of one family ; nor 
 was there any thing in his of which 
 you have not the principle, the ca- 
 pacity, the promise in yourself. This 
 is the very impression which he in- 
 tends to give. He never held himself 
 up as an inimitable and unapproachable 
 being ; but directly the reverse. He al- 
 ways spoke of himself as having come 
 to communicate himself to others. He 
 always invited men to believe on and 
 adhere to him, that they might receive 
 that very spirit, that pure, celestial spirit,
 
 IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST S CHARACTER. 
 
 by which he was himself actuated. " Fol- 
 low me," is his lesson. The relation 
 which he came to establish between 
 himself and mankind was not that of 
 master and slave, but that of friends. 
 He compares himself, in a spirit of di- 
 vine benevolence, to a vine, which, you 
 know, sends its own sap, that by which 
 it is itself nourished, into all its branches. 
 We read, too, these remarkable words 
 in his prayer for his disciples, " I have 
 given to them the glory thou gavest 
 me ; " and I am persuaded that there is 
 not a glory, a virtue, a power, a joy, 
 possessed by Jesus Christ, to which his 
 disciples will not successively rise. In 
 the spirit of these remarks, the Apostles 
 say, ' Let the same mind be in you which 
 was also in Christ." 
 
 I have said that all minds being of 
 one family, the greatness of the mind of 
 Christ is no discouragement to our adop- 
 tion of him as our model. I now ob- 
 serve that there is one attribute of mind 
 to which I have alluded, that should 
 particularly animate us to propose to 
 ourselves a sublime standard, as sublime 
 as Jesus Christ. I refer to the principle 
 of growth in human nature. We were 
 made to grow. Our faculties are germs, 
 and given for an expansion to which 
 nothing authorizes us to set bounds. 
 The soul bears the impress of illimit- 
 ableness in the thirst, the unquench- 
 able thirst, which it brings with it into 
 being, for a power, knowledge, happi- 
 ness, which it never gains, and which 
 always carry it forward into futurity. 
 The body soon reaches its limit. But 
 intellect, affection, moral energy, in pro- 
 portion to their growth, tend to further 
 enlargement, and every acquisition is an 
 impulse to something higher. When I 
 consider this principle or capacity of 
 the human soul, I cannot restrain the 
 hope which it awakens. The partition- 
 walls which imagination has reared be- 
 tween men and higher orders of beings 
 vanish. I no longer see aught to pre- 
 vent our becoming whatever was good 
 and great in Jesus on earth. In truth, I 
 feel my utter inability to conceive what 
 a mind is to attain which is to advance 
 for ever. Add but that element, eter- 
 nity, to man's progress, and the results 
 of his existence surpass not only human 
 but angelic thought. Give me this, and 
 the future glory of the human mind be- 
 comes to me as incomprehensible as God 
 
 himself. To encourage these thoughts 
 and hopes, our Creator has set before us 
 delightful exemplifications, even now, of 
 this principle of growth both in outward 
 nature and in the human mind. We 
 meet them in nature. Suppose you were 
 to carry a man, wholly unacquainted with 
 vegetation, to the most majestic tree in 
 our forests, and, whilst he was admiring 
 its extent and proportions, suppose you 
 should take from the earth at its root a 
 little downy substance, which a breath 
 might blow away, and say to him. That 
 tree was once such a seed as this ; it was 
 wrapped up here : it once lived only within 
 these delicate fibres, this narrow compass. 
 With what incredulous wonder would 
 he regard you ! And if by an effort of 
 imagination somewhat oriental, we should 
 suppose this little seed to be suddenly 
 endued with thought, and to be told that 
 it was one day to become this mighty 
 tree, and to cast out branches which 
 would spread an equal shade, and wave 
 with equal grace, and withstand the win- 
 ter winds ; with what amazement may 
 we suppose it to anticipate its future lot ! 
 Such growth we witness in nature. A 
 nobler hope we Christians are to cher- 
 ish ; and still more striking examples 
 of the growth of mind are set before us 
 in human history. We wonder, indeed, 
 when we are told that one clay we shall be 
 as the angels of God. I apprehend that 
 as great a wonder has been realized al- 
 ready on the earth. I apprehend that the 
 distance between the mind of Newton 
 and of a Hottentot may have been as 
 great as between Newton and an angel. 
 There is another view still more striking. 
 This Newton, who lifted his calm, sub- 
 lime eye to the heavens, and read among 
 the planets and the stars the great law 
 of the material universe, was, forty or 
 fifty years before, an infant, without one 
 clear perception, and unable to distin- 
 guish his nurse's arm from the pillow on 
 which he slept. Howard, too, who, 
 under the strength of an all-sacrificing 
 benevolence, explored the depths of hu- 
 man suffering, was, forty or fifty years 
 before, an infant wholly absorbed in 
 himself, grasping at all he saw, and 
 almost breaking his little heart with fits 
 of passion when the idlest toy was with- 
 held. Has not man already traversed 
 as wide a space as separates him from 
 angels ? And why must he stop ? There 
 is no extravagance in the boldest antici-
 
 IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. 
 
 315 
 
 pation. We may truly become one with 
 Christ, a partaker of that celestial mind. 
 He is truly our brother, one of our fam- 
 ily. Let us make him our constant 
 model. 
 
 I know not that the doctrine now laid 
 down is liable but to one abuse. It may 
 unduly excite susceptible minds, and 
 impel to a vehemence of hope and exer- 
 tion unfavorable in the end to the very 
 progress which is proposed. To such I 
 would say, Hasten to conform yourselves 
 to Christ, but hasten according to the 
 laws of your nature. As the body can- 
 not, by the concentration of its whole 
 strength into one bound, scale the height 
 of a mountain, neither can the mind free 
 every obstacle and achieve perfection by 
 an agony of the will. Great effort is 
 indeed necessary ; but such as can be 
 sustained, such as fits' us for greater, 
 such as will accumulate, not exhaust, 
 our spiritual force. The soul may be 
 overstrained as truly as the body, and it 
 often is so in seasons of extraordinary 
 religious excitement ; and the conse- 
 quence is an injury to the constitution 
 of the intellect and the heart which a 
 life may not be able to repair. I rest 
 the hopes for human nature which I 
 have now expressed on its principle of 
 growth ; and growth, as you well know, 
 is a gradual process, not a convulsive 
 start, accomplishing the work of years in 
 a moment. All great attainments are 
 gradual. As easily might a science be 
 mastered by one struggle of thought as 
 sin be conquered by a spasm of remorse. 
 Continuous, patient effort, guided by 
 wise deliberation, is the true means of 
 spiritual progress. In religion, as in 
 common life, mere force of vehemence 
 will prove a fallacious substitute for the 
 sobriety of wisdom. 
 
 The doctrine which I have chiefly 
 labored to maintain in this discourse, 
 that minds are all of one family, are all 
 brethren, and may be more and more 
 nearly united to God, seems to me to 
 have been felt peculiarly by Jesus Christ ; 
 and if I were to point out the distinction 
 of his greatness, I should say it lay in 
 this. He felt his superiority, but he 
 never felt as if it separated him from 
 mankind. He did not come among us 
 as some great men would visit a col- 
 liery, or any other resort of the ignorant 
 and corrupt, with an air of greatness, 
 feeling himself above us, and giving ben- 
 
 efits as if it were an infinite condescen- 
 sion. He came and mingled with us as 
 a friend and a brother. He saw in every 
 human being a mind which might wear 
 his own brightest glory. He was severe 
 only towards one class of men, and they 
 were those who looked down on the 
 multitude with contempt. Jesus re- 
 spected human nature ; he felt it to be 
 his own. This was the greatness of 
 Jesus Christ. He felt, as no other felt, 
 a union of mind with the human race, 
 felt that all had a spark of that same 
 intellectual and immortal flame which 
 dwelt in himself. 
 
 I insist on this view of his character, 
 not only to encourage us to aspire after 
 a likeness to Jesus ; I consider it as pe- 
 culiarly fitted to call forth love towards 
 him. If I regard Jesus as an august 
 stranger, belonging to an entirely differ- 
 ent class of existence from myself, hav- 
 ing no common thoughts or feelings 
 with me, and looking down upon me 
 with only such a sympathy as I have with 
 an inferior animal, I should regard him 
 with a vague awe ; but the immeasurable 
 space between us would place him be- 
 yond friendship and affection. But 
 when I feel that all minds form one 
 family, that I have the same nature 
 with Jesus, and that he came to com- 
 municate to me, by his teaching, ex- 
 ample, and intercession, his own mind, 
 to bring me into communion with what 
 was sublimest, purest, happiest in him- 
 self, then I can love him as I love no 
 other being, excepting only him who is 
 the Father alike of Christ and of the 
 Christian. With these views, I feel that, 
 though ascended to heaven, he is not 
 gone beyond the reach of our hearts ; 
 that he has now the same interest in 
 mankind as when he entered their dwell- 
 ings, sat at their tables, washed their 
 feet ; and that there is no being so ap- 
 proachable, none with whom such unre- 
 served intercourse is to be enjoyed in 
 the future world. 
 
 Believing, as I do, that I have now 
 used no inflated language, but have 
 spoken the words of truth and sober- 
 ness, I exhort you with calmness, but 
 earnestness, to choose and adopt Jesus 
 Christ as your example with the whole 
 enenjy of your wills. I exhort you to 
 resolve on following him, not, as per- 
 haps you have done, with a faint and 
 yielding purpose, but with the full con-
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 viction that ycur whole happiness is 
 concentrated in the force and constancy 
 of your adherence to this celestial guide. 
 My friends, there is no other happiness. 
 Let not the false views of Christianity 
 which prevail in the world seduce you 
 into the belief that Christ can bless you 
 in an}' other way than by assimilating 
 you to his own virtue, than by breathing 
 into you his own mind. Do not imagine 
 that any faith or love towards Jesus can 
 avail you but that which quickens you to 
 conform yourselves to his spotless purity 
 and unconquerable rectitude. Settle it 
 as an immovable truth, that neither in 
 this world nor in the next can you be 
 happy but in proportion to the sanctity 
 and elevation of your characters. Let 
 no man imagine that through the patron- 
 age or protection of Jesus Christ, or any 
 other being, he can find peace or any 
 sincere good but in the growth of an 
 enlightened, firm, disinterested, holy 
 mind. Expect no good from Jesus any 
 farther than you clothe yourselves with 
 excellence. He can impart to you noth- 
 ing so precious as himself, as his own 
 mind : and believe me, my hearers, this 
 mind may dwell in you. His sublimest 
 virtues may be yours. Admit, welcome 
 this great truth. Look up to the illus- 
 trious Son of God with the conviction 
 that you may become one with him in 
 thought, in feeling, in power, in holiness. 
 His character will become a blessing 
 just as far as it shall awaken in you 
 this consciousness, this hope. The most 
 lamentable scepticism on earth, and in- 
 
 comparably the most common, is a scep- 
 ticism as to the greatness, powers, and 
 high destinies of human nature. In this 
 greatness I desire to cherish an unwav- 
 ering faith. Tell me not of the universal 
 corruption of the race. Humanity has 
 already, in not a few instances, borne 
 conspicuously the likeness of Christ and 
 God. The sun grows dim, the grandeur 
 of outward nature shrinks, when com- 
 pared with the spiritual energy of men 
 who, in the cause of truth, of God, of 
 charity, have spurned all bribes of ease, 
 pleasure, renown, and have withstood 
 shame, want, persecution, torture, and 
 the most dreaded forms of death. In 
 such men I learn that the soul was made 
 in God's image, and made to conform 
 itself to the loveliness and greatness of 
 his Son. 
 
 My friends, we may all approach Jesus 
 Christ. For all of us he died, to leave 
 us an example that we should follow his 
 steps. By earnest purpose, by self- 
 conflict, by watching and prayer, by 
 faith in the Christian promises, by those 
 heavenly aids and illuminations which 
 he that seeketh shall find, we may all 
 unite ourselves in living bonds to Christ, 
 may love as he loved, may act from 
 his principles, may suffer with his con- 
 stancy, may enter into his purposes, 
 may sympathize with his self-devotion 
 to the cause of God and mankind, and, 
 by likeness of spirit, may prepare our- 
 selves to meet him as our everlasting 
 friend. 
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 FIRST DISCOURSE. 
 
 EPHKSIANS vi. 24 : " Grace be with all them that love 
 our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." 
 
 I PROPOSE in this discourse to speak 
 of Love to Christ, and especially of the 
 foundations on which it rests. I will 
 not detain you by remarks on the impor- 
 tance of the subject. I trust that you 
 feel it, and that no urgency is needed to 
 secure your serious attention. 
 
 Love to Christ is said, and said with 
 
 propriety, to be a duty, not of natural, 
 but of revealed religion. Other pre- 
 cepts of Christianity are dictates of nat- 
 ure as well as of revelation. They 
 result from the original and permanent 
 relations which we bear to our Creator 
 and our fellow-creatures ; and are writ- 
 ten by God on the mind as well as in the 
 Bible. For example, gratitude towards 
 the Author of our being, and justice and 
 benevolence towards men, are inculcated 
 with more or less distinctness by our
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 317 
 
 moral faculties ; they are parts of the 
 inward law which belongs to a rational 
 mind ; and accordingly, wherever men 
 are found, you find some conviction of 
 these duties, some sense of their obli- 
 gation to a higher power and to one 
 another. But the same is not true of 
 the duty of love to Jesus Christ ; for as 
 the knowledge of him is not communi- 
 cated by nature, as his name is not 
 written, like that of God, on the heavens 
 and earth, but is confined to countries 
 where his gospel is preached, it is 
 plain that no sense of obligation to him 
 can be felt beyond these bounds. No 
 regard is due or can be paid to him be- 
 yond these. It is commonly said, there- 
 fore, that love to Christ is a duty of 
 revealed, not natural religion, and this 
 language is correct ; but let it not mis- 
 lead us. Let us not imagine that attach- 
 ment to Jesus is an arbitrary duty, that 
 it is unlike our other duties, that it is 
 separate from common virtue, or that it 
 is not founded, like all virtues, in our 
 constitution, or not recognized and en- 
 forced by natural conscience. We say 
 that nature does not enjoin this regard 
 to the Saviour, simply because it does 
 not make him known ; but, as soon as 
 he is made known, nature enjoins love 
 and veneration towards him as truly as 
 towards God or towards excellent men. 
 Reason and conscience teach us to regard 
 him with a strong and tender interest. 
 Love to him is not an arbitrary precept. 
 It is not unlike our other affections ; it 
 requires for its culture no pe'culiar influ- 
 ences from heaven ; it stands on the 
 same ground with all our duties ; it is to 
 be strengthened by the same means. It 
 is essentially the same sentiment, feel- 
 ing, or principle, which we put forth 
 towards other excellent beings, whether 
 in heaven or on earth. 
 
 I make these remarks, because I ap- 
 prehend that the duty of loving Jesus 
 Christ has been so urged as to seem to 
 many particularly mysterious and ob- 
 scure ; and the consequence has been 
 that by some it has been neglected 
 as unnatural, unreasonable, and uncon- 
 nected with common life ; whilst others, 
 in seeking to cherish it, have rushed 
 into wild, extravagant, and feverish emo- 
 tions. I would rescue, if I can, this 
 duty from neglect on the one hand, and 
 from abuse on the other ; and to do this, 
 nothing is necessary but to show the 
 
 true ground and nature of love to Christ. 
 You will then see not only that it is an 
 exalted and generous sentiment, but that 
 it blends with, and gives support to, all 
 the virtuous principles of the mind, and 
 to all the duties, even the most common, 
 of active life. 
 
 There is another great good which 
 may result from a just explanation of 
 the love due to Christ. You will see 
 that this sentiment has no dependence, 
 at least no necessary dependence, on the 
 opinions we may form about his place, or 
 rank, in the universe. This topic has 
 convulsed the church for ages. Chris- 
 tians have cast away the spirit, in settling 
 the precise dignity, of their Master. 
 That this question is unimportant, I do 
 not say. That some views are more 
 favorable to love towards him than 
 others, I believe ; but I maintain that 
 all opinions, adopted by different sects, 
 include the foundation on which venera- 
 tion and attachment are due to our com- 
 mon Lord. This truth for I hold it to 
 be a plain truth is so fitted to heal the 
 wounds and allay the uncharitable fer- 
 vors of Christ's divided church, that I 
 shall rejoice if I can set it forth to others 
 as clearly as it rises to my own mind. 
 
 To accomplish the ends now ex- 
 pressed, I am led to propose to you one 
 great but simple question. What is it 
 that constitutes Christ's claim to love 
 and respect ? What is it that is to be 
 loved in Christ ? Why are we to hold 
 him dear ? I answer, There is but one 
 ground for virtuous affection in the uni- 
 verse, but one object worthy of cherished 
 and enduring love in heaven or on earth, 
 and that is moral goodness. I make no 
 exceptions. My principle applies to all 
 beings, to the Creator as well as to his 
 creatures. The claim of God to the 
 love of his rational offspring rests on 
 the rectitude and benevolence of his 
 will. It is the moral beauty and gran- 
 deur of his character to which alone we 
 are bound to pay homage. The only 
 power which can and ought to be loved 
 is a beneficent and righteous power. 
 The creation is glorious, and binds us 
 to supreme and everlasting love to God, 
 only because it sprung from and shows 
 forth this energy of goodness ; nor has 
 any being a claim on love any farther 
 than this same energy dwells in him, 
 and is manifested in him. I know no 
 exception to this principle. I can con-
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 ceive of no being who can have any 
 claim to affection but what rests on 
 his character, meaning by this the spirit 
 and principles which constitute his mind, 
 and from which he acts ; nor do I know 
 but one character which entitles a being 
 to our hearts, and it is that which the 
 Scriptures express by the word right- 
 eousness ; which in man is often called 
 virtue, in God, holiness; which con- 
 sists essentially in supreme reverence 
 for and adoption of what is right ; and 
 of which benevolence, or universal char- 
 ity, is the brightest manifestation. 
 
 After these remarks, you will easily 
 understand what I esteem the ground of 
 love to Christ. It is his spotless purity, 
 his moral perfection, his unrivalled good- 
 ness. It is the spirit of his religion, 
 which is the spirit of God, dwelling in 
 him without measure. Of consequence, 
 to love Christ is to love the perfection 
 of virtue, of righteousness, of benevo- 
 lence ; and the great excellence of this 
 love is that, by cherishing it, we imbibe, 
 we strengthen in our own souls, the 
 most illustrious virtue, and through 
 Jesus become like to God. 
 
 From the view now given, you see 
 that love to Jesus Christ is a perfectly 
 natural sentiment, I mean, one which 
 our natural sense of right enjoins and 
 approves, and which our minds are con- 
 stituted to feel and to cherish, as truly 
 as any affection to the good whom we 
 know on earth. It is not a theological, 
 mysterious feeling, which some super- 
 natural and inexplicable agency must 
 generate within us. It has its founda- 
 tion or root in the very frame of our 
 minds, in that sense of right by which 
 we are enabled to discern, and bound to 
 love, perfection. I observe next that, 
 according to this view, it is, as I have 
 said, an exalted and generous affec- 
 tion ; for it brings us into communion 
 and contact with the sublimest character 
 ever revealed among men. It includes 
 and nourishes great thoughts and high 
 aspirations, and gives us here on earth 
 the benefit of intercourse with celestial 
 beings. 
 
 Do you not also see that the love of 
 Christ, according to the view now given 
 of it, has no dependence on any par- 
 ticular views which are formed of his 
 nature by different sects ? According 
 to all sects, is he not perfect, spotless 
 in virtue, the representative and re- 
 
 splendent image of the moral goodness 
 and rectitude of God ? However con- 
 tending sects may be divided as to other 
 points, they all agree in the moral per- 
 fection of his character. All recognize 
 his most glorious peculiarity, his sub- 
 lime and unsullied goodness. All there- 
 fore see in him that which alone deserves 
 love and veneration. 
 
 I am aware that other views are not 
 uncommon. It is said that a true love 
 to Christ requires just opinions concern- 
 ing him, and that they who form different 
 opinions of him, however they may use 
 the same name, do not love the same 
 being. We must know him, it is said, 
 in order to esteem him as we ought. 
 Be it so. To love Christ we must know 
 him. But what must we know respect- 
 ing him ? Must we know his counte- 
 nance and form, must we know the man- 
 ner in which he existed before his birth, 
 or the manner in which he now exists ? 
 Must we know his precise rank in the uni- 
 verse, his precise power and influence ? 
 On all these points, indeed, just views 
 would be gratifying and auxiliary to vir- 
 tue. But love to Christ may exist and 
 grow strong without them. What we need 
 to this end is the knowledge of his mind, 
 his virtues, his principles of action. No 
 matter how profoundly we speculate 
 about Christ, or how profusely we heap 
 upon him epithets of praise and admira- 
 tion ; if we do not understand the dis- 
 tinguishing virtues of his character, and 
 see and feel their grandeur, we are as 
 ignorant of him as if we had never heard 
 his name, nor can we offer him an ac- 
 ceptable love. I desire indeed to know 
 Christ's rank in the universe ; but rank 
 is nothing except as it proves and mani- 
 fests superior virtue. High station only 
 degrades a being who fills it unworthily. 
 It is the mind which gives dignity to 
 the office, not the office to the mind. 
 All glory is of the soul. Accordingly 
 we know little or nothing of another 
 until we look into his soul. I cannot 
 be said to know a being of a singularly 
 great character because I have learned 
 from what region he came, to what 
 family he belongs, or what rank he sus- 
 tains. I can only know him as far as I 
 discern the greatness of his spirit, the 
 unconquerable strength of his benevo- 
 lence, his loyalty to God and duty, his 
 power to act and suffer in a good and 
 righteous cause, and his intimate com-
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 319 
 
 inunion with God. Who knows Christ 
 best ? I answer, It is he who, in read- 
 ing his history, sees and feels most dis- 
 tinctly and deeply the perfection by which 
 he was distinguished. Who knows Jesus 
 best ? It is he who, not resting in 
 general. and almost unmeaning praises, 
 becomes acquainted with what was pe- 
 culiar, characteristic, and individual in 
 his mind, and who has thus framed to 
 himself, not a dim image called Jesus, 
 but a living being, with distinct and 
 glorious features, and with all the reality 
 of a well-known friend. Who best knows 
 Jesus ? I answer, It is he who deliber- 
 ately feels and knows that his character 
 is of a higher order than all other char- 
 acters which have appeared on earth, 
 and who thirsts to commune with and 
 resemble it. I hope I am plain. When 
 I hear, as I do, men disputing about 
 Jesus, and imagining that they know 
 him by settling some theory as to his 
 
 generation in time or eternity, or as to 
 is rank in the scale of being, I feel 
 that their knowledge of him is about as 
 great as I should have of some saint or 
 hero by studying his genealogy. These 
 controversies have built up a technical 
 theology, but give no insight into the 
 mind and heart of Jesus ; and without 
 this the true knowledge of him cannot 
 be enjoyed. And here I would observe, 
 not in the spirit of reproach, but from 
 a desire to do good, that I know not a 
 more effectual method of hiding Jesus 
 from us, of keeping us strangers to him, 
 than the inculcation of the doctrine 
 which makes him the same being with 
 his Father, makes him God himself. 
 This doctrine throws over him a misti- 
 ness. For myself, when I attempt to 
 bring it home, I have not a real being 
 before me, not a soul which I can under- 
 stand and sympathize with, but a vague, 
 shifting image, which gives nothing of 
 the stability of knowledge. A being, 
 consisting of two natures, two souls, 
 one divine and another human, one finite 
 and another infinite, is made up of quali- 
 ties which destroy one another, and leave 
 nothing for distinct apprehension. This 
 compound of different minds and of con- 
 tradictory attributes. I cannot, if I would, 
 regard as one conscious person, one in- 
 telligent agent. It strikes me almost 
 irresistibly as a fiction. On the other 
 hand, Jesus, contemplated as he is set 
 before us in the gospel, as one mind, 
 
 one heart, answering to my own in all 
 its essential powers and affections, but 
 purified, enlarged, exalted, so as to con- 
 stitute him the unsullied image of God 
 and' a perfect model, is a being who 
 bears the marks of reality, whom I can 
 understand, whom I can receive into my 
 heart as the best of friends, with whom 
 I can become intimate, and whose so- 
 ciety I can and do anticipate among the 
 chief blessings of my future being. 
 
 My friends, I have now stated, in 
 general, what knowledge of Christ is 
 most important, and is alone required in 
 order to a true attachment to him. Let 
 me still farther illustrate my views by 
 descending to one or two particulars. 
 Among the various excellences of Jesus, 
 he was distinguished by a benevolence 
 so deep, so invincible, that injury and 
 outrage had no power over it. His 
 kindness towards men was in no degree 
 diminished by their wrong-doing. The 
 only intercession which he offered in his 
 sufferings was for those who at that very 
 moment were wreaking on him their 
 vengeance ; and what is more remark- 
 able, he not only prayed for them, but, 
 with an unexampled generosity and can- 
 dor, urged in their behalf the only ex- 
 tenuation which their conduct would 
 admit. Now, to know Jesus Christ is 
 to understand this attribute of his mind, 
 to understand the strength and triumph 
 of the benevolent principle in this se- 
 verest trial, to understand the energy 
 with which he then held fast the virtue 
 which he had enjoined. It is to see in the 
 mind of Jesus at that moment a moral 
 grandeur which raised him above all 
 around him. This is to know him. I 
 will suppose now a man to have studied 
 all the controversies about Christ's nat- 
 ure, and to have arrived at the truest 
 notions of his rank in the universe. 
 But this incident in Christ's history, 
 this discovery of his character, has never 
 impressed him ; the glory of a philan- 
 thropy which embraces one's enemies 
 has never dawned upon him. With all 
 his right opinions about the Unity or 
 the Trinity, he lives and acts towards 
 others very much as if Jesus had never 
 lived or died. Now I say that such a 
 man does not know Christ. I say that 
 he is a stranger to him. I say that the 
 great truth is hidden from him : that his 
 skill in religious controversy is of little 
 more use to him than would be the
 
 320 
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 learning by rote of a language which he 
 does not understand. He knows the 
 name of Christ, but the excellence which 
 that name imports, and which gives it 
 its chief worth, is to him as an unknown 
 tongue. 
 
 I have referred to one view of Christ's 
 character. I might go through his whole 
 life. I will only observe that, in the 
 New Testament, the crucifixion of 
 Jesus is always set forth as the most 
 illustrious portion of his history. The 
 spirit of self-sacrifice, of deliberate self- 
 immolation, of calm, patient endurance 
 of the death of the cross, in the cause of 
 truth, piety, virtue, human happiness, 
 this particular manifestation of love is 
 always urged upon us in the New Tes- 
 tament as the crowning glory of Jesus 
 Christ. To understand this part of his 
 character ; to understand him when he 
 gave himself up to the shame and anguish 
 of crucifixion ; to understand that sym- 
 pathy with human misery, that love of 
 human nature, that thirst for the recov- 
 ery of the human soul, that zeal for 
 human virtue, that energy of moral 
 principle, that devotion to God's pur- 
 poses, through which the severest suf- 
 fering was chosen and borne, and into 
 which no suffering, or scorn, or deser- 
 tion, or ingratitude, could infuse the 
 least degree of selfishness, unkindness, 
 doubt, or infirmity, to understand this, 
 is to understand Jesus ; and he who 
 wants sensibility to this, be his spec- 
 ulations what they may, has every thing 
 to learn respecting the Saviour. 
 
 You will see, from the views now 
 given, that I consider love to Christ as 
 requiring nothing so much as that we 
 fix our thoughts on the excellence of 
 his character, study it, penetrate our 
 minds with what was peculiar in it, and 
 cherish profound veneration for it ; and 
 consequently I fear that attachment to 
 him has been diminished by the habit 
 of regarding other things in Christ as 
 more important than his lovely and sub- 
 lime virtues. 
 
 Christians have been prone to fix on 
 something mysterious in his nature, or 
 else on the dignity of his offices, as his 
 chief claim ; and in this way his supreme 
 glory has been obscured. His nature 
 and offices I, of course, would not dis- 
 parage : but let them not be exalted 
 above his moral worth. I maintain that 
 this gives to his nature and offices all 
 
 their claims to love and veneration, and 
 that we understand them only as far as 
 we see this to pervade them. This 
 principle I would uphold against Chris- 
 tians of very different modes of faith. 
 
 First, there are Christians who main- 
 tain that Jesus Christ is to be loved as 
 the Son of God, understanding by this 
 title some mysterious connection and 
 identity with the Father. Far be it 
 from me to deny that the Divine Sonship 
 of Jesus constitutes his true claim on 
 our affection ; but I do deny that the 
 mysterious properties of this relation 
 form any part of this claim ; for it is 
 very clear that love to a being must rest 
 on what we know of him, and not on un- 
 known and unintelligible attributes. In 
 saying that the Divine Sonship of Jesus 
 is the great foundation of attachment to 
 him, I say nothing inconsistent with the 
 doctrine of this discourse, that the moral 
 excellence of Jesus is the great object 
 and ground of the love which is due to 
 him. Indeed, I only repeat the prin- 
 ciple that he is to be loved exclusively 
 for the virtues of his character ; for 
 what, I ask, is the great idea involved in 
 his filial relation to God ? To be the 
 Son of God, in the chief and highest 
 sense of that term, is to bear the like- 
 ness, to possess the spirit, to be partaker 
 of the moral perfections of God. 1 his 
 is the essential idea. To be God's Son 
 is to be united with him by consent and 
 accordance of mind. Jesus was the only 
 begotten Son, because he was the per- 
 fect image and representative of God, 
 especially of divine philanthropy ; be- 
 cause he espoused as his own the be- 
 nevolent purposes of God towards the 
 human race, and yielded himself to their 
 accomplishment with an entire self-sac- 
 rifice. To know Jesus as the Son of 
 God is not to understand what theo- 
 logians have written about his eternal 
 generation, or about a mystical, incom- 
 prehensible union between Christ and 
 his Father. It is something far higher 
 and more instructive. It is to see in 
 Christ, if I may say so, the lineaments of 
 the Universal Father. It is to discern 
 in him a godlike purity and goodness. 
 It is to understand his harmony with the 
 Divine Mind, and the entireness and 
 singleness of love with which he devoted 
 himself to the purposes of God, and the 
 interests of the human race. Of con- 
 sequence, to love Jesus as the Son of God
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST, 
 
 321 
 
 is to love the spotless purity and godlike 
 charity of his soul. 
 
 There are other Christians who differ 
 widely from those of whom I have now 
 spoken, but who conceive that Christ's 
 offices, inspiration, miracles, are his 
 chief claims to veneration, and who, I 
 fear, in extolling these, have overlooked 
 what is incomparably more glorious, 
 the moral dignity of his mind, the purity 
 and inexhaustibleness of his benev- 
 olence. It is possible that to many who 
 hear me, Christ seems to have been, 
 more exalted when he received from his 
 Father supernatural light and truth, or 
 when with superhuman energy he quelled 
 the storm and raised the dead, than when 
 he wept over the city which was in a 
 few days to doom him to the most 
 shameful and agonizing death ; and yet 
 his chief glory consisted in the spirit 
 through which these tears were shed. 
 Christians have yet to learn that inspi- 
 ration, and miracles, and outward dig- 
 nities are nothing compared with the 
 soul. We all need to understand better 
 than we have done that noble passage 
 of Paul, " Though I speak with the 
 tongues of men and of angels, and under- 
 stand all mysteries, and have all faith, 
 so that I could remove mountains, and 
 have not charity [disinterestedness, love], 
 I am nothing;" and this is as true of 
 Christ as of Paul. Indeed it is true of 
 all beings, and yet, I fear, it is not felt 
 as it should be by the multitude of 
 Christians. 
 
 You tell me, my friends, that Christ's 
 unparalleled inspiration, his perpetual re- 
 ception of light from God, that this was 
 his supreme distinction ; and a great 
 distinction undoubtedly it was : but I 
 affirm that Christ's inspiration, though 
 conferred on him without measure, gives 
 him no claim to veneration or love, any 
 farther than it found within him a virtue 
 which accorded with, welcomed, and 
 adopted it, any farther than his own 
 heart responded to the truths he re- 
 ceived ; any farther than he sympathized 
 with, and espoused as his own, the be- 
 nevolent purposes of God, which he was 
 sent to announce ; any farther than the 
 spirit of the religion which he preached 
 was his own spirit, and was breathed 
 from his life as well as from his lips. In 
 other words, his inspiration was made 
 glorious through his virtues. Mere in- 
 spiration seems to me a very secondary 
 
 thing. Suppose the greatest truths in 
 the universe to be revealed supernatu- 
 rally to a being who should take no inter- 
 est in them, who should not see and feel 
 their greatness, but should repeat them 
 mechanically, as they were put into his 
 mouth by the Deity. Such a man would 
 be inspired, and would teach the great- 
 est verities, and yet he would be nothing, 
 and would have no claim to reverence. 
 
 The excellence of Jesus did not con- 
 sist in his mere inspiration, but in the 
 virtue and love which prepared him to 
 receive it, and by which it was made 
 effectual to the world. He did not pas- 
 sively hear, and mechanically repeat, 
 certain doctrines from God, but his 
 whole soul accorded with what he 
 heard. Every truth which he uttered 
 came warm and living from his own 
 mind ; and it was this pouring of his own 
 soul into his instructions which gave 
 them much of their power. Whence 
 came the authority and energy, the con- 
 scious dignity, the tenderness and sym- 
 pathy, with which Jesus taught ? They 
 came not from inspiration, but from the 
 mind of him who was inspired. His 
 personal virtues gave power to his 
 teachings : and without these no inspi- 
 ration could have made him the source 
 of such light and strength as he now 
 communicates to mankind. 
 
 My friends, I have aimed to show in 
 this discourse that virtue, purity, recti- 
 tude of Jesus Christ is his most honora- 
 ble distinction, and constitutes his great 
 claim to veneration and love. I can 
 direct you to nothing in Christ more 
 important than his tried, and victorious, 
 and perfect goodness. Others may love 
 Christ for mysterious attributes ; I love 
 him for the rectitude of his soul and his 
 life. I love him for that benevolence 
 which went through Judea, instructing 
 the ignorant, healing the sick, giving 
 sight to the blind. I love him for that 
 universal charity which comprehended 
 the despised publican, the hated Samar- 
 itan, the benighted heathen, and sought 
 to bring a world to God and to happi- 
 ness. I love him for that gentle, mild, 
 forbearing spirit, which no insult, out- 
 rage, injury, could overpower ; and 
 which desired as earnestly the repent- 
 ance and happiness of its foes as the 
 happiness of its friends. I love him for 
 the spirit of magnanimity, constancy, 
 and fearless rectitude with which, amidst
 
 322 
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 peril and opposition, he devoted himself 
 to the work which pod gave him to do. 
 I love him for the wise and enlightened 
 zeal with which he espoused the true, 
 the spiritual interests of mankind, and 
 through which he lived and died to re- 
 deem them from every sin, to frame 
 them after his own godlike virtue. I 
 love him, I have said, for his moral ex- 
 cellence ; I know nothing else to love. 
 I know nothing so glorious in the Crea- 
 tor or his creatures. This is the great- 
 est gift which God bestows, the greatest 
 to be derived from his Son. 
 
 You see why I call you to cherish the 
 love of Christ. This love I do not rec- 
 ommend as a luxury of feeling, as an 
 ecstasy bringing immediate and over- 
 flowing joy. I view it in a nobler light. 
 I call you to love Jesus, that you may 
 bring yourselves into contact and com- 
 munion with perfect virtue, and may 
 become what you love. 1 know no sin- 
 cere, enduring good but the moral ex- 
 cellence which shines forth in Jesus 
 Christ. Your wealth, your outward com- 
 forts and distinctions, are poor, mean, 
 contemptible, compared with this ; and 
 to prefer them to this is self debase- 
 ment, self destruction. May this great 
 truth penetrate our souls ; and may we 
 bear witness in our common lives, and 
 especially in trial, in sore temptation, 
 that nothing is so dear to us as the virtue 
 of Christ ! 
 
 SECOND DISCOURSE. 
 
 EPHESIANS vi. 24 : " Grace be with all them that love 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 IN the preceding discourse, I consid- 
 ered the nature and ground of love to 
 Christ. The subject is far from being 
 exhausted. I propose now, after a few 
 remarks on the importance and happi- 
 ness of this attachment, to call your at- 
 tention to some errors in relation to it 
 which prevail in the Christian world. 
 
 A virtuous attachment purifies the 
 heart. In loving the excellent, we re- 
 ceive strength to follow them. It is 
 happy for us when a pure affection 
 springs up within us, when friendship 
 knits us with holy and generous minds. 
 It is happy for us when a being of noble 
 sentiments and beneficent life enters our 
 circle, becomes an object of interest to 
 us, and by affectionate intercourse takes 
 
 a strong hold on our hearts. Not a few 
 can trace the purity and elevation of 
 their minds to connection with an indi- 
 vidual who has won them by the beauty 
 of his character to the love and practice 
 of righteousness. These views show us 
 the service which Jesus Christ has done 
 to mankind, simply in offering himself 
 before them as an object of attachment 
 and affection. In inspiring love, he is a 
 benefactor. A man brought to see and 
 feel the godlike virtues of Jesus Christ, 
 .who understands his character and is 
 attracted and won by it, has gained, in 
 this sentiment, immense aid in his con- 
 flict with evil and in his pursuit of per- 
 fection. And he has not only gained 
 aid, but happiness ; for a true love is 
 in itself a noble enjoyment. It is the 
 proper delight of a rational and moral 
 being, leaving no bitterness or shame 
 behind, not enervating like the world's 
 pleasures, but giving energy and a lofty 
 consciousness to the mind. 
 
 Our nature was framed for virtuous 
 attachments. How strong and interest- 
 ing are the affections of domestic life, 
 the conjugal, parental, filial ties ! But 
 the heart is not confined to our homes, 
 or even to this world. There are more 
 sacred attachments than these, in which 
 instinct has no part, which have their 
 origin in our highest faculties, which 
 are less tumultuous and impassioned 
 than the affections of nature, but more 
 enduring, more capable of growth, more 
 peaceful, far happier, and far nobler. 
 Such is love to Jesus Christ, the most 
 purifying, and the happiest attachment, 
 next to the love of our Creator, which 
 we can form. I wish to aid you in cher- 
 ishing this sentiment, and for this end I 
 have thought that in the present dis- 
 course it would be well to point out 
 some wrong views which I think have 
 obstructed it, and obscured its glory. 
 
 I apprehend that among those Chris- 
 tians who bear the name of rational, 
 from the importance which they give to 
 the exercise of reason in religion, love 
 to Christ has lost something of its honor, 
 in consequence of its perversion. It has 
 too often been substituted for practical 
 religion. Not a few have professed a 
 very fervent attachment to Jesus, and 
 have placed great confidence in this 
 feeling, who, at the same time, have 
 seemed to think little of his precepts, 
 and have even spoken of them as unim-
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 323 
 
 portant, compared with certain doctrines 
 about his person or nature. Gross errors 
 of this kind have led, as it seems to me, 
 to the opposite extreme. They have 
 particularly encouraged among calm 
 and sober people the idea that the great 
 object of Christ was to give a religion, 
 to teach great and everlasting truth, 
 and that our concern is with his religion 
 rather than with himself. The great 
 question, as such people say, is not 
 what Jesus -was, but what he revealed. 
 In this way a distinction has been made 
 between Jesus and his religion ; and, 
 whilst some sects have done little but 
 talk of Christ and his person, others 
 have dwelt on the principles he taught, 
 to the neglect, in a measure, of the 
 Divine Teacher. I consider this as an 
 error to which some of us may be ex- 
 posed, and which, therefore, deserves 
 consideration. 
 
 Now I grant that Jesus Christ came to 
 give a religion, to reveal truth. This is 
 his great office : but I maintain that this 
 is no reason for overlooking Jesus ; for 
 his religion has an intimate and pecul- 
 iar connection with himself. It derives 
 authority and illustration from his char- 
 acter. Jesus is his religion embodied 
 and made visible. The connection be- 
 tween him and his system is peculiar. 
 It differs altogether from that which 
 ancient philosophers bore to their teach- 
 ings. An ancient sage wrote a book, 
 and the book is of equal value to us 
 whether we know its author or not. 
 But there is no such thing as Christi- 
 anity without Christ. We cannot know 
 it separately from him. It is not a book 
 which Jesus wrote. It is his conversa- 
 tion, his character, his history, his life, 
 his death, his resurrection. He per- 
 vades it throughout. In loving him, we 
 love his religion ; and a just interest in 
 this cinnot be awakened, but by con- 
 templating it as it shone forth in him- 
 self. 
 
 Christ's religion, I have said, is very 
 imperfect without himself ; and there- 
 fore they who would make an abstract 
 of his precepts, and say that it is enough 
 to follow these without thinking of their 
 author, grievously mistake, and rob the 
 system of much of its energy. I mean 
 not to disparage the precepts of Christ, 
 considered in themselves. But their 
 full power is only to be understood and 
 felt by those who place themselves near 
 
 the Divine Teacher, who see the celes- 
 tial fervor of his affection whilst he 
 utters them, who follow his steps from 
 Bethlehem to Calvary, and witness the 
 expression of his precepts in his own 
 life. These come to me almost as new 
 precepts when I associate them with 
 Jesus. His command to love my ene- 
 mies becomes intelligible and bright 
 when I stand by his cross and hear his 
 prayer for his murderers. I understand 
 what he meant by the self-denial which 
 he taught when I see him foregoing the 
 comforts of life, and laying down life 
 itself for the good of others. I learn the 
 true character of that benevolence by 
 which human nature is perfected, how it 
 unites calmness and earnestness, tender- 
 ness and courage, condescension and 
 dignity, feeling and action ; this I learn 
 in the life of Jesus as no words could 
 teach me. So I am instructed in the 
 nature of piety by the same model. 
 The command to love God with all my 
 heart, if only written, might have led me 
 into extravagance, enthusiasm, and neg- 
 lect of common duties, for religious 
 excitement has a peculiar tendency to 
 excess, but in Jesus I see a devo- 
 tion to God, entire, perfect, never re- 
 mitted, yet without the least appearance 
 of passion, as calm and self-possessed 
 as the love which a good mind bears to 
 a parent ; and in him I am taught, as 
 words could not teach, how to join su- 
 preme regard to my Creator with active 
 charity and common duties towards my 
 fellow-beings. 
 
 And not only the precepts but the 
 great doctrines of Christianity are bound 
 up with Jesus, and cannot be truly un- 
 derstood without him. For example, 
 one of the great doctrines of Christian- 
 ity, perhaps its chief, is the kind interest 
 of God in all his creatures, not only in 
 the good but in the evil ; his placable, 
 clement, merciful character ; his desire 
 to recover and purify and make for ever 
 happy even those who have stained 
 themselves with the blackest guilt. 
 The true character of God in this 
 respect I see indeed in his providence, 
 I read it in his word, and for every 
 manifestation of it I am grateful. But 
 when I see his spotless and "beloved 
 Son to whom his power was peculiarly 
 delegated, and in whom He peculiarly 
 dwelt, giving singular attention to the 
 most fallen and despised men, casting
 
 324 
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 away all outward pomp that he might 
 mingle familiarly with the poor and neg- 
 lected ; when I see him sitting at table 
 with the publican and the sinner, invit- 
 ing them to approach him as a friend, 
 suffering the woman whose touch was 
 deemed pollution to bedew his feet with 
 tears ; and when I hear him in the midst 
 of such a concourse saying, " I am come 
 to seek and to save that which was lost," 
 I have a conviction of the lenity, be- 
 nignity, grace, of that God whose repre- 
 sentative and chosen minister he was, 
 such as no abstract teaching could have 
 given me. Let me add one more doc- 
 trine, that of immortality. I prize 
 every evidence of this great truth ; I look 
 within and without me for some pledge 
 that I am not to perish in the grave ; that 
 this mind, with its thoughts and affec- 
 tions, is to live, and improve, and be 
 perfected, and to find that joy for which 
 it thirsts, and which it cannot find on 
 earth. Christ's teaching on this subject 
 is invaluable ; but what power does this 
 teaching gain, when I stand by his sep- 
 ulchre, and see the stone rolled away, 
 and behold the great Revealer of immor- 
 tality rising in power and triumph, and 
 ascending to the life and happiness he 
 had promised ! 
 
 Thus Christianity, from beginning to 
 end, is intimately connected with its 
 Divine Teacher. It is not an abstract 
 system. The rational Christian who 
 would think of it as such, who, in dwell- 
 ing on the religion, overlooks its Re- 
 vealer, is unjust to it. Would he see 
 and feel its power, let him see it warm, 
 living, breathing, acting in the mind, 
 heart, and life of its Founder. Let him 
 love it there. In other words, let him 
 love the character of Jesus, justly 
 viewed, and he will love the religion 
 in the way most fitted to make it the 
 power of God unto salvation. 
 
 I have said that love to Christ, when 
 he is justly viewed, that is, when it is 
 an enlightened and rational affection, 
 includes the love of his whole religion ; 
 but I beg you to remember that I give 
 this praise only to an enlightened affec- 
 tion ; and such is not the most common, 
 nor is it easily acquired. I apprehend 
 that there is no sentiment which needs 
 greater care in its culture than this. 
 Perhaps, in the present state of the 
 world, no virtue is of more difficult ac- 
 quisition than a pure and intelligent love 
 
 towards Jesus. There is undoubtedly 
 much of fervent feeling towards him in 
 the Christian world. But let me speak 
 plainly. I do it from no uncharitable- 
 ness. I do it only to warn my fellow- 
 Christians. The greater part of this 
 affection to Jesus seems to me of very 
 doubtful worth. In many cases, it is an 
 irregular fervor, which impairs the force 
 and soundness of the mind, and which 
 is substituted for obedience to his pre- 
 cepts, for the virtues which ennoble the 
 soul. Much of what is called love to 
 Christ I certainly do not desire you or 
 myself to possess. I know of no senti- 
 ment which needs more to be cleared 
 from error and abuse, and I therefore 
 feel myself bound to show you some of 
 its corruptions. 
 
 In the first place, I am persuaded that 
 a love to Christ of quite a low character 
 is often awakened by an injudicious use 
 of his sufferings. I apprehend that if the 
 affection which many bear to Jesus were 
 analyzed, the chief ingredient in it would 
 be found to be a tenderness awaken- 
 ed by his cross. In certain classes of 
 Christians, it is common for the religious 
 teacher to delineate the bleeding, dying 
 Saviour, and to detail his agonies, until 
 men's natural sympathy is awakened ; 
 and when assured that this deep woe 
 was borne for themselves, they almost 
 necessarily yield to the softer feelings 
 of their nature. I mean not to find fault 
 with this sensibility. It is happy for us 
 that we are made to be touched by 
 others' pains. Woe to him who has no 
 tears for mortal agony ! But in this 
 emotion there is no virtue, no moral 
 worth ; and we dishonor Jesus when 
 this is the chief tribute we offer him. 
 I say there is no moral goodness in this 
 feeling. To be affected, overpowered 
 by a crucifixion, is the most natural 
 thing in the world. Who of us, let me 
 ask, whether religious or not, ever went 
 into a Catholic church, and there saw 
 the picture of Jesus hanging from his 
 cross, his head bending under the weight 
 of exhausting suffering, his hands and 
 feet pierced with nails, and his body 
 stained with his open wounds, and has 
 not been touched by the sight ? Sup- 
 pose that, at this moment, there were 
 lifted up among us a human form, trans- 
 fixed with a spear, and from which the 
 warm life-blood was dropping in the 
 midst of us. Who would not be deeply
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 325 
 
 moved ? and when a preacher, gifted 
 with something of an actor's power, 
 places the cross, as it were, in the midst 
 of a people, is it wonderful that they are 
 softened and subdued ? I mean not to 
 censure all appeals of this kind to the 
 human heart. There is something in- 
 teresting and encouraging in the tear of 
 compassion. There was wisdom in the 
 conduct of the Moravian missionaries in 
 Greenland who, finding that the rugged 
 and barbarous natives were utterly in- 
 sensible to general truth, depicted, with 
 all possible vividness, the streaming 
 blood and dying agonies of Jesus, and 
 thus caught the attention of the sav- 
 age through his sympathies, whom they 
 could not interest through his reason or 
 his fears. But sensibility thus awakened 
 is quite a different thing from true, vir- 
 tuous love to Jesus Christ ; and, when 
 viewed and cherished as such, it takes 
 the place of higher affections. I have 
 often been struck by the contrast be- 
 tween the use made of the cross in the 
 pulpit, and the calm, unimpassioned 
 manner in which the sufferings of Jesus 
 are detailed by the Evangelists. These 
 witnesses of Christ's last moments give 
 you in simple language the particulars 
 of that scene, without one remark, one 
 word of emotion ; and if you read the 
 Acts and Epistles, you will not find a 
 single instance in which the Apostles 
 strove to make a moving picture of his 
 crucifixion. No ; they honored Jesus 
 too much, they felt too deeply the great- 
 ness of his character, to be moved as 
 many are by the circumstances of his 
 death. Reverence, admiration, sympa- 
 thy with his sublime spirit, these swal- 
 lowed up, in a great measure, sympathy 
 with his sufferings. The cross was to 
 them the last crowning manifestation of 
 a celestial mind ; they felt that it was 
 endured to communicate the same mind 
 to them and the world ; and their emo- 
 tion was a holy joy in this consummate 
 and unconquerable goodness. To be 
 touched by suffering is a light thing. It 
 is not the greatness of Christ's sufferings 
 on the cross which is to move our whole 
 souls, but the greatness of the spirit 
 with which he suffered. There, in 
 death, he proved his entire consecration 
 of himself to the cause of God and man- 
 kind. There his love flowed forth to- 
 wards his friends, his enemies, and the 
 human race. It is moral greatness, it is 
 
 victorious love, it is the energy of prin- 
 ciple, which gives such interest to the 
 cross of Christ. We are to look through 
 the darkness which hung over him, 
 through his wounds and pains, to his 
 unbroken, disinterested, confiding spirit. 
 To approach the cross for the purpose 
 of weeping over a bleeding, dying friend, 
 is to lose the chief influence of the cruci- 
 fixion. We are to visit the cross, not to 
 indulge a natural softness, but to ac- 
 quire firmness of spirit, to fortify our 
 minds for hardship and suffering in the 
 cause of duty and of human happiness. 
 To live as Christ lived, to die as Christ 
 died, to give up ourselves as sacrifices 
 to God, to conscience, to whatever good 
 interest we can advance, these are the 
 lessons written with the blood of Jesus. 
 His cross is to inspire us with a calm 
 courage, resolution, and superiority to 
 all temptation. I fear (is my fear ground- 
 less ?) that a sympathy which enervates 
 rather than fortifies, is the impression 
 too often received from the crucifixion. 
 The depression with which the Lord's 
 table is too often approached, and too 
 often left, shows, I apprehend, that the 
 chief use of his sufferings is little under- 
 stood, and that he is loved, not as a 
 glorious sufferer who died to spread his 
 own sublime spirit, but as a man of sor- 
 rows, a friend bowed down with the 
 weight of grief. 
 
 In the second place, love to Christ of 
 a very defective kind is cherished in 
 many by the views which they are ac- 
 customed to take of themselves. They 
 form irrational ideas of their own guilt, 
 supposing it to have its origin in their 
 very creation, and then represent to 
 their imaginations an abyss of fire and 
 torment over which they hang, into which 
 the anger of God is about to precipitate 
 them, and from which nothing but Jesus 
 can rescue them. Not a few, I appre- 
 hend, ascribe to Jesus Christ a greater 
 compassion towards them than God is 
 supposed to feel. His heart is tenderer 
 than that of the Universal Parent, and 
 this tenderness is seen in his plucking 
 them by a mighty power from tremen- 
 dous and infinite pain, from everlasting 
 burnings. Now, that Jesus under such 
 circumstances should excite the mind 
 strongly, should become the object of a 
 very intense attachment, is almost neces- 
 sary : but the affection so excited is of 
 very little worth. Let the universe seem
 
 326 
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 to me wrapped in darkness, let God's 
 throne send forth no light but blast- 
 ing flashes, let Jesus be the only bright 
 and cheering object to my affrighted and 
 desolate soul, and a tumultuous grati- 
 tude will carry me towards him just as 
 irresistibly as natural instinct carries the 
 parent animal to its young. I do and 
 must grieve at the modes commonly 
 used to make Jesus Christ an interesting 
 being. Even the Infinite Father is 
 stripped of his glory for the sake of 
 throwing a lustre round the Son. The 
 condition of man is painted in frightful 
 colors, which cast unspeakable dishonor 
 on his Creator, for the sake of jnagnify- 
 ing the greatness of Christ's salvation. 
 Man is stripped of all the powers which 
 make him a responsible being, his soul 
 harrowed with terrors, and the future 
 illumined only by the flames which are 
 to consume him, that his deliverer may 
 seem more necessary ; and when the 
 mind, in this state of agitation, in this 
 absence of self-control, is wrought up 
 into a fervor of gratitude to Jesus, it is 
 thought to be sanctified. This selfish, 
 irrational gratitude, is called a virtue. 
 Much of the love given to Jesus, having 
 the origin of which I now speak, seems 
 to me of no moral worth. It is not the 
 soul's free gift, not a sentiment nour- 
 ished by our own care from a convic- 
 tion of its purity and nobleness, but an 
 instinctive, ungoverned, selfish feeling. 
 Suppose, my friends, that in a tempest- 
 uous night you should find yourselves 
 floating towards a cataract, the roar of 
 which should announce the destruction 
 awaiting you, and that a fellow-being of 
 great energy should rush through the 
 darkness and bring you to the shore ; 
 could you help embracing him with grat- 
 itude ? And would this emotion imply 
 any change of character ? Would you 
 not feel it towards your deliverer, even 
 should he have acted from mere impulse, 
 and should his general character be 
 grossly defective ? Is not this a neces- 
 sary working of nature, a fruit of terror 
 changed into joy ? I mean not to con- 
 demn it ; I only say it is not virtue. It 
 is a poor tribute to Jesus ; he deserves 
 something far purer and nobler. 
 
 The habit of exaggerating the wretch- 
 edness of man's condition for the pur- 
 pose of rendering Jesus more necessary, 
 operates very seriously to degrade men's 
 love to Jesus, by accustoming them to i 
 
 ascribe to him a low and commonplace 
 character. I wish this to be weighed. 
 They who represent to themselves the 
 whole human race as sinking by an 
 hereditary corruption into an abyss of 
 flame and perpetual woe, very naturally 
 think of Jesus as a being of overflowing 
 compassion, as impelled by a resistless 
 pity to fly to the relief of these hopeless 
 victims ; for this is the emotion that 
 such a sight is fitted to produce. Now 
 this overpowering compassion, called 
 forth by the view of exquisite misery, 
 is a very ordinary virtue ; and yet, I 
 apprehend, it is the character ascribed 
 above all others to Jesus. It certainly 
 argues no extraordinary goodness, for 
 it is an almost necessary impulse of 
 nature. Were you, my friends, to see 
 millions and millions of the human race 
 on the edge of a fiery gulf, where ages 
 after ages of torture awaited them, and 
 were the shrieks of millions who had 
 already been plunged into the abyss to 
 pierce }our ear, could you refrain from 
 an overpowering compassion, and would 
 you not willingly endure hours and days 
 of exquisite pain to give these wretched 
 millions release ? Is there any man 
 who has not virtue enough for this ? 
 I have known men of ordinary charac- 
 ter hazard their lives under the impulse 
 of compassion, for the rescue of fellow- 
 beings from infinitely lighter evils than 
 are here supposed. To me it seems 
 that to paint the misery of human be- 
 ings in these colors of fire and blood, 
 and to ascribe to Christ the compassion 
 which such misery must awaken, and 
 to make this the chief attribute of his 
 mind, is the very method to take from his 
 character its greatness, and to weaken 
 his claim on our love. I see nothing 
 in Jesus of the overpowering compas- 
 sion which is often ascribed to him. 
 His character rarely exhibited strong 
 emotion. It was distinguished by calm- 
 ness, firmness, and conscious dignity. 
 Jesus had a mind too elevated to be 
 absorbed and borne away by pity, or 
 any other passion. He felt, indeed, 
 deeply for human suffering and grief ; 
 but his chief sympathy was with the 
 mind, with its sins and moral diseases, 
 and especially with its capacity of im- 
 provement and everlasting greatness 
 and glory. He felt himself commis- 
 sioned to quicken and exalt immortal 
 beings. The thought which kindled and
 
 LOVE TO CHRIST. 
 
 327 
 
 sustained him was that of an immeasu- 
 rable virtue to be conferred on the mind, 
 even of the most depraved, a good, 
 the very conception of which implies a 
 lofty character : a good, which as yet 
 has only dawned on his most improved 
 disciples. It is his consecration to this 
 sublime end which constitutes his glory ; 
 and no farther than we understand this, 
 can we yield him the love which his 
 character claims and deserves. 
 
 I have endeavored to show the cir- 
 cumstances which have contributed to 
 depress and degrade men's affections 
 towards Jesus Christ. To me the in- 
 fluence of these causes seems to be 
 great. I know of no feeling more sus- 
 picious than the common love to Christ. 
 A true affection to him, indeed, is far 
 from being of easy acquisition. As it 
 is the purest and noblest we can cher- 
 ish, with the single exception of love to 
 God, so it requires the exercise of our 
 best powers. You all must feel that an 
 indispensable requisite or preparation 
 for this love is to understand the char- 
 acter of Jesus. But this is no easy 
 thing. It not only demands that we 
 carefully read and study his history ; 
 there is another process more impor- 
 tant. We must begin in earnest to con- 
 vert into practice our present imperfect 
 knowledge of Christ, and to form our- 
 selves upon him as far as he is now dis- 
 cerned. Nothing so much brightens 
 and strengthens the eye of the mind to 
 understand an excellent being, as like- 
 ness to him. We never know a great 
 character until something congenial to 
 it has grown up within ourselves. No 
 strength of intellect and no study can 
 enable a man of a selfish and sensual 
 mind to comprehend Jesus. Such a 
 mind is covered with a mist ; and just 
 in proportion as it subdues evil within 
 itself, the mist will be scattered ; Jesus 
 will rise upon it with a sunlike bright- 
 ness, and will call forth its most fer- 
 vent and most enlightened affection. 
 
 I close with two remarks. You see, 
 by this discourse, how important to the 
 love of Christ it is, to understand with 
 some clearness the purpose for which 
 he came into the world. The low views 
 prevalent on this subject seem to me to 
 exert a disastrous influence on the whole 
 character, and particularly on our feel- 
 ings towards Christ. Christ is sup- 
 posed to have come to rescue us from 
 
 an outward hell, to bear the penalties 
 of an outward law. Such benevolence 
 would indeed be worthy of praise ; but 
 it is an inferior form of benevolence. 
 The glory of Christ's character, its pe- 
 culiar brightness, seems to me to con- 
 sist in his having given himself to 
 accomplish an inward, moral, spiritual 
 deliverance of mankind. He was alive 
 to the worth and greatness of the hu- 
 man soul. He looked through what 
 men were, looked through the thick 
 shades of their idolatry, superstition, 
 and vice, and saw in every human be- 
 ing a spirit of divine origin and godlike 
 faculties, which might be recovered 
 from all its evil, which might become 
 an image and a temple of God. The 
 greatness of Jesus consisted in his de- 
 voting himself to call forth a mighty 
 power in the human breast, to kindle in 
 us a celestial flame, to breathe into us 
 an inexhaustible hope, and to lay with- 
 in us the foundation of an immovable 
 peace. His greatness consists in the 
 greatness and sublimity of the action 
 which he communicates to the human 
 soul. This is his chief glory. To 
 avert pain and punishment is a subor- 
 dinate work. Through neglect of these 
 truths, I apprehend that the brightness 
 of Christ's character is even now much 
 obscured, and perhaps least discerned 
 by some who think they understand 
 him best. 
 
 My second remark is that, if the lead- 
 ing views of this discourse be just, then 
 love to Jesus Christ depends very little 
 on our conception of his rank in the 
 scale of being. On no other topic have 
 Christians contended so earnestly, and 
 yet it is of secondary importance. To 
 know Jesus Christ is not to know the 
 precise place he occupies in the uni- 
 verse. It is something more ; it is to 
 look into his mind : to approach his 
 soul ; to comprehend his spirit ; to see 
 how he thought, and felt, and purposed, 
 and loved, to understand the work- 
 ings of that pure and celestial principle 
 within him, through which he came 
 among us as our friend, and lived and 
 died for us. I am persuaded that con- 
 troversies about Christ's person have in 
 one way done great injury. They have 
 turned attention from his character. 
 Suppose that, as Americans, we should 
 employ ourselves in debating the ques- 
 tions, where Washington was born, and
 
 328 
 
 PREACHING CHRIST. 
 
 from what spot he came when he ap- 
 peared at the head of our armies ; and 
 that, in the fervor of these contentions, 
 we should overlook the character of his 
 mind, the spirit that moved within him, 
 the virtues which distinguished him, 
 the beamings of a noble, magnanimous 
 soul, how unprofitably should we be 
 employed ! Who is it that understands 
 Washington ? Is it he that can settle 
 his rank in the creation, his early his- 
 tory, his present condition ? or he to 
 whom the soul of that great man is laid 
 open, who comprehends and sympa- 
 thizes with his generous purposes, who 
 understands the energy with which he 
 espoused the cause of freedom and his 
 country, and who receives through ad- 
 miration a portion of the same divine 
 energy ? So in regard to Jesus, the 
 questions which have been agitated 
 about his rank and nature are of in- 
 ferior moment. His greatness belonged 
 not to his condition, but to his mind, 
 his spirit, his aim, his disinterested- 
 ness, his calm, sublime consecration of 
 himself to the high purpose of God. 
 
 My hearers, it is the most interesting 
 event in human history, that such a be- 
 ing as Jesus has entered our world, to 
 
 accomplish the deliverance of our minds 
 from all evil, to bring them to God, to 
 open heaven within them, and thus to 
 fit them for heaven. It is our greatest 
 privilege that he is brought within our 
 view, offered to our imitation, to our 
 trust, to our love. A sincere and en- 
 lightened attachment to him is at once 
 our honor and our happiness, a spring 
 of virtuous action, of firmness in suffer- 
 ing, of immortal hope. But remember, 
 it will not grow up of itself. You must 
 resolve upon it, and cherish it. You 
 must bring Jesus near, as he lives and 
 moves in the gospel. You should meet 
 him in the institution which he espe- 
 cially appointed for the commemoration 
 of himself. You should seek, by pray- 
 er, God's aid in strengthening your love 
 to the Saviour. You should learn his 
 greatness and beneficence by learning 
 the greatness and destination of the 
 souls which he came to rescue and 
 bless. In the last place, you should 
 obey his precepts, and through this obe- 
 dience should purify and invigorate 
 your minds to know and love him more. 
 " Grace be with all them that love our 
 Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." 
 
 PREACHING CHRIST: 
 
 Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. John Emery Abbot, 
 
 Salem, 1815. 
 
 COLOSSIANS i. 28: "Whom we preach, warning 
 every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, 
 that we may present every man perfect in Christ 
 Jesus." 
 
 IN the verses immediately preceding 
 the text we find the Apostle enlarging 
 with his usual zeal and earnestness on 
 a subject peculiarly dear to him, on 
 the glorious mystery of God, or, in 
 other words, on the great purpose of 
 God, which had been kept secret from 
 ages, to make the Gentile world par- 
 takers through faith of the blessings of 
 the long-promised Messiah. " Christ, 
 the hope of glory to the Gentiles," was 
 the theme on which Paul, the Apostle 
 of the Gentiles, delighted to expatiate. 
 
 Having spoken of Jesus in this charac- 
 ter, he immediately adds, " Whom we 
 preach, warning every man, and teach- 
 ing every man in all wisdom, that we 
 may present every man perfect in Christ 
 Jesus." 
 
 On the present occasion, which in- 
 vites us to consider the design and 
 duties of the Christian ministry. I have 
 thought that these words would guide 
 us to many appropriate and useful re- 
 flections. They teach us what the Apos- 
 tle preached : " We preach Christ." 
 They teach us the end or object for 
 which he thus preached : " That we 
 may present every man perfect in Christ 
 Jesus." Following this natural order,
 
 PREACHING CHRIST. 
 
 329 
 
 I shall first consider what is intended 
 by " preaching Christ." I shall then 
 endeavor to illustrate and recommend 
 the end or object for which Christ is to 
 be preached ; and I shall conclude with 
 some remarks on the methods by which 
 this end is to be accomplished. In dis- 
 cussing these topics, on which a variety 
 of sentiment is known to exist, I shall 
 necessarily dissent from some of the 
 views which are cherished by particular 
 classes of Christians. But the frank 
 expression of opinion ought not to be 
 construed into any want of affection or 
 esteem for those from whom I differ. 
 
 I. What are we to understand by 
 " preaching Christ " ? This subject is 
 the more interesting and important, be- 
 cause I fear it has often been misun- 
 derstood. Many persons imagine that 
 Christ is never preached, unless his 
 name is continually repeated and his 
 character continually kept in view. This 
 is an error, and should be exposed. 
 Preaching Christ, then, does not con- 
 sist in making Christ perpetually the 
 subject of discourse, but in inculcating, 
 on his authority, the religion which he 
 taught. Jesus came to be the light and 
 teacher of the world ; and in this sub- 
 lime and benevolent character he un- 
 folded many truths relating to the 
 Universal Father, to his own character, 
 to the condition, duties, and prospects 
 of mankind, to the perfection and true 
 happiness of the human soul, to a fut- 
 ure state of retribution, to the terms of 
 forgiveness, to the means of virtue, and 
 of everlasting life. Now, whenever we 
 teach, on the authority of Jesus, any 
 doctrine or precept included in this 
 extensive system, we " preach Christ." 
 When, for instance, we inculcate on 
 his authority the duties of forgiving 
 enemies, of denying ourselves, of hun- 
 gering after righteousness, we " preach 
 Christ " as truly as when we describe 
 his passion on the cross, or the purpose 
 and the importance of his sufferings. 
 
 By the word " Christ " in the text 
 and in many other places, we are to 
 understand his religion rather than his 
 person. Among the Jews nothing was 
 more common than to give the name of 
 a religious teacher to the system of 
 truth which he taught. We see this 
 continually exemplified in the New Tes- 
 tament. Thus, it is said of the Jews, 
 " They have Moses and the prophets." 
 
 What is meant by this ? that they had 
 Moses residing in person among them ? 
 Certainly not ; but that they had his 
 law, his religion. Jesus says, " I came 
 not to destroy the prophets." What 
 did he mean? that he had not come to 
 slay or destroy the prophets who had 
 died ages before his birth ? Certainly 
 not ; he only intended that his doc- 
 trines were suited to confirm, not to 
 invalidate, the writings of these holy 
 men. According to the same form of 
 speech, Stephen was accused of blas- 
 phemy against Moses, because some of 
 his remarks were construed into a re- 
 proach on the law of Moses. These 
 passages are sufficient to show us that 
 a religion was often called by the name 
 of its teacher ; and conformably to this 
 usage, when Paul says, " We preach 
 Christ," we ought to understand him as 
 affirming that he preached the whole 
 system of doctrines and duties which 
 Christ taught, whether they related to 
 Jesus himself, or to any other subject. 
 
 But there is one passage more de- 
 cisive on this point than any which I 
 have adduced. In the Acts of the 
 Apostles,* James says, " Moses of old 
 time hath in every city them that preach 
 him, being read in the synagogue every 
 Sabbath-day." Here we find the Apos- 
 tle declaring that in every city there 
 were men who preached Moses ; and we 
 are told in what this preaching con- 
 sisted : " Moses is read in the syna- 
 gogue every Sabbath-day." No one 
 acquainted with the ancient services of 
 the synagogue can suppose, for a mo- 
 ment, that the character and offices of 
 Moses were the themes of the Jewish 
 teachers every Sabbath, and that they 
 preached nothing else. It was their 
 custom to read the books of the law 
 in course, and to offer comments upon 
 obscure or important passages. In 
 many parts of these books the name of 
 Moses is not mentioned. We have 
 whole chapters about the tabernacle, 
 and about the rites of cleansing from 
 the leprosy. But, according to James, 
 when these portions were read and 
 explained, Moses was preached ; not 
 because his character was the subject, 
 .but because the instructions contained 
 in these chapters were a part of the 
 religion which he was appointed to 
 
 * Acts xv. 21.
 
 330 
 
 PREACHING CHRIST. 
 
 communicate to the children of Israel. 
 The name of the teacher was given to 
 his doctrine. This form of speech was 
 not peculiar to the Jews ; all nations 
 have probably adopted it. At the pres- 
 ent day, nothing is more common than 
 to hear that Locke, or Newton, or some 
 other distinguished philosopher, is pub- 
 lished, or taught ; not that his personal 
 character and history are made public, 
 but his system of doctrines. In the 
 same way Christ is preached, published, 
 proclaimed when his instructions are 
 delivered, although these instructions 
 may relate to other topics beside his 
 own offices and character. 
 
 I hope I shall not be misunderstood 
 in the remarks which I have now made. 
 Do not imagine that I would exclude 
 from the pulpit discourses on the excel- 
 lence of Jesus Christ. The truths which 
 relate to Jesus himself are among the 
 most important which the gospel re- 
 veals. The relations which Jesus Christ 
 sustains to the world are so important 
 and so tender ; the concern which he 
 has expressed in human salvation so 
 strong and disinterested ; the blessings 
 of pardon and immortal life which he 
 brings so undeserved and unbounded ; 
 his character is such a union of moral 
 beauty and grandeur ; his example is at 
 once so pure and so persuasive ; the 
 events of his life, his miracles, his suffer- 
 ings, his resurrection and ascension, and 
 his offices of intercessor and judge, are 
 so strengthening to faith, hope, and 
 charity, that his ministers should dwell 
 on his name with affectionate veneration, 
 and should delight to exhibit him to the 
 gratitude, love, imitation, and confidence 
 of mankind. 
 
 But whilst the Christian minister is 
 often to insist on the life, the character, 
 the offices, and the benefits of Jesus 
 Christ, let him not imagine that he is 
 preaching Christ only when these are 
 his themes. If he confine himself to 
 these he will not, in the full sense of the 
 word, preach Christ : for this is to preach 
 the whole religion of Jesus, and this re- 
 ligion is of vast extent. It regards man 
 in his diversified and ever-multiplying 
 relations to his Creator and to his fellow- 
 creatures, to the present state and to all 
 future ages. Its aim is to instruct and 
 quicken us to cultivate an enlarged 
 virtue, to cultivate our whole intel- 
 lectual and moral nature. It collects 
 
 and offers motives to piety from the 
 past and from the future, from heaven 
 and hell, from nature and experience, 
 from human example, and from the im- 
 itable excellences of God, from the world 
 without and the world within us. The 
 gospel of Christ is indeed an inexhaust- 
 ible treasury of moral and religious 
 truth. Jesus, the first and best of evan- 
 gelical teachers, did not confine him- 
 self to a few topics, but manifested him- 
 self to be the wisdom of God by the 
 richness and variety of his instructions. 
 To preach Christ is to unfold, as far as 
 our feeble and narrow powers permit, 
 all the doctrines, duties, and motives, 
 which are recorded in the Gospels and 
 in the writings of his inspired Apostles. 
 
 It is not intended by these remarks 
 that all the instructions of Christ are of 
 equal importance, and that all are to be 
 urged with equal frequency and zeal. 
 Some undoubtedly are of greater mo- 
 ment and of more universal application 
 than others. But a minister of a sound 
 and candid mind will be very cautious 
 lest he assign so high a rank to a few 
 doctrines that the rest will sink into 
 comparative insignificance, and almost 
 fade from the minds of his hearers. He 
 will labor to give enlarged and harmoni- 
 ous views of all the principles of Chris- 
 tianity, recollecting that each receives 
 support from the rest, and that no doc- 
 trine or precept will exert its proper in- 
 fluence if swelled into disproportioned 
 importance, or detached from the truths 
 which ought to modify and restrain it. 
 
 It has been the object of these re- 
 marks to show that preaching Christ 
 does not imply that the offices and char- 
 acter of Christ are to be made perpet- 
 ually the subjects of discourse. Where 
 this idea prevails, it too often happens 
 that the religion of Jesus is very par- 
 tially preached. A few topics are re- 
 peated without end. Many delightful 
 and ennobling views of Christianity are 
 seldom or never exhibited. The duties 
 of the gospel receive but a cursory at- 
 tention. Religion is thought to consist 
 in a fervid state of mind, produced by 
 the constant contemplation of a few 
 affecting ideas ; whilst the only accept- 
 able religion, which consists in living 
 " soberly, righteously, and godly in the 
 world," seems to be undervalued as 
 quite an inferior attainment. Where 
 this mistake prevails, we too often dis-
 
 PREACHING CHRIST. 
 
 331 
 
 cover a censorious spirit among hearers, 
 who pronounce with confidence on this 
 and another minister, that they do not 
 preach Christ, because their discourses 
 do not turn on a few topics in relation 
 to the Saviour which are thought to 
 contain the whole of Christianity. Very 
 often the labors of a pious and upright 
 minister are defeated by this prejudice : 
 nor must he wonder if he find himself 
 decried as an enemy to the faith, by 
 those whose want of education or ca- 
 pacity confines them to the narrowest 
 views of the Christian system. May I 
 be permitted, with deference and re- 
 spect, to beseech Christian ministers 
 not to encourage by example this spirit 
 of censure among private Christians. 
 There is no lesson which we can teach 
 our hearers more easily than to think 
 contemptuously and to speak bitterly of 
 other classes of Christians, and espe- 
 cially of their teachers. Let us never 
 forget that we none of us preach Christ 
 in the full import of that phrase. None 
 of us can hope that we give a complete 
 representation of the religion of our 
 Master, that we exhibit every doc- 
 trine without defect or without excess 
 in its due proportions and in its just 
 connections. We of necessity com- 
 municate a portion of our own weakness 
 and darkness to the religion which we 
 dispense. The degree of imperfection 
 indeed differs in different teachers ; but 
 none are free from the universal frailty, 
 and none are authorized to take the seat 
 of judgment, and on the ground of, im- 
 agined errors to deny to others, whose 
 lives are as spotless as their own, a con- 
 scientious purpose to learn and to teach 
 the whole counsel of God. 
 
 II. Having thus considered what is 
 intended by preaching Christ, I proceed 
 to consider, secondly, for what end 
 Christ is to be preached. We preach 
 Christ, says the Apostle, " warning every 
 man, and teaching every man, that we 
 may present every man perfect in Christ 
 Jesus :" that is, perfect in the religion 
 of Christ, or a perfect Christian. From 
 the passage we derive a most important 
 sentiment, confirmed by the whole New 
 Testament, that the great design of all 
 the doctrines and precepts of the gospel 
 is to exalt the character, to promote 
 eminent purity of heart and life, to make 
 men perfect as their Father in heaven is 
 perfect. For what end, then, is Chris- 
 
 tianity to be preached ? The answer is 
 plain. We must preach, not to make 
 fiery partisans, and to swell the number 
 of a sect ; not to overwhelm the mind 
 with fear, or to heat it with feverish rapt- 
 ure : not to form men to the decencies 
 of life, to a superficial goodness, which 
 will secure the admiration of mankind. 
 All these effects fall infinitely short of 
 the great end of the Christian ministry. 
 We should preach that we may make men 
 perfect Christians ; perfect, not accord- 
 ing to the standard of the world, but ac- 
 cording to the law of Christ ; perfect in 
 heart and in life, in solitude and in so- 
 ciety, in the great and in the common 
 concerns of life. Here is the purpose 
 of Christian preaching. In this, as in a 
 common centre, all the truths of the 
 gospel meet ; to this they all conspire ; 
 and no doctrine has an influence on 
 salvation any farther than it is an aid 
 and excitement to the perfecting of our 
 nature. 
 
 The Christian minister needs often to 
 be reminded of this great end of his 
 office, the perfection of the human 
 character. He is too apt to rest in low 
 attainments himself, and to be satisfied 
 with low attainments in others. He ought 
 never to forget the great distinction and 
 glory of the gospel, that it is designed 
 to perfect human nature. All the pre- 
 cepts of this divine system are marked 
 by a sublime character. It demands that 
 our piety be fervent, our benevolence 
 unbounded, and our thirst for righteous- 
 ness strong and insatiable. It enjoins 
 a virtue which does not stop at what is 
 positively prescribed, but which is prod- 
 igal of service to God and to mankind. 
 The gospel enjoins inflexible integrity, 
 fearless sincerity, fortitude which de- 
 spises pain and tramples pleasure under 
 foot in the pursuit of duty, and an inde- 
 pendence of spirit which no scorn can 
 deter and no example seduce from as- 
 serting truth and adhering to the cause 
 which conscience approves. With this 
 spirit of martyrs, this hardness and 
 intrepidity of soldiers of the cross, the 
 gospel calls us to unite the mildest and 
 meekest virtues ; a sympathy which 
 melts over others' woes ; a disinterest- 
 edness which finds pleasure in toils, and 
 labors for others' good ; a humility which 
 loves to bless unseen, and forgets itself 
 in the performance of the noblest deeds. 
 To this perfection of social duty the
 
 332 
 
 PREACHING CHRIST. 
 
 gospel commands us to join a piety which 
 refers every event to the providence of 
 God, and every action to his will ; a 
 love which counts no service hard, and 
 a penitence which esteems no judgment 
 severe ; a gratitude which offers praise 
 even in adversity ; a holy trust unbro- 
 ken by protracted suffering, and a hope 
 triumphant over death. In one word, 
 it enjoins that, loving and confiding in 
 Jesus Christ, we make his spotless char- 
 acter, his heavenly life, the model of 
 our own. Such is the sublimity of char- 
 acter which the gospel demands, and 
 such the end to which our preaching 
 should ever be directed. 
 
 I have dwelt on this end of preaching 
 because it is too often forgotten, and 
 because a stronger conviction of it will 
 give new force and elevation to our in- 
 structions. We need to feel more deeply 
 that we are intrusted with a religion 
 which is designed to ennoble human 
 nature ; which recognizes in man the 
 capacities of all that is good, great, and 
 excellent ; and which offers every en- 
 couragement and aid to the pursuit of 
 perfection. The Christian minister 
 should often recollect that man, though 
 prepense to evil, has yet powers and 
 faculties which may be exalted and 
 refined to angelic glory ; that he is 
 called by the gospel to prepare for the 
 community of angels ; that he is formed 
 for unlimited progress in intellectual 
 and moral excellence and felicity. He 
 should often recollect that in Jesus Christ 
 our nature has been intimately united 
 with the divine, and that in Jesus it is 
 already enthroned in heaven. Famil- 
 iarized to these generous conceptions, 
 the Christian preacher, whilst he faith- 
 fully unfolds to men their guilt and 
 danger, should also unfold their capac- 
 ities of greatness ; should reveal the 
 splendor of that destiny to which they 
 are called by Christ ; should labor to 
 awaken within them aspirations after a 
 nobler character and a higher existence, 
 and to inflame them with the love of all 
 the graces and virtues with which Jesus 
 came to enrich and adorn the human 
 soul. In this way he will prove that he 
 understands the true and great design 
 of the gospel and the ministry, which is 
 nothing less than the perfection of the 
 human character. 
 
 May I be permitted to say, that per- 
 haps one of the greatest defects in our 
 
 preaching is, that it is not sufficiently 
 directed to ennoble and elevate the minds 
 of men. It does not breathe a suffi- 
 ciently generous spirit. It appeals too 
 constantly to the lowest principle of 
 human nature, I mean the principle 
 of fear, which, under judicious excite- 
 ment, is indeed of great and undoubted 
 use, but which, as every parent knows, 
 when habitually awakened, is always 
 found to debase the mind, to break the 
 spirit, to give tameness to the charac- 
 ter, and to chill the best affections. 
 Perhaps one cause of the limited influ- 
 ence of Christianity is that, as it is too 
 often exhibited, it seems adapted to 
 form an abject, servile character, rather 
 than to raise its disciples to true great- 
 ness and dignity. Perhaps, were Chris- 
 tianity more habitually regarded as a 
 system, whose great design it is to in- 
 fuse honorable sentiments, magnanimity, 
 energy, an ingenuous love of God, a su- 
 periority to the senses, a spirit of self- 
 sacrifice, a virtue akin to that of heaven, 
 its reception would be more cordial, and 
 its influence more extensive, more happy, 
 more accordant with its great end, the 
 perfection of human nature. 
 
 III. Having thus considered the end of 
 Christian preaching, I now come to offer, 
 in the third place, a few remarks on the 
 best method of accomplishing it ; and 
 here I find myself obliged to omit a 
 great variety of topics, and can only offer 
 one or two of principal importance. That 
 the gospel may attain its end, may exert 
 the most powerful and ennobling influ- 
 ence on the human character, it must be 
 addressed at once to the understanding 
 and to the heart. It must be so preached 
 as to be firmly believed and deeply felt. 
 To secure to Christianity this firm be- 
 lief, I have only time to observe that it 
 should be preached in a rational man- 
 ner. By this I mean that a Christian 
 minister should beware of offering inter- 
 pretations of Scripture which are repug- 
 nant to any clear discoveries of reason 
 or dictates of conscience. This admo- 
 nition is founded upon the very obvious 
 principle, that a revelation from God 
 must be adapted to the rational and 
 moral nature which He has conferred 
 on man : that God can never contradict 
 in his word what He has himself writ- 
 ten on the human heart, or teaches in 
 his works and providence. Every man 
 who reads the Bible knows that, like
 
 PREACHING CHRIST. 
 
 333 
 
 other books, it has many passages which 
 admit a variety of interpretations. Hu- 
 man language does not admit entire pre- 
 cision. It has often, been observed by 
 philosophers, that the most familiar sen- 
 tences owe their perspicuity, not so much 
 to the definiteness of the language as to 
 an almost incredible activity of the mind, 
 which selects from a variety of mean- 
 ings that which each word demands, 
 and assigns such limits to every phrase 
 as the intention of the speaker, his char- 
 acter and situation, require. In addition 
 to this source of obscurity, to which all 
 writings are exposed, we must remem- 
 ber that the Scriptures were written in a 
 distant age, in a foreign language, by 
 men who were unaccustomed to the sys- 
 tematic arrangements of modern times, 
 and who, although inspired, were left to 
 communicate their thoughts in the style 
 most natural or habitual. Can we won- 
 der, then, that they admit a variety of 
 interpretations ? Now, we owe it to a 
 book, which records, as we believe, rev- 
 elations from heaven, and which is plain- 
 ly designed for the moral improvement 
 of the race, to favor those explications 
 of obscure passages which are seen to 
 harmonize with the moral attributes of 
 God, and with the acknowledged teach- 
 ings of nature and conscience. All those 
 interpretations of the gospel which strike 
 the mind at once as inconsistent with a 
 righteous government of the universe, 
 which require of man what is dispropor- 
 tioned to his nature, or which shock any 
 clear conviction which our experience 
 has furnished, cannot be viewed with 
 too jealous an eye by him who, revering 
 Christianity, desires to secure to it an 
 intelligent belief. 
 
 It is in vain to say that the first and 
 most obvious meaning of Scripture is 
 always to be followed, no matter where 
 it leads. I answer, that the first and 
 most obvious meaning of a passage, 
 written in a foreign language and in re- 
 mote antiquity, is very often false, and 
 such as farther inquiry compels us to 
 abandon. I answer, too, that all sects 
 of Christians agree, and are forced to 
 agree, in frequently forsaking the literal 
 sense, on account of its incongruity 
 with acknowledged truth. There is, in 
 fact, no book in the world which requires 
 us more frequently to restrain unlimited 
 expressions, to qualify the letter by the 
 spirit, and to seek the meaning in the 
 
 state and customs of the writer and of 
 his age, than the New Testament. No 
 book is written in a more popular, fig- 
 urative, and animated style, the very 
 style which requires the most constant 
 exercise of judgment in the reader. 
 The Scriptures are not a frigid digest 
 of Christianity, as if this religion were 
 a mere code of civil laws. They give 
 us the gospel warm from the hearts of 
 its preachers. The language is not that 
 of logicians, not the language of retired 
 and inanimate speculation, but of affec- 
 tion, of zeal, of men who burned to 
 convey deep and vivid impressions of 
 the truth. In understanding such writ- 
 ers, moral feeling is often a better guide 
 than a servile adherence to the literal 
 and most obvious meaning of every 
 word and phrase. It may be said of the 
 New as well as the Old Testament, that 
 sometimes the letter killeth whilst the 
 spirit giveth life. Almost any system 
 may be built on the New Testament 
 by a commentator who, forgetting the 
 general scope of Christianity and the 
 lessons of nature and experience, shall 
 impose on every passage the literal sig- 
 nification which is first offered to the 
 mind. The Christian minister should 
 avail himself, in his exposition of the 
 Divine Word, of the aids of learning 
 and criticism, and also of the aids of 
 reason and conscience. Those inter- 
 pretations of difficult passages which 
 approve themselves to his clear and es- 
 tablished conceptions of rectitude, and 
 to his devout and benevolent affections, 
 he should regard with a favorable eye ; 
 whilst those of an opposite character 
 should be regarded with great distrust. 
 I have said that this rational method 
 of preaching Christianity is important, 
 if we would secure a firm belief to 
 Christianity. Some men may indeed be 
 reconciled to an unreasonable religion ; 
 and terror, that passion which more than 
 any other unsettles the intellect, may 
 silence every objection to the most con- 
 tradictory and degrading principles. But 
 in general the understanding and con- 
 science cannot be entirely subdued. They 
 resist the violence which is done them. 
 A lurking incredulity mingles with the 
 attempt to believe what contradicts the 
 highest principles of our nature. Par- 
 ticularly the most intelligent part of the 
 community, who will ultimately govern 
 public sentiment, will doubt and dis-
 
 334 
 
 PREACHING CHRIST. 
 
 believe the unreasonable system which, 
 perhaps, they find it prudent to acknowl- 
 edge : and will either convert it into an 
 instrument of policy, or seize a favor- 
 able moment for casting off its restraints 
 and levelling its institutions with the 
 dust. Thus important is it that Christi- 
 anity should be recommended to the un- 
 derstandings of men. 
 
 But this is not enough. It is also 
 most important that the gospel should 
 be recommended to the heart. Christi- 
 anity should be so preached as to inter- 
 est the affections, to awaken contrition 
 and fear, veneration and love, gratitude 
 and hope. Some preachers, from ob- 
 serving the pernicious effects of violent 
 and exclusive appeals to the passions, 
 have fallen into an opposite error, which 
 has rendered the labors of their lives 
 almost wholly unfruitful. They have 
 addressed men as mere creatures of 
 intellect ; they have forgotten that affec- 
 tion is as essential to our nature as 
 thought, that action requires motive, 
 that the union of reason and sensibility 
 is the health of the soul, and that with- 
 out moral feeling there can be no 
 strength of moral purpose. They have 
 preached ingeniously, and the hearer 
 has pronounced the preaching true. 
 But the truth, coldly imparted and 
 coldly received, has been forgotten as 
 fast as heard ; no energy of will has 
 been awakened ; no resistance to habit 
 and passion been called forth ; perhaps 
 not a momentary purpose of self-im- 
 provement has glanced through the 
 mind. Preaching, to be effectual, must 
 be as various as our nature. The sun 
 warms at the same moment that it en- 
 lightens : and unless religious truth be 
 addressed at once to the reason and the 
 affections, unless it kindles whilst it 
 guides, it is a useless splendor ; it 
 leaves the heart barren : it produces no 
 fruits of godliness. Let the Christian 
 minister, then, preach the gospel with 
 earnestness, with affection, with a heart 
 warmed by his subject, not thinking of 
 himself, not seeking applause, but so- 
 licitous for the happiness of mankind, 
 tenderly concerned for his people, awake 
 to the solemnities of eternity, and deeply 
 impressed with the worth of the human 
 soul, with the glory and happiness to 
 which it may be exalted, and with the 
 misery and ruin into which it will be 
 plunged by irreligion and vice. Let him 
 
 preach, not to amuse but to convince 
 and awaken : not to excite a momentary 
 interest but a deep and lasting serious- 
 ness ; not to make his hearers think of 
 the preacher but of themselves, of their 
 own characters and future condition. 
 Let him labor, by delineating with un- 
 affected ardor the happiness of virtue, 
 by setting forth religion in its most 
 attractive forms, by displaying the pa- 
 ternal character of God, and the love of 
 Christ which was stronger than death, 
 by unfolding the purity and blessedness 
 of the heavenly world, by revealing to 
 the soul its own greatness, and by per- 
 suasion, by entreaty, by appeals to the 
 best sentiments of human nature, by 
 speaking from a heart convinced of im- 
 mortality, let him labor, by these 
 methods, to touch and to soften his 
 hearers, to draw them to God and duty, 
 to awaken gratitude and love, a sublime 
 hope and a generous desire of exalted 
 goodness. And let him also labor, by 
 solemn warning, by teaching men their 
 responsibility, by setting before sinners 
 the aggravations of their guilt, by show- 
 ing them the ruin and immediate wretch- 
 edness wrought by moral evil in the soul, 
 and by pointing them to approaching 
 death, and the retributions of the future 
 world, let him labor, by these means, 
 to reach the consciences of those whom 
 higher motives will not quicken, to break 
 the slumbers of the worldly, to cut off 
 every false hope, and to persuade the 
 sinner, by a salutary terror, to return to 
 God, and to seek, with a new earnest- 
 ness, virtue, glory, and eternal life. 
 
 NOTE ON THE FIRST HEAD OF THE 
 PRECEDING DISCOURSE. The error 
 which I have opposed on the subject of 
 " preaching Christ," may be traced in a 
 great measure to what appears to me a 
 wrong interpretation of the two first 
 chapters of the First Epistle to the Co- 
 rinthians. In these chapters Paul says 
 that he "determined to know nothing 
 among the Corinthians, save Jesus Christ 
 and him crucified," and speaks once and 
 again of "preaching Christ crucified," 
 &c. It has been supposed that the 
 Apostle here intended to select the par- 
 ticular point on which preaching should 
 chiefly turn, and that we have his au- 
 thority for censuring a discourse which 
 does not relate immediately to the char- 
 acter of Christ, and especially to his
 
 PREACHING CHRIST. 
 
 335 
 
 sufferings t on the cross. But I think 
 that a little attention to the circum- 
 stances of the Apostle and of the Corin- 
 thians will show us that Paul referred to 
 the religion of Jesus generally as the 
 subject of his preaching, and not to a 
 very limited part of it. 
 
 Corinth, being the most commercial 
 city of Greece, was inhabited by Jews 
 as well as Greeks. These Jews, as 
 Paul tells us, "wanted a sign," just as 
 the Pharisees in the time of Christ de- 
 manded " a sign from heaven." That is, 
 they wanted a Messiah who should be 
 marked out to them by a visible descent 
 from heaven, or by some glorious appear- 
 ance from heaven, or by some outward 
 majesty which should be a pledge of his 
 breaking the Roman yoke, and raising 
 Judea to the empire of the world. They 
 wanted a splendid and temporal Mes- 
 siah. The Greeks, on the other hand, 
 who were a speculative people, wanted 
 wisdom, or a system of philosophy, and 
 could hear nothing patiently but the 
 subtile disputations and studied ha- 
 rangues with which they were amused 
 by those who pretended to wisdom. Such 
 was the state of Corinth when Paul en- 
 tered it. Had he brought with him an 
 account of a triumphant Messiah, or an 
 acute philosopher, he would have been 
 received with eagerness. But none were 
 desirous to hear the simple religion of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, who proved his mis- 
 sion, not by subtilties of eloquence, but 
 by miracles evincing the power of God, 
 and who died at last on the ignominious 
 cross. Paul, however, in opposition to 
 Jew and Greek, determined to know 
 nothing of a worldly Messiah, nothing 
 of any old or new scheme of philosophy ; 
 but to know and to preach Jesus Christ, 
 and to exhibit him in a light which Juda- 
 ism and philosophy would alike abhor, as 
 crucified for the recovery of men from 
 error, sin, and condemnation. In other 
 words, he resolved to preach the relig- 
 ion of Jesus in its greatest simplicity, 
 without softening its most offensive feat- 
 ure, the cross of its author, or without 
 borrowing any thing from Moses or from 
 any Gentile philosopher to give currency 
 to his doctrines. This is the amount of 
 what Paul teaches in these chapters. 
 
 We must not imagine, when we read 
 these chapters, that Corinth was a city 
 of professing Christians ; that among 
 these Christians a difference of opinion 
 
 had arisen as to the proper subjects of 
 Christian preaching, and that Paul in- 
 tended to specify the topic on which 
 ministers should chiefly or exclusively 
 insist. This, I fear, is the common im- 
 pression under which this portion of 
 Scripture is read ; but this is altogether 
 erroneous. No controversy of this kind 
 existed ; and Paul, in these chapters, 
 had not the most distant idea of recom- 
 mending one part of the gospel in pref- 
 erence to others, but intended to recom- 
 mend the whole gospel the whole religion 
 of Jesus Christ, in distinction from Juda- 
 ism and Gentile philosophy. The dan- 
 gers of the Corinthian Christians required 
 that he should employ every effort to 
 secure their fidelity to the simple gospel 
 of Jesus. Having been educated in the 
 Jewish or Heathen religions ; living in 
 the midst of Jews and Heathens ; hear- 
 ing perpetually, from one class, that the 
 Messiah was to be a triumphant prince, 
 and that without submission to the law 
 of Moses no one could partake his bless- 
 ings ; and hearing, from the other, 
 perpetual praises of this and another 
 philosopher, and perpetual derision of 
 the gospel, because in its docrines and 
 style it bore no resemblance to the re- 
 finements and rhetoric of their most 
 celebrated sages ; the Corinthian Chris- 
 tians, in these trying circumstances, were 
 strongly tempted to assimilate the gospel 
 to the prevalent religions, to blend with 
 it foreign doctrines, to keep the humil- 
 iation of its author out of sight, and to 
 teach it as a system of philosophy rest- 
 ing on subtile reasoning rather than on 
 miracles and the authority of God. To 
 save them from this danger, a danger 
 which at present we can hardly estimate, 
 the Apostle reminded them that when 
 he came to them he came not with " ex- 
 cellency of speech and with enticing 
 words of man's wisdom," but in demon- 
 stration of the Spirit and of miraculous 
 powers ; that he did not comply with the 
 demands of Greek or Jew ; that he 
 preached a crucified Messiah, and no 
 other teacher or deliverer ; and that he 
 always insisted that the religion of Jesus, 
 unaided by Judaism or philosophy, was 
 able to make men wise to salvation. He 
 also reminded them that this preaching, 
 however branded as foolishness, had 
 proved divinely powerful, and had saved 
 them from that ignorance of God from 
 which human wisdom had been unable
 
 336 
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 to deliver them. These remarks, I hope, 
 will assist common readers in under- 
 standing the chapters under considera- 
 tion. 
 
 We are too apt, in reading the New 
 Testament, and particularly the Epistles, 
 to forget that the gospel was a new re- 
 ligion, and that the Apostles were called 
 to preach Jesus to those who, perhaps, 
 had never before heard his name, and 
 whose prejudices and passions prepared 
 them to contemn and reject his claims. 
 In these circumstances they had to be- 
 gin at the very foundation, to prove to 
 the unbelieving world that Jesus was 
 the Messiah, or sent from God to in- 
 struct and save mankind. This is often 
 called " preaching Christ," especially in 
 the Acts. When converts were made, 
 the work of the Apostles was not ended. 
 These converts wished to bring with 
 them a part of their old religion into the 
 church : and some of the Jews even in- 
 sisted that obedience to Moses was es- 
 sential to salvation. These errors the 
 Apostles resolutely opposed, and, having 
 previously established the Messiahship 
 of Jesus, they next proceeded to estab- 
 lish the sufficiency and perfection of his 
 religion, to show that faith in him, or 
 reception of his gospel, was all that was 
 
 required to salvation. This is some- 
 times called "preaching Christ." These 
 difficulties, which called the Apostles to 
 so much anxiety and toil, are now in a 
 great measure removed. Christian min- 
 isters, at the present day, are not often 
 called to preach Christ in opposition to 
 the infidel, and never in opposition to 
 the weak convert who would incor- 
 porate Judaism or Gentile philosophy 
 with Christianity. The great foundation 
 on which the Apostles spent so much 
 strength is now firmly laid. Our hear- 
 ers generally acknowledge Jesus to be 
 the Messiah, sent by God to be the light 
 of the world, and " able to save to the 
 uttermost all who come to God by him." 
 We are therefore seldom called to preach 
 Christ in the senses which have just 
 been considered, and our preaching must 
 of course differ in a measure from that 
 of the Apostles. But there is another 
 sense of preaching Christ, involved in 
 both the preceding, in which our work 
 precisely accords with theirs. Like 
 them, we are to unfold to those who ac- 
 knowledge Jesus as their Lord all the 
 truths, motives, and precepts which he 
 has left to guide and quicken men to 
 excellence, and to prepare them for a 
 happy immortality. 
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 FIRST DISCOURSE. 
 
 MATTHEW xvi. 24 : " Then said Jesus unto his dis- 
 ciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny 
 himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." 
 
 THIS passage is an example of our 
 Saviours mode of teaching. He has 
 given us his truth in the costume of the 
 age ; and this style is so common in the 
 New Testament that an acquaintance 
 with the usages of those times is neces- 
 sary to the understanding of a large part 
 of his instructions. The cross was then 
 a mode of punishment reserved for the 
 greatest criminals, and. was intended to 
 inflict the deepest disgrace as well as 
 sorest pain. " To take up the cross" 
 had therefore become a proverbial ex- 
 pression of the most dreaded suffering 
 
 and shame. By this phrase in the text 
 Jesus intended to teach that no man 
 could become his disciple without such 
 a deep conviction of the truth and excel- 
 lence of his religion as would fortify the 
 mind against persecution, reproach, and 
 death. The command " to deny our- 
 selves" is more literal, but is an instance 
 of what is very common in our Saviour's 
 teaching, I mean, of the use of un- 
 limited expressions, which require to be 
 restrained by the good sense of the 
 hearer, and which, if taken without con- 
 siderable modification, may lead into 
 pernicious error. We know that this 
 precept, for want of a wise caution, has 
 driven men to self-inflicted penance and 
 to the austerities of the cloister and 
 wilderness ; and it is one among many
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 337 
 
 proofs of the necessity of a calm and 
 sober judgment to a beneficial use of 
 Christianity. 
 
 In this discourse I shall offer remarks 
 on the limits or just extent of Christian 
 self-denial, and on the design of Provi- 
 dence in so constituting us as to make 
 self-denial necessary ; and in discussing 
 these topics I shall set before you its 
 obligation, necessity, and excellence. 
 
 We are to deny ourselves ; but how 
 far ? to what extent ? This is our first 
 inquiry. Are we to deny ourselves 
 wholly ? To deny ourselves in every 
 power, faculty, and affection of our nat- 
 ure ? Has' the duty no bounds ? For 
 example, are we to deny the highest 
 part of our nature, I mean con- 
 science, or the moral faculty ? Are we 
 to oppose our sense of right or desire 
 of virtue ? Every Christian says, No. 
 Conscience is sacred ; and revelation 
 is intended to quicken, not resist it. 
 
 Again, are we to deny reason, the in- 
 tellectual faculty by which we weigh 
 evidence, trace out causes and effects, 
 ascend to universal truths, and seek to 
 establish harmony among all our views ? 
 The answer to this question seems as 
 plain as to the former. Yet many good 
 men have seemed to dread reason, have 
 imagined an inconsistency between faith 
 and a free use of our intellectual powers, 
 and have insisted that it is a religious 
 duty " to prostrate our understandings." 
 To some this may even seem a principal 
 branch of Christian self-denial. The 
 error, I think, is a great one ; and be- 
 lieving that the honor, progress, and 
 beneficial influence of Christianity are 
 involved in its removal, I wish to give it 
 a brief consideration. 
 
 I am told that I must deny reason. 
 I ask. Must I deny it when it teaches 
 me that there is a God ? If so, the 
 very foundation of religion is destroyed, 
 and I am abandoned to utter unbelief. 
 Again, must I deny reason when it for- 
 bids the literal interpretation of the 
 text, which commands us to hate father 
 and mother and our own lives ? If so, 
 I must rupture the most sacred ties of 
 domestic life, and must add to social 
 vices the crime of self-murder. Surely 
 reason, in its teachings on these great 
 subjects, is not to be denied, but re- 
 vered and obeyed ; and if revered here, 
 where ought it to be contemned and 
 renounced ? 
 
 I am told that we have a better guide 
 than reason, even God's word, and that 
 this is to be followed and the other 
 denied. But I ask, How do I know 
 that Christianity is God's word ? Are 
 not the evidences of this religion sub- 
 mitted to reason ? and if this faculty be 
 unworthy of trust, is not revelation 
 necessarily involved in the same con- 
 demnation ? The truth is, and it ought 
 not to be disguised, that our ultimate 
 reliance is, and must be, on our own 
 reason. Faith in this power lies at the 
 foundation of all other faith. No trust 
 can be placed in God, if we discredit 
 the faculty by which God is discerned. 
 I have another objection to the doctrine 
 that we must deny reason in order to 
 follow revelation. Reason is the very 
 faculty to which revelation is addressed, 
 and by which alone it can be explained. 
 Without it we should be incapable of 
 divine teaching, just as without the eye 
 we should lose the happiest influences 
 of the sun ; and they who would dis- 
 courage the use of reason, that we may 
 better receive revelation, are much like 
 those who should bind up or pluck out 
 the eye that we might enjoy to the full 
 the splendor of day. 
 
 Perhaps I shall be pointed to the 
 many and gross errors into which reason 
 has fallen on almost every subject, and 
 shall be told that here are motives for 
 distrusting and denying it. I reply, 
 first, by asking how we detect these 
 errors ? By what power do we learn 
 that reason so often misguides us ? Is 
 it not by reason itself ? and shall we 
 renounce it on account of its capacity 
 of rectifying its own wrong judgments ? 
 Consider next, that on no subject has 
 reason gone more astray than in the 
 interpretation of the Scriptures ; so 
 that if it is to be denied on account of 
 its errors, we must especially debar it 
 from the study of revelation ; in other 
 words, we must shut the word of God 
 in despair, a consequence which, to 
 a Protestant, is a sufficient refutation of 
 the doctrine from which it flows. 
 
 A common method of enforcing the 
 denial of reason is to contrast it with 
 the infinite intelligence of God, and. 
 then to ask whether it can be pros- 
 trated too submissively, or renounced 
 too humbly, before him. I acknowledge 
 reverently the immeasurable superiority 
 of God to human reason ; but I do not 
 
 22
 
 338 
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 therefore contemn or renounce it ; for, 
 in the first place, it is as true of the 
 " rapt seraph "as of man, that his in- 
 telligence is most narrow, compared 
 with the divine. Is no honor therefore 
 due to angelic wisdom ? In the next 
 place, I observe that human reason, 
 imperfect though it be, is still the off- 
 spring of God, allied to him intimately, 
 and worthy of its divine Parent. There 
 is no extravagance in calling it, as is 
 sometimes done, "a beam of the infinite 
 light ; " for it involves in its very es- 
 sence those immutable and everlasting 
 principles of truth and rectitude which 
 constitute the glory of the Divine Mind. 
 It ascends to the sublime idea of God 
 by possessing kindred attributes, and 
 knows him only through its affinity with 
 him. It carries within itself the germ 
 of that spiritual perfection which is the 
 great end of the creation. Is it not, 
 then, truly a "partaker of a divine 
 nature " ? Can we think or speak of it 
 too gratefully or with too much respect ? 
 The infinity of God, so far from calling 
 on me to prostrate and annihilate reason, 
 exalts my conception of it. It is my 
 faith in this perfection of the Divine 
 Mind that inspires me with reverence 
 for the human, for they are intimately 
 connected, the latter being a derivation 
 from the former, and endued with the 
 power of approaching its original more 
 and more through eternity. Severed 
 from God, reason would lose its gran- 
 deur. In his infinity it has at once a 
 source and a pledge of endless and 
 unbounded improvement. God delights 
 to communicate himself ; and therefore 
 his greatness, far from inspiring con- 
 tempt for human reason, gives it a 
 sacredness, and opens before it the 
 most elevating hopes. The error of 
 men is not that they exaggerate, but 
 that they do not know or suspect the 
 worth and dignity of their rational 
 nature. 
 
 Perhaps I shall be told that reason is 
 not to be denied universally, but only 
 in cases where its teachings are con- 
 tradicted by revelation. To this I reply 
 that a contradiction between reison and 
 a genuine revelation cannot exist. A 
 doctrine claiming a divine origin would 
 refute itself, by opposing any of the 
 truths which reason intuitively discerns, 
 or which it gathers from nature. God 
 is the " Father of lights " and the " Au- 
 
 thor of concord," and He cannot darken 
 and distract the human mind by jarring 
 and irreconcilable instructions. He can- 
 not subvert the authority of the very 
 faculty through which we arrive at the 
 knowledge of himself. A revelation 
 from the Author of our rational nature 
 will certainly be adapted to its funda- 
 mental laws. I am aware that it is very 
 possible to give the name of reason to 
 rash prejudices and corrupt opinions, 
 and that on this ground we may falsely 
 pronounce a genuine revelation to be 
 inconsistent with reason ; and our lia- 
 bleness to this delusion binds us to 
 judge calmly, cautiously, and in the fear 
 of God. But if. after a deliberate and 
 impartial use of our best faculties, a 
 professed revelation seems to us plainly 
 to disagree with itself or to clash with 
 great principles which we cannot ques- 
 tion, we ought not to hesitate to with- 
 hold from it our belief. I am surer that 
 my rational nature is from God than 
 that any book is an expression of his 
 will. This light in my own breast is his 
 primary revelation, and all subsequent 
 ones must accord with it, and are, in fact, 
 intended to blend with and brighten it. 
 My hearers, as you value Christianity, 
 never speak of it as in any thing op- 
 posed to man's rational nature. Join 
 not its foes in casting on it this reproach. 
 It was given, not to supersede our 
 rational faculties, but to quicken and 
 invigorate them, to open a wider field 
 to thought, to bring peace into the in- 
 tellect as well as into the heart, to give 
 harmony to all our views. We griev- 
 ously wrong Christianity by supposing 
 it to raise a standard against reason, or 
 to demand the sacrifice of our noblest 
 faculties. These are her allies, friends, 
 kindred. With these she holds unalter- 
 able concord. Whenever doctrines are 
 taught you from the Christian records 
 opposing any clear conviction of reason 
 and conscience, be assured that it is 
 not the teaching of Christ which you 
 hear. Some rash human expounder is 
 substituting his own weak, discordant 
 tones for the voice of God, which they 
 no more resemble than the rattling 
 chariot-wheel does heaven's awful thun- 
 der. Never, never do violence to your 
 rational nature. He who in any case 
 admits doctrines which contradict rea- 
 son, has broken down the great barrier 
 between truth and falsehood, and lays
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 339 
 
 open his mind to every delusion. The 
 great mark of error, which is incon- 
 sistency, ceases to shock him. He has 
 violated the first law of the intellect, and 
 must pay the fearful penalty. Happy 
 will it be for him if, by the renuncia- 
 tion of reason, he be not prepared for 
 the opposite extreme, and do not, 
 through a natural reaction, rush into 
 the excess of incredulity. In the rec- 
 ords of individuals and of the race, it 
 is not uncommon for an era of intel- 
 lectual prostration to be followed by an 
 era of proud and licentious philosophy ; 
 nor will this alternation cease to form 
 this history of the human mind till the 
 just rights of reason be revered. 
 
 I will notice one more, and a very 
 common one, in which the duty of de- 
 nying reason is urged. We are told 
 that there is one case in which we ought 
 to prostrate our understandings, and 
 that is the case of mysteries, whenever 
 they are taught in the word of God. 
 The answer to this popular language is 
 short. Mysteries, continuing such, can- 
 not, from their very nature, be believed, 
 and of consequence reason incurs no 
 blame in refusing them assent. This 
 will appear by considering what a mys- 
 tery is. In the language of Scripture, 
 and in its true sense, it is a secret, 
 something unknown. I say, then, that 
 from its nature it cannot be an object of 
 belief ; for to know and to believe are 
 expressions of the same act of the mind, 
 differing chiefly in this, that the form.er 
 is more applicable to what admits of dem- 
 onstration, the latter to probable truth. 
 I have no disposition to deny the exist- 
 ence of mysteries. Every truth involves 
 them. Every object which falls under 
 our notice, the most common and simple, 
 contains much that we do not know and 
 cannot now penetrate. We know not, 
 for example, what it is which holds to- 
 
 f ether the particles of the meanest stone 
 eneath our feet, nor the manner in 
 which the humblest plant grows. That 
 there are mysteries, secrets, things un- 
 known without number, I should be the 
 last to deny. I only maintain and in 
 so doing I utter an identical proposition 
 that what is mysterious, secret, un- 
 known, cannot at the same time be 
 known or an object of faith. It is a great 
 and common error to confound facts 
 which we understand with the mysteries 
 which lurk under them, and to suppose 
 
 that in believing the first we believe the 
 last. But no two things are more dis- 
 tinct, nor does the most thorough knowl- 
 edge of the one imply the least percep- 
 tion of the other. For example, my 
 hand is moved by the act of my will. 
 This is a plain fact. The words which 
 convey it are among the most intelligible. 
 I believe it without doubt. But under 
 this fact, which I so well know, lies a 
 great mystery. The manner in which 
 the will acts on the hand, or the process 
 which connects them, is altogether un- 
 known. The fact and the mystery, as 
 you see, have nothing in common. The 
 former is so manifest that I cannot, if I 
 would, withhold from it my faith. Of 
 the latter not even a glimpse is afforded 
 me : not an idea of it has dawned on the 
 mind ; and without ideas, there can, of 
 course, be no knowledge or belief. 
 These remarks apply to revelation as 
 well as to nature. The subjects of which 
 revelation treats God, Christ, human 
 nature, holiness, heaven, contain infi- 
 nite mysteries. What is revealed in regard 
 to them is indeed as nothing compared 
 with what remains secret. But "secret 
 things belong to God," and the pride of 
 reason is manifested not in declining, 
 but in professing to make them objects 
 of faith. It is the influence of time and 
 of intellectual improvement to bring mys- 
 teries to light, both in nature and re- 
 ligion ; and just as far as this process 
 goes on, the belief of them becomes 
 possible and right. Thus, the cause of 
 eclipses, which was once a mystery, is 
 now disclosed ; and who of us does not 
 believe it ? In like manner Christ re- 
 vealed "the mysteries of the kingdom 
 of heaven," or the purposes and methods 
 of God which had been kept secret for 
 ages, in relation to the redemption of the 
 world from sin, death, and woe. Being 
 now revealed, or having ceased to be 
 mysteries, these have become objects of 
 faith, and reason ranks them among its 
 most glorious truths. 
 
 From what has been said, we see that 
 to deny reason is no part of religion. 
 Never imagine yourselves called to pros- 
 trate and contemn this noble nature. 
 Reverence conscience. Foster, extend, 
 enlighten intellect. Never imagine that 
 you are forsaking God in reposing a 
 trust in the faculties He has given you. 
 Only exercise them with impartiality, 
 disinterestedness, and a supreme love
 
 340 
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 of truth, and their instructions will con- 
 spire with revelation, and a beautiful 
 harmony will more and more manifest 
 itself in the lessons which God's book 
 and God's works, which Christ and con- 
 science teach. 
 
 But if reason and conscience are not 
 to be denied, what is ? I answer, that 
 there are other principles in our nature. 
 Man is not wholly reason and con- 
 science. He has various appetites, pas- 
 sions, desires, resting on present gratifi- 
 cation and on outward objects ; some of 
 which we possess in common with in- 
 ferior animals, such as sensual appetites 
 and anger ; and others belong more to 
 the mind, such as love of power, love of 
 honor, love of property, love of society, 
 love of amusement, or a taste for litera- 
 ture and elegant arts ; but all referring 
 to our present being, and terminating 
 chiefly on ourselves, or on a few beings 
 who are identified with ourselves. These 
 are to be denied or renounced, by which 
 I mean not exterminated, but renounced 
 as masters, guides, lords, and brought in- 
 to strict and entire subordination to our 
 moral and intellectual powers. It is a 
 false idea that religion requires the ex- 
 termination of any principle, desire, ap- 
 petite, or passion which our Creator has 
 implanted. Our nature is a whole, a 
 beautiful whole, and no part can be 
 spared. You might as properly and in- 
 nocently lop off a limb from the body as 
 eradicate any natural desire from the 
 mind. All our appetites are in them- 
 selves innocent and useful, ministering 
 to the general weal of the soul. They 
 are like the elements of the natural world, 
 parts of a wise and beneficent system, 
 but, like those elements, are beneficent 
 only when restrained. 
 
 There are two remarks relating to our 
 appetites and desires which will show 
 their need of frequent denial and con- 
 stant control. In the first place, it is 
 true of them all that they do not carry 
 within themselves their, own rule. They 
 are blind impulses. Present their ob- 
 jects, and they are excited as easily 
 when gratification would be injurious as 
 when it would be useful. We are not 
 so constituted, for example, that we hun- 
 ger and thirst for those things only 
 which will be nutritive and wholesome, 
 and lose all hunger and thirst at the 
 moment when we have eaten or drunk 
 enough. We are not so made that the 
 
 desire of property springs up only when 
 property can be gained by honest means, 
 and that it declines and dies as soon 
 as we have acquired a sufficiency for 
 ourselves and for usefulness. Our de- 
 sires are undiscerning instincts, gener- 
 ally directed to what is useful, but often 
 clamoring for gratification, which would 
 injure health, debilitate the mind, or op- 
 pose the general good ; and this blind- 
 ness of desire makes the demand for 
 self-denial urgent and continual. 
 
 I pass to a second remark. Our ap- 
 petites and desires carry with them a 
 principle of growth or tendency to en- 
 largement. They expand by indulgence, 
 and, if not restrained, they fill and 
 exhaust the soul, and hence are to be 
 strictly watched over and denied. Nat- 
 ure has set bounds to the desires of the 
 brute, but not to human desire, which 
 partakes of the illimitableness of the 
 soul to which it belongs. In brutes, for 
 example, the animal appetites impel to 
 a certain round of simple gratifications, 
 beyond which they never pass. But 
 man, having imagination and invention, 
 is able by these noble faculties to whet 
 his sensual desires indefinitely. He is 
 able to form new combinations of ani- 
 mal pleasures, and to provoke appetite 
 by stimulants. The East gives up its 
 spices, and the South holds not back its 
 vintage. Sea and land are rifled for lux- 
 uries. Whilst the animal finds its nour- 
 ishment- in a few plants, perhaps in a 
 single blade, man's table groans under 
 the spoils of all regions ; and the conse- 
 quence is that in not a few cases the 
 whole strength of the soul runs into ap- 
 petite, just as some rich soil shoots up 
 into poisonous weeds, and man, the ra- 
 tional creature of God, degenerates into 
 the most thorough sensualist. As an- 
 other illustration of the tendency of our 
 desires to grow and usurp the whole 
 mind, take the love of property. We 
 see this every day gaining dangerous 
 strength, if left to itself, if not denied 
 or curbed. It is a thirst which is in- 
 flamed by the very copiousness of its 
 draughts. Anxiety grows with posses- 
 sion. Riches become dearer by time. 
 The love of money, far from withering 
 in life's winter, strikes deeper and 
 deeper root in the heart of age. He 
 who has more than he can use or man- 
 age, grows more and more eager and 
 restless for new gains, muses by day
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 341 
 
 and dreams by night of wealth ; and in 
 this way the whole vigor of his soul, of 
 intellect and affection, shoots up into an 
 intense, unconquerable, and almost infi- 
 nite passion for accumulation. 
 
 It is an interesting and solemn reflec- 
 tion, that the very nobleness of human 
 nature may become the means and in- 
 strument of degradation. The powers 
 which ally us to God, when pressed into 
 the service of desire and appetite, en- 
 large desire into monstrous excess, and 
 irritate appetite into fury. The rapidity 
 of thought, the richness of imagination, 
 the resources of invention, when en- 
 slaved to any passion, give it an extent 
 and energy unknown to inferior nat- 
 ures ; and just in proportion as this 
 usurper establishes its empire over us, 
 all the nobler attainments and products 
 of the soul perish. Truth, virtue, honor, 
 religion, hope, faith, charity, die. Here 
 we see the need of self-denial. The 
 lower principles of our nature not only 
 act blindly, but, if neglected, grow in- 
 definitely, and overshadow and blight 
 and destroy every better growth. With- 
 out self-restraint and self-denial, the pro- 
 portion, order, beauty, and harmony of 
 the spiritual nature are subverted, and 
 the soul becomes as monstrous and de- 
 formed as the body would become were 
 all the nutriment to flow into a few or- 
 gans, and these the least valuable, and 
 to break out into loathsome excres- 
 cences, whilst the eye, the ear, and the 
 active limbs should pine, and be palsied, 
 and leave us without guidance or power.' 
 
 Do any of you now ask, how it comes 
 to pass that we are so constituted ; why 
 we are formed with desires so blind and 
 strong, and tending so constantly to en- 
 largement and dominion ; and how we 
 can reconcile this constitution with 
 God's goodness ? This is our second 
 question. Some will answer it by say- 
 ing that this constitution is a sinful nat- 
 ure derived from our first parents ; that 
 it comes not from God, but from Adam ; 
 that it is a sad inheritance from the first 
 fallen pair ; and that God is not to be 
 blamed for it, but our original progeni- 
 tor. But I confess this explanation 
 does not satisfy me. Scripture says it 
 was God who made me, not Adam. 
 What I was at birth, I was by the ordi- 
 nance of God. Make the connection 
 between Adam and his posterity as close 
 as you will, God must have intended it, 
 
 and God has carried it into effect. My 
 soul, at the moment of its creation, was 
 as fresh from the hands of the Deity as 
 if no human parent had preceded me ; 
 and I see not how to shift off on any 
 other being the reproach of my nature, 
 if it deserve reproach. But does it 
 merit blame ? Is the tendency to ex- 
 cess and growth, which we are conscious 
 of in our passions and appetites, any 
 derogation from the goodness or wis- 
 dom of our Maker ? Can we find only 
 evil in such a constitution ? Perhaps it 
 may minister to the highest purpose of 
 God. 
 
 It is true that, as we are now made, 
 our appetites and desires often war 
 against reason, conscience, and relig- 
 ion. But why is this warfare appointed ? 
 Not to extinguish these high principles, 
 but to awaken and invigorate them. It 
 is meant to give them a field for ac- 
 tion, occasion for effort, and means of 
 victory. True, virtue is thus opposed 
 and endangered ; but virtue owes its 
 vigor and hardihood to obstacles, and 
 wins its crown by conflict. I do not 
 say that God can find no school for 
 character but temptation, and trial, and 
 strong desire ; but I do say that the 
 present state is a fit and noble school. 
 You, my hearers, would have the path 
 of virtue from the very beginning smooth 
 and strewed with flowers ; and would 
 this train the soul to energy ? You 
 would have pleasure always coincide 
 with duty ; and how, then, would you 
 attest your loyalty to duty ? You would 
 have conscience and desire always speak 
 the same language and prescribe the 
 same path ; and how, then, would con- 
 science assert its supremacy ? God 
 has implanted blind desires, which 
 often rise up against reason and con- 
 science, that He may give to these high 
 faculties the dignity of dominion and 
 the joy of victory. He has surrounded 
 us with rivals to himself, that we may 
 love him freely, and by our own unfet- 
 tered choice erect his throne in our 
 souls. He has given us strong desires 
 of inferior things, that the desire of ex- 
 cellence may grow stronger than all. 
 Make such a world as you wish, let no 
 appetite or passion ever resist God's 
 will, no object of desire ever come in 
 competition with duty ; and where 
 would be the resolution, and energy, 
 and constancy, and effort, and purity,
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 the trampling under foot of low inter- 
 ests, the generous self-surrender, the 
 heroic devotion, all the sublimities of 
 virtue, which now throw lustre over 
 man's nature and speak of his immor- 
 tality ? You would blot the precept of 
 self-denial from the Scriptures, and the 
 need of it from human life, and in so 
 doing you would blot out almost every 
 interesting passage in man's history. 
 Let me ask you, when you read that 
 history, what is it which most interests 
 and absorbs you, which seizes on the 
 imagination and memory, which agitates 
 the soul to its centre ? Who is the man 
 whom you select from the records of 
 time as the object of your special admi- 
 ration ? Js it he who lived to indulge 
 himself ? whose current of life flowed 
 most equably and pleasurably ? whose 
 desires were crowned most liberally 
 with means of gratification ? whose ta- 
 ble was most luxuriantly spread ? and 
 whom Fortune made the envy of his 
 neighborhood by the fulness of her 
 gifts ? Were such the men to whom 
 monuments have been reared, and whose 
 memories, freshened with tears of joy 
 and reverence, grow and flourish and 
 spread through every age ? Oh, no ! 
 He whom we love, whose honor we 
 most covet, is he who has most denied 
 and subdued himself ; who has made 
 the most entire sacrifice of appetites 
 and passions and private interest to 
 God, and virtue, and mankind ; who has 
 walked in a rugged path, and clung to 
 good and great ends in persecution and 
 pain ; who, amidst the solicitations of 
 ambition, ease, and private friendship, 
 and the menaces of tyranny and malice, 
 has listened to the voice of conscience, 
 and found a recompense for blighted 
 hopes and protracted suffering in con- 
 scious uprightness and the favor of 
 God. Who is it that is most lovely in 
 domestic life ? It is the martyr to do- 
 mestic affection, the mother forgetting 
 herself, and ready to toil, suffer, die for 
 the happiness and virtue of her chil- 
 dren. Who is it that we honor in pub- 
 lic life ? It is the martyr to his country, 
 he who serves her not when she has 
 honors for his brow and wealth for his 
 coffers, but who clings to her in her 
 danger and fallen glories, and thinks 
 life a cheap sacrifice to her safety and 
 freedom. Whom does the church re- 
 tain in most grateful remembrance, and 
 
 pronounce holy and blessed ? The self- 
 denying, self-immolating apostle, the 
 fearless confessor, the devoted martyr, 
 men who have held fast the truth even 
 in death, and bequeathed it to future 
 ages amidst blood. Above all, to what 
 moment of the life of Jesus does the 
 Christian turn as the most affecting and 
 sublime illustration of his divine char- 
 acter ? It is that moment when, in the 
 spirit of self-sacrifice, denying every 
 human passion, and casting away every 
 earthly interest, he bore the agony and 
 shame of the cross. Thus all great 
 virtues bear the impress of self-denial ; 
 and were God's present constitution of 
 our nature and life so reversed as to 
 demand no renunciation of desire, the 
 chief interest and glory of our present 
 being would pass away. There would 
 be nothing in history to thrill us with 
 admiration. We should have no con- 
 sciousness of the power and greatness 
 of the soul. We should love feebly 
 and coldly, for we should find nothing 
 in one another to love earnestly. Let 
 us not, then, complain of Providence 
 because it has made self-denial neces- 
 sary ; or complain of religion because it 
 summons us to this work. Religion and 
 nature here hold one language. Our 
 own souls bear witness to the teaching 
 of Christ, that it is the "narrow way" 
 of self-denial "which leadeth unto life." 
 My friends, at death, if reason is 
 spared to us and memory retains its 
 hold on the past, will it gratify us to 
 see that we have lived not to deny but 
 to indulge ourselves, that we have bowed 
 our souls to any passion, that we gave 
 the reins to lust, that we were palsied 
 by sloth, that through love of gain we 
 hardened ourselves against .the claims 
 of humanity, or through love of man's 
 favor parted with truth and moral inde- 
 pendence, or that in any thing reason 
 and conscience were sacrificed to the 
 impulse of desire, and God forgotten 
 for present good ? Shall we then find 
 comfort in remembering our tables of 
 luxury, our pillows of down, our wealth 
 amassed and employed for private ends, 
 or our honors won by base compliance 
 with the world ? Did any man at his 
 death ever regret his conflicts with him- 
 self, his victories over appetite, his 
 scorn of impure pleasures, or his suffer- 
 ings for righteousness' sake ? Did any 
 man ever mourn that he had impover-
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 543 
 
 ished himself by integrity, or worn out 
 his frame in the service of mankind ? 
 Are these the recollections which har- 
 row the soul, and darken and appal the 
 last hour? To whom is the last hour 
 most serene and full of hope ? Is it 
 not to him who, amidst perils and allure- 
 ments, has denied himself, and taken up 
 the cross with the holy resolution of 
 Jesus Christ ? 
 
 SECOND DISCOURSE. 
 
 MATTHEW xvi. 24 : " Then said Jesus unto his dis- 
 ciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny 
 himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." 
 
 IN the preceding discourse I spoke of 
 the just limits and moral dignity of self- 
 denial. I resume the subject because it 
 throws much light on the nature of true 
 virtue, and helps us to distinguish moral 
 goodness from qualities which resemble 
 it. Clear conceptions on this point are 
 inestimable. To love and seek excel- 
 lence we must know what it is, and sep- 
 arate it from counterfeits. From want 
 of just views of virtue and piety, men's 
 admiration and efforts are often wasted, 
 and sometimes carry them wide of the 
 great object of human life. Perhaps 
 truth on this subject cannot be brought 
 out more clearly than by considering 
 the nature of self-denial. Such will be 
 the aim of this discourse. 
 
 To deny ourselves is to deny, to with- 
 stand, to renounce whatever, within or 
 without, interferes with our conviction 
 of right or with the will of God. It is 
 to suffer, to make sacrifices for duty 
 or our principles. The question now 
 offers itself, What constitutes the sin- 
 gular merit of this suffering ? Mere 
 suffering, we all know, is not virtue. 
 Evil men often endure pain as well as 
 the good, and are evil still. This and 
 this alone constitutes the worth and im- 
 portance of the sacrifice, suffering, which 
 enters into self-denial, that it springs 
 from and manifests moral strength, power 
 over ourselves, force of purpose, or the 
 mind's resolute determination of itself 
 to duty. It is the proof and result of 
 inward energy. Difficulty, hardship, 
 suffering, sacrifices, are tests and meas- 
 ures of moral force, and the great means 
 of its enlargement. To withstand these 
 is the same thing as to put forth power. 
 Self-denial, then, is the will acting with 
 
 power in the choice and prosecution of 
 duty. Here we have the distinguishing 
 glory of self-denial, and here we have 
 the essence and distinction of a good 
 and virtuous man. 
 
 The truth to which these views lead 
 us, and which I am now solicitous to 
 enforce, is this, that the great char- 
 acteristic of a virtuous or religious mind 
 is strength of moral purpose. This force 
 is the measure of excellence. The very 
 idea of duty implies that we are bound 
 to adopt and pursue it with a stronger 
 and more settled determination than any 
 other object, and virtue consists in fidel- 
 ity to this primary dictate of conscience. 
 We have virtue only as far as we exert 
 inward energy, or as far as we put forth 
 a strong and overcoming will in obeying 
 the law of God and of our own minds. 
 Let this truth be deeply felt. Let us 
 not confide in good emotions, in kind 
 feelings, in tears for the suffering, or in 
 admiration of noble deeds. These are 
 not goodness in the moral and Chris- 
 tian sense of that word. It is force of 
 upright and holy purpose, attested and 
 approved by withstanding trial, temp- 
 tation, allurement, and suffering ; it is 
 this in which virtue consists. I know 
 nothing else which an enlightened con- 
 science approves, nothing else which 
 God will accept. 
 
 I am aware that if I were called upon 
 to state my ideas of a perfect character, 
 I should give an answer that would 
 seem at first to contradict the doctrine 
 just expressed, or to be inconsistent 
 with the stress which I have laid on 
 strength of moral purpose. I should 
 say, that perfection of mind, like that of 
 the body, consists of two elements, 
 of strength and beauty : that it consists 
 of firmness and mildness, of force and 
 tenderness, of vigor and grace. It 
 would ill become a teacher of Chris- 
 tianity to overlook the importance of 
 sympathy, gentleness, humility, and 
 charity, in his definition of moral excel- 
 lence. The amiable, attractive, mild 
 attributes of the mind are recommended 
 as of great price in the sight of God, by 
 him who was emphatically meek and 
 lowly in heart. Still I must say that all 
 virtue lies in strength of character or of 
 moral purpose ; for these gentle, sweet, 
 winning qualities rise into virtue only 
 when pervaded and sustained by moral 
 energy. On this they must rest, by this
 
 344 
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 they must be controlled and exalted, or 
 they have no moral worth. I acknowl- 
 edge love, kindness, to be a great virtue ; 
 but what do I mean by love when I thus 
 speak ? Do I mean a constitutional 
 tenderness ? an instinctive sympathy ? 
 the natural and almost necessary at- 
 tachment to friends and benefactors ? 
 the kindness which is inseparable from 
 our social state, and which is never 
 wholly extinguished in the human breast ? 
 In all these emotions of our nature I 
 see the kind design of God ; I see a 
 beauty ; I see the germ and capacity of 
 an ever growing charity. But they are 
 not virtues, they are not proper objects 
 of moral approbation, nor do they give 
 any sure pledge of improvement. This 
 natural amiableness I too often see in 
 company with sloth, with uselessness, 
 with the contemptible vanity and dis- 
 sipation of fashionable life. It is no 
 ground of trust, no promise of fidelity in 
 any of the great exigencies of life. The 
 love, the benevolence which I honor as 
 virtue, is not the gift of nature or con- 
 dition, but the growth and manifestation 
 of the soul's moral power. It is a spirit 
 chosen as excellent, cherished as divine, 
 protected with a jealous care, and espe- 
 cially fortified by the resistance and 
 subjection of opposite propensities. It 
 is the soul determining itself to break 
 every chain of selfishness, to enlarge 
 and to invigorate the kind affections, to 
 identify itself with other beings, to sym- 
 pathize not with a few, but with all the 
 living and rational children of God, to 
 honor others' worth, to increase and en- 
 joy their happiness, to partake in the 
 universal goodness of the Creator, and 
 to put down within itself every motion 
 of pride, anger, or sensual desire incon- 
 sistent with this pure charity. In other 
 words, it is strength of holy purpose 
 infused into the kind affections, which 
 raises them into virtues, or gives them a 
 moral worth not found in constitutional 
 amiableness. 
 
 I read in the Scriptures the praises of 
 meekness. But when I see a man meek 
 or patient of injury through tameness, 
 or insensibility, or want of self-respect, 
 passively gentle, meek through consti- 
 tution or fear, I look on him with feel- 
 ings very different from veneration. It 
 is the meekness of principle ; it is mild- 
 ness replete with energy ; it is the for- 
 bearance of a man who feels a wrong, 
 
 but who curbs anger, who though in- 
 jured resolves to be just, who volun- 
 tarily remembers that his foe is a man 
 and a brother, who dreads to surrender 
 himself to his passions, who in the mo- 
 ment of provocation subjects himself to 
 reason and religion, and who holds fast 
 the great truth, that the noblest victory 
 over a foe is to disarm and subdue him 
 by equity and kindness, it is this 
 meekness which I venerate, and which 
 seems to me one of the divinest virt- 
 ues. It is moral power, the .strength of 
 virtuous purpose, pervading meekness, 
 which gives it all its title to respect. 
 
 It is worthy of special remark, that 
 without this moral energy, resisting 
 passion and impulse, our tenderest at- 
 tachments degenerate more or less into 
 weaknesses and immoralities : some- 
 times prompting us to sympathize with 
 those whom we love in their errors, 
 prejudices, and evil passions ; some- 
 times inciting us to heap upon them in- 
 jurious praises and indulgences ; some- 
 times urging us to wrong or neglect 
 others, that we may the more enjoy or 
 serve our favorites ; and sometimes poi- 
 soning our breasts with jealousy or envy, 
 because our affection is not returned 
 with equal warmth. The principle of 
 love, whether exercised towards our 
 relatives or our country, whether mani- 
 fested in courtesy or compassion, can 
 only become virtue, can only acquire 
 purity, consistency, serenity, dignity, 
 when imbued, swayed, cherished, en- 
 larged by the power of a virtuous will, 
 by a self-denying energy. It is inward 
 force, power over ourselves, which is 
 the beginning and the end of virtue. 
 
 What I have now said of the kind 
 affections is equally true of the relig- 
 ious ones. These have virtue in them 
 only as far as they are imbued with 
 self-denying strength. I know that mul- 
 titudes place religion in feeling. Ar- 
 dent sensibility is the measure of piety. 
 He who is wrought up by preaching or 
 sympathy into extraordinary fervor, is 
 a saint ; and the less he governs himself 
 in his piety, the more he is looked upon 
 as inspired. But I know of no religion 
 which has moral worth, or is acceptable 
 to God, but that which grows from and 
 is nourished by our own spiritual, self- 
 denying energy. Emotion towards God, 
 springing up without our own thought 
 or care, grateful feelings at the recep-
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 345 
 
 tion of signal benefits, the swelling of 
 the soul at the sight of nature, tender- 
 ness awakened by descriptions of the 
 love and cross of Christ, these, 
 though showing high capacities, though 
 means and materials of piety, are not 
 of themselves acceptable religion. The 
 religious character which has true virtue, 
 and which is built upon a rock, is that 
 which has been deliberately and reso- 
 lutely adopted and cherished as our 
 highest duty, and as the friend and 
 strengthener of all other duties ; and 
 which we have watched over and con- 
 firmed by suppressing inconsistent de- 
 sires and passions, by warring against 
 selfishness and the love of the world. 
 
 There is one fact very decisive on 
 this subject. It is not uncommon to 
 see people with strong religious feeling 
 who are not made better by it ; who at 
 church or in other meetings are moved 
 perhaps to tears, but who make no prog- 
 ress in self-government or charity, and 
 who gain nothing of elevation of mind in 
 their common feelings and transactions. 
 They take pleasure in religious excite- 
 ment, just as others delight to be in- 
 terested by a fiction or a play. They 
 invite these emotions because they sup- 
 pose them to aid or insure salvation, 
 and soon relapse into their ordinary 
 sordidness or other besetting infirmi- 
 ties. Now, to give the name of religion 
 to this mockery is the surest way to dis- 
 honor it. True religion is not mere 
 emotion, is not something communi- 
 cated to us without our own moral effort. 
 It involves much self-denial. Its great 
 characteristic is not feeling, but the 
 subjection of our wills, desires, habits, 
 lives, to the will of God, from a convic- 
 tion that what He wills is the perfection 
 of virtue, and the true happiness of our 
 nature. In genuine piety the mind 
 chooses as its supreme good the moral 
 excellence enjoined by its Author, and 
 resolutely renounces whatever would 
 sully this divine image, and so disturb 
 its communion with God. This relig- 
 ion, though its essence be not emotion, 
 will gradually gather and issue in a sen- 
 sibility deeper, intenser, more glowing 
 than the blind enthusiast ever felt ; and 
 then only does it manifest itself in its 
 perfect form, when, through a self-de- 
 nying and self-purifying power, it rises 
 to an overflowing love, gratitude, and 
 joy towards the Universal Father. 
 
 In insisting on the great principle that 
 religion, or virtue, consists in strength 
 of moral purpose, in the soul's resolute 
 determination of itself to duty, I am 
 satisfied that I express a truth which 
 has a witness and confirmation in the 
 breast of every reflecting man. We all 
 of us feel that virtue is not something 
 adopted from necessity, something to 
 which feeling impels us, something 
 which comes to us from constitution, 
 or accident, or outward condition ; but 
 that it has its origin in our moral free- 
 dom, that it consists in moral energy ; 
 and accordingly we all measure virtue 
 by the trials and difficulties which it 
 overcomes, for these are the tests and 
 measures of the force with which the 
 soul adopts it. Every one of us who 
 has adhered to duty, when duty brought 
 no recompense but the conviction of 
 well-doing, who has faced the perils of 
 a good but persecuted cause with un- 
 shrinking courage, who has been con- 
 scious of an inward triumph over temp- 
 tation, conscious of having put down 
 bad motives and exalted good ones in 
 his own breast, must remember the 
 clear, strong, authentic voice, the ac- 
 cents of peculiar encouragement and 
 joy, with which the inward judge has at 
 such seasons pronounced its approving 
 sentence. This experience is universal, 
 and it is the voice of nature and of God 
 in confirmation of the great truth of 
 this discourse. 
 
 I fear that the importance of strength 
 in the Christian character has been in 
 some degree obscured by the habit of 
 calling certain Christian graces of sin- 
 gular worth by the name of passive 
 virtues. This name has been given to 
 humility, patience, resignation ; and I 
 fear that the phrase has led some to 
 regard these noble qualities as allied 
 to inaction, as wanting energy and de- 
 termination. Now the truth is that the 
 mind never puts forth greater power 
 over itself than when, in great trials, it 
 yields up calmly its desires, affections, 
 interests to God. There are seasons 
 when to be still demands immeasurably 
 higher strength than to act. Compos- 
 ure is often the highest result of power. 
 Think you it demands no power to calm 
 the stormy elements of passion, to mod- 
 erate the vehemence of desire, to throw 
 off the load of dejection, to suppress 
 every repining thought, when the dear-
 
 346 
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 est hopes are withered, and to turn the 
 wounded spirit from dangerous reveries 
 and wasting grief to the quiet discharge 
 of ordinary duties ? Is there no power 
 put forth when a man, stripped of his 
 property, of the fruits of a life's labor, 
 quells discontent and gloomy forebod- 
 ings, and serenely and patiently returns 
 to the tasks which Providence assigns ? 
 I doubt not that the all-seeing eye of 
 God sometimes discerns the sublimest 
 human energy under a form and coun- 
 tenance which by their composure and 
 tranquillity indicate to the human spec- 
 tator only passive virtues. 
 
 The doctrine of this discourse is in 
 every view interesting. To me it goes 
 further than all others to explain the 
 present state. If moral strength, if in- 
 ward power in the choice and practice 
 of duty, constitute excellence and happi- 
 ness, then I see why we are placed in a 
 world of obstructions, perils, hardships, 
 why duty is so often a "narrow way," 
 why the warfare of the passions with 
 conscience is so subtile and unceasing ; 
 why within and without us are so many 
 foes to rectitude ; for this is the very 
 state to call forth and to build up moral 
 force. In a world where duty and in- 
 clination should perfectly agree, we 
 should indeed never err, but the living 
 power of virtue could not be developed. 
 Do not complain, then, of life's trials. 
 Through these you may gain incom- 
 parably higher good than indulgence 
 and ease. This view reveals to us the 
 impartial goodness of God in the variety 
 of human conditions. We sometimes 
 see individuals whose peculiar trials are 
 thought to make their existence to them 
 an evil. But among such may be found 
 the most favored children of God. If 
 there be a man on earth to be envied it 
 is he who, amidst the sharpest assaults 
 from his own passions, from fortune, 
 from society, never falters in his alle- 
 giance to God and the inward monitor. 
 So peculiar is the excellence of this 
 moral strength, that I believe the Crea- 
 tor regards one being who puts it forth 
 with greater complacency than He would 
 look on a world of beings innocent and 
 harmless through the necessity of con- 
 stitution. I know not that human wis- 
 dom has arrived at a juster or higher 
 view of the present state than that it 
 is intended to call forth power by ob- 
 struction, the power of intellect by the 
 
 difficulties of knowledge, the power of 
 conscience and virtue by temptation, 
 allurement, pleasure, pain, and the alter- 
 nations of prosperous and adverse life. 
 When I see a man holding faster his up- 
 rightness in proportion as it is assailed ; 
 fortifying his religious trust in proportion 
 as Providence is obscure ; hoping in the 
 ultimate triumphs of virtue more surely 
 in proportion to its present afflictions ; 
 cherishing philanthropy amidst the dis- 
 couraging experience of men's unkind- 
 ness and unthankfulness ; extending to 
 others a sympathy which his own suffer- 
 ings need but cannot obtain ; growing 
 milder and gentler amidst what tends to 
 exasperate and harden ; and through 
 inward principle converting the very in- 
 citements to evil into the occasions of a 
 victorious virtue, I see an explanation, 
 and a noble explanation, of the present 
 state. I see a good produced so tran- 
 scendent in its nature as to justify all 
 the evil and suffering under which it 
 grows up. I should think the formation 
 of a. few such minds worth all the appa- 
 ratus of the present world. I should 
 say that this earth, with its continents 
 and oceans, its seasons and harvests, 
 and its successive generations, was a 
 work worthy of God, even were it to 
 accomplish no other end than the train- 
 ing and manifestation of the illustrious 
 characters which are scattered through 
 history. And when I consider how small 
 a portion of human virtue is recorded by 
 history, how superior in dignity as well 
 as in number are the unnoticed, unhon- 
 ored saints and heroes of domestic and 
 humble life, I see a light thrown over 
 the present state which more than rec- 
 onciles me to all its evils. 
 
 The views given in this discourse of 
 the importance of moral power mani- 
 fested in great trials, may be employed 
 to shed a glorious and perhaps a new 
 light on the character and cross of Christ. 
 But this topic can now be only suggested 
 to your private meditation. There is,, 
 however, one practical application of our 
 subject which may be made in a few 
 words, and which I cannot omit. I wish 
 to ask the young who hear me, and 
 especially of my own sex, to use the 
 views now offered in judging and form- 
 ing their characters. Young man, re- 
 member that the only test of goodness, 
 virtue, is moral strength, self-denying 
 energy. You have generous and honor-
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN. 
 
 347 
 
 able feelings, you scorn mean actions, 
 your heart beats quick at the sight or 
 hearing of courageous, disinterested 
 deeds, and all these are interesting 
 qualities ; but remember they are the 
 gifts of nature, the endowments of your 
 susceptible age. They are not virtue. 
 God and the inward monitor ask for 
 more. The question is, Do you strive 
 to confirm into permanent principles the 
 generous sensibilities of the heart ? Are 
 you watchful to suppress the impetuous 
 emotions, the resentments, the selfish 
 passionateness which are warring against 
 your honorable feelings ? Especially do 
 you subject to your moral and religious 
 convictions the love of pleasure, the 
 appetites, the passions which form the 
 great trials of youthful virtue ? Here is 
 the field of conflict to which youth is 
 summoned. Trust not to occasional 
 impulses of benevolence, to constitu- 
 tional courage, frankness, kindness, if 
 
 you surrender yourselves basely to the 
 temptations of your age. No man who 
 has made any observation of life but 
 will tell you how often he has seen the 
 promise of youth blasted ; intellect, 
 genius, honorable feeling, kind affec- 
 tion, overpowered and almost extin- 
 guished through the want of moral 
 strength, through a tame yielding to 
 pleasure and the passions. Place no 
 trust in your good propensities, unless 
 these are fortified, and upheld, and im- 
 proved by moral energy and self-control. 
 To all of us, in truth, the same lesson 
 comes. If any man will be Christ's 
 disciple, sincerely good, and worthy to 
 be named among the friends of virtue, 
 if he will have inward peace and the con- 
 sciousness of progress towards heaven, 
 he must deny himself, he must take the 
 cross, and follow Christ in the renuncia- 
 tion of every gain and pleasure incon- 
 sistent with the will of God. 
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN. 
 
 PROVERBS xiv. 9: "Fools make a mock at sin." 
 
 MY aim in this discourse is simple, 
 and may be expressed in a few words. 
 I wish to guard you against thinking 
 lightly of sin. No folly is so monstrous, 
 and yet our exposure to it is great. 
 Breathing an atmosphere tainted with 
 moral evil, seeing and hearing sin in our 
 daily walks, we are in no small danger 
 of overlooking its malignity. This ma- 
 lignity I would set before you with all 
 plainness, believing that the effort which 
 is needed to resist this enemy of our 
 peace is to be called forth by fixing on 
 it our frequent and serious attention. 
 
 I feel as i'f a difficulty lay at the very 
 threshold of this discussion, which it is 
 worth our while to remove. The word 
 sin, I apprehend, is to many obscure, or 
 not sufficiently plain. It is a word sel- 
 dom used in common life. It belongs 
 to theology and the pulpit. By not a 
 few people sin is supposed to be a prop- 
 erty of our nature, born with us ; and we 
 sometimes hear of the child as being 
 sinful before it can have performed any 
 
 action. From these and other causes 
 the word gives to many confused no- 
 tions. Sin, in its true sense, is the vio- 
 .lation of duty, and cannot, consequently, 
 exist before conscience has begun to 
 act, and before power to obey it is un- 
 folded. To sin is to resist our sense of 
 right, to oppose known obligation, to 
 cherish feelings or commit deeds which 
 we know to be wrong. It is to withhold 
 from God the reverence, gratitude, and 
 obedience which our own consciences 
 pronounce to be due to that great and 
 good Being. It is to transgress those 
 laws of equity, justice, candor, humanity, 
 disinterestedness, which we all feel to 
 belong and to answer to our various so- 
 cial relations. It is to yield ourselves 
 to those appetites which we know to be 
 the inferior principles of our nature, to 
 give the body a mastery over the mind, 
 to sacrifice the intellect and heart to the 
 senses, to surrender ourselves to ease 
 and indulgence, or to prefer outward ac- 
 cumulation and power to strength and 
 peace of conscience, to progress towards
 
 348 
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN. 
 
 perfection. Such is sin. It is voluntary 
 wrong-doing. Any gratification injurious 
 to ourselves is sin. Any act injurious to 
 our neighbors is sin. Indifference to 
 our Creator is sin. The transgression 
 of any command which this excellent 
 Being and rightful Sovereign has given 
 us, whether by conscience or revelation, 
 is sin. So broad is this term. It is as 
 extensive as duty. It is not some mys- 
 terious thing wrought into our souls at 
 birth. It is not a theological subtilty. 
 It is choosing and acting in opposition 
 to our sense of right, to known obliga- 
 tion. 
 
 Now, according to the Scriptures, 
 there is nothing so evil, so deformed, so 
 ruinous as sin. All pain, poverty, con- 
 tempt, affliction, ill success, are light and 
 not to be named with it. To do wrong 
 is more pernicious than to incur all the 
 calamities which nature or human malice 
 can heap upon us. According to the 
 Scriptures, I am not to fear those who 
 would kill this body, and have nothing 
 more that they can do. Such enemies 
 are impotent compared with that sin 
 which draws down the displeasure of 
 God, and draws after it misery and 
 death to the soul. According to the 
 Scriptures, I am to pluck out even a 
 right eye, or cut off even a right arm, 
 which would ensnare or seduce me into 
 crime. The loss of the most important 
 limbs and organs is nothing compared 
 to the loss of innocence. Such you 
 know is the whole strain of Scripture. 
 Sin, violated duty, the evil of the heart, 
 this is the only evil of which Scripture 
 takes account. It was from this that 
 Christ came to redeem us. It is to pu- 
 rify us from this stain, to set us free 
 from this yoke, that a new and supernat- 
 ural agency was added to God's other 
 means of promoting human happiness. 
 
 It is the design of these represen- 
 tations of Scripture to lead us to con- 
 nect with sin or wrong-doing the ideas 
 of evil, wretchedness, and debasement 
 more strongly than with any thing else : 
 and this deep, deliberate conviction of 
 the wrong and evil done to ourselves by 
 sin is not simply a command of Christi- 
 anity. It is not an arbitrary, positive 
 precept, which rests solely on the word 
 of the lawgiver, and of which no account 
 can be given but that he wills it. It is 
 alike the dictate of natural and revealed 
 religion, an injunction of conscience and 
 
 reason, founded in our very souls, and 
 confirmed by constant experience. To 
 regard sin, wrong-doing, as the greatest 
 of evils is God's command, proclaimed 
 from within and without, from heaven 
 and earth ; and he who does not hear it 
 has not learned the truth on which his 
 whole happiness rests. This I propose 
 to illustrate. 
 
 I. If we look within, we find in our 
 I very nature a testimony to the doctrine 
 | that sin is the chief of evils, a testi- 
 mony which, however slighted or smoth- 
 ered, will be recognized, I think, by every 
 one who hears me. To understand this 
 truth better, it may be useful to inquire 
 into and compare the different kinds of 
 evil. Evil has various forms, but these 
 may all be reduced to two great di- 
 visions, called by philosophers natural 
 and moral. By the first is meant the 
 pain or suffering which springs from 
 outward condition and events, or from 
 causes independent of the will. The 
 latter, that is, moral evil, belongs to 
 character and conduct, and is commonly 
 expressed by the words sin, vice, trans- 
 gression of the rule of right. Now I 
 say that there is no man, unless he be 
 singularly hardened and an exception to 
 his race, who, if these two classes or di- 
 visions of evil should be clearly and fully 
 presented him in moments of calm and de- 
 liberate thinking, would not feel, through 
 the very constitution of his mind, that 
 sin or vice is worse and more to be 
 dreaded than pain. I am willing to take 
 from among you the individual who has 
 studied least the great questions of mo- 
 rality and religion, whose mind has grown 
 up with least discipline. If I place before 
 such a hearer two examples in strong 
 contrast, one of a man gaining great 
 property by an atrocious crime, and an- 
 other exposing himself to great suffering 
 through a resolute purpose of duty, will 
 he not tell me at once, from a deep 
 moral sentiment which leaves not a 
 doubt on his mind, that the last has 
 chosen the better part, that he is more to 
 be envied than the first ? On these great 
 questions, What is the chief good ? and 
 What the chief evil ? we are instructed 
 by our own nature. An inward voice has 
 told men, even in heathen countries, that 
 excellence of character is the supreme 
 good, and that baseness of soul and of 
 action involves something worse than 
 suffering. We have all of us, at some
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN. 
 
 349 
 
 period of life, had the same conviction ; 
 and these have been the periods when 
 the mind has been healthiest, clearest, 
 least perturbed by passion. Is there 
 any one here who does not feel that 
 what the divine faculty of conscience 
 enjoins as right has stronger claims 
 upon him than what is recommended as 
 merely agreeable or advantageous ; that 
 duty is something more sacred than in- 
 terest or pleasure ; that virtue is a good 
 of a higher order than gratification ; that 
 crime is something worse than outward 
 loss ? What means the admiration with 
 which we follow the conscientious and 
 disinterested man, and which grows 
 strong in proportion to his sacrifices to 
 duty ? Is it not the testimony of our 
 whole souls to the truth and greatness 
 of the good he has chosen ? What 
 means the feeling of abhorrence, which 
 we cannot repress if we would, towards 
 him who, by abusing confidence, tram- 
 pling on weakness, or hardening himself 
 against the appeals of mercy, has grown 
 rich or great ? ' Do we think that such a 
 man has made a good bargain in barter- 
 ing principle for wealth ? Is prosperous 
 fortune a balance for vice ? In our de- 
 liberate moments, is there not a voice 
 which pronounces his craft folly, and his 
 success misery ? 
 
 And, to come nearer home, what con- 
 viction is it which springs up most 
 spontaneously in our more reflecting 
 moments, when we look back without 
 passion on our own lives ? Can vice 
 stand that calm look ? Is there a sin- 
 gle wrong act which we would not then 
 rejoice to expunge from the unalterable 
 records of our deeds ? Do we ever 
 congratulate ourselves on having de- 
 spised the inward monitor, or revolted 
 against God ? To what portions of our 
 history do we return most joyfully ? 
 Are they those in which we gained the 
 world and lost the soul, in which temp- 
 tation mastered our principles, which 
 levity and sloth made a blank, or which 
 a selfish and unprincipled activity made 
 worse than a blank, in our existence ? 
 or are they those in which we suffered 
 but were true to conscience, in which 
 we denied ourselves for duty, and sacri- 
 ficed success through unwavering rec- 
 titude ? In these moments of calm 
 recollection, do not the very transgres- 
 sions at which perhaps we once mocked, 
 and which promised unmixed joy, recur 
 
 to awaken shame and remorse ? And 
 do not shame and remorse involve a con- 
 sciousness that we have sunk beneath 
 our proper good ? that our highest nat- 
 ure, what constitutes our true self, has 
 been sacrificed to low interests and 
 pursuits ? I make these appeals con- 
 fidently. I think my questions can 
 receive but one answer. Now, these 
 convictions and emotions with which we 
 witness moral evil in others, or recollect 
 it in ourselves ; these feelings towards 
 guilt, which mere pain and suffering 
 never excite, and which manifest them- 
 selves with more or less distinctness in 
 all nations and all stages of society ; 
 these inward attestations that sin, 
 wrong-doing, is a peculiar evil, for 
 which no outward good can give ade- 
 quate compensation. surely these de- 
 serve to be regarded as the voice of 
 nature, the voice of God. They are 
 accompanied with a peculiar conscious- 
 ness of truth. They are felt to be our 
 ornament and defence. Thus, our nat- 
 ure teaches the doctrine of Christianity, 
 that sin, or moral evil, ought of all evils 
 to inspire most abhorrence and fear. 
 
 Our first argument has been drawn 
 from sentiment, from deep and almost 
 instinctive feeling, from the hand-writ- 
 ing of the Creator on the soul. Our 
 next may be drawn from experience. 
 We have said that even when sin or 
 wrong-doing is prosperous, and duty 
 brings suffering, we feel that the suffer- 
 ing is a less evil than sin. I now add, 
 in the second place, that sin, though it 
 sometimes prospers, and never meets 
 its full retribution on earth, yet, on the 
 whole, produces more present suffering 
 than all things else ; so that experience 
 warns us against sin or wrong-doing as 
 the chief evil we can incur. Whence 
 come the sorest diseases and acutest 
 bodily pains ? Come they not from the 
 lusts warring in our members, from 
 criminal excess ? What chiefly gen- 
 erates poverty and its worst suffer- 
 ings ? Is it not to evils of character, 
 to the want of self-denying virtue, that 
 we must ascribe chiefly the evils of our 
 outward condition ? The pages of his- 
 tory, how is it that they are so dark and 
 sad? Is it not that they are stained 
 with crime ? If we penetrate into pri- 
 vate life, what spreads most misery 
 through our homes ? Is it sickness, or 
 selfishness ? Is it want of outward com-
 
 350 
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN. 
 
 forts, or want of inward discipline, of ; 
 the spirit of love ? What more do we 
 need to bring back Eden's happiness 
 than Eden's sinlessness ? How light a 
 burden would be life's necessary ills ; 
 were they not aided by the crushing , 
 weight of our own and others' faults ! 
 and crimes ? How fast would human 
 woe vanish were human selfishness, 
 sensuality, injustice, pride, impiety, to 
 yield to the pure and benign influences 
 of Christian truth ? How many of us 
 know that the sharpest pains we have 
 ever suffered have been the wounds of 
 pride, the paroxysms of passion, the 
 stings of remorse ; and where this is 
 not the case, who of us, if he were to 
 know his own soul, would not see that 
 the daily restlessness of life, the wear- 
 ing uneasiness of the mind, which, as a 
 whole, brings more suffering than acute 
 pains, is altogether the result of undis- 
 ciplined passions, of neglect or dis- 
 obedience of God ? Our discontents 
 and anxieties have their origin in moral 
 evil. The lines of suffering on almost 
 every human countenance have been 
 deepened, if not traced there, by un- 
 faithfulness to conscience, by depart- 
 ures from duty. To do wrong is the 
 surest way to bring suffering ; no wrong 
 deed ever failed to bring it. Those sins 
 which are followed b^ no palpable pain 
 are yet terribly avenged even in this 
 life. They abridge our capacity of hap- 
 piness, impair our relish for innocent 
 pleasure, and increase our sensibility to 
 suffering. They spoil us of the armor 
 of a pure conscience and of trust in 
 God, without which we are naked amidst 
 hosts of foes, and are vulnerable by all 
 the changes of life. Thus, to do wrong 
 is to inflict the surest injury on our own 
 peace. No enemy can do us equal 
 harm with what we do ourselves when- 
 ever or however we violate any moral 
 or religious obligation. 
 
 I have time but for one more view of 
 moral evil or sin, showing that it is truly 
 the greatest evil. It is this. The mis- 
 eries of disobedience to conscience and 
 God are not exhausted in this life. Sin 
 deserves, calls for, and will bring down 
 future, greater misery. This Christian- 
 ity teaches, and this nature teaches. 
 Retribution is not a new doctrine brought 
 by Christ into the world. Though dark- 
 ened and corrupted, it was spread every- 
 where before he came. It carried alarm 
 
 to rude nations, which nothing on earth 
 could terrify. It mixed with all the 
 false religions of antiquity, and it finds 
 a response now in every mind not per- 
 verted by sophistry. That we shall 
 carry with us into the future world our 
 present minds, and that a character 
 formed in opposition to our highest fac- 
 ulties and to the will of God will pro- 
 duce suffering in our future being, 
 these are truths, in which revelation, 
 reason, and conscience remarkably con- 
 spire. 
 
 I know, indeed, that this doctrine is 
 sometimes questioned. It is maintained 
 by some among us that punishment is 
 confined to the present state ; that in 
 changing worlds we shall change our 
 characters ; that moral evil is to be 
 buried with the body in the grave. As 
 this opinion spreads industriously, and 
 as it tends to diminish the dread of sin, 
 it deserves some notice. To my mind, 
 a more irrational doctrine was never 
 broached. In the first, place, it con- 
 tradicts all our experience of the nature 
 and laws of the mind. There is nothing 
 more striking in the mind than the con- 
 nection of its successive states. Our 
 present knowledge, thoughts, feelings, 
 characters, are the results of former im- 
 pressions, passions, and pursuits. We 
 are this moment what the past has made 
 us ; and to suppose that at death the 
 influences of our whole past course are 
 to cease on our minds, and that a char- 
 acter is to spring up altogether at war 
 with what has preceded it, is to suppose 
 the most important law or principle of 
 the mind to be violated, is to destroy all 
 analogy between the present and fut- 
 ure, and to substitute for experience the 
 wildest dreams of fancy. In truth, such 
 a sudden revolution in the character as 
 is here supposed seems to destroy a 
 man's identity. The individual thus 
 transformed can hardly seemto himself 
 or to others the same being. It is 
 equivalent to the creation of a new 
 soul. 
 
 Let me next ask, what fact can be 
 adduced in proof or illustration of the 
 power ascribed to death of changing 
 and purifying the mind ? What is death ? 
 It is the dissolution of certain limbs and 
 organs by which the soul now acts. But 
 these, however closely connected with 
 the mind, are entirely distinct from its 
 powers, from thought and will, from
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN. 
 
 351 
 
 conscience and affection. Why should 
 the last grow pure from the dissolution 
 of the first ? Why shall the mind put 
 on a new character by laying aside the 
 gross instruments through which it now 
 operates ? At death, the hands, the 
 feet, the eye, and the ear perish. But 
 they often perish during life ; and does 
 character change with them ? It is true 
 that our animal appetites are weakened 
 and sometimes destroyed by the decay 
 of the bodily organs on which they de- 
 pend. But our deeper principles of ac- 
 tion, and the moral complexion of the 
 mind, are not therefore reversed. It 
 often happens that the sensualist, bro- 
 ken down by disease which excess has 
 induced, comes to loathe the luxuries to 
 which he was once enslaved ; but do his 
 selfishness, his low habits of thought, 
 his insensibility to God, decline and 
 perish with his animal desires ? Lop 
 off the criminal's hands ; does the dis- 
 position to do mischief vanish with them ? 
 When the feet mortify, do we see a cor- 
 responding mortification of the will to 
 go astray ? The loss of sight or hearing 
 is a partial death ; but is a single vice 
 plucked from the mind, or one of its 
 strong passions palsied, by this destruc- 
 tion of its chief corporeal instruments ? 
 
 Again ; the idea that by dying or 
 changing worlds a man may be made 
 better or virtuous, shows an ignorance 
 of the nature of moral goodness or virtue. 
 This belongs to free beings ; it supposes 
 moral liberty. A man cannot be made 
 virtuous as an instrument may be put in 
 tune, by a foreign hand, by an outward 
 force. Virtue is that to which the man 
 himself contributes. It is the fruit of 
 exertion. It supposes conquest of temp- 
 tation. It cannot be given from abroad 
 to one who has wasted life or steeped 
 himself in crime. To suppose moral 
 goodness breathed from abroad into the 
 guilty mind, just as health may be im- 
 parted to a sick body, is to overlook the 
 distinction between corporeal and intel- 
 lectual natures, and to degrade a free 
 being into a machine. 
 
 I will only add, that to suppose no 
 connection to exist between the present' 
 and the future character, is to take away 
 the use of the present state. Why are 
 we placed in a state of discipline, ex- 
 posed to temptation, encompassed with 
 suffering, if, without discipline, and by 
 a sovereign act of omnipotence, we are 
 
 all of us, be our present characters what 
 they may, soon and suddenly to be made 
 perfect in virtue and perfect in happi- 
 ness ? 
 
 Let us not listen for a moment to a 
 doctrine so irrational as that our present 
 characters do not follow us into a future 
 world. If we are to live again, let us 
 settle it as a sure fact, that we shall 
 carry with us our present minds, such 
 as we now make them ; that we shall 
 reap good or ill according to their im- 
 provement or corruption ; and, of con- 
 sequence, that every act which affects 
 character will reach in its influence be- 
 yond the grave, and have a bearing on 
 our future weal or woe. We are now 
 framing our future lot. He who does a 
 bad deed says, more strongly than words 
 can utter, *' I cast away a portion of 
 future good, I resolve on future pain." 
 
 I proceed now to an important and 
 solemn remark in illustration of the evil 
 of sin. It is plainly implied in Scripture 
 that we shall suffer much more from sin, 
 evil tempers, irreligion, in the future 
 world than we suffer here. This is one 
 main distinction between the two states. 
 In the present world sin does indeed 
 bring with it many pains, but not full or 
 exact retribution, and sometimes it seems 
 crowned with prosperity ; and the cause 
 of this is obvious? The present world 
 is a state for the formation of character. 
 It is meant to be a state of trial, where 
 we are to act freely, to have opportuni- 
 ties of wrong as well as right action, and 
 to become virtuous amidst temptation. 
 Now such a purpose requires that sin, 
 or wrong-doing, should not regularly and 
 infallibly produce its full and immediate 
 punishment. For suppose, my hearers, 
 that at the very instant of a bid purpose 
 or a bad deed a sore and awful penalty 
 were unfailingly to light upon you ; would 
 this be consistent with trial ? would you 
 have moral freedom ? would you not live 
 under compulsion ? Who would do 
 wrong if judgment were to come like 
 lightning after every evil deed ? In 
 such a world fear would suspend our 
 liberty and supersede conscience. Ac- 
 cordingly sin, though, as we have seen, 
 it produces great misery, is still left to 
 compass many of its objects, often to 
 prosper, often to be gain. Vice, bad as 
 it is, has often many pleasures in its 
 train. The worst men partake, equally 
 with the good, the light of the sun, the
 
 352 
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN. 
 
 rain, the harvest, the accommodations 
 and improvements of civilized life, and 
 sometimes accumulate more largely out- 
 ward goods. And thus sin has its pleas- 
 ures, and escapes many of its natural 
 and proper fruits. We live in a world 
 where, if we please, we may forget our- 
 selves, may delude ourselves, may in- 
 toxicate our minds with false hopes, and 
 may find for a time a deceitful joy in an 
 evil course. In this respect the future 
 will differ from the present world. After 
 death, character will produce its full 
 effect. According to the Scriptures, the 
 color of our future existence will be 
 wholly determined by the habits and 
 principles which we carry into it. The 
 circumstances which in this life prevent 
 vice, sin, wrong-doing, from inflicting 
 pain, will not operate hereafter. There 
 the evil mind will be exposed to its own 
 terrible agency, and nothing, nothing 
 will interfere between the transgressor 
 and his own awakened conscience. I 
 ask you to pause and weigh this dis- 
 tinction between the present and future. 
 In the present life we have, as I have 
 said, the means of escaping, amusing, 
 and* forgetting ourselves. Once in the 
 course of every daily revolution of the 
 sun we all of us find refuge, and many 
 a long refuge, in sleep ; and he who has 
 lived without God, and in violation of 
 his duty, hears not for hours a whisper 
 of the monitor within. But sleep is a 
 function of our present animal frame, 
 and let not the transgressor anticipate 
 this boon in the world of retribution 
 before him. It may be, and he has 
 reason to fear, that in that state repose 
 will not weigh down his eyelids, that 
 conscience will not slumber there, that 
 night and day the same reproaching 
 voice is to cry within, that unrepented 
 sin will fasten with unrelaxing grasp on 
 the ever-waking soul. What an im- 
 mense change in condition would the 
 removal of this single alleviation of suf- 
 fering produce ! 
 
 Again : in the present state, how many 
 pleasant sights, scenes, voices, motions, 
 draw us from ourselves ; and he who has 
 done wrong, how easily may he forget 
 it, perhaps mock at it, under the bright 
 light of this sun, on this fair earth, at 
 the table of luxury, and amidst cheer- 
 ful associates. In the state of retribu- 
 tion he who has abused the present 
 state will find no such means of escap- 
 
 ing the wages of sin. The precise mode 
 in which such a man is to exist here- 
 after I know not. But I know that it 
 will offer nothing to amuse him, to dis- 
 sipate thought, to turn him away from 
 himself ; nothing to which he can fly 
 for refuge from the inward penalties of 
 transgression. 
 
 In the present life, I have said, the 
 outward creation, by its interesting ob- 
 jects, draws the evil man from himself. 
 It seems to me probable that, in the 
 future, the whole creation will through 
 sin be turned into a source of suffering, 
 and will perpetually throw back the evil 
 mind on its own transgressions. I can 
 briefly state the reflections which lead to 
 this anticipation. The Scriptures strong- 
 ly imply, if not positively teach, that in 
 the future life we shall exist in connec- 
 tion with some material frame ; and the 
 doctrine is sustained by reason : for it 
 can hardly be thought that, in a creation 
 which is marked by gradual change and 
 progress, we should make at once the 
 mighty transition from our present state . 
 into a purely spiritual or unembodied 
 existence. Now, in the present state, 
 we find that the mind has an immense 
 power over the body, and when dis- 
 eased, often communicates disease to 
 its sympathizing companion. I believe 
 that, in the future state, the mind will 
 have this power of conforming its out- 
 ward frame to itself incomparably more 
 than here. We must never forget that 
 in that world mind or character is to 
 exert an all-powerful sway : and, accord- 
 ingly, it is rational to believe that the 
 corrupt and deformed mind, which wants 
 moral goodness, or a spirit of concord 
 with God and with the universe, will 
 create for itself, as its fit dwelling, a 
 deformed body, which will also want 
 concord or harmony with all things 
 around it. Suppose this to exist, and 
 the whole creation which now amuses 
 may become an instrument of suffering, 
 fixing the soul with a more harrowing 
 consciousness on itself. You know that 
 even now, in consequence of certain 
 derangements of the nervous system, 
 the beautiful light gives acute pain, and 
 sounds which once delighted us be- 
 come shrill and distressing. How often 
 this excessive irritableness of the body 
 has its origin in moral disorders, per- 
 haps few of us suspect. I apprehend, 
 indeed, that we should be all amazed
 
 THE EVIL OF SIN. 
 
 353 
 
 were we to learn to what extent the body 
 is continually incapacitated 01 enjoy- 
 ment, and made susceptible of suffer- 
 ing, by sins of the heart and life. That 
 delicate part of our organization on which 
 sensibility, pain, and pleasure depend, 
 is, I believe, peculiarly alive to the touch 
 of moral evil. How easily, then, may the 
 mind hereafter frame the future body 
 according to itself, so that, in proportion 
 to its vice, it will receive, through its 
 organs and senses, impressions of gloom 
 which it will feel to be the natural pro- 
 ductions of its own depravity, and which 
 will in this way give a terrible energy to 
 conscience ! For myself, I see no need 
 of a local hell for the sinner after death. 
 When I reflect how, in the present world, 
 a guilty mind has power to deform the 
 countenance, to undermine health, to 
 poison pleasure, to darken the fairest 
 scenes of nature, to turn prosperity into 
 a curse, I can easily understand how, in 
 the "world to come, sin, working without 
 obstruction according to its own nature, 
 should spread the gloom of a dungeon 
 over the whole creation, and wherever it 
 goes should turn the universe into a hell. 
 In these remarks I presume not to be 
 the prophet of the future world. I only 
 wish you to feel how terribly sin is here- 
 after to work its own misery, and how 
 false and dangerous it is to argue from 
 your present power of escaping its con- 
 sequences, that you may escape them in 
 the life to come. Let each of us be 
 assured that by abusing this world we 
 shall not earn a better. The Scriptures 
 announce a state of more exact and rig- 
 orous retribution than the present. Let 
 this truth sink into our hearts. It shows 
 us, what I have aimed to establish, that 
 to do wrong is to incur the greatest of 
 calamities, that sin is the chief of evils. 
 May I not say that nothing else deserves 
 the name ? No other evil will follow us 
 beyond the grave. Poverty, disease, 
 
 the world's scorn, the pain of bereaved 
 affection, these cease at the grave. The 
 purified spirit lays down there every 
 burden. One and only one evil can be 
 carried from this world to the next, and 
 that is the evil within us, moral evil, 
 guilt, crime, ungoverned passion, the 
 depraved mind, the memory of a wasted 
 or ill-spent life, the character which has 
 grown up under neglect of God's voice 
 in the soul and in his word. This, this 
 will go with us, to stamp itself on our 
 future frames, to darken our future 
 being, to separate us like an impassable 
 gulf from our Creator and from pure 
 and happy beings, to be as a consuming 
 fire and an undying worm. 
 
 I have spoken of the pains and pen- 
 alties of moral evil, or of wrong-doing, 
 in the world to come. How long they 
 will endure, I know not. Whether they 
 will issue in the reformation and hap- 
 piness of the sufferer, or will terminate 
 in the extinction of his conscious being, 
 is a question on which Scripture throws 
 no clear light. Plausible arguments may 
 be adduced in support of both these 
 doctrines. On this and on other points 
 revelation aims not to give precise infor- 
 mation, but to fix in us a deep impres- 
 sion that great suffering awaits a dis- 
 obedient, wasted, immoral, irreligious 
 life. To fasten this impression, to make 
 it a deliberate and practical conviction, 
 is more needful than to ascertain the 
 mode or duration of future suffering. 
 'May the views this day given lead us all 
 to self-communion and to new energy, 
 watchfulness, and prayer against our 
 sins ! May they teach us that to do 
 wrong, to neglect or violate any known 
 duty, is of all evils the most fearful ! 
 Let every act, 'or feeling, or motive, 
 which bears the brand of guilt, seem to 
 us more terrible than the worst calam- 
 ities of life. Let us dread it more than 
 the agonies of the most painful death.
 
 354 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 2 TIMOTHY i. 10 : " Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who 
 bath abolished death, and hath brought life and im- 
 mortaiity to light through the Gospel. 
 
 IMMORTALITY is the glorious discov- 
 ery of Christianity. I say discovery, 
 not because a future life was wholly un- 
 known before Christ, but because it was 
 so revealed by him as to become to a 
 considerable extent a new doctrine. Be- 
 fore Christ, immortality was a conject- 
 ure or a vague hope. Jesus, by his 
 teaching and resurrection, has made it 
 a certainty. Again, before Christ, a 
 future life lent little aid to virtue. It 
 was seized upon by the imagination and 
 passions, and so perverted by them as 
 often to minister to vice. In Chris- 
 tianity this doctrine is wholly turned to 
 a moral use ; and the future is revealed 
 only to give motives, resolution, force, 
 to self-conflict and to a holy life. 
 
 My aim in this discourse is to strength- 
 en, if I may, your conviction of immor- 
 tality ; and I have thought that I may 
 do this by showing that this great truth 
 is also a dictate of nature : that reason, 
 though unable to establish it, yet ac- 
 cords with and adopts it ; that it is 
 written alike in God's word and in the 
 soul. It is plainly rational to expect 
 that, if man was made for immortality, 
 the marks of this destination will be 
 found in his very constitution, and that 
 these marks will grow stronger in pro- 
 portion to the unfolding of his faculties. 
 I would show that this expectation proves 
 just, that the teaching of revelation in 
 regard to a future life finds a strong 
 response in our own nature. 
 
 This topic is the more important be- 
 cause to some men there seem to be 
 appearances in nature unfavorable to 
 immortality. To many, the constant 
 operation of decay in all the works of 
 creation, the dissolution of all the forms 
 of animal and vegetable nature, gives a 
 feeling as if destruction were the law to 
 which we and all beings are subjected. 
 
 It has often been said by the sceptic, 
 that the races or classes of being are 
 alone perpetual, that all the individuals 
 
 which compose them are doomed to 
 perish. Now I affirm that the more we 
 know of the mind, the more we see rea- 
 son to distinguish it from the animal 
 and vegetable races which grow and 
 decay around us : and that in its very 
 nature we see reason for exempting it 
 from the universal law of destruction. 
 To this point I now ask your attention. 
 
 When we look round us on the earth, 
 we do indeed see every thing changing, 
 decaying, passing away ; and so inclined 
 are we to reason from analogy or resem- 
 blance, that it is not wonderful that the 
 dissolution of all the organized forms of 
 matter should seem to us to announce 
 our own destruction. But we overlook 
 the distinctions between matter and 
 mind ; and these are so immense as to 
 justify the directly opposite conclusion. 
 Let me point out some of these distinc- 
 tions. 
 
 i. When we look at the organized 
 productions of nature, we see that they 
 require only a limited time, and most 
 of them a very short time, to reach 
 their perfection and accomplish their 
 end. Take, for example, that noble 
 production, a tree. Having reached a 
 certain height and borne leaves, flowers, 
 and fruit, it has nothing more to do. 
 Its powers are fully developed : it has 
 no hidden capacities, of which its buds 
 and fruit are only the beginnings and 
 pledges. Its design is fulfilled : the 
 principle of life within it can effect no 
 more. Not so the mind. We can never 
 say of this, as of the full-grown tree in 
 autumn, It has answered its end, it has 
 done its work, its capacity is exhausted. 
 On the contrary, the nature, powers, 
 desires, and purposes of the mind are 
 all undefined. We never feel, when a 
 great intellect has risen to an original 
 thought or a vast discovery, that it has 
 now accomplished its whole purpose, 
 reached its bound, and can yield no 
 other or higher fruits. On the contrary, 
 our conviction of its resources is en- 
 larged ; we discern more of its affinity 
 to the inexhaustible intelligence of its
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 355 
 
 Author. In every step of its progress 
 we see a new impulse gained, and the 
 pledge of nobler acquirements. So, 
 when a pure and resolute mind has 
 made some great sacrifice to truth and 
 duty, has manifested its attachment to 
 God and man in singular trials, we do 
 not feel as if the whole energy of virtu- 
 ous principle were now put forth, as if 
 the measure of excellence were filled, 
 as if the maturest fruits were now 
 borne, and henceforth the soul could 
 only repeat itself. We feel, on the con- 
 trary, that virtue by illustrious efforts 
 replenishes instead of wasting its life ; 
 that the mind, by perseverance in well- 
 doing, instead of sinking into a mechan- 
 ical tameness, is able to conceive of 
 higher duties, is armed for a nobler 
 daring, and grows more efficient in 
 charity. The mind, by going forward, 
 does not reach insurmountable prison- 
 walls, but learns more and more the 
 boundlessness of its powers, and of the 
 range for which it was created. 
 
 Let me place this topic in another 
 light, which may show even more 
 strongly the contrast of the mind with 
 the noblest productions of matter. My 
 meaning may best be conveyed by re- 
 verting to the tree. We consider the 
 tree as having answered its highest 
 purpose when it yields a particular 
 fruit. We judge of its perfection by a 
 fixed, positive, definite product. The, 
 mind, however, in proportion to its im- 
 provement, becomes conscious that its 
 perfection consists not in fixed, pre- 
 scribed effects, not in exact and defined 
 attainments, but in an original, creative, 
 unconfinable energy, which yields new 
 products, which carries it into new 
 fields of thought and new efforts for 
 religion and humanity. This truth, in- 
 deed, is so obvious, that even the least 
 improved may discern it. You all feel 
 that the most perfect mind is not that 
 which works in a prescribed way, which 
 thinks and acts according to prescribed 
 rules, but that which has a spring of 
 action in itself, which combines anew 
 the knowledge received from other 
 minds, which explores its hidden and 
 multiplied relations, and gives it forth 
 in fresh and higher forms. The perfec- 
 tion of the tree, then, lies in a precise 
 or definite product. That of the mind 
 lies in an indefinite and boundless 
 energy. The first implies limits. To 
 
 set limits to the mind would destroy 
 that original power in which its perfec- 
 tion consists. Here, then, we observe 
 a distinction between material forms 
 and the mind ; and from the destruc- 
 tion of the first, which, as we see, at- 
 tain perfection and fulfil their purpose 
 in a limited duration, we cannot argue 
 to the destruction of the last, which 
 plainly possesses the capacity of a 
 progress without end. 
 
 2. We have pointed out one contrast 
 between the mind and material forms. 
 The latter, we have seen, by their nature 
 have bounds. The tree, in a short time, 
 and by rising and spreading a short 
 distance, accomplishes its end. I now 
 add that the system of nature to which 
 the tree belongs requires that it should 
 stop where it does. Were it to grow 
 for ever, it would be an infinite mis- 
 chief. A single plant, endued with the 
 principle of unlimited expansion, would 
 in the progress of centuries overshadow 
 nations and exclude every other growth, 
 would exhaust the earth's whole fertility. 
 Material forms, then, must have narrow 
 bounds, and their usefulness requires 
 that their life and growth should often 
 be arrested even before reaching the 
 limits prescribed by nature. But the 
 indefinite expansion of the mind, in- 
 stead of warring with and counteract- 
 ing the system of creation, harmonizes 
 with and perfects it. One tree, should 
 it grow for ever, would exclude other 
 forms of vegetable life. One mind, in 
 proportion to its expansion, awakens 
 and in a sense creates other minds. It 
 multiplies, instead of exhausting, the 
 nutriment which other understandings 
 need. A mind, the more it has of in- 
 tellectual and moral life, the more it 
 spreads life and power around it. It is 
 an ever-enlarging source of thought and 
 love. Let me here add that the mind, 
 by unlimited growth, not only yields a 
 greater amount of good toother beings, 
 but it produces continually new forms 
 of good. This is an important distinc- 
 tion. Were the tree to spread indefi- 
 nitely, it would abound more in fruit, 
 but in fruit of the same kind ; and, by 
 excluding every other growth, it would 
 destroy the variety of products which 
 now contribute to health and enjoyment. 
 But the mind in its progress is perpetu- 
 ally yielding new fruits, new forms of 
 thought and virtue and sanctity. It
 
 356 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 always contains within itself the germs 
 of higher influences than it has ever 
 put forth, the buds of fruits which it 
 has never borne. Thus the very reason 
 which requires the limitation of ma- 
 terial forms I mean the good of the 
 whole system seems to require the 
 unlimited growth of mind. 
 
 3. Another distinction between ma- 
 terial forms and the mind is, that to the 
 former destruction is no loss. They 
 exist for others wholly, in no degree for 
 themselves ; and others only can sorrow 
 for their fall. The mind, on the con- 
 trary, has a deep interest in its own ex- 
 istence. In this respect, indeed, it is 
 distinguished from the animal as well 
 as the vegetable. To the animal, the 
 past is a blank, and so is the future. 
 The present is every thing. But to the 
 mind the present is comparatively noth- 
 ing. Its great sources of happiness 
 are memory and hope. It has power 
 over the past, not only the power of 
 recalling it, but of turning to good all 
 its experience, its errors and sufferings 
 as well as its successes. It has power 
 over the future, not only the power of 
 anticipating it, but of bringing the pres- 
 ent to bear upon it, and of sowing for 
 it the seeds of a golden harvest. To 
 a mind capable of thus connecting it- 
 self with all duration, of spreading 
 itself through times past and to come, 
 existence becomes infinitely dear, and, 
 what is most worthy of observation, its 
 interest in its own being increases with 
 its progress in power and virtue. An 
 improved mind understands the great- 
 ness of its own nature, and the worth 
 of existence, as these cannot be under- 
 stood by the unimproved. The thought 
 of its own destruction suggests to it an 
 extent of ruin which the latter cannot 
 comprehend. The thought of such fac- 
 ulties as reason, conscience, and moral 
 will being extinguished ; of powers akin 
 to the divine energy being annihilated by 
 their Author : of truth and virtue, those 
 images of God. being blotted out ; of 
 progress towards perfection being bro- 
 ken off almost at its beginning, this 
 is a thought fitted to overwhelm a mind 
 in which the consciousness of its own 
 spiritual nature is in a good degree un- 
 folded. In other words, the more the 
 mind is true to itself and to God, the 
 more it clings to existence, the more it 
 shrinks from extinction as an infinite 
 
 loss. Would not its destruction, then, 
 be a very different thing from the de- 
 struction of material beings, and does 
 the latter furnish an analogy or pre- 
 sumption in support of the former ? To 
 me, the undoubted fact that the mind 
 thirsts for continued being just in pro- 
 portion as it obeys the will of its 
 Maker, is a proof, next to irresistible, 
 of its being destined by him for im- 
 mortality. 
 
 4. Let me add one more distinction 
 between the mind and material forms. 
 I return to the tree. We speak of the 
 tree as destroyed. We say that de- 
 struction is the order of nature, and some 
 say that man must not hope to escape 
 the universal law. Now we deceive our- 
 selves in this use of words. There is in 
 reality no destruction in the material 
 world. True, the tree is resolved into 
 its elements. But its elements survive, 
 and, still more, they survive to fulfil the 
 same end which they before accom- 
 plished. Not a power of nature is lost. 
 The particles of the decayed tree are 
 only left at liberty to form new, perhaps 
 more beautiful and useful combinations. 
 They may shoot up into more luxuriant 
 foliage, or enter into the structure of 
 the highest animals. But were mind to 
 perish, there would be absolute, irre- 
 trievable destruction ; for mind, from its 
 nature, is something individual, an un- 
 compounded essence, which cannot be 
 broken into parts, and enter into union 
 with other minds. I am myself, and 
 can become no other being. My experi- 
 ence, my history, cannot become my 
 neighbor's. My consciousness, my mem- 
 ory, my interest in my past life, my affec- 
 tions, cannot be transferred. If in any 
 instance I have withstood temptation, 
 and through such resistance have ac- 
 quired power over myself and a claim 
 to the approbation of my fellow-beings, 
 this resistance, this power, this claim, 
 are my own ; I cannot make them an- 
 other's. I can give away my property, 
 my limbs ; but that which makes myself, 
 in other words, my consciousness, my 
 recollections, my feelings, my hopes, 
 these can never become parts of another 
 mind. In the extinction of a thinking, 
 moral being, who has gained truth and 
 virtue, there would be an absolute de- 
 struction. This event would not be as 
 the setting of the sun, which is a transfer 
 of light to new regions ; but a quenching
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 357 
 
 of the light. It would be a ruin such as 
 nature nowhere exhibits, a ruin of 
 what is infinitely more precious than the 
 outward universe, and is not, there- 
 fore, to be inferred from any of the 
 changes of the material world. 
 
 I am aware that views of this nature, 
 intended to show us that immortality is 
 impressed on the soul itself, fail to pro- 
 duce conviction from various causes. 
 There are not a few who are so accus- 
 tomed to look on the errors and crimes 
 of society, that human nature seems to 
 them little raised above the brutal ; and 
 they hear, with a secret incredulity, of 
 those distinctions and capacities of the 
 mind which point to its perpetual exist- 
 ence. To such men I might say that it 
 is a vicious propensity which leads them 
 to fasten continually and exclusively on 
 the sins of human nature : just as it is 
 criminal to fix the thoughts perpetually 
 on the miseries of human life, and to see 
 nothing but evil in the order of creation 
 and the providence of God. But, pass- 
 ing over this, I allow that human nature 
 abounds in crime. But this does not de- 
 stroy my conviction of its greatness and 
 immortality. I say that I see in crime 
 itself the proofs of human greatness and 
 of an immortal nature. The position 
 may seem extravagant, but it may be 
 fully sustained. 
 
 1 ask you first to consider what is 
 implied in crime. Consider in what it 
 originates. It has its origin in the no- 
 blest principle that can belong to any 
 being, I mean, in moral freedom. 
 There can be no crime without liberty 
 of action, without moral power. Were 
 man a machine, were he a mere creat- 
 ure of sensation and impulse, like the 
 brute, he could do no wrong. It is only 
 because he has the faculties of reason 
 and conscience, and a power over him- 
 self, that he is capable of contracting 
 guilt. Thus great guilt is itself a testi- 
 mony to tpe high endowments of the 
 soul. 
 
 In the next place, let me ask you to 
 consider whence it is that man sins. He 
 sins by being exposed to temptation. 
 Now the great design of temptation 
 plainly is, that the soul, by withstanding 
 it, should gain strength, should make 
 progress, should become a proper object 
 of divine reward. That is, man sins 
 through an exposure which is designed 
 to carry him forward to perfection ; so 
 
 that the cause of his guilt points to a 
 continued and improved existence. 
 
 In the next place, I say that guilt has 
 a peculiar consciousness belonging to it 
 which speaks strongly of a future life. 
 It carries with it intimations of retri- 
 bution. Its natural associate is fear. 
 The connection of misery with crime is 
 anticipated by a kind of moral instinct ; 
 and the very circumstance that the un- 
 principled man sometimes escapes pres- 
 ent suffering, suggests more strongly a 
 future state, where this apparent injus- 
 tice will be redressed, and where present 
 prosperity will become an aggravation of 
 woe. Guilt sometimes speaks of a fut- 
 ure state even in louder and more solemn 
 tones than virtue. It has been known 
 to overwhelm the spirit with terrible 
 forebodings, and has found through its 
 presentiments the hell which it feared. 
 Thus guilt does not destroy, but corrob- 
 orates, the proofs contained in the soul 
 itself of its own future being. 
 
 Let me add one more thought. The 
 sins which abound in the world, and 
 which are so often adduced to chill our 
 belief in the capacities and vast pros- 
 pects of human nature, serve to place in 
 stronger relief, and in brighter light, the 
 examples of piety and virtue which all 
 must acknowledge are to be found among 
 the guilty multitude. A mind which, in 
 such a world, amidst so many corrupting 
 influences, holds fast to truth, duty, and 
 God, is a nobler mind than any which 
 could be formed in the absence of such 
 temptalion. Thus the great sinfulness 
 of the world makes the virtue which ex- 
 ists in it more glorious ; and the very 
 struggles which the good man has to 
 maintain with its allurements and perse- 
 cutions, prepare him for a brighter re- 
 ward. To me, such views are singularly 
 interesting and encouraging. I delight 
 to behold the testimony which sin itself 
 furnishes to man's greatness and im- 
 mortality. I indeed see great guilt on 
 earth : but I see it giving occasion to 
 great moral strength, and to singular de- 
 votion and virtue in the good, and thus 
 throwing on human nature a lustre which 
 more than compensates for its own de- 
 formity. I do not shut my eyes on the 
 guilt of my race. I see, in history, hu- 
 man malignity so aggravated, so unre- 
 lenting, as even to pursue with torture, 
 and to doom to the most agonizing death, 
 the best of human beings. But when I
 
 358 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 see these beings unmoved by torture ; 
 meek and calm, and forgiving in their 
 agonies ; superior to death, and never 
 so glorious as in the last hour, I for- 
 get the guilt which persecutes them, in 
 my admiration of their virtue. In their 
 sublime constancy, I see a testimony to 
 the worth and immortality of human nat- 
 ure that outweighs the wickedness of 
 which they seem to be the victims ; and 
 I feel an assurance, which nothing can 
 wrest from me, that the godlike virtue 
 which has thus been driven from earth 
 will find a home, an everlasting home, in 
 its native heaven. Thus sin itself be- 
 comes a witness to the future life of 
 man. 
 
 I have thus, my hearers, endeavored 
 to show that our nature, the more it is 
 inquired into, discovers more clearly the 
 impress of immortality. I do not mean 
 that this evidence supersedes all other. 
 From its very nature, it can only be un- 
 derstood thoroughly by improved and 
 purified minds. The proof of immor- 
 tality, which is suited to all understand- 
 ings, is found in the gospel, sealed by 
 the blood and confirmed by the resur- 
 rection of Christ. But this, I think, is 
 made more impressive by a demonstra- 
 tion of its harmony with the teachings 
 of nature. To me, nature and revela- 
 tion speak with one voice on the great 
 theme of man's future being. Let not 
 their joint witness be unheard. 
 
 How full, how bright, are the evi- 
 dences of this grand truth ! How weak 
 are the common arguments which scep- 
 ticism arrays against it ! To me there 
 is but one objection against immortality, 
 if objection it may be called, and this 
 arises from the very greatness of the 
 truth. My mind sometimes sinks under 
 its weight, is lost in its immensity ; I 
 scarcely dare believe that such a good 
 is placed within my reach. When I 
 think of myself as existing through all 
 future ages, as surviving this earth and 
 that sky, as exempted from every imper- 
 fection and error of my present being, 
 as clothed with an angel's glory, as com- 
 prehending with my intellect and em- 
 bracing in my affections an extent of 
 creation compared with which the earth 
 is a point ; when I think of myself as 
 looking on the outward universe with an 
 organ of vision that will reveal to me a 
 beauty and harmony and order not now 
 imagined, and as having an access to 
 
 the minds of the wise and good which 
 will make them in a sense my own ; 
 when I think of myself as forming 
 friendships with innumerable beings of 
 rich and various intellect and of the 
 noblest virtue, as introduced to the so- 
 ciety of heaven, as meeting there the 
 great and excellent of whom I have 
 read in history, as joined with " the 
 just made perfect " in an ever-enlarging 
 ministry of benevolence, as conversing 
 with Jesus Christ with the familiarity of 
 friendship, and especially as having an 
 immediate intercourse with God, such 
 as the closest intimacies of earth dimly 
 shadow forth ; when this thought of my 
 future being comes to me, whilst I hope, 
 I also fear ; the blessedness seems too 
 great ; the consciousness of present 
 weakness and unworthiness is almost 
 too strong for hope. But when in this 
 frame of mind I look round on the crea- 
 tion, and see there the marks of an om- 
 nipotent goodness, to which nothing is 
 impossible, and from which every thing 
 may be hoped ; when I see around me 
 the proofs of an Infinite Father who 
 must desire the perpetual progress of 
 his intellectual offspring ; when I look 
 next at the human mind, and see what 
 powers a few years have unfolded, and 
 discern in it the capacity of everlasting 
 improvement ; and especially when I 
 look at' Jesus, the conqueror of death, 
 the heir of immortality, who has gone 
 as the forerunner of mankind into the 
 mansions of light and purity, I can 
 and do admit the almost overpowering 
 thought of the everlasting life, growth, 
 felicity of the human soul. 
 
 To each of us, my friends, is this fe- 
 licity offered, a good which turns to 
 darkness and worthlessness the splen- 
 dor and excellence of the most favored 
 lot on earth. I say it is offered. It 
 cannot be forced on us ; from its nature, 
 it must be won. Immortal happiness 
 is nothing more than the unfolding of 
 our own minds, the full, bright exercise 
 of our best powers : and these powers 
 are never to be unfolded here or here- 
 after, but through our own free exer- 
 tion. To anticipate a higher existence 
 whilst we neglect our own souls, is a 
 delusion on which reason frowns no less 
 than revelation. Dream not of a heaven 
 into which you may enter, live here as 
 you may. To such as waste the present 
 state, the future will not, cannot bring
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 359 
 
 happiness. There is no concord be- 
 tween them and that world of purity. 
 A human being who has lived without 
 God, and without self-improvement, can 
 no more enjoy heaven than a moulder- 
 ing body, lifted from the tomb and 
 placed amidst beautiful prospects, can 
 enjoy the light through its decayed j 
 eyes, or feel the balmy air which blows i 
 away its dust. My hearers, immortality 
 is a glorious doctrine ; but not given us 
 for speculation or amusement. Its hap- 
 
 piness is to be realized only through 
 our own struggles with ourselves, only 
 through our own reaching forward to 
 new virtue and piety. To be joined 
 with Christ in heaven, we must be 
 joined with him now in spirit, in the 
 conquest of temptation, in charity and 
 well-doing.. Immortality should begin 
 here. The seed is now to be sown 
 which is to expand for ever. " Be not 
 weary then in well-doing ; for in due 
 time we shall reap, if we faint not." 
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE: 
 
 Discourse preached on Easter Sunday, 1834, after the Death of an 
 Excellent and very Dear Friend. 
 
 EPHESIANS, i. 20: " He raised him from the dead, 
 and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly 
 places." 
 
 THIS day is set apart by the Chris- 
 tian world to the commemoration of 
 Christ's resurrection. Many uses may 
 be made of this event, but it is par- 
 ticularly fitted to confirm the doctrine 
 of another life, and to turn our thoughts, 
 desires, hopes towards another world. 
 I shall employ it to give this direction 
 to our minds. 
 
 There is one method in which Christ's 
 resurrection gives aid to our faith in 
 another life which is not often dwelt on, 
 and which seems to me worthy of atten- 
 tion. Our chief doubts and difficulties 
 in regard to that state spring chiefly 
 from the senses and the imagination, 
 and not from the reason. The eye, 
 fixed on the lifeless body, on the wan 
 features and the motionless limbs. 
 and the imagination, following the frame 
 into the dark tomb, and representing to 
 itself the stages of decay and ruin, are 
 apt to fill and oppress the mind with 
 discouraging and appalling thoughts. 
 The senses can detect in the pale corpse 
 not a trace of the activity of that spirit 
 which lately moved it. Death seems to 
 have achieved an entire victory ; and 
 when reason and revelation speak of 
 continued and a higher life, the senses 
 and imagination, pointing to the disfig- 
 ured and mouldering body, obscure by 
 
 their sad forebodings the light which 
 reason and revelation strive to kindle in 
 the bereaved soul. 
 
 Now the resurrection of Christ meets, 
 if I may so say, the senses and imag- 
 ination on their own ground, contends 
 with them with their own weapons. It 
 shows us the very frame on which 
 death, in its most humiliating form, had 
 set its seal, and which had been com- 
 mitted in utter hopelessness to the 
 tomb, rising, breathing, moving with 
 "new life, and rising not to return again 
 to the earth, but, after a short sojourn, 
 to ascend from the earth to a purer re- 
 gion, and thus to attest man's destina- 
 tion to a higher life. These facts, sub- 
 mitted to the very senses, and almost 
 necessarily kindling the imagination to 
 explore the unseen world, seem to me 
 particularly suited to overcome the main 
 difficulties in the way of Christian faith. 
 Reason is not left to struggle alone 
 with the horrors of the tomb. The as- 
 surance that Jesus Christ, who lived on 
 the earth, who died on the cross, and 
 was committed a mutilated, bleeding 
 frame to the receptacle of the dead, 
 rose uninjured, and then exchanged an 
 earthly for a heavenly life, puts to flight 
 the sad auguries which rise like spectres 
 from the grave, and helps us to con- 
 ceive, as in our present weakness we 
 could not otherwise conceive, of man's 
 appointed triumph over death.
 
 360 
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 Such is one of the aids given by the 
 resurrection to faith in immortality. 
 Still this faith is lamentably weak in 
 the multitude of men. To multitudes, 
 heaven is almost a world of fancy. It 
 wants substance. The idea of a world 
 in which beings exist without these 
 gross bodies, exist as pure spirits, or 
 clothed with refined and spiritual frames, 
 strikes them as a fiction. What can- 
 not be seen or touched appears unreal. 
 This is mournful, but not wonderful ; 
 for how can men, who immerse them- 
 selves in the body and its interests and 
 cultivate no acquaintance with their own 
 souls and spiritual powers, comprehend 
 a higher, spiritual life ? There are 
 multitudes who pronounce a man a vis- 
 ionary who speaks distinctly and joy- 
 fully of his future being, and of the 
 triumph of the mind over bodily decay. 
 
 This scepticism as to things spiritual 
 and celestial is as irrational and un- 
 philosophical as it is degrading. We 
 have more evidence that we have souls 
 or spirits than that we have bodies. 
 We are surer that we think, and feel, 
 and will, than that we have solid and 
 extended limbs and organs. Philoso- 
 phers have said much to disprove the 
 existence of matter and motion, but 
 they have not tried to disprove the 
 existence of thought ; for it is by 
 thought they attempt to set aside the 
 reality of material nature. 
 
 Farther, how irrational is it to im- 
 agine that there are no worlds but this, 
 and no higher modes of existence than 
 our own ! Who that sends his eye 
 through this immense creation can 
 doubt that there are orders of beings 
 superior to ourselves, or can see any- 
 thing unreasonable in the doctrine that 
 there are states in which mind exists 
 less circumscribed and clogged by mat- 
 ter than on earth ; in other words that 
 there is a spiritual world ? It is child- 
 ish to make this infant life of ours the 
 model of existence in all other worlds. 
 The philosopher, especially, who sees 
 a vast chain of beings and an infinite 
 variety of life on this single globe, 
 which is but a point in creation, should 
 be ashamed of that narrowness of mind 
 which can anticipate nothing nobler in 
 the universe of God than his present 
 mode of being. 
 
 How, now, shall the doctrine of a 
 future, higher life, the doctrine both of 
 
 reason and revelation, be brought to 
 bear more powerfully on the mind, to 
 become more real and effectual ? Vari- 
 ous methods might be given. I shall 
 confine myself to one. This method is, 
 to seek some clearer, more definite con- 
 ception of the future state. That world 
 seems less real, for want of some dis- 
 tinctness in its features. We should 
 all believe it more firmly if we conceived 
 of it more vividly. It seems unsub- 
 stantial, from its vagueness and dim- 
 ness. I think it right, then, to use the 
 aids of Scripture and reason in forming 
 to ourselves something like a sketch of 
 the life to come. The Scriptures, in- 
 deed, give not many materials for such a 
 delineation, but the few they furnish are 
 invaluable, especially when we add to 
 these the lights thrown over futurity 
 by the knowledge of our own spiritual 
 nature. Every new law of the mind 
 which we discover helps us to compre- 
 hend its destiny ; for its future life must 
 correspond to its great laws and essen- 
 tial powers. 
 
 These aids we should employ to give 
 distinctness to the spiritual state ; and 
 it is particularly useful so to do when 
 excellent beings, whom we have known 
 and loved, pass from earth into that 
 world. Nature prompts us to follow 
 them to their new abode, to inquire into 
 their new life, to represent to ourselves 
 their new happiness : and perhaps the 
 spiritual world never becomes so near 
 and real to us as when we follow into it 
 dear friends, and sympathize with them 
 in the improvements and enjoyments of 
 that blessed life. Do not say that there 
 is danger here of substituting imagina- 
 tion for truth. There is no danger if 
 we confine ourselves to the spiritual 
 views of heaven given us in the New 
 Testament, and interpret these by the 
 principles and powers of our own souls. 
 To me the subject is too dear and 
 sacred to allow me to indulge myself in 
 dreams. I want reality ; 1 want truth ; 
 and this I find in God's word and in 
 the human soul. 
 
 When our virtuous friends leave the 
 world, we know not the place where they 
 go. We can turn our eyes to no spot in 
 the universe and say they are there. Nor 
 is our ignorance here of any moment. 
 It is unimportant what region of space 
 contains them. Whilst we know not to 
 what place they go, we know what is
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 361 
 
 infinitely more interesting, to what be- 
 in^s they go. We know not where 
 heaven is, but we know whom it con- 
 tains, and this knowledge opens to us 
 an infinite field for contemplation and 
 delight. 
 
 I. Our virtuous friends, at death, go 
 to Jesus Christ. This is taught in the 
 text. " God raised him from the dead, 
 and exalted him to heaven." The New 
 Testament always speaks of Jesus as 
 existing now in the spiritual world ; and 
 Paul tells us that it is the happiness of 
 the holy, when absent from the body, to 
 be present with the Lord. Here is one 
 great fact in regard to futurity. The 
 good, on leaving us here, meet their 
 Saviour ; and this view alone assures 
 us of their unutterable happiness. In 
 this world they had cherished acquaint- 
 ance with Jesus through the records of 
 the Evangelists. They had followed 
 him through his eventful life with ven- 
 eration and love, had treasured in their 
 memories his words, works, and life- 
 giving promises, and, by receiving his 
 spirit, had learned something of the 
 virtues and happiness of a higher world. 
 Now they meet him, they see him. He 
 is no longer a faint object to their mind, 
 obscured by distance and by the mists 
 of sense and the world. He is present 
 to them, and more intimately present 
 than we are to each other. Of this we 
 are sure ; for whilst the precise mode 
 of our future existence is unknown, we 
 do know that spiritual beings in that 
 higher state must approach and com- 
 mune with each other more and more 
 intimately in proportion to their prog- 
 ress. Those who are newly born into 
 heaven meet Jesus, and meet from him 
 the kindest welcome. The happiness 
 of the Saviour, in receiving to a higher 
 life a human being who has been re- 
 deemed, purified, inspired with immortal 
 goodness by his influence, we can but 
 imperfectly comprehend. You can con- 
 ceive what would be your feelings on 
 welcoming to shore your best friend 
 who had been tossed on a perilous sea ; 
 but the raptures of earthly reunion are 
 faint compared with the happiness of 
 Jesus in receiving the spirit for which 
 he died, and which, under his guidance, 
 has passed with an improving virtue 
 through a world of sore temptation. We 
 on earth meet, after our long separations, 
 to suffer as well as enjoy, and soon to 
 
 part again. Jesus meets those who 
 ascend from earth to heaven with the 
 consciousness that their trial is past, 
 their race is run, that death is con- 
 quered. With his far-reaching, pro- 
 phetic eye he sees them entering a 
 career of joy and glory never to end. 
 And his benevolent welcome is ex- 
 pressed with a power which belongs 
 only to the utterance of heaven, and 
 which communicates to them an im- 
 mediate, confiding, overflowing joy. You 
 know that on earth we sometimes meet 
 human beings whose countenances, at the 
 first view, scatter all distrust, and win 
 from us something like the reliance of 
 a long-tried friendship. One smile is 
 enough to let us into their hearts, to 
 reveal to us a goodness on which we 
 may repose. That smile with which 
 Jesus will meet the new-born inhabitant 
 of heaven, that joyful greeting, that 
 beaming of love from him who bled for 
 us, that tone of welcome, all these 
 I can faintly conceive, but no language 
 can utter them. The joys of centuries 
 will be crowded into that meeting. This 
 is not fiction. It is truth founded on 
 the essential laws of the mind. 
 
 Our friends, when they enter heaven, 
 meet Jesus Christ, and their intercourse 
 with him will be of the most affectionate 
 and ennobling character. There will be 
 nothing of distance in it. Jesus is. in- 
 deed, sometimes spoken of as reigning 
 in the future world, and sometimes 
 imagination places him on a real and 
 elevated throne. Strange that such con- 
 ceptions can enter the minds of Chris- 
 tians. Jesus will indeed reign in heaven, 
 and so he reigned on earth. He reigned 
 in the fishing-boat, from which he 
 taught ; in the humble dwelling, where 
 he gathered round him listening and 
 confiding disciples. His reign is* not 
 the vulgar dominion of this world. It 
 is the empire of a great, godlike, dis- 
 interested being over minds capable of 
 comprehending and loving him. In 
 heaven, nothing like what we call 
 government on earth can exist, for 
 government here is founded in human 
 weakness and guilt. The voice of com- 
 mand is never heard among the spirits 
 of the just. Even on earth, the most 
 perfect government is that of a family, 
 where parents employ no tone but that 
 of affectionate counsel, where filial af- 
 fect'on reads its duty in the mild look,
 
 362 
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 and finds its law and motive in its own 
 pure impulse. Christ will not be raised 
 on a throne above his followers. On 
 earth he sat at the same table with the 
 publican and sinner. Will he recede 
 from the excellent whom he has fitted 
 for celestial mansions ? How minds 
 will communicate with one another in 
 that world, we know not ; but we know 
 that our closest embraces are but types 
 of the spiritual nearness which will then 
 be enjoyed ; and to this intimacy with 
 Jesus the new-born inhabitant of heaven 
 is admitted. 
 
 But we have not yet exhausted this 
 source of future happiness. The excel- 
 lent go from earth not only to receive a 
 joyful welcome and assurances of eter- 
 nal love from the Lord. There is a still 
 higher view. They are brought by this 
 new intercourse to a new comprehension 
 of his mind, and to a new reception of 
 his spirit. It is, indeed, a happiness to 
 know that we are objects of interest and 
 love to an illustrious being ; but it is a 
 greater happiness to know deeply the 
 sublime and beautiful character of this 
 being, to sympathize with him, to enter 
 into his vast thoughts and pure designs, 
 and to become associated with him in 
 the great ends for which he lives. Even 
 here, in our infant and dim state of being, 
 we learn enough of Jesus, of his divine 
 philanthropy triumphant over injuries 
 and agonies, to thrill us with affectionate 
 admiration. But those in heaven look 
 into that vast, godlike soul as we have 
 never done. They approach it as we 
 cannot approach the soul of the most 
 confiding friend ; and this nearness to 
 the mind of Jesus awakens in them- 
 selves a power of love and virtue which 
 they little suspected during their earthly 
 being. I trust I speak to those who, if 
 they have ever been brought into con- 
 nection with a noble human being, have 
 felt, as it were, a new spirit, and almost 
 new capacities of thought and life, ex- 
 panded within them. We all know how 
 a man of mighty genius and of heroic 
 feeling can impart himself to other 
 minds, and raise them for a time to 
 something like his own energy ; and in 
 this we have a faint delineation of the 
 power to be exerted on the minds of 
 those who approach Jesus after death. 
 As nature at this season springs to a 
 new life under the beams of the sun, so 
 will the human soul be warmed and ex- 
 
 panded under the influence of Jesus 
 Christ. It will then become truly con- 
 scious of the immortal power treasured 
 up in itself. His greatness will not 
 overwhelm it, but will awaken a corre- 
 sponding grandeur. 
 
 Nor is this topic yet exhausted. The 
 good, on approaching Jesus, will not 
 only sympathize with his spirit, but will 
 become joint workers, active, efficient 
 ministers in accomplishing his great 
 work of spreading virtue and happi- 
 ness. We must never think of heaven 
 as a state of inactive contemplation, or 
 of unproductive feeling. Even here on 
 earth the influence of Christ's character 
 is seen in awakening an active, self- 
 sacrificing goodness. It sends the true 
 disciples to the abodes of the suffering. 
 It binds them by new ties to their race. 
 It gives them a new consciousness of 
 being created for a ministry of be- 
 neficence ; and can they, when they 
 approach more nearly this divine Phi- 
 lanthropist, and learn, by a new alliance 
 with him, the fulness of his love, can 
 they fail to consecrate themselves to his 
 work and to kindred labors with an 
 energy of will unknown on earth ? In 
 truth, our sympathy with Christ could 
 not be perfect did we not act with him. 
 Nothing so unites beings as co-opera- 
 tion in the same glorious cause, and to 
 this union with Christ the excellent 
 above are received. 
 
 There is another very interesting view 
 of the future state, which seems to me 
 to be a necessary consequence of the 
 connection to be formed there with 
 Jesus Christ. Those who go there 
 from among us must retain the deepest 
 interest in this world. Their ties to 
 those they have left are not dissolved, 
 but only refined. On this point, indeed, 
 I want not the evidence of revelation ; I 
 want no other evidence than the essen- 
 tial principles and laws of the soul. If 
 the future state is to be an improve- 
 ment on the present, if intellect is to be 
 invigorated and love expanded there, 
 then memory, the fundamental power of 
 the intellect, must act with new energy 
 on the past, and all the benevolent 
 affections which have been cherished 
 here must be quickened into a higher 
 life. To suppose the present state 
 blotted out hereafter from the mind 
 would be to destroy its use, would cut 
 off all connection between the two
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 363 
 
 worlds, and would subvert responsibil- 
 ity ; for how can retribution be awarded 
 for a forgotten existence ? No ; we 
 must carry the present with us, whether 
 we enter the world of happiness or woe. 
 The good will indeed form new, holier, 
 stronger ties above ; but, under the ex- 
 panding influence of that better world, 
 the human heart will be capacious 
 enough to retain the old whilst it re- 
 ceives the new, to remember its birth- 
 place with tenderness whilst enjoying a 
 maturer and happier being. Did I think 
 of those who are gone as dying to those 
 they left, I should honor and love them 
 less. The man who forgets his home 
 when he quits it, seems to want the 
 best sensibilities of our nature ; and if 
 the good were to forget their brethren 
 on earth in their new abode, were to. 
 cease to intercede for them in their 
 nearer approach to their common Fa- 
 ther, could we think of them as im- 
 proved by the change ? 
 
 All this I am compelled to infer from 
 the nature of the human mind. But 
 when I add to this that the new-born 
 heirs of heaven go to Jesus Christ, the 
 great lover of the human family, who 
 dwelt here, suffered here, who moist- 
 ened our earth with his tears and blood, 
 who has gone not to break off but to 
 continue and perfect his beneficent la- 
 bors for mankind, whose mind never for 
 a moment turns from our race, whose 
 interest in the progress of his truth and 
 the salvation of the tempted soul has 
 been growing more and more intense 
 ever since he left our world, and who 
 has thus bound up our race with his 
 very being, when I think of all this, I 
 am sure that they cannot forget our 
 world. Could we hear them, I believe 
 they would tell us that they never truly 
 loved the race before ; never before 
 knew what it is to sympathize with hu- 
 man sorrow, to rejoice in human virtue, 
 to mourn for human guilt. A new foun- 
 tain of love to man is opened within 
 them. They now see what before dimly 
 gleamed on them, the capacities, the 
 mysteries of a human soul. The sig- 
 nificance of that word immortality is 
 now apprehended, and every being des- 
 tined to it rises into unutterable impor- 
 tance. They love human nature as 
 never before, and human friends are 
 prized as above all price. 
 
 Perhaps it may be asked whether 
 
 those born into heaven not only remem- 
 ber with interest, but have a present im- 
 mediate knowledge of those whom they 
 left on earth ? On this point neither 
 Scripture nor the principles of human 
 nature give us light, and we are of 
 course left to uncertainty. I will only 
 say that 1 know nothing to prevent such 
 knowledge. We are indeed accustomed 
 to think of heaven as distant ; but of 
 this we have no proof. Heaven is the 
 union, the society of spiritual, higher 
 beings. May not these fill the universe, 
 so as to make heaven everywhere ? are 
 such beings probably circumscribed, as 
 we are, by material limits ? Milton has 
 said, 
 
 " Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth 
 Both when we wake and when we sleep." 
 
 It is possible that the distance of 
 heaven lies wholly in the veil of flesh, 
 which we now want power to penetrate. 
 A new sense, a new eye, might show 
 the spiritual world compassing us on 
 every side. 
 
 But suppose heaven to be remote. 
 Still we on earth may be visible to its 
 inhabitants ; still in an important sense 
 they may be present ; for what do we 
 mean by presence ? Am I not present 
 to those of you who are beyond the 
 reach of my arm, but whom I distinctly 
 see ? And is it at all inconsistent with 
 our knowledge of nature to suppose 
 that those in heaven, whatever be their 
 abode, may have spiritual senses, or- 
 gans, by which they may discern the 
 remote as clearly as we do the near ? 
 This little ball of sight can see the 
 planets at the distance of millions of 
 miles, and by the aids of science can 
 distinguish the inequalities of their sur- 
 faces. And it is easy for us to conceive 
 of an organ of vision so sensitive and 
 piercing, that from our earth the inhabi- 
 tants of those far-rolling worlds might 
 be discerned. Why, then, may not they 
 who have entered a higher state, and 
 are clothed with spiritual frames, sur- 
 vey our earth as distinctly as when it 
 was their abode ? 
 
 This may be the truth ; but if we re- 
 ceive it as such, let us not abuse it. It 
 is liable to abuse. Let us not think of 
 the departed as looking on us with 
 earthly, partial affections. They love 
 us more than ever, but with a refined 
 and spiritual love. They have now but
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 one wish for us, which is, that we may 
 fit ourselves to join them in their man- 
 sions of benevolence and piety. Their 
 spiritual vision penetrates to our souls. 
 Could we hear their voice, it would not 
 be an utterance of personal attachment 
 so much as a quickening call to greater 
 effort, to more resolute self-denial, to a 
 wider charity, to a meeker endurance, 
 a more filial obedience of the will of 
 God. Nor must we think of them as 
 appropriated to ourselves. They are 
 breathing now an atmosphere of divine 
 benevolence. They are charged with a 
 higher mission than when they trod the 
 earth. And this thought of the enlarge- 
 ment of their love should enlarge ours, 
 and carry us beyond selfish regards to a 
 benevolence akin to that with which they 
 are inspired. 
 
 It is objected, I know, to the view I 
 have given of the connection of the in- 
 habitants of heaven with this world, that 
 it is inconsistent with their happiness. 
 It is said that, if they retain their knowl- 
 edge of this state, they must suffer from 
 the recollection or sight of our sins and 
 woes ; that to enjoy heaven they must 
 wean themselves from the earth. This 
 objection is worse than superficial. It 
 is a reproach to heaven and the good. 
 It supposes that the happiness of that 
 world is founded in ignorance, that it is 
 the happiness of the blind man, who, 
 were he to open his eye on what exists 
 around him, would be filled with horror. 
 It makes heaven an Elysium, whose in- 
 habitants perpetuate their joy by shut- 
 ting themselves up in narrow bounds, 
 and hiding themselves from the pains of 
 their fellow-creatures. But the good, from 
 their very nature, cannot thus be confined. 
 Heaven would be a prison did it cut them 
 off from sympathy with the suffering. 
 Their benevolence is too pure, too divine, 
 to shrink from the sight of evil. Let me 
 add that the objection before us casts 
 reproach on God. It supposes that there 
 are regions of his universe which must 
 be kept out of sight, which, if seen, 
 would blight the happiness of the virt- 
 uous. But this cannot be true. There 
 are no such regions, no secret places 
 of woe which these pure spirits must 
 not penetrate. There is impiety in the 
 thought. In such a universe there could 
 be no heaven. 
 
 Do you tell me that according to these 
 views suffering must exist in that blessed 
 
 state ? I reply, I do and must regard 
 heaven as a world of sympathy. Nothing, 
 I believe, has greater power to attract 
 the regards of its benevolent inhabitants 
 than the misery into which any of their 
 fellow-creatures may have fallen. The 
 suffering which belongs to a virtuous 
 sympathy I cannot, then, separate from 
 heaven. But that sympathy, though it 
 has sorrow, is far from being misery. 
 Even in this world, a disinterested com- 
 passion, when joined with power to 
 minister to suffering, and with wisdom 
 to comprehend its gracious purposes, is 
 a spirit of peace, and often issues in the 
 purest delight. Unalloyed as it will be 
 in another world by our present infirmi- 
 ties, and enlightened by comprehensive 
 views of God's perfect government, it 
 will give a charm and loveliness to the 
 sublimer virtues of the blessed, and, 
 like all other forms of excellence, will 
 at length enhance their felicity. 
 
 II. You see how much of heaven is 
 taught us in the single truth, that they 
 who enter it meet and are united to 
 Jesus Christ. There are other interest- 
 ing views at which I can only glance. 
 The departed go not to Jesus only. 
 They go to the great and blessed so- 
 ciety which is gathered round him, to 
 the redeemed from all regions of earth, 
 "to the city of the living God, to an 
 innumerable company of angels, to the 
 church of the first-born, to the spirits 
 of the just made perfect." Into what a 
 glorious community do they enter ! And 
 how they are received you can easily 
 understand. We are told there is joy in 
 heaven over the sinner who repenteth ; 
 and will not his ascension to the abode 
 of perfect virtue communicate more 
 fervent happiness ? Our friends who 
 leave us for that world do not find 
 themselves cast among strangers. No 
 desolate feeling springs up of having 
 exchanged their home for a foreign 
 country. The tenderest accents of hu- 
 man friendship never approached in 
 affectionateness the voice of congratu- 
 lation which bids them welcome to their 
 new and everlasting abode. In that 
 world, where minds have surer means 
 of revealing themselves than here, the 
 newly arrived immediately see and feel 
 themselves encompassed with virtue and 
 goodness ; and through this insight into 
 the congenial spirits which surround 
 them, intimacies stronger than years
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 365 
 
 can cement on earth may be created in 
 a moment. 
 
 It seems to me accordant with all the 
 principles of human nature, to suppose 
 that the departed meet peculiar con- 
 gratulation from friends who had gone 
 before them to that better world ; and 
 especially from all who had in any way 
 given aids to their virtue ; from parents 
 who had instilled into them the first 
 lessons of love to God and man ; from 
 associates, whose examples had won 
 them to goodness, whose faithful coun- 
 sels deterred them from sin. The ties 
 created by such benefits must be eter- 
 nal. The grateful soul must bind itself 
 with peculiar affection to such as guided 
 it to immortality. 
 
 In regard to the happiness of the in- 
 tercourse of the future state, all of you, 
 I trust, can form some apprehensions of 
 it. If we have ever known the enjoy- 
 ments of friendship, of entire confi- 
 dence, of co-operation in honorable and 
 successful labors with those we love, 
 we can comprehend something of the 
 felicity of a world where souls, refined 
 from selfishness, open as the day, thirst- 
 ing for new truth and virtue, endued 
 with new power of enjoying the beauty 
 and grandeur of the universe, allied in 
 the noblest works of benevolence, and 
 continually discovering new mysteries 
 of the Creator's power and goodness, 
 communicate themselves to one another 
 with the freedom of perfect love. The 
 closest attachments of this life are cold, 
 distant, stranger-like, compared with 
 theirs. How they communicate them- 
 selves, by what language or organs, we 
 know not. But this we know, that in 
 the progress of the mind its power of 
 imparting itself must improve. The 
 eloquence, the thrilling, inspiring tones, 
 in which the good and noble sometimes 
 speak to us on earth, may help us to 
 conceive the expressiveness, harmony, 
 energy of the language in which supe- 
 rior beings reveal themselves above. 
 Of what they converse we can better 
 judge. They who enter that world 
 meet beings whose recollections extend 
 through ages, who have met together 
 perhapsfrom various worlds, who have 
 been educated amidst infinite varieties 
 of condition, each of whom has passed 
 through his own discipline and reached 
 his own peculiar form of perfection, 
 and each of whom is a peculiar testi- 
 
 mony to the providence of the Univer- 
 sal Father. What treasures of memory, 
 observation, experience, imagery, illus- 
 tration, must enrich the intercourse of 
 heaven ! One angel's history may be a 
 volume of more various truth than all 
 the records of our race. After all, how 
 little can our present experience help us 
 to understand the intercourse of heaven, 
 
 a communion marred by no passion, 
 chilled by no reserve, depressed by no 
 consciousness of sin, trustful as child- 
 hood, and overflowing with innocent joy, 
 
 a communion in which the noblest 
 feelings flow fresh from the heart, in 
 which pure beings give familiar utter- 
 ance to their divinest inspirations, to 
 the wonder which perpetually springs 
 up amidst this ever-unfolding and ever- 
 mysterious universe, to the raptures of 
 adoration and pious gratitude, and to 
 the swellings of a sympathy which can- 
 not be confined. 
 
 But it would be wrong to imagine that 
 the inhabitants of heaven only converse. 
 They who reach that world enter on a 
 state of action, life, effort. We are apt 
 to think of the future world as so liappy 
 that none need the aid of others, that 
 effort ceases, that the good have nothing 
 to do but to enjoy. The truth is that all 
 action on earth, even the intensest, is 
 but the sport of childhood compared 
 with the energy and activity of that 
 higher life. It must be so. For what 
 principles are so active as intellect, be- 
 nevolence, the love of truth, the thirst 
 for perfection, sympathy with the suffer- 
 ing, and devotion to God's purposes ? 
 and these are the ever-expanding prin- 
 ciples of the future life. It is true, the 
 labors which are now laid on us for 
 food, raiment, outward interests, cease 
 at the grave. But far deeper wants 
 than those of the body are developed in 
 heaven. There it is that the spirit first 
 becomes truly conscious of its capacities ; 
 that truth opens before us in its infinity ; 
 that the universe is seen to be a bound- 
 less sphere for discovery, for science, 
 for the sense of beauty, for beneficence, 
 and for adoration. There new objects 
 to live for, which reduce to nothingness 
 present interests, are constantly unfold- 
 ed. We must not think of heaven as a 
 stationary community. I think of it as 
 a world of stupendous plans and efforts 
 for its own improvement. I think of it 
 as a society passing through successive
 
 366 
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 stages of development, virtue, knowl- 
 edge, power, by the energy of its own 
 members. Celestial genius is always 
 active to explore the great laws of the 
 creation and the everlasting principles 
 of the mind, to disclose the beautiful in 
 the universe, and to discover the means 
 by which every soul may be carried for- 
 ward. In that world, as in this, there 
 are diversities of intellect, and the high- 
 est minds find their happiness and prog- 
 ress in elevating the less improved. 
 There the work of education, which be- 
 gan here, goes on without end ; and a 
 diviner philosophy than is taught on 
 earth reveals the spirit to itself, and 
 awakens it to earnest, joyful effort for 
 its own perfection. 
 
 And not only will they who are born 
 into heaven enter a society full of life 
 and action for its own development. 
 Heaven has connection with other 
 worlds. Its inhabitants are God's mes- 
 sengers through the creation. They 
 have great trusts. In the progress of 
 their endless being, they may have the 
 care of other worlds. But I pause, lest 
 to those unused to such speculations I 
 seem to exceed the bounds of calm an- 
 ticipation. What I have spoken seems 
 to me to rest on God's word and the 
 laws of the mind, and these laws are 
 everlasting. 
 
 On one more topic I meant to enlarge, 
 but I must forbear. They who are born 
 into heaven go not only to Jesus and an 
 innumerable company of pure beings. 
 They go to God. They see him with a 
 new light in all his works. Still more, 
 they see him, as the Scriptures teach, 
 face to face, that is, by immediate com- 
 munion. These new relations of the as- 
 cended spirit to the Universal Father, 
 how near ! how tender ! how strong ! 
 how exalting ! But this is too great a 
 subject for the time which remains. 
 And yet it is the chief element of the 
 felicity of heaven. 
 
 The views now given of the future 
 state should make it an object of deep 
 
 interest, earnest hope, constant pursuit. 
 Heaven is, in truth, a glorious reality. 
 Its attraction should be felt perpetually. 
 It should overcome the force with which 
 this world draws us to itself. Were 
 there a country on earth uniting all that 
 is beautiful in nature, all that is great in 
 virtue, genius, and the liberal arts, and 
 numbering among its citizens the most 
 illustrious patriots, poets, philosophers, 
 philanthropists of our age, how eagerly 
 should we cross the ocean to visit it ! 
 And how immeasurably greater is the 
 attraction of heaven ! There live the 
 elder brethren of the creation, the sons 
 of the morning, who sang for joy at the 
 creation of our race ; there the great 
 and good of all ages and climes ; the 
 friends, benefactors, deliverers, orna- 
 ments of their race ; the patriarch, 
 prophet, apostle, and martyr ; the true 
 heroes of public, and still more of pri- 
 vate, life ; the father, mother, wife, hus- 
 band, child, who, unrecorded by man, 
 have walked before God in the beauty 
 of love and self-sacrificing virtue. There 
 are all who have, built up in our hearts 
 the power of goodness and truth, the 
 writers from whose pages we have re- 
 ceived the inspiration of pure and lofty 
 sentiments, the friends whose counte- 
 nances have shed light through our dwel- 
 lings, and peace and strength through 
 our hearts. There they are gathered to- 
 gether, safe from every storm, triumph- 
 ant over evil ; and they say to us, Come 
 and join us in our everlasting blessedness ; 
 come and bear part in our song of praise ; 
 share our adoration, friendship, prog- 
 ress, and works of love. They say to 
 us, Cherish now in your earthly life that 
 spirit and virtue of Christ which is the 
 beginning and dawn of heaven, and we 
 shall soon welcome you, with more than 
 human friendship, to our own immor- 
 tality. Shall that voice speak to us in 
 vain ? Shall our worldliness and unfor- 
 saken sins separate us, by a gulf which 
 cannot be passed, from the society of 
 heaven ?
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 367 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY: 
 
 Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. Jared Sparks. 
 Baltimore, 1819. 
 
 i THES. v. 21 : " Prove all things ; hold fast that which 
 is good ' ' 
 
 THE peculiar circumstances of this 
 occasion not only justify but seem to 
 demand a departure from the course 
 generally followed by preachers at the 
 introduction of a brother into the sacred 
 office. It is usual to speak of the nat- 
 ure, design, duties, and advantages of 
 the Christian ministry ; and on these 
 topics I should now be happy to insist, 
 did I not remember that a minister is 
 to be given this day to a religious soci- 
 ety whose peculiarities of opinion have 
 drawn upon them much remark, and, 
 may I not add, much reproach. Many 
 good minds, many sincere Christians, 
 I am aware, are apprehensive that the 
 solemnities of this day are to give a 
 degree of influence to principles which 
 they deem false and injurious. The 
 fears and anxieties of such men I re- 
 spect ; and, believing that they are 
 grounded in part on mistake, I have 
 thought it my duty to lay before you, as 
 clearly as I can, some of the distinguish- 
 ing opinions of that class of Christians 
 in our country who are known to sympa- 
 thize with this religious society. , I must 
 ask your patience, for such a subject is 
 not to be despatched in a narrow com- 
 pass. I must also ask you to remember 
 that it is impossible to exhibit, in a sin- 
 gle discourse, our views of every doc- 
 trine of revelation, much less the differ- 
 ences of opinion which are known to 
 subsist among ourselves. I shall con- 
 fine myself to topics on which our sen- 
 timents have been misrepresented, or 
 which distinguish us most widely from 
 others. May I not hope to be heard 
 with candor ? God deliver us all from 
 prejudice and unkindness, and fill us 
 with the love of truth and virtue ! 
 
 There are two natural divisions under 
 which my thoughts will be arranged. I 
 shall endeavor to unfold, ist, The prin- 
 
 ciples which we adopt in interpreting 
 the Scriptures ; and 2dly, Some of the 
 doctrines which the Scriptures, so inter- 
 preted, seem to us clearly to express. 
 
 I. We regard the Scriptures as the 
 records of God's successive revelations 
 to mankind, and particularly of the last 
 and most perfect revelation of his will 
 by Jesus Christ. Whatever doctrines 
 seem to us to be clearly taught in the 
 Scriptures, we receive without reserve 
 or exception. We do not, however, at- 
 tach equal importance to all the books 
 in this collection. Our religion, we be- 
 lieve, lies chiefly in the New Testament. 
 The dispensation of Moses, compared 
 with that of Jesus, we consider as 
 adapted to the childhood of the human 
 race, a preparation for a nobler system, 
 and chiefly useful now as serving to 
 confirm and illustrate the Christian 
 Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the only 
 master of Christians, and whatever he 
 taught, either during his personal minis- 
 try or by his inspired Apostles, we re- 
 gard as of divine authority, and profess 
 to make the rule of our lives. 
 
 This authority which we give to the 
 Scriptures is a reason, we conceive, for 
 studying them with peculiar care, and 
 for inquiring anxiously into the princi- 
 ples of interpretation by which their 
 true meaning may be ascertained. The 
 principles adopted by the class of Chris- 
 tians in whose name I speak need to be 
 explained, because they are often mis- 
 understood. We are particularly ac- 
 cused of making an unwarrantable use 
 of reason in the interpretation of Script- 
 ure. *We are said to exalt reason above 
 revelation, to prefer our own wisdom to 
 God's. Loose and undefined charges 
 of this kind are circulated so freely, that 
 we think it due to ourselves, and to the 
 cause of truth, to express our views 
 with some particularity. 
 
 Our leading principle in interpreting
 
 368 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Scripture is this, that the Bible is a 
 book written for men, in the language 
 of men, and that its meaning is to be 
 sought in the same manner as that of 
 other books. We believe that God, 
 when He speaks to the human race, 
 conforms, if we may so say, to the es- 
 tablished rules of speaking and writing. 
 How else would the Scriptures avail us 
 more than jf communicated in an un- 
 known tongue ? 
 
 Now all books and all conversation 
 require in the reader or hearer the con- 
 stant exercise of reason ; or their true 
 import is only to be obtained by con- 
 tinual comparison and inference. Hu- 
 man language, you well know, admits 
 various interpretations ; and every word 
 and every sentence must be modified 
 and explained according to the subject 
 which is discussed, according to the 
 purposes, feelings, circumstances, and 
 principles of the writer, and according to 
 the genius and idioms of the language 
 which he uses. These are acknowl- 
 edged principles in the interpretation of 
 human writings ; and a man whose words 
 we should explain without reference to 
 these principles would reproach us justly 
 with a criminal want of candor, and an 
 intention of obscuring or distorting, his 
 meaning. 
 
 Were the Bible written in a language 
 and style of its own, did it consist of 
 words which admit but a single sense, 
 and of sentences wholly detached from 
 each other, there would be no place for 
 the principles now laid down. We 
 could not reason about it as about other 
 writings. But such a book would be of 
 little worth ; and perhaps, of all books, 
 the Scriptures correspond least to this 
 description. The word of God bears 
 the stamp of the same hand which we 
 see in his works. It has infinite con- 
 nections and dependences. Every prop- 
 osition is linked with others, and is to 
 be compared with others, that its full 
 and precise import may be understood. 
 Nothing stands alone. The New Tes- 
 tament is built on the Old. The Chris- 
 tian dispensation is a continuation of 
 the Jewish, the completion of a vast 
 scheme of providence, requiring great 
 extent of view in the reader. Still more, 
 the Bible treats of subjects on which 
 we receive ideas from other sources 
 besides itself, such subjects as the 
 nature, passions, relations, and duties 
 
 of man ; and it expects us to restrain and 
 modify its language by the known truths 
 which observation and experience fur- 
 nish on these topics. 
 
 We profess not to know a book which 
 demands a more frequent exercise of 
 reason than the Bible. In addition to 
 the remarks now made on its infinite 
 connections, we may observe, that its 
 style nowhere affects the precision of 
 science or the accuracy of definition. 
 Its language is singularly glowing, bold, 
 and figurative, demanding more frequent 
 departures from the literal sense than 
 that of our own age and country, and 
 consequently demanding more continual 
 exercise of judgment. We find, too, 
 that the different portions of this book, 
 instead of being confined to general 
 truths, refe,r perpetually to the times 
 when they were written, to states of 
 society, to modes of thinking, to con- 
 troversies in the church, to feelings and 
 usages which have passed away, and 
 without the knowledge of which we are 
 constantly in danger of extending" to all 
 times and places what was of temporary 
 and local application. We find, too, 
 that some of these books are strongly 
 marked by the genius and character of 
 their respective writers, that the Holy 
 Spirit did not so guide the Apostles as 
 to suspend the peculiarities of their 
 minds, and that a knowledge of their 
 feelings, and of the influences under 
 which they were placed, is one of the 
 preparations for understanding their 
 writings. With these views of the 
 Bible, we feel it our bounden duty to 
 exercise our reason upon it perpetually, 
 to compare, to infer, to look beyond the 
 letter to the spirit, to seek in the nature 
 of the subject and the aim of the writer 
 his true meaning ; and, in general, to 
 make use of what is known for explain- 
 ing what is difficult, and for discovering 
 new truths. 
 
 Need I descend to particulars to prove 
 that the Scriptures demand the exer- 
 cise of reason ? Take, for example, the 
 style in which they generally speak of 
 God, and observe how habitually they 
 apply to him human passions and or- 
 gans. Recollect the declarations of 
 Christ, that he came not to send peace 
 but a sword ; that unless we eat his 
 flesh and drink his blood we have no 
 life in us ; that we must hate father and 
 mother, and pluck out the right eye ;
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 369 
 
 and a vast number of passages equally 
 bold and unlimited. Recollect the un- 
 qualified manner in which it is said of 
 Christians that they possess all things, 
 know all things, and can do all things. 
 Recollect the verbal contradiction be- 
 tween Paul and James, and the appar- 
 ent clashing of some parts of Paul's 
 writings with the general doctrines and 
 end of Christianity. I might extend the 
 enumeration indefinitely ; and who does 
 not see that we must limit all these pas- 
 sages by the known attributes of God, 
 of Jesus Christ, and of human nature, 
 and by the circumstances under which 
 they were written, so as to give the 
 language a quite different import from 
 what it would require had it been ap- 
 plied to different beings, or used in dif- 
 ferent connections. 
 
 Enough has been said to show in 
 what sense we make use of reason in 
 interpreting Scripture. From a variety 
 of possible interpretations we select that 
 which accords with the nature of the 
 subject and the state of the writer, with 
 the connection of the passage, with the 
 
 feneral strain of Scripture, with the 
 nown character and will of God, and 
 with the obvious and acknowledged laws 
 of nature. In other words, we believe 
 that God never contradicts in one part 
 of Scripture what He teaches in an- 
 other : and never contradicts in revelation 
 what He teaches in his works and prov- 
 idence. And we therefore distrust every 
 interpretation which, after deliberate 
 attention, seems repugnant to any es- 
 tablished truth. We reason about the 
 Bible precisely as civilians do about the 
 constitution under which we live ; who, 
 you know, are accustomed to limit one 
 provision of that venerable instrument 
 by others, and to fix the precise import 
 of its parts by inquiring into its general 
 spirit, into the intentions of its authors, 
 and into the prevalent feelings, impres- 
 sions, and circumstances of the time 
 when it was framed. Without these 
 principles of interpretation, we frankly 
 acknowledge that we cannot defend the 
 divine authority of the Scriptures. Deny 
 us_ this latitude, and we must abandon 
 this book to its enemies. 
 
 We do not announce these principles 
 as original, or peculiar to ourselves. All 
 Christians occasionally adopt them, not 
 excepting those who most vehemently 
 decry them when they happen to men- 
 
 ace some favorite article of their creed. 
 All Christians are compelled to use 
 them in their controversies with infidels. 
 All sects employ them in their warfare 
 with one another. All willingly avail 
 themselves of reason when it can be 
 pressed into the service of their own 
 party, and only complain of it when its 
 weapons wound themselves. None rea- 
 son more frequently than those from 
 whom we differ. It is astonishing what 
 a fabric they rear from a few slight 
 hints about the fall of our first parents ; 
 and how ingeniously they extract from 
 detached passages mysterious doctrines 
 about the divine nature. We do not 
 blame them for reasoning so abundantly, 
 but for violating the fundamental rules 
 of reasoning, for sacrificing the plain to 
 the obscure, and the general strain of 
 Scripture to a scanty number of insu- 
 lated texts. 
 
 We object strongly to the contempt- 
 uous manner in which human reason is 
 often spoken of by our adversaries, be- 
 cause it leads, we believe, to universal 
 scepticism. If reason be so dreadfully 
 darkened by the fall that its most deci- 
 sive judgments on religion are unwor- 
 thy of trust, then Christianity, and even 
 natural theology, must be abandoned ; 
 for the existence and veracity of God, 
 and the divine original of Christianity, 
 are conclusions of reason, and must 
 stand or fall with it. If revelation be at 
 war with this faculty, it subverts itself, 
 for the great question of its truth is left 
 by God to be decided at the bar of rea- 
 son. It is worthy of remark, how nearly 
 the bigot and the sceptic approach. 
 Both would annihilate our confidence 
 in our faculties, and both throw doubt 
 and confusion over every truth. We 
 honor revelation too highly to make it 
 the antagonist of reason, or to believe 
 that it calls us to renounce our highest 
 powers. 
 
 We indeed grant that the use of rea- 
 son in religion is accompanied with 
 danger. But we ask any honest man to 
 look back on the history of the church, 
 and say whether the renunciation of it 
 be not still more dangerous. Besides, it 
 is a plain fact that men reason as erro- 
 neously on all subjects as on religion. 
 Who does not know the wild and ground- 
 less theories which have been framed 
 in physical and political science ? But 
 who ever supposed that we must cease 
 
 24
 
 370 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to exercise reason on nature and society 
 because men have erred for ages in 
 explaining them ? We grant that the 
 passions continually, and sometimes 
 fatally, disturb the rational faculty in 
 its inquiries into revelation. The ambi- 
 tious contrive to find doctrines in the 
 Bible which favor their love of dominion. 
 The timid and dejected discover there a 
 gloomy system, and the mystical and 
 fanatical a visionary theology. The 
 vicious can find examples or assertions 
 on which to build the hope of a late 
 repentance, or of acceptance on easy 
 terms. The falsely refined contrive to 
 light on doctrines which have not been 
 soiled by vulgar handling. But the 
 passions do not distract the reason in 
 religious any more than in other in- 
 quiries which excite strong and general 
 interest ; and this faculty, of conse- 
 quence, is not to be renounced in re- 
 ligion, unless we are prepared to discard 
 it universally. The true inference from 
 the almost endless errors which have 
 darkened theology is, not that we are to 
 neglect and disparage our powers, but 
 to exert them more patiently, circum- 
 spectly, uprightly ; the worst errors, 
 after all, having sprung up in that church 
 which proscribes reason, and demands 
 from its members implicit faith. The 
 most pernicious doctrines have been the 
 growth of the darkest times, when the 
 general credulity encouraged bad men 
 and enthusiasts to broach their dreams 
 and inventions, and to stifle the faint 
 remonstrances of reason by the menaces 
 of everlasting perdition. Say what we 
 may, God has given us a rational nature, 
 and will call us to account for it. We 
 may let it sleep, but we do so at our 
 peril. Revelation is addressed to us as 
 rational beings. We may wish, in our 
 sloth, that God had given us a sys- 
 tem demanding no labor of comparing, 
 limiting, and inferring. But such a sys- 
 tem would be at variance with the whole 
 character of our present existence ; and 
 it is the part of wisdom to take revela- 
 tion as it is given to us, and to inter- 
 pret it by the help of the faculties which 
 it everywhere supposes, and on which 
 it is founded. 
 
 To the views now given an objection 
 is commonly urged from the character 
 of God. We are told that God being 
 infinitely wiser than men, his discoveries 
 will surpass human reason. In a rev- 
 
 elation from such a teacher we ought to 
 expect propositions which we cannot rec- 
 oncile with one another, and which may 
 seem to contradict established truths ; 
 and it becomes us not to question or 
 explain them away, but to believe and 
 adore, and to submit our weak and 
 carnal reason to the divine word. Te 
 this objection we have two short an- 
 swers. We say, first, that it is impos- 
 sible that a teacher of infinite wisdom 
 should expose those whom he would 
 teach to infinite error. But if once we 
 admit that propositions which in their 
 literal sense appear plainly repugnant to 
 one another, or to any known truth, are 
 still to be literally understood and re- 
 ceived, what possible limit can we set 
 to the belief of contradictions ? What 
 shelter have we from the wildest fanati- 
 cism, which can always quote passages 
 that, in their literal and obvious sense, 
 give support to its extravagances ? How 
 can the Protestant escape from tran- 
 substantiation, a doctrine most clearly 
 taught us, if the submission of reason, 
 now contended for, be a duty ? How 
 can we even hold fast the truth of rev- 
 elation ; for if one apparent contradic- 
 tion may be true, so may another, and 
 the proposition, that Christianity is false, 
 though involving inconsistency, may still 
 be a verity ? 
 
 We answer again, that if God be in- 
 finitely wise, He cannot sport with the 
 understandings of his creatures. A wise 
 teacher discovers his wisdom in adapt- 
 ing himself to the capacities of his pupils, 
 not in perplexing them with what is un- 
 intelligible, not in distressing them with 
 apparent contradictions, not in filling 
 them with a sceptical distrust of their 
 own powers. An infinitely wise teacher, 
 who knows the precise extent of our 
 minds and the best method of enlighten- 
 ing them, will surpass all other instruc- 
 tors in bringing down truth to our appre- 
 hension, and in showing its loveliness 
 and harmony. We ought, indeed, to 
 expect occasional obscurity in such a 
 book as the Bible, which was written 
 for past and future ages as well as for 
 the present. But God's wisdom is a 
 pledge that whatever is necessary for 
 us, and necessary for salvation, is re- 
 vealed too plainly to be mistaken, and 
 too consistently to be questioned, by a 
 sound and upright mind. It is not the 
 mark of wisdom to use an unintelligi-
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 371 
 
 ble phraseology, to communicate what 
 is above our capacities, to confuse and 
 unsettle the intellect by appearances of 
 contradiction. We honor our Heavenly 
 Teacher too much to ascribe to him 
 such a revelation. A revelation is a 
 gift of light. It cannot thicken our 
 darkness and multiply our perplexities. 
 
 II. Having thus stated the principles 
 according to which we interpret Script- 
 ure, I now proceed to the second great 
 head of this discourse, which is, to state 
 some of the views which we derive from 
 that sacred book, particularly those 
 which distinguish us from other Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 i. In the first place, we believe in the 
 doctrine of God's UNITY, or that there 
 is one God, and one only. To this truth 
 we give infinite importance, and we feel 
 ourselves bound to take heed lest any 
 man spoil us of it by vain philosophy. 
 The proposition that there is one God 
 seems to us exceedingly plain. We un- 
 derstand by it that there is one being, 
 one mind, one person, one intelligent 
 agent, and one only, to whom underived 
 and infinite perfection and dominion be- 
 long. We conceive that these words 
 could have conveyed no other meaning 
 to the simple and uncultivated people 
 who were set apart to be the depositaries 
 of this great truth, and who were utterly 
 incapable of understanding those hair- 
 breadth distinctions between being and 
 person which the sagacity of later ages 
 has discovered. We find no intima- 
 tion that this language was to be taken 
 in an unusual sense, or that God's unity 
 was a quite different thing from the one- 
 ness of other intelligent beings. 
 
 We object to the doctrine of the Trin- 
 ity, that, whilst acknowledging in words, 
 it subverts in effect, the unity of God. 
 According to this doctrine, there are 
 three infinite and equal persons, pos- 
 sessing supreme divinity, called the Fa- 
 ther, Son, and Holy Ghost. Each of 
 these persons, as described by theolo- 
 gians, has his own particular conscious- 
 ness, will, and perceptions. They love 
 each other, converse with each other, 
 and delight in each other's society. 
 They perform different parts in man's 
 redemption, each having his appropriate 
 office, and neither doing the work of the 
 other. The Son is mediator, and not 
 the Father. The Father sends the Son, 
 and is not himself sent ; nor is He con- 
 
 scious, like the Son, of taking flesh. 
 Here, then, we have three intelligent 
 agents, possessed of different conscious- 
 nesses, different wills, and different per- 
 ceptions, performing different acts, and 
 sustaining different relations ; and if 
 these things do not imply and constitute 
 three minds or beings, we are utterly at 
 a loss to know how three minds or be- 
 ings are to be formed. It is difference 
 of properties, and acts, and concious- 
 ness, which leads us to the belief of dif- 
 ferent intelligent beings, and, if this 
 mark fails us, our whole knowledge 
 falls ; we have no proof that all the 
 agents and persons in the universe are 
 not one and the same mind. When we 
 attempt to conceive of three Gods, we 
 can do nothing more than represent to 
 ourselves three agents, distinguished 
 from each other by similar marks and 
 peculiarities to those which separate 
 the persons of the Trinity ; and when 
 common Christians hear these persons 
 spoken of as conversing with each other, 
 loving each other, and performing differ- 
 ent acts, how can they help regarding 
 them as different beings, different minds ? 
 We do, then, with all earnestness, 
 though without reproaching our brethren, 
 protest against the irrational and un- 
 scriptural doctrine of the Trinity. " To 
 us," as to the Apostle and the primitive 
 Christians, " there is one God, even the 
 Father." With Jesus, we worship the 
 Father, as the only living and true God. 
 We are astonished that any man can 
 read the New Testament and avoid the 
 conviction that the Father alone is God. 
 We hear our Saviour continually appro- 
 priating this character to the Father. 
 We find the Father continually distin- 
 guished from Jesus by this title. " God 
 sent his Son." " God anointed Jesus." 
 Now, how singular and inexplicable is 
 this phraseology, which fills the New 
 Testament, if this title belong equally to 
 Jesus, and if a principal object of this 
 book is to reveal him as God, as par- 
 taking equally with the Father in su- 
 preme divinity ! We challenge our 
 opponents to adduce one passage in the 
 New Testament where the word God 
 means three persons, where it is not 
 limited to one person, and where, unless 
 turned from its usual sense by the con- 
 nection, it does not mean the Father. 
 Can- stronger proof be given that the 
 doctrine of three persons in the God-
 
 372 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 head is not a fundamental doctrine of 
 Christianity ? 
 
 This doctrine, were it true, must, from 
 its difficulty, singularity, and importance, 
 have been laid down with great clear- 
 ness, guarded with great care, and stated 
 with all possible precision. But where 
 does this statement appear ? From the 
 many passages which treat of God, we 
 ask for one, one only, in which we are told 
 that He is a threefold being, or that He 
 is three persons, or that He is Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost. On the contrary, 
 in the New Testament, where, at least, 
 we might expect many express asser- 
 tions of this nature, God is declared to 
 be one, without the least attempt to pre- 
 vent the acceptation of the words in 
 their common sense ; and He is alwa'ys 
 spoken of and addressed in the singular 
 number, that is, in language which was 
 universally understood to intend a single 
 person, and to which no other idea could 
 have been attached without an express 
 admonition. So entirely do the Script- 
 ures abstain from stating the Trinity, 
 that when our opponents would insert 
 it into their creeds and doxologies, they 
 are compelled to leave the Bible, and to 
 invent forms of words altogether un- 
 sanctioned by Scriptural phraseology. 
 That a doctrine so strange, so liable to 
 misapprehension, so fundamental as this 
 is said to be, and requiring such careful 
 exposition, should be left so undefined 
 and unprotected, to be made out by in- 
 ference, and to be hunted through dis- 
 tant and detached parts of Scripture, 
 this is a difficulty which, we think, no 
 ingenuity can explain. 
 
 We have another difficulty. Chris- 
 tianity, it must be remembered, was 
 planted and grew up amidst sharp-sight- 
 ed enemies, who overlooked no objec- 
 tionable part of the system, and who 
 must have fastened with great earnest- 
 ness on a doctrine involving such ap- 
 parent contradictions as the Trinity. 
 We cannot conceive an opinion against 
 which the Jews, who prided themselves 
 on an adherence to God's unity, would 
 have raised an equal clamor. Now, 
 how happens it that in the apostolic 
 writings, which relate so much to objec- 
 tions against Christianity, and to the 
 controversies which grew out of this re- 
 ligion, not one word is said implying 
 that objections were brought against the 
 gospel from the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 
 not one word is uttered in its defence 
 and explanation, not a word to rescue it 
 from reproach and mistake ? This argu- 
 ment has almost the force of demonstra- 
 tion. We are persuaded that, had three 
 divine persons been announced by the 
 first preachers of Christianity, all equal 
 and all infinite, one of whom was the 
 very Jesus who had lately died on the 
 cross, this peculiarity of Christianity 
 would have almost absorbed every other, 
 and the great labor of the Apostles 
 would have been to repel the continual 
 assaults which it would have awakened. 
 But the fact is, that not a whisper of ob- 
 jection to Christianity on that account 
 reaches our ears from the apostolic age. 
 In the Epistles we see not a trace of 
 controversy called forth by the Trinity. 
 
 We have further objections to this 
 doctrine, drawn from its practical influ- 
 ence. We regard it as unfavorable to 
 devotion, by dividing and distracting the 
 mind in its communion with God. It is 
 a great excellence of the doctrine of 
 God's unity, that it offers to us ONE 
 OBJECT of supreme homage, adoration, 
 and love, One Infinite Father, one Being 
 of beings, one original and fountain, to 
 whom we may refer all good, in whom 
 all our powers and affections may be 
 concentrated, and whose lovely and ven- 
 erable nature may pervade all our 
 thoughts. True piety, when directed to 
 an undivided Deity, has a chasteness, a 
 singleness, most favorable to religious 
 awe and love. Now, the Trinity sets 
 before us three distinct objects of su- 
 preme adoration ; three infinite persons, 
 having equal claims on our hearts ; three 
 divine agents, performing different of- 
 fices, and to be acknowledged and wor- 
 shipped in different relations. And is it. 
 possible, we ask, that the weak and lim- 
 ited mind of man can attach itself to 
 these with the same power and joy as 
 to One Infinite Father, the only First 
 Cause, in whom all the blessings of nat- 
 ure and redemption meet as their centre 
 and source ? Must not devotion be dis- 
 tracted by the equal and rival claims of 
 three equal persons, and must not the 
 worship of the conscientious, consistent 
 Christian be disturbed by an apprehen- 
 sion lest he withhold from one or an- 
 other of these his due proportion of 
 homage ! 
 
 We also think that the doctrine of the 
 Trinity injures devotion, not only by
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 373 
 
 joining to the Father other objects of 
 worship, but by taking from the Father 
 the supreme affection which is his due, 
 and transferring it to the Son. This 
 is a most important view. That Jesus 
 Christ, if exalted into the infinite Di- 
 vinity, should be more interesting than 
 the Father, is precisely what might be 
 expected from history, and from the 
 principles of human nature. Men want 
 an object of worship like themselves, 
 and the great secret of idolatry lies in 
 this propensity. A God, clothed in our 
 form, and feeling our wants and sorrows, 
 speaks to our weak nature more strongly 
 than a Father in heaven, a pure spirit, in- 
 visible and unapproachable, save by the 
 reflecting and purified mind. We think, 
 too, that the peculiar offices ascribed to 
 Jesus by the popular theology, make him 
 the most attractive person in the God- 
 head. The Father is the depositary of 
 the justice, the vindicator of the rights, 
 the avenger of the laws of the Divinity. 
 On the other hand, the Son, the bright- 
 ness of the divine mercy, stands between 
 the incensed Deity and guilty humanity, 
 exposes his meek head to the storms, 
 and his compassionate breast to the 
 sword of the divine justice, bears our 
 whole load of punishment, and purchases 
 with his blood every blessing which de- 
 scends from heaven. Need we state the 
 effect of these representations, especial- 
 ly on common minds, for whom Chris- 
 tianity was chiefly designed, and whom 
 it seeks to bring to the Father as the 
 loveliest being ? We do believe that 
 the worship of a bleeding, suffering God 
 tends strongly to absorb the mind, and 
 to draw it from other objects, just as the 
 human tenderness of the Virgin Mary 
 has given her so conspicuous a place in 
 the devotions of the Church of Rome. 
 We believe, too, that this worship, though 
 attractive, is not most fitted to spiritual- 
 ize the mind, that it awakens human 
 transport rather than that deep venera- 
 tion of the moral perfections of God 
 which is the essence of piety. 
 
 2. Having thus given our views of the 
 unity of God, I proceed, in the second 
 place, to observe that we believe in the 
 unity of Jesus Christ. We believe that 
 Jesus is one mind, one soul, one being, 
 as truly one as we are, and equally dis- 
 tinct from the one God. We complain 
 of the doctrine of the Trinity, that, not 
 satisfied with making God three beings, 
 
 it makes Jesus Christ two beings, and 
 thus introduces infinite confusion into 
 our conceptions of his character. This 
 corruption of Christianity, alike repug- 
 nant to common sense and to the gen- 
 eral strain of Scripture, is a remarkable 
 | proof of the power of a false philosophy 
 in disfiguring the simple truth of Jesus. 
 According to this doctrine, Jesus 
 Christ, instead of being one mind, one 
 conscious, intelligent principle, whom 
 we can understand, consists of two 
 souls, two minds ; the one divine, the 
 other human ; the one weak, the other 
 almighty ; the one ignorant, the other 
 omniscient. Now we maintain that this 
 is to make Christ two beings. To de- 
 nominate him one person, one being, 
 and yet to suppose him made up of two 
 minds, infinitely different from each 
 other, is to abuse and confound' lan- 
 guage, and to throw darkness over all 
 our conceptions of intelligent natures. 
 According to the common doctrine, 
 each of these two minds in Christ has 
 its own consciousness, its own will, its 
 own perceptions. They have, in fact, 
 no common properties. The divine 
 mind feels none of the wants and sor- 
 rows of the human, and the human is 
 infinitely removed from the perfection 
 and happiness of the divine. Can you 
 conceive of two beings in the universe 
 more distinct ? We have always thought 
 that one person was constituted and 
 distinguished by one consciousness. 
 The doctrine that one and the same 
 person should have two conscious- 
 nesses, two wills, two souls, infinitely 
 different from each other, this we think 
 an enormous tax on human credulity. 
 
 We say that if a doctrine so strange, 
 so difficult, so remote from all the pre- 
 vious conceptions of men, be indeed a 
 part, and an essential part, of revela- 
 tion, it must be taught with great dis- 
 tinctness, and we ask our brethren to 
 point to some plain, direct passage, 
 where Christ is said to be composed of 
 two minds infinitely different, yet con- 
 stituting one person. We find none. 
 Other Christians, indeed, tell us that 
 this doctrine is necessary to the har- 
 mony of the Scriptures, that some texts 
 ascribe to Jesus Christ human, and 
 others divine properties, and that to 
 reconcile these we must suppose two 
 minds, to which these properties may 
 be referred. In other words, for the
 
 374 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 purpose of reconciling certain difficult 
 passages, which a just criticism can in a 
 great degree, if not wholly, explain, we 
 must invent an hypothesis vastly more 
 difficult, and involving gross absurdity. 
 We are to find our way out of a laby- 
 rinth by a clue which conducts us into 
 mazes infinitely more inextricable. 
 
 Surely, if Jesus Christ felt that he 
 consisted of two minds, and that this 
 was a leading feature of his religion, his 
 phraseology respecting himself would 
 have been colored by this peculiarity. 
 The universal language of men is 
 framed upon the idea that one person 
 is one person, is one mind, and one 
 soul : and when the multitude heard 
 this language from the lips of Jesus, 
 they must have taken it in its usual 
 sense, and must have referred to a sin- 
 gle soul all which he spoke, unless 
 expressly instructed to interpret it dif- 
 ferently. But where do we find this 
 instruction ? Where do you meet, in 
 the New Testament, the phraseology 
 which abounds in Trinitarian books, 
 and which necessarily grows from the 
 doctrine of two natures in Jesus ? 
 Where does this divine teacher say, 
 " This I speak as God, and this as 
 man ; this is true only of my human 
 mind, this only of my divine ? " Where 
 do we find in the Epistles a trace of this 
 strange phraseology ? Nowhere. It 
 was not needed in that day. It was 
 demanded by the errors of a later age. 
 
 We believe, then, that Christ is one 
 mind, one being, and, I add, a being 
 distinct from the one God. That Christ 
 is not the one God, not the same 
 being with the Father, is a necessary 
 inference from our former head, in 
 which we saw that the doctrine of three 
 persons in God is a fiction. But on so 
 important a subject I would add a few 
 remarks. We wish that those from 
 whom we differ would weigh one strik- 
 ing fact. Jesus, in his preaching, con- 
 tinually spoke of God. The word was 
 always in his mouth. We ask, does he 
 by this word ever mean himself ? We 
 say, never. On the contrary, he most 
 plainly distinguishes between God and 
 himself, and so do his disciples. How 
 this is to be reconciled with the idea 
 that the manifestation of Christ, as God, 
 was a primary object of Christianity, our 
 adversaries must determine. 
 
 If we examine the passages in which 
 
 Jesus is distinguished from God, we 
 shall see that they not only speak of 
 him as another being, but seem to labor 
 to express his inferiority. He is con- 
 tinually spoken of as the Son of God, 
 sent of God, receiving all his powers 
 from God, working miracles because 
 God was with him, judging justly be- 
 cause God taught him, having claims 
 on our belief because he was anointed 
 and sealed by God, and as able of him- 
 self to do nothing. The New Testa- 
 ment is filled with this language. Now 
 we ask what impression this language 
 was fitted and intended to make ? 
 Could any who heard it have imagined 
 that Jesus was the very God to whom 
 he was so industriously declared to be 
 inferior ; the very Being by whom he 
 was sent, and from whom he professed 
 to have received his message and 
 power ? Let it here be remembered 
 that the human birth, and bodily form, 
 and humble circumstances, and mortal 
 sufferings of Jesus, must all have pre- 
 pared men to interpret, in the most un- 
 qualified manner, the language in which 
 his inferiority to God was declared. 
 Why, then, was this language used so 
 continually, and without limitation, if 
 Jesus were the Supreme Deity, and if 
 this truth were an essential part of his 
 religion ? I repeat it, the human condi- 
 tion and sufferings of Christ tended 
 strongly to exclude from men's minds 
 the idea of his proper Godhead ; and, of 
 course, we should expect to find in the 
 New Testament perpetual care and 
 effort to counteract this tendency, to 
 hold him forth as the same being with 
 his Father, if this doctrine were, as is 
 pretended, the soul and centre of his 
 religion. We should expect to find the 
 phraseology of Scripture cast into the 
 mould of this doctrine, to hear familiarly 
 of God the Son, of our Lord God Jesus, 
 and to be told that to us there is one 
 God, even Jesus. But, instead of this, 
 the inferiority of Christ pervades the 
 New Testament. It is not only implied 
 in the general phraseology, but repeat- 
 edly and decidedly expressed, and un- 
 accompanied with any admonition to 
 prevent its application to his whole nat- 
 ure. Could it, then, have been the great 
 design of the sacred writers to exhibit 
 Jesus as the Supreme God ? 
 
 I am aware that these remarks will be 
 met by two or three texts in which Christ
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 375 
 
 is called God, and by a class of passages, 
 not very numerous, in which divine prop- 
 erties are said to be ascribed to him. 
 To these we offer one plain answer. We 
 say that it is one of the most established 
 and obvious principles of criticism, that 
 language is to be explained according to 
 the known properties of the subject to 
 which it is applied. Every man knows 
 that the same words convey very differ- 
 ent ideas when used in relation to dif- 
 ferent beings. Thus, Solomon built the 
 temple in a different manner from the 
 architect whom he employed ; and God 
 repents differently from man. Now we 
 maintain that the known properties and 
 circumstances of Christ, his birth, suf- 
 ferings, and death, his constant habit 
 of speaking of God as a distinct being 
 from himself, his praying to God, his 
 ascribing to God all his power and 
 offices, these acknowledged properties 
 of Christ, we say, oblige us to interpret 
 the comparatively few passages which 
 are thought to make him the Supreme 
 God, in a manner consistent with his 
 distinct and inferior nature. It is our 
 duty to explain such texts by the rule 
 which we apply to other texts, in which 
 human beings are called gods, and are 
 said to be partakers of the divine nature, 
 to know and possess all things, and to 
 be filled with all God's fulness. These 
 latter passages we do not hesitate to 
 modify, and restrain, and turn from the 
 most obvious sense, because this sense 
 is opposed to the known properties of 
 the beings to whom they relate : and we 
 maintain that we adhere to the same 
 .principle, and use no greater latitude, in 
 explaining, as we do. the passages which 
 are thought to support the Godhead of 
 Christ. 
 
 Trinitarians profess to derive some 
 important advantages from their mode 
 of viewing Christ. It furnishes them, 
 they tell us, with an infinite atonement, 
 for it shows them an infinite being suf- 
 fering for their sins. The confidence 
 with which this fallacy is repeated as- 
 tonishes us. When pressed with the 
 question whether they really believe that 
 the infinite and unchangeable God suf- 
 fered and died on the cross, they acknowl- 
 edge that this is not true, but that Christ's 
 human mind alone sustained the pains 
 of death. How have we, then, an infi- 
 nite sufferer ? This language seems to 
 us an imposition on common minds, and 
 
 very derogatory to God's justice, as if 
 this attribute could be satisfied by a 
 sophism and a fiction. 
 
 We are also told that Christ is a more 
 interesting object, that his love and 
 mercy are more felt, when he is viewed 
 as the Supreme God, who left his glory 
 to take humanity and to suffer for men. 
 That Trinitarians are strongly moved 
 by this representation, we do not mean 
 to deny ; but we think their emotions 
 altogether founded on a misapprehen- 
 sion of their own doctrines. They talk 
 of the second person of the Trinity's 
 leaving his glory and his Father's bosom 
 to visit and save the world. But this 
 second person, being the unchangeable 
 and infinite God, was evidently incapable 
 of parting with the least degree of his 
 perfection and felicity. At the moment 
 of his taking flesh, he was as intimately 
 present with his Father as before, and 
 equally with his Father filled heaven, 
 and earth, and immensity. This Trin- 
 itarians acknowledge ; and still they 
 profess to be touched and overwhelmed 
 by the amazing humiliation of this im- 
 mutable being ! But not .only does their 
 doctrine, when fully explained, reduce 
 Christ's humiliation to a fiction, it almost 
 wholly destroys the impressions with 
 which his cross ought to be viewed. 
 According to their doctrine, Christ was 
 comparatively no sufferer at all. It is 
 true, his human mind suffered ; but this, 
 they tell us, was an infinitely small part 
 of Jesus, bearing no more proportion to 
 his whole nature than a single hair of our 
 heads to the whole body, or than a drop 
 to the ocean. The divine mind of Christ, 
 that which was most properly himself, 
 was infinitely happy at the very moment 
 of the suffering of his humanity. Whilst 
 hanging on the cross, he was the hap- 
 piest being in the universe, as happy as 
 the infinite Father ; so that his pains, 
 compared with his felicity, were noth- 
 ing. This Trinitarians do, and must, 
 acknowledge. It follows necessarily 
 from the immutableness of the divine 
 nature which they ascribe to Christ ; so 
 that their system, justly viewed, robs 
 his death of interest, weakens our sym- 
 pathy with his sufferings, and is, of all 
 others, most unfavorable to a love of 
 Christ, founded on a sense of his sacri- 
 fices for mankind. We esteem our own 
 views to be vastly more affecting. It is 
 our belief that Christ's humiliation was
 
 376 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 real and entire, that the whole Saviour, 
 and not a part of him, suffered, that his 
 crucifixion was a scene of deep and un- 
 mixed agony. As we stand round his 
 cross, our minds are not distracted, nor 
 our sensibility weakened, by contem- 
 plating him as composed of incongruous 
 and infinitely differing minds, and as 
 having a balance of infinite felicity. We 
 recognize in the dying Jesus but one 
 mind. This, we think, renders his suf- 
 ferings, and his patience and love in 
 bearing them, incomparably more im- 
 pressive and affecting than the system 
 we oppose. 
 
 3. Having thus given our belief on 
 two great points, namely, that there is 
 one God, and that Jesus Christ is a 
 being distinct from and inferior to God, 
 I now proceed to another point on which 
 we lay still greater stress. We believe 
 in the moral perfection of God. We 
 consider no part of theology so impor- 
 tant as that which treats of God's moral 
 character; and we value our views of 
 Christianity chiefly as they assert his 
 amiable and venerable attributes. 
 
 It may be said that in regard to this 
 subject all Christians agree, that all 
 ascribe to the Supreme Being infinite 
 justice, goodness, and holiness. We 
 reply, that it is very possible to speak 
 of God magnificently, and to think of 
 him meanly ; to apply to his person 
 high-sounding epithets, and to his gov- 
 ernment principles which make him 
 odious. The Heathens called Jupiter 
 the greatest and the best ; but his his- 
 tory was black with cruelty and lust. 
 We cannot judge of men's real ideas of 
 God by their general language, for in all 
 ages they have hoped to soothe the 
 Deity by adulation. We must inquire 
 into their particular views of his pur- 
 poses, of the principles of his adminis- 
 tration, and of his disposition towards 
 his creatures. 
 
 We conceive that Christians have 
 generally leaned towards a very injuri- 
 ous view of the Supreme Being. They 
 have too often felt as if He were raised, 
 by his greatness and sovereignty, above 
 the principles of morality, above those 
 eternal laws of equity and rectitude to 
 which all other beings are subjected. 
 We believe that in no being is the sense 
 of right so strong, so omnipotent, as in 
 God. We believe that his almighty 
 power is entirely submitted to his per- 
 
 ceptions of rectitude ; and this is the 
 ground of our piety. It is not because 
 He is our Creator merely, but because 
 He created us for good and holy pur- 
 poses ; it is not because his will is 
 irresistible, but because his will is the 
 perfection of virtue, that we pay him 
 allegiance. We cannot bow before a 
 being, however great and powerful, who 
 governs tyrannically. We respect noth- 
 ing but excellence, whether on earth or 
 in heaven. We venerate not the lofti- 
 ness of God's throne, but the equity and 
 goodness in which it is established. . 
 
 We believe that God is infinitely 
 good, kind, benevolent, in the proper 
 sense of these words, good in disposi- 
 tion as well as in act ; good not to a 
 few, but to all ; good to every individ- 
 ual, as well as to the general system. 
 
 We believe, too, that God is just ; 
 but we never forget that his justice is 
 the justice of a good being, dwelling in 
 the same mind, and acting in harmony, 
 with perfect benevolence. By this at- 
 tribute we understand God's infinite 
 regard to virtue or moral worth ex- 
 pressed in a moral government ; that is, 
 in giving excellent and equitable laws, 
 and in conferring such rewards, and in- 
 flicting such punishments, as are best 
 fitted to secure their observance. God's 
 justice has for its end the highest virtue 
 of the creation, and it punishes for this 
 end alone ; and thus it coincides with 
 benevolence ; for virtue and happiness, 
 though not the same, are inseparably 
 conjoined. 
 
 God's justice, thus viewed, appears 
 to us to be in perfect harmony with his . 
 mercy. According to the prevalent 
 systems of theology, these attributes 
 are so discordant and jarring, that to 
 reconcile them is the hardest task and 
 the most wonderful achievement of in- 
 finite wisdom. To us they seem to be 
 intimate friends, always at peace, breath- 
 ing the same spirit, and seeking the 
 same end. By God's mercy, we under- 
 stand not a blind instinctive compas- 
 sion, which forgives without reflection, 
 and without regard to the interests of 
 virtue. This, we acknowledge, would 
 be incompatible with justice, and also 
 with enlightened benevolence. God s 
 mercy; as we understand it, desires 
 strongly the happiness of the guilty; 
 but only through their penitence. It 
 has a regard to character as truly as
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 377 
 
 his justice. It defers punishment, and 
 suffers long, that the sinner may return 
 to his duty, but leaves the impenitent 
 and unyielding to the fearful retribu- 
 tion threatened in God's word. 
 
 To give our views of God in one 
 word, we believe in his parental charac- 
 ter. We ascribe to him not only the 
 name, but the dispositions and princi- 
 ples of a father. We believe that He 
 has a father's concern for his creatures, 
 a father's desire for their improvement. 
 a father's equity in proportioning his 
 commands to their powers, a father's 
 joy in their progress, a father's readi- 
 ness to receive the penitent, and a fa- 
 ther's justice for the incorrigible. We 
 look upon this world as a place of edu- 
 cation, in which He is training men by 
 prosperity and adversity, by aids and 
 obstructions, by conflicts of reason and 
 passion, by motives to duty and temp- 
 tations to sin, by a various discipline 
 suited to free and moral beings, for 
 union with himself, ar.d for a sublime 
 and ever-growing virtue in heaven. 
 
 Now, we object to the systems of re- 
 ligion which prevail among us, that they 
 are adverse, in a greater or less degree, 
 to these purifying, comforting, and hon- 
 orable views of God ; that they take 
 from us our Father in heaven, and sub- 
 stitute for him a being whom we can- 
 not love if we would, and whom we 
 ought not to love if we could. We 
 object, particularly on this ground, to 
 that system which arrogates to itself 
 the name of Orthodoxy, and which is 
 now industriously propagated through 
 our country. This system indeed takes 
 various shapes, but in all it casts dis- 
 honor on the Creator. According to 
 its old and genuine fori\, it teaches that 
 God brings us into life wholly depraved, 
 so that under the innocent features of 
 our childhood is hidden a nature averse 
 to all good and propense to all evil, a 
 nature which exposes us to God's dis- 
 pleasure and wrath, even before we 
 have acquired power to understand our 
 duties or to reflect upon our actions. 
 According to a more modern exposition, 
 it teaches that we came from the hands 
 of our Maker with such a constitution, 
 and are placed under such influences 
 and circumstances, as to render certain 
 and infallible the total depravity of 
 every human being from the first mo- 
 ment of his moral agency ; and it also 
 
 teaches that the offence of the child, 
 i who brings into life this ceaseless ten- 
 dency to unmingled crime, exposes him 
 to the sentence of everlasting damna- 
 tion. Now, according to the plainest 
 principles of morality, we maintain that 
 a natural constitution of the mind, un- 
 failingly disposing it to evil, and to 
 evil alone, would absolve it from guilt ; 
 that to give existence under this con- 
 dition would argue unspeakable cruelty ; 
 and hat to punish the sin of this un- 
 happily constituted child with endless 
 ruin would be a wrong unparalleled by 
 the most merciless despotism. 
 
 This system also teaches that God 
 selects from this corrupt mass a num- 
 ber to be saved, and plucks them, by 
 a special influence, from the common 
 ruin ; that the rest of mankind, though 
 left without that special grace which 
 their conversion requires, are com- 
 manded to repent, under penalty of 
 aggravated woe ; and that forgiveness 
 is promised them on terms which their 
 very constitution infallibly disposes them 
 to reject, and in rejecting which they 
 awfully enhance the punishments of 
 hell. These proffers of forgiveness and 
 exhortations of amendment, to beings 
 born under a blighting curse, fill our 
 minds with a horror which we want 
 words to express. 
 
 That this religious system does not 
 produce all the effects on character 
 which might be anticipated, we most 
 joyfully admit. It is often, very often, 
 counteracted by nature, conscience, com- 
 mon sense, by the general strain of 
 Scripture, by the mild example and pre- 
 cepts of Christ, and by the many posi- 
 tive declarations of God's universal 
 kindness and perfect equity. But still 
 we think that we see its unhappy influ- 
 ence. It tends to discourage the timid, 
 to give excuses to the bad, to feed the 
 vanity of the fanatical, and to offer 
 shelter to the bad feelings of the malig- 
 nant. By shocking, as it does, the fun- 
 damental principles of morality, and by 
 exhibiting a severe and partial Deity, 
 it tends strongly to pervert the moral 
 faculty, to form a gloomy, forbidding, 
 and servile religion, and to lead men 
 to substitute censoriousness, bitterness, 
 and persecution, for a tender and im- 
 partial charity. We think, too, that 
 this system, which begins with degrad- 
 ing human nature, may be expected to
 
 373 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 end in pride ; for pride grows out of a 
 consciousness of high distinctions, how- 
 ever obtained, and no distinction is so 
 great as that which is made between the 
 elected and abandoned of God. 
 
 The false and dishonorable views of 
 God which have now been stated, we 
 feel ourselves bound to resist unceas- 
 ingly. Other errors we can pass over 
 with comparative indifference. But we 
 ask our opponents to leave to us a GOD 
 worthy of our love and trust, in whom 
 our moral sentiments may delight, in 
 whom our weaknesses and sorrows may 
 find refuge. We cling to the divine per- 
 fections. We meet them everywhere in 
 creation, we read them in the Scriptures, 
 we see a lovely image of them in Jesus 
 Christ ; and gratitude, love, and venera- 
 tion call on us to assert them. Re- 
 proached, as we often are, by men, it is 
 our consolation and happiness that one 
 of our chief offences is the zeal with 
 which we vindicate the dishonored good- 
 ness and rectitude of God. 
 
 4. Having thus spoken of the unity of 
 God ; of the unity of Jesus, and his in- 
 feriority to God ; and of the perfections 
 of the divine character ; I now proceed 
 to give our views of the mediation of 
 Christ, and of the purposes of his mis- 
 sion. With regard to the great object 
 which Jesus came to accomplish, there 
 seems to be no possibility of mistake. 
 We believe that he was sent by the 
 Father to effect a moral or spiritual 
 deliverance of mankind ; that is, to res- 
 cue men from sin and its consequences, 
 and to bring them to a state of everlast- 
 ing purity and happiness. We believe, 
 too, that he accomplishes this sublime 
 purpose by a variety of methods, by 
 his instructions respecting God's unity, 
 parental character, and moral govern- 
 ment, which are admirably fitted to 
 reclaim the world from idolatry and 
 impiety, to the knowledge, love, and 
 obedience of the Creator ; by his prom- 
 ises of pardon to the penitent, and of 
 divine assistance to those who labor for 
 progress in moral excellence ; by the 
 light which he has thrown on the path 
 of duty ; by his own spotless example, 
 in which the loveliness and sublimity 
 of virtue shine forth to warm and 
 quicken as well as guide us to perfec- 
 tion ; by his threatenings against incor- 
 rigible guilt ; by his glorious discoveries 
 of immortality ; by his sufferings and 
 
 death ; by that signal event, the resur- 
 rection, which powerfully bore witness 
 to his divine mission, and brought down 
 to men's senses a future life : by his 
 continual intercession, which obtains for 
 us spiritual aid and blessings ; and by 
 the power with which he is invested of 
 raising the dead, judging the world, and 
 conferring the everlasting rewards prom- 
 ised to the faithful. 
 
 We have no desire to conceal the fact 
 that a difference of opinion exists among 
 us in regard to an interesting part of 
 Christ's mediation, I mean, in regard 
 to the precise influence of his death oil 
 our forgiveness. Many suppose that 
 this event contributes to our pardon, as 
 it was a principal means of confirming 
 his religion, and of giving it a power 
 over the mind : in other words, that it 
 procures forgiveness by leading to that 
 repentance and virtue which is the great 
 and only condition on which forgiveness 
 is bestowed. Many of us are dissatisfied 
 with this explanation, and think that the 
 Scriptures ascribe the remission of sins 
 to Christ's death with an emphasis so 
 peculiar that we ought to consider this 
 event as having a special influence in 
 removing punishment, though the Script- 
 ures may not reveal the way in which it 
 contributes to this end. 
 
 Whilst, however, we differ in explain- 
 ing the connection between Christ's 
 death and human forgiveness, a con- 
 nection which we all gratefully acknowl- 
 edge, we agree in rejecting many 
 sentiments which prevail in regard to 
 his mediation. The idea which is con- 
 veyed to common minds by the popular 
 system, that Christ's death has an influ- 
 ence in making God placable or merciful, 
 in awakening his kindness towards men, 
 we reject with strong disapprobation. 
 We are happy to find that this very dis- 
 honorable notion is disowned by intelli- 
 gent Christians of that class from which 
 we differ. We recollect, however, that, 
 not long ago, it was common to hear of 
 Christ as having died to appease God's 
 wrath, and to pay the debt of sinners 
 to his inflexible justice ; and we have a 
 strong persuasion that the language of 
 popular religious books, and the common 
 mode of stating the doctrine of Christ's 
 mediation, still communicate very de- 
 grading views of God's character. They 
 give to multitudes the impression that 
 the death of Jesus produces a change in
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 379 
 
 the mind of God towards man, and that 
 in this its efficacy chiefly consists. No 
 error seems to us more pernicious. We 
 can endure no shade over the pure good- 
 ness of God. We earnestly maintain 
 that Jesus, instead of calling forth, in 
 any way or degree, the mercy of the 
 Father, was sent by that mercy to be 
 our Saviour ; that he is nothing to the 
 human race but what he is by God's 
 appointment ; that he communicates 
 nothing but what God empowers him 
 to bestow ; that our Father in heaven 
 is originally, essentially, and eternally 
 placable, and disposed to forgive ; and 
 that his unborrowed, underived, and un- 
 changeable love is the only fountain of 
 what flows to us through his Son. We 
 conceive that Jesus is dishonored, not 
 glorified, by ascribing to him an influ- 
 ence which clouds the splendor of divine 
 benevolence. 
 
 We farther agree in rejecting, as un- 
 scriptural and absurd, the explanation 
 given by the popular system of the man- 
 ner in which Christ's death procures 
 forgiveness for men. This system used 
 to teach, as its fundamental principle, 
 that man, having sinned against an in- 
 finite Being, has contracted infinite guilt, 
 and is consequently exposed to an infinite 
 penalty. We believe, however, that this 
 reasoning, if reasoning it may be called, 
 which overlooks the obvious maxim that 
 the guilt of a being must be proportioned 
 to his nature and powers, has fallen into 
 disuse. Still the system teaches that 
 sin, of whatever degree, exposes to end- 
 less punishment, and that the whole 
 human race, being infallibly involved by 
 their nature in sin, owe this awful pen- 
 alty to the justice of their Creator. It 
 teaches that this penalty cannot be re- 
 mitted, in consistency with the honor 
 of the divine law, unless a substitute be 
 found to endure it or to suffer an equiv- 
 alent. It also teaches that, from the 
 nature of the case, no substitute is ade- 
 quate to this work save the infinite God 
 himself ; and accordingly, God, in his 
 second person, took on him human nat- 
 ure, that He might pay to his own justice 
 the debt of punishment incurred by men, 
 and might thus reconcile forgiveness 
 with the claims and threatenings of his 
 law. Such is the prevalent system. 
 Now, to us, this doctrine seems to carry 
 on its front strong marks of absurdity ; 
 and we maintain that Christianity ought 
 
 not to be encumbered with it, unless it 
 be laid down in the New Testament 
 fully and expressly. We ask our adver- 
 saries, then, to point to some plain pas- 
 sages where it is taught. We ask for 
 one text in which we are told that God 
 took human nature that He might make 
 an infinite satisfaction to his own justice ; 
 for one text which tells us that human 
 guilt requires an infinite substitute ; that 
 Christ's sufferings owe their efficacy to 
 their being borne by an infinite being ; 
 or that his divine nature gives infinite 
 value to the sufferings of the human. 
 Not one word of this description can we 
 find in the Scriptures ; not a text which 
 even hints at these strange doctrines. 
 They are altogether, we believe, the fic- 
 tions of theologians. Christianity is in 
 no degree responsible for them. We are 
 astonished at their prevalence. What 
 can be plainer than that God cannot, in 
 any sense, be a sufferer, or bear a pen- 
 alty in the room of his creatures ? How 
 dishonorable to him is the supposition, 
 that his justice is now so severe as to 
 exact infinite punishment for the sins of 
 frail and feeble men, and now so easy 
 and yielding as to accept the limited 
 pains of Christ's human soul as a full 
 equivalent for the endless woes due from 
 the world ? How plain is it also, accord- 
 ing to this doctrine, that God, instead of 
 being plenteous in forgiveness, never 
 forgives ; for it seems absurd to speak 
 qf men as forgiven, when their whole 
 punishment, or an equivalent to it, is 
 borne by a substitute ? A scheme more 
 fitted to obscure the brightness of Chris- 
 tianity and the mercy of God, or less 
 suited to give comfort to a guilty and 
 troubled mind, could not, we think, be 
 easily framed. 
 
 We believe, too, that this system is 
 unfavorable to the character. It nat- 
 urally leads men to think that Christ 
 came to change God's mind rather than 
 their own ; that the highest object of 
 his mission was to avert punishment 
 rather than to communicate holiness ; 
 and that a large part of religion consists 
 in disparaging good works and human 
 virtue, for the purpose of magnifying the 
 value of Christ's vicarious sufferings. 
 In this way a sense of the infinite im- 
 portance and indispensable necessity of 
 personal improvement is weakened, and 
 high-sounding praises of Christ's cross 
 seem often to be substituted for obe-
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 dience to his precepts. For ourselves, 
 we have not so learned Jesus. Whilst 
 we gratefully acknowledge that he came 
 to rescue us from punishment, we be- 
 lieve that he was sent on a still nobler 
 errand, namely, to deliver us from sin 
 itself, and to form us to a sublime and 
 heavenly virtue. We regard him as a 
 Saviour, chiefly as he is the light, phy- 
 sician, and guide of the dark, diseased, 
 and wandering mind. No influence in 
 the universe seems to us so glorious as 
 that over the character ; and no redemp- 
 tion so worthy of thankfulness as the 
 restoration of the soul to purity. With- 
 out this, pardon, were it possible, would 
 be of little value. Why pluck the sinner 
 from hell, if a hell be left to burn in his 
 own breast ? Why raise him to heaven, 
 if he remain a stranger to its sanctity 
 and love ? With these impressions, we 
 are accustomed to value the gospel 
 chiefly as it abounds in effectual aids, 
 motives, excitements to a generous and 
 divine virtue. In this virtue, as in a 
 common centre, we see all its doctrines, 
 precepts, promises meet ; and we believe 
 that faith in this religion is of no worth, 
 and contributes nothing to salvation, any 
 farther than as it uses these doctrines, 
 precepts, promises, and the whole life, 
 character, sufferings, and triumphs of 
 Jesus, as the means of purifying the 
 mind, of changing it into the likeness of 
 his celestial excellence. 
 
 5. Having thus stated our views of 
 the highest object of Christ's mission, 
 that it is the recovery of men to virtue, 
 or holiness, I shall now, in the last place, 
 give our views of the nature of Christian 
 virtue, or true holiness. We believe 
 that all virtue has its foundation in the 
 moral nature 6f man, that is, in con- 
 science, or his sense of duty, and in the 
 power of forming his temper and life ac- 
 cording to conscience. We believe that 
 these moral faculties are the grounds of 
 responsibility, and the highest distinc- 
 tions of human nature, and that no act 
 is praiseworthy any farther than it 
 springs from their exertion. We be- 
 lieve that no dispositions infused into 
 us without our own moral activity are of 
 the nature of virtue, and therefore we 
 reject the doctrine of irresistible divine 
 influence on the human mind, moulding 
 it into goodness as marble is hewn into 
 a statue. Such goodness, if this word 
 may be used, would not be the object of 
 
 moral approbation, any more than the 
 instinctive affections of inferior animals, 
 or the constitutional amiableness of hu- 
 man beings. 
 
 By these remarks, we do not mean to 
 deny the importance of God's aid or 
 Spirit ; but by his Spirit we mean a 
 moral, illuminating, and persuasive in- 
 fluence, not physical, not compulsory, 
 not involving a necessity of virtue. We 
 object, strongly, to the idea of many 
 Christians respecting man's impotence 
 and God's irresistible agency on the 
 heart, believing that they subvert our 
 responsibility and the laws of our moral 
 nature, that they make men machines, 
 that they cast on God the blame of all 
 evil deeds, that they discourage good 
 minds, and inflate the fanatical with 
 wild conceits of immediate and sensible 
 inspiration. 
 
 Among the virtues, we give the first 
 place to the love of God. We believe 
 that this principle is the true end and 
 happiness of our being, that we were 
 made for union with our Creator, that 
 his infinite perfection is the only suffi- 
 cient object and true resting-place for 
 the insatiable desires and unlimited ca- 
 pacities of the human mind, and that, 
 without him, our noblest sentiments, 
 admiration, veneration, hope, and love 
 would wither and decay. We believe, 
 too, that the love of God is not only es- 
 sential to happiness, but to the strength 
 and perfection of all the virtues : that 
 conscience, without the sanction of God's 
 authority and retributive justice, would 
 be a weak director ; that benevolence, 
 unless nourished by communion with 
 his goodness, and encouraged by his 
 smile, could not thrive amidst the sel- 
 fishness and thanklessness of the world ; 
 and that self-government, without a sense 
 of the divine inspection, would hardly 
 extend beyond an outward and partial 
 purity. God, as he is essentially good- 
 ness, holiness, justice, and virtue, so he 
 is the life, motive, and sustainer of virtue 
 in the human soul. 
 
 But whilst we earnestly inculcate the 
 love of God, we believe that great care 
 is necessary to distinguish it from 
 counterfeits. We think that much which 
 is called piety is worthless. Many have 
 fallen into the error that there can be no 
 excess in feelings which have God for 
 their object ; and, distrusting as cold- 
 ness that self-possession without which
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 381 
 
 virtue and devotion lose all their dignity, 
 they have abandoned themselves. to ex- 
 travagances which have brought con- 
 tempt on piety. Most certainly, if the 
 love of God be that which often bears 
 its name, the less we have of it the 
 better. If religion be the shipwreck of 
 understanding, we cannot keep too far 
 from it. On this subject we always 
 speak plainly. We cannot sacrifice our 
 reason to the reputation of zeal. We 
 owe it to truth and religion to maintain 
 that fanaticism, partial insanity, sudden 
 impressions, and ungovernable trans- 
 ports, are any thing rather than piety. 
 
 We conceive that the true love of God 
 is a moral sentiment, founded on a clear 
 perception, and consisting in a high es- 
 teem and veneration of his moral per- 
 fections. Thus, it perfectly coincides, 
 and is, in fact, the same thing, with the 
 love of virtue, rectitude, and goodness. 
 You will easily judge, then, what we 
 esteem the surest and only decisive signs 
 of piety. We lay no stress on strong 
 excitements. We esteem him, and him 
 only, a pious man, who practically con- 
 forms to God's moral perfections and 
 government ; who shows his delight in 
 God's benevolence by loving and serv- 
 ing his neighbor : his delight in God's 
 justice by being resolutely upright ; his 
 sense of God's purity by regulating his 
 thoughts, imagination, and desires ; and 
 whose conversation, business, and do- 
 mestic life are swayed by a regard to 
 God's presence and authority. In all 
 things else men may deceive themselves. 
 Disordered nerves may give them strange 
 sights, and sounds, and impressions. 
 Texts of Scripture may come to them as 
 from heaven. Their whole souls maybe 
 moved, and their confidence in God's 
 favor be undoubting. But in all this 
 there is no religion. The question is, 
 Do they love God's commands, in which 
 his character is fully expressed, and 
 give up to these their habits and pas- 
 sions ? Without this, ecstacy is a mock- 
 ery. One surrender of desire to God's 
 will is worth a thousand transports. We 
 do not judge of the bent of men's minds 
 by their raptures, any more than we 
 judge of the natural direction of a tree 
 during a storm. We rather suspect loud 
 profession, for we have observed that 
 deep feeling is generally noiseless, and 
 least seeks display. 
 
 We would not, by these remarks, be 
 
 understood as wishing to exclude from 
 religion warmth, and even transport. 
 We honor and highly value true religious 
 sensibility. We believe that Chris- 
 tianity is intended to act powerfully on 
 our whole nature, on the heart as well 
 as the understanding and the conscience. 
 We conceive of heaven as a state where 
 the love of God will be exalted into an 
 unbounded fervor and joy ; and we de- 
 sire, in our pilgrimage here, to drink 
 into the spirit of that better world. But 
 we think that religious warmth is only to 
 be valued when it springs naturally from 
 an improved character, when it comes 
 unforced, when it is the recompense of 
 obedience, when it is the warmth of a 
 mind which understands God by being 
 like him, and when, instead of disorder- 
 ing, it exalts the understanding, invig- 
 orates conscience, gives a pleasure to 
 common duties, and is seen to exist in 
 connection with cheerfulness, judicious- 
 ness, and a reasonable frame of mind. 
 When we observe a fervor called relig- 
 ious in men whose general character ex- 
 presses little refinement and elevation, 
 and whose piety seems at war with rea- 
 son, we pay it little respect. We honor 
 religion too much to give its sacred 
 name to a feverish, forced, fluctuating 
 zeal, which has little power over the 
 life. 
 
 Another important branch of virtue 
 we believe to be love to Christ. The 
 greatness of the work of Jesus, the spirit 
 with which he executed it, and the suf- 
 ferings which he bore for our salvation, 
 we feel to be strong claims on our grat- 
 itude and veneration. We see in nature 
 no beauty to be compared with the love- 
 liness of his character, nor do we find on 
 earth a benefactor to whom we owe an 
 equal debt. We read his history with de- 
 light, and learn from it the perfection of 
 our nature. We are particularly touched 
 by his death, which was endured for our 
 redemption, and by that strength of 
 charity which triumphed over his pains. 
 His resurrection is the foundation of 
 our hope of immortality. His interces- 
 sion gives us boldness to draw nigh to 
 the throne of grace, and we look up to 
 heaven with new desire when we think 
 that, if we follow him here, we shall 
 there see his benignant countenance, 
 and enjoy his friendship for ever. 
 
 I need not express to you our views 
 on the subject of the benevolent virtues.
 
 382 
 
 UNIT A RIAN CHRISTIA NITY. 
 
 We attach such importance to these, 
 that we are sometimes reproached with 
 exalting them above piety. We regard 
 the spirit of love, charity, meekness, 
 forgiveness, liberality, and beneficence, 
 as the badge and distinction of Chris- 
 tians, as the brightest image we can 
 bear of God, as the best proof of piety. 
 On this subject 1 need not and cannot 
 enlarge ; but there is one branch of ben- 
 evolence which I ought not to pass over 
 in silence, because we think that we con- 
 ceive of it more highly and justly than 
 many of our brethren. I refer to the 
 duty of candor, charitable judgment, 
 especially towards those who differ in re- 
 ligious opinion. We think that in noth- 
 ing have Christians so widely departed 
 from their religion as in this particular. 
 We read with astonishment and horror 
 the history of the church ; and some- 
 times, when we look back on the fires of 
 persecution, and on the zeal of Chris- 
 tians in building up walls of separation, 
 and in giving up one another to per- 
 dition, we feel as if we were reading the 
 records of an infernal rather than a 
 heavenly kingdom. An enemy to every 
 religion, if asked to describe a Christian, 
 would, with some show of reason, de- 
 pict him as an idolater of his own distin- 
 guishing opinions, covered with badges 
 of party, shutting his eyes on the virtues 
 and his ears on the arguments of his 
 opponents, arrogating all excellence to 
 his own sect and all saving power to his 
 own creed, sheltering under the name of 
 pious zeal the love of domination, the 
 conceit of infallibility, and the spirit of 
 intolerance, and trampling on men's 
 rights under the pretence of saving their 
 souls. 
 
 We can hardly conceive of a plainer 
 obligation on beings of our frail and 
 fallible nature, who are instructed in the 
 duty of candid judgment than to abstain 
 from condemning men of apparent con- 
 scientiousness and sincerity, who are 
 chargeable with no crime but that of dif- 
 fering from us in the interpretation of 
 the Scriptures, and differing, too, on 
 topics of great and acknowledged ob- 
 scurity. We are astonished at the hard- 
 ihood of those who. with Christ's warn- 
 ings sounding in their ears, take on 
 them the responsibility of making creeds 
 for his church, and cast out professors 
 of virtuous lives for imagined errors, for 
 the guilt of thinking for themselves. 
 
 We know that zeal for truth is the cover 
 for this usurpation of Christ's prerog- 
 ative ; but we think that zeal for truth, 
 as it is called, is very suspicious, except 
 in men whose capacities and advan- 
 tages, whose patient deliberation, and 
 whose improvements in humility, mild- 
 ness, and candor, give them a right to 
 hope that their views are more just than 
 those of their neighbors. Much of what 
 passes for a zeal for truth we look upon 
 with little respect, for it often appears 
 to thrive most luxuriantly where other 
 virtues shoot up thinly and feebly ; and 
 we have no gratitude for those reformers 
 who would force upon us a doctrine 
 which has not sweetened their own 
 tempers, or made them better men than 
 their neighbors. 
 
 We are accustomed to think much of 
 the difficulties attending religious in- 
 quiries, difficulties springing from the 
 slow development of our minds, from 
 the power of early impressions, from 
 the state of society, from human au- 
 thority, from the general neglect of the 
 reasoning powers, from the want of just 
 principles of criticism and of important 
 helps in interpreting Scripture, and 
 from various other causes. We find 
 that on no subject have men, and even 
 good men, ingrafted so many strange 
 conceits, wild theories, and fictions of 
 fancy, as on religion ; and remembering, 
 as we do, that we ourselves are sharers 
 of the common frailty, we dare not as- 
 sume infallibility in the treatment of our 
 fellow-Christians, or encourage in com- 
 mon Christians, who have little time for 
 investigation, the habit of denouncing 
 and contemning other denominations, 
 perhaps more enlightened and virtuous 
 than their own. Charity, forbearance, a 
 delight in the virtues of different sects, a 
 backwardness to censure and condemn, 
 these are virtues which, however poorly 
 practised by us, we admire and recom- 
 mend ; and we would rather join ourselves 
 to the church in which they abound, than 
 to any other communion, however elated 
 with the belief of its own orthodoxy, 
 however strict in guarding its creed, 
 however burning with zeal against im- 
 agined error. 
 
 I have thus given the distinguishing 
 views of those Christians in whose names 
 I have spoken. We have embraced this 
 system not hastily or lightly, but after 
 much deliberation ; and we hold it fast,
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 383 
 
 not merely because we believe it to 
 be true, but because we regard it as 
 purifying truth, as a doctrine according 
 to godliness, as able to " work mightily " 
 and to "bring forth fruit " in them who 
 believe. That we wish to spread it, we 
 have no desire to conceal ; but we think 
 that we wish its diffusion because we 
 regard it as more friendly to practical 
 piety and pure morals than the opposite 
 doctrines, because it gives clearer and 
 nobler views of duty, and stronger mo- 
 tives to its performance, because it 
 recommends religion at once to the un- 
 derstanding and the heart, because it 
 asserts the lovely and venerable attri- 
 butes of God, because it tends to restore 
 the benevolent spirit of Jesus to his di- 
 vided and afflicted church, and because 
 it cuts off every hope of God's favor 
 except that which springs from practi- 
 cal conformity to the life and precepts 
 of Christ. We see nothing in our views 
 to give offence save their purity, and it 
 is their purity which makes us seek and 
 hope their extension through the world. 
 My friend and brother, You are 
 this day to take upon you important 
 duties ; to be clothed with an office 
 which the Son of God did not disdain ; 
 to devote yourself to that religion which 
 the most hallowed lips have preached, 
 and the most precious blood sealed. 
 We trust that you will bring to this 
 work a willing mind, a firm purpose, a 
 martyr's spirit, a readiness to toil and 
 suffer for the truth, a devotion of your 
 best powers to the interests of piety and 
 virtue. I have spoken of the doctrines 
 which you will probably preach ; but I 
 do not mean that you are to give your- 
 self to controversy. You will remem- 
 ber that good practice is the end of 
 preaching, and will labor to make your 
 people holy livers rather than skilful 
 disputants. Be careful lest the desire 
 of defending what you deem truth, and 
 of repelling reproach and misrepresen- 
 tation, turn you aside from your great 
 business, which is to fix in men's minds 
 a living conviction of the obligation, 
 sublimity, and happiness of Christian 
 virtue. The best way to vindicate your 
 sentiments is to show, in your preach- 
 ing and life, their intimate connection 
 with Christian morals, with a high and 
 delicate sense of duty, with candor to- 
 wards your opposers, with inflexible 
 integrity, and with an habitual rever- 
 
 ence for God. If any light can pierce 
 and scatter the clouds of prejudice, it is 
 that of a pure example. My brother, 
 may your life preach more loudly than 
 your lips ! Be to this people a pattern 
 of all good works, and may your instruc- 
 tions derive authority from a well- 
 grounded belief in your hearers that 
 you speak from the heart, that you 
 preach from experience, that the truth 
 which you dispense has wrought pow- 
 erfully in your own heart, that God, and 
 Jesus, and heaven, are not merely words 
 on your lips, but most affecting realities 
 to your mind, and springs of hope, and 
 consolation, and strength, in all your 
 trials ! Thus laboring, may you reap 
 abundantly, and have a testimony of 
 your faithfulness, not only in your own 
 conscience, but in the esteem, love, virt- 
 ues, and improvements of your people ! 
 To all who hear me I would say, with 
 the Apostle, Prove all things, hold fast 
 that which is good. Do not. brethren, 
 shrink from the duty of searching God's 
 word for yourselves, through fear of hu- 
 man censure and denunciation. Do not 
 think that you may innocently follow 
 the opinions which prevail around you, 
 with.out investigation, on the ground that 
 Christianity is now so purified from er- 
 rors as to need no laborious research. 
 There is much reason to believe that 
 Christianity is at this moment dishon- 
 ored by gross and cherished corruptions. 
 If you remember the darkness which 
 hung over the gospel for ages : if you 
 consider the impure union which still 
 subsists in almost every Christian coun- 
 try between the church and state, and 
 which enlists men's selfishness and am- 
 bition on the side of established error ; 
 if you recollect in what degree the spirit 
 of intolerance has checked free inquiry, 
 not only before but since the Reforma- 
 tion ; you will see that Christianity can- 
 not have freed itself from all the human 
 inventions which disfigured it under the 
 Papal tyranny. No. Much stubble is 
 yet to be burned ; much rubbish to be 
 removed ; many gaudy decorations which 
 a false taste has hung around Christian- 
 ity must be swept away ; and the earth- 
 born fogs which have long shrouded it 
 must be scattered, before this divine 
 fabric will rise before us in its native 
 and awful majesty, in its harmonious 
 proportions, in its mild and celestial 
 splendors. This glorious reformation
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 in the church, we hope, under God's 
 blessing, from the progress of the hu- 
 man intellect, from the moral progress 
 of society, from the consequent decline 
 of prejudice and bigotry, and, though 
 last not least, from the subversion of 
 human authority in matters of religion, 
 from the fall of those hierarchies, and 
 other human institutions, by which the 
 minds of individuals are oppressed un- 
 der the weight of numbers, and a Papal 
 dominion is perpetuated in the Protes- 
 tant church. Our earnest prayer to 
 God is, that He will overturn, and over- 
 
 turn, and overturn the strongholds of 
 spiritual usurpation, until HE shall come 
 whose right it is to rule the minds of 
 men ; that the conspiracy of ages against 
 the liberty of Christians may be brought 
 to an end ; that the servile assent so 
 long yielded to human creeds may give 
 place to honest and devout inquiry into 
 the Scriptures ; and that Christianity, 
 thus purified from error, may put forth 
 its almighty energy, and prove itself, by 
 its ennobling influence on the mind, to 
 be indeed " the power of God unto sal- 
 vation." 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY MOST FAVOR- 
 ABLE TO PIETY: 
 
 Discourse at the Dedication of the Second Congregational Unitarian 
 Church, New York, 1826. 
 
 MARK xii. 29, 30: "And Jesus answered him, 
 The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel ; 
 The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shall love 
 the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. 
 This is the first commandment." 
 
 WE have assembled to dedicate this 
 building to the worship of the only liv- 
 ing and true God, and to the teaching 
 of the religion of his son, Jesus Christ. 
 By this act we do not expect to confer 
 on this spot of ground and these walls 
 any peculiar sanctity or any mysterious 
 properties. We do not suppose that, in 
 consequence of rites now performed, 
 the worship offered here will be more 
 acceptable than prayer uttered in the 
 closet, or breathed from the soul in the 
 midst of business ; or that the instruc- 
 tions delivered from this pulpit will be 
 more effectual than if they were uttered 
 in a private dwelling or the open air. 
 By dedication we understand only a 
 solemn expression of the purpose for 
 which this building is reared, joined 
 with prayer to him who alone can crown 
 our enterprise with success, that our 
 design may be accepted and fulfilled. 
 For this religious act we find, indeed, 
 no precept in the New Testament, and 
 on this account some have scrupled as 
 
 to its propriety. But we are not among 
 those who consider the written word as 
 a statute-book, by the letter of which 
 every step in life must be governed. 
 We believe, on the other hand, that 
 one of the great excellences of Chris- 
 tianity is that it does not deal in mi- 
 nute regulation, but that, having given 
 broad views of duty, and enjoined a 
 pure and disinterested spirit, it leaves 
 us to apply these rules and express this 
 spirit according to the promptings of 
 the divine monitor within us, and ac- 
 cording to the claims and exigencies of 
 the ever-varying conditions in which we 
 are placed. We believe, too, that rev- 
 elation is not intended to supersede 
 God's other modes of instruction ; that 
 it is not intended to drown, but to make 
 more audible, the voice of nature. Now, 
 nature dictates the propriety of such an 
 act as we are this day assembled to 
 perform. Nature has always taught 
 men, on the completion of an important 
 structure, designed for public and last- 
 ing good, to solemnize its first appro- 
 priation to the purpose for which it was 
 reared by some special service. To us 
 there is a sacredness in this moral in- 
 stinct, in this law written on the heart ;
 
 MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 335 
 
 and in listening reverently to God's 
 dictates, however conveyed, we doubt 
 not that we shall enjoy his acceptance 
 and blessing. 
 
 I have said we dedicate this building 
 to the teaching of the gospel of Christ. 
 But in the present state of the Christian 
 church, these words are not as definite 
 as they one day will be. This gospel is 
 variously interpreted. It is preached 
 in various forms. Christendom is par- 
 celled out into various sects. When, 
 therefore, we see a new house of wor- 
 ship reared, the question immediately 
 arises, To what mode of teaching Chris- 
 tianity is it to be devoted ? I need not 
 tell you, my hearers, that this house has 
 been built by that class of Christians 
 who are called Unitarians, and that the 
 gospel will here be taught as interpreted 
 by that body of believers. This you all 
 know ; but perhaps all present have not 
 attached a very precise meaning to the 
 word by which our particular views of 
 Christianity are designated. Unitari- 
 anism has been made a term of so 
 much reproach, and has been uttered 
 in so many tones of alarm, horror, in- 
 dignation, and scorn, that to many it 
 gives only a vague impression of some- 
 thing monstrous, impious, unutterably 
 perilous. To such I would say, that 
 this doctrine, which is considered by 
 some as the last and most perfect in- 
 vention of Satan, the consummation of 
 his blasphemies, the most cunning 
 weapon ever forged in the fires of hell, 
 amounts to this, That there is one 
 God, even the Father ; and that Jesus 
 Christ is not this one God, but his son 
 and messenger, who derived all his 
 powers and glories from the Universal 
 Parent, and who came into the world 
 not to claim supreme homage for him- 
 self, but to carry up the soul to his 
 Father as the only Divine Person, the 
 only Ultimate Object of religious wor- 
 ship. To us, this doctrine seems not 
 to have sprung from hell, but to have 
 descended from the throne of God, and 
 to invite and attract us thither. To us, 
 it seems to come from the Scriptures, 
 with a voice loud as the sound of many 
 waters, and as articulate and clear as if 
 Jesus, in a bodily form, were pronounc- 
 ing it distinctly in our ears. To this 
 doctrine, and to Christianity interpreted 
 In consistency with it, we dedicate this 
 building. 
 
 That we desire to propagate this doc- 
 trine, we do not conceal. It is a treas- 
 ure which we wish not to confine to 
 ourselves, which we dare not lock up in 
 our own breasts. We regard it as given 
 to us for others, as well as for ourselves. 
 We should rejoice to spread it through 
 this great city, to carry it into every 
 dwelling, and to send it far and wide to 
 the remotest settlements of our country. 
 Am I asked why we wish this diffu- 
 sion ? We dare not say that we are in 
 no degree influenced by sectarian feel- 
 ing ; for we see it raging around us, and 
 we should be more than men were we 
 wholly to escape an epidemic passion. 
 We do hope, however, that our main 
 purpose and aim is not sectarian, but to 
 promote a purer and nobler piety than 
 now prevails. We are not induced to 
 spread our opinions by the mere con- 
 viction that they are true ; for there are 
 many truths, historical, metaphysical, 
 scientific, literary, which we have no 
 anxiety to propagate. We regard them 
 as the highest, most important, most 
 efficient truths, and therefore demand- 
 ing a firm testimony and earnest efforts 
 to make them known. In thus speak- 
 ing, we do not mean that we regard our 
 peculiar views as essential to salvation. 
 Far from us be this spirit of exclusion, 
 the very spirit of antichrist, the worst of 
 all the delusions of Popery and Protes- 
 tantism. We hold nothing to be essen- 
 tial but the simple and supreme dedica- 
 tion of the mind, heart, and life to God 
 and to his will. This inward and prac- 
 tical devotedness to the Supreme Be- 
 ing, we are assured, is attained and 
 accepted under all the forms of Chris- 
 tianity. We believe, however, that it is 
 favored by that truth which we main- 
 tain, as by no other system of faith. 
 We regard Unitarianism as peculiarly 
 the friend of inward, living, practical 
 religion. For this we value it, for 
 this we would spread it ; and we desire 
 none to embrace it but such as shall 
 seek and derive from it this celestial 
 influence. 
 
 This character and property of Uni- 
 tarian Christianity, its fitness to promote 
 true, deep, and living piety, being our 
 chief ground of attachment to it, and 
 our chief motive for dedicating this 
 house to its inculcation, I have thought 
 proper to make this the topic of my 
 present discourse. I do not propose to
 
 386 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 prove the truth of Unitarianism by Script- 
 ural authorities, for this argument would 
 exceed the limits of a sermon, but to 
 show its superior tendency to form an 
 elevated religious character. If, how- 
 ever, this position can be sustained, I 
 shall have contributed no weak argument 
 in support of the truth of our views ; 
 for the chief purpose of Christianity un- 
 doubtedly is to promote piety, to bring 
 us to God, to fill our souls with that 
 Great Being, to make us alive to him ; 
 and a religious system can carry no 
 more authentic mark of a divine origi- 
 nal than its obvious, direct, and pecul- 
 iar adaptation to quicken and raise the 
 mind to its Creator. In speaking thus 
 of Unitarian Christianity as promoting 
 piety, I ought to observe that I use this 
 word in its proper and highest sense. I 
 mean not every thing which bears the 
 name ot piety, for under this title super- 
 stition, fanaticism, and formality are 
 walking abroad and claiming respect. 
 I mean not an anxious frame of mind, 
 not abject and slavish fear, not a dread 
 of hell, not a repetition of forms, not 
 church-going, not loud profession, not 
 severe censure of others' irreligion ; but 
 filial love and reverence towards God, 
 habitual gratitude, cheerful trust, ready 
 obedience, and, though last not least, 
 an imitation of the ever-active and un- 
 bounded benevolence of the Creator. 
 
 The object of this discourse requires 
 me to speak with great freedom of dif- 
 erent systems of religion. But let me 
 not be misunderstood. Let not the 
 uncharitableness which I condemn be 
 lightly laid to my charge. Let it be re- 
 membered that I speak only of systems, 
 not of those who embrace them. In 
 setting forth with all simplicity what 
 seem to me the good or bad tendencies 
 of doctrines, I have not a thought of 
 giving standards or measures by which 
 to estimate the virtue or vice of their 
 professors. Nothing would be more un- 
 just than to decide on men's characters 
 from their peculiarities of faith ; and the 
 reason is plain. Such peculiarities are 
 not the only causes which impress and 
 determine the mind. Our nature is ex- 
 posed to innumerable other influences. 
 If, indeed, a man were to know nothing 
 but his creed, were to meet with no hu- 
 man beings but those who adopt it, were 
 to see no example and to hear no conver- 
 sation but such as were formed by it : if 
 
 his creed were to meet him everywhere, 
 and to exclude every other object of 
 thought, then his character might be 
 expected to answer to it with great pre- 
 cision. But our Creator has not shut us 
 up in so narrow a school. The mind is 
 exposed to an infinite variety of influ- 
 ences, and these are multiplying with 
 the progress of society. Education, 
 friendship, neighborhood, public opin- 
 ion, the state of society, " the genius of 
 the place " where we live, books, events, 
 the pleasures and business of life, the 
 outward creation, our physical tempera- 
 ment, and innumerable other causes, are 
 perpetually pouring in upon the soul 
 thoughts, views, and emotions ; and these 
 influences are so complicated, so pecul- 
 iarly combined in the case of every in- 
 dividual, and so modified by the original 
 susceptibilities and constitution of every 
 mind, that on no subject is there greater 
 uncertainty than on the formation of 
 character. To determine the precise 
 operation of a religious opinion amidst 
 this host of influences, surpasses human 
 power. A great truth may be complete- 
 ly neutralized by the countless impres- 
 sions and excitements which the mind 
 receives from other sources ; and so a 
 great error may be disarmed of much of 
 its power by the superior energy of other 
 and better views, of early habits, and of 
 virtuous examples. Nothing is more 
 common than to see a doctrine believed 
 without swaying the will. Its efficacy 
 depends, not on the assent of the intel- 
 lect, but on the place which it occupies 
 in the thoughts, on the distinctness and 
 vividness with which it is conceived, on 
 its association with our common ideas, 
 on its frequency of recurrence, and 
 on its command of the attention, with- 
 out which it has no life. According- 
 ly, pernicious opinions are not seldom 
 held by men of the most illustrious 
 virtue. I mean not, then, in commend- 
 ing or condemning systems, to pass 
 sentence on their professors. I know 
 the power of the mind to select from a 
 multifarious system, for its habitual use, 
 those features or principles which are 
 generous, pure, and ennobling, and by 
 these to sustain its spiritual life amidst 
 the nominal profession of many errors. 
 I know that a creed is one thing as writ- 
 ten in a book, and another as it exists 
 in the minds of its advocates. In the 
 book, all the doctrines appear in equally
 
 MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 strong and legible lines. In the mind, 
 many are faintly traced and seldom re- 
 curred to, whilst others are inscribed as 
 with sunbeams, and are the chosen, con- 
 stant lights of the soul. Hence, in good 
 men of opposing denominations, a real 
 agreement may subsist as to their vital 
 principles of faith : and amidst the di- 
 vision of tongues there may be unity of 
 soul, and the same internal worship of 
 God. By these remarks, I do not mean 
 that error is not evil, or that it bears no 
 pernicious fruit. Its tendencies are al- 
 ways bad. But I mean that these ten- 
 dencies exert themselves amidst so many 
 counteracting influences ; and that inju- 
 rious opinions so often lie dead through 
 the want of mixture with the common 
 thoughts, through the mind's not absorb- 
 ing them, and changing them into its 
 own substance, that the highest respect 
 may and ought to be cherished for men 
 in whose creed we find much to disap- 
 prove. In this discourse I shall speak 
 freely, and some may say severely, of 
 Trinitarianism ; but I love and honor 
 not a few of its advocates ; and in op- 
 posing what I deem their error, I would 
 on no account detract from their worth. 
 After these remarks, I hope that the 
 language of earnest discussion and 
 strong conviction will not be construed 
 into the want of that, charity which I ac- 
 knowledge as the first grace of our re- 
 ligion. 
 
 I now proceed to illustrate and prove 
 the superiority of Unitarian Christianity, 
 as a means of promoting a deep and no- 
 ble piety. 
 
 I. Unitarianism is a system most fa- 
 vorable to piety, because it presents to the 
 mind one, and only one, Infinite Person, 
 to whom supreme homage is to be paid. 
 It does not weaken the energy of relig- 
 ious sentiment by dividing it among 
 various objects. It collects and con- 
 centrates the soul on one Father of un- 
 bounded, undivided, unrivalled glory. 
 To him it teaches the mind to rise 
 through all beings. Around him it 
 gathers all the splendors of the uni- 
 verse. To him it teaches us to ascribe 
 whatever good we receive or behold, the 
 beauty and magnificence of nature, the 
 liberal gifts of Providence, the capac- 
 ities of the soul, the bonds of soci- 
 ety, and especially the riches of grace 
 and redemption, the mission, and pow- 
 ers, and beneficent influences of Jesus 
 
 Christ. All happiness it traces up to 
 the Father, as the sole source ; and the 
 mind, which these views have pene- 
 trated, through this intimate association 
 of every thing exciting and exalting in 
 the universe with one Infinite Parent, 
 can and does offer itself up to him with 
 the intensest and profoundest love of 
 which human nature is susceptible. The 
 Trinitarian, indeed, professes to believe 
 in one God, and means to hold fast this 
 truth. But three persons, having dis- 
 tinctive qualities and relations, of whom 
 one is sent and another the sender, one 
 is given and another the giver, of whom 
 one intercedes and another hears the 
 intercession, of whom one takes flesh 
 and another never becomes incarnate, 
 three persons, thus discriminated, are as 
 truly three objects of the mind as if they 
 were acknowledged to be separate divin- 
 ities ; and, from the principles of our 
 nature, they cannot act on the mind as 
 deeply and powerfully as one Infinite 
 Person, to whose sole goodness all hap- 
 piness is ascribed. To multiply infinite 
 objects for the heart is to distract it 
 To scatter the attention among three 
 equal persons is to impair the power of 
 each. The more strict and absolute the 
 unity of God, the more easily and inti- 
 mately all the impressions and emotions 
 of piety flow together, and are condensed 
 into one glowing thought, one thrilling 
 love. No language can express the ab- 
 sorbing energy of the thought of one 
 Infinite Father. When vitally implanted 
 in the soul, it grows and gains strength 
 for ever. It enriches itself by every new 
 view of God's word and works ; gathers 
 tribute from all regions and all ages : 
 and attracts into itself all the rays of 
 beauty, glory, and joy, in the material 
 and spiritual creation. 
 
 My hearers, as you would feel the full 
 influence of God upon your souls, guard 
 sacredly, keep unobscured and unsul- 
 lied, that fundamental and glorious truth, 
 that there is one, and only one, Almighty 
 Agent in the universe, one Infinite 
 Father. Let this truth dwell in me in 
 its uncorrupted simplicity, and I have 
 the spring and nutriment of an ever- 
 growing piety. I have an object for my 
 mind towards which all things bear me. 
 I know whither to go in all trial, whom 
 to bless in all joy, whom to adore in all 
 I behold. But let three persons claim 
 from me supreme homage, and claim it
 
 388 
 
 . UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 on different grounds, one for sending 
 and another for coming to my relief, 
 and I am divided, distracted, perplexed. 
 My frail intellect is overborne. Instead 
 of one Father, on whose arm I can rest, 
 my mind is torn from object to object, 
 and I tremble lest, among so many 
 claimants of supreme love, I should 
 withhold from one or another his due. 
 
 II. Unitarianism is the system most 
 favorable to piety, because it holds forth 
 and preserves inviolate the spirituality 
 of God. " God is a spirit, and they that 
 worship him must worship him in spirit 
 and in truth." It is of great importance 
 to the progress and elevation of the 
 religious principle that we should re- 
 fine more and more our conceptions 
 of God ; that we should separate from 
 him all material properties, and what- 
 ever is limited or imperfect in our own 
 nature ; that we should regard him 
 as a pure intelligence, an unmixed and 
 infinite Mind. When it pleased God to 
 select the Jewish people and place them 
 under miraculous interpositions, one of 
 the first precepts given them was, that 
 they should not represent God under 
 any bodily form, any graven image, or 
 the likeness of any creature. Next 
 came Christianity, which had this as 
 one of its great objects, to render relig- 
 ion still more spiritual, by abolishing 
 the ceremonial and outward worship of 
 former times, and by discarding those 
 grosser modes of describing God through 
 which the ancient prophets had sought 
 to impress an unrefined people. 
 
 Now, Unitarianism concurs with this 
 sublime moral purpose of God. It as- 
 serts his spirituality. It approaches 
 him under no bodily form, but as a 
 pure spirit, as the infinite and the uni- 
 versal Mind. On the other hand, it is 
 the direct influence of Trinitarianism to 
 materialize men's conceptions of God ; 
 and, in truth, this system is a relapse 
 into the error of the rudest and earliest 
 ages, into the worship of a corporeal 
 God. Its leading feature is the doc- 
 trine of a God clothed with a body, and 
 acting and speaking through a material 
 frame, of the Infinite Divinity dying 
 on a cross ; a doctrine which, in earthli- 
 ness reminds us of the mythology of the 
 rudest pagans, and which a pious Jew, 
 in the twilight of the Mosaic religion, 
 would have shrunk from with horror. 
 It seems to me no small objection to 
 
 the Trinity, that it supposes God to take 
 a body in the later and more improved 
 ages of the world, when it is plain that 
 such a manifestation, if needed at all, 
 was peculiarly required in the infancy 
 of the race. The effect of such a sys- 
 tem in debasing the idea of God, in as- 
 sociating with the Divinity human pas- 
 sions and infirmities, is too obvious to 
 need much elucidation. On the suppo- 
 sition that the second person of the 
 Trinity became incarnate, God may be 
 said to be a material being, on the same 
 general ground on which this is affirmed 
 of man ; for man is material only by the 
 union of the mind with the body ; and 
 the very meaning of incarnation is that 
 God took a body, through which he 
 acted and spoke, as the human soul 
 operates through its corporeal organs. 
 Every bodily affection may thus be as- 
 cribed to God. Accordingly the Trini- 
 tarian, in his most solemn act of adora- 
 tion, is heard to pray in these appalling 
 words : " Good Lord, deliver us ; by the 
 mystery of thy holy incarnation, by thy 
 holy nativity and circumcision, by thy 
 baptism, fasting, and temptation, by 
 thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy 
 cross and passion, good Lord, deliver 
 us." Now I ask you to judge, from the 
 principles of human nature, whether to 
 worshippers, who adore their God for 
 his wounds and tears, his agony, and 
 blood, and sweat, the ideas of corporeal 
 existence and human suffering will not 
 predominate over the conceptions of a 
 purely spiritual essence ; whether the 
 mind, in clinging to the man, will not 
 lose the God ; whether a surer method 
 for depressing and adulterating the pure 
 thought of the Divinity could have been 
 devised. That the Trinitarian is un- 
 conscious of this influence of his faith, 
 I know, nor do I charge it on him as a 
 crime. Still it exists, and cannot be too 
 much deplored. 
 
 The Roman Catholics, true to human 
 nature and their creed, have sought by 
 painting and statuary to bring their 
 imagined God before their eyes ; and 
 have thus obtained almost as vivid im- 
 pressions of him as if they had lived 
 with him on the earth. The Protestant 
 condemns them for using these simili- 
 tudes and representations in their wor- 
 ship ; but, if a Trinitarian, he does so to 
 his own condemnation. For if, as he 
 believes, it was once a duty to bow in
 
 MOST FA FOR ABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 389 
 
 adoration before the living body of his 
 incarnate God, what possible guilt can 
 there be in worshipping before the pict- 
 ured or sculptured memorial of the same 
 being ? Christ's body may as truly be 
 represented by the artist as any other 
 human form ; and its image maybe used 
 as effectually and properly as that of an 
 ancient sage or hero, to recall him with 
 vividness to the mind. Is it said that 
 God has expressly forbidden the use of 
 images in our worship ? But why was 
 that prohibition laid on the Jews ? For 
 this express reason, that God had not 
 presented himself to them in any form 
 which admitted of representation. Hear 
 the language of Moses : " Take good 
 heed lest ye make you a graven image, 
 for ye saw no manner of similitude on 
 the day that the Lord spake unto you in 
 Horeb out of the midst of the fire." * 
 If, since that period, God has taken a 
 body, then the reason of the prohibition 
 has ceased ; and, if he took a body, 
 among other purposes, that He might 
 assist the weakness of the intellect, 
 which needs a material form, then a 
 statue, which lends so great an aid to 
 the conception of an absent friend, is not 
 only justified, but seems to be required. 
 This materializing and embodying of 
 the Supreme Being, which is the essence 
 of Trinitarianism, cannot but be adverse 
 to a growing and exalted piety. Hu- 
 man and divine properties, being con- 
 founded in one being, lose their distinct- 
 ness. The splendors of the Godhead are 
 dimmed. The worshippers of an incar- 
 nate Deity, through the frailty of their 
 nature, are strongly tempted to fasten 
 chiefly on his human attributes ; and 
 their devotion, instead of rising to the 
 Infinite God, and taking the peculiar 
 character which infinity inspires, be- 
 comes rather a human affection, bor- 
 rowing much of its fervor from the ideas 
 of suffering, blood, and death. It is 
 indeed possible that this God-man (to 
 use the strange phraseology of Trin- 
 itarians) may excite the mind more 
 easily than a purely spiritual divinity ; 
 just as a tragedy, addressed to the eye 
 and ear, will interest the multitude more 
 than the contemplation of the most 
 exalted character. But the emotions 
 which are the most easily roused, are 
 
 * Deut. iv. 15, 16. The arrangement of the text 
 is a little changed, to put the reader immediately in 
 possession of the meaning. 
 
 not the profoundest or most enduring. 
 This human love, inspired by a human 
 God, though at first more fervid, cannot 
 grow and spread through the soul, like 
 the reverential attachment which an 
 infinite, spiritual Father awakens. Re- 
 fined conceptions of God, though more 
 slowly attained, have a more quickening 
 and all-pervading energy, and admit of 
 perpetual accessions of brightness, life, 
 and strength. 
 
 True, we shall be told that Trinita- 
 rianism has converted only one of its 
 three persons into a human deity, and 
 that the other two remain purely spir- 
 itual beings. But who does not know 
 that man will attach himself most strong- 
 ly to the God who has become a man ? 
 Is not this even a duty, if the Divinity 
 has taken a body to place himself within 
 the reach of human comprehension and 
 sympathy ? That the Trinitarian's views 
 of the Divinity will be colored more by 
 his visible, tangible, corporeal God, than 
 by those persons of the Trinity who 
 remain comparatively hidden in their 
 invisible and spiritual essence, is so 
 accordant with the principles of our nat- 
 ure as to need no labored proof. 
 
 My friends, hold fast the doctrine of a 
 purely spiritual Divinity. It is one of 
 the great supports and instruments of a 
 vital piety. It brings God near as no 
 other doctrine can. One of the leading 
 purposes of Christianity is to give us an 
 ever-growing sense of God's immediate 
 presence, a conciousness of him in 
 our souls. Now, just as far as corporeal 
 or limited attributes enter into our con- 
 ception of him, we remove him from us. 
 He becomes an outward, distant being, 
 instead of being viewed and felt as dwell- 
 ing in the soul itself. It is an unspeak- 
 able benefit of the doctrine of a purely 
 spiritual God, that He can be regarded 
 as inhabiting, filling our spiritual nature ; 
 and, through this union with our minds, 
 He can and does become the object of an 
 intimacy and friendship such as no em- 
 bodied being can call forth. 
 
 III. Unitarianism is the system most 
 favorable to piety, because it presents a 
 distinct and intelligible object of wor- 
 ship, a Being whose nature, whilst 
 inexpressibly sublime, is yet simple and 
 suited to human apprehension. An Infi- 
 nite Father is the most exalted of all 
 conceptions, and yet the least perplex- 
 ing. It involves no incongruous ideas.
 
 390 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 It is illustrated by analogies from our 
 own nature. It coincides with that 
 fundamental law of the intellect through 
 which we demand a cause proportioned 
 to effects. It is also as interesting as it 
 is rational ; so that it is peculiarly con- 
 genial with the improved mind. The 
 sublime simplicity of God, as He is 
 taught in Unitarianism, by relieving the 
 understanding from perplexity, and by 
 placing him within the reach of thought 
 and affection, gives him peculiar power 
 over the soul. Trinitarianism, on the 
 other hand, is a riddle. Men call it a 
 mystery ; but it is mysterious, not like 
 the great truths of religion, by its vast- 
 ness and grandeur, but by the irrecon- 
 cilable ideas which it involves. One 
 God, consisting of three persons or 
 agents, is so strange a being, so unlike 
 our own minds, and all others with 
 which we hold intercourse, is so misty, 
 so incongruous, so contradictory, that 
 He cannot be apprehended with that 
 distinctness and that feeling of reality 
 which belong to the opposite system. 
 Such a heterogeneous being, who is at 
 the same moment one and many ; who 
 includes in his own nature the relations 
 of Father and Son, or, in other words, is 
 Father and Son to himself ; who, in one 
 of his persons, is at the same moment 
 the Supreme God and a mortal man, 
 omniscient and ignorant, almighty and 
 impotent ; such a being is certainly the 
 most puzzling and distracting object 
 ever presented to human thought. Trin- 
 itarianism, instead of teaching an intel- 
 ligible God, offers to the mind a strange 
 compound of hostile attributes, bearing 
 plain marks of those ages of darkness 
 when Christianity shed but a faint ray, 
 and the diseased fancy teemed with 
 prodigies and unnatural creations. In 
 contemplating a being who presents such 
 different and inconsistent aspects, the 
 mind finds nothing to rest upon ; and, 
 instead of receiving distinct and har- 
 monious impressions, is disturbed by 
 shifting, unsettled images. To commune 
 with such a being must be as hard as to 
 converse with a man of three different 
 countenances, speaking with three differ- 
 ent tongues. The believer in this sys- 
 tem must forget it when he prays, or he 
 could find no repose in devotion. Who 
 can compare it, in distinctness, reality, 
 and power, with the simple doctrine of 
 one Infinite Father ? 
 
 IV. Unitarianism promotes a fervent 
 and enlightened piety by asserting the 
 absolute and unbounded perfection of 
 God's character. This is the highest 
 service which can be rendered to man- 
 kind. Just and generous conceptions of 
 the Divinity are the soul's true wealth. 
 To spread these is to contribute more 
 effectually than by any other agency to 
 the progress and happiness of the intel- 
 ligent creation. To obscure God's glory 
 is to do greater wrong than to blot out 
 the sun. The character and influence 
 of a religion must answer to the views 
 which it gives of the Divinity ; and there 
 is a plain tendency in that system which 
 manifests the divine perfections most 
 resplendently to awaken the sublimest 
 and most blessed piety. 
 
 Now, Trinitarianism has a fatal ten- 
 dency to degrade the character of the 
 Supreme Being, though its advocates, I 
 am sure, intend no such wrong. By 
 multiplying divine persons, it takes 
 from each the glory of independent, 
 all-sufficient, absolute perfection. This 
 may be shown in various particulars. 
 And, in the first place, the very idea 
 that three persons in the Divinity are in 
 any degree important, implies and in- 
 volves the imperfection of each ; for it 
 is plain that if one divine person pos- 
 sesses all possible power, wisdom, love, 
 and happiness, nothing will be gained 
 to himself or to the creation by join- 
 ing with him two, or two hundred other 
 persons. To say that he needs others 
 for any purpose or in any degree, is to 
 strip him of independent and all-suffi- 
 cient majesty. If our Father in heaven, 
 the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, is not of himself sufficient to all 
 the wants of his creation ; if, by his 
 union with other persons, he can ac- 
 complish any good to which he is not 
 of himself equal ; or if he thus acquires 
 a claim to the least degree of trust or 
 hope, to which he is not of himself en- 
 titled by his own independent attributes ; 
 then it is plain he is not a being of in- 
 finite and absolute perfection. Now, 
 Trinitarianism teaches that the highest 
 good accrues to the human race from 
 the existence of three divine persons, 
 sustaining different offices and relations 
 to the world ; and it regards the Unita- 
 rian as subverting the foundation of 
 human hope, by asserting that the God 
 and Father of our Lord Jesus is alone
 
 MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 391 
 
 and singly God. Thus it derogates 
 from his infinite glory. 
 
 In the next place, Trinitarianism de- 
 grades the character of the Supreme 
 Being, by laying its disciples under the 
 necessity of making such a distribution 
 of offices and relations among the three 
 persons as will serve to designate and 
 distinguish them ; for in this way it in- 
 terferes with the sublime conceptions of 
 one Infinite Person, in whom all glories 
 are concentred. If we are required to 
 worship three persons, we must view 
 them in different lights, or they will be 
 mere repetitions of each other, mere 
 names and sounds, presenting no ob- 
 jects, conveying no meaning to the 
 mind. Some appropriate character, 
 some peculiar acts, feelings, and rela- 
 tions, must be ascribed to each. In 
 other words, the glory of all must be 
 shorn, that some special distinguishing 
 lustre may be thrown on each. Accord- 
 ingly, creation is associated peculiarly 
 with the conception of the Father ; sat- 
 isfaction for human guilt with that of 
 the Son ; whilst sanctification, the no- 
 blest work of all, is given to the Holy 
 Spirit as his more particular work. By 
 a still more fatal distribution, the work 
 of justice, the office of vindicating the 
 rights of the Divinity, falls peculiarly to 
 the Father, whilst the loveliness of in- 
 terposing mercy clothes peculiarly the 
 person of the Son. By this unhappy 
 influence of Trinitarianism, from which 
 common minds at least cannot escape, 
 the splendors of the Godhead, being 
 scattered among three objects, instead 
 of being united in one Infinite Father, 
 are dimmed ; and he whose mind is 
 thoroughly and practically possessed by 
 this system, can hardly conceive the ef- 
 fulgence of glory in which the one God 
 offers himself to a pious believer in his 
 strict unity. 
 
 But the worst has not been told. I 
 observe, then, in the third place, that if 
 three divine persons are believed in, 
 such an administration or government of 
 the world must be ascribed to them as 
 will furnish them with a sphere of oper- 
 ation. No man will admit three persons 
 into his creed, without finding a use for 
 them. Now, it is an obvious remark, 
 that a system of the universe which in- 
 volves and demands more than one Infi- 
 nite Agent, must be wild, extravagant, 
 and unworthy the perfect God ; because 
 
 there is no possible or conceivable good 
 to which such an Agent is not adequate. 
 Accordingly we find Trinitarianism con- 
 necting itself with a scheme of admin- 
 istration exceedingly derogatory to the 
 divine character. It teaches that the 
 Infinite Father saw fit to put into 
 the hands of our first parents the 
 character and condition of their whole 
 progeny : and that, through one act of 
 disobedience, the whole race bring with 
 them into being a corrupt nature, or are 
 born depraved. It teaches that the of- 
 fences of a short life, though begun 
 and spent under this disastrous influ- 
 ence, merit endless punishment, and that 
 God's law threatens this infinite pen- 
 alty ; and that man is thus burdened 
 with a guilt which no sufferings of the 
 created universe can expiate, which 
 nothing but the sufferings of an Infi- 
 nite Being can purge away. In this con- 
 dition of human nature, Trinitarianism 
 finds a sphere of action for its different 
 persons. I am aware that some Trini- 
 tarians, on hearing this statement of 
 their system, may reproach me with as- 
 cribing to them the errors of Calvinism, 
 a system which they abhor as much 
 as ourselves. But none of the peculiar- 
 ities of Calvinism enter into this expo- 
 sition. I have given what I understand 
 to be the leading features of Trinitarian- 
 ism all the world over ; and the benevo- 
 lent professors of that faith who recoil 
 from this statement must blame not the 
 preacher, but the creeds and establish- 
 ments by which these doctrines are 
 diffused. For ourselves, we look with 
 horror and grief on the views of God's 
 government which are naturally and 
 intimately united with Trinitarianism. 
 They take from us our Father in heaven, 
 and substitute a stern and unjust lord. 
 Our filial love and reverence rise up 
 against them. We say to the Trinita- 
 rian, touch any thing but the perfections 
 of God. Cast no stain on that spotless 
 purity and loveliness. We can endure 
 any errors but those which subvert or 
 unsettle the conviction of God's pater- 
 nal goodness. Urge not upon us a sys- 
 tem which makes existence a curse, and 
 wraps the universe in gloom. Leave us 
 the cheerful light, the free and healthful 
 atmosphere of a liberal and rational 
 faith ; the ennobling and consoling in- 
 fluences of the doctrine, which nature 
 and revelation in blessed concord teach
 
 392 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 us, of one Father of unbounded and 
 inexhaustible love. 
 
 V. Unitarianism is peculiarly favor- 
 able to piety, because it accords with 
 nature, with the world around and the 
 world within us ; and through this ac- 
 cordance it gives aid to nature, and re- 
 ceives aid from it, in impressing the 
 mind with God. We live in the midst 
 of a glorious universe, which was meant 
 to be a witness and a preacher of the Di- 
 vinity ; and a revelation from God may 
 be expected to be in harmony with this 
 system, and to carry on a common min- 
 istry with it in lifting the soul to God. 
 Now, Unitarianism is in accordance 
 with nature. It teaches one Father, 
 and so does creation, the more it is ex- 
 plored. Philosophy, in proportion as it 
 extends its views of the universe, sees 
 in it, more and more, a sublime and 
 beautiful unity, and multiplies proofs 
 that all things have sprung from one in- 
 telligence, one power, one love. The 
 whole outward creation proclaims to the 
 Unitarian the truth in which he delights. 
 So does his own soul. But neither nat- 
 ure nor the soul bears one trace of three 
 divine persons. Nature is no Trinita- 
 rian. It gives not a hint, not a glimpse 
 of a tri-personal author. Trinitarianism 
 is a confined system, shut up in a few 
 texts, a few written lines, where many 
 of the wisest minds have failed to dis- 
 cover it. It is not inscribed on the 
 heavens and the earth, not borne on 
 every wind, not resounding and re-echo- 
 ing through the universe. The sun and 
 stars say nothing of a God of three 
 persons. They all speak of the one 
 Father whom we adore. To our ears, 
 one and the same voice comes from 
 God's word and works, a full and 
 swelling strain, growing clearer, louder, 
 more thrilling as we listen, and with one 
 blessed influence lifting up our souls to 
 the Almighty Father. 
 
 This accordance between nature and 
 revelation increases the power of both 
 over the mind. Concurring as they do 
 in one impression, they make that im- 
 pression deeper. To men of reflection, 
 the conviction of the reality of religion 
 is exceedingly heightened by a percep- 
 tion of harmony in the views of it which 
 they derive from various sources. Rev- 
 elation is never received with so intimate 
 a persuasion of its truth as when it is 
 seen to conspire to the same ends and 
 
 impressions for which all other things 
 are made. It is no small objection to 
 Trinitarianism that it is an insulated 
 doctrine, that it reveals a God whom 
 we meet nowhere in the universe. Three 
 divine persons, I repeat it, are found 
 only in a few texts, and those so dark 
 that the gifted minds of Milton, Newton, 
 and Locke could not find them there. 
 Nature gives them not a whisper of evi- 
 dence. And can they be as real and 
 powerful to the mind as that one Father 
 whom the general strain and common 
 voice of Scripture, and the universal 
 voice of nature, call us to adore ? 
 
 VI. Unitarianism favors piety by 
 opening the mind to new and ever-en- 
 larging views of God. Teaching, as it 
 does, the same God with nature, it 
 leads us to seek him in nature. It does 
 not shut us up in the written word, 
 precious as that manifestation of the 
 Divinity is. It considers revelation, 
 not as independent of his other means 
 of instruction ; not as a separate 
 agent ; but as a part of the great 
 system of God for enlightening and 
 elevating the human soul ; as inti- 
 mately joined with creation and prov- 
 idence, and intended to concur with 
 them ; and as given to assist us in read- 
 ing the volume of the universe. Thus 
 Unitarianism, where its genuine influ- 
 ence is experienced, tends to enrich and 
 fertilize the mind : opens it to new lights, 
 wherever they spring up ; and, by com- 
 bining, makes more efficient the means 
 of religious knowledge. Trinitarianism, 
 on- the other hand, is a system which 
 tends to confine the mind : to shut it- up 
 in what is written ; to diminish its inter- 
 est in the universe : and to disincline it 
 to bright and enlarged views of God's 
 works. This effect will be explained, 
 in the first place, if we consider that the 
 peculiarities of Trinitarianism differ so 
 much from the teachings of the universe, 
 that he who attaches himself to the one 
 will be in danger of losing his interest 
 in the other. The ideas of three divine 
 persons, of God clothing himself in 
 flesh, of the infinite Creator saving the 
 guilty by transferring their punishment 
 to an innocent being, these ideas can- 
 not easily be made to coalesce in the 
 mind with that which nature gives, of 
 one Almighty Father and Unbounded 
 Spirit, whom no worlds can contain, and 
 whose vicegerent in the human breast
 
 MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 393 
 
 pronounces it a crime to lay the penal- 
 ties of vice on the pure and unoffend- 
 ing. 
 
 But Trinitarianism has a still more 
 positive influence in shutting the mind 
 against improving views from the uni- 
 verse. It tends to throw gloom over 
 God's works. Imagining that Christ is 
 to be exalted by giving him an exclusive 
 agency in enlightening and recovering 
 mankind, it is tempted to disparage other 
 lights and influences ; and, for the pur- 
 pose of magnifying his salvation, it in- 
 clines to exaggerate the darkness and 
 desperateness of man's present condi- 
 tion. The mind, thus impressed, nat- 
 urally leans to those views of nature and 
 of society which will strengthen the 
 ideas of desolation and guilt. It is 
 tempted to aggravate the miseries of 
 life, and to see in them only the marks 
 of divine displeasure and punishing jus- 
 tice ; and overlooks their obvious fitness 
 and design to awaken our powers, exer- 
 cise our virtues, and strengthen our so- 
 cial ties. In like manner it exaggerates 
 the sins of men, that the need of an in- 
 finite atonement may be maintained. 
 Some of the most affecting tokens of 
 God's love within and around us are ob- 
 scured by this gloomy theology. The 
 glorious faculties of the soul, its high 
 aspirations, its sensibility to the great 
 and good in character, its sympathy with 
 disinterested and suffering virtue, its be- 
 nevolent and religious instincts, its thirst 
 for a happiness not found on earth ; these 
 are overlooked or thrown into the shade, 
 that they may not disturb the persua- 
 sion of man's natural corruption. In- 
 genuity is employed to disparage what 
 is interesting in the human character. 
 Whilst the bursts of passion in the new- 
 born child are gravely urged as indica- 
 tions of a native, rooted corruption; its 
 bursts of affection, its sweet smile, its 
 innocent and irrepressible joy, its love- 
 liness and beauty, are not listened 
 to, though they plead more eloquently 
 its alliance with higher natures. The 
 sacred and tender affections of home ; 
 the unwearied watchings and cheerful 
 sacrifices of pirents : the reverential, 
 grateful assiduity of children, smoothing 
 an aged father's or mother's descent to 
 the grave ; woman's love, stronger than 
 death ; the friendship of brothers and 
 sisters ; the anxious affection which 
 tends around the bed of sickness, the 
 
 subdued voice, which breathes comfort 
 into the mourner's heart; all the endear- 
 ing offices which shed a serene light 
 through our dwellings ; these are ex- 
 plained away by the thorough advocates 
 of this system, so as to include no 
 real virtue, so as to consist with a 
 natural aversion to goodness. Even the 
 higher efforts of disinterested benevo- 
 lence, and the most unaffected expres- 
 sions of piety, if not connected with 
 what is called " the true faith," are, by 
 the most rigid disciples of the doctrine 
 which I oppose, resolved into the pas- 
 sion for distinction, or some other work- 
 ing of " unsanctified nature." Thus, 
 Trinitarianism and its kindred doctrines 
 have a tendency to veil God's goodness, 
 to sully his fairest works, to dim the 
 lustre of those innocent and pure affec- 
 tions which a divine breath kindles in 
 the soul, to blight the beauty and fresh- 
 ness of creation, and in this way to con- 
 sume the very nutriment of piety. We 
 know, and rejoice to know, that in mul- 
 titudes this tendency is counteracted by 
 a cheerful temperament, a benevolent 
 nature, and a strength of gratitude which 
 bursts the shackles of a melancholy sys- 
 tem. But from the nature of the doc- 
 trine, the tendency exists and is strong ; 
 and an impartial observer will often dis- 
 cern it resulting in gloomy, depressing 
 views of life and the universe. 
 
 Trinitarianism, by thus tending to 
 exclude bright and enlarged views of 
 the creation, seems to me not only to 
 chill the heart, but to injure the under- 
 standing, as far as moral and religious 
 truth is concerned. It does not send 
 the mind far and wide for new and ele- 
 vating objects ; and we have here one 
 explanation of the barrenness and fee- 
 bleness by which theological writings 
 are so generally marked. It is not 
 wonderful that the prevalent theology 
 should want vitality and enlargement 
 of thought, for it does not accord with 
 the perfections of God and the spirit of 
 the universe. It has not its root in 
 eternal truth ; but is a narrow, techni- 
 cal, artificial system, the fabrication of 
 unrefined ages, and consequently in- 
 capable of being blended with the new 
 lights which are spreading over the most 
 interesting subjects, and of being incor- 
 porated with the results and anticipa- 
 tions of original and progressive minds. 
 It stands apart in the mind, instead of
 
 394 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 seizing upon new truths, and converting 
 them into its own nutriment. With few 
 exceptions, the Trinitarian theology of 
 the present day is greatly deficient in 
 freshness of thought, and in power to 
 awaken the interest and to meet the 
 intellectual and spiritual wants of think- 
 ing men. I see, indeed, superior minds 
 and great minds among the adherents 
 of the prevalent system ; but they seem 
 to me to move in chains, and to fulfil 
 poorly their high function of adding to 
 the wealth of the human intellect. In 
 theological discussion, they remind me 
 more of Samson grinding in the narrow 
 mill of the Philistines, than of that 
 undaunted champion achieving victories 
 for God's people, and enlarging the 
 bounds of their inheritance. Now, a 
 system which has a tendency to confine 
 the mind, and to impair its sensibility 
 to the manifestations of God in the 
 universe, is so far unfriendly to piety, 
 to a bright, joyous, hopeful, ever-grow- 
 ing love of the Creator. It tends to 
 generate and nourish a religion of a 
 melancholy tone, such, I apprehend, 
 as now predominates in the Christian 
 world. 
 
 VII. Unitarianism promotes piety, by 
 the high place which it assigns to pi- 
 ety in the character and work of Jesus 
 Christ. What is it which the Unitarian 
 regards as the chief glory of the char- 
 acter of Christ ? I answer, his filial 
 devotion, the entireness with which he 
 surrendered himself to the will and 
 benevolent purposes of God. The piety 
 of Jesus, which, on the supposition of 
 his Supreme Divinity, is a subordinate 
 and incongruous, is, to us, his promi- 
 nent and crowning attribute. We place 
 his "oneness with God," not in an unin- 
 telligible unity of essence, but in unity 
 of mind and heart, in the strength of 
 his love, through which he renounced 
 every separate interest, and identified 
 himself with his Father's designs. In 
 other words, filial piety, the consecra- 
 tion of his whole being to the benevo- 
 lent will of his Father, this is the mild 
 glory in which he always offers himself 
 to our minds ; and, of consequence, all 
 our sympathies with him, all our love 
 and veneration towards him, are so 
 many forms of delight in a pious char- 
 acter, and our whole knowledge of him 
 incites us to a like surrender of our 
 whole nature and existence to God. 
 
 In the next place, Unitarianism teaches 
 that the highest work or office of Christ 
 is to call forth and strengthen piety in 
 the human breast ; and thus it sets before 
 us this character as the chief acquisition 
 and end of our being. To us, the great 
 glory of Christ's mission consists in the 
 power with which he " reveals the Fa- 
 ther," and establishes the " kingdom or 
 reign of God within " the soul. By the 
 crown which he wears, we understand 
 the eminence which he enjoys in the 
 most beneficent work in the universe, 
 that of bringing back the lost mind to 
 the knowledge, love, and likeness of its 
 Creator. With these views of Christ's 
 office, nothing can seem to us so impor- 
 tant as an enlightened and profound 
 piety, and we are quickened to seek it 
 as the perfection and happiness to which 
 nature and redemption jointly summon 
 us. 
 
 Now, we maintain that Trinitarianism 
 obscures and weakens these views of 
 Christ's character and work ; and this 
 it does by insisting perpetually on others 
 of an incongruous, discordant nature. 
 It diminishes the power of his piety. 
 Making him, as it does, the Supreme 
 Being, and placing him as an equal on 
 his Father's throne, it turns the mind 
 from him as the meekest worshipper of 
 God ; throws into the shade, as of very 
 inferior worlh, his self-denying obedi- 
 ence ; and gives us other grounds for 
 revering him than his entire homage, 
 his fervent love, his cheerful self-sacri- 
 fice to the Universal Parent. There is 
 a plain incongruity in the belief of his 
 Supreme Godhead with the ideas of 
 filial piety and exemplary devotion. The 
 mind, which has been taught to regard 
 him as of equal majesty and authority 
 with the Father, cannot easily feel the 
 power of his character as the affection- 
 ate son, whose meat it was to do his 
 Father's will. The mind, accustomed 
 to make him the ultimate object of 
 worship, cannot easily recognize in him 
 the pattern of that worship, the guide 
 to the Most High. The characters are 
 incongruous, and their union perplexing, 
 so that neither exerts its full energy on 
 the mind. 
 
 Trinitarianism also exhibits the work 
 as well as character of Christ in lights 
 less favorable to piety. It does not 
 make the promotion of piety his chief 
 end. It teaches that the highest pur-
 
 MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 395 
 
 pose of his mission was to reconcile 
 God to man, not man to God. It 
 teaches that the most formidable ob- 
 stacle to human happiness lies in the 
 claims and threatenings of divine jus- 
 tice. Hence it leads men to prize Christ 
 more for answering these claims, and 
 averting these threatenings, than for 
 awakening in the human soul senti- 
 ments of love towards its Father in 
 heaven. Accordingly, multitudes seem 
 to prize pardon more than piety, and 
 think it a greater boon to escape, 
 through Christ's sufferings, the fire of 
 hell, than to receive, through his influ- 
 ence, the spirit of heaven, the spirit of 
 devotion. Is such a system propitious 
 to a generous and ever-growing piety ? 
 
 If I may be allowed a short digres- 
 sion, I would conclude this head with 
 the general observation, that we deem 
 our views of Jesus Christ more inter- 
 esting than those of Trinitarianism. 
 We feel that we should lose much by 
 exchanging the distinct character and 
 mild radiance with which he offers him- 
 self to our minds for the confused and 
 irreconcilable glories with which that 
 system labors to invest him. Accord- 
 ing to Unitarianism, he is a being who 
 may be understood, for he is one mind, 
 one conscious nature. According to 
 the opposite faith, he is an inconceiv- 
 able compound of two most dissimilar 
 minds, joining in one person a finite and 
 infinite nature, a soul weak and igno- 
 rant, and a soul almighty and omni- 
 scient. And is such a being a proper 
 object for human thought and affection ? 
 I add, as another important considera- 
 tion, that to us Jesus, instead of being 
 the second of three obscure, unintelligi- 
 ble persons, is first and pre-eminent in 
 the sphere in which he acts, and is thus 
 the object of a distinct attachment, 
 which he shares with no equals or ri- 
 vals. To us, he is first of the sons of 
 God, the Son by peculiar nearness and 
 likeness to the Father. He is first of all 
 the ministers of God's mercy and be- 
 neficence, and through him the largest 
 stream of bounty flows to the crea- 
 tion. He is first in God's favor and 
 love, the most accepted of worshippers, 
 the most prevalent of intercessors. In 
 this mighty universe, framed to be a 
 mirror of its Author, we turn to Jesus 
 as the brightest image of God, and 
 gratefully yield him a place in our souls, 
 
 second only to the Infinite Father, to 
 whom he himself directs our supreme 
 affection. 
 
 VIII. I now proceed to a great topic. 
 Unitarianism promotes piety by meeting 
 the wants of man as a sinner. The 
 wants of the sinner may be expressed 
 almost in one word. He wants assur- 
 ances of mercy in his Creator. He wants 
 pledges that God is love in its purest 
 form, that is, that He has a goodness 
 so disinterested, free, full, strong, and 
 immutable, that the ingratitude and dis- 
 obedience of his creatures cannot over- 
 come it. This unconquerable love, which 
 in Scripture is denominated grace, and 
 which waits not for merit to call it forth, 
 but flows out to the most guilty, is the 
 sinner's only hope, and it is fitted to 
 call forth the most devoted gratitude. 
 Now, this grace or mercy of God which 
 seeks the lost, and receives and blesses 
 the returning child, is proclaimed by that 
 faith which we advocate with a clearness 
 and energy which cannot be surpassed. 
 Unitarianism will not listen for a moment 
 to the common errors by which this 
 bright attribute is obscured. It will not 
 hear of a vindictive wrath in God which 
 must be quenched by blood ; or of a 
 justice which bjnds his mercy with an 
 iron chain until its demands are satisfied 
 to the full. It will not hear that God 
 needs any foreign influence to awaken 
 his mercy, but teaches that the yearn- 
 ings of the tenderest human parent 
 towards a lost child are but a faint image 
 of God's deep and overflowing compas- 
 sion towards erring man. This essential 
 and unchangeable propensity of the Di- 
 vine Mind to forgiveness, the Unitarian 
 beholds shining forth through the whole 
 word of God, and especially in the mission 
 and revelation of Jesus Christ, who lived 
 and died to make manifest the inex- 
 haustible plenitude of divine grace ; and, 
 a.ided by revelation, he sees this attribute 
 of God everywhere, both around him 
 and within him. He sees it in the sun 
 which shines, and the rain which de- 
 scends on the evil and unthankful ; in 
 the peace which returns to the mind in 
 proportion to its return to God and duty ; 
 in the sentiment of compassion which 
 springs up spontaneously in the human 
 breast towards the fallen and lost ; and 
 in the moral instinct which teaches us 
 to cherish this compassion as a sacred 
 principle, as an emanation of God's in-
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 finite love. In truth, Unitarianism as- 
 serts so strongly the mercy of God, that 
 the reproach thrown upon it is that it 
 takes from the sinner the dread of pun- 
 ishment, a reproach wholly without 
 foundation ; for our system teaches that 
 God's mercy is not an instinctive tender- 
 ness, which cannot inflict pain, but an 
 all-wise love, which desires the true and 
 lasting good of its object, and conse- 
 quently desires first for the sinner that 
 restoration to purity without which 
 shame, and suffering, and exile from 
 God and heaven are of necessity and 
 unalterably his doom. Thus Unitari- 
 anism holds forth God's grace and for- 
 giving goodness most resplendently ; 
 and, by this manifestation of him, it 
 tends to awaken a tender and confiding 
 piety ; an ingenuous love, which mourns 
 that it has offended ; an ingenuous aver- 
 sion to sin, not because sin brings pun- 
 ishment, but because it separates the 
 mind from this merciful Father. 
 
 Now we object to Trinitarianism, that 
 it obscures the mercy of God. It does 
 so in various ways. We have already 
 seen that it gives such views of God's 
 government, that we can hardly conceive 
 of this attribute as entering into his 
 character. Mercy to the sinner is the 
 principle of love or benevolence in its 
 highest form ; and surely this cannot be 
 expected from a being who brings us 
 into existence burdened with hereditary 
 guilt, and who threatens with endless 
 punishment and woe the heirs of so frail 
 and feeble a nature. With such a Cre- 
 ator the idea of mercy cannot coalesce ; 
 and I will say more, that under such a 
 government man would need no mercy ; 
 for he would owe no allegiance to such 
 a Maker, and could not, of course, con- 
 tract the guilt of violating it ; and, with- 
 out guilt, no grace or pardon would be 
 wanted. The severity of this system 
 would place him on the ground of an 
 injured being. The wrong would lie on 
 the side of the Creator. 
 
 In the next place, Trinitarianism ob- 
 scures God's mercy by the manner in 
 which it supposes pardon to be com- 
 municated. It teaches that God remits 
 the punishment of the offender in con- 
 sequence of receiving an equivalent from 
 an innocent person ; that the sufferings 
 of the sinner are removed by a full satis- 
 faction made to divine justice in the 
 sufferings of a substitute. And is this 
 
 " the quality of mercy " ? What means 
 forgiveness, but the reception of the 
 returning child through the strength of 
 parental love ? This doctrine invests 
 the Saviour with a claim of merit, with 
 a right to the remission of the sins of 
 his followers ; and represents God's re- 
 ception of the penitent as a recompense 
 due to the worth of his Son. And is 
 mercy, which means free and undeserved 
 love, made more manifest, more resplen- 
 dent, by the introduction of merit and 
 right as the ground of our salvation ? 
 Could a surer expedient be invented for 
 obscuring its freeness, and for turning 
 the sinner's gratitude from the sovereign 
 who demands, to the sufferer who offers, 
 full satisfaction for his guilt ? 
 
 I know it is said that Trinitarian- 
 ism magnifies God's mercy, because it 
 teaches that He himself provided the 
 substitute for the guilty. But I reply, 
 that the work here ascribed to mercy is 
 not the most appropriate, nor most fitted 
 to manifest it and impress it on the heart. 
 This may be made apparent by familiar 
 illustrations. Suppose that a creditor, 
 through compassion to certain debtors, 
 should persuade a benevolent and opulent 
 man to pay him in their stead. Would 
 not the debtors see a greater mercy, and 
 feel a weightier obligation, if they were 
 to receive a free, gratuitous release ? 
 And will not their chief gratitude stray 
 beyond the creditor to the benevolent 
 substitute ? Or, suppose that a parent, 
 unwilling to inflict a penalty on a dis- 
 obedient but feeble child, should per- 
 suade a stronger child to bear it. Would 
 not the offender see a more touching 
 mercy in a free forgiveness, springing 
 immediately from a parent's heart, than 
 in this circuitous remission ? And will 
 he not be tempted to turn with his 
 strongest love to the generous sufferer ? 
 In this process of substitution, of which 
 Trinitarianism boasts so loudly, the 
 mercy of God becomes complicated 
 with the rights and merits of the sub- 
 stitute, and is a more distant cause of 
 our salvation. These rights and merits 
 are nearer, more visible, and more than 
 divide the glory with grace and mercy 
 in our rescue. They turn the mind from 
 Divine Goodness, as the only spring of 
 its happiness and only rock of its hope. 
 Now this is to deprive piety of one of 
 its chief means of growth and joy. 
 Nothing should stand between the soul
 
 MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 397 
 
 and God's mercy. Nothing should share 
 with mercy the work of our salvation. 
 Christ's intercession should ever be re- 
 garded as an application to love and 
 mercy, not as a demand of justice, not 
 as a claim of merit. I grieve to say that 
 Christ, as now viewed by multitudes, 
 hides the lustre of that very attribute 
 which it is his great purpose to display. 
 I fear that, to many, Jesus wears the 
 glory of a more winning, tender mercy 
 than his Father, and that he is regarded 
 as the sinner's chief resource. Is this 
 the way to invigorate piety ? 
 
 Trinitarians imagine that there is one 
 view of their system peculiarly fitted to 
 give peace and hope to the sinner, and 
 consequently to promote gratitude and 
 love. It is this. They say, it provides 
 an infinite substitute for the sinner, 
 than which nothing can give greater re- 
 lief to the burdened conscience. Jesus, 
 being the second person of the Trinity, 
 was able to make infinite satisfaction for 
 sin ; and what, they ask, in Unitarian- 
 ism, can compare with this ? I have 
 time only for two brief replies. And 
 first, this doctrine of an infinite satisfac- 
 tion, or, as it is improperly called, of an 
 infinite atonement, subverts, instead of 
 building up, hope ; because it argues 
 infinite severity in the government which 
 requires it. Did I believe, what Trin- 
 itarianism teaches, that not the least 
 transgression, not even the first sin of 
 the dawning mind of the child, could be 
 remitted without an infinite expiation, I 
 should feel myself living under a legisla- 
 tion unspeakably dreadful, under laws 
 written, like Draco's, in blood ; and, in- 
 stead of thanking the Sovereign for pro- 
 viding an infinite substitute, I should 
 shudder at the attributes which render 
 this expedient necessary. It is com- 
 monly said that an infinite atonement is 
 needed to make due and deep impres- 
 sions of the evil of sin. But He who 
 framed all souls, and gave them their 
 susceptibilities, ought not to be thought 
 so wanting in goodness and wisdom as 
 to have constituted a universe which 
 demands so dreadful and degrading a 
 method of enforcing obedience as the 
 penal sufferings of a God. This doc- 
 trine, of an infinite substitute suffering 
 the penalty of sin, to manifest God's 
 wrath against sin, and thus to support 
 his government, is, I fear, so familiar to 
 us all, that its severe character is over- 
 
 looked. Let me, then, set it before you 
 in new terms, and by a new illustration ; 
 and if, in so doing, I may wound the 
 feelings of some who hear me, I beg 
 them to believe that I do it with pain, 
 and from no impulse but a desire to 
 serve the cause of truth. Suppose, 
 then, that a teacher should come among 
 you, and should tell you that the Cre- 
 ator, in order to pardon his own chil- 
 dren, had erected a gallows in the centre 
 of the universe, and had publicly ex- 
 ecuted upon it, in room of the offenders, 
 an Infinite Being, the partaker of his 
 own Supreme Divinity : suppose him to 
 declare that this execution was appoint- 
 ed as a most conspicuous and terrible 
 manifestation of God's justice, and of 
 the infinite woe denounced by his law ; 
 and suppose him to add that all beings 
 in heaven and earth are required to fix 
 their eyes on this fearful sight, as the 
 most powerful enforcement of obedience 
 and virtue. Would you not tell him 
 that he calumniated his Maker ? Would 
 you not say to him, that this central 
 gallows threw gloom over the universe ; 
 that the spirit of a government whose 
 very acts of pardon were written in such 
 blood was terror, not paternal love ; and 
 that the obedience which needed to be 
 upheld by this horrid spectacle was 
 nothing worth ? Would you not say to 
 him, that even you, in this infancy and 
 imperfection of your being, were capa- 
 ble of being wrought upon by nobler 
 motives, and of hating sin through more 
 generous views ; and that, much more, 
 the angels, those pure flames of love, 
 need not the gallows and an executed 
 God to confirm their loyalty ? You 
 would all so feel at such teaching as I 
 have supposed ; and yet how does this 
 differ from the popular doctrine of atone- 
 ment ? According to this doctrine, we 
 have an Infinite Being sentenced to 
 suffer, as a substitute, the death of the 
 cross, a punishment more ignominious 
 and agonizing than the gallows, a pun- 
 ishment reserved for slaves and the 
 vilest malefactors ; and he suffers this 
 punishment that he may show forth the 
 terrors of God's law, and strike a dread 
 of sin through the universe. I am in- 
 deed aware that multitudes who profess 
 this doctrine are not accustomed to 
 bring it to their minds distinctly in this 
 light ; that they do not ordinarily regard 
 the death of Christ as a criminal execu-
 
 398 
 
 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 tion, as an infinitely dreadful infliction 
 of justice, as intended to show that, with- 
 out an infinite satisfaction, they must 
 hope nothing from God. Their minds 
 turn, by a generous instinct, from these 
 appalling views, to the love, the disin- 
 terestedness, the moral grandeur and 
 beauty of the sufferer ; and through 
 such thoughts they make the cross a 
 source of peace, gratitude, love, and 
 hope : thus affording a delightful ex- 
 emplification of the power of the human 
 mind to attach itself to what is good 
 and purifying in the most irrational sys- 
 tem. Not a few may shudder at the 
 illustration which I have here given ; 
 but in what respects it is unjust to the 
 popular doctrine of atonement, I can- 
 not discern. I grieve to shock sincere 
 Christians, of whatever name ; but I 
 grieve more for the corruption of our 
 common faith, which I have now felt 
 myself bound to expose. 
 
 I have a second objection to this 
 doctrine of infinite atonement. When 
 examined minutely, and freed from am- 
 biguous language, it vanishes into air. 
 It is wholly delusion. The Trinitarian 
 tells me that, according to his system, 
 we have an infinite substitute ; that the 
 Infinite God was pleased to bear our 
 punishment, and consequently that par- 
 don is made sure. But I ask him, Do I 
 understand you ? Do you mean, that 
 the Great God, who never changes, 
 whose happiness is the same yesterday, 
 to-day, and for ever, that this Eternal 
 Being really bore the penalty of my 
 sins, really suffered and died ? Every 
 pious man, when pressed by this ques- 
 tion, answers. No. What, then, does 
 the doctrine of infinite atonement mean ? 
 Why, this : that God took into union 
 with himself our nature, that is, a hu- 
 man body and soul ; and these bore 
 the suffering for our sins ; and, through 
 his union with these, God may be said 
 to have borne it himself. Thus, this 
 vaunted system goes out in words. 
 The infinite victim proves to be frail 
 man, and God's share in the sacrifice is 
 a mere fiction. I ask with solemnity, 
 Can this doctrine give one moment s 
 ease to the conscience of an unbiassed, 
 thinking man ? Does it not unsettle all 
 hope, by m iking the whole religion sus- 
 picious and unsure ? I am compelled 
 to say that I see in it no impression of 
 majesty, or wisdom, or love, nothing 
 
 worthy of a God ; and when I compare 
 it with that nobler faith which directs 
 our eyes and hearts to God's essential 
 mercy, as our only hope, I am amazed 
 that any should ascribe to it superior 
 efficacy, as a religion for sinners, as a 
 means of filling the soul with pious trust 
 and love. I know, indeed, that some 
 will say that, in giving up an infinite 
 atonement, I deprive myself of all hope 
 of divine favor. To such I would say, 
 You do wrong to God's mercy. On 
 that mercy I cast myself without a fear. 
 I indeed desire Christ to intercede for 
 me. I regard his relation to me as God's 
 kindest appointment. Through him, 
 " grace and truth come " to me from 
 heaven, and I look forward to his friend- 
 ship as among the highest blessings of 
 my whole future being. But I cannot 
 and dare not ask him to offer an infinite 
 satisfaction for my sins ; to appease the 
 wrath of God ; to reconcile the Univer- 
 sal Father to his own offspring : to open 
 to me those arms of divine mercy which 
 have encircled and borne me from the 
 first moment of my being. The essen- 
 tial and unbounded mercy of my Creator 
 is the foundation of my hope, and a 
 broader and surer the universe cannot 
 give me. 
 
 IX. I now proceed to the last consid- 
 eration which the limits of this discourse 
 will permit me to urge. It has been 
 more than once suggested, but deserves 
 to be distinctly stated. I observe, then, 
 that Unitarianism promotes piety be- 
 cause it is a rational religion. By this 
 I do not mean that its truths can be 
 fully comprehended ; for there is not an 
 object in nature or religion which has 
 not innumerable connections and rela- 
 tions beyond our grasp of thought. I 
 mean that its doctrines are consistent 
 with one another, and with all estab- 
 lished truth. Unitarianism is in har- 
 mony with the great and clear principles 
 of revelation ; with the laws and powers 
 of human nature ; with the dictates of 
 the moral sense ; with the noblest in- 
 stincts and highest aspirations of the 
 soul ; and with the lights which the 
 universe throws on the character of its 
 Author. We can hold this doctrine with- 
 out self-contradiction, without rebelling 
 against our rational and moral powers, 
 without putting to silence the divine 
 monitor in the breast. And this is an 
 unspeakable benefit ; for a religion thus
 
 MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 399 
 
 coincident with reason, conscience, and 
 our whole spiritual being, has the foun- 
 dations of universal empire in the breast ; 
 and the heart, finding no resistance in 
 the intellect, yields itself wholly, cheer- 
 fully, without doubts or misgivings, to 
 the love of its Creator. 
 
 To Trinitarianism we object, what has 
 always been objected to it, that it con- 
 tradicts and degrades reason, and thus 
 exposes the mind to the worst delusions. 
 Some of its advocates, more courageous 
 than prudent, hav^ even recommended 
 "the prostration of the understanding," 
 as preparatory to its reception. Its 
 chief doctrine is an outrage on our 
 rational nature. Its three persons who 
 constitute its God must either be frittered 
 away into three unmeaning distinctions, 
 into sounds signifying nothing ; or they 
 are three conscious agents, who cannot, 
 by any human art or metaphysical device, 
 be made to coalesce into one being ; 
 who cannot be really viewed as one 
 mind, having one consciousness and one 
 will. Now a religious system, the car- 
 dinal principle of which offends the 
 understanding, very naturally conforms 
 itself throughout to this prominent feat- 
 ure, and becomes prevalently irrational. 
 He who is compelled to defend his faith, 
 in any particular, by the plea that hu- 
 man reason is so depraved through the 
 fall as to be an inadequate judge of 
 religion, and that God is honored by 
 our reception of what shocks the intel- 
 lect, seems to have no defence left 
 against accumulated absurdities. Ac- 
 cording to these principles, the fanatic 
 who exclaimed, '' I believe, because it is 
 impossible," had a fair title to canon- 
 ization. Reason is too godlike a faculty 
 to be insulted with impunity. Accord- 
 ingly, Trinitarianism, as we have seen, 
 links itself with several degrading errors : 
 and its most natural alliance is with 
 Calvinism, that cruel faith, which, strip- 
 ping God of mercy and man of power, 
 has made Christianity an instrument of 
 torture to the timid, and an object of 
 doubt or scorn to hardier spirits. I 
 repeat it, a doctrine which violates rea- 
 son like the Trinity, prepares its advo- 
 cates, in proportion as it is incorporated 
 into the mind, for worse and worse de- 
 lusions. It breaks down the distinc- 
 tions and barriers between truth and 
 falsehood. It creates a diseased taste 
 for prodigies, fictions, and exaggerations, 
 
 for startling mysteries, and wild dreams 
 of enthusiasm. It destroys the relish 
 for the simple, chaste, serene beauties 
 of truth. Especially when the prostra- 
 tion of understanding is taught as an 
 act of piety, we cannot wonder that the 
 grossest superstitions should be de- 
 voured, and that the credulity of the 
 multitude should keep pace with the 
 forgeries of imposture and fanaticism. 
 The history of the church is the best 
 comment on the effects of divorcing 
 reason from religion ; and if the pres- 
 ent age is disburdened of many of the 
 superstitions under which Christianity 
 and human nature groaned for ages, it 
 owes its relief in no small degree to the 
 reinstating of reason in her long- violated 
 rights. 
 
 The injury to religion from irrational 
 doctrines, when thoroughly believed, is 
 immense. The human soul has a unity. 
 Its various faculties are adapted to one 
 another. One life pervades it ; and its 
 beauty, strength, and growth depend on 
 nothing so much as on the harmony and 
 joint action of all its principles. To 
 wound and degrade it in any of its pow- 
 ers, and especially in the noble and dis- 
 tinguishing power of reason, is to inflict 
 on it universal injury. No notion is 
 more false than that the heart is to 
 thrive by dwarfing the intellect : that 
 perplexing doctrines are the best food of 
 piety : that religion flourishes most lux- 
 uriantly in mist and darkness. Reason 
 was given for God as its great object ; 
 and for him it should be kept sacred, 
 invigorated, clarified, protected from hu- 
 man usurpation, and inspired with a 
 meek self-reverence. 
 
 The soul never acts so effectually or 
 joyfully as when all its powers and af- 
 fections conspire : as when thought and 
 feeling, reason and sensibility, are called 
 forth together by one great and kindling 
 object. It will never devote itself to 
 God with its whole energy whilst its 
 guiding faculty sees in him a being to 
 shock and confound it. We want a 
 harmony in our inward nature. We 
 want a piety which will join light and 
 fervor, and on which the intellectual 
 power will look benignantly. We want 
 religion to be so exhibited that, in the 
 clearest moments of the intellect, its 
 signatures of truth will grow brighter ; 
 that, instead of tottering, it will gather 
 strength and stability from the progress
 
 400 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. 
 
 of the human mind. These wants we 
 believe to be met by Unitarian Christi- 
 anity, and therefore we prize it as the 
 best friend of piety. 
 
 I have thus stated the chief grounds 
 on which I rest the claim of Unitarian- 
 ism to the honor of promoting an en- 
 lightened, profound, and happy piety. 
 
 Am I now asked, why we prize our 
 system, and why we build churches for 
 its inculcation ? If I may be allowed to 
 express myself in the name of conscien- 
 tious Unitarians, who apply their doc- 
 trine to their own hearts and lives, I 
 would reply thus : We prize and would 
 spread our views, because we believe 
 that they reveal God to us in greater 
 glory, and bring us nearer to him, than 
 any other. We are conscious of a deep 
 want, which the creation cannot supply, 
 the want of a perfect Being, on whom 
 the strength of our love may be cen- 
 tred, and of an Almighty Father, in 
 whom our weaknesses, imperfections, 
 and sorrows may find resource ; and 
 such a Being and Father Unitarian 
 Christianity sets before us. For this 
 we prize it above all price. We can 
 part with every other good. We can 
 endure the darkening of life's fairest 
 prospects. But this bright, consoling 
 doctrine of one God, even the Father, 
 is dearer than life, and we cannot 
 let it go. Through this faith, every 
 thing grows brighter to our view. Born 
 of such a Parent, we esteem our exist- 
 ence an inestimable gift. We meet 
 everywhere our Father, and his presence 
 is as a sun shining on our path. We 
 see him in his works, and hear his praise 
 rising from every spot which we tread. 
 We feel him near in our solitudes, and 
 sometimes enjoy communion with him 
 more tender than human friendship. 
 We see him in our duties, and perform 
 them more gladly, because they are the 
 best tribute we can offer our Heavenly 
 Benefactor. Even the consciousness of 
 sin, mournful as it is, does not subvert 
 our peace ; for, in the mercy of God, as 
 made manifest in Jesus Christ, we see 
 an inexhaustible fountain of strength, 
 purity, and pardon, for all who, in fil- 
 ial reliance, seek these heavenly gifts. 
 Through this faith, we are conscious of 
 a new oenevolence springing up to our 
 fellow-creatures, purer and more en- 
 larged than natural affection. Towards 
 all mankind we see a rich and free love 
 
 flowing from the common Parent, and, 
 touched by this love, we are the friends 
 of all. We compassionate the most 
 guilty, and would win them back to 
 God. Through this faith, we receive 
 the happiness of an ever-enlarging hope. 
 There is no good too vast for us to an- 
 ticipate for the universe or for ourselves, 
 from such a Father as we believe in. 
 We hope from him, what we deem his 
 greatest gift, even the gift of his own 
 Spirit, and the happiness of advancing 
 for ever in truth and virtue, in power 
 and love, in union of mind with the Fa- 
 ther and the Son. We are told, indeed, 
 that our faith will not prove an anchor 
 in the last hour. But we have known 
 those whose departure it has bright- 
 ened ; and our experience of its power, 
 in trial and peril, has proved it to be 
 equal to all the wants of human nature. 
 We doubt not that, to its sincere follow- 
 ers, death will be a transition to the 
 calm, pure, joyful mansions prepared by 
 Christ for his disciples. There we ex- 
 pect to meet that great and good Deliv- 
 erer. With the eye of faith, we already 
 see him looking round him with celestial 
 love on all of every name who have im- 
 bibed his spirit. His spirit ; his loyal and 
 entire devotion to the will of his Heav- 
 enly Father ; his universal, unconquer- 
 able benevolence, through which he 
 freely gave from his pierced side his 
 blood, his life for the salvation of the 
 world ; this divine love, and not creeds, 
 and names, and forms, will then be 
 found to attract his supreme regard. 
 This spirit we trust to see in multitudes 
 of every sect and name ; and we trust, 
 too, that they who now reproach us will 
 at that day recognize, in the dreaded 
 Unitarian, this only badge of Christ, 
 and will bid him welcome to the joy of 
 our common Lord. I have thus stated 
 the views with which we have reared 
 this, building. We desire to glorify 
 God, to promote a purer, nobler, hap- 
 pier piety. Even if ^ve err in doctrine, 
 we think that these motives should 
 shield us from reproach ; should disarm 
 that intolerance which would exclude us 
 from the church on earth, and from our 
 Father's house in heaven. 
 
 We end, as we began, by offering up 
 this building to the Only Living and 
 True God. We have erected it amidst 
 our private habitations, as a remem- 
 brancer of our Creator. We have
 
 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 401 
 
 reared it in this busy city, as a retreat 
 for pious meditation and prayer. We 
 dedicate it to the King and Father Eter- 
 nal, the King of kings and Lord of 
 lords. We dedicate it to his Unity, to 
 his unrivalled and undivided Majesty. 
 We dedicate it to the praise of his free, 
 unbought, unmerited grace. We dedi- 
 cate it to Jesus Christ, to the memory 
 of his love, to the celebration of his di- 
 vine virtue, to the preaching of that 
 truth which he sealed with blood. We 
 dedicate it to the Holy Spirit, to the 
 sanctifying influence of God, to those 
 celestial emanations of light and strength 
 which visit and refresh the devout mind. 
 We dedicate it to prayers and praises 
 which, we trust, will be continued and 
 perfected in heaven. We dedicate it 
 to social worship, to Christian inter- 
 course, to the communion of saints. 
 We dedicate it to the cause of pure 
 morals, of public order, of temperance, 
 uprightness, and general good-will. We 
 dedicate it to Christian admonition, to 
 
 those warnings, remonstrances, and ear- 
 nest and tender persuasions, by which 
 the sinner may be arrested and brought 
 back to God. We dedicate it to Chris- 
 tian consolation, to those truths which 
 assuage sorrow, animate penitence, and 
 lighten the load of human anxiety and 
 fear. We dedicate it to the doctrine of 
 immortality, to sublime and joyful hopes 
 which reach beyond the grave. In a 
 word, we dedicate it to the great work 
 of perfecting the human soul, and fit- 
 ting it for nearer approach to its Au- 
 thor. Here may heart meet heart ! 
 Here may man meet God ! From this 
 place may the song of praise, the as- 
 cription of gratitude, the sigh of peni- 
 tence, the prayer for grace, and the holy 
 resolve, ascend as fragrant incense to 
 heaven ; and, through many genera- 
 tions, may parents bequeath to their 
 children this house, as a sacred spot, 
 where God had " lifted upon them his 
 countenance," and given them pledges 
 of his everlasting love ! 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 
 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 1819. 
 
 IT is due to truth, and a just deference 
 to our fellow-Christians, to take notice 
 of objections which are currently made 
 to our particular views of religion ; nor 
 ought we to dismiss such objections as 
 unworthy of attention on account of 
 their supposed lightness ; because what 
 is light to us may weigh much with our 
 neighbor, and truth may suffer from 
 obstructions which a few explanations 
 might remove. It is to be feared that 
 those Christians who are called Uni- 
 tarian have been wanting in this duty. 
 Whilst they have met the labored argu- 
 ments of their opponents fully and fairly, 
 they have overlooked the loose, vague, 
 indefinite objections which float through 
 the community, and operate more on 
 common minds than formal reasoning. 
 On some of these objections remarks 
 will now be offered ; and it is hoped 
 
 26 
 
 that our plainness of speech will not be 
 construed into severity, nor our strict- 
 ures on different systems be ascribed to 
 a desire of retaliation. It cannot be ex- 
 pected that we shall repel with indiffer- 
 ence what seem to us reproaches on 
 some of the most important and consol- 
 ing views of Christianity. Believing 
 that the truths which through God's 
 good providence we are called to main- 
 tain are necessary to the vindication of 
 the divine character, and to the preva- 
 lence of a more enlightened and exalted 
 piety, we are bound to assert them ear- 
 nestly, and to speak freely of the op- 
 posite errors which now disfigure Chris- 
 tianity. What, then, are the principal 
 objections to Unitarian Christianity ? 
 
 I. It is objected to us, that we deny 
 the divinity of Jesus Christ. Now what 
 does this objection mean ? What are
 
 402 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN 
 
 we to understand by the divinity of 
 Christ ? In the sense in which many 
 Christians, and perhaps a majority, in- 
 terpret it, we do not deny it, but believe 
 it as firmly as themselves. We believe 
 firmly in the divinity of Christ's mission 
 and office, that he spoke with divine au- 
 thority, and was a bright image of the di- 
 vine perfections. We believe that God 
 dwelt in him, manifested himself through 
 him, taught men by him, and communi- 
 cated to him his spirit without measure. 
 We believe that Jesus Christ was the 
 most glorious display, expression, and re- 
 presentative of God to mankind, so that 
 in seeing and knowing him, we see and 
 know the invisible Father ; so that when 
 Christ came, God visited the world and 
 dwelt with men more conspicuously than 
 at any former period. In Christ's words 
 we hear God speaking ; in his miracles 
 we behold God acting ; in his character 
 and life we see an unsullied image of 
 God's purity and love. We believe, 
 then, in the divinity of Christ, as this 
 term is often and properly used. How, 
 then, it may be asked, do we differ from 
 other Christians ? We differ in this 
 important respect. Whilst we honor 
 Christ as the Son, representative, and 
 image of the Supreme God, we do not 
 believe him to be the Supreme God him- 
 self. We maintain that Christ and God 
 are distinct beings, two beings, not one 
 and the same being. On this point a 
 little repetition may be pardoned, for 
 many good Christians, after the contro- 
 versies of ages, misunderstand the pre- 
 cise difference between us and them- 
 selves. Trinitarianism teaches that Jesus 
 Christ is the supreme and infinite God, 
 and that he and his Father are not only 
 one in affection, counsel, and will, but 
 are strictly and literally one and the 
 same being. Now to us this doctrine is 
 most unscriptural and irrational. We 
 say that the Son cannot be the same 
 being with his own Father; that he, who 
 was sent into the world to save it, can- 
 not be the living God who sent him. The 
 language of Jesus is explicit and un- 
 qualified. " I came not to do mine own 
 will." "I came not from myself." 
 " I came from God." Now we affirm, 
 and this is our chief heresy, that Jesus 
 was not and could not be the God from 
 whom he came, but was another being ; 
 and it amazes us that any can resist 
 this simple truth. The doctrine that 
 
 Jesus, who was born at Bethlehem ; who 
 ate and drank and slept ; who suffered 
 and was crucified ; who came from God ; 
 who prayed to God ; who did God's will ; 
 and who said, on leaving the world, "I 
 ascend to my Father and your Father, 
 to my God and your God ; " the doctrine 
 that this Jesus was the supreme God 
 himself, and the same being with his 
 Father, this seems to us a contradiction 
 to reason and Scripture so flagrant, that 
 the simple statement of it is a sufficient 
 refutation. We are often charged with 
 degrading Christ ; but if this reproach 
 belong to any Christians, it falls, we fear, 
 on those who accuse him of teaching a 
 doctrine so contradictory, and so sub- 
 versive of the supremacy of our Heav- 
 enly Father. Certainly our humble and 
 devout Master has given no ground for 
 this accusation. He always expressed 
 towards God the reverence of a son. 
 He habitually distinguished himself from 
 God. He referred to God all his powers. 
 He said, without limitation or reserve, 
 "The Father is greater than I." "Of 
 myself I can do nothing." If to repre- 
 sent Christ as a being distinct from God, 
 and as inferior to him, be to degrade 
 him, then let our opponents lay the 
 guilt where it belongs, not on us, but on 
 our Master, whose language we borrow, 
 in whose very words we express our 
 sentiments, whose words we dare not trifle 
 with and force from their plain sense. 
 Our limits will not allow us to say more ; 
 but we ask common Christians, who 
 have taken their opinions from the Bible 
 rather than from human systems, to look 
 honestly into their own minds, and to 
 answer frankly, whether they have not 
 understood and believed Christ's divin- 
 ity in the sense maintained by us, rather 
 than in that for which the Trinitarians 
 contend. 
 
 2. We proceed to another objection, 
 and one which probably weighs more 
 with multitudes than any other. It is 
 this, that our doctrine respecting Christ 
 takes from the sinner the only ground 
 of hope. It is said by our opponents, 
 "We and all men are sinners by our 
 very nature, and infinitely guilty before 
 God. The sword of divine justice hangs 
 over us, and hell opens beneath us ; and 
 where shall we find a refuge but in an 
 infinite Saviour ? We want an infinite 
 atonement ; and in depriving us of this 
 you rob us of our hope, you tear from
 
 CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 
 
 403 
 
 the Scriptures the only doctrine which 
 meets our wants. We may burn our 
 Bibles if your interpretation be true, 
 for our case is desperate ; we are lost 
 for ever." In such warm and wild lan- 
 guage, altogether unwarranted by Script- 
 ure, yet exceedingly fitted to work on 
 common and terror-stricken minds, our 
 doctrine is constantly assailed. 
 
 Now to this declamation, for such we 
 esteem it, we oppose one plain request. 
 Show us, we say, a single passage in 
 the Bible, in which we are told that the 
 sin of man is infinite, and needs an in- 
 finite atonement. We find not one. 
 Not even a whisper of this doctrine 
 comes to us from the sacred writers. 
 Let us stop a moment and weigh this 
 doctrine. It teaches us that man, al- 
 though created by God a frail, erring, 
 and imperfect being, and even created 
 with an irresistible propensity to sin, is 
 yet regarded by the Creator as an infi- 
 nite offender, meriting infinite punish- 
 ment for his earliest transgressions ; 
 and that he is doomed to endless tor- 
 ment, unless an infinite Saviour appear 
 for his rescue ! How can any one, we 
 ask, charge on our benevolent and right- 
 eous Parent such a government of his 
 creatures ? We maintain that man is 
 not created in a condition which makes 
 an infinite atonement necessary ; nor do 
 we believe that any creature can fall 
 into a condition from which God may 
 not deliver him without this rigid expe- 
 dient. Surely, if an infinite satisfaction 
 to justice were indispensable to our 
 salvation, if God took on him human 
 nature for the very purpose of offering 
 it, and if this fact constitute the peculiar 
 glory, the life and essence, and the sav- 
 ing efficacy of the gospel, we must find 
 it expressed clearly, definitely, in at 
 least one passage in the Bible. But 
 not one, we repeat it, can be found 
 there. We maintain, further, that this 
 doctrine of God becoming a victim and 
 sacrifice for his own rebellious subjects, 
 is as irrational as it is unscriptural. 
 We have always supposed that atone- 
 ment, if necessary, was to be made to, 
 not by, the sovereign who has been 
 offended ; and we cannot conceive a 
 more unlikely method of vindicating his 
 authority, than that he himself should 
 bear the punishment which is due to 
 transgressors of his laws. We have 
 another objection. If an infinite atone- 
 
 ment be necessary, and if, consequently, 
 none but God can make it, we see not 
 but that God must become a sufferer, 
 must take upon himself our pain and 
 woe, a thought from which a pious 
 mind shrinks with horror. To escape 
 this difficulty, we are told that Christ 
 suffered as man, not as God; but if 
 man only suffered, if only a human and 
 finite mind suffered, if Christ, as God, 
 was perfectly happy on the cross, and 
 bore only a short and limited pain in 
 his human nature, where, we ask, was 
 the infinite atonement ? Where is the 
 boasted hope which this doctrine is 
 said to give to the sinner ? 
 
 The objection that there is no hope 
 for the sinner unless Christ be the in- 
 finite God, amazes us. Surely, if we 
 have a Father in heaven, of infinite 
 goodness and power, we need no other 
 infinite person to save us. The com- 
 mon doctrine disparages and dishonors 
 the only true God, our Father, as if, 
 without the help of a second and a 
 third divinity, equal to himself, He 
 could not restore his frail creature, man. 
 We have not the courage of our breth- 
 ren. With the Scriptures in our hands, 
 with the solemn attestations which they 
 contain to the divine Unity, and to 
 Christ's dependence, we dare not give 
 to the God and Father of Jesus an equal 
 or rival in the glory of originating our 
 redemption, or of accomplishing it by 
 underived and infinite power. Are we 
 asked, as we sometimes are, what is our 
 hope if Christ be not the supreme God ? 
 We answer, it is the boundless and al- 
 mighty goodness of his Father and our 
 Father, a goodness which cannot re- 
 quire an infinite atonement for the sins 
 of a frail and limited creature. God's 
 essential and unchangeable mercy, not 
 Christ's infinity, is the Scriptural foun- 
 dation of a sinner's hope. In the Script- 
 ures, our Heavenly Father is always 
 represented as the sole original, spring, 
 and first cause of our salvation ; and 
 let no one presume to divide his glory 
 with another. That Jesus came to save 
 us, we owe entirely to the Father's be- 
 nevolent appointment. That Jesus is 
 perfectly adequate to the work of our 
 salvation is to be believed, not because 
 he is himself the supreme God, but 
 because the supreme and unerring God 
 selected, commissioned, and empowered 
 him for this office. That his death is
 
 404 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN 
 
 an important means of our salvation, 
 we gratefully acknowledge ; but ascribe 
 its efficacy to the merciful disposition 
 of God towards the human race. To 
 build the hope of pardon on the inde- 
 pendent and infinite sufficiency of Jesus 
 Christ, is to build on an unscriptural 
 and false foundation ; for Jesus teaches 
 us that of himself he can do nothing : 
 that all power is given to him by his 
 Father ; and that he is a proper object 
 of trust, because he came not of him- 
 self, or to do his own will, but because 
 the Father sent him. We indeed lean 
 on Christ, but it is because he is "a 
 corner-stone, chosen by God and laid 
 by God in Zion." God's forgiving love, 
 declared to mankind by Jesus Christ, 
 and exercised through him, is the foun- 
 dation of hope to the penitent on which 
 we primarily rest, and a firmer the uni- 
 verse cannot furnish us. 
 
 3. We now proceed to another objec- 
 tion. We are charged with expecting 
 to be saved by works, and not by grace. 
 This charge may be easily despatched, 
 and a more groundless one cannot easily 
 be imagined. We indeed attach great 
 importance to Christian works, or Chris- 
 tian obedience, believing that a practice 
 or life conformed to the precepts and 
 example of Jesus is the great end for 
 which faith in him is required, and is 
 the great condition on which everlasting 
 life is bestowed. We are accustomed 
 to speak highly of the virtues and im- 
 provements of a true Christian, reject- 
 ing with abhorrence the idea that they 
 are no better than the outward Jewish 
 righteousness, which the Prophet called 
 "filthy rags ;" and maintaining with the 
 Apostle that they are, " in the sight of 
 God, of great price." We believe that 
 holiness or virtue is the very image of 
 God in the human soul, a ray of his 
 brightness, the best gift which He com- 
 municates to his creatures, the highest 
 benefit which Christ came to confer, 
 the only important and lasting distinc- 
 tion between man and man. Still, we 
 always and earnestly maintain that no 
 human virtue, no human obedience, can 
 give a legal claim, a right by merit, to 
 the life and immortality brought to light 
 by Christ. We see and mourn over 
 the deficiencies, broken resolutions, and 
 mixed motives of the best men. We 
 always affirm that God's grace, benig- 
 nity, free kindness, is needed by the 
 
 most advanced Christians, and that to 
 this alone we owe the promise in the 
 gospel, of full remission and everlasting 
 happiness to the penitent. None speak 
 of mercy more constantly than we. One 
 of our distinctions is, that we magnify 
 this lovely attribute of the Deity. So 
 accustomed are we to insist on the 
 infinity of God's grace and mercy, that 
 our adversaries often charge us with 
 forgetting his justice ; and yet it is ob- 
 jected to us that, renouncing grace, we 
 appeal to justice, and build our hope on 
 the abundance of our merit ! 
 
 4. We now proceed to another objec- 
 tion often urged against our views, or 
 rather against those who preach them ; 
 and it is this, that we preach morality. 
 To meet this objection, we beg to know 
 what is intended by morality. Are we 
 to understand by it, what it properly 
 signifies, our whole duty, however made 
 known to us, whether by nature or rev- 
 elation ? Does it mean the whole ex- 
 tent of those obligations which belong 
 to us as moral beings ? Does it mean 
 that " sober, righteous, godly life," 
 which our moral Governor has pre- 
 scribed to us by his Son, as the great 
 preparation for heaven ? If this be 
 morality, we cheerfully plead guilty to 
 the charge of preaching it, and of labor- 
 ing chiefly and constantly to enforce it ; 
 and believing, as we do, that all the 
 doctrines, precepts, threatenings, and 
 promises of the gospel are revealed for 
 no other end than to make men moral, 
 in this true and generous sense, we hope 
 to continue to merit this reproach. 
 
 We fear, however, that this is not 
 the meaning of the morality which is 
 said to be the burden of our preaching. 
 Some, at least, who thus reproach us, 
 mean that we are accustomed to enjoin 
 only a worldly and social morality, con- 
 sisting in common honesty, common 
 kindness, and freedom from gross 
 vices ; neglecting to inculcate inward 
 purity, devotion, heavenly-mindeclness, 
 and love to Jesus Christ. We hope 
 that the persons who thus accuse us 
 speak from rumor, and have never 
 heard our instructions for themselves ; 
 for the charge is false ; and no one who 
 ever sat under our ministry can urge it 
 without branding himself a slanderer. 
 The first and great commandment, 
 which is to love God supremely, is 
 recognized and enforced habitually in
 
 CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 
 
 405 
 
 our preaching : and our obligations to 
 Jesus Christ, the friend who died for 
 us, are urged, we hope, not wholly with- 
 out tenderness and effect. 
 
 It is but justice, however, to observe 
 of many, that when they reproach us 
 with moral preaching, they do not mean 
 that we teach only outward decencies, 
 but that we do not inculcate certain 
 favorite doctrines, which are to them 
 the very marrow and richness of the 
 gospel. When such persons hear a 
 sermon, be the subject what it may, 
 which is not seasoned with recogni- 
 tions of the Trinity, total depravity, and 
 similar articles of faith, they call it 
 moral. According to this strange and 
 unwarrantable use of the term, we re- 
 joice to say that we are " moral preach- 
 ers ; " and it comforts us that we have 
 for our pattern " him who spake as 
 man never spake," and who, in his long- 
 est discourse, has dropped not a word 
 about a Trinity, or inborn corruption, 
 or special and electing grace ; and, still 
 more, we seriously doubt whether our 
 preaching could with propriety be called 
 moral, did we urge these doctrines, 
 especially the two last ; for, however 
 warmly they may be defended by honest 
 men, they seem to us to border on im- 
 morality ; that is, to dishonor God, to 
 weaken the sense of responsibility, to 
 break the spirit, and to loosen the re- 
 straints on guilty passion. 
 
 5. Another objection urged against 
 us is, that our system does not produce 
 as much zeal, seriousness, and piety as " 
 other views of religion. The objection 
 it is difficult to repeT, except by language 
 which will seem to be a boasting of 
 ourselves. When expressed in plain 
 language, it amounts to this : " We 
 Trinitarians and Calvinists are better 
 and more pious than you Unitarians, 
 and consequently our system is more 
 Scriptural than yours." Now, asser- 
 tions of this kind do not strike us as 
 very modest and humble, and we be- 
 lieve that truth does not require us to 
 defend, it by setting up our piety above 
 that of our neighbors. This, however, 
 we would Say, that if our zeal and de- 
 votion are faint, the fault is our own, 
 not that of our doctrine. We are sure 
 that our views of the Supreme Being 
 are incomparably more affecting and 
 attractive than those which we oppose. 
 It is the great excellence of our system, 
 
 that it exalts God, vindicates his paren- 
 tal attributes, and appeals powerfully to 
 the ingenuous principles of love, grati- 
 tude, and veneration ; and when we 
 compare it with the doctrines which 
 are spread around us we feel that of 
 all men we are most inexcusable, if a 
 filial piety do not spring up and grow 
 strong in our hearts. 
 
 Perhaps it may not be difficult to 
 suggest some causes for the charge that 
 our views do not favor seriousness and 
 zeal. One reason probably is, that we 
 interpret with much rigor those precepts 
 of Christ which forbid ostentation, and 
 enjoin modesty and retirement in devo- 
 tion. We dread a showy religion. We 
 are disgusted with pretensions to supe- 
 rior sanctity, that stale and vulgar 
 way of building up a sect. We believe 
 that true religion speaks in actions more 
 than in words, and manifests itself 
 chiefly in the common temper and life ; 
 in giving up the passions to God's au- 
 thority, in inflexible uprightness and 
 truth, in active and modest charity, in 
 candid judgment, and in patience under 
 trials and injuries. We think it no part 
 of piety to publish its fervors, but pre- 
 fer a delicacy in regard to these secrets 
 of the soul ; and hence, to those per- 
 sons who think religion is to be worn 
 conspicuously and spoken of passion- 
 ately, we may seem cold and dead, 
 when perhaps, were the heart uncovered, 
 it might be seen to be " alive to God " 
 as truly as their own. 
 
 Again, it is one of our principles, 
 flowing necessarily from our views of 
 God, that religion is cheerful ; that 
 where its natural tendency is not ob- 
 structed by false theology, or a melan- 
 choly temperament, it opens the heart 
 to every pure and innocent pleasure. 
 We do not think that piety disfigures 
 its face, or wraps itself in a funeral pall 
 as its appropriate garb. Now, too 
 many conceive of religion as something 
 gloomy, and never to be named but 
 with an altered tone and countenance ; 
 and where they miss these imagined 
 signs of piety, they can hardly believe 
 that a sense of God dwells in the heart. 
 
 Another cause of the error in ques- 
 tion we believe to be this. Our relig- 
 ious system excludes, or at least does 
 not favor, those overwhelming terrors 
 and transports which many think essen- 
 tial to piety. We do not believe in
 
 4 o6 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN 
 
 shaking and disordering men's under- 
 standings, by excessive fear, as a prep- 
 aration for supernatural grace and im- 
 mediate conversion. This we regard as 
 a dreadful corruption and degradation 
 of religion. Religion, we believe, is a 
 gradual and rational work, beginning 
 sometimes in sudden impressions, but 
 confirmed by reflection, growing by the 
 regular use of Christian means, and ad- 
 vancing silently to perfection. Now, 
 because we specify no time when we were 
 overpowered and created anew by irre- 
 sistible impulse ; because we relate no 
 agonies of despair succeeded by mirac- 
 ulous light and joy, we are thought by 
 some to be strangers to piety ; how 
 reasonably, let the judicious determine 
 
 Once more ; we are thought to want 
 zeal, because our principles forbid us to 
 use many methods for spreading them, 
 which are common with other Chris- 
 tians. Whilst we value highly our pe- 
 culiar views, and look to them for the 
 best fruits of piety, we still consider 
 ourselves as bound to think charitably 
 of those who doubt or deny them ; and 
 with this conviction, we cannot enforce 
 them with that vehemence, positiveness, 
 and style of menace, which constitute 
 much of the zeal of certain denomina- 
 tions ; and we freely confess that we 
 would on no account exchange our 
 charity for their zeal ; and we trust that 
 the time is near when he who holds 
 what he deems truth with lenity and 
 forbearance, will be accounted more 
 pious than he who compasseth sea and 
 land to make proselytes to his sect, and 
 " shuts the gates of mercy " on all who 
 will not bow their understandings to 
 his creed. We fear that in these re- 
 marks we may have been unconsciously 
 betrayed into a self-exalting spirit. 
 Nothing could have drawn them from 
 us but the fact that a very common 
 method of opposing our sentiments is 
 to decry the piety of those who adopt 
 them. After all, we mean not to deny 
 our great deficiencies. We have noth- 
 ing to boast before God, although the 
 cause of truth forbids us to submit to 
 the censoriousness of our brethren. 
 
 6. Another objection to our views is, 
 that they lead to a rejection of revela- 
 tion. Unitarianism has been called "a 
 halfway house to infidelity." Now, to 
 this objection we need not oppose gen- 
 eral reasonings. We will state a plain 
 
 fact. It is this. A large proportion of 
 the most able and illustrious defenders 
 of the truth of Christianity have been 
 Unitarians ; and our religion has re- 
 ceived from them, to say the least, as 
 important service in its conflicts with 
 infidelity as from any class of Christians 
 whatever. From the long catalogue of 
 advocates of Christianity among Unita- 
 rians, we can select now but a few ; but 
 these few are a host. The name of John 
 Locke is familiar to every scholar. He 
 rendered distinguished service to the 
 philosophy of the human mind ; nor is 
 this hrs highest praise. His writings on 
 government and toleration contributed 
 more than those of any other individual 
 to the diffusion of free and generous sen- 
 timents through Europe and America ; 
 and perhaps Bishop Watson was not 
 guilty of great exaggeration when he 
 said, " This great man has done more 
 for the establishment of pure Christian- 
 ity than any author I am acquainted 
 with." He was a laborious and suc- 
 cessful student of the Scriptures. His 
 works on the " Epistles of Paul," and on 
 the " Reasonableness of Christianity," 
 formed an era in sacred literature ; and 
 he has the honor of having shed a new 
 and bright light on the darkest parts of 
 the New Testament, and in general on 
 the Christian system. Now Locke, be 
 it remembered, was a Unitarian. We 
 pass to another intellectual prodigy, 
 to Newton, a name which every man of 
 learning pronounces with reverence ; for 
 it reminds him of faculties so exalted 
 above those of ordinary men, that they 
 seem designed to help our conceptions 
 of superior orders of being. This great 
 man, who gained by intuition what others 
 reap from laborious research, after ex- 
 ploring the laws of the universe, turned 
 for light and hope to the Bible ; and 
 although his theological works cannot 
 be compared with Locke's, yet in his 
 illustrations of the prophecies, and of 
 Scripture chronology, and in his criti- 
 cisms on two doubtful passages,* which 
 are among the chief supports of the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, he is considered 
 as having rendered valuable services to 
 the Christian cause. Newton, too, was 
 a Unitarian. We are not accustomed 
 to boast of men, or to prop our faith by 
 great names ; for Christ, and he only, is 
 our Master ; but it is with pleasure that 
 
 * i John v- 7 ; i Tim. iii. 16.
 
 CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 
 
 407 
 
 we find in our ranks the most gifted, 
 sagacious, and exalted minds ; and \ve 
 cannot but smile when we sometimes 
 hear from men and women of very lim- 
 ited culture, and with no advantages for 
 enlarged inquiry, reproachful and con- 
 temptuous remarks on a doctrine which 
 the vast intelligence of Locke and New- 
 ton, after much study of the Scriptures, 
 and in opposition to a prejudiced and 
 intolerant age, received as the truth of 
 God. It is proper to state that doubts 
 have lately been raised as to the relig- 
 ious opinions of Locke and Newton, 
 and for a very obvious reason. In these 
 times of growing light, their names have 
 been found too useful to the Unitarian 
 cause. But the long and general belief 
 of the Unitarianism of these illustrious 
 men can hardly be accounted for, but 
 by admitting the fact ; and we know of 
 no serious attempts to set aside the 
 proofs on which this belief is founded. 
 
 We pass to another writer, who was 
 one of the brightest ornaments of the 
 Church of England and of the age in 
 which he lived, Dr. Samuel Clarke. In 
 classical literature, and in metaphysical 
 speculation, Dr. Clarke has a reputation 
 which needs no tribute at our hands. 
 His sermons are an invaluable repository 
 of Scriptural criticism ; and his work on 
 the evidences of natural and revealed 
 religion has ever been considered as 
 one of the ablest vindications of our 
 common faith. This great man was a 
 Unitarian. He believed firmly that Je- 
 sus was a distinct being from his Father,' 
 and a derived and dependent being ; 
 and he desired to bring the liturgy of 
 his church into a correspondence with 
 these doctrines. 
 
 To those who are acquainted with the 
 memorable infidel controversy in the 
 early part of the last century, excited 
 by the writings of Bolingbroke, Tindal, 
 Morgan, Collins, and Chubb, it will be 
 unnecessary to speak of the zeal and 
 power with which the Christian cause 
 was maintained by learned Unitarians. 
 But we must pass over these, to recall 
 a man whose memory is precious to 
 enlightened believers ; we mean Lard- 
 ner, that most patient and successful 
 advocate of Christianity ; who has writ- 
 ten, we believe, more largely than any 
 other author on the evidences of the 
 gospel ; from whose works later authors 
 have drawn as from a treasure-house ; 
 
 and whose purity and mildness have dis- 
 armed the severity and conciliated the 
 respect of men of very different views 
 from his own. Lardner was a Unitarian. 
 Next to Lardner, the most laborious 
 advocate of Christianity against the at- 
 tacks of infidels, in our own day, was 
 Priestley ; and whatever we may think 
 of some of his opinions, we believe that 
 none of his opposers ever questioned the 
 importance of his vindications of our 
 common faith. We certainly do not say 
 too much, when we affirm that Unitarians* 
 have not been surpassed by any denom- 
 ination in zealous, substantial service to 
 the Christian cause. Yet we are told 
 that Unitarianism leads to infidelity ! 
 We are reproached with defection from 
 that religion, round which we have gath- 
 ered in the day of its danger, and from 
 which, we trust, persecution and death 
 cannot divorce us. 
 
 It is, indeed, said that instances have 
 occurred of persons who, having given 
 up the Trinitarian doctrine, have not 
 stopped there, but have resigned one 
 part of Christianity after another, until 
 they have become thorough infidels. 
 To this we answer, that such instances 
 we have never known ; but that such 
 should occur is not improbable, and is 
 what we should even expect ; for it is 
 natural that when the mind has detected 
 one error in its creed, it should distrust 
 every other article, and should exchange 
 its blind and hereditary assent for a 
 sweeping scepticism. We have exam- 
 ples of this truth at the present moment, 
 both in France and Spain, where multi- 
 tudes have proceeded from rejecting 
 Popery to absolute Atheism. Now, who 
 of us will argue that the Catholic faith 
 is true, because multitudes who relin- 
 quished it have also cast away every 
 religious principle and restraint ; and if 
 the argument be not sound on the side 
 of Popery, how can it be pressed into 
 the service of Trinitarianism ? The fact 
 is, that false and absurd doctrines, when 
 exposed, have a natural tendency to be- 
 get scepticism in those who received 
 them without reflection. None are so 
 likely to believe too little as those who 
 have begun with believing too much ; 
 and hence we charge upon Trinitarian- 
 ism whatever tendency may exist in 
 those who forsake it, to sink gradually 
 into infidelity. 
 
 Unitarianism does not lead to infi-
 
 408 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 delity. On the contrary, its excellence 
 is that it fortifies faith. Unitarianism 
 is Christianity stripped of those corrupt 
 additions which shock reason and our 
 moral feelings. It is a rational and 
 amiable system, against which no man's 
 understanding, or conscience, or charity, 
 or piety revolts. Can the same be said 
 of that system which teaches the doc- 
 trines of three equal persons in one God, 
 of natural and total depravity, of infinite 
 atonement, of special and electing grace, 
 and of the everlasting misery of the non- 
 elected part of mankind? We believe 
 that unless Christianity be purified from 
 these corruptions, it will not be able to 
 bear the unsparing scrutiny to which the 
 progress of society is exposing it. We 
 believe that it must be reformed, or 
 intelligent men will abandon it. As the 
 friends of Christianity, and the foes of 
 infidelity, we are therefore solicitous to 
 diffuse what seem to us nobler and juster 
 views of this divine system. 
 
 7. It was our purpose to consider one 
 more objection to our views ; namely, 
 that they give no consolation in sickness 
 and death. But we have only time to 
 express amazement at such a charge. 
 What ! a system which insists with a 
 peculiar energy on the pardoning mercy 
 of God, on his universal and parental 
 love, and on the doctrine of a resurrec- 
 tion and immortality, such a system 
 unable to give comfort ! It unlocks in- 
 finite springs of consolation and joy, and 
 gives to him who practically receives it 
 a living, overflowing, and unspeakable 
 hope. Its power to sustain the soul in 
 death has been often tried ; and did we 
 believe dying men to be inspired, or that 
 peace and hope in the last hours were 
 God's seal to the truth of doctrines, we 
 should be able to settle at once the con- 
 troversy about Unitarianism. A striking 
 
 example of the power of this system in 
 disarming death was lately given by a 
 young minister in a neighboring town,* 
 known to many of our readers, and 
 singularly endeared to his friends by 
 eminent Christian virtue. He was smit- 
 ten by sickness in the midst of a useful 
 and happy life, and sunk slowly to the 
 grave. His religion and it was that 
 which has now been defended gave 
 habitual peace to his mind, and spread 
 a sweet smile over his pale countenance. 
 He retained his faculties to his last hour ; 
 and when death came, having left pious 
 counsel to the younger members of his 
 family, and expressions of gratitude to 
 his parents, he breathed out life in the 
 language of Jesus, " Father, into thy 
 hands I commend my spirit." Such was 
 the end of one who held, with an un- 
 wavering faith, the great principles which 
 we have here advanced ; and yet our 
 doctrine has no consolation, we are told, 
 for sickness and death ! 
 
 W T e have thus endeavored to meet ob- 
 jections commonly urged against our 
 views of religion ; and we have done this, 
 not to build up a party, but to promote 
 views of Christianity which seem to us 
 particularly suited to strengthen men's 
 faith in it, and to make it fruitful of good 
 works and holy lives. Christian virtue, 
 Christian holiness, love to God and man, 
 these are all which we think worth con- 
 tending for ; and these we believe to be 
 intimately connected with the system 
 now maintained. If in this we err, may 
 God discover our error, and disappoint 
 our efforts ! We ask no success but 
 what He may approve, no proselytes 
 but such as will be made better, purer, 
 happier by the adoption of our views. 
 
 * Rev. John E. Abbot, of Salem. This tract was 
 first published in 1819 in the " Christian Disciple." 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP: 
 
 Discourse at the Dedication of the Unitarian Congregational Church, 
 Newport, Rhode Island, July 27, 1836. 
 
 JOHN iv. 23, 24: " The hour cometh, and now is. worship of God is a proper subject of 
 
 when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in o-ratiriirlp anrf inv FvYn if th*> rnncp 
 
 spirit and in truth ; for the Father seeketh such to ff? 
 
 worship him God is a Spirit ; and they that worship CTatlOn be made by Christians from 
 
 him must worship him in spirit and in truth." whom WC differ in Opinion, WC should 
 
 THE dedication of an edifice to the still find satisfaction in the service. We
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 409 
 
 should desire that our neighbors, whose 
 convictions of truth and duty require 
 them to separate from us in religious 
 services, should enjoy the same accom- 
 modations with ourselves ; and it should 
 comfort us to think that Christianity is 
 so eminently "the power of God unto 
 salvation," its great truths so plain and 
 so quickening, that among all sects ac- 
 knowledging Christ and consulting his 
 word, its purifying influences, however 
 counteracted by erroneous views, will 
 more or less be felt. We should rejoice 
 to think that God can be monopolized 
 by no party ; that his spirit is a universal 
 presence ; that religion, having its root 
 in the soul of man, can live and flour- 
 ish amidst many errors ; that truth and 
 goodness can no more be confined to a 
 single church than the light of the sun 
 can be shut up in a private dwelling ; 
 that amidst all the diversities of forms, 
 names, and creeds, acceptable worship 
 may be offered to God, and the soul 
 ascend to heaven. 
 
 It is the custom of our times to erect 
 beautiful structures for the purposes of 
 the present life, for legislation, for litera- 
 ture, for the arts. But important as 
 these interests are, they are not the no- 
 blest. Man's highest relations are not 
 political, earthly, human. His whole 
 nature is not exhausted in studying and 
 subduing outward nature, in establish- 
 ing outward order, in storing the mind 
 with knowledge which may adorn and 
 comfort his outward life. He has wants 
 too deep, and powers and affections too 
 large, for the outward world. He comes 
 from God. His closest connection is 
 with God ; and he can find life and 
 peace only in the knowledge of his Cre- 
 ator. Man's glory or true end is not 
 revealed to us in the most magnificent 
 structure which the architect ever reared 
 for earthly uses. An humble spire point- 
 ing heavenward from an obscure church 
 speaks of man's nature, man's dignity, 
 man's destiny, more eloquently than all 
 the columns and arches of Greece and 
 Rome, the mausoleums of Asia, or the 
 pyramids of Egypt. Is it not meet, 
 then, to be grateful and joyful when a 
 house is set apart to the worship of 
 God? 
 
 This edifice where we now meet is 
 not indeed wholly new. Its frame is 
 older than the oldest of us. But so 
 great are the changes which it has un- 
 
 dergone, that, were they who laid its 
 foundation to revisit the earth, they 
 | would trace hardly a feature of their 
 I work ; and as it is now entered by a 
 new religious congregation, there is a 
 fitness in the present solemnity by which 
 we dedicate it to the worship of God. 
 My purpose in this discourse is to show 
 that we should enter this edifice with 
 gratitude and joy; first, because it is 
 dedicated to worship in the most general 
 sense of that term ; and, in the second 
 place, on account of the particular wor- 
 ship to which it is set apart. I shall 
 close with some remarks of a personal 
 and local character, which may be al- 
 lowed to one who was born and brought 
 up on this island, whose heart swells 
 with local attachment, and whose mem- 
 ory is crowded with past years, as he 
 stands, after a long absence, within 
 these walls where he sat in his child- 
 hood, and where some of his earliest 
 impressions were received. 
 
 I. We ought to enter this house with 
 gratitude and joy, for it is dedicated to 
 worship. Its end is, that men should 
 meet within its walls to pay religious 
 homage ; to express and strengthen 
 pious veneration, love, thankfulness, 
 and confidence ; to seek and receive 
 pure influences from above ; to learn 
 the will of God ; and to consecrate 
 themselves to the virtue in which He 
 delights. This edifice is reared to the 
 glory of God, reared like the universe 
 to echo with his praise, to be a monu- 
 ment to his being, perfection, and do- 
 minion. Worship is man's highest end, 
 for it is the employment of his highest 
 faculties and affections on the sublimest 
 object. We have much for which to 
 thank God, but for nothing so much as 
 for the power of knowing and adoring 
 himself. This creation is a glorious 
 spectacle ; but there is a more glorious 
 existence for our minds and hearts, and 
 that is the Creator. There is something 
 divine in the faculties by which we study 
 the visible world, and subject it to our 
 wills, comfort, enjoyment. But it is a 
 diviner faculty by which we penetrate 
 beyond the visible, free ourselves of the 
 finite and the mutable, and ascend to 
 the Infinite and the Eternal. It is good 
 to make earth and ocean, winds and 
 flames, sun and stars, tributary to out 
 present well-being. How much better 
 to make them ministers to our spiritual
 
 4io 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 wants, teachers of heavenly truth, guides 
 to a more glorious Being than them- 
 selves, bonds of union between man 
 and his Maker ! 
 
 There have been those who have 
 sought to disparage worship, by repre- 
 senting it as an arbitrary, unnatural ser- 
 vice, a human contrivance, an invention 
 for selfish ends. Had I time, I should 
 be glad to disprove this sophistry by 
 laying open to you human nature, and 
 showing the deep foundation laid in all 
 its principles and wants for religion ; 
 but I can meet the objection only by a 
 few remarks drawn from history. There 
 have been, indeed, periods of history in 
 which the influence of the religious prin- 
 ciple seems to have been overwhelmed ; 
 but in this it agrees with other great 
 principles of our nature, which in cer- 
 tain stages of the race disappear. There 
 are certain conditions of society in which 
 the desire of knowledge seems almost 
 extinct among men, and they abandon 
 themselves for centuries to brutish ig- 
 norance. There are communities in 
 which the natural desire of reaching a 
 better lot gives not a sign of its exist- 
 ence, and society remains stationary for 
 ages. There are some in which even 
 the parental affection is so far dead, that 
 the new-born child is cast into the stream 
 or exposed to the storm. So the relig- 
 ious principle is in some periods hardly 
 to be discerned ; but it is never lost. 
 No principle is more universally mani- 
 fested. In the darkest ages there are 
 some recognitions of a superior power. 
 Man feels that there is a being above 
 himself, and he clothes that being in 
 what to his rude conception is great 
 and venerable. In countries where ar- 
 chitecture was unknown, men chose the 
 solemn wood or the mountain top for 
 worship ; and when this art appeared its 
 monuments were temples to God. Be- 
 fore the invention of letters, hymns were 
 composed to the Divinity ; and music, 
 we have reason to think, was the off- 
 spring of religion. Music in its infancy 
 was the breathing of man's fears, wants, 
 hopes, thanks, praises, to an unseen 
 power. You tell me, my sceptical friend, 
 that religion is the contrivance of the 
 priest. How came the priest into be- 
 ing ? What gave him his power ? Why 
 was it that the ancient legislator pro- 
 fessed to receive his laws from the 
 gods ? The fact is a striking one, that 
 
 the earliest guides and leaders of the 
 human race looked to the heavens for 
 security and strength to earthly institu- 
 tions, that they were compelled to speak 
 to men in a higher name than man's. 
 Religion was an earlier bond and a 
 deeper foundation of society than gov- 
 ernment. It was the root of civilization. 
 It has founded the mightiest empires ; 
 and yet men question whether religion 
 be an element, a principle of human 
 nature ! 
 
 In the earliest ages, before the dawn 
 of science, man recognized an immediate 
 interference of the Divinity in whatever 
 powerfully struck his senses. To the 
 savage, the thunder was literally God's 
 voice, the lightning his arrow, the whirl- 
 wind his breath. Every unusual event 
 was a miracle, a prodigy, a promise of 
 good, or a menace of evil from heaven. 
 These rude notions have faded before 
 the light of science, which reveals fixed 
 laws, a stated order of nature. But in 
 these laws, this order, the religious prin- 
 ciple now finds confirmations of God, 
 infinitely more numerous and powerful 
 than the savage found in his prodigies. 
 In this age of the world there is a voice 
 louder than thunder and whirlwinds, at- 
 testing the Divinity ; the voice of the 
 wisely interpreted works of God, every- 
 where proclaiming wisdom unsearchable, 
 harmony unbroken, and a benevolent 
 purpose in what to ages of ignorance 
 seemed ministers of wrath. In the 
 present, above all times, worship may 
 be said to have its foundation in our 
 nature ; for by the improvements of this 
 nature, we have placed ourselves nearer 
 to God as revealed in his universe. The 
 clouds which once hung over the crea- 
 tion are scattered. The heavens, the 
 earth, the plant, the human frame, now 
 that they are explored by science, ^peak 
 of God as they never did before. His 
 handwriting is brought out where former 
 ages saw but a blank. Nor is it only by 
 the progress of science that the founda- 
 tion of religion is made broader and 
 deeper. The progress of the arts, in 
 teaching us the beneficent uses to which 
 God's works may be applied, in extract- 
 ing from them new comforts, and in 
 diminishing or alleviating human suffer- 
 ing, has furnished new testimonies to 
 the goodness of the Creator. Still more, 
 the progress of society has given new 
 power aad delicacy to the sense of
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 411 
 
 beauty in human nature, and in conse- 
 quence of this the creation of God has 
 become a far more attractive, lovely, and 
 magnificent work than men looked on 
 in earlier times. Above all, the moral 
 susceptibilities and wants, the deeper 
 and more refined feelings, which unfold 
 themselves in the course of human im- 
 provement, are so many new capacities 
 and demands for religion. Our nature 
 is perpetually developing new senses 
 for the perception and enjoyment of 
 God. The human race, as it advances, 
 does not leave religion behind it, as it 
 leaves the shelter of caves and forests ; 
 does not outgrow faith, does not see it 
 fading like the mist before its rising in- 
 telligence. On the contrary, religion 
 opens before the improved mind in new 
 grandeur. God, whom uncivilized man 
 had narrowed into a local and tutelar 
 deity, rises with every advance of knowl- 
 edge to a loftier throne, and is seen to 
 sway a mightier sceptre. The soul, in 
 proportion as it enlarges its faculties 
 and refines its affections, possesses and 
 discerns within itself a more and more 
 glorious type of the Divinity, learns his 
 spirituality in its own spiritual powers, 
 and offers him a profounder and more in- 
 ward worship. Thus deep is the founda- 
 tion of worship in human nature. Men 
 may assail it, may reason against it ; 
 but sooner can the laws of the outward 
 universe be repealed by human will, 
 sooner can the sun be plucked from his 
 sphere, than the idea of God can be 
 erased from the human spirit, and his 
 worship banished from the earth. All 
 other wants of man are superficial. His 
 animal wants are but for a day, and are 
 to cease with the body. The profound- 
 est of all human wants is the want of 
 God. Mind, spirit, must tend to its 
 source. It cannot find happiness but 
 in the perfect Mind, the Infinite Spirit. 
 Worship has survived all revolutions. 
 Corrupted, dishonored, opposed, it yet 
 lives. It is immortal as its Object, im- 
 mortal as the soul from which it ascends. 
 Let us rejoice, then, in this house. It 
 is dedicated to worship ; it can have no 
 higher use. The heaven of heavens has 
 no higher service or joy. The universe 
 has no higher work. Its chief office is 
 to speak of God. The sun, in awaken- 
 ing innumerable forms of animal and 
 vegetable life, exerts no influence to be 
 compared with what it puts forth in 
 
 kindling the human soul into piety, in 
 being a type, representative, preacher of 
 the glory of God. 
 
 II. I have now spoken of worship in 
 the most general sense. I have said 
 that this house, considered as separated 
 to the adoration of God, should be en- 
 tered joyfully and gratefully, without 
 stopping to inquire under what partic- 
 ular views or forms God is here to be 
 adored. I now proceed to observe, that 
 when we consider the particular wor- 
 ship which is here to be offered, this 
 occasion ought to awaken pious joy. I 
 need not tell you, that whilst the relig- 
 ious principle is a part of man's nature, 
 it is not always developed and manifested 
 under the same forms. Men, agreeing 
 in the recognition of a Divinity, have 
 not agreed as to the service He may ac- 
 cept. Indeed it seems inevitable that 
 men, who differ in judgment on all sub- 
 jects of thought, should form different 
 apprehensions of the invisible, infinite, 
 and mysterious God, and of the methods 
 of adoring him. Uniformity of opinion 
 is to be found nowhere, and ought to be 
 expected least of all in religion. Who, 
 that considers the vast, the indescrib- 
 able diversity in men's capacities and 
 means of improvement, in the discipline 
 to which they are subjected, in the 
 schools in which they are trained, in 
 the outward vicissitudes and inward con- 
 flicts through which they pass, can 
 expect them to arrive at the same con- 
 clusions in regard to their origin and 
 destiny, in regard to the Being from 
 whom they sprang, and the world toward 
 which they tend. Accordingly, religion 
 has taken innumerable forms, and some, 
 it must be acknowledged, most unwor- 
 thy of its objects. The great idea of 
 God has been seized upon by men's 
 selfish desires, hopes, and fears, and 
 often so obscured that little of its puri- 
 fying power has remained. Man, full of 
 wants, conscious of guilt, exposed to 
 suffering, and peculiarly struck by the 
 more awful phenomena of nature, has 
 been terror-smitten before the unseen, 
 irresistible power with which he has felt 
 himself encompassed. Hence, to ap- 
 pease his wrath and to secure his par- 
 tial regards has been the great object of 
 worship. Hence, worship has been so 
 often a pompous machinery, a tribute of 
 obsequious adulation, an accumulation 
 of gifts and victims. Hence, worship
 
 412 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 has been the effort of nations and indi- 
 viduals to bend the Almighty to their 
 particular interests and purposes, and 
 not the reverential, grateful, joyful, filial 
 lifting up of the soul to Infinite Great- 
 ness, Goodness, Rectitude, and Purity. 
 Even under Christianity human infirm- 
 ity has disfigured the thought of God. 
 Worship has been debased, by fear and 
 selfishness, into a means of propitiating 
 wrath, calming fear, and securing future 
 enjoyment. All sects have carried their 
 imperfection into their religion. None 
 of us can boast of exemption from the 
 common frailty. That this house is to 
 be set apart to a perfect, spotless, un- 
 erring worship, none of us are so pre- 
 sumptuous as to hope. But I believe 
 that in the progress of society and Chris- 
 tianity, higher and purer conceptions of 
 the Divinity have been unfolded ; and I 
 cannot but believe that the views of 
 God and of his worship to which this 
 house is now consecrated, are so far 
 enlightened, enlarged, purified, as to 
 justify us in entering its walls with 
 great thankfulness and joy. 
 
 This house is not reared to perpetuate 
 the superstitions of past ages nor of the 
 present age. It is not reared to doom 
 the worshipper to continual repetition 
 of his own or other delusions. It is 
 reared for the progress of truth, reared 
 in the faith that the church is destined 
 to new light and new purity, reared in 
 the anticipation of a happier, holier age. 
 As I look round, I am met by none of 
 the representations of the Divinity which 
 degraded the ancient temples. My eyes 
 light on no image of wood or stone, on 
 no efforts of art to .embody to the eye 
 the invisible Spirit. As I look round, 
 I am met by none of the forms which 
 Providence, in accommodation to a rude 
 stage of society, allowed to the Jewish 
 people. No altar sends up here the 
 smoke of incense or victims. No priest- 
 hood, gorgeously arrayed, presents to 
 God the material offerings of man. Nor 
 are my eyes pained by cumbersome cer- 
 emonies, by which in later ages Chris- 
 tianity was overlaid, and almost over- 
 whelmed. No childish pomps, borrowed 
 from Judaism and Heathenism, obscure 
 here the simple majesty, the sublime 
 spiritual purpose of Christianity. Nor 
 is this house reared for the promulgation 
 of doctrines which tend to perpetuate 
 the old servility with which God was 
 
 approached, to make man abject in the 
 sight of his Maker, to palsy him with 
 terror, to prostrate his reason. This 
 house is reared to assist the worshipper 
 in conceiving and offering more and 
 more perfectly the worship described in 
 the text, the worship of the Father in 
 spirit and in truth. On this topic, on 
 the nature of the worship to be offered 
 in this house, I have many reflections 
 to offer. My illustrations may be re- 
 duced to the following heads : This 
 house is reared, first, for the worship of 
 one Infinite Person, and oqe only ; of 
 him whom Jesus always distinguished 
 and addressed as the Father. In the 
 next place, it is erected for the worship 
 of God under the special character of 
 Father, that is, of a Parental Divinity. 
 In the last place, it is set apart to the 
 worship of him in spirit and in truth. 
 
 First, you have prepared this edifice 
 that here you may worship one Infinite 
 Person, even him and him only whom 
 Jesus continually calls the Father. One 
 would think that on this point there 
 could be no difference among Chris- 
 tians. One would think that Jesus had 
 placed the Object of Christian worship 
 beyond all dispute. It is hard to con- 
 ceive more solemn, more definite lan- 
 guage than he has used. " The hour 
 cometh and now is, when the true wor- 
 shippers shall worship the Father in 
 spirit and in truth, for the Father seek- 
 eth such to worship him." Yet it is 
 well known that very many Christians 
 deny that one person, the Father, is the 
 only proper object of supreme worship. 
 They maintain that two other persons, 
 the Son and the Holy Spirit, are to be 
 joined with him in our adoration, and 
 that the most important distinction of 
 the Christian religion is the worship of 
 God in fhree persons. Against this hu- 
 man exposition of Christianity we ear- 
 nestly protest. Whilst we recognize 
 with joy the sincerity and piety of those 
 who adopt it, we maintain that this gross 
 departure from the simplicity and purity 
 of our faith is fraught with evil to the 
 individual and the church. This house 
 is reared to be a monument to the proper 
 unity of God. We worship the Father. 
 
 All the grounds of this peculiarity of 
 our worship cannot of course be ex- 
 pounded in the limits of a discourse, 
 nor indeed do we deem any labored ex- 
 position necessary. We start from a
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, 
 
 413 
 
 plain principle. We affirm that if any 
 point in a religious system must be 
 brought out explicitly, must not be left 
 to inference, but set forth in simple, di- 
 rect, authoritative language, it is the 
 object of worship. On this point we 
 should expect peculiar explicitness, if a 
 revelation should be communicated for 
 the purpose of giving a new direction to 
 men's minds in this particular. Now, 
 among Jews and Gentiles, the worship 
 of three infinite persons, one of whom 
 was clothed with a human form, was un- 
 known ; and, of consequence, if this 
 strange, mighty innovation had been in- 
 tended by Jesus, and had constituted 
 the most striking peculiarity of his sys- 
 tem, it must have been announced with 
 all possible clearness and strength. Be 
 it then remembered that Jesus, in a sol- 
 emn description of the true worship 
 which he was to introduce, made not an 
 allusion to this peculiarity, but declared, 
 as the characteristic to the true wor- 
 shippers, that they should worship the 
 Father in spirit and in truth. Be it also 
 remembered that Jesus never enjoined 
 the worship of three persons, Father, 
 Son, and Holy Spirit. Not one injunc- 
 tion to this effect can be found in the 
 Gospel or in the writings of the Apos- 
 tles. This strange worship rests on 
 inference alone. " The true worship- 
 pers," says the text, " shall worship 
 the Father." When his disciples came 
 to him to be instructed in prayer, he 
 taught them to say, Our Father. In his 
 last affectionate discourse, he again and 
 again taught his disciples to pray to the 
 Father in his name. This dying injunc- 
 tion, so often and so tenderly repeated, 
 should not for slight reasons be ex- 
 plained away. Still more, just before 
 his death, Jesus himself, in presence of 
 his disciples, prayed to the Father, and 
 prayed in this language : Father, This 
 is life eternal, that they (i. e., men) 
 should know thee, the only true God, 
 and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 
 To these remarks it is common to re- 
 ply that we read in the New Testament 
 that Jesus was again and again wor- 
 shipped, and that in admitting this he 
 manifested himself to be the object of 
 religious adoration. It is wonderful 
 that this fallacy, so often exposed, 
 should be still repeated. Jesus indeed 
 received worship or homage, but this 
 was not offered as adoration to the In- 
 
 finite God ; it was the homage which, 
 according to the custom of the age and 
 of the eastern world, was paid to men 
 invested with great authority, whether 
 in civil or religious concerns. Whoever 
 has studied the Scriptures with the least 
 discernment must know that the word 
 worship is used in two different senses, 
 to express, first, the adoration due to the 
 Infinite Creator, and secondly, the rev- 
 erence which was due to sovereigns and 
 prophets, and which of course belonged 
 peculiarly to the most illustrious repre- 
 sentative of God, to his beloved Son. 
 Whoever understands the import of the 
 English language in the time when our 
 translation was made, must know that 
 the word was then used to express the 
 homage paid to human superiors, as well 
 as the supreme reverence belonging to 
 God alone. Let not an ambiguous word 
 darken the truth. We are sure that the 
 worship paid to Christ during his public 
 ministry was rendered to him as a divine 
 messenger, and not as God : for, in the 
 first place, it was offered before his 
 teachings had been sufficiently full and 
 distinct to reveal the mystery of his 
 nature, supposing it to have been di- 
 vine. We pronounce it not merely 
 improbable, but impossible, that Jesus, 
 a poor man, a mechanic from Galilee, 
 at the beginning of his mission, when 
 his chosen disciples were waiting for 
 his manifestation as an earthly prince, 
 should have been adored as the ever- 
 lasting, invisible God. Again, the titles 
 given him by those who worshipped 
 him, such as Good Teacher, Son of 
 David, Son of God, show us that the 
 thought of adoring him as the self- 
 existent, infinite Divinity, had no place 
 in their minds. But there is one con- 
 sideration which sets this point at rest. 
 The worship paid to Jesus during his 
 ministry was offered him in public, in 
 sight of the Jewish people. Now, to 
 the Jews no crime was so flagrant as 
 the paying of divine homage to a human 
 being, such as they esteemed Jesus to 
 be. Of consequence, had the}' seen in 
 the marks of honor yielded to Jesus 
 even an approach to this adoration, their 
 exasperation would have burst forth in 
 immediate overwhelming violence on 
 the supposed impiety. The fact that 
 they witnessed the frequent prostration 
 of men before Jesus, or what is called 
 the worship of him, without once cliarg-
 
 414 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 ing it as a crime, is a demonstration that 
 the act was in no respect a recognition 
 of him as the Supreme God. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that the pas- 
 sages which are announced as the 
 strongest proofs of the divine worship 
 of Christ directly disprove the doctrine, 
 if the connection be regarded. One of 
 these texts is the declaration of Jesus 
 that we must " honor the Son even as 
 we honor the Father." Hear the whole 
 passage : " The Father hath given all 
 judgment to the Son, that all men should 
 honor the Son, as they honor the Father. 
 He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth 
 not the Father who sent him.' 1 ' 1 * You 
 observe, that it is not the supreme un- 
 derived divinity of Christ, but the power 
 given him by his Father, which is here 
 expressly declared to be the foundation 
 of the honor challenged for him, and 
 that we are called to honor him, as sent 
 by God. Another passage much relied 
 on is the declaration of Paul, that "at 
 the name of Jesus every knee should 
 bow and every tongue acknowledge him 
 Lord." Read the whole text : " God 
 hath highly exalted him, and given him 
 a name above every name, that in the 
 name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
 of things in heaven, and things in earth, 
 and things under the earth ; and that 
 every tongue should confess that Jesus 
 Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
 the Father."f Could language express 
 more clearly the distinct, derived, and 
 dependent nature of Jesus Christ, or 
 teach that the worship due him is sub- 
 ordinate, having for its foundation the 
 dignity conferred on him by God, and 
 terminating on the Father as its supreme 
 objeet ? \ 
 
 This house, then, is erected to the 
 supreme worship of the Father, to the 
 recognition of the Father only as the 
 self-existent, Infinite God. Homage will 
 here be paid to Jesus Christ, and, I 
 trust, a far more profound and affec- 
 tionate homage than he received on 
 earth, when his spiritual character and 
 the true purposes of his mission were 
 almost unknown. . But we shall honor 
 him as the Son, the brightest image, the 
 sent of God, not as God himself. We 
 shall honor him as exalted above every 
 name or dignity in heaven or earth, but 
 as exalted by God for his obedience unto 
 
 * 5hn v - 22, 23. t Philippians ii. 9. 
 
 J See author's note (A) at end of this discourse. 
 
 death. We shall honor him as clothed 
 with power to give life, and judge, but 
 shall remember that the Father hath 
 given all judgment and quickening en- 
 ergy to the Son. We look up with de- 
 light and reverence to his divine virtues, 
 his celestial love, his truth, his spirit ; 
 and we are sure that in as far as we im- 
 bibe these from the affectionate remem- 
 brance of his life, death, and triumphs, 
 we shall render the worship most ac- 
 ceptable to this disinterested friend of 
 the human race. 
 
 I have said that this house is set 
 apart to the worship of the Father. But 
 this term expresses not only the Per- 
 son, the Being to whom it is to be paid. 
 It expresses a peculiar character. It 
 ascribes peculiar attributes to God. It 
 ascribes to him the parental relation and 
 the disposition of a parent. I therefore 
 observe, in the second place, that this 
 house is reared to the adoration of God 
 in his paternal character. It is reared 
 to a Parental Divinity. To my own 
 mind this view is more affecting than 
 the last. Nothing so touches me, when 
 I look round these walls, as the thought 
 that God is to be worshipped here as 
 the Father. That God has not always 
 been worshipped as a Father, even 
 among Christians, you well know. Men 
 have always inclined to think that they 
 honor God by placing him on a distant 
 throne, much more than by investing 
 him with the mild lustre of parental 
 goodness. They have made him a stern 
 sovereign, giving life on hard terms, 
 preferring his own honor to the welfare 
 of his creatures, demanding an obedience 
 which He gives no strength to perform, 
 preparing endless torments for creatures 
 whom, He brings intp being wholly evil, 
 and refusing to pardon the least sin, the 
 sin of the child, without an infinite satis- 
 faction. Men have too often been de- 
 graded, broken in spirit, stripped of 
 manly feeling, rather than lifted up to 
 true dignity, by their religion. How 
 seldom has worship breathed the noblest 
 sentiments of human nature ! Thanks 
 to Jesus Christ, that he came to bring 
 us to a purifying, ennobling, rejoicing 
 adoration. He has revealed the Father. 
 His own character was a bright revela- 
 tion of the most lovely and attractive 
 attributes of the Divinity, so that he was 
 able to say, " He that hath seen me 
 hath seen the Father." By his mani-
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 415 
 
 festation of the parental character of 
 God, he created religion anew. He 
 breathed a new and heavenly spirit into 
 worship. He has made adoration a filial 
 communion, assimilating us to our Cre- 
 ator. Ought we not, then, to rejoice in 
 this house as set apart to the worship of 
 the Father, to the God and Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ ? 
 
 The Father ! In this one word what 
 consoling, strengthening, ennobling 
 truth is wrapped up ! In this single 
 view of God, how much is there to bind 
 us to him with strong, indissoluble, ever- 
 growing love, and to make worship not 
 only our chief duty, but our highest 
 privilege and joy ! The Father ! can 
 it be that "the High and Holy One 
 who inhabiteth eternity," " the Lord of 
 heaven and earth," the Majesty of the 
 universe, bears to us this relation, re- 
 veals himself under this name, and that 
 we, so weak- and erring, may approach 
 him with the hope of children ! Who 
 cannot comprehend the dignity and 
 blessedness of such worship ? Who 
 does not feel that the man to whom 
 God's parental character is a deep-felt 
 reality, has in this conviction a fountain 
 of strength, hope, and purity, springing 
 up into everlasting life" ? 
 
 But to offer this true worship, we 
 must understand distinctly what we 
 mean when we call God the Father. 
 The word has a deep and a glorious im- 
 port, and in as far as this is unknown, 
 religion will want life and power. Is it 
 understood ? I am bound to say that 
 there seems to me a want of purity, of 
 spirituality, in the conception of God's 
 parental relation, even among those 
 Christians who profess to make it the 
 great foundation and object of their wor- 
 ship. Too many rest in vague concep- 
 tions of God as their Creator, who sup- 
 plies their wants, and who desires their 
 happiness, and they think that, thus re- 
 garding him, they know the Father. 
 Such imperfect views incline me to state 
 at some length what I deem the truth 
 on this point. No truth is so essential 
 to Christian worship. No truth sheds 
 such a flood of light on the whole sub- 
 ject of religion. 
 
 My friends, you are to come here to 
 worship the Father. What does this 
 term import ? It does not mean merely 
 that God is your Creator. He is, in- 
 deed, the Creator, and, as such, let him 
 
 be adored. This is his sole prerogative. 
 His, and his only, is the mysterious 
 power which filled the void space with 
 a universe ; his the Almighty voice 
 which called the things which were not, 
 and they came forth. The universe is 
 a perpetual answer to this creating word. 
 For this, worship God. In every thing 
 hear an exhortation to adore. In the 
 grandeur, beauty, order of nature, see a 
 higher glory than its own, a mysterious 
 force deeper than all its motions ; and 
 from its countless voices, from its mild 
 and awful tones, gather the one great 
 lesson which they conspire to teach, 
 the majesty of their Author. 
 
 But, my friends, God is more than 
 Creator. To create is not to be a Fa- 
 ther in the highest sense of that term. 
 He created the mountain, the plant, the 
 insect, but we do not call him their 
 father. We do not call the artist the 
 father of the statue which he models, 
 nor the mechanician the father of the ma- 
 chine he contrives. It is the distinction 
 of a father that he communicates an ex- 
 istence like his own. The father gives 
 being to the child, and the very idea of 
 the child is, that he bears the image as 
 well as receives existence from the 
 power of the parent. God is the Father, 
 because He brings into life minds, spir- 
 its, partaking of energies kindred to his 
 own attributes. Accordingly the Script- 
 ure teaches us that God made man in 
 his own image, after his own likeness. 
 Here is the ground of his paternal rela- 
 tion to the human race, and hence He is 
 called in an especial sense the Father of 
 those who make it the labor of life to 
 conform themselves more and more to 
 their divine original. God is " the Fa- 
 ther of spirits." 
 
 My friends, we are not wholly matter, 
 we are not wholly flesh. Were we so, 
 we could not call God our Father. God 
 is a spirit, says the text, and we are 
 spirits also. This our consciousness 
 teaches. We are conscious of a princi- 
 ple superior to the body which compre- 
 hends and controls it. We are conscious 
 of faculties higher than the senses. We 
 do something more than receive impres- 
 sions passively, unresistingly, like the 
 brute, from the outward world. We 
 analyze, compare, and combine anew 
 the things which we see, subject the 
 outward world to the inquisition of rea- 
 son, create sciences, rise to general laws,
 
 416 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 and through these establish an empire 
 over earth and sea. We penetrate be- 
 neath the surface which the senses re- 
 port ; search for the hidden causes, 
 inquire for the ends or purposes, trace 
 out the connections, dependencies, and 
 harmonies of nature ; discover a sublime 
 unity amidst its boundless variety, and 
 order amidst its seeming confusion ; rise 
 to the idea of one all-comprehending 
 and all-ordaining Mind ; and thus by 
 thought make as it were a new universe 
 radiant with wisdom, beneficence, and 
 beauty. We are not mere creatures of 
 matter and sense. We conceive a higher 
 good than comes from the senses. We 
 possess, as a portion of our being, a law 
 higher than appetite, nobler and more 
 enduring than all the laws of matter, 
 the law of duty. We discern, we ap- 
 prove, the right, the good, the just, the 
 holy, and by this sense of rectitude are 
 laid under obligations which no power 
 of the outward universe can dissolve. 
 We have within us a higher force than 
 all the forces of material nature, a 
 power of will which can adhere to duty 
 and to God in opposition to all the might 
 of the elements and all the malignity of 
 earth or hell. We have thoughts, ideas, 
 which do not come from matter, the 
 ideas of the Infinite, the Everlasting, 
 the Immutable, the Perfect. Living 
 amidst the frail, the limited, the chang- 
 ing, we rise to the thought of Unbounded, 
 Eternal, Almighty Goodness. Nor is 
 this all. While matter obeys mechanical 
 and irresistible laws, and is bound by an 
 unrelaxing necessity to the same fixed, 
 unvarying movements, we feel ourselves 
 to be free. We have power over our- 
 selves, over thought and desire, power 
 to conform ourselves to a law written 
 on our hearts, and power to resist this 
 law. Man must never be confounded 
 with the material, mechanical world 
 around him. He is a spirit. He has 
 capacities, thoughts, impulses, which 
 assimilate him to God. His reason is 
 a ray of the Infinite Reason ; his con- 
 science, an oracle of the Divinity, pub- 
 lishing the everlasting law of rectitude. 
 Therefore God is his Father. There- 
 fore he is bound to his Maker by a spir- 
 itual bond. This we must feel, or we 
 know nothing of the parental relation of 
 God to the human race. 
 
 God is the Father, and as such let 
 him be worshipped. He is the Father. 
 
 By this I understand that He has given 
 being not only to worlds of matter, but 
 to a rational, moral, spiritual universe ; 
 and, still more, I understand not only 
 that He has created a spiritual family in 
 heaven and on earth, but that He mani- 
 fests towards them the attributes and 
 exerts on them the influences of a father. 
 Some of these attributes and influences 
 I will suggest, that the parental char- 
 acter in which God is to be worshipped 
 may be more distinctly apprehended and 
 more deeply felt. 
 
 First, then, in calling God the Father, 
 I understand that He loves his rational 
 and moral offspring with unbounded 
 affection. Love is the fundamental at- 
 tribute of a father. How deep, strong, 
 tender, enduring, the attachment of a 
 human parent ! But this shadows forth 
 feebly the Divine Parent. He loves us 
 with an energy like that with which He 
 upholds the universe. The* human par- 
 ent does not comprehend his child, can- 
 not penetrate the mystery of the spiritual 
 nature which lies hid beneath the infant 
 form. It is the prerogative of God alone 
 to understand the immortal mind to 
 which He gives life. The narrowest 
 human spirit can be comprehended in 
 its depths and destiny by none but its 
 Maker, and is more precious in his sight 
 than material worlds. Is He not pecul- 
 iarly its Father ? 
 
 Again, in calling God the Father. I 
 understand that it is his chief purpose 
 in creating and governing the universe 
 to educate, train, form, and ennoble the 
 rational and moral being to whom He 
 has given birth. Education is the great 
 work of a parent, and he who neglects 
 it is unworthy the name. God gives 
 birth 1,o the mind, that it may grow and 
 rise for ever, and its progress is the end 
 of all his works. This outward universe, 
 with its sun and stars, and mighty revo- 
 lutions, is but a school in which the 
 Father is training his children. God is 
 ever present to the human mind to carry 
 on its education, pouring in upon it in- 
 struction and incitement from the out- 
 ward world, stirring up everlasting truth 
 within itself, rousing it to activity by 
 pleasure and pain, calling forth its affec- 
 tions by surrounding fellow-creatures, 
 calling it to duty by placing it amidst 
 various relations, awakening its sym- 
 pathy by sights of sorrow, awakening 
 its imagination by a world of beauty,
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 417 
 
 and especially exposing it to suffering, 
 hardship, and temptation, that by resist- 
 ance it may grow strong, and by seeking 
 help from above it may bind itself closely 
 to its Maker. Thus he is the Father. 
 There are those who think that God, if 
 a parent, must make our enjoyment his 
 supreme end. He has a higher end, 
 our intellectual and moral education. 
 Even the good human parent desires 
 the progress, the virtue of his child more 
 than its enjoyment. God never mani- 
 fests himself more as our Father than in 
 appointing to us pains, conflicts, trials, 
 by which we may rise to the heroism of 
 virtue, may become strong to do, to 
 dare, to suffer, to sacrifice all things at 
 the call of truth and duty. 
 
 Again, in calling God a Father, I un- 
 derstand that he exercises authority over 
 his rational offspring. Authority is the 
 essential attribute of a father. A parent, 
 worthy of that name, embodies and ex- 
 presses, both in commands and actions, 
 the everlasting law of duty. His highest 
 function is to bring out in the minds of 
 his children the idea of right, and to 
 open to them the perfection of their 
 nature. It is too common a notion, that 
 God, as Father, must be more disposed 
 to bless than to command. His com- 
 mands are among his chief blessings. 
 He never speaks with more parental 
 kindness than by that inward voice 
 which teaches duty, and excites and 
 cheers to its performance. Nothing is 
 so strict, so inflexible in enjoining the 
 right and the good, as perfect love. 
 This can endure no moral stain in its 
 object. The whole experience of life, 
 rightly construed, is a revelation of 
 God's parental authority and righteous 
 retribution. 
 
 Again. When I call God the Father, 
 I understand that He communicates him- 
 self, his own spirit, what is most glorious 
 in his own nature, to his rational off- 
 spring, a doctrine almost overwhelm- 
 ing by its grandeur, but yet true, and the 
 very truth which shines most clearly 
 from the Christian Scriptures. It be- 
 longs to a parent to breathe into the 
 child whatever is best and loftiest in his 
 own soul, and for this end a good father 
 seeks every approach to the mind of the 
 child. Such a father is God. He has 
 created us not only to partake of his 
 works, but to be "partakers of a divine 
 nature ;" not only to receive his gifts, 
 
 but to receive himself. As He is a pure 
 spirit, He has an access to the minds 
 of his children not enjoyed by human 
 parents. He pervades, penetrates our 
 souls. All other beings, our nearest 
 friends, are far from us, foreign to us, 
 strangers compared with God. Others 
 hold intercourse with us through the 
 body. He is in immediate contact with 
 our souls. We do not discern him be- 
 cause He is too near, too inward, too 
 deep to be recognized by our present 
 imperfect consciousness. And He is 
 thus near, not only to discern, but to 
 act, to influence, to give his spirit, to 
 communicate to us divinity. This is the 
 great paternal gift of God. He has 
 greater gifts than the world. He con- 
 fers more than the property of the earth 
 and heavens. The very attributes from 
 which the earth and heavens sprung, 
 these he imparts to his rational offspring. 
 Even his disinterested, impartial, uni- 
 versal goodness, which diffuses beauty, 
 life, and happiness, even this excel- 
 lence it is his purpose to breathe into and 
 cherish in the human soul. In regard 
 to the spiritual influence by which God 
 brings the created spirit into conformity 
 to his own, I would that I could speak 
 worthily. It is gentle, that it may not 
 interfere with our freedom. It sustains, 
 mingles with, and moves all our facul- 
 ties. It acts through nature, providence, 
 revelation, society, and experience ; and 
 the Scriptures, confirmed by reason and 
 the testimonies of the wisest and best 
 men, teach us that it acts still more 
 directly. God. being immediately pres- 
 ent to the soul, holds immediate com- 
 munion with it, in proportion as it 
 prepares itself to receive and to use 
 aright the heavenly inspiration. He 
 opens the inward eye to himself, com- 
 municates secret monitions of duty, re- 
 vives and freshens our convictions of 
 truth, builds up our faith in human im- 
 mortality, unseals the deep, unfathomed 
 fountains of love within us, instils 
 strength, peace, and comfort, and gives 
 victory over pain, sin, and death. 
 
 This influence of God, exerted on the 
 soul to conform it to himself, to make 
 it worthy of its divine parentage, this it 
 is which most clearly manifests what is 
 meant by his being our Father. We 
 understand his parental relation to us 
 only as far as we comprehend this great 
 purpose and exercise of his love. We 
 
 27
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 must have faith in the human soul as 
 receptive of the Divinity, as made for 
 greatness, for spiritual elevation, for 
 likeness to God, or God's character 
 as a Father will be to us as an unre- 
 vealed mystery. If we think, as so 
 many seem to think, that God has made 
 us only for low pleasures and attain- 
 ments, that our nature is incapable of 
 godlike virtues, that our prayers for the 
 Divine Spirit are unheard, that celestial 
 influences do not descend into the hu- 
 man soul, that God never breathes on it 
 to lift it above its present weakness, to 
 guide it to a more perfect existence, to 
 unite it more intimately with himself, 
 then we know but faintly the meaning 
 of a Father in heaven. The great rev- 
 elation in Christianity of a Paternal 
 Divinity is still to be made to us. 
 
 I might here pause in the attempt to 
 give distinct conceptions of the Father 
 whom we are to worship ; but there are 
 two views so suited to us, as sinful and 
 mortal beings, that I cannot pass them 
 over without brief notice. Let me add, 
 then, that in speaking of God as the 
 Father, 1 understand that He looks with 
 overflowing compassion on such of his 
 rational offspring as forsake him, as for- 
 sake the law of duty. It is the property 
 of the human parent to follow with 
 yearnings of tenderness an erring child : 
 and in this he is a faint type of God, who 
 sees his lost sons "a great way off," 
 who, to recover his human family, spared 
 not his beloved Son, who sends his re- 
 generating spirit into the fallen soul, 
 sends rebuke, and shame, and fear, and 
 sorrow, and awakens the dead in tres- 
 passes and sins to a higher life than 
 that which the first birth conferred. 
 
 I also understand, in calling God the 
 Father, that He destines his rational, 
 moral creature to immortality. How 
 ardently does the human parent desire 
 to prolong the life of his child ! And 
 how much more must He who gave 
 being to the spirit, with its unbounded 
 faculties, desire its endless being ! God 
 is our Father, for He has made us to 
 bear the image of his own eternity as 
 well as of his other attributes. Other 
 things pass away, for they fulfil their 
 end ; but the soul, which never reaches 
 its goal, whose development is never 
 complete, is never to disappear from the 
 universe. God created it to receive for 
 ever of his fulness. His fatherly love 
 
 is not exhausted in what he now be- 
 stows. There is a higher life. Human 
 perfection is not a dream. The bright- 
 est visions of genius fade before the 
 realities of excellence and happiness to 
 which good men are ordained. In that 
 higher life, the parental character of 
 God will break forth from the clouds 
 which now obscure it. His bright im- 
 age in his children will proclaim the 
 Infinite Father. 
 
 I have thus, my friends, set before 
 you the true object of Christian worship. 
 You are here to worship God as your 
 spiritual parent, as the Father of your 
 spirits, whose great purpose is your 
 spiritual perfection, your participation 
 of a divine nature. I hold this view of 
 God to be the true, deep foundation of 
 Christian worship. On your reception 
 of it depends the worth of the homage 
 to be offered here. It is not enough to 
 think of God as operating around and 
 without you, as creating material worlds, 
 as the former of your bodies, as ordain- 
 ing the revolution of seasons for your 
 animal wants. There is even danger in 
 regarding God exclusively as the author 
 of the outward universe. There is dan- 
 ger, lest you feel as if you were over- 
 looked in this immensity, lest you shrink 
 before these mighty masses of matter, 
 lest you see in the unchangeable laws of 
 nature a stern order to which the human 
 being is a victim, and which heeds not 
 the puny individual in maintaining the 
 general good. It is only by regarding 
 God as more than Creator, as your spirit- 
 ual Father, as having made you to par- 
 take of his spiritual attributes, as having 
 given you a spiritual power worth more 
 than the universe, it is only by regarding 
 his intimacy with the soul, his paternal 
 concern 1 for it, his perpetual influence on 
 it, it is only by these views that worship 
 rises into filial confidence, hope, joy, and 
 rapture, and puts forth a truly ennobling 
 power. Worship has too often been ab- 
 ject, the offering of fear or selfishness. 
 God's greatness, though a pledge of 
 greatness to his children, and his om- 
 nipotence, though an assurance to us 
 of mighty power in our conflict with 
 evil, have generated self-contempt and 
 discouraged access to him. My friends, 
 come hither to worship God as your 
 spiritual Father. No other view can 
 so touch and penetrate the soul, can 
 place it so near its Maker, can open
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 419 
 
 before it such vast prospects, can 
 awaken such transports of praise and 
 gratitude, can bow the soul in such 
 ingenuous sorrow for sin, can so fortify 
 you for the conflict against evil. Ought 
 we not to rejoice that this house is reared 
 for the worship of the spiritual Father ? 
 The exposition which I have given 
 under this head of the parental relation 
 of God to the human race, is one in 
 which I take the deepest interest. I 
 have felt, however, as I proceeded, that 
 very possibly objections would spring 
 up in the minds of some who hear me. 
 There are not a few who are sceptical 
 as to whatever supposes a higher con- 
 dition of human nature than they now 
 observe. Perhaps some here, could 
 they speak, would say, " We do not see 
 the marks of this fatherly interest of 
 God in man of which you have spoken. 
 We do not see in man the signs of a 
 being so beloved, so educated, as you 
 have supposed. His weakness, suffer- 
 ings, and sins are surely no proofs of 
 his having been created to receive God's 
 spirit, to partake of the divinity." On 
 this point I have much to say, but my 
 answer must be limited to a few words. 
 I reply, that the love of an Infinite Fa- 
 ther may be expected often to work in 
 methods beyond the comprehension of 
 our limited minds. An immortal being 
 in his infancy cannot of course compre- 
 hend all the processes of his education, 
 many of which look forward to ages 
 too distant for the imagination to ex- 
 plore. I would add, that notwithstand- 
 ing the darkness which hangs over 
 human life on account of the greatness 
 of our nature, we can yet see bright 
 signatures of the parental concern of 
 God, and see them in the very circum- 
 stances which at first create doubt. 
 Because we suffer, it ought not to be 
 inferred that God is not a Father. Suf- 
 fering, trial, exposure, seem to be neces- 
 sary elements in the education of a 
 moral being. It is fit that a being 
 whose happiness and dignity are to be 
 found in vigorous action and in forming 
 himself, should be born with undevel- 
 oped capacities, and be born into a 
 world of mingled difficulties and aids. 
 . We do see that energy of thought, will, 
 affection, virtue, the' energy which is 
 our true life and joy, often springs from 
 trial. We can see, too, that it is well 
 that society, like the individual, should 
 
 begin in imperfection, because men in 
 this way become to each other means 
 of discipline, because joint sufferings 
 and the necessity of joint efforts awaken 
 both the affections and the faculties, 
 because occasion and incitement are 
 thus given to generous sacrifices, to 
 heroic struggles, to the most beautiful 
 and stirring manifestations of philan- 
 thropy, patriotism, and devotion. Were 
 I called on to prove God's spiritual 
 parental interest in us, I would point 
 to the trials, temptations, evils of life ; 
 for to these we owe the character of 
 Christ, we owe the apostle and martyr, 
 we owe the moral force and deep sym- 
 pathy of private and domestic life, we 
 owe the devolopment of what is divine 
 in human nature. Truly God is our Fa- 
 ther, and as such to be worshipped. 
 
 Having thus set forth very imper- 
 fectly, but from a full heart, the excel- 
 lence of the homage which is here to 
 be rendered to God in his parental 
 character, I ought now to proceed, ac- 
 cording to the plan of this discourse, to 
 show that we should enter this house 
 with joy, because it is set apart to the 
 worship of God in spirit and in truth, 
 to an inward not outward worship. In 
 discussing this topic, I might enlarge 
 on the vast and beneficent revolution 
 which Jesus Christ wrought in religion 
 by teaching that God is a spirit, and to 
 be spiritually adored. I might show 
 how much he wrought for human ele- 
 vation and happiness when, in pronounc- 
 ing the text, he shook the ancient 
 temples to their foundations, quenched 
 the fire on the heathen and Jewish al- 
 tars, wrested the instruments of sacrifice 
 from the hand of the priest, abolished 
 sanctity of place, and consecrated the 
 human soul as the true house of God. 
 But the nature, grandeur, benefits of 
 this spiritual worship are subjects too 
 extensive for our present consideration. 
 Instead of discussion, I can only use 
 the words of exhortation. I can only say 
 that you who are to assemble in this 
 place are peculiarly bound to inward 
 worship, for to you especially Christi- 
 anity is an inward system. Most other 
 denominations expect salvation more or 
 less from what Jesus does abroad, es- 
 pecially from his agency on the mind 
 of God. You expect it from what he 
 does within your own minds. His great 
 glory, according to your views, lies in
 
 420 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 his influence on the human soul, in the 
 communication of his spirit to his fol- 
 lowers. To you salvation, heaven, and 
 hell have their seat in the soul. To you 
 Christianity is wholly a spiritual sys- 
 tem. Come, then, to this place to 
 worship with the soul, to elevate the 
 spirit to God. Let not this house be 
 desecrated by a religion of show. Let 
 it not degenerate into a place of forms. 
 Let not your pews be occupied by life- 
 less machines. Do not come here to 
 take part in lethargic repetitions of 
 sacred words. Do not come from a 
 cold sense of duty, to quiet conscience 
 with the thought of having paid a debt 
 to God. Do not come to perform a 
 present task to insure a future heaven. 
 Come to find heaven now, to anticipate 
 the happiness of that better world by 
 breathing its spirit, to bind your souls 
 indissolubly to your Maker. Come to 
 worship in spirit and in truth ; that is, 
 intelligently, rationally, with clear judg- 
 ment, with just and honorable con- 
 ceptions of the Infinite Father, not 
 prostrating your understandings, not re- 
 nouncing the divine gift of reason, but 
 offering an enlightened homage, such 
 as is due to the Fountain of intelli- 
 gence and truth. Come to worship with 
 the heart as well as intellect, with life, 
 fervor, zeal. Sleep over your business 
 if you will, but not over your religion. 
 Come to worship with strong convic- 
 tion, with living faith in a higher pres- 
 ence than meets the eye, with a feeling 
 of God's presence not only around you, 
 but in the depths of your souls. Come 
 to worship with a filial spirit, not with 
 fear, dread, and gloom ; not with sepul- 
 chral tones and desponding looks, but 
 with humble, cheerful, boundless trust, 
 with overflowing gratitude, with a love 
 willing and earnest to do and to suffer 
 whatever may approve your devotion to 
 God. Come to worship him with what 
 He most delights in, with aspiration for 
 spiritual light and life ; come to cherish 
 and express desires for virtue, for pu- 
 rity, for power over temptation, stronger 
 and more insatiable than spring up in 
 your most eager pursuits of business 
 or pleasure ; and welcome joyfully every 
 holy impulse, every accession of strength 
 to virtuous purpose, to the love of God 
 and man. In a word, come to offer a 
 refined, generous worship, to offer a 
 tribute worthy of him who is the per- 
 
 fection of truth, goodness, beauty, and 
 blessedness. Adore him with the calm- 
 est reason and the profoundest love, 
 and strive to conform yourselves to 
 what you adore. 
 
 I have now, my friends, set before you 
 the worship to which this building is 
 set apart, and which, from its rational, 
 filial, pure, and ennobling character, ren- 
 ders this solemnity a season for thank- 
 fulness and joy. I should not, however, 
 be just to this occasion, or to the great 
 purpose of this house, if I were to stop 
 here. My remarks have hitherto been 
 confined to the worship which is to be 
 offered within these walls, to the influ- 
 ence to be exerted on you when assem- 
 bled here. But has this house no higher 
 end than to give an impulse to your 
 minds for the very few hours which you 
 are to spend beneath its roof ? Then 
 we have little reason to enter it with 
 joy. The great end for which you are 
 to worship here is, that you may wor- 
 ship everywhere. You are to feel God's 
 presence here, that it may be felt where- 
 ever you go, and whatever you do. The 
 very idea of spiritual homage is, that it 
 takes possession of the soul, and be- 
 comes a part of our very being. The 
 great design of this act of dedication is, 
 that your houses, your places of busi- 
 ness, may be consecrated to God. This 
 topic of omnipresent worship I cannot 
 expand. One view of it, however, I 
 must not omit. From the peculiar char- 
 acter of the worship to which this house 
 is consecrated, you learn the kind of 
 worship which you should carry from it 
 into your common lives. It is not un- 
 common for the Christian teacher to say 
 to his congregation, that, when they 
 leave the church, they go forth into a 
 nobler temple than one made with hands, 
 into the temple of the creation, and that 
 they must go forth to worship God in 
 his works. The views given of the true 
 worship in this discourse will lead me to 
 a somewhat different style of exposition. 
 I will, indeed, say to you, go from this 
 house to adore God as He is revealed 
 in the boundless universe. This is one 
 end of your worship here. But I would 
 add, that a higher end is, that you should 
 go forth to worship him as He is re- 
 vealed in his rational and moral off- 
 spring, and to worship him by fulfilling, 
 as you have power, his purposes in 
 regard to these. My great aim in this
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 421 
 
 discourse has been to show that God is 
 to be adored here as the Father of 
 rational and moral beings, of yourselves 
 and all mankind ; and such a worship 
 tends directly and is designed to lead 
 us, when we go hence, to recognize God 
 in our own nature, to see in men his 
 children, to respect and serve them for 
 their relationship to the Divinity, to see 
 in them signatures of greatness amidst 
 all their imperfection, and to love them 
 with more than earthly love. We must 
 not look round on the universe with awe 
 and on man with scorn ; for man, who 
 can comprehend the universe and its 
 laws, " is greater than the universe, 
 which cannot comprehend itself." God 
 dwells in every human being more inti- 
 mately than in the outward creation. 
 The voice of God comes to us in the 
 ocean, the thunder, the whirlwind ; but 
 how much more of God is there in his 
 inward voice, in the intuitions of reason, 
 in the rebukes of conscience, in the 
 whispers of the Holy Spirit ! I would 
 have you see God in the awful moun- 
 tain and the tranquil valley ; but more, 
 much more, in the clear judgment, the 
 moral energy, the disinterested purpose, 
 the pious gratitude, the immortal hope 
 of a good man. Go from this house to 
 worship God by reverencing the human 
 soul as his chosen sanctuary. Revere 
 it in yourselves, revere it in others, and 
 labor to carry it forward to perfection. 
 Worship God within these walls, as 
 universally, impartially good to his hu- 
 man offspring ; and go forth to breathe 
 the same spirit. Go forth to respect the 
 rights, and seek the true, enduring wel- 
 fare of all within your influence. Carry 
 with you the conviction that to trample 
 on a human being, of whateves color, 
 clime, rank, condition, is to trample on 
 God's child ; that to degrade or corrupt 
 a man, is to deface a holier temple than 
 any material sanctuary. Mercy, love, is 
 more acceptable worship to God than all 
 sacrifices or outward offerings. The 
 most celestial worship ever paid on earth 
 was rendered by Christ, when he ap- 
 proached man, and the most sinful man, 
 as a child of God, when he toiled and 
 bled to awaken what was divine in the 
 human soul, to regenerate a fallen world. 
 Be such the worship which you shall 
 carry from this place. Go forth to do 
 good with every power which God be- 
 stows, to make every place you enter 
 
 happier by your presence, to espouse all 
 human interests, to throw your whole 
 weight into the scale of human freedom 
 and improvement, to withstand all wrong, 
 to uphold all right, and especially to give 
 light, life, strength to the immortal soul. 
 He who rears up one child in Christian 
 virtue, or recovers one fellow-creature to 
 God, builds a temple more precious than 
 Solomon's or St. Peter's, more enduring 
 than earth or heaven. 
 
 I have now finished the general dis- 
 cussion which this occasion seemed to 
 me to require, and I trust that a few 
 remarks of a personal and local char- 
 acter will be received with indulgence. 
 It is with no common emotion that I take 
 part in the present solemnity. I stand 
 now to teach where, in my childhood and 
 youth, I was a learner. The generation 
 which I then knew has almost wholly 
 disappeared. The venerable man, whose 
 trembling voice I then heard in this 
 place, has long since gone to his reward. 
 My earliest friends, who watched over 
 my childhood and led me by the hand to 
 this spot, have been taken. Still my 
 emotions are not sad. I rejoice ; for 
 whilst I see melancholy changes around 
 me, and, still more, feel that time, which 
 has bowed other frames, has touched 
 my own, I see that the work of human 
 improvement has gone on. I see that 
 clearer and brighter truths than were 
 opened on my own youthful mind are to 
 be imparted to succeeding generations. 
 Herein I do and will rejoice. 
 
 On looking back to my early years, I 
 can distinctly recollect unhappy influ- 
 ences exerted on my mind by the gen- 
 eral tone of religion in this town. I can 
 recollect, too, a corruption of morals 
 anlong those of my own age, which made 
 boyhood a critical, perilous season. Still 
 I must bless God for the place of my 
 nativity ; for, as my mind unfolded, I 
 became more and more alive to the beau- 
 tiful scenery which now attracts stran- 
 gers to our island. My first liberty was 
 used in roaming over the neighboring 
 fields and shores ; and, amid this glo- 
 rious nature, that love of liberty sprang 
 up which has gained strength within 
 me to this hour. I early received im- 
 pressions of the great and the beautiful, 
 which I believe have had no small influ- 
 ence in determining my modes of thought 
 and habits of life. In this town I pur- 
 sued for a time my studies of theology.
 
 422 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 I had no professor or teacher to guide 
 me ; but I had two noble places of 
 study. One was yonder beautiful edi- 
 fice, now so frequented and so useful 
 as a public library, then so deserted 
 that 1 spent day after day, and some- 
 times week after week, amidst its dusty 
 volumes, without interruption from a 
 single visitor. The other place was 
 yonder beach, the roar of which has so 
 often mingled with the worship of this 
 place, my daily resort, dear to me in 
 the sunshine, still more attractive in the 
 storm. Seldom do I visit it now with- 
 out thinking of the work which there, 
 in the sight of that beauty, in the sound 
 of those waves, was carried on in my 
 soul. No spot on earth has helped to 
 form me so much as that beach. There 
 I lifted up my voice in praise amidst 
 the tempest. There, softened by beauty, 
 I poured out my thanksgiving and con- 
 trite confessions. There, in reverential 
 sympathy with the mighty power around 
 me, I became conscious of power within. 
 There struggling thoughts and emotions 
 broke forth, as if moved to utterance by 
 nature's eloquence of the winds and 
 waves. There began a happiness sur- 
 passing all worldly pleasures, all gifts of 
 fortune, the happiness of communing 
 with the works of God. Pardon me this 
 reference to myself. I believe that the 
 worship of which I have this day spoken 
 was aided in my own soul by the scenes 
 in which my early life was passed. 
 Amidst these scenes, and in speaking 
 of this worship, allow me to thank God 
 that this beautiful island was the place 
 of my birth. 
 
 Leaving what is merely personal, I 
 would express my joy, and it is most 
 sincere, in the dedication of this house, 
 regarded as a proof and a means of the 
 diffusion of Christian truth. Some, per- 
 haps, may think that this joy is not a 
 little heightened by seeing a church set 
 apart to the particular sect, to which I 
 am said to belong. But I trust that 
 what you have this day heard will satisfy 
 most, if not all who hear, that it is not a 
 sectarian exultation to which I am giv- 
 ing utterance. I indeed take pleasure 
 in thinking that the particular views 
 which I have adopted of the disputed 
 doctrines of religion will here be made 
 known ; but I rejoice much more in 
 thinking that this house is pledged to 
 no peculiar doctrines, that it is not 
 
 erected to bind my own or any man's 
 opinions on this or on future times, that 
 it is consecrated to free investigation of 
 religious truth, to religious progress, to 
 the right of private judgment, to Prot- 
 estant and Christian liberty. Most 
 earnestly do I pray that a purer the- 
 ology, that diviner illuminations, that a 
 truer worship than can now be found in 
 our own or in any sect, maybe the glory 
 of this house. We who now consecrate 
 it to God believe in human progress. 
 We do not say to the spirit of truth, 
 " Thus far, and no farther." We repro- 
 bate the exclusive, tyrannical spirit of 
 the churches of this age, which de- 
 nounce as an enemy to Christianity 
 whoever in the use of his intellectual 
 liberty, and in the interpretation of 
 God's word for himself, may differ from 
 the traditions and creeds which have 
 been received from fallible forefathers. 
 We rear these walls not to a sect, but 
 to religious, moral, intellectual, Protest- 
 ant, Christian liberty. 
 
 I rejoice that this temple of liberty is 
 opened on this spot. I feel that this 
 town has a right to an establishment in 
 which conscientious Christians may in- 
 quire and speak without dreading the 
 thunders of excommunication, in which 
 Protestantism will not be dishonored by 
 the usurpations of the Romish Church. 
 This island, like the State to which it 
 belongs, was originally settled by men 
 who came hither for liberty of con- 
 science, and in assertion of the right to 
 interpret for themselves the word of 
 God. Religious freedom was the very 
 principle on which this town was founded, 
 and I rejoice to know that the spirit of 
 religious freedom has never wanted 
 champions here. I have recently read 
 a very valuable discourse, which was 
 delivered in this town about a century 
 ago, and just a century after the cession 
 of this island to our fathers by the In- 
 dians, and which breathes a liberality of 
 thought and feeling, a reverence for the 
 rights of the understanding and the con- 
 science, very rare at that time in other 
 parts of the country, and very far from . 
 being universal now. Its author, the 
 Rev. Mr. Callender, was pastor of the 
 first Baptist church in this place, the 
 oldest of our churches, and it was dedi- 
 cated to a descendant of the venerable 
 Coddington, our first Governor. The 
 spirit of religious liberty which pervades
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 423 
 
 this discourse has astonished as well as 
 rejoiced me, and it should thrill the 
 hearts of this people. Let me read a 
 few sentences : 
 
 " It must be a mean, contracted way of 
 thinking, to confine the favor of God, and 
 the power of godliness, to one set of specu- 
 lative opinions, or any particular external 
 forms of worship. How hard must it be to 
 imagine that all other Christians but our- 
 selves must be formal, and hypocritical, 
 and destitute of the grace of God, because 
 their education or capacity differs from ours, 
 or that God has given them more or less 
 light than to us ; though we cannot deny 
 they give the proper evidence of their fear- 
 ing God by their working righteousness, 
 and show their love to him by keeping what 
 they understand He has commanded ; and 
 though their faith in Christ Jesus purifies 
 their hearts and works by love and over- 
 comes the world. It would be hard to show % 
 why liberty of conscience, mutual forbear- 
 ance and good-will, why brotherly kindness 
 and charity is not as good a centre of unity as 
 a constrained uniformity in external ceremo- 
 nies, or a forced subscription to ambiguous 
 articles. Experience has dearly convinced 
 the world that unanimity in judgment and 
 affection cannot be secured by penal law. 
 Who can tell why the unity of spirit in the 
 bonds of peace is not enough for Christians 
 to aim at ? And who can assign a reason 
 why they may not love one another though 
 abounding in their own several senses ? 
 And why, if they live in peace, the God of 
 love and peace may not be with them ? 
 There is no other bottom but this to rest 
 upon, to leave others the liberty we should 
 desire ourselves, the liberty wherewith 
 Christ hath made them free." 
 
 Such was the liberal spirit expressed 
 in this town a hundred years ago. I 
 would it were more common in our own 
 day. 
 
 Another noble friend of religious lib- 
 erty threw a lustre on this island imme- 
 diately before the revolution. I mean 
 the Rev. Dr. Stiles, pastor of the Second 
 Congregational Church, and afterwards 
 President of Yale College. This coun- 
 try has not, perhaps, produced a more 
 learned man. To enlarged acquaintance 
 with physical science he added exten- 
 sive researches into philology, history, 
 and antiquities. Nor did his indefatiga- 
 ble mind suffer any opportunity to es- 
 cape him of adding to his rich treasures 
 of knowledge. His virtues were pro- 
 portioned to his intellectual acquisition. 
 I can well remember how his name was 
 
 cherished among his parishioners after 
 years of separation. His visit to this 
 place was to many a festival. When 
 little more than a child, I was present 
 at some of his private meetings with the 
 more religious part of his former con- 
 gregation ; and I recollect how I was 
 moved by the tears and expressive looks 
 with which his affectionate exhortations 
 were received. In his faith he was 
 what was called a moderate Calvinist ; 
 but his heart was of no sect. He car- 
 ried into his religion the spirit of liberty 
 which then stirred the whole country. 
 Intolerance, church tyranny in all its 
 forms, he abhorred. He respected the 
 right of private judgment where others 
 would have thought themselves author- 
 ized to restrain it. A young man, to 
 whom he had been as a father, one day 
 communicated to him doubts concerning 
 the Trinity. He expressed his sorrow ; 
 but mildly, and with undiminished affec- 
 tion, told him to go to the Scriptures, 
 and to seek his faith there, and only 
 there. His friendships were confined 
 to no parties. He desired to heal the 
 wounds of the divided church of Christ, 
 not by a common creed, but by the spirit 
 of love. He wished to break every yoke, 
 civil and ecclesiastical, from men's necks. 
 To the influence of this distinguished 
 man in the circle in which I was brought 
 up, I may owe in part the indignation 
 which I feel towards every invasion of 
 human rights. In my earliest years, I 
 regarded no human being with equal 
 reverence. I have his form before me 
 at this moment almost as distinctly as if 
 I had seen him yesterday, so strong is 
 the impression made on the child through 
 the moral affections. 
 
 Let me add one more example of the 
 spirit of religious freedom on this island. 
 You may be surprised, perhaps, when 
 you hear me name in this connection 
 the venerable man who once ministered 
 in this place, the Rev. Dr. Hopkins. 
 His name is, indeed, associated with a 
 stern and appalling theology, and it is 
 true that he wanted toleration towards 
 those who rejected his views. Still, in 
 forming his religious opinions, he was 
 superior to human authority ; he broke 
 away from human creeds ; he interpret- 
 ed God's word for himself ; he revered 
 reason, the oracle of God within him. 
 His system, however fearful, was yet 
 built on a generous foundation. He
 
 424 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 maintained that all holiness, all moral 
 excellence, consists in benevolence, or 
 disinterested devotion to the greatest 
 good : that this is the character of God ; 
 that love is the only principle of the 
 divine administration. He taught that 
 sin was introduced into the creation, 
 and is to be everlastingly punished, be- 
 cause evil is necessary to the highest 
 good. To this government, in which 
 the individual is surrendered to the 
 well-being of the whole, he required 
 entire and cheerful submission. Other 
 Calvinists were willing that their neigh- 
 bors should be predestined to everlast- 
 ing misery for the glory of God. This 
 noble-minded man demanded a more 
 generous and impartial virtue, and main- 
 tained that we should consent to our own 
 perdition, should be willing ourselves 
 to be condemned, if the greatest good 
 of the universe and the manifestation 
 of the divine perfections should so re- 
 quire. True virtue, as he taught, was 
 an entire surrender of personal interest 
 to the benevolent purposes of God. 
 Self-love he spared in none of its move- 
 ments. He called us to seek our own 
 happiness as well as that of others in a 
 spirit of impartial benevolence ; to do 
 good to ourselves, not from self-prefer- 
 ence, not from the impulse of personal 
 desires, but in obedience to that sub- 
 lime law which requires us to promote 
 the welfare of each and all within our 
 influence. I need not be ashamed to 
 confess the deep impression which this 
 system made on my youthful mind. I 
 am grateful to this stern teacher for 
 turning my thoughts and heart to the 
 claims and majesty of impartial, univer- 
 sal benevolence. From such a man, a 
 tame acquiescence in the established 
 theology was not to be expected. He 
 indeed accepted the doctrine of predes- 
 tination in its severest form ; but in so 
 doing, he imagined himself a disciple of 
 reason as well as of revelation. He be- 
 lieved this doctrine to be sustained by 
 profound metaphysical argumentation, 
 and to rest on the only sound philoso- 
 phy of the human mind, so that in re- 
 ceiving it he did not abandon the ground 
 of reason. In accordance with his free 
 spirit of inquiry, we find him making 
 not a few important modifications of 
 Calvinism. The doctrine that we are 
 liable to punishment for the sin of our 
 first parent he wholly rejected ; and, not 
 
 satisfied with denying the imputation of 
 Adam's guilt to his posterity, he sub- 
 verted what the old theology had set 
 forth as the only foundation of divine 
 acceptance, namely, the imputation of 
 Christ's righteousness or merits to the 
 believer. The doctrine that Christ died 
 for the elect only, found no mercy at 
 his hands. He taught that Christ suf- 
 fered equally for all mankind The 
 system of Dr. Hopkins was indeed an 
 effort of reason to reconcile Calvinism 
 with its essential truths. Accordingly 
 his disciples were sometimes called, 
 and willingly called. Rational Calvinists. 
 The impression which he made was 
 much greater than is now supposed. 
 The churches of New England received 
 a decided impression from his views ; 
 and though his name, once given to his 
 .followers, is no longer borne, his influ- 
 ence is still felt. The conflict now go- 
 ing on in our country, for the purpose 
 of mitigating the harsh features of Cal- 
 vinism, is a stage of the revolutionary 
 movement to which he more than any 
 man gave impulse. / can certainly bear 
 witness to the spirit of progress and 
 free inquiry which possessed him. In 
 my youth, I preached in this house at 
 the request of the venerable old man. 
 As soon as the services were closed, 
 he turned to me with an animated, 
 benignant smile, and, using a quaint- 
 ness of expression which I need not re- 
 peat, said to me that theology was still 
 imperfect, and that he hoped I should 
 live tt> carry it towards perfection. 
 Rare and most honorable liberality in 
 the leader of a sect ! He wanted not to 
 secure a follower, but to impel a young 
 mind to higher truth. I feel that abil- 
 ity has not been given me to accomplish 
 this generous hope ; but such quicken- 
 ing language from such lips, though it 
 could not give strength, might kindle 
 desire, and elevate exertion.* 
 
 Thus the spirit of religious freedom 
 has not been wanting to this island. 
 May this spirit, unawed by human re- 
 proach, unfettered by human creeds, 
 availing itself gratefully of human aids, 
 and, above all, looking reverently to 
 God for light, dwell in the hearts of 
 those who are to minister, and of those 
 who shall worship, within these walls ! 
 May this spirit spread far and wide, and 
 
 * See author's note (B) at end of this discourse.
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 425 
 
 redeem the Christian world from the 
 usurpations of Catholic and Protestant 
 infallibility, from uncharitableness, in- 
 tolerance, persecution, and every yoke 
 which has crushed the human soul ! 
 
 I have done with the personal and 
 the local. In conclusion, let me re- 
 vert for one moment to the great topic 
 of this discourse. My friends, the spir- 
 itual worship of which I have this day 
 spoken is something real. There is a 
 worship in the spirit, a worship very 
 different from standing in the church, 
 or kneeling in the closet, a worship 
 which cannot be confined to set phrases, 
 and asks not the clothing of outward 
 forms, a thirst of the soul for its Crea- 
 tor, an inward voice, which our nearest 
 neighbor cannot hear, but which pierces 
 the skies. To the culture of this spirit- 
 ual worship we dedicate this house. 
 My friends, rest not in offering breath, 
 in moving the lips, in bending the knee 
 to your Creator. There is another, 
 a nearer, a happier intercourse with 
 heaven, a worship of love, sometimes 
 too full and deep for utterance, a union 
 of mind with him closer than earthly 
 friendships. This is the worship to 
 which Christ calls. Christ came not to 
 build churches, not to rear cathedrals 
 with Gothic arches or swelling domes, 
 but to dedicate the human soul to God. 
 When God "bows the heavens and 
 comes down," it is not that He may 
 take up his abode beneath the vault of 
 a metropolitan temple ; it is not that 
 He is drawn by majestic spires or by 
 clouds of fragrance, but that He may 
 visit and dwell in the humble, obedient, 
 disinterested soul. This house is to 
 moulder away. Temples hewn from the 
 rock will crumble to dust, or melt in the 
 last fire. But the inward temple will 
 survive all outward change. When 
 winds and oceans and suns shall have 
 ceased to praise God, the human soul 
 will praise him. It will receive more 
 and more divine inspirations of truth 
 and love : will fill with its benevolent 
 ministry wider and wider spheres ; and 
 will accomplish its destiny by a progress 
 towards God as unlimited, as mysteri- 
 ous, as enduring as eternity. 
 
 NOTE A. I have not quoted the 
 verses preceding those which I have 
 extracted from the Epistle to the Philip- 
 pians, which are often adduced in proof 
 
 of Christ's supreme divinity, because it 
 is acknowledged by learned men of all 
 denominations that our translation of 
 the most important clause is incorrect, 
 and a critical discussion of the subject 
 would have been out of place. I think, 
 however, that no man, unacquainted 
 with the common theories, can read any 
 translation and escape the impression 
 that Jesus Christ is a derived, depen- 
 dent, subordinate being, and a distinct 
 being from the Father. How plain is it 
 that in this passage Paul intends by the 
 terms "God" and "the Father," not 
 Jesus Christ but another being ! How 
 plain is it that, in the passage chosen as 
 the text for this discourse, our Saviour 
 intended by these terms not himself but 
 another being ! What other idea could 
 his hearers receive ? What decisive 
 proofs are furnished by his constant 
 habit of speaking of " the Father " and 
 of " God " as another being, and of dis- 
 tinguishing himself from Him ! 
 
 NOTE B. I understand that the inter- 
 est expressed by me in the character of 
 Dr. Hopkins has surprised some of my 
 townsmen of Newport, who knew him 
 only by report, or who saw him in their 
 youth. I do not wonder at this. He 
 lived almost wholly in his study, and, 
 like very retired men, was the object of 
 little sympathy. His appearance was 
 that of a man who had nothing to do 
 with the world. I can well recollect the 
 impression which he made on me when 
 a boy, as he rode on horseback in a 
 plaid gown fastened by a girdle round 
 his waist, and with a study cap on his 
 head instead of his wig. His delivery 
 in the pulpit was the worst I ever met 
 with. Such tones never came from any 
 human voice within my hearing. He 
 was the very ideal of bad delivery. 
 Then I must say the matter was often 
 as uninviting as the manner. Dr. Hop- 
 kins was distinguished by nothing more 
 than by faithfulness to his principles. 
 He carried them out to their full extent. 
 Believing, as he did, in total depravity, 
 believing that there was nothing good 
 or generous in human nature to which 
 he could make an appeal, believing that 
 he could benefit men only by setting 
 before them their utterly lost and help- 
 less condition, he came to the point 
 without any circumlocution, and dealt 
 out terrors with an unsparing liberality. 
 Add to all this, that his manners had a
 
 426 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 bluntness, partly natural, partly the re- 
 sult of long seclusion in the country. 
 We cannot wonder that such a man 
 should be set down as hard and severe. 
 But he had a true benevolence, and, 
 what is more worthy of being noted, he 
 was given to a facetious style of conver- 
 sation. Two instances immediately oc- 
 cur to me, which happened in my own 
 circle. One day he dined at my father's 
 with a young minister who was willing 
 to comply with the costume of the day, 
 but whose modesty only allowed the 
 ruffles to peep from his breast. The 
 Doctor said, with good humor, " I don't 
 care for ruffles ; but if I wore them, I'd 
 wear them like a man." I recollect that 
 on visiting him one day when he was 
 about eighty years of age, I found his 
 eyes much inflamed by reading and 
 writing. I took the liberty to recom- 
 mend abstinence from these occupa- 
 tions. He replied, smilingly, with an 
 amusing story, and then added, " If my 
 eyes won't study, no eyes for me." This 
 facetiousness may seem to some, who 
 are unacquainted with the world, not 
 consistent with the great severity of his 
 theology ; but nothing is more common 
 than this apparent self-contradiction. 
 The ministers who deal most in terrors, 
 who preach doctrines which ought to 
 make their flesh creep, and to turn their 
 eyes into fountains of tears, are not 
 generally distinguished by their spare 
 forms or haggard countenances. They 
 take the world as easily as people of a 
 milder creed ; and this does not show 
 that they want sincerity or benevolence. 
 It only shows how superficially men 
 may believe in doctrines, which yet 
 they would shudder to relinquish. It 
 shows how little the import of language, 
 which is thundered from the lips, is com- 
 prehended and felt. I should not set 
 down as hard-hearted a man whose ap- 
 petite should be improved by preaching 
 a sermon full of images and threaten- 
 ings of " a bottomless hell." The best 
 meals are sometimes made after such 
 effusions. This is only an example of 
 the numberless contradictions in human 
 life. Men are every day saying and 
 doing, from the power of education, 
 habit, and imitation, what has no root 
 whatever in their serious convictions. 
 Dr. Hopkins, though his style of preach- 
 ing and conversation did not always 
 agree, was a sincere, benevolent man. 
 
 I remember hearing of his giving on a 
 journey all he had to a poor woman. 
 On another occasion he contributed to 
 some religious object a hundred dollars, 
 which he had received for the copyright 
 of a book ; and this he gave from his 
 penury, for he received no fixed salary, 
 and depended, in a measure, on the do- 
 nations of friends for common comforts. 
 When he first established himself in 
 Newport, he was brought into contact 
 with two great evils, the slave-trade and 
 slavery, in both of which a large part of 
 the inhabitants were or had been en- 
 gaged. " His spirit was stirred in him," 
 and without " conferring with flesh or 
 blood," without heeding the strong prej- 
 udices and passions enlisted on the side 
 of these abuses, he bore his faithful 
 testimony against them from the pulpit 
 and the press. Still more, he labored 
 for the education of the colored people, 
 and had the happiness of seeing the 
 fruits of his labors in the intelligence 
 and exemplary piety of those who came 
 under his influence. Much as he disap- 
 proved of the moderate theology of Dr. 
 Stiles, he cheerfully co-operated with 
 him in this work. Their names were 
 joined to a circular for obtaining funds 
 to educate Africans as missionaries to 
 their own country. These two eminent 
 men, who, as I think, held no ministe- 
 rial intercourse, forgot their differences 
 in their zeal for freedom and humanity. 
 
 Dr. Hopkins, in conversing with me 
 on his past history, reverted more fre- 
 quently to his religious controversies 
 than to any other event of his life, and 
 always spoke as a man conscious of 
 having gained the victory ; and in this, 
 I doubt not, that he judged justly. He 
 was true, as I have said, to his princi- 
 ples, and carried them out fearlessly to 
 their consequences ; whilst his oppo- 
 nents wished to stop half-way. Of 
 course it was easy for a practised dis- 
 putant to drive them from their posi- 
 tion. They had, indeed, the advantage 
 of common-sense on their side, but this 
 availed little at a time when it was 
 understood that common-sense was to 
 yield to the established creed. These 
 controversies are most of them forgot- 
 ten, but they were agitated with no small 
 warmth. One of the most important, 
 and which was confined to the Calvin- 
 ists, turned on what were called the 
 " Means of Grace." The question was,
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 427 
 
 whether the unregenerate could do any 
 thing for themselves, whether an uncon- 
 verted man could, by prayer, by reading 
 the Scriptures, and by public worship, 
 promote his own conversion ; whether, 
 in a word, any means used by an unre- 
 generate man would avail to that change 
 of heart on which his future happiness 
 depended. Dr. Hopkins, true to the 
 fundamental principles of Calvinism, 
 took the negative side of the ques- 
 tion. He maintained that man, being 
 wholly depraved by nature, wholly 
 averse to God and goodness, could do 
 nothing but sin, before the mighty 
 power of God had implanted a new 
 principle of holiness within his heart ; 
 that, of course, his prayers and efforts 
 before conversion were sins, and de- 
 served the divine wrath ; that his very 
 struggles for pardon and salvation, 
 wanting, as they did, a holy motive, 
 springing from the deep selfishness of 
 an unrenewed soul, only increased his 
 guilt and condemnation. The doctrine 
 was, indeed, horrible, but a plain, nec- 
 essary result of man's total corruption 
 and impotence. I state this contro- 
 versy, that the reader may know the 
 kind of topics in which the zeal and 
 abilities of our fathers were employed. 
 It also shows us how extremes meet. 
 Dr. Hopkins contended that no means 
 of religion or virtue could avail, unless 
 used with a sincere love of religion 
 and virtue. In this doctrine all liberal 
 Christians concur. In their hands, how- 
 ever, the doctrine wears an entirely dif- 
 ferent aspect in consequence of their 
 denial of total, original depravity, that 
 terrible error which drove Dr. Hopkins 
 to conclusions equally shocking to the 
 reason, to common-sense, and to the 
 best feelings of the heart. 
 
 The characteristic disposition of Dr. 
 Hopkins to follow out his principles 
 was remarkably illustrated in a manu- 
 script of his which was never published, 
 and which perhaps was suppressed by 
 those who had the charge of his papers, 
 in consequence of its leaning towards 
 some of the speculations of the infidel 
 philosophy of the day, in regard to 
 utility or the general good. It fell into 
 my hands after his death, and struck 
 me so much that I think I can trust my 
 recollections of it. It gave the author's 
 ideas of moral good. He maintained 
 that the object of " moral good," the 
 
 object on which virtue is fixed, and the 
 choice of which constitutes virtue, is 
 "natural good," or the greatest possible 
 amount of enjoyment, not our own en- 
 joyment only, but that of the whole 
 system of being. He virtually, if not 
 expressly, set forth this " natural good," 
 that is, happiness in the simple sense 
 of enjoyment, as the ultimate good, and 
 made moral good the means. I well 
 recollect how, in starting from this prin- 
 ciple, he justified eternal punishment. 
 He affirmed that sin or selfishness 
 (synonymous words in his vocabulary) 
 tended to counteract God's system, 
 which is framed for infinite happiness, 
 or tended to produce infinite misery. 
 He then insisted that by subjecting the 
 sinner to endless, that is, infinite misery, 
 this tendency was made manifest ; a 
 correspondence was established between 
 the sin and the punishment, and a bar- 
 rier was erected against sin, which was 
 demanded by the greatness of the good 
 menaced by the wrong-doer. 
 
 I have thrown together these recol- 
 lections of a man who has been crowded 
 out of men's minds by the thronging 
 events and interests of our time, but 
 who must always fill an important place 
 in our ecclesiastical history. He was a 
 singularly blameless man, with the ex- 
 ception of intolerance towards those 
 who differed from him. This he some- 
 times expressed in a manner which, to 
 those unacquainted with him, seemed a 
 sign of any thing but benignity. In one 
 point of view, I take pleasure in think- 
 ing of him. He was an illustration of 
 the power of our spiritual nature. In 
 narrow circumstances, with few outward 
 indulgences, in great seclusion, he yet 
 found much to enjoy. He lived in a 
 world of thought, above all earthly pas- 
 sions. He represented to himself, as 
 the result of the divine government, a 
 boundless diffusion of felicity through 
 the universe, and contrived to merge in 
 this the horrors of his theological sys- 
 tem. His doctrines, indeed, threw dark 
 colors over the world around him ; but 
 he took refuge from the present state of 
 things in the millennium. The millen- 
 nium was his chosen ground. If any 
 subject of thought possessed him above 
 all others, I suppose it to have been 
 this. The millennium was more than 
 a belief to him. It had the freshness of 
 visible things. He was at home in it.
 
 428 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 His book on the subject has an air of 
 reality, as if written from observation. 
 He describes the habits and customs of 
 the millennium as one familiar with 
 them. He enjoyed this future glory of 
 the church not a whit the less because 
 it was so much his own creation. The 
 fundamental idea, the germ, he found in 
 the Scriptures, but it expanded in and 
 from his own mind. Whilst to the mul- 
 titude he seemed a hard, dry theologian, 
 feeding on the thorns of controversy, he 
 was living in a region of imagination, 
 feeding on visions of a holiness and a 
 happiness which are to make earth all 
 but heaven. It has been my privilege 
 to meet with other examples of the same 
 character, with men who, amidst priva- 
 tion, under bodily infirmity, and with 
 none of those materials of enjoyment 
 which the multitude are striving for, 
 live in a world of thought, and enjoy 
 what affluence never dreamed of, men 
 having nothing, yet possessing all things ; 
 and the sight of such has done me more 
 good, has spoken more to my head and 
 heart, than many sermons and volumes. 
 I have learned the sufficiency of the 
 mind to itself, its independence on out- 
 ward things. 
 
 I regret that I did not use my acquaint- 
 ance with Dr. Hopkins to get the par- 
 
 ticulars of the habits and conversation 
 of Edwards and Whitefield, whom he 
 knew intimately. I value the hints 
 which I get about distinguished men 
 from their friends much more than writ- 
 ten accounts of them. Most biographies 
 are of little worth. The true object of 
 a biography, which is to give us an in- 
 sight into men's characters, such as an 
 intimate acquaintance with them would 
 have furnished, is little comprehended. 
 The sayings and actions of a man, which 
 breathe most of what was individual in 
 him, should be sought above all things 
 by his historian ; and yet most lives 
 contain none, or next to none, of these. 
 They are panegyrics, not lives. No 
 department of literature is so false as 
 biography. The object is, not to let 
 down the hero ; and consequently what 
 is most human, most genuine, most char- 
 acteristic in his history, is excluded. 
 Sometimes one anecdote will let us into 
 the secret of a man's soul more than all 
 the prominent events of his life. It is 
 not impossible that some readers may 
 object to some of my notices of the stern 
 theologian, to whom this note refers, as 
 too familiar. This seems to me their 
 merit. They show that he was not a 
 mere theologian, that he had the sympa- 
 thies of a man. 
 
 THE CHURCH: 
 
 A Discourse delivered in the First Congregational Unitarian Church 
 of Philadelphia, Sunday, May 30, 1841. 
 
 sion of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, 
 teach a great truth ; namely, that there 
 is but one thing essential in religion, 
 and this is the doing of God's will, the 
 doing of those sayings or precepts of 
 Christ which constitute the substance of 
 that memorable discourse. We learn 
 that it will avail us nothing to call 
 Christ Lord, Lord, to profess ourselves 
 his disciples, to hear his words, to teach 
 in his name, to take our place in his 
 church, or even to do wonderful works 
 or miracles in attestation of his truth, 
 if we neglect to cherish the spirit and 
 virtues of his religion. God heeds not 
 what we say, but what we are, and what 
 we do. The subjection of our wills to 
 
 MATTHBW vii. 21-27: "Not every one that 
 saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of jny Fa- 
 ther which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that 
 day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name ? 
 and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name 
 done many wonderful works? And then will I pro- 
 fess unto them, I never knew you ; depart from me, ye 
 that work iniquity. 
 
 "Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of 
 mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise 
 man, which built his house upon a rock ; and the rain 
 descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, 
 and beat upon that house, and it fell not ; for it was 
 founded upon a rock. 
 
 "And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, 
 and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish 
 man, which built his house upon the sand ; and the 
 rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
 blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell ; and great 
 was the fall of it." 
 
 THESE words, which form the conclu-
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 429 
 
 the divine, the mortification of sensual 
 and selfish propensities, the cultivation 
 of supreme love to God, and of universal 
 justice and charity towards our neigh- 
 bor, this, this is the very essence of 
 religion : this alone places us on a rock ; 
 this is the end, the supreme and ulti- 
 mate good, and is to be prized and 
 sought above all other things. 
 
 This is a truth as simple as it is grand. 
 The child can understand it ; and yet 
 men, in all ages, have contrived to over- 
 look it ; have contrived to find substi- 
 tutes for purity of heart and life ; have 
 hoped by some other means to commend 
 themselves to God, to enter the kingdom 
 of heaven. Forms, creeds, churches, 
 the priesthood, the sacraments, these 
 and other things have been exalted into 
 supremacy. The grand and only quali- 
 fication for heaven, that which in itself 
 is heaven, the virtue and the spirit of 
 Jesus Christ, has been obscured, de- 
 preciated ; whilst assent to certain mys- 
 teries, or union with certain churches, 
 has been thought the narrow way that 
 leads to life. I have not time in a single 
 discourse to expose all the delusions 
 which have spread on this subject. I 
 shall confine myself to one, which is not 
 limited to the past, but too rife in our 
 own times. 
 
 There has always existed, and still 
 exists, a disposition to attach undue im- 
 portance to " the church " which a man 
 belongs to. To be a member of " the 
 true church " has been insisted on as 
 essential to human salvation. Multi- 
 tudes have sought comfort, and not sel- 
 dom found their ruin, in the notion that 
 they were embraced in the motherly 
 arms of " the true church ; " for with 
 this they have been satisfied. Pro- 
 fessed Christians have fought about 
 " the church" as if it were a matter of 
 life and death. The Roman Catholic 
 shuts the gate of heaven on you be- 
 cause you will not enter his " church." 
 Among the Protestants are those who 
 tell you that the promises of Christian- 
 ity do not belong to you, be your char- 
 acter what it may, unless you receive 
 the Christian ordinances from the min- 
 isters of their " church." Salvation is 
 made to flow through a certain priest- 
 hood, through an hereditary order, 
 through particular rites administered by 
 consecrated functionaries. Even among 
 denominations in which such exclusive 
 
 claims are not set up, you will still meet 
 the idea that a man is safer in their par- 
 ticular " church " than elsewhere ; so 
 that something distinct from Christian 
 purity of heart and life is made the way 
 of salvation. 
 
 This error I wish to expose. I wish 
 to show that Christ's spirit, Christ's 
 virtue, or " the doing of the Sermon on 
 the Mount," is the great end of our re- 
 ligion, the only essential thing, and that 
 all o'ther things are important only as 
 ministering to this. I know, indeed, 
 that very many acknowledge the doc- 
 trine now expressed. But too often 
 their conviction is not deep and living, 
 and it is impaired by superstitious no- 
 tions of some mysterious saving influ- 
 ence in " the church," or in some other 
 foreign agency. To meet these erro- 
 neous tendencies, I shall not undertake 
 to prove in a formal way, by logical pro- 
 cess, the supreme importance, blessed- 
 ness, and glory of righteousness, of 
 sanctity, of love towards God and man, 
 or to prove that nothing else is indis- 
 pensable. This truth shines by its own 
 light. It runs through the whole New 
 Testament, and is a gospel written in 
 the soul by a divine hand. To vindicate 
 it against the claims set up for " the 
 church," nothing is needed but to offer 
 a few plain remarks in the order in 
 which they rise up of themselves to my 
 mind. 
 
 I begin with the remark that in the 
 Sermon on the Mount Jesus said noth- 
 ing about the "church;" nor do we 
 find him, or his disciples, laying down 
 anywhere a definite plan for its organi- 
 zation, or a ritual for its worship. Nor 
 ought this to surprise us. It was the 
 very thing to be expected in such a re- 
 ligion as Christianity. Judaism was in- 
 tended to educate a particular nation, 
 half-civilized and surrounded with the 
 grossest idolatry, and accordingly it 
 hedged them in by multiplied and rigid 
 forms. But Christianity proposes, as its 
 grand aim, to spread the inward, spirit- 
 ual worship of God through all nations, 
 in all stages of society, under all varie- 
 ties of climate, government, and condi- 
 tion ; and such a religion cannot be 
 expected to confine itself to any par- 
 ticular outward shape. Especially when 
 we consider that it is destined to endure 
 through all ages, to act on all, to blend 
 itself witli new forms of society, and
 
 430 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 with the highest improvements of the 
 race, it cannot be expected to ordain an 
 immutable mode of administration, but 
 must leave its modes of worship and 
 communion to conform themselves si- 
 lently and gradually to the wants and 
 progress of humanity. The rites and 
 arrangements which suit one period lose 
 their significance or efficiency in another. 
 The forms which minister to the mind 
 now may fetter it hereafter, and must 
 give place to its free unfolding. A sys- 
 tem wanting this freedom and flexible- 
 ness would carry strong proof in itself 
 of not having been intended for univer- 
 sality. It is one proof of Christ's hav- 
 ing come to "inherit all nations," that 
 he did not institute for all nations and all 
 times a precise machinery of forms and 
 outward rules, that he entered into no 
 minute legislation as to the worship and 
 government of his church, but left these 
 outward concerns to be swayed by the 
 spirit and progress of successive ages. 
 Of consequence, no particular order of 
 the church can be essential to salvation. 
 No church can pretend that its consti- 
 tution is defined and ordained in the 
 Scriptures so plainly and undeniably 
 that whoever forsakes it gives palpable 
 proof of a spirit of disobedience to God. 
 All churches are embraced by their 
 members with equal religious reverence, 
 and this assures us that in all God's 
 favor may be equally obtained. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that, from the 
 necessity of the case, the church as- 
 sumed at first a form which it could not 
 long retain. It was governed by the 
 Apostles who had founded it, men who 
 had known Christ personally, and re- 
 ceived his truth from his lips, and' 
 witnessed his resurrection, and were 
 enriched above all men by the miracu- 
 lous illuminations and aids of his Spirit. 
 These presided over the church with an 
 authority peculiar to themselves, and to 
 which none after them could with any 
 reason pretend. They understood "the 
 mind of Christ" as none could do but 
 those who had enjoyed so long and 
 close an intimacy with him ; and not 
 only were they sent forth with miracu- 
 lous powers, but, by imposition of their 
 hands, similar gifts of the Spirit were 
 conferred on others. This presence of 
 inspired apostles and supernatural pow- 
 ers gave to the primitive church obvious 
 and important distinctions, separating 
 
 it widely from the form which it was 
 afterwards to assume. Of this we have 
 a remarkable proof in a passage of 
 Paul, in which he sets before us the 
 offices or functions exercised in the 
 original church. " God hath set in 
 the church apostles, prophets, teachers, 
 miracles, gifts of healings, helps, govern- 
 ments, diversities of tongues." * Now, 
 of all these endowments or offices, one 
 only, that of teacher, remains in our dajr. 
 The Apostles, the founders and heroes 
 of the primitive church, with their pe- 
 culiar powers, have vanished, leaving 
 as their representatives their writings, 
 to be studied alike by all. Teachers 
 remain, not because they existed in the 
 first age, but because their office, from 
 its nature, and from the condition of 
 human nature, is needed still. The 
 office, however, has undergone an im- 
 portant change. At first the Christian 
 teacher enjoyed immediate communica- 
 tion with the Apostles, and received 
 miraculous aids, and thus enjoyed means 
 of knowledge possessed by none of his 
 successors. The Christian minister now 
 can only approach the Apostles as other 
 men do, that is, through the Gospels 
 and Epistles which they have left us ; 
 and he has no other aid from above in 
 interpreting them than every true Chris- 
 tian enjoys. The promise of the Holy 
 Spirit, that greatest of promises, is 
 made without distinction to every man, 
 of every office or rank, who persever- 
 ingly implores the Divine help ; and 
 this establishes an essential equality 
 among all. Whether teachers are to 
 continue in the brighter ages which 
 prophecy announces is rendered doubt- 
 ful by a very striking prediction of the 
 times of the Messiah. "After those 
 days," saith the Lord, " I will put my 
 law in their inward parts, and write it 
 in their hearts, and will be their God, 
 and they shall be my people. And they 
 shall teach no more every man his 
 neighbor, and every man his brother, 
 saying, ' Know the Lord ; ' for they shall 
 all know me, from the least of them 
 unto the greatest of them." f Is it pos- 
 sible that any man, with a clear com- 
 prehension of the peculiarity of the 
 primitive church, can look back to this 
 as an immutable form and rule, can re- 
 gard any church form as essential to 
 
 * i Cor. xii. 28. t Jeremiah xxxi. 33, 34.
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 431 
 
 salvation, can ascribe to outward or- 
 dinances, so necessarily fluctuating, an 
 importance to be compared with that 
 which belongs to the immutable, ever- 
 lasting distinctions of holiness and 
 virtue ? 
 
 The church as at first constituted pre- 
 sents interesting and beautiful aspects. 
 It was not a forced and arbitrary, but 
 free, spontaneous union. It grew out 
 of the principles and -feelings of human 
 nature. Our nature is social. We can- 
 not live alone. We cannot shut up any 
 great feeling in our hearts. We seek 
 for others to partake it with us. The 
 full soul finds at once relief and strength 
 in sympathy. This is especially true in 
 religion, the most social of all our sen- 
 timents, the only universal bond on 
 earth. In this law of our nature the 
 Christian church had its origin. Christ 
 did not establish it in a formal way. 
 If you consult the New Testament, you 
 do not find Jesus or his Apostles setting 
 about the task of forming an artificial 
 organization of the first disciples. Read 
 in the book of Acts the simple, touch- 
 ing narratives of the union of the first 
 converts. They "were of one heart 
 and of one soul." They could not be 
 kept asunder. The new truth melted 
 them into one mass, knit them into one 
 body. In their mutual love they could 
 not withhold from one another their 
 possessions, but had all things in com- 
 mon. Blessed unity ! a type of that 
 oneness and harmony which a purer 
 Christianity is to spread through all 
 nations. Among those early converts 
 the most gifted and enlightened were 
 chosen to be teachers in public assem- 
 blies. To these assemblies the brother- 
 hood repaired with eagerness, to hear 
 expositions of the new faith, to strength- 
 en one another's loyalty to Christ, and 
 to be open witnesses of him in the 
 world. In their meetings they were left 
 very much to follow the usages of the 
 synagogue, in which they had been 
 brought up : so little did Christianity 
 trouble itself about forms. How sim- 
 ple, how natural this association! It is 
 no mystery. It grew out of the plain- 
 est wants of the human heart. The 
 religious sentiment, the spirit of love 
 towards God and man, awakened afresh 
 by Christ, craved for a new union 
 through which to find utterance and 
 strength. And shall this church union, 
 
 the growth of the Christian spirit, and 
 so plainly subordinate to it, usurp its 
 place, or in any way detract from its 
 sole sufficiency, from its supreme, un- 
 rivalled glory ? 
 
 The church, according to its true idea 
 and purpose, is an association of sin- 
 cere, genuine followers of Christ ; and 
 at first this idea was in a good degree 
 realized. The primitive disciples were 
 drawn to Christ by conviction. They 
 I met together and confessed him, not 
 i from usage, fashion, or education, but 
 in opposition to all these. In that age, 
 profession and practice, the form and 
 the spirit, the reality and the outward 
 signs of religion, went together. But 
 with the growth of the church its life 
 declined ; its great idea was obscured ; 
 the name remained, and sometimes little 
 more than the name. It is a remarka- 
 ble fact, that the very spirit to which 
 Christianity is most hostile, the passion 
 for power, dominion, pomp, and pre- 
 eminence, struck its deepest roots in 
 the church. The church became the 
 very stronghold of the lusts and vices 
 which Christianity most abhors. Ac- 
 cordingly its history is one of the most 
 melancholy records of past times. It 
 is sad enough to read the blood-stained 
 annals of worldly empires ; but when 
 we see the spiritual kingdom of Christ 
 a prey for ages to usurping popes, prel- 
 ates, or sectarian chiefs, inflamed with 
 bigotry and theological hate and the 
 lust of rule, and driven by these fires 
 of hell to grasp the temporal sword, to 
 persecute, torture, imprison, butcher 
 their brethren, to mix with and embitter 
 national wars, and to convulse the whole 
 Christian world, we experience a deeper 
 gloom, and are more tempted to despair 
 of our race. History has not a darker 
 page than that which records the perse- 
 cutions of the Albigenses, or the horrors 
 of the Inquisition. And when we come 
 to later times, the church wears any 
 thing rather than "'Holiness" inscribed 
 on her front. How melancholy to a 
 Christian the history lately given us by 
 Ranke of the reaction of Catholicism 
 against Protestantism ! Throughout we 
 see the ecclesiastical powers resorting 
 to force as the grand instrument of con- 
 version ; thus proving their alliance, 
 not with heaven, but with earth and 
 hell. If we take broad views of the 
 church in any age or land, how seldom
 
 432 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 do we see the prevalence of true sanc- 
 tity ! How many of its ministers preach 
 for lucre or display, preach what they 
 do not believe, or deny their doctrines 
 in their lives! How many congrega- 
 tions are there, made up in a great de- 
 gree of worldly men and women, who 
 repair to the house of God from usage, 
 or for propriety's sake, or from a vague 
 notion of being saved ; not from thirst 
 for the Divine Spirit, not from a fulness 
 of heart which longs to pour itself forth 
 in prayer and praise ! Such is the 
 church. We are apt, indeed, to make 
 it an abstraction, or to separate it in 
 our thoughts from the individuals who 
 compose it ; and thus it becomes to us 
 a holy thing, and we ascribe to it strange 
 powers. Theologians speak of it as a 
 unity, a mighty whole, one and the 
 same in all ages ; and in this way the 
 imagination is cheated into the idea of 
 its marvellous sanctity and grandeur. 
 But we must separate between the 
 theory or the purpose of the church 
 and its actual state. When we come 
 down to facts, we see it to be, not a 
 mysterious, immutable unity, but a col- 
 lection of fluctuating, divided, warring 
 individuals, who bring into it too often 
 hearts and hands any thing but pure. 
 Painful as it is, we must see things as 
 they are ; and so doing, we cannot but 
 be struck with the infinite absurdity of 
 ascribing to such a church mysterious 
 powers, of supposing that it can confer 
 holiness on its members, or that the 
 circumstance of being joined to it is of 
 the least moment in comparison with 
 purity of heart and life. 
 
 Purity of heart and life, Christ's spirit 
 of love towards God and man ; this is all 
 in all. This is the only essential thing. 
 The church is important only as it min- 
 isters to this ; and every church which 
 so ministers is a good one, no matter 
 how, when, or where it grew up, no 
 matter whether it worship on its knees 
 or on its feet, or whether its ministers 
 are ordained by pope, bishop, presbyter, 
 or people ; these are secondary things, 
 and of no comparative moment. The 
 church which, opens on heaven is that, 
 and that only, in which the spirit of 
 heaven dwells. The church whose wor- 
 ship rises to God's ear is that, and that 
 only, where the soul ascends. No mat- 
 ter whether it be gathered in cathedral 
 or barn ; whether it sit in silence, or 
 
 send up a hymn ; whether the minister 
 speak from carefully prepared notes, or 
 from immediate, fervent, irrepressible 
 suggestion. If God be loved, and Jesus 
 Christ be welcomed to the soul, and his 
 instructions be meekly and wisely heard, 
 and the solemn purpose grow up to do 
 all duty amidst all conflict, sacrifice, and 
 temptation, then the true end of the 
 church is answered. " This is no other 
 than the house of God, the gate of 
 heaven." 
 
 In these remarks I do not mean that 
 all churches are of equal worth. Some 
 undoubtedly correspond more than others 
 to the spirit and purpose of Christianity, 
 to the simple usages of the primitive 
 disciples, and to the principles of human 
 nature. All have their superstitions 
 and corruptions, but some are more pure 
 than the rest ; and we are bound to seek 
 that which is purest, which corresponds 
 most to the Divine will. As far as we 
 have power to select, we should go to the 
 church where we shall be most helped to 
 become devout, disinterested, and mor- 
 ally strong. Our salvation, however, does 
 not depend on our finding the best church 
 on earth, for this may be distant or un- 
 known. Amidst diversities of administra- 
 tions there is the same spirit. In all 
 religious societies professing Christ as 
 their Lord, the plainest, grandest truths 
 of religion will almost certainly be taught, 
 and some souls may be found touched and 
 enlightened from above. This is a plain, 
 undeniable fact. In all sects, various as 
 they are, good and holy men may be found; 
 nor can we tell in which the holiest have 
 grown up. The church, then, answers 
 its end in all*; for its only end is, to 
 minister to human virtue. It is delight- 
 ful td read in the records of all denom- 
 inations the lives of eminent Christians 
 who have given up every thing for their 
 religion, who have been faithful unto 
 death, who have shed around them the 
 sweet light and fragrance of Christian 
 hope and love. We cannot, then, well 
 choose amiss, if we choose the church 
 which, as it seems to us, best represents 
 the grand ideas of Christ, and speaks 
 most powerfully to our consciences and 
 hearts. This church, however, we must 
 not choose for our brother. He differs 
 from us, probably, in temperament, in 
 his range of intellect, or in the impres- 
 sions which education and habit have 
 given him. Perhaps the worship which
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 433 
 
 most quickens you and me may hardly 
 keep our neighbor awake. He must be j 
 approached through the heart and imag- 
 ination ; we through the reason. What 
 to him is fervor passes with us for noise. 
 What to him is an imposing form is to 
 us vain show. Condemn him not. If, in 
 his warmer atmosphere, he builds up a 
 stronger faith in God and a more stead- 
 fast choice of perfect goodness than 
 ourselves, his church is better to him 
 than ours to us. 
 
 One great error in regard to churches 
 contributes to the false estimate of them 
 as essential to salvation. We imagine 
 that the church, the minister, the wor- 
 ship can do something for us mechan- 
 ically ; that there are certain mysterious 
 influences in what we call a holy place 
 which may act on us without our own 
 agency. It is not so. The church and 
 the minister can do little for us in com- 
 parison with what we must do for our- 
 selves, and nothing for us without 
 ourselves. They become to us bless- 
 ings through our own activity. Every 
 man must be his own priest. It is his 
 own action, not the minister's, it is the 
 prayer issuing from his own heart, not 
 from another's lips, which aids him in 
 the church. The church does him good 
 only as by its rites, prayers, hymns, and 
 sermons it wakes up his spirit to think, 
 feel, pray, praise, and resolve, f The 
 church is a help 4 , not a force.^ It acts on 
 us by rational and moral means, and not 
 by mystical operations. Its influence 
 resembles precisely that which is ex- 
 erted out of church. Its efficiency de- 
 pends chiefly on the clearness, sim- 
 plicity, sincerity, love, and zeal with 
 which the minister speaks to our under- 
 standings, consciences, and hearts : just 
 as in common life we are benefited by 
 the clearness and energy with which our 
 friends set before us what is good and 
 pure. The church is adapted to our 
 free, moral nature. It acts on us as 
 rational and responsible beings, and 
 serves us through our own efficiency. 
 From these views we learn that the 
 glory of the church does not lie in any 
 particular government or form, but in 
 the wisdom with which it combines such 
 influences as are fitted to awaken and 
 purify the soul. 
 
 Am I asked to state more particularly 
 what these influences are to which the 
 church owes its efficacy ? I reply, that 
 
 they are such as may be found in all 
 churches, in all denominations. The 
 first is the character of the minister. 
 This has an obvious, immediate, and 
 powerful bearing on the great spiritual 
 purpose of the church. I say his char- 
 acter, not his ordination. Ordination 
 has no end but to introduce into the 
 sacred office men qualified for its duties, 
 and to give an impression of its impor- 
 tance. It is by his personal endow- 
 ments, by his intellectual, moral, and 
 religious worth, by his faithfulness and 
 zeal, and not through any mysterious 
 ceremony or power, that the minister 
 enlightens and edifies the church. 
 What matters it how he is ordained 
 or set apart, if he give himself to his 
 work in the fear of God ? What mat- 
 ters it who has laid hands on him, or 
 whether he stand up in surplice or drab 
 coat ? I go to church to be benefited, 
 not by hands or coats, but by the action 
 of an enlightened and holy teacher on 
 my mind and heart ; not an overpow- 
 ering, irresistible action, but such as 
 becomes effectual through my own free 
 thought and will. ( I go to be convinced 
 of what is true, and to be warmed with 
 love of what is good ; and he who thus 
 helps me is a true minister, no matter 
 from what school, consistory, or ecclesi- 
 astical body he comes.} (He carries his 
 commission in his soul.) Do not say 
 that his ministry has no "validity," be- 
 cause Rome, or Geneva, or Lambeth, 
 or Andover, or Princeton has not laid 
 hands on him. What! Has he not 
 opened my eyes to see, and roused my 
 conscience to reprove ? As I have 
 heard him, has not my heart burned 
 within me, and have I not silently given 
 myself to God with new humility and 
 love ? Have I not been pierced by 
 his warnings, and softened by his looks 
 and tones of love ? Has he not taught 
 and helped me to deny myself, to con- 
 quer the world, to do good to a foe ? 
 Has he done this : and yet has his 
 ministry no " validity " ? What other 
 validity can there be than this ? If a 
 generous friend gives me water to drink 
 when I am parched with thirst, and I 
 drink and am refreshed, will it do to tell 
 me that because he did not buy the cup 
 at a certain licensed shop, or draw the 
 water at a certain antiquated cistern, 
 therefore his act of kindness is " in- 
 valid," and I am as thirsty and weak as 
 
 28
 
 434 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 I was before ? What more can a min- 
 ister with mitre or tiara do than help 
 me, by wise and touching manifestations 
 of God's truth, to become a holier, no- 
 bler man ? If my soul be made alive, 
 no matter who ministers to me ; and 
 if not, the ordinances of the church, 
 whether high or low, orthodox or he- 
 retical, are of no validity so far as I am 
 concerned. The diseased man who is 
 restored to health cares little whether 
 his physician wear wig or cowl, or re- 
 ceive his diploma from Paris or Lon- 
 don ; and so to the regenerate man it 
 is of little moment where or by what 
 processes he became a temple of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 According to these views, a minister 
 deriving power from his intellectual, 
 moral, and religious worth is one of the 
 chief elements of a true and quickening 
 church. Such a man will gather a true 
 church round him ; and we here learn 
 that a Christian community is bound to 
 do what may aid, and -to abstain from 
 what may impair, the virtue, nobleness, 
 spiritual energy of its minister. It 
 should especially leave him free, should 
 wish him to wear no restraints but those 
 of a sense of duty. His office is, to 
 utter God's truth according to his ap- 
 prehension of it, and he should be en- 
 couraged to utter it honestly, simply. 
 He must follow his own conscience, 
 and no other. How can he rebuke 
 prevalent error without an unawed 
 spirit ? Better that he should hold his 
 peace than not speak from his own 
 soul. Better that the pulpit be pros- 
 trated than its freedom be taken away. 
 The doctrine of " instructions " in pol- 
 itics is of very doubtful expediency ; 
 but that instructions should issue from 
 the congregation to the minister we all 
 with one voice pronounce wrong. The 
 religious teacher compelled to stifle his 
 convictions grows useless to his people, 
 is shorn of his strength, loses self- 
 respect, shrinks before his own con- 
 science, and owes it to himself to refrain 
 from teaching. If he be honest, upright, 
 and pure, worthy of trust, worthy of 
 being a minister, he has a right to free- 
 dom ; and when he uses it conscien- 
 tiously, though he may err in judgment, 
 and may give pain to judicious hearers, 
 he has still a right to respect. There 
 are, indeed, few religious societies which 
 would knowingly make the minister a 
 
 slave. Many err on the side of sub- 
 mission, and receive his doctrines with 
 blind, unquestioning laith. Still, the 
 members of a congregation, conscious 
 of holding the support of their teacher 
 in their hands, are apt to expect a cau- 
 tious tenderness towards their known 
 prejudices or judgments, which, though 
 not regarded as servility, is very hostile 
 to that firm, bold utterance of truth on 
 which the success of his ministry chiefly 
 depends. 
 
 I have mentioned the first condition 
 of the most useful church ; it is the 
 high character of its minister. The 
 second is to be found in the spiritual 
 character of its members. This, like 
 the former, is, from the very principles 
 of human nature, fitted to purify and 
 save. It was the intention of Christ 
 that a quickening power should be ex- 
 erted in a church, not by the minister 
 alone, but also by the members on one 
 another. Accordingly we read of the 
 "working of every part, every joint," 
 in his spiritual body. We come to- 
 gether in our places of worship that 
 heart may act on heart ; that in the 
 midst of the devout a more fervent 
 flame of piety may be kindled in our 
 own breasts ; that we may hear God's 
 word more eagerly by knowing that it 
 is drunk in by thirsty spirits around us ; 
 that our own purpose of obedience may 
 be confirmed by the consciousness that 
 a holy energy of will is unfolding itself 
 in our neighbors. To this sympathy 
 the church is dedicated ; and in this its 
 highest influence is sometimes found. 
 To myself, the most effectual church is 
 that in which I see the signs of Chris- 
 tian affection in those around me, in 
 which warm hearts are beating on every 
 side, in which a deep stillness speaks 
 of the absorbed soul, in which I recog- 
 nize fellow-beings who in common life 
 have impressed me with their piety. 
 One look from a beaming countenance, 
 one tone in singing from a deeply moved 
 heart, perhaps aids me more than the 
 sermon. When nothing is said, I feel 
 it good to be among the devout ; and I 
 wonder not that the Quakers in some of 
 their still meetings profess to hold the 
 most intimate union, not only with God, 
 but with each other. It is not with the 
 voice only that man communicates with 
 man. Nothing is so eloquent as the 
 deep silence of a crowd. A sigh, a low
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 435 
 
 breathing, sometimes pours into us our 
 neighbor's soul more than a volume of 
 words. There is a communication more 
 subtile than freemasonry between those 
 who feel alike. How contagious is holy 
 feeling! On the other hand, how freez- 
 ing, how palsying, is the gathering of a 
 multitude who feel nothing, who come 
 to God's house without reverence, with- 
 out love, who gaze around on each other 
 as if they were assembled at a show, 
 whose restlessness keeps up a slightly 
 disturbing sound, whose countenances 
 reveal no collectedness, no earnestness, 
 but a frivolous or absent mind ! The 
 very sanctity of the place makes this 
 indifference more chilling. One of the 
 coldest spots on earth is a church with- 
 out devotion. What is it to me, that a 
 costly temple is set apart, by ever so 
 many rites, for God's service, that priests 
 who trace their lineage to apostles have 
 consecrated it, if I find it thronged by 
 the worldly and undevout ? This is no 
 church to me. I go to meet, not human 
 bodies, but souls ; and if I find them in 
 an upper room like that where the first 
 disciples met, or in a shed, or in a street, 
 there I find a church. There is the true 
 altar, the sweet incense, the accepted 
 priest. These all I find in sanctified 
 souls. 
 
 True Christians give a sanctifying 
 power, a glory, to the place of worship 
 where they come together. In them 
 Christ is present and manifested in a far 
 higher sense than if he were revealed to 
 the bodily eye. We are apt, indeed, to 
 think differently. Were there a place 
 of worship in which a glory like that 
 which clothed Jesus on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration were to shine forth, how 
 should we throng to it as the chosen 
 spot on earth ! how should we honor 
 this as eminently his church ! But 
 there is a more glorious presence of 
 Christ than this. It is Christ formed 
 in the souls of his disciples. Christ's 
 bodily presence does not make a church. 
 He was thus present in the thronged 
 streets of Jerusalem, present in the syn- 
 agogues and temples ; but these were 
 not churches. It is the presence of his 
 spirit, truth, likeness, divine love in the 
 souls of men, which attracts and unites 
 them into one living body. Suppose 
 that we meet together in a place conse- 
 crated by all manner of forms, but that 
 nothing of Christ's spirit dwells in us. 
 
 With all its forms, it is a synagogue of 
 Satan, not a church of Jesus. Christ in 
 the hearts of men, I repeat it, is the 
 only church bond. The Catholics, to 
 give them a feeling of the present Sav- 
 iour, adorn their temples with paintings 
 representing him in the most affecting 
 scenes of his life and death ; and had 
 worship never been directed to these, I 
 should not object to them. But there 
 is a far higher likeness to Christ than 
 thfe artist ever drew or chiselled. It 
 exists in the heart of his true disciple. 
 The true disciple surpasses Raphael and 
 Michael Angelo. The latter have given 
 us Christ's countenance from fancy, and, 
 at bes"t, having little likeness to the I 
 mild beauty and majestic form which! 
 moved through Judea. But the disciple! 
 who sincerely conforms himself to the. 
 disinterestedness, and purity, and filial 
 worship, and all-sacrificing love of Christ 
 gives us no fancied representation, but 
 the true, divine lineaments of his soul, 
 the very spirit which beamed in his face, 
 which spoke in his voice, which attested 
 his glory as the Son of God. The truest 
 church is that which has in the highest 
 degree this spiritual presence of our 
 Lord, this revelation of Jesus in his fol- 
 lowers. This is the church in which we 
 shall find the greatest aid to our virtue 
 which outward institution can afford us. 
 I have thus spoken of the two chief 
 elements of a living and effectual church, 
 a pure, noble-minded minister, and 
 faithful followers of Christ. In the pre- 
 ceding remarks I have had chiefly in 
 view particular churches, organized ac- 
 cording to some particular forms ; and I 
 have maintained that these are impor- 
 tant only as ministering to Christian 
 holiness or virtue! There is, however, 
 a grander church, to which I now ask 
 your attention ; and the consideration 
 of this will peculiarly confirm the lesson 
 on which I am insisting, namely, that 
 there is but one essential thing, true 
 holiness, or disinterested love to God 
 and man. There is a grander church 
 than all particular ones, however exten- 
 sive, the church catholic or universal, 
 spread over all lands, and one with the 
 church in heaven. That all Christ's 
 followers form one body, one fold, is 
 taught in various passages in the New 
 Testament. You remember the ear- 
 nestness of his last prayer, " that they 
 might all be one, as he and his Father
 
 436 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 are one." Into this church all who par- 
 take the spirit of Christ are admitted. 
 It asks not who has baptized us ; whose 
 passport we carry ; what badge we wear. 
 If "baptized by the Holy Ghost," its 
 wide gates are opened to us. Within 
 this church are joined those whom dif- 
 ferent names have severed or still sever. 
 We hear nothing of Greek, Roman, 
 English churches, but of Christ's church 
 only. My friends, this is not an im- 
 aginary union. The Scriptures, in speak- 
 ing of it, do not talk rhetorically, but 
 utter the soberest truth. All sincere 
 partakers of Christian virtue are essen- 
 tially one. In the spirit which pervades 
 them dwells a uniting power found* in no 
 other tie. Though separated by oceans, 
 they have sympathies strong and indis- 
 soluble. Accordingly, the clear, strong 
 utterance of one gifted, inspired Chris- 
 tian flies through the earth. It touches 
 kindred chords in another hemisphere. 
 The word of such a man as Fe'ne'lon, 
 for instance, finds its way into the souls 
 of scattered millions. Are not he and 
 they of one church ? I thrill with joy 
 at the name of holy men who lived ages 
 ago. Ages do not divide us. I venerate 
 them more for their antiquity. Are we 
 not one body ? Is not this union some- 
 thing real ? It is not men's coming 
 together into one building which makes 
 a church. Suppose that in a place of 
 worship I sit so near a fellow-creature 
 as to touch him, but that there is no 
 common feeling between us, that the 
 truth which moves me he inwardly 
 smiles at as a dream of fancy, that the 
 disinterestedness which I honor he calls 
 weakness or wild enthusiasm. How far 
 apart are we, though visibly so near ! 
 We belong to different worlds. How 
 much nearer am I to some pure, gener- 
 ous spirit* in another continent whose 
 word has penetrated my heart, whose 
 virtues have kindled me to emulation, 
 whose pure thoughts are passing through 
 my mind whilst I sit in the house of 
 prayer ! With which of these two have 
 I church union ? 
 
 Do not tell me that I surrender myself 
 to a fiction of imagination, when I say 
 that distant Christians, that all Christians 
 and myself, form one body, one church, 
 just as far as a common love and piety 
 possess our hearts. Nothing is more 
 real than this spiritual union. There is 
 one grand, all-comprehending church ; 
 
 and if I am a Christian I belong to it, 
 and no man can shut me out of it. You 
 may exclude me from your Roman 
 church, your Episcopal church, and your 
 Calvinistic church, on account of sup- 
 posed defects in my creed or my sect, 
 and I am content to be excluded. But 
 I will not be severed from the great 
 body of Christ. Who shall sunder me 
 from such men as Fe'ne'lon, and Pascal, 
 and Borromeo, from Archbishop Leigh- 
 ton, Jeremy Taylor, and John Howard ? 
 Who can rupture the spiritual bond 
 between these men and myself ? Do I 
 not hold them dear ? Does not their 
 spirit, flowing out through their writings 
 and lives, penetrate my soul ? Are they 
 not a portion of my being ? Am I not 
 a different man from what I should have 
 been, had not these and other like spirits 
 acted on mine ? And is it in the power 
 of synod, or conclave, or of all the eccle- 
 siastical combinations on earth, to part 
 me from them ? I am bound to them 
 by thought and affection ; and can these 
 be suppressed by the bull of a pope or 
 the excommunication of a council ? The 
 soul breaks scornfully these barriers, 
 these webs of spiders, and joins itself 
 to the great and good ; and if it possess 
 their spirit, will the great and good, 
 living or dead, cast it off because it has 
 not enrolled itself in this or another 
 sect ? A pure mind is free of the uni- 
 verse. It belongs to the church, the 
 family of the pure, in all worlds. Virtue 
 is no local thing. It is not honorable 
 because born in this community or that, 
 but for its own independent, everlasting 
 beauty. This is the bond of the uni- 
 versal church. No man can be excom- 
 municated from it but by himself, by 
 the death of goodness in his own breast. 
 All sentences of exclusion are vain, if 
 he do not dissolve the tie of purity 
 which binds him to all holy souls. 
 
 I honor the Roman Catholic church 
 on one account ; it clings to the idea of 
 a universal church, though it has muti- 
 lated and degraded it. The word cath- 
 olic means universal. Would to God 
 that the church which has usurped the 
 name had understood the reality ! Still, 
 Romanism has done something to give 
 to its members the idea of their connec- 
 tion with that vast spiritual community, 
 or church, which has existed in all times 
 and spread over all lands. It guards 
 the memory of great and holy men who
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 437 
 
 in all ages have tailed and suffered for 
 religion, asserts the honors of the heroes 
 of the faith, enshrines them in heaven as 
 beatified saints, converts their legends 
 into popular literature, appoints days for 
 the celebration of their virtues, and re- 
 veals them almost as living to the eye 
 by the pictures in which genius has im- 
 mortalized their deeds. In doing this 
 Rome has fallen, indeed, into error. She 
 has fabricated exploits for these spiritual 
 persons, and exalted them into objects 
 of worship. But she has also done good. 
 She has given to her members the feel- 
 ing of intimate relation to the holiest 
 and noblest men in all preceding ages. 
 An interesting and often a sanctifying 
 tie connects the present Roman Catholic 
 with martyrs, and confessors, and a host 
 of men whose eminent piety and genius 
 and learning have won for them an im- 
 mortality of fame. It is no mean ser- 
 vice thus to enlarge men's ideas and 
 affections, to awaken their veneration 
 for departed greatness, to teach them 
 their connection with the grandest spirits 
 of all times. It was this feature of Ca- 
 tholicism which most interested me in 
 visiting Catholic countries. The ser- 
 vices at the altar did not move, but 
 rather pained me. But when I cast my 
 eyes on the pictures on the walls, which 
 placed before me the holy men of de- 
 parted ages, now absorbed in devotion 
 and lost in rapture, now enduring with 
 meek courage and celestial hope the 
 agonies of a painful death in defence 
 of the truth, I was touched, and I hope 
 made better. The voice of the officiat- 
 ing priest I did not hear ; but these 
 sainted dead spoke to my heart, and I 
 was sometimes led to feel as if an hour 
 on Sunday spent in this communion 
 were as useful to me as if it had been 
 spent in a Protestant church. These 
 saints never rose to my thoughts as 
 Roman Catholics. I never connected 
 them with any particular church. They 
 were to me living, venerable witnesses 
 to Christ, to the power of religion, to 
 the grandeur of the human soul. I saw 
 what men might suffer for the truth, 
 how they could rise above themselves, 
 how real might become the ideas of 
 God and a higher life. This inward 
 reverence for the departed good helped 
 me to feel myself a member of the 
 church universal. I wanted no pope or 
 priest to establish my unity with them. 
 
 My own heart was witness enough to a 
 spiritual fellowship. Is it not to be de- 
 sired that all our churches should have 
 services to teach us our union with 
 Christ's whole body ? Would not this 
 break our sectarian chains, and awaken 
 reverence for Christ's spirit, for true 
 goodness, under every name and form ? 
 It is not enough to feel that we are 
 members of this or that narrow com- 
 munion. Christianity is universal sym- 
 pathy and love. I do not recommend 
 that our churches should be lined with 
 pictures of saints. This usage must 
 come in, if it come at all, not by recom- 
 mendation, but by gradual change of 
 tastes and feelings. But why may not 
 the pulpit be used occasionally to give 
 us the lives and virtues of eminent dis- 
 ciples in former ages ? It is customary 
 to deliver sermons on the history of Peter, 
 John, Paul, and of Abraham, and Elijah, 
 and other worthies of the Old Testa- 
 ment ; and this we do because their 
 names are written in the Bible. But 
 goodness owes nothing to the circum- 
 stance of its being recorded in a sacred 
 book, nor loses its claim to grateful, rev- 
 erent commemoration because not bla- 
 zoned there. Moral greatness did not 
 die out with the Apostles. Their lives 
 were reported for this, among other 
 ends, that their virtues might be prop- 
 agated to future times, and that men 
 might spring up as worthy a place among 
 the canonized as themselves. What. I 
 wish is, that we should learn to regard 
 ourselves as members of a vast spiritual 
 community, as joint-heirs and fellow- 
 worshippers with the goodly company 
 of Christian heroes who have gone be- 
 fore us, instead of immuring ourselves 
 in particular churches. Our nature de- 
 lights in this consciousness of vast con- 
 nection. This tendency manifests itself 
 in the patriotic sentiment, and in the 
 passionate clinging of men to a great 
 religious denomination. Its true and 
 noblest gratification is found in the deep 
 feeling of a vital, everlasting connection 
 with the universal church, with the in- 
 numerable multitude of the holy on 
 earth and in heaven. This church we 
 shall never make a substitute for virtue. 
 I have spoken of the Roman Catholic 
 church. My great objection to this 
 communion is, that it has fallen pecul- 
 iarly into the error which I am laboring 
 to expose in this discourse, that it has
 
 438 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 attached idolatrous importance to the 
 institution of the church, that it virt- 
 ually exalts this above Christ's spirit, 
 above inward sanctity. Its other errors 
 are of inferior importance. It does not 
 offend me that the Romanist maintains 
 that a piece of bread, a wafer, over 
 which a priest has pronounced some 
 magical words, is the flesh and blood of 
 Jesus Christ. I learn, indeed, in this 
 error, an humbling lesson of human 
 credulity, of the weakness of human 
 reason ; but I see nothing in it which 
 strikes at the essential principles of re- 
 ligion. When, however, the Roman 
 Catholic goes farther, and tells me that 
 God looks with abhorrence on all who 
 will not see in the consecrated wafer 
 Christ's flesh and blood ; and when he 
 makes the reception of this from the 
 hands of a consecrated priest the door 
 into Christ's fold, then I am shocked by 
 the dishonor he casts on God and virtue, 
 by his debasing conceptions of our moral 
 nature and of the Divine, and by his cruel 
 disruption of the ties of human and 
 Christian brotherhood. How sad and 
 strange that a man educated under 
 Christianity should place religion in 
 a church connection, in church rites, 
 should shut from God's family the 
 wisest and the best because they con- 
 scientiously abstain from certain out- 
 ward ordinances ! Is not holiness of 
 heart and life dear to God for its own 
 sake, dear to him without the manipula- 
 tions of a priest, without the agency of 
 a consecrated wafer ? The grand error 
 of Roman Catholicism is its narrow 
 church spirit, its blind sectarianism, its 
 exclusion of virtuous, pious men from 
 God's favor because they cannot eat, 
 drink, or pray according to certain pre- 
 scribed rites. Romanism has to learn 
 that nothing but the inward life is great 
 and good in the sight of the Omniscient, 
 and that all who cherish this are mem- 
 bers of Christ's body. Romanism is 
 any thing but what it boasts to be, the 
 universal church. I am too much a 
 Catholic to enlist under its banner. 
 
 I belong to the universal church ; 
 nothing shall separate me from it. In 
 saying this, however, I am no enemy to 
 particular churches. In the present age 
 of the world, it is perhaps best that 
 those who agree in theological opinions 
 should worship together ; and I do not 
 object to the union of several such 
 
 churches in one denomination, provided 
 that all sectarian and narrow feeling 
 be conscientiously and scrupulously re- 
 sisted. I look on the various churches 
 of Christendom with no feelings of en- 
 mity. I have expressed my abhorrence 
 of the sectarian spirit of Rome ; but in 
 that, as in all other churches, individ- 
 uals are better than their creed ; and, 
 amidst gross error and the inculcation 
 of a narrow spirit, noble virtues spring 
 up, and eminent Christians are formed. 
 It is one sign of the tendency of human 
 nature to goodness, that it grows good 
 under a thousand bad influences. The 
 Romish church is illustrated by great 
 names. Her gloomy convents have 
 often been brightened by fervent love 
 to God and man. Her St. Louis, and 
 Fene"lon, and Massillon, and Cheverus ; 
 her missionaries, who have carried 
 Christianity to the ends of the earth ; 
 her sisters of charity, who have carried 
 relief and solace to the most hopeless 
 want and pain, do not these teach us 
 that in the Romish church the Spirit of 
 God has found a home ? How much, 
 too, have other churches to boast ! In 
 the English church we meet the names 
 of Latimer, Hooker, Barrow, Leighton, 
 Berkeley and Heber ; in the Dissenting 
 Calvinistic church, Baxter, Howe, Watts, 
 Doddridge, and Robert Hall : among the 
 Quakers, George Fox, William Penn, 
 Robert Barclay, and our own Anthony 
 Benezet, and John Woolman ; in the 
 Anti-trinitarian church, John Milton, 
 John Locke, Samuel Clarke, Price, and 
 Priestley. To repeat these names does 
 the heart good. They breathe a fra- 
 grance through the common air. They 
 lift up the whole race to which they be- 
 longed. With the churches of which 
 they were pillars or chief ornaments I 
 have many sympathies ; nor do I con- 
 demn the union of ourselves to these or 
 any other churches whose doctrines we 
 approve, provided that we do it without 
 severing ourselves in the least from the 
 universal church. On this point we 
 cannot be too earnest. We must shun 
 the spirit of sectarianism as from hell. 
 We must shudder at the thought of 
 shutting up God in any denomination. 
 We must think no man the better for 
 belonging to our communion ; no man 
 the worse for belonging to another. 
 We must look with uncliminished joy 
 on goodness, though it shine forth from
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 439 
 
 the most adverse sect. Christ's spirit 
 must be equally dear and honored, no 
 matter where manifested. To confine 
 God's love or his good Spirit to any 
 party, sect, or name, is to sin against the 
 fundamental law of the kingdom of God, 
 to break that living bond with Christ's 
 universal church which is one of our 
 chief helps to perfection. 
 
 I have now given what seems to me 
 the most important views in relation to 
 the church ; and in doing this I have 
 not quoted much from Scripture, be- 
 cause quotations cannot be given fully 
 on this or on any controverted point in 
 the compass of a discourse. I have re- 
 lied on what is vastly more important, 
 on the general strain and tone of Script- 
 ure, on the spirit of the Christian relig- 
 ion, on the sum and substance of Christ's 
 teachings, which is plainly this, that in- 
 ward holiness, or goodness, or disinter- 
 ested love, is all in all. I also want 
 time to consider at large the arguments 
 or modes of reasoning by which this or 
 that church sets itself forth as the only 
 true church, and by which the necessity 
 of entering it is thought to be proved. 
 I cannot, however, abstain from offering 
 a few remarks on these. 
 
 The principal arguments on which 
 exclusive churches rest their claims are 
 drawn from Christian history and litera- 
 ture ; in other words, from the records 
 of the primitive ages of our faith, and 
 from the writings of the early Fathers. 
 These arguments, I think, may be dis- 
 pos*ed of by a single remark, that they 
 cannot be comprehended or weighed by 
 the mass of Christians. How very, very 
 few in our congregations can enter into 
 the critical study of ecclesiastical his- 
 tory, or wade through the folios of the 
 Greek and Latin Fathers ! Now, if it 
 were necessary to join a particular 
 church in order to receive the bless- 
 ings of Christianity, is it to be conceived 
 that the discovery of this church should 
 require a learning plainly denied to the 
 mass of human beings ? Would not this 
 church shine out with the brightness of 
 the sun ? Would it be hidden in the 
 imperfect records of distant ages, or in 
 the voluminous writings of a body of 
 ancient authors more remarkable for 
 rhetoric than for soundness of judg- 
 ment ? The learned cannot agree about 
 these authorities. How can the great 
 multitudes of believers interpret them ? 
 
 Would not the Scriptures guide us by 
 simple, sure rules to the only true 
 church, if to miss it were death ? To 
 my own mind this argument has a force 
 akin to demonstration. 
 
 I pass to another method of defending 
 the claims which one or another church 
 sets up to exclusive acceptance with 
 God. It is an unwarrantable straining 
 of the figurative language of Scripture. 
 Because the church is spoken of as one 
 body, vine, or temple, theologians have 
 argued that it is one outward organiza- 
 tion, to which all men must be joined. - 
 But a doctrine built on metaphor is 
 worth little. Every kind of absurdity 
 may find a sanction in figures of speech, 
 explained by tame, prosaic, cold-hearted 
 commentators. The beautiful forms of 
 speech to which I have referred were 
 intended to express the peculiarly close 
 and tender unions which necessarily 
 subsist among all the enlightened and 
 sincere disciples of such a religion as 
 Christ's, a religion whose soul, es- 
 sence, and breath of life is love, which 
 reveals to us in Jesus the perfection of 
 philanthropy, and which calls to us to 
 drink spiritually of that blood of self- 
 sacrifice which was shed for the whole 
 human race. How infinitely exalted is 
 the union of minds and hearts formed 
 by such a religion above any outward 
 connection established by rites and 
 forms ! Yet the latter has been seized 
 on by the earthly understanding as the 
 chief meaning of Scripture, and magni- 
 fied into supreme importance. Has not 
 Paul taught us that there is but one per- 
 fect bond, love ? * Has not Christ 
 taught us that the seal set on his disci- 
 ples, by which all men are to know them, 
 is love ?f Is not this the badge of the 
 true church, the life of the true body of 
 Christ ? And is not every disciple, of 
 every name and form, who is inspired 
 with this, embraced indissolubly in the 
 Christian union ? 
 
 It is sometimes urged by those who 
 maintain the necessity of connection with 
 what they call " the true church," that 
 God has a right to dispense his bless- 
 ings through what channels or on what 
 terms He pleases ; that, if He sees fit to 
 communicate his Holy Spirit through a 
 certain priesthood or certain ordinances, 
 we are bound to seek the gift in his ap- 
 
 ' Colossians, iii. 14. 
 
 t John xiii. 35.
 
 440 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 pointed way : and that, having actually 
 chosen this method of imparting it, He 
 may justly withhold it from those who 
 refuse to comply with his appointment. 
 I reply, that the right of the Infinite 
 Father to bestow his blessings in such 
 ways as to his infinite wisdom and love 
 may seem best, no man can be so irrev- 
 erent as to deny. But is it not reason- 
 able to expect that He will adopt such 
 methods or conditions as will seem to 
 accord with his perfection ? And ought 
 we not to distrust such as seem to dis- 
 honor him ? Suppose, for example, that 
 I were told that the Infinite Father had 
 decreed to give his Holy Spirit to such 
 as should bathe freely in the sea. Ought 
 I not to require the most plain, undeni- 
 able proofs of a purpose apparently so 
 unworthy of his majesty and goodness, 
 before yielding obedience to it ? The 
 presumption against it is exceedingly 
 strong. That the Infinite Father, who 
 is ever present to the human soul, to 
 whom it is unspeakably dear, who has 
 created it for communion with himself, 
 who desires and delights to impart to it 
 his grace, that He should ordain sea- 
 bathing as a condition or means of spir- 
 itual communication is so improbable 
 that I must insist on the strongest testi- 
 mony to its truth. Now I meet pre- 
 cisely this difficulty in the doctrine, that 
 God bestows his Holy Spirit on those 
 who receive bread and wine, or flesh 
 and blood, or a form of benediction or 
 baptism, or any other outward minis- 
 tration, from the hands or lips of cer- 
 tain privileged ministers or priests. It is 
 the most glorious act and manifestation 
 of God's power and love to impart en- 
 lightening, quickening, purifying influ- 
 ences to the immortal soul. To imagine 
 that these descend in connection with 
 certain words, signs, or outward rites, 
 administered by a frail fellow-creature, 
 and are withheld or abridged in the ab- 
 sence of such rites, seems, at first, an 
 insult to his wisdom and goodness ; 
 ; seems to bring down his pure, infinite 
 throne to set arbitrary limits to his 
 highest agency, and to assimilate his 
 worship to that of false gods. The 
 Scriptures teach us that " God giveth 
 grace to the humble ; " that " he giveth 
 his Holy Spirit to them that ask hfm." 
 This is the great law of divine commu- 
 nications ; and we can see its wisdom, 
 because the mind which hungers for di- 
 
 vine assistances is most prepared to use 
 them aright. And can we really believe 
 that the prayers and aspirations of a 
 penitent, thirsting soul need to be sec- 
 onded by the outward offices of a min- 
 ister or priest ? or that for want of these 
 they find less easy entrance into the ear 
 of the ever-present, all-loving Father ? 
 My mind recoils from this doctrine as 
 dishonorable to God, and I ought not to 
 receive it without clear proofs. I want 
 something more than metaphors, or an- 
 alogies, or logical inferences. I want 
 some express divine testimony. And 
 where is it given ? Do we not know 
 that thousands and millions of Chris- 
 tians, whose lives and deaths have borne 
 witness to their faith, have been unable 
 to find it in the Scriptures or anywhere 
 else ? And can we believe that the 
 spiritual communication of such men 
 with the Divinity has been forfeited or 
 impaired, because they have abstained 
 from rites which in their consciences 
 they could not recognize as of divine 
 appointment ? That so irrational and 
 extravagant a doctrine should enter the 
 mind of a man who has the capacity of 
 reading the New Testament would seem 
 an impossibility, did not history show us 
 that it has been not only believed, but 
 made the foundation of the bitterest 
 intolerance and the bloodiest persecu- 
 tions. 
 
 The notion that, by a decree of God's 
 sovereign will, his grace or Spirit flows 
 through certain rites to those who are in 
 union with a certain church, and that it 
 is promised to none besides, has no 
 foundation in Scripture or reason. The 
 church, as I have previously suggested, 
 is not an arbitrary appointment ; it does 
 not rest on will, but is ordained on ac- 
 count of its obvious fitness to accom- 
 plish the spiritual improvement which is 
 the end of Christianity. It corresponds 
 to our nature. It is a union of means, 
 and influences, and offices which rational 
 and moral creatures need. It has no 
 affinity with the magical operations so 
 common in false religions ; its agency 
 is intelligible and level to the common 
 mind. Its two great rites, baptism and 
 the Lord's supper, are not meant to act 
 as charms. When freed from the errors 
 and superstitions which have clung to 
 them for ages, and when administered, 
 as they should be. with tenderness and 
 solemnity, they are powerful means of
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 441 
 
 bringing great truths to the mind and of 
 touching the heart, and for these ends 
 they are ordained. The adaptation of 
 the church to the promotion of holiness 
 among men is its grand excellence ; and 
 where it accomplishes this end its work 
 is done, and no greater can be conceived 
 on earth or in heaven. The moment we 
 shut our eyes on this truth, and conceive 
 of the church as serving us by forms 
 and ordinances which are effectual only 
 in the hands of privileged officials or 
 priests, we plunge into the region of 
 shadows and superstitions : we have no 
 ground to tread on, no light to guide us. 
 This mysterious power, lodged in the 
 hands of a few fellow-creatures, tends 
 to give a servile spirit to the mass of 
 Christians, to impair manliness and self- 
 respect, to subdue the intellect to the 
 reception of the absurdest dogmas. 
 Religion loses its simple grandeur, and 
 degenerates into mechanism and form. 
 The conscience is quieted by something 
 short of true repentance ; something 
 besides purity of heart and life is made 
 the qualification for heaven. The surest 
 device for making the mind a coward 
 and a slave is a wide-spread and closely 
 cemented church, the powers of which 
 are concentrated in the hands of a " sa- 
 cred order," and which has succeeded 
 in arrogating to its rites or ministers a 
 sway over the future world, over the 
 soul's everlasting weal or woe. The 
 inevitably degrading influence of such 
 a church is demonstrative proof against 
 its divine original. 
 
 There is no end to the volumes writ- 
 ten in defence of this or that church 
 which sets itself forth as the only true 
 church, and claims exclusive acceptance 
 with God. But the unlettered Christian 
 has an answer to them all. He cannot 
 and need not seek it in libraries. He 
 finds it, almost without seeking, in plain 
 passages of the New Testament, and in 
 his own heart. He reads and he feels 
 that religion is an inward life. This he 
 knows, not by report, but by conscious- 
 ness, by the prostration of his soul in 
 penitence, by the surrender of his will 
 to the divine, by overflowing gratitude, 
 by calm trust, and by a new love to his 
 fellow-creatures. Will it do to tell such, 
 a man that the promises of Christianity 
 do not belong to him, that access to 
 God is denied him. because he is not 
 joined with this or that exclusive church ? 
 
 Has not this access been granted to him 
 already ? Has he not prayed in hisgriefs, 
 and been consoled ? in his temptations, 
 and .been strengthened ? Has he not 
 found God near in. his solitudes and in 
 the great congregation ? Does he thirst 
 for any thing so fervently as for perfect 
 assimilation to the divine purity ? And 
 can he question God's readiness to help 
 him, because he is unable to find in 
 Scripture a command to bind himself to 
 this or another self-magnifying church ? 
 How easily does the experience of the 
 true Christian brush away the cobwebs 
 of theologians ! He loves and reveres 
 God, and in this spirit has a foretaste of 
 heaven ; and can heaven be barred 
 against him by ecclesiastical censures ? 
 He has felt the power of the cross 
 and resurrection and promises of Jesus 
 Christ ; and is there any " height or 
 depth " of human exclusiveness and 
 bigotry which can separate him from 
 his Lord ? He can die for truth and 
 humanity ; and is there any man so 
 swelled by the conceit of his union with 
 the true church as to stand apart and 
 say, " I am holier than thou " ? When, 
 by means of the writings or conversa- 
 tions of Christians of various denomi- 
 nations, you look into their hearts, and 
 discern the deep workings, and conflicts, 
 and aspirations of piety, can you help 
 seeing in them tokens of the presence 
 and operations of God's Spirit more 
 authentic and touching than in all the 
 harmonies and beneficent influences of 
 the outward universe ? Who can shut 
 up this spirit in any place or any sect ? 
 Who will not rejoice to witness it in its 
 fruits of justice, goodness, purity, and 
 piety, wherever they meet the eye ? 
 Who will not hail it as the infallible 
 sign of the accepted worshipper of 
 God? 
 
 One word more respecting the argu- 
 ments adduced in support of one or 
 another exclusive church. They are 
 continually, and of necessity, losing 
 their force. Arguments owe their in- _ 
 fluence very much to the mental condi- 
 tion of those to whom they are addressed. 
 What is proof to one man is no proof to 
 another. The evidence which is trium- 
 phant in one age is sometimes thought 
 below notice in the next. Men's rea- 
 sonings on practical subjects are not 
 cold, logical processes, standing sepa- 
 rate in "the mind, but are carried on in
 
 442 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 intimate connection with their prevalent 
 feelings and modes of thought. Gener- 
 ally speaking, that, and that only, is truth 
 to a man which accords with the com- 
 mon tone of his mind, with the mass 
 of his impressions, with the results of 
 his experience, with his measure of in- 
 tellectual development, and especially 
 with those deep convictions and biases 
 which constitute what we call character. 
 Now, it is the tendency of increasing 
 civilization, refinement, and expansion 
 of mind, to produce a tone of thought 
 and feeling unfriendly to the church 
 spirit, to reliance on church forms as 
 essential to salvation. As the world 
 advances it leaves matters of form be- 
 hind. In proportion as men get into 
 the heart of things they are less anxious 
 about exteriors. In proportion as re- 
 ligion becomes a clear reality we grow 
 tired of shows. In the progress of ages 
 there spring up in greater numbers men 
 of mature thought and spiritual freedom, 
 who unite self-reverence with reverence 
 of God, and who cannot, without a feel- 
 ing approaching shame and conscious 
 degradation, submit to a church which 
 accumulates outward, rigid, mechanical 
 observances towards the Infinite Fa- 
 ther. A voice within them, which they 
 cannot silence, protests against the per- 
 petual repetition of the same signs, 
 motions, words, as unworthy of their 
 own spiritual powers, and of him who 
 deserves the highest homage of the 
 reason and the heart. Their filial spirit 
 protests against it. In common life, a 
 refined, lofty mind expresses itself in 
 simple, natural, unconstrained manners ; 
 and the same tendency, though often 
 obstructed, is manifested in religion. 
 The progress of Christianity, which 
 must go on, is but another name for the 
 growing knowledge and experience of 
 that spiritual worship of the Father 
 which Christ proclaimed as the end of 
 his mission ; and before this the old idol- 
 atrous reliance on ecclesiastical forms 
 and organizations cannot stand. There 
 is thus a perpetually swelling current 
 which exclusive churches have to stem, 
 and which must sooner or later sweep 
 away their proud pretensions. What 
 avails it that this or another church 
 summons to its aid fathers, traditions, 
 venerated usages ? The spirit, the genius 
 of Christianity is stronger than all these. 
 The great ideas of the religion must 
 
 prevail over narrow, perverse interpre- 
 tations of it. On this ground I have 
 no alarm at reports of the triumphs of 
 the Catholic church. The spirit of 
 Christianity is stronger than popes and 
 councils. Its venerableness and divine 
 beauty put to shame the dignities and 
 pomps of a hierarchy : and men must 
 more and more recognize it as alone 
 essential to salvation. 
 
 From the whole discussion through 
 which I have now led you, you will 
 easily gather how I regard the church, 
 and what importance I attach to it. In 
 its true idea, or regarded as the union 
 of those who partake in the spirit of 
 Jesus Christ, I revere it as the noblest 
 of all associations. Our common social 
 unions are poor by its side. In the 
 world we form ties of interest, pleasure, 
 and ambition. We come together as 
 creatures of time and sense for transient 
 amusement or display. In the church 
 we meet as God's children ; we recog- 
 nize in ourselves something higher than 
 this animal and worldly life. We come 
 that holy feelings may spread from 
 heart to heart. The church, in its true 
 idea, is a retreat from the world. We 
 meet in it, that, by union with the holy, 
 we may get strength to withstand our 
 common intercourse with the impure. 
 We meet to adore God, to open our 
 souls to his Spirit, and, by recognition 
 of the common Father, to forget all dis- 
 tinction among ourselves, to embrace 
 all men as brothers. This spiritual 
 union with the holy who are departed 
 and who yet live, is the beginning of 
 that perfect fellowship which consti- 
 tutes heaven. It is to survive all ties. 
 The bonds of husband and wife, parent 
 and child, are severed at death ; the 
 union of the virtuous friends of God 
 and man is as eternal as virtue, and 
 this union is the essence of the true 
 church. 
 
 To the church relation, in this broad, 
 spiritual view of it, I ascribe the highest 
 dignity and importance. But as to union 
 with a particular denomination or with a 
 society of Christians for public worship 
 and instruction, this, however important, 
 is not to be regarded as the highest means 
 ,of grace. We ought, indeed, to seek 
 help for ourselves, and to give help to 
 others, by upholding religious institu- 
 tions, by meeting together in the name 
 of Christ. The influence of Christianity
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 443 
 
 is perpetuated and extended, in no small 
 degree, by the public offices of piety, by 
 the visible " communion of saints." But 
 it is still true that the public means of 
 religion are not its chief means. Private 
 helps to piety are the most efficacious. 
 The great work of religion is to be done, 
 not in society, but in secret, in the re- 
 tired soul, in the silent closet. Com- 
 munion with God is eminently the means 
 of religion, the nutriment and life of the 
 soul, and we can commune with God 
 in solitude as nowhere else. Here his 
 presence may be most felt. It is by 
 the breathing of the unrestrained soul, 
 by the opening of the whole heart to 
 " Him who seeth in secret ; " it is by 
 reviewing our own spiritual history, by 
 searching deeply into ourselves, by soli- 
 tary thought, and solitary, solemn con- 
 secration of ourselves to a new virtue ; 
 it is by these acts, and not by public 
 gatherings, that \ve chiefly make progress 
 in the religious life. It is common to 
 speak of the house of public worship 
 as a holy place ; but it has no exclusive 
 sanctity. The holiest spot on earth is 
 that where the soul breathes its purest 
 vows, and forms or executes its noblest 
 purposes ; and on this ground, were I 
 to seek the holiest spot in your city, I 
 should not go to your splendid sanctu- 
 aries, but to closets of private prayer. 
 Perhaps the " Holy of Holies " among 
 you is some dark, narrow room from 
 which most of us would shrink as unfit 
 for human habitation ; but God dwells 
 there. He hears there music more 
 grateful than the swell of all your or- 
 gans, sees there a beauty such as nature, 
 in these her robes of spring, does not 
 unfold ; for there He meets, and sees, 
 and hears the humblest, most thankful, 
 most trustful worshipper : sees the sorest 
 trials serenely borne, the deepest injuries 
 forgiven ; sees toils and sacrifices cheer- 
 fully sustained, and death approached 
 through poverty and lonely illness with 
 a triumphant faith. The consecration 
 which such virtues shed over the ob- 
 scurest spot is not and cannot be com- 
 municated by any of those outward rites 
 by which our splendid structures are 
 dedicated to God. 
 
 You see the rank which belongs to 
 the church, whether gathered in one 
 place or spread over the whole earth. 
 It is a sacred and blessed union, but 
 must not be magnified above other 
 
 means and helps of religion. The 
 great aids of piety are secret, not pub- 
 lic. The Christian cannot live without 
 private prayer ; he may live and make 
 progress without a particular church. 
 Providence may place us far from the 
 resorts of our fellow-disciples, beyond 
 the sound of the Sabbath-bell, beyond 
 all ordinances ; and we may find Sab- 
 baths and ordinances in our own spirits. 
 Illness may separate us from the out- 
 ward church as well as from the living 
 world, and the soul may yet be in health 
 and prosper. There have been men of 
 eminent piety who, from conscience, 
 have separated themselves from all de- 
 nominations of Christians and all out- 
 ward worship. Milton, that great soul, 
 in the latter years of his life, forsook 
 all temples made with hands, and wor- 
 shipped wholly in the inward sanctuary. 
 So did William Law, the author of that 
 remarkable book, " The Serious Call to 
 a Devout and Holy Life." His excess 
 of devotion (for in him devotion ran 
 into excess) led him to disparage all 
 occasional acts of piety. He lived in 
 solitude, that he might make life a per- 
 petual prayer. These men are not named 
 as models in this particular. They mis- 
 took the wants of the soul, and misin- 
 terpreted the Scriptures. Even they, 
 with all their spirituality, would have 
 found moral strength and holy impulse 
 in religious association. But, with such 
 examples before us, we learn not to ex- 
 clude men from God's favor because 
 severed from the outward church. 
 
 The doctrine of this discourse is plain. 
 Inward sanctity, pure love, disinterested 
 attachment to God and man, obedience 
 of heart and life, sincere excellence of 
 character, this is the one thing needful, 
 this the essential thing in religion ; and 
 all things else, ministers, churches, or- 
 dinances, places of worship, all are but 
 means, helps, secondary influences, and 
 utterly worthless when separated from 
 this. To imagine that God regards any 
 thing but this, that He looks at any thing 
 but the heart, is to dishonor him, to ex- 
 press a mournful insensibility to his pure 
 character. Goodness, purity, virtue, this 
 is the only distinction in God's sight. 
 This is intrinsically, essentially, ever- 
 lastingly, and by its own nature lovely, 
 beautiful, glorious, divine. It owes noth- 
 ing to time, to circumstance, to outward 
 connections. It shines by its own light.
 
 444 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 It is the sun of the spiritual universe. 
 It is God himself dwelling in the human 
 soul. Can any man think lightly of it 
 because it has not grown up in a certain 
 church, or exalt any church above it ? 
 My friends, one of the grandest truths 
 of religion is the supreme importance of 
 character, of virtue, of that divine spirit 
 which shone out in Christ. The grand 
 heresy is to substitute any thing for this, 
 whether creed, or form, or church. One 
 of the greatest wrongs to Christ is to 
 despise his character, his virtue, in a 
 disciple who happens to wear a different 
 name from our own. 
 
 When I represent to myself true virtue 
 or goodness, not that which is made 
 up of outward proprieties and prudent 
 calculations, but that which chooses duty 
 for its own sake and as the first concern : 
 which respects impartially the rights of 
 every human being ; which labors and 
 suffers with patient resolution for truth 
 and others' welfare ; which blends energy 
 and sweetness, deep humility and self- 
 reverence ; which places joyful faith in 
 the perfection of God, communes with 
 him intimately, and strives to subject to 
 his pure will all thought, imagination, 
 and desire ; which lays hold on the 
 promise of everlasting life, and in the 
 strength of this hope endures calmly 
 and firmly the sorest evils of the present 
 state, when I set before me this virtue, 
 all the distinctions on which men value 
 themselves fade away. Wealth is poor ; 
 worldly honor is mean ; outward forms 
 are beggarly elements. Condition, coun- 
 try, church, all sink into unimportance. 
 Before this simple greatness I bow, I 
 revere. The robed priest, the gorgeous 
 altar, the great assembly, the pealing 
 organ, all the exteriors of religion, van- 
 ish from my sight as I look at the 
 good and great man, the holy, disinter- 
 ested soul. Even I, with vision so dim, 
 with heart so cold, can see and feel the 
 divinity, the grandeur of true goodness. 
 How, then, must God regard it ? To 
 his pure eye how lovely must it be ! 
 And can any of us turn from it because 
 some water has not been dropped on its 
 forehead, or some bread put into its lips 
 by a minister or priest ; or because it 
 has not learned to repeat some myste- 
 rious creed which a church or human 
 council has ordained ? 
 
 My friends, reverence virtue, holi- 
 ness, the upright will which inflexibly 
 
 cleaves to duty and the pure law of 
 God. Reverence nothing in compari- 
 son with it. Regard this as the end, 
 and all outward services as the means. 
 Judge of men by this. Think no man 
 the better, no man the worse, for the 
 church he belongs to. Try him by his 
 fruits. Expel from your breasts the 
 demon of sectarianism, narrowness, big- 
 otry, intolerance. This is not, as we are 
 apt to think, a slight sin. It is a de- 
 nial of the supremacy of goodness. It 
 sets up something, whether a form or 
 dogma, above the virtue of the heart 
 and the life. Sectarianism immures it- 
 self in its particular church as in a dun- 
 geon, and is there cut off from the free 
 air, the cheerful light, the goodly pros- 
 pects, the celestial beauty of the church 
 universal. 
 
 My friends, I know that I am address- 
 ing those who hold various opinions as 
 to the controverted points of theology. 
 W T e have grown up under different in- 
 fluences. We bear different names. 
 But if we purpose solemnly to do God's 
 will, and are following the precepts and 
 example of Christ, we are one church, 
 and let nothing divide us. Diversities 
 of opinion may incline us to worship 
 under different roofs ; or diversities of 
 tastes or habit, to worship with differ- 
 ent forms. But these varieties are not 
 schisms ; they do not break the unity of 
 Christ's church. We may still honor 
 and love and rejoice in one another's 
 spiritual life and progress as truly as if 
 we were cast into one and the same 
 unyielding form. God loves variety in 
 nature and in the human soul, nor does 
 He reject it in Christian worship. In 
 many great truths, in those which are 
 most quickening, purifying, and consol- 
 ing, we all, I hope, agree. There is, 
 too, a common ground of practice, aloof 
 from all controversy, on which we may 
 all meet. We may all unite hearts and 
 hands in doing good, in fulfilling God's 
 purposes of love towards our race, in 
 toiling and suffering for the cause of 
 humanity, in spreading intelligence, 
 freedom, and virtue, in making God 
 known for the reverence, love, and imi- 
 tation of his creatures, in resisting the 
 abuses and corruptions of past ages, in 
 exploring and drying up the sources of 
 poverty, in rescuing the fallen from in- 
 temperance, in succoring the orphan and 
 widow, in enlightening and elevating the
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 445 
 
 depressed portions of the community, in 
 breaking the yoke of the oppressed and 
 enslaved, in exposing and withstanding 
 the spirit and horrors of war, in sending 
 God's word to the ends of the earth, in 
 redeeming the world from sin and woe. 
 The angels and pure spimts who visit 
 our earth come not to join a sect, but 
 to do good to all. May thig universal 
 charity descend on us, and possess our 
 hearts'! may our narrowness, exclusive- 
 ness, and bigotry melt away under this 
 .mild, celestial fire ! Thus we shall not 
 only join ourselves to Christ's universal 
 church on earth, but to the invisible 
 church, to the innumerable company of 
 the just made perfect, in the mansions 
 of everlasting purity and peace. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 I have spoken in this discourse of the 
 Romish church as excluding from salva- 
 tion those who do not submit to it. I 
 know, and rejoice to know, that many 
 Catholics are too wise and good to hold 
 this doctrine ; but the church, inter- 
 preted by its past words and acts, is not 
 so liberal. 
 
 I have also expressed my reverence 
 for the illustrious names which have 
 adorned the English church. This 
 church sets up higher claims than any 
 other in the Protestant world ; but by 
 a man acquainted with its early history 
 it will be seen to be clothed with no 
 peculiar authority. If any Protestant 
 church deserves to be called a creature 
 of the state, it is this. It was shaped 
 by the sovereign very much after his 
 own will. It is a problem in history 
 how the English people, so sturdy and 
 stout-hearted in the main, could be so 
 tame and flexible in matters of religion 
 under Henry the Eighth, Edward the 
 Sixth, Mary, and Elizabeth. They seem 
 to have received, almost as unresistingly 
 as the coin, the image and superscription 
 of the king. The causes of this yield- 
 ingness are to be found in the averseness 
 to civil broils to which the nation had 
 been brought by the recent bloody and 
 exhausting wars of the Roses ; in the 
 formidable power of the Tudor sover- 
 eigns ; in the insular position of Eng- 
 land, and her distance from Rome, which 
 checked the domination of the papacy ; 
 in the ignorance of the people : in the rav- 
 enousness of the nobles for the property 
 of the church in the first instance, and 
 
 afterwards in their greediness for court 
 favor. This strange pliancy is a stain on 
 the annals of the country. It was in the 
 Puritans that the old national sturdiness 
 revived, that England became herself 
 again. These men were rude in aspect, 
 and forbidding in manners ; but, with 
 all their sternness, narrowness, frowning 
 theology, and high religious pretensions, 
 they were the master-spirits of their 
 times. To their descendants it is de- 
 lightful to think of the service they ren- 
 dered to the civil and religious liberties 
 of England and the world, and to recall 
 their deep, vital piety, a gem most rudely 
 set, but too precious to be overvalued. 
 
 Since the preceding discourse has 
 been printed, the following extract from 
 an article in the " Edinburgh Review " 
 for July, 1841, entitled u The Port- 
 Royalists," has been deemed so strik- 
 ingly coincident that it is herewith 
 appended : 
 
 " But for every labor under the sun, says 
 the Wise Man, there is a time. There is 
 a time for bearing testimony against the 
 errors of Rome ; why not also a time for 
 testifying to the sublime virtues with which 
 those errors have been so often associated ? 
 Are we for ever to admit and never to prac- 
 tise the duties of kindness and mutual for- 
 bearance ? Does Christianity consist in a 
 vivid perception of the faults, and an 
 obtuse blindness to the merits, of those 
 who differ from us ? Is charity a virtue 
 only when we ourselves are the objects of 
 it ? Is there not a church as pure and more 
 catholic than that of Oxford or Rome, 
 a church comprehending within its limits 
 every human being who, according to the 
 measure of the knowledge placed within 
 his reach, strives habitually to be conformed 
 to the will of the common Father of us all ? 
 To indulge hope beyond the pale of some 
 narrow communion has, by each Christian 
 society in its turn, been denounced as a 
 daring presumption. Yet hope has come 
 to all ; and with her, faith and charity, her 
 inseparable companions. Amidst the shock 
 of contending creeds and the uproar of 
 anathemas, they who have ears to hear and 
 hearts to understand have listened to gen- 
 tler and more kindly sounds. Good men 
 may debate as polemics, but they will feel 
 as Christians. On the universal mind of 
 Christendom is indelibly engraven one im- 
 age, towards which the eyes of all are more 
 or less earnestly directed. Whoever has 
 himself caught any resemblance, however 
 faint and imperfect, to that divine and be- 
 nignant Original, has, in his measure,
 
 446 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 learned to recognize a brother wherever 
 he can discern the same resemblance. 
 
 "There is an essential unity in that king- 
 dom which is not of this world. But 
 within the provinces of that mighty state 
 there is room for endless varieties of ad- 
 ministration, and for local laws and cus- 
 toms widely differing from each other. 
 The unity consists in the one object of 
 worship, the one object of affiance, the 
 one source of virtue, the one cementing 
 principle of mutual love which pervades 
 and animates the whole. The diversities 
 are, and must be, as numerous and intrac- 
 table as are the essential distinctions which 
 nature, habit, and circumstances have cre- 
 ated amongst men. Uniformity of creeds, 
 of discipline, of ritual, and of ceremonies, 
 in such a world as ours ! a world where no 
 two men are not as distinguishable in their 
 mental as in their physical aspect ; where 
 every petty community has its separate 
 system of civil government ; where all that 
 meets the eye, and all that arrests the ear, 
 has the stamp of boundless and infinite 
 variety ! What are the harmonies of tone, 
 of color, and of form, but the result of 
 contrasts, of contrasts held in subordina- 
 tion to one pervading principle, which rec- 
 onciles without confounding the component 
 elements of the music, the painting, or the 
 structure ? In the physical works of God, 
 beauty could have no existence without 
 endless diversities. Why assume that in 
 religious society a work not less surely 
 to be ascribed to the supreme Author of 
 all things this law is absolutely reversed ? 
 Were it possible to subdue that innate 
 tendency of the human mind which com- 
 pels men to differ in religious opinions and 
 observances, at least as widely as on all other 
 subjects, what would be the results of such 
 a triumph ? Where would then be the 
 free comparison and the continual enlarge- 
 ment of thought ; where the self-distrusts 
 which are the springs of humility, or the 
 mutual dependencies which are the bonds 
 of love ? He who made us with this infi- 
 nite variety in our intellectual and physical 
 constitution must have foreseen, and, fore- 
 seeing, must have intended, a correspond- 
 ing dissimilarity in the opinions of his 
 creatures on all questions submitted to their 
 
 judgment and proposed for their accept- 
 ance. For truth is his law ; and if all 
 will profess to think alike, all must live in 
 the habitual violation of it. 
 
 "Zeal for uniformity attests the latent 
 distrusts, not the firm convictions of the 
 zealot. In proportion to the strength of 
 our self-reliance is our indifference to the 
 multiplication of suffrages in favor of our 
 own judgment. Our minds are steeped in 
 imagery ; and where the visible form is 
 not, the impalpable spirit escapes the notice 
 of the unreflecting multitude. In common 
 hands analysis stops at the species or the 
 genus, and cannot rise to the order or the 
 class. To distinguish birds from fishes, 
 beasts from insects, limits the efforts of 
 the vulgar observer of the face of nature. 
 But Cuvier could trace the sublime unity, 
 the universal type, the fontal idea existing 
 in the creative intelligence, which connects 
 as one the mammoth and the snail. So, 
 common observers can distinguish from 
 each other the different varieties of religious 
 society, and can rise no higher. Where 
 one assembly worships with harmonies of 
 music, fumes of incense, ancient liturgies, 
 and a gorgeous ceremonial, and another 
 listens to the unaided voice of a single 
 pastor, they can perceive and record the 
 differences ; but the hidden ties which 
 unite them both escape such observation. 
 All appears as contrast, and all ministers 
 to antipathy and discord. It is our belief 
 that these things may be rightly viewed in 
 a different aspect, and yet with the most 
 severe conformity to the divine will, whether 
 as intimated by natural religion, or as re- 
 vealed in Holy Scripture. We believe 
 that, in the judgment of an enlightened 
 charity, many Christian societies who are 
 accustomed to denounce each other's errors 
 will at length come to be regarded as mem- 
 bers in common of the one great and com- 
 prehensive church, in which diversities of 
 forms are harmonized by an all-pervading 
 unity of spirit. For ourselves, at least, we 
 should deeply regret to conclude that we 
 are aliens from that great Christian com- 
 monwealth of which the nuns and recluses 
 of the valley of Port-Royal were members, 
 and members assuredly of no common 
 excellence."
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL, 
 
 447 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 
 
 Discourse pronounced before the Sunday-School Society. 
 
 MATTHEW xix. 13, 14 : " Then were there brought 
 untc him little children, that he should put his hands 
 on them, and pray : and the disciples rebuked them. 
 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them 
 not, to come unto me ; for of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven." 
 
 THE subject of this discourse is in- 
 dicated by the name of the society at 
 whose request I appear in this place. 
 The Sunday-school, this is now to en- 
 gage our attention. I believe I can best 
 aid it by expounding the principles on 
 which it should rest, and by which it 
 should be guided. I am not anxious to 
 pronounce an eulogy on this and sim- 
 ilar institutions. They do much good, 
 but they are destined to do greater. 
 They are in their infancy, and only giv- 
 ing promise of the benefits they are to 
 confer. They already enjoy patronage, 
 and this will increase certainly, neces- 
 sarily, in proportion as they shall grow 
 in efficiency and usefulness. I wish to 
 say something of the great principles 
 which should preside over them, and of 
 the modes of operation by which they 
 can best accomplish their end. This 
 discourse, though especially designed 
 for Sunday-schools, is, in truth, equally 
 applicable to domestic instruction. Par- 
 ents who are anxious to train up their 
 children in the paths of Christian virtue 
 will find in every principle and rule, now 
 to be laid down, a guide for their own 
 steps. How to reach, influence, en- 
 lighten, elevate the youthful mind, this 
 is the grand topic ; and who ought not 
 to be interested in it ? for who has not 
 an interest in the young ? 
 
 I propose to set before you my views 
 under the following heads. I shall con- 
 sider, first, the principle on which such 
 schools should be founded ; next, their 
 end or great object ; in the third place, 
 what they should teach ; and, lastly, 
 how they should teach. These divisions, 
 if there were time to fill them up, would 
 exhaust the subject. I shall satisfy my- 
 self with offering you what seem to me 
 the most important views under each. 
 
 I. I am, first, to consider the principle 
 
 on which the Sunday-school should be 
 founded. It must be founded and car- 
 ried on in faith. You must not estab- 
 lish it from imitation, nor set it in 
 motion because other sects have adopt- 
 ed a like machinery. The Sunday- 
 school must be founded on and sustained 
 by a strong faith in its usefulness, its 
 worth, its importance. Faith is the 
 spring of all energetic action. Men 
 throw their souls into objects only be- 
 cause they believe them to be attain- 
 able and worth pursuit. You must have 
 faith in your school ; and for this end 
 you must have faith in God ; in the 
 child whom you teach ; and in the 
 Scriptures which are to be taught. 
 
 You must have faith in God ; and by 
 this I do not mean a general belief of 
 his existence and perfection, but a faith 
 in him as the father and friend of the 
 children whom you instruct, as desiring 
 their progress more than all human 
 friends, and as most ready to aid you in 
 your efforts for their good. You must 
 not feel yourselves alone. You must 
 not think when you enter the place of 
 teaching that only you and your pupils 
 are present, and that you have nothing 
 but your power and wisdom to rely on 
 for success. You must feel a higher 
 presence. You must feel that the Fa- 
 ther of these children is near you, and 
 that He loves them with a boundless 
 love. Do not think of God as interested 
 only in higher orders of beings, or only 
 in great and distinguished men. The 
 little child is as dear to him as the hero, 
 as the philosopher, as the angel ; for in 
 that child are the germs of an angel's 
 powers, and God has called him into 
 being that he may become an angel. 
 On this faith every Sunday-school should 
 be built, and on such a foundation it 
 will stand firm and gather strength. 
 
 Again, you must have faith in the 
 child whom you instruct. Believe in the 
 greatness of its nature and in its ca- 
 pacity of improvement. Do not measure 
 its mind by its frail, slender form. In a
 
 448 
 
 THE SUNDA Y-SCHOOL. 
 
 very few years, in ten years perhaps, 
 that child is to come forward into life, 
 to take on him the duties of an arduous 
 vocation, to assume serious responsi- 
 bilities, and soon after he may be the 
 head of a family and have a voice in the 
 government of his country. All the 
 powers which he is to put forth in life, 
 all the powers which are to be unfolded 
 in his endless being, are now wrapped 
 up within him. That mind, not you, nor 
 I, nor an angel, can comprehend. Feel 
 that your scholar, young as he is, is 
 worthy of your intensest interest. Have 
 faith in his nature, especially as fitted 
 for religion. Do not, as some do, look 
 on the child as born under the curse of 
 God, as naturally hostile to all goodness 
 and truth. What ! the child totally de- 
 praved ! Can it be that such a thought 
 ever entered the mind of a human being ? 
 especially of a parent ! What ! in the 
 beauty of childhood and youth, in that 
 open brow, that cheerful smile, do you 
 see the brand of total corruption ? Is it 
 a little fiend who sleeps so sweetly on 
 his mother's breast ? Was it an infant 
 demon which Jesus took in his arms 
 and said, " Of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven " ? Is the child, who, as you re- 
 late to him a story of suffering or gen- 
 erosity, listens with a tearful or kindling 
 eye and a throbbing heart, is he a child 
 of hell ? As soon could I look on the 
 sun, and think it the source of darkness, 
 as on the countenance of childhood or 
 of youth, and see total depravity written 
 there. My friends, we should believe 
 any doctrine sooner than this, for it 
 tempts us to curse the day of our birth ; 
 to loathe our existence ; and, by making 
 our Creator our worst foe, ana our fel- 
 low-creatures hateful, it tends to rupt- 
 ure all the ties which bind us to God 
 and our race. My friends, have faith in 
 the child ; not that it is virtuous and 
 holy at birth ; for virtue or holiness is 
 not, cannot be born with us, but is a 
 free, voluntary effort of a being who 
 knows the distinction of right and 
 wrong, and who, if tempted, adheres to 
 the right ; but have faith in the child as 
 capable of knowing and loving the good 
 and the true, as having a conscience to 
 take the side of duty, as open to ingen- 
 uous motives for well-doing, as created 
 for knowledge, wisdom, piety, and dis- 
 interested love. 
 
 Once more, you must have faith in 
 
 Christianity, as adapted to the mind of 
 the child, as the very truth fitted to en- 
 lighten, interest, and improve the hu- 
 man being in the first years of his life. 
 It is the property of our religion, that, 
 whilst it stretches beyond the grasp of 
 the mightiest intellect, it contracts it- 
 self, so to speak, within the limits of the 
 narrowest ; that, whilst it furnishes mat- 
 ter of inexhaustible speculation to such 
 men as Locke and Newton, it conde- 
 scends to the ignorant and becomes the 
 teacher of babes. Christianity at once 
 speaks with authority in the schools of 
 the learned, and enters the nursery to 
 instil with gentle voice celestial wisdom 
 into the ears of infancy. And this won- 
 derful property of our religion is to be 
 explained by its being founded on. and 
 answering to. the primitive and most 
 universal principles of human nature. 
 It reveals God as a parent ; and the 
 first sentiment which dawns on the child 
 is love to its parents. It enjoins not 
 arbitrary commands, but teaches the 
 everlasting principles of duty ; and the 
 sense of duty begins to unfold itself in the 
 earliest stages of our being. It speaks of 
 a future world and its inhabitants ; and 
 childhood welcomes the idea of angels, 
 of spirits, of the vast, the wonderful, the 
 unseen. Above all, Christianity is set 
 forth in the life, the history, the char- 
 acter of Jesus ; and his character, though 
 so sublime, is still so real, so genuine, 
 so remarkable for simplicity, and so 
 naturally unfolded amidst the common 
 scenes of life, that it is seized in its prin- 
 cipal features by the child as no other 
 greatness can be. One of the excel- 
 lencies of Christianity is, that it is not 
 an abstruse theory, not wrapt up in ab- 
 stract phrases ; but taught us in facts, 
 in narratives. It lives, moves, speaks, 
 and acts before our eyes. Christian 
 love is not taught us in cold precepts. 
 It speaks from the cross. So, immor- 
 tality is not a vague promise. It breaks 
 forth like the morning from the tomb 
 near Calvary. It becomes a glorious 
 reality in the person of the rising Sav- 
 iour : and his ascension opens to our 
 view the heaven into which he enters. 
 It. is this historical form o*f our religion 
 which peculiarly adapts it to childhood, 
 to the imagination and heart, which open 
 first in childhood. In this sense, the 
 kingdom of heaven, the religion of 
 Christ, belongs to children. This you
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 449 
 
 must feel. Believe in the fitness of our 
 religion for those you teach. Feel that 
 you have the very instrument for acting 
 on the young mind, that you have the 
 life-giving word. 
 
 II. Having considered the faith in | 
 which the Sunday-school should be 
 founded, I proceed' now to consider the ! 
 end, the great object, which should be 
 proposed and kept steadily in view by 
 its friends. To work efficiently and use- 
 fully, we must understand what we are 
 to work for. In proportion as an end 
 is seen dimly and unsteadily, our action 
 will be vague, uncertain, and our energy 
 wasted. What, then, is the end of the 
 Sunday-school ? The great end is, to 
 awaken the soul of the pupil, to bring 
 his understanding, conscience, and heart 
 into earnest, vigorous action on religious 
 and moral truth, to excite and cherish in 
 him spiritual life. Inward life, force, 
 activity, this it must be our aim to call 
 forth and build up in all our teachings 
 of the young, especially in religious 
 teaching. You must never forget, my 
 friends, whether parents or Sunday- 
 school instructors, what kind of a being 
 you are acting upon. Never forget that 
 the child is a rational, moral, free being, 
 and that the great end of education is to 
 awaken rational and moral energy within 
 him, and to lead him to the free choice 
 of the right, to the free determination of 
 himself to truth and duty. The child is 
 not a piece of wax to be moulded at an- 
 other's pleasure, not a stone to be hewn 
 passively into any shape which the ca- 
 price and interest of others may dictate ; 
 but a living, thinking being, made to 
 act from principles in his own heart, to 
 distinguish for himself between good 
 and evil, between truth and falsehood, 
 to form himself, to be in an important 
 sense the author of his own character, 
 the determiner of his own future being. 
 This most important view of the child 
 should never forsake the teacher. He is 
 a free moral agent, and our end should 
 be to develop such a being. He must 
 not be treated as if he were unthinking 
 matter. You can make a house, a ship, 
 a statue, without its own consent. You 
 determine the machines which you form 
 wholly by your own will. The child has 
 a will as well as yourselves. The great 
 design of his being is, that he should act 
 from himself and on himself. He can 
 understand the perfection of his nature, 
 
 and is created that he may accomplish it 
 from free choice, from a sense of duty, 
 from his own deliberate purpose. 
 
 The great end in religious instruction, 
 whether in the Sunday-school or family, 
 is, not to stamp our minds irresistibly on 
 the young, but to stir up their own : not 
 to make them see with our eyes, but to 
 look inquiringly and steadily with their 
 own ; not to give them a definite amount 
 of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent 
 love of truth ; not to form an outward 
 regularity, but to touch inward springs ; 
 not to burden the memory, but to quicken 
 and strengthen the power of thought ; 
 not to bind them by ineradicable preju- 
 dices to our particular sect or peculiar 
 notions, but to prepare them for impar- 
 tial, conscientious judging of whatever 
 subjects may, in the course of Provi- 
 dence, be offered to their decision ; not 
 to impose religion upon them in the form 
 of arbitrary rules, which rest on no foun- 
 dation but our own word and will, but to 
 awaken the conscience, the moral dis- 
 cernment, so that they may discern and 
 approve for themselves what is everlast- 
 ingly right and good ; not to tell them 
 that God is good, but to help them to 
 see and feel his love in all that He does 
 within and around them : not to tell 
 them of the dignity of Christ, but to 
 open their inward eye to the beauty and 
 greatness of his character, and to enkin- 
 dle aspirations after a kindred virtue. 
 In a word, the great object of all schools 
 is to awaken intellectual and moral life 
 in the child. Life is the great thing to 
 be sought in a human being. Hitherto, 
 most religions and governments have 
 been very much contrivances for extin- 
 guishing life in the human soul. Thanks 
 to God, we live to see the dawning of a 
 better day. 
 
 By these remarks, I do not mean that 
 we are never to give our children a com- 
 mand without assigning our reasons, or 
 an opinion without stating our proofs. 
 They must rely on us in the first instance 
 for much that they cannot comprehend ; 
 but I mean that our great aim in con- 
 trolling them must be to train them to 
 control themselves, and our great aim in 
 giving them instruction must be to aid 
 them in the acquisition of truth for them- 
 selves. As far as possible, religion should 
 be adapted to their minds and hearts. 
 We should teach religion as we do nature: 
 We do not shut up our children from 
 
 29
 
 450 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 outward nature, and require them to be- 
 lieve in the great laws of the Creator, in 
 the powers of light, heat, steam, gravity, 
 on our word alone. We put them in the 
 presence of nature. We delight to verify 
 what we teach them of the mineral, ani- 
 mal, and vegetable worlds, by facts placed 
 under their own eyes. We encourage 
 them to observe for themselves, and to 
 submit to experiment what they hear. 
 Now, all the great principles of morals 
 and religion may be illustrated and con- 
 firmed, like the great laws of nature, by 
 what falls under the child's own conscious- 
 ness and experience. Indeed, great moral 
 and religious truths are nearer to him 
 than the principles of natural science. 
 The germs of them are in the soul. All 
 the elementary ideas of God and duty 
 and love and happiness come to him from 
 his own spiritual powers and affections. 
 Moral good and evil, virtue and vice, are 
 revealed to him in his own motives of 
 action and in the motives of those around 
 him. Faith in God and virtue does not 
 depend on assertion alone. Religion car- 
 ries its own evidence, with it more than 
 history or science. It should rest more 
 on the soul's own consciousness, experi- 
 ence, and observation. To wake up the 
 soul to a clear, affectionate perception 
 of the reality and truth and greatness of 
 religion, is the great end of teaching. 
 
 The great danger of Sunday-schools 
 is, that they will fall into a course of 
 mechanical teaching, that they will give 
 religion as a lifeless tradition, and not as 
 a quickening reality. It is not enough 
 to use words conveying truth. Truth 
 must be so given that the mind will 
 lay hold on, will recognize it as truth, 
 and will incorporate it with itself. The 
 most important truth may lie like a dead 
 weight on the mind, just as the most 
 wholesome food, for want of action in 
 the digestive organs, becomes an oppres- 
 sive load. I do not think that so much 
 harm is done by giving error to a child 
 as by giving truth in a lifeless form. 
 What is the misery of the multitudes in 
 Christian countries ? Not that they dis- 
 believe Christianity ; not they hold great 
 errors ; but that truth lies dead within 
 them. They use the most sacred words 
 without meaning. They hear of spiritual 
 realities, awful enough to raise the dead, 
 with utter unconcern ; and one reason 
 of this insensibility is, that teaching in 
 early life was so mechanical, that re- 
 
 ligion was lodged in the memory and 
 the unthinking belief, whilst the reason 
 was not awakened, nor the conscience 
 nor the heart moved. According to the 
 common modes of instruction, the minds 
 of the young become worn to great 
 truths. By reading the Scriptures with- 
 out thought or feeling, their minds are 
 dulled to its most touching and sublime 
 passages ; and, when once a passage lies 
 dead in the mind, its resurrection to life 
 and power is a most difficult work. Here 
 lies the great danger of Sunday-schools. 
 Let us never forget that their end is to 
 awaken life in the minds and hearts of 
 the young. 
 
 III. I now proceed to consider what 
 is to be taught in the Sunday-schools, to 
 accomplish the great end of which I have 
 spoken ; * and this may seem soon set- 
 tled. Should I ask you what is to be 
 taught in the Sunday-school, the answer 
 would be, " The Christian religion. The 
 institution is a Christian one, and has 
 for its end the communication of Chris- 
 tian truth." I acquiesce in the answer ; 
 but the question then comes, " In what 
 forms shall the religion be taught, so as 
 to wake up the life of the child ? Shall 
 a catechism be taught ? " I say, No. 
 A catechism is a skeleton, a dead letter, 
 a petrifaction. Wanting life, it can give 
 none. A cold abstraction, it cannot but 
 make religion repulsive to pupils whose 
 age demands that truth should be em- 
 bodied, set before their eyes, bound up 
 with real life. A catechism, by being 
 systematical, may give a certain order 
 and method to teaching ; but systems of 
 theology are out of place in Sunday- 
 schools. They belong to the end, not 
 the beginning of religious teaching. Be- 
 sides, they are so generally the construc- 
 tions of human ingenuity rather than the 
 living forms of divine wisdom ; they 
 give such undue prominence to doc- 
 trines which have been lifted into im- 
 portance only by the accident of having 
 been made matters of controversy ; they 
 so often sacrifice common-sense, the 
 plain dictates of reason and conscience, 
 to the preservation of what is called 
 
 * In the remarks which I am to make on what is to 
 be taught in the Sunday-school, I take it for granted 
 that this school is the first stage of a course of religious 
 instruction, not the whole course ; that it prepares for, 
 but does not include, Bible clashes, and other classes 
 in which the most difficult books of Scripture, the evi- 
 dences of natural and revealed religion, and a system 
 of moral philosophy, should be taught.
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 451 
 
 consistency ; they lay such fetters on 
 teacher and learner, and prevent so 
 much the free action of the mind and 
 heart, that they seldom enter the Sun- 
 day-school but to darken and mislead it. 
 
 The Christian religion should be 
 learned not from catechisms and sys- 
 tems, but from the Scriptures, and es- 
 pecially from that part of the Scriptures 
 in which it especially resides, in the 
 histories, actions, words, sufferings, tri- 
 umphs of Jesus Christ. The Gospels, 
 the Gospels, these should be the text- 
 book of Sunday-schools. They are more 
 adapted to the child than any other part 
 of Scripture. They are full of life, re- 
 ality, beauty, power, and in skilful hands 
 are fitted above all writing to awaken 
 spiritual life in old and young. 
 
 The Gospels are to be the study of 
 the Sunday-school teacher, and of all 
 who teach the young ; and the great 
 object of study must be to penetrate 
 to the spirit of these divine writings, 
 and, above all things, to comprehend 
 the spirit, character, purpose, motives, 
 love of Jesus Christ. He is to be the 
 great study. In him, his religion is re- 
 vealed as nowhere else. Much atten- 
 tion is now given, and ploperly given, 
 by teachers to what may be called the 
 letter of the Gospels, to the geography 
 of the country where Christ lived, to the 
 customs to which he refers, to the state 
 of society which surrounded him. This 
 knowledge is of great utility. We should 
 strive to learn the circumstances in which 
 Jesus was placed and lived, as thoroughly 
 as those of our own times. We should 
 study the men among whom he lived, 
 their opinions and passions, their hopes 
 and expectations, the sects who hated 
 and opposed him, the superstitions which 
 prevailed among the learned and the 
 multitude, and strive to see all these 
 things as vividly as if we had lived at 
 the very moment of Christ's ministry. 
 But all this knowledge is to be gained 
 not for its own sake, but as a means of 
 bringing us near to Jesus, of letting us 
 into the secrets of his mind, of reveal- 
 ing to us his spirit and character, and 
 of bringing out the full purpose and 
 import of all that he did and said. It 
 is only by knowing the people among 
 whom he was born, and brought up, and 
 lived, and died, that we can fully com- 
 prehend the originality, strength, and 
 dignity of his character, his unborrowed, 
 
 self-subsisting excellence, his miracu- 
 lous love. We have very few of us a 
 conception how Jesus stood alone in the 
 age in which he lived, how unsustained 
 he was in his great work, how he found 
 not one mind to comprehend his own, 
 not one friend to sympathize with his 
 great purpose, how every outward influ- 
 ence withstood him ; and, for want of 
 this conception, we do not regard Jesus 
 with the interest which his character 
 should inspire. 
 
 The teachers of the young should 
 strive to be at home with Jesus, to know 
 him familiarly, to form a clear, vivid, 
 bright idea of him, to see him just as he 
 appeared on earth, to see him in the 
 very dress in which he manifested him- 
 self to the men of his age. They should 
 j follow him to the temple, to the moun- 
 | tain top, to the shores of the sea of 
 j Galilee, and should understand the mixed 
 | feelings of the crowd around him, should 
 | see the scowl of the Pharisee who lis- 
 tened to catch his words for some matter 
 of accusation, the imploring look of the 
 diseased seeking healing from his words, 
 the gaze of wonder among the ignorant, 
 and the delighted, affectionate, reveren- 
 tial eagerness with which the single- 
 hearted and humble hung on his lips. 
 Just in proportion as we can place our- 
 selves near to Christ, his wisdom, love, 
 greatness will break forth, and we shall 
 be able to bring him near to the mind of 
 the child. 
 
 The truth is, that few of us apprehend 
 vividly the circumstances under which 
 Jesus lived and taught, and therefore 
 much of the propriety, beauty, and au- 
 thority of his character is lost. For 
 example, his outward condition is not 
 made real to us. The pictures which 
 the great artists have left us of Jesus 
 have helped to lead us astray. He is 
 there seen with a glory around his head, 
 and arrayed in a robe of grace and maj- 
 esty. Now, Jesus was a poor man ; he 
 had lived and wrought as a carpenter, 
 and he came in the dress common to 
 those with whom he had grown up. 
 His chosen companions were natives 
 of an obscure province, despised for 
 its ignorance and rude manners, and 
 they followed him in the garb of men 
 who were accustomed to live by daily 
 toil. Such was the outward condition 
 of Jesus. Such was his manifestation 
 to a people burning with expectation of
 
 452 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 a splendid, conquering deliverer ; and in 
 such circumstances he spoke with an 
 authority which awed both high and low. 
 In learning the outward circumstances 
 of Jesus, we not merely satisfy a natural 
 curiosity, but obtain a help towards un- 
 derstanding his character and the spirit 
 of his religion. His condition reveals 
 to us the force and dignity of his mind, 
 which could dispense with the ordinary 
 means of inspiring respect. It shows 
 the deep sympathy of Christ with the 
 poor of our race, for among these he 
 chose to live. It speaks condemnation 
 to those who, professing to believe in 
 Christ, separate themselves from the 
 multitude of men because of the acci- 
 dent of wealth, and attach ideas of su- 
 periority to dress and show. From this 
 illustration you may learn the impor- 
 tance of being acquainted with every 
 part of Christ's history, with his com- 
 mon life, as well as his more solemn 
 actions and teachings. Every thing re- 
 lating to him breathes instruction, and 
 gives the teacher a power over the mind 
 of the child. 
 
 The Gospels must be the great study 
 to the Sunday-school teacher. Many, 
 when they hear of studying the New 
 Testament, imagine that they must ex- 
 amine commentators to understand bet- 
 ter the difficult texts, the dark passages 
 in that book. I mean something very 
 different. Strive, indeed, to clear up 
 as far as you can the obscure portions 
 of Christ's teaching. There are texts 
 which, in consequence of their connec- 
 tion with forgotten circumstances of the 
 time, are now of uncertain meaning. 
 But do not think that the most impor- 
 tant truths of Christianity are locked 
 up in these dark passages of the New 
 Testament. There is nothing in the 
 dark, which is not to be found in the 
 plain, portions of Scripture. Perhaps 
 the highest use of examining difficult 
 texts is to discover their harmony with 
 those that are clear. The parts of the 
 gospel which the Sunday-school teacher 
 should most study are those which need 
 no great elucidation from criticism, 
 the parables, the miracles, the actions, 
 the suffering, the prayers, the tears of 
 Jesus ; and these are to be studied, 
 that the teacher may learn the spirit, 
 the soul of Christ, may come near to 
 that wonderful being, may learn the great 
 purpose to which he was devoted, the 
 
 affections which overflowed his heart, 
 the depth and expansiveness of his 
 love, the profoundness of his wisdom, 
 the unconquerable strength of his trust 
 in God.* The character of Christ is the 
 sum of his religion. It is the clearest, 
 the most beautiful manifestation of the 
 character of God, far more clear and 
 touching than all the teachings of nat- 
 ure. It is also the brightest revelation 
 to us of the moral perfection which his 
 precepts enjoin, of disinterested love to 
 God and man, of faithfulness to princi- 
 ple, of fearlessness in duty, of superi- 
 ority to the world, of delight in the good 
 and the true. The expositions of the 
 Christian virtues in all the volumes of 
 all ages, are cold and dark compared 
 with the genial light and the warm col- 
 oring in which Christ's character sets 
 before us the spirit of his religion, the 
 perfection of our nature. 
 
 The great work, then, of the Sunday- 
 school teacher is to teach Christ, and to 
 teach him not as set forth in creeds and 
 human systems, but as living and mov- 
 ing in the simple histories of the Evan- 
 gelists. Christ is to be taught ; and by 
 this I mean, not any mystical doctrine 
 about his nature, not the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, but the spirit of Christ, breath- 
 ing forth in all that he said and all that 
 he did. We should seek that the child 
 should know his heavenly friend and 
 Saviour with the distinctness with which 
 he knows an earthly friend ; and this 
 knowledge is not to be given by teach- 
 ing him dark notions about Christ, which 
 have perplexed and convulsed the church 
 for ages. The doctrine of the Trinity 
 seems to me only fitted to throw a mist- 
 iness over Christ, to place him beyond 
 
 * Commentaries have their use, but not the highest 
 use. They explain the letter of Christianity, give the 
 meaning of words, remove obscurities from the sense, 
 and so far they do great good ; but the life, the power, 
 the spirit of Christianity, they do not unfold. They 
 do not lay open to us the heart of Christ. I remember 
 that a short time ago I was reading a book, not in- 
 tended to be a religious one, in which some remarks 
 were offered on the conduct of Jesus, as, just before 
 his death, he descended from the Mount of Olives, and 
 amidst a crowd of shouting disciples locked on Jeru- 
 salem, the city of his murderers, which in a few hours 
 was to be stained with his innocent blood. The con- 
 scious greatness with which he announced the ruin of 
 that proud metropolis and its venerated temple, and 
 his deep sympathy with its approaching woes, burst- 
 ing forth in tears, and making him forget for a moment 
 his own near agonies and the shouts of the surrounding 
 multitude, were brought to my mind more distinctly 
 than ever before ; and I felt that this more vivid ap- 
 prehension of Jesus was worth more than much of the 
 learning in which commentators abound.
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 453 
 
 the reach of our understanding and 
 hearts. When I am told that Jesus 
 Christ is the second person in the Trin- 
 ity, one of three persons, who consti- 
 tute one God, one infinite mind, I am 
 plunged into an abyss of darkness. Jesus 
 becomes to me the most unintelligible 
 being in the universe. God I can know. 
 Man I can understand-. But Christ, as 
 described in human creeds, a compound 
 being, at once man and God, at once 
 infinite in wisdom and ignorant of in- 
 numerable truths, and who is so united 
 with two other persons as to make with 
 them one mind, Christ so represented 
 baffles all my faculties. I cannot lay 
 hold on him. My weak intellect is 
 wholly at fault ; and I cannot believe 
 that the child's intellect can better ap- 
 prehend him. This is a grave objection 
 to the doctrine of the Trinity. It de- 
 stroys the reality, the distinctness, the 
 touching nearness of Jesus Christ. It 
 gives him an air of fiction, and has done 
 more than all things to prevent a true, 
 deep acquaintance with him, with his 
 spirit, with the workings of his mind, 
 with the sublimity of his virtue. It has 
 thrown a glare over him, under which 
 the bright and beautiful features of his 
 character have been very much con- 
 cealed. 
 
 From what I have said, you see what 
 I suppose the Sunday-school, teacher 
 is to learn and teach. It is the Chris- 
 tian religion as unfolded in the plainest 
 portions of the gospel. Before leaving 
 this topic, I wish to offer some remarks, 
 which may prevent all misapprehension 
 of what I have said. I have spoken 
 against teaching Christianity to children 
 as a system. I have spoken of the inad- 
 equacy of catechisms. In thus speaking, 
 I do not mean that the teacher shall 
 have nothing systematic in his knowl- 
 edge. Far from it. He must not satisfy 
 himself with studying separate actions, 
 words, and miracles of Jesus, i He must 
 look at Christ's history and teaching as 
 a whole, and observe the great features 
 of his truth and goodness, the grand 
 characteristics of his system, and in 
 this way learn what great impressions 
 he must strive to make on the child, 
 by the particular facts and precepts 
 which each lesson presents. There 
 ought to be a unity in the mind of the 
 teacher. His instructions must not be 
 loose fragments, but be bound together 
 
 by great views. Perhaps you may ask, 
 what are these great views of Christian- 
 ity which pervade it throughout, and to 
 which the mind of the learner must be 
 continually turned ? There are three, 
 which seem to me especially prominent, 
 the spirituality, of the religion, its dis- 
 interestedness, and, lastly, the vastness, 
 the infinity of its prospects. 
 
 The first great feature of Christianity 
 which should be brought out continually 
 to the child, is its spirituality. Christ 
 is a spiritual deliverer. His salvation 
 is inward. This great truth cannot be too 
 much insisted on. Christ's salvation is 
 within. The evils from which he comes 
 to release us are inward. The felicity 
 which he came to give is inward, and 
 therefore everlasting. Carry, then, your 
 pupils into themselves. Awake in them, 
 as far as possible, a consciousness of 
 their spiritual nature, of the infinite 
 riches which are locked up in reason, 
 in conscience, in the power of knowing 
 God, loving goodness, and practising 
 duty ; and use all the history and teach- 
 ings of Christ, to set him before them 
 as the fountain of life and light to their 
 souls. For example, when his reign, 
 kingdom, power, authority, throne, are 
 spoken of, guard them against attach- 
 ing an outward import to these words ; 
 teach them that they mean not an out- 
 ward empire, but the purifying, elevat- 
 ing influence of his character, truth, 
 spirit, on the human mind. Use all 
 his miracles as types, emblems, of a 
 spiritual salvation. When your pupils 
 read of his giving sight to the blind, 
 let them see in this a manifestation of 
 his character as the Light of the world ; 
 and, in the joy of the individual whose 
 eyes were opened from perpetual night 
 on the beauty of nature, let them see a 
 figure of the happiness of the true dis- 
 ciple, who, by following Christ, is brought 
 to the vision of a more glorious luminary 
 than the sun, and of a more majestic and 
 enduring universe than material worlds. 
 When the precepts of Christ are the 
 subjects of conversation, turn the mind 
 of the child to their spiritual import. 
 Let him see that the worth of the ac- 
 tion lies in the principle, motive, pur- 
 pose, from which it springs : that love 
 to God, not outward worship, and love 
 to man, not outward deeds, are the very 
 essence, soul, centre, of the Christian 
 law. Turn his attention to the singular
 
 454 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 force and boldness of language in which 
 Jesus calls to rise above the body and 
 the world, above the pleasures and pains 
 of the senses, above wealth and show, 
 above every outward good. In speak- 
 ing of the promises and threatenings of 
 Christianity, do not speak as if good- 
 ness were to be sought and sin shunned 
 for their outward consequences ; but 
 express your deep conviction that good- 
 ness is its own reward, worth infinitely 
 more than all outward recompense, and 
 'that sin is its own curse, and more to 
 be dreaded on its own account than a 
 burning hell. When God is the subject 
 of conversation, do not spend all your 
 strength in talking of what He has made 
 around you : do not point the young to 
 his outward works as his chief mani- 
 festations. Lead them to think of him 
 as revealed in their own minds, as the 
 Father of their spirits, as more intimately 
 present with their souls than with the 
 sun, and teach them to account as his 
 best gifts, not outward possessions, but 
 the silent influences of his Spirit, his 
 communications of light to their minds, 
 of warmth and elevation to their feel- 
 ings, and of force to their resolution of 
 well-doing. Let the spirituality of Chris- 
 tianity shine forth in all your teachings. 
 Let the young see how superior Jesus 
 was to outward things, how he looked 
 down on wealth and show as below his 
 notice, how he cared nothing for out- 
 ward distinctions, how the beggar by 
 the road side received from him marks 
 of deeper interest than Pilate on his 
 judgment-seat or Herod on his throne, 
 how he looked only at the human spirit 
 and sought nothing but its recovery and 
 life. 
 
 I have spoken of the spirituality of 
 Christianity. The next great feature 
 of the religion to be constantly set be- 
 fore the child, is its disinterestedness. 
 The essence of Christianity is generous 
 affection. Nothing so distinguishes it 
 as generosity. Disinterested love not 
 only breaks out in separate teachings 
 of Christ ; it spreads like the broad 
 light of heaven over the whole religion. 
 Every precept is but an aspect, an 
 expression of generous love. This 
 prompted every word, guided every 
 step, of Jesus. It was the life of his 
 ministry ; it warmed his heart in death ; 
 it flowed out with his heart's blood. 
 The pupil should be constantly led to 
 
 see and feel this divine spirit pervading 
 the religion. The Gospels should be 
 used to inspire him with reverence for 
 generous self-sacrifice and with aversion 
 to every thing narrow and mean. Let 
 him learn that he is not to live for him- 
 self ; that he has a heart to be given to 
 God and to his fellow-creatures ; that 
 he is to do the- will of God, not in a 
 mercenary spirit, but from gratitude, 
 filial love, and from sincere delight in 
 goodness ; that he is to prepare himself 
 to toil and suffer for his race. The 
 cross that emblem of self-sacrifice, 
 that highest form of an all-surrender- 
 ing love is to be set before him as 
 the standard of his religion, the banner 
 under which he is to live, and, if God 
 so require, to die. 
 
 There is one other great feature of 
 Christianity, and that is the vastness, 
 the infinity of its prospects. This was 
 revealed in the whole life of Jesus. In 
 all that he said we see his mind pos- 
 sessed with the thought of being or- 
 dained to confer an infinite good. That 
 teacher knows little of Christ who does 
 not see him filled with the conscious- 
 ness of being the author of an everlast- 
 ing salvation and happiness to the human 
 race. " I am the resurrection and the 
 life. He that believeth on me shall 
 never see death." Such was his lan- 
 guage, and such never fell before from 
 human lips. When I endeavor to bring 
 to my mind the vast hopes which in- 
 spired him as he pronounced these 
 words, and his joy at the anticipation 
 of the immortal fruits which his life 
 and death were to yield to our race, I 
 feel how little his character is yet un- 
 derstood by those who think of Jesus 
 as a man of sorrow, borne down habit- 
 ually by a load of grief. Constantly 
 lead your pupils to observe how real, 
 deep, and vivid was the impression on 
 the mind of Jesus of that future, ever- 
 lasting life which he came to bestow. 
 Speak to them of the happiness with 
 which he looked on all human virtue, 
 as being a germ which was to unfold for 
 ever, a fountain of living water which 
 was to spring up into immortality, a love 
 which was to expand through all ages 
 and to embrace the universe. It is 
 through the mind of Christ, living, as 
 it did, in a higher world, that they can 
 best comprehend the reality and vast- 
 ness of the prospects of the human soul
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 455 
 
 Such are the three great features of 
 the religion which the teacher should 
 bring most frequently to the mind of the 
 child. In these, as in all my preceding 
 remarks, you perceive the importance 
 which I attach to the character of Christ, 
 as the great means of giving spiritual 
 light and life to the mind. The Gospels, 
 in which he is placed before us so viv- 
 idly, are in truth the chief repositories of 
 divine wisdom. The greatest produc- 
 tions of human genius have little quick- 
 ening power in comparison with these 
 simple narratives. In reading the Gos- 
 pels, I feel myself in presence of one who 
 speaks as man never spake ; whose voice 
 is not of the earth ; who speaks with a 
 tone of reality and authority altogether 
 his own ; who speaks of God as con- 
 scious of his immediate presence, as en- 
 joying with him the intimacy of an only 
 Son ; and who speaks of heaven as most 
 familiar with the higher states of being. 
 Great truths come from Jesus with a 
 simplicity, an ease, showing how deeply 
 they pervaded and possessed his mind. 
 No books astonish me like the Gospels. 
 Jesus, the hero of the story, is a more 
 extraordinary being than imagination 
 has feigned, and yet his character has 
 an impress of nature, consistency, truth, 
 never .surpassed. You have all seen 
 portraits which, as soon as seen, you felt 
 to be likenesses, so living were they, so 
 natural, so true. Such is the impression 
 made on my mind by the Gospels. I 
 believe that you or I could lift mountains 
 or create a world as easily as fanaticism 
 or imposture could have created such a 
 character and history as that of Jesus 
 Christ. I have read the Gospels for 
 years, and seldom read them now with- 
 out gaining some new or more striking 
 view of the great teacher and deliverer 
 whom they portray. Of all bojdcs, they 
 deserve most the study of youth and age. 
 Happy the Sunday-school in which their 
 spirit is revealed ! 
 
 But I have not yet said every thing 
 in favor of them as the great sources of 
 instruction. I have said that the Chris- 
 tian religion is to be taught from the 
 Gospels. This is their great, but not 
 their only use. Much incidental instruc- 
 tion is to be drawn from them. There 
 are two great subjects on which it is very 
 desirable to give to the young the light 
 they can receive, human nature and hu- 
 man life ; and on these points the Gos- 
 
 | pels furnish occasions of much useful 
 teaching. They give us not only the life 
 and character of Christ, but place him 
 before us in the midst of human beings 
 and of human affairs. Peter, the ardent, 
 the confident, the false, the penitent Pe- 
 ter ; the affectionate John ; the treach- 
 erous Judas, selling his Master for gold ; 
 Mary, the mother, at the cross ; Mary 
 Magdalen at the tomb ; the woman, who 
 had been a sinner, bathing his feet with 
 tears, and wiping them with the hair of 
 her head ; what revelations of the 
 human soul are these ! What depths of 
 our nature do they lay open ! It is a re- 
 markable fact that the great masters of 
 painting have drawn their chief subjects 
 from the New Testament ; so full is this 
 volume of the most powerful and touch- 
 ing exhibitions of human character. And 
 how much instruction does this book 
 convey in regard to life as well as in re- 
 gard to the soul ! I do not know a more 
 affecting picture of human experience 
 than the simple narrative of Luke : - 
 " When Jesus came nigh to the city, be- 
 hold, there was a dead man carried out, 
 the only son of his mother, and she was 
 a widow ; and much people of the city 
 was with her." The Gospels show us 
 fellow-beings in all varieties of condition, 
 the blind man, the leper, the rich young 
 ruler, the furious multitude. They give 
 practical views of life, which cannot be 
 too early impressed. They show us, in 
 the history of Jesus and his Apostles, 
 that true greatness may be found in the 
 humblest ranks, and that goodness, in 
 proportion as it becomes eminent, ex- 
 poses itself to hatred and reproach, so 
 that we must make up our minds, if we 
 would be faithful, to encounter shame 
 and loss for God and duty. In truth, all 
 
 i the variety of wisdom which youth needs 
 
 i may be extracted from these writings. 
 
 I The Gospels, then, are to be the great 
 study of the Sunday-school. 
 
 I cannot close these remarks on what 
 is to be taught in the Sunday-school, 
 without repeating what I have said of 
 the chief danger of this institution. I 
 refer to the danger of mechanical teach- 
 ing, by which the young mind becomes 
 worn, deadened to the greatest truths. 
 The Gospels, life-giving as they are, 
 may be rendered wholly inoperative by 
 the want of life in the instructor. So 
 great is my dread of tame, mechanical 
 teaching, that I am sometimes almost
 
 456 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 tempted to question the utility of Sun- 
 day-schools. We Protestants, in our 
 zeal for the Bible, are apt to forget that 
 the very commonness of the book tends 
 to impair its power, that familiarity 
 breeds indifference, and that no book, 
 therefore, requires such a living power 
 in the teacher. He must beware lest he 
 make the Gospels trite by too frequent 
 repetition. It will often be best for him 
 to assist his pupils in extracting the 
 great principle of truth involved in a 
 precept, parable, or action of Jesus, and 
 to make this the subject of conversation, 
 without farther reference to the text by 
 which it was suggested. If he can lead 
 them, by fit questions, to find this prin- 
 ciple in their own consciousness and ex- 
 perience, in their own moral judgments 
 and feelings, and to discover how it 
 should be applied to their characters 
 and brought out in their common lives, 
 he will not only convey the most impor- 
 tant instruction, but will give new vivid- 
 ness and interest to the Scriptures, and 
 a deeper conviction of their truth, by 
 showing how congenial they are with 
 human nature, and how intimately con- 
 nected with human affairs and with real 
 life. Let me also mention, as another 
 means of preserving the Scriptures from 
 degradation by too frequent handling, 
 that extracts from biography, history, 
 natural science, fitted to make religious 
 impressions, should be occasionally in- 
 troduced into the Sunday-school. Such 
 seems to me the instruction which the 
 ends of this institution require. 
 
 IV. We have now seen what is to be 
 taught in the Sunday-school, and the 
 question now comes, How shall it be 
 taught ? This is my last head, and not 
 the least important. On the manner of 
 teaching, how much depends ! I fear it 
 is not sufficiently studied by Sunday- 
 school instructors. They meet gen- 
 erally, and ought regularly to meet, to 
 prepare themselves for their tasks. But 
 their object commonly is to learn what 
 they are to teach, rather than how to 
 teach it ; but the last requires equal 
 attention with the first, I had almost 
 said more. From deficiency in this, we 
 sometimes see that an instructor, pro- 
 foundly acquainted with his subject, is 
 less successful in teaching than another 
 of comparatively superficial acquisitions; 
 he knows much, but does not know the 
 way to the child's mind and heart. The 
 
 same truth, which attracts and impresses 
 from one man's lips repels from another. 
 At the meeting of the Sunday-school 
 teachers, it is not enough to learn the 
 meaning of the portion of Scripture 
 which is to be the subject of the next 
 lesson ; it is more important to select 
 from it the particular topics which are 
 adapted to the pupil's comprehension, 
 and still more necessary to inquire un- 
 der what lights or aspects they may 
 be brought to his view, so as to arrest 
 attention and reach the heart. A prin- 
 cipal end in the meeting of teachers 
 should be to learn the art of teaching, 
 the way of approach to the youthful 
 mind. 
 
 The first aim of the teacher will of 
 course be to fix the attention of the 
 pupil. It is in vain that you have his 
 body in the school-room if his mind is 
 wandering beyond it, or refuses to fasten 
 itself on the topic of discourse. In 
 common schools attention is fixed by a 
 severe discipline, incompatible with the 
 spirit of Sunday-schools. Of course the 
 teacher must aim to secure it by a moral 
 influence over the youthful mind. 
 
 As the first means of establishing an 
 influence over the young, I would say, 
 you must love them. Nothing attracts 
 like love. Children are said to be 
 shrewd physiognomists, and read as by 
 instinct our feelings in our counte- 
 nances ; they know and are drawn to 
 their friends. I recently asked how a 
 singularly successful teacher in relig- 
 ion obtained his remarkable ascendency 
 over the young. The reply was. that his 
 whole intercourse expressed affection. 
 His secret was a sincere love. 
 
 The next remark is, that to awaken in 
 the young an interest in what you teach, 
 you must take an interest in it your- 
 selves. You must not only understand, 
 but feel, the truth. Your manner must 
 have the natural animation which always 
 accompanies a work into which our 
 hearts enter. Accordingly, one of the 
 chief qualifications of a Sunday-school 
 teacher is religious sensibility. Old and 
 young are drawn by a natural earnest- 
 ness of manner. Almost any subject 
 may be made interesting, if the teacher 
 will but throw into it his soul. 
 
 Another important rule is. Let yoV 
 teaching be intelligible. Children will 
 not listen to words which excite no 
 ideas, or only vague and misty concep
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 457 
 
 tions. Speak to them in the familiar, 
 simple language of common life, and if 
 the lesson have difficult terms, define 
 them. Children love light, not darkness. 
 Choose topics of conversation to which 
 their minds are equal, and pass from one 
 to another by steps which the young can 
 follow. Be clear, and you will do much 
 towards being interesting teachers. 
 
 Another suggestion is, Teach much 
 by questions. These stimulate, stir up 
 the young mind, and make it its own 
 teacher. They encourage the spirit of 
 inquiry, the habit of thought. Ques- 
 tions, skilfully proposed, turn the child 
 to his own consciousness and experi- 
 ence, and will often draw out from his 
 own soul the truth which you wish to 
 impart ; and no lesson is so well learned 
 as that which a man or a child teaches 
 himself. 
 
 Again. Teach graphically where you 
 can. That is, when you are discoursing 
 of any narrative of Scripture, or relating 
 an incident from other sources, try to 
 seize its great points and to place it 
 before the eyes of your pupils. Culti- 
 vate the power of description. A story 
 well told, and in which the most impor- 
 tant particulars are brought out in a 
 strong light, not only fixes attention, 
 but often carries a truth farthest into 
 the soul. 
 
 Another rule is, Lay the chief stress 
 on what is most important in religion. 
 Do not conduct the child over the Gos- 
 pels as over a dead level. Seize on the 
 great points, the great ideas. Do not 
 confound the essential and the unessen- 
 tial, or insist with the same earnestness 
 on grand, comprehensive, life-giving 
 truths, aiid on disputable articles of 
 faith. Immense injury is done by teach- 
 ing doubtful or secondary doctrines as 
 if they were the weightiest matters of 
 Christianity ; for, as time rolls over the 
 child, and his mind unfolds, he discovers 
 that one and another dogma, which he 
 was taught to regard as fundamental, is 
 uncertain if not false, and his scepticism 
 is apt to spread from this weak point 
 over the whole Christian system. Make 
 it your aim to fix in your pupils the 
 grand principles in which the essence of 
 Christianity consists, and which all time 
 and experience serve to confirm : and, 
 in doing this, you will open the mind to 
 all truth as fast as it is presented in the 
 course of Providence. 
 
 Another rule is, Carry a cheerful spirit 
 into religious teaching. Do not merely 
 speak of Christianity as the only fountain 
 of happiness. Let your tones and words 
 bear witness to its benignant, cheering 
 influence. Youth is the age of joy and 
 hope, and nothing repels it more than 
 gloom. Do not array religion in terror. 
 Do not make God a painful thought by 
 speaking of him as present only to see 
 and punish sin. Speak of his fatherly 
 interest in the young with a warm heart 
 and a beaming eye, and encourage their 
 filial approach and prayers. On this 
 part, however, you must beware of sac- 
 rificing truth to the desire of winning 
 your pupil. Truth, truth in her severest 
 as well as mildest forms, must be placed 
 before the young. Do not, to attract 
 them to duty, represent it as a smooth 
 and flowery path. Do not tell them that 
 they can become good, excellent, gener- 
 ous, holy, without effort and pain. Teach 
 them that the sacrifice of self-will, of 
 private interest, and. pleasure, to others' 
 rights and happiness, to the dictates of 
 conscience, to the will of God, is the 
 very essence of piety and goodness. 
 But at the same time teach them that 
 there is a pure, calm joy, an inward 
 peace, in surrendering every thing to 
 duty, which can be found in no selfish 
 success. Help them to sympathize with 
 the toils, pains, sacrifices of the philan- 
 thropist, the martyr, the patriot, and 
 inspire contempt of fear and peril in 
 adhering to truth and God. 
 
 I will add one more rule. Speak of 
 duty, of religion, as something real, just 
 as you speak of the interests of this life. 
 Do not speak as if you were repeating 
 words received from tradition, but as 
 if you were talking of things which 
 you have seen and known. Nothing 
 attracts old and young more than a 
 tone of reality, the natural tone of 
 strong conviction. Speak to them of 
 God as a real being, of heaven as a real 
 state, of duty as a real obligation. Let 
 them see that you regard Christianity as 
 intended to bear on real and common 
 life, that you expect every principle 
 which you teach to be acted out, to be 
 made a rule in the concerns of every 
 day. Show the application of Chris- 
 tianity to the familiar scenes and pur- 
 suits of life. Bring it out to them as 
 the great reality. So teach, and you 
 will not teach in vain.
 
 458 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 I have thus set before you the prin- 
 ciples on which Sunday-schools should 
 rest, and by which they should be guided. 
 If they shall, in any degree, conform to 
 these principles, and I trust they will, 
 you cannot, my friends, cherish them 
 with too much care. Their purpose can- 
 not be spoken of too strongly. Their 
 end is the moral and religious education 
 of the young, and this is the most press- 
 ing concern of our times. In all times, 
 indeed, it has strong claims ; but it was 
 never, perhaps, so important as now, 
 and never could its neglect induce such 
 fearful consequences. The present is a 
 season of great peril to the rising gen- 
 eration. It is distinguished by a re- 
 markable development of human power, 
 activity, and freedom. The progress of 
 science has given men a new control of 
 nature, and in this way has opened new 
 sources of wealth and multiplied the 
 means of indulgence, and in an equal 
 degree multiplied temptations to world- 
 liness, cupidity, and crime. Our times 
 are still more distinguished by the spirit 
 of liberty and innovation. Old institu- 
 tions and usages, the old restraints on 
 the young, have been broken down. 
 Men of all conditions and ages think, 
 speak, write, act, with a freedom un- 
 known before. Our times have their 
 advantages. But we must not hide from 
 ourselves our true position. This in- 
 crease of power and freedom, of which 
 I have spoken, tends, in the first in- 
 stance, to unsettle moral principles, to 
 give to men's minds a restlessness, a 
 want of stability, a wildness of opinion, 
 an extravagance of desire, a bold, rash, 
 reckless spirit. These are times of great 
 moral danger. Outward restraints are 
 removed to an unprecedented degree, 
 and consequently there is a need of 
 inward restraint, of the controlling pow- 
 er of a pure religion, beyond what was 
 ever known before. The principles of 
 the young are exposed to fearful assaults, 
 and they need to be fortified with pe- 
 culiar care. Temptations throng on the 
 rising generation with new violence, and 
 the power to withstand them must be 
 proportion ably increased. Society never 
 needed such zealous efforts, such un- 
 slumbering watchfulness for its safety, 
 as at this moment ; and without faith- 
 fulness on the part of parents and good 
 men, its bright prospects may be turned 
 into gloom. 
 
 Sunday-schools belong to this period 
 of society. They grow naturally from 
 the extension of knowledge, in conse- 
 quence of which more are qualified to 
 teach than in former times, and they are 
 suited to prepare the young for the 
 severe trials which await them in life. 
 As such, let them be cherished. The 
 great question for parents to ask is, 
 how they may strengthen their children 
 against temptation, how they can im- 
 plant in them principles of duty, pur- 
 poses of virtue, which will withstand 
 all storms, and which will grow up into 
 all that is generous, just, beautiful, and 
 holy in feeling and action. The ques- 
 tion, how your children may prosper 
 most in life should be secondary. Give 
 them force of character, and you give 
 them more than a fortune. Give them 
 pure and lofty principles, and you give 
 them more than thrones. Instil into 
 them Christian benevolence and the 
 love of God, and you enrich them more 
 than by laying worlds at their feet. 
 Sunday-schools are meant to aid you in 
 the great work of forming your children 
 to true excellence. I say they are 
 meant to aid you, not to relieve you 
 from the work, not to be your substi- 
 tutes, not to diminish domestic watch- 
 fulness and teaching, but to concur 
 with you, to give you fellow-laborers, to 
 strengthen your influence over your chil- 
 dren. Then give these schools your 
 hearty support, without which they can- 
 not prosper. Your children should be 
 your first care. You indeed sustain in- 
 teresting relations to society, but your 
 great relation is to your children ; and 
 in truth you cannot discharge your obli- 
 gations to society by any service so 
 effectual as by training up for it enlight- 
 ened and worthy members in the bosom 
 of the family and" the church. 
 
 Like all schools, the Sunday-school 
 must owe its influence to its teachers. 
 I would, therefore, close this discourse 
 with saying that the most gifted in our 
 congregation cannot find a worthier field 
 of labor than the Sunday-school. The 
 noblest work on earth is to act with an 
 elevating power on a human spirit. The 
 greatest men of past times n&ve not 
 been politicians or warriors, who have 
 influenced the outward policy or gran- 
 deur of kingdoms ; but men who, by 
 their deep wisdom and generous senti- 
 ments, have given light and life to the
 
 THE MORAL ARGUMENT AGAINST CALVINISM. 
 
 459 
 
 minds and hearts of their own age, and 
 left a legacy of truth and virtue to pos- 
 terity. Whoever, in the humblest sphere, 
 imparts God's truth to one human spirit, 
 partakes their glory. He labors on an 
 
 immortal nature. He is laying the foun- 
 dation of imperishable excellence and 
 happiness. His work, if he succeed, 
 will outlive empires and the stars. 
 
 THE MORAL ARGUMENT AGAINST 
 CALVINISM, 
 
 Illustrated In a Review of a Work entitled " A General View of the 
 Doctrines of Christianity, designed more especially for the Edification 
 and Instruction of Families. Boston, 1809." 
 
 THE work of which we have prefixed 
 the title to this article was published 
 several years ago, and has been read by 
 many among us with pleasure and profit. 
 But it is not known as widely as it should 
 be, and we wish to call to it the notice 
 which it merits. It is not an original 
 work, but was compiled chiefly from the 
 writings of the Rev. Robert Fellowes, 
 whose name is probably known to most 
 of our readers. The title we think not 
 altogether happy, because it raises an 
 expectation which the book does not 
 answer. We should expect from it a 
 regular statement of the great truths of 
 our religion ; but we find, what at present 
 is perhaps as useful, a vindication of 
 Christianity from the gross errors which 
 Calvinism has labored to identify with 
 this divine system. This may easily be 
 supposed from the table of contents. 
 The book professes to treat of the fol- 
 lowing subjects : The nature of re- 
 ligion, and the mistakes that occur on 
 that subject ; the free* agency and ac- 
 countableness of man : the fall of Adam, 
 and original sin : the doctrine of faith in 
 general, and of religious faith in particu- 
 lar ; the doctrine of works ; the doctrine 
 of regeneration ; the doctrine of repent- 
 ance ; the doctrine of grace ; the doc- 
 trine of election and reprobation ; the 
 doctrine of perseverance ; the visiting 
 of the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
 children ; and the sin against the Holy 
 Ghost. By those who are acquainted 
 with the five thorny points of Calvinism, 
 the design of this compilation will be 
 sufficiently understood from the enumer- 
 
 ation of topics now given ; and few de- 
 signs are more praiseworthy than to free 
 Christianity from the reproach brought 
 upon it by that system. 
 
 The work under review is professedly 
 popular in its style and mode of discus- 
 sion. It has little refined and elaborate 
 reasoning, but appeals to the great moral 
 principles of human nature, and to the 
 general strain of the Scriptures. It ex- 
 presses strongly and without circumlo- 
 cution the abhorrence with which every 
 mind, uncorrupted by false theology, 
 must look on Calvinism ; and although 
 some of its delineations may be over- 
 charged, yet they are substantially cor- 
 rect, and their strength is their excel- 
 lence. The truth is, that nothing is so 
 necessary on this subject as to awaken 
 moral feeling in men's breasts. Calvin- 
 ism owes its perpetuity to the influence 
 of fear in palsying the moral nature. 
 Men's minds and consciences are sub- 
 dued by terror, so that they dare not 
 confess, even to themselves, the shrink- 
 ing which they feel from the unworthy 
 views which this system gives of God ; 
 and, by thus smothering their just ab- 
 horrence, they gradually extinguish it, 
 and even come to vindicate in God what 
 would disgrace his creatures. A voice 
 of power and solemn warning is needed 
 to rouse them from this lethargy, to give 
 them a new and a juster dread, the dread 
 of incurring God's displeasure, by making 
 him odious, and exposing religion to in- 
 sult and aversion. In the present article 
 we intend to treat this subject with great 
 1 freedom. But we beg that it may be un-
 
 460 
 
 THE MORAL ARGUMENT 
 
 derstood that by Calvinism we intend 
 only the peculiarities or distinguishing 
 features of that system. We would also 
 have it remembered that these peculiari- 
 ties form a small part of the religious 
 faith of a Calvinist. He joins with them 
 the general, fundamental, and most im- 
 portant truths of Christianity, by which 
 they are always neutralized in a greater 
 or less degree, and in some cases nulli- 
 fied. Accordingly, it has been our hap- 
 piness to see in the numerous body by 
 which they are professed some of the 
 brightest examples of Christian virtue. 
 Our hostility to the doctrine does not 
 extend to its advocates. In bearing our 
 strongest testimony against error, we do 
 not the less honor the moral and relig- 
 ious worth with which it is often con- 
 nected. 
 
 The book under review will probably 
 be objected to by theologians, because 
 it takes no notice of a distinction, in- 
 vented by Calvinistic metaphysicians, 
 for rescuing their doctrines from the 
 charge of aspersing God's equity and 
 goodness. We refer to the distinction 
 between natural and moral inability, 
 a subtilty which may be thought to de- 
 serve some attention, because it makes 
 such a show in some of the principal 
 books of this sect. But, with due defer- 
 ence to its defenders, it seems to us 
 groundless and idle, a distinction with- 
 out a difference. An inability to do our 
 duty, which is born with us, is to all in- 
 tents, and according to the established 
 meaning of the word, natural. Call it 
 moral, or what you please, it is still a 
 part of the nature which our Creator 
 gave us, and to suppose that He pun- 
 ishes us for it, because it is an inability 
 seated in the will, is just as absurd as to 
 suppose him to punish us for a weak- 
 ness of sight or of a limb. Common 
 people cannot understand this distinc- 
 tion, cannot split this hair, and it is no 
 small objection to Calvinism that, ac- 
 cording to its ablest defenders, it can 
 only be reconciled to God's perfections 
 by a metaphysical subtilty which the 
 mass of people cannot comprehend. 
 
 If we were to speak as critics of the 
 style of this book, we should say that, 
 whilst generally clear, and sometimes 
 striking, it has the faults of the style 
 which was very current not many years 
 ago in this country, and which, we re- 
 joice to say, is giving place to a better. 
 
 The style to which we refer, and which 
 threatened to supplant good writing in 
 this country, intended to be elegant, but 
 fell into jejuneness and insipidity. It 
 delighted in words and arrangements of 
 words which were little soiled by com- 
 mon use, and mistook a spruce neatness 
 for grace. We had a Procrustes' bed 
 for sentences, and there seemed to be 
 a settled war between the style of writ- 
 ing and the free style of conversation. 
 Times, we think, have changed. Men 
 have learned more to write as they speak, 
 and are ashamed to dress up familiar 
 thoughts as if they were just arrived 
 from a far country, and could not ap- 
 pear in public without a foreign and 
 studied attire. They have learned that 
 common words are common, precisely 
 because most fitted to express real feel- 
 ing and strong conception, and that the 
 circuitous, measured phraseology, which 
 was called elegance, was but the parade 
 of weakness. They have learned that 
 words are the signs of thought, and 
 worthless counterfeits without it, and 
 that style is good when, instead of being 
 anxiously cast into a mould, it seems a 
 free and natural expression of thought, 
 and gives to us with power the workings 
 of the author's mind. 
 
 We have been led to make these re- 
 marks on the style which in a degree 
 marks the book before us, from a per- 
 suasion that this mode of writing has 
 been particularly injurious to religion, 
 and to rational religion. It has crept 
 into sermons perhaps more than into 
 any other compositions, and has imbued 
 them with that soporific quality which 
 they have sometimes been found to 
 possess in an eminent degree. How 
 many hearers have been soothed by a 
 smooth, watery flow of words, a regular 
 chime of sentences, and elegantly rocked 
 into repose ! We are aware that preach- 
 ers, above all writers, are excusable for 
 this style, because it is the easiest ; 
 and, having to(\much work to do, they 
 must do it, of course, in the readiest 
 way. But we mourn the necessity, and 
 mourn still more the effect. It gives 
 us great pleasure to say that in this 
 particular we think we perceive an im- 
 provement taking place in this region. 
 Preaching is becoming more direct, 
 aims more at impression, and seeks the 
 nearest way to men's hearts and con- 
 sciences. We often hear from the pul-
 
 AGAINST CALVINISM. 
 
 461 
 
 pit strong thought in plain and strong 
 language. It is hoped, from the state 
 of society, that we shall not fly from 
 one extreme to another, and degenerate 
 into coarseness : but perhaps even this 
 is a less evil than tameness and in- 
 sipidity. 
 
 To return ; the principal argument 
 against Calvinism, in the General View 
 of Christian Doctrines, is the moral 
 argument, or that which is drawn from 
 the inconsistency of the system with 
 the divine perfections. It is plain that 
 a doctrine which contradicts our best 
 ideas of goodness and justice cannot 
 come from the just and good God, or 
 be a true representation of his charac- 
 ter. This moral argument has always 
 been powerful to the pulling down of 
 the strongholds of Calvinism. Even in 
 the dark period, when this system was 
 shaped and finished at Geneva, its advo- 
 cates often writhed under the weight of 
 it ; and we cannot but deem it a mark 
 of the progress of society that Calvin- 
 ists are more and more troubled with 
 the palpable repugnance of their doc- 
 trines to God's nature, and accordingly 
 labor to soften and explain them, until 
 in many cases the name only is retained. 
 If the stern reformer of Geneva could 
 lift up his head and hear the mitigated 
 tone in which some of his professed 
 followers dispense his fearful doctrines, 
 we fear that he could not lie down in 
 peace until he had poured out his dis- 
 pleasure on their cowardice and degen- 
 eracy. He would tell them, with a 
 frown, that moderate Calvinism was a 
 solecism, a contradiction in terms, and 
 would bid them in scorn to join their 
 real friend, Arminius. Such is the power 
 of public opinion and of an improved 
 state of society on creeds, that naked, 
 undisguised Calvinism is not very fond 
 of showing itself, and many of conse- 
 quence know imperfectly what it means. 
 What, then, is the system against which 
 the View of Christian Doctrines is di- 
 rected ? 
 
 Calvinism teaches that, in conse- 
 quence of Adam's sin in eating the for- 
 bidden fruit, God brings into life all his 
 posterity with a nature wholly corrupt, 
 so that they are utterly indisposed, dis- 
 abled, and made opposite to all that is 
 spiritually good, and wholly inclined to 
 all evil, and that continually. It teaches 
 that all mankind, having fallen in Adam, 
 
 are under God's wrath and curse, and 
 so made liable to all miseries in this 
 life, to death itself, and to the pains of 
 hell for ever. It teaches that from this 
 ruined race God, out of his mere good 
 pleasure, has elected a certain number 
 to be saved by Christ, not induced to 
 this choice by any foresight of their 
 faith or good works, but wholly by his 
 free grace and love ; and that, having 
 thus predestinated them to eternal life, 
 He renews and sanctifies them by his 
 almighty and special agency, and brings 
 them into a state of grace from which 
 they cannot fall and perish. It teaches 
 that the rest of mankind He is pleased 
 to pass over, and to ordain them to dis- 
 honor and wrath for their sins, to the 
 honor of his justice and power ; in 
 other words, He leaves the rest to the 
 corruption in which they were born, 
 withholds the grace which is necessary 
 to their recovery, and condemns them 
 to " most grievous torments in soul and 
 body without intermission in hell-fire 
 for ever." Such is Calvinism, as gath- 
 ered from the most authentic records of 
 the doctrine. Whoever will consult the 
 famous Assembly's Catechisms and Con- 
 fession, will see the peculiarities of the 
 system in all their length and breadth of 
 deformity. A man of plain sense, whose 
 spirit has not been broken to this creed 
 by education or terror, will think that it 
 is not necessary for us to travel to hea- 
 then countries to learn how mournfully 
 the human mind may misrepresent the 
 Deity. 
 
 The moral argument against Calvin- 
 ism, of which we have spoken, must 
 seem irresistible to common and unper- 
 verted minds, after attending to the 
 brief statement now given. It will be 
 asked with astonishment, How is it 
 possible that men can hold these doc- 
 trines and yet maintain God's goodness 
 and equity ? What principles can be 
 more contradictory ? To remove the 
 objection to Calvinism, which is drawn 
 from its repugnance to the divine per- 
 fections, recourse has been had, as be- 
 fore observed, to the distinction between 
 natural and moral inability, and to other 
 like subtilties. But a more common 
 reply, we conceive, has been drawn from 
 the weakness and imperfection of the 
 human mind, and from its incapacity of 
 comprehending God. Calvinists will tell 
 us that because a doctrine opposes our
 
 462 
 
 THE MORAL ARGUMENT 
 
 convictions of rectitude it is not neces- 
 sarily false ; that apparent are not al- 
 ways real inconsistencies ; that God is 
 an infinite and incomprehensible Being, 
 and not to be tried by otir ideas of fit- 
 ness and morality ; that we bring their 
 system to an incompetent tribunal when 
 we submit it to the decision of human 
 reason and conscience ; that we are 
 weak judges of what is right and wrong, 
 good and evil, in the Deity ; that the 
 happiness of the universe may require 
 an administration of human affairs which 
 is very offensive to limited understand- 
 ings ; that we must follow revelation, 
 not reason or moral feeling, and must 
 consider doctrines which shock us in 
 revelation as awful mysteries, which are 
 dark through our ignorance, and which 
 time will enlighten. How little, it is 
 added, can man explain or understand 
 God's ways ! How inconsistent the mis- 
 eries of life appear with goodness in the 
 Creator ! How prone, too, have men 
 always been to confound good and evil, 
 to call the just unjust! How presumpt- 
 uous is it in such a being to sit in judg- 
 ment upon God, and to question the 
 rectitude of the divine administration, 
 because it shocks his sense of recti- 
 tude ! Such we conceive to be a fair 
 statement of the manner in which the 
 Calvinist frequently meets the objection 
 that his system is at war with God's 
 attributes ; such the reasoning by which 
 the voice of conscience and nature is 
 stifled, and men are reconciled to doc- 
 trines which, if tried by the established 
 principles of morality, would be re- 
 jected with horror. On this reasoning 
 we purpose to offer some remarks ; and 
 we shall avail ourselves of the opportu- 
 nity to give our views of the confidence 
 which is due to our rational and moral 
 faculties in religion. 
 
 That God is infinite, and that man 
 often errs, we affirm as strongly as our 
 Calvinistic brethren. We desire to think 
 humbly of ourselves, and reverently of 
 our Creator. In the strong language of 
 Scripture, "We now see through a glass 
 darkly." " We cannot by searching find 
 out God unto perfection. Clouds and 
 darkness are round about him. His 
 judgments are a great deep." God is 
 great and good beyond utterance or 
 thought. We have no disposition to 
 idolize our own powers, or to penetrate 
 the secret counsels of the Deity. But, on 
 
 the other hand, we think it ungrateful to 
 disparage the powers Avhich our Creator 
 has given us, or to question the certainty 
 or importance of the knowledge which 
 He has seen fit to place within our reach. 
 There is an affected humility, we think, 
 as dangerous as pride. We may 'rate 
 our faculties too meanly, as well as too 
 boastingly. The worst error in religion, 
 after all, is that of the sceptic, who re- 
 cords triumphantly the weaknesses and 
 wanderings of the human intellect, and 
 maintains that no trust is due to the 
 decisions of this erring reason. We by 
 no means conceive that man's greatest 
 danger springs from pride of understand- 
 ing, though we think as badly of this 
 vice as other Christians. The history of 
 the church proves that men may trust 
 their faculties too little as well as too 
 much, and that the timidity which 
 shrinks from investigation has injured 
 the mind, and betrayed the interests of 
 Christianity, as much as an irreverent 
 boldness of thought. 
 
 It is an important truth, which we 
 apprehend has not been sufficiently de- 
 veloped, that the ultimate reliance of a 
 human being is and must be on his own 
 mind. To confide in God, we must first 
 confide in the faculties by which He is 
 apprehended, and by which the proofs 
 of his existence are weighed. A trust 
 in our ability to distinguish between 
 truth and falsehood is implied in every 
 act of belief ; for to question this ability 
 would of necessity unsettle all belief. 
 We cannot take a step in reasoning or 
 action without a secret reliance on our 
 own minds. Religion in particular im- 
 plies that we have understandings en- 
 dowed . and qualified for the highest 
 employments of intellect. In affirming 
 the existence and perfections of God, 
 we suppos^ and affirm the existence in 
 ourselves of faculties which correspond 
 to these sublime objects, and which are 
 fitted to discern them. Religion is a 
 conviction and an act of the human soul, 
 so that in denying confidence to the one, 
 we subvert the truth and claims of the 
 other. Nothing is gained to piety by 
 degrading human nature, for in the com- 
 petency of this nature to know and judge 
 of God all piety has its foundation. Our 
 proneness to err instructs us, indeed, to 
 use our powers with great caution, but 
 not to contemn and neglect them. The 
 occasional abuse of our faculties, be it
 
 AGAINST CALVINISM. 
 
 463 
 
 ever so enormous, does not prove them 
 unfit for their highest end, which is to 
 form clear and consistent views of God. 
 Because our eyes sometimes fail or de- 
 ceive us, would a wise man pluck them 
 out, or cover them with a bandage, and 
 choose to walk and work in the dark ? 
 or, because they cannot distinguish dis- 
 tant objects, can they discern nothing 
 clearly in their proper sphere, and is 
 sight to be pronounced a fallacious 
 guide ? Men who, to support a creed, 
 would shake our trust in the calm, de- 
 liberate, and distinct decisions of our 
 rational and moral powers, endanger 
 religion more than its open foes, and 
 forge the deadliest weapon for the in- 
 fidel. 
 
 It is true that God is an infinite Being, 
 and also true that his powers and per- 
 fections, his purposes and operations, 
 his ends and means, being unlimited, 
 are incomprehensible. In other words, 
 they cannot be wholly taken in or em- 
 braced by the human mind. In the 
 strong and figurative language of Script- 
 ure, we ' know nothing " of God's ways ; 
 that is, we know very feiv of them. But 
 this is just as true of the most advanced 
 archangel as of man. In comparison 
 with the vastness of God's system, the 
 range of the highest created intellect is 
 narrow ; and in this particular man's lot 
 does not differ from that of his elder 
 brethren in heaven. We are both con- 
 fined in our observation and experience 
 to a little spot in the creation. But are 
 an angel's faculties worthy of no trust, 
 or is his knowledge uncertain, because 
 he learns and reasons from a small part 
 of God's works ? or are his judgments 
 respecting the Creator to be charged 
 with presumption, because his views do 
 not spread through the whole extent of 
 the universe ? We grant that our under- 
 standings cannot stretch beyond a very 
 narrow sphere. But still the lessons 
 which we learn within this sphere are 
 just as sure as if it were indefinitely en- 
 larged. Because much is unexplored, 
 we are not to suspect what we have 
 actually discovered. Knowledge is not 
 the less real because confined. The man 
 who has never set foot beyond his native 
 village, knows its scenery and inhabi- 
 tants as undoubtingly as if he had trav- 
 elled to the poles. We indeed see very 
 little ; but that little is as true as if every 
 thing else were seen ; and our future 
 
 discoveries must agree with and support 
 it. Should the whole order and pur- 
 poses of the universe be opened to us, 
 it is certain that nothing would be dis- 
 closed which would in any degree shake 
 our persuasion that the earth is inhab- 
 ited by rational and moral beings, who 
 are authorized to expect from their Cre- 
 ator the most benevolent and equitable 
 government. No extent of observation 
 can unsettle those primary and funda- 
 mental principles of moral truth which 
 we derive from our highest faculties 
 operating in the relations in which God 
 has fixed us. In every region and period 
 of the universe, it will be as true as it is 
 now on the earth that knowledge and 
 power are the measures of responsi- 
 bility, and that natural incapacity ab- 
 solves from guilt. These and other 
 moral verities, which are among our 
 clearest perceptions, would, if possible, 
 be strengthened, in proportion as our 
 powers should be enlarged ; because 
 harmony and consistency are the char- 
 acters of God's administration, and all 
 our researches into the universe only 
 serve to manifest its unity, and to show 
 a wider operation of the laws which we 
 witness and experience on earth. 
 
 We grant that God is incomprehensi- 
 ble, in the sense already given. But He 
 is not therefore unintelligible / and this 
 distinction we conceive to be important. 
 We do not pretend to know the whole 
 nature and properties of God, but still 
 we can form some clear ideas of him, 
 and can reason from these ideas as 
 justly as from any other. The truth is, 
 that we cannot be said to comprehend 
 any being whatever, not the simplest 
 plant or animal. All have hidden prop- 
 erties. Our knowledge of all is limited. 
 But have we therefore no distinct ideas 
 of the objects around us, and is all our 
 reasoning about them unworthy of trust ? 
 Because God is infinite, his name is not 
 therefore a mere sound. It is a repre- 
 sentative of some distinct conceptions 
 of our Creator ; and these conceptions 
 are as sure, and important, and as 
 proper materials for the reasoning fac- 
 ulty, as they would be if our views were 
 indefinitely enlarged. We cannot in- 
 deed trace God's goodness and rectitude 
 through the whole field of his opera- 
 tions ; but we know the essential nature 
 of these attributes, and therefore can 
 often judge what accords with and op-
 
 464 
 
 poses them. God's goodness, because 
 infinite, does not cease to be goodness, 
 or essentially differ from the same attri- 
 bute in man ; nor does justice change 
 its nature, so that it cannot be under- 
 stood, because it is seated in an un- 
 bounded mind. There have, indeed, 
 been philosophers, "falsely so called," 
 who have argued, from the unlimited 
 nature of God, that we cannot ascribe to 
 him justice and other moral attributes in 
 any proper or definite sense of those 
 words ; and the inference is plain, that 
 all religion or worship, wanting an in- 
 telligible object, must be a misplaced, 
 wasted offering. This doctrine from the 
 infidel we reject with abhorrence ; but 
 something, not very different, too often 
 reaches us from the mistaken Christian, 
 who, to save his creed, shrouds the Cre- 
 ator in utter darkness. In opposition to 
 both, we maintain that God's attributes 
 are intelligible, and that we can conceive 
 as truly of his goodness and justice as 
 of these qualities in men. In fact, these 
 qualities are essentially the same in God 
 and man, though differing in degree, in 
 purity, and in extent of operation. We 
 know not and we cannot conceive of any 
 other justice or goodness than we learn 
 from our own nature ; and if God have 
 not these, He is altogether unknown to 
 us as a moral being ; He offers nothing 
 for esteem and love to rest upon ; the 
 objection of the infidel is just, that wor- 
 ship is wasted : " We worship we know 
 not what." 
 
 It is asked, On what authority do we 
 ascribe to God goodness and rectitude 
 in the sense in which these attributes 
 belong to men, or how can we judge of 
 the nature of attributes in the mind of 
 the Creator ? We answer by asking, 
 How is it that we become acquainted 
 with the mind of a fellow-creature ? 
 The last is as invisible, as removed from 
 immediate inspection, as the first. Still 
 we do not hesitate to speak of the jus- 
 tice and goodness of a neighbor ; and 
 how do we gain our knowledge ? We 
 answer, by witnessing the effects, op- 
 erations, and expressions of these attri- 
 butes. It is a law of our nature to argue 
 from the effect to the cause, from the 
 action to the agent, from the ends pro- 
 posed and from the means of pursuing 
 them, to the character and disposition 
 of the being in whom we observe them. 
 By these processes we learn the invisi- 
 
 ble mind and character of man : and by 
 the same we ascend to the mind of God, 
 whose works, effects, operations, and 
 ends are as expressive and significant of 
 justice and goodness as the best and 
 most decisive actions of men. If this 
 reasoning be sound (and all religion 
 rests upon it), then God's justice and 
 goodness are intelligible attributes, 
 agreeing essentially with the same qual- 
 ities in ourselves. Their operation, in- 
 deed, is infinitely wider, and they are 
 employed in accomplishing not only 
 immediate but remote and unknown 
 ends. Of consequence, we must expect 
 that many parts of the divine adminis- 
 tration will be obscure, that is, will not 
 produce immediate good, and an imme- 
 diate distinction between virtue and 
 vice. But still the unbounded operation 
 of these attributes does not change their 
 nature. They are still the same as if 
 they acted in the narrowest sphere. 
 We can still determine in many cases 
 what does not accord with them. We 
 are particularly sure that those essential 
 principles of justice which enter into 
 and even form our conception of this 
 attribute must pervade every province 
 and every period of the administration 
 of a just being, and that to suppose the 
 Creator in any instance to forsake them 
 is to charge him directly with unright- 
 eousness, however loudly the lips may 
 compliment his equity. 
 
 " But is it not presumptuous in man," 
 it is continually said, " to sit in judg- 
 ment on God ? " We answer, that to "sit 
 in judgment on God " is an ambiguous 
 and offensive phrase, conveying to com- 
 mon minds the ideas of irreverence, bold- 
 ness, familiarity. The question would 
 e better stated thus: Is it not pre- 
 sumptuous in man to judge concerning 
 God, and concerning what agrees or dis- 
 agrees with his attributes ? We answer 
 confidently, No ; for in many cases we 
 are competent and even bound to judge. 
 And we plead first in our defence the 
 Scriptures. How continually does God 
 in his word appeal to the understanding 
 and moral judgment of man ! " O inhab- 
 itants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, 
 judge, I pray you, between me and my 
 vineyard. What could have been done 
 more to my vineyard, that I have not 
 done in it ? " We observe, in the next 
 place, that all religion supposes and is 
 built on judgments passed by us on God
 
 AGAINST CALVINISM. 
 
 and on his operations. Is it not, for 
 example, our duty and a leading part of 
 piety to praise God ? And what is prais- 
 ing a being, but to adjudge and ascribe 
 to him just and generous deeds and mo- 
 tives ? And of what value is praise, 
 except from those who are capable of 
 distinguishing between actions which 
 exalt and actions which degrade the 
 character? Is it presumptuous to call 
 God excellent? And what is this, but 
 to refer his character to a standard of 
 excellence, to try it by the established 
 principles of rectitude, and to pronounce 
 its conformity to them ; that is, to judge 
 of God and his operations ? 
 
 We are presumptuous, we are told, in 
 judging of our Creator. But He him- 
 self has made this our duty, in giving 
 us a moral faculty ; and to decline it, 
 is to violate the primary law of our 
 nature. Conscience, the sense of right, 
 the power of perceiving moral distinc- 
 tions, the power of discerning between 
 justice and injustice, excellence and base- 
 ness, is the highest faculty given us by 
 God, the whole foundation of our re- 
 sponsibility, and our sole capacity for 
 religion. Now, we are forbidden by 
 this faculty to love a being who wants, 
 or who fails to discover, moral excel- 
 lence. God, in giving us conscience, 
 has implanted a principle within us 
 which forbids us to prostrate ourselves 
 before mere power, or to offer praise 
 where we do not discover worth, a 
 principle which challenges our supreme 
 homage for supreme goodness, and 
 which absolves us from guilt, when we 
 abhor a severe and unjust administra- 
 tion. Our Creator has consequently 
 waived his own claims on our venera- 
 tion and obedience, any farther than 
 He discovers himself to us in charac- 
 ters of benevolenq^, equity, and right- 
 eousness. He rests his authority on 
 the perfect coincidence of his will and 
 government with those great and funda- 
 mental principles of morality written on 
 our souls. He desires no worship but 
 that which springs from the exercise of 
 our moral faculties upon his character, 
 from our discernment and persuasion of 
 his rectitude and goodness. He asks, 
 he accepts, no love or admiration but 
 from those who can understand the nat- 
 ure and the proofs of moral excellence. 
 
 There are two or three striking facts 
 which show that there is no presumption 
 
 3o 
 
 in judging of God, and of what agrees 
 or disagrees with his attributes. The 
 first fact is, that the most intelligent 
 and devout men have often employed 
 themselves in proving the existence 
 and perfections of God, and have been 
 honored for this service to the cause of 
 religion. Now we ask, what is meant 
 by the proofs of a divine perfection ? 
 They are certain acts, operations, and 
 methods of government, which are proper 
 and natural effects, signs, and expres- 
 sions of this perfection, and from which, 
 according to the established principles 
 of reasoning, it may be inferred. To 
 prove the divine attributes is to collect 
 and arrange those works and ways of 
 the Creator which accord with these 
 attributes, correspond to them, flow 
 from them, and express them. Of 
 consequence, to prove them requires 
 and implies the power of judging of 
 what agrees with them, of discerning 
 their proper marks and expressions. 
 All our treatises on natural theology 
 rest on this power. Every argument 
 in support of a divine perfection is an 
 exercise of it. To deny it is to over- 
 throw all religion. 
 
 Now, if such are the proofs of God's 
 goodness and justice, and if we are 
 capable of discerning them, then we 
 are not necessarily presumptuous when 
 we say of particular measures ascribed 
 to him, that they are inconsistent with 
 his attributes, and cannot belong to him. 
 There is plainly no more presumption 
 in affirming of certain principles of ad- 
 ministration, that they oppose God's 
 equity and would prove him unright- 
 eous, than to affirm of others that they 
 prove him upright and good. There 
 are signs and evidences of injustice as 
 unequivocal as those of justice ; and 
 our faculties are as adequate to the 
 perception of the last as of the first. If 
 they must not be trusted in deciding 
 what would prove God unjust, they are 
 unworthy of confidence when they gather 
 evidences of his rectitude ; and, of course, 
 the whole structure of religion must fall. 
 
 It is no slight objection to the mode 
 of reasoning adopted by the Calvinist 
 that it renders the proof of the divine 
 attributes impossible. When we object 
 to his representations of the divine gov- 
 ernment, that they shock our clearest 
 ideas of goodness and justice, he replies 
 that still they may be true, because we
 
 466 
 
 know very little of God, and what seems 
 unjust to man may be in the Creator 
 the perfection of rectitude. Now, this 
 weapon has a double edge. If the 
 strongest marks and expressions of in- 
 justice do not prove God unjust, then 
 the strongest marks of the opposite 
 character do not prove him righteous. 
 If the first do not deserve confidence, 
 because of our narrow views of God, 
 neither do the last. If, when more 
 shall be known, the first may be found 
 consistent with perfect rectitude, so, 
 when more shall be known, the last 
 may be found consistent with infinite 
 malignity and oppression. This rea- 
 soning of our opponents casts us on an 
 ocean of awful uncertainty. Admit it, 
 and we have no proofs of God's good- 
 ness and equity to rely upon. What 
 we call proofs may be mere appear- 
 ances, which a wider knowledge of God 
 may reverse. The future may show us 
 that the very laws and works of the 
 Creator, from which we now infer his 
 kindness, are consistent with the most 
 determined purpose to spread infinite 
 misery and guilt, and were intended, 
 by raising hope, to add the agony of 
 disappointment to our other woes. Why 
 may not these anticipations, horrible as 
 they are, be verified by the unfolding of 
 God's system, if our reasonings about 
 his attributes are rendered so very un- 
 certain, as Calvinism teaches, by the 
 infinity of his nature ? 
 
 We have mentioned one fact to show 
 that it is not presumptuous to judge of 
 God, and of what accords with and op- 
 poses his attributes ; namely, the fact 
 that his attributes are thought susceptitfe 
 of proof. Another fact, very decisive on 
 this point, is, that Christians of all classes 
 have concurred in resting the truth of 
 Christianity in a great degree on its in- 
 terwtf/evidence, that is, on its accordance 
 with the perfections of God. How com- 
 mon is it to hear from religious teachers 
 that Christianity is worthy of a good and 
 righteous being, that it bears the marks 
 of a divine original ! Volumes have been 
 written on its internal proofs, on the co- 
 incidence of its purposes and spirit with 
 our highest conceptions of God. How 
 common, too, is it to say of other relig- 
 ions that they are at war with the divine 
 nature, with God's rectitude and good- 
 ness, and that we want no other proofs 
 of their falsehood ! And what does all 
 
 this reasoning imply ? Clearly this, that 
 we are capable of determining, in many 
 cases, what is worthy and what is un- 
 worthy of God, what accords with and 
 what opposes his moral attributes. Deny 
 us this capacity, and it would be no pre- 
 sumption against a professed revelation, 
 that it a'scribed to the Supreme Being 
 the most detestable practices. It might 
 still be said in support of such a system, 
 that it is arrogant in man to determine 
 what kind of revelation suits the char- 
 acter of the Creator. Christianity then 
 leans, at least in part, and some think 
 chiefly, on internal evidence, or on its 
 agreeableness to God's moral attributes ; 
 and is it probable that this religion, hav- 
 ing this foundation, contains representa- 
 tions of God's government which shock 
 our ideas of rectitude, and that it silences 
 our objections by telling us that we are 
 no judges of what suits or opposes his 
 infinite nature ? 
 
 We will name one more fact to show 
 that it is not presumptuous to form these 
 judgments of the Creator. All Christians 
 are accustomed to reason from God's 
 attributes, and to use them as tests of 
 doctrines. In their controversies with 
 one another, they spare no pains to show 
 that their particular views accord best 
 with the divine perfections, and every 
 sect labors to throw on its adversaries 
 the odium of maintaining what is unwor- 
 thy of God. Theological writings are 
 filled with such arguments ; and yet we, 
 it seems, are guilty of awful presumption 
 when we deny of God principles of ad- 
 ministration against which every pure 
 and good sentiment in our breasts rises 
 in abhorrence. 
 
 We shall conclude this discussion with 
 an important inquiry. If God's justice 
 and goodness are consistent with those 
 operations and modes of government, 
 which Calvinism ascribes to him, of what 
 use is our belief in these perfections ? 
 What expectations can we found upon 
 them ? If it consist with divine rectitude 
 to consign to everlasting misery beings 
 who have come guilty and impotent from 
 his hand, we beg to know what interest 
 we have in this rectitude, what pledge 
 of good it contains, or what evil can be 
 imagined which- may not be its natural 
 result ? If justice and goodness, when 
 stretched to infinity, take such strange 
 forms and appear in such unexpected 
 and apparently inconsistent operations,
 
 AGAINST CALVINISM. 
 
 467 
 
 how are we sure that they will not give 
 up the best men to ruin, and leave the 
 universe to the powers of darkness ? 
 Such results, indeed, seem incompatible 
 with these attributes, but not more so 
 than the acts attributed to God by Cal- 
 vinism. Is it said that the divine faith- 
 fulness is pledged in the Scriptures to a 
 happier issue of things ? But why should 
 not divine faithfulness transcend our poor 
 understandings as much as divine good- 
 ness and justice, and why may not God, 
 consistently with this attribute, crush 
 every hope which his word has raised ? 
 Thus all the divine perfections are lost 
 to us as grounds of encouragement and 
 consolation, if we maintain that their in- 
 finity places them beyond our judgment, 
 and that we must expect from them meas- 
 ures and operations entirely opposed to 
 what seems to us most accordant with 
 their nature. 
 
 We have thus endeavored to show that 
 the testimony of our rational and moral 
 faculties against Calvinism is worthy of 
 trust. We know that this reasoning 
 will be met by the question, What, then, 
 becomes of Christianity ? for this relig- 
 ion plainly teaches the doctrines you 
 have condemned. Our answer is ready. 
 Christianity contains no such doctrines. 
 Christianity, reason, and conscience are 
 perfectly harmonious on the subject 
 under discussion. Our religion, fairly 
 construed, gives no countenance to that 
 system which has arrogated to itself the 
 distinction of Evangelical. We cannot, 
 however, enter this field at present. 
 We will only say that the general spirit 
 of Christianity affords a very strong 
 presumption, that its records teach no 
 such doctrines as we have opposed. 
 This spirit is love, charity, benevolence. 
 Christianity, we all agree, is i designed 
 to manifest God as perfect benevolence, 
 and to bring men to love and imitate 
 him. Now, is it probable that a relig- 
 ion, having this object, gives views of the 
 Supreme Being from which our moral 
 convictions and benevolent sentiments 
 shrink with horror, and which, if made 
 our pattern, would convert us into mon- 
 sters ? It is plain that, were a human 
 parent to form himself on the Universal 
 Father, as described by Calvinism, that 
 is, were he to bring his children into 
 life totally depraved, and then to pursue 
 them with endless punishment, we should 
 charge him with a cruelty not surpassed 
 
 in the annals of the world ; or, were a 
 sovereign to incapacitate his subjects in 
 any way whatever for obeying his laws, 
 and then to torture them in dungeons of 
 perpetual woe, we should say that history 
 records no darker crime. And is it prob- 
 able that a religion which aims to attract 
 and assimilate us to God, considered as 
 love, should hold him up to us in these 
 heart-withering characters ? We may 
 confidently expect to find in such a 
 system the brightest views of the divine 
 nature ; and the same objections lie 
 against interpretations of its records, 
 which savor of cruelty and injustice, as 
 lie against the literal sense of passages 
 which ascribe to God bodily wants and 
 organs. Let the Scriptures be read with 
 a recollection of the spirit of Christian- 
 ity, and with that modification of par- 
 ticular texts by this general spirit, which 
 a just criticism requires, and Calvinism 
 would no more enter the mind of the 
 reader than Popery, we had almost 
 said, than Heathenism. 
 
 In the remarks now made, it will be 
 seen, we hope, that we have aimed to 
 expose doctrines, not to condemn their 
 professors. It is true that men are apt 
 to think themselves assailed when their 
 system only is called to account. But 
 we have no foe but error. We are less 
 and less disposed to measure the piety 
 of others by peculiarities of faith. Men's 
 characters are determined, not by the 
 opinions which they profess, but by 
 those on which their thoughts habitu- 
 ally fasten, which recur to them most 
 forcibly, and which color their ordinary 
 views of God and duty. The creed of 
 habit, imitation, or fear may be defended 
 stoutly, and yet have little practical in- 
 fluence. The mind, when compelled by 
 education or other circumstances to re- 
 ceive irrational doctrines, has yet a power 
 of keeping them, as it were, on its sur- 
 face, of excluding them from its depths, 
 of refusing to incorporate them with its 
 own being ; and, when burdened with a 
 mixed, incongruous system, it often dis- 
 covers a sagacity which reminds us of 
 the instinct of inferior animals, in select- 
 ing the healthful and nutritious por- 
 tions, and in making them its daily food. 
 Accordingly, the real faith often corre- 
 sponds little with that which is pro- 
 fessed. It often happens that, through 
 the progress of the mind in light and 
 virtue, opinions, once central, are grad-
 
 468 
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 ually thrown outward, lose their vitality, 
 and cease to be principles of action, 
 whilst through habit they are defended 
 as articles of faith. The words of the 
 creed survive, but its advocates sympa- 
 thize with it little more than its foes. 
 These remarks are particularly appli- 
 cable to the present subject. A large 
 number, perhaps a majority, of those 
 who surname themselves with the name 
 of Calvin, have little more title to it than 
 ourselves. They keep the name, and 
 drop the principles which it signifies. 
 They adhere to the system as a -whole, 
 but shrink from all its parts and dis- 
 tinguishing points. This silent but 
 real defection from Calvinism is spread- 
 ing more and more widely. The grim 
 features of this system are softening, 
 and its stern spirit yielding to concili- 
 ation and charity. We beg our readers 
 to consult for themselves the two 
 Catechisms and the Confession of the 
 Westminster Assembly, and to compare 
 these standards of Calvinism with what 
 now bears its name. They will rejoice, 
 we doubt not, in the triumphs of truth. 
 With these views, we have no disposi- 
 tion to disparage the professors of the 
 system which we condemn, although we 
 believe that its influence is yet so ex- 
 tensive and pernicious as to bind us to 
 oppose it. 
 
 Calvinism, we are persuaded, is giving 
 place to better views. It has passed its 
 meridian, and is sinking to rise no more. 
 It has to contend with foes more for- 
 midable than theologians; with foes from 
 whom it cannot shield itself in mystery 
 and metaphysical subtilties, wefnean 
 with the progress of the human mind, 
 and with the progress of the spirit of the 
 
 gospel. Society is going forward in in- 
 telligence and charity, and of course is 
 leaving the theology of the sixteenth 
 century behind it. We hail this revo- 
 lution of opinion as a most auspicious 
 event to the Christian cause. We hear 
 much at present of efforts to spread the 
 gospel. But Christianity is gaining more 
 by the removal of degrading errors than 
 it would by armies of missionaries who 
 should carry with them a corrupted form 
 of the religion. We think the decline of 
 Calvinism one of the most encouraging 
 facts in our passing history ; for this 
 system, by outraging conscience and 
 reason, tends to array these high facul- 
 ties against revelation. Its errors are 
 peculiarly mournful, because they relate 
 to the character of God. It darkens and 
 stains his pure nature, spoils his charac- 
 ter of its sacredness, loveliness, glory, 
 and thus quenches the central light of 
 the universe, makes existence a curse, 
 and the extinction of it a consummation 
 devoutly to be wished. We now speak 
 of the peculiarities of this system, and of 
 their natural influence, when not coun- 
 teracted, as they always are in a greater 
 or less degree, by better views, derived 
 from the spirit and plain lessons of 
 Christianity. 
 
 We have had so much to do with our 
 subject, that we have neglected to make 
 the usual extracts from the book which 
 we proposed to review. We earnestly 
 wish that a work, answering to the title 
 of this, which should give us "a general 
 view of Christian doctrines," might be 
 undertaken by a powerful hand. Next 
 to a good commentary on the Scriptures, 
 it would be the best service which could 
 be rendered to Christian truth. 
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 To the Editor of the " Western Messenger" Louisville, Kentucky. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have received your 
 letter, expressing a very earnest desire 
 that I would make some contribution to 
 the pages of the " Western Messenger." 
 Your appeal is too strong to be resisted. 
 I feel that I must send you something, 
 though circumstances, which I cannot 
 
 control, do not allow me to engage in 
 any elaborate discussion. I have there- 
 fore resolved to write you a letter, with 
 the same freedom which I should use if 
 writing not for the public but to a friend. 
 Perhaps it may meet the wants and suit 
 the frank spirit of the West more than a
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 469 
 
 regular essay. But judge for yourself, 
 and do what you will with my hasty 
 thoughts. 
 
 I begin with expressing my satisfac- 
 tion in your having planted yourself in 
 the West. I am glad for your own sake, 
 as well as for the sake of the cause you 
 have adopted. I say, your own sake. 
 You have chosen the good part. The 
 first question to be asked by a young 
 man entering into active life is, in what 
 situation he can find the greatest scope 
 and excitement to his powers and good 
 affections ? That sphere is the best for 
 a man in which he can best unfold the 
 faculties of a man, in which he can do 
 justice to his whole nature ; in which 
 his intellect, heart, conscience, will be 
 called into the most powerful life. I am 
 always discouraged when I hear a young 
 man asking for the easiest condition, 
 when I see him looking out for some 
 beaten path, in which he may move on 
 mechanically, and with the least expense 
 of thought or feeling. The young min- 
 ister sometimes desires to become a 
 fixture in an established congregation, 
 which is bound to its place of worship 
 by obstinate ties of habit, and which 
 can therefore be kept together with little 
 effort of his own. If the congregation 
 happens to be what is called a respect- 
 able one, that is, if it happens so far to 
 regard the rules of worldly decorum as 
 never to shock him by immoralities, and 
 never to force him into any new or 
 strenuous exertion for its recovery, so 
 much the better. Such a minister is 
 among the most pitiable members of 
 the community. Happily this extreme 
 case is rare. But the case is not rare 
 of those who, wishing to do good, still 
 desire to reconcile usefulness with all 
 the comforts of life, who shrink from 
 the hazards which men take in other 
 pursuits, who want the spirit of enter- 
 prise, who prefer to reap where others 
 have sowed, and to linger round the 
 places of their nativity. At a time when 
 men of other professions pour them- 
 selves into the new parts of the country, 
 and are seeking their fortunes with buoy- 
 ant spirits and overflowing hopes, the 
 minister seems little inclined to seek 
 what is better than fortune in untried 
 fields of labor. Of all men, the minister 
 should be first to inquire, where shall I 
 find the circumstances most fitted to 
 wake up my whole soul, to task all my 
 
 faculties, to inspire a profound interest, 
 to carry me out of myself ? I believe 
 you have asked yourself this question, 
 and I think you have answered it wisely. 
 You have thrown yourself into a new 
 country, where there are admirable ma- 
 terials, but where a congregation is to 
 be created by your own faithfulness and 
 zeal. Not even a foundation is laid on 
 which you can build. There are no 
 mechanical habits among the people, 
 which the minister can use as labor- 
 saving machines, which will do much of 
 his work for him, which will draw peo- 
 ple to church whether he meets their 
 wants or not. Still more, there are no 
 rigid rules, binding you down to specific 
 modes of action, cramping your energies, 
 warring with your individuality. You 
 may preach in your own way, preach 
 from your observation of the effects pro- 
 duced on a free-speaking people. Tra- 
 dition does not take the place of your 
 own reason. In addition to this, you 
 see and feel the pressing need of re- 
 ligious instruction, in a region where 
 religious institutions are in their in- 
 fancy. That, under such circumstances, 
 a man who starts with the true spirit will 
 make progress, can hardly be doubted, 
 You have peculiar trials, but in these 
 you find impulses which, I trust, are 
 to carry you forward to greater useful- 
 ness, and to a higher action of the whole 
 soul. 
 
 Boston has sometimes been called the 
 Paradise of ministers ; and undoubtedly 
 the respect in which the profession is 
 held, and the intellectual helps afforded 
 here, give some reason for the appella- 
 tion. But there are disadvantages also, 
 and one in particular, to which you are 
 not exposed. Shall I say a word of evil 
 of this good city of Boston ? Among 
 all its virtues it does not abound in a 
 tolerant spirit. The yoke of opinion is 
 a heavy one, often crushing individuality 
 of judgment and action. A censorship, 
 unfriendly to free exertion, is exercised 
 over the pulpit as well as over other 
 concerns. No city in the world is gov- 
 erned so little by a police, and so much 
 by mutual inspection, and what is called 
 public sentiment. We stand more in 
 awe of one another than most people. 
 Opinion is less individual, or runs more 
 into masses, and often rules with a rod 
 of iron. Undoubtedly opinion, when en- 
 lightened, lofty, pure, is a useful sov-
 
 4/0 
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 ereign ; but, in the present imperfect 
 state of society, it has its evils as well 
 as benefits. It suppresses the grosser 
 vices rather than favors the higher virt- 
 ues. It favors public order rather than 
 originality of thought, moral energy, 
 and spiritual life. To prescribe its due 
 bounds is a very difficult problem. Were 
 its restraints wholly removed, the deco- 
 rum of the pulpit would be endangered ; 
 but that these restraints are excessive 
 in this city, and especially in our de- 
 nomination, that they often weigh op- 
 pressively on the young minister, and 
 that they often take from ministers of 
 all ages the courage, confidence, and au- 
 thority which their high mission should 
 inspire, cannot, I fear, be denied. The 
 minister here, on entering the pulpit, 
 too often feels that he is to be judged 
 rather than to judge ; that instead of 
 meeting sinful men, who are to be 
 warned or saved, he is to meet critics 
 to be propitiated or disarmed. He feels, 
 that should he trust himself to his heart, 
 speak without book, and consequently 
 break some law of speech, or be hurried 
 into some daring hyperbole, he should 
 find little mercy. Formerly Felix trem- 
 bled before Paul ; now the successor of 
 Paul more frequently trembles. For- 
 eigners generally set down, as one of 
 our distinctions, the awe in which we 
 stand of opinion, the want of freedom 
 of speech, the predominance of caution 
 and calculation over impulse. This feat- 
 ure of our society exempts it from some 
 dangers ; and those persons JMio see 
 only ruin in the reforming spirit of the 
 times will prize it as our best character- 
 istic. Be this as it may, one thing is 
 sure, that it does not give energy to the 
 ministry, or favor the nobler action or 
 higher products of the mind. Your sit- 
 uation gives you greater freedom. You 
 preach, I understand, wholly without 
 notes. In this you may carry your lib- 
 erty too far. Writing is one of the 
 great means of giving precision, clear- 
 ness, consistency, and energy to thought. 
 Every other sermon, I think, should be 
 written, if circumstances allow it. But 
 he who only preaches from notes will 
 never do justice to his own powers and 
 feelings. The deepest fountains of elo- 
 quence within him will not be unsealed. 
 He will never know the full power given 
 him over his fellow-creatures. 
 
 The great danger to a minister at this 
 
 time is the want of life, the danger of 
 being dead while he lives. Brought up 
 where Christianity is established, he is 
 in danger of receiving it as a tradition. 
 Brought up where a routine of duty is 
 marked out for him, and a certain style 
 of preaching imposed, he is in danger 
 of preaching from tradition. Ministers 
 are strongly tempted to say what they 
 are expected to say. Accordingly, their 
 tones and looks too often show that 
 they understand but superficially what 
 is meant by their words. You see that 
 they are talking of that which is not real 
 to them. This danger of lifelessness is 
 great in old congregations, made up of 
 people of steady habits and respectable 
 characters. The minister in such a case 
 is apt to feel as if his hearers needed 
 no mighty change, and as if his work 
 were accomplished when his truisms, 
 expressed with more or less propriety, 
 are received with due respect. He ought 
 to feel that the people may be spiritually 
 dead with their regular habits, as he 
 may be with his regular preaching ; that 
 both may need to be made alive. It is 
 the advantage of such a situation as you 
 are called to fill that you can do nothing 
 without life. A machine in a western 
 pulpit cannot produce even the show of 
 an effect. The people may be less en- 
 lightened than we are, more irregular in 
 habits, more defective in character ; but 
 they must have living men to speak to 
 them, and must hear a voice which, 
 whether true or erring, still comes from 
 the soul, or they cannot be brought to 
 hear. This is no small compensation 
 for many disadvantages. 
 
 This life of which I speak, though 
 easily recognized by a congregation, 
 cannot be easily described by them, just 
 as the most ignorant man can distinguish 
 a living from a dead body, but knows 
 very little in what vitality consists. A 
 common mistake is, that life in the min- 
 ister is strong emotion. But it consists 
 much more in the clear perception, the 
 deep conviction of the reality of religion, 
 the reality of virtue, of man's spiritual 
 nature, of God, of immortality, of heaven. 
 The tone which most proves a minister 
 to be alive is that of calm, entire confi- 
 dence in the truth of what he says, the 
 tone of a man who speaks of what he 
 has seen and handled, the peculiar tone 
 which belongs to one who has come 
 fresh from what he describes, to whom
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 471 
 
 the future world is as substantial as the 
 present, who does not echo what others 
 say of the human soul, but feels his 
 own spiritual nature as others feel their 
 bodies, and to whom God is as truly 
 present as the nearest fellow-creature. 
 Strong emotion in the pulpit is too often 
 a fever caught by sympathy, or a fervor 
 worked up for the occasion, or a sensi- 
 bility belonging more to the nerves than 
 the mind, and excited by vague views 
 which fade away before the calm rea- 
 son. Hence enthusiasts often become 
 sceptics. The great sign of life is to 
 see and feel that there is something 
 real, substantial, immortal, in Christian 
 virtue ; to be conscious of the reality and 
 nearness of your relations to God and 
 the invisible world. This is the life 
 which the minister needs, and which it 
 is his great work to communicate. My 
 hope is that, by sending ministers into 
 new situations, where new wants cry to 
 them for supply, a living power may be 
 awakened, to which a long-established 
 routine of labors is not favorable, and 
 which may spread beyond them to their 
 brethren. 
 
 I pass now to another subject. We 
 hear much of the Catholic religion in the 
 West, and of its threatening progress. 
 There are not a few here who look upon 
 this alarm as a pious fraud, who consider 
 the cry of " No Popery " as set up by a 
 particular sect to attract to itself dis- 
 tinction and funds : but fear is so nat- 
 ural, and "a panic spreads so easily, that 
 I see no necessity of resorting to so 
 unkind an explanation. It must be con- 
 fessed that Protestantism enters on the 
 warfare with Popery under some disad- 
 vantages, and may be expected to betray 
 some consciousness of weakness. Most 
 Protestant sects are built on the papal 
 foundation. Their creeds and excom- 
 munications embody the grand idea of 
 infallibility as truly as the decrees of 
 Trent and the Vatican ; and if the peo- 
 ple must choose between different in- 
 fallibilities, there is much to incline 
 them to that of Rome. This has age, 
 the majority of votes, more daring as- 
 sumption, and bolder denunciation on 
 its side. The popes of our different 
 sects are certainly less imposing to the 
 imagination than the Pope at Rome. 
 
 I trust, however, that, with these ad- 
 vantages, Catholicism is still not very 
 formidable. It has something more to 
 
 do than to fight with sects ; its great 
 foe is the progress of society. The 
 creation of dark times, it cannot stand 
 before the light. In this country in 
 particular, it finds no coadjutors in any 
 circumstances, passions, or institutions. 
 Catholicism is immovable, and move- 
 ment and innovation are the order of 
 the day. It rejects the idea of meliora- 
 tion, and the passion for improvement 
 is inflaming all minds. It takes its stand 
 in the past, and this generation are living 
 in the future. It clings to forms, which 
 the mind has outgrown. It will not 
 modify doctrines in which the intelli- 
 gence of the age cannot but recognize 
 the stamp of former ignorance. It for- 
 bids free inquiry, and inquiry is the 
 spirit of the age, the boldest inquiry, 
 stopping nowhere, invading every region 
 of thought. Catholicism wrests from 
 the .people the right to choose their own 
 ministers, and the right of election is 
 the very essence of our institutions. It 
 establishes an aristocratical priesthood, 
 and the whole people are steeped in 
 republicanism. It withholds the Script- 
 ures, and the age is a reading one, and 
 reads the more what is forbidden. Ca- 
 tholicism cannot comprehend that the 
 past is not the present, cannot com- 
 prehend the revolution which the art of 
 printing and the revival of learning have 
 effected. Its memory seems not to come 
 down lower than the middle ages. It 
 aims to impose restraints on thought, 
 which were comparatively easy before 
 the press was set in motion, and labors 
 to shore up institutions, in utter uncon- 
 sciousness that the state of society, and 
 the modes of thinking on which they 
 rested, have passed away. 
 
 The political revolutions of the times 
 are enough to seal the death-warrant of 
 Catholicism, but it has to encounter a 
 far more important spiritual revolution. 
 Catholicism belongs to what may be 
 called the dogmatical age of Christian- 
 ity, the age when it was thought our 
 religion might be distilled into a creed, 
 which would prove an elixir of life to 
 whoever would swallow it. We have 
 now come to learn that Christianity is 
 not a dogma, but a spirit, that its es- 
 sence is the spirit of its divine Founder, 
 that it is of little importance what church 
 a man belongs to, or what formula of 
 doctrines he subscribes, that nothing is 
 important but the supreme love, choice,
 
 472 
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 pursuit of moral perfection, shining forth 
 in the life and teachings of Christ. This 
 is the true Catholic doctrine, the creed 
 of the true church, gathering into one 
 spiritual communion all good and holy 
 men of all ages and regions, and des- 
 tined to break down all the earthly clay- 
 built, gloomy barriers which now sepa- 
 rate the good from one another. To 
 this great idea of reason and revelation, 
 of the understanding and heart, of ex- 
 perience and philosophy, to this great 
 truth of an advanced civilization, Cathol- 
 icism stands in direct hostility. How 
 sure, then, is its fall ! 
 
 The great foe of the Romish church 
 is not the theologian. He might be im- 
 prisoned, chained, burned. It is human 
 nature waking up to a consciousness of 
 its powers, catching a glimpse of the 
 perfection for which it was made, begin- 
 ning to respect itself, thirsting for free 
 action and development, learning through 
 a deep consciousness that there is some- 
 thing diviner than forms, or churches, or 
 creeds, recognizing in Jesus Christ its 
 own celestial model, and claiming kin- 
 dred with all who have caught any por- 
 tion of his spiritual life and disinterested 
 love ; here, here is the great enemy of 
 Catholicism. I look confidently to the 
 ineradicable, ever-unfolding principles 
 of human nature for the victory over all 
 superstitions. Reason and conscience, 
 the powers by which we discern the true 
 and the right, are immortal as their 
 Author. Oppressed for ages, they yet 
 live. Like the central fires of the earth, 
 they can heave up mountains. It is en- 
 couraging to see under what burdens 
 and clouds they have made their way ; 
 and we must remember that by every 
 new development they are brought more 
 into contact with the life-giving, omnipo- 
 tent truth and character of Jesus Christ. 
 It makes me smile to hear immortality 
 claimed for Catholicism or Protestant- 
 ism, or for any past interpretations of 
 Christianity ; as if the human soul had 
 exhausted itself in its infant efforts, or 
 as if the men of one or a few generations 
 could bind the energy of human thought 
 and affection for ever. A theology at 
 war with the laws of physical nature 
 would be a battle of no doubtful issue. 
 The laws of our spiritual nature give 
 still less chance of success to the system 
 which would thwart or stay them. The 
 progress of the individual and of society, 
 
 which has shaken the throne of Rome, 
 is not an accident, not an irregular spas- 
 modic effort, but the natural movement 
 of the soul. Catholicism must fall before 
 it. In truth, it is very much fallen al- 
 ready. It exists, and will long exist, as 
 an outward institution. But compare 
 the Catholicism of an intelligent man of 
 the nineteenth century with what it was 
 in the tenth. The name, the letter re- 
 main, how changed the spirit! The 
 silent reform spreading in the very 
 bosom of Catholicism is as important as 
 the reformation of the sixteenth century, 
 and in truth more effectual. 
 
 Catholicism has always hoped for vic- 
 tory over Protestantism, on the ground 
 of the dissensions of Protestants. But 
 its anticipations have not approached 
 fulfilment, and they show us how the 
 most sagacious err when they attempt to 
 read futurity. I have long since learned 
 to hear with composure the auguries of 
 the worldly wise. The truth is, that the 
 dissensions of Protestantism go far to 
 constitute its strength. Through them 
 its spirit, which is freedom, the only 
 spirit which Rome cannot conquer, is 
 kept alive. Had its members been or- 
 ganized and bound into a single church, 
 it would have become a despotism as 
 unrelenting, and corrupt, and hopeless 
 as Rome. But this is not all. Protes- 
 tantism, by being broken into a great 
 variety of sects, has adapted itself to the 
 various modifications of human nature. 
 Every sect has embodied religion in a 
 form suited to some large class of minds. 
 It has met some want, answered to some 
 great principle of the soul, and thus 
 every new denomination has been a new 
 standard under which to gather and hold 
 fast a host against Rome. One of the 
 great arts by which Catholicism spread 
 and secured its dominion was its won- 
 derful flexibleness, its most skilful adap- 
 tation of itself to the different tastes, 
 passions, wants of men; and to this 
 means of influence and dominion Prot- 
 estantism could oppose nothing but 
 variety of sects. I do not recollect that 
 I ever saw this feature of Catholicism 
 brought out distinctly, and yet nothing 
 in the system has impressed me more 
 strongly. The Romish religion calls 
 itself one, but it has a singular variety 
 of forms and aspects. For the lover of 
 forms and outward religion, it has a 
 gorgeous ritual. To the mere man of the
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 473 
 
 world, it shows a pope on the throne, 
 bishops in palaces, and all the splendor 
 of earthly dominion. At the same time, 
 for the self-denying, ascetic, mystical, 
 and fanatical, it has all the forms of 
 monastic life. To him who would 
 scourge himself into godliness, it offers 
 a whip. For him who would starve him- 
 self into spirituality, it provides the 
 mendicant convents of St. Francis. For 
 the anchorite, it prepares the death-like 
 silence of La Trappe. To the passion- 
 ate young woman, it presents the rapt- 
 ures of St. Theresa, and the marriage 
 of St. Catharine with her Saviour. For 
 the restless pilgrim, whose piety needs 
 greater variety than the cell of the monk, 
 it offers shrines, tombs, relics, and other 
 holy places in Christian lands, and, above 
 all, the holy sepulchre near Calvary. To 
 the generous, sympathizing enthusiast, 
 it opens some fraternity or sisterhood 
 of charity. To him who inclines to take 
 heaven by violence, it gives as much 
 penance as he can ask ; and to the mass 
 of men, who wish to reconcile the two 
 worlds, it promises a purgatory, so far 
 softened down by the masses of the 
 priest and the prayers of the faithful, 
 that its fires can be anticipated without 
 overwhelming dread. This composition 
 of forces in the Romish church seems 
 to me a wonderful monument of skill. 
 When, in Rome, the traveller sees by 
 the side of the purple, lackeyed cardi- 
 nal the begging friar ; when, under the 
 arches of St. Peter, he sees a coarsely 
 dressed monk holding forth to a ragged 
 crowd ; or when, beneath a Franciscan 
 church, adorned with the most precious 
 works of art, he meets a charnel-house, 
 where the bones of the dead brethren 
 are built into walls, between which the 
 living walk to read their mortality, he 
 is amazed, if he gives himself time for 
 reflection, at the infinite variety of ma- 
 chinery which Catholicism has brought 
 to bear on the human mind ; at the sa- 
 gacity with which it has adapted itself 
 to the various tastes and propensities of 
 human nature. Protestantism attains 
 this end by more simple, natural, and, in 
 the main, more effectual ways. All the 
 great principles of our nature are repre- 
 sented in different sects, which have, on 
 the whole, a keener passion for self- 
 aggrandizement than the various orders 
 in the Romish church, and thus men of 
 all varieties of mind find something: con- 
 
 genial, find a class to sympathize 
 with. 
 
 And here I cannot but observe that 
 ! Episcopacy renders good service to the 
 ; Protestant cause. Without being thor- 
 oughly Protestant, it is especially effi- 
 i cient against Catholicism ; and this good 
 i work it does by its very proximity to 
 i Rome. From the wide diffusion and 
 ! long continuance of Catholicism, we may 
 . be sure that it embodies some great 
 j idea, and answers some want which is 
 j early and powerfully developed in the 
 j progress of civilization. There is, of 
 consequence, a tendency to Catholicism 
 in society, though more and more re- 
 strained by higher tendencies. Happily, 
 Episcopacy is built on the same great 
 idea, but expresses it in a more limited 
 and rational form. It is Catholicism im- 
 proved, or mother church with a lower 
 mitre and a less royal air ; and by meet- 
 ing the want which carries men to the 
 Romish church, stops numbers on their 
 way to it. Hence, Catholicism hates 
 Episcopacy more than any other form 
 of dissent. Sects are apt to hate each 
 other in proportion to their proximity. 
 The old proverb, that two of a trade 
 cannot agree, applies to religion as 
 strongly as to common life. The amount 
 is, that Catholicism derives little aid 
 from Protestant divisions. In an age 
 as unimproved in Christianity as the 
 present, these divisions are promising 
 symptoms. They prevent men from 
 settling down in a rude Christianity. 
 They keep alive inquiry and zeal. They 
 are essential to freedom and progress. 
 Without these, Protestantism would be 
 only a new edition of Catholicism ; and 
 the old pope would certainly beat any 
 new one who could be arrayed against 
 him. 
 
 Do you ask me, how I think Catholi- 
 cism may be most successfully opposed ? 
 I know but one way. Spread just, natu- 
 ral, ennobling views of religion. Lift 
 men above Catholicism, by showing 
 them the great spiritual purpose of 
 Christianity. Violence will avail noth- 
 ing. Romanism cannot be burned down, 
 like the convent at Charlestown. That 
 outrage bound every Catholic faster to 
 his church, and attracted to it the sym- 
 pathies of the good. Neither is Popery 
 to be subdued by virulence and abuse. 
 The priest can call as hard names as 
 the Protestant pastor. Neither do I
 
 474 
 
 LEJTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 think that any thing is to be gained by 
 borrowing from the Catholic church her 
 forms, and similar means of influence. 
 Borrowed forms are peculiarly formal. 
 No sect will be benefited by forms 
 which do not grow from its own spirit. 
 A sect which has true life will seize by 
 instinct the emblems and rites which 
 are in accordance with itself ; and, with- 
 out life, it will only find in borrowed 
 rites its winding-sheet. It is not un- 
 common to hear persons who visit 
 Catholic countries recommending the 
 introduction of this or that usage of 
 Romanism among ourselves. For ex- 
 ample, they enter Catholic churches 
 and see at all hours worshippers before 
 one or another altar, and contrasting 
 with this the desertion of our houses of 
 worship during the week, doubt whether 
 we are as pious, and wish to open the 
 doors of our sanctuaries, that Protes- 
 tants may at all hours approve them- 
 selves as devoted as the Papists. Now, 
 such recommendations show a miscon- 
 ception of the true foundation and spirit 
 of Roman usages. In the case before 
 us, nothing is more natural than that 
 Catholics should go to churches or 
 public places to pray. In the first 
 place, in the southern countries of 
 Europe, where Catholicism first took its 
 form, the people live in public. They 
 are an outdoor people. Their domestic 
 occupations go on in the outward air. 
 That they should perform their private 
 devotions in public, is in harmony with 
 all their habits. What a violence it 
 would be to ours ! In the next place, 
 the Catholic believes that the church 
 has a peculiar sanctity. A prayer of- 
 fered from its floor finds its way to 
 heaven more easily than from any other 
 spot. The pernicious superstition of 
 his religion carries him to do the work 
 of his religion in one consecrated place, 
 and therefore he does it the less else- 
 where. Again : Catholic churches are 
 attractive from the miraculous virtue 
 ascribed to the images which are wor- 
 shipped there. Strange, monstrous as 
 the superstition is, yet nothing is more 
 common in Catholic countries than the 
 ascription of this or that supernatural 
 agency to one or another shrine or statue. 
 A saint, worshipped at one place, or 
 under one image, will do more than if 
 worshipped elsewhere. I recollect ask- 
 ing an Italian why a certain church of 
 
 rather humble appearance, in a large 
 city, was so much frequented. He 
 smiled, and told me that the Virgin, 
 who was adored there, was thought par- 
 ticularly propitious to those who had 
 bought tickets in the lottery. Once 
 more, we can easily conceive why visit- 
 ing the churches for daily prayer has 
 been encouraged by the priesthood. 
 The usage brought the multitude still 
 more under priestly power, and taught 
 them to associate their most secret 
 aspirations of piety with the church. 
 Who, that takes all these circumstances 
 into consideration, can expect Protes- 
 tants to imitate the Catholics in fre- 
 quenting the church for secret devotion, 
 or can wish it ? Has not Jesus said, 
 " When thou prayest, go into thy closet, 
 and shut thy door, and pray to thy Fa- 
 ther, who seeth in secret " ? Catholi- 
 cism says, " When thou prayest, go into 
 the public church, and pray before the 
 multitude." Of the little efficacy of this 
 worship we have too painful proofs. 
 The worship of the churches of Italy 
 is directed chiefly to the Virgin. She 
 is worshipped as the Virgin. The great 
 idea of this Catholic deity is purity, 
 chastity ; and yet, unless all travellers 
 deceive us, the country where she is 
 worshipped is disfigured by licentious- 
 ness beyond all countries of the civil- 
 ized world. I return to my position. 
 We need borrow nothing from Catholi- 
 cism. Episcopacy retained (did not bor- 
 row) as much of the ritual of that 
 church as is wanted in the present age, 
 for those among us who have Catholic 
 propensities. Other sects, if they need 
 forms, must originate them, and this 
 they must do not mechanically, but 
 from the promptings of the spiritual 
 life, from a thirst for new modes of 
 manifesting their religious hopes and 
 aspirations. Woe to that church which 
 looks round for forms to wake it up to 
 spiritual life ! The dying man is not to 
 be revived by a new dress, however 
 graceful. The disease of a languid 
 sect is too deep to be healed by cere- 
 monies. It needs deeper modes of cure. 
 Let it get life, and it will naturally create 
 the emblems or rites which it needs to 
 express and maintain its spiritual force. 
 The great instrument of influence and 
 dominion in the Catholic church is one 
 which we should shudder to borrow, but 
 which may still give important hints as
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 475 
 
 to the means of promoting religion. I 
 refer to confession. Nothing too bad 
 can be said of this. By laying open the 
 secrets of all hearts to the priest, it 
 makes the priest the master of all. 
 Still, to a good man, it gives the power 
 of doing good, a power which, I doubt 
 not, is often conscientiously used. It 
 gives to the religious teacher an ac- 
 cess to men's minds and conscience, 
 such as the pulpit does not furnish. 
 Instead of scattering generalities among 
 the crowd, he can administer to each 
 soul the very instruction, warning, en- 
 couragement it needs. In Catholic coun- 
 tries there is little preaching, nor is it 
 necessary. The confessional is far 
 more powerful than the pulpit. And 
 what do we learn from this ? That Pro- 
 testants should adopt confession ? No. 
 But the question arises, whether the 
 great principle of confession, that on 
 which its power rests, viz., access to 
 the individual mind, may not be used 
 more than it is by Protestant teachers ; 
 whether such access may not be gained 
 by honorable and generous means, and 
 so used as to be guarded against abuse. 
 Preaching is now our chief reliance ; 
 but preaching is an arrow which shoots 
 over many heads, and flies wide of the 
 hearts of more. Its aim is too vague to 
 do much execution. It is melancholy 
 to think how little clear knowledge on 
 the subject of duty and religion is com- 
 municated by the pulpit, and how often 
 the emotion which it excites, for want of 
 clear views, for want of wisdom, runs 
 into morbidness or excess. No art, no 
 science is taught so vagueby as religion 
 from the pulpit. No book is so read 
 or expounded as the Bible is, that is, 
 in minute fragments, and without those 
 helps of method by which all other 
 branches are taught. Is not a freer, 
 easier, opener communication with his 
 pupils needed than the minister does or 
 can hold from the pulpit ? Should not 
 modes of teaching and intercourse be 
 adopted, by which he can administer 
 truth to different minds, according to 
 their various capacities and wants ? 
 Must not he rely less on preaching, and 
 more on more familiar communication ? 
 This question becomes of more im- 
 portance, because it is very plain that 
 preaching is becoming less and less effi- 
 cacious. Preaching is not what it was 
 in the first age of Christianity. Then, 
 
 when there was no printing, compara- 
 tively no reading, Christianity could 
 only be spread by the living voice. 
 Hence to preach became synonymous 
 with teaching. It was the great means 
 of access to the multitude. Now the 
 press preaches incomparably more than 
 the pulpit. Through this all are per- 
 mitted to preach. Woman, if she may 
 not speak in the church, may speak from 
 the printing-room, and her touching ex- 
 positions of religion, not learned in the- 
 ological institutions, but in the schools 
 of affection, of sorrow, of experience, 
 of domestic change, sometimes make 
 their way to the heart more surely than 
 the minister's homilies. The result is, 
 that preaching does not hold the place 
 now which it had in dark and unrefined 
 ages,. The minister addresses from his 
 pulpit many as well educated as him- 
 self, and almost every parishioner has at 
 home better sermons than he hears in 
 public. The minister, too, has compet- 
 itors in the laity, as they are called, who 
 very wisely refuse to leave to him the 
 monopoly of public speaking, and who 
 are encroaching on his province more 
 and more. In this altered condition of 
 the world, the ministry is to undergo 
 important changes. What they must 
 be. I have not time now to inquire. I 
 will only say that the vagueness which 
 belongs to so much religious instruction 
 from the pulpit must give place to a 
 teaching which shall meet more the 
 wants of the individual, and the wants 
 of the present state of society. Great 
 principles must be expounded in accom- 
 modation to different ages, capacities, 
 stages of improvement, and an inter- 
 course be established by which all 
 classes may be helped to apply them to 
 their own particular conditions. How 
 shall Christianity be brought to bear on 
 the individual, and on society at the 
 present moment, in its present strug- 
 gles ? This is the great question to be 
 solved, and the reply to it will determine 
 the form which the Christian ministry 
 is to take. I imagine that, in seeking 
 the solution of this problem, it will be 
 discovered that the ministry must have 
 greater freedom than in past times. It 
 will be discovered that the individual 
 minister must not be rigidly tied down 
 to certain established modes of opera- 
 tion, that he must not be required to 
 cast his preaching into the old mould,
 
 476 
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 to circumscribe himself to the old top- 
 ics, to keep in motion a machinery which 
 others have invented, but that he will do 
 most good if left to work according to 
 his own nature, according to the prompt- 
 ings of the Holy Spirit within his own 
 breast. I imagine it will be discovered 
 that, as justice may be administered 
 without a wig, and the executive func- 
 tion without a crown or sceptre, so 
 Christianity may be administered in 
 more natural and less formal ways than 
 have prevailed, and that the minister, in 
 growing less technical, will find religion 
 becoming to himself and others a more 
 living reality. I imagine that our pres- 
 ent religious organizations will silently 
 melt away, and that hierarchies will be 
 found no more necessary for religion 
 than for literature, science, medicine, 
 law, or the elegant and useful arts. But 
 I will check these imaginings. The 
 point from which I started was, that Ca- 
 tholicism might teach us one element of 
 an effectual ministry, that the Protestant 
 teacher needs and should seek access 
 to the individual mind, beyond what he 
 now possesses ; and the point at which 
 I stop is, that this access is to be so 
 sought and so used as not to infringe 
 religious liberty, the rights of private 
 judgment, the free action of the individ- 
 ual mind. Nothing but this liberty can 
 secure it from the terrible abuse to 
 which it has been exposed in the Cath- 
 olic church. 
 
 In the free remarks which I have 
 now made on certain denominations of 
 Christians, I have been influenced by 
 no unkindness or disrespect towards the 
 individuals who compose them. In all 
 sects I recognize joyfully true disciples 
 of the common Master. Catholicism 
 boasts of some of the best and greatest 
 names in history, so does Episcopacy, 
 so Presbyterianism, &c. I exclude.none. 
 I know that Christianity is mighty enough 
 to accomplish its end in all. I cannot, 
 however, speak of religious any more 
 than of political parties, without betray- 
 ing the little respect I have for them 
 as parties. There is no portion of hu- 
 man history more humbling than that of 
 sects. When I meditate on the grand 
 moral, spiritual purpose of Christianity, 
 in which all its glory consists : when 
 I consider how plainly Christianity at- 
 taches importance to nothing but to the 
 moral excellence, the disinterested, di- 
 
 vine virtue, which was embodied in the 
 teaching and life of its Founder ; and 
 when from this position I look down on 
 the sects which have figured and now 
 figure in the church ; when I see them 
 making such a stir about matters gen- 
 erally so unessential ; when I see them 
 seizing on a disputed and disputable 
 doctrine, making it a watchword, a test 
 of God's favor, a bond of communion, 
 a ground of self-complacency, a badge 
 of peculiar holiness, a warrant for con- 
 demning its rejectors, however imbued 
 with the spirit of Christ ; when I see 
 them overlooking the weightier matters 
 of the law, and laying infinite stress here 
 on a bishop and prayer-book, there on 
 the quantity of water applied in baptism, 
 and there on some dark solution of an 
 incomprehensible article of faith ; when 
 I see the mock dignity of their exclusive 
 claims to truth, to churchship, to the 
 promises of God's word ; when I hear 
 the mimic thunderbolts of denunciation 
 and excommunication which they delight 
 to hurl ; when I consider how their deep 
 theology, in proportion as it is examined, 
 evaporates into words, how many oppo- 
 site and extravagant notions are covered 
 by the same broad shield of mystery and 
 tradition, and how commonly the per- 
 suasion of infallibility is proportioned 
 to the absurdity of the creed ; when 
 I consider these things, and other mat- 
 ters of like import, I am lost in amaze- 
 ment at the amount of arrogant folly, 
 of self-complacent intolerance, of almost 
 incredible blindness to the end and es- 
 sence of Christianity, which the history 
 of sects reveals. I have, indeed, pro- 
 found respect for individuals in all com- 
 munions of Christians. But on sects, 
 and on the spirit of sects, I must be 
 allowed to look with grief, shame, pity, 
 I had almost said contempt. In pass- 
 ing these censures I claim no superiority. 
 I am sure there are thousands of all sects 
 who think and feel as I do in this par- 
 ticular, and who, far from claiming su- 
 perior intelligence, are distinguished by 
 following out the plain dictates, the nat- 
 ural impulses, and spontaneous judgments 
 of conscience and common-sense. 
 
 It is time for me to finish this letter, 
 which indeed has grown under my hands 
 beyond all reasonable bounds. But I 
 must add a line or two in reply to your 
 invitation to visit you. You say that 
 Kentucky will not exclude me for my
 
 LETTER ON CATHOLICISM. 
 
 477 
 
 opinions on slavery. I rejoice to hear 
 it, not for my own sake, but for the sake 
 of the country. I rejoice in a tolerant 
 spirit, wherever manifested. What you 
 say accords with what I have heard of 
 the frank, liberal character of Kentucky. 
 All our accounts of the West make me 
 desire to visit it. I desire to see nature 
 under new aspects ; but still more to see 
 a new form of society. I hear of the 
 defects of the West, but I learn that a 
 man there feels himself to be a man, 
 that he has a self-respect which is not 
 always to be found in older communities, 
 that he speaks his mind freely, that he 
 acts more from generous impulses, and 
 less from selfish calculations. These are 
 good tidings. I rejoice that the inter- 
 course between the East and West is 
 increasing. Both will profit. The West 
 may learn from us the love of order, the 
 arts which adorn and cheer life, the in- 
 stitutions of education and religion, which 
 lie at the foundation of our greatness, 
 and may give us in return the energies 
 and virtues which belong to and dis- 
 tinguish a fresher state of society. Such 
 exchanges I regard as the most precious 
 fruits of the Union, worth more than 
 exchanges of products of industry, and 
 they will do more to bind us together as 
 one people. 
 
 You press me to come and preach in 
 your part of the country. I should do 
 it cheerfully if I could. It would re- 
 joice me to bear a testimony, however 
 feeble, to great truths in your new set- 
 tlements. I confess, however, that I 
 fear that my education would unfit me 
 for great usefulness among you. I fear 
 that the habits, rules, and criticisms 
 under which I have grown up, and al- 
 most grown old, have not left me the 
 freedom and courage which are needed 
 in the style of address best suited to 
 the Western people. I have fought 
 against these chains. I have labored 
 to be a free man, but in the state of 
 the ministry and of society here, free- 
 dom is a hard acquisition. I hope the 
 rising generation will gain it more easily 
 and abundantly than their fathers. 
 
 I have only to add, my young brother, 
 my best wishes for your usefulness. I 
 do not ask for you enjoyment. I ask 
 for you something better and greater, 
 something which includes it, even a 
 spirit to live and die for a cause which 
 is dearer than your own enjoyment. If 
 
 I were called to give you one rule, which 
 your situation demands above all others, 
 it would be this. Live a life of faith and 
 hope. Believe in God's great purposes 
 towards the human race. Believe in 
 the mighty power of truth and love. 
 Believe in the omnipotence of Chris- 
 tianity. Believe that Christ lived and 
 died to breathe into his church and 
 into society a diviner spirit than now 
 exists. Believe in the capacities and 
 greatness of human nature. Believe 
 that the celestial virtue, revealed in the 
 life and teaching of Jesus Christ is not 
 a bright vision tor barren admiration, 
 but is to become a reality in your own 
 and others' souls. Carry to your work 
 a trustful spirit. Do not waste your 
 breath in wailing over the times. Strive 
 to make them better. Do not be dis- 
 heartened by evils. Feel through your 
 whole soul that evil is not the mightiest 
 power in the universe, that it is per- 
 mitted only to call forth the energy of 
 love, wisdom, persuasion, and prayer for 
 its removal. Settle it in your mind that 
 a minister can never speak an effectual 
 word without faith. Be strong in the 
 Lord and the power of his might. Al- 
 low me to say, that I have a good hope 
 of you. I learned some time ago, from 
 one of your dear friends, that you com- 
 prehended the grandeur of your work 
 as a Christian minister. I learned that 
 the pulpit, from which a divinely moved 
 teacher communicates everlasting truths, 
 seemed to you more glorious than a 
 throne. I learned that you had come 
 to understand what is the greatest power 
 which God gives to man, the power 
 of acting generously on the soul of his 
 brother ; of communicating to others a 
 divine spirit, of awakening in others a 
 heavenly life, which is to outlive the 
 stars. I then felt that you would not 
 labor in vain. You have, indeed, pecul- 
 iar trials. You are dwelling far from 
 your brethren, but there is a sense of 
 God's presence more cheering than the 
 dearest human society. There is a con- 
 sciousness of working with God more 
 strengthening than all human co-opera- 
 tion. There is a sight, granted to the 
 pure mind, of the cross of Christ, which 
 makes privations and sufferings in the 
 cause of his truth seem light, which 
 makes us sometimes to rejoice in tribu- 
 lation, like the primitive heroes of our 
 faith. My young brother, I wish you
 
 478 
 
 ON THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION 
 
 these blessings. What else ought I to 
 wish for you ? 
 
 This letter, you will perceive, is writ- 
 ten in great haste. The opinions, in- 
 deed, have been deliberately formed ; 
 but they probably might have been ex- 
 pressed with greater caution. If it will 
 
 serve, in your judgment, the cause of 
 truth, freedom, and religion, you are at 
 liberty to insert it in your work. 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 
 BOSTON, June, 1836. 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION AND DENUNCIATION 
 IN RELIGION CONSIDERED. 
 
 1815. 
 
 NOTHING is plainer than that the 
 leaders of the party called " Orthodox " 
 have adopted and mean to enforce a 
 system of exclusion in regard to Liberal 
 Christians. They spare no pains to in- 
 fect the minds of their too easy follow- 
 ers with the persuasion that they ought 
 to refuse communion with tBeir Unita- 
 rian brethren, and to deny them the 
 name, character, and privileges of Chris- 
 tians. On this system I shall now offer 
 several observations. 
 
 I begin with an important suggestion. 
 I beg that it may be distinctly under- 
 stood that the zeal of Liberal Christians 
 on this point has no other object than 
 the peace and prosperity of the church 
 of Christ. We are pleading, not our 
 own cause, but the cause of our Master. 
 The denial of our Christian character by 
 fallible and imperfect men gives us no 
 anxiety. Our relation to Jesus Christ is 
 not to be dissolved by the breath of man. 
 Our Christian rights do not depend on 
 human passions. We have precisely the 
 same power over our brethren which 
 they have over us, and are equally au- 
 thorized to sever them from the body of 
 Christ. Still more ; if the possession of 
 truth gives superior weight to denun- 
 ciation, we are persuaded that our oppo- 
 sers will be the severest sufferers, should 
 we think fit to hurl back the sentence of 
 exclusion and condemnation. But we 
 have no disposition to usurp power over 
 our brethren. We believe that the spirit 
 which is so studiously excited against 
 ourselves has done incalculable injury to 
 the cause of Christ, and we pray God to 
 deliver us from its power. 
 
 Why are the name, character, and 
 rights of Christians to be denied to Uni- 
 tarians ? Do they deny that Jesus is the 
 Christ ? Do they reject his word as the 
 rule of their faith and practice ? Do 
 their lives discover indifference to his 
 authority and example ? No, these are 
 not their offences. They are deficient 
 in none of the qualifications of disciples 
 which were required in the primitive age. 
 Their offence is, that they read the 
 Scriptures for themselves, and derive 
 from them different opinions on certain 
 points from those which others have 
 adopted. Mistake of judgment is their 
 pretended crime, and this crime is laid 
 to their charge by men who are as lia- 
 ble to mistake as themselves, and who 
 seem to them to have fallen into some 
 of the grossest errors. A condemning 
 sentence from such judges carries with 
 it no terror. Sorrow for its uncharitable- 
 ness, and strong disapprobation of its 
 arrogance, are the principal feelings 
 which it inspires. 
 
 It is truly astonishing that Christians 
 are not more impressed with the unbe- 
 coming spirit, the arrogant style, of 
 those who deny the Christian character 
 to professed and exemplary followers 
 of Jesus Christ because they differ in 
 opinion on some of the most subtile 
 and difficult subjects of theology. A 
 stranger, at hearing the language of 
 these denouncers, would conclude, with- 
 out a doubt, that they were clothed with 
 infallibility, and were appointed to sit in 
 judgment on their brethren. But, for 
 myself, I know not a shadow of a pre- 
 tence for the language of superiority
 
 AND DENUNCIA TION IN RELIGION. 
 
 479 
 
 assumed by our adversaries. Are they 
 exempted from the common frailty of 
 our nature ? Has God given them 
 superior intelligence ? Were they edu- 
 cated under circumstances more favora- 
 ble to improvement than those whom 
 they condemn ? Have they brought to 
 the Scriptures more serious, anxious, 
 and unwearied attention ? Or do their 
 lives express a deeper reverence for God 
 and for his Son ? No. They are fallible, 
 imperfect men, possessing no higher 
 means, and no stronger motives for 
 studying the word of God than their 
 Unitarian brethren. And yet their lan- 
 guage to them is virtually this: "We 
 pronounce you to be in error, and in 
 most dangerous error. We know that 
 we are right, and that you are wrong, 
 in regard to the fundamental doctrines 
 of the gospel. You are unworthy the 
 Christian name, and unfit to sit with us 
 at the table of Christ. We offer you the 
 truth, and you reject it at the peril of 
 your souls." Such is the language of 
 humble Christians to men who, in capac- 
 ity and apparent piety, are not inferior 
 to themselves. This language has spread 
 from the leaders through a considerable 
 part of the community. Men in those 
 walks of life which leave them without 
 leisure or opportunities for improve- 
 ment, are heard to decide on the most 
 intricate points, and to pass sentence 
 on men whose lives have been devoted 
 to the study of the Scriptures ! The 
 female, forgetting the tenderness of her 
 sex, and the limited advantages which 
 her education affords for a critical study 
 of the Scriptures, inveighs with bitter- 
 ness against the damnable errors of such 
 men as Newton, Locke, Clarke, and 
 Price ! The young, too, forget the mod- 
 esty which belongs to their age, and 
 hurl condemnation on the head which 
 has grown gray in the service of God 
 and mankind. Need I ask whether this 
 spirit of denunciation for supposed error 
 becomes the humble and fallible disci- 
 ples of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 In vindication of this system of ex- 
 clusion and denunciation, it is often 
 urged that the "honor of religion," the 
 " purity of the church," and the " cause 
 of truth," forbid those who hold the true 
 gospel to maintain fellowship with those 
 who support corrupt and injurious opin- 
 ions. Without stopping to notice the 
 modesty of those who claim an exclusive 
 
 knowledge of the true gospel, I would 
 answer, that the " honor of religion " 
 can never suffer by admitting to Chris- 
 tian fellowship men of irreproachable 
 lives, whilst it has suffered most severe- 
 ly from that narrow and uncharitable 
 spirit which has excluded such men for 
 imagined errors. I answer again, that 
 the " cause of truth " can never suffer 
 by admitting to Christian fellowship men 
 who honestly profess to make the Script- 
 ures their rule of faith and practice, 
 whilst it has suffered most severely by 
 substituting for this standard conformity 
 to human creeds and formularies. It is 
 truly wonderful, if excommunication for 
 supposed error be the method of purify- 
 ing the church, that the church has been 
 so long and so wofully corrupted. What- 
 ever may have been the deficiencies of 
 Christians in other respects, they have 
 certainly discovered no criminal reluc- 
 tance in applying this instrument of 
 purification. Could the thunders and 
 lightnings of excommunication have cor- 
 rected the atmosphere of the church, 
 not one pestilential vapor would have 
 loaded it for ages. The air of Paradise 
 would not have been more pure, more 
 refreshing. But what does history tell 
 us ? It tells us that the spirit of exclu- 
 sion and denunciation has contributed 
 more than all other causes to the cor- 
 ruption of the church, to the diffusion of 
 error : and has rendered the records of 
 the Christian community as black, as 
 bloody, as revolting to humanity, as the 
 records of empires founded on conquest 
 and guilt. 
 
 But it is said, Did not the Apostle de- 
 nounce the erroneous, and pronounce a 
 curse on the " abettors of another gos- 
 pel" ? This is the stronghold of the 
 friends of denunciation. But let us never 
 forget that the Apostles were inspired 
 men, capable of marking out with un- 
 erring certainty those who substituted 
 "another gospel" for the true. Show 
 us their successors, and we will cheer- 
 fully obey them. 
 
 It is also important to recollect the 
 character of those men against whom 
 the apostolic anathema was directed. 
 They were men who knew distinctly 
 what the Apostles taught, and yet op- 
 posed it ; and who endeavored to sow 
 division, and to gain followers, in the 
 churches which the Apostles had planted. 
 These men, resisting the known instruc-
 
 480 
 
 ON THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION 
 
 tions of the authorized and inspired 
 teachers of the gospel, and discovering 
 a factious, selfish, mercenary spirit, were 
 justly excluded as unworthy the Chris- 
 tian name. But what in common with 
 these men have the Christians whom it 
 is the custom of the " Orthodox " to 
 denounce ? Do these oppose what they 
 know to be the doctrine of Christ and 
 his Apostles ? Do they not revere Je- 
 sus and his inspired messengers ? Do 
 they not dissent from their brethren 
 simply because they believe that their 
 brethren dissent from their Lord ? Let 
 us not forget that the contest at the pres- 
 ent day is not between the Apostles them- 
 selves and men who oppose their known 
 instructions, but uninspired Christians 
 who equally receive the Apostles as au- 
 thorized teachers of the gospel, and who 
 only differ in judgment as to the inter- 
 pretation of their writings. How un- 
 just, then, is it for any class of Chris- 
 tians to confound their opponents with 
 the factious and unprincipled sectarians 
 of the primitive age ! Mistake in judg- 
 ment is the heaviest charge which one 
 denomination has now a right to urge 
 against another ; and do we find that the 
 Apostles ever denounced mistake as 
 " awful and fatal hostility " to the gos- 
 pel ; that they pronounced anathemas 
 on men who wished to obey, but who 
 misapprehended their doctrines ? The 
 Apostles well remembered that none 
 ever mistook more widely than them- 
 selves. They remembered, too, the 
 lenity of their Lord towards their er- 
 rors, and this lenity they cherished and 
 labored to diffuse. 
 
 But it is asked, Have not Christians 
 a right to bear "solemn testimony" 
 against opinions which are " utterly 
 subversive of the gospel, and most dan- 
 gerous to men's eternal interests " ? To 
 this I answer, that the opinions of men 
 who discover equal intelligence and 
 piety with ourselves, are entitled to 
 respectful consideration. If, after in- 
 quiry, they seem erroneous and inju- 
 rious, we are authorized and bound, 
 according to our ability, to expose, by 
 fair and serious argument, their nature 
 and tendency. But I maintain that we 
 have no right as individuals, or in an 
 associated capacity, to bear our "solemn 
 testimony " against these opinions, by 
 menacing with ruin the Christian who 
 listens to them, or by branding them 
 
 with the most terrifying epithets, for the 
 purpose of preventing candid inquiry 
 into their truth. This is the fashiona- 
 ble mode of " bearing testimony," and 
 it is a weapon which will always be 
 most successful in the hands of the 
 proud, the positive, and overbearing, 
 who are most impatient of contradiction, 
 and have least regard to the rights of 
 their brethren. 
 
 But whatever may be the right of 
 Christians, as to bearing testimony 
 against opinions which they deem inju- 
 rious, I deny that they have any right 
 to pass a condemning sentence, on ac- 
 count of these opinions, on the charac- 
 ters of men whose general deportment 
 is conformed to the gospel of Christ. 
 Both Scripture and reason unite in 
 teaching that the best and only standard 
 of character is the life ; and he who 
 overlooks the testimony of a Christian 
 life, and grounds a sentence of condem- 
 nation on opinions about which he, as 
 well as his brother, may err, violates 
 most flagrantly the duty of just and can- 
 did judgment, and opposes the peaceful 
 and charitable spirit of the gospel. Je- 
 sus Christ says, " By their fruits shall 
 ye know them." " Not every one that 
 saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven, but he who 
 doeth the will of my Father which is in 
 heaven." " Ye are my friends, if ye do 
 whatsoever I command you." " He that 
 heareth and doeth these my sayings," 
 i.e., the precepts of the Sermon on the 
 Mount, " I will liken him to a man who 
 built his house upon a rock." It would 
 be easy to multiply similar passages. 
 The whole Scriptures teach us that he 
 and he only is a Christian whose life is 
 governed by the precepts of the gospel, 
 and that by this standard alone the pro- 
 fession of this religion should be tried. 
 We do not deny that our brethren have 
 a right to form a judgment as to our 
 Christian character. But we insist that 
 we have a right to be judged by the 
 fairest, the most approved, and the most 
 settled rules by which character can be 
 tried ; and when these are overlooked, 
 and the most uncertain standard is ap- 
 plied, we are injured ; and an assault on 
 character, which rests on this ground, 
 deserves no better name than defama- 
 tion and persecution. 
 
 I know that this suggestion of perse- 
 cution will be indignantly repelled by
 
 AND DENUNCIA TION IN RELIGION. 
 
 481 
 
 those who deal most largely in denun- 
 ciation. But persecution is a wrong or 
 injury inflicted for opinions ; and surely 
 assaults on character fall under this defi- 
 nition. Some persons seem to think 
 that persecution consists in pursuing 
 error with fire and sword ; and that 
 therefore it has ceased to exist, except 
 in distempered imaginations, because no 
 class of Christians among us is armed 
 with these terrible weapons. But no. 
 The form is changed, but the spirit 
 lives. Persecution has given up its 
 halter and fagot, but it breathes venom 
 from its lips, and secretly blasts what it 
 cannot openly destroy. For example, a 
 Liberal minister, however circumspect in 
 his walk, irreproachable in all his rela- 
 tions, no sooner avows his honest con- 
 victions on some of the most difficult 
 subjects, than his name begins to be a 
 by-word. A thousand suspicions are 
 infused into his hearers ; and it is insin- 
 uated that he is a minister of Satan, in 
 "the guise of an angel of light." At a 
 little distance from his home, calumny 
 assumes a bolder tone. He is pro- 
 nounced an infidel, and it is gravely 
 asked whether he believes in a God. 
 At a greater distance, his morals are 
 assailed. He is a man of the world, 
 "leading souls to hell," to gratify the 
 most selfish passions. But, notwith- 
 standing all this, he must not say a word 
 about persecution, for reports like these 
 rack no limbs ; they do not even injure 
 a hair of his head ; and how, then, is he 
 persecuted ? Now, for myself, I am as 
 willing that my adversary should take 
 my purse or my life as that he should 
 rob me of my reputation, rob me of the 
 affection of my friends and of my means 
 of doing good. " He who takes from 
 me my good name," takes the best pos- 
 session of which human power can de- 
 prive me. It is true that a Christian's 
 reputation is comparatively a light ob- 
 ject ; and so is his property, so is his 
 life ; all are light things to him whose 
 hope is full of immortality. But, of all 
 worldly blessings, an honest reputation 
 is to many of us the most precious ; and 
 he who robs us of it is the most injurious 
 of mankind, and among the worst of 
 persecutors. Let not the friends of de- 
 nunciation attempt to escape this charge 
 by pleading their sense of duty, and 
 their sincere desire to promote the cause 
 of truth. St. Dominic was equally sin- 
 
 cere when he built the Inquisition ; and 
 I doubt not that many torturers of Chris- 
 tians have fortified their reluctant minds, 
 at the moment of applying the rack and 
 the burning iron, by the sincere convic- 
 tion that the cause of truth required the 
 sacrifice of its foes. I beg that these 
 remarks may not be applied imliscrimi- 
 nately to the party called " Orthodox," 
 among whom are multitudes whose hu- 
 mility and charity would revolt from mak- 
 ing themselves the standards of Christian 
 piety, and from assailing the Christian 
 character of their brethren. 
 
 Many other considerations may be 
 added to those which have been already 
 urged against the system of excluding 
 from Christian fellowship men of upright 
 lives on account of their opinions. It 
 necessarily generates perpetual discord 
 in the church. Men differ in opinions 
 as much as in features. No two minds 
 are perfectly accordant. The shades of 
 belief are infinitely diversified. Amidst 
 this immense variety of sentiment, every 
 man is right in his own eyes. Every 
 man discovers errors in the creed of his 
 brother. Every man is prone to magnify 
 the importance of his own peculiarities, 
 and to discover danger in the peculiari- 
 ties of others. This is human nature. 
 Every man is partial to his own opinions, 
 because they are his own, and his self- 
 will and pride are wounded by contra- 
 diction. Now what must we expect 
 when beings so erring, so divided in 
 sentiment, and so apt to be unjust to 
 the views of others, assert the right of 
 excluding one another from the Chris- 
 tian church on account of imagined 
 error ? as the Scriptures confine this 
 right to no individual and to no body 
 of Christians, it belongs alike to all ; 
 and what must we expect when Chris- 
 tians of all capacities and dispositions, 
 the ignorant, prejudiced, and self-con- 
 ceited, imagine it their duty to prescribe 
 opinions to Christendom, and to open 
 or to shut the door of the church ac- 
 cording to the decision which their 
 neighbors may form on some of the 
 most perplexing points of theology ? 
 This question, unhappily, has received 
 answer upon answer in ecclesiastical 
 history. We there see Christians de- 
 nouncing and excommunicating one an- 
 other for supposed error, until every 
 denomination has been pronounced ac- 
 cursed by some portion of the Christian
 
 482 
 
 ON THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION 
 
 world ; so that were the curses of men 
 to prevail, not one human being would 
 enter heaven. To me, it appears that 
 to plead for the right of excluding men 
 of blameless lives, on account of their 
 opinions, is to sound the peal of perpet- 
 ual and universal war. Arm men with 
 this power, and we shall have " nothing 
 but thunder." Some persons are suffi- 
 ciently simple to imagine that if this 
 "horrid Unitarianism " were once hunted 
 down, and put quietly into its grave, the 
 church would be at peace. But no : our 
 present contests have their origin, not 
 in the " enormities " of Unitarianism, 
 but very much in the principles of human 
 nature, in the love of power, in impatience 
 of contradiction, ^n men's passion for 
 imposing their own views upon others, 
 in the same causes which render them 
 anxious to make proselytes to all their 
 opinions. Were Unitarianism quietly 
 interred, another and another hideous 
 form of error would start up before 
 the zealous guardians of the "purity 
 of the church." The Arminian, from 
 whom the pursuit has been diverted 
 for a time by his more offending Uni- 
 tarian brother, would soon be awakened 
 from his dream of security by the clamor 
 of denunciation ; and should the Armin- 
 ian fall a prey, the Calvinists would then 
 find time to look into the controversies 
 among themselves, and almost every 
 class would discover, with the eagle eye 
 of their brethren at New York, that 
 those who differ from them hold " an- 
 other gospel," and ought to be " re- 
 sisted and denounced." Thus the wars 
 of Christians will be perpetual. Never 
 will there be peace until Christians agree 
 to differ, and agree to look for the evi- 
 dences of Christian character in the 
 temper and the life. 
 
 Another argument against this prac- 
 tice of denouncing the supposed errors 
 of sincere professors of Christianity is 
 this. It exalts to supremacy in the 
 church men who have the least claim 
 to influence. Humble, meek, and affec- 
 tionate Christians are least disposed to 
 make creeds for their brethren, and to 
 denounce those who differ from them. 
 On the contrary, the impetuous, proud, 
 and enthusiastic, men who cannot or 
 will not weigh the arguments of oppo- 
 nents, are always most positive and 
 most unsparing in denunciation. These 
 take the lead in a system of exclusion. 
 
 They have no false modesty, no false 
 charity, to shackle their zeal in framing 
 fundamentals for their brethren, and in 
 punishing the obstinale in error. The 
 consequence is, that creeds are formed 
 which exclude from Christ's church 
 some of his truest followers, which 
 outrage reason as well as revelation, 
 and which subsequent ages are obliged 
 to mutilate and explain away, lest the 
 whole religion be rejected by men of 
 reflection. Such has been the history 
 of the church. It is strange that we do 
 not learn wisdom from the past. What 
 man, who feels his own fallibility, who 
 sees the errors into which the positive 
 and " orthodox " of former times have 
 been betrayed, and who considers his 
 own utter inability to decide on the 
 degree of truth which every mind, of 
 every capacity, must receive in order 
 to salvation, will not tremble at the 
 responsibility of prescribing to his 
 brethren, in his own words, the views 
 they must maintain on the most per- 
 plexing subjects of religion ? Humility 
 will always leave this work to others. 
 
 Another important consideration is, 
 that this system of excluding men of 
 apparent sincerity, for their opinions, 
 entirely subverts free inquiry into the 
 Scriptures. When once a particular 
 system is surrounded by this bulwark ; 
 when once its defenders have brought 
 the majority to believe that the rejec- 
 tion of it is a mark of depravity and 
 perdition, what but the name of liberty 
 is left to Christians ? The obstacles 
 to inquiry are as real, and may be as 
 powerful, as in the neighborhood of the 
 Inquisition. The multitude dare not 
 think, and the thinking dare not speak. 
 The right of private judgment may thus, 
 in a Protestant country, be reduced to 
 a nullity. It is true that men are sent 
 to the Scriptures ; but they are told 
 before they go that they will be driven 
 from the church on earth and in heaven, 
 unless they find in the Scriptures the 
 doctrines which are embodied in the 
 popular creed. They are told, indeed, 
 to inquire for themselves ; but they are 
 also told at what points inquiry must ar- 
 rive ; and the sentence of exclusion hangs 
 over them if they happen to stray, with 
 some of the best and wisest men, into 
 forbidden paths. Now this " Protestant 
 liberty " is, in one respect, more irri- 
 tating than papal bondage. It mocks
 
 AND DENUNCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 483 
 
 as well as enslaves us. It talks to 
 us courteously as friends and brethren 
 whilst it rivets our chains. It invites 
 and even charges us to look with our 
 own eyes, but -with the same breath 
 warns us against seeing any thing which 
 " Orthodox " eyes have not seen before 
 us. Is this a state of things favorable 
 to serious inquiry into the truths of the 
 gospel ? yet, how long has the church 
 been groaning under this cruel yoke ! 
 
 Another objection to this system of 
 excluding professed disciples of Christ, 
 on account of their opinions, is, that it 
 is inconsistent with the great principles 
 of Congregationalism. In churches 
 where the power is lodged in a few 
 individuals, who are supposed to be 
 the most learned men in the commu- 
 nity, the work of marking out and ex- 
 cluding the erroneous may seem less 
 difficult. But among Congregational- 
 ists, the tribunal before which the of- 
 fender is to be brought is the whole 
 church, consisting partly of men in 
 humble circumstances and of unim- 
 proved minds ; partly of men engaged 
 in active and pressing business ; and 
 partly of men of education, whose 
 studies have been directed to law and 
 medicine. Now, is this a tribunal be- 
 fore which the most intricate points of 
 theology are to be discussed, and seri- 
 ous inquirers are to answer for opinions 
 which they have perhaps examined more 
 laboriously and faithfully than all their 
 judges ? Would a church of humble 
 men, conscious of their limited oppor- 
 tunities, consent to try, for these pre- 
 tended crimes, professing Christians as 
 intelligent, as honest, and as exemplary 
 as themselves ? It is evident that, in 
 the business of excluding men for opin- 
 ions, a church can be little more than 
 the tool of the minister, or a few influ- 
 ential members ; and our churches are, 
 in general, too independent and too up- 
 right to take this part 'in so solemn a 
 transaction. To correct their deficien- 
 cies, and to quicken their zeal on this 
 point, we are now threatened with new 
 tribunals, or consociations, whose office 
 it will be to try ministers for their errors, 
 to inspect the churches, and to advise 
 and assist them in the extirpation of 
 "heresy." Whilst the laity are slum- 
 bering, the ancient and free constitution 
 of our churches is silently undermined, 
 and is crumbling away. Since argument 
 
 is insufficient to produce uniformity of 
 opinion, recourse must be had to more 
 powerful instruments of conviction, I 
 mean to ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. And 
 are this people indeed prepared to sub- 
 mit to this most degrading form of vas- 
 salage, a vassalage which reaches and 
 palsies the mind, and imposes on it the 
 dreams and fictions of men for the ever- 
 lasting truth of God ? 
 
 These remarks lead me to the last con- 
 sideration which I shall urge against the 
 proposed system of exclusion and sepa- 
 ration. This system will shake to the 
 foundation our religious institutions, and 
 destroy many habits and connections 
 which have had the happiest influence 
 on the religious character of this people. 
 In the first place, if Christian commun- 
 ion and all acknowledgments of Chris- 
 tian character are to be denied on the 
 ground of difference of opinion, the 
 annual " Convention of Congregational 
 Ministers of Massachusetts," that ancient 
 bond of union, must be dissolved ; and 
 in its dissolution we shall lose the edi- 
 fying, honorable, and rare example of 
 ministers regularly assembling, not to 
 exercise power and to fetter the con- 
 science, but to reciprocate kind affec- 
 tion, and to unite in sending relief to 
 the families of their deceased brethren. 
 This event may gladden the heart of the 
 sectarian ; it will carry no joy to the 
 widow and orphan. In the next place, 
 the " Associations of Ministers," in our 
 different counties, must in many cases 
 be broken up, to make room for new 
 associations, founded on similarity of 
 opinion. Thus, that intercourse which 
 now subsists between ministers of dif- 
 ferent persuasions, and which tends to 
 enlarge the mind and to give a liberality 
 to the feelings, will be diminished, if 
 not destroyed ; and ministers, becoming 
 more contracted and exclusive, will com- 
 municate more of this unhappy spirit 
 to their societies. In the next place, 
 neighboring churches, which, from their 
 very foundation, have cultivated Chris- 
 tian communion, and counselled and 
 comforted each other, will be mutually 
 estranged, and, catching the temper of 
 their religious guides, will exchange 
 fellowship for denunciation ; and in- 
 stead of delighting in each other's 
 prosperity, will seek each other's de- 
 struction. Again : in the same church, 
 where Christians of different views have
 
 4 8 4 
 
 ON THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION 
 
 long acknowledged each other as dis- 
 ciples of our Master, and have partaken 
 the same feast of charity, angry divi- 
 sions will break forth, parties will be 
 marshalled under different leaders, the 
 sentence of excommunication will be 
 hurled by the majority on their guilt- 
 less brethren (if the majority should be 
 " Orthodox "), and thus anger, heart- 
 burnings, and bitter recriminations will 
 spread through many of our towns and 
 churches. Again : many of our religious 
 societies will be rent asunder, their min- 
 isters dismissed, and religious institu- 
 tions cease. It is well known that many 
 of our country parishes are able to sup- 
 port but a single minister. At the same 
 time, they are divided in sentiment ; and 
 nothing but a spirit of charity and for- 
 bearance has produced that union by 
 which public worship has been main- 
 tained. Once let the proposed war be 
 proclaimed, let the standard of party be 
 raised, and a minister must look for 
 support to that party only to which he 
 is attached. An " Orthodox " minister 
 should blush to ask it from men whom 
 he denounces for honest opinions, and 
 to whom he denies all the ordinances of 
 the gospel. It surely cannot be expected 
 that Liberal Christians will contribute, 
 by their property, to uphold a system 
 of exclusion and intolerance directed 
 against themselves. What, then, will 
 be the fate of many of our societies ? 
 Their ministers, even now, can with dif- 
 ficulty maintain the conflict with other 
 denominations. Must they not sink, 
 when deserted by their most efficient 
 friends ? Many societies will be left, 
 as sheep without a shepherd, a prey to 
 those whom we call sectarians, but who 
 will no longer have an exclusive right to 
 the name, if the system of division which 
 has been proposed be adopted. Many 
 ministers will be compelled to leave the 
 field of their labors and their prospects 
 of usefulness ; and I fear the ministry 
 will lose its hold on the affection and 
 veneration of men, when it shall have 
 engendered so much division and con- 
 tention. But this is not all. The sys- 
 tem of denying the Christian name to 
 those who differ from us in interpreting 
 the Scriptures will carry discord not only 
 into churches but families. In how many 
 instances are heads of families divided in 
 opinion on the present subjects of con- 
 troversy ? Hitherto they have loved 
 
 each other as partakers of the same 
 glorious hopes, and have repaired in 
 their domestic joys and sorrows to the 
 same God (as they imagined) through 
 the same Mediator. But now, they are 
 taught that they have different Gods and 
 different gospels, and are taught that the 
 friends of truth are not to hold commun- 
 ion with its rejecters. Let this doctrine 
 be received, and one of the tenderest 
 ties by which many wedded hearts are 
 knit together will be dissolved. The 
 family altar must fall. Religion will be 
 known in many a domestic retreat, not 
 as a bond of union, but a subject of 
 debate, a source of discord or depres- 
 sion. 
 
 Now I ask, For what boon are all 
 these sacrifices to be made ? The 
 great end is, that certain opinions, 
 which have been embraced by many 
 serious and inquiring Christians as the 
 truth of God, may be driven from the 
 church, and be dreaded by the people as 
 among the worst of crimes. Uniformity 
 of opinion, that airy good, which em- 
 perors, popes, councils, synods, bishops, 
 and ministers have been seeking for 
 ages, by edicts, creeds, threatenings, 
 excommunications, inquisitions, and 
 flames, this is the great object of 
 the system ofexclusion, separation, and 
 denunciation, which is now to be intro- 
 duced. To this we are to sacrifice our 
 established habits and bonds of union ; 
 and this is to be pursued by means 
 which, as many reflecting men believe, 
 threaten our dearest rights and liberties. 
 
 It is sincerely hoped that reflecting 
 laymen will no longer shut their eyes on 
 this subject. It is a melancholy fact 
 that our long-established Congregational 
 form of church government is menaced, 
 and tribunals unknown to our churches, 
 and unknown, as we believe, to the 
 Scriptures, are to be introduced ; and 
 introduced for the very purpose, that 
 the supposed errors and mistakes of 
 ministers and private Christians may 
 be tried and punished as heresies, that 
 is, as crimes. In these tribunals, as in 
 all ecclesiastical bodies, the clergy, who 
 make theology their profession, will of 
 necessity have a preponderating influ- 
 ence, so that the question now before 
 the public is, in fact, only a new form 
 of the old controversy which has agi- 
 tated all ages ; namely, whether the 
 clergy shall think for the laity, or pre-
 
 AND DENUNCIA TION IN RELIGION. 
 
 485 
 
 scribe to them their religion. Were this 
 question fairly proposed to the public, 
 there would be but one answer ; but it 
 is wrapped up in a dark phraseology 
 about the purity and order of the 
 church, a phraseology which, I be- 
 lieve, imposes on multitudes of min- 
 isters as well as laymen, and induces 
 acquiescence in measures, the real ten- 
 dency of which they would abhor. It 
 is, I hope, from no feeling of party, but 
 from a sincere regard to the religion of 
 Christ, that I would rouse the slumber- 
 ing minds of this community to the 
 dangers which hang over their religious 
 institutions. No power is so rapidly 
 accumulated, or so dreadfully abused, 
 as ecclesiastical power. It assails men 
 with menaces of eternal woe unless they 
 submit, and gradually awes the most 
 stubborn and strongest minds into sub- 
 jection. I mean not to ascribe the inten- 
 tion of introducing ecclesiastical tyranny 
 to any class of Christians among us ; but 
 I believe that many, in the fervor of a 
 zeal which may be essentially virtuous, 
 are about to touch with unhallowed 
 hands the ark of God, to support 
 Christianity by measures which its 
 mild and charitable spirit abhors. I 
 believe that many, overlooking the 
 principles of human nature and the 
 history of the church, are about to set 
 in motion a spring of which they know 
 not the force, and cannot calculate the 
 effects. I believe that the seed of spir- 
 itual tyranny is sown, and although to 
 a careless spectator it may seem the 
 " smallest of all seeds," it has yet within 
 itself a fatal principle of increase, and 
 may yet darken this region of our coun- 
 try with its deadly branches. 
 
 The time is come when the friends of 
 Christian liberty and Christian charity 
 are called to awake, and to remember 
 their duties to themselves, to posterity, 
 and to the church of Christ. The time 
 is come when the rights of conscience 
 and the freedom of our churches must 
 be defended with zeal. The time is 
 come when menace and denunciation 
 must be met with a spirit which will 
 show that we dread not the frowns 
 and lean not on the favor of man. The 
 time is come when every expression 
 of superiority on the part of our breth- 
 ren should be repelled as criminal usur- 
 pation. But, in doing this, let the friends 
 of liberal and genuine Christianity re- 
 
 i member the spirit of their religion. Let 
 no passion or bitterness dishonor their 
 sacred cause. In contending for the 
 gospel, let them not lose its virtues or 
 forfeit its promises. We are, indeed, 
 called to pass through one of the se- 
 verest trials of human virtue, the trial 
 of controversy. We should carry with 
 us a sense of its danger. Religion, 
 when made a subject of debate, seems 
 often to lose its empire over the heart 
 and life. The mild and affectionate 
 spirit of Christianity gives place to 
 angry recriminations and cruel sur- 
 mises. Fair dealing, uprightness, and 
 truth are exchanged for the arts of 
 sophistry. The devotional feelings, too, 
 decline in warmth and tenderness. Let 
 us, then, watch and pray. Let us take 
 heed that the weapons of our warfare 
 be not carnal. Whilst we repel usurpa- 
 tion, let us be just to the general recti- 
 tude of many by whom our Christian 
 rights are invaded. Whilst we repel the 
 uncharitable censures of men, let us not 
 forget that deep humility and sense of 
 unworthiness with which we should ever 
 appear before God. In our zeal to main- 
 tain the great truth, that OUR FATHER 
 IN HEAVEN is alone the Supreme God, 
 let us not neglect that intercourse with 
 him without which the purest concep- 
 tions will avail little to enthrone him in 
 our hearts. In our zeal to hold fast the 
 " word of Christ," in opposition to hu- 
 man creeds and formularies, let us not 
 forget that our Lord demands another 
 and a still more unsuspicious confession 
 of him, even the exhibition of his spirit 
 and religion in our lives. 
 
 The controversy in which we are en- 
 gaged is indeed painful ; but it was not 
 chosen, but forced upon us, and we 
 ought to regard it as a part of the dis- 
 cipline to which a wise Providence has 
 seen fit to subject us. Like all other 
 trials, it is designed to promote our 
 moral perfection. I trust, too, that it is 
 designed to promote the cause of truth. 
 Whilst I would speak diffidently of the 
 future, I still hope that a brighter day is 
 rising on the Christian church than it 
 has yet enjoyed. The gospel is to shine 
 forth in its native glory. The violent 
 excitement by which some of the cor- 
 ruptions of this divine system are now 
 supported cannot be permanent ; and 
 the uncharitableness with which they 
 are enforced will react, like the perse-
 
 ON CREEDS. 
 
 cutions of the Church of Rome, in favor 
 of truth. Already we have the comfort 
 of seeing many disposed to inquire, and 
 to inquire without that terror which has 
 bound as with a spell so many minds. 
 We doubt not that this inquiry will 
 result in a deep conviction that Chris- 
 tianity is yet disfigured by errors which 
 have been transmitted from ages of dark- 
 ness. Of this, at least, we are sure that 
 inquiry, by discovering to men the diffi- 
 
 culties and obscurities which attend the 
 present topics of controversy, will ter- 
 minate in what is infinitely more desi- 
 rable than doctrinal concord, in the 
 diffusion of a mild, candid, and chari- 
 table temper. 1 pray God that this 
 most happy consummation may be in 
 no degree obstructed by any unchristian 
 feelings, which, notwithstanding my sin- 
 cere efforts, have escaped me in the 
 present controversy. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM A 'LETTER ON CREEDS. 
 
 MY aversion to human creeds as bonds 
 of Christian union, as conditions of Chris- 
 tian fellowship, as means of fastening 
 chains on men's minds, constantly gains 
 strength. 
 
 My first objection to them is, that 
 they separate us from Jesus Christ. To 
 whom am I to go for my knowledge of 
 the Christian religion but to the Great 
 Teacher, to the Son of God, to him in 
 whom the fulness of the Divinity dwelt ? 
 This is my great privilege as a Christian, 
 that I may sit at the feet not of a human 
 but divine Master ; that I may repair to 
 him in whom truth lived and spoke with- 
 out a mixture of error ; who was emi- 
 nently the wisdom of God and the light 
 of the world. And shall man dare to 
 interpose between me and my heavenly 
 guide and Saviour, and prescribe to me 
 the articles of my Christian faith ? What 
 is the state of mind in which I shall best 
 learn the truth ? It is that in which I 
 forsake all other teachers for Christ, in 
 which my mind is brought nearest to 
 him ; it is that in which I lay myself 
 open most entirely to the impressions of 
 his mind. Let me go to Jesus with a 
 human voice sounding in my ears, and 
 telling me what I must hear from the 
 Great Teacher, and how can I listen to 
 him in singleness of heart ? All Prot- 
 estant sects, indeed, tell the learner to 
 listen to Jesus Christ ; but most of them 
 shout around him their own articles so 
 vehemently and imperiously, that the 
 voice of the heavenly Master is well 
 nigh drowned. He is told to listen to 
 Christ, but told that he will be damned 
 
 if he receives any lessons but such as 
 are taught in the creed. He is told that 
 Christ's word is alone infallible, but that 
 unless it is received as interpreted by 
 fallible men, he will be excluded from 
 the communion of Christians. This is 
 what shocks me in the creed-maker. He 
 interposes himself between me and my 
 Saviour. He dares not trust me alone 
 with Jesus. He dares not leave me to 
 the word of God. This I cannot en- 
 dure. The nearest possible communi- 
 cation with the mind of Christ is my 
 great privilege as a Christian. I must 
 learn Christ's truth from Christ himself, 
 as he speaks in the records of his life, 
 and in the men whom he trained up and 
 supernaturally prepared to be his wit- 
 nesses to the world. On what ground, 
 I ask, do the creed-makers demand as- 
 sent to their articles as condition of 
 church membership or salvation ? What 
 has conferred on them infallibility ? 
 " Show me your proofs," I say to them, 
 " of Christ speaking in you. Work some 
 miracle. Utter some prophecy. Show 
 me something divine in you, which other 
 men do not possess. Is it possible that 
 you are unaided men like myself, having 
 no more right to interpret the New Tes- 
 tament than myself, and that you yet 
 exalt your interpretations as infallible 
 standards of truth, and the necessary 
 conditions of salvation ? Stand out of 
 my path. I wish to go to the Master. 
 Have you words of greater power than 
 his ? Can you speak to the human con- 
 science or heart in a mightier voice than 
 he ? What is it which emboldens you
 
 ON CREEDS. 
 
 487 
 
 to tell me what I must learn of Christ 
 or be lost ? " 
 
 I cannot but look on human creeds with 
 feelings approaching contempt. When 
 I bring them into contrast with the New 
 Testament, into what insignificance do 
 they sink ! What are they ? Skeletons, 
 freezing abstractions, metaphysical ex- 
 pressions of unintelligible dogmas ; and 
 these I am to regard as the expositions 
 of the fresh, living, infinite truth which 
 came from Jesus ! I might with equal 
 propriety be required to hear and receive 
 the lispings of infancy as the expressions 
 of wisdom. Creeds are to the Scriptures 
 what rush-lights are to the sun. The 
 creed-maker defines Jesus in half a dozen 
 lines, perhaps in metaphysical terms, and 
 calls me to assent to this account of my 
 Saviour. I learn less of Christ by this 
 process than I should learn of the sun 
 by being told that this glorious luminary 
 is a circle about a foot in diameter. 
 There is but one way of knowing Christ. 
 We must place ourselves near him, see 
 him, hear him, follow him from his cross 
 to the heavens, sympathize with him 
 and obey him, and thus catch clear and 
 bright glimpses of his divine glory. 
 
 Christian truth is infinite. Who can 
 think of shutting it up in a few lines of 
 an abstract creed ? You might as well 
 compress the boundless atmosphere, the 
 fire, the all-pervading light, the free 
 winds of the universe, into separate par- 
 cels, and weigh and label them, as break 
 up Christianity into a few propositions. 
 Christianity is freer, more illimitable, 
 than the light or the winds. It is too 
 mighty to be bound down by man's puny 
 hands. It is a spirit rather than a rigid 
 doctrine, the spirit of boundless love. 
 The infinite cannot be defined and meas- 
 ured out like a human manufacture. It 
 cannot be reduced to a system. It can- 
 not be comprehended in a set of precise 
 ideas. It is to be felt rather than 
 described. The spiritual impressions 
 which a true Christian receives from 
 the character and teachings of Christ, 
 and in which the chief efficacy of the re- 
 ligion lies, can be poorly brought out in 
 words. Words are but brief, rude hints 
 of a Christian's mind. His thoughts and 
 feelings overflow them. To those who 
 feel as he does, he can make himself 
 known ; for such can understand the 
 tones of the heart : but he can no more 
 lay down his religion in a series of ab- 
 
 stract propositions, than he can make 
 known in a few vague terms the expres- 
 sive features and inmost soul of a much- 
 loved friend. It has been the fault of 
 all sects that they have been too anxious 
 to define their religion. They have 
 labored to circumscribe the infinite. 
 Christianity, as it exists in the mind of 
 the true disciple, is not made up of frag- 
 ments, of separate ideas which he can,, 
 express in detached propositions. It is 
 a vast and ever-unfolding whole, per- 
 vaded by one spirit, each precept and 
 doctrine deriving its vitality from its 
 union with all. When I see this gener- 
 ous, heavenly doctrine compressed and 
 cramped in human creeds, I feel as I 
 should were I to see screws and chains 
 applied to the countenance and limbs of 
 a noble fellow-creature, deforming and 
 destroying one of the most beautiful 
 works of God. 
 
 From the infinity of Christian truth, 
 of which I have spoken, it follows that 
 our views of it must always be very im- 
 perfect, and ought to be continually 
 enlarged. The wisest theologians are 
 children who have caught but faint 
 glimpses of the religion ; who have 
 taken but their first lessons ; and whose 
 business it is " to grow in the knowl- 
 edge of Jesus Christ." Need I say 
 how hostile to this growth is a fixed 
 creed, beyond which we must never 
 wander ? Such a religion as Christ's 
 demands the highest possible activity 
 and freedom of the soul. Every new 
 gleam of light should be welcomed with 
 joy. Every hint should be followed out 
 with eagerness. Every whisper of the 
 divine voice in the soul should be heard. 
 The love of Christian truth 'should be 
 so intense as to make us willing to part 
 with all other things for a better com- 
 prehension of it. Who does not see 
 that human creeds, setting bounds to 
 thought, and telling us where all inquiry 
 must stop, tend to repress this holy zeal, 
 to shut our eyes on new illumination, to 
 hem us within the beaten paths of man's 
 construction, to arrest that perpetual 
 progress which is the life and glory of 
 an immortal mind ? 
 
 It is another and great objection to 
 creeds that, wherever they acquire au- 
 thority, they interfere with that simplic- 
 ity and godly sincerity on which the 
 efficacy of religious teaching very much 
 depends. That a minister should speak
 
 488 
 
 ON CREEDS. 
 
 with power, it is important that he 
 should speak from his own soul, and 
 not studiously conform himself to modes 
 of speaking which others have adopted. 
 It is important that he should give out 
 the truth in the very form in which it 
 presents itself to his mind, in the very 
 words which offer themselves sponta- 
 neously as the clothing of his thoughts. 
 To express our own minds frankly, 
 directly, fearlessly, is the way to reach 
 other minds. Now, it is the effect of 
 creeds to check this free utterance of 
 thought. The minister must seek words 
 which will not clash with the consecrated 
 articles of his church. ^If new ideas 
 spring up in his mind, not altogether 
 consonant with what the creed-monger 
 has established, he must cover them 
 with misty language. If he happen to 
 doubt the standard of his church, he 
 must strain its phraseology, must force 
 it beyond its obvious import, that he may 
 give his assent to it without departures 
 from truth. All these processes must 
 have a blighting effect on the mind and 
 heart. They impair self-respect. They 
 cloud the intellectual eye. They accus- 
 tom men to tamper with truth. In pro- 
 portion as a man dilutes his thought and 
 suppresses his conviction, to save his 
 orthodoxy from suspicion ; in proportion 
 as he borrows his words from others, 
 instead of speaking in his own tongue ; 
 in proportion as he distorts language 
 from its common use, that he may stand 
 well with his party ; in that proportion 
 he clouds and degrades his intellect, as 
 well as undermines the manliness and 
 integrity of his character. How deeply 
 do I commiserate the minister who, in 
 the warmth and freshness of youth, is 
 visited with glimpses of higher truth 
 than is embodied in the creed, but 
 who dares not be just to himself, and is 
 made to echo what is not the simple, 
 natural expression of his own mind ! 
 Better were it for us to beg our bread 
 and clothe ourselves in rags, than to 
 part with Christian simplicity and frank- 
 ness. Better for a minister to preach in 
 barns or the open air, where he may 
 speak the truth from the fulness of his 
 soul, than to lift up in cathedrals, amidst 
 pomp and wealth, a voice which is not 
 true to his inward thoughts. If they 
 who wear the chains of creeds once 
 knew the happiness of breathing the air 
 of freedom, and of moving with an unin- 
 
 cumbered spirit, no wealth or power in 
 the world's gift would bribe them to part 
 with their spiritual liberty. 
 
 Another sad effect of creeds is, that 
 they favor unbelief. It is not the object 
 of a creed to express the simple truths 
 of our religion, though in these its effi- 
 ciency chiefly lies, but to embody and 
 decree those mysteries about which 
 Christians have been contending. I use 
 the word " mysteries," not in the Script- 
 ural but popular sense, as meaning doc- 
 trines which give a shock to the reason 
 and seem to contradict some acknowl- 
 edged truth. Such mysteries are the 
 staples of creeds. The celestial virtues 
 of Christ's character, these are not in- 
 serted into articles of faith. On the 
 contrary, doctrines which from their 
 darkness or unintelligibleness have pro- 
 voked controversy, and which owe their 
 importance very much to the circum- 
 stance of having been fought for or 
 fought against for ages, these are thrown 
 by the creed-makers into the foremost 
 ranks of the religion, and made its es- 
 pecial representatives. Christianity as 
 set forth in creeds is a propounder of 
 dark sayings, of riddles, of knotty prop- 
 ositions, of apparent contradictions. 
 Who, on reading these standards, would 
 catch a glimpse of the simple, pure, 
 benevolent, practical character of Chris- 
 tianity ? And what is the result ? Chris- 
 tianity becoming identified, by means of 
 creeds, with so many dark doctrines, is 
 looked on by many as a subject for the- 
 ologians to quarrel about, but too thorny 
 or perplexed for common minds, while 
 it is spurned by many more as an insult 
 on human reason, as a triumph of fa- 
 naticism over common-sense. 
 
 It is a little remarkable that most 
 creeds, whilst they abound in mysteries 
 of human creation, have renounced the 
 great mystery of religion. There is in 
 religion a great mystery. I refer to the 
 doctrine of free-will, or moral liberty. 
 How to reconcile this with God's fore- 
 knowledge and human dependence, is a 
 question which has perplexed the great- 
 est minds. It is probable that much of 
 the obscurity arrises from our applying 
 to God the same kind of foreknowledge 
 as men possess by their acquaintance 
 with causes, and from our supposing the 
 Supreme Being to bear the same rela- 
 tion to time as man. It is probable that 
 juster views on these subjects will re-
 
 THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN. 
 
 489 
 
 lieve the freedom of the will from some 
 of its difficulties. Still the difficulties 
 attending it are great. It is a mystery 
 in the popular sense of the word. Now, 
 is it not strange that theologians who 
 have made and swallowed so many other 
 mysteries, have generally rejected this, 
 and rejected it on the ground of objec- 
 tions less formidable than those which 
 may be urged against their own inven- 
 tions ? A large part of the Protestant 
 world have sacrificed man's freedom of 
 will to God's foreknowledge and sover- 
 eignty, thus virtually subverting all relig- 
 ion, all duty, all responsibility. They 
 have made man a machine, and destroyed 
 
 the great distinction between him and 
 the brute. There seems a fatality at- 
 tending creeds. After burdening Chris- 
 tianity with mysteries of which it is as 
 innocent as the unborn child, they have 
 generally renounced the real mystery of 
 religion, of human nature. They have 
 subverted the foundation of moral gov- 
 ernment, by taking from man the only 
 capacity which makes him responsible, 
 and in this way have fixed on the com- 
 mands and threatenings of God the 
 character of a cruel despotism. What 
 a lesson against man's attempting to 
 impose his wisdom on his fellow-creat- 
 ures as the truth of God ! 
 
 THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN: 
 
 Discourse delivered to the Religious Society in Federal Street, Boston. 
 
 EPHESTANS vi. i, 2: "Children, obey your parents 
 in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and 
 thy mother, which is the first commandment with 
 promise." 
 
 FROM these words I propose to point 
 out the duties of children to their par- 
 ents. My young friends, let me ask 
 your serious attention. I wish to ex- 
 plain to you the honor and obedience 
 which you are required to render your 
 parents ; and to impress you with the 
 importance, excellence, and happiness 
 of this temper and conduct. 
 
 It will be observed, in the progress of 
 this discourse, that I have chiefly in 
 view the youngest part of my hearers ; 
 but I would not on this account be sup- 
 posed to intimate that those who have 
 reached more advanced periods of life 
 are exempted from the obligation of 
 honoring their parents. However old 
 we may be, we should never forget that 
 tenderness which watched over our in- 
 fancy, which listened to our cries before 
 we could articulate our wants, and was 
 never weary with ministering to our com- 
 fort and enjoyments. There is scarcely 
 any thing more interesting than to see 
 the man retaining the respect and grati- 
 tude which belong to the child; than to 
 see persons, who have come forward 
 into life, remembering with affection the 
 
 guides and friends of their youth, and 
 laboring by their kind and respectful 
 attention to cheer the declining years, 
 and support the trembling infirmities, of 
 those whose best days were spent in 
 solicitude and exertion for their happi- 
 ness and improvement. He who suffers 
 any objects or pursuits to shut out a 
 parent from his heart, who becomes so 
 weaned from the breast which nourished 
 and the arms which cherished him, as 
 coldly to forsake a parent's dwelling, 
 and neglect a parent's comfort, not only 
 renounces the dictates of religion and 
 morality, but deserves to be cast out 
 from society as a stranger to the com- 
 mon sensibilities of human nature. 
 
 In the observations I am now to make, 
 all who have parents should feel an in- 
 terest ; for some remarks will apply to 
 all. But I shall principally confine my- 
 self to those who are so young as to 
 depend on the care and to live under 
 the eye of their parents ; who surround 
 a parent's table, dwell beneath a parent's 
 roof, and hear continually a parent's 
 voice. To such the text addresses it- 
 self, " Honor and obey your father and 
 mother." 
 
 I shall now attempt to explain and 
 enforce what is here required of you. 
 
 First, You are required to view and
 
 490 
 
 THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN. 
 
 treat your parents with respect. Your 
 tender, inexperienced age requires that 
 you "think of yourselves with humility, 
 and conduct yourselves with modesty ; 
 that you respect the superior age and 
 wisdom and improvements of your par- 
 ents, and observe towards them a sub- 
 missive deportment. Nothing is more 
 unbecoming in you, nothing will render 
 you more unpleasant in the eyes of 
 others, than froward or contemptuous 
 conduct towards your parents. There 
 are children and I wish I could say 
 there are only a few who speak to 
 their parents with rudeness, grow sullen 
 at their rebukes, behave in their pres- 
 ence as if they deserved no attention, 
 hear them speak without noticing them, 
 and rather ridicule than honor them. 
 There are many children at the present 
 day who think more highly of themselves 
 than of their elders ; who think that 
 their own wishes are first to be gratified ; 
 who abuse the condescension and kind- 
 ness of their parents, and treat them as 
 servants rather than superiors. 
 
 Beware, my young friends, lest you 
 grow up with this assuming and selfish 
 spirit. Regard your parents as kindly 
 given you by God, to support, direct, 
 and govern you in your present state of 
 weakness and inexperience. Express 
 your respect for them in your manner 
 and conversation. Do not neglect those 
 outward signs of dependence and infe- 
 riority which suit your age. You are 
 young, and you should therefore take 
 the lowest place, and rather retire than 
 thrust yourselves forward into notice. 
 You have much to learn, and you should 
 therefore hear instead of seeking to be 
 heard. You are dependent and you 
 should therefore ask instead of demand- 
 ing what you desire ; and you should 
 receive every thing from your parents 
 as a favor and not as a debt. I do not 
 mean to urge upon you a slavish fear of 
 your parents. Love them, and love them 
 ardently ; but mingle a sense of their 
 superiority with your love. Feel a con- 
 fidence in their kindness ; but let not 
 this confidence make you rude and pre- 
 sumptuous, and lead to indecent famil- 
 iarity. Talk to them with openness and 
 freedom ; but never contradict with vio- 
 lence ; never answer with passion or 
 contempt. 
 
 The Scriptures say, " Cursed be he 
 that setteth light by his father or his 
 
 mother." " The eye that mocketh at 
 his father, the ravens of the valley shall 
 pluck it out, and the young ravens shall 
 eat it." The sacred history teaches us 
 that when Solomon on his throne saw 
 his mother approaching him, he rose to 
 meet her, and bowed himself unto her, 
 and caused a seat to be set for her on 
 his right hand. Let this wise and great 
 king teach you to respect your parents. 
 Secondly, You should be grateful to 
 your parents. Consider how much you 
 owe them. The time has been, and it 
 was not a long time past, when you de- 
 pended wholly on their kindness, when 
 you had no strength to make a single 
 effort for yourselves, when you could 
 neither speak, nor walk, and knew not 
 the use of any of your powers. Had 
 not a parent's arm supported you, you 
 must have fallen to the earth and per- 
 ished. Observe with attention the in- 
 fants which you so often see, and con- 
 sider that a little while ago you were as 
 feeble as they are ; you were only a 
 burden and a care, and you had nothing 
 with which you could repay your par- 
 ents' affection. But did they forsake 
 you ? How many sleepless nights have 
 they been disturbed by your cries ! 
 When you were sick, how tenderly did 
 they hang over you ! With what pleas- 
 ure have they seen you grow up in 
 health to your present state ! and what 
 do you now possess which you have not 
 received from their hands ? God indeed 
 is your great parent, your best friend, 
 and from him every good gift descends ; 
 but God is pleased to bestow every 
 thing upon you through the kindness of 
 your parents. To your parents you owe 
 every comfort ; you owe to them the shel- 
 ter you enjoy from the rain and cold, the 
 raiment which covers and the food which 
 nourishes you. While you are seeking 
 amusement, or are employed in gaining 
 knowledge at school, your parents are 
 toiling that you may be happy, that your 
 wants be supplied, that your minds may 
 be improved, that you may grow up and 
 be useful in the world. And when you 
 consider how often you have forfeited 
 all this kindness, and yet how ready 
 they have been to forgive you, and to 
 continue their favors, ought you not to 
 look upon them with the tenderest grati- 
 tude ? What greater monster can there 
 be than an unthankful child, whose heart 
 is never warmed and melted by the
 
 THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN. 
 
 491 
 
 daily expressions of parental solicitude ; 
 who, instead of requiting his best friend 
 by his affectionate conduct, is sullen 
 and passionate, and thinks that his par- 
 ents have done nothing for him, because 
 they will not do all he desires ? My 
 young friends, your parents' hearts have 
 ached enough for you already ; you 
 should strive from this time, by your 
 expressions of gratitude and love, to 
 requite their goodness. Do you ask 
 how you may best express these feelings 
 of respect and gratitude, which have 
 been enjoined ? In answer, I would ob- 
 serve, 
 
 Thirdly, That you must make it your 
 study to obey your parents, to do what 
 they command, and do it cheerfully. 
 Your own hearts will tell you that this 
 is a most natural and proper expression 
 of honor and love. For how often do 
 we see children opposing their wills to 
 the will of their parents ; refusing to 
 comply with absolute commands ; grow- 
 ing more obstinate, the more they are 
 required to do what they dislike ; and 
 at last sullenly and unwillingly obeying, 
 because they can no longer refuse with- 
 out exposing themselves to punishment. 
 Consider, my young ' friends, that by 
 such conduct you very much displease 
 God, who has given you parents that 
 they may control your passions and 
 train you up in the way you should go. 
 Consider how much better they can de- 
 cide for you than you can for yourselves. 
 You know but little of the world in 
 which you live. You hastily catch at 
 every thing which promises you pleas- 
 ure ; and unless the authority of a 
 parent should restrain you, you would 
 soon rush into ruin, without a thought 
 or a fear. In pursuing your own in- 
 clinations, your health would be de- 
 stroyed, your minds would run waste, 
 you would grow up slothful, selfish, a 
 trouble to others, and burdensome to 
 yourselves. Submit, then, cheerfully to 
 your parents. Have you not experi- 
 enced their goodness long enough to 
 know that they wish to make you happy, 
 even when their commands are most 
 severe ? Prove, then, your sense of 
 their goodness by doing cheerfully what 
 they require. When they oppose your 
 wishes, do not think that you have more 
 knowledge than they. Do not receive 
 their commands with a sour, angry, sul- 
 len look, which says louder than words, 
 
 j that you obey only because you dare 
 not rebel. If they deny your requests, 
 do not persist in urging them, but" con- 
 sider how many requests they have al- 
 ready granted you. Consider that you 
 have no claim upon them, and that it 
 will be base and ungrateful for you, 
 after all their tenderness, to murmur 
 and complain. Do not expect that your 
 parents are to give up every thing to 
 your wishes ; but study to give up every 
 thing to theirs. Do not wait for them 
 to threaten ; but, when a look tells you 
 what they want, fly to perform it. This 
 is the way in which you can best reward 
 them for all their pains and labors. In 
 this way you will make their houses 
 pleasant and cheerful. But if you are 
 disobedient, perverse, and stubborn, you 
 will be uneasy yourselves, and will make 
 all around you unhappy. You will make 
 home a place of contention, noise, and 
 anger ; and your best friends will have 
 reason to wish that you had never been 
 born. A disobedient child almost always 
 grows up ill-natured and disobliging to all 
 with whom he is connected. None love 
 him, and he has no heart to love any but 
 himself. If you would be amiable in 
 your temper and manner, and desire to 
 be beloved, let me advise you to begin 
 life with giving up your wills to your 
 parents. 
 
 Fourthly, You must further express 
 your respect, affection, and gratitude, 
 by doing all in your power to assist and 
 oblige your parents. Children can very 
 soon make some return for the kindness 
 they receive. Every day you can render 
 your parents some little service, and 
 often save them many cares, and some- 
 times not a little expense. There have 
 been children who in early life have 
 been great supports to their sick, poor, 
 and helpless parents. This is the most 
 honorable way in which you can be em- 
 ployed. You must never think too 
 highly of yourselves to be unwilling to 
 do any thing for those who have done 
 so much for you. You should never 
 let your amusements take such a hold 
 of your minds as to make you slothful, 
 backward, and unwilling when you are 
 called to serve your parents. Some 
 children seem to think that they have 
 nothing to seek but their own pleasure. 
 They will run from every task which is 
 imposed on them ; and leave their par- 
 ents to want many comforts rather than
 
 492 
 
 THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN. 
 
 expose themselves to a little trouble. 
 But consider, had they loved you no bet- 
 ter than you loved them, how wretched 
 would have been your state ! There 
 are some children who not only refuse 
 to exert themselves for their parents, 
 but add very much to their cares, give 
 them unnecessary trouble, and, by care- 
 lessness, by wasting, by extravagance, 
 help to keep them in poverty and 
 toil. Such children, as they grow up, 
 instead of seeking to provide for them- 
 selves, generally grow more and more 
 burdensome to their friends, and lead 
 useless, sluggish, and often profligate 
 lives. My young friends, you should 
 be ashamed, after having given your 
 parents so much pain, to multiply their 
 cares and labors unnecessarily. You 
 should learn very early to be active in 
 pleasing them, and active in doing what 
 you can for yourselves. Do not waste 
 all your spirit upon play, but learn to 
 be useful. Perhaps the time is coming 
 when your parents will need as much 
 attention from you as you have received 
 from them ; and you should endeavor 
 to form such industrious, obliging habits, 
 that you may render their last years as 
 happy as they have rendered the first 
 years of your existence. 
 
 Fifthly, You should express your re- 
 spect for your parents, and your sense 
 of their kindness and superior wisdom, 
 by placing unreserved confidence in 
 them. This is a very important part of 
 your duty. Children should learn to 
 be honest, sincere, and open-hearted to 
 their parents. An artful, hypocritical 
 child is one of the most unpromising 
 characters in the world. You should 
 have no secrets which you are unwilling 
 to disclose to your parents. If you 
 have done wrong, you should openly 
 confess it, and ask that forgiveness 
 which a parent's heart is ready to be- 
 stow. If you wish to undertake any 
 thing, ask their consent. Never begin 
 any thing in the hope that you can con- 
 ceal your design. If you once strive to 
 impose on your parents, you will be led 
 on, from one step to another, to invent 
 falsehoods, to practise artifice, till you 
 will become contemptible and hateful. 
 You will soon be detected, and then 
 none will trust you. Sincerity in a child 
 will make up for many faults. Of chil- 
 dren, he is the worst who watches the 
 eyes of his parents, pretends to obey as 
 
 long as they see him, but as soon as 
 they have turned away does what they 
 have forbidden. Whatever else you do, 
 never deceive. Let your parents always 
 learn your faults from your own lips ; 
 and be assured they will never love you 
 the less for your openness and sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 Lastly, You must prove your respect 
 and gratitude to your parents by attend- 
 ing seriously to their instructions and 
 admonitions, and by improving the ad- 
 vantages they afford you for becoming 
 wise, useful, good, and happy for ever. 
 I hope, my young friends, that you have 
 parents who take care not only of your 
 bodies but your souls ; who instruct you 
 in your duty, who talk to you of your 
 God and Saviour, who teach you to 
 pray and to read the Scriptures, and 
 who strive to give you such knowledge 
 and bring you up in such habits as will 
 lead you to usefulness on earth and to 
 happiness in heaven. If you have not, 
 I can only pity you : I have little hope 
 that I can do you good by what I have 
 here said. But if your parents are faith- 
 ful in instructing and guiding you, you 
 must prove your gratitude to them and 
 to God, by listening respectfully and 
 attentively to what they say ; by shun- 
 ning the temptations of which they warn 
 you, and by walking in the paths they 
 mark out before you. You must labor 
 to answer their hopes and wishes by 
 improving in knowledge ; by being in- 
 dustrious at school : by living peaceably 
 with your companions ; by avoiding all 
 profane and wicked language ; by flee- 
 ing bad company; by treating all per- 
 sons with respect ; by being kind and 
 generous and honest, and by loving and 
 serving your Father in heaven. This is 
 the happiest and most delightful way of 
 repaying the kindness of your parents. 
 Let them see you growing up with ami- 
 able tempers and industrious habits ; 
 let them see you delighting to do good, 
 and fearing to offend God; and they 
 will think you have never been a bur- 
 den. Their fears and anxieties about 
 you will give place to brighter views. 
 They will hope to see you prosperous, 
 respected, and beloved in the present 
 world. But if in this they are to be 
 disappointed, if they are soon to see 
 you stretched on the bed of sickness 
 and death, they will still smile amidst 
 their tears, and be comforted by the
 
 DAIL Y PRA YER. 
 
 493 
 
 thought that you are the children of 
 God, and that you are going to a Father 
 that loves you better than they. If, on 
 the contrary, you slight and despise 
 their instructions, and suffer your youth 
 to run waste, you will do much to em- 
 bitter their happiness and shorten their 
 days. Many parents have gone to the 
 grave broken-hearted by the ingrati- 
 tude, perverseness, impiety, and licen- 
 tiousness of their children. My young 
 friends, listen seriously to parental ad- 
 monition. Beware, lest you pierce with 
 anguish that breast on which you have 
 so often leaned. Beware, lest by early 
 contempt of instruction you bring your- 
 selves to shame and misery in this 
 world, and draw on your heads still heav- 
 ier ruin in the world beyond the grave. 
 
 Children, I have now set before you 
 your duties. Let me once more be- 
 seech you to honor your father and 
 mother. Ever cling to them with confi- 
 dence and love. Be to them an honor, 
 an ornament, a solace, and a support. 
 Be more than they expect, and if pos- 
 sible be all that they desire. To you 
 they are now looking with an affection 
 which trembles for your safety. So live 
 that their eyes may ever fix on you with 
 beams of hope and joy. So live that 
 the recollection of you may soothe their 
 last hours. May you now walk by 
 their side in the steps of the holy Sav- 
 iour, and through his grace may you 
 meet again in a better and happier 
 world ! Amen. 
 
 DAILY PRAYER. 
 
 THE Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments agree in enjoining prayer. 
 Let no man call himself a Christian who 
 lives without giving a part of life to this 
 duty. We are not taught how often we 
 must pray ; but our Lord, in teaching 
 us to say, " Give us this day our daily 
 bread," implies that we should pray 
 daily. He has even said to us, "pray 
 always " an injunction to be explained, 
 indeed, with that latitude which many 
 of his precepts require, but which is 
 not to be satisfied, we think, without 
 regular and habitual devotion. As to 
 the particular hours to be given to this 
 duty, every Christian may choose them 
 for himself. Our religion is too liberal 
 and spiritual to bind us to any place or 
 any hour of prayer. But there are parts 
 of the day particularly favorable to this 
 duty, and which, if possible, should be 
 redeemed for it. On these we shall 
 offer a few reflections. 
 
 The first of these periods is the morn- 
 ing, which even nature seems to have 
 pointed out to men of different religions 
 as a fit time for offerings to the Divinity. 
 In the morning our minds are not so 
 much shaken by worldly cares and pleas- 
 ures 33 in other parts of the day. Re- 
 tirement and sleep have helped to allay 
 the violence of our feelings, to calm the 
 
 feverish excitement so often produced 
 by intercourse with men. The hour is 
 a still one. The hurry and tumults of 
 life are not begun, and we naturally 
 share in the tranquillity around us. 
 Having for so many hours lost our 
 hold on the world, we can banish it 
 more easily from the mind, and wor- 
 ship with less divided attention. This, 
 then, is a favorable time for approaching 
 the invisible Author of our being, for 
 strengthening the intimacy of our minds 
 with him, for thinking upon a future life, 
 and for seeking those spiritual aids which 
 we need in the labors and temptations of 
 every day. 
 
 In the morning there is much to 
 feed the spirit of devotion. It offers 
 an abundance of thoughts friendly to 
 pious feeling. When we look on crea- 
 tion, what a happy and touching change 
 do we witness ! A few hours past, the 
 earth was wrapped in gloom and silence. 
 There seemed "a pause in nature." 
 But now a new flood of light has broken 
 forth, and creation rises before us in 
 fresher and brighter hues, and seems 
 to rejoice as if it had just received birth 
 from its Author. The sun never sheds 
 more cheerful beams, and never pro- 
 claims more loudly God's glory and 
 goodness, than when he returns after
 
 494 
 
 DAILY PRAYER. 
 
 the coldness and dampness of night, 
 and awakens man and inferior animals 
 to the various purposes of their being. 
 A spirit of joy seems breathed over the 
 earth and through the sky. It requires 
 little effort of imagination to read de- 
 light in the kindled clouds, or in the 
 fields bright with dew. This is the 
 time when we can best feel and bless 
 the Power which said, " let there be 
 light ; " which " set a tabernacle for the 
 sun in the heavens," and made him the 
 dispenser of fruitfulness and enjoyment 
 through all regions. 
 
 If we next look at ourselves, what 
 materials does the morning furnish for 
 devout thought ! At the close of the 
 past day, we were exhausted by our 
 labors, and unable to move without 
 wearisome effort. Our minds were 
 sluggish, and could not be held to the 
 most interesting objects. From this 
 state of exhaustion, we sunk gradually 
 into entire insensibility. Our limbs 
 became motionless ; our senses were 
 shut as in death. Our thoughts were 
 suspended, or only wandered confusedly 
 and without aim. Our friends, and the 
 universe, and God himself were forgot- 
 ten. And what a change does the morn- 
 ing bring with it ! On waking, we find 
 that sleep, the image of death, has 
 silently infused into us a new life. 
 The weary limbs are braced again. 
 The dim eye has become bright and 
 piercing. The mind is returned from 
 the region of forgetfulness to its old 
 possessions. Friends are met again 
 with a new interest. We are again 
 capable of devout sentiment, virtuous 
 effort, and Christian hope. With what 
 subjects of gratitude, then,'' does the 
 morning furnish us ! We can hardly 
 recall the state of insensibility from 
 which we have just emerged without a 
 consciousness of our dependence, or 
 think of the renovation of our powers 
 and intellectual being without feeling our 
 obligation to God. There is something 
 very touching in the consideration, if 
 we will fix our minds upon it, that God 
 thought of us when we could not think ; 
 that he watched over us when we had 
 no power to avert peril from ourselves ; 
 that he continued our vital motions, and 
 in due time broke the chains of sleep, 
 and set our imprisoned faculties free. 
 How fit is it, at this hour, to raise to 
 God the eyes which he has opened, and 
 
 the arm which he has strengthened ; to 
 acknowledge his providence ; and to 
 consecrate to him the powers which he 
 has renewed ! How fit that he should 
 be the first object of the thoughts and 
 affections which he has restored ! How 
 fit to employ in his praise the tongue 
 which he has loosed, and the breath 
 which he has spared. 
 
 But the morning is a fit time for de- 
 votion, not only from its relation to the 
 past night, but considered as the in- 
 troduction of a new clay. To a thinking 
 mind, how natural at this hour are such 
 reflections as the following : I am now 
 to enter on a new period of my life, to 
 start afresh in my course. I am to re- 
 turn to that world where I have often 
 gone astray ; to receive impressions 
 which may never be effaced ; to per- 
 form actions which will never be for- 
 gotten ; to strengthen a character which 
 will fit me for heaven or hell. I am this 
 day to meet temptations which have often 
 subdued me ; I am to be intrusted again 
 with opportunities of usefulness which 
 I have often neglected. I am to in- 
 fluence the minds of others, to help in 
 moulding their characters, and in de- 
 ciding the happiness of their present 
 and future life. How uncertain is this 
 day ! What unseen dangers are before 
 me ! What unexpected changes may 
 await me ! It may be my last day ! It 
 will certainly bring me nearer to death 
 and judgment ! Now, when entering on 
 a period of life so important, yet so un- 
 certain, how fit and natural is it. before 
 we take the first step, to seek the favor 
 of that Being on whom the lot of every 
 day depends, to commit all our interests 
 to his almighty and wise providence, to 
 seek his blessing on our labors and his 
 succor in temptation, and to consecrate 
 to his service the day which he raises 
 upon us ! This morning devotion not 
 only agrees with the sentiments of the 
 heart, but tends to make the clay happy, 
 useful, and virtuous. Having cast our- 
 selves on the mercy and protection of 
 the Almighty, we shall go forth with 
 new confidence to the labors and duties 
 which he imposes. Our early prayer 
 will help to shed an odor of piety through 
 the whole life. God, having first occu- 
 pied, will more easily recur to our mind. 
 Our first step will be in^the right path, 
 and we may hope a happy issue. 
 
 So fit and useful is morning devotion,
 
 DAIL Y PRA YER. 
 
 495 
 
 it ought not to be omitted without neces- 
 sity. If our circumstances will allow 
 the privilege, it is a bad sign when no 
 part of the morning is spent in prayer. 
 If God find no place in our minds at 
 that early and peaceful hour, He will 
 hardly recur to us in the tumults of life. 
 If the benefits of the morning do not 
 soften us, we can hardly expect the 
 heart to melt with gratitude through the 
 day. If the world then rush in and take 
 possession of us, when we are at some 
 distance and have had a respite from its 
 cares, how can we hope to shake it off 
 when we shall be in the midst of it, 
 pressed and agitated by it on every 
 side ? Let a part of the morning, if 
 possible, be set apart to devotion ; and 
 to this end we should fix the hour of 
 rising, so that we may have an early 
 hour at our own disposal. Our piety is 
 suspicious if we can renounce, as too 
 many do, the pleasures and benefits of 
 early prayer, rather than forego the 
 senseless indulgence of unnecessary 
 sleep. What ! we can rise early enough 
 for business. We can even anticipate 
 the dawn, if a favorite pleasure or an 
 uncommon gain requires the effort. But 
 we cannot rise that we may bless our 
 great Benefactor, that we may arm our- 
 selves for the severe conflicts to which 
 our principles are to be exposed! We 
 are willing to rush into the world, with- 
 out thanks offered, or a blessing sought! 
 From a day thus begun, what ought we 
 to expect but thoughtlessness and guilt? 
 
 Let us now consider another part of 
 the day which is favorable to the duty 
 of prayer, we mean the evening. This 
 season, like the morning, is calm and 
 quiet. Our labors are ended. The 
 bustle of life has gone by. The dis- 
 tracting glare of the day has vanished. 
 The darkness which surrounds us favors 
 seriousness, composure, and solemnity. 
 At night the earth fades from our sight, 
 and nothing of creation is left us but 
 the starry heavens, so vast, so magnifi- 
 cent, so serene, as if to guide up our 
 thoughts above all earthly things to 
 God and immortality. 
 
 This period should in part be given 
 to prayer, as it furnishes a variety of 
 devotional topics and excitements. The 
 evening is the close of an important 
 division of time, and is therefore a fit 
 and natural season for stopping and 
 looking back on the day. And can we 
 
 I ever look back on a day which bears no 
 I witness to God, and lays no claim to 
 our gratitude ? Who is it that strength- 
 ens us for daily labor, gives us daily 
 bread, continues our friends and common 
 pleasures, and grants us the privilege 
 of retiring, after the cares of the day, to 
 a quiet and beloved home ? The review 
 of the day will often suggest not only 
 these ordinary benefits, but peculiar 
 proofs of God's goodness, unlooked-for 
 successes, singular concurrences of fa- 
 vorable events, signal blessings sent to 
 our friends, or new and powerful aids 
 to our own virtue, which call for peculiar 
 thankfulness. And shall all these bene- 
 fits pass away unnoticed ? Shall we 
 retire to repose as insensible as the 
 wearied brute ? How fit and natural is 
 it to close with pious acknowledgment 
 the day which has been filled with Di- 
 vine beneficence ! 
 
 But the evening is the time to review, 
 not only our blessings, but our actions. 
 A reflecting mind will naturally remem- 
 ber at this hour that another day is 
 gone, and gone to testify of us to our 
 Judge. How natural and useful to in- 
 quire what report it has carried to heaven. 
 Perhaps we have the satisfaction of look- 
 ing back on a day which, in its general 
 tenor, has been innocent andpure, which, 
 having begun with God's praise, has been 
 spent as in his presence ; which has 
 proved the reality of our principles in 
 temptation ; and shall such a day end 
 without gratefully acknowledging him 
 in whose strength we have been strong, 
 and to whom we owe the powers and 
 opportunities of Christian improvement ? 
 But no day will present to us recollec- 
 tions of purity unmixed with sin. Con- 
 science, if suffered to inspect faithfully 
 and speak plainly, will recount irregular 
 desires and defective motives, talents 
 wasted and time misspent ; and shall 
 we let the day pass from us without 
 penitently confessing our offences to 
 him who has witnessed them, and who 
 has promised pardon to true repentance ? 
 Shall we retire to rest with a burden of 
 unlamented and unforgiven guilt upon our 
 consciences ? Shall we leave these stains 
 to spread over and sink into the soul ? 
 A religious recollection of our lives is 
 one of the chief instruments of piety. 
 If possible, no day should end without 
 it. If we take no account of our sins 
 on the day on which they are committed,
 
 496 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 can we hope that they will recur to us 
 at a more distant period, that we shall 
 watch against them to-morrow, or that 
 we shall gain the strength to resist them, 
 which we will not implore ? 
 
 One observation more, and we have 
 done. The evening is a fit time for 
 prayer, not only as it ends the day, but 
 as it immediately precedes the period of 
 repose. The hours of activity having 
 passed, we are soon to sink into insensi- 
 bility and sleep. How fit that we resign 
 ourselves to the care of that Being who 
 
 never sleeps, to whom the darkness is 
 as the light, and whose providence is 
 our only safety ! How fit to entreat 
 him, that He would keep us to another 
 day ; or, if our bed should prove our 
 grave, that He would give us a part in 
 the resurrection of the just, and awake 
 us to a purer and immortal life. The 
 most important periods of prayer have 
 now been pointed out. Let our prayers, 
 like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morn- 
 ing and evening. Let our days begin 
 and end with God. 
 
 REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF 
 
 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 (" A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the 
 Holy Scriptures alone." By John Milton. Trans- 
 lated from the original by Charles R. Suinner, 
 M.A., Librarian and Historiographer to His Maj- 
 esty, and Prebendary of Canterbury. From the 
 London Edition. Boston, 1825. 2 vols. 8vo.] 
 
 THE discovery of a work of Milton, 
 unknown to his own times, is an impor- 
 tant event in literary history. The con- 
 sideration that we of this age are the 
 first readers of this Treatise naturally 
 heightens our interest in it ; for we seem 
 in this way to be brought nearer to the 
 author, and to sustain the same relation 
 which his contemporaries bore to his 
 writings. The work opens with a salu- 
 tation, which, from any other man, might 
 be chargeable with inflation ; but which 
 we feel to be the natural and appropriate 
 expression of the spirit of Milton. En- 
 dowed with gifts of the soul which have 
 been imparted to few of our race, and 
 conscious of having consecrated them 
 through life to God and mankind, he rose 
 without effort or affectation to the style 
 of an Apostle: "]OHN MILTON, TO 
 ALL THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST, AND 
 TO ALL WHO PROFESS THE CHRIS- 
 TIAN FAITH THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, 
 PEACE, AND THE RECOGNITION OF THE 
 TRUTH, AND ETERNAL SALVATION IN 
 GOD THE FATHER, AND IN OUR LORD 
 JESUS CHRIST." Our ears are the first 
 to hear this benediction, and it seems 
 not so much' to be borne to us from a 
 distant age, as to come immediately 
 from the sainted spirit by which it was 
 indited. 
 
 Without meaning to disparage the 
 "Treatise on Christian Doctrine," we 
 may say that it owes very much of the 
 attention which it has excited to the fame 
 of its author. We value it chiefly as 
 showing us the mind of Milton on that 
 subject which, above all others, presses 
 upon men of thought and sensibility. 
 We want to know in what 'conclusions 
 such a man rested after a life of exten- 
 sive and profound research, of magnani-' 
 mous efforts for freedom and his country, 
 and of communion with the most gifted 
 minds of his own and former times. The 
 book derives its chief interest from its 
 author, and accordingly there seems to 
 be a propriety in introducing our re- 
 marks upon it with some notice of the 
 character of Milton. We are not sure 
 that we could have abstained from this 
 subject, even if we had not been able to 
 offer so good an apology for attempting 
 it. The intellectual and moral qualities 
 of a great man are attractions not easily 
 withstood ; and we can hardly serve 
 others or ourselves more than by re- 
 calling to him the attention which is 
 scattered among inferior topics. 
 
 In speaking of the intellectual quali- 
 ties of Milton, we may begin with observ- 
 ing that the very splendor of his poetic 
 fame has tended to obscure or conceal 
 the extent of his mind, and the variety 
 of its energies and attainments. To 
 many he seems only a poet, when in 
 truth he was a profound scholar, a man 
 of vast compass of thought, imbued
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 497 
 
 thoroughly with all ancient and modern 
 learning, and able to master, to mould, 
 to impregnate with his own intellectual 
 power, his great and various acquisitions. 
 He had not learned the superficial doc- 
 trine of a later day, that poetry flourishes 
 most in an uncultivated soil, and that 
 imagination shapes its brightest visions 
 from the mists of a superstitious age ; 
 and he had no dread of accumulating 
 knowledge, lest it should oppress and 
 smother his genius. He was conscious 
 of that within him which could quicken 
 all knowledge, and wield it with ease and 
 might; which could give freshness to 
 old truths and harmony to discordant 
 thoughts ; which could bind together, by 
 living ties and mysterious affinities, the 
 most remote discoveries, and rear fabrics 
 of glory and beauty from the rude mate- 
 rials which other minds had collected. 
 Milton had that universality which marks 
 the highest order of intellect. Though 
 accustomed almost from infancy to drink 
 at the fountains of classical literature, 
 he had nothing of the pedantry and 
 fastidiousness which disdain all other 
 draughts. His healthy mind delighted 
 in genius, on whatever soil or in what- 
 ever age it burst forth and poured out 
 its fulness. He understood too well the 
 rights and dignity and pride of creative 
 imagination to lay on it the laws of 
 the Greek or Roman school. Parnassus 
 was not to him the only holy ground of 
 genius. He felt that poetry was as a 
 universal presence. Great minds were 
 everywhere his kindred. He felt the 
 enchantment of oriental fiction, surren- 
 dered himself to the strange creations of 
 " Araby the Blest," and delighted still 
 more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, 
 and in the tales of wonder in which it 
 was embodied. Accordingly his poetry 
 reminds us of the ocean, which adds 
 to its own boundlessness contributions 
 from all regions under heaven. Nor was 
 it only in the department of imagina- 
 tion that his acquisitions were vast. He 
 travelled over the whole field of knowl- 
 edge, as far as it had then been ex- 
 plored. His various philological attain- 
 ments were used to put him in possession 
 of the wisdom stored in all countries 
 where the intellect had been cultivated. 
 The natural philosophy, metaphysics, 
 ethics, history, theology, and political 
 science? of his own and former times, 
 were familiar to him. Never was there 
 
 a more unconfined mind ; and we would 
 cite Milton as a practical example of the 
 benefits of that universal culture of in- 
 tellect which forms one distinction of 
 our times, but which some dread as un- 
 friendly to original thought. Let such 
 remember that mind is in its own nature 
 diffusive. Its object is the universe, 
 which is strictly one, or bound together 
 by infinite connections and correspond- 
 ences ; and accordingly its natural prog- 
 ress is from one to another field of 
 thought ; and wherever original power, 
 creative genius, exists, the mind, far 
 from being distracted or oppressed by 
 the variety of its acquisitions, will see 
 more and more common bearings and 
 hidden and beautiful analogies in all the 
 objects of knowledge, will see mutual 
 light shed from truth to truth, and will 
 compel, as with a kingly power, what- 
 ever it understands to yield some trib- 
 ute of proof, or illustration, or splendor, 
 to whatever topic it would unfold. 
 
 Milton's fame rests chiefly on his 
 poetry, and to this we naturally give 
 our first attention. By those who are 
 accustomed to speak of poetry as light 
 reading, Milton's eminence in this 
 sphere may be considered only as giv- 
 ing him a high rank among the con- 
 tributors to public amusement. Not so 
 thought Milton. Of all God's gifts of 
 intellect, he esteemed poetical genius 
 the most transcendent. He esteemed it 
 in himself as a kind of inspiration, and 
 wrote his great works with something 
 of the conscious dignity of a prophet. 
 We agree with Milton in his estimate 
 of poetry. It seems to us the divinest 
 of all arts ; for it is the breathing or 
 expression of that principle or sentiment 
 which is deepest and sublimest in hu- 
 man nature, we mean, of that thirst 
 or aspiration to which no mind is wholly 
 a stranger, for something purer and 
 lovelier, something more powerful, lofty, 
 and thrilling, than ordinary and real life 
 affords. No doctrine is more common 
 among Christians than that of man's 
 immortality ; but it is not so generally 
 understood that the germs or princi- 
 ples of his whole future being are now 
 wrapped up in his soul, as the rudi- 
 ments of the future plant in the seed. 
 As a necessary result of this constitu- 
 tion, the soul, possessed and moved by 
 these mighty though infant energies, is 
 perpetually stretching beyond what is
 
 498 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 present and visible, struggling against 
 the bounds of its earthly prison-house, 
 and seeking relief and joy in imaginings 
 of unseen and ideal being. This view 
 of our nature, which has never been 
 fully developed, and which goes farther 
 towards explaining the contradictions of 
 human life than all others, carries us 
 to the very foundation and sources of 
 poetry. He who cannot interpret by 
 his own consciousness what we now 
 have said, wants the true key to works 
 of genius. He has not penetrated those 
 secret recesses of the soul where poetry 
 is born and nourished, and inhales im- 
 mortal vigor, and wings herself for her 
 heavenward flight. In an intellectual 
 nature, framed for progress and for 
 higher modes of being, there must be 
 creative energies, powers of original 
 and ever-growing thought ; and poetry 
 is the form in which these energies are 
 chiefly manifested. It is the glorious 
 prerogative of this art, that it " makes 
 all things new " for the gratification of a 
 divine instinct. It indeed finds its ele- 
 ments in what it actually sees and expe- 
 riences, in the worlds of matter and 
 mind ; but it combines and blends these 
 into new forms and according to new 
 affinities ; breaks down, if we may so 
 say, the distinctions and bounds of nat- 
 ure ; imparts to material objects life, 
 and sentiment, and emotion, and invests 
 the mind with the powers and splendors 
 of the outward creation ; describes the 
 surrounding universe in the colors which 
 the passions throw over it, and depicts 
 the soul in those modes of repose or 
 agitation, of tenderness or sublime emo- 
 tion, which manifest its thirst for a 
 more powerful and joyful existence. 
 To a man of a literal and prosaic char- 
 acter, the mind may seem lawless in 
 these workings ; but it observes higher 
 laws than it transgresses, the laws of 
 the immortal intellect ; it is trying and 
 developing its best faculties ; and in the 
 objects which it describes, or in the 
 emotions which it awakens, anticipates 
 those states of progressive power, splen- 
 dor, beauty, and happiness, for which it 
 was created. 
 
 We accordingly believe that poetry, 
 far from injuring society, is one of the 
 great instruments of its refinement and 
 exaltation. It lifts the mind above 
 ordinary life, gives it a respite from 
 depressing cares, and awakens the con- 
 
 sciousness of its affinity with what is 
 pure and noble. In its legitimate and 
 highest efforts, it has the same tendency 
 and aim with Christianity ; that is, to 
 spiritualize our nature. True, poetry 
 has been made the instrument of vice, 
 the pander of bad passions ; but, when 
 genius thus stoops, it dims its fires, and 
 parts with much of its power ; and, even 
 when poetry is enslaved to licentiousness 
 or misanthropy, she cannot wholly for- 
 get her true vocation. Strains of pure 
 feeling, touches of tenderness, images 
 of innocent happiness, sympathies with 
 suffering virtue, bursts of scorn or in- 
 dignation at the hollowness of the world, 
 passages true to our moral nature, often 
 escape in an immoral work, and show 
 us how hard it is for a gifted spirit to 
 divorce itself wholly from what is good. 
 Poetry has a natural alliance with our 
 best affections. It delights in the 
 beauty and sublimity of the outward 
 creation and of the soul. It indeed por- 
 trays, with terrible energy, the excesses 
 of the passions : but they are passions 
 which show a mighty nature, which are 
 full of power, which command awe, and 
 excite a deep though shuddering sym- 
 pathy. Its great tendency and purpose 
 is, to carry the mind beyond and above 
 the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordi- 
 nary life ; to lift it into a purer element ; 
 and to breathe into it more profound 
 and generous emotion. It reveals to us 
 the loveliness of nature, brings back the 
 freshness of early feeling, revives the 
 relish of simple pleasures, keeps un- 
 quenched the enthusiasm which warmed 
 the spring-time of our being, refines 
 youthful love, strengthens our interest 
 in human nature by vivid delineations 
 of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, 
 spreads our sympathies over all classes 
 of society, knits us by new ties with 
 universal being, and, through the bright- 
 ness of its prophetic visions, helps faith 
 to lay hold on the future life. 
 
 We are aware that it is objected to 
 poetry that it gives wrong views and 
 excites false expectations of life, peo- 
 ples the mind with shadows and illu- 
 sions, and builds up imagination on the 
 ruins of wisdom. That there is a wis- 
 dom against which poetry wars the 
 wisdom of the senses, which makes 
 physical comfort and gratification the 
 supreme good, and wealth the chief in- 
 terest of life we do not deny ; nor do
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 499 
 
 we deem it the least service which 
 poetry renders to mankind that it re- 
 deems them from the thraldom of this 
 earthborn prudence. But, passing over 
 this topic, we would observe that the 
 complaint against poetry, as abounding 
 in illusion and deception, is in the main 
 groundless. In many poems there is 
 more truth than in many histories and 
 philosophic theories. The fictions of 
 genius are often the vehicles of the sub- 
 limest verities, and its flashes often open 
 new regions of thought, and throw new 
 light on the mysteries of our being. In 
 poetry, when the letter is falsehood, the 
 spirit is often profoundest wisdom. And 
 if truth thus dwells in the boldest fic- 
 tions of the poet, much more may it be 
 expected in his delineations of life ; for 
 the present life, which is the first stage 
 of the immortal mind, abounds in the 
 materials of poetry, and it is the high 
 office of the bard to detect this divine 
 element among the grosser labors and 
 pleasures of our earthly being. The 
 present life is not wholly prosaic, pre- 
 cise, tame, and finite. To the gifted 
 eye it abounds in the poetic. The 
 affections, which spread beyond our- 
 selves and stretch far into futurity ; the 
 workings of mighty passions, which 
 seem to arm the soul with an almost 
 superhuman energy ; the innocent and 
 irrepressible joy of infancy ; the bloom, 
 and buoyancy, and dazzling hopes of 
 youth ; the throbbings of the heart, 
 when it first wakes to love, and dreams 
 of a happiness too vast for earth ; 
 woman, with her beauty, and grace, and 
 gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and 
 depth of affection, and blushes of pu- 
 rity, and the tones and looks which only 
 a mother's heart can- inspire ; these 
 are all poetical. It is not true that the 
 poet paints a- life which does not exist. 
 He only extracts and concentrates, as it 
 were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and 
 condenses its volatile fragrance, brings 
 together its scattered beauties, and pro- 
 longs its more refined but evanescent 
 joys. And in this he does well ; for it 
 is good to feel that life is not wholly 
 usurped by cares for subsistence and 
 physical gratifications, but admits, in 
 measures which may be indefinitely en- 
 larged, sentiments and delights worthy 
 of a higher being. This power of poetry 
 to refine our views of life and happiness, 
 is more and more needed as society 
 
 advances. It is needed to withstand 
 the encroachments of heartless and arti- 
 ficial manners, which make civilization 
 so tame and uninteresting. It is needed 
 to counteract the tendency of physical 
 science, which, being now sought, not, 
 as formerly, for intellectual gratification, 
 but for multiplying bodily comforts, re- 
 quires a new development of imagina- 
 tion, taste, and poetry, to preserve men 
 from sinking into an earthly, material, 
 Epicurean life. Our remarks in vindi- 
 cation of poetry have extended beyond 
 our original design. They have had a 
 higher aim than to assert the dignity of 
 Milton as a poet, and that is, to endear 
 and recommend this divine art to all 
 who reverence and would cultivate and 
 refine their nature. 
 
 In delineating Milton's character as a 
 poet, we are saved the necessity of look- 
 ing far for its distinguishing attributes. 
 His name is almost identified with sub- 
 limity. He is in truth the sublimest of 
 men. He rises, not by effort or disci- 
 pline, but by a native tendency and a 
 godlike instinct, to the contemplation of 
 objects of grandeur and awfulness. He 
 always moves with a conscious energy. 
 There is no subject so vast or terrific as 
 to repel or intimidate him. The over- 
 powering grandeur of a theme kindles 
 and attracts him. He enters on the 
 description of the infernal regions with 
 a fearless tread, as if he felt within him- 
 self a power to erect the prison-house 
 of fallen spirits, to encircle them with 
 flames and horrors worthy of their 
 crimes, to call forth from them shouts 
 which should " tear hell's concave," and 
 to embody in their chief an archangel's 
 energies and a demon's pride and hate. 
 Even the stupendous conception of 
 Satan seems never to oppress his facul- 
 ties. This character of power runs 
 through all Milton's works. His de- 
 scriptions of nature show a free and 
 bold hand. He has no need of the 
 minute, graphic skill which we prize in 
 Cowper or Crabbe. With a few strong 
 or delicate touches, he impresses, as it 
 were, his own mind on the scenes which 
 he would describe, and kindles the im- 
 agination of the gifted reader to clothe 
 them with the same radiant hues under 
 which they appeared to his own. 
 
 This attribute of power is universally 
 felt to characterize Milton. His sub- 
 limity is in every man's mouth. Is it
 
 5oo 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 felt that his poetry breathes a sensibility 
 and tenderness hardly surpassed by its 
 sublimity ? We apprehend that the 
 grandeur of Milton's mind has thrown 
 some shade over his milder beauties ; 
 and this it has done, not only by being 
 more striking and imposing, but by the 
 tendency of vast mental energy to give 
 a certain calmness to the expression of 
 tenderness and deep feeling. A great 
 mind is the master of its own enthu- 
 siasm, and does not often break out 
 into those tumults which pass with 
 many for the signs of profound emotion. 
 Its sensibility, though more intense and 
 enduring, is more self-possessed and 
 less perturbed than that of other men, 
 and is therefore less observed and felt, 
 except by those who understand, through 
 their own consciousness, the workings 
 and utterance of genuine feeling. We 
 might quote pages in illustration of the 
 qualities here ascribed to Milton. Turn 
 to " Comus," one of his earliest pro- 
 ductions. What sensibility breathes in 
 the descriptions of the benighted Lady's 
 singing, by Comus and the Spirit ! 
 
 " Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's 
 
 mould 
 
 Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment ? 
 Sure something holy lodges in that breast, 
 And with these raptures moves the vocal air 
 To testify his hidden residence : 
 How sweetly did they float upon the wings 
 Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, 
 At every fall smoothing the raven down 
 Of darkness till it smiled ! I have oft heard 
 My mother Circe with the Sirens three, 
 Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades, 
 Culling their potent herbs, and baleful drugs, 
 Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul 
 And lap it in Elysium ; Scylla wept, 
 And chid her barking waves into attention, 
 And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause : 
 Yet they in pleasing slumber lull'd the sense, 
 And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself ; 
 But such a sacred and home-felt delight, 
 Such sober certainty of waking bliss, 
 I never heard till now." Lines 244-264. 
 
 " Spirit. At last a soft and solemn-breathing 
 
 sound 
 
 Rose like a steam of rich distill'd perfumes, 
 And stole upon the air, that even Silence 
 Was took ere she was 'ware, and wish'd she might 
 Deny her nature, and be never more, 
 Still to be so displaced. I was all ear, 
 And took in strains that might create a soul 
 Under the ribs of death." Lines 555-563. 
 
 In illustration of Milton's tenderness, 
 we will open almost at a venture. 
 
 " Now Mom, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime 
 Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl, 
 
 When Adam waked, so custom'd, for his sleep 
 Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred, 
 And temperate vapors bland, which th' only sound 
 Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, 
 Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song 
 Of birds on every bough ; so much the more 
 His wonder was to find unwaken'd Eve 
 With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, 
 As through unquiet rest : He, on his side 
 Leaning half-raised, with looks of cordial love 
 Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld 
 Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, 
 Shot forth peculiar graces ; then with voice 
 Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, 
 Her hand soft touching, whisper'd thus : Awake, 
 My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, 
 Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight, 
 Awake !*the morning shines, and the fresh field 
 Calls us ; we lose the prime, to mark how spring 
 Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, 
 What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, 
 How nature paints her colors, how the bee 
 Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet." 
 
 Par. Lost, B. V. lines 1-25. 
 
 "So cheer'd he his fair spouse, and she was 
 
 cheer'd ; 
 
 But silently a gentle tear let fall 
 From either eye, and wiped them with her hair ; 
 Two other precious drops that ready stood, 
 Each in their crystal sluice, he ere they fell 
 Kiss'd, as the gracious signs of sweet remorse, 
 And pious awe that fear'd to have offended. ' ' 
 
 Par, Lost, B. V. lines 129-135. 
 
 From this very imperfect view of the 
 qualities of Milton's poetry, we hasten 
 to his great work, " Paradise Lost," 
 perhaps the noblest monument of human 
 genius. The two first books, by uni- 
 versal consent, stand pre-eminent in 
 sublimity. Hell and hell's king have a 
 terrible harmony, and dilate into new 
 grandeur and awfulness the longer we 
 contemplate them. From one element, 
 "solid and liquid fire," the poet has 
 framed a world of horror and suffering, 
 such as imagination had never traversed. 
 But fiercer flames than those which en- 
 compass Satan burn in his own soul. 
 Revenge, exasperated pride, consuming 
 wrath, ambition, though fallen, yet un- 
 conquered by the thunders of the Omnip- 
 otent, and grasping still at the empire 
 of the universe, these form a picture 
 more sublime and terrible than hell. 
 Hell yields to the spirit which it im- 
 prisons. The intensity of its fires re- 
 veals the intenser passions and more 
 vehement will of Satan ; and the ruined 
 archangel gathers into himself the sub- 
 limity of the scene which surrounds 
 him. This forms the tremendous inter- 
 est of these wonderful books. We see 
 mind triumphant over the most terrible 
 powers of nature. We see unutterable
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 501 
 
 agony subdued by energy of soul. We 
 have not, indeed, in Satan those bursts 
 of passion which rive the soul, as well 
 as shatter the outward frame, of Lear. 
 But we have a depth of passion which 
 only an archangel could manifest. The 
 all-enduring, all-defying pride of Satan, 
 assuming so majestically hell's burning 
 throne, and coveting the diadem which 
 scorches his thunder-blasted brow, is a 
 creation requiring in its author almost 
 the spiritual energy with which he in- 
 vests the fallen seraph. Some have 
 doubted whether the moral effect of 
 such delineations of the storms and 
 terrible workings of the soul is good ; 
 whether the interest felt in a spirit so 
 transcendently evil as Satan favors our 
 sympathies with virtue. But our inter- 
 est fastens, in this and like cases, on 
 what is not evil. We gaze on Satan 
 with an awe not unmixed with mysteri- 
 ous pleasure, as on a miraculous mani- 
 festation of the power of mind. What 
 chains us, as with a resistless spell, in 
 such a character, is spiritual might made 
 visible by the racking pains which it 
 overpowers. There is something kind- 
 ling and ennobling in the consciousness, 
 however awakened, of the energy which 
 resides in mind ; and many a virtuous 
 man has borrowed new strength from 
 the force, constancy, and dauntless cour- 
 age of evil agents. 
 
 Milton's description of Satan attests 
 in various ways the power of his genius. 
 Critics have often observed, that the 
 great difficulty of his work was to recon- 
 cile the spiritual properties of his super- 
 natural beings with the human modes of 
 existence which he is obliged to ascribe 
 to them. The difficulty is too great for 
 any genius wholly to overcome, and we 
 must acknowledge that our enthusiasm 
 is in some parts of the poem checked 
 by a feeling of incongruity between the 
 spiritual agent and his sphere and mode 
 of agency. But we are visited with no 
 such chilling doubts and misgivings in 
 the description of Satan in hell. Im- 
 agination has here achieved its highest 
 triumph, in imparting a character of 
 reality and truth to its most daring cre- 
 ations. That world of horrors, though 
 material, is yet so remote from our or- 
 dinary nature, that a spiritual being, 
 exiled from heaven, finds there an ap- 
 propriate home. There is, too, an in- 
 definiteness in the description of Satan's 
 
 person, which excites without shocking 
 the imagination, and aids us to reconcile, 
 in our conception of him, a human form 
 with his superhuman attributes. To 
 the production of this effect, much de- 
 pends on the first impression given by 
 the poet ; for this is apt to follow us 
 through the whole work ; and here we 
 think Milton eminently successful. The 
 first glimpse of Satan is given us in the 
 following lines, which, whilst too indefi- 
 nite to provoke, and too sublime to al- 
 low, the scrutiny of the reason, fill the 
 imagination of the reader with a form 
 which can hardly be effaced : 
 
 " Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate 
 With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
 That sparkling blazed ; his other parts besides 
 Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 
 Lay floating many a rood." 
 
 Par. Lost, B. I. lines 192-196. 
 
 " Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool 
 His mighty stature ; on each hand the flames, 
 Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, 
 
 roll'd 
 In billows, leave i' the midst a horrid vale." 
 
 Lines 221-224. 
 
 We have more which we would gladly 
 say of the delineation of Satan, espe- 
 cially of the glimpses which are now 
 and then given of his deep anguish and 
 despair, and of the touches of better 
 feelings which are skilfully thrown into 
 the dark picture, both suited and de- 
 signed to blend, with our admiration, 
 dread, and abhorrence, a measure of 
 that sympathy and interest with which 
 every living, thinking being ought to be 
 regarded, and without which all other 
 feelings tend to sin and pain. But 
 there is another topic which we cannot 
 leave untouched. From hell we flee to 
 Paradise, a region as lovely as hell is 
 terrible, and which, to those who do not 
 know the universality of true genius, will 
 appear doubly wonderful, when consid- 
 ered as the creation of the same mind 
 which had painted the infernal world. 
 
 Paradise and its inhabitants are in 
 sweet accordance, and together form a 
 scene of tranquil bliss, which calms and 
 soothes, whilst it delights, the imagi- 
 nation. Adam and Eve, just moulded 
 by the hand and quickened by the 
 breath of God, reflect in their counte- 
 nances and forms, as well as minds, the 
 intelligence, benignity, and happiness of 
 their Author. Their new existence has 
 the freshness and peacefulness of the 
 dewy morning. Their souls, unsated
 
 502 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 and untainted, find an innocent joy in 
 the youthful creation, which spreads and 
 smiles around them. Their mutual love 
 is deep, for it is the love of young, un- 
 worn, unexhausted hearts, which meet 
 in each other the only human objects 
 on whom to pour forth their fulness of 
 affection ; and still it is serene, for it is 
 the love of happy beings, who know not 
 suffering even by name, whose inno- 
 cence excludes not only the tumults but 
 the thought of jealousy and shame, who, 
 " imparadised in one another's arms," 
 scarce dream of futurity, so blessed is 
 their present being. We will not say 
 that we envy our first parents ; for we 
 feel that there may be higher happiness 
 than theirs, a happiness won through 
 struggle with inward and outward foes, 
 the happiness of power and moral vic- 
 tory, the happiness of disinterested 
 sacrifices and wide-spread love, the 
 happiness of boundless hope, and of 
 " thoughts which wander through eter- 
 nity." Still there are times when the 
 spirit, oppressed with pain, worn with 
 toil, tired of tumult, sick at the sight of 
 guilt, wounded in its love, baffled in its 
 hope, and trembling in its faith, almost 
 longs for the " wings of a dove, that it 
 might fly away " and take refuge amidst 
 the " shady bowers," the " vernal airs," 
 the " roses without thorns," the quiet, the 
 beauty, the loveliness of Eden. It is the 
 contrast of this deep peace of Paradise 
 with the storms of life which gives to 
 the fourth and fifth books of this poem 
 a charm so irresistible, that not a few 
 would sooner relinquish the two first 
 books, with all their sublimity, than 
 part with these. It has sometimes been 
 said that the English language has no 
 good pastoral poetry. We would ask, 
 in what age or country has the pastoral 
 reed breathed such sweet strains as are 
 borne to us on " the odoriferous wings 
 of gentle gales " from Milton's Paradise ? 
 We should not fulfil our duty were we 
 not to say one word on what has been 
 justly celebrated, the harmony of Mil- 
 ton's versification. His numbers have 
 the prime charm of expressiveness. 
 They vary with, and answer to, the 
 depth, or tenderness, or sublimity of 
 his conceptions, and hold intimate alli- 
 ance with the soul. Like Michael An- 
 gelo, in whose hands the marble was 
 said to be flexible, he bends our lan- 
 guage, which foreigners reproach with 
 
 hardness, into whatever forms the sub- 
 ject demands. All the treasures of 
 sweet and solemn sound are at his com- 
 mand. Words, harsh and discordant in 
 the writings of less gifted men, flow 
 through his poetry in a full stream of 
 harmony. This power over language is 
 not to be ascribed to Milton's musical 
 ear. It belongs to the soul. It is a 
 gift or exercise of genius, which has 
 power to impress itself on whatever it 
 touches, and finds or frames, in- sounds, 
 motions, and material forms, correspond- 
 ences and harmonies with its own fer- 
 vid thoughts and feelings. 
 
 We close our remarks on Milton's 
 poetry with observing, that it is charac- 
 terized by seriousness. Great and vari- 
 ous as are its merits, it does not discover 
 all the variety of genius which we find in 
 Shakspeare, whose imagination revelled 
 equally in regions of mirth, beauty, and 
 terror, now evoking spectres, now sport- 
 ing with fairies, and now " ascending the 
 highest heaven of invention." Milton 
 was cast on times too solemn and event- 
 ful, was called to take part in transac- 
 tions too perilous, and had too perpetual 
 need of the presence of high thoughts 
 and motives, to indulge himself in light 
 and gay creations, even had his genius 
 been more flexible and sportive. But 
 Milton's poetry, though habitually seri- 
 ous, is always healthful, and bright, and 
 vigorous. It has no gloom. He took 
 no pleasure in drawing dark pictures of 
 life ; for he knew by experience that 
 there is a power in the soul to trans- 
 mute calamity into an occasion and 
 nutriment of moral power and trium- 
 phant virtue. We find nowhere in his 
 writings that whining sensibility and 
 exaggeration of morbid feeling which 
 makes so much of modern poetry effem- 
 inating. If he is not gay, he is not 
 spirit-broken. His " L' Allegro " proves 
 that he understood thoroughly the bright 
 and joyous aspects of nature ; and in 
 his " Penseroso," where he was tempted 
 to accumulate images of gloom, we learn 
 that the saddest views which he took of 
 creation are such as inspire only pen- 
 sive musing or lofty contemplation. 
 
 From Milton's poetry we turn to his 
 Prose. We rejoice that the dust is be- 
 ginning to be wiped from his prose writ- 
 ings, and that the public are now learn- 
 ing, what the initiated have long known, 
 that these contain passages hardly infe-
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 503 
 
 rior to his best poetry, and that they are 
 throughout marked with the same vig- 
 orous mind which gave us " Paradise 
 Lost." The attention to these works 
 has been discouraged by some objec- 
 tions, on which we shall bestow a few 
 remarks. 
 
 And first, it is objected to his prose 
 writings, that the style is difficult and 
 obscure, abounding in involutions, trans- 
 positions, and Latinisms ; that his pro- 
 tracted sentences exhaust and weary the 
 mind, and too often yield it no better 
 recompense than confused and indistinct 
 perceptions. We mean not to deny that 
 these charges have some grounds ; but 
 they seem to us much exaggerated ; and, 
 when we consider that the difficulties of 
 Milton's style have almost sealed up his 
 prose writings, we cannot but lament 
 the fastidiousness and effeminacy of 
 modern readers. We know that sim- 
 plicity and perspicuity are important 
 qualities of style ; but there are vastly 
 nobler and more important ones, such 
 as energy and richness, and in these 
 Milton is not surpassed. The best style 
 is not that which puts the reader most 
 easily and in the shortest time in pos- 
 session of a writer's naked thoughts ; 
 but that which is the truest image of a 
 great intellect, which conveys fully and 
 carries farthest into other souls the 
 conceptions and feelings of a profound 
 and lofty spirit. To be universally in- 
 telligible is not the highest merit. A 
 great mind cannot, without injurious 
 constraint, shrink itself to the grasp of 
 common passive readers. Its natural 
 movement is free, bold, and majestic, 
 and it ought not to be required to part 
 with these attributes, that the multitude 
 may keep pace with it. A full mind will 
 naturally overflow in long sentences, 
 and, in the moment of inspiration, when 
 thick-coming thoughts and images crowd 
 upon it, will often pour them forth in 
 a splendid confusion, dazzling to com- 
 mon readers, but kindling to congenial 
 spirits. There are writings which are 
 clear through their shallowness. We 
 must not expect in the ocean the trans- 
 parency of the calm inland stream. For 
 ourselves, we love what is called easy 
 reading perhaps too well, especially in 
 our hours of relaxation ; but we love, too, 
 to have our faculties tasked by master- 
 spirits. We delight in long sentences, 
 in which a great truth, instead of being 
 
 broken up into numerous periods, is 
 spread out in its full proportions, is ir- 
 radiated with variety of illustration and 
 imagery, is set forth in a splendid afflu- 
 ence of language, and flows, like a full 
 stream, with a majestic harmony which 
 fills at once the ear and the soul. Such 
 sentences are worthy and noble mani- 
 festations of a great and far-looking 
 mind, which grasps at once vast fields 
 of thought, just as the natural eye takes 
 in at a moment wide prospects of gran- 
 deur and beauty. We would not indeed 
 have all compositions of this character. 
 Let abundant provision be made for the 
 common intellect. Let such writers as 
 Addison, an honored name, " bring down 
 philosophy from heaven to earth." But 
 let inspired genius fulfil its higher func- 
 tion of lifting the prepared mind from 
 earth to heaven. Impose upon it no 
 strict laws, for it is its own best law. 
 Let it speak in its own language, in 
 tones which suit its own ear. Let it not 
 lay aside its natural port, or dwarf itself 
 that it may be comprehended by the sur- 
 rounding multitude. If not understood 
 and relished now, let it place a generous 
 confidence in other ages, and utter ora- 
 cles which futurity will expound. We 
 are led to these remarks not merely for 
 Milton's justification, but because our 
 times seem to demand them. Litera- 
 ture, we fear, is becoming too popular. 
 The whole community is now turned 
 into readers, and in this we heartily re- 
 joice ; and we rejoice, too, that so much 
 talent is employed in making knowledge 
 accessible to all. We hail the general 
 diffusion of intelligence as the brightest 
 feature of the present age. But good 
 and evil are never disjoined : and one 
 bad consequence of the multitude of 
 readers is, that men of genius are too 
 anxious to please the multitude, and 
 prefer a present shout of popularity to 
 that less tumultuous, but deeper, more 
 thrilling note of the trump of Fame, 
 which resounds and grows clearer and 
 louder through all future ages. 
 
 We now come to a much more serious 
 objection to Milton's prose writings, and 
 that is, that they are disfigured by party- 
 spirit, coarse invective, and controversial 
 asperity ; and here we are prepared to 
 say that there are passages in these 
 works which every admirer of his char- 
 aracter must earnestly desire to expunge. 
 Milton's alleged virulence was mani-
 
 504 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 fested toward private and public foes. 
 The first, such as Salmasius and Morus, 
 deserved no mercy. They poured out 
 on his spotless character torrents of cal- 
 umny, charging him with the blackest 
 vices of the heart and the foulest enor- 
 mities of the life. It ought to be added, 
 that the manners and spirit of Milton's 
 age justified a retaliation on such of- 
 fenders, which ths more courteous, and, 
 we will hope, more Christian spirit of 
 the present times will not tolerate. Still 
 we mean not to be his apologists. Mil- 
 ton, raised as he was above his age, and 
 fortified with the consciousness of high 
 virtue, ought to have been, both to his 
 own and future times, an example of 
 Christian equanimity. In regard to the 
 public enemies whom he assailed, we 
 mean the despots in church and state, 
 and the corrupt institutions which had 
 stirred up a civil war, the general strain 
 of his writings, though strong and stern, 
 must exalt him, notwithstanding his oc- 
 casional violence, among the friends of 
 civil and religious liberty. That liberty 
 was in peril. Great evils were struggling 
 for perpetuity, and could only be broken 
 down by great power. Milton felt that in- 
 terests of infinite moment were at stake ; 
 and who will blame him for binding him- 
 self to them with the whole energy of 
 his great mind, and for defending them 
 with fervor and vehemence ? We must 
 not mistake Christian benevolence, as if 
 it had but one voice, that of soft entreaty. 
 It can speak in piercing and awful tones. 
 There is constantly going on in our 
 world a conflict between good and evil. 
 The cause of human nature has always 
 to wrestle with foes. All improvement 
 is a victory won by struggles. It is es- 
 pecially true of those great periods 
 which have been distinguished by revo- 
 lutions in government and religion, and 
 from which we date the most rapid move- 
 ments of the human mind, that they have 
 been signalized by conflict. Thus Chris- 
 tianity convulsed the world and grew up 
 amidst storms ; and the Reformation of 
 Luther was a signal to universal war ; 
 and liberty in both worlds has encoun- 
 tered opposition over which she has tri- 
 umphed only through her own immortal 
 energies. At such periods men, gifted 
 with great power of thought and lofti- 
 ness of sentiment, are especially sum- 
 moned to the conflict with evil. They 
 hear, as it were, in their own magnanim- 
 
 ity and generous aspirations, the voice 
 or a divinity ; and thus commissioned, 
 and burning with a passionate devotion 
 to truth and freedom, they must and 
 will speak with an indignant energy, and 
 they ought not to be measured by the 
 standard of ordinary minds in ordinary 
 times. Men of natural softness and ti- 
 midity, of a sincere but effeminate virtue, 
 will be apt to look on these bolder, 
 hardier spirits, as violent, perturbed, 
 and uncharitable ; and the charge will 
 not be wholly groundless. But that 
 deep feeling of evils, which is necessary 
 to effectual conflict with them, and which 
 marks God's most powerful messengers 
 to mankind, cannot breathe itself in soft 
 and tender accents. The deeply moved 
 soul will speak strongly, and ought to 
 speak so as to move and shake nations. 
 We have offered these remarks as 
 strongly applicable to Milton. He rev- 
 erenced and loved human nature, and 
 attached himself to its great interests 
 with a fervor of which only such a mind 
 was capable. He lived in one of those 
 solemn periods which determine the 
 character of ages to come. His spirit 
 was stirred to its very centre by the 
 presence of danger. He lived in the 
 midst of the battle. That the ardor of 
 his spirit sometimes passed the bounds 
 of wisdom and charity, and poured 
 forth unwarrantable invective, we see 
 and lament. But the purity and lofti- 
 ness of his mind break forth amidst his 
 bitterest invectives. We see a noble 
 nature still. We see that no feigned 
 love of truth and freedom was a cover- 
 ing for selfishness and malignity. He 
 did indeed love and adore uncorrupted 
 religion, and intellectual liberty, and let 
 his name be enrolled among their truest 
 champions. Milton has told us, in his 
 own noble style, that he entered on his 
 principal controversy with Episcopacy 
 reluctantly, and only through a deep 
 conviction of duty. The introduction 
 to the second book of his " Reason of 
 Church Government " shows us the 
 workings of his mind on this subject, 
 and is his best vindication from the 
 charge we are now repelling. He 
 says : 
 
 " Surely to every good and peaceable 
 man, it must in nature needs be a hateful 
 thing, to be the displeaser and molester of 
 thousands ; much better would it like him, 
 doubtless, to be the messenger of gladness
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 505 
 
 and contentment, which is his chief intend- 
 ed business to all mankind, but that they 
 resist and oppose their own true happiness. 
 But when God commands to take the trum- 
 pet, and blow a dolorous or a jarring blast, 
 it lies not in man's will what he shall say, 
 or what he shall conceal. . . . This I fore- 
 see, that should the church be brought 
 under heavy oppression, and God have 
 given me ability the while to reason against 
 that man that should be the author of so 
 foul a deed, or should she, by blessing from 
 above on the industry and courage of faith- 
 ful men, change this her distracted estate 
 into better days, without the least further- 
 ance or contribution of those few talents 
 which God at that present had lent me ; I 
 foresee what stories I should hear within 
 myself, all my life after, of discourage and 
 reproach. ' Timorous and ungrateful, the 
 church of God is now again at the foot of 
 her insulting enemies, and thou bewailest ; 
 what matters it for thee or thy bewailing ? 
 When time was, thou couldst not find a 
 syllable of all that thou hast read or stud- 
 ied, to utter in her behalf. Yet ease and 
 leisure was given thee for thy retired 
 thoughts, out of the sweat of other men. 
 Thou hadst the diligence, the parts, the 
 language of a man, if a vain subject were 
 to be adorned or beautified ; but when the 
 cause of God and his church was to be 
 pleaded, for which purpose that tongue was 
 given thee which thou hast, God listened if 
 he could hear thy voice among his zealous 
 servants, but thou wert dumb as a beast : 
 from henceforward be that which thine own 
 brutish silence hath made thee.' . . . But 
 now, by this little diligence, mark what a 
 privilege I have gained with good men and 
 saints, to claim my right of lamenting the 
 tribulations of the church, if she should 
 suffer, when others, that have ventured 
 nothing for her sake, have not the honor 
 to be admitted mourners. But, if she lift 
 up her drooping head and prosper, among 
 those that have something more than wished 
 her welfare, I have my charter and freehold 
 of rejoicing to me and my heirs. 
 
 "Concerning therefore this wayward sub- 
 ject against prelaty, the touching whereof is 
 so distasteful and disquietous to a number 
 of men, as by what hath been said I may de- 
 serve of charitable readers to be credited, 
 that neither envy nor gall hath entered me 
 upon this controversy, but the enforcement 
 of conscience only, and a preventive fear 
 lest the omitting of this duty should be 
 against me, when I would store up to my- 
 self the good provision of peaceful hours." 
 Vol. L, pp. 139-141.* 
 
 * From the introduction to the second book of 
 "The Reason pf Church Government," &c. Vol. I , 
 PP '37 &c- of "A Selection from the English Prose 
 Works of John Milton, Boston, 1826," to which all 
 our references are made. 
 
 He then goes on to speak of his con- 
 sciousness of possessing great poetical 
 powers, which he was most anxious ' to 
 cultivate. Of these he speaks thus 
 magnificently : 
 
 "These abilities, wheresoever they be 
 found, are the inspired gift of God rarely 
 bestowed, but yet to some, though most 
 abuse, in every nation ; and are of power, 
 to imbreed and cherish in a great people 
 the seeds of virtue, and public civility, to 
 allay the perturbations of the mind, and 
 set the affections in right tune ; to cele- 
 brate in glorious and lofty hymns the 
 throne and equipage of God's almightiness, 
 and what he works, and what he suffers to 
 be wrought with high providence in his 
 church ; to sing victorious agonies of mar- 
 tyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs 
 of just and pious nations, doing valiantly 
 through faith against the enemies of Christ"; 
 to deplore the general relapses of king- 
 doms and states from justice and God's 
 true worship ; lastly, whatsoever in re- 
 ligion is holy and sublime, in virtue ami- 
 able or grave, whatsoever hath passion or 
 admiration in all the changes of that which 
 is called fortune from without, or the wily 
 subtilties and refluxes of man's thoughts 
 from within ; all these things with a solid 
 and treatable smoothness to paint out and 
 describe." Vol. I., pp. 145, 146. 
 
 He then gives intimations of his hav- 
 ing proposed to himself a great poetical 
 work, " a work," he says , 
 
 " Not to be raised from the heat of 
 youth, or the vapors of wine, like that 
 which flows at waste from the pen of 
 some vulgar amourist, or the rencher fury 
 of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained 
 by the invocation of dame Memory and 
 her syren daughters, but by devout prayer 
 to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with 
 all utterance and knowledge, and sends out 
 his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his 
 altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom 
 he pleases." Vol. /.,/. 148. 
 
 He then closes with a passage, show- 
 ing from what principles he forsook these 
 delightful studies for controversy : 
 
 " I trust hereby to make it manifest with 
 what small willingness I endure to inter- 
 rupt the pursuit of no less hopes than 
 these, and leave a calm and pleasing soli- 
 tariness, fed with cheerful and confident 
 thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of 
 noises and hoarse disputes, put from be- 
 holding the bright countenance of truth in 
 the quiet and still air of delightful studies. 
 . . . But were it the meanest unclerservice, 
 if God by his secretary conscience enjoin
 
 506 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 it, it were sad for me if I should draw 
 back ; for me especially, now when all men 
 offer their aid to help, ease, and lighten 
 the difficult labors of the church, to whose 
 service, by the intentions of my parents 
 and friends, I was destined of a child, and 
 in mine own resolutions, till coming to some j 
 maturity of years, and perceiving what ty- 
 ranny had invaded the church, that he who 
 would take orders must subscribe slave, 
 and take an oath withal, which unless he 
 took with a conscience that would retch, 
 he must either strait perjure or split his 
 faith, I thought it better to prefer a blame- 
 less silence before the sacred office of speak- 
 ing, bought and begun with servitude and 
 forswearing." Vol. /., /. 149. 
 
 These passages, replete with Milton's 
 genius and greatness of soul, show us 
 the influences and motives under which 
 his prose works were written, and help 
 us to interpret passages, which, if taken 
 separately, might justify us in ascribing 
 to him a character of excessive indigna- 
 tion and scorn. 
 
 Milton's most celebrated prose work is 
 his " Areopagitica, or a Speech for the 
 Liberty of Unlicensed Printing," a noble 
 work indeed, a precious manual of free- 
 dom, an arsenal of immortal weapons for 
 the defence of man's highest preroga- 
 tive, intellectual liberty. His "Ref- 
 ormation in England " and " Reason of 
 Church Government " are the most im- 
 portant theological treatises published 
 during his life. They were his earliest 
 prose compositions, and thrown off with 
 much haste, and % on these accounts are 
 more chargeable with defects of style 
 than any other of his writings. But these, 
 with all their defects, abound in strong 
 and elevated thought, and in power and 
 felicity of expression. Their great blem- 
 ish is an inequality of style, often spring- 
 ing from the conflict and opposition of 
 the impulses under which he wrote. It 
 is not uncommon to find, in the same 
 sentence, his affluent genius pouring 
 forth magnificent images and expres- 
 sions, and suddenly his deep scorn for 
 his opponents, suggesting and throwing 
 into the midst of this splendor sarcasms 
 and degrading comparisons altogether at 
 variance with the general strain. From 
 this cause, and from negligence, many 
 powerful passages in his prose writings 
 are marred by an incongruous mixture 
 of unworthy allusions and phrases. In 
 the close of his first work, that on " Ref- 
 ormation in England," he breaks out 
 
 into an invocation and prayer to the 
 Supreme Being, from which we extract 
 a passage containing a remarkable inti- 
 mation of his having meditated some 
 great poetical enterprise from his ear- 
 liest years, and giving full promise of 
 that grandeur of thought and language 
 which characterizes " Paradise Lost." 
 Having ' lifted up his hands to that eter- 
 nal and propitious Throne, where noth- 
 ing is readier than grace and refuge to 
 the distresses of mortal suppliants," and 
 besought God to perfect the work of 
 civil and religious deliverance begun in 
 England, he proceeds thus : 
 
 "Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs 
 of saints, some one may perhaps be heard 
 offering at high strains in nesv and lofty 
 measures, to sing and celebrate thy divine 
 mercies, and marvellous judgments in this 
 land throughout all ages, whereby this great 
 and warlike nation, instructed and inured 
 to the fervent and continual practice of 
 truth and righteousness, and casting far 
 from her the rags of her old vices, may 
 press on hard to that high and happy emu- 
 lation to be found the soberest, wisest, and 
 most Christian people at that day, when 
 Thou, the eternal and shortly expected 
 King, shalt open the clouds to judge the 
 several kingdoms of the world, and, dis- 
 tributing national honors and rewards to 
 religious and just commonwealths, shalt 
 put an end to all earthly tyrannies, pro- 
 claiming thy universal and mild monarchy 
 through heaven and earth ; where they un- 
 doubtedly, that^by their labors, counsels, 
 and prayers, have been earnest for the 
 common good of religion and their country, 
 shall receive, above the inferior orders of 
 the blessed, the regal addition of princi- 
 palities, legions, and thrones into their 
 glorious titles, and, in supereminence of 
 beatific vision, progressing the dateless and 
 irrevoluble circle of eternity, shall clasp 
 inseparable hands with joy and bliss, in 
 overmeasure for ever." Vol. /., //. 69, 70. 
 
 We have not time to speak of Milton's 
 political treatises. We close our brief 
 remarks on his prose writings with rec- 
 ommending them to all who can enjoy 
 great beauties in the neighborhood of 
 great faults, and who would learn the 
 compass, energy, and richness of our 
 language ; and still more do we rec- 
 ommend them to those who desire to 
 nourish in their breast magnanimity of 
 sentiment and an unquenchable love of 
 freedom. They bear the impress of that 
 seal by which genius distinguishes its 
 productions from works of learning and
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 SO/ 
 
 taste. The great and decisive test of 
 genius is, that it calls forth power in 
 the souls of others. It not merely gives 
 knowledge, but breathes energy. There 
 are' authors, and among these Milton 
 holds the highest rank, in approaching 
 whom we are conscious of an access of 
 intellectual strength. A "virtue goes 
 out" from them. We discern more 
 clearly, not merely because a new light 
 is thrown over objects, but because our 
 own vision is strengthened. Sometimes 
 a single word, spoken by the voice of 
 genius, goes far into the heart. A hint, 
 a suggestion, an undefined delicacy of 
 expression, teaches more than we gather 
 from volumes of less gifted men. The 
 works which we should chiefly study are 
 not those which contain the greatest fund 
 of knowledge, but which raise us into 
 sympathy with the intellectual energy of 
 the author, and through which a great 
 mind multiplies itself, as it were, in the 
 reader. Milton's prose works are im- 
 bued as really, if not as thoroughly, as 
 his poetry, with this quickening power, 
 and they will richly reward those who 
 are receptive of this influence. 
 
 We now leave the writings of Milton 
 to offer a few remarks on his moral 
 qualities. His moral character was as 
 strongly marked as his intellectual, and 
 it may be expressed in one word, mag- 
 nanimity. It was in harmony with his 
 poetry. He had a passionate love of 
 the higher, more commanding, and ma- 
 jestic virtues, and fed his youthful mind 
 with meditations on the perfection of a 
 human being. In a letter written to an 
 Italian friend before his thirtieth year, 
 and translated by Hayley, we have this 
 vivid picture of his aspirations after vir- 
 tue : 
 
 "As to other points, what God may have 
 determined for me I know not ; but this I 
 know, that if he ever instilled an intense 
 love of moral beauty into the breast of any 
 man, he has instilled it into mine. Ceres, 
 in the fable, pursued not her daughter with 
 a greater keenness of inquiry, than I day 
 and night the idea of perfection. Hence, 
 wherever I find a man despising the false 
 estimates of the vulgar, and daring to as- 
 pire, in sentiment, language, and conduct, 
 to what the highest wisdom, through every 
 age, has taught us as most excellent, to him 
 I unite myself by a sort of necessary at- 
 tachment ; and if I am so influenced by 
 nature or destiny, that by no exertion or 
 labors of my own I may exalt myself to 
 
 this summit of worth and honor, yet no 
 powers of heaven or earth will hinder me 
 from looking with reverence and affection 
 upon those who have thoroughly attained 
 this glory, or appeared engaged in the suc- 
 cessful pursuit of it." 
 
 His " Comus " was written in his 
 twenty-sixth year, and on reading this 
 exquisite work our admiration is awa- 
 kened, not so much by observing how the 
 whole spirit of poetry had descended on 
 him at that early age, as by witnessing 
 how his whole youthful soul was pene- 
 trated, awed, and lifted up by the aus- 
 tere charms, "the radiant light," the 
 invincible power, the celestial peace of 
 saintly virtue. He reverenced moral 
 purity and elevation, not only for its 
 own sake, but as the inspirer of intel- 
 lect, and especially of the higher efforts 
 of poetry. " I was confirmed," he says, 
 in his usual noble style, 
 
 " I was confirmed in this opinion ; that 
 he who would not be frustrate of his hope 
 to write well hereafter in laudable things, 
 ought himself to be a true poem ; that is, 
 a composition and pattern of the best and 
 honorablest things ; not presuming to sing 
 of high praises of heroic men or famous 
 cities, unless he have in himself the expe- 
 rience and the practice of all that which is 
 praiseworthy." Vol. I., pp. 237, 238. 
 
 We learn from his works that he used 
 his multifarious reading to build up 
 within himself this reverence for virtue. 
 Ancient history, the sublime musings of 
 Plato, and the heroic self-abandonment 
 of chivalry, joined their influences with 
 prophets and apostles in binding him 
 " everlastingly in willing homage " to 
 the great, the honorable, and the lovely 
 in character. A remarkable passage to 
 this effect we quote from his account of 
 his youth : 
 
 "I betook me among those lofty fables 
 and romances, which recount, in solemn 
 cantos, the deeds of knighthood founded 
 by our victorious kings, and from hence had 
 in renown over all Christendom. There 
 I read it in the oath of every knight, that 
 he should defend to the expense of his best 
 blood or of his life, if it so befell him, the 
 honor and chastity of virgin or matron ; 
 from whence even then I learned what a 
 noble virtue chastity sure must be, to the 
 defence of which so many worthies by 
 such a dear adventure of themselves, had 
 sworn. ... So that even these, books 
 which to many others have been the fuel
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 of wantonness and loose living, I cannot 
 think how, unless by divine indulgence, 
 proved to me so many incitements, as you 
 have heard, to the love and steadfast ob- 
 servation of virtue." Vol. /., //. 238, 
 239- 
 
 All Milton's habits were expressive 
 of a refined and self-denying character. 
 When charged by his unprincipled 
 slanderers with licentious habits, he 
 thus gives an account of his morning 
 hours : 
 
 "Those morning haunts are where they 
 should be, at home ; not sleeping, or con- 
 cocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, 
 but up and stirring, in winter often ere the 
 sound of any bell awake men to labor, or 
 devotion ; in summer as oft with the bird 
 that first rouses, or not much tardier, to 
 read good authors, or cause them to be 
 read, till the attention be weary or memory 
 have its full fraught ; then with useful 
 and generous labors preserving the body's 
 health and hardiness, to render lightsome, 
 clear, and not lumpish obedience to the 
 mind, to the cause of religion, and our 
 country's liberty, when it shall require firm 
 hearts in sound bodies to stand and cover 
 their stations, rather than to see the ruin 
 of our protestation, and the enforcement 
 of a slavish life." Vol I., p. 233. 
 
 We have enlarged on the strictness 
 and loftiness of Milton's virtue, not 
 only from our interest in the subject, 
 but that we may put to shame and 
 silence those men who make genius 
 an apology for vice, and take the sacred 
 fire, kindled by God within them, to in- 
 flame men's passions, and to minister 
 to a vile sensuality. 
 
 We see Milton's greatness of mind in 
 his fervent and constant attachment to 
 liberty. Freedom, in all its forms and 
 branches, was dear to him, but especially 
 freedom of thought and speech, of con- 
 science and worship, freedom to seek, 
 profess, and propagate truth. The lib- 
 erty of ordinary politicians, which pro- 
 tects men's outward rights, and removes 
 restraints from the pursuit of property 
 and outward good, fell very short of that 
 for which Milton lived, and was ready 
 to die. The tyranny which he hated 
 most was that which broke the intellect- 
 ual and moral power of the community. 
 The worst feature of the institutions 
 which he assailed was, that they fet- 
 tered the mind. He felt within himself 
 that the human mind had a principle of 
 perpetual growth, that it was essentially 
 
 diffusive and made for progress, and he 
 wished every chain broken, that it might 
 run the race of truth and virtue with 
 increasing ardor and success. This 
 attachment to a spiritual and refined 
 freedom, which never forsook him in 
 the hottest controversies, contributed 
 greatly to protect his genius, imagina- 
 tion, taste, and sensibility, from the 
 withering and polluting influences of 
 public station, and of the rage of par- 
 ties. It threw a hue of poetry over 
 politics, and gave a sublime reference 
 to his service of the commonwealth. 
 The fact that Milton, in that stormy 
 day, and amidst the trials of public 
 office, kept his high faculties unde- 
 praved, was a proof of no common 
 greatness. Politics, however they make 
 the intellect active, sagacious, and in- 
 ventive, within a certain sphere, gener- 
 ally extinguish its thirst for universal 
 truth, paralyze sentiment and imagina- 
 tion, corrupt the simplicity of the mind, 
 destroy that confidence in human virtue 
 which lies at the foundation of philan- 
 thropy and generous sacrifices, and end 
 in cold and prudent selfishness. Milton 
 passed through a revolution which, in its 
 last stages and issue, was peculiarly 
 fitted to damp enthusiasm, to scatter 
 the visions of hope, and to infuse 
 doubts of the reality of virtuous prin- 
 ciple : and yet the ardor, and moral 
 feeling, and enthusiasm of his youth 
 came forth unhurt, and even exalted, 
 from the trial. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of Milton's 
 devotion to liberty, it ought to be re- 
 corded that he wrote his celebrated 
 " Defence of the People of England," 
 after being distinctly forewarned by his 
 physicians that the effect of this exer- 
 tion would be the utter loss of sight. 
 His reference to this part of his history, 
 in a short poetical effusion, is too char- 
 acteristic to be withheld. It is inscribed 
 to Cyriac Skinner, the friend to whom 
 he appears to have confided his lately 
 discovered " Treatise on Christian Doc- 
 trine." 
 
 "Cyriac, this three years day these eyes, though 
 
 clear, 
 
 To outward view, of blemish or of spot, 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot ; 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, 
 Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 509 
 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ? 
 The conscience, Friend, to have lost them over- 
 plied 
 
 III Liberty's defence, my noble task, 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 
 This thought might lead me through the world's 
 
 vair mask, 
 
 Content though blind, had I no better guide." 
 Sonnet XXII. 
 
 We see Milton's magnanimity in the 
 circumstances under which " Paradise 
 Lost " was written. It was not in pros- 
 perity, in honor, and amidst triumphs, 
 but in disappointment, desertion, and 
 in what the world calls disgrace, that he 
 composed that work. The cause with 
 which he had identified himself had 
 failed. His friends were scattered ; 
 liberty was trodden under foot, and her 
 devoted champion was a by-word among 
 the triumphant royalists. But it is the 
 prerogative of true greatness to glorify 
 itself in adversity, and to meditate and 
 execute vast enterprises in defeat. Mil- 
 ton, fallen in outward condition, afflicted 
 with blindness, disappointed in his best 
 hopes, applied himself with characteristic 
 energy to the sublimest achievement of 
 intellect, solacing himself with great 
 thoughts, with splendid creations, and 
 with a prophetic confidence that, how- 
 ever neglected in his own age, he was 
 framing in his works a bond of union and 
 fellowship with the illustrious spirits of 
 a brighter day. We delight to contem- 
 plate him in his retreat and last years. 
 To the passing spectator, he seemed 
 fallen and forsaken, and his blindness 
 was reproached as a judgment from God. 
 But though* sightless, he lived in light. 
 His inward eye ranged through universal 
 nature, and his imagination shed on it 
 brighter beams than the sun. Heaven 
 and hell and paradise were open to him. 
 He visited past ages, and gathered round 
 him ancient sages and heroes, prophets 
 and apostles, brave knights and gifted 
 bards. As he looked forward, ages of 
 liberty dawned and rose to his view, and 
 he felt that he was about to bequeath to 
 them an inheritance of genius, " which 
 would not fade away," and was to live 
 in the memory, reverence, and love of 
 remotest generations. 
 
 We have enlarged on Milton's char- 
 acter, not only from the pleasure of pay- 
 ing that sacred debt which the mind 
 owes to him who has quickened and 
 delighted it, but from an apprehension 
 that Milton has not yet reaped his due 
 
 harvest of esteem and veneration. The 
 mists which the prejudices and bigotry 
 of Johnson spread over his bright name 
 are not yet wholly scattered, though 
 fast passing away. We wish not to dis- 
 parage Johnson. We could find no 
 pleasure in sacrificing one great man to 
 the manes of another. But we owe it 
 to Milton and to other illustrious names, 
 to say, that Johnson has failed of the 
 highest end of biography, which is to 
 give immortality to virtue, and to call 
 forth fervent admiration towards those 
 who have shed splendor on past ages. 
 . We acquit Johnson, however, of inten- 
 tional misrepresentation. He did not, 
 and could not, appreciate Milton. We 
 doubt whether two other minds, having 
 so little in common as those of which we 
 are now speaking, can be found in the 
 higher walks of literature. Johnson was 
 great in his own sphere, but that sphere 
 was comparatively " of the earth," whilst 
 Milton's was only inferior to that of 
 angels. It was customary, in the day of 
 Johnson's glory, to call him a giant, to 
 class him with a mighty, but still an 
 earth-born race. Milton we should 
 rank among seraphs. Johnson's mind 
 acted chiefly on man's actual condition, 
 on the realities of life, on the springs of 
 human action, on the passions which 
 now agitate society, and he seems hardly 
 to have dreamed of a higher state of the 
 human mind than was then exhibited^ 
 Milton, on the other hand, burned with 
 a deep yet calm love of moral grandeur 
 and celestial purity. He thought, not 
 so much of what man is, as of what he 
 might become. His own mind was a 
 revelation to him of a higher condition 
 of humanity, and to promote this he 
 thirsted and toiled for freedom, as the 
 element for the growth and improve- 
 ment of his nature. In religion John- 
 son was gloomy and inclined to supersti- 
 tion, and on the subject of government 
 leaned towards absolute power ; and the 
 idea of reforming either never entered his 
 mind but to disturb and provoke it. The 
 church and the civil polity under which he 
 lived seemed to him perfect, unless he 
 may have thought that the former would 
 be improved by a larger infusion of Rom- 
 ish rites and doctrines, and the latter by 
 an enlargement of the royal prerogative. 
 Hence a tame acquiescence in the pres- 
 ent forms of religion and government 
 marks his works. Hence we find so
 
 5io 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 little in his writings which is electric 
 and soul-kindling, and which gives the 
 reader a consciousness of being made 
 for a state of loftier thought and feeling 
 than the present. Milton's whole soul, 
 on the contrary, revolted against the 
 maxims of legitimacy, hereditary faith, 
 and servile reverence for established 
 power. He could not brook the bond- 
 age to which men had bowed for ages. 
 " Reformation " was the first word of 
 public warning which broke from his 
 youthful lips, and the hope of it was the 
 solace of his declining years. The dif- 
 ference between Milton and Johnson 
 may be traced, not only in these great 
 features of mind, but in their whole 
 characters. Milton was refined and 
 spiritual in his habits, temperate almost 
 to abstemiousness, and refreshed him- 
 self after intellectual effort by music. 
 Johnson inclined to more sensual de- 
 lights. Milton was exquisitely alive to 
 the outward creation, to sounds, motions, 
 and forms, to natural beauty and gran- 
 deur. Johnson, through defect of phys- 
 ical organization, if not through deeper 
 deficiency, had little susceptibility of 
 these pure and delicate pleasures, and 
 would not have exchanged the Strand 
 for the vale of Tempe or the gardens of 
 the Hesperides. How could Johnson 
 be just to Milton ! The comparison 
 which we have instituted has compelled 
 us to notice Johnson's defects. But we 
 trust we are not blind to his merits. 
 His stately march, his pomp and power 
 of language, his strength of thought, his 
 reverence for virtue and religion, his 
 vigorous logic, his practical wisdom, 
 his insight into the springs of human 
 action, and the solemn pathos which 
 occasionally pervades his descriptions of 
 life and his references to his own his- 
 tory, command our willing admiration. 
 That he wanted enthusiasm and creative 
 imagination and lofty sentiment, was 
 not his fault. We do not blame him for 
 not being Milton. We love intellectual 
 power in all its forms, and delight in 
 the variety of mind. We blame him 
 only that his passions, prejudices, and 
 bigotry engaged him in the unworthy 
 task of obscuring the brighter glory of 
 one of the most gifted and virtuous men. 
 We would even treat what we deem the 
 faults of Johnson with a tenderness ap- 
 proaching respect ; for they were results, 
 to a degree which man cannot estimate, 
 
 of a diseased, irritable, nervous unhappy 
 physical temperament, and belonged to 
 the body more than to the mind. We 
 only ask the friends of genius not to put 
 their faith in Johnson's delineations of 
 it. His biographical works are tinged 
 with his notoriously strong prejudices, 
 and, of all his " Lives," we hold that of 
 Milton to be the most apocryphal. 
 
 We here close our general remarks on 
 Milton's intellectual and moral qualities. 
 We venerate him as a man of genius, 
 but still more as a man of magnanimity 
 and Christian virtue, who regarded gen- 
 ius and poetry as sacred gifts, imparted 
 to him, not to amuse men or to build up 
 a reputation, but that he might quicken 
 and call forth what was great and divine 
 in his fellow-creatures, and might secure 
 the only true fame, the admiration of 
 minds which his writings were to kindle 
 and exalt. 
 
 We come now to the examination of 
 the newly discovered " Treatise on 
 Christian Doctrine." This work, we 
 have said, owes its chief interest to the 
 character of its author. From its very 
 nature, it cannot engage and fix general 
 attention. It consists very much of col- 
 lections of texts of Scripture, which, 
 however exciting in their proper places, 
 are read with little thought or emotion 
 when taken from their ordinary connec- 
 tion, and marshalled under systematic 
 heads. Milton aims to give us the doc- 
 trines of revelation in its own words. 
 We have them in a phraseology long 
 familiar to us, and we are disappointed ; 
 for we expected to see them, not in the 
 language of the Bible, but as existing in 
 the mind of Milton, modified by his 
 peculiar intellect and sensibility, com- 
 bined and embodied with his various 
 knowledge, illustrated by the analogies, 
 brightened by the new lights, and clothed 
 with the associations, with which they 
 were surrounded by this gifted man. 
 We hoped to see these doctrines as 
 they were viewed by Milton in his mo- 
 ments of solemn feeling and deep con- 
 templation, when they pervaded and 
 moved his whole soul. Still there are 
 passages in which Milton's mind is laid 
 open to us. We refer to the parts of 
 the work where the peculiarity of his 
 opinions obliges him to state his reasons 
 for adopting them ; and these we value 
 highly for the vigor and independence 
 of intellect with which they are im-
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON, 
 
 pressed. The work is plain and unambi- 
 tious in style. Its characteristics are a 
 calm earnestness, and that profound 
 veneration for Scripture which certain 
 denominations of Christians, who have 
 little congeniality with Milton, seem to 
 claim as a monopoly. 
 
 His introduction is worthy every man's 
 attention, as a deliberate, mild assertion 
 of the dearest right of human nature, 
 that of free inquiry : 
 
 " If I communicate the result of my in- 
 quiries to the world at large ; if, as God is 
 my witness, it be with a friendly and benig- 
 nant feeling towards mankind, that I readily 
 give as wide a circulation as possible to 
 what I esteem my best and richest posses- 
 sion, I hope to meet with a candid reception 
 from all parties, and that none at least will 
 take unjust offence, even though many 
 things should be brought to light, which 
 will at once be seen to differ from certain 
 received opinions. I earnestly beseech all 
 lovers of truth not to cry out that the 
 church is thrown into confusion by that 
 freedom of discussion and inquiry, which 
 is granted to the schools, and ought cer- 
 tainly to be refused to no believer, since we 
 are ordered to prove all things, and since the 
 daily progress of the light of truth is pro- 
 ductive, far less of disturbance to the 
 church, than of illumination and edifica- 
 tion."^/. /., //. 5, 6. 
 
 " It has also been my object to make it 
 appear from the opinions I shall be found 
 to have advanced, whether new or old, of 
 how much consequence to the Christian 
 religion is the liberty, not only of winnow- 
 ing and sifting every doctrine, but also of 
 thinking and even writing respecting it, 
 according to our individual faith and per- 
 suasion ; an inference which will be stronger 
 in proportion to the weight and importance 
 of those opinions, or rather in proportion 
 to the authority of Scripture, on the abun- 
 dant testimony of which Ihey rest. Without 
 this liberty there is neither religion nor gos- 
 pel, force alone prevails, by which it is 
 disgraceful for the Christian religion to be 
 supported. Without this liberty we are 
 still enslaved, not, indeed, as formerly, 
 under the divine law, but, what is worst 
 of all, under the law of man, or, to speak 
 more truly, under a barbarous tyranny." 
 Vol. /., //. 7, 8. 
 
 On that great subject, the character 
 of God, Milton has given nothing par- 
 ticularly worthy of notice, except that 
 he is more disposed than Christians in 
 general to conceive of the Supreme Be- 
 ing finder the forms and affections of 
 human nature : 
 
 " If God habitually assign to himself the 
 members and form of man, why should we 
 be afraid of attributing to him what he 
 attributes to himself, so long as what is 
 imperfection and weakness, when viewed 
 in reference to ourselves, be considered as 
 most complete and excellent whenever it is 
 imputed to God." Vol. /., /. 23. 
 
 Milton is not the first Christian who 
 has thought to render the Supreme Be- 
 ing more interesting by giving him human 
 shape. We doubt the wisdom of this 
 expedient. To spiritualize our concep- 
 tions of him seems to us the true process 
 for strengthening our intimacy with him ; 
 for in this way only can we think of him 
 as immediately present to our minds. 
 As far as we give him a material form, 
 we must assign to him a place, and that 
 place will almost necessarily be a distant 
 one, and thus we shall remove him from 
 the soul, which is his true temple. Be- 
 sides, a definite form clashes with God's 
 infinity, which is his supreme distinction, 
 and on no account to be obscured ; for, 
 strange as it may seem to those who 
 know not their own nature, this incom- 
 prehensible attribute is that which above 
 all things constitutes the correspondence 
 or adaptation, if we may so speak, of 
 God to the human mind. 
 
 In treating of God's efficiency, Milton 
 strenuously maintains human freedom, 
 in opposition to the Calvinistic doctrine 
 of predestination. He maintains that 
 God's decrees do not encroach on moral 
 liberty ; for our free agency is the very 
 object decreed and predestined by the 
 Creator. He maintains that some* of 
 the passages of Scripture which speak 
 of election are to be understood of an 
 election to outward privileges, not to 
 everlasting life ; and that in other texts, 
 which relate to the future state, the 
 election spoken of is not an arbitrary 
 choice of individuals, but of that class 
 or descriptions of persons, be it large or 
 small, who shall comply with the pre- 
 scribed terms of salvation ; in other 
 words, it is a conditional, not an abso- 
 lute election, and such that every indi- 
 vidual, if he will, may be included in it. 
 Milton has so far told us truth. We 
 wish that we could add that he had 
 thrown new light on free agency. This 
 great subject has indeed baffled as yet 
 the deepest thinkers, and seems now to 
 be consigned, with other sublime topics, 
 under the sweeping denomination of 
 "metaphysics," to general neglect. But
 
 512 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 let it not be given up in despair. The 
 time is coming when the human intellect 
 is to strike into new fields, and to view 
 itself and its Creator and the universe 
 from new positions, and we trust that 
 the darkness which has so long hung 
 over our moral nature will be gradually 
 dispersed. This attribute of free agency, 
 through which an intelligent being is 
 strictly and properly a cause, an agent, 
 an originator of moral good or moral evil, 
 and not a mere machine, determined by 
 outward influences, or by a secret, yet re- 
 sistless efficiency of God, which virtually 
 makes him the author and sole author of 
 all human actions, this moral freedom, 
 which is the best image of the creative 
 energy of the Deity, seems to us the 
 noblest object of philosophical investi- 
 gation. However questioned and dark- 
 ened by a host of metaphysicians, it is 
 recognized in the common conscious- 
 ness of every human being. It is the 
 ground of responsibility, the fountain of 
 moral feeling. It is involved in all 
 moral judgments and affections, and 
 thus gives to social life its whole inter- 
 est ; whilst it is the chief tie between 
 the soul and its -Creator. The fact that 
 philosophers have attempted to discard 
 free agency from their explanations of 
 moral phenomena, and to subject all 
 human action to necessity, to mechani- 
 cal causes, or other extraneous influ- 
 ences, is proof enough that the science 
 of the mind has as yet penetrated little 
 beneath the surface, that the depths of 
 the* soul are still unexplored. 
 
 Milton naturally passes from his chap- 
 ter on the Supreme Being to the con- 
 sideration of those topics which have 
 always been connected with this part of 
 theology, we mean, the character of 
 Jesus Christ, and the nature of the Holy 
 Spirit. All our readers are probably 
 aware that Milton has here declared 
 himself an Anti-trinitarian, and strenu- 
 ously asserted the strict and proper unity 
 of God. His chapter on " The Son of 
 God " is the most elaborate one in the 
 work. His " Prefatory Remarks " are 
 highly interesting, as joining with a 
 manly assertion of his right an affec- 
 tionate desire to conciliate the Chris- 
 tians from whom he differed. 
 
 " I cannot enter upon subjects of so much 
 difficulty as the Son of God and the Holy 
 Spirit, without again premising a few intro- 
 ductory words. If, indeed, I were a mem- 
 
 ber of the Church of Rome, which requires 
 implicit obedience to its creed on all points 
 of faith, I should have acquiesced from 
 education or habit in its simple decree and 
 authority, even though it denies that the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, as now received, 
 is capable of being proved from any pas- 
 sage of Scripture. But since I enrol my- 
 self among the number of those who 
 acknowledge the Word of God alone as 
 the rule of faith, and freely advance what 
 appears to me much more clearly deducible 
 from the Holy Scriptures than the com- 
 monly received opinion, I see no reason 
 why any one, who belongs to the same 
 Protestant or Reformed Church, and pro- 
 fesses to acknowledge the same rule of 
 faith as myself, should take offence at my 
 freedom, particularly as I impose my au- 
 thority on no one, but merely propose what 
 I think more worthy of belief than the creed 
 in general acceptation. I onlj entreat that 
 my readers will ponder and examine my 
 statements in a spirit which desires to dis- 
 cover nothing but the truth, and with a 
 mind free from prejudice. For, without 
 intending to oppose the authority of Scrip- 
 ture, which I consider inviolably sacred, I 
 only take upon myself to refute human 
 interpretations as often as the occasion 
 requires, conformably to my right, or rather 
 to my duty, as a man. If, indeed, those with 
 whom I have to contend were able to pro- 
 duce direct attestation from Heaven to the 
 truth of the doctrine which they espouse, it 
 would be nothing less than impiety to vent- 
 ure to raise, I do not say a clamor, but so 
 much as a murmur against it. But, inas- 
 much as they can lay claim to nothing more 
 than human powers, assisted by that spirit- 
 ual illumination which is common to all, it 
 is not unreasonable that they should on 
 their part allow the privileges of diligent 
 research and free discussion to another 
 inquirer, who is seeking truth through 
 the same means and in the same way as 
 themselves, and whose desire of benefiting 
 mankind is equal to their own." Vol. /., 
 pp. 103-105. 
 
 Milton teaches that the Son of God is 
 a distinct being from God, and inferior 
 to him, that he existed before the world 
 was made, that he is the first of the 
 creation of God, and that afterwards all 
 other things were made by him, as the 
 instrument or minister of his Father. 
 He maintains, in agreement with Dr. 
 Clarke, that the Holy Spirit is a person, 
 an intelligent agent, but created and 
 inferior to God. This opinion of Mil- 
 ton is the more remarkable, because he 
 admits that, before the time of Christ, 
 the Jews, though accustomed to* the 
 phrase Holy Spirit, never attached to
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 513 
 
 it the idea of personality, and that, both 
 in the Old and the New Testament, it 
 is often used -to express God himself, 
 or his power and agency. It is strange 
 that, after these concessions, he could 
 have found a difficulty in giving a fig- 
 urative interpretation to the few pas- 
 sages in the New Testament which 
 speak of the Holy Spirit as a person. 
 We are unable within our limits to 
 give a sketch of Milton's strong reason- 
 ing against the supreme divinity of Jesus 
 Christ. We must, however, pause a 
 moment to thank God that He has raised 
 up this illustrious advocate of the long- 
 obscured doctrine of the Divine Unity. 
 We can now bring forward the three 
 greatest and noblest minds of modern 
 times, and, we may add, of the Chris- 
 tian era, as witnesses to that great truth, 
 of which, in an humbler and narrower 
 sphere, we desire to be the defenders. 
 Our Trinitarian adversaries are perpet- 
 ually ringing in our ears the names of 
 Fathers and Reformers. We take Mil- 
 ton, Locke, and Newton, and place them 
 in our front, and want no others to op- 
 pose to the whole array of great names 
 on the opposite side. Before these 
 intellectual suns, the stars of self- 
 named Orthodoxy " hide their dimin- 
 ished heads." To these eminent men 
 God communicated such unusual meas- 
 ures of light and mental energy, that 
 their names spring up spontaneously 
 when we think or would speak of the 
 greatness of our nature. Their theo- 
 logical opinions were the fruits of 
 patient, profound, reverent study of 
 the Scriptures. They came to this 
 work with minds not narrowed by a 
 technical, professional education, but 
 accustomed to broad views, to the 
 widest range of thought. They were 
 shackled by no party connections. 
 They were warped by no clerical am- 
 bition, and subdued by no clerical timid- 
 ity. They came to this subject in the 
 fulness of their strength, with free minds 
 open to truth, and with unstained purity 
 of life. They came to it in an age when 
 the doctrine of the Trinity was instilled 
 by education, and upheld by the author- 
 ity of the church and by penal laws. 
 And what did these great and good 
 men, whose intellectual energy and love 
 of truth have made them the chief bene- 
 factors of the human mind, what, we 
 ask, did they discover in the Scriptures ? 
 
 a triple divinity ? three infinite agents ? 
 three infinite objects of worship ? three 
 persons, each of whom possesses his 
 own distinct offices, and yet shares 
 equally in the godhead with the rest ? 
 No ! Scripture joined with nature and 
 with that secret voice in the heart which 
 even idolatry could not always stifle, and 
 taught them to bow reverently before 
 the one Infinite Father, and to ascribe 
 to him alone supreme, self-existent di- 
 vinity. Our principal object in these 
 remarks has been to show that, as far 
 as great names are arguments, the cause 
 of Anti-trinitarianism, or of God's proper 
 Unity, is supported by the strongest. 
 But we owe it to truth to say that we 
 put little trust in these fashionable 
 proofs. The chief use of great names 
 in religious controversy is, to balance 
 and neutralize one another, that the 
 unawed and unfettered mind may think 
 and judge with a due self-reverence, and 
 with a solemn sense of accountableness 
 to God alone. 
 
 We have called Milton an Anti-rrini- 
 tarian. But we have no desire to iden- 
 tify him with any sect. His mind was 
 too independent and universal to narrow 
 itself to human creeds and parties. He 
 is supposed to have separated himself, 
 in his last years, from all the denomina- 
 tions around him ; and, were he now 
 living, we are not sure that he would 
 find one to which he would be strongly 
 attracted. He would probably stand 
 first among that class of Christians, 
 more numerous than is supposed, and, 
 we hope, increasing, who are too jealous 
 of the rights of the mind, and too dis- 
 satisfied with the clashing systems of 
 the age, to attach themselves closely to 
 any party ; in whom the present im- 
 proved state of theology has created a 
 consciousness of defect, rather than the 
 triumph of acquisition ; who, however 
 partial to their own creed, cannot per- 
 suade themselves that it is the ultimate 
 attainment of the human mind, and that 
 distant ages will repeat its articles as 
 reverently as the Catholics do the de- 
 crees of Trent ; who contend earnestly 
 for free inquiry, not because all who in- 
 quire will think as they do. but because 
 some at least may be expected to out- 
 strip them, and to be guides to higher 
 truth. With this nameless and spread- 
 ing class we have strong sympathies. 
 We want new light, and care not whence 
 
 33
 
 5'4 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 it comes ; we want reformers worthy of 
 the name ; and we should rejoice in 
 such a manifestation of Christianity as 
 would throw all present systems into 
 obscurity. 
 
 We come now to a topic on which 
 Milton will probably startle a majority 
 of readers. He is totally opposed, as 
 were most of the ancient philosophers, 
 to the doctrine of God's creating the 
 universe out of nothing. He maintains 
 that there can be no action without a 
 passive material on which the act is ex- 
 erted, and that accordingly the world 
 was framed out of a pre-existent matter. 
 To the question, What and whence is 
 this primary matter ? he answers, It is 
 from God, "an efflux of the Deity." 
 " It proceeded from God," and conse- 
 quently no additional existence was pro- 
 duced by creation, nor is matter capa- 
 ble of annihilation. A specimen of his 
 speculations on this subject is given in 
 the following quotation : 
 
 " It is clear, then, that the world was 
 framed out of matter of some kind or 
 other. For, since action and passion are 
 relative terms, and since, consequently, no 
 agent can act externally, unless there be 
 some patient, such as matter, it appears 
 impossible that God could have created 
 this world out of nothing ; not from any 
 defect of power on his part, but because it 
 was necessary that something should have 
 previously existed capable of receiving pas- 
 sively the exertion of the divine efficacy. 
 Since, therefore, both Scripture and reason 
 concur in pronouncing that all these things 
 were made, not out of nothing, but out of 
 matter, it necessarily follows, that matter 
 must either have always existed indepen- 
 dently of God, or have originated from God 
 at some particular point of time. That mat- 
 ter should have been always independent of 
 God (seeing that it is only a passive prin- 
 ciple, dependent on the Deity, and subser- 
 vient to him ; and seeing, moreover, that as 
 in number, considered abstractly, so also in 
 time or eternity, there is no inherent force 
 or efficacy), that matter, I say, should have 
 existed of itself from all eternity, is incon- 
 ceivable. If, on the contrary, it did not 
 exist from all eternity, it is difficult to 
 understand from whence it derives its 
 origin. There remains, therefore, but one 
 solution of the difficulty, for which, more- 
 over, we have the authority of Scripture, 
 namely, that all things are of God." Vol. 
 I., pp. 236, 237. 
 
 This doctrine naturally led Milton to 
 another, viz., that there is no ground for 
 
 the supposed distinction between body 
 and soul ; for, if matter is an " efflux of 
 the Deity," it is plainly .susceptible of 
 intellectual functions. Accordingly our 
 author affirms, 
 
 " That man is a living being, intrinsically 
 and properly one and individual, not com- 
 pound or separable, not, according to the 
 common opinion, made up and framed of 
 two distinct and different natures, as of 
 soul and body, but the whole man is 
 soul, and the soul man ; that is to say, a 
 body, or substance, individual, animated, 
 sensitive, and rational." Vol. /., //. 250, 
 251. 
 
 We here learn that a passage in " Par- 
 adise Lost," which we have admired as 
 poetry, was deemed by Milton sound 
 philosophy : 
 
 " O Adam, One Almighty is, from whom 
 All things proceed, and up to him return, 
 If not depraved from good, created all 
 Such to perfection, one first matter all, 
 Indued with various forms, various degrees 
 Of substance, and, in things that live, of life : 
 But more refined, more spirituous, and pure, 
 As nearer to him placed or nearer tending, 
 Each in their several active spheres assigned, 
 Till body up to spirit -work, in bounds 
 Proportioned to each kind. So from the root 
 Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the 
 
 leaves 
 
 More aery, last the bright consummate flower 
 Spirits odorous breathes ; flowers and their fruit, 
 Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed, 
 To vital spirits aspire, to animal, 
 To intellectual." 
 
 Par. Lost, B. V. lines 469-485. 
 
 These speculations of Milton will be 
 received in this age with more favor, or 
 with less aversion, than in his own ; for, 
 from the time of Locke, the discussions 
 of philosophers have tended to unsettle 
 our notions of matter, and no man is 
 hardy enough now to say what it is, or 
 what it may not be. The idealism of 
 Berkeley, though it has never organized 
 a sect, has yet sensibly influenced the 
 modes of thinking among metaphysi- 
 cians : and the coincidence of this sys- 
 tem with the theory of certain Hindoo 
 philosophers may lead us to suspect that 
 it contains some great latent truth, of 
 which the European and Hindoo intel- 
 lect, so generally at variance, have caught 
 a glimpse. Matter is indeed a Proteus, 
 which escapes us at the moment we hope 
 to seize it. Priestley was anxious to make 
 the soul material ; but for this purpose 
 he was obliged to change matter from a 
 substance into a power, that is, into no
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 515 
 
 matter at all ; so that he destroyed in at- 
 tempting to diffuse it. We have thrown 
 out these remarks to rescue Milton's 
 memory from the imputation, which he 
 was the last man to deserve, of irrever- 
 ence towards God ; for of this some will 
 deem him guilty in tracing matter to the 
 Deity as its fountain. Matter, which 
 seems to common people so intelligible, 
 is still wrapped in mystery. We know 
 it only by its relation to mind, or as an 
 assemblage of powers to awaken certain 
 sensations. Of its relation to God we 
 may be said to know nothing. Perhaps, 
 as knowledge advances, we shall dis- 
 cover that the Creator is bound to his 
 works by stronger and more intimate 
 ties than we now imagine. We do not, 
 then, quarrel with such suggestions as 
 Milton's, though we cannot but wonder 
 at the earnestness with which he follows 
 out such doubtful speculations. 
 
 Milton next proceeds to the considera- 
 tion of man's state in Paradise, and, as 
 marriage was the only social relation 
 then subsisting, he introduces here his 
 views of that institution, and of polyg- 
 amy and divorce. These views show, 
 if not the soundness, yet the character- 
 istic independence of his mind. No part 
 of his book has given such offence as 
 his doctrine of the lawfulness of polyg- 
 amy, and yet nowhere is he less liable 
 to reproach. It is plain that his error 
 was founded on his reverence for Script- 
 ure. He saw that polygamy was allowed 
 to the best men in the Old Testament, 
 to patriarchs before the law, who, he 
 says, were the objects of God's special 
 favor, and to eminent individuals in 
 subsequent ages ; and, finding no prohi- 
 bition of it in the New Testament, he be- 
 lieved that not only holy men would be 
 traduced, but Scripture dishonored, by 
 pronouncing it morally evil. We are 
 aware that some will say that the prac- 
 tice is condemned in the New Testa- 
 ment ; and we grant that it is censured 
 by implication in these words of Christ, 
 "Whosoever shall put away his wife, 
 except it be for fornication, 'and shall 
 marry another, committeth adultery." * 
 But we believe it to be an indisputable 
 fact that, although Christianity was first 
 preached in Asia, which had been from 
 the earliest ages the seat of polygamy, 
 the Apostles never denounced it as a 
 
 * Matt. xix. 9. 
 
 crime, and never required their converts 
 to put away all wives but one. " What 
 then ? " some may say. " Are you, too, 
 the advocates of the lawfulness of polyg- 
 amy ? " We answer, No. We consider 
 our religion as decidedly hostile to this 
 practice ; and we add, what seems to us 
 of great importance, that this hostility 
 is not the less decided because no ex- 
 press prohibition of polygamy is found 
 in the New Testament ; for Christianity 
 is not a system of precise legislation, 
 marking out with literal exactness every 
 thing to be done, and every thing to be 
 avoided : but an inculcation of broad 
 principles, which it intrusts to individuals 
 and to society to be applied according to 
 their best discretion. It is through this 
 
 fenerous peculiarity that Christianity is 
 tted to be a universal religion. Through 
 this it can subsist and blend itself with 
 all stages of society, and can live in the 
 midst of abuses which it silently and 
 powerfully overcomes, but against which 
 it would avail little were it immediately 
 to lift up the voice of denunciation. We 
 all know that long-cherished corruptions, 
 which have sent their roots through the 
 whole frame of a comnmnity, cannot be 
 torn up at once without dissolving soci- 
 ety. To Christianity is committed the 
 sublime office of eradicating all the er- 
 rors and evils of the world ; but this it 
 does by a process corresponding with 
 man's nature, by working a gradual rev- 
 olution in the mind, which, in its turn, 
 works a safe and effectual revolution in 
 manners and life. No argument, there- 
 fore, in favor of a practice can be ad- 
 duced from the fact that it is not explic- 
 itly reprobated in the New Testament. 
 For example, Christianity went forth into 
 communities where multitudes were held 
 in slavery, and all ranks were ground 
 and oppressed by despotism, abuses on 
 which the spirit of our religion frowns 
 as sternly as on any which can be named. 
 Yet Christianity did not command the 
 master to free his slaves, or the despot 
 to descend from his absolute throne ; 
 but satisfied itself with proclaiming sub- 
 lime truths in regard to God's paternal 
 character and administration, and broad 
 and generous principles of action, leav- 
 ing to these the work of breaking every 
 chain, by a gradual, inward, irresistible 
 influence, and of asserting the essential 
 equality and unalienable rights of the 
 whole human race. We cannot leave
 
 5 i6 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 this topic without adding that not only 
 Milton's error on polygamy but many 
 other noxious mistakes have resulted 
 from measuring Christianity by the con- 
 dition of the primitive church, as if that 
 were the standard of faith and practice, 
 as if every thing allowed then were wise 
 and good, as if the religion were then un- 
 folded in all its power and extent. The 
 truth is, that Christianity was then in 
 its infancy. The Apostles communicated 
 its great truths to the rude minds of Jews 
 and Heathens ; but the primitive church 
 did not, and could not, understand all 
 that was involved in those principles, all 
 the applications of which they are sus- 
 ceptible, all the influences they were to 
 exert on the human mind, all the com- 
 binations they were to form with the new 
 truths which time was to unfold, all the 
 new lights in which they were to be 
 placed, all the adaptations to human 
 nature and to more advanced states of 
 society, which they were progressively 
 to manifest. In the first age, the relig- 
 ion was administered with a wise and 
 merciful conformity to the capacities of 
 its recipients. With the progress of in- 
 telligence, and the development of the 
 moral faculties, Christianity is freeing 
 itself, and ought to be freed, from the 
 local, temporary, and accidental associa- 
 tions of its childhood. Its great princi- 
 ples are coming forth more distinctly 
 and brightly, and condemning abuses and 
 errors which have passed current for 
 ages. This great truth, for such we 
 deem it, that Christianity is a growing 
 light, and that it must be more or less 
 expounded by every age for itself, was 
 not sufficiently apprehended by Milton ; 
 nor is it now understood as it will be. 
 For want of apprehending it, Christi- 
 anity is administered now too much as 
 it was in ages when nothing of our liter- 
 ature, philosophy, and spirit of improve- 
 ment existed ; and consequently it does 
 not, we fear, exert that entire and 
 supreme sway over strong and cultivated 
 minds which is its due, and which it 
 must one day obtain. , 
 
 Milton has connected with polygamy 
 the subject of divorce, on which he is 
 known to have differed from many Chris- 
 tians. He strenuously maintains in the 
 work under review, and more largely in 
 other treatises, that the violation of the 
 marriage bed is not the sole ground of 
 divorce, but that " the perpetual inter- 
 
 ruption of peace and affection, by mut- 
 ual differences and unkindness, is a 
 sufficient reason " for dissolving the con- 
 jugal relation. On this topic we cannot 
 enlarge. 
 
 We now arrive at that part of Milton's 
 work in which his powerful mind might 
 have been expected to look beyond the 
 prevalent opinions of his day, but in 
 which he has followed the beaten road, 
 almost without deviation, seldom notic- 
 ing difficulties, and hardly seeming to 
 know their existence. We refer to the 
 great subjects of the moral condition of 
 mankind, and of redemption by Jesus 
 Christ. The doctrine of original sin he 
 has assumed as true, and his faith in it 
 was evidently strengthened by his doc- 
 trine of the identity of the soul with the 
 body, in consequence of which he teaches 
 that souls are propagated from parents 
 to children, and not immediately derived 
 from God, and that they are born with 
 an hereditary taint, just as the body 
 contracts hereditary disease. It is hum- 
 bling to add, that he supports this doc- 
 trine of the propagation of sin by physical 
 contagion, on the ground that it relieves 
 the Creator from the charge of originat- 
 ing the corruption which we are said to 
 bring into life ; as if the infinitely pure 
 and good God could, by a covert agency, 
 infect with moral evil the passive and 
 powerless mind of the infant, and then 
 absolve himself of the horrible work by 
 imputing it to instruments of his own 
 ordination ! Milton does not, however, 
 believe in total depravity, feeling that 
 this would free men from guilt, by tak- 
 ing away all power ; and he therefore 
 leaves us a portion ot" the divine image, 
 not enough to give us a chance of 
 virtue, but enough to take away excuse 
 from sin. Such are the " tender mercies " 
 of theology ! With respect to Christ's 
 mediation, he supposes that Christ saves 
 us by bearing our punishment, and in 
 this way satisfying God's justice. His 
 views, indeed, are not expressed with 
 much precision, and seem to have been 
 formed without much investigation. On 
 these great subjects, of human nature 
 and redemption, we confess we are dis- 
 appointed in finding the spirit of Milton 
 satisfying itself with the degrading no- 
 tions which prevailed around him. But 
 we remember that it is the order of Prov- 
 idence that the greatest minds should 
 sympathize much with their age, and that
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 517 
 
 they contribute the more to the progress 
 of mankind by not advancing too fast 
 and too far beyond their contemporaries. 
 In this part of his work, Milton main- 
 tains that the death threatened to sin 
 extends equally to body and soul, which 
 ind-eed he was bound to do, as he holds 
 the soul and body to be one ; and he 
 then proceeds to defend, with his usual 
 power, the necessary inference, that all 
 consciousness is suspended between 
 death and the resurrection. We have 
 no faith in this doctrine ; but we respect 
 the courage with which he admits and 
 maintains whatever can be fairly deduced 
 from his opinions. 
 
 Having concluded the subject of re- 
 demption, he passes to what he calls 
 " man's renovation, or the change 
 whereby the sinner is brought into a 
 state of grace ; " and here, though he 
 is not always perspicuous, yet he seldom 
 deviates from what was then the beaten 
 road. We owe it, however, to Milton, 
 to say that, although he sometimes ap- 
 proached, he never adopted Calvinism. 
 All the distinguished articles of that 
 creed, total depravity, election and 
 reprobation, Christ dying for the elect 
 only, irresistible grace, the perseverance 
 of the saints, and justification by mere 
 faith, all are denied and opposed 
 by him, and some with great strength. 
 Swayed as Milton was by the age in 
 which he lived, his spirit could not be 
 subdued to the heart-withering faith of 
 the Genevan school. 
 
 We now come to a subject in which 
 Milton was deeply interested, we 
 mean Christian liberty, under which 
 head may be included the discipline of 
 the church, the power of ministers, and 
 the rights of the people. To vindicate 
 the liberty of Christians, and to secure 
 them from all outward impositions and 
 ordinances, he maintains that the whole 
 Mosaic law is abolished, so that no part 
 is binding on Christians, a doctrine 
 which may startle many who believe 
 that the moral precepts of that law are 
 as binding now as ever. But such per- 
 sons differ little in reality from Milton, 
 whose true meaning is that these pre- 
 cepts bind Christians, not through the 
 authority of Moses, which is wholly 
 done away, but only because they are 
 taken up and incorporated into Chris- 
 tianity, which is our only law, and which 
 has set forth whatever was permanently 
 
 valuable in Judaism, in a more perfect 
 form, and with more powerful sanctions. 
 
 As another branch of the liberty of 
 Christians, he maintains, as we may 
 well suppose, the right of every be- 
 liever to consult the Scriptures and to 
 judge of them for himself. Not satis- 
 fied with this, he takes the ground of 
 Quakerism, and maintains that the 
 Christian, in addition to the Scriptures, 
 has an inward guide, with which no hu- 
 man authority should interfere : 
 
 " Under the gospel we possess, as it were, 
 a twofold Scripture, one external, which 
 is the written word, and the other internal, 
 which is the Holy Spirit, written in the 
 hearts of believers, according to the prom- 
 ise of God, and with the intent that it 
 should by no means be neglected." Vol. 
 //., /. 172. "The external Scripture . . . 
 has been liable to frequent corruption, and 
 in some instances has been corrupted, 
 through the number, and occasionally the 
 bad faith, of those by whom it has been 
 handed down, the variety and discrepancy 
 of the original manuscripts, and the ad- 
 ditional diversity produced by subsequent 
 transcripts and printed editions. But the 
 Spirit which leads to truth cannot be cor- 
 rupted, neither is it easy to deceive a man 
 who is really spiritual." /. 173. "It is 
 difficult to conjecture the purpose of Provi- 
 dence in committing the writings of the 
 New Testament to such uncertain and vari- 
 able guardianship, unless it were to teach 
 us, by this very circumstance, that the 
 Spirit which is given to us is a more cer- 
 tain guide than Scripture, whom, therefore, 
 it is our duty to follow." /. 174. "Hence 
 it follows, that when an acquiescence in 
 human opinions or an obedience to human 
 authority in matters of religion is exacted, 
 in the name either of the church or of the 
 Christian magistrate, from those who are 
 themselves led individually by the Spirit 
 of God, this is in effect to impose a yoke, 
 not on man, but on the Holy Spirit it- 
 self." /. 176. 
 
 This, in words, is genuine Quakerism ; 
 but whether Milton understood by the 
 Holy Spirit that immediate revelation 
 which forms the leading doctrine of 
 that creed, we doubt. To this doctrine 
 it may be objected, and we think Milton 
 must have felt the objection, that it dis- 
 parages and discourages our faculties, 
 and produces inaction of mind, leading 
 men to expect from a sudden flash from 
 heaven the truth which we are taught 
 to seek by the right use of our own 
 powers. We imagine that Milton be- 
 lieved that the Holy Spirit works with
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 and by our own understandings, and, 
 instead of superseding reason, invigo- 
 rates 'and extends it. But this is not 
 the only place where his precise views 
 are obscured by general expressions, 
 or by rapid and superficial notices of 
 subjects. 
 
 In Milton's views of the church and 
 the ministry, we have other proofs of 
 his construing the Scriptures in the 
 manner most favorable to Christian 
 liberty. He teaches that the universal 
 church has no head but Christ, and 
 that the power arrogated by popes, 
 councils, and bishops, is gross usurpa- 
 tion. In regard to particular churches, 
 he is a strict Congregationalist. Each 
 church, he says, is competent to its own 
 government, and connected with others 
 only by the bond of charity. No others 
 are authorized to interfere with any of 
 its concerns, but in the way of brotherly 
 counsel : 
 
 " Every church consisting of the above 
 parts," i.e., well-instructed believers, "how- 
 ever small its numbers, is to be considered as 
 in itself an integral and perfect church, so 
 far as regards its religious rights ; nor has 
 it any superior on earth, whether individual, 
 or assembly, or convention, to whom it can 
 be lawfully required to render submission ; 
 inasmuch as no believer out of its pale, 
 nor any order or council of men whatever, 
 has a greater right than itself to expect a 
 participation in the written word and the 
 promises, in the presence of Christ, in the 
 presiding influence of the Spirit, and in 
 those gracious gifts which are the reward 
 of united prayer." Vol. II., p. 194. 
 
 The choice of the minister, he says, 
 belongs to the people. The minister, if 
 possible, should serve the church gra- 
 tuitously, and live by the labor of his 
 own hands. This unpaid service he 
 pronounces more noble and consonant 
 to our Lord's example and that of the 
 Apostles. In accordance with these 
 views, he favors the idea of a church 
 consisting of few members : 
 
 " All that pertains to the worship of God 
 and the salvation of believers, all, in short, 
 that is necessary to constitute a church, 
 may be duly and orderly transacted in a 
 particular church, within the walls of a 
 private house, and where the numbers as- 
 sembled are inconsiderable. Nay, such a 
 church, when in compliance with the in- 
 terested views of its pastor it allows of an 
 increase of numbers beyond what is con- 
 venient, deprives itself in a great measure 
 
 of the advantages to be derived from meet- 
 ing in common." Vol. II., p. 194. 
 
 He maintains that ministers are not 
 to monopolize public instruction, or the 
 administration of the ordinances ; but 
 that all Christians, having sufficient 
 gifts, are to participate in these ser- 
 vices : 
 
 " The custom of holding assemblies is to 
 be maintained, not after the present mode, 
 but according to the apostolical institution, 
 which did not ordain that an individual, 
 and he a stipendiary, should have the sole 
 right of speaking from a higher place, but 
 that each believer in turn should be author- 
 ized to speak, or prophesy, or teach, or 
 exhort, according to his gifts ; insomuch 
 that even the weakest among the brethren 
 had the privilege of asking questions, and 
 consulting the elders and more experienced 
 members of the congregation." Vol. If., 
 p. 203. "Any believer is competent to act 
 as an ordinary minister, according as con- 
 venience may require, provided only he be 
 endowed with the necessary gifts ; these 
 gifts constituting his mission." p. 153. 
 " If, therefore, it be competent to any be- 
 liever whatever to preach the gospel, pro- 
 vided he be furnished with the requisite 
 gifts, it is also competent to him to admin- 
 ister the rite of baptism ; inasmuch as the 
 latter office is inferior to the former." /. 
 157. " With regard to the Lord's supper 
 also, it has been shown, in the preceding 
 chapter, that all are entitled to participate 
 in that rite, but that the privilege of dis- 
 pensing the elements is confined to no par- 
 ticular man, or order of men." /. 158. 
 
 We entirely accord with the spirit of 
 freedom which these passages breathe ; 
 but from some of the particular views 
 we dissent. The great error of Milton 
 lies in supposing that the primitive 
 church was meant to be a model for all 
 ages. But can we suppose that the 
 church at its birth, when it was poor, 
 persecuted, hemmed in by Judaism and 
 Heathenism, supplied imperfectly with 
 written rules and records, dependent 
 for instruction chiefly on inspired teach- 
 ers, and composed of converts who had 
 grown up and been steeped in Jewish 
 and Heathen errors, can we imagine 
 that in these circumstances the church 
 took a form which it ought to retain as 
 sacred and unalterable, in its triumphs, 
 and prosperity, and diffusion, and in 
 ages of greater light and refinement ? 
 We know that in the first ages there 
 were no ministers with salaries, or edi- 
 fices for public worship. Christians
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 519 
 
 met in private houses, and sometimes in 
 the obscurest they could find. On these 
 occasions, the services were not monop- 
 olized by an individual, but shared by 
 the fraternity ; nor is there a hint in the 
 New Testament that the administration 
 of the Lord's supper and baptism was 
 confined to the minister. But in all this 
 we have no rule for the present day. 
 Indeed it seems to us utterly repugnant 
 to the idea of a universal religion, in- 
 tended for all ages and nations, and for 
 all the progressive states of society to 
 the end of the world, to suppose that 
 in its infancy it established an order 
 of worship, instruction, and discipline, 
 which was to remain inviolable in all 
 future times. This doctrine of an in- 
 flexible form seems to us servile, super- 
 stitious, and disparaging to Christianity. 
 Our religion is too spiritual and inward, 
 and cares too little about its exterior, to 
 bind itself in this everlasting chain. 
 The acknowledged indefiniteness of the 
 New Testament, in regard to this sub- 
 ject, is no mean proof of the enlarged 
 and prospective wisdom of its Founder. 
 We believe that, with the diffusion of 
 liberal views, the question will arise, 
 whether our religion cannot be taught 
 and administered in methods and forms 
 more adapted than those which now 
 prevail to its spirit and great design, to 
 the principles of human nature, and to 
 the condition and wants of society. 
 Among the changes which may grow 
 from this discussion, we do not antici- 
 pate the adoption of Milton's plan of 
 sentencing ministers to earn their bread 
 by the sweat of their brow ; for we 
 think that we see reasons, in the gen- 
 eral spread of knowledge, for enlarging 
 their means and opportunities of study 
 and intellectual culture, that they may 
 meet the increasing demand for more 
 enlightened inculcation of Christian 
 truth. At the same time, it seems to 
 us not unlikely that, in conformity to 
 Milton's suggestion, public instruction, 
 instead of continuing to be a monopoly 
 of ministers, may be extended freely to 
 men of superior intelligence and piety, 
 and that the results of this arrangement 
 may be the infusion of new life, power, 
 and practical wisdom into religious 
 teaching, and the substitution of a 
 more natural, free, and various elo- 
 quence, for the technical and monoto- 
 nous mode of treating subjects which 
 
 clings so often and so obstinately to the 
 performances of the pulpit. Again, we 
 do not expect, among the changes of 
 forms and outward worship, that Chris- 
 tians, to meet our author's views, will 
 shut their churches and meet in private 
 houses ; for large religious edifices, and 
 large congregations, seem to us among 
 the important means of collecting, and 
 interesting in Christianity, the mass of 
 the community. But perhaps narrower 
 associations for religious improvement 
 may be formed, in which the formalities 
 of public worship will be relaxed, and 
 Christians may reap the benefits of the 
 more familiar and confidential meetings 
 of the primitive converts. It is, indeed, 
 a great question, how the public ad- 
 ministration of Christianity, including 
 modes of discipline, instruction, and 
 worship, may be rendered more im- 
 pressive and effectual. This field is 
 almost untrodden ; but, if we read aright 
 the signs of the times, the day for ex- 
 ploring it draws nigh. 
 
 We have said that, whilst we dissent 
 from some of Milton's views on the sub- 
 ject of our present remarks, we agree in 
 their spirit. It was evidently the aim 
 of all his suggestions to strip the clergy, 
 as they are called, of that peculiar, arti- 
 ficial sanctity with which superstition 
 had long arrayed them, and which had 
 made their simple, benignant office one 
 of the worst instruments of ambition 
 and despotism. We believe that this 
 institution will never exert its true and 
 full power on the church and on the 
 world until the childish awe with which 
 it has been viewed shall be exchanged 
 for enlightened esteem, and until men, 
 instead of expecting from it certain mys- 
 terious, undefined influences, shall see 
 in it a rational provision for promoting 
 virtue and happiness, not by magic, but 
 according to the fixed laws of human 
 nature. 
 
 The remainder of the "Treatise on 
 Christian Doctrine " furnishes topics on 
 which we should willingly remark ; but 
 we have only time to glance at the opin- 
 ions in which Milton differs from the 
 majority. He rejects infant baptism, 
 and argues against it with his usual 
 earnestness and strength. He not only 
 affirms, with many other Christians, that 
 the fourth commandment, relating to the 
 Sabbath, is abolished with the rest of 
 the Mosaic system, but maintains, what
 
 520 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 few have done, that under the gospel no 
 time is appointed for public worship, 
 but that the observance of the first day 
 of the week rests wholly on expediency, 
 and on the agreement of Christians. He 
 believes that Christ is to appear visibly 
 for the judgment of the world, and that 
 he will reign a thousand years on earth, 
 at the end of which period Satan will 
 assail the church with an innumerable 
 confederacy, and be overwhelmed with 
 everlasting ruin. He speaks of the judg- 
 ment as beginning with Christ's second 
 advent, and as comprehending his whole 
 government through the millennium, as 
 well as the closing scene, when sentence 
 will be pronounced on evil angels, and 
 on the whole human race. We have 
 now given, we believe, all the peculiar- 
 ities of Milton's faith. As for that large 
 part of his work in which he has accumu- 
 lated scriptural proofs of doctrines and 
 duties in which all Christians are agreed, 
 its general tenor may be understood 
 without further remarks. 
 
 It may now be asked, What is the 
 value of this book ? We prize it chiefly 
 as a testimony to Milton's profound rev- 
 erence for the Christian religion, and an 
 assertion of the freedom and rights of 
 the mind. We are obliged to say that 
 the work throws little new light on the 
 great subjects of which it treats. Some 
 will say that this ought not to surprise 
 us ; for new light is not to be looked for 
 in the department of theology. But, if 
 this be true, our religion may be charged 
 with the want of adaptation to our nature 
 in an essential point ; for one of the 
 most striking features of the human 
 mind is its thirst for constantly enlarg- 
 ing knowledge, and its proneness to lose 
 its interest in subjects which it has ex- 
 hausted. The chief cause of Milton's fail- 
 ure was, that he sought truth too exclu- 
 sively in the past, and among the dead. 
 He indeed called no man master, and 
 disclaimed the authority of Fathers, and 
 was evidently dissatisfied with all the 
 sects which had preceded or were spread 
 around him. Still he believed in the 
 perfection of the primitive church, and 
 that Christianity, instead of being car- 
 ried forward, was to be carried back to 
 its original purity. To use his own 
 striking language, "the lovely form of 
 Truth," which Christians at first em- 
 braced, " had been hewn into a thousand 
 pieces, like the mangled body of Osiris, 
 
 and scattered to the four winds ; " and 
 consequently he believed that the great 
 duty of her friends was " to gather up 
 limb by limb, and bring together every 
 joint and member." In conformity with 
 this doctrine, he acted too much as an 
 eclectic theologian, culling something 
 from almost every sect, and endeavoring 
 to form an harmonious system from ma- 
 terials "gathered from the four winds." 
 He would have done better had he 
 sought truth less in other minds, and 
 more in the communion of his own 
 soul with Scripture, nature, God, and 
 itself. The fact is, that the church, 
 from its beginning, had been imperfect 
 in knowledge and practice, and our 
 business is not to rest in the past, but 
 to use it as a means of a purer and 
 brighter futurity. Christianity began to 
 be corrupted at its birth, to be debased 
 by earthly mixtures as soon as it touched 
 the earth. The seeds of that corruption, 
 which grew and shot up into the over- 
 shadowing despotism of Papal Rome, 
 were sown in the age of the Apostles, 
 as we learn in the Epistles ; and we infer 
 from the condition of the world, that 
 nothing but a stupendous moral miracle, 
 subverting all the laws of the human 
 mind, could have prevented their devel- 
 opment. Who, that understands human 
 nature, does not know that old associa- 
 tions are not broken up in a moment ; 
 that, to minds plunged in a midnight of 
 error, truth must gradually open like the 
 dawning day ; that old views will mingle 
 with the new ; that old ideas, which we 
 wish to banish, will adhere to the old 
 words to which they were formerly at- 
 tached ; and that the sudden and entire 
 eradication of long-rooted errors would 
 be equivalent to the creation of a new 
 intellect? How long did the Apostles, 
 under Christ's immediate tuition, with- 
 stand his instructions ! Even Peter, 
 after the miraculous illumination of the 
 day of Pentecost, remained ignorant, 
 until the message from Cornelius, of 
 that glorious feature of Christianity, the 
 abolition of the Jewish peculiarity, and 
 the equal participation of the Gentiles 
 with the Jews in the blessings of the 
 Messiah. As soon as Christianity was 
 preached, it was blended with Judaism, 
 which had power to neutralize the au- 
 thority of Paul in many churches. In like 
 manner, it soon began to be "spoiled " of 
 its simplicity "by philosophy and sci-
 
 WRITINGS OF MILTON. 
 
 521 
 
 ence falsely so called," and to be en- 
 cumbered by Pagan ceremonies. The 
 first Christians were indeed brought into 
 "wonderful light," if their Christian 
 state be compared with the darkness 
 from which they had emerged ; but not if 
 compared with the perfection of knowl- 
 edge to which Christ came to exalt the 
 human race. The earliest Fathers, as 
 we learn from their works, were not 
 receptive of large communications of 
 truth. Their writings abound in pue- 
 rilities and marks of childish credulity, 
 and betray that indistinctness of vision 
 which is experienced by men who issue 
 from thick darkness into the light of 
 day. In the ages of barbarism which 
 followed the fall of the Roman empire, 
 Christianity, though it answered wise 
 purposes of Providence, was more and 
 more disfigured and obscured. The 
 Reformation was indeed a glorious era, 
 but glorious for its reduction of papal 
 and clerical power, and for the partial 
 liberation of the mind, rather than for 
 immediate improvements of men's ap- 
 prehensions of Christianity. Some of 
 the Reformers invented or brought back 
 as injurious errors as those they over- 
 threw. Luther's consubstantiation dif- 
 fered from the Pope's transubstantiation 
 by a syllable, and that was all the gain ; 
 and we may safely say that transubstan- 
 tiation was a less monstrous doctrine 
 than the five points of Calvin. How 
 vain, therefore, was Milton's search for 
 " the mangled Osiris," for " the lovely 
 form and immortal features of Truth," 
 in the history of the church ! 
 
 Let us not be misunderstood, as if we 
 would cut off the present age from the 
 past. We mean not that Milton should 
 have neglected the labors of his pre- 
 decessors. He believed justly that all 
 the periods and generations of the hu- 
 man family are bound together by a 
 sublime connection, and that the wis- 
 dom of each age is chiefly a derivation 
 from all preceding ages, not excepting 
 the most ancient, just as a noble stream, 
 through its whole extent and in its widest 
 overflowings, still holds communication 
 with its infant springs, gushing out per- 
 
 haps in the depths of distant forests, 
 or on the heights of solitary mountains. 
 We only mean to say, that the stream 
 of religious knowledge is to swell and 
 grow through its whole course, and to 
 receive new contributions from gifted 
 minds in successive generations. We 
 only regret that Milton did not draw 
 more from the deep and full fountains 
 of his own soul. W T e wish only to teach 
 that antiquity was the infancy of our 
 race, and that its acquisitions, instead 
 of being rested in, are to bear us onward 
 to new heights of truth and virtue. We 
 mean not to complain of Milton for not 
 doing more. He rendered to mankind 
 a far greater service than that of a 
 teacher of an improved theology. He 
 taught and exemplified that spirit of in- 
 tellectual freedom, through which all 
 the great conquests of truth are to be 
 achieved, and by which the human mind 
 is to attain to a new consciousness of 
 its sublime faculties, and to invigorate 
 and expand itself for ever. 
 
 We here close our remarks on Milton. 
 In offering this tribute, we have aimed 
 at something higher than to express and 
 gratify our admiration of an eminent 
 man. We believe, that an enlightened 
 and exalted mind is a brighter manifes- 
 tation of God than the outward uni- 
 verse ; and we have set forth, as we 
 have been able, the praises of an illus- 
 trious servant of the Most High, that, 
 through him, glory may redound to the 
 Father of all spirits, the Fountain of all 
 wisdom and magnanimous virtue. And 
 still more ; we believe that the sublime 
 intelligence of Milton was imparted, not 
 for his own sake only, but to awaken 
 kindred virtue and greatness in other 
 souls. Far from regarding him as stand- 
 ing alone and unapproachable, we be- 
 lieve that he is an illustration of what 
 all, who are true to their nature, will 
 become in the progress of their being ; 
 and we have held him forth, not to ex- 
 cite an ineffectual admiration, but to 
 stir up our own and others' breasts to 
 an exhilarating pursuit of high and ever- 
 growing attainments in intellect and 
 virtue.
 
 522 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 1827-28. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE Life of Napoleon Bonaparte by 
 Sir Walter Scott has been anticipated 
 with an eagerness proportioned to the 
 unrivalled powers of the author, and to 
 the wonderful endowments and fortunes 
 of the hero. That the general expecta- 
 tion has been satisfied, we cannot affirm. 
 But few will deny that the writer has 
 given us a monument of his great tal- 
 ents. The rapidity with which such a 
 work has been thrown off astonishes us. 
 We think, however, that the author 
 owed to himself and to the public a 
 more deliberate execution of this impor- 
 tant undertaking. He should either have 
 abandoned it or have bestowed on it the 
 long and patient labor which it required. 
 The marks of negligence and haste which 
 are spread through the work are seri- 
 ous blemishes, and, to more fastidious 
 readers, inexpiable defects. It wants 
 compression and selection throughout. 
 Many passages are encumbered with 
 verbiage. Many thoughts are weakened 
 by useless expansion and worse than 
 useless repetition. Comparisons are ac- 
 cumulated to excess, and, whilst many 
 are exquisite, perhaps as many are trite 
 and unworthy of history. The remarks 
 are generally just, but obvious. We 
 state these defects plainly, that we may 
 express the more freely our admiration 
 of the talents which have executed so 
 rapidly a work so extensive and various, 
 so rich in information, so fresh and vivid 
 in description, and furnishing such abun- 
 dant specimens of a free, graceful, and 
 vigorous style. 
 
 The work has the great merit of im- 
 partiality. It is probably inaccurate in 
 many of its details, but singularly free 
 from prejudice and passion. Not a few, 
 who considered that the author was both 
 a Briton and a friend of the principles 
 and policy of Pitt, were expecting from 
 his pen a discolored delineation of the 
 implacable foe of England and of that 
 
 great minister. But the rectitude of his 
 mind, and his reverence for historical 
 truth, have effectually preserved him 
 from abusing the great power conferred 
 on him by his talents over public opin- 
 ion. We think that his laudable fear of 
 wronging the enemy of his country, 
 joined to an admiration of the dazzling 
 qualities of Napoleon, has led him to 
 soften unduly the crimes of his hero, 
 and to give more favorable impressions 
 than truth will warrant. 
 
 But enough of the author, who needs 
 not our praise, and can suffer little by 
 our censure. Our concern is with his 
 subject. A just estimate of the late 
 Emperor of France seems to us impor- 
 tant. That extraordinary man, having 
 operated on the world with unprece- 
 dented power during his life, is now 
 influencing it by his character. That 
 character, we apprehend, is not viewed 
 as it should be. The kind of admiration 
 which it inspires, even in free countries, 
 is a bad omen. The greatest crime 
 against society, that of spoiling it of its 
 rights and loading it with chains, still 
 fails to move that deep abhorrence which 
 is its due ; and which, if really felt, would 
 fix on the usurper a brand of indelible 
 infamy. Regarding freedom as the chief 
 interest of human nature, as essential to 
 its intellectual, moral, and religious prog- 
 ress, we look on men who have signal- 
 ized themselves by their hostility to it 
 with an indignation at once stern and 
 sorrowful, which no glare of successful 
 war, and no admiration of the crowd, 
 can induce us to suppress. We mean, 
 then, to speak freely of Napoleon. But, 
 if we know ourselves, we could on no 
 account utter one unjust reproach. We 
 speak the more freely, because conscious 
 of exemption from every feeling like 
 animosity. We war not with the dead. 
 We would resist only what we deem the 
 pernicious influence of the dead. We 
 would devote ourselves to the cause of
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 523 
 
 freedom and humanity, a cause per- 
 petually betrayed by the admiration lav- 
 ished on prosperous crime and all-grasp- 
 ing ambition. Our great topic will be 
 the character of Napoleon ; and with 
 this we shall naturally intersperse reflec- 
 tions on the great interests which he 
 perpetually influenced. 
 
 We begin with observing that it is an 
 act of justice to Bonaparte to remember 
 that he grew up under disastrous influ- 
 ences, in a troubled day, when men's 
 minds were convulsed, old institutions 
 overthrown, old opinions shaken, old 
 restraints snapped asunder ; when the 
 authority of religion was spurned, and 
 youth abandoned to unwonted license ; 
 when the imagination was made fever- 
 ish by visions of indistinct good, and 
 the passions swelled, by the sympathy 
 of millions, to a resistless torrent. A 
 more dangerous school for the character 
 cannot well be conceived. That all-see- 
 ing Being, who knows the trials of his 
 creatures and the secrets of the heart, 
 can alone judge to what degree crimes 
 are extenuated by circumstances so in- 
 auspicious. This we must remember in 
 reviewing the history of men who were 
 exposed to trials unknown to ourselves. 
 But, because the turpitude of an evil 
 agent is diminished by infelicities of 
 education or condition, we must not 
 therefore confound the immutable dis- 
 tinctions of right and wrong, and with- 
 hold our reprobation from atrocities 
 which have spread misery and slavery 
 far and wide. 
 
 It is also due to Napoleon to observe 
 that there has always existed, and still 
 exists, a mournful obtuseness of moral 
 feeling in regard to the crimes of mili- 
 tary and political life. The wrong-doing 
 of public men on a large scale has never 
 drawn upon them that sincere, hearty 
 abhorrence which visits private vice. 
 Nations have seemed to court aggres- 
 sion and bondage by their stupid, insane 
 admiration of successful tyrants. The 
 wrongs from which men have suffered 
 most in body and mind are yet unpun- 
 ished. True, Christianity has put into 
 our lips censures on the aspiring and the 
 usurping. But these reproaches are as 
 yet little more than sounds, and unmean- 
 ing commonplaces. They are repeated 
 for form's sake. When we read or hear 
 them, we feel that they want depth and 
 strength. They are not inward, solemn, 
 
 burning convictions, breaking from the 
 indignant soul with a tone of reality, 
 before which guilt would cower. The 
 true moral feeling in regard to the crimes 
 of public men is almost to be created. 
 We believe, then, that such a character 
 as Bonaparte's is formed with very little 
 consciousness of its turpitude ; and so- 
 ciety, which contributes so much to its 
 growth, is responsible for its existence, 
 and merits in part the misery which it 
 spreads. 
 
 Of the early influences under which 
 Bonaparte was formed, we know little. 
 He was educated in a military school, 
 and this, we apprehend, is not an insti- 
 tution to form much delicacy, or inde- 
 pendence of moral feeling ; for the young 
 soldier is taught, as his first duty, to 
 obey his superior without consulting his 
 conscience ; to take human life at an- 
 other's bidding ; to perform that deed, 
 which above all others requires delib- 
 erate conviction, without a moment's 
 inquiry as to its justice ; and to place 
 himself a passive instrument in hands 
 which, as all history teaches, often reek 
 with blood causelessly shed. 
 
 His first political association was with 
 the Jacobins, the most sanguinary of all 
 the factions which raged in France, and 
 whose sway is emphatically called "the 
 reign of terror." The service which 
 secured his command in Italy was the 
 turning of his artillery on the people, 
 who, however dangerous when acting 
 as a mob, happened in the present case 
 to understand their rights, and were 
 directing their violence against manifest 
 usurpation. 
 
 His first campaign was in Italy, and 
 we have still a vivid recollection of the 
 almost rapturous admiration with which 
 we followed his first triumphs ; for then 
 we were simple enough to regard him 
 as the chosen guardian of liberty. His 
 peculiar tactics were not then under- 
 stood ; the secret of his success had 
 not reached us ; and his rapid victories 
 stimulated the imagination to invest him 
 with the mysterious powers of a hero 
 of romance. We confess that we can- 
 not now read the history of his Italian 
 wars without a quickened movement in 
 the veins. The rapidity of his concep- 
 tions ; the inexhaustibleness of his in- 
 vention ; the energy of his will ; the 
 decision which suffered not a moment's 
 pause between the purpose and its ex-
 
 524 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 ecution ; the presence of mind which, 
 amidst sudden reverses and on the 
 brink of ruin, devised the means of 
 safety and success ; these commanding 
 attributes, added to a courage which, 
 however suspected afterwards, never 
 faltered then, compel us to bestow, 
 what indeed we have no desire to with- 
 hold, the admiration which is due to 
 superior power. 
 
 Let not the friends of peace be of- 
 fended. We have said, and we repeat 
 it, that we have no desire to withhold 
 our admiration from the energies which 
 war often awakens. Great powers, even 
 in their perversion, attest a glorious nat- 
 ure, and we may feel their grandeur 
 whilst we condemn, with our whole 
 strength of moral feeling, the evil pas- 
 sions by which they are depraved. We 
 are willing to grant that war, abhor it 
 as we may, often develops, and places 
 in strong light, a force of intellect and 
 purpose which raises our conceptions 
 of the human soul. There is perhaps 
 no moment in life in which the mind 
 is brought into such intense action, in 
 which the will is so strenuous, and in 
 which irrepressible excitement is so 
 tempered with self-possession, as in the 
 hour of battle. Still the greatness of 
 the warrior is poor and low compared 
 with the magnanimity of virtue. It 
 vanishes before the greatness of prin- 
 ciple. The martyr to humanity, to free- 
 dom, or religion ; the unshrinking ad- 
 herent of despised and deserted truth, 
 who, alone, unsupported, and scorned, 
 with no crowd to infuse into him cour- 
 age, no variety of objects to draw his 
 thoughts from himself, no opportunity 
 of effort or resistance to rouse and 
 nourish energy, still yields himself 
 calmly, resolutely, with invincible phi- 
 lanthropy, to bear prolonged and ex- 
 quisite suffering, which one retracting 
 word might remove, such a man is as 
 superior to the warrior as the tranquil 
 and boundless heavens above us to the 
 low earth we tread beneath our feet. 
 
 We have spoken of the energies of 
 mind called forth by war. If we may 
 be allowed a short digression, which, 
 however, bears directly on our main 
 subject, the merits of Napoleon, we 
 would observe, that military talent, even 
 of the highest order, is far from holding 
 the first place among intellectual endow- 
 ments. It is one of the lower forms of 
 
 genius ; for it is not conversant with the 
 highest and richest objects of thought. 
 We grant that a mind, which takes in 
 a wide country at a glance, and under- 
 stands, almost by intuition, the positions 
 it affords for a successful campaign, is 
 a comprehensive and vigorous one. The 
 general who disposes his forces so as to 
 counteract a greater force ; who supplies 
 by skill, science, and invention, the want 
 of numbers ; who dives into the counsels 
 of his enemy, and who gives unity, energy, 
 and success to a vast variety of opera- 
 tions, in the midst of casualties and ob- 
 structions which no wisdom could fore- 
 see, manifests great power. But still 
 the chief work of a general is to apply 
 physical force ; to remove physical ob- 
 structions ; to avail himself of physical 
 aids and advantages ; to act on matter ; 
 to overcome rivers, ramparts, moun- 
 tains, and human muscles ; and these 
 are not the highest objects of mind, nor 
 do they demand intelligence of the high- 
 est order ; and accordingly nothing is 
 more common than to find men, eminent 
 in this department, who are wanting in 
 the noblest energies of the soul ; in 
 habits of profound and liberal thinking, 
 in imagination and taste, in the capacity 
 of enjoying works of genius, and in large 
 and original views of human nature and 
 society. The office of a great general 
 does not differ widely from that of a 
 great mechanician, whose business it is 
 to frame new combinations of physical 
 forces, to adapt them to new circum- 
 stances, and to remove new obstruc- 
 tions. Accordingly great generals, away 
 from the camp, are often no greater men 
 than the mechanician taken from his 
 workshop. In conversation they are 
 often dull. Deep and refined reason- 
 ings they cannot comprehend. We 
 know that there are splendid excep- 
 tions. Such was Caesar, at once the 
 greatest soldier and the most sagacious 
 statesman of his age, whilst, in eloquence 
 and literature, he left behind him.almost 
 all who had devoted themselves exclu- 
 sively to these pursuits. But such cases 
 are rare. The conqueror of Napoleon, 
 the hero of Waterloo, possesses undoubt- 
 edly great military talents ; but we do 
 not understand that his most partial 
 admirers claim for him a place in the 
 highest class of minds. We will not 
 go down for illustration to such men as 
 Nelson, a man great on the deck, but
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 525 
 
 debased by gross vices, and who never 
 pretended to enlargement of intellect. 
 To institute a comparison in point of 
 talent and genius between such men 
 and Milton, Bacon, and Shakspeare, is 
 almost an insult on these illustrious 
 names. Who can think of these truly 
 great intelligences ; of the range of their 
 minds through heaven and earth ; of 
 their deep intuition into the soul ; of 
 their new and glowing combinations 
 of thought ; of the energy with which 
 they grasped, and subjected to their 
 main purpose, the infinite materials of 
 illustration which nature and life afford, 
 who can think of the forms of tran- 
 scendent beauty and grandeur which 
 they created, or which were rather ema- 
 nations of their own minds ; of the calm 
 wisdom and fervid imagination which 
 they conjoined ; of the voice of power, 
 in which " though dead, they still speak," 
 and awaken intellect, sensibility, and 
 genius in both hemispheres, who can 
 think of such men, and not feel the im- 
 mense inferiority of the most gifted 
 warrior, whose elements of thought are 
 physical forces and physical obstruc- 
 tions, and whose employment is the 
 combination of the lowest class of ob- 
 jects on which a powerful mind can be 
 employed. 
 
 We return to Napoleon. His splen- 
 did victories in Italy spread his name 
 like lightning through the civilized world. 
 Unhappily, they emboldened him to those 
 unprincipled and open aggressions, to 
 the indulgence of that lawless, imperi- 
 ous spirit which marked his future 
 course, and kept pace with his growing 
 power. In his victorious career he 
 soon came in contact with states, some 
 of which, as Tuscany and Venice, had 
 acknowledged the French Republic, 
 whilst others, as Parma and Modena, 
 had observed a strict neutrality. The 
 old-fashioned laws of nations, under 
 which such states would have found 
 shelter, seemed never to have crossed 
 the mind of the young victor. Not 
 satisfied with violating the neutrality of 
 all, he seized the port of Leghorn, and 
 ruined the once flourishing commerce 
 of Tuscany ; and, having exacted heavy 
 tribute from Parma and Modena, he 
 compelled these powers to surrender, 
 what had hitherto been held sacred in 
 the utmost extremities of war, some of 
 their choicest pictures, the chief orna- 
 
 ments of their capitals. We are some- 
 times told of the good done by Napoleon 
 to Italy. But we have heard his name 
 pronounced as indignantly there as here. 
 An Italian cannot forgive him for rob- 
 bing that country of its noblest works 
 of art, its dearest treasures and glories, 
 which had made it a land of pilgrimage 
 to men of taste and genius from the 
 whole civilized world, and which had 
 upheld and solaced its pride under con- 
 quest and humiliation. From this use 
 of power in the very dawn of his for- 
 tunes, it might easily have been foretold 
 what part he would act in the stormy 
 day which was approaching, when the 
 sceptre of France and Europe was to be 
 offered to any strong hand which should 
 be daring enough to grasp it. 
 
 Next to Italy, Egypt became the stage 
 for the display of Napoleon ; Egypt, a 
 province of the Grand Signior, with 
 whom France was in profound peace, 
 and who, according to the long-estab- 
 lished relations of Europe, was her 
 natural ally. It would seem that this 
 expedition was Bonaparte's own project. 
 His motives are not very distinctly stated 
 by his biographer. We doubt not that 
 his great aim was conspicuousness. He 
 chose a theatre where all eyes could be 
 turned upon him. He saw that the 
 time for usurpation had not yet come in 
 France. To use his own language, 
 " the fruit was not yet ripe." He want- 
 ed a field of action which would draw 
 upon him the gaze of the world, and 
 from which he might return at the favor- 
 able moment for the prosecution of his 
 enterprises at home. At the same time 
 he undoubtedly admitted into his mind, 
 which success had already intoxicated, 
 some vague, wild hope of making an 
 impression on the Eastern world, which 
 might place its destinies at his com- 
 mand, and give him a throne more envi- 
 able than Europe could bestow. His 
 course in the East exhibited the same 
 lawlessness the same contempt of all 
 restraints on his power which we have 
 already noted. No means which prom- 
 ised success were thought the worse 
 for their guilt. It was not enough for 
 him to boast of his triumphs over the 
 cross, or to profess Mahometanism. He \ 
 claimedinspiration and_a commission/ 
 f ronTC^oH^and was^anxlous to join theX 
 character of prophet to that of hero. 
 This was the beginning of the great
 
 526 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 weaknesses and errors into which he 
 was betrayed by that spirit of self-exag- 
 geration which, under the influence of 
 past success and of unbounded flattery, 
 was already growing into a kind of in- 
 sanity. In his own view he was fit to 
 be a compeer with Mahomet. His great- 
 ness in his own eyes made him blind to 
 the folly of urging his supernatural 
 claims on the Turk, who contemned, 
 even more than he abhorred, a Frank ; 
 and who would sooner have sold himself 
 a slave to Christians than have acknowl- 
 edged a renegade Christian as a sharer 
 of the glories of Mahomet. It was not 
 enough for Bonaparte on this expedition 
 to insult God, to show an impiety as 
 foolish as it was daring. He proceeded 
 to trample on the sentiments and dic- 
 tates of humanity with equal hardihood. 
 The massacre of Jaffa is universally 
 known. Twelve hundred prisoners, and 
 probably more, who had surrendered 
 themselves to Napoleon, and were ap- 
 parently admitted to quarter, were two 
 days afterwards marched out of the fort, 
 divided into small bodies, and then de- 
 liberately shot, and, in case the musket 
 was not effectual, were despatched by 
 bayonets. This was an outrage which 
 cannot be sheltered by the laws and 
 usages of war, barbarous as they are. 
 It was the deed of a bandit and savage, 
 and ought to be execrated by good men 
 who value, and would preserve, the miti- 
 gations which Christianity has infused 
 into the conduct of national hostilities. 
 
 The next great event in Bonaparte's 
 history was the usurpation of the su- 
 preme power of the state, and the es- 
 tablishment of military despotism over 
 France. On the particulars of this 
 criminal act we have no desire to en- 
 large, nor are we anxious to ascertain 
 whether our hero, on this occasion, lost 
 his courage and self-possession, as he 
 is reported to have done. We are more 
 anxious to express our convictions of 
 the turpitude of this outrage on liberty 
 and justice. For this crime but one 
 apology can be offered. Napoleon, it 
 is said, seized the reins when, had he 
 let them slip, they would have fallen 
 into other hands. He enslaved France 
 at a moment when, had he spared her, 
 she would have found another tyrant. 
 Admitting the truth of the plea, what is 
 it but the reasoning of the highway- 
 man, who robs and murders the trav- 
 
 eller because the booty was about to be 
 seized by another hand, or because 
 another dagger was ready to do the 
 bloody deed ? We are aware that the 
 indignation with which we regard this 
 crime of Napoleon will find a response 
 in few breasts ; for, to the multitude, a 
 throne is a temptation which no virtue 
 can be expected to withstand. But 
 moral truth is immovable amidst the 
 sophistry, ridicule, and abject reason- 
 ings of men, and the time will come when 
 it will find a meet voice to give it utter- 
 ance. Of all crimes against society, 
 usurpation is the blackest He who lifts 
 a parricidal hand against his country's 
 rights and freedom ; who plants his 
 foot on the necks of thirty millions of 
 his fellow-creatures ; who concentrates 
 in his single hand the powers of a 
 mighty empire ; and who wields its 
 powers, squanders its treasures, and 
 pours forth its blood like water, to make 
 other nations slaves and the world his 
 prey, this man, as he unites all crimes 
 in his sanguinary career, so he should 
 be set apart by the human race for their 
 unmingled and unmeasured abhorrence, 
 and should bear on his guilty head a 
 mark as opprobrious as that which the 
 first murderer wore. We cannot think 
 with patience of one man fastening 
 chains on a whole people, and subject- 
 ing millions to his single will ; of whole 
 regions overshadowed by the tyranny 
 of a frail being like ourselves. In 
 anguish of spirit we exclaim, How long 
 will an abject world kiss the foot which 
 tramples it ? How long shall crime find 
 shelter in its very aggravations and 
 excess ? 
 
 Perhaps it may be said that our in- 
 dignation seems to light on Napoleon, 
 not so much because he was a despot as 
 because he became a despot by usurpa- 
 tion ; that we seem not to hate tyranny 
 itself so much as a particular mode of 
 gaining it. We do indeed regard usur- 
 pation as a crime of peculiar blackness, 
 especially when committed, as in the 
 case of Napoleon, in the name of lib- 
 erty. All despotism, however, whether 
 usurped or hereditary, is our abhorrence. 
 We regard it as the most grievous wrong 
 and insult to the human race. But tow- 
 ards the hereditary despot we have 
 more of compassion than indignation. 
 Nursed and brought up in delusion, 
 worshipped from his cradle, never spo-
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 527 
 
 ken to in the tone of fearless truth, 
 taught to look on the great mass of 
 his fellow-beings as an inferior race, 
 and to regard despotism as a law of 
 nature and a necessary element of social 
 life ; such a prince, whose education and 
 condition almost deny him the possibility 
 of acquiring healthy moral feeling and 
 manly virtue, must not be judged se- 
 verely. Still, in absolving the despot 
 from much of the guilt which seems 
 at first to attach to his unlawful and 
 abused power, we do not the less ac- 
 count despotism a wrong and a curse. 
 The time for its fall, we trust, is coming. 
 It cannot fall too soon. It has long 
 enough wrung from the laborer his hard 
 earnings ; long enough squandered a 
 nation's wealth on its parasites and 
 minions ; long enough warred against 
 the freedom of the mind, and arrested 
 the progress of truth. It has filled 
 dungeons enough with the brave and 
 good, and shed enough of the blood 
 of patriots. Let its end come. It can- 
 not come too soon. 
 
 We have now followed Bonaparte to 
 the moment of possessing himself of- the 
 supreme power. Those who were asso- 
 ciated with him in subverting the gov- 
 ernment of the Directory essayed to lay 
 restraints on the First Consul who was 
 to take their place. But he indignantly 
 repelled them. He held the sword, and 
 with this not only intimidated the selfish, 
 but awed and silenced the patriotic, who 
 saw too plainly that it could only be 
 wrested from him by renewing the hor- 
 rors of the Revolution. We now proceed 
 to consider some of the means by which 
 he consolidated his power, and raised it 
 into the imperial dignity. We consider 
 these as much more important illustra- 
 tions of his character than his successive 
 campaigns, to which, accordingly, we 
 shall give little attention. 
 
 One of his first measures for giving 
 stability to his power was certainly a 
 wise one, and was obviously dictated 
 by his situation and character. Having 
 seized the first dignity in the state by 
 military force, and leaning on a devoted 
 soldiery, he was under no necessity of 
 binding himself to any of the parties 
 which had distracted the country, a 
 vassalage to which his domineering 
 spirit could ill have stooped. Policy 
 and his love of mastery pointed out to 
 him an indiscriminate employment of 
 
 the leading men of all parties ; and 
 not a few of these ' had become so 
 selfish and desperate in the disastrous 
 progress of the Revolution, that they 
 were ready to break up old connections, 
 and to divide the spoils of the Republic 
 with a master. Accordingly he adopted 
 a system of comprehension and lenity, 
 from which even the emigrants were 
 not excluded, and had the satisfaction 
 of seeing almost the whole talent, which 
 the Revolution had quickened, leagued 
 in the execution of his plans. Under 
 the able men whom he called to his aid, 
 the finances and the war department, 
 which had fallen into a confusion that 
 threatened ruin to the State, were soon 
 restored to order, and means and forces 
 provided for retrieving the recent defeats 
 and disgraces of the French armies. ' 
 
 This leads us to mention another and 
 most important and effectual means by 
 which Napoleon secured and enlarged 
 his power. We refer to the brilliant 
 campaign immediately following his 
 elevation to the Consulate, and which 
 restored to France the ascendency 
 which she had lost during his absence. 
 On his success at this juncture his 
 future fortunes wholly depended. It 
 was in this campaign that he proved 
 himself the worthy rival of Hannibal. 
 The energy which conducted an army, 
 with its cavalry, artillery, and supplies, 
 across the Alps, by untried paths, which 
 only the chamois hunter, born and bred 
 amidst glaciers and everlasting snows, 
 had trodden, gave the impression, which 
 of all others he most desired to spread, 
 of his superiority to nature, as well as to 
 human opposition. This enterprise was 
 in one view a fearful omen to Europe. 
 It showed a power over the minds of his 
 soldiers, the effects of which were not 
 to be calculated. The conquest of St. 
 Bernard by a French army was the boast 
 of the nation ; but a still more wonderful 
 thing was, the capacity of the general to 
 inspire into that army the intense force, 
 confidence, resolution, and patience, by 
 which alone the work could be accom- 
 plished. The victory of Marengo, gained 
 by one of the accidents of war in the 
 moment of apparent defeat and ruin, 
 secured to Bonaparte the dominion 
 which he coveted. France, who, in 
 her madness and folly, had placed her 
 happiness in conquest, now felt that 
 the glory of her arms was safe only in
 
 528 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 the hands of the First Consul ; whilst the 
 soldiery, who held the sceptre in their 
 gift, became more thoroughly satisfied 
 that triumph and spoils waited on his 
 standard. 
 
 Another important and essential means 
 of securing and building up his power 
 was the system of espionage, called the 
 Police, which, under the Directory, had 
 received a development worthy of those 
 friends of freedom, but which was des- 
 tined to be perfected by the wisdom of 
 Napoleon. It would seem as if despot- 
 ism, profiting by the experience of ages, 
 had put forth her whole skill and re- 
 sources in forming the French police, 
 and had framed an engine, never to be 
 surpassed, for stifling the faintest breath- 
 ings of disaffection, and chaining every 
 free thought. This system of espionage 
 (we are proud that we have no English 
 word for the infernal machine) had in- 
 deed been used under all tyrannies. But 
 it wanted the craft of Fouche", and the 
 energy of Bonaparte, to disclose all its 
 powers. In the language of our author, 
 " it spread through all the ramifications 
 of society ; " that is, every man, of the 
 least importance in the community, had 
 the eye of a spy upon him. He was 
 watched at home as well as abroad, 
 in the boudoir and theatre, in the 
 brothel and gaming-house ; and these 
 last-named haunts furnished not a few 
 ministers of the Argus-eyed police. 
 There was an ear open through all 
 France to catch the whispers of dis- 
 content, a power of evil which aimed 
 to rival in omnipresence and invisible- 
 ness the benignant agency of the Deity. 
 Of all instruments of tyranny, this is the 
 most detestable. It chills social inter- 
 course ; locks up the heart ; infects and 
 darkens men's minds with mutual jeal- 
 ousies and fears ; and reduces to system 
 a wary dissimulation, subversive of force 
 and manliness of character. We find, 
 however, some consolation in learning 
 that tyrants are the prey of distrust, as 
 well as the people over whom they set 
 this cruel guard ; that tyrants cannot 
 confide in their own spies, but must 
 keep watch over the machinery which 
 we have described, lest it recoil upon 
 themselves. Bonaparte at the head of 
 an army is a dazzling spectacle ; but 
 Bonaparte, heading a horde of spies, 
 compelled to doubt and fear these base 
 instruments of his power, compelled to 
 
 divide them into bands, and to receive 
 daily reports from each, so that by 
 balancing them against each other and 
 sifting their testimony, he might gather 
 the truth ; Bonaparte, thus employed, is 
 any thing but imposing. It requires no 
 great elevation of thought to look down 
 on such an occupation with scorn ; and 
 we see, in the anxiety and degradation 
 which it involves, the beginning of that 
 retribution which tyranny cannot es- 
 cape. 
 
 Another means by which the First 
 Consul protected his power can excite 
 no wonder. That he should fetter the 
 press, should banish or imprison refrac- 
 tory editors, should subject the journals 
 and more important works of literature 
 to jealous superintendence, these were 
 things of course. Free writing and des- 
 potism are such implacable foes, that 
 we hardly think of blaming a tyrant for 
 keeping no terms with the press. He 
 cannot do it. He might as reasonably 
 choose a volcano for the foundation of 
 his throne. Necessity is laid upon him, 
 unless he is in love with ruin, to check 
 the bold and honest expression of 
 thought. But the necessity is his own 
 choice ; and let infamy be that man's 
 portion who seizes a power which he 
 cannot sustain, but by dooming the 
 mind through a vast empire to slavery, 
 and by turning the press, that great or- 
 gan of truth, into an instrument of public 
 delusion and debasement. 
 
 We pass to another means of remov- 
 ing obstructions to his power and ambi- 
 tion, still worse than the last. We refer 
 to the terror which he spread by his 
 severities, just before assuming the im- 
 perial power. The murder of the Duke 
 d'Enghien was justified by Napoleon as 
 a method of striking fear into the Bour- 
 bons, who, as he said, were plotting his 
 death. This may have been one motive ; 
 for we have reason to think that he was 
 about that time threatened with assassi- 
 nation. But we believe still more that 
 he intended to awe into acquiescence the 
 opposition which he knew would be 
 awakened in many breasts by the pros- 
 tration of the forms of the Republic, and 
 the open assumption of the imperial dig- 
 nity. There were times when Bona- 
 parte disclaimed the origination of the 
 murder of the Duke d'Enghien. But no 
 other could have originated it. It bears 
 internal marks of its author. The bold-
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 529 
 
 ness, decision, and overpowering rapidity i 
 of the crime, point unerringly to the soul 
 where it was conceived. We believe 
 that one great recommendation of this 
 murder was, that it would strike amaze- 
 ment and terror into France and Europe, 
 and show that he was prepared to shed 
 any blood, and to sweep before him 
 every obstruction, in his way to absolute 
 power. Certain it is that the open mur- 
 der of the Duke d'Enghien, and the 
 justly suspected assassinations of Piche- 
 gru and Wright, did create a dread, such 
 as had not been felt before ; and, whilst 
 on previous occasions some faint breath- 
 ings of liberty were to be heard in the 
 legislative bodies, only one voice, that 
 of Carnot, was raised against investing 
 Bonaparte with the imperial crown, and 
 laying France an unprotected victim at 
 his feet. 
 
 There remain for our consideration 
 other means employed by Bonaparte for 
 building up and establishing his power, 
 of a different character from those we 
 have named, and which on this account 
 we cannot pass without notice. One of 
 these was the Concordat which he ex- 
 torted from the Pope, and which pro- 
 fessed to re-establish the Catholic relig- 
 ion in France. Our religious prejudices 
 have no influence on our judgment of this 
 measure. We make no objections to it 
 as the restoration of a worship which 
 on many accounts we condemn. We 
 view it now simply as an instrument of 
 policy, and, in this light, it seems to us 
 no proof of the sagacity of Bonaparte. 
 It helps to confirm in us an impression, 
 which other parts of his history give us, 
 that he did not understand the peculiar 
 character of his age, and the peculiar 
 and original policy which it demanded. 
 He always used commonplace means 
 of power, although the unprecedented 
 times in which he lived required a system 
 which should combine untried resources, 
 and touch new springs of action. Be- 
 cause old governments had found a 
 convenient prop in religion, Napoleon 
 imagined that it was a necessary append- 
 age and support of his sway, and re- 
 solved to restore it. But at this moment 
 there were no foundations in France for 
 a religious establishment, which could 
 give strength and a character of sacred- 
 ness to the supreme power. There was 
 comparatively no faith, no devout feel- 
 ing, and, still more, no superstition to 
 
 34 
 
 supply the place of these. The time for 
 the reaction of the religious principle 
 had not yet arrived ; and a more likely 
 means of retarding it could hardly have 
 been devised than the nursing care ex- 
 tended to the church by Bonaparte, the 
 recent Mussulman, the known despiser 
 of the ancient faith, who had no wor- 
 ship at heart but the worship of himself. 
 Instead of bringing religion to the aid of 
 the state, it was impossible that such a 
 man should touch it without loosening 
 the faint hold which it yet retained on 
 the people. There were none so igno- 
 rant as to be the dupes of the First 
 Consul in this particular. Every man, 
 woman, and child knew that he was 
 playing the part of a juggler. Not one 
 religious association could be formed 
 with his character or government. It 
 was a striking proof of the self-exagger- 
 ating vanity of Bonaparte, and of his 
 ignorance of the higher principles of 
 human nature, that he not only hoped to 
 revive and turn to his account the old 
 religion, but imagined that he could, if 
 necessary, have created a new one. 
 " Had the Pope never existed before, he 
 should have been made for the occasion," 
 was the speech of this political charla- 
 tan ; as if religious opinion and feeling 
 were things to be manufactured by a 
 consular decree. Ancient legislators, by 
 adopting and sympathizing with popular 
 and rooted superstitions, were able to 
 press them into the service of their insti- 
 tutions. They were wise enough to build 
 on a pre-existing faith, and studiously to 
 conform to it. Bonaparte, in a country 
 of infidelity and atheism, and whilst un- 
 able to refrain from sarcasms on the 
 system which he patronized, was weak 
 enough to believe that he might make it 
 a substantial support of his government. 
 He undoubtedly congratulated himself 
 on the terms which he exacted from the 
 Pope, and which had never been con- 
 ceded to the most powerful monarchs, 
 forgetting that his apparent success was 
 the defeat of his plans ; for, just as far 
 as he severed the .church from the su- 
 preme pontiff, and placed himself con- 
 spicuously at its head, he destroyed the 
 only connection which could give it in- 
 fluence. Just so far its power over 
 opinion and conscience ceased. It be- 
 came a coarse instrument of state, con- 
 temned by the people, and serving only 
 to demonstrate the aspiring views of its
 
 530 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 master. Accordingly, the French bishops 
 in general refused to hold their dignities 
 under this new head, preferred exile to 
 the sacrifice of the rights of the church, 
 and left behind them a hearty abhor- 
 rence of the Concordat among the more 
 zealous members of their communion. 
 Happy would it have been for Napoleon 
 had he le:t the Pope and the church to 
 themselves. By occasionally recogniz- 
 ing and employing, and then insulting 
 and degrading, the Roman pontiff, he 
 exasperated a large part of Christendom, 
 fastened on himself the brand of impiety, 
 and awakened a religious hatred which 
 contributed its full measure to his fall. 
 
 As another means employed by Bona- 
 parte for giving strength and honor to 
 his government, we may name the gran- 
 deur of his public works, which he began 
 in his consulate and continued after his 
 accession to the imperial dignity. These 
 dazzled France, and still impress travel- 
 lers with admiration. Could we sepa- 
 rate these from his history, and did no 
 other indication of his character survive, 
 we should undoubtedly honor him with 
 the title of a beneficent sovereign ; but, 
 connected as they are, they do little or 
 nothing to change our conceptions of 
 him as an all-grasping, unprincipled 
 usurper. Paris was the chief object of 
 these labors ; and surely we cannot won- 
 der that he who aimed at universal do- 
 minion should strive to improve and 
 adorn the metropolis of his empire. It 
 is the practice of despots to be lavish 
 of expense on the royal residence and 
 the seat of government. Travellers in 
 France, as in other countries of the con- 
 tinent, are struck and pained by the con- 
 trast between the magnificent capital and 
 the mud-walled village and uninteresting 
 province. Bonaparte had a special mo- 
 tive for decorating Paris, for " Paris is 
 France," as has often been observed; 
 and, in conciliating the vanity of the 
 great city, he secured the obedience of 
 the whole country. The boasted internal 
 improvements of Napoleon scarcely de- 
 serve to be named, if we compare their 
 influence with the operation of his pub- 
 lic measures. The conscription, which 
 drew from agriculture its most effective 
 laborers, and his continental system, 
 which sealed up every port and anni- 
 hilated the commerce of his empire, 
 drained and exhausted France to a de- 
 gree for which his artificial stimulants 
 
 of industry, and his splendid projects, 
 afforded no compensation. Perhaps the 
 most admired of all his public works is 
 the road over the Simplon, to which all 
 travellers concur in giving the epithet, 
 stupendous. But it ought not to amaze 
 us that he, who was aspiring at unlimited 
 dominion, should establish communica- 
 tions between the different provinces of 
 his empire. It ought not to amaze us 
 that he, who had scaled the glaciers of 
 St. Bernard, should covet some easier 
 passage for pouring his troops into Italy ; 
 nor is it very wonderful that a sovereign, 
 who commanded the revenues of Europe, 
 and who lived in an age when civil en- 
 gineering had been advanced to a per- 
 fection before unknown, should accom- 
 plish a bolder enterprise than his prede- 
 cessors. We would add, that Napoleon 
 must divide with Fabbroni the glory of 
 the road over the Simplon ; for the gen- 
 ius which contrived and constructed is 
 more properly its author than the will 
 which commanded it. 
 
 There is, however, one great work 
 which gives Bonaparte a fair claim on 
 the gratitude of posterity, and entitles 
 him to an honorable renown. We refer 
 to the new code of laws which was given 
 to France under his auspices. His par- 
 ticipation in this work has indeed been 
 unwarrantably and ridiculously magni- 
 fied. Because he attended the meetings 
 of the commissioners to whom it was- 
 assigned, and made some useful and 
 sagacious suggestions, he has been 
 praised as if he had struck out, by the 
 miraculous force of his genius, a new 
 code of laws. The truth is, that he 
 employed for this work, as he should 
 have done, the most eminent civilians 
 of the empire ; and it is also true that 
 these learned men have little claim to 
 originality ; for, as our author observes, 
 the code " has few peculiarities making 
 a difference between its principles and 
 those of the Roman law." In other 
 words, they preferred wisdom to novelty. 
 Still Bonaparte deserves great praise for 
 his interest in the work, for the impulse 
 he gave to those to whom it was com- 
 mitted, and for the time and thought 
 which, amidst the cares of a vast em- 
 pire, he bestowed upon it. That his 
 ambition incited him to this labor, we 
 doubt not. He meant to entwine the 
 laurels of Justinian with those of Alex- 
 ander. But we will not quarrel with
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 531 
 
 ambition, when it is wise enough to 
 devote itself to the happiness of man- 
 kind. In the present case, he showed 
 that he understood something of true 
 glory ; and we prize the instance more 
 because it stands almost alone in his 
 history. We look on the conqueror, 
 the usurper, the spoiler of kingdoms, 
 the insatiable despot, with disgust, and 
 see in all these characters an essential 
 vulgarness of mind. But, when we re- 
 gard him as a fountain of justice to a 
 vast empire, we recognize in him a re- 
 semblance to the just and benignant 
 Deity, and cheerfully accord to him 
 the praise of bestowing on a nation 
 one of the greatest gifts which it is 
 permitted to man to confer. It was, 
 however, the misery of Bonaparte, a 
 curse brought on him by his crimes, 
 that he could touch nothing without 
 leaving on it the polluting mark of des- 
 potism. His usurpation took from him 
 the power of legislating with magna- 
 nimity, where his own interest was 
 concerned. He could provide for the 
 administration of justice between man 
 and man, but not between the citizen 
 and the ruler. Political offences, the 
 very class which ought to be submitted 
 to a jury, were denied that mode of 
 trial. Juries might decide on other 
 criminal questions ; but they were not 
 to be permitted to interpose between 
 the despot and the ill-fated subjects 
 who might fall under his suspicion. 
 These were arraigned before "special 
 tribunals, invested with a half military 
 character," the ready ministers of nefa- 
 rious prosecutions, and only intended 
 to cloak by legal forms the murderous 
 purpose of the tyrant. 
 
 We have thus considered some of 
 the means by which Bonaparte con- 
 solidated and extended his power. We 
 now see him advanced to that imperial 
 throne on which he had long fixed his 
 eager eye. We see France alternately 
 awed and dazzled by the influences we 
 have described, and at last surrendering, 
 by public, deliberate acts, without a 
 struggle or a show of opposition, her 
 rights, liberties, interests, and power to 
 an absolute master and to his posterity 
 for ever. Thus perished the name and 
 forms of the Republic. Thus perished 
 the hopes of philanthropy. The air, 
 which a few years ago resounded with 
 the shouts of a great people casting 
 
 away their chains, and claiming their 
 birthright of freedom, now rung with 
 the servile cries of long life to a blood- 
 stained usurper. There were, indeed, 
 generous spirits, true patriots, like our 
 own La Fayette, still left in France. 
 But, few and scattered, they were left 
 to shed in secret the tears of sorrowful 
 and indignant despair. By this base 
 and disastrous issue of their revolution, 
 the French nation not only renounced 
 their own rights, but brought reproach 
 on the cause of freedom, which years 
 cannot wash away. This is to us a 
 more painful recollection than all the 
 desolations which France spread through 
 Europe, and than her own bitter suffer- 
 ings, when the hour of retribution came 
 upon her. The fields which she laid waste 
 are again waving with harvest ; and the 
 groans which broke forth through her 
 cities and villages, when her bravest 
 sons perished by thousands and ten 
 thousands on the snows of Russia, 
 have died away, and her wasted popu- 
 lation is renewed. But the wounds 
 which she inflicted on freedom by the 
 crimes perpetrated in that sacred name, 
 and by the abject spirit with which that 
 sacred cause was deserted, are still fresh 
 and bleeding. France not only subjected 
 herself to a tyrant, but, what is worse, 
 she has given tyranny everywhere new 
 pleas and arguments, and emboldened 
 it to preach openly, in the face of heaven, 
 the impious doctrines of absolute power 
 and unconditional submission. 
 
 Napoleon was now Emperor of 
 France ; and a man unacquainted with 
 human nature would think that such an 
 empire, whose bounds now extended to 
 the Rhine, might have satisfied even an 
 ambitious man. But Bonaparte obeyed 
 that law of progress to which the high- 
 est minds are peculiarly subjected ; and 
 acquisition inflamed, instead of appeas- 
 ing, the spirit of dominion. He had 
 long proposed to himself the conquest 
 of Europe, of the world ; and the title 
 of Emperor added intenseness to this 
 purpose. Did we not fear that by repe- 
 tition we might impair the conviction 
 which we are most anxious to impress, 
 we would enlarge on the enormity of the 
 guilt involved in the project of universal 
 empire. Napoleon knew distinctly the 
 price which he must pay for the emi- 
 nence which he coveted. He knew that 
 the path to it lay over wounded and
 
 532 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 slaughtered millions, over putrefying 
 heaps of his fellow-creatures, over rav- 
 aged fields, smoking ruins, pillaged 
 cities. He knew that his steps would 
 be followed by the groans of widowed 
 mothers and famished orphans ; of be- 
 reaved friendship and despairing love ; 
 and that, in addition to this amount of 
 misery, he would create an equal amount 
 of crime, by multiplying indefinitely 
 the instruments and participators of his 
 rapine and fraud. He knew the price, 
 and resolved to pay it. But we do not 
 insist on a topic which few, very few 
 as yet, understand or feel. Turning, 
 then, for the present from the moral 
 aspect of this enterprise, we will view 
 it in> another light, which is of great im- 
 portance to a just estimate of his claims 
 on admiration. We will inquire into the 
 nature and fitness of the measures and 
 policy which he adopted for compass- 
 ing the subjugation of Europe and the 
 world. 
 
 We are aware that this discussion 
 may expose us to the charge of great 
 presumption. It may be said that men, 
 having no access to the secrets of cab- 
 inets, and no participation in public 
 affairs, are not the best judges of the 
 policy of such a man as Napoleon. This 
 we are not anxious to disprove. We do 
 not deny the disadvantages of our posi- 
 tion, nor shall we quarrel with our read- 
 ers for questioning the soundness of our 
 opinions. But we will say, that though 
 distant, we have not been indifferent 
 observers of the great events of our age, 
 and that, though conscious of exposure 
 to many errors, we have a strong per- 
 suasion of the substantial correctness of 
 our views. We express, then, without 
 reserve, our belief that the policy of 
 Napoleon was wanting in sagacity, and 
 that he proved himself incapable, as we 
 before suggested, of understanding the 
 character and answering the demands of 
 his age. His system was a repetition of 
 old means, when the state of the world 
 was new. The sword and the police, 
 which had sufficed him for enslaving 
 France, were not the only powers re- 
 quired for his designs against the human 
 race. Other resources were to be dis- 
 covered or created ; and the genius for 
 calling them forth did not, we conceive, 
 belong to Napoleon. 
 
 The circumstances under which Na- 
 poleon aspired to universal empire dif- 
 
 fered in many respects from those under 
 which former conquerors were placed. 
 It was easy for Rome, when she had 
 subdued kingdoms, to reduce them to 
 provinces and to govern them by force ; 
 for nations at that period were bound 
 together by no tie. They had little 
 communication with each other. Differ- 
 ences of origin, of religion, of manners, 
 of language, of modes of warfare ; dif- 
 ferences aggravated by long and fero- 
 cious wars, and by the general want of 
 civilization, prevented joint action, and 
 almost all concern for one another's 
 fate. Modern Europe, on the other 
 hand, was an assemblage of civilized 
 states, closely connected by commerce, 
 by literature, by a common faith, by in- 
 terchange of thoughts and improvements, 
 and by a policy which had for ages pro- 
 posed, as its chief object, the establish- 
 ment of such a balance of power as 
 would secure national independence. 
 Under these influences the human mind 
 had made great progress ; and, in truth, 
 the French Revolution had resulted from 
 an unprecedented excitement and devel- 
 opment of men's faculties, and from the 
 extension of power and intelligence 
 through a vastly wider class than had 
 participated in them at any former period. 
 The very power which Napoleon was 
 wielding might be traced to an enthusi- 
 asm essentially generous, and manifest- 
 ing a tendency of the civilized world to 
 better institutions. It is plain that the 
 old plans of conquest, and the maxims 
 of comparatively barbarous ages, did not 
 suit such a state of society. An ambi- 
 tious man was to make his way by ally- 
 ing himself with the new movements 
 and excitements of the world. The ex- 
 istence of a vast maritime power like 
 England, which, by its command of the 
 ocean and its extensive commerce, was 
 brought into contact with every commu- 
 nity, and which at the same time enjoyed 
 the enviable pre-eminence of possessing 
 the freest institutions in Europe, was of 
 itself a sufficient motive for a great mod- 
 ification of the policy by which one state 
 was now to be placed at the head of the 
 nations. The peculiar character and 
 influence of England, Bonaparte seemed 
 indeed never able to comprehend ; and 
 the violent measures by which he essayed 
 to tear asunder the old connections of 
 that country with the continent, only 
 gave them strength, by adding to the
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 533 
 
 ties of Interest those of sympathy, of 
 common suffering, and common danger. 
 Force and corruption were the great 
 engines of Napoleon, and he plied them 
 without disguise or reserve, not caring 
 how far he insulted, and armed against 
 himself, the moral and national feelings 
 of Europe. His great reliance was on 
 the military spirit and energy of the 
 French people. To make France a 
 nation of soldiers was the first and main 
 instrument of his policy ; and here he 
 was successful. The Revolution, indeed, 
 had in no small degree done this work 
 to his hands. To complete it, he intro- 
 duced a national system of education, 
 having for its plain end to train the 
 whole youth of France to a military life, 
 to familiarize the mind to this destina- 
 tion from its earliest years, and to asso- 
 ciate the idea of glory almost exclusively 
 with arms. The conscription gave full 
 efficacy to this system ; for, as every 
 young man in the empire had reason to 
 anticipate a summons to the army, the 
 first object in education naturally was 
 to fit him for the field. The public 
 honors bestowed on military talent, and 
 a rigorous impartiality in awarding pro- 
 motion to merit, so that no origin, how- 
 ever obscure, was a bar to what were 
 deemed the highest honors of Europe, 
 kindled the ambition of the whole peo- 
 ple into a flame, and directed it exclu- 
 sively to the camp. It is true, the con- 
 scription, which thinned so terribly the 
 ranks of her youth, and spread anxiety 
 and bereavement through all her dwell- 
 ings, was severely felt in France. But 
 Napoleon knew the race whom it was 
 his business to manage ; and by the 
 glare of victory and the title of the 
 Grand Empire, he succeeded in recon- 
 ciling them for a time to the most 
 painful domestic privations, and to an 
 unexampled waste of life. Thus he 
 secured what he accounted the most 
 important instrument of dominion, a 
 great military force. But, on the other 
 hand, the stimulants which for this pur- 
 pose he was forced to apply perpetually 
 to French vanity, the ostentation with 
 which the invincible power of France 
 was trumpeted to the world, and the 
 haughty, vaunting style which became 
 the most striking characteristic of that 
 intoxicated people, were perpetual irri- 
 tations of the national spirit and pride of 
 Europe, and implanted a deep hatred 
 
 towards the new and insulting empire, 
 which waited but for a favorable moment 
 to repay with interest the debt of humil- 
 iation. 
 
 The condition of Europe forbade, as 
 we believe, the establishment of univer- 
 sal monarchy by mere physical force. 
 The sword, however important, was now 
 to play but a secondary part. The true 
 course for Napoleon seems to us to have 
 been indicated, not only by the state of 
 Europe, but by the means which France 
 in the beginning of her Revolution had 
 found most effectual. He should have 
 identified himself with some great inter- 
 ests, opinion, or institutions, by which 
 he might have bound to himself a large 
 party in every nation. He should have 
 contrived to make at least a specious 
 cause against all old establishments. 
 To contrast himself most strikingly and 
 most advantageously with former gov- 
 ernments, should have been the key of 
 his policy. He should have placed him- 
 self at the head of a new order of things, 
 which should have worn the face of an 
 improvement of the social state. Nor 
 did the subversion of republican forms 
 prevent his adoption of this course, or 
 of some other which would have secured 
 to him the sympathy of multitudes. He 
 might still have drawn some broad lines 
 between his own administration and that 
 of other states, tending to throw the old 
 dynasties into the shade. He might have 
 cast away the ancient pageantry and 
 forms, distinguished himself by the sim- 
 plicity of his establishments, and exag- 
 gerated the relief which he gave to his 
 people, by saving them the burdens of a 
 wasteful and luxurious court. He might 
 have insisted on the great benefits that 
 had accrued to France from the estab- 
 lishment of uniform laws, which pro- 
 tected alike all classes of men ; and he 
 might have virtually pledged himself to 
 the subversion of the feudal inequalities 
 which still disfigure Europe. He might 
 have insisted on the favorable changes 
 to be introduced into property, by abol- 
 ishing the entails which fettered it, the 
 rights of primogeniture, and the exclusive 
 privileges of a haughty aristocracy. He 
 might have found abuses enough against 
 which to array himself as a champion. 
 By becoming the head of new institu- 
 tions, which would have involved the 
 transfer of power into new hands, and 
 would have offered to the people a real
 
 534 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 improvement, he might everywhere have 
 summoned to his standard the bold and 
 enterprising, and might have disarmed 
 the national prejudices to which he fell 
 a prey. Revolution was still the true 
 instrument of power. In a word, Napo- 
 leon lived at a period when he could 
 only establish a durable and universal 
 control through principles and institu- 
 tions of some kind or other, to which he 
 would seem to be devoted. 
 
 It was impossible, however, for such 
 a man as Napoleon to adopt, perhaps to 
 conceive, a system such as has now been 
 traced ; for it was wholly at war with 
 that egotistical, self-relying, self-exag- 
 gerating principle, which was the most 
 striking feature of his mind. He imag- 
 ined himself able, not only to conquer 
 nations, but to hold them together by 
 the awe and admiration which his own 
 character would inspire ; and this bond 
 he preferred to every other. An indirect 
 sway, a control of nations by means of 
 institutions, principles, or prejudices, of 
 which he was to be only the apostle and 
 defender, was utterly inconsistent with 
 that vehemence of will, that passion for 
 astonishing mankind, and that persua- 
 sion of his own invincibleness, which 
 were his master feelings, and which 
 made force his darling instrument of 
 dominion. He chose to be the great, 
 palpable, and sole bond of his empire ; 
 to have his image reflected from every 
 establishment ; to be the centre in which 
 every ray of glory should meet, and from 
 which every impulse should be propa- 
 gated. In consequence of this egotism, 
 he never dreamed of adapting himself to 
 the moral condition of the world. The 
 sword was his chosen weapon, and he 
 used it without disguise. He insulted 
 nations as well as sovereigns. He did 
 not attempt to gild their chains, or to fit 
 the yoke gently to their necks. The 
 excess of his extortions, the audacity 
 of his claims, and the insolent language 
 in which Europe was spoken of as the 
 vassal of the great empire, discovered 
 that he expected to reign, not only with- 
 out linking himself with the interests, 
 prejudices, and national feelings of men, 
 but by setting all at defiance. 
 
 It would be easy to point out a multi- 
 tude of instances in which he sacrificed 
 the only policy by which he could pre- 
 vail, to the persuasion that his own great- 
 ness could more than balance whatever 
 
 opposition his violence might awaken. 
 In an age in which Christianity \vas 
 exerting some power, there was certainly 
 a degree of deference due to the moral 
 convictions of society. But Napoleon 
 thought himself more than a match for 
 the moral instincts and sentiments of 
 our nature. He thought himself able to 
 cover the most atrocious deeds by the 
 splendor of his name, and even to extort 
 applause for crimes by the brilliancy of 
 his success. He took no pains to con- 
 ciliate esteem. In his own eyes he was 
 mightier than conscience ; and thus he 
 turned against himself the power and 
 resentment of virtue in every breast 
 where that divine principle yet found 
 a home. 
 
 Through the same blinding egotism, 
 he was anxious to fill the thrones of 
 Europe with men bearing his own name, 
 and to multiply everywhere images of 
 himself. Instead of placing over con- 
 quered countries efficient men, taken 
 from themselves, who, by upholding 
 better institutions, would carry with 
 them large masses of the people, and 
 who would still, by their hostility to 
 the old dynasties, link their fortunes 
 with his own, he placed over nations 
 such men as Jerome and Murat. He 
 thus spread a jealousy of his power, 
 whilst he rendered it insecure ; for as 
 none of the princes of his creation, 
 however well disposed, were allowed to 
 identify themselves with their subjects, 
 and to take root in the public heart, but 
 were compelled to act, openly and with- 
 out disguise, as satellites and prefects of 
 the French emperor, they gained no hold 
 on their subjects, and could bring no 
 strength to their master in his hour of 
 peril. In none of his arrangements did 
 Napoleon think of securing to his cause 
 the attachment of nations. Astonish- 
 ment, awe, and force were his weapons, 
 and his own great name the chosen pil- 
 lar of his throne. 
 
 So far was Bonaparte from magnifying 
 the contrast and distinctions between 
 himself and the old dynasties of Europe, 
 and from attaching men to himself by 
 new principles and institutions, that he 
 had the great weakness for so we view 
 it to revive the old forms of monarchy, 
 and to ape the manners of the old court, 
 and thus to connect himself with the 
 herd of legitimate sovereigns. This 
 was not only to rob his government of
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 535 
 
 that imposing character which might 
 have been given to it, and of that inter- 
 est which it might have inspired as an 
 improvement on former institutions, but 
 was to become competitor in a race in 
 which he could not but be distanced. 
 He could, indeed, pluck crowns from 
 the heads of monarchs ; but he could 
 not by any means infuse their blood into 
 his veins, associate with himself the 
 ideas which are attached to a long line 
 of ancestry, or give to his court the 
 grace of manners which belongs to older 
 establishments. His true policy was, 
 to throw contempt on distinctions which 
 he could not rival ; and, had he pos- 
 sessed the genius and spirit of the 
 founder of a new era, he would have 
 substituted for a crown, and for other 
 long-worn badges of power, a new and 
 simple style of grandeur, and new in- 
 signia of dignity, more consonant with 
 an enlightened age, and worthy of one 
 who disdained to be a vulgar king. By 
 the policy which he adopted, if it be 
 worthy of that name, he became a vulgar 
 king, and showed a mind incapable of 
 answering the wants and demands of his 
 age. It is well known that the progress 
 of intelligence had done much in Europe 
 to weaken men's reverence for pageantry 
 and show. Nobles had learned to lay 
 aside their trappings in ordinary life, 
 and to appear as gentlemen. Even roy- 
 alty had begun to retrench its pomp ; 
 and, in the face of all this improvement, 
 Bonaparte stooped from his height to 
 study costumes, to legislate about court 
 dresses and court manners, and to out- 
 shine his brother monarchs in their own 
 line. He desired to add the glory of 
 master of ceremonies to that of con- 
 queror of nations. In his anxiety to 
 belong to the caste of kings, he exacted 
 scrupulously the observance and eti- 
 quette with which they are approached. 
 Not satisfied with this approximation to 
 the old sovereigns, with whom he had 
 no common interest, and from whom he 
 could not have removed himself too far, 
 he sought to ally himself by marriage 
 with the royal families in Europe, to in- 
 graft himself and his posterity on an old 
 imperial tree. This was the very way 
 to turn back opinion into its old chan- 
 nels ; to carry back Europe to its old 
 prejudices ; to facilitate the restoration 
 of its old order ; to preach up legitimacy : 
 to crush every hope that he was to work 
 
 a beneficent change among nations. It 
 may seem strange that his egotism did 
 not preserve him from the imitation of 
 antiquated monarchy. But his egotism, 
 though excessive, was not lofty, nor was 
 it seconded by a genius, rich and in- 
 ventive, except in war. 
 
 We have now followed Napoleon to 
 the height of his power, and given our 
 views of the policy by which he hoped 
 to make that power perpetual and un- 
 bounded. His fall is easily explained. 
 It had its origin in that spirit of self-) 
 reliance and self-exaggeration of which/ 
 we have seen so many proofs. It began/ 
 in Spain. That country was a province 
 in reality. He wanted to make it one in 
 name ; to place over it a -Bonaparte ; to 
 make it a more striking manifestation of 
 his power. For this purpose he " kid- 
 napped " its royal family, stirred up the 
 unconquerable spirit of its people, and, 
 after shedding on its plains and moun- 
 tains the best blood of France, lost it 
 for ever. Next came his expedition 
 against Russia, an expedition against 
 which his wisest counsellors remon- 
 strated, but which had every recom- 
 mendation to a man who regarded him- 
 self as an exception to his race, and able 
 to triumph over the laws of nature. So 
 insane were his self-confidence and impa- 
 tience of opposition, that he drove by his 
 outrages Sweden, the old ally of France, 
 into the arms of Russia, at the very 
 moment that he was about to throw him- 
 self into the heart of that mighty empire. 
 On his Russian campaign we ' have no 
 desire to enlarge. Of all the mournful 
 pages of history, none are more sad than 
 that which records the retreat of the 
 French army from Moscow. We re- 
 member that, when the intelligence of 
 Napoleon's discomfiture in Russia first 
 reached this country, we were among 
 those who exulted in it, thinking only 
 of the results. But when subsequent 
 and minuter accounts brought distinctly 
 before our eyes that unequalled army of 
 France, broken, famished, slaughtered, 
 seeking shelter under snowdrifts, and 
 perishing by intense cold, we looked 
 back on our joy with almost a conscious- 
 ness of guilt, and expiated by a sincere 
 grief our insensibility to the sufferings 
 of our fellow-creatures. We understand 
 that many interesting notices of Napo- 
 leon, as he appeared in this disastrous 
 campaign, are given in the Memoirs of
 
 536 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 Count Segur, a book from which we [ 
 have been repelled by the sorrows and 
 miseries which it details. We can con- 
 ceive few subjects more worthy of Shak- 
 speare than the mind of Napoleon, at 
 the moment when his fate was sealed ; 
 when the tide of his victories was sud- 
 denly stopped and rolled backwards ; 
 when his dreams of invincibleness were 
 broken as by a peal of thunder ; when 
 M the word which had awed nations died 
 I away on the bleak waste, a powerless 
 sound ; and when he, whose spirit Eu- 
 rope could not bound, fled in fear from 
 a captive's doom. The shock must have 
 been tremendous to a mind so imperious, 
 scornful, and unschooled to humiliation. 
 The intense agony of that moment, when 
 he gave the .unusual orders to retreat ; 
 the desolateness of his soul, when he 
 saw his brave soldiers and his chosen 
 guards sinking in the snows, and per- 
 ishing in crowds around him : his un- 
 willingness to receive the details of his 
 9 losses, lest self-possession should fail 
 * him ; the levity and badinage of his in- 
 terview with the Abbe" de Pradt at War- 
 saw, discovering a mind laboring to 
 throw off an insupportable weight, wrest- 
 ling with itself, struggling against mis- 
 ery ; and, though last not least, his 
 unconquerable purpose, still clinging to 
 lost empire as the only good of life ; 
 these workings of such a spirit would 
 have furnished to the great dramatist 
 a theme worthy of his transcendent 
 powers. 
 
 By the irretrievable disasters of the 
 Russian campaign, the empire of the 
 world was effectually placed beyond 
 the grasp of Napoleon. The tide of 
 conquest had ebbed, never to return. 
 The spell which had bound the nations 
 was dissolved. He was no longer the 
 Invincible. The weight of military 
 power, which had kept down the spirit 
 of nations, was removed, and their long- 
 smothered sense of wrong and insult 
 broke forth like the fires of a volcano. 
 Bonaparte might still, perhaps, have 
 secured the throne of France ; but that 
 of Europe was gone. This, however, 
 he did not, could not, would not under- 
 stand. He had connected with himself 
 too obstinately the character of the 
 world's master to be able to relinquish 
 it. Amidst the dark omens which gath- 
 ered round him he still saw, in his past 
 wonderful escapes, and in his own ex- 
 
 aggerated energies, the means of re- 
 building his fallen power. Accordingly, 
 the thought of abandoning his preten- 
 sions does not seem to have crossed his 
 mind, and his irreparable defeat was 
 only a summons to new exertion. We 
 doubt, indeed, whether Napoleon, if he 
 could have understood fully his con- 
 dition, would have adopted a different 
 course. Though despairing, he would 
 probably have raised new armies, and 
 fought to the last. To a mind which 
 has placed its whole happiness in hav- 
 ing no equal, the thought of descending 
 to the level even of kings is intolerable. 
 Napoleon's mind had been stretched by 
 such ideas of universal empire that 
 France, though reaching from the Rhine 
 to the Pyrenees, seemed narrow to him. 
 He could not be shut up in it. Accord- 
 ingly, as his fortunes darkened, we see 
 no signs of relenting. He could not 
 wear, he said, " a tarnished crown ; " 
 that is, a crown no brighter than those 
 of Austria and Russia. He continued 
 to use a master's tone. He showed no 
 change but such as opposition works in 
 /the obstinate ; he lost his temper and , 
 [grew sour. He heaped reproaches on I 
 Vhis marshals and the legislative body. -* 
 He insulted Metternich, the statesman 
 on whom, above all others, his fate de- 
 pended. He irritated Murat by sar- 
 casms, which rankled within him, and 
 accelerated, if they did not determine, 
 his desertion of his master. It is a 
 striking example of retribution, that the 
 very vehemence and sternness of his 
 will, which had borne him onward to 
 dominion, now drove him to the rejec- 
 tion of terms which might have left him 
 a formidable power, and thus made his 
 ruin entire. Refusing to take counsel 
 of events, he persevered in fighting with 
 a stubbornness which reminds us of a 
 spoiled child, who sullenly grasps what 
 he knows he must relinquish, struggles 
 without hope, and does not give over 
 resistance until his little fingers are one 
 by one unclenched from the object on 
 which he has set his heart. Thus fell 
 Napoleon. We shall follow his history 
 no farther. His retreat to Elba, his 
 irruption into France, his signal over- 
 throw, and his banishment to St. Helena, 
 though they add to the romance of his 
 history, throw no new light on his char- 
 acter, and would, of course, contribute 
 nothing to our present object. There
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 537 
 
 are, iudeed, incidents in this portion of 
 his life which are somewhat inconsistent 
 with the firmness and conscious superi- 
 ority which belonged to him. But a 
 I man into whose character so much im- 
 I pulse and so little principle entered, 
 ; must not be expected to preserve un- 
 L- blemished, in such hard reverses, the 
 dignity and self-respect of an emperor 
 and a hero. 
 
 In the course of these remarks, our 
 views of the Conqueror, of the First 
 Consul, and of the Emperor, have been 
 given plainly and freely. The subject, 
 however, is so important and interesting 
 that we have thought it worth our while, 
 though at the hazard of some repetition, 
 to bring together, in a narrower com- 
 pass, what seem to us the great leading 
 features of the intellectual and moral 
 character of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 His intellect was distinguished by ra- 
 pidity of thought. He understood by a 
 glance what most men, and superior men, 
 could learn only by study. He darted to 
 a conclusion rather by intuition than 
 reasoning. Q In war, which was the only 
 subject of which he was master^ he 
 seized in an instant on the great points 
 of his own and his enemy's positions ; 
 and combined at once the movements 
 by which an overpowering force might 
 be thrown with unexpected fury on a 
 vulnerable part of the hostile line, and 
 the fate of an army be decided in a 
 day. He understood war as a science ; 
 but his mind was too bold, rapid, and 
 irrepressible to be enslaved by the tech- 
 nics of his profession. He found the 
 old armies fighting by rule, and he dis- 
 covered the true characteristic of genius, 
 which, without despising rules, knows 
 when and how to break them. He under- 
 stood thoroughly the immense moral 
 power which is gained by originality 
 and rapidity of operation. He aston- 
 ished and paralyzed his enemies by his 
 unforeseen and impetuous assaults, by 
 the suddenness with which the storm of 
 battle burst upon them ; and, whilst 
 giving to his soldiers the advantages of 
 modern discipline, breathed into them, 
 by his quick and decisive movements, 
 the enthusiasm of ruder ages. This 
 power of disheartening the foe, and of 
 spreading through his own ranks a con- 
 fidence, and exhilarating courage, which 
 made war a pastime, and seemed to 
 make victory sure, distinguished Na- 
 
 poleon in an age of uncommon military 
 talent, and was one main instrument of 
 his future power. 
 
 The wonderful effects of that rapidity 
 of thought by which Bonaparte was 
 marked, the signal success of his new 
 mode of warfare, and the almost incred- 
 ible speed with which his fame was 
 spread through the nations, had no small 
 agency in fixing his character and de- 
 termining for a period the fate of em- 
 pires. These stirring influences infused 
 a new consciousness of his own might. 
 They gave intensity and audacity to his 
 ambition ; gave form and substance to 
 his indefinite visions of glory, and raised 
 his fiery hopes to empire. The burst of 
 admiration which his early career called 
 forth must in particular have had an 
 influence in imparting to his ambition 
 that modification by which it was char- 
 acterized, and which contributed alike 
 to its success and to its fall. He began 
 with astonishing the world, with pro- 
 ducing a sudden and universal sensation, 
 such as modern times had not witnessed. 
 To astonish, as well as to sway by his 
 energies, became the great aim of his 
 life. Henceforth, to rule was not enough 
 for Bonaparte. He wanted to amaze, 
 to dazzle, to overpower men's souls, by 
 striking, bold, magnificent, and unan- 
 ticipated results. To govern ever so 
 absolutely would not have satisfied him, 
 if he must have governed silently. He 
 wanted to reign through wonder and 
 awe, by the grandeur and terror of his 
 name, by displays of power which would 
 rivet on him every eye, and make him 
 the theme of every tongue. Power was 
 his supreme object, but a power which 
 should be gazed at as well as felt, which 
 should strike men as a prodigy, which 
 should shake old thrones as an earth- 
 quake, and, by the suddenness of its 
 new creations, should awaken something 
 of the submissive wonder which mirac- 
 ulous agency inspires. 
 
 Such seems to us to have been the/ 
 distinction, or characteristic modifica-j 
 tion of his love of fame. It was a dis-l 
 eased passion for a kind of admiration,! 
 which, from the principles of our nature, 
 cannot be enduring, and which demands 
 for its support perpetual and more stim- 
 ulating novelty. Mere esteem he would 
 have scorned. Calm admiration, though 
 universal and enduring, would have been 
 insipid. He wanted to electrify and
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 
 :i 
 
 538 
 
 overwhelm. \He lived for effect./ The 
 world was his theatre, and he cared lit- 
 tle what part he played if he might walk 
 the sole hero on the stage, and call forth 
 bursts of applause which would silence 
 all other fame. In war, the triumphs 
 which he coveted were those in which 
 he seemed to sweep away his foes like 
 a whirlwind ; and the immense and un- 
 paralleled sacrifices of his own soldiers, 
 in the rapid marches and daring assaults 
 to which he owed his victories, in no 
 degree diminished their worth to the 
 victor. In peace, he delighted to hurry 
 through his dominions ; to multiply him- 
 self by his rapid movements ; to gather 
 at a glance the capacities of improvement 
 which every important place possessed ; 
 to suggest plans which would startle by 
 their originality and vastness ; to project 
 in an instant works which a life could 
 not accomplish, and to leave behind the 
 impression of a superhuman energy. 
 
 Our sketch of Bonaparte would be 
 imperfect indeed, if we did not add that 
 he was characterized by nothing more 
 strongly than by the spirit of self-ex- 
 aggeration. The singular energy of his 
 intellect and will, through which he had 
 mastered so many rivals and foes, and 
 overcome what seemed insuperable ob- 
 stacles, inspired a consciousness of being 
 something more than man. His strong 
 original tendencies to pride and self- 
 exaltation, fed and pampered by strange 
 success and unbounded applause, swelled 
 into an almost insane conviction of su- 
 perhuman greatness. In his own view, 
 he stood apart from other men. He was 
 not to be measured by the standard of 
 humanity. He was not to be retarded 
 by difficulties to which all others yielded. 
 He was not to be subjected to laws and 
 obligations which all others were ex- 
 pected to obey. Nature and the human 
 will were to bend to his power. He was 
 the child and favorite of fortune, and, if 
 not the lord, the chief object of destiny. 
 His history shows a spirit of self-exag- 
 geration unrivalled in enlightened ages, 
 and which reminds us of an oriental 
 king to whom incense had been burnt 
 from his birth as to a deity. This was 
 the chief source of his crimes. He 
 wanted the sentiment of a common nat- 
 ure with his fellow-beings. He had no 
 sympathies with his race. That feeling 
 oiDrotherhood, which is developed in 
 truly great souls with peculiar energy, 
 
 and through which they give up them- I. 
 selves willing victims, joyful sacrifices, P 
 to the interests of mankind, was wholly I 
 unknown to him. His heart, amidst its-'' 
 wild beatings, never had a throb of dis- 
 interested love. The ties which bind 
 man to man he broke asunder. The 
 proper happiness of a man, which con- 
 sists in the victory of moral energy and 
 social affection over the selfish passions, 
 he cast away for the lonely joy of a 
 despot. With powers which might have 
 made him a glorious representative and 
 minister of the beneficent Divinity, and 
 with natural sensibilities which might 
 have been exalted into sublime virtues, 
 he chose to separate himself from his 
 kind, to forego their love, esteem, and 
 gratitude, that he might become their 
 gaze, their fear, their wonder ; and, for 
 this selfish, solitary good, parted with 
 peace and imperishable renown. 
 
 This insolent exaltation of himself 
 above the race to which he belonged 
 broke out in the beginning of his career. 
 His first success in Italy gave him the 
 tone of a master, and he never laid it 
 aside to his last hour. One can hardly 
 help being struck with the natural man- 
 ner with which he arrogates supremacy 
 in his conversation and proclamations. 
 We never feel as if he were putting on 
 a lordly air. In his proudest claims he 
 speaks from his own mind, and in native 
 language. His style is swollen, but 
 never strained, as if he were conscious 
 of playing a part above his real claims. 
 Even when he was foolish and impious 
 enough to arrogate miraculous powers 
 and a mission from God, his language 
 showed that he thought there was some- 
 thing in his character and exploits to 
 give a color to his blasphemous preten- 
 sions. The empire of the world seemed 
 to him to be in a measure his due, for 
 nothing short of it corresponded with 
 his conceptions of himself ; and he did 
 not use mere verbiage, but spoke a lan- 
 guage to which he gave some 'credit, 
 when he called his successive conquests 
 " the fulfilment of his destiny." 
 
 This spirit of self-exaggeration 
 wrought its own misery, and drew down 
 upon him terrible punishments ; and 
 this it did by vitiating and perverting 
 Ahis high powers. First, it diseased his 
 Jfine intellect, gave imagination the as- 
 Icendency over judgment, turned the 
 (inventiveness and fruitfulness of his
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 539 
 
 mind into rash, impatient, restless ener- 
 gies, and thus precipitated him into pro- 
 jects which, as the wisdom of his coun- 
 sellors pronounced, were fraught with 
 ruin. To a man whose vanity took him 
 out of the rank of human beings, no 
 foundation for reasoning was left. All 
 things seemed possible. His genius and 
 his fortune were not to be bounded by 
 the barriers which experience had as- 
 signed to human powers. Ordinary 
 rules did not apply to him. He even 
 found excitement and motives in obsta- 
 cles before which other men would have 
 wavered ; for these would enhance the 
 glory of triumph, and give a new thrill 
 to the admiration of the world. Accord- 
 ingly he again and again plunged into 
 the depths of an enemy's country, and 
 staked his whole fortune and power on 
 a single battle. To be rash was indeed 
 the necessary result of his self-exalting 
 and self-relying spirit ; for to dare what 
 no other man would dare, to accomplish 
 what no other man would attempt, was 
 the very way to display himself as a 
 superior being in his own and others' 
 eyes. To be impatient and restless 
 was another necessary issue of the attri- 
 butes we have described. ^The calm- 
 ness of wisdom was denied him./ He, 
 who was next to omnipotent in his own 
 eyes, and who delighted to strike and 
 astonish by sudden and conspicuous 
 operations, could not brook delay or 
 wait for the slow operations of time. A 
 work, which was to be gradually ma- 
 tured by the joint agency of various 
 causes, could not suit a man who wanted 
 to be felt as the great, perhaps only, 
 cause ; who wished to stamp his own 
 agency in the most glaring characters on 
 whatever he performed ; and who hoped 
 to rival, by a sudden energy, the steady 
 and progressive works of nature. Hence 
 so many of his projects were never 
 completed, or only announced. They 
 swelled, however, the tide of flattery, 
 which ascribed to him the completion of 
 what was not yet begun, whilst his rest- 
 less spirit, rushing to new enterprises, 
 forgot its pledges, and left the promised 
 prodigies of Jiis creative genius to exist 
 only in the records of adulation. Thus 
 the rapid and inventive intellect of 
 Bonaparte was depraved, and failed to 
 achieve a growing and durable greatness. 
 It reared, indeed, a vast and imposing 
 structure, but disproportioned. disjointed, 
 
 without strength, without foundations. 
 One strong blast was enough to shake 
 and shatter it, nor could his genius up- 
 hold it. Happy would it have been for 
 his fame had he been buried in its 
 ruins ! 
 
 One of the striking properties of 
 Bonaparte's character was decision, and 
 this, as we have already seen, was per- 
 verted, by the spirit of self-exaggeration, 
 into an inflexible stubbornness, which 
 counsel could not enlighten, nor circum- 
 stances bend. Having taken the first 
 step, he pressed onward. His purpose 
 he wished others to regard as a law of 
 nature, or a decree of destiny. It 
 must be accomplished. Resistance but 
 strengthened it ; and so often had resist- 
 ance been overborne, that he felt as if 
 his unconquerable will, joined to his 
 matchless intellect, could vanquish all 
 things. On such a mind the warnings 
 of human wisdom and of Providence 
 were spent in vain ; and the Man of 
 Destiny lived to teach others, if not 
 himself, the weakness and folly of that 
 all-defying decision which arrays the 
 purposes of a mortal with the immuta- 
 bleness of the counsels of the Most 
 High. 
 
 A still more fatal influence of the 
 spirit of self-exaggeration which charac- 
 terized Bonaparte remains to be named. 
 It depraved to an extraordinary degree 
 his moral sense. It did not obliterate 
 artogelher the ideas of duty, but, by a 
 singular perversion, it impelled him to 
 apply them exclusively to others. It 
 never seemed to enter his thought that 
 he was subject to the great obligations 
 of morality which all others are called to 
 respect. He was an exempted being. 
 Whatever stood in his way to empire he 
 was privileged to remove. Treaties 
 only bound his enemies. No nation 
 had rights but his own France. He 
 claimed a monopoly in perfidy and vio- 
 lence. He was not naturally cruel ; but, 
 when human life obstructed his progress, 
 it was a lawful prey, and murder and 
 assassination occasioned as little com- 
 punction as war. The most luminous 
 exposition of his moral code was given 
 in his counsels to the King of Holland. 
 " Never forget that, in the situation to 
 which my political system and the inter- 
 ests of my empire have called you, your 
 first duty is towards ME, your second 
 towards France. All your other duties,
 
 540 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 _ , 
 v I 
 
 (even those towards the people whom I 
 have called you to govern, rank after 
 these." To his own mind he was the 
 source and centre of duty. He was too 
 peculiar and exalted to be touched by 
 that vulgar stain called guilt. Crimes 
 ceased to be such when perpetrated by 
 himself. Accordingly he always speaks 
 of his transgressions^asof indifferent 
 
 I acts. He' never imagined That they tar- . 
 
 I mshed his glory, or diminished his claim 
 on the homage of the world. In St. 
 Helena, though talking perpetually of 
 himself, and often reviewing his guilty 
 career, we are not aware that a single 
 compunction escapes him. He speaks 
 of his life as calmly as if it had been 
 consecrated to duty and beneficence, 
 whilst in the same breath he has the 
 audacity to reproach unsparingly the 
 faithlessness of almost every individual 
 and nation with whom he had been con- 
 nected. We doubt whether history fur- 
 nishes so striking an example of the 
 moral blindness and obduracy to which 
 an unbounded egotism exposes and 
 abandons the mind. 
 
 His spirit of self-exaggeration was 
 seen in his openness to adulation. 
 Policy indeed prompted him to put his 
 praises into the mouths of the venal 
 slaves, who administered his despotism. 
 But flattery would not have been per- 
 mitted to swell into exaggerations, now 
 nauseous, now ludicrous, and now im- 
 pious, if, in the bosom of the chief, 
 there had not lodged a flatterer who 
 sounded a louder note of praise than all 
 around him. He was remarkably sensi- 
 tive to opinion, and resented as a wrong 
 the suppression of his praises. The 
 press of all countries was watched, and 
 free states were called upon to curb it 
 for daring to take liberties with his 
 name. Even in books published in 
 France on general topics, he expected a 
 recognition of his authority. Works of 
 talent were suppressed, when their 
 authors refused to offer incense at the 
 new shrine. He resolved, indeed, to 
 stamp his name on the literature, as on 
 the legislation, policy, warfare of his age, 
 and to compel genius, whose pages sur- 
 vive statues, columns, and empires, to 
 take a place among his tributaries. 
 
 We close our view of Bonaparte's 
 character by saying that his original 
 propensities, released from restraint, 
 and pampered by indulgence, to a de- 
 
 gree seldom allowed to mortals, grew 
 up into a spirit of despotism as stern 
 and absolute as ever usurped the hu- 
 man heart. The love of power and su- 
 premacy absorbed, consumed him. No 
 other passion. nodornestic_ attachment, 
 no private friendship, no love of pleas- 
 ure, no., relish tor*1etters oTthe arts, no 
 human sympathy, no"5ujman_jweakness, 
 dividecLJiis mmd with the passion^For 
 dominion and lor dazzling manifesta- 
 tions of his nower. Before this, duty, 
 Honor, love, humanity, fell prostrate. 
 Josephine, we are told, was dear to him ; 
 but the devoted wife, who had stood 
 firm and faithful in the day of his doubt- 
 ful fortunes, was cast off in his pros- 
 perity, to make room for a stranger, 
 who might be more subservient to his 
 power. He was affectionate, we are 
 told, to his brothers and mother ; but 
 his brothers, the moment they ceased 
 to be his tools, were disgraced ; and his 
 mother, it is said, was not allowed to 
 sit in the presence of her imperial son.* 
 He was sometimes softened, we are told, 
 by the sight of the field of battle strewn 
 with the wounded and dead. But, if 
 the Moloch of his ambition claimed 
 new heaps of slain to-morrow, it was 
 never denied. With all his sensibility, 
 he gave millions to the sword with as 
 little compunction as he would have 
 brushed away so many insects which 
 had infested his march. To him all 
 human will, desire, power, were to bend. 
 His superiority none might question. 
 He insulted the fallen, who had con- 
 tracted the guilt of opposing his prog- 
 ress ; and not even woman's loveliness, 
 and the dignity of a queen, could give 
 shelter from his contumely. His allies 
 were his vassals, nor was their vassalage 
 concealed. Too lofty to use the arts 
 of conciliation, preferring command to 
 persuasion, overbearing, and all-grasp- 
 ing, he spread distrust, exasperation, fear, 
 and revenge through Europe ; and, when 
 the day of retribution came, the old an- 
 tipathies and mutual jealousies of nations 
 were swallowed up in one burning pur- 
 pose to prostrate the common tyrant, the 
 universal foe. 
 
 Such was Napoleon Bonaparte. But 
 some will say he was still a great man. 
 This we mean not to deny. But we 
 
 * See " America," page 57. We should not give 
 this very unamiable trait of Napoleon's domestic char- 
 acter, but on authority which we cannot question.
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 541 
 
 would have it understood that there are 
 various kinds or orders of greatness, 
 and that the highest did not belong to 
 Bonaparte. There are different orders 
 (ofgreatness. "Among these the first 
 fankTs unquestionably due to moral 
 greatness, or magnanimity ; to thaVsub- 
 lime energy by which the soul, smitten 
 with the love of virtue, binds itself in- 
 ^dissolubly, for life and for death, to truth 
 and duty ; espouses as its own the in- 
 terests of human nature ; scorns all 
 meanness and defies all peril ; hears in 
 its own conscience a voice louder than 
 threatenings and thunders ; withstands 
 all the powers of the universe, which 
 would sever it from the cause of free- 
 dom and religion ; reposes an unfalter- 
 ing trust in God in the darkest hour, 
 and is ever " ready to be offered up " 
 on the altar of its country or of man- 
 kind. Of this moral greatness, which 
 throws all other forms of greatness into 
 obscurity, we see not a trace ig Na.pn- 
 leon. Though clothed with thepower 
 of-a^god, the thought of consecrating 
 himself to the introduction of a new and 
 higher era, to the exaltation of the charac- 
 ter and condition of his race, seems never 
 to have dawned on his mind. The spirit 
 of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice 
 seems not to have waged a moment's 
 war with self-will and ambition. His 
 ruling passions, indeed, were singularly 
 at variance with magnanimity. Moral 
 greatness has too much simplicity, is 
 too unostentatious, too self-subsistent, 
 and enters into others' interests with 
 too much heartiness, to live an hour 
 for what Napoleon always lived, to 
 make itself the theme, and gaze, and 
 wonder of a dazzled world. Next to 
 moral, comes intellectual greatness, or 
 genius in the highest sense of that word ; 
 and by this we mean that sublime capac- 
 ity of thought through which the soul, 
 smitten with the love of the true and 
 the beautiful, essays to comprehend the 
 universe, soars into the heavens, pene- 
 trates the earth, penetrates itself, ques- 
 tions the past, anticipates the future, 
 traces out the general and all-compre- 
 hending laws of nature, binds together 
 by innumerable affinities and relations 
 all the objects of its knowledge, rises 
 from the finite and transient to the in- 
 finite and the everlasting, frames to 
 itself from its own fulness lovelier and 
 sublimer forms than it beholds, discerns 
 
 the harmonies between the world within 
 and the world without us, and finds in )L 
 every region of the universe types and V" 
 interpreters of its own deep mysteries 
 and glorious inspirations. This is the 
 greatness which belongs to philosophers, 
 and to the master-spirits in poetry and 
 the fine arts. Next comes the great- 
 ness of action; and by this we mean 
 the subhTW power of conceiving bold 
 and extensive plans ; of constructing 
 and bringing to bear on a mighty object 
 a complicated machinery of means, en- 
 ergies, and arrangements, and of accom- 
 plishing great outward effects. To this 
 head belongs the greatness of Bonaparte, 
 and that he possessed it we need not 
 prove, and none will be hardy enough 
 to deny. A man who raised himself 
 from obscurity to a throne, who changed 
 the face of the world, who made him- 
 self felt through powerful and civilized 
 nations, who sent the terror of his name 
 across seas and oceans, whose will was 
 pronounced and feared as destiny, whose 
 donatives were crowns, whose ante- 
 chamber was thronged by submissive 
 princes, who broke down the awful 
 barrier of the Alps and made them a 
 highway, and whose fame was spread 
 beyond the boundaries of civilization 
 to the steppes of the Cossack, and the 
 deserts of the Arab ; a man, who t has 
 left this record of himself in history, 
 has taken out of our hands the question 
 whether he shall be called great. All 
 must concede to him a sublime power 
 of action, an energy equal to great ef- 
 fects. 
 
 We are not disposed, however, to con- 
 sider him as pre-eminent eyen in this 
 order of greatness. War was his chief 
 sphere. He gained his ascendency in 
 Europe by the sword. But war is not 
 the field for the highest active talent, 
 and Napoleon, we suspect, was conscious 
 of this truth. The glory of being the 
 greatest general of his age would not 
 have satisfied him. He would have 
 scorned to take his place by the side of 
 Marlborough or Turenne. It was as the 
 founder of an empire, which threatened 
 for a time to comprehend the world, and 
 which demanded other talents besides 
 that of war, that he challenged unri- 
 valled fame. And here we question his 
 claim. Here we cannot award him su- 
 premacy. The project of universal 
 empire, however imposing, was not orig-
 
 542 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 inal. The revolutionary governments 
 of France had adopted it before ; nor 
 can we consider it as a sure indication 
 of greatness, when we remember that 
 the weak and vain mind of Louis the 
 Fourteenth was large enough to cherish 
 it. The question is, Did Napoleon bring 
 to this design the capacity of advancing 
 it by bold and original conceptions, 
 adapted to an age of civilization, and of 
 singular intellectual and moral excite- 
 ment ? Did he discover new founda- 
 tions of power ? Did he frame new 
 bonds of union for subjugated nations ? 
 Did he discover or originate some com- 
 mon interests by which his empire might 
 be held together ? Did he breathe a 
 spirit which could supplant the old na- 
 tional attachments, or did he invent any 
 substitutes for those vulgar instruments 
 of force and corruption which any and 
 every usurper would have used ? Never 
 in the records of time did the world fur- 
 nish such materials to work with, such 
 means of modelling nations afresh, of 
 building up a new power, of introducing 
 a new era, as did Europe at the period 
 of the French Revolution. Never was 
 the human mind so capable of new im- 
 pulses. And did Napoleon prove him- 
 self equal to the condition of the world ? 
 Do we detect one original conception in 
 his jneans of universal empire ? Did he 
 seize on the enthusiasm of his age, that 
 powerful principle, more efficient than 
 arms or policy, and bend it to his pur- 
 pose ? What did he do but follow the 
 beaten track, but apply force and fraud 
 in their very coarsest forms ? Napoleon 
 showed a vulgar mind when he assumed 
 self-interest as the sole spring of human 
 action. With the sword in one hand 
 and bribes in the other, he imagined 
 himself absolute master of the human 
 mind. The strength of moral, national, 
 and domestic feeling he could not com- 
 prehend. The finest and, after all, the 
 most powerful elements in human nature 
 hardly entered into his conceptions of 
 it : and how, then, could he have estab- 
 lished a durable power over the human 
 race ? We want little more to show his 
 want of originality and comprehensive- 
 ness, as the founder of an empire, than 
 the simple fact that he chose as his 
 chief counsellors Talleyrand and Fouchd, 
 names which speak for themselves. We 
 may judge of the greatness of the mas- 
 ter-spirit from the minds which he found 
 
 most congenial with his own. In war 
 Bonaparte was great, for he was bold, 
 original, and creative. Beyond the camp 
 he indeed showed talent, but not supe- 
 rior to that of other eminent men. 
 
 There have been two circumstances 
 which have done much to disarm or 
 weaken the strong moral reprobation 
 with which Bonaparte ought to have 
 been regarded, and which we deem wor- 
 thy of notice. We refer to the wrongs 
 which he is supposed to have suffered 
 at St. Helena, and to the unworthy use 
 which the Allied Powers have made of 
 their triumph over Napoleon. First, his 
 supposed wrongs at St. Helena have 
 excited a sympathy in his behalf which 
 has thrown a veil over his crim'es. We 
 are not disposed to deny that an unwar- 
 rantable, because unnecessary, severity 
 was exercised towards Bonaparte. We 
 think it not very creditable to the British 
 government that it tortured a sensitive 
 captive by refusing him a title which he 
 had long worn. We think that not only 
 religion and humanity but self-respect 
 forbids us to inflict a single useless pang 
 on a fallen foe. But we should be weak 
 Indeed if the moral judgments and feel- 
 ings with which Napoleon's career ought 
 to be reviewed, should give place to 
 sympathy with the sufferings by which 
 it was closed. With regard to the scru- 
 ples, which not a few have expressed, as 
 to the right of banishing him to St. He- 
 lena, we can only say that our con- 
 sciences are not yet refined to such 
 exquisite delicacy as to be at all sensi- 
 tive on this particular. We admire 
 nothing more in Bonaparte than the 
 effrontery with which he claimed pro- 
 tection from the laws of nations. That 
 a man, who had set these laws at open 
 defiance, should fly to them for shelter ; 
 that the oppressor of the world should 
 claim its sympathy as an oppressed man, 
 and that his claim should find advocates ; 
 these things are to be set down among 
 the extraordinary events of this extraor- 
 dinary age. Truly the human race is in 
 a pitiable state. It may be trampled on, 
 spoiled, loaded like a beast of burden, 
 made the prey of rapacity, insolence, 
 and the sword ; but it must not touch a 
 hair, or disturb the pillow, of one of its 
 oppressors, unless it can find chapter 
 and verse in the code of national law to 
 authorize its rudeness towards the priv- 
 ileged offender. For ourselves, we should
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 543 
 
 rejoice to see every tyrant, whether a 
 usurper or hereditary prince, fastened to 
 a lonely rock in the ocean. Whoever 
 gives clear, undoubted proof that he is 
 prepared and sternly resolved to make 
 the earth a slaughter-house, and to crush 
 every will adverse to his own, ought to 
 be caged like a wild beast ; and to re- 
 quire mankind to proceed against him 
 according to written laws and precedents, 
 as if he were a private citizen in a quiet 
 court of justice, is just as rational as to 
 require a man, in imminent peril from an 
 assassin, to wait and prosecute his mur- 
 derer according to the most protracted 
 forms of law. There are great solemn 
 rights of nature, which precede laws, and 
 on which law is founded. There are 
 great exigencies in human affairs, which 
 speak for themselves, and need no prec- 
 edent to teach the right path. There 
 are awful periods in the history of our 
 race, which do not belong to its ordinary 
 state, and which are not to be governed 
 and judged by ordinary rules. Such a 
 period was that when Bonaparte, by 
 infraction of solemn engagements, had 
 thrown himself into France, and con- 
 vulsed all Europe ; and they who con- 
 found this with the ordinary events of 
 history, and see in Bonaparte but an 
 ordinary foe to the peace and indepen- 
 dence of nations, have certainly very 
 different intellects from our own. 
 
 We confess, too, that we are not only 
 unable to see the wrong done to Napo- 
 leon in sending him to St. Helena, but 
 that we cannot muster up much sym- 
 pathy for the inconveniences and pri- 
 vations which he endured there. Our 
 sympathies in this particular are way- 
 ward and untractable. When we would 
 carry them to that solitary island, and 
 fasten them on the illustrious victim of 
 British cruelty, they will not tarry there, 
 but take their flight across the Mediter- 
 ranean to Jaffa, and across the Atlantic 
 to the platform where the Duke d'En- 
 ghien was shot, to the prison of Tous- 
 saint, and to fields of battle where 
 thousands at his bidding lay weltering 
 in blood. When we strive to fix our 
 thoughts upon the sufferings of the in- 
 jured hero, other and more terrible suf- 
 ferings, of which he was the cause, rush 
 upon us ; and his complaints, however 
 loud and angry, are drowned by groans 
 and execrations, which fill our ears from 
 every region which he traversed. We 
 
 have no tears to spare for fallen great- 
 ness, when that greatness was founded 
 in crime, and reared by force and perfidy. 
 We reserve them for those on whose 
 ruin it rose. We keep our sympathies 
 for our race, for human nature in its 
 humbler forms, for the impoverished 
 peasant, the widowed mother, the vio- 
 lated virgin ; and are even perverse 
 enough to rejoice that the ocean has 
 a prison-house where the author of 
 those miseries may be safely lodged. 
 Bonaparte's history is to us too solemn, 
 the wrongs for which humanity and free- 
 dom arraign him are too flagrant, to allow 
 us to play the part of sentimentalists 
 around his grave at St. Helena. We 
 leave this to the more refined age in 
 which we live ; and we do so in the 
 hope that an age is coming of less ten- 
 der mould, but of loftier, sterner feeling, 
 and of deeper sympathy with the whole 
 human race. Should our humble page 
 then live, we trust, with an undoubting 
 faith, that the uncompromising indigna- 
 tion with which we plead the cause of 
 our oppressed and insulted nature will 
 not be set down to the account of vin- 
 dictiveness and hardness of heart. 
 
 We observed that the moral indigna- 
 tion of many towards Bonaparte had 
 been impaired or turned away, not only 
 by his supposed wrongs, but by the un- 
 worthy use which his conquerors made 
 of their triumph. We are told that, bad 
 as was his despotism, the Holy Alliance 
 is a worse one ; and that Napoleon was 
 less a scourge than the present coalition 
 of the continental monarchs, framed for 
 the systematic suppression of freedom. 
 By such reasoning, his crimes are 
 cloaked, and his fall is made a theme of 
 lamentation. It is not one of the small- 
 est errors and sins of the Allied Sov- 
 ereigns that they have contrived, by 
 their base policy, to turn the resent- 
 ments and moral displeasure of men 
 from the usurper upon themselves. For 
 these sovereigns we have no defence to 
 offer. We yield to none in detestation 
 of the Holy Alliance, profanely so called. 
 To us its doctrines are as false and pes- 
 tilent as any broached by Jacobinism. 
 The Allied Monarchs are adding to the 
 other wrongs of despots that of flagrant 
 ingratitude : of ingratitude to the gen- 
 erous and brave nations to whom they 
 owe their thrones, whose spirit of inde- 
 pendence and patriotism, and whose
 
 544 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 hatred of the oppressor, contributed 
 more than standing armies to raise up 
 the fallen, and to strengthen the falling 
 monarchies of Europe. Be it never for- 
 
 fotten in the records of despotism, let 
 istory record it on her most durable 
 tablet, that the first use made by the 
 principal continental sovereigns of their 
 regained or confirmed power, was to 
 conspire against the hopes and rights 
 of the nations by whom they had been 
 saved ; to combine the military power 
 of Europe against free institutions, 
 against the press, against the spirit of 
 liberty and patriotism which had sprung 
 up in the glorious struggle with Napo- 
 leon, against the right of the people to 
 exert an influence on the governments 
 by which their dearest interests were to 
 be controlled. Never be it forgotten 
 that such was the honor of sovereigns, 
 such their requital for the blood which 
 had been shed freely in their defence. 
 Freedom and humanity send up a sol- 
 emn and prevailing cry against them to 
 that tribunal where kings and subjects 
 are soon to stand as equals. 
 
 But still we should be strangely blind, 
 if we were not to feel that the fall of 
 Napoleon was a blessing to the world. 
 Who can look, for example, at France, 
 and not see there a degree of freedom 
 which could never have grown up under 
 the terrible frown of the usurper ? True, 
 Bonaparte's life, though it seemed a 
 charmed one, must at length have end- 
 ed ; and we are told that then his em- 
 pire would have been broken, and that 
 the general crash, by some inexplicable 
 process, would have given birth to a 
 more extensive and durable liberty than 
 can now be hoped. But such anticipa- 
 tions seem to us to be built on a strange 
 inattention to the nature and inevitable 
 consequences of Napoleon's power. It 
 was wholly a military power. He was 
 literally turning Europe into a camp, 
 and drawing its best talent into one 
 occupation, war. Thus Europe was 
 retracing its steps to those ages of 
 calamity and darkness, when the only 
 law was the sword. The progress of 
 centuries, which had consisted chiefly 
 in the substitution of intelligence, public 
 opinion, and other mild and rational 
 influences, for brutal force, was to be 
 reversed. At Bonaparte's death, his 
 empire must, indeed, have been dis- 
 solved ; but military chiefs, like Alex- 
 
 ander's lieutenants, would have divided 
 it. The sword alone would have shaped 
 its future communities ; and, after years 
 of desolation and bloodshed, Europe 
 would have found, not repose, but a 
 respite, an armed truce, under warriors 
 whose only title to empire would have 
 been their own good blades, and the 
 weight of whose thrones would have been 
 upheld by military force alone. Amidst 
 such convulsions, during which the press 
 would have been everywhere fettered, 
 and the military spirit would have tri- 
 umphed over and swallowed up the 
 spirit and glory of letters and liberal 
 arts, we greatly fear that the human 
 intellect would have lost its present im- 
 pulse, its thirst for progress, and would 
 have fallen back towards barbarism. 
 Let not the friends of freedom bring 
 dishonor on themselves or desert their 
 cause by instituting comparisons be- 
 tween Napoleon and legitimate sover- 
 eigns, which may be construed into 
 eulogies on the former. For ourselves, 
 we have no sympathy with tyranny, 
 whether it bear the name of usurpa- 
 tion or legitimacy. We are not plead- 
 ing the cause of the Allied Sovereigns. 
 In our judgment, they have contracted 
 the very guilt against which they have 
 pretended to combine. In our appre- 
 hension, a conspiracy against the rights 
 of the human race is as foul a crime as 
 rebellion against the rights of sover- 
 eigns ; nor is there less of treason in 
 warring against public freedom than 
 in assailing royal power. Still we are 
 bound in truth to confess that the Allied 
 Sovereigns are not to be ranked with 
 Bonaparte, whose design against the 
 independence of nations and the liber- 
 ties of the world, in this age of civiliza- 
 tion, liberal thinking, and Christian 
 knowledge, is in our estimation the 
 most nefarious enterprise recorded in 
 history. 
 
 The series of events which it has been 
 our province to review offers subjects of 
 profound thought and solemn instruction 
 to the moralist and politician. We have 
 retraced it with many painful feelings. 
 It shows us a great people, who had 
 caught some indistinct glimpses of free- 
 dom, and of a nobler and a happier 
 political constitution, betrayed by their 
 leaders, and brought back, by a military 
 despot, to heavier chains than they had 
 broken. We see with indignation one
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 545 
 
 man a man like ourselves subject- 
 ing whole nations to his absolute rule. 
 It is this wrong and insult to our race 
 which has chiefly moved us. Had a 
 storm, of God's ordination, passed over 
 Europe, prostrating its capitals, sweep- 
 ing off its villages, burying millions in 
 ruins, we should have wept, we should 
 have trembled. But in this there would 
 have been only wretchedness. Now we 
 also see debasement. To us there is 
 something radically and increasingly 
 shocking in the thought of one man's 
 will becoming a law to his race ; in the 
 thought of multitudes, of vast communi- 
 ties, surrendering conscience, intellect, 
 their affections, their rights, their inter- 
 ests to the stern mandate of a fellow- 
 creature. When we see one word of a 
 frail man on the throne of France tear- 
 ing a hundred thousand sons from their 
 homes, breaking asunder the sacred ties 
 of domestic life, sentencing myriads' of 
 the young to make murder their calling 
 and rapacity their means of support, and 
 extorting from nations their treasures 
 to extend this ruinous sway, we are 
 ready to ask ourselves, Is not this a 
 dream ? And when the sad reality 
 comes home to us, we blush for a race 
 which can stoop to such an abject lot. 
 At length, indeed, we see the tyrant 
 humbled, stripped of power ; but stripped 
 by those who, in the main, are not un- 
 willing to play the despot on a narrower 
 scale, and to break down the spirit of 
 nations under the same iron sway. 
 
 How is it that tyranny has thus tri- 
 umphed ? that the hopes with which we 
 greeted the French Revolution have been 
 crushed ? that a usurper plucked up the 
 last roots of the tree of liberty, and 
 planted despotism in its place ? The 
 chief cause is not far to seek, nor can 
 it be too often urged on the friends of 
 freedom. France failed through the 
 want of that moral preparation for lib- 
 erty, without which the blessing cannot 
 be secured. She was not ripe for the 
 good she sought. She was too corrupt 
 for freedom. France had indeed to 
 contend with great political ignorance ; 
 but had not ignorance been reinforced 
 by deep moral defect, she might have 
 won her way to free institutions. Her 
 character forbade her to be free ; and it 
 now seems strange that we could ever 
 have expected her to secure this boon. 
 How could we believe that a liberty of 
 
 which that heartless scoffer, Voltaire, 
 was a chief apostle, could have tri- 
 umphed ? Most of the preachers of 
 French liberty had thrown off all the 
 convictions which ennoble the mind. 
 Man's connection with God they broke, 
 for they declared that there was no God 
 in whom to trust in the great struggle 
 for liberty. Human immortality that 
 truth which is the seed of all greatness 
 they derided. To their philosophy, 
 man was a creature of chance, a com- 
 pound of matter, an ephemeron, a worm, 
 who was soon to rot and perish for ever. 
 What insanity was it to expect that such 
 men were to work out the emancipation 
 of their race ! that in such hands the 
 hopes and dearest rights of humanity 
 were secure ! Liberty was tainted by 
 their touch, polluted by their breath, 
 and yet we trusted that it was to rise in 
 health and glory from their embrace. 
 We looked to men who openly founded 
 morality on private interest for the sac- 
 rifices, the devotion, the heroic virtue 
 which Freedom always demands from 
 her assertors. 
 
 The great cause of the discomfiture 
 of the late European struggle for liberty 
 is easily understood by an American, 
 who recurs to the history of his own 
 revolution. This issued prosperously, 
 because it was begun and was conducted 
 under the auspices of private and public 
 virtue. Our liberty did not come to us 
 by accident, nor was it the gift of a few 
 leaders ; but its seeds were sown plen- 
 tifully in the minds of the whole people. 
 It was rooted in the conscience and 
 reason of the nation. It was the growth 
 of deliberate convictions and generous 
 principles liberally diffused. We had 
 no Paris, no metropolis, which a few 
 leaders swayed, and which sent forth 
 its influences, like "a mighty heart," 
 through dependent and subservient prov- 
 inces. The country was all heart. The 
 living principle pervaded the community, 
 and every village added strength to the 
 solemn purpose of being free. We have 
 here an explanation of a striking fact in 
 the history of our revolution, we mean 
 the want or absence of that description 
 of great men whom we meet in other 
 countries ; men who, by their distinct 
 and single agency, and by their splendid 
 deeds, determine a nation's fate. There 
 was too much greatness in the American 
 people to admit this o ver shadowing great- 
 
 35
 
 546 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 ness of leaders. Accordingly, the United 
 States had no liberator, no political 
 saviour. Washington, indeed, conferred 
 on us great blessings. But Washington 
 was not a hero, in the common sense of 
 that word. We never spoke of him as 
 the French did of Bonaparte, never 
 talked of his eagle-eyed, irresistible 
 genius, as if this were to work out our 
 safety. We never lost our self-respect. 
 We felt that, under God, we were to be 
 free through our own courage, energy, 
 and wisdom, under the animating and 
 guiding influences of this great and good 
 mind. Washington served us chiefly by 
 his sublime moral qualities. To him 
 belonged the proud distinction of being 
 the leader in a revolution, without awak- 
 ening one doubt or solicitude as to the 
 spotless purity of his purpose. His was 
 the glory of being the brightest mani- 
 festation of the spirit which reigned in 
 his country ; and in this way he became 
 a source of energy, a bond of union, the 
 centre of an enlightened people's confi- 
 dence. In such a revolution as that of 
 France, Washington would have been 
 nothing ; for that sympathy which sub- 
 sisted between him and his fellow-citi- 
 zens, and which was the secret of his 
 power, would have been wanting. By 
 an instinct which is unerring, we call 
 Washington, with grateful reverence, 
 the Father of his country, but not its 
 saviour. A people which wants a sav- 
 iour, which does not possess an earnest 
 and pledge of freedom in its own heart, 
 is not yet ready to be free. 
 
 A great question here offers itself, at 
 which we can only glance. If a moral 
 preparation is required for freedom how, 
 it is asked, can Europe ever be free ? 
 How, under the despotisms which now 
 crush the continent, can nations grow 
 ripe for liberty ? Is it to be hoped that 
 men will learn, in the school of slavery, 
 the spirit and virtues which, we are told, 
 can alone work out their deliverance ? 
 In the absolute governments of Europe, 
 the very instruments of forming an en- 
 lightened and generous love of freedom 
 are bent into the service of tyranny. 
 The press is an echo of the servile doc- 
 trines of the court. The schools and 
 seminaries of education are employed to 
 taint the young mind with the maxims of 
 despotism. Even Christianity is turned 
 into a preacher of legitimacy, and its 
 temples are desecrated by the abject 
 
 teaching of unconditional submission. 
 How, then, is the spirit of a wise and 
 moral freedom to be generated and dif- 
 fused ? We have stated the difficulty 
 in its full force ; for nothing is gained 
 by winking out of sight the tremendous 
 obstacles with which liberal principles 
 and institutions must contend. We have 
 not time at present to answer the great 
 question now proposed. We will only 
 say that we do not despair ; and we will 
 briefly suggest what seems to us the 
 chief expedient by which the cause of 
 freedom, obstructed as it is, must now 
 be advanced. In despotic countries, 
 those men whom God has inspired with 
 lofty sentiments and a thirst for freedom 
 (and such are spread through all Europe) 
 must, in their individual capacity, com- 
 municate themselves to individual minds. 
 The cause of liberty on the continent 
 cannot now be forwarded by the action 
 of 1nen and masses. But in every coun- 
 try there are those who feel their deg- 
 radation and their wrongs, who abhor 
 tyranny as the chief obstruction of the 
 progress of nations, and who are willing 
 and prepared to suffer for liberty. Let 
 such men spread around them their own 
 spirit, by every channel which a jealous 
 despotism has not closed. Let them 
 give utterance to sentiments of magna- 
 nimity in private conference, and still 
 more by the press ; for there are modes 
 of clothing and expressing kindling truths 
 which, it is presumed, no censorship 
 would dare to prescribe. Let them es- 
 pecially teach that great truth, which is 
 the seminal principle of a virtuous free- 
 dom, and the very foundation of morals 
 and religion, we mean the doctrine, 
 that conscience, the voice of God in 
 every heart, is to be listened to above 
 all other guides and lords ; that there 
 is a sovereign within us, clothed with 
 more awful powers and rights than any 
 outward king ; and that he alone is 
 worthy the name of a man who gives 
 himself up solemnly, deliberately, to 
 obey this internal guide through peril 
 and in death. This is the spirit of free- 
 dom ; for no man is wholly and immu- 
 tably free but he who has broken every 
 outward yoke, that he may obey his own 
 deliberate conscience. This is the les- 
 son to be taught alike in republics and 
 despotisms. As yet it has but dawned 
 on the world. Its full application re- 
 mains to be developed. They who have
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 547 
 
 been baptized, by a true experience, into 
 this vital and all- comprehending truth, 
 must everywhere be its propagators ; 
 and he who makes one convert of it 
 near a despot's throne, has broken one 
 link of that despot's chain. It is chiefly 
 in the diffusion of this loftiness of moral 
 sentiment that we place our hope of 
 freedom ; and we have a hope, because 
 we know that there are those who have 
 drunk into this truth, and are ready, 
 when God calls, to be its martyrs. We 
 do not despair, for there is a contagion 
 we would rather say a divine power 
 in sublime moral principle. This is our 
 chief trust. We have less and less hope 
 from force and bloodshed, as the instru- 
 ments of working out man's redemption 
 from slavery. History shows us not a 
 few princes who have gained or strength- 
 ened thrones by assassination or war. 
 But*freedom, which is another name for 
 justice, honor, and benevolence, scorns 
 to use the private dagger, and wields 
 with trembling the public sword. The 
 true conspiracy before which tyranny is 
 to fall, is that of virtuous, elevated minds, 
 which shall consecrate themselves to the 
 work of awakening in men a conscious- 
 ness of the rights, powers, purposes, and 
 greatness of human nature ; which shall 
 oppose to force the heroism of intellect 
 and conscience, and the spirit of self- 
 sacrifice. We believe that, at this mo- 
 ment, there are virtue and wisdom 
 enough to shake despotic thrones, were 
 they as confiding as they should be in 
 God and in their own might, and were 
 they to pour themselves through every 
 channel into the public mind. 
 
 We close our present labors with com- 
 mending to the protection of Almighty 
 God the cause of human freedom and 
 improvement. We adore the wisdom 
 and goodness of his providence, which 
 has ordained that liberty shall be wrought 
 out by the magnanimity, courage, and 
 sacrifices of men. We bless him for the 
 glorious efforts which this cause has 
 already called forth ; for the intrepid 
 defenders who have gathered round it, 
 and whose fame is a most precious leg- 
 acy of past ages ; for the toils and suf- 
 ferings by which it has been upheld ; 
 for the awakening and thrilling voice 
 which comes to us from the dungeon 
 and scaffold, where the martyrs of lib- 
 erty have pined or bled. We bless him 
 that even tyranny has been overruled 
 
 for good, by exciting a resistance which 
 has revealed to us the strength of virt- 
 uous principle in the human soul. We 
 beseech this Great and Good Parent, 
 from whom all pure influences proceed, 
 to enkindle, by his quickening breath, 
 an unquenchable love of virtue and free- 
 dom in those favored men whom he 
 hath enriched and signalized by eminent 
 gifts and powers, that they may fulfil 
 the high function of inspiring their fel- 
 low-beings with a consciousness of the 
 birthright and destination of human nat- 
 ure. Wearied with violence and blood, 
 we beseech him to subvert oppressive 
 governments by the gentle, yet awful, 
 power of truth and virtue ; by the teach- 
 ings of uncorrupted Christianity ; by the 
 sovereignty of enlightened opinion ; by 
 the triumph of sentiments of magnanim- 
 ity ; by mild, rational, and purifying in- 
 fluences, which will raise the spirit of 
 the enslaved, and which sovereigns will 
 be unable to withstand. For this peace- 
 ful revolution we earnestly pray. If, 
 however, after long, forbearing, and un- 
 availing applications to justice and hu- 
 manity, the friends of freedom should 
 be summoned, by the voice of God 
 within, and by his providence abroad, 
 to vindicate their rights with other arms, 
 to do a sterner work, to repel despotic 
 force by force, may they not forget, 
 even in this hour of provocation, the 
 spirit which their high calling demands, 
 Let them take the sword with awe, as 
 those on whom a holy function is de- 
 volved. Let them regard themselves as 
 ministers and delegates of Him whose 
 dearest attribute is Mercy. Let them 
 not stain their sacred cause by one cruel 
 deed, by the infliction of one needless 
 pang, by shedding without cause one 
 drop of human blood. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 IN a former number of our work * we 
 reviewed the life and character of Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte. We resume the subject, 
 not for the purpose of speaking more 
 largely of the individual, but that we 
 may consider more distinctly the princi- 
 ple of action which governed him, and 
 of which he was a remarkable manifes- 
 tation. 
 
 Power was the idol to which Bona- 
 
 Christian Examiner, Vol. IV. No. V.
 
 548 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 parte sacrificed himself. To gain su- 
 premacy and unlimited sway, to subject 
 men to his will, was his chief, settled, 
 unrelenting purpose. This passion drew 
 and converted into itself the whole en- 
 ergy of his nature. The love of power, 
 that common principle, explains, in a 
 great degree, his character and life. His 
 crimes did not spring from any impulse 
 peculiar to himself. With all his con- 
 tempt of the human race, he still be- 
 longed to it. It is true both of the 
 brightest virtues and the blackest vices, 
 though they seem to set apart their pos- 
 sessors from the rest of mankind, that 
 the seeds of them are sown in every 
 human breast. The man who attracts 
 and awes us by his intellectual and moral 
 grandeur, is only an example and antici- 
 pation of the improvements for which 
 every mind was endowed with reason 
 and conscience ; and the worst man has 
 become such by the perversion and ex- 
 cess of desires and appetites which he 
 shares with his whole race. Napoleon 
 had no element of character which others 
 do not possess. It was his misery and 
 guilt that he was usurped and absorbed 
 by one passion ; that his whole mind 
 shot up into one growth ; that his sin- 
 gular strength of thought and will, which, 
 if consecrated to virtue, would have en- 
 rolled him among the benefactors of 
 mankind, was enslaved by one lust. He 
 is not to be gazed on as a miracle. He 
 was a manifestation of our own nature. 
 He teaches on a large scale what thou- 
 sands teach on a narrow one. He shows 
 us the greatness of the ruin which is 
 wrought when the order of the mind is 
 subverted, conscience dethroned, and a 
 strong passion left without restraint to 
 turn every hiward and outward resource 
 to the accomplishment of a selfish pur- 
 pose. 
 
 The influence of the love of power on 
 human affairs is so constant, unbounded, 
 and tremendous, that we think this prin- 
 ciple of our nature worthy of distinct 
 consideration, and shall devote to it a 
 few pages, as a fit sequel to our notice 
 of Bonaparte. 
 
 The passion for power is one of the 
 most universal ; nor is it to be regarded 
 as a crime in all its forms. Sweeping 
 censures on a natural sentiment cast 
 blame on the Creator. This principle 
 shows itself in the very dawn of our ex- 
 istence. The child never exults and 
 
 rejoices more than when it becomes con- 
 scious of power by overcoming difficul- 
 ties or compassing new ends. All our 
 desires and appetites lend aid and energy 
 to this passion, for all find increase of 
 gratification in proportion to the growth 
 of our strength and influence. We ought 
 to add, that this principle is fed from 
 nobler sources. Power is a chief ele- 
 ment of all the commanding qualities of 
 our nature. It enters into all the higher 
 virtues ; such as magnanimity, fortitude, 
 constancy. It enters into intellectual 
 eminence. It is power of thought and 
 utterance which immortalizes the pro- 
 ducts of genius. Is it strange that an 
 attribute, through which all our passions 
 reach their objects, and which character- 
 izes whatever is great or admirable in 
 man, should awaken intense desire, and 
 be sought as one of the chief goods of 
 life ? 
 
 This principle, we have said, is not in 
 all its forms a crime. There are. indeed, 
 various kinds of power, which it is our 
 duty to covet, accumulate, and hold fast. 
 First, there is inward power, the most 
 precious of all possessions ; power over 
 ourselves; power to withstand trial, to 
 bear suffering, to front danger ; power 
 over pleasure and pain ; power to follow 
 our convictions, however resisted by 
 menace or scorn ; the power of calm re- 
 liance in seasons of darkness and storms. 
 Again, there is a power over outward 
 things ; the power by which the mind 
 triumphs over matter, presses into its 
 service the subtilest and strongest ele- 
 ments, makes the winds, fire, and steam 
 its ministers, rears the city, opens a path 
 through the ocean, and makes the wilder- 
 ness blossom as the rose. These forms 
 of power, especially the first, are glori- 
 ous distinctions of our race, nor can we 
 prize them too highly. 
 
 There is another power, which is our 
 principal concern in the present discus- 
 sion. We mean power over our fellow- 
 creatures. It is this which ambition 
 chiefly covets, and which has instigated 
 to more crime, and spread more misery, 
 than any other cause. We are not, how- 
 ever, to condemn even this universally. 
 There is a truly noble sway of man over 
 man ; one which it is our honor to seek 
 and exert ; which is earned by well- 
 doing ; which is a chief recompense of 
 virtue. We refer to the quickening in- 
 fluence of a good and great mind over
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 549 
 
 other minds, by which it brings them 
 into sympathy with itself. Far from 
 condemning this, we are anxious to hold 
 it forth as the purest glory which virtu- 
 ous ambition can propose. The power 
 of awakening, enlightening, elevating 
 our fellow-creatures may, with peculiar 
 fitness, be called divine ; for there is no 
 agency of God so beneficent and sub- 
 lime as that which he exerts on rational 
 natures, and by which he assimilates 
 them to himself. This sway over other 
 souls is the surest test of greatness. 
 We admire, indeed, the energy which 
 subdues the material creation, or devel- 
 ops the physical resources of a state. 
 But it is a nobler might which calls forth 
 the intellectual and moral resources of 
 a people, which communicates new im- 
 pulses to society, throws into circulation 
 new and stirring thoughts, gives the 
 mind a new consciousness of its faculties, 
 and rouses and fortifies the will to an 
 unconquerable purpose of well-doing. 
 This spiritual power is worth all other. 
 To improve man's outward condition is 
 a secondary agency, and is chiefly im- 
 portant as it gives the means of inward 
 growth. The most glorious minister of 
 God on earth is he who speaks with a 
 life-giving energy to other minds, breath- 
 ing into them the love of truth and 
 virtue, strengthening them to suffer in 
 a good cause, and lifting them above the 
 senses and the world. 
 
 We know not a more exhilarating 
 thought than that this power is given to 
 men ; that we can not only change the 
 face of the outward world, and by virt- 
 uous discipline improve ourselves, but 
 that we may become springs of life and 
 light to our fellow-beings. We are thus 
 admitted to a fellowship with Jesus 
 Christ, whose highest end was that he 
 might act with a new and celestial energy 
 on the human mind. We rejoice to think 
 that he did not come to monopolize this 
 divine sway, to enjoy a solitary gran- 
 deur, but to receive others, even all who 
 should obey his religion, into the part- 
 nership of this honor and happiness. 
 Every Christian, in proportion to his 
 progress, acquires a measure of this 
 divine agency. In the humblest condi- 
 tions, a power goes forth from a devout 
 and disinterested spirit, calling forth 
 silently moral and religious sentiment, 
 perhaps in a child, or some other friend, 
 and teaching, without the aid of words, 
 
 the loveliness and peace of sincere and 
 single-hearted virtue. In the more en- 
 lightened classes, individuals now and 
 then rise up, who, through a singular 
 force and elevation of soul, obtain a 
 sway over men's minds to which no 
 limit can be prescribed. They speak 
 with a voice which is heard by distant 
 nations, and which goes down to future 
 ages. Their names are repeated with 
 veneration by millions ; and millions 
 read in their lives, and writings a quick- 
 ening testimony to the greatness of the 
 mind, to its moral strength, to the re- 
 ality of disinterested virtue. These are 
 the true sovereigns of the earth. They 
 share in the royalty of Jesus Christ. 
 They have a greatness which will be 
 more and more felt. The time is com- 
 ing, its signs are visible, when this 
 long-mistaken attribute of greatness will 
 be seen to belong eminently, if not ex- 
 clusively, to those who, by their charac- 
 ters, deeds, sufferings, writings, leave 
 imperishable and ennobling traces of 
 themselves on the human mind. Among 
 these legitimate sovereigns of the world 
 will be ranked the philosopher, who 
 penetrates the secrets of the universe 
 and of the soul ; who opens new fields 
 to the intellect ; who gives it a new con- 
 sciousness of its own powers, rights, 
 and divine original ; who spreads en- 
 larged and liberal habits of thought ; 
 and who helps men to understand that 
 an ever-growing knowledge is the patri- 
 mony destined for them by the " Father 
 of their spirits." Among them will be 
 ranked the statesman who, escaping a 
 vulgar policy, rises to the discovery of 
 the true interest of a state ; who seeks 
 without fear or favor the common good ; 
 who understands that a nation's mind 
 is more valuable than its soil ; who in- 
 spirits a people's enterprise, without 
 making them the slaves of wealth ; who 
 is mainly anxious to originate or give 
 stability to institutions by which society 
 may be carried forward ; who confides 
 with a sublime constancy in justice and 
 virtue, as the only foundation of a wise 
 policy and of public prosperity ; and, 
 above all, who has so drunk into the 
 spirit of Christ and of God as never to 
 forget that his particular country is a 
 member of the great human family, 
 bound to all nations by a common nat- 
 ure, by a common interest, and by in- 
 dissoluble laws of equity and charity.
 
 550 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 Among these will be ranked, perhaps, 
 on the highest throne, the moral and 
 religious reformer, who truly merits 
 that name ; who rises above his times ; 
 who is moved by a holy impulse to as- 
 sail vicious establishments, sustained by 
 fierce passions and inveterate prejudices ; 
 who rescues great truths from the cor- 
 ruptions of ages ; who, joining calm and 
 deep thought to profound feeling, se- 
 cures to religion at once enlightened 
 and earnest conviction ; who unfolds to 
 men higher forms of virtue than they 
 have yet attained or conceived ; who 
 gives brighter and more thrilling views 
 of the perfection for which they were 
 framed, and inspires a victorious faith 
 in the perpetual progress of our nature. 
 
 There is one characteristic of this 
 power which belongs to truly great 
 minds, particularly deserving notice. 
 Far from enslaving, it makes more and 
 more free those on whom it is exercised ; 
 and in this respect it differs wholly from 
 the vulgar sway which ambition thirsts 
 for. It awakens a kindred power in 
 others, calls their faculties into new life, 
 and particularly strengthens them to 
 follow their own deliberate convictions 
 of truth and duty. It breathes conscious 
 energy, self-respect, moral independence, 
 and a scorn of every foreign yoke. 
 
 There is another power over men 
 very different from this, a power, not 
 to quicken and elevate, but to crush 
 and subdue ; a power which robs men 
 of the free use of their nature, takes 
 them out of their own hands, and com- 
 pels them to bend to another's will. 
 This is the sway which men grasp at 
 most eagerly, and which it is our great 
 purpose to expose. To reign, to give 
 laws, to clothe their own wills with 
 omnipotence, to annihilate all other 
 wills, to spoil the individual of that self- 
 direction which is his most precious 
 right, this has ever been deemed by 
 multitudes the highest prize for com- 
 petition and conflict. The most envied 
 men are those who have succeeded in 
 prostrating multitudes, in subjecting 
 whole communities, to their single will. 
 It is the love of this power, in all its 
 forms, which we are anxious to hold up 
 to reprobation. If any crime should be 
 placed by society beyond pardon, it is 
 this v 
 
 This power has been exerted most 
 conspicuously and perniciously by two 
 
 classes of men, the priest or minister 
 of religion, and the civil ruler. Both 
 rely on the same instrument, that is, 
 pain or terror ; the first calling to his 
 aid the fires and torments of the future 
 world, and practising on the natural 
 dread of invisible powers ; and the 
 latter availing himself of chains, dun- 
 geons, and gibbets in the present life. 
 Through these terrible applications man 
 has, in all ages and in almost every 
 country, been made, in a greater or 
 less degree, a slave and machine ; been 
 shackled in all his faculties, and de- 
 graded into a tool of others' wills and 
 passions. The influence of almost every 
 political and religious institution has 
 been to make man abject in mind, 
 fearful, servile, a mechanical repeater 
 of opinions which he dares not try, and 
 a contributor of his toil, sweat, and 
 blood, to governments which never 
 dreamed of the general weal as their 
 only legitimate -end. On the immense 
 majority of men, thus wronged and 
 enslaved, the consciousness of their own 
 nature has not yet dawned ; and the 
 doctrine, that each has a mind, worth 
 more than the material world, and framed 
 to grow for ever by a self -forming, self- 
 directing energy, is still a secret, a mys- 
 tery, notwithstanding the clear annun- 
 ciation of it, ages ago, by Jesus Christ. 
 We know not a stronger proof of the 
 intenseness and nefariousness of the 
 love of power than the fact of its hav- 
 ing virtually abrogated Christianity, and 
 even turned into an engine of dominion 
 a revelation which breathes throughout 
 the spirit of freedom, proclaims the 
 essential equality of the human race, 
 and directs its most solemn denunci- 
 ations against the passion for rule and 
 empire. 
 
 That this power, which consists in 
 force and compulsion, in the imposition 
 on the many of the will and judgment 
 of one or a tew, is of a low order, when 
 compared with the quickening influence 
 over others of which we have before 
 spoken, we need not stop to prove. 
 But the remark is less obvious, though 
 not less true, that it is not only inferior 
 in kind, but in amount or degree. This 
 may not be so easily acknowledged. 
 He whose will is passively obeyed by a 
 nation, or whose creed implicitly adopted 
 by a spreading sect, may not easily be- 
 lieve that his power is exceeded, not
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 551 
 
 only in kind or quality, but in extent, by 
 him who wields only the silent, subtile 
 influence of moral and intellectual gifts. 
 But the superiority of moral to arbitrary 
 sway in this particular is proved by its 
 effects. Moral power is creative ; arbi- 
 trary power wastes away the spirit and 
 force of those on whom it is exerted. 
 And is it not a mightier work to create 
 than to destroy ? A higher energy is 
 required to quicken than to crush ; to 
 elevate than to depress ; to warm and 
 expand than to chill and contract. Any 
 hand, even the weakest, may take away 
 life ; another agency is required to kindle 
 or restore it. A vulgar incendiary may 
 destroy in an hour a magnificent struct- 
 ure, the labor of ages. Has he energy 
 to be compared with the creative intel- 
 lect in which this work had its origin ? 
 A fanatic of ordinary talent may send 
 terror through a crowd ; and by the 
 craft, which is so often joined with fanat- 
 icism, may fasten on multitudes a debas- 
 ing creed. Has he power to be com- 
 pared with him who rescues from 
 darkness one only of these enslaved 
 minds, and quickens it to think justly 
 and nobly in relation to God, duty, and 
 immortality ? The energies of a single 
 soul, awakened, by such an influence, 
 to the free and full use of its powers, 
 may surpass, in their progress, the intel- 
 lectual activity of a whole community, 
 enchained and debased by fanaticism or 
 outward force. Arbitrary power, whether 
 civil or religious, if tried by the only 
 fair test, that is, by its effects, seems to 
 have more affinity with weakness than 
 strength. It enfeebles and narrows 
 what it acts upon. Its efficiency resem- 
 bles that of darkness and cold in the 
 natural world. True power is vivifying, 
 productive, builds up, and gives strength. 
 We have a noble type and manifestation 
 of it in the sun, which calls forth and 
 diffuses motion, life, energy, and beauty. 
 He who succeeds in chaining men's 
 understandings, and breaking their wills, 
 may indeed number millions as his sub- 
 jects. But a weak, puny race are the 
 products of his sway, and they can only 
 reach the stature and force of men by 
 throwing off his yoke. He who, by an 
 intellectual and moral energy, awakens j 
 kindred energy in others, touches springs j 
 of infinite might, gives impulse to facul- j 
 ties to which no bounds can be pre- j 
 scribed, begins an action which will 1 
 
 never end. One great and kindling 
 thought from a retired and obscure man 
 may live when thrones are lallen, and 
 the memory of those who filled them 
 obliterated, and, like an undying fire, 
 may illuminate and quicken all future 
 generations. 
 
 We have spoken of the inferiority and 
 worthlessness of that dominion over 
 others which has been coveted so greed- 
 ily in all ages. We should rejoice could 
 we convey some just idea of its moral 
 turpitude. Of all injuries and crimes, 
 the most flagrant is chargeable on him 
 who r.ims to establish dominion over his 
 brethren. He wars with what is more 
 precious than life. He would rob men 
 of their chief prerogative and glory, 
 we mean, of self-dominion, of that em- 
 pire which is given to a rational and 
 moral being over his own soul and his 
 own life. Such a being is framed to 
 find honor and happiness in forming and 
 swaying himself, in adopting as his 
 supreme standard his convictions of 
 truth and duty, in unfolding his powers 
 by free exertion, in acting from a prin- 
 ciple within, from his growing conscience. 
 His proper and noblest attributes are 
 self-government, self-reverence, energy 
 of thought, energy in choosing the right 
 and the good, energy in casting off all 
 other dominion. He was created for 
 empire in his own breast, and woe, woe 
 to them who would pluck from him this 
 sceptre ! A mind, inspired by God with 
 reason and conscience, and capable, 
 through these endowments, of progress 
 in truth and duty, is a sacred thing; 
 more sacred than temples made with 
 hands, or even than this outward uni- 
 verse. It is of nobler lineage than that 
 of which human aristocracy makes its 
 boast. It bears the lineaments of a 
 divine Parent. It has not only a physi- 
 cal, but moral connection with the 
 Supreme Being. Through its self- 
 determining power, it is accountable for 
 its deeds, and for whatever it becomes. 
 Responsibility that which above all 
 things makes existence solemn is laid 
 upon it. Its great end is to conform 
 itself, by its own energy, and by spiritual 
 succors which its own prayers and faith- 
 fulness secure, to that perfection of 
 wisdom and goodness of which God is 
 the original and source, which shines 
 upon us from the whole outward world, 
 but of which the intelligent soul is a
 
 552 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 truer recipient and a brighter image, 
 even than the sun with all his splendors. 
 From these views we learn that no out- 
 rage, no injury, can equal that which is 
 perpetrated by him who would break 
 down and subjugate the human mind ; 
 who would rob men of self-reverence ; 
 who would bring them to stand more in 
 awe of outward authority than of reason 
 and conscience in their own souls ; who 
 would make himself a standard and law 
 for his race, and shape, by force or ter- 
 ror, the free spirits of others after his 
 own judgment and will. 
 
 All excellence, whether intellectual or 
 moral, involves, as its essential elements, 
 freedom, energy, and moral indepen- 
 dence, so that the invader of these, 
 whether from the throne or the pulpit, 
 invades the most sacred interest of the 
 human race. Intellectual excellence im- 
 plies and requires these. This does not 
 consist in passive assent even to the 
 highest truths ; or in the most extensive 
 stores of knowledge acquired by an im- 
 plicit faith, and lodged in the inert mem- 
 ory. It lies in force, freshness, and 
 independence of thought ; and is most 
 conspicuously manifested by him who, 
 loving truth supremely, seeks it reso- 
 lutely, follows the light without fear, and 
 modifies the views of others by the 
 patient, strenuous exercise of his own 
 faculties. To a man thus intellectually 
 free, truth is not, what it is to passive 
 multitudes, a foreign substance, dormant, 
 lifeless, fruitless, but penetrating, pro- 
 lific, full of vitality, and ministering to 
 the health and expansion of the soul. 
 And what we have said of intellectual 
 excellence is still more true of moral. 
 This has its foundation and root in free- 
 dom, and cannot exist a moment without 
 it. The very idea of virtue is, that it 
 is a free act, the product or result of the 
 mind's self-determining power. It is 
 not good feeling, infused by nature or 
 caught by sympathy ; nor is it good con- 
 duct into which we have slidden through 
 imitation, or which has been forced 
 upon us by another's will. We ourselves 
 are its authors in a high and peculiar 
 sense. We indeed depend on God for 
 virtue ; for our capacity of moral action 
 is wholly his gift and inspiration, and 
 without his perpetual aid this capacity 
 would avail nothing. But his aid is not 
 compulsion. He respects, he cannot 
 violate that moral freedom which is his 
 
 richest gift. To the individual, the 
 decision of his own character is left. 
 He has more than kingly power in his 
 own soul. Let him never resign it. Let 
 none dare to interfere with it. Virtue is 
 self-dominion, or, what is the same 
 thing, it is self-subjection to the princi- 
 ple of duty, that highest law in the soul. 
 If these views of intellectual and moral 
 excellence be just, then to invade men's 
 freedom is to aim the deadliest blow at 
 their honor and happiness ; and their 
 worst foe is he who fetters their reason, 
 who makes his will their law. who makes 
 them tools, echoes, copies of himself. 
 
 Perhaps it may be objected to the 
 representation of virtue as consisting 
 in self-dominion, that the Scriptures 
 speak of it as consisting in obedience 
 to God. But these are perfectly com- 
 patible and harmonious views ; for gen- 
 uine obedience to God is the free choice 
 and adoption of a law, the great princi- 
 ples of which our own minds approve, 
 and our own consciences bind on us ; 
 which is not an arbitrary injunction, 
 but an emanation and expression of the 
 divine Mind ; and which is intended 
 throughout to give energy, dignity, and 
 enlargement to our best powers. He, 
 and he only, obeys God virtuously and 
 acceptably, who reverences right, not 
 power ; who has chosen rectitude as his 
 supreme rule ; who sees and reveres in 
 God the fulness and brightness of moral 
 excellence, and who sees in obedience 
 the progress and perfection of his own 
 nature. That subjection to the Deity, 
 which, we fear, is too common, in which 
 the mind surrenders itself to mere power 
 and will, is any thing but virtue. We 
 fear that it is disloyalty to that moral 
 principle which is ever to'be reverenced 
 as God's vicegerent in the rational soul. 
 Perhaps some may fear that, in our 
 zeal for the freedom and independence 
 of the individual mind, we unsettle gov- 
 ernment, and almost imply that it is a 
 wrong. Far from it. We hold govern- 
 ment to be an essential means of our 
 intellectual and moral education, and 
 would strengthen it by pointing out its 
 legitimate functions. Government, as 
 far as it is rightful, is the guardian and 
 friend of freedom, so that in exalting 
 the one we enforce the other. The 
 highest aim of all authority is to confer 
 liberty. This is true of domestic rule. 
 The great, we may say the single, object
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 553 
 
 of parental government, of a wise and 
 virtuous education, is to give the child 
 the fullest use of his own powers ; to 
 give him inward force ; to train him 
 up to govern himself. The same is 
 true of the authority of Jesus Christ. 
 He came, indeed, to rule mankind ; 
 but to rule them, not by arbitrary 
 statutes, not by force and menace, not 
 by mere will, but by setting before them, 
 in precept and life, those everlasting 
 rules of rectitude which heaven obeys, 
 and of which every soul contains the 
 living germs. He came to exert a moral 
 power ; to reign by the manifestation 
 of celestial virtues ; to awaken the en- 
 ergy of holy purpose in the free mind. 
 He came to publish liberty to the cap- 
 tives ; to open the prison door ; to break 
 the power of the passions ; to break the 
 yoke of a ceremonial religion which had 
 been imposed in the childhood of the 
 race ; to exalt us to a manly homage 
 and obedience of our Creator. Of civil 
 government, too, the great end is to se- 
 cure freedom. Its proper and highest 
 function is, to watch over the liberties 
 of each and all, and to open to a com- 
 munity the widest field for all its powers. 
 Its very chains and prisons have the 
 general freedom for their aim. They 
 are just, only when used to curb oppres- 
 sion and wrong : to disarm him who has 
 a tyrant's heart, if not a tyrant's power, 
 who wars against others' rights, who, by 
 invading property or life, would substi- 
 tute force for the reign of equal laws. 
 P'reedom, we repeat it, is the end of 
 government. To exalt men to self-rule 
 is the end of all other rule ; and he 
 who would fasten on them his arbitrary 
 will is their worst foe. 
 
 We have aimed to show the guilt of 
 the love of power and dominion, by 
 showing the ruin which it brings on the 
 mind, by enlarging on the preciousness 
 of that inward freedom which it invades 
 and destroys. To us, this view is the 
 most impressive ; but the guilt of this 
 passion may also be discerned, and by 
 some more clearly, in its outward in- 
 fluences, in the desolation, bloodshed, 
 and woe of which it is the perpetual 
 cause. We owe to it almost all the 
 miseries of war. To spread the sway 
 of one or a few, thousands and millions 
 have been turned into machines under 
 the name of soldiers, armed with instru- 
 ments of destruction, and then sent to 
 
 reduce others to their own lot by fear 
 and pain, by fire and sword, by butchery 
 and pillage. And is it light guilt to 
 array man against his brother ; to make 
 murder the trade of thousands ; to drench 
 the earth with human blood ; to turn it 
 into a desert ; to scatter families like 
 chaff : to make mothers widows, and 
 children orphans ; and to do all this 
 for the purpose of spreading a still 
 gloomier desolation, for the purpose of 
 subjugating men's souls, turning them 
 into base parasites, extorting from them 
 a degrading homage, humbling them in 
 their own eyes, and breaking them to 
 servility as the chief duty of life ? When 
 the passion for power succeeds, as it 
 generally has done, in establishing des- 
 potism, it seems to make even civiliza- 
 tion a doubtful good. Whilst the mon- 
 arch and his court are abandoned to a 
 wasteful luxury, the peasantry, rooted 
 to the soil and doomed to a perpetual 
 round of labors, are raised but little 
 above the brute. There are parts of 
 Europe, Christian Europe, in which the 
 peasant, through whose sweat kings and 
 nobles riot in plenty, seems to enjoy 
 less, on the whole, than the untamed 
 Indian of our forests. Chained to one 
 spot, living on the cheapest vegetables, 
 sometimes unable to buy salt to season 
 his coarse fare, seldom or never tasting 
 animal food, having for his shelter a 
 mud-walled hut floored with earth or 
 stone, and subjected equally with the 
 brute to the rule of a superior, he seems 
 to us to partake less of animal, intellect- 
 ual, and moral pleasures than the free 
 wanderer of the woods, whose steps no 
 man fetters : whose wigwam no tyrant 
 violates ; whose chief toil is hunting, 
 that noblest of sports ; who feasts on 
 the deer, that most luxurious of viands ; 
 to whom streams, as well as woods, pay 
 tribute ; whose adventurous life gives 
 sagacity ; and in whom peril nourishes 
 courage and self-command. We are no 
 advocates for savage life. We know 
 that its boasted freedom is a delusion. 
 The single fact that human nature in 
 this wild state makes no progress, is 
 proof enough that it wants true liberty. 
 We mean only to say that man, in the 
 hands of despotism, is sometimes de- 
 graded below the savage ; that it were 
 better for him to be lawless, than to live 
 under lawless sway. 
 
 It is the part of Christians to look on
 
 554 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 the passion for power and dominion 
 with strong abhorrence ; for it is singu- 
 larly hostile to the genius of their relig- 
 ion. Jesus Christ always condemned 
 it. One of the striking marks of his 
 moral greatness, and of the originality 
 of his character, was, that he held no 
 fellowship and made no compromise 
 with this universal spirit of his age, but 
 withstood it in every form. He found 
 the Jews intoxicating themselves with 
 dreams of empire. Of the prophecies 
 relating to the Messiah, the most famil- 
 iar and dear to them were those which 
 announced him as a conqueror, and 
 which were construed by their worldli- 
 ness into a promise of triumphs to the 
 people from whom he was to spring. 
 Even the chosen disciples of Jesus 
 looked to him for this good. " To sit 
 on his right hand and on his left," or, in 
 other words, to hold the most command- 
 ing station in his kingdom, was not only 
 their lurking wish, but their open and 
 importunate request. But there was no 
 passion on which Jesus frowned more 
 severely than on this. He taught that, 
 to be great in his kingdom, men must 
 serve, instead of ruling, their brethren. 
 He placed among them a child 'as an 
 emblem of the humility of his religion. 
 His most terrible rebukes fell on the 
 lordly, aspiring Pharisee. In his own 
 person, he was mild and condescending, 
 exacting no personal service, living with 
 his disciples as a friend, sharing their 
 wants, sleeping in their fishing-boat, 
 and even washing their feet ; and in all 
 this he expressly proposed himself to 
 them as a pattern, knowing well that 
 the last triumph of disinterestedness is 
 to forget our own superiority in our 
 sympathy, solicitude, tenderness, re- 
 spect, and self-denying zeal for those 
 who are below us. We cannot, indeed, 
 wonder that the lust of power should be 
 encountered by the sternest rebukes and 
 menace of Christianity, because it wages 
 open war with the great end of this relig- 
 ion, which is the elevation of the human 
 mind. No corruption of this religion is 
 more palpable and more enormous than 
 that which turns it into an instrument 
 of dominion, and which makes it teach 
 that man's primary duty is to give him- 
 self a passive material into the hands of 
 his minister, priest, or king. 
 
 The subject which we now discuss is 
 one in which all nations have an interest, 
 
 and especially our own ; and we should 
 fail of our main purpose were we not to 
 lead our readers to apply it to ourselves. 
 The passion for ruling, though most 
 completely developed in despotisms, is 
 confined to no forms of government. It 
 is the chief peril of free states, the nat- 
 ural enemy of free institutions. It agi- 
 tates our own country, and still throws 
 an uncertainty over the great experiment 
 we are making here in behalf of liberty. 
 We will try, then, in a few words, to 
 expose its influences and dangers, and 
 to abate that zeal with which a partici- 
 pation in office and power is sought 
 among ourselves. 
 
 It is the distinction of republican in- 
 stitutions, that whilst they compel the 
 passion for power, to moderate its pre- 
 tensions, and to satisfy itself with more 
 limited gratifications, they tend to spread 
 it more widely through the community, 
 and to make it a universal principle. 
 The doors of office being open to all, 
 crowds burn to rush in. A thousand 
 hands are stretched out to grasp the 
 reins which are denied to none. Per- 
 haps, in this boasted and boasting land 
 of liberty, not a few, if called to state 
 the chief good of a republic, would place 
 it in this, that every man is eligible to 
 every office, and that the highest places 
 of power and trust are prizes for univer- 
 sal competition. The superiority attrib- 
 uted by many to our institutions is, not 
 that they secure the greatest freedom, 
 but give every man a chance of ruling ; 
 not that they reduce the power of gov- 
 ernment within the narrowest limits 
 which the safety of the state admits, but 
 throw it into as many hands as possible. 
 The despot's great crime is thought to 
 be that he keeps the delight of dominion 
 to himself, that he makes a monopoly of 
 it, whilst our more generous institutions, 
 by breaking it into parcels, and inviting 
 the multitude to scramble for it, spread 
 this joy more widely. The result is, 
 that political ambition infects our coun- 
 try, and generates a feverish restlessness 
 and discontent, which, to the monarch- 
 ist, may seem more than a balance for 
 our forms of liberty. The spirit of in- 
 trigue, which in absolute governments 
 is confined to courts, walks abroad 
 through the land ; and. as individuals 
 can accomplish no political purposes 
 single-handed, they band themselves 
 into parties, ostensibly frame.d for pub-
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 555 
 
 lie ends, but aiming only at the acquisi- 
 tion of power. The nominal sovereign, 
 that is, the people, like all other sover- 
 eigns, is courted and flattered, and told 
 that it can do no wrong. Its pride is 
 pampered, its passions inflamed, its prej- 
 udices made inveterate. Such are the 
 Erocesses by which other republics have 
 een subverted, and he must be blind 
 who cannot trace them among ourselves. 
 We mean not to exaggerate our dangers. 
 We rejoice to know that the improve- 
 ments of society oppose many checks 
 to the love of power. But every wise 
 man who sees its workings must dread 
 it as our chief foe. 
 
 This passion derives strength and 
 vehemence in our country from the 
 common idea that political power is the 
 highest prize which society has to offer. 
 We know not a more general delusion, 
 nor is it the least dangerous. Instilled as 
 it is in our youth, it gives infinite excite- 
 ment to political ambition. It turns the 
 active talent of the country to public sta- 
 tion as the supreme good, and makes it 
 restless, intriguing, and unprincipled. It 
 calls out hosts of selfish competitors for 
 comparatively few places, and encourages 
 a bold, unblushing pursuit of personal 
 elevation, which a just moral sense and 
 self-respect in the community would 
 frown upon and cover with shame. This 
 prejudice has come down from past ages, 
 and is one of their worst bequests. To 
 govern others has always been thought 
 the highest function on earth. We have 
 a remarkable proof of the strength and 
 pernicious influence of this persuasion 
 in the manner in which history has been 
 written. Who fill the page of history ? 
 Political and military leaders, who have 
 lived for one end, to subdue and gov- 
 ern their fellow-beings. These occupy 
 the foreground, and the people, the hu- 
 man race, dwindle into insignificance, 
 and are almost lost behind their masters. 
 The proper and noblest object of history 
 is to record the vicissitudes of society, 
 its spirit in different ages, the causes 
 which have determined its progress and 
 decline, and especially the manifestations 
 and growth of its highest attributes and 
 interests of intelligence, of the religious 
 principle, of moral sentiment, of the 
 elegant and useful arts, of the triumphs 
 of man over nature and himself. . Instead 
 of this, we have records of men in power, 
 often weak, oftener wicked, who did 
 
 little or nothing for the advancement of 
 their age, who were in no sense its rep- 
 resentatives, whom the accident of birth 
 perhaps raised to influence. We have 
 the quarrels of courtiers, the intrigues of 
 cabinets, sieges and battles, royal births 
 and deaths, and the secrets of a palace, 
 that sink of lewdness and corruption. 
 These are the staples of history. The 
 inventions of printing, of gunpowder, 
 and the mariner's compass, were too 
 mean affairs for history to trace. She 
 was bowing before kings and warriors. 
 She had volumes for the plots and quar- 
 rels of Leicester and Essex in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, but not a page for Shak- 
 speare ; and if Bacon had not filled an 
 office, she would hardly have recorded 
 his name, in her anxiety to preserve the 
 deeds and sayings of that Solomon of 
 his age, James the First. 
 
 We have spoken of the supreme im- 
 portance which is attached to rulers and 
 government, as . a prejudice ; and we 
 think that something may be done 
 towards abating the passion for power 
 by placing this thought in a clearer 
 light. It seems to us not very difficult 
 to show, that to govern men is not as 
 high a sphere of action as has been 
 commonly supposed, and that those \Vho 
 have obtained this dignity have usurped 
 a place beyond their due in history and 
 men's minds. We apprehend, indeed, 
 that we are not alone in this opinion ; 
 that a change of sentiment on this sub- 
 ject has commenced and must go on ; 
 that men are learning that there are 
 higher sources of happiness and more 
 important agents in human affairs than 
 political rule. It is one mark of the 
 progress of society that it brings down 
 the public man and raises the private 
 one. It throws power into the hands 
 of untitled individuals, and spreads it 
 through all orders of the community. 
 It multiplies anti distributes freely means 
 of extensive influence, and opens new 
 channels by which the gifted mind, in 
 whatever rank or condition, may com- 
 municate itself far and wide. Through 
 the diffusion of education and printing, 
 a private man may now speak to multi^ 
 tudes, incomparably more numerous than 
 ancient or modern eloquence ever elec- 
 trified in the popular assembly or the 
 hall of legislation. By these instru- 
 ments, truth is asserting her sover- 
 eignty over nations, without the help of
 
 556 
 
 ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 rank, office, or sword ; and her faithful 
 ministers will become more and more 
 the lawgivers of the world. 
 
 We mean not to deny, we steadily 
 affirm, that government is a great good, 
 and essential to human happiness ; but 
 it does its good chiefly by a negative 
 influence, by repressing injustice and 
 crime, by securing property from inva- 
 sion, and thus removing obstructions 
 to the free exercise of human powers. 
 It confers little positive benefit. Its 
 office is not to confer happiness, but to 
 give men opportunity to work out hap- 
 piness for themselves. Government re- 
 sembles the wall which surrounds our 
 lands, a needful protection, but rear- 
 ing no harvests, ripening no fruits. It 
 is the individual who must choose 
 whether the enclosure shall be a para- 
 dise or a waste. How little positive 
 good can government confer ! It does 
 not till our fields, build our houses, 
 weave the ties which * bind us to our 
 families, give disinterestedness to the 
 heart, or energy to the intellect and 
 will. All our great interests are left to 
 ourselves ; and governments, when they 
 have interfered with them, have ob- 
 structed much more than advanced 
 them. For example, they have taken 
 religion into their keeping only to dis- 
 figure it. So education, in their hands, 
 has generally become a propagator of 
 servile maxims, and an upholder of an- 
 tiquated errors. In like manner they 
 have paralyzed trade by their nursing 
 care, and multiplied poverty by expe- 
 dients for its relief. Government has 
 almost always been a barrier against 
 which intellect has had to struggle ; and 
 society has made its chief progress by 
 the minds of private individuals who 
 have outstripped their rulers, and grad- 
 ually shamed them into truth and wis- 
 dom. 
 
 Virtue and intelligence* are the great 
 interests of a community, including all 
 others, and worth all others ; and the 
 noblest agency is that by which they 
 are advanced. Now, we apprehend that 
 political power is not the most effectual 
 instrument for their promotion, and ac- 
 cordingly we doubt whether government 
 is the only or highest sphere for supe- 
 rior minds. Virtue, from its very nature, 
 cannot be a product of what may be 
 called the direct operation of govern- 
 ment ; that is, of legislation. Laws 
 
 may repress crime. Their office is tc 
 erect prisons for violence and fraud. 
 But moral and religious worth, dignity 
 of character, loftiness of sentiment, all 
 that makes man a blessing to himself 
 and society, lies beyond their province. 
 Virtue is of the soul, where laws can- 
 not penetrate. Excellence is some- 
 thing too refined, spiritual, celestial, to 
 be produced by the coarse machinery 
 of government. Human legislation ad- 
 dresses itself to self-love, and works by 
 outward force. Its chief instrument is 
 punishment. It cannot touch the springs 
 of virtuous feelings, of great and good 
 deeds. Accordingly, rulers, with all 
 their imagined omnipotence, do not 
 dream of enjoining by statute, philan- 
 thropy, gratitude, devout sentiment, 
 magnanimity, and purity of thought. 
 Virtue is too high a concern for gov- 
 ernment. It is an inspiration of God, 
 not a creature of law ; and the agents 
 whom God chiefly honors in its promo- 
 tion are those who, through experience 
 as well as meditation, have risen to gen- 
 erous conceptions of it, and who show 
 it forth, not in empty eulogies, but in 
 the language of deep conviction and in 
 lives of purity. 
 
 Government, then, does little, to ad- 
 vance the chief interest of human nat- 
 ure by its direct agency ; and what shall 
 we say of its indirect ? Here we wish 
 not to offend ; but we must be allowed 
 to use that plainness of speech which 
 becomes Christians and freemen. We 
 do fear, then, that the indirect influence 
 of government is on the whole adverse 
 to virtue ; and, in saying this, we do 
 not speak of other countries, or of dif- 
 ferent political institutions from our 
 own. We do not mean to say, what all 
 around us would echo, that monarchy 
 corrupts a state, that the air of a court 
 reeks with infection, and taints the 
 higher classes with a licentiousness 
 which descends to their inferiors. We 
 speak of government at home ; and we 
 ask wise men to say whether it ministers 
 most to vice or virtue. We fear that 
 here, as elsewhere, political power is of 
 corrupting tendency ; and that, gener- 
 ally speaking, public men are not the 
 most effectual teachers of truth, disin- 
 terestedness, and incorruptible integrity 
 to the people. An error prevails in 
 relation to political concerns, which 
 necessarily makes civil institutions de-
 
 OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 557 
 
 moralizing. It is deeply rooted, the 
 .growth of ages. We refer to the belief 
 that public men are absolved in a meas- 
 ure from the everlasting and immutable 
 obligations of morality ; that political 
 power is a prize which justifies arts and 
 compliances that would be scorned in 
 private life ; that management, intrigue, 
 hollow pretensions, and appeals to base 
 passions deserve slight rebuke when 
 employed to compass political ends, 
 Accordingly, the laws of truth, justice, 
 and philanthropy have seldom been 
 applied to public as to private concerns. 
 Even those individuals who have come 
 to frown indignantly on the machina- 
 tions, the office-seeking, and the sacri- 
 fices to popularity, which disgrace our 
 internal condition, are disposed to ac- 
 quiesce in a crooked or ungenerous 
 policy towards foreign nations, by which 
 great advantages may accrue to their 
 own country. Now the great truth, on 
 which the cause of virtue rests, is, that 
 rectitude is an eternal, unalterable, and 
 universal law, binding at once heaven 
 and earth, the perfection of God's char- 
 acter, and the harmony and happiness 
 of the rational creation ; and in propor- 
 tion as political institutions unsettle this 
 great conviction, in proportion as they 
 teach that truth, justice, and philan- 
 thropy are local, partial obligations, 
 claiming homage from the weak, but 
 shrinking before the powerful, in pro- 
 portion as they thus insult the awful 
 and inviolable majesty of the eternal 
 law, in the same proportion they 
 undermine the very foundation of a 
 people's virtue. 
 
 In regard to the other great interest 
 of the community, its intelligence, gov- 
 ernment may do much good by a direct 
 influence ; that is, by instituting schools 
 or appropriating revenue for the instruc- 
 tion of the poorer classes. Whether it 
 would do wisely in assuming to itself, 
 or in taking from individuals the provi- 
 sion and care of higher literary institu- 
 tions, is a question not easily determined. 
 But no one will doubt that it is a noble 
 function to assist and develop the intel- 
 lect in those classes of the community 
 whose hard condition exposes them to 
 a merely animal existence. Still, the 
 agency of government in regard to 
 knowledge is necessarily superficial and 
 narrow. The great sources of intel- 
 lectual power and progress to a people 
 
 are its strong and original thinkers, be 
 they found where they may. Govern- 
 ment cannot, and does not, extend the 
 bounds of knowledge : cannot make ex- 
 periments in the laboratory, explore the 
 laws of animal or vegetable nature, or 
 establish the principles of criticism, 
 morals, and religion. The energy which 
 is to carry forward the intellect of a 
 people belongs chiefly to private indi- 
 viduals, who devote themselves to lonely 
 thought, who worship truth, who origi- 
 nate the views demanded by their age, 
 who help us to throw off the yoke of 
 established prejudices, who improve old 
 modes of education or invent better. It 
 is true that great men at the head of 
 affairs may, and often do, contribute 
 much to the growth of a nation's mind. 
 But it too often happens that their station 
 obstructs rather than aids their useful- 
 ness. Their connection with a party, 
 and the habit of viewing subjects in 
 reference to personal aggrandizement, 
 too often obscure the noblest intellects, 
 and convert into patrons of narrow views 
 and temporary interests those who, in 
 other conditions, would have been the 
 lights of their age, and the propagators 
 of everlasting truth. From these views 
 of the limited influence of government 
 on the most precious interests of society, 
 we learn that political power is not the 
 noblest power, and that, in the progress 
 of intelligence, it will cease to be coveted 
 as the chief and most honorable dis- 
 tinction on earth. 
 
 If we pass now to the consideration 
 of that interest over which government 
 is expected chiefly to watch, and on 
 which it is most competent to act with 
 power, we shall not arrive at a result 
 very different from what we have just 
 expressed. We refer to property, or 
 wealth. That the influence of political 
 institutions on this great concern is im- 
 portant, inestimable, we mean not to 
 deny. But, as we have already sug- 
 gested, it is chiefly negative. Govern- 
 ment, enriches a people by removing 
 obstructions to their powers, by defend- 
 ing them from wrong, and thus giving 
 them opportunity to enrich themselves. 
 Government is not the spring of the 
 wealth of nations, but their own sagac- 
 ity, industry, enterprise, and force of 
 character. To leave a people to them- 
 selves is generally the best service 
 their rulers can render. Time was
 
 558 LIFE AND CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 when sovereigns fixed prices and wages, 
 regulated industry and expense, and im- 
 agined that a nation would starve and 
 perish if it were not guided and guarded 
 like an infant. But we have learned 
 that men are their own best guardians, 
 that property is safest under its owner's 
 care, and that, generally speaking, even 
 great enterprises can better be accom- 
 plished by the voluntary association of 
 individuals than by the state. Indeed, 
 we are met at every stage of this dis- 
 cussion by the truth, that political power 
 is a weak engine compared with indi- 
 vidual intelligence, virtue and effort ; 
 and we are the more anxious to enforce 
 this truth, because, through an extrav- 
 agant estimate of government, men are 
 apt to expect from it what they must do 
 for themselves, and to throw upon it the 
 blame which belongs to their own feeble- 
 ness and improvidence. The great hope 
 of society is individual character. Civi- 
 lization and political institutions are 
 themselves sources of not a few evils, 
 which nothing but the intellectual and 
 moral energy of the private citizen can 
 avert or relieve. Such, for example, 
 are the monstrous inequalities of prop- 
 erty, the sad contrasts of condition, 
 which disfigure a large city ; which laws 
 create and cannot remove ; which can 
 only be mitigated and diminished by a 
 principle of moral restraint in the poorer 
 classes, and by a wise beneficence in 
 the rich. The great lesson for men to 
 learn is, that their happiness is in their 
 own hands ; that it is to be wrought out 
 by their own faithfulness to God and 
 conscience ; that no outward institutions 
 can supply the place of inward principle, 
 of moral energy, whilst this can go far 
 to supply the place of almost every out- 
 ward aid. 
 
 Our remarks will show that our esti- 
 mate of political institutions is more 
 moderate than the prevalent one, and 
 that we regard the power, for which 
 ambition has woven so many plots and 
 shed so much blood, as destined to 
 occupy a more and more narrow space 
 among the means of usefulness and dis- 
 tinction. There is, however, one branch 
 of government which we hold in high 
 veneration, which we account an un- 
 speakable blessing, and which, for the 
 world, we would not say a word to dis- 
 parage : and we are the more disposed 
 to speak of it because its 'relative im- 
 
 portance seems to us little understood. 
 We refer to the judiciary, a depart- 
 ment worth all others in the state. 
 Whilst politicians expend their zeal on 
 transient interests, which perhaps derive 
 their chief importance from their con- 
 nection with a party, it is the province 
 of the judge to apply those solemn and 
 universal laws of rectitude on which the 
 security, industry, and prosperity of the 
 individual and the state essentially de- 
 pend. From his tribunal, as from a 
 sacred oracle, go forth the responses of 
 justice. To us there is nothing in the 
 whole fabric of civil institutions so in- 
 teresting and imposing as this impartial 
 and authoritative exposition of tne prin- 
 ciples of moral legislation. The admin- 
 istration of justice in this country, where 
 the judge, without a guard, without a 
 soldier, without pomp, decides upon the 
 dearest interests of the citizen, trusting 
 chiefly to the moral sentiment of the 
 community for the execution of his de- 
 crees, is the most beautiful and encour- 
 aging aspect under which our government 
 can be viewed. We repeat it, there is 
 nothing in public affairs so venerable as 
 the voice of Justice, speaking through 
 her delegated ministers, reaching and 
 subduing the high as well as the low, 
 setting a defence around the splendid 
 mansion of wealth and the lowly hut of 
 poverty, repressing wrong, vindicating 
 innocence, humbling the oppressor, and 
 publishing the rights of human nature 
 to every human being. We confess that 
 we often turn with pain and humiliation 
 from the hall of Congress, where we see 
 the legislator forgetting the majesty of 
 his function, forgetting his relation to a 
 vast and growing community, and sacri- 
 ficing to his party or to himself the 
 public weal ; and it comforts us to turn 
 to the court of justice, where the dis- 
 penser of the laws, shutting his ear 
 against all solicitations of friendship or 
 interest, dissolving for a time every pri- 
 vate tie, forgetting public opinion, and 
 withstanding public feeling, asks only 
 what is RIGHT. To our courts, the re- 
 sorts and refuge of weakness and inno- 
 cence, we look with hope and joy. We 
 boast, with a virtuous pride, that no 
 breath of corruption has as yet tainted 
 their pure air. To this department of 
 government we cannot ascribe too much 
 importance. Over this we cannot watch 
 too jealously. Every encroachment on
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF FENELON. 559 
 
 its independence we should resent, and 
 repel, as the chief wrong our country 
 can sustain. Woe, woe to the impious 
 hand which would shake this most sacred 
 and precious column of the social edi- 
 fice ! 
 
 In the remarks which' we have now 
 submitted to our readers, we have treated 
 of great topics, if not worthily, yet, we 
 trust, with a pure purpose. We have 
 aimed to expose the passion for domin- 
 ion, the desire of ruling mankind. We 
 have labored to show the superiority of 
 moral power and influence to that sway 
 which has for ages been seized with 
 eager and bloody hands. We have la- 
 bored to hold up to unmeasured repro- 
 
 bation him who would establish an em- 
 pire of brute force over rational beings. 
 We have labored to hold forth, as the 
 enemy of his race, the man who, in any 
 way, would fetter the human mind, and 
 subject other wills to his own. In a 
 word, we have desired to awaken others 
 and ourselves to a just self-reverence, 
 to the free use and expansion of our 
 highest powers, and especially to that 
 moral force, that energy of holy, virtu- 
 ous purpose, without which we are slaves 
 amidst the freest institutions. Better 
 gifts than these we cannot supplicate 
 from God ; nor can we consecrate our 
 lives to nobler acquisitions. 
 
 REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF 
 
 FENELON. 
 
 [" Selections from the Writings of Fenelon ; with an 
 Appendix, containing a Memoir of his Life." By a 
 Lacly. Boston : Hiiliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkius. 
 1829.] 
 
 WE perform a very gratifying duty in 
 introducing and recommending to our 
 readers the book which stands at the 
 head of this article. An attractive and 
 quickening work on practical religion 
 we regard as a valuable accession to our 
 literature. Indeed any thing written 
 with power on Christian morals and 
 theology is most welcome. It is too 
 true, and a sad truth, that religious 
 books are pre-eminently dull. If we 
 wished to impoverish a man's intellect, 
 we could devise few means more effect- 
 ual than to confine him to what is called 
 a course of theological reading. The 
 very subject to which, above all others, 
 the writer should bring his whole 
 strength of thought and feeling, which 
 allies itself to our noblest faculties, to 
 which reason, imagination, taste, and 
 genius should consecrate their noblest 
 efforts, is of all subjects treated most 
 weakly, tamely, and with least attraction. 
 Of course there are splendid exceptions, 
 but we speak of the immense majority of 
 theological books. It is wonderful how 
 men can think and write upon religion 
 to so little effect. That a theme so 
 vast, so sublime as Christianity, embrac- 
 
 ing God and man, earth and heaven, 
 time and eternity, connected intimately 
 with all human history, deriving lights 
 from all human experience, admitting 
 application to the whole of human life, 
 and proposing as its great end the ever- 
 lasting progress of the soul, that such 
 a subject should be treated so monoto- 
 nously as to be proverbially dull, that its 
 professed explorers should be able to 
 plant their footsteps so exactly in the 
 track of their predecessors, that the 
 boundlessness of the field should so 
 seldom tempt an adventurous spirit 
 from the beaten way, is wonderful, and 
 might seem a miracle to a man unac- 
 quainted with the vassalage which has 
 broken down the mind in the department 
 of religion. It is true that those who 
 write on this topic are accustomed to 
 call it sublime ; but they make its sub- 
 limity cold and barren, like that of 
 mountain-tops wrapped in everlasting 
 snows. We write this, not in severity, 
 but in sorrow of heart ; for we despair 
 of any great progress of the human 
 character or of society, until the ener- 
 gies of the mind shall be bent, as they 
 seldom have been, on those most impor- 
 tant subjects and interests of the human 
 mind, morals and religion. 
 
 As a striking proof of the poverty of 
 religious literature, and of the general
 
 560 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 barrenness of the intellect when em- 
 ployed in this field, we may refer to the 
 small amount of original and productive 
 thought in the English Church since the 
 days of Barrow and Taylor. Could our 
 voice be heard in England, we would ask 
 impartial and gifted men, more familiar 
 with their country's history than our- 
 selves, to solve the problem, how a 
 Protestant Establishment, so munifi- 
 cently endowed with the means of im- 
 provement, should have done so little in 
 so long a period for Christianity, should 
 have produced so few books to interest 
 the higher order of minds. Let not these 
 remarks be misunderstood, as if we were 
 wanting in respect and gratitude to a 
 church which, with all its defects, has 
 been the bulwark of Protestantism, 
 which has been illustrated by the piety 
 and virtues of such men as Bishops Wil- 
 son, Berkeley, and Heber, and in which 
 have sprung up so many institutions con- 
 secrated to humanity and to the diffusion 
 of the Christian faith. We mean not to 
 deny it the honor of having fostered 
 talent in various forms and directions. 
 Among the English clergy we find pro- 
 found and elegant scholars ; we find the 
 names of those giants in ancient learn- 
 ing, Bentley and Parr, and a crowd of 
 proficients in polite literature, of whom 
 Kurd and Jortin are honorable repre- 
 sentatives. We speak only of the de- 
 ficiency of their contributions to moral 
 and religious science. With the excep- 
 tion of Clarke and Butler, we could not 
 easily name any of the Establishment, 
 since the time above specified, who have 
 decidedly carried forward the human in- 
 tellect. The latter of these is indeed a 
 great name, notwithstanding the alleged 
 obscurities of his style, and worthy to 
 be enrolled among the master-spirits of 
 the human race. In regard to commen- 
 tators, whose function, as commonly ex- 
 ecuted, holds a second rank in theology, 
 the English Church, since the time of 
 Hammond, has produced none of much 
 value, except Bishop Pearce. We pre- 
 sume that she will not lay claim to the 
 heretical Locke, who carried into the in- 
 terpretation of the Scriptures the same 
 force of thought as into the philosophy 
 of the mind ; or to Whitby, whose stren- 
 uous Arminianism, as Orthodoxy would 
 reproachingly say, tapered off into that 
 most suspicious form of Christianity, 
 Unitarianism. We have not yet named 
 
 two of the most illustrious intellectual 
 chiefs of the church, Warburton and 
 Horsley. Their great powers we most 
 readily own ; but Warburton is generally 
 acknowledged to have wasted his mind, 
 and has left no impression of himself 
 on later times ; whilst Horsley, though 
 he has given us striking, if not judicious, 
 sermons, in a style of unusual vigor, can- 
 not be said to have communicated in any 
 respect a new impulse to thought, and 
 in Biblical criticism, to which he was 
 zealously devoted, he is one of the last 
 authorities on which a sound mind 
 would lean. To Bishops Lowth and 
 Sherlock we cheerfully acknowledge our 
 obligations ; and we question whether 
 the latter has even yet received his due 
 praise. We have not forgotten, though 
 we have not named, Tillotson, Seeker, 
 and Porteus. They are all worthy of 
 remembrance, especially Seeker, the 
 clear and wise expounder of Christian 
 ethics ; but they added little or nothing 
 to the stock which they received. It 
 may be thought that we have not been 
 just to the Establishment in passing 
 over Paley. He has our sincere admira- 
 tion. On one great topic, which indeed 
 has been worthily treated by many 
 of the clergy, we mean that of Chris- 
 tian evidence, he has shed new light. 
 By felicity of arrangement and illustra- 
 tion, he has given an air of novelty to 
 old arguments, whilst he has strength- 
 ened his cause by important original 
 proofs. His " Horae Paulinae " is one 
 of the few books destined to live. 
 Paley saw what he did see through an 
 atmosphere of light. He seized on the 
 strong points of his subject with an in- 
 tuitive sagacity, and has given his clear, 
 bright thoughts in a style which has 
 made them the property of his readers 
 almost as perfectly as they were his 
 own. In what, then, did he fail ? We 
 have said that he was characterized by 
 the distinctness of his vision. He was 
 not, we think, equally remarkable for its 
 extent. He was popular, rather than 
 philosophical. He was deficient in that 
 intellectual thirst which is a chief ele- 
 ment of the philosophical spirit. He 
 had no irrepressible desire to sound the 
 depths of his own nature, or to ascend 
 to wide and all-reconciling views of the 
 works and ways of God. Moral phil- 
 osophy he carried backward ; nor had 
 he higher claims in religious than in
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 5 6l 
 
 ethical science. His sermons are worthy 
 of all praise, not indeed for their power 
 over the heart, but for their plain and 
 strong expositions of duty, and their 
 awakening appeals to the conscience. 
 
 We leave this topic with observing 
 that, in the noblest branch of history, 
 we mean Christian or ecclesiastical his- 
 tory, the English Church has not fur- 
 nished a single distinguished name. 
 We have one mournful and decisive 
 proof of this deficiency. The vast 
 majority of English readers learn what 
 they know of the progress and fortunes 
 of their religion from its foe and in- 
 sulter, from Gibbon, the apostle of 
 unbelief. The history of Christianity, 
 the most important and sublime theme 
 in this province of literature, has as yet 
 found no writer to do it justice, none 
 to be compared with the great names 
 in civil history. The mightiest revolu- 
 tion in the records of our race remains 
 to be worthily told. We doubt, indeed, 
 whether the true character, style, and 
 extent of the work which is needed are 
 as yet comprehended. That the same 
 rigorous impartiality, the same spirit of 
 philosophical research into causes and 
 effects, is to be carried into religious 
 as into civil history, is imperfectly un- 
 derstood. The records of particular 
 sects and churches, instead of exhaust- 
 ing this great subject, are perhaps sub- 
 ordinate parts. We want to know the 
 great conflict between Christianity and 
 Heathenism, and the action and reaction 
 of these systems on one another. We 
 want to know the influences of Chris- 
 tianity on society, politics, manners, 
 philosophy, and literature, and the mod- 
 ifications which it has received in return 
 from all these mighty agents. We know 
 not where history can find a nobler field 
 for its graphic powers than in the chiv- 
 alrous ages of Christianity ; nor can it 
 find, in its whole range over the past, 
 a subject so fitted as the spread and 
 fortunes of this religion to its great end, 
 which is, to throw light on the nature 
 and powers of man, and to carry us 
 deep into the human soul. When is 
 this greatest and most lamented chasm 
 in our literature to be supplied ? 
 
 We have cited the English Church 
 as a proof of the unproductiveness of 
 the intellect in religion, and of the bar- 
 renness of theological literature. Had 
 we time, we might find corroborations 
 
 in other sects. In truth, a paralyzing 
 influence has been working mightily for 
 ages in the Christian world, and we 
 ought not to wonder at its results. 
 Free action has been denied to the 
 mind, and freedom is an essential con- 
 dition of growth and power. A fettered 
 limb moves slowly and operates feebly. 
 The spirit pines away in a prison ; and 
 yet to rear prison-walls round the mind 
 has been the chief toil of ages. The 
 mischiefs of this intellectual bondage 
 are as yet, we conceive, but imperfectly 
 known, and need to be set forth with a 
 new eloquence. If, as we believe, prog- 
 ress be the supreme law of the soul and 
 the very aim of its creation, then no 
 wrong can be inflicted on it so grievous 
 as to bind it down everlastingly to a 
 fixed, unvarying creed, especially if this 
 creed was framed in an age of darkness, 
 crime, and political and religious strife. 
 This tyranny is pre-eminently treason 
 against human nature. If growth be 
 the supreme law and purpose of the 
 mind, then the very truth, which was 
 suited to one age, may, if made the 
 limit of future ones, become a positive 
 evil ; just as the garment, in which 
 childhood sports with ease and joy, 
 would irritate and deform the enlarging 
 frame. God, having framed the soul 
 for expansion, has placed it in the midst 
 of an unlimited universe to receive fresh 
 impulses and impressions without end ; 
 and man, "dressed in a little brief au- 
 thority," would sever it from this sub- 
 lime connection, and would shape it 
 after his own ignorance or narrow views. 
 The effects are as necessary as they 
 are mournful. The mind, in proportion 
 as it is cut off from free communication 
 with nature, with revelation, with God, 
 with itself, loses its life, just as the body 
 droops when debarred from the fresh 
 air and the cheering light of heaven. 
 Its vision is contracted, its energies 
 blighted, its movement constrained. It 
 finds health only in action. It is perfect 
 only in as far as it is self-formed. Let 
 us not be misapprehended. We mean 
 not to deny that the mind needs the aid 
 of human instruction from the cradle to 
 the grave ; but this it needs as a material 
 to act upon, and not as a lesson to be 
 mechanically learned. The great aim 
 of instruction should be to give the 
 mind the consciousness and free use of 
 its own powers. The less of instruction
 
 5 62 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 the better, if it only propose to engender 
 a slavish dependence and an inert faith. 
 The soul often owes its best acquisitions 
 to itself. They come to it from glimpses 
 of its own nature which it cannot trace 
 to human teaching, from the whispers 
 of a divine voice, from stirrings and 
 aspirations of its own unfolding and 
 unbounded energies, from the indistinct 
 dawning of new truths, or from the sud- 
 den brightening of old truths, which, if 
 left to act freely, work a mighty revo- 
 lution within. Against these inspira- 
 tions, if so they may be called, which 
 belong to the individual, and which are 
 perpetually bursting the limits of re- 
 ceived ideas, the spirit of religious 
 tyranny wages its chief and most un- 
 relenting war. It dreads nothing so 
 much as a mind in which these diviner 
 motions manifest themselves in power. 
 That it should have so succeeded in 
 checking and stifling them, is one of the 
 very mournful reflections forced on us 
 by human history. We have here one 
 great cause of the sterility of theologi- 
 cal literature. Religion, by being im- 
 posed as a yoke, has subdued the 
 faculties which it was meant to quicken ; 
 and, what is most worthy of remark, 
 like all other yokes, it has often excited 
 a mad resistance, which has sought 
 compensation for past restraints in licen- 
 tiousness, and disgraced the holy name 
 of freedom by attaching it to impiety 
 and shameless excess. 
 
 A great subject has led us far from 
 our author. We return to him with 
 pleasure. We welcome, as we have 
 said, a book from Fdnelon ; and we do 
 so because, if not a profound, he was 
 an original thinker, and because, though 
 a Catholic, he was essentially free. He 
 wrote from his own mind, and seldom 
 has a purer mind tabernacled in flesh. 
 He professed to believe in an infallible 
 church ; but he listened habitually to 
 the voice of God within him, and speaks 
 of this in language so strong as to have 
 given the Quakers some plea for rank- 
 ing him among themselves. So little 
 did he confine himself to established 
 notions, that he drew upon himself the 
 censures of his church, and, like some 
 other Christians whom we could name, 
 has even been charged with a refined 
 Deism. His works have the great charm 
 of coming fresh from the soul. He wrote 
 from experience, and hence, though he 
 
 often speaks a language which must 
 seem almost a foreign one to men of 
 the world, yet he always speaks in a 
 tone of reality. That he has excesses 
 we mean not to deny ; but they are of 
 a kind which we regard with more than 
 indulgence, almost with admiration. 
 Common fanaticism we cannot away 
 with ; for it is essentially vulgar, the 
 working of animal passions, sometimes 
 of sexual love, and oftener of earthly 
 ambition. But when a pure mind errs, 
 by aspiring after a disinterestedness and 
 purity not granted to our present infant 
 state, we almost reverence its errors ; 
 and, still more, we recognize in them 
 an essential truth. They only antici- 
 pate and claim too speedily the good 
 for which man was made. They are 
 the misapprehensions of the inspired 
 prophet, who hopes to see in his own 
 day what he was appointed to promise 
 to remoter ages. 
 
 Fe'nelon saw far into the human heart, 
 and especially into the lurkings of self- 
 love. He looked with a piercing eye 
 through the disguises of sin. But he 
 knew sin, not, as most men do, by bitter 
 experience of its power, so much as by 
 his knowledge and experience of virtue. 
 Deformity was revealed to him by his 
 refined perceptions and intense love of 
 moral beauty. The light, which he 
 carried with him into the dark corners 
 of the human heart, and by which he 
 laid open its most hidden guilt, was 
 that of celestial goodness. Hence, 
 though the severest of censors, he is 
 the most pitying. Not a tone of as- 
 perity escapes him. He looks on human 
 error with an angel's tenderness, with 
 tears which an angel might shed, and 
 thus reconciles and binds us to our race, 
 at the very moment of revealing its 
 corruptions. 
 
 That Fe'nelon's views of human nature 
 were dark, too dark, we learn from al- 
 most every page of his writings , and at 
 this we cannot wonder. He was early 
 thrown into the very court from which 
 Rochefoucauld drew his celebrated Max- 
 ims, perhaps the spot above all others 
 on the face of the earth distinguished 
 and disgraced by selfishness, hypocrisy, 
 and intrigue. When we think of Fe'ne- 
 lon in the palace of Louis the Four- 
 teenth, it reminds us of a seraph sent 
 on a divine commission into the abodes 
 of the lost ; and when we recollect that
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 563 
 
 in that atmosphere he composed his 
 " Telemachus," we doubt whether the 
 records of the world furnish stronger 
 - evidence of the power of a divine virtue 
 to turn temptation into glory and strength, 
 and to make even crowned and prosper- 
 ous vice a means of triumph and exal- 
 tation. Another cause of Fe"nelon's 
 unjust views of human life may be found, 
 we think, in his profession. All profes- 
 sions tend to narrow and obscure the 
 intellect, and none more than that of a 
 priest. We know not, indeed, a nobler 
 or more useful function than that of the 
 Christian minister ; but superstitious 
 notions and an imagined sanctity have 
 severed him more or less from his race, 
 especially in a church which dooms him 
 to celibacy, and from this unnatural, 
 insulated position it is impossible for 
 him to judge justly of his kind. We 
 think, too, that Fenelon was led astray 
 by a very common error of exalted 
 minds. He applied too rigorous and 
 unvarying a standard to the multitude. 
 He leaned to the error of expecting the 
 strength of manhood in the child, the 
 harvest in seed-time. On this subject, 
 above all others, we feel that we should 
 speak cautiously. We know that there 
 is a lenity towards human .deficiencies 
 full of danger ; but there is, too, a sever- 
 ity far more common, and perhaps more 
 ruinous. Human nature, as ordinarily 
 exhibited, merits rebuke : but whoever 
 considers the sore trials, the thick dark- 
 ness, the impetuous will, the strong pas- 
 sions, under which man commences his 
 moral probation, will temper rebuke with 
 pity and hope. There is a wisdom, per- 
 haps the rarest and sublimest attainment 
 of the intellect, which is at once liberal 
 and severe, indulgent and unbending; 
 which makes merciful and equitable 
 allowance for the innocent infirmities, 
 the necessary errors, the obstructions 
 and temptations of human beings, and 
 at the same time asserts the majesty of 
 virtue, strengthens the sense of account- 
 ableness, binds on us self-denial, and 
 points upward, with a never-ceasing 
 importunity, to moral perfection, as the 
 great aim and only happiness of the 
 human soul. We will not say that Fe"ne- 
 lon was a stranger to this broad, com- 
 prehensive wisdom, but we cannot name 
 it as his chief distinction. 
 
 We have said that we welcome the 
 book under consideration because it 
 
 came from so pure and gifted a mind. 
 We add, that we do not welcome it the 
 less for coming from a Catholic. Per- 
 haps we prize it the more ; for we wish 
 that Protestantism may grow wiser and 
 more tolerant, and we know not a better 
 teacher of these lessons than the char- 
 acter of Fenelon. Such a man is 
 enough to place within the pale of our 
 charity the whole body to which he 
 belonged. His virtue is broad enough, 
 to shield his whole church from that un-i 
 measured, undistinguishing reprobation, 
 with which Protestant zeal has too often, 
 assailed it. Whoever remembers that 
 the Catholic communion numbers in its 
 ranks more than one hundred millions of 
 souls, probably more than all other 
 Christian churches together, must shud- 
 der at the sentence of proscription 
 which has sometimes been passed on 
 this immense portion of human beings. 
 It is time that greater justice were done 
 to this ancient and wide-spread commu- 
 nity. The Catholic Church has produced 
 some of the greatest and best men that 
 ever lived, and this is proof enough of 
 its possessing all the means of salvation. 
 Who that hears the tone of contempt in 
 which it is sometimes named, would sus- 
 pect that Charlemagne, Alfred, Raphael, 
 Michael Angelo, Tasso, Bossuet, Pascal, 
 Des Cartes, were Catholics? Some of 
 the greatest names in arts and arms, on 
 the throne and in the pulpit, were worn 
 by Catholics. To come down to our 
 own times, has not the metropolis of 
 New England witnessed a sublime exam- 
 ple of Christian virtue in a Catholic 
 bishop ? Who among our religious 
 teachers would solicit a comparison 
 between himself and the devoted Chev- 
 erus ? This good man, whose virtues 
 and talents have now raised him to high 
 dignities in church and state, who now 
 wears in his own country the joint honors 
 of an archbishop and a peer lived in the 
 midst of us, devoting his days and nights, 
 and his whole heart, to the service of a 
 poor and uneducated congregation. We 
 saw him declining in a great degree the 
 society of the cultivated and refined, 
 that he might be the friend of the igno- 
 rant and friendless ; leaving the circles 
 of polished life, which he would have 
 graced, for the meanest hovels ; bearing, 
 with a father's sympathy, the burdens 
 and sorrows of his large spiritual family ; 
 charging himself alike with their tern-
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 ppral and spiritual concerns ; and never 
 discovering, by the faintest indication, 
 that he felt his fine mind degraded by 
 his seemingly humble office. This good 
 man, bent on his errands of mercy, was 
 seen in our streets under the most burn- 
 ing sun of summer, and the fiercest 
 storms of winter, as if armed against the 
 elements by the power of charity. He 
 has left us, but not to be forgotten. He 
 enjoys among us what to such a man 
 must be dearer than fame. His name is 
 cherished where the great of this world 
 are unknown. It is pronounced with 
 blessings, with grateful tears, with sighs 
 for his return, in many an abode of sor- 
 row and want ; and how can we shut our 
 hearts against this proof of the power of 
 the Catholic religion to form good and 
 great men ? 
 
 These remarks, we trust, will not be 
 perverted. None will suspect us of 
 Catholic partialities. Of all Protestants, 
 we have fewest sympathies with the 
 Romish Church. We go farther than 
 our brethren in rejecting her mysteries, 
 those monuments of human weakness ; 
 and as to her claims to infallibility, we 
 repel them with an indignation not to be 
 understood by sects which, calling them- 
 selves Protestant, renounce in words, 
 but assert in practice, a Popish immu- 
 nity from error, a Popish control over 
 the faith of their brethren. To us, the 
 spiritual tyranny of Popery is as detest- 
 able as oriental despotism. When we 
 look back on the history of Papal Rome, 
 we see her, in the days of her power, 
 stained with the blood of martyrs, gorged 
 with rapine, drunk with luxury and 
 crime. But what then ? Is it righteous 
 to involve a whole church in guilt which, 
 after all, belongs to a powerful few ? Is 
 it righteous to forget that Protestantism, 
 too, has blood on her robes ? Is it 
 righteous to forget that time, the great- 
 est of reformers, has exerted his silent, 
 purifying power on the Catholic as well 
 as on ourselves ? Shall we refuse to 
 see, and to own with joy, that Chris- 
 tianity, even under Papal corruptions, 
 puts forth a divine power ? that men 
 cannot wholly spoil it of its celestial 
 efficacy ? that, even under its most dis- 
 astrous eclipse, it still sheds beams to 
 guide the soul to heaven ? that there 
 exists in human nature, when loyal to 
 conscience, a power to neutralize error, 
 a'nd to select and incorporate with itself 
 
 what is pure and ennobling in the most 
 incongruous system ? Shall we shut 
 our eyes on the fact that among the 
 clergy of the Romish Church have risen 
 up illustrious imitators of that magnani- 
 mous Apostle before whom Felix trem- 
 bled ; men who, in the presence of nobles 
 and kings, have bowed to God alone, 
 have challenged for his law uncompro- 
 mising homage, and rebuked, in virtue's 
 own undaunted tone, triumphant guilt ? 
 Shall we shut our eyes on the fact that 
 from the bosom of this corrupt chnrch 
 have gone forth missionaries to the east 
 and the west, whose toils and martyrdom 
 will not be dimmed by comparison with 
 what is most splendid in Protestant self- 
 sacrifice ? We repeat it, not boastingly, 
 but from deep conviction, that we are 
 exceeded by no sect in earnestness of 
 desire for the subversion of the usurped 
 power of the Catholic Church, of its false 
 doctrines, and of its childish ceremonies 
 so often substituted for inward virtue. 
 We believe that these have wrought, and 
 still work, great evil. Still we see, and 
 delight to see, among those who adhere 
 to them, the best attributes of men and 
 Christians. Still we are accustomed to 
 refresh our piety by books which Catho- 
 lics have written. Still we find one of 
 our highest gratifications in those works 
 of art in which Catholic genius has em- 
 bodied its sublime and touching concep- 
 tions of the form and countenance of 
 Jesus, has made us awed witnesses of his 
 miracles and cross, companions of his 
 apostles, and admirers, with a tender 
 reverence, of the meek, celestial beauty 
 of his sainted mother. With these im- 
 pressions, and this experience, we cannot 
 but lift up our voices against Protestant 
 as well as Papal intolerance. We would 
 purify Protestantism from the worst 
 stain and crime of Rome, her cruel 
 bigotry, her nefarious spirit of exclusion. 
 It would give us pleasure to enlarge 
 on the character of Fe'nelon, had we not 
 proposed to ourselves another and still 
 more important object in this review. 
 But. in truth, this grateful duty has been 
 so faithfully performed in the Memoir 
 added to the Selections, that our readers 
 will have no cause to complain of our 
 declining it. This sketch of Fe'nelon 
 overflows with fervent yet discriminating 
 admiration, and gives utterance to affec- 
 tionate reverence with a calmness which 
 wins our confidence. It is not easy to
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 565 
 
 make extracts where the whole is so 
 interesting. But as some of our readers 
 may know Fdnelon only by name, and as 
 we wish all to know and love him, we 
 insert a few passages : 
 
 " Fenelon, by mixing with all ranks and 
 conditions, by associating with the unfortu- 
 nate and the sorrowful, by assisting the 
 weak, and by that union of mildness, of 
 energy, and of benevolence, which adapts 
 itself to every character, and to every situ- 
 ation, acquired the knowledge of the moral 
 and physical ills which afflict human nat- 
 ure. It was by this habitual and immediate 
 communication with all classes of society 
 that he obtained the melancholy conviction 
 of the miseries which distress the greater 
 part of mankind ; and to the profound im- 
 pression of this truth, through his whole 
 life, we must ascribe that tender commiser- 
 ation for the unfortunate which he mani- 
 fests in all his writings, and which he dis- 
 played still more powerfully in all his 
 actions." //. 263, 264. 
 
 " In the course of his walks, he would 
 often join the peasants, sit down with them 
 on the grass, talk with them, and console 
 them. He visited them in their cottages, 
 seated himself at table with them, and par- 
 took of their humble meals. By such kind- 
 ness and familiarity, he won their affections, 
 and gained access to their minds. As they 
 loved him as a father and friend, they de- 
 lighted to listen to his instructions, and to 
 submit to his guidance. Long after his 
 death the old people who had the happi- 
 ness of seeing him on these occasions, 
 spoke of him with the most tender rever- 
 ence. 'There,' they would say, 'is the 
 chair on which our good archbishop used 
 to sit in the midst of us; we shall see him 
 no more,' and then their tears would flow. 
 
 " The diocese of Cambrai was often the 
 theatre of war, and experienced the cruel 
 ravages of retreating and conquering armies. 
 But an extraordinary respect was paid to 
 Fenelon by the invaders of France. The 
 English, the Germans, and the Dutch ri- 
 valled the inhabitants of Cambrai in their 
 veneration for the archbishop. All dis- 
 tinctions of religion and sect, all feelings 
 of hatred and jealousy that divided the 
 nations, seemed to disappear in the pres- 
 ence of Fenelon. Military escorts were 
 offered him for his personal security, but 
 these he declined, and traversed the coun- 
 tries desolated by war to visit his flock, 
 trusting in the protection of God. In these 
 visits, his way was marked by alms and 
 benefactions. While he was among them, 
 the people seemed to enjoy peace in the 
 midst of war. 
 
 " He brought together into his palace 
 the wretched inhabitants of the country, 
 
 whom the war had driven from their homes, 
 and took care of them, and fed them at his 
 own table. Seeing one day that one of 
 these peasants ate nothing, he asked him 
 the reason of his abstinence. ' Alas ! my 
 lord,' said the poor man, 'in making my 
 escape from my cottage, I had not time to 
 bring off my cow, which was the support 
 of my family. The enemy will drive her 
 away, and I shall never find another so 
 good.' Fenelon, availing himself of his 
 privilege of safe conduct, immediately set 
 out, accompanied by a single servant, and 
 drove the cow back himself to the peas- 
 ant. 
 
 " 'This,' said Cardinal Maury, 'is per- 
 haps the finest act of Fenelon's life.' He 
 adds, ' Alas ! for the man who reads it 
 without being affected.' Another anec- 
 dote, showing his tenderness to the poor, 
 is thus related of him. A literary man, 
 whose library was destroyed by fire, has 
 been deservedly admireu for saying, ' I 
 should have profited but little by my books, 
 if they had not taught me how to bear the 
 loss of them.' The remark of Fenelon, 
 who lost his in a similar way, is still more 
 simple and touching. ' I would much rather 
 they were burned than the cottage of a poor 
 peasant.' 
 
 " The virtues of Fenelon give his history 
 the air of romance ; but his name will never 
 die. Transports of joy were heard at Cam- 
 brai when his ashes were discovered, which 
 it was thought had been scattered by the 
 tempest of the Revolution ; and to this 
 moment the Flemings call him ' The Good 
 Archbishop.'" //. 274, 275. 
 
 The Memoir closes in this touching 
 strain : 
 
 " When we speak of the death of Fenelon, 
 we realize the truth of what we all acknowl- 
 edge, though few feel, that the good man 
 never dies ; that, to use the words of one 
 of our eloquent divines, 'death was but a 
 circumstance in his being.' We may say, 
 as we read his writings, that we are con- 
 scious of his immortality ; he is with us ; 
 his spirit is around us ; it enters into and 
 takes possession of our souls. He is at 
 this time, as he was when living in his 
 diocese, the familiar friend of the poor and 
 the sorrowful, the bold reprover of vice, 
 and the gentle guide of the wanderer ; he 
 still says to all, in the words of his divine 
 Master, 'Come to me, all ye that are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest.' 
 
 " In the houses of the unlearned, where 
 the names of Louis the Fourteenth and 
 Bossuet have never entered, except as con- 
 nected with Fenelon's, where not a word of 
 his native tongue would be understood, his 
 spirit has entered as a minister of love and 
 wisdom, and a well-worn translation of his
 
 566. 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 1 Reflections,' with a short memoir of his 
 life, is laid upon the precious word of God. 
 What has thus immortalized Fenelon ? For 
 what is he thus cherished in our hearts ? 
 Is it his learning ? his celebrity ? his elo- 
 quence ? No. It is the spirit of Christian 
 love, the spirit of the Saviour of mankind, 
 that is poured forth from all his writings ; 
 of that love that conquers self, that binds 
 us to our neighbor, that raises us to God. 
 This is Fenelon's power, it is this that 
 touches our souls. We feel that he has 
 entered into the full meaning of that sub- 
 lime passage in St. John, and made it the 
 motto of his life : ' Beloved, let us love one 
 another ; for love is of God ; and every one 
 that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth 
 God. He that loveth not, knoweth not 
 God ; for God is love." //. 282, 283. 
 
 The translator has received and will 
 receive the thanks of many readers for 
 giving them an opportunity of holding 
 communion with the mind of Fe'nelon. 
 Her selections are judicious, and she 
 has caught much of that simplicity 
 which is the charm of Fe'nelon's style. 
 A want of coherence in the thoughts 
 may sometimes be observed ; and this, 
 we suppose, is to be ascribed in part to 
 the author, whos.e writings seem to be 
 natural breathings of the soul, rather 
 than elaborate works of art ; but still 
 more to the translator, whose delicate 
 task of selecting only what would suit 
 and edify the Protestant mind, must 
 have compelled her to make omissions 
 and sudden transitions, not very favor- 
 able to order and connection. 
 
 We now come to our principal object. 
 We propose to examine the most dis- 
 tinguishing views, or system of Fene- 
 lon. We say, his " system ; " for, though 
 he seems to write from immediate im- 
 pulse, his works possess that unity 
 which belongs to the productions of all 
 superior minds. However he may ap- 
 pear to give his thoughts without elabo- 
 ration or method, yet one spirit pervades 
 them. We hear everywhere the same 
 mild and penetrating voice, and feel our- 
 selves always in the presence of the same 
 strongly marked mind. What, then, were 
 Fe'nelon's most characteristic views ? 
 It may be well to observe that our prin- 
 cipal aim in this inquiry is to secure our 
 readers against what we deem excep- 
 tionable in his system. We believe, as 
 we have said, that he is not free from 
 excess. He is sometimes unguarded, 
 sometimes extravagant. He needs to 
 
 be read with caution, as do all who 
 write from their own deeply excited 
 minds. He needs to be received with 
 deductions and explanations ; and to 
 furnish these is our present aim. We 
 fear that the very excellences of Fe'ne- 
 lon may shield his errors. Admiration 
 prepares the mind for belief ; and the 
 moral and religious sensibility of the 
 reader may lay him open to impressions 
 which, whilst they leave his purity un- 
 stained, may engender causeless solici- 
 tudes, and repress a just and cheerful 
 interest in the ordinary pleasures and 
 labors of life. 
 
 What, then, are Fe'nelon's character- 
 istic views ? We begin with his views 
 of God, which very much determine and 
 color a religious system ; and these are 
 simple and affecting. He seems to 
 regard God but in one light, to think 
 of him but in one character. God al- 
 ways comes to him as the Father, as the 
 pitying and purifying friend of the soul. 
 This spiritual relation of the Supreme 
 Being is, in the book before us, his all- 
 comprehending, all-absorbing attribute. 
 Our author constantly sets before us 
 God as dwelling in the human mind, 
 and dwelling there to reprove its guilt, 
 to speak to it with a still voice, to kindle 
 a celestial ray in its darkness, to distil 
 upon it his grace, to call forth its love 
 towards himself, and to bow it, by a 
 gentle, rational sway, to chosen, cheer- 
 ful, entire subjection to his pure and 
 righteous will. Fe'nelon had fully re- 
 ceived the Christian doctrine of God. 
 He believed in him as the Universal 
 Father, as loving every soul, loving the 
 guiltiest soul, and striving with it to 
 reclaim it to himself. This interest of 
 the Creator in the lost and darkened 
 mind is the thought which predominates 
 in the writings of this excellent man. 
 God's care of the outward world, of 
 men's outward interests, of the concerns 
 of nations, seems scarcely to enter his 
 mind. It is of God, present to the soul, 
 as a reprover, enlightener, purifier, and 
 guide to perfection, that he loves to 
 speak, and he speaks with a depth of 
 conviction and tenderness to which 
 one would think every reader must re- 
 spond. 
 
 We have seen the predominant view 
 of the Supreme Being in the writings 
 which we are examining. He is a 
 spiritual Father, seeking the perfection
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 of every soul which he has made. 
 Another great question, carrying us 
 still more deeply into Fenelon s mind, 
 now presents itself. In what did he 
 suppose this perfection of the human 
 soul to consist ? His views on this 
 subject may be expressed in two words, 
 self-crucifixion and love to God. 
 Through these human perfection is to 
 be sought. In these, and especially in 
 the last, it consists. According to Fene- 
 lon, we are placed between two mighty 
 attractions, self and God ; and the only 
 important question for every human 
 being is, to which of these hostile 
 powers he will determine or surrender 
 his mind ? His phraseology on this 
 subject is various, and indeed his writ- 
 ings are, in a great measure, expansions 
 of this single view. He lays open the 
 perpetual collisions between the prin- 
 ciple of selfishness and the principle of 
 religious love, and calls us with his 
 whole strength of persuasion, to sacri- 
 fice the first, to cherish and enthrone 
 the last. This is his great aim. This 
 he urges in a diversity of forms, some 
 of which may be repeated, as helps to 
 a better apprehension of his doctrine. 
 Thus he calls us " to die to ourselves 
 and to live to God ; " " to renounce our 
 own wills and to choose the will of God 
 as our only rule ; " " to renounce our 
 own glory and to seek the glory of 
 God ; " " to distrust ourselves and to 
 put our whole trust in God ; " " to forget 
 ourselves and to give our thoughts to 
 God;" "to renounce ease and to labor 
 for God ; " <; to sacrifice pleasure and to 
 suffer for God ; " " to silence our own 
 passions and to listen to the voice of 
 God; " "to crucify self-love and to sub- 
 stitute for it the love of God ; " " to sur- 
 render our plans and to leave al! things 
 to God." These passages give us Fene- 
 lon's theory of perfection. Self, as he 
 teaches, is the great barrier between the 
 soul and its Maker, and self is to vanish 
 more and more from our thoughts, de- 
 sires, hopes, trust, and complacency, 
 and God to become all in all. Our own 
 interests, pleasures, plans, advancement, 
 all are to be swallowed up in an entire and 
 unreserved devotion to the will of God. 
 Such is the doctrine of Fdnelon, and 
 it is essentially just. Self-crucifixion or 
 self-sacrifice, and love to God, including 
 love to his creatures, are the chief ele- 
 ments of moral perfection. The pure 
 
 and noble mind of Fdnelon recognized 
 as by instinct, and separated from all 
 inferior adjuncts, these essential con- 
 stituents or attributes of Christian 
 virtue ; and there are passages in which 
 he sets before us their deep and silent 
 workings in the heart, and their beauti- 
 ful manifestations in the life, with a 
 delicacy, power, and truth which can 
 hardly be surpassed. 
 
 Still we think that Fe'nelon's exposi- 
 tion of his views is open to objection. 
 We think that his phraseology, notwith- 
 standing its apparent simplicity, is often 
 obscure ; that he has not set the due 
 bounds to his doctrines ; and especially 
 that refined minds, thirsting for perfec- 
 tion, may be led astray by his peculiar 
 mode of exhibiting it. Our objections 
 we will now state more fully. 
 
 We have said that self-crucifixion 
 and love to God are, in Fe'nelon's sys- 
 tem, the two chief constituents or ele- 
 ments of virtue and perfection. To 
 these we will give separate attention, 
 although, in truth, they often coalesce, 
 and always imply one another. We 
 begin with self-crucifixion, or what is 
 often called self-sacrifice, and on this 
 we chiefly differ from the expositions of 
 our author. Perhaps the word self oc- 
 curs more frequently than any other in 
 Fenelon's writings, and he is particularly 
 inclined to place it in contrast with and 
 in opposition to God. According to his 
 common teaching, God and self are hos- 
 tile influences, having nothing in com- 
 mon, the one, the concentration of all 
 evil, the other of all good. Self is the prin- 
 ciple and the seat of all guilt and misery. 
 He is never weary of pouring reproach 
 on self, and, generally speaking, sets no 
 limits to the duty of putting it to a pain- 
 ful death. Now, language like this has 
 led men to very injurious modes of re- 
 garding themselves and their own nature, 
 and made them forgetful of what they 
 owe to themselves. It has thrown a 
 cloud over man's condition and pros- 
 pects. It has led to self-contempt, a 
 vice as pernicious as pride. A man, 
 when told perpetually to crucify himself, 
 is apt to include under this word his 
 whole nature, and we fear that, under 
 this teaching, our nature is repressed, 
 its growth stinted, its free movements 
 chained, and of course its beauty, grace, 
 and power impaired. We mean not to 
 charge on Fe'nelon the error of which
 
 568 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 we have spoken, or to hold him respon- 
 sible for its effects. But we do think 
 that it finds shelter under his phrase- 
 ology, and we deem it so great, so per- 
 nicious, as to need a faithful exposition. 
 Men err in nothing more than in dispar- 
 aging and wronging their own nature. 
 None are just to themselves. The truth 
 on this great subject is indeed so ob- 
 scured, that it may startle as a paradox. 
 A human being, justly viewed, instead of 
 being bound to general self-crucifixion, 
 cannot reverence and cherish himself 
 too much. This position, we know, is 
 strong. But strong language is needed 
 to encounter strong delusion. We would 
 teach that great limitations must be set 
 to the duty of renouncing or denying 
 ourselves, and that no self-crucifixion is 
 virtuous but that which concurs with, and 
 promotes, self-respect. We will unfold 
 our meaning, beginning with positions 
 which we presume will be controverted 
 by none. 
 
 If we first regard man's highest nat- 
 ure, we shall see at once that to crucify 
 or renounce this, so far from being a 
 duty, would be a crime. The mind, 
 which is our chief distinction, can never 
 be spoken or thought of too reverently. 
 It is God's highest work, his mirror and 
 representative. Its superiority to the 
 outward universe is mournfully over- 
 looked, and is yet most true. This pre- 
 eminence we ascribe to the mind, not 
 merely because it can comprehend the 
 universe which cannot comprehend it- 
 self, but for still higher reasons. We 
 believe that the human mind is akin to 
 that intellectual energy which gave birth 
 to nature, and consequently that it con- 
 tains within itself the seminal and pro- 
 lific principles from which nature sprung. 
 We believe, too, that the highest purpose 
 of the universe is to furnish materials, 
 scope, and excitements to the mind, in 
 the work of assimilating itself to the 
 Infinite Spirit ; that is, to minister to a 
 progress within us which nothing with- 
 out us can rival. So transcendent is the 
 mind. No praise can equal God's good- 
 ness in creating us after his own spiritual 
 likeness. No imagination can conceive 
 of the greatness of the gift of a rational 
 and moral existence. Far from cruci- 
 fying this, to unfold it must ever be the 
 chief duty and end of our being, and 
 the noblest tribute we can render to its 
 Author. 
 
 We have spoken of the mind, that 
 highest part of ourselves, and of the 
 guilt we should incur by crucifying or 
 renouncing it. But the duty of self- 
 crucifixion requires still greater limita- 
 tions. Taking human nature as con- 
 sisting of a body as well as mind, as 
 including animal desire, as framed to 
 receive pleasure through the eye and 
 ear and all the organs of sense, in this 
 larger view, we cannot give it up to the 
 immolation which is sometimes urged. 
 We see in the mixed constitution of man 
 a beautiful whole. We see in the lowest 
 as well as highest capacity an important 
 use ; and in every sense an inlet of 
 pleasure not to be disdained. Still 
 more, we believe that he in whom the 
 physical nature is unfolded most entirely 
 and harmoniously, who unites to great- 
 est strength of limbs the greatest acute- 
 ness of the senses, may, if he will, derive 
 important aids to the intellect and moral 
 powers from these felicities of his out- 
 ward frame. We believe, too, that, by 
 a beautiful reaction, the mind, in pro- 
 portion to its culture and moral eleva- 
 tion, gives vigor and grace to the body, 
 and enlarges its sphere of action and en- 
 joyment. Thus, human nature, viewed 
 as a whole, as a union of the worlds of 
 matter and mind, is a work worthy of a 
 divine author, and its universal develop- 
 ment, not its general crucifixion, is the 
 lesson of wisdom and virtue. 
 
 We go still farther. The desire of 
 our own individual interest, pleasure, 
 good, the principle which is ordinarily 
 denominated self-love or self-regard, is 
 not to be warred against and destroyed. 
 The tendency of this to excess is indeed 
 our chief moral danger. Self-partiality, 
 in some form or other, enters into and 
 constitutes chiefly, if not wholly, every 
 sin. But excess is not essential to self- 
 regard, and this principle of our nature 
 is the last which could be spared. Noth- 
 ing is plainer than that to every being 
 his own welfare is more specially com- 
 mitted than that of any other, and that 
 a special sensibility to it is imperiously 
 demanded by his present state. He 
 alone knows his own wants and perils, 
 and the hourly, perpetual claims of his 
 particular lot ; and were he to discard 
 the care of himself for a day. he would 
 inevitably perish. It is a remark of 
 great importance, that the moral danger 
 to which we are exposed by self-love,
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 569 
 
 arises from the very indispensableness 
 of this principle, from the necessity of 
 its perpetual exercise ; for, according 
 to a known law of the mind, every pas- 
 sion, unless carefully restrained, gains 
 strength by frequency of excitement and 
 action. The tendency of self-love to 
 excess results from its very importance, 
 or from the need in which we stand of 
 its unceasing agency, and is therefore 
 no reason for its extermination, and no 
 reproach on human nature. This ten- 
 dency, however, does exist. It is strong. 
 It is fearful. It is our chief peril. It 
 is the precipice, on the edge of which 
 we always tread. It is the great ap- 
 pointed trial of our moral nature. To 
 this tendency, unresisted, tamely obeyed, 
 we owe the chief guilt and misery of the 
 present state, the extinction of charity, 
 a moral death more terrible than all the 
 calamities of life. This truth Fe"nelon 
 felt and taught as few have done, and in 
 his powerful warnings against this peril 
 the chief value of his writings lies. He 
 treats with admirable acuteness the 
 windings of self-partiality, shows how 
 it mixes with the best motives, and how 
 it feeds upon, and so consumes, our very 
 virtues. All this is true. Still, self- 
 love is an essential part of our nature, 
 and must not and cannot be renounced. 
 The strong tendency of this principle 
 to excess, of which we have now spoken, 
 explains the strong language in which 
 Fenelon and others have pointed out 
 our danger from this part of our con- 
 stitution. But it has also given rise to 
 exaggerated views and modes of expres- 
 sion, which have contributed, perhaps, 
 as much as any cause, to the universal 
 want of a just self-respect. Self-love, 
 from its proneness to excess and its 
 constant movements, has naturally been 
 the object of greater attention than any 
 other principle of action ; and men, re- 
 garding it not so much in its ordinary 
 operations as in its encroachments and 
 its triumphs over other sentiments, have 
 come to consider it as the chief con- 
 stituent of human nature. Philosophers, 
 "falsely so called," have labored to re- 
 solve into it all our affections, to make 
 it the sole spring of life, so that the 
 whole mind, according to their doctrine, 
 may be considered as one energy of 
 self-love. If to these remarks we add 
 that this principle, as its name imports, 
 has self or the individual for its object, 
 
 we have the explanation of a very im- 
 portant fact in the present discussion. 
 We learn how it is that self-love has 
 come to be called by the name of self, 
 as if it constituted the whole individual, 
 and to be considered as entering into 
 and forming human nature as no other 
 principle does. A man's self-love, espe- 
 cially when unrestrained, is thus thought 
 to be and is spoken of as himself ; and 
 hence the duty of crucifying or renounc- 
 ing himself has naturally been urged by 
 Fenelon, and a host of writers, in the 
 broadest and most unqualified terms. 
 
 Now, it is not true that self-love is 
 our only principle, or that it constitutes 
 ourselves any more than other princi- 
 ples, and the wrong done to our nature 
 by such modes of speech needs to be 
 resisted. Our nature has other ele- 
 ments or constituents, and vastly higher 
 ones, to which self-love was meant to 
 minister, and which are at war with its 
 excesses. For example, we have rea- 
 son, or intellectual energy, given us for 
 the pursuit and acquisition of truth ; 
 and this is essentially a disinterested 
 principle ; for truth, which is its object, 
 is of a universal, impartial nature. The 
 great province of the intellectual faculty 
 is to acquaint the individual with the 
 laws and order of the divine system, 
 a system which spreads infinitely beyond 
 himself, of which he forms a very small 
 part, which embraces innumerable be- 
 ings equally favored by God, and which 
 proposes, as its sublime and beneficent 
 end, the ever-growing good of the whole. 
 Again, human nature has a variety of 
 affections, corresponding to our domes- 
 tic and most common relations ; affec- 
 tions which in multitudes overpower 
 self-love, which make others the dhief 
 objects of our care, which nerve the arm 
 for ever-recurring toil by day, and 
 strengthen the wearied frame to forego 
 the slumbers of night. Then there 
 belongs to every man the general senti- 
 ment of humanity, which responds to 
 all human sufferings, to a stranger's 
 tears and groans, and often prompts to 
 great sacrifices for his relief. Above 
 all, there is the moral principle, that 
 which should especially be called a 
 man's self, for it is clothed with a kingly 
 authority over his whole nature, and 
 was plainly given to bear sway over 
 every desire. This is eminently a dis- 
 interested principle. Its very essence
 
 S/o 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 is impartiality. It has no respect of 
 persons. It is the principle of justice, 
 taking the rights of all under its protec- 
 tion, and frowning on the least wrong, 
 however largely it may serve ourselves. 
 This moral nature especially delights 
 in, and enjoins, a universal charity, and 
 makes the heart thrill with exulting joy 
 at the sight or hearing of magnanimous 
 deeds, of perils fronted, and death en- 
 dured, in the cause of humanity. Now, 
 these various principles, and especially 
 the last, are as truly ourselves as seli- 
 love. When a man thinks of himself, 
 these ought to occur to him as his chief 
 attributes. He can hardly injure him- 
 self more than by excluding these from 
 his conception of himself, and by mak- 
 ing self-love the great constituent of 
 his nature. 
 
 We have urged these remarks on the 
 narrow sense often given to the word 
 self, because we are persuaded that it 
 leads to degrading ideas of human nat- 
 ure, and to the pernicious notion that 
 we practise a virtuous self-sacrifice in 
 holding it in contempt. We would have 
 it understood that high faculties form 
 this despised self as truly as low de- 
 sires ; and we would add that, when 
 these are faithfully unfolded, this self 
 takes rank among the noblest beings in 
 the universe. To illustrate this thought, 
 we ask the reader's attention to an 
 important but much-neglected view of 
 virtue and religion. These are commonly 
 spoken of in an abstract manner, as if 
 they were distinct from ourselves, as if 
 they were foreign existences, which en- 
 ter the human mind, and dwell there in 
 a kind of separation from itself. Now, 
 religion and virtue, wherever they exist, 
 are ' the mind itself, and nothing else. 
 They are human nature, and nothing 
 else. A good man's piety and virtue 
 are not distinct possessions ; they are 
 himself, and all the glory which belongs 
 to them belongs to" himself. What is 
 religion ? Not a foreign inhabitant, not 
 something alien to our nature, which 
 comes and takes up its abode in the 
 soul. It is the soul itself, lifting itself 
 up to its Maker. What is virtue ? It 
 is the soul listening to, and revering, 
 and obeying a law which belongs to its 
 very essence, the law of duty. We 
 sometimes smile when we hear men 
 decrying human nature, and in the same 
 breathing exalting religion to the skies ; 
 
 as if religion were any thing more than 
 human nature acting in obedience to its 
 chief law. Religion and virtue, as far 
 as we possess them, are ourselves ; and 
 the homage which is paid to these a/ttri- 
 butes is in truth a tribute to the soul of 
 man. Self-crucifixion, then, should it 
 exclude self-reverence, would be any 
 thing but virtue. 
 
 We would briefly suggest another 
 train of thought leading to the same 
 result. Self-crucifixion, or self renun- 
 ciation, is a work, and a work requires 
 an agent. By whom, then, is it accom- 
 plished ? We answer, by the man him- 
 self who is the subject of it. It is he 
 who is summoned to the effort. He is 
 called by a voice within, and by the law 
 of God, to put forth power over himself, 
 to rule his own spirit, to subdue every 
 passion. Now, this inward power, which 
 self-crucifixion supposes and demands, 
 is the most signal proof of a high nature 
 which can be given. It is the most 
 illustrious power which God confers. 
 It is a sovereignty worth more than 
 that over outward nature. It is the 
 chief constituent of the noblest order 
 of virtues ; and its greatness, of course, 
 demonstrates the greatness of the human 
 mind, which is perpetually bound and 
 summoned to put it forth. But this is 
 not all. Self-crucifixion has an object, 
 an end ; and what is it ? Its great end 
 is to give liberty and energy to our nat- 
 ure. Its aim is, not to break down the 
 soul, but to curb those lusts and pas- 
 sions "which war against the soul," 
 that the moral and intellectual faculties 
 may rise into new life, and may mani- 
 fest their divine original. Self cruci- 
 fixion, justly viewed, is the suppression 
 of the passions, that the power and 
 progress of thought, and conscience, 
 and pure love may be unrestrained. It 
 is the destruction of the brute, that the 
 angel may unfold itself within. It is 
 founded on our godlike capacities, and 
 the expansion and glory of these is its 
 end. Thus the very duty, which by 
 some is identified with self-contempt, 
 implies and imposes self-reverence. It 
 is the belief and the choice of perfection 
 as our inheritance and our end. 
 
 We have thus shown under what 
 great limitations self-crucifixion, or self- 
 renunciation, is to be understood, and 
 how remote it is from self-contempt. 
 Our purpose was, after closing this dis-
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 571 
 
 cussion, to give a rational interpretation 
 of the phrases in which Fe'nelon has en- 
 joined this duty. But our limits allow 
 us just to glance at one or two of these. 
 Perhaps he calls upon us to do nothing 
 so often as "to renounce our own wills." 
 This is a favorite phrase ; and what does 
 it imply ? that we are to cease to will ? 
 Nothing less. The truth is, that the 
 human will is never so strenuous as in 
 this act which is called the renunciation 
 of itself, and by nothing does it more 
 build up its own energy. The phrase 
 means that we should sacrifice inclina- 
 tion at the least suggestion of duty. 
 But who does not know that the mind 
 never puts forth such strength of pur- 
 pose or will as in overcoming desire ? 
 And what is the highest end and benefit 
 of this warfare with desire ? It is that 
 the mind may accumulate force of moral 
 purpose, that the will may more sternly, 
 unconquerably resolve on the hardest 
 duties and sublimest virtues to which 
 God may call us. 
 
 Once more ; we are again and again 
 exhorted by Fenelon to " forget our- 
 selves." And what means this ? Self- 
 oblivion, literally understood, is an 
 impossibility. We may as easily an- 
 nihilate our being as our self-conscious- 
 ness. Self-remembrance is in truth a 
 duty, needful to the safety of every 
 hour, and especially necessary to the 
 great work of life, which is the con- 
 forming of ourselves of our whole 
 nature to the will of God. There 
 is no danger of our thinking of our- 
 selves too much if we will think justly ; 
 that is, if we will view ourselves as what 
 we are, as moral beings, accountable to 
 a Divine Lawgiver, framed to delight 
 in and to seek virtue, framed for an 
 ever-spreading philanthropy, called to 
 sympathize with and to suffer for others, 
 and, through this path, to ascend to our 
 Original. There are, however, senses 
 in which we cannot too much forget 
 ourselves. Our improvements, of what- 
 ever kind, our good deeds, our virtues, 
 whenever they are seized upon and 
 magnified by self-love, or so recalled 
 as to lift us above others, and to stifle 
 that sense of deficiency and thirst for 
 progress by which alone we can be 
 carried forward, these we cannot too 
 earnestly drive from our thoughts. Our 
 distinctions, whether of mind, body, or 
 condition, when they minister to vanity 
 
 or pride, when they weaken the con- 
 sciousness of a common nature with 
 the human race, narrow our sympathies, 
 or deprave our judgments, these we can- 
 not be too solicitous to forget. Our 
 pleasures, when they are so exaggerated 
 by the imagination as to distract and 
 overwhelm the sense of duty, should 
 be forced to quit their grasp on our 
 minds. Such parts or constituents of 
 ourselves we are to forget. Our moral, 
 intellectual, immortal nature we cannot 
 remember too much. Under the con- 
 sciousness of it we are always to live. 
 
 According to the views now given, 
 self-crucifixion is the subjection or sac- 
 rifice of the inferior to the higher prin- 
 ciples of our nature. It is the practical 
 recognition of the supremacy and dig- 
 nity of our rational and moral powers. 
 No duty involves a more reverential 
 view and care of ourselves. We have 
 been the more solicitous to give this 
 view of self-renunciation, because its 
 true spirit is often mistaken, because 
 it is often so set forth as to degrade 
 instead of exalting the mind. In truth, 
 we feel more and more the importance 
 of bringing men to juster conceptions 
 of the inward gifts with which God has 
 enriched them. We desire nothing so 
 much as to open their eyes to their own 
 spiritual possessions. We feel, indeed, 
 the difficulties of the subject. We know 
 that we have to combat with a secret 
 incredulity in many minds. We know 
 that the clearest expositions will be im- 
 perfectly understood by those who have 
 nothing in their experience to interpret 
 what we utter. The mind, we are aware, 
 can be clearly revealed to itself only by 
 its own progress. Its capacities of 
 thought, of action, of endurance, of 
 triumphing over pleasure and pain, 
 of identifying itself with other beings, 
 of seeking truth without prejudice and 
 without fear, of uniting itself with God, 
 of sacrificing life to duty, these im- 
 mortal energies can only be felt to be 
 real, and duly honored, by those in 
 whom they are gradually and steadily 
 unfolded. Still we do not despair of 
 meeting some response, though faint, 
 in multitudes. Such a spirit as God 
 has breathed into men cannot easily 
 exist without giving some signs of its 
 divine original. In most men, there 
 are some revelations of their own nat- 
 ure, some beams of a light which be-
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 longs not to the earth, some sympathies 
 with what is good and great in char- 
 acter, some perceptions of beauty, some 
 gushings from the deep fountain of love 
 in the soul, some thirstings for a purer 
 happiness, some experience of the pe- 
 culiar joy of a disinterested deed, some 
 dim conceptions at least of their intimate 
 relations to God. Most men understand 
 through experience these testimonies to 
 the secret wealth and immortal destina- 
 tion of the soul ; whilst in not a few 
 such a measure of intellectual and moral 
 power has been called forth' that noth- 
 ing is needed but a wise direction of 
 their thoughts upon themselves to open 
 to them the magnificent prospect of 
 their own spiritual energy and of the 
 unbounded good into which it may be 
 unfolded. For such we have written. 
 We regard nothing so important to a 
 human being as the knowledge of his 
 own mind, and of its intimate connec- 
 tion with the infinite Mind. Faith in 
 what man contains as a germ in his 
 own breast, faith in what he may be- 
 come, in what he was framed to be, in 
 that state of power, light, purity, joy, to 
 which Jesus Christ came to exalt him, 
 this faith seems to us the quickening, 
 saving, renovating principle which God 
 sent his Son to revive in the soul, and 
 happy are they who can spread its em- 
 pire in the world. 
 
 We have finished our remarks on the 
 first element of perfection, according to 
 Fe'nelon, self-crucifixion. We pro- 
 ceed to the second, love to God. On 
 this topic we intended to enlarge, but 
 have left ourselves little room. We 
 are happy to say that we have less to 
 object to Fdnelon's expositions under 
 this head than under the former. Of 
 the grandeur and the happiness of this 
 principle he speaks truly, worthily, in 
 the penetrating language of calm and 
 deep conviction. In one particular we 
 think him defective. He has not stated, 
 and in truth very few do state, with 
 sufficient strength and precision, the 
 moral foundation and the moral nature 
 of religion. He has not taught with 
 sufficient clearness the great truth that 
 love to God is, from beginning to end, 
 the love of virtue. He did not suffi- 
 ciently feel that religion is the expan- 
 sion and most perfect form of the moral 
 faculty of man. He sometimes teaches 
 that, to do God's will, we must renounce 
 
 ourselves and silence reason ; as if the 
 divine will were not in accordance with 
 our faculties ; as if it were something 
 dark and mysterious ; as if, to follow 
 it, we must quench the light of our own 
 minds. Now, the truth is, that the divine 
 will is in harmony with our nature. It 
 is God's approbation and injunction of 
 that moral rectitude, of which the great 
 lines are written on the human soul, 
 and to which reason and conscience, 
 even when they fail to secure obedience, 
 do yet secretly and in no small degree 
 respond. The human mind and the 
 divine law are not distinct and discon- 
 nected things. If man were not a law 
 to himself, he could not receive the 
 revelation of a law from heaven. Were 
 not the principle of duty an essential 
 part of his mind, he could be bound to 
 no obedience. Religion has its foun- 
 dation in our moral nature, and is in- 
 deed its most enlarged and glorious 
 form, and we lament that this great 
 truth does not shine more brightly in 
 the pages of Fe'nelon. We intended 
 to give to it a particular discussion ; but 
 as we cannot do it justice in the present 
 article, we prefer to dismiss it, and to 
 offer a few miscellaneous remarks on 
 that sentiment of love towards God on 
 which our author so perpetually insists. 
 We are aware that to some men 
 Fe'nelon may seem an enthusiast. Some 
 may doubt or deny the possibility of 
 that strong, deep, supreme affection 
 towards the Supreme Being with which 
 Fe"nelon's book overflows. We wonder 
 at this scepticism. We know no prop- 
 erty of human nature more undoubted 
 than its capacity and fulness of affec- 
 tion. We see its love overflowing in its 
 domestic connections, in friendships, and 
 especially in its interest in beings sepa- 
 rated by oceans and the lapse of ages. 
 Let it not be said that the affections to 
 which we here refer have fellow-beings 
 for their objects, and do not therefore 
 prove our capacity of religious attach- 
 ment. The truth is. that one spirit runs 
 through all our affections, as far as they 
 are pure ; and love to mankind, directed 
 aright, is the germ and element of love 
 to the Divinity. Whatever is excellent 
 and venerable in human beings is of 
 God, and in attaching ourselves to it we 
 are preparing our hearts for its Author. 
 Whoever sees and recognizes the moral 
 dignity of impartial justice and disinter-
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 573 
 
 ested goodness in his fellow-creatures, 
 has begun to pay homage to the attri- 
 butes of God. The first emotion awak- 
 ened in the soul we mean filial attach- 
 ment is the dawning of love to our 
 Father in heaven. Our deep interest in 
 the history of good and great men, our 
 veneration towards enlightened legisla- 
 tors, our sympathy with philanthropists, 
 our delight in mighty efforts of intellect 
 consecrated to a good cause, all these 
 sentiments prove our capacity of an af- 
 fectionate reverence to God ; for He is 
 at once the inspirer and the model of 
 this intellectual and moral grandeur in 
 his creatures. We even think that our 
 love of nature has an affinity with the 
 love of God, and was meant as a prepara- 
 tion for it ; for the harmonies of nature 
 are only his wisdom made visible : the 
 heavens, so sublime, are a revelation of 
 his immensity ; and the beauty of crea- 
 tion images to us his overflowing love 
 and blessedness. To us, hardly any 
 thing seems plainer than that the soul 
 was made for God. Not only its human 
 affections guide it to him ; not only its 
 deeps wants, its dangers, and helpless- 
 ness, guide it to him ; there are still 
 higher indications of the end for which 
 it was made. It has a capacity of more 
 than human love, a principle or power 
 of adoration, which cannot bound itself 
 to finite natures, which carries up the 
 thoughts above the visible universe, and 
 which, in approaching God, rises into a 
 solemn transport, a mingled awe and joy, 
 prophetic of a higher life ; and a brighter 
 signature of our end and happiness can- 
 not be conceived. 
 
 We are aware that it may be objected 
 that many and great obstructions to a 
 supreme love of God belong to our very 
 constitution and condition, and that these 
 go far to disprove the doctrine of our 
 being framed for religion as our chief 
 good. But this argument does not move 
 us. We learn from every survey of 
 man's nature and history that he is 
 ordained to approach the end of his 
 creation through many and great ob- 
 structions ; that effort is the immutable 
 law of his being ; that a good, in propor- 
 tion to its grandeur, is encomp-ssed 
 with hardship. The obstructions to re- 
 ligion are not greater than those to 
 knowledge ; and accordingly history 
 gives as dark views of human ignorance 
 as of human guilt. Yet who, on this 
 
 f round, denies that man was formed for 
 nowledge, that progress in truth is the 
 path of nature, and that he has impulses 
 which are to carry forward his intel- 
 lectual powers without end ? It is God's 
 pleasure, in his provisions for the mind 
 as well as for the body, to give us in a 
 rude state the materials of good, and to 
 leave us to frame from them, amidst 
 much conflict, a character of moral and 
 religious excellence ; and in this ordina- 
 tion we see his wise benevolence ; for 
 by this we may rise to the unutterable 
 happiness of a free and moral union with 
 our Creator. We ought to add, that the 
 obstructions to the love of God do not 
 lie wholly in ourselves. Perhaps the 
 greatest is a false theology. This inter- 
 poses thick clouds between the soul and 
 its Maker. It darkens and dishonors 
 God and his works, and leaves nothing 
 to sustain our trust and love. 
 
 The motives which are most commonly 
 urged for cherishing supreme affection 
 towards God are drawn from our frailty 
 and weakness, and from our need of 
 more than human succor in the trials 
 of life and in the pains of death. But 
 religion has a still higher claim. It 
 answers to the deepest want of human 
 nature. We refer to our want of some 
 being or beings to whom we may give 
 our hearts, whom we may love more than 
 ourselves, for whom we may live and be 
 ready to die, and whose character re- 
 sponds to that idea of perfection which, 
 however dim and undefined, is an essen- 
 tial element of every human soul. We 
 cannot be happy beyond our love. At 
 the same time, love may prove > our chief 
 woe, if bestowed unwisely, dispropor- 
 tionately, and on unworthy objects ; if 
 confined to beings of imperfect virtue, 
 with whose feelings we cannot always 
 innocently sympathize, whose interests 
 we cannot always righteously promote, 
 who narrow us to themselves instead 
 of breathing universal charity, who are 
 frail, mutable, exposed to suffering, pain, 
 and death. To secure a growing happi- 
 ness and a spotless virtue, we need for 
 the heart a being worthy of its whole 
 treasure of love, to whom we may con- 
 secrate our whole existence, in approach- 
 ing whom we enter an atmosphere of 
 purity and brightness, in sympathizing 
 with whom we cherish only noble senti- 
 ments, in devoting ourselves to whom 
 we espouse great and enduring interests,
 
 574 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 in whose character we find the spring 
 of an ever-enlarging philanthropy, and 
 by attachment to whom all our other 
 attachments are hallowed, protected, 
 and supplied with tender and sublime 
 consolations under bereavement and 
 blighted hope. Such a being is God. 
 
 The word which Fenelon has most 
 frequently used to express the happi- 
 ness to which the mind ascends by a 
 supreme love of God, is "peace," per- 
 haps the most expressive which lan- 
 guage affords. We fear, however, that its 
 full import is not always received. There 
 is a twofold peace. The first is negative. 
 It is relief from disquiet and corroding 
 care. It is repose after conflict and 
 storms. But there is another and a 
 higher peace, to which this is but the 
 prelude, " a peace of God which passeth 
 all understanding," and properly called 
 " the kingdom of heaven within us." 
 This state is any thing but negative. It 
 is the highest and most strenuous action 
 of the soul, but an entirely harmonious 
 action, in which all our powers and affec- 
 tions are blended in a beautiful propor- 
 tion, and sustain and perfect one another. 
 It is more than silence after storms. It 
 is as the concord of all melodious sounds. 
 Has the reader never known a season 
 when, in the fullest flow of thought and 
 feeling, in the universal action of the 
 soul, an inward calm, profound as mid- 
 night silence, yet bright as the still sum- 
 mer noon, full of joy, but unbroken by 
 one throb of tumultuous passion, has 
 been breathed through his spirit, and 
 given him a glimpse and presage of the 
 serenity of a happier world ? Of this 
 character is the peace of religion. It is 
 a conscious harmony with God and the 
 creation, an alliance of love with all 
 beings, a sympathy with all that is pure 
 and happy, a surrender' of every separate 
 will and interest, a participation of the 
 spirit and life of the universe, an entire 
 concord of purpose with its infinite 
 Original. This is peace, and the true 
 happiness of man ; and we think that 
 human nature has never entirely lost 
 sight of this its great end. It has 
 always sighed for a repose, in which 
 energy of thought and will might be 
 tempered with an all-pervading tranquil- 
 lity. We seem to discover aspirations 
 after this good, a dim consciousness of 
 it. in all ages of the world. We think 
 we see it in those systems of Oriental 
 
 and Grecian philosophy which proposed, 
 as the consummation of present virtue, 
 a release from all disquiet, and an inti- 
 mate union and harmony with the divine 
 Mind. We even think that we trace 
 this consciousness, this aspiration, in 
 the works of ancient art which time has 
 spared to us, in which the sculptor, 
 aiming to embody his deepest thoughts 
 of human perfection, has joined, with 
 the fulness of life and strength, a re- 
 pose, which breathes into the spectator 
 an admiration as calm as it is exalted. 
 Man, we believe, never wholly loses the 
 sentiment of his true good. There are 
 yearnings, sighings, which he does not 
 himself comprehend, which break forth 
 alike in his prosperous and adverse sea- 
 sons, which betray a deep, indestructible 
 faith in a good that he has not found, 
 and which, in proportion as they grow 
 distinct, rise to God, and concentrate 
 the soul in him, as at once its life and 
 rest, the fountain at once of energy and 
 of peace. 
 
 In the remarks which have now been 
 suggested by the writings of Fe"nelon, 
 we have aimed to free religion from ex- 
 aggerations which, we fear, weaken its 
 influence over reasonable men, and at 
 the same time to illustrate its dignity 
 and happiness. We want time, or we 
 should enlarge on the importance of this 
 great subject to every human being. 
 We cannot, however, leave it without 
 earnestly recommending it to the atten- 
 tion of men of superior minds. The 
 neglect which it generally receives from 
 these is one of the most discouraging 
 signs of our times. The claims of re- 
 ligion on intelligent men are not yet 
 understood, and the low place which it 
 holds among the objects of liberal in- 
 quiry will one day be recollected as the 
 shame of &ur age. Some remarks on 
 this topic may form a not unsuitable 
 conclusion to the present article. 
 
 It is, we fear, an unquestionable fact, 
 that religion, considered as an intellect- 
 ual subject, is in a great measure left to 
 a particular body of men as a profes- 
 sional concern ; and the fact is as much 
 to be wondered at as deplored. It is 
 wonderful that any mind, and especially 
 a superior one, should not see in relig- 
 ion the highest object of thought. It 
 is wonderful that the infinite God, the 
 noblest theme of the universe, should 
 be considered as a monopoly of pro-
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 575 
 
 fessed theologians ; that a subject so 
 vast, awful, and exalting as our relation 
 to the Divinity, should be left to techni- 
 cal men, to be handled so much for sec- 
 tarian purposes. Religion is the property 
 and dearest interest of the human race. 
 Every man has an equal concern in it. 
 It should be approached with an inde- 
 pendence on human authority. It should 
 be rescued from all the factions which 
 have seized upon it as their particular 
 possession. Men of the highest intel- 
 lect should feel that, if there be a God, 
 then his character and our relation to 
 him throw all other subjects into obscu- 
 rity, and that the intellect, if not con- 
 secrated to him. can never attain its 
 true use, its full dimensions, and its 
 proper happiness. Religion, if it be 
 true, is central truth, and all knowl- 
 edge, which is not gathered round it, 
 and quickened and illuminated by it, is 
 hardly worth the name. To this great 
 theme we would summon all orders of 
 mind, the scholar, the statesman, the 
 student of nature, and the observer of 
 life. It is a subject to which every 
 faculty and every acquisition may pay 
 tribute, which may receive aids and 
 lights from the accuracy of the logician, 
 from the penetrating spirit of philosophy, 
 from the iatuitions of genius, from the 
 researches of history, from the science 
 of the mind, from physical science, from 
 every branch of criticism, and, though 
 last not least, from the spontaneous sug- 
 gestions and the moral aspirations of 
 pure but unlettered men. 
 
 It is a fact which shocks us, and which 
 shows the degraded state of religion, 
 that not a few superior minds look 
 down upon it as a subject beneath their 
 investigation. Though allied with all 
 knowledge, and especially with that of 
 hum in nature and human duty, it is re- 
 garded as a separate and inferior study, 
 particularly fitted to the gloom of a con- 
 vent and the seclusion of a minister. 
 Religion is still confounded, in many 
 and in gifted minds, with the jargon of 
 monks and the subtilties and strifes of 
 theologians. It is thought a mystery 
 which, far from coalescing, wars with 
 our other knowledge. It is'never ranked 
 with the sciences which expand and 
 adorn the mind. It is regarded as a 
 method of escaping future ruin, not as 
 a vivifying truth through which the 
 intellect and heart are alike to be in- 
 
 vigorated and enlarged. Its bearing on 
 the great objects of thought and the 
 great interests of life is hardly sus- 
 pected. This degradation of religion 
 into a technical study, this disjunction 
 of it from morals, from philosophy, from 
 the various objects of liberal research, 
 has done it infinite injury, has checked 
 its progress, has perpetuated errors 
 which gathered round it in times of 
 barbarism and ignorance, has made it 
 a mark for the sophistry and ridicule of 
 the licentious, and has infused a lurking 
 scepticism into many powerful under- 
 standings. Nor has religion suffered 
 alone. The whole mind is darkened by 
 the obscuration of this its central light. 
 Its reasonings and judgments become 
 unstable through want of this foundation 
 to rest upon. Religion is to the whole 
 sphere ot' truth what God is to the uni- 
 verse, and in dethroning it, or confining 
 it to a narrow range, we commit very 
 much such an injury on the soul as the 
 universe would suffer were the infinite 
 Being to abandon it, or to contract his 
 energy to a small province of his crea- 
 tion. 
 
 The injury done to literature by di- 
 vorcing it from religion is a topic worthy 
 of separate discussion. Literature has 
 thus lost power and permanent interest. 
 It has become, in a great measure, su- 
 perficial, an image of transient modes of 
 thought and of arbitrary forms of life, 
 not the organ and expression of immuta- 
 ble truth, and of deep workings of the 
 soul. We beg not to be misunderstood. 
 We have no desire that literature should 
 confine itself wholly or chiefly to relig- 
 ious topics, and we hardly know a greater 
 calamity which it could incur than by 
 degenerating into religious cant. Next 
 to profaneness, we dread the affectation 
 of piety and the mechanical repetition 
 of sacred phraseology. We only lament 
 that literature has so generally been the 
 product and utterance of minds which 
 have not lived, thought, and written, 
 under the light of a rational and sublime 
 faith. Severed from this, it wants the 
 principle of immortality. We do not 
 speak lightly when we say that all works 
 of the intellect which have not in some 
 measure been quickened by the spirit 
 of religion, are doomed to perish or to 
 lose their power ; and that genius is 
 preparing for itself a sepulchre when it 
 disjoins itself from the Universal Mind.
 
 576 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 Religion is not always to remain in its 
 present dark, depressed condition. Al- 
 ready there are signs of a brighter day. 
 It begins to be viewed more generously. 
 It is gradually attracting to itself supe- 
 rior understandings. It is rising from 
 the low rank of a professional, technical 
 study, and asserting its supremacy among 
 the objects of the mind. A new era, we 
 trust, is opening upon the world, and all 
 literature will feel its power. In pro- 
 portion as the true and sublime concep- 
 tion of God shall unfold itself in the 
 soul, and shall become there a central 
 sun, shedding its beams on all objects 
 of thought, there will be a want of sym- 
 pathy with all works which have not 
 been quickened by this heavenly influ- 
 ence. It will be felt that the poet has 
 known little of nature, that he has seen 
 it only under clouds, if he have not seen 
 it under this celestial light. It will be 
 felt that man, the great subject of litera- 
 ture, when viewed in separation from 
 his Maker and his end, can be as little 
 understood and portrayed as a plant 
 torn from the soil in which it grew, and 
 cut off from communication with the 
 clouds and sun. 
 
 We are aware that objections will 
 spring up to the doctrine, that all litera- 
 ture should be produced under the in- 
 fluence of religion. We shall be told 
 that in this way literature will lose all 
 variety and spirit, that a monotonous 
 and solemn hue will spread itself over 
 writing, and that a library will have the 
 air of a tomb. We do not wonder at 
 this fear. Religion has certainly been 
 accustomed to speak in sepulchral tones, 
 and to wear any aspect but a bright and 
 glowing one. It has lost its free and 
 various movement. But let us not as- 
 cribe to its nature what has befallen it 
 from adverse circumstances. The truth 
 is, that religion, justly viewed, surpasses 
 all other principles in giving a free and 
 manifold action to the mind. It recog- 
 nizes in every faculty and sentiment the 
 workmanship of God, and assigns a 
 sphere of agency to each. It takes our 
 whole nature under its guardianship, 
 and with a parental love ministers to its 
 inferior as well as higher gratifications. 
 False religion mutilates the soul, .sees 
 evil in our innocent sensibilities, and 
 rules with a tyrant's frown and rod. 
 True religion is a mild and lawful sov- 
 ereign, governing to protect, to give 
 
 strength, to unfold all our inward re- 
 sources. We believe that under its in- 
 fluence literature is to pass its present 
 limits, and to put itself forth in original 
 forms of composition. Religion is of all 
 principles most fruitful, multiform, and 
 unconfined. It is sympathy with that 
 Being who seems to delight in diversi- 
 fying the modes of his agency, and the 
 products of his wisdom and power. It 
 does not chain us to a few essential 
 duties, or express itself in a few un- 
 changing modes of writing. It has the 
 liberality and munificence of nature, 
 which not only produces the necessary 
 root and grain, but pours forth fruits 
 and flowers. It has the variety and bold 
 contrasts of nature, which, at the foot 
 of the awful mountain, scoops out the 
 freshest, sweetest valleys, and embosoms, 
 in the wild, troubled ocean, islands, whose 
 vernal airs, and loveliness, and teeming 
 fruitfulness, almost breathe the joys of 
 Paradise. Religion will accomplish for 
 literature what it most needs ; that is, 
 will give it depth, at the same time that 
 it heightens its grace and beauty. The 
 union of these attributes is most to be 
 desired. Our literature is lamentably 
 superficial, and to some the beautiful 
 and the superficial even seem to be 
 naturally conjoined. Let not beauty be 
 so wronged. It resides chiefly in pro- 
 found thoughts and feelings. It over- 
 flows chiefly in the writings of poets, 
 gifted with a sublime and piercing vision. 
 A beautiful literature springs from the 
 depth and fulness of intellectual and 
 moral life, from an energy of thought 
 and feeling, to which nothing, as we 
 believe, ministers so largely as enlight- 
 ened religion. 
 
 So far from a monotonous solemnity 
 overspreading literature in consequence 
 of the all-pervading influence of religion, 
 we believe that the sportive and comic 
 forms of composition, instead of being 
 abandoned, will only be refined and im- 
 proved. We know that these are sup- 
 posed to be frowned upon by piety ; but 
 they have their root in the constitution 
 which God has given us, and ought not 
 therefore to be" indiscriminately con- 
 demned. The propensity to wit and 
 laughter does indeed, through excessive 
 indulgence, often issue in a character of 
 heartless levity, low mimicry, or unfeel- 
 ing ridicule. It often seeks gratification 
 in regions of impurity, throws a gayety
 
 WRITINGS OF FENELON. 
 
 577 
 
 round vice, and sometimes even pours ; 
 contempt on virtue. But, though often 
 and mournfully perverted, it is still a 
 gift of God, and may and ought to min- \ 
 ister not only to innocent pleasure, but 
 to the intellect and the heart. Man was 
 made for relaxation as truly as for labor ; 
 and by a law of his nature, which has 
 not received the attention it deserves, 
 he finds perhaps no relaxation so re- 
 storative as that in which he reverts to j 
 his childhood, seems to forget his wis- ; 
 dom, leaves the imagination to exhilarate ! 
 itself by sportive inventions, talks of 
 amusing incongruities in conduct and 
 events, smiles at the innocent eccentrici- 
 ties and odd mistakes of those whom 
 he most esteems, allows himself in arch 
 allusions or kind-hearted satire, and 
 transports himself into a world of ludi- 
 crous combinations. We have said that 
 on these occasions the mind seems to 
 put off its wisdom ; but the truth is, 
 that, in a pure mind, wisdom retreats, if 
 we may so say, to its centre, and there, 
 unseen, keeps guard over this transient 
 folly, draws delicate lines which are 
 never to be passed in the freest mo- 
 ments, and, like a judicious parent 
 watching the sports of childhood, pre- 
 serves a stainless innocence of soul in 
 the very exuberance of gayety. This 
 combination of moral power with wit 
 and humor, with comic conceptions and 
 irrepressible laughter, this union of 
 mirth and virtue, belongs to an advanced 
 stage of the character ; and we believe 
 that, in proportion to the diffusion of an 
 enlightened religion, this action of the 
 mind will increase, and will overflow in 
 compositions which, joining innocence 
 to sportiveness, will communicate un- 
 mixed delight. Religion is not at vari- 
 ance with occasional mirth. In the 
 same character, the solemn thought and 
 the sublime emotions of the improved 
 Christian may be joined with the un- 
 anxious freedom, buoyancy, and gayety 
 of early years. 
 
 We will add but one more illustration 
 of our views. We believe that the union 
 of religion with genius will favor that 
 species of composition to which it may 
 seem at first to be least propitious. 
 We refer to that department of litera- 
 ture which has for its object the delin- 
 eation of the stronger and more terrible 
 and guilty passions. Strange as it may 
 appear, these gloomy and appallingfeat- 
 
 37 
 
 ures of our nature may be best com- 
 prehended and portrayed by the purest 
 and noblest minds. The common idea 
 is, that overwhelming emotions, the 
 more they are experienced, can the 
 more effectually be described. We 
 have one strong presumption against 
 this doctrine. Tradition leads us to 
 believe that Shakspeare, though he 
 painted so faithfully and fearfully the 
 storms of passion, was a calm and 
 cheerful man. The passions are too 
 engrossed by their objects to meditate 
 on themselves ; and none are more igno- 
 rant of their growth and subtile work- 
 ings than their own victims. Nothing 
 reveals to us the secrets of our own 
 souls like religion ; and in disclosing 
 to us, in ourselves, the tendency of pas- 
 sion to absorb every energy, and to 
 spread its hues over every thought, it 
 gives us a key to all souls ; for, in all, 
 human nature is essentially one, having 
 the same spiritual elements and the 
 same grand features. No man, it is 
 believed, understands the wild and irreg- 
 ular motions of the mind like him in 
 whom a principle of divine order has 
 begun to establish peace. No man 
 knows the horror of thick darkness 
 which gathers over the slaves of vehe- 
 ment passion like him who is rising 
 into the light and liberty of virtue. 
 There is, indeed, a selfish shrewdness 
 which is thought to give a peculiar and 
 deep insight into human nature. But 
 the knowledge of which it boasts is 
 partial, distorted, and vulgar, and wholly 
 unfit for the purposes of literature. We 
 value it little. We believe that no 
 qualification avails so much to a knowl- 
 edge of human nature in all its forms, 
 in its good and evil manifestations, as 
 that enlightened, celestial charity which 
 religion alone inspires ; for this estab- 
 lishes sympathies between us and all 
 men, and thus makes them intelligible 
 to us. A man imbued with this spirit, 
 alone contemplates vice as it really ex- 
 ists, and as it ought always to be de- 
 scribed. In the most depraved fellow- 
 beings he sees partakers of his own 
 nature. Amidst the terrible ravages 
 of the passions, he sees conscience, 
 though prostrate, not destroyed, nor 
 wholly powerless. He sees the proofs 
 of an unextinguished moral life in in- 
 ward struggles, in occasional relentings, 
 in sighings for lost innocence, in reviv-
 
 578 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 ing throbs of early affections, in the 
 sophistry by which the guilty mind 
 would become reconciled to itself, in 
 remorse, in anxious forebodings, in de- 
 spair, perhaps in studied recklessness 
 and cherished self-forgetfulness. ' These 
 conflicts between the passions and the 
 moral nature are the most interesting 
 subjects in the branch of literature to 
 which we refer ; and we believe that 
 to portray them with truth and power, 
 the man of genius can find in nothing 
 such effectual aid as in the development 
 of the moral and religious principles in 
 his own breast. 
 
 We have given but a superficial view 
 of a great subject. The connection of 
 
 religion with intellect and literature is 
 yet to be pointed out. We conclude 
 with expressing our strong conviction 
 that the human mind will become more 
 various, piercing, and all-comprehending, 
 more capable of understanding and ex- 
 pressing the solemn and the sportive, 
 the terrible and the beautiful, the pro- 
 found and the tender, in proportion as 
 it shall be illumined and penetrated by 
 the true knowledge of God. Genius, 
 intellect, imagination, taste, and sensi- 
 bility, must all be baptized into religion, 
 or they will never know, and never 
 make known, their real glory and im- 
 mortal power. 
 
 A DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 THE REV. JOSEPH TUCKERMAN, D.D. 
 
 Delivered at the Warren Street Chapel, on Sunday Evening, 
 January 31, 1841. 
 
 FIVE years ago this Chapel was dedi- 
 cated to the moral and religious instruc- 
 tion of the poor of this city. This event 
 makes no noise in history, and may seem 
 to some to merit no particular notice. 
 It is remembered, however, by not a few 
 individuals and families, as the begin- 
 ning of many good influences. Still more, 
 it is not an event which stands alone. 
 This Chapel is the sign of an important 
 movement, which is not soon to pass 
 away. It sprung from the labors of that 
 faithful servant of God to whom we owe 
 the establishment of the Ministry at 
 Large in this place. It is intimately 
 connected with, and reveals to us, his 
 life and labors ; and, accordingly, the. 
 anniversary of its dedication to religious 
 services is a fit occasion for offering a 
 tribute to his memory. I have wished, 
 ever since his removal, to express my 
 reverence for his character, and my 
 sense of the greatness, of his work. To 
 these topics I invite your attention. But 
 before entering on them I propose to 
 consider a more general subject, which 
 was often on the lips of our departed 
 friend, to which he constantly recurred 
 
 in his writings, and on the comprehen- 
 sion of which the permanence of the 
 Ministry at Large chiefly depends. This 
 subject is, the obligation of a city to 
 care for and watch over the moral health 
 of its members, and especially to watch 
 over the moral safety and elevation of 
 its poorer and more exposed classes. 
 The life of our departed friend embodied 
 and expressed this truth with singular 
 power, and the consideration of it is a 
 natural and fit introduction to a memo- 
 rial of his virtues and labors, as well 
 as particularly adapted to the occasion 
 which has brought us together. 
 
 Why is it, my friends, that we are 
 brought so near to one another in cities ? 
 It is, that nearness should awaken sym- 
 pathy ; that multiplying wants should 
 knit us more closely together ; that we 
 should understand one another's perils 
 and sufferings ; that we should act per- 
 petually on one another for good. Why 
 were we not brought into being in soli- 
 tudes, endowed each with the power of 
 satisfying to the full his particular wants ? 
 God has room enough for a universe of 
 separate, lonely, silent beings, of selfish,
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 579 
 
 unshared enjoyment. But through the 
 whole range of nature we find nothing 
 insulated, nothing standing alone. Union 
 is the law of his creation. Even matter 
 is an emblem of universal sympathy, for 
 all its particles tend towards one another, 
 and its great masses are bound into one 
 system by mutual attraction. How much 
 more was the human race made for 
 sympathy and mutual aid ! How plain 
 is the social destination of man ! born, 
 as he is, into the arms of love, sus- 
 tained from the beginning by human 
 kindness, endowed with speech, and 
 plunged among fellow-beings to whose 
 feelings he cannot but respond, into 
 whose hearts he yearns to pour his own, 
 and whose rights, feelings, and interests 
 are commended to his regard by a law 
 of love and justice written within him 
 by a divine hand. Can we ask why such 
 beings are gathered into cities ? Is it 
 not that they should propose a common 
 weal ? Is it not that they should desire 
 and seek each other's highest good ? 
 What is the happiest community ? What 
 the city which should be chosen above 
 all others as our home ? It is that the 
 members of which form one body, in 
 which no class seeks a monopoly of 
 honor or good, in which no class is a 
 prey to others, in which there is a gen- 
 eral desire that every human being may 
 have opportunity to develop his powers. 
 What is the happiest community ? It is 
 not that in which the goods of life are 
 accumulated in a few hands, in which 
 property sinks a great gulf between 
 different ranks, in which one portion of 
 society swells with pride and the other 
 is broken in spirit ; but a community in 
 which labor is respected, and the means 
 of comfort and improvement are liber- 
 ally diffused. It is not a community in 
 which intelligence is developed in a few, 
 whilst the many are given up to igno- 
 rance, superstition, and a gross animal 
 existence ; but one in which the mind is 
 so reverenced in every condition that the 
 opportunities of its culture are afforded 
 to all. It is a community in which re- 
 ligion is not used to break the many 
 into subjection, but is dispensed even to 
 the poorest, to rescue them from the de- 
 grading influence of poverty, to give 
 them generous sentiments and hopes, to 
 exalt them from animals into men, into 
 Christians, into children of God. This 
 is a happy community, where human nat- 
 
 ure is held in honor ; where, to rescue 
 it from ignorance and crime, to give it 
 an impulse towards knowledge, virtue, 
 and happiness, is thought the chief end 
 of the social union. 
 
 It is the unhappiness of most large 
 cities that, instead of this union and 
 sympathy, they consist of different ranks 
 so widely separated as, indeed, to form 
 different communities. In most large 
 cities there may be said to be two na- 
 tions, understanding as little of one an- 
 other, having as little intercourse, as if 
 they lived in different lands. In such a 
 city as London the distance of a few 
 streets only will carry you from one stage 
 of civilization to another, from the ex- 
 cess of refinement to barbarism, from 
 the abodes of cultivated intellect to 
 brutal ignorance, from what is called 
 fashion to the grossest manners ; and 
 these distinct communities know com- 
 paratively nothing of each other. There 
 are travellers from that great city who 
 come to visit our Indians, but who leave 
 at home a community as essentially bar- 
 barous as that which they seek, who, 
 perhaps, have spent all their lives in the 
 midst of it. giving it no thought To 
 these travellers a hovel in one of the 
 suburbs which they have left would be 
 as strange a place as the wigwam of our 
 own forests. They know as little what 
 thousands of their own city suffer, to 
 what extremities thousands are reduced, 
 by what arts thousands live, as they 
 know of the modes of life in savage 
 tribes. How much more useful lessons 
 would they learn, and how much holier 
 feelings would be awakened in them, 
 were they to penetrate the dens of want, 
 and woe, and crime, a few steps from 
 their own door, than they gain from ex- 
 ploring this new world ! And what I- say 
 of London is true also of this city in a 
 measure. Not a few grow up and die 
 here without understanding how multi- 
 tudes live and die around them, without 
 having descended into the damp cellar 
 where childhood and old age spend day 
 and night, winter and summer, or with- 
 out scaling the upper room which con- 
 tains within its narrow and naked walls 
 not one, but two and even three families. 
 They see the poor in the street, but 
 never follow them in thought to their 
 cheerless homes, or ask how the long 
 day is filled up. They travel, in books 
 at least, to distant regions, among na-
 
 580 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 tions of different languages and com- 
 plexions, but are strangers to the con- 
 dition and character of masses who speak 
 their native tongue, live under their eye, 
 and are joined with them for weal or woe 
 in the same social state. This estrange- 
 ment of men from men, of class from 
 class, is one of the saddest features of 
 a great city. It shows that the true bond 
 of communities is as yet imperfectly 
 known. 
 
 The happy community is that in which 
 its members care for one another, and 
 in which there is, especially, an interest 
 in the intellectual and moral improve- 
 ment of all. That sympathy which pro- 
 vides for the outward wants of all, which 
 sends supplies to the poor man's house, 
 is a blessed fruit of Christianity ; and it 
 is happy when this prevails in and binds 
 together a city. But we have now learned 
 that the poor are not to be essentially, 
 permanently aided by the mere relief of 
 bodily wants. We are learning that the 
 greatest efforts of a community should 
 be directed, not to relieve indigence, but 
 to dry up its sources, to supply moral 
 wants, to spread purer principles and 
 habits, to remove the temptations to in- 
 temperance and sloth, to snatch the child 
 from moral perdition, and to make the 
 man equal to his own support by awak- 
 ening in him the spirit and the powers 
 of a man. The glory and happiness of 
 a community consists in vigorous efforts, 
 springing from love, sustained by faith, 
 for the diffusion, through all classes, of 
 intelligence, of self-respect, of self-con- 
 trol, of thirst for knowledge, and for 
 moral and religious growth. Here is the 
 first end, the supreme interest, which 
 a community should propose, and in 
 achieving it all other interests are ac- 
 complished. 
 
 It is a plain truth, and yet how little 
 understood ! that the greatest thing in a 
 city is man himself. He is its end. We 
 admire its palaces ; but the mechanic 
 who builds them is greater than palaces. 
 Human nature, in its lowest form, in the 
 most abject child of want, is of more 
 worth than all outward improvements. 
 You talk of the prosperity of your city. 
 I know but one true prosperity. Does 
 the human soul grow and prosper here ? 
 Do not point me to your thronged streets. 
 I ask, Who throng them ? Is it a low- 
 minded, self-seeking, gold-worshipping, 
 man-despising crowd, which I see rush- 
 
 \ 
 
 ing through them ? Do I meet in them, 
 under the female form, the gayly-decked 
 prostitute, or the idle, wasteful, aimless, 
 profitless woman of fashion ? Do I meet 
 the young man showing off his pretty 
 person as the perfection of nature's 
 works, wasting his golden hours in dis- 
 sipation and sloth, and bearing in his 
 countenance and gaze the marks of a 
 profligate ? Do I meet a grasping mul- 
 titude, seeking to thrive by conceal- 
 ments and frauds ? an anxious multitude, 
 driven by fear of want to doubtful means 
 of gain ? an unfeeling multitude, caring 
 nothing for others, if they may them- 
 selves prosper or enjoy? In the neigh- 
 borhood of your comfortable or splendid - 
 dwellings are there abodes of squalid 
 misery, of reckless crime, of bestial 
 intemperance, of half-famished child- 
 hood, of profaneness, of dissoluteness, of 
 temptation for thoughtless youth ? And 
 are these multiplying with your pros- 
 perity, and outstripping and neutralizing 
 the influences of truth and virtue ? Then 
 your prosperity is a vain show. Its true 
 use is, to make a better people. The 
 glory and happiness of a city consist not 
 in the number, but the character, of its 
 population. Of all the fine arts in a city, 
 the grandest is the art of forming noble 
 specimens of humanity. The costliest 
 productions of our manufactures are 
 cheap compared with a wise and good 
 human being. A city which should prac- 
 tically adopt the principle, that man is 
 worth more than wealth or show, would 
 gain an impulse that would place it at 
 the head of cities. A city in which men 
 should be trained worthy of the name 
 would become the metropolis of the 
 earth. 
 
 God has prospered us, and, as we be- 
 lieve, is again to prosper us, in our 
 business ; and let us show our gratitude 
 by inquiring for what end prosperity is 
 given, and how it may best accomplish 
 the end of the Giver. Let us use it to 
 give a higher character to our city, 
 to send refining, purifying influences 
 through every department of life. Let 
 us especially use it to multiply good 
 influences in those classes which are 
 most exposed to temptation. Let us 
 use it to prevent the propagation of 
 crime from parent to child. Let us use 
 it in behalf of those in whom our nature 
 is most depressed, and who, if neglected, 
 will probably bring on themselves the
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 5 8l 
 
 arm of penal law. Nothing is so just a 
 cause of self-respect in a city as the 
 healthy, moral condition of those who 
 are most exposed to crime. This is the 
 best proof that the prosperous classes 
 are wise, intelligent, and worthy of 
 their prosperity. Crime is to the state 
 what dangerous disease is to the human 
 frame, and to expel it should be to the 
 community an object of the deepest 
 concern. This topic is so important 
 that I cannot leave it without urging it 
 on your serious thoughts. 
 
 Society has hitherto employed its 
 energy chiefly to punish crime. It is 
 infinitely more important to prevent it ; 
 and this 1 say not for the sake of those 
 alone on whom the criminal preys. I 
 do not think only or chiefly of those 
 who suffer from crime. I plead also, 
 and plead more, for those who perpe- 
 trate it. In moments of clear, calm 
 thought I feel more for the wrong-doer 
 than for him who is wronged. In a case 
 of theft, incomparably the most wretched 
 man is he who steals, not he who is 
 robbed. The innocent are not undone 
 by acts of violence or fraud from which 
 they suffer. They are innocent, though 
 injured. They do not bear the brand 
 of infamous crime ; and no language 
 can express the import of this distinc- 
 tion. When I visit the cell of a convict, 
 and see a human being who has sunk 
 beneath his race, who is cast out by his 
 race, whose name cannot be pronounced 
 in his home, or can be pronounced only 
 to start a tear, who has forfeited the 
 confidence of every friend, who has lost 
 that spring of virtue and effort, the hope 
 of esteem, whose conscience is burdened 
 with irreparable guilt, who has hardened 
 himself against the appeals of religion 
 and love, here, here I see a ruin. The 
 man whom he has robbed or murdered, 
 how much happier than he ! What I 
 want is, not merely that society should 
 protect itself against crime, but that it 
 shall do all that it can to preserve its 
 exposed members from crime, and so do 
 for the sake of these as truly as for its 
 own. It should not suffer human nature 
 to fall so deeply, so terribly, if the ruin 
 can be avoided. Society ought not to 
 breed monsters in its bosom. If it will 
 not use its prosperity to save the igno- 
 rant and poor from the blackest vice, if 
 it will even quicken vice by its selfish- 
 ness and luxury, its worship of wealth, 
 
 its scorn of human nature, then it must 
 suffer, and deserves to suffer, from 
 crime. 
 
 I would that, as a city, we might 
 understand and feel how far we are 
 chargeable with much of the crime and 
 misery around us of which we complain. 
 Is it not an acknowledged moral truth, 
 that we are answerable for all evil which 
 we are able, but have failed, to prevent ? 
 Were Providence to put us in possession 
 of a remedy for a man dying at our feet, 
 and should we withhold it, would not 
 the guilt of his death lie at our door ? 
 Are we not accessory to the destruction 
 of the blind man who in our sight ap- 
 proaches a precipice and whom we do 
 not warn of his danger ? On the same 
 ground much of the guilt and misery 
 around us must be imputed to ourselves. 
 Why is it that so many children in a 
 large city grow up in ignorance and 
 vice ? Because that city abandons them 
 to ruinous influences, from which it 
 might and ought to rescue them. Why 
 is beggary so often transmitted from 
 parent to child ? Because the public, 
 and because individuals, do little or 
 nothing to break the fatal inheritance. 
 Whence come many of the darkest 
 crimes ? From despondency, reckless- 
 ness, and a pressure of suffering which 
 sympathy would have lightened. Human 
 sympathy, Christian sympathy, were it 
 to penetrate the dwellings of the igno- 
 rant, poor, and suffering, were its voice 
 lifted up to encourage, guide, and con- 
 sole, and its arm stretched out to sus- 
 tain, what a new world would it call into 
 being ! What a new city should we live 
 in ! How many victims of stern justice 
 would become the living, joyful witnesses 
 of the regenerating power of a wise 
 Christian love ! 
 
 In these remarks I have expressed 
 sympathy with the criminal ; but do not 
 imagine that I have any desire to screen 
 him from that wise punishment which 
 aims at once to reform offenders and 
 protect society. The mercy which 
 would turn aside the righteous penal- 
 ties of law is, however unconsciously, a 
 form of cruelty. As friends of the 
 tempted part of the community, we 
 should make the escape of the criminal 
 next to hopeless. But let not society 
 stop here. Let it use every means in 
 its power of rescuing its members from 
 the degradation and misery of crime and
 
 582 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 public punishment. Let it especially 
 protect the exposed child. Here is a 
 paramount duty which no community 
 has yet fulfilled. If the child be left to 
 grow up in utter ignorance of duty, of 
 its Maker, of its relation to society, to 
 grow up in an atmosphere of profaneness 
 and intemperance, and in the practice 
 of falsehood and fraud, let not the com- 
 munity complain of his crime. It has 
 quietly looked on and seen him, year 
 after year, arming himself against its 
 order and peace ; and who is most to 
 blame when at last he deals the guilty 
 blow ? A moral care over the tempted 
 and ignorant portion of the state is a 
 primary duty of society. 
 
 I know that objection will be made- to 
 this representation of duty. It will be 
 said by not a few, " We have not time 
 to take care of others. We do our part 
 in taking care of ourselves and our 
 families. Let every man watch over his 
 own household, and society will be at 
 peace." 
 
 I reply, first, this defence is not 
 founded in truth. Very few can hon- 
 estly say that they have no time or 
 strength to spend beyond their families. 
 How much time, thought, wealth, 
 strength, is wasted, absolutely wasted, 
 by a large proportion of every people ! 
 Were the will equal to the power, were 
 there a fraternal concern for the falling 
 and fallen members of the community, 
 what an amount of energy would be 
 spent in redeeming society from its 
 terrible evils, without the slightest 
 diminution of exertion at home ! 
 
 But, still more, we defeat ourselves, 
 when we neglect the moral state of the 
 city where we live, under pretence of 
 caring for our families. How little may 
 it profit you, my friends, that you labor 
 at home, if in the next street, amidst 
 haunts of vice, the incendiary, the thief, 
 the ruffian, is learning his lesson or pre- 
 paring his instruments of destruction ! 
 How little may it profit you that you 
 are striving to educate your children, if 
 around you the children of others are 
 neglected, are contaminated with evil 
 principles or impure passions ! Where 
 is it that our sons often receive the most 
 powerful impulses ? In the street, at 
 school, from associates. Their ruin 
 may be sealed by a young female 
 brought up in the haunts of vice. Their 
 first oaths may be echoes of profane- 
 
 ness which they hear from the sons of 
 the abandoned. What is the great 
 obstruction to our efforts for educating 
 our children ? It is the corruption 
 around us. That corruption steals into 
 our homes, and neutralizes the influence 
 of home. We hope to keep our little 
 circle pure amidst general impurity. 
 This is like striving to keep our partic- 
 ular houses healthy, when infection is 
 raging around us. If an accumulation 
 of filth in our neighborhood were send- 
 ing forth foul stench and pestilential 
 vapors on every side, we should not 
 plead, as a reason for letting it remain, 
 that we were striving to prevent a like 
 accumulation within our own doors. 
 Disease would not less certainly invade 
 us because the Source of it was not pre- 
 pared by ourselves. The infection of 
 moral evil is as perilous as that of the 
 plague. We have a personal interest in 
 the prevalence of order and good prin- 
 ciples on every side. If any member of 
 the social body suffer, all must suffer 
 with it. This is God's ordination, and 
 his merciful ordination. It is thus that 
 he summons us to watch over our 
 brother for his good. In this city, 
 where the children are taught chiefly in 
 public schools, all parents have peculiar 
 reason for seeking that all classes of 
 society be improved. 
 
 Let me add one more reply to the 
 excuse for neglecting others drawn from 
 the necessity of attending to our own 
 families. True, we must attend to our 
 families ; but what is the great end 
 which we should propose in regard to 
 our children ? Is it to train them up 
 for themselves only ? to shut them up 
 in their own pleasures ? to give them a 
 knowledge by which they may serve 
 their private interests ? Should it not 
 be our first care to breathe into them 
 the spirit of Christians ? to give them a 
 generous interest in our race ? to fit 
 them to live and to die for their fellow- 
 beings ? Is not this the true education ? 
 And can we, then, educate them better 
 than by giving them, in our own per- 
 sons, examples of a true concern for 
 our less prosperous fellow-creatures ? 
 Should not our common tones awaken 
 in them sympathy with the poor, and 
 ignorant, and depraved ? Should not 
 the influences of home fit them to go 
 forth as the benefactors of their race ? 
 This is a Christian education. This is
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 583 
 
 worth all accomplishments. Give to 
 society a generous, .disinterested son or 
 daughter, and you will pay with interest 
 the debt you owe it. Blessed is that 
 home where such members are formed 
 to be heads of future families and foun- 
 tains of pure influence to the communi- 
 ties of which they form a part. In this 
 respect our education is most deficient. 
 Whilst we pay profusely for superficial 
 accomplishments, very little is done to 
 breathe a noble, heroic, self-sacrificing 
 spirit into the young. 
 
 In reply to these remarks, ill-boding 
 scepticism will cry out, " Why all this 
 labor ? Society cannot be improved. 
 Its evils cannot be done away." But 
 this croaking has little significance to 
 one who believes in Christ, the divinely 
 ordained Regenerator of the world, and 
 who compares, in the light of history, 
 the present with past times. On these 
 authorities, I maintain that society can 
 be improved. I am confident that this 
 city would become a new place, a new 
 creation, were the intelligent and good 
 to seek in earnest to spread their intel- 
 ligence and goodness. We have pow- 
 ers enough here for a mighty change, 
 were they faithfully used. I would add, 
 that God permits evils for this very end, 
 that they should be resisted and sub- 
 dued. He intends that this world shall 
 grow better and happier, not through 
 his own immediate agency, but through 
 the labors and sufferings of benevolence. 
 This world is left, in a measure, to the 
 power of evil, that it should become a 
 monument, a trophy, to the power of 
 goodness. The greatness of its crimes 
 and woes is not a groand for despair, but 
 a call to greater effort. On our earth 
 the divine Philanthropist has begun a 
 war with evil. His cross is erected to 
 
 father together soldiers for the con- 
 ict, and victory is written in his blood. 
 The spirit which Jesus Christ breathes 
 has already proved itself equal to this 
 warfare. How much has it already done 
 to repress ferocity in Christian nations, 
 to purify domestic life, to abolish or 
 mitigate slavery, to provide asylums for 
 disease and want ! These are but its 
 first fruits. In the progress already 
 made by communities under its influ- 
 ences we are taught that society is not 
 destined to repeat itself perpetually, to 
 stand still for ever. We learn that great 
 cities need not continue to be sinks of 
 
 pollution. No man has seized the grand 
 peculiarity of the present age who does 
 not see in it the means and material of 
 a vast and beneficent social change. 
 The revolution which we are called to 
 advance has, in truth, begun. The great 
 distinction of our times is a diffusion of 
 intelligence, and refinement, and of the 
 spirit of progress, through a vastly wider 
 sphere than formerly. The middle and 
 laboring classes have means of improve- 
 ment not dreamed of in earlier .times. 
 And why stop here ? Why not increase 
 these means where now enjoyed ? Why 
 not extend them where they are not 
 possessed ? Why shall any portion of 
 the community be deprived of light, of 
 sympathy, of the aids by which they may 
 rise to comfort and virtue ? 
 
 At the present moment it is singu- 
 larly unreasonable to doubt and despair 
 of the improvement of society. Provi- 
 dence is placing before our eyes, in 
 broad light, the success of efforts for 
 the melioration of human affairs. I 
 might refer to the change produced 
 among ourselves, within a few years, by 
 the exertions of good men for the sup- 
 pression of intemperance, the very vice 
 which seemed the most inveterate, and 
 which more than all others spreads pov- 
 erty and crime. But this moral revolu- 
 tion in our own country sinks into 
 nothing when compared with the amaz- 
 ing and almost incredible work now in 
 progress on the other side of the ocean. 
 A few years ago, had we been called to 
 name the country of all others most 
 degraded, beggared, and hopelessly 
 crushed b.y intemperance, we should 
 have selected Ireland. There men .and 
 women, old and young, were alike swept 
 away by what seemed the irresistible 
 torrent. Childhood was baptized into 
 drunkenness. And now, in the short 
 space of two or three years, this vice of 
 ages has almost been rooted out. Jn a 
 moral point of view, the Ireland of the 
 past is vanished. A new Ireland has 
 started into life. Three millions of her 
 population have taken the pledge of 
 total abstinence, and instances of vio- 
 lating the pledge are very, very rare. 
 The great national anniversaries, on 
 which the whole laboring population 
 used to be dissolved in excess, are now 
 given to innocent pleasures. The ex- 
 cise on ardent spirits has now been 
 diminished nearly half a million ster-
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 ling. History records no revolution 
 like this. It is the grand event of the 
 present day. Father Matthew, the 
 leader in this moral revolution, ranks 
 far above the heroes and statesmen of 
 the times. As Protestants, we smile at 
 the old legends of the Catholic church ; 
 but here is something greater, and it is 
 true. However we may question the 
 claims of her departed saints, she has a 
 living minister, if he may be judged 
 from one work, who deserves to be can- 
 onized, and whose name should be 
 placed in the calendar not far below 
 apostles. And is this an age in which 
 to be sceptical as to radical changes in 
 society, as to the recovery of the mass 
 of men from brutal ignorance and still 
 more brutal vice ? 
 
 The remarks which have now been 
 made are needed at the present moment. 
 Our city is growing, and we are impa- 
 tient for its more rapid growth, as if 
 size and numbers were happiness. We 
 are anxious to swell our population. Is 
 it not worth our while to inquire, what 
 kind of a population we are to gather 
 here ? Are we so blind as to be willing 
 and anxious to repeat the experience of 
 other cities ? Are we willing to increase 
 only our physical comforts, our material 
 wealth ? Do we not know that great 
 cities have hitherto drawn together the 
 abandoned ? have bred a horde of ig- 
 norant, profligate, criminal poor? have 
 been deformed by the horrible contrasts 
 of luxury and famine, of splendor and ab- 
 ject woe ? Do we not know that among 
 the indigent and laborious classes of 
 great cities the mortality is fearfully 
 great in comparison with that of the 
 country ? a result to be traced to the 
 pestilential atmosphere which these peo- 
 ple breathe, to the filth, darkness, and 
 dampness of their dwellings, to the suf- 
 fering, comfortless condition of their 
 children, and to the gross vices which 
 spring up from ignorance and destitu- 
 tion. Do we want no better destiny for 
 this our dear and honored metropolis ? 
 You will not suspect me of being a foe 
 to what are called improvements. Let 
 our city grow. Let railroads connect it 
 with the distant West. Let commerce 
 link it with the remotest East. But, 
 whilst its wealth and numbers grow, let 
 its means of intelligence, religion, virtue, 
 domestic purity, and fraternal union 
 grow faster. Let us be more anxious 
 
 for moral than physical growth. May 
 God withhold prosperity, unless it is to 
 be inspired, hallowed, ennobled by pub- 
 lic spirit, by institutions for higher edu- 
 cation, and by increasing concern of the 
 enlightened and opulent for the ignorant 
 and poor ! If prosperity is to narrow 
 and harden us, to divide us into castes 
 of high and low, to corrupt the rich by 
 extravagance and pride, and to create a 
 more reckless class of poor, then God 
 avert it from us ! But prosperity need 
 not be so abused. It admits of noble 
 uses. It may multiply the means of 
 good. It may multiply teachers of truth 
 and virtue. It may make the desert 
 places of society blossom as the rose. 
 To this end may our prosperity be con- 
 secrated. Thus may we requite the 
 Author of all good. 
 
 How we may accomplish the good 
 work now set before us I have not time 
 to say. I would only ask your attention 
 to one means of improving our city, to 
 which our attention is particularly called 
 by the occasion which has brought us 
 together. I refer to the Ministry at 
 Large. The reasons for this institution 
 are too obvious to require labored expo- 
 sition. That those classes of society 
 which enjoy fewest advantages of edu- 
 cation peculiarly need instruction and 
 the voice of the living teacher; that 
 those whose habits, conditions, and 
 wants exclude them in effect from our 
 churches, should be visited in their 
 homes by the ministers of Christianity, 
 who does not see and acknowledge ? 
 If we. with every means of culture, need 
 the Christian ministry, the poor need it 
 more. Is it not a, duty, and should we 
 not rejoice, to send forth faithful, en- 
 lightened men whose office shall be to 
 strengthen those whom corrupt influ- 
 ences are sweeping from duty with 
 peculiar power, to guide those who have 
 no other counsellor, to admonish and 
 cheer those who are pressed with heav- 
 iest temptations, to awaken the minds 
 of those who are almost unconscious of 
 their intellectual powers, to breathe for- 
 titude into those who suffer most, to 
 open a better world to those to whom 
 this world is darkened, and, above all, 
 to snatch their children from ruin, to 
 protect the young who seem born to a 
 heritage of want or crime ? The minis- 
 try devoted to these offices is, undenia- 
 bly, a wise, Christian, noble institution.
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 585 
 
 This evening you are called to contrib- 
 ute to its support. Do so cheerfully. 
 You are not called to uphold a plan of 
 doubtful charity, or to send teachers to 
 remote regions, where years of anxious 
 labor must be spent on an unbroken, 
 unthankful soil before the fruit can ap- 
 pear. You are invited to sustain an 
 institution seated in the heart of our 
 city, and which, as you know, is sending 
 the waters of life through our own pop- 
 ulation. Its chapels, Sunday-schools, 
 libraries, are in the midst of you. The 
 doors to which its ministers carry coun- 
 sel and consolation are near your own. 
 You see its influences this moment in 
 these children. Its aim is to remove the 
 saddest features of our civilization, the 
 deep corruption of great cities ; and in 
 the energy which it now puts forth we 
 have a pledge of a happier era, in which 
 society will prosper without the terrible 
 sacrifice of so many of its members. 
 May this good work go on and spread, 
 and may future generations bless us for 
 saving them from some of the worst 
 evils which darken our own age ! 
 
 I have now closed my remarks on the 
 general topic suggested by this occasion. 
 But the work of the Ministry for the 
 Poor has brought to my mind solemn 
 and tender thoughts, which I know you 
 will not think foreign to our present 
 meeting, and which it will be a relief to 
 my own spirit to express. The Ministry 
 at Large in this city was chiefly origi- 
 nated and established by one of my earli- 
 est, dearest friends, who closed his eyes 
 not many months since on a foreign 
 shore. Allow me to pay a tribute to his 
 memory ; and in doing this allow me to 
 speak with the freedom of friendship. 
 I have not labored to collect materials 
 for a regular history of this distinguished 
 man, for I believe that I shall be more 
 just to his memory in giving reminis- 
 cences of our long intercourse than in 
 reporting a series of events. I will utter 
 with all simplicity what rises to my 
 memory, and I hope that the clear image 
 which I bear of my departed friend may 
 be transferred to the hearts of my 
 hearers. 
 
 My acquaintance with JOSEPH TUCK- 
 ERMAN began about forty-seven years 
 ago, and during most of the time which 
 has since elapsed we lived together as 
 brothers, communicating thoughts, feel- 
 ings, reproofs, encouragements, with a 
 
 faithfulness not often surpassed. I think 
 of him with peculiar pleasure, as he was, 
 perhaps, the most signal example within 
 my remembrance of improvement ; of a 
 man overcoming obstacles, and making 
 progress under disadvantages. When I 
 first met him in college he had the inno- 
 cence of .childhood ; he was sympathiz- 
 ing, generous, without a stain of the 
 vices to which youth is prone ; but he 
 did not seem to have any serious views 
 of life. Three years he passed almost as 
 a holiday, unconscious of his privileges, 
 uninterested in his severer studies, sur- 
 rendering himself to sportive impulses, 
 which, however harmless in themselves, 
 consumed the hours which should have 
 been given to toil. How often has 
 he spoken to me with grief and com- 
 punction of his early wasted life ! In 
 his last college year a change began, 
 and the remote cause of it he often 
 spoke of with lively sensibility. His 
 mother, he was accustomed to say, was 
 one of the best of women. She had in- 
 stilled into him the truths of religion 
 with a mother's love, tempered with no 
 common wisdom. The seed was sown 
 in a kindly nature. The religious prin- 
 ciple, which at first had only been a 
 restraint from evil, began to incite 
 good ; and to this the progress and 
 greatness of his life were mainly due. 
 On leaving college he gave himself to 
 the Christian ministry ; but, with the un- 
 chastened inconsideration of his youth, 
 he plunged into his duties with little 
 preparation. The consequence was a 
 succession of mortifications, most pain- 
 ful at the time, but of which he after- 
 wards spoke as a merciful discipline. 
 So unpromising was the opening of a 
 career of singular energy and useful- 
 ness. 
 
 By the kind ordination of Providence 
 he was settled in a small, obscure parish, 
 which offered nothing to gratify ambition 
 or to dissipate the mind. Years passed 
 in a life which we should call monoto- 
 nous, but which was singularly fitted to 
 give him the calmness and steadiness 
 which he needed. Here he became a stu- 
 dent, a faithful, laborious student, 
 and accumulated much knowledge, and 
 devoted no little time to the thorny 
 topics of theology. Thus the defects 
 of his early intellectual training were 
 repaired, and his faculties sharpened 
 and invigorated.
 
 586 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 He was not, however, made to wear 
 out life in such pursuits. His strength 
 did not lie in abstract speculation. Had 
 he given himself to this, he would never 
 have forced his way to new or great 
 views. His heart was his great power. 
 To his moral, religious, benevolent sen- 
 timents he owed chiefly the expansion 
 of his intellectual nature. Having laid 
 a good foundation by study, an unerring 
 instinct taught him that study was not 
 his vocation. His heart yearned for 
 active life. He became more and more 
 penetrated with the miseries and crimes 
 of the world. As he sat in his lonely 
 study, the thought of what men endured 
 on the land and the sea withdrew him 
 from his books. He was irresistibly 
 attracted towards his fellow-creatures, 
 by their sufferings, and, still more, by a 
 consciousness that there was something 
 great beneath their sufferings, by a sym- 
 pathy with their spiritual wants. His 
 study window looked on the sea ; and 
 the white sail, as it skirted the horizon, 
 reminded him of the ignorance and moral 
 perils of the sailor ; and, accordingly, he 
 was the first man in the country to make 
 an effort for the improvement and in- 
 struction of this class of men. The 
 society which he instituted for this end 
 did not answer its purpose ; for he knew 
 little or nothing of the people he wished 
 to serve, nor was the community then 
 awake, as it now is, to the work of re- 
 form. But the spirit which was moving 
 in him was not depressed by failure. 
 He soon gave himself with zeal to the 
 missionary cause ; thought, talked, and 
 wrote about it with characteristic en- 
 ergy ; and, had not family ties pre- 
 vented, would have devoted himself, I 
 believe, to the service of the heathen. 
 
 Whilst the passion for conflict with 
 evil was struggling within him, his health 
 failed, and for a time he had reason to 
 fear that he was to be cut off from use- 
 fulness. But the same gracious Provi- 
 dence which had ordained with signal 
 kindness the events of his past exist- 
 ence was guiding him through this dark 
 passage to the great sphere and purpose 
 of his life. His disease incapacitated 
 him from answering the demand made 
 upon his voice by the pulpit. He felt 
 that he must cease from regular preach- 
 ing ; and what, then, was he to do ? In 
 a favored hour the thought of devoting 
 himself to the service of the poor of this 
 
 city entered his mind, and met a re- 
 sponse within which gave it the char- 
 acter of a divine monition. He consulted 
 me ; and, in obedience to a long-rooted 
 conviction that society needs new min- 
 istries and agencies for its redemption, 
 and that men inspired with self-sacrific- 
 ing zeal for its redemption are God's 
 best gifts to the world, I encouraged his 
 faith and hope. 
 
 At first he entered almost tremblingly 
 the houses of the poor where he was 
 a stranger, to offer his sympathy and 
 friendship. But " the sheep knew the 
 voice of the shepherd." The poor re- 
 cognized by instinct their friend, and 
 from the first moment a relation of sin- 
 gular tenderness and confidence was 
 established between them. That part 
 of his life I well remember, for he 
 came often to pour into my ear and 
 heart his experience and success. I well 
 remember the effect which contact with 
 the poor produced on his mind. He 
 had loved them when he knew little of 
 them ; when their distresses came to 
 him through the imagination. But he 
 was a proof that no speculation or 
 imagination can do the work of actual 
 knowledge. So deep was the sympathy, 
 so intense the interest, which the poor 
 excited in him. that it seemed as if a new 
 fountain of love had been opened within 
 him. No favorite of fortune could have 
 repaired to a palace, where the rays of 
 royal favor were to be centered on him, 
 with a more eager spirit and quicker 
 step than our friend hastened to the 
 abodes of want in the darkest alleys of 
 bur city. How often have I stood hum- 
 bled before the deep spiritual love which 
 burst from him in those free communi- 
 cations which few enjoyed beside myself ! 
 I cannot forget one evening, when, in 
 conversing with the late Dr. Follen and 
 myself on the claims of the poor, and 
 on the cold-heartedness of society, he 
 not only deeply moved us, but filled us 
 with amazement, by his depth of feeling 
 and energy of utterance ; nor can I for- 
 get how, when he left us. Dr. Follen, a 
 man fitted by his own spirit to judge of 
 greatness, said to me, " He is a great 
 man." 
 
 This strong love for his fellow-creat- 
 ures was not a wild enthusiasm. It was 
 founded on clear, deliberate perception 
 of the spiritual nature, the immortal des- 
 tination, of every human being. Who-
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 587 
 
 ever discerns truly and feels deeply this 
 greatness of humanity, this relation of 
 the soul to God, must, indeed, pass for 
 an enthusiast in the present day ; for 
 our state of society is, in a great degree, 
 a denial of the higher rights, claims, and 
 destinies of a human being. 
 
 It was this love for the poor which 
 gave to our friend's labors their efficacy, 
 which made his ministry a living thing, 
 and which gave it perpetuity. This 
 house and our other chapels had their 
 foundation in this love. He could not 
 be kept from the poor. Cold, storms, 
 sickness, severe pain, could not shut 
 him up at home. Nothing but his do- 
 mestic ties prevented him from taking 
 up his abode among the indigent. He 
 would sometimes say, that could he, on 
 leaving the world, choose his sphere, it 
 would be that of a ministering spirit to 
 the poor ; and if the spirits of departed 
 good men return to our world, his, I 
 doubt not, might be found in the haunts 
 of want and woe. In this, as I have 
 already said, there was no blinding en- 
 thusiasm. He saw distinctly the vices 
 which are often found among the poor, 
 their craft, and sloth, and ingratitude. 
 His ministry was carried on in the midst 
 of their frequent filth and recklessness. 
 The coarsest realities pressed him on 
 every side. These were not the scenes 
 to make an enthusiast. But amidst these 
 he saw, now the fainter signs, now the 
 triumphs, of a divine virtue. It was his 
 delight to relate examples of patience, 
 disinterestedness, piety, amidst severest 
 sufferings. These taught him, that, in 
 the poorest hovels, he was walking 
 among immortals, and his faith in the 
 divinity within the soul turned his min- 
 istry into joy. 
 
 Dr. Tuckerman has sometimes been 
 called the founder of the Ministry at 
 Large. If by this language be meant 
 that he first planned and established a 
 distinct ministry for the poor, the lan- 
 guage is incorrect. Before his time 
 there had been men who had devoted 
 themselves exclusively and faithfully to 
 the religious instruction of those who 
 cannot be gathered into the ordinary 
 places of worship. His merit lay in 
 giving a new life to the work, in showing 
 what it could do, in raising it from neg- 
 lect to a high place among the means 
 of regenerating the world, and in awak- 
 ening new hopes of the improvement of 
 
 what had been looked on as the hope- 
 less portion of society. The greatest 
 benefactors of men are not so much 
 those who discover or contrive wholly 
 original and untried modes of action, as 
 those who seize on familiar means or 
 agencies and exalt them into new powers. 
 Our friend had hardly entered into his 
 ministry when he discovered its capaci- 
 ties. He saw that it opened a sphere 
 of usefulness which had hardly been 
 dreamed of. With prophetic faith, he 
 threw into it his whole soul ; and his 
 example and success raised up others to 
 confide in and to wield the same power. 
 He may thus be said, in an important 
 sense, to have established this ministry. 
 Through him it has taken root in men's 
 faith. It has passed, with all the energy 
 which he imparted to it, into other hands, 
 and is seen and felt to deserve a place 
 among our permanent institutions. Much 
 of this success was, undoubtedly, due to 
 his singleness of heart ; but much, also, 
 to his clear insight into the principles of 
 human nature which rendered the poor 
 open to good influences, and into the 
 means by which human beings in their 
 condition may be most effectually ap- 
 proached. 
 
 In carrying on this great work, Dr. 
 Tuckerman did not stand alone. He 
 received important aids from sympathiz- 
 ing friends. He began his labors under 
 the patronage of the American Unitarian 
 Association. At length, to insure the 
 continuance of the Ministry at Large 
 and to extend its operation, a union, or, 
 as it is called, a Fraternity, of several 
 churches in the city was formed, to take 
 this important work under its guidance 
 and care. There were some among us 
 who had come to feel that a Christian 
 church was established not only for the 
 edification of its own members, but for 
 the general cause of Christianity ; and 
 that it was especially bound to extend 
 the means of moral and religious instruc- 
 tion to such families or individuals in 
 its neighborhood as, from poverty, or 
 any other causes, were deprived of the 
 benefit of the public ordinances of re- 
 ligion. In conformity to this idea the 
 Fraternity was formed, on a simple but 
 efficient plan. In each of the churches 
 disposed to co-operate for the support 
 of the Ministry at Large a branch asso- 
 ciation is established, the members of 
 which contribute to this work according
 
 588 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 to their means or sense of duty, and 
 which is represented in a central board, 
 to whose discretion the management of 
 the whole concern is intrusted. By this 
 arrangement various good ends are ac- 
 complished. The Ministry for the Poor 
 has become linked with our most im- 
 portant religious institution, and may 
 be hoped to partake of the durableness 
 of the regular ministry. The churches 
 are knit together by a new bond, not 
 one of creeds, or tribunals, or organiza- 
 tions to accumulate power, but the holy 
 bond of charity ; and, still more, they 
 are brought to recognize distinctly and 
 practically their obligation to look be- 
 yond themselves, and to labor for the 
 extension of Christian truth and virtue. 
 
 This association gave but a small 
 salary to Dr. Tuckerman, but he desired 
 nothing beyond what was necessary to 
 save him from debt ; and this he did 
 desire. On this point he was peculiarly 
 sensitive, so much so that a notice of 
 him would be imperfect in which this 
 trait should be omitted. He shrunk 
 from the slightest pecuniary embarrass- 
 ment as an intolerable evil. " Owe no 
 man any thing," was a precept which 
 he kept in sight in all his domestic 
 arrangements ; and, by his strict econ- 
 omy and wise providence, he was able 
 to spend a long life and bring up a large 
 family without once anticipating his in- 
 come and without contracting a debt. 
 Some of his friends, of looser habits, 
 received lessons of wisdom and reproof 
 in this respect from his counsel and 
 example. 
 
 As to the great ideas which ruled 
 over and guided his ministry, and as to 
 the details of his operations, they may 
 be gathered best from the Reports which 
 he was accustomed to make to the 
 societies under whose patronage he 
 acted. He published, indeed, a volume 
 on this subject ; but it is hardly worthy 
 of his abilities or his cause. It was 
 prepared under the pressure of disease, 
 when his constitution was so exhausted 
 by excessive labor that he was compelled 
 to forego all out-door duties. He wrote 
 it with a morbid impatience, as if he 
 might be taken away before giving it to 
 the world. It ought, in truth, to be 
 regarded as an extemporaneous effusion. 
 It was hurried through the press whilst 
 the friends whom he had consulted were 
 hoping that it was undergoing a patient 
 
 revision. Thus hastily composed, it 
 was necessarily diffuse, a fault which 
 marks his most careful writings. It 
 might, indeed, have been compressed 
 to half the size ; and, as might be ex- 
 pected, it fell almost dead from the 
 press. This sore trial he bore with 
 great equanimity ; but he felt it deeply. 
 The saddest words I heard from him 
 in his sickness were those in which he 
 expressed his regrets at having precipi- 
 tated this publication. 
 
 It is in his Reports, chiefly, that the 
 history of his ministry is to be studied. 
 These are a treasure for the man who 
 would act wisely on the poor. They 
 are records of an uncommonly various 
 experience. They show his insight into 
 the temptations, perils, hearts, of the 
 depressed and indigent ; and, whilst 
 exposing their errors and sins, breathe 
 a never-failing sympathy. It is easy 
 to see in these that the great principle 
 which animated his ministry was an 
 immovable faith in God's merciful pur- 
 poses towards the poor. Their con- 
 dition never, for a moment, seemed to 
 him to separate them from their Creator. 
 On the contrary, he felt God's presence 
 in the narrow, comfortless dwelling of 
 the poor as he felt it nowhere else. 
 
 His perpetual recognition of the spirit- 
 ual, immortal nature of the poor gave to 
 all his intercourse a character of tender- 
 ness and respect. He spoke to them 
 plainly, boldly, but still as to the chil- 
 dren of the same infinite Father. He 
 trusted in man's moral nature, however 
 bruised and crushed ; he was sure that 
 no heart could resist him, if he could 
 but convince it of his sincere brotherly 
 concern. One rule he observed almost 
 too instinctively to make it a rule. He 
 always spoke encouragingly. He felt 
 that the weight under which the poor 
 man's spirit was already sinking needed 
 no addition from the harshness of his 
 spiritual guide. He went forth in the 
 power of brotherly love, and found it 
 a divine armor. On this point too much 
 cannot be said. The city of Boston 
 has the honor, above all cities, of prov- 
 ing how much can be accomplished by 
 a generous, affectionate mode of speech 
 and action among those classes of soci- 
 ety which it has been thought can only 
 be reached by menace, sternness, and 
 terror. Dr. Tuckerman and his suc- 
 cessors, in their intercourse with the
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 589 
 
 poor, and the Rev. Mr. Taylor, in his 
 labors among seamen, have taught us 
 that men, in the most unpromising 
 conditions, are to be treated as men ; 
 that under coarse jackets, and even 
 rags, may be found tender and noble 
 hearts ; and that the heart, even when 
 hardened, still responds to the voice 
 of a true friend and brother. The hor- 
 rible thought, that certain portions of 
 society are to be kept down by appeals 
 to their superstition and fear, has here 
 received a refutation very cheering to 
 the friends of humanity. Dr. Tucker- 
 man carried among the poor his own 
 highest views of religion, and often 
 spoke to me of the eagerness with which 
 they were received. He was, indeed, 
 too wise a man to give them in an ab- 
 stract form, or in technical language. 
 They were steeped in his heart before 
 they found their way to his lips ; and, 
 flowing warm and fresh from this foun- 
 tain, they were drunk in as living waters 
 by the thirsty souls of the poor. 
 
 A great secret of Dr. Tuckerman's 
 success lay in his strong interest in 
 individuals. It was not in his nature 
 to act on masses by general methods ; 
 he threw his soul into particular cases. 
 Every sufferer whom he visited seemed 
 to awaken in him a special affection and 
 concern. I remember well the language 
 which he once used in regard to a man 
 who had gone far astray. He said to 
 me with deep emotion, " I want that 
 man's soul ; I must save him." He 
 made the worst feel that they had a 
 friend, and by his personal interest 
 linked them anew with their race. 
 
 Let me add another explication of his 
 success. He sought for something to 
 love in all. He seized on any thing 
 good which might remain in the fallen 
 spirit ; on any domestic affection, any 
 generous feeling, which might have es- 
 caped the wreck of the character. If 
 he could but touch one chord of love, 
 one tender recollection of home, one 
 feeling of shame or sorrow for the past, 
 no matter how faintly, he rejoiced and 
 took courage, like the good physician 
 who, in watching over the drowned, 
 detects a flutter of the pulse, or the 
 feeblest sign of life. His hope in such 
 cases tended to fulfil itself. His tones 
 awakened a like hope in the fallen. 
 " He did not break the bruised reed, 
 or quench the smoking flax." 
 
 He began his ministry expecting to 
 accomplish his work by visiting and 
 conversation, and this he always relied 
 on as the most important means of use- 
 fulness. But he soon found that social 
 worship could not be dispensed with, 
 that this was a want of human nature ; 
 that the poor, by the mere circumstance 
 of leaving their homes and coming to- 
 gether in decent apparel for the worship 
 of God, received a salutary impulse, and 
 that in this way they could be brought 
 most effectually to act on one another 
 for good. He therefore resumed preach- 
 ing, though unequal to the effort. The 
 effect of this new situation in awaken- 
 ing his powers as a preacher was strik- 
 ing. In his sermons written for common 
 congregations he had never been very 
 attractive ; but his free, extemporane- 
 ous, fervent address drew round him 
 a crowd of poor who hung on his lips ; 
 and those who were not poor were moved 
 by his fervent utterance. His idea of 
 preaching underwent a great change. 
 Whilst abstaining from public com- 
 plaint, he would in private mourn over 
 the lifeless discussions of the pulpit, 
 which too often make the church cold 
 as the grave. 
 
 His influence over the poor was a 
 good deal increased by the variety of 
 forms in which he exerted it. He was 
 not merely a spiritual guide. He had 
 much skill in the details of common 
 life, was a good economist, understood 
 much about the trades and labors in 
 which the poor are most occupied, 
 could suggest expedients for diminish- 
 ing expense and multiplying comforts, 
 and by these homely gifts won the con- 
 fidence of the poor. He could sym- 
 pathize with them in their minutest 
 wants and sufferings, and opened a way 
 for his high truths by being a wise 
 counsellor as to their worldly interests. 
 At the very moment when he passed 
 with some for an enthusiast, he was 
 teaching household management to a 
 poor woman, or contriving employment 
 for her husband, or finding a place for 
 her child. 
 
 .This reminds me of one branch of 
 his labors in which he took special 
 interest. He felt deeply for the chil- 
 dren of the poor. They were in his 
 mind habitually, as he walked the 
 streets, and when he entered the in- 
 digent dwelling. He used to stop to
 
 590 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 inquire into the residence and history 
 of the begging child. He visited the 
 market and the wharf to discover the 
 young who were wasting the day in 
 sloth, taking their first lessons in the 
 art of theft. He was unwearied in his 
 efforts to place these children in schools ; 
 and multitudes owe to him their moral 
 safety and the education which prepared 
 them for respectable lives. Through 
 his means, not a few who had escaped 
 all domestic control and entered on the 
 downward path of crime, were sent to 
 the House of Reformation ; and he de- 
 lighted to meet, or speak of, those who, 
 under this influence, had been restored 
 to innocence. To the interest which 
 he awakened in the unprotected chil- 
 dren of the poor we owe chiefly the 
 establishment of the Farm School. If 
 any subject peculiarly occupied his 
 thoughts and heart, it was the duty of 
 the city to that portion of the young 
 who, if not adopted by society, must 
 grow up to guilt and shame and public 
 punishment. If his benevolence ever 
 broke out in bitter reproach, it was 
 in speaking of the general insensi- 
 bility to the neglected child, trained up 
 by its parents to beggary and fraud, 
 accustomed to breathe the fumes of 
 intemperance, and left to look on vice 
 as its natural state. Such was his in- 
 fluence that street-beggary sensibly de- 
 clined among us, an effect indicating 
 an extent of good influence not easily 
 apprehended. 
 
 To show his generous modes of view- 
 ing the poor, I would state that, for a 
 time, he assembled the children one 
 afternoon in the week to give them in- 
 struction in natural history. He took 
 great delight in this branch of knowl- 
 edge, and had stored up in his mind a 
 large number of facts illustrative of the 
 wisdom and goodness of God in the 
 creation. These he used to unfold, and 
 was able to awaken the curiosity and 
 fix the attention of his young hearers ; 
 of which, indeed, they furnished proof, 
 by giving him a portion of time usually 
 spent in play. His want of strength, 
 which compelled him to relinquish the 
 pulpit, obliged him to give up this mode 
 of teaching after a short trial. 
 
 I mention these various exertions as 
 illustrative of the enlarged spirit which 
 he carried into his work. His great 
 object was to promote religion ; but 
 
 religion did not stand alone in his mind. 
 He felt its connection with intellectual 
 cultivation, with wise household man- 
 agement, with neatness and propriety 
 of manners, and especially with the dis- 
 charge of parental duty ; and his labors 
 may be said to have covered almost all 
 the departments of social life. The 
 truth is, that his heart was in his work. 
 He did not think of it as the work 
 of a day, or of a few years, but of 
 life. He wanted to grow old and die 
 in it. The world opened nothing to 
 him, in all its various callings, more 
 honorable, more godlike. His ambition, 
 of which he had his share, and his dis- 
 interested and religious principles, all 
 flowed into this channel ; so that he 
 acted with undivided energy, with a 
 whole soul. Hence he became fruitful 
 in expedients, detected new modes of 
 influence, wound his way to his end 
 gently and indirectly, and contrived to 
 turn almost every thing to account. 
 Some, indeed, complained that he 
 dragged his poor into all companies and 
 conversation. But we must learn to 
 bear the infirmities of a fervent spirit, 
 and to forgive a love which is stronger 
 than our own, though it may happen to 
 want the social tact in which the indif- 
 ferent and trifling are apt to make the 
 most proficiency. 
 
 On one subject Dr. Tuckerman agreed 
 in opinion and feeling with all who visit 
 and labor for the poor. He felt that the 
 poverty of our city was due chiefly to 
 intemperance, and that this enhances 
 infinitely the woes of a destitute condi- 
 tion. A poor family into which this 
 vice had not found its way was a privi- 
 leged place in his sight. Poverty with- 
 out drunkenness hardly seemed to rank, 
 as an evil, by the side of that which 
 drunkenness had generated. If there 
 was one of our citizens whom he hon- 
 ored as eminently the friend of the poor, 
 it was that unwearied philanthropist 
 who, whilst his heart and hands are 
 open to all the claims of misery, has 
 selected, as his peculiar care, the cause 
 of temperance.* Dr. Tuckerman's 
 spirit groaned under the evils of intem- 
 perance as the ancient prophets under 
 the burden of the woes which they were 
 sent to denounce. The fumes of a 
 distillery were, to his keen feelings, 
 
 * Moses Grant.
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 591 
 
 more noisome and deadly than the 
 vapors of putrefaction and pestilence. 
 He looked on a shop for vending ardent 
 spirits as he would have looked on a 
 pitfall opening into hell. At the sight 
 of men who, under all our present 
 lights, are growing rich by spreading 
 these poisons through the land, he felt, 
 I doubt not, how the curses of the lost 
 and the groans of ruined wives and 
 children were rising up against them. 
 I know, for I have heard, the vehemence 
 of entreaty with which Dr. Tuckerman 
 sometimes approached the intemperate, 
 and he has often related to me his per- 
 severing efforts for their recovery. Could 
 he have bequeathed to the sober and 
 Christian part of this city and Common- 
 wealth his intense convictions in regard 
 to this vice, it would soon be repressed ; 
 the sanction of public authority would no 
 longer be given to its detestable haunts ; 
 one chief source of the miseries of our 
 civilization would be dried up. 
 
 The influence of Dr. Tuckerman's 
 labors was not confined to this city or 
 country. His Reports found their way 
 to Europe, and awakened similar exer- 
 tions. When his declining health 
 obliged him to cross the ocean not many 
 years since, he met in England a cordial 
 welcome from kindred spirits. His soci- 
 ety was coveted by the good and emi- 
 nent, and his experience listened to 
 with profound respect. It was his hap- 
 piness to meet there Rammohun Roy. 
 I was informed by a friend, who was 
 present at their interviews, that this wise 
 and great Hindoo, whose oriental cour- 
 tesy overflowed towards all, still distin- 
 guished our countryman by the affec- 
 tionate veneration with which he 
 embraced him. In France he was re- 
 ceived with much kindness by the Baron 
 Degerando, the distinguished philoso- 
 pher and philanthropist, whose extensive 
 and profound researches into poverty, 
 and into the means of its prevention or 
 cure, have left him no rival, whether in 
 the present or past times. This virtu- 
 ous man, whose single name is enough 
 to redeem France from the reproach, 
 sometimes thrown on her, of indifference 
 to the cause of humanity, has testified, 
 in private letters and in his writings, 
 his high consideration for the character 
 and labors of our departed friend. In 
 truth, Dr. Tuckerman's influence is now 
 felt on both sides the ocean ; and his 
 
 name, linked as it is with the Ministry 
 for the Poor, is one of the few among 
 us which will be transmitted to remote 
 posterity. There is hardly a more en- 
 during monument on which a man can 
 inscribe his name than a beneficent 
 institution founded on the principles of 
 human nature, and which is to act on 
 large portions of society. Schemes of 
 policy, accumulations of power, and 
 almost all the writings of an age, pass 
 away. The men who make most noise 
 are lost and forgotten like the blasts of 
 a trumpet. But institutions wrought 
 into a people's habits, and, especially, 
 incorporated with Christianity, that 
 immortal truth, that everlasting king- 
 dom, endure for ages. Our friend 
 has left a name to live ; not that a 
 name is worth an anxious thought ; 
 but the ambitious, who mistake for it 
 the shout of a brief day, may be usefully 
 reminded that it is the meed of those 
 who are toiling in obscure paths, and on 
 whom they hardly deign to bestow a 
 passing thought. Dr. Tuckerman was 
 not wholly raised above this motive ; 
 and who of us is ? But his work was 
 incomparably dearer to him than renown ; 
 he toiled for years without dreaming of 
 the reputation it was to bestow ; and in 
 that season of small things he used to 
 say, that, if the rich and great who 
 helped to sustain him could understand 
 the dignity and happiness of his calling, 
 they would covet it themselves, and 
 choose to partake the toil which they 
 deputed to another. 
 
 There was one testimony to his use- 
 fulness which gave him pleasure, and 
 that was the sympathy of Christians 
 who differed from him in opinion. He 
 went among the poor to serve the pur- 
 poses of no sect, but to breathe into 
 them the spirit and hopes of Jesus 
 Christ ; and in all sects he found hearty 
 well-wishers, and perhaps he left on 
 none of us a deeper impression of his 
 piety than on those with whose peculiar- 
 ities he had least communion. 
 
 Among the propitious circumstances 
 of the life of Dr. Tuckerman I ought not 
 to pass over his domestic ties. He was 
 twice married, and each of these con- 
 nections gave him an invaluable friend. 
 I was particularly acquainted with his 
 last wife, with whom a large part of his 
 life was spent, and I am happy to pay 
 this tribute to her singular worth. Her
 
 592 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 reserve and shrinking delicacy threw a 
 veil over her beautiful character. She 
 was little known beyond her home ; but 
 there she silently spread around her 
 that soft, pure light, the preciousness of 
 which is never fully understood till it is 
 quenched. The good Providence which 
 adapts blessings to our wants was par- 
 ticularly manifested in giving to our 
 friend such a companion. Her calm, 
 gentle wisdom, her sweet humility, her 
 sympathy, which, though tender, was too 
 serene to disturb her clear perceptions, 
 fitted her to act instinctively, and with- 
 out the consciousness of either party, on 
 his more sanguine, ardent mind. She 
 was truly a spirit of good, diffusing a 
 tranquillizing influence too mildly to be 
 thought of, and therefore more sure. 
 The blow which took her from him left 
 a wound which time could not heal. 
 Had his strength been continued,, so 
 that he could have gone from the house 
 of mourning to the haunts of poverty, 
 he would have escaped, for a good part 
 of the day, the sense of his bereavement. 
 But a few minutes' walk in the street 
 now sent him wearied home. There 
 the loving eye which had so long bright- 
 ened at his entrance was to shed its 
 mild beam on him no more. There the 
 voice that had daily inquired into his 
 labors, and like another conscience had 
 whispered a sweet approval, was still. 
 There the sympathy which had pressed 
 with tender hand his aching head, and 
 by its nursing care had postponed the 
 hour of exhaustion and disease, was 
 gone. He was not, indeed, left alone ; 
 for filial love and reverence spared no 
 soothing offices ; but these, though felt 
 and spoken of as most precious, could 
 not take the place of what had been re- 
 moved. This great loss produced no 
 burst of grief. It was a still, deep sor- 
 row, the feeling of a mighty void, the 
 last burden which the spirit can cast off. 
 His attachment to life from this moment 
 sensibly declined. In seasons of pecul- 
 iar sensibility he wished to be gone. 
 He kept near him the likeness of his 
 departed friend, and spoke to me more 
 than once of the solace which he had 
 found in it, as what I in my more fa- 
 vored lot could not comprehend. He 
 heard her voice from another world, and 
 his anticipations of that world, always 
 strong, became now more vivid and 
 touching. 
 
 Enough has been said to illustrate the 
 singular social virtues of Dr. Tucker- 
 man. It is, however, true, that, in his 
 casual intercourse with strangers, he 
 did not make as favorable an impression 
 as might have been expected from such 
 a man. He seemed, to those who saw 
 him seldom, too self-conscious. His 
 excitable temperament sometimes hur- 
 ried him into extravagance of speech. 
 His feelings sometimes prevailed over 
 his judgment. He wanted skill to de- 
 tect the point beyond which the sympa- 
 thy of the hearer could not follow him, 
 so that he sometimes seemed to exact 
 undue attention-. The truth is, that hu- 
 man nature, even in very good men, is 
 disproportioned, imperfect. We some- 
 times express our wonder at the meet- 
 ing of elements so incongruous in the 
 same character. But is there one of us 
 so advanced as not to know from inward 
 experience the contradictions of the hu- 
 man soul ? It is cheering to think how 
 little our trust in superior goodness is 
 impaired by these partial obscurations. 
 No man, perhaps, saw more distinctly 
 than myself the imperfections of the 
 good man of whom I speak. But my 
 confidence in his great virtues was as 
 firm as if he had been faultless. There 
 was a genuineness in his love, his dis- 
 interestedness, of which I had no more 
 doubt than of his existence. If ever 
 man gave himself sincerely to the ser- 
 vice of his race, it was he. I have made 
 these remarks because I have long 
 questioned the morality and wisdom of 
 the prevalent style of indiscriminate 
 praise of the dead. I fear we give a 
 suspiciousness to our delineations of 
 our friends by throwing over them the 
 hues of unreal perfection. I hold no 
 man to be worthy of eulogy who cannot 
 afford to be spoken of as he was, who, 
 after the worst is known, cannot inspire 
 reverence and love. 
 
 I have spoken of Dr. Tuckerman in 
 relation to his fellow-creatures ; I should 
 wrong him greatly if I did not speak of 
 him in his highest relations. In these 
 the beauty of his character was most 
 apparent to those who saw farthest into 
 his heart. Others admired his philan- 
 throphy ; to me his piety was more 
 impressive. It partook of the warmth 
 of his nature, but was calmer, wiser, 
 purer, than his other emotions. It was 
 simple, free, omnipresent, coming out
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 593 
 
 in unaffected utterance, coloring his 
 common thoughts and feelings, and giv- 
 ing strength and elevation to all his 
 virtues. It was such a piety as might 
 be expected from its early history, a 
 piety breathed from the lips and caught 
 from the beaming countenance of an 
 excellent mother. 
 
 His religion was of the most enlarged, 
 liberal character. He did not shut him- 
 self up even in Christianity. He took a 
 lively interest in the testimony borne to 
 God by nature, and in the strivings of 
 ancient philosophy after divine truth. 
 But Christianity was his rock, his de- 
 fence, his nutriment, his life. He un- 
 derstood the character of Jesus by 
 sympathy, as well as felt the need of 
 his "glad tidings." He had been a 
 faithful student of the Old Testament, 
 and had once thought of preparing a 
 work on Jewish antiquities. But his 
 growing reverence for the New Testa- 
 ment led him to place a vast distance 
 between it and the ancient Scriptures. 
 At one period of his ministry, when the 
 pressing demands of the poor compelled 
 him to forego study entirely, I recollect 
 his holding up to me a Greek Harmony 
 of the Four Gospels, and his saying, that 
 here was his library, that Christ's his- 
 tory was his theology, and that in the 
 morning he snatched a moment for this, 
 when he could find time for nothing else. 
 
 Religion in different individuals man- 
 ifests itself in different forms. In him 
 it shone forth peculiarly in faith or filial 
 trust, and in gratitude. His faith in 
 God was unbounded. It never wavered, 
 never seemed to undergo a momentary 
 eclipse. I have seen him under an 
 affliction which in a few days wrought 
 in his appearance the change of years ; 
 and his trust was like a rock, his sub- 
 mission entire. Much as he saw of the 
 crimes and miseries of life, no doubt of 
 the merciful purposes of God crossed 
 his mind. Some ray of divine goodness 
 streamed forth from the darkest trials 
 and events. Undoubtedly his own love 
 for the poor helped him to comprehend, 
 as few do, how God loved them. The 
 whole creation spoke to him of the 
 paternal character and infinite glory of 
 its Author. His filial piety called forth 
 in him powers which would otherwise 
 have slumbered. He was naturally 
 wanting in the poetical element. He 
 had little relish for music or the fine 
 
 arts, and took no great pleasure in the 
 higher works of imagination. But his 
 piety opened his eye, ear, heart, to the 
 manifestations of God in his works, 
 revealed the beauty which surrounded 
 him, and in this way became a source of 
 sublime joy. On such a mind religious 
 controversies could take but a slight 
 hold. He outgrew them, and hardly 
 seemed to know that they existed. That 
 which pervades, tranquillizes, and exalts 
 the souls of all Christians he under- 
 stood ; and in his busy life, which car- 
 ried him from his study, he was willing 
 to understand nothing more. 
 
 Congenial with this cheerful faith was 
 the spirit of gratitude. In this he was 
 probably the more eminent because it 
 was favored by his temperament. He 
 was naturally happy. There were next 
 to no seeds of gloom, depression, in his 
 nature. Life, as he first knew it, was 
 bright, joyous, unclouded ; and to this 
 cause mainly the volatility of his early 
 years was to be ascribed. As the mag- 
 net searches out and gathers round itself 
 the scattered ore with which it has affin- 
 ity, so his spirit selected and attached 
 instinctively to itself the more cheerful 
 views of Providence. In such a nature 
 piety naturally took the form of grati-. 
 tude. Thanks were the common breath- 
 ings of his spirit. His lot seemed to him 
 among the most favored on earth. His 
 blessings did not wait to be recalled to 
 his thoughts by a set, labored search. 
 They started up of themselves, and stood 
 before him robed in celestial light by as- 
 sociation with the Goodness which be- 
 stowed them. 
 
 From these elements of his piety 
 naturally grew up a hope of future 
 glory, progress, happiness, more un- 
 mixed than I have known in others. 
 The other world is commonly said to 
 throw a brightness over the present. In 
 his case the present also threw a bright- 
 ness over the future. His constant ex- 
 perience of God's goodness awakened 
 anticipations of a larger goodness here- 
 after. He would talk with a swelling 
 heart, and in the most genuine language, 
 of immortality, of heaven, of new access 
 to God. In truth, his language was such 
 as many good men could not always 
 join in. The conscious unworthiness 
 of many good men throws occasional 
 clouds over the future. But no cloud 
 seemed ever to dim his prospect ; not
 
 594 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 that he was unconscious of unworthi- 
 ness ; not that he thought of approach- 
 ing Infinite Purity with a claim of merit : 
 such a feeling never crossed his mind. 
 But it was so natural to him to enjoy, 
 his sense of God's constant goodness 
 was so vivid, and Christ's promises so 
 accordant with his experience, that 
 heaven came to him as a reality with- 
 out the ordinary effort which the faith 
 and hope of most men require. 
 
 In his last sickness his character came 
 out in all its beauty. He had not wholly 
 lost the naturil love of life. At times, 
 when unpromising symptoms seemed to 
 be giving way, he would use the means 
 of recovery with hope. But generally 
 he felt himself a dying man, whose chief 
 work was finished, who had little to do 
 with the world but to leave it. I have 
 regretted that I did not take notes of 
 some of his conversations. It was un 
 safe for him to talk, as the least excite- 
 ment increased his burning fever ; but 
 when I would start an interesting topic, 
 a flood of thoughts would rush into his 
 mind and compel him to give them utter- 
 ance. The future state was, of course, 
 often present to him ; and his concep- 
 tions of the soul's life and progress, in 
 its new and nearer relations to God, to 
 Christ, to the just made perfect, seemed 
 to transport him, for a time, beyond the 
 darkness and pains of his present lot. 
 To show that there was no morbidness 
 in these views, I ought to observe that 
 they were mingled with the natural 
 tastes and feelings which had grown 
 from his past life. In his short sea- 
 sons of respite from exhaustion and 
 suffering he would talk with interest 
 of the more important events of the 
 day, and would seek recreation in books 
 which had formerly entertained him. 
 He was the same man as in health, 
 with nothing forced or unnatural in his 
 elevation of mind. He had always taken 
 great pleasure in the writings of the 
 moralists of antiquity, and perhaps the 
 last book I put into his hands was Cice- 
 ro's " Tusculan Questions," which he 
 read with avidity and delight. So com- 
 prehensive was his spirit, that, whilst 
 Christ was his hope, and Christian per- 
 fection his aspiration, he still rejoiced to 
 discern in the great Roman, on whom 
 Christian truth had not yet dawned, such 
 deep reverence for the majesty of virtue. 
 As might be expected, " his ruling pas- 
 
 sion was strong in death." To the last 
 moment of my intercourse with him the 
 poor were in his heart. As he had given 
 them his life, so death could not divide 
 him from them. 
 
 One affecting view remains to be 
 given. Dr. Tuckerman was a martyr 
 to his cause. That his life was short- 
 ened by excessive toil cannot be doubted. 
 His friends forewarned him of this result. 
 He saw the danger himself, and once and 
 again resolved to diminish his labors ; 
 but when he retreated from the poor 
 they followed him to his house, and he 
 could not resist their supplicating looks 
 and tones. To my earnest and frequent 
 remonstrance on this point he at times 
 replied that his ministry might need a 
 victim, that labors beyond his strength 
 might be required to show what it was 
 capable of effecting, and that he was 
 willing to suffer and to die for the cause. 
 Living thus, he grew prematurely old. 
 His walks became more and more nar- 
 row. Then he was imprisoned at home. 
 The prostration of strength was followed 
 by a racking cough and burning fever. 
 As we have seen, his last sickness was 
 a bright testimony to his piety. But its 
 end was sorrowful. By a mysterious 
 ordination of Providence, the capacity 
 of suffering often survives unimpaired^ 
 whilst the reason and affections seem to 
 decay. So was it here. In the last 
 hours of our friend the body seemed to 
 prevail over the power of thought. He 
 died in fearful pain. He was borne 
 amidst agonies into the higher world. 
 At length his martyrdom ceased ; and 
 who of us can utter or conceive the 
 blessedness of the spirit rising from 
 this thick darkness into the light of 
 heaven ! 
 
 Such was the founder of the Ministry 
 at Large in this city, a man whom I 
 thoroughly knew ; a man whose imper- 
 fections I could not but know, for they 
 stood out on the surface of his charac- 
 ter ; but who had a great heart, who 
 was willingly a victim to the cause 
 which in the love and fear of God he 
 had espoused, and who has left behind 
 him as a memorial, not this fleeting 
 tribute of friendship, but an institution 
 which is to live for ages, and which en- 
 titles him to be ranked among the bene- 
 factors of this city and the world. When 
 he began his work he had no anticipa- 
 tion of such an influence and such an
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 595 
 
 honor. He thought that he was devot- 
 ing himself to an obscure life. He did 
 not expect that his name would be heard 
 beyond the dwellings of the poor. He 
 was contented with believing that here 
 and there an individual or a family would 
 receive strength, light, and consolation 
 from his ministry. But gradually the 
 idea that he was beginning a movement 
 that might survive him, and might more 
 and more repress the worst social evils, 
 opened on his mind. He saw more and 
 more clearly that the Ministry at Large, 
 with other agencies, was to change the 
 aspect of a large portion of society. It 
 became his deliberate conviction, and 
 one which he often repeated, that great 
 cities need not be haunts of vice and 
 poverty ; that in this city there were 
 now intelligence, virtue, and piety 
 enough, could they be brought into 
 united action, to give a new intellect- 
 ual and moral life to the more neg- 
 lected classes of society. In this faith 
 he acted, toiled, suffered, and died. His 
 gratitude to God for sending him into 
 this field of labor never failed him. For 
 weeks before he left the country, never 
 to return, I was almost the only visitor 
 whom he had strength to see ; and it 
 was a joy to look on his pale, emaciated 
 face lighted up with thankfulness for the 
 work which had been given him to do, 
 and with the hope that it would endure 
 and grow when he should sleep in the 
 dust. From such a life and such a death 
 let us learn to love our poor and suffering 
 brethren ; and as we have ability let us 
 send to them faithful and living men, 
 whose sympathy, counsels, prayers, will 
 assuage sorrow, awaken the conscience, 
 touch the heart, guide the young, com- 
 fort the old, and shed over the dark 
 paths of this life the brightness of the 
 life to come. 
 
 APPENDIX TO THE PRECEDING 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 IN the preceding discourse I have 
 not spoken very distinctly of one part of 
 Dr. Tuckerman's character, the strength 
 of his attachment to individuals. He 
 was not absorbed in one great object. 
 The private and public affections lived 
 together in him harmoniously and with 
 equal fervor. His experience of life 
 had not the common effect of chilling 
 his early enthusiasm or his suscepti- 
 
 bility of ardent attachment. He was 
 true to old friends and prepared for new 
 ones. His strong interest and delight 
 in Dr. Follen and Dr. Spurzheim showed 
 how naturally his heart opened itself to 
 noble-minded strangers. From the lat- 
 ter his mind received a leaning towards 
 phrenology. When he went to England 
 his sympathies created a home for him 
 wherever he stayed. Where other men 
 would have made acquaintance he formed 
 friendships. One of these was so pre- 
 cious to him, and contributed so much 
 to the happiness of both parties, that it 
 deserves notice in a memoir of him. I 
 refer to his friendship with Lady Byron. 
 Of his college classmates there were 
 others as well as myself who enjoyed 
 much of his affection to the last. One 
 of these was Jonathan Phillips, Esq., 
 whom he accompanied to Europe, and 
 who had a true reverence for his good- 
 ness. The other was Judge Story, so 
 eminent as a jurist at home and abroad. 
 While the preceding discourse was pass- 
 ing through the press, I wrote to the 
 latter, requesting him to communicate 
 to me his reminiscences of our friend ; 
 and with characteristic kindness and 
 warmth of heart he sent me the fol- 
 lowing letter, written, as he says, in 
 haste, but which will give much pleasure 
 to all who have an interest in the de- 
 ceased. 'I publish it the more gladly 
 because his views of our friend's life at 
 college are more favorable than those 
 which I have given : 
 
 " To THE REV. W. E. CHANNING, D. D. 
 
 "Mv DEAR SIR, I comply very cheer- 
 fully with your request, although there are 
 very few reminiscences of our late lamented 
 classmate and friend, the Rev. Dr. Tucker- 
 man, which I could supply, which are not 
 already familiar to your mind. During our 
 collegiate life my acquaintance with him 
 was but slight until my junior year, when 
 he became my churp ; and so pleasant anq 1 
 confidential was our intercourse during that- 
 year that we should undoubtedly have con- 
 tinued chums during the remainder of our 
 college studies, if some family arrange- 
 ments had not made it convenient for hirrj 
 to adopt a different course. The change, 
 however, did not prove the slightest interr 
 ruption to our intercourse and friendship ; 
 and I feel great gratification in saying, that, 
 from that period until the close of his life, 
 I am not conscious that there was on either 
 side any abatement of mutual affection and 
 respect ; and whenever and wherever we
 
 596 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 met it was with the warm welcome'of early 
 and unsuspected friendship. 
 
 " Many of the characteristics so fully 
 developed in his later life were clearly 
 manifested when our acquaintance first 
 commenced. During his college life he 
 did not seem to have any high relish for 
 most of the course of studies then pursued. 
 He had an utter indifference, if not dis- 
 like, to mathematics, and logic, and meta- 
 physics ; and but a slight inclination for 
 natural philosophy. He read the prescribed 
 classical writers with moderate diligence, 
 not so much as a matter of taste or am- 
 bition as of duty and as a task belonging 
 to the recitation-room, the Latin being uni- 
 formly preferred to the Greek. And yet I 
 should not say that he was idle or indolent, 
 or without a strong desire of improvement. 
 His principal pleasure lay in a devotion to 
 the more open and facile branches of lit- 
 erature, and especially of English litera- 
 ture. History, moral philosophy, poetry, 
 the drama, and the class of studies gener- 
 ally known by the name of belles-lettres, 
 principally attracted his attention ; and in 
 these his reading was at once select and 
 various. The writings of Addison, John- 
 son, and Goldsmith were quite familiar to 
 him. The historical works of Robertson, 
 and Gillies, and Ferguson, and other au- 
 thors distinguished in that day, as well as 
 the best biographical works, were within 
 the range of his studies. In poetry he was 
 more attached to those who addressed the 
 feelings and imagination than to those who 
 addressed the understanding, and moralized 
 their song in the severe language of the 
 condensed expression of truth, or the pun- 
 gent pointedness of satire, or the sharp 
 sallies of wit. Gray's 'Bard' and Col- 
 lins's ' Ode to the Passions ' were his fa- 
 vorites ; and, above all, Shakspeare, in 
 whose writings he was thoroughly well 
 read ; and he often declaimed many of the 
 most stirring passages with the spirit and 
 interest of the dramatic action of the stage. 
 Young's ' Night Thoughts ' seemed to be 
 almost the only work which, from its deep 
 and touching appeals, and elevated devo- 
 tion, and darkened descriptions of life, and 
 sudden bursts of eloquence and enthusiasm, 
 made him feel at that time the potency 
 of genius employed in unfolding religious 
 truths. He possessed, also, a singular read- 
 iness and facility in composition, perhaps 
 what would by some persons be deemed a 
 dangerous facility. What he wrote he threw 
 off at once in the appropriate language, 
 rarely correcting his first sketch, and not 
 ambitious of condensing or refining the 
 materials by successive efforts. 
 
 "I have thus far spoken of his tastes 
 and intellectual pursuits and attachments 
 in our college life. But what I most de- 
 
 light to dwell on are his warm-hearted be- 
 nevolence, his buoyant and cheerful temper, 
 his active, sympathetic charity, his gentle 
 and frank manners, and, above all, that 
 sunniness of soul which cast a bright light 
 over all hours, and made our fireside one 
 of the most pleasant of all social scenes. 
 So uniform, indeed, was his kindness and 
 desire to oblige, that I do not remember a 
 single instance in which he ever betrayed 
 either a hastiness of temper or a flash of 
 resentment. He was accustomed to dis- 
 tribute a portion of his weekly allowance 
 among the poor, and the friendless, and 
 the suffering. His love of morals and 
 virtue was as ardent as it was elevated. 
 His conduct was blameless and pure. I 
 do not believe that he ever wrote a word 
 which, dying, he could have wished to blot 
 on account of impurity of thought or allu- 
 sion ; and his conversation was at all times 
 that which might have been heard by the 
 most delicate and modest ears. Occasion- 
 ally his buoyancy of spirits might lead him 
 to indulge in giddy dreaminess, or roman- 
 tic fervors, such as belong to the untried 
 hopes and inexperience of youth. But it 
 might with truth be said, that, even if he 
 had any failings in this respect, they leaned 
 to virtue's side. 
 
 " I confess, however, that the opening of 
 his literary career did not then impress me 
 with the notion that he would afterwards 
 attain in his profession and character the 
 eminence to which every one will now deem 
 him justly entitled. He seemed to want 
 that steadiness of purpose which looks dif- 
 ficulties in the face and overcomes obsta- 
 cles because a high object lies behind them. 
 His mind touched and examined many sub- 
 jects, but was desultory and varying in its 
 efforts. I was in this view mistaken ; and 
 I overlooked the probable effects, upon a 
 mind like his, of deep religious sensibility, 
 and, if I may so say, of an enthusiasm for 
 goodness, when combined .with a spirit of 
 glowing benevolence. 
 
 " When we quitted college our opportu- 
 nities of familiar intercourse, from the 
 wide diversity of our pursuits, as well as 
 from our local distance, were necessarily 
 diminished. I saw him only at distant in- 
 tervals while he was engaged in his pre- 
 paratory studies for the ministry ; and 
 when, on entering his study one day, I 
 found him reading Griesbach's edition of 
 the New Testament with intense attention, 
 and in his comments on it, in our conversa- 
 tion, discoursing with a force and discrim- 
 ination which showed the earnestness with 
 which he was endeavoring to master his 
 profession, a new light struck upon me, 
 and I began to perceive that he was re- 
 deeming his time, and disciplining his 
 thoughts to the highest purposes. During
 
 OF THE REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 597 
 
 his residence, after his settlement, at Chel- 
 sea, I saw him frequently, either at Salem, 
 where I then resided, or at Chelsea, where 
 I took occasion, on my visits to Boston, 
 to pass some time at his house. His im- 
 provement was constantly visible ; his stud- 
 ies more expanded ; his knowledge more 
 exact, as well as various ; and his piety, 
 that beautiful ornament so deeply set in 
 his character, shining forth, with its deep, 
 and mild, and benignant light, with a pe- 
 culiar attractiveness. I remember that for 
 a long time Tucker's ' Light of Nature ' was 
 one of his favorite studies ; and he made it 
 the theme both of his praise and his criti- 
 cism at many of our meetings. It was 
 while he was at Chelsea, the minister of a 
 comparatively small and isolated parish, 
 that he nourished and matured the great 
 scheme of his life and ambition, the Min- 
 istry at Large for the Poor. I need not 
 dwell upon its beneficial effects, or its ex- 
 traordinary success. I deem it one of the 
 most glorious triumphs of Christian char- 
 ity over the cold and reluctant doubts of 
 popular opinion. The task was full of 
 difficulties, to elevate the poor into a self- 
 consciousness of their duty and destiny, 
 and to bring the rich into sympathy with 
 them ; to relieve want and suffering with- 
 out encouraging indolence or sloth ; to give 
 religious instruction where it was most 
 needed, freely and without stint, and thus 
 to widen the sphere of virtue, as well as 
 the motives to its practice, among the deso- 
 late and the desponding. It was, in fact, 
 doing what Burke has so beautifully ex- 
 pressed, it was to remember the forgot- 
 ten. 
 
 "But I am wandering from my purpose, 
 and speaking to one who fully understands 
 and has eagerly supported this excellent 
 institution ; and yet I think you will agree 
 with me in saying, that its establishment 
 and practical success were mainly owing to 
 the uncompromising zeal and untiring be- 
 nevolence of Dr. Tuckerman. It was the 
 crowning labor of his life, and entitles him 
 to a prominent rank among the benefactors 
 of mankind. 
 
 " I do not know any one who exemplified 
 in his life and conduct a more fervent or 
 unaffected piety than Dr. Tuckerman did. 
 It was cheerful, confiding, fixed, and uni- 
 form. It was less an intellectual exercise 
 than a homage of the heart. It sprung 
 from a profound feeling of the mercy and 
 goodness of God. It was reverential ; but 
 at the same time filial. His death was in 
 perfect keeping with his life ; it was a good 
 man's end, with a good man's Christian 
 resignation, hope, and confidence. 
 
 " It was in the summer which preceded 
 his death, that, on his recovery from a se- 
 vere illness, he rode out to Cambridge. He 
 
 came to my house, and in his warm, yet 
 anxious manner, said to me, ' I could not 
 pass your house, my friend, without desir- 
 ing to see you once more before I died. I 
 have been very ill, and, as I thought, very 
 near to death. But I was tranquil and re- 
 signed, and ready to depart, if it was God's 
 good pleasure. And I felt no fears.' He 
 stayed with me some time, as long as I 
 would allow him in his then feeble state of 
 health. He talked over our long friend- 
 ship, our youthful doings, and our advanc- 
 ing years. And when we parted he bade 
 me a most affectionate farewell. It was 
 our final farewell. I saw his face no more. 
 " I send you, my dear sir, these hasty 
 sketches, such as they are, with a flying 
 pen. I cannot suppose that there is any 
 thing in them which would not have oc- 
 curred more forcibly to others who knew 
 Dr. Tuckerman. But I was unwilling to 
 withhold my tribute to the great excellences 
 of his character, his zeal in all good works, 
 and his diffusive benevolence. 
 
 " ' His saltern accumulem donis, et fungar inani 
 Munere." 
 
 " Believe me, truly and affectionately, 
 your classmate and friend, 
 
 " JOSEPH STORY. 
 "CAMBRIDGE, April 10, 1841." 
 
 A friend has kindly translated the fol- 
 lowing from the Introduction to Baron 
 Degerando's late work on Public Char- 
 ity:- 
 
 " In a work recently published in Boston, 
 by the respectable Dr. Tuckerman, we have 
 a very remarkable exemplification of this 
 assiduous, enlightened charity, quickened 
 by religious sentiment. Dr. Tuckerman 
 holds the offices of minister at large and 
 distributer of charity to the indigent peo- 
 ple of the city of Boston, and renders to 
 a society of which he is the delegate a 
 yearly account of his ministrations and 
 observations. A work that he has just 
 published contains the substance of a se- 
 ries of periodical reports, which throw 
 invaluable light upon the condition and 
 wants of the indigent, and the influence 
 which an enlightened charity can exert. 
 As we read, we follow the steps of the 
 minister of the gospel, carrying assistance 
 and consolation into the bosom of families 
 overwhelmed with misfortune, and raising 
 the debased, reforming the depraved. In 
 such a school we learn the secrets of the 
 art of benevolence. The author finds oc- 
 casion, in treating this subject, to rise to 
 the highest views of the theory and rules 
 of this art. He makes his readers feel all 
 the power of Christianity for the moral
 
 59 8 LIFE AND CHARACTER OF REV. DR. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 improvement of the lower classes ; he com- 
 pares the legislation in his own country in 
 respect to the poor with that of England 
 and Scotland ; discusses the rights of the 
 indigent ; and compares the relative situa- 
 tions of the rich and the poor, in order to 
 the discovery of their mutual duties. He 
 particularly discriminates between poverty 
 and pauperism, and points out the griev- 
 ous effects of the error which confounds 
 them." 
 
 The following Biographical Sketch of 
 Dr. Tuckerman is taken from an article 
 upon his life and character, by Rev. E. S. 
 Gannett, in the " Monthly Miscellany af 
 Religion and Letters," July, 1840 : 
 
 "Joseph Tuckerman was born in Boston, 
 January, 18, 1778. Of the early instruc- 
 tions of his mother, a truly pious woman, 
 he always spoke with peculiar gratitude. 
 His youth was passed in preparation for 
 college partly at Phillips's Academy in An- 
 dover, and partly in the family of Rev. Mr. 
 Thacher, of Dedham. In 1794 he entered 
 Harvard College, where he was graduated 
 in 1798, as one of the class to which Judge 
 Story and Rev. Dr. Channing also belonged. 
 His preparatory studies for the ministry 
 were pursued under the direction of Rev. 
 Mr. Thacher, of Dedham. Soon after he 
 began to preach he received an invitation 
 to become the successor of Rev. Dr. Pay- 
 son, at Chelsea, where he was ordained 
 November 4, 1801. In June, 1803, he was 
 married to a daughter of the late Samuel 
 Parkman, Esq., of this city, who died in 
 the summer of 1807. In November, 1808, 
 he was again married to Miss Sarah Gary, 
 of Chelsea, who, after thirty-one years of 
 the most happy connection, was taken to a 
 higher life, leaving a remembrance dear to 
 the hearts of a large circle of friends. In 
 1816 Mr. Tuckerman visited England, in 
 the hope of deriving benefit to his health, 
 but was absent only a short time ; after his 
 return he suffered much from dyspepsy, 
 and never recovered the full tone of health. 
 He continued in the active discharge of the 
 duties of his ministry till the spring of 
 1826, when he felt the necessity of relin- 
 quishing in some measure the labors of the 
 pulpit, and his mind, which had become 
 much interested in the condition of the 
 neglected poor of our cities, sought an 
 opportunity of conducting a ministry pe- 
 culiarly suited to their wants. On the 4th 
 of November, 1826, just twenty-five years 
 from the day of his ordination, he preached 
 his farewell sermon at Chelsea, and im- 
 mediately commenced his service in Boston, 
 to which place he soon removed with his 
 family. He was at first assisted in this 
 
 work by a private association of gentlemen, 
 who had for some time held stated meet- 
 ings for their own religious improvement, 
 and for conference upon the means of be- 
 nevolent action ; but he was very soon 
 appointed a minister at large in this city 
 by the Executive Committee of the Ameri- 
 can Unitarian Association, who became re- 
 sponsible for the small salary which he 
 received, and which for several years was 
 raised by the contributions of ladies in 
 our different congregations. In 1828 the 
 Friend-Street Chapel was erected for his 
 use, as a place of worship for those whom 
 he had brought to a sense of the value of 
 religious institutions, but who were unable 
 to pay for the privileges of the sanctuary. 
 His untiring zeal in this ministry, the suc- 
 cess of his labors among the poor, and the 
 extent of his influence over the rich, 
 evinced particularly in the confidence which 
 they reposed in him as the almoner of their 
 charities, were subjects of too familiar re- 
 mark to need any illustration. The ardor 
 with which he prosecuted his labors was 
 too much for his bodily strength, and in 
 1833 he again visited Europe, in company 
 with his friend, Mr. Phillips, and passed a 
 year abroad, principally in England, where 
 he formed many valuable friendships, and 
 was instrumental in awakening much inter- 
 est in his favorite subject, the moral eleva- 
 tion of the neglected and vicious poor. 
 On his return he found the Ministry at 
 Large placed on a more stable foundation 
 than he had left it, the Benevolent Fra- 
 ternity of Churches having been organ- 
 ized with a special view to its support. A 
 more commodious chapel was erected, and 
 younger laborers were associated with him. 
 His own ability to render active service 
 was, however, irretrievably impaired. The 
 winter of 1836-7 he was obliged to spend 
 in the milder climate of St. Croix, from 
 which he returned, as it was thought, much 
 benefited. But the vital force was too 
 nearly exhausted. Repeatedly prostrated 
 by disease, he rose only to show the stead- 
 fastness of those principles and purposes 
 which filled his soul, and sunk again as if 
 to prove the constancy of the faith which 
 seemed to gain new power from suffering 
 and bereavement. From a severe illness in 
 the autumn of 1839 he so far revived, that, 
 after much hesitation, a voyage to Cuba 
 was recommended as the only means of 
 prolonging his life. He sailed for Havana, 
 and soon sought the interior of the island ; 
 but a short trial proved the hopelessness 
 of the attempt to recruit an exhausted 
 frame, and he returned, with the daughter 
 who was his devoted companion, to Ha- 
 vana, where, after some days of extreme 
 debility, attended with great suffering, he 
 died, April 20, 1840, in his sixty-third year.
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 599 
 
 "Dr. Tuckerman received the honorary- 
 degree of Doctor in Divinity from Harvard 
 University in 1826. It was a tribute to his 
 ministerial fidelity. His published writ- 
 ings are few, excepting those which arose 
 from his connection with the Ministry at 
 Large. One of the last services he ren- 
 dered to this institution was the preparation 
 of a volume, which we fear has not obtained 
 a wide circulation, upon ' The Principles 
 and Results of the Ministry at Large.' " 
 
 At a meeting of the Central Board of 
 the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, 
 May 10, 1840, the following resolution 
 was unanimously passed : 
 
 " Resolved, That the death of Rev. Joseph 
 Tuckerman, D.D., demands on the parr of 
 this Board an expression of their deep 
 sense of the value of his services to this 
 community, and that, recognizing in him the 
 first incumbent, if not the founder,* of the 
 
 * In strictness of speech it might be doubted if Dr. 
 Tuckerman should be styled the founder of the Min- 
 istry at Large, as gratuitous instruction to the poor had 
 been given both by laymen and clergymen before his re- 
 moval to Boston. In 1822 the association to which we 
 have adverted had established evening religious lect- 
 ures for those who attended no place of worship during 
 the day ; and Rev. Dr. Jenks was employed by an- 
 other society in visiting and preaching to the poor. 
 When Dr. Tuckerman came to Boston his own mind 
 had not clearly denned its plans of operation, and the 
 idea which was subsequently expanded into the insti- 
 tution of the Ministry at Large had not, perhaps, pro- 
 ceeded beyond a general purpose of devoting himself 
 to the spiritual benefit of those who had no religious 
 teacher or friend. The Committee of the American 
 Unitarian Association must also share in the honor of 
 establishing this ministry. But as it was his persever- 
 ance and success that gave both form and efficiency to 
 the institution, it is but a small deviation from accuracy 
 to call him its founder. 
 
 present institution of the Ministry at Large, 
 they cannot but acknowledge the useful- 
 ness of a life the last years of which were 
 devoted to this institution, in whose ser- 
 vice his strength was exhausted ; and while 
 they submit to the Divine Will that has de- 
 prived them of the counsels and labors of 
 this Christian philanthropist, they would 
 cherish his spirit, and hold up his example 
 before themselves and others as a motive 
 and a guide to future exertions in behalf of 
 the neglected and the sinful." 
 
 A resolution similar in character was 
 passed at the annual meeting of the 
 American Unitarian Association, May 
 26, 1840, namely : 
 
 "Resolved, That the death of Rev. Dr. 
 Tuckerman, senior Minister at Large in 
 this city, an institution once under the care 
 of this Association, demands the expression 
 of our sincere respect for his memory, our 
 deep gratitude for his services ; and while 
 we regret that his life of eminent usefulness 
 and distinguished Christian philanthropy is 
 closed, we would bow with submission to 
 the Divine Will, and gather from his ex- 
 ample lessons to quicken and guide our 
 own efforts in the cause of human happi- 
 ness and virtue." 
 
 Dr.Tuckerman's remains were brought 
 to this country, and the funeral service 
 was attended in King's Chapel, where 
 he had been accustomed to worship 
 during the last years of his life, in the 
 afternoon of May 26. They were after- 
 wards deposited at Mount Auburn. 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST: 
 
 A Tribute to the Memory of the Rev. Noah Worcester, D.D., 
 Boston, Nov. 12, 1837. 
 
 JOHNXUI. 34: "A new commandment I give unto 
 you, That ye love one another ; as I have loved you, 
 that ye also love one another." 
 
 IT was the great purpose of Christ to 
 create, the world anew, to make a deep, 
 broad, enduring change in human be- 
 ings. He came to breathe his own soul 
 into men, to bring them through faith 
 into a connection and sympathy with 
 himself, by which they would receive 
 
 his divine virtue, as the branches re- 
 ceive quickening influences from the 
 vine in which they abide, and the limbs 
 from the head to which they are vitally 
 bound. 
 
 It was especially the purpose of Jesus 
 Christ to redeem men from the slavery 
 of selfishness, to raise their^ to a divine, 
 disinterested love. By this he intended 
 that his followers should be known, that
 
 6oo 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 his religion should be broadly divided 
 from all former institutions. He meant 
 that this should be worn as a frontlet 
 on the brow, should beam as a light 
 from the countenance, should shed a 
 grace over the manners, should give 
 tones of sympathy to the voice, and 
 especially should give energy to the will, 
 energy to do and suffer for others' good. 
 Here is one of the grand distinctions of 
 Christianity, incomparably grander than 
 all the mysteries which have borne its 
 name. Our knowledge of Christianity 
 is to be measured, not by the laborious- 
 ness with which we have dived into the 
 depths of theological systems, but by 
 our comprehension of the nature, extent, 
 energy, and glory of that disinterested 
 principle which Christ enjoined as our 
 likeness to God, and as the perfection 
 of human nature. 
 
 This disinterestedness of Christianity 
 is to be learned from Christ himself, 
 and from no other. It had dawned on 
 the world before in illustrious men, in 
 prophets, sages, and legislators. But 
 its full orb rose at Bethlehem. All the 
 preceding history of the world gives but 
 broken hints of the love which shone 
 forth from Christ. Nor can this be 
 learned from his precepts alone. We 
 must go to his life, especially to his 
 cross. His cross was the throne of his 
 love. There it reigned, there it tri- 
 umphed. On the countenance of the 
 crucified Saviour there was one expres- 
 sion stronger fthan of dying agony, 
 the expression of calm, meek, uncon- 
 quered, boundless love. I repeat it, the 
 cross alone can teach us the energy and 
 grandeur of the love which Christ came 
 to impart. There we see its illimita- 
 bleness ; for he died for the whole 
 world. There we learn its inexhausti- 
 ble placability ; for he died for the very 
 enemies whose hands were reeking with 
 his blood. There we learn its self- 
 immolating strength ; for he resigned 
 every good of life, and endured intens- 
 est pains in the cause of our race. 
 There we learn its spiritual elevation ; 
 for he died not to enrich men with out- 
 ward and worldly goods, but to breathe 
 new life, health, purity, into the soul. 
 There we learn its far-reaching aim ; for 
 he died to give immortality of happiness. 
 There we learn its tenderness and sym- 
 pathy ; for * amidst his cares for the 
 world, his heart overflowed with grati- 
 
 tude and love for his honored mother. 
 There, in a word, we learn its -divinity ; 
 for he suffered through his participation 
 of the spirit and his devotion to the pur- 
 poses of God, through unity of heart and 
 will with his heavenly Father. 
 
 It is one of our chief privileges as 
 Christians, that we have in Jesus Christ 
 a revelation of perfect love. This great 
 idea comes forth to us from his life and 
 teaching, as a distinct and bright reality. 
 To understand this is to understand 
 Christianity. To call forth in us a cor- 
 responding energy of disinterested affec- 
 tion is the mission which Christianity 
 has to accomplish on the earth. 
 
 There is one characteristic of the love 
 of Christ, to which the Christian world 
 are now waking up as from long sleep, 
 and which is to do more than all things 
 for the renovation of the world. He 
 loved individual man. Before his time 
 the most admired form of goodness was 
 patriotism. Men loved their country, 
 but cared nothing for their fellow-creat- 
 ures beyond the limits of country, and 
 cared little for the individual within 
 those limits, devoting themselves to 
 public interests, and especially to what 
 was called the glory of the state. The 
 legislator, seeking by his institutions to 
 exalt his country above its rivals, and 
 the warrior, fastening its yoke on its 
 foes and crowning it with bloody laurels, 
 were the great names of earlier times. 
 Christ loved man. not masses of men ; 
 loved each and all, and not a particular 
 country and class. The human being 
 was dear to him for his own sake, not 
 for the spot of earth on which he lived, 
 not for the language he spoke, not for 
 his rank in life, but for his humanity, for 
 his spiritual nature, for the image of 
 God in which he was made. Nothing 
 outward in human condition engrossed 
 the notice or narrowed the sympathies 
 of Jesus. He looked to the human soul. 
 That he loved. That divine spark he 
 desired to cherish, no matter where it 
 dwelt, no matter how it was dimmed. 
 He loved man for his own sake, and all 
 men without exclusion or exception. 
 His ministry was not confined to a 
 church, a chosen congregation. On the 
 Mount he opened his mouth and spake 
 to the promiscuous multitude. From 
 the bosom of the lake he delivered his 
 parables to the throng which lined its 
 shores. His church was nature, the
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 601 
 
 unconfined air and earth ; and his 
 truths, like the blessed influences of 
 nature's sunshine and rain, fell on each 
 and all. He lived in the highway, the 
 street, the places of concourse, and 
 welcomed the eager crowds which gath- 
 ered round him from every sphere and 
 rank of life. Nor was it to crowds that 
 his sympathy was confined. He did not 
 need a multitude to excite him. The 
 humblest individual drew his regards. 
 He took the little child into his arms 
 and blessed it ; he heard the beggar 
 crying to him by the wayside where he 
 sat for alms ; and in the anguish of 
 death he administered consolation to a 
 malefactor expiring at his side. In this 
 shone forth the divine wisdom as well as 
 love of Jesus, that 'he understood the 
 worth of a human being. So truly did 
 he comprehend it, that, as I think, he 
 would have counted himself repaid for 
 all his teachings and mighty works, for 
 all his toils, and sufferings, and bitter 
 death, by the redemption of a single 
 soul. His love to every human being 
 surpassed that of a parent to an only 
 child. Jesus was great in all things, 
 but in nothing greater than in his com- 
 prehension .of the worth of a human 
 spirit. Before his time no one dreamed 
 of it. The many had been sacrificed to 
 the few. The mass of men had been 
 trodden under foot. History had been 
 but a record of struggles and institu- 
 tions which breathed nothing so strongly 
 as contempt of the human race. 
 
 Jesus was the first philanthropist. He 
 brought with him a new era, the era of 
 philanthropy ; and from his time a new 
 spirit has moved over the troubled 
 waters of society, and will move until 
 it has brought order and beauty out of 
 darkness and confusion. The men whom 
 he trained, and into whom he had poured 
 most largely his own spirit, were signs, 
 proofs, that a new kingdom had come. 
 They consecrated themselves to a work 
 at that time without precedent, wholly 
 original, such as had not entered human 
 thought. They left home, possessions, 
 country ; went abroad into strange lands : 
 and not only put life in peril, but laid it 
 down, to spread the truth which they 
 had received from their Lord, to make 
 the true God, even the Father, known 
 to his blinded children, to make the 
 Saviour known to the sinner, to make 
 life and immortality known to the dying, 
 
 to give a new impulse to the human 
 soul. We read of the mission of the 
 Apostles as if it were a thing of course. 
 The thought perhaps never comes to us 
 that they entered on a sphere of action 
 until that time wholly unexplored ; that 
 not a track had previously marked their 
 path ; that the great conception which 
 inspired them, of converting a world, 
 had never dawned on the sublimest in- 
 tellect ; that the spiritual love for every 
 human being, which carried them over 
 oceans and through deserts, amid scourg- 
 ings and fastings, and imprisonments 
 and death, was a new light from heaven 
 breaking out on earth, a new revelation 
 of the divinity in human nature. Then 
 it was, that man began to yearn for man 
 with a godlike love Then a new voice 
 was heard on earth, the voice of prayer 
 for the recovery, pardon, happiness of a 
 world. It was most strange, it was a 
 miracle more worthy of admiration than 
 the raising of the dead, that from Judea, 
 the most exclusive, narrow country un- 
 der heaven, which hated and scorned 
 all other nations, and shrunk from their 
 touch as pollution, should go forth men 
 to proclaim the doctrine of human 
 brotherhood, to give to every human 
 being, however fallen or despised, as- 
 surances of God's infinite love, to break 
 down the barriers of nation and rank, 
 to pour out their blood like water in the 
 work of diffusing the spirit of universal 
 love. Thus mightily did the character 
 of Jesus act on the spirits of the men 
 with whom he had lived. Since that 
 time the civilized world has been over- 
 whelmed by floods of barbarians, and 
 ages of darkness have passed. But 
 some rays of this divine light break on 
 us through the thickest darkness. The 
 new impulse given by Christianity was 
 never wholly spent. The rude sculpture 
 of the dark ages represented Jesus hang- 
 ing from his cross ; and however this 
 image was abused to purposes of super- 
 stition, it still spoke to men of a philan- 
 thropy stronger than death, which felt 
 and suffered for every hujnan being ; 
 and a softening, humanizing virtue went 
 from it, which even the barbarian could 
 not wholly resist. In our own times, 
 the character of Jesus is exerting more 
 conspicuously its true and glorious pow- 
 er. We have, indeed, little cause for 
 boasting. The great features of society 
 are still hard and selfish. The worth
 
 602 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 of a human being is a mystery still hid 
 from an immense majority, and the most 
 enlightened among us have not looked 
 beneath the surface of this great truth. 
 Still there is at this moment an interest 
 in human nature, a sympathy with hu- 
 man suffering, a sensibility to the abuses 
 and evils which deform society, a faith 
 in man's capacity of progress, a desire 
 of human progress, a desire to carry to 
 every human being the means of rising 
 to a better condition and a higher virtue, 
 such as has never been witnessed before. 
 Amidst the mercenariness which would 
 degrade men into tools, and the ambi- 
 tion which would tread them down in 
 its march toward power, there is still a 
 respect for man as man, a recognition 
 of his rights, a thirst for his elevation, 
 which is the surest proof of a higher 
 comprehension of Jesus Christ, and the 
 surest augury of a happier state of human 
 affairs. Humanity and justice are crying 
 out in more and more piercing tones for 
 the suffering, the enslaved, the ignorant, 
 the poor, the prisoner, the orphan, the 
 long-neglected seaman, the benighted 
 heathen. I do not refer merely to new 
 institutions for humanity, for these are 
 not the most unambiguous proofs of 
 progress. We see in the common con- 
 sciousness of society, in the general 
 feelings of individuals, traces of a more 
 generous recognition of what man owes 
 to man. The glare of outward distinc- 
 tion is somewhat dimmed. The preju- 
 dices of caste and rank are abated. A 
 man is seen to be worth more than his 
 wardrobe or his title. It begins to be 
 understood that a Christian is to be a 
 philanthropist, and that, in truth, the 
 essence of Christianity is a spirit of 
 martyrdom in the cause of mankind. 
 
 This subject has been brought to my 
 mind at the present moment by an event 
 in this vicinity which has drawn little 
 attention, but which I could not, without 
 self-reproach, suffer to pass unnoticed. 
 Within a few days, a great and good 
 man, a singular example of the philan- 
 thropy which Jesus Christ came to 
 breathe into the world, has been taken 
 away ; and as it was my happiness to 
 know him more intimately than most 
 among us, I feel as if I were called to 
 bear a testimony to his rare goodness, 
 and to hold up his example as a mani- 
 festation of what Christianity can accom- 
 plish in the human mind. I refer to the 
 
 Rev. Noah Worcester, who has been 
 justly called the Apostle of Peace, who 
 finished his course at Brighton during 
 the last week. His great age, for he 
 was almost eighty, and the long and 
 entire seclusion to which debility had 
 compelled him, have probably made 
 his name a strange one to some who 
 hear me. In truth, it is common in the 
 present age for eminent men to be for- 
 gotten during their lives, if their lives 
 are much prolonged. Society is now 
 a quick-shifting pageant. New actors 
 hurry the old ones from the stage. The 
 former stability of things is strikingly im- 
 paired. The authority which gathered 
 round the aged has declined. The young 
 seize impatiently the prizes of life. The 
 hurried, bustling, tumultuous, feverish 
 present swallows up men's thoughts, so 
 that he who retires from active pursuits 
 is as little known to the rising generation 
 as if he were dead. It is not wonderful, 
 then, that Dr. Worcester was so far 
 forgotten by his contemporaries. But 
 the future will redress the wrongs of the 
 present ; and in the progress of civiliza- 
 tion, history will guard more and more 
 sacredly the memories of men who have 
 advanced before their age. and devoted 
 themselves to great but neglected inter- 
 ests of humanity. 
 
 Dr. Worcester's efforts in relation to 
 war, or in the cause of peace, made him 
 eminently a public man, and constitute 
 his chief claim to public consideration ; 
 and these were not founded on acci- 
 dental circumstances or foreign influ- 
 ences, but wholly on the strong and 
 peculiar tendencies of his mind. He 
 was distinguished above all whom I 
 have known, by his comprehension and 
 deep feeling of the spirit of Christianity ; 
 by the sympathy with which he seized 
 on the character of Jesus Christ as a 
 manifestation of perfect love : by the 
 honor in which he held the mild, humble, 
 forgiving, disinterested virtues of our 
 religion. This distinguishing trait of 
 his mind was embodied and brought out 
 in his whole life and conduct. He espe- 
 cially expressed it in his labors for the 
 promotion of universal peace on the 
 earth. He was struck, as no other man 
 within my acquaintance has been, with 
 the monstrous incongruity between the 
 spirit of Christianity and the spirit of 
 Christian communities ; between Christ's 
 teaching of peace, mercy, forgiveness,
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 603 
 
 and the wars which divide and desolate 
 the church and the world. Every man 
 has particular impressions which rule 
 over and give a hue to his mind. Every 
 man is struck by some evils rather than 
 others. The excellent individual of 
 whom I speak was shocked, heart- 
 smitten, by nothing so much as by see- 
 ing that man hates man, that man de- 
 stroys his brother, that man has drenched 
 the earth with his brother's blood, that 
 man, in his insanity, has crowned the 
 murderer of his race with the highest 
 honors ; and, still worse, that Christian 
 hates Christian, that church wars against 
 church, that differences of forms and 
 opinions array against each other those 
 whom Christ died to join together in 
 closest brotherhood, and that Christian 
 zeal is spent in building up sects, rather 
 than in spreading thejspirit of Christ, 
 and enlarging and binding together the 
 universal church. The great evil on 
 which his mind and heart fixed, was 
 war, discord, intolerance, the substitu- 
 tion of force for reason and love. To 
 spread peace on earth became the object 
 of his life. Under this impulse he gave 
 birth and impulse to peace societies. 
 This new movement is to be traced to 
 him above all other men ; and his name, 
 I doubt not, will be handed down to 
 future time with increasing veneration 
 as the " Friend of Peace," as having 
 given new force to the principles which 
 are gradually to abate the horrors, and 
 ultimately extinguish the spirit, of war. 
 
 The history of the good man, as far 
 as I have learned it, is singularly in- 
 structive and encouraging. He was 
 self-taught, self-formed. He was born 
 in narrow circumstances, and, to the 
 age of twenty-one, was a laborious 
 farmer, not only deprived of a collegiate 
 education, but of the advantages which 
 may be enjoyed in a more prosperous 
 family. An early marriage brought on 
 him the cares of a growing family. 
 Still he found, or rather made, time for 
 sufficient improvements to introduce 
 him into the ministry before his thirtieth 
 year. He was first settled in a parish 
 too poor to give him even a scanty sup- 
 port ; and he was compelled to take a 
 farm, on which he toiled by day. whilst 
 in the evening he was often obliged to 
 use a mechanical art for the benefit of 
 his family. He made their shoes, an 
 occupation of which Coleridge has 
 
 somewhere remarked, that it has been 
 followed by a greater number of emi- 
 nent men than any other trade. By 
 the side of his work-bench he kept ink 
 and paper, that he might write down 
 the interesting thoughts which he traced 
 out, or which rushed on him amidst his 
 humble labors. I take pleasure in stat- 
 ing this part of his history. The preju- 
 dice against manual labor, as inconsist- 
 ent with personal dignity, is one of the 
 most irrational and pernicious, especially 
 in a free country. It shows how little 
 we comprehend the spirit of our institu- 
 tions, and how deeply we are tainted 
 with the narrow maxims of the old aris- 
 tocracies of Europe. Here was a man 
 uniting great intellectual improvement 
 with refinement of manners, who had 
 been trained under unusual severity of 
 toil. This country has lost much physi- 
 cal and moral strength, and its pros- 
 perity is at this moment depressed, by 
 the common propensity to forsake the 
 plough for less manly pursuits, which 
 are thought, however, to promise greater 
 dignity as well as ease. 
 
 His first book was a series of letters 
 to a Baptist minister, and in this he 
 gave promise of the direction which the 
 efforts of his life were to assume. The 
 great object of these letters was, not to 
 settle the controversies about baptism, 
 about the mode of administering it, 
 whether by immersion or sprinkling, or 
 about the proper subjects of it, whether 
 children or adults alone. His aim was 
 to show that these were inferior ques- 
 tions, that differences about these ought 
 not to divide Christians, that the " close 
 communion," as it is called, of the Bap- 
 tists, was inconsistent with the liberal 
 spirit of Christianity, and that this ob- 
 struction to Christian unity ought to be 
 removed. 
 
 His next publication was what brought 
 him into notice, and gave him an impor- 
 tant place in our theological history. It 
 was a publication on the Trinity ; and 
 what is worthy of remark, it preceded 
 the animated controversy on that point 
 which a few years after agitated this 
 city and Commonwealth. The mind of 
 Dr. Worcester was turned to this topic 
 not by foreign impulses, but by its own 
 workings. He had been brought up in 
 the strictest sect, that is, as a Calvinist. 
 His first doubts as to the Trinity arose 
 from the confusion, the perplexity, into
 
 604 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 which his mind was thrown by this doc- 
 trine in his acts of devotion. To worship 
 three persons as one and the same God, 
 as one and the same being, seemed to 
 him difficult, if not impossible. He ac- 
 cordingly resolved to read and examine 
 the Scriptures from beginning to end, 
 for the purpose of ascertaining the true 
 doctrine respecting God, and the true 
 rank of Jesus Christ. The views at 
 which he arrived were so different from 
 what prevailed around him, and some of 
 them so peculiar, that he communicated 
 them to the public under the rather 
 quaint title of " Bible News relating 
 to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." 
 His great aim was to prove that the 
 Supreme God was one person, even the 
 Father, and that Jesus Christ was not 
 the Supreme God, but his Son in a strict 
 and peculiar sense. This idea of "the 
 peculiar and natural sonship " of Christ, 
 by which he meant that Jesus was de- 
 rived from the very substance of the 
 Father, had taken a strong hold on his 
 mind, and he insisted on it with as much 
 confidence as was consistent with his 
 deep sense of fallibility. But, as might 
 be expected in so wise and spiritual a 
 man, it faded more and more from his 
 mind, in proportion as he became ac- 
 quainted with and assimilated to the true 
 glory of his Master. In one of his un- 
 published manuscripts, he gives an ac- 
 count of his change of views in this 
 particular, and, without disclaiming ex- 
 pressly the doctrine which had formerly 
 seemed so precious, he informs us that 
 it had lost its importance in his sight. 
 The, moral, spiritual dignity of Christ 
 had risen on his mind in such splendor 
 as to dim his old idea of " natural son- 
 ship." In one place he affirms, " I do 
 not recollect an instance [in the Script- 
 ures] in which Christ is spoken of as 
 loved, honored, or praised, on any other 
 ground than his moral dignity." This 
 moral greatness he declares to be the 
 highest with which Jesus was clothed, 
 and expresses his conviction, " that the 
 controversies of Christians about his 
 natural dignity had tended very little to 
 the honor of their Master, or to their 
 own advantage." The manuscript to 
 which I refer was written after his 
 seventieth year, and is very illustrative 
 of his character. It shows that his love 
 of truth was stronger than the tenacity 
 with which age commonly clings to old 
 
 ideas. It shows him superior to the 
 theory, which more than any other he 
 had considered his own, and which had 
 been the fruit of very laborious study. 
 It shows how strongly he felt that prog- 
 ress was the law and end of his being, 
 and how he continued to make progress 
 to the last hour. The work called " Bible 
 News " drew much attention, and con- 
 verted not a few to the doctrine of the 
 proper unity of God. Its calm, benig- 
 nant spirit had no small influence in 
 disarming prejudice and unkindness. 
 He found, however, that his defection 
 from his original faith had exposed him 
 to much suspicion and reproach ; and he 
 became at length so painfully impressed 
 with the intolerance which his work had 
 excited, that he published another shorter 
 work, called " Letters to Trinitarians," a 
 work breathing the very spirit of Jesus, 
 and intended to teach that diversities of 
 opinion on subjects the most mysterious 
 and perplexing ought not to sever friends, 
 to dissolve the Christian tie, to divide 
 the church, to fasten on the dissenter 
 from the common faith the charge of 
 heresy, to array the disciples of the 
 Prince of Peace in hostile bands. 
 These works obtained such favor, that 
 he was solicited to leave the obscure 
 town in which he ministered, and to 
 take charge, in this place, of a periodical 
 called at first the " Christian Disciple," 
 and now better known as the " Christian 
 Examiner." At that time (about twenty- 
 five years ago) I first saw him. Long 
 and severe toil, and a most painful dis- 
 ease, had left their traces on his once 
 athletic frame ; but his countenance 
 beamed with a benignity which at 
 once attracted confidence and affection. 
 For several years he consulted me habit- 
 ually in the conduct of the work which 
 he edited. I recollect with admiration 
 the gentleness, humility, and sweetness 
 of temper with which he endured free- 
 doms, corrections, retrenchments, some 
 of which I feel now to have been unwar- 
 ranted, and which no other man would 
 so kindly have borne. This work was 
 commenced very much for doctrinal dis- 
 cussions, but his spirit could not brook 
 such limitations, and he used its pages 
 more and more for the dissemination 
 of his principles of philanthropy and 
 peace. At length he gave these prin- 
 ciples to the world in a form which did 
 much to decide his future career. He
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 605 
 
 published a pamphlet, called " A Solemn 
 Review of the Custom of War." It bore 
 no name, and appeared without recom- 
 mendation, but it immediately seized on 
 attention. It was read by multitudes in 
 this country, then published in England, 
 and translated, as I have heard, into 
 several languages of Europe. Such 
 was the impression made by this work, 
 that a new association, called the Peace 
 Society of Massachusetts, was insti- 
 tuted in this place. I well recollect the 
 day of its formation in yonder house, 
 then the parsonage of this parish ; and 
 if there was a happy man that day on 
 earth, it was the founder of this institu- 
 tion. This society gave birth to all the 
 kindred ones in this country, and its in- 
 fluence was felt abroad. Dr. Worcester 
 assumed the charge of its periodical, and 
 devoted himself for years to this cause, 
 with unabating faith Rid zeal ; and it 
 may be doubted whether any man who 
 ever lived contributed more than he to 
 spread just sentiments on the subject of 
 war, and to hasten the era of universal 
 peace. He began his efforts in the 
 darkest day, when the whole civilized 
 world was shaken by conflict, and 
 threatened with military despotism. He 
 lived to see more than twenty years of 
 general peace, and to see through these 
 years a multiplication of national ties, 
 an extension of commercial communica- 
 tions, an establishment of new connec- 
 tions between Christians and learned 
 men through the world, and a growing 
 reciprocity of friendly and beneficent 
 influence among different states, all giv- 
 ing aid to the principles of peace, and 
 encouraging hopes which a century ago 
 would have been deemed insane. 
 
 The abolition of war, to which this 
 good man devoted himself, is no longer 
 to be set down as a creation of fancy, 
 a dream of enthusiastic philanthropy. 
 War rests on opinion ; and opinion is 
 more and more withdrawing its support. 
 War rests on contempt of human nat- 
 ure ; on the long, mournful habit of 
 regarding the mass of human beings 
 as machines, or as animals having no 
 higher use than to be shot at and 
 murdered for the glory of a chief, for 
 the seating of this or that family on a 
 throne, for the petty interests or selfish 
 rivalries which have inflamed states to 
 conflict. Let the worth of a human 
 being be felt ; let the mass of a people 
 
 be elevated ; let it be understood that 
 a man was made to enjoy inalienable 
 rights, to improve lofty powers, to secure 
 a vast happiness ; and a main pillar of 
 war will fall. And is it not plain that 
 these views are taking place of the 
 contempt in which man has so long 
 been held ? War finds another support 
 in the prejudices and partialities of a 
 narrow patriotism. Let the great Chris- 
 tian principle of human brotherhood be 
 comprehended, let the Christian spirit 
 of universal love gain ground, and just 
 so fast the custom of war, so long the 
 pride of men, will become their ab- 
 horrence and execration. It is en- 
 couraging to see how outward events 
 are concurring with the influences of 
 Christianity in promoting peace ; how 
 an exclusive nationality is yielding to 
 growing intercourse ; how different na- 
 tions, by mutual visits, by the inter- 
 change of thoughts and products, by 
 studying one another's language and 
 literature, by union of efforts in the 
 cause of religion and humanity, are 
 growing up to the consciousness of 
 belonging to one great family. Every 
 railroad, connecting distant regions, may 
 be regarded as accomplishing a ministry 
 of peace. Every year which passes with- 
 out war, by interweaving more various 
 ties of interest and friendship, is a pledge 
 of coming years of peace. The pro- 
 phetic faith with which Dr. Worcester, 
 in the midst of universal war, looked 
 forward to a happier era, and which 
 was smiled at as enthusiasm, or cre- 
 dulity, has already received a sanction 
 beyond his fondest hopes, by the won- 
 derful progress of human affairs. 
 
 On the subject of war, Dr. Worcester 
 adopted opinions which are thought by 
 some to be extreme. He interpreted 
 literally the precept, " Resist not evil ; " 
 and he believed that nations, as well 
 as individuals, would find safety, as 
 well as " fulfil righteousness," in yield- 
 ing it literal obedience. One of the 
 most striking traits of his character was 
 his confidence in the power of love, I 
 might say, in its omnipotence. He 
 believed that the surest way to subdue 
 a foe was to become his friend ; that a 
 true benevolence was a surer defence 
 than swords, or artillery, or walls of 
 adamant. He believed that no mightier 
 man ever trod the soil of America than 
 William Penn, when entering the wil-
 
 6o6 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 derness unarmed, and stretching out to 
 the savage a hand which refused all 
 earthly weapons, in token of brother- 
 hood and peace. There was something 
 grand in the calm confidence with which 
 he expressed his conviction of the su- 
 periority of moral to physical force. 
 Armies, fiery passions, quick resent- 
 ments, and the spirit of vengeance, 
 miscalled honor, seemed to him weak, 
 low instruments, inviting, and often 
 hastening, the ruin which they are 
 used to avert. Many will think him 
 in error ; but if so, it was a grand 
 thought which led him astray. 
 
 At the age of seventy, he felt as if he 
 had discharged his mission as a preacher 
 of peace, and resigned his office as Sec- 
 retary to the Society, to which he had 
 given the strength of many years. He 
 did not, however, retire to unfruitful 
 repose. Bodily infirmity had increased, 
 so that he was very much confined to 
 his house ; but he returned with zeal 
 to the studies of his early life, and pro- 
 duced two theological works, one on 
 the Atonement, the other on Human 
 Depravity, or the moral state of man 
 by nature, which I regard as among the 
 most useful books on these long-agitated 
 subjects. These writings, particularly 
 the last, have failed of the popularity 
 which they merit, in consequence of a 
 defect of style, which may be traced to 
 his defective education, and which nat- 
 urally increased with years. I refer to 
 his diffuseness, to his inability to 
 condense his thoughts. His writings, 
 however, are not wanting in merits of 
 style. They are simple and clear. They 
 abound to a remarkable degree in in- 
 genious illustration, and they have often 
 the charm which original thinking always 
 gives to composition. He was truly an 
 original writer, not in the sense of mak- 
 ing great discoveries, but in the sense 
 of writing from his own mind, and not 
 from books or tradition. What he wrote 
 had perhaps been written before ; but 
 in consequence of his limited reading, 
 it was new to himself, and came to him 
 with the freshness of discovery. Some- 
 times great thoughts flashed on his mind 
 as if they had been inspirations ; and 
 in writing his last book, he seems to 
 have felt as if some extraordinary light 
 had been imparted from above. After 
 his seventy-fifth year he ceased to write 
 books, but his mind lost nothing of its 
 
 activity. He was so enfeebled by a 
 distressing disease, that he could con- 
 verse but for a few moments at a time ; 
 yet he entered into all the great move- 
 ments of the age with an interest dis- 
 tinguished from the fervor of youth 
 only by its mildness and its serene trust. 
 The attempts made in some of our cities 
 to propagate atheistical principles gave 
 him much concern ; and he applied him- 
 self to fresh inquiries into the proofs 
 of the existence and perfections of God, 
 hoping to turn his labors to the account 
 of his erring fellow-creatures. With 
 this view, he entered on the study of 
 nature as a glorious testimony to its 
 almighty Author. I shall never forget 
 the delight which illumined his coun- 
 tenance a short time ago, as he told me 
 that he had just been reading the history 
 of the coral, tj^ insect which raises 
 islands in the^sea. " How wonder- 
 fully," he exclaimed, "is God's prov- 
 idence revealed in these little creat- 
 ures ! " The last subject to which he 
 devoted his thoughts was slavery. His 
 mild spirit could never reconcile itself 
 to the methods in which this evil is 
 often assailed ; but the greatness of 
 the evil he deeply felt, and he left sev- 
 eral essays on this as on the preceding 
 subject, which, if they should be found 
 unfit for publication, will still bear wit- 
 ness to the intense, unfaltering interest 
 with which he bound himself to the 
 cause of mankind. 
 
 I have thus given a sketch of the his- 
 tory of a good man, who lived and died 
 the lover of his kind, and the admira- 
 tion of his friends. Two views of him 
 particularly impressed me. The first 
 was the unity, the harmony of his char- 
 acter. He had no jarring elements. 
 His whole nature had been blended and 
 melted into one strong, serene love. 
 His mission was to preach peace, and 
 he preached it not on set occasions, or 
 by separate efforts, but in his whole life. 
 It breathed in his tones. It beamed 
 from his venerable countenance. He 
 carried it, where it is least apt to be 
 found, into the religious controversies 
 which raged around him with great 
 vehemence, but which never excited 
 him to a word of anger or intolerance. 
 All my impressions of him are harmo- 
 nious. I recollect no discord in his 
 beautiful life. And this serenity was 
 not the result of torpidness or tameness ;
 
 THE DEATH OF DR. POLLEN. 
 
 607 
 
 for his whole life was a conflict with 
 what he thought error. He made no 
 compromise with the world, and yet he 
 loved it as deeply and constantly as if 
 it had responded in shouts to all his 
 views and feelings. 
 
 The next great impression which I 
 received from him was that of the suffi- 
 ciency of the mind to its own happi- 
 ness, or of its independence on outward 
 things. He was for years debilitated, 
 and often a great sufferer ; and his cir- 
 cumstances were very narrow, compel- 
 ling him to so strict an economy that 
 he was sometimes represented, though 
 falsely, as wanting the common comforts 
 of life. In this tried and narrow con- 
 dition, he was among the most con- 
 tented of men. He spoke of his old age 
 as among the happiest portions, if not 
 the very happiest, in his life. In con- 
 versation his religion manifested itself 
 in gratitude more frequently than in 
 any other form. When I have visited 
 him in his last years, and looked on 
 his serene countenance, and heard his 
 cheerful voice, and seen the youthful 
 earnestness with which he was reading 
 a variety of books, and studying the 
 
 freat interests of humanity, I have felt 
 ow little of this outward world is needed 
 to our happiness. I have felt the great- 
 ness of the human spirit which could 
 create to itself such joy from its own 
 resources. I have felt the folly, the 
 insanity of that prevailing worldliness 
 which, in accumulating outward good, 
 
 neglects the imperishable soul. On 
 leaving his house and turning my face 
 toward this city, I have said to myself, 
 how much richer is this poor man than 
 the richest who dwell yonder ! I have 
 been ashamed of my own dependence 
 on outward good. I am always happy 
 to express my obligations to the bene- 
 factors of my mind ; and I owe it to Dr. 
 Worcester to say, that my acquaintance 
 with him gave me clearer comprehen- 
 sion of the spirit of Christ, and of the 
 dignity of a man. 
 
 And he has gone to his reward. He 
 has gone to that world of which he car- 
 ried in his own breast so rich an earnest 
 and pledge, to a world of peace. He 
 has gone to Jesus Christ, whose spirit 
 he so deeply comprehended and so 
 freely imbibed ; and to God, whose uni- 
 versal, all-suffering, all-embracing love 
 he adored, and in a humble measure 
 made manifest in his own life. But he 
 is not wholly gone ; not gone in heart, 
 for I am sure that a better world has 
 heightened, not extinguished, his affec- 
 tion for his race ; and not gone in influ- 
 ence, for his thoughts remain in his 
 works, and his memory is laid up as a 
 sacred treasure in many minds. A 
 spirit so beautiful ought to multiply 
 itself in those to whom it is made known. 
 May we all be incited by it to a more 
 grateful, cheerful love of God, and a 
 serener, gentler, nobler love of our fel 
 low-creatures ! 
 
 A DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF 
 THE REV. DR. FOLLEN. 
 
 [On the 1 3th of January, 1840, the steamboat " Lexington " was burned on Long Island Sound, about 
 fifty miles from New York. Of the crew and passengers only four escaped. Among the lost was the 
 Rev. Charles Follen, LL.D. These circumstances gave occasion to the following discourse, which 
 was deferred until all hope of the escape of Dr. Follen was taken away.] 
 
 i PETER iv. 19 : " Wherefore, let them that suffer 
 according to the will of God commit the keeping of 
 their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful 
 Creator." 
 
 THESE words suggest a great variety 
 of thoughts, and might furnish topics 
 for many discourses. I ask now your 
 attention to the clause in which we read 
 of "them that suffer according to the 
 
 will of God," or by divine ordination. 
 I wish to speak of the sufferings of life 
 in general, of their greatness, of their 
 being ordained or intended by God, and 
 of their consistency with his goodness ; 
 and I shall close with reflections sug- 
 gested by the particular suffering which 
 we have recently been called to de- 
 plore.
 
 6o8 
 
 DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY 
 
 Suffering fills a large place in the 
 present system. It is not an accident, 
 an exception to the course of nature, a 
 " strange work " exciting wonder as a 
 prodigy, but it enters into every life, 
 and, may I not say, enters largely into 
 every life ? Undoubtedly, a great amount 
 of suffering may be traced to human 
 ignorance and guilt ; and this will grad- 
 ually disappear, in proportion to the 
 progress of truth and virtue. Still, 
 under the imperfections which seem in- 
 separable from this first stage of our 
 being, a great amount will remain. 
 Youth is slow to see this. Youth, una- 
 ble to sympathize with and appreciate 
 sorrows which it has not felt, and throw- 
 ing the light of its own native joyous- 
 ness over the future, dreams sometimes 
 of a paradise on earth. But how soon 
 does it find that blighting changes, sol- 
 emn events, break in sternly, irresistibly 
 on its path ! And even when the out- 
 ward life is smooth and prosperous, how 
 soon does it find in its vehement affec- 
 tions, its unrequited friendships, its 
 wounded pride, its unappeased thirst 
 for happiness, fountains of bitterer grief 
 than comes from abroad ! Sometimes 
 the religious man, with good intentions, 
 but wanting wisdom and strength, tries 
 to palliate the evils of life, to cover its 
 dark features, to exaggerate its transient 
 pleasures, for the purpose of sheltering 
 God's goodness from reproach. But 
 this will not avail. The truth cannot be 
 hidden. Life is laid open to every eye, 
 as well as known by each man's expe- 
 rience ; and we do and must see that 
 suffering, deep suffering, is one of the 
 chief elements in our lot. It is not a 
 slender, dark thread, winding now and 
 then through a warp of dazzling bright- 
 ness ; but is interwoven with the whole 
 texture. Not that suffering exceeds 
 enjoyment ; not that life, if viewed 
 simply in reference to pleasure, is not a 
 great good. But to every man it is a 
 struggle. It has heavy burdens, deep 
 wounds for each ; and this I state, that 
 we may all of us understand that suffer- 
 ing is not accidental, but designed for 
 us, that it enters into God's purpose, 
 that it has a great work to do, and that 
 we know nothing of life till we compre- 
 hend its uses, and have learned how to 
 accomplish them. 
 
 God intends that we shall suffer. It 
 is sometimes said that he has created 
 
 nothing for the purpose of giving pain, 
 but that every contrivance in the system 
 has good for its object. The teeth are 
 made to prepare food for digestion, not 
 to ache ; the lungs, to inhale the refresh- 
 ing air, not to ripen the seeds of con- 
 sumption. All this is true, and a beau- 
 tiful illustration of kind purpose in the 
 Creator. But it is also true that every 
 organ of the body, in consequence of 
 the delicacy of its structure, and its 
 susceptibility of influences from abroad, 
 becomes an inlet of acute pain. It is a 
 remarkable fact that we know the in- 
 ward organs chiefly by the pain they 
 have given. The science of anatomy 
 has grown almost wholly out of the ex- 
 posure of the frame to suffering ; and 
 what an amount of suffering springs 
 from this source ! A single nerve may 
 thrill us with agony. Sleep, food, 
 friends, books, all may be robbed of 
 their power to interest, by the irritation 
 of a little bunch of fibres, which the 
 naked eye can hardly trace. After the 
 study of ages, the science of medicine 
 has not completed the catalogue of dis- 
 eases ; and how little can its ministra- 
 tions avert their progress, or mitigate 
 their pains ! Undoubtedly this class of 
 pains may be much diminished by a 
 wise self-restraint ; but the body, inher- 
 iting disease from a long line of ances- 
 tors, and brought into conflicts with the 
 mighty elements around it, must still be 
 the seat of much suffering. These ele- 
 ments, how grand, how expressive of 
 God's majesty and goodness ; yet how 
 fearful ! What avails the strength of 
 the body against thunders, whirlwinds, 
 fierce waves, and fiercer flames, against 
 " the pestilence which walketh in dark- 
 ness," or the silent exhalation which 
 wasteth at noon-day ! Thus, pain comes 
 from God's provisions for the animal 
 frame : and how much comes from the 
 spirit, and from the very powers and 
 affections which make the glory of our 
 nature ! Our reason, how is it darkened 
 by prejudice instilled in early years ; 
 how often is it called to decide amidst 
 conflicting and nearly balanced argu- 
 ments ; how often does its light fail, in 
 the most critical moments of life ! How 
 do we suffer from wrong judgments 
 which we had not means to correct ! 
 How often does this high power sym- 
 pathize with the suffering body, and, 
 under nervous disease, sometimes un-
 
 THE DEATH OF DR. POLLEN. 
 
 609 
 
 dergo total eclipse ! Then our love, 
 the principle which thirsts, burns for 
 companionship, sympathy, confidence, 
 how often is it repelled by coldness, or 
 wounded by neglect, or tortured by 
 inconstancy ! Sometimes its faith in 
 virtue is shaken by the turpitude of 
 those to whom it has given its trust. 
 And when true love finds true requital, 
 the uncertainty of life mixes trembling 
 with its joy, and bereavement turns it 
 into anguish. There are still deeper 
 pains, those of the conscience, especially 
 when it wakes from long sleep, when it 
 is startled by new revelations of slighted 
 duties, of irreparable wrongs to man, 
 of base unfaithfulness to God. The 
 conscience ! what misgivings, apprehen- 
 sions, and piercing self-rebuke accom- 
 pany its ministry, when it first enters 
 on earnest warfare with temptation and 
 passion ! Thus, suffering comes to us 
 through and from our whole nature. It 
 cannot be winked out of sight. It can- 
 not be thrust into a subordinate place 
 in the picture of human life. It is the 
 chief burden of history. It is the sol- 
 emn theme of one of the highest depart- 
 ments of literature, the tragic drama. 
 It gives to fictions their deep interest. 
 It wails through much of our poetry. A 
 large part of human vocations are in- 
 tended to shut up some of its avenues. 
 It has left traces on every human coun- 
 tenance, over which years have passed. 
 It is. to not a few, the most vivid recol- 
 lection of life. 
 
 I have thus taken a rapid survey of 
 life, to show you that suffering is not 
 an accident, not something which now 
 and then slides into the order of events, 
 because too unimportant to require pro- 
 vision against its recurrence, but that it 
 is one of the grand features of life, one 
 of the chief ministers of Providence. 
 But all these details of suffering might 
 be spared. There is one simple thought, 
 sufficient of itself to show that suffering 
 is the intention of the Creator. It is 
 this. We are created with a suscepti- 
 bility of pain, and severe pain. This is 
 a part of our nature, as truly as our 
 susceptibility of enjoyment. God has 
 implanted it, and has thus opened in the 
 very centre of our being a fountain of 
 suffering. We carry it within us, and 
 can no more escape it than we can our 
 power of thought. We are apt to throw 
 our pains on outward things as their 
 
 causes. It is the fire, the sea, the 
 sword, or human enmity which gives us 
 pain. But there is no pain in the fire 
 or the sword which passes thence into 
 our souls. The pain begins and ends 
 in the soul itself. Outward things are 
 only the occasions. Even the body has 
 no pain in it, which it infuses into the 
 mind. Of itself, it is incapable of suffer- 
 ing. This hand may be cracked, crushed 
 in the rack of the inquisitor, and that 
 burned in a slow fire ; but in these cases 
 it is not the fibres, the blood-vessels, the 
 bones of the hands which endure pain. 
 These are merely connected by the will 
 of the Creator with the springs of pain 
 in the soul. Here, here is the only 
 origin and seat of suffering. If God so 
 willed, the gashing of the flesh with a 
 knife, the piercing of the heart with a 
 dagger, might be the occasion of ex- 
 quisite delight. We know that, in the 
 heat of battle, a wound is not felt, and 
 that men, dying for their faith by instru- 
 ments of torture, have expired with 
 triumph on their lips. In these cases, 
 the spring of suffering in the mind is 
 not touched by the lacerations of the 
 body, in consequence of the absorbing 
 action of other principles of the soul. 
 All suffering is to be traced to the sus- 
 ceptibility, the capacity of pain, which 
 belongs to our nature, and which the 
 Creator has implanted ineradicably with- 
 in us. It is not enough to say that the 
 elements, or any outward or bodily in- 
 fluences, are the sources of suffering. 
 This is to stop at the surface. The 
 outward agent only springs a mine, a 
 fountain within us. Oh, the great deep 
 of suffering in every human breast ! 
 Probably most of us have experienced 
 pains more intense than any pleasures 
 we have ever enjoyed. In the present 
 stage of our being, the capacity of agony 
 gets the start of or is more largely de- 
 veloped than the capacity of rapturous 
 joy. Our most vehement emotions are 
 those of sorrow ; nor is there any way 
 of escaping suffering. Among the most 
 prosperous, the heart often aches, it 
 knows not why. Sighs are heaved from 
 the breast apparently without cause. 
 Every soul has its night as well as its 
 day ; and a darkness sometimes gathers 
 over nature and life which must come 
 from within, for nothing abroad has 
 occurred to depress us. 
 
 To diminish this weight of suffering 
 
 39
 
 6io 
 
 DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY 
 
 is one great end of human toils and 
 cares. A thousand arts are plied to 
 remove outward causes of pain ; and 
 how many contrivances are there of 
 amusement and dissipation, to quiet the 
 restlessness, to soothe the irritations, to 
 fill the aching void, which belong to the 
 spirit ! But I apprehend little has been 
 yet achieved by all the labor ; nor can 
 much be done but by a deep working, 
 which statesmen and the busy crowd 
 seldom or never dream of. It is thought, 
 indeed, that modern civilization has 
 diminished very much the evils of life. 
 But when we take into the account the 
 immense amount of toil by which our 
 accommodations are accumulated, and 
 the tendencies of comforts and luxuries 
 to soften the spirit, to weaken its self- 
 command, and increase its sensibility to 
 hardships and exposure, I suspect that 
 our debt is not very great to civilization, 
 considered as the antagonist of physical 
 pain ; and as to the sufferings which 
 spring from mental causes, from the 
 conscience, the passions, the affections, 
 we cannot doubt that as yet they have 
 been vastly heightened by our civiliza- 
 tion. Not that I deny that arts and 
 civilization are great goods ; but they 
 prove such only when they make prog- 
 ress in union with the higher principles 
 of our nature, only when they forward 
 and are subordinated to a spiritual re- 
 generation, of which society as yet gives 
 few signs. 
 
 It may be said that I have given a 
 dark picture of the government of God ; 
 and I may be asked how his goodness 
 is to be vindicated. I reply that I am 
 less and less anxious to make formal 
 vindications of the goodness of God. 
 It needs no advocate. It will take care 
 of itself. In spite of clouds, men, who 
 have eyes, believe in the sun, and none 
 but the blind can seriously question the 
 Creator's goodness. We hear, indeed, 
 of men led into doubts on this point by 
 their sufferings ; but these doubts have 
 generally a deeper source than the evils 
 of life. Such scepticism is a moral dis- 
 ease, the growth of some open or lurking 
 depravity. It is not created, but brought 
 into light by the pressure of suffering. 
 It is, indeed, true that a good man, in 
 seasons of peculiar, repeated, pressing 
 calamities, may fall into dejection and 
 perplexity. His faith may tremble for 
 the moment. The passing cloud may 
 
 hide the sun. But deliberate, habitual 
 questionings of God's benevolence, argue 
 great moral deficiency. Whoever sees 
 the glory, and feels within himself the 
 power of disinterested goodness, is quick 
 to recognize it in others, especially in 
 his Creator. He sees in his own love a 
 sign, expression, and communication of 
 uncreated, unbounded, all- originating 
 love. The idea of malignity in the in- 
 finite Creator shocks his moral nature 
 just as a palpable contradiction offends 
 his reason. He repels it with indigna- 
 tion and horror. Suffering has little to 
 do towards creating a settled scepticism. 
 The most sceptical men, the most in- 
 sensible to God's goodness, the most 
 prone to murmur, may be found among 
 those who are laden above all others 
 with the goods of life, whose cup over- 
 flows with prosperity, and who, by an 
 abuse of prosperity, have become selfish, 
 exacting, and all alive to inconveniences 
 and privations. These are the cold- 
 hearted and doubting. If I were to 
 seek those whose conviction of God's 
 goodness is faintest and most easily 
 disturbed, I would seek them in the 
 palace sooner than the hovel. I would 
 go to the luxurious table, to the pillow 
 of ease, to those among us who abound 
 most, to the self exalting, the self-wor- 
 shipping, not to the depressed and for- 
 saken. The profoundest sense of God's 
 goodness which it has been my privilege 
 to witness, I have seen in the counte- 
 nance and heard from the lips of the 
 suffering. I have found none to lean 
 on God with such filial trust as those 
 whom he has afflicted. I doubt, indeed, 
 if true gratitude and true confidence 
 ever spring up in the human soul until 
 it has suffered. A superficial, senti- 
 mental recognition of God's goodness 
 may indeed be found among those who 
 have lived only to enjoy. But deep, 
 strong, earnest piety strikes root in the 
 soil which has been broken and softened 
 by calamity. Such, I believe, is the ob- 
 servation of every man who has watched 
 the progress of human character ; and 
 therefore I say that I fear very little 
 the influence of suffering in producing 
 scepticism. Still, virtuous minds are 
 sometimes visited with perplexities, with 
 painful surprise ; and in seasons of pe- 
 culiar calamity, the question is asked 
 with reverence, but still with anxiety, 
 How is it that so much suffering is ex-
 
 THE DEA TH OF DR. POLLEN. 
 
 perienced under a Being of perfect good- 
 ness ? and such passing clouds are apt 
 to darken us in earlier life, and in the 
 earlier stages of the Christian character? 
 On this account it is right to seek and 
 communicate such explanations as may 
 be granted us of the ways of God. 
 
 One of the most common vindications 
 of divine benevolence is found in the 
 fact that, much as men suffer, they enjoy 
 more. We are told that there is a great 
 balance of pleasure over pain, and that 
 it is by what prevails in a system that 
 we must judge of its author. This view 
 is by no means to be overlooked. It is 
 substantially true. There is a great ex- 
 cess of enjoyment, of present good in 
 life. The pains of sickness may indeed 
 be intenser than the pleasures of health, 
 but health is the rule, and sickness the 
 exception. A few are blind, or deaf, or 
 speechless ; but almost all men maintain, 
 through the open eye and ear, perpetual 
 communication with outward nature and 
 one another. Some may be broken 
 down with excessive toil ; but, to the 
 great mass of men, labor is healthful, 
 invigorating, and gives a zest to repose, 
 and to the common blessings of life. 
 We all suffer more or less from our 
 connection with imperfect fellow-creat- 
 ures ; but how much more of good 
 comes to us from our social nature, 
 from the sympathies and kind offices of 
 families, friends, neighbors, than of pain 
 from malignity and wrongs ! There is, 
 indeed, a great amount of suffering, and 
 there is an intensity in suffering not 
 found in pleasure ; and yet, when we 
 take a broad view, we must see a much 
 greater amount of gratification. The 
 world is not a hospital, an alms-house, 
 a dungeon. A beautiful sun shines on it. 
 Flowers and fruits deck its fields. A 
 reviving atmosphere encompasses it, 
 and man has power, by arts and com- 
 merce, to multiply and spread almost 
 indefinitely its provision for human 
 wants. Here is an eloquent testimony 
 to the goodness of the Creator. And 
 yet the obstinate sceptic may escape its 
 power. He will say, Be it granted that 
 pleasure prevails over pain ; still, is not 
 much pain inflicted? and how can 'this 
 be reconciled with perfect goodness ? 
 Does a kind father satisfy himself with 
 giving a greater amount of enjoyment 
 than of suffering? Suppose a parent to 
 heap on a child every possible indul- 
 
 gence for twenty hours of the day, and 
 to visit him with a severe pain the re- 
 maining four, should we celebrate his 
 tenderness ? Besides, it will be added, 
 are there not individual cases in which 
 suffering outweighs enjoyment ? Are 
 there none whose lives have been filled 
 up with disease and want ? and be these 
 ever so few, they disprove God's love to 
 every human being, if this love is to be 
 vindicated by the excess of pleasure over 
 pain. I state these objections, not be- 
 cause they weigh in the least on my own 
 mind, but because they show that the 
 argument in favor of divine goodness, 
 drawn from the passing events of life, is 
 not of itself a sufficient foundation for 
 faith to rest on. Whoever confines his 
 view to the alternations of good and evil 
 in every man's lot, cannot well escape 
 doubt. We must take higher ground. 
 We must cease to count pleasures and 
 pains, as if working a sum in arithmetic, 
 or to weigh them against each other as 
 in scales. We need larger views of our- 
 selves and the universe, and these will 
 more and more establish our faith in the 
 perfection of God. 
 
 There is a grand vindication of God's 
 benevolence, not reaching, indeed, to 
 every case of suffering, not broad 
 enough to cover the whole ground of 
 human experience, but still so compre- 
 hensive, so sublime, as to assure us that 
 what remains obscure would be turned 
 into light, could all its connections be 
 discerned. This is found in the truth, 
 that benevolence has a higher aim than 
 to bestow enjoyment. There is a higher 
 good than enjoyment ; and this requires 
 suffering in order to be gained. As long 
 as we narrow our view of benevolence, 
 and see in it only a disposition to bestow 
 pleasure, so long life will be a mystery ; 
 for pleasure is plainly not its great end. 
 Earth is not a paradise, where streams 
 of joy gush out unbidden at our feet, and 
 uncloying fruits tempt us on every side 
 to stretch out our hands and eat. But 
 this does not detract from God's love ; 
 because he has something better for us 
 than gushing streams or profuse indul- 
 gence. When we look into ourselves, 
 we find something besides capacities 
 and desires of pleasure. Amidst the 
 selfish and animal principles of our 
 nature, there is an awfftl power, a sense 
 of right, a voice which speaks of duty, 
 an idea grander than the largest per-
 
 6l2 
 
 DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY 
 
 sonal interest, the idea of excellence, of 
 perfection. Here is the seal of Divinity 
 on us ; here the sign of our descent from 
 God. It is in this gift that we see the 
 benevolence of God. It is in writing 
 this inward law on the heart, it is in 
 giving us the conception of moral good- 
 ness, and the power to strive after it, the 
 power of self-conflict and self-denial, of 
 surrendering pleasure to duty, and of 
 suffering for the right, the true, and the 
 good ; it is in thus enduing us, and 
 not in giving us capacities of pleasure, 
 that God's goodness shines ; and, of 
 consequence, whatever gives a field and 
 excitement and exercise and strength 
 and dignity to these principles of our 
 nature, is the highest manifestation of 
 benevolence. I trust I speak a lan- 
 guage to which all who hear me in some 
 measure respond. You know, you feel 
 the difference between excellence and 
 indulgence, between conscience and ap- 
 petite, between right-doing and prosper- 
 ity, between strivings to realize the idea 
 of perfection and strivings for gain. No 
 one can wholly overlook these different 
 elements within us ; and can any one 
 question which is God's greatest gift, or 
 for what ends such warring principles 
 are united in our souls ? 
 
 The end of our being is to educate, 
 bring out, and perfect the divine prin- 
 ciples of our nature. We were made 
 and are upheld in life for this as our 
 great end, that we may be true to the 
 principle of duty within us ; that we 
 may put down all desire and appetite 
 beneath the inward law ; that we may 
 enthrone God, the infinitely perfect 
 Father, in our souls ; that we may 
 count all things as dross in comparison 
 with sanctity of heart and life ; that we' 
 may hunger and thirst for righteousness, 
 more than for daily food ; that we may 
 resolutely and honestly seek for and 
 communicate truth ; that disinterested 
 love and impartial justice may triumph 
 over every motion of selfishness and 
 every tendency to wrong-doing ; in a 
 word, that our whole lives, labors, con- 
 versation, may express and strengthen 
 reverence for ourselves, for our fellow- 
 creatures, and, above all, for God. Such 
 is the good for which we are made ; and 
 in order to this triumph of virtuous and 
 religious principles, we are exposed to 
 temptation, hardship, pain. Is suffer- 
 ing, then, inconsistent with God's love ? 
 
 Moral, spiritual excellence, that which 
 we confide in and revere, is not, and 
 from its nature cannot be, an instinctive, 
 irresistible feeling infused into us from 
 abroad, and which may grow up amidst 
 a life of indulgence and ease. It is, in 
 its very essence, a free activity, an en- 
 ergy of the will, a deliberate preference 
 of the right and the holy to all things, 
 and a chosen, cheerful surrender of 
 everything to these. It grows brighter, 
 stronger, in proportion to the pains it 
 bears, the difficulties it surmounts. 
 Can we wonder that we suffer ? Is not 
 suffering the true school of a moral 
 being ? As administered by Providence, 
 may it not be the most necessary portion 
 of our lot ? 
 
 Had I time, I might show how suffer- 
 ing ministers to human excellence ; how 
 it calls forth the magnanimous and sub- 
 lime virtues, and at the same time 
 nourishes the tenderest, sweetest sym- 
 pathies of our nature ; how it raises us 
 to energy and to the consciousness of 
 our powers, and at the same time infuses 
 the meekest dependence on God ; how 
 it stimulates toil for the goods of this 
 world, and at the same time weans us 
 from it, and lifts us above it. I might 
 tell you how I have seen it admonishing 
 the heedless, reproving the presumptu- 
 ous, humbling the proud, rousing the 
 sluggish, softening the insensible, awak- 
 ening the slumbering conscience, speak- 
 ing of God to the ungrateful, infusing 
 courage and force and faith and unwav- 
 ering hope of heaven. I do not, then, 
 doubt God's beneficence on account of 
 the sorrows and pains of life. I look 
 without gloom on this suffering world. 
 True, suffering abounds. The wail of 
 the mourner comes to me from every 
 region under heaven ; from every human 
 habitation, for death enters into all ; 
 from the ocean, where the groan of the 
 dying mingles with the solemn roar of 
 the waves ; from the fierce flame, encir- 
 cling, as an atmosphere or shroud, the 
 beloved, the revered. Still, all these 
 forms of suffering do not subdue my 
 faith, for all are fitted to awaken the 
 human soul, and through all it may be 
 glorified. We shrink indeed with hor- 
 ror, when imagination carries us to the 
 blazing, sinking vessel, where young 
 and old, the mother and her child, hus- 
 bands, fathers, friends, are overwhelmed 
 by a common, sudden, fearful fate.
 
 THE DEATH OF DR. POLLEN. 
 
 613 
 
 But the soul is mightier than the unspar- 
 ing elements. I have read of holy men 
 who. in days of persecution, have been 
 led to the stake, to pay the penalty of 
 their uprightness, not in fierce and sud- 
 denly destroying flames, but in a slow 
 fire : and, though one retracting word 
 would have snatched them from death, 
 they have chosen to be bound ; and, 
 amidst the protracted agonies of limb 
 burning after limb, they have looked to 
 God with unwavering faith and sought 
 forgiveness for their enemies. What, 
 then, are outward fires to the celestial 
 flame within us ? And can I feel as if 
 God had ceased to love, as if man were 
 forsaken of his Creator, because his 
 body is scattered into ashes by the fire ? 
 It would seem as if God intended to 
 disarm the most terrible events of their 
 power to disturb our faith, by making 
 them the occasions of the sublimest 
 virtues. In shipwrecks we are furnished 
 with some of the most remarkable ex- 
 amples that history affords of trust in 
 God, of unconquerable energy, and of 
 tender, self-sacrificing love, making the 
 devouring ocean the most glorious spot 
 on earth. A friend rescued from a 
 wreck told me that a company of pious 
 Christians, who had been left in the 
 sinking ship, were heard from the boat 
 in which he had found safety; lifting up 
 their voices, not in shrieks or moans, 
 but in a joint hymn to God, thus await- 
 ing, in a serene act of piety, the last, 
 swift-approaching hour. How much 
 grander was that hymn than the ocean's 
 roar ! And what becomes of suffering, 
 when thus awakening into an energy, 
 otherwise unknown, the highest senti- 
 ments of the soul ? I can shed tears 
 over human griefs ; but thus viewed 
 they do not discourage me ; they 
 strengthen my faith in God. 
 
 I will not say that I have now offered 
 a sufficient explanation of the evils of 
 life, a complete vindication of God's 
 providence in the permission of suffer- 
 ing. Do not think me so presumptu- 
 ous. What ! shall a weak man, who is 
 but dust and ashes, talk of vindicating 
 fully the providence of , God ? That 
 providence, could I explain it. would 
 not be infinite. In this our childhood, 
 plunged as we are into the midst of a 
 boundless universe, we must expect to 
 find mysteries on every side of us. 
 Darkness must hem in all our steps. I 
 
 presume not to say why this or that 
 event has befallen us. I bow my head 
 with filial reverence before the infinite 
 Disposer. How little of him do I, can 
 I, comprehend ! Still he vouchsafes to 
 us some light in this our darkness. 
 Still he has given us, in our own spirits, 
 some cheering revelations of the designs 
 of his vast, mysterious providence ; and 
 these we are gratefully to receive, and 
 to use them as confirmations of our 
 faith and hope. 
 
 I have been led to this subject by the 
 appalling calamity which, for a few days 
 past, has filled so many of our thoughts, 
 and awakened universal sympathy in 
 our community. I was driven by this 
 awful visitation of God's providence to 
 turn my mind to the sufferings of human 
 life, and some of my reflections I have 
 now laid before you. It is not my desire 
 to bring back to your imaginations that 
 affecting scene. Our imaginations in 
 such seasons need no quickening. They 
 often scare us with unreal terrors, and 
 thus our doubts of God's goodness are 
 aggravated by the fictions of our own 
 diseased minds. Most of us are proba- 
 bly destined to pass through more pain- 
 ful, because more lingering, deaths than 
 the lamented sufferers who have within 
 a few days been so suddenly summoned 
 to the presence of God. The ocean is 
 a softer, less torturing bed than that 
 which is to be spread for many here. 
 It was not the physical pain which I 
 shuddered at when I first heard of that 
 night of horrors. It was the mental 
 agony of those who, in a moment of 
 health and security, were roused to see 
 distinctly the abyss opening beneath 
 them, to see God's awful ministers of 
 fire and sea commissioned to sunder at 
 once every hold on life, and to carry 
 them so unwarned into the unknown 
 world. Even this agony, however, in 
 the first moment of our grief and hor- 
 ror, was perhaps exaggerated. When 
 my mind, composed by time, now goes 
 back to that flame-encircled boat, I 
 search for one among the crowd who 
 was singularly dear to me, the close and 
 faithful friend of many years ; and as he 
 rises to my mind, I see no terror on his 
 countenance. I see him with collected 
 mind and quick eye looking round him 
 for means of escape, using every energy 
 of a fearless spirit, thoughtful, too, of 
 others as well as of himself, and desist-
 
 614 
 
 DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY 
 
 ing from no efforts of love and prudence 
 till the power of effort failed. I see, 
 indeed, one agony ; it was the thought 
 that the dear countenances of wife and 
 child and beloved friend were to be 
 seen no more on earth. I see another, 
 perhaps deeper agony ; it was the thought 
 of the woe which his loss was to inflict 
 on hearts dearer to him than life. But 
 even at that hour his love was not all 
 agony ; for it had always lived in union 
 with faith. He had loved spiritually ; 
 he had reverenced in his friends an 
 infinite, undying nature ; he had cher- 
 ished in them principles and hopes 
 stronger than death. I cannot doubt 
 that in that fearful hour he committed 
 them and himself with filial trust to the 
 all-merciful Father. I cannot doubt 
 that death was disarmed of its worst 
 terrors, that the spirit passed away in 
 breathings of unutterable love and im- 
 mortal hope. Thus died one of that 
 seemingly forlorn, desolate, forsaken 
 company ; I hope, thus others died. 
 But one such example mingles with the 
 terrors and agonies of that night so 
 much that is heavenly, soothing, cheer- 
 ing, that I can look at the scene without 
 overwhelming gloom, and without one 
 doubt of the perfect goodness of God. 
 
 The friend to whom I have referred 
 was not only my friend, but most dear 
 to several who worship in this house. 
 For their sakes, more than my own, I 
 would say something of his character ; 
 though, in truth, I have a higher object 
 than to minister to any private grief. 
 This is not the place for the utterance 
 of personal feeling. This house was 
 reared not for the glory even of the best 
 and the greatest of men, but for the 
 glory of God, and for the spiritual edifi- 
 cation of his worshippers. I feel, how- 
 ever, that God is honored and man 
 edified by notices of such of our race 
 as have signally manifested the spirit of 
 the Divinity in their lives, and have left 
 a bright path to guide others to a better 
 world. 
 
 The friend of whom I speak was one 
 of the few who seem set apart from the 
 race by blamelessness of life and eleva- 
 tion of spirit. All who have had oppor- 
 tunities of knowing him will testify, by 
 a spontaneous impulse, that they knew 
 no purer, nobler human being. Some 
 think that on the whole he was the best 
 man whom it has been their privilege to 
 
 know. Such a man may be spoken of 
 even in the house of God, in that place 
 where flattery is profanation, and God, 
 not man, is to be adored. Our friend 
 did not grow up among us. He came 
 here an exile from a distant land ; and, 
 poor and unfriended, was to earn his 
 bread with toil ; and under these disad- 
 vantages he not only won friends and a 
 home, but was adopted with love and 
 trust, which few inspire who have been 
 known from infancy to age. 
 
 The character which secured such 
 love it is not difficult to depict, because 
 greatness is simple, artless, and lies 
 open to every eye. It was his distinc- 
 tion that he united in himself those 
 excellences which at first seem to repel 
 each other, though in truth they are of 
 one loving family. This union was so 
 striking as to impress even those who 
 did not enjoy his intimacy. For exam- 
 ple, he was a hero, a man of a lion- 
 heart, victorious over fear, gathering 
 strength and animation from danger, 
 and bound the faster to duty by its hard- 
 ships and privations ; and at the same 
 time he was a child in simplicity, sweet- 
 ness, innocence, and benignity. His 
 firmness, which I trusted perhaps more 
 than that of any man, had not the least 
 alloy of roughness. His countenance, 
 which at times wore a stern decision, 
 was generally lighted up with a beauti- 
 ful benignity ; and his voice, which ex- 
 pressed, when occasion required it, an 
 inflexible will, was to many of us musi- 
 cal beyond expression, from the deep 
 tenderness which it breathed. 
 
 As another example of seemingly in- 
 congruous virtues, he was singularly 
 alive to the domestic affections. Who, 
 that saw him in the bosom of his family, 
 can forget the deep sympathies and the 
 overflowing joyousness of his spirit ? 
 His home was pervaded by his love as 
 by the sun's light. A stranger might 
 have thought that his whole soul was 
 centred there ; and yet with these strong 
 domestic affections he joined a love of 
 his race far more rare. His heart beat 
 in unison with the mighty heart of hu- 
 manity. He did not love mankind as 
 these words are commonly used. He 
 was knit to them by a strong living tie 
 of brotherhood. He felt for all men, 
 but above all for the depressed and the 
 wronged. His mild countenance would 
 flash fire at the mention of an injured
 
 THE DEATH OF DR. FOLLEN. 
 
 6I 5 
 
 man ; not the fire of revenge, or unkind- 
 ness, but of holy indignation, of un- 
 bounded love and reverence for invaded 
 right. 
 
 I can mention another union of qual- 
 ities not always reconciled. He was a 
 man of refined taste. He loved refined 
 society. His manners, courteous, sweet, 
 bland, fitted him for intercourse with 
 the most cultivated, and he enjoyed it 
 keenly ; and yet his deepest sympathies 
 were given to the mass of men. He 
 was the friend of the laboring man. 
 He had a great respect for minds which 
 had been trained in simple habits, and 
 amidst the toils of life ; and could he 
 have chosen the congregation to which 
 he would minister, it would have been 
 composed chiefly of such members. 
 
 I will mention one more union of 
 seemingly dissimilar virtues. He was 
 singularly independent in his judgments. 
 He was not only uninfluenced by au- 
 thority and numbers and interest and 
 popularity, but by friendship, by those 
 he most loved and honored. He seemed 
 almost too tenacious of his convictions. 
 But with all this firmness of judgment 
 he never gave offence by positiveness, 
 never challenged assent, never urged 
 his dearest convictions with unbecom- 
 ing warmth, never in argument passed 
 the limits of the most delicate courtesy, 
 and, from a reverence of others' rights, 
 encouraged the freest expression of 
 opinion, however hostile to his own. 
 
 Such were some of the traits of this 
 good and great man ; and of these 
 traits, which bore rule ? Not a few, 
 who saw him cursorily, remember most 
 distinctly his singular sweetness and 
 benignity. But had these predomi- 
 nated, I might not, perhaps, think myself 
 authorized to pay him this extended 
 tribute in a Christian congregation. I 
 should confine the utterance of my grief 
 to the circle of private friendship. It 
 was his calm, enlightened, Christian 
 heroism which imparted to his charac- 
 ter its singular glory. His sweetness 
 threw a lustre over this attribute, by 
 showing that it was no morbid enthusi- 
 asm, no reckless self-exposure ; that he 
 was not raised above danger and per- 
 sonal regards by vehemence of emotion* 
 His heroism had its root and life in 
 reason, in the sense of justice, in the 
 disinterested principles of Christianity, 
 in deliberate, enlightened reverence for 
 
 human nature and for the rights of every 
 human being. It was singularly free 
 from passion. Tender and affectionate 
 as his nature was, his sense of justice, 
 his reverence for right, was stronger 
 than his affections ; and this was the 
 chief basis and element of his heroic 
 character. Accordingly, the love of free- 
 dom glowed as a central, inextinguish- 
 able fire in his soul ; not the school- 
 boy's passion for liberty, caught from 
 the blood-stained pages of Greece and 
 Rome, but a love of freedom, resting 
 on and blended with the calmest knowl- 
 edge, growing from clear, profound per- 
 ceptions of the nature and destiny and 
 inalienable rights of man. He felt, to 
 the very depth of his soul, that man, 
 God's rational, immortal creature, was 
 worth living for and dying for. To him, 
 the most grievous sight .on earth was 
 not misery in its most agonizing forms, 
 but the sight of man oppressed, trodden 
 down by his brother. To lift him up, 
 to make him free, to restore him to the 
 dignity of a man, to restore him to the 
 holy hope of a Christian, this seemed 
 to him the grandest work on earth, and 
 he consecrated himself to it with his 
 whole soul. I felt habitually in his 
 presence that here was a man ready at 
 any moment to shed his blood for truth 
 and freedom. For his devotion to hu- 
 man rights he had been exiled from his 
 home and native country ; he had been 
 hunted by arbitrary power in foreign 
 lands, and had sought safety beyond an 
 ocean. But peril and persecution, whilst 
 they had tempered his youthful enthusi- 
 asm, had only wrought more deeply 
 into his soul the principles for which he 
 had suffered, and his resolution, in 
 growing calmer, had grown more in- 
 vincible. 
 
 His greatness had one of the chief 
 marks of reality ; it was unpretending. 
 He had no thought of playing the part 
 of a hero. He was never more himself, 
 never more unstudied, spontaneous, than 
 in the utterance of generous sentiments. 
 His greatness was immeasurably above 
 show, and above the arts by which in- 
 ferior minds thrust themselves on notice. 
 There was a singular union in his char- 
 acter, of self-respect and modesty, which 
 brought out both these qualities in strong 
 relief. He was just to himself without 
 flattery, and too single-hearted and truth- 
 ful to seek or accept flattery from others.
 
 6i6 
 
 DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY 
 
 He made no merit, nor did he talk of 
 the sufferings, past or present, which 
 he had incurred by faithfulness to prin- 
 ciple. In truth, he could hardly be said 
 to suffer, except through solicitude for 
 what he might bring on those who were 
 dearer to him than himself. It was a 
 part of his faith, that the highest hap- 
 piness is found in that force of love and 
 holy principle through which a man sur- 
 renders himself wholly to the cause of 
 God and mankind ; and he proved the 
 truth in his own experience. Though 
 often unprosperous and often disap- 
 pointed, his spirit was buoyant, cheer- 
 ful, overflowing with life, full of faith 
 and hope, often sportive, and always 
 open to the innocent pleasures "which 
 sprung up in his path. 
 
 He was a true Christian. The char- 
 acter of Christ was his delight. His 
 faith in immortality had something of 
 the clearness of vision. He had given 
 himself much to the philosophical study 
 of human nature, and there were two 
 principles of the soul on which he seized 
 with singular force. One of these was 
 " the sense of the infinite," that prin- 
 ciple of our nature which always as- 
 pires after something higher than it has 
 gained, which conceives of the perfect, 
 and can find no rest but in pressing for- 
 ward to perfection. The other was 
 "the free-will of man," which was to 
 him the grand explanation of the mys- 
 teries of our being, and which gave to 
 the human soul inexpressible interest 
 and dignity in his sight. To him, life 
 was a state in which a free being is to 
 determine himself, amidst sore trials 
 and temptations, to the right and the 
 holy, and to advance towards perfec- 
 tion. His piety took a character from 
 these views. It was eminently a filial 
 piety. He might almost be said to have 
 no name for God but Father. But then 
 God was not to his view a fond, indul- 
 gent father, but a wise parent, sending 
 forth his child to be tried and tempted, 
 to suffer and contend, to watch and 
 pray, and, amidst such discipline, to 
 approve and exalt his love towards God 
 and mankind. 
 
 Such were the grand traits of our 
 departed friend. He was not good as 
 most of us are, faithful to duty when 
 duty is convenient, loyal to truth when 
 truth is shouted from the crowd. He 
 loved virtue for herself, loved her when 
 
 her dowry was suffering, and therefore 
 I deem him worthy to be spoken of 
 thus largely in Christ's church. The 
 world has its temples in which its favor- 
 ites, the powerful, the successful, may 
 be lauded. But he only is fit to be 
 commemorated in a Christian church 
 who has borne the cross, who has left 
 all for duty and Christ. Not that I 
 mean to speak of our friend as perfect. 
 He fell below his standard. He was 
 a partaker in human infirmities. He 
 has gone not to plead his merits, but 
 to cast himself on the mercy of his 
 Creator. 
 
 My thoughts have been so attracted 
 to his moral qualities, that I have neg- 
 lected to speak of his intellectual powers. 
 These were of a high order. His in- 
 tellect had the strength, simplicity, and 
 boldness of his character. Without 
 rashness, it shrunk from nothing that 
 bore the signature of truth. He was 
 given chiefly to the higher philosophy, 
 which treats of the laws, powers, and 
 destinies of the human soul. He hoped 
 to live to complete a work on this sub- 
 ject. I presume that, next to the dis- 
 charge of all duty, this was the object 
 he had most at heart ; and though I 
 differed from him as to some funda- 
 mental doctrines, I shared in his strong 
 desire of giving his views to the world. 
 His theory stood in direct hostility to 
 Atheism, which confounds man with 
 nature ; to Pantheism and Mysticism, 
 which confound man with God ; and 
 to all the systems of philosophy and 
 religion which ascribe to circumstances 
 or to God an irresistible influence on 
 the mind. The free-will, through which 
 we create our own characters, through 
 which we become really, not nominally, 
 responsible beings, and are fitted to 
 sustain, not physical, but moral rela- 
 tions to God and the universe, this was 
 his grand principle ; and he followed 
 it out to all its consequences with his 
 characteristic decision. But he was not 
 confined to abstract subjects. He had 
 studied moral science, history, and the 
 civil law profoundly. He nad given 
 much thought to Christianity and the 
 church. His acquisitions of knowledge 
 were various, his taste refined, and his 
 power of expression great. His thoughts, 
 often original, were robed in beauty, from 
 an imagination which received fresh, 
 genial, quickening influences from his
 
 THE DEATH OF DR. POLLEN. 
 
 6l 7 
 
 moral nature. His intellect, however, 
 had one quality which, whether justly 
 or not, prevented its extensive action 
 on our community. It did not move 
 fast enough for us. It was too deliber- 
 ate, too regular, too methodical, too 
 anxious to do full justice to a subject, 
 for such an impatient people as we are. 
 He did not dazzle men by sudden, bold, 
 exaggerated conceptions. In his writ- 
 ings he seemed compelled to unfold a 
 subject in its order ; and sometimes in- 
 sisted on what might have been left to 
 the quick conception of the hearer. 
 Hence he was thought by some to want 
 animation and interest as a preacher, 
 whilst by others his religious instruc- 
 tions and his prayers were felt to be 
 full of life and power. The effect of 
 his eloquence was often diminished by 
 his slow, deliberate utterance ; a habit 
 which, as a foreigner anxious to pro- 
 nounce our language with perfect ac- 
 curacy, he could hardly help contracting. 
 Of late, however, his freedom and ear- 
 nestness had increased ; and his preach- 
 ing was listened to with delight by those 
 who insist most on animation of thought 
 and manner. Indeed to his last moment 
 he was growing in the desire and the 
 power to do good. 
 
 Thus he lived ; nor is he to be com- 
 passionated, because in the midst of such 
 a life he was suddenly taken away. Our 
 imaginations associate a peculiar terri- 
 bleness with death, when it comes with- 
 out warning, in the form of tempest, 
 lightning, fire, and raging waves. But 
 within and beneath these awful powers 
 of nature there is another and mightier 
 power. These are only God's minis- 
 ters ; and through these he separates 
 from earthly bonds the spirit which 
 he has watered over and prepared for 
 nearer access to himself. Perhaps, were 
 our minds more elevated, it would seem 
 to us worthier of a man, more appropri- 
 ate to his greatness, to fall under these 
 mighty powers, to find a grave in these 
 unbounded elements, than to sink by 
 slow disease and to be consigned to the 
 dark, narrow tomb. Our friend lived the 
 life of a man and a Christian to the last 
 hour. His life, though not prosperous | 
 in our common language, had yet yielded 
 him the best blessings of the present 
 state. If strangers had not heard his 
 name, he was cherished, honored, as few 
 men are, by those who knew him best ; 
 
 and if extensive possessions were denied 
 him, he owned what is worth more than 
 the wealth of worlds, a happy home, 
 consecrated by intelligence, piety, and a 
 celestial love. Who had greater cause 
 than he to rejoice in life ? nor ought any 
 tears, but those which we shed for our- 
 selves, to be called forth by his death. 
 
 I -have thus, my friends, spoken of a 
 good and noble man, and I have spoken 
 not to give relief to a full heart, nor 
 chiefly to soothe the wounded hearts of 
 others. This house is consecrated to 
 God. This excellent, honored man was 
 still a ray, and a faint ray, from the Un- 
 created Light. What we loved in him 
 was an inspiration from God ; and all 
 admiration, which does not rise above 
 him, falls infinitely below its true object. 
 Let us thank God, who has manifested 
 himself to us in this his servant, who 
 speaks to us in all holy and noble men. 
 Let us not stop at these. If we do, we 
 bury ourselves in the finite, we lose the 
 most precious influences, the holiest 
 ministry of living and departed virtuous 
 friends. We say of the good man whom 
 we have lost, that he has gone to God. 
 Let us, too, go to God. Let us humble 
 ourselves before him for our past im- 
 piety, irreverence, unthankful insensi- 
 bility to his infinite perfection ; and, with 
 new affection and entire obedience, let 
 us consecrate ourselves to him from 
 whose fulness all that is beautiful and 
 glorious in the human soul and in the 
 universe is derived. 
 
 I have spoken of the friend we have 
 lost, that through him we should the 
 more honor God. We may learn from 
 him. now that he sleeps in the ocean, 
 another lesson. We may learn the glo- 
 rious power of virtue, how it can throw 
 a brightness over the most appalling 
 scenes of human life, and can rob the 
 most awful forms of death of their de- 
 pressing influence. To the eye of sense, 
 what a sad spectacle was the friend we 
 have lost, first circled with the flames, 
 then weltering in the cold, lonely sea ! 
 At the moment of hearing the sad news, 
 a feeling of horror oppressed me ; but 
 soon a light beamed in this darkness, 
 and it beamed from his virtues. The 
 thought of the spirit which I had com- 
 muned with gradually took the place of 
 the body which had been taken from us 
 under circumstances so appalling. I felt 
 that the spirit which had informed that
 
 6i8 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISO'N, ESQ. 
 
 body, had spoken through those lips, 
 had beamed from that benign face, was 
 mightier than the elements. I felt that 
 all the waves of ocean could not quench 
 that spark. I felt how vast, how unut- 
 terable the transition from that burning 
 deck and pitiless sea to the repose and 
 life of a better world. I felt that the seal 
 of immortality had been put on the virtue 
 which we had seen unfolding on our 
 earth. Still more, his virtues have grad- 
 ually brought back to my mind his out- 
 ward form divested of painful associa- 
 tions. As I now think of the departed, 
 his countenance is no longer defaced by 
 death. It rises to me in the sweetest, 
 noblest expression which it wore in life. 
 Thus the body, through which virtue has 
 shed its light, becomes hallowed and 
 immortal to the memory and the heart. 
 And if this be true, if goodness be so 
 divine as to gain and shed glory in that 
 awful change, which dissolves the out- 
 ward frame and tears us away from the 
 earth, shall we go on to live to the 
 earth, to outward, material, perishing 
 good ? Shall we continue to slight, and 
 refuse to secure, imperishable virtue ? 
 
 Once more, a solemn teaching comes 
 to us from this day's meditation. Our 
 
 friend was called in the midst of life, and 
 so may we be called. How thin the 
 barrier between time and eternity ! We 
 think this earth firmer than the sea in 
 which he found a grave. But one false 
 step on this firm earth may precipitate 
 us into the tomb. Human life is not so 
 strong that waves and fires must join for 
 its extinction. One ruptured artery may 
 suspend the breath as suddenly as an 
 ocean. From that awful' scene, where 
 so many have perished, a voice comes to 
 us, saying, Prepare to die. So live, 
 that sudden death may only be a swifter 
 entrance into a higher life. So live, that 
 survivors may shed over you tears of 
 hope as well as of sorrow, that they may 
 find in their remembrances of you springs 
 of comfort, testimonies to religion, en- 
 couragements to goodness, and proofs 
 and pledges of immortality. So live, 
 that the injured and oppressed, the poor 
 and forsaken, may utter blessings on 
 your name. So live, that if by God's 
 mysterious providence you also are to 
 die in flames or in the sea, you may 
 commit your departing spirits to him who 
 gave them, with humble trust, with filial 
 prayer, with undying hope. 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISON, ESQ. 
 
 First published in 1821. 
 
 OUR last number contained a brief 
 notice of Mr. Gallison ; but his rare 
 excellence, and the singular affection, 
 esteem, and confidence which he en- 
 joyed, have been thought to demand 
 a more particular delineation of his 
 character. And the office is too grate- 
 ful to be declined. In the present im- 
 perfect condition of human nature, when 
 strange and mournful inconsistencies so 
 often mix with and shade the virtues of 
 good men ; when truth, that stern mon- 
 itor, almost continually forbids us to 
 give free scope to admiration, and com- 
 pels us to dispense our praise with a 
 measured and timid liberality, it is 
 delightful to meet an example of high 
 endowments, undebased by the mixture 
 
 of unworthy habits and feelings ; to 
 meet a character whose blamelessness 
 spares us the pain of making deductions 
 from its virtues. And our satisfaction 
 is greatly increased when Providence 
 has seen fit to unfold this character in 
 the open light of a conspicuous station, 
 so that many around us have had oppor- 
 tunity to observe it as well as ourselves, 
 and we can give utterance to our affec- 
 tion and respect with the confidence of 
 finding sympathy and a full response in 
 the hearts of our readers. 
 
 But we have a higher motive than the 
 relief and gratification of personal feel- 
 ings for payjng this tribute to Mr. Galli- 
 son. We consider his character as 
 singularly instructive, particularly to that
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN G ALLISON, ESQ. 
 
 619 
 
 important class of the community, young 
 men. His life, whilst it bore strong 
 testimony to those great principles of 
 morality and religion in which all ranks 
 and ages have an interest, and on which 
 society rests, seems to us peculiarly 
 valuable as a commentary on the capaci- 
 ties and right application of youth ; as 
 demonstrating what a young man may 
 become, what honor, love, and influence 
 he m3y gather round him, and how at- 
 tractive are the Christian virtues at that 
 age which is generally considered as least 
 amenable to the laws of religion. For 
 young men we chiefly make this record ; 
 and we do it with a deep conviction that 
 society cannot be served more effectually 
 than by spreading through this class a 
 purer morality and a deeper sense of 
 responsibility than are now enforced by 
 public opinion ; for our young men are 
 soon to be the fathers, guides, and de- 
 fenders of the community ; and how- 
 ever examples may now and then occur 
 of early profligacy changed by time into 
 purity and virtue, yet too often the har- 
 vest answers to the seed, the building 
 to the foundation ; and perhaps it will 
 appear in that great day which is to un- 
 fold the consequences of actions, that 
 even forsaken vice leaves wounds in the 
 mind which are slowly healed, and which 
 injure the moral powers and predispose 
 to moral disease through the whole life. 
 In this connection it may be proper 
 to observe, that there is no country in 
 which society has such an interest in 
 bringing strong moral and religious 
 influences to bear on young men as in 
 this ; for our country has been distin- 
 guished by the premature growth of 
 those to whom it gives birth. Various 
 circumstances here develop the mind 
 and active powers earlier than in Europe. 
 Our young men come forward sooner 
 into life ; mix sooner in the stir and 
 conflicts of business and politics ; and 
 form sooner the most important domes- 
 tic relations. It has often been sug- 
 gested, that the mind suffers under this 
 forcing system, that it is exhausted by 
 excess of action, that a slower growth 
 would give it greater strength and ex- 
 pansion. But be this true or not (and 
 we trust that the suggestion is founded 
 on remote analogies rather than on ob- 
 servation), one thing is plain, that in 
 proportion as the young advance rapidly 
 in intellect and activity, there should be 
 
 powerful application of moral and re- 
 ligious truths and sanctions to their 
 consciences and hearts. Their whole 
 nature should grow at once. The moral 
 sense, the sense of God, should not 
 slumber, whilst the intellect and the 
 passions are awake and enlarging them- 
 selves with a fearful energy. A con- 
 viction of their responsibility to God 
 and society should be deeply wrought 
 into the opening reason, so as to recur 
 through life with the force of instinct. 
 Mr. Gallison was a striking example of 
 the early and harmonious unfolding of 
 the moral and intellectual nature, and in 
 this view his character is particularly 
 fitted to the wants and dangers of our 
 state of society. 
 
 When we know or hear of uncommon 
 excellence, it is natural to inquire by 
 what propitious circumstances it was 
 formed ; and hence the curiosity which 
 has sifted so diligently the early his- 
 tory of eminent men. But such investi- 
 gations, we believe, generally teach us 
 that character is more independent on 
 outward circumstances than is usually 
 thought, that the chief causes which 
 form a superior mind are within itself. 
 Whilst the Supreme Being encourages 
 liberally the labors of education, by 
 connecting with them many good and 
 almost sure results, still, as if to mag- 
 nify his own power and to teach men 
 humility and dependence, he often pro- 
 duces, with few or no means, a strength 
 of intellect and principle, a grace and 
 dignity of character, which the most 
 anxious human culture cannot confer. 
 In the early years of Mr. Gallison, we 
 find no striking circumstances or inci- 
 dents which determined the peculiarities 
 of his future character. The processes 
 by which he became what he was were 
 inward ; and the only voice which could 
 disclose them is now silent in death. 
 
 He was born in Marblehead, October, 
 1788. His mother, a sister of the late 
 Chief Justice Sewall, survived his birth 
 but a few hours ; and his life began 
 with one of the heaviest of life's afflic- 
 tions, the loss of a mother's love. He 
 was so happy, however, as to be the 
 object of singular and never-failing kind- 
 ness to his surviving parent, whom he 
 requited with no common filial attach- 
 ment ; and he may be cited as a proof 
 of the good effects of that more unre- 
 strained and tender intercourse between
 
 620 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISON, ESQ. 
 
 parents and children which distinguishes 
 the present from the past age. He was 
 early placed under the tuition of the Rev. 
 Dr. Harris, now President of Columbia 
 College, New York, then preceptor of 
 an academy, and rector of an Episcopal 
 church, in Marblehead. He is said to 
 have endeared himself to his revered 
 instructor by his docility, industry, mod- 
 esty, love of truth, and steady improve- 
 ment. He held a high but unenvied 
 rank at school ; and it may be men- 
 tioned, as an evidence of early judgment 
 and a constant mind, that some of the 
 friendships of that early period went 
 with him to the grave, and were among 
 the best enjoyments of his life. 
 
 He entered the University at Cam- 
 bridge, A.D. 1803, in the fifteenth year 
 of his age ; and whilst his unremitting 
 application gave him the full benefit of 
 its various provisions for literary im- 
 provement, his consistent character and 
 social virtues won for him universal con- 
 fidence and esteem. On leaving the 
 University, he commenced the study 
 of the law under the Hon. John Ouincy 
 Adams, and, having completed his prepa- 
 ration under the Hon. Joseph Story, be- 
 gan the practice of his profession at 
 Marblehead, A.D. 1810. By the advice 
 of his friends, he soon removed to this 
 metropolis, a more proper, because wider, 
 sphere of action. Here he experienced, 
 for a time, those anxieties and depres- 
 sions which form the common trial of 
 young men who enter a crowded pro- 
 fession. But his prospects were bright- 
 ened by a connection in business which 
 he formed with the Hon. William Pres- 
 cott, and which, as it was unsolicited 
 and attended by other flattering circum- 
 stances, gave him a gratifying assurance 
 of the confidence which he had inspired. 
 The progress of his reputation as a law- 
 yer was soon a matter of common re- 
 mark ; and those who were most capable 
 of understanding the depth and extent 
 of his legal attainments, were confident 
 that, should his life be spared, he would 
 attain the highest honors of his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 He died, December, 1820, at the age 
 of 32. The shock given to the com- 
 munity by this event was unusual, and 
 the calamity was heightened by its 
 unexpectedness. His general health, 
 cheerfulness, and activity, had given 
 the promise of a long life, and his 
 
 friends were not alarmed for him until 
 a week before his death. His disease 
 was an inflammation of the brain, which 
 first discovered itself in slight aberra- 
 tions of mind, and terminated in de- 
 lirium. This awful eclipse of reason 
 continued to the last, so that his friends 
 were denied the satisfaction of receiv- 
 ing from his dying lips assurances of 
 his Christian hope. Some of them, 
 however, recollect with pleasure*, that 
 at the beginning of his disease, when 
 his intellect was rather exalted than 
 deranged, his expressions of religious 
 feeling and joy were unusually strong ; 
 and he has left them higher consolation 
 than a dying testimony, even the mem- 
 ory of a blameless and well-spent life. 
 
 Having given this brief record of a 
 life too peaceful and prosperous to fur- 
 nish matter for biography, we proceed 
 to give our views of the character of 
 Mr. Gallison. His chief distinction was 
 not talent, although he had fine powers 
 of intellect, and a capacity of attention 
 which, in usefulness if not in splendor, 
 generally surpasses genius. His pri- 
 mary characteristic, and that which gave 
 him his peculiar weight in the com- 
 munity, was the force of moral and 
 religious principle, a force which 
 operated with the steadiness of a law 
 of nature, a paramount energy, which 
 suffered no portion of life or intellect 
 to be wasted, which concentrated all 
 his faculties and feelings on worthy 
 objects. His powers did not astonish, 
 but none of them were lost to himself 
 or society. His great distinction was 
 the singleness of his mind, the sway 
 which duty had gained over him, his 
 habit, of submitting to this as to an 
 inviolable ordinance of the universe. 
 Conscience was consulted reverently as 
 an oracle of God. The moral powe 
 seemed always at work in his breast, 
 and its control reached to his whole 
 life. 
 
 We sometimes witness a strong re- 
 gard to duty, which confers little grace 
 or interest on the character, because 
 partial and exclusive views are taken 
 of duty, and God is thought to require 
 a narrow service, which chains and con- 
 tracts instead of unfolding the mind. 
 In Mr. Gallison, the sense of duty was 
 as enlightened and enlarged as it was 
 strong. To live religiously, he did not 
 think himself called to give up * u ~ 
 
 the
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISON, ESQ. 
 
 621 
 
 proper pursuits and gratifications of 
 human nature. He believed that re- 
 ligion was in harmony with intellectual 
 improvement, with the pleasures of im- 
 agination and society, and especially with 
 the kind affections. His views of the 
 true excellence of a human being were 
 large and generous ; and hence, instead 
 of that contracted and repulsive char- 
 acter which has often been identified 
 with piety, his virtue, though of ada- 
 mantine firmness, was attractive, cheer- 
 ful, lovely. 
 
 This union of strength and light, in 
 his sense of duty, gave a singular har- 
 mony to his character. All his faculties 
 and sensibilities seemed to unfold to- 
 gether, just as the whole body grows 
 at once ; and all were preserved by a 
 wise, presiding moral sentiment, in their 
 just proportions. He was remarkably 
 free from excess, even in the virtues 
 and pursuits to which he was most prone. 
 His well-balanced mind was the admira- 
 tion of his friends. He had strong feel- 
 ing, yet a calm judgment ; and unwearied 
 activity, without restlessness or precipi- 
 tancy. He had vigor and freedom of 
 thought, but not the slightest propensity 
 to rash and wild speculation. He had 
 professional ardor, but did not sacrifice 
 to his profession the general improve- 
 ment of his intellect and heart. He 
 loved study, and equally loved society. 
 He had religious sensibility, but a sen- 
 sibility which never rested until it had 
 found its true perfection and manifesta- 
 tion in practice. His mind was singu- 
 larly harmonious, a well-adjusted whole ; 
 and this was the secret of the. signal 
 confidence which he had inspired ; for 
 confidence, or the repose of our minds 
 on another, depends on nothing so much 
 as on the proportion which we observe 
 in his character. Even a good feeling, 
 when carried to excess, though viewed 
 with indulgence and affection, always 
 shakes in a measure our trust. 
 
 From this general survey, we pass to 
 some particulars of the character of Mr. 
 Gallison. His religion was a trait which 
 claims our first consideration. He be- 
 lieved in God, and in the revelation of 
 his will by Jesus Christ ; and he was 
 not a man in whom such a belief could 
 lie dead. That great and almost over- 
 whelming doctrine of a God, the Maker 
 of all things, in whom he lived, and 
 from whom all his blessings came, 
 
 wrought in him powerfully. He was 
 not satisfied with a superficial religion, 
 but was particularly interested in those 
 instructions from the pulpit which en- 
 joined a deep, living, all-pervading sense 
 of God's presence and authority, and 
 an intimate union of the mind with its 
 Creator. A friend who knew him in- 
 timately observes : "In our frequent 
 walks, his conversation so naturally and 
 cheerfully turned on the attributes and 
 dispensations of God, as convinced me 
 that his religion was no less the delight 
 of his heart than the guide of his life. 
 Though habitually temperate in his feel- 
 ings, 1 have sometimes known him kin- 
 dle into rapture while conversing on these 
 holy themes." 
 
 But his religion, though strong and 
 earnest, was in unison with his whole 
 character, calm, inquisitive, rational. 
 Uninfected by bigotry or fanaticism, 
 and unseduced by the fair promises of 
 the spirit of innovation, he formed his 
 views of the Christian system with cau- 
 tion, and held them without asperity. 
 In regard to that important doctrine 
 which has lately agitated the community, 
 he was a Unitarian, believing in the pre- 
 existence of the Saviour, and as firmly 
 believing that he was a jdistinct being 
 from the Supreme God, derived from 
 and dependent on him; and he con- 
 sidered the Gospel of John, which is 
 often esteemed as the stronghold of op- 
 posite sentiments, as giving peculiar 
 support to these views. We mention 
 this, not because the conclusions of so 
 wise and good a man were necessarily 
 true,, but because reproach is often 
 thrown on the opinions which he 
 adopted, as wanting power to purify 
 and save. He may have erred, for he 
 was a man; but who that knew him 
 can doubt that, whatever were his errors, 
 he held the most important and effica- 
 cious doctrines of Christianity ? His 
 religious friends, and they were not a 
 few, can testify to the seriousness and 
 reverence with which he approached the 
 Scriptures, and to the fidelity with which 
 he availed himself of the means of a 
 right interpretation. 
 
 His religion was not ostentatiously 
 thrust on notice ; but he thought as 
 little of hiding it as of concealing his 
 social feelings, or his love of knowledge. 
 It was the light by which he walked, and 
 his daily patn showed whence the light
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISON, ESQ. 
 
 came. Of his decision in asserting the 
 principles of that religion which he re- 
 ceived as from God, he gave a striking 
 proof in his address to the Peace Society 
 of this Commonwealth, which breathes 
 the very morality of Christ, and is 
 throughout a mild but firm remon- 
 strance against great practical errors, 
 which have corrupted the church al- 
 most as deeply as the world. It was 
 so natural to him to act on the convic- 
 tions of his mind, that he seemed on 
 this occasion utterly unconscious that 
 there was a degree of heroism in a 
 young man of a secular calling, and who 
 mixed occasionally in fashionable life, 
 enlisting so earnestly in the service of 
 the most neglected, yet most distinguish- 
 ing virtues of Christianity. 
 
 That a man, to whom Christianity was 
 so authoritative, should be characterized 
 by its chief grace, benevolence, we can- 
 not wonder. Nature formed him for 
 the kind affections, and religious prin- 
 ciple added tenderness, steadiness, dig- 
 nity, to the impulses of nature. That 
 great maxim of Christianity, " No man 
 liveth to himself," was engraven on his 
 mind. Without profession, or show, or 
 any striking discoveries of emotion, he 
 felt the claim, of every thing human on 
 his sympathy and service. His youth 
 and professional engagements did not 
 absolve him to his own conscience 
 from laboring in the cause of mankind ; 
 and his steady zeal redeemed from 
 business sufficient time for doing ex- 
 tensive good. In the institutions for 
 useful objects with which he connected 
 himself, he gave more than his property ; 
 he contributed his mind, his judgment, 
 his well-directed zeal ; and the object 
 which he was found to favor derived 
 advantage from his sanction, no less 
 than from his labors. 
 
 He felt strongly what a just view of 
 human nature always teaches, that soci- 
 ety is served by nothing so essentially 
 as by the infusion of a moral and relig- 
 ious spirit into all its classes ; and this 
 principle, like every other when once 
 recognized, became to him a law. We 
 cannot but mention, with great pleasure, 
 the earnestness with which he entered 
 into a plan for collecting the poor chil- 
 dren, in the neighborhood of the church 
 where he worshipped, into a school for 
 religious instruction on the Lord's day. 
 He visited many poor families on this 
 
 errand of charity, offering at once Chris- 
 tian instruction and the pecuniary means 
 by which the children might be clothed 
 decently to receive it ; and he gave a 
 part of every Sunday to this office. The 
 friend, whom we formerly quoted, ob- 
 serves, " I was much delighted to see 
 him one Sunday, leading one of his 
 little flock (who, being a stranger, had 
 not become familiarized to his home) 
 through our dirtiest lanes, and inquir- 
 ing at the humblest sheds for his dwell- 
 ing." To a man, crowded with business, 
 and accustomed to the most refined so- 
 ciety, this lowly and unostentatious mode 
 of charity could only have been recom- 
 mended by a supreme sense of relig- 
 ious and social obligation. He was 
 one of the few among us who saw that 
 the initiation of the poor into moral and 
 religious truth was an office worthy of 
 the most cultivated understanding, and 
 that to leave it, as it is sometimes left, 
 to those whose zeal outstrips their knowl- 
 edge, was to expose to hazard and re- 
 proach one of the most powerful means 
 of benefiting society. 
 
 Another cause to which he devoted 
 himself was the Peace Society of this 
 Commonwealth, and to this institution 
 his mind was drawn and bound by per- 
 ceiving its accordance with the spirit of 
 Christianity. Accustomed as he was to 
 believe that every principle which a man 
 adopts is to be carried into life, he was 
 shocked with the repugnance between 
 the Christian code and the practice of 
 its professed followers on the subject of 
 war ; and he believed that Christianity, 
 seconded as it is by the progress of 
 society, was a power adequate to the 
 production of a great revolution of opin- 
 ion on this point, if its plain principles 
 and the plain interests of men were 
 earnestly unfolded. There was one 
 part of this extensive topic to which 
 his mind particularly turned. He be- 
 lieved that society had made sufficient 
 advances to warrant the attempt to ex- 
 punge from the usages of war the right 
 of capturing private property at sea. 
 He believed that the evils of war would 
 be greatly abridged, and its recurrence 
 checked, were the ocean to be made a 
 safe, privileged, unmolested pathway for 
 all nations, whether in war or peace ; 
 and that the minds of men had become 
 prepared for this change by the respect 
 now paid by belligerents to private prop-
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISON, ESQ. 
 
 623 
 
 erty on shore, a mitigation of war to 
 be wholly ascribed to the progress of the 
 principles and spirit of Christianity. His 
 interest in this subject led him to study 
 the history of maritime warfare, and 
 probably no man among us had ac- 
 quired a more extensive acquaintance 
 with it. Some of the results he gave 
 in an article in the " North American 
 Review," on Privateering, and in a 
 memorial to Congress against this rem- 
 nant of barbarism. To this field of 
 labor he certainly was not drawn by 
 the hope of popularity ; and though he 
 outstripped the feelings of the commu- 
 nity, his efforts will not be vain. He 
 was a pioneer in a path in which soci- 
 ety, if it continue to advance, will cer- 
 tainly follow him, and will at length do 
 justice to the wisdom as well as purity 
 of his design. 
 
 Other institutions shared his zeal and 
 countenance : but we pass from these to 
 observe that his benevolence was not 
 husbanded for public works or great 
 occasions. It entered into the very 
 frame and structure of his mind, so 
 that, wherever he acted, he left its 
 evidences and fruits. Even in those 
 employments where a man is expected 
 to propose distinctly his own interest, 
 he looked beyond himself ; and those 
 who paid him for his services felt that 
 another debt was due, and personal at- 
 tachment often sprung from the inter- 
 course of business. In his social and 
 domestic connections, how he felt and 
 lived, and what spirit he breathed, we 
 learn from the countenances and tones 
 of his friends, when they speak of his 
 loss. The kind of praise which a man 
 receives after death corresponds gener- 
 ally with precision to his character. We 
 can often see. on the decease of a distin- 
 guished individual that whilst all praise, 
 few feel ; that the heart has no burden, 
 no oppression. In the case of Mr. Gal- 
 lison. there was a general, spontaneous 
 conviction that society had been be- 
 reaved ; and, at the same time, a feeling 
 of personal bereavement, as if a void 
 which no other could fill were made in 
 every circle in which he familiarly 
 moved ; and this can only be explained 
 by the genuine benevolence, the sym- 
 pathy with every human interest, which 
 formed his character. His benevolence, 
 indeed, was singularly unalloyed. Those 
 feelings of unkindness which sometimes 
 
 obscure for a moment the goodness of 
 excellent men. seldom or never passed 
 over him. Those who best knew him 
 cannot, by an effort of imagination, put 
 an acrimonious speech into his lips, any 
 more than they can think of him under 
 an entirely different countenance. The 
 voice ceases to be his, its tones do not 
 belong to him, when they would make it 
 the vehicle of unkindness. We have 
 understood, what we should not doubt, 
 that in his profession, amidst the collision 
 of rivals, his ambition, which undoubt- 
 edly degenerated sometimes into excess, 
 was still so controlled by his generosity 
 and uprightness, that he was never 
 known to sully with an envious breath 
 the honest fame of another, or to with- 
 hold a ready testimony to another's 
 worth. So great was the kindliness of 
 his heart, that his many pressing em- 
 ployments did not exclude those little 
 attentions to his kindred for which 
 multiplied cares are generally admitted 
 as an excuse. He made leisure for 
 minute as well as important services, 
 and thus it is that a feeling of tender- 
 ness as well as of respect is spread 
 through the whole circle of his rela- 
 tives. , 
 
 In regard to his intellectual powers, 
 they derived their superiority not only 
 from the liberality of nature, but from 
 the conscientiousness with which they 
 were improved. He early felt the im- 
 portance of a generous and extensive 
 culture of the mind, and systematically 
 connected with professional studies the 
 pursuit of general literature. He was a 
 striking example of the influence of an 
 operative and enlightened moral sense 
 over the intellect. His views were dis- 
 tinguished not so much by boldness and 
 excursiveness as by clearness, steadi- 
 ness, judiciousness, and truth : and these 
 characteristic properties of his under- 
 standing derived their strength, if not 
 existence, from that fairness, rectitude, 
 simplicity, and that love of the true and 
 useful, which entered so largely into his 
 moral constitution. The objects on 
 which he thought and wrote did not offer 
 themselves to him in the bright hues of 
 inspired imagination, but in the forms, 
 dimensions, and colors of reality ; and 
 yet there was no tameness in his con- 
 ception, for the moral relations of things 
 the most sublime of all relations he 
 traced with eagerness and delighted to
 
 624 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISON, ESQ. 
 
 unfold. Accordingly, in all his writings 
 we perceive the marks of an understand- 
 ing surrounded by a clear and warm 
 moral atmosphere. His intellect, we 
 repeat it, was excited and developed 
 very much by moral and religious prin- 
 ciple. It was not naturally creative, 
 restless, stirred by a bright and burning 
 imagination. The strong power within 
 was conscience, enlightened and exalted 
 by religion ; and this sent life through 
 the intellect, and conferred or height- 
 ened the qualities by which it was dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 Of his professional character we know 
 nothing by personal observation ; but 
 we do know, that in a metropolis where 
 the standard of professional talent and 
 purity is high, he was eminent. We 
 have understood that he was at once a 
 scientific and practical lawyer, uniting 
 comprehensive views of jurisprudence 
 and laborious research into general 
 principles with a singular accuracy and 
 most conscientious fidelity in investi- 
 
 fating the details of the causes in which 
 e was engaged. The spontaneous 
 tribute of the members of the Suffolk 
 Bar to so young a brother is perhaps 
 without precedent. It deserves to be 
 mentioned among his claims to esteem, 
 that he was not usurped by a profession 
 to which he was so devoted ; that his 
 thirst for legal knowledge and distinc- 
 tion, though so ardent, left him free for 
 such a variety of exertions and acquisi- 
 tions. 
 
 Of his industry we have had occasion 
 frequently to speak, and it was not the 
 least striking trait in his character. We 
 need no other proof of this than his 
 early eminence in a profession which 
 offers no prizes to genius unaccompanied 
 by application, and whose treasures are 
 locked up in books which hold out no 
 lures to imagination or taste, and which 
 can only interest a mind disposed to 
 patient and intense exertion. We recur, 
 however, to his industry, not so much 
 because it distinguished him, as from 
 the desire of removing what seems to us 
 a false impression, that he fell a victim 
 to excessive application. That he was 
 occasionally guilty of intemperate study 
 (a crime in the eye of a refined morality, 
 because it sacrifices future and exten- 
 sive usefulness to immediate acquisition), 
 is probably true ; but less guilty, we 
 apprehend, than many who' are not 
 
 charged with excess. His social nature, 
 his love of general literature, and his 
 regular use of exercise, gave as great 
 and frequent relaxation to his mind as 
 studious men generally think necessary ; 
 nor ought his example to lose its power 
 by the apprehension that to follow his 
 steps will be to descend with him to an 
 early grave. 
 
 This excellent man it has pleased God 
 to take from us ; and to take without 
 warning, when our hope was firmest, 
 and his prospects of usefulness and 
 prosperity were, to human eyes, un- 
 clouded. That such a course should be 
 so short, is the general sorrow. But 
 ought we to think it short ? In the best 
 sense his life was long. To be the 
 centre of so many influences ; to awaken 
 through so large a circle sentiments of 
 affection and esteem ; to bear effectual 
 testimony to the reality of religion ; to 
 exalt the standard of youthful charac- 
 ter ; to adorn a profession to which the 
 administration of public justice and the 
 care of our civil institutions are pecu- 
 liarly confided ; to uphold and strengthen 
 useful associations ; to be the friend of 
 the poor and ignorant, and a model for 
 the rich and improved ; to live in the 
 hearts of friends, and to die amidst gen- 
 eral, deep, unaffected lamentation ; 
 these surely are not evidences of a brief 
 existence. " Honorable age is not that 
 which standeth in length of time, nor 
 which is measured by number of years ; 
 but wisdom is the gray hair unto men, 
 and an unspotted life is old age." 
 
 Still the question may be asked, 
 " Why was he taken from so much use- 
 fulness ? " Were that state laid open to 
 us into which he is removed, we should 
 have an answer. We should see that 
 this world is not the only one where 
 intellect is unfolded, and the heart and 
 active powers find objects. We might 
 see that such a spirit as his was needed 
 now in another and nobler province of 
 the creation ; and that all God's prov- 
 idence towards him had been training 
 and fitting him to be born, if we may so 
 speak, at this very time, into the future 
 world, there to perform offices and re- 
 ceive blessings which only a mind so 
 framed and gifted could sustain and 
 enjoy. He is not lost. Jesus, whom 
 he followed, "hath abolished death." 
 Thought, affection, piety, usefulness. do 
 not die. If they did, we should do well
 
 NOTICE OF REV. S. C. THACHER. 
 
 625 
 
 to hang his tomb with sackcloth, or 
 rather to obliterate every trace and rec- 
 ollection of his tomb and his name, for 
 then a light, more precious than the 
 sun's, is quenched for ever. But he is 
 not lost, nor is he exiled from his true 
 happiness. An enlightened, just, and 
 good mind is a citizen of the universe, 
 and has faculties and affections which 
 correspond to all God's works. Why 
 would we limit it to earth, perhaps the 
 lowest world in this immense creation ? 
 Why should not the spirit, which has 
 given proof of its divine origin and 
 heavenly tendency, be suffered to rise to 
 its proper abode, to a holier community, 
 to a vision of God. under which earthly 
 and mortal natures would sink and be 
 dissolved ? 
 
 One benefit of the early removal of 
 such a man as Mr. Gallison is obvious. 
 We learn from it how early in life the 
 great work of life may begin, and how 
 successfully be prosecuted. Had he 
 lived to advanced years, the acquisitions 
 of his youth would have been forgotten 
 and lost in those of riper years. His 
 character would have been an invaluable 
 legacy, but chiefly to the mature and 
 
 aged. And surely, if his early death 
 shall exalt the aims and purposes of the 
 young : if piety, now postponed to later- 
 years, to a winter which bears no such 
 fruit, shall be esteemed the ornament 
 and defence of that interesting and 
 tempted age ; if our young men shall 
 learn from him that they belong to God 
 and society ; then his early death may 
 prove as useful as a protracted life. 
 
 We shall add but one more remark. 
 The general sorrow which followed Mr. 
 Gallison to the tomb was not only hon- 
 orable to him but to the community. 
 For he had no dazzling qualities. His 
 manners were not imposing, nor was he 
 aided by uncommon patronage. His 
 worth was unobtrusive, mild, retiring, 
 and left to win its own way to notice and 
 honor. Yet how few young .men have 
 reared such a monument in the memo- 
 ries and hearts of the community ! 
 Amidst charges of degeneracy, and with 
 real grounds of humiliation, we should 
 deem it a privilege to live in a state of 
 society in which such a character as Mr. 
 Gallison's is so generally understood, 
 and is recompensed with such heartfelt 
 and generous praise. 
 
 NOTICE OF THE REV. S. C. THACHER. 
 
 [The Rev. S. C. Thacher, late Minister of the New South Church in Boston, died at Moulines, in 
 France, Jan. 2, 1818, aetat. 32. He had long been absent from this country, and had visited the 
 Cape of Good Hope for the recovery of his health. The following sketch of his character is taken 
 from a discourse delivered in the church where he had been accustomed to officiate, the Sunday after 
 the accounts of his death were received.] 
 
 THE news of Mr. Thacher's death, 
 although not unexpected, spread an un- 
 usual gloom through the large circle in 
 which he moved and was known. When 
 we thought of his youth and virtues, of 
 the place which he had filled and of the 
 confidence he had inspired, of his sick- 
 ness and sufferings, of his death in a 
 distant land, and of the hopes which 
 died with him, we could not but speak 
 of his removal as mysterious, dark, un- 
 timely. My own mind participated at 
 first in the general depression ; but in 
 proportion as I have reflected on the 
 circumstances of this event. I have seen 
 in them a kindness which I overlooked 
 
 in the first moments of sorrow ; and 
 though in many respects inscrutable, 
 this dispensation now wears a more con- 
 soling aspect. 
 
 I now see in our friend a young man 
 uncommonly ripe in understanding and 
 virtue, for whom God appointed an 
 early immortality. His lot on earth was 
 singularly happy ; for I have never 
 known a minister more deeply fixed in 
 the hearts of the people. -But this con- 
 dition had its perils. With a paternal 
 concern for his character, God sent ad- 
 versity, and conducted him to the end of 
 his being by a rougher but surer way, a 
 way trodden and consecrated by the 
 
 40
 
 626 
 
 NOTICE OF REV. S. C. THACHER. 
 
 steps of the best men before him. He 
 was smitten by sudden sickness ; but 
 even here the hand of God was gentle 
 upon him. His sickness, whilst it wasted 
 the body, had no power over the spirit. 
 His understanding retained its vigor; 
 and his heart, as I often observed, gained 
 new sensibility. His sufferings, by call- 
 ing forth an almost unprecedented kind- 
 ness in his parishioners, furnished him 
 with new and constant occasions of 
 pious gratitude, and perhaps he was 
 never so thankful to the Author of his 
 being as during his sickness. 
 
 He was, indeed, removed at length 
 from the kind offices of his friends. 
 But this event was fitted, and, may I not 
 say, designed, to strengthen his connec- 
 tion with God, and to prepare him for 
 the approaching dissolution of all earthly 
 ties. I now see him tossed on the 
 ocean ; but his heart is fixed on the 
 Rock of Ages. He is borne to another 
 hemisphere, but everywhere he sees the 
 footsteps and feels the presence of God. 
 New constellations roll over his head, 
 but they guide his mind to the same 
 heaven which was his hope at home. I 
 see him at the extremity of Africa ador- 
 ing God in the new creation which 
 spreads around him, and thanking him 
 with emotion for the new strength which 
 that mild atmosphere communicated. I 
 see him, too, in the trying scene which 
 followed, when he withered and shrunk 
 like a frail plant under the equinoctial 
 sun, still building piety on suffering, and 
 growing in submission as hope declined. 
 He does not indeed look without an 
 occasional sinking of the heart, without 
 some shudderings of nature, to a foreign 
 soil as his appointed grave. But he 
 remembers that from every region there 
 is a path to immortality, and that the 
 spirit which religion has refined, wher- 
 ever freed from the body, will find its 
 native country. He does not indeed 
 think without emotion of home, a 
 thought how trying to a sick and dying 
 man in a land of strangers ! But God, 
 whom he adores as everywhere present, 
 seems to him a bond of union to distant 
 friends, and he finds relief in committing 
 them to his care and mercy. At length 
 I see him expire, but not until suffering 
 has done its work of discipline and 
 purification. His end is tranquil, like 
 his own mild spirit ; and I follow him, 
 not to the tomb, for that lifeless body 
 
 is not he, but to the society of the just 
 made perfect. His pains are now past. 
 He has found a better home than this 
 place of his nativity and earthly resi- 
 dence. Without the tossings of another 
 voyage, he has entered a secure haven. 
 The fever no longer burns in his veins ; 
 the hollow and deep voice no longer 
 sends forth ominous sounds. Disease 
 and death, having accomplished their 
 purpose, have lost their power, and he 
 remembers with gratitude the kind sever- 
 ity with which they conducted him to a 
 nobler life than that which they took 
 away. Such is the aspect which this 
 dispensation now wears ; how different 
 from that which it first presented to 
 sense and imagination ! 
 
 Let me pay a short tribute to his mem- 
 ory. It is a duty which I perform with 
 a melancholy pleasure. His character 
 was one which it is soothing to remem- 
 ber. It comes over the mind like the 
 tranquillizing breath of spring. It asks 
 no embellishment. It would be injured 
 by a strained and labored eulogy. 
 
 The character of our friend was dis- 
 tinguished by blandness, mildness, equa- 
 bleness, and harmony. All the elements 
 were tempered in him kindly and hap- 
 pily. He passed through the storms, 
 tumults, and collisions of human life 
 with a benignity akin to that which 
 marked our perfect Guide and Example. 
 This mild and bland temper spread itself 
 over the whole man. His manners, his 
 understanding, his piety, all received a 
 hue from it, just as a soft atmosphere 
 communicates its own tender and tran- 
 quil character to every object and scene 
 viewed through it. 
 
 With his peculiar mildness he united 
 firmness. His purposes, whilst main- 
 tained without violence, were never sur- 
 rendered but to conviction. His opin- 
 ions, though defended with singular 
 candor, he would have sealed with his 
 blood. He possessed the only true 
 dignity, that which results from propos- 
 ing habitually a lofty standard of feeling 
 and action ; and, accordingly, the love 
 which he called forth was always tem- 
 pered with respect. He was one of the 
 last men to be approached with a rude 
 familiarity. 
 
 His piety was a deep sentiment. It 
 had struck through and entwined itself 
 with his whole soul. In the freedom of 
 conversation I have seen how intimately
 
 NOTICE OF REV. S. C. THACHER. 
 
 627 
 
 God was present to him. But his piety 
 partook of the general temperament of 
 his mind. It was warm, but not heated ; 
 earnest, but tranquil ; a habit, not an 
 impulse ; the air which he breathed, not 
 a tempestuous wind, giving occasional 
 violence to his emotions. A constant 
 dew seemed to distil on him from heaven, 
 giving freshness to his devout sensibili- 
 ties : but it was a gentle influence, seen 
 not in its falling, but in its fruits. His 
 piety appeared chiefly in gratitude and 
 submission, sentiments peculiarly suited 
 to such a mind as his. He felt strongly 
 that God had crowned his life with pecu- 
 liar goodness ; and yet, when his bless- 
 ings were withdrawn, his acquiescence 
 was as deep and sincere as his thankful- 
 ness. His devotional exercises in pub- 
 lic were particularly striking. He came 
 to the mercy-seat as one who was not a 
 stranger there. He seemed to inherit 
 from his venerable father the gift of 
 prayer. His acts of adoration discov- 
 ered a mind penetrated by the majesty 
 and purity of God ; but his sublime 
 conceptions of these attributes were 
 always tempered and softened by a sense 
 of the divine benignity. The paternal 
 character of God was not only his belief, 
 but had become a part of his mind. He 
 never forgot that he " worshipped the 
 Father." His firm conviction of the 
 strict and proper unity of the divine 
 nature taught him to unite and concen- 
 trate, in his conception of the Father, 
 all that is lovely and attractive, as well 
 as all that is solemn and venerable ; and 
 the general effect of his prayers was to 
 diffuse a devout calmness, a filial confi- 
 dence, over the minds of his pious 
 hearers. 
 
 His understanding was of a high 
 order ; active, vigorous, and patient ; 
 capable of exerting itself with success 
 on every subject ; collecting materials 
 and illustrations from every scene ; and 
 stored with a rich and various knowledge, 
 which few have accumulated at so early 
 an age. His understanding, however, 
 was in harmony with his whole charac- 
 ter. It was not so much distinguished 
 by boldness, rapidity, and ardor, as by 
 composed energy, judiciousness, and 
 expansiveness. His views were often 
 original and often profound, but were 
 especially marked by justness, clearness, 
 and compass of thought. I have never 
 known a man, so young, of riper judg- 
 
 ment, of more deliberate investigation, 
 and of more comprehensive views of all 
 the bearings and connections of a sub- 
 
 | ject, on which he was called to decide. 
 
 j He was singularly free from the error 
 into which young preachers most readily 
 fall, of overstating arguments, and ex- 
 aggerating and straining the particular 
 topics which they wish to enforce. But, 
 in avoiding extravagance, he did not fall 
 into tameness. There was a force and 
 freshness in his conceptions ; and even 
 when he communicated the thoughts of 
 others, he first grafted them on his own 
 mind, so that they had the raciness of a 
 native growth. His opinions were the 
 results of much mental action, of many 
 comparisons, of large and liberal think- 
 ing, of looking at a subject on every 
 side ; and they were expressed with 
 those limitations which long experience 
 suggests to others. He read with pleas- 
 ure the bold and brilliant speculations 
 of more adventurous minds ; but he re- 
 served his belief for evidence, for truth ; 
 and if the most valuable gift of the 
 understanding be an enlarged, discrimi- 
 nating judgment, then his was a most 
 highly-gifted mind. 
 
 From a mind so balanced, we could 
 hardly expect that fervid eloquence 
 which electrifies an assembly, and 
 makes the speaker for a moment an 
 absolute sovereign over the souls of 
 men. His influence, like that of the 
 great powers in the natural world, was 
 mild and noiseless, but penetrating and 
 enduring. That oratory which over- 
 whelms and bears us away like a torrent, 
 almost always partakes of exaggeration 
 and extravagance, and could not easily 
 be reconciled with the distinguishing 
 properties of his mind. His imagination 
 was fruitful and creative ; but, in accord- 
 ance with his whole character, it de- 
 rived its illustrations more frequently 
 from regions of beauty than of grandeur, 
 and it imparted a coloring at once rich 
 and soft, and a peculiar grace to every 
 subject susceptible of ornament. His 
 command over language was great. His 
 style was various, vigorous, unborrowed ; 
 abounding in felicities of expression, and 
 singularly free from that triteness and 
 that monotonous structure which the 
 habit of rapid composition on familiar 
 subjects almost forces on the preacher, 
 and which so often enervate the most 
 powerful and heart-stirring truths. His
 
 628 
 
 'NOTICE OF REV. S. C. THACHER. 
 
 character as a preacher needs no other 
 testimony than the impression left on 
 his constant and most enlightened hear- 
 ers. To these, who could best judge of 
 his intellectual resources, and of his 
 devotion to his work, his public services 
 were more and more interesting. They 
 tell us of the affluence of his thoughts, 
 of the beauty of his imagery, of the 
 tenderness and earnestness of his per- 
 suasion, of the union of judgment and 
 sensibility in his discourses, and of the 
 wisdom with which he displayed at the 
 same moment the sublimity and prac- 
 ticableness of Christian virtue. They 
 tell us that the early ripeness of his 
 mind did not check its growth ; but 
 that every year enlarged his treasures 
 and powers. Their tears and counte- 
 nances tell us, more movingly than 
 words, their deep sorrow, now that they 
 shall hear his voice no more. 
 
 Of his social character I need not 
 speak to you. No one who ever met him 
 in a friendly circle can easily forget the 
 attraction of his manners and conversa- 
 tion. He carried into society a cheer- 
 fulness and sunshine of the soul, derived 
 partly from constitution, and partly from 
 his bright, confiding views of religion ; 
 a delicacy which instinctively shrunk 
 from wounding the feelings of the hum- 
 blest human being ; a disposition to sym- 
 pathize with every innocent enjoyment ; 
 and the power of communicating with 
 ease and interest the riches of his mind. 
 Without effort, he won the hearts of men 
 to a singular degree. Never was man 
 more universally beloved. Even in sick- 
 ness and in foreign lands, he continued 
 to attract friends ; and it is our consola- 
 tion to know that he drew from strangers 
 much of that kindness which blessed him 
 at home. 
 
 In his sickness, I was particularly 
 struck with his submission to God, and 
 his affection for his people. His sub- 
 
 mission seemed entire. There was no 
 alloy of impatience or distrust. His 
 sickness was a severe trial ; for his 
 heart was bound up in his profession, 
 and if in any thing his ambition was ex- 
 cessive, it was in his desire to enrich his 
 mind by laborious study. He felt deeply 
 his privation, and he looked forward to 
 an early death as a probable event. But 
 he bowed to Providence without a mur- 
 mur. He spoke only of the divine good- 
 ness. " I am in God's hand, and his 
 will be done," were familiar sentiments, 
 not uttered with commonplace and me- 
 chanical formality, but issuing, as his 
 tones and countenance discovered, from 
 the very depths of his heart. A firmer 
 and calmer submission could hardly have 
 been formed by a long life of suffering. 
 
 His feelings towards the congregation 
 which he served seemed at times too 
 strong for thfe self-possession and calm- 
 ness by which he was characterized. 
 Their kindness overpowered him. The 
 only tears which I saw start from his 
 eyes flowed from this source. In my 
 last interview with him, a day or two 
 before his voyage, I said to him, " I 
 trust that you will return, but I fear you 
 cannot safely continue your pastoral re- 
 lation. We have, however, another em- 
 ployment for you, in which you may be 
 useful and happy." He answered, " If 
 I get strength I shall use it for my peo- 
 ple. I am willing to hazard my life for 
 their sakes. I would preach to them, 
 although the effort should shorten my 
 days." He added, "Should I forsake 
 them after the kindness I have received, 
 the cause of religion and of the ministry 
 might suffer ; and to this cause I ought 
 and am willing to make any sacrifices." 
 Such is a brief sketch of our lamented 
 friend. He was one of the most blame- 
 less men, of the most devoted ministers, 
 and of the fairest examples of the dis- 
 tinguishing virtues of Christianity.
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 629 
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 ["Correspondence between John Quincy Adams, 
 Esquire, President of the United States, and sev- 
 eral Citizens of Massachusetts, concerning the 
 Charge of a Design to dissolve the Union alleged 
 to have existed in that State." Boston : 1829.] 
 
 WE have placed at the head of this 
 article the title of a pamphlet which has 
 drawn much attention and excited much 
 feeling. But in so doing, we have not 
 thought of reviewing the controversy to 
 which it relates. Our work is devoted 
 to the inculcation and defence of great 
 principles, and we are anxious to keep 
 it free from irritating personalities. We 
 are resolved to contend earnestly for 
 what we deem truth, but we wish no 
 contest with individuals. We are aware 
 that cases may exist, in which justice to 
 persecuted virtue, or to a good but suf- 
 fering cause, may bind us to take part in 
 temporary controversies. We feel, how- 
 ever, no such obligation in the present 
 instance. In the Correspondence, those 
 whom we deem injured have vindicated 
 themselves too effectually to need other 
 defenders. The charge of a Northern 
 plot for dismembering the country has 
 been fairly met and triumphantly refuted. 
 We violate, therefore, no duty, in follow- 
 ing our inclinations, and in leaving this 
 controversy to those whom it immedi-. 
 ately concerns. To prevent misappre- 
 hension, we will add that, in speaking of 
 the charge which gave rise to the cor- 
 respondence, as fully refuted, we mean 
 not to accuse of wilful misrepresentation 
 the individual by whom it was brought 
 forward. We are not ignorant of the 
 facility with which men deceive them- 
 selves, especially when their passions 
 are inflamed. We mean not to deny 
 that Mr. Adams may imagine himself 
 in possession of proofs which sustain 
 his allegation ; nor is it hard to explain 
 the delusion. It is very possible that, 
 twenty-five years ago, in a most agitated 
 and convulsed state of the country, some 
 among us questioned whether the na- 
 tional government was likely to accom- 
 plish the good which it had promised. 
 It is very possible that, in that season of 
 exasperation, some rash spirits among 
 the Federalists gave utterance to pas- 
 
 sionate invectives, and inconsiderate 
 menaces ; and we can very easily un- 
 derstand how a mind, disposed to mis- 
 construe the words and actions of ar- 
 dent partisans, might, in the midst of 
 such excitement, become haunted with 
 suspicions and visionary conspiracies. 
 We think it very creditable to our coun- 
 try that, in passing through the stormy 
 season of which we have spoken, it 
 teemed with no more panics and inven- 
 tions of secret treasons ; that so few 
 plots were feigned or feared. We ex- 
 ceedingly regret that Mr. Adams has 
 made it necessary to his reputation to 
 fasten a reproach of this nature on a por- 
 tion of his fellow-citizens. We regret, 
 not only for public reasons, but for his 
 own sake, that, on retiring from office, 
 he cannot promise himself the happiness 
 of his predecessors, the happiness of a 
 calm and dignified retirement from pub- 
 lic strife. 
 
 Our aim in the present article is to 
 call the attention of our readers to a 
 subject of great moment, which is 
 directly brought before us by the Cor- 
 respondence, we mean, the importance 
 of our National Union. This topic is 
 one of transcendent and universal inter- 
 est, and therefore deserves a place in a 
 work devoted to the inculcation of those 
 great principles which involve the virtue 
 and happiness of the community. In 
 the discussion of such a topic, we shall 
 of necessity recur to the events and 
 struggles of the last thirty or forty 
 years. But we shall do so, not for the 
 purpose of reviving half-extinguished 
 animosities, but in the hope of pointing 
 out our danger as a nation, and of 
 awakening a more enlightened attach- 
 ment to our common country. We trust 
 that we claim for ourselves no singular 
 virtue in saying that we look back on 
 the conflicts and revolutions of this 
 period as on matters of history, and 
 that we identify ourselves with them 
 scarcely more than with events preced- 
 ing our birth. It seems to us that a 
 good degree of impartiality in relation 
 to this period, instead of requiring a
 
 630 
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 high moral effort, is almost forced upon 
 us by the circumstances of our times. 
 Our age has been marked above all 
 others by the suddenness, variety, and 
 stupendousness of its revolutions. The 
 events of centuries have been crowded 
 into a single life. The history of the 
 civilized world, since the bursting forth 
 of the French Revolution, reminds us of 
 one of the irregular dramas of Shak- 
 speare, in which the incidents of a reign 
 are compressed into an hour. Over- 
 whelming changes have rushed upon 
 one another too rapidly to give us time 
 to comprehend them, and have been so 
 multiplied as to exhaust our capacity 
 of admiration. In consequence of this 
 thronging and whirl of events, the revo- 
 lutions which we have witnessed seem 
 to be thrown back, and to belong to a 
 previous age. Our interest in them as 
 contemporaries is diminished to a degree 
 which excites our own wonder, and we 
 think that we recall them with as little 
 selfish partiality as we experience on 
 looking back on the transactions of past 
 centuries. Perhaps we are deceived ; 
 but we can assure our readers that we 
 should not trust ourselves to speak as 
 frankly as we may of the past, did we 
 not believe that our personal interest in 
 it differs little from what we feel in other 
 important periods of human history. 
 
 We have said that our present topic 
 is the importance of the Union, and we 
 have selected it because it cannot, we 
 apprehend, be too deeply impressed. 
 No lesson should be written more indel- 
 ibly on the hearts of our citizens. To 
 secure to it the strong conviction with 
 which it ought to be received, we have 
 thought that we might usefully insist on 
 the chief good which the Union confers ; 
 and we are the more disposed to do this, 
 because we are not sure that this sub- 
 ject is sufficiently understood, because 
 we sometimes apprehend that the people 
 are not aware of the most essential ben- 
 efit which they derive from the confed- 
 eration, but are looking to it for advan- 
 tages which it cannot bestow, and are in 
 danger of exposing it to hazard by ex- 
 pecting from it more than it can accom- 
 plish. Of all governments we may say 
 that the good which they promote is 
 chiefly negative, and this is especially 
 true of the federal institutions whicn 
 bind these States together. Their high- 
 est function is, to avert evil. Nor let 
 
 their efficiency on this account be dis- 
 paraged. The highest political good, 
 liberty, is negative. It is the removal 
 of obstructions. It is security from 
 wrong. It confers no positive happi- 
 ness, but opens a field in which the indi- 
 vidual may achieve his happiness by his 
 own unfettered powers. The great good 
 of the Union we may express almost in 
 a word. It preserves us from wasting 
 and destroying one another. It pre- 
 serves relations of peace among com- 
 munities, which, if broken into separate 
 nations, would be arrayed against one 
 another in perpetual, merciless, and 
 ruinous war. It indeed contributes to 
 our defence against foreign states, but 
 still more it defends us from one an- 
 other. This we apprehend to be the 
 chief boon of the Union, and its impor- 
 tance we apprehend is not sufficiently 
 felt. So highly do we estimate it, that 
 we ask nothing of the General Govern- 
 ment but to hold us together, to estab- 
 lish among the different States relations 
 of friendship and peace ; and we are 
 sure that our State Governments and 
 individual energies will work out for us 
 a happiness such as no other people 
 have yet secured. 
 
 The importance of this benefit is easy 
 to be understood, by considering the 
 sure and tremendous miseries which 
 would follow disunion. For ourselves, 
 we fear that, bloody and mournful as 
 human history now is, a sadder page 
 than has yet been written might record 
 the sufferings of this country, should we 
 divide ourselves into separate commu- 
 nities. Our impressions on this subject 
 are so strong, that we cannot resist the 
 desire of communicating them to others. 
 We fear that our country, in case of dis- 
 union, would be broken into communi- 
 ties, which would cherish towards one 
 another singularly fierce and implacable 
 enmities. We do not refer to the angry 
 and vindictive feelings which would 
 grow out of the struggles implied in a 
 separation. There are other and more 
 permanent causes of hatred and hos- 
 tility. 
 
 One cause, we think, would be found 
 in the singularly active, bold, enterpris- 
 ing spirit which actuates this whole 
 country. Perhaps, as a people, we have 
 no stronger distinction than a thirst for 
 adventure and new acquisitions. A 
 quiet, cold, phlegmatic race might be
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 631 
 
 divided with comparatively little peril. 
 But a neighborhood of restless, daring, 
 all-grasping communities, would contain 
 within itself the seeds of perpetual hos- 
 tility. Our feverish activity would break 
 out in endless competitions and jealous- 
 ies. In every foreign market, we should 
 meet as rivals. The same great objects 
 would be grasped at by all. Add to 
 this, that the necessity of preserving 
 some balance of power would lead each 
 republic to watch the others with a sus- 
 picious eye ; and this balance could not 
 be maintained, in these young and grow- 
 ing communities, as easily as in the old 
 and stationary ones of Europe. Among 
 nations, such as we should form, which 
 would only have begun to develop, their 
 resources, and in which the spirit of lib- 
 erty would favor an indefinite expansion, 
 the political equilibrium would be per- 
 petually disturbed. Under such influ- 
 ences an irritable and almost justifiable 
 sensitiveness to one another's progress 
 would fester into unrelenting hatred. 
 Our neighbor's good would become to 
 us a curse. Among such communities 
 there could be no love, and would be no 
 real peace. To obstruct one another's 
 growth would be deemed the perfection 
 of policy. Slight collisions of interest, 
 which must perpetually recur, would be 
 exaggerated by jealousy and hatred into 
 unpardonable wrongs ; and unprincipled 
 statesmen would find little difficulty in 
 swelling imaginary grievances into causes 
 of war. When we look at the charac- 
 teristic spirit of this country, stimulated 
 as it is by our youth and capacities of 
 improvement, we cannot conceive of 
 more active springs of contention and 
 hatred than would be created at once 
 by our disunion into separate nations. 
 
 We proceed to the second and a very 
 important consideration. Our posses- 
 sion of a common language, which is now 
 an unspeakable good, would, in case of 
 disunion, prove as great a calamity ; for 
 it would serve, above all things to multi- 
 ply jealousies and exasperate bad pas- 
 sions. In Europe, different nations, 
 having each its own language, and 
 comparatively small communication, can 
 act but little on each other. Each ex- 
 presses its own self-esteem and its scorn 
 of other communities in writings which 
 seldom pass its own bounds, and which 
 minister to its own vanity and prejudices 
 without inflaming other states. But sup- 
 
 pose this country broken up into con- 
 tiguous nations, all speaking the same 
 language, all enjoying unrestrained free- 
 dom of the press, and all giving utter- 
 ance to their antipathies and recrimina- 
 tions in newspapers, which would fly 
 through all on the wings of the winds. 
 Who can set bounds to the madness 
 which such agents of mischief would 
 engender ? It is a fact, too well known, 
 that feelings of animosity among us tow- 
 ards Great Britain have been kept alive 
 chiefly by a few publications from the 
 latter country, which have been read by 
 a very small part of our population. 
 What, then, are we to expect in case 
 of our disunion, when the daily press 
 of each nation would pour forth on the 
 neighboring communities unceasing tor- 
 rents of calumny, satire, ridicule, and 
 invective ? An exasperating article from 
 the pen of a distinguished man in one 
 republic would in less than a week have 
 found its way to every house and cottage 
 in the adjoining States. The passions of 
 a whole people would be kindled at one 
 moment ; and who of us can conceive 
 the intensity of hatred which would 
 grow from this continued, maddening 
 interchange of intemperate and unmeas- 
 ured abuse ? 
 
 Another source of discord, in case of 
 our separation, is almost too obvious to 
 be mentioned. Once divided, we should 
 form stronger bonds of union with for- 
 eign nations than with one another. That 
 Europe would avail itself of our broken 
 condition to establish an influence among 
 us ; that belligerents in the Old World 
 would strive to enlist us in their quarrels ; 
 that our eagerness for commercial favors 
 and monopolies would lay us open to 
 their intrigues ; that at every quarrel 
 among ourselves we should be willing 
 to receive aid from abroad, and that 
 distant nations would labor to increase 
 our dependence upon themselves by in- 
 flaming and dividing us against each 
 other ; these are considerations too 
 obvious to need exposition, and as sol- 
 emn and monitory as they are clear. 
 From disunion we should reap in plen- 
 tiful harvests destructive enmities at 
 home, and degrading subserviency to 
 the powers of Europe. 
 
 We pass to another topic, particularly 
 worthy of notice. In case of separation, 
 party-spirit, the worst foe of free States, 
 would rage more furiously in each of the
 
 632 
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 new and narrower communities than now 
 it does in our extensive Union ; and 
 this spirit would not only spread deadly 
 hatred through each republic, but would 
 perpetually embroil it with its neighbors. 
 We complain of party rage even now ; 
 but it is mild and innocent compared 
 with what we should experience were 
 our Union dissolved. Party-spirit, when 
 spread over a large country, is far less 
 envenomed and ruinous than when shut 
 up in small states. The histories of 
 Greece and Rome are striking illustra- 
 tions of this truth. In an extensive 
 community, a party, depressed on one 
 spot, finds sympathies and powerful pro- 
 tectors in another ; and if not, it finds 
 more generous enemies at a distance, 
 who mitigate the violence of its nearer 
 foes. The fury attending elections is 
 exceedingly allayed by the knowledge 
 that the issue does not depend on one 
 or another city or district, and that fail- 
 ure in one place is not the loss of the 
 cause. It may be added that, in a large 
 country, party-spirit is necessarily mod- 
 ified and softened by the diversity of 
 interests, views, and characters which 
 must prevail among a widely scattered 
 people. It is also no small advantage 
 that the leaders of parties will generally 
 be separated from one another by con- 
 siderable distances, will move in remote 
 spheres, instead of facing each other, 
 and engaging perpetually in personal 
 debate and conflict. Suppose these 
 circumstances reversed ; suppose the 
 country broken into republics so small 
 as to admit a perfect unity and sym- 
 pathy among the members of the same 
 party, as to keep the leaders of oppo- 
 site parties perpetually in one another's 
 sight and hearing, as to make the fate 
 of elections dependent on definite efforts 
 and votes in particular places ; and who 
 can calculate the increase of personal 
 animosity, of private rancor, of public, 
 rage ? Nor would the spirit of party 
 convulse only the separate communities. 
 It would establish between them the 
 most injurious relations. No passion 
 seems to overpower patriotism and 
 moral sentiment more effectually than 
 this spirit. Those whom it binds seem 
 to throw off all other bonds. Inflamed 
 parties are most unscrupulous as to 
 means. Under great excitement, they 
 of course look round them on other 
 communities to find means of ensuring 
 
 triumph over their opponents. Of con- 
 sequence, the political relations which 
 would subsist between the different re- 
 publics that would spring up from our 
 disunion would be determined chiefly by 
 party-spirit ; by a passion which is most 
 reckless of consequences, most prolific 
 of discord, most prodigal of blood. Each 
 republic would be broken into two fac- 
 tions, one in possession, and the other 
 in pursuit of power, and both prepared 
 to link themselves with the factions of 
 their neighbors, and to sacrifice the 
 peace and essential interests of the 
 state to the gratification of ambition 
 and revenge. Through such causes, 
 operating in the Grecian republics, civil 
 war added its horrors to foreign contests. 
 We see nothing to avert from ourselves, 
 if ever divided, the same unspeakable 
 calamity. 
 
 In this exposition of the evils which 
 would spring from disunion, we have 
 spoken strongly, but, we trust, calmly. 
 There is no need of exaggeration. It 
 seems to us that the imagination cannot 
 easily exceed the truth. We do dread 
 separation as the greatest of political 
 evils, with the single exception of sla- 
 very. Undoubtedly a particular State 
 may and ought to break the bond, if 
 that bond is to be turned into a yoke 
 of oppression. But much, very much, 
 should be endured before we expose 
 ourselves to the calamities of separation. 
 We particularly recommend the views 
 which we have taken to those among us 
 whose interest in the Union is weakened 
 by a vague idea that a large community 
 cannot be as well governed as a small. 
 The reverse of this maxim, as we have 
 seen, is true of a federal republic. Under 
 despotisms, indeed, a vast territory may 
 increase the sufferings of the people, 
 because the sovereign at the centre, 
 however well disposed, cannot spread 
 himself to the extremities, and distant 
 provinces are almost of necessity given 
 up to the spoliations of irresponsible 
 governors. But, under the wise dis- 
 tribution of power in this country, we 
 enjoy the watchful and minute protec- 
 tion of a local government, combined 
 with the immense advantage of a wide- 
 spread community. Greater means of 
 prosperity a people cannot enjoy. Let 
 us not be defrauded of them by selfish 
 or malignant passions. 
 
 From the remarks now made, it will
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 633 
 
 at once be understood on what account 
 chiefly we prize and would uphold our 
 National Government. We prize it as 
 our bond of union ; as that which con- 
 stitutes us one people ; as preserving 
 the different States from mutual jealous- 
 ies and wars, and from separate alli- 
 ances with foreign nations ; as mitigating 
 party-spirit ; in one word, as perpetuat- 
 ing our peace. So great, so inestimable 
 is this good, that all other benefits and 
 influences of the Federal Government 
 seem to us as nothing. We would lay 
 down this as the fundamental principle 
 of its administration. The bearing of 
 measures on our Union should be the 
 chief aspect under which they should 
 be regarded by Congress. Taking this 
 position, we are naturally led to some 
 great maxims by which, as we conceive, 
 our public affairs should be guided, and 
 we now proceed to develop these, as 
 well as to point out other means for 
 securing our confederation. 
 
 In the first place, it seems to be im- 
 portant that the administration of our 
 government should be marked by the 
 greatest possible simplicity. We hold 
 this to be no unimportant means of per- 
 petuating our Union. Laws and meas- 
 ures should be intelligible, founded on 
 plain principles, and such as common 
 minds may comprehend. This, indeed, 
 is a maxim to be applied to republican 
 governments universally. The essential 
 idea of a republic is that the sovereignty 
 is in the people. In choosing repre- 
 sentatives they do not devolve the 
 supreme power on others. By the 
 frequency of elections, they are called 
 to pass judgment on the representatives. 
 It is essential to this mode of govern- 
 ment that, through a free press, all pub- 
 lic measures should be brought before 
 the tribunal of the people. Of course, 
 a refined and subtile policy, or a com- 
 plicated legislation, which cannot be un- 
 derstood but by laborious research and 
 reasoning, is hostile to the genius of 
 republican institutions. Laws should 
 be plain and few, intended to meet obvi- 
 ous wants, and such as are clearly re- 
 quired by the great interests of the 
 community. For ourselves, we are sat- 
 isfied that all governments, without ex- 
 ception, can adopt no safer rule than 
 the simplicity which we have now rec- 
 ommended. The crying sin of all 
 governments is, that they intermeddle 
 
 injuriously with human affairs, and ob- 
 struct the processes of nature by exces- 
 sive regulation. To us, society is such 
 a complicated concern, its interests are 
 affected by so many and such subtile 
 causes, there are so many secret springs 
 at work in its bosom, and such uncer- 
 tainty hangs over the distant issues of 
 human arrangements, that we are as- 
 tonished and shocked at the temerity of 
 legislators in interposing their contriv- 
 ances and control, except where events 
 and experience shed a clear light. Above 
 all, in a country like our own, where 
 public measures are to be judged by 
 millions of people scattered over a vast 
 territory, and most of whom are en- 
 gaged in laborious occupations, we know 
 not a plainer principle than that the 
 domestic and foreign policy of govern- 
 ment should be perspicuous and founded 
 on obvious reasons, so that plain cases 
 may in the main, if not always, be of- 
 fered to popular decision. Measures 
 which demand profound thought for 
 their justification, about which intelli- 
 gent and honest men differ, and the use- 
 fulness of which cannot be made out to 
 the common mind, are unfit for a repub- 
 lic. If in this way important national 
 advantages should be sometimes lost, 
 we ought to submit to the evil as in- 
 separable from our institutions, and 
 should comfort ourselves with thinking 
 that Providence never bestows an un- 
 mixed good, that the best form of gov- 
 ernment has its inconveniences, and that 
 a people, possessing freedom, can afford 
 to part with many means of immediate 
 wealth. We have no fear, however, 
 that a people will ever suffer by a rigid 
 application of our rule. Legislators can- 
 not feel too deeply the delicacy, of their 
 work, and their great ignorance of the 
 complicated structure and of the multi- 
 plied and secret relations of the social 
 state ; and they ought not to hasten, 
 nay, more, they ought to distrust, a 
 policy, to the justice and wisdom of 
 which the suffrage of public opinion 
 cannot be decidedly and intelligently 
 secured. In our republic, the aim of 
 Congress should be to stamp its legisla- 
 tion with all possible simplicity, and to 
 abstain from measures which, by their 
 complication, obscurity, and uncertainty, 
 must distract the public mind, and throw 
 it into agitation and angry controversy. 
 Let it be their aim to cast among the
 
 634 
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 people as few brands of discord as pos- 
 sible ; and for this end let the spirit of 
 adventurous theory be dismissed, and 
 the spirit of modesty, caution, and pru- 
 dent simplicity preside over legislation. 
 In these remarks we have not forgotten 
 that there are exigencies in which gov- 
 ernment is compelled to determine its 
 course without delay, amidst great haz- 
 ards, and in a stormy, distracted state 
 of the public mind. But these are ex- 
 ceptions to the ordinary course of hu- 
 man affairs, and to these the principle 
 which we have advanced is not to be 
 applied. 
 
 We here proceed to another principle, 
 still more important to the preservation 
 of the Union. The General Govern- 
 ment should correspond to its name ; 
 that is, should be general, or universal, 
 in its spirit and operations. It should 
 be characterized by nothing so strik- 
 ingly as by impartiality, by the absence 
 of sectional feeling, by a solicitude to 
 distribute equally the public burdens, 
 and to extend equal benefits to all mem- 
 bers of the confederation. On this prin- 
 ciple the Union chiefly depends. In a 
 free community the strongest of all 
 feelings is a jealousy of rights, and 
 states cannot be long held together, if 
 it shall be thought that the power, given 
 for the general weal, is, through intrigue 
 and selfish combinations, perverted to 
 build up a portion of the confederacy 
 at the expense of the rest. No stronger 
 argument can be urged against a public 
 measure than that it has the appearance 
 of a partial or unequal bearing on the 
 country, or seems to indicate a dispo- 
 sition in the majority to sacrifice the 
 common good to factious or sectional 
 views. To guard against the jealousies 
 of the States should be the most anx- 
 ious desire of our national legislators ; 
 and, for this purpose, they should aim 
 to restrict themselves to general objects 
 in which all may find a benefit, to re- 
 frain from touching narrow or local 
 interests, especially those between which 
 a rivalry subsists, to proportion the pres- 
 sure of taxation according to the most 
 rigorous justice, to watch equally over 
 the rights of all, and to exact no sacri- 
 fices but such as the common good 
 plainly demands. 
 
 A weighty argument for limiting gov- 
 ernment to the simple and general legis- 
 lation which we have now recommended, 
 
 though not intimately connected with 
 our main subject, deserves a brief notice. 
 It is found in the great and growing ex- 
 tent of the country. The attention of 
 Congress is already distracted and over- 
 whelmed by the multiplicity of affairs, 
 and every session it is more and more 
 in danger of neglecting its proper objects 
 and doing nothing well. We fear that 
 the most pressing business is the most 
 frequently postponed. We refer to the 
 claims of individuals on the government ; 
 and we call these the most pressing con- 
 certis, because the man who has been 
 wronged by an unanticipated operation 
 of the laws or of any public measures, 
 has a right to immediate redress, and 
 because delay of justice may be his ruin. 
 Already we hear angry complaint and 
 derision of the inefficiency of Congress, 
 and the evil will increase until that body 
 shall select from a bewildering crowd 
 of applications its appropriate objects, 
 and shall confine itself to a legislation 
 demanded by the general voice, and by 
 the obvious wants of the community. 
 
 The principles of legislation now laid 
 down seem to us to have an important 
 bearing on two great questions which 
 have already agitated the country, and 
 which, we fear, bode no good to the 
 Union. We refer to the restrictive 
 system and to internal improvement. 
 The first, which proposes to protect 
 certain branches of domestic industry, 
 seems to us singularly wanting in that 
 simplicity and impartiality which, as we 
 have said, should characterize our legis- 
 lation. It cannot be understood by the 
 mass of the people, and it will certainly 
 divide them. In the first place, the re- 
 strictive system involves a constitutional 
 difficulty. We of this region, indeed, 
 generally concede to Congress the right 
 of limiting trade in general, or of anni- 
 hilating particular branches of it, for 
 the encouragement of domestic indus- 
 try ; but the argument for a narrower 
 construction of the Constitution is cer- 
 tainly specious, and certainly strong 
 enough to give to those on whom a 
 tariff may press heavily, the conscious- 
 ness of being wronged. In the next 
 place, the general question of the ex- 
 pediency of restriction must be allowed 
 by its advocates to be a difficult one. 
 The growing light of the age certainly 
 seems to oppose it, and the statements 
 and reasonings by which it is defended,
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 635 
 
 even if founded in truth, are yet so in- 
 tricate and 39 open to objection, that 
 vast numbers even of the enlightened 
 cannot be satisfied of their validity. 
 But supposing restriction to be ad- 
 mitted, the question as to its extent, 
 as to the kinds of industry which shall 
 be protected, as to the branches of trade 
 which shall be sacrificed, this question 
 is the most perplexing which can be 
 offered to popular discussion, and can- 
 not fail to awaken cupidity, jealousy, 
 and hatred. From the nature of the 
 case, the protection must be unequally 
 extended, nor can any wisdom balance 
 the losses to which different States 
 will be exposed. A restrictive tariff 
 is necessarily a source of discord. To 
 some portions of the country it must 
 be an evil, nor will they suffer patiently. 
 Disadvantages imposed by nature, com- 
 munities will bear, but not those which 
 are brought on them by legislation. We 
 have, indeed, various objections to the 
 whole system of protection. We be- 
 lieve it to be deceptive throughout. We 
 also oppose it on the ground that our 
 country, in adopting it, abandons its 
 true and honorable position. To this 
 country, above all others, belongs, as 
 its primary duty and interest, the sup- 
 port of liberal principles. It has noth- 
 ing in its institutions congenial with the 
 maxims of barbarous ages, with the 
 narrow, monopolizing, restrictive legis- 
 lation of antiquated despotisms. Free- 
 dom, in all its forms, is our life, strength, 
 prosperity ; and every system at war 
 with it, however speciously maintained, 
 is a contradiction to our character, and, 
 wanting harmony with our spirit, must 
 take something, however silently, from 
 the energy of the institutions which 
 hold us together. As citizens of the 
 world, we grieve that this country should 
 help to prolong prejudices which even 
 monarchy is outgrowing ; should, in 
 imitation of meddling despotisms, un- 
 dertake to direct the industry and cap- 
 ital of the citizen, and especially should 
 lose sight of that sublime object of phi- 
 lanthropy, the promotion of free, unre- 
 stricted commerce through the world. 
 As patriots, we grieve that a precedent 
 has been afforded for a kind of legisla- 
 tion which, if persisted in, will almost 
 certainly loosen, and may rupture, the 
 Union. The principal excellence of the 
 late tariff is, that it is so constructed as 
 
 to please no one, that even its friends 
 pronounce it an abomination ; for, by 
 offending and injuring all, it excites 
 less animosity in the principal sufferers. 
 Tariffs never will be impartial. They 
 will always, in a greater or less degree, 
 be the results of selfish combinations of 
 private and public men, through which 
 a majority will be secured to particular 
 interests ; and such is the blindness of 
 avarice, that to grasp a short-lived, par- 
 tial good, the infinite blessings of union 
 will be hazarded, and may be thrown 
 away. 
 
 If we may be allowed a short digres- 
 sion, we would say that we have no 
 partiality to tariffs of any kind, not even 
 to those which are laid on imports for 
 the purpose of raising revenue. We 
 suppose that they are necessary at 
 present, especially where they have be- 
 come the habit of the people, and we 
 are not insensible to the facility they 
 afford for collecting the revenue. But 
 we should rejoice if by some great im- 
 provement in finance every custom- 
 house could be shut from Maine to 
 Louisiana. The interests of human 
 nature require that every fetter should 
 be broken from the intercourse of na- 
 tions, that the most distant countries 
 should exchange all their products, 
 whether of manual or intellectual labor, 
 as freely as the members of the same 
 community. An unrestricted commerce 
 we regard as the most important means 
 of diffusing through the world knowl- 
 edge, arts, comforts, civilization, relig- 
 ion, and liberty ; and to this great cause 
 we would have our country devoted. 
 We will add, that we attach no impor- 
 tance to what is deemed the chief bene- 
 fit of tariffs, that they save the neces- 
 sity of direct taxation, and draw from 
 a people a large revenue without their 
 knowledge. In the first place, we say 
 that a free people ought to know what 
 they pay for freedom, and to pay it joy- 
 fully, and that they should as truly scorn 
 to be cheated into the support of their 
 government as into the support of their 
 children. In the next place, a large 
 revenue is no blessing. An overflow- 
 ing treasury will always be corrupting 
 to the governors and the governed. A 
 revenue, rigorously proportioned to the 
 wants of a people, is as much as can 
 be trusted safely to men in power. The 
 only valid argument against substituting
 
 636 
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 direct for indirect taxation is the diffi- 
 culty of ascertaining with precision the 
 property of the citizen. Happy would it 
 be for us could tariffs be done away, 
 for with them would be abolished fruit- 
 ful causes of national jealousies, of war, 
 of perjury, of smuggling, of innumera- 
 ble frauds and crimes, and of harassing 
 restraint on that commerce which should 
 be free as the winds. 
 
 We consider many of the remarks 
 made in reference to tariffs as applicable 
 to internal improvements. These also 
 involve a constitutional question of no 
 small difficulty ; and it seems impossible 
 that they should be prosecuted with any 
 degree of impartiality. We will not say 
 that an extensive system of internal im- 
 provements, comprehending and con- 
 necting the whole country, and promising 
 great, manifest, and universal good, may 
 not be framed. But let Congress pro- 
 pose narrow, local improvements, and 
 we need no prophet to foretell the end- 
 less and ever-multiplying intrigues, the 
 selfish combinations, the jealousies, and 
 discontents which will follow by a neces- 
 sity as sure as the laws of nature. An 
 irresistible temptation will be offered 
 to unprincipled bargains between States 
 and legislators, and the treasury, send- 
 ing out partial streams, will become a 
 fountain of bitterness and discord. 
 
 Let it not be said that most of the 
 proposed improvements are designed to 
 promote intercourse, and that thus they 
 favor what we conceive to be the great 
 end of government, by binding us to- 
 gether. We answer, that the General 
 Government already promotes inter- 
 course incomparably more than all other 
 causes combined, and we are unwilling 
 to put to hazard this actual beneficent 
 influence by striving to extend it. Gov- 
 ernment already does more for this ob- 
 ject than all the canals, railroads, and 
 other internal improvements which hu- 
 man ingenuity can devise, and this it 
 does by that negative influence which, 
 as we have often said, is its chief func- 
 tion. This it does by making us one 
 people, by preserving us from being 
 broken into different communities, by 
 preventing those obstructions to a free 
 interchange of commodities which, in 
 case of disunion, would at once rise up 
 between us : by preserving us from na- 
 tional rivalries, from the war of tariffs, 
 and from open and ruinous hostility. 
 
 We grant that cases may occur in which 
 national advantage may t^ lost, or use- 
 ful objects delayed, for want of positive 
 interference of government in the work 
 of internal improvement. But the wis- 
 dom of nations, like that of individuals, 
 consists very much in a willingness to 
 forego near and inferior benefits for 
 permanent security. We have, how- 
 ever, little apprehension of much injury 
 resulting from the forbearance of gov- 
 ernment in this particular. Let Con- 
 gress hold us together, and keep us in 
 peace, and the spirit of the people will 
 not slumber. It will pour itself forth 
 through our State Governments, through 
 corporations, and through individual en- 
 terprise ; and who that observes what 
 it has already done can set limits to its 
 efficiency ? Since the adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution, nothing has con- 
 tributed so much to extend intercourse 
 through the States as the invention of 
 steamboats. No legislation, and no pos- 
 sible direction of the revenue to public 
 improvements, could have effected so 
 much as the steam-engine ; and this 
 was contrived, perfected, and applied to 
 navigation by the genius and wealth of 
 individuals. Next to this agent, the 
 most important service to internal com- 
 munication has been rendered by the 
 New York canal, and this was the work 
 of a State. With such examples, we 
 need not fear that our progress will be 
 arrested by the confinement of the Gen- 
 eral Government to general objects. 
 We are not sure that, were every objec- 
 tion which we have stated removed, we 
 should be anxious to interest our national 
 legislature in public improvements. As 
 a people, we want no new excitement. 
 Our danger is from over-action, from 
 impatient and selfish enterprise, from 
 feverish energy, from too rapid growth, 
 rather than from stagnation and lethargy. 
 A calm, sober, steady government is 
 what we chiefly need. May it be kept 
 from the hands of theorists and specu- 
 lators ! 
 
 We have not yet exhausted the ques- 
 tion how government may best strengthen 
 and perpetuate our Union. There is one 
 of its establishments which, in this point 
 of view, we highly value, and which we 
 fear is not sufficiently prized for the 
 highest benefit which it confers. We 
 refer to the post-office. The facilities 
 which this institution affords to the
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 637 
 
 government for communication with all 
 parts of the country, are probably re- 
 garded by many as the most important 
 national service which it renders. But 
 it does incomparably more for us as 
 a community. It does much towards 
 making us one, by admitting free com- 
 munication between distant parts of the 
 country, which no other channel of in- 
 tercourse could bring together. It binds 
 the whole country in a chain of sympa- 
 thies, and makes it in truth one great 
 neighborhood. It promotes a kind of 
 society between the seashore and the 
 mountains. It perpetuates friendships 
 between those who are never to meet 
 again. It binds the family in the new 
 settlement and the half-cleared forest to 
 the cultivated spot from which it emi- 
 grated. It facilitates, beyond calcula- 
 tion, commercial connections, and the 
 interchange of products. On this ac- 
 count, we always grieve to see a state- 
 ment of the revenue accruing to govern- 
 ment from the post-office. It ought not 
 to yield a cent to the treasury. It should 
 simply support itself. Such importance 
 do we attach to the freest communication 
 between all parts of the country, so much 
 do we desire that the poor, as well as 
 rich, may enjoy the means of intercourse, 
 that we would sooner have the post- 
 office a tax on the revenue than one of 
 its sources. 
 
 We pass to another method by which 
 the government is to strengthen the 
 Union. We know not a more important 
 one. It is, to give dignity and inde- 
 pendence to the national judiciary. Let 
 Congress feel, let the people feel, that 
 to this department the security of the 
 Union is especially committed, that it is 
 the great preservative power among our 
 institutions, and that its sanctity cannot 
 be too jealously protected. Its office is, 
 to settle peacefully the questions between 
 the different States and their citizens, 
 which, without it, would be settled by 
 arms. What beneficence and dignity 
 belong to this function ! Nor is this all. 
 It affords to citizens, who feel them- 
 selves aggrieved by what they deem an 
 unconstitutional law, the means of peace- 
 ful resistance. It gives them an oppor- 
 tunity of being heard before a tribunal 
 on which the most solemn obligations 
 to justice are laid, and which is emi- 
 nently fitted to be an umpire between 
 the citizen and the legislature. We 
 
 know not how government can contrib- 
 ute more effectually to its own stability 
 than by reverencing and guarding the 
 rights of the national judiciary. A 
 Congress which should trench on its 
 independence ought to be counted guilty 
 of a species of sacrilege. 
 
 From considering the importance of 
 the judiciary to our Union, we are nat- 
 urally led to another department of the 
 government, and one which is particu- 
 larly worthy of attention, because at the 
 present moment it seems to menace our 
 confederation more seriously than any 
 other cause. We refer to the execu- 
 tive department. We refer to the 
 struggles which the election to the Pres- 
 idency has again and again provoked. 
 These are too solemn and fearful to be 
 overlooked. A remedy must be found, 
 or the country will be thrown into per- 
 petual convulsions, and split into factions 
 devoted each to a chief. We shall waste 
 ourselves in struggles for a few leaders, 
 who, by their prominence, will become 
 dearer to a people than their institutions, 
 and in fighting for our favorites we may 
 become their slaves. 
 
 This evil we regard as a growing one ; 
 and we know but one remedy for it. The 
 people must acquire a just self-respect. 
 This they want. It has been repressed 
 by false notions about government, 
 which have come down from ages of 
 monarchy. The spirit of freedom, of 
 which we so much boast, has not yet 
 given a due elevation of sentiment to 
 the community ; and therefore the com- 
 munity basely binds itself to leaders as 
 if they were its superiors. A people 
 should understand its own greatness 
 and dignity too well to attach much im- 
 portance to any individual. It should 
 regard no individual as necessary to it, 
 nor should it suffer any one to urge his 
 claims on its gratitude. It should feel 
 that it has a right to the services of its 
 members, and that there is no member 
 with whose services it cannot dispense. 
 It should have no idols, no favorites. 
 It should annihilate with its frown those 
 who would monopolize its power, or 
 bring it into subserviency to their own 
 glory. No man's name should be much 
 on its lips. It should bind up in no man 
 its prosperity and honor. 
 
 A free community, indeed, has need 
 of a presiding officer, but it depends 
 on no individual as alone fitted for the
 
 638 
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 office ; and, still more, it needs a Presi- 
 dent, not to be its master, but to express 
 and execute its own will. This last 
 thought is fundamental, and never to be 
 forgotten. The only law of a free peo- 
 ple is the will of the majority, or public 
 sentiment ; and to collect, embody, utter, 
 and execute this, is the great end of its 
 civil institutions. Self-government is 
 its great attribute, its supreme distinc- 
 tion, and this gives to office in a free 
 state an entirely different character from 
 what it possesses in despotic countries. 
 The difference, however, is overlooked 
 among us, and the same importance is 
 attached to office as if it conferred abso- 
 lute power. 
 
 We repeat it, the supreme law in a 
 free state is its own will, and, conse- 
 quently, among such a people, the high- 
 est power does not necessarily belong to 
 him who is clothed with office, but to 
 him who does most, in whatever sphere, 
 to guide and determine the public mind. 
 Office is a secondary influence, and, in- 
 deed, its most enviable distinction con- 
 sists in the opportunities which it affords 
 for swaying the opinions and purposes 
 of the community. The nominal legisla- 
 tor is not always the real one. He is 
 often the organ of superior minds, and, 
 if the people be truly free, his chief 
 function is to give form and efficiency 
 to the general will. Even in monarch- 
 ies, where a free press is enjoyed, the 
 power passes more and more from the 
 public functionary to the master-spirits 
 who frame the nation's mind. Thus the 
 pen of Burke rivalled the sceptre of his 
 sovereign. The progress of freedom 
 and of society is marked by this fact, 
 that official gives place to personal, 
 intellectual, and moral dignity. It is a 
 bad omen where office is thought the 
 supreme good, and where a people sees 
 in the public functionary, not an organ 
 of its own will, but a superior being, on 
 whom its peace and happiness depend. 
 
 We mean not to deny the necessity 
 of office. We know that the President 
 fills an important place. We know that 
 the community has an interest in his 
 integrity and wisdom, and that it is dis- 
 graced and injured by placing an incom- 
 petent or unprincipled man in the most 
 conspicuous station. To the President 
 are confided important functions, but 
 not such functions as can be discharged 
 only by one or two individuals in the 
 
 i country, not such as ought to make him 
 an object of idolatry or dread, not such 
 as should draw to him any extraordinary 
 homage, not such as to justify intense 
 desire in the candidate, or intense ex- 
 citement in the people. Under institu- 
 tions really free, no office can exist 
 which deserves the struggles of ambi- 
 tion. Did our Constitution create such 
 an office, it would prove its authors to 
 have been blind or false to their coun- 
 try's dignity and rights. But that noble 
 charter is open to no such reproach. 
 The Presidency, the highest function in 
 the state, is exceedingly bounded by the 
 Constitution, and still more by the spirit 
 of the community. A President has 
 been, and may often be, one of the least 
 efficient men in the government. We 
 need not go far for proof. In both 
 houses of Congress there were men 
 whose influence over the country was 
 greater than that of the last President. 
 He indeed contributed to keep the wheel 
 of government in motion. But we ask, 
 What new impulse did he give it ? What 
 single important measure did he origi- 
 nate ? Was there a man in office more 
 fettered and thwarted ? We talk of the 
 administrations of Mr. Monroe and Mr. 
 Adams. We ask, What impression of 
 themselves have they left on legislation 
 and on public affairs ? They gave no 
 spring to the public mind. A popular 
 senator or representative did more to 
 sway the community. And this is as 
 it should be. We rejoice that official 
 influence is so restricted that the people 
 are not mere echoes of a single voice, 
 that no man can master his fellow-citi- 
 zens, that there is a general, all-pervad- 
 ing intelligence, which modifies, controls, 
 and often neutralizes, the opinion and 
 will of the highest public functionary. 
 
 We have spoken of the Presidency as 
 it has actually existed, and as it must in 
 a great measure exist whilst we are free ; 
 and yet, through a delusion which has 
 come down from past ages, this office, 
 so limited in power, so obstructed by 
 the legislative branches and by public 
 opinion, which is conferred on the indi- 
 vidual at the longest but for eight years, 
 and from which he retires to a seclusion 
 where scarcely an eye follows, or a voice 
 of approbation cheers him, this office, 
 to our disgrace, is coveted by an insane 
 ambition, as if it were an hereditary 
 throne, and the people are as much ex-
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 639 
 
 cited and disturbed, when called to fill 
 it. as if they were choosing a master for 
 life at whose feet the country was to be 
 laid an unprotected victim. To our 
 shame be it said, for the last eight years 
 every interest of the nation has been 
 postponed to the comparatively inferior 
 concern of choosing a President. The 
 national legislature, forgetting its ap- 
 pointment to watch over the general 
 weal, has wasted, and worse than wasted, 
 its annual sessions in intrigues for the 
 advancement of rival candidates. The 
 most important measures have been dis- 
 cussed and decided, not with reference 
 to the country, but chiefly according to 
 their bearings on what has been called 
 the Presidential election. So sadly have 
 we wanted the self-respect which belongs 
 to freemen ! In these disgracelul trans- 
 actions, in this shameful excitement 
 spread through the community, we see 
 that, as a people, we have not drunk as 
 deeply as we imagine into the lofty 
 spirit of liberty. In proportion as a 
 people become free, in prbpoition as 
 public sentiment reigns, office ceases to 
 be a d : stinction, political ambition ex- 
 pires, the prizes of political ambition 
 are withdrawn, the self respect of the 
 people preserves it from bowing to favor- 
 ites or idols. Whilst it is the character- 
 istic of despotism that the ruler is every 
 thing and the people comparatively noth- 
 ing, the reverse is the grand distinction 
 of a free state. This distinction we 
 have yet to learn ; and it cannot be 
 learned too thoroughly. Unless we are 
 preserved by a just self-respect from 
 dividing into factions for the elevation 
 of leaders, we shall hold our Union and 
 our rights by a very uncertain tenure. 
 Better were it to choose a President 
 by lot from a hundred names to which 
 each State shall contribute its fair pro- 
 portion, than repeat the degrading strug- 
 gle through which we have recently 
 passed. 
 
 We close this topic by entreating our 
 citizens to remember the great argument 
 in favor of hereditary monarchy. It 
 may be expressed in few words. " The 
 highest office in a nation," says the mon- 
 archist, "ought to be hereditary, because 
 it is an object too dazzling and exciting 
 to be held up for competition. Such a 
 prize, offered to the aspiring, must in- 
 flame to madness the lust of power, and 
 engender perpetual strife. A people 
 
 having such a gift to bestow will be 
 exposed to perpetual arts and machina- 
 tions. Its passions will never be allowed 
 to sleep. Factions, headed by popular 
 chiefs and exasperated by conflict, will 
 at length resort to force, and, in the 
 storms which will follow, the Constitu- 
 tion will be prostrated, and the supreme 
 power be the prey of a successful usurper. 
 The peace and stability of a nation de- 
 mand that the supreme power should 
 be placed above rivalry, and beyond the 
 hopes of ambition, and this can only be 
 done by making it hereditary." Such is 
 the grand argument in favor of monarchy. 
 As a people, we have done too much to 
 confirm it. It is time that we proved 
 ourselves more loyal to freedom. We 
 shall do well to remember that a repub- 
 lic, broken into parties which have the 
 chief magistracy for their aim, and 
 thrown into perpetual agitation by the 
 rivalry of popular leaders, is lending a 
 mournful testimony to the reasonings of 
 monarchists, and accelerating the fulfil- 
 ment of their sinister forebodings. 
 
 Much remains to be said of the means 
 of perpetuating the Union, and of the 
 dangers to which it is exposed. But 
 we want time to prosecute the subject. 
 The injuries with which the confedera- 
 tion is menaced by party-spirit and a 
 sectional spirit are too obvious to need 
 exposition. The importance of a na- 
 tional literature to our Union and honor 
 deserves particular consideration. But 
 the topic is too great for our present 
 limits, and we reserve it for future dis- 
 cussion.* 
 
 We intended to close this article with 
 some remarks on the conduct of the dif- 
 ferent parties in this country in relation 
 to the Union, for the purpose of show- 
 ing that all have occasionally been want- 
 ing in fidelity to it. But the subject 
 would necessarily expand itself beyond 
 the space allowed us. Still, we cannot 
 wholly abandon it. One branch of it is 
 particularly recommended to us by the 
 Correspondence at the head of this re- 
 view. The merits or the demerits of the 
 Federal party in respect to our Union 
 seem to be in a measure forced on our 
 consideration ; and we are the more 
 willing to give a few thoughts to the 
 topic, because we think that we under- 
 stand it, and because we trust that we 
 can treat it dispassionately. Our attach- 
 
 * See " Remarks on National Literature," p. 124.
 
 640 
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 ment to this party we have no desire to 
 conceal ; but our ideas of the allegiance 
 due to a party are exceedingly liberal. 
 We claim the privilege of censuring 
 those with whom we generally agree ; 
 and we indignantly disclaim the obliga- 
 tion of justifying in the mass whatever 
 they may please to do. Of the Feder- 
 alists, therefore, we shall speak freely. 
 We have no desire to hide what we 
 deem to be their errors. They belong 
 now to history, and the only question 
 is, how their history may be made most 
 useful to their country and to the cause 
 of freedom. Before we proceed, how- 
 ever, we beg to remark that in this, as 
 in every part of the present review, we 
 write from our own convictions alone, 
 that we hold no communication with 
 political leaders, and that we are far 
 from being certain of the reception 
 which our views will meet from our best 
 friends. 
 
 A purer party than that of the Feder- 
 alists, we believe, never existed under 
 any government. Like all other com- 
 binations, it indeed contained weak and 
 bad men. In its prosperity,, it drew to 
 itself seekers for office. Still, when we 
 consider that it enjoyed the confidence 
 of Washington to his last hour ; that its 
 leaders were his chosen friends ; that it 
 supported and strengthened his whole 
 administration ; that it participated with 
 him in the proclamation and system of 
 neutrality, through which that great man 
 served his country as effectually as dur- 
 ing the revolutionary war ; when we 
 consider that it contributed chiefly to 
 the organization of the Federal Govern- 
 ment in the civil, judicial, financial, mili- 
 tary, and naval departments ; that it 
 carried the country safely and honorably 
 through the most tempestuous days of 
 the French Revolution ; that ' it with- 
 stood the frenzied tendencies of multi- 
 tudes to alliance with that power, and 
 that it averted war with Great Britain 
 during a period when such a war would 
 have bowed us into ruinous subserviency 
 to the despot of France ; when we con- 
 sider these things, we feel that the debt 
 of this country to the Federal party is 
 never to be extinguished. 
 
 Still, we think that this party in some 
 respects failed of its duty to the cause 
 of the Union and of freedom. But it 
 so failed not through treachery ; for 
 truer spirits the world could not boast. 
 
 It failed through despondence. Here 
 was the rock on which Federalism split. 
 Too many of its leading men wanted a 
 just confidence in our free institutions 
 and in the moral ability of the people 
 to uphold them. Appalled by the ex- 
 cesses of the French Revolution, by the 
 extinction of liberty in that republic, 
 and by the fanaticism with which the 
 cause of France was still espoused 
 among ourselves, they began to despair 
 of their own country. The sympathies 
 of the majority of our people with the 
 despotism of France were indeed a 
 fearful symptom. There seemed a fas- 
 cination in that terrible power. An in- 
 sane admiration for the sworn foe of 
 freedom, joined with as deadly a hatred 
 towards England, so far pervaded the 
 country, that to the Federalists we 
 seemed enlisted as a people on the side 
 of despotism, and fated to sink under 
 its yoke. That they had cause for fear, 
 we think. That they were criminal in 
 the despondence to which they yielded, 
 we also belfeve. They forgot that great 
 perils call on us for renewed efforts, and 
 for increased sacrifices in a good cause. 
 That some of them considered the doom 
 of the country as sealed, we have reason 
 to believe. Some, disappointed and irri- 
 tated, were accustomed to speak in bit- 
 ter scorn of institutions which, bearing 
 the name of free, had proved unable to 
 rescue us from base subserviency to an 
 all-menacing despot. The Federalists, 
 as a body, wanted a just confidence in 
 our national institutions. They wanted 
 that faith which hopes against hope, and 
 which freedom should inspire. Here 
 was their sin, and it brought its penalty; 
 for through this, more than any cause, 
 they were driven from power. By not 
 confiding in the community, they lost its 
 confidence. By the depressed tone with 
 which they spoke of liberty, their at- 
 tachment to it became suspected. The 
 taint of anti-republican tendencies was 
 fastened upon them by their opponents, 
 and this reproach no party could sur- 
 vive. 
 
 We know not in what manner we 
 can better communicate our views of 
 the Federal party, of its merits and de- 
 fects, than by referring to that distin- 
 guished man who was so long prominent 
 in its ranks, we mean the late George 
 Cabot. If any man in this region de- 
 served to be called its leader, it was he,
 
 THE UNION. 
 
 641 
 
 and a stronger proof of its political 
 purity cannot be imagined than is found 
 in the ascendency which this illustrious 
 individual maintained over it. He was 
 the last man to be charged with a crim- 
 inal ambition. His mind rose far above 
 office. The world had no station which 
 would have tempted him from private life. 
 But in private life he exerted the sway 
 which is the worthiest prize of a lofty 
 ambition. He was consulted with some- 
 thing of the respect which was paid to 
 an ancient oracle, and no mind among 
 us contributed so much to the control 
 of public affairs. It is interesting to 
 inquire by what intellectual attributes he 
 gained this influence ; and, as his char- 
 acter now belongs to history, perhaps 
 we may render no unacceptable service 
 in delineating its leading features. 
 
 We think that he was distinguished 
 by nothing so much as by the power of 
 ascending to general principles, and by 
 the reverence and constancy with which 
 he adhered to them. The great truths 
 of history and experience, the immutable 
 laws of human nature, according to which 
 all measures should be framed, shone on 
 his intellectual eye with an unclouded 
 brightness. No impatience of present 
 evils, no eagerness for immediate good, 
 ever tempted him to think that these 
 might be forsaken with impunity. To. 
 these he referred all questions on which 
 he was called to judge, and accordingly 
 his conversation had a character of com- 
 prehensive wisdom which, joined with 
 his urbanity, secured to him a singular 
 sway over the minds of his hearers. 
 With such a mind, he of course held 
 in contempt the temporary expedients 
 and motley legislation of commonplace 
 politicians. He looked with singular 
 aversion on every thing factitious, 
 forced, and complicated in policy. We 
 have understood that by the native 
 strength and simplicity of his mind, he 
 anticipated the lights which philosophy 
 and experience have recently thrown on 
 the importance of leaving enterprise, 
 industry, and commerce free. He car- 
 ried into politics the great axiom which 
 the ancient sages carried into morals, 
 " Follow Nature." In an age of read- 
 ing, he leaned less than most men on 
 books. A more independent mind our 
 country perhaps has not produced. 
 When we think of his whole charac- 
 ter, when with the sagacity of his in- 
 
 tellect we combine the integrity of his 
 heart, the dignified grace of his manners, 
 and the charm of his conversation, we 
 hardly know the individual, with the ex- 
 ception of Washington, whom we should 
 have offered more willingly to a for- 
 eigner as a specimen of the men whom 
 America can produce. 
 
 Still, we think that his fine qualities 
 were shaded by what to us is a great 
 defect, though to some it may appear a 
 proof of his wisdom. He wanted a just 
 faith in man's capacity of freedom, at 
 least in that degree of it which our in- 
 stitutions suppose. He inclined to dark 
 views of the condition and prospects of 
 his country. He had too much the wis- 
 dom of experience. He wanted what 
 may be called the wisdom of hope. In 
 man's past history he read too much 
 what is to come, and measured our pres- 
 ent capacity of political good too much 
 by the unsuccessful experiments of 
 former times. We apprehend that it is 
 possible to make experience too much 
 our guide ; and such was the fault of 
 this distinguished man. There are sea- 
 sons, in human affairs, of inward and 
 outward revolution, when new depths 
 seem to be broken up in the soul, when 
 new wants are unfolded in multitudes, 
 and a new and undefined good is thirsted 
 for. These are periods when the prin- 
 ciples of experience need to be modi- 
 fied, when hope and trust and instinct 
 claim a share with prudence in the guid- 
 ance of affairs, when, in truth, to dare 
 is the highest wisdom. Now, in the 
 distinguished man of whom we speak, 
 there -was little or nothing of that en- 
 thusiasm which, we confess, seems to 
 us sometimes the surest light. He lived 
 in the past, when the impulse of the age 
 was towards the future. He was slow 
 to promise himself any great melioration 
 of human affairs ; and, whilst singularly 
 successful in discerning the actual good 
 which results from the great laws of 
 nature and Providence, he gave little 
 hope that this good was to be essen- 
 tially enlarged. To such a man, the 
 issue of the French Revolution was a 
 confirmation of the saddest lessons of 
 history, and these lessons he applied too 
 faithfully to his own country. His in- 
 fluence in communicating sceptical, dis- 
 heartening views of human affairs, seems 
 to us to have been so important as to 
 form a part of our history, and it throws
 
 642 
 
 WAR, 
 
 much light on what we deem the great 
 political error of the Federalists. 
 
 That the Federalists did at one period 
 look with an unworthy despondence on 
 our institutions, is true. Especially 
 when they saw the country, by a decla- 
 ration of war against England, virtually 
 link itself with that despotism which 
 menaced the whole civilized world, their 
 hearts sunk within them ; and we doubt 
 not that, in some cases, their mixed 
 anger and gloom broke forth in reckless 
 speeches, which, to those who are igno- 
 rant of the workings of the passions, 
 might seem to argue a scorn for the con- 
 federation and for all its blessings. So 
 far they failed of their duty ; for a good 
 citizen is never to despair of the repub- 
 lic, never to think freedom a lost cause. 
 
 The political sin of the Federal party 
 we have stated plainly. In the other 
 great party, examples of unfaithfulness 
 to the Union might also be produced. 
 Whoever reverts to the language of 
 Virginia on the subject of the alien and 
 sedition laws, or to the more recent pro- 
 ceedings and declarations of Georgia in 
 respect to the Indian territories within 
 her jurisdiction, or to the debates and 
 
 resolutions of the legislature of South 
 Carolina at its last session, will learn 
 that a sense of the sacredness of the 
 Union, and of the greatness of its bless- 
 ings, is but faintly apprehended, even 
 by that party which boasts of unfalter 
 ing adherence to it. 
 
 In closing this article, we are aware that 
 we have said much in which many of our 
 fellow-citizens will not concur. Men of 
 all parties will probably dissent from 
 some of our positions. But has not the 
 time come when the vassalage of party 
 may be thrown off ? when we may speak 
 of the past and present without asking 
 whether our opinion will be echoed by 
 this or that class of politicians ? when 
 we may cease to condemn and justify in 
 the mass ? when a more liberal and 
 elevated style of discussion may be in- 
 troduced? when we may open our eyes 
 on the faults of our friends, and may 
 look at subjects which involve our coun- 
 try's welfare in the broad, clear light of 
 day ? This style of discussion we are 
 anxious to promote ; and we feel that 
 whoever may encourage and diffuse it, 
 will deserve a place among the most 
 faithful friends of freedom. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 Discourse before the Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts, 
 
 Boston, 1816. 
 
 ISAIAH ii. 4: "Nation shall not lift up sword against 
 nation, neither shall they learn war any more." 
 
 I HAVE chosen a subject whidi may 
 seem at first view not altogether appro- 
 priate to the present occasion, the 
 subject of WAR. It may be thought that 
 an address to an assembly composed 
 chiefly of the ministers of religion should 
 be confined to the duties, dangers, en- 
 couragements of the sacred office. But 
 I have been induced to select this topic 
 because, after the slumber of ages, 
 Christians seem to be awakening to a 
 sense of the pacific character of their 
 religion, and because I understood that 
 this Convention were at this anniversary 
 to consider the interesting question, 
 
 whether no method could be devised for 
 enlightening the public mind on the nat- 
 ure and guilt of war. I was unwilling 
 that this subject should be approached 
 and dismissed as an ordinary affair. I 
 feared that, in the pressure of business, 
 we might be satisfied with the expres- 
 sion of customary disapprobation ; and 
 that, having in this way relieved our 
 consciences, we should relapse into our 
 former indifference, and continue to 
 hear the howlings of this dreadful storm 
 of human passions with as much uncon- 
 cern as before. I resolved to urge on 
 you the duty, and I hoped to excite in 
 you the purpose, of making some new 
 and persevering efforts for the abolition
 
 WAR. 
 
 643 
 
 of this worst vestige of barbarism, this 
 grossest outrage on the principles of 
 Christianity. The day, I trust, is com- 
 ing when Christians will look back with 
 gratitude and affection on those men 
 who, in ages of conflict and bloodshed, 
 cherished generous hopes of human 
 improvement, withstood the violence of 
 corrupt opinion, held forth, amidst the 
 general darkness, the pure and mild 
 light of Christianity, and thus ushered 
 in a new and peaceful era in the history 
 of mankind. May you, my brethren, be 
 included in the grateful recollection of 
 that day ! 
 
 The miseries and crimes of war, its 
 sources, its remedies, will be the subjects 
 of our present attention. 
 
 In detailing its miseries and crimes, 
 there is no temptation to recur to unreal 
 or exaggerated horrors. No depth of 
 coloring can approach reality. It is 
 lamentable that we need a delineation 
 of the calamities of war to rouse us to 
 exertion. The mere idea of human 
 beings employing every power and fac- 
 ulty in the work of mutual destruction 
 ought to send a shuddering through the 
 frame. But on this subject our sensi- 
 bilities are dreadfully sluggish and dead. 
 Our ordinary sympathies seem to for- 
 sake us when war is named. The suf- 
 ferings and death of a single fellow-being 
 often excite a tender and active com- 
 passion ; but we hear without emotion 
 of thousands enduring every variety of 
 woe in war. A single murder in peace 
 thrills through our frames. The count- 
 less murders of war are heard as an 
 amusing tale. The execution of a crim- 
 inal depresses the mind, and philan- 
 thropy is laboring to substitute milder 
 punishments for death. But benevo- 
 lence has hardly made an effort to 
 snatch from sudden and untimely death 
 the innumerable victims immolated on 
 the altar of war. This insensibility de- 
 mands that the miseries and crimes of 
 war should be placed before us with 
 minuteness, with energy, with strong 
 and indignant feeling. 
 
 The miseries of war may be easily 
 conceived from its very nature. By war, 
 we understand the resort of nations to 
 force, violence, and the most dreaded 
 methods of destruction and devastation. 
 In war, the strength, skill, courage, en- 
 ergy, and resources of a whole people 
 are concentrated for the infliction of pain 
 
 and death. The bowels of the earth are 
 explored, the most active elements com- 
 bined, the resources of art and nature 
 exhausted, to increase the power of man 
 in destroying his fellow-creatures. 
 
 Would you learn what destruction 
 man, when thus aided, can spread 
 around him ? Look, then, at that ex- 
 tensive region, desolate and overspread 
 with ruins ; its forests rent, as if blasted 
 by lightning ; its villages prostrated, as 
 by an earthquake ; its fields barren, as 
 if swept by storms. Not long ago, the 
 sun shone on no happier spot. But 
 ravaging armies prowled over it ; war 
 frowned on it ; and its fruitfulness and 
 happiness are fled. Here thousands and 
 ten thousands were gathered from dis- 
 tant provinces, not to embrace as breth- 
 ren, but to renounce the tie of brother- 
 hood ; and thousands in the vigor of life, 
 when least prepared for death, were 
 hewn down and scattered like chaff be- 
 fore the whirlwind. 
 
 Repair, my friends, in thought, to a 
 field of recent battle. Here are heaps 
 of slain, weltering in their own blood, 
 their bodies mangled, their limbs shat- 
 tered, and almost every vestige of the 
 human form and countenance destroyed. 
 Here are multitudes trodden under foot, 
 and the war-horse has left the trace of 
 his hoof in many a crushed and muti- 
 lated frame. Here are severer suffer- 
 ers ; they live, but live without hope 
 or consolation. Justice despatches the 
 criminal with a single stroke ; but the 
 victims of war, falling by casual, undi- 
 rected blows, often expire in lingering 
 agony, their deep groans moving no 
 compassion, their limbs writhing on the 
 earth with pain, their lips parched with 
 a burning thirst, their wounds open to 
 the chilling air, the memory of home 
 rushing on their minds, but not a voice 
 of friendship or comfort reaching their 
 ears. Amidst this scene of horrors, you 
 see the bird and beast of prey gorging 
 themselves with the dead or dying, and 
 human plunderers rifling the warm and 
 almost palpitating remains of the slain. 
 If you extend your eye beyond the im- 
 mediate field of battle, and follow the 
 track of the victorious and pursuing 
 army, you see the roads strewed with 
 the dead ; you see scattered flocks, and 
 harvests trampled under foot, the smok- 
 ing ruins of cottages, and the miserable 
 inhabitants flying in want and despair ;
 
 644 
 
 WAR. 
 
 and even yet, the horrors of a single 
 battle are not exhausted. Some of the 
 deepest pangs which it inflicts are si- 
 lent, retired, enduring, to be read in the 
 widow's countenance, in the unprotected 
 orphan, in the aged parent, in affection 
 cherishing the memory of the slain, and 
 weeping that it could not minister to 
 their last pangs. 
 
 I have asked you to traverse, in 
 thought, a field of battle. There is 
 another scene often presented in war, 
 perhaps more terrible. I refer to a 
 besieged city. The most horrible pages 
 in history are those which record the 
 reduction of strongly fortified places. 
 In a besieged city are collected all 
 descriptions and ages of mankind, 
 women, children, the old, the infirm. 
 Day and night the weapons of death 
 and conflagration fly around them. 
 They see the approaches of the foe, 
 the trembling bulwark, and the fainting 
 strength of their defenders. They are 
 worn with famine, and on famine presses 
 pestilence. At length the assault is 
 made, every barrier is broken down, and 
 a lawless soldiery, exasperated by resist- 
 ance, and burning with lust and cruelty, 
 are scattered through the streets. The 
 domestic retreat is violated ; and even 
 the house of God is no longer a sanc- 
 tuary. Venerable age is no protection, 
 female purity no defence. Is woman 
 spared amidst the slaughter of father, 
 brother, husband, and son ? She is 
 spared for a fate which makes death in 
 comparison a merciful doom. With such 
 heart-rending scenes history abounds ; 
 and what better fruits can you expect 
 from war ? 
 
 These views are the most obvious and 
 striking which war presents. There are 
 more secret influences, appealing less 
 powerfully to the senses and imagina- 
 tion, but deeply affecting to a reflecting 
 and benevolent mind. Consider, first, 
 the condition of those who are immedi- 
 ately engaged in war. The sufferings 
 of soldiers from battle we have seen ; 
 but their sufferings are not limited to 
 the period of conflict. The whole of 
 war is a succession of exposures too 
 severe for human nature. Death em- 
 ploys other weapons than the sword. 
 It is computed that in ordinary wars 
 greater numbers perish by sickness than 
 in battle. Exhausted by long and rapid 
 marches, by unwholesome food, by ex- 
 
 posure to storms, by excessive labor 
 under a burning sky through the day, 
 and by interrupted and restless sleep on 
 the damp ground and in the chilling 
 atmosphere of night, thousands after 
 thousands of the young pine away and 
 die. They anticipated that they should 
 fall, if to fall should be their lot, in 
 what they called the field of honor ; 
 but they perish in the inglorious and 
 crowded hospital, surrounded with sights 
 and sounds of woe, far from home and 
 every friend, and denied those tender 
 offices which sickness and expiring nat- 
 ure require. 
 
 Consider, next, the influence of war 
 on the character of those who make it 
 their trade. They let themselves for 
 slaughter, place themselves servile in- 
 struments, passive machines, in the 
 hands of rulers, to execute the bloodiest 
 mandates, without a thought on the jus- 
 tice of the cause in which they are en- 
 faged. What a school is this for the 
 uman character ! From men trained 
 in battle to ferocity, accustomed to the 
 perpetration of cruel deeds, accustomed 
 to take human life without sorrow or 
 remorse, habituated to esteem an un- 
 thinking courage a substitute for every 
 virtue, encouraged by plunder to prodi- 
 
 fality, taught improvidence by perpetual 
 azard and exposure, restrained only by 
 an iron discipline which5s withdrawn in 
 peace, and unfitted by the restless and 
 irregular career of war for the calm and 
 uniform pursuits of ordinary life ; from 
 such men, what ought to be expected 
 but contempt of human rights and of 
 the laws of God? From the nature of 
 his calling, the soldier is almost driven 
 to sport with the thought of death, to 
 defy and deride it, and, of course, to 
 banish the thought of that retribution 
 to which it leads ; and though of all men 
 the most exposed to sudden death, he 
 is too often of all men most unprepared 
 to appear before his Judge. 
 
 The influence of war on the commu- 
 nity at large, on its prosperity, its mor- 
 als, and its political institutions, though 
 less striking than on the soldiery, is yet 
 baleful. How often is a community im- 
 poverished to sustain a war in which it 
 has no interest ? Public burdens are 
 aggravated, whilst the means of sustain- 
 ing them are reduced. Internal im- 
 provements are neglected. The revenue 
 of the state is exhausted in military
 
 WAR. 
 
 645 
 
 establishments, or flows through secret 
 channels into the coffers of corrupt 
 men, whom war exalts to power and 
 office. The regular employments of 
 peace are disturbed. Industry in many 
 of its branches is suspended. The 
 laborer, ground with want, and driven 
 to despair by the clamor of his suffering 
 family, becomes a soldier in a cause 
 which he condemns, and thus the coun- 
 try is drained of its most effective popu- 
 lation. - The people are stripped and 
 reduced, whilst the authors of war 
 retrench not a comfort, and often fatten 
 on the spoils and woes of their country. 
 
 The influence of war on the morals of 
 society is also to be deprecated. The 
 suspension of industry multiplies want ; 
 and criminal modes of subsistence are 
 the resource of the suffering. Com- 
 merce, shackled and endangered, loses 
 its upright and honorable character, and 
 becomes a system of stratagem and 
 collusion. In war, the moral sentiments 
 of a community are perverted by the 
 admiration of military exploits. The 
 milder virtues of Christianity are eclipsed 
 by the baleful lustre thrown round a 
 ferocious courage. The disinterested, 
 the benignant, the merciful, the forgiv- 
 ing, those whom Jesus has pronounced 
 blessed and honorable, must give place 
 to the hero, whose character is stained 
 not only with bipod, but sometimes with 
 the foulest vices, but all whose stains 
 are washed away by victory. War 
 especially injures the moral feelings of 
 a people by making human nature cheap 
 in their estimation, and human life of as 
 little worth as that of an insect or a 
 brute. 
 
 War diffuses through a community 
 unfriendly and malignant passions Na- 
 tions, exasperated by mutual injuries, 
 burn for each others' humiliation and 
 ruin. They delight to hear that famine, 
 pestilence, want, defeat, and the most 
 dreadful scourges which Providence 
 sends on a guilty world, are desolating 
 a hostile community. The slaughter 
 of thousands of fellow-beings, instead 
 of awakening pity, flushes them with 
 delirious joy, illuminates the city, and 
 dissolves the whole country in revelry 
 and riot. Thus the heart of man is 
 hardened. His worst passions are nour- 
 ished. He renounces the bonds and 
 sympathies of humanity. Were the 
 prayers, or rather the curses, of warring 
 
 nations prevalent in heaven, the whole 
 earth would long since have become a 
 desert. The human race, with all their 
 labors and improvements, would have 
 perished under the sentence of universal 
 extermination. 
 
 But war not only assails the prosper- 
 ity and morals of a community ; its in- 
 fluence on the political condition is 
 threatening. It arms government with 
 a dangerous patronage,, multiplies de- 
 pendents and instruments of oppression, 
 and generates a power which, in the 
 hands of the energetic and aspiring, 
 endangers a free constitution. War 
 organizes a body of men who lose the 
 feelings of the citizen in the soldier ; 
 whose habits detach them from the 
 community ; whose ruling passion is 
 devotion to a chief ; who are inured 
 in the camp to despotic sway ; who are 
 accustomed to accomplish their ends by 
 force, and to sport with the rights and 
 happiness of their fellow-beings ; who 
 delight in tumult, adventure, and peril ; 
 and turn with disgust and scorn from 
 the quiet labors of peace. Is it wonder- 
 ful that such protectors of a state should 
 look with contempt on the weakness of 
 the protected, and should lend them- 
 selves base instruments to the subver- 
 sion of that freedom which they do not 
 themselves enjoy ? In a community, 
 in which precedence is given to the 
 military profession, freedom cannot long 
 endure. The encroachments of power 
 at home are expiated by foreign tri- 
 umphs. The essential interests and 
 rights of the state are sacrificed to a 
 false and fatal glory. Its intelligence 
 and vigor, instead of presenting a bul- 
 wark to domestic usurpation, are ex- 
 pended in military achievements. Its 
 most active and aspiring citizens rush 
 to the army, and become subservient 
 to the power which dispenses honor. 
 The nation is victorious, but the recom- 
 pense of its toils is a yoke as galling as 
 that which it imposes on other com- 
 munities. 
 
 Thus war is to be ranked among the 
 most dreadful calamities which fall on 
 a guilty world ; and, what deserves con- 
 sideration, it tends to multiply and per- 
 petuate itself without end. It feeds and 
 grows on the blood which it sheds. The 
 passions from which it springs gain 
 strength and fury from indulgence. 
 The successful nation, flushed by vie-
 
 646 
 
 WAR. 
 
 tory, pants for new laurels ; whilst the 
 humbled nation, irritated by defeat, is 
 impatient to redeem its honor and re- 
 pair its losses. Peace becomes a truce, 
 a feverish repose, a respite to sharpen 
 anew the sword, and to prepare for 
 future struggles. Under professions of 
 friendship lurk hatred and distrust : and 
 a spark suffices to renew the mighty 
 conflagration. When, from these causes, 
 large military establishments are formed, 
 and a military spirit kindled, war be- 
 comes a necessary part of policy. A 
 foreign field must be found for the en- 
 ergies and passions of a martial people. 
 To disband a numerous and veteran 
 soldiery would be to let loose a dan- 
 
 ferous horde on society. The blood- 
 ounds must be sent forth on other 
 communities, lest they rend the bosom 
 of their own country. Thus war ex- 
 tends and multiplies itself. No sooner 
 is one storm scattered, than the sky is 
 darkened with the gathering horrors of 
 another. Accordingly, war has been 
 the mournful legacy of every generation 
 to that which succeeds it. Every age 
 has had its conflicts. Every country 
 has in turn been the seat of devastation 
 and slaughter. The dearest interests 
 and rights of every nation have been 
 again and again committed to the haz- 
 ards of a game, of all others the most 
 uncertain, and in which, from its very 
 nature, success too often attends on the 
 fiercest courage and the basest fraud. 
 
 Such, my friends, is an unexaggerated, 
 and, I will add, a faint delineation of 
 the miseries of war ; and to all these 
 miseries and crimes the human race 
 have been continually exposed, for no 
 worthier cause than to enlarge an em- 
 pire already tottering under its unwieldy 
 weight, to extend an iron despotism, to 
 support some idle pretension, to repel 
 some unreal or exaggerated injury. For 
 no worthier cause, human blood has 
 been poured out as water, and millions 
 of rational and immortal beings have 
 been driven like sheep to the field of 
 slaughter. 
 
 Having considered the crimes and 
 miseries of war, I proceed, as I pro- 
 posed, to inquire into its sources, an 
 important branch of our subject, for it 
 is only by a knowledge of the sources 
 that we can be guided to the remedies 
 of war. And here, I doubt not, many 
 will imagine that the first place ought 
 
 to be given to malignity and hatred. 
 But justice to human nature requires 
 that we ascribe to national animosities 
 a more limited operation than is usually 
 assigned to them in the production of 
 this calamity. It is, indeed, true that 
 ambitious men, who have an interest in 
 war, too often accomplish their views 
 by appealing to the malignant feelings 
 of a community, by exaggerating its 
 wrongs, ridiculing its forbearance, and 
 reviving ancient jealousies and resent- 
 ments. But it is believed that, were 
 not malignity and revenge aided by the 
 concurrence of higher principles, the 
 false splendor of this barbarous custom 
 might easily be obscured, and its ravages 
 stayed. 
 
 One of the great springs of war may 
 be found in a very strong and general 
 propensity of human nature, in the love 
 of excitement, of emotion, of strong in- 
 terest, a propensity which gives a 
 charm to those bold and hazardous en- 
 terprises which call forth all the energies 
 of our nature. No state of mind, not 
 even positive suffering, is more painful 
 than the want of interesting objects. 
 The vacant soul preys on itself, and 
 often rushes with impatience from the 
 security which demands no effort to 
 the brink of peril. This part of human 
 nature is seen in the kind of pleasures 
 which have always been preferred. Why 
 has the first rank among sports been 
 given to the chase ? Because its diffi- 
 culties, hardships, hazards, tumults, 
 awaken the mind, and give to it a new 
 consciousness of existence, and a deep 
 feeling of its powers. What is the 
 charm which attaches the statesman 
 to an office which almost weighs him 
 down with labor and an appalling re- 
 sponsibility ? He finds much of his 
 compensation in the powerful emotion 
 and interest awakened by the very hard- 
 ships of his lot, by conflict with vigor- 
 ous minds, by the opposition of rivals, 
 and by the alternations of success and 
 defeat. What hurries to the gaming 
 table the man of prosperous fortune and 
 ample resource ? The dread of apathy, 
 the love of strong feeling and of mental 
 agitation. A deeper interest is felt in 
 hazarding than in securing wealth, and 
 the temptation is irresistible. One more 
 example of this propensity may be seen 
 in the attachment of pirates and high- 
 waymen to their dreadful employment.
 
 WAR. 
 
 647 
 
 Its excess of peril has given it a terrible 
 interest ; and to a man who has long 
 conversed with its dangers, the ordinary 
 pursuits of life are vapid, tasteless, and 
 disgusting. We have here one spring 
 of war. War is of all games the deep- 
 est, awakening most powerfully the soul, 
 and, of course, presenting powerful at- 
 traction to those restless and adventur- 
 ous minds which pant for scenes of 
 greater experiment and exposure than 
 peace affords. The savage, finding in 
 his uncultivated modes of life few ob- 
 jects of interest, few sources of emotion, 
 burns for war as a field for his restless 
 energy. Civilized men, too, find a pleas- 
 ure in war, as an excitement of the mind. 
 They follow, with an eager concern, the 
 movements of armies, and wait the issue 
 of battles with a deep suspense, an al- 
 ternation of hope and fear, inconceivably 
 more interesting than the unvaried uni- 
 formity of peaceful pursuits. 
 
 Another powerful principle of our 
 nature, which is the spring of war, is 
 the passion for superiority, for triumph; 
 for power. The human mind is aspir- 
 ing, impatient of inferiority, and eager 
 for pre-eminence and control. I need 
 not enlarge on the predominance of this 
 passion in rulers whose love of power is 
 influenced by the possession, and who 
 are ever restless to extend their sway. 
 It is more important to observe that, 
 were this desire restrained to the breasts 
 of rulers, war would move with a slug- 
 gish pace. But the passion for power 
 and superiority is universal ; and as 
 every individual, from his intimate un- 
 ion with the community, is accustomed 
 to appropriate its triumphs to himself, 
 there is a general promptness to engage 
 in any contest by which the community 
 may obtain an ascendency over other 
 nations. The desire that our country 
 should surpass all others would not be 
 criminal did we understand in what re- 
 spects it is most honorable for a nation 
 to excel ; did we feel that the glory of 
 a state consists in intellectual and moral 
 superiority, in pre-eminence of knowl- 
 edge, freedom, and purity. But to the 
 mass of a people this form of pre-emi- 
 nence is too refined and unsubstantial. 
 There is another kind of triumph, which 
 they better understand, the triumph of 
 physical power, triumph in battle, tri- 
 umph, not over the minds, but the terri- 
 tory of another state. Here is a palpable, 
 
 visible superiority ; and for this a people 
 are willing to submit to severe priva- 
 tions. A victory blots out the memory 
 of their sufferings, and in boasting of 
 their extended power, they find a com- 
 pensation for many woes. 
 
 I now proceed to another powerful 
 spring of war ; and it is the admiration 
 of the brilliant qualities displayed in 
 war. These qualities, more than all 
 things, have prevented an impression 
 of the crimes and miseries of this sav- 
 age custom. Many delight in war, not 
 for its carnage and woes, but for its 
 valor and apparent magnaminity, for the 
 self-command of the hero, the fortitude 
 which despises suffering, the resolution 
 which courts danger, the superiority of 
 the mind to the body, to sensation, to 
 fear. Let us be just to human nature 
 even in its errors and excesses. Men 
 seldom delight in war, considered merely 
 as a source of misery. When they hear 
 of battles, the picture which rises to 
 their view is not what it should be, a 
 picture of extreme wretchedness, of the 
 wounded, the mangled, the slain. These 
 horrors are hidden under the splendor 
 of those mighty energies which break 
 forth amidst the perils of conflict, and 
 which human nature contemplates with 
 an intense and heart-thrilling delight. 
 Attention hurries from the heaps of the 
 slaughtered to the victorious chief, 
 whose single mind pervades and ani- 
 mates a host, and directs with stern 
 composure the storm of battle ; and the 
 ruin which he spreads is forgotten in 
 admiration of his power. This admira- 
 tion has, in all ages, been expressed by 
 the most unequivocal signs. Why that 
 garland woven ? that arch erected ? that 
 festive board spread ? These are trib- 
 utes to the warrior. Whilst the peaceful 
 sovereign, who scatters blessings with 
 the silence and constancy of Providence, 
 is received with a faint applause, men 
 assemble in crowds to hail the con- 
 queror, perhaps a monster in human 
 form, whose private life is blackened 
 with lust and crime, and whose great- 
 ness is built on perfidy and usurpation. 
 Thus war is the surest and speediest 
 road to renown : and war will never 
 cease while the field of battle is the field 
 of glory, and the most luxuriant laurels 
 grow from a root nourished with blood. 
 
 Another cause of war is a false patri- 
 otism. It is a natural and generous
 
 648 
 
 WAR, 
 
 impulse of nature to love the country 
 which gave us birth, by whose institu- 
 tions we have been moulded, by whose 
 laws defended, and with whose soil 
 and scenery innumerable associations of 
 early years, of domestic affection, and 
 of friendship, have been formed. But 
 this sentiment often degenerates into 
 a narrow, partial, exclusive attachment, 
 alienating us from other branches of the 
 human family, and instigating to aggres- 
 sion on other states. In ancient times 
 this principle was developed with won- 
 derful energy, and sometimes absorbed 
 every other sentiment. To the Roman, 
 Rome was the universe. Other nations 
 were of no value but to grace her tri- 
 umphs and illustrate her power ; and he 
 who in private life would have disdained 
 injustice and oppression, exulted in the 
 successful violence by which other na- 
 tions were bound to the chariot-wheels 
 Of this mistress of the world. This 
 spirit still exists. The tie of country is 
 thought to absolve men from the obli- 
 gations of universal justice and human- 
 ity. Statesmen and rulers are expected 
 to build up their own country at the ex- 
 pense of others ; and, in the false pa- 
 triotism of the citizen, they have a 
 security for any outrages which are 
 sanctioned by success. 
 
 Let me mention one other spring of 
 war, I mean the impressions we re- 
 ceive in early life. In our early years 
 we know war only as it offers itself to 
 us at a review ; not arrayed in terror, 
 not stalking over fields of the slain, and 
 desolated regions, its eye flashing with 
 fury, and its sword reeking with blood. 
 War, as we first see it, is decked with 
 gay and splendid trappings, and wears 
 a countenance of joy. It moves with 
 a measured and graceful step to the 
 sound of the heart-stirring fife and 
 drum. Its instruments of death wound 
 only the air. Such is war ; the youth- 
 ful eye is dazzled with its ornaments ; 
 the youthful heart dances to its ani- 
 mated sounds. It seems a pastime full 
 of spirit and activity, the very sport in 
 which youth delights. These false views 
 of war are confirmed by our earliest read- 
 ing. We are intoxicated with the ex- 
 ploits of the conqueror, as recorded in 
 real history or in glowing fiction. We 
 follow, with a sympathetic ardor, his 
 rapid and triumphant career in battle, 
 and, unused as we are to suffering and 
 
 death, forget the fallen and miserable 
 who are crushed under his victorious 
 car. Particularly by the study of the 
 ancient poets and historians, the senti- 
 ments of early and barbarous ages on 
 the subject of war are kept alive in the 
 mind. The trumpet which roused the 
 fury of Achilles and of the hordes of 
 Greece still resounds in our ears ; and, 
 though Christians by profession, some 
 of our earliest and deepest impressions 
 are received in the school of uncivilized 
 antiquity. Even where these impres- 
 sions in favor of war are not received 
 in youth, we yet learn from our early 
 familiarity with it to consider it as a 
 necessary evil, an essential part of our 
 condition. We become reconciled to it 
 as to a fixed law of our nature : and 
 consider the thought of its abolition as 
 extravagant as an attempt to chain the 
 winds or arrest the lightning. 
 
 I have thus attempted to unfold the 
 principal causes of war. They are, you 
 perceive, of a moral nature. They may 
 be resolved into wrong views of human 
 glory, and into excesses of passions and 
 desires which, by right direction, would 
 promote the best interests of humanity. 
 From these causes we learn that this 
 savage custom is to be repressed by 
 moral means, by salutary influences on 
 the sentiments and principles of man- 
 kind. And thus we are led to our last 
 topic, the remedies of war. In intro- 
 ducing the observations which I have to 
 offer on this branch of the subject, I 
 feel myself bound to suggest an impor- 
 tant caution. Let not the cause of peace 
 be injured by the assertion of extreme 
 and indefensible principles. I particu- 
 larly refer to the principle, that war is 
 absolutely, and in all possible cases, un- 
 lawful, and prohibited by Christianity. 
 This doctrine is considered, by a great 
 majority of the judicious and enlight- 
 ened, as endangering the best interests 
 of society ; and it ought not therefore 
 to be connected with our efforts for the 
 diffusion of peace, unless it appear to 
 us a clear and indubitable truth. War, 
 as it is commonly waged, is indeed a 
 tremendous evil ; but national subju- 
 gation is a greater evil than a war of de- 
 fence ; and a community seems to me 
 to possess an indisputable right to re- 
 sort to such a war, when all other means 
 have failed for the security of its exist- 
 ence or freedom. It is universally ad-
 
 WAR. 
 
 649 
 
 mitted that a community may employ 
 force to repress the rapacity and vio- 
 lence of its own citizens, to disarm and 
 restrain its internal foes ; and on what 
 ground can we deny to it the right of 
 repelling the inroads and aggressions of 
 a foreign power ? If a government may 
 not lawfully resist a foreign army, in- 
 vading its territory to desolate and sub- 
 due, on what principles can we justify a 
 resistance of a combination of its own 
 citizens for the same injurious purpose ? 
 Government is instituted for the very 
 purpose of protecting the community 
 from all violence, no matter by what 
 hands it may be offered ; and rulers 
 would be unfaithful to their trust were 
 they to abandon the rights, interests, 
 and improvements of society to unprin- 
 cipled rapacity, whether of domestic or 
 foreign foes. 
 
 We are indeed told that the language 
 of Scripture is, "Resist not evil." But 
 the Scriptures are given to us as reason- 
 able beings. We must remember that 
 to the renunciation of reason in the in- 
 terpretation of Scripture we owe those 
 absurdities which have sunk Christi- 
 anity almost to the level of Heathenism. 
 If the precept to " resist not evil " ad- 
 mit no exception, then civil government 
 is prostrated ; then the magistrate must 
 in no case resist the injurious ; then the 
 subject must in no case employ the aid 
 of the laws to enforce his rights. The 
 very end and office of government is, to 
 resist evil men. For this, the civil 
 magistrate bears the sword ; and he 
 should beware of interpretations of the 
 Scriptures which would lead him to 
 bear it in vain. The doctrine of the 
 absolute unlawfulness of war is thought 
 by its advocates to be necessary to a 
 successful opposition to this barbarous 
 custom. But were we employed to re- 
 store peace to a contentious neighbor- 
 hood, we should not consider ourselves 
 as obliged to teach that self-defence is 
 in every possible case a crime ; and 
 equally useless is this principle in our 
 labors for the pacification of the world. 
 Without taking this uncertain and dan- 
 gerous ground, we may and ought to 
 assail war, by assailing the principles 
 and passions which gave it birth, and 
 by improving and exalting the moral 
 sentiments of mankind. 
 
 For example ; important service may 
 be rendered to the cause of peace by 
 
 communicating and enforcing just and 
 elevated sentiments in relation to the 
 true honor of rulers. Let us teach that 
 the prosperity, and not the extent, ot a 
 state is the measure of a ruler's glory ; 
 that the brute force and crooked policy 
 which annex a conquest are infinitely 
 inferior to the wisdom, justice, and be- 
 neficence which make a country happy ; 
 and that the earth holds not a more 
 abandoned monster than the sovereign 
 who, intrusted with the dearest inter- 
 ests of a people, commits them to the 
 dreadful hazards of war, that he may 
 extend his prostituted power, and fill 
 the earth with his worthless name. Let 
 us exhibit to the honor and veneration 
 of mankind the character of the Chris- 
 tian ruler, who, disdaining the cheap 
 and vulgar honor of a conqueror, as- 
 pires to a new and more enduring glory ; 
 who, casting away the long-tried weap- 
 ons of intrigue and violence, adheres 
 with a holy and unshaken confidence to 
 justice and philanthropy, as a nation's 
 best defence ; and who considers him- 
 self as exalted by God only that he may 
 shed down blessings and be as a bene- 
 ficent deity to the world. 
 
 To these instructions, in relation to 
 the true glory of rulers, should be 
 added just sentiments as to the glory 
 of nations. Let us teach that the honor 
 of a nation consists, not in the forced 
 and reluctant submission of other states, 
 but in equal laws and free institutions, 
 in cultivated fields and prosperous cit- 
 ies ; in the development of intellectual 
 and moral power, in the diffusion of 
 knowledge, in magnanimity and justice, 
 in the virtues and blessings of peace. 
 Let us never be weary in reprobating 
 that infernal spirit of conquest by which 
 a nation becomes the terror and abhor- 
 rence of the world, and inevitably pre- 
 pares a tomb at best a splendid tomb 
 for its own liberties and prosperity. 
 Nothing has been more common than 
 for nations to imagine themselves great 
 and glorious on the ground of foreign 
 conquest, when at home they have been 
 loaded with chains. Cannot these gross 
 and monstrous delusions be scattered ? 
 Can nothing be done to persuade Chris- 
 tian nations to engage in a new and untried 
 race of glory, in generous competitions, 
 in a noble contest for superiority in wise 
 legislation and internal improvements, in 
 the spirit of liberty and humanity ?
 
 650 
 
 WAR. 
 
 Another most important method of 
 promoting the cause of peace is to turn 
 men's admiration from military courage 
 to qualities of real nobleness and dig- 
 nity. It is time that the childish admi- 
 ration of courage should give place to 
 more manly sentiments ; and in propor- 
 tion as we effect this change, we shall 
 shake the main pillar of war, we shall 
 rob military life of its chief attraction. 
 Courage is a very doubtful quality, 
 springing from very different sources, 
 and possessing a corresponding variety 
 of character. Courage sometimes re- 
 sults from mental weakness. Peril is 
 confronted, because the mind wants 
 comprehension to discern its extent. 
 This is often the courage of youth, the 
 courage of unreflecting ignorance, a 
 contempt of peril because peril is but 
 dimly seen. Courage still more fre- 
 quently springs from physical tempera- 
 ment, from a rigid fibre and iron nerves, 
 and deserves as little praise as the pro- 
 portion of the form or the beauty of the 
 countenance. Again, every passion 
 which is strong enough to overcome the 
 passion of fear, and to exclude by its 
 vehemence the idea of danger, commu- 
 nicates at least a temporary courage. 
 Thus revenge, when it burns with great 
 fury, gives a terrible energy to the mind, 
 and has sometimes impelled men to 
 meet certain death, that they might in- 
 flict the same fate on an enemy. You 
 see the doubtful nature of courage. It 
 is often associated with the worst vices. 
 The most wonderful examples of it may 
 be found in the history of pirates and 
 robbers, whose fearlessness is generally 
 proportioned to the insensibility of their 
 consciences, and to the enormity of their 
 crimes. Courage is also exhibited with 
 astonishing power in barbarous coun- 
 tries, where the child is trained to de- 
 spise the hardships and pains to .which 
 he is exposed by his condition ; where 
 the absence of civil laws obliges every 
 man to be his own defender ; and where, 
 from the imperfection of moral senti- 
 ment, corporeal strength and ferocious 
 courage are counted the noblest quali- 
 ties of human nature. The common 
 courage of armies is equally worthless 
 with that of the pirate and the savage. 
 A considerable part of almost every 
 army, so far from deriving their resolu- 
 tion from love of country and a sense 
 of justice, can hardly be said to have a 
 
 country, and have been driven into the 
 ranks by necessities which were gener- 
 ated by vice. These are the brave sol- 
 diers, whose praises we hear; brave, 
 from the absence of all reflection ; prod- 
 igal of life, because their vices have 
 robbed life of its blessings ; brave, from 
 sympathy ; brave, from the thirst of 
 plunder ; and especially brave, because 
 the sword of martial law is hanging over 
 their heads. Accordingly, military cour- 
 age is easily attained by the most de- 
 based and unprincipled men. The com- 
 mon drunkard of the streets, who is 
 enlisted in a fit of intoxication, when 
 thrown into the ranks among the un- 
 thinking and profane, subjected to the 
 rigor of martial discipline, familiarized 
 by exposure to the idea of danger, and 
 menaced with death if he betray a symp- 
 tom of fear, becomes as brave as his 
 officer, whose courage may often be 
 traced to the same dread of punishment, 
 and to fear of severer infamy than at- 
 tends on the cowardice of the common 
 soldier. Let the tribute of honor be 
 freely and liberally given to the soldier 
 of principle, who exposes his life for a 
 cause which his conscience approves, 
 and who mingles clemency and mercy 
 with the joy of triumph. But as for the 
 multitude of military men, who regard 
 war as a trade by which to thrive, who 
 hire themselves to fight and slay in any 
 cause, and who destroy their fellow- 
 beings with as little concern as the hus- 
 bandman does the vermin that infest his 
 fields, I know no class of men on whom 
 admiration can more unjustly and more 
 injuriously be bestowed. Let us labor, 
 my brethren, to direct the admiration 
 and love of mankind to another and in- 
 finitely higher kind of greatness, to that 
 true magnanimity which is prodigal of 
 ease and life in the service of God and 
 mankind, and which proves its courage 
 by unshaken adherence, amidst scorn 
 and danger, to truth and virtue. Let 
 the records of past ages be explored, to 
 rescue from oblivion, not the wasteful 
 conqueror, whose path was as the whirl- 
 wind, but the benefactors of the human 
 race, martyrs to the interests of freedom 
 and religion, men who have broken the 
 chain of the slave, who have traversed 
 the earth to shed consolation into the 
 cell of the prisoner, or whose sublime 
 faculties have explored and revealed 
 useful and ennobling truths. Can noth-
 
 WAR. 
 
 6$ I 
 
 ing be done to hasten the time when to 
 such men eloquence and poetry shall 
 offer their glowing homage, when for 
 these the statue and monument shall 
 be erected, the canvass be animated, 
 and the laurel entwined, and when to 
 these the admiration of the young shall 
 be directed as their guides and forerun- 
 ners to glory and immortality ? 
 
 I proceed to another method of pro- 
 moting the cause of peace. Let Chris- 
 tian ministers exhibit, with greater clear- 
 ness and distinctness than ever they 
 have done, the pacific and benevolent 
 spirit of Christianity. My brethren, 
 this spirit ought to hold the same place 
 in our preaching which it holds in the 
 gospel of our Lord. Instead of being 
 crowded and lost among other subjects, 
 it should stand in the front of Christian 
 graces ; it should be inculcated as the 
 life and essence of our religion. We 
 should teach men that charity is greater 
 than faith and hope ; that God is love, 
 or benevolence ; and that love is the 
 brightest communication of divinity to 
 the human soul. We should exhibit 
 Jesus in all the amiableness of his 
 character, now shedding tears over 
 Jerusalem, and now his blood on Cal- 
 vary, and in his last hours recommend- 
 ing his own sublime love as the badge 
 and distinction of his followers. We 
 should teach men that it is the property 
 of the benevolence of Christianity to 
 diffuse itself like the light and rain of 
 heaven, to disdain the limits of rivers, 
 mountains, or oceans, by which nations 
 are divided, and to embrace every human 
 being as a brother. Let us never forget 
 that our preaching is evangelical just in 
 proportion as it inculcates and awakens 
 this disinterested and unbounded char- 
 ity ; and that our hearers are Christians 
 just as far and no farther than they 
 delight in peace and beneficence. 
 
 It is a painful truth, which ought not 
 to be suppressed, that the pacific influ- 
 ence of the gospel has been greatly ob- 
 structed by the disposition which has 
 prevailed in all ages, and especially 
 among Christian ministers, to give im- 
 portance to the peculiarities of sects, 
 and to rear walls of partition between 
 different denominations. Shame ought 
 to cover the face of the believer, when 
 he remembers that under no religion 
 have intolerance and persecution raged 
 more fiercely than under the gospel of 
 
 the meek and forbearing Saviour. Chris- 
 tians have made the earth to reek with 
 blood and to resound with denunciation. 
 Can we wonder that, while the spirit of 
 war has been cherished in the very 
 bosom of the church, it has continued 
 to ravage among the nations ? Were 
 the true spirit of Christianity to be in- 
 culcated with but half the zeal which 
 has been wasted on doubtful and dis- 
 puted doctrines, a sympathy, a co-oper- 
 ation might in a very short time be 
 produced among Christians of every 
 nation, most propitious to the pacifica- 
 tion of the world. In consequence of 
 the progress of knowledge and the 
 extension of commerce, Christians of 
 both hemispheres are at this moment 
 brought nearer to one another than at 
 any former period ; and an intercourse, 
 founded on religious sympathies, is grad- 
 ually connecting the most distant re- 
 gions. What a powerful weapon is 
 furnished by this new bond of union 
 to the ministers and friends of peace ! 
 Should not the auspicious moment be 
 seized to inculcate on all Christians, in 
 all regions, that they owe their first 
 allegiance to their common Lord in 
 heaven, whose first, and last, and great 
 command is, love ? Should they not 
 be taught to look with a shuddering 
 abhorrence on war, which continually 
 summons to the field of battle, under 
 opposing standards, the followers of the 
 same Saviour, and commands them to 
 imbrue their hands in each others' 
 blood ? Once let Christians of every 
 nation be brought to espouse the cause of 
 peace with one heart and one voice, and 
 their labor will not be in vain in the 
 Lord. Human affairs will rapidly as- 
 sume a new and milder aspect. The 
 predicted ages of peace will dawn on 
 the world. Public opinion will be puri- 
 fied. The false lustre of the hero will 
 grow dim. A nobler order of character 
 will be admired and diffused. The 
 kingdoms of the world will gradually 
 become the kingdoms of God and of his 
 Christ. 
 
 My friends, I did intend, but I have 
 not time, to notice the arguments which 
 are urged in support of war. Let me 
 only say that the common argument, 
 that war is necessary to awaken the 
 boldness, energy, and noblest qualities 
 of human nature, will, I hope, receive 
 a practical refutation in the friends of
 
 652 
 
 WAR. 
 
 philanthropy and peace. Let it appear 
 in your lives that you need not this spark 
 from hell to kindle a heroic resolution in 
 your breasts. Let it appear that a pacific 
 spirit has no affinity with a tame and 
 feeble character. Let us prove that 
 courage, the virtue which has been 
 thought to flourish most in the rough 
 field of war, may be reared to a more 
 generous height, and to a firmer texture, 
 in the bosom of peace. Let it be seen 
 that it is not fear, but principle, which 
 has made us the enemies of war. In 
 every enterprise of philanthropy which 
 demands daring and sacrifice and ex- 
 posure to hardship and toil, let us em- 
 bark with serenity and joy. Be it our 
 part to exhibit an undaunted, unshaken, 
 unwearied resolution, not in spreading 
 ruin, but in serving God and mankind, 
 in alleviating human misery, in diffusing 
 truth and virtue, and especially in oppos- 
 ing war. The doctrines of Christianity 
 have had many martyrs. Let us be will- 
 ing, if God shall require it, to be martyrs 
 to its spirit, the neglected, insulted 
 spirit of peace and love. In a better 
 service we cannot live ; in a nobler 
 cause we cannot die. It is the cause 
 of Jesus Christ, supported by Almighty 
 Goodness, and appointed to triumph 
 over the passions and delusions of men, 
 the customs of ages, and the fallen mon- 
 uments of the forgotten conqueror. 
 
 NOTE TO THE FIRST DISCOURSE ON 
 WAR. 
 
 I have deferred to this place a few 
 remarks on the arguments which are 
 usually adduced in support of war. 
 
 War, it is said, kindles patriotism ; 
 by fighting for our country, we learn to 
 love it. But the patriotism which is 
 cherished by war is ordinarily false and 
 spurious, a vice and not a virtue, a 
 scourge to the world, a narrow, unjust 
 passion, which aims to exalt a particular 
 state on the humiliation and destruction 
 of other nations. A genuine, enlight- 
 ened patriot discerns that the welfare of 
 his own country is involved in the gen- 
 eral progress of society ; and in the 
 character of a patriot, as well as of a 
 Christian, he rejoices in the liberty and 
 prosperity of other communities, and is 
 anxious to maintain with them the rela- 
 tions of peace and amity. 
 
 It is said that a military spirit is the 
 
 defence of a country. But it more fre- 
 quently endangers the vital interests of 
 a nation by embroiling it with other 
 states. This spirit, like every other 
 passion, is impatient for gratification, 
 and often precipitates a country into 
 unnecessary war. A people have no 
 need of a military spirit. Let them be 
 attached to their government and institu- 
 tions by habit, by early associations, and 
 especially by experimental conviction of 
 their excellence, and they will never 
 want means or spirit to defend them. 
 
 War is recommended as a method of 
 redressing national grievances. But. un- 
 happily, the weapons of war, from their 
 very nature, are often wielded most 
 successfully by the unprincipled. Jus- 
 tice and force have little congeniality. 
 Should not Christians everywhere strive 
 to promote the reference of national as 
 well as of individual disputes to an im- 
 partial umpire ? Is a project of this 
 nature more extravagant than the idea 
 of reducing savage hordes to a state of 
 regular society ? The last has been 
 accomplished. Is the first to be aban- 
 doned in despair ? 
 
 It is said that war sweeps off the idle, 
 dissolute, and vicious members of the 
 community. Monstrous argument ! If 
 a government may for this end plunge a 
 nation into war, it may with equal justice 
 consign to the executioner any number 
 of its subjects whom it may deem a 
 burden on the state. The fact is, that 
 war commonly generates as many profli- 
 
 fates as it destroys. A disbanded army 
 11s the community with at least as many 
 abandoned members as at first it ab- 
 sorbed. There is another method, not 
 quite so summary as war, of ridding a 
 country of unprofitable and injurious 
 citizens, but vastly more effectual ; and 
 a method which will be applied with 
 spirit and success just in proportion as 
 war shall yield to the light and spirit of 
 Christianity. I refer to the exertions 
 which Christians have commenced for 
 the reformation and improvement of the 
 ignorant and poor, and especially for the 
 instruction and moral culture of indigent 
 children. Christians are entreated to 
 persevere and abound in these godlike 
 efforts. By diffusing moral and relig- 
 ious principles, and sober and indus- 
 trious habits through the laboring classes 
 of society, they will dry up one impor- 
 tant source of war. They will destroy
 
 WAR. 
 
 053 
 
 in a considerable degree the materials of 
 armies. In proportion as these classes 
 become well principled and industrious, 
 poverty will disappear, the population 
 of a country will be more and more pro- 
 portioned to its resources, and of course 
 the number will be diminished of those 
 who have no alternative but beggary or 
 a camp. The moral care which is at 
 the present day extended to the poor is 
 one of the most honorable features of 
 our age. Christians ! remember that 
 your proper warfare is with ignorance 
 and vice, and exhibit here the same un- 
 wearied and inventive energy which has 
 marked the warriors of the world. 
 
 It is sometimes said that a military 
 spirit favors liberty. But how is it that 
 nations, after fighting, for ages, are so 
 generally enslaved ? The truth is, that 
 liberty has no foundation but in private 
 and public virtue : and virtue, as we 
 have seen, is not the common growth of 
 war. 
 
 But the great argument remains to be 
 discussed. It is said that without war 
 to excite and invigorate the human mind, 
 some of its noblest energies will slum- 
 ber, and its highest qualities, courage, 
 magnanimity, fortitude, will perish. To 
 this I answer that, if war is to be encour- 
 aged among nations, because it nourishes 
 energy and heroism, on the same prin- 
 ciple war in our families, and war be- 
 tween neighborhoods, villages, and cities 
 ought to be encouraged ; for such con- 
 tests would equally tend to promote 
 heroic daring and contempt of death. 
 Why shall not different provinces of the 
 same empire annually meet with the 
 weapons of death, to keep alive their 
 courage ? We shrink at this suggestion 
 with horror ; but why shall contests of 
 nations, rather than of provinces or fami- 
 lies, find shelter under this barbarous 
 argument ? 
 
 I observe again ; if war be a blessing 
 because it awakens energy and courage, 
 then the savage state is peculiarly privi- 
 leged ; for every savage is a soldier, 
 and his whole modes of life tend to form 
 him to invincible resolution. On the 
 same principle, those early periods of 
 society were happy, when men were 
 called to contend not only with one 
 another but with beasts of prey ; for to 
 these excitements we owe the heroism 
 of Hercules and Theseus. On the same 
 principle, the feudal ages were more 
 
 favored than the present ; for then every 
 baron was a military chief, every castle 
 frowned defiance, and every vassal was 
 trained to arms. And do we really wish 
 that the earth should again be overrun 
 with monsters, or abandoned to savage 
 or feudal violence, in order that heroes 
 may be multiplied ? If not, let us cease 
 to vindicate war as affording excitement 
 to energy and courage. 
 
 I repeat, what I have observed in the 
 preceding discourse, we need not war 
 to awaken human energy. There is at 
 least equal scope for courage and mag- 
 nanimity in blessing as in destroying 
 mankind. The condition of the human 
 race offers inexhaustible objects for en- 
 terprise, and fortitude, and magnanimity. 
 In relieving the countless ' wants and 
 sorrows of the world, in exploring un- 
 known regions, in carrying the arts and 
 virtues of civilization to unimproved 
 communities, in extending the bounds 
 of knowledge, in diffusing the spirit of 
 freedom, and especially in spreading the 
 light and influence of Christianity, how 
 much may be dared, how much endured ! 
 Philanthropy invites us to services which 
 demand the most intense, and elevated, 
 and resolute, and adventurous activity. 
 Let it not be imagined that, were nations 
 imbued with the spirit of Christianity, 
 they would slumber in ignoble ease ; 
 that, instead of the high-minded mur- 
 derers, who are formed on the present 
 system of war, we should have effeminate 
 and timid slaves. Christian benevolence 
 is as active as it is forbearing. Let it 
 once form the character of a people, and 
 it will attach them to every important 
 interest of society. It will call forth 
 sympathy in behalf of the suffering in 
 every region under heaven. I twill give 
 a new extension to the heart, open a 
 wider sphere to enterprise, inspire a 
 courage of exhaustless resource, and 
 prompt to every sacrifice and exposure 
 for the improvement and happiness of 
 the human race. The energy of this 
 principle has been tried and displayed 
 in the fortitude of the martyr, and in 
 the patient labors of those who have 
 carried the gospel into the dreary abodes 
 of idolatry. Away, then, with the argu- 
 ment that war is needed as a nursery of 
 heroism. The school of the peaceful 
 Redeemer is infinitely more adapted to 
 teach the nobler, as well as the milder 
 virtues, which adorn humanity.
 
 654 
 
 WAR. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 Discourse delivered January 25, 1835. 
 
 JAMES v. i : " Whence come wars and fightings among 
 you?" 
 
 I ASK your attention to the subject of 
 public war. I am aware that to some 
 this topic may seem to have political 
 bearings, which render it unfit for the 
 pulpit ; but to me it is eminently a 
 moral and " religious subject. In ap- 
 proaching it political parties and inter- 
 est vanish from my mind. They are 
 forgotten amidst the numerous miseries 
 and crimes of war. To bring war to an 
 end was one of the purposes of Christ, 
 and his ministers are bound to concur 
 with him in the work. The great diffi- 
 culty on the present occasion is, to select 
 some point of view from the vast field 
 which opens before us. After some 
 general remarks, I shall confine myself 
 to a single topic, which at present de- 
 mands peculiar attention. 
 
 Public war is not an evil which stands 
 alone, or has nothing in common with 
 other evils. It belongs, as the text in- 
 timates, to a great family. It may be 
 said that society, through its whole ex- 
 tent, is deformed by war. Even in 
 families we see jarring interests and 
 passions, invasions of rights, resistance 
 of authority, violence, force ; and in 
 common life, how continually do we 
 see men struggling with one another for 
 property or distinction, injuring one 
 another in word or deed, exasperated 
 against one another by jealousies, neg- 
 lects, and mutual reproach. All this is 
 essentially war, but war restrained, 
 hemmed in, disarmed by the opinions 
 and institutions of society. To limit its 
 ravages, to guard reputation, property, 
 and life, society has instituted govern- 
 ment, erected the tribunal of justice, 
 clothed the legislator with the power of 
 enacting equal laws, put the sword into 
 the hand of the magistrate, and pledged 
 its whole force to his support. Human 
 wisdom has been manifested in nothing 
 more conspicuously than in civil institu- 
 
 tions for repressing war, retaliation, and 
 passionate resort to force, among the 
 citizens of the same state. But here it 
 has stopped. Government, which is 
 ever at work to restrain the citizen at 
 home, often lets him loose, and arms 
 him with fire and sword against other 
 communities, sends out hosts for desola- 
 tion and slaughter, and concentrates the 
 whole energies of a people in the work 
 of spreading misery and death. Gov- 
 ernment, the peace-officer at home, 
 breathes war abroad, 'organizes it into a 
 science, reduces it to a system, makes 
 it a trade, and applauds it as if it were 
 the most honorable work of nations. 
 Strange, that the wisdom which has so 
 successfully put down the wars of indi- 
 viduals, has never been inspired and 
 emboldened to engage in the task of 
 bringing to an end the more gigantic 
 crimes and miseries of public war ! 
 But this universal pacification, until of 
 late, has hardly been thought of ; and 
 in reading history we are almost tempted 
 to believe that the chief end of govern- 
 ment in promoting internal quiet, has 
 been to accumulate greater resources 
 for foreign hostilities. Bloodshed is 
 the staple of history, and men have 
 been butchered and countries ravaged, 
 as if the human frame had been con- 
 structed with such exquisite skill only 
 to be mangled, and the earth covered 
 with fertility only to attract the spoiler. 
 
 These reflections, however, it is not 
 my intention to pursue. The miseries 
 of war are not my present subject. One 
 remark will be sufficient to place them 
 in their true light. What gives these 
 miseries pre-eminence among human 
 woes what should compel us to look 
 on them with peculiar horror is, not 
 their awful amount, but their origin, 
 their source. They are miseries in- 
 flicted by man on man. They spring 
 from depravity of will. They bear the 
 impress of cruelty, of hardness of heart.
 
 WAR. 
 
 655 
 
 The distorted features, writhing frames, 
 and shrieks of the wounded and dying, 
 these are not the chief horrors of 
 war : they sink into unimportance com- 
 pared with the infernal passions which 
 work this woe. Death is a light evil 
 when not joined with crime. Had the 
 countless millions destroyed by war 
 been swallowed up by floods or yawning 
 earthquakes, we should look back awe- 
 struck, but submissive, on the mysteri- 
 ous providence which had thus fulfilled 
 the mortal sentence originally passed on 
 the human race. But that man, born of 
 woman, bound by ties of brotherhood to 
 man. and commanded by an inward law 
 and the voice of God to love and do 
 good, should, through selfishness, pride, 
 revenge, inflict these agonies, shed these 
 torrents of human blood, here is an 
 evil which combines with exquisite suf- 
 fering fiendish guilt. All other evils 
 fade before it. 
 
 Such are the dark features of war. I 
 have spoken of them strongly, because 
 humanity and religion demand from us 
 all a new and sterner tone on this master 
 evil. But it is due to human nature to 
 observe, that whilst war is, in the main, 
 the offspring and riot of the worst pas- 
 sions, better principles often mix with 
 it and throw a veil over its deformity. 
 Nations fight not merely for revenge or 
 booty. Glory is often the stirring word ; 
 and glory, though often misinterpreted 
 and madly pursued by crime, is still an 
 impulse of great minds, and shows a 
 nature made to burn with high thoughts, 
 and to pour itself forth in noble deeds. 
 Many have girded themselves for battle 
 from pure motives ; and, as if to teach 
 us that unmingled evil cannot exist in 
 God's creation, the most ferocious con- 
 flicts have been brightened by examples 
 of magnanimous and patriotic virtue. 
 In almost all wars there is some infu- 
 sion of enthusiasm ; and in all enthusi- 
 asm there is a generous element. 
 
 Still war is made up essentially of 
 crime and misery, and to abolish it is 
 one great purpose of Christianity, and 
 should be the earnest labor of philan- 
 thropy ; nor is this enterprise to be 
 scoffed at as hopeless. The tendencies 
 of civilization are decidedly towards 
 peace. The influences of progressive 
 knowledge, refinement, arts, and national 
 wealth, are pacific. The old motives 
 for war are losing power. Conquest, 
 
 which once maddened nations, hardly 
 enters now into the calculation of states- 
 men. The disastrous a-nd disgraceful 
 termination of the last career of con- 
 quest which the world has known, is 
 reading a lesson not soon to be forgot- 
 ten. It is now thoroughly understood 
 that the development of a nation's re- 
 sources in peace is the only road to 
 prosperity ; that even successful war 
 makes a people poor, crushing them 
 with taxes and crippling their progress 
 in industry and useful arts. We have 
 another pacific influence at the present 
 moment, in the increasing intelligence 
 of the middle and poorer classes of 
 society, who, in proportion as they learn 
 their interests and rights, are unwilling 
 to be used as materials of war, to suffer 
 and bleed in serving the passions and 
 glory of a privileged few. Again ; sci- 
 ence, commerce, religion, foreign travel, 
 new facilities of intercourse, new ex- 
 changes of literature, new friendships, 
 new interests, are overcoming the old 
 antipathies of nations, and are silent- 
 ly spreading the sentiment of human 
 brotherhood, and the conviction that 
 the welfare of each is the happiness of 
 all. Once more ; public opinion is con- 
 tinually gaining strength in the civilized 
 and Christian world ; and to this tribu- 
 nal all states must in a measure bow. 
 Here are pacific influences. Here are 
 encouragements to labor in the cause 
 of peace. 
 
 At the present day, one of the chief 
 incitements to war is to be found in 
 false ideas of honor. Military prowess 
 and military success are thought to shed 
 peculiar glory on a people ; and many, 
 who are too wise to be intoxicated with 
 these childish delusions, still imagine 
 that the honor of a nation consists 
 peculiarly in the spirit which repels 
 injury, in sensibility to wrongs, and is 
 therefore peculiarly committed to the 
 keeping of the sword. These opinions 
 I shall now examine, beginning with 
 the glory attached to military achieve- 
 ments. 
 
 That the idea of -glory should be as- 
 sociated strongly with military exploits,' 
 ought not to be wondered at. From the 
 earliest ages,, ambitious sovereigns and 
 states have sought to spread the mili- 
 tary spirit by loading it with rewards. 
 Badges, ornaments, distinctions, the 
 most flattering and intoxicating, have
 
 WAR. 
 
 been the prizes of war. The aristoc- 
 racy of Europe, which commenced in 
 barbarous ages, was founded on military 
 talent and success ; and the chief educa- 
 tion of the young noble was, for a long 
 time, little more than a training for bat- 
 tle, hence the strong connection be- 
 tween war and honor. All past ages have 
 bequeathed us this prejudice, and the 
 structure of society has given it a fear- 
 ful force. Let us consider it with some 
 particularity. 
 
 The idea of honor is associated with 
 war. But to whom does the honor be- 
 long? If to any, certainly not to the 
 mass of the people, but to those who 
 are particularly engaged in it. The 
 mass of a people, who stay at home, 
 and hire others to fight ; who sleep in 
 their warm beds, and hire others to 
 sleep on the cold and damp earth : who 
 sit at their well-spread board, and hire 
 others to take the chance of starving ; 
 who nurse the slightest hurt in their 
 own bodies, and hire others to expose 
 themselves to mortal wounds, and to 
 linger in comfortless hospitals, cer- 
 tainly this mass reap little honor from 
 war ; the honor belongs to those imme- 
 diately engaged in it. Let me ask, then, 
 what is the chief business of war ? It 
 is to destroy human life ; to mangle the 
 limbs ; to gash and hew the body ; to 
 plunge the sword into the heart of a 
 fellow-creature ; to strew the earth with 
 bleeding frames, and to trample them 
 under foot with horses' hoofs. It is to 
 batter down and burn cities ; to turn 
 fruitful fields into deserts ; to level the 
 cottage of the peasant and the magni- 
 ficent abode of opulence ; to scourge 
 nations with famine ; to multiply wid- 
 ows and orphans. Are these honorable 
 deeds ? Were you called to name ex- 
 ploits worthy of demons, would you not 
 naturally select such as these ? Grant 
 that a necessity for them may exist ; it 
 is a dreadful necessity, such as a good 
 man must recoil from with instinctive 
 horror ; and though it may exempt them 
 from guilt, it cannot turn them into 
 
 flory. We have thought that it was 
 onorable to heal, to save, to mitigate 
 pain, to snatch the sick and sinking 
 from the jaws of death. We have 
 placed among the revered benefactors 
 of the human race the discoverers of 
 arts which alleviate human sufferings, 
 which prolong, comfort, adorn, and cheer 
 
 human life ; and if these arts be honor- 
 able, where is the glory of multiplying 
 and aggravating tortures and death ? 
 
 It will be replied, that the honorable- 
 ness of war consists not in the business 
 which it performs, but in the motives 
 from which it springs, and in the quali- 
 ties which it indicates. It will be asked, 
 Is it not honorable to serve one's coun- 
 try, and to expose one's life in its cause ? 
 Yes, our country deserves love and ser- 
 vice ; and let her faithful friends, her 
 loyal sons, who, under the guidance of 
 duty and disinterested zeal, have poured 
 out their blood in her cause, live in the 
 hearts of a grateful posterity. But who 
 does not know that this moral heroism 
 is a very different thing from the com- 
 mon military spirit ? Who is so simple 
 as to believe that this all-sacrificing pa- 
 triotism of principle is the motive which 
 fills the ranks of war, and leads men to 
 adopt the profession of arms ? Does 
 this sentiment reign in the common 
 soldier, who enlists because driven from 
 all other modes of support, and hires 
 himself to be shot at for a few cents a 
 day ? Or does it reign in the officer, 
 who, for pay and promotion, from the 
 sense of reputation, or dread of disgrace, 
 meets the foe with a fearless front ? 
 There is, indeed, a vulgar patriotism 
 nourished by war, I mean that which 
 burns to humble other nations, and to 
 purchase for our own the exultation of 
 triumph and superior force. But as for 
 true patriotism, which has its root in 
 benevolence, and which desires the real 
 and enduring happiness of our country, 
 nothing is more adverse to it than war, 
 and no class of men have less of it than 
 those engaged in war. Perhaps in no 
 class is the passion for display and dis- 
 tinction so strong ; and in accordance 
 with this infirmity, they are apt to re- 
 gard as the highest interest of the state, 
 a career of conquests, which makes a 
 show and dazzles the multitude, however 
 desolating or unjust in regard to foreign 
 nations, or however blighting to the 
 prosperity of their own. 
 
 The motives which generally lead to 
 the choice of a military life strip it of 
 all claim to peculiar honor. There are 
 employments which, from their peculiar 
 character, should be undertaken only 
 from high motives. This is peculiarly 
 the case with the profession of arms. 
 Its work is bloodshed, destruction, the
 
 WAR. 
 
 657 
 
 infliction of the most dreaded evils, not 
 only on wrcng-doers, oppressors, usurp- 
 ers, but on the innocent, weak, defence- 
 less. From this task humanity recoils, 
 and nothing should reconcile us to it 
 but the solemn conviction of duty to 
 God, to our country, to mankind. The 
 man who undertakes this work solely or 
 chiefly to earn money or an epaulette, 
 commits, however unconsciously, a great 
 wrong. Let it be conceded that he who 
 engages in military life is bound, as in 
 other professions, to insure from his em- 
 ployers the means of support, and that he 
 may innocently seek the honor which is 
 awarded to faithful and successful ser- 
 vice^ Still, from the peculiar character 
 of the profession, from the solemnity and 
 terribleness of its agency, no man can 
 engage in it innocently or honorably, 
 who does not deplore its necessity, and 
 does not adopt it from generous motives, 
 from the power of moral and public con- 
 siderations. That these are not the mo- 
 tives which now fill armies, is too noto- 
 rious to need proof. How common is it 
 for military men to desire war, as giv- 
 ing rich prizes and as advancing them 
 in their profession. They are willing 
 to slaughter their fellow-creatures for 
 money and distinction ; and is the pro- 
 fession of such men peculiarly glorious ? 
 I am not prepared to deny that human 
 life may sometimes be justly taken ; but 
 it ought to be taken under the solemn 
 conviction of duty and for great public 
 ends. To destroy our fellow-creatures 
 for profit or promotion, is to incur a 
 guilt from which most men would shrink, 
 could it be brought distinctly before 
 their minds. That there may be soldiers 
 of principle, men who abhor the thought 
 of shedding human blood, and who con- 
 sent to the painful office only because it 
 seems to them imposed by their country 
 and the best interests of mankind, is 
 freely granted. Such men spring up, 
 especially in periods of revolution, when 
 the liberties of a nation are at stake. 
 But that this is not the spirit of the mil- 
 itary profession, you know. That men 
 generally enter this profession from self- 
 ish motives, that they hire themselves 
 to kill for personal remuneration, you 
 know. That they are ready to slay a 
 fellow-creature, from inducements not a 
 whit more disinterested than those which 
 lead other men to fell an ox or crush a 
 pernicious insect, you know ; and, of 
 
 consequence, the profession has no pecul- 
 iar title to respect. It is particularly de- 
 graded by the offer of prize-money. The 
 power of this inducement is well under- 
 stood. But is it honorable to kill a fel- 
 low-creature for a share of his spoils ? 
 A nation which offers prize-money is 
 chargeable with the crime of tainting the 
 mind of the soldier. It offers him a 
 demoralizing motive to the .destruction 
 of his fellow-creatures. It saps high 
 principle in the minds of those who are 
 susceptible of generous impulses. It 
 establishes the most inhuman method of 
 getting rich which civilized men can pur- 
 sue. I know that society views this 
 subject differently, and more guilt should 
 be attached to society than to the soldier ; 
 but still the character of the profession 
 remains degraded by the motives which 
 most commonly actuate its members ; 
 and war, as now carried on, is certainly 
 among the last vocations to be called 
 honorable. 
 
 Let not these remarks be miscon- 
 strued. I mean not to deny to military 
 men equal virtue with other classes o 
 society. All classes are alike culpable 
 in regard to war, and the burden presses 
 too heavily on all to allow any to take 
 up reproaches against others. Society 
 has not only established and exalted the 
 military profession, but studiously allures 
 men into it by bribes of vanity, cupidity, 
 and ambition. They who adopt it have 
 on their side the suffrage of past ages, 
 the sanction of opinion and law, and the 
 applauding voice of nations ; so that 
 justice commands us to acquit them of 
 peculiar deviations from duty, or of fall- 
 ing below society in moral worth or pri- 
 vate virtue. 
 
 Much of the glare thrown over the 
 military profession is to be ascribed to 
 the false estimate of courage which pre- 
 vails through the Christian world. Men 
 are dazzled by this quality. On no point 
 is popular opinion more perverted and 
 more hostile to Christianity, and to this 
 point I would therefore solicit particular 
 attention. The truth is, that the delu- 
 sion on this subject has come down to 
 us from remote ages, and has been from, 
 the beginning a chief element of the Eu- 
 ropean character. Our northern ances- 
 tors, who overwhelmed the Roman em- 
 pire, were fanatical to the last degree in 
 respect to military courage. They made 
 it the first of virtues. One of the chief 
 
 42
 
 658 
 
 WAR. 
 
 articles of their creed was, that a man 
 dying on the field of battle was trans- 
 ported at once to the hall of their god 
 Odin, a terrible paradise, where he was 
 to quaff for ever delicious draughts from 
 the skulls of his enemies. So rooted 
 was this fanaticism, that it was thought 
 a calamity to die of disease or old age ; 
 and death by violence, even if inflicted 
 by their own hands, was thought more 
 honorable than to expire by the slow, 
 inglorious processes of nature. This 
 spirit, aided by other causes, broke out 
 at length into chivalry, the strangest 
 mixture of good and evil, of mercy and 
 cruelty, of insanity and generous senti- 
 ment, to be found in human history. 
 This whole institution breathed an ex- 
 travagant estimation of courage. To be 
 without fear was the first attribute of a 
 good knight. Danger was thirsted for, 
 when it might innocently be shunned. 
 Life was spot ted with wantonly. Amuse- 
 ments full of peril, exposing even to 
 mortal wounds, were pursued with pas- 
 sionate eagerness. The path to honor 
 lay through rash adventures, the chief 
 merit of which was the scorn of suffer- 
 ing and of death which they expressed. 
 This fanaticism has yielded in a meas- 
 ure to good sense, and still more to the 
 spirit of Christianity. But still it is rife ; 
 and not a few imagine fearless courage 
 to.be the height of glory. 
 
 That courage is of no worth, I have 
 no disposition to affirm. It ought to be 
 prized, sought, cherished. Though not 
 of itself virtuous, it is an important aid 
 to virtue. It gives us the command of 
 our faculties when needed most. It 
 converts the dangers which palsy the 
 weak into springs of energy. Its firm 
 look often awes the injurious, and silences 
 insult. All great enterprises demand it, 
 and without it virtue cannot rise into 
 magnanimity. Whilst it leaves us ex- 
 posed to many vices, it saves us from 
 one class peculiarly ignominious, from 
 the servility, deceit, and base compli- 
 ance which belong to fear. It is accom- 
 panied too. with an animated conscious- 
 ness of power, which is one of the high 
 enjoyments of life. We are bound to 
 cherish it as the safeguard of happiness 
 and rectitude ; and when so cherished it 
 takes rank among the virtues. 
 
 Still, courage, considered in itself, or 
 without reference to its origin and mo- 
 tives, and regarded in its common mani- 
 
 festations, is not virtue, is not moral 
 excellence ; and the disposition to exalt 
 it above the spirit of Christianity is one 
 of the most ruinous delusions which 
 have been transmitted to us from bar- 
 barous times. In most men, courage 
 has its origin in a happy organization of 
 the body. It belongs to the nerves 
 rather than the character. In some, it 
 is an instinct bordering on rashness. 
 In one man, it springs from strong pas- 
 sions obscuring the idea of danger ; in 
 another, from the want of imagination 
 or from the incapacity of bringing future 
 evils near. The courage of the unedu- 
 cated may often be traced to stupidjty ; 
 to the absence of thought and se'nsi- 
 bility. Many are courageous from the 
 dread of the infamy absurdly attached 
 to cowardice. One terror expels another. 
 A bullet is less formidable than a sneer. 
 To show the moral worthlessness of 
 mere courage, of contempt of bodily 
 suffering and pain, one consideration is 
 sufficient; the most abandoned have 
 possessed it in perfection. The villain 
 often hardens into the thorough hero, if 
 courage and heroism be one. The more 
 complete his success in searing con- 
 science and defying Cod, the more 
 dauntless his daring. Long-continued 
 vice and exposure naturally generate 
 contempt of life and a reckless encoun- 
 ter of peril. Courage, considered in 
 itself, or without reference to its causes, 
 is no virtue, and deserves no esteem. 
 It is found in the best and the worst, 
 and is to be judged according to the 
 qualities from which it springs and with 
 which it is conjoined. There is, in 
 truth, a virtuous, glorious courage ; but 
 it happens to be found least in those 
 who are most admired for bravery. It 
 is the courage of principle, which dares 
 to do right in the face of scorn, which 
 puts to hazard reputation, rank, the 
 prospects of advancement, the sympathy 
 of friends, the admiration of the world, 
 rather than violate a conviction of duty. 
 It is the courage of benevolence and 
 piety, which counts not life dear in 
 withstanding error, superstition, vice, 
 oppression, injustice, and the mightiest 
 foes of human improvement and happi- 
 ness. It is moral energy, that force of 
 will in adopting duty over which menace 
 and suffering have no power. It is the 
 courage of a soul which reverences itself 
 too much to be greatly moved about
 
 WAR. 
 
 659 
 
 what befalls the body ; which thirsts so 
 intensely for a pure inward life, that it 
 can yield up the animal life without 
 fear ; in which the idea of moral, spir- 
 itual, celestial good has been unfolded 
 so brightly as to obscure all worldly 
 interests ; which aspires after immor- 
 tality, and therefore heeds little the pains 
 or pleasures of a day ; which has so con- 
 centred its whole power and life in the 
 love of godlike virtue, that it even finds 
 a joy in the perils and sufferings by 
 which its loyalty to God and virtue may 
 be approved. This courage may be 
 called the perfection of humanity, for it 
 is the exercise, result, and expression 
 of the highest attributes of our nature. 
 Need I tell you that this courage has 
 hardly any thing in common with what 
 generally bears the name, and has been 
 lauded by the crowd to the skies ? Can 
 any man, not wholly blinded to moral 
 distinctions, compare or confound with 
 this divine energy the bravery derived 
 from constitution, nourished by ambi- 
 tion, and blazing out in resentment, 
 which forms the glory of military men 
 and of men of the world ? The cour- 
 age of military and ordinary life, instead 
 of resting on high and unchangeable 
 principles, finds its chief motive in the 
 opinions of the world, and its chief re- 
 ward in vulgar praise. Superior to 
 bodily pain, it crouches before censure, 
 and dares not face the scorn which 
 faithfulness to God and unpopular duty 
 must often incur. It wears the appear- 
 ance of energy, because it conquers one 
 strong passion, fear ; but the other pas- 
 sions it leaves unmastered, and thus dif- 
 fers essentially from moral strength or 
 greatness, which consists in subjecting 
 all appetites and desires to a pure and 
 high standard of rectitude. Brilliant 
 courage, as it is called, so far from being 
 a principle of universal self-control, is 
 often joined with degrading pleasures, 
 with a lawless spirit, with general licen- 
 tiousness of manners, with a hardihood 
 which defies God as well as man, and 
 which, not satisfied with scorning death, 
 contemns the judgment that is to follow. 
 So wanting in moral worth is the bra- 
 very which has so long been praised, 
 sung, courted, adored. It is time that 
 it should be understood. It is time that 
 the old, barbarous, indiscriminate wor- 
 ship of mere courage should give place 
 to a wise moral judgment. This fanati- 
 
 cism has done much to rob Christianity 
 of its due honor. Men who give their 
 sympathies and homage to the fiery and 
 destructive valor of the soldier, will see 
 little attraction in the mild and peaceful 
 spirit of Jesus. His unconquerable for- 
 bearance, the most genuine and touch- 
 ing expression of his divine philanthropy, 
 may even seem to them a weakness. 
 We read of those who, surrounding the 
 cross, derided the meek sufferer. They 
 did it in their ignorance. More guilty, 
 more insensible are those who, living 
 under the light of Christianity, and 
 yielding it their assent, do not see in 
 that cross a glory \\hich pours contempt 
 on the warrior. Will this delusion 
 never cease ? Will men never learn to 
 reverence disinterested love ? Shall the 
 desolations and woes of ages bear their 
 testimony in vain against the false glory 
 which has so long dazzled the world? 
 Shall Christ, shall moral perfection, 
 shall the spirit of heaven, shall God 
 manifest in his Son, be for ever insulted 
 by the worship paid to the spirit of sav- 
 age hordes ? Shall the cross ostenta- 
 tiously worn on the breast never come 
 to the heart, a touching emblem and 
 teacher of all-suffering love ? I do not 
 ask these questions in despair. Whilst 
 we lament the limited triumphs of Chris- 
 tianity over false notions of honor, we 
 see and ought to recognize its progress. 
 War is not now the only or chief path 
 to glory. The greatest names are not 
 now written in blood. The purest fame 
 is the meed of genius, philosophy, phi- 
 lanthropy, and piety, devoting them- 
 selves to the best interests of humanity. 
 The passion for military glory is no 
 longer, as once, able of itself to precipi- 
 tate nations into war. In all this let us 
 rejoice. 
 
 In the preceding remarks I aimed to 
 show that the glory awarded to military 
 prowess and success is unfounded, to 
 show the deceitfulness of the glare which 
 seduces many into the admiration of war. 
 I proceed to another topic, which is nec- 
 essary to give us a full understanding 
 of the pernicious influence exerted by 
 the idea of honor in exciting nations to 
 hostility. There are many persons who 
 have little admiration of warlike achieve- 
 ments, and are generally inclined to 
 peace, but who still imagine that the 
 honor of a nation consists peculiarly in 
 quickness to feel and repel injury, and
 
 66o 
 
 WAR. 
 
 who, consequently, when their country 
 has been wronged, are too prone to 
 rush into war. Perhaps its interests 
 have been slightly touched. Perhaps 
 its well-being imperiously demands con- 
 tinued peace. Still its honor is said to 
 call for reparation, and no sacrifice is 
 thought too costly to satisfy the claim. 
 That national honor should be dear, and 
 guarded with jealous care, no man will 
 deny ; but in proportion as we exalt it, 
 we should be anxious to know precisely 
 what it means, lest we set up for our 
 worship a false, unjust, merciless deity, 
 and instead of glory shall reap shame. 
 I ask, then, in what does the honor of 
 a nation consist ? What are its chief 
 elements or constituents ? The com- 
 mon views of it are narrow and low. 
 Every people should study it ; and in 
 proportion as we understand it, we shall 
 learn that it has no tendency to precipi- 
 tate nations into war. What, I ask 
 again, is this national honor from which 
 no sacrifice must be withheld ? 
 
 The first element of a nation's honor 
 is undoubtedly justice. A people, to 
 deserve respect, must lay down the 
 maxim, as the foundation of its inter- 
 course with other communities, that 
 justice a strict regard to the rights of 
 other states shall take rank of its in- 
 terests. A nation without reverence for 
 right can never plead in defence of a 
 war, that this is needed to maintain its 
 honor, for it has no honor to maintain. 
 It bears a brand of infamy, which oceans 
 of human blood cannot wash away. With 
 these views, we cannot be too much 
 shocked by the language of a chief 
 magistrate recently addressed to a legis- 
 lative body in this country. 
 
 " No community of men," he says, 
 " in any age or nation, under any dis- 
 pensation, political or religious, has been 
 governed by justice in its negotiations 
 or conflicts with o\her states. It is not 
 justice and magnanimity, but interest 
 and ambition, dignified under the name 
 of state policy, that has governed, 
 and ever will govern, masses of men 
 acting as political communities. Indi- 
 viduals may be actuated by a sense of 
 justice ; but what citizen in any country 
 would venture to contend for justice to 
 a foreign and rival community, in oppo- 
 sition to the prevailing policy of his 
 state, without forfeiting the character of 
 a patriot ? " 
 
 Now, if this be true of our country, 
 and to our own country it was applied, 
 then, I say, we have no honor to fight 
 for. A people systematically sacrificing 
 justice to its interests, is essentially a 
 band of robbers, and receives but the 
 just punishment of its profligacy in the 
 assaults of other nations. But it is not 
 true that nations are so dead to moral 
 principles. The voice of justice is not 
 always drowned by the importunities of 
 interest ; nor ought we, as citizens, to 
 acquiesce in an injurious act on the part 
 of our rulers towards other states, as if 
 it were a matter of course, a necessary 
 working of human selfishness. It ought 
 to be reprobated as indignantly as the 
 wrongs of private men. A people strict- 
 ly just has an honor independent of 
 opinion, and to which opinion must pay 
 homage. Its glory is purer and more 
 enduring than that of a thousand victo- 
 ries. Let not him who prefers for his 
 country the renown of military spirit 
 and success to that of justice, talk of 
 his zeal for its honor. He does not 
 know the meaning of the word. He 
 belongs to a barbarous age, and desires 
 for his country no higher praise than 
 has been gained by many a savage 
 horde. 
 
 The next great element of a nation's 
 honor is a spirit of philanthropy. A 
 people ought to regard itself as a mem- 
 ber of the human family, and as bound 
 to bear part in the work of human im- 
 provement and happiness. The obliga- 
 tion of benevolence, belonging to men 
 as individuals, belongs to them in their 
 associated capacities. We have, indeed, 
 no right to form an association, of what- 
 ever kind, which severs us from the 
 human race. I care not though men of 
 loose principles scoff at the idea of a 
 nation respecting the claims of humanity. 
 Duty is eternal, and too high for human 
 mockery ; and this duty in particular, 
 so far from being a dream, has been 
 reduced to practice. Our own country, 
 in framing its first treaties, proposed to 
 insert an article prohibiting privateering; 
 and this it did in the spirit of humanity, 
 to diminish the crimes and miseries of 
 war. England, from philanthropy, abol- 
 ished the slave-trade and slavery. No 
 nation stands alone : and each is bound 
 to consecrate its influence to the pro- 
 motion of equitable, pacific, and benefi- 
 cent relations among all countries, and
 
 WAR. 
 
 66 1 
 
 to the diffusion of more liberal principles 
 of intercourse and national law. This 
 country is intrusted by God with a mis- 
 sion for humanity. Its office is to com- 
 mend to all nations free institutions, as 
 the sources of public prosperity and 
 personal dignity ; and I trust we desire 
 to earn the thanks and honor of nations 
 by fidelity to our trust. A people reck- 
 less of the interest of the world, and 
 profligately selfish in its policy, incurs 
 far deeper disgrace than by submission 
 to wrongs ; and whenever it is precipi- 
 tated into war by its cupidity, its very 
 victories become monuments of its guilt, 
 and deserve the execration of present 
 and coming times. 
 
 I now come to another essential ele- 
 ment of a nation's honor ; and that is, 
 the existence of institutions which tend 
 and are designed to elevate all classes 
 of its citizens. As it is the improved 
 character of a people which alone gives 
 it an honorable place in the world, its 
 dignity is to be measured chiefly by the 
 extent and efficiency of its provisions 
 and establishments for national im- 
 provement, for spreading education 
 far and wide ; for purifying morals and 
 refining manners : for enlightening the 
 ignorant and succoring the miserable ; 
 for building up intellectual and moral 
 power, and breathing the spirit of true 
 religion. The degree of aid given to 
 the individual in every condition, for 
 unfolding his best powers, determines 
 the rank of a nation. Mere wealth adds 
 nothing to a people's glory ; it is the 
 nation's soul which constitutes its great- 
 ness. Nor is it enough for a country 
 to possess a select class of educated, 
 cultivated men ; for the nation consists 
 of the many, not the few ; and where 
 the mass are sunk in ignorance and 
 sensuality, there you see a degraded 
 community, even though an aristocracy 
 of science be lodged in its bosom. It 
 is the moral and intellectual progress 
 of the people to which the patriot should 
 devote himself as the only dignity and 
 safeguard of the state. How needed 
 this truth ! In all ages, nations have 
 imagined that they were glorifying 
 themselves by triumphing over foreign 
 foes, whilst at home they have been 
 denied every ennobling institution ; have 
 been trodden under foot by tyranny, 
 defrauded of the most sacred rights 
 of humanity, enslaved by superstition, 
 
 buried in ignorance, and cut off from 
 all the means of rising to the dignity 
 of men. They have thought that they 
 were exalting themselves, in fighting 
 for the very despots who ground them 
 in the dust. Such has been the com- 
 mon notion of national honor ; nor is 
 it yet effaced. How many among our- 
 selves are unable to stifle their zeal for 
 our honor as a people, who never spent 
 a thought on the institutions and im- 
 provements which ennoble a community, 
 and whose character and examples de- 
 grade and taint their country, as far as 
 their influence extends ? 
 
 I have now given you the chief ele- 
 ments of national honor : and a people 
 cherishing these can hardly be compelled 
 to resort to war. I shall be told, how- 
 ever, that an enlightened and just peo- 
 ple, though less exposed to hostilities, 
 may still be wronged, insulted, and en- 
 dangered ; and I shall be asked, if in 
 such a case its honor do not require it 
 to repel injury, if submission be not 
 disgrace ? I answer, that a nation which 
 submits to wrong from timidity, or a 
 sordid love of ease or gain, forfeits its 
 claim to respect. A faint-hearted, self- 
 indulgent people, cowering under men- 
 ace, shrinking from peril, and willing 
 to buy repose by tribute or servile con- 
 cession, deserves the chains which it 
 cannot escape. But to bear much and 
 long from a principle of humanity, from 
 reverence for the law of love, is noble ; 
 and nothing but moral blindness and 
 degradation induce men to see higher 
 glory in impatience of injury and quick- 
 ness to resent. 
 
 Still I may be asked, whether a peo- 
 ple, however forbearing, may not some- 
 times owe it to its own dignity and safety 
 to engage in war ? I answer, Yes. 
 When the spirit of justice, humanity, 
 and forbearance, instead of spreading 
 peace, provokes fresh outrage, this out- 
 rage must be met and repressed by 
 force. I know that many sincere Chris- 
 tians oppose to this doctrine the precept 
 of Christ, " Resist not evil." But Chris- 
 tianity is wronged, and its truth exposed 
 to strong objections, when these and the 
 like precepts are literally construed. 
 The whole legislation of Christ is in- 
 tended to teach us the spirit from which 
 we should act, not to lay down rules 
 for outward conduct. The precept, 
 " Resist not evil," if practised to the
 
 662 
 
 WAR. 
 
 letter, would 'annihilate all government 
 in the family and the state ; for it is the 
 great work of government to resist evil 
 passions and evil deeds. It is, indeed, 
 our duty as Christians to love our worst 
 enemy, and to desire his true good ; but 
 we are to love not only our enemy, but 
 our families, friends, and country, and 
 to take a wise care of our own rights 
 and happiness ; and when we abandon 
 to the violence of a wrong-doer these 
 fellow-beings and these rights com- 
 mended by God to our love and care, 
 we are plainly wanting in that expand- 
 ed benevolence which Christianity de- 
 mands. A nation, then, may owe it 
 to its welfare and dignity to engage in 
 war ; and its honor demands that it 
 should meet the trial with invincible 
 resolution. It ought, at such a moment, 
 to dismiss all fear, except the fear of its 
 own passions, the fear of the crimes to 
 which the exasperations and sore tempta- 
 tions of public hostilities expose a state. 
 I have admitted that a nation's honor 
 may require its citizens to engage in 
 war ; but it requires them to engage 
 in it wisely, with a full consciousness 
 of rectitude and with unfeigned sorrow. 
 On no other conditions does war com- 
 port with national- dignity ; and these 
 deserve a moment's attention. A peo- 
 ple must engage in war wisely : for 
 rashness is dishonorable, especially in 
 so solemn and tremendous a concern. 
 A nation must propose a wise end in 
 war ; and this remark is the more im- 
 portant, because the end or object which, 
 according to common speech, a people 
 is bound by its honor to propose, is gen- 
 erally disowned by wisdom. How com- 
 mon it is to hear that the honor of a 
 nation requires it to seek redress of 
 grievances, reparation of injuries. 
 Now, as a general rule, war does not 
 and cannot repair injuries. Instead of 
 securing compensation for past evils, it 
 almost always multiplies them. As a 
 general rule, a nation loses incompara- 
 bly more by war than it has previously 
 lost by the wrong-doer. Suppose, for 
 example, a people to have been spoiled 
 by another state of "five millions of 
 dollars." To recover this by war, it 
 must expend fifty or a hundred millions 
 more, and will, almost certainly, come 
 forth from the contest burdened with 
 debt. Nor is this all. It loses more 
 than wealth. It loses many lives. Now, 
 
 life and property are not to be balanced 
 against each other. If a nation, by slay- 
 ing a single innocent man, could possess 
 itself of the wealth of worlds, it would 
 have no right to destroy him for that 
 cause alone. A human being cannot be 
 valued by silver and gold ; and, of con- 
 sequence, a nation can never be author- 
 ized to sacrifice or expose thousands 
 of lives, for the mere recovery of prop- 
 erty of which it has been spoiled. To 
 secure compensation for the past is very 
 seldom a sufficient object for war. The 
 true end is, security for the future. An 
 injury inflicted by one nation on another 
 may manifest a lawless, hostile spirit, 
 from which, if unresisted, future and 
 increasing outrages are to be feared, 
 which would embolden other commu- 
 nities in wrong-doing, and against which 
 neither property, nor life, nor liberty 
 would be secure. To protect a state 
 from this spirit of violence and unprin- 
 cipled aggression, is the duty of rulers ; 
 and protection may be found only in 
 war. Here is the legitimate occasion 
 and th true end of an appeal to arms. 
 Let me ask you to apply this rule of 
 wisdom to a case, the bearings of which 
 will be easily seen. Suppose, then, an 
 injury to have been inflicted on us by a 
 foreign nation a quarter of a century 
 ago. Suppose it to have been inflicted 
 by a government which has fallen through 
 its lawlessness, and which can never be 
 restored. Suppose this injury to have 
 been followed, during this long period, 
 by not one hostile act, and not one sign 
 of a hostile spirit. Suppose a disposi- 
 tion to repair it to be expressed by the 
 head of the new government of the in- 
 jurious nation ; and suppose, further, 
 that our long endurance has not exposed 
 us to a single insult from any other 
 power since the general pacification of 
 Europe. Under these circumstances, 
 can it be pretended, with any show of 
 reason, that threatened wrong, or that 
 future security, requires us to bring upon 
 ourselves and the other nation the hor- 
 rors and miseries of war ? Does not 
 wisdom join with humanity in repro- 
 bating such a conflict ? 
 
 I have said that the honor of a nation 
 requires it to engage in a war for a wise 
 end. I add, as a more important rule, 
 that its dignity demands of it to engage 
 in no conflict without a full conscious- 
 ness of rectitude. It must not appeal
 
 WAR. 
 
 663 
 
 to arms for doubtful rights. It must not 
 think it enough to establish a probable 
 claim. The true principle for a nation, 
 as for an individual, is, that it will suffer 
 rather than do wrong. It should prefer 
 being injured to the hazard of doing 
 injury. To secure to itself this full 
 consciousness of rectitude, a nation 
 should always desire to refer its dis- 
 putes to an impartial umpire. It cannot 
 too much distrust its own judgment in 
 its own cause. That same selfish parti- 
 ality which blinds the individual to the 
 claims of a rival or foe, and which has 
 compelled society to substitute public 
 and disinterested tribunals for private 
 war, disqualifies nations, more or less, 
 to determine their own rights, and should 
 lead them to seek a more dispassionate 
 decision. The great idea which should 
 rise to the mind of a country on medi- 
 tating war is rectitude. In declaring 
 war, it should listen only to the voice 
 of duty. To resolve on the destruction 
 of our fellow-creatures without a com- 
 mand from conscience a commission 
 from God is to bring on a people a 
 load of infamy and crime. A nation, in 
 declaring war, should be lifted above its 
 passions by the tearfulness and solem- 
 nity of the act. It should appeal with 
 unfeigned confidence to heaven and 
 earth for its uprightness of purpose. It 
 should go forth as the champion of 
 truth and justice, as the minister of 
 God, to vindicate and sustain that great 
 moral and national law, without which 
 life has no security, and social improve- 
 ments no defence. It should be inspired 
 with invincible courage, not by its pas- 
 sions, but by the dignity and holiness of 
 its cause. Nothing, in the whole com- 
 pass of legislation is so solemn as a 
 declaration of war. By nothing do a 
 people incur such tremendous respon- 
 sibility. Unless justly waged, war in- 
 volves a people in the guilt of murder. 
 The state which, without the command 
 of justice and God, sends out fleets and 
 armies to slaughter fellow-creatures, 
 must answer for the blood it sheds, as 
 truly as the assassin for the death of his 
 victim. Oh, how loudly does the voice 
 of blood cry to heaven from the field of 
 battle ! Undoubtedly, the men whose 
 names have come down to us with the 
 loudest shouts of ages stand now be- 
 fore the tribunal of eternal justice con- 
 demned as murderers ; and the victories 
 
 | which have been thought to encircle a 
 nation with glory have fixed the same 
 brand on multitudes in the sight of the 
 final and Almighty Judge. How essen- 
 tial is it to a nation's honor that it should 
 engage in war with a full conviction of 
 rectitude ! 
 
 But there is one more condition of an 
 honorable, war. A nation should engage 
 in it with unfeigned sorrow. It should 
 beseech the throne of grace with earnest 
 supplication, that the dreadful office of 
 destroying fellow-beings may not be im- 
 posed on it. War concentrates all the 
 varieties of human misery, and a nation 
 which can inflict these without sorrow, 
 contracts deeper infamy than from cow- 
 ardice. It is essentially barbarous ; and 
 will be looked back upon by more en- 
 lightened and Christian ages with the 
 horror with which we recall the atrocities 
 of savage tribes. Let it be remembered 
 that the calamities of war, its slaughter, 
 famine, and desolation, instead of being 
 confined to its criminal authors, fall 
 chiefly on multitudes who have had no 
 share in provoking and no voice in pro- 
 claiming it ; and let not a nation talk of 
 its honor which has no sympathy with 
 these woes, which is steeled to the most 
 terrible sufferings of humanity. 
 
 I have now spoken, my friends, of the 
 sentiments with which war should be 
 regarded. Is it so regarded ? When, 
 recently, the suggestion of war was 
 thrown out to this people, what recep- 
 tion did it meet ? Was it viewed at 
 once in the light in which a Christian 
 nation should immediately and most 
 earnestly consider it ? Was it received 
 as a proposition to slaughter thousands 
 of our fellow-creatures ? Did we feel 
 as if threatened with a calamity more 
 fearful than earthquakes, famine, or pes- 
 tilence ? The blight which might fall on 
 our prosperity drew attention ; but the 
 thought of devoting, as a people, our 
 power and resources to the destruction 
 of mankind, of those whom a common 
 nature, whom reason, conscience, and 
 Christianity command us to love and 
 save, did this thrill us with horror? 
 Did the solemn inquiry break forth 
 through our land, is the dreadful ne- 
 cessity indeed laid upon us to send 
 abroad death and woe ? No. There 
 was little manifestation of the sensi- 
 bility with which men and Christians 
 should look such an evil in the face.
 
 664 
 
 WAR. 
 
 As a people, we are still seared and 
 blinded to the crimes and miseries of 
 war. The principles of honor, to which 
 the barbarism and infatuation of dark 
 ages gave birth, prevail among us. The 
 generous, merciful spirit of our religion 
 is little understood. The law of love 
 preached from the cross and written in 
 the blood of the Saviour is trampled on 
 by public men. The true dignity of 
 man, which consists in breathing and 
 cherishing God's spirit of justice and 
 philanthropy towards every human being, 
 is counted folly in comparison with that 
 spirit of vindictiveness and self-aggran- 
 dizement which turns our earth into an 
 image of the abodes of the damned. 
 How long will the friends of humanity, 
 of religion, of Christ, silently, passively, 
 
 uncomplainingly, suffer the men of K;te 
 world, the ambitious, vindictive, and self- 
 ish, to array them against their brethren 
 in conflicts which they condemn and 
 abhor ? Shall not truth, humanity, and 
 the mild and holy spirit of Christianity, 
 find a voice to rebuke and awe the 
 wickedness which precipitates nations 
 into war, and to startle and awaken 
 nations to their fearful responsibility 
 in taking arms against the children of 
 their Father in heaven ? Prince of 
 Peace ! Saviour of men ! speak in thine 
 own voice of love, power, and fearful 
 warning ; and redeem the world for 
 which thou hast died from lawless and 
 cruel passions, from the spirit of rapine 
 and murder, from the powers of dark- 
 ness and hell ! 
 
 LECTURE ON WAR. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS lecture was delivered in the be- 
 ginning of the last year (1838). It was 
 prepared with a distinct knowledge of 
 the little interest taken in the subject by 
 the people at large, and was prepared 
 on that very account. It is now pub- 
 lished, in consequence of fresh proofs 
 of the insensibility of the mass of this 
 community to the crimes and miseries 
 of war. For a few weeks this calamity 
 has been brought distinctly before us ; 
 we have been driven by one of the 
 States into a hostile position towards a 
 great European power ; and the manner 
 in which the subject has been treated 
 in and out of Congress is a sad proof 
 of the very general want of Christian 
 and philanthropic views of the subject, 
 as well as of strange blindness to our 
 national and individual well-being. One 
 would think that the suggestion of a 
 war with England would call forth one 
 strong, general burst of opposing feel- 
 ings. Can a more calamitous event, 
 with the exception of civil war, be imag- 
 ined ? What other nation can do us equal 
 harm ? With what other nation do we 
 hold equally profitable connections ? To 
 what other are we bound by such strong 
 
 and generous ties ? We are of one 
 blood. We speak one language. We 
 have a common religion. We have the 
 noble bond of free institutions ; and to 
 these two countries, above all others, is 
 the cause of freedom on earth intrusted 
 by Providence. A war with England 
 would, to a great extent, sweep our ships 
 from the seas, cut off our intercourse 
 with the world, shut up our great sta- 
 ples, palsy the spirit of internal improve- 
 ment, and smite with languor, if not 
 death, our boldest enterprises. It would 
 turn to the destruction of our fellow- 
 creatures vast resources, which are now 
 working out for us unparalleled pros- 
 perity. It would load us with taxes 
 and public debts, and breed internal 
 discontents with which a free govern- 
 ment contends at fearful odds in the 
 midst of war. Instead of covering the 
 ocean with the sails of a beneficent 
 commerce, we should scour it with pri- 
 vateers, that is, as legalized pirates. 
 Our great cities would be threatened 
 with invasion ; and the din of industry 
 in the streets of this metropolis would 
 be stilled. And all this would come 
 upon us at a moment when the country 
 is pressing forward to wealth, greatness, 
 and every kind of improvement, with
 
 WAR. 
 
 665 
 
 an impulse, a free joyous activity, which 
 has no parallel in the history of the 
 world. And these immense sacrifices 
 are to be made for a tract of wild land, 
 perhaps not worth the money which it 
 has cost us within a few weeks past, 
 if we take into account the expenses of 
 Maine, and the losses which the whole 
 country has suffered by interruption of 
 trade. 
 
 But this is not all. We are not to 
 suffer alone. We should inflict in such 
 a war deep wounds on England, not 
 only on her armed bands, on her rich 
 merchants, on her wide-spread interests, 
 but on vast numbers of her poor pop- 
 ulation, who owe subsistence to the 
 employment furnished by the friendly 
 intercourse of the two countries. Thou- 
 sands and ten thousands of her labor- 
 ers would be reduced to want and misery. 
 Nor would it be any mitigation of these 
 evils to a man of humanity that we 
 were at war with the government of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 And this is not all. A war between 
 these countries would be felt through 
 the whole civilized world. The present 
 bears no resemblance to those half-bar- 
 barous ages, when nations stood apart, 
 frowning on one another in surly inde- 
 pendence. Commerce is binding all 
 nations together ; and of this golden 
 chain England and America are the 
 chief links. The relations between these 
 countries cannot become hostile without 
 deranging, more or less, the intercourse 
 of all other communities, and bringing 
 evils on the whole Christian world. 
 
 Nor is this all. War can hardly spring 
 up between two great countries without 
 extending beyond them. This fire natu- 
 rally spreads. The peace of nations is 
 preserved by a kind of miracle. The 
 addition of a new 1 cause of conflict is al- 
 ways to be dreaded ; but never more than 
 at this moment, when communities are 
 slowly adjusting themselves to a new 
 order of things. All nations may be 
 drawn into the conflict which we may 
 thoughtlessly begin ; and if so, we shall 
 have to answer for wide and prolonged 
 slaughters, from which we should recoil 
 with horror, could they be brought 
 plainly before our eyes. 
 
 And these evils would be brought on 
 the world at a moment of singular in- 
 terest and promise to society ; after an 
 unparalleled duration of peace ; when 
 
 a higher civilization seems to be dawn- 
 ing on Christendom ; when nations are 
 everywhere waking up to develop their 
 own resources : when the conquests of 
 industry, art, and science are taking the 
 place of those of war ; when new facili- 
 ties of intercourse are bringing coun- 
 tries from their old unsocial distance 
 into neighborhood ; and when the great- 
 est of all social revolutions is going on, 
 that is, the elevation of the middling 
 and laboring classes, of the multitude of 
 the human race. To throw the fire- 
 brand of war among the nations at this 
 period would be treason against human- 
 ity and civilization, as foul as was ever 
 perpetrated. The nation which does 
 this must answer to God and to society 
 for every criminal resistance to the prog- 
 ress of the race. Every year, every 
 day of peace is a gain to mankind, for 
 it adds some strength to the cords which 
 are drawing the nations together. And 
 yet, in the face of all these motives to 
 peace, we have made light of the pres- 
 ent danger. How few of us seem to 
 have felt the infinite interests which a 
 war would put in jeopardy ? Many- 
 have talked of national honor, as duel- 
 lists talk of their reputation ; a few have 
 used language worthy of a mob making 
 a ring to see a fight. Hardly anywhere 
 has a tone worthy of the solemnity of 
 the subject been uttered. National 
 honor ! This has been on our lips : as 
 if the true honor of a nation did not con- 
 sist in earnest, patient efforts for peace, 
 not only for its own sake, but for the sake 
 of humanity; as if this great country, 
 after a long history which has borne wit- 
 ness to its prowess, needed to rush to 
 battle to prove itself no coward ! Are we 
 still in the infancy of civilization ? Has 
 Christianity no power over us ? Can a 
 people never learn the magnanimity of 
 sacrifices to peace and humanity ? I 
 am, indeed, aware that the vast majority 
 of the community would shrink from 
 this war, were it to come nearer. But 
 had we feelings and principles worthy of 
 men and Christians, should we wait for 
 the evil to stand at our door, before 
 waking up to the use of every means 
 for averting it ? 
 
 A great addition to the painfulness of 
 our situation is found in the manner in 
 which we have been forced into it. One 
 State out of the twenty-six has by its 
 rashness exposed us to the greatest
 
 660 
 
 WAR. 
 
 calamities. M aine, by sending an armed 
 force, without warning, into the disputed 
 territory, necessarily awakened in the 
 neighboring British Province an alarm, 
 which would have been wholly pre- 
 vented by friendly consultation with its 
 Governor ; and, in the next place, this 
 State, by declining or neglecting to 
 acquiesce in the arrangement of the 
 national executive with the British min- 
 ister, virtually took our foreign relations 
 into her own hands, and assumed a 
 power more dangerous to the peace of 
 the country than any other which can 
 be imagined. We have heard of the 
 " rights " of a State to nullify the laws of 
 Congress, and to secede from the Union. 
 But to some of us these are less formi- 
 dable than the "right" of each State to 
 involve us in a foreign war. The as- 
 sumption of such a power is a flagrant 
 violation of the fundamental principle, 
 and a rejection of one of the chief bene- 
 fits of the confederacy. Better surren- 
 der to an enemy many disputed terri- 
 tories, than cede this right to a State. 
 Ill-starred indeed must be this Union, 
 if any one of its members may commit 
 all the rest to hostilities. The general 
 government has at this moment a sol- 
 emn duty to discharge, one requiring 
 the calm, invincible firmness of Wash- 
 ington, or the iron will of the late Presi- 
 dent of the United States. It must 
 not, by a suicidal weakness, surrender 
 the management of our foreign rela- 
 tions to a single State. 
 
 And here I am bound to express my 
 gratitude to the present Chief Magis- 
 trate of the Union for his temperate and 
 wise efforts for the preservation of peace. 
 He will feel, I trust, that there is a truer 
 glory in saving a country from war than 
 in winning a hundred battles. Much 
 also is due to the beneficent influence of 
 General Scott. To this distinguished 
 man belongs the rare honor of uniting 
 with military energy and daring the spirit 
 of a philanthropist. His exploits in the 
 field, which placed him in the first rank of 
 our soldiers, have been obscured by the 
 purer and more lasting glory of a pacifi- 
 cator, and of a friend of mankind. In 
 the whole history of the intercourse of 
 civilized with barbarous or half-civil- 
 ized communities, we doubt whether a 
 brighter page can be found than that 
 which records his agency in the removal 
 of the Cherokees. As far as the wrongs 
 
 done to this race can be atoned for, 
 General Scott has made the expiation. 
 In his recent mission to the disturbed 
 borders of our country, he has succeeded, 
 not so much by policy, as by the noble- 
 ness and generosity of his character, by 
 moral influences, by the earnest convic- 
 tion with which he has enforced on all 
 with whom he had to do the obligations 
 of patriotism, justice, humanity, and re- 
 ligion. It would not be easy to find 
 among us a man who has won a purer 
 fame ; and I am happy to offer this trib- 
 ute, because I would do something, no 
 matter how little, to hasten the time 
 when the spirit of Christian humanity 
 shall be accounted an essential attribute 
 and the brightest ornament in a public 
 man. 
 
 I close this preface with a topic which 
 ought not to be set aside as an unmean- 
 ing commonplace. We have Christians 
 among us not a few. Have they been 
 true to themselves and their religion in 
 the present agitation of the question of 
 war ? Have they spoken with strength 
 and decision ? Have they said, We will 
 take no part in a rash, passionate, un- 
 necessary war ? Or have they sat still, 
 and left the country to parties and pol- 
 iticians ? Will they always consent to 
 be the passive tools of the ambitious or 
 designing ? Is the time never to come, 
 when they will plant themselves on their 
 religion, and resolve not to stir an inch, 
 in obedience to the policy or legislation 
 of the men of this world ? On this topic 
 I have enlarged in the following dis- 
 course, and I respectfully ask for it the 
 impartial attention of Christians. 
 
 LECTURE. 
 
 In commencing this lecture on War, 
 my thoughts are irresistibly drawn to 
 that exemplary servant of God, the late 
 NOAH WORCESTER, through whose la- 
 bors, more than through any other cause, 
 the attention of the community has been 
 awakened to the guilt and misery of 
 war. I feel my own obligation to him 
 in this particular. In truth, it was not 
 easy to know him and to escape wholly 
 the influence of his character. So im- 
 bued was he with the spirit of peace, 
 that it spread itself around him like the 
 fragrance of sweet flowers. Even those 
 within his sphere, who listened at first
 
 WAR. 
 
 667 
 
 with distrust or with a feeling approach- 
 ing opposition, were not seldom over- 
 come by the singular union in his con- 
 versation of gentleness, earnestness, and 
 serene wisdom. He did not live in vain. 
 One of my motives for taking part in 
 this course of lectures is my respect for 
 this venerated man. Another and a 
 stronger motive is the fact that, notwith- 
 standing the favorable impression made 
 by his efforts, there is yet comparatively 
 little interest in the subject of peace. It 
 is a reason for setting forth great truths, 
 that sceptics deride them, and the multi- 
 tude pass them by with unconcern. Dr. 
 Worcester was not roused by the shouts 
 of a crowd to lift up his voice in behalf 
 of peace. He did not postpone his tes- 
 timony to " a more convenient season." 
 He was as " one crying in the wilder- 
 ness." He began his ministry amidst 
 the triumphs of the spirit of war. He 
 took counsel not of men, but of the 
 divine oracle in his own breast. The 
 truth, which was burning as a fire within 
 him, he could not but give forth. He 
 had faith in it. He had faith in God, 
 its inspirer. So ought we to trust. So 
 ought we to bear a more fervent witness 
 to truth, on the very ground that it is 
 unpopular, neglected, despised. 
 
 In the following lecture, I shall aim to 
 set forth the chief evil of war, to set 
 fofth its great remedy, and then to 
 point out some of the causes of the 
 faint impression made by its woes and 
 crimes. 
 
 Before entering on these topics, I 
 would offer one or two remarks. In 
 speaking, as I propose to do, of the evils 
 of war, I have no thought of denying 
 that war has sometimes clone good. 
 There is no unmixed evil in the uni- 
 verse. Providence brings good from 
 every thing, from fearful sufferings, 
 from atrocious crimes. But sufferings 
 and crimes are not therefore to be set 
 down among our blessings. Murder 
 sometimes cuts short the life and tri- 
 umphs of a monster of guilt. Robbery 
 may throw into circulation the useless 
 hoards of a miser. Despotism may sub- 
 due an all-wasting anarchy. But we do 
 not, therefore, canonize despotism, rob- 
 bery, and murder. In fierce ages, when 
 common life is made up of violence and 
 borders on bloodshed, when piracy is an 
 honorable trade, and a stranger is a foe, 
 war, by accumulating force in the hands 
 
 of an able chieftain, may gather many 
 petty tribes under one iron will, and 
 thus a state may be founded, and its 
 rude organization may prove a germ of 
 social order. In later times, war may 
 carry into less civilized regions the in- 
 fluences, knowledge, arts, and religion 
 of more cultivated nations. Above all, 
 war may call forth, in those whom it 
 assails, an indignant patriotism, a fervent 
 public spirit, a generous daring, and 
 heroic sacrifices, which testify to the 
 inborn greatness of human nature ; just 
 as great vices, by the horror with which 
 they thrill us, and by the reaction they 
 awaken, often give strength to the moral 
 sentiments of a community. These, 
 however, are the incidental influences of 
 war. Its necessary fruits are crime and 
 woe. To enthrone force above right is 
 its essential character ; and order, free- 
 dom, civilization, are its natural prey. 
 Besides, the benefits of war, such as 
 they are, belong to unrefined ages, when 
 the passions, if not expended in public 
 conflicts, would break out in worse forms 
 of rapine and lust, and when one nation 
 can act on another only by violence. 
 Society, in its present stage, stands in 
 need of war no more than of the ordeal, 
 the rack, the inquisition, the baronial 
 license of the middle ages. All these 
 monuments and ministers of barbarism 
 should be buried in one grave. 
 
 I. I now proceed to consider, first, as 
 I proposed, the chief evil of war. The 
 chief evil of war ! What is it ? What 
 induces us to place war at the head of 
 human calamities. In replying to these 
 questions, I shall not direct you to the 
 physical sufferings of war, however 
 great or terrible. Death in its most 
 agonizing forms ; the overthrow of 
 proud cities ; the devastation of fruitful 
 fields ; the impoverishing of nations ; 
 famine ; pestilence ; these form the 
 train of victorious war. But these are 
 not the distinguishing evils of war. 
 These are inflictions of other causes 
 much more than of war. Other causes 
 are wasting human life and joy more 
 than battles. Millions, indeed, die by 
 the sword , but these millions are as 
 nothing compared with the countless 
 multitudes who die by slow and painful 
 disease. Cities are overthrown by 
 earthquakes as well as by armies, and 
 more frequently swept by accidental 
 conflagrations than by the flames of war.
 
 668 
 
 WAR. 
 
 Hostile bands ravage the fields ; but 
 how much oftener do whirlwinds, storms, 
 hurricanes rush over land and sea, pros- 
 trating harvests, and destroying the 
 labors of years on a scale so vast as to 
 reduce human devastations to a narrow 
 extent ! The truth is, that man is sur- 
 rounded with mighty powers of nature 
 which he cannot comprehend or with- 
 stand ; and, amidst their beneficent 
 operations, all of them inflict much suf- 
 fering. What distinguishes war is, not 
 that man is slain, but that he is slain, 
 spoiled, crushed by the cruelty, the in- 
 justice, the treachery, the murderous 
 hand of man. The evil is moral evil. 
 War is the concentration of all human 
 crimes. Here is its distinguishing, ac- 
 cursed brand. Under its standard 
 gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, 
 perfidy, rapacity, and lust. If it only 
 slew men, it would do little. It turns 
 man into a beast of prey. Here is the 
 evil of war, that man, made to be the 
 brother, becomes the deadly foe of his 
 kind ; that man, whose duty it is to 
 mitigate suffering, makes the infliction 
 of suffering his study and end ; that 
 man, whose office it is to avert and heal 
 the wounds which come from nature's 
 powers, makes researches into nature's 
 laws, and arms himself with her most 
 awful forces, that he may become the 
 destroyer of his race. Nor is this all. 
 There is also found in war a cold- 
 hearted indifference to human miseries 
 and wrongs, perhaps more shocking 
 than the bad passions it calls forth. To 
 my mind, this contempt of human nature 
 is singularly offensive. To hate, ex- 
 presses something like respect. But in 
 war, man treats his brother as nothing 
 worth ; sweeps away human multitudes 
 as insects ; tramples them down as 
 grass ; mocks at their rights ; and does 
 not deign a thought to their woes. 
 
 These remarks show us the great evil 
 of war. It is moral evil. The field of 
 battle is a theatre, got up at immense 
 cost, for the exhibition of crime on a 
 grand scale. There the hell within the 
 human breast blazes out fiercely and 
 without disguise. A more fearful hell 
 in any region of the universe cannot 
 well be conceived. There the fiends 
 hold their revels and spread their fury. 
 
 To many, the physical evils of war 
 are more striking than moral. The out- 
 ward impresses multitudes more than 
 
 the inward. It is because they cannot 
 look inward, because they are too earth- 
 ly and sensual to see and comprehend 
 the deformity of a selfish, unjust, malig- 
 nant soul. The outward evils of life are 
 emblems of the inward, and are light 
 when severed from these. The saddest 
 view of war is, that it is the breaking 
 out of the human heart, revealing there 
 what is more awful than the miseries 
 which it inflicts. The death-groan is 
 fearful ; but how much more appalling 
 the spirit of murder which extorts it ! 
 
 Suppose two multitudes of men, each 
 composed of thousands, meeting from 
 different countries, but meeting not to 
 destroy but to consult and labor for the 
 good of the race ; and suppose them, in 
 the midst of their deliberations, to be 
 smitten suddenly by some mysterious 
 visitation of God. and their labors to be 
 terminated by immediate death. We 
 should be awe-struck by this strange, 
 sudden, wide-spread ruin. But reflec- 
 tion would teach us that this simultane- 
 ous extinction of life in so many of our 
 race was but an anticipation or peculiar 
 fulfilment of the sentence passed on all 
 mankind ; and a tender reverence would 
 spring up as we should think of so many 
 generous men coming together from so 
 many different regions, in the spirit of 
 human brotherhood, to be wrapped in 
 one pall, to sleep in one grave. We 
 should erect a monument on the solemn 
 spot ; but chiefly to commemorate the 
 holy purpose which had gathered them 
 from their scattered abodes ; and we 
 should write on it, "To the memory of 
 a glorious company, suddenly taken 
 from God's ministry on earth to enter 
 again (a blessed brotherhood) on a 
 higher ministry in heaven." Here you 
 have death sweeping away hosts in a 
 moment. But how different from death 
 in a field of battle, where man meets man 
 as a foe, where the countenance flashes 
 rage and the arm is nerved for slaughter, 
 where brother hews clown brother, and 
 where thousands are sent unprepared, 
 in the moment of crime, to give their 
 account ! . When nature's laws, fulfilling 
 the mysterious will of God, inflict death 
 on the good, we bow, we adore, we give 
 thanks. How different is death from 
 the murderous hand of man ! 
 
 Allow me to make another supposition, 
 which may bring out still more strongly 
 the truth on which I now insist, that the
 
 WAR. 
 
 669 
 
 great evil of war is inward, moral ; that 
 its physical woes, terrible as they may 
 be, are light by the side of this. Sup- 
 pose, then, that in travelling through a 
 solitary region, you should catch the 
 glimpse of a distant dwelling. You ap- 
 proach it eagerly in the hope of hearing 
 a welcome after your weary journey. As 
 you draw nigh, an ominous stillness 
 damps your hope ; and on entering, you 
 see the inmates of the house, a numerous 
 family, stretched out motionless and with- 
 out life. A wasting pestilence has, in one 
 day, made their dwelling a common 
 tomb. At first you are thrilled with 
 horror by the sight ; but as you survey 
 the silent forms, you see on all their 
 countenances, amidst traces of suffering, 
 an expression of benignity. You see 
 some of the dead lying side by side, with 
 hands mutually entwined, showing that 
 the last action of life was a grasp of 
 affection ; whilst some lie locked in one 
 another's arms. The mother's cold lips 
 are still pressed to the cheek of the 
 child, and the child's arms still wind 
 round the neck of the mother. In the 
 forms of others, you see no ambiguous 
 proof that the spirit took its flight in 
 the act of prayer. As you look on these 
 signs of love and faith, stronger than 
 the last agony, what a new feeling steals 
 over you ! Your horror subsides. Your 
 eyes are suffused with tears, not of an- 
 guish, but of sympathy, affection, tender 
 reverence. You feel the spot to be con- 
 secrated. Death becomes lovely, like 
 the sleep of infancy. You say, Blessed 
 family, death hath not divided you ! 
 
 With soothed and respectful sorrow, 
 you leave this resting-place of the good, 
 and another dwelling, dimly descried in 
 the horizon, invites your steps. As you 
 approach it the same stillness is an au- 
 gury of a like desolation, and you enter 
 it, expecting to see another family laid 
 low by the same mysterious disease. 
 But you open the door, and the spectacle 
 freezes your blood, and chains your 
 steps to the threshold. On every face 
 you see the distortion of rage. Every 
 man's hand grasps a deadly weapon ; 
 every breast is gored with wounds. 
 Here lies one, rived asunder by a sword. 
 There two are locked together, but in 
 the death-grapple of hatred, not the 
 embrace of love. Here lies woman, 
 trampled on and polluted, and there 
 the child, weltering in his own blood. 
 
 You recoil with horror, as soon as the 
 sickness of the heart will suffer you to 
 move. The deadly steam of the apart- 
 ment oppresses, overpowers you, as if it 
 were the suffocating air of hell. You 
 are terror-struck, as if through the open- 
 ing earth you had sunk into the abode 
 of fiends ; and when the time for reflec- 
 tion comes, and you recall the blessed 
 habitation you had just before left, what 
 a conviction rushes' on you, that nothing 
 deserves the name of woe but that which 
 crime inflicts ! You feel that there is a 
 sweetness, loveliness, sacredness in suf- 
 fering and death, when these are per- 
 vaded by holy affections ; and that in- 
 finite wretchedness and despair gather 
 over these, when springing from unholy 
 passion, when bearing the brand of 
 crime. 
 
 In these remarks, I do not mean to 
 deny that the physical sufferings of war 
 are great, and should incite us to labor 
 for its abolition. But sufferings, sepa- 
 rate from crime, coming not through 
 man's wickedness, but from the laws of 
 nature, are not unmixed evils. They 
 have a ministry of love. God has or- 
 dained them, that they should bind men 
 to one another, that they should touch 
 and soften the human heart, that they 
 should call forth mutual aid, solace, 
 gratitude, and self-forgetting love. Sor- 
 row is the chief cement of souls. Death, 
 coming in the order of nature, gathers 
 round the sufferer sympathizing, anxious 
 friends, who watch day and night, with 
 suffused eyes and heart-breathed prayer, 
 to avert or mitigate the last agonies. It 
 calls up tender recollections, inspires 
 solemn thought, rebukes human pride, 
 obscures the world's glories, and speaks 
 of immortality. From the still death- 
 bed, what softening, subduing, chasten- 
 ing, exalting influences proceed ! But 
 death in war, death from the hand of 
 man, sears the heart and conscience, 
 kills human sympathies, and scatters 
 the thought of judgment to come. Man 
 dying in battle, unsolaced, unpitied, and 
 a victim to hatred, rapacity, and insatiable 
 ambition, leaves behind him wrongs to 
 be revenged. His blood does not speak 
 peace or speak of heaven ; but sends 
 forth a maddening cry, and exasperates 
 survivors to new struggles. 
 
 Thus war adds to suffering the unut- 
 terable weight of crime, and defeats the 
 holy and blessed ministry which all suf-
 
 6/o 
 
 WAR. 
 
 fering is intended to fulfil. When I look 
 back on the ages of conflict through 
 which the race has passed, what most 
 moves me is not the awful amount of 
 suffering which war has inflicted. This 
 may be "borne. The terrible thought is, 
 that this has been the work of crime ; 
 that men, whose great law is love, have 
 been one another's butchers ; that God's 
 children have stained his beautiful earth, 
 made beautiful for their home, with one 
 another's blood ; that the shriek, which 
 comes to us from all regions and ages, 
 has been extorted by human cruelty ; 
 that man has been a demon, and has 
 turned earth into hell. All else may be 
 borne. It is this which makes history 
 so horrible a record to the benevolent 
 mind. 
 
 II. I have now set before you what I 
 deem the chief evil of war. It is moral 
 evil. And from these views you will 
 easily judge what I regard as the true 
 remedy of war, as the means of remov- 
 ing it, which above all others we should 
 employ. If the most terrible view of 
 war be that it is the triumph and jubilee 
 of selfish and malignant passions, then 
 its true cure is to be sought in the diffu- 
 sion of the principles of universal justice 
 and love, in ,that spirit of Jesus Christ 
 which expels the demons of selfishness 
 and malignity from the heart. Even 
 supposing that war could be abolished 
 by processes which leave the human 
 character unchanged, that it could be 
 terminated by the progress of a civiliza- 
 tion, which, whilst softening manners, 
 would not diminish the selfishness, mer- 
 cenariness, hard-heartedness, fraud, am- 
 bition of men, its worst evils would still 
 remain, and society would reap in some 
 other forms the fruits of its guilt. God 
 has ordained that the wickedness ^vithin 
 us shall always find its expression and 
 punishment in outward evil. War is 
 nothing more than a reflection or image 
 of the soul. It is the fiend within com- 
 ing out. Human history is nothing more 
 than the inward nature manifested in its 
 native acts and issues. Let the soul 
 continue unchanged ; and should war 
 cease, the inward plague would still find 
 its way to the surface. The infernal 
 fire at the centre of our being, though 
 it should not break forth in the wasting 
 volcano, would not slumber, but by other 
 eruptions, more insensible yet not less 
 deadly, would lay waste human happi- 
 
 ness. I do not believe, however, that 
 any remedy but the Christian spirit can 
 avail against war. The wild beast, that 
 has gorged on millions of victims in 
 every age, is not to be tamed by a pol- 
 ished or selfish civilization. Selfishness, 
 however drilled into courtesy, always 
 tends to strife. Man, as long as pos- 
 sessed by it, will sacrifice others to his 
 own interest and glory, and will grow 
 angry and fierce when others stand in 
 his way. 
 
 War will never yield but to the prin- 
 ciples of universal justice and love, and 
 these have no sure root but in the re- 
 ligion of Jesus Christ. Christianity is 
 the true remedy for war, not Christianity 
 in name, not such Christianity as we see, 
 not such as has grown up under arbi- 
 trary governments in church and state, 
 not such as characterizes any Christian 
 sect at the present day, but Christianity 
 as it lived in the soul and came forth in 
 the life of its Founder ; a religion that 
 reveals man as the object of God's in- 
 finite love, and which commends him to 
 the unbounded love of his brethren ; a 
 religion, the essence of which is self- 
 denial, self-sacrifice, in the cause of 
 human nature ; a religion which pro- 
 scribes, as among the worst sins, the 
 passion of man for rule and dominion 
 over his fellow-creatures ; which knows 
 nothing of rich or poor, high or low, 
 bond or free, and casts down all the 
 \\alls of partition which sever men from 
 one another's sympathy and respect. 
 
 Christian love alone can supplant war ; 
 and this love is not a mere emotion, a 
 tenderness awakened by human suffer- 
 ing, but an intelligent, moral, spiritual 
 love, a perception and deep feeling of 
 the sacredness of human nature, a rec- 
 ognition of the inalienable rights, the 
 solemn claims, of every human being. 
 It protests fearlessly against all wrong, 
 no matter how obscure the victim. It 
 desires to lift up each and all, no matter 
 how fallen. It is a sympathy with the 
 spiritual principle dwelling under every 
 human form. This is the love which is 
 to conquer war ; and as yet this has been 
 but little diffused. The Quakers, indeed, 
 have protested against war as unchris- 
 tian, but have done little towards bring- 
 ing into clear light, and sending forth 
 with new power, Ihe spirit to which war 
 is to yield. Cutting themselves off by 
 outward peculiarities from the commu-
 
 WAR. 
 
 671 
 
 nity, secluding themselves from ordinary 
 intercourse through fear of moral infec- 
 tion, living almost as a separate race, 
 they have been little felt in society ; 
 they have done little to awaken that 
 deep religious interest in man as man, 
 that sensibility to his rights, that hatred 
 of all wrong, that thirst for the elevation 
 of every human being, in which Christian 
 love finds its truest manifestation. Every 
 sect has as yet been too imbued with 
 the spirit of sects, and has inherited too 
 largely the exclusiveness of past ages, 
 to understand or spread the true spirit 
 of human brotherhood. The love which 
 Christ breathes, which looks through 
 man's body to the immortal spirit, which 
 sees something divine in the rational and 
 moral powers of the lowest human being, 
 and which challenges for the lowest the 
 sympathy, respect, and fostering aid of 
 his race ; this has been rare, and yet it 
 is only by the gradual diffusion of this 
 that the plague of war can be stayed. 
 This reverence for humanity, could it 
 even prevail through a narrow sphere, 
 could it bind together but a small body 
 of men, would send forth a testimony 
 against war which would break the 
 slumber of the Christian world, and 
 which would strike awe into many a 
 contemner of his race. 
 
 I am aware that others are hoping for 
 the abolition of war by other causes ; 
 and other causes, I am aware, must be 
 brought into action. I only say that, 
 unless joined with the spirit of Christi- 
 anity, they give no assurance of con- 
 tinued repose. This thought I would 
 briefly illustrate. 
 
 The present unusual cessation of arms 
 in the Christian world is to some a prom- 
 ise of a happier era in human affairs. 
 It is, indeed, a cheering fact, and may 
 well surprise us, when we consider how 
 many causes of war have been in action, 
 how many threatening clouds have over- 
 cast the political sky, during the pause 
 of war. But if we examine the causes 
 of this tranquillity, we shall learn not 
 to confide in it too strongly. 
 
 The first cause was the exhaustion in 
 which Europe was left by the bloody 
 conflicts of the French Revolution. The 
 nations, worn out with struggles, wasted 
 by successive invasions, and staggering 
 under an unprecedented load of debt, 
 yearned for repose. The strong man 
 had bled too freely to fight more. For 
 
 years poverty has kept the peace in 
 Europe. One of the fruits of civiliza- 
 tion is the increasing expensiveness of 
 war, so that when the voice of humanity 
 cannot be heard, the hollow sound of an 
 empty treasury is a warning which can- 
 not be slighted. This cause of peace is 
 evidently temporary. Nations, resting 
 from exhaustion, may be expected to 
 renew their pernicious activity when 
 their strength is renewed. 
 
 Another cause of the continuance of 
 peace is undoubtedly the extension of 
 new and profitable relations through the 
 civilized world. Since the pacification 
 of Europe, in 1816, a new impulse has 
 been given to industry. The discoveries 
 of science have been applied with won- 
 derful success to the useful arts. Na- 
 tions have begun in earnest to develop 
 their resources. Labor is discovered 
 to be the grand conqueror, enriching 
 and building up nations more surely 
 than the proudest battles. As a nec- 
 essary result of this new impulse, com- 
 merce has been wonderfully enlarged. 
 Nations send the products of their soil 
 and machinery, where once they sent 
 armies ; and such a web of common 
 interests has been woven, that hostil- 
 ities can spring, up in no corner of the 
 civilized world without deranging in a 
 measure the order and industry of every 
 other state. Undoubtedly we have here 
 a promise of peace ; but let us not be 
 too sanguine. We have just begun this 
 career, and we know not its end. Let 
 wealth grow without a corresponding 
 growth of the temperate, just, and be- 
 nevolent spirit of Christianity, and I 
 see few auguries but of evil. Wealth 
 breeds power, and power always tempts 
 to wrong. Communities, which at once 
 grow rich and licentious breed desperate 
 men, unprincipled adventurers, restless 
 spirits, who unsettle social order at home, 
 who make freedom a cloak and instru- 
 ment of ambition, and find an interest 
 in embroiling their country with foreign 
 foes. Another consequence of growing 
 prosperity is the rapid growth of popu- 
 lation ; and this, in the absence of Chris- 
 tian restraints and Christian principles, 
 tends to pauperism and crime, tends to 
 make men cheap, and to destroy the 
 sacredness of human life ; and commu- 
 nities are tempted to throw off this 
 dangerous load, this excess of numbers, 
 in foreign war. In truth, the vices which
 
 672 
 
 WAR. 
 
 fester in the bosom of a prosperous, 
 licentious, over-peopled state, are hardly 
 less fearful than those of war, and they 
 naturally seek and find their punish- 
 ment in this awful calamity. Let us 
 not speak of industry, commerce, and 
 wealth, as insuring peace. Is commerce 
 never jealous and grasping? Have 
 commercial states no collisions ? Have 
 commercial rights never drawn the sword 
 in self-defence ? Are not such states 
 a tempting prey ? And have they no 
 desire to prey on others ? Does trade 
 cherish nothing analogous to the spirit 
 of war in ordinary pursuits ? Is there 
 no fighting on the exchange ? Is bar- 
 gaining nothing but friendship and 
 peace ? Why, then, expect from trade 
 alone peace among nations ? Nothing, 
 nothing can bind nations together but 
 Christian justice and love. I insist on 
 this the more earnestly, because it is 
 the fashion now to trust for every good 
 to commerce, industry, and the wonder- 
 ful inventions which promise indefinite 
 increase of wealth. But to improve 
 man's outward condition is not to im- 
 prove man himself, and this is the sole 
 ground of hope. With all our ingenuity, 
 we can frame no machinery for manu- 
 facturing wisdom, virtue, peace. Rail- 
 roads and steamboats cannot speed the 
 soul to its perfection. This must come, 
 if it come at all, from each man's action 
 on himself, from putting forth our power 
 on the soul and not over nature, from 
 a sense of inward not outward miseries, 
 from " hunger and thirst after righteous- 
 ness," not after wealth. I should re- 
 joice, like the prophet, " to bring glad 
 tidings, to publish peace." But I do 
 fear that, without some great spiritual 
 revolution, without some new life and 
 love breathed into the church, without 
 some deep social reforms, men will turn 
 against each other their new accumula- 
 tions of power ; that their wealth and 
 boasted inventions will be converted 
 into weapons of destruction ; that the 
 growing prosperity of nations will be- 
 come the nutriment of more wasteful 
 wars, will beeome fuel for more devour- 
 ing fires of ambition or revenge. 
 
 Another cause of the recent long ces- 
 sation of foreign wars has been the 
 dread of internal convulsions, of civil 
 wars. The spirit of revolution has, more 
 or less, penetrated the whole civilized 
 world. The grand idea of human rights 
 
 has found its way even into despotisms. 
 Kings have less confidence in their sub- 
 ! jects and soldiers. They have felt their 
 thrones totter, and have felt that a dis- 
 astrous war would expose them to a 
 force more terrible than that of victori- 
 ous foes, the force of burning discon- 
 tent, exasperated opinion at home. It 
 is understood that the next general war 
 will be a war not of nations but of prin- 
 ciples, that absolutism must measure 
 swords with liberalism, despotism with 
 free constitutions ; and from this terri- 
 ble encounter both parties recoil. We 
 indeed believe that, with or without war, 
 liberal principles and institutions are 
 destined to advance, to make the con- 
 quest of Europe ; and it is thought that 
 these, being recognitions of human 
 rights, will be less prodigal of human 
 blood than absolute power. But can 
 we hope that these, unsanctioned, un- 
 sustained by the Christian spirit, will 
 insure peace ? What teaches our own 
 experience ? Because free, have we no 
 wars ? What, indeed, is the free spirit 
 of which we so much boast ? Is it not 
 much more a jealousy of our own rights 
 than a reverence for the rights of all ? 
 Does it not consist with the inflictions 
 of gross wrongs ? Does it not spoil the 
 Indian ? Does it not enslave the Afri- 
 can ? Is it not anxious to spread bond- 
 age over new regions ? Who can look 
 on this free country, distracted by par- 
 ties, rent by local jealousies, in some 
 districts administering justice by mobs 
 and silencing speech and the press by 
 conflagration and bloodshed, who can 
 see this free country and say that liberal 
 opinions and institutions are of them- 
 selves to banish war ? Nowhere are 
 the just, impartial, disinterested prin- 
 ciples of Christianity so much needed 
 as in a free state. Nowhere are there 
 more elements of strife to be composed, 
 more passions to be curbed, more threat- * 
 ened wrongs to be repressed. Freedom 
 has its perils as well as inestimable 
 blessings. In loosening outward re- 
 straints, it demands that justice and 
 love be enthroned within man's soul. 
 Without Christian principle, freedom 
 may swell the tide of tumult and war. 
 
 One other cause will probably be as- 
 signed by some for the long cessation of 
 hostilities in the civilized world ; and 
 that is, the greater success of statesmen 
 in securing that long-sought good among
 
 WAR. 
 
 673 
 
 nations, the balance of power. Be it so. 
 But how soon mav this balance be dis- 
 turbed ? How does it tremble now ? 
 Europe has long been threatened by the 
 disproportionate growth of Russia. In 
 the north of Europe is silently growing 
 up a power which, many fear, is one day 
 to grasp at universal empire. The south, 
 it is said, is to fulfil its old destiny, that 
 is, to fall a prey to the north. All Eu- 
 rope is interested in setting bounds to 
 this half-civilized despotism. But the 
 great absolute powers, Prussia and Aus- 
 tria, dreading more the progress of lib- 
 eral opinions than of Russian hordes, 
 may rather throw themselves into her 
 scale, and be found fighting with her the 
 battles of legitimacy against free institu- 
 tions. It is true that many wise men 
 dismiss these fears as vain, and believe 
 that the ill-cemented union of the prov- 
 inces, or rather nations, which compose 
 the colossal empire of the north, cannot 
 endure, or at least will admit no steady 
 prosecution of schemes of domination. 
 I presume not to read the future. My 
 single object is to show the uncertainty 
 of all means of abolishing war, unless 
 joined with and governed by the spread- 
 ing spirit of our disinterested faith. No 
 calculations of interest, no schemes of 
 policy can do the work of love, of the 
 spirit of human brotherhood. There can 
 be no peace without, but through peace 
 within. Society must be a"h expression 
 of the souls of its members. Man's 
 character moulds his outward lot. His 
 destiny is woven by the good or evil 
 principles which bear rule in his breast. 
 I indeed attach importance to all the 
 causes of peace which I have now stated. 
 They are far from powerless ; but their 
 power will be spent in vain unless aided 
 by mightier and diviner energy, by the 
 force of moral and religious principles, 
 the strength of disinterested love. 
 
 III. I have now considered the great 
 evil of war, and the great remedy of this 
 scourge of nations, and I proceed, as 
 proposed, to point out some causes of 
 that insensibility to its evils, so com- 
 mon in the world, and so common even 
 among those from whom better things ' 
 might be hoped ; and this I do, not to 
 gratify a love of speculation, but in the 
 belief that this insensibility will be re- 
 sisted and overcome, in proportion as 
 its sources shall be explained. 
 
 Among its chief causes, one undoubt- 
 
 edly is the commonness of war. This 
 hardens us to its evils. Its horrors are 
 too familiar to move us, unless they start 
 up at our own door. How much more 
 would they appall us were they rare ? 
 If the history of the race were, with one 
 solitary exception, a history of peace, 
 concord, brotherly love ; if but one bat- 
 tle had been fought in the long succes- 
 sion of ages ; if from the bosom of pro- 
 found tranquillity two armies on one fatal 
 day had sprung forth and rushed to- 
 gether for mutu.il destruction ; if but one 
 spot on earth had been drenched with 
 human blood, shed by human hands ; 
 how different would be our apprehen- 
 sions of war ! What a fearful interest 
 would gather round that spot ! How 
 would it remain deserted, dreaded, ab- 
 horred ! With what terrible distinct- 
 ness would the leaders of those armies 
 stand out as monsters, not men ! How 
 should we confound them with Moloch, 
 and the fiercest fallen spirits ! Should 
 we not feel as if on that mysterious 
 day the blessed influences of heaven 
 had been intercepted, and a demoniacal 
 frenzy had been let loose on the race ? 
 And has war, in becoming common, lost 
 its horrors ? Is it less terrible because 
 its Molochs crowd every page of history, 
 and its woes and crimes darken all na- 
 tions and all times ? Do base or fero- 
 cious passions less degrade and destroy 
 because their victims are unnumbered ? 
 If, indeed, the evils of war were only 
 physical, and were inevitable, we should 
 do well to. resign ourselves to that kindly 
 power of habit which takes the edge 
 from oft-repeated pains. But moral evils, 
 evils which may and ought to be shunned, 
 which have their spring in human will, 
 which our higher powers are given us to 
 overcome, these it is a crime unresist- 
 ingly to endure. The frequency and 
 strength of these are more urgent reasons 
 for abhorring and withstanding them. 
 Reflection should be summoned to resist 
 the paralyzing power of habit. From 
 principle we should cherish a deeper 
 horror of war, because its " sword de- 
 vours for ever." 
 
 I proceed to a second cause of insensi- 
 bility to the evils of war, and one of 
 immense power. I refer to the common 
 and almost universal belief that the right 
 of war belongs to civil government. Let 
 us be just to human nature. The idea of 
 "right" has always mixed itself with
 
 6/4 
 
 WAR. 
 
 war, and this has kept out of view the 
 real character of most of the conflicts 
 of nations. The sovereign, regarding 
 the right of war as an essential attribute 
 of sovereignty, has on this ground as- 
 cribed a legitimacy to all national hos- 
 tilities, and has never dreamed that in 
 most of his wars he was a murderer. Se 
 the subject has thought himself bound to 
 obey his sovereign, and, on this ground, 
 has acquitted himself of crime, has per- 
 haps imputed to himself merit, in fight- 
 ing and slaughtering for the defence of 
 the most iniquitous claims. Here lies 
 the delusion, which we should be most 
 anxious to remove. It is the legality 
 ascribed to war, on account of its being 
 waged by government, which produces 
 insensibility to its horrors and crimes. 
 When a notorious robber, seized by Alex- 
 ander, asked the conqueror of the world 
 whether he was not a greater robber 
 than himself, the spirit of the hero re- 
 pelled the title with indignation. And 
 why so ? Had he not, without provoca- 
 tion and cause, spoiled cities and realms, 
 whilst the robber had only plundered in- 
 dividuals and single dwellings ? Had 
 he not slaughtered ten thousand innocent 
 fellow-creatures for one victim who had 
 fallen under the robber's knife ? And 
 why, then, did the arch-robber disclaim 
 the name, and seriously believe that he 
 could not justly be confounded with ruf- 
 fians ? Because he was a king, the head 
 of a state, and as such authorized to 
 make war. Here was the shelter for 
 his conscience and his fame. Had the 
 robber, after addressing his question to 
 Alexander, turned to the Macedonian 
 soldier, and said to him, " Are you not, 
 too, a greater robber than I ? Have not 
 your hands been busier in pillage ? Are 
 they not dyed more deeply in innocent 
 blood ? " The unconscious soldier, like 
 his master, would have repelled the 
 title : and why.? " I am a subject," he 
 would have replied, " and bound to obey 
 my sovereign ; and, in fulfilling a duty, 
 I cannot be sunk to the level of the 
 most hated criminal." Thus king and 
 subject take refuge in the right of war 
 which inheres in sovereignty, and thus 
 the most terrible crimes are perpetrated 
 with little reproach. 
 
 I need not tell you that there are 
 Christians who. to strip war of this pre- 
 text or extenuation, deny that this right 
 exists ; who teach that Jesus Christ 
 
 has wrested the sword from the magis- 
 trate as truly as from the private man. 
 On this point I shall %ot now enter. I 
 believe that more good may be done in 
 the present instance by allowing to gov- 
 ernment the right of war. I still main- 
 tain that most wars bring the guilt of 
 murder on the government by whom 
 they are declared, and on the soldier by 
 whom they are carried on, so that our 
 sensibility ought in no degree to be im- 
 paired by the supposed legitimacy of 
 national hostilities. 
 
 I will allow that government has the 
 right of war. But a right has bounds, 
 and when these are transgressed by us, 
 it ceases to exist ; and we are as culpa- 
 ble as if it had never existed. The 
 private citizen, it is generally acknowl- 
 edged, has the right of taking life in 
 self-defence ; but if, under plea of this 
 right, he should take life without cause, 
 he would not stand absolved of murder. 
 In like manner, though government be 
 authorized to make war in self-defence, 
 it still contracts the guilt of murder if 
 it proclaim war from policy, ambition, 
 or revenge. By the Constitution of this 
 country, various rights are conferred on 
 Congress for the public good ; and 
 should they extend these rights beyond 
 the limits prescribed by the national 
 charter, for purposes of cruelty, rapac- 
 ity, and arbitrary power, they would be 
 as treacherous, as criminal, as if they 
 had laid claim to unconceded rights. 
 Now, stricter bounds are set to the 
 right of war than those which the Con- 
 stitution has prescribed to the rulers. 
 A higher authority than man's defines 
 this terrible prerogative. Woe ! woe to 
 him who impatiently, selfishly spurns 
 the restraints of God. and who winks 
 out of sight the crime of sending forth 
 the sword to destroy, because, as a sov- 
 ereign, he has the right of war. 
 
 From its very nature, this right should 
 be exercised above all others anxiously, 
 deliberately, fearfully. It is the right of 
 passing sentence of death on thousands 
 of our fellow-creatures. If any action on 
 earth ought to be performed with trem- 
 bling, with deep prostration before God, 
 with the most solemn inquisition into 
 motives, with the most reverent consul- 
 tation of conscience, it is a declaration 
 of war. This stands alone among acts 
 of legislation. It has no parallel. These 
 few words, " Let war be," have the
 
 WAR. 
 
 675 
 
 power of desolation which belongs to 
 earthquakes and lightnings ; they may 
 stain the remotest seas with blood ; may 
 wake the echoes of another hemisphere 
 with the thunders of artillery ; may 
 carry anguish into a thousand human 
 abodes. No scheme of aggrandizement, 
 no doubtful claims, no uncertain fears, 
 no anxiety to establish a balance of 
 power, will justify this act. It can find 
 no justification but in plain, stern neces- 
 sity, in unquestionable justice, in per- 
 severing wrongs, which all other and 
 long-tried means have failed to avert. 
 Terrible is the responsibility, beyond 
 that of all others, which falls on him 
 who involves nations in war. He has 
 no excuse for rashness, passion, or pri- 
 vate ends. He ought at such a moment 
 to forget, to annihilate himself. The 
 spirit of God and justice should alone 
 speak and act through him. To commit 
 this act rashly, passionately, selfishly, 
 is to bring on himself the damnation of 
 a thousand murders. An act of legisla- 
 tion, commanding fifty thousand men to 
 be assembled on yonder common, there 
 to be shot, stabbed, trampled under 
 horses' feet until their shrieks and 
 agonies should end in death, would 
 thrill us with horror ; and such an act is 
 a declaration of war ; and a government 
 which can perform it, without the most 
 solemn sense of responsibility and the 
 clearest admonitions of duty, deser.ves, 
 in expiation of its crime, to endure the 
 whole amount of torture which it has 
 inflicted on its fellow-creatures. 
 
 I have said a declaration of war stands 
 alone. There is one act which ap- 
 proaches it, and which, indeed, is the 
 very precedent on which it is founded. 
 I refer to the signing of a death- war- 
 want by a chief magistrate. In this 
 case, how anxious is society that the 
 guilty only should suffer ! The offender 
 is first tried by his peers, and allowed 
 the benefit of skilful counsel. The 
 laws are expounded, and the evidence 
 weighed, by learned and upright judges ; 
 and when, after these protections of 
 innocence, the unhappy man is con- 
 victed, he is still allowe'd to appeal for 
 mercy to the highest authority of the 
 State, and to enforce his own cry by 
 solicitations of friends and the people ; 
 and when all means of averting his 
 doom fail, religion, through her minis- 
 ters, enters his cell, to do what yet can 
 
 be done for human nature in its most 
 fallen, miserable state. Society does 
 not cast from its bosom its most un- 
 worthy member without reluctance, with- 
 out grief, without fear of doing wrong, 
 without care for his happiness. But 
 wars, by which thousands of the unof- 
 fending and worthiest perish, are con- 
 tinually proclaimed by rulers, in mad- 
 ness, through ambition, through infernal 
 policy, from motives which should rank 
 them with the captains of pirate-ships 
 or leaders of banditti. 
 
 It is time that the right of war should 
 not shield governments from the infamy 
 due to hostilities to which selfish, wicked 
 passions give birth. Let rulers learn 
 that for this right they are held to a 
 fearful responsibility. Let a war, not 
 founded in plain justice and necessity, 
 never be named but as murder. Let 
 the Christian give articulate voice to the 
 blood that cries from the earth against 
 rulers by whom it has been criminally 
 shed. Let no soft terms be used. On 
 this subject, a new moral sense and a 
 new language are needed throughout 
 the whole civilized and Christian world ; 
 and just in proportion as the truth shall 
 find a tongue, war will cease. 
 
 But the right of war, which is said to 
 belong to sovereignty, not only keeps 
 out of sight the enormous guilt of rulers 
 in almost all national conflicts. It also 
 hides or extenuates the frequent guilt 
 of subjects in taking part in the hostili- 
 ties which their rulers declare. In this 
 way, much of the prevalent insensibility 
 to the evils of war is induced, and per- 
 haps on no point is light more needed. 
 The ferocity and cruelty of armies im- 
 press us little, because we look on them 
 as doing a work of duty. The subject 
 or citizen, as we think, is bound to obey 
 his rulers. In his worst deeds as a 
 soldier he is discharging his obligations 
 to the state ; and thus murder and pil- 
 lage, covered with a cloak of duty, ex- 
 cite no deep, unaffected reprobation and 
 horror. 
 
 I know it will be asked, "And is not 
 the citizen bound to fight at the call of 
 his government ? Does not his com- 
 mission absolve him from the charge of 
 murder or enormous crime ? Is not 
 obedience to the sovereign power the 
 very foundation on which society rests ? " 
 I answer, " Has the duty of obeying 
 government no bounds ? Is the human
 
 6;6 
 
 WAR. 
 
 sovereign a God ? Is his sovereignty 
 absolute ? If he command you to slay a 
 parent, must you obey ? If he forbid you 
 to worship God, must you obey ? Have 
 you no right to judge his acts ? Have you 
 no self-direction ? Is there no unchange- 
 able right which the ruler cannot touch ? 
 Is there no higher standard than human 
 law ? " These questions answer them- 
 selves. A declaration of war cannot 
 sanction wrong, or turn murder into a 
 virtuous deed. Undoubtedly, as a gen- 
 eral rule, the citizen is bound to obey the 
 authorities under which he lives. No 
 difference of opinion as to the mere 
 expediency of measures will warrant 
 opposition. Even in cases of doubtful 
 rigjit he may submit his judgment to the 
 law. But when called to do what his 
 conscience clearly pronounces wrong, 
 he must not waver. No outward law is 
 so sacred as the voice of God in his 
 own breast. He cannot devolve on 
 rulers an act so solemn as the destruc- 
 tion of fellow-beings convicted of no 
 offence. For no act will more solemn 
 inquisition be made at the bar of God. 
 
 I maintain that the citizen, before 
 fighting, is bound to inquire into the 
 justice of the cause which he is called 
 to maintain with blood, and bound to 
 withhold his hand if his conscience con- 
 demn the cause. On this point he is 
 able to judge. No political question, 
 indeed, can be determined so easily as 
 this of war. War can be justified only 
 by plain, palpable necessity ; by unques- 
 tionable wrongs, which, as patient trial 
 has proved, can in no other way be re- 
 dressed ; by the obstinate, persevering 
 invasion of solemn and unquestionable 
 rights. The justice of war is not a mys- 
 tery for cabinets to solve. It is not a 
 state-secret which he must take on trust. 
 It lies within our reach. We are bound 
 to examine it. 
 
 We are especially bound to this ex- 
 amination, because there is always a 
 presumption against the justice of war ; 
 always reason to fear that it is con- 
 demned by impartial conscience and 
 God. This solemn truth has peculiar 
 claims on attention. It takes away the 
 plea that we may innocently fight, be- 
 cause our rulers have decreed war. It 
 strips off the most specious disguise 
 from the horrors and crimes of national 
 hostilities. If hostilities were, as a gen- 
 eral rule, necessary and just, if an un- 
 
 just war were a solitary exception, then 
 the citizen might extenuate his share in 
 the atrocities of military life, by urging 
 his obligation to the state. But if there 
 is always reason to apprehend the exist- 
 ence of wrong on the part of rulers, then 
 he is bound to pause and ponder well 
 his path. Then he advances at his 
 peril, and must answer for the crimes of 
 the unjust, unnecessary wars in which 
 he shares. 
 
 The presumption is always against 
 the justice and necessity of war. This 
 we learn from the spirit of all rulers and 
 nations towards foreign states. It is 
 partial, unjust. Individuals may be dis- 
 interested ; but nations have no feeling 
 of the tie of brotherhood to their race. 
 A base selfishness is the principle on 
 which the affairs of nations are com- 
 monly conducted. A statesman is ex- 
 pected to take advantage of the weak- 
 nesses and wants of other countries. 
 How loose a morality governs the inter- 
 course of states ! What falsehoods and 
 intrigues are licensed diplomacy ! What 
 nation regards another with true friend- 
 ship ? What nation makes sacrifices to 
 another's good ? What nation is as anx- 
 ious to perform its duties as to assert its 
 rights ? What nation chooses to suffer 
 wrong, rather than to inflict it ? What 
 nation lays down the everlasting law of 
 right, casts itself fearlessly on its princi- 
 ples, and chooses to be poor or to perish 
 rather than to do wrong ? Can commu- 
 nities so selfish, so unfriendly, so un- 
 principled, so unjust, be expected to 
 wage righteous wars ? Especially if 
 with this selfishness are joined national 
 prejudices, antipathies, and exasperated 
 passions, what else can be expected in 
 the public policy but inhumanity and 
 crime ? An individual, we know, can- 
 not be trusted in his own cause, to meas- 
 ure his own claims, to avenge his own 
 wrongs ; and the civil magistrate, an 
 impartial umpire, has been substituted as 
 the only means of justice. But nations 
 are even more unfit than individuals to 
 judge in their own cause ; more prone 
 to push their rights to excess, and to 
 trample on the rights of others ; because 
 nations are crowds, and crowds are un- 
 awed by opinion, and more easily in- 
 flamed by sympathy into madness. Is 
 there not, then, always a presumption 
 against the justice of war ? 
 
 This presumption is increased, when
 
 WAR. 
 
 677 
 
 we consider the false notions of patriot- 
 ism and honor which prevail in nations. 
 Men think it a virtuous patriotism to 
 throw a mantle, as they call it, over their 
 country's infirmities, to wink at her er- 
 rors, to assert her most doubtful rights, 
 to look jealously and angrily on the 
 prosperity of rival states ; and they 
 place her honor not in unfaltering ad- 
 herence to the right, but in a fiery spirit, 
 in quick resentment, in martial courage, 
 and especially in victory ; and can a 
 good man hold himself bound and stand 
 prepared to engage in war at the dictate 
 of such a state ? 
 
 The citizen or subject, you say, may 
 innocently fight at the call of his rulers ; 
 and I ask, who are his rulers ? Per- 
 haps an absolute sovereign, looking 
 down on his people as another race, as 
 created to toil for his pleasure, to fight 
 for new provinces, to bleed for his re- 
 nown. There are, indeed, republican 
 governments. But were not the repub- 
 lics of antiquitv as greedy of conquest, 
 as prodigal of human life, as steeled 
 against the cries of humanity, as any 
 despots who ever lived ? And if we 
 come down to modern republics, are 
 they to be trusted with our consciences ? 
 What does the Congress of these United 
 States represent ? Not so much the 
 virtue of the country as a vicious princi- 
 ple, the spirit of party. It acts not so 
 much for the people as for parties ; and 
 are parties upright ? Are parties merci- 
 ful ? Are the wars, to which party com- 
 mits a country, generally just ? 
 
 Unhappily, public men under all gov- 
 ernments are, of all moral guides, the 
 most unsafe, the last for a Christian to 
 follow. Public life is thought to ab- 
 solve men from the strict obligations of 
 truth and justice. To wrong an adverse 
 party or another country, is not repro- 
 bated as are wrongs in private life. 
 Thus duty is dethroned ; thus the maj- 
 esty of virtue insulted in the adminis- 
 tration of nations. Public men are 
 expected to think more of the.ir own 
 elevation than of their country. Is the 
 city of Washington the most virtuous 
 spot in this republic ? Is it the school 
 of incorruptible men ? The hall of Con- 
 gress, disgraced by so many brawls, 
 swayed by local interest and party in- 
 trigues, in which the right of petition is 
 trodden under foot, is this the oracle 
 from which the responses of justice 
 
 come forth ? Public bodies want con- 
 science. Men acting in masses shift off 
 responsibility on one another. Multi- 
 tudes never blush. If these things be 
 true, then I maintain that the Christian 
 has not a right to take part in war 
 blindly, confidingly, at the call of his 
 rulers. To shed the blood of fellow- 
 creatures is too solemn a work to be 
 engaged in lightly. Let him not put 
 himself, a tool, into wicked hands. Let 
 him not meet on the field his brother 
 man, his brother Christian, in a cause 
 on which heaven frowns. Let him bear 
 witness against unholy wars, as his 
 country's greatest crimes. If called to 
 take part in them, let him deliberately 
 refuse. If martial law seize on him, let 
 him submit. If hurried to prison, let 
 him submit. If brought thence to be 
 shot, let him submit. There must be 
 martyrs to peace as truly as to other 
 principles of our religion. The first 
 Christians chose to die rather than 
 obey the laws of the state which com- 
 manded them to renounce their Lord. 
 " Death rather than crime ; " such is 
 the good man's watchword, such the 
 Christian's vow. Let him be faithful 
 unto death. 
 
 Undoubtedly it will be objected, that 
 if one law of the state may in any way 
 be resisted, then all may be, and so gov- 
 ernment must fall. This is precisely the 
 argument on which the doctrine of pas- 
 sive obedience to the worst tyrannies 
 rests. The absolutist says, " If one gov- 
 ernment may be overturned, none can 
 stand. Your right of revolution is noth- 
 ing but the right of anarchy, of universal 
 misrule." The reply is in both instances 
 the same. Extreme cases speak for 
 themselves. We must put confidence 
 in the common-sense of men, and sup- 
 pose them capable of distinguishing be- 
 tween reasonable laws and those which 
 require them to commit manifest crimes. 
 The objection which we are consider- 
 ing rests on the supposition that a dec- 
 laration of war is a common act of leg- 
 islation, bearing no strong marks of 
 distinction from other laws, and conse- 
 quently to be obeyed as implicitly as all. 
 But it is broadly distinguished. A dec- 
 laration of war sends us forth to destroy 
 our fellow-creatures, to carry fire, sword, 
 famine, bereavement, want, and woe into 
 the fields and habitations of our brethren ; 
 whilst Christianity, conscience, and all
 
 WAR. 
 
 the pure affections of our nature, call us 
 to love our brethren, and to die, if need 
 be, for their good. And from whence 
 comes this declaration of war ? From 
 men who would rather die than engage 
 in unjust or unnecessary conflict ? Too 
 probably from men to whom Christianity 
 is a name, whose highest law is honor, 
 who are used to avenge their private 
 wrongs and defend their reputations by 
 shedding blood, and who, in public as in 
 private life, defy the laws of God. Who- 
 ever, at such men's dictation, engages 
 in war without solemnly consulting con- 
 science, and inquiring into the justice 
 of the cause, contracts great guilt, nor 
 can the " right of war," which such men 
 claim as rulers, absolve him from the 
 crimes and woes of the conflict in which 
 he shares. 
 
 I have thus considered the second 
 cause of the prevalent insensibility to 
 war ; namely, the common vague belief 
 that, as the right of war inheres in gov- 
 ernment, therefore murder and pillage 
 in national conflicts change their nature, 
 or are broadly distinguished from the 
 like crimes in common life. This topic 
 has been so extended that I must pass 
 over many which remain, and can take 
 but a glance at one or two which ought 
 not to be wholly overlooked. I observe 
 then, thirdly, that men's sensibility to 
 the evil of war has been very much 
 blunted by the deceptive show, the cos- 
 tume, the splendor in whicn war is ar- 
 rayed. Its horrors are hidden under its 
 dazzling dress. To the multitude, the 
 senses are more convincing reasoners 
 than the conscience. In youth, the 
 period which so often receives impres- 
 sions for life, we cannot detect, in the 
 heart-stirring fife and drum, the true 
 music of war, the shriek of the newly 
 wounded or the faint moan of the dying. 
 Arms glittering in the sunbeam do not 
 remind us of bayonets dripping with 
 blood. To one who reflects, there is 
 something very shocking in these deco- 
 rations of war. If men must fight, let 
 them wear the badges which become 
 their craft. It would shock us to see a 
 hangman dressed out in scarf and epau- 
 lette, and marching with merry music 
 to the place of punishment. The soldier 
 has a sadder work than the hangman. 
 His office is not to despatch occasion- 
 ally a single criminal ; he goes to the 
 slaughter of thousands as free from 
 
 crime as himself. The sword is worn 
 as an ornament ; and yet its use is to 
 pierce the heart of a fellow- creature. 
 As well might the butcher parade before 
 us his knife, or the executioner his axe 
 or halter. Allow war to be necessary, 
 still it is a horrible necessity, a work to 
 fill a good man with anguish of spirit. 
 Shall it be turned into an occasion of 
 pomp and merriment ? To dash ouf 
 men's brains, to stab them to the heart, 
 to cover the body with gashes, to lop 
 off the limbs, to crush men under the 
 hoof of the war-horse, to destroy hus- 
 bands and fathers, to make widows and 
 orphans, all this may be necessary ; but 
 to attire men for this work with fantastic 
 trappings, to surround this fearful occu- 
 pation with all the circumstances of 
 gayety and pomp, seems as barbarous 
 as it would be to deck a gallows, or to 
 make a stage for dancing beneath the 
 scaffold. I conceive that the military 
 dress was not open to as much reproach 
 in former times as now. It was then 
 less dazzling, and acted less on the im- 
 agination, because it formed less an ex- 
 ception to the habits of the times. The 
 dress of Europe, not many centuries 
 ago, was fashioned very much after what 
 may be called the harlequin style. That 
 is, it affected strong colors and strong 
 contrasts. This taste belongs to rude 
 ages, and has passed away very much 
 with the progress of civilization. The 
 military dress alone has escaped the 
 reform. The military man is the only 
 harlequin left us from ancient times. It 
 is time that his dazzling finery were 
 gone, that it no longer corrupted the 
 young, that it no longer threw a perni- 
 cious glare over his terrible vocation. 
 
 I close with assigning what appears 
 to me to be the most powerful cause of 
 the prevalent insensibility to war. It is 
 our blindness to the dignity and claims 
 of human nature. We know not the 
 worth of a man. We know not who the 
 victims are on whom war plants its foot, 
 whom the conqueror leaves to the vulture 
 on the field of battle, or carries captive 
 to grace his triumph. Oh ! did we know 
 what men are, did we see in them the 
 spiritual, immortal children of God, what 
 a voice should we lift against war ! How 
 indignantly, how sorrowfully should we 
 invoke heaven and earth to right our 
 insulted, injured brethren ! 
 
 I close with asking, "Must the sword
 
 DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN, ETC. 
 
 679 
 
 devour for ever ? " Must force, fear, 
 pain, always rule the world ? Is the 
 kingdom of God, the reign of truth, 
 duty, and love never to prevail ? Must 
 the sacred name of brethren be only a 
 name among men? Must the divinity 
 in man's nature never be recognized 
 with veneration ? Is the earth always 
 to steam with human blood shed by 
 man's hands, and to echo with groans 
 wrung from hearts which violence has 
 pierced ? Can you and I, my friends, 
 do nothing, nothing to impress a different 
 character on the future history of our 
 race ? You say we are weak ; and why 
 weak ? It is from inward defect, not 
 from outward necessity. We are ineffi- 
 cient abroad, because faint within, faint 
 in love, and trust, and holy resolution. 
 Inward power always comes forth, and 
 works without. Noah Worcester, enfee- 
 bled in body, was not weak. George 
 Fox, poor and uneducated, was not 
 weak. They had light and life within, 
 and therefore were strong abroad. Their 
 spirits were stirred by Christ's truth and 
 spirit ; and, so moved, they spoke and 
 were heard. We are dead, and there- 
 fore cannot act. Perhaps we speak 
 against war ; but if we speak from tra- 
 dition, if we echo what we hear, if peace 
 
 be a cant on our lips, our words are un- 
 meaning air. Our own souls must bleed 
 when our brethren are slaughtered. We 
 must feel the infinite wrong done to 
 man by the brute force which treads 
 him in the dust. We must see in the 
 authors of unjust, selfish, ambitious, 
 revengeful wars, monsters in human 
 form, incarnations of the dread enemy 
 of the human race. Under the inspira- 
 tion of such feelings, we shall speak, 
 even the humblest of us, with something 
 of prophetic force. This is the power 
 which is to strike awe into the coun- 
 sellors and perpetrators of now licensed 
 murder ; which is to wither the laurelled 
 brow of now worshipped heroes. Deep 
 moral convictions, unfeigned reverence 
 and fervent love for man, and living 
 faith in Christ, are mightier than armies ; 
 mighty through God to the pulling down 
 of the strongholds of oppression and 
 war. Go forth, then, friends of man- 
 kind, peaceful soldiers of Christ ! and 
 in your various relations, at home and 
 abroad, in private life, and, if it may be, 
 in more public spheres, give faithful 
 utterance to the principles of universal 
 justice and love, give utterance to your 
 deep, solemn, irreconcilable hatred of 
 the spirit of war. 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN IN TIMES OF TRIAL 
 OR DANGER. 
 
 Extracts from Sermons preached on Days of 
 Humiliation and Prayer, appointed in con- 
 sequence of the Declaration of War against 
 Great Britain. 
 
 IN all circumstances, at all times, war 
 is to be deprecated. The evil passions 
 which it excites, its ravages, its bloody 
 conflicts, the distress and terror which 
 it carries into domestic life, the tears 
 which it draws from the widow and 
 fatherless, all render war a tremendous 
 scourge. 
 
 There are, indeed, conditions in which 
 war is justifiable, is necessary. It may 
 be the last and only method of repelling 
 lawless ambition, and of defending in- 
 vaded liberty and essential rights. It 
 may be the method which God's provi- 
 
 dence points out by furnishing the means 
 of success. In these cases we must not 
 shrink from war ; though even in these 
 we should deeply lament the necessity 
 of shedding human blood. In such wars 
 our country claims and deserves our 
 prayers, our cheerful services, the sacri- 
 fice of wealth, and even of life. In 
 such wars we have one consolation, 
 when our friends fall on the field of 
 battle ; we know that they have fallen 
 in a just cause. Such conflicts, which 
 our hearts and consciences approve, 
 are suited to call forth generous senti- 
 ments, to breathe patriotism and forti- 
 tude through a community. Could I 
 view the war in which we are engaged 
 in this light, with what different feelings,
 
 68o 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 
 
 my friends, should I address you ! We 
 might then look up to God and commit 
 to him our country with a holy confi- 
 dence. But, in our present state, what 
 can I say to you ? 1 would, but I can- 
 not, address you in the language of en- 
 couragement. We are precipitated into 
 a war which, I think, cannot be justified, 
 and a war which promises not a benefit, 
 that I can discover, to this country or to 
 the world. 
 
 A solemn question now offers itself. 
 What conduct belongs to a good citizen 
 in our present trying condition ? To 
 this subject I call your serious attention. 
 
 Our condition induces me to begin 
 with urging on you the important duty 
 of cherishing respect for civil govern- 
 ment, and a spirit of obedience to the 
 laws. I am sensible that many whom I 
 address consider themselves as called 
 to oppose the measures of our present 
 rulers. Let this opposition breathe noth- 
 ing of insubordination, impatience of au- 
 thority, or love of change. It becomes 
 you to remember that government is a 
 divine institution, essential to the im- 
 provement of our nature, the spring of 
 industry and enterprise, the shield of 
 property and life, the refuge of the weak 
 and oppressed. It is to the security 
 which laws afford that we owe the suc- 
 cessful application of human powers. 
 Government, though often perverted by 
 ambition and other selfish passions, still 
 holds a distinguished rank among those 
 influences by which man has been res- 
 cued from barbarism, and conducted 
 through the ruder stages of society to 
 the habits of order, the diversified em- 
 ployments and dependencies, the refined 
 ana softened manners, the intellectual, 
 moral, and religious improvements of 
 the age in which we live. We are bound 
 to respect government, as the great se- 
 curity for social happiness ; and we 
 should carefully cherish that habit of 
 obedience to the laws without which 
 the ends of government cannot be ac- 
 complished. All wanton opposition to 
 the constituted authorities ; all censures 
 of rulers, originating in a factious, as- 
 piring, or envious spirit, all unwilling- 
 ness to submit to laws which are directed 
 to the welfare of the community, should 
 be rebuked and repressed by the frown 
 of public indignation. 
 
 It is impossible that all the regulations 
 of the wisest government should equally 
 
 benefit every individual ; and sometimes 
 the general good will demand arrange- 
 ments which will interfere with the in- 
 terests of particular members or classes 
 of the nation. In such circumstances, 
 the individual is bound to regard the 
 inconveniences under which he suffers 
 as inseparable from a social, connected 
 state, as the result of the condition 
 which God has appointed, and not as 
 the fault of his rulers ; and he should 
 cheerfully submit, recollecting how much 
 more he receives from the community 
 than he is called to resign to it. Disaf- 
 fection towards a government which is 
 administered with a view to the general 
 welfare is a great crime ; and such op- 
 position, even to a bad government, as 
 springs from and spreads a restless tem- 
 per, an unwillingness to yield to whole- 
 some and necessary restraint, deserves 
 no better name. In proportion as a peo- 
 ple want a conscientious regard to the 
 laws, and are prepared to evade them 
 by fraud, or to arrest their operation by 
 violence, in that proportion they need 
 and deserve an arbitrary government, 
 strong enough to crush at a blow every 
 symptom of opposition. 
 
 These general remarks on the duty of 
 submission are by no means designed to 
 teach that rulers are never to be opposed. 
 Because I wish to guard you against that 
 turbulent and discontented spirit which 
 precipitates free communities into an 
 anarchy, and thus prepares them for 
 chains, you will not consider me as as- 
 serting that all opposition to govern- 
 ment, whatever be the occasion, or what- 
 ever the form, is to be branded as a 
 crime. The citizen has rights as well 
 as duties. Government is instituted for 
 one and a single end, the benefit of 
 the governed, the protection, peace, and 
 welfare of society : and when it is per- 
 verted to other objects, to purposes of 
 avarice, ambition, or party-spirit, we are 
 authorized and even bound to make such 
 opposition as is suited to restore it to its 
 proper end, to render it as pure as the 
 imperfection of our nature and state will 
 admit. 
 
 The Scriptures have sometimes been 
 thought to enjoin an unqualified, unlim- 
 ited subjection to the " higher powers ;" 
 but in the passages which seem so to 
 teach, it is supposed that these powers 
 are "ministers of God for good," are a 
 terror to evil-doers, and an encourage-
 
 IN TIMES OF TRIAL OR DANGER. 
 
 68 1 
 
 ment to those that do well. When a 
 government wants this character, when 
 it becomes an engine of oppression, the 
 Scriptures enjoin subjection no longer. 
 Expediency may make it our duty to 
 obey, but the government has lost its 
 rights ; it can no longer urge its claims 
 as an ordinance of God. 
 
 There have, indeed, been times when 
 sovereigns have demanded subjection as 
 an inalienable right, and when the su- 
 perstition of subjects has surrounded 
 them with a mysterious sanctity, with 
 a majesty approaching the divine. But 
 these days have past. Under the robe 
 of office, we, my hearers, have learned to 
 see a man like ourselves. There is no 
 such sacredness in rulers as forbids 
 scrutiny into their motives, or Condem- 
 nation of their measures. In leaving 
 the common walks of life, they leave 
 none of their imperfections behind them. 
 Power has even a tendency to corrupt, 
 to feed an irregular ambition, to harden 
 the heart against the claims and suffer- 
 ings of mankind. Rulers are not to be 
 viewed with a malignant jealousy ; but 
 they ought to be inspected with a watch- 
 lul, undazzled eye. Their virtues and 
 services are to be rewarded with gener- 
 ous praise . and their crimes and arts 
 and usurpations should be exposed with 
 a fearless sincerity to the indignation of 
 an injured people. We are not to be 
 factious, and neither are we to be ser- 
 vile. With a sincere disposition to obey, 
 should be united a firm purpose not to 
 be oppressed. 
 
 So far is an existing government from 
 being clothed with an inviolable sanctity, 
 that the citizen, in particular circum- 
 stances, acquires the right, not only of re- 
 monstrating, but of employing force for 
 its destruction. This right accrues to him 
 when a government wantonly disregards 
 the ends of social union ; when it threat- 
 ens the subversion of national liberty 
 and happiness ; and when no relief but 
 force remains to the suffering commu- 
 nity. This, however, is a right which 
 cannot be exercised with too much de- 
 liberation. Subjects should very slowly 
 yield to the conviction that rulers have 
 that settled hostility to their interests 
 which authorizes violence. They must 
 not indulge a spirit of complaint, and 
 suffer their passions to pronounce on 
 their wrongs. They must remember 
 that the best government will partake 
 
 the imperfection of all human institu- 
 tions, and that if the ends of the social 
 compact are in any tolerable degree ac- 
 complished, they will be mad indeed to 
 hazard the blessings they possess for 
 the possibility of greater good. 
 
 t Resistance of established power is so 
 great an evil, civil commotion excites 
 such destructive passions, the result is 
 so tremendously uncertain, that every 
 milder method of relief should first be 
 tried, and fairly tried. The last dread- 
 ful resort is never justifiable until the 
 injured members of the community are 
 brought to despair of other relief, and 
 are so far united in views and purposes 
 as to be authorized in the hope of suc- 
 cess. Civil commotion should be viewed 
 as the worst of national evils, with the 
 single exception of slavery. I know 
 that this country has passed through 
 one civil war without experiencing the 
 calamitous consequences of which I 
 have spoken. But let us not forget 
 that this was a civil war of a very pe- 
 culiar character. The government which 
 we shook off was not seated in the midst 
 of us. Our struggle was that of nation 
 with nation, rather than of fellow-citizens 
 with one another. Our manners and 
 habits tended to give a considerateness 
 and a stability to the public mind which 
 can hardly be expected in a future strug- 
 gle. And, in addition to these favor- 
 able circumstances, we were favored by 
 heaven with a leader of incorruptible 
 integrity, of unstained purity, a patriot 
 who asked no glory but that of deliver- 
 ing his country, who desired to reign 
 only in the hearts of a free and happy 
 people, whose disinterestedness awed 
 and repressed the selfish and ambitious, 
 who inspired universal confidence, and 
 thus was a centre and bond of union to 
 the minds of men in the most divided 
 and distracted periods of our country. 
 The name of WASHINGTON I may pro- 
 nounce with reverence even in the tem- 
 ple of the Almighty ; and it is a name 
 which revives the sinking spirits in this 
 day of our declining glory. From a rev- 
 olution, conducted by such a man, under 
 such circumstances, let no conclusions 
 be hastily drawn on the subject of civil 
 commotion. 
 
 It becomes us to rejoice, my friends, 
 that we live under a constitution, one 
 great design of which is to prevent the 
 necessity of appealing to force, to give
 
 682 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 
 
 the people an opportunity of removing, 
 without violence, those rulers fronh whom 
 they suffer or apprehend an invasion of 
 rights. This is one of the principal ad- 
 vantages of a republic over an absolute 
 government. In a despotism, there is 
 no remedy for oppression but forge. 
 The subject cannot influence public 
 affairs but by convulsing the state. 
 With us, rulers may be changed with- 
 out the horrors of a revolution. A 
 republican government secures to its 
 subjects this immense privilege, by con- 
 firming to them two most important 
 rights, the right of suffrage, and the 
 right of discussing with freedom the 
 conduct of rulers. The value of these 
 rights in affording a peaceful method of 
 redressing public grievances cannot be 
 expressed, and the duty of maintaining 
 them, of never surrendering them, can- 
 not be too strongly urged. Resign 
 either of these, and no way of escape 
 from oppression will be left you but 
 civil commotion. 
 
 From the important place which these 
 rights hold in a republican government, 
 you should consider youselves bound to 
 support every citizen in the lawful ex- 
 ercise of them, especially when an 
 attempt is made to wrest them from 
 any by violent means. At the present 
 time, it is particularly your duty to guard 
 with jealousy the right of expressing with 
 freedom your honest convictions respect- 
 ing the measures of your rulers. With- 
 out this, the right of election is not worth 
 possessing. If public abuses may not be 
 exposed, their authors will never be 
 driven from power. Freedom of opin- 
 ion, of speech, and of the press, is our 
 most valuable privilege, the very soul of 
 republican institutions, the safeguard of 
 all other rights. We may learn its value 
 if we reflect that there is nothing which 
 tyrants so much dread. They anxiously 
 fetter the press ; they scatter spies 
 through society, that the murmurs, an- 
 guish, and indignation of their oppressed 
 subjects may be smothered in their own 
 breasts : that no generous sentiment may 
 be nourished by sympathy and mutual 
 confidence. Nothing awakens and im- 
 proves men so much as free communica- 
 tion of thoughts and feelings. Nothing 
 can give to public sentiment that cor- 
 rectness which is essential to the pros- 
 perity of a commonwealth but the free 
 circulation of truth from the lips and 
 
 pens of the wise and good. If .such men 
 abandon the right of free discussion ; if, 
 awed by threats, they suppress their 
 convictions ; if rulers succeed in silenc- 
 ing every voice but that which approves 
 them ; if nothing reaches the people 
 but what would lend support to men 
 in power, farewell to liberty. The 
 form of a free government may remain, 
 but the life, the soul, the substance is 
 fled. 
 
 If these remarks be just, nothing 
 ought to excite greater indignation and 
 alarm than the attempts which have 
 lately been made to destroy the freedom 
 of the press. We have lived to hear 
 the strange doctrine, that to expose the 
 measures of rulers is treason : and we 
 have lived to see this doctrine carried 
 into practice. We have seen a savage 
 populace excited and let loose on men 
 whose crime consisted in bearing testi- 
 mony against the present war ; and let 
 loose not merely to waste their property, 
 but to tear them from the refuge which 
 the magistrate had afforded, and to shed 
 their blood. In this, and in other events, 
 there have been symptoms of a purpose 
 to terrify into silence those who disap- 
 prove the calamitous war under which 
 we suffer : to deprive us of the only 
 method which is left of obtaining a wiser 
 and better government. The cry has 
 been that war is declared, and all oppo- 
 sition should therefore be hushed. A 
 sentiment more unworthy of a free coun- 
 try can hardly be propagated. If this 
 doctrine be admitted, rulers have only 
 to declare war, and they are screened at 
 once from scrutiny. At the very time 
 when they have armies at command, 
 when their patronage is most extended, 
 and their power most formidable, not a 
 word of warning, of censure, of alarm 
 must be heard. The press, which is to 
 expose inferior abuses, must not utter 
 one reb-ake, one indignant complaint, 
 although our best interests and most 
 valuable rights are put to hazard by an 
 unnecessary war ! Admit this doctrine, 
 let rulers once know that, by placing the 
 country in a state of war, they place 
 themselves beyond the only power they 
 dread, r the power of free discussion, 
 and we may expect war without end. 
 Our peace and all our interests require 
 that a different sentiment should prevail. 
 We should teach our present and all fut- 
 ure rulers that there is no measure for
 
 IN TIMES OF TRIAL OR DANGER. 
 
 683 
 
 which they must render so solemn an 
 account to their constituents as for a 
 declaration of war ; that no measure 
 will be so freely, so fully discussed ; 
 and that no administration can succeed 
 in persuading this people to exhaust 
 their treasure and blood in supporting 
 war, unless it be palpably necessary and 
 just. In war, then, as in peace, assert 
 the freedom of speech and of the press. 
 Cling to this as the bulwark of all your 
 rights and privileges. 
 
 But, my friends, I should not be faith- 
 ful were I only to call you to hold fast 
 this freedom. I would still more ear- 
 nestly exhort you not to abuse it. Its 
 abuse may be as fatal to our country as 
 its relinquishment. If undirected, unre- 
 strained by principle, the press, instead 
 of enlightening, depraves the public 
 mind ; and, by its licentiousness, forges 
 chains for itself and for the community. 
 The right of free discussion is not the 
 right of uttering what we please. Let 
 nothing be spoken or written but truth. 
 The influence of the press is exceedingly 
 diminished by its gross and frequent 
 misrepresentations. Each party listens 
 with distrust to the statements of the 
 other; and the consequence is, that the 
 progress of truth is slow, and sometimes 
 wholly obstructed. Whilst we encour- 
 age the free expression of opinion, let 
 us unite in fixing the brand of infamy 
 on falsehood and slander, wherever they 
 originate, whatever be the cause they 
 are designed to maintain. 
 
 But it is not enough that truth be 
 told. It should be told for a good end ; 
 not to irritate, but to convince ; not to 
 inflame the bad passions, but to sway 
 the judgment and to awaken sentiments 
 of patriotism. Unhappily the press 
 seems now to be chiefly prized as an 
 instrument of exasperation. Those who 
 have embraced error are hardened in 
 their principles by the reproachful epi- 
 thets heaped on them by their adversa- 
 ries. I do not mean by this that political 
 discussion is to be conducted tamely, 
 that no sensibility is to be expressed, no 
 indignation to be poured forth on wicked 
 men and wicked deeds. But this I 
 mean, that we shall deliberately in- 
 quire whether indignation be deserved 
 before we express it ; and the object of 
 expressing it should ever be, not to in- 
 fuse ill-will, rancor, and fury into the 
 minds of men, but to excite an enlight- 
 
 ened and conscientious opposition to 
 injurious measures. 
 
 Every good man must mourn that so 
 much is continually published among us, 
 for no other apparent end than to gratify 
 the malevolence of one party by wound- 
 ing the feelings of the opposite. The 
 consequence is, that an alarming degree 
 of irritation exists in our country. Fel- 
 low-citizens burn with mutual hatred, 
 and some are evidently ripe for outrage 
 and violence. In this feverish state of 
 the public mind, we are not to relinquish 
 free discussion, but every man should 
 feel the duty of speaking and writing 
 with deliberation. It is the time to be 
 firm without passion. No menace should 
 be employed to provoke opponents, no 
 defiance hurled, no language used which 
 will, in any measure, justify the fero- 
 cious in appealing to force. 
 
 The sum of my remarks is this. It is 
 your duty to hold fast and to assert with 
 firmness those truths and principles on 
 which the welfare of your country seems 
 to depend ; but do this with calmness, 
 with a love of peace, without ill-will and 
 revenge. Use every opportunity of 
 allaying animosities. Discourage, in 
 decided and open language, that rancor, 
 malignity, and unfeeling abuse, which so 
 often find their way into our public 
 prints. Remember, that in proportion 
 as a people become enslaved to their 
 passions, they fall into the hands of the 
 aspiring and unprincipled ; and that a 
 corrupt government, which has an in- 
 terest in deceiving the people, can desire 
 nothing more favorable to their purposes 
 than a frenzied state of the public mind. 
 
 My friends, in this day of discord, let 
 us cherish and breathe around us the 
 benevolent spirit of Christianity. Let 
 us reserve to ourselves this consolation, 
 that we have added no fuel to the flames, 
 no violence to the storms, which threaten 
 to desolate our country. Though dis- 
 honored, though endangered, it is still 
 our country. Let us not forsake it in 
 this evil day. Let us hold fast the in- 
 heritance of our civil and religious liber- 
 ties, which we have received from our 
 fathers, sealed and hallowed by their 
 bloo*d. That these blessings may not 
 be lost, let us labor to improve public 
 sentiment, and to exalt men of wisdom 
 and virtue to power. Let it be our labor 
 to establish in ourselves and in our fel- 
 low-citizens the empire of true religion.
 
 684 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 
 
 Let us remember that there is no foun- 
 dation of public liberty but public virtue, 
 that there is no method of obtaining 
 God's protection but adherence to his 
 laws. 
 
 Let us not despair of our country. If 
 all that we wish cannot be done for the 
 state, still something may be done. In 
 the good principles, in the love of order 
 and liberty, by which so many of our 
 citizens are distinguished ; in the tried 
 virtue, deliberate prudence, and un- 
 shaken firmness of the chief magistrate 
 whom God in his great goodness has 
 given to this Commonwealth ; in the 
 value of the blessings which are at 
 stake ; in the peculiar kindness which 
 God has manifested towards our fathers 
 and ourselves, we have motives, encour- 
 agements, and solemn obligations to 
 resolute, persevering exertion in our 
 different spheres, and according to our 
 different capacities, for the public good. 
 Thus faithful to ourselves and our coun- 
 try, and using vigorously every righteous 
 means for restoring peace and confirm- 
 ing freedom, we may confidently leave 
 the issue to the wise and holy providence 
 of Him who cannot err, and who, we are 
 assured, will accept and reward every 
 conscientious effort for his own glory 
 and the good of mankind. 
 
 Extracts from a Sermon delivered September 18, 
 1814, when an Invasion by the British Forces 
 was apprehended at Boston. 
 
 At such a moment as the present, 
 when every mind is fixing a fearful at- 
 tention on the state of the country, it is 
 impossible that a religious instructor 
 should escape participation in the com- 
 mon feeling. His sacred calling does 
 not require him to separate himself from 
 the community, to forget that he is a 
 citizen, to put off the feelings of a man. 
 The religion which he teaches inculcates 
 public spirit and a strong and tender 
 concern for all by whom he is sur- 
 rounded. He would be unworthy his 
 sacred function were he not to love his 
 country, and to sympathize with its 
 prosperous and adverse fortunes. The 
 religion which it is his duty to dispense 
 regards men in all their relations, and 
 affords instructions suited to every con- 
 dition, whether of individuals or com- 
 munities. You will not, then, consider 
 me as leaving the province of a religious 
 
 teacher, if I speak to you of the dangers 
 and claims of our country, if I address 
 you as citizens, and attempt to point 
 out your duties at the present solemn 
 period. 
 
 The present is, indeed, a solemn 
 period. The sad reverse which this 
 country exhibits astonishes as well as 
 depresses us. But a few years ago we 
 stood on the height of prosperity. 
 Amidst the storms which desolated na- 
 tions we were at peace, and the very 
 storms seemed freighted with blessings 
 for our tranquil shores. And is it true 
 that from this height we have sunk so 
 low that our commerce is swept from 
 the ocean, that industry has forsaken 
 our cities, that the husbandman has re- 
 signed the ploughshare for the sword, 
 that our confidence is changed into fear, 
 that the tumult of business has given 
 place to the din of arms, that some of 
 our citizens are perishing in foreign 
 prisons, and others shedding their blood 
 on a foreign soil, that hostile fleets scat- 
 ter terror through our coasts and flames 
 through our cities, that no man feels 
 secure, that the thought of invasion and 
 slaughter mingles with the labors of the 
 day and disturbs the slumbers of the 
 night, and that our national government, 
 impoverished and inefficient, can afford 
 us no protection from such imminent 
 danger ? Yes, this is true ; we need 
 no reasoning to convince us of its truth. 
 We see it in the anxious countenance, 
 in the departing family, in the care 
 which removes our possessions, in the 
 obstructions and perplexities of busi- 
 ness, and in the events which every day 
 brings to our ears. At such a moment 
 it becomes each man to ask himself 
 what are his duties, what the times de- 
 mand from him, in what manner he may 
 contribute to the public safety. It is a 
 time for seriousness, for consideration. 
 With prosperity, we should dismiss our 
 levity. The period of duty may to many 
 of us be short. Whilst it continues, let 
 it be improved. 
 
 i. The first remark I shall make is, 
 that it becomes every man at this sol- 
 emn moment to reflect on his own char- 
 acter and life, to inquire what he has 
 done to bring down judgments on his 
 country, to confess and renounce his 
 sins, and to resolve on a sincere obedi- 
 ence to God's commands. We ought 
 to remember that we live under a moral
 
 IN TIMES OF TRIAL OR DANGER. 
 
 685 
 
 government, which regards the character 
 of communities as truly as of individuals. 
 A nation has reason for fear in propor- 
 tion to its guilt ; and a virtuous nation, 
 sensible of dependence on God, and dis- 
 posed to respect his laws, is assured of 
 his protection. Every people must in- 
 deed be influenced in a measure by 
 the general state of the world, by the 
 changes and conflicts of other communi- 
 ties. When the ocean is in tumult 
 every shore will feel the agitation. But 
 a people faithful to God will never be 
 forsaken. In addition to the direct and 
 obvious tendency of national piety and 
 virtue to national safety and exaltation. 
 a virtuous community may expect pe- 
 culiar interpositions of Providence for 
 their defence and prosperity. They are 
 not, indeed, to anticipate visible mira- 
 cles. They are not to imagine that in- 
 vading hosts will be annihilated, like 
 Sennacherib's, by the arm of an angel. 
 But God, we must remember, can effect 
 his purposes, and preserve the just, 
 without such stupendous interpositions. 
 The hearts of men are in his hand. The 
 elements of nature obey his word. He 
 has winds to scatter the proudest fleet, 
 diseases to prostrate the strongest army. 
 Consider how many events must con- 
 spire, how many secret springs must act 
 in concert, to accomplish the purposes 
 of the statesman or the plans of the 
 warrior. How often have the best con- 
 certed schemes been thwarted, the most 
 menacing preparations been defeated, 
 the proud boast of anticipated victory 
 been put to shame, by what we call cas- 
 ualty, by a slight and accidental want 
 of concert, by the error of a chief, or by 
 neglect in subordinate agents ! Let God 
 determine the defeat of an enemy, and 
 we need not fear that means will be 
 wanting. He sends terror, or blindness, 
 or mad presumption, into the minds of 
 leaders. Heaven, earth, and sea are ar- 
 rayed to oppose their progress. An 
 unconquerable spirit is breathed into the 
 invaded ; and the dreaded foe seeks his 
 safety in dishonorable flight. 
 
 My friends, if God be for us, no mat- 
 ter who is against us. Mere power 
 ought not to intimidate us ; he can 
 crush it in a moment. We live in a 
 period when God's supremacy has been 
 remarkably evinced, when he has sig- 
 nally confounded the powerful, and de- 
 livered the oppressed and endangered. 
 
 At his word the forged chain has been 
 broken ; mighty armies have been dis- 
 persed as chaff before the whirlwind ; 
 colossal thrones have been shivered like 
 the brittle clay. God is still " wonderful 
 in counsel and excellent in working ; " 
 and if he wills to deliver us, we cannot 
 be subdued. It is, then, most important 
 that we seek God's favor. And how is 
 his favor to be obtained ? I repeat it : 
 He is a moral governor, the friend 
 of the righteous, the punisher of the 
 wicked ; and in proportion as piety, 
 uprightness, temperance, and Christian 
 virtue prevail among us, in that propor- 
 tion we are assured of his favor and pro- 
 tection. A virtuous people, fighting in 
 defence of their altars and firesides, may 
 look to God with confidence. An invis- 
 ible but Almighty arm surrounds them, 
 an impenetrable shield is their shadow 
 and defence. 
 
 It becomes us, then, to inquire, How 
 far have we sustained the character of 
 a pious and virtuous people ? And whose 
 heart does not accuse him of many sins ? 
 Who can look around on his country, 
 and not see many proofs of ingratitude 
 to God, and of contempt of his laws ? 
 Do I speak to any who, having received 
 success and innumerable blessings from 
 God, have yet forgotten the Giver ? to 
 any who have converted abundance into 
 the instrument of excess ? to any who, 
 having been instructed by the gospel, 
 have yet refused to employ in well- 
 doing the bounty of heaven ? to any 
 who are living in habits of intemperance, 
 impurity, impiety, fraud, or any known 
 sin ? To such I would say, You are 
 among the enemies of your country, and, 
 should she fall, among the authors of 
 her ruin. Let, then, this season be 
 something more than an occasion of 
 formal confession. We owe to ourselves 
 and our country deep sorrow for our 
 sins, and those sincere purposes of ref- 
 ormation which, more than all things, 
 bring down blessings from heaven. 
 
 2. Having recommended penitence in 
 general as suited to the present moment, 
 let me particularly recommend one 
 branch of piety which the times demand 
 of us. Let us each be instant and fer- 
 vent in prayer. Let us pray to God that 
 he will not forsake us in this dark and 
 menacing day ; that he will remember 
 the mercy shown to our fathers ; that 
 he will crown with success our efforts
 
 686 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 
 
 in defence of our possessions, our dwell- 
 ings, and our temples ; that he will 
 breathe an invincible courage into our 
 soldiers ; that he will guard and guide 
 our rulers ; that he will turn the invader 
 from our shores ; or, if he shall other- 
 wise appoint, that he will be our shield 
 in battle, and will send us deliverance. 
 For these blessings let us daily besiege 
 the mercy-seat of God, deeply convinced 
 that he controls the destinies of armies 
 and nations, that he gives or withholds 
 success, and that without him all exer- 
 tion is unavailing. By this it is not in- 
 tended that we are to do nothing but 
 pray ; that we are to leave our shores 
 without defence, or neglect any means of 
 security. God gives us powers that we 
 should exert, weapons that we should 
 wield them. We are to employ every 
 resource which he grants us ; but, hav- 
 ing done this, we must remember that 
 on God, not on ourselves, depends the 
 result of our exertions. The race is not 
 always to the swift, nor the battle to the 
 strong. God gives victory, and to him 
 let every eye and heart be directed. 
 You who have no other weapons, con- 
 tend with your prayers for your country. 
 It will not be imagined from these re- 
 marks, that by importunity of prayer 
 God can be bent to favor an unjust 
 cause. But when our cause is just ; 
 when, instead of waging offensive war, 
 we gather round our city and shores for 
 defence, we may be assured that sincere 
 prayer, united with a sincere purpose of 
 obedience, will not be lost. Prayer is a 
 proper and appointed acknowledgment 
 of our dependence, an essential means 
 and branch of piety ; and they who neg- 
 lect it have no reason to hope the pro- 
 tection which they will not implore. 
 Let us, then, take heed lest the tumult 
 of military preparation make us forgetful 
 of the Author of all good ; lest in col- 
 lecting armies and raising walls of de- 
 fence, we forsake the footstool of the 
 Almighty, the only giver of victory. 
 
 3. This is a time when we should all 
 bring clearly and strongly to our minds 
 our duties to our country, and should 
 cherish a strong and ardent attachment 
 to the public good. The claims of coun- 
 try have been felt and obeyed even in 
 the rudest ages of society. The com- 
 munityto which we belongis commended 
 by our very nature to our affection and 
 service. Christianity, m enjoining a 
 
 disinterested and benevolent spirit, ad- 
 mits and sanctions this sentiment of 
 nature, this attachment to the land of 
 our fathers, the land of our nativity. 
 It only demands that our patriotism be 
 purified from every mixture of injustice 
 towards foreign nations. Within this 
 limit we cannot too ardently attach our- 
 selves to the welfare of our country. 
 Especially in its perils, we should fly 
 to its rescue with filial, zeal and affec- 
 tion, resolved to partake its sufferings, 
 and prepared to die in its defence. The 
 present moment, my friends, calls on 
 us for this fervent patriotism. The 
 question now is, not whether we will 
 carry invasion, slaughter, and desola- 
 tion into an unoffending province, not 
 whether we will give our strength and 
 wealth to the prosecution of unprinci- 
 pled plans of conquest, but whether we 
 will defend our firesides and altars, 
 whether we will repel from our shores 
 a hostile army. On this question our 
 duty is clear. However unjustifiable 
 may have been the measures by which 
 we have been reduced to this mournful 
 extremity, our right to our soil and our 
 possessions remains unimpaired ; the 
 right of defence can never be wrested 
 from us ; and never, whilst God gives 
 means of resistance, ought we to resign 
 our country to the clemency of a foe. 
 Our duties as patriots and Christians 
 are plain. Whilst we disclaim all share 
 in the guilt of that war which is burst- 
 ing on our shores, we should resolve 
 that we will be true to ourselves, to our 
 fathers, and to posterity, that we will 
 maintain the inheritance which we have 
 received, that whilst God gives us power 
 we will not receive law as a conquered 
 people. 
 
 We should animate our patriotism at 
 this moment of danger by reflecting that 
 we have a country to contend for which 
 deserves every effort and sacrifice. As 
 members of this Commonwealth, in par- 
 ticular, we have every motive to invig- 
 orate our hearts and'hands. We have 
 the deeds of our fathers, their piety and 
 virtues, and their solicitude for the rights 
 and happiness of their posterity, to 
 awaken our emulation. How invalu- 
 able the inheritance they have left us, 
 earned by their toils and defended by 
 their blood ! Our populous cities and 
 cultivated fields, our schools, colleges, 
 and churches, our equal laws, our un-
 
 IN TIMES OF TRIAL OR DANGER. 
 
 687 
 
 corrupted tribunals of justice, our spirit 
 of enterprise, and our habits of order 
 and peace, all combine to form a com- 
 monwealth as rich in blessings and 
 privileges as the history of the world 
 records. We possess, too, the chief 
 glory of a state, many virtuous and dis- 
 interested citizens, a chief magistrate 
 who would adorn any country and any 
 age, enlightened statesmen, and, I trust, 
 a fearless soldiery. Such a community 
 deserves our affection, our honor, our 
 zeal, the vigor of our arms, and the de- 
 votion of our lives. If we look back 
 to Sparta, Athens, and Rome, we shall 
 find that, in the institutions of this 
 Commonwealth, we have sources of in- 
 comparably richer blessings than those 
 republics conferred on their citizens in 
 their proudest days ; and yet Sparta, 
 and Rome, and Athens inspired a love 
 stronger than death. In the day of 
 their danger, every citizen offered his 
 breast as a bulwark, every citizen felt 
 himself the property of his country. 
 It is true, a base alloy mingled with 
 the patriotism of ancient times, and God 
 forbid that a sentiment so impure should 
 burn in our breasts ! God forbid that, 
 like the Greek and the Roman, we 
 should carry fire and slaughter into 
 other countries, to build up a false, 
 fleeting glory at home ! But whilst we 
 take warning by their excesses, let us 
 catch a portion of their fervor, and learn 
 to live, not for ourselves, but for that 
 country whose honor and interest God 
 has intrusted to our care. 
 
 4. The times especially demand of us 
 that we cherish a spirit of fortitude, 
 courage, and resolution. The period 
 of danger is the time to arm the mind 
 with all the force and energy of which 
 it is susceptible. In communities, as in 
 individuals, there is a proneness to ex- 
 cessive alarm. Especially when untried, 
 unexperienced dangers approach, im- 
 agination is prone to enlarge them; a 
 panic spreads like lightning from breast 
 to breast, and, before a blow is struck, 
 a people are subdued by their fears. 
 There is a rational fear which we ought 
 to cherish, a fear which views in all its 
 dimensions approaching perils, and pre- 
 pares with vigilance every means of de- 
 fence. At the present moment we ought 
 not to shut our eyes on our danger. Our 
 enemy is formidable. A veteran army, 
 trained to war, accustomed to success, 
 
 fresh from conquest, and led by ex- 
 perienced commanders, is not to be 
 despised, even if inferior in numbers, 
 and even if it have received a temporary 
 check. But such an army owes much 
 of its formidableness to the fearless 
 spirit which habit has fostered ; and 
 the best weapon, under Providence, 
 which we can oppose to it, is the same 
 courage, nurtured by reflection, by sen- 
 timents of honor, and by the principles 
 of religion. Courage, indeed, is not 
 always invincible, and when God des- 
 tines a nation to bondage, the valor of 
 the hero is unavailing. But it is gen- 
 erally true, that a brave people, contend- 
 ing in a just cause, possess in their 
 courage the pledge of success. The 
 instrument by which God rescues na- 
 tions is their own undaunted resolution. 
 Let us, then, cherish in ourselves and 
 others a firm and heroic spirit. Let us 
 fortify our minds by reflecting on the 
 justice of our cause, that we are stand- 
 ing on our own shores, and defending 
 invaded rights. Let us show that our 
 love of peace has not originated in 
 timidity, and that the spirit of our 
 fathers still lives in their sons. Let us 
 call to the support of our resolution the 
 principles 1 of religion. Devoting our- 
 selves to God, and engaging- in this 
 warfare from a sense of duty, let us 
 feel that we are under his protection, 
 that in the heat of battle he is Rear 
 us, that life and death await his word, 
 and that death, in a service which he 
 approves, is never untimely, and is never 
 to be shunned. Let us consider that 
 life at best is short, and its blessings 
 transitory, that its great end is to train 
 us to virtue and to prepare us for heaven, 
 and that we had far better resign it at 
 once than protract it by baseness or 
 unmanly fear. Death awaits us all, 
 and happy he who meets it in the dis- 
 charge of duty. Most happy and most 
 honored of men is the martyr to religion, 
 who seals with his blood those truths on 
 which human virtue, consolation, and 
 hope depend; and, next to him, happy 
 is the martyr to the cause of his coun- 
 try, who, in obedience to God, opposes 
 his breast to the sword of her invaders, 
 and repays with life the protection she 
 has afforded. 
 
 5. I have thus, my friends, set before 
 you your duties to God and your country 
 in this period of danger. Let me close
 
 688 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 with offering a few remarks on your du- 
 ties to your enemies. You will remem- 
 ber that we profess a religion which 
 enjoins benevolence towards all man- 
 kind, even towards our personal and 
 national foes. Let not our patriotism be 
 sullied with malignant passions. Whilst 
 we defend our shores with courage, let 
 us not cherish hatred towards our in- 
 vaders. We should not open our ear to 
 every idle tale of their outrages, nor 
 heap calumnies on their heads because 
 they are enemies. The brave are gen- 
 erous. True courage needs not malig- 
 nity to feed and inflame it. Especially 
 when our foe is an illustrious nation, 
 which for ages has defended and nurt- 
 ured the interests of religion, science, 
 and humanity, a nation to which grate- 
 ful Europe is now offering acknowledg- 
 ments for the protection which she has 
 extended over the oppressed, and for 
 the vigor with which she has co-oper- 
 ated in prostrating the bloody and ap- 
 palling power of the usurper, when 
 such a nation is our foe, we should feel 
 it unworthy and debasing to encourage 
 a rancorous and vindictive spirit. True, 
 she is sending her armies to our shores ; 
 but let us not forget that our own gov- 
 ernment first sent slaughter and confla- 
 gration into her unoffending provinces. 
 Let not approaching danger disturb rec- 
 ollections, or unsettle our principles. 
 If we are to meet her armies in bat- 
 
 tle, which God in his mercy forbid! 
 let us meet them with that magnanimity 
 which is candid and just even to its 
 foes. Let us fight, not like beasts of 
 prey to glut revenge, but to maintain 
 our rights, to obtain an honorable peace, 
 and to obtain a victory which shall be 
 signalized by clemency as well as by 
 valor. God forbid that our conflicts 
 should add fury to those bad passions 
 and national antipathies which have 
 helped to bring this country to its pres- 
 ent degraded and endangered condi- 
 tion ! 
 
 I have placed before you your duties. 
 God give you grace to perform them ! 
 In this day of danger, we know not 
 what is before us ; but this we know, 
 that the path of piety, of virtue, of pa- 
 triotism, and manly courage, leads to 
 glory and to immortality. No enemy 
 can finally injure us if we are true to 
 God, to our country, to mankind. In 
 such a case as ours, I trust prosperity 
 and victory will be granted us by the 
 almighty Disposer. But whether suc- 
 cess or disaster await us, we know that 
 the world is passing away, and that all 
 of us will soon be placed beyond the 
 reach of its changes. Let us not, then, 
 be elated or depressed ; but, with a 
 firm and equal mind, let us acquit our- 
 selves as men and Christians in our sev- 
 eral spheres, looking upward to heaven 
 as our rest and reward. 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE first question to be proposed by 
 a rational being is, not what is profit- 
 able, but what is right. Duty must be 
 primary, prominent, most conspicuous 
 among the objects of human thought 
 and pursuit. If we cast it down from 
 its supremacy, if we inquire first for 
 our interests, and then for our duties, 
 we shall certainly err. We can never 
 see the right clearly and fully but by 
 making it our first concern. No judg- 
 ment can be just or wise but that 
 which is built on the conviction of the 
 paramount worth and importance of 
 duty. This is the fundamental truth, 
 
 the supreme law of reason ; and the mind 
 which does not start from this, in its in- 
 quiries into human affairs, is doomed to 
 great, perhaps fatal, error. , 
 
 The right is the supreme good, and 
 includes all other goods. In seeking 
 and adhering to it we secure our true 
 and only happiness. All prosperity, not 
 founded on it, is built on sand. If hu- 
 man affairs are controlled, as we be- 
 lieve, by almighty rectitude and impar- 
 tial goodness, then to hope for hap- 
 piness from wrong-doing is as insane as 
 to seek health and prosperity by rebelling 
 against the laws of nature, by sowing 
 our seed on the ocean, or making poison 
 our common food. There is but one un-
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 689 
 
 failing good ; and that is, fidelity to the 
 everlasting law written on the heart, 
 and rewritten and republished in God's 
 word. 
 
 Whoever places this faith in the ever- 
 lasting law of rectitude must, of course, 
 regard the question of slavery first and 
 chiefly as a moral question. All other 
 considerations will weigh little with him, 
 compared with its moral character and 
 moral influences. The following re- 
 marks, therefore, are designed to aid 
 the reader in forming a just moral judg- 
 ment of slavery. Great truths, inalien- 
 able rights, everlasting duties, these will 
 form the chief subjects of this discus- 
 sion. There are times when the asser- 
 tion of great principles is the best service 
 a man can render society. The present 
 is a moment of bewildering excitement, 
 when men's minds are stormed and 
 darkened by strong passions and fierce 
 conflicts ; and also a moment of absorb- 
 ing worldliness, when the moral law is 
 made to bow to expediency, and its high 
 and strict requirements are denied, or 
 dismissed as metaphysical abstractions 
 or impracticable theories. At such a 
 season, to utter great principles without 
 passion, and in the spirit of unfeigned 
 and universal good- will, and to engrave 
 them deeply and durably on men's 
 minds, is to do more for the world than 
 to open mines of wealth, or to frame the 
 most successful schemes of policy. 
 
 Of late our country has been con- 
 vulsed by the question of slavery ; and 
 the people, in proportion as they have 
 felt vehemently, have thought super- 
 ficially, or hardly thought at all ; and we 
 see the results in a singular want of 
 well-defined principles, in a strange 
 vagueness and inconsistency of opinion, 
 and in the proneness to excess which 
 belongs to unsettled minds. The mul- 
 titude have been called, now to contem- 
 plate the horrors of slavery, and now 
 to shudder at the ruin and bloodshed 
 which must follow emancipation. The 
 word massacre has resounded through 
 the land, striking terror into strong as 
 well as tender hearts, and awakening 
 indignation against whatever may seem 
 to threaten such a consummation. The 
 consequence is. that not a few dread all 
 discussion of the subject, and, if not 
 reconciled to the continuance of slavery, 
 at least believe that they have no duty 
 to perform, no testimony to bear, no in- 
 
 fluence to exert, no sentiments to cher- 
 ish and spread, in relation to this evil. 
 What is still worse, opinions either fa- 
 voring or extenuating it are heard with 
 little or no disapprobation. Concessions 
 are made to it which would once have 
 shocked the community ; whilst to assail 
 it is pronounced unwise and perilous. 
 No stronger reason for a calm Exposition 
 of its true character can be given than 
 this very state of the public mind. A 
 community can suffer no greater calam- 
 ity than the loss of its principles. Lofty 
 and pure sentiment is the life and hope 
 of a people. There was never such an 
 obligation to discuss slavery as at this 
 moment, when recent events have done 
 much to unsettle and obscure men's 
 minds in regard to it. This result is to 
 be ascribed in part to the injudicious 
 vehemence of those who have taken 
 into their hands the cause of the slave. 
 Such ought to remember, that to espouse 
 a good cause is not enough. We must 
 maintain it in a spirit answering to its 
 dignity. Let no man touch the great 
 interests of humanity who does not 
 strive to sanctify himself for the work 
 by cleansing his heart of all wrath and 
 uncharitableness, who cannot hope that 
 he is in a measure baptized into the 
 spirit of universal love. Even sympathy 
 with the injured and oppressed may do 
 harm, by being partial, exclusive, and 
 bitterly indignant. How far the declen- 
 sion of the spirit of freedom is to be 
 ascribed to the cause now suggested, I 
 do not say. The effect is plain, and 
 whoever sees and laments the evil 
 should strive to arrest it. 
 
 Slavery ought to be discussed. We 
 ought to think, feel, speak, and write 
 about it. But whatever we do in regard 
 to it should be done with a deep feeling 
 of responsibility, and so done as not to 
 put in jeopardy the peace of the slave- 
 holding States. On this point public 
 opinion has not been and cannot be too 
 strongly pronounced. Slavery, indeed, 
 from its very nature, must be a ground 
 of alarm wherever it exists. Slavery 
 and security can by no device be joined 
 together. But we may not, must not, 
 by rashness and passion increase the 
 peril. To instigate the slave to insur- 
 rection is a crime for which no rebuke 
 and no punishment can be too severe. 
 This would be to involve slave and mas- 
 ter in common ruin. It is not enough 
 
 44
 
 690 SLAVERY. 
 
 to say that the Constitution is violated 
 by any action endangering the slave- 
 holding portion of our country. A 
 higher law than the Constitution forbids 
 this unholy interference. Were our 
 national union dissolved, we ought to 
 reprobate, as sternly as we now do, the 
 slightest manifestation of a disposition 
 to stir up a servile war. Still more, 
 were the free and the slave-holding 
 States not only separated, but engaged 
 in the fiercest hostilities, the former 
 would deserve the abhorrence of the 
 world and the indignation of heaven, 
 were they to resort to insurrection and 
 massacre as means of victory. Better 
 were it for us to bare our own breasts to 
 the knife of the slave, than to arm him 
 with it against his master. 
 
 It is not by personal, direct action on 
 the mind of the slave that we can do him 
 good. Our concern is with the free. 
 With the free we are to plead his cause. 
 And this is peculiarly our duty, because 
 we have bound ourselves to resist his 
 own efforts for his emancipation. We 
 suffer him to do nothing for himself. 
 The more, then, should be done for him. 
 Our physical power is pledged against 
 him in case of revolt. Then our moral 
 power should be exerted for his relief. 
 His weakness, which we increase, gives 
 him a claim to the only aid we can af- 
 ford, to our moral sympathy, to the free 
 and faithful exposition of his wrongs. 
 As men, as Christians, as citizens, we 
 have duties to the slave, as well as to 
 every other member of the community. 
 On this point we have no liberty. The 
 eternal law binds us to take the side of 
 the injured : and this law is peculiarly 
 obligatory when we forbid him to lift an 
 arm in his own defence. 
 
 Let it not be said we can do nothing for 
 the slave. We can do much. We have 
 a power mightier than armies, the 
 power of truth, of principle, of virtue, of 
 right, of religion, of love. We have a 
 power which is growing with every ad- 
 vance of civilization, before which the 
 slave-trade has fallen, which is mitigat- 
 ing the sternest despotisms, which is 
 spreading education through all ranks 
 of society, which is bearing Christianity 
 to the ends of the earth, which carries 
 in itself the pledge of destruction to 
 every institution which debases human- 
 ity. Who can measure the power of 
 Christian philanthropy, of enlightened 
 
 goodness, pouring itself forth in prayers 
 and persuasions, from the press and pul- 
 pit, from the lips and hearts of devoted 
 men, and more and more binding to- 
 gether the wise and good in the cause 
 of their race ? All other powers may 
 fail. This must triumph. It is leagued 
 with God's omnipotence. It is God 
 himself acting in the hearts of his chil- 
 dren. It has an ally in every conscience, 
 in every human breast, in the wrong- 
 doer himself. This spirit has but begun 
 its work on earth. It is breathing itself 
 more and more through literature, edu- 
 cation, institutions, and opinion. Slav- 
 ery cannot stand before it. Great moral 
 principles, pure and generous senti- 
 ments, cannot be confined to this or 
 that spot. They cannot be shut out by 
 territorial lines, or local legislation. 
 They are divine inspirations, and par- 
 take of the omnipresence of their 
 Author. The deliberate, solemn con- 
 viction of good men through the world, 
 that slavery is a grievous wrong to hu- 
 man nature, will make itself felt. To 
 increase this moral power is every man's 
 duty. To embody and express this 
 great truth is in every man's power ; 
 and thus every man can do something 
 to break the chain of the slave. 
 
 There are not a few persons who, 
 from vulgar modes of thinking, cannot 
 be interested in this subject. Because 
 the slave is a degraded being, they think 
 slavery a low topic, and wonder how it 
 can excite the attention and sympathy 
 of those who can discuss or feel for 
 any thing else. Now the truth is, that 
 slavery, regarded only in a philosophical 
 light, is a theme worthy of the highest 
 minds. It involves the gravest ques- 
 tions about human nature and society. 
 It carries us into the problems which 
 have exercised for ages the highest un- 
 derstandings. It calls us to inquire 
 into the foundation, nature, and extent 
 of human rights, into the distinction 
 between a person and a thing, into the 
 true relations of man to man, into the 
 obligations of the community to each of 
 its members, into the ground and laws 
 of property, and, above all, into the 
 true dignity and indestructible claims 
 of a moral being. I venture to say 
 there is no subject now agitated by the 
 community which can compare in philo- 
 sophical dignity with slavery ; and yet 
 to multitudes the question falls under
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 691 
 
 the same contempt with the slave him- 
 self. To many, a writer seems to lower 
 himself who touches it. The falsely 
 refined, who want intellectual force to 
 grasp it, pronounce it unworthy of their 
 notice. 
 
 But this subject has more than philo- 
 sophical dignity. It has an important 
 bearing on character. Our interest in 
 it is one test by which our comprehen- 
 sion of the distinctive spirit of Chris- 
 tianity must be judged. Christianity is 
 the manifestation and inculcation of uni- 
 versal love. The great teaching of 
 Christianity is, that we must recognize 
 and respect human nature in all its forms 
 in the poorest, most ignorant, most 
 fallen. We must look beneath "the 
 flesh " to the " spirit." The spiritual 
 principle in man is what entitles him to 
 our brotherly regard. To be just to this 
 is the great injunction of our religion. 
 To overlook this, on account of con- 
 dition or color, is to violate the great 
 Christian law. We have reason to think 
 that it is one design of God, in appoint- 
 ing the vast diversities of human con- 
 dition, to put to the test, and to bring out 
 most distinctly, the principle of spiritual 
 love. It is wisely ordered that human 
 nature is not set before us in a few 
 forms of beauty, magnificence, and out- 
 ward glory. To be dazzled and attracted 
 by these would be no sign of reverence 
 for what is interior and spiritual in hu- 
 man nature. To lead us to discern and 
 love this, we are brought into connection 
 with fellow-creatures whose outward cir- 
 cumstances are repulsive. To recog- 
 nize our own spiritual nature and God's 
 image in these humble forms, to recog- 
 nize as brethren those who want all 
 outward distinctions, is the chief way in 
 which we are to manifest the spirit of 
 him who came to raise the fallen and to 
 save the lost. We see, then, the moral 
 importance of the question of slavery. 
 According to our decision of it, we 
 determine our comprehension of the 
 Christian law. He who cannot see a 
 brother, a child of God, a man possess- 
 ing all the rights of humanity, under a 
 skin darker than his own, wants the 
 vision of a Christian. He worships the 
 outward. The spirit is not yet revealed 
 to him. To look unmoved on the deg- 
 radation and wrongs of a fellow-creat- 
 ure, because burned by a fiercer sun, 
 proves us strangers to justice and love 
 
 in those universal forms which charac- 
 terize Christianity. The greatest of all 
 distinctions, the only enduring one, is 
 moral goodness, virtue, religion. Out- 
 ward distinctions cannot add to the dig- 
 nity of this. The wealth of worlds is 
 " not sufficient for a burnt-offering " on 
 its altar. A being capable of this is in- 
 vested by God with solemn claims on 
 his fellow-creatures. To exclude millions 
 of such beings from our sympathy, be- 
 cause of outward disadvantages, proves 
 that, in whatever else we surpass them, 
 we are not their superiors in Christian 
 virtue. 
 
 The spirit of Christianity, I have said, 
 is distinguished by universality. It is 
 universal justice. It respects all the 
 rights of all beings. It suffers no being, 
 however obscure, to be wronged, with- 
 out condemning the wrong-doer. Impar- 
 tial, uncompromising, fearless, it screens 
 no favorites, is dazzled by no power, 
 spreads its shield over the weakest, 
 summons the mightiest to its bar, and 
 speaks to the conscience in tones under 
 which the mightiest have quailed. It is 
 also universal love, comprehending those 
 that are near and those that are far off, 
 the high and the low, the rich and poor, 
 descending to the fallen, and especially 
 binding itself to those in whom human 
 nature is trampled under foot. Such is 
 the spirit of Christianity ; and nothing 
 but the illumination of this spirit can 
 prepare us to pass judgment on slavery. 
 
 These remarks are intended to show 
 the spirit in which slavery ought to be 
 approached, and the point of view from 
 which it will be regarded in the present 
 discussion. My plan may be briefly 
 sketched : 
 
 1. I shall show that man cannot be 
 justly held and used as property. 
 
 2. I shall show that man has sacred 
 rights, the gifts of God, and inseparable 
 from human nature, of which slavery is 
 the infraction. 
 
 3. I shall offer some explanations, to 
 pfevent misapplication of these princi- 
 ples. 
 
 4. I shall unfold the evils of slavery. 
 
 5. I shall consider the argument which 
 the Scriptures are thought to furnish in 
 favor of slavery. 
 
 6. I shall offer some remarks on the 
 means of removing it. 
 
 7. I shall offer some remarks on abo- 
 litionism.
 
 692 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 8. I shall conclude with a few reflec- 
 tions on the duties belonging to the 
 times. 
 
 In the first two sections I propose to 
 show that slavery is a great wrong ; but 
 I do not intend to pass sentence on the 
 character of the slave-holder. These 
 two subjects are distinct. Men are not 
 always to be interpreted by their acts 
 or institutions. The same acts in dif- 
 ferent circumstances admit, and even 
 require, very different constructions. I 
 offer this remark that the subject may 
 be approached without prejudice or per- 
 sonal reference. The single object is to 
 settle great principles. Their bearing 
 on individuals will be a subject of dis- 
 tinct consideration. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Property. 
 
 The slave-holder claims the slave as 
 his property. The very idea of a slave 
 is, that he belongs to another, that he is 
 bound to live and labor for another, to 
 be another's instrument, and to make 
 another's will his habitual law, however 
 adverse to his own. Another owns him, 
 and of course has a right to his time 
 and strength, a right to the fruits of his 
 labor, a right to task him without his 
 consent, and to determine the kind and 
 duration of his toil, a right to confine 
 him to any bounds, a right to extort the 
 required work by stripes, a right, in a 
 word, to use him as a tool, without con- 
 tract, against his will, and in denial of 
 his right to dispose of himself, or to use 
 his power for his own good. " A slave," 
 says the Louisiana code, " is in the pow- 
 er of the master to whom he belongs. 
 The master may sell him, dispose of his 
 person, his industry, his labor ; he can 
 do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire 
 any thing, but which must belong to 
 his master." " Slaves shall be deemed, 
 taken, reputed, and adjudged," say the 
 South Carolina laws, " to be chattels per- 
 sonal in the hands of their masters, and 
 possessions to all intents and purposes 
 whatsoever." Such is slavery, a claim 
 to man as property. 
 
 Now this claim of property in a human 
 being is altogether false, groundless. 
 No such right of man in man can exist. 
 A human being cannot be justly owned. 
 To hold and treat him as property is to 
 
 inflict a great wrong, to incur the guilt 
 of oppression. 
 
 This position there is a difficulty in 
 maintaining, on account of its exceeding 
 obviousness. It is too plain for proof! 
 To defend it is like trying to confirm a 
 self-evident truth. To find arguments is 
 not easy, because an argument is some- 
 thing clearer than the proposition to be 
 sustained. The man who, on hearing the 
 claim to property in man, does not see 
 and feel distinctly that it is a cruel 
 usurpation, is hardly to be reached by 
 reasoning, for it is hard to find any 
 plainer principles than what he begins 
 with denying. I will endeavor, however, 
 to illustrate the truth which I have 
 stated. 
 
 i. It is plain that if one man may 
 be held as property, then every other 
 man may be so held. If there be noth- 
 ing in human nature, in our common 
 nature, which excludes and forbids the 
 conversion of him who possesses it into 
 an article of property ; if the right of 
 the free to liberty is founded, not on 
 their essential attributes as rational and 
 moral beings, but on certain adventitious, 
 accidental circumstances, into which 
 they have been thrown ; then every 
 human being, by a change of circum- 
 stances, may justly be held and treated 
 by another as property. If one man may 
 be rightfully reduced to slavery, then 
 there is not a human being on whom 
 the same chain may not be imposed. 
 Now, let every reader ask himself this 
 plain question : Could I, can I, be right- 
 fully seized, and made an article of 
 property ; be made a passive instrument 
 of another's will and pleasure ; be sub- 
 jected to another's irresponsible power ; 
 be subjected to stripes at another's will ; 
 be denied the control and use of my own 
 limbs and faculties for my own good ? 
 Does any man, so questioned, doubt, 
 waver, look about him for an answer ? 
 Is not the reply given immediately, in- 
 tuitively, by his whole inward being ? 
 Does not an unhesitating, unerring con- 
 viction spring up in my breast, that no 
 other man can acquire such a right in 
 myself? Do we not repel, indignantly 
 and with horror, the thought of being 
 reduced to the condition of tools and 
 chattels to a fellow-creature ? Is there 
 any moral truth more deeply rooted in 
 us, than that such a degradation would 
 be an infinite wrong ? And, if this im-
 
 SLA VERY. 
 
 693 
 
 pression be a delusion, on what single 
 moral conviction can we rely ? This 
 deep assurance, that we cannot be right- 
 fully made another's property, does not 
 rest on the hue of our skins, or the place 
 of our birth, or our strength, or wealth. 
 These things do not enter our thoughts. 
 The consciousness of indestructible 
 rights is a part of our moral being. The 
 consciousness of our humanity involves 
 the persuasion that we cannot be owned 
 as a tree or a brute. As men, we cannot 
 justly be made slaves. Then no man 
 can be rightfully enslaved. In casting 
 the yoke from ourselves as an unspeak- 
 able wrong, we condemn ourselves as 
 wrong-doers and oppressors in laying it 
 on any who share our nature. It is not 
 necessary to inquire whether a man, by 
 extreme guilt, may not forfeit the rights 
 of his nature, and be justly punished 
 with slavery. On this point crude no- 
 tions prevail. But the discussion would 
 be foreign to the present subject. We 
 are now not speaking of criminals. We 
 speak of innocent men, who have given 
 us no hold on them by guilt ; and our 
 own consciousness is a proof that such 
 cannot rightfully be seized as property 
 by a fellow-creature. 
 
 2. A man cannot be seized and held 
 as property, because he has rights. 
 What these rights are, whether few or 
 many, or whether all men have the same, 
 are questions for future discussion. All 
 that is assumed now is, that every human 
 being has some rights. This truth can- 
 not be denied, but by denying to a por- 
 tion of the race that moral nature which 
 is the sure and only foundation of rights. 
 This truth has never, I believe, been 
 disputed. It is even recognized in the 
 very codes of slave legislation, which, 
 while they strip a man of liberty, affirm 
 his right to life, and threaten his mur- 
 derer with punishment. Now, I say, a 
 being having rights cannot justly be 
 made property ; for this claim over him 
 virtually annuls all his rights. It strips 
 him of all power to assert them. It 
 makes it a crime to assert them. The 
 very essence of slavery is, to put a man 
 defenceless into the hands of another. 
 The right claimed by the master to task, 
 to force, to imprison, to whip, and to 
 punish the slave, at discretion, and espe- 
 cially to prevent the least resistance to 
 his will, is a virtual denial and subver- 
 sion of all the rights of the victim of his 
 
 power. The two cannot stand together. 
 Can we doubt which of them ought to 
 fall ? 
 
 3. Another argument against property 
 is to be found in the essential equality 
 of men. I know that this doctrine, so 
 venerable in the eyes of our fathers, has 
 lately been denied. Verbal logicians 
 have told us that men are " born equal " 
 only in the sense of being equally born. 
 They have asked whether all are equally 
 tall, strong, or beautiful ; or whether 
 nature, Procrustes-like, reduces all her 
 children to one standard of intellect and 
 virtue. By such arguments it is at- 
 tempted to set aside the principle of 
 equality, on which the soundest moral- 
 ists have reared the structure of social 
 duty ; and in these ways the old foun- 
 dations of despotic power, which our 
 fathers in their simplicity thought they 
 had subverted, are laid again by their 
 sons. 
 
 It is freely granted that there are in- 
 numerable diversities among men ; but 
 be it remembered, they are ordained to 
 bind men together, and not to subdue 
 one to the other : ordained to give means 
 and occasions of mutual aid, and to carry 
 forward e,ach and all, so that the good 
 of all is equally intended in this distri- 
 bution of various gifts. Be it also re- 
 membered, that these diversities among 
 men are as nothing in comparison with 
 the attributes in which they agree ; and 
 it is this which constitutes their essen- 
 tial equality. All men have the same 
 rational nature and the same power of 
 conscience', and all are equally made for 
 indefinite improvement of these divine 
 faculties, and for the happiness to be 
 found in their virtuous use. Who, that 
 comprehends these gifts, does not see 
 that the diversities of the race vanish 
 before them ? Let it be added, that the 
 natural advantages which distinguish 
 one man from another, are so bestowed 
 as to counterbalance one another, and 
 bestowed without regard to rank or con- 
 dition in life. Whoever surpasses in 
 one endowment is inferior in others. 
 Even genius, the greatest gift, is found 
 in union with strange infirmities, and 
 often places its possessors below ordi- 
 nary men in the conduct of life. Great 
 learning is often put to shame by the 
 mother-wit and keen good sense of un- 
 educated men. Nature, indeed, pays no 
 i heed to birth or condition in bestowing
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 her favors. The noblest spirits some- 
 times grow up in the obscurest spheres. 
 Thus equal are men ; and among these 
 equals, who can substantiate his claim 
 to make others his property, his tools, 
 the mere instruments of his private in- 
 terest and gratification ? Let this claim 
 begin, and where will it stop ? If one 
 may assert it, why not all? Among 
 these partakers of the same rational and 
 moral nature, who can make good a 
 right over others, which others may not 
 establish over himself ? Does he insist 
 on superior strength of body or mind ? 
 Who of us has no superior in one or the 
 other of these endowments ? Is it sure 
 that the slave or the slave's child may 
 not surpass his master in intellectual 
 energy, or in moral worth ? Has nature 
 conferred distinctions which tell us 
 plainly who shall be owners and who be 
 owned ? Who of us can unblushingly 
 lift his head and say that God has writ- 
 ten " Master " there ? or who can show 
 the word " Slave " engraven on his 
 brother's brow ? The equality of nature 
 makes slavery a wrong, Nature's seal 
 is affixed to no instrument by which 
 property in a single human being is con- 
 veyed. 
 
 4. That a human being cannot be 
 justly held and used as property, is ap- 
 parent from the very nature of property. 
 Property is an exclusive right. It shuts 
 out all claim but that of the possessor. 
 What one man owns cannot belong to 
 another. What, then, is the consequence 
 of holding a human being as property ? 
 Plainly this. He can have no right to 
 himself. His limbs are, in truth, not 
 morally his own. He has not a right to 
 his own strength. It belongs to another. 
 His will, intellect, and muscles, all the 
 powers of body and mind which are ex- 
 ercised in labor, he is bound to regard 
 as another's. Now, if there be property 
 in any thing, it is that of a man in his 
 own person, mind, and strength. All 
 other rights are weak, unmeaning, com- 
 pared with this, and in denying this all 
 right is denied. It is true that an indi- 
 vidual may forfeit by crime his right to 
 the use of his limbs, perhaps to his 
 limbs, and even to life. But the very 
 idea of forfeiture implies that the right 
 was originally possessed. It is true that 
 a man may by contract give to another a 
 limited right to his strength. But he 
 gives only because he possesses it, and 
 
 gives it for considerations which he 
 deems beneficial to himself ; and the 
 right conferred ceases at once on viola- 
 tion of the conditions on which it was 
 bestowed. To deny the right of a hu- 
 man being to himself, to his, own limbs 
 and faculties, to his energy of body and 
 mind, is an absurdity too gross to be 
 confuted by any thing but a simple 
 statement. Yet this absurdity is in- 
 volved in the idea of his belonging to 
 another. 
 
 5. We have a plain recognition of the 
 principle now laid down, in the universal 
 indignation excited towards a man who 
 makes another his slave. Our laws 
 know no higher crime than that of re- 
 ducing a man to slavery. To steal or to 
 buy an African on his own shores is 
 piracy. In this act the greatest wrong 
 is inflicted, the most sacred right vio- 
 lated. But if a human being cannot 
 without infinite injustice be seized as 
 property, then he cannot without equal 
 wrong be held and used as such. The 
 wrong in the first seizure lies in the des- 
 tination of a human being to future 
 bondage, to the criminal use of him as a 
 chattel or brute. Can that very use, 
 which makes the original seizure an 
 enormous wrong, become gradually in- 
 nocent ? If the slave receive injury 
 without measure at the first moment of 
 the outrage, is he less injured by being 
 held fast the second or the third ? Does 
 the duration of wrong, the increase of it 
 by continuance, convert it into right ? 
 It is true, in many cases, that length of 
 possession is considered as giving a 
 right, where the goods were acquired by 
 unlawful means. But in these cases the 
 goods were such as might justly be ap- 
 propriated to individual use. They were 
 intended by the Creator to be owned. 
 They fulfil their purpose by passing 
 into the hands of an exclusive possessor. 
 It is essential to rightful property in a 
 thing, that the thing from its nature may 
 be rightfully appropriated. If it cannot 
 originally be made one's own without 
 crime, it certainly cannot be continued as 
 such without guilt. . Now, the ground on 
 which the seizure of the African on his own 
 shore is condemned is, that he is a man 
 who has by his nature a right to be free. 
 Ought not, then, the same condemnation 
 to light on the continuance of his yoke ? 
 Still more. Whence is it that length of 
 possession is considered by the laws as
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 695 
 
 conferring a right ? I answer, from the 
 difficulty of determining the original 
 proprietor, and from the apprehension of 
 unsettling all property by carrying back 
 inquiry beyond a certain time. Suppose, 
 however, an article of property to be of 
 such a nature that it could bear the 
 name of the true original owner stamped 
 on it in bright and indelible characters. 
 In this case, the whole ground on which 
 length of possession bars other claims 
 would fail. The proprietor would not be 
 concealed, or rendered doubjtful by the 
 lapse of time. Would not he, who 
 should receive such an article from a 
 robber, or a succession of robbers, be 
 involved in their guilt ? Now the true 
 owner of a human being is made manifest 
 to all. It is himself. No brand on the 
 slave was ever so conspicuous as the 
 mark of property which God has set on 
 him. God, in making him a rational 
 and moral being, has put a glorious 
 stamp on him, which all the slave legis- 
 lation and slave markets of worlds can- 
 not efface. Hence no right accrues to 
 the master from the length of the wrong 
 which has been done to the slave. 
 
 6. Another argument against the right 
 of property in man may be drawn from 
 a very obvious principle of moral science. 
 It is a plain truth, universally received, 
 that every right supposes or involves a 
 corresponding obligation. If, then, a 
 man has a right to another's person or 
 powers, the latter is under obligation to 
 give himself up as a chattel to the for- 
 mer. This is his duty. He is bound to 
 be a slave ; and bound not merely by 
 the Christian law, which enjoins sub- 
 mission to injury, not merely by pru- 
 dential considerations, or by the claims 
 of public order and peace ; but bound 
 because another has a right of owner- 
 ship, has a moral claim to him, so that 
 he would be guilty of dishonesty, of 
 robbery, in withdrawing himself from 
 this other's service. It is his duty to 
 work for his master, though all compul- 
 sion were withdrawn ; and in deserting 
 him he would commit the crime of tak- 
 ing away another man's property as 
 truly as if he were to carry off his own- 
 er's purse. Now, do we not instantly 
 feel, can we help feeling, that this is 
 false ? Is the slave thus morally bound ? 
 When the African was first brought to 
 these shores, would he have violated a 
 solemn obligation by slipping his chain, 
 
 and flying back to his native home ? 
 Would he not have been bound to seize 
 the precious opportunity of escape ? Is 
 the slave under a moral obligation to 
 confine himself, his wife, and children, 
 to a spot where their union in a moment 
 may be forcibly dissolved ? Ought he 
 not, if he can, to place himself and his 
 family under the guardianship of equal 
 laws ? Should we blame him for leav- 
 ing Fiis yoke ? Do we not feel that, 
 in the same condition, a sense of duty 
 would quicken our flying steps ? Where, 
 then, is the obligation which would nec- 
 essarily be imposed, if the right ex- 
 isted which the master claims ? The 
 absence of obligation proves the want 
 of the right. The claim is groundless. 
 It is a cruel wrong. 
 
 7. I come now to what is to my own 
 mind the great argument against seizing 
 and using a man as property. He can- 
 not be property in the sight of God and 
 justice, because he is a rational, moral, 
 immortal being : because created in 
 God's image, and therefore in the high- 
 est sense his child ; because created to 
 unfold godlike faculties, and to govern 
 himself by a divine law written on his 
 heart, and republished in God's word. 
 His whole nature forbids that he should 
 be seized as property. From his very 
 nature it follows that so to seize him is 
 to offer an insult to his Maker, and to 
 inflict aggravated social wrong. Into 
 every human being God has breathed 
 an immortal spirit, more precious than 
 the whole outward creation. No earthly 
 or celestial language can exaggerate the 
 worth of a human being. No matter 
 how obscure his condition. Thought, 
 reason, conscience, the capacity of 
 virtue, the capacity of Christian love, an 
 immortal destiny, an intimate moral con- 
 nection with God, here are attributes 
 of our common humanity which reduce 
 to insignificance all outward distinctions, 
 and make every human being unspeak- 
 ably dear to his Maker. No matter how 
 ignorant he may be. The capacity of 
 improvement allies him to the more in- 
 structed of his race, and places within 
 his reach the knowledge and happiness 
 of higher worlds. Every human being 
 has in him the germ of the greatest idea 
 in the universe, the idea of God ; and 
 to unfold this is the end of his existence. 
 Every human being has in his breast the 
 elements of that divine, everlasting law,
 
 696 
 
 SLA VERY. 
 
 which the highest orders of the creation 
 obey. He has the idea of duty ; and to 
 unfold, revere, obey this, is the very pur- 
 pose for which life was given. Every 
 human being has the idea of what is 
 meant by that word, truth ; that is, he 
 sees, however dimly, the great object of 
 divine and created intelligence, and is 
 capable of ever-enlarging perceptions of 
 truth. Every human being has affec- 
 tions, which may be purified ana ex- 
 panded into a sublime love. He has, 
 too, the idea of happiness, and a thirst 
 for it which cannot be appeased. Such 
 is our nature. Wherever we see a man, 
 we see the possessor of these great ca- 
 pacities. Did God make such a being 
 to be owned as a tree or a brute ? How 
 plainly was he made to exercise, unfold, 
 improve his highest powers, made for a 
 moral, spiritual good ! and how is he 
 wronged, and his Creator opposed, when 
 he is forced and broken into a tool to 
 another's physical enjoyment ! 
 
 Such a being was plainly made for an 
 end in himself. He is a person, not a 
 thing. He is an end, not a mere instru- 
 ment or means. He was made for his 
 own virtue and happiness. Is this end 
 reconcilable with his being held and 
 used as a chattel ? The sacrifice of 
 such a being to another's will, to anoth- 
 er's present, outward, ill-comprehended 
 food, is the greatest violence which can 
 e offered to any creature of God. It 
 is to degrade him from his rank in the 
 universe, to make him a means, not an 
 end, to cast him out from God's spirit- 
 ual family into the brutal herd. 
 
 Such a being was plainly made to obey 
 a law within himself. This is the es- 
 sence of a moral being. He possesses, 
 as a part of his nature, and the most es- 
 sential part, a sense of duty, which he is 
 to reverence and follow, in opposition to 
 all pleasure or pain, to all interfering 
 human wills. The great purpose of all 
 good education and discipline is, to 
 make a man master of himself, to excite 
 him to act from a principle in his own 
 mind, to lead him to propose his own 
 perfection as his supreme law and end. 
 And is this highest purpose of man's 
 nature to be reconciled with entire sub- 
 jection t % o a foreign will, to an outward, 
 overwhelming force, which is satisfied 
 with nothing but complete submission ? 
 The end of such a being as we have 
 described is, manifestly, improvement. 
 
 Now, it is the fundamental law of our 
 nature that all our powers are to im- 
 prove by free exertion. Action is the 
 indispensable condition of progress to 
 the intellect, conscience, and heart. Is 
 it not plain, then, that a human being 
 cannot, without wrong, be owned by 
 another, who claims, as proprietor, the 
 right to repress the powers of his slaves, 
 to withhold from them the means of de- 
 velopment, to keep them within the lim- 
 its which are necessary to contentment 
 in chains, to shut cut every ray of light 
 and every generous sentiment which may 
 interfere with entire subjection to his will ? 
 
 No man who seriously considers what 
 human nature is, and what it was made 
 for, can think of setting up a claim to 
 a fellow-creature. What ! own a spirit- 
 ual being, a being made to know and 
 adore God, and who is to outlive the 
 sun and stars ! What ! chain to our 
 lowest uses a being made for truth and 
 virtue ! convert into a brute instrument 
 that intelligent nature on which the 
 idea of duty has dawned, and which is 
 a nobler type of God than all outward 
 creation ! Should we not deem it a 
 wrong which no punishment could ex- 
 piate, were one of our children seized 
 as property and driven by the whip to 
 toil ? And shall God's child, dearer to 
 him than an only son to a human parent, 
 be thus degraded ? Every thing else 
 may be owned in the universe ; but a 
 moral, rational being cannot be prop- 
 erty. Suns and stars may be owned, 
 but not the lowest spirit. Touch any 
 thing but this. Lay not your hand on 
 God's rational offspring. The whole 
 spiritual world cries out, Forbear ! The 
 highest intelligences recognize their own 
 nature, their own rights, in the humblest 
 human being. By that priceless, im- 
 mortal spirit which dwells in him, by 
 that likeness. of God which he wears, 
 tread him not in the dust, confound him 
 not with the brute. 
 
 We have thus seen that a human be- 
 ing cannot rightfully be held and used 
 as property. No legislation, not that 
 of all countries or worlds, could make 
 him so. Let this be laid down as a first, 
 fundamental truth. Let us hold it fast 
 as a most sacred, precious truth. Let 
 us hold it fast against all customs, all 
 laws, all rank, wealth, and power. Let 
 it be armed with the whole authority 
 of the civilized and Christian world.
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 697 
 
 I have taken it for granted that no 
 reader would be so wanting in moral 
 discrimination and moral feeling as to 
 urge that men may rightfully be seized 
 and held as property, because various 
 governments have so ordained. What ! 
 is human legislation the measure of 
 right ? Are God's laws to be repealed 
 by man's ? Can government do no 
 wrong ? To what a mournful extent 
 is the history of human governments 
 a record of wrongs! How much does 
 the progress of civilization cpnsist in 
 the substitution of just and humane for 
 barbarous and oppressive laws ! The 
 individual, indeed, is never authorized 
 to oppose physical force to unrighteous 
 ordinances of government, as long as 
 the community choose to sustain them. 
 But criminal legislation ought to be 
 freely and earnestly exposed. Injustice 
 is never so terrible, and never so cor- 
 rupting, as when armed with the sanc- 
 tions of law. The authority of govern- 
 ment, instead of being a reason for 
 silence under wrongs, is a reason for 
 protesting against wrong with the un- 
 divided energy of argument, entreaty, 
 and solemn admonition. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Rights. 
 
 I now proceed to the second division 
 of the subject. I am to show that man 
 has sacred rights, the gifts of God, and 
 inseparable from human nature, which 
 are violated by slavery. Some important 
 principles, which belong to this head, 
 were necessarily anticipated under the 
 preceding : but they need a fuller expo- 
 sition. The whole subject of rights 
 needs to be reconsidered. Speculations 
 and reasonings about it have lately been 
 given to the public, not only false, but 
 dangerous to freedom, and there is a 
 strong tendency to injurious views. 
 Rights are made to depend on circum- 
 stances, so that pretences may easily be 
 made or created for violating them suc- 
 cessively, till none shall remain. Human 
 rights have been represented as so mod- 
 ified and circumscribed by men's en- 
 trance into the social state, that only 
 the shadows of them are left. They 
 have been spoken of as absorbed in 
 the public good ; so that a man may 
 be innocently enslaved, if the public 
 
 good shall so require. To meet fully 
 all these errors for such I hold them 
 a larger work than the present is re- 
 quired. The nature of man, his relations 
 to the state, the limits of civil govern- 
 ment, the elements of the public good, 
 and the degree to which the individual 
 must be surrendered to this good, these 
 are the topics which the present subject 
 involves. I cannot enter into them par- 
 ticularly, but shall lay down what seem 
 to me the great and true principles in 
 regard to them. I shall show that man 
 has rights from his very nature, not the 
 gifts of society, but of God ; that they 
 are not surrendered on entering the social 
 state ; that they must not be taken away 
 under the plea of public good ; that the 
 individual is never to be sacrificed to the 
 community ; that the idea of rights is to 
 prevail above all the interests of the 
 state. 
 
 Man has rights by nature. The dis- 
 position of some to deride abstract rights, 
 as if all rights were uncertain, mutable, 
 and conceded by society, shows a lam- 
 entable ignorance of human nature. 
 Whoever understands this must see 
 in it an immovable foundation of rights. 
 These are gifts of the Creator, bound 
 up indissolubly with our moral constitu- 
 tion. In the order of things, they pre- 
 cede society, lie at its foundation, con- 
 stitute man's capacity for it, and are the 
 great objects of social institutions. The 
 consciousness of rights is not a creation 
 of human art, a conventional sentiment, 
 but essential to and inseparable from 
 the human soul. 
 
 Man's rights belong to him as a moral 
 being, as capable of perceiving moral 
 distinctions, as a subject of moral obli- 
 gation. As soon as he becomes con- 
 scious of duty, a kindred consciousness 
 springs up that he has a right to do what 
 the sense of duty enjoins, and that no 
 foreign will or power can obstruct his 
 moral action without crime. He feels 
 that the sense of duty was given to him 
 as a law, that it makes him responsible 
 for himself, that to exercise, unfold, and 
 obey it is the end of his being, and that 
 he has a right to exercise and obey it 
 without hindrance or opposition. A 
 consciousness of dignity, however ob- 
 scure, belongs also to this divine prin- 
 ciple ; and though he may want words 
 to do justice to his thoughts, he feels 
 that he has that within him which
 
 698 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 makes him essentially equal to all 
 around him. 
 
 The sense of duty is the fountain 
 of human rights. In other words, the 
 same inward principle which teaches 
 the former bears witness to the latter. 
 Duties and rights must stand or fall 
 together. It has been too common to 
 oppose them to one another ; but they 
 are indissolubly joined together. That 
 same inward principle which teaches a 
 man what he is bound to do to others, 
 teaches equally, and at the same instant, 
 what others are bound to do to him. 
 That same voice which forbids him to 
 injure a single fellow-creature, forbids 
 every fellow-creature to do him harm. 
 His conscience, in revealing the moral 
 law, does not reveal a law for himself 
 only, but speaks as a universal legisla- 
 tor. He has an intuitive conviction that 
 the obligations of this divine code press 
 on others as truly as on himself. That 
 principle which teaches him that he sus- 
 tains the relation of brotherhood to all 
 human beings, teaches him that this 
 relation is reciprocal, that' it gives in- 
 destructible claims, as well as imposes 
 solemn duties, and that what he owes to 
 the members of this vast family, they 
 owe to him in return. Thus the moral 
 nature involves rights. These enter 
 into its very essence. They are taught 
 by the very voice which enjoins duty. 
 Accordingly there is no deeper principle 
 in human nature than the consciousness 
 of rights. So profound, so ineradicable 
 is this sentiment, that the oppressions of 
 ages have nowhere wholly stifled it. 
 
 Having shown the foundation of hu- 
 man rights in human nature, it may be 
 asked what they are. Perhaps they do 
 not admit very accurate definition, any 
 more than human duties ; for the spirit- 
 ual cannot be weighed and measured 
 like the material. Perhaps a minute 
 criticism may find fault with the most 
 guarded exposition of them ; but they 
 may easily be stated in language which 
 the unsophisticated mind will recognize 
 as the truth. Volumes could not do jus- 
 tice to them ; and yet, perhaps, they 
 may be comprehended in one sentence. 
 They may all be comprised in the 
 right which belongs to every rational 
 being, to exercise his powers for the 
 promotion of his own and others' hap- 
 piness and virtue. These are the great 
 purposes of his existence. For these 
 
 his powers were given, and to these he 
 is bound to devote them. He is bound 
 to make himself and others better and 
 happier, according to his ability. His 
 ability for this work is a sacred trust 
 from God, the greatest of all trusts. 
 He must answer for the waste or abuse 
 of it. He consequently suffers an un- 
 speakable wrong when stripped of it by 
 others, or forbidden to employ it for the 
 ends for which it is given ; when the pow- 
 ers which God has given for such gen- 
 erous uses are impaired or destroyed by 
 others, or the means for their action and 
 growth are forcibly withheld. As every 
 human being is bound to employ his 
 faculties for his own and others' good, 
 there is an obligation on each to leave 
 all free for the accomplishment of this 
 end ; and whoever respects this obliga- 
 tion, whoever uses his own, without 
 invading others' powers, or obstructing 
 others' duties, has a sacred, indefeasible 
 right to be unassailed, unobstructed, un- 
 harmed by all with whom he may be 
 connected. Here is the grand, all- 
 comprehending right of human nature. 
 Every man should revere it, should 
 assert it for himself and for all, and 
 should bear solemn testimony against 
 every infraction of it, by whomsoever 
 made or endured. 
 
 Having considered the great funda- 
 mental right of human nature, particular 
 rights may easily be deduced. Every 
 man has a right to exercise and in- 
 vigorate his intellect or the power of 
 knowledge, for knowledge is the es- 
 sential condition of successful effort for 
 every good ; and whoever obstructs or 
 quenches the intellectual life in another, 
 inflicts a grievous and irreparable wrong, 
 Every man has a right to inquire into 
 his duty, and to conform himself to what 
 he learns of it. Every man has a right 
 to use the means given by God and 
 sanctioned by virtue for bettering his 
 condition. He has a right tobe respected 
 according to his moral worth ; a right 
 to be regarded as a member of the com- 
 munity to which he belongs, and to be 
 protected by impartial laws ; and a right 
 to be exempted from coercion, stripes, 
 and punishment, as long as he respects 
 the rights of others. He has a right to 
 an equivalent for his labor. He has a 
 right to sustain domestic relations, to 
 discharge their duties, and to enjoy the 
 happiness which flows from fidelity in
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 699 
 
 these and other domestic relations. 
 Such are a few of human rights ; and if 
 so, what a grievous wrong is slavery ! 
 
 Perhaps nothing has done more to 
 impair the sense of the reality and 
 sacredness of human rights, and to 
 sanction oppression, than loose ideas as 
 to the change made in man's natural 
 rights by his entrance rnto civil society. 
 It is commonly said that men part with 
 a portion of these by becoming a com- 
 munity, a body politic ; that govern- 
 ment consists of powers surrendered 
 by the individual ; and it is said, " If 
 certain rights and powers may be sur- 
 rendered, why not others ? why not all ? 
 what limit is to be set ? The good of 
 the community, to which a part is given 
 up, may demand the whole : and in this 
 good all private rights are merged." 
 This is the logic of despotism. We are 
 grieved that it finds its way into repub- 
 lics, and that it sets down the great 
 principles of freedom as abstractions 
 and metaphysical theories, good enough 
 for the cloister, but too refined for prac- 
 tical and real life. 
 
 Human rights, however, are not to be 
 so reasoned away. They belong, as we 
 have seen, to man as a moral being, and 
 nothing can divest him of them but the 
 destruction of his nature. They are not 
 to. be given up to society as a prey. On 
 the contrary, the great end of civil soci- 
 ety is to secure them. The great end 
 of government is to repress all wrong. 
 Its highest function is to protect the 
 weak against the powerful, so that the 
 obscurest human being may enjoy his 
 rights in peace. Strange that an insti- 
 tution, built on the idea of rights, should 
 be used to unsettle this idea, to confuse 
 our moral perceptions, to sanctify wrongs 
 as means of general good ! 
 
 It is said that, in forming civil soci- 
 ety, the individual surrenders a part of 
 his rights. It would be more proper to 
 say that he adopts new modes of secur- 
 ing them. He consents, for example, 
 to desist from self-defence, that he and 
 all may be more effectually defended by 
 the public force. He consents to submit 
 his cause to an umpire or tribunal, that 
 justice may be more impartially awarded, 
 and that he and all may more certainly 
 receive their due. He consents to part 
 with a portion of his property in taxa- 
 tion, that his own and others' property 
 may be the more secure. He submits 
 
 to certain restraints, that he and others 
 may enjoy more enduring freedom. He 
 expects an equivalent for what he relin- 
 quishes, and insists on it as his right. 
 He is wronged by partial laws, which 
 compel him to contribute to the state 
 beyond his proportion, his ability, and 
 the measure of benefits which he re- 
 ceives. How absurd is it to suppose 
 that, by consenting to be protected by 
 the state, and by yielding it the means, 
 he surrenders the very rights which 
 were the objects of his accession to the 
 social compact ! 
 
 The authority of the state to impose 
 laws on its members I cheerfully allow ; 
 but this has limits, which are found to 
 be more and more narrow in proportion 
 to the progress of moral science. The 
 state is equally restrained with individ- 
 uals by the moral law. For example, 
 it may not, must not, on any account, 
 put an innocent man to death, or require 
 of him a dishonorable or criminal ser- 
 vice. It may demand allegiance, but 
 only on the gronnd of the protection it 
 affords. It may levy taxes, but only 
 because it takes all property and all 
 interests under its shield. It may pass 
 laws, but only impartial ones, framed 
 for the whole, and not for the few. It 
 must not seize, by a special act, the 
 property of the humblest individual, 
 without making him an equivalent. It 
 must regard every man, over whom it 
 extends its authority as a vital part of 
 itself, as entitled to its care and to its 
 provisions for liberty and happiness. 
 If, in an emergency, its safety, which is 
 the interest of each and all, may demand 
 the imposition of peculiar restraints on 
 one or many, it is bound to limit these 
 restrictions to the precise point which 
 its safety prescribes, to remove the nec- 
 essity of them as far and as fast as pos- 
 sible, to compensate by peculiar protec- 
 tion such as it deprives of the ordinary 
 means of protecting themselves, and, in 
 general, to respect and provide for lib- 
 erty in the very acts which for a time 
 restrain it. The idea of rights should be 
 fundamental and supreme in civil insti- 
 tutions. Government becomes a nui- 
 sance and scourge in proportion as it 
 sacrifices these to the many or the few. 
 Government I repeat it is equally 
 bound with the individual by the moral 
 law. The ideas of justice and rectitude, 
 of what is due to man from his fellow-
 
 700 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 creatures, .> the claims of every moral 
 being, are far deeper and more primi- 
 tive than civil polity. Government, far 
 from originating them, owes to them its 
 strength. Right is older than human 
 law. Law ought to be its voice. It 
 should be built on, and should corre- 
 spond to, the principle of justice in the 
 huma"n breast, and its weakness is owing 
 to nothing more than to its clashing with 
 our indestructible moral convictions. 
 
 That government is most perfect in 
 which policy is most entirely subjected 
 to justice, or in which the supreme and 
 constant aim is to secure the rights of 
 every human being. This is the beau- 
 tiful idea of a free government, and no 
 government is free but in proportion as 
 it realizes this. Liberty must not be 
 confounded with popular institutions. 
 A representative government may be as 
 despotic as an absolute monarchy. In 
 as far as it tramples on the rights, 
 whether of many or one, it is a despot- 
 ism. The sovereign power, whether 
 wielded by a single hand or several 
 hands, by a king or a congress, which 
 spoils one human being of the immuni- 
 ties and privileges bestowed on him by 
 God, is so far a tyranny. The great 
 argument in favor of representative in- 
 stitutions is, that a people's rights are 
 safest in their own hands, and should 
 never be surrendered to an irresponsible 
 power. Rights, rights, lie at the foun- 
 dation of a popular government ; and 
 when this betrays them, the wrong is 
 more aggravated than when they are 
 crushed by despotism. 
 
 Still the question will be asked, " Is 
 not the general good the supreme law 
 of the state ? Are not all restraints on 
 the individual just, which this demands ? 
 When the rights of the individual clash 
 with this, must they not yield ? Do 
 they not, indeed, cease to be rights ? 
 Must not every thing give place to the 
 general good ? " I have started this 
 question in various forms, because I 
 deem it worthy of particular examina- 
 tion. Public and private morality, the 
 freedom and safety of our national in- 
 stitutions, are greatly concerned in set- 
 tling the claims of the "general good." 
 In monarchies, the divine right of kings 
 swallowed up all others. In republics, 
 the general good threatens the same 
 evil. It is a shelter for the abuses and 
 usurpations of government, for the 
 
 profligacies of statesmen, for the vices 
 of parties, for the wrongs of slavery. 
 In considering this subject, I take the 
 hazard of repeating principles already 
 laid down ; but this will be justified by 
 the importance of reaching and deter- 
 mining the truth. Is the general good, 
 then, the supreme law, to which every 
 thing must bow ? 
 
 This question may be settled at once 
 by proposing another. Suppose the 
 public good to require that a number 
 of the members of a state, no matter 
 how few, should perjure themselves, or 
 should disclaim their faith in God and 
 virtue. Would their right to follow con- 
 science and God be annulled ? Would 
 they be bound to sin ? Suppose a con- 
 queror to menace a state with ruin, 
 unless its members should insult their 
 parents, and stain themselves with crimes 
 at which nature revolts. Must the pub- 
 lic good prevail over purity and our 
 holiest affections ? Do we not all feel 
 that there are higher goods than even 
 the safety of the state ? that there 
 is a higher law than that of mightiest 
 empires ? that the idea of rectitude is 
 deeper in human nature than that of 
 private or public interest ? and that this 
 is to bear sway over all private and 
 public acts ? 
 
 The supreme law of a state is not its 
 safety, its power, its prosperity, its afflu- 
 ence, the flourishing state of agriculture, 
 commerce, and the arts. These objects, 
 constituting what is commonly called 
 the public good, are indeed proposed, 
 and ought to be proposed, in the con- 
 stitution and administration of states. 
 But there is a higher law, even virtue, 
 rectitude, the voice of conscience, the 
 will of God. Justice is a greater good 
 than property, not greater in degree, 
 but in kind. Universal benevolence is 
 infinitely superior to prosperity. Re- 
 ligion, the love of God, is worth incom- 
 parably more than all his outward gifts. 
 A community, to secure or aggrandize 
 itself, must never forsake the right, the 
 holy, the just. 
 
 Moral good, rectitude in all its 
 branches, is the supreme good ; by 
 which I do not intend that it is the 
 surest means to the security and pros- 
 perity of the state. Such, indeed, it is, 
 but this is too low a view. It must 
 not be looked upon as a means, an in- 
 strument. It is the supreme end, and
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 states are bound to subject it to all their 
 legislation, be the apparent loss of pros- 
 perity ever so great. National wealth 
 is not the end. It derives all its worth 
 from national virtue. If accumulated 
 by rapacity, conquest, or any degrading 
 means, or if concentrated in the hands 
 of the few, whom it strengthens to crush 
 the many, it is a curse. National wealth is 
 a blessing only when it springs from and 
 represents the intelligence and virtue 
 of the community; when it is a fruit 
 and expression of good habits, of respect 
 for the rights of all, of impartial and 
 beneficent legislation ; when it gives im- 
 pulse to the higher faculties, and occa- 
 sion and incitement to justice and be- 
 neficence. No greater calamity can 
 befall a people than to prosper by 
 crime. No success can be a compen- 
 sation for the wound inflicted on a na- 
 tion's mind by renouncing right as its 
 supreme law. 
 
 Let a people exalt prosperity above 
 rectitude, and a more dangerous end 
 cannot be proposed. Public prosperity, 
 general good, regarded by itself, or 
 apart from the moral law, is something 
 vague, unsettled, and uncertain, and 
 will infallibly be so construed by the 
 selfish and grasping as to secure their 
 own aggrandizement. It may be made 
 to wear a thousand forms, according to 
 men's interests and passions. This is 
 illustrated by every day's history. Not 
 a party springs up which does not sanc- 
 tify all its projects for monopolizing 
 power by the plea of general good. Not 
 a measure, however ruinous, can be pro- 
 posed which cannot be shown to favor 
 one or another national interest. The 
 truth is, that in the uncertainty of human 
 affairs, an uncertainty growing out of 
 the infinite and very subtile causes which 
 are acting on communities, the con- 
 sequences of no measure can be fore- 
 told with certainty. The best concerted 
 schemes of policy often fail ; whilst a 
 rash and profligate administration may, 
 by unexpected concurrences of events, 
 seem to advance a nation's glory. In 
 regard to the means of national pros- 
 perity, the wisest are weak judges. For 
 example, the present rapid growth of 
 this country, carrying, as it does, vast 
 multitudes beyond the institutions of 
 religion and education, may be working 
 ruin, whilst the people exult in it as a 
 pledge' of greatness. We are too short- 
 
 sighted to find our law in outward in- 
 terests. To states, as to individuals, 
 rectitude is the supreme law. It wa? 
 never designed that the public good, as 
 disjoined from this, as distinct from jus- 
 tice and reverence for all rights, should 
 be comprehended and made our end. 
 Statesmen work in the dark until the 
 idea of right towers above expediency 
 or wealth. Woe to that people which 
 would found its prosperity in wrong ! 
 It is time that the low maxims of policy, 
 which have ruled for ages, should fall. 
 It is time that public interest should no 
 longer hallow injustice, and fortify gov- 
 ernment in making the weak their prey. 
 
 In this discussion I have used the 
 phrase, public or general good, in its 
 common acceptation, as signifying the 
 safety and prosperity of a state. Why 
 can it not be used in a larger sense ? 
 Why can it not be made to comprehend 
 inward and moral, as well as outward 
 good ? And why cannot the former 
 be understood to be incomparably the 
 most important element of the public 
 weal ? Then, indeed, I should assent 
 to the proposition that the general good 
 is the supreme law. So construed, it 
 would support the great truths which 
 I have maintained. It would condemn 
 the infliction of wrong on the humblest 
 individual as a national calamity. It 
 would plead with us to extend to every 
 individual the means of improving his 
 character and lot. 
 
 If the remarks under this head be 
 just, it will follow that the good of 
 the individual is more important than 
 the outward prosperity of the state. The 
 former is not vague and unsettled, like 
 the latter, and it belongs to a higher or- 
 der of interests. It consists in the free 
 exertion and expansion of the individ- 
 ual's powers, especially of his higher 
 faculties ; in the energy of his intel- 
 lect, conscience, and good affections ; 
 in sound judgment ; in the acquisi- 
 tion of truth ; in laboring honestly 
 for himself and his family ; in loving 
 his Creator, and subjecting his own will 
 to the divine ; in loving his fellow-creat- 
 ures, and making cheerful sacrifices to 
 their happiness : in friendship ; insensi- 
 bility to the beautiful, whether in nature 
 or art ; in loyalty to his principles ; in 
 moral courage ; in self-respect ; in un- 
 derstanding and asserting his rights ; 
 and in the Christian hope of immortality.
 
 702 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 Such is the good of the individual, a I 
 more sacred, exalted, enduring interest ' 
 than any accessions of wealth or power 
 to the state. Let it not be sacrificed to 
 these. He should find, in his connec- 
 tion with the community, aids to the 
 accomplishment of these purposes of 
 his being, and not be chained and sub- 
 dued by it to the interior interests of 
 any fellow-creature. 
 
 In all ages the individual has, in one 
 form or another, been trodden in the 
 dust. In monarchies and aristocracies, 
 he has been sacrificed to one or to the 
 few ; who, regarding government as an 
 heirloom in their families, and thinking 
 of the people as made only to live and 
 die for their glory, have not dreamed 
 that the sovereign power was designed 
 to shield every man, without exception, 
 from wrong. In the ancient republics, 
 the glory of the state, especially con- 
 quest, was the end to which the indi- 
 vidual was expected to offer himself a 
 victim, and in promoting which no cruelty 
 was to be declined, no human right re- 
 vered. He was merged in a great whole, 
 called the commonwealth, to which his 
 whole nature was to be immolated. It 
 was the glory of the American people, 
 that, in their Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, they took the ground of the inde- 
 structible rights of every human being. 
 They declared all men to be essentially 
 equal, and each born to be free. They 
 did not, like the Greek or Roman, assert 
 for themselves a liberty which they 
 burned to wrest from other states. 
 They spoke in the name of humanity, 
 as the representatives of the rights of the 
 feeblest as well as mightiest of their 
 race. They published universal, ever- 
 lasting principles, which are to work 
 out the deliverance of every human 
 being. Such was their glory. Let not 
 the idea of rights be erased from their 
 children's minds by false ideas of public 
 good. Let not the sacredness of indi- 
 vidual man be forgotten in the feverish 
 pursuit of property. It is more impor- 
 tant that the individual should respect 
 himself, and be respected by others, 
 than thnt the wealth of both worlds 
 should be accumulated on our shores. 
 National wealth is not the end of society. 
 It may exist where large classes are 
 depressed and wronged. It may under- 
 mine a nation's spirit, institutions, and 
 independence. It can have no value 
 
 and no sure foundation, until the su- 
 premacy of the rights of the individual 
 is the first article of a nation's faith, and 
 until reverence for them becomes the 
 spirit of public men. 
 
 Perhaps it will be replied to all which 
 has now been said, that there is an 
 argument from experience which inval- 
 idates the doctrines of this section. * It 
 may be said that human rights, notwith- 
 standing what has been said of their 
 sacredness, do and must yield to the 
 exigencies of real life ; that there is 
 often a stern necessity in human affairs 
 to which they bow. I may be asked 
 whether, in the history of nations, cir- 
 cumstances do not occur in which the 
 rigor of the principles now laid down 
 must be relaxed ; whether, in seasons 
 of imminent peril to the state, private 
 rights must not give way. I may be 
 asked whether the establishment of mar- 
 tial law and a dictator has not some- 
 times been justified and demanded by 
 public dangeV ; and whether, of course, 
 the rights and liberties of the individual 
 are not held at the discretion of the 
 state. I admit, in reply, that extreme 
 cases may occur, in which the exercise 
 of rights and freedom may be suspended ; 
 but suspended only for their ultimate 
 and permanent security. At such times, 
 when the frantic fury of the many, or 
 the usurpations of the few, interrupt the 
 administration of law, and menace prop- 
 erty and life, society, threatened with 
 ruin, puts forth instinctively spasmodic 
 efforts for its own preservation. It flies 
 to an irresponsible dictator for its pro- 
 tection. But in these cases, the great 
 idea of rights predominates amidst their 
 apparent subversion. A power above 
 all laws is conferred, only that the em- 
 pire of law may be restored. Despotic 
 restraints are imposed, only that liberty 
 may be rescued from ruin. All rights 
 are involved in the safety of the state ; 
 and hence, in the cases referred to, the 
 safety of the state becomes the supreme 
 law. The individual is bound for a time 
 to forego his freedom, for the salvation 
 of institutions without which liberty is 
 but a name. To argue from such sacri- 
 fices that he may be permanently made 
 a slave, is as great an insult to reason 
 as to humanity. It may be added, that 
 sacrifices which may be demanded for 
 the safety are not due from the indi- 
 vidual to the prosperity of the state.
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 703 
 
 The great end of civil society is to secure 
 rights, not accumulate wealth ; and to 
 merge the former in the latter is to turn 
 political union into degradation and a 
 scourge. The community is bound to 
 take the rights of each and all under its 
 guardianship. It must substantiate its 
 claim to universal obedience by redeem- 
 ing its pledge of universal protection. 
 It must immolate no man to the pros- 
 perity of the rest. Its laws should be 
 made for all, its tribunals opened to all. 
 It cannot without guilt abandon any of 
 its members to private oppression, to 
 irresponsible power. 
 
 We have thus established the reality 
 and sacredness of human rights ; and that 
 slavery is an infraction of these, is too 
 plain to need any labored proof. Slavery 
 violates, not one, but all ; and violates 
 them, not incidentally, but necessarily, 
 systematically, from its very nature. In 
 starting with the assumption that the 
 slave is property, it sweeps away every 
 defence of human rights, and lays them 
 in the dust. Were it necessary, I might 
 enumerate them, and show how all fall 
 before this terrible usurpation ; but a 
 few remarks will suffice. 
 
 Slavery strips man of the fundamental 
 right to inquire into, consult, and seek 
 his own happiness. His powers belong 
 to another, and for another they must 
 be used. He must form no plans, en- 
 gage in no enterprises, for bettering his 
 condition. Whatever be his capacities, 
 however equal to great improvements of 
 his lot, he is chained for life, by another's 
 will, to the same unvaried toil. He is 
 forbidden to do, for himself or others, 
 the work for which God stamped him 
 with his own image, and endowed him 
 with his own best gifts. Again, the 
 slave is stripped of the right to acquire 
 property. Being himself owned, his 
 earnings belong to another. He can 
 possess nothing but by favor. That 
 right, on which the development of men's 
 powers so much depends, the right to 
 make accumulations, to gain exclusive 
 possessions by honest industry, is 
 withheld. "The slave can acquire noth- 
 ing," says one of the slave codes, " but 
 what must belong to his master ; " and 
 however tins definition, which moves 
 the indignation of the free, may be miti- 
 gated by favor, the spirit of it enters 
 into the very essence of slavery. Again, 
 the slave is stripped of his right to his 
 
 wife and children. They belong to an- 
 other, and may be torn from him, one 
 and all, at any moment, at his master's 
 pleasure. Again, the slave is stripped 
 of the right to the culture of his rational 
 powers. He is in some cases deprived 
 by law of instruction, which is placed 
 within his reach by the improvements 
 of society and the philanthropy of the 
 age. He is not allowed to toil, that his 
 children may enjoy a better education 
 than himself. The most sacred right 
 of human nature, that of developing his 
 best faculties, is deniad. Even should 
 it be granted, it would be conceded as a 
 favor, and might at any moment be with/- 
 held by the capricious will of another. 
 Again, the slave is deprived of the right 
 of self-defence. No injury from a white 
 man is he suffered to repel, nor can he 
 seek redress from the laws of his coun- 
 try. If accumulated insult and wrong 
 provoke him to the slightest retaliation, 
 this effort for self-protection, allowed 
 and commended to others, is a crime, 
 for which he must pay a fearful penalty. 
 Again, the slave is stripped of the right 
 to be exempted from all harm, except 
 for wrong-doing. He is subjected to 
 the lash by those whom he has never 
 consented to serve, and whose claim to 
 him as property we have seen to be a 
 usurpation ; and this power of punish- 
 ment, which, if justly claimed, should 
 be exercised with a fearful care, is often 
 delegated to men in whose hands there 
 is a moral certainty of its abuse. 
 
 I will add but one more example of 
 the violation of human rights by slav- 
 ery. The slave virtually suffers the 
 wrong of robbery, though with utter 
 unconsciousness on the part of those 
 who inflict it. It may, indeed be gen- 
 erally thought that, as he is suffered to 
 own nothing, he cannot fall, at least, 
 under this kind of violence. But it is 
 not true that he owns nothing. What- 
 ever he may be denied by man, he holds 
 from nature the most valuable property, 
 and that from which all other is de- 
 rived, I mean his strength. His la- 
 bor is his own, by the gift of that God 
 who nerved his arm, and gave him in- 
 telligence and conscience to direct the 
 use of it to his own and others' happi- 
 ness. No possession is so precious as 
 a man's force of body and mind. The 
 exertion of this in laBor is the great 
 foundation and source of property in
 
 704 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 outward things. The worth of articles 
 of traffic is measured by the labor ex- 
 pended in their production. To the 
 great mass of men, in all countries, 
 their strength or labor is their whole 
 fortune. To seize on this would be to 
 rob them of their all. In truth, no 
 robbery is so great as that to which the 
 slave is habitually subjected. To take 
 by force a man's whole estate, the fruit 
 of years of toil, would, by universal 
 consent, be denounced as a great wrong ; 
 but what is this compared with seizing 
 the man himself, and appropriating to 
 our use the limbs, faculties, strength, 
 and labor by which all property is won 
 and held fast ? The right of property 
 in outward things is as nothing com- 
 pared with our right to ourselves. Were 
 the slave-holder stripped of his fortune, 
 he would count the violence slight, com- 
 pared with what he would suffer were 
 his person seized and devoted as a chat- 
 tel to another's use. Let it not be said 
 that the slave receives an equivalent, 
 that he is fed and clothed, and is not, 
 therefore, robbed. Suppose another to 
 wrest from us a valued possession, and 
 to pay us his own price. Should we 
 not think ourselves robbed ? Would 
 not the laws pronounce the invader a 
 robber ? Is it consistent with the right 
 of property that a man should determine 
 the equivalent for what he takes from 
 his neighbor ? Especially is it to be 
 hoped that the equivalent due to the 
 laborer will be scrupulously weighed, 
 when he himself is held as property, 
 and all his earnings are declared to be 
 his master's. So great an infraction of 
 human right is slavery ! 
 
 In reply to these remarks, it may be 
 said that the theory and practice of 
 slavery differ ; that the rights of the 
 slave are not as wantonly sported with 
 as the claims of the master might lead 
 us to infer ; that some of his posses- 
 sions are sacred ; that not a few slave- 
 holders refuse to divorce husband and 
 wife, to sever parent and child ; and 
 that, in many cases, the power of pun- 
 ishment is used so reluctantly as to en- 
 courage insolence and insubordination. 
 All this I have no disposition to deny. 
 Indeed it must be so. It is not in hu- 
 man nature to wink wholly out of sight 
 the rights of a fellow-creature. De- 
 grade him as wfc may, we cannot alto- 
 gether forget his claims. In every 
 
 slave-country there are, undoubtedly, 
 masters who desire and purpose to re- 
 spect these to the full extent which the 
 nature of the relation will allow. Still, 
 human rights are denied. They lie 
 wholly at another's mercy ; and we 
 must have studied history in vain, if 
 we need be told that they will be con- 
 tinually the prey of this absolute power. 
 The evils involved in and flowing from 
 the denial and infraction of the rights 
 of the slave will form the subject of a 
 subsequent chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Explanations. 
 
 I have endeavored to show, in the 
 preceding sections, that slavery is a vio- 
 lation of sacred rights, the infliction of 
 a great wrong. And here a question 
 arises. It may be asked whether, by 
 this language, I intend to fasten on the 
 slave-holder the charge of peculiar guilt. 
 On this point great explicitness is 
 a duty. Sympathy with the slave has 
 often degenerated into injustice towards 
 the master. I wish, then, to be under- 
 stood, that in ranking slavery among 
 the greatest wrongs, I speak of the in- 
 jury endured by the shrve, and not of 
 the character of the master. These are 
 distinct points. The former does not 
 determine the latter. The wrong is the 
 same to the slave, from whatever motive 
 or spirit it may be inflicted. But this 
 motive or spirit determines wholly the 
 character of him who inflicts it. Be- 
 cause a great injury is done to another, 
 it does not follow that he who does it is 
 a depraved man ; for he may do it un- 
 consciously, and, still more, may do it 
 in the belief that he confers a good. 
 We have learned little of moral science 
 and of human nature, if we do not know 
 that guilt is to be measured, not by the 
 outward act, but by unfaithfulness to 
 conscience ; and that the consciences of 
 men are often darkened by education 
 and other inauspicious influences. All 
 men have partial consciences, or want 
 comprehension of some duties. All par- 
 take, in a measure, of the errors of the 
 community in which they live. Some 
 are betrayed into moral mistakes by the 
 very force with which conscience acts in 
 regard to some particular duty. As the 
 intellect, in grasping one truth, often
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 70S 
 
 loses its hold of others, and, by giving 
 itself up to one idea, falfc into exaggera- 
 tion, so the moral sense, in seizing on a 
 particular exercise of philanthropy, for- 
 gets other duties, and will even violate 
 many important precepts, in its passion- 
 ate eagerness to carry one to perfection. 
 Innumerable illustrations may be given 
 of the liableness of men to moral error. 
 The practice which strikes one man with 
 horror may seem to another, who was 
 born and brought up in the midst of it, 
 not only innocent but meritorious. We 
 must judge others, not by our light, but 
 by their own. We must take their place, 
 and consider what allowance we in their 
 position might justly expect. Our an- 
 cestors at the North were concerned in 
 the slave-trade. Some of us can recol- 
 lect individuals of the colored race who 
 were torn from Africa, and grew old 
 under our parental roofs. Our ancestors 
 committed a deed now branded as piracy. 
 Were they, therefore, the offscouring of 
 the earth ? Were not some of them 
 among the best of their times ? The 
 administration of religion, in almost all 
 past ages, has been a violation of the 
 sacred rights of conscience. How many 
 sects have persecuted and shed blood ! 
 Were their members, therefore, mon- 
 sters of depravity ? The history of our 
 race is made up of wrongs, many of 
 which were committed without a sus- 
 picion of their true character, and many 
 from an urgent sense of duty. A man 
 born among slaves, accustomed to this 
 relation from his birth, taught its neces- 
 sity by venerated parents, associating it 
 with all whom he reveres, and too famil- 
 iar with its evils to see and feel their 
 magnitude, can hardly be expected to 
 look on slavery as it appears to more 
 impartial and distant observers. Let it 
 not be said that, when new light is 
 offered him, he is criminal in rejecting 
 it. Are we all willing to receive new 
 light ? Can we wonder that such a man 
 should be slow to be convinced of the 
 criminality of an abuse sanctioned by 
 prescription, and which has so inter- 
 woven itself with all the habits, employ- 
 ments, and economy of life, that he can 
 hardly conceive of the existence of soci- 
 ety without this all-pervading element ? 
 May he not be true to his convictions of 
 duty in other relations, though he griev- 
 ously err in this ? If, indeed, through 
 cupidity and selfishness, he stifle the 
 
 45 
 
 monitions of conscience, warp his judg- 
 ment, and repel the light, he incurs great 
 guilt. If he want virtue to resolve on 
 doing right, though at the loss of every 
 slave, he incurs great guilt. But who of 
 us can look into his heart ? To whom 
 are the secret workings there revealed ? 
 Still more. There are masters who 
 have thrown bff the natural prejudices 
 of their position, who see slavery as it 
 is, and who hold the slave chiefly, if not 
 wholly, from disinterested considera- 
 tions ; and these deserve great praise. 
 They deplore and abhor the institution ; 
 but believing that partial emancipation, 
 in the present condition of society, 
 would bring unmixed evil on bond and 
 free, they think themselves bound to 
 continue the relation, until it shall be 
 dissolved by comprehensive and system- 
 atic measures of the state. There are 
 many of them who would shudder as 
 much as we at reducing a freeman to 
 bondage, but who are appalled by what 
 seem to them the perils and difficulties 
 of liberating multitudes, born and brought 
 up to that condition. There are many 
 who, nominally holding the slave as 
 property, still hold him for his own good, 
 and for the public order, and would 
 blush to retain him on other grounds. 
 Are such men to be set down among the 
 unprincipled ? Am I told that by these 
 remarks I extenuate slavery ? I reply, 
 slavery is still a heavy yoke, and strips 
 man of his dearest rights, be the mas- 
 ter's character what it may. Slavery is 
 not less a curse because long use may 
 have blinded most who support it to its 
 evils. Its influence is still blighting, 
 though conscientiously upheld. Abso- 
 lute monarchy is still a scourge, though 
 among despots there have been -good 
 men. It is possible to abhor and oppose 
 bad institutions, and yet to abstain from 
 indiscriminate condemnation of those 
 who cling to them, and even to see in 
 their ranks greater virtue than in our- 
 selves. It is true, and ought to be 
 cheerfully acknowledged, that in the 
 slave-holding States may be found some 
 of the greatest names of our history, and, 
 what is still more important, bright ex- 
 amples of private virtue and Christian 
 love. 
 
 There is, however, there must be, in 
 slave-holding communities, a large class 
 which cannot be too severely con- 
 demned. The.re are many we fear,
 
 ;o6 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 very many who hold their fellow- 
 creatures in bondage from selfish, base 
 motives. They hold the slave for gain, 
 whether justly or unjustly, they neither 
 ask nor care. They cling to him as 
 property, and have no faith in the prin- 
 ciples which will diminish a man's 
 wealth. They hold him, not for his 
 own good, or the safety of the state, but 
 with precisely the same views with which 
 they hold a laboring horse, that is, for 
 the profit which they can wring from 
 him. They will not hear a word of his 
 wrongs ; for, wronged or not, they will 
 npt let him go. He is their property, 
 and they mean not to be poor for right- 
 eousness' sake. Such a class there un- 
 doubtedly is among slave-holders ; how 
 large, their own consciences must deter- 
 mine. We are sure of it ; for, under 
 such circumstances, human nature will 
 and must come to this mournful result. 
 Now, to men of this spirit, the explana- 
 tions we have made do in no degree 
 apply. Such men ought to tremble 
 before the rebukes of outraged human- 
 ity and indignant virtue. Slavery upheld 
 for gain is a great crime. He who has 
 nothing to urge against emancipation, 
 but that it will make him poorer, is 
 bound to immediate emancipation. He 
 has no excuse for wresting from his 
 brethren their rights. The plea of ben- 
 efit to the slave and the state avails him 
 nothing. He extorts by the lash that 
 labor to which he has no claim, through 
 a base selfishness. Every morsel of 
 food thus forced from the injured ought 
 to be bitterer than gall. His gold is 
 cankered. The sweat of the slave taints 
 the luxuries for which it streams. Bet- 
 ter were it for the selfish wrong-doer, of 
 whom I speak, to live as the slave, to 
 clothe himself in the slave's raiment, to 
 eat the slave's coarse food, to till his 
 fields with his own hands, than to pam- 
 per himself by day, and pillow his head 
 on down at night, at the cost of a wan- 
 tonly injured fellow-creature. No fel- 
 low-creature can be so injured without 
 taking terrible vengeance. He is terribly 
 avenged even now. The blight which 
 falls on the soul of the wrong-doer, the 
 desolation of his moral nature, is a more 
 terrible calamity than he inflicts. In 
 deadening his moral feelings, he dies to 
 the proper happiness of a man. In 
 hardening his heart against his fellow- 
 creatures, he sears it to all true joy. In 
 
 shutting his ear against the voice of jus- 
 tice, he shuts aQt all the harmonies of 
 the universe, and turns the voice of God 
 within him into rebuke. He may pros- 
 per, indeed, and hold faster the slave by 
 whom he prospers ; but he rivets heav- 
 ier and more ignominious chains on his 
 own soul than he lays on others. No 
 punishment is so terrible as prosperous 
 guilt. No fiend, exhausting on us all 
 his power of torture, is so fearful as an 
 oppressed fellow-creature. The cry of 
 the oppressed, unheard on earth, is heard 
 in heaven. God is just ; and if justice 
 reign, then the unjust must terribly suf- 
 fer. Then no being can profit by evil- 
 doing. Then all the laws of the uni- 
 verse are ordinances against guilt. 
 Then every enjoyment gained by wrong- 
 doing will be turned into a curse. No 
 laws of nature are so irrepealable as that 
 law which binds guilt and misery. God 
 is just. Then all the defences which 
 the oppressor rears against the conse- 
 quences of wrong-doing are vain, as 
 vain as would be his strivings to arrest 
 by his single arm the ocean or whirl- 
 wind. He may disarm the slave. Can 
 he disarm that slave's Creator ? He can 
 crush the spirit of insurrection in a 
 fellow-being. Can he crush the awful 
 spirit of justice and retribution in the 
 Almighty? He can still the murmur of 
 discontent in his victim. Can he silence 
 that voice which speaks in thunder, and 
 is to break the sleep of the grave ? Can 
 he always still the reproving, avenging 
 voice in his own breast ? 
 
 I know it will be said, " You would 
 make us poor." Be poor, then, and 
 thank God for your honest poverty. 
 Better be poor than unjust. Better beg 
 than steal. Better live in an almshouse 
 better die than trample on a fellow- 
 creature and reduce him to a brute for 
 selfish gratification. What! Have we 
 yet to learn that "it profits us nothing 
 to gain the whole world, and lose our 
 souls ? " 
 
 Let it not be replied, in scorn, that 
 we of the North, notorious for love of 
 money, and given to selfish calculation, 
 are not the people to call others to re- 
 sign their wealth. I have no desire to 
 shield the North ; though I might say, 
 with truth, that a community more gen- 
 erally controlled by the principles of 
 morality and religion cannot be found. 
 We have, without doubt, a great multi-
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 707 
 
 tucle who, were they slave-holders, would 
 sooner die than relax their iron grasp, 
 than yield their property in men to jus- 
 tice and the commands of God. We 
 have those who would fight against abo- 
 lition, if by this measure the profit of 
 their intercourse with the South should 
 be materially impaired. The present 
 excitement among us is, in part, the 
 working of mercenary principles. But 
 because the North joins hands with the 
 South, shall iniquity go unpunished or 
 unrebuked ? Can the league of the 
 wicked, the revolt of worlds, repeal the 
 everlasting law of heaven and earth ? 
 Has God's throne fallen before Mam- 
 mon's ? Must duty find no voice, no 
 organ, because corruption is universally 
 diffused? Is not this a fresh motive to 
 solemn warning, that, everywhere, north- 
 ward and southward, the rights of human 
 beings are held so cheap, in comparison 
 with worldly gain? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Evils of Slavery. 
 
 The subject of this section is painful 
 and repulsive. We must not, however, 
 turn away from the contemplation of 
 human sufferings and guilt. Evil is 
 permitted by the Creator that we should 
 strive against it, in faith, and hope, and 
 charity. We must never quail before it 
 because of its extent and duration, never 
 feel as if its power were greater than 
 that of goodness. It is meant to call 
 forth deep sympathy with human nature, 
 and unwearied sacrifices for human re- 
 demption. One great part of the mission 
 of every man on earth is to contend with 
 evil in some of its forms ; and there are 
 some evils so dependent on opinion, that 
 every man, in judging and reproving 
 them faithfully, does something towards 
 their removal. Let us not, then, shrink 
 from the contemplation of human suffer- 
 ings. Even sympathy, if we have noth- 
 ing more to offer, is a tribute acceptable 
 to the Universal Father. On this topic, 
 exaggeration should be conscientiously 
 shunned ; and, at the same time, hu- 
 manity requires that the whole truth 
 should be honestly spoken. 
 
 In treating of the evils of slavery, I, 
 of course, speak of its general, not uni- 
 versal effects, of its natural tendencies, 
 not unfailing results. There are the 
 
 same natural differences among the 
 bond as the free, and there is a great 
 diversity in the circumstances in which 
 they are placed. The house-slave, se- 
 lected for ability and faithfulness, placed 
 amidst the habits, accommodations, and 
 improvements of civilized life, admitted 
 to a degree of confidence and familiarity, 
 and requiting these privileges with at- 
 tachment, is almost necessarily more 
 enlightened and respectable than the 
 field-slave, who is confined to monoto- 
 nous toils, and to the society and influ- 
 ences of beings as degraded as himself. 
 The mechanics in this class are sensibly 
 benefited by occupations which give a 
 higher action to the mind. Among the 
 bond, as the free, will be found those to 
 whom nature seems partial, and who are 
 carried almost instinctively towards what 
 is good. I speak of the natural, general 
 influences of slavery. Here, as every- 
 where else, there are exceptions to the 
 rule, and exceptions which multiply with 
 the moral improvements of the commu- 
 nity in which the slave' is found. But 
 these do not determine the general char- 
 acter of the institution. It has general 
 tendencies, founded in its very nature, 
 and which predominate vastly wherever 
 it exists. These tendencies it is my 
 present purpose to unfold. 
 
 i. The first rank among the evils of 
 slavery must be given to its moral in- 
 fluence. This is throughout debasing. 
 Common language teaches this. We can 
 say nothing more insulting of another 
 than that he is slavish. To possess the 
 spirit of a slave is to have sunk to the 
 lowest depths. We can apply to slavery 
 no worse name than its own. Men have 
 always shrunk instinctively from this 
 state as the most degraded. No pun- 
 ishment, save death, has been, more 
 dreaded, and to avoid it death has often 
 been endured. 
 
 In expressing the moral influence of 
 slavery, the first and most obvious re- 
 mark is, that it destroys the proper con- 
 sciousness and spirit of a man. The 
 slave, regarded and treated as property, 
 bought and sold like a brute, denied the 
 rights of humanity, unprotected against 
 insult, made a tool, and systematically 
 subdued, that he may be a manageable, 
 useful tool, how can he help regarding 
 himself as fallen below his race ? How 
 must his spirit be crushed ! How can 
 he respect himself ? He becomes bowed
 
 ;oS 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 to servility. This word, borrowed from 
 his condition, expresses the ruin wrought 
 by slavery within him. The idea that he 
 was made for his own virtue and happi- 
 ness, scarcely dawns on his mind. To 
 be an instrument of the physical, mate- 
 rial good of another, whose will is his 
 highest law, he is taught to regard as 
 the great purpose of his being. Here 
 lies the evil of slavery. Its whips, im- 
 prisonments, and even the horrors of 
 the middle passage from Africa to 
 America, these are not to be named 
 in comparison with this extinction of 
 the proper consciousness of a human 
 being, with the degradation of a man 
 into a brute. 
 
 It may be said that the slave is used 
 to his yoke ; that his sensibilities are 
 blunted ; that he receives, without a 
 pang or a thought, the treatment which 
 would sting other men to madness. And 
 to what does this apology amount ? It 
 virtually declares that slavery has done its 
 perfect work, has quenched the spirit of 
 humanity, that the man is dead within the 
 slave. Is slavery, therefore, no wrong? 
 It is not, however, true that this work 
 of debasement is ever so effectually 
 done as to extinguish all feeling. Man 
 is too great a creature to be wholly 
 ruined by man. When he seems dead, 
 he only sleeps. There are occasionally 
 some sullen murmurs in the calm of sla- 
 very, showing that life still beats in the 
 soul, that the idea of rights cannot be 
 wholly effaced from the human being. 
 
 It would be too painful, and it is not 
 needed, to detail the processes by which 
 the spirit is broken in slavery. I refer 
 to one only, the selling of slaves. The 
 practice of exposing fellow-creatures for 
 sale, of having markets for men as for 
 cattle, of examining the limbs and mus- 
 cles of a man and a woman as of a brute, 
 of putting human beings under the ham- 
 mer of an auctioneer, and delivering 
 them, like any other articles of merchan- 
 dise, to the highest bidder, all this is 
 such an insult to our common nature, 
 and so infinitely degrading to the poor 
 victim, that it is hard to conceive of its 
 existence, except in a barbarous coun- 
 try. 
 
 That slavery should be most unpro- 
 pitious to the slave, as a moral being, 
 will be farther apparent if we consider 
 that his condition is, throughout, a wrong, 
 and that consequently it must tend to 
 
 unsettle all his notions of duty. The 
 violation of his own rights, to which he 
 is inured from birth, must throw confu- 
 sion over his ideas of all human rights. 
 He cannot comprehend them ; or, if he 
 does, how can he respect them, seeing 
 them, as he does, perpetually trampled 
 on in his own person ? The injury to the 
 character, from living in an atmosphere 
 of wrong, we can all understand. To live 
 in a state of society of which injustice is 
 the chief and all-pervading element, is 
 too severe a trial for human nature, es- 
 pecially when no means are used to 
 counteract its influence. 
 
 Accordingly, the most common dis- 
 tinctions of morality are faintly ap- 
 prehended by the slave. Respect for 
 property, that fundamental law of civil 
 society, can hardly be instilled into him. 
 His dishonesty is proverbial. Theft 
 from his master passes with him for no 
 crime. A system of force is generally 
 found to drive to fraud. How necessa- 
 rily will this be the result of a relation 
 in which force is used to extort from 
 a man his labor, his natural property, 
 without any attempt to win his consent ! 
 Can we wonder that the uneducated con- 
 science of the man who is daily wronged 
 should allow him in reprisals to the ex- 
 tent of his power? Thus the primary 
 social virtue, justice, is undermined in 
 the slave. 
 
 That the slave should yield himself 
 to intemperance, licentiousness, and, in 
 general, to sensual excess, we must also 
 expect. Doomed to live for the physical 
 indulgences of others, unused to any 
 pleasures but those of sense, stripped 
 of self-respect, and having nothing to 
 gain in life, how can he be expected to 
 govern himself? How naturally, I had 
 almost said necessarily, does he become 
 the creature of sensation, of passion, of 
 the present moment ! What aid does 
 the future give him in withstanding de- 
 sire ? That better condition, for which 
 other men postpone the cravings of ap- 
 petite, never opens before him. The 
 sense of character, the power of opin- 
 ion, another restraint on the free, can 
 do little or nothing to rescue so abject 
 a class from excess and debasement. 
 In truth, power over himself is the last 
 virtue we should expect in the slave, 
 when we think of him as subjected to 
 absolute power, and made to move pas- 
 sively from the impulse of a foreign will.
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 709 
 
 He is trained to cowardice, and coward- 
 ice links itself naturally with low vices. 
 Idleness, to his apprehension, is para- 
 dise, for he works without hope of re- 
 ward. Thus slavery robs him of moral 
 force, and prepares him to fall a prey to 
 appetite and passion. 
 
 That the slave finds in his condition 
 little nutriment for the social virtues we 
 shall easily understand, if we consider 
 that his chief relations are to an abso- 
 lute master, and to the companions of 
 his degrading bondage ; that is, to a 
 being who wrongs him, and to associates 
 whom he cannot honor, whom he sees 
 debased. His dependence on his owner 
 loosens his ties to all other beings. He 
 has no country to love, no family to call 
 his own, no objects of public utility to 
 espouse, no impulse to generous exer- 
 tion. The relations, dependences, and 
 responsibilities, by which Providence 
 forms the soul to a deep, disinterested 
 love, are almost struck out of his lot. 
 An arbitrary rule, a foreign, irresistible 
 will, taking him out of his own hands, and 
 placing him beyond the natural influ- 
 ences of society, extinguishes in a great 
 degree the sense of what is due to him- 
 self and to the human family around 
 him. 
 
 The effects of slavery on the charac- 
 ter are so various that this part of the 
 discussion might be greatly extended ; 
 but I will touch only on one topic. Let 
 us turn for a moment to the great mo- 
 tive by which the slave is made to labor. 
 Labor, in one form or another, is ap- 
 pointed by God for man's improvement 
 and happiness, and absorbs the chief 
 part of human life, so that the motive 
 which excites to it has immense influ- 
 ence on character. It determines very 
 much whether life shall serve or fail of 
 its end. The man who works from hon- 
 orable motives, from domestic affec- 
 tions, from desire of a condition which 
 will open to him greater happiness and 
 usefulness, finds in labor an exercise 
 and invigoration of virtue. The day- 
 laborer, who earns, with horny hand and 
 the sweat of his face, coarse food for a 
 wife and children whom he loves, is 
 raised, by this generous motive, to true 
 dignity ; and, though wanting the refine- 
 ments of life, is a nobler being than 
 those who think themselves absolved by 
 wealth from serving others. Now, the 
 slave's labor brings no dignity, is an ex- 
 
 ercise of no virtue, but throughout a 
 degradation; so that one of God's chief 
 provisions for human improvement be- 
 comes a curse. The motive from which 
 he acts debases him. It is the whip. 
 It is corporal punishment. It is phys- 
 ical pain inflicted by a fellow-creature. 
 Undoubtedly labor is mitigated to the 
 slave, as to all men, by habit. But this 
 is not the motive. Take away the whip, 
 and he would be idle. His labor brings 
 no new comforts to wife or child. The 
 motive which spurs him is one by which 
 it is base to be swayed. Stripes are, 
 indeed, resorted to by civil government, 
 when no other consideration will deter 
 from crime : but he who is deterred 
 from wrong-doing by the whipping-post 
 is among the most fallen of his race. 
 To work in sight of the whip, under 
 menace of blows, is to be exposed to 
 perpetual insult and degrading influ- 
 ences. Every motion of the limbs, which 
 such a menace urges, is a wound to the 
 soul. How hard must it be for a man 
 who lives under the lash to respect him- 
 self ! When this motive is substituted 
 for all the nobler ones which God or- 
 dains, is it not almost necessarily death 
 to the better and higher sentiments of 
 our nature ? It is the part of a man to 
 despise pain in comparison with dis- 
 grace, to meet it fearlessly in well-doing, 
 to perform the work of life from other 
 impulses. It is the part of a brute to 
 be governed by the whip. Even the 
 brute is seen to act fjt>m more generous 
 incitements. The horse of a noble 
 breed will not endure the lash. Shall 
 we sink man below the horse ? 
 
 Let it not be said that blows are sel- 
 dom inflicted. Be it so. We are glad 
 to know it. But this is not the point. 
 The complaint now urged is not of the 
 amount of the pain inflicted, but of its 
 influence on the character when made 
 the great motive to human labor. It is 
 not the endurance, but the dread of the 
 whip, it is the substitution of this for 
 natural and honorable motives to action, 
 which we abhor and condemn. It mat- 
 ters not whether few or many are 
 whipped. A blow given to a single 
 slave is a stripe on the souls of all who 
 see or hear it. It makes all abject, ser- 
 vile. It is not the wound given to the 
 flesh of which we now complain. Scar 
 the back, and you have done nothing 
 compared with the wrong done to the
 
 710 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 soul. You have either stung that soul 
 with infernal passions, with thirst for 
 revenge, or, what perhaps is more dis- 
 couraging, you have broken and brutal- 
 ized it. The human spirit has perished 
 under your hands, as far as it can be 
 destroyed by human force. 
 
 I know it is sometimes said, in reply 
 to these remarks, that all men, as well 
 as slaves, act from necessity ; that we 
 have masters in hunger and thirst ; that 
 no man loves labor for itself ; that the 
 pains which are inflicted on us by the 
 laws of nature, the elements and sea- 
 sons, are so many lashes driving us to 
 our daily task. Be it so. Still the two 
 cases are essentially different. The 
 necessity laid on us by natural wants is 
 most kindly in its purpose. It is meant 
 to awaken all our faculties, to give full 
 play to body and mind, and thus to 
 give us a new consciousness of the 
 powers derived to us from God. We 
 are, indeed, subjected to a stern nature ; 
 we are placed amidst warring elements, 
 scorching heat, withering cold, storms, 
 blights, sickness, death. And what is 
 the design ? To call forth our powers, 
 to lay on us great duties, to make us 
 nobler beings. We are placed in the 
 midst of a warring nature, not to yield to 
 it, not to be its slaves, but to conquer it, 
 to make it the monument of our skill 
 and strength, to arm ourselves with its 
 elements, its heat, winds, vapors, and 
 mineral treasures, to find, in its pain- 
 ful changes, occasions and incitements 
 to invention, courage, endurance, mut- 
 ual and endearing dependences, and 
 religious trust. The development of 
 human nature, in all its powers and 
 affections, is the end of that hard neces- 
 sity which is laid on us by nature. Is 
 this one and the same thing with the 
 whip laid on the slave ? Still more ; it 
 is the design of nature that, by energy, 
 skill, and self-denial, we should so far 
 anticipate our wants, or accumulate 
 supplies, as to be able to diminish the 
 toil. of the hands, and to mix with it 
 more intellectual and liberal occupa- 
 tions. Nature does not lay on us an 
 unchangeable task, but one which we 
 may all lighten by honest, self-denying 
 industry. Thus she invites us to throw 
 off her yoke, and to make her our ser- 
 vant. Is this the invitation which the 
 master gives his slaves ? Is it his aim 
 to awaken the powers of those on whom 
 
 he lays his burdens, and to give them 
 increasing mastery over himself? Is it 
 not his aim to curb their wills, break 
 their spirits, and shut them up for ever 
 in the same narrow and degrading work ? 
 Oh, let not nature be profaned, let not 
 her parental rule be blasphemed, by 
 comparing with her the slave-holder ! 
 
 2. Having considered the moral influ- 
 ence of slavery, I proceed to consider its 
 intellectual influence, another great 
 topic. God gave us intellectual power 
 that it should be cultivated ; and a sys- 
 tem which degrades it, and can only be 
 upheld by its depression, opposes one 
 of his most benevolent designs. Reason 
 is God's image in man, and the capacity 
 of acquiring truth is among his best 
 aspirations. To call forth the intellect 
 is a principal purpose of the circum- 
 stances in which we are placed, of the 
 child's connection with the parent, and 
 of the necessity laid on him in maturer 
 life to provide for himself and others. 
 The education of the intellect is not 
 confined to youth ; but the various ex- 
 perience of later years does vastly more 
 than books and colleges to ripen and 
 invigorate the faculties. 
 
 Now, the whole lot of the slave is 
 fitted to keep his mind in childhood 
 and bondage. Though living in a land 
 of light, few beams find their way to 
 his benighted understanding. No par- 
 ent feels the duty of instructing him. 
 No teacher is provided for him but the 
 driver, who breaks him, almost in child- 
 hood, to the servile tasks which are to 
 fill up his life. No book is opened to 
 his youthful curiosity. As he advances 
 in years, no new excitements supply the 
 place of teachers. He is not cast on 
 himself, made to depend on his own 
 energies. No stirring prizes in life 
 awaken his dormant faculties. Fed and 
 clothed by others like a child, directed 
 in every step, doomed for life to a mo- 
 notonous round of labor, he lives arid 
 dies without a spring to his powers, 
 often brutally unconscious of his spirit- 
 ual nature. Nor is this all. When be- 
 nevolence would approach him with 
 instruction, it is repelled. He is not 
 allowed to be taught. The light is 
 jealously barred out. The voice, which 
 would speak to him as a man, is put to 
 silence. He must not even be enabled 
 to read the word of God. His immortal 
 spirit is systematically crushed.
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 711 
 
 It is said, I know, that the ignorance 
 of the slave is necessary to the security 
 of the master, and the quiet of the 
 state ; and this is said truly. Slavery 
 and knowledge cannot live together. 
 To enlighten the slave is to break his 
 chain. To make him harmless, he must 
 be kept blind. He cannot be left to 
 read, in an enlightened age, without en- 
 dangering his master ; for what can he 
 read which will not give at least some 
 hint of his wrongs ? Should his eye 
 chance to fall on the " Declaration of 
 Independence," how would the truth 
 glare on him that " All men are born 
 free and equal ! " All knowledge fur- 
 nishes arguments against slavery. From 
 every subject, light would break forth 
 to reveal his inalienable and outraged 
 rights. The very exercise of his intel- 
 lect would give him the consciousness 
 of being made for something more than 
 a slave. I agree to the necessity laid 
 on his master to keep him in darkness. 
 And what stronger argument against 
 slavery can be conceived ? It compels 
 the master to degrade systematically 
 the mind of the slave ; to war against 
 human intelligence ; to resist that im- 
 provement which is the end of the 
 Creator. " Woe to him that taketh 
 away the key of knowledge ! " To kill 
 the body is a great crime. The spirit 
 we cannot kill, but we can bury it in 
 death -like lethargy : and is this a light 
 crime in the sight of its Maker ? 
 
 Let it not be said that almost every- 
 where the laboring classes are doomed 
 to ignorance, deprived of the means of 
 instruction. The intellectual advan- 
 tages of the laboring freeman, who is 
 intrusted with the care of himself, raise 
 him far above the slave ; and, accord- 
 ingly, superior minds are constantly seen 
 to issue from the less educated classes. 
 Besides, in free communities, philan- 
 thropy is not forbidden to labor for the 
 improvement of the ignorant. The ob- 
 ligation of the prosperous and instruct- 
 ed to elevate their less favored brethren 
 is taught, and not taught in vain. Be- 
 nevolence is making perpetual encroach- 
 ments on the domain of ignorance and 
 crime. In communities, on the other 
 hand, cursed with slavery, half the pop- 
 ulation, sometimes more, are given up, 
 intentionally and systematically, to hope- 
 less ignorance. . To raise this mass to 
 intelligence and self-government is a 
 
 crime. The sentence of perpetual deg- 
 radation is passed on a large portion of 
 the human race. In this view, how 
 great the ill-desert of slavery ! 
 
 3. I proceed now to the domestic in- 
 fluences of slavery ; and here we must 
 look for a dark picture. Slavery virtu- 
 ally dissolves the domestic relations. 
 It ruptures the most sacred ties on 
 earth. It violates home. It lacerates 
 the best affections. The domestic rela- 
 tions precede, and, in our present exist- 
 ence, are worth more than all our other 
 social ties. They give the first throb to 
 the heart, and unseal the deep fountains 
 of its love. Home is the chief school of 
 human virtue. Its responsibilities, joys, 
 sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes, and solici- 
 tudes, form the chief interests of human 
 life. Go where a man may, home is the 
 centre to which his heart turns. The 
 thought of his home nerves his arm and 
 lightens his toil. For that his heart 
 yearns, when he is far off. There he 
 garners up his best treasures. God has 
 ordained for all men alike the highest 
 earthly happiness, in providing for all 
 the sanctuary of home. But the slave's 
 home does not merit the name. To him 
 it is no sanctuary. It is open to viola- 
 tion, insult, outrage. His children be- 
 long to another, are provided for by 
 another, are disposed of by another. 
 The most precious burden with which 
 the heart can be charged the happi- 
 ness of his child he must not bear. 
 He lives not for his family, but for a 
 stranger. He cannot improve their lot. ' 
 His wife and daughter he cannot shield 
 from insult. They may be torn from 
 him at another's pleasure, sold as beasts 
 of burden, sent he knows not whither, 
 sent where he cannot reach them, or 
 even interchange inquiries and messages 
 of love. To the slave, marriage has no 
 sanctity. It may be dissolved in a 
 moment at another's will. His wife, 
 son, and daughter may be lashed be- 
 fore his eyes, and not a finger must be 
 lifted in their defence. He sees the scar 
 of the lash on his wife and child. Thus 
 the slave's home is desecrated. Thus 
 the tenderest relations, intended by God 
 equally for all, and intended to be the 
 chief springs of happiness and virtue, 
 are sported with wantonly and cruelly. 
 What outrage so great as to enter a 
 man's house, and tear from his side the 
 beings whom God has bound to him by
 
 712 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 the holiest ties ? Every man can make 
 the case his own. Every mother can 
 bring it home to her own heart. 
 
 And let it not be said that the slave 
 has not the sensibilities of other men. 
 Nature is too strong even for slavery to 
 conquer. Even the brute has the yearn- 
 ings of parental love. But suppose that 
 the conjugal and parental ties of the 
 slave may be severed without a pang. 
 What a curse must be slavery, if it can 
 so blight the heart with more than brutal 
 insensibility, if it can sink the human 
 mother below the Polar she-bear, which 
 " howls and dies for her sundered cub ! " 
 But it does not and cannot turn the slave 
 to stone. It leaves, at least, feeling 
 enough to make these domestic wrongs 
 occasions of frequent and deep suffer- 
 ing. Still it must do much to quench 
 the natural affections. Can the wife, 
 who has been brought up under influ- 
 ences most unfriendly to female purity 
 and honor, who is exposed to the whip, 
 who may be torn away at her master's 
 will, and whose support and protection 
 are not committed to a husband's faith- 
 fulness, can such a wife, if the name 
 may be given her, be loved and honored 
 as a woman should be ? Or can the love 
 which should bind together man and his 
 offspring be expected under an institu- 
 tion which subverts, in a great degree, 
 filial dependence and parental authority 
 and care ? Slavery withers the affec- 
 tions and happiness of home at their 
 very root, by tainting female purity. 
 "Woman, brought up in degradation, 
 placed under another's power and at 
 another's disposal, and never taughMo 
 look forward to the happiness of an in- 
 violate, honorable marriage, can hardly 
 possess the feelings and virtues of her 
 sex. A blight falls on her in her early 
 years. Those who have daughters can 
 comprehend her lot. In truth, licen- 
 tiousness among bond and free is the 
 natural issue of all-polluting slavery. 
 Domestic happiness perishes under its 
 touch, both among bond and free. 
 
 How wonderful is it that, in civilized 
 countries, men can be so steeled by habit 
 as to invade without remorse the peace, 
 purity, and sacred relations of domestic 
 life, as to put asunder those whom God 
 has joined together, as to break up 
 households by processes more painful 
 than death ! And this is done for pe- 
 cuniary profit ! What ! Can men, hav- 
 
 ing human feeling, grow rich by the 
 desolation of families ? We hear of 
 some of the Southern States enriching 
 themselves by breeding slaves for sale. 
 Of all the licensed occupations of society 
 this is the most detestable. What ! grow 
 men like cattle ! Rear human families, 
 like herds of swine, and then scatter 
 them to the four winds for gain ! Among 
 the imprecations uttered by man on man, 
 is there one more fearful, more ominous, 
 than the sighing of the mother bereft of 
 her child by unfeeling cupidity ? If 
 blood cry to God, surely that sigh will 
 be heard in heaven. 
 
 Let it not be said that members of 
 families are often separated in all con- 
 ditions of life. Yes, but separated under 
 the influence of love. The husband 
 leaves wife and children- that he may 
 provide for their support, and carries 
 them with him in his heart and hopes. 
 The sailor, in his lonely night-watch, 
 looks homeward, and well known voices 
 come to him amidst the roar of the 
 waves. The parent sends away his 
 children, but sends them to prosper, 
 and to press them again to his heart 
 with a joy enhanced by separation. Are 
 such the separations which slavery 
 makes ? And can he who has scattered 
 other families ask God to bless his 
 own? 
 
 4. I proceed to another important 
 view of the evils of slavery. Slavery 
 produces and gives license to cruelty. 
 By this it is not meant that cruelty is 
 the universal, habitual, unfailing result. 
 Thanks to God, Christianity has not 
 entered the world in vain. Where it 
 has not cast down, it has mitigated bad 
 institutions. Slavery in this country 
 differs widely from that of ancient times, 
 and from that which the Spaniards im- 
 posed on the aboriginals of South Amer- 
 ica. There is here an increasing dispo- 
 sition to multiply the comforts of the 
 slaves, and in this let us rejoice. At 
 the same time, we must remember that, 
 under the light of the present day, and 
 in a country where Christianity and the 
 rights of men are understood, a dimin- 
 ished severity may contain more guilt 
 than the ferocity of darker ages. Cru- 
 elty in its lighter forms is now a greater 
 crime than the atrocious usages of an- 
 tiquity at which we shudder. " The 
 times of that ignorance God winked at, 
 but now he calleth men everywhere to
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 repent." It should also be considered, 
 that the slightest cruelty to the slave is 
 an aggravated wrong, because he is un- 
 justly held in bondage, unjustly held as 
 property. We condemn the man who 
 enforces harshly a righteous claim. 
 What, then, ought we to think of lash- 
 ing and scarring fellow-creatures, for 
 the purpose of upholding an unright- 
 eous, usurped power, of extorting labor 
 which is not our due ? 
 
 I have said that cruelty is not the 
 habit of the slave States of this country. 
 Still that it is frequent, we cannot doubt. 
 Reports, which harrow up our souls, 
 come to us from that quarter ; and we 
 know that they must be essentially cor- 
 rect, because it is impossible that a large 
 part, perhaps the majority, of the popu- 
 lation of a country can be broken to 
 passive, unlimited submission, without 
 examples of terrible severity. 
 
 Let it not be said, as is sometimes 
 done, that cruel deeds are perpetrated 
 everywhere else, as well as in slave 
 countries. Be it so ; but in all civilized 
 nations unscourged by slavery, a prin- 
 cipal object of legislation is to protect 
 every man from cruelty, and to bring 
 every man to punishment who wantonly 
 tortures or wounds another ; whilst sla- 
 very plucks off restraint from the fero- 
 cious, or leaves them to satiate their 
 rage with impunity. Let it not be said 
 that these barbarities are regarded no- 
 where with more horror than at the South. 
 Be it so. They are abhorred, but allowed. 
 The power of individuals to lacerate 
 their fellow-creatures is given to them 
 by the community. The community 
 abhors the abuse, but confers the power 
 which will certainly be abused, and thus 
 strips itself of all defence before the bar 
 of almighty justice. It must answer 
 for the crimes which are shielded by its 
 laws. Let it not be said that these cruel- 
 ties are checked by the private interest 
 of the slave-holder. Does regard to 
 private interest save from brutal treat- 
 ment the draught-horse in our streets ? 
 And may not a vast amount of suffering 
 be inflicted which will not put in peril 
 the life or strength of the slave ? 
 
 To substantiate the charge of cruelty, 
 I shall not, as I have said, have recourse 
 to current reports, however well estab- 
 lished. I am willing to dismiss them 
 all as false. I stand on other ground. 
 Reports may lie, but our daily experi- 
 
 ought not 
 He ought to dread it. He 
 
 ence of human nature cannot lie. I 
 summon no witnesses, or rather I appeal 
 to a witness everywhere present, a 
 witness in every heart. Who, that has 
 watched his own heart, or observed 
 others, does not feel that man is not fit 
 to be trusted with absolute, irresponsible 
 power over man ? It must be abused. 
 The selfish passions and pride of ouf 
 nature will as surely abuse it as the 
 storm will ravage, or the ocean swell 
 and roar under the whirlwind. A being 
 so ignorant, so headstrong, so passionate, 
 as man, ought not to be trusted with 
 this terrible dominion. He 
 to desire it. 
 ought to cast it from him, as most peril- 
 ous to himself and others. 
 
 Absolute power was not meant fof 
 man. There is, indeed, an exception to 
 this rnle. There is one case in which 
 God puts a human being wholly defence- 
 less into another's hands. I refer to the 
 child, who is wholly subjected to the 
 parent's will. But observe how care- 
 fully I might almost say anxiously 
 God has provided against the abuse of 
 this power. He has raised up for the 
 child in the heart of the parent a guar- 
 dian whom the mightiest on earth can- 
 not resist. He has fitted the parent for 
 this trust, by teaching him to love his 
 offspring better than himself. No elo- 
 quence on earth is so subduing as the 
 moaning of the infant when in pain. 
 No reward is sweeter than that in- 
 fant's smile. We say, God has put the 
 infant into the parent's hands. Might 
 we not more truly say, that he has put 
 the parent into the child's power ? That 
 little being sends forth his father to toil, 
 and makes the mother watch over him 
 by day, and fix on him her sleepless eyes 
 by night. No tyrant lays such a yoke. 
 Thus God has fenced and secured from 
 abuse the power of the parent ; and yet 
 even the parent has been known, in a 
 moment of passion, to be cruel to hi& 
 child. Is man, then, to be trusted with 
 absolute power over a fellow-creature, 
 who, instead of being commended by 
 nature to his tenderest love, belongs to 
 a despised race, is regarded as property, 
 is made the passive instrument of his 
 gratification and gain ? I ask no docu- 
 ments to prove the abuses of this power, 
 nor do I care what is said to disprove 
 them. Millions may rise up and tell me 
 that the slave suffers little from cruelty.
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 I know too much of human nature, hu- 
 man history, human passion, to believe 
 them. 1 acquit slave-holders of all pe- 
 culiar depravity. I judge them by my- 
 self. I say that absolute power always 
 corrupts human nature more or less. I 
 say that extraordinary, almost miracu- 
 lous, self-control is necessary to secure 
 the slave-holder from provocation and 
 passion ; and is self-control the virtue 
 which, above all others, grows up amidst 
 the possession of irresponsible domin- 
 ion ? Even when the slave-holder hon- 
 estly acquits himself of cruelty, he may 
 be criminal. His own consciousness is 
 to be distrusted. Having begun with 
 wronging the slave, with wresting from 
 him sacred rights, he may be expected 
 to multiply wrongs without thought. 
 The degraded state of the slave may 
 induce in the master a mode of treat- 
 ment essentially inhuman and insulting, 
 but which he never dreams to be cruel. 
 The influence of slavery in indurating 
 the moral feeling and blinding men to 
 wrong, is one of its worst evils. 
 
 But suppose the master to be ever so 
 humane. Still, he is not always watch- 
 ing over his slave. He has his pleasures 
 to attend to. He is often absent. His 
 terrible power must be delegated. And 
 to whom is it delegated ? To men pre- 
 pared to govern others, by having learned 
 to govern themselves ? To men having 
 a deep interest in the slaves ? To wise 
 men, instructed in human nature ? To 
 Christians, trained to purity and love ? 
 Who does not know that the office of 
 overseer is among the last which an en- 
 lightened, philanthropic, self-respecting 
 man would choose ? Who does not 
 know how often the overseer pollutes 
 the plantation by his licentiousness, as 
 well as scourges it by his severity ? In 
 the hands of such a man the lash is 
 placed. To such a man is committed 
 the most fearful trust on earth ! For 
 his cruelties the master must answer, 
 as truly as if they were his own. Nor 
 is this all. The master does more than 
 delegate his power to the overseer. How 
 often does he part with it wholly to the 
 slave-dealer ! And has he weighed the 
 responsibility of such a transfer ? Does 
 he not know that, in selling his slaves 
 into merciless hands, he is merciless 
 himself, and must give an account to 
 God for every barbarity of which they 
 become the victims ? The notorious 
 
 cruelty of the slave-dealers can be no 
 false report, for it belongs to their vo- 
 cation. These are the men who throng 
 and defile our seat of government, whose 
 slave-markets and slave-dungeons turn 
 to mockery the language of freedom in 
 the halls of Congress, and who make us 
 justly the by-word and the scorn of the 
 nations. Is there no cruelty in putting 
 slaves under the bloody lash of the slave- 
 dealers, to be driven like herds of cattle 
 to distant regions, and there to pass into 
 the hands of strangers, without a pledge 
 of their finding justice or mercy ? What 
 heart, not seared by custom, would not 
 recoil from such barbarity ? 
 
 It has been seen that I do not ground 
 my argument at all on cases of exces- 
 sive cruelty. I should attach less im- 
 portance to these than do most persons, 
 even were they more frequent. They 
 form a very, very small amount of suf- 
 fering, compared with what is inflicted 
 by abuses of power too minute for notice. 
 Blows, insults, privations, which make 
 no noise, and leave no scar, are incom- 
 parably more destructive of happiness 
 than a few brutal violences, which move 
 general indignation. A weak, despised 
 being, having no means of defence or 
 redress, living in a community armed 
 against his rights, regarded as property, 
 and as bound to entire, unresisting com- 
 pliance with another's will, if not sub- 
 jected to inflictions of ferocious cruelty, 
 is yet exposed to less striking and shock- 
 ing forms of cruelty, the amount of which 
 must be a fearful mass of suffering. 
 
 But could it be proved that there are 
 no cruelties in slave-countries, we ought 
 not then to be more reconciled to slavery 
 than we now are. For what would this 
 show ? That cruelty is not needed. 
 And why not needed ? Because the 
 slave is entirely subdued to his lot. 
 No man will be wholly unresisting in 
 bondage but he who is thoroughly im- 
 bued with the spirit of a slave. If the 
 colored race never need punishment, it 
 is because the feelings of men are dead 
 within them, because they have no con- 
 sciousness of rights, because they are 
 cowards, without respect for themselves, 
 and without confidence in the sharers of 
 their degraded lot. The quiet of slavery- 
 is like that which the Roman legions left 
 in ancient Britain, the stillness of 
 death. Why were the Romans accus- 
 tomed to work their slaves in chains
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 by day, and confine them in dungeons 
 by night ? Not because they loved 
 cruelty for its own sake, but because 
 their' slaves were stung with a con- 
 sciousness of degradation ; because they 
 brought from the forests of Dacia some 
 rude ideas of human dignity, or from 
 civilized countries some experience of 
 social improvements, which naturally 
 issued in violence and exasperation. 
 They needed cruelty, for their own wills 
 were not broken to another's, and the 
 spirit of freemen was not wholly gone. 
 The slave tnust meet cruel treatment 
 either inwardly or outwardly. Either 
 the soul or the body must receive the 
 blow. Either the flesh must be tortured, 
 or the spirit be struck down. Dreadful 
 alternative to which slavery is reduced ! 
 
 5. I proceed to another view of the 
 evils of slavery. I refer to its influence 
 on the master. This topic cannot, per- 
 haps, be so handled as to avoid giving 
 offence ; but without it an imperfect 
 view of the subject would be given. 
 I will pass over many views. I will say 
 nothing of the tendency of slavery to 
 unsettle the ideas of right in the slave- 
 holder, to impair his convictions of jus- 
 tice and benevolence ; or of its tendency 
 to associate with labor ideas of degra- 
 dation, and to recommend idleness as 
 an honorable exemption. I will confine 
 myself to two considerations. 
 
 The first is, that slavery, above all 
 other influences, nourishes the passion 
 for power and its kindred vices. There 
 is no passion which needs a stronger 
 curb. Men's worst crimes have sprung 
 from the desire of being masters, of 
 bending others to their yoke. And the 
 natural tendency of bringing others into 
 subjection to our absolute will, is to 
 quicken into fearful activity the impe- 
 rious, haughty, proud, self-seeking pro- 
 pensities of our nature. Man cannot, 
 without imminent peril to his virtue, own 
 a fellow-creature, or use the word of 
 absolute command to his brethren. God 
 never delegated this power. It is a 
 usurpation of the divine dominion, and 
 its natural influence is to produce a 
 spirit of superiority to divine as well as 
 to human laws. 
 
 Undoubtedly this tendency is in a 
 measure counteracted by the spirit of 
 the age and the genius of Christianity, 
 and in conscientious individuals it may 
 be wholly overcome ; but we see its 
 
 fruits in the corruptions of moral senti- 
 ment which prevail among slave-hold- 
 ers. A quick resentment of whatever 
 is thought to encroach on personal dig- 
 nity, a trembling jealousy of reputation, 
 vehemence of the vindictive passions, 
 and contempt of all laws, human and 
 divine, in retaliating injury, these take 
 rank among the virtues of men whose 
 self-estimation has been fed by the pos- 
 session of absolute power. 
 
 Of consequence, the direct tendency 
 of slavery is to annihilate the control of 
 Christianity. Humility is by eminence 
 the spirit of Christianity. No vice was 
 so severely rebuked by our Lord as the 
 passion for ruling over others. A def- 
 erence towards all human beings as our 
 brethren, a benevolence which disposes 
 us to serve rather than to reign, to con- 
 cede our own rather than to encroach 
 on others' rights, to forgive, not avenge 
 wrongs, to govern our own spirits, in- 
 stead of breaking the spirit of an infe- 
 rior or foe, this is Christianity ; a 
 religion too high and .pure to be under- 
 stood and obeyed anywhere as it should 
 be, but which meets singular hostility 
 in the habits of mind generated by 
 slavery. 
 
 The slave-holder, indeed, values him- 
 self on his loftiness of spirit. He has a 
 consciousness of dignity, which imposes 
 on himself and others. But truth can- 
 not stoop to this lofty mien. Truth, 
 moral Christian truth, condemns it, and 
 condemns those who bow to it. Self- 
 respect, founded on a consciousness of 
 our moral nature and immortal destiny, 
 is, indeed, a noble principle ; but this 
 sentiment includes, as a part of itself, 
 respect for all who partake our nature. 
 A consciousness of dignity, founded on 
 the subjection of others to our absolute 
 will, is inhuman and unjust. It is time 
 that the teachings of Christ were under- 
 stood. In proportion as a man acquires 
 a lofty bearing from the habit of com- 
 mand over wronged and depressed fel- 
 low-creatures, so far he casts away true 
 honor, so far he has fallen in the sight 
 of God and virtue. 
 
 I approach a more delicate subject, 
 and one on which I shall not enlarge. 
 To own the persons of others, to hold 
 females in slavery, is necessarily fatal to 
 the purity of a people. That unprotected 
 females, stripped by their degraded cqn- 
 dition of woman's self-respect, should be
 
 716 
 
 SLA VERY. 
 
 used to minister to other passions in 
 men than the love of gain, is next to 
 inevitable. Accordingly, in such a com- 
 munity, the reins are given to youthful 
 licentiousness. Youth, everywhere in 
 peril, is in these circumstances urged to 
 vice with a terrible power. And the evil 
 cannot stop at youth. Early licentious- 
 ness is fruitful of crime in mature life. 
 How far the obligation to conjugal fidel- 
 ity, the sacredness of domestic ties, will 
 be revered amidst such habits, such 
 temptations, such facilities to vice, as 
 are involved in slavery, needs no expo- 
 sition. So sure and terrible is retribu- 
 tion even in this life ! Domestic happi- 
 ness is not blighted in the slave's hut 
 alone. The master's infidelity sheds a 
 blight ever his own domestic affections 
 and joys. Home, without purity and 
 constancy, is spoiled of its holiest charm 
 and most blessed influences. I need 
 not say, after the preceding explana- 
 tions, that this corruption is far from 
 being universal. Still, a slave-country 
 reeks with licentiousness. It is tainted 
 with a deadlier pestilence than the 
 plague. 
 
 But the worst is not told. As a con- 
 sequence of criminal connections, many 
 a master has children born into slavery. 
 Of these, most, I presume, receive pro- 
 tection, perhaps indulgence, during the 
 life of the fathers ; but, at their death, 
 not a few are left to the chances of a 
 cruel bondage. These cases must have 
 increased, since the difficulties of eman- 
 cipation have been multiplied. Still 
 more : it is to be feared that there are 
 cases in which the master puts his own 
 children under the whip of the overseer, 
 or else sells them to undergo the mis- 
 eries of bondage among strangers. I 
 should rejoice to learn that my impres- 
 sions on this point are false. If they be 
 true, then our own country, calling itself 
 enlightened and Christian, is defiled with 
 one of the greatest enormities on earth. 
 We send missionaries to heathen lands. 
 Among the pollutions of heathenism I 
 know nothing worse than this. The 
 heathen, who feasts on his country's 
 foe, may hold up his head by the side of 
 the Christian who sells his child for gain, 
 sells him to be a slave. God forbid 
 that I should charge this crime on a 
 people ! But however rarely it may 
 OQCur, it is a fruit of slavery, an exercise 
 of power belonging to slavery, and no 
 
 laws restrain or punish it. Such are the 
 evils which spring naturally from the li- 
 centiousness generated by slavery. 
 
 6. I cannot leave the subject of the 
 evils of slavery without saying a word of 
 its political influence. Under this head, 
 I shall not engage in discussions which 
 belong to the economist. I shall not 
 repeat, what has been often proved, that 
 slave-labor is less productive than free ; 
 nor shall I show how the ability of a 
 community to unfold its resources in 
 peace, and to defend itself in war, must 
 be impaired by degrading the laboring 
 population to a state which takes from 
 them motives to toil, and renders them 
 objects of suspicion or dread. I wish 
 only to speak of the influence of slavery 
 on free institutions. This influence, we 
 are gravely told, is favorable, and there- 
 fore I am bound to give it a brief notice. 
 Political liberty is said to find strength 
 and security in domestic servitude. 
 Strange mode, indeed, of ensuring free- 
 dom to ourselves, to violate it in the 
 persons of others ! Among the new 
 lights of the age, the most wonderful 
 discovery is, that to spoil others of their 
 rights is the way to assert the sacred- 
 ness of our own. 
 
 And how is slavery proved to support 
 free institutions ? Slave-holding, we are 
 told, infuses an indomitable spirit, and 
 this is a pledge against tyranny. But 
 do we not know that Asia and Africa, 
 slave-holding countries from the earliest 
 date of history, have been paralyzed for 
 ages and robbed of all manly force by 
 despotism? In the feudal ages, the 
 baron, surrounded by his serfs, had un- 
 doubtedly enough of a fiery spirit to keep 
 him free, if this were the true defence of 
 freedom ; but gradually his pride was 
 curbed, his power broken ; a greater 
 tyrant swallowed him up : and the de- 
 scendants of nobles, who would have 
 died sooner than brooked a master, were 
 turned into courtiers, as pliant as their 
 fathers had been ferocious. 
 
 But " the free states of antiquity," 
 we are told, "had slaves." So had the 
 monarchies of the same periods. With 
 which of these institutions was slavery 
 most congeniaj ? To which did it most 
 probably give support ? Besides, it is 
 only by courtesy that we call the ancient 
 republics free. Rome in her best days 
 was an aristocracy ; nor were private 
 rights, which it is the chief office of
 
 SLAVERY: 
 
 717 
 
 liberty to protect, rendered a whit more I 
 secure by the gradual triumphs of the | 
 people over patrician power. Slavery 
 WTS at all periods the curse of Rome. 
 The great mass of her free population, 
 throwing almost every laborious occu- 
 pation on the slaves, became an idle, 
 licentious rabble : and this unprincipled 
 populace, together with the slaves, fur- 
 nished ready instruments for every pri- 
 vate and public crime. When Clodius 
 prowled the streets of Rome for the 
 murder of Cicero and the best citizens, 
 his train was composed in part of slaves, 
 fit bloodhounds for his nefarious work. 
 The republic in its proudest days was 
 desolated and convulsed by servile wars. 
 Imperial Rome was overwhelmed by 
 savage hordes, for this among other rea- 
 sons, that her whole peasantry consisted 
 either of slaves, or of nominal freemen 
 degraded to a servile condition, so that 
 the legions could be recruited only from 
 tribes of barbarians whom she had for- 
 merly subdued. 
 
 But the great argument in favor of 
 the political benefits of slavery remains 
 to be stated. In plain language it 
 amounts to this, that slavery excludes 
 the laboring or poorer classes from the 
 elective franchise, from political power ; 
 and it is the turbulence of these classes 
 which is supposed to constitute the chief 
 peril of liberty. But, in slave-holding 
 communities, are there no distinctions 
 of condition among the free ? Are none 
 comparatively poor? Is there no de- 
 mocracy ? Was not Athens, crowded 
 as she was with slaves, the most turbu- 
 lent of democracies ? And further, do 
 not the idleness and impatience of 
 restraint, into which the free of a 
 slave-holding community naturally fall, 
 generate an intenser party-spirit, fiercer 
 political passions, and more desperate 
 instruments of ambition, than can be 
 found among the laboring classes in a 
 community where slavery is unknown ? 
 In which of the two great divisions of 
 our own country are political strifes 
 most likely to be settled by the sword ? 
 In the slave-holding States, or the free ? 
 The laboring classes, when brought up 
 under free institutions aid equal laws, 
 are not necessarily or peculiarly dis- 
 posed to abuse the elective franchise. 
 Their daily toil, often exhausting, se- 
 cures them from habitual political ex- 
 citement. The most powerful spirits 
 
 among them are continually rising to 
 a prosperity which gives them an inter- 
 est in public order. There is also a 
 general diffusion of property, the result 
 of unfettered industry, which forms a 
 general motive to the support of the 
 laws. It should be added, that the do- 
 mestic virtues and religious sentiments, 
 which in a Christian country spread 
 through all ranks, and spread more 
 widely among the industrious than the 
 idle, are powerful checks on the pas- 
 sions, strong barriers against civil con- 
 vulsion. Idleness, rather than toil, 
 makes the turbulent partisan. Who- 
 ever knows the state of society in the 
 free States, can testify that the love of 
 liberty, pride in our free institutions, 
 and jealousy of rights, are nowhere 
 more active than in those very classes 
 which in a slave-holding country are re- 
 duced to servitude. Undoubtedly, the 
 jealousies, passions, and prejudices of 
 the laboring portion of the community 
 may work evil, and even ruin to the 
 state ; and so may the luxury, the polit- 
 ical venality, the gambling spirit of 
 trade, and the cupidity, to be found in 
 other ranks or conditions. If freedom 
 must be denied wherever it will be en- 
 dangered, then every class in society 
 must be reduced to slavery. 
 
 Free institutions rest on two great 
 political virtues, the love of liberty 
 and the love of order. The slave-holder 
 (I mean the slave-holder by choice) is of 
 necessity more or less wanting in both. 
 How plain is' it that no man can love 
 liberty with a true love who has the 
 heart to wrest it from others ? Attach- 
 ment to freedom does not consist in 
 spurning indignantly a yoke prepared, 
 for our own necks ; for this is done even 
 by the savage and the beast of prey. It 
 is a moral sentiment, an impartial desire 
 and choice, that others as well as our- 
 selves may be protected from every 
 wrong, may be exempted from every 
 unjust restraint. Slave-holding, when 
 perpetuated selfishly and from choice, 
 is at an open war with this generous 
 principle. 1 1 is a plain, habitual contempt 
 of human rights, and of course impairs 
 that sense of their sanctity which is 
 their best protection. It offers, every 
 day and hour, a precedent of usurpation 
 to the ambitious. It creates a caste 
 with despotic powers ; and under such 
 guardians is liberty peculiarly secure ?
 
 7 i8 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 It creates a burning zeal for the rights 
 of a privileged class, but not for the 
 rights of men. These the voluntary 
 slave-holder casts down by force ; and, 
 in the changes of human affairs, the 
 time may not be distant when he will 
 learn that force, accustomed to triumph 
 over right, is prone to leap every bound, 
 and to make the proud as well as ab- 
 ject stoop to its sway. 
 
 Slavery is also hostile to the love of 
 order, which, in union with the love of 
 liberty, is the great support of free in- 
 stitutions. Slave-holding in a republic 
 tends directly to lawlessness. It gives 
 the habit of command, not of obedience. 
 The absolute master is not likely to dis- 
 tinguish himself by subjection to the 
 civil power. The substitution of pas- 
 sion and self-will for law is nowhere so 
 common as in the slave-holding States. 
 In these 1t is thought honorable to rely 
 on one's own arm, rather than on the 
 magistrate, for the defence of many 
 rights. In some, perhaps many, dis- 
 tricts, the chief peace-officer seems to 
 be the weapon worn as part of the com- 
 mon dress ; and the multitude seem to 
 be more awed by one another's passions 
 than by the authority of the State. Such 
 communities have no pledge of stable 
 liberty. Reverence for the laws, as 
 manifestations of the public will, is the 
 very spirit of free institutions. Does 
 this spirit find its best nutriment in the 
 habits and feelings generated by sla- 
 very ? 
 
 Slavery is a strange element to mix 
 up with free institutions. It cannot but 
 endanger them. It is a pattern for 
 every kind of wrong. The slave brings 
 insecurity on the free. Whoever holds 
 one human being in bondage invites 
 others to plant the foot on his own 
 neck. Thanks to God, not one human 
 being can be wronged with impunity. 
 The liberties of a people ought to trem- 
 ble until every man is free. Tremble 
 they will. Their true foundation is sap- 
 ped by the legalized degradation of a 
 single innocent man to slavery. That 
 foundation is impartial justice, is re- 
 spect for human nature, is respect for 
 the rights of every human being. 
 
 I have endeavored in these remarks 
 to show the hostility between slavery 
 and free institutions. If, however, I 
 err, if these institutions cannot stand 
 without slavery for their foundation, 
 
 then I say, Let them fall. Then they 
 ought to be buried in perpetual ruins. 
 Then the name of republicanism ought 
 to become a by-word and reproach 
 among the nations. Then monarchy, 
 limited as it is in England, is incom- 
 parably better and happier than our 
 more popular forms. Then despotism, 
 as it exists in Prussia, where equal laws 
 are in the main administered with im- 
 partiality, ought to be preferred. A 
 republican government, bought by the 
 sacrifice of half or more than half of a 
 people, by stripping them of their most 
 sacred rights, by degrading them to a 
 brutal condition, would cost too much. 
 A freedom so tainted with wrong ought 
 to be our abhorrence. They who tell 
 us that slavery is a necessary condition 
 of a republic, do not justify the former, 
 but pronounce a sentence of reproba- 
 tion on the latter. If they speak truth, 
 we are bound as a people to seek more 
 just and generous institutions, under 
 which the rights of all will be secure. 
 
 I have now placed before the reader 
 the chief evils of slavery. We are 
 told, however, that these are not with- 
 out mitigation, that slavery has advan- 
 tages which do much to counterbalance 
 its wrongs and pains. Not a few are 
 partially reconciled to the institution by 
 the language of confidence in which its 
 benefits are sometimes announced. I 
 shall therefore close this chapter with 
 a very brief consideration of what are 
 thought to be the advantages of slavery. 
 
 It is often said that the slave does 
 less work than the free laborer ; he 
 bears a lighter burden than liberty 
 would lay on him. Perhaps this is 
 generally true ; yet, when circumstances 
 promise profit to the master from the 
 imposition of excessive labor, the slave 
 is not spared. In the West Indies, the 
 terrible waste of life among the over- 
 worked cultivators required large sup- 
 plies from Africa to keep up the failing 
 population. In this country, it is prob- 
 ably true that the slave works less than 
 the' free laborer ; but it does not there- 
 fore follow that his work is lighter. For 
 what is it that lightens toil ? It is hope ; 
 it is love ; it is strong motive. That 
 labor is light which we do from the 
 heart, to which a great good quickens 
 us, which is to better our lot. That la- 
 bor is light which is to comfort, adorn, 
 and cheer our homes, to give instruc-
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 719 
 
 tion to our children, to solace the de- 
 clining years of a parent, to give to our 
 grateful and generous sentiments the 
 means of exertion. Great effort from 
 great motives is the best definition of 
 a happy life. The easiest labor is a 
 burden to him who has no motive for 
 performing it. How wearisome is the 
 task imposed by another, and wrong- 
 fully imposed ! The slave cannot easily 
 be made to do a freeman's work ; and 
 why ? Because he wants a freeman's 
 spirit, because the spring of labor is 
 impaired within him, because he works 
 as a machine, not a free agent. The 
 compulsion under which he toils for 
 another takes from labor its sweetness, 
 makes the daily round of life arid and 
 dull, makes escape from toil the chief 
 interest of life. 
 
 We are further told, that the slave is 
 freed from all care, that he is sure of 
 future support, that when old he is not 
 dismissed to the poor-house, but fed and 
 sheltered in his own hut. This is true ; 
 but it is also true that nothing can be 
 gained by violating the great laws and 
 essential rights of our nature. The 
 slave, we are told, has no care, his fut- 
 ure is provided for. Yet God created 
 him to provide for the future, to take 
 care of his own happiness ; and he can- 
 not be freed from this care without in- 
 jury to his moral and intellectual life. 
 Why has God given foresight and power 
 over the future, but to be used ? Is it 
 a blessing to a rational creature to be 
 placed in a condition which chains his 
 faculties to the present moment, which 
 leaves nothing before him to rouse the 
 intellect or touch the heart ? Be it also 
 remembered, that the same provision 
 which relieves the slave from anxiety 
 cuts him off from hope. The future is 
 not, indeed, haunted by spectres of 
 poverty, nor is it brightened by images 
 of joy. It stretches before him sterile, 
 monotonous, expindinginto no refresh- 
 ing verdure, and sending no cheering 
 whisper of a better lot. 
 
 It is true that the free laborer may be- 
 come a pauper ; and so may the free rich 
 man, both of the North and the South. 
 Still, our capitalists never dream of fly- 
 ing to slavery as a security against the 
 almshouse. Freedom undoubtedly has 
 its perils. It offers nothing to the sloth- 
 ful and dissolute. Among a people left to 
 seek their own good in their own way, 
 
 some of all classes fail from vice, some 
 from incapacity, some from misfortune. 
 All classes will furnish members to the 
 body of the poor. But in this country 
 the number is small, and ought con- 
 stantly to decrease. The evil, however 
 lamentable, is not so remediless and 
 spreading as to furnish a motive for re- 
 ducing half the population to chains. 
 Benevolence does much to mitigate it. 
 The best minds are inquiring how it 
 may be prevented, diminished, removed. 
 It is giving excitement to a philan- 
 thropy which creates out of misfortune 
 new bonds of union between man and 
 man. 
 
 Our slave-holding brethren, who tell 
 us that the condition of the slave is 
 better than that of the free laborer at 
 the North, talk ignorantly anil rashly. 
 They do not, cannot know, what to us 
 is matter of daily observation, that from 
 the families of our farmers and me- 
 chanics have sprung our most distin- 
 guished men, men who have done most 
 for science, arts, letters, religion, and 
 freedom ; and that the noblest spirits 
 among us would have been lost to their 
 country and mankind had the laboring 
 class here been doomed to slavery. 
 They do not know what we rejoice 
 to tell them that this class partakes 
 largely of the impulse given to the 
 whole community ; that the means of 
 intellectual improvement are multiply- 
 ing to the laborious as fast as to the 
 opulent ; that our most distinguished 
 citizens meet them as brethren, and 
 communicate to them in public dis- 
 courses their own most important ac- 
 quisitions. Undoubtedly, the Christian, 
 republican spirit is not working, even 
 here, as it should. The more improved 
 and prosperous classes have not yet 
 learned that it is their great mission to 
 elevate morally and intellectually the 
 less advanced classes of the commu- 
 nity ; but the great truth is more and 
 more recognized, and accordingly a new 
 era may be said to be opening on so- 
 ciety. 
 
 It is said, however, that the slave, if 
 not to be compared to the free laborer 
 at the North, is in a happier condition 
 than the Irish peasantry. Let this be 
 granted. Let the security of the peas- 
 ant's domestic relations, let his church 
 and his. school-house, and his faint hope 
 of a better lot, pass for nothing. Be-
 
 720 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 cause Ireland is suffering from the mis- 
 government and oppression of ages, 
 does it follow that a less grinding op- 
 pression is a good ? Besides, are not 
 the wrongs of Ireland acknowledged ? 
 Is not British legislation laboring to re- 
 store her prosperity ? Is it not true 
 that, whilst the slave's lot admits no im- 
 portant change, the most enlightened 
 minds are at work to confer on the Irish 
 peasant the blessings of education, of 
 equal laws, of new springs to exertion, 
 ot new sources of wealth ? Other 
 men, however fallen, may be lifted 
 up. An immovable weight presses on 
 the slave. 
 
 But still, we are told, the slave is gay. 
 He is not as wretched as our theories 
 teach. After his toil he sings, he 
 dances, he gives no signs of an ex- 
 hausted frame or gloomy spirit. The 
 slave happy ! Why, then, contend for 
 rights ? Why follow with beating hearts 
 the struggles of the patriot for freedom ? 
 Why canonize the martyr to freedom ? 
 The slave happy ! Then happiness is 
 to be found in giving up the distinctive 
 attributes of a man ; in darkening intel- 
 lect and conscience ; in quenching gen- 
 erous sentiments ; in servility of spirit ; 
 in living under a whip ; in having neither 
 property nor rights ; in holding wife and 
 child at another's pleasure ; in toiling 
 without hope ; in living without an end ! 
 The slave, indeed, has his pleasures. 
 His animal nature survives the injury 
 to his rational and moral powers ; and 
 every animal has its enjoyments. The 
 kindness of Providence allows no hu- 
 man being to be wholly divorced from 
 good. The lamb frolics ; the dog leaps 
 for joy ; the bird fills the air with cheer- 
 ful harmony ; and the slave spends his 
 holiday in laughter and the dance. 
 Thanks to Him who never leaves him- 1 
 self without witness ; who cheers even 
 the desert with spots of verdure, and 
 opens a fountain of joys in the most 
 withered heart ! It is not possible, how- 
 ever, to contemplate the occasional gay- 
 ety of the slave without some mixture 
 of painful thought. He is gay, because 
 he has not learned to think ; because 
 he is too fallen to feel his wrongs ; be- 
 cause he wants just self-respect. We 
 are grieved by the gayety of the insane. 
 There is a sadness in the gayety of him 
 whose lightness of heart would be turned 
 to bitterness and indignation, were one 
 
 ray of light to awaken in him the spirit 
 of a man. 
 
 That there are those among the free 
 who are more wretched than slaves is 
 undoubtedly true : just as there is in- 
 comparably greater misery among men 
 than among brutes. The brute never 
 knows the agony of a human spirit 
 torn by remorse, or wounded in its 
 love. But would we cease to be human 
 because our capacity for suffering in- 
 creases with the elevation of our nat- 
 ure ? All blessings may be perverted, 
 and the greatest perverted most. Were 
 we to visit a slave-country, undoubtedly 
 the most miserable human beings would 
 be found among the free ; for among 
 them the passions have wider sweep, 
 and the power they possess may be 
 used to their own ruin. Liberty is not 
 a necessity of happiness. It is only a 
 means of good. It is a trust which may 
 be abused. Are all such trusts to be 
 cast away ? Are they not the greatest 
 gifts of heaven ? 
 
 But the slave, we are told, often mani- 
 fests affection to his master, grieves at 
 his departure, and welcomes his return. 
 I will not endeavor to explain this by 
 saying that the master's absence places 
 the slave under the overseer ; nor will I 
 object that the slave's propensity to steal 
 from his master, his need of the whip to 
 urge him to toil, and the dread of insur- 
 rection which he inspires, are signs of 
 any thing but love. There is, undoubt- 
 edly, much more affection in this rela- 
 tion than could be expected. Of all 
 races of men, the African is the mildest 
 and most susceptible of attachment. 
 He loves, where the European would 
 hate. He watches the life of a master 
 whom the North American Indian, in 
 like circumstances, would stab to the 
 heart. The African is affectionate. Is 
 this a reason for holding him in chains ? 
 We cannot, however, think of this most 
 interesting feature of slavery with un- 
 mixed pleasure. It is the curse of sla- 
 very that it can touch nothing which it 
 does not debase Even love, that senti- 
 ment given us by God to be the germ of 
 a divine virtue, becomes in the slave a 
 weakness, almost a degradation. His 
 affections lose much of their beauty 
 and dignity. He ought, indeed, to feel 
 benevolence toward his master : but to 
 attach himself to a man who keeps him 
 in the dust and denies him the rights of
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 721 
 
 a man ; to be grateful and devoted to 
 one who extorts his toil and debases 
 him into a chattel ; this has a taint of 
 servility, which makes us grieve whilst 
 we admire. However, we would not di- 
 minish the attachment of the slave. He 
 is the happier for his generosity. Let 
 him love his master, and let the master 
 win love by kindness. We only say, 
 Let not this manifestation of a gen- 
 erous nature in the slave be turned 
 against him. Let it not be made an 
 answer to an exposition of his wrongs. 
 Let it not be used as a weapon for his 
 perpetual degradation. 
 
 But the slave, we are told, is taught 
 religion. This is the most cheering 
 sound which comes to us from the land 
 of bondage. We are rejoiced to learn 
 that any portion of the slaves are in- 
 structed in that truth which gives in- 
 ward freedom. They hear, at least, one 
 voice of deep, genuine love, the voice 
 of Christ ; and read in his cross what 
 all other things hide from them, the 
 unutterable worth of their spiritual nat- 
 ure. This portion, however, is small. 
 The greater part are still buried in 
 heathen ignorance. Besides, religion, 
 though a great good, can hardly exert 
 its full power on the slave. Will it not 
 be taught to make him obedient to his 
 master, rather than to raise him to the 
 dignity of a man ? Is slavery, which 
 tends so proverbially to debase the mind, 
 the preparation for spiritual truth ? Can 
 the slave comprehend the principle of 
 love, the essential principle of Chris- 
 tianity, when he hears it from the lips 
 of those whose relations to him express 
 injustice and selfishness ? But suppose 
 him to receive Christianity in its purity, 
 and to feel all its power. Is this to 
 reconcile us to slavery ? Is a being, 
 who can understand the sublimest truth 
 which has ever entered the human mind, 
 who can love and adore God, who can 
 conform himself to the celestial virtue 
 of the Saviour, for whom that Saviour 
 died, to whom heaven is opened, whose 
 repentance now gives joy in heaven, 
 is such a being to be held as property, 
 driven by force as the brute, and denied 
 the rights of man by a fellow-creature, 
 by a professed disciple of the just and 
 merciful Saviour ? Has he a religious 
 nature, and dares any one hold him as 
 a slave ? 
 
 I have now completed my views of 
 
 46 
 
 the evils of slavery, and have shown 
 how little they are mitigated by what are 
 thought its advantages. In this whole 
 discussion I have cautiously avoided 
 quoting particular examples of its bane- 
 ful influences. I have not brought to- 
 gether accounts of horrible cruelty which 
 come to us from the South. I have 
 confined myself to the natural ten- 
 dencies of slavery, to evils bound up 
 in its very nature, which, as long as 
 man is man, cannot be separated from 
 it. That these evils are unmixed, I do 
 not say. More or less of good may 
 often be found in connection with them. 
 No institution, be it what it may, can 
 make the. life of a human being wholly 
 evil, or cut off every means of improve- 
 ment. God's benevolence triumphs over 
 all the perverseness and folly of man's 
 devices. He sends a cheering beam 
 into the darkest abode. The slave has 
 his hours of exhilaration. His hut oc- 
 casionally rings with thoughtless mirth. 
 Among this class, too, there are, and 
 must be, occasionally, higher pleasures. 
 God is no respecter of persons ; and in 
 some slaves there is a happy nature 
 which no condition can destroy, just as 
 among children we find some whom 
 the worst education cannot spoil. The 
 African is so affectionate, imitative, and 
 docile, that in favorable circumstances 
 he catches much that is good ; and ac- 
 cordingly the influence of a wise and 
 kind master will be seen in the very 
 countenance and bearing of his slaves. 
 Among this degraded people, there 
 are, occasionally, examples of superior 
 intelligence and virtue, showing the 
 groundlessness of the opinion that they 
 are incapable of filling a higher rank 
 than slavery, and showing that human 
 nature is too generous and hardy to be 
 wholly destroyed in the most unpro- 
 pitious state. We also witness in this 
 class, and very often, a superior physi- 
 cal development, a grace of form and 
 motion, which almost extorts a feeling 
 approaching respect. I mean not to 
 affirm that slavery excludes all good, 
 for human life cannot long endure under 
 the privation of every thing happy and 
 improving. I have spoken of its nat- 
 ural tendencies and results. These are 
 wholly and only evil. 
 - I am aware that it will be replied to 
 the views now given of slavery, that 
 persons living at a distance from it can-
 
 722 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 not comprehend it, that its true char- 
 acter can be learned only from those 
 who know it practically, and are familiar 
 with its operations. To this 1 will not 
 reply, that I have seen it near at hand. 
 It is sufficient to reply, that men may 
 lose the power of seeing an object fairly 
 by being too near as well as by being 
 too remote. The slave-holder is too 
 familiar with slavery to understand it. 
 To be educated in injustice is almost 
 necessarily to be blinded by it more or 
 less. To exercise usurped power from 
 birth is the surest way to look upon 
 it as a right and a good. The slave- 
 holder tells us that he only can instruct 
 us about slavery. But suppose that we 
 wished to learn the true character of 
 despotism ; should we go to the palace 
 and take the despot as our teacher ? 
 Should we pay much heed to his assur- 
 ance that he alone could understand 
 the character of absolute po\ver, and 
 that we in a republic could know noth- 
 ing of the condition of men subjected 
 to irresponsible will ? The sad influ- 
 ence of slavery in darkening the mind 
 which is perpetually conversant with it, 
 is disclosed to us in the recent attempts 
 made at the South to represent this in- 
 stitution as a good. P'reemen, who 
 would sooner die than resign their 
 rights, talk of the happiness of those 
 from whom every right is wrested. 
 They talk of the slave as "property," 
 with the same confidence as if this were 
 the holiest claim. This is one of the 
 mournful effects of slavery. It darkens 
 the moral sense of the master. And 
 can men, whose position is so unfavor- 
 able to just, impartial judgment, expect 
 us to acquiesce in their views ? 
 
 There is another reply. If the slave- 
 holding States expect us to admit their 
 views of this institution, they must allow 
 it to be freely discussed among them- 
 selves. Of what avail is their testimony 
 in favor of slavery, when not a tongue 
 is allowed to say a word in its condem- 
 nation ? Of what use is the press, when 
 it can publish only on one side ? In 
 large portions of the slave-holding 
 States, freedom of speech on this sub- 
 ject is at an end. Whoever should 
 publish among them the sentiments 
 respecting slavery which are universally 
 adopted through the civilized world, 
 would put his life in jeopardy, would 
 probably be flayed or hung. On this 
 
 great subject, which affects vitally their 
 peace and prosperity, their moral and 
 political interests, no philanthropist, 
 who has come to the truth, can speak 
 his mind. Even the minister of religion, 
 who feels the hostility between slavery 
 and Christianity, dares not speak. His 
 calling might not save him from popular 
 rage. Thus slavery avenges itself. It 
 brings the masters under despotism. It 
 takes away that liberty which a freeman 
 prizes as life, liberty of speech. All 
 this, we are told, is necessary, and so it 
 may be ; but an institution imposing 
 such a necessity cannot be a good : and 
 one thing is plain, the testimony of 
 men placed under such restraints can- 
 not be too cautiously received. We 
 have better sources of knowledge. We 
 have the testimony of ages, and the tes- 
 timony of the unchangeable principles 
 of human nature. These assure us that 
 slavery is " evil, and evil continually." 
 
 I ought not to close this head without 
 acknowledging (what I cheerfully do) 
 that in many cases the kindness of mas- 
 ters does much for the mitigation of 
 slavery. Could it be rendered harmless, 
 the efforts of many would not be spared 
 to make it so. It is evil, not through 
 any singular corruption in the slave- 
 holder, but from its own nature, and in 
 spite of all efforts to make it a good. It 
 is evil, not because it exists on this or 
 that spot. Were it planted at the North, 
 it might become a greater curse, more 
 hardening and depraving than it now 
 proves under a milder sky. It is not of 
 the particular form of slavery in this 
 country that I complain. I a'm willing 
 to allow that it is here comparatively 
 mild ; that on many plantations no 
 abuses exist, but such as are insepara- 
 ble from its very nature. The mischief 
 lies in its very nature. "Men do not 
 gather grapes of thorns, or figs of this- 
 tles." An institution so founded in 
 wrong, so imbued with injustice, cannot 
 be made a good. It cannot, like other 
 institutions, be perpetuated by being 
 improved. To improve it is to prepare 
 the way for its subversion. Every mel- 
 ioration of the slave's lot is a step 
 toward freedom. Slavery is thus radi- 
 cally, essentially evil. Every good man 
 should earnestly pray, and use every 
 virtuous influence, that an institution 
 so blighting to human nature may be 
 brought to an end.
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 723 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Scripture. 
 
 Attempts are often made to support 
 slavery by the authority of revelation. 
 " Slavery," it is said, " is allowed in the 
 Old Testament, and not condemned in 
 the New. Paul commands slaves to 
 obey. He commands masters, not to 
 release their slaves, but to treat them 
 justly. Therefore slavery is right, is 
 sanctified by God's word." In this age 
 of the world, and amidst the light which 
 has been thrown on the true interpreta- 
 tion of the Scriptures, such reasoning 
 hardly deserves notice. A few words 
 only will be offered in reply. 
 
 This reasoning proves too much. If 
 usages, sanctioned in the Old Testa- 
 ment and not forbidden in the New, are 
 right, then our moral code will undergo 
 a sad deterioration. Polygamy was al- 
 lowed to the Israelites, was the practice 
 of the holiest men, and was common 
 and licensed in the age of the Apostles. 
 But the Apostles nowhere condemn it, 
 nor was the renunciation of it made an 
 essential condition of admission into the 
 Christian church. It is true that in one 
 passage Christ has condemned it by 
 implication. But is not slavery con- 
 demned by stronger implication, in the 
 many passages which make the new 
 religion to consist in serving one an- 
 other, and in doing to others what we 
 would that they should do to ourselves ? 
 Why may not Scripture be used to stock 
 our houses with wives as well as with 
 slaves ? 
 
 Again. Paul is said to sanction sla- 
 very. Let us now ask, What was slavery 
 in the age of Paul ? It was the slavery, 
 not so much of black as of white men, 
 not merely of barbarians, but of Greeks, 
 not merely of the ignorant and debased, 
 but of the virtuous, educated, and re- 
 fined. Piracy and conquest were the 
 chief means of supplying the slave- 
 market, and they heeded neither char- 
 acter nor condition. Sometimes the 
 greater part of the population of a capt- 
 ured city was sold into bondage, some- 
 times the whole, as in the case of Jeru- 
 salem. Noble and royal families, the 
 rich and great, the learned and power- 
 ful, the philosopher and poet, the wisest 
 and best men, were condemned to the 
 chain. Such was ancient slavery. And 
 
 this, we are told, is allowed and con- 
 firmed by the word of God ! Had Na- 
 poleon, on capturing Berlin or Vienna, 
 doomed most or the whole of their in- 
 habitants to bondage ; had he seized on 
 venerable matrons, the mothers of illus- 
 trious men, who were reposing, after 
 virtuous lives, in the bosom of grateful 
 families ; had he seized on the delicate, 
 refined, beautiful young woman, whose 
 education had prepared her to grace the 
 sphere in which God had placed her, 
 and over all whose prospects the fresh- 
 est hopes and most glowing imaginations 
 of early life were breathed : had he 
 seized on the minister of religion, the 
 man of science, the man of genius, the 
 sage, the guides of the world ; had he 
 scattered these through the slave-mar- 
 kets of the world, and transferred them 
 to the highest bidders at public auction, 
 the men to be converted into instru- 
 ments of slavish toil, the women into 
 instruments of lust, and both to endure 
 whatever indignities and tortures abso- 
 lute power can inflict, we should then 
 have had a picture, in the present age, of 
 slavery as it existed in the time of Paul. 
 Such slavery, we are told, was sanctioned 
 by the Apostle ! Such, we are told, he 
 pronounced to be morally right ! Had 
 Napoleon sent some cargoes of these 
 victims to these shores, we might have 
 bought them, and degraded the noblest 
 beings to our lowest uses, and might 
 have cited Paul to testify to our inno- 
 cence ! Were an infidel to bring this 
 charge against the Apostle, we should 
 say that he was laboring in his vocation ; 
 but that a professed Christian should so 
 insult this sainted philanthropist, this 
 martyr to truth and benevolence, is a 
 sad proof of the power of slavery to 
 blind its supporters to the plainest 
 truth. -' 
 
 .Slavery, in the age of the Apostle, 
 had so penetrated society, was so in- 
 timately interwoven with it, and the 
 materials of servile war were so abun- 
 dant, that a religion preaching freedom 
 to the slave would have shaken the so- 
 cial fabric to its foundation, and would 
 have armed against itself the whole 
 power of the state. Paul did not then 
 assail the institution. He satisfied him- 
 self with spreading principles which, 
 however slowly, could not but work its 
 destruction. He commanded Philemon 
 to receive his fugitive slave, Onesimus,
 
 724 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 " not as a slave, but above a slave, as a 
 brother beloved; "and he commanded 
 masters to give to their slaves that 
 which was ''just and equal; " thus as- 
 serting for the slave the rights of a 
 Christian and a man ; and how, in his 
 circumstances, he could have done more 
 for the subversion of slavery, I do not 
 see. 
 
 Let me offer another remark. The 
 perversion of Scripture to the support 
 of slavery is singularly inexcusable in 
 this country. Paul not only commanded 
 slaves to obey their masters. He de- 
 livered these precepts : " Let every soul 
 be subject unto the higher powers. For 
 there is no power but of God ; the pow- 
 ers that be are ordained of God. Who- 
 soever, therefore, resisteth the power, 
 resisteth the ordinance of God ; and 
 they that resist shall receive to them- 
 selves damnation." This passage was 
 written in the time of Nero. It teaches 
 passive obedience to despotism more 
 strongly than any text teaches the law- 
 fulness of slavery. Accordingly it has 
 been quoted for ages by the supporters 
 of arbitrary power, and made the strong- 
 hold of tyranny. Did our fathers ac- 
 quiesce in the most obvious interpreta- 
 tion of this text ? Because the first 
 Christians were taught to obey despotic 
 rule, did our fathers feel as if Christi- 
 anity had stripped men of their rights ? 
 Did they argue that tyranny was to be 
 excused because forcible opposition to 
 it is in most cases wrong ? Did they 
 argue that absolute power ceases to be 
 unjust because, as a general rule, it is 
 the duty of subjects to obey ? Did they 
 infer that bad institutions ought to be 
 perpetual because the subversion of 
 them by force will almost always inflict 
 greater evil than it removes ? No ; they 
 were wiser interpreters of God's word. 
 They believed that despotism was a 
 wrong, notwithstanding the general ob- 
 ligation upon its subjects to obey : and 
 that whenever a whole people should so 
 feel the wrong as to demand its re- 
 moval, the time for removing it had fully 
 come. Such is the school in which we 
 here have been brought up. To us, it 
 is no mean proof of the divine original 
 of Christianity, that it teaches human 
 brotherhood and favors human rights ; 
 and yet, on the ground of two or three 
 passages, which admit different con- 
 structions, we make Christianity the 
 
 minister of slavery, the forger of chains 
 for those whom it came to make free. 
 
 It is a plain rule of scriptural criti- 
 cism, that particular texts should be 
 interpreted according to the general 
 tenor and spirit of Christianity. And 
 what is the general, the perpetual teach- 
 ing of Christianity in regard to social 
 duty ? " All things whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do to you, do ye even 
 so to them ; for this is the law and the 
 
 Erophets." Now, does not every man 
 ;el that nothing, nothing could induce 
 him to consent to be a slave ? Does 
 he not feel that, if reduced to this ab- 
 ject lot, his whole nature, his reason, 
 conscience, affections, would cry out 
 against it as the greatest of calamities 
 and wrongs ? Can he pretend, then, 
 that, in holding others in bondage, he 
 does to his neighbor what he would that 
 his neighbor should do to him ? Of 
 what avail are a few texts, which were 
 designed for local and temporary use, 
 when urged against the vital, essential 
 spirit, and the plainest precepts of our 
 religion ? 
 
 I close this section with a few ex- 
 tracts from a recent work of one of our 
 most distinguished writers ; not that I 
 think additional arguments necessary, 
 but because the authority of Script- 
 ure is more successfully used than any 
 thing else to reconcile good minds to 
 slavery : 
 
 " This very course, which the gospel 
 takes on this subject, seems to have been 
 the only one that could have been taken in 
 order to effect the universal abolition of 
 slavery. The gospel was designed, not for 
 one race or for one time, but for all races 
 and for all times. It looked, not at the 
 abolition of this form of evil for that 
 age alone, but for its universal abolition. 
 Hence the important object of its Author 
 was to gain it a lodgment in every part of 
 the known world ; so that, by its universal 
 diffusion among all classes of society, it 
 might quietly and peacefully modify and 
 subdue the evil passions of men ; and thus, 
 without violence, work a revolution in the 
 whole mass of mankind. In this manner 
 alone could its object a universal moral 
 revolution have been accomplished. For 
 if it had forbidden the evil, instead of sub- 
 verting the principle, if Jt had proclaimed 
 the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught 
 slaves to resist the oppression of their mas- 
 ters, it would instantly have arrayed the 
 two parties in deadly hostility throughout 
 the civilized world ; its announcement would
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 725 
 
 have been the signal of servile war ; and 
 the very name of the Christian religion 
 would have been forgotten amidst the agi- 
 tations of universal bloodshed. The fact, 
 under these circumstances, that the gospel 
 does not forbid slavery, affords no reason 
 to suppose that it does not mean to pro- 
 hibit it ; much less does it afford ground 
 for belief that Jesus Christ intended to 
 authorize it. 
 
 " It is important to remember, that two 
 grounds of moral obligation are distinctly 
 recognized in the gospel. The first is our 
 duty to man as man ; that is, on the ground 
 of the relation which men sustain to each 
 other ; the second is our duty'to man as a 
 creature of God ; that is, on the ground of 
 the relation which we all sustain to God. 
 Now, it is to be observed that it is pre- 
 cisely upon this latter ground that the slave 
 is commanded to obey his master. It is 
 never urged, like the duty of obedience to 
 parents, because it is right, but because the 
 cultivation of meekness and forbearance 
 under injury will be well-pleasing unto 
 God. The manner in which the duty of 
 servants or slaves is inculcated, therefore, 
 affords no ground for the assertion that the 
 gospel "authorizes one man to hold another 
 in bondage, any more than the command to 
 honor the king, when that king was Nero, 
 authorized the tyranny of the emperor ; or 
 than the command to turn the other cheek, 
 when one is smitten, justifies the infliction 
 of violence by an injurious man." * 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Means of Removing Slavery. 
 
 How slavery shall be removed is a 
 question for the slave-holder, and one 
 which he alone can fully answer. He 
 alone has an intimate knowledge of the 
 character and habits of the slaves, to 
 which the means of emancipation'should 
 be carefully adapted. General views 
 and principles may and should be sug- 
 gested at a distance ; but the mode of 
 applying them can be understood only 
 by those who dwell on the spot where 
 the evil exists. To the slave-holder 
 belongs the duty of settling and em- 
 ploying the best methods of liberation, 
 and to no other. We have no right of 
 interference, nor do we desire it. We 
 hold that the dangers of emancipation, 
 if such there are, would be indefinitely 
 increased were the boon to come to the 
 
 * Wayland's " Elements of Moral Science," pages 
 225 and 226. The discussion of Slavery, in the chap- 
 ter from which these extracts are made, is well worthy 
 attention. 
 
 slave from a foreign hand, were he to 
 see it forced on the master by a foreign 
 power. It is of the highest importance 
 that slavery should be succeeded by a 
 friendly relation between master and 
 slave ; and, to produce this, the latter 
 must see in the former his benefactor 
 and deliverer. His liberty must seem 
 to him an expression of benevolence 
 and regard for his rights. He must put 
 confidence in his superiors, and look 
 to them cheerfully and gratefully for 
 counsel and aid. Let him feel that 
 liberty has been wrung from an unwill- 
 ing master, who would willingly replace 
 the chain, and jealousy, vindictiveness, 
 and hatred would spring up to blight 
 the innocence and happiness of his new 
 freedom, and to make it a peril to him- 
 self and all around him. I believe, 
 indeed, that emancipation, though so 
 bestowed, would be better than ever- 
 lasting bondage ; but the responsibility 
 of so conferring it is one that none of 
 us are anxious to assume. 
 
 We cannot but fear much from the 
 experiment now in progress in the West 
 Indies, on account of its being the work 
 of a foreign hand. The planters, es- 
 pecially of Jamaica, have opposed the 
 mother country with a pertinaciousness 
 bordering on insanity ; have done much 
 to exasperate the slaves, whose freedom 
 they could not prevent ; have done noth- 
 ing to prepare them for liberty ; have met 
 them with gloom on their countenances, 
 and with evil auguries on their lips ; have 
 taught them to look abroad for relief, 
 and to see in their masters only obstruc- 
 tions to the amelioration of their lot 
 It is possible that, under all these ob- 
 stacles, emancipation may succeed. God 
 grant it success ! If it fail, the planter 
 will have brought the ruin very much 
 on himself. Policy, as well as duty, so 
 plainly taught him to take into his own 
 hands the work which a superior power 
 had begun, to spare no effort, no ex- 
 pense, for binding to him by new ties 
 those who were to throw off their 
 former chains, that we know not how 
 to account for his conduct, but by sup- 
 posing that his unhappy position as a 
 slave-holder had robbed him of his 
 reason, as well as blunted his moral 
 sense. 
 
 In this country, no power but that 
 of the slave-holding States can remove 
 the evil, and none of us are anxious to
 
 726 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 take the office from their hands. They 
 alone can do it safely. They alone can 
 determine and apply the true and sure 
 means of emancipation. That such 
 means exist, I cannot doubt ; for eman- 
 cipation has already been carried through 
 successfully in other countries ; and even 
 were there no precedent, I should be 
 sure that, under God's benevolent and 
 righteous government, there could not 
 be a necessity for holding human beings 
 in perpetual bondage. This faith, how- 
 ever, is not universal. Many, when 
 they hear of the evils of slavery, say, 
 " It is bad, but remediless. There are 
 no means of relief." They say, in a 
 despairing tone, " Give us your plan ; " 
 and justify their indifference to eman- 
 cipation by what they call its hopeless- 
 ness. This state of mind has induced 
 me to offer a few remarks on the means 
 of removing slavery ; not that I think 
 of drawing up a plan ; for to this I am 
 necessarily unequal. No individual so 
 distant can do the work, to which the 
 whole intellect and benevolence of the 
 South should be summoned. I wish 
 only to suggest a few principles, which 
 I think would ensure a happy result to 
 the benevolent enterprise, and which 
 may help to remove the incredulity of 
 which I have complained. 
 
 What, then, is to be done for the re- 
 moval of slavery ? In the first place, 
 the great principle, that man cannot 
 rightfully be held as property, should 
 be admitted by the slave-holder. As to 
 any public forms of setting forth this 
 principle, they are of little or no moment, 
 provided it be received into the mind 
 and heart. The slave should be ac- 
 knowledged as a partaker of a common 
 nature, as having the essential rights of 
 humanity. This great truth lies at the 
 foundation of every wise plan for his 
 relief. The cordial admission of it 
 would give a consciousness of dignity, 
 of grandeur, to efforts for emancipation. 
 There is, indeed, a grandeur in the idea 
 of raising more than two millions of 
 human beings to the enjoyment of hu- 
 man rights, to the blessings of Chris- 
 tian civilization, to the means of indefi- 
 nite improvement. The slave-holding 
 States are called to a nobler work of 
 benevolence than is committed to any 
 other communities. They should com- 
 prehend its dignity. This they cannot 
 do till the slave is truly, sincerely, with 
 
 the mind and heart, recognized as a 
 man, till he ceases to be regarded as 
 property. 
 
 It may be asked whether I intend 
 that the slave should be immediately set 
 free from all his present restraints. By 
 no means. Nothing is farther from my 
 thoughts. The slave cannot rightfully, 
 and should not, be owned by the indi- 
 vidual. But, like every other citizen, 
 he is subject to the community, and the 
 community has a right and is bound to 
 continue all such restraints as its own 
 safety and Jhe well-being of the slave 
 demand. It would be cruelty, not kind- 
 ness, to the latter to give him a freedom 
 which he is unprepared to understand 
 or enjoy. It would be cruelty to strike 
 the fetters from a man whose first steps 
 would infallibly lead him to a precipice. 
 The slave should not have an owner, 
 but he should have a guardian. He 
 needs authority, to supply the lack of 
 that discretion which he has not yet 
 attained ; but it should be the authority 
 of a friend ; an official authority, con- 
 ferred by the state, and for which there 
 should be responsibleness to the state ; 
 an authority especially designed to pre- 
 pare its subjects for personal freedom. 
 The slave should not, in the first in- 
 stance, be allowed to wander at his will 
 beyond the plantation on which he toils ; 
 and if he cannot be induced to work by 
 rational and natural motives, he should 
 be obliged to labor, on the same princi- 
 ples on which the vagrant in other com- 
 munities is confined and compelled to 
 earn his bread. The gift of liberty 
 would be a mere name, and worse than 
 nominal, were he to be let loose on 
 society, under circumstances driving 
 him to crimes, for which he would be 
 condemned to severer bondage than he 
 had escaped. Many restraints must be 
 continued ; but continued, not because 
 the colored race are property, not be- 
 cause they are bound to live and toil 
 for an owner, but solely and wholly 
 because their own innocence, security, 
 and education, and the public order and 
 peace, require them, during the present 
 incapacity, to be restrained. It should 
 be remembered that this incapacity is 
 not their fault, but their misfortune ; 
 that not they, but the community, are 
 responsible for it ; and that the com- 
 munity, without crime, profit by its own 
 wrong. If the government should make
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 727 
 
 any distinction among the citizens, it 
 should be in behalf of the injured. In- 
 stead of urging the past existence of 
 slavery, and the incapacity which it 
 has induced, as apologies or reasons 
 for continuing the yoke, the com- 
 munity should find in these very cir- 
 cumstances new obligations to effort for 
 the wronged. 
 
 There is but one weighty argument 
 against immediate emancipation ; name- 
 ly, that the slave would not support him- 
 self and his children by honest industry ; 
 that, having always worked on compul- 
 sion, he will not work without it ; that, 
 having always labored from another's 
 will, he will not labor from his own ; 
 that there is no spring of exertion in his 
 own mind ; that he is unused to fore- 
 thought, providence, and self-denial, 
 ajid the responsibilities of domestic life ; 
 that freedom would produce idleness ; 
 idleness, want ; want, crime ; and that 
 crime, when it should become the habit 
 of numbers, would bring misery, perhaps 
 ruin, not only on the offenders, but the 
 state. Here lies the strength of the 
 argument for continuing present re- 
 straint. Give the slaves disposition and 
 power to support themselves and their 
 families by honest industry, and com- 
 plete emancipation should not be de- 
 layjp one hour. 
 
 The great step, then, towards the re- 
 moval of slavery, is to prepare the slaves 
 for self-support. And this work seems 
 attended with no peculiar difficulty. The 
 colored man is not a savage, to whom 
 toil is torture, who has centred every 
 idea of happiness and dignity in a wild 
 freedom, who must exchange the bound- 
 less forest for a narrow plantation, and 
 bend his proud neck to an unknown 
 yoke. Labor was his first lesson, and he 
 has been repeating it all his life. Can it 
 be a hard task to teach him to labor for 
 himself, to work from impulses in his 
 own breast ? 
 
 Much may be done at once to throw 
 the slave on himself, to accustom him 
 to work for his own and his family's 
 support, to awaken forethought, and 
 strengthen the Jiabit of providing for 
 the future. On every plantation there 
 are slaves who would do more for wages 
 than from fear of punishment. There 
 are those who, if intrusted with a piece 
 of ground, would support themselves 
 and pay a rent in kind. There are those 
 
 who, if moderate task-work were given 
 them, would gain their whole subsist- 
 ence in their own time. Now, every 
 such man ought to be committed very 
 much to himself. It is a crime to sub- 
 ject to the whip a man who can be made 
 to toil from rational and honorable mo- 
 tives. This partial introduction of free- 
 dom would form a superior class among 
 the slaves, whose example would have 
 immense moral power on those who 
 needed compulsion. The industrious 
 and thriving would give an impulse to 
 the whole race. It is important that 
 the property thus earned by the slave 
 should be made as sacred as that of any 
 other member of the community, and 
 for this end he should be enabled to 
 obtain redress of wrongs. In case of 
 being injured by his master in this or in 
 any respect, he should either be set free, 
 or, if unprepared for liberty, should be 
 transferred to another guardian. This 
 system may seem to many to be attended 
 with insuperable difficulties ; but if es- 
 tablished and watched over by a com- 
 munity sincerely desirous of emancipa- 
 tion (and no other influence can establish 
 it here), it would find in public sentiment, 
 even more than in law, the means of ex- 
 ecution. 
 
 As another means of raising the slave 
 and fitting him to act from higher mo- 
 tives than compulsion, a system of boun- 
 ties and rewards should be introduced. 
 New privileges, increased indulgences, 
 honorable distinctions, expressions of 
 respect, should be awarded to the hon- 
 est and industrious. No people are 
 more alive to commendation and hon- 
 orable distinction than the colored race. 
 Prizes for good conduct, adapted to 
 their tastes and character, might in a 
 good degree supersede the lash. The 
 object is to bring the slave to labor 
 from other motives than brutal com- 
 pulsion. Such motives may easily be 
 found, if the end be conscientiously 
 proposed. 
 
 One of the great means of elevating 
 the slave, and calling forth his energies, 
 is to place his domestic relations on new 
 ground. This is essential. We wish 
 him to labor for his family. Then he 
 must have a family to labor for. Then 
 his wife and children must be truly his 
 own. Then his home must be inviolate. 
 Then the responsibilities of a husband 
 and father must be laid on him. It is
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 agreed that he will be fit for freedom as 
 soon as the support of his family shall 
 become his habit and his happiness ; 
 and how can he be brought to this con- 
 dition, as long as he shall see no sanctity 
 in the marriage bond, as long as he shall 
 see his wife and his children exposed to 
 indignity and to sale, as long as their 
 support shall not be intrusted to his 
 care ? No measure for preparing the 
 slave for liberty can be so effectual as 
 the improvement of his domestic lot. 
 The whole power of religion should be 
 employed to impress him with the sa- 
 credness and duties of marriage. The 
 chaste and the faithful in this connec- 
 tion should receive open and strong 
 marks of respect. They should be 
 treated as at the head of their race. 
 The husband and wife, who prove false 
 to each other, and who will not labor 
 for their children, should be visited with 
 the severest rebuke. To create a sense 
 of domestic obligation, to awaken do- 
 mestic affections, to give the means of 
 domestic happiness, to fix deeply a con- 
 viction of the indissolubleness of mar- 
 riage, and of the solemnity of the par- 
 ental relation, these are the essential 
 means of raising the slave to a virtuous 
 and happy freedom. All other men la- 
 bor for their families ; and so will the 
 slave, if the sentiments of a man be 
 cherished in his breast. .We keep him 
 in bondage, because, if free, he will 
 leave his wife and children to want ; 
 and this bondage breaks down all the 
 feelings and habits which would incite 
 him to toil for their support. Not a step 
 will be taken towards the preparation of 
 the slave for voluntary labor till his do- 
 mestic rights be respected. The viola- 
 tion of these cries to God more than 
 any other evil of his lot. 
 
 To carry this and all other means of 
 improvement into effect, it is essential 
 that the slave should no longer be 
 bought and sold. As long as he is 
 made an article of merchandise, he can- 
 not be fitted for the offices of a man. 
 He will have little motive to accumulate 
 comforts and ornaments in his hut, if 
 at any moment he may be torn from it. 
 While treated as property, he will have 
 little encouragement to accumulate prop- 
 erty, for it cannot be secure. While his 
 wife and children may be exposed at 
 auction, and carried he knows not where, 
 can he be expected to feel and act as a 
 
 husband and father ? It is time that 
 this Christian and civilized country 
 should no longer be dishonored by 
 one of the worst usages of barbarism. 
 Break up the slave-market, and one of 
 the chief obstructions to emancipation 
 will be removed. 
 
 Let me only add, that religious in- 
 struction should go hand-in-hand with 
 all other means for preparing the slave 
 for freedom. The colored race are said 
 to be peculiarly susceptible of the relig- 
 ious sentiment. If this be addressed 
 wisely and powerfully, if the slave be 
 brought to feel his relation and account- 
 ableness to God, and to comprehend the 
 spirit of Christianity, he is fit for free- 
 dom. To accomplish this work, per- 
 haps preaching should not be the only 
 or chief instrument. Were the colored 
 population to be assembled into Sunday- 
 schools, and were the whites to become 
 their teachers, a new and interesting re- 
 lation would be formed between the 
 races, and an influence be exerted which 
 would do much to insure safety to the 
 gift of freedom. 
 
 In these remarks, I have not intended 
 to say that emancipation is an easy work, 
 the work of a day, a good to be accom- 
 plished without sacrifices and toil. The 
 colored man is, indeed, singularly sus- 
 ceptible of improvement, in consequence 
 of the strength of his propensities to 
 imitation and sympathy. But all great 
 changes in society have their difficulties 
 and inconveniences, and demand patient 
 labor. I ask for no precipitate meas- 
 ures, no violent changes. What is 
 needed is, that the slave-holding States 
 should resolve conscientiously and in 
 good faith to remove this greatest of 
 moral evils and wrongs, and should 
 bring immediately to the work their in- 
 telligence, virtue, and power. That its 
 difficulties would yield before such ener- 
 gies, who can doubt ? Our weakness 
 for holy enterprises lies generally in our 
 own reluctant wills. Breathe into men 
 a fervent purpose, and you awaken pow- 
 ers before unknown. How soon would 
 slavery disappear were the obligation to 
 remove it thoroughly understood and 
 deeply felt ! We are told that the slave- 
 holding States have recently prospered 
 beyond all precedent. This accession 
 to their wealth should be consecrated to 
 the work of liberating their fellow-creat- 
 ures. Not one indulgence should be
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 729 
 
 added to their modes of life until the 
 cry of the oppressed has ceased from 
 their fields, until the rights of every 
 human being are restored. Government 
 should devote itself to this as its great 
 object. Legislatures should meet to 
 free the slave. The church should rest 
 not, day or night, till this stain be wiped 
 away. Let the deliberations of the wise, 
 the energies of the active, the wealth of 
 the prosperous, the prayers and toils 
 of the good, have emancipation for their 
 great end. Let this be discussed habit- 
 ually in the family circle, in the confer- 
 ence of Christians, in the halls of legis- 
 lation. Let it mingle with the first 
 thoughts of the slave-holder in the 
 morning and the last at night. Who 
 can doubt that to such a spirit God 
 would reveal the means of wise and 
 powerful action ? There is but one ob- 
 stacle to emancipation, and that is, the 
 want of that spirit in which Christians 
 and freemen should resolve to extermi- 
 nate slavery. 
 
 I have said nothing of colonization 
 among the means of removing slavery, 
 because I believe that to rely on it for 
 this object would be equivalent to a 
 resolution to perpetuate the evil without 
 end. Whatever good it may do abroad, 
 and I trust it will do much, it prom- 
 ises little at home. If the slave-hclding 
 States, however, should engage in colo- 
 nization with a firm faith in its practi- 
 cableness. with an energy proportionate 
 to its greatness, and with a sincere re- 
 gard to the welfare of the colored race, 
 I am confident it will not fail from want 
 of sympathy and aid on the part of the 
 other States. In truth, these States will 
 not withhold their hearts or hands or 
 wealth from any well-considered plan 
 for the removal of slavery. 
 
 I have said nothing of the inconven- 
 iences and sufferings which, it is urged, 
 will follow emancipation, be it ever so 
 safe ; for these, if real, weigh nothing 
 against the claims of justice. The most 
 common objection is, that a mixture of 
 the two races will be the result. Can 
 this objection be urged in good faith ? 
 Can this mixture -go on faster or more 
 criminally than at the present moment ? 
 Can the slave-holder use the word 
 " Amalgamation " without a blush ? 
 Nothing, nothing can arrest this evil 
 but the raising of the colored woman to 
 a new sense of character, to a new self- 
 
 respect ; and this she cannot gain but 
 by being made free. That emancipation 
 will have its evils, we know ; for all 
 great changes, however beneficial, in 
 the social condition of a people, must 
 interfere with some interests, must bring 
 loss or hardship to one class or another ; 
 but the evils of slavery exceed beyond 
 measure the greatest which can attend 
 its removal. Let the slave-holder desire 
 earnestly, and in the spirit of self-sacri- 
 fice, to restore freedom, to secure the 
 rights and the happiness of the slave, 
 and a new light will break upon his path. 
 " Every mountain of difficulty will be 
 brought low, and the rough places be 
 made smooth ; " the means of duty will 
 become clear. But, without this spirit, 
 no eloquence of man or angel can per- 
 suade the slave-holder of the safety of 
 emancipation. 
 
 Some readers may perhaps be disap- 
 pointed that, in speaking of the means 
 of removing slavery, I have suggested 
 nothing which may be done for the cause 
 by the friends of emancipation in the 
 free States. On this point my opinions 
 may easily be gathered from what has 
 been already said. Our proper and only 
 means of action is, to spread the truth 
 on the subject of slavery ; and let none 
 contemn this means because of its grad- 
 ual influence. It is not therefore less 
 sure. No state, unless cut off like Para- 
 guay from the communion of nations, 
 can at the present day escape the power 
 of strong, deep, enlightened opinion. 
 Ev^ry state, acknowledging Christianity, 
 encouraging education, and holding in- 
 tercourse with the civilized world, must 
 be pervaded by great and universally 
 acknowledged truths, especially when 
 these, as in the present case, coincide 
 with its prosperity as well as with its 
 honor. Let, then, the friends of free- 
 dom and humanity be true to their prin- 
 ciples, and commend them by wise in- 
 culcation to all within their influence. 
 From this work let it be their constant 
 care to exclude the evil passions which 
 so often bring reproach and failure on a 
 good cause. It is by calm, firm asser- 
 tion of great principles, and not by per- 
 sonalities and vituperations, that strength 
 is to be given to the constantly increas- 
 ing reprobation of slavery through the 
 civilized world. 
 
 Objections, however, are made to this 
 mode of acting on slavery. We are
 
 730 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 told that, in declaring slavery to be one 
 of the greatest wrongs, we violate the 
 Constitution. What ! Can it be that a 
 free constitution, intended to guard all 
 rights, and especially to preserve invio- 
 late the liberty of the press, has in any 
 way foreclosed the discussion of a great 
 moral and religious question ? Nothing 
 but express language, too plain to b^ 
 escaped, can justify us in fastening on 
 this venerable instrument so palpable 
 an inconsistency. But, instead of being 
 embodied in plain words, the doctrine 
 in question is at best a matter of uncer- 
 tain inference. Admit such licentious- 
 ness of construction, and there is no 
 power which may not be grafted on the 
 Constitution ; the mercenary and ambi- 
 tious may warp it into any shape to suit 
 their designs. But on this point no 
 labored reasoning is necessary. It is 
 settled for us by the fathers of our 
 freedom and the framers of our present 
 government. In the period immediately 
 succeeding the adoption of the Consti- 
 tution, Franklin, the calm and sagacious, 
 and Jay, the inflexibly just, were presi- 
 dents of societies for the abolition of 
 slavery. Societies of this description 
 were spread over a large part of the 
 country, and were established even in 
 Maryland and Virginia. We have the 
 records of their annual conventions, and 
 among their delegates we find some of 
 the most honored names in our country. 
 Those of us whose recollections go back 
 to that period, can bear witness to the 
 freedom with which slavery was then 
 discussed in conversation and by the 
 press. The servile doctrine which some 
 would now fasten on the Constitution 
 would have been rejected with indigna- 
 tion by our fathers. That manly gen- 
 eration had not been enervated by long 
 prosperity. The calculations of com- 
 merce and the spirit of gain had not 
 then prescribed bounds to speech and 
 the press. 
 
 It is further objected to the discussion 
 of slavery, that it will incite the slaves 
 to revolt. This objection is founded on 
 ignorance. A book, addressed to the 
 intelligent of this country and the world, 
 and designed to operate on public opin- 
 ion, could no more influence the slave 
 than a speech in an unknown tongue. 
 Unlettered, confined to daily toil, and 
 watched by the overseer, he is in little 
 danger of catching the fever of liberty 
 
 from discussions intended to act on the 
 minds of the free. This objection, if 
 fairly carried out, is disproved by its 
 absurdity. The amount of it is, that 
 nothing must be published against sla- 
 very. Then the noblest and most popular 
 works of literature must be proscribed. 
 Then the writings of the sainted Cowper 
 must undergo purgation ; for, among 
 the witnesses against slavery, he is, per- 
 haps, the most awakening. Then the 
 history of the American Revolution 
 must be blotted out. Then the news- 
 papers must beware of speaking of hu- 
 man rights. In truth, our liberty must 
 be kept a secret ; for the great danger 
 of the slave-holder arises from the infu- 
 sion of liberty into the whole of our 
 social system. A grave book is a dead 
 letter to the slave ; but, in our free in- 
 stitutions and manners, there is a living 
 spirit, which he can comprehend and 
 feel. Slavery, under a free government, 
 is a jarring element, a startling contrast ; 
 and the most effectual means of prevent- 
 ing disaffection among the enslaved 
 would be, to keep all signs of liberty 
 out of their sight, to cast society in a 
 servile mould, to make it a consistent 
 despotism. 
 
 A good book, expounding at once the 
 rights and duties of the slave, if it could 
 be brought down to his comprehension, 
 would rather quiet than disturb him ; for 
 it would teach him that submission to 
 wrong is often a duty, and that, in his 
 particular case, revolt would be an in- 
 fraction of divine as well as human laws. 
 There are, indeed, some persons among^ 
 us so uninstructed in the established 
 principles of moral and political science 
 as to imagine that, when a writer pro- 
 nounces slavery an aggravated wrong, 
 he necessarily and of course summons 
 the slave to insurrection. Such ought 
 to know, what is so generally under- 
 stood, that insurrection against the civil 
 power is never authorized but in cases 
 which exclude all other modes of relief, 
 and which give the hope of better insti- 
 tutions. A book, written under the in- 
 fluence of this truth, were it, against 
 all probabilities, to reach the slave, 
 would teach him patience, not exas- 
 peration. 
 
 It may be added, that if we must 
 cease to write against slavery, lest we 
 stir up revolt, then we must cease to 
 speak against it, for both must have the
 
 SLAVERY 
 
 731 
 
 same tendency. Speech has wings as 
 well as the printed word. Sometimes 
 the living voice is more quickening than 
 the press. According to the objection 
 under consideration, we must, then, shut 
 our lips on this great subject. The con- 
 demning whisper must not be heard, lest 
 some rash hearer should echo and spread 
 the fatal truth. And is it come to this, 
 that freemen must not give utterance 
 to their deepest moral convictions ? Is 
 slavery not only to darken the South, 
 but to spread a prison-gloom over the 
 North ? Are the free States to re- 
 nounce one of their dearest rights, 
 because, if they speak the language of 
 freemen, some dangerous word m.ay 
 chance to stray beyond their borders, 
 and may possibly find its way to the hut 
 of the slave ? If so, all rights must be 
 renounced, as far and as fast as the 
 fears, passions, and menaces of other 
 parts of the country shall require the 
 surrender. 
 
 Undoubtedly, if slavery be discussed, 
 some will write about it petulantly, pas- 
 sionately, so as to stir up among the 
 masters much unnecessary irritation. 
 This evil must be expected and borne, 
 unless we are prepared for a censorship 
 of the press. There is no subject from 
 which the rash can be debarred. Even 
 the first principles of morals and relig- 
 ion, on which the order, safety, and 
 happiness of society mainly rest, are 
 sometimes covertly, sometimes directly 
 impugned. But must nothing be written 
 on morals and religion, must the wise 
 and good be put to silence, because, 
 under a system of freedom, the mis- 
 guided and depraved will labor to ob- 
 scure or subvert the truth ? Would not 
 the whole activity of lite be arrested, 
 if every power which may be abused 
 should be renounced ? Besides, is there 
 any portion of our country so wanting in 
 wisdom, self-respect, and common self- 
 control, as to be driven to rash and ruin- 
 ous measures by coarse invectives, which 
 in a great degree defeat themselves by 
 their very violence ? The declamations 
 of the passionate on the subject of slavery 
 pass by us at the North as "the idle 
 wind, which we regard not." Liberty 
 naturally runs into these extravagances, 
 and they who would tame it by laws to 
 such propriety of expression as never to 
 give offence, would leave us only the 
 name of freemen. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 . Abolitionism. 
 
 The word Abolitionist, in its true 
 meaning, comprehends every man who 
 feels himself bound to exert his influ- 
 ence for removing slavery. It is a name 
 of honorable import, and was worn not 
 long ago by such men as Franklin and 
 Jay. Events, however, continually mod- 
 ify terms ; and, of late, the word abo- 
 litionist has been narrowed from its 
 original import, and restricted to the 
 members of associations formed among 
 us to promote immediate emancipation. 
 It is not without reluctance that I give 
 up to a small body a name which every 
 good man ought to bear. But, to make 
 myself intelligible, and to avoid circum- 
 locution, I shall use the word in what 
 is now its common acceptation. 
 
 I approach this subject unwillingly, 
 because it will be my duty to censure 
 those whom at this moment I would on 
 no account hold up to public displeasure. 
 The persecutions which the abolitionists 
 have suffered, and still suffer, awaken 
 only my grief and indignation, and in- 
 cline me to defend them to the full 
 extent which truth and justice will ad- 
 mit. To the persecuted, of whatever 
 name, my sympathies are pledged, and 
 especially to those who are persecuted 
 in a cause substantially good. I would 
 not for worlds utter a word to justify 
 the violence recently offered to a party, 
 composed very much of men blameless 
 in life, and holding the doctrine of non- 
 resistance to injuries ; and of women, 
 exemplary in their various relations, 
 and acting, however mistakenly, from 
 benevolent and pious impulses. 
 
 Of the abolitionists I know very few ; 
 but I am bound to say of these, that I 
 honor them for their strength of prin- 
 ciple, their sympathy with their fellow- 
 creatures, and their active goodness. 
 As a party, they are singularly free 
 from political and religious sectarianism, 
 and have been distinguished by the ab- 
 sence of management, calculation, and 
 worldly wisdom. That they have ever 
 proposed or desired insurrection or vio- 
 lence among the slaves, there is no rea- 
 son to believe. All their principles 
 repel the supposition. It is a remark- 
 able fact, that though the South and the 
 North have been leagued to crush them,
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 though they have been watched by a 
 million of eyes, and though prejudice 
 has been prepared to detect the slight- 
 est sign of corrupt communication with 
 the slave, yet this crime has not been 
 fastened on a single member of this 
 body. A few individuals at the South 
 have, indeed, been tortured or murdered 
 by enraged multitudes on the charge of 
 stirring up revolt ; but their guilt and 
 their connection with the abolitionists 
 were not, and, from the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the case, could not be, 
 established by those deliberate and 
 regular modes of investigation which 
 are necessary to an impartial judgment. 
 Crimes, detected and hastily punished 
 by the multitude in a moment of fever- 
 ish suspicion and wild alarm, are gen- 
 erally creatures of fear and passion. 
 The act which caused the present ex- 
 plosion of popular feeling was the send- 
 ing of pamphlets by the abolitionists into 
 the slave-holding States. In so doing, 
 they acted with great inconsideration ; 
 but they must have been insane had they 
 intended to stir up a servile war ; for the 
 pamphlets were sent, not by stealth, but 
 by the public mail ; and not to the slaves, 
 but to the masters ; to men in public 
 life, to men of the greatest influence 
 and distinction. Strange incendiaries 
 these ! They flourished their firebrands 
 about at noon-day ; and, still more, put 
 them into the hands of the very men 
 whom it is said they wished to destroy. 
 They are accused, indeed, of having sent 
 some of the pamphlets to the free colored 
 people, and if so, they acted with great 
 and culpable rashness. But the publicity 
 of the whole transaction absolves them 
 of corrupt design. 
 
 The charge of corrupt design, so vehe- 
 mently brought against the abolitionists, 
 is groundless. The charge of fanaticism 
 I have no desire to repel. But in the 
 present age it will not do to deal harshly 
 with the characters of fanatics. They 
 form the mass of the people. Religion 
 and politics, philanthropy and temper- 
 ance, nullification and antimasonry, the 
 levelling spirit of the working man, and 
 the spirit of speculation in the man of 
 business, all run into fanaticism. This 
 is the type of all our epidemics. A 
 sober man who can find ? The aboli- 
 tionists have but caught the fever of 
 the day. That they should have escaped 
 would have been a moral miracle. I 
 
 offer these remarks simply from a sense 
 of justice. Had not a persecution, with- 
 out parallel in our country, broken forth 
 against this society, I should not have 
 spoken a word in their defence. But 
 whilst I have power, I owe it to the 
 persecuted. If they have laid them- 
 selves open to the laws, let them suffer. 
 For all their errors and sins let the tri- 
 bunal of public opinion inflict the full 
 measure of rebuke which they deserve. 
 I ask no favor for them. But they shall 
 not be stripped of the rights of man, of 
 rights guarantied by the laws and Con- 
 stitution, without one voice, at least, 
 being raised in their defence. 
 
 The abolitionists have done wrong, 
 I believe ; nor is their wrong to be 
 winked at, because done fanatically, or 
 with good intention ; for how much mis- 
 chief may be wrought with good design ! 
 They have fallen into the common error 
 of enthusiasts, that of taking too narrow 
 views, of feeling as if no evil existed but 
 that which they opposed, and as if no 
 guilt could be compared with that of 
 countenancing or upholding it. The 
 tone of their newspapers, as far as I 
 have seen them, has often been fierce, 
 bitter, exasperating. Their imaginations 
 have fed too much on pictures of the 
 cruelty to which the slave is exposed, 
 till not a few have probably conceived 
 of his abode as perpetually resounding 
 with the lash, and ringing with shrieks 
 of agony. I know that many of their 
 publications have been calm, well con- 
 sidered, abounding in strong reasoning, 
 and imbued with an enlightened love of 
 freedom. But some, which have been 
 most widely scattered, and are most 
 adapted to act on the common mind, 
 have had a tone unfriendly both to man- 
 ners and to the spirit of our religion. 
 I doubt not that the majority of the 
 abolitionists condemn the coarseness 
 and. violence of which I complain. But 
 in this, as in most associations, the many 
 are represented and controlled by the 
 few, and are made to sanction and be- 
 come responsible for what they disap- 
 prove. 
 
 One of their errors has been the 
 adoption of " Immediate Emancipation " 
 as their motto. To this they owe not a 
 little of their unpopularity. This phrase 
 has contributed much to spread far and 
 wide the belief that they wished imme- 
 diately to free the slave from all his re-
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 733 
 
 straints. They made explanations ; but 
 thousands heard the motto who never 
 saw the explanation ; and it is certainly 
 unwise for a party to choose a watch- 
 word which can be rescued from misap- 
 prehension only by labored explication. 
 It may also be doubted whether they 
 ever removed the objection which their 
 language so universally raised, whether 
 they have not always recommended a 
 precipitate action, inconsistent with the 
 well-being of the slave and the order of 
 the state. 
 
 Another objection to their movements 
 is, that they have sought to accomplish 
 their objects by a system of agitation ; 
 that is, by a system of affiliated societies, 
 gathered and held together and extended 
 by passionate eloquence. This, in truth, 
 is the common mode by which all pro- 
 jects are now accomplished. The age 
 of individual action is gone. Truth can 
 hardly be heard unless shouted by a 
 crowd. The weightiest argument for a 
 doctrine is the number which adopts it. 
 Accordingly, to gather and organize 
 multitudes is the first care of him who 
 would remove an abuse or spread a re- 
 form. That the expedient is in some 
 cases useful, is not denied. But gen- 
 erally it is a showy, noisy mode of action, 
 appealing to the passions, and driving 
 men into exaggeration ; and there are 
 special reasons why such a mode should 
 not be employed in regard to slavery ; 
 for slavery is so to be opposed as not 
 to exasperate the slave, or endanger the 
 community in which he lives. The ab- 
 olitionists might have formed an as- 
 sociation ; but it should have been an 
 elective one. Men of strong moral 
 principle, judiciousness, sobriety, should 
 have been carefully sought as members. 
 Much good might have been accom- 
 plished by the co-operation of such 
 philanthropists. Instead of this, the 
 abolitionists sent forth their orators, 
 some of them transported with fiery 
 zeal, to sound the alarm against slavery 
 through the land, to gather together 
 young and old, pupils from schools, 
 females hardly arrived at years of dis- 
 cretion, the ignorant, the excitable, the 
 impetuous, and to organize these into 
 associations for the battle against op- 
 pression. They preached their doctrine 
 to the colored people, and collected these 
 into their societies. To this mixed and 
 excitable multitude, appeals were made 
 
 in the piercing tones of passion ; and 
 slave-holders were held up as monsters 
 of cruelty and crime. Now to this pro- 
 cedure I must object, as unwise, as un- 
 friendly to the spirit of Christianity, 
 and as increasing, in a degree, the perils 
 of the slave-holding States. Among the 
 unenlightened, whom they so power- 
 fully addressed, was there no reason to 
 fear that some might feel themselves 
 called to subvert this system of wrong, 
 by whatever means ? From the free 
 colored people this danger was particu- 
 larly to be apprehended. It is easy for 
 us to place ourselves in their situation. 
 Suppose that millions of white men 
 were enslaved, robbed of all their rights, 
 in a neighboring country, and enslaved 
 by a black race, who had torn their an- 
 cestors from the shores on which our 
 fathers had lived. How deeply should 
 we feel their wrongs ! And would it be 
 wonderful if, in a moment of passionate 
 excitement, some enthusiast should think 
 it his duty to use his communication 
 with his injured brethren for stirring 
 them up to revolt ? 
 
 Such is the danger from abolitionism 
 to the slave-holding States. I know no 
 other. It is but justice to add, that the 
 principle of non-resistance, which the 
 abolitionists have connected with their 
 passionate appeals, seems to have coun- 
 teracted the peril. 1 know not a case 
 in which a member of an anti-slavery 
 society has been proved by legal in- 
 vestigation to have tampered with the 
 slaves ; and, after the strongly pro- 
 nounced and unanimous opinion of the 
 free States on the subject, this danger 
 may be considered as having passed 
 away. Still a mode of action requir- 
 ing these checks is open to strong ob- 
 jections, and ought to be abandoned. 
 Happy will it be if the disapprobation 
 of friends, as well as of foes, should 
 give to abolitionists a caution and mod- 
 eration which would secure the acqui- 
 escence of the judicious, and the sym- 
 pathies of the friends of mankind ! Let 
 not a good cause find its chief obstruc^ 
 tion in its defenders. Let the truth, 
 and the whole truth, be spoken without 
 paltering or fear ; but so spoken as to 
 convince, not inflame, as to give no 
 alarm to the wise, and no needless ex- 
 asperation to the selfish and passionate. 
 
 I know it is said that nothing can be 
 done but by excitement and vehemence ;
 
 734 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 that the zeal which dares every thing is 
 the only power to oppose to long-rooted 
 abuses. But it is not true that God has 
 committed the great work of reforming 
 the world to passion. Love is a minis- 
 ter of good only when it gives energy 
 to the intellect, and allies itself with 
 wisdom. The abolitionists often speak 
 of Luther's vehemence as a model to 
 future reformers. But who that has 
 read history does not know that Luther's 
 reformation was accompanied by tre- 
 mendous miseries and crimes, and that 
 its progress was soon arrested ? And 
 is there not reason to fear that the 
 fierce, bitter, persecuting spirit which he 
 breathed into the work not only tar- 
 nished its glory, but limited its power ? 
 One great principle, which we should 
 lay down as immovably true, is, that if 
 a good work cannot be carried on 
 by the calm, self-controlled, benevolent 
 spirit of Christianity, then the time for 
 doing it has not come. God asks not 
 the aid of our vices. He can overrule 
 them for good, but they are not the 
 chosen instruments of human happi- 
 ness. 
 
 We, indeed, need zeal, fervent zeal, 
 such as will fear no man's power, and 
 shrink before no man's frown, such 
 as will sacrifice life to truth and free- 
 dom. But this energy of will ought to 
 be joined with deliberate wisdom and 
 universal charity. It ought to regard 
 the whole in its strenuous efforts for a 
 part. Above all, it ought to ask, first, 
 not what means are most effectual, but 
 what means are sanctioned by the moral 
 law and by Christian love. We ought 
 to think much more of walking in the 
 right path than of reaching our end. 
 We should desire virtue more than suc- 
 cess. If by one wrong deed we could 
 accomplish the liberation of millions, 
 and in no other way, we ought to feel 
 that this good, for which, perhaps, we 
 had prayed with an agony of desire, 
 was denied us by God, was reserved for 
 other times and other hands. The first 
 object of a true zeal is, not that we may 
 prosper, but that we may do right, that 
 we may keep ourselves unspotted from 
 every evil thought, word, and deed. 
 Under the inspiration of such a zeal, we 
 shall not find in the greatness of an 
 enterprise an apology for intrigue or for 
 violence. We shall not need immediate 
 success to spur us to exertion. We 
 
 shall not distrust God because he does 
 not yield to the cry of human impa- 
 tience. We shall not forsake a good 
 work because it does not advance with 
 a rapid step. Faith in truth, virtue, and 
 Almighty Goodness, will save us alike 
 from rashness and despair. 
 
 In lamenting the adoption by the 
 abolitionists of the system of agitation 
 or extensive excitement, I do not mean 
 to condemn this mode of action as only 
 evil. There are cases to which it is 
 adapted ; and, in general, the impulse 
 which it gives is better than the self- 
 ish, sluggish indifference to good objects 
 into which the multitude so generally 
 fall. But it must not supersede or be 
 compared with individual action. The 
 enthusiasm of the individual in a good 
 cause is a mighty power. The forced, 
 artificially excited enthusiasm of a mul- 
 titude, kept together by an organization 
 which makes them the instruments of a 
 few leading minds, works superficially, 
 and often injuriously. I fear that the 
 native, noble-minded enthusiast often 
 loses that single-heartedness which is 
 his greatest power, when once he strives 
 to avail himself of the machinery of 
 associations. The chief strength of a 
 reformer lies in speaking truth purely 
 from his own soul, without changing 
 one tone for the purpose of managing 
 or enlarging a party. Truth, to be pow- 
 erful, must speak in her own words, 
 and in no other's ; must come forth, 
 with the authority and spontaneous 
 energy of inspiration, from the depths 
 of the soul. It is the voice of the in- 
 dividual giving utterance to the irrepres- 
 sible convictions of his own thoroughly 
 moved spirit, and not the shout of a 
 crowjd, which carries truth far into other 
 souls, and insures it a stable empire on 
 earth. For want of this, most which 
 is now done is done superficially. The 
 progress of society depends chiefly on 
 the honest inquiry of the individual into 
 the particular work ordained him by 
 God. and on his simplicity in following 
 out his convictions. This moral inde- 
 pendence is mightier, as well as holier, 
 than the practice of 'getting warm in 
 crowds, and of waiting for an impulse 
 from multitudes. The moment a man 
 parts with moral independence : the mo- 
 ment he judges of duty, not from the 
 inward voice, but from the interests and 
 will of a party ; the moment he com-
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 735 
 
 mits himself to a leader or a body, and 
 winks at evil, because division would 
 hurt the cause : the moment he shakes 
 off his particular responsibility, because 
 he is but one of a thousand or million 
 by whom the evil is done, that moment 
 he parts with his moral power. He is 
 shorn of the energy of single-hearted 
 faith in the right and the true. He 
 hopes from man's policy what nothing 
 but loyalty to God can accomplish. He 
 substitutes coarse weapons forged by 
 man's wisdom for celestial power. 
 
 The adoption of the common system 
 of agitation by the abolitionists has not 
 been justified by success. From the 
 beginning it created alarm in the con- 
 siderate, and strengthened the sympa- 
 thies of the free States with the slave- 
 holder. It made converts of a few 
 individuals, but alienated multitudes. 
 Its influence at the South has been al- 
 most wholly evil. It has stirred up 
 bitter passions and a fierce fanaticism, 
 which have shut every ear and every 
 heart against its arguments and persua- 
 sions. These effects are more to be 
 deplored, because the hope of freedom 
 to the slave lies chiefly in the disposi- 
 tions of his master. The abolitionist 
 proposed, indeed, to convert the slave- 
 holders ; and for this end he approached 
 them with vituperation, and exhausted 
 on them the vocabulary of reproach. 
 And he has reaped as he sowed. His 
 vehement pleadings for the slaves have 
 been answered by wilder tones from the 
 slave-holder ; and, what is worse, delib- 
 erate defences of slavery have been 
 sent forth, in the spirit of the dark 
 ages, and in defiance of the moral con- 
 victions and feelings of the Christian 
 and civilized world. Thus, with good 
 purposes, nothing seems to have been 
 gained. Perhaps (though I am anxious 
 to repel the thought) something has 
 been lost to the cause of freedom and 
 humanity. 
 
 I earnestly desire that abolitionism 
 may lay aside the form of public agita- 
 tion, and seek its end by wiser and 
 milder means. I desire as earnestly, 
 and more earnestly, that it may not be 
 put down by lawless force. There is a 
 worse evil than abolitionism, and that is 
 the suppression of it by lawless force. 
 No evil greater than this can exist in 
 the state, and this is never needed. Be 
 it granted that it is the design, or direct, 
 
 j palpable tendency of abolitionism to 
 I stir up insurrection at the South, and 
 I that no existing laws can meet the exi- 
 I gency. It is the solemn duty of the 
 j chief magistrate of the state to assemble 
 | immediately the legislative bodies, and 
 their duty immediately to apply the rem- 
 edy of law. Let every friend of free- 
 dom, let every good man, lift up his 
 voice against mobs. Through these lies 
 our road to tyranny. It is these which 
 have spread the opinion, so common at 
 the South, that the free States cannot 
 long sustain republican institutions. No 
 man seems awake to their inconsistency 
 with liberty. Our whole phraseology is 
 in fault. Mobs call themselves, and are 
 called, the people, when in truth they 
 assail immediately the sovereignty of 
 the people, when they involve the guilt 
 of usurpation and rebellion against the 
 people. It is the fundamental principle 
 of our institutions, that the people is 
 sovereign. But by the people we mean 
 not an individual here and there, not a 
 knot of twenty or a hundred or a thou- 
 sand individuals in this or that spot, 
 but the community formed into a body 
 politic, and expressing and executing 
 its will through regularly appointed or- 
 gans. There is but one expression of 
 the will or sovereignty of the people, 
 and that is law. Law is the voice, the 
 living act, of the people. It has no 
 other. When an individual suspends 
 the operation of law, resists its estab- 
 lished ministers, and forcibly substitutes 
 for it his own will, he is a usurper and 
 rebel. The same guilt attaches to a 
 combination of individuals. These, 
 whether many or few, in forcibly super- 
 seding public law and establishing their 
 own, rise up against the people as truly 
 as a single usurper. The people should 
 assert its insulted majesty, its menaced 
 sovereignty, in one case as decidedly as 
 in the other. The difference between 
 the mob and the individual is, that the 
 usurpation of the latter has a perma- 
 nence not easily given to the tumultuary 
 movements of the forme r . The dis- 
 tinction is a weighty one. Little im- 
 portance is due to sudden bursts of the 
 populace, because they so soon pass 
 away. But when mobs are organized, 
 as in the French Revolution, or when 
 they are deliberately resolved on and 
 systematically resorted to, as the means 
 of putting down an odious party, they
 
 736 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 lose this apology. A conspiracy exists 
 against the sovereignty of the people, 
 and ought to be suppressed, as among 
 the chief evils of the state. 
 
 In this part of the country our abhor- 
 rence of mobs is lessened by the fact 
 that they were thought to do good ser- 
 vice in the beginning of the Revolution. 
 They probably were useful then ; and 
 why ? The work of that day was revo- 
 lution. To subvert a government was 
 the fearful task to which our fathers 
 thought themselves summoned. Their 
 duty, they believed, was insurrection. 
 In such a work mobs had their place. 
 The government of the state was in the 
 hands of its foes. The people could 
 not use the regular organs of adminis- 
 tration, for these were held and employed 
 by the power which they wished to crush. 
 Violent, irregular efforts belonged to that 
 day of convulsion. To resist and sub- 
 vert institutions is the very work of 
 mobs ; and when these institutions are 
 popular, when their sole end is to ex- 
 press and execute the will of the people, 
 then mobs are rebellion against the peo- 
 ple, and as such should be understood 
 and suppressed. A people is never more 
 insulted than when a mob takes its name. 
 Abolition must not be put down by law- 
 less force. The attempt so to destroy 
 it ought to fail. Such attempts place 
 abolitionism on a new ground. They 
 make it, not the cause of a few enthu- 
 siasts, but the cause of freedom. They 
 identify it with all our rights and popu- 
 lar institutions. If the Constitution and 
 the laws cannot put it down, it must 
 stand ; and he who attempts its over- 
 throw by lawless force is a rebel and 
 usurper. The supremacy of law and the 
 sovereignty of the people are one and 
 indivisible. To touch the one is to vio- 
 late the other. This should be laid down 
 as a first principle, an axiom, a funda- 
 mental article of faith which it must be 
 heresy to question. A newspaper which, 
 openly or by innuendoes, excites a mob, 
 should be regarded as sounding the 
 tocsin of insurrection. On this subject 
 the public mind slumbers, and needs to 
 be awakened, lest it sleep the sleep of 
 death. 
 
 How obvious is it that pretexts for 
 mobs will never be wanting if this dis- 
 organizing mode of redressing evils be 
 in any case allowed ! We all recollect 
 that when a recent attempt was made 
 
 on the life of the President of the United 
 States, the cry broke forth from his 
 friends ' that the assassin was insti- 
 gated by the continual abuse poured 
 forth on this distinguished man, and 
 especially by the violent speeches ut- 
 tered daily in the Senate of the United 
 States." Suppose, now, that his adhe- 
 rents, to save the Chief Magistrate from 
 murder, and to guard his constitutional 
 advisers, had formed themselves into 
 mobs, to scatter the meetings of his 
 opponents. And suppose that they had 
 resolved to put to silence the legislators 
 who, it was said, had abused their free- 
 dom of speech to blacken the character 
 and put in peril the life of the Chief 
 Magistrate. Would they not have had 
 a better pretext than mobs against aboli- 
 tion ? Was not assassination attempted ? 
 Had not the President received letters 
 threatening his life unless his measures 
 were changed ? Can a year or a month 
 pass which will not afford equally grave 
 reasons for insurrections of the popu- 
 lace ? A system of mobs and a free 
 government cannot stand together. The 
 men who incite the former, and especially 
 those who organize them, are among the 
 wors't enemies of the state. Of their 
 motives I do not speak. They may 
 think themselves doing service to their 
 country, for there is no limit to the 
 delusions of the times. I speak only of 
 the nature and tendency of their actions. 
 They should be put down at once by 
 law, and by the moral sentiment of an 
 insulted people. 
 
 In addition to all other reasons, the 
 honor of our nation and the cause of 
 free institutions should plead with us 
 to defend the laws from insult, and 
 social order from subversion. The 
 moral influence and reputation of our 
 country are fast declining abroad. A 
 letter, recently received from one of the 
 most distinguished men of the continent 
 of Europe, expresses the universal feel- 
 ing on the other side of the ocean. 
 After speaking of the late encroach- 
 ments on liberty in France, he says : 
 " On your side of the Atlantic you con- 
 tribute, also, to put in peril the cause of 
 liberty. We did take pleasure in think- 
 ing that there was, at least in the New 
 World, a country where liberty was well 
 understood, where all rights were guar- 
 antied, where the people was proving 
 itself wise and virtuous. For some time
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 737 
 
 past the news we receive from America 
 is discouraging. In all your large cities 
 we see mobs after mobs, and all directed 
 to an odious purpose. When we speak 
 of liberty, its enemies reply to us by 
 pointing to America." The persecuted 
 abolitionists have the sympathies of the 
 civilized world. The country which per- 
 secutes them is covering itself with dis- 
 grace, and filling the hearts of the friends 
 of freedom with fear and gloom. Al- 
 ready despotism is beginning to rejoice 
 in the fulfilment of its prophecies, in 
 our prostrated laws and dying liberties. 
 Liberty is, indeed, threatened with death 
 in a country where any class of men are 
 stripped with impunity of their consti- 
 tutional rights. All rights feel the blow. 
 A community giving up any of its citi- 
 zens to oppression and violence is pre- 
 paring for itself the same fate. It invites 
 chains for itself, in suffering them to be 
 imposed on any whom it is bound to 
 protect. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Duties. 
 
 A few words remain to be spoken in 
 relation to the duties of the free States. 
 These need to feel the responsibilities 
 and dangers of their present position. 
 The country is approaching a crisis on 
 the greatest question which can be pro- 
 posed to it, a question not of profit or 
 loss, of tariffs or banks, or any temporary 
 interests, but a question involving the 
 first principles of freedom, morals, and 
 religion. Yet who seems to be awake to 
 the solemnity of the present moment ? 
 Who seems to be settling for himself the 
 great fundamental truths by which pri- 
 vate efforts and public measures are to 
 be determined ? 
 
 The North has duties to perform 
 towards the South and towards itself. 
 Let it resolve to perform them faithfully, 
 impartially; asking first for the right, 
 and putting entire confidence in well- 
 doing. The North is bound to frown 
 on all attempts of its citizens, should 
 such be threatened, to excite insurrec- 
 tion at the South, on all attempts to 
 famper with and to dispose to violence 
 the minds of the slaves. The severest 
 laws which the constitutions of the dif- 
 ferent States admit may justly be re- 
 sorted to for this end, and they should 
 
 be strictly enforced. I believe, indeed, 
 that there is no special need for new 
 legislation on the subject. I believe 
 that there was never a moment when the 
 slave-holding States had so little to ap- 
 prehend from the free, when the moral 
 feeling of the community in regard to 
 the crime of instigating revolt was so 
 universal, thorough, and inflexible, as at 
 the present moment. Still, if the South 
 needs other demonstrations than it now 
 has of the moral and friendly spirit which 
 in this respect pervades the North, let 
 them be given to the full extent which 
 the spirit and provisions of our respec- 
 tive constitutions allow. Still more ; it 
 is the duty of the free States to act by 
 opinion, where they cannot act by law, 
 to discountenance a system of agitation 
 on the subject of slavery, to frown on 
 passionate appeals to the ignorant, and 
 on indiscriminate and inflammatory vitu- 
 peration of the slave-holder. This obli- 
 gation also has been and will be fulfilled. 
 There was never a stronger feeling of 
 responsibility in this particular than at 
 the present moment. 
 
 There are, however, other duties of 
 the free States, to which they may prove 
 false, and which they are too willing to 
 forget. They are bound, not in their 
 public, but individual capacities, to use 
 every virtuous influence for the abolition 
 of slavery. They are bound to encourage 
 that manly, moral, religious discussion 
 of it, through which strength will be given 
 to the continually increasing opinion of 
 the civilized and Christian world in favor 
 of personal freedom. They are bound 
 to seek and hold the truth in regard to 
 human rights, to be faithful to their prin- 
 ciples in conversation and conduct, 
 never, never to surrender them to private 
 interest, convenience, flattery, or fear. 
 
 The duty of being true to our princi- 
 ples is not easily to be performed. At 
 this moment an immense pressure is 
 driving the North from its true ground. 
 God save it from imbecility, from treach- 
 ery to freedom arid virtue ! I have cer- 
 tainly no feelings but those of good-will 
 towards the South ; but I speak the 
 universal sentiment of this part of the 
 country, when I say that the tone which 
 the South has often assumed towards 
 the North has been that of a superior, 
 a tone unconsciously borrowed from the 
 habit of command to which it is unhap- 
 pily accustomed by the form of its soci- 
 
 47
 
 738 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 ety. I must add, that this high bearing 
 of the South has not always been met 
 by a just consciousness of equality, a 
 just self-respect at the North. The 
 causes I will not try to explain. The 
 effect, I fear, is not to be denied. It is 
 said that some who have represented the 
 North in Congress have not always rep- 
 resented its dignity, its honor : that they 
 have not always stood erect before the 
 lofty bearing of the South. Here lies 
 our danger. The North will undoubt- 
 edly be just to the South. It must also 
 be just to itself. This is not the time 
 for sycophancy, for servility, for compro- 
 mise of principle, for forgetfulness of 
 our rights. It is the time to manifest 
 the spirit of men, a spirit which prizes, 
 more than life, the principles of liberty, 
 of justice, of humanity, of pure morals, 
 of pure religion. 
 
 Let it not be thought that I would 
 recommend to the North, what in some 
 parts of our country is called " Chiv- 
 alry," a spirit of v/hich the duelling 
 pistol is the best emblem, and which 
 settles controversies with blood. A 
 Christian and civilized man cannot but 
 be struck with the approach to barbar- 
 ism, with the insensibility to true great- 
 ness, with the incapacity of comprehend- 
 ing the divine virtues of Jesus Christ, 
 which mark what is called " chivalry." 
 I ask not the man of the North to borrow 
 it from any part of the country. But I 
 do ask him to stand in the presence of 
 this " chivalry " with the dignity of moral 
 courage and moral independence. Let 
 him, at the same moment, remember the 
 courtesy and deference due to the differ- 
 ing opinions of others, and the sincerity 
 and firmness due to his own. Let him 
 understand the lofty position which he 
 holds on the subject of slavery, and 
 never descend from it for the purpose of 
 soothing prejudice or disarming passion. 
 Let him respect the safety of the South, 
 and still manifest his inflexible adhe- 
 rence to the cause of human rights and 
 personal freedom. 
 
 On this point I must insist, because I 
 see the North giving way to the vehe- 
 mence of the South. In some, perhaps 
 many, of our recent "Resolutions," a 
 spirit has been manifested at which, if 
 not we, our children will blush. Not 
 long ago there were rumors that some 
 of our citizens wished to suppress by 
 law all discussion, all expression of 
 
 opinion on slavery, and to send to the 
 South such members of our community 
 as might be claimed as instigators of 
 insurrection. Such encroachments on 
 rights could not, of course, be endured. 
 We are not yet so fallen. Some gen- 
 erous inspirations, some echoes of the 
 old eloquence of liberty, still come down 
 to us from our fathers. Could such en- 
 croachments be borne, would not the 
 soil of New England, so long trodden 
 by freemen, quake under the steps of 
 her degenerate sons ? We are not pre- 
 pared for these. But a weak, -yielding 
 tone, for which we seem to be prepared, 
 may be the beginning of concessions 
 which we shall one day bitterly rue. 
 
 The means used at the South to bring 
 the North to compliance seem to demand 
 particular attention. I will not record 
 the contemptuous language which has 
 been thrown on the money-getting hab- 
 its of New England, or the menaces 
 which have been addressed to our cu- 
 pidity, for the purpose cf putting us to 
 silence on the subject of slavery. Such 
 language does in no degree move me. 
 I only ask that we may give no ground 
 for its application. We can easily bear 
 it if we do not deserve it. Our mother 
 country has been called a nation of 
 shopkeepers, and New England ought 
 not to be provoked by the name. Only 
 let us give no sanction to the opinion 
 that our spirit is narrowed to our shops ; 
 that we place the art of bargaining above 
 all arts, all sciences, accomplishments, 
 and virtues ; that, rather than lose the 
 fruits of the slave's labor, we would 
 rivet his chains : that, sooner than lose 
 a market, we would make shipwreck of 
 honor : that, sooner than sacrifice pres- 
 ent gain, we would break our faith to 
 our fathers and our children, to our 
 principles and our .God. To resent or 
 retaliate reproaches would be unwise 
 and unchristian. The only revenge 
 worthy of a good man is to turn 
 reproaches into admonitions against 
 baseness, into incitements to a more 
 generous virtue. New England has 
 long suffered the imputation of a sor- 
 did, calculating spirit, of supreme de- 
 votion to gain. Let us show that we 
 have principles, compared with which 
 the wealth of the world is light as air. 
 It is a common remark here, that there 
 is not a community ur der heaven through 
 which there is so general a diffusion of
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 739 
 
 intelligence and healthful moral senti- 
 ment as in New England. Let not the 
 just influence of such a society be im- 
 paired by any act which would give to 
 prejudice the aspect of truth. 
 
 The free States, it is to be feared, 
 must pass through a struggle. May 
 they sustain it as becomes their free- 
 dom ! The present excitement at the 
 South can hardly be expected to pass 
 away without attempts to wrest from 
 them unworthy concessions. The tone 
 in regard to slavery in that part of our 
 country is changed. It is not only more 
 vehement, but more false than formerly. 
 Once slavery was acknowledged as an 
 evil. Now it is proclaimed to be a good. 
 We have even been told, not by a hand- 
 ful of enthusiasts in private lire, but by 
 men in the highest station and of widest 
 iuflueace at the South, that slavery is 
 the soil into which political freedom 
 strikes its deepest roots, and that repub- 
 lican institutions are never so secure as 
 when the laboring class is reduced to 
 servitude. Certainly, no assertion of the 
 wildest abolitionist could give such a 
 shock to the slave-holder as this new 
 doctrine is fitted to give to the people 
 of the North. Liberty, with a slave for 
 her pedestal and a chain in her hand, 
 is an image from which our understand- 
 ings and hearts alike recoil. A doctrine 
 more wounding or insulting to the me- 
 chanics, farmers, laborers of the North 
 than this strange heresy, cannot well 
 be conceived. A doctrine more irrev- 
 erent, more fatal to republican insti- 
 tutions, was never fabricated in the 
 councils of despotism. It does not, 
 however, provoke us. I recall it only 
 to show the spirit in which slavery is 
 upheld, and to remind the free States 
 of the calm energy which they will need 
 to keep themselves true to their own 
 principles of liberty. 
 
 There is a great dread in this part of 
 the country that the union of the States 
 may be dissolved by the conflict about 
 slavery. To avert this evil, every sac- 
 rifice should be made but that of honor, 
 freedom, and principle. No one prizes 
 the Union more than myself. Perhaps 
 I may be allowed to say that I am at- 
 tached to it by no common love. Most 
 men value the Union as a means ; to 
 rne it is an end. Most would preserve 
 it for the prosperity of which it is the 
 instrument ; I love and would preserve 
 
 it for its own sake. Some value it as 
 favoring public improvements, facilities 
 of commercial exchange, &c. ; I value 
 these improvements and exchanges 
 chiefly as favoring union. I ask of 
 the General Government to unite us, 
 to hold us together as brethren in peace ; 
 and I care little whether it does any 
 thing else. So dear to me is union. 
 Next to liberty, it is our highest na- 
 tional interest. All the pecuniary sac- 
 rifices which it can possibly demand 
 should be made for it. The politicians 
 in some parts of our country, who are 
 calculating its value, and are willing to 
 surrender it because they may grow 
 richer by separation, seem to me bereft 
 of reason. Still, if the Union can be 
 preserved only by the imposition of 
 chains on speech and the press, by 
 prohibition of discussion on a subject 
 involving the most sacred rights and 
 dearest interests of humanity, then 
 union would be bought at too dear a 
 rate ; then it would be changed from 
 a virtuous bond into a league of crime 
 and shame. Language cannot easily do 
 justice to our attachment to the Union. 
 We will yield every thing to it but truth, 
 honor, and liberty. These we can never 
 yield. 
 
 Let the free States be firm, but also 
 patient, forbearing, and calm. From 
 the slave-holder they cannot look for 
 perfect self-control. From his position 
 he would be more than man were he to 
 observe the bounds of moderation. The 
 consciousness which tranquillizes the 
 mind can hardly be his. On this sub- 
 ject he has always been sensitive to 
 excess. Much exasperation is to be 
 expected. Much should be borne. 
 Every thing may be surrendered but 
 our principles and our rights. 
 
 The work which I proposed to myself 
 is now completed. I ask and hope for 
 it the Divine blessing, as far as it ex- 
 presses truth, and breathes the spirit of 
 justice and humanity. If I have written 
 any thing under the influence of prej- 
 udice, passion, or unkindness to any 
 human being, I ask forgiveness of God 
 and man. I have spoken strongly, not 
 to offend or give pain, but to produce in 
 others deep convictions corresponding 
 to my own. Nothing could have in- 
 duced me to fix my thoughts on this
 
 740 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 painful subject, but a conviction, which 
 pressed on me with increasing weight, 
 that the times demanded a plain and 
 free exposition of the truth. The few 
 last months have increased my solici- 
 tude for the country. Public sentiment 
 has seemed to me to be losing its health- 
 fulness and vigor. I have seen symp- 
 toms of the decline of the old spirit of 
 liberty. Servile opinions have seemed 
 to gain ground among us. The faith of 
 our fathers in free institutions has waxed 
 faint, and is giving place to despair of 
 human improvement. I have perceived 
 a disposition to deride abstract rights, 
 to speak of freedom as a dream, and of 
 republican governments as built on sand. 
 I have perceived a faintheartedness in 
 the cause of human rights. The con- 
 demnation which has been passed on 
 abolitionists has seemed to be settling 
 into acquiescence in slavery. The sym- 
 pathies of the community have been 
 turned from the slave to the master. 
 The impious doctrine, that human laws 
 can repeal the divine, can convert unjust 
 and oppressive power into a moral right, 
 has more and more tinctured the style 
 of conversation and the press. With 
 these sad and solemn views of society, 
 I could not be silent ; and I thank God, 
 amidst the consciousness of great weak- 
 ness and imperfection, that I have been 
 able to offer this humble tribute, this 
 sincere though feeble testimony, this ex- 
 pression of heart-felt allegiance, to the 
 cause of freedom, justice, and humanity. 
 Having stated the circumstances which 
 have moved me to write, I ought to say 
 that they do not discourage me. Were 
 darker omens to gather round us, I 
 should not despair. With a faith like 
 his who came to prepare the way for the 
 Great Deliverer, I feel and can say, 
 " The kingdom of heaven," the reign of 
 justice and disinterested love, " is at 
 hand, and all flesh shall see the salva- 
 tion of God." I know, and rejoice to 
 know, that a power, mightier than the 
 prejudices and oppression of ages, is 
 working on earth for the world's re- 
 demption, the power of Christian 
 truth and goodness. It descended from 
 heaven in the person of Christ. It was 
 manifest in his life and death. From 
 his cross it went forth conquering and 
 to conquer. Its mission is "to preach 
 deliverence to the captive, and to set at 
 liberty them that are bound." It has 
 
 opened many a prison-door. It is or- 
 dained to break every chain. I have 
 faith in its triumphs. I do not, cannot 
 despair. 
 
 NOTE. It was my purpose to address 
 a chapter to the South, but I have thought 
 fit to omit it. I beg, however, to say, 
 that nothing which I have written can 
 have proceeded from unkind feeling 
 towards the South ; for in no other part 
 of the country have my writings found a 
 more gratifying reception ; from no other 
 pait have I received stronger expres- 
 sions of sympathy. To these I am cer- 
 tainly not insensible. My own feelings, 
 had I consulted them, would have led 
 me to stifle every expression which could 
 give pain to those from whom I have 
 received nothing but good-will. 
 
 I wished to suggest to the slave- 
 holders that the excitement now preva- 
 lent among themselves is incomparably 
 more perilous, more fitted to stir up 
 insurrection, than all the efforts of abo- 
 litionists, allowing these to be ever so 
 corrupt. I also wished to remind the 
 men of principle and influence in that 
 part of the country of the necessity of 
 laying a check on lawless procedures, in 
 regard to the citizens of the North. We 
 have heard of large subscriptions at the 
 South for the apprehension of some of 
 the abolitionists in the free States, and 
 for the transportation of them to parts 
 of the country where they would meet 
 the fate which, it is said, they deserve. 
 Undoubtedly, the respectable portion of 
 the slave-holding communities are not 
 answerable for these measures. But 
 does not policy, as well as principle, 
 require such men steadily to discounte- 
 nance them ? At present, the free 
 States have stronger sympathies with 
 the South than ever before. But can it 
 be supposed that they will suffer their 
 citizens to be stolen, exposed to violence, 
 and murdered by other States ? Would 
 not such an outrage rouse them to feel 
 and act as one man ? Would it not 
 identify the abolitionists with our most 
 sacred rights ? One kidnapped, mur- 
 dered abolitionist would do more for the 
 violent destruction of slavery than a 
 thousand societies. His name would be 
 sainted. The day of his death would be 
 set apart for solemn, heart-stirring com- 
 memoration. His blood would cry
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 741 
 
 through the land with a thrilling voice, 
 would pierce every dwelling, and find a 
 response in every heart. Do men, under 
 the light of the present day, need to be 
 told that enthusiasm is not a flame to be 
 quenched with blood ? On this point, 
 good and wise men, and the friends of 
 the country at the North and South, can 
 hold but one opinion ; and if the press, 
 which, I grieve to say, has kept an omi- 
 nous silence amidst the violations of law 
 and rights, would but speak plainly and 
 strongly, the danger would be past. 
 
 The views and principles supported 
 in this short work will, of course, pro- 
 voke much opposition, and what I 
 greatly lament they will excite the 
 displeasure not only of the selfish and 
 violent, but of good and honorable men, 
 whose unfavorable position hardly admits 
 an impartial judgment of slavery, and 
 renders them excessively sensitive to 
 every exposition of it. I shall not, how- 
 ever, be anxious to defend what I have 
 written. The principles here laid down, 
 if true, will stand. I should anticipate 
 little good from engaging in controver- 
 sies with individuals. The selfish pas- 
 sions, awakened by such collisions, too 
 often prevail over the love of truth ; and 
 without this, the truth cannot be wor- 
 thily maintained. In regard to slavery, 
 it is peculiarly important that discussion 
 should be calm, general, unmixed with 
 personalities. In this way, I trust that 
 the subject will be better understood by 
 all parties. I should rejoice to be con- 
 vinced that slavery is a less debasing 
 influence than I have affirmed. How 
 welcome would be brighter views of life 
 and of mankind ! Still, we must see 
 things as they are, and not turn away 
 from the most painful truth. 
 
 I have only to add, that I alone am 
 responsible for what I have now written. 
 I represent no society, no body of men, 
 no part of the country. I have written 
 by no one's instigation, and with no 
 one's encouragement, but solely from 
 my own convictions. If cause of offence 
 is given, the blame ought to fall on me 
 alone. 
 
 NOTE FOR THE FOURTH EDITION. 
 In commencing the chapter on Aboli- 
 tionism, I have expressed my respect 
 for the few abolitionists whom I have 
 known. I am bound to say that, in con- 
 sequence of hearing and seeing more of 
 this body, I have an increasing persua- 
 
 sion of the purity of purpose and the 
 moral worth of its members generally. 
 I have spoken freely of their errors ; 
 but these ought not to blind us to their 
 virtues and sacrifices, and especially 
 ought not to prejudice us against the 
 truths which they contend for. We 
 must not abandon great principles 
 because asserted unwisely. We must 
 not grow cold to a good cause because 
 reproach is brought on it by defenders 
 who have more zeal than discretion. 
 Its dangers should attach us to it more 
 closely, and we should do what we can 
 to lead its friends to the use of means 
 corresponding to its dignity, and fitted 
 to insure its success. 
 
 In the chapter on the Means of Re- 
 moving Slavery, I have expressed my 
 fears as to the result of the experiment 
 now going on in the English West 
 Indies. I rejoice to say that recent 
 accounts from those islands have dimin- 
 ished my apprehensions. It is stated 
 that in some of the islands real estate 
 has risen in value since the emancipa- 
 tion, and that imports are considerably 
 increased. I have just heard that a 
 West Indian planter residing in this 
 country, who was strenuously opposed 
 to the Act of Emancipation, speaks now 
 of his estate as more productive than 
 formerly. That no disturbance of the 
 peace has followed this great change is 
 well understood, and this is the essen- 
 tial point. Undoubtedly the experi- 
 ment is not yet decided, and reports are 
 to be received with caution ; but the 
 success of the measure has as yet sur- 
 passed the expectations of all except 
 the abolitionists. As yet they have 
 proved the truest prophets. May 
 events set the seal of truth on all their 
 predictions ! This country is interested 
 in nothing more than in the success of 
 emancipation in the West Indies. With 
 this example before us, the destruction 
 of slavery would be as speedy as it is 
 sure. 
 
 No part of my book on Slavery seems 
 to have given so much offence as that 
 in which I have spoken of conjugal in- 
 fidelity on the part of the master as 
 increased by slavery. Of the abuse 
 heaped on me for this opinion I shall, 
 of course, say nothing. Had I received 
 nothing but abuse, the remarks now to 
 be made would not be offered to the 
 public ; but a gentleman of high char'
 
 742 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 acter, Mr. Leigh, of Virginia, has sol- 
 emnly protested against my statement 
 in the senate of the United States, and 
 I should do him great wrong were I to 
 confound him with the vulgar politi- 
 cians, too common in Congress as well 
 as out of it, who are ready to say any 
 tiling and every thing which may serve 
 their cause. Mr. Leigh expresses his 
 deliberate conviction that conjugal fidel- 
 ity is not more respected in any part of 
 the country than in the slave-holding 
 States. It will be observed, in recur- 
 ring to my book, that I said nothing of 
 the slave-holding States, but of slave 
 countries generally, and that I argued 
 not from reports or documents, but from 
 the principles of human nature and from 
 the very nature of slavery. I feel as if 
 such reasoning could not deceive me ; 
 but I will now say what I forbore to 
 say in the first instance that I should 
 not have brought this charge against 
 slavery, had not the general argument 
 drawn from human nature been cor- 
 roborated by all the evidence which the 
 case will well admit. In that part of 
 my work, I expressed not my own opin- 
 ion alone, but the common, and perhaps 
 I should say the universal, opinion of 
 the North, and, still more, the public 
 opinion of the civilized world. During 
 my whole life, I have not met an indi- 
 vidual who has questioned whether 
 slavery exerts a disastrous influence on 
 the domestic relations. I do not believe 
 that, among the well-informed at the 
 North, ao individual is to be found who 
 supposes that the obligations of mar- 
 riage are as much respected in the slave- 
 holding States as in the free. On read- 
 ing Mr. Leigh's speech, I determined to 
 make inquiries, with the purpose of 
 retracting my error in the face of the 
 world, if I should find reason to charge 
 myself with rashness. I have obtained 
 the opinions of those whose authority in 
 such a case seems to me most worthy of 
 confidence, and in every instance I have 
 been assured that I have uttered only 
 the truth. I know not how many have 
 spoken to me on this point in the most 
 undoubting tone. In my book, I have 
 only given expression to the public sen- 
 timent of the North, and I as little ex- 
 pected to hear my correctness questioned 
 as to hear the existence of slavery de- 
 nied. I do not, of course, intend to 
 impute the least unfairness to Mr. 
 
 Leigh, who is known among us only as 
 a virtuous man, who does honor to his 
 country. I presume that, in the com- 
 parison which he made between the 
 slave-holding States and other parts of 
 the country, he spoke without a suffi- 
 cient knowledge of the latter. I cannot, 
 therefore, I dare not, expunge from my 
 book the offensive passage, though in 
 the revised edition I have somewhat 
 changed its form. If I know my own 
 heart, I should rejoice to be able to ex- 
 punge it. 
 
 I have regretted that a passage which 
 I prepared for this work at the time of 
 its composition was not inserted. In 
 the chapter of Explanations, after speak- 
 ing of the examples of moral and relig- 
 ious excellence to be found in the slave- 
 holding States, I expressed, in a few 
 sentences, my deep sense of the virtues 
 as well as the accomplishments of the 
 women of the South. I wrote this pas- 
 sage with a fervent heart, because it was 
 dictated, in a measure, by the grateful 
 recollection of unwearied kindnesses 
 received from woman during a residence 
 in that part of the country in my youth. 
 I should be glad to publish it now, had 
 it not been destroyed with the manu- 
 script of which it formed a part, for it 
 expressed feelings which time has only 
 strengthened. After much deliberation 
 I omitted it in the first edition, and did 
 so from considerations which I cannot 
 now approve. I feared that what I had 
 written would be set down by strangers 
 as a commonplace of flattery. I feared 
 that I might seem desirous to expiate 
 by this praise the censures contained in 
 other parts of the book, desirous to 
 shield myself from the obloquy to which 
 I was exposing myself in publishing un- 
 popular truth. I did on this occasion 
 what I have too often done. In shrink- 
 ing from the appearance of vices which 
 I abhor, I was unjust to my convictions 
 and affections. The reader will excuse 
 this reference to myself, when he learns 
 that I have been shamelessly accused of 
 casting reproach on the purity of the 
 women at the South. I should not, 
 however, have noticed this calumny, had 
 not the preceding part of this note almost 
 compelled me to refer to it. I feel too 
 much about the great subject on which 
 I have written to be very solicitous about 
 what is said of myself. I feel that I am 
 nothing, that my reputation is nothing,
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 743 
 
 in comparison with the fearful wrong 
 and evil which I have labored to expose ; 
 and I should count myself unworthy the 
 name of a man or a Christian, if the 
 calumnies of the bad, or even the dis- 
 
 approbation of the good, could fasten 
 my thoughts on myself and turn me 
 aside from a cause which, as I believe, 
 truth, humanity, and God call me to main- 
 tain. . 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS: 
 
 A Letter to James G. Birney. 
 
 [THE following letter was prepared for the " Philanthropist," an antislavery paper, published at Cin- 
 cinnati, and edited by James G. Birney, a gentleman highly respected for his intellectual and moral 
 endowments. 1 1 was occasioned by the attempt made in that city to suppress the antislavery party 
 by force. Mr. Birnay was driven from Cincinnati, and the press at which the " Philanthropist " 
 
 submits it to the community here in the same form, with a few slight changes and with some new 
 matter in a note. BOSTON, December 20, 1836.] 
 
 BOSTON, Nev- i, 1836. 
 
 MY DEAR Sm, I have not the pleas- 
 ure of knowing you personally ; but 
 your history and writings have given me 
 an interest in you, which induces and 
 encourages me to address you with 
 something of the freedom of acquaint- 
 ance. I feel myself attracted to the 
 friends of humanity and freedom, how- 
 ever distant ; and when such are ex- 
 posed by their principles to peril and 
 loss, and stand firm in the evil day, I 
 take pleasure in expressing to them my 
 sympathy and admiration. The first ac- 
 counts which reached me of the vio- 
 lence which drove you from Cincinnati, 
 inclined me to write to you ; but your 
 " Narrative of those Riotous Proceed- 
 ings," which I have lately received and 
 read, does not permit me to remain 
 longer silent. The subject weighs much 
 on my mind. I feel that I have a duty 
 to perform in relation to it, and I cannot 
 rest till I yield to this conviction, till 
 I obey what seems to me the voice of 
 God. I think it best, however, not to 
 confine myself to the outrage at Cin- 
 cinnati, but to extend my remarks to 
 the spirit of violence and persecution 
 which has broken out against the abo- 
 litionists through the whole country. 
 This, I know, will be more acceptable 
 to you than any expression of sympathy 
 with you as an individual. You look 
 
 beyond yourself to the cause which you 
 have adopted, and to the much-injured 
 body of men with whom you are as- 
 sociated. 
 
 It is not my purpose to speak of the 
 abolitionists as abolitionists. They now 
 stand before the world in another char- 
 acter, and to this I shall give my present 
 attention. Of their merits and demerits 
 as abolitionists, I have formerly spoken. 
 In my short work on Slavery, I have 
 expressed my fervent attachment to the 
 great end. to which they are pledged, 
 and at the same time my disapproba- 
 tion, to a certain extent, of their spirit 
 and measures. I have no disposition to 
 travel over this ground again. Had the 
 abolitionists been left to pursue their 
 object with the freedom which is guar- 
 antied to them by our civil institutions ; 
 had they been resisted only by those 
 weapons of reason, rebuke, reproba- 
 tion, which the laws allow, I should 
 have no inducement to speak of them 
 again either in praise or censure. But 
 the violence of their adversaries has 
 driven them to a new position. Abo- 
 litionism forms an era in our history, if 
 we consider the means by which it has 
 been opposed. Deliberate, systematic 
 efforts have been made, not here or 
 there, but far and wide, to wrest from 
 its adherents that liberty of speech and 
 the press, which our fathers asserted
 
 744 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 unto blood, and which our national and 
 state governments are pledged to protect 
 as our most sacred right. Its most con- 
 spicuous advocates have been hunted 
 and stoned, its meetings scattered, its 
 presses broken up, and nothing but the 
 patience, constancy, and intrepidity of 
 its members has saved it from extinc- 
 tion. The abolitionists then not only 
 appear in the character of champions of 
 the colored race. In their persons the 
 most sacred rights of the white man 
 and the free man have been assailed. 
 They are sufferers for the liberty of 
 thought, speech, and the press : and, in 
 maintaining this liberty amidst insult 
 and violence, they deserve a place among 
 its most honored defenders. In this 
 character I shall now speak of them. 
 
 In regard to the methods adopted by 
 the abolitionists of promoting emanci- 
 pation, I might find much to censure ; 
 but when I regard their firm, fearless 
 assertion of the rights of free discus- 
 sion, of speech and the press, I look 
 on them with unmixed respect. I see 
 nothing to blame, and much to admire. 
 To them has been committed the most 
 important bulwark of liberty, and they 
 have acquittecl themselves of the trust 
 like men and Christians. No violence 
 has driven them from their post. Whilst, 
 in obedience to conscience, they have 
 refrained from opposing force to force, 
 they have still persevered, amidst men- 
 ace and insult, in bearing their testi- 
 mony against wrong, in giving utterance 
 to their deep convictions. Of such men 
 I do not hesitate to say, that they have 
 rendered to freedom a more essential 
 service than any body of men among 
 us. The defenders of freedom are not 
 those who claim and exercise rights 
 which no one assails, or who win 
 shouts of applause by well-turned com- 
 pliments to liberty in the days of her 
 triumph. They are those who stand up 
 for rights which mobs, conspiracies, or 
 single tyrants put in jeopardy ; who 
 contend for liberty in that particular 
 form which is threatened at the moment 
 by the many or the few. To the abo- 
 litionists this honor belongs. The first 
 systematic effort to strip the citizen of 
 freedom of speech they have met with 
 invincible resolution. From my heart 
 I thank them. I am myself their debtor. 
 I am not sure that I should this mo- 
 ment write in safety had they shrunk 
 
 from the conflict, had they shut their 
 lips, imposed silence on their presses, 
 and hid themselves before their fero- 
 cious assailants. I know not where 
 these outrages would have stopped, had 
 they not met resistance from their first 
 destined victims. The newspaper press, 
 with a few exceptions, uttered no genuine 
 indignant rebuke of the wrong-doers, 
 but rather countenanced, by its gentle 
 censures, the reign of force. The mass 
 of the people looked supinely on this 
 new tyranny, under which a portion of 
 their fellow-citizens seemed to be sink- 
 ing. A tone of denunciation was be- 
 ginning to proscribe all discussion of 
 slavery ; and had the spirit of violence, 
 which selected associations as its first 
 objects, succeeded in this preparatory 
 enterprise, it might have been easily 
 turned against any and every individual 
 who might presume to agitate the un- 
 welcome subject. It is hard to say to 
 what outrage the fettered press of the 
 country might ribt have been reconciled. 
 I thank <he abolitionists that, in this 
 evil day, they were true to the rights 
 which the multitude were ready to be- 
 tray. Their purpose to suffer, to die, 
 rather than surrender their dearest lib- 
 erties, taught the lawless that they had 
 a foe to contend with whom it was not 
 safe to press, whilst, like all manly ap- 
 peals, it called forth reflection and sym- 
 pathy in the better portion of the com- 
 munity. In the name of freedom and 
 humanity, I thank them. Through their 
 courage, the violence, which might have 
 furnished a precedent fatal to freedom, 
 is to become, I trust, a warning to the 
 lawless of the folly as well as crime of 
 attempting to crush opinion by force. 
 
 Of all powers, the last to be intrusted 
 to the multitude of men is that of de- 
 termining what questions shall be dis- 
 cussed. The greatest truths are often 
 the most unpopular and exasperating ; 
 and were they to be denied discussion 
 till the many should be ready to accept 
 them, they would never establish them- 
 selves in the general mind. The prog- 
 ress of society depends on nothing more 
 than on the exposure of time-sanctioned 
 abuses, which cannot be touched with- | 
 lout offending multitudes, than on the 
 "promulgation of principles which are in \ 
 advance of public sentiment and prac- \ 
 tice, and which are consequently at war 
 with the habits, prejudices, and imme-
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 745 
 
 diate interests of large classes of the 
 community. Of consequence, the mul- 
 titude, if once allowed to dictate or 
 proscribe subjects of discussion, would 
 strike society with spiritual blindness 
 and death. The world is to be carried 
 fonvard by truth, which at first offends, 
 which wins its way by degrees, which 
 the many hate and would rejoice to 
 crush. The right of free discussion is 
 therefore to be guarded by the friends 
 of mankind with peculiar jealousy. It 
 is at once the most sacred and most 
 endangered of all our rights. He who 
 would rob his neighbor of it, should 
 have a mark set on him as the worst 
 enemy of freedom. 
 
 I do not know that our history con- 
 tains a page more disgraceful to us as 
 freemen than that which records the 
 violences against the abolitionists. As 
 a people, we are chargeable with other 
 and worse misdeeds, but none so fla- 
 grantly opposed to the spirit of liberty, 
 the very spirit of our institutions, and 
 of which we make our chief boast. 
 Who, let me ask, are the men whose 
 offences are so aggravated, that they 
 must be denied the protection of the 
 laws, and be given up to the worst 
 passions of the multitude ? Are they 
 profligate in principle and life, teachers 
 of impious or servile doctrines, the ene- 
 mies of God and their race ? I speak 
 not from vague rumor, but from better 
 means of knowledge, when I say, that a 
 body of men and women more blame- 
 less than the abolitionists in their vari- 
 ous relations, or more disposed to adopt 
 a rigid construction of the Christian 
 precepts, cannot be found among us. 
 Of their judiciousness and wisdom I do 
 not speak : but I believe they yield to 
 no party in moral worth. Their great 
 crime, and one which in this land of lib- 
 erty is to be punished above all crimes, 
 is this, that they carry the doctrine of 
 human equality to its full extent, that 
 they plead vehemently for the oppressed, 
 that they assail wrong-doing however 
 sanctioned by opinion or intrenched be-\ 
 hind wealth and power, that their zeal 
 for human rights is without measure, 
 that they associate themselves fervently 
 with the Christians and philanthropists 
 of other countries against the worst relic 
 of barbarous times. Such is the offence 
 against which mobs are arrayed, and 
 which is counted so flagrant, that a sum- 
 
 mary justice, too indignant to wait for 
 the tardy progress of tribunals, must 
 take the punishment into its own hands. 
 
 How strange in a free country, that 
 the men from whom the liberty of speech 
 is to be torn are those who use it in 
 pleading for freedom, who devote them- 
 selves to the vindication of human 
 rights ! What a spectacle is presented 
 to the world by a republic, in which 
 sentence of proscription is passed on 
 citizens who labor, by addressing men's 
 consciences, to enforce the truth that 
 slavery is the greatest of wrongs ! 
 Through the civilized world, the best 
 and greatest men are bearing joint wit- 
 ness against slavery. Christians of all 
 denominations and conditions, rich and 
 poor, learned and ignorant, are bound 
 in a holy league against this most de- 
 grading form of oppression. But, in 
 free America, the language which des- 
 pots tolerate must not be heard. One 
 would think that freemen might be par- 
 doned, if the view of fellow-creatures 
 stripped of all human rights should move 
 them to vehemence of speech. But, 
 whilst on all other subjects the deeply 
 stirred feelings may overflow in earnest 
 remonstrance, on slavery the freemen 
 must speak in whispers, or pay the pen- 
 alty of persecution for the natural utter- 
 ance of strong emotion. 
 
 I am aware that the outrages on the 
 abolitionists are justified or palliated by 
 various considerations ; nor is this sur- 
 prising ; for when did violence ever want 
 excuse ? It is said that abolitionism 
 tends to stir up insurrection at the 
 South, and to dissolve the Union. Of 
 all pretences for resorting to lawless 
 force, the most dangerous is the tendency 
 of measures or opinions. Almost all 
 men see ruinous tendencies in whatever 
 opposes their particular interests or 
 views. All the political parties which 
 have convulsed our country have seen 
 tendencies to national destruction in the 
 principles of their opponents. So in- 
 finite are the connections and conse- 
 quences of human affairs, that nothing 
 can be done in which some dangerous 
 tendency may not be detected. There 
 is a tendency in arguments against any 
 old establishment to unsettle all institu- 
 tions, because all hang together. There 
 is a tendency in the laying bare of deep- 
 rooted abuses to throw a community 
 into a storm. Liberty tends to licen-
 
 746 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 tiousness, government to despotism. 
 Exclude all enterprises which may have 
 evil results, and human life will stagnate. 
 Wise men are not easily deterred by 
 difficulties and perils from a course of 
 action which promises great good. Es- 
 pecially when justice and humanity cry 
 aloud for the removal of an enormous 
 social evil, it is unworthy of men and 
 Christians to let the imagination run 
 riot among possible dangers, instead of 
 rousing every energy of mind to study 
 how the evil may be taken away, and 
 the perils which accompany beneficial 
 changes may be escaped. 
 
 As to the charge brought against the 
 abolitionists, of stirring up insurrection 
 at the South, I have never met the 
 shadow of a proof that this nefarious 
 project was meditated by a single mem- 
 ber of their body. The accusation is 
 repelled by their characters and princi- 
 ples as well as by facts ; nor can I easily 
 conceive of a sane man giving it belief. 
 As to the " tendency " of their measures 
 to this result, it is such only as we have 
 seen to belong to all human affairs, and 
 such as may easily be guarded against. 
 The truth is, that any exposition of 
 slavery, no matter from whom it may 
 come, may chance to favor revolt. It 
 may chance to fall into the hands of a 
 fanatic, who may think himself sum- 
 moned by heaven to remove violently 
 this great wrong ; or it may happen to 
 reach the hut of some intelligent, daring 
 slave, who may think himself called to 
 be the avenger of his race. All things 
 are possible. A casual, innocent remark 
 in conversation, may put wild projects 
 into the unbalanced or disordered mind 
 of some hearer. Must we, then, live in 
 perpetual silence ? Do such chances 
 make it our duty to shut our lips on the 
 subject of an enormous wrong, and never 
 to send from the press a reprobation of 
 the evil ? The truth is, that the great 
 danger to the slave-holder comes from 
 slavery itself, from the silent innovations 
 of time, from political conflicts and con- 
 vulsions, and not from the writings of 
 strangers. I readily grant that the abo- 
 litionists, in consequence of their num- 
 ber and their systematic and public 
 efforts, are more likely to be heard of 
 by the slave than a solitary individual 
 who espouses his cause. But when I 
 consider how steadily they have con- 
 demned the resort to force on the part 
 
 of the oppressed ; when I consider what 
 power the master possesses of excluding 
 incendiary influences, if such are threat- 
 ened from abroad ; when I remember 
 that, during the late unparalleled excite- 
 ment at the South, not a symptom of 
 revolt appeared ; and when to all this I 
 add the strongly manifested puqjose of 
 the free States to put forth their power, 
 if required, for the suppression of insur- 
 rection, it seems to me that none but 
 the most delicate nerves can be dis- 
 turbed by the movements of the aboli- 
 tionists. Can any man, who has a sense 
 of character, affect to believe that the 
 tendency of abolitionism to stir up a 
 servile war is so palpable and resistless 
 as to require the immediate application 
 of force for its suppression, as to demand 
 the substitution of mobs for the action 
 of law, as to justify the violation of the 
 most sacred right of the citizen ? 
 
 As to the other charge, that the meas- 
 ures of the abolitionists endanger our 
 National Union, and must therefore be 
 put down by any and every means, it is 
 weaker than the former. Against whom 
 has not this charge been hurled ? What 
 party among us has not been loaded with 
 this reproach ? Do not we at the North 
 almost unanimously believe that the 
 spirit and measures of nullification have 
 a direct and immediate tendency to dis- 
 solve the Union ? But are we therefore 
 authorized to silence the nullifier by 
 violence ? Should a leader of that party 
 travel among us, is he to be mobbed ? 
 Let me further ask, how is it that the 
 abolitionists endanger the Union ? The 
 only reply which I have heard is, that 
 they exasperate the South. And is it a 
 crime to exasperate men ? Who then 
 so criminal as the Founder and primitive 
 teachers of our faith ? Have we yet to 
 learn that, in cases of exasperation, the 
 blame is as apt to lie with those who take, 
 as with those who occasion, offence ? 
 How strange the doctrine, that men are 
 to be proscribed for uttering language 
 which gives offence, are to be outlawed 
 for putting their neighbors into a pas- 
 sion ! Let it also be considered that the 
 abolitionists are not the only people who 
 exasperate the South. Can the calmest 
 book be written on slavery without pro- 
 ducing the same effect ? Can the Chief 
 Justice of Massachusetts expound the 
 constitution and laws of that Common- 
 wealth according to their free spirit, and
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 747 
 
 of course in opposition to slavery, with- 
 out awakening indignation ? Is not the 
 doctrine, that Congress has the right of 
 putting an end to slavery in the District 
 of Columbia, denounced as fiercely as 
 the writings and harangues of abolition- 
 ists ? Where, then, shall mobs stop, if 
 the crime of exasperating the South 
 is so heinous as to deserve their ven- 
 geance ? If the philanthropist and 
 Christian must be silenced on the sub- 
 ject of slavery, lest they wound the sen- 
 sitive ears of the South, ought the judge 
 and legislator to be spared ? Who does 
 not see that these apologies for law- 
 less force, if they have any validity, 
 will bring every good man under its 
 iron sway ? 
 
 In these remarks you learn my abhor- 
 rence of the violence offered to the 
 abolitionists, and my admiration of the 
 spirit they have opposed to it. May 
 they vindicate to the end the rights 
 which in their persons have been out- 
 raged ! Allow me now to express my 
 earnest desire and hope that the abo- 
 litionists will maintain the liberty of 
 speech and the press, not only by assert- 
 ing it firmly, but by using it wisely, de- 
 liberately, generously, and under the 
 control of the severest moral principle. 
 It is my earnest desire that they will 
 exercise it in the spirit of Christians and 
 philanthropists, with a supreme love of 
 truth, without passion or bitterness, and 
 without that fanaticism which cannot 
 discern the true proportions of things, 
 which exaggerates or distorts whatever 
 favors or conflicts with its end, which 
 sees no goodness except in its own 
 ranks, which shuts itself up in one 
 object, and is blind to all besides. Lib- 
 erty suffers from nothing more than 
 from licentiousness, and I fear that abo- 
 litionists are not to be absolved from this 
 abuse of it. It seems to me that they 
 are particularly open to one reproach. 
 Their writings have been blemished by 
 a spirit of intolerance, sweeping censure, 
 and rash, injurious judgment. I do not 
 mean to bring this charge against all 
 their publications. Yours, as far as I 
 have seen them, are an honorable excep- 
 tion ; and others, I know, deserve the 
 same praise. But abolitionism, in the 
 main, has spoken in an intolerant tone, 
 and in this way has repelled many good 
 minds, given great advantage to its oppo- 
 nents, and diminished the energy and 
 
 effect of its appeals. I should rejoice 
 to see it purified from this stain. 
 
 Abolitionism seems to me to have 
 been intolerant towards the slave- 
 holders, and towards those in the free 
 States who oppose them, or who refuse 
 to take part in their measures. I say, 
 first, towards the slave-holder. The 
 abolitionist has not spoken, and cannot 
 speak, against slavery too strongly. No 
 language can exceed the enormity of the 
 wrong. But the whole class of slave- 
 holders often meets a treatment in anti- 
 slavery publications which is felt to be 
 unjust, and is certainly unwise. Wei 
 always injure ourselves in placing our| 
 adversary on the footing of an injured 
 man. One groundless charge helps him 
 to repel many which are true. There 
 is, indeed, a portion of slave-holders 
 who deserve the severest reprobation. 
 In every such community there are 
 many who hold their fellow-creatures in 
 bondage for gain, for mere gain. 
 They perpetuate this odious system not 
 reluctantly, but from choice ; not be- 
 cause the public safety compels them, 
 as they think, to act the part of despots, 
 but because they love despotism, and 
 count money their supreme good. Pro- 
 vided they can be supported in ease and 
 indulgence, can be pampered and en- 
 riched, they care not for the means. 
 They care not what wrongs or stripes 
 are inflicted, what sweat is extorted, 
 what powers of the immortal soul are 
 crushed. For such men no rebuke can 
 be too severe. If any vehemence of 
 language can pierce their consciences, 
 let it be used. The man who holds 
 slaves for gain is, in effect, though un- 
 consciously, the worst of robbers ; for 
 he selfishly robs his fellow-creatures not 
 only of their property, but of themselves. 
 He is the worst of tyrants, for, whilst 
 absolute governments spoil men of civil, 
 he strips them of personal rights. But 
 I do not, cannot believe that the major- 
 ity of slave-holders are of the character 
 now described. I believe that the ma- 
 jority, could they be persuaded of the 
 consistency of emancipation with the 
 well-being of the colored race and with 
 social order, would relinquish their hold 
 on the slave, and sacrifice their imagined 
 property in him to the claims of justice 
 and humanity. They shrink from eman- 
 cipation, because it seems to them a 
 precipice. Having seen the colored
 
 743 
 
 man continually dependent on foreign 
 guidance and control, they think him 
 incapable of providing for himself. 
 Having seen the laboring class kept 
 down by force, they feel as if the re- 
 moval of this restraint would be a signal 
 to universal lawlessness and crime. That 
 such opinions absolve from all blame 
 those who perpetuate slavery, I do not 
 say. That they are often strengthened 
 by the self-interest of the master, I can- 
 not doubt ; for we see men everywhere 
 grasping and defending doctrines which 
 confirm their property and power. I 
 acknowledge, too, that the ready, unhes- 
 itating acquiescence of the slave-holder 
 in such loose notions, especially at the 
 present moment, is a bad symptom. In 
 the present age, when a flood of light has 
 been thrown on the evils of slavery, and 
 when the whole civilized world cries 
 out against it as the greatest of wrongs, 
 and in this country, where the doctrine 
 of human rights has been expounded by 
 the profoundest minds, and sealed with 
 the best blood, a fearful responsibility is 
 assumed by masters, who, pronouncing 
 emancipation hopeless, make no serious, 
 anxious inquiry after the means of 
 accomplishing it, and no serious effort 
 to remove the supposed unfitness of the 
 slave for freedom. Still, while there is 
 much to be condemned in the prevalent 
 opinions and feelings at the South, we 
 have no warrant for denying to all slave- 
 holders moral and religious excellence. 
 The whole history of the world shows 
 us that a culpable blindness in regard 
 to one class of obligations may consist 
 with a sincere reverence for religious 
 and moral principles, as far as they are 
 understood. In estimating men's char- 
 acters, we must never forget the disad- 
 vantages under which they labor. Sla- 
 very, upheld, as it is at the South, by 
 the deepest prejudices of education, by 
 the sanction of laws, by the prescription 
 of ages, and by real difficulties attending 
 emancipation, cannot easily be viewed 
 in that region as it appears to more dis- 
 tant and impartial observers. The hate- 
 fulness of the system ought to be 
 strongly exposed, and it cannot be ex- 
 posed too strongly ; but this hatefulness 
 must not be attached to all who sustain 
 slavery. There are pure and generous 
 spirits at the South, and they are to be 
 honored the more for the sore trials 
 amidst which their virtues have gained 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 strength. The abolitionists, in their 
 zeal, seem to have overlooked these 
 truths in a great degree, and by their 
 intolerance towards the slave-holder 
 have awakened towards him sympathy 
 rather than indignation, and weakened 
 the effect of their just invectives against 
 the system which he upholds. 
 
 I think, too, that they are chargeable 
 with a Hke intolerance towards those in 
 the free States who oppose them, or 
 who refuse to participate in their opera- 
 tions. They have been apt to set down 
 opposition to themselves as equivalent 
 to attachment to slavery. Regarding 
 their own dogmas as the only true faith, 
 and making their own zeal the standard 
 of a true interest in the oppressed, they 
 have been apt to cast scornful looks 
 and reproaches on those who have 
 spoken in doubt or displeasure of their 
 movements. This has made them many 
 foes. They have been too belligerent 
 to make friends. I do not mean, in 
 these remarks, that the abolitionists 
 have had nothing to blame in their op- 
 ponents. Among these are not a few 
 deserving severe reprehension, and I 
 have no desire to shield them from it. 
 But the great mass who have refused to 
 take part in the antislavery movement 
 have been governed by pure motives. 
 If they have erred, they have not erred 
 willingly, or from the influence of low 
 and servile passions. They have conse- 
 quently been wronged by the treatment 
 they have received at the hands of the 
 abolitionists, and men are not brought 
 over by wrongs to a good cause. 
 
 I have said that I have no desire to 
 shield the unworthy among ourselves. 
 We have those whose opposition to abo- 
 litionism has been wicked, and merits 
 reprobation. Such are to be found in 
 all classes ; forming, indeed, a minority 
 in each, yet numerous enough to deserve 
 attention and to do much harm. Such 
 are to be found in what is called the 
 highest class of society, that is, among 
 the rich and fashionable ; and the cause 
 is obvious. The rich and fashionable 
 belong to the same caste with the slave- 
 holder ; and men are apt to sympathize 
 with their own caste more readily than 
 with those beneath them. The slave 
 is too low, too vulgar, to awaken inter- 
 est in those who abhor vulgarity more 
 than oppression and crime, and who 
 found all their self-admiration on the
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 749 
 
 rank they occupy in the social scale. 
 Far be it from me to charge on the rich 
 or fashionable, as a class, this moral 
 degradation ; but among them are the 
 worshippers of high degree, who would 
 think their dignity soiled by touching 
 the cause of a menial, degraded race, 
 and who load its advocates with ridicule 
 and scorn. 
 
 Then, in the commercial class, there 
 are unworthy opposers of abolitionism. 
 There are those whose interests rouse 
 them to withstand every movement 
 which miy offend the South. They 
 have profitable connections with the 
 slave-holder, which must not be en- 
 dangered by expressions of sympathy 
 with the slave. Gain is their god, and 
 they sacrifice on this altar without com- 
 punction the rights and happiness of 
 their fellow-creatures. To such,, the 
 philanthropy which would break every 
 chain is fanaticism, or a pretence. 
 Nothing in their own souls helps them 
 to comprehend the fervor of men who 
 feel for the wronged, and who hazard 
 property and life in exposing the wrong. 
 Your " Narrative of the Riotous Pro- 
 ceedings at Cincinnati" shows to what 
 a fearful extent the spirit of humanity, 
 justice, and freedom may be supplanted 
 by the accursed lust of gain. This, 
 however, cannot surprise us. Our pres- 
 ent civilization is characterized and 
 tainted by a devouring greediness of 
 wealth ; and a cause which asserts 
 right against wealth must stir up bitter 
 opposition, especially in cities where 
 this divinity is most adored. Every 
 large city will furnish those who would 
 sooner rivet the chain on the slave than 
 lose a commission or retrench an ex- 
 penditure. I would on no account in- 
 timate that such men constitute the 
 majority of the commercial class. I 
 rejoice to know that a more honorable 
 spirit prevails in the community which 
 falls more immediately under my notice. 
 Still, the passion for gain is everywhere 
 sapping pure and generous feeling, and 
 everywhere raises up bitter foes against 
 any reform which may threaten to turn 
 aside a stream of wealth. I sometimes 
 feel as if a great social revolution were 
 necessary to break up our present mer- 
 cenary civilization, in order that Chris- 
 tianity, now repelled by the almost uni- 
 versal worldliness, may come into new 
 contact with the soul, and may recon- 
 
 struct society after its own pure and 
 disinterested principles. 
 
 In another class, which contains many 
 excellent people, may also be found un- 
 worthy opposers of all antislavery move- 
 ments. I refer to the conservative class, 
 to those who are tremblingly alive to the 
 spirit of innovation now abroad in the 
 world, who have little or no faith in 
 human progress, who are anxious to 
 secure what is now gained rather than 
 to gain more, to whom that watchword 
 of the times, Reform, sounds like a knell. 
 Among these are to be found individuals 
 who, from no benevolent interest in soci- 
 ety, but simply because they have drawn 
 high prizes in the lottery of life, are un- 
 willing that the most enormous abuses 
 should be touched, lest the established 
 order of things, so propitious to them- 
 selves, should be disturbed. A palsy- 
 ing, petrifying order, keeping things as 
 they are, seems to them the ideal of a 
 perfect community, and they have no 
 patience with the rude cry of reformers 
 for the restoration of human beings to 
 their long-lost rights. 
 
 I will only add the politicians, as an- 
 other class, which has furnished selfish 
 assailants of abolitionism. Among our 
 politicians are men who regard public 
 life as a charmed circle into which moral 
 principle must not enter, who know no 
 law but expediency, who are prepared 
 to kiss the feet of the South for South- 
 ern votes, and who stand ready to echo 
 all the vituperations of the slave-holder 
 against the active enemies of slavery in 
 the free States. 
 
 For these various descriptions of sel- 
 fish opponents of abolitionism, I make 
 no apology. Let them be visited with 
 just rebuke. But they, after all, form 
 but a small part of that great body in 
 the free States who look on the present 
 antislavery movement with distrust and 
 disapprobation. The vast majority in 
 the free States, who refuse communion 
 with you, are not actuated by base con- 
 siderations. The fear of a servile war, 
 the fear of political convulsions, a per- 
 ception of the difficulties of great social 
 changes, self-distrust, a dread of rash- 
 ness, these and the like motives have 
 great influence in deterring multitudes 
 from giving their countenance to what 
 seem to them violent movements for the 
 abolition of slavery. That a culpable 
 insensibility to the evils and wrongs of
 
 750 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 this nefarious institution is too common 
 in the class of which I now speak, I do 
 not mean to deny. Still, how vast a 
 proportion of the intelligence, virtue, 
 and piety of the country is to be found 
 in their ranks ! To speak of them 
 slightly, contemptuously, bitterly, is to 
 do great wrong, and such speaking, I 
 fear, has brought much reproach on 
 abolitionism. 
 
 The motives which have induced me 
 to make this long communication to you 
 will not, I trust, be misunderstood. I 
 earnestly desire, my dear Sir, that you 
 and your associates will hold fast the 
 right of free discussion by speech and 
 the press, and, at the same time, that 
 you will exercise it as Christians, and 
 as friends of your race. That you. Sir, 
 will not fail in these duties, I rejoice 
 to believe. Accept my humble tribute 
 of respect and admiration for your dis- 
 interestedness, for your faithfulness to 
 your convictions, under the peculiar 
 sacrifices to which you have been called. 
 It is my prayer that, by calm, fearless 
 perseverance in well-doing, you may 
 guide and incite many to a like virtue. 
 
 It may be said that it is easy for one 
 living, as I do, at a distance from dan- 
 ger, living in prosperity and ease, to 
 preach exposure and suffering to you 
 and your friends. I can only say in 
 reply, that I lay down no rule for others 
 which I do not feel to be binding on 
 myself. What I should do in the hour 
 of peril may be uncertain ; but what I 
 ought to do is plain. What I desire to 
 do is known to the Searcher of all 
 hearts. It is my earnest desire that 
 prosperity may not unnerve me, that no 
 suffering may shake my constancy in 
 a cause which my heart approves. I 
 sometimes indeed fear for myself, when 
 I think of untried persecutions. I know 
 not what weaknesses the presence of 
 great clanger may call forth. But, in 
 my most deliberate moments, I see 
 nothing worth living for but the divine 
 virtue which endures and surrenders all 
 things for truth, duty, and mankind. I 
 look on reproach, poverty, persecution, 
 and death, as light evils compared with 
 unfaithfulness to pure and generous 
 principles, to the spirit of Christ, and 
 to the will of God. With these impres- 
 sions. I ought not to be deterred by 
 self-distrust, or by my distance from 
 danger, from summoning and cheering 
 
 others to conflict with evil. Christian- 
 ity, as I regard it, is designed through- 
 out to fortify us for this warfare. Its 
 great lesson is self-sacrifice. Its dis- 
 tinguishing spirit is divine philanthropy 
 suffering on the cross. The cross, the 
 cross, this is the badge and standard of 
 our religion. I honor all who bear it. 
 I look with scorn on the selfish great- 
 ness of this world, and with pity on the 
 most gifted and prosperous in the strug- 
 gle for office and power ; but I look 
 with reverence on the obscurest man 
 who suffers for the right, who is true to 
 a good but persecuted cause. 
 
 With these sentiments, I subscribe 
 myself your sincere friend, 
 
 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 
 
 BOSTON, Nov. i, 1836. 
 
 NOTE. As the preceding letter was 
 prepared for a newspaper, I was obliged, 
 by the narrowness of my limits, to pass 
 over some topics on which I should 
 have been glad to offer a few remarks. 
 In expressing my conviction of the 
 moral worth of the abolitionists, I 
 wished to say that they are in danger, 
 as a body, of forfeiting this praise. 
 Let them gather numbers and strength, 
 and they may be expected to degenerate. 
 The danger is greater now that they 
 have begun to add the ballot-box, or 
 political action, to their other modes of 
 operation. It is one of the evils attending 
 associations, and an argument against 
 them, that, by growing popular, they at- 
 tract to themselves unworthy members, 
 lose their original simplicity of purpose, 
 become aspiring, and fall more and 
 more under the control of popular lead- 
 ers. Intriguers will never be wanting 
 to press them, if possible, into the ser- 
 vice of one or another of the great parties 
 which divide the country, and by be- 
 coming political machines they only in- 
 crease the confusion of public affairs. 
 
 I have spoken in the letter of " the 
 fettered press " of the country, a sub- 
 ject of much moral interest. The news- 
 paper press is fettered among us by its 
 dependence on subscribers, among whom 
 there are not a few intolerant enough to 
 withdraw their patronage if an editor 
 give publicity to articles which contra- 
 dict their cherished opinions, or shock 
 their party prejudices, or seem to clash 
 with their interests. In such a state of
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 751 
 
 things, few newspapers can be expected 
 to afford to an unpopular individual 
 or party, however philanthropic or irre- 
 proachable, an opportunity of being 
 heard by the public. Editors engage in 
 their vocation like other men, for a 
 support ; and communications which 
 will thin their subscription-lists will, of 
 course, find little favor at their hands. 
 Much reproach is sometimes thrown on 
 them for their want of moral indepen- 
 dence ; but the root of the evil lies in 
 the intolerance of the community. One 
 result of this state of things is, that 
 the newspaper press fails of one of its 
 chief duties, which is to stem corrupt 
 opinion, to stay the excesses of popular 
 passions. It generally swells, seldom 
 arrests, the violence of the multitude. 
 The very subjects on which the public 
 mind may most need to be reformed are 
 most likely to be excluded from its col- 
 umns. Another evil result is, the in- 
 crease of the number and violence of 
 parties. Conscientious men, who cannot 
 obtain a hearing through the common 
 newspapers, are compelled to league for 
 the support of papers of their own, and, 
 in speaking through these organs, they 
 are tempted to an extravagance and bit- 
 terness which they would have shunned 
 had they used other vehicles. It may 
 be doubted whether abolitionism WOUK! 
 have taken the form of organized and 
 affiliated societies if the subject of sla- 
 very could have been discussed in the 
 common papers with the same freedom 
 as other topics. That abolitionism has 
 owed not a little of its asperity to its 
 having been proscribed from the begin- 
 ning, and to its having been denied the 
 common modes of addressing the public 
 mincl, I cannot doubt. Toleration seems 
 to be the last virtue which individuals 
 or communities learn. One would think 
 that experience had sufficiently taught 
 men that persecution is not the way to 
 put down opinions. The selfish may, 
 indeed, be disheartened by opposition ; 
 but conscientious men are strengthened 
 by it in their convictions. Persecution 
 drives and knits them together ; and 
 when formed into a party by this bond, 
 their zeal becomes more intense, their 
 prejudices more inveterate, their opin- 
 ions more extravagant, their means more 
 violent, than if they had continued to 
 be scattered through the community. 
 If abolitionism should convulse the 
 
 country, as some seem to fear, a large 
 share of the blame will belong to that 
 intolerance which has heaped on the 
 most respectable men every epithet of 
 scorn and vituperation, and has driven 
 them to assume a separate and belliger- 
 ent attitude in the community. 
 
 I cannot easily conceive of a greater 
 good to a city than the establishment of 
 a newspaper by men of superior ability 
 and moral independence, who should 
 judge all parties and public measures 
 by the standard of the Christian law, 
 who should uncompromisingly speak the 
 truth, and adhere to the right, who should 
 make it their steady aim to form a just 
 and lofty public sentiment, and who 
 should at the same time give to upright 
 and honorable men an opportunity of 
 making known their opinions on mat- 
 ters of general interest, however op- 
 posed to the opinions and passions 'of 
 the day. In the present stage of soci- 
 ety, when newspapers form the reading 
 of all classes, and the chief reading of 
 multitudes, the importance of the daily 
 press cannot be overrated. It is one of 
 the mightiest instruments at work among 
 us. It may and should take rank among 
 the most effectual means of social order 
 and improvement. It is a power which 
 should be wielded by the best minds in 
 the community. The office of editor is 
 one of solemn responsibility, and the 
 community should encourage the most 
 gifted and virtuous men to assume it, by 
 liberally recompensing their labor, and 
 by according to them that freedom of 
 thought and speech without which no 
 mind puts forth all its vigor, and which 
 the highest minds rank among their 
 dearest rights and blessings. 
 
 In speaking of the unworthy oppo- 
 nents of abolitionism in the preceding 
 letter, I proposed to say something of 
 those unhappy men who. in one part of 
 our country, have proclaimed slavery to 
 be a good, a domestic blessing, and an 
 essential support or condition of free 
 institutions. But I felt that I could not 
 easily speak on this point in measured 
 terms ; and in such cases I prefer si- 
 lence, unless a clear conviction of duty 
 forbids it. Happily, this detestable doc- 
 trine needs no effort to expose it ; for it 
 carries its refutation in its own absurdity, 
 and in its repugnance to all moral and 
 religious feeling. The Southern States 
 would be grievously wronged by being
 
 752 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 made responsible for this insane esti- 
 mate of slavery. It is confined, I trust, 
 to a small number, who have been hardy 
 enough to set at defiance the judgment 
 of the Christian and civilized world, and 
 
 whom nothing but oblivion can screen 
 from that condemning sentence which 
 future times will pass more and more 
 sternly on the advocates of oppression, 
 on the foes of freedom and human rights. 
 
 A LETTER TO THE HON. HENRY CLAY, 
 
 On the Annexation of. Texas to the United States. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I trust that you will 
 excuse the liberty which I take in thus 
 publicly addressing you. If you could 
 look into my heart, I am sure you would 
 not condemn me. You would discover 
 the motives of this act in my respect for 
 your eminent powers, and in my confi- 
 dence that you are disposed to use them 
 for the honor and happiness of your 
 country. Were you less distinguished 
 or less worthy of distinction, I should 
 not trouble you with this letter. I write 
 you because I am persuaded that your 
 great influence, if exerted in promoting 
 just views on the subject of this commu- 
 nication, would accomplish a good, to 
 which, perhaps, no other man in the 
 country is equal. I am bound, in frank- 
 ness, to add another reason for address- 
 ing you. I hope that your name, prefixed 
 to this letter, may secure to it an access 
 to some, perhaps to many, who would 
 turn away were its thoughts presented 
 in a more general form. Perhaps by 
 this aid it may scale the barrier which 
 now excludes from the South a certain 
 class of the writings of the North. I 
 am sure your hospitality would welcome 
 me to Kentucky ; and your well-known 
 generosity, I believe, will consent that I 
 should use your name to gain a hearing 
 in that and the neighboring States. 
 
 It is with great reluctance that I enter 
 on the topic of this letter. My tastes 
 and habits incline me to very different 
 objects of thought and exertion. I had 
 hoped that I should never again feel 
 myself called to take part in the agita- 
 tions and exciting discussions of the 
 day, especially in those of a political 
 character. I desire nothing so much as 
 to devote what remains of life to the 
 study and exposition of great principles 
 and universal truths. But the subject 
 
 of Texas weighs heavily on my mind, 
 and I cannot shake it off. To me, it is 
 more than a political question. It be- 
 longs eminently to morals and religion. 
 I have hoped that the attention of the 
 public would be called to it by some 
 more powerful voice. I have postponed 
 writing until the national legislature is 
 about to commence the important ses- 
 sion in which, it is thought, this subject 
 may be decided. But no one speaks, 
 and therefore I cannot be silent. Should 
 Texas be annexed to our country, I feel 
 that I could not forgive myself if, with 
 my deep, solemn impressions, I should 
 do nothing to avert the evil. I cannot 
 easily believe that this disastrous meas- 
 u>e is to be adopted, especially at the 
 present moment. The annexation of 
 Texas, under existing circumstances, 
 would be more than rashness ; it would 
 be madness. That opposition to it must 
 exist at the South, as well as at the 
 North, I cannot doubt. Still there is a 
 general impression that great efforts 
 will be made to accomplish this object 
 at the approaching session of Congress, 
 and that nothing but strenuous resistance 
 can prevent their success. I must write, 
 therefore, as if the danger were real and 
 imminent ; and if any should think that 
 I am betrayed into undue earnestness by 
 a false alarm, they will remember that 
 there are circumstances in which excess 
 of vigilance is a virtue. 
 
 In the course of this discussion, I shall 
 be forced to speak on one topic which 
 can hardly be treated so as to give no 
 offence. I am satisfied that in this, as 
 in all cases, it is best, safest, as well as 
 most right and honorable, to speak freely 
 and plainly. Nothing is to be gained 
 by caution, circumlocution, plausible 
 softenings of language, and other arts,
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 753 
 
 which, in destroying confidence, defeat 
 their own end. In discussions of an 
 irritating nature, the true way of doing 
 good is, to purify ourselves from all un- 
 worthy motives, to cherish disinterested 
 sentiments and unaffected good-will tow- 
 ards those from whom we differ, and 
 then to leave the mind to utter itself 
 naturally and spontaneously. How far 
 I have prepared myself for my work 
 by this self-purification, it becomes not 
 me to say ; but this I may say, that I 
 am not conscious of the slightest as- 
 perity of feeling towards any party or 
 any individual. I have no private in- 
 terests to serve, no private passions to 
 gratify. The strength of my conviction 
 may be expressed in strong, perhaps 
 unguarded language ; but this want of 
 caution is the result of the conscious- 
 ness that I have no purpose or feeling 
 which I need conceal. 
 
 I shall in one respect depart from the 
 freedom of a letter. I shall arrange my 
 thoughts under distinct heads ; and I 
 shall do this because I wish to put my 
 reader in full possession of my views. 
 I wish to use no vague declamation, to 
 spread no vague alarm, but to bring out 
 as clearly as possible the precise points 
 of objection to the measure I oppose.* 
 
 I. We have a strong argument against 
 annexing Texas to the "United States 
 in the criminality of the revolt which 
 threatens to sever that country from 
 
 * It may be well to state the principal authorities 
 on which I rely for the statements in this letter. 
 I am most indebted, perhaps, to an article on Mexico 
 and Texas, in the July number of the " North Ameri- 
 can Review" for the year 1836. This article, as 
 I understood at the time, was written by an enlight- 
 ened and respected citizen of the South. The quota- 
 tions in the first head of this letter, without a marginal 
 reference, are taken from this tract, with a few unim- 
 portant exceptions. I have also made use of a pam- 
 phlet, bearing the title of the " War in Texas," written 
 by Mr. Benjamin Lundy, a man of unimpeachable 
 character, and who professes to have given particular 
 attention to the subject. With his reasonings and 
 opinions I have nothing to do ; but his statement of 
 facts has been represented to me as worthy of full 
 credit. I have also consulted a " History of Texas, by 
 D.ivid B. Edwards." I know not that this has fur- 
 nished me any thing of importance. But, by its un- 
 designed coincidence, it corroborates the preceding 
 articles. My chief reliance, however, is not on books, 
 but on the notoriety of the facts here given, which may 
 be considered as a testimony borne to them by the 
 whole people. This is a singularly unexceptionable 
 testimony in the present case ; because it is well known 
 that the advocates of the Texan revolt have had pos- 
 session, to a great degree, of the press of the country, 
 and unfavorable accounts could not have obtained 
 general currency without a foundation in truth. Let 
 me add that, by " the North," I understand in this 
 letter all the free States, and by "the South," all the 
 slave-holding States except where the terms are plainly 
 restricted by the connection. 
 
 Mexico. On this point our citizens 
 need light. The Texan insurrection is 
 seriously regarded by many among us 
 as a struggle of the oppressed for free- 
 dom. The Texan revolution is thought 
 to resemble our own. Our own is con- 
 taminated by being brought into such 
 relationship, and we owe to our fathers 
 and ourselves a disclaimer of affinity 
 with this new republic. The Texan 
 revolt, if regarded in its causes and its 
 means of success, is criminal ; and we 
 ought in no way to become partakers in 
 its guilt. You, I doubt not, are familiar 
 with its history ; but for the benefit of 
 some, into whose hands this letter may 
 fall, I will give the leading facts. 
 
 The first grant of land in Texas to 
 our citizens was made under the Royal 
 Government ; and, in accepting it, the 
 obligation was expressly incurred of 
 submission to the civil and religious 
 despotism which then crushed the coun- 
 try. It was understood that the settlers 
 were to adopt the Catholic faith, and to 
 conform in all other respects to the in- 
 stitutions of Mexico. Under the revo- 
 lutionary governments, which succeeded 
 the fall of the Spanish power, the origi- 
 nal grant was confirmed, and new ones 
 made, on condition of subjection to the 
 laws of the land. The terms were very 
 liberal, except that adherence to the 
 Catholic religion was required as the 
 condition of settlement. These facts 
 will help us to understand the reason- 
 ableness of some of the complaints 
 under which the colonists seek to shel- 
 ter their revolt. 
 
 Mexico, on declaring her indepen- 
 dence on the mother country, estab- 
 lished a republican government, and 
 was unfortunately betrayed by her ad- 
 miration of this country into the adoption 
 of a federal system, for which no foun- 
 dation had been laid in her previous 
 history. From this cause, added to her 
 inexperience in self-government, and to 
 the want of intelligence among the mass 
 of her population, her institutions have 
 yielded very imperfectly the fruits of 
 freedom. The country has been rent 
 by factions, the capital convulsed by 
 revolutions, and the chief office of the 
 state been secured by the military to 
 popular chieftains. The emigrants from 
 this country to Texas went with open 
 eyes, with full knowledge of the un- 
 settled state of affairs, into this region
 
 754 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 of misrule and agitation. Happily, their 
 distance from the seat of government 
 prevented their being drawn into the j 
 whirlpool of civil contests, which threat- 
 ened at times the destruction of the 
 metropolis. Whilst the city of Mexico 
 was pillaged or laid under martial law, 
 Texas found security in her remoteness ; 
 and, had her colonists proved loyal 
 citizens, this security might have been 
 undisturbed. 
 
 Complaints of one another soon sprung 
 up between the general government 
 and Texas. Mexico complained of the 
 gross infraction of her laws, and Texas 
 of the violence of the means by which 
 it was attempted to enforce them. That 
 both parties had ground of reproach, 
 we cannot doubt ; nor is it easy to strike 
 the balance between them, or to say 
 where the chief blame lies. The pre- 
 sumption is strong, that the fault began 
 with the colonists. We of this coun- 
 try, receiving our accounts of the con- 
 troversy from Texans, are in danger of 
 being warped in our judgments. But 
 we have for our guidance our knowledge 
 of human nature, which helps us to 
 construe the testimony of interested 
 witnesses, and which, in the present 
 case, cannot easily deceive us. If we 
 consider the distance of Texas from 
 the seat of government, her scattered 
 population, her vicinity to a slave coun- 
 try, the general character of the first 
 settlers in a wilderness, and the diffi- 
 culty of subjecting them to regular tri- 
 bunals ; can we doubt, for a moment, 
 that Mexico had cause for the com- 
 plaints, which she urged, of the gross 
 infractions and evasions of her laws in 
 Texas, especially of the laws relating to 
 revenue, and to the exclusion of slaves ? 
 On the other hand, if we consider the 
 circumstances of Mexico, can we doubt 
 that the military force sent by her to 
 Texas, and needed there to enforce the 
 laws, abused its power more or less ? 
 That lawless men should be put down 
 by lawless means, especially in a coun- 
 try swept by the spirit of revolution, is 
 an effect too common and natural to 
 excite wonder. The wonder is, that 
 Texas escaped with so little injury. 
 Whether she would have suffered at 
 all, had she submitted in good faith to 
 the laws which she had pledged her- 
 self to obey, may be fairly questioned. 
 I ask you, Sir, whether it is not your 
 
 deliberate conviction, that Mexico, from 
 the beginning of her connection with 
 the colonists, has been more sinned 
 against than sinning. But allowing that 
 the violent means used by Mexico for 
 enforcing her authority were less pro- 
 voked than we believe them to have 
 been, did not the Texans enter the 
 country with a full knowledge of its 
 condition ? Did they not become citi- 
 zens of a state just escaped from a 
 grinding despotism, just entered into 
 the school of freedom, which had been 
 inured for ages to abuses of military 
 power, and whose short republican his- 
 tory had been made up of civil agita- 
 tion ? In swearing allegiance to such a 
 state, did they not consent to take their 
 chance of the evils through which it 
 must have been expected to pass in its 
 way to firm and free institutions ? Was 
 there, or could there be in so unsettled 
 a society, that deliberate, settled, in- 
 flexible purpose of spoiling the colo- 
 nists of their rights, which alone ab- 
 solves a violation of allegiance from 
 the guilt of treason ? 
 
 Some of the grounds on which the 
 Texans justify their conflict for inde- 
 pendence are so glaringly deficient in 
 truth and reason, that it is hard to avoid 
 suspicion of every defence set up for 
 their revolt. They complain of being 
 denied the right of worshipping God 
 according to the dictates of their con- 
 sciences ; and this they do, though they 
 entered the country and swore allegiance 
 to its government, with full knowledge 
 that the Catholic religion was the relig- 
 ion of the state, and alone tolerated by 
 the constitution. What increases the 
 hollowness and criminality of the pre- 
 tence is, that notwithstanding the provi- 
 sion of the constitution, Protestant sects 
 had held their meetings undisturbed in 
 Texas, and no persecution had ever 
 taken place on account of difference of 
 creed. 
 
 Another grievance by which they jus- 
 tify their revolt is, that the trial by jury 
 had been withheld ; and this complaint 
 they have the courage to make, although 
 they were fully aware, before becoming 
 the adopted citizens of the country, that 
 this mode of trial was utterly unknown 
 to its jurisprudence, and though, in the 
 constitution of the State of Coahuila and 
 Texas, the following article had been 
 introduced : " One of the principal sub-
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 755 
 
 jects for the attention of Congress [State 
 Legislature] shall be to establish in 
 criminal cases the trial by jury, extend- 
 ing it gradually, and even adopting it in 
 civil cases, in proportion as the advan- 
 tages of this precious institution may be 
 practically developed." 
 
 One of the greatest grievances in the 
 eyes of Texas was the change of the 
 Mexican government from a federal to 
 a central or consolidated form. But 
 this change, however violently brought 
 about, was ratified by the national Con- 
 gress according to the rules prescribed 
 by the constitution, and was sanctioned 
 by the Mexican people. The decree of 
 Congress, introducing this " reform " of 
 the national institutions, declares the 
 system of government " republican, pop- 
 ular, and representative," and provides 
 all the organs by which such a govern- 
 ment is characterized. What also de- 
 serves our consideration, in estimating 
 this measure, is, that the whole history 
 of Mexico has proved the necessity 
 of substituting a central for a federal 
 government. Liberty and order can be 
 reconciled and preserved to that country 
 by no process but by the introduction 
 of more simple and efficient institutions. 
 And yet the Texans, a handful of stran- 
 gers, raised the standard of revolt, 
 because the government was changed 
 by a nation of nine millions without 
 their consent. 
 
 I have spoken of the Texans as a 
 handful of people. At the breaking out 
 of the insurrection they were about 
 twenty thousand, including women and 
 children. They were, of course, wholly 
 unable to achieve or maintain national 
 independence ; so that one condition 
 which is required to authorize revolu- 
 tion, namely, the ability to sustain a 
 government, to perform the duties of 
 sovereignty, they could not pretend to 
 fulfil. Twenty thousand men, women, 
 and children, raising the standard of 
 war, and proposing to dismember a 
 mighty empire ! It is very possible 
 that there are suburbs of London con- 
 taining an equal number of discontented 
 people, who suffer under and have rea- 
 son to complain of municipal or national 
 injustice. And may these fly to arms, 
 set up for a nation, and strive to break 
 the unity of the British dominions ? It 
 should also be remembered, that the 
 Texans were not only a drop of the 
 
 bucket compared with the Mexican 
 population, but that they were a decided 
 minority in the particular State to which 
 they belonged ; so that their revolt may 
 be compared to the rising of a county in 
 Massachusetts or Virginia for the pur- 
 pose of establishing a separate sover- 
 eignty, on the ground of some real or 
 imagined violation of right on the part 
 of the Federal or the State Government. 
 Still more, this little knot of Texans 
 were far from being unanimous as to the 
 revolt. The older and wealthier inhab- 
 itants favored peace. " There were 
 great differences of opinion among the 
 colonists, and even violent party dissen- 
 sions. Many, who were in the quiet 
 enjoyment of their property, were op- 
 posed to all these hostile movements. 
 The first public declaration of indepen- 
 dence was adopted, not by persons assum- 
 ing to act in a representative capacity, 
 but by about ninety individuals, all, 
 except two, Americans, if we may judge 
 by their names, acting for themselves, 
 and recommending a similar course to 
 their fellow-citizens. That declaration 
 furnishes proofs of the dissensions and 
 jealousies of which we have spoken. It 
 proves another fact, that the ancient 
 population of the province was favor- 
 able to the new views of the government 
 of Mexico." In some letters written by 
 Colonel S. T. Austin, the founder of the 
 colony, in the year 1834, whilst impris- 
 oned in Mexico on the charge of en- 
 couraging revolutionary movements in 
 Texas, we have some remarkable pas- 
 sages, showing the aversion of the 
 sounder part of the population to violent 
 measures. " I wish my friends and all 
 Texas to adopt and firmly adhere to the 
 motto and rule I have stated in this let- 
 ter. The rule is, to discountenance, in 
 the most unequivocal and efficient man- 
 ner, all persons who are in the habit of 
 speaking or writing in violent or disre- 
 spectful terms of the Mexican people or 
 authorities. I have been led into so 
 much difficulty, and Texas has been so 
 much jeopardized in its true and perma- 
 nent interests, by inflammatory men, 
 political fanatics, political adventurers, 
 would-be-great men, vain talkers, and 
 visionary fools, that I begin to lose all 
 confidence except for those who seek 
 their living between the plough-handles ; 
 and, alas for them ! they are too often 
 sacrificed before they know it. Toler-
 
 756 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 ate no more violent measures, and you 
 will prosper, and obtain from the gov- 
 ernment all that reasonable men ought 
 to ask for." * It is very plain that, of 
 this diminutive colony, the more reason- 
 able men, had they not been overborne 
 by the more violent, would have averted 
 the civil war. Such was the number 
 which set up for a nation ! 
 
 I have no disposition to deny that 
 Texas had grievances to justify com- 
 plaint. In proof of this I need no docu- 
 ments. That she was not always wisely 
 governed, that her rights were not always 
 respected, who can doubt ? What else 
 could be expected ? Mexico is not wise. 
 Mexico is not skilled in the science of 
 human rights. Her civilization is very 
 imperfect, as we and the Texans have 
 always known ; and a good government 
 is one of the slowest fruits of civilization. 
 In truth, a good government exists no- 
 where. The errors and vices of rulers 
 entail evils on every state. Especially 
 in an extensive community, some dis- 
 tricts will always suffer from unwise, 
 partial, unjust legislation. If every town 
 or county may start up into a sovereign 
 state, whenever it is wronged, society 
 will be given up to perpetual convulsion, 
 and history be one bloody record of re- 
 volt. The right of insurrection is to be 
 exercised most rarely, fearfully, reluc- 
 tantly, and only in cases of fixed, pro- 
 nounced, persevering oppression,' from 
 which no relief can be found but in 
 force. Nothing is easier than for any 
 and every people to draw up a list of 
 wrongs ; nothing more ruinous than to 
 rebel because every claim is not treated 
 with respect. The United States did 
 not throw off the British yoke because 
 every human right which could be de- 
 monstrated by moral science was not 
 granted them, but because they were 
 denied the rights which their fathers 
 had enjoyed, and which had been se- 
 cured to the rest of the empire. They 
 began with pleading precedent. They 
 took their first stand on the British con- 
 stitution. They claimed the rights of 
 Englishmen. They set up the case of 
 peculiar oppression ; and did not appeal 
 to arms until they had sought redress 
 for years, by patient and respectful re- 
 monstrance ; until they had exhausted 
 every means of conciliation which wis- 
 
 ' " History of Texas," p. 210, Austin's Correspond- 
 
 dom could devise or a just self-respect 
 would allow. Such was the code of 
 national morality to which our fathers 
 bowed : and in so doing they acknowl- 
 edged the sacredness of allegiance, and 
 manifested their deep conviction of the 
 fearful responsibility of subverting a 
 government and of rupturing national 
 ties. A province, in estimating its 
 grievances, should have respect to the 
 general condition of the country to which 
 it belongs. A colony, emigrating from , 
 a highly civilized country, has no right 
 to expect in a less favored state the 
 privileges it has left behind. The Tex- 
 ans must have been insane if, on enter- 
 ing Mexico, they looked for an admin- 
 istration as faultless as that under which 
 they had lived. They might with equal 
 reason have planted themselves in Rus- 
 sia, and then have unfurled the banner 
 of independence near the throne of the 
 .Czar, because denied the immunities of 
 their native land. 
 
 Having thus considered the grievances 
 of the Texans, I now proceed to con- 
 sider the real and great causes of the 
 revolt. These are matters of notoriety, 
 so as to need no minute exposition. 
 The first great cause was the unbounded, 
 unprincipled spirit of land speculation, 
 which so tempting a prize as Texas 
 easily kindled in multitudes in the 
 United States, where this mode of 
 gambling is too common a vice. Large 
 grants of land in Texas were originally 
 made to individuals, chiefly citizens of 
 our country, who, in many cases, trans- 
 ferred their claims to joint-stock com- 
 panies in some of our cities. A quota- 
 tion will illustrate the nature of these 
 grants, and the frauds and speculations 
 to which they gave birth. " The nom- 
 inal grantee is called the empresario. 
 He is considered, by the terms of the 
 contract, merely as a trustee of the gov- 
 ernment, having no title himself to the 
 land within the limits of his future col- 
 ony, except upon condition of settling 
 a number of families [within a given 
 time]. The settlers themselves receive 
 a title for each family for a league square, 
 upon the express condition of settlement 
 and cultivation, and the payment of cer- 
 tain very moderate charges within a lim- 
 ited period. It is believed that these 
 conditions were by the colonization laws 
 of Mexico the basis of all the land-titles 
 in Texas, together with the further con-
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 757 
 
 dition, that all right and title should be 
 forfeited if the grantee [or new settler] 
 should abandon the country, or sell his 
 land before having cultivated it. An 
 inspection of the various maps of Texas 
 will show how numerous have been these 
 privileges conceded to various etnpresa- 
 rios. The face of the province, from 
 Nueces to Red River, and from the 
 Gulf to the mountains, is nearly covered 
 by them. It became at last a matter of 
 greedy speculation ; and it is a notorious 
 fact that many of the empresarios, for- 
 getting the contingent character of their 
 own rights to the soil, and the conditions 
 upon which their future colonists were 
 to receive allotments of land, proceeded 
 at once to make out scrip, which has 
 been sold in the United States to an 
 incalculable amount. In addition to 
 this, we are informed, on the best au- 
 thority, that the manufacture of land- 
 titles, having no foundation whatever, 
 has been carried on as a regular busi- 
 ness. That frauds of these different 
 kinds have been practised on the cupid- 
 ity and credulity of the people of the 
 United States, is beyond doubt. Had 
 the close of the present campaign been 
 what its opening seemed to portend, 
 and the colonies been broken up, it 
 would be impossible to calculate the 
 losses which would be sustained by 
 those who have never seen the land 
 which they have bought. It is not haz- 
 arding too much to say, that millions 
 have been expended in the Southern 
 and South-western States." 
 
 Texas, indeed, has been regarded as 
 a prey for land speculators within its 
 own borders and in the United States. 
 To show the scale on which this kind 
 of plunder has been carried on, it may 
 be stated that the legislature of Coa- 
 huila and Texas, in open violation of 
 the laws of Mexico, were induced "by 
 a company of land speculators, never 
 distinctly known, to grant them, in con- 
 sideration of twenty thousand dollars, 
 the extent of four hundred square 
 leagues of the public land.* This trans- 
 action was disavowed, and the grant 
 annulled, by the Mexican government, 
 and led to the dispersion of the legis- 
 lature, and the imprisonment of the gov- 
 ernor, Viesca. And yet this unauthor- 
 ized and. perhaps, corrupt grant of public 
 lands formed the basis of new specula- 
 
 * Another account says, 411 leagues for 30,000 dollars. 
 
 tion and frauds. A new scrip was 
 formed ; and, according to the best in- 
 formation we have been able to obtain, 
 four hundred leagues became, in the 
 hands of speculators, as many thousands. 
 The extent of these frauds is yet to be 
 ascertained ; for such is the blindness 
 of cupidity, that any thing which looks 
 fair on paper passes without scrutiny 
 for a land-title in Texas." The indig- 
 nation excited in the Mexican govern- 
 ment by this enormous grant, and the 
 attempt to seize the legislators who per- 
 petrated it, were among the immediate 
 excitements to the revolt. In conse- 
 quence of these lawless proceedings, 
 great numbers in this country and Texas 
 have nominal titles to land, which can 
 only be substantiated by setting aside 
 the authority of the General Congress 
 of Mexico, and are, of consequence, 
 directly and strongly interested in sever- 
 ing this province from the Mexican con- 
 federacy. Texan independence can alone 
 legalize the mighty frauds of the land 
 speculator. Texas must be wrested from 
 the country to which she owes allegiance, 
 that her soil may pass into the hands 
 of cheating and cheated foreigners. We 
 have here one explanation of the zeal 
 with which the Texan cause was em- 
 braced in the United States. From 
 this country the great impulse has been 
 given to the Texan revolution ; and a 
 principal motive has been, the unappeas- 
 able hunger for Texan land. An interest 
 in that soil, whether real or fictitious, 
 has been spread over our country. Thus 
 "the generous zeal for freedom," which 
 has stirred and armed so many of our 
 citizens to fight for Texas, turns out to 
 be a passion for unrighteous spoil. 
 
 I proceed to another cause of the 
 revolt ; and this was, the resolution to 
 throw Texas open to slave-holders and 
 slaves. Mexico, at the moment of 
 throwing off the Spanish yoke, gave a 
 noble testimony of her loyalty to free 
 principles, by decreeing, " that no per- 
 son thereafter should be born a slave 
 or introduced as such into the Mexican 
 States ; that all slaves then held should 
 receive stipulated wages, and be subject 
 to no punishment but on trial and judg- 
 ment by the magistrate." The subse- 
 quent acts of the government carried 
 out fully these constitutional provisions. 
 It is matter of deep grief and humilia- 
 tion, that the emigrants from this coun-
 
 758 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 try, whilst boasting of superior civiliza- 
 tion, refused to second this honorable 
 policy, intended to set limits to one of 
 the greatest social evils. Slaves were 
 brought into Texas with their masters 
 from the neighboring States of this 
 country. One mode of evading the 
 laws was, to introduce slaves under 
 formal indentures for long periods, in 
 some cases it is said for ninety-nine 
 years. By a decree of the State Leg- 
 islature of Coahuila and Texas, all in- 
 dentures for a longer period than ten 
 years were annulled, and provision was 
 made for the freedom of children born 
 during this apprenticeship. This set- 
 tled, invincible purpose of Mexico to 
 exclude slavery from her limits, created 
 as strong a purpose to annihilate her 
 authority in Texas. By this prohibition, 
 Texas was virtually shut against emi- 
 gration from the Southern and Western 
 portions of this country ; and it is well 
 known that the eyes of the South and 
 West had for some time been turned 
 to this province, as a new market for 
 slaves, as a new field for slave labor, 
 and as a vast accession of political 
 power to the slave-holding States. 
 That such views were prevalent, we 
 know ; for, nefarious as they are, they 
 found their way into the public prints. 
 The project of dismembering a neigh- 
 boring republic, that slave-holders and 
 slaves might overspread a region which 
 had been consecrated to a free population, 
 was discussed in newspapers as coolly as 
 if it were a matter of obvious right and 
 unquestionable humanity. A powerful 
 interest was thus created for severing 
 from Mexico her distant province. We 
 have here a powerful incitement to the 
 Texan revolt, and another explanation 
 of the eagerness with which men and 
 money were thrown from the United 
 States into that region to carry on the 
 war of revolution. 
 
 I proceed to another circumstance 
 which helped to determine, or at least 
 to hasten, the insurrection ; and that 
 was the disappointment of the Texans 
 in their efforts to obtain for themselves 
 an organization as a separate state. 
 Texas and Coahuila had hitherto formed 
 a single state. But the colonists, being 
 a minority in the joint legislature, found 
 themselves thwarted in their plans. Im- 
 patient of this restraint, and probably 
 suffering at times from a union which 
 
 gave the superiority to others, they pre- 
 pared for themselves a constitution, by 
 which they were to be erected into a 
 separate state, neglecting in their haste 
 the forms prescribed by the Mexican 
 law. This instrument they forwarded to 
 the capital for the sanction of the Gen- 
 eral Congress, by whom it was imme- 
 diately rejected. Its informality was a 
 sufficient reason for its finding no better 
 reception ; but the omission of all pro- 
 vision to secure the country against 
 slavery was a more serious obstacle to 
 its ratification. The irritation of the 
 Texans was great. Once invested with 
 the powers of a state, they would not 
 have found it difficult, in their remote- 
 ness from the capital, and in the un- 
 settled state of the nation, to manage 
 their affairs in their own way. A virtual 
 independence might have been secured, 
 and the laws of Mexico evaded with 
 impunity. Their exasperation was in- 
 creased by the imprisonment of the 
 agent who had carried the instrument 
 to Mexico, and who had advised them, 
 in an intercepted letter, to take matters 
 into their own hands, or to organize a 
 state government without authority from 
 the national Congress. Thus denied 
 the privilege of a separate state, and 
 threatened with new attempts on the 
 part of the general government to en- 
 force the laws, they felt that the criti- 
 cal moment had arrived ; and, looking 
 abroad for help, resolved to take the 
 chances of a conflict with the crippled 
 power of Mexico. 
 
 Such were the chief excitements to 
 the revolt. Undoubtedly, the Texans 
 were instigated by the idea of wrongs, 
 as well as by mercenary hopes. But 
 had they yielded true obedience to the 
 country of which they had, with their 
 own free will, become a part ; had they 
 submitted to the laws relating to the 
 revenue, to the sale of lands, and to 
 slavery ; the wrongs of which they 
 complained might never have been ex- 
 perienced, or might never have been 
 construed into a plea for insurrection. 
 The great motives to revolt on which 
 I have insisted are so notorious, that it 
 is wonderful that any among us could 
 be cheated into sympathy with the 
 Texan cause, as the cause of freedom. 
 Slavery and fraud lay at its very foun- 
 dation. It is notorious that land spec- 
 ulators, slave-holders, and selfish ad->
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 759 
 
 venturers were among the foremost to 
 proclaim and engage in the crusade for 
 "Texan liberties." From the hands 
 of these we are invited to receive a 
 province, torn from a country to which 
 we have given pledges of amity and 
 peace. In these remarks, I do not, of 
 course, intend to say that every invader 
 of Texas was carried thither by selfish 
 motives. Some, I doubt not, were im- 
 pelled by a generous interest in what 
 bore the name of liberty ; and more by 
 that natural sympathy which incites a 
 man to take part with his countrymen 
 against a stranger, without stopping to 
 ask whether they are right or wrong. 
 But the motives which rallied the great 
 efficient majority round the standard of 
 Texas were such as have been exposed, 
 and should awaken any sentiment but 
 respect. 
 
 Having considered the motives of the 
 revolution, I proceed to inquire, How 
 was it accomplished ? The answer to 
 this question will show more fully the 
 criminality of the enterprise. The Tex- 
 ans, we have seen, were a few thousands, 
 as unfit for sovereignty as one of our 
 towns ; and, if left to themselves, must 
 have utterly despaired of achieving in- 
 dependence. They looked abroad ; and 
 to whom did they look ? To any for- 
 eign state ? To the government under 
 which they had formerly lived ? No ; 
 their whole reliance was placed on selfish 
 individuals in a neighboring republic at 
 peace with Mexico. They looked wholly 
 to private individuals, to citizens of this 
 country, to such among us as, defying 
 the laws of the land, and hungry for 
 sudden gain, should be lured by the 
 scent of this mighty prey, and should be 
 ready to stain their hands with blood for 
 spoil. They held out a country as a 
 prize to the reckless, lawless, daring, 
 avaricious, and trusted to the excite- 
 ments of intoxicated imagination and 
 insatiable cupidity to supply them with 
 partners in their scheme of violence. 
 
 By whom has Texas been conquered ? 
 By the colonists ? By the hands which 
 raised the standard of revolt ? By for- 
 eign governments espousing their cause ? 
 No ; it has been conquered by your and 
 my countrymen, by citizens of the United 
 States, in violation of our laws and of 
 the laws of nations. We, we have filled 
 the ranks which have wrested Texas 
 from Mexico. In the army of eight 
 
 hundred men who won the victory which 
 scattered the Mexican force and made 
 its chief a prisoner, " not more than fifty 
 were citizens of Texas having griev- 
 ances of their own to seek relief from on 
 that field." The Texans in this war- 
 fare are little more than a name, a cover, 
 under which selfish adventurers from 
 another country have prosecuted their 
 work of plunder. 
 
 Some crimes, by their magnitude, have 
 a touch of the sublime ; and to this dig- 
 nity the seizure of Texas by our citizens 
 is entitled. Modern times furnish no 
 example of individual rapine on so grand 
 a scale. It is nothing less than the rob- 
 bery of a realm. The pirate seizes a 
 ship. The colonists and their coadju- 
 tors can satisfy themselves with nothing 
 short of an empire. They have left their 
 Anglo-Saxon ancestors behind them. 
 Those barbarians conformed to the 
 maxims of their age, to the rude code of 
 nations in time of thickest heathen dark- 
 ness. They invaded England under 
 their sovereigns, and with the sanction 
 of the gloomy religion of the North. 
 But it is in a civilized age, and amidst 
 refinements of manners : it is amidst the 
 lights of science and the teachings of 
 Christianity, amidst expositions of the 
 law of nations and enforcements of the 
 law of universal love, amidst institutions 
 of religion, learning, and humanity, that 
 the robbery of Texas has found its in- 
 struments. It is from a free, well- 
 ordered, enlightened Christian country, 
 that hordes have gone forth, in open 
 day, to perpetrate this mighty wrong. 
 
 Let me now ask, are the United States 
 prepared to receive from these hands the 
 gift of Texas? In annexing it to this 
 country, shall we not appropriate to our- 
 selves the fruits of a rapine which we 
 ought to have suppressed ? We cer- 
 tainly should shrink from a proposition 
 to receive a piratical state into our con- 
 federacy. And of whom does Texas 
 consist ? Very much of our own citi- 
 zens, who have won a country by waging 
 war against a foreign nation, to which we 
 owed protection against such assaults. 
 Does it consist with national honor, with 
 national virtue, to receive to our embrace 
 men who have prospered by crimes which 
 we were bound to reprobate and repress ? 
 
 Had this country resisted with its 
 whole power the lawlessness of its citi- 
 zens ; had these, notwithstanding such
 
 ;6o 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 opposition, succeeded in extorting from 
 Mexico a recognition of independence ; 
 and were their sovereignty acknowledged 
 by other nations ; we should stand ac- 
 quitted, in the sight of the civilized 
 world, of participating in their crime, 
 were considerations of policy to deter- 
 mine us to admit them into our Union. 
 Unhappily, the United States have not 
 discharged the obligations of a neutral 
 state. They have suffered, by a culpa- 
 ble negligence, the violation of the Mex- 
 ican territory by their citizens ; and if 
 now, in the midst of the conflict, whilst 
 Mexico yet threatens to enforce her 
 claims, they should proceed to incorpo- 
 rate Texas with themselves, they would 
 involve themselves, before all nations, in 
 the whole infamy of the revolt. The 
 United States have not been just to 
 Mexico. Our citizens did not steal sin- 
 gly, silently, in disguise, into that land. 
 Their purpose of dismembering Mexico, 
 and attaching her distant province to 
 this country, was not wrapped in mys- 
 tery. It was proclaimed in our public 
 prints. Expeditions were openly fitted 
 out within our borders for the Texan 
 war. Troops were organized, equipped, 
 and marched for the scene of action. 
 Advertisements for volunteers, to be en- 
 rolled and conducted to Texas at the 
 expense of that territory, were inserted 
 in our newspapers. The government, 
 indeed, issued its proclamation, forbid- 
 ding these hostile preparations ; but this 
 was a dead letter. Military companies, 
 with officers and standards, in defiance 
 of proclamations, and in the face of day, 
 directed their steps to the revolted prov- 
 ince. We had. indeed, an army near 
 the frontiers of Mexico. Did it turn 
 back these invaders of a land with which 
 we were at peace ? On the contrary, 
 did not its presence give confidence to 
 the revolters ? After this, what con- 
 struction of our conduct shall we force 
 on the world, if we proceed, especially 
 at this moment, to receive into our 
 Union the territory which, through our 
 neglect, has fallen a prey to lawless in- 
 vasion ? Are we willing to take otir 
 place among robber-states ? As a peo- 
 ple, have we no self-respect ? Have 
 we no reverence for national morality ? 
 Have we no feeling of responsibility to 
 other nations, and to Him by whom the 
 fates of nations are disposed ? 
 
 II. Having unfolded the argument 
 
 against the annexation of Texas from 
 the criminality of the revolt, I proceed 
 to a second very solemn consideration ; 
 namely, that by this act our country will 
 enter on a career of encroachment, war, 
 and crime, and will merit and incur the 
 punishment and woe of aggravated 
 wrong-doing. The seizure of Texas 
 will not stand alone. It will darken our 
 future history. It will be linked by an 
 iron necessity to long-continued deeds 
 of rapine and blood. Ages may not see 
 the catastrophe of the tragedy, the first 
 scene of which we are so ready to enact. 
 It is strange that nations should be so 
 much more rash than individuals ; and 
 this, in the face of experience, which 
 has been teaching, from the beginning 
 of society, that of all precipitate and 
 criminal deeds, those perpetrated by 
 nations are the most fruitful of misery. 
 
 Did this country know itself, or were 
 it disposed to profit by self-knowledge, 
 it would feel the necessity of laying an 
 immediate curb on its passion for ex- 
 tended territory. It would not trust 
 itself to new acquisitions. It would 
 shrink from the temptation to conquest. 
 We are a restless people, prone to en- 
 croachment, impatient of the ordinary 
 laws of progress, less anxious to con- 
 solidate and perfect than to extend our 
 institutions, more ambitious of spread- 
 ing ourselves over a wide space than of 
 diffusing beauty and fruitfulness over a 
 narrower field. We boast of our rapid 
 growth, forgetting that throughout nat- 
 ure noble growths are slow. Our peo- 
 ple throw themselves beyond the bounds 
 of civilization, and expose themselves 
 to relapses into a semi-barbarous state, 
 under the impulse of wild imagination, 
 and for the name of great possessions. 
 Perhaps there is no people on earth on 
 whom the ties of local attachment sit 
 so loosely. Even the wandering tribes 
 of Scythia are bound to one spot, the 
 graves of their fathers ; but the homes 
 and graves of our fathers detain us 
 feebly. The known and familiar is often 
 abandoned for the distant and untrod- 
 den ; and sometimes the untrodden is 
 not the less eagerly desired because be- 
 longing to others. We owe this spirit, 
 in a measure, to our descent from men 
 who left the Old World for the New, 
 the seats of ancient cultivation for a 
 wilderness, and who advanced by driving 
 before them the old occupants of the
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 761 
 
 soil. To this spirit we have sacrificed 
 justice and humanity ; and. through its 
 ascendency, the records of this young 
 nation are stained with atrocities at 
 which communities grown gray in cor- 
 ruption might blush. 
 
 It is full time that we should lay 
 on ourselves serious, resolute restraint. 
 Possessed of a domain vast enough for 
 the growth of ages, it is time for us to 
 stop in the career of acquisition and 
 conquest. Already endangered by our 
 greatness, we cannot advance without 
 imminent peril to our institutions, union, 
 prosperity, virtue, and peace. Our for- 
 mer additions of territory have been 
 justified by the necessity of obtaining 
 outlets for the population of the South 
 and the West. No such pretext exists 
 for the occupation of Texas. We cannot 
 seize upon or join to ourselves that ter- 
 ritory, without manifesting and strength- 
 ening the purpose of setting no limits 
 to our empire. We give ourselves an 
 impulse, which will and must precipitate 
 us into new invasions of our neighbors' 
 soil. Is it by pressing forward in this 
 course that we are to learn self-re- 
 straint ? Is cupidity to be appeased 
 by gratification ? Is it by unrighteous 
 grasping that an impatient people will 
 be instructed how to hem themselves 
 within the rigid bounds of justice ? 
 
 Texas is a country conquered by our 
 citizens ; and the annexation of it to 
 our Union will be the beginning of 
 conquests which, unless arrested and 
 beaten back by a just and kind Provi- 
 dence, will stop only at the Isthmus of 
 Darien. Henceforth, we must cease 
 to cry, Peace, peace. Our Eagle will 
 whet, not gorge, its appetite on its first 
 victim ; and will snuff a more tempting 
 quarry, more alluring blood, in every 
 new region which opens southward. To 
 annex Texas is to declare perpetual 
 war with Mexico. That word, Mexico, 
 associated in men's minds with bound- 
 less wealth, has already awakened ra- 
 pacity. Already it has been proclaimed 
 that the Anglo-Saxon race is destined 
 to the sway of this magnificent realm, 
 that the rude form of society which 
 Spain established there is to yield 
 and vanish before a higher civilization. 
 Without this exposure of plans of ra- 
 pine and subjugation, the result, as far 
 as our will can determine it. is plain. 
 Texas is the first step to Mexico. The 
 
 moment we plant our authority on Texas, 
 the boundaries of those two countries 
 will become nominal, will be little more 
 than lines on the sand of the sea-shore. 
 In the fact that portions of the Southern 
 and Western States are already threat- 
 ened with devastation, through the im- 
 patience of multitudes to precipitate 
 themselves into the Texan land of 
 promise, we have a pledge and earnest 
 of the flood which will pour itself still 
 farther south when Texas shall be but 
 partially overrun. 
 
 Can Mexico look without alarm on 
 the approaches of this ever-growing 
 tide ? Is she prepared to be a passive 
 prey ? to shrink and surrender without 
 a struggle ? Is she not strong in her 
 hatred, if not in her fortresses or skill ? 
 Strong enough to make war a dear and 
 bloody game ? Can she not bring to 
 bear on us a force more formidable than 
 fleets, the force of privateers ; that 
 is, of legalized pirates, which, issuing 
 from her ports, will scour the seas, prey 
 on our commerce, and add to spoliation 
 cruelty and murder ? 
 
 Even were the dispositions of our 
 government most pacific and opposed to 
 encroachment, the annexation of Texas 
 would almost certainly embroil us with 
 Mexico. This territory would be over- 
 run by adventurers ; and the most un- 
 principled of these the proscribed, 
 the disgraced, the outcasts of society 
 would, of course, keep always in ad- 
 vance of the better population. These 
 would represent our republic on the 
 borders of the Mexican States. The 
 history of the connection of such men 
 with the Indians forewarns us of the 
 outrages which would attend their con- 
 tact with the border inhabitants of our 
 southern neighbor. Texas, from its re- 
 moteness from the seat of government, 
 would be feebly restrained by the author- 
 ities of the nation to which it would be- 
 long. Its whole early history would be 
 a lesson of scorn for Mexico, an educa- 
 tion for invasion of her soil. Its legis- 
 lature would find in its position some 
 color for stretching to the utmost the 
 doctrine of state-sovereignty. It would 
 not hear unmoved the cries for protec- 
 tion and vengeance which would break 
 from the frontier, from the very men 
 whose lawlessness would provoke the 
 cruelties so indignantly denounced ; nor 
 would it sift very anxiously the question
 
 762 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 on which side the wrong began. To 
 the wisdom, moderation, and tender 
 mercies of the back-settlers and law- 
 givers of Texas the peace of this coun- 
 try would be committed. 
 
 Have we counted the cost of estab- 
 lishing and making perpetual these hos- 
 tile relations with Mexico? Will wars, 
 begun in rapacity, carried on so far 
 from the centre of the confederation, 
 and, of consequence, little checked or 
 controlled by Congress, add strength to 
 oftr institutions, or cement our union, 
 or exert a healthy moral influence on 
 rulers or people ? What limits can be 
 set to the atrocities of such conflicts ? 
 What limits to the treasures which 
 must be lavished on such distant bor- 
 ders ? What limits to the patronage 
 and power which such distant expedi- 
 tions must accumulate in the hands of 
 the Executive ? Are the blood and 
 hard-earned wealth of the older States 
 to be poured out like water to protect 
 and revenge a new people, whose char- 
 acter and condition will plunge them 
 into perpetual wrongs ? 
 
 Is the time never to come when the 
 neighborhood of a more powerful and 
 civilized people will prove a blessing, 
 instead of a curse, to an inferior com- 
 munity? It was my hope, when the 
 Spanish colonies of this continent sep- 
 arated themselves from the mother coun- 
 try, and, in admiration of the United 
 States, adopted republican institutions, 
 that they were to find in us friends to 
 their freedom, helpers to their civiliza- 
 tion. If ever a people were placed by 
 Providence in a condition to do good 
 to a neighboring state, we of this coun- 
 try sustained such a relation to Mexico. 
 That nation, inferior in science, arts, 
 agriculture, and legislation, looked to 
 us with a generous trust. She opened 
 her ports and territories to our farmers, 
 mechanics, and merchants. We might 
 have conquered her by the only honor- 
 able arms, by the force of superior in- 
 telligence, industry, and morality. We 
 might silently have poured in upon her 
 our improvements, and by the infusion 
 of our population have assimilated her 
 to ourselves. Justice, good-will, and 
 profitable intercourse might have ce- 
 mented a lasting friendship. And what 
 is now the case ? A deadly hatred 
 burns in Mexico towards this country. 
 No stronger national sentiment now 
 
 binds her scattered provinces 'together 
 than dread and detestation of republi- 
 can America. She is ready to attach 
 herself to Europe for defence from the 
 United States. All the moral power 
 which we might have gained over Mex- 
 ico we have thrown away ; and suspi- 
 cion, dread, and abhorrence have sup- 
 planted respect and trust. 
 
 I am aware that these remarks are 
 met by a vicious reasoning, which dis- 
 credits a people among whom it finds 
 favor. It is sometimes said that na- 
 tions are swayed by laws as unfailing 
 as those which govern matter ; that 
 they have their destinies ; that their 
 character and position carry them for- 
 ward irresistibly to their goal ; that the 
 stationary Turk must sink under the 
 progressive civilization of Russia, as 
 inevitably as the crumbling edifice falls 
 to the earth ; that, by a like necessity, 
 the Indians have melted before the white 
 man, and the mixed, degraded race of 
 Mexico must melt before the Anglo- 
 Saxon. Away with this vile sophistry ! 
 There is no necessity for crime. There 
 is no fate to justify rapacious nations, 
 any more than to justify gamblers and 
 robbers in plunder. We boast of the 
 progress of society, and this progress 
 consists in the substitution of reason 
 and moral principle for the sway of 
 brute force. It is true that more civil- 
 ized must always exert a great power 
 over less civilized communities in their 
 neighborhood. But it may and should 
 be a power to enlighten and improve, 
 not to crush and destroy. We talk of 
 accomplishing our destiny. So did the 
 late conqueror of Europe ; and destiny 
 consigned him to a lonely rock in the 
 ocean, the prey of an ambition which 
 destroyed no peace but his own. 
 
 Hitherto I have spoken of the an- 
 nexation of Texas as embroiling us with 
 Mexico; but it will not stop here. It 
 will bring us into collision with other 
 states. It will, almost of necessity, in- 
 volve us in hostility with European 
 powers. Such are now the connections 
 of nations, that Europe must look with 
 jealousy on a country whose ambition, 
 seconded by vast resources, will seem 
 to place within her grasp the empire of 
 the New World. And not only general 
 considerations of this nature, but the 
 particular relation of certain foreign 
 states to this continent, must tend to
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 763 
 
 destroy the peace now happily subsist- 
 ing between us and the kingdoms of 
 Europe. England, in particular, must 
 watch us with suspicion, and cannot 
 but resist our appropriation of Texas to 
 ourselves. She has at once a moral and 
 political interest in this question which 
 demands and will justify interference. 
 
 First, England has a moral interest in 
 this question. The annexation of Texas 
 is sought by us for the very purpose of 
 extending slavery, and thus will neces- 
 sarily give new life and extension to the 
 slave-trade. A new and vast market 
 for slaves cannot, of course, be opened 
 without inviting and obtaining a supply 
 from abroad, as well as from this coun- 
 try. The most solemn treaties, and 
 ships of war lining the African coast, 
 do not and cannot suppress this infernal 
 traffic, as long as the slaver, freighted 
 with stolen, chained, and wretched cap- 
 tives, can obtain a price proportioned to 
 the peril of the undertaking. Now, 
 England has long made it a part of her 
 foreign policy to suppress the slave- 
 trade ; and, of late, a strong public 
 feeling impels the government to resist, 
 as far as may be, the extension of sla- 
 very. Can we expect her to be a pas- 
 sive spectator of a measure by which 
 her struggles for years in the cause of 
 humanity, and some of her strongest na- 
 tional feelings, are to be withstood ? 
 
 England is a privileged nation. On 
 one part of her history she can look 
 with unmixed self-respect. With the 
 exception of the promulgation of Chris- 
 tianity, I know not a moral effort so 
 glorious as the long, painful, victorious 
 struggle of her philanthropists against 
 that concentration of all horrors, cruel- 
 ties, and crimes, the slave-trade. Next 
 to this, her recent Emancipation Act is 
 the most signal expression afforded by 
 our times of the progress of civilization 
 and a purer Christianity. Other na- 
 tions have won imperishable honors by 
 heroic struggles for their own rights. 
 But there was wanting the example of 
 a nation espousing, with disinterested- 
 ness, and amidst great obstacles, the 
 rights of others, the rights of those 
 who had no claim but that of a common 
 humanity, the rights of the most fallen 
 of the race. Great Britian, loaded with 
 an unprecedented debt and with a grind- 
 ing taxation, contracted a new debt of a 
 hundred million dollars, to give freedom, 
 
 not to Englishmen, but to the degraded 
 African. This was not an act of policy, 
 not a work of statesmen. Parliament 
 but registered the edict of the people. 
 The English nation, with one heart and 
 one voice, under a strong Christian im- 
 pulse, and without distinction of rank, 
 sex, party or religious names, decreed 
 freedom to the slave. I know not that 
 history records a national act so disin- 
 terested, so sublime. In the progress 
 of ages, England's naval triumphs will 
 shrink into a more and more narrow 
 space in the records of our race. This 
 moral triumph will fill a broader, brighter 
 page. Is not England, representing, as 
 she does in this case, the civilized world, 
 authorized, and even bound, to remon- 
 strate, in the name of humanity and re- 
 ligion, against a measure by which the 
 great work for which she has so long 
 toiled is to be indefinitely postponed ? 
 
 But England has a political as well as 
 a moral interest in this question. By 
 the annexation of Texas we shall ap- 
 proach her liberated colonies ; we shall 
 build up a power in her neighborhood, 
 to which no limits can be prescribed. 
 By adding Texas to our acquisition of 
 Florida, we shall do much towards gird- 
 ling the Gulf of Mexico ; and I doubt 
 not that some of our politicians will feel 
 as if our mastery in that sea were sure. 
 The West Indian Archipelago, in which 
 the European is regarded as an intruder, 
 will, of course, be embraced in our ever- 
 growing scheme of empire. In truth, 
 collision with the West Indies will be 
 the most certain effect of the extension 
 of our power in that quarter. The ex- 
 ample which they exhibit of African 
 freedom, of the elevation of the colored 
 race to the rights of men, is, of all influ- 
 ences, most menacing to slavery at the 
 South. It must grow continually more 
 perilous. These islands, unless inter- 
 fered with from abroad, seem destined 
 to be .nurseries of civilization and free- 
 dom to the African race. The white 
 race must melt more and more before 
 the colored, if both are left to free com- 
 petition. The Europeans, unnerved by 
 the climate, and forming but a handful 
 of the population, cannot stand before 
 the African, who revels in the heat of 
 the tropics, and is to develop under it 
 all his energies. Will a slave-holding 
 people, spreading along the shores of 
 the Mexican Gulf, cultivate friendly
 
 764 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 sentiments towards communities whose 
 whole history will be a bitter reproach 
 to their institutions, a witness against 
 their wrongs, and whose ardent sympa- 
 thies will be enlisted in the cause of the 
 slave ? Cruel, ferocious conflicts must 
 grow from this neighborhood of hostile 
 principles, of communities regarding one 
 another with unextinguishable hatred. 
 All the islands of the Archipelago will 
 have cause to dread our power, but none 
 so much as the emancipated. Is it not 
 more than possible that wars, having 
 for an object the subjugation of <he col- 
 ored race, the destruction of this tempt- 
 ing example of freedom, should spring 
 from the proposed extension of our 
 dominion along the Mexican Gulf ? Can 
 England view our encroachments with- 
 out alarm ? I know it is thought that, 
 staggering, as she does, under her enor- 
 mous debt, she will be slow to engage 
 in war. But other nations of Europe 
 have islands in the same neighborhood, 
 to induce them to make common cause 
 with her. Other nations look with jeal- 
 ousy on our peculiar institutions and our 
 growing maritime power. Other nations 
 are unwilling that we should engross or 
 control the whole commerce of the Mex- 
 ican Gulf. We ought to remember that 
 this jealousy is sanctioned by our exam- 
 ple. It is understood that, at one period 
 of the internal disorders of Spain, which 
 rendered all her foreign possessions in- 
 secure, we sought from France and 
 Great Britain assurances that they 
 would not possess themselves of Cuba. 
 Still more, after the revolt of her colo- 
 nies from Spain, and after our recogni- 
 tion of their independence, it was an- 
 nounced to the nations of Europe, in 
 the message of the President, that we 
 should regard as hostile any interference 
 on their part with these new govern- 
 ments, " for the purpose of oppressing 
 them, or controlling their destiny in any 
 other way." I, of course, have no. com- 
 munication with foreign cabinets ; but I. 
 cannot doubt that Great Britain has 
 remonstrated against the annexation of 
 Texas to this country. An English min- 
 ister would be unworthy of his office 
 who should see another state greedily 
 swallowing up territories in the neigh- 
 borhood of British colonies, and not 
 strive, by all just means, to avert the 
 danger. I have just referred to the 
 warning given by us to the powers of 
 
 Europe, to abstain from appropriating 
 to themselves the colonies torn from 
 Spain. How will Europe interpret our 
 act, if we now seize Texas, and take this 
 stride towards Mexico ? Will she not 
 suspect that we purposed to drive away 
 the older vultures in order to keep the 
 victim to ourselves ; that, conscious of 
 growing power, we foresaw, in the ex- 
 clusion of foreign states, the sure exten- 
 sion of our own dominion over the New 
 World ? Can we expect those powers, 
 with such an example before them, to 
 heed our warning ? Will they look 
 patiently on, and see the young vulture 
 feasting on the nearest prey, and flesh- 
 ing itself for the spoils which their own 
 possessions will next present ? Will it 
 be strange if hunger for a share of the 
 plunder, as well as the principle of self- 
 defence, should make this continent the 
 object of their policy to an extent we 
 have never dreamed ? 
 
 It is of great and manifest importance 
 that we should use every just means to 
 separate this continent from the politics 
 of Europe, that we should prevent, as 
 far as possible, all connection, except 
 commercial, between the Old and the 
 New World, that we should give to for- 
 eign states no occasion or pretext for 
 insinuating themselves into our affairs. 
 For this end, we should maintain tow- 
 ards our sister republics a more liberal 
 policy than was ever adopted by nation 
 towards nation. We should strive to 
 appease their internal divisions, and to 
 reconcile them to each other. We 
 should even make sacrifices to build up 
 their strength. Weak and divided, they 
 cannot but lean upon foreign support. 
 No pains should be spared to prevent 
 or allay the jealousies which the great 
 superiority of this country is suited to 
 awaken. By an opposite policy we shall 
 favor foreign interference. By encroach- 
 ing on Mexico we shall throw her into 
 the arms of European states, shall com- 
 pel her to seek defence in transatlantic 
 alliance. How plain is it, that alliance 
 with Mexico will be hostility to the 
 United States, that her defenders will 
 repay themselves by making her subser- 
 vient to their views, that they will thus 
 strike root in her soil, monopolize her 
 trade, and control her resources. And 
 with what face can we resist the aggres- 
 sions of others on our neighbor, if we 
 give an example of aggression ? Still
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 765 
 
 more, if by our advances we put the 
 colonies or England in new peril, with 
 what face can we oppose her occupation 
 of Cuba ? Suppose her. with that mag- 
 nificent island in her hands, to command 
 the Mexican Gulf and the mouths of the 
 Mississippi ; will the Western States 
 find compensation for this formidable 
 neighborhood in the privilege of flood- 
 ing Texas with slaves ? 
 
 Thus, wars with Europe and Mexico 
 are to be entailed on us by the annexa- 
 tion of Texas. And is war the policy 
 by which this country is to flourish ? 
 Was it for interminable conflicts that we 
 formed our Union ? Is it blood, shed 
 for plunder, which is to consolidate our 
 institutions ? Is it by collision with the 
 greatest maritime power that our com- 
 merce is to gain strength ? Is it by 
 arming against ourselves the moral sen- 
 timents of the world that we are to build 
 up national honor ? Must we of the 
 North buckle on our armor to fight the 
 battles of slavery ; to fight for a posses- 
 sion which our moral principles and just 
 jealousy forbid us to incorporate with 
 our confederacy? In attaching Texas 
 to ourselves, we provoke hostilities, and 
 at the same time expose new points of 
 attack to our foes. Vulnerable at so 
 many points, we shall need a vast mili- 
 tary force. Great armies will require 
 great revenues, and raise up great chief- 
 tains. Are we tired of freedom, that we 
 are prepared to place it under such 
 guardians ? Is the republic bent on 
 dying by its own hands ? Does not 
 every man feel that, with war for our 
 habit, our institutions cannot be pre- 
 served ? If ever a country were bound 
 to peace, it is this. Peace is our great 
 interest. In peace our resources are to 
 be developed, the true interpretation of 
 the constitution to be established, and 
 the interfering claims of liberty and order 
 to be adjusted. In peace we are to dis- 
 charge our great debt to the human race, 
 and to diffuse freedom by manifesting 
 its fruits. A country has no right to 
 adopt a policy, however gainful, which, 
 as it may foresee, will determine it to a 
 career of war. A nation, like an indi- 
 vidual, is bound to seek, even by sacri- 
 fices, a position which will favor peace, 
 justice, and the exercise of a beneficent 
 influence on the world. A nation pro- 
 voking war by cupidity, by encroach- 
 ment, and, above all, by efforts to propa- 
 
 gate the curse of slavery, is alike false 
 to itself, to God, and to the human race. 
 
 III. I proceed now to a consideration 
 of what is to me the strongest argument 
 against annexing Texas to the United 
 States. This measure will extend and 
 perpetuate slavery. I have necessarily 
 glanced at this topic in the preceding 
 pages : but it deserves to be brought 
 out distinctly. I shall speak calmly, 
 but I must speak earnestly ; and I feel, 
 and rejoice to feel, that however you 
 may differ from some of my views, yet 
 we do not differ as to the great princi- 
 ple on which all my remarks and re- 
 monstrances are founded. Slavery 
 seems to you, as to me, an evil and a 
 wrong. Your language on this subject 
 has given me a satisfaction for which I 
 owe you thanks ; and if, in what I am 
 now to say, I may use expressions which 
 you may think too strong, I am sure 
 your candor will recognize in them the 
 sig^is of deep conviction, and will acquit 
 me of all desire to irritate or give pain. 
 
 The annexation of Texas, I have said, 
 will extend and perpetuate slavery. It 
 is fitted, and, still more, intended to do 
 so. On this point there can be no doubt. 
 As far back as the year 1829, the an- 
 nexation of Texas was agitated in the 
 Southern and Western States ; and it 
 was urged on the ground of the strength 
 and extension it would give the slave- 
 holding interest. In a series of essays, 
 ascribed to a gentleman now a senator 
 in Congress, it was maintained that five 
 or six slave-holding States would by this 
 measure be added to the Union ; and he 
 even intimated that as many as nine 
 States as large as Kentucky might be 
 formed within the limits of Texas. In 
 Virginia, about the same time, calcula- 
 tions were made as to the increased 
 value which would thus be given to 
 slaves, and it was even said that this 
 acquisition would raise the price fifty 
 per cent. Of late the language on this 
 subject is most explicit. The great 
 argument for annexing Texas is, that it 
 will strengthen " the peculiar institu- 
 tions " of the South, and open a new and 
 vast field for slavery. 
 
 By this act, slavery will be spread 
 over regions to which it is now impos- 
 sible to set limits. Texas, I repeat it, is 
 but the first step of aggressions. I trust, 
 indeed, that Providence will beat back 
 and humble our cupidity and ambition.
 
 ;66 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 But one guilty success is often suffered 
 to be crowned, as men call it, with 
 greater, in order that a more awful 
 retribution may at length vindicate the 
 justice of God, and the rights of the op- 
 pressed. Texas, smitten with slavery, 
 will spread the infection beyond herself. 
 We know that the tropical regions have 
 been found most propitious to this pesti- 
 lence ; nor can we promise ourselves 
 that its expulsion from them for a sea- 
 son forbids its return. By annexing 
 Texas, we may send this scourge to a 
 distance, which, if now revealed, would 
 appall us, and through these vast regions 
 every cry of the injured will invoke 
 wrath on our heads. 
 
 By this act, slavery will be perpetuated 
 in the old States, as well as spread over 
 new. It is well known that the soil of 
 some of the old States has become ex- 
 hausted by slave cultivation. Their 
 neighborhood to communities which are 
 flourishing under free labor forces*on 
 them perpetual arguments for adopting 
 this better system. They now adhere 
 to slavery, not on account of the wealth 
 which it extracts from the soil, but be- 
 cause it furnishes men and women to 
 be sold in newly settled and more 
 southern districts. It is by slave-breed- 
 ing and slave-selling that these States 
 subsist. Take away from them a foreign 
 market, and slavery would die. Of con- 
 sequence, by opening a new market, it 
 is prolonged and invigorated. By an- 
 nexing Texas, we shall not only create 
 it where it does not exist, but breathe 
 new life into it, where its end seemed 
 to be near. States, which might and 
 ought to throw it off, will make the 
 multiplication of slaves their great aim 
 and chief resource. 
 
 Nor is the worst told. As I have 
 before intimated, and it cannot be 
 too often repeated, we shall not only 
 quicken the domestic slave-trade, we 
 shall give a new impulse to the foreign. 
 This, indeed, we have pronounced in 
 our laws to be felony ; but we make 
 our laws cobwebs, when we offer to 
 rapacious men strong motives for their 
 violation. Open a market for slaves in 
 an unsettled country, with a sweep of 
 sea-coast, and at such a distance from 
 the seat of government that laws may 
 be evaded with impunity, and how can 
 you exclude slaves from Africa ? It is 
 well known that cargoes have been 
 
 landed in Louisiana. What is to drive 
 them from Texas ? In incorporating 
 this region with the Union to make it 
 a slave country, we send the kidnapper 
 to prowl through the jungles, and to 
 dart, like a beast of prey, on the de- 
 fenceless villages of Africa ; we chain 
 the helpless, despairing victims ; crowd 
 them into the fetid, pestilential slave- 
 ship ; expose them to the unutterable 
 cruelties of the middle passage, and, if 
 they survive it, crush them with per- 
 petual bondage. 
 
 I now ask whether, as a people, we 
 are prepared to seize on a neighboring 
 territory for the end of extending sla- 
 very ? I ask whether, as a people, we 
 can stand forth in the sight of God, in 
 the sight of the nations, and adopt 
 this atrocious policy ? Sooner perish ! 
 Sooner be our name blotted out from 
 the record of nations ! 
 
 This is no place for entering into the 
 argument against slavery. I have else- 
 where given my views of it. In truth, 
 no argument is needed. The evil of 
 slavery speaks for itself. It is one of 
 those primary, intuitive truths which 
 need only a fair exhibition to be imme- 
 diately received. To state is to con- 
 demn this institution. The choice 
 which every freeman makes of death 
 for his child and for every thing he loves, 
 in preference to slavery, shows what it 
 is. The single consideration that, by 
 slavery, one human being is placed 
 powerless and defenceless in the hands 
 of another, to be driven to whatever 
 labor that other may impose, to suffer 
 whatever punishment he may inflict, to 
 live as his tool, the instrument of his 
 pleasure, this is all that is needed to 
 satisfy such as know the human heart 
 and its unfitness for irresponsible power, 
 that, of all conditions, slavery is the 
 most hostile to the dignity, self-respect, 
 improvement, rights, and happiness of 
 human beings. Is it within the bounds 
 of credibility, that a people, boasting of 
 freedom, of civilization, of Christianity, 
 should systematically strive to spread 
 this calamity over the earth ? 
 
 To perpetuate and extend slavery is 
 not now, in a moral point of view, what 
 it once was. We cannot shelter our- 
 selves under the errors and usages of 
 our times. We do not belong to the 
 dark ages, or to heathenism. We have 
 not grown up under the prejudices of a
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 767 
 
 blinding, crushing tyranny. We live un- 
 der free institutions and under the broad 
 light of Christianity. Every principle 
 of our government and religion con- 
 demns slavery. The spirit of our age 
 condemns it. The decree of the civil- 
 ized world has gone out against it. 
 England has abolished it. France and 
 Denmark meditate its abolition. The 
 chain is falling from the serf in Russia. 
 In the whole circuit of civilized nations, 
 with the single exception of the United 
 States, not a voice is lifted up in de- 
 fence of slavery. All the great names 
 in legislation and religion are against 
 it. The most enduring reputations of 
 our times have been won by resisting 
 it. Recall the great men of this and 
 the last generation, and, be they phi- 
 losophers, philanthropists, poets, econo- 
 mists, statesmen, jurists, all swell the 
 reprobation of slavery. The leaders of 
 opposing religious sects, Wesley, the 
 patriarch of Methodism, Edwards and 
 Hopkins, pillars of Calvinism, join as 
 brothers in one solemn testimony against 
 slavery. And is this an age in which a 
 free and Christian people shall delib- 
 erately resolve to extend and perpetuate 
 the evil ? In so doing, we cut ourselves 
 off from the communion of the nations ; 
 we sink below the civilization of our 
 age ; we invite the scorn, indignation, 
 and abhorrence of the world. 
 
 Let it not be said that this opposition 
 of our times to slavery is an accident, 
 a temporary gust of opinion, an eddy in 
 the current of human thought, a fashion 
 to pass away with the present actors on 
 the stage. He who so says must have 
 read history with a superficial eye, and 
 is strangely blind to the deepest and most 
 powerful influences which are moulding 
 society. Christianity has done more than 
 all things to determine the character and 
 direction of our present civilization ; 
 and who can question or overlook the 
 tendency and design of this religion ? 
 Christianity has no plainer purpose 
 than to unite all men as brethren, to 
 make man unutterably dear to man, to 
 pour contempt on outward distinctions, 
 to raise the fallen, to league all in efforts 
 for the elevation of all. Under its in- 
 fluence, the differences of nations and 
 rank are softening. To the establish- 
 ment of a fraternal relation among men, 
 the science, literature, commerce, edu- 
 cation of the Christian world are tending. 
 
 Who cannot see this mighty movement 
 of Providence ? Who is so blind as to 
 call it a temporary impulse ? Who so dar- 
 ing, so impious, as to strive to arrest it ? 
 
 What is the tendency of all govern- 
 ments in the Christian world ? To 
 secure more and more to every man his 
 rights, be his condition what it may. 
 Even in despotisms, where political 
 rights are denied, private rights are 
 held more and more sacred. The ab- 
 solute monarch is more and more anx- 
 ious to improve the laws of the state, 
 and to extend their protection and re- 
 straints over all classes and individuals 
 without distinction. Equality before 
 the law is the maxim of the civilized 
 world. To place the rights of a large 
 part of the community beyond the pro- 
 tection of law, to place half a people 
 under private, irresponsible power, is to 
 oppose one of the most characteristic 
 and glorious tendencies of modern times. 
 Who has the courage to set down this 
 reverence for private rights among the 
 fashions and caprices of the day? Is 
 it not founded in everlasting truth ? 
 And dare we, in the face of it, extend 
 and perpetuate an institution, the grand 
 feature of which is, that it tramples pri- 
 vate rights in the dust ? 
 
 Whoever studies modern history with 
 any care, must discern in it a steady, 
 growing movement towards one most 
 interesting result, I mean towards the 
 elevation of the laboring class of society. 
 This is not a recent, accidental turn of 
 human affairs. We can trace its begin- 
 ning in the feudal times, and its slow 
 advances in subsequent periods, until it 
 has become the master movement of 
 our age. Is it not plain that those who 
 toil with their hands, and whose produc- 
 tive industry is the spring of all wealth, 
 are rising from the condition of beasts 
 of burden, to which they were once re- 
 duced, to the consciousness, intelligence, 
 self-respect, and proper happiness of 
 men ? Is it not the strong tendency of 
 our times to diffuse among the many the 
 improvements once confined to the few? 
 He who overlooks this has no compre- 
 hension of the great work of Providence, 
 or of the most signal feature of his times ; 
 and is this an age for efforts to extend 
 and perpetuate an institution, the very 
 object of which is to keep down the 
 laborer, and to make him a machine for 
 another's gratification ?
 
 ;68 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 I know it has been said, in reply to 
 such views, that, do what we will with 
 the laborer, call him what we will, he is 
 and must be in reality a slave. The 
 doctrine has been published at the 
 South, that nature has made two classes, 
 the rich and the poor, the employer and 
 the employed, the capitalist and the op- 
 erative, and that the class who work are, 
 to all intents, slaves to those in whose 
 service they are engaged. In a report 
 on the mail, recently offered to the Sen- 
 ate of the United States, an effort was 
 made to establish resemblances between 
 slavery and the condition of free labor- 
 ers, for the obvious purpose of showing 
 that the shades of difference between 
 them are not very strong. Is it possible 
 that such reasonings escaped from a man 
 who has trod the soil of New England, 
 and was educated at one of her colleges ? 
 Whom did he meet at that college ? 
 The sons of her laborers, young men 
 whose hands had been hardened at 
 the plough. Does he not know that 
 the families of laborers have furnished 
 every department in life among us with 
 illustrious -men, have furnished our he- 
 roes in war, our statesmen in council, 
 our orators in the pulpit and at the bar, 
 our merchants whose enterprises em- 
 brace the whole earth ? What ! the 
 laborer of the free State a slave, and 
 to be ranked with the despised negro, 
 whom the lash drives to toil, and whose 
 dearest rights are at the mercy of irre- 
 sponsible power? If there be a firm, 
 independent spirit on earth, it is to be 
 found in the man who tills the fields of 
 the free States, and moistens them with 
 the sweat of his brow. I recently heard 
 of a visitor from the South compassion- 
 ating the operatives of our manufacto- 
 ries, as in a worse condition than the 
 slave. What carries the young woman 
 to the manufactory ? Not, generally, 
 the want of a comfortable home ; but 
 sometimes the desire of supplying her- 
 self with a wardrobe which ought to sat- 
 isfy the affluent, and oftener the desire 
 of furnishing in more than decent style 
 the home where she is to sustain the 
 nearest relations, and perform the most 
 sacred duties of life. Generally speak- 
 ing, each of these young women has her 
 plan of life, her hopes, her bright dreams, 
 her spring of action in her own free will, 
 and amidst toil she contrives to find sea- 
 sons for intellectual and religious cult- 
 
 ure. It is common in New England 
 for the sons of farmers to repair to the 
 large towns, and there to establish them- 
 selves as domestics in families, a condi- 
 tion which the South will be peculiarly 
 disposed to identify with slavery. But 
 what brings these young men to the 
 city ? The hope of earning in a shorter 
 time a sum with which to purchase a 
 farm at home or in the W r est, perhaps 
 to become traders ; and in these voca- 
 tions they not unfrequently rise to con- 
 sideration, and to what, in their places 
 of residence, is called wealth. I have in 
 my thoughts an individual distinguished 
 alike by vigor and elevation ot mind, 
 who began life by hiring himself as a 
 laborer to a farmer, and then entered a 
 family as a domestic ; and now he is the 
 honored associate of the most enlight- 
 ened men, and devotes himself to the 
 highest subjects of human thought. It 
 is true that much remains to be done for 
 the laboring class in the most favored 
 regions ; but the intelligence already 
 spread through this class is an earnest 
 of a brighter day, of the most glorious 
 revolution in history, of the elevation of 
 the mass of men to the dignity of human 
 beings. 
 
 It is the great mission of this country 
 to forward this revolution, and never was 
 a sublimer work committed to a nation. 
 Our mission is to elevate society through 
 all its conditions, to secure to every hu- 
 man being the means of progress, to 
 substitute the government of equal laws 
 for that of irresponsible individuals, to 
 prove that, under popular institutions, 
 the people may be carried forward, that 
 the multitude who toil are capable of 
 enjoying the noblest blessings of the 
 social state. The prejudice, that labor 
 is a degradation, one of the worst preju- 
 dices handed down from barbarous ages, 
 is to receive here a practical refutation. 
 The power of liberty to raise up the 
 whole people, this is the great idea on 
 which our institutions rest, and which is 
 to be wrought out in our history. Shall 
 a nation having such a mission abjure 
 it, and even fight against the progress 
 which it is specially called to pro- 
 mote ? 
 
 The annexation of Texas, if it should 
 be accomplished, would do much to de- 
 termine the future history and charac- 
 ter of this country. It is one of those 
 measures which call a nation to pause,
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 769 
 
 reflect, look forward, because their force 
 is not soon exhausted. Many acts of 
 government, intensely exciting at the 
 moment, are yet of little importance, 
 because their influence is too transient 
 to leave a trace on history. A bad ad- 
 ministration may impoverish a people at 
 home, or cripple its energies abroad, for 
 a year or more. But such wounds heal 
 soon. A young people soon recruits its 
 powers, and starts forward with increased 
 impulse, after the momentary suspension 
 of its activity. The chief interest of a 
 people lies in measures which, making, 
 perhaps, little noise, go far to fix its 
 character, to determine its policy and 
 fate for ages, to decide its rank among 
 nations. A fearful responsibility rests 
 on those who originate or control these 
 pregnant acts. The destiny of millions 
 is in their hands. The execration of 
 millions may fall on their heads. Long 
 after present excitements shall have 
 passed away, long after they and their 
 generation shall have vanished from the 
 earth, the fruits of their agency will be 
 reaped. Such a measure is that of which 
 I now write. It will commit us to a de- 
 grading policy, the issues of which lie 
 beyond human foresight. In opening 
 to ourselves vast regions, through which 
 we may spread slavery, and in spreading 
 it for this, among other ends, that the 
 slave-holding States may bear rule in 
 the national councils, we make slavery 
 the predominant interest of the state. 
 We make it the basis of power, the 
 spring or guide of public measures, the 
 object for which the revenues, strength, 
 and wealth of the country are to be ex- 
 hausted. Slavery will be branded on 
 our front, as the great idea, the promi- 
 nent feature of the country. We shall 
 renounce our Jiigh calling as a people, 
 and accomplish the lowest destiny to 
 which a nation can be bound. 
 
 And are we prepared for this degra- 
 dation ? Are we prepared to couple 
 with the name of our country the infamy 
 of deliberately spreading slavery ? and 
 especially of spreading it through regions 
 from which the wise and humane leg- 
 islation of a neighboring republic had 
 excluded it ? We call Mexico a semi- 
 barbarous people ; and yet we talk of 
 planting slavery where Mexico would 
 not suffer it to live. What American 
 will not blush to lift his head in Europe, 
 if this disgrace shall be fastened on his 
 
 country ? Let other calamities, if God 
 so will, come on us. Let us be steeped 
 in poverty. Let pestilence stalk through 
 our land. Let famine thin our popula- 
 tion. Let the world join hands against 
 our free institutions, and deluge our 
 shores with blood. All this can be en- 
 dured. A few years of industry and 
 peace will recruit our wasted numbers, 
 and spread fruitfulness over our deso- 
 lated fields. But a nation, devoting it- 
 self to the work of spreading and per- 
 petuating slavery, stamps itself with a 
 guilt and shame which generations may 
 not be able to efface. The plea on 
 which we have rested, that slavery was 
 not our choice, but a sad necessity be- 
 queathed us by our fathers, will avail 
 us no longer. The whole guilt will be 
 assumed by ourselves. 
 
 It is very lamentable that, among the 
 distinguished men of the South, any 
 should be found so wanting to their own 
 fame as to become advocates of slavery. 
 That vulgar politicians, who look only 
 at the interests of the day and the 
 chances of the next electio.n, should 
 swell the madness of the passions by 
 which they hope to rise, is a thing of 
 course. But that men, who might leave 
 honorable and enduring record of them- 
 selves in their country's history, who 
 might associate their names with their 
 country-'s progress, and who are solemn- 
 ly bound by their high gifts to direct and 
 purify public sentiment, that such men 
 should lend their great powers to the 
 extension of slavery, is among the dark 
 symptoms of the times. Can such men 
 be satisfied with the sympathies and 
 shouts of the little circle around them, 
 and of the passing moment ? Have they 
 nothing of that prophetic instinct by 
 which truly great men read the future ? 
 Can they learn nothing from the sen- 
 tence now passed on men who, fifty years 
 ago, defended the slave-trade ? We have 
 to rejoice, Sir, that you. amidst the ex- 
 citements of the time, have always given 
 your testimony against slavery. You 
 have adhered to the doctrine which the 
 great men of the South of the last gen- 
 eration asserted, that it is a great evil. 
 We shall not forget this among the good 
 services which you have rendered to your 
 country. 
 
 I have expressed my fears that, by 
 the annexation of Texas, slavery is to 
 be continued and extended. But I wish 
 
 49
 
 770 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 not to be understood as having the 
 slightest doubt as to the approaching 
 fall of the institution. It may be pro- 
 longed, to our reproach and greater ulti- 
 mate suffering. But fall it will and must. 
 This, Sir, you know, and, I doubt not, 
 rejoice to know. The advocates of sla- 
 very must not imagine that to carry a 
 vote is to sustain their cause. With all 
 their power, they cannot withstand the 
 providence of God, the principles of 
 human nature, the destinies of the race. 
 To succeed, they must roll back time 
 to the dark ages, must send back Luther 
 to the cell of his monastery, must ex- 
 tinguish the growing light of Christianity 
 and moral science, must blot out the 
 declaration of American independence. 
 The fall of slavery is as sure as the 
 descent of your own Ohio. Moral laws 
 are as irresistible as physical. In the 
 most enlightened countries of Europe, 
 a man would forfeit his place in society 
 by vindicating slavery. The slave-holder 
 must not imagine that he has nothing to 
 do but fight with a few societies. These 
 of themselves are nothing. He should 
 not waste on them one fear. They are 
 strong, only as representing the spirit of 
 the Christian and civilized world. His 
 battle is with the laws of human nature 
 and the irresistible tendencies of human 
 affairs. These are not to be withstood 
 by artful strokes of policy, or by daring 
 crimes. The world is against him, and 
 the world's Maker. Every day the 
 sympathies of the world are forsaking 
 him. Can he hope to sustain slavery 
 against the moral feeling, the solemn 
 sentence of the human race ? 
 
 The South, cut off by its "peculiar 
 institutions " from close connection with 
 other communities, comprehends little 
 the progress of the civilized world. The 
 spirit which is spreading through other 
 communities finds no organ within its 
 borders, and the strength of this is 
 therefore little understood. Hence, it 
 looks on antislavery movements in any 
 part of the country as an accident, 
 which a little force can put down. It 
 might as well think of imprisoning the 
 winds. The South is ignorant of what 
 it most needs to know. A very intelli- 
 gent gentleman from that quarter told 
 me, not long ago, that he could not 
 learn at home the working of emanci- 
 pation in the West Indies ; so that an 
 experiment of infinite interest to the 
 
 slave-holder is going on at his door, and 
 he knows little more of it than if it 
 were occurring in another planet. Of 
 course, there are exceptions There 
 are at the South philosophical observ- 
 ers of the progress of human affairs. 
 But in such a state of society it is hard 
 to realize the truth on this subject. 
 Were it known, the project of building 
 a power on the diffusion of slavery 
 would seem to be an act of madness, 
 as truly as of crime. 
 
 I suppose that I shall be charged with 
 unfriendly feelings towards the South. 
 All such I disclaim. Strange as it may 
 seem, if I have partialities, they are 
 rather for the South. I spent a part of 
 my early life in that region, when man- 
 ners probably retained more of their 
 primitive character than they now do ; 
 and to a young man, unaccustomed to 
 life and its perils, there was something 
 singularly captivating in the unbound- 
 ed hospitality, the impulsive generosity, 
 the carelessness of the future, the frank, 
 open manners, the buoyant spirit and 
 courage, which marked the people ; and 
 though I have since learned to interpret 
 more wisely what I then saw, still the 
 impressions which I then received, and 
 the friendships formed at a yet earlier 
 age with the youth of the South, have 
 always given me a leaning towards that 
 part of the country. I am unconscious 
 of local prejudices. My interest in the 
 South strengthens my desire to avert 
 the annexation of Texas to the Union. 
 That act, I feel, will fix an indelible 
 stain on the South. It will conflict 
 with the generous elements of character 
 which I take pleasure in recollecting 
 there. The South will cease to be what 
 it was. In the period to which I have re- 
 ferred, slavery was acknowledged there 
 to be a great evil. I heard it spoken 
 of freely with abhorrence. The moral 
 sentiment of the community on this 
 point was not corrupt. The principles 
 of Mr. Jefferson in relation to it found 
 a wide response. The doctrine that 
 slavery is a good, if spread by the seiz- 
 ure of Texas, will work a moral revo- 
 lution, the most disastrous which can 
 befall the South. It will paralyze every 
 effort for escape from this enormous 
 evil. A deadly sophistry will weigh 
 on men's consciences and hearts, un- 
 til terrible convulsions God's just 
 judgments will hasten the deliverance
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 771 
 
 which human justice and benevolence 
 were bound to accomplish. 
 
 IV. I now proceed to another im- 
 portant argument against the annexa- 
 tion of Texas to our country the argu- 
 ment drawn from the bearings of the 
 measure on our National Union. Next 
 to liberty, union is our great political 
 interest, and this cannot but be loos- 
 ened it may be dissolved by the 
 proposed extension of our territory. I 
 will not say that every extension must 
 be pernicious, that our government can- 
 not hold together even our present con- 
 federacy, that the central heart cannot 
 send its influences to the remote States 
 which are to spring up within our pres- 
 ent borders. Old theories must be cau- 
 tiously applied to the institutions of 
 this country. If the federal govern- 
 ment will abstain from minute legisla- 
 tion, and rigidly confine itself within 
 constitutional bounds, it may be a bond 
 of union to more extensive communi- 
 ties than were ever comprehended un- 
 der one sway. Undoubtedly, there is 
 peril in extending ourselves, and yet the 
 chief benefit of the Union, which is the 
 preservation of peaceful relations among 
 neighboring States, is so vast, that some 
 risk should be taken to secure it in the 
 greatest possible degree. The objec- 
 tion to the annexation of Texas, drawn 
 from the unwieldiness it would give to 
 the country, though very serious, is not 
 decisive. A far more serious objection 
 is, that it is to be annexed to us for the 
 avowed purpose of multiplying slave- 
 holding States, and thus giving political 
 power. This cannot, ought not to be 
 borne. It will justify, it will at length 
 demand, the separation of the States. 
 
 We maintain that this policy is alto- 
 gether without reason on the part of the 
 South. The South has exerted, and 
 cannot help exerting, a disproportionate 
 share of influence on the confederacy. 
 The slave-holding States have already 
 advantages for co-operation, and for 
 swaying the country, which the others 
 do not possess. The free States have 
 no great common interest, like slavery, 
 to hold them together. They differ in 
 character, feelings, and pursuits. They 
 agree but on one point, and that a neg- 
 ative one, the absence of slavery ; and 
 this distinction, as is well known, makes 
 no lively impression on the conscious- 
 ness, and in no degree counteracts the 
 
 influences which divide them from one 
 another. To this may be added the 
 well-known fact, that in the free States 
 the subject of politics is of secondary 
 importance, whilst at the South it is 
 paramount. At the North every man 
 must toil for subsistence, and, amidst 
 the feverish competitions and anxieties 
 of the eager and universal pursuit of 
 gain, political power is sought with little 
 comparative avidity. In some districts 
 it is hard to find fit representatives for 
 Congress, so backward are superior men 
 to forego the emoluments of their voca- 
 tion, the prospects of independence, for 
 the uncertainties of public life. At the 
 North, too, a vast amount of energy is 
 absorbed in associations of a religious, 
 philanthropic, literary character. The 
 apathy of the free States in regard to 
 Texas an apathy from which they are 
 just beginning to be roused is a strik- 
 ing proof of their almost incredible in- 
 difference to political power. Perhaps 
 no parallel to it can be found in the his- 
 tory of confederations. What a con- 
 trast does the South form with the 
 divided and slumbering North ! There, 
 one strong, broad distinction exists, of 
 which all the members of the community 
 have a perpetual consciousness ; there, 
 a peculiar element is found, which 
 spreads its influence through the mass, 
 and impresses itself on the whole con- 
 stitution of society. Slavery is not a 
 superficial distinction. Nothing decides 
 the character of a' people more than the 
 form and determination of labor. Hence 
 we find a unity at the South unknown at 
 the North. At the South, too. the pro- 
 prietors, released from the necessity of 
 labor, and having little of the machinery 
 of associations to engage their attention, 
 devote themselves to politics with a con- 
 centration of zeal which a Northern man 
 can only comprehend by residing on the 
 spot. Hence the South has profes- 
 sional politicians, a character hardly 
 known in the free States. The result 
 is plain. The South has generally ruled 
 the country. It must always have an 
 undue power. United, as the North 
 cannot be, it can always link with itself 
 some discontented portion at the North, 
 which it can liberally reward by the pat- 
 ronage which the possession of the gov- 
 ernment confers. That the constitu- 
 tional rights of the South should be 
 prejudiced by the North is one of those
 
 772 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 moral impossibilities against which it is 
 folly to ask security. 
 
 We cannot consent that the South 
 should extend its already disproportion- 
 ate power by an indefinite extension of 
 territory, because we maintain that its 
 dispositions towards us gives us no 
 pledge that its power will be well used. 
 It is, unhappily, too well known that it 
 wants friendly feelings towards the 
 North. Divided from us by an institu- 
 tion which gives it a peculiar character, 
 which lays it open to reproach, and 
 which will never suffer it to rival our 
 prosperity, it cannot look on us with 
 lavor. It magnifies our faults. It is 
 blind to our virtues. At the North, no 
 unfriendly disposition prevails towards 
 the South. We are too busy and too 
 prosperous for hatred. We complain 
 that our good-will is not reciprocated. 
 We complain that our commerce and 
 manufactures have sometimes found lit- 
 itle mercy at the hands of the South. 
 Still more, we feel though we are 
 slow to complain of it that in Con- 
 gress, the common ground of the con- 
 federacy, we have had to encounter a 
 tone and bearing which it has required 
 the colder temperament of the North to 
 endure. We cannot consent to take a 
 lower place than we now hold. We 
 cannot consent that our confederacy 
 should spread over the wilds of Mexico 
 to give us more powerful masters. The 
 old balance of the country is unfavor- 
 able enough. We cannot consent that 
 a new weight should be thrown in, which 
 may fix the political inferiority of our- 
 selves and our posterity. I give you, 
 Sir, the feelings of the North. In part 
 they may be prejudices. Jealousies, 
 often groundless, are the necessary 
 fruits of confederations. On that ac- 
 count, measures must not be adopted 
 disturbing violently, unnaturally, unex- 
 pectedly, the old distributions of power, 
 and directly aimed at that result. 
 
 In other ways the annexation of 
 Texas is to endanger the Union. It 
 will give new violence and passion to 
 the agitation of the question of slavery. 
 It is well known that a majority at the 
 North have discouraged the discussion 
 of this topic, on the ground that slavery 
 was imposed on the South by necessity, 
 that its continuance was not of choice, 
 and that the States in which it subsists, 
 if left to themselves, would find a rem- 
 
 edy in their own way. Let slavery be 
 systematically proposed as the policy of 
 these States, let it bind them together in 
 efforts to establish political power, and 
 a new feeling will burst forth through 
 the whole North. It will be a concen- 
 tration of moral, religious, political, and 
 patriotic feelings. The fire, now smoth- 
 ered, will blaze out, and, of consequence, 
 new jealousies and exasperations will 
 be kindled at the South. Strange, that 
 the South should think of securing 
 its " peculiar institutions " by violent 
 means ! Its violence necessarily in- 
 creases the evils it would suppress. For 
 example, by denying the right of petition 
 to those who sought the abolition of sla- 
 very within the immediate jurisdiction 
 of the United States, it has awakened a 
 spirit which will overwhelm Congress 
 with petitions till this right be restored. 
 The annexation of Texas would be a 
 measure of the same injurious character, 
 and would stir up an open, uncompro- 
 mising hostility to slavery, of which we 
 have seen no example, and which would 
 produce a reaction very dangerous to 
 union. 
 
 The annexation of Texas will give 
 rise to constitutional questions and con- 
 flicts which cannot be adjusted. It is 
 well known that the additions to our ter- 
 ritory of Louisiana and Florida were 
 acceded to by the North, though very 
 reluctantly, on account of their obvious 
 utility. But it has been seriously 
 doubted whether the powers given by 
 the Constitution were not in both cases 
 transcended. "At the time Louisiana 
 was acquired, Mr. Jefferson himself was 
 deliberately of opinion that the treaty- 
 making authority, under the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, was incompe- 
 tent to make such an acquisition from 
 a foreign power, and annex it to the 
 Union, and that an amendment of the 
 Constitution would be necessary to 
 sanction it. In a letter to Governor 
 Lincoln, he even furnishes the formula 
 of a proposed amendment for the pur- 
 pose of admitting Louisiana into the 
 Union ; but adds, that the less that is 
 said about the constitutional difficulty 
 the better. Very little was said about 
 it, and there was a general and tacit 
 acquiescence, in consequence of the 
 great and incalculable advantages ex- 
 pected from the acquisition in a national 
 point of view. The purchase of Texas,
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 773 
 
 under existing circumstances, might pre- 
 sent a very different question."* 
 
 It is true that, as a general rule, the 
 right to purchase territory is incident 
 to sovereignty. But the sovereignty of 
 our national government is a limited 
 one. The Constitution was a com- 
 promise among independent States, and 
 it is well known that geographical rela- 
 tions and local interests were among 
 the essential conditions on which the 
 compromise was made. We are willing, 
 for the sake of universally acknowl- 
 edged public interests, that additions 
 of territory should be made to our 
 country. But can it be admitted that 
 the Constitution gives power to the 
 President and Senate to add a vast 
 realm to the United States, for the very 
 purpose of disturbing the balance be- 
 tween different sections, or of securing 
 ascendency to certain parts of the con- 
 federacy ? Was not the Constitution 
 founded on conditions or considerations 
 which are even more authoritative than 
 its particular provisions, and the viola- 
 tion of which must be death to our 
 Union ? Besides, a new question is to 
 be opened by the admission of Texas. 
 We shall not purchase a territory, as 
 in the case of Louisiana, but shall ad- 
 mit an independent community, invested 
 with sovereignty, into the confedera- 
 tion ; and can the treaty-making power 
 do this ? Can it receive foreign nations, 
 however vast, to the Union ? Does not 
 the question carry its own answer ? By 
 the assumption of such a right, would 
 not the old compact be at once consid- 
 ered as dissolved ? 
 
 To me it seems not only the right 
 but the duty of the free States, in case 
 of the annexation of Texas, to say to 
 the slave-holding States, " We regard 
 this act as the dissolution of the Union. 
 The essential conditions of the na- 
 tional compact are violated. To you 
 we will faithfully adhere, but will not 
 join ourselves to this new and iniquitous 
 acquisition. We will not become part- 
 ners in your wars with Mexico and 
 Europe, in your schemes of spreading 
 and perpetuating slavery, in your hopes 
 of conquest, in your unrighteous spoils." 
 No one prizes the Union more than my- 
 self, as the means of peace. But, with 
 Texas, we shall have no peace. Texas, 
 brought into the confederacy, will bring 
 
 * " North American Review," July, 1836. 
 
 with it domestic and foreign strife. It 
 will change our relations to other coun- 
 tries, and to one another. A pacific 
 division in the first instance seems to me 
 to threaten less contention than a linger- 
 ing, feverish dissolution of the Union, 
 such as must be expected under this 
 fatal innovation. 
 
 I am but one of a nation of fifteen 
 millions, and, as such, may seem too 
 insignificant to protest against a public 
 measure. But in this country every 
 man, even the obscurest, participates 
 in the sovereignty, and is responsible 
 for public acts, unless by some mode 
 of opposition, proportioned to his sense 
 of the evil, he absolves himself from 
 the guilt. For one, then, I say, that 
 earnestly as I deprecate the separation 
 of these States, and though this event 
 would disappoint most cherished hopes 
 for my country, still I can submit to it 
 more readily than to the reception of 
 Texas into the confederacy. I shrink 
 from that contamination. I shrink from 
 an act which is to pledge us as a peo- 
 ple to robbery and war, to the work 
 of upholding and extending slavery with- 
 out limitation or end. I do not desire 
 to share the responsibility, or to livft 
 under the laws of a government adopt- 
 ing such a policy, and swayed by such a 
 spirit, as would be expressed by the 
 incorporation of Texas with our country. 
 
 In truth, if the South is bent on in- 
 corporating Texas with itself, as a new 
 prop to slavery, it would do well to in- 
 sist on the division of the States. It 
 would, in so doing, consult best its own 
 safety. It should studiously keep itself 
 from communion with the free part of 
 the country. It should suffer no rail- 
 road from that section to cross its bor- 
 ders. It should block up intercourse 
 with us by sea and land. Still more, 
 it should abjure connection with the 
 whole civilized world : for from every 
 country it would be invaded by an in- 
 fluence hostile to slavery. It should 
 borrow the code of the Dictator of 
 Paraguay, and seal itself hermetically 
 against the infectious books, opinions, 
 and visits of foreigners. Its pride, as 
 well as safety, should teach it this in- 
 sulation ; for, having once taken the 
 ground that slavery is a good, to be 
 spread and made perpetual, it does by 
 that act forfeit the rank which it covets 
 i among civilized and improving com-
 
 774 
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 munities. It cannot be recognized as 
 an equal by other states. On this point 
 the decree of the world has gone forth, 
 and no protests or clamors can drown 
 the deep, solemn voice of humanity, 
 gathering strength with every new gen- 
 eration. A community, acknowledging 
 the evils of slavery, and continuing it 
 only because the first law of nature, 
 self-preservation, seems to require grad- 
 ual processes of change, may retain the 
 respect of those who deem their fears 
 unfounded. But a community, wedding 
 itself to slavery inseparably, with choice 
 and affection, and with the purpose of 
 spreading the plague far and wide, must 
 become a by-word among the nations ; 
 and the friend of humanity will shake 
 off the dust of his feet against it in tes- 
 timony of his reprobation. 
 
 V. I proceed now to the last head 
 of this communication. I observe, that 
 the cause of liberty, of free institutions, 
 a cause more sacred than union, 
 forbids the annexation of Texas. It is 
 plain, from the whole preceding dis- 
 cussion, that this measure will exert a 
 disastrous influence on the moral senti- 
 ments and principles of this country, by 
 sanctioning plunder, by inflaming cupid- 
 ity, by encouraging lawless speculation, 
 by bringing into the confederacy a com- 
 munity whose whole history and cir- 
 cumstances are adverse to moral order 
 and wholesome restraint, by violating 
 national faith, by proposing immoral 
 and inhuman ends, by placing us as a 
 people in opposition to the efforts of 
 philanthropy, and the advancing move- 
 ments of the civilized world. It will 
 spread a moral corruption, already too 
 rife among us, and. in so doing, it will 
 shake the foundations of freedom at 
 home, and bring reproach on it abroad. 
 It will be treachery to the great cause 
 which has been confided to this above 
 all nations. 
 
 The dependence of freedom on morals 
 is an old subject, and I have no thought 
 of enlarging on the general truth. I 
 wish only to say, that it is one which 
 needs to be brought home to us at 
 the present moment, and that it cannot 
 be trifled with but to our great peril. 
 There are symptoms of corruption 
 amongst us, which show us that we 
 cannot enter on a new career of crime 
 without peculiar hazard. I cannot do 
 justice to this topic without speaking 
 
 freely of our country, as freely as I 
 should of any other ; and, unhappily, 
 we are so accustomed as a people to 
 receive incense, to be soothed by flat- 
 tery, and to account reputation as a 
 more important interest than morality, 
 that my freedom may be construed into 
 a kind of disloyalty. But it would be 
 wrong to make concessions to this dan- 
 gerous weakness. I believe that moral- 
 ity is the first interest of a people, and 
 that this requires self-knowledge in na- 
 tions as truly as in individuals. He 
 who helps a community to comprehend 
 itself, and to apply to itself a higher 
 rule of action, is the truest patriot, 
 and contributes most to its enduring 
 fame. 
 
 I have said that we shall expose our 
 freedom to great peril by entering on a 
 new career of crime. We are corrupt 
 enough already. In one respect our 
 institutions have disappointed us all. 
 They have not wrought out for us that 
 elevation of character which is the most 
 precious, and, in truth, the only substan- 
 tial blessing of liberty. Our progress in 
 prosperity has indeed been the wonder 
 of the world ; but this prosperity has 
 done much to counteract the ennobling 
 influence of free institutions. The pe- 
 culiar circumstances of the country and 
 of our times have poured in upon us a 
 torrent of wealth ; and human nature 
 has not been strong enough for the as- 
 sault of such severe temptation. Pros- 
 perity has become dearer than freedom. 
 Government is regarded more as a 
 means of enriching the country than of 
 securing private rights. We have be- 
 come wedded to gain as our chief good. 
 That, under the predominance of this 
 degrading passion, the higher virtues, 
 the moral independence, the simplicity 
 of manners, the stern uprightness, the 
 self-reverence, the respect for man as 
 man, which are the ornaments and safe- 
 guards of a republic, should wither, and 
 give place to selfish calculation and in- 
 dulgence, to show and extravagance, to 
 anxious, envious, discontented strivings, 
 to wild adventure, and to the gambling 
 spirit of speculation, will surprise no 
 one who has studied human nature. 
 The invasion of Texas by our citizens 
 is a mournful comment on our national 
 morality. Whether, without some fiery 
 trial, some signal prostration of our 
 prosperity, we can rise to the force and
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 775 
 
 self-denial of freemen, is a question not 
 easily solved. 
 
 There are other alarming views. A 
 spirit of lawlessness pervades the com- 
 munity, which, if not repressed, threatens 
 the dissolution of our present forms of 
 society. Even in the old States, mobs 
 are taking the government into their 
 hands, and a profligate newspaper finds 
 little difficulty in stirring up multitudes 
 to violence. When we look at the parts 
 of the country nearest Texas, we see the 
 arm of the law paralyzed by the pas- 
 sions of the individual. Men take un- 
 der their own protection the rights which 
 it is the very office of government to 
 secure. The citizen, wearing arms as 
 means of defence, carries with him per- 
 petual proofs of the weakness of the 
 authorities under which he lives. The 
 substitution of self-constituted tribunals 
 for the regular course of justice, and the 
 infliction of immediate punishment in 
 the moment of popular frenzy, are symp- 
 toms of a people half reclaimed from 
 barbarism. I know not that any civil- 
 ized country on earth has exhibited dur- 
 ing the last year a spectacle so atrocious 
 as the burning of a colored man by a 
 slow fire, in the neighborhood of St. 
 Louis ; and this infernal sacrifice was 
 offered not by a few fiends selected from 
 the whole country, but by a crowd gath- 
 ered from a single spot. Add to all 
 this, the invasions of the rights of 
 speech and of the press by lawless force, 
 the extent and toleration of which oblige 
 us to believe that a considerable portion 
 of our citizens have no comprehension 
 of the first principles of liberty. 
 
 It is an undeniable fact that, in con- 
 sequence of these and other symptoms, 
 the confidence of many reflecting men 
 in our free institutions is very much 
 impaired. Some despair. That main 
 pillar of public liberty, mutual trust 
 among citizens, is shaken. That we 
 must seek security for property and life 
 in a stronger government is a spreading 
 conviction. Men, who in public talk of 
 the stability of our institutions, whisper 
 their doubts (perhaps their scorn) in 
 private. So common are these appre- 
 hensions, that the knowledge of them 
 has reached Europe* Not long ago, I 
 received a letter from an enlightened and 
 fervent friend of liberty in Great Britain, 
 beseeching me to inform him how far he 
 was to rely on the representations of one 
 
 of his countrymen just returned from 
 the United States, who had reported to 
 him that, in the most respectable soci- 
 ety, he had again and again been told 
 that the experiment of freedom here 
 was a failure, and that faith in our insti- 
 tutions was gone. That the traveller 
 misinterpreted ^in a measure what he 
 heard, we shall all acknowledge. But 
 is the old enthusiasm of liberty unchilled 
 among us ? Is the old jealousy of power 
 as keen and uncompromising ? Do not 
 parties more unscrupulously encroach 
 on the Constitution and on the rights of 
 minorities ? In one respect we must all 
 admit a change. When you and I grew 
 up, what a deep interest pervaded this 
 country in the success of free institu- 
 tions abroad ! With what throbbing 
 hearts did we follow the struggles of 
 the oppressed ! How many among us 
 were ready to lay down their lives for 
 the cause of liberty on the earth ! And 
 now who cares for free institutions 
 abroad ? How seldom does the topic 
 pass men's lips ! Multitudes, discour- 
 aged by the licentiousness at home, 
 doubt the value of popular institutions, 
 especially in less enlightened countries ; 
 whilst greater numbers, locked up in 
 gain, can spare no thought on the strug- 
 gles of liberty, and, provided they can 
 drive a prosperous trade with foreign 
 nations, care little whether they are bond 
 or free. 
 
 I may be thought inclined to draw 
 a dark picture of our moral condition. 
 But at home I am set down among those 
 who hope against hope ; and I have 
 never ceased to condemn as a crime the 
 despondence of those who, lamenting the 
 corruptions of the times, do not lift a 
 finger to withstand it. I am far, very 
 far, from despair. I have no fears but 
 such as belong to a friend of freedom. 
 Among dark omens, I see favorable in- 
 fluences, remedial processes, counteract- 
 ing agencies. I well know that the 
 vicious part of our system makes more 
 noise and show than the sound. I know 
 that the prophets of ruin to our institu- 
 tions are to be found most frequently in 
 the party out of power, and that many 
 dark auguries must be set down to the 
 account of disappointment and irritation. 
 I am sure, too, that imminent peril would 
 wake up the spirit of our fathers in many 
 who slumber in these days of ease and 
 security. It is also true that, with all
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 our defects, there is a wider diffusion of 
 intelligence, moral restraint, and self- 
 respect among us than through any 
 other community. Still, I am compelled 
 to acknowledge an extent of corruption 
 among us which menaces freedom and 
 our dearest interests ; and a policy which 
 will give new and enduring impulse to 
 corruption, which will multiply indefi- 
 nitely public and private crime, ought 
 to be reprobated as the sorest calamity 
 we can incur. Freedom is fighting her 
 battles in the world with sufficient odds 
 against her. Let us not give new chances 
 to her foes. 
 
 That the cause of republicanism is 
 suffering abroad, through the defects 
 and crimes of our countrymen, is as 
 true as that it is regarded with increased 
 scepticism among ourselves. Abroad, 
 republicanism is identified with the 
 United States, and it is certain that 
 the American name has not risen of 
 late in the world. It so happens that, 
 whilst writing, I have received a news- 
 paper from England, in which Lynch 
 law is as familiarly associated with our 
 country as if it were one of our estab- 
 lishments. We are quoted as monu- 
 ments of the degrading tendencies of 
 popular institutions. When I visited 
 England fifteen years ago, republican 
 sentiments were freely expressed to 
 me. I should probably hear none now. 
 Men's minds seem to be returning to 
 severer principles of government ; and 
 this country is responsible for a part 
 of this change. It is believed abroad 
 that property is less secure among us, 
 order less stable, law less revered, social 
 ties more easily broken, religion less 
 enforced, life held less sacred, than in 
 other countries. Undoubtedly, the prej- 
 udices of foreign nations, the interests 
 of foreign governments, have led to 
 gross exaggeration of evils here. The 
 least civilized parts of the country are 
 made to represent the whole, and occa- 
 sional atrocities are construed into hab- 
 its. But who does not feel that we have 
 given cause of reproach ? and shall we 
 fix this reproach, and exasperate it into 
 indignation and hatred, by adopting a 
 policy against which the moral senti- 
 ments of the Christian world revolt ? 
 Shall we make the name of republic 
 "a stench in the nostrils" of all na- 
 tions, by employing our power to build 
 up and spread slavery, by resisting the 
 
 efforts of other countries for its aboli- 
 tion, by falling behind monarchies in 
 reverence for the rights of men ? 
 
 When we look forward to the prob- 
 able growth of this country; when we 
 think of the millions of human beings 
 who are to spread over our present 
 territory ; of the career of improvement 
 and glory opened to this new people ; 
 of the impulse which free institutions, 
 if prosperous, may be expected to give 
 to philosophy, religion, science, litera- 
 ture, and arts ; of the vast field in which 
 the experiment is to be made, of what 
 the unfettered _powers of man may 
 achieve ; of the bright page of history 
 which our fathers have filled, and of 
 the advantages under which their toils 
 and virtues have placed us for carrying 
 on their work ; when we think of all 
 this, can we help, for a moment, sur- 
 rendering ourselves to bright visions 
 of our country's glory, before which all 
 the glories of the past are to fade away ? 
 Is it presumption to say that, if just to 
 ourselves and all nations, we shall be 
 felt through this whole continent, that 
 we shall spread our language, institu- 
 tions, and civilization through a wider 
 space than any nation has yet filled 
 with a like beneficent influence ? And 
 are we prepared to barter these hopes, 
 this sublime moral empire, for conquests 
 by force ? Are we prepared to sink to 
 the level of unprincipled nations, to 
 content ourselves with a vulgar, guilty 
 greatness, to adopt in our youth maxims 
 and ends which must brand our future 
 with sordidness, oppression, and shame ? 
 This country cannot without peculiar 
 infamy run the common race of national 
 rapacity. Our origin, institutions, and 
 position are peculiar, and all favor an 
 upright, honorable course. We have 
 not the apologies of nations hemmed 
 in by narrow bounds, or threatened by 
 the overshadowing power of ambitious 
 neighbors. If we surrender ourselves 
 to a selfish policy, we shall sin almost 
 without temptation, and forfeit oppor- 
 tunities of greatness vouchsafed to no 
 other people, for a prize below con- 
 tempt. 
 
 I have alluded to the want of wisdom 
 with which we are accustomed to speak 
 of our destiny as a people. W'e are 
 destined (that is the word) to overspread 
 North America ; and, intoxicated with 
 the idea, it matters little to us how we
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 777 
 
 accomplish our fate. To spread, to 
 supplant others, to cover a boundless 
 space, this seems our ambition, no 
 matter what influence we spread with 
 us. Why cannot we rise to noble con- 
 ceptions of our destiny ? Why do we 
 not feel that our work as a nation is to 
 carry freedom, religion, science, and a 
 nobler form of human nature over this 
 continent ? and why do we not remem- 
 ber, that to diffuse these blessings we 
 must first cherish them in our own 
 borders ; and that whatever deeply and 
 permanently corrupts us will make our 
 spreading influence a curse, not a bless- 
 ing to this New World ? It is a com- 
 mon idea in Europe that we are destined 
 to spread an inferior civilization over 
 North America ; that our slavery and 
 our absorption in gain and outward in- 
 terests mark us out as fated to fall be- 
 hind the Old World in the higher im- 
 provements of human nature, in the 
 philosophy, the refinements, the enthu- 
 siasm of literature and the arts, which 
 throw a lustre round other countries. 
 I am not prophet enough to read our 
 fate. I believe, indeed, that we are 
 to make our futurity for ourselves. I 
 believe that a nation's destiny lies in 
 its character, in the principles which 
 govern its policy and bear rule in the 
 hearts of its citizens. I take my stand 
 on God's moral and eternal law. A 
 nation, renouncing and defying this, 
 cannot be free, cannot be great. 
 
 Religious men in this community 
 and they are many are peculiarly 
 bound to read the future history of 
 their country, not in the flattering prom- 
 ises of politicians, but in the warnings 
 of conscience, and in the declaration of 
 God's word. They know, and should 
 make it known, that nations cannot con- 
 solidate free institutions and secure a 
 lasting prosperity by crime. They know 
 that retribution awaits communities as 
 well as individuals ; and they should 
 tremble amidst their hopes, when, with 
 this solemn truth on their minds, they 
 look round on their country. Let them 
 consider the clearness with which God's 
 will is now made known, and the signal 
 blessings of his providence poured out 
 on this people, with a profusion ac- 
 corded to no other under heaven : and 
 then let them consider our ingratitude 
 for his boundless gifts, our abuse of 
 his beneficence to sensual and selfish 
 
 gratification, our unmeasured, unright- 
 eous love of gain, our unprincipled 
 party-spirit, and our faithless and cruel 
 wrongs toward the Indian race ; and 
 can they help fearing that the cup of 
 wrath is filling for this people ? Men, 
 buried in themselves and in outward 
 interests, atheists in heart and life, may 
 scoff at the doctrine of national retribu- 
 tion, because they do not see God's hand 
 stretched out to destroy guilty commu- 
 nities. But does not all history teach 
 that the unlicensed passions of a guilty 
 people are more terrible ministers of 
 punishment than miraculous inflictions ? 
 To chastise and destroy, God need not 
 interfere by supernatural judgments. In 
 every community there are elements of 
 discord, revolution, and ruin, pent up 
 in the human soul, which need only to 
 be quickened and set free by a new 
 order of events, to shake and convulse 
 the whole social fabric. Never were 
 the causes of disastrous change in hu- 
 man affairs more active than at the 
 present moment. Society heaves and 
 trembles from the struggle of opposing 
 principles, as the earth quakes through 
 the force of central fires. This is not 
 the time for presumption, for defying 
 Heaven by new crimes, for giving a 
 new range to cupidity and ambition. 
 Men who fear God must fear for their 
 country in this "day of provocation," 
 and they will be false to their country 
 if they look on passively, and see with- 
 out remonstrance the consummation of 
 a great national crime, which cannot 
 fail to bring down awful retribution. 
 
 I am aware that there are those who, 
 on reading these pages, will smile at 
 my simplicity in urging moral and relig- 
 ious motives, disinterested considera- 
 tions, lofty aims, on a politician. The 
 common notion is, that the course of a 
 man embarked in public life will be 
 shaped by the bearing of passing events 
 on his immediate popularity ; that virtue 
 and freedom, however they may round 
 his periods in the senate, have little in- 
 fluence on his vote. But I do not 
 believe that public life is necessarily 
 degrading, or that a statesman is inca- 
 pable of looking above himself. Pub- 
 lic life appeals to the noblest as well as 
 basest principles of human nature. It 
 holds up for pursuit enduring fame, as 
 well as the notoriety of the passing 
 hour. By giving opportunities of act-
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 ing on the vast and permanent interests 
 of a nation, it often creates a deep sense 
 of responsibility, and a generous self- 
 oblivion. I have too much faith in hu- 
 man nature to distrust the influence of 
 great truths and high motives on any 
 class of men, especially on men of com- 
 manding intelligence. There is a con- 
 geniality between vast powers of thought 
 and dignity of purpose. None are so 
 capable of sacrificing themselves as 
 those who have most to sacrifice, who, 
 in offering themselves, make the great- 
 est offerings to humanity. With this 
 conviction, I am not discouraged by the 
 anticipated smiles and scoffs of those 
 who will think that, in insisting on 
 national purity as the essential condi- 
 tion of freedom and greatness, I have 
 " preached " to the winds. To you, 
 Sir, rectitude is not an empty name, 
 nor will a measure fraught with lasting 
 corruption and shame 4o your coun- 
 try seem to you any thing but a fearful 
 calamity. 
 
 I have now finished the task which I 
 have felt myself bound to undertake. 
 That I have escaped all error, I cannot 
 hope. That I may have fallen into oc- 
 casional exaggeration, I ought perhaps 
 to fear, from the earnestness with which 
 I have written. But of the essential 
 truth of the views here communicated, I 
 cannot doubt. It is exceedingly to be 
 regretted that the subject of this letter 
 has as yet drawn little attention at the 
 North. The unprecedented pecuniary 
 difficulties pressing now on the country 
 have absorbed the public mind. And 
 yet these difficulties, should they be 
 aggravated and continued far beyond 
 what is most dreaded, would be a light 
 national evil compared with the annex- 
 ation of Texas to the Union. I trust 
 the people will not slumber on the edge 
 of this precipice till it shall be too late 
 to reflect and provide for safety. Too 
 much time has been given for the ripen- 
 ing of this unrighteous project. I doubt 
 not, as I have said, that opposition exists 
 to it in the -slave-holding States. This, 
 if manifested in any strength, would 
 immediately defeat it. The other States 
 should raise a voice against it, like the 
 voice of many waters. Party dissen- 
 sions should be swallowed up in this 
 vast common interest. The will of the 
 people, too strong and fixed to be re- 
 sisted, should be expressed to Congress 
 
 in remonstrances from towns, cities, 
 counties, and legislatures. Let no man, 
 who feels the greatness of the evil which 
 threatens us, satisfy himself with un- 
 profitable regrets ; but let each embody 
 his opposition in a form which will give 
 incitement to his neighbors, and act on 
 men in power. 
 
 I take it for granted that those who 
 differ from me will ascribe what I have 
 written to unworthy motives. This is 
 the common mode of parrying unwel- 
 come truths ; and it is not without in- 
 fluence where the author is unknown. 
 May I, then, be allowed to say, that I 
 have strong reasons for believing that, 
 among the many defects of this let- 
 ter, those of unworthy intention are 
 not to be numbered. The reluctance 
 with which I have written satisfies me 
 that I have not been impelled by any 
 headlong passion. Nor can I have been 
 impelled by party-spirit. I am pledged 
 to no party. In truth, I do not feel my- 
 self able to form a decisive opinion on 
 the subjects which now inflame and 
 divide the country, and which can be 
 very little understood except by men 
 who have made a study of commerce 
 and finance. As to having written from 
 that most common motive, the desire of 
 distinction, I may be permitted to say, 
 that to win the public ear I need not en- 
 gage in a controversy which will expose 
 me to unmeasured reproach. May I add, 
 that I have lived long enough to learn 
 the worth of applause. Could I, in- 
 deed, admit the slightest hope of secur- 
 ing to myself that enduring fame which 
 future ages award to the lights and 
 benefactors of their race, I could not 
 but be stirred by the prospect. But 
 notoriety among contemporaries, ob- 
 tained by taking part in the irritating 
 discussions of the day, I would not 
 stretch out a hand to secure. 
 
 I cannot but fear that the earnestness 
 with which I have written may seem to 
 indicate an undue excitement of mind. 
 But I have all along felt distinctly the im- 
 portance of calmness, and have seemed 
 to myself to maintain it. I have pre- 
 pared this letter, not amidst the goad- 
 ings, irritations, and feverish tumults of 
 a crowded city, but in the stillness of 
 retirement, amid scenes of peace and 
 beauty. Hardly an hour has passed in 
 which I have not sought relief from the 
 exhaustion of writing by walking abroad
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 779 
 
 amidst God's works, which seldom fail 
 to breathe tranquillity, and which, by 
 their harmony and beneficence, con- 
 tinually cheer me, as emblems and 
 prophecies of a more harmonious and 
 blessed state of human affairs than has 
 yet been known. Perhaps some will 
 object it to me that a man, living in 
 such retirement, unfits himself to judge 
 of passing events, that he is prone to 
 substitute his visions for realities, and 
 to legislate for a world which does not 
 exist. I acknowledge the danger of 
 such a position. On the other hand, it 
 is equally true that the man who lives 
 in a crowd and receives perpetual im- 
 pulse from its prejudices and passions, 
 who connects himself with a party and 
 looks to it for reward, cannot easily keep 
 his mind open to truth, or sacrifice the 
 interests of the moment to everlasting 
 principles and the enduring welfare of 
 his country. Everywhere our frail nat- 
 ure is severely tried. All circumstances 
 have their perils. In every condition 
 there are biases to wrong judgment and 
 incitements to wrong action. Through 
 such discipline we are to make our way 
 to truth and perfection. The dread of 
 these dangers must not keep us inactive. 
 Having sought to understand the diffi- 
 culties in our respective paths, and hav- 
 ing done what we can to learn the truth, 
 we must commit ourselves to our con- 
 victions without fear, expressing them 
 in word and action, and leaving results 
 to Him who will accept our pure pur- 
 pose, and whose providence is the pledge 
 of the ultimate triumphs of humanity 
 and uprightness. 
 
 You and I, my dear Sir, are approach- 
 ing that period of life when the passions 
 lose much of their force, when disap- 
 pointment, bereavement, the fall of our 
 contemporaries on the right hand and 
 the left, and long experience of the 
 emptiness of human favor and of the 
 instability of all earthly goods, are 
 teaching us the lofty lessons of superi- 
 ority to the fleeting opinion of our day, 
 of reliance on the everlasting law of 
 right, of reference to a higher Judge 
 than man, of solemn anticipation of our 
 final account. Permit me to close this 
 letter, with desiring for you, in your 
 commanding station, what I ask for my- 
 self in private life, that we may be faith- 
 ful to ourselves, to our country, to man- 
 kind, to the benevolent principles of the 
 
 Christian faith, and to the common 
 Father of the whole human race. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 
 NEWPORT, R.I., August i, 1837. 
 
 NOTE. A few remarks, which have 
 been suggested since the completion of 
 the preceding letter, I shall throw into a 
 note. 
 
 The recognition of the independence 
 of Texas by our government is to be 
 lamented, as unbecomingly hasty, and 
 as a violation of the principle adopted 
 by Mr. Monroe in regard to the Spanish 
 colonies. " These new states," he says, 
 " had completely established their in- 
 dependence before we acknowledged 
 them." We have recognized Texas as 
 a nation, having all the attributes of 
 sovereignty, and competent to the dis- 
 charge of all the obligations of an inde- 
 pendent state. And what is Texas ? A 
 collection of a few settlements, which 
 would vanish at once were a Mexican 
 army of any force to enter the country. 
 One decisive victory would scatter all 
 Texas like a horde of Tartars, and not a 
 trace of its institutions and population 
 would remain. We have been accus- 
 tomed to think of a nation as something 
 permanent, as having some fixtures, 
 some lasting bond of union. There 
 would be nothing to hold Texas to- 
 gether, were her single, small army to 
 be routed in one battle. To send a 
 minister plenipotentiary to such a hand- 
 ful of people, made up chiefly of our 
 own citizens, is to degrade *he forms of 
 national intercourse. This new republic, 
 with its president and diplomatic corps, 
 has been called a farce. But the tragic 
 element prevails so much over the farci- 
 cal in this whole business, that we can- 
 not laugh at it. The movements of our 
 government in regard to Texas are 
 chiefly interesting as they are thought 
 to indicate a disposition favorable to 
 its annexation to our country. But we 
 will not believe that the government is 
 resolved on this great wrong, unless we 
 are compelled so to do. We hope that 
 the present administration will secure the 
 confidence of good men by well-consid- 
 ered and upright measures, looking be- 
 yond momentary interests to the lasting 
 peace, order, and strength of the country.
 
 ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 
 
 There rs another objection to the an- 
 nexation of Texas, which, after our late 
 experience, is entitled to attention. This 
 possession will involve us in new Indian 
 wars. Texas, besides being open to the 
 irruption of the tribes within our terri- 
 tories, has a tribe of its own, the Caman- 
 ches, which is described as more formi- 
 dable than any in North America. Such 
 foes are not to be coveted. The Indi- 
 ans ! that ominous word, which ought 
 to pierce the conscience of this nation 
 more than the savage war-cry pierces 
 the ear. The Indians ! Have we not 
 inflicted and endured evil enough in our 
 intercourse with this wretched people, to 
 abstain from new wars with them ? Is 
 the tragedy of Florida to be acted again 
 and again in our own day, and in our 
 children's ? 
 
 In addition to what I have said of the 
 constitutional objections to the annexa- 
 tion of Texas to our country, I would 
 observe, that we may infer, from the 
 history and language of the Constitu- 
 tion, that our national Union was so far 
 from being intended to spread slavery 
 over new countries, that, had the possi- 
 bility of such a result been anticipated, 
 decided provisions would have been in- 
 troduced for its prevention. It is worthy 
 of remark, how anxious the framers of 
 that instrument were to exclude from it 
 the word slavery. They were not will- 
 ing that this feature of our social system 
 should be betrayed in the construction 
 of our free government. A stranger 
 might read it without suspecting the ex- 
 istence of this institution among us. 
 Were slavery to be wholly abolished 
 here, no change would be needed in the 
 Constitution, nor would any part become 
 obsolete except an obscure clause, which, 
 in apportioning the representatives, pro- 
 vides that there shall be added to the 
 whole number of free persons "three- 
 fifths of other persons." Slavery is stu- 
 diously thrown into the background. 
 How little did our forefathers suppose 
 that it was to become a leading interest 
 of the government, to which our peace 
 at home and abroad was to be made a 
 sacrifice ! 
 
 I have said, that I desire no political 
 union with communities bent on spread- 
 ing and perpetuating slavery. It is 
 hardly necessary to observe, that this 
 was not intended to express a desire 
 to decline friendly intercourse with the 
 
 members of those communities. IndK 
 viduals, who have received from their 
 ancestors some pernicious prejudice or 
 institution, may still, in their general 
 spirit, be disinterested and just. Our 
 testimony against the wrong which such 
 men practise is not to be stifled or im- 
 paired by the feelings of interest or 
 attachment which they inspire ; nor, on 
 the other hand, must this wrong be 
 spread by our imaginations over their 
 whole characters, so as to seem their 
 sole attribute, and so as to hide all 
 their claims to regard. In an age of 
 reform, one of the hardest duties is to 
 be inflexibly hostile to the long-rooted 
 corruptions of society, and at the same 
 time to be candid and just to those who 
 uphold them. It is true that, with the 
 most friendly feelings, we shall probably 
 give offence to those who are interested 
 in abuses which we condemn. But we 
 are not on this account absolved from 
 the duty of cultivating and expressing 
 kindness and justice, of laying strong 
 restraint on our passions, and of avoid- 
 ing all needless provocation. 
 
 The speech of Mr. Adams on the 
 subject of the preceding letter, delivered 
 in Congress, in December, 1835, should 
 be republished and circulated. It de- 
 serves to be read as a specimen of par- 
 liamentary eloquence ; and its moral 
 and political views are worthy of its 
 eminent author. 
 
 There seems to be an apprehension 
 at the South that the free States, should 
 they obtain the ascendency, might be 
 disposed to use the powers of the gov- 
 ernment for the abolition of slavery. 
 On this point there is but one feeling at 
 the North. The free States feel that 
 they have no more right to abolish sla- 
 very in the slave-holding States than in" 
 a foreign country. They regard the 
 matter as wholly out of their reach. 
 They, indeed, claim the right of setting 
 forth the evils of slavery, as of any 
 other pernicious and morally wrong in- 
 stitution. But the thought of touching 
 the laws which established it in any 
 State, they reject without a discordant 
 voice. In regard to the District of 
 Columbia, many of us feel that slavery 
 continues there by the action of all the 
 States : that the free States, therefore, 
 are responsible for it ; and we maintain 
 that it is most unreasonable that an in- 
 stitution should be sustained by those
 
 TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 7 8l 
 
 who hold it to be immoral and perni- 
 cious. But we feel no such responsi- 
 bility for slavery in the slave-holding 
 States. These States must determine 
 for themselves how long it shall con- 
 tinue, and by what means- it shall be 
 abolished. We solemnly urge them to 
 use their power for its removal ; but 
 nothing would tempt us to wrest the 
 power from them, if we could. The 
 South has fears that the free States may 
 be hurried away by *' enthusiasm ; ' into 
 usurpation of unconstitutional powers 
 on the subject. One is tempted to 
 smile at the want of acquaintance with 
 the North which such an apprehension 
 betrays. This enthusiasm, to endanger 
 the South, must spread through all the 
 free States ; for, as the slave-holders 
 are unanimous, nothing but a like una- 
 nimity in their opponents can expose 
 them to harm. And is it possible that 
 a large number of communities, spread 
 over a vast surface, having a diversity 
 of interests, and all absorbed in the 
 pursuit of gain to a degree, perhaps, 
 without a parallel, should be driven by 
 a moral, philanthropic enthusiasm into 
 violations of a national compact, by 
 which their peace and prosperity would 
 be put in peril, and into combined and 
 lawless efforts against other communi- 
 ties with whom they sustain exceedingly 
 profitable connections, and from whom 
 they could not be sundered without 
 serious loss ? Whoever is acquainted 
 with the free States knows that the ex- 
 cesses to which they are exposed are 
 not so much those of enthusiasm as of 
 caution and worldly prudence. The 
 patience with which they have endured 
 recent violent measures directed against 
 their citizens shows little propensity to 
 rashness. The danger is not so much 
 that they will invade the rights of other 
 members of the confederacy, as that 
 they will be indifferent to their own. 
 
 I have spoken in this letter of the 
 estimation in which this country is held 
 abroad. I hope I shall not be num- 
 bered among those, too common here, 
 who are irritably alive to the opinions 
 of other nations, to the censures and 
 misrepresentations of travellers. To a 
 great and growing people, how insig- 
 nificant is the praise or blame of a 
 traveller or a nation ! " None of these 
 things move me." But one thing does 
 move me. It is a sore evil that freedom 
 should be blasphemed, that republican 
 institutions should forfeit the confidence 
 of mankind through the unfaithfulness 
 of this people to their trust. 
 
 In reviewing this letter, I perceive 
 that I have used the strong language in 
 which the apprehension of great evils 
 naturally expresses itself. I hope this 
 will not be construed as betokening any 
 anxieties or misgivings in regard to 
 the issues of passing events. I place 
 a cheerful trust in Providence. The 
 triumphs in evil, which men call great, 
 are but clouds passing over the serene 
 and everlasting heavens. Public men 
 may, in craft or passion, decree violence 
 and oppression. But silently, irresist- 
 ibly, they and their works are swept 
 away. A voice of encouragement comes 
 to us from the ruins of the past, from 
 the humiliations of the proud, from the 
 prostrate thrones of conquerors, from the 
 baffled schemes of statesmen, from the 
 reprobation with which the present age 
 looks back on the unrighteous policy of 
 former times. Such sentence the future 
 will pass on present wrongs. Men, 
 measures, and all earthly interests pass 
 away ; but principles are eternal. Truth, 
 justice, and goodness partake of the 
 omnipotence and immutableness of God, 
 whose essence they are. In these it be- 
 comes us to place a calm, joyful trust, 
 in the darkest hour.
 
 782 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 REMARKS ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION, 
 
 In a Letter to Jonathan Phillips, Esq. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, On reading Mr. 
 Clay's speech on Slavery, many thoughts 
 were suggested to me which I wished to 
 communicate ; and our conversation of 
 last evening confirmed me in the pur- 
 pose of laying them before the public. 
 I have resolved to give my views in the 
 form of a letter, because I can do my 
 work more easily and rapidly in this way 
 than in any other. A general methodi- 
 cal discussion of the subject would be 
 more agreeable to me ; but we must do 
 what we can. I must write in haste, or 
 not at all. If others would take the 
 subject in hand, I should gladly be silent. 
 Something ought to be spoken on the 
 occasion ; but who will speak ? My 
 range of topics will be somewhat large ; 
 nor, if good can be done, shall I hesitate 
 to stray beyond the document which first 
 suggested this communication. 
 
 I shall often be obliged to introduce 
 the name of Mr. Clay ; but, as you will 
 see, I regard him in this discussion sim- 
 ply as the representative of a body of men, 
 simply as having given wide circula- 
 tion to a set of opinions. I have nothing 
 to do with his motives. It is common 
 to ascribe the efforts of politicians to 
 selfish aims. But why mix up the man 
 with the cause ? In general, we do well 
 to let an opponent's motives alone. We 
 are seldom just to them. Our own 
 motives on such occasions are often 
 worse than those we assail. Besides, 
 our business is with the arguments, not 
 the character, of an adversary. A speech 
 is not refuted by imputations, true or 
 false, on the speaker. There is, indeed, 
 a general presumption against a politi- 
 cian's purity of purpose ; but public 
 men differ in character as much as 
 private ; and when a statesman holds 
 an honorable place in his class, and 
 brings high gifts to a discussion, he 
 ought to be listened to with impartiality 
 and respect. For one, I desire that sla- 
 very should be defended by the ablest 
 men among its upholders. In the long 
 
 run, truth is aided by nothing so much 
 as by opposition, and by the opposition 
 of those who can give the full strength of 
 the argument on the side of error. In 
 an age of authority and spiritual bond- 
 age, the opinions of an individual are 
 often important, sometimes decisive. 
 One voice may determine the judgment 
 of a country. But, in an age of free dis- 
 cussion, little is to be feared from great 
 names, on whatever side arrayed. When 
 I hear a man complaining that some 
 cause which he has at heart will be put 
 back for years by a speech or a book, 
 I suspect that his attachment to it is a 
 prejudice ; that he has no consciousness 
 of standing on a rock. The more dis- 
 cussion the better, if passion and per- 
 sonality be eschewed ; and discussion, 
 even if stormy, often winnows truth from 
 error, a good never to be expected in 
 an uninquiring age. 
 
 I have said that my concern is wholly 
 with Mr. Clay's speech, not with the 
 author ; and I would add, that in the 
 greater part of the discussion which 
 is " to follow, my concern will be with 
 slavery, and not with the slave-holder. 
 Principles, not men, are what I wish to 
 examine and judge. For the sake of 
 truth and good temper, personalities are 
 to be shunned as far as they may. I 
 shall speak strongly of slavery, for we 
 serve neither truth nor virtue by prun- 
 ing discourse into tameness ; but a 
 criminal institution does not necessa- 
 rily imply any singular criminality in 
 those who uphold it. An institution, 
 the growth of barbarous times, trans- 
 mitted from distant ages, and "sancti- 
 fied " by the laws, is a very different 
 thing, as far as the character of its 
 friends is concerned, from what it would 
 be were it deliberately adopted at the 
 present day. I must, indeed, ascribe 
 much culpableness to the body of slave- 
 holders, just as I see much to blame in 
 political parties ; but do I therefore set 
 down all the members of these classes
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 783 
 
 as unprincipled men ? The injustice, 
 criminality, inhumanity of a practice we 
 can judge. The guilt of our neighbor we 
 can never weigh with exactness ; and in 
 most cases must refer him to a higher 
 tribunal. This I say that I may separate 
 the subject from personalities. To me, 
 the slave-holder is very much an ab- 
 straction. The word, as here used, 
 expresses a general relation. The in- 
 dividual seldom or never enters my 
 thoughts. 
 
 The principal part of Mr. Clay's 
 speech is an attack on the abolitionists. 
 These I have no thought of defending. 
 They must fight their own battle. I am 
 not of them, and nothing would induce 
 me to become responsible for their move- 
 ments. And this I say from no desire 
 to shift from myself an unpopular name. 
 It will be seen, in the course of these 
 remarks, that I am not studying to 
 soothe prejudice or to make a compro- 
 mise with error. I separate myself from 
 the abolitionists from no sensitiveness 
 to reproach. A man who has studied 
 Christianity and history as long as you 
 and myself will not be very anxious to 
 shelter himself from what has been the 
 common lot of the friends of truth. How- 
 ever the abolitionists may have erred, I 
 honor them as advocates of the princi- 
 ples of freedom, justice, and humanity, 
 and for having clung to these amidst 
 threats, perils, and violence. In declin- 
 ing all connection with them, I am in- 
 fluenced by no desire to make over to 
 others all the censures and invectives of 
 the community ; but I simply wish to 
 take my true position, to appear what 
 I am. 
 
 Mr. Clay's speech, however intended 
 for the abolitionists, contains passages 
 at which every man interested in the re- 
 moval of slavery must take offence ; 
 and to these my remarks will be con- 
 fined. The most important part of it, 
 indeed, has no special bearing on the 
 abolitionists, but concerns equally all 
 the free States. I refer to that in which 
 we are told that slavery is to be perpet- 
 ual, that we have nothing to hope in 
 this respect from the South. Every 
 other part of the speech sinks into in- 
 significance in comparison with this. 
 Coming from any other man. this docu- 
 ment would be less important. But Mr. 
 Clay is no rash talker. His legislative 
 course has been distinguished by noth- 
 
 ing so much as by his skill in compro- 
 mising discordant opinions. His speech 
 was meant to be a compromise, to ex- 
 ert a healing power. He does not, in a 
 fit of transient, blinding anger, dash to 
 the ground our hopes of relief from the 
 intolerable evils of slavery. He states 
 deliberately the grand obstacle to eman- 
 cipation, and it is one which can only be 
 removed by the dying out of the slaves. 
 He takes the ground that if the two 
 races are to live together, one must be 
 hopelessly subjugated to the other, so as 
 to prevent collision. Emancipation, he 
 gives us to understand, would be a sig- 
 nal for civil war, to end only in exter- 
 mination. And as this peril, if real, 
 increases with the increase of the ser- 
 vile class, of consequence every year's 
 continuance of the evil makes freedom, 
 if possible, more and more to be de- 
 spaired of. We lament and abhor this 
 doctrine, but are truly glad that it is 
 brought out distinctly, that the free 
 States may know what they are to ex- 
 pect. A vague hope has floated before 
 many minds, that this immense evil was 
 in some way or other to cease. On this 
 ground, such of us in the free States as 
 have written against slavery have been 
 rebuked. Our friends, as well as foes, 
 have said, " Be quiet ; let the South 
 alone ; it will find for itself the way of 
 emancipation. You throw back the good 
 work a century." We have all along 
 known better. We have known that 
 long use, the love of property, ai\d the 
 love of power, had bound this evil on 
 the South with a triple adamantine chain. 
 We have known that the increasing cult- 
 ure of cotton was spreading slavery 
 with immense rapidity through new 
 regions, and, by rendering it more gain- 
 ful, was strengthening the obstinacy 
 with which it is grasped by the owner. 
 We have known that, in consequence of 
 this culture, the Northern slave States, 
 whose soil the system had exhausted, 
 have acquired a new interest in it, by 
 humbling themselves to the condition of 
 slave-breeding and slave-trading com- 
 munities. We have seen that the insti- 
 tution, if to be shaken or subverted, 
 was to be stormed from abroad, not by 
 '" carnal weapons," not by physical force, 
 but by those moral influences which, if 
 steadily poured in upon a civilized peo- 
 ple, must gradually prevail. It is now 
 seen that we were right. It is now plain
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 that the South has deliberately wedded 
 itself to slavery. We are glad to have 
 it known. The speech publishing this 
 doctrine was meant to be a herald of 
 peace, but it is in truth a summons to 
 new conflict. It calls those who regard 
 slavery as a grievous outrage on human 
 nature to spread their convictions with 
 unremitting energy. I take the ground 
 that no communities, unless cutting 
 themselves off from the civilized world, 
 can withstand just, enlightened, earnest 
 opinion ; and this power must be brought 
 to bear on slavery more zealously than 
 ever. 
 
 I observe, in passing, that Mr. Clay, 
 in giving us no hope for the extinction 
 of slavery but in the extinction of the 
 colored race, puts an end to all expecta- 
 tion of aid in this respect from the Col- 
 onization Society, an institution of which 
 he is an ardent friend, and, for aught I 
 know, is now the president ; and I trust 
 his frankness will open the eyes of those 
 who dream of removing slavery by the 
 process of draining it off to another 
 country, a process about as reasona- 
 ble as that of draining the Atlantic. Col- 
 onization may do good in Africa. It 
 does only harm among ourselves. It has 
 confirmed the prejudice, to which slavery 
 owes much of its strength, that the col- 
 ored man cannot live and prosper as 
 a freeman on these shores. It indeed 
 sends out to the public now and then 
 accounts of planters who have freed a 
 greater or less number of slaves to be 
 shipped to Africa. But these very op- 
 erations strengthen slavery at home, 
 Could the master send his plantation to 
 Africa with his slaves, he would serve 
 the cause of freedom. But the land 
 remains here, and remains to be tilled ; 
 and by whom must the cultivation go 
 on ? By slaves. Of course new slaves 
 must be bought. Of course the de- 
 mand for slaves is increased ; and the 
 price of a man rises ; and a new mo- 
 tive is given to the slave-breeding 
 States to stock the market with hu- 
 man cattle. Thus the barbarous trade 
 in men strikes deeper root. No ! Col- 
 onization darkens the prospects of hu- 
 manity at home, however it may brighten 
 them abroad. It has done much to 
 harden the slave-holder in his purpose 
 of holding fast his victim, and thus in- 
 creases the necessity of more earnest 
 remonstrance against slavery. 
 
 Mr. Clay, of course, will not allow 
 that the resolution of making slavery 
 perpetual at the South is a reason for 
 new assaults on the system. He in- 
 sists, on the contrary, with the whole 
 South, that we in this region have noth- 
 ing to do with the matter ; that it is no 
 concern of ours ; and that to labor here 
 for the subversion of an institution in 
 other States is a criminal interference. 
 Interference is the word which has been 
 applied to all agitation of this subject at 
 the North ; and the censure implied in 
 the term has misled the unthinking into 
 a vague notion that to touch the subject 
 here is doing wrong to the South. But 
 I maintain that there is a moral inter- 
 ference with our fellow-creatures at 
 home and abroad, not only to be as- 
 serted as a right, but binding as a duty. 
 This is the first topic of discussion, and 
 its importance will induce me to treat it 
 at large. 
 
 We are told that the slave-holding 
 States, in relation to this point, stand on 
 the same ground with foreign countries, 
 and are consequently to be treated with 
 ^equal delicacy and reserve. This posi- 
 tion I deny ; but grant it ; I maintain 
 the right of acting on foreign countries 
 by moral means for moral ends. Sup- 
 pose that there were in contact with us 
 a foreign state, which should ordain by 
 law that every child born with black hair 
 or a darkly-shaded face should be put 
 to death ; and suppose that every sixth 
 child should be slaughtered by this bar- 
 barous decree. Or take the case of a 
 community at our door, which should 
 restore the old gladiatorial shows, and 
 suppose that a large part of the popula- 
 tion should perish in these execrable 
 games. Who of us would feel himself 
 bound to hold his peace because these 
 atrocities were committed beyond our 
 boundaries ? Who would say that the 
 tortures of the slain were no concern of 
 ours, because not of our own parish or 
 country? Is humanity a local feeling? 
 Does sympathy stop at a frontier ? Does 
 the heart shrink and harden as it ap- 
 proximates an imaginary line on the 
 earth's surface ? Is moral indignation 
 moved only by crimes perpetrated un- 
 der our own eyes ? Has duty no work 
 to do beyond our native land ? Does a 
 man cease to be a brother by living in 
 another state ? Is liberty nothing to us 
 if cloven down at a little distance ?
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 785 
 
 Christianity teaches different lessons. 
 Its spirit is unconfined love. One of its 
 grandest truths is human brotherhood. 
 Under its impulses Christians send the 
 preacher of the cross to distant coun- 
 tries, to war with deep-rooted institu- 
 tions. The spiritual ties which bind all 
 men together were not woven by human 
 policy, nor can statesmen sunder them. 
 
 Suppose that one of the States of the 
 Union should become pledged by its 
 institutions to intemperance, that its 
 laws should be framed to encourage the 
 production and consumption of ardent 
 spirits. Would not every other State be 
 bound to give utterance to its detesta- 
 tion of this horrible system ? Suppose 
 that temperance societies, in their anx- 
 iety to purify this sink of corruption, 
 should make its excesses and crimes 
 their standing themes. Who of us 
 would recognize the right of the intem- 
 perate State to repel this interference as 
 an assault on its sovereignty ? What 
 should we think were this community to 
 insist that it would not suffer its charac- 
 ter to be traduced, or the product on 
 which its wealth and revenues depended 
 to be diminished, and that it would re- 
 cede from the Union unless permitted 
 to manufacture and drink alcohol unre- 
 proved ? These questions answer them- 
 selves. But I shall undoubtedly be 
 asked whether intemperance and slavery 
 be parallel cases ? They are parallel as 
 viewed in relation to my object, which 
 is, not to weigh the guilt of different 
 crimes, but to establish a general princi- 
 ple, to establish the right and duty of 
 men to oppose the force of moral repro- 
 bation to prevalent moral evils, whether 
 in our own or other countries. In re- 
 gard to the comparative guilt of intem- 
 perance and slavery, I will only say that 
 the last involves the worst evil of the 
 first ; that is, it does much to degrade 
 men into brutes. There is, however, 
 this difference, the intemperate man 
 degrades himself, the slave-holder de- 
 grades his fellow-creatures. Which of 
 . the two is most culpable in the sight of 
 God, let every man judge. 
 
 The position is false, that nation has 
 no right to interfere morally with nation. 
 Every community is responsible to other 
 communities for its laws, habits, char- 
 acter ; not responsible in the sense of 
 being liable to physical punishment and 
 force, but in the sense of just expos- 
 
 ure to reprobation and scorn ; and this 
 moral control communities are bound to 
 exercise over each other, and must 
 exercise over each other, and exercise 
 it more and more in proportion to the 
 spread of intelligence and civilization. 
 The world is governed much more by 
 opinion than by laws. It is not the 
 judgment of courts, but the moral judg- 
 ment of individuals and masses of men, 
 which is the chief wall of defence round 
 property and life. With the progress of 
 society, this power of opinion is taking 
 the place of arms. Rulers are more and 
 more anxious to stand acquitted before 
 their peers and the human race. Na- 
 tional honor, once in the keeping of the 
 soldier, is understood more and more to 
 rest on the character of nations. In 
 this state of the world, all attempts of 
 the slave-holder to put to silence the 
 condemning voice of men, whether far 
 or near, are vain. 
 
 I claim the right of pleading the cause 
 of the oppressed, whether he suffer in 
 this country or another. I utterly deny 
 that a people can screen themselves be- 
 hind their nationality from .the moral 
 judgment of the world. Because they 
 form themselves into a state, and forbid 
 within their bounds a single voice to 
 rise in behalf of the injured ; because 
 they crush the weak under the forms of 
 law, do they hereby put a seal on the 
 lips of foreigners ? Do they disarm the 
 moral sentiment of other states ? Is this 
 among the rights of sovereignty, that a 
 people, however criminal, shall stand 
 unreproved ? 
 
 In consequence of the increasing in- 
 tercourse and intelligence of modern 
 times, there is now erected in the civil- 
 ized world a grand moral tribunal, before 
 which all communities stand and must 
 be judged. As yet, its authority is fee- 
 ble compared with what it is to be, but 
 still strong enough to lay restraint, to 
 inspire fear. Before this slave-holding 
 communities are arraigned, and must 
 answer. The friends of justice, liberty, 
 and humanity accuse them of grievous 
 wrongs. It is vain to talk of the pre- 
 scription of two hundred years. Within 
 this space of time great changes have 
 taken place in the code by which the 
 commonwealth of nations passes sen- 
 tence. The doctrine of human rights 
 has been expounded. The right of the 
 laborer to wages, the right of every in-
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 nocent man to his own person, the right 
 of all to equity before the laws, these 
 are no longer abstractions of speculative 
 visionaries, no longer innovations, but 
 the established rights of humanity. Be- 
 fore the tribunal of the civilized world, 
 and the higher tribunal of Christianity 
 and of God, the slave-holder has to an- 
 swer for stripping his brother of these 
 recognized privileges and immunities of 
 a man. Multitudes, on both sides of 
 the ocean, looking above the distinction 
 of nations, standing on the broad ground 
 of a common nature, protest in the face 
 of heaven and earth against the wrong 
 inflicted on their enslaved brother. Let 
 the South understand that it is not your 
 voice or mine, or that of a small knot of 
 enthusiasts, which they have to silence. 
 You and I are nothing, but as we rep- 
 resent those great principles of justice 
 and charity with which the human heart 
 is everywhere beginning to beat. Ev- 
 erywhere the slave-holder is accused ; 
 everywhere he is judged. 
 
 It is strange that the South should 
 tell us that the increasing protest at the 
 North against slavery is the greater 
 wrong because slavery is one of their 
 institutions. As if an evil lost its de- 
 formity by becoming an institution, 
 that is, an established thing, held up by 
 laws and public force. One would think 
 that the circumstance of its being so 
 rooted, of its having gained this fearful 
 strength, were the very reason for vig- 
 orous opposition. A few straggling in- 
 dividuals, given to a bad course, might 
 be overlooked for their insignificance. 
 But when a community openly, by stat- 
 utes, by arms, adopts and upholds an 
 enormous wrong, then good men, through 
 the earth, are bound to unite against it 
 in stern, solemn remonstrance. The 
 greater the force combined to support 
 an evil, the greater the force needed for 
 its subversion. Crime is comparatively 
 weak until it embodies and " sanctifies " 
 itself in institutions. Individuals, seiz- 
 ing on and enslaving their brethren, 
 would be put down by the spontaneous, 
 immediate reprobation of society. It is 
 the perpetration of this wrong by com- 
 munities which makes it formidable ; 
 and I confess that here, if anywhere, a 
 justification may be found for organized 
 associations against slavery. This evil 
 rests on associated strength, on the 
 prostitution of the powers of the state. 
 
 Regarded as an institution which com- 
 bined millions uphold, it seems to have 
 a strength, a permanence, against which 
 individual power can avail nothing ; and 
 hence, it may be said, strength is to be 
 sought in associations. The argument 
 does not satisfy me ; for I believe that, 
 to produce moral changes of judgment 
 and feeling, the individual, in the long 
 run, is stronger than combinations ; but 
 I do feel that slavery, entrenched behind 
 institutions, is, on that very account, to 
 be assailed with all the weapons of rea- 
 son, of moral suasion, of moral reproba- 
 tion, which good men can yield. Less 
 mercy should be shown it because it is 
 an institution. 
 
 The notion which I have combated, 
 that slavery is to be treated with respect 
 because it is a public ordinance, is one 
 of many proofs that, even yet, there is 
 but a faint consciousness of the exist- 
 ence of an everlasting and immutable 
 rule of right. Multitudes, even now, 
 know no higher authority than human 
 government. They think that a number 
 of men, perhaps little honored as indi- 
 viduals for intelligence and virtue, are 
 yet competent, when collected into a 
 legislature, to create right and wrong. 
 The most immoral institutions thus gain 
 a sanctity from law. To the laws we 
 are indeed bound to submit, in the sense 
 of abstaining from physical resistance ; 
 but we are under no obligation .to bow 
 to them our moral judgment, our free 
 thoughts, our free speech. What ! Is 
 conscience to stoop from its supremacy, 
 and to become an echo of the human 
 magistrate ? Is the law, written by 
 God's finger on the heart, placed at the 
 mercy of interested statesmen ? Is it 
 not one of the chief marks of social 
 progress that men are coming to recog- 
 nize immutable principles, to understand 
 the independence of truth and duty on 
 human will, on the sovereignty of the 
 state, whether lodged in one or many 
 hands ? 
 
 You and I, Sir, observe the golden 
 rule concerning Southern slavery. We 
 do to our neighbor what we wish our 
 neighbor to do to us. We expose, as 
 we can, the crimes and cruelties of other 
 States, and we ask of other States the 
 same freedom towards our own. If, in 
 the opinion of the civilized world, or of 
 any portion of it, we of this Common- 
 wealth are robbing men of their dearest
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 7*7 
 
 rights, and treading them in the dust, 
 let the wrong be proclaimed far and 
 wide. If good men anywhere believe 
 that here the weak are at the mercy of the 
 strong, and the poor are denied the pro- 
 tection of the laws, then let them make 
 every State of the Union ring with in- 
 dignant rebuke. Especially if a giant 
 evil is here incorporated with our civil 
 institutions, upheld by the public force, 
 so that the sufferers are made dumb, so 
 that they endure the last wrong in being 
 forbidden to speak of their wrongs, then, 
 we say, let humanity beyond our borders 
 take hold of their cause. If the op- 
 pressed are muzzled here, let the lips of 
 the free elsewhere give voice to their 
 wrongs. 
 
 In the preceding remarks, I have gone 
 on the supposition that the slave-hold- 
 ing States, as far as slavery is concerned, 
 stand to the other States on the footing 
 of foreign countries, and have shown, 
 that if we make them this concession, 
 our right of remonstrance against this 
 institution is untouched. But this con- 
 cession is ungrounded, unjust. The 
 free and slave States are one nation, 
 and have a very different connection 
 with one another from their connection 
 with foreign communities. Slavery is 
 not the affair of a part only, but of the 
 whole. The free States are concerned 
 in it, and of necessity act on it and 
 are acted on by it. We of the North 
 sustain intimate relations to slavery, 
 which make us partakers of its guilt, 
 and which, of course, bind us to use 
 every lawful means for its subversion. 
 This I shall attempt to establish. 
 
 If we look first at the District of 
 Columbia, we have a proof how deeply 
 the free States are implicated by their 
 contact with the slave-holding. I do 
 not refer now to the reproach fixed on 
 the whole people by the open, allowed 
 existence of bondage at the seat of 
 government. This is evil enough, es- 
 pecially if we add that the District of 
 Columbia, besides this contamination, 
 is one of the chief slave-markets in 
 the country ; so that strangers, foreign 
 ministers, men whose reports of us de- 
 termine our rank in the civilized world, 
 associate with us the enormities of the 
 slave-trade and of slave auctions a*s 
 among our chief distinctions. This is 
 bad enough for a community which has 
 any respect for character. But there 
 
 is a greater evil. The District of Co- 
 lumbia fastens on the whole nation the 
 guilt of slave-holding. We at the North 
 uphold it as truly as the South. That 
 district belongs to no State, but to the 
 nation. It .is governed oy the nation, 
 and with as ample powers as are pos- 
 ses^ed by any State government. Its 
 laws and institutions exist through the 
 national will. Every legal act owes its 
 authority to Congress. Of consequence, 
 the slavery of the District is upheld by 
 the nation. Not a slave is sold or 
 whipped there but by the sanction of 
 the whole people. The slave code of 
 the District admits of mitigations : and 
 this code remains unmodified through 
 the national will. The guilt of the in- 
 stitution thus lies at the door of every 
 man in the United States, unless he 
 purge himself of it by solemn petition 
 and remonstrance against the evil. 
 What ! have the free States nothing to 
 do with slavery ? This moment they 
 are giving it active support. 
 
 And here it is interesting and instruc- 
 tive to observe, how soon and naturally 
 retribution follows crime. We uphold 
 slavery in the District of Columbia ; 
 and this is beginning to trench on our 
 own freedom. It is making of no effect 
 the right of petition, a right founded 
 not on convention and charters, but on 
 nature, and granted even by despots to 
 their subjects. The pretext on which 
 the petitions for the abolition of slavery 
 in Columbia have been denied the com- 
 mon attention by Congress is not even 
 specious. The right of Congress to 
 perform the act for which the petitioners 
 pray is undoubted. It may be said to 
 have been demonstrated.* Why, then, 
 are the memorials of a free people on 
 this subject treated with a scorn to 
 which no others are subjected? It is 
 pretended that the petitioners are aim- 
 ing at an object which the Constitution 
 places beyond the power of Congress, 
 that they are seeking, through this ac- 
 tion in the District, to abolish slavery 
 in the States. To this, two replies at 
 once occur. The first is, that among 
 the petitioners, who hope by acting on 
 the District to reach slavery everywhere, 
 there is not one who has not also an- 
 
 * See a pamphlet on the " Abolition of Slavery in 
 the District of Columbia," by Wytke. This is one of 
 the ablest pamphlets from the American press. It is 
 ascribed to Theodore Weld.
 
 ;88 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 other object, which is the well-being 
 of the District, or the abolition of sla- 
 very in it for its own sake. Allowing 
 one of their ends to be unwarrantable, 
 they distinctly propose another end, 
 which the Constitution sanctions. A 
 second reply is, that it is not true of all 
 who have petitioned for the abolition of 
 slavery in the District that they h*ave 
 aimed, in this way, at the abolition of 
 it in the States. I have signed these 
 petitions, I know not how often, and, 
 in so doing, was in no degree moved by 
 this consideration. I was governed by 
 other motives. I wished the District 
 to be purified from a great evil. I 
 wished the nation to be freed from the 
 responsibility of ordaining and uphold- 
 ing slavery. I wished also by some 
 public act to wash my own hands of 
 this guilt. I felt myself bound to de- 
 clare that if this nation uphold slavery 
 I am clear of it. And I hold it the 
 duty of every man in the free States, 
 who regards this institution as I do, to 
 bear the same testimony against it, and, 
 by solemn remonstrance to Congress, to 
 purge his conscience of the nation's 
 crime. As for myself, I could not pe- 
 tition against slavery in the District, as 
 a means of abolishing it in the States ; 
 for, as I have again and again declared, 
 I can see but little connection between 
 these measures. Be this as it may, by 
 sanctioning an acknowledged wrong at 
 the seat of government, we have pro- 
 voked a blow at our own privileges. In 
 the original draught of the Constitution, 
 the right of petition was not referred to, 
 for no one dreamed of its ever being 
 questioned. Massachusetts, however, 
 not satisfied with its foundation in nat- 
 ure and reason, chose to place it under 
 the protection of the Constitution. 
 What this right is, we must judge from 
 usage, and from its own nature and end. 
 Thus interpreted, has it not been in- 
 fringed by the power of slavery ? * 
 
 I have now considered one important 
 relation of the free States to slavery, 
 that which grows out of the District of 
 Columbia. I now proceed to another. 
 The Constitution requires the free States 
 to send back to bondage the fugitive 
 slave. Does this show that we have 
 no concern with the domestic institu- 
 tions of the South ? that the guilt of 
 them, if such there be, is wholly theirs, 
 
 * See Note A at end of this letter. 
 
 and in no degree ours ? This clause 
 makes us direct partakers of the guilt ; 
 and, of consequence, we have a vital in- 
 terest in the matter of slavery. I know 
 no provision of the Constitution at which 
 my moral feelings revolt but this. Has 
 not the slave a right to fly from bond- 
 age ? Who among us doubts it ? Let 
 any man ask himself how he should 
 construe his rights were he made a 
 slave ; and does he not receive an 
 answer from his own moral nature as 
 bright, immediate, and resistless as 
 lightning? And yet we of the free 
 States stop the flying slave, and give 
 him back to bondage ! It does not 
 satisfy me to be told that this is a part 
 of that sacred instrument, the Constitu- 
 tion, which all are solemnly bound to up- 
 hold. No charter of man's writing can 
 sanctify injustice, or repeal God's eternal 
 law. I cannot escape the conviction that 
 every man who aids the restoration of 
 the flying slave is a wrong-doer, though 
 this is done by our best and wisest men 
 with no self-reproach. To send him 
 from a free State into bondage seems 
 to me much the same thing as to trans- 
 port him from Africa to the West Indies 
 or this country. I shall undoubtedly be 
 told that the fugitive is a slave by the 
 laws of territory from which he escapes. 
 But when laws are acknowledged vio- 
 lations of the most sacred rights, we 
 cannot innocently be active in replac- 
 ing men under their cruel power. The 
 slave goes back not merely to toil and 
 sweat for his master as before. He 
 goes to be lacerated for the offence of 
 flying from oppression. For hardly any 
 crime is the slave so scored and scarred 
 as for running away ; and for every lash 
 that enters his flesh we of the free States, 
 who have given him back, must answer. 
 I know perfectly how these views will 
 be received at the North and South. 
 Some will call me a visionary, while 
 more will fix on me a harder name. 
 But I look above scoffers and de- 
 nouncers to that pure, serene, almighty 
 justice, which is enthroned in heaven, 
 and inquire of God, the Father of us 
 all, whether he approves the surrender 
 of the flying slave. I shall be charged 
 with irreverence towards the fathers of 
 ftie Revolution, the framers of our 
 glorious national charter. But I reply, 
 that, great as they were, they were fal- 
 lible, and that the progress of opinion
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 789 
 
 since their day seems to me to have 
 convicted them of error in the matter 
 now in hand. I am aware, too, that 
 good and wise men, friends who are 
 dear to me, will disapprove my free, 
 strong language. But 1 must be faith- 
 ful to the strong moral conviction which 
 I cannot escape on this subject. If I 
 am right, the truth which I speak, how- 
 ever questioned now, will not have been 
 spoken in vain. To-day is not for ever. 
 The men who now scorn or condemn 
 are not to live for ever. Let a few 
 years pass, and we shall all have van- 
 ished, and other actors will fill the stage, 
 and the despised and neglected truths 
 of this generation will become the hon- 
 ored ones of the next. 
 
 Before quitting this topic, it may be 
 well just to glance at the reasoning by 
 which my views will be assailed. To 
 the exposition of duty now given it will 
 be objected, that the morality of the 
 closet is not the morality of real life ; 
 that there is danger of pushing princi- 
 ples to extremes ; that difficulties are 
 to be grappled with in the conduct of 
 public affairs which retired men cannot 
 understand ; that there must be a com- 
 promise between the ideal and the act- 
 ual ; and that our rigid rules must be 
 softened or bend, when consequences, 
 unusually serious, will attend their ob- 
 servance. These commonplaces are not 
 wholly without truth. Morality is some- 
 times turned, by inexperienced men, into 
 rant and romance. Solitary dreamers, 
 exalting imagination above reason and 
 conscience, make life a stage for playing 
 showy, dazzling parts, which pass with 
 them for beautiful or heroic. I have 
 little more sympathy with these over- 
 refined, sublimated moralists than with 
 the common run of coarse, low-minded 
 politicians. Duty is something practi- 
 cable, something within reach, and which 
 approves itself to us not in moments of 
 feverish excitement, but of deliberate 
 thpught. Good sense, which is another 
 name for that calm, comprehensive rea- 
 son which sees things as they are, and 
 looks at all the circumstances and con- 
 sequences of actions, is as essential to 
 the moral direction of life as in merely 
 prudential concerns. Still more, there 
 is a large class of actions, the relations 
 of which are so complicated, and the con- 
 sequences so obscure, that individual 
 judgment is at fault, and we are bound 
 
 to acquiesce in usage, especially if long 
 established, because this represents to 
 us the collective experience of the race. 
 All this is true. But it is also true that 
 there are grand, fundamental, moral 
 principles, which shine with their own 
 light, which approve themselves to the 
 reason, conscience, and heart, and which 
 have gathered strength and sanctity from 
 the experience of nations and individuals 
 through all ages. These are never to 
 be surrendered to the urgency of the 
 moment, however pressing, or to im- 
 agined interests of individuals or states. 
 Let these be sacrificed to hope or fear, 
 and our foundation is gone, our anchor 
 slipped. We have no fixtures in our 
 own souls, nothing to rely on. No 
 ground of faith in man is left us. Self- 
 ish, staggering policy becomes the stand- 
 ard of duty, the guide of life, the law 
 of nations. Now, the question as to 
 surrendering fugitive slaves seems to 
 me to fall plainly, immediately, under 
 these great primitive truths of morality. 
 It has no complexity about it, no mys- 
 terious elements, no obscure conse- 
 quences. To send back the slave is 
 to treat the innocent as guilty. It is to 
 violate a plain, natural right. It is to 
 enforce a criminal claim. It is to take 
 the side of the strong and oppressive 
 against the weak and poor. It is to 
 give up an unoffending fellow-creature 
 to a degrading bondage, and to horrible 
 laceration. The fixed universal conse- 
 quence of this act' is the severe punish- 
 ment, not of the injurious, but of the 
 injured man. On this point my moral 
 nature speaks strongly, and I ought to 
 give it utterance. If I err, there are 
 enough to refute me. My authority is 
 nothing where a people are against me. 
 I ask no authority ; but simply that 
 what I say may be calmly, impartially 
 weighed. 
 
 It will be said that the South will in- 
 sist on this stipulation, because it is 
 necessary to the support of her institu- 
 tions. This necessity may be ques- 
 tioned, because, if I may judge from a 
 rough estimate, comparatively few fugi- 
 tives are recovered from other States ; 
 and yet slavery lives and thrives. But 
 if the necessity be real, then it follows 
 that the free States are the guardians 
 and essential supports of slavery. We 
 are the jailers and constables of the in- 
 stitution ; and yet we are told that we
 
 790 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 sustain no relation to slavery, that it 
 is in no degree our concern ! 
 
 1 know it will be asked, what ought 
 to be done if the Constitution bind us to 
 an unlawful act ? I reply, the individ- 
 ual convinced of the unlawfulness can 
 have no difficulty. He must abstain 
 from what he deems wrong. As to the 
 community, should it ever come to the 
 same conviction, it must take counsel 
 from circumstances and from its wisest 
 minds, as to the course by which its 
 peace and prosperity and the interest of 
 the whole land may be reconciled with 
 duty. Happily, the Constitution may be 
 amended, and this power is never so 
 needed as when the conscience of the 
 citizen comes in collision with the gov- 
 ernment. I trust that an amendment, 
 reaching the present case, and de- 
 manded, not by the passion, but by the 
 deliberate moral judgment of a large 
 portion of the community, will not fail. 
 I appeal to the generosity and honor of 
 the South, and would ask whether we, 
 with our views of slavery, ought to be 
 required to give it active support ? I 
 would ask whether, in the present state 
 of opinion in the civilized world, a slave 
 country ought not to protect its own 
 institutions, without looking for aid to 
 others ? I would ask, too, whether a 
 citizen, who views the government which 
 he sustains as pledged to wrong, deserves 
 reproach for laboring to bring it into 
 harmony with truth and rectitude ? 
 Does not the Constitution, in making 
 provision for its own amendment, imply 
 the possibility of defect, and warrant 
 free discussion of its various clauses ? 
 What avails our liberty of speech, if, on 
 a grave question of duty, we must hold 
 our peace ? If the citizen believes that 
 our very constitutional charter sanctions 
 wrong, is he not bound by his participa- 
 tion of the national sovereignty, by the 
 fact of his forming a portion of the body 
 politic, to utter his honest thought? 
 
 I proceed to consider another impor- 
 tant relation which the North bears to 
 slavery. We are bound, in case of an 
 insurrection of the slaves against their 
 masters, to put it down by force. This 
 we ought to do, for such an insurrection 
 would involve all the woes and crimes of 
 civil war in the most aggravated forms, 
 with no possibility of a beneficial result. 
 It would be cruelty, massacre, without 
 compensation or hope. The slaves are 
 
 incapable of substituting free institutions 
 for their bondage ; and extermination 
 or a heavier yoke would end their strug- 
 gles. We ought to disarm them ; but 
 ought we to replace their chains ? 
 Ought we to put them without protec- 
 tion under exasperated oppressors ? 
 Ought we not to feel that both parties 
 in this fearful conflict have rights ? 
 And ought we not to act as friends of 
 both ? Is there nothing at which our 
 minds revolt, in the thought of restoring 
 unmitigated slavery ; of giving back the 
 victim to the unrestrained power which, 
 under a spasmodic sense of wrong, he 
 has struggled to throw off ? Should 
 not every effort, short of physical force, 
 be employed to obtain for him a better, 
 a more righteous lot ? But the South, 
 as we well know, would reject such 
 mediation with scorn. Have we not, 
 then, painful relations to slavery ? Have 
 we not a deep interest in its aboli- 
 tion ? 
 
 In another view the North sustains re- 
 lations to slavery. Slavery is our near 
 neighbor ; and not a few among us grow 
 hardened to it by familiarity. It per- 
 verts our moral sense. We cannot hold 
 intimate connection, national union, with 
 a region where so great an abuse is 
 legalized, and yet escape contamination. 
 To say nothing of friendly, domestic in- 
 tercourse, our commercial relations with 
 the slave States give to not a few a 
 pecuniary interest in the institution. 
 The slave is mortgaged to the Northern 
 merchant. The slaves' toil is the North- 
 ern merchant's wealth, for it produces 
 the great staple on which all the com- 
 mercial dealings of the country turn. 
 As our merchants and manufacturers 
 cast their eyes southward, what do they 
 see ? Cotton, cotton, nothing but cot- 
 ton. This fills the whole horizon of the 
 South. What care they for the poor 
 human tools by whom it is reared ? 
 Their sympathies are with the man with 
 whom they deal, who trusts them and is 
 trusted by them, and not with the bond- 
 men, by whose sweat they thrive. 
 What change do they desire in a system 
 so gainful ? Under these various influ- 
 ences, the moral feeling of the North in 
 regard to slavery is more or less palsied. 
 IVIen call it in vague language an evil, 
 just as they call religion a good ; in both 
 cases giving assent to a lifeless form of 
 words, which they forget whilst they
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 791 
 
 utter them, and which have no power 
 over their lives. 
 
 There is another way in which South- 
 ern slavery bears seriously on the North. 
 It blends itself intimately with the whole 
 political action of the country, deter- 
 mines its parties, decides important 
 measures of government, is a brand of 
 discord, a fountain of bitter strifes, and, 
 whilst it lasts, will never suffer us to 
 become truly one people. We call our- 
 selves one, but slavery makes us two. 
 National unity implies a general unity of 
 character ; but slave States and free 
 States are severed by deep, indelible 
 differences of mind and feeling. In the 
 former, where one half of the population 
 are semi-barbarous or semi-brutal, and 
 the other half trained to mastery, to 
 lordship, there can be little comprehen- 
 sion of, and little sympathy with, the 
 latter, where the recognition of the equal 
 rights of all is the pervading principle of 
 government and of common life. The 
 South, counting labor degradation, must 
 look with contempt on the most impor- 
 tant and influential portions of the 
 North, that is, our great mechanic 
 and agricultural classes. From these 
 fundamental differences in the very 
 constitution of society must grow up 
 jealousies, real and imaginary collisions 
 of interest, mutual dislike, mutual fear. 
 Congress must be an arena in which 
 Northern and Southern parties will be 
 arrayed against each other ; and that 
 portion of the Union which has the 
 strongest bond of union within itself 
 will, on the whole, master the other. A 
 Northern man thinks it no hard thing to 
 show that slavery has chiefly ruled the 
 country, has deeply influenced Northern 
 commerce and manufactures, has played 
 off Northern parties against each other, 
 whilst a Southern man undoubtedly can 
 produce a list of grievances in return. 
 Thus slavery is the bane of our Union. 
 Nothing else can separate us. Without 
 this element of war and woe in our in- 
 stitutions, our nation would be more in- 
 dissolubly bound together by mutual 
 benefits than any other nation is by habit 
 and tradition. Have we, then, nothing 
 to do with slavery ? Is it the concern 
 of the South alone ? Are we bound to 
 keep silence on it, because it nowhere 
 touches us, because it is as foreign to us 
 as the slavery of Turkey and Russia ? 
 Oh no. It more than touches us. We 
 
 feel its grasp. We owe it to ourselves, 
 as well as to humanity, to do what we 
 lawfully and peacefully may to procure 
 its abolition. 
 
 I have thus considered at length the 
 right and fitness of discussing freely the 
 subject of slavery. Why is it that this 
 right is questioned ? W'hat lies at the 
 bottom of the charge against us, of un- 
 warrantable interference with what is not 
 our proper concern ? The real cause of 
 the complaint, though not suspected at the 
 South, is the insensibility which prevails 
 there in regard to this evil. Could the 
 slave-holder look on it from our point of 
 view, could he see it as we do, he would 
 no longer blame our remonstrances 
 against it. He would himself join the 
 cry. But here lies his unhappiness. 
 Long habit has hardened him to slavery. 
 Perhaps he calls it an evil, but this word 
 on his lips means something very differ- 
 ent from what it means on ours. Habit 
 is as powerful over the understanding 
 and conscience as over the will. An 
 institution handed down from our fa- 
 thers, sanctioned by laws, and under 
 which we have grown up, be it ever so 
 criminal, cannot shock us as it does a 
 stranger, and we naturally count the 
 stranger's rebuke an insult and wrong. 
 Here lies the vice of Mr. Clay's speech. 
 He silently assumes the innocence of 
 slavery. He does not dream of the 
 need of apologizing for himself as a 
 slave-holder. He cannot realize that, 
 in the view of the civilized world, this is 
 a brand, which shows through all the 
 brightness of his talents and fame. He 
 approaches the subject with a tone of 
 confidence, and, though the advocate of 
 flagrant injustice, takes the ground of an 
 injured man. We, who speak and write 
 against slavery, find our vindication and 
 our duty in the enormity of the evil. 
 Ho\v natural that those who have lived 
 in fellowship with the evil from their 
 birth should look on us as rash, unwar- 
 rantable meddlers with what is their 
 business alone ! 
 
 I have said that we rest the justice 
 and obligation of our moral efforts 
 against slavery on the greatness of the 
 evil. It might then be expected that, to 
 make out our case more fully. I should 
 enlarge on this topic, and show that 
 slavery is not an imaginary monster, but 
 a combination of wrongs and crimes and 
 woes not only justifying, but demand-
 
 792 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 ing, the opposition of all good men. 
 But I have, in a former publication, 
 travelled this ground, and I cannot un- 
 necessarily renew the pain which I then 
 suffered. There is, however, one topic 
 on which something should be said. I 
 refer to the common apology for slavery 
 by which the whole South, and not a few 
 at the North, conceal from themselves 
 the true character of this evil, and re- 
 pel as unwarrantable our efforts for its 
 destruction. Whenever the subject is 
 discussed, we are told that, through the 
 lenity of the master, the slave suffers 
 less than the laborer in most other coun- 
 tries. He has more comforts, we hear. 
 He is happier. To this refuge the 
 slave-holder always flies. -My next ob- 
 ject, therefore, and one intimately con- 
 nected with the preceding, will be to 
 examine this position. 
 
 I begin with observing, that it is hon- 
 orable to our times that such a defence 
 as this is urged and required. It shows 
 the progress of civilization and Christi- 
 anity, that the master holds himself 
 bound to maintain that his victim is 
 happier for his bondage. An ancient 
 Roman never thought of seeking a jus- 
 tification of slavery in its blessings, 
 never took the ground of his being a 
 benefactor to those whom he oppressed. 
 We have here a sign of the great moral 
 revolution which is making its way 
 through society ; and we may be as- 
 sured that, when slavery can only stand 
 on the footing of its beneficence, it is . 
 not far from its fall. 
 
 I have never been disposed to deny 
 that at the South slavery wore a milder 
 aspect than in other countries, though 
 by some this is strenuously denied. I 
 concede the fact ; and, still more, I can- 
 not doubt that the condition of the slave 
 continues to improve. The cry, that the 
 slave is treated more severely on account 
 of the abolition movement at the North, 
 cannot be true on the whole, though 
 particular restraints may be increased. 
 He is and must be treated more kindly. 
 We have here better evidence than 
 rumor. A master was never made more 
 Severe by having the eyes of the world 
 turned upon him, especially when the 
 world, as at present, is more than ever 
 penetrated with the spirit of humanity.* 
 Slavery exists at this moment under the 
 broad light of heaven. The sound of 
 
 * See Note B at end of this letter. 
 
 the lash resounds through the free 
 States, and through all nations. The 
 master is held responsible to his race for 
 his power. Can this make him "more 
 severe ? The defences which we hear 
 from the South set us at ease on this 
 point. The anxiety of the planter to 
 show the Northern visitor the comforts 
 of his slaves sets us at ease. Within a 
 short time, more than one gentle voice 
 of woman from the South has spoken to 
 me of the happiness of the slave. The 
 master feels that he can only keep him- 
 self within the pale of civilized society 
 by practising kindness to a certain ex- 
 tent. All his defenders at the North 
 plead his kindness. Who does not see 
 that, under these influences, the severi- 
 ties of the system must be mitigated, 
 and that the advocates of freedom are 
 doing immediate good to the poor creat- 
 ures whos. cause they espouse ? 
 
 I believe, too, that not only is the gen- 
 eral treatment of the slaves improved, 
 but that their religious means are in- 
 creased, in consequence of the agitation 
 at the North. We are told that they are 
 now denied instruction in reading. But 
 ministers, churches, masters, are waked 
 up, as never before, to the obligation of 
 giving to the slaves the blessings of 
 Christianity, and have a new anxiety to 
 roll away the reproach of bringing up 
 hordes of heathens within their borders. 
 I must say, however, that whilst we 
 must give credit to the South for in- 
 creased religious attention to the slave, 
 I expect little good from it. And I thus 
 speak, not merely from the reports of 
 intelligent witnesses, but from immuta- 
 ble moral principles. It is hard to graft 
 good on what is essentially evil and cor- 
 rupt ; hard for the man who oppresses 
 to exalt his victim. There is always a 
 tendency to unity in the various influ- 
 ences which a man exerts. To enslave 
 a human being, is to war against his 
 religious as truly as his social and phy- 
 sical nature. The African is, indeed, 
 very susceptible, and easily puts on the 
 show of piety. Nothing is easier than 
 to draw forth groans or shouts from a 
 colored congregation. Nothing easier 
 than to gather this people by crowds 
 into churches. But the slave is incapa- 
 ble of a nobler reverence towards God 
 than towards his master. He is equally, 
 I fear, a slave before both. This is one 
 of the evils of slavery, that it perverts,
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 793 
 
 turns into an instrument of degradation, 
 that highest sentiment of our nature, 
 reverence. In truth, it is hard to com- 
 prehend how tfie slave-holder can preach 
 the grand principles of Christianity ; how 
 he can set forth God as the Universal 
 Father, who looks on all men with an 
 equally tender love, and watches, with 
 an equal severity of justice, over the 
 rights of all. Indeed, how difficult must 
 it be for either masters or slaves to get 
 into the heart of this religion, to under- 
 stand its deep purpose, when the chief 
 element of such a community is in direct 
 hostility to its spirit. I speak not from 
 report, but from the general principles 
 of human nature ; and these would lead 
 me to fear that, in such a community, 
 the religion of the higher classes, as well 
 as of the lowest, must be, to an unusual 
 extent, one or another form of supersti- 
 tion, that is, a substitution of dogmas, 
 ceremonies, or feelings, for the manly 
 and enlightened piety which Jesus 
 taught, and which makes the worship of 
 God to consist chiefly in the imitation of 
 his universal justice and universal love. 
 This is somewhat of a digression, 
 though not exceeding the freedom of 
 epistolary communication. I return to 
 the subject. I acknowledge, and rejoice 
 to acknowledge, that slavery is mitigated 
 by kindness at the South, though, as we 
 shall see, it necessarily includes much 
 cruelty. I will allow to the full extent 
 what is urged in favor of the comforts 
 of a state of bondage, though the con- 
 cession is not warranted by facts. I 
 still say that the apology fails of its 
 end ; that it does not touch the essen- 
 tial, fundamental evil of slavery, which 
 is, the injustice it does to a human be- 
 ing. It is no excuse for wronging a man 
 that you make him as comfortable as 
 is consistent with the wrong. A man, 
 shutting me up in prison, would poorly 
 atone for his violation of my rights by 
 feeding and clothing me to my heart's 
 content. I claim from my oppressor, not 
 food and clothes, but freedom. I insist 
 that he leave to me, unrestrained, the 
 right of using my limbs and powers for 
 my own and others' good. A deep in- 
 stinct of my soul, founded at once in my 
 spiritual and physical nature, calls out 
 for personal liberty. No matter that 
 our chains are woven of silk. They are 
 as iron, because they are chains. Let a 
 master draw round us a line, which may 
 
 not be passed without our being driven 
 back by a whip ; and for this very rea- 
 son we should burn to escape. Such is 
 the thirst for freedom breathed by God 
 into the human spirit. Slavery is a vio- 
 lence to our nature, to which nothing 
 but abjectness can reconcile a man, and 
 which we honor him for repelling. 
 
 It is vain to say that the slave suffers 
 less than other laborers. We have no 
 right to inflict a suffering, greater or 
 less, on an innocent fellow-creature. In- 
 justice is injustice, be the extent of its 
 influence ever so confined. Were one 
 of our governments, by an act of usur- 
 pation, to abridge the free motions and 
 the rights of the laboring class, would 
 it be a mitigation of the wrong that the 
 laborer still exceeded in privileges and 
 means of pleasure the serfs of Russia ? 
 It is no excuse for keeping a man in the 
 dust, that you throw him better food 
 than he can earn by his free industry. 
 Be just before you are generous. The 
 lenity which quiets you in wrong-doing 
 becomes a crime. Do not boast of your 
 humanity to those whom you own, when 
 it is a cruel wrong to be their owner. 
 Some highwaymen have taken pride in 
 the gentlemanly, courteous style in which 
 they have eased the traveller of his 
 purse. They have given him back a part 
 of the spoils, that he might travel com- 
 fortably home. But they were robbers 
 still. A criminal relation cannot be 
 made virtuous by the mode of sustain- 
 ing it. Caesar was a clement dictator, 
 but usurpation did not therefore cease 
 to be a vice. 
 
 It is no excuse for taking possession 
 of a man, that we can make him hap- 
 pier. We are poor judges of another's 
 happiness. He was made to work it 
 out for himself. Our opinion of his best 
 interests is particularly to be distrusted, 
 when our own interest is to be advanced 
 by making him our tool. Especially if, 
 to make him happy, we must drive him 
 as a brute, subject him to the lash, it is 
 plainly time to give up our philanthropic 
 efforts, and to let him seek .his good in 
 his own way. 
 
 Allow that the sufferings of the slave 
 are less than those of the free laborer. 
 But these sufferings are wrongs, and this 
 changes their nature. Pain as pain, is 
 nothing compared with pain when it is a 
 wrong. A blow, given me by accident, 
 may fell me to the earth ; but, after all,
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 it is a trifle. A slight blow, inflicted in 
 scorn or with injurious intent, is an evil 
 which, without aid from my principles, 
 I could not bear. Let God's providence 
 confine me to my room by disease, and I 
 more than submit, for in his dispensa- 
 tions I see parental goodness seeking my 
 purity and peace. But let man imprison 
 me, without inflicting disease, and how 
 intolerable my narrow bounds ! So, if 
 the elements take away our property, we 
 resign it without a murmur ; but if man 
 rob us of our fortune, poverty weighs 
 on us as a mountain. Any thing can be 
 borne but the will and the power of the 
 selfish, unrighteous man. There is also 
 this difference between sufferings from 
 God or nature, and sufferings from hu- 
 man injustice. The former we are al- 
 most always able to soften or remove by 
 industry and skill, by studying the laws 
 of nature, or by seeking aid and sym- 
 pathy from men. These sufferings are 
 intended to awaken our powers and to 
 strengthen social dependencies. Nature 
 opposes us that we may resist her, and, 
 by resistance, may grow strong. But 
 the owner of his fellow-creatures re- 
 sents the resistance as a wrong, and 
 cuts them off from help from their kind. 
 
 It will be said that the slave has noth- 
 ing of this consciousness of his wrongs, 
 which adds such weight to sufferings. 
 He has no self-respect, we hear, to be 
 wounded when he is lashed. To him, as 
 to the ox, a blow is but a blow. And is 
 this an apology for slavery, that it de- 
 stroys all sense of wrongs, blunts the 
 common sensibilities of human nature, 
 makes man tamer than the nobler ani- 
 mals under inflicted pain? It is this 
 prostration of self-respect and of just 
 indignation for wrongs which sets an 
 additional seal on slavery as an outrage 
 on humanity. But it is not true that the 
 spirit of a man is wholly killed in the 
 slave. The moral nature never dies. 
 He often feels a wrong in the violence 
 which he cannot resist. He has often 
 bitter hatred towards the cruel overseer. 
 He ponders in secret over his oppressed 
 lot. There are deep groans of conscious 
 injury and revenge, which, though smoth- 
 ered by fear, do not less agonize the 
 soul. 
 
 In these remarks we have seen how 
 much the slave may suffer, though little 
 of what is called cruelty enters into his 
 lot. My hostility to the system does 
 
 not rest primarily on the physical ago- 
 nies it inflicts, but on a deeper founda- 
 tion, on its flagrant injustice, and on 
 the misery necessarily involved in a sys- 
 tem of wrong. Slavery, however, is not 
 to be absolved from the guilt of cruelty. 
 However tempered with kindness, it 
 does and must bear this brand. Who 
 that knows human nature can question 
 whether irresponsible power will be 
 abused ? Such power breeds the very 
 passions which make abuse sure. Be- 
 sides, it is exposed to great temptation. 
 Slaves are necessarily irritating. Their 
 laziness, thievishness, lying propensi- 
 ties, sulkiness, the natural fruits of their 
 condition, are sore trials to those placed 
 over them. Slavery necessarily gener- 
 ates in its victims the very vices which 
 are most fitted to fret and exasperate 
 the owner or overseer. Under such 
 circumstances, more cruelty might be 
 expected than exists. After all the in- 
 stances of barbarity we hear from the 
 South, the patience of the slave-holder is 
 more to be wondered at than his severity. 
 The relation he sustains is the last for a 
 good man to covet. It is, of all others, 
 most fitted to nourish the passions 
 against which religion calls us to watch. 
 He who would not be " led into temp- 
 tation " should cast away with dread 
 irresponsible power over his fellow- 
 creatures. That, under such circum- 
 stances, selfishness, the passion for 
 dominion, avarice, anger, impatience, 
 lust, should break out into fearful ex- 
 cesses, is as necessary as that the stone 
 should fall, or the fire destroy. 
 
 One instance of cruelty at the South 
 has lately found its way into some of 
 our papers, and that is, the employment 
 of bloodhounds in parts of the new 
 States for the recovery, or. if this be 
 resisted, for the destruction, of the 
 fugitive slaves. This statement has 
 been questioned or denied by those 
 who incline to favorable views of the 
 whole subject, as an atrocity too mon- 
 strous for belief. I have not inquired 
 into its authenticity. But that one 
 breed of bloodhounds exist at the 
 South, we know, a breed not armed 
 with fangs, but rifles, and who shoot 
 down the fugitive when no other way 
 is left for arresting his flight. And 
 where lies the difference between tear- 
 ing his flesh by teeth, or sending bullets 
 through his heart, skull, or bowels ?
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 795 
 
 My humanity can draw no lines between 
 these infernal modes of despatching a 
 fellow-creature, guilty of no offence but 
 that of asserting one of the primary, 
 inalienable rights of his nature. It is 
 bad enough to oppress a man ; but, 
 when he escapes from oppression, to 
 pursue him with mortal weapons, to 
 shatter his bones, to mutilate him, and 
 thus send him from a weary life with 
 an agonizing, bloody death, is murder 
 in an aggravated form. The laws which 
 sanction the shooting of the flying slave 
 are, to my mind, attempts to legalize 
 murder. They who uphold them do, 
 however unconsciously, uphold murder. 
 It is vain to say that this is an accom- 
 paniment of slavery which cannot be 
 avoided. The accompaniment proves 
 the character of the system. It is a 
 fearful law of our condition that crimes 
 cannot stand alone. Slavery and mur- 
 der go hand-in-hand. Having taken the 
 first step in a system of cruelty and 
 wrong, we can set no bounds to our 
 career. 
 
 Still, I do not charge cruelty on sla- 
 very as its worst evil. The great evil 
 is the contempt and violation of human 
 rights, the injustice which treats a man 
 as a brute, and which breaks his spirit 
 to make him a human tool. It t is the 
 injustice which denies him the means 
 of improvement, which denies him scope 
 for his powers, which dooms him to an 
 unchangeable lot, which robs him of 
 the primitive right of human nature, 
 that of bettering his outward and in- 
 ward state. It is the injustice which 
 converts his social connections into a 
 curse. Here, perhaps, the influence of 
 slavery is most blighting. Our social 
 connections are intended by God to be 
 among our chief means of improvement 
 and happiness ; and a system which 
 wars with these is the most cruel out- 
 rage on our nature. Other men's chief 
 relations are to wife and children, to 
 brother and sister, to beings endeared 
 by nature, and who awaken the heart 
 to tenderness and faithful love. The 
 slave's chief relation is to his owner, 
 to the man who wrongs him. This it 
 is which above all things determines his 
 lot, and this infuses poison into all his 
 other social connections. This destroys 
 the foundation of domestic happiness, 
 by sullying female purity, by extinguish- 
 ing in woman the sense of honor. This 
 
 violates the sanctity of the marriage 
 bond. This tears the wife from the 
 husband, or condemns her to insult, 
 perhaps laceration, in his sight. This 
 takes from the parent his children. His 
 children belong to another, and are dis- 
 posed of for another's gain. Thus 
 God's great provisions for softening, 
 refining, elevating human nature, are 
 thwarted. Thus social ties are liable 
 to be turned into bitterness and wrong. 
 An ecclesiastical document which ap- 
 peared not long ago in some of our 
 papers is a strong illustration of the 
 influence of slavery on the relations of 
 domestic life. It confirms what we 
 have often heard, that the slaves are 
 commanded to marry or live together, 
 for the purpose of keeping up the stock 
 of the estate. It shows us, too, that 
 when slaves are sold at a distance from 
 their original homes, they are com- 
 manded to give up the wives or hus- 
 bands whom they have left, and to serve 
 the estate by forming new connections. 
 Against this tyranny, one would think 
 that the slave would find some protec- 
 tion in his religious teachers. One 
 would think that the Christian minister 
 would interpose to save the colored 
 member of the church from being 
 forced to renounce the wife from whom 
 he had been torn ; that he would strug- 
 gle to rescue him from an adulterous 
 union, against which his affections as 
 well as sense of duty may revolt. But, 
 according to this document, an associa- 
 tion of ministers decreed, that the slave, 
 sold at a distance from his home, was 
 to be regarded as dead to his former 
 wife ; that he was not to be treated in 
 this concern as a free agent ; that he 
 was not to be countenanced by the 
 church in resisting his master's will. 
 The document is given below.* What 
 
 * The following extract is made from the "Anti- 
 slavery Record" of February 9, 1836: 
 
 " The following query was, not long since, pre- 
 sented to the Savannah River Baptist Association of 
 Ministers : ' Whether, in case of involuntary separa- 
 tion of such a character as to preclude all prospect of 
 future intercourse, the parties ought to be allowed to 
 marry again?' This query was put in regard to hus- 
 band and wife separated by sale, an every-day result 
 of the great internal slave-trade. They answered, 
 ' That such separation, among persons situated as our 
 slaves are, is civilly a separation by death ; and they 
 believe that in the sight of God it would be so viewed. 
 To forbid second marriages in such case would be to 
 expose the parties, not only to stronger hardships and 
 strong temptations, but to church censure for acting in 
 disobedience to their masters, who cannot be expected 
 to acquiesce in a regulation at variance with justice to 
 the slaves, and to the spirit of that command which
 
 796 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 a comment on Southern institutions ! 
 It shows how religion is made their 
 tool, how Christianity is used to do 
 violence to the most sacred feelings and 
 ties, that the breed of slaves may be 
 kept up. It shows us that this iniqui- 
 tous system pollutes by its touch the 
 divinest, the holiest provision of God 
 for human happiness and virtue. 
 
 There is a short method of palliating 
 these and all the enormities of slavery, 
 which is more and more resorted to 
 at the South. The slave-holder looks 
 abroad on the world, and, finding in 
 other countries a great amount of hard- 
 ship, crime, prostitution, penury, woe, 
 he proceeds to say, that these are the 
 lot of humanity, and that they are not 
 borne more extensively or painfully in 
 slave countries than in others, perhaps 
 even less. Why, then, is slavery so 
 great an evil ? Without stopping to 
 examine these alleged facts, I see an 
 important difference in the cases brought 
 into comparison. In other civilized 
 countries, the evils charged on them are 
 seen and deplored, and it is acknowl- 
 edged that earnest efforts should be 
 made for their removal. Religion and 
 philanthropy, though still half-slumber- 
 ing, are waking up to a sense of great 
 responsibility, and to new struggles with 
 the giant evils of society. It is acknowl- 
 edged that, as far as institutions entail 
 on the great laboring class poverty, vice, 
 prostitution, domestic infidelity, and bru- 
 tal debasement of intellect and heart, 
 they ought to be changed. Nowhere 
 but in slave countries are the civil power, 
 the sword, the laws, the wealth, the 
 religion of a community, deliberately 
 pledged to the support of a system which 
 is known and acknowledged to deprive 
 one-half of the people of property and 
 civil rights, known to doom them to 
 perpetual ignorance and licentiousness, 
 known to rob the individual of the 
 means of progress, and to poison the 
 sources 'of domestic well-being. To 
 slave countries belongs the presumptu- 
 ousness of ordaining the perpetual de- 
 basement of half the community, on no 
 better ground than that from the laws 
 of nature a large amount of evil must 
 adhere to the social state. What ! 
 
 regulates marriage among Christians. The slaves are 
 not free agents ; and a dissolution by death is not more 
 entirely without their consent and beyond their control 
 than by such separation.' " 
 
 Does Providence intend no progress in 
 human affairs ? Does Christianity en- 
 courage and enjoin no efforts for a hap- 
 pier condition of humanity ? Is man to 
 take his rules of conduct towards his 
 fellow-creatures from the corruptions 
 which barbarous times have transmitted 
 to the present ? May man, sheltering 
 himself under Divine Providence, per- 
 petuate evils which God, through the 
 conscience and by his Son, commands 
 us, to the extent of our power, to dimin- 
 ish and to expel from the social state ? 
 
 To return to the kindness which is 
 said to be practised at the South towards 
 the slaves. I wish not to disparage it. 
 Let us open our eyes to whatever is 
 beautiful or promising in human life. 
 I could laud this kindness as heartily 
 as any man, did I not find it used, both 
 here and at the South, as a buttress to 
 the tottering cause of slavery. I am 
 bound, therefore, to inquire into its real 
 value, to give it its due, but nothing 
 more than its due. One obvious remark 
 is, that kindness without justice is of 
 little moral worth. It is a feeling rather 
 than a principle. Principle enjoins jus- 
 tice, and will not offer favors as an 
 atonement for wrongs. Again, the kind- 
 ness at the South, of which we hear, 
 finds its occasion in a dependence and 
 helplessness which the kind agent has 
 himself created. Is there much merit 
 in taking care of those whom we have 
 stripped of all property, of self-help, of 
 all the means of taking care of them- 
 selves ? There is another subtraction 
 from kindness to the slave, inasmuch as 
 it is a matter of interest. The human 
 machine cannot work without food, rai- 
 ment, and health ; and, in times like the 
 present, when slave-labor is more than 
 usually profitable, there cannot be a 
 better investment of money than in com- 
 forts which keep the slave in a working 
 state. A more important consideration 
 is, that the kindness to the slaves is not 
 of the right stamp. It wants a moral 
 character. The master is kind to them 
 because they are his own, not because 
 they are fellow-creatures. The true, 
 grand foundation of love is wanting. 
 How kind are men to dogs and horses 
 which they have long owned ! They 
 feed them, caress them, admit them 
 to their familiarity. But the sort of 
 kindness which is shown to the brute 
 becomes a wrong and insult when ex-
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION, 
 
 797 
 
 tended to the man. He must be loved 
 and respected as a man. This is his 
 due ; and, had he the feelings of a man, 
 nothing else would content him. The 
 slave is treated kindly because he is a 
 slave, and has the spirit of a slave. 
 Once let the spirit of a man wake in 
 him, once let him know his rights, and 
 show his knowledge in words, looks, and 
 bearing, and immediately he falls under 
 suspicion and dislike ; and a severity, 
 designed to break him down, is substi- 
 tuted for kindness. He is less liked in 
 proportion as he acts from a principle 
 in his own breast, and not from his mas- 
 ter's will. And what is the worth of 
 such kindness ? The slave, were he not 
 so degraded, would regard it as a cruel 
 mockery. Again, I cannot but think 
 that a good deal of the kindness at the 
 South has for its object to quiet the 
 self-reproach which, at this age, can 
 hardly but exist in a latent state in the 
 slave-holder's breast. Men must, in 
 some way or other, strike up a peace 
 with their own consciences. He who 
 holds his fellow-creatures in bondage 
 must reconcile himself to himself ; and 
 nowhere is the task so difficult as in a 
 free country, where the master claims 
 liberty as an inalienable right, and clings 
 to it more than to life. In such a coun- 
 try he can only escape the consciousness 
 of wrong by flattering himself that he is 
 the benefactor of the slave. But kind- 
 ness, when thus made an opiate to con- 
 science, is more a crime than a virtue. 
 As a conclusion to this head, I am will- 
 ing and happy to acknowledge that the 
 kindness of the South to the slave is to 
 be ascribed, in part, to the religious and 
 moral improvements of the times. We 
 live under brighter lights than former 
 generations ; and these influences pene- 
 trate into all the relations of life. But 
 the "lights which induce the master to 
 use his power more mercifully do not 
 finish their mission by this teaching. 
 They command him to renounce his 
 power altogether. They convict him 
 of usurpation. The principles which 
 persuade him to be a lenient owner, if 
 carried out, forbid him to be an owner 
 at all. That state of civilization which 
 dictates mercy towards the slave, makes 
 slavery a greater crime. Oppression is 
 to be measured, not by i':s weight, but 
 by the light under which it is practised. 
 To rob men of liberty in an age which 
 
 recognizes human rights, and God's 
 equal love to all his human creatures, is 
 a very different thing from enslaving 
 men in ages of darkness and despotism. 
 A slight cruelty now is a more heinous 
 crime than an atrocity in barbarous 
 times. Must we not feel, then, that sla- 
 very among us, however mild, has a 
 guilt in the sight of God unknown be- 
 fore ? Its very kindnesses, extorted 
 from it by the clear lights of religion 
 and freedom, become testimonies to its 
 
 fuilt. This may seem severe. But God 
 nows that my desire is, not to give pain, 
 but to set forth what seems to me great 
 moral truth, for the benefit of my fel- 
 low-creatures. 
 
 I have thus attempted to show that 
 there is nothing in the mitigating cir- 
 cumstances of slavery to diminish the 
 reprobation with which it is regarded 
 by the civilized world ; and nothing to 
 justify the charge brought against its 
 opposers, of unwarrantable interference. 
 Having finished this part of my task, I 
 shall now pass to those portions of Mr. 
 Clay's speech in which he meets the 
 arguments against slavery by attempt- 
 ing to show that emancipation is im- 
 possible. The arguments on which he 
 rests are chiefly these, the amount 
 of property which would be sacrificed 
 by emancipation ; next, the amalgama- 
 tion of the races ; and, lastly, the civil 
 wars, ending in extermination of one or 
 the other race, which would follow the 
 measure. I shall consider these in their 
 order. 
 
 Mr. Clay maintains that " the total 
 value of the slave property in the United 
 States is twelve hundred millions of 
 dollars," and considers this "immense 
 amount " as putting the freedom of the 
 slave out of the question. Who can be 
 expected to make such a sacrifice ? The 
 accuracy of this valuation of the slaves 
 I have nothing to do with. I admit it 
 without dispute. But the impression 
 made on my mind by the vastness of 
 the sum is directly the reverse of the 
 effect on Mr. Clay. Regarding slavery 
 as throughout a wrong, I see, in the 
 immenseness of the value of the slaves, 
 the enormous amount of the robbery 
 committed on them. I see " twelve 
 hundred millions of dollars " seized, ex- 
 torted by unrighteous force. I know 
 not on the face of the earth a system 
 of such enormous spoliation. I know
 
 793 
 
 nowhere injustice on such a giant scale. 
 And yet the vast amount of this wrong 
 is, in the view of many, a reason for its 
 continuance ! If I strip my neighbor 
 of a few dollars, I ought to restore 
 them ; but if I have spoiled him of his 
 all, and grown rich on the spoils, I must 
 not be expected to make restitution ! 
 Justice, when it will cost much, loses 
 its binding power. What makes the 
 present case more startling is, that this 
 vast amount of property consists not 
 of the goods of injured men, but of 
 the men themselves. Here are human 
 nerves, living men, worth, at the market 
 price, " twelve hundred millions of dol- 
 lars." That this enormous wrong should 
 be perpetuated in the bosom of a Chris- 
 tian and civilized community, is a sad 
 comment on our times. Sad and strange, 
 that a distinguished man, in the face of 
 a great people and of the world, should 
 talk with entire indifference of fellow- 
 creatures, held and labelled as property, 
 to this " immense amount." 
 
 But this property, we are told, is not 
 to be questioned, on account of its long 
 duration. " Two hundred years of leg- 
 islation have sanctioned and sanctified 
 negro slaves as property." Nothing but 
 respect for the speaker could repress 
 criticism on this unhappy phraseology. 
 We will trust it escaped him without 
 thought. But to confine ourselves to 
 the argument from duration ; how ob- 
 "vious the reply ! Is injustice changed 
 into justice by the practice of ages ? Is 
 my victim made a righteous prey because 
 I have bowed him to the earth till he 
 cannot rise ? For more than two hun- 
 dred years heretics were burned, and 
 not by mobs, not by Lynch law, but by 
 the decrees of councils, at the instiga- 
 tion of theologians, and with the sanc- 
 tion of the laws and religions of nations ; 
 and was this a reason for keeping up the 
 fires, that they had burned two hundred 
 years? In the Eastern world, succes- 
 sive despots, not for two hundred years, 
 but for twice two thousand, have claimed 
 the right of life and death over millions, 
 and, with no law but their own will, have 
 beheaded, bowstrung, starved, tortured 
 unhappy men without number, who have 
 incurred their wrath ; and does the lapse 
 of so many centuries sanctify murder and 
 ferocious power ? 
 
 But the great argument remains. It 
 is said that this property must not be 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 questioned, because it is established by 
 law. " That is property which the law 
 declares to be property." * Thus hu- 
 man law is made supreme, decisive in a 
 great question of morals. Thus the idea 
 of an eternal, immutable justice is set 
 at nought. Thus the great rule of hu- 
 man life is made to be the ordinance 
 of interested men. But there is a higher 
 tribunal, a throne of equal justice, im- 
 movable by the conspiracy of all human 
 legislatures. " That is property which 
 the law declares to be property." Then 
 the laws have only to declare you, or 
 me, or Mr. Clay, to be property, and 
 we become chattels, and are bound to 
 bear the yoke ! Does not even man's 
 moral nature repel this doctrine too in- 
 tuitively to leave time or need for argu- 
 ment ? 
 
 I always hear with pain the doctrine 
 too common among lawyers, that prop- 
 erty is the creature of the law : as if it 
 had no natural foundation, as if it were 
 not a natural right, as if it did not pre- 
 cede all laws, and were not their ground 
 instead of being their effect. Govern- 
 ment is ordained, not to create so much 
 as to protect and regulate property ; and 
 the chief strength of government lies 
 in the sanction which the moral sense, 
 the natural idea of right, gives to hon- 
 estly earned possessions. The notion 
 which I am combating is essentially 
 revolutionary and destructive. We hear 
 much of radicalism, of agrarianism, at the 
 present day. But of all radicals, the 
 most dangerous, perhaps, is he who 
 makes property the " creature of law ; " 
 because what law creates it can destroy. 
 If we of this Commonwealth have no 
 right in our persons, houses, ships, 
 farms, but what a vote of the legislat- 
 ure or the majority confers, then a vote 
 of the same masses may strip us of them 
 all, and transfer them to others ; "and 
 the right will go with the law. Accord- 
 ing to this doctrine, I see not why the 
 majority, who are always comparatively 
 poor, may not step into the mansions 
 and estates of the rich. I see not why 
 the law cannot make some idle neighbor 
 the rightful owner of your fortune or 
 mine. What better support can radi- 
 calism ask than this ? 
 
 It may be objected that legislation 
 does, in fact, touch and take a part of 
 the citizens' property, and if a part, why 
 
 * The italics are by Mr. Clay.
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 799 
 
 not the whole ? I reply, that the gen- 
 eral end for which legislation touches 
 property is to make it more secure. It 
 levies taxes for the execution of laws, 
 under which all property is safe. I 
 reply again, that a righteous legislature, 
 in touching property, still shows its re- 
 spect by equalizing, as far as possible, 
 the burdens it imposes, and by making 
 compensation, when it can, for what it 
 alienates or destroys. I am aware, in- 
 deed, that legislation may, in certain 
 circumstances, make important changes 
 in the tenure of property; and the rea- 
 son is, that property is not the only hu- 
 man right, and consequently that it may 
 sometimes come into collision with other 
 rights, in which case all are to be rec- 
 onciled according to the highest moral 
 law. Thus a community threatened 
 with destruction may appropriate to its 
 use what it cannot restore ; or it may 
 set bounds to the individual accumula- 
 tion of wealth, where this shall plainly 
 menace ruin to its institutions. The 
 right of gaining property, being uni- 
 versal, does itself require that the in- 
 dividual shall not be suffered so to 
 accumulate as to take from multitudes 
 the chance of earning means of support, 
 or as to create a power dangerous to 
 the rights of any class of citizens. Ac- 
 cording to these principles, entails may 
 be forbidden, and laws relating to testa- 
 ments may be so framed as to break up 
 overgrown estates. But, in all these 
 cases, legislation, in touching property, 
 treats it with reverence, and acknowl- 
 edges its foundation in immutable jus- 
 tice. There are, then, principles of 
 property which no laws can move. 
 Man cannot make and un'make it at 
 will. As he is physically unable to 
 turn the sun and air into private pos- 
 sessions, so he is morally incompetent 
 to turn his fellow-creatures into chat- 
 tels. Both cases are out of the province 
 of law. Even Mr. Clay, in urging the 
 wrong which would be done to slave- 
 holders, should the law strip them of 
 their slaves, acknowledges that law is 
 not the supreme rule of right : for, if it 
 were, with what face could they com- 
 plain of being wrongfully dispossessed ? 
 Mr. Clay, having thus summarily set- 
 tled the validity of the slave-holder's 
 claim, goes on to affirm that the opposite 
 doctrine the doctrine that man cannot 
 be rightfully seized and held as prop- 
 
 erty is "a visionary dogma," "the 
 wild speculation of theorists and inno- 
 vators." Does not Mr. Clay know that 
 the English nation, from its highest to 
 its lowest ranks, with scarce an excep- 
 tion, pronounces the pretended right of 
 property in men an aggravated wrong ? 
 Does he not know that this same doc- 
 trine pervades the continent ? that, 
 indeed, it is the acknowledged senti- 
 ment of Europe, with the exception of 
 Russia and Turkey ? Does he not know 
 that it is the faith of the vast majority in 
 the free States ? In truth, I know none 
 who in their hearts believe that man 
 may rightfully be made property, with 
 the exception of some technical law- 
 yers, a body too much inclined to 
 exalt precedents above principles, to 
 make the statute-book the standard of 
 truth and duty, and practically to recog- 
 nize no higher law than that of a major- 
 ity or a king. 
 
 I maintain, then, that the slave-holder 
 has no defence in law, or in the opinion 
 of the civilized world, for continuing to 
 hold slaves. He is bound to free them, 
 and to do it the sooner on account of 
 their great value. He has held this vast 
 amount of others' property long enough, 
 and the rightful owners have ground for 
 urgency in proportion to the extent and 
 duration of their wrongs. 
 
 " But must the slave-holder make 
 himself poor ? " says many a man at the 
 North, as well as at the South. I 
 answer, by asking those who put the 
 question, what they would deem to be 
 their own duty, should they find them- 
 selves in possession of a large amount 
 belonging to their neighbor ? Would 
 they go on to hold it, because honesty 
 would make them poor ? Then they 
 are criminal, and deserve to join their 
 partners in the State prison. He who 
 is just only as long as justice will secure 
 him a warm home and the comforts of 
 life, should be called by his right name, 
 an unprincipled man. I cannot doubt 
 that multitudes at the South, if thor- 
 oughly convinced of holding what is not 
 their own, would renounce it in obedi- 
 ence to God and justice. 
 
 But a more important objection re- 
 mains. Men of honor and principle, 
 who recognize immediately the obliga- 
 tion of individuals to restore what is not 
 their own, will tell me that, in the present 
 case, not merely individuals, but states,
 
 8oo 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 bodies politic, with their order and es- 
 sential interests, are concerned ; that 
 when a particular kind of property be- 
 comes inwoven with all the possessions, 
 transactions, and habits of a commu- 
 nity, sudden changes in it may induce 
 universal bankruptcy, and threaten soci- 
 ety with dissolution ; and they may ask 
 whether I am prepared, in such cases, 
 to insist punctiliously on giving every 
 man his due ? I answer, that this rea- 
 soning applies only to what may be law- 
 fully held as property, to material things, 
 such as houses and lands. It is acknowl- 
 edged that a man's right to these is 
 controlled and superseded in extreme 
 cases, when the assertion of it would 
 bring great evils on the state. This is 
 a fundamental restriction on the right of 
 property. But, in allowing this, I do 
 not allow that human beings, God's 
 rational and moral creatures, who can- 
 not be held as property without unut- 
 terable wrong, may still be retained as 
 chattels, from apprehensions of evils 
 which restoration of their rights may 
 bring on the state. No fear of conse- 
 quences can authorize us to violate an 
 eternal, immutable law of justice. I 
 deny, however, that the dreaded conse- 
 quences of doing right in the case before 
 us can occur. I deny that Providence 
 has ordained, or can ever ordain, rem- 
 ediless injustice as an essential condi- 
 tion of social security. On what ground 
 is this wide-spreading ruin to be feared, 
 from destroying property in slaves ? Is 
 emancipation an untried thing? Has it 
 not been carried through again and 
 again, in countries where social order 
 was less confirmed, and ideas of prop- 
 erty were looser, than among ourselves ? 
 In the West Indies, has not the revolu- 
 tion been suddenly accomplished without 
 the least shock to property ? Have we 
 not reason to believe that the price of 
 real estate has risen under the change ? 
 The slave is a working machine ; and is 
 his power to work paralyzed by liberty ? 
 Does not the master, possessing as he 
 does the soil and capital, possess unfail- 
 ing means of obtaining from the colored 
 man, whether bond or free, the labor 
 required for the cultivation of the earth ? 
 And with this grand original source of 
 all wealth untouched, is not society 
 secured against universal insolvency ? 
 How apt are men to raise phantoms to ter- 
 rify themselves from an unwelcome duty ! 
 
 Mr. Clay insists that the slave-holder 
 has a right to full compensation from 
 those who call on him to surrender his 
 slaves. I utterly deny such a right in a 
 man who surrenders what is not his own. 
 I cheerfully acknowledge, however, that 
 whilst, in strict justice, the slave-holder 
 has no claim to indemnity, he has a title 
 to sympathy and equitable consideration. 
 A man who, by conscientious and hon- 
 orable relinquishment of what he dis- 
 covers to be another's, makes himself 
 comparatively poor, deserves respect 
 and liberal aid. There are few at the 
 North who would not joyfully acquiesce 
 in the plan of that distinguished states- 
 man, Rufus King, for large appropria- 
 tions of the public land to the indem- 
 nifying of sufferers under an act of 
 universal abolition. 
 
 It is believed, however, that compen- 
 sation, even on the most liberal scale, 
 would not be a great amount : for the 
 planters, in general, would suffer little, 
 if at all, from emancipation. This 
 change would make them richer, rather 
 than poorer. One would think, indeed, 
 from the/ common language on the sub- 
 ject, that the negroes were to be annihi- 
 lated by being set free ; that the whole 
 labor of the South was to be destroyed 
 by a single blow. But the colored man, 
 when freed, will not vanish from the 
 soil. He will stand there with the same 
 muscles as before, only strung anew by 
 liberty ; with the same limbs to toil, and 
 with stronger motives to toil than before. 
 He will receive wages, instead of a fixed 
 allowance ; and wages are found, in many 
 parts of the West Indies, to get from 
 him nearly twice the labor which he per- 
 formed during bondage. He will work 
 from hope, not fear ; will work for him- 
 self, not for others ; and unless all the 
 principles of human nature are reversed 
 under a black skin, he will work better 
 than before. For what mighty loss, 
 then, does the slave-holder need com- 
 pensation ? We believe that agriculture 
 will revive, worn-out soils be renewed, 
 and the whole country assume a bright- 
 er aspect under free labor. The slave- 
 holder, in relinquishing what is anoth- 
 er's, will add a new value to what is 
 unquestionably his own. 
 
 The next objection to emancipation 
 is, that it will produce an amalgamation 
 of the white and colored races. This 
 objection is a strange one from a resi-
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 So I 
 
 dent at the South. Can any impartial 
 man fear that amalgamation will, in any 
 event, go on more rapidly than at 
 the present moment ? Slavery tends 
 directly to intermingle the races. It 
 robs the colored female of protection 
 against licentiousness. Still worse, it 
 robs her of self-respect. It dooms her 
 class to prostitution. Nothing but free- 
 dom can give her the feelings ot' a 
 woman, and can shield her from brutal 
 lust. Slavery does something worse 
 than sell off her children. It makes 
 her a stranger to the delicacy of her 
 sex. Undoubtedly a smile will be pro- 
 voked by expressions of concern for 
 the delicacy of a colored woman. But 
 is this a conventional, arbitrary accom- 
 plishment, appropriate only to a white 
 skin ? Is it not the fit, natural, beau- 
 tiful adorning which God designed for 
 every woman ; and does not a curse 
 belong to an institution which blights 
 it not accidentally, but by a necessary, 
 fixed operation ? It is the relation of 
 property in human beings which gen- 
 erates the impure connections of the 
 South, and which prevents the natural 
 repugnance growing out of difference 
 of color from exerting its power. As 
 far as marriage is concerned, there 
 seems to be a natural repugnance be- 
 tween the races ; and in saying this, no 
 unfeeling contempt is expressed towards 
 either race. Marriage is an affair of 
 taste. We do not marry the old ; yet 
 how profoundly we respect them. How 
 few women would a man of refinement 
 consent to marry ; yet he honors the 
 sex. The barrier of color, as far as 
 this particular connection is concerned, 
 implies no degradation of the African 
 race. There seems, as I have said, a 
 repugnance in nature ; but, if not nat- 
 ural, the prejudice is as strong as an 
 innate feeling ; and how much it may 
 be relied on to prevent connections, we 
 may judge from the whole experience 
 of the North. There is another secu- 
 rity against this union in our country. 
 I refer to the mark which has been set 
 on the colored race by their past sla- 
 very, a mark which generations will 
 not efface, and in which the whites will 
 have no desire to participate. Even 
 were the slaves of the South of our 
 own color, and were slavery to fix on 
 them and on their children some badge 
 or memorial, such as the impress of a 
 
 lash on the forehead, or of a chain on 
 the cheek, how few among the class of 
 free descent would be anxious to ally 
 themselves with this separated portion 
 of the race ! The spirit of caste, which 
 almost seems the strongest in human 
 nature, will certainly postpone amalga- 
 mation long enough to give the world 
 opportunity to understand and manage 
 the subject much better than ourselves. 
 To continue a system of wrong from 
 dread of such evils, only shows the in- 
 genuity of power in defending itself. 
 The fable of the wolf and the lamb 
 drinking at the same stream comes 
 spontaneously to our thoughts. But 
 allowing what I have contested, allow- 
 ing that amalgamation is to be antici- 
 pated, then I maintain we have no right 
 to resist it. Then it is not unnatural. 
 If the tendencies to it ' are so strong 
 that they can only be resisted by a sys- 
 tematic degradation of a large portion 
 of our fellow-creatures, then God in- 
 tended it to take place, and resistance 
 to it is opposition to his will. What a 
 strange reason for oppressing a race of 
 fellow-beings, that, if we restore them 
 to their rights, we shall marry them ! 
 I proceed to the last objection to 
 emancipation. We are told that it will 
 stir up the two races to a war, which 
 nothing but the slavery or extermina- 
 tion of one or the other will end. We 
 have often heard of the " fears of the 
 brave," so that we ought not, perhaps, 
 to wonder at the alarm here expressed. 
 And yet we are somewhat surprised 
 that "the chivalry of the South " should 
 see in the colored man a formidable foe, 
 and should be willing to put forth their 
 fears as a defence of their injustice. 
 Superior as the slave-holders are in 
 number, holding all the property and 
 civil power, distinguished by education, 
 by skill in arms, and by singular daring, 
 and backed by the whole power of the 
 free States, can they seriously dread 
 collisions ? All our fear here is, that 
 the colored man, though freed, will re- 
 main a slave, will be crushed by the 
 lordly spirit, the high bearing of the 
 white race ; that he will not for a long 
 time rise to a just self-respect. We 
 fear that, in a country where the law of 
 honor and Lynch law are rife, he cannot 
 enjoy that equality before the civil laws 
 to which freedom will give him a nom- 
 inal claim. We fear that, among a peo-
 
 802 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 pie who take the protection of their 
 persons and character into their own 
 hands, and shoot down the man who 
 offers an insult, the poor colored race, 
 whose assertion of rights will easily be 
 construed into insolence, will be very 
 slow to insist on their due. That they 
 should gain the ascendency, without 
 some miraculous combination of cir- 
 cumstances, is impossible. Were they 
 a fierce, savage, indomitable race, they 
 might be looked on with apprehension ; 
 but they are the most inoffensive peo- 
 ple on earth ; and their mildness has 
 undoubtedly perpetuated their chains. 
 With emancipation, their present rapid 
 increase will be checked, for the mo- 
 tives to breed them will cease. With 
 liberty of motion, the desire of change 
 of place will spring up ; they will nat- 
 urally be more or less dispersed ; the 
 danger of concentration on a few spots 
 will diminish ; and when we think of 
 the vast extent of our country, we may 
 expect them to become a sprinkling 
 through our population, incapable, even 
 if desirous, of disturbing the public 
 peace. Especially the discontented, 
 bold, and adventurous the very spirits 
 from which turbulence might be feared 
 will be attracted by hope and novelty, 
 as well as driven by inward restlessness, 
 to new scenes. In truth, can we con- 
 ceive of a country which has so little to 
 dread from emancipation as this, reach- 
 ing as it does from ocean to ocean, and 
 destined to receive increasing acces- 
 sions to its numbers from the Old 
 World ? It is also worthy of note, that 
 the characteristics of the colored race 
 are particularly fitted to keep them harm- 
 less. I refer to their passion for imita- 
 tion of their superiors, and to their love 
 of show and fashion, which tend to at- 
 tach them more to the white race than 
 to their own, and to break them up into 
 different ranks or castes among them- 
 selves. 
 
 The groundlessness of fears from 
 emancipation is becoming more appar- 
 ent from the experiment of the West 
 Indies. I do not speak of this as de- 
 cided ; but its first fruits surpass all ex- 
 pectation. The slaves in those islands 
 were to their masters in the proportion 
 of eight or ten to one, and they are shut 
 up in narrow islands, which prevent dis- 
 persion ; and yet the gift of freedom 
 has not provoked an act of violence. 
 
 Their new liberty has been followed by 
 a degree of order unknown before ; and 
 what makes this peaceful transition more 
 striking is, that emancipation took place 
 under every possible disadvantage. It 
 was not the free gift of the master, not 
 an act of justice and kindness, not ac- 
 companied with appeals to the gratitude 
 and better nature of the slave. It was 
 conferred by a distant benefactor ; it 
 was forced on the planter. It was sub- 
 mitted to with predictions of its ruinous 
 results. The generous hope, which so 
 often creates the good it pants for, was 
 wanting. In Jamaica, it would seem 
 that the furious opposition of the plant- 
 ing interest to the measure broke out, in 
 some instances, into a desire of its de- 
 feat. Yet, under all these disadvantages, 
 which can never occur here, because 
 emancipation here must be a free gift, 
 the prospects of a successful issue are 
 brighter than had dawned on any but 
 the most ardent spirits. The failure of 
 such an experiment would not have dis- 
 couraged me. What ought not to be 
 hoped from its success ? 
 
 Mr. Clay seems particularly to dread 
 immediate emancipation. But this, in 
 the common acceptation of the words, 
 is not the only way of giving freedom. 
 Let the wisdom of the South engage in 
 this cause heartily, and in good faith, and 
 it is reasonable to expect that means of 
 a safe transition to freedom, not dreamed 
 of now, would be devised. This work 
 we have no desire to take out of the 
 master's hands, nor would we thrust on 
 him our plans for adoption. I indeed 
 think that emancipation, in one sense of 
 the phrase, should be immediate ; that 
 is, the right of property in a human be- 
 ing should be immediately disclaimed. 
 But though private ownership should 
 cease, the State would be authorized 
 and bound to provide for its own safety. 
 The legislature may place the colored 
 race under guardianship, may impose 
 such restraints as the public order shall 
 require, and may postpone the full en- 
 joyment of personal liberty even to the 
 next generation. There was a time when 
 these safeguards seemed to me needful. 
 Happily the West Indies are teaching, 
 and, I trust, will continue to teach, that 
 immediate emancipation, in the full sense 
 of the words, is safer than a gradual 
 loosening of the chain. 
 
 Let me close this head with one re-
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 803 
 
 mark. Allow what is not true ; allow 
 emancipation to be dangerous. Will 
 it be safer hereafter than at the present 
 moment ? Will it be safer when the 
 slaves shall have doubled, trebled, or 
 still more increased ? And must it not 
 at length come ? Can any man, who 
 considers the chances of war, and the 
 direction which opinion is taking in the 
 civilized world, believe that slavery is to 
 be perpetual ? Is it wise to wink out of 
 sight a continually increasing peril ? At 
 this moment, what possible danger is 
 to be feared from emancipation in the 
 Northern slave States ? Does not every 
 Kentuckian know that slavery can be 
 ended now without the slightest hazard 
 to social order ? Does not the whole 
 danger as to that State lie in delay ? 
 How, then, can danger be an excuse for 
 refusing emancipation ? 
 
 Having thus reviewed the common 
 objections to emancipation, I pass to 
 one more topic which is referred to in 
 Mr. Clay's speech, and which is the bur- 
 den of many passionate appeals from the 
 South. I have in view the objections 
 which are made to the agitation of the 
 question of slavery at the North. These 
 are chiefly two, that such discussion 
 may excite insurrection among the 
 slaves ; and that it threatens to dissolve 
 the Union. 
 
 In regard to the first, the danger of 
 insurrection, I have shown how I view 
 it by continuing to write on the subject 
 of slavery. Could I discover even a 
 slight ground for apprehending such a 
 result, I would not write. Nothing 
 would tempt me to take the hazard of 
 stirring up a servile war. Bad as slavery 
 is, massacre is far worse. In the pres- 
 ent case, words of truth and good-will 
 are the only weapons for a Christian to 
 fight with. * A mysterious and adorable 
 Providence permits and controls massa- 
 cre, war, and the rage of savage men, 
 for the subversion of corrupt institu- 
 tions, just as it purifies the tainted at- 
 mosphere by storms and lightnings. 
 But man is not trusted with these awful 
 powers ; and let noc philanthropy be dis- 
 heartened, because not permitted to re- 
 form the world by the sudden processes 
 of violence and 'bloodshed. Moral in- 
 fluences are the surest and most en- 
 during, and good men part with their 
 strength in resorting to other means. 
 I have known too much of slavery, of 
 
 the spirit of its victims, of the restraints 
 under which they live, and of the mas- 
 ter's power, to dread the stirring up of 
 insurrections. On this point, persons 
 who have not visited slave countries fall 
 into great errors. Not long ago, a speech 
 was made in Boston, in which the slaves 
 were compared to wild beasts, thirsting 
 for blood ; and the good people were 
 told that the master locks his doors at 
 night, not knowing but that in the morn- 
 ing he shall find the throats of wife and 
 children cut from ear to ear ; and there 
 were found among us some who, in the 
 simplicity of their hearts, believed the 
 tale. One would have thought that, in 
 hearing the fearful story, they would 
 have asked themselves how it happens 
 that our Southern brethren give five 
 hundred or a thousand dollars for one 
 of these beasts of prey ? how it is that 
 they are anxious to fill their houses and 
 plantations, and surround their wives 
 and children, with assassins ? Human 
 nature, if this account be true, is a dif- 
 ferent thing at the South from what it 
 is at the North. Here we should go 
 mad, and should lose life as well as rea- 
 son, if the murderous blade were glar- 
 ing before our eyes night and day ; and, 
 still more, we should be most grateful 
 to our neighbors who should be anxious 
 to free us from the curse, instead of re- 
 jecting their "meddling interference" 
 with threats and execrations. But among 
 the hearers of the speech referred to, 
 there seemed not a few to whom these 
 difficulties did not occur. They even 
 forgot to inquire how the fearful account 
 was to be reconciled with the assurances 
 from the South of the happiness of the 
 slave and the blessings of the institu- 
 tion ; and, in their sympathy with the 
 South, they frowned fiercely enough on 
 such of us as. by our writings, are stir- 
 ring up the colored race to murder. To 
 tranquillize these compassionate people, 
 I will tell them that the picture which 
 terrified them was a work of fancy. 
 There is no such terror in slave-holding 
 countries. In my long residences among 
 slaves. I have used fewer precautions at 
 night than in this good city. I have 
 slept in one place with open doors, and 
 in another have given to a slave the key 
 to lock the house at the hour of retir- 
 ing, and to reopen it in the morning, 
 when I have been the sole tenant of the 
 dwelling. Undoubtedly the slave-holder
 
 804 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 wears arms, just as we bolt our doors 
 and appoint patrols of watchmen in the 
 streets ; but, in both cases, these and 
 other means of defence bring such 
 security that sleep is undisturbed by 
 fear. The slaves, broken from birth to 
 submission, brought up in ignorance, 
 confined to the plantation, having no 
 means of external concert, wanting mut- 
 ual confidence, because wanting princi- 
 ple, and separated by the distinction of 
 house servants and field laborers, cower 
 before their instructed, armed, united, 
 organized masters, and feel resistance 
 to be vain. Add to this, the strong at- 
 tachment by which some on almost 
 every estate are bound to their owners. 
 stronger than what they bear to their 
 own race, and we shall see that the 
 danger of a servile war is not great 
 enough to embitter life or deserve much 
 sympathy. 
 
 ' Rome had servile wars ; but her slaves 
 had been freemen. Among them were 
 fierce barbarians, whose native wilder- 
 nesses had infused an indomitable love 
 of liberty ; and there were civilized men, 
 who groaned in spirit and gnashed their 
 teeth at the degrading, intolerable yoke 
 which was crushing them. But in this 
 country there are no materials for ser- 
 vile war, at least in times of peace. In 
 war, indeed, whether civil or foreign, an 
 army marching with " Emancipation " 
 on its banner, might stir up the palsied 
 spirit of the oppressed to terrible retri- 
 bution for their wrongs. But very little 
 is to be feared in ordinary times. Were 
 the slave more dangerous, I should feel 
 less for his yoke. Were a greater por- 
 tion of the spirit of a man left him, I 
 should not think him so wronged. But 
 what is to be feared from a man who 
 stands by and sees wife and child lacer- 
 ated without cause, and is driven by no 
 impulse to interpose for their defence ? 
 The strongest sensibilities of nature 
 cannot sting him to do for his child 
 what the hen does for her chicken, or 
 the trembling hare for her young. 
 
 The slave, as far as I have known 
 him, is not a being to be feared. The 
 iron has eaten into his soul, and this is 
 worse than eating into the flesh. The 
 tidings that there are people here who 
 would set him free will do little harm. 
 He withstands a far greater temptation 
 than this, I mean the presence of the 
 free negro. One would think that the 
 
 sight of his own race enjoying liberty 
 would, if any thing, stir him up to the 
 assertion of his rights ; but it fails. 
 Liberty is a word not indeed to be 
 heard without awakening desire ; but it 
 rouses no resistance. The colonization- 
 ist holds out to the slaves an elysium, 
 where they are to be free and rich and 
 happy, and a great people ; thus teach- 
 ing them that there is nothing in their 
 nature which forbids them the enjoy- 
 ment of all human rights ; and the mas- 
 ter, so far from dreading the doctrines 
 of this society, will become its president. 
 No. Slavery has done its work, has 
 broken the spirit. So little is the slave 
 inclined to violence, that it is affirmed, 
 and I presume truly, that there are fewer 
 murders by their hands than by an equal 
 number of white men at the North. We 
 hear, indeed, of atrocious deeds, assas- 
 sinations, bloody combats at the South. 
 But these are the deeds of white men. 
 Pistols and bowie-knives are not worn 
 by the colored race. Slavery produces 
 horrible multiplied murders at the South, 
 not by infusing rage, revenge into the 
 man who bears the yoke, but by nursing 
 proud, unforgiving, bloodthirsty propen- 
 sities in the master. 
 
 Undoubtedly there are exposures to 
 massacre in slave countries, as there are 
 to mobs, partial insurrections in all 
 countries. But outbreaks at the South 
 will be found, perhaps always, to have 
 their cause in local circumstances, not 
 in influences from abroad. I do not say 
 that there is no danger in slavery. Sys- 
 tems founded in wrong want stability, 
 and are every day growing more and 
 more insecure, with the progress of in- 
 telligence and moral sentiment in the 
 world. Unexpected explosions may take 
 place at the South. Secret causes may 
 be at work on the spirit of the slave. 
 Foreign invasion would be a death-blow 
 to the system. I mean only to say, that 
 there is no danger from the discussion 
 of slavery at the North, or only that 
 indirect, distant danger which we are 
 always encountering, and which no man 
 thinks of flying from, in human affairs. 
 The stormiest day of abolitionism has 
 passed, and yet not a symptom of insur- 
 rection has appeared at the South. It 
 is morally impossible that there should 
 be danger in the calmer days which are 
 to follow. 
 
 I now proceed to the second objection
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 805 
 
 to the agitation of slavery at the North. 
 We are told that the Union will be thus 
 endangered. " Danger to the Union " 
 is so old a cry, that it ceases to startle 
 you or myself ; and yet so much sensi- 
 tiveness to it remains, that the topic 
 ought not to be lightly dismissed. And 
 ' I begin with saying, that were the Union 
 as weak as these clamors suppose, were 
 it capable of being dissolved by any of 
 the hundred causes which are said to 
 threaten it, then it would not be worth 
 the keeping. The bonds which hold 
 a nation together, if not exceedingly 
 strong, are of no use. They will snap 
 in the hour of need. But our Union is 
 not so weak as our alarmists imagine. 
 It has stood many storms, and will stand 
 many more. It is not, as many think, a 
 creature of a day. Its foundations were 
 laid at the first settlement of these 
 States, and their whole history was 
 silently preparing them to become one 
 great people. There is not a community 
 on earth which has so distinct a convic- 
 tion of the blessings of national union, 
 and of the evils of separation, as this 
 country ; and, in the present age of the 
 world, such a conviction may avail 
 almost or quite as much as the tradi- 
 tional prejudices and habits of other 
 nations. Then our Union does not rest 
 only on the clear perception of the good 
 it confers. It rests on sentiment as well 
 as interest, and on a higher sentiment 
 than binds any other people. We are 
 charged, I know, with being given to 
 boasting ; but this reproach must not 
 deter me from speaking of the deep 
 foundation of our Union in the claims of 
 our country on our love and reverence. 
 No other people can look back to such 
 founders as we. No other people has 
 done as much in an equal time for civ- 
 ilization an'd freedom. Two hundred 
 years have hardly passed over us, and 
 we have redeemed from savage wildness 
 a realm compared with which European 
 kingdoms are dwarfed into provinces ; 
 and, through every period of our history, 
 we have been pressing forwards to an 
 equality of rights and a freedom of insti- 
 tutions nowhere else known in past or 
 present times. The deliberate construc- 
 tion of a civil polity, in which the idea 
 of liberty is realized to a degree not 
 dreamed of in other countries, is one of 
 the grandest achievements of history. 
 Other governments, the creatures of 
 
 chance, and obstructed by abuses of bar- 
 barous times, bear no such testimony to 
 the energy and elevation of the public 
 mind. Through this clear, bright, prac- 
 tical development of the principle of 
 liberty, these United States, an infant 
 country, growing up in a distant wilder- 
 ness, have moved and quickened the 
 civilized world. This country has been 
 called by Providence to a twofold work, 
 to spread civilization over a new con- 
 tinent, and to give a new impulse to the 
 cause of human rights and freedom. A 
 higher destiny has been granted to no 
 people ; and, with all our imperfections 
 (exceedingly great, I acknowledge), we 
 have accomplished our task with a force 
 of thought and will unsurpassed in 
 human history. Add to this, that we 
 have produced what no other country 
 can boast of, a spotless revolutionary 
 leader, a chief who, in a season of storm 
 and civil strife, amidst unbounded popu- 
 larity, amidst the temptations of severe 
 hardship and of brilliant success, never, 
 in a single instance, grasped at power, 
 forgot his duty to his country, or wav- 
 ered in his loyalty to freedom. In one 
 form of greatness we feel ourselves un- 
 rivalled. The annals of no people fur- 
 nish a patriot and friend of liberty so 
 pure, so disinterested as Washington. 
 That a people having such a history 
 should be bound by sentiment to the 
 national Union, is a necessary result of 
 the laws of human nature ; and accord- 
 ingly the people, as far as I know them, 
 are, on this point, of one heart and one 
 mind. 
 
 But, besides this generous sentiment, 
 we have characteristic feelings, as a peo- 
 ple, which bind us together. One of our 
 national passions is pride in a vast ex- 
 tent of territory. From the circumstance 
 of our history and location, we are ac- 
 customed to think and talk of immense 
 regions, and to scour remote tracts of 
 sea and land ; and we should experi- 
 ence a sense of confinement in the 
 boundaries which satisfy other states. 
 An American has a passion for belong- 
 ing to a great country. A witty for- 
 eigner observed of the city of Washing- 
 ton, that it had one merit, if no other ; 
 it was a city of "magnificent distances." 
 For this kind of magnificence our people 
 have a decided taste. We look with 
 something like scorn on the kingdoms 
 of the Old World ; and our mother
 
 8o5 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 country seems to us but a speck on the 
 ocean. We travel a distance equal to 
 the whole length of Great Britain in two 
 days or less, and feel as if we had but 
 begun our journey. Our great men 
 desire to connect their names with this 
 vast country ; and humble individuals, 
 whether wisely or not, derive from it a 
 feeling of importance. The poor man, 
 in voting, feels that he is exercising, in 
 part, the sovereignty of an immense 
 realm. There is more of the imagina- 
 tion than of the heart in the sentiment 
 now unfolded ; but it is real, and it is 
 no frail bond of national union. 
 
 Another cause of union may appear to 
 foreigners less serious than it really is. 
 We hold together, because we know not 
 where to break off. Neighboring States 
 are too much allied in feelings and in- 
 terests and domestic bonds for separa- 
 tion, and no State is willing to occupy 
 the position of a frontier. 
 
 Our Union is every day gaining 
 strength by the increased facilities of 
 intercourse which place distant parts of 
 the country side by side, and are inter- 
 weaving almost as closely the interests 
 and affections of remote States as of those 
 which border on each other. The sub- 
 tile steam, made up of mutually repel- 
 ling particles, and melting in a moment 
 into air, has become to this country a 
 cord stronger than adamant. Provi- 
 dence seems to intend to give us the 
 physical means of binding together a 
 wider region than was ever before 
 blessed with one beneficent sway. 
 
 It also deserves attention, that the 
 cause which has hitherto chiefly dis- 
 turbed our Union is diminishing, if it 
 has not passed away. I refer to the dis- 
 position of the national legislature to 
 interfere with local interests, or to ex- 
 tend itself beyond the bounds of strict 
 necessity ; thus awakening the jealousy 
 of different sections, and giving them 
 the notion of separate interests ! This 
 disposition is yielding, not only to the 
 resistance of different States, but to an 
 impossibility of its exercise founded on 
 the nature of free institutions. Under 
 these, government is a slowly moving 
 machine. Its wheels seem to be clogged 
 more and more. Diversities of interest, 
 collisions of passion, party-spirit, and 
 endless varieties of opinion, throw almost 
 insuperable obstacles in the way of leg- 
 islation. Congress, after a long session, 
 
 separates, having hardly passed laws 
 enough to keep the government in oper- 
 ation. All free states, at home and 
 abroad, feel this difficulty ; and, evil as 
 it seems, it has no small advantages. It 
 abates that worse nuisance, excess of 
 legislation. By this cause, Congress is 
 compelled to keep itself within its 
 bounds ; for in these it finds more work 
 than it can do. The government must 
 be in reality what it is in name, general, 
 and must be as simple as consists with 
 public safety ; and, thus qualified, why 
 may it not hold together a mighty 
 realm ? 
 
 Foreigners expect disunion from the 
 extent of our territory, but in this we 
 see safety, as well as danger ; for it not 
 only flatters, as we have seen, the na- 
 tional pride, but multiplies the bonds of 
 mutual interest, renders free exchange 
 of productions and friendly intercourse 
 vastly more profitable, and, at the same 
 time, checks despotic power of party 
 leaders, those simultaneous excite- 
 ments, those passionate movements, 
 that concentration of all the energies 
 and feelings of the people on a single 
 point of controversy, by which free 
 states of narrower dimensions are con- 
 vulsed. 
 
 From these remarks it will be seen 
 that I partake little of the nervous sen- 
 sitiveness of a portion of the people on 
 the subject of the Union. Undoubtedly 
 it is exposed to perils, which may turn 
 these hopes and prophecies into illu- 
 sions. The experience of life teaches 
 us to be prepared for the worst. Our 
 present prosperity seems too unpar- 
 alleled to endure. But loose, vague 
 fears ought not to disturb us ; nor should 
 they be propagated, because they often 
 serve to fulfil themselves. The truth is, 
 that we are a people singularly given to 
 alarm, and very much on the ground on 
 which the rich fear most about property. 
 The greatness of our blessings makes us 
 timid. As far as my knowledge of this 
 community extends, the Union is most 
 dear. It may be said of this, as of other 
 social ties, that its strength cannot be 
 fully known till we are seriously called 
 to dissolve it. 
 
 But, it is said, the South is passionate, 
 and threatens to secede if we agitate this 
 subject of slavery. Is this no cause of 
 alarm ? To this argument I would offer 
 two answers. First, the South, passion-
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 807 
 
 ate as it may be, is not insane. Does 
 not the South know that, in abandoning 
 us on the ground of slavery, it would 
 take the surest step towards converting 
 the free States to intense and over- 
 whelming abolitionism ? Would not sla- 
 very become from that moment the grand 
 distinctive idea of the Southern repub- 
 lic ? And would not its Northern rival, 
 by instinct and necessity, found itself on 
 the antagonist principle ? In such an 
 event, there would be no need of anti- 
 slavery societies, of abolition agitations, 
 to convert the North. The blow that 
 would sever the Union for this cause 
 would produce an instantaneous explo- 
 sion to shake the whole land. The 
 moral sentiment against slavery, now 
 kept down by the interests and duties 
 which grow out of union, would burst its 
 fetters, and be reinforced by the whole 
 strength of the patriotic principle, as 
 well as by all the prejudices and local 
 passions which would follow disunion. 
 Does not the South see that our exemp- 
 tion from the taint of slavery would, in 
 this case, become our main boast ? that 
 we should cast the reproach of this in- 
 stitution into her teeth, in very different 
 language from what is now used ? that 
 what is now toierated in sister States 
 would be intensely hated in separate, 
 rival communities ? Let disunion on 
 this ground take place, and then the 
 North may become truly dangerous to 
 the South. Then real incendiaries, very 
 different from those who now bear the 
 name, might spring up among us. Then 
 fanaticism would borrow force and pro- 
 tection from national feeling. Then, in 
 the unfriendly relations between the two 
 communities, which would soon be cre- 
 ated, and in the self- regarding policy 
 which we should adopt, we should take 
 into account the weakness which a ser- 
 vile population would bring on our ad- 
 versaries. We should feel that we have 
 an ally in our rival's bosom, nor would 
 that ally forget to look northward for 
 liberation. I say the South is not in- 
 sane. Nothing but a palpable necessity 
 could induce it to break off from the free 
 States on the ground of slavery. 
 
 This leads me to observe, in the next 
 place, that there is, and can be, no kind 
 of necessity or warrant for separation 
 furnished to the South by the discussion 
 of slavery at the North. This topic will 
 indeed be agitated, and more and more 
 
 freely ; but no discussion, no agitation 
 of slavery, no form of abolition, can pro- 
 duce such an excitement on the subject 
 in the free States as will furnish the 
 slave States with any motive to encoun- 
 ter the terrible evils of separation. This 
 subject deserves some consideration. 
 Abolitionism may be viewed in two 
 lights ; first, as the organized array of 
 societies against slavery ; and next, as an 
 individual sentiment, scattered through 
 the whole population. In neither view 
 can it drive the South to disunion, at least 
 for a long time to come. Regarded as an 
 organized body, abolitionism will sub- 
 sist and will influence opinion, but 
 it will never gain an ascendency in the 
 free States. On this point my mind has 
 never wavered. It nowhere carries with 
 it the mass of the people, or the weight 
 of opinion. It has brought no religious 
 or political body under its influence. 
 Fashion, wealth, sectarian prejudice, and 
 political ambition are, for the most part, 
 opposed to it. That the South should 
 be driven by it to desperation, is impos- 
 sible. Many of the obstacles to the 
 ascendency of this first form of aboli- 
 tionism will naturally be presented in 
 my views of the second. I will here 
 only observe, that, with the intelligence 
 and state of feeling prevalent at the 
 North, public opinion cannot be deter- 
 mined by associations, especially by one 
 which takes agitation for its motto. 
 Agitation may be useful in producing a 
 speedy movement in favor of an object 
 of clear utility, and about which opinions 
 do not greatly differ. For example, in 
 the case of temperance, where men are 
 
 fenerally of one mind, where opinion is 
 xed, where excitement is the great 
 object to be accomplished, where men 
 are to be roused to resist habits which 
 they know to be wrong, in such a case, 
 an array of numbers, a system of pledges, 
 and multiplied public meetings, may do 
 good. But on a subject involving many 
 practical difficulties and solemn conse- 
 quences, and coming, as many think, 
 into collision with great public interests, 
 agitation will not now avail. Men dis- 
 trust it, fear it, and resent as a wrong 
 the violence with which the opinions of 
 zealous men are forced on the commu- 
 nity. Agitation may carry such a coun- 
 try as Ireland, where the people, besides 
 being ignorant, are all inflamed with one 
 sense of wrong, and every heart re-
 
 8o8 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 spends to the agitator's cry. So it car- 
 ried the British Act of Emancipation, 
 for the nation wa-s ripe for action, and 
 for the most part had no hostile preju- 
 dices to surrender. But an intelligent 
 people, divided in opinion and feeling 
 on a great subject, cannot be carried by 
 storm, or be swept away by a fervent 
 association. The ardent advocates even 
 of a good cause, if marshalled into an 
 army, and joined in vehement onset on 
 the prejudices of such a community, 
 cannot but awaken reaction and obsti- 
 nate repulsion ; and will, too often, put 
 themselves in the wrong by passionate 
 movements, of which the foe is sure to 
 profit. I now speak of associated agita- 
 tion. Let the individual enthusiast, who 
 acts from his own soul, agitate as much 
 as he will. I would not say a word to 
 stifle the full, bursting heart. But pre- 
 meditated, organized agitation is another 
 thing. Besides the , difficulty already 
 stated, it is apt to degenerate into noise 
 and show, and to fall under suspicion of 
 pretence, and on this account is less for- 
 given for what is deemed excess. I see, 
 therefore, very serious obstacles to the 
 triumphs of organized abolitionism in a 
 community like ours. It has, indeed, 
 done good. Under all its disadvantages, 
 it has roused many minds, but it cannot 
 carry with it the people. 
 
 As to abolitionism in its more general 
 form, or regarded as an individual prin- 
 ciple of settled, earnest opposition to 
 slavery, this has taken deep root, and 
 must grow and triumph. It is in har- 
 mony with our institutions, and with all 
 the tendencies of modern civilization. 
 It triumphs in Europe, and will flow in 
 upon us from abroad more and more 
 freely, in consequence of those im- 
 provements of intercourse which place 
 Europe almost at our door. Still, it 
 is far from being universal among us. 
 There are obstacles as well as aids to 
 its progress, in consequence of which 
 it is to make its way calmly, gradually, 
 so that there is no possibility of any 
 violent action from the freest discus- 
 sion of slavery. There is no danger 
 of an antislavery fever here, which will 
 justify the South to itself in encounter- 
 ing the infinite hazards of disunion. 
 
 The prevalent state of feeling in the 
 free States in regard to slavery is in- 
 difference, an indiffere'nce strength- 
 ened by the notion of great difficulties 
 
 attending the subject. The fact is pain- 
 ful, but the truth should be spoken. 
 The majority of the people, even yet, 
 care little about the matter. A painful 
 proof of this insensibility was furnished 
 about a year and a half ago, when the 
 English West Indies were emancipated. 
 An event surpassing this in moral gran- 
 deur is not recorded in history. In one 
 day, half a million, probably seven hun- 
 dred thousand of human beings, were 
 rescued from bondage, to full, unquali- 
 fied freedom. The consciousness of 
 wrongs, in so many breasts, was ex- 
 changed into rapturous, grateful joy. 
 What shouts of thanksgiving broke 
 forth from those liberated crowds ! 
 What new sanctity and strength were 
 added to the domestic ties ! What new 
 hopes opened on future generations ! 
 The crowning glory of this day was 
 the fact that the work of emancipation 
 was wholly due to the principles of 
 Christianity. The West Indies were 
 freed, not by force, or human policy, 
 but by the reverence of a great people 
 for justice and humanity. The men 
 who began and carried on this cause 
 were Christian philanthropists ; and they 
 prevailed by spreading their own spirit 
 through a nation. In this respect the 
 emancipation of the West Indies was 
 a grander work than the redemption of 
 the Israelites from bondage. This was 
 accomplished by force, by outward mira- 
 cles, by the violence of the elements. 
 That was achieved by love, by moral 
 power, by God, working not in the 
 stormy seas, but in the depths of the 
 human heart. And how was this day 
 of emancipation one of the most 
 blessed days which ever dawned on 
 the earth received in this country ? 
 Whilst in distant England a thrill of 
 gratitude and joy pervaded thousands 
 and millions, we, the neighbors of the 
 West Indies, and who boast of our love 
 of liberty, saw the sun of that day rise 
 and set with hardly a thought of the 
 scenes on which it was pouring its joy- 
 ful light. The greatest part of our 
 newspapers did not refer to the event. 
 The great majority of the people had 
 forgotten it. Such was the testimony 
 we gave to our concern for the poor 
 slave ; and is it from discussions of 
 slavery among such a people that the 
 country is to be overturned ? 
 
 It will undoubtedly be said that our
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 809 
 
 uncertainty as to the issues of West 
 Indian emancipation prevented our re- 
 joicing in it. But does uncertainty so 
 act where the heart is deeply moved ? 
 Is it a parj: of human nature to wait for 
 assurance before it exults at events 
 in which its affections are involved ? 
 Does the new-born child receive no 
 welcome because we are not sure of 
 the prosperity of his future years ? 
 Does the lover of freedom give no salu- 
 tation, no benediction, to a people rising 
 in defence of rights, or establishing free 
 institutions, because the experiment of 
 liberty may fail ? Undoubtedly there 
 were evils to be apprehended from West 
 Indian emancipation ; for when was a 
 great social revolution ever accom- 
 plished, or a great abuse ever removed, 
 without them ? It was impossible for 
 the slave and the master to change their 
 old relations, to reorganize society, with- 
 out continuing to feel more or less the 
 influences of the old system of oppres- 
 sion. Are the wounds of ages to be 
 healed in a moment ? Could a perfect 
 social order be expected to rise from the 
 ruins of slavery ? But must corrupt 
 systems be made perpetual, because of 
 the chances of reform ? In the case 
 of the West India emancipation, we 
 had more pledges of success than are 
 usually given. We knew that the trial 
 of liberty had been made in Antigua, 
 without the occurrence of any of the 
 evils which had been dreaded. The 
 great transition from slavery to freedom 
 had taken place in a day without dis- 
 order, without the slightest injury to 
 property or life, with no excitement but 
 overwhelming gratitude. Yet, as a peo- 
 ple, we cared nothing for the liberation 
 of the West Indian slave. With the 
 exception of a few voices, the mighty 
 chorus of praise to God, which ascended 
 from the Gulf of Mexico and from Great 
 Britain, found rro response here. 
 
 This indifference to slavery has foun- 
 dations among us which are not to be 
 removed in a day. One cause is to be 
 found in the all-devouring passion for 
 gain, accumulation, which leaves little 
 leisure for sympathy with any suffering 
 which does not meet our eye, and which 
 will listen to no invocations by which 
 the old channels of trade and profit may 
 be obstructed. Another cause is to be 
 found in the sympathies of what are called 
 the higher and more refined classes here 
 
 with the like classes at the South. The 
 tide of fashion no unimportant influ- 
 ence even in a republic sets strongly 
 against antislavery efforts. Another 
 cause is our position in regard to the col- 
 ored race. In Europe, the negro is known 
 chiefly by report, and is therefore easily 
 recognized as a man. His humanity is 
 never questioned. Still more, he is an 
 object for the imagination and the heart. 
 He is known only as a wronged, suffer- 
 ing man. He is almost a picturesque 
 being. Thousands and thousands in 
 England, at the mention of the African 
 slave, immediately recall to their minds 
 that most affecting figure of the negro, 
 as Darwin portrayed him, touching the 
 earth with one knee, lifting up his chained 
 hands, and exclaiming, " Am I not a 
 man and a brother ? " To us, the negro 
 is no creature of imagination. We see 
 him as he is. There is nothing pict- 
 uresque in his lot. On visiting the 
 slave States, we see him practically 
 ranked with inferior creatures, and tak- 
 ing the rank submissively. We hear from 
 him shouts of boisterous laughter, much 
 oftener than sighs or groans ; and this 
 laughter repels compassion, whilst it 
 inspires something like contempt. We 
 here have a hard task to perform. We 
 have to conquer old and deep prejudices, 
 and to see a true man in one with whom 
 we have associated ideas of degradation 
 inconsistent with humanity. These are 
 painful truths ; but it is good to know 
 the truth. One thing is plain, that free 
 discussion of slavery is not likely to stir 
 up in the free States rash, careless as- 
 saults on the institutions of the South, 
 and so to endanger the Union. We, 
 who are called incendiaries because we 
 discuss this subject, do not kindle our 
 fjres among dry woods, but too often on 
 fields of ice. A consuming conflagration 
 is not to be feared. 
 
 I have now considered the objections 
 to the free discussion of slavery at the 
 North. This discussion is safe ; still 
 more, it is a duty, and must go on ; and 
 under this and other influences, the anti- 
 slavery spirit must spread and must pre- 
 vail. Mr. Clay's speech will but aid the 
 movement. The antislavery spirit may 
 triumph slowly, but triumph it must and 
 will. It may be thought that, from my 
 own showing, the success of this cause 
 is not so sure as its friends are accus- 
 i tomed to boast. But, notwithstanding
 
 8io 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 all the obstacles which I have frankly 
 stated, antislavery principles have made 
 great progress, have become deep con- 
 victions in many souls within a few 
 years ; and the impulse, far from being 
 spent, continually gains strength. There 
 are those who hope that the present 
 movement is a temporary fanaticism. 
 We are even told that a distinguished 
 senator from the South, on the close of 
 Mr. Clay's speech, repaid this effort for 
 slavery with unbounded applause, and 
 declared, that " Abolitionism was now 
 down." But such men have not studied 
 our times. Strange, that in an age when 
 great principles are stirring the human 
 soul, and when the mass of men, who 
 have hitherto slept, are waking up to 
 thought, it should be imagined that an 
 individual, a name, a breath, can arrest 
 the grand forward movements of society ! 
 When will statesmen learn that there 
 are higher powers than political motives, 
 interests, and intrigues ? When will 
 they learn the might which dwells in 
 truth ? When wtll they learn that the 
 great moral and religious ideas which 
 have now seized on and are working in 
 men's souls are the most efficient, dura- 
 ble forces which are acting in the world ? 
 When will they learn that the past and 
 present are not the future, but that the 
 changes already wrought in society are 
 only forerunners, signs, and springs of 
 mightier revolutions ? Politicians, ab- 
 sorbed in near objects, are prophets only 
 on a small scale. They may foretell 
 the issues of the next election, though 
 even here they are often baffled ; but 
 the breaking out of a deep moral con- 
 viction in the mass of men is a mystery 
 which they have little skill to interpret. 
 The future of this country is to take its 
 shape, not from the growing of cotton 
 at the South, not from the struggles of 
 parties or leaders for power or station, 
 but from the great principles which are 
 unfolding themselves silently in men's 
 breasts. There is here, and through 
 the civilized world, a steady current of 
 thought and feeling in one direction. 
 The old notion of the subjection of the 
 many for the comfort, ease, pleasure, 
 and pride of the few, is fast wearing 
 away. A far higher and more rational 
 conception of freedom than entered into 
 the loftiest speculations of ancient times 
 is spreading itself, and is changing the 
 face of society. " Equality before the 
 
 laws " has become the watchword of all 
 civilized states. The absolute worth of 
 a human being is better understood, that 
 is, his worth as an individual, or on his 
 own account, and not merely as a useful 
 tool to others. Christianity is more 
 and more seen to attach a sacredness 
 and unspeakable dignity to every man, 
 because each man is immortal. Such 
 is the current of human thought. Prin- 
 ciples of a higher order are beginning 
 to operate on society, and the dawn of 
 these primal, everlast'ing lights is a sure 
 omen of a brighter day. This is the 
 true sign of the coming ages. Politi- 
 cians, seizing on the narrow, selfish 
 principles of liuman nature, expect these 
 to rule for ever. They hope, by their 
 own machinery, to determine the move- 
 ments of the world. But if history 
 teaches any lesson, it is the impotence 
 of statesmen ; and, happily, this impo- 
 tence is increasing every day, with the 
 spread of lights and moral force among 
 the people. Would politicians study, 
 history with mdre care, they might learn, 
 even from the dark times which are past, 
 that self-interest is not, after all, the 
 mightiest agent in human affairs ; that 
 the course of human events has been 
 more determined, on the whole, by great 
 principles, by great emotions, by feeling, 
 by enthusiasm, than by selfish calcula- 
 tions, or by selfish men. In the great 
 conflict between the Oriental and the 
 Western World, which was decided at 
 Thermopylae and Marathon; in the last 
 great conflict between Polytheism and 
 Theism, begun by Jesus Christ, and 
 carried on by his followers ; in the 
 Reformation of Luther ; in the Ameri- 
 can Revolution ; in these grandest 
 epochs of history, what was it which 
 won the victory ? What were the 
 mighty, all-prevailing powers ? Not po- 
 litical management, not self interest, not 
 the lower principles of human nature, 
 but the principles of freedom and relig- 
 ion, moral power, moral enthusiasm, the 
 divine aspirations of the human soul. 
 Great thoughts and great emotions have 
 a place in human history which no his- 
 torian has hitherto given them, and the 
 future is to be more determined by these 
 than the past. The antislavery spirit 
 is not, then, to die under the breath of 
 an orator. As easily might that breath 
 blow out the sun. 
 
 Slavery must fall, because it stands in
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 8n 
 
 direct hostility to all the grand move- 
 ments, principles, and reforms of our 
 age, because it stands in the way of an 
 advancing world. One great idea stands 
 out amidst the discoveries and improve- 
 ments of modern times. It is, that man 
 is not to exercise arbitrary, irresponsible 
 power over man. To restrain power, to 
 divide and balance it, to create respon- 
 sibility for its just use, to secure the 
 individual against its abuse, to substi- 
 tute law for private will, to shield the 
 weak from the strong, to give to the in- 
 jured the means of redress, to set a fence 
 round every man's property and rights, 
 in a word, to secure liberty, such, 
 under various expressions, is the great 
 object on which philosophers, patriots, 
 philanthropists, have long fixed their 
 thoughts and hopes. It is remarkable, 
 and one of the happy omens of the times, 
 that even absolute governments have 
 reached in a measure this grand idea. 
 They present themselves as the guar- 
 dians of liberty. They profess their 
 desire and purpose to sustain equal laws, 
 under which all men, from the highest 
 to the lowest, shall find effectual pro- 
 tection for their rights. The distin- 
 guished Prussian historian, Raumer, in 
 his letters on England, maintains that 
 his own government, which foreigners 
 call despotic, does not rest on private 
 will, and that it insures, on the whole, 
 greater freedom to the subject than the 
 British people can boast. Thus des- 
 potism does homage to the great ideas 
 and spirit of our times ; and yet in the 
 midst of this progress, in the f ice of this 
 universal reverence for human rights, 
 the slave-holder stands apart, and sets 
 up his claim to ownership of his fellow- 
 creatures, and insists on arbitrary, irre- 
 sponsible rule, and makes his will a law, 
 and enforces it by degrading punish- 
 ments. And can this power stand ? Is 
 it able to resist the moral power of the 
 world ? Can it withstand a higher 
 power, that of Eternal Justice, before 
 which all worlds bow, and to which the 
 highest orders of beings must give 
 account ? 
 
 I began this discussion with stating 
 that I should avoid, as much as possi- 
 ble, all personalities ; and I have aimed 
 throughout to look only at the system, 
 not at individuals. I am aware, how- 
 ever, that some of my remarks must 
 seem to have a very unfavorable bear- 
 
 ing on the slave-holder ; for how can 
 the evils and crimes of a system be Ijeld 
 up without implicating more or less those 
 who sustain it ? To prevent, then, all 
 misapprehension, I wish to say that, 
 whilst I think slave-holders in general 
 highly culpable for upholding a system 
 of wrong which has been so plainly ex- 
 posed, I do not regard slave-holding as 
 a proof of the necessary absence of 
 moral and religious principle. Our nat- 
 ure is strangely inconsistent, and expe- 
 rience continually teaches us that faults 
 and sins on which the eye of conscience 
 has not been distinctly turned may con- 
 sist with real virtue. A man, living in a 
 community, all of whose members join 
 in passionate support of an evil institu- 
 tion, must have an energy of thought, a 
 moral force, a moral independence which 
 few can boast, in order to see and resist 
 and renounce the wrong. No moral 
 trial on earth is perhaps so overpower- 
 ing. The light, which prevails in other 
 regions, enters most slowly this com- 
 pact, dense mass of moral error. I can- 
 not forget this in judging the slave- 
 holder. I remember, too, that he is not 
 merely a slave-holder. He sustains the 
 natural, innocent, purifying relations of 
 domestic life, of private friendship, of 
 country, and of Christian worship, and 
 in these he may be exemplary ; in these 
 there are women at the South eminently 
 faithful. I know it is said that in these 
 acknowledgments I weaken my testi- 
 mony against slavery ; but truth is dearer 
 than policy. I cannot hold it back. 
 Could I liberate all the slaves, by mis- 
 representing the slave-holder, I would 
 not do it. The primary work of a man 
 is, not to liberate slaves, but to be just, 
 to render to all their due, to do what is 
 right, be the cost what it may ; and all 
 benevolent enterprises, which have not 
 their origin and rule in this sovereign 
 principle of duty, are " splendid sins." 
 The slave-holders commit a great wrong, 
 many without consciousness of the 
 wrong, and many with entire indiffer- 
 ence to the moral character of slave- 
 holding. And in all this they resemble 
 other societies of men here and abroad. 
 There is much unconscious wrong-doing, 
 and. still more, much conscious sacrifice 
 of right to interest, all the world over. 
 This should not prevent rebuke of other 
 communities, but should check invidious 
 comparison and the spirit of self-exalta-
 
 812 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 tion. We of tlie North have reason and 
 are bound to condemn the enormous 
 wrongs practised at the South ; but have 
 we a right to boast of ourselves as bet- 
 ter than our neighbors ? Is not the self- 
 ish spirit of gain, which is blinding 
 multitudes at the South to the injustice 
 of slavery, very rife here ? Were this 
 institution rooted here, should we not 
 cling as a people to it as obstinately as 
 others ? Are none of us now reconciled 
 to it by the profits it affords them ? 
 England reproaches our slavery, and 
 she cannot do it too solemnly. But has 
 England a right to boast over the slave- 
 holder ? Who can fathom the depths of 
 guilt and woe in that rich, prosperous 
 island ? Is there another spot on earth 
 in which so many crimes and agonies 
 are accumulated as in London ? Where 
 else on earth is so shocking a contrast 
 to be seen of boundless luxury and un- 
 utterable wretchedness ? What a work 
 has philanthropy to do for the ignorant, 
 intemperate, half-famished crowds of 
 Ireland and Great Britain ! Her nobles 
 and merchants, indeed, scatter their 
 thousands and ten thousands among 
 the poor. But do they retrench one 
 indulgence or one ostentatious display, 
 or resolutely meet the great question, 
 how the terrible evils which weigh down 
 and threaten society are to be substan- 
 tially redressed ? 1 say not these things 
 in the spirit of retaliation towards Eng- 
 land. I ask from her just, indignant 
 remonstrance against our wrong-doing. 
 But I would show that, in assailing 
 slavery, I am not blind to all other evils, 
 that I mean not to set apart the slave- 
 holder as alone deserving rebuke, and 
 that I acknowledge the justice of many 
 of his reproofs of these free States and 
 of Europe. God alone knows the chief 
 offender. The slave-holder, indeed, is 
 chargeable with the peculiar guilt of 
 ordaining, and upholding with set pur- 
 pose, a system of enormous injustice. 
 Slavery is a creature of human will and 
 choice, and at the same time the great- 
 est wrong and insult on human nature. 
 I therefore cry aloud against it. Of the 
 individuals who defend and perpetuate 
 the system, I am sure that the best are 
 deeply injured by it ; but among them 
 there are better than myself. I do not 
 fix their rank in a world of transgressors. 
 I desire to lift up the wronged and op- 
 pressed. I leave to a higher Judge the 
 
 heart, the sins, the virtues of the op- 
 pressor. 
 
 I have now concluded my remarks on 
 the topics suggested by Mr. Clay's 
 speech ; and here you may expect me 
 to close this long communication. But 
 believing, as I do, that my engagements 
 and duties will not allow me to write 
 again on slavery, I am inclined to re- 
 lieve my mind of all its burdens on this 
 subject. Allow me, then, to say a few 
 words on a topic which has given me 
 many painful thoughts, the more pain- 
 ful, because so few have seemed to share 
 my feeling. I refer to that gross out- 
 rage on rights and liberty, the burning 
 of the Hall of Freedom in I'hiladelphia. 
 I have felt this the more because this 
 hall was erected for free discussion, was 
 dedicated to liberty of speech. Un- 
 doubtedly it was especially designed to 
 give the abolitionists a chance of being 
 heard ; but it was also intended to 
 give the same privilege to others, who, 
 in consequence of having adopted un- 
 popular opinions, might be excluded 
 from the places commonly devoted 
 to public meetings. This building was 
 associated with the dearest right of 
 an intelligent, spiritual being, that of 
 communicating thought and receiving 
 such communication in return, more 
 intimately associated with it than any 
 other edifice in the country. And this 
 was stormed by a mob ; a peaceful 
 assemblage was driven from its walls ; 
 and afterwards it was levelled to the 
 earth by fire. 
 
 Various circumstances conspired to 
 take this out of the class of common 
 crimes. It was not the act of the coarse, 
 passionate multitude. It was not done in 
 a transport of fury. The incendiaries 
 proceeded leisurely in their work, and 
 distinctly understood that they were exe- 
 cuting the wish and purpose of a great 
 majority of the people. Passionate out- 
 breaks may be forgiven. An act per- 
 formed by the reckless few does not 
 alarm us", because we know that a moral 
 force subsists in the community to coun- 
 teract it. But when individuals, to whom 
 we look for a restraining moral power, 
 undertake deliberately the work of the 
 reckless and violent, then the outrage on 
 law and right wears a singularly dark 
 and menacing aspect. Such a commu- 
 nity may well feel the foundations of so- 
 cial order tottering beneath them. After
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 813 
 
 the mob of Philadelphia, who wonders 
 at the mob of Harrisburg ? 
 
 Another aggravation of this act was, 
 that the blameless character of those 
 who had erected and were occupying the 
 Hall of Freedom was distinctly under- 
 stood. The assemblage thronging this 
 edifice was not made up of profligates, 
 of the false, the lawless, the profane. 
 On that occasion were met together 
 citizens of Philadelphia and visitors 
 from other cities and States, who were 
 second to none in purity of life ; and 
 they had convened in obedience to what 
 they believed, however erroneously, the 
 will of God, and to accomplish what 
 seemed to them a great work of justice 
 and humanity. I doubt whether, at that 
 hour, there were collected in any other 
 single spot of the land so many good 
 and upright men and women, so many 
 sincere friends of the race. In that 
 crowd was John G. Whittier, a man 
 whose genius and virtues would do 
 honor to any city, whose poetry bursts 
 from the soul with the fire and indig- 
 nant energy of an ancient prophet, and 
 whose noble simplicity of character is 
 said to be the delight of all who know 
 him. In that crowd was Lucretia 
 Mott, that beautiful example of woman- 
 hood. Who that has heard the tones of 
 her voice, and looked on the mild ra- 
 diance of her benign and intelligent 
 countenance, can endure the thought 
 that such a woman was driven by a mob 
 from a spot to which she had gone, as 
 she religiously believed, on a mission of 
 Christian sympathy ? There were many 
 others, worthy associates of those whom 
 I have named, religious men, prepared 
 to suffer in the cause of humanity, de- 
 voted women, whose hearts were bur- 
 dened with the infinite indignities heaped 
 on their sex by slavery. Such were 
 the people who were denied the protec- 
 tion of the laws ; denied the privilege 
 granted to the most profligate political 
 party, and even to a meeting of. Athe- 
 ists ; treated as outcasts, as the refuse 
 and off scouring of the world. In them 
 was revived the experience of the first 
 witnesses to the Christian faith. Hap- 
 pily, Christianity has not wholly failed 
 to improve society. At first, the disciple 
 himself was destroyed, now only his 
 edifice : and this is certainly some prog- 
 ress of the world. 
 
 And what was the mighty cause of 
 
 this outrage ? A general reply is, that 
 the abolitionists were fanatics. Be it so. 
 Is fanaticism a justification of this sum- 
 mary justice ? What more common than 
 this fever in our churches ? How does 
 it infect whole sects ! What more com- 
 mon in our political meetings ? Must 
 the walls within which fanatics meet be 
 purged by desolating fire ? Will not then 
 the whole land be lighted by the flames ? 
 Shall I be told that the fanaticism of 
 abolitionists is of peculiar atrocity ? 
 that they are marked, set apart by 
 the monstrousness of their doctrines ? 
 These doctrines are the brotherhood of 
 the human race, and the right of every 
 human being to his own person and to 
 the protection of equal laws Such are 
 the heresies that must be burned out 
 with fire, and buried under the ruins of 
 the temple where they are preached ! 
 Undoubtedly there may be crimes, so 
 unnatural, so terrible to a community, 
 that a people may be forgiven if, deem- 
 ing the usual forms of justice too slow, 
 they assume the perilous office of inflict- 
 ing speedy punishment. But that the 
 processes of law, that the chartered 
 rights of a free people should be set 
 aside to punish men who come together 
 to protest against the greatest wrong in 
 the land, and whose fanaticism consists 
 in the excess of their zeal for the op- 
 pressed ; this is a doctrine which puts 
 to shame the da.rk ages, and which can- 
 not long keep its ground in our own. 
 
 But this general charge of fanaticism 
 is not the main defence of this hall- 
 burning. The old cry of " danger to the 
 Union " is set up. Abolitionism was to 
 be committed to the flames, because it 
 threatened to separate the States. I 
 shall not, of course, repeat what I have 
 already said on this topic ; but I will 
 only ask, what will be the effect of burn- 
 ing up every edifice which gives shelter 
 to the supposed enemies of the Union ? 
 At this very moment, one of these 
 twenty-six States has virtually assumed 
 the right of war, which the Constitution 
 confers on the general government, and 
 would inevitably drive us into hostilities 
 with one of the most powerful nations 
 of Europe, if the insanity of the con- 
 test did not make it next to impossible ; 
 and in so doing, it has given a precedent 
 more menacing to the Union than any 
 thing in our history, with the single ex- 
 ception of the nullification or States-
 
 814 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 rights movement. And shall all who 
 favor this usurpation be forbidden to 
 meet but at the peril of mobs and flames ? 
 In this case, might not some halls of 
 legislation meet the fate of the Hall of 
 Freedom ? I must protest against the 
 disposition to make the crime of endan- 
 gering the Union a sufficient cause for 
 house-burning. The nerves of our peo- 
 ple are particularly sensitive on this 
 point, and incendiarism will become the 
 fashion if this plea will suffice for it. 
 Every householder should lift up his 
 voice against the dangerous doctrine. 
 
 But we have not yet touched the great 
 cause of the conflagration of the Hall 
 of Freedom. Something worse than 
 fanaticism or separation of the Union 
 was the impulse to this violence. We 
 are told that white people and black 
 sat together on the benches of the hall, 
 and were even seen walking together 
 in the streets ! This was the unheard- 
 of atrocity which the virtues of the 
 people of Philadelphia could not en- 
 dure. They might have borne the dis- 
 solution of the national tie ; but this 
 junction of black and white was too 
 much for human patience to sustain. 
 And has it indeed come to this ? For 
 such a cause are mobs and fires to be 
 let loose on our persons and most costly 
 buildings ? What ! Has not an Amer- 
 ican citizen a right to sit and walk with 
 whom he will ? Is this common privi- 
 lege of humanity denied us ? Is society 
 authorized to choose our associates ? 
 Must our neighbor's tastes as to friend- 
 ship and companionship control our 
 own? Have the feudal times come 
 back to us, when to break the law of 
 caste was a greater crime than to violate 
 the laws of God ? What must Europe 
 have thought when the news crossed 
 the ocean of the burning of the Hall 
 of Freedom, because white and colored 
 people walked together in the streets ? 
 Europe might well open its eyes in 
 wonder. On that continent, with all 
 its aristocracy, the colored man mixes 
 freely with his fellow-creatures. He 
 passes for a man. He sometimes re- 
 ceives the countenance of the rich, and 
 has even found his way into the palaces 
 of the great. In Europe, the doctrine 
 would be thought too absurd for refuta- 
 tion that a colored man of pure morals 
 and piety, of cultivated intellect and 
 refined manners, was not a fit com- 
 
 panion for the best in the land. W T hat 
 must Europe have said when brought 
 to understand that, in a republic founded 
 on the principles of human rights and 
 equality, people are placed beyond the 
 protection of the laws, for treating an 
 African as a man ? This Philadelphia 
 doctrine deserves no mercy. What an 
 insult is thrown on human nature, in 
 making it a heinous crime to sit or walk 
 with a human being, whoever he may 
 be? 
 
 It just occurs to me that I have for- 
 gotten the circumstance which filled to 
 overflowing the cup of abolitionist wick- 
 edness in Philadelphia. The great 
 offence was this, that certain young 
 women, of antislavery faith, were seen 
 to walk the streets with colored young 
 men ! Of the truth of this allegation, 
 which has been denied, I am not able 
 to judge ; but, allowing its correctness, 
 I must think that to violate the majesty 
 of the laws, and to convulse a whole 
 city, because a few young women 
 thought fit to manifest in this way their 
 benevolence towards a despised race, 
 
 " Resembles ocean into tempest wrought 
 To waft a feather, or to drown a fly." 
 
 Offences against manners are wisely 
 left to the scourge of public opinion, 
 which proves itself, in such cases, a 
 more effectual as well as more merciful 
 discipline than burning or the gallows. 
 If ridicule and indignation will not put 
 down supposed misdemeanors of this 
 class, what will force avail ? May I be 
 here allowed to counsel my fair aboli- 
 tionist friends (if they have really fallen 
 into the "unpardonable transgression" 
 laid to their charge) to respect hereafter 
 the usages of society in regard to their 
 communications with the other sex. If 
 their antislavery zeal compels them to 
 bear testimony against the prejudice 
 which excludes the colored people from 
 the society of the whites, let them 
 choose for their associates the women 
 of the despised caste. With less de- 
 fiance of opinion, they will thus give 
 equal expression to their interest in the 
 wronged. I believe, however, that the 
 less conspicuous their zeal in this and 
 other public movements, the better. 
 There are none for whom I feel a 
 deeper and more affectionate solicitude 
 than for the young of the other sex ; 
 and when I think of their inexperience,
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 815 
 
 and of the strength of their sensibility, 
 and then consider how exposed they 
 are, on occasions of struggle and ex- 
 citement, to unconscious imprudences 
 which may throw a shade over their 
 characters not soon to be dispelled, and 
 which, in their calmer hours, may visit 
 them with secret upbraidings, or with 
 fears of having started from the proper 
 path, I cannot but desire that, whilst they 
 open their hearts to all generous sympa- 
 thies, they should postpone the public 
 manifestation of their zeal to a riper age. 
 The violence which was offered the 
 abolitionists for their reception of the 
 colored people to freer social inter- 
 course, was the more aggravated, be- 
 cause, if they erred in the matter, their 
 motive was a generous one, not got up 
 for the occasion, but proved to be sin- 
 cere by their whole conduct. They say 
 that the colored race, ground as they 
 have been in the dust by long tyranny, 
 and still suffering under prejudices 
 which forbid their elevation, are en- 
 titled to peculiar regard from the dis- 
 ciples of him who came to raise the 
 fallen, "to seek and save the lost." 
 They look on this people with peculiar 
 sympathy, because subjected to peculiar 
 hardships. With this view, they are 
 anxious to break down the distinction, 
 or at least to diminish the distance, 
 between the black man and the white, 
 believing that in this way only the de- 
 grading influences of the injuries of 
 years can be overcome. Allow this to be 
 an error, is it not a generous one ? Is 
 there nothing holy in sympathy with the 
 wronged? Are feelings of benevolent 
 concern, for whatever portion of our 
 race, to be insulted, and to bring down 
 violence on our heads, because they 
 transgress conventional rules and the 
 forms of "good society"? That igno- 
 rant and coarse people should treat the 
 motives of the abolitionists with scorn 
 cannot surprise us ; but that any, who 
 belong to what is called the respectable 
 and refined class, should join the fierce 
 multitude in persecuting men of worth 
 and humanity, admits no excuse. Does 
 it not show that the line of separation 
 between the high and low is not as 
 broad as we sometimes imagine : that 
 much which passes for refinement is 
 mere gloss ; and that when the passions 
 are stirred up by the concurrence of 
 numbers, "the friends of order" can 
 
 set laws at defiance as boldly as the 
 multitude ? 
 
 This outrage, if viewed in its political 
 aspects, deserves severe reprobation. 
 Mob-law, in this country, ought always 
 to be frowned down. It is an invasion 
 of the fundamental principle of our in- 
 stitutions, of the sovereignty of the 
 people, and the more dangerous, be- 
 cause it seems to the multitude to be 
 an assertion of the principle which it 
 overthrows. The sovereignty of the 
 people has here but one mode of 
 manifestation, and that is the laws. It 
 can express itself in no other way ; and, 
 consequently, a mob, in forcibly sus- 
 pending the laws, and in substituting 
 its own will for that which the legiti- 
 mate organs of the people have pro- 
 claimed, usurps for a time the sover- 
 eignty of the state, and is virtually re- 
 bellion. In a despotism the laws are 
 of less moment than in a free country, 
 because in the former there is a force 
 above the laws, an irresistible will, which 
 has at its disposal a subservient soldiery 
 and summary punishments, to maintain 
 something like order in the state. But 
 in a republic there is nothing higher 
 than the laws ; and in shaking the au- 
 thority of these, the whole social edifice 
 is shaken. Reverence for the laws is 
 the essential spirit, the guardian power, 
 of a free state. Take this away, and no 
 physical force can take its place. The 
 force is in the excited multitude, and in 
 proportion as it is roused against law, 
 it prepares the way and constitutes a 
 demand for a more regular, despotic 
 power, which, bad as it is, is better than 
 the tyranny of crowds. There is, in- 
 deed, as I have intimated, one case 
 where popular commotion does com- 
 paratively little harm. I mean that 
 which is excited by some daring crime 
 which the laws sternly forbid, and which 
 sends an electric thrill of horror through 
 a virtuous community. In such a case 
 the public without law do the work of 
 law. and enforce those natural, eternal 
 principles of right on which all legisla- 
 tion should rest. Even this violence, 
 however, is dangerous. But, be it ever 
 so blameless, who can bring under this 
 head the outrage offered to abolitionists, 
 men who had broken no law, and whose 
 distinction was that they had planted 
 themselves on the ground of natural and 
 everlasting right ?
 
 8i6 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 This outrage against the abolitionists 
 made little impression on the country 
 at large. It was pronounced wrong, of 
 course ; but then we were told that the 
 abolitionists were so imprudent, so fierce, 
 so given to denunciation, so intolerant to- 
 wards all who differ from them, that they 
 had no great claim to sympathy ! Every- 
 where the excesses of the abolitionists 
 are used to palliate the persecution which 
 they suffer. But are they the only in- 
 tolerant people in the country ? Is there 
 a single political party which does not 
 deal as freely in denunciation ? Is there 
 a religious sect which has not its meas- 
 ure of bitterness ? I ask, as before, if 
 fierce denunciation is to be visited with 
 flames, where will the conflagration stop ? 
 
 In thus speaking, let me not be con- 
 sidered as blind to the errors of the 
 abolitionists. My interest in their ob- 
 ject increases my pain at their defects. 
 When I consider them as having es- 
 poused a just and holy cause, I am 
 peculiarly grieved by the appearances 
 of passionate severity in their writing, 
 speeches, and movements. Such men 
 ought to find in the grandeur, purity, 
 and benevolence of their end, irresisti- 
 ble motives to self-control, to a spirit of 
 equity and mildness, to a calm, lofty, 
 trust in God. I grieve that in an age 
 when the power of gentleness and meek- 
 ness is beginning to be understood, they 
 have sought strength in very different 
 weapons. I do not deny their error ; 
 but I say, let there be some proportion 
 between the punishment and the offence. 
 Is nothing to be pardoned to men who 
 have meditated on great wrongs until 
 their spirits are deeply stirred ? Is 
 vehemence in such men the unpardon- 
 able sin ? Must we rigidly insist that 
 they shall weigh every word before they 
 speak ? When all England was on fire 
 with the injuries of the slave, is it won- 
 derful that men in this country, where 
 the evil is most towering, should echo 
 in louder tones the cry which came to 
 them over the ocean? Is it wonderful 
 that women, thinking of more than a 
 million of their own sex, at no great 
 distance, exposed to degradation and 
 prostitution, should, in their grief and 
 indignation, repel every extenuating plea 
 for the supporters of these abomina- 
 tions ? Was it possible that none 
 should speak on this subject but the 
 wise and prudent ? Does not every great 
 
 cause gather round itself vehement spir- 
 its ? Must no evil be touched till we 
 have assurance that it shall be shaken 
 and subverted by rule ? We bear ex- 
 travagance and vehemence elsewhere, 
 without burning down men's houses. 
 Why this singular sensitiveness to anti- 
 slavery vehemence, except it be that 
 slavery, which so many call an evil with 
 the lips, has never come as an evil to 
 their consciences and hearts ? 
 
 But, it is said, the abolitionists injure 
 a good cause. Be it so. I think they 
 have done it harm as well as good. But 
 is not this the common course of human 
 affairs ? What good cause is not harmed, 
 and sometimes thrown back, by its best 
 friends. In the present imperfect state 
 of our nature, men seldom take a strong 
 hold of any great object, without falling 
 into excess. Enthusiasm, by which I 
 mean a disproportionate strength of feel- 
 ing and emotion, such as interferes more 
 or less with the judgment, seems almost 
 inseparable from earnestness. The calm 
 reason, the single idea of right, the prin- 
 ciple of pure love, such as it exists in 
 God, serene and unimpassioned, these 
 divine impulses seldom of themselves 
 carry men through great enterprises. 
 Human passionateness mixes with high- 
 er influences. This is to be lamented, 
 and much evil is done ; but we must 
 endure enthusiasm with its excesses, or 
 sink into a lifeless monotony. These 
 excesses we ought to rebuke and dis- 
 courage ; but we must not hunt them 
 down as the greatest crimes. We must 
 take heed lest in our war against rash- 
 ness we quench all the generous senti- 
 ments of human nature. It is natural 
 to desire that evils should be removed 
 gently, imperceptibly, without agitation ; 
 and the more of this quiet process the 
 better. But it is not ordinarily by such 
 processes that the mysterious providence 
 of God purifies society. Religion and 
 freedom have made their way through 
 struggles and storms. Established evils 
 naturally oppose an iron front to reform ; 
 and the spirit of reform, gathering new 
 vehemence from oppositions, pours itself 
 forth in passionate efforts. Man is not 
 good enough yet to join invincible cour- 
 age, zeal, and struggle, with all-suffering 
 meekness. But must conflict with evil 
 cease, because it will be marred with 
 human imperfection ? Must the burn- 
 ing spirit lock up its sympathies with
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 8I 7 
 
 suffering humanity, because not sure of 
 being always self-possessed ? Do we 
 forgive nothing to the warm-hearted ? 
 Should we not labor to temper and guide 
 aright excessive zeal in a virtuous cause, 
 instead of persecuting it as the worst of 
 crimes ? 
 
 The abolitionists deserve rebuke ; but 
 let it be proportioned to the offence. 
 They do wrong in their angry denun- 
 ciation of slave-holders. But is calling 
 the slave-holder hard names a crime of 
 unparalleled aggravation ? Is it not, at 
 least, as great a crime to spoil a man of 
 his rights and liberty, to make him a 
 chattel, and trample him in the dust ? 
 And why shall the latter offender escape 
 with so much gentler rebuke ? I know, 
 as well as the slave-holder, what it is to 
 bear the burden of hard names. The 
 South has not been sparing of its invec- 
 tives in return for my poor efforts against 
 slavery. I understand the evil of re- 
 proach ; and I am compelled to pro- 
 nounce it a very slight one, and not to 
 be named in comparison with bondage ; 
 and why is it that he who inflicts the 
 former should be called to drink the cup 
 of wrath to the very dregs, whilst he who 
 inflicts the latter receives hardly a mild 
 rebuke ? 
 
 I say these things, not as a partisan 
 of the abolitionists, but from a love of 
 justice. They seem to me greatly 
 wronged by the unparalleled persecution 
 to which they have been exposed ; and 
 the wronged should never want a de- 
 fender. But I am not of them. In the 
 spirit of many of them I see much to 
 condemn. I utterly disapprove their 
 sweeping denunciations. I fear that 
 their scorn of expediency may degener- 
 ate into recklessness. I fear that, as a 
 natural if not necessary consequence of 
 their multiplied meetings, held chiefly 
 for excitement, their zeal must often be 
 forced, got up for effect, a product of 
 calculation, not a swell of the heart. I 
 confide in them the less, the more they 
 increase. I fear that their resort to 
 political action will impair their single- 
 ness of purpose" and their moral power. 
 I distrust the system of association and 
 agitation in a cause like this. But be- 
 cause I see among them somewhat to 
 fear and blame, must I shut my eyes on 
 more which I ought to commend ? Must 
 not men of pure and lofty aims be hon- 
 ored, because, like every thing human, 
 
 they are not free from fault ? I re- 
 spect the abolitionists for maintaining 
 great principles with courage and fervor, 
 amidst scorn and violence. Can men 
 have a higher claim to respect ? In 
 their body, amidst prejudiced, narrow- 
 minded, conceited, self-seeking mem- 
 bers, such as are found in all associa- 
 tions, there is a large . proportion of 
 uncompromising, single-hearted friends 
 of truth, right, and freedom ; and such 
 men are securities against the adoption 
 of criminal ends or criminal means. In 
 their front rank perhaps at their head 
 is Gerrit Smith ; a man worthy of all 
 honor for his overflowing munificence, 
 for his calm yet invincible moral courage, 
 for his Christian liberality, embracing 
 men of every sect and name, and for 
 his deep, active, inexhaustible sympathy 
 with the sinful, suffering, and oppressed. 
 In their ranks may also be found our 
 common friend, Charles Follen, that 
 genuine man, that heroic spirit, whose 
 love of freedom unites, in rare harmony, 
 the old Roman force with Christian 
 love ; in whom we see the generous, 
 rash enthusiasm of his youth, tempered 
 by time and trial into a most sweet and 
 winning virtue. I could name others, 
 honored and dear. I do not, for the 
 sake of such, shut my eyes on the de- 
 fects of the association ; but that it 
 should be selected for outrage and per- 
 secution, is a monstrous wrong, against 
 which solemn 'testimony ought to be 
 borne. 
 
 There is one consolation attending 
 persecution. It often exalts the spirit 
 of the sufferer, and often covers with 
 honor those whom it had destined to 
 shame. Who made Socrates the most 
 venerable name of antiquity ? The men 
 who mixed for him the cup of-hemlock, 
 and drove him as a criminal from the 
 world which he had enlightened. Prov- 
 idence teaches us the doctrine of retri- 
 bution very touchingly in the fact that 
 future ages guard with peculiar rever- 
 ence the memories of men who, in their 
 own times, were contemned, abhorred, 
 hunted like wild beasts, and destroyed 
 by fire or sword, for their fidelity to 
 truth. That the abolitionists have 
 grown strong under outrage, we know ; 
 and in this I should rejoice were their 
 cause ever so bad : because persecution 
 must be worse, and its defeat must be a 
 good. I wish that persecution, if not
 
 8i8 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 checked by principle, may be stayed, by 
 seeing that it fights against itself, and 
 builds up those whom it toils to destroy. 
 How long the abolitionists will be re- 
 membered, I know not ; but as long as 
 they live in history, they will wear as a 
 crown the sufferings which they have so 
 firmly borne. Posterity will be just to 
 them ; nor can. I doubt what doom pos- 
 terity will pronounce on the mobs or 
 single men who have labored to silence 
 them by brutal force. I should be glad 
 to see them exchanging their array of 
 affiliated societies for less conspicuous 
 and artificial means of action. But let 
 them not do this from subserviency to 
 opinion, or in opposition to their sense of 
 right. Let them yield nothing to fear. 
 Let them never be false to that great 
 cause which they have fought for so 
 manfully, freedom of speech. Let 
 them never give countenance to the doc- 
 trine, which all tyrants hold, that ma- 
 terial power, physical pain, is mightier 
 than the convictions of reason, than the 
 principle of duty, than the love of God 
 and mankind. Sooner may they pine 
 and perish in prisons, sooner bleed or 
 be strangled by the executioner, than 
 surrender their deliberate principles to 
 lawless violence. 
 
 In the remarks now made on the 
 recent outrage at Philadelphia, I have 
 felt myself bound to use great plainness 
 of speech. Had I consulted my feel- 
 ings, I should have been silent. In that 
 city I have old and dear friends, and 
 have received hospitalities which I 
 remember with gratitude. But we are 
 not allowed to "confer with flesh and 
 blood." I beg, however, to say, in 
 order to prevent misinterpretation, that 
 I have not thought for a moment of 
 holding up Philadelphia as the worst of 
 cities. I do not infer from a single tu- 
 mult the character of a vast population. 
 How many thousands of that metropolis 
 took no part in the transaction under 
 consideration ! And of those who gave 
 it their active or passive sanction, how 
 many thousands were hurried on by im- 
 itation and sympathy, were swept away 
 by a common impulse, without compre- 
 hending the import of the deed ! In a 
 popular ferment individuals lay aside 
 themselves for a time, and do what they 
 would shrink from if left to act on their 
 separate responsibility. In all cities, it 
 is true of the vast majority of men that 
 
 their consciences cannot stand alone. 
 Their principles, as they call them, are 
 echoes of general sentiment. Their 
 sense of duty, unpropped by opinion, 
 totters, and too often falls. One of the 
 saddest views of society is the almost 
 universal want of self-determined, self- 
 subsistent virtue. It is, therefore, no 
 sign of unparalleled depravity that a 
 community proves false to great princi- 
 ples in seasons of excitement. All great 
 cities abound in ignorance, prejudice, 
 passion, selfish conformity to the world, 
 and moral corruption in its grosser and 
 more refined forms : and that these bit- 
 ter fountains should sometimes burst 
 forth, is a matter of course. I ascribe 
 to no city precedence in virtue or crime. 
 I would only say that Philadelphia has 
 placed herself, more conspicuously than 
 other cities, on a bad eminence, and she 
 must hold it, until buildings devoted to 
 liberty of speech can stand unharmed 
 on her soil. 
 
 I now finish this long letter. Your 
 patience, my dear Sir. has not, I trust, 
 been exhausted. Whether this com- 
 munication will answer the public ends 
 which I have proposed, I know not ; 
 but it will do one good, of a personal 
 nature. It will be a memorial, however 
 brief, of a friendship which began in our 
 youth, and which has withstood the 
 vicissitudes of so many years, that we 
 may expect it to go down with us to our 
 graves. It pleases me that our names 
 should be associated in a work which, 
 though written in haste, and for a tem- 
 porary exigency, yet reflects something 
 of both our minds. It is fit that the 
 thoughts unfolded in this letter should 
 be addressed to one with whom I have 
 conversed long and familiarly on the 
 great interests of human nature. I owe 
 you much for the light and strength you 
 nave given me, and especially for the 
 faith and hope which, under much per- 
 sonal suffering and depression, you have 
 cherished and expressed in regard to 
 the destinies of our race. We have 
 given much of our sympathy to the mul- 
 titude. We have felt more for the 
 many who are forgotten than for the few 
 who shine ; and our great inquiry has 
 been, how the mass of men may be 
 raised from ignorance and sensuality to 
 a higher social, intellectual, moral, and 
 religious life. We have rejoiced to- 
 gether in the progress already made
 
 SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 819 
 
 by individuals and communities ; but a 
 voice has come to us from the depths 
 of human suffering, from the abuses of 
 the social state, from the teachings of 
 Jesus Christ, urging the need of new 
 struggle with giant evils, and of new 
 efforts for the diffusion of comforts, 
 refinements, quickening truths, enlight- 
 ened piety, and disinterested virtue. A 
 few years will bring us to our journey's 
 end.' To the last, I trust, we shall speak 
 words of blessing to our race, and words 
 of encouragement to all who toil and 
 suffer for its good. Through God's 
 grace we hope for another life ; but that 
 life, we believe, will, in some respects, 
 be one with this. Our deep sympathies 
 with the great human family will, we 
 believe, survive the grave. We shall 
 then rejoice in the interpretation of the 
 dark mysteries of the present state, of 
 the woes and oppressions now so rife on 
 earth. May it not be hoped that, instead 
 of our present poor and broken labors, 
 we shall then render services to our 
 brethren worthy of that nobler life ? But 
 the future will reveal its own secrets. It 
 is enough to know that this human 
 world, of which we form a portion, lives, 
 suffers, and is moving onward, under 
 the eye and care of the Infinite Father. 
 Before his pure, omnipotent goodness, 
 all oppressions must fall ; and under 
 his reign our highest aspirations, pray- 
 ers, and hopes for suffering humanity 
 must, sooner or later, receive an accom- 
 plishment, beyond the power of prophecy 
 to utter or of thought to comprehend. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note A. -As the page here referred 
 to was passing through the press, I un- 
 derstood that it was maintained by some 
 that the treatment which abolition peti- 
 tions had received from Congress was 
 not so peculiar as I had supposed ; and 
 I state this that the reader may inquire 
 for himself. For one, I feel little dispo- 
 sition to inquire. It is very possible 
 that, in this world of tyranny and usur- 
 pation, scattered precedents may be 
 found, which, if used for interpreting 
 and defining our rights, would reduce 
 them all to insignificance. A man, jeal- 
 ous of his rights, will not yield them to 
 this, or any other kind of logic. We 
 have here the case of a great number of 
 petitions from all parts of the free States, 
 
 and from citizens of intelligence and 
 blameless character, which, before be- 
 ing presented, were denied, by a resolu- 
 tion of Congress, the usual notice and 
 consideration. It was not the case of 
 a single petition, coming from a half- 
 insane man, from an eccentric schemer, 
 bearing on its face the marks of mental 
 aberration, or asking for something pal- 
 pably absurd and unconstitutional. The 
 petitions of the abolitionists greatly ex- 
 ceeded in number all the other petitions 
 to Congress taken together. They rep- 
 resented large masses of citizens, who 
 prayed for what is pronounced constitu- 
 tional by our wisest men. And Con- 
 gress resolved, before these petitions 
 were offered, that, on being presented, 
 they should be laid on the table without 
 debate, and that no member should have 
 the privilege of saying a word in their 
 behalf, or of calling them up for consid- 
 eration or for any action in relation to 
 them at a future time. Has any thing 
 like this ever occurred before ? Or, if it 
 has, shall we go to such precedents for 
 an interpretation of the right of petition ? 
 Is it not plain that, after this measure, 
 party-spirit can never want pretexts for 
 rejecting any and all petitions, be they 
 what they may ? To say, that because 
 these petitions passed through the form 
 of being laid on the table, the right was 
 not touched, strikes me as one of those 
 evasions whi6h will do for a court of 
 law, but which it 'is an insult to present 
 to a great nation. Suppose that Con- 
 gress, at the beginning of a session, 
 should ordain that an aperture of certain 
 dimensions should be made on the clerk's 
 table, and be connected by a tube with 
 the cellar or common sewer ; and should 
 then ordain, that by far the greater 
 number of petitions, to be presented 
 during the session, should be committed 
 to the part of the table occupied by the 
 opening, so as to sink immediately and 
 be never heard of more. What man of 
 common sense, who knows the differ- 
 ence between words and things, or what 
 freeman, who cares a rush for his rights, 
 would not say that the right of petition 
 had been virtually annulled ? Why not 
 openly reject the petitions, without this 
 mockery ? Do we not know that it is 
 from side-blows that liberty has most to 
 fear ? It is very possible that legal sub- 
 tilty may find precedents for the course 
 pursued by Congress, just as it may find
 
 820 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 authorities to prove that we have no right 
 to our own persons, but may be sold as 
 chattels. But such reasonings to a free- 
 man carry their answer on their own 
 front. Human rights are too sacred, too 
 substantial, to be refined and attenuated 
 into shadows by ingenious comparison 
 of precedents and authorities. J take 
 the ground that the right of petition is 
 something, and of course that there is a 
 fatal fallacy in the reasoning which would 
 reduce it to nothing. I would recom- 
 mend to my readers a " Letter of the 
 Honorable Caleb Gushing to the People 
 of Massachusetts," in which this subject 
 is discussed with great clearness and 
 ability. It should be circulated as a 
 tract. The public are also much in- 
 debted to the Honorable J. Q. Adams, 
 for his unshrinking energy in maintain- 
 ing the right of petition. 
 
 I say this from no particular interest 
 in the present case. I doubt whether 
 the agitation of slavery in Congress is to 
 do good to the country or to the cause 
 of emancipation ; whether abolition peti- 
 tions bring the subject before the people, 
 either at the North or South, in the man- 
 ner most likely to produce conviction. 
 I look at the matter without reference 
 to present parties. One of the sacred 
 rights of the people has been touched, 
 and this should never be done without 
 expressions of jealousy and reprobation. 
 The strongest political influence in this 
 country is party-spirit, a selfish, un- 
 righteous, unscrupulous spirit, impatient 
 of restraint, and always ready to sacri- 
 fice the provisions of the Constitution 
 
 to present purposes and immediate tri- 
 umph. One of the most solemn duties 
 of patriotism is to guard our rights from 
 the touch of this harpy. No precedents 
 of encroachment must be yielded to 
 party-spirit, for it will push them to ex- 
 tremes. No bulwarks, which our fathers 
 have erected round our liberties, must 
 be surrendered. The dangers of liberty 
 are always great from human passions 
 and selfishness, great under the freest 
 institutions, and sometimes greater from 
 what is called the popular party than 
 from any other ; and for this plain 
 reason, that this party has formed the 
 bad habit of calling itself "the people," 
 and easily deludes itself into the belief 
 that, being "the people," it may take 
 great freedoms with the Constitution, 
 and use its power with little restraint. 
 This delusion is what constitutes the 
 danger to liberty from mobs ; mobs call 
 themselves "the people." 
 
 Note B. I have allowed on this page 
 that slavery wears a milder aspect at the 
 South than in other countries. I ought 
 to inform my readers that this is denied 
 by some who have inquired into the 
 matter. A pamphlet or larger volume is 
 announced at New York, in which the 
 subject of the treatment of slaves at the 
 South is to be particularly considered. 
 The work is said to be the result of pa- 
 tient inquiries, and full proofs of its 
 statements are promised. Those at the 
 North, who believe in the mildness of 
 Southern slavery, will do well to exam- 
 ine the publication. 
 
 EMANCIPATION. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 THE following tract grew almost in- 
 sensibly out of the strong impressions 
 received from recent accounts of the 
 emancipated British Islands. Joseph 
 John Gurney, well known among us as 
 a member and minister of the Quaker 
 denomination, was so kind as to visit me 
 after his return from the West Indies, 
 and then transmitted to me his "Famil- 
 
 iar Letters to Henry Clay," * describing 
 a winter in those regions. The satis- 
 faction which I felt was so great that I 
 could not confine it to myself. I began 
 to write, as a man begins to talk after 
 hearing good news. Many thoughts con- 
 nected with the topic rushed succes- 
 sively into my mind ; and gradually, and 
 
 * The book is entitled, " Familiar Letters to Henry 
 Clay, of Kentucky, describing a Winter in the West 
 Indies. By Joseph John Gurney."
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 821 
 
 with little labor, this slight work took 
 the form it now wears. I am encour- 
 aged to hope that it is of some little 
 value, from the spontaneousness of its 
 growth. 
 
 This tract was prepared for the press 
 some time ago, and should have been 
 published immediately after the appear- 
 ance of Mr. Gurney's " Letters." But 
 I was discouraged by the preoccupation 
 of the minds of the whole community 
 with the politics of the day. I was 
 obliged to wait for the storm to pass ; 
 and I now send it forth in the hope that 
 some, at least, are at leisure to give me 
 a short hearing. Not that I expect to 
 be heard very widely. No one knows 
 more than I do the want of popularity 
 of the subject. Multitudes would think 
 it a waste of time to give their thoughts 
 to this great question of justice and hu- 
 manity. But still, there are not a few to 
 whom the truth will be welcome. Such 
 will find that in these pages I am not 
 going again over the ground which I have 
 already travelled ; and I hope they will 
 feel that, having begun with " Slavery," 
 I am fitly ending with "Emancipation." 
 
 The latter part of the tract discusses a 
 topic which I have occasionally touched 
 on, but which needs a more full exposi- 
 tion, and on which I have long wished 
 to communicate my views. The duties 
 of the free States in regard to slavery 
 need to be better understood, and my 
 suggestions, I hope, will be weighed 
 with candor. As I have taken little in- 
 terest for years in the politics of the 
 day, and as my hope for the country 
 rests not on any party, but solely on our 
 means of education, and on moral and 
 religious influences, I ought not to be 
 accused of wishing to give a political 
 aspect to the antislavery cause. I am 
 very unwilling that it should take the 
 form of a struggle for office and power. 
 Still, it has political relations ; and of 
 these I shall speak with freedom. The 
 topic is an exciting one ; but, as I look 
 at it with perfect calmness, I hope I shall 
 not disturb the minds of others. No- 
 vember 15, 1840. 
 
 At length a report of West Indian 
 emancipation has reached us to which 
 some heed will be given ; and it is so 
 cheering that I should be glad to make 
 it more extensively known. We have 
 
 had already faithful and affecting ac- 
 counts of this great social revolution : 
 but, coming from men who bear an un- 
 popular name, they have received little 
 attention. Here we have the testimony 
 of a man in no way connected with 
 American abolitionists. In his long resi- 
 dence among us Mr. Gurney has rather 
 shunned this party, whether justly or 
 wisely, I do not say. The fact is stated 
 simply to prevent or remove a prejudice 
 from which he ought not to suffer. He 
 came to this country on no mission from 
 the enemies of slavery in his own land. 
 Nor did he come, as so many travellers 
 do, to gather or invent materials for a 
 marketable book ; but to preach the 
 gospel, in obedience to what he thought 
 'a heavenly call." In this character he 
 visited many parts of our land, and every- 
 where secured esteem as a man, and won 
 no small attention to his religious teach- 
 ings. After many labors here, he felt 
 himself charged with a divine message 
 to the West Indies. His first object in 
 travelling over those islands was to 
 preach ; but, in his various journeys 
 and communications with individuals, he 
 naturally opened his eyes and ears to the 
 subject which there engrosses almost 
 every thought, and in which his own 
 philanthropy gave him special interest. 
 In his "Letters" he furnishes us with 
 the details and a few results of his ob- 
 servation, interspersed with some per- 
 sonal adventure, and with notices of the 
 natural appearances and productions of 
 regions so new and striking to an Eng- 
 lishman. The book has the merit of 
 perfectly answering its end, which is, 
 not to reason about emancipation, but 
 to make the reader a spectator, and to 
 give him facts for his own reflection. 
 It is written with much ease, simplicity, 
 clearness, and sometimes with beauty. 
 It is especially distinguished by a spirit 
 of kindness. It not only expresses 
 a sincere Christian philanthropy, but 
 breathes a good humor which must dis- 
 arm even the most prejudiced. They 
 who have refused to read antislavery 
 productions, because steeped in gall, 
 will find no bitter ingredients here. Not 
 that there is a spirit of compromise or 
 timidity in our author. He is a thor- 
 oughly kind-hearted man, and conscien- 
 tiously believes that he can best serve 
 the cause of truth and liberty by giving 
 free utterance to his own benignant
 
 822 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 spirit. The book has not only the sub- 
 stantial merit of fidelity on a subject of 
 immense importance, but another claim, 
 which may operate more widely in its 
 favor. It is entertaining. It does not 
 give us dull and dry wisdom, but the 
 quick, animated observations of a man 
 who saw with his heart as well as his 
 eyes, who took a strong interest in what 
 he describes. 
 
 That the book is entirely impartial, I 
 do not say. This highest merit of a 
 book seems to require more than human 
 virtue. To see things precisely as they 
 are, with not a shade or coloring from 
 our own prejudices or affections, is the 
 last triumph of self-denial. The most 
 honest often see what they want to see ; 
 and a man so honored as Mr. Gurney is 
 very apt to be told what he wants to 
 hear. But the book bears strong marks 
 of truth. The uprightness of the author 
 secures us against important error. Let 
 even large deductions be made for his 
 feelings, as a Quaker, against slavery, 
 for his sympathy with the negro and 
 the negro's friends ; after every allow- 
 ance, the great truth will come out, that 
 the hopes of the most sanguine advo- 
 cates of emancipation have been re- 
 alized, if not surpassed, in the West 
 Indies. 
 
 Such a book is much needed. There 
 has been in this country a backwardness, 
 almost an unwillingness, to believe good 
 reports from the West Indies. Not a 
 few have desired to hear evil, and have 
 propagated so industriously every fic- 
 tion or exaggeration unfavorable to free- 
 dom, that the honest and benevolent 
 have been misled. The general state of 
 mind among us in regard to West In- 
 dian emancipation has been dishearten- 
 ing. So deadly a poison has Southern 
 slavery infused into the opinions and 
 feelings of the North, especially in the 
 larger cities, that few cordial wishes for 
 the success of emancipation have met 
 our ears. Stray rumors of the failure of 
 the experiment in this or that island have 
 been trumpeted through the country by 
 the newspapers, and the easy faith of 
 the multitude has been practised on till 
 their sympathies with the oppressed 
 have become blunted. I have myself 
 seen the countenance of a man not want- 
 ing in general humanity brighten at ac- 
 counts of the bad working of emancipa- 
 tion. In such a state of feeling: and 
 
 opinion, a book like Mr. Gurney's is in- 
 valuable. The truth is told simply, 
 kindly ; and, though it may receive little 
 aid from our newspapers, must find its 
 way into the hands of many honest 
 readers. I offer a few extracts, not to 
 take the place of the book, but in the 
 hope ot drawing to it more general at- 
 tention. So various and interesting are 
 the details, and so suited to the various 
 prejudices and misapprehensions com- 
 mon in our country, that my only diffi- 
 culty is to make a selection, to know 
 where to stop. He first visited Tor- 
 tola : 
 
 " We could not but feel an intense interest 
 in making our first visit to a British island 
 peopled with emancipated negroes. Out 
 of a population of nearly five thousand, 
 there are scarcely more than two hundred 
 white persons ; but we heard of no incon- 
 veniences arising from this disparity. We 
 had letters to Dr. Dyott, the stipendiary 
 magistrate, and to some of the principal 
 planters, who greeted us with a warm wel- 
 come, and soon relieved us from our very 
 natural anxiety by assuring us that freedom 
 was working well in Tortola. One of our 
 first visits was to a school for black chil- 
 dren, under the care of Alexander Bott, 
 the pious minister of the parish church. 
 It was in good order, the children an- 
 swered our questions well. We then pro- 
 ceeded to the jail ; in which, if my memory 
 serves me right, we found only one pris- 
 oner, with the jailer and the 'judge! Our 
 kind friend, Francis Spencer Wigley, the 
 chief justice of the British Virgin Islands, 
 happened to be there, and cheered us with 
 the information that crime had vastly de- 
 creased since the period of full emanci- 
 pation." p. 25. 
 
 His next visit was to St. Christo- 
 pher's : 
 
 " I mounted one of the governor's horses, 
 and enjoyed a solitary ride in the country. 
 Although it was the seventh day of the 
 week, usually applied by the emancipated 
 laborers to their private purposes, I ob- 
 served many of them diligently at work on 
 the cane grounds, cutting the canes for the 
 mill. Their aspect was that of physical 
 vigor and cheerful contentment, and all my 
 questions, as I passed along, were answered 
 satisfactorily. On my way I ventured to 
 call at one of the estates, and found it was 
 the home of Robert Claxton, the solicitor- 
 general of the colony, a gentleman of great 
 intelligence and respectability. He was 
 kind enough to impart a variety of useful 
 and, in general, cheering information. One 
 fact mentioned by him spoke volumes.
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 823 
 
 Speaking of a small property on the island 
 belonging to himself, he said, ' Six years 
 ago (that is, shortly before the Act of 
 Emancipation) it was worth only 2,000, 
 with the slaves upon it. Now, without a 
 single slave, it is worth three times the 
 money. I would not sell it for 6,000.' 
 This remarkable rise in the value of prop- 
 erty is by no means confined to particular 
 estates. I .was assured that, as compared 
 with those times of depression and alarm 
 which preceded the Act of Emancipation, 
 it is at once general and very considerable. 
 I asked the President Crook, and some 
 other persons, whether there was a single 
 individual on the island who wished for the 
 restoration of slavery. Answer, ' Certainly 
 not one,' " /. 34. 
 
 " ' They will do an infinity of work,' said 
 one of my informants, l for wages. 1 
 
 " This state of things is accompanied by 
 a vast increase in their own comforts. Our 
 friend Cadman, the Methodist minister, was 
 on this station during slavery, in the year 
 1826- He has now returned to it under 
 freedom. 'The change for the better,' he 
 observed, ' in the dress, demeanor, and wel- 
 fare of the people, is prodigious. 1 The im- 
 ports are vastly increased. The duties on 
 them were .1,000 more in 1838 than in 
 1837 ; and in 1839, double those of 1838, 
 within 150. This surprising increase is 
 owing to the demand on the part of the 
 free laborers for imported goods, especially 
 for articles of dress. The difficulty ex- 
 perienced by the gentry living in the town 
 in procuring fowls, eggs, &c., from the ne- 
 groes is considerably increased. The reason 
 is well known, the laborers make use of 
 them for home consumption. Marriage is 
 now become frequent amongst them, and a 
 profusion of eggs is expended on their wed- 
 ding-cakes ! Doubtless they will soon 
 learn to exchange these freaks of luxury 
 for the gradual acquisition of wealth." 
 /. 36. 
 
 He next visited Antigua : 
 
 "Our company was now joined by Na- 
 thaniel Gilbert, an evangelical clergyman 
 of the Church of England, and a large 
 proprietor and planter on the island. Both 
 he and Sir William [the governor] amply 
 confirmed our previous favorable impres- 
 sions respecting* the state of the colony. 
 On my inquiring of them respecting the 
 value of landed property, their joint an- 
 swer was clear and decided. ' At the low- 
 est computation, the land, without a single 
 slave upon it, is fully as valuable now as 
 it was, including all the slaves, before 
 emancipation.' In other words, the value 
 of the slaves is already transferred to the 
 land. Satisfactory as is this computation, 
 I have every reason to believe that it is 
 
 much below the mark. With respect to 
 real property in the town of St. John's, it 
 has risen in value with still greater rapid- 
 ity. A large number of new stores have 
 been opened ; new houses are built or 
 building ; the streets have been cleared 
 and improved ; trade is greatly on the in- 
 crease ; and the whole place wears the 
 appearance of progressive wealth and pros- 
 perity."/^. 
 
 " Extensive inquiry has led us to the con- 
 viction that, oil most of the properties of 
 Antigua, and, in general, throughout the 
 West Indies, one-third only of the slaves 
 were operative. What with childhood, age, 
 infirmity, sickness, sham sickness, and other 
 causes, full two-thirds of the negro popu- 
 lation might be regarded as dead weight. 
 The pecuniary saving, on many of the es- 
 tates in Antigua, by the change of slave 
 for free labor, is, at least, thirty per cent 1 ' 
 pp. 45, 46. 
 
 " We had appointed a meeting at a coun- 
 try village called Parham. It was a morn- 
 ing of violent rain ; but about two hundred 
 negroes braved the weather, and united 
 with us in public worship. It is said that 
 they are less willing to come out to their 
 places of worship in the rain than was the 
 case formerly. The reason is curious. 
 They now have shoes and stockings, which 
 they are unwilling to expose to the mud." 
 p. 47. 
 
 " It is a cheering circumstance, of no 
 small importance, that there are no less, as 
 we were told, than seven thousand scholars 
 in the various charity schools of Antigua. 
 In all these schools the Bible is read and 
 taught. Who "can doubt the beneficial 
 moral effect of these extensive efforts ? " 
 p. 48. 
 
 " The vicar of St. John's, during the last 
 seven years of slavery, married only one 
 hundred and ten pairs of negroes. In the 
 single year of freedom, 1839, the number 
 of pairs married by him was 185. 
 
 " With respect to crime, it has been rap- 
 idly diminishing during the last few years. 
 The numbers committed to the house of 
 correction in 1837 chiefly for petty of- 
 fences, formerly punished on the estates 
 were 850; in 1838, only 244 ; in 1839, 311. 
 The number left in the prison at the close 
 of 1837 was 147 ; at the close of 1839, 
 only 35. 
 
 " Nor can it be doubted that the personal 
 comforts of the laborers have been in the 
 mean time vastly increased. The duties 
 on imports in 1833 (the last year of slavery) 
 were .13,576; in 1839 they were 24,650. 
 This augmentation has been occasioned by 
 the importation of dry goods and other 
 articles, for which a demand, entirely new, 
 has arisen among the laboring population. 
 The quantity of bread and meat used as
 
 824 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 food by the laborers is surprisingly in- 
 creased. Their wedding-cakes and dinners 
 are extravagant, even to the point, at times, 
 of drinking champagne ! 
 
 " In connection with every congregation 
 in the island, whether of the Church of 
 England or among the Dissenters, has been 
 formed a friendly society. The laborers 
 subscribe their weekly pittances to these in- 
 stitutions, and draw out comfortable sup- 
 plies, in case of sickness, old age, burials, 
 and other exigencies. Thus is the negro 
 gradually trained to the habits of prudence 
 and foresight." //. 48, 49. 
 
 " A female proprietor who had become 
 embarrassed was advised to sell off part of 
 her property in small lots. The experi- 
 ment answered her warmest expectations. 
 The laborers in the neighborhood bought 
 up all the little freeholds with extreme 
 eagerness, made their payments faithfully, 
 and lost no time in settling on the spots 
 which they had purchased. They soon 
 framed their houses, and brought their gar- 
 dens into useful cultivation with yams, 
 bananas, plantains, pine-apples, and other 
 fruits and vegetables, including plots of 
 sugar-cane. In this way Augusta and Li- 
 berta sprang up as if by magic. I visited 
 several of the cottages, in company with the 
 rector of the parish, and was surprised by 
 the excellence of the buildings, as well 
 as by the neat furniture and cleanly lit- 
 tle articles of daily use which we found 
 within. It was a scene of contentment and 
 happiness ; and I may certainly add, of 
 industry ; for these little freeholders oc- 
 cupied only their leisure hours in working 
 on their own grounds. They were also 
 earning wages as laborers on the neighbor- 
 ing estates, or working at English Harbor 
 as mechanics." //. 49, 50. 
 
 " We were now placed in possession of 
 clear documentary evidence respecting the 
 staple produce of the island. The average 
 exports of the last five years of slavery 
 (182910 1833, inclusive) were : sugar, 12,189 
 hogsheads ; molasses, 3,308 puncheons ; and 
 rum, 2,468 puncheons. Those of the first 
 five years of freedom (1834 to 1838, inclu- 
 sive) were : sugar, 13,545 hogsheads; mo- 
 lasses, 8,308 puncheons ; and rum, 1,109 
 puncheons ; showing an excess of 1,356 
 hogsheads of sugar, and of 5,000 punch- 
 eons of molasses ; and a diminution of 
 1,359 puncheons of rum. This comparison 
 is surely a triumphant one ; not only does 
 it demonstrate the advantage derived from 
 free labor during a course of five years, but 
 affords a proof that many of the planters 
 of Antigua have ceased to convert their 
 molasses into rum. It ought to be observed 
 that these five years of freedom included 
 two of drought, one very calamitous. The 
 statement for 1839 forms an admirable cli- 
 
 max to this account. It is as follows : 
 sugar, 22,383 hogsheads (10,000 beyond the 
 last average of slavery) j 13,433 puncheons 
 of molasses (also 10,000 beyond that aver- 
 age) ; and only 582 puncheons of rum ! 
 That, in the sixth year of freedom, after 
 the fair trial of five years, the exports of 
 sugar from Antigua almost doubled the 
 average of the last five years of slavery, is 
 a fact which precludes the necessity of all 
 other evidence. By what hands was this vast 
 crop raised and realized ? By the hands of 
 that lazy and impracticable race (as they 
 have often been described), the negroes. 
 And under what stimulus has the work 
 been effected ? Solely under that of mod- 
 erate wages." /. 53. 
 
 He next visited Dominica, of which 
 he gives equally favorable accounts ; 
 but I hasten to make a few extracts 
 from his notices of Jamaica, the island 
 from which the most unfavorable re- 
 ports have come, and in which the un- 
 wise and unkind measures of the pro- 
 prietors, particularly in regard to rents, 
 have done much to counteract the good 
 influences of emancipation : 
 
 " We were glad to observe that the day 
 [Sunday] was remarkably well observed at 
 Kingston, just as it is in many of the 
 cities of your highly favored Union. A 
 wonderful scene we witnessed that morn- 
 ing in Samuel Oughton's Baptist Chapel, 
 which we attended without having com- 
 municated to the people any previous no- 
 tice of our coming. The minister was so 
 obliging as to make way for us on the oc- 
 casion, and to invite us to hold our meet- 
 ing with his flock after the manner of 
 Friends. Such a flock we had not before 
 seen, consisting of nearly three thousand 
 black people, chiefly emancipated slaves, 
 attired, after their favorite custom, in neat 
 white raiment, and most respectable and 
 orderly in their demeanor and appearance. 
 They sat in silence with us, in an exem- 
 plary manner, and appeared both to un- 
 derstand and appreciate the doctrines of 
 divine truth preached on the occasion. The 
 congregation is greatly increased, both in 
 numbers and respectability, since the date 
 of full freedom. They pour in from the 
 country, partly on foot, and partly on mules 
 or horses of their own. They now entirely 
 support the mission, and are enlarging their 
 chapel at the expense of ^"1,000 sterling. 
 Their subscriptions to this and other col- 
 lateral objects are at once voluntary and 
 very liberal. 'I have brought my mite for 
 the chapel,' said a black woman, once a 
 slave, to S. Oughton, a day or two before 
 our meeting ; ' I am sorry ft is no more ; '
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 825 
 
 she then put into his hand two pieces of 
 gold amounting to five dollars." //. 74, 75. 
 
 " Here it may be well to notice the fact, 
 that the great majority of estates in Ja- 
 maica belong to absentee proprietors, who 
 reside in England. In Jamaica, they are 
 placed under the care of some attorney, or 
 representative of the owner ; one attorney 
 often undertaking the care of numerous 
 estates. Under the attorney is the over- 
 seer, on each particular property, on whom 
 the management almost exclusively de- 
 volves. This state of things is extremely 
 unfavorable to the welfare of Jamaica. If the 
 proprietors cannot give their personal atten- 
 tion to their estates, it would certainly be a 
 better plan to lease them to eligible tenants 
 on the spot, a practice which has of late 
 years been adopted in many instances. It 
 is only surprising that estates, never visited 
 by the proprietor, and seldom by the at- 
 torney, but left to the care of inexperienced 
 young men, often of immoral character, 
 should prosper at all. Nor would they 
 prosper, even as they now do, but for two 
 causes ; first, the exuberant bounty of nat- 
 ure, and secondly, the orderly, inoffensive 
 conduct and patient industry of the negro 
 race." /. 85. 
 
 " The rapid diffusion of marriage among 
 the negroes, and the increase of it even 
 among the white inhabitants in Jamaica, is 
 one of the happiest results of freedom. 
 We were assured, on good authority, that 
 four .times as many marriages took place 
 last year in Jamaica as in an equal popula- 
 tion, on an average, in England, a fact 
 which proves not only that numerous new 
 connections are formed, but also that mul- 
 titudes who were formerly living as man 
 and wife without the right sanction are 
 now convinced of the sinfulness of the 
 practice, and are availing themselves with 
 eagerness of the marriage covenant. It 
 appears that upwards of sixteen hundred 
 negro couples were married in the Baptist 
 churches alone during the year 1839." 
 /. 86. 
 
 " In the parish (or county] of St. Mary, 
 rent and wages have been arranged quite 
 independently of each other, and labor has 
 been suffered to find its market without 
 obstruction. The consequence is, that there 
 have been no differences, and the people 
 are working well. The quantity of work 
 obtained from a freeman there is far beyond 
 the old task of the slave. In the laborious 
 occupation of holing, the emancipated ne- 
 groes perform double the work of the 
 slave in a day. In road-making, the day's 
 task under slavery was to break four bar- 
 rels of stone. N<no, by task-work, a weak 
 hand will fill eight barrels, a strong one 
 from ten to twelve." /. 89. 
 
 " At the Baptist station at Sligoville we 
 
 I spent several hours. It is located on a lofty 
 hill, and is surrounded by fifty acres of fer- 
 tile mountain land. This property is di- 
 vided into one hundred and fifty freehold 
 lots, fifty of which had been already sold 
 to the emancipated laborers, and had proved 
 a timely refuge for many laborers who had 
 been driven by hard usage from their former 
 homes. Some of them had built good cot- 
 tages ; others, temporary huts ; and others, 
 again, were preparing the ground for build- 
 ing. Their gardens were cleared, or in 
 process of clearing, and in many cases 
 already brought into fine cultivation. Not 
 a hoe, I believe, had ever been driven into 
 that land before. Now, a village had risen 
 up, with every promise of comfort and pros- 
 perity, and the land was likely to produce 
 a vast abundance of nutritious food. The 
 people settled there were all married pairs, 
 mostly with families, and the men em- 
 ployed the bulk of their time in working 
 for wages on the neighboring estates. The 
 chapel and the school were immediately at 
 hand, and the religious character of the 
 people stood high. . Never did I witness a 
 scene of greater industry, or one more 
 marked by contentment for the present and 
 hope for the future. How instructive to 
 remember that two years ago this peacful 
 village had no existence ! " /. 90. 
 
 " On our return home we visited two 
 neighboring estates, of about equal size 
 (I believe) and equal fertility ; both among 
 the finest properties, for natural and local 
 advantages, which I anywhere saw in Ja- 
 maica. One was in difficulty ; the other all 
 prosperity. The first was the estate al- 
 ready alluded to,' which had been deprived 
 of so many hands by 'vain attempts to com- 
 pel the labor of freemen. There, if I am 
 not mistaken, I saw, as we passed by, the 
 clear marks of that violence by which the 
 people had been expelled. The second, 
 called ' Dawkin's Caymanas,' was under the 
 enlightened attorneyship of Judge Bernard, 
 who, with his lady, and the respectable 
 overseer, met us on the spot. On this 
 property the laborers were independent 
 tenants. Their rent was settled according 
 to the money value of the tenements which 
 they occupied, and they were allowed to 
 take their labor to the best market they 
 could find. As a matter of course, they 
 took it to the home market ; and excellently 
 were they working on the property of their 
 old master. The attorney, the overseer, 
 and the laborers, all seemed equallysatisfied, 
 equally at their ease. Here, then, was one 
 property which would occasion a bad report 
 of Jamaica ; another which would as surely 
 give rise to a good report. As it regards 
 the properties themselves, both reports are 
 true ; and they are the respective results of 
 two opposite modes of management.
 
 826 
 
 EMANCIPATION. 
 
 "At Dawkin's Caymanas we had the 
 pleasure of witnessing an interesting spec- 
 tacle ; for the laborers on the property, with 
 their wives, sons, and daughters, were on 
 that day met at a picnic dinner. The ta- 
 ble, of vast length, was spread under a 
 wattled building erected for the purpose, 
 and at the convenient hour of six in the 
 evening (after the day's work was finished) 
 was loaded with all sorts of good fare, 
 soup, fish, fowls, pigs, and joints of meat, 
 in abundance. About one hundred and 
 fifty men and women of the African race, 
 attired with the greatest neatness, were as- 
 sembled, in much harmony and order, to 
 partake of the feast ; but no drink was pro- 
 vided stronger than water. It was a sober, 
 substantial repast, the festival of peace 
 and freedom. This dinner was to have 
 taken place on New-Year's day ; but it so 
 happened that a Baptist meeting-house in 
 another part of the island had been de- 
 stroyed by fire ; and, at the suggestion of 
 their minister, these honest people agreed 
 to waive their dinner, and to subscribe their 
 money, instead, to the rebuilding of the 
 meeting-house. For this purpose they raised 
 a noble sum (I believe considerably up- 
 wards of ;ioo sterling) ; and now, in the 
 third month of the year, finding that mat- 
 ters were working well with them, they 
 thought it well to indulge themselves with 
 their social dinner. By an unanimous vote, 
 they commissioned me to present a mes- 
 sage of their affectionate regards to Thomas 
 Clarkson and Thomas Fowell Buxton, the 
 two men to whom, of all others, perhaps, 
 they were the most indebted for their pres- 
 ent enjoyment." //. 91, 92. 
 
 " After breakfast we drove to Kelly's, 
 one of Lord Sligo's properties. We saw 
 the people on this property busily engaged 
 in the laborious occupation of holing, a 
 work for which ploughing is now pretty 
 generally substituted in Jamaica. ' How are 
 you all getting along ? ' said my companion, 
 to a tall, bright-looking black man, busily 
 engaged with his hoe. ' Right well, massa, 
 right well,' he replied. ' I am from America,' 
 said my friend, 'where there are many 
 slaves ; what shall I say to them from you ? 
 shall I tell them that freedom is working 
 well here ?' 'Yes, massa,' said he, 'much 
 well under freedom, thank God for it!' 
 'Much well' they were indeed doing, for 
 they were earning a dollar for every hun- 
 dred cane holes ; a great effort, certainly, 
 but one which many of them accomplished 
 by four o'clock in the afternoon. ' How 
 is this ? ' asked the same friend, as he felt 
 the lumps or welts on the shoulder of an- 
 other man. ' O, massa,' cried the negro, 
 'I was flogged when a slave, no more 
 whip now, all free ! ' " /. 96. 
 
 " The prosperity of the planters in Ja- 
 
 maica must not be measured by the mere 
 amount of the produce of sugar or coffee 
 as compared with the time of slavery. 
 Even where produce is diminished, profit 
 will be increased if freedom be fairly 
 tried by the saving of expense. 'I had 
 rather make sixty tierces of coffee,' said 
 A. B., 'under freedom, than one hundred 
 and twenty under slavery ; such is the sav- 
 ing of expense that I make a better profit 
 by it ; nevertheless, I mean to make one hun- 
 dred and twenty, as before.'' " /. 1 18. 
 
 " ' Do you see that excellent new stone 
 wall round the field below us ? ' said the 
 young physician to me, as we stood at A.B.'s 
 front door, surveying the delightful scenery 
 ' That wall could scarcely have been built 
 at all under slavery or the apprenticeship ; 
 the necessary labor could not then have 
 been hired at less than ^5 currency, or 
 about $13 per chain. Under freedom it 
 cost only from $3.50 to $4 per chain, not 
 one-third of the amount. Still more re- 
 markable is the faqt that the whole of it 
 was built under the stimulus of job-work, 
 by an invalid negro, who, during slavery, 
 had been given up to total inaction.' This 
 was the substance of our conversation. 
 The information was afterwards fully con- 
 firmed by the proprietor. Such was the 
 fresh blood infused into the veins of this 
 decrepid person by the genial hand of free- 
 dom, that he had been redeemed from abso- 
 lute uselessness, had executed a noble work, 
 had greatly improved his master's property, 
 and, finally, had realized for himself a hand- 
 some sum of money. This single fact is 
 admirably and undeniably illustrative of the 
 principles of the case ; and for that purpose 
 is as good as a thousand." p. 119. 
 
 " I will take the present opportunity of 
 offering to thy attention the account of 
 exports from Jamaica (as exhibited in the 
 return printed for the House of Assembly) 
 for the last year of the apprenticeship, and 
 the first of full freedom : 
 
 Hhdl. 
 
 Sugar, for the year ending gth month (Sept.) 
 
 30, 1838 53,825 
 
 Sugar, for the year ending gth month (Sept.) 
 
 30, 1839 45.359 
 
 Apparent diminution 
 
 8,466 
 
 " This difference is much less considera- 
 ble than many persons have been led to 
 imagine ; the real diminution, however, is 
 still less ; because there has lately taken 
 place in Jamaica an increase in the size of 
 the hogshead. Instead of the old measure, 
 which contained 17 cwt., new ones have been 
 introduced, containing from 20 to 22 cwt., 
 a change which, for several reasons, is an 
 economical one for the planter. Allowing 
 only five per cent for this change, the defi- 
 ciency is reduced from 8,466 hogsheads to 
 5,775; and this amount is further lessened
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 827 
 
 by the fact that, in consequence of freedom, 
 there is a vast addition to the consumption 
 of sugar among the people of Jamaica itself, 
 and therefore to the home sale. 
 
 " The account of coffee is not so favora- 
 ble : 
 
 Mi 
 
 CoSee, for the year ending gth month (Sept.) 
 
 30, 1838 "7.313 
 
 Coffee, for the year ending gth month (Sept.) 
 
 3> '^39 78,759 
 
 Diminution (about one-third) 
 
 38,554 
 
 " The coffee is a very uncertain crop, and 
 the deficiency, on the comparison of these 
 two years, is not greater, I believe, than has 
 often occurred before. We are also to re- 
 member that, both in sugar and coffee, the 
 profit to the planter may be increased by 
 the saving of expense, even when the prod- 
 uce is diminished. Still, it must be allowed 
 that some decrease has taken place on both 
 the articles, in connection with the change 
 of system. With regard to the year 1840, 
 it is expected that coffee will, at least, main- 
 tain the last amount ; but a further decrease 
 on sugar is generally anticipated. 
 
 " Now, so far as this decrease of produce 
 is connected with the change of system, it 
 is obviously to be traced to a corresponding 
 decrease in the quantity of labor. But here 
 comes the critical question, the real turn- 
 ing-point. To what is this decrease in the 
 quantity of labor owing ? I answer delib- 
 erately, but without reserve, ' Mainly to 
 causes which class under slavery, and not 
 under freedom.' It is, for the most part, 
 the result of those impolitic attempts to 
 force the labor of freemen which have dis- 
 gusted the peasantry, and have led to the 
 desertion of many of the estates. 
 
 " It is a cheering circumstance that the 
 amount of planting and other preparatory 
 labor bestowed on the estates during the 
 autumn of 1839 has been much greater, by 
 all accounts, than in the autumn of 1838. 
 This is itself the effect of an improved 
 understanding between the planters and the 
 peasants ; and the result of it (if other cir- 
 cumstances be equal) cannot fail to be a 
 considerable increase of produce in 1841. 
 I am told, however, that there is one cir- 
 cumstance which may possibly prevent this 
 result, as it regards sugar. It is, that the 
 cultivation of it under the old system was 
 forced on certain properties, which, from 
 their situation and other circumstances, 
 were wholly unfit for the purpose. These 
 plantations afforded an income to the local 
 agents, but to the proprietors were either 
 unprofitable or losing concerns. On such 
 properties, under those new circumstances 
 which bring all things to their true level, 
 the cultivation of sugar must cease. 
 
 " In the mean time the imports of the 
 island are rapidly increasing ; trade im- 
 
 proving ; the towns thriving ; new villages 
 rising in every direction ; property much 
 enhanced in value ; well-managed estates 
 productive and profitable ; expenses of 
 management diminished ; short methods o 
 labor adopted ; provisions cultivated on a 
 larger scale than ever ; and the people, 
 wherever they are properly treated, indus- 
 trious, contented, and gradually accumu- 
 lating wealth." //. 132-134. 
 
 " My narrative respecting the British 
 West India Islands being now brought to 
 a close, I will take the liberty of concen- 
 trating and recapitulating the principal 
 points of the subject in a few distinct 
 propositions : 
 
 " 1st. The emancipated tiegroes are working 
 well on the estates of their old masters. Nor 
 does Jamaica, when duly inspected and 
 fairly estimated, furnish any exception to 
 the general result. We find that, in that 
 island, wherever the negroes are fairly, 
 kindly, and wisely treated, there they are 
 working well on the properties of their old 
 masters ; and that the existing instances of 
 a contrary description must be ascribed to 
 causes which class under slavery, and not 
 under freedom. Let it not, however, be 
 imagined that the negroes who are not 
 working on the estates of their old masters 
 are, on that account, idle. Even these are, 
 in general, busily employed in cultivating 
 their own grounds, in various descriptions 
 of handicraft, in lime-burning or fishing, 
 in benefiting themselves and the com- 
 munity, through some new but equally 
 desirable medium. Besides all this, stone 
 walls are built, new houses erected, past- 
 ures cleaned, ditches dug, meadows drained, 
 roads made and macadamized, stores fitted 
 up, villages formed, and other beneficial 
 operations effected ; the whole of which, 
 before emancipation, it would have been a 
 folly even to attempt. The old notion that 
 the negro is by constitution a lazy creature, 
 who will do no work at all except by com- 
 pulsion, is now for ever exploded." //. 
 
 137, i3 8 - 
 
 " 2d. An increased quantity of work 
 thrown upon the market is, of course, fol- 
 lowed by the cheapening of labor." p. 
 138. 
 
 " 3d. Real property has risen and is rising' 
 in value. I wish it, however, to be under- 
 stood that the comparison is not here made 
 with those olden times of slavery, when the 
 soils of the islands were in their most pro- 
 lific state, and the slaves themselves of a 
 corresponding value ; but with those days 
 of depression and alarm which preceded 
 the Act of Emancipation. All that I mean 
 to assert is, that landed property in the 
 British colonies has touched the bottom, 
 has found that bottom solid, has already 
 risen considerably, and is now on a steady,
 
 828 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 ascending march towards the recovery of 
 its highest value. One circumstance which 
 greatly contributed to produce its deprecia- 
 tion was the cry of interested persons who 
 wished to run it down ; and the demand for 
 it which has arisen among these very per- 
 sons is now restoring it to its rightful value. 
 Remember the old gentleman in Antigua, 
 who is always complaining of the effects of 
 freedom, and always buying latid" pp. 139, 
 140. 
 
 " 4th. The personal comforts of the labor- 
 ing population, under freedom, are multi- 
 plied tenfold." p. 140. 
 
 " 5th. Lastly, the moral and religious im- 
 provement of this people, under freedom, is 
 more than equal to the increase of their com- 
 forts. Under this head there are three points 
 deserving, respectively, of a distinct place 
 in our memories. First, the rapid increase 
 and vast extent of elementary and Christian 
 education, schools for infants, young per- 
 sons, and adults, multiplying in every direc- 
 tion. Secondly, the gradual, but decided, 
 diminution of crime, amounting, in many 
 country districts, almost to its extinction. 
 Thirdly, the happy change of the general 
 and almost universal practice of concubi- 
 nage for the equally general adoption of 
 marriage. 'Concubinage,' says Dr. Stewart, 
 in his letter to me, 'the universal practice 
 of the colored people, has wholly disap- 
 peared from amongst them. No young 
 woman of color thinks of forming such 
 connections now.' What is more, the im- 
 proved morality of the blacks is reflecting 
 itself on the white inhabitants ; even the 
 overseers are ceasing, one after another, 
 from a sinful mode of life, and are forming 
 reputable connections in marriage. But 
 while these three points are confessedly of 
 high importance, there is a fourth which at 
 once embraces and outweighs them all, I 
 mean the diffusion of vital Christianity. I 
 know that great apprehensions were enter- 
 tained especially in this country lest, 
 on the cessation of slavery, the negroes 
 should break away at once from their mas- 
 ters and their ministers. But freedom has 
 come, and while their masters have not 
 been forsaken, their religious teachers have 
 become dearer to them than ever. Under 
 the banner of liberty, the churches and 
 meeting-houses have been enlarged and 
 multiplied, the attendance has become reg- 
 ular and devout, the congregations have in 
 many cases been more than doubled ; above 
 all, the conversion of souls (as we have 
 reason to believe) has been going on to an 
 extent never before known in these colo- 
 nies. In a religious point of view, as I 
 have before hinted, the wilderness, in many 
 places, has indeed begun to ' blossom as the 
 rose.' ' Instead of the thorn ' has ' come 
 up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier ' has 
 
 ' come up the myrtle-tree, and it shall be to 
 the Lord for a name ; for an everlasting 
 sign, that shall not be cut off.' " //. 141, 
 142. 
 
 I have now given a few extracts from 
 Mr. Gurney's book. They need no 
 comment. Indeed, nothing can be said 
 to convince or move the reader, if these 
 simple records of emancipation do not 
 find their way to his heart. In the 
 whole history of efforts for human hap- 
 piness it is doubtful if another example 
 can be found of so great a revolution 
 accomplished with so few sacrifices and 
 such immediate reward. Compare with 
 this the American Revolution, which 
 had for its end to shake off a yoke too 
 light to be named by the side of domes- 
 tic slavery. Through what fields of 
 blood and years of suffering did we 
 seek civil freedom, a boon insignifi- 
 cant in comparison with freedom from 
 an owner's grasp ! It is the ordinary 
 law of Providence, that great blessings 
 shall be gained by great sacrifices, and 
 that the most beneficial social changes 
 shall bring immediate suffering. That 
 near a million of human beings should 
 pass in a day from the deepest degrada- 
 tion to the rights of freemen with so 
 little agitation of the social system, is 
 a fact so strange that we naturally sus- 
 pect, at first, some tinging of the picture 
 from the author's sympathies ; and we 
 are brought to full conviction only by 
 the simplicity and minuteness of his 
 details. For one, I should have rejoiced 
 in emancipation as an unspeakable good, 
 had the immediate results worn a much 
 darker hue. I wanted only to know 
 that social order was preserved, that 
 the laws were respected, after eman- 
 cipation. I felt that, were anarchy es- 
 caped, no evil worse than slavery could 
 take its place. I had not forgotten the 
 doctrine of our fathers, that human 
 freedom is worth vast sacrifices, that 
 it can hardly be bought at too great a 
 price. 
 
 I proceed now to offer a few remarks 
 on several topics suggested by Mr. 
 Gurney's book ; and I shall close by 
 considering the duties which belong to 
 individuals and to the free States in 
 relation to slavery. 
 
 The first topic suggested by our au- 
 thor, and perhaps the most worthy of 
 note, is his anxiety to show that eman- 
 cipation has been accompanied with
 
 EMANC1PA TION. 
 
 829 
 
 little pecuniary loss, that as a mon- 
 eyed speculation it is not to be con- 
 demned. He evidently supposes that 
 he is writing for a people who will 
 judge of this grand event in history by 
 the standard of commercial profit or 
 loss. In this view, his simple book 
 tells more than a thousand satires 
 against the spirit of our times. In 
 speaking of West Indian emancipation, 
 it has been common for men to say, 
 We must wait for the facts ! And what 
 facts have they waited for ? They have 
 waited to know that the master, after 
 fattening many years on oppression, 
 had lost nothing by the triumph of 
 justice and humanity ; that the slave, 
 on being freed, was to yield as large an 
 income as before to his employer. This 
 delicate sensibility to the rights of the 
 wrong-doer, this concern for property, 
 this unconcern for human nature, is a 
 sign of the little progress made even 
 here by free principles, and of men's 
 ignorance of the great end of social 
 union.- 
 
 Every good man must protest against 
 this mode of settling the question of 
 emancipation. It seems to be taken for 
 granted by not a few, that if, in conse- 
 quence of this event, the crops have 
 fallen off, or the number of coffee bags 
 or sugar hogsheads is lessened, then 
 emancipation is to be pronounced a 
 failure, and the great act of freeing a 
 people from the most odious bondage 
 is to be set down as folly. At the 
 North and the South this base doctrine 
 has seized on the public mind. It runs 
 through our presses, not excepting the 
 more respectable. The bright promises 
 of emancipation are too unimportant for 
 our newspapers ; but the fearful intel- 
 ligence that this or that island has 
 shipped fewer hogsheads of sugar than 
 in the days of slavery, is thought wor- 
 thy to be published far and wide ; and 
 emancipation is a curse, because the 
 civilized world must pay a few cents 
 more to bring tea or coffee to the due 
 degree of sweetness. It passes for an 
 " ultraism " of philanthropy to prize a 
 million of human beings above as many 
 pounds of sugar. 
 
 What is the great end of civilized 
 society ? Not coffee and sugar ; not 
 the greatest possible amount of mineral, 
 vegetable, or animal productions : but 
 the protection of the rights of all its 
 
 members. The sacrifice of rights, es- 
 pecially of the dearest and most sacred, 
 to increase of property, is one of the 
 most flagrant crimes of the social state. 
 That every man should have his due, 
 not that a few proprietors should riot 
 on the toil, sweat, and blood of the 
 many, this is the great design of the 
 union of men into communities. Eman- 
 cipation was not meant to increase the 
 crops, but to restore to human beings 
 their birthright, to give to every man 
 the free use of his powers for his own 
 and others' good. 
 
 That the production of sugar would 
 be diminished for a time, in consequence 
 of emancipation, was a thing to be ex- 
 pected, if not desired. It is in the 
 sugar culture that the slaves in the 
 West Indies have been and are most 
 overworked. In Cuba, we are told by 
 men who have given particular attention 
 to that island, the mortality on the sugar 
 estates is ten per cent, annually, so that 
 a whole gang is used up, swept off, in 
 ten years. Suppose emancipation intro . 
 duced into Cuba. Would not the pro- 
 duction of sugar be diminished ? Ought 
 not every man to desire the diminution ? 
 I do not say, that such atrocious cruelty 
 was common in the British Islands. 
 But it was in this department chiefly 
 that the slaves were exposed to exces- 
 sive toil. It was to be expected, then, 
 that, when left free, they would prefer 
 other modes of industry. Accordingly, 
 whilst the sugar is diminished, the 
 ordinary articles of subsistence have 
 increased. Some of the slaves have 
 become small farmers ; and many more, 
 who hire themselves as laborers, culti- 
 vate small patches of land on their own 
 account. There is another important 
 consideration. Before freedom, the 
 women formed no inconsiderable part 
 of the gangs who labored on the sugar 
 crops. These are now very much, if 
 not wholly, withdrawn. Is it a grief to 
 a man, who has the spirit of a man, 
 that woman's burdens are made lighter ? 
 Other causes of the diminution of the 
 sugar crop may be found in Mr. Gur. 
 ney's book ; but these are enough to 
 show us that this effect is due in part 
 to the good working of emancipation, 
 to a relief of the male and female slave, 
 in which we ought to rejoice. 
 
 Before emancipation, I expected that 
 the immediate result of the measure
 
 830 
 
 EMANCIPATION. 
 
 would be more or less idleness, and 
 consequently a diminution of produce. 
 How natural was it to anticipate that 
 men who had worked under the lash, 
 and had looked on exemption from toil 
 as the happiness of paradise, should 
 surrender themselves more or less to 
 sloth, on becoming their own masters ! 
 It is the curse of a bad system to unfit 
 men, at first, for a better. That the 
 paralyzing effect of slavery should con- 
 tinue after its extinction, that the slave 
 should, at the first, produce less than 
 before, this, surely, is no matter of 
 wonder. The wonder is and it is a 
 great one that the slaves in the West 
 Indies have, in their new condition, been 
 so greatly influenced by the motives of 
 freemen ; that the spirit of industry has 
 so far survived the system of compul- 
 sion under which they had been trained ; 
 that ideas of a better mode of h'ving 
 have taken so strong a hold on their 
 minds ; that so many refined tastes and 
 wants have been so soon developed. 
 Here is the wonder ; and all this shows, 
 what we have often heard, that the negro 
 is more susceptible of civilization from 
 abroad than any other race of men. 
 That some, perhaps many, of the slaves 
 have worked too little is not to be denied ; 
 nor can we blame them much for it. 
 All of us, I suspect, under like circum- 
 stances, would turn our first freedom 
 into a holiday. Besides, when we think 
 that they have been sweating and bleed- 
 ing to nourish in all manner of luxury 
 a few indolent proprietors, they do not 
 seem very inexcusable for a short emu- 
 lation of their superiors. The negro 
 sleeping all day under the shade of the 
 palm-tree, ought not to offend our moral 
 sense much more than the " owner " 
 stretched on his ottoman or sofa. What 
 ought to astonish us is the limitation, 
 not the existence, of the evil. 
 
 It is to be desired that those among 
 us who groan over emancipation because 
 the staples of the Islands are diminished, 
 should be made to wear for a few months 
 the yoke of slavery, so as to judge ex- 
 perimentally whether freedom is worth 
 or not a few hogsheads of sugar. If, 
 knowing what this yoke is, they are 
 willing that others should bear it, they 
 deserve themselves, above all others, to 
 be crushed by it. Slavery is the great- 
 est of wrongs, the most intolerable of 
 all the forms of oppression. We of this 
 
 country thought that to be robbed 
 political liberty was an injury not to 
 endured, and, as a people, were reac 
 to shed our blood like water to avert it 
 But political liberty is of no worth cor 
 pared with personal ; and slavery rot 
 men of the latter. Under the despotisr 
 of modern Europe, the people, though 
 deprived of political freedom, enjo) 
 codes of laws constructed with grez 
 care, the fruits of the wisdom of ages 
 which recognize the sacredness of th 
 rights of person and property, and under 
 which those rights are essentially secure 
 A subject of these despotisms may stil 
 be a man, may better his condition, ma\ 
 enrich his intellect, may fill the earth 
 with his fame. He enjoys essentially 
 Personal freedom, and through this ac 
 complishes the great ends of his bein 
 To be stripped of this blessing, to be 
 owned by a fellow-creature, to hold our 
 limbs and faculties as another's prop- 
 erty, to be subject every moment to 
 another's will, to stand in awe of anoth- 
 er's lash, to have our whole energies 
 chained to never-varying tasks for 
 another's luxury, to hold wife and chil- 
 dren at another's pleasure, what 
 wrong can be compared with this ? 
 This is such an insult on human nature, 
 such an impiety towards the common 
 Father, that the whole earth should 
 send up one cry of reprobation against 
 it ; and yet we are told this outrage 
 must continue, lest the market of the 
 civilized world should be deprived of 
 some hogsheads of sugar. 
 
 It is hard to weigh human rights 
 against each other ; they are all sacred 
 and invaluable. But there is no one 
 which nature, instinct, makes so dear to 
 us as the right of action, of free motion ; 
 the right of exerting, and by exertion 
 enlarging, our faculties of body and 
 mind ; the right of forming plans, of 
 directing our powers according to our 
 convictions of interest and duty : the 
 right of putting forth our energies from 
 a spring in our own breasts. Self-mo- 
 tion, this is what our nature hungers and 
 thirsts for as its true element and life. 
 In truth, every thing that lives the 
 bird, the insect craves and delights in 
 freedom of action ; and much more must 
 this be the instinct of a rational, moral 
 creature of God, who can attain by such 
 freedom alone to the proper strength 
 and enjoyment of his nature. The
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 831 
 
 rights of property or reputation are poor 
 compared with this. Of what worth 
 would be the products of the universe 
 to a man forbidden to use his limbs, or 
 shut up in a prison ? To be deprived 
 of that freedom of action which consists 
 with others' freedom ; to be forbidden 
 to exert our faculties for our own good ; 
 to be cut off from enterprise ; to have a 
 narrow circle drawn round us, and to be 
 kept within it by a spy and a lash ; to 
 meet an iron barrier in another's selfish 
 will, let impulse or desire turn where it 
 may ; to be systematically denied the 
 means of cultivating the powers which 
 distinguish us from the brute ; this is 
 to be wounded not only in the dearest 
 earthly interests, but in the very life of 
 the soul. Our humanity pines and dies, 
 rather than lives, in this unnatural re- 
 straint. Now, it is the very essence of 
 slavery to prostrate this right of action, 
 of self-motion, not indirectly, or uncer- 
 tainly, but immediately and without dis- 
 guise ; and is this right to be weighed 
 in the scales against sugar and coffee ; 
 and are eight hundred thousand human 
 beings to be robbed of it to increase the 
 luxuries of the world ? 
 
 What matters it that the staples of 
 the West Indies are diminished ? Do 
 the people there starve ? Are they 
 driven by want to robbery ? Has the 
 negro passed from the hands of the 
 overseer into those of the hangman ? 
 We learn from Mr. Gurney that the 
 prophecies of ruin to the West Indies 
 are fulfilled chiefly in regard to the 
 prisons. These are in some places fall- 
 ing to decay, and everywhere have fewer 
 inmates. And what makes this result 
 more striking is, that, since emancipa- 
 tion, many offences, formerly punished 
 summarily by the master on the planta- 
 tion, now fall under the cognizance of 
 the magistrate, and are, of course, pun- 
 ishable by imprisonment. Do the freed 
 slaves want clothing ? Do rags form 
 the standard of emancipation ? We 
 hear not only of decent apparel, but are 
 told that negro vanity, hardly surpassed 
 by that of the white dandy, suffers noth- 
 ing for want of decoration or fashionable 
 attire. There is not a sign that the peo- 
 ple fare the worse for freedom. Enough 
 is produced to give subsistence to an 
 improved and cheerful population ; and 
 what more can we desire ? In our sym- 
 pathy with the rich proprietor, shall we 
 
 i complain of a change which has secured 
 j to every man his rights, and to thous- 
 ands, once trodden under foot, the com- 
 forts oflifeand the means of intellectual 
 and moral progress ? Is it nothing that 
 the old, unfurnished hut of the slave is 
 in many spots giving place to the com- 
 fortable cottage ? Is it nothing that in 
 these cottages marriage is an indissolu- 
 ble tie ? that the mother presses her 
 child to her heart as indeed her own ? 
 Is it nothing that churches are spring- 
 ing up, not from the donations of 
 the opulent, but from the hard earnings 
 of the religious poor ? What if a few 
 owners of sugar estates export less than 
 formerly ? Are the many always to be 
 sacrificed to the few ? Suppose the 
 luxuries of the splendid mansion to be 
 retrenched. Is it no compensation that 
 the comforts of the laborer's hut are 
 increased ? Emancipation was resisted 
 on the ground that the slave, if restored 
 to his rights, would fall into idleness and 
 vagrancy, and even relapse into barbar- 
 ism. But the emancipated negro dis- 
 covers no indifference to the comforts of 
 civilized life. He has wants various 
 enough to keep him in action. His 
 standard of living has risen. He desires 
 a better lodging, dress, and food. He 
 has begun, too, to thirst for accumula- 
 tion. As Mr. Gurney says, " He under- 
 stands his interest as well as a Yankee." 
 He is more likely to fall into the civil- 
 ized man's cupidity than into the sloth 
 and filth of a savage. Is it an offset 
 for all these benefits, that the custom- 
 house reports a diminution of the sta- 
 ples of slavery ? 
 
 What a country most needs is, not 
 an increase of its exports, but the well- 
 being of all classes of its population, and 
 especially of the most numerous class ; 
 and these things are not one and the 
 same. It is a striking fact, that, while 
 the exports of the emancipated islands 
 have decreased, the imports are greater 
 than before. In Jamaica, during slavery, 
 the industry of the laborers was given 
 chiefly to a staple which was sent to ab- 
 sentee proprietors, who expended the 
 proceeds very much in a luxurious life 
 in England. At present not a little of 
 this industry is employed on articles of 
 subsistence and comfort for the working 
 class and their families ; and, at the same 
 time, such an amount of labor is sold by 
 this class to the planter, and so fast are
 
 832 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 they acquiring a taste for better modes 
 of living, that they need and can pay for 
 great imports from the mother country. 
 Surely, when we see the fruits of indus- 
 try diffusing themselves more and more 
 through the mass of a community, find- 
 ing their way to the very hovel, and 
 raising the multitude of men to new 
 civilization and self-respect, we cannot 
 grieve much, even though it should ap- 
 pear that, on the whole, the amount of 
 exports or even of products is decreased. 
 It is not the quantity, but the distribu- 
 tion, the use of products, which deter- 
 mines the prosperity of a state. For 
 example, were the grain which is now 
 
 frown among us for distillation annually 
 estroyed by fire, or were every ship 
 freighted with distilled liquors to sink 
 on approaching our shores, so that the 
 crew might be saved, how immensely 
 would the happiness, honor, and real 
 strength of the country be increased by 
 the loss, even were this not to be re- 
 placed, as it soon would be, by the 
 springing up of a new, virtuous indus- 
 try, now excluded by intemperance ! So, 
 were the labor and capital now spent on 
 the importation of pernicious luxuries to 
 be employed in the intellectual, moral, 
 and religious culture of the whole people, 
 how immense would be the gain in every 
 respect, though for a short time material 
 products were diminished ! A better 
 age will look back with wonder and 
 scorn on the misdirected industry of the 
 present times. The only sure sign of 
 public prosperity is, that the mass of the 
 people are steadily multiplying the com- 
 forts of life and the means of improve- 
 ment ; and where this takes place, we 
 need not trouble ourselves about exports 
 or products. 
 
 I am not very anxious to repel the 
 charge against emancipation of diminish- 
 ing the industry of the Islands, though 
 it has been much exaggerated. Allow 
 that the freed slaves work less. Has 
 man nothing to do but work ? Are not 
 too many here overworked ? If a peo- 
 ple can live with comfort on less toil, 
 are they not to be envied rather than 
 condemned ? What a happiness would 
 it be, if we here, by a new wisdom, a 
 new temperance, and a new spirit of 
 brotherly love, could cease to be the 
 care-worn drudges which so many in all 
 classes are, and could give a greater 
 portion of life to thought, to refined 
 
 social intercourse, to the enjoyment of 
 the beauty which God spreads over the 
 universe, to works of genius and art, to 
 communion with our Creator ! Labor 
 connected with and aiding such a life 
 would be noble. How much of it is 
 thrown away on poor, superficial, degrad- 
 ing gratifications ! 
 
 We hear the condition of Hayti de- 
 plored because the people are so idle 
 and produce so little for exportation. 
 Many look back to the period when a 
 few planters drove thousands of slaves 
 to the cane-field and sugar-mill in order 
 to enrich themselves and to secure to 
 their families the luxurious ease so cov- 
 eted in tropical climes, and they sigh 
 over the change which has taken place. 
 I look on the change with very different 
 feelings. The negroes in that luxuriant 
 island have increased to above a million. 
 By slight toil they obtain the comforts 
 of life. Their homes are sacred ; their 
 little property in a good degree secure. 
 They live together peaceably. So little 
 inclined are they to violence, that the 
 large amounts of specie paid by the 
 government to France, as the price of 
 independence, have been transported 
 through the country on horseback with 
 comparatively no defence, and with a 
 safety which no one would be mad 
 enough to expect under such circum- 
 stances in what are called civilized lands. 
 It is true, their enjoyments are animal 
 in a great degree. They live much like 
 neglected children, making little or no 
 progress, making life one long day of 
 unprofitable ease. I should rejoice to 
 raise them from children into men. But 
 when I contrast this tranquil, unoffend- 
 ing life with the horrors of a slave 
 plantation, it seems to me a paradise. 
 What matters it that they send next to 
 no coffee or sugar to Europe ? How 
 much better that they should stretch 
 .themselves in the heat of the day under 
 their gracefully waving groves, than 
 sweat and bleed under an overseer for 
 others' selfish ease ! Hayti has one 
 curse, and that is, not freedom, but 
 tyranny. Her president for life is a 
 despot, under a less ominous name. 
 Her government, indifferent or hostile 
 to the improvement of the people, is 
 sustained by a standing army, which 
 undoubtedly is an instrument of oppres- 
 sion. But in so simple a form of society 
 despotism is not that organized robbery
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 833 
 
 which has flourished in the civilized 
 world. Undoubtedly in this rude state 
 of things the laws are often unwise, 
 partial, and 511 administered. I have no 
 taste for this childish condition of society. 
 Still, I turn with pleasure from slavery 
 to the thought of a million of fellow- 
 beings, little instructed indeed, but en- 
 joying ease and comfort under that 
 beautiful sky and on the bosom of that 
 exhaustless soil. In one respect Hayti 
 is infinitely advantaged by her change 
 of condition. Under slavery her colored 
 population that is, the mass of her in- 
 habitants had no chance of rising, could 
 make no progress in intelligence and in 
 the arts and refinements of life. They 
 were doomed to perpetual degradation. 
 Under freedom their improvement is 
 possible. They are placed within the 
 reach of meliorating influences. Their 
 intercourse with other nations, and the 
 opportunities afforded to many among 
 them of bettering their condition, furnish 
 various means and incitements to prog- 
 ress. If the Catholic church, which is 
 rendering at this moment immense aid 
 to civilization and pure morals in Ireland, 
 were to enter in earnest on the work of 
 enlighteningand regenerating Hayti, orif 
 (what I should greatly prefer) any other 
 church could have free access to the 
 people, this island might in a short time 
 become an important accession to the 
 Christian and civilized world, and the 
 dark cloud which hangs over the first 
 years of her freedom would vanish be- 
 fore the brightness of her later history. 
 
 My maxim is, " Any thing but sla- 
 very ! Poverty sooner than slavery ! " 
 Suppose that we of this good city of 
 Boston were summoned to choose be- 
 tween living on bread and water and 
 such a state of things as existed in the 
 West Indies. Suppose that the present 
 wealth of our metropolis could be con- 
 tinued only on the condition that five 
 thousand out of our eighty thousand 
 inhabitants should live as princes, and 
 the rest of us be reduced to slavery to 
 sustain the luxury of our masters. 
 Should we not all cry out, Give us the 
 bread and water ? Would we not rather 
 see our fair city levelled to the earth, 
 and choose to work out slowly for our- 
 selves and our children a better lot, than 
 stoop our necks to the yoke ? So we 
 all feel when the case is brought home 
 to ourselves. What should we say to 
 
 the man who should strive to terrify us, 
 by prophecies of diminished products 
 and exports, into the substitution of 
 bondage for the character of freemen ? 
 
 In the preceding remarks I have in- 
 sisted that emancipation is not to be 
 treated as a question of profit and loss, 
 that its merits are not to be settled by its 
 influence on the master's gains. Mr. 
 Gurney, however, maintains that the 
 master has nothing to fear, that real 
 estate has risen, that free labor costs 
 less than that of the slave. All this is 
 good news, and should be spread through 
 the land ; for men are especially inclined 
 to be just when they can serve them- 
 selves by justice. But emancipation 
 rests on higher ground than the master's 
 accumulation, even on the rights and 
 essential interests of the slave. And 
 let these be held sacred, though the 
 luxury of the master be retrenched. 
 
 2. I have now finished my remarks 
 on a topic which was always present to 
 the mind of our author, the alleged 
 decrease of industry and exports since 
 emancipation. The next topic to which 
 I shall turn is his notice of slavery in 
 Cuba. He only touched at this island, 
 but evidently received the same sad im- 
 pression which we receive from those 
 who have had longer time for observa- 
 tion. He says : 
 
 " Of one feature in the slave-trade and 
 slavery of Cuba Iliad no knowledge until I 
 was on the spot. The' importation consists 
 almost entirely of men, and we were in- 
 formed that on many of the estates not a 
 single female is to be found. Natural in- 
 crease is disregarded. The Cubans import 
 the stronger animals, like bullocks, work 
 them up, and then seek a fresh supply. 
 This, surely, is a system of most unnaturaL 
 barbarity." p. 160. 
 
 This barbarity is believed to be un- 
 paralleled. The young African, torn 
 from home and his native shore, is 
 brought to a plantation where he is 
 never to know a home. All the rela- 
 tions of domestic life are systematically 
 denied him. Woman's countenance he 
 is not to look upon. The child's voice 
 he is no more to hear. His owner finds 
 it more gainful to import than to breed 
 slaves ; and, still more, has made the 
 sad discovery, that it is cheaper to ' c work 
 up " the servile laborer in his youth, and 
 to replace him by a new victim, than to 
 let him grow old in moderate toil. I 
 
 53
 
 834 
 
 EMANCZPA TION. 
 
 have been told by some of the most 
 recent travellers m Cuba, who gave 
 particular attention 'to the subject,* that 
 in the sugar-making season the slaves 
 are generally allowed but four out of 
 the twenty-four hours for sleep. From 
 these, too, I learned that a gang of slaves 
 is used up in ten years. Of the young 
 men imported from Africa, one out of 
 ten dies yearly. To supply this enor- 
 mous waste of life, above twenty-five 
 thousand slaves are imported annually 
 from Africa, f in vessels so crowded 
 that sometimes one quarter, sometimes 
 one half, of the wretched creatures 
 perish in agony before reaching land. 
 It is to be feared that Cuban slavery, 
 traced from the moment when the Afri- 
 can touches the deck to the happier 
 moment when he finds his grave on the 
 ocean or the plantation, includes an 
 amount of crime and misery not to be. 
 paralleled in any portion of the globe, 
 civilized or savage. And there are more 
 reasons than one why I would bring this 
 horrid picture before the minds of my 
 countrymen. We, we, do much to sus- 
 tain this system of horror and blood. 
 The Cuban slave-trade is carried on in 
 vessels built especially for this use in 
 American ports. These vessels often 
 sail under the American flag, and are 
 aided by American merchantmen, and, 
 as is feared, by American capital. And 
 this is not all. The sugar, in producing 
 which so many of our fellow-creatures 
 perish miserably, is shipped in great 
 quantities to this country. We are the 
 customers who stimulate by our demands 
 this infernal cruelty. And, knowing this, 
 shall we become accessories to the mur- 
 der of our brethren by continuing to use 
 the fruit of the hard-wrung toil which 
 destroys them ? The sugar of Cuba 
 comes to us drenched with human 
 blood. So we ought to see it, and to 
 turn from it with loathing. The guilt 
 
 * My accounts from Cuba hive been received from 
 Dr. Madden, and David Turnbull, Esq. ; the former, 
 one of the British commissioners resident at Havana 
 to enforce the treaty with Spain in re'at'on to the s'ave 
 trade ; the Litter, a gentleman who visited Cuba chiefly, 
 if not solely, to inquire into slavery. Mr. TurnbuU s 
 account of Cuba, in his "Travels in the West," de- 
 serves to be read The reports of such men, confirmed 
 in a very important particular by Mr. Gurney, have an 
 authority vvlvch obliges me to speak as I have done of 
 the slave system of this island. If, indeed (what is 
 most unlikely), they have fallen into errors on the sub- 
 ject, these can easily be exposed, and I shall rejoice in 
 being the means of bringing out the truth. 
 
 t There are d.fferent estimates of the number, some 
 making it much greater than the text. 
 
 which produces it ought to be put down 
 by the spontaneous, instinctive horror 
 of the civilized world. 
 
 There is another fact worthy at- 
 tention. It is said that most of the 
 plantations in Cuba which have been 
 recently brought under cultivation be- 
 long to Americans, that the number 
 of American slave-holders is increasing 
 rapidly on the island, and, consequent- 
 ly, that the importation of human car- 
 goes from Africa finds much of its 
 encouragement from the citizens of our 
 republic. It is not easy to speak in 
 measured terms of this enormity. For 
 men born and brought up amidst sla- 
 very many apologies may be made. 
 But men born beyond the sound of the 
 lash, brought up where human rights 
 are held sacred, who, in face of all the 
 light thrown now on slavery, can still 
 deal in human flesh, can become cus- 
 tomers of the '' felon " who tears the 
 African from his native shore, and can 
 with open eyes inflict this deepest wrong 
 for gain, and gain alone, such "have 
 no cloak for their sin." Men so hard 
 of heart, so steeled against the reproofs 
 of conscience, so intent on thriving, 
 though it be by the most cruel wrongs, 
 are not to be touched by human expos- 
 tulation and rebuke. But if any should 
 tremble before Almighty justice, ought 
 not they? 
 
 There is another reason for dwelling 
 on this topic. It teaches us the little 
 reliance to be placed on the impressions 
 respecting slavery brought home by 
 superficial observers. We have seen 
 what slavery is in Cuba : and yet men 
 of high character from this country, who 
 have visited that island, have returned 
 to tell us of the mildness of the system. 
 Men who would cut off their right hand 
 sooner than withdraw the sympathy of 
 others from human suffering, have virt- 
 ually done so by their representation 
 of the kindly working of slavery on the 
 very spot where it exists with peculiar 
 horrors. They have visited some favored 
 plantation, been treated with hospitality, 
 seen no tortures, heard no shrieks, and 
 then come home to reprove those who 
 set forth indignantly the wrongs of the 
 slave. And what is true with regard to 
 the visitors of the West Indies applies 
 to those who visit our Southern States. 
 Having witnessed slavery in tine families 
 of some of the most enlightened and
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 835 
 
 refined inhabitants, they return to speak 
 of it as no very fearful thing. Had they 
 inquired about the state of society 
 through the whole country, and learned 
 that more than one-fourth of the inhab- 
 itants cannot write their own names, 
 they would have forborne to make a 
 few selected families the representatives 
 of the community, and might have be- 
 lieved in the possibility of some of the 
 horrid details recorded in " Slavery as 
 it is." For myself, 1 do not think it 
 worth my while to inquire into the 
 merits of slavery in this or that region. 
 It is enough for me to know that one 
 human being holds other human beings 
 as his property, subject to his arbitrary 
 and irresponsible will, and compels them 
 to toil for his luxury and ease. I know 
 enough of men to know what the work- 
 ings of such a system on a large scale 
 must be ; and I hold my understanding 
 insulted when men talk to me of its 
 humanity. If there be one truth of 
 history taught more plainly than any 
 other, it is the tendency of human nat- 
 ure to abuse power. To protect our- 
 selves against power, to keep this in 
 perpetual check, by dividing it among 
 many hands, by limiting its duration, 
 by defining its action with sharp lines, 
 by watching it jealously, by holding it 
 responsible for abuses, this is the grand 
 aim and benefit of the social institutions 
 which are our chief boast. Arbitrary, 
 unchecked power is the evil against 
 which all experience cries out so loudly 
 that apologies for it may be dismissed 
 without a hearing. But admit the plea 
 of its apologists. Allow slavery to be 
 ever so humane. Grant that the man 
 who owns me is ever so kind. The 
 wrong of him who presumes to talk 
 of owning me is too unmeasured to be 
 softened by kindness. There are wrongs 
 which can be redeemed by no kindness. 
 Because a man treads on me with velvet 
 foot, must I be content to grovel in the 
 earth ? Because he gives me meat as 
 well as bread, whilst he takes my child 
 and sells it into a land where my chained 
 limbs cannot follow, must I thank him 
 for his kindness ? I do not envy those 
 who think slavery no very pitiable a lot, 
 provided its nakedness be covered and 
 its hunger regularly appeased. 
 
 It is worthy of consideration, that the 
 slave's lot does not improve with the 
 advance of what is called civilization, 
 
 that is, of trade and luxuries. Slavery 
 is such a violation of nature, that it is an 
 I exception to the general law of progress. 
 In rude states of society, when men's 
 wants and employments are few, and 
 trade and other means of gain hardly 
 exist, the slave leads a comparatively 
 easy life ; he partakes of the general 
 indolence. He lives in the family much 
 as a member, and is oppressed by no 
 great disparity of rank. But when soci- 
 ety advances, and wants multiply, and 
 the lust of gain springs up, and prices 
 increase, the slave's lot grows harder. 
 He is viewed more and more as a 
 machine to be used for profit, and is 
 tasked like the beast of burden. The 
 distance between him and his master 
 increases, and he has less and less of 
 the spirit of a man. He may have bet- 
 ter food ; but it is that he may work 
 the more. He may be whipped less 
 passionately or frequently ; but it is be- 
 cause the never-varying routine of toil 
 and the more skilful discipline which 
 civilization teaches have subdued him 
 more completely. Thus to the slave it 
 is no gain that the community grow 
 richer and more luxurious. He has an 
 interest in the return of society to bar- 
 barism, for in this case he would come 
 nearer the general level. He would 
 escape the peculiar ignominy and ac- 
 cumulated burdens which he has to bear 
 in civilized life. 
 
 3. I pass to another topic suggested 
 by Mr. Gurney's book. What is it, let 
 me ask, which has freed the West India 
 slave, and is now raising him to the 
 dignity of a man ? The answer is 
 most cheering. The great emancipator 
 has been Christianity. Policy, interest, 
 state-craft, church-craft, the low motives 
 which have originated other revolutions, 
 have not worked here. From the times 
 of Clarkson and Wilberforce down to the 
 present day, the friends of the slave, 
 who have pleaded his cause and broken 
 his chains, have been Christians ; and 
 it is from Christ, the divine philanthro- 
 pist, from the inspiration of his cross, 
 that they have gathered faith, hope, and 
 love, for the conflict. This illustration 
 of the spirit and power of Christianity is 
 a bright addition to the evidences of its 
 truth. We have here the miracle of a 
 great nation rising in its strength, not 
 for conquest, not to assert its own rights, 
 but to free and elevate the most despised
 
 836 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 and injured race on earth ; and as this 
 stands alone in human history, so it 
 recalls to us those wonderful works of 
 mercy and power by which the divinity 
 of our religion was at first confirmed. 
 
 It is with deep sorrow that I am com- 
 pelled to turn to the contrast between 
 religion in England and religion in 
 America. There it vindicates the cause 
 of the oppressed. Here it rivets the 
 chain, and hardens the heart of the op- 
 pressor. At the South, what is the 
 Christian ministry doing for the slave ? 
 Teaching the rightfulness of his yoke, 
 joining in the cry against the men who 
 plead for his freedom, giving the sanc- 
 tion of God's name to the greatest of- 
 fence against his children. This is the 
 saddest view presented by the conflict 
 with slavery. The very men whose 
 office it is to plead against all wrong, to 
 enforce the obligation of impartial, in- 
 flexible justice, to breathe the spirit of 
 universal brotherly love, to resist at all 
 hazards the spirit and evil customs of 
 the world, to live and to die under the 
 banner of Christian truth, have enlisted 
 under the standard of slavery. Had 
 they merely declined to bring the sub- 
 ject into the church, on the ground of 
 the presence of the slave, they would 
 have been justified. Had they declined 
 to discuss it through the press and in 
 conversation, on the ground that the 
 public mind was too furious to bear the 
 truth, they would have been approved 
 by multitudes ; though it is wisest for 
 the minister to resign his office, when it 
 can be exercised only under menace and 
 unrighteous restraint, and to go where 
 with unsealed lips he may teach and 
 enforce human duty in its full extent. 
 But the ministers at the South have not 
 been content with silence. The major- 
 ity of them are understood to have given 
 their support to slavery, to have thrown 
 their weight into the scale of the master. 
 That, in so doing, they have belied their 
 clear convictions, that they have preached 
 known falsehood, we do not say. Few 
 ministers of Christ, we trust, can teach 
 what their deliberate judgments con- 
 demn. But, in cases like the present, 
 how common is it for the judgment to 
 receive a shape and hue from self-inter- 
 est, from private affection, from the 
 tyranny of opinion, and the passions of 
 the multitude ! Few ministers, we trust, 
 can sin against clear, steady light. But 
 
 how common is it for the mind to waver 
 and to be obscured in regard to scorned 
 and persecuted truth ! When we look 
 beyond the bounds of slavery, we find 
 the civilized and Christian world, with' 
 few exceptions, reprobating slavery, as 
 at war with the precepts and spirit of 
 Christ. But at the South his ministers 
 sustain it, as consistent with justice, 
 equity, and disinterested love. Can we 
 help saying that the loud, menacing, 
 popular voice has proved too strong for 
 the servants of Christ ? 
 
 We hoped better things than this, 
 because the prevalent sects at the South 
 are the Methodists and Baptists, and 
 these were expected to be less tainted 
 by a worldly spirit than other denomina- 
 tions in which luxury and fashion bear 
 greater sway. But the Methodists, for- 
 getful of their great founder, who cried 
 aloud against slavery and spared not; 
 and the Baptists, forgetful of the sainted 
 name of Roger Williams, whose love 
 of the despised Indian, and whose 
 martyr spirit should have taught them 
 fearless sympathy with the negro, have 
 been found in the ranks of the foes of 
 freedom. Indeed, their allegiance to 
 slavery seems to know no bounds. A 
 Baptist association at the South decreed 
 that a slave, sold at a distance from his 
 wife, might marry again in obedience to 
 his master ; and that he would even do 
 wrong to disobey in this particular. 
 Thus one of the plainest precepts of 
 Christianity has been set at nought. 
 Thus the poor slave is taught to re- 
 nounce his wife, however dear, to rupt- 
 ure the most sacred social tie, that, like 
 the other animals, he may keep up the 
 stock of the estate. The General Meth- 
 odist Conference, during this very year, 
 have decreed that the testimony of a 
 colored member of their churches should 
 not be received against a white member 
 who may be on trial before an ecclesias- 
 tical tribunal. Thus, in church affairs, 
 a multitude of disciples of Jesus Christ, 
 who have been received into Christian 
 communion on the ground of their spir- 
 itual regeneration, who belong, as is 
 believed, to the church on earth and in 
 heaven, are put down by their brethren 
 as incapable of recognizing the obliga- 
 tion of truth, of performing the most 
 common duty of morality, and are denied 
 a privilege conceded, in worldly affairs, 
 to the most depraved. Thus the relig-
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 837 
 
 ion of the South heaps insult and injury 
 on the slave. 
 
 And what have the Christians of the 
 North done ? We rejoice to say, that 
 from these have gone forth not a few 
 testimonies against slavery. Not a few 
 ministers, in associations, conventions, 
 presbyteries, or conferences, have de- 
 clared the inconsistency of the system 
 with the principles of Christianity and 
 with the law of love. Still, the churches 
 and congregations of the free States 
 have, in the main, looked coldly on the 
 subject, and discouraged, too effectual- 
 ly, the free expression of thought and 
 feeling in regard to it by the religious 
 teacher. Under that legislation of pub- 
 lic opinion which, without courts or 
 offices, sways more despotically than 
 Czars or Sultans, the pulpit and the 
 press have, in no small degree, been 
 reduced to silence as to slavery, es- 
 pecially in cities, the chief seats of this 
 invisible power. Some fervent spirits 
 among us, seeing religion in this and 
 other cases so ready to bend to worldly 
 opinion, have been filled with indigna- 
 tion. They have spoken of Christianity 
 as having no life here, as a beautiful 
 corpse, laid out in much state, wor- 
 shipped with costly homage, but wor- 
 shipped very much as were the prophets 
 whose tombs were so ostentatiously 
 garnished in the times of the Saviour. 
 But this is unjust. Christianity lives 
 and acts among us. It imposes many 
 salutary restraints. It inspires many 
 good deeds. There are not a few in 
 whom it puts forth a power worthy of its 
 better days, and the number of such is 
 growing. Let us not be ungrateful for 
 what this religion is doing, nor shut our 
 ears against the prophecies which the 
 present gives of its future triumphs. 
 Still, as a general rule, the Christianity 
 of this day falls fearfully short of the 
 Christianity of the immediate followers 
 of our Lord. Then the meaning of a 
 Christian was. that he took the cross 
 and followed Christ, that he counted not 
 his life dear to him in the service of God 
 and man, that he trod the world under 
 his feet. Now we ask leave of the 
 world how far we shall follow Christ. 
 What wrong or abuse is there, which the 
 bulk of the people may think essential 
 to their prosperity, and may defend with 
 outcry and menace, before which the 
 Christianity of this age will not bow ? 
 
 We need a new John, who, with the un- 
 tamed and solemn energy of the wilder- 
 ness, shall cry out among us, Repent ! 
 We need that the Crucified should speak 
 to us with a more startling voice, " He 
 that forsaketh not all things and fol- 
 loweth me cannot be my disciple." We 
 need that the all-sacrificing, all-sympa- 
 thizing spirit of Christianity should cease 
 to bow to the spirit of the world. We 
 need that, under a deep sense of want 
 and woe, the church should cry out, 
 " Thy kingdom come ! " and with holy 
 importunity should bring down new 
 strength, and life, and love from heaven. 
 4. I pass to another topic suggested 
 by Mr. Gurney's book. According to 
 this and all the books written on the 
 subject, emancipation has borne a sin- 
 gular testimony to the noble elements 
 of the negro character. It may be 
 doubted whether any other race would 
 have borne this trial as well as they. 
 Before the day of freedom came, the 
 West Indies and this country foreboded 
 fearful consequences from the sudden 
 transition of such a multitude from 
 bondage to liberty. Revenge, massa- 
 cre, unbridled lust, were to usher in the 
 grand festival of emancipation, which 
 was to end in the breaking out of a new 
 Pandemonium on earth. Instead of 
 this, the holy day of liberty was wel- 
 comed by shouts and tears of gratitude. 
 The liberated - negroes did not hasten, 
 as Saxon serfs in like circumstances 
 might have done, to haunts of intoxica- 
 tion, but to the house of God. Their 
 rude churches were thronged. Their 
 joy found utterance in prayers and 
 hymns. History contains no record 
 more touching than the account of the 
 religious, tender thankfulness which this 
 vast boon awakened in the negro breast.* 
 And what followed ? Was this beauti- 
 ful emotion an evanescent transport, 
 soon to give way to ferocity and ven- 
 geance ? It was natural for masters 
 j who had inflicted causeless stripes, and 
 ' filled the cup of the slaves with bitter- 
 j ness, to fear their rage after liberation. 
 But the overwhelming joy of freedom 
 having subsided, they returned to labor. 
 Not even a blow was struck in the ex- 
 citement of that vast change. No viola- 
 tion of the peace required the interposi- 
 tion of the magistrate. The new relation 
 was assumed easily, quietly, without an 
 
 * See note A at end of this article.
 
 838 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 act of violence. And since that time, in 
 the short space of two years, how much 
 have they accomplished ! Beautiful vil- 
 lages have grown up. Little freeholds 
 have been purchased. The marriage tie 
 has become sacred. The child is edu- 
 cated. Crime has diminished. There 
 are islands where a greater proportion 
 of the young are trained in schools than 
 among the whites of the slave States. 
 I ask. whether any other people on the 
 face of the earth would have received 
 and used the infinite blessing of liberty 
 so well ? 
 
 The history of West Indian eman- 
 cipation teaches us that we are holding 
 in bondage one of the best races of the 
 human family. The negro is among the 
 mildest, gentlest of men. He is singu- 
 larly susceptible of improvement from 
 abroad. His children, it is said, receive 
 more rapidly than ours the elements of 
 knowledge. How far he can originate 
 improvements time only can teach. His 
 nature is affectionate, easily touched ; 
 and hence he is more open to religious 
 impression than the white man. The 
 European race have manifested more 
 courage, enterprise, invention ; but in 
 the dispositions which Christianity par- 
 ticularly honors, how inferior are they 
 to the African ! When I cast my eyes 
 over our Southern region, the land of 
 bowie-knives, Lynch law, and duels, of 
 " chivalry," " honor," and revenge ; and 
 when I consider that Christianity is de- 
 clared to be a spirit of charity, " which 
 seeketh not its own, is not easily pro- 
 voked, thinketh no evil, and endureth 
 all things," and is also declared to be 
 ' the wisdom from above, which is first 
 pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to 
 be entreated, full of mercy and good 
 fruits ; " can I hesitate in deciding to 
 which of the races in that land Chris- 
 tianity is most adapted, and in which its 
 noblest disciples are most likely to be 
 reared ? It may be said, indeed, of all 
 the European nations, that they are dis- 
 tinguished by qualities opposed to the 
 spirit of Christianity ; and it is one of 
 the most remarkable events of history, 
 that the religion of Jesus should have 
 struck root among them. As yet it 
 has not subdued them. The " law of 
 honor," the strongest of all laws in the 
 European race, is, to this day, directly 
 hostile to the character and word of 
 Christ. The African carries within him, 
 
 much more than we, the germs of a 
 meek, long-suffering, loving virtue. A 
 short residence among the negroes in 
 the West Indies impressed me with 
 their capacity of improvement. On all 
 sides I heard of their religious tenden- 
 cies, the noblest in human nature. I 
 saw, too, on the plantation where I 
 resided, a gracefulness and dignity of 
 form and motion, rare in my own native 
 New England. And this is the race 
 which has been selected to be trodden 
 down and confounded with the brutes ! 
 Undoubtedly the negroes are debased , 
 for, were slavery not debasing, I should 
 have little quarrel with it. But let not 
 their degradation be alleged in proof of 
 peculiar incapacity of moral elevation. 
 They are given to theft ; but there is 
 no peculiar, aggravated guilt in stealing 
 from those by whom they are robbed 
 of all their rights and their very persons. 
 They are given to falsehood; but this 
 is the very effect produced by op- 
 pression on the Irish peasantry. They 
 are undoubtedly sensual ; and yet the 
 African countenance seldom shows that 
 coarse, brutal sensuality which is so 
 common in the face of the white man. 
 I should expect from the African race, 
 if civilized, less energy, less courage, 
 less intellectual originality, than in our 
 race, but more amiableness, tranquillity, 
 gentleness, and content. They might 
 not rise to an equality in outward con- 
 dition, but would probably be a much 
 happier race. There is no reason for 
 holding such a race in chains ; they 
 need no chain to make them harmless.* 
 In the remarks now made I have 
 aimed only to express my sympathy 
 with the wronged. As to the white 
 population of the South, I have no 
 intention to disparage it. I have no 
 undue partiality to the North ; for I 
 believe that, were Northern men slave- 
 holders, and satisfied that they could 
 grow richer by slave than by free labor, 
 not a few would retain their property in 
 human flesh with as resolute and furious 
 a grasp as their Southern brethren. In 
 truth, until the cotton culture had in- 
 toxicated the minds of the South with 
 golden dreams, that part of the country 
 seemed less tainted by cupidity than 
 our own. The character of that region 
 is still a mixed one, impulsive, pas- 
 sionate, vindictive, sensual ; but frank, 
 
 * See note B at end of this article.
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 839 
 
 courageous, self-relying, enthusiastic, 
 and capable of great sacrifices for a 
 friend. Could the withering influence 
 of slavery be withdrawn, the Southern 
 character, though less consistent, less 
 based on principle, might be more at- 
 tractive and lofty than that of the 
 North. The South is fond of calling 
 itself An:;lo Saxon. Judging from char- 
 acter, I should say that this name be- 
 longs much more to the North, the 
 country of steady, persevering, uncon- 
 querable energy. Our Southern breth- 
 ren remind me more of the Normans. 
 They seem to have in their veins 
 the burning blood of that pirate race, 
 who spread terror through Europe, who 
 seized part of France as a prey, and 
 then pounced on England ; a conquer- 
 ing, chivalrous race, from which most 
 of the noble families of England are 
 said to be derived. There were cer- 
 tainly noble traits in the Norman char- 
 acter, such as its enthusiasm, its defiance 
 of peril by sea and land, its force of 
 will, its rude sense of honor. But the 
 man of Norman spirit, or Norman blood, 
 should never be a slave-holder. He is 
 the last man to profit by this relation. 
 His pride and fierce passions need 
 restraint, not perpetual nourishment ; 
 whilst his indisposition to labor, his 
 desire to live by others' toil, demands 
 the stern pressure of necessity to rescue 
 him from dishonorable sloth. Under 
 kindlier influences he may take rank 
 among the noblest of his race. 
 
 However, in looking at the South, the 
 first thing which strikes my eyes is, not 
 the Anglo-Saxon or the Norman, but 
 the slave. I overlook the dwellings of 
 the rich. My thoughts go to the com- 
 fortless hut of the negro. They go to 
 the dark mass at work in the fields. 
 That injured man is my brother, and 
 ought not my sympathies to gather 
 round him peculiarly? Talk not to me 
 of the hospitality, comforts, luxuries of 
 the planter's mansion. These are all the 
 signs of a mighty wrong. My thoughts 
 turn first to the slave. I would not, how- 
 ever, exaggerate his evils. He is not the 
 most unhappy man on that soil. True, 
 his powers are undeveloped ; but there- 
 fore he is incapable of the guilt which 
 others incur. He has, as we have seen, 
 a generous nature, and his day of im- 
 provement, though long postponed, is to 
 come. When I see by his side (and is 
 
 the sight very rare ?) the self-indulgent 
 man who, from mere love of gain and 
 ease, extorts his sweat, -I think of the 
 fearful words which the Saviour has put 
 into the lips of the Hebrew patriarch in 
 the unseen world, " Thou in thy lifetime 
 receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus 
 evil things ; but now he is comforted, 
 and thou art tormented." Distinctions 
 founded on wrong endure but for a day. 
 Could we now penetrate the future world, 
 what startling revelations would be made 
 to us! Before the all-seeing, impartial 
 justice of God, we should see every 
 badge of humiliation taken off from the 
 fallen, crushed, and enslaved: and where, 
 where would the selfish, unfeeling op- 
 pressor appear ? 
 
 5. I shall advert but to one more topic 
 suggested by Mr. Gurney's book ; I re- 
 fer to the kind and respectful manner 
 in which he speaks of many slave-hold- 
 ers. He has no sympathy with those 
 who set down this class of men indis- 
 criminately as the chief of sinners, but 
 speaks with satisfaction of examples of 
 piety and virtue which he found in their 
 number. By some among us this len- 
 ity will be ascribed to his desire to win 
 for himself golden opinions ; but he de- 
 serves no such censure. The opinion of 
 slave-holders is of no moment to him ; 
 for he has left them for ever, and returns 
 to his own country, where his testimony 
 to their worth will find no sympathy, but 
 expose him to suspicion, perhaps to re- 
 proach. Of the justice of his judgment 
 I have no doubt. Among slave-holders 
 there may be, and there are, good men. 
 But the inferences from this judgment 
 are often false and pernicious. There 
 is a common disposition to connect the 
 character of the slave-holder and the 
 character of slavery. Many at the North, 
 who by intercourse of business or friend- 
 ship have come to appreciate the good 
 qualities of individuals at the South, are 
 led to the secret, if not uttered, infer- 
 ence, that a system sustained by such 
 people can be no monstrous thing. They 
 repel indignantly the invectives of the 
 abolitionists against the master, and by 
 a natural process go on to question or 
 repel their denunciation of slavery. Here 
 lies the secret of much of the want of 
 just feeling in regard to this institution. 
 People become reconciled to it in a meas- 
 ure by the virtues of its supporters. I 
 will not reply to this error by insisting
 
 840 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 that the virtues which grow up under 
 slavery bear a small proportion to the 
 vices which it feeds. I take a broader 
 ground. 1 maintain that we can never 
 argue safely from the character of a man 
 to the system he upholds. It is a solemn 
 truth, not yet understood as it should be, 
 that the worst institutions may be sus- 
 tained, the worst deeds performed, the 
 most merciless cruelties inflicted, by the 
 conscientious and the good. History 
 teaches no truth more awful, and proofs 
 of it crowd on us from the records of 
 the earliest and latest times. Thus, the 
 worship of the immoral deities of heath- 
 enism was sustained by the great men 
 of antiquity. The bloodiest and most 
 unrighteous wars have been instigated 
 by patriots. For ages the Jews were 
 thought to have forfeited the rights of 
 men, as much as the African race at the 
 South, and were insulted, spoiled, and 
 slain, not by mobs, but by sovereigns 
 and prelates, who really supposed them- 
 selves avengers of the crucified Saviour. 
 Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, men of 
 singular humanity, doomed Christians to 
 death, surrendering their better feelings 
 to what they thought the safety of the 
 state. Few names in history are more 
 illustrious than Isabella of Castile. She 
 was the model, in most respects, of a 
 noble woman. But Isabella outstripped 
 her age in what she thought pious zeal 
 against heretics. Having taken lessons 
 in her wars against the Moors, and in 
 the extermination of the Jews, she en- 
 tered fully into the spirit of the Inqui- 
 sition ; and by her great moral power 
 contributed more than any other sover- 
 eign to the extension of its fearful influ- 
 ence ; and thus the horrible tortures and 
 murders of that infernal institution, in 
 her ill-fated country, lie very much at her 
 door. Of all the causes which have con- 
 tributed to the ruin of Spain, the gloomy, 
 unrelenting spirit of religious bigotry 
 has wrought most deeply ; so that the 
 illustrious Isabella, through her zeal for 
 religion and the salvation of her sub- 
 jects, sowed the seeds of her country's 
 ruin. It is remarkable, that Spain, in 
 her late struggle for freedom, has not 
 produced one great man ; and at this 
 moment the country seems threatened 
 with disorganization ; and it is to the 
 almost universal corruption, to the want 
 of mutual confidence, to the deep dis- 
 simulation and fraud, which the spirit of 
 
 the Inquisition, the spirit of misguided 
 religion, has spread through society, that 
 this degradation must chiefly be traced. 
 The wrongs, woes, cruelties, inflicted 
 by the religious, the conscientious, are 
 among the most important teachings of 
 the past. Nor has this strange mixture 
 of good and evil ceased. Crimes, to 
 which time and usage have given sanc- 
 tion, are still found in neighborhood with 
 virtue. Examples taken from other 
 countries stagger belief, but are true. 
 Thus, in not a few regions, the infant is 
 cast out to perish by parents who abound 
 in tenderness to their surviving children. 
 Our own enormities are to be understood 
 hereafter. Slavery is not, then, absolved 
 of guilt by the virtues of its supporters, 
 nor are its wrongs on this account a whit 
 less tolerable. The Inquisition was not 
 a whit less infernal because sustained by 
 Isabella. Wars are not a whit less mur- 
 derous because waged for our country's 
 glory ; nor was the slave-trade less a 
 complication of unutterable cruelties be- 
 cause our fathers brought the African 
 here to make him a Christian. 
 
 The great truth now insisted on, that 
 evil is evil, no matter at whose door it 
 lies, and that men acting from conscience 
 and religion may do nefarious deeds, 
 needs to be better understood, that we 
 may hot shelter ourselves or our institu- 
 tions under the names of the great or 
 the good who have passed away. It 
 shows us that, in good company, we 
 may do the work of fiends. It teaches 
 us how important is the culture of our 
 whole moral and rational nature, how 
 dangerous to rest on the old and the 
 established without habitually and hon- 
 estly seeking the truth. With these 
 views, I believe at once that slavery is 
 an atrocious wrong, and yet that among 
 its upholders may be found good and 
 pious people. I do not look on a slave 
 country as one of the provinces of hell. 
 There, as elsewhere, the human spirit 
 may hold communion with God, and it 
 may ascend thence to heaven. Still, 
 slavery does not lay aside its horrible 
 nature because of the character of some 
 of its supporters. Persecution is a cruel 
 outrage, no matter by whom carried on ; 
 and so slavery, no matter by whom 
 maintained, works fearful evil to bond 
 and free. It breathes a moral taint, 
 contaminates young and old, prostrates 
 the dearest rights, and strengthens the
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 841 
 
 cupidity, pride, love of power, and self- 
 ish sloth, on which it is founded. I 
 readily grant that among slave-holders 
 are to be found upright, religious men, 
 and, especially, pious, gentle, disinter- 
 ested, noble-minded women, who sin- 
 cerely labor to be the guardians and 
 benefactors of the slaves, and under 
 whose kind control much comfort may 
 be enjoyed. But we must not on this 
 account shut our eyes on the evils of the 
 institution or forbear to expose them. 
 On the contrary, this is the very reason 
 for lifting up our voices against it ; for 
 slavery rests mainly on the virtues of 
 its upholders. Without the sanction of 
 good and great names it would soon 
 die. Were it left as a monopoly to the 
 selfish, cruel, unprincipled, it could not 
 stand a year. It would become in men's 
 view as infamous as the slave-trade, and 
 be ranked among felonies. It is a 
 solemn duty to speak plainly of wrongs 
 which good men perpetrate. It is very 
 easy to cry out against crimes which the 
 laws punish, and which popular opinion 
 has branded with infamy. What is 
 especially demanded of the Christian is, 
 a faithful, honest, generous testimony 
 against enormities which are sanctioned 
 by numbers and fashion and wealth, and 
 especially by great and honored names, 
 and which, thus sustained, lift up their 
 heads to heaven, and repay rebuke with 
 menace and indignation. 
 
 I know that there are those who con- 
 sider all acknowledgment of the virtues 
 of slave-holders as treachery to the cause 
 of freedom. But truth is truth, and 
 must always be spoken and trusted. To 
 be just is a greater work than to free 
 slaves, or propagate religion, or save 
 souls. I have faith in no policy but that 
 of simplicity and godly sincerity. The 
 crimes of good men in past times, of 
 which I have spoken, have sprung chiefly 
 from the disposition to sacrifice the sim- 
 ple, primary obligations of truth, justice, 
 and humanity, to some grand cause, 
 such as religion or country, which has 
 dazzled and bewildered their moral sense. 
 To free the slave, let us not wrong his 
 master. Let us rather find comfort in 
 the thought that there is no unmixed 
 evil, that a spirit of goodness mixes 
 more or less with the worst usages, and 
 that even slavery is illumined by the 
 virtues of the bond and free. 
 
 I have now finished my remarks on 
 
 Mr. Gurney's book, and in doing so I 
 join with many readers in thanking him 
 for the good news he has reported, and 
 in repeating his prayers for the success 
 of emancipation. I now proceed to a 
 different order of considerations of great 
 importance, and which ought always to- 
 be connected with such discussions as 
 have now engaged us. The subject be- 
 fore us is not one of mere speculation. 
 It has a practical side. There are duties 
 which belong to us, as individuals, and 
 as free States, in regard to slavery. To 
 these I now ask attention. 
 
 I begin with individuals ; and their 
 duty is, to be faithful in their testimony 
 against this great evil, to speak their 
 minds freely and fully, and thus to con- 
 tribute what they may to the moral power 
 of public opinion. It is not enough to 
 think and feel justly. Sentiments not 
 expressed slumber, and too often die. 
 Utterance, in some form or other, is a 
 principal duty of a social being. The 
 chief good which an enlightened, virt- 
 uous mind can do is to bring itself forth. 
 Not a few among us have refrained from 
 this duty, have been speechless in regard 
 to slavery, through disapprobation of 
 what they have called the violence of 
 the abolitionists. They have said that 
 in this rage of the elements it was fit to 
 be still. But the storm is passing away. 
 Abolitionism, in obedience to an irresist- 
 ible law of our nature, has parted with 
 much of its original vehemence. All 
 noble enthusiams pass through a fe- 
 verish stage, and grow wiser and more 
 serene. Still more, the power of the 
 Antislavery Association is not a little 
 broken by internal divisions, and by its 
 increasing reliance on political action. 
 It has thrown away its true strength, 
 that is, moral influence, in proportion as 
 it has consented to mix in the frays of 
 party. Now, then, when associations are 
 waning, it is time for the individual to 
 be heard, time for a free, solemn protest 
 against wrong. 
 
 It is often said that all moral efforts 
 to forward the abolition of slavery are 
 futile ; that to expect men to sacrifice 
 interest to duty is a proof of insanity ; 
 that, as long as slavery is a good pecu- 
 niary speculation, the South will stand 
 by it to the death ; that, whenever slave- 
 labor shall prove a drug, it will be aban- 
 doned, and not before. It is vain, we 
 are told, to talk, reason, or remonstrate.
 
 842 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 On this ground some are anxious to 
 bring East India cotton into competi- 
 tion with the Southern, that, by driving 
 the latter from the market, the exces- 
 sive stimulus to slave-breeding and the 
 profits of slave-labor may cease. And 
 is this true ? Must men be starved 
 into justice and humanity ? Have truth 
 and religion and conscience no power ? 
 One thing we know, that the insanity of 
 opposing moral influence to deep-rooted 
 evils has, at least, great names on its 
 side. The Christian faith is the highest 
 form of this madness and fplly, and its 
 history shows that " the foolishness of 
 God is stronger than men." What an 
 insult is it on the South, and on human 
 nature, to believe that millions of slave- 
 holders, of all ages, sexes, and con- 
 ditions, in an age of freedom, intelli- 
 gence, and Christian faith, are proof 
 against all motives but -the very lowest ! 
 Even in the most hardened, conscience 
 never turns wholly to stone. Humanity 
 never dies out among a people. After 
 all, the most prevailing voice on earth 
 is that of truth. Could emancipation be 
 extorted only by depreciation of slave- 
 labor, it would, indeed, be a good ; but 
 how much happier a relation would the 
 master establish with the colored race, 
 if, from no force but that of principle 
 and kindness, he should set them free ! 
 Undoubtedly, at the South, as elsewhere, 
 the majority are selfish, mercenary, cor- 
 rupt ; but it would be easy to find there 
 more than " ten righteous," to find a 
 multitude of upright, compassionate, 
 devout minds, which, if awakened from 
 the long insensibility of habit to the 
 evils of slavery, would soon overpower 
 the influences of the merely selfish slave- 
 holder. 
 
 We are told, indeed, by the South, 
 that slavery is no concern of ours, and 
 consequently that the less we say of it 
 the better. What ! shall the wrong- 
 doer forbid lookers-on to speak, because 
 the affair is a private one, in which 
 others must not interfere ? Whoever 
 injures a man binds all men to remon- 
 strate, especially when the injured is too 
 weak to speak in his own behalf. Let 
 none imagine that, by seizing a fellow- 
 creature and setting him apart as a chat- 
 tel, they can sever his ties to God or man. 
 Spiritual connections are not so easily 
 broken. You may carry your victim ever 
 so far, you may seclude him on a planta- 
 
 tion or in a cell ; but you cannot trans- 
 port him beyond the sphere of human 
 brotherhood, or cut him off from his 
 race. The great bond of humanity is 
 the last to be dissolved. Other ties, 
 those of family and civil society, are 
 severed by death. This, founded as it 
 is on what is immortal in our nature, has 
 an everlasting sacredness, and is never 
 broken ; and every man has a right, and, 
 still more, is bound, to lift up his voice 
 against its violation. 
 
 There are many whose testimony 
 against slavery is very much diluted by 
 the fact of its having been so long sanc- 
 tioned, not only by usage, but by law, by 
 public force, by the forms of civil author- 
 ity. They bow before numbers and pre- 
 scription. But in an age of inquiry and 
 innovation, when other institutions must 
 make good their title to continuance, it 
 is a suspicious tenderness which fears to 
 touch a heavy yoke because it has grown 
 by time into the necks of our fellow- 
 creatures. Do we not know that unjust 
 monopolies, cruel prejudices, barbarous 
 punishments, oppressive institutions, 
 have been upheld by law for ages ? Ma- 
 jorities are prone to think that they can 
 create right by vote, and can legalize 
 gainful crimes by calling the forms of 
 justice to their support. But these con- 
 spiracies against humanity, these insults 
 offered to the majesty and immutable- 
 ness of truth and rectitude, are the last 
 forms of wickedness to be spared. Self- 
 ish men, by combining into a majority, 
 cannot change tyranny into right. The 
 whole earth may cry out that this or 
 that man was made to be owned and 
 used as a chattel, or a brute, by his 
 brother. But his birthright as a man, as 
 a rational creature of God, cleaves to 
 him untouched by the clamor. Crimes, 
 exalted into laws, become therefore the 
 more odious ; just as the false gods of 
 heathenism, when set up of old on the 
 altar of Jehovah, shocked his true wor- 
 shippers the more by usurping so con- 
 spicuously the honors due to him alone. 
 
 It is important that we should, each 
 of us, bear our conscientious testimony 
 against slavery, not only to swell that 
 tide of public opinion which is to sweep 
 it away, but that we may save ourselves 
 from sinking into silent, unsuspected 
 acquiescence in the evil. A constant 
 resistance is needed to this downward 
 tendency, as is proved by the tone of
 
 EMANCIPA T1ON. 
 
 843 
 
 feeling in the free States. What is more 
 common among ourselves than a courte- 
 ous, apologetic disapprobation of sla- 
 very, which differs little from taking its 
 part ? This is one of its worst influ- 
 ences. It taints the whole country. 
 The existence, the perpetual presence, 
 of a great, prosperous, unrestrained sys- 
 tem of wrong in a community is one of 
 the sorest trials to the moral sense of 
 the people, and needs to be earnestly 
 withstood. The idea of justice becomes 
 unconsciously obscured in our minds. 
 Our hearts become more or less seared 
 to wrong. The South says that slavery is 
 nothing to us at the North. But through 
 our trade we are brought into constant 
 contact with it ; we grow familiar with 
 it ; still more, we thrive by it ; and the 
 next step is easy, to consent to the sacri- 
 fice of human beings by whom we pros- 
 per. The dead know not their want of 
 life ; and so a people, whose moral sen- 
 timents are palsied by the interweaving 
 of all their interests with a system of 
 oppression, become degraded without 
 suspecting it. In consequence of this 
 connection with slave countries, the idea 
 of human rights, that great idea of our 
 age. and on which we profess to build our 
 institutions, is darkened, weakened among 
 us, so as to be to many little more than a 
 sound. A country of licensed, legalized 
 wrongs is not the atmosphere in which 
 the sentiment of reverence for these 
 rights can exist in full power. In such 
 a community there may be a respect for 
 the arbitrary rights which law creates 
 and may destroy, and a respect for his- 
 torical rights which rest on usage. But 
 the fundamental rights which inhere in 
 man as man, and which lie at the foun- 
 dation of a just, equitable, beneficent, 
 noble polity, must be imperfectly com- 
 prehended. This depression of moral 
 sentiment in a*people is an evil the ex- 
 tent of which is not easily apprehended. 
 It affects and degrades every relation of 
 life. Men in whose sight human nature 
 is stripped of all its rights and dignity 
 cannot love or honor any who possess 
 it as they ought. In offering these re- 
 marks I do not forget, what I rejoice to 
 know, that there is much moral feeling 
 among us in regard to slavery. But 
 still, there is a strong tendency to in- 
 difference, and to something worse : and 
 on this account we owe it to our own 
 moral health, and to the moral life of i 
 
 society, to express plainly and strongly 
 our moral abhorrence of this institution. 
 This duty is rendered more urgent by 
 the depraving tendency of our political 
 connections and agitations. It has been 
 said, much too sweepingly, but with some 
 approximation to truth, that in this 
 country we have hosts of politicians, 
 but no statesmen ; meaning, by the lat- 
 ter term, men of comprehensive, far- 
 reaching views, who study the permanent 
 good of the community, and hold fast, 
 under all changes, to the great principles 
 on which its salvation rests. The gen- 
 erality of our public men are mere politi- 
 cians, purblind to the future, fevered by 
 the present, merging patriotism in party- 
 spirit, intent on carrying a vote or 
 election, no matter what means they 
 use or what precedents they establish, 
 and holding themselves absolved from 
 a strict morality in public affairs. A 
 principal object of political tactics is, to 
 conciliate and gain over to one or another 
 side the most important interests of the 
 country : and of consequence the slave 
 interest is propitiated with no small care. 
 No party can afford to lose the South. 
 The master's vote is too precious to be 
 hazarded by sympathy with the slaves. 
 Accordingly parties and office-seekers 
 wash their hands of abolitionism as if 
 it were treason, and, without commit- 
 ting themselves to slavery, protest their 
 innocence of hostility to it. How far 
 they would bow to the slave power, 
 were the success of a great election to 
 depend on soothing it, cannot be fore- 
 told, especially since we have seen the 
 party most jealous of popular rights 
 surrendering to this power the right of 
 petition. In this state of things the 
 slave-holding interest has the floor of 
 Congress very much to itself. Now 
 and then a man of moral heroism meets 
 it with erect front and a tone of conscious 
 superiority. But political life does not 
 abound in men of heroic mould. Mili- 
 tary heroes may be found in swarms. 
 Thousands die fearlessly on the field 
 of battle, or the field of " honor." But 
 the moral courage which can stand cold 
 looks, frowns, and contempt, which asks 
 counsel of higher oracles than people 
 or rulers, and cheerfully gives up pre- 
 ferment to a just cause, is rare enough 
 to be canonized. In such a country the 
 tendency to corruption of moral sen- 
 timent in regard to slavery is strong.
 
 844 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 Many are tempted to acquiescence in 
 it ; and of consequence the good man, 
 the friend of humanity and his country, 
 should meet the danger by strong, un- 
 compromising reprobation of this great 
 wrong. 
 
 I would close this topic with observ- 
 ing, that there is one portion of the 
 community to which I would especially 
 commend the cause of the enslaved, and 
 the duty of open testimony against this 
 form of oppression ; and that is, our 
 women. To them, above all others, 
 slavery should seem an intolerable evil, 
 because its chief victims are women. In 
 their own country, and not very far from 
 them, there are great multitudes of their 
 sex exposed to dishonor, held as prop- 
 erty by man, unprotected by law, driven 
 to the field by the overseer, and happy 
 if not consigned to infinitely baser uses, 
 denied the rights of wife and mother, 
 and liable to be stripped of husband and 
 child when another's pleasure or interest 
 may so determine. Such is the lot of 
 hundreds of thousands of their sisters ; 
 and is there nothing here to stir up 
 woman's sympathy, nothing for her to 
 remember, when she approaches God's 
 throne or opens her heart to her fellow- 
 creatures ? Woman should talk of the 
 enslaved to her husband, and do what 
 she can to awaken, amongst his ever- 
 thronging worldly cares, some manly 
 indignation, some interest in human 
 freedom. She should breathe into her 
 son a deep sense of the wrongs which 
 man inflicts on man, and send him forth 
 from her arms a friend of the weak and 
 injured. She should look on her daugh- 
 ter, and shudder at the doom of so many 
 daughters on her own shores. When 
 she meets with woman, she should talk 
 with her of the ten thousand homes 
 which have no defence against licen- 
 tiousness, against violation of the most 
 sacred domestic ties ; and through her 
 whole intercourse, the fit season should 
 be chosen to give strength to that deep 
 moral conviction which can alone over- 
 come this tremendous evil. 
 
 I know it will be said that, in thus 
 doing, woman will wander beyond her 
 sphere, and forsake her proper work. 
 What! Do I hear such language in a 
 civilized age. and in a land of Christians ? 
 What, let me ask, is woman's work ? It 
 is, to be a minister of Christian love. 
 It is, to sympathize with human misery. 
 
 It is, to breathe sympathy into man's 
 heart. It is, to keep alive in society 
 some feeling of human brotherhood. 
 This is her mission on earth. Woman's 
 sphere, I am told, is home. And why 
 is home instituted ? Why are domestic 
 relations ordained ? These relations 
 are for a day ; they cease at the grave. 
 And what is their great end ? To 
 nourish a love which will endure for 
 ever, to awaken universal sympathy. 
 Our ties to our parents are to bind us 
 to the Universal Parent : our fraternal 
 bonds, to help us to see in all men our 
 brethren. Home is to be a nursery of 
 Christians ; and what is the end of 
 Christianity, but to awaken in all souls 
 the principles of universal justice and 
 universal charity ? At home we are to 
 learn to love our neighbor, our enemy, 
 the stranger, the poor, the oppressed. 
 If home do not train us to this, then it 
 is wofully perverted. If home counter- 
 act and quench the spirit of Christian- 
 ity, then we must remember the divine 
 Teacher, who commands us to forsake 
 father and mother, brother and sister, 
 wife and child, for his sake, and for the 
 sake of his truth. If the walls of home 
 are the bulwarks of a narrow, clannish 
 love, through which the cry of human 
 miseries and wrongs cannot penetrate, 
 then it is mockery to talk of their sacred- 
 ness. Domestic life is at present too 
 much in hostility to the spirit of Christ. 
 A family should be a community of dear 
 friends, strengthening one another for 
 the service of their fellow-creatures. 
 Can we give the name of Christian to 
 most of our families ? Can we give it 
 to women who have no thoughts or 
 sympathies for multitudes of their own 
 sex, distant only two or three days' 
 journey from their doors, and exposed 
 to outrages from which they would pray 
 to have their own daughters snatched, 
 though it were by death ? 
 
 Having spoken of the individual. I 
 proceed to speak of the duties of the 
 free States, in their political capacity, 
 in regard to slavery ; and these may 
 be reduced to two heads, both of them 
 negative. The first is, to abstain as 
 rigidly from the use of political power 
 against slavery in the States where it 
 is established as from exercising it 
 against slavery in foreign communities. 
 The second is, to free ourselves from 
 all obligation to use the powers of the
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 8 45 
 
 national or state governments in any 
 manner whatever for the support of 
 slavery. 
 
 The first duty is clear. In regard to 
 slavery, the Southern States stand on 
 the ground of foreign communities. 
 They are not subject or responsible to 
 us more than these. No State sover- 
 eignty can intermeddle with the in- 
 stitutions of another. We might as 
 legitimately spread our legislation over 
 the schools, churches, or persons of 
 the South as over their slaves. And 
 in regard to the general government, 
 we know that it was not intended to 
 confer any power, direct or indirect, on 
 the free over the slave States. Any 
 pretension to such power on the part 
 of the North would have dissolved im- 
 mediately the convention which framed 
 the Constitution. Any act of the free 
 States, when assembled in Congress, 
 for the abolition of slavery in other 
 States, would be a violation of the 
 national compact, and would be just 
 cause of complaint. 
 
 On this account I cannot but regret 
 the disposition of a part of our aboli- 
 tionists to organize themselves into a 
 political party. Were it, indeed, their 
 simple purpose to free the North from 
 all obligation to give support to slavery, 
 I should agree with them in their end, 
 though not in their means. By looking, 
 as they do, to political organization as 
 a means of putting down the institution 
 in other States, they lay themselves open 
 to reproach. I know, indeed, that ex- 
 cellent men are engaged in this move- 
 ment, and I acquit them of all dis- 
 position to transcend the limits of the 
 federal Constitution. But it is to be 
 feared that they may construe this in- 
 strument too literally ; that, forgetting 
 its spirit, they may seek to use its powers 
 for purposes very remote from its origi- 
 nal design. Their failure is almost in- 
 evitable. By extending their agency 
 beyond its true bounds, they insure its 
 defeat in its legitimate sphere. By as- 
 suming a political character, they lose 
 the reputation of honest enthusiasts, and 
 come to be considered as hypocritical 
 seekers after place and power. Should 
 they, in opposition to all probability, be- 
 come a formidable party, they would 
 unite the slave-holding States as one 
 man ; and the South, always able, when 
 so united, to link with itself a party at 
 
 the North, would rule the country as 
 before. 
 
 No association, like the abolitionists, 
 formed for a particular end, can, by 
 becoming a political organization, rise 
 to power. If it can contrive to perpet- 
 uate itself, it will provoke contempt by 
 the disproportion of its means to its 
 ends ; but the probability is, that it will 
 be swallowed up in the whirlpool of one 
 or the other of the great national par- 
 ties, from whose fury hardly any thing 
 escapes. These mighty forces sweep 
 all lesser political organizations before 
 them. And these are to be robbed of 
 their pernicious power, not by forming 
 a third party, but by the increase of 
 intelligence and virtue in the commu- 
 j nity, and by the silent flowing together 
 | of reflecting, upright, independent men, 
 who will feel themselves bound to throw 
 off the shackles of party ; who will re- 
 fuse any longer to neutralize their moral 
 influence by coalition with the self seek- 
 ing, the hollow-hearted, and the double- 
 tongued ; whose bond of union will be 
 the solemn purpose to speak the truth 
 without adulteration, to adhere to the 
 right without compromise, to support 
 good measures and discountenance bad, 
 come from what quarter they may, to 
 be just to all parties, and to expose 
 alike the corruptions of all. There are 
 now among us good and true men 
 enough to turn tfee balance on all great 
 questions, would they but confide in 
 principle, and be loyal to it in word and 
 deed. Under their influence, news- 
 papers might be established in which 
 men and measures of all parties would 
 be tried without fear or favor by the 
 moral, Christian law ; and this revolu- 
 tion of the press would do more than 
 all things else for the political regenera- 
 tion of the country. The people would 
 learn from it that, whilst boasting of 
 liberty, they are used as puppets and 
 tools ; that popular sovereignty, with 
 all its paper bulwarks, is a show rather 
 than a substance, as long as party des- 
 potism endures. It is by such a broad, 
 generous improvement of society, that 
 our present political organizations are 
 to be put down, and not by a third 
 party on a narrow basis, and which, 
 instead of embracing all the interests 
 of the country, confines itself to a single 
 point. 
 I I cannot but express again regret at
 
 8 4 6 
 
 EMANCIPATION. 
 
 the willingness of the abolitionists to 
 rely on and pursue political power. 
 Their strength has always lain in the 
 simplicity of their religious trust, in 
 their confidence in Christian truth. 
 Formerly the hope sometimes crossed 
 my mind that, by enlarging their views 
 and purifying their spirit, they would 
 gradually become a religious commu- 
 nity, founded on the recognition of God 
 as the common, equal Father of all man- 
 kind, on the recognition of Jesus Christ 
 as having lived and died to unite to him- 
 self and to baptize with his spirit every 
 human soul, and on the recognition of 
 the brotherhood of all the members of 
 God's human family. There are signs 
 that Christians are tending, however 
 slowly, toward a church in which these 
 great ideas of Christianity will be real- 
 ized ; in which a spiritual reverence for 
 God, and for the human soul, will take 
 place of the customary homage paid to 
 outward distinctions ; and in which our 
 present narrow sects will be swallowed 
 up. I thought that I saw, in the princi- 
 ples with which the abolitionists started, 
 a struggling of the human mind toward 
 this Christian union. It is truly a dis- 
 appointment to see so many of their 
 number becoming a political party, an 
 association almost always corrupting, 
 and most justly suspected on account 
 of the sacrifices of truth and honor and 
 moral independence, which it extorts 
 even from well-disposed men. Their 
 proper work is, to act on all parties, to 
 support each as far as it shall be true 
 to human rights, to gather laborers for 
 the good cause from all bodies, civil 
 and religious, and to hold forth this 
 cause as a universal interest, and not 
 as the property or stepping-stone of a 
 narrow association. 
 
 I know that it is said that nothing but 
 this political action can put down sla- 
 very. Then slavery must continue ; and 
 if we faithfully do our part as Chris- 
 tians, we are not responsible for its con- 
 tinuance. We are not to feel as if we 
 were bound to put it down by any and 
 every means. We do not speak as 
 Christians when we say that slavery 
 must and shall fall. Who are we, to 
 dictate thus to Omnipotence ? It has 
 pleased the mysterious providence of 
 God that terrible evils should be left to 
 overshadow the earth for ages. " How 
 long, O Lord ? " has been the secret cry 
 
 extorted from good men by the crimes 
 of the world for six thousand years. 
 On the philanthropist of this age the 
 same sad burden is laid, and it cannot 
 be removed. We must not feel that, 
 were slavery destroyed, paradise would 
 be restored. As in our own souls the 
 conquest of one evil passion reveals to 
 us new spiritual foes, so in society one 
 great evil hides in its shadow others 
 perhaps as fearful, and its fall only sum- 
 mons us to new efforts for the redemp- 
 tion of the race. We know, indeed, 
 that good is to triumph over evil in this 
 world ; that " Christ must reign till he 
 shall put all enemies beneath his feet," 
 or until his spirit shall triumph over the 
 spirit, oppressions, corruptions of the 
 world. Let us, then, work against all 
 wrong, but with a calm, solemn earnest- 
 ness, not with vehemence and tumult. 
 Let us work with deep reverence and 
 filial trust toward God, and not in the 
 proud impetuosity of our own wills. 
 Happy the day when such laborers shall 
 be gathered by an inward attraction 
 into one churcn or brotherhood, whose 
 badge, creed, spirit, shall be universal 
 love ! This will be the true kingdom of 
 God on earth, and its might will infi- 
 nitely transcend political power. 
 
 For one, I have no desire to force 
 emancipation on the South. Had I 
 political power, I should fear to use it 
 in such a cause. A forced emancipation 
 is, on the whole, working well in the 
 West Indies, because the mother coun- 
 try watches over and guides it, and pours 
 in abundantly moral and religious influ- 
 ences to calm and enlighten and soften 
 the minds newly set free. Here no such 
 control can be exercised. Freedom at 
 the South, to work well, must be the 
 gift of the masters. Emancipation must 
 be their own act and deed. It must 
 spring from good-will and sense of jus-, 
 tice, or, at least, from a sense of interest, 
 and not be extorted by a foreign power ; 
 and with this origin, it will be more suc- 
 cessful even than the experiment in the 
 West Indies. In those islands, espe- 
 cially in Jamaica, the want of cordial 
 co-operation on the part of the planters 
 has continually obstructed the beneficial 
 working of freedom, and still throws a 
 doubtfulness over its complete success. 
 
 I have said that the free States cannot 
 rightfully use the power of their own 
 legislatures or of Congress to abolish
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 847 
 
 slavery in the States where it is estab- 
 lished. Their first duty is to abstain 
 from such acts. Their next and more 
 solemn duty is to abstain from all action 
 for the support of slavery. If they are 
 not to subvert, much less are they to 
 sustain it. There is some excuse for 
 communities when, under a generous 
 impulse, they espouse the cause of the 
 oppressed in other states, and by force 
 restore their rights ; but they are with- 
 out excuse in aiding other states in 
 binding on men an unrighteous yoke. 
 On this subject our fathers, in framing 
 the Constitution, swerved from the right. 
 We, their children, at the end of half a 
 century, see the path of duty more 
 clearly than they, and must walk in it. 
 To this point the public mind has long 
 been tending, and the time has come for 
 looking at it fully, dispassionately, and 
 with manly and Christian resolution. 
 This is not a question of abolitionism. 
 It has nothing to do with putting down 
 slavery. We are simply called, as com- 
 munities, to withhold support from it, to 
 stand aloof, to break off all connection 
 with this criminal institution. The free 
 States ought to say to the South, " Sla- 
 very is yours, not ours, and on you the 
 whole responsibility of it must fall. We 
 wash our hands of it wholly. We shall 
 exert no power against it ; but do not 
 call on us to put forth the least power in 
 its behalf. We cannot, directly or indi- 
 rectly, become accessories to this wrong. 
 We cannot become jailers, or a patrol, 
 or a watch, to keep your slaves under 
 the yoke. You must guard them your- 
 selves. If they escape, we cannot send 
 them back. Our soil makes whoever 
 touches it free. On this point you must 
 manage your own concerns. You must 
 guard your own frontier. In case of 
 insurrection, we cannot come to you, 
 save as friends alike of bond and free. 
 Neither in our separate legislatures, nor 
 in the national legislature, can we touch 
 slavery to sustain it. On this point you 
 are foreign communities. You have 
 often said that you need not our protec- 
 tion : and we must take you at your 
 word. In so doing we have no thought 
 of acting on your fears. We think only of 
 our duty, and this, in all circumstances, 
 and at all hazards, must be done." 
 
 The people of the North think but 
 little of the extent of the support given 
 to slavery by the federal government ; 
 
 though, when it is considered that "the 
 slave-holding interest has a representa- 
 tion in Congress of twenty -five members, 
 in addition to the fair and equal repre- 
 sentation of the free inhabitants," it is 
 very natural to expect the exercise of 
 the powers of Congress in behalf of this 
 institution. The federal government 
 has been, and is, the friend of the slave- 
 holder, and the enemy of the slave. It 
 authorizes the former to seize, in a free 
 State, a colored man, on the ground of 
 being a fugitive, and to bring him before 
 a justice of the peace of his own selec- 
 tion ; and this magistrate, without a jury, 
 and without obligation to receive any 
 testimony but what the professed master 
 offers, can deliver up the accused to be 
 held as property for life. The federal 
 government authorizes not only the ap- 
 prehension and imprisonment, in the 
 District of Columbia, of a negro sus- 
 pected of being a runaway, but the sale 
 of him as a slave, if within a certain 
 time he cannot prove his freedom. It 
 sustains slavery within the District of 
 Columbia, though " under its exclusive 
 jurisdiction," and allows this District to 
 be one of the chief slave-marts of the 
 country. Not a slave-auction is held 
 there but by the authority of Congress. 
 The federal government has endecvored 
 to obtain by negotiation the restoration 
 of fugitive slaves who have sought and 
 found freedom in Canada, and has offered 
 in return to restore fugitives from the 
 West Indies. It has disgraced itself in 
 the sight of all Europe by claiming as 
 property slaves who have been ship- 
 wrecked on the British islands, and who 
 by touching British soil had become 
 free. It has instructed its representa- 
 tive at Madrid to announce to the Span- 
 ish court, " that the emancipation of the 
 slave population of Cuba would be very 
 severely felt in the adjacent shores of 
 the United States." It has purchased 
 a vast unsettled territory which it has 
 given up to be overrun with slavery. 
 To crown all, it has, in violation of the 
 Constitution, and of the right granted 
 even by despotism to its subjects, re- 
 fused to listen to petitions against these 
 abuses of power. After all this humbling 
 experience, is it not time for the free 
 States to pause, to reflect, to weigh well 
 what they are doing through the national 
 government, and to resolve that they will 
 free themselves from every obligation to
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 uphold an institution which they know 
 to be unjust ? * 
 
 The object now proposed is to be 
 effected by amendments of the Consti- 
 tution, and these should be sought in 
 good faith ; that is, not as the means of 
 abolishing slavery, but as a means of 
 removing us from a participation of its 
 
 fuilt. The free States should take the 
 igh ground of duty ; and, to raise them 
 to this height, the press, the pulpit, and 
 all religious and upright men should join 
 their powers. A people under so pure 
 an impulse cannot fail. Such arrange- 
 ments should be made that the word 
 slavery need not be heard again in Con- 
 gress or in the local legislatures. On 
 the principle now laid down, the ques- 
 tion of abolition in the District of Co- 
 lumbia should be settled. Emancipation 
 at the seat of government ought to be 
 insisted on, not for the purpose of influ- 
 encing slavery elsewhere, but because 
 what is done there is done by the whole 
 people, because slavery sustained there 
 is sustained by the free States. It is 
 said that the will of the citizens of the 
 District is to be consulted. Were this 
 true, which cannot be granted, the diffi- 
 culty may easily be surmounted. Let 
 Congress resolve to establish itself 
 where it will have no slavery to control 
 or uphold, and the* people of the District 
 of Columbia will remove the obstacle to 
 its continuance where it is, as fast as 
 can be desired. 
 
 The great difficulty in the way of the 
 arrangement now proposed is, the ar- 
 ticle of the Constitution requiring the 
 surrender and return of fugitive slaves. 
 A State obeying this seems to me to 
 contract as great guilt as if it were to 
 bring slaves from Africa. No man who 
 regards slavery as among the greatest 
 wrongs can in any way reduce his fel- 
 low-creatures to it. The flying slave 
 asserts the first right of a man, and 
 should meet aid rather than obstruction. 
 Who that has the heart of a freeman, or 
 breathes the love of a Christian, can 
 send him back to his chain ? On this 
 point, however, the difficulty of an ar- 
 rangement is every day growing less. 
 This provision of the Constitution is 
 
 * On the subject of this paragraph the reader will 
 do well to consult " A View of the Action of the Fed- 
 eral Government in behalf of Slavery, by William Jay." 
 The author is a son of Chief Justice Jay, and a worthy 
 representative of the spirit and principles of his illus- 
 trious father. 
 
 undergoing a silent repeal, and no hu- 
 man power can sustain it. Just in pro- 
 portion as slavery becomes the object of 
 conscientious reprobation in the free 
 States, just so fast the difficulty of send- 
 ing back the fugitive increases. In the 
 part of the country where I reside it is 
 next to impossible that the slave who 
 has reached us should be restored to 
 bondage. Not that our courts of law 
 are obstructed, not that mobs would 
 rescue the fugitive from the magistrate. 
 We respect the public authorities. Not 
 an arm would be raised against the offi- 
 cers of justice. But what are laws 
 against the moral sense of a commu- 
 nity ? No man among us, who values 
 his character, would aid the slave-hunter. 
 The slave-hunter here would be looked 
 on with as little favor as the felonious 
 slave-trader. Those among us who 
 dread to touch slavery in its own region, 
 lest insurrection and tumults should fol- 
 low change, still feel that the fugitive 
 who has sought shelter so far can breed 
 no tumult in the land which he has left, 
 and that, of consequence, no motive but 
 the unhallowed love of gain can prompt 
 to his pursuit ; and when they think of 
 slavery as perpetuated, not for public 
 order, but for gain, they abhor it, and 
 would not lift a finger to replace the fly- 
 ing bondsman beneath the yoke. Thus 
 this provision of the Constitution is virt- 
 ually fading away ; and, as I have said, 
 no human power can restore it. The 
 moral sentiment of a community is not 
 to be withstood. Make as many con- 
 stitutions as you will, fence round 
 your laws with what penalties you will, 
 the universal conscience makes them 
 as weak as the threats of childhood. 
 There is a spirit spreading through the 
 country in regard to slavery which de- 
 mands changes of the Constitution, and 
 which will master if it cannot change it. 
 No concerted opposition to this instru- 
 ment is thought of or is needed. No 
 secret understanding among our citizens 
 is to be feared at the South. The sim- 
 ple presence to their minds of the great 
 truth, that man cannot rightfully be the 
 property of man, is enough to shelter 
 the slave. With this conviction, we are 
 palsy-strrcken when called upon to re- 
 store him to bondage. Our sinews are 
 relaxed ; our hands hang down ; our 
 limbs will not carry us a 'step. Now 
 this conviction is spreading, and will
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 849 
 
 become the established principle of the 
 free States. Politicians, indeed, to an- 
 swer a party end, may talk of property 
 in man as something established or not 
 to be questioned : but the people at 
 large do not follow them. The people go 
 with the civilized and Christian world. 
 The South should understand this, 
 should look the difficulty in the face ; 
 and they will see that, from the nature 
 of the case, resistance is idle, that 
 neither policy nor violence can avail. 
 And, what is more, they have no right 
 to reproach us with letting this provision 
 of the Constitution die among us. They 
 have done worse. We are passive. 
 They have actively, openly, flagrantly 
 violated the Constitution. They have 
 passed laws threatening to imprison and 
 punish the free colored citizens of the 
 North for exercising the rights guar- 
 antied to every citizen by the national 
 compact, that is, for setting foot on 
 their shores and using their highways. 
 This wrong has been too patiently 
 borne : and in one way we can turn it 
 to good account. When reproached 
 with unfaithfulness to the Constitution, 
 we can hold it up as our shield, and cite 
 the greater disloyalty of the South as 
 an extenuation of our own. 
 
 It is best, however, that neither party 
 should be unfaithful. It is best that 
 both, enlightened as to the spirit of our 
 times, should make new arrangements 
 to prevent collision, to define the duties 
 of each and all, to bring the Constitution 
 into harmony with the moral convictions 
 and with the safety of North and South. 
 Until some such arrangements are 
 made, perpetual collisions between the 
 two great sections of our country must 
 occur. Notwithstanding the tendencies 
 to a low tone of thought and feeling at 
 the North in regard to slavery, there is 
 a decided increase of moral sensibility 
 on the subject ; and in proportion as this 
 shall spread, the free States will insist 
 more strenuously on being released from 
 every obligation to give support to what 
 they deliberately condemn. 
 
 This liberation of the free States from 
 all connection with and action on slavery 
 would, indeed, be an immense boon, and 
 the removal of much dissension. Still, 
 the root of bitterness would remain 
 among us. Still, our union, that inesti- 
 mable political good, will be insecure. 
 Slavery, whilst it continues, must se- 
 
 cretly, if not openly, mix with our policy, 
 sow jealousies, determine the character 
 of parties, and create, if not diversities 
 of interests, at least suspicions of them, 
 which may prove not a whit the less 
 ruinous because groundless. 
 
 Slavery is unfriendly to union, as it is 
 directly hostile to the fundamental prin- 
 ciple on which all our institutions rest. 
 No nation can admit an element at war 
 with its vital, central law without losing 
 something of its stability. The idea of 
 human rights is the grand distinction of 
 our country. Our chief boast as a peo- 
 ple is found in the fact that the toils, 
 sacrifices, heroic deeds of our fathers 
 had for their end the establishment of 
 these. Here is the unity which sums up 
 our history, the glory which lights up 
 our land, the chief foundation of the 
 sentiment of loyalty, the chief spring of 
 national feeling, the grand bond of na- 
 tional union ; and whatever among us is 
 at war with this principle weakens the 
 living force which holds US' together. 
 
 On this topic I cannot enlarge. But 
 recent events compel me to refer to one 
 influence more by which slavery is un- 
 friendly to union. It aggravates those 
 traits of character at the South which 
 tend to division. It inflames that proud, 
 fiery spirit which is quick to take offence, 
 and which rushes into rash and reckless 
 courses. This ungoverned violence of 
 feeling breaks out especially in Con- 
 gress, the centre from which impulses 
 are communicated to the 'whole people. 
 It is a painful thought, that, if any spot 
 in the country is pre-eminent for rude- 
 ness and fierceness, it is the Hall of 
 Representatives. Too many of our 
 legislators seem to lay down at its door 
 the common restraints of good society 
 and the character of gentlemen. The 
 national chamber seems liable to become 
 a national nuisance ; and although all 
 parts of the country are in a measure 
 responsible for this wound inflicted on 
 the honor and union of the country, we 
 do feel that the evil is to be imputed 
 chiefly to the proud, impetuous temper 
 of the South. It is believed that the 
 personal violences which, if repeated, 
 will reduce the national council to the 
 level of a boxing match may be traced 
 to that part of the country. This evil, 
 is too notorious to be softened down by 
 apologies or explanations : nor is it less 
 an evil because precedents and parallels - 
 
 54
 
 850 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 can be found in the legislative bodies of 
 France and England. It tends, not 
 merely to spread barbarism through the 
 community, but to impair the authority 
 of legislation, to give new ferocity to 
 the conflicts of party, and thus to 
 weaken the national tie. 
 
 If slavery, that brand of discord, 
 were taken away, the peculiarities of 
 Northern and Southern character would 
 threaten little or no evil to the Union. 
 On the contrary, these two grand divi- 
 sions of the country, now estranged 
 from each other, would be brought near, 
 and by acting on and modifying one 
 another would produce a national char- 
 acter of the highest order. The South, 
 with more of ardor &nd of bold and rapid 
 genius, and the North, with more of 
 wisdom and steady principle, furnish 
 admirable materials for a state. Nor is 
 the union of these to a considerable de- 
 gree impracticable. It is worthy of re- 
 mark, that the most eminent men at the 
 South have had a large infusion of the 
 Northern character. Washington, in 
 his calm dignity, his rigid order, his 
 close attention to business, his reserve 
 almost approaching coldness, bore a 
 striking affinity to the North ; and his 
 sympathies led him to choose Northern 
 men very much as his confidential 
 friends. Mr. Madison had much of the 
 calm wisdom, the patient, studious re- 
 search, the exactness and quiet manner 
 of our part of the country, with little of 
 the imagination and fervor of his own. 
 Chief Justice Marshall had more than 
 these two great men of the genial, unre- 
 served character of a warmer climate, 
 but so blended with a spirit of modera- 
 tion and clear judgment and serene wis- 
 dom as to make him the delight and 
 confidence of the whole land. There is 
 one other distinguished name of the 
 South, which I have not mentioned, Mr. 
 Jefferson ; and the reason is, that his 
 character seemed to belong to neither 
 section of the country. He wanted the 
 fiery, daring spirit of the South, and the 
 calm energy of the North. He stood 
 alone. He was a man of genius, given 
 to bold, original, and somewhat vision- 
 ary speculation, and at the same time a 
 sagacious observer of men and events. 
 He owed his vast influence, second only 
 to Washington's, to his keen insight 
 into the character of his countrymen 
 and into the spirit of his age. His op- 
 
 ponents have set him down as the most 
 unscrupulous of politicians ; but one 
 merit, and no mean one. must be ac- 
 corded to him, that of having adopted 
 early, and of having held fast through 
 life, the most generous theory of human 
 rights, and of having protested against 
 slavery as an aggravated wrong. In 
 truth, it is impossible to study the great 
 men of the South, and to consider the 
 force of intellect and character which 
 that region has developed, without feel- 
 ings of respect, and without the most 
 ardent desire that it may free itself, by 
 any means, from an institution which 
 aggravates what is evil and threatening 
 in its character, which cripples much of 
 its energy, which cuts it off from the 
 sympathies and honor of the civilized 
 world, and which prevents it from a 
 true, cordial union with the rest of the 
 country. It is slavery which prevents 
 the two sections of country from acting 
 on and modifying each other for the good 
 of both. This is the great gulf between 
 us, and it is constantly growing wider 
 and deeper in proportion to the spread 
 of moral feeling, of Christian philan- 
 thropy, of respect for men's rights, of 
 interest in the oppressed. 
 
 Why is it that slavery is not thrown 
 off ? We here ascribe its continuance 
 very much to cupidity and love of power. 
 But there is another cause, which is 
 certainly disappearing. Slavery at the 
 South continues, in part, in consequence 
 of that want of activity, of steady force, 
 of resolute industry among the free white 
 population, which it has itself produced. 
 A people with force enough to attempt 
 a social revolution, and to bear its first 
 inconveniences, would not endure sla- 
 very. We of the North, with our char- 
 acteristic energy, would hardly tolerate 
 it a year. The sluggishness, the stu- 
 pidity of the slaves would keep us in 
 perpetual irritation. We should run 
 over them, tread them almost uncon- 
 sciously under foot, in our hasle and 
 eagerness to accomplish our enterprises. 
 We should feel the wastefulness of slave 
 labor in comparison with free. The 
 clumsy mechanic, the lagging house-ser- 
 vant, the slovenly laborer, ever ready 
 with a lying excuse, would be too much 
 for our patience. Now there is reason 
 to think that the stirring, earnest, indus- 
 trious spirit of the North is finding its 
 way Southward ; and with this, a desire
 
 EM A NC IP A TION. 
 
 8 S I 
 
 to introduce better social relations can 
 hardly be repressed. 
 
 We believe, too, that this revolution 
 would be hastened if the South would 
 open its ear to the working of emanci- 
 pation in other countries, and to the 
 deep interest in the African race which 
 is now spreading through the world. 
 On these subjects very little is yet 
 known at the South. The newspapers 
 there spread absurd rumors of the fail- 
 ure of the experiment of the West In- 
 dies, but the truth finds no organs. We 
 doubt, too, whether one newspaper has 
 even made a reference to the recent 
 public meeting in England for the civil- 
 ization of Africa, the most remarkable, 
 in one respect, ever held in that country ; 
 for it was a representation of all ranks 
 and sects, including the greatest names 
 in church and state, and, what was not 
 less venerable, a multitude of both sexes 
 who have made themselves dear and 
 honored by services to humanity. Who- 
 ever considers this and other signs of 
 the times in Europe, will see the dawn 
 of a better era, when the wrongs of past 
 ages are to be redressed, when the Afri- 
 can is to be lifted up, and the sentence 
 of moral outlawry is to be passed on 
 the enslavers of their brethren. Many 
 among us are apt to smile and say that 
 nations have but one law, self-interest. 
 But a new and higher force is beginning 
 to act on human affairs. Religion is 
 becoming an active, diffusive, unwearied 
 principle of humanity and justice. All 
 the forces of Christianity are concen- 
 trating themselves into a fervent, all- 
 comprehending philanthropy. This is 
 at length to be understood at the South, 
 and it will be felt there. In that region 
 there are pious men and women who 
 will not endure to be cut off from the re- 
 ligious communion of the world. There 
 are self-respecting men brave enough to 
 defy all personal danger, but not to defy 
 the moral sentiment of mankind. There 
 are the wise and good, who will rejoice 
 to learn that emancipation brings dignity 
 and happiness to the slave, and safety 
 and honor to the free. Here is power 
 enough to put down the selfish and un- 
 principled. Here are influences which, 
 joined with favoring events from God's 
 good providence, are, we trust, to re- 
 move the wrongs and evils of slavery, 
 and to give us a right to hold up our 
 head among Christian nations. 
 
 But if it is not ordained that by these 
 and like influences this great wrong is 
 to be done away, of one thing we are 
 sure, that God's righteous providence 
 lacks not means for accomplishing his 
 designs. He has infinite ministers for 
 humbling human pride and lifting up 
 the fallen. The solemn lesson of our 
 times is the instability of all human 
 power. Despotic thrones have fallen, 
 and surely private despotism cannot en- 
 dure. We learn from history that, in 
 seasons apparently the most inauspi- 
 cious, the seeds of beneficent revolu- 
 tions have been sown and have unfolded 
 in silence. Much more, in these days 
 of change and progress, causes must be 
 at work for the redemption of the slave. 
 Emancipation, universal freedom, must 
 come. May God prepare its way, not 
 by earthquakes and storms, but by " the 
 still, small voice " of truth, by breathing 
 into the hearts of this people the spirit 
 of wisdom, justice, and love ! 
 
 It is a solemn thought with which 
 I close these remarks, that a people 
 upholding or in any way giving coun- 
 tenance to slavery contract guilt in pro- 
 portion to the light which is thrown on 
 the injustice and evils of this institu- 
 tion, and to the evidence of the benefits 
 of emancipation ; and if so, then the 
 weight of guilt on this nation is great 
 and increasing. Our fathers carried on 
 slavery in much blindness. They lived 
 and walked under the shadow of a dark 
 and bloody past. But the darkness is 
 gone. " The mystery of iniquity " is 
 now laid open. Slavery, from its birth 
 to its last stage, is now brought to light. 
 
 The wars, the sacked and burning 
 villages, the kidnapping and murders 
 of Africa, which begin this horrible 
 history ; the crowded hold, the chains, 
 stench, suffocation, burning thirst, and 
 agonies of the slave-ship ; the loath- 
 some diseases and enormous waste of 
 life in the middle passage ; the wrongs 
 and sufferings of the plantation, with 
 its reign of terror and force, its unbridled 
 lust, its violations of domestic rights 
 and charities ; these all are revealed. 
 The crimes and woes of slavery come 
 to us in moans and shrieks from the 
 Old World and the New, and from the 
 ocean which divides them; and we are 
 distinctly taught, that in no other ca- 
 lamity are such wrongs and miseries 
 concentrated as in this. To put an end
 
 852 
 
 EMANCIPA TION. 
 
 to some of these woes, the most power- 
 ful nations have endeavored, by force 
 of laws and punishments, to abolish the 
 slave-trade ; but the trial has proved 
 that, while slavery endures, the traffic 
 which ministers to it cannot be sup- 
 pressed. At length the axe has been 
 laid at the root of the accursed tree. 
 By the act of a great nation nearly a 
 million' of slaves have been emanci- 
 pated; and the first results have ex- 
 ceeded the hopes of philanthropy. All 
 this history of slavery is given to the 
 world. The truth is brought to our 
 very doors. And, still more, to us, 
 above all people, God has made known 
 those eternal principles of freedom, jus- 
 tice, and humanity, by which 'the full 
 enormity of slavery may be compre- 
 hended. To shut our eyes against all 
 this light ; to shut our ears and hearts 
 against these monitions of God, these 
 pleadings of humanity ; to stand forth, 
 in this great conflict of good with evil, 
 as the chief upholders of oppression ; 
 to array ourselves against the efforts of 
 the Christian and civilized world for the 
 extinction of this greatest wrong ; to 
 perpetuate it with obstinate madness 
 where it exists, and to make new re- 
 gions of the earth groan under its woes ; 
 this, surely, is a guilt which the jus- 
 tice of God cannot wink at, and on which 
 insulted humanity, religion, and freedom 
 call down fearful retribution. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note A. On this page I have spoken 
 of the manner in which the slaves in 
 the West Indies received emancipation. 
 This great event took place, in Antigua, 
 on the first of August, 1834. The fol- 
 lowing account of the manner in which 
 the preceding night was kept is extracted 
 from Thome and Kimball's book on the 
 subject : 
 
 " The Wesleyans kept ' watch-night ' in 
 all their chapels on the night of the 3ist 
 July. One of the Wesleyan missionaries 
 gave us an account of the watch-meeting 
 at the chapel in St. John's. The spacious 
 house was filled with the candidates for 
 liberty. All was animation and eagerness. 
 A mighty chorus of voices swelled the 
 song of expectation and joy ; and, as they 
 united in prayer, the voice of the leader 
 was drowned in the universal acclamation 
 of thanksgiving and praise and blessing 
 and honor and glory to God, who had come 
 
 down for their deliverance. In such ex- 
 ercises the evening was spent until the 
 hour of twelve approached. The mission- 
 ary then proposed that, when the clock on 
 the cathedral should begin to strike, the 
 whole congregation should fall upon their 
 knees, and receive the boon of freedom in 
 silence. Accordingly, as the loud bell 
 tolled its first note, the immense assembly 
 fell prostrate on their knees. All was si- 
 lence, save the quivering, half-stifled breath 
 of the struggling spirit. The slow notes of 
 the clock fell upon the multitude ; peal on 
 peal, peal on peal, rolled over the prostrate 
 throng, in tones of angels' voices, thrilling 
 among the desolate chords and weary heart- 
 strings. Scarce had the clock sounded its 
 last note, when the lightning flashed vividly 
 around, and a loud peal of thunder roared 
 along the sky, God's pillar of fire, and 
 trump of jubilee ! A moment of profound- 
 est silence passed, then came the burst, 
 they broke forth in prayer ; they shouted, 
 theysung 'Glory!' 'Alleluia!' they clapped 
 their hands, leaped up, fell down, clasped 
 each other in their free arms, cried, laughed, 
 and went to and fro, tossing upward their 
 unfettered hands ; but high above the whole 
 there was a mighty sound which ever and 
 anon swelled up ; it was the utterings, in 
 broken negro dialect, of gratitude to God. 
 " After this gush of excitement had spent 
 itself, and the congregation became calm, 
 the religious exercises were resumed, and 
 the remainder of the night was occupied in 
 singing and prayer, in reading the Bible, 
 and in addresses from the missionaries, 
 explaining the nature of the freedom just 
 received, and exhorting the free people to 
 be industrious, steady, obedient to the laws, 
 and to show themselves in all things worthy 
 of the high boon which God had conferred 
 upon them." 
 
 Note B. On reading to a friend my 
 remarks on the African character, he 
 observed to me, that similar views had 
 been taken by Alexander Kinmont, in 
 his " Lectures on Man : Cincinnati, 
 1839." This induced me to examine 
 the " Lectures ; " and I had the satis- 
 faction of finding, not only a coincidence 
 of opinions, but that the author had pur- 
 sued the subject much more thoroughly, 
 and illustrated it with much strength 
 and beauty. I would recommend this 
 work to such as delight in bold and 
 original thinking. The reader, indeed, 
 will often question the soundness of the 
 author's conclusions ; but even in these 
 cases the mind will be waked up to great 
 and interesting subjects of reflection. 
 I will subjoin a few extracts relating 
 to the African character :
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 853 
 
 " When the epoch of the civilization of 
 the negro family arrives, in the lapse of 
 ages, they will display in their native land 
 some very peculiar and interesting traits of 
 character, of which we, a distinct branch 
 of the human family, can at present form 
 no conception. It will be indeed, it must 
 be a civilization of a peculiar stamp ; per- 
 haps, we might venture to conjecture, not 
 so much distinguished by art as a certain 
 beautiful nature ; not so marked or adorned 
 by science as exalted and refined by a new 
 and lovely theology, a reflection of the 
 light of heaven more perfect and endearing 
 than that which the intellects of the Cau- 
 casian race have ever yet exhibited. There 
 is more of the child, of unsophisticated 
 nature, in the negro race than in the 
 European." /. 190. 
 
 " The peninsula of Africa is the home of 
 the negro, and the appropriate and des- 
 tined seat of his future glory and civiliza- 
 tion, a civilization which, we need not fear 
 to predict, will be as distinct in all its feat- 
 ures from that of all other races as his com- 
 plexion and natural temperament and genius 
 are different. But who can doubt that here, 
 also, humanity in its more advanced and 
 millennial stage will reflect, under a sweet 
 
 and mellow light, the softer attributes of 
 the divine beneficence ? If the Caucasian 
 race is destined, as would appear from the 
 precocity of their genius, and their natural 
 quickness and extreme aptitude to the arts, 
 to reflect the lustre of the divine wisdom, 
 or, to speak more properly, the divine 
 science, shall we envy the negro, if a later 
 but far nobler civilization await him, to 
 return the splendor of the divine attributes 
 of mercy and benevolence in the practice 
 and exhibition of all the milder and gentler 
 virtues ?" /. 191. 
 
 "If there are fewer vivid manifestations 
 of intellect in the negro family than in 
 the Caucasian, as I am disposed to be- 
 lieve, does that forbid the hope of the re- 
 turn of that pure and gentle state of soci- 
 ety among them which attracts the peculiar 
 regard of heaven ? " p. 192. 
 
 "The sweeter graces of the Christian 
 religion appear almost too tropical and 
 tender plants to grow in the soil of the 
 Caucasian mind ; they require a character 
 of human nature, of which you can see the 
 rude lineaments in the Ethiopian, to be im- 
 planted in, and grow naturally and beauti- 
 fully withal." /. 218. 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES; 
 
 Or, Remarks suggested by the Case of 'the "Creole" 
 
 [THE Author is aware that the following argument might have been more condensed, had circumstances 
 allowed ; but he is reconciled to publishing it in the present form by the belief that a degree of 
 expansion and even of repetition may adapt it to its end, which is, to bring the subject within the 
 comprehension of all who desire to know the truth. He now presents the first part of his work, in 
 the hope that the second will soon follow. BOSTON, March 26, 1842.] 
 
 PART I. 
 
 I RESPECTFULLY ask your attention, 
 fellow-citizens of the free States, to a 
 subject of great and pressing impor- 
 tance. The case of the " Creole," taken 
 by itself, or separated from the prin- 
 ciples which are complicated with it, 
 however it might engage my feelings, 
 would not have moved me to the pres- 
 ent address. I am not writing to plead 
 the cause of a hundred or more men, 
 scattered through the West Indies, and 
 claimed as slaves. In a world abound- 
 ing with so much wrong and woe, we 
 at this distance can spend but a few 
 thoughts on these strangers. I rejoice 
 
 that they are free ; I trust that they will 
 remain so ; and with these feelings, I 
 dismiss them from my thoughts. The 
 case of the " Creole " involves great 
 and vital principles, and as such I now 
 invite to it your serious consideration. 
 The case is thus stated in the letter 
 of the American Secretary of State to 
 the American Minister in London : 
 
 " It appears that the brig ' Creole,' of 
 Richmond, Virginia, Ensor master, bound 
 to New Orleans, sailed from Hampton 
 roads with a cargo of merchandise, prin- 
 cipally tobacco, and slaves, about one hun- 
 dred and thirty-five in number ; that, on 
 the evening of the 7th of November, some 
 of the slaves rose upon the crew of
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 the vessel, murdered a passenger named 
 Hewell, who owned some of the negroes, 
 wounded the captain dangerously, and the 
 first mate and two of the crew severely ; 
 that the slaves soon obtained complete 
 possession of the brig, which, under their 
 direction, was taken into the port of Nas- 
 sau, in the island of New Providence, 
 where she arrived on the morning of the 
 9th of the same month ; that, at the re- 
 quest of the American consul in that place, 
 the governor ordered a guard on board, to 
 prevent the escape of the mutineers, and 
 with a view to an investigation of the cir- 
 cumstances of the case ; that such investi- 
 gation was accordingly made by two British 
 magistrates, and that an examination also 
 took place by the consul ; that, on the re- 
 port of the magistrates, nineteen of the 
 slaves were imprisoned by the local author- 
 ities, as having been concerned in the 
 mutiny and murder ; and their surrender 
 to the consul, to be sent to the United 
 States for trial for these crimes, was re- 
 fused, on the ground that the governor 
 wished first to communicate with the gov- 
 ernment in England on the subject ; that, 
 through the interference of the colonial 
 authorities, and even before the military 
 guard was removed, the greater number of 
 the slaves were liberated, and encouraged 
 to go beyond the power of the master of 
 the vessel, or the American consul, by pro- 
 ceedings which neither of them could con- 
 trol. This is the substance of the case, as 
 stated in two protests, one made at Nassau, 
 and one at New Orleans, and the consul's 
 letters, together with sundry depositions 
 taken by him ; copies of all which are 
 herewith transmitted." 
 
 This statement of the case of the 
 " Creole " is derived chiefly from the 
 testimony of the officers and crew of 
 the vessel, and very naturally falls under 
 suspicion of being colored, in part, by 
 prejudice and passion. We must hear 
 the other side, and compare all the wit- 
 nesses, before we can understand the 
 whole case. The main facts, however, 
 cannot be misunderstood. The shipping 
 of the slaves at Norfolk, the rising of 
 a part of their number against the 
 officers of the vessel, the success of the 
 insurrection, the carrying of the vessel 
 into the port of Nassau, and the recog- 
 nition and treatment of the slaves as 
 free by the British authorities of that 
 place ; these material points of the 
 case cannot be questioned. 
 
 The letter of our government, stating 
 these facts as grounds of complaint 
 against England, is written with much 
 
 caution, and seems wanting in the tone 
 of earnestness and confidence which 
 naturally belongs to a good cause. It 
 does not go to the heart of the case. 
 It relies more on the comity of nations 
 than on principles of justice and natural 
 law. Still, in one respect it is decided. 
 it protests against, and complains of, 
 the British authorities, and "calls loudly 
 for redress." It maintains that " it was 
 the plain and obvious duty " of the 
 authorities at Nassau to give aid and 
 succor to the officers of the " Creole " 
 in reducing the slaves to subjection, in 
 resuming their voyage with their cargo 
 of men as well as of tobacco, and in 
 bringing the insurgents to trial in this 
 country. It maintains that the claims 
 of the American masters to their slaves 
 existed and were in force in the British 
 port, and that these claims ought to 
 have been acknowledged and sustained 
 by the British magistrate. The plain 
 inference is, that the government of the 
 United States is bound to spread a 
 shield over American slavery abroad as 
 well as at home. Such is the letter. 
 
 This document I propose to examine, 
 and I shall do so chiefly for two rea- 
 sons : first, because it maintains morally 
 unsound and pernicious doctrines, and 
 is fitted to deprave the public mind ; 
 and secondly, because it tends to com- 
 mit the free States to the defence and 
 support of slavery. This last point is 
 at this moment of peculiar importance. 
 The free States are gradually and si- 
 lently coming more and more into con- 
 nection with slavery ; are unconsciously 
 learning to regard it as a national in- 
 terest ; and are about to pledge their 
 wealth and strength, their bones and 
 muscles and lives, to its defence. Sla- 
 very is mingling more and more with 
 the politics of the country, determining 
 more and more the individuals who shall 
 hold office, and the great measures on 
 which the public weal depends. It is 
 time for the free States to wake up to 
 the subject ; to weigh it deliberately ; 
 to think of it, not casually, when some 
 startling fact forces it up into notice, 
 but with earnest, continued, solemn at- 
 tention ; to inquire into their duties in 
 regard to it ; to lay clown their princi- 
 ples ; to mark out their course ; and to 
 resolve on acquitting themselves right- 
 eously towards God, towards the South, 
 and towards themselves. The North
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 855 
 
 has never come to this great matter in 
 earnest. We have trifled with it. We 
 have left things to take their course. 
 We have been too much absorbed in 
 pecuniary interests to watch the bearing 
 of slavery on the government. Perhaps 
 we have wanted the spirit, the manliness, 
 to look the subject fully in the face. 
 Accordingly, the slave-power has been 
 allowed to stamp itself on the national 
 policy, and to fortify itself with the na- 
 tional arm. For the pecuniary injury 
 to our prosperity which may be traced 
 to this source 1 care little or nothing. 
 There is a higher view of the case. 
 There is a more vital question to be 
 settled than that of interest, the question 
 of duty ; and to this my remarks will 
 be confined. 
 
 The letter which is now to be ex- 
 amined may be regarded either as the 
 work of an individual, or as the work 
 of the government. I shall regard it 
 in the latter light alone. Its personal 
 bearings are of no moment. No indi- 
 vidual will enter my thoughts in this 
 discussion. I regard the letter as is- 
 suing from the cabinet, as an executive 
 document, as laying down the principles 
 to which the public policy is in danger 
 of being conformed, as fitted to draw 
 the whole country into support of an 
 institution which the free States abhor. 
 With the opinions of an individual I 
 have nothing to do. Corrupt principles 
 adopted by the government, these, 
 and these alone, it will be my object to 
 expose. 
 
 There is a difficulty lying at the 
 "threshold of such a discussion, which I 
 should be glad to remove. A Northern 
 man writing on slavery is supposed to 
 write as a Northern man, to be swayed 
 by state feelings and local biases ; and 
 the distrust thus engendered is a bar 
 to the conviction which he might other- 
 wise produce. But the prejudices which 
 grow out of the spot where we live are 
 far from being necessary or universal. 
 There are persons whose peculiarity, 
 perhaps whose infirmity it is, to be ex- 
 ceedingly alive to evils in their neigh- 
 borhood, to defects in the state of so- 
 ciety in which they live, whilst their 
 imaginations are apt to cast rosy hues 
 over distant scenes. There are persons 
 who, by living in retirement and holding 
 intercourse with gifted minds in other 
 regions, are even in danger of wanting 
 
 a proper local attachment, and of being 
 unjust to their own homes. There are 
 also worthier causes which counteract 
 the bigotry of provincial feelings. A 
 man, then, is not necessarily presumptu- 
 ous in thinking himself free from local 
 biases. In truth, slavery never presents 
 itself to me as belonging to one or an- 
 other part of the country. It does not 
 come to me in its foreign relations. I 
 regard it simply and nakedly in itself, 
 and on this account feel that I have a 
 right to discuss it. 
 
 May I be allowed one more prelimi- 
 nary remark ? The subject of slavery is 
 separated in my mind not only from 
 local considerations, but from all thought 
 of the individuals by whom it is sus- 
 tained. I speak against this institution 
 freely, earnestly, some may think vehe- 
 mently ; but I have no thought of at- 
 taching the same reproach to all who 
 uphold it ; and this I say, not to propi- 
 tiate the slave-holder, who cannot easily 
 forgive the irreconcilable enemy of his 
 wrong-doing, but to meet the preposses- 
 sions of not a few among ourselves, 
 who, from esteem towards the slave- 
 holder, repel what seems to them to in- 
 volve an assault on his character. I do, 
 indeed, use, and cannot but use, strong 
 language against slavery. No greater 
 wrong, no grosser insult on humanity 
 can well be conceived ; nor can it be 
 softened by the customary plea of the 
 slave-holder's kindness. The first and 
 most essential exercise of love towards 
 a human being is, to respect his rights. 
 It is idle to talk of kindness to a human 
 being whose rights we habitually tram- 
 ple under foot. '' Be just before you are 
 generous." A human being is not to be 
 loved as a horse or a dog, but as a being 
 having rights ; and his first grand right 
 is that of free action ; the right to use 
 and expand his powers ; to improve and 
 obey his higher faculties ; to seek his 
 own and others' good ; to better his lot ; 
 to make himself a home ; to enjoy in- 
 violate the relations of husband and 
 parent : to live the life of a man. An 
 institution denying to a being this right, 
 and virtually all rights, which degrades 
 him into a chattel, and puts him beneath 
 the level of his race, is more shocking 
 to a calm, enlightened philanthropy than 
 most of the atrocities which we shud- 
 der at in history : and this for a plain 
 reason. These atrocities, such as the
 
 856 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 burning of heretics, and the immolation 
 of the Indian woman on the funeral pile 
 of her husband, have generally some 
 foundation in ideas of duty and religion. 
 The inquisitor murders to do God ser- 
 vice ; and the Hindoo widow is often for- 
 tified against the flames by motives of 
 inviolable constancy and generous self- 
 sacrifice. The Indian in our wilderness, 
 when he tortures his captives, thinks of 
 making an offering, of making compen- 
 sation, to his own tortured friends. But 
 in slavery, man seizes his brother, sub- 
 jects him to brute force, robs him of all 
 his rights, for purely selfish ends, as 
 selfishly as the robber fastens on his 
 prey. No generous affections, no ideas 
 of religion and self-sacrifice, throw a 
 gleam of light over its horrors. As 
 such I must speak of slavery, when re- 
 garded in its own nature, and especially 
 when regarded in its origin. But when 
 I look on a community among whom 
 this evil exists, but who did not origi- 
 nate it ; who grew up in the midst of it ; 
 who connect it with parents and friends ; 
 who see it intimately entwined with the 
 whole system of domestic, social, in- 
 dustrial, and political life ; who are 
 blinded by long habit to its evils and 
 abuses ; and who are alarmed by the 
 possible evils of the mighty change in- 
 volved in its abolition ; I shrink from 
 passing on such a community the sen- 
 tence which is due to the guilty institu- 
 tion. All history furnishes instances of 
 vast wrongs inflicted, of cruel institu- 
 tions upheld, by nations or individuals 
 who in other relations manifest respect 
 for duty. That slavery has a blighting 
 moral influence where it exists, is, in- 
 deed, unquestionable ; but in that bad 
 atmosphere so much that is good and 
 pure may and does grow up as to forbid 
 us to deny esteem and respect to a man 
 simply because he is a slave-holder. I 
 offer these remarks because I wish that 
 the subject may be approached without 
 the association of it with individuals, 
 parties, or local divisions, which blind 
 the mind to the truth. 
 
 I now return to the executive docu- 
 ment with which I began. I am first to 
 consider its doctrines, to show their 
 moral unsoundness and inhumanity : and 
 then I shall consider the bearing of these 
 doctrines on the free States in general, 
 and the interest which the free States 
 have at this critical moment in the sub- 
 
 ject of slavery. Thus my work divides 
 itself into two parts, the first of which 
 is now offered to the public. 
 
 In regard to the reasonings and doc- 
 trines of the document, it is a happy 
 circumstance that they come within the 
 comprehension of the mass of the peo- 
 ple. The case of the " Creole " is a 
 simple one, which requires no extensive 
 legal study to be understood. A man 
 who has had little connection with pub- 
 lic affairs is as able to decide on it as the 
 bulk of politicians. The elements of the- 
 case are so few, and the principles on 
 which its determination rests are so ob- 
 vious, that nothing but a sound moral 
 judgment is necessary to the discussion. 
 Nothing can darken it but legal subtlety. 
 None can easily doubt it, but those who 
 surrender conscience and reason to ar- 
 bitrary rules. 
 
 The question between the American 
 and English governments turns mainly 
 on one point. The English government 
 does not recognize within its bounds any 
 property in man. It maintains that 
 slavery rests wholly on local, municipal 
 legislation ; that it is an institution not 
 sustained and enforced by the law of nat- 
 ure, and, still more, that it is repugnant 
 to this law ; and that, of course, no man 
 who enters the territory or is placed un- 
 der the jurisdiction of England can be 
 regarded as a slave, but must be treated 
 as free. The law creating slavery, it is 
 maintained, has and can have no force 
 beyond the state which creates it. No 
 other nation can be bound by it. What- 
 ever validity this ordinance, which de- 
 prives a man of all his rights, may have 
 within the jurisdiction of the community 
 in which it had its birth, it can have no 
 validity anywhere else. This is the prin- 
 ciple on which the English government 
 founds itself. 
 
 This principle is so plain that it has 
 been established and is acted upon 
 among ourselves, and in the neighbor- 
 ing British provinces. When a slave is 
 brought by his master into Massachu- 
 setts, he is pronounced free, on the 
 ground that the law of slavery has no 
 force beyond the State which ordains it, 
 and that the right of every man to liberty 
 is recognized as one of the fundamental 
 laws of the Commonwealth. A slave 
 flying from his master to this Common- 
 wealth is, indeed, restored, but not on 
 account of the validity of the legislation
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 857 
 
 of the South on this point, but solely on 
 the ground of a positive provision of 
 the Constitution of the United States ; 
 and lie is delivered, not as a slave, but 
 as a " person held to service by law in 
 another state." We should not think, 
 for a moment, of restoring a slave flying 
 to us from Cuba or Turkey. We recog- 
 nize no right of a foreign master on this 
 soil. The moment he brings his slave 
 here his claim vanishes into air ; and 
 this takes place because we recognize 
 freedom as the right of every human 
 being. 
 
 By the provision of the Constitution, 
 as we have said, the fugitive slave from 
 the South is restored by us, or, at least, 
 his master's claim is not annulled. But 
 we have proof at our door that this ex- 
 ception rests on positive, not natural 
 law. Suppose the fugitive to pass 
 through our territory undiscovered, and 
 to reach the soil of Canada. The mo- 
 ment he touches it he is free. The mas- 
 ter finds there an equal in his slave. The 
 British authority extends the same pro- 
 tection over both. Accordingly, a colony 
 of fugitive slaves is growing up securely, 
 beyond our border, in the enjoyment of 
 all the rights of British subjects. And 
 this good work has been going on for 
 years, without any complaint against 
 England as violating national law, and 
 without any claim for compensation. 
 These are plain facts. We ourselves 
 construe the law of nature and nations 
 as England does. 
 
 But the question is not to be settled 
 on the narrow ground of precedent alone. 
 Let us view it in the light of eternal, 
 universal truth. A grand principle is 
 involved in the case, or rather lies at its 
 very foundation, and to this I ask par- 
 ticular attention. This principle is, that 
 a m:m, as a man, has rights, has claims 
 on his race, which are in no degree 
 touched or impaired on account of the 
 manner in which he may be regarded or 
 treated by a particular clan, tribe, or 
 nation of his fellow-creatures. A man, 
 by his very nature, as an intelligent, 
 moral creature of God, has claims to 
 aid and kind regard from all other men. 
 There is a grand law of humanity more 
 comprehensive than all others, and 
 under which every man should find 
 shelter. He has not only a right, but 
 is bound, to use freely and improve the 
 powers which God has given him ; and 
 
 ether men, instead of obstructing, are 
 bound to assist their development and 
 exertion. These claims a man does not 
 derive from the family or tribe in which 
 he began his being. They are not the 
 growth of a particular soil ; they are 
 not ripened under a peculiar sky : they 
 are not written on a particular com- 
 plexion ; they belong to human nature. 
 The ground on which one man asserts 
 them all men stand on, nor can they be 
 denied to one without being denied to 
 all. We have here a common interest. 
 We must all stand or fall together. We 
 all have claims on our race, claims oi 
 kindness and justice, claims grounded 
 on our relation to our common Father, 
 and on the inheritance of a common 
 nature. 
 
 Because a number of men invade the 
 rights of a fellow-creature, and pro- 
 nounce him desitute of rights, his claims 
 are not a whit touched by this. He is 
 as much a man as before. Not a single 
 gift of God on which his rights rest is 
 taken away. His relations to the rest 
 of his race are in no measure affected. 
 He is as truly their brother as if his 
 tribe had not pronounced him a brute. 
 If, indeed, any change takes place, his 
 claims are enhanced, on the ground that 
 the suffering and injured are entitled to 
 peculiar regard. If any rights should 
 be singularly sacred in our sight, they 
 are those which are denied and trodden 
 in the dust. 
 
 It seems to be thought by some that 
 a man derives all his rights from the 
 nation to which he belongs. They are 
 gifts of the state, and the state may take 
 them away, if it will. A man, it is 
 thought, has claims on other men, not 
 as a man, but as an Englishman, an 
 American, or a subject of some other 
 state. He must produce his parchment 
 of citzenship, before he binds other men 
 to protect him, to respect his free agency, 
 to leave him the use of his powers ac- 
 cording to his own will. Local, munici- 
 pal law is thus made the fountain and 
 measure of rights. The stranger must 
 tell us where he was born, what privi- 
 leges he enjoyed at home, or no tie 
 links us to one another. 
 
 In conformity to these views, it is 
 thought that when one community de- 
 clares a man to be a slave, other com- 
 munities must respect this decree ; that 
 the duties of a foreign nation to an in-
 
 858 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 dividual are to be determined by a brand 
 set on him on his own shores; that his 
 relations to the whole race may be af- 
 fected by the local act of a community, 
 no matter how small or how unjust. 
 
 This is a terrible doctrine. It strikes 
 a blow at all the rights of human nature. 
 It enables the political body to which 
 we belong, no matter how wicked or 
 weak, to make each of us an outcast 
 from his race. It makes a man nothing 
 in himself. As a man, he has no signi- 
 ficance. He is sacred only as far as 
 some state has taken him under its care. 
 Stripped of his nationality, he is at the 
 mercy of all who may incline to lay hold 
 on him. He may be seized, imprisoned, 
 sent to work in galleys or mines, unless 
 some foreign state spreads its shield 
 over him as one of its citizens. 
 
 This doctrine is as false as it is terri- 
 ble. Man is not the mere creature of 
 the state. Man is older than nations, 
 and he is to survive nations. There is 
 a law of humanity more primitive and 
 divine than the law of the land. He 
 has higher claims than those of a citi- 
 zen. He has rights which date before 
 all charters and communities ; not con- 
 ventional, not repealable, but as eternal 
 as the powers and laws of his being. 
 
 This annihilation of the individual by 
 merging him in the state lies at the 
 foundation of despotism. The nation is 
 too often the grave of the man. This 
 is the more monstrous, because the very 
 end of the state of the organization 
 of the nation is to secure the individ- 
 ual in all his rights, and especially to 
 secure the rights of the weak. Here is 
 the fundamental idea of political associ- 
 ation. In an unorganized society, with 
 no legislation, no tribunal, no empire, 
 rights have no security. Force pre- 
 dominates over right. This is the grand 
 evil of what is called the state of nature. 
 To repress this, to give right the as- 
 cendency over force, this is the grand 
 idea and end of government, of country, 
 of political constitutions. And yet we 
 are taught that it depends on the law of 
 a man's country whether he shall have 
 rights, and whether other states shall 
 regard him as a man. When cast on a 
 foreign shore, his country, and not his 
 humanity, is to be inquired into, and the 
 treatment he receives is to be propor- 
 tioned to what he meets at home. 
 
 Men worship power, worship great 
 
 organizations, and overlook the individ- 
 ual ; and few things have depraved the 
 moral sentiment of men more, or brought 
 greater woes on the race. The state, 
 or the ruler in whom the state is em- 
 bodied, continues to be worshipped, 
 notwithstanding the commission of 
 crimes which would inspire horror in 
 the private man. How insignificant are 
 the robberies, murders, piracies, which 
 the law makes capital, in comparison 
 with an unjust or unnecessary war, 
 dooming thousands, perhaps millions, 
 of the innocent to the most torturing 
 forms of death, or with the law of an 
 autocrat or of a public body, depriving 
 millions of all the rights of men ! But 
 these, because the acts of the state, 
 escape the execrations of the world. 
 
 In consequence of this worship of 
 governments it is thought that their 
 relations to one another are alone im- 
 portant. A government is too great to 
 look at a stranger, except as he is incor- 
 porated with some state. It can have 
 nothing to do but with political organi- 
 zations like itself. But the humble 
 stranger has a claim on it as sacred as 
 another state. Standing alone, he yet 
 has rights, and to violate them is as 
 criminal as to violate stipulations with a 
 foreign power. In one view it is baser. 
 It is as true of governments as of indi- 
 viduals, that it is base and unmanly to 
 trample on the weak. He who invades 
 the strong shows a courage which does 
 something to redeem his violence ; but 
 to tread on the neck of a helpless, friend- 
 less fellow-creature, is to add meanness 
 to wrong. 
 
 If the doctrine be true, that the char- 
 acter impressed on a man at home fol- 
 lows him abroad, and that he is to be 
 regarded, not as a man, but as the local 
 laws which he has left regard him, why 
 shall not this apply to the peculiar ad- 
 vantages as well as disadvantages which 
 a man enjoys in his own land ? Why 
 shall not he whom the laws invest with 
 a right to universal homage at home 
 receive the same tribute abroad ? Why 
 shall not he whose rank exempts him 
 from the ordinary restraints of law on 
 his own shores claim the same lawless- 
 ness elsewhere ? Abroad these distinc- 
 tions avail him nothing. The local law 
 which makes him a kind of deity deserts 
 him the moment he takes a step beyond 
 his country's borders ; and why shall
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 859 
 
 the disadvantages, the terrible wrongs, 
 which that law inflicts, follow the poor 
 sufferer to the end of the earth ? 
 
 I repeat it (for the truth deserves 
 reiteration), that all nations are bound 
 to respect the rights of every human 
 being. This is God's law, as old as the 
 world. No local law can touch it. No 
 ordinance of a particular state, degrading 
 a set of men to chattels, can absolve all 
 nations from the obligation of regarding 
 the injured beings as men, or bind them 
 to send back the injured to their chains. 
 The character of a slave, attached to a 
 man by a local government, is not and 
 cannot be incorporated into his nature. 
 It does not cling to him, go where he 
 will. The scar of slavery on his back 
 does not reach his soul. The arbitrary 
 relation between him and his master 
 cannot suspend the primitive, indestruc- 
 tible relation by which God binds him to 
 his kind. 
 
 The idea, that a particular state may 
 fix enduringly this stigma on a human 
 being, and can bind the most just and 
 generous men to respect it, should be 
 rejected with scorn and indignation. It 
 reminds us of those horrible fictions in 
 which some demon is described as 
 stamping an indelible mark of hell on his 
 helpless victims. It was the horrible 
 peculiarity of the world in the reign of 
 Tiberius, that it had become one vast 
 prison. The unhappy man on whom 
 the blighting suspicion of the tyrant had 
 fallen could find no shelter or escape 
 through the whole civilized regions of 
 the globe. Everywhere his sentence 
 followed him like fate. And can the law 
 of a despot, or of a chamber of despots, 
 extend now the same fearful doom to the 
 ends of the earth ? Can a little state at 
 the South spread its web of cruel, 
 wrongful legislation over both conti- 
 nents ? Do all communities become 
 spell-bound by a law in a single country 
 creating slavery ? Must they become the 
 slave's jailers ? Must they be less mer- 
 ciful than the storm which drives off the 
 bondman from the detested shore of 
 servitude and casts him on the soil of 
 freedom ? Must even that soil become 
 tainted by an ordinance passed perhaps 
 in another hemisphere ? Has oppres- 
 sion this terrible omnipresence ? Must 
 the whole earth register the slave-hold- 
 er's decree ? Then the earth is blighted 
 indeed. Then, as some ancient sects 
 
 taught, it is truly the empire of the prin- 
 ciple of evil, of the power of darkness. 
 Then God is dethroned here ; for where 
 injustice and oppression are omnipotent 
 God has no empire. 
 
 I have thus stated the great principle 
 on which the English authorities acted 
 in the case of the " Creole," and on 
 which all nations are bound to act. Sla- 
 very is the creature of a local law, having 
 power not a hand-breadth beyond the 
 jurisdiction of the country which ordains 
 it. Other nations know nothing of it, 
 are bound to pay it no heed. I might 
 add, that other nations are bound to 
 tolerate it within the bounds of a partic- 
 ular state only on the grounds on which 
 they suffer a particular state to establish 
 bloody superstitions, to use the rack in 
 jurisprudence, or to practise other enor- 
 mities. They might much more justifi- 
 ably put down slavery where it exists 
 than enforce a foreign slave-code within 
 their own bounds. Such is the impreg- 
 nable principle which we of the free 
 States should recognize and earnestly 
 sustain.* 
 
 This principle our government has not 
 explicitly denied in its letter to our min- 
 ister in London. The letter is chiefly 
 employed in dilating on various particu- 
 lar circumstances which, it is said, en- 
 titled the " Creole " to assistance from 
 the British authorities in the prosecution 
 of the voyage >vith her original freight 
 and passengers. The strength of the 
 document lies altogether in the skilful 
 manner in which these circumstances 
 are put together. I shall therefore pro- 
 ceed to consider them with some minute- 
 ness. They are. briefly these. The ves- 
 sel was engaged in a voyage " perfectly 
 lawful." She was taken to a British 
 port, " not voluntarily, by those who had 
 the lawful authority over her," but forci- 
 bly and violently, "against the master's 
 will," without any agency or solicitation 
 on the part of the great majority of the 
 slaves, and, indeed, solely by the few 
 " mutineers " who had gained posses- 
 sion of her by violence and bloodshed. 
 The slaves were " still on board " the 
 American vessel. They had not become 
 " incorporated with the English popula- 
 tion ; " and from these facts it is argued 
 that they had not changed their original 
 character, that the vessel containing 
 them ought to have been regarded as 
 
 * See Note A at end of this article.
 
 86o 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 " still on her voyage," and should have 
 been aided to resume it, according to 
 that law of comity and hospitality by 
 which nations are bound to aid one 
 another's vessels in distress. 
 
 It is encouraging to see in this rea- 
 soning of the letter a latent acknowledg- 
 ment that, had the vessel been carried 
 with the slaves into the British port by 
 the free will of the captain, the slaves 
 would have been entitled to liberty. 
 The force and crime involved in the 
 transaction form the strength of the case 
 as stated by ourselves. The whole tone 
 of the communication undesignedly rec- 
 ognizes important rights in a foreign 
 state in regard to slaves carried volun- 
 tarily to their shores ; and by this con- 
 cession it virtually abandons the whole 
 ground. 
 
 But let us look at the circumstances 
 which, it is said, bound the British au- 
 thorities to assist the captain in sending 
 back the slaves to their chains ; and 
 one general remark immediately occurs. 
 These circumstances do not touch, in 
 the slightest degree, the great principle 
 on which the authorities were bound by 
 British and natural law to act. This 
 principle, as we have stated, is, that a 
 nation is bound by the law of nature to 
 respect the rights of every human being ; 
 that every man within its jurisdiction is 
 entitled to its protection as long as he 
 obeys its laws ; that the private individ- 
 ual may appeal to the broad law of hu- 
 manity and claim hospitality as truly as 
 a state. 
 
 Now, how did the peculiar circum- 
 stances of the " Creole " bear on this 
 fundamental view of the case ? Did 
 the manner in which the slaves of the 
 " Creole " were carried to Nassau in 
 any measure affect their character as 
 men ? Did they cease to be men be- 
 cause the ship was seized by violence, 
 the captain imprisoned, and the vessel 
 turned from its original destination ? 
 Did the shifting of the vessel's course 
 by a few points of the compass, or did 
 the government of the helm by a " muti- 
 neer " transmute a hundred or more men 
 into chattels ? To the eye of the British 
 officer, the slaves looked precisely as 
 they would have done had they been 
 brought to the island by any other 
 means. He could see nothing but hu- 
 man beings ; and no circumstances, 
 leaving this character on them, could 
 
 have authorized him to deny them hu- 
 man rights. It mattered nothing to 
 him how they came to the island ; for 
 this did not touch at all the ground of 
 their claim to protection. 
 
 A case, indeed, is imagined in the 
 document, in which it is said that the 
 manner of transportation of slaves to a 
 foreign port must determine the char- 
 acter in which they shall be viewed. 
 " Suppose an American vessel with 
 slaves lawfully on board were to be 
 captured by a British cruiser, as belong- 
 ing to some belligerent, while the United 
 States were at peace ; suppose such 
 prize carried into England, and the neu- 
 trality of the vessel fully made out in 
 the proceedings in Admiralty, and a res- 
 toration consequently decreed ; in such 
 case must not the slaves be restored 
 exactly in the condition in which they 
 were when the capture was made ? 
 Would any one contend that the fact of 
 their having been carried into England 
 by force set them free ? " I reply, un- 
 doubtedly they would be free the mo- 
 ment they should enter English jurisdic- 
 tion. A writ of habeas corpus could and 
 would and must be granted them, if de- 
 manded by themselves or their friends, 
 and no court would dare to remit them 
 to their chains ; and this is not only 
 English law, but in the spirit of univer- 
 sal law. In this case, however, com- 
 pensation would undoubtedly be made 
 by the captors for the slaves, not on the 
 ground of any claim in the slave-holder, 
 but because of the original wrong by 
 the captors, and of their consequent 
 obligation to replace the vessel, as much 
 as possible, in the condition in which 
 she was found at the moment of being 
 seized on the open ocean, where she was 
 captured on groundless suspicion, where 
 she had a right to prosecute her voyage 
 without obstruction, and whence she 
 ought not to have been brought by the 
 capturing state within its jurisdiction 
 and made subject to its laws. 
 
 Let us now consider particularly the 
 circumstances on which the United 
 States maintain that the British au- 
 thorities were bound to replace the 
 slaves under the master of the "Creole," 
 and violated their duty in setting them 
 free. 
 
 It is insisted, first, that " the ' Creole ' 
 was passing from one port to another in 
 a voyage perfectly lawful." We cannot
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 86 1 
 
 but lament that, to sustain this point of 
 the lawfulness of the voyage, it is af- 
 firmed that " slaves are recognized as 
 property by the Constitution of the 
 United States in those States in which 
 slavery exists." Were this true, it is 
 one of those truths which respect for our 
 country should prevent our intruding on 
 the notice of strangers. A child should 
 throw a mantle over the nakedness of 
 his parent. But the language seems to 
 me stronger than the truth. The Con- 
 stitution was intended not to interfere 
 with the laws of property in the States 
 where slaves had been held. But the 
 recognition of a moral right in the slave- 
 holder is most carefully avoided in that 
 instrument. Slaves are three times re- 
 ferred to, but always as persons, not as 
 property. The free States are, indeed, 
 bound to deliver up fugitive slaves ; but 
 these are to be surrendered, not as 
 slaves, but as "persons held to service." 
 The clause applies as much to fugitive 
 apprentices from the North as to fugitive 
 slaves from the South. The history of 
 this clause is singular. In the first 
 draught of the Constitution it stood 
 thus : " No person, legally held to 
 service or labor in one State, escaping 
 into another, shall, in consequence of 
 regulations subsisting therein, be dis- 
 charged from such service or labor, but 
 shall be delivered up," &c. Mr. Madi- 
 son tells us that " the term ' legally ' was 
 struck out, and the words, ' under the 
 laws thereof,' inserted after the word 
 ' State,' in compliance with the wish of 
 some who thought the term legal equivo- 
 cal, and favoring the idea that slavery 
 was legal in a moral view." * It ought 
 also to be added, that, in the debate in 
 the Convention on that clause of the 
 Constitution which conferred power on 
 Congress to abolish the importation of 
 slaves in 1808, " Mr. Madison thought 
 it wrong to admit in the Constitution 
 the idea that there could be property in 
 men." f Most memorable testimony to 
 the truth from this greatest constitu- 
 tional authority! With the knowledge 
 of these facts, our government had no 
 apology for holding up the great na- 
 tional charter as recognizing property in 
 man. The phraseology and history of 
 the Constitution afford us some shelter, 
 however insufficient, from the moral 
 
 * Madison Papers, p. 1589. 
 t Ibid. pp. 1429, 30. 
 
 condemnation of the world ; and we 
 should not gratuitously cast it away. 
 
 Whilst, however, we censure this 
 clause in the executive document, we 
 rejoice that on one point it is explicit. 
 It affirms that "slaves are recognized 
 as property by the Constitution of the 
 United States in those States in which 
 slavery exists." Here we have the 
 limit precisely defined within which the 
 Constitution spreads its shield over 
 slavery. These limits are, " the States 
 in which slavery exists." Beyond these 
 it recognizes no property in man, and, 
 of course, beyond these it cannot take 
 this property under its protection. The 
 moment the slave leaves the States 
 within which slavery exists, the Con- 
 stitution knows nothing of him as prop- 
 erty. Of consequence, the national gov- 
 ernment has no right to touch the case 
 of the " Creole." As soon as that vessel 
 passed beyond the jurisdiction of the 
 State where she received her passengers, 
 the slaves ceased to be property, in the 
 eye of the Constitution. The national 
 authorities were no longer bound to 
 interfere with and to claim them as 
 such. The nation's force was no longer 
 pledged to subject them to their masters. 
 Its relation to them had wholly ceased. 
 On this point we are bound to adopt the 
 strictest construction of the instrument. 
 The free States should not suffer them- 
 selves to be carried a hair's breadth 
 beyond the line within which they are 
 pledged to the dishonorable office of 
 protecting slavery. 
 
 But, leaving this clause, I return to 
 the first consideration adduced to sub- 
 stantiate the claim of the " Creole " to 
 the assistance of the British authorities. 
 The voyage, we are told, was " perfectly 
 lawful." Be it so. But this circum- 
 stance, according to the principles of 
 the free States, involves no obligation 
 of another community to enforce slavery, 
 or to withhold from the slave the rights 
 of a man. Suppose that the " Creole " 
 had sailed to Massachusetts with her 
 slaves. The voyage would have been 
 " lawful ; " but on entering the port of 
 Boston her slaves would have been pro- 
 nounced free. The " right of property " 
 in them conferred by a slave State would 
 have ceased. The lawfulness of the 
 voyage, then, gives the slave-holder no 
 claim on another government into the 
 ports of which his slave may be carried.
 
 862 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 Again, what is meant by the "perfect 
 lawfulness " of the voyage ? Does it 
 mean that the " Creole " shipped the 
 slaves under the law of nature or the 
 law of Great Britain ? Certainly not ; 
 but solely under the law of America ; so 
 that the old question recurs, Whether 
 a local, municipal law, authorizing an 
 American vessel to convey slaves, binds 
 all nations, to whose territory these un- 
 happy persons may be carried, to regard 
 them as property, to treat them as the 
 Farias of the human race. This is the 
 simple question, and one not hard of 
 solution. 
 
 " The voyage was perfectly lawful," 
 we are told. So would be the voyage 
 of a Turkish ship freighted with Chris- 
 tian slaves from Constantinople. Sup- 
 pose such a vessel driven by storms or 
 carried by force into a Christian port. 
 Would any nation in Europe, or would 
 America, feel itself bound to assist the 
 Turkish slaver, to replace the chains on 
 Christian captives whom the elements 
 or their own courage had set free, to 
 sacrifice to the comity and hospitality 
 and usages of nations the law of hu- 
 manity and Christian brotherhood ? 
 
 " The voyage," we are told, " was 
 perfectly lawful." Suppose, now, that 
 a slave -holding country should pass a 
 law ordaining and describing a chain as 
 a badge of bondage, and authorizing the 
 owner to carry about his slave fastened 
 to himself by this sign of property. 
 Suppose the master to go with slave 
 and chain to a foreign country. His 
 journey would be " lawful ; " but would 
 the foreign government be bound to 
 respect this ordinance of the distant 
 state ? Would the authorized chain 
 establish property in the slave over the 
 whole earth ? We know it would not ; 
 and why should the authorized vessel 
 impose a more real obligation ? 
 
 It seems to be supposed by some that 
 there is a peculiar sacredness in a ves- 
 sel, which exempts it from all control 
 in the ports of other nations. A vessel 
 is sometimes said to be "an extension 
 of the territory " to which it belongs. 
 The nation, we are told, is present in 
 the vessel, and its honor and rights are 
 involved in the treatment which its flag 
 receives abroad. These ideas are in 
 the main true in regard to ships on the 
 high seas. The sea is the exclusive 
 property of no nation. It is subject to 
 
 none. It is the common and equal prop- 
 erty of all. No state has jurisdiction 
 over it. No state can write its laws on 
 that restless surface. A ship at sea 
 carries with her and represents the 
 rights of her country, rights equal to 
 those which any other enjoys. The 
 slightest application of the laws of an- 
 other nation to her is to be resisted. 
 She is subjected to no law but that of 
 her own country, and to the law of na- 
 tions, which presses equally on all states. 
 She may thus be called, with no violence 
 to language, an extension of the territory 
 to which she belongs. But suppose her 
 to quit the open sea and enter a port. 
 What a change is produced in her con- 
 dition ! At sea she sustained the same 
 relations to all nations, those of an 
 equal. Now she sustains a new and 
 peculiar relation to the nation which she 
 has entered. She passes at once under 
 its jurisdiction. She is subject to its 
 laws. She is entered by its officers. If 
 a criminal flies to her for shelter, he may- 
 be pursued and apprehended. If her 
 own men violate the laws of the land, 
 they may be seized and punished. The 
 nation is not present in her. She has 
 left the open highway of the ocean, 
 where all nations are equals, and en- 
 tered a port where one nation alone is 
 clothed with authority. What matters 
 it that a vessel in the harbor of Nassau 
 is owned in America ? This does not 
 change her locality. She has contracted 
 new duties and obligations by being 
 placed under a new jurisdiction. Her 
 relations differ essentially from those 
 which she sustained at home or on the 
 open sea. These remarks apply, of 
 course, to merchant vessels alone. A 
 ship of war is "an extension of the ter- 
 ritory " to which she belongs, not only 
 when she is on the ocean, but in a for- 
 eign port. In this respect she resem- 
 bles an army marching by consent 
 through a neutral country. Neither 
 ship of war nor army falls under the ju- 
 risdiction of foreign states. Merchant 
 vessels resemble individuals. Both be- 
 come subject to the laws of the land 
 which they enter. 
 
 We are now prepared to consider the 
 next circumstance, on which much stress 
 is laid to substantiate the claim of our 
 government. " The vessel was taken to 
 a British port, not voluntarily, by those 
 who had the lawful authority over her,
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 863 
 
 but forcibly and violently, against the 
 masters will, by mutineers and murder- 
 ers," &c. 
 
 To this various replies are contained 
 in the preceding remarks. The first is, 
 that the local laws of one country are 
 not transported to another, and do not 
 become of force there, because a vessel 
 of the former is carried by violence into 
 the ports of the latter. Another is, that 
 a vessel entering the harbor of a foreign 
 state, through mutiny or violence, is not 
 on this account exempted from its juris- 
 diction or laws. She may not set its 
 authorities at defiance because brought 
 within its waters against her own will. 
 There may, indeed, be local laws in- 
 tended to exclude foreigners, which it 
 would be manifestly unjust and inhuman 
 to enforce on such as may be driven to 
 the excluding state against their own 
 consent. But as to the laws of a country 
 founded on the universal principles of 
 justice and humanity, these are binding 
 on foreign vessels under whatever cir- 
 cumstances they may be brought within 
 its jurisdiction. There is still another 
 view of this subject, which I have already 
 urged, but which is so important as to 
 deserve repetition. The right of the 
 slaves of the " Creole " to liberation was 
 not at all touched by the mode in which 
 they were brought to Nassau. No mat- 
 ter how they got there, whether by sea, 
 land, or air, whether by help of saint or 
 sinner. A man's right to freedom is 
 derived from none of these accidents, 
 but inheres in him as a man, and nothing 
 which does not touch his humanity can 
 impair it. The slaves of the " Creole " 
 were not a whit the less men because 
 " mutiny " had changed their course on 
 the ocean. They stood up in the port 
 of Nassau with all the attributes of men, 
 and the government could not without 
 wrong have denied their character and 
 corresponding claims. 
 
 We are now prepared for the consid- 
 eration of another circumstance in the 
 case of the " Creole " on which stress is 
 laid. We are told by our government 
 that they were " still in the ship " when 
 they were declared free, and on this 
 account their American character, that 
 is, the character of slavery, adhered to 
 them. This is a view of the case more 
 fitted perhaps than any other to impress 
 the inconsiderate. The slaves had not 
 changed their position, had not touched 
 
 the shore. The vessel was American. 
 They trod on American planks ; they 
 slept within American walls. They of 
 course belonged to America, and were 
 to be viewed only in their American 
 character. To this reasoning the prin- 
 ciples already laid down furnish an easy 
 answer. It is true that the slaves were 
 in an American ship ; but there is an- 
 other truth still more pregnant ; they 
 were also in another country, where 
 American law has no power. The ves- 
 sel had not carried America to the port 
 of Nassau. The slaves had changed 
 countries. What though they were there 
 in an American ship ? They were there- 
 fore not the less within English territory 
 and English jurisdiction. The two or 
 three inches of plank which separated 
 them from the waves had no miraculous 
 power to prevent them from being where 
 they were. The water which embo- 
 somed the vessel was English. The air 
 they breathed was English. The laws 
 under which they had passed were Eng- 
 lish. One would think, from the rea- 
 soning to which I am replying, that the 
 space occupied by a vessel in a foreign 
 port is separated for a time from the 
 country to which it formerly belonged ; 
 that it takes the character of the vessel, 
 and falls under the laws of the land to 
 which she appertains ; that the author- 
 ities which have controlled it for ages 
 must not enteY it, whilst the foreign 
 planks are floating in it, to repress crime 
 or enforce justice. But this is all a fic- 
 tion. The slaves, whilst in the ship, 
 were in a foreign country as truly as if 
 they had plunged into the waves or set 
 foot on shore. 
 
 We will now consider another circum- 
 stance to which importance is attached 
 in the document of our executive. We 
 are told that "the slaves could not be 
 regarded as having become mixed up or 
 incorporated with the British population, 
 or as having changed character at all, 
 either in regard to country or personal 
 condition." To this it is replied, that 
 no one pretends that the slaves had 
 become Englishmen, or had formed a 
 special relation to Great Britain, on ac- 
 count of which she was compelled to 
 liberate them. It was not as a part of 
 the British population that they were 
 declared free. Had the authorities at 
 Nassau taken this ground, they might 
 have been open to the complaints of
 
 864 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 our government. The slaves were pro- 
 nounced free, not because of any na- 
 tional character which they sustained, 
 but because they were men, and be- 
 cause Great Britain held itself bound to 
 respect the law of nature with regard to 
 men. It was not necessary for them 
 to be incorporated with the British pop- 
 ulation in order to acquire the common 
 rights of human beings. One great 
 error in the document is, that a govern- 
 ment is supposed to owe nothing to a 
 human being who lands on its shores, 
 any farther than his nation may re- 
 quire. It is thought to have nothing to 
 do but to inquire into his nationality and 
 to fulfil the obligations which this im- 
 poses. He has no rights to set up, un- 
 less his own government stand by him. 
 Thus the fundamental principles of the 
 law of nature are set at naught. Thus 
 all rights are resolved into benefactions 
 of the state, and man is nothing, unless 
 incorporated, mixed up, with a popula- 
 tion of a particular country. This doc- 
 trine is too monstrous to be openly 
 avowed, but it lies at the foundation of 
 most of the" reasonings of the docu- 
 ment. The man, I repeat it, is older 
 and more sacred than the citizen. The 
 slave of the " Creole " had no other 
 name to take. His own country had 
 declared him not to be a citizen. He 
 had been scornfully refused a place 
 among the American people. He was 
 only a man ; and was that a low title on 
 which to stand up among men ? Nature 
 knows no higher on earth. English law 
 knows no higher. Shall we find fault 
 with a country because an outcast man 
 landing on its shore is declared free 
 without the formality of becoming in- 
 corporated with its population ? 
 
 The slaves, we are told in the argu- 
 ment which we are considering, as they 
 had no claim to be considered as mixed 
 up with the British population, had not, 
 therefore, changed their character either 
 in regard to " country or condition." 
 The old sophistry reigns here. It is 
 taken for granted that a man has no 
 character but that of country and con- 
 dition. In other words, he must be re- 
 garded by foreign states as belonging to 
 a particular nation, and treated accord- 
 ing to this view, and no other. Now the 
 truth is, that there is a primitive, indeli- 
 ble " character " fastened on a man, far 
 more important than that of " country 
 
 or condition ; " and, looking at this, I 
 joyfully accord with our cabinet in say- 
 ing that the slaves of the "Creole" did 
 not " change their character " by touch- 
 ing British soil. There they stood with 
 the character which God impressed on 
 them, and which man can never efface. 
 The British authorities gave them no 
 new character, but simplv recognized 
 that which they had worn from the day 
 of their birth, the only one which 
 cannot pass away. 
 
 I have now considered all the cir- 
 cumstances stated in the document as 
 grounds of complaint, with one excep- 
 tion, and this I have deferred on ac- 
 count of its uncertainty, and in the hope 
 of obtaining more satisfactory informa- 
 tion. The circumstance is this, "that 
 the slaves were liberated by the inter- 
 ference of the colonial authorities ; " 
 that these "not only gave no aid, but 
 did actually interfere to set free the 
 slaves, and to enable them to disperse 
 themselves beyond the reach of the 
 master of the vessel or their owners." 
 This statement is taken from the pro- 
 test of the captain and crew made 
 at New Orleans, which, indeed, uses 
 much stronger language, and charges 
 on the British authorities much more 
 exceptionable interference. This, as I 
 have said, is to be suspected of exag- 
 geration or unjust coloring, not on the 
 ground of any peculiar falseness in the 
 men who signed it, but because of 
 the tendency of passion and interest to 
 misconstrue the offensive conduct of 
 others. But admitting the correctness 
 of the protest, we cannot attach impor- 
 tance to the complaint of the document. 
 This insists that the English authorities 
 " interfered to set free the slaves." I 
 reply that the authorities did not and 
 could not set the colored men free, and 
 for the plain reason, that they were 
 in no sense slaves in the British port. 
 The authorities found them in the first 
 instance both legally and actually free. 
 How, then, could they be liberated ? 
 They stood before the magistrates free 
 at the first moment. They had passed 
 beyond the legislation of the state which 
 had imposed their chains. They had 
 come under a jurisdiction which knew 
 nothing of property in man, nothing of 
 the relation of master and slave. As 
 soon as they entered the British waters 
 the legal power of the captain over
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 865 
 
 them, whatever it might have been, 
 ceased. They were virtually "beyond 
 his reach," even whilst on board. Of 
 course, no act of the authorities was 
 needed for their liberation. 
 
 But this is not all. The colored men 
 were not only legally free 1 on entering 
 the British port, they were so actually 
 and as a matter of fact. The British 
 authorities had not the merit of exerting 
 the least physical power to secure to 
 them their right to liberty. The slaves 
 had liberated themselves. They had 
 imprisoned the captain. They had 
 taken the command of the vessel. The 
 British authorities interfered to liberate, 
 not the colored people, but the captain ; 
 not to uphold, but arrest " the muti- 
 neers." Their action was friendly to 
 the officers and crew. In all this action, 
 however, they did nothing, of course, 
 to reduce the slaves a second time to 
 bondage. Had they, in restoring the 
 vessel to the captain, replaced, directly 
 or indirectly, the liberated slaves under 
 the yoke, they would have done so at 
 their peril. How, then, could they free 
 those whom they knew only as free ? 
 They simply declared them free, de- 
 clared a matter of fact which could not 
 be gainsaid. If they persuaded them 
 to leave the ship, they plainly acted in 
 this as counsellors and friends, and ex- 
 erted no official power. 
 
 It is said, indeed, in the protest, 
 that the magistrates ' commanded " the 
 slaves to go on shore. If this be true, 
 and if the command were accompanied 
 with any force, they indeed committed 
 a wrong ; but one, I fear, for which 
 our government will be slow to seek 
 redress. They wronged the liberated 
 slaves. These were free, and owed no 
 bbedience to such a command. They 
 had a right to stay where they were, 
 a right to return to America ; and in 
 being compelled to go on shore they 
 received an injury for which our gov- 
 ernment, if so disposed, may make com- 
 plaint. But the slaves alone were the 
 injured party. The right of the owner 
 was not violated, for he had no right. 
 His claim was a nullity in the Biitish 
 port. He was not known there. The 
 law on which he stood in his own coun- 
 try was there a dead letter. Who can 
 found on it a complaint against the 
 British government ? 
 
 It is said that the " comity of nations " 
 
 forbade this interference. But this 
 comity is a vague, unsettled law, and 
 ought not to come into competition with 
 the obligations of a state to injured men 
 thrown on its protection, and whose 
 lives and liberties are at stake.* We 
 must wait, however, for farther light 
 from* Nassau, to comprehend the whole 
 case. It is not impossible that the au- 
 thorities at that port exerted an undue 
 influence, and took on themselves an 
 undue responsibility. Among the lib- 
 erated slaves there were undoubtedly 
 not a few so ignorant and helpless as 
 to be poorly fitted to seek their fortune 
 in the West Indies, among strangers 
 little disposed to sympathize with their 
 sufferings or aid their inexperience. 
 These ought to have been assured of 
 their liberty ; but they should have been 
 left to follow, without any kind of re- 
 sistance, their shrinking from an un- 
 known shore, and their desire to return 
 to the land of their birth, whenever 
 these feelings were expressed. 
 
 I know not that I have overlooked 
 any of the considerations which are 
 urged in the executive document in 
 support of our complaints against Great 
 Britain in the case of the " Creole." I 
 have labored to understand and meet 
 their full force. I am sorry to have 
 been obliged to enter into these so mi- 
 nutely, and to repeat what I deem true 
 principles so often. But the necessity 
 was laid on me. The document does 
 not lay down explicitly any great prin- 
 ciple with which our claim must stand 
 or fall. Its strength lies in the skilful 
 suggestion of various circumstances 
 which strike the common reader, and 
 which must successively be examined, 
 to show their insufficiency to the end 
 for which they are adduced. It is pos- 
 sible, however, to give something of a 
 general form to the opinions expressed 
 in it, and to detect under these a gen- 
 eral principle. This I shall proceed to 
 do, as necessary to the full comprehen- 
 sion of this paper. The opinions scat- 
 tered through the document may be 
 thus expressed : " Slaves, pronounced 
 to be property by American law, and 
 shipped as such, ought to be so re- 
 garded by a foreign government on 1 
 whose shores they may be thrown. 
 This government is bound to regard 
 the national stamp set on them. It has- 
 
 * See Note B at end of this article.
 
 866 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 no right to inquire into the condition 
 of these persons. It cannot give to 
 them the character or privileges of the 
 country to which they are carried. Sup- 
 pose a government to have declared 
 opium a thing in which no property can 
 lawfully exist or be asserted. Would 
 it, therefore, have a right to take the 
 character of property from opium, when 
 driven in a foreign ship into its ports, 
 and to cast it into the sea ? Certainly 
 not. Neither, because it declares that 
 men cannot be property, can it take *his 
 character from slaves, when they are 
 driven into its ports from a country 
 which makes them property by its laws. 
 They still belong to the distant claimant ; 
 his right must not be questioned or dis- 
 turbed; and he must be aided in hold- 
 ing them in bondage, if his power over 
 them is endangered by distress or mu- 
 tiny." Such are the opinions of the 
 document, in a condensed form, and 
 they involve one great principle, namely, 
 this : that property is an arbitrary thing, 
 created by governments : that a govern- 
 ment may make any thing property at 
 its will ; and that what its subjects or 
 citizens hold as property, under this 
 sanction, must be regarded as such, 
 without inquiry, by the civilized world. 
 According to the document, a nation 
 may attach the character of property to 
 whatever it pleases ; may attach it alike 
 to men and women, beef and pork, cot- 
 ton and rice ; and other nations, into 
 whose ports its vessels may pass, are 
 bound to respect its laws in these par- 
 ticulars, and in case of distress to assist 
 in enforcing them. Let our country, 
 through its established government, de- 
 clare our fathers or mothers, sons or 
 daughters, to be property, and they be- 
 come such, and the right of the master 
 must not be questioned at home or 
 abroad. 
 
 Now this doctrine, stated in plain lan- 
 guage, needs no labored refutation ; it 
 is disproved by the immediate testi- 
 mony of conscience and common-sense. 
 Property is not an arbitrary thing, de- 
 pendent wholly on man's will. It has 
 its foundation and great laws in nature, 
 and these cannot be violated without 
 crime. It is plainly the intention of 
 Providence that certain things should 
 be owned, should be held as property. 
 They fulfil their end only by such appro- 
 priation. The material world was plainly 
 
 made to be subjected to human labor, 
 and its products to be moulded by skill to 
 human use. He who wins them by honest 
 toil has a right to them, and is wronged 
 when others seize and consume them. 
 The document supposes a government 
 to declare that opium is an article in 
 which property cannot exist or be as- 
 serted, and on this ground to wrest it 
 from the owner and throw it into the 
 sea ; and this it considers a parallel 
 case to the declaration that property in 
 man cannot exist. But who does not 
 see that the parallel is absurd ? The 
 poppy, which contains the opium, is by 
 its nature fitted and designed to be held 
 as property. The man who rears it by 
 his capital, industry, and skill thus es- 
 tablishes a right to it. and is injured if 
 it be torn from him, except in the spe- 
 cial case where some higher right super- 
 sedes that of property. The poppy is not 
 wronged by being owned and consumed. 
 It has no intelligence, no conscience for 
 its own direction, no destiny to fulfil by 
 the wise use and culture of its powers. 
 It has therefore no rights. By being 
 appropriated to an individual it does 
 good, it suffers no wrong. 
 
 Here are the grounds of property. 
 They are found in the nature of the ar- 
 ticles so used : and where these grounds 
 are wholly wanting, as in the case of 
 human beings, it cannot exist or be as- 
 serted. A man was made to be an 
 owner, not to be owned : to acquire, not 
 to become property. He has faculties 
 for the government of himself. He has 
 a great destiny. He sustains tender and 
 sacred relations, especially those of par- 
 ent and husband, and with the duties 
 and blessings of these no one must in- 
 terfere. As such a being, he has rights. 
 These belong to his very nature. They 
 belong to every one who partakes it ; 
 all here are equal. He therefore may 
 be wronged, and is most grievously 
 wronged, when forcibly seized by a fel- 
 low-creature, who has no other nature 
 and rights than his own, and seized by 
 such an one to live for his pleasure, to 
 be bowed to his absolute will, to be 
 placed under his lash, to be sold, driven 
 from home, and torn from parent, wife, 
 and child, for another's gain. Does any 
 parallel exist between such a being and 
 opium ? Can we help seeing a distinc- 
 tion between the nature of a plant and 
 a man which\ forbids their being con-
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 867 
 
 founded under the same character of 
 property? Is not the distinction recog- 
 nized by us in the administration of our 
 laws ? When a man from the South 
 brings hither his watch and trunk, is his 
 right to them deemed a whit the less 
 sacred because the laws of his State 
 cease to protect them ? Do we not rec- 
 ognize them as his, as intuitively and 
 cheerfully as if they belonged to a citi- 
 zen of our own State ? Are they not 
 his, here and everywhere ? Do we not 
 feel that he would be wronged were they 
 torn from him ? But when he brings a 
 slave, we do not recognize his property 
 in our fellow-creature. We pronounce 
 the slave free. Whose reason and con- 
 science do not intuitively pronounce this 
 distinction between a man and a watch 
 to be just ? 
 
 It may be urged, however, that this 
 is a distinction for moralists, not for 
 governments ; that, if a government es- 
 tablishes property, however unjustly, in 
 human beings, this is its own concern, 
 and the concern of no other ; and that 
 articles on board its vessels must be 
 recognized by other nations as what it 
 declares them to be, without any question 
 as to the morality or fitness of its meas- 
 ures. One nation, we are told, is not 
 to interfere with another. I need not 
 repeat, in reply, what I have so often 
 said, that a government has solemn 
 duties towards every human being en- 
 tering its ports, duties which no local 
 law about property in another country 
 can in any degree impair. I would only 
 say, that a government is not bound in 
 all possible cases to respect the stamp 
 put by another government on articles 
 transported in the vessels of the latter. 
 The comity of nations supposes that 
 in all such transactions respect is paid 
 to common sense and common justice. 
 Suppose a government to declare cot- 
 ton to be horses, to write " Horse " on 
 all the bales within its limits, and to 
 set these down as horses in its custom- 
 house papers : and suppose a cargo of 
 these to enter a port where the impor- 
 tation of cotton is forbidden. Will the 
 comity of nations forbid the foreign na- 
 tion to question the character which has 
 been affixed by law to the bales in the 
 country to which they belong ? Can a 
 law change the nature of things, in 
 the intercourse of nations? Must offi- 
 cers be stone-blind through " comity " ? 
 
 Would it avail any thing to say, that, 
 by -an old domestic institution in the 
 exporting country, cotton was pro- 
 nounced horse, and that such institu- 
 tion must not be interfered with by 
 foreigners ? Now, in the estimation of 
 England and of sound morality, it is as 
 hard to turn man into property as horses 
 into cotton, and this estimation England 
 has embodied in its laws. Can we ex- 
 pect such a country to reverence the 
 stamp of property on men, because at- 
 tached to them by a foreign land ? 
 
 The executive document not only 
 maintains the obligation of the English 
 authorities to respect what the South 
 had stamped on the slave, but main- 
 tains earnestly that "the English au- 
 thorities had no right to inquire into 
 the cargo of the vessel, or the condi- 
 tion of persons on board." Now, it is 
 unnecessary to dispute about this right ; 
 for the British authorities did not ex- 
 ercise it, did not need it. The truth 
 of the case, and the whole truth, they 
 could not help seeing, even had they 
 wished to remain blind. Master, crew, 
 passengers, colored people, declared 
 with one voice that the latter were 
 shipped as slaves. Their character 
 was thus forced on the government, 
 which of course had no liberty of ac- 
 tion in the case. By the laws of Eng- 
 land, slavery could not be recognized 
 within its jurisdiction. No human be- 
 ing could be recognized as property. 
 The authorities had but one question 
 to ask : Are these poor creatures men ? 
 and to solve this question no right of 
 search was needed. It solved itself. 
 A single glance settled the point. Of 
 course we have no ground to complain 
 of a busy intermeddling with cargo and 
 persons, to determine their character, 
 by British authorities. 
 
 I have thus finished my examination 
 of the document, and shall conclude with 
 some general remarks. And first, I 
 cannot but express my sorrow at the 
 tone of inhumanity which pervades it. 
 | I have said at the beginning that I 
 should make no personal strictures ; and 
 I have no thought of charging on our 
 cabinet any singular want of human feel- 
 ing. The document bears witness, not 
 to individual hardness of heart, but to 
 the callousness, the cruel insensibility, 
 which has seized the community at large. 
 Our contact with slavery has seared in
 
 868 
 
 TJ1E DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 a measure almost all hearts. Were there 
 a healthy tone of feeling among us, cer- 
 tain passages in this document would 
 call forth a burst of displeasure. For 
 example, what an outrage is offered to 
 humanity in instituting a comparison 
 between man and opium, in treating 
 these as having equal rights and equal 
 sanctity, in degrading an immortal child 
 of God to the level of a drug, in placing 
 both equally at the mercy of selfish leg- 
 islators ! To an unsophisticated man 
 there is not only inhumanity, but irre- 
 ligion, in thus treating a being made 
 in the image of God and infinitely dear 
 to the Universal Father. 
 
 In the same tone, the slaves, who re- 
 gained their freedom by a struggle which 
 cost the life of a white man, and by 
 which one of their own number perished, 
 are set down as " mutineers and mur- 
 derers." Be it granted that their vio- 
 lence is condemned by the Christian 
 law. Be it granted that the assertion 
 of our rights must not be stained with 
 cruelty; that it is better for us to die 
 slaves than to inflict death on our op- 
 pressor. But is there a man, having 
 a manly spirit, who can withhold all 
 sympathy and admiration from men 
 who, having grown up under the blight- 
 ing influence of slavery, yet had the 
 courage to put life to hazard for liberty ? 
 Are freemen slow to comprehend and 
 honor the impulse which stirs men to 
 break an unjust and degrading chain ? 
 Would the laws of any free state pro- 
 nounce the taking of life in such a case 
 " murder " ? Because a man, under co- 
 ercion, whilst on his way to a new yoke, 
 and in the act of being carried by force 
 from wife and children and home, sheds 
 blood to escape his oppressor, is he to 
 be confounded with the vilest criminals ? 
 Does a republic, whose heroic age was 
 the Revolution of 1776, and whose illus- 
 trious men earned their glory in a san- 
 guinary conflict for rights, find no miti- 
 gation of this bloodshed in the greater 
 wrongs to which the slave is subjected ? 
 This letter would have lost nothing of 
 its force it would at least have shown 
 better taste had it consulted humanity 
 enough to be silent about " opium " and 
 "murder." 
 
 I cannot refrain from another view 
 of the document. This declaration of 
 national principles cannot be too much 
 lamented and disapproved for the dis- 
 
 honor it has brought on our country. It 
 openly arrays us, as a people, against 
 the cause of human freedom. It throws 
 us in the way of the progress of liberal 
 principles through the earth. The grand 
 distinction of our Revolution was, that 
 it not only secured the independence of 
 a single nation, but asserted the rights 
 of mankind. It gave to the spirit of 
 freedom an impulse which, notwithstand- 
 ing the dishonor cast on the cause by 
 the excesses of France, is still acting 
 deeply and broadly on the civilized world. 
 Since that period a new consciousness of 
 what is due to a human being has been 
 working its way. It has penetrated into 
 despotic states. Even in countries 
 where the individual has no constitu- 
 tional means of controlling government, 
 personal liberty has a sacredness and 
 protection never known before. Among 
 the triumphs of this spirit of freedom 
 and humanity, one of the most signal is 
 the desire to put an end to slavery. The 
 cry for emancipation swells and spreads 
 from land to land. And whence comes 
 the opposing cry ? From St. Peters- 
 burg ? From Constantinople ? From 
 the gloomy, jealous cabinets of des- 
 potism ? No ; but from republican Amer- 
 ica ! from that country whose Declara- 
 tion of Independence was an era in 
 human history ! The nations of the 
 earth are beginning to proclaim that 
 slaves shall not breathe their air, that 
 whoever touches their soil shall be free. 
 Republican America protests against 
 this reverence for right and humanity, 
 and summons the nations to enforce her 
 laws against the slave. O my country ! 
 hailed once as the asylum of the op- 
 pressed, once consecrated to liberty, 
 once a name pronounced with tears of 
 joy and hope ! now a by-word among 
 the nations, the scorn of the very sub- 
 jects of despotism ! How art thou fal- 
 len, morning-star of freedom ! And 
 has it come to this ? Must thy children 
 blush to pronounce thy name ? Must 
 we cower in the presence of the Chris- 
 tian world ? Must we be degraded to 
 the lowest place among Christian na- 
 tions ? Is the sword which wrought 
 out our liberties to be unsheathed now 
 to enforce the claims of slavery on 
 foreign states ? Can we bear this burn- 
 ing shame ? Are the free States pre- 
 pared to incur this infamy and crime ? 
 " Slaves cannot breathe in England."
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 869 
 
 I learned this line when I was a boy, 
 and in imagination I took flight to the 
 soil which could never be. tainted by 
 slaves. Through the spirit which spoke 
 in that line England has decreed that 
 slaves cannot breathe in her islands. 
 Ought we not to rejoice in this new 
 conquest of humanity ? Ought not the 
 tidings of it to have been received with 
 beaming eyes and beating hearts ? In- 
 stead of this, we demand that humanity 
 shall retrace her steps, and liberty resign 
 her trophies. We call on a great nation 
 to abandon its solemnly pronounced 
 conviction of duty, its solemnly pledged 
 respect for human rights, and to do 
 what 4t believes to be unjust, inhuman, 
 and base. Is there nothing of insult in 
 such a demand ? This case is no com- 
 mon one. It is not a question of policy, 
 not an ordinary diplomatic concern. A 
 whole people, from no thought of policy, 
 but planting itself on the ground of jus- 
 tice and of Christianity, sweeps slavery 
 from its soil, and declares that no slave 
 shall tread there. This profound re- 
 ligious conviction, in which all Christian 
 nations are joining her, we come in con- 
 flict with, openly and without shame. 
 Is this an enviable position for a coun- 
 try which would respect itself or be re- 
 spected by the world ? It is idle, and 
 worse than idle, to say, as is sometimes 
 said, that England has no motive but pol- 
 icy in her movements about slavery. He 
 who says so talks ignorantly or reck- 
 lessly. I have studied abolitionism in 
 England enough to assure those who 
 have neglected it that it was the act, 
 not of the politician, but of the people. 
 In this respect it stands alone in history. 
 It was a disinterested movement of a 
 Christian nation in behalf of oppressed 
 strangers, beginning with Christians, 
 carried through by Christians. The 
 government resisted it for years. The 
 government was compelled to yield to 
 the voice of the people. No act of the 
 English nation was ever so national, so 
 truly the people's act, as this. And 
 can we hope to conquer the conscience 
 as well as the now solemnly adopted 
 policy of a great nation ? Were Eng- 
 land to concede this point, she would 
 prove herself false to known, acknowl- 
 edged truth and duty. Her freshest, 
 proudest laurel would wither. The toils 
 and prayers of her Wilberforces, Clark- 
 sons, and a host of holy men, which now 
 
 invoke God's blessings on her, would be 
 turned to her reproach and shame, and 
 call down the vengeance of heaven. 
 
 In bearing this testimony to the spirit 
 of the English people in the abolition 
 of the slave-trade and of slavery,nothing 
 is farther from my mind than a dispo- 
 sition to defend the public policy or in- 
 stitutions of tnat country. In this case, 
 as in most others, the people are better 
 than their rulers. England is one of 
 the last countries of which I am ready 
 to become a partisan. There must be 
 something radically wrong in the policy, 
 institutions, and spirit of a nation which 
 all other nations regard with jealousy 
 and dislike. Great Britain, with all her 
 progress in the arts, has not learned the 
 art of inspiring confidence and love. 
 She sends forth her bounty over the 
 earth, but, politically considered, has 
 made the world her foe. Her Chinese 
 war, and her wild extension of dominion 
 over vast regions which she cannot rule 
 well or retain, give reason to fear that 
 she is falling a prey to the disease under 
 which great nations have so often per- 
 ished. 
 
 To a man who looks with sympathy 
 and brotherly regard on the mass of the 
 people, who is chiefly interested in the 
 "lower classes," England must present 
 much which is repulsive. Though a 
 monarchy in name, she is an aristoc- 
 racy in fact ; and an aristocratical caste, 
 however adorned by private virtue, can 
 hardly help sinking an infinite chasm 
 between itself and the multitude of men. 
 A privileged order, possessing the chief 
 power of the state, cannot but rule in 
 the spirit of an order, cannot respect 
 the mass of the people, cannot feel that 
 for them government chiefly exists and 
 ought to be administered, and that for 
 them the nobleman holds his rank as a 
 trust. The condition of the lower or- 
 ders at the present moment is a mourn- 
 ful commentary on English institutions 
 and civilization. The multitude are de- 
 pressed in that country to a degree of 
 ignorance, want, and misery which must 
 touch every heart not made of stone. 
 In the civilized world there are few sad- 
 der spectacles than the contrast, now 
 presented in Great Britain, of unbounded 
 wealth and luxury with the starvation of 
 thousands and ten thousands, crowded 
 into cellars and dens without ventilation 
 or light, compared with which the wig-
 
 8/o 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 warn of the Indian is a palace. Misery, 
 famine, brutal degradation, in the neigh- 
 borhood and presence of stately man- 
 sions which ring with gayety and dazzle 
 with pomp and unbounded profusion, 
 shock us as no other wretchedness does ; 
 and this is not an accidental, but an al- 
 most necessary effect of the spirit of 
 aristocracy and the spirit of trade acting 
 intensely together. It is a striking fact 
 that the private charity of England, 
 though almost incredible, makes little 
 impression on this mass of misery ; thus 
 teaching the rich and titled to be "just 
 before being generous," and not to look 
 to private munificence as a remedy for 
 the evils of selfish institutions. 
 
 Notwithstanding my admiration of the 
 course of England in reference to sla- 
 very, I see as plainly as any the wrongs 
 and miseries under which her lower 
 classes groan. I do not on this account, 
 however, subscribe to a doctrine very 
 common in this country, that the poor 
 Chartists of England are more to be 
 pitied than our slaves. Ah, no ! Mis- 
 ery is not slavery ; and, were it greater 
 than it is, it would afford the slave-holder 
 no warrant for trampling on the rights 
 and the souls of his fellow-creatures. 
 The Chartist, depressed as he is, is not 
 a slave. The blood would rush to his 
 cheek, and the spirit of a man swell his 
 emaciated form, at the suggestion of re- 
 lieving his misery by reducing him to 
 bondage ; and this sensibility shows the 
 immeasurable distance between him and 
 the slave. He has rights, and knows 
 them. He pleads his own cause, and 
 just and good men plead it for him. Ac- 
 cording to the best testimony, intelli- 
 gence is spreading among the Chartists ; 
 so is temperance ; so is self-restraint. 
 They feel themselves to be men. Their 
 wives and children do not belong to 
 another. They meet together for free 
 discussion, and their speeches are not 
 wanting in strong sense and strong ex- 
 pression. Not a few among them have 
 seized on the idea of the elevation of 
 their class by a new intellectual and 
 moral culture, and here is a living seed, 
 the promise of immeasurable good. Shall 
 such men, who aspire after a better lot, 
 and among whom strong and generous 
 spirits are springing up, be confounded 
 with slaves, whose lot admits no change, 
 who must not speak of wrongs or think 
 of redress, whom it is a crime to teach 
 
 to read, to whom even the Bible is a 
 sealed book, who have no future, no 
 hope on this side death ? 
 
 I have spoken freely of England ; yet 
 I do not forget our debt or the debt of 
 the world to her. She was the mother 
 of our freedom. She has been the bul- 
 wark of Protestantism. What nation has 
 been more fruitful in great men, in men 
 of genius ? What nation can compare 
 with her in munificence ? What nation 
 but must now acknowledge her unri- 
 valled greatness ? That little island 
 sways a wider empire than the Roman, 
 and has a power of blessing mankind 
 never before conferred on a people. 
 Would to God she could learn .what 
 nation never yet learned so to use 
 power as to inspire confidence, not fear, 
 so as to awaken the world's gratitude, 
 not its jealousy and revenge ! 
 
 But whatever be the claims of Eng- 
 land or of any other state, I must cling 
 to my own country with strong prefer- 
 ence, and cling to it even now, in this 
 dark day, this day of her humiliation, 
 when she stands before the world 
 branded, beyond the truth, with dishon- 
 esty, and, too truly, with the crime of 
 resisting the progress of freedom on the 
 earth. After all, she has her glory. 
 After all, in these free States a man is 
 still a man. He knows his rights, he 
 respects himself, and acknowledges the 
 equal claim of his brother. We have 
 order without the display of force. We 
 have government without soldiers, spies, 
 or the constant presence of coercion. 
 The fights of thought, of speech, of the 
 press, of conscience, of worship, are en- 
 joyed to the full without violence or 
 dangerous excess. We are even dis- 
 tinguished by kindliness and good tem- 
 per amidst this unbounded freedom. 
 The individual is not lost in the mass, 
 but has a consciousness of self-subsist- 
 ence, and stands erect. That character 
 which we call manliness is stamped on 
 the multitude here as nowhere else. 
 No aristocracy interferes with the natu- 
 ral relations of men to one another. No 
 hierarchy weighs down the intellect, 
 and makes the church a prison to the 
 soul, from which it ought to break every 
 chain. I make no boast of my coun- 
 try's progress, marvellous as it has 
 been. I feel deeply her defects. But, 
 in the language of Cowper, I can say 
 to her,
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 8 7 I 
 
 " Yet. being free, I love thee ; for the sake 
 Of that one feature can be well content, 
 Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art, 
 To seek no sublunary rest beside." 
 
 Our country is free ; this is its glory. 
 How deeply to be lamented is it that 
 this glory is obscured by the presence 
 of slavery in any part of our territory ! 
 The distant foreigner, to whom America 
 is a point, and who communicates the 
 taint of a part to the whole, hears with 
 derision our boast of liberty, and points 
 with a sneer to our ministers in London 
 not ashamed to plead the rights of sla- 
 very before the civilized world. He 
 ought to learn that America, which 
 shrinks in his mind into a narrow unity, 
 is a league of sovereignties stretching 
 from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of 
 Mexico, and destined, unless disunited, 
 to spread from ocean to ocean : that a 
 great majority of its citizens hold no 
 slaves ; that a vast proportion of its 
 wealth, commerce, manufactures, and 
 arts belongs to the wide region not 
 blighted by this evil ; that we of the 
 free States cannot touch slavery, where 
 it exists, with one of our fingers ; that 
 it exists without and against our will ; 
 and that our necessity is not our choice 
 and crime.* Still, the cloud hangs over 
 us as a people, the only dark and men- 
 acing cloud. Can it not be dispersed? 
 Will not the South, so alive to honor, so 
 ardent and fearless, and containing so 
 many elements of greatness, resolve on 
 the 'destruction of what does not profit 
 and cannot but degrade it ! Must sla- 
 very still continue to exist, a firebrand 
 at home and our shame abroad ? Can 
 we of the free States brook that it should 
 be thrust perpetually by our diplomacy 
 on the notice of a reproving world ? that 
 it should become our distinction among 
 the nations ? that it should place us be- 
 hind all ? Can we endure that it should 
 control our public councils, that it should 
 threaten war. should threaten to assert 
 its claims in the thunder of our artillery ? 
 Can we endure that our peace should be 
 broken, our country exposed to invasion, 
 our cities stormed, our fields ravaged, 
 our prosperity withered, our progress 
 arrested, our sons slain, our homes 
 turned into deserts, not for rights, not 
 for liberty, not for a cause which human- 
 ity smiles on and God will bless, but to 
 rivet chains on fellow-creatures, to ex- 
 
 * See Note C at end of this article. 
 
 tend the law of slavery throughout the 
 earth ? These are great questions for 
 the free States. I must defer the an- 
 swer of them to another time. The 
 duties of the free States in relation to 
 slavery deserve the most serious regard. 
 Let us implore Him who was the God of 
 our fathers, and who has shielded us in 
 so many perils, to open our minds and 
 hearts to what is true and just and good, 
 to continue our union at home and our 
 peace abroad, and to make our country 
 a living witness to the blessings of free- 
 dom, of reverence for right on our own 
 shores and in our intercourse with all 
 nations. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE first part of this tract was de- 
 voted to an examination of the affair of 
 the " Creole." Its object, however, as the 
 reader may easily discern, was not so 
 much to determine the merits of a par- 
 ticular case as to set forth general prin- 
 ciples of justice and humanity which 
 have been too much overlooked in the 
 intercourse of individuals and nations. 
 I shall keep the same object in view in 
 this second part of my remarks, which 
 will have no reference to the " Creole," 
 but be devoted to the consideration of 
 the duties of the free States. My great 
 aim in what I have written and now write 
 on matters of public interest is, to reunite 
 politics and morality ; to bring into har- 
 mony the law of the land and the law of 
 God. Among the chief causes of the 
 miseries of nations is the divorce which 
 has taken place between politics and 
 morality ; nor can we hope for a better 
 day till this breach be healed. Men in- 
 trusted with government have always 
 been disposed to regard themselves as 
 absolved from the laws of justice and 
 humanity. Falsehoods and frauds are 
 allowed them for their country or their 
 party. To maintain themselves against 
 their opponents, they may even involve 
 nations in war ; and the murders and 
 robberies which follow this crime are 
 not visited on their heads by human jus- 
 tice. In all times government has been 
 the grand robber, the grand murderer, 
 and has yet escaped the deep reproba- 
 tion which breaks forth against private 
 guilt. Such profligacy pervades the 
 sphere of political action, that the confi-
 
 8/2 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 dence of the people is well-nigh with- 
 drawn from public men ; and a virtuous 
 statesman is involved in the suspicions 
 which his unprincipled associates have 
 drawn upon his vocation. Public life is 
 thought to release men not only from 
 the obligations of justice, but from the 
 restraints of good manners ; and accord- 
 ingly the debates of Congress are too 
 often polluted by vulgar abuse, threats, 
 and brawls. So low is the standard of 
 political life, that a man is smiled at for 
 his simplicity who talks of introducing 
 religion into the conduct of public af- 
 fairs. Religion, it is thought, belongs to 
 Sabbaths and churches, and would be as 
 much out of place in cabinets or halls of 
 legislation as a delicate lady on a field 
 of battle. A stranger might be tempted 
 to think that the sergeant-at-arms was 
 stationed at the doors of legislative 
 chambers to forbid entrance to the ever- 
 lasting law of God, and that nothing but 
 man's impotence prevents the exclusion 
 of Him whose holy presence fills the 
 universe. 
 
 Nothing is so needed as to revive, in 
 citizens and rulers, the conviction of the 
 supremacy of the moral, Christian law. 
 Could this be done, the earth would 
 cease to be what in a measure it now 
 is, the image of hell, and would begin to 
 grow green again with the plants of par- 
 adise. Religion, the only true guide of 
 life, the guardian and inspirer of all the 
 virtues, should especially reign over the 
 deliberations of governments, by which 
 the weal and woe of nations, the solemn 
 questions of peace and war, of life and 
 death, are determined. On this account 
 every man who has studied human duty, 
 human perfection, human happiness, 
 has a right and is bound to speak on 
 matters of public concern, though his 
 judgment may be contemned by hack- 
 neyed politicians. It seems, indeed, to 
 be thought by some that politics are 
 mysteries, which only the initiated must 
 deal with. But in this country they 
 belong to the people. Public questions 
 are and ought to be subjected to the 
 moral judgment of the community. 
 They ought to be referred to the re- 
 ligion which we profess. Christianity 
 was meant to be brought into actual 
 life. The high and the low, private and 
 public men, are alike to bow before it. 
 To remove any sphere of human action 
 from its cognizance is virtually to deny 
 
 its divinity, and to absolve all men from 
 its control. Under these impressions I 
 shall speak of the duties of the free 
 States. Duties rank higher than in- 
 terests, and deserve the first regard. 
 It is my particular object to consider 
 the obligations of the free States in 
 regard to slavery ; but I shall not stop 
 at these. Other obligations need to be 
 pressed. It is not, indeed, easy to con- 
 fine one's self within rigid bounds, when 
 the subject of duty is discussed ; and 
 accordingly I shall add remarks on a 
 few topics not intimately connected 
 with slaver}', though, in truth, this sub- 
 ject will be found to insinuate itself into 
 all. 
 
 I am to speak of the duty of the free 
 States ; but it is important to observe 
 that I mean by these, not merely com- 
 munities represented in legislatures, but, 
 much more, the individuals, the people, 
 who compose them. I shall speak, not 
 of what we are bound to do as sovereign- 
 ties, but as men, as Christians. I shall 
 speak not merely of the action of gov- 
 ernment, but of the influence which 
 every man is bound to exert in the 
 sphere in which Providence has placed 
 him ; of the obligations of the individual 
 to bring public opinion and public affairs, 
 as far as he may, to the standard of truth 
 and rectitude. 
 
 I insist on this, because the feeling 
 of individual responsibility is very much 
 lost, in consequence of the excessive 
 deference of the private man to the 
 government under which he lives. On 
 the subject of slavery in particular, the 
 responsibility both at the North and 
 South is shifted very much from the 
 individual to the state. The private 
 conscience is merged in the public. 
 What the government determines, the 
 multitude of men are apt to think right. 
 We do not exercise our moral judgment 
 because it has been forestalled by the 
 Constitution and by the laws. We are 
 members of a community, and this re- 
 lation triumphs over all others. 
 
 Now, the truth is, that no decision of 
 the state absolves us from the moral 
 law, from the authority of conscience. 
 It is no excuse for our wrong-doing that 
 the artificial organization called society 
 has done wrong. It is of the highest 
 moment that the prevalent notions of a 
 man's relation to the state should be 
 rectified. The idea of this relation is
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 873 
 
 so exaggerated and perverted as to im- 
 pair the force of every other. A man's 
 country is more thought of than his 
 nature. His connection with a particu- 
 lar community is more respected than 
 his connection with God. His alliance 
 with his race is reduced to a nullity by 
 his alliance with the state. He must be 
 ready to give up his race, to sacrifice all 
 its rights and interests, that the little 
 spot where he was born may triumph or 
 prosper. The history of nations is very 
 much the history of the immolation of 
 the individual to the country. His na- 
 tionality stands out before all his other 
 attributes. The nation, represented by 
 one or a few individuals, has arrogated 
 to itself the dignity of being the fountain 
 of all his rights. It has made his re- 
 ligion for him. Its will, called law, has 
 taken place of all other laws. It has 
 seized on the individual as its tool, and 
 doomed him to live and die for its most 
 selfish purposes. The sacredness of the 
 individual is even yet so little understood 
 that the freest country on earth is talk- 
 ing of war. because a local law, enslaving 
 the individual, is not recognized by the 
 whole earth. But the nation is not 
 every thing. The nation is not the 
 fountain of right. Our first duties are 
 not to our country. Our first allegiance 
 is not due to its laws. We belong first 
 to God, and next to our race. We were, 
 indeed, made for partial, domestic, and 
 national ties and affections, and these 
 are essential means of our education and 
 happiness in this first stage of our being ; 
 but all these are to be kept in subjection 
 to the laws of universal justice and hu- 
 manity. They are intended to train us 
 up to these. In these consists our like- 
 ness to the Divinity. From these con- 
 siderations it will be seen that the 
 following remarks are not addressed to 
 bodies politic so much as to individuals. 
 The duty of the free States in regard 
 to slavery may be classed under two 
 heads. First, these States are bound to 
 construe with the utmost strictness all 
 the articles of the Constitution which in 
 any way touch on slavery, so that they 
 may do nothing in aid of this institution 
 but what is undeniably demanded by 
 that instrument ; and secondly, they are 
 bound to seek earnestly such amend- 
 ments of the Constitution as will remove 
 this subject wholly from the cognizance 
 of the general government ; such as will 
 
 be just alike to the North and South ; 
 such as will release the North from all 
 obligation whatever to support or sanc- 
 tion slavery, and as will insure the South 
 from all attempts by the free States to 
 stir up the slaves. 
 
 First ; the free States are bound to 
 confine all action in regard to slavery to 
 the narrowest limits which will satisfy 
 the Constitution. Under this head, our 
 attention is naturally drawn first to the 
 chief, and I may say the only express, 
 provision of the instrument relating to 
 this subject. I refer to the clause re- 
 quiring that a slave escaping into the 
 free States shall be delivered up, on the 
 claim of his master. This provision may 
 seem clear ; but the execution of it in 
 such a manner as to accomplish its end, 
 and yet to prevent the encroachments of 
 slavery on the free States, is not easy. 
 The provision was designed to give au- 
 thority to the master to claim the fugi- 
 tive slave. But, in doing this, a far 
 higher good than the recovery of a 
 thousand slaves flying from the South 
 is put in peril, and that is, the freedom 
 of the colored population of the North ; 
 and we are bound to insist that this free- 
 dom shall be placed beyond the reach of 
 peril. This danger is not imaginary. 
 Kidnapping in the free States is one of 
 the evils which have grown out of our 
 connection with slavery, and it has been 
 carried on with circumstances of great 
 barbarity. Thus slavery has been re- 
 cruited from the North. 
 
 The law of Congress framed to carry 
 into effect the constitutional provision to 
 which we have referred almost seems 
 to have been designed to give shelter to 
 this crime. No care has been taken to 
 shield the colored man at the North. 
 The slave-holder or slave-hunter may 
 carry him before a justice of the peace 
 as a fugitive, and may himself be a wit- 
 ness in the case, and this tribunal may 
 send the accused to perpetual bondage. 
 We all know how and by whom a com- 
 mission of justice of the peace is often 
 obtained. We know that a claim of 
 more than twenty dollars is not left to 
 the decision of a justice's court. We 
 know the advantage which may be en- 
 joyed before such a magistrate by the 
 rich slave-holder over a poor, perhaps 
 friendless, laborer. And yet to this 
 tribunal it is given to pass a sentence 
 on a human being as terrible as death.
 
 8/4 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 An officer not trusted with the adjudica- 
 tion of property exceeding twenty dol- 
 lars is allowed to make a man a slave 
 for life. 
 
 To repair this great injustice, to pre- 
 vent the transportation of our citizens 
 to slavery, some of the State legislatures 
 have held themselves bound to supply 
 the deficiencies of the law of Congress, 
 and for this end have referred the sus- 
 pected slave to a higher tribunal, and 
 * given him the benefit of trial by jury. 
 To our great sorrow, this State legisla- 
 tion has been pronounced unconstitu- 
 tional by a recent decree of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States ; so that the 
 colored man is driven back to the court 
 to which he had been unjustly doomed 
 before. On this decree it becomes me 
 not to pass sentence ; but one thing is 
 clear, that the free States are now bound 
 to the most earnest efforts to protect 
 that portion of their citizens exposed to 
 the peril of being carried into bondage. 
 
 The grand principle to be laid down 
 is, that it is infinitely more important to 
 preserve a free citizen from being made 
 a slave than to send back a fugitive 
 slave to his chain. This idea is to rule 
 over and determine all the legislation on 
 this subject. Let the fugitive be deliv- 
 ered up, but by such processes as will 
 prevent a freeman from being delivered 
 up also. For this end full provision 
 must be made. On this point the Con- 
 stitution, and a still higher law, that of 
 nature and God, speak the same lan- 
 guage ; and we must insist that these 
 high authorities shall be revered. 
 
 The Constitution opens with these 
 memorable words : "We, the people of 
 the United States, in order to form a 
 more perfect union, establish justice, in- 
 sure domestic tranquillity, provide for 
 the common defence, promote the gen- 
 eral welfare, and secure the blessings of 
 liberty to ourselves and our posterity, 
 do ordain and establish this Constitution 
 for the United States of America." It 
 is understood and conceded that this 
 preamble does not confer on the national 
 government any powers but such as are 
 specified in the subsequent articles of 
 the instrument ; but it teaches, and was 
 designed to teach, the spirit in which 
 these powers are to be interpreted and 
 brought into action. " To secure the 
 blessings of liberty " is enumerated 
 among the purposes of the national 
 
 compact ; and whoever knows the his- 
 tory of the Constitution knows that this 
 was the grand purpose for which the 
 powers of the Constitution were con- 
 ferred. That the liberty of each man, 
 of the obscurest man, should be invio- 
 late, this was the master-thought in 
 the authors of this immortal charter. 
 According to these views, we have a 
 right to demand of Congress, as their 
 highest constitutional duty, to carry into 
 the enactment of every law a reverence 
 for the freedom of each and all. A law 
 palpably exposing the freeman to be 
 made a slave, and even rendering his 
 subjection to this cruel doom nearly 
 sure, is one of the most unconstitutional 
 acts, if the spirit of the Constitution be 
 regarded, which the national legislature 
 can commit. The Constitution is vio- 
 lated, not only by the assumption of 
 powers not conceded, but equally by 
 using conceded powers to the frustration 
 of the end for which they were conferred. 
 In the law regulating the delivery of 
 supposed fugitives, the great end of the 
 national charter is sacrificed to an acci- 
 dental provision. This Constitution 
 was not established to send back slaves 
 to chains. The article requiring this 
 act of the free States was forced on them 
 by the circumstances of the times, and 
 submitted to as a hard necessity. It 
 did not enter into the essence of the in- 
 strument ; whilst the security of freedom 
 was its great, living, all-pervading idea. 
 We see the tendency of slavery to warp 
 the Constitution to its purposes in the 
 law for restoring the flying bondman. 
 Under this not a few, having not only 
 the same natural but legal rights with 
 ourselves, have been subjected to the 
 lash of the overseer. 
 
 But a higher law than the Constitu- 
 tion protests against the act of Congress 
 on this point. According to the law of 
 nature, no greater crime against a hu- 
 man being can be committed than to 
 make him a slave. This is to strike a 
 blow at the very heart and centre of all 
 his rights as a man ; to put him beneath 
 his race. On the ground of the immu- 
 table law of nature, our government has 
 pronounced the act of making a man a 
 slave on the coast of Africa to be piracy, 
 a capital crime. And shall the same 
 government enact or sustain a law which 
 exposes the freeman here to be reduced 
 to slavery, which gives facilities to the
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 875 
 
 unprincipled for accomplishing this in- 
 finite wrong ? And what is the end for 
 which the freeman is so exposed ? It 
 is that a man flying from an unjust yoke 
 may be forced back to bondage, an end 
 against which natural and divine justice 
 protests ; so that, to confirm and per- 
 petuate one violation of the moral law, 
 another still greater is left open and 
 made easy to the kidnapper. 
 
 There seems no need of enlarging on 
 this point. Every man who enjoys lib- 
 erty can understand what it is to be 
 made a slave, to be held and treated as 
 property, to be subjected to arbitrary 
 will, to arbitrary punishment, to the loss 
 of wife and child, at another's pleasure. 
 Every man knows what he would feel at 
 having a son or a daughter torn from 
 him and sent to slavery. And "liberty is 
 not a whit dearer to us than it is to a 
 human brother whose only misfortune it 
 is to wear a darker skin. We are bound 
 to extend to him the same protection of 
 law as to our own child. 
 
 To condemn a man to perpetual sla- 
 very is as solemn a sentence as to con- 
 demn him to death. Before being thus 
 doomed he has a right to all the means 
 of defence which are granted to a man 
 who is tried for his life. All the rules, 
 forms, solemnities by which innocence 
 is secured from being confounded with 
 guilt he has a right to demand. In the 
 present case the principle is eminently 
 applicable, that many guilty should es- 
 cape rather than that one innocent man 
 should surfer ; because the guilt of run- 
 ning away from an " owner " is of too 
 faint a color to be seen by some of the 
 best eyes, whilst that of enslaving the 
 free is of the darkest hue. 
 
 The Constitution provides that no 
 man shall " be deprived of life, liberty, 
 or property, without due process of 
 law." A man delivered up as a slave is 
 deprived of all property, all liberty, and 
 placed in a condition where life and limb 
 are held at another's pleasure. Does he 
 enjoy the benefits of " a due process of 
 law," when a common justice of the 
 peace, selected by the master, and re- 
 ceiving the master as a witness, passes 
 sentence on him without jury and with- 
 out appeal ? 
 
 It is of great importance that a new 
 and satisfactory law on this subject 
 should be passed by Congress. It is a 
 serious evil to perpetuate legislation 
 
 against which the moral sense of the 
 'community protests. In this country 
 public opinion is the strength of the 
 laws, is the grand force with which the 
 public authorities must surround them- 
 selves. The present law for the recov- 
 ery of fugitive slaves is reprobated, not 
 by the passions, but by the deliberate 
 moral judgments of large portions of the 
 free States ; and such being the case, it 
 cannot be executed. There are a thou- 
 sand ways of evading it without force. 
 In some parts of the country,. I fear, it 
 might be resisted by force, should its 
 execution be urged ; and although a law 
 demanded by justice should never be 
 yielded to the fear of tumult ; though we 
 ought to encounter violence rather than 
 make a sacrifice of duty ; yet, on the 
 other hand, it is most unwise to uphold 
 a palpably unrighteous law, which by its 
 unrighteousness endangers the public 
 peace. In such a case the chief respon- 
 sibility for the danger rests on the ob- 
 stinacy of the legislator. The appointed 
 guardian of social order proves its foe. 
 
 A trial by jury ought to be granted to 
 the suspected fugitive, as being the most 
 effectual provision for innocence known 
 to our laws. It is said that, under such 
 a process, the slave will not be restored 
 to his master. Undoubtedly the jury is 
 an imperfect tribunal, and may often fail 
 of a wise and just administration of the 
 laws. But, as we have seen, the first 
 question to Be asked is, How shall the 
 freeman be preserved from being sen- 
 tenced to slavery ? This is an infinitely 
 greater evil than the escape of the fugi- 
 tive ; and, to avert this, a trial by jury 
 should be granted, unless some other 
 process as safe and effectual can be 
 devised. 
 
 In these remarks I would not intimate 
 that the slave-holders as a body desire 
 a loose law, which will place the inno- 
 cent at their mercy, in order to be kid- 
 nappers. The South is as incapable 
 of this baseness as the North. But in 
 both regions there are too many men 
 profligate enough to use such a law for 
 the perpetration of the greatest crime. 
 We know that the existing law has been 
 so used that the facilities and tempta- 
 tions which it ministers to the grossest 
 violation of right have whetted cupidity 
 and instigated to cruelty. Then it must 
 be changed. 
 
 The slave-holder must not say that a
 
 8;6 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 change will annul his claim on the flying 
 slave. He ought to consider that, in ' 
 insisting on processes for enforcing his 
 claim which cannot but result in enslav- 
 ing the free, he virtually enrols himself 
 among kidnappers. Still more, he should 
 understand that his only chance of as- 
 serting his claim rests on the establish- 
 ment of such a law as will secure the 
 rights of the colored man of the free 
 States. There is a jealousy on this 
 point among us, which, as it is right- 
 eous, must be respected. It is a spread- 
 ing jealousy, and will obstruct more ?.nd 
 more the operation of the existing law. 
 It must not be spoken of as a fever which 
 has reached its height. It is a sign of 
 returning moral health, and its progress 
 will be aided by perseverance in immoral 
 means of reclaiming the flying slave. 
 
 Having shown how the free States 
 are bound to construe the clause of the 
 Constitution relating to fugitive slaves, 
 or, rather, " persons held to service in 
 other States," I proceed, in the second 
 place, to show the strict construction 
 which should be given to those parts of 
 the Constitution under which the gen- 
 eral government has been led to take 
 slavery into its protection, in its in- 
 tercourse with foreign nations. This 
 agency is believed to be wholly without 
 warrant ; and it threatens so to extend 
 itself, and to disturb so much our rela- 
 tions with foreign states, that we are 
 bound, not only by considerations of 
 morality, but of our essential interests, 
 to reduce it within the precise limits of 
 the Constitution. 
 
 By this instrument the powers of 
 declaring war, appointing ambassadors, 
 raising armies, and making treaties are 
 conferred on the national government. 
 The protection of our rights against 
 foreign powers was undoubtedly a prin- 
 cipal end of the Union. Every part of 
 the country expects and requires it " to 
 provide for the common defence." But 
 it is plain that this duty of the national 
 government, to watch over our rights 
 abroad, cannot go beyond those rights. 
 It cannot seek redress but for wrongs 
 inflicted by foreign powers. To insist 
 on groundless, unreasonable claims is 
 an unwarrantable abuse of power ; and 
 to put in peril our national peace by 
 assertion of these is to violate at once 
 the national charter, and the higher law 
 of universal justice and good-will. 
 
 The grand principle to be adopted by 
 the North is this, that, because certain 
 States of this Union see fit to pronounce 
 certain human beings within their terri- 
 tory to be property, foreign nations are 
 not bound to regard and treat these per- 
 sons as property, when brought within 
 their jurisdiction. Of consequence, the 
 national government has no claim on 
 foreign governments in regard to slaves 
 carried beyond the limits of the South 
 and found in other countries. The 
 master has no authority over them in 
 a foreign land. They appear there as 
 men. They have rights there as real, as 
 sacred, as the country has from which 
 they came, and these must on no ac- 
 count b& sported with. 
 
 The rights of the individual lie at the 
 very foundation of civil society ; and 
 society, truly constituted, confirms, in- 
 stead of taking them away. The simple 
 idea of a nation is, that it is the union 
 of a multitude to establish and enforce 
 laws for the protection of every right. A 
 nation is not to depart from this, its true 
 idea, its primitive end, and deny to human 
 beings entering its borders the common 
 rights of humanity, because these men 
 have been seized in another part of the 
 world and reduced to the condition of 
 chattels or brutes. One injustice does 
 not induce the necessity of another. 
 Because a man is wronged in one place, 
 it does not follow that he must be 
 wronged everywhere. A particular state 
 cannot by its form of legislation bind 
 the whole earth to become partakers 
 with it in a crime. It would seem as 
 if the fact of a man's having been in- 
 jured on one spot were rather a reason 
 for his enjoying peculiar protection else- 
 where. 
 
 The local, municipal law which ordains 
 slavery in a state does not make it just, 
 does not make man rightful property, 
 even in the particular country where it 
 is established. This law, however, is 
 to be respected in a certain sense by 
 foreign nations. These must not enter 
 the slave-holding country to enforce 
 emancipation. But, in thus restraining 
 themselves, they acknowledge no moral 
 right in the master, no moral validity in 
 the law declaring man property. They 
 act simply on the principle, that one 
 nation is not to intermeddle with the 
 legislation of another, be it wise or fool- 
 ish, just or unjust. Foreign nations are
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 877 
 
 not to touch a law creating slavery in a 
 particular country, because they touch 
 none of the laws there. If that country 
 choose to ordain polygamy, as in the 
 Eastern world, or stealing, as in Sparta, 
 or prostitution, as in some established 
 religions of antiquity, no other nations 
 can interfere to repeal these ordinances. 
 But, because unmolested in the place of 
 their birth, are these institutions to be 
 carried beyond it, to be regarded as sacred 
 by other governments, and not only to be 
 allowed, but to be enforced in foreign re- 
 gions ? Shall a Mahometan country hold 
 itself wronged and declare war, because 
 one of its subjects, carrying with him a 
 hundred wives, cannot set up a harem 
 in a Christian country, or cannot receive 
 the aid and succor of the authorities of 
 a foreign port in recovering fifty of his 
 women who had found their way to the 
 shore ? Are the tribunals of a country 
 to lend themselves to the execution of 
 foreign laws which are opposed to its 
 own, and which not only its policy but 
 its religion and moral sense condemn ? 
 
 The sum of these remarks is, that 
 slavery is not to be spoken of as recog- 
 nized in any sense whatever by nations 
 which disclaim it : that to them it does 
 not exist as a right anywhere ; that in 
 their own jurisdiction it cannot exist as 
 a fact ; and from these views it follows 
 that no nation, allowing or ordaining 
 slavery within its limits, has a right to 
 demand any recognition of it in any 
 shape or degree beyond its own borders. 
 To attempt to protect it or to require 
 protection for it in the ports of another 
 country is to set up not merely a ground- 
 less, but an iniquitous claim. To charge 
 another country with wrong-doing for 
 not aiding us to retain this property 
 is to do wrong ourselves, and to offer 
 an insult to a more righteous commu- 
 nity. 
 
 The Constitution, then, which com- 
 mits to the national authorities the 
 maintenance of our rights abroad, is 
 transcended, its powers are unwarrant- 
 ably stretched, when the government 
 goes abroad to claim respect in any 
 form or degree to the slave-laws of a 
 part of this country, or when it intro- 
 duces slavery at all as a matter of con- 
 troversy into our discussions with foreign 
 powers. To these slavery does not ex- 
 ist. In their own sphere they do not 
 become accountable to us by utter dis- 
 
 regard of the slave-laws of the South, 
 or by refusing to see any thing but men 
 in the slaves of that region, when car- 
 ried by any means whatever within their 
 bounds. Slavery is a word which should 
 never be uttered between us and foreign 
 states. It is as local a matter as the 
 licensing of gambling-houses at New 
 Orleans, and can with no more fitness 
 be made a matter of diplomacy. It is 
 we who are guilty of encroachment, when 
 we deny the right of other nations to 
 follow their own laws, rather than ours, 
 within their own limits, and to regard 
 as men all human beings who enter 
 their ports. 
 
 When we look into the Constitution, 
 we see not one express obligation im- 
 posed in regard to slavery. " Persons 
 held to service or labor in one State 
 under the laws thereof," and who escape 
 from it, are to be restored. This lan- 
 guage, as we have seen in the first part 
 of this tract, was adopted to exclude 
 the recognition of the lawfulness of 
 slavery " in a moral point of view." 
 The Constitution, in requiring the sur- 
 render of slaves in one case only, leaves 
 them in all other cases to come under 
 the operation of the laws of the free 
 States, when found within the limits of 
 the same. Does not the Constitution, 
 then, plainly expect that slaves from 
 the South, if carried into foreign ports, 
 will fall under the operation of the laws 
 established there J 
 
 There is still another view. Slavery 
 is limited in this country to one region. 
 In the rest of the country it does not 
 exist ; and, still more, it is regarded as 
 a violation of the law of nature and of 
 God. Now the general government, 
 when it calls on foreign nations to re- 
 spect the claims of the slave-holder, 
 speaks in the name, not merely of the 
 slave States, but of the free, in the 
 name of the whole people. And ought 
 the whole people to be thus committed 
 to the cause of slavery, unless an un- 
 doubted, unequivocal obligation is im- 
 posed on them by the Constitution to 
 assume its defence ? unless a clear case 
 can be made out against the free States ? 
 The Constitution is to be explained in 
 part by the known views of its authors. 
 We have seen how slow they were to 
 recognize a moral right in slavery. Did 
 they intend that we should assert its 
 claims to the ends of the earth ?
 
 8;8 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 It is true, the national government 
 has interfered to claim slaves thrown on 
 a foreign shore, and this consideration 
 is of weight. But, in so grave an affair, 
 it does not decide the constitutional 
 question. That the administration of 
 the national government has been un- 
 duly swayed by the slave-holding portion 
 of the country we of the North believe. 
 That under this influence an unwarrant- 
 able extension of constitutional powers 
 has taken place is very conceivable. 
 False interpretations of such an instru- 
 ment, which favor the interests of one 
 part of the people without apparently 
 touching the rest of the community, 
 easily steal into the public policy. Time 
 alone exposes them, and time ought not 
 to be alleged as a reason for their con- 
 tinuance. 
 
 In interpreting the Constitution, it is 
 not only necessary to consult the history 
 of the period of its formation, but to 
 apply to it the principles of universal 
 justice. Its authors honored these, and 
 did not intend to establish a government 
 in hostility to them. They acted in the 
 spirit of reverence for human rights. 
 This is eminently the spirit of the Con- 
 stitution, and by this it should be con- 
 strued. Doubtful articles should receive 
 an interpretation which will bring them 
 into harmony with the immutable laws 
 of duty. Any other construction virt- 
 ually falls to the ground. It is of no 
 force, for it cannot shake the authority 
 of God. On these principles we main- 
 tain that the Constitution does not and 
 cannot bind the government to demand 
 from the whole human race respect to 
 the municipal law of Southern slavery. 
 
 This topic is not a merely speculative 
 one, but of great practical importance. 
 Our honor as a people is involved in 
 the construction of the Constitution 
 now pleaded for. This is not the day 
 for setting up pretensions in favor of 
 slavery, for demanding from the whole 
 civilized world succor and countenance 
 in enforcing our property in man. We 
 disgrace ourselves in sending abroad 
 ministers on such a message. We should 
 regard our character too much to thrust 
 the deformity and stench of slavery into 
 the eyes and nostrils of the world. We 
 should regard too much the reputation 
 of honorable men, who represent us in 
 foreign countries, to employ them in this 
 low work. An American, alive to his 
 
 country's honor, cannot easily bear this 
 humiliation abroad. It is enough that, 
 in our private intercourse with foreign- 
 ers, we are set down as citizens of a 
 slave-holding country. But we need not 
 and ought not to hold up our shame in 
 the blaze of courts, in the high places of 
 the world. We ought not industriously 
 to invite men everywhere to inspect our 
 wounds and ulcers. Let us keep our 
 dishonor at home. The free States es- 
 pecially should shrink from this expos- 
 ure. They should insist that slavery 
 shall be a State interest, not a national 
 concern ; that this brand shall not be 
 fixed on our diplomacy, on our foreign 
 policy ; that the name of American shall 
 not become synonymous everywhere 
 with oppression. 
 
 But something more than dishonor is 
 to be feared, if our government shall 
 persevere in its efforts for maintaining 
 the claims of slave-holders in foreign 
 countries. Such claims, if asserted in 
 earnest, must issue in war, for they can- 
 not be acceded to. England has taken 
 her ground on this matter ; so ought the 
 free States. On this point we ought to 
 speak plainly, unconditionally, without 
 softening language. We ought to say 
 to the South, to Congress, to the world : 
 " We will not fight for slavery. We can 
 die for truth, for justice, for rights. We 
 will not die, or inflict death, in support 
 of wrongs." In truth, this spirit, this 
 determination, exists now so extensively 
 in the free States that it is utterly im- 
 possible for a war to be carried on in 
 behalf of slavery, and, such being the 
 fact, all diplomacy in its behalf becomes 
 a mockery. It is a disgraceful show for 
 no possible benefit. Even could war be 
 declared for this end, the deep moral 
 feeling of a large part of the community 
 would rob it of all energy, and would in- 
 sure defeat and shame. Bad as we think 
 men. they cannot fight against their con- 
 sciences. The physical nature finds its 
 strength in the moral. The rudest sol- 
 diers are sustained by the idea of acting 
 under some lawful authority ; and on 
 this account have an advantage over 
 pirates, who either cower, or abandon 
 themselves to a desperation which, by 
 robbing them of a guiding intelligence, 
 makes them an easier prey. In propor- 
 tion as a people become enlightened, and 
 especially in proportion as they recog- 
 nize the principles of Christianity, it is
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 8 79 
 
 harder to drive them into a war. The 
 moral sense, which in an ignorant age or 
 community is easily blinded, cannot in 
 their case be imposed on without much 
 skilful sophistry. They take the justice 
 of a war less and less on trust. They 
 must see that they have right on their 
 side, or they are no match for a foe. 
 This country has the best materials for 
 an army in a righteous cause, and the 
 worst in a wicked one. No martial law 
 could drive us to battle for the slave- 
 holder's claim to the aid or countenance 
 of foreign powers. We could not fight 
 in such a quarrel. Our " hands would 
 hang down" as truly as if loaded with 
 material chains. To fight for a cause at 
 which we blush ! for a cause which con- 
 science protests against ! for a cause on 
 which we dare not ask the blessing of 
 God ! The thing is impossible. Our 
 moral sympathies would desert to our foe. 
 We should honor him for not suffering 
 a slave to tread his soil. God keep us 
 from being plunged into a war of any 
 kind ! But if the evil is to be borne, 
 let us have, at least, the consolation that 
 our blood is shed for undoubted rights ; 
 that we have truth, justice, honor on our 
 side : that religion, freedom, and hu- 
 manity are not leagued with our foe. 
 
 " Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just, 
 And he but naked, though locked up in steel, 
 Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." 
 
 I proceed, in the third place, to an- 
 other topic, which will complete my re- 
 marks on the duties of the free States 
 in relation to slavery under the present 
 provisions of the Constitution. These 
 States are bound to insist on the aboli- 
 tion of slavery and the slave-trade in 
 the District of Columbia. Their power 
 in this regard is unquestionable. To 
 Congress is committed exclusively the 
 government of the District, and it is 
 committed without any restrictions. In 
 this sphere of its action the general gov- 
 ernment has no limitations, but those 
 which are found in the principles of the 
 Constitution and of universal justice. 
 The power of abolishing slavery in the 
 District is a rightful one, and must be 
 lodged somewhere, and can be exercised 
 by Congress alone. And this authority 
 ought not to sleep. 
 
 Slavery in the District of Columbia 
 is not Southern slavery. It has no 
 local character. It is the slavery of the 
 
 United States ! It belongs equally to 
 the free and to the slave-holding por- 
 tion of the country. It is our institution 
 as truly as if it were planted in the midst 
 of us ; for this District is the common 
 ground of the nation. Its institutions 
 exist solely by authority of the nation. 
 They are as truly expressions of the 
 national will as any acts of Congress 
 whatever. We all uphold the slave-code 
 under which men are bought and sold 
 and whipped at their masters' pleasure. 
 Every slave-auction in the District is 
 held under our legislation. We are 
 even told that the prison of the District 
 is used for the safe-keeping of the slaves 
 who are brought there for sale. In the 
 former part of these remarks I said that 
 the free States had no participation in 
 this evil. I forgot the District of Co- 
 lumbia. There we sustain it as truly as 
 we support the navy or army. It ought, 
 then, to be abolished at once. And in 
 urging this action we express no hostility 
 towards Southern institutions. We do 
 not think of the South. We see within 
 a spot under our jurisdiction a great 
 wrong sustained by law. For this law 
 we are responsible. For all its fruits 
 we must give account. We owe, then, 
 to God, to conscience, to rectitude, our 
 best efforts for its abolition. We have 
 no thought of limiting Southern institu- 
 tions. It is our own unjust, unhallowed 
 institution which we resolve no longer 
 to maintain. Caji the free States con- 
 sent to continue their partnership in this 
 wrong ? They have not even the poor 
 consolation of profiting by the crime. 
 The handful of slaves in the District 
 may be of some worth to a few masters, 
 but are utterly insignificant in their 
 relation to the country. They might be 
 bought by the government and set free 
 at less expense than is incurred in pass- 
 ing many an act of Congress. 
 
 Emancipation in the present case is 
 opposed by the South, not on account 
 of any harm to be endured by the Dis- 
 trict or the country, but simply because 
 this measure would be a public, formal 
 utterance of the moral conviction of the 
 free States on the subject of slavery. 
 Our case is a hard one indeed. We are 
 required to support what we abhor, be- 
 cause by withdrawing our support we 
 shall express our abhorrence of it. We 
 must go on sinning, lest we become 
 witnesses against sin. Could we root
 
 88o 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 slavery out of the District without de- 
 claring it to be evil, emancipation would 
 be comparatively easy ; but we are re- 
 quired to sustain it because we think it 
 evil, and must not show our thoughts. 
 We must cling to a wrong because our 
 associates at the South will not consent 
 to the reproof implied in our desertion 
 of it. And can it be that we are so 
 wanting in moral principle and force as 
 to yield to these passionate partners ? 
 Is not our path clear? Can any thing 
 authorize us to sanction slavery by sol- 
 emn acts of legislation ? Are any viola- 
 tions of right so iniquitous as those 
 which are perpetrated by law, by that 
 function of sovereignty which has the 
 maintenance of right for its foundation 
 and end ? Can it be that the free States 
 send their most illustrious men to Con- 
 gress to set their seal to slavery ? that 
 the national government, intended to be 
 the centre of what is most august and 
 imposing in our land, should be turned 
 into a legislature of a slave-district, and 
 should put forth its vast powers in sus- 
 taining a barbarous slave-code ? If this 
 must be, then does it not seem fiUthat 
 the national eagle should add the whip 
 of the overseer to the arrows and olive- 
 branch which he now grasps in his 
 talons ? 
 
 But this is not all. The District of 
 Columbia is not only tainted with slavery, 
 but it is a great I believe the greatest 
 slave-market in our country. To this 
 human beings are driven as cattle ; 
 driven sometimes, if not often, in chains. 
 It is even reported that the slave-coffle 
 is sometimes headed by the flag of the 
 United States. To this spot the 
 metropolis of our nation are brought 
 multitudes of our fellow-creatures, torn 
 from their homes by force and for others' 
 gain, and heart-stricken by the thought 
 of birthplace and friends to be seen no 
 more. Here women are widowed and 
 children made orphans, whilst the hus- 
 band and the parent still live. A more 
 cruel minister than death has been at 
 work in their forsaken huts. These 
 wronged fellow-beings are then set up 
 for sale, and women, as well as men, 
 are subjected to an examination like that 
 which draught- horses undergo at an 
 auction. That the seat of the national 
 government should be made a mart for 
 this shameful traffic is not to be endured. 
 On this point some deference is due to 
 
 the free States and the character of the 
 country. The spot on which we all 
 meet as equals, and which is equally 
 under the jurisdiction of all, ought to 
 be kept clean from a trade which the 
 majority think inhuman and a disgrace 
 to the land. On this point there can 
 be no doubt as to the constitutional 
 power of Congress. That body may 
 certainly remove a nuisance from a spot 
 which is subject to its unrestricted au- 
 thority. A common township may abate 
 nuisances. In many of the States the 
 municipal authorities may prohibit, if 
 they see fit, the sale of ardent spirits 
 within their limits. Congress may cer- 
 tainly say, that the "ten-miles square" 
 ceded to the United States shall not be 
 a market for slaves. Washington holds 
 a peculiar relation to the country. For- 
 eigners repair to it as the spot in which 
 to observe our institutions. That sla- 
 very, our chief stain, should be exposed 
 most ostentatiously at the seat of gov- 
 ernment is a violation of national de- 
 cency, a sign of moral obtuseness, of 
 insensibility to the moral judgment of 
 mankind, which ought immediately to 
 cease. 
 
 I have now spoken of the duties of 
 the free States under the Constitution 
 as it now exists. I prooeed to a still 
 higher duty incumbent on them, which 
 is, to seek earnestly and resolutely for 
 such amendments of the Constitution 
 as shall entirely release them from the 
 obligation of yielding support in any 
 way or degree to slavery, and shall so 
 determine the relation between the free 
 and slaves States as to put an end to 
 all collision on this subject. 
 
 This I have said is a duty, and as 
 such it should be constantly regarded. 
 The free States should act in it with the 
 calmness and inflexibleness of principle, 
 avoiding on the one hand passionateness, 
 vehemence, invective, and on the other 
 a spirit of expediency. It is a question, 
 not of interest, but of rights, and conse- 
 quently above expediency. Happily, 
 interest and duty go together in this 
 matter ; and were it not so, our first 
 homage should be paid to the right. 
 The free States should say, calmly, 
 but firmly, to the South : " We cannot 
 participate in slavery. It is yours, 
 wholly and exclusively. On you alone 
 the responsibility rests. You must 
 maintain and defend it by your own
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 881 
 
 arms. As respects slavery we are dis- 
 tinct communities, as truly as in respect 
 to institutions for the support of the 
 poor or for the education of our children. 
 Your slavery is no national concern, 
 The nation must know nothing of it, 
 must do nothing in reference to it. 
 We will not touch your slaves, to free 
 or restore them. Our powers in the 
 state or national governments shall not 
 be used to destroy or to uphold your 
 peculiar institutions. We only ask such 
 modifications of the national charter as 
 shall set us free from all obligation to 
 uphold what we condemn. In regard 
 to slavery, the line between the slave 
 and the free States is a great gulf. You 
 must not pass it to enforce your sup- 
 posed rights as slave-holders, nor will 
 we cross it to annul or violate the laws 
 on which this evil system rests." 
 
 The reasons for thus modifying the 
 Constitution are numerous. The first 
 has been again and again intimated. 
 The moral sentiment of the North de- 
 mands it. Since the adoption of the 
 Constitution a new state of mind in re- 
 gard to slavery has spread through the 
 civilized world. It is not of American 
 growth only, but subsists and acts more 
 powerfully abroad than at home. Sla- 
 very, regarded formerly as a question 
 of great interest, is now a quest-ion of 
 conscience. Vast numbers in the free 
 States cannot without self-reproach give 
 it sanction or aid. From many family 
 altars the prayer rises to God for our 
 brethren in bonds. The antislavery 
 principle finds utterance in our churches, 
 by our firesides, and in our public meet- 
 ings. Now the Constitution ought to be 
 brought into harmony with the moral 
 convictions of the people. A govern- 
 ment resisting these deprives itself of 
 its chief support. If we were to call 
 on the South for a modification of the 
 Constitution, under the influence of any 
 private motives, any interests, any pas- 
 sions, we ought not to be heard. But 
 the slave-holders, as men of principle 
 find of honor, should shrink from asking 
 us to do what we deliberately and con- 
 scientiously condemn. Allow it, that 
 Dur moral sense is too scrupulous. We 
 must still reverence and obey it. We 
 have no higher law than our conviction 
 of duty. We ought especially not to be 
 asked to resist it in a case like the pres- 
 ent, when our conscience is in unison 
 
 with the conscience of the civilized 
 world. Christendom responds to our 
 reprobation of slavery ; and can we be 
 expected to surrender our principles to 
 a handful of men personally interested 
 in the evil ? We say to the South : 
 " We are willing to be joined with you 
 as a nation for weal or for woe. We 
 reach to you the hand of fellowship. 
 We ask but one thing ; do not require 
 us to surrender what is dearer than life 
 or nation, our sense of duty, our loyalty 
 to conscience and God." Will an hon- 
 orable people demand this sacrifice from 
 us ? Great deference is due to the 
 moral sense of a community. This 
 should take rank above political consid- 
 erations. To ask a people to trifle with 
 and slight it is to invite them to self- 
 degradation. No profit can repay their 
 loss, no accession of power can hide 
 their shame. 
 
 Another reason for modifying the 
 Constitution, so that slavery shall be 
 wholly excluded from the class of na- 
 tional objects, is found in the fact that 
 this interest, if allowed to sustain itself 
 by the national arm, will intertwine itself 
 more and more with public measures, 
 and will color our whole policy, so that 
 the free States will be more and more 
 compelled to link themselves with its 
 support. Could the agency of the gov- 
 ernment in regard to this subject be 
 rigidly defined, the evil would be more 
 tolerable. But it is natural that the 
 slave-holding States should seek to 
 make the national power as far as pos- 
 sible a buttress of their "peculiar insti- 
 tution." It is as slave-holders, rather 
 than as Americans, that they stand in 
 Congress ; slavery must be secured, 
 whatever befall other interests of the 
 country. The people of the North little 
 understand what the national govern- 
 ment has done for the " peculiar in- 
 stitution " of the South. It has been, 
 and is, the friend of the slave-holder, 
 and the enemy of the slave. The na- 
 tional government authorizes not only 
 the apprehension and imprisonment in 
 the District of Columbia of a colored 
 man suspected of being a runaway, but 
 the sale of him as a slave, if within a 
 certain time he cannot prove his free- 
 dom. The national government has 
 endeavored to obtain by negotiation the 
 restoration of fugitive slaves, who had 
 sought and found freedom in Canada,
 
 882 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 and has offered in return to restore fu- 
 gitives from the West Indies. It has 
 disgraced itself in the view of all Eu- 
 rope by claiming, as property, slaves 
 who have been shipwrecked on the 
 British islands, and who, by touching 
 British soil, had become free. It has 
 instructed its representative at Madrid 
 to announce to the Spanish Court " that 
 the emancipation of the slave popula- 
 tion of Cuba would be very severely felt 
 in the adjacent shores of the United 
 States." It has purchased a vast un- 
 settled territory which it has given up 
 to be overrun with slavery. Are we 
 willing that the national power, in which 
 all the States have a common interest 
 and share, and for the use of which we 
 are all responsible, should be so em- 
 ployed ? 
 
 How far slavery does and will sway 
 the national government may be judged 
 from the fact that it is a bond of union 
 to all who participate in it ; that the 
 South is prepared by it for a co-opera- 
 tion unknown at the North ; and that, 
 of consequence, it gives to the South, 
 in no small degree, the control of the 
 country. The jealousies of the slave- 
 holder never sleep. They mix with and 
 determine our public policy in matters 
 which we might think least open to this 
 pernicious influence. Of late one of the 
 most distinguished men in the country,* 
 the citizen of a free State, was nomi- 
 nated as minister to the English Court. 
 He had one qualification, perhaps, above 
 any man who could have been selected 
 for the office, that is, a thorough ac- 
 quaintance with our controversy with 
 Great Britain as to the northern boun- 
 dary. His large intellectual culture his 
 literary eminence, his admirable powers, 
 and his experience in public affairs, 
 fitted him to represent the United States 
 in the metropolis of Europe, where a 
 man of narrow education and ordinary 
 powers would dishonor his country. 
 But the nomination of this gentleman 
 was resisted vehemently in the Senate, 
 on the ground that he had expressed 
 his moral opposition to slavery ; and 
 that he would not, therefore, plead the 
 cause of slavery at the Court of St. 
 James. For a time his appointment was 
 despaired of, and it was confirmed at 
 last only by a firmness of remonstrance 
 which the South could not safely oppose. 
 
 * Edward Everett. 
 
 The action of the slave-holders on this 
 subject, though not carried through, does 
 not the less manifest their spirit and 
 policy. They have virtually expressed 
 their purpose to exclude from all places 
 of trust and honor every man from the 
 North who expresses his moral feelings 
 against slavery. And as these feelings 
 are spreading among us and gaining 
 strength, the slave-holder has virtually 
 passed a sentence of proscription on the 
 North. If possible, the door of the 
 cabinet is to be shut in our faces. The 
 executive power must be lodged in other 
 hands. Our most enlightened and virt- 
 uous citizens must not represent the 
 country abroad. This rejection of a 
 man on the ground of a moral conviction 
 which pervades the North is equivalent 
 to a general disfranchisement. A new 
 test for office, never dreamed of before, 
 is to exclude us from the service of the 
 country in those high public trusts which 
 are the chief instruments of public influ- 
 ence. And can we consent to become a 
 proscribed race ? Shall our adherence 
 to great principles be punished by civil 
 degradation ? Can we renounce all kin- 
 dred with our fathers, and suffer our 
 very love of freedom and justice to be a 
 brand of disqualification for offices which 
 by the Constitution are thrown equally 
 open to all ? 
 
 The nomination of our minister to 
 England was all but rejected, and in 
 this we see how slavery has complicated 
 itself with our most important national 
 affairs ; how it determines the weight- 
 iest acts of the general government ; 
 how it taints our foreign as well as 
 domestic policy. The North cannot 
 hope to escape with lending a helping 
 hand now and then to Southern insti- 
 tutions. We must put our shoulders 
 to the wheel. We must be governed 
 throughout with reference to slavery. 
 Were this the place, it would be easy 
 to show how the South, by a skilful 
 management of the parties of the North, 
 has bent and may continue to bend the 
 general government to its purposes ; 
 how slavery has been made a means of 
 concentrating power into the hands of 
 those who uphold it. This institution 
 is not a narrow interest, seldom intrud- 
 ing itself, too trifling to quarrel about ; 
 but a poisonous element, acting subtly 
 on public affairs when it seems to be 
 quiet, and sometimes breaking out into
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 883 
 
 violences dishonorable to our national 
 councils and menacing to the Union. 
 Its influences are not concealed; and 
 the time has come for solemn, earnest 
 effort to sever it from the government 
 which it would usurp. 
 
 I proceed to offer another reason for 
 so modifying the Constitution as to ex- 
 clude slavery from its objects, which 
 is akin to the last, but so important as 
 to deserve distinct consideration. The 
 slave-power in Congress not only mixes 
 with and controls public measures, but 
 it threatens our dearest rights and liber- 
 ties. It is natural for every power to 
 act and manifest itself according to 
 its peculiar character. We ought not, 
 then, to wonder that slavery should set 
 at nought all rights with which it comes 
 in conflict. And yet that it should be 
 so bold, so audacious as it has proved 
 itself, awakens some astonishment. We 
 believed that the Constitution had placed 
 some rights above the reach of any party 
 or power ; yet on these especially) sla- 
 very has laid its hand. The right of 
 petition is one of the last we might sup- 
 pose to be denied to a people. It has 
 such a foundation in nature that it is 
 respected where other rights are trod- 
 den down. The despot opens his ears 
 to the petitions of his subjects. But in 
 the Congress of a free people, petitions 
 and memorials from large numbers of 
 citizens, and even from public bodies, 
 have been treated with indignity, and 
 refused a hearing. But this is not all. 
 The slave-power has, if possible, taken 
 a more daring step. A member of the 
 House of Representatives * has been 
 censured by that 'body for presenting a 
 series of grave resolutions asserting the 
 relation of the government to slavery, 
 and denying the extension of its powers 
 to slaves removed beyond our jurisdic- 
 tion. 
 
 Liberty of speech has been secured 
 to us by an express provision of the 
 Constitution ; and if this right is es- 
 pecially inviolable in any person, it is in 
 the representative of the people stand- 
 ing up in Congress to utter his own 
 views and those of his constituents on 
 great questions of public policy. That 
 such a man should be put to silence, 
 should be subjected to censure for ex- 
 pressing his conviction in the calmest 
 style, is a stretch of power, an excess 
 
 * Joshua R. Giddings. 
 
 of tyranny, which would have been pro- 
 nounced impossible a few years since. 
 This is to invade liberty in her holiest 
 place, her last refuge. It was not the 
 individual who was wronged, but the 
 constituents in whose name he spoke ; 
 the State from which he came ; the 
 whole nation, who can only be heard 
 through its representatives. 
 
 This act stands alone, we conceive, 
 in representative bodies. I have in- 
 quired, and cannot learn that the English 
 Parliament, omnipotent as it declares 
 itself, ever offered this outrage to free- 
 dom, this insult to the people. Until 
 this moment the liberty of speech in 
 Congress has been held so sacred that 
 the representative in debate has been 
 left to violate without reproof good 
 manners and the decencies of social 
 life : to bring dishonor on himself and 
 his country by coarseness and ribaldry ; 
 to consume hour after hour, perhaps the 
 day, in declamations which have owed 
 their inspiration less to wisdom than 
 to wine. During this very session we 
 have witnessed the spectacle of mem- 
 bers of the House of Representatives 
 denouncing and insulting the President 
 of the United States, a co-ordinate 
 power of the government, and entitled 
 to peculiar respect, as embodying and 
 representing the nation to foreign coun- 
 tries ; and this indecorum has been 
 submitted to, lest the freedom of speech 
 in that chamber should be encroached 
 on. But because a representative of 
 high character has thought fit to ex- 
 press, in the most unexciting style, his 
 deliberate convictions on a solemn ques- 
 tion which threatens the country with 
 war, he has been subjected to the in- 
 dignity of a public rebuke. And why 
 is he selected above all others for pun- 
 ishment ? Because he has so interpreted 
 the Constitution as to deny both the 
 right and the obligation of the govern- 
 ment to protect slavery beyond the limit 
 of the United States. For this sound 
 exposition of the national charter he is 
 denied an immunity extended to the 
 brawler and traducer. Can a precedent 
 more fatal to freedom be conceived ? 
 Where is this tyranny to stop ? Is there 
 any doctrine, any construction of the 
 Constitution, any vindication of the 
 rights of his constituents, that may 
 chance to be unpopular, for which a 
 representative may not incur this public
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 rebuke ? Is the tameness of the free 
 States under this usurpation the way to 
 suppress it ? If even in Congress un- 
 popular truth may not be spoken, what 
 pledge have we that it may be uttered j 
 anywhere else ? A blow has been 
 struck at freedom of speech in all its 
 forms ; and in regard to no other right 
 should we be so jealous as in regard to 
 this. As long as we retain this we re- 
 tain the means of defending all our 
 other rights, of redressing all wrongs. 
 Take this away, and we have no redress 
 but in force. 
 
 By the Constitution each house of 
 Congress has power to punish a member 
 for disorderly behavior. In England, 
 too, members may be punished for '' con- 
 tempt of the house." But in these cases 
 it is not intended to lay the least re- 
 straint on the discussion of public meas- 
 ures. In these cases the sacredness of 
 the representative character is not vio- 
 lated. On the contrary, the individual 
 is punished for insulting the representa- 
 tive body, the honor of which is, indeed, 
 his own. It is to preserve the house 
 from disorders which would infringe its 
 privilege of free discussion that this 
 power over its members is chiefly re- 
 quired. The act of punishing a member 
 for speaking his mind on general topics, 
 on the principles of the Constitution, is 
 an unprecedented tyranny, which ought 
 to have raised a burst of indignation 
 from one end of the country to the other. 
 What right may not be invaded next ? 
 If the freedom of the press, if the right 
 of worshipping God, shall be thought to 
 come in conflict with slavery, what rea- 
 son have we to hope that these, or any 
 other of our liberties, will escape viola- 
 tion ? Nothing is more common in life 
 than to see men who are accustomed to 
 one outrage on -rights emboldened to 
 maintain this by others and more fla- 
 grant. This experience of the usurpa- 
 tions of the slave-power should teach us 
 to avoid all contact with it, to exclude it 
 from our national government. On this 
 point, of slavery, the two sections of 
 the country should be separate nations. 
 They should hold no communion. 
 
 These remarks suggest another reason 
 for so modifying the Constitution as to 
 release the free States from all action on 
 slavery. It is almost too plain a reason 
 to be named, and yet too important to 
 be overlooked. Until such modification 
 
 be made, the country can know no peace. 
 The free and slave-holding States will 
 meet in Congress, not to maintain peace, 
 not to provide for the common liberty, 
 the common welfare, the common de- 
 fence, but for war. Subjects of public 
 interest will not be looked at simply, 
 nakedly, according to their own merits, 
 but through the medium of jealousy and 
 hatred, and according to their apparent 
 bearing on slavery. The " peculiar in- 
 stitution " of the South is peculiarly 
 sensitive and irritable. It detects signs 
 and menaces of danger in harmless move- 
 ments, and does not weigh its words in 
 resenting supposed injury. With this 
 root of bitterness in our government, we 
 must expect distracted public councils ; 
 we must witness fiery passions in the 
 place of wise deliberations. The differ- 
 ent sections of the country will become 
 hostile camps. 
 
 It is painful to advert to the style of 
 debate which the subject of slavery al- 
 most always excites in Congress, be- 
 cause it can hardly be spoken of without 
 stirring up unpleasant feeling. On this 
 subject the fiery temperament of the 
 South disdains control. The North, it 
 is true, has the comfort of knowing that 
 it is better to be insulted than to insult ; 
 and yet it is a position not very favora- 
 ble to the temper or to self-respect, to 
 be compelled to listen to such language 
 as Northern men hear on the floor of 
 Congress. The consequences are inev- 
 itable. Forbearance has limits ; and re- 
 proach awakens reaction. Already a 
 venerable representative from a free 
 State,* whose moral courage, in union 
 with his great powers, places him at the 
 head of the public men of the country, 
 has presented a front of stern opposi- 
 tion to the violence of the South. We 
 thank him for his magnanimity. It 
 is, perhaps, the greatest public service 
 ever rendered in Congress to the North ; 
 for no man serves his country like him 
 who exalts its spirit. Still, we must 
 allow that the eloquence of this illustri- 
 ous statesman has not tended to heal 
 the wounds of the nation ; and, as friends 
 of the Union, we must earnestly desire 
 to banish from our public councils the 
 irritating subject which has given birth 
 to the conflicts in which he has borne so 
 distinguished a part. No remedy short 
 of this will meet the evil, nor can the 
 
 * John Quincy Adams.
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 885 
 
 remedy be applied too suddenly. The 
 breach is widening every day. The un- 
 willingness of the North to participate 
 in slavery grows stronger every day. 
 The love of the Union has suppressed 
 as yet the free utterance of this feeling ; 
 but the restraints of prudence are con- 
 tinually giving way. Slavery will not 
 much longer have the floor of the Sen- 
 ate to itself, or rule the House with an 
 iron hand. Freedom will find tongues 
 there. The open advocates of human 
 rights, as yet a small, heroic band, will 
 spring up as a host. Is it not the part 
 of wisdom to put an end to these deadly 
 feuds ? Is the Union to become a name ? 
 Is its chief good, concord, to be given 
 up in despair ? And must not concord 
 be despaired of as long as slavery shall 
 enter into the discussions of Congress ? 
 The dissensions growing out of slavery 
 throw a fearful uncertainty over the fort- 
 unes of this country. Let us end them 
 at once by dissolving wholly the con- 
 nection between slavery and our na- 
 tional concerns. 
 
 There is one consideration which 
 should reconcile the South to such an 
 arrangement. The Constitution, if not 
 so modified, can render little service to 
 slavery. In this country no law, no 
 constitution, can prevail against the 
 moral convictions of the people. These 
 are stronger than parchments, statutes, 
 or tribunals. There is a feeling in re- 
 gard to slavery, spreading rapidly, which 
 cannot be withstood. It is not a fanati- 
 cism, a fever, but a calm, moral, relig- 
 ious persuasion ; and whatever in our 
 institutions opposes this will be a dead 
 letter. No violence is needed to annul 
 a law which the moral feelings of a free 
 community condemn. The simple absti- 
 nence of the people from action in favor 
 of an unrighteous law, and the displeas- 
 ure with which they visit such as are 
 officious in its support, will avail more 
 than armies. The South, then, in ad- 
 mitting such changes of the Constitu- 
 tion as are proposed, will make no great 
 sacrifice. Slavery must at any rate cease 
 to look Northward for aid. Let it, then, 
 consent to retire within its own bounds. 
 Let it not mix itself with our national 
 affairs. Let the word slavery no longer 
 be named within the walls of Congress. 
 Such is the good now to be sought. The 
 North should be stirred up to demand 
 it with one voice. Petitions, memorials, 
 
 directed to this end, should be poured 
 in upon Congress as a flood. The free 
 States should employ political action in 
 regard to slavery for one purpose alone, 
 and that is, to prevent all future politi- 
 cal action on the subject ; to sever it 
 wholly from the government ; to save 
 the country from its disturbing influ- 
 ence. 
 
 Such seems to me to be the urgent 
 duty of the free States. But it is not 
 their whole duty. They are not to think 
 of themselves only in the changes which 
 are to be made. The South has claims 
 as well as ourselves. Whilst we say we 
 cannot give aid in holding the slaves in 
 bondage, we are bound to pledge our- 
 selves to abstain from all action on the 
 slaves to set them free. We must not 
 use the Union as a means of access to 
 that part of the Southern population. 
 We must regard them as belonging to 
 foreign states, and must interfere with 
 them no more than with the serfs of 
 Russia or the bondmen of Turkey. On 
 this point we should consent to enter 
 into strict terms with the South. The 
 best human feelings have tendencies to 
 excess. The hostility to slavery at the 
 North may pass its due bounds, and 
 adopt modes of action which the South 
 has a right to repel ; and from these we 
 should bind ourselves to abstain. For 
 example ; we have heard of men who 
 have entered the Southern States to in- 
 cite and aid the slave to take flight. We 
 have also seen a convention at the North 
 of highly respected men preparing and 
 publishing an address to the slaves, in 
 which they are exhorted to fly from 
 bondage, and to feel no scruple in seiz- 
 ing and using horse or boat which may 
 facilitate their escape. All such inter- 
 ference with the slave is wrong, and 
 should cease. It gives some counte- 
 nance to the predictions of cautious men 
 as to the issues of the antislavery move- 
 ment. It is a sign that the enemies of 
 slavery are losing their patience, calm- 
 ness, and self-controlling wisdom ; that 
 they cannot wait for the blessing of 
 Providence on holy efforts ; that the 
 grandeur of the end is in danger of 
 blinding them as to the character of 
 the means. 
 
 We are bound to abstain from all 
 such action on the slaves, not because 
 the master has a rightful property in 
 them, but on the plain ground that a
 
 886 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 slave-holding State is a body politic, a 
 civil community, the peace and order of 
 which must not be invaded by the mem- 
 bers of a foreign state. It is plain, that, 
 if the action of a foreign community on 
 the slave begin 2nd be allowed, no lim- 
 its to it can be prescribed, and insurrec- 
 tion and massacre are its almost neces- 
 sary effects. I certainly wish the slave 
 to flee, if he can do it without bloodshed 
 and violence, and can find a shelter for 
 his rights without exposing his charac- 
 ter to overwhelming temptation. But 
 were the free States to incite the whole 
 mass of slaves to fly ; were one united, 
 thrilling, exasperating cry from the 
 North to ring through the South, and to 
 possess the millions who are in bondage 
 with the passion for escape ; would not 
 society be convulsed to its centre ? and 
 who of us could avert the terrible crimes 
 which would be perpetrated in the name 
 of liberty ? No. Earnestly as I oppose 
 slavery, I deprecate all interference with 
 the slave within the jurisdiction of the 
 slave-holding States. I will plead his 
 cause with whatever strength God has 
 given me. But I can do no more. God 
 forbid that I should work out his deliv- 
 erance by force and blood ! 
 
 These remarks are the more important 
 because there seem to be growing up 
 among us looser ideas than formerly 
 prevailed on the subject of inciting the 
 slaves to vindicate their rights. The 
 common language leads to error. We 
 are told, and told truly, that the slave- 
 holder has no property in the man whom 
 he oppresses : that the slave has a right 
 to immediate freedom ; and the inference 
 which some make is, that the slave is 
 authorized to use, without regard to 
 consequences, the means of emancipa- 
 tion. The next inference is, that he is 
 to be urged and aided to break his chain. 
 But these views are too sweeping, and 
 need important modifications. 
 
 The slave has a right to liberty ; but a 
 right does not imply that it may be as- 
 serted by any and every means. There 
 is a great law of humanity to which all 
 are subject, the bond as well as the free, 
 and which we must never lose sight of 
 in redressing wrongs, or in claiming and 
 insisting on our due. The slave cannot 
 innocently adopt any and every expedi- 
 ent for vindicating his liberty. He is 
 bound to waive his right, if in maintain- 
 ing it he is to violate the law of humanity, 
 
 and to spread general ruin. Were I con- 
 fined unjustly to a house, I should have 
 no right to free myself by setting it on 
 fire, if thereby a family should be de- 
 stroyed. An impressed seaman cannot 
 innocently withhold his service in a 
 storm, and would be bound to work even 
 in ordinary weather, if this were needed 
 to save the ship from foundering. We 
 owe a debt of humanity even to him who 
 wrongs us, and especially to those who 
 are linked with him, and who must suf- 
 fer, perhaps perish with him, if we seek 
 to redress our wrong. 
 
 The slave is not property. He owes 
 nothing, as a slave, to his master. On 
 the contrary, the debt is on his master's 
 side. But, though owing nothing as a 
 slave, he owes much as a man. He 
 must not, for the sake of his own liberty, 
 involve a household in destruction. He 
 must not combine with fellow-slaves and 
 expose a community of men, women, 
 children, to brutal outrage and massacre. 
 When the chain can be broken only by 
 inhumanity, he has no right to break it. 
 A higher duty than that of asserting 
 personal rights is laid on him. He is 
 bound by Divine authority, by the 
 Christian law, by enlightened con- 
 science, to submit to his hard fate. 
 
 The slave's right to liberty, then, is a 
 qualified one ; qualified, not in the slight- 
 est degree by any right of property in his 
 master, but solely by the great law of 
 humanity. He is a man, under all the 
 obligations of a member of the human 
 family, and therefore bound at all times 
 to unite a regard for others with a regard 
 to himself. His master, indeed, denies 
 his humanity, and treats him as a brute ; 
 and were he what his master deems him, 
 he might innocently at any moment cut 
 the throats of his master and master's 
 wife and child. But his human nature, 
 though trampled on, endures, and lays 
 on him obligation to refrain from cruelty. 
 From these views we learn that the right 
 of the slave to free himself is not to be 
 urged on him without reserve. 
 
 In these remarks I do not mean to 
 say that I should blame the slave for 
 rising at any moment against his master. 
 In so doing he would incur no guilt ; for 
 in his ignorance he cannot comprehend 
 why he should forbear. He would vin- 
 dicate an undoubted right. His rude 
 conscience would acquit him ; and far 
 be it from me to condemn ! But we,
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 887 
 
 who are more enlightened, who know 
 the consequences of revolt, should be- 
 ware of rousing that wild mass of de- 
 graded men to the assertion of their 
 rights. Such consequences humanity j 
 commands us to respect. Were it not j 
 for these, I would summon that mass as 
 loudly as any to escape. Could I by j 
 my words so awaken and guide the 
 millions of slaves that without violence 
 and bloodshed they could reach safely a 
 land of freedom and order, I would shout 
 in thunder-tones, " Fly ! Fly ! " But it 
 is not given us thus to act in human 
 affairs. It is not given us to enter and 
 revolutionize a state, to subvert old in- 
 stitutions and plant new, without carry- 
 ing with us strife, tumult, bloodshed, 
 horrible crimes. The law of humanity, 
 then, restrains us from this direct agency 
 on other states. It restrains us from 
 abandoning ourselves to our zeal for the 
 oppressed. It restrains us from kind- 
 ling the passions of the slave. It com- 
 mands us to teach him patience and 
 love. 
 
 May I here be allowed a moment's 
 digression, which, indeed, has impor- 
 tant connections with the whole subject ? 
 The principle now laid down helps us to 
 comprehend the language of the New 
 Testament on the subject of slavery. 
 The slave is again and again com- 
 manded by the Apostle to obey, and for- 
 bidden to purloin, or to answer rudely ; 
 and from such passages it has been 
 argued that Christianity sanctions sla- 
 very. But the great question is, On 
 what grounds for what reasons, do the 
 Scriptures enjoin obedience on the slave ? 
 Do they do so on the ground of any 
 right of property in the master? This 
 is the single question. Not an intima- 
 tion to this effect is found in the Script- 
 ures. They teach the slave to obey, not 
 because he is a chattel, not because he 
 is bound by human laws of property, 
 but because he is bound by the Chris- 
 tian law of humanity and love ; because 
 he is bound everywhere to manifest a 
 spirit of mildness and charity, and in 
 this way to express the divine, elevating 
 influences of his new religion. 
 
 At the introduction of Christianity 
 slavery was an unutterable abomination, 
 more horrible than what exists now. 
 Good and great men, refined women, 
 were then liable to be reduced to bond- 
 age. On the conquest of a country, not 
 
 only were prisoners of war sold as slaves 
 without regard to rank or character, but, 
 as in the case of Judea, the mass of the 
 peaceful population were doomed to the 
 yoke. To suppose that the Apostles of 
 Christ intended to sanction this infernal 
 system is an insult to those generous 
 men, and a blasphemy against our pure 
 and merciful faith. But slavery was 
 then so inwoven into the institutions of 
 society, the dangers and horrors of a 
 servile war were so great, the conse- 
 quences of a proclamation of universal 
 liberty would have been so terrible, the 
 perils to the cause of Christianity, had 
 it been so taught, would have been so 
 imminent, and the motives for manifest- 
 ing Christianity, at its birth, as a spirit 
 of unbounded meekness and love, were 
 so urgent, that the Apostles inculcated 
 on the slaves an obedience free from 
 every taint of dishonesty, wrath, or re- 
 venge. Their great motive, as they 
 stated it, was, that Christianity might 
 not be spoken against, that it might be 
 seen breathing love and uprightness into 
 men whose circumstances were pecul- 
 iarly fitted to goad them to anger and re- 
 venge. 
 
 To suppose that the Apostles recog- 
 nized the right of the master, because 
 they taught mildness and patience to 
 the slave, is to show a strange ignorance 
 of the New Testament. Our religion, 
 in its hostility to a spirit of retaliation, 
 violence, and cevenge, enforces submis- 
 sion and patience as strongly on the free 
 as on the slave. It says to us : " If a 
 man smite thee on thy right cheek, turn 
 to him the other also. If he take away 
 thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 
 And whosoever shall compel thee to go 
 a mile, go with him twain." Is this a 
 recognition of our neighbor's right to 
 smite us, to take our coat, and compel 
 us to go a mile for his convenience ? 
 
 Christianity has extended the law of 
 humanity to a degree never dreamed of 
 in earlier times, and but faintly compre- 
 hended now. It requires us all to love 
 and serve our enemies, and to submit 
 to unjust government, in language so 
 strong and unqualified as to furnish an 
 objection to its opposers ; and in all 
 these requisitions it has but one end, 
 which is, to inspire the sufferer with 
 forbearance and humanity, not to assert 
 a right in the wrong-doer. 
 
 When I consider the tenderness which
 
 888 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 Christianity enjoins towards the injuri- 
 ous, I cannot but shrink from the light- 
 ness with which some speak of insur- 
 rection at the South. Were I to visit 
 the slave, I should in every way dis- 
 courage the spirit of violence and re- 
 venge. I should say : " Resist not evil ; 
 obey your master ; forgive your ene- 
 mies ; put off wrath and hatred ; put 
 on meekness and love ; do not lie or 
 steal ; govern your passions ; be kind 
 to one another ; by your example and 
 counsels lift up the degraded around 
 you ; be true to your wives, and loving 
 to your children. And do not deem 
 your lot in every view the worst on 
 earth ; the time is coming when it will 
 be found better to have been a slave 
 than a master ; better to have borne 
 the yoke than to have laid it on another. 
 God regards you with mercy ; he offers 
 you his best blessings ; ' He resisteth 
 the proud, but giveth grace to the hum- 
 ble.' " 
 
 From all these views I am bound to 
 discourage all action on the slaves on 
 the part of those who reside in other 
 States. When the individual slave flees 
 to us, let us rejoice in his safe and inno- 
 cent flight. But with the millions of 
 slaves in the land of bondage we cannot 
 intermeddle without incurring imminent 
 peril. The evil is too vast, rooted, com- 
 plicated, terrible, for strangers to deal 
 with, except by that moral influence 
 which we are authorized and bound to 
 oppose firmly and fearlessly to all op- 
 pression. We may and ought to mourn 
 over the chain which weighs down mill- 
 ions of our brethren, and to rouse the 
 sympathies and convictions of the world 
 in aid of their violated rights. Our 
 moral power we must not cease to op- 
 pose to the master's claim ; but the free 
 States must not touch this evil by legis- 
 lation or physical power, or by any direct 
 agency on the servile population. God 
 has marked out our sphere of duty ; 
 and no passionate sense of injustice, no 
 burning desire to redress wrong, must 
 carry us beyond it. Having fully done 
 the work given us to do, we must leave 
 the evil to the control of Him who has 
 infinite, means of controlling it, whose 
 almighty justice can shiver the chain of 
 adamant as a wreath of mist is scattered 
 by the whirlwind. 
 
 I have thus set forth what seem to me 
 the chief duties of the free States in re- 
 
 gard to slavery. First, they must insist 
 on such constructions of the Constitu- 
 tion as will save our own citizens from 
 the grasp of this institution, as will pre- 
 vent the extension of the powers of the 
 government for its support beyond our 
 own shores, and as will bring to an end 
 slavery and the slave-trade in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia ; and secondly, we 
 must insist on such modifications of the 
 Constitution as will exempt us from every 
 obligation to sustain and strengthen sla- 
 very, whilst at the same time we give 
 every pledge not to use our relation to 
 the slave-holder as a means of acting on 
 the slave. These are solemn duties, not 
 to the slaves only or chiefly, but to our- 
 selves also. They involve our peace at 
 home and abroad. They touch alike our 
 rights and interests. On our perform- 
 ance of these depend the perpetuity of 
 the Union and our rank among nations. 
 Slavery, if it shall continue to be a na- 
 tional concern, and to insinuate itself 
 into our domestic policy, will prove more 
 and more a firebrand, a torch of the 
 Furies. The agitation which it has 
 produced is but the beginning of evils. 
 Nothing but the separation of it from 
 our federal system can give us peace. 
 
 The immediate purpose of these re- 
 marks has been answered. But the 
 topic of the duties of the free States in 
 relation to slavery has started various 
 thoughts, and brought to view other 
 duties more or less connected with my 
 primary object ; and as I have no desire 
 to communicate again my thoughts on 
 public affairs, I shall be glad to use this 
 opportunity of disburdening my mind. 
 My thoughts will arrange themselves 
 under three heads, which, however im- 
 perfectly treated, deserve serious at- 
 tention. 
 
 In the first place, the free States are 
 especially called to uphold the great 
 ideas or principles which distinguish 
 our country, and on which our Con- 
 stitution rests. This may be said to 
 be our highest political duty. Every 
 country is characterized by certain great 
 ideas which pervade the people and the 
 government, and by these chiefly its 
 rank is determined. When one idea 
 predominates strongly above all others, 
 it is a key to a nation's history. The 
 great idea of Rome that which the 
 child drank in with his mother's milk 
 was dominion. The great idea of
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 889 
 
 France is glory. In despotisms, the 
 idea of the king or the church possesses 
 itself of the minds of the people, and a 
 superstitious loyalty or piety becomes 
 the badge of the inhabitants. The most 
 interesting view of this country is the 
 grandeur of the idea which has deter- 
 mined its history, and which is expressed 
 in all its institutions. Take away this, 
 and we have nothing to distinguish 
 us. In the refined arts, in manners, in 
 works of genius, we are as yet surpassed. 
 From our youth and insulated position, 
 our history has no dazzling brilliancy. 
 But one distinction belongs to us. A 
 great idea from the beginning has been 
 working in the minds of this people, and 
 it broke forth with peculiar energy in 
 our Revolution. This is the idea of 
 human rights. In our Revolution liberty 
 was our watchword ; but not a lawless 
 liberty, not freedom from all restraint, 
 but a moral freedom. Liberty was 
 always regarded as each man's right, 
 imposing on every other man a moral 
 obligation to abstain from doing it 
 violence. Liberty and law were always 
 united in our minds. By government 
 we understood the concentration of the 
 power of the whole community to pro- 
 tect the rights of each and all its mem- 
 bers. This was the grand idea on which 
 all our institutions were built. We 
 believed that the rights of the people 
 were safest, and alone safe, in their own 
 keeping, and therefore we adopted popu- 
 lar forms. We looked, indeed, to gov- 
 ernment for the promotion of the public 
 welfare, as well as for the defence of 
 rights. But we felt that the former was 
 included in the latter ; that, in securing 
 to every man the largest liberty, the 
 right to exercise and improve all his 
 powers, to elevate himself and his con- 
 dition, and to govern himself, subject 
 only to the limitation which the equal 
 freedom of otliers imposes, we were 
 providing most effectually for the com- 
 mon good. It was felt that under this 
 moral freedom men's powers would 
 expand, and would secure to them im- 
 measurably greater good than could be 
 conferred by a government intermeddling 
 perpetually with the subject and impos- 
 ing minute restraints. 
 
 These views of human rights, which 
 pervade and light up our history, may 
 be expressed in one word. They are 
 summed up in respect for the individual 
 
 man. In all other countries the man 
 has been obscured, overpowered by 
 rulers, merged in the state, made a 
 means or tool. Here every man has 
 been recognized as having rights on 
 which no one can trench without crime. 
 The nation has recognized something 
 greater than the nation's prosperity, 
 than outward, material interests ; and 
 that is, individual right. In our Revo- 
 lution a dignity was seen in human 
 nature ; a generous confidence was 
 placed in men. It was believed that 
 they would attain to greater nobleness 
 by being left to govern themselves ; 
 that they would attain to greater piety 
 by being left to worship God according 
 to their own convictions ; that they 
 would attain to greater energy of intel- 
 lect, and to higher truths, by being left 
 to freedom of thought and utterance, 
 than by the wisest forms of arbitrary 
 rule. It was believed that a universal 
 expansion of the higher faculties was to 
 be secured by increasing men's respon- 
 sibilities, by giving them higher interests 
 to watch over, by throwing them very 
 much on themselves. Such is the grand 
 idea which lies at the root of our insti- 
 tutions ; such the fundamental doctrines 
 of the political creed into which we have 
 all been baptized. 
 
 It is to the free States that the guar- 
 dianship of this true faith peculiarly 
 belongs. Their institutions are most 
 in harmony with it ; and they need to 
 be reminded of this duty, because, 
 under the happiest circumstances, the 
 idea of human rights is easily ooscured ; 
 because there is always a tendency to 
 exalt worldly, material interests above 
 it. The recent history of the country 
 shows the worship of wealth taking the 
 place of reverence for liberty and uni- 
 versal justice. The free States ar& 
 called to watch against this peril, to 
 regard government, not as a machine for 
 creating wealth, for subserving indi- 
 vidual cupidity, for furnishing facilities 
 of boundless speculation, but as a moral 
 institution, designed to secure universal 
 right, to protect every man in the liber- 
 ties and immunities through which he is 
 to work out his highest good. 
 
 It must not, however, be imagined 
 that the great idea of our country is to 
 be wrought out or realized by govern- 
 ment alone. This is, indeed, an im- 
 portant instrument, but it does not cover
 
 890 
 
 777.5: DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 the whole field of human rights. The 
 most precious of these it can hardly 
 touch. Government is, after all, a 
 coarse machine, very narrow in its 
 operations, doing little for human ad- 
 vancement in comparison with other in- 
 fluences. A man has other rights than 
 those of property and person, which the 
 government takes under its protection. 
 He has a right to be regarded and 
 treated as a man, as a being who has 
 excellent powers and a high destiny. 
 He has a right to sympathy and defer- 
 ence, a right to be helped in the im- 
 provement of his nature, a right to share 
 in the intelligence of the community, a 
 right to the means, not only of bodily, but 
 of spiritual well-being. These rights a 
 government can do little to protect or aid. 
 Yet on these human progress chiefly 
 rests. To bring these into clear light, to 
 incorporate a reverential feeling for these, 
 not only into government, but into man- 
 ners and social life, this is the grand 
 work to which our country is called. 
 
 In this country the passion for wealth 
 is a mighty force, acting in hostility to 
 the great idea which rules in our insti- 
 tutions. Property continually tends to 
 become a more vivid idea than right. 
 In the struggle for private accumulation 
 the worth of every human being is over- 
 looked, the importance of every man's 
 progress is forgotten. We must con- 
 tend for this great idea. They who 
 hold it must spread it around them. 
 The truth must be sounded in the ears 
 of men, that the grand end of society is, 
 to place 'within reach of all its members 
 the means of improvement, of elevation, 
 of the true happiness of man. There is 
 a higher duty than to build almshouses 
 for the poor, and that is, to save men 
 from being degraded to the blighting 
 influence of an almshouse. Man has a 
 right to something more than bread to 
 keep him from starving. He has a 
 right to the aids and encouragements 
 and culture by which he may fulfil the 
 destiny of a man ; and until society is 
 brought to recognize and reverence this, 
 it will continue to groan under its present 
 miseries. 
 
 Let me repeat, that government alone 
 cannot realize the great idea of this 
 country ; that is, cannot secure to every 
 man all his rights. Legislation has its 
 limits. It is a power to be wielded 
 against a few evils only. It acts by 
 
 physical force, and all the higher im- 
 provements of human beings come from 
 truth and love. Government does little 
 more than place society in a condition 
 which favors the action of higher powers 
 than its own. A great idea may be 
 stamped on the government, and be 
 contradicted in common life. It is very 
 possible under popular forms that a 
 spirit of exclusiveness and of contempt 
 for the multitude, that impassable social 
 barriers, and the degradation of large 
 masses, may continue as truly as under 
 aristocratic forms. The spirit of soci- 
 ety, not an outward institution, is the 
 mighty power by which the hard lot of 
 man is to be meliorated. The great 
 idea, that every human being has a- 
 right to the means of exercising and 
 improving his highest powers, must 
 pass from a cold speculation into a 
 living conviction, and then society will 
 begin in earnest to accomplish its end. 
 This great idea exists as yet only as a 
 germ, in the most advanced commu- 
 nities, and is working faintly. But it 
 cannot die. We hear, indeed, much de- 
 sponding language about society. The 
 cant of the day is the cant of indiffer- 
 ence or despair. But let it not dis- 
 courage us. It is, indeed, possible that 
 this country may sink beneath the work 
 imposed on it by Providence, and. in- 
 stead of bringing the world into its debt, 
 may throw new darkness over human 
 hope. But great ideas, once brought 
 to light, do not die. The multitude of 
 men through the civilized world are 
 catching some glimpses, however in- 
 distinct, of a higher lot ; are waking up 
 to something higher than animal good. 
 There is springing up an aspiration 
 among them, which, however dreaded 
 as a dangerous restlessness, is the nat- 
 ural working of the human spirit, when- 
 ever it emerges from gross ignorance, 
 and seizes on some vague idea of its 
 rights. Thank God ! it is natural for 
 man to aspire ; and this aspiration ceases 
 to be dangerous just in proportion as 
 the intelligent members of society in- 
 terpret it aright, and respond to it, and 
 give themselves to the work of raising 
 their brethren. If, through self-indul- 
 gence or pride, they decline this work, 
 the aspiration will not cease ; but, grow- 
 ing up under resistance or contempt, it 
 may become a spirit of hostility, con- 
 flict, revenge.
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 891 
 
 The fate of this country depends on 
 nothing so much as on the growth or 
 decline of the great idea which lies at 
 the foundation of all our institutions, 
 the idea of the sacredness of every 
 man's right, the respect due to every 
 human being. This exists among us. 
 It has stamped itself on government. 
 It is now to stamp itself on manners 
 and common life, a far harder work. 
 It will then create a society such as 
 men have not anticipated, but which is 
 not to be despaired of, if Christianity 
 be divine, or if the highest aspirations 
 of the soul be true. It is only in the 
 free States that the great idea of which 
 I have spoken can be followed out. It 
 is denied openly, flagrantly, where sla- 
 very exists. To be true to it is our first 
 political, social duty. 
 
 I proceed to another important topic, 
 and that is, the duty of the free States 
 in relation to the Union. They and the 
 slave-holding States constitute one peo- 
 ple. Is this tie to continue, or to be 
 dissolved ? It cannot be disguised that 
 this subject is growing into importance. 
 The South has talked recklessly about 
 disunion. The more quiet North has 
 said little, but thought more ; and there 
 are now not a few who speak of the 
 Union as doomed to dissolution, whilst 
 a few seem disposed to hasten the evil 
 day. Some approach the subject, not 
 as politicians, but as religious men, 
 bound first to inquire into the moral 
 fitness of political arrangements ; and 
 they have come to the conclusion that 
 a union with States sustaining slavery 
 is unjust, and ought to be renounced, at 
 whatever cost. That the Union is in 
 danger is not to be admitted. Its 
 strength would be made manifest by 
 the attempt to dissolve it. But any 
 thing which menaces it deserves atten- 
 tion. So great a good should be exposed 
 to no hazard which can be shunned. 
 
 The Union is an inestimable good. 
 It is to be prized for its own sake, to 
 be prized, not merely or chiefly for its 
 commercial benefits or any pecuniary 
 advantages, but simply as union, simply 
 as a pacific relation between commu- 
 nities which without this tie would be 
 exposed to ruinous collisions. To secure 
 this boon we should willingly make great 
 sacrifices. So full of crime and misery 
 are hostile relations between neighbor- 
 ing rival states that a degree of mis- 
 
 government should be preferred to the 
 danger of conflict. Disunion would not 
 only embroil us with one another, but 
 with foreign nations ; for these States, 
 once divided, would connect themselves 
 with foreign powers, which would profit 
 by our jealousies, and involve our whole 
 policy in inextricable confusion. 
 
 There are some among us who are 
 unwilling to be connected with States 
 sustaining so great a wrong as slavery. 
 But if the North can be exempted from 
 obligation to sustain it, we ought not to 
 make its existence at the South aground 
 of separation. The doctrine, that inti- 
 mate political connection is not to be 
 maintained with men practising a great 
 wrong, would lead to the dissolution of 
 all government, and of civil society. 
 Every nation, great or small, contains 
 multitudes who practise wrongs ; nor is 
 it possible to exclude such from politi- 
 cal power. Injustice, if not the ruling 
 element in human affairs, has yet a 
 fearful influence. In popular govern- 
 ments the ambitious and intriguing often 
 bear sway. Men who are ready to sac- 
 rifice quiet and domestic comforts and 
 all other interests to political place and 
 promotion, will snatch the prize from 
 uncompromising, modest virtue. In our 
 present low civilization a community has 
 no pledge of being governed by its virtue. 
 In free governments parties are the 
 means of power, and a country can fall 
 under few more immoral influences than 
 party-spirit. Without a deep moral rev- 
 olution in society, we must continue to 
 be ruled very imperfectly. In truth, 
 among the darkest mysteries of Provi- 
 dence are the crimes and woes flowing 
 from the organization of men into states, 
 from our subjection to human rule. 
 The very vices of men which make 
 government needful unfit them to gov- 
 ern. Government is only to be endured 
 on account of the greater evils of anar- 
 chy which it prevents. It is no suffi- 
 cient reason, then, for breaking from 
 the slave-holding States, that they prac- 
 tise a great wrong. 
 
 Besides, are not the purposes of Prov- 
 idence often accomplished by the asso- 
 ciation of the good with the compara- 
 tively bad ? Is the evil man, or the evil 
 community, to be excluded from broth- 
 erly feeling, to be treated as an outcast 
 by the more innocent ? Would not this 
 argue a want of faith and love, rather
 
 892 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 than a just abhorrence of wrong ? Un- 
 doubtedly the good are to free them- 
 selves from participation in crime ; but 
 they are not therefore to sever human 
 ties, or renounce the means of moral 
 influence. 
 
 With whom can we associate, if we 
 will have no fellowship with wrong- 
 doing ? Can a new confederacy be 
 formed which will exclude selfishness, 
 jealousy, intrigue ? Do not all confed- 
 eracies provoke among their members 
 keen competitions for power, and induce 
 unjust means of securing it ? On the 
 whole, has not our present Union been 
 singularly free from the collisions which 
 naturally spring from such close politi- 
 cal connection ? Would a smaller num- 
 ber of States be more likely to agree ? 
 Do we not owe to the extent of the 
 Union the singular fact, that no State 
 has inspired jealousy by disproportionate 
 influence or power ? 
 
 The South, indeed, is wedded to an 
 unjust institution. But the South is 
 not, therefore, another name for injus- 
 tice. Slave-holding is not the only rela- 
 tion of its inhabitants. They are bound 
 together by the various and most inter- 
 esting ties of life. They are parents 
 and children, husbands and wives, 
 friends, neighbors, members of the 
 state, members of the Christian body ; 
 and in all these relations there may be 
 found models of purity and virtue. How 
 many among ourselves, who must at any 
 rate form part of a political body, and 
 fill the highest places in the state, fall 
 short of multitudes at the South in 
 moral and religious principle ! * 
 
 Form what confederacy we may, it 
 will often pledge us to the wrong side. 
 Its powers will often be perverted. The 
 majority will be seduced again and again 
 into crime ; and incorruptible men, po- 
 litically weak, will be compelled to con- 
 tent themselves with what will seem 
 wasted remonstrance. No paradise 
 opens itself, if we leave our union with 
 the corrupt South. A corrupt North 
 will be leagued together to act out the 
 evil, as well as the good, which is at 
 work in its members. A mournful 
 amount of moral evil is to be found 
 through this part of the country. The 
 spirit of commerce, which is the spirit 
 of the North, has lately revealed the 
 tendencies to guilt which it involves. 
 
 * See Note E at end of this article- 
 
 We are taught that, however covered 
 up with the name of honor, however 
 restrained by considerations of reputa- 
 tion and policy, trade may undermine 
 integrity to an extent which shakes the 
 confidence of the unthinking in all hu- 
 man virtue. 
 
 The fiery passions which have broken 
 out at the South since the agitation of 
 the slavery question have alienated many 
 among us from that part of the country. 
 But these prove no singular perverseness 
 or corruption. What else could have 
 been expected ? Was it to be imagined 
 that a proud, fiery people could hear 
 patiently one of their oldest and most 
 rooted institutions set down among the 
 greatest wrongs and oppressions ? that 
 men holding the highest rank would 
 consent to bear the reproach of tramp- 
 ling right and humanity in the dust ? 
 Do men at the North, good or bad, aban- 
 don without a struggle advantages con- 
 firmed to them by long prescription ? 
 Do they easily relinquish gainful voca- 
 tions on which the moral sentiment of 
 the community begins to frown ? Is it 
 easy to bring down the exalted from the 
 chief seats in society ? to overcome the 
 pride of caste ? to disarm the prejudices ' 
 of a sect ? Is human nature among our- 
 selves easily dispossessed of early pre- 
 possessions, and open to rebuke ? That 
 the South should react with violence 
 against antislavery doctrines was the 
 most natural thing in the world ; and 
 the very persons whose consciences 
 were the most reconciled to the evil, 
 who least suspected wrong in the insti- 
 tution, were likely to feel themselves 
 most aggrieved. The exasperated jeal- 
 ousies of the South in regard to the 
 North are such as spring up universally 
 towards communities of different habits, 
 principles, and feelings, which have got 
 the start of their neighbors, and take 
 the liberty to reprove them. Allow the 
 South to be passionate. Passion is not 
 the worst vice on the earth, nor are a 
 fiery people the greatest offenders. 
 Such evils are not the most enduring. 
 Conflagrations in communities, as in the 
 forest, die out sooner or later. 
 
 Perhaps we have not felt enough how 
 tender are the points which the antisla- 
 very movement has touched at the 
 South. The slave is property ; and to 
 how many men everywhere is property 
 dearer than life ! Nor is this all. The
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 893 
 
 slave is not only the object of cupidity, 
 but of a stronger passion, the passion 
 for power. The slave-holder is not 
 only an owner, but a master. He rules, 
 he wields an absolute sceptre ; and when 
 have men yielded empire without con- 
 flict ? Would the North make such a 
 sacrifice more cheerfully than the South ? 
 
 To judge justly of the violence of the 
 South, another consideration must not 
 be overlooked. It must be acknowl- 
 edged that abundant fuel has been min- 
 istered to the passions of the slave- 
 holder by the vehemence with which 
 his domestic institutions were assailed 
 at the North. No deference was paid to 
 his sensitiveness, his dignity. The 
 newly-awakened sympathy with the slave 
 not only denied the rights, but set at 
 nought all the feelings of the master. 
 That a gentle or more courteous ap- 
 proach would have softened him is not 
 said : but that the whole truth might 
 have been spoken in tones less offensive 
 cannot be questioned ; so that we who 
 have opposed slavery are responsible in 
 part for the violence which has offended 
 us. 
 
 No ! the spirit of the South furnishes 
 no argument for dissolving the Union. 
 That States less prosperous than our- 
 selves should be jealous of movements 
 directed from this quarter against their 
 institutions is not strange. We must 
 imagine ourselves in the position of the 
 South, to judge of the severity of the 
 trial. We must not forget that, to the 
 multitude there, slavery seems, if not 
 right in itself, yet an irremediable evil. 
 They look at it in the light of habit, and 
 of opinions which prevailed in times of 
 darkness and despotism. With such 
 prepossessions, how could they but repel 
 the zeal of Northern reformers ? 
 
 It seems to be thought by some that 
 the diversities of character between the 
 South and North unfit them for political 
 union. That diversities exist is true ; 
 but they are such as by mutual action 
 and modification may ultimately form a 
 greater people. It is by the fusion of 
 various attributes that rich and noble 
 characters are formed. The different 
 sections of our country need to be mod- 
 ified by one another's influence. The 
 South is ardent ; the North calmer and 
 more foreseeing. The South has quicker 
 sympathies ; the North does more good. 
 The South commits the individual more 
 
 to his own arm of defence ; at the North 
 the idea of law has greater sanctity. 
 The South has a freer and more grace- 
 ful bearing, and a higher aptitude for 
 genial, social intercourse ; the North 
 has its compensation in superior domes- 
 tic virtues and enjoyments. The cour- 
 age of the South is more impetuous ; of 
 the North more stubborn. The South 
 has more of the self-glorifying spirit of 
 the French ; the North, like England, 
 is at once too proud and too diffident to 
 boast. We of the North are a more 
 awkward, shy, stiff, and steady race, 
 with a liberal intermixture of enthusi- 
 asm, enterprise, reflection, and quiet 
 heroism ; whilst the South is franker, 
 bolder, more fervent, more brilliant, and 
 of course more attractive to strangers, 
 and more fitted for social influence. 
 
 Such comparisons must, indeed, be 
 made with large allowances. The ex- 
 ceptions to the common character are 
 numerous at the North and the South, 
 and the shades of distinction are grow- 
 ing fainter. But climate, that mysteri- 
 ous agent on the spirit, will never suffer 
 these diversities wholly to disappear ; 
 nor is it best that they should be lost. 
 A nation with these different elements 
 will have a richer history, and is more 
 likely to adopt a wise and liberal policy 
 that will do justice to our whole nature. 
 The diversities between the two sections 
 of the community are inducements, rather 
 than objections, , to union ; for narrow 
 and homogeneous communities are apt 
 to injure and degrade themselves by 
 stubborn prejudices, and by a short- 
 sighted, selfish concern for their special 
 interests ; and it is well for them to 
 form connections which will help or 
 force them to look far and wide, to 
 make compromises and sacrifices, and 
 to seek a larger good. 
 
 We have a strong argument for con- 
 tinued union in the almost insuperable 
 difficulties which would follow its dis- 
 solution. To the young and inexperi- 
 enced the formation of new confederacies 
 and new governments passes for an easy 
 task. It seems to be thought that a 
 political union may be got up as easily 
 as a marriage. But love is the magician 
 which levels all the mountains of diffi- 
 culty in the latter case ; and no love, 
 too often nothing but selfishness, acts 
 in the former. 
 
 Let the Union be dissolved, and new
 
 8 9 4 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES, 
 
 federal governments must be framed ; 
 and we have little reason to anticipate 
 better than we now enjoy. Not that 
 our present Constitution is, what it is 
 sometimes called, the perfection of po- 
 litical skill. It is the first experiment 
 of a purely representative system ; and 
 first experiments are almost necessarily 
 imperfect. Future ages may smile at our 
 blameless model of government. A more 
 skilful machinery, more effectual checks, 
 wiser distributions and modifications of 
 power, are probably to be taught the world 
 by our experience. But our experience 
 has as yet been too short to bring us this 
 wisdom, whilst the circumstances of the 
 present moment are any thing but pro- 
 pitious to an improvement on the work 
 of our fathers. 
 
 The work of framing a government, 
 even in favorable circumstances, is one 
 of the most arduous committed to man. 
 The construction of the simplest form 
 of polity, or of institutions for a single 
 community in rude stages of society, 
 demands rare wisdom ; and accordingly 
 the renown of legislators transcends all 
 other fame in history. But to construct 
 a government for a confederacy of states, 
 of nations, in a highly complex and arti- 
 ficial state of society, is a Herculean 
 task. The federal Constitution was a 
 higher achievement than the assertion 
 of our independence in the field of bat- 
 tle. If we can point to any portion of 
 our history as indicating a special Divine 
 Providence, it was the consent of so 
 many communities to a frame of govern- 
 ment combining such provisions for hu- 
 man rights and happiness as we now 
 enjoy. 
 
 Break up this Union, reduce these 
 States, now doubled in number, to a 
 fragmentary form, and who can hope 
 to live long enough to see a harmonious 
 reconstruction of them into new confed- 
 eracies ? We know how the present 
 Constitution was obstructed by the jeal- 
 ousies and passions of States and in- 
 dividuals. But if these were so formid- 
 able at the end of a struggle against a 
 common foe which had knit all hearts, 
 what is not to be dreaded from the 
 distrusts which must follow the conflicts 
 and exasperations of the last fifty years, 
 and the agony of separation ? It is no 
 reproach on the people to say, that 
 nearly fifty years of peace and trade 
 and ambition and prosperity have not 
 
 nourished as ardent a patriotism as the 
 revolutionary struggle ; for this is a 
 necessary result of the principles of 
 human nature. We should come to 
 our work more selfishly than our fathers 
 approached theirs. Our interests, too, 
 are now more complicated, various, in- 
 terfering, so that a compromise would 
 be harder. We have lost much of the 
 simplicity of a former time, and our 
 public men are greater proficients in 
 intrigue. Were there natural divisions 
 of the country which would determine 
 at once the new arrangements of power, 
 the difficulty would be less ; but the 
 new confederacies would be sufficiently 
 arbitrary to open a wide field to selfish 
 plotters. Who that knows the obstacles 
 which passion, selfishness, and corrup- 
 tion throw in the way of a settled gov- 
 ernment will desire to encounter the 
 chances and perils of constructing a 
 new system under all these disadvan- 
 tages ? 
 
 There is another circumstance which 
 renders it undesirable now to break up 
 the present order of things. The minds 
 of men everywhere are at this moment 
 more than usually unsettled. There is 
 much questioning of the past and the 
 established, and a disposition to push 
 principles to extremes, without regard 
 to the modifications which other prin- 
 ciples and a large experience demand. 
 There is a blind confidence in the power 
 of man's will and wisdom over society, 
 an overweening faith in legislation, a 
 disposition to look to outward arrange- 
 ments for that melioration of human 
 affairs which can come only from the 
 culture and progress of the soul, a hope 
 of making by machinery what is and 
 must be a, slow, silent growth. Such a 
 time is not the best for constructing 
 governments and new confederacies. 
 
 We are, especially, passing through a 
 stage of political speculation or opinion, 
 which is. indeed, necessary under such 
 institutions, and which may be expected 
 to give place to higher wisdom, but 
 which is not the most propitious for the 
 formation of political institutions. I 
 refer to false notions as to democracy, 
 and as to its distinctive benefits, no- 
 tions which ought not to surprise us, be- 
 cause a people are slow to learn the true 
 character and spirit of their institutions, 
 and generally acquire this, as all other 
 knowledge, by some painful experience.
 
 THE DUTY OF THE P/.EE STATES. 
 
 895 
 
 It is a common notion here, as else- 
 where, that it is a grand privilege to 
 govern, to exercise political power ; and 
 that popular institutions have this spe- 
 cial benefit, that they confer the honor 
 and pleasure of sovereignty on the 
 greatest number possible. The people 
 are pleased at the thought of being 
 rulers ; and hence all obstructions to 
 their immediate, palpable ruling are re- 
 garded with jealousy. It is a grand 
 thing, they fancy, to have their share 
 of kingship. Now this is wrong, a 
 pernicious error. It is no privilege to 
 govern, but a fearful responsibility, and 
 seldom assumed without guilt. The 
 great good to be sought and hoped from 
 popular institutions is, to be freed from 
 unnecessary rule, to be governed with 
 no reference to the glory or gratification 
 of the sovereign power. The grand 
 good of popular institutions is liberty, 
 or the protection of every man's rights 
 to the full, with the least possible re- 
 straint. Sovereignty, wherever lodged, 
 is not a thing to be proud of, or to be 
 stretched a hand's-breadth beyond need. 
 If I am to be hedged in on every side, 
 to be fretted by the perpetual presence 
 of arbitrary will, to be denied the exer- 
 cise of my powers, it matters nothing to 
 me whether the chain is laid on me by 
 one or many, by king or people. A 
 despot is not more tolerable for his 
 many heads. 
 
 Democracy, considered in itself, is 
 the noblest form of government, and the 
 only one to satisfy a man who respects 
 himself and his fellow-creatures. But 
 if its actual operation be regarded, we 
 are compelled to say that it works very 
 imperfectly. It is true of people, as it 
 is of king and nobles, that they have no 
 great capacity of government. They 
 ought not to exult at the thought of be- 
 ing rulers, but to content themselves 
 with swaying the sceptre within as nar- 
 row limits as the public safety may re- 
 quire. They should tremble at this 
 function of government, should exercise 
 it with self-distrust, and be humbled by 
 the defects of their administration. 
 
 I am not impatient of law. One law 
 I reverence that divine, eternal law 
 written on the rational soul, and re- 
 vealed with a celestial brightness in the 
 word and life of Jesus Christ. But hu- 
 man rulers, be they many or few, are 
 apt to pay little heed to this law. They 
 
 do not easily surrender to it their inter- 
 ests and ambition. It is dethroned in 
 cabinets, and put to silence in halls of 
 legislation. In the sphere of politics, 
 even men generally good dispense un- 
 scrupulously with a pure morality, and 
 of consequence we all have an interest 
 in the limitation of political power. 
 
 Such views teach us that one of the 
 first lessons to be taught to a people 
 in a democracy is self-distrust. They 
 should learn that to rule is the most dif- 
 ficult work on earth ; that in all ages 
 and countries men have sunk under the 
 temptations and difficulties of the task ; 
 that no power is so corrupting as public 
 power, and that none should be used 
 with greater fear. 
 
 By democracy, we understand that a 
 people governs itself ; and the primary, 
 fundamental act required of a people is, 
 that it shall lay such restraints on its 
 own powers as will give the best security 
 against their abuse. This is the highest 
 purpose of a popular constitution. A 
 constitution is not merely a machinery 
 for ascertaining and expressing a peo- 
 ple's will, but much more a provision 
 for keeping that will within righteous 
 bounds. It is the act of a people im- 
 posing limits on itself, setting guard on 
 its own passions, and throwing obstruc- 
 tions in the way of legislation, so as to 
 compel itself to pause, to deliberate, to 
 hear all remonstrances, to weigh all 
 rights and interests, before it acts. A 
 constitution not framed on these princi- 
 ples must fail of its end. Now at the 
 present moment these sound maxims 
 have lost much of their authority. The 
 people, flattered into blindness, have for- 
 gotten their passionateness, and prone- 
 ness to abuse power. The wholesome 
 restraints laid by the present Constitu- 
 tion on popular impulse are losing their 
 force, and we have reason to fear that 
 new constitutions formed at the present 
 moment would want, more than our 
 present national charter, the checks and 
 balances on which safety depends. 
 
 A wise man knows himself to be 
 weak, and lays down rules of life which 
 meet his peculiar temptation. So should 
 a people do. A people is in danger 
 from fickleness and passion. The great 
 evil to be feared in a popular govern- 
 ment is instability, or the sacrifice of 
 great principles to momentary impulses. 
 A constitution which does not apply
 
 896 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 checks and restraints to these perils 
 cannot stand. Our present Constitution 
 has many wise provisions of this char- 
 acter. The division of the legislature 
 into two branches, and the forms which 
 retard legislation, are of great value. 
 But what constitutes the peculiar ad- 
 vantage of the distinction of legislative 
 chambers is, that the Senate has so 
 different a character from the House 
 of Representatives ; that it represents 
 States, not individuals ; that it is chosen 
 by legislatures, not by primary assem- 
 blies ; and that the term of a senator's 
 service is three times the length of that 
 of the popular branch. The Senate is 
 one of the chief conservative powers 
 in the government. It has two grand 
 functions, one to watch the rights of 
 the several States, and the other, not 
 less important, to resist the fluctuations 
 of the popular branch. The Senate is 
 a power raised for a time by the people 
 above their own passions, that it may 
 secure stability to the administration of 
 affairs. Now this function of the Sen- 
 ate has been seriously impaired by 
 the doctrine of " Instructions," a doc- 
 trine destroying moral independence, 
 and making the senator a passive re- 
 cipient of momentary impulses which it 
 may be his highest duty to withstand. 
 This doctrine is in every view hurtful. 
 A man in public life should as far as 
 possible be placed under influences 
 which give him dignity of mind, self- 
 respect, and a deep feeling of responsi- 
 bility. He should go to the nation's 
 council with a mind open to all the light 
 which is concentrated there, to study 
 and promote the broad interests of the 
 nation. He is not to work as a mere 
 tool, to be an echo of the varying voices 
 at a distance, but to do what seems to 
 him right, and to answer to his constit- 
 uents for his conduct at the appointed 
 hour for yielding up his trust. Yet 
 were new institutions to be framed at 
 this moment, would not the people for- 
 get the restraint which they should im- 
 pose on themselves, and the respect due 
 to their delegates ? and, from attaching 
 a foolish self-importance to the act of 
 governing, would they not give to their 
 momentary feelings more and more the 
 conduct of public affairs ? 
 
 The Constitution contains another 
 provision of wise self-distrust on the 
 part of the people, in the power of the 
 
 veto intrusted to the President. The 
 President is the only representative of 
 the people's unity. He is the head of 
 the nation. He has nothing to do with 
 Districts or States, but to look with an 
 equal eye on the whole country. To 
 him is intrusted a limited negative on 
 the two chambers, a negative not 
 simply designed to guard his own power 
 from encroachment, but to correct par- 
 tial legislation, and to be a barrier 
 against invasions of the Constitution 
 by extensive combinations of interest 
 or ambition. Every department should 
 be a check on legislation ; but this salu- 
 tary power there is a disposition to 
 wrest from the executive, and it would 
 hardly find a place in a new confed- 
 eracy. 
 
 The grand restraining, conservative 
 power of the state remains to be men- 
 tioned; it is the judiciary. This is worth 
 more to the people than any other de- 
 partment. The impartial administration 
 of a good code of laws is the grand re- 
 sult, the paramount good, to which all 
 political arrangements should be subor- 
 dinate. The reign of justice, which is 
 the reign of rights and liberty, is the 
 great boon we should ask from the 
 state. The judicial is the highest func- 
 tion. The chief justice should rank be- 
 fore king or president. The pomp of a 
 palace maybe dispensed with ; but every 
 imposing solemnity consistent with the 
 simplicity of our manners should be com- 
 bined in the hall where the laws which 
 secure every man's rights are admin- 
 istered. To accomplish the great end 
 of government, nothing is so important 
 as to secure the impartiality and moral 
 independence of judges ; and for this 
 end they should be appointed for life, 
 subject to removal only for violation of 
 duty. This is essential. A judge should 
 not hang on the smiles of king or people. 
 In him the people should erect a power 
 above their own temporary will. There 
 ought to be in the state something to 
 represent the majesty of that stable, 
 everlasting law to which all alike should 
 bow ; some power above the sordid in- 
 terests, and aloof from the struggles and 
 intrigues of ordinary public life. The 
 dependence of the judge on the breath 
 of party or the fleeting passions of the 
 people is a deformity in the state, for 
 which no other excellence in popular in- 
 stitutions can make compensation. The
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 897 
 
 grandest spectacle in this country is the 
 judiciary power, raised by the people to 
 independence of parties and temporary 
 majorities, taking as its first guide the 
 national charter, the fundamental law, 
 which no parties can touch, which stands 
 like a rock amidst the fluctuations of 
 opinion, and determining by this the 
 validity of the laws enacted by transient 
 legislatures. Here is the conservative 
 element of the country. Yet it is seri- 
 ously proposed to destroy the indepen- 
 dence of the judiciary power, to make 
 the judge a pensioner on party, by mak- 
 ing the office elective for a limited time ; 
 and it is not impossible that this perni- 
 cious feature might be impressed on new 
 institutions which might spring up at the 
 present time. 
 
 This language will not win me the. 
 name of Democrat. But I am not anx- 
 ious to bear any name into which gov- 
 ernment enters as the great idea. I want 
 as little government as consists with 
 safety to the rights of all. I wish the 
 people to govern no farther than they 
 must. I wish them to place all checks 
 on the legislature which consist with 
 its efficiency. I honor the passion for 
 power and rule as little in the people 
 as in a king. It is a vicious principle, 
 exist where it may. If by democracy be 
 meant the exercise of sovereignty by the 
 people under all those provisions and 
 self-imposed restraints which tend most 
 to secure equal laws and the rights of 
 each and all, then I shall be proud to 
 bear its name. But the unfettered mul- 
 titude is not dearer to me than the un- 
 fettered king. And yet at the present 
 moment there is a tendency to remove 
 the restraints on which the wise and 
 righteous exertion of the people's power 
 depends. 
 
 The sum of what I have wished to 
 say is, that the union of these States 
 should, if possible, be kept inviolate, on 
 the ground of the immense difficulty of 
 constructing new confederacies and new 
 governments. The present state of 
 men's minds is not favorable to this 
 most arduous task. Other considera- 
 tions m'ight be urged against disunion. 
 But in all this I do not mean that union 
 is to be held fast at whatever cost. Vast 
 sacrifices should be made to it, but not 
 the sacrifice of duty. For one, I do not 
 wish it to continue, if, after earnest, 
 faithful effort, the truth should be made 
 
 clear, that the free States are not to be 
 absolved from giving support to slavery. 
 Better that we should part, than be the 
 police of the slave-holder, than fight his 
 battles, than wage war to uphold an op- 
 pressive institution. 
 
 So I say, let the Union be dissevered 
 rather than receive Texas into the con- 
 federacy. This measure, besides en- 
 tailing on us evils of all sorts, would 
 have for its chief end to bring the whole 
 country under the slave-power, to make 
 the general government the agent of 
 slavery ; and this we are bound to re- 
 sist at all hazards. The free States 
 should declare that the very act of ad- 
 mitting Texas will be construed as a dis- 
 solution of the Union. 
 
 This act would be unconstitutional. 
 The authors of the Constitution never 
 dreamed of conferring a power on Con- 
 gress to attach a foreign nation to the 
 country, and so to destroy entirely the 
 original balance of power. It is true 
 that the people acquiesced in the ad- 
 mission of Louisiana to the Union by 
 treaty ; but the necessity of the case rec- 
 onciled them to that dangerous prece- 
 dent. It was understood that, by fair 
 means or foul, by negotiation or war, the 
 Western States would and must possess 
 themselves of the Mississippi and New 
 Orleans. This was regarded as a mat- 
 ter of life or death ; and therefore the 
 people allowed this great inroad to take 
 place in the fundamental conditions of 
 the union, without the appeal which 
 ought to have been made to the several 
 State sovereignties. But no such ne- 
 cessity now exists, and a like action of 
 Congress ought to be repelled as gross 
 usurpation. 
 
 We are always in danger of excessive 
 jealousy in judging of the motives of 
 other parts of the country, and this 
 remark may apply to the present case. 
 The South, if true to its own interests, 
 would see in Texas a rival rather than 
 an ally : but at the North it is suspected 
 that political motives outweigh the eco- 
 nomical. It is suspected that the desire 
 of annexing Texas has been whetted by 
 the disclosures of the last census as to 
 the increase of population and wealth at 
 the North. The South, it is said, means 
 to balance the free States by adding a 
 new empire to the confederacy. But on 
 this point our slave-holding brethren 
 need not be anxious. Without Texas, 
 
 57
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 the South will have very much its own 
 way, and will continue to exert a dis- 
 proportionate influence over public af- 
 fairs. It has within itself elements of 
 political power more efficient than ours. 
 The South has abler politicians, and 
 almost necessarily, because its most 
 opulent class make politics the business 
 of life. The North may send wiser 
 statesmen to Congress, but not men to 
 marshal and govern parties, not political 
 leaders. The South surpasses us, not 
 in true eloquence, which is little known 
 anywhere, but in prompt, bold speech, a 
 superiority due not only to greater ardor 
 of feeling, but to a state of society en- 
 couraging the habit, and stimulating by 
 constant action the faculty, of free and 
 strong utterance on political subjects ; 
 and such eloquence is no mean power 
 in popular bodies. The South has a 
 bolder and more unscrupulous character, 
 for which the caution and prudence of 
 the North are not a match. Once more, 
 it has union, common feeling, a peculiar 
 bond in slavery, to which the divided 
 North can make no adequate opposition. 
 At the North politics occupy a second 
 place in men's minds. Even in what 
 we call seasons of public excitement the 
 people think more of private business 
 than of public affairs. We think more 
 of property than of political power ; and 
 this, indeed, is the natural result of free 
 institutions. Under these political power 
 is not suffered to accumulate in a few 
 hands, but is distributed in minute por- 
 tions ; and even when thus limited, it is 
 not permitted to endure, but passes in 
 quick rotation from man to man. Of 
 consequence, it is an inferior good to 
 property. Every wise man among us 
 looks on property as a more sure and 
 lasting possession to himself and his 
 family, as conferring more ability to do 
 good, to gratify generous and refined 
 tastes, than the possession of political 
 power. In the South an unnatural state 
 of things turns men's thoughts to polit- 
 ical ascendancy ; but in the free States 
 men think little of it. Property is the 
 good for which they toil perseveringly 
 from morning to night. Even the polit- 
 ical partisan among us has an eye to 
 property, and seeks office as the best, 
 perhaps only way of subsistence. In 
 this state of things, the South has little 
 to fear from the North. For one thing 
 we may contend, that is, for a tariff, 
 
 for protection to our moneyed interests ; 
 but if we may be left to work and thrive, 
 we shall not quarrel for power. 
 
 The little sensibility at the North to 
 the present movements on the subject 
 of Texas is the best commentary on the 
 spirit of the free States. That the 
 South should be suffered to think for 
 a moment of adding a great country 
 to the United States for the sake of 
 strengthening slavery, demonstrates an 
 absence of wise political jealousy at the 
 North to which no parallel can be found 
 in human history. 
 
 The union of Texas to us must be 
 an unmixed evil. We do not need it 
 on a single account. We are already 
 too large. The machine of government 
 hardly creeps on under the weight of so 
 many diverse interests and such complex 
 functions as burden it now. Our own 
 natural increase is already too rapid. 
 New States are springing up too fast ; 
 for in these there must exist, from the 
 nature of the case, an excess of advent- 
 urous, daring spirits, whose influence 
 over the government cannot but be per- 
 ilous for a time ; and it is madness to 
 add to us a new nation to increase the 
 wild impulses, the half-civilized forces, 
 which now mingle with our national leg- 
 islation. 
 
 To unite with Texas would be to iden- 
 tify ourselves with a mighty wrong ; for 
 such was the seizure of that province by 
 a horde of adventurers. It would be to 
 insure the predominance of the slave- 
 power, to make slavery a chief national 
 interest, and to pledge us to the contin- 
 ually increasing prostitution of the na- 
 tional power to its support. It would 
 be to begin a career of encroachment on 
 Mexico which would corrupt and dis- 
 honor us, would complicate and disturb 
 the movements of government, would 
 create a wasteful patronage, and enlarge 
 our military establishments. It would 
 be to plunge us into war, not only with 
 Mexico, but with foreign powers, which 
 will not quietly leave us to add the Gulf 
 of Mexico to our vast stretch of territory 
 along the Atlantic coast. 
 
 To unite Texas to ourselves would 
 be to destroy our present unity as a 
 people, to sow new seeds of jealousy. 
 It would be to spread beyond bounds 
 the space over which the national arm 
 must be extended : to present new 
 points of attack and new reasons for
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 899 
 
 assault, and at the same time to impair 
 the energy to resist them. Can the 
 free States consent to pour out their 
 treasure and blood like water in order 
 to defend against Mexico and her Euro- 
 pean protectors the slave-trodden fields 
 of distant Texas ? Would the South 
 be prompt to exhaust itself for the an- 
 nexation, to this country of the vast 
 British possessions of the North ? Is 
 it ready to pledge itself to carry the 
 " star-spangled banner " to the pole, in 
 exchange for our readiness to carry sla- 
 very to Darien ? There must be some 
 fixed limits to our country. We at the 
 North do not ask for Canada. We 
 would not, I hope, accept it as a gift ; 
 for we could not rule it well. And is 
 the country to spread itself in one direc- 
 tion alone ? Are we willing to place 
 ourselves under the rule of adventurers 
 whom a restless spirit or a dread of jus- 
 tice drives to Texas ? What possible 
 boon can we gain ? The free States 
 are not only wanting in common wis- 
 dom, but in those instincts by which 
 other communities shrink from connec- 
 tions that diminish their importance 
 and neutralize their power. We shall 
 deserve to be put under guardianship, 
 if we receive Texas to our embrace. 
 Such suicidal policy would place us 
 among those whom " God infatuates be- 
 fore he destroys." 
 
 I have now spoken of the national 
 Union, and of the danger to which it 
 is exposed. The duty of the free States 
 is, to keep their attachment to it unim- 
 paired by local partialities, jealousies, 
 and dislikes, by supposed inequalities 
 of benefits or burdens, or by the want 
 of self-restraint manifested in the other 
 part of the country. They cannot, how- 
 ever, but see and feel one immense de- 
 duction from its blessings. They are 
 bound by it to give a degree of sanction 
 and support to slavery, and are threat- 
 ened with the annexation of another 
 country to our own for the purpose of 
 strengthening this institution. Their 
 duty is, to insist on release from all 
 obligations, and on security against all 
 connections, which do or may require 
 them to uphold a system which they 
 condemn. No blessings of the Union 
 can be a compensation for taking part 
 in the enslaving of our fellow-creatures ; 
 nor ought this bond to be perpetuated, 
 if experience shall demonstrate that it 
 
 can only continue through our partici- 
 pation in wrong-doing. To this con- 
 viction the free States are tending ; and 
 in this view their present subserviency 
 to the interests of slavery is more en- 
 durable. 
 
 I proceed, in the last place, to offer 
 a few remarks on the duties of the free 
 States as to a subject of infinite impor- 
 tance, the subject of war. To add 
 to the distresses of the country, a war- 
 cry is raised ; and a person unaccus- 
 tomed to the recklessness with which 
 the passions of the moment break out 
 among us in conversation and the news- 
 papers would imagine that we were on 
 the brink of a conflict with the most 
 powerful nation on earth. That we are 
 indeed to fight cannot easily be believed. 
 That two nations of a common origin, 
 having so many common interests, united 
 by so many bonds, speaking one lan- 
 guage, breathing the same free spirit, 
 holding the same faith, to whom war 
 can bring no good, and on whom it 
 must inflict terrible evils ; that such 
 nations should expose themselves and 
 the civilized world to the chances, 
 crimes, and miseries of war, for the 
 settlement of questions which may be 
 adjusted honorably and speedily by 
 arbitration ; this implies such an ab- 
 sence of common-sense, as well as of 
 moral and religious principle, that, bad 
 as the world is, one can hardly believe, 
 without actual vision, that such a result 
 can take place. Yet the history of the 
 world, made up of war, teaches us that 
 we may be too secure ; and no excite- 
 ment of warlike feeling should pass 
 without a word of warning. 
 
 In speaking of our duties on this sub- 
 ject I can use but one language, that of 
 Christianity. I do believe that Chris- 
 tianity was meant to be a law for soci- 
 ety, meant to act on nations ; and, 
 however I may be smiled at for my 
 ignorance of men and things, I can pro- 
 pose no standard of action to individuals 
 or communities but the law of Christ, 
 the law of eternal rectitude, the law, 
 not only of this nation, but of all worlds. 
 
 The great duty of God's children is 
 to love one another. This duty on 
 earth takes the name and form of the 
 law of humanity. We are to recognize 
 all men as brethren, no matter where 
 born, or under what sky or institution 
 or religion they may live. Every man
 
 900 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 belongs to the race, and owes a duty to 
 mankind. Every nation belongs to the 
 family of nations, and is to desire the 
 good of all. Nations are to love one 
 another. It is true that they usually 
 adopt towards one another principles 
 of undisguised selfishness, and glory in 
 successful violence or fraud. But the 
 great law of humanity is unrepealed. 
 Men cannot vote this out of the universe 
 by acclamation. The Christian pre- 
 cepts, " Do to others as you would 
 they should do to you," " Love your 
 neighbor as yourself," " Love your ene- 
 mies," apply to nations as well as indi- 
 viduals. A nation renouncing them is 
 a heathen, not a Christian nation. Men 
 cannot, by combining themselves into 
 narrower or larger societies, sever the 
 sacred, blessed bond which joins them 
 to their kind. An evil nation, like an 
 evil man, may, indeed, be withstood, 
 but not in hatred and revenge. The 
 law of humanity must reign over the 
 assertion of all human rights. The 
 vindictive, unforgiving spirit which pre- 
 vails in the earth must yield to the mild, 
 impartial spirit of Jesus Christ. 
 
 I know that these principles will re- 
 ceive little hearty assent. Multitudes 
 who profess to believe in Christ have 
 no faith in the efficacy of his spirit, or 
 in the accomplishment of that regener- 
 ating work which he came to accom- 
 plish. There is a worse scepticism than 
 what passes under the name of infidelity, 
 a scepticism as to the reality and the 
 power of moral and Christian truth ; 
 and accordingly a man who calls on a 
 nation to love the great family of which 
 it is a part, to desire the weal and the 
 progress of the race, to blend its own 
 interests with the interests of all, to wish 
 well to its foes, must pass for a vision- 
 ary, perhaps in war would be called 
 a traitor. The first teacher of universal 
 love was nailed to the cross for with- 
 standing the national spirit, hopes, and 
 prejudices -of Judea. His followers, in 
 these better days, escape with silent 
 derision or neglect. 
 
 It is a painful thought, that our re- 
 lations to foreign countries are deter- 
 mined chiefly by men who are signally 
 wanting in reverence for the law of 
 Christ, the law of humanity. Should 
 we repair to the seat of government, and 
 listen to the debates of Congress, we 
 should learn that the ascendant influ- 
 
 ence belongs to men who have no com- 
 prehension of the mild and generous 
 spirit of our religion ; who exult in what 
 they are pleased to call a quick sense 
 of honor, which means a promptness to 
 resent, and a spirit of vengeance. And 
 shall Christians imbrue their hands in 
 the blood of their brethren at the bid- 
 ding of such men ? 
 
 At this moment our chief exposure to 
 war arises from sensibility to what is 
 called the honor of the nation. A nation 
 cannot, indeed, be too jealous of its 
 honor. But, unhappily, few communi- 
 ties know what this means. There is 
 but one true honor for men or nations. 
 This consists in impartial justice and 
 generosity ; in acting up fearlessly to a 
 high standard of right. The multitude 
 of men place it chiefly in courage ; and 
 in this, as in all popular delusions, there 
 is a glimpse of truth. Courage is an 
 essential element of true honor. A na- 
 tion, or an individual without it is noth- 
 ing worth. Almost any thing is better 
 than a craven spirit. Better be slaugh- 
 tered than be cowardly and tame. 
 What is the teaching of Christianity 
 but that we must be ready at any mo- 
 ment to lay down life for truth, human- 
 ity, and virtue ? All the virtues are 
 naturally brave. The just and disinter- 
 ested man dreads nothing that man can 
 do to him. But courage standing alone, 
 animal courage, the courage of the rob- 
 ber, pirate, or duellist, this has no honor. 
 This only proves that bad passions are 
 strong enough to conquer the passion 
 of fear. Yet this low courage is that of 
 which nations chiefly boast, and in which 
 they make their honor to consist. 
 
 Were the spirit of justice and human- 
 ity to pervade this country, we could 
 not be easily driven into war. England 
 and Mexico, the countries with which 
 we are in danger of being embroiled, 
 have an interest in peace. The ques- 
 tions on which we are at issue touch no 
 vital point, no essential interest or right, 
 which we may not put to hazard ; and 
 consequently they are such as may and 
 ought to be left to arbitration. 
 
 There has of late been a cry of war 
 with Mexico ; and yet, if the facts are 
 correctly stated in the papers, a more 
 unjust war cannot be conceived. It 
 seems that a band of Texans entered 
 the territory of Mexico during a state of 
 war between the two countries. They
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 901 
 
 entered it armed. They were met and 
 conquered by a Mexican force ; and cer- 
 tain American citizens, found in the num- 
 ber, were seized and treated as prisoners 
 of war. This is pronounced an injury 
 which the nation" is bound to resent. 
 We are told that the band in which the 
 Americans were found was engaged in 
 a trading, not a military expedition. 
 Such a statement is, of course, very sus- 
 picious ; but allow it to be true. Must 
 not the entrance of an armed band from 
 one belligerent country into the other 
 be regarded as a hostile invasion ? Must 
 not a citizen of a neutral state, if found 
 in this armed company, be considered as 
 a party to the invasion ? Has he not, 
 with eyes open, engaged in an expedition 
 which cannot but be regarded as an act 
 of war ? That our nation should demand 
 the restoration of such a person as a 
 right, which must not be denied without 
 the hazard of a war, would seem to show 
 that we have studied international law 
 in a new edition, revised and corrected 
 for our special benefit. It is the weak- 
 ness of Mexico which encourages these 
 freedoms on our part. Yet their weak- 
 ness is a claim on our compassion. We 
 ought to look on that distracted country 
 as an older brother on a wayward child, 
 and should blush to make our strength 
 a ground for aggression. 
 
 There is another ground, we are told, 
 for war with Mexico. She has treated 
 our citizens cruelly, as well as made them 
 prisoners of war. She has condemned 
 them to ignominious labor in the streets. 
 This is not unlikely. Mexico sets up no 
 pretension to signal humanity, nor has 
 it been fostered by her history. Per- 
 haps, however, she is only following, 
 with some exaggerations, the example of 
 Texas; for after the great victory of 
 San Jacinto we were told that the Tex- 
 ans set their prisoners to work. At the 
 worst, here is no cause for war. If an 
 American choose to take part in the 
 hostile movements of another nation, he 
 must share the fate of its citizens. If 
 Mexico indeed practices cruelties tow- 
 ards her prisoners, of whatever country, 
 we are bound by the law of humanity to 
 remonstrate against tl,iem : but we must 
 not fight to reform her. The truth, how- 
 ever, is, that we can place no great reli- 
 ance on what we hear of Mexican cru- 
 elty. The press of Texas and the 
 South, in its anxiety to involve us in 
 
 war with that country, does not speak 
 under oath. In truth, no part of our 
 country seems to think of Mexico as 
 having the rights of a sovereign state. 
 We hear the politician in high places 
 exhorting us to take part in raising " the 
 single Star of Texas " above the city of 
 Montezuma, and to gorge ourselves with 
 the plunder of her churches ; and we see 
 armed bands from the South hurrying 
 in time of peace towards that devoted 
 land, to realize these dreams of unprin- 
 cipled cupidity. That Mexico is more 
 sinned against than sinning, that she is 
 as just as her foes, one can hardly help 
 believing. 
 
 We proceed to consider our difficul- 
 ties with Great Britain, which are nu- 
 merous enough to alarm us, but which 
 are all of a character to admit arbitra- 
 tion. The first is the North-east boun- 
 dary question. This, indeed, may be 
 said to be settled in the minds of the 
 people. As a people, we have no doubt 
 that the letter of the treaty marks out 
 the line on which we insist. The great 
 majority also believe that England in- 
 sists on another, not from respect for 
 the stipulations of the treaty, but because 
 she needs it to secure a communication 
 between her various provinces. The 
 land, then, is legally ours, and ought 
 not to be surrendered to any force. But 
 in this, as in other cases, we are bound 
 by the law of humanity to look beyond 
 the letter of stipulations, to inquire, not 
 for legal, but for moral right, and to act 
 up to the principles of an enlarged jus- 
 tice and benevolence. The territory 
 claimed by England is of great impor- 
 tance to her ; of none, comparatively, to 
 us ; and we know that, when the treaty 
 was framed, no thought existed on either 
 side of carrying the line so far to the 
 North as to obstruct the free and safe 
 communication between her provinces. 
 The country was then unexplored. The 
 precise effect of the stipulation could 
 not be foreseen. It was intended to 
 secure a boundary advantageous to both 
 parties. Under these circumstances, the 
 law of equity and humanity demands 
 that Great Britain be put in possession 
 of the territory needed to connect her 
 provinces together. Had nations risen 
 at all to the idea of generosity in their 
 mutual dealings, this country might be 
 advised to present to England the land 
 she needs. But prudence will stop at
 
 902 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 the suggestion that we ought to offer it 
 to her on terms which impartial men 
 may pronounce just. And in doing this 
 we should not merely consult equity and 
 honor, but* our best interest. It is the 
 interest of a nation to establish, on all 
 sides, boundaries which will be satisfac- 
 tory alike to itself and its neighbors. 
 This is almost essential to enduring 
 peace. Wars have been waged without 
 number for the purpose of uniting the 
 scattered provinces of a country, of giv- 
 ing it compactness, unity, and the means 
 of communication. A nation prizing 
 peace should remove the irritations 
 growing out of unnatural boundaries ; 
 and this we can do in the present case 
 without a sacrifice. 
 
 According to these views, one of the 
 most unwise measures ever adopted in 
 this country was the rejection of the 
 award of the King of the Netherlands. 
 A better award could not have been 
 given. It ceded for us what a wise 
 policy teaches us to surrender, gave us 
 a natural boundary, and gave us com- 
 pensation for the territory to be surren- 
 dered. If now some friendly power 
 would by its mediation effectually rec- 
 ommend to the two countries this award 
 as the true interest of both, it would 
 render signal service to justice and hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Still, it is true that the territory that we 
 claim is ours. The bargain made by 
 England was a hard one ; but an honest 
 man does not on this account shrink 
 from his contract ; nor can England lay 
 hands on what she unwisely surren- 
 dered, without breach of faith, without 
 committing herself to an unrighteous 
 war. 
 
 A way of compromise in a case like 
 this is not difficult to honest and friendly 
 nations. For example, let impartial and 
 intelligent commissioners, agreed to by 
 both countries, repair to the disputed 
 territory with the treaty in their hands, 
 and with the surveys made by the two 
 governments : and let them go with full 
 authority to determine the line which 
 the treaty prescribes, to draw another 
 line, if such shall seem to them required 
 by principles of equity, or by the true 
 interests of both countries, and to make 
 ample compensation to the nation which 
 shall relinquish part of its territory. It 
 is believed that, generally speaking, 
 men of distinguished honor, integrity, 
 
 and ability would execute a trust of this 
 nature more wisely, impartially, and 
 speedily than a third government, and 
 that the employment of such would 
 facilitate the extension of arbitration to 
 a greater variety of cases than can easily 
 be comprehended under the present sys- 
 tem. I have suggested one mode 'of 
 compromise. Others and better may be 
 devised, if the parties will approach' the 
 difficulty in a spirit of peace. 
 
 The case of the " Caroline " next 
 presents itself. In this case our terri- 
 tory was undoubtedly violated by Eng- 
 land. But the question arises, whether 
 nothing justified or mitigated the viola- 
 tion. According to the law of nations, 
 when a government is unable to restrain 
 its subjects from continued acts of hos- 
 tility towards a neighboring state, this 
 state is authorized to take the defence 
 of its rights into its own hands, and 
 may enter the territory of the former 
 power with such a force as may be re- 
 quired to secure itself against aggres- 
 sion. The question is, Did such a state 
 of things exist on the Canadian frontier ? 
 That we Americans, if placed in the con- 
 dition of the English, would have done 
 as they did admits little doubt. This, 
 indeed, is no justification of the act ; 
 for both nations in this condition would 
 act more from impulse than reason. But 
 it shows us that the question is a com- 
 plicated one, such a question as even 
 well-disposed nations cannot easily set- 
 tle by negotiation, and which may and 
 ought to be committed to an impartial 
 umpire. 
 
 I will advert to one more difficulty be- 
 tween this country and England, which 
 is intimately connected with the subject 
 of this tract. I refer to the question 
 whether England may visit our vessels 
 to ascertain their nationality, in cases 
 where the American flag is suspected of 
 being used by foreigners for the prose- 
 cution of the slave-trade. On this sub- 
 ject we have two duties to perform. 
 One is to protect our commerce against 
 claims on the part of other nations, 
 which may silently be extended, and 
 may expose it to interference and hin- 
 drance injurious alike to our honor and 
 prosperity. The other, not less clear 
 and urgent, is to afford effectual assist- 
 ance to the great struggle of European 
 nations for the suppression of the slave- 
 trade, and especially to prevent our flag
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 903 
 
 from being made a cover for the nefari- 
 ous traffic. These are two duties which 
 we can and must reconcile. We must not 
 say that the slave-trade is to be left to it- 
 self, and that we have no obligation to 
 take part in its abolition. We cannot, 
 without shame and guilt, stand neutral in 
 this war. The slave-trade is an enormous 
 crime, a terrible outrage on humanity, an 
 accumulation of unparalleled wrongs and 
 woes, and the civilized world is waking 
 up to bring it to an end. Every nation 
 is bound by the law of humanity to give 
 its sympathies, prayers, and co-operation 
 to this work. Even had our commerce 
 no connection with this matter, we should 
 be bound to lend a helping hand to the 
 cause of the human race. But the fact is, 
 that the flag of our country, prostituted 
 by infamous foreigners, is a principal 
 shelter to the slave-trade. Vile men 
 wrap themselves up in our garments, 
 and in this guise go forth to the work of 
 robbery and murder. Shall we suffer 
 this ? Shall the nations of the earth, 
 when about to seize these outlaws, be 
 forbidden to touch them, because they 
 wear the American garb ? It is said, 
 indeed, that foreign powers, if allowed 
 to visit our vessels for such a purpose, 
 will lay hands on our own citizens, and 
 invade our commercial rights. But 
 vague suspicions of this kind do not 
 annul a plain obligation. Uncertain 
 consequences do not set aside what we 
 know ; and one thing we know, that the 
 slave-trade ought not to be left to live 
 and grow under the American flag. We 
 are bound some way or other to stay 
 this evil. We ought to say to Europe: 
 " We detest this trade as much as you. 
 We will join heart and hand in its de- 
 struction. We will assent to the mutual 
 visitation which you plead for, if arrange- 
 ments can be made to secure it against 
 abuse. We will make sacrifices for this 
 end. We will shrink from no reasona- 
 ble concession. Your efforts shall not 
 be frustrated by the prostitution of our 
 flag." If in good faith we follow up 
 these words, it can hardly be doubted 
 that a safe and honorable arrangement 
 may be made with foreign powers. 
 
 Some of our politicians protest vehe- 
 mently against the visitation of vessels 
 bearing our flag for the purpose of de- 
 termining their right to assume it. They 
 admit that there are cases, such as sus- 
 picion of piracy, in which such visita- 
 
 tion is authorized by the law of nations. 
 But this right, they say, cannot be ex- 
 tended at pleasure by the union of sev- 
 eral nations in treaties or conventions 
 which can only be executed by visiting 
 the vessels of other powers. This is un- 
 doubtedly true. Nations, by union for 
 private advantage, have no right to sub- 
 ject the ships of other powers to incon- 
 venience, or to the possibility of molesta- 
 tion, in order to compass their purpose. 
 But when several nations join together 
 to extirpate a widely extended and fla- 
 grant crime against the human race, to 
 put clown a public and most cruel wrong, 
 they have a right to demand that their 
 labors shall not be frustrated by the 
 fraudulent assumption of the flags of 
 foreign powers. Subjecting their own 
 ships to visitation as a means of prevent- 
 ing this abuse of their flags, they are 
 authorized to expect a like subjection 
 from other states, on condition that they 
 proffer every possible security against 
 the abuse of the power. A state, in de- 
 clining such visitation, virtually with- 
 draws itself from the commonwealth of 
 nations. Christian states may be said, 
 without any figure, to form a common- 
 wealth. They are bound together by 
 a common faith, the first law of which 
 is universal good-will. They recognize 
 mutual obligations. They are united by 
 interchange of material and intellectual 
 products. Through their common re- 
 ligion and literature, and their frequent 
 intercourse, they have attained to many 
 moral sympathies ; and when by these 
 any portion of them are united in the 
 execution of justice against open, fear- 
 ful crime, they have a right to the good 
 wishes of all other states ; and especially 
 a right to be unobstructed by them in 
 their efforts. In the present case we 
 have ourselves fixed the brand of piracy 
 on the very crime which certain powers 
 of Europe have joined to suppress. 
 Ought we not to consent that vessels 
 bearing our flag, but falling under just 
 suspicion of assuming it for the perpe- 
 tration of this piracy, should be visited, 
 according to stipulated forms, that their 
 nationality may be judged ? Have we 
 any right, by denying this claim, to give 
 to acknowledged, flagrant crime an aid 
 and facility under which it cannot but 
 prevail ? There seems no reason for 
 apprehension that in assenting to visita- 
 tion we shall expose ourselves to great
 
 904 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 wrongs. From the nature of the case, 
 strict and simple rules of judgment may 
 be laid down, and the responsibility of 
 the visiting officers may be made so 
 serious as to give a moral certainty 
 of caution. Undoubtedly injuries may 
 chance to be inflicted, as is the case in 
 the exercise of the clearest rights ; but 
 the chance is so small, whilst the effects 
 of refusing visitation are so fatal and so 
 sure, that our country, should it resist 
 the claim, will take the attitude of hos- 
 tility to the human race, and will de- 
 serve to be cut off from the fellowship 
 of the Christian world. 
 
 It is customary, I know, to meet these 
 remarks by saying that the crusade of 
 England against this traffic is a mere 
 show of philanthropy ; that she is serv- 
 ing only her own ends ; and that there 
 is consequently no obligation to co-op- 
 erate with her. This language might be 
 expected from the South, where almost 
 universal ignorance prevails in regard 
 to the antislavery efforts of England ; 
 but it does little honor to the North, 
 where the means of knowledge are pos- 
 sessed. That England is blending pri- 
 vate views with the suppression of the 
 slave-trade is a thing to be expected ; 
 for states, like individuals, seldom act 
 from unmixed motives. But when we 
 see a nation for fifty years keeping in 
 sight a great object of humanity ; when 
 we see this enterprise, beginning with 
 the peaceful Quaker, adopted by Chris- 
 tians of other names, and thus spreading 
 through and moving the whole popula- 
 tion ; when we see the reluctant govern- 
 ment compelled by the swelling sensi- 
 bility of the people to lend itself to the 
 cause, and to forward it by liberal ex- 
 penditure and vast efforts on sea and 
 land : can we help feeling that the moral 
 sentiment of the nation is the basis and 
 spring of this great and glorious effort ? 
 On this subject I may speak from knowl- 
 edge. In England, many years ago, I 
 met the patriarchs of the antislavery 
 cause. I was present at a meeting of 
 the abolition committee, a body which 
 has won an imperishable name in his- 
 tory. I saw men and women, eminent for 
 virtue and genius, who had abstained 
 from the products of slave-labor to com- 
 pel the government to suppress the traffic 
 in men. If ever Christian benevolence 
 wrought a triumph, it was in that strug- 
 gle ; and the efforts of the nation from 
 
 that day to this have been hallowed by 
 the same generous feeling. Alas ! the 
 triumphs of humanity are not so numer- 
 ous that we can afford to part with this. 
 History records but one example of a 
 nation fighting the battle of the oppress- 
 ed with the sympathy, earnestness, and 
 sacrifices of a generous individual ; and 
 we will not give up our faith in this. 
 And now is our country prepared to 
 throw itself in the way of these holy 
 efforts ? Shall our flag be stained with 
 the infamy of defending the slave-trade 
 against the humanity of other countries ? 
 Better that it should disappear from the 
 ocean than be so profaned. 
 
 It must not be said that the slave- 
 trade cannot be annihilated. The pros- 
 pect grows brighter. One of its chief 
 marts, Cuba, is now closed. The ports 
 of Brazil, we trust, will next be shut 
 against it ; and these measures on land, 
 aided by well-concerted operations at 
 sea, will do much to free the world from 
 this traffic. It must not find its last 
 shelter under the American flag. We 
 must not talk of difficulties. Let the 
 nation's heart be opened to the cry of 
 humanity, to the voice of religion, and 
 difficulties will vanish. In every good 
 work for the freedom and melioration of 
 the world we ought to bear our part. 
 We ought to be found in the front rank 
 of the war against that hideous traffic 
 which we first branded as piracy. God 
 save us from suffering our flag to be 
 spread as a screen between the felon, 
 the pirate, the kidnapper, the murderer, 
 and the ministers of justice, of human- 
 ity, sent forth to cut short his crimes ! 
 
 We have thus considered the most 
 important of our difficulties with Mexico 
 and England which have been thought 
 to threaten war. With a spirit of jus- 
 tice and peace, it seems impossible that 
 we should be involved in hostilities. 
 The duties of the free States, and of 
 all the States, are plain. We should 
 cherish a spirit of humanity towards all 
 countries. We should resist the false 
 notions of honor, the false pride, the 
 vindictive feelings, which are easily ex- 
 cited by supposed injuries from foreign 
 powers, and are apt to spread like a 
 pestilence from breast to breast, till 
 they burst forth at length in a fierce, 
 uncontrollable passion for war. 
 
 I have now finished my task. I have 
 considered the duties of the free States
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 905 
 
 in relation to slavery, and to other sub- 
 jects of great and immediate concern. 
 In this discussion I have constantly 
 spoken of duties as more important 
 than interests ; but these in the end 
 will be found to agree. The energy by 
 which men prosper is fortified by noth- 
 ing so much as by the lofty spirit which 
 scorns to prosper through abandonment 
 of duty. 
 
 I have been called by the subjects 
 here discussed to speak much of the 
 evils of the times and the dangers of 
 the country ; and in treating of these 
 a writer is almost necessarily betrayed 
 into what may seem a tone of despond- 
 ence. His anxiety to save his country 
 from crime or calamity leads him to use 
 unconsciously a language of alarm which 
 may excite the apprehension of inevi- 
 table misery. But I would not infuse 
 such fears. I do not sympathize with 
 the desponding tone of the day. It 
 may be that there are fearful woes in 
 store for this people ; but there are 
 many promises of good to give spring 
 to hope and effort ; and it is not wise 
 to open our eyes and ears to ill omens 
 alone. It is to be lamented that men 
 who boast of courage in other trials 
 should shrink so weakly from public 
 difficulties and dangers; and should 
 spend in unmanly reproaches or com- 
 plaints the strength which they ought 
 to give to their country's safety. But 
 this ought not to surprise us in the 
 present case ; for our lot until of late 
 has been singularly prosperous, and 
 great prosperity enfeebles men's spirits, t 
 and prepares them to despond when it 
 shall have passed away. The country, 
 we are told, is " ruined." What ! the 
 country ruined, when the mass of the 
 population have hardly retrenched a 
 luxury ? We are indeed paying, and 
 we ought to pay, the penalty of reckless 
 extravagance, of wild and criminal spec- 
 ulation, of general abandonment to the 
 passion for sudden and enormous gains. 
 But how are we ruined ? Is the kind, 
 nourishing earth about to become a 
 cruel step-mother ? Or is the teeming 
 soil of this magnificent country sinking 
 beneath our feet ? Is the ocean dried 
 up ? Are our cities and villages, our 
 schools and churches, in ruins ? Are 
 the stout muscles which have conquered 
 sea and land palsied ? Are the earnings 
 of past years dissipated, and the skill 
 
 which gathered them forgotten ? I open 
 my eyes on this ruined country, and I 
 see around me fields fresh with verdure, 
 and behold on all sides the intelligent 
 countenance, the sinewy limb, the kindly 
 look, the free and manly bearing, which 
 indicate any thing but a fallen people. 
 Undoubtedly we have much cause to 
 humble ourselves for the vices which 
 our recent prosperity warmed into being, 
 or rather brought out from the depths 
 of men's souls. But in the reprobation 
 which these vices awaken have we no 
 proof that the fountain of moral life in 
 the nation's heart is not exhausted ? In 
 the progress of temperance, of educa- 
 tion, and of religious sensibility in our 
 land, have we no proof that there is 
 among us an impulse towards improve- 
 ment which no temporary crime or ca- 
 lamity can overpower ? 
 
 I shall be pointed undoubtedly to our 
 political corruptions, to the inefficiency 
 and party passions which dishonor our 
 present Congress, and to the infamy 
 brought on the country by breach of 
 faith and gross dishonesty in other leg- 
 islatures. In sight of this an American 
 must indeed "blush, and hang his head." 
 Still it is true, and the truth should be 
 told, that, in consequence of the long 
 divorce between morality and politics, 
 public men do not represent the char- 
 acter of the people ; nor can we argue 
 from profligacy in public affairs to a 
 general want 01 private virtue. Besides, 
 we all know that it is through errors, 
 sins, and sufferings that the individual 
 makes progress ; and so does a people. 
 A nation cannot learn to govern itself 
 in a day. New institutions conferring 
 great power on a people open a door to 
 many and great abuses, from which 
 nothing but the slow and painful dis- 
 cipline of experience can bring deliver- 
 ance. After all, there is a growing 
 intelligence in this community ; there 
 is much domestic virtue ; there is a 
 deep working of Christianity ;. there is 
 going on a struggle of higher truths 
 with narrow traditions, and of a wider 
 benevolence with social evils ; there is 
 a spirit of freedom, a recognition of the 
 equal rights of men ; there are profound 
 impulses received from our history, from 
 the virtues of our fathers, and especially 
 from our revolutionary conflict ; and 
 there is an indomitable energy, which, 
 after rearing an empire in the wilderness,
 
 906 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES. 
 
 is fresh for new achievements. Such a 
 people are not ruined because Congress 
 leaves the treasury bankrupt for weeks 
 and months, and exposes itself to scorn 
 by vulgar manners and ruffian abuse. 
 In that very body how many men may 
 be found of honor, integrity, and wis- 
 dom, who watch over their country with 
 sorrow, but not despair, and who meet 
 an answer to their patriotism in the 
 breasts of thousands of their country- 
 men ! 
 
 There is one duty of the free States of 
 which I have not spoken ; it is the duty 
 of faith in the intellectual and moral 
 energies of the country, in its high des- 
 tiny, and in the good Providence which 
 has guided it through so many trials and 
 perils to its present greatness. We in- 
 deed suffer much, and deserve to suffer 
 more. Many dark pages are to be writ- 
 ten in our history. But generous seed 
 is still sown in this nation's mind. No- 
 ble impulses are working here. We are 
 called to be witnesses to the world of a 
 freer, more equal, more humane, more 
 enlightened social existence than has 
 yet been known. May God raise us to 
 a more thorough comprehension of our 
 work ! May he give us faith in the good 
 which we are summoned to achieve ! 
 May he strengthen us to build up a pros- 
 perity not tainted by slavery, selfishness, 
 or any wrong ; but pure, innocent, right- 
 eous, and overflowing, through a just 
 and generous intercourse, on all the na- 
 tions of the earth ! 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note A. To the preceding remarks 
 it is in vain to oppose "the comity of 
 nations." England, in her public acts, 
 having pronounced slavery unjust, pro- 
 nounces also that " comity " cannot pre- 
 vail against justice. And is not this 
 right and true ? Can a nation be bound 
 by comity to recognize within its borders, 
 and to carry into effect by its judicial or 
 executive machinery, the laws of another 
 country which it holds to be violations 
 of the law of nature or of God ? Would 
 not our own courts indignantly refuse to 
 enforce a contract or relation between 
 foreigners here, which, however valid in 
 their own land where it was made, is 
 contrary to our own institutions, or to 
 the acknowledged precepts of morality 
 and religion ? 
 
 Note B. " It is said that this alleged 
 interference by the British authorities 
 was contrary to the comity of nations, 
 and that therefore the British govern- 
 ment is bound to indemnify the owners 
 of the slaves. But indemnity for what ? 
 for their asserted property in these men ? 
 But that government does not recognize 
 property in men. Suppose the slaves 
 were dispersed by reason of its interfer- 
 ence ; yet the master and owners re- 
 ceived no damage thereby, for they had 
 no title to the slaves. Their property 
 had ceased when these men came under 
 the benign influence of English law." 
 
 Note C. I have spoken of the great 
 majority in our country who have no 
 participation whatever in slavery. In- 
 deed, it is little suspected at home, any 
 more than abroad, how small is the 
 number of slave-holders here. I learn 
 from a judicious correspondent at the 
 South that the slave-holders in that re- 
 gion cannot be rated at more than 
 300,000. Some make them less. Sup- 
 posing each of them to be the head 
 of a family, and each family to con- 
 sist of five members ; then there will be 
 1,500,000 having a direct interest in 
 slaves as property. This is about one- 
 eleventh of the population of the United 
 States. The 300,000 actual slave-hold- 
 ers are about a fifty-seventh part of our 
 whole population. These govern the 
 South entirely, by acting in concert, and 
 by the confinement of the best education 
 to their ranks ; and, still more, to a con- 
 siderable extent they have governed the 
 > whole country. Their cry rises above 
 all other sounds in the land. Few as 
 they are, their voices well-nigh drown 
 the quiet reasonings and remonstrances 
 of the North in the House of Represen- 
 tatives. 
 
 Note D. In the first part of these 
 remarks I said that the freedom of 
 speech and of the press was fully en- 
 joyed in this country. I overlooked the 
 persecutions to which the abolitionists 
 have been exposed for expressing their 
 opinions. That I should have forgot- 
 ten this is the more strange, because my 
 sympathy with these much-injured per- 
 sons has been one motive to me for 
 writing on slavery. The free States, as 
 far as they have violated the rights of 
 the abolitionists, have ceased to be fully 
 free. They have acted as the tools of 
 slavery, and have warred against free-
 
 ADDRESS ON EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 907 
 
 dom in its noblest form. No matter 
 what other liberties are conceded, if 
 liberty of speech and the press be denied 
 us. We are robbed of our most precious 
 right, of that without which all other 
 rights are unprotected and insecure. 
 
 Note E. Since the publication of the 
 first edition of this tract, I have been 
 sorry to learn that this paragraph has 
 been considered by some as showing an 
 insensibility to the depraving influences 
 of slavery. My purpose was, to be just 
 to the South ; and I did not dream that 
 in doing this I was throwing a veil over 
 the deformity of its institutions. I feel 
 deeply, what I have again and again said, 
 that slavery does and must exert an ex- 
 ceedingly depraving influence. So wrong- 
 ful an exercise of power cannot but injure 
 the character. All who sustain the rela- 
 tion are the worse for it. But it is a 
 plain fact, taught by all history and ex- 
 perience, that under depraving institu- 
 tions much virtue may exist ; and were 
 not this the case, the condition of our 
 race would be hopeless indeed, for 
 everywhere such institutions are found. 
 The character is not determined by a 
 single relation or circumstance in our 
 lot. Most of us believe that Roman 
 
 Catholicism exerts many influences hos- 
 tile to true Christianity, and yet how 
 many sincere Christians have grown up 
 under that system ! In the midst of 
 feudal barbarism, in the palaces of 
 despotism, noble characters have been 
 formed. Slavery, I believe, does incal- 
 culable harm to the slave-holders. It 
 spreads licentiousness of manners to a 
 fearful extent ; and in the case of the 
 good it obscures their perception of 
 those most important teachings of Chris- 
 tianity which unfold the intimate rela- 
 tion of man to man, and which enjoin, 
 universal love. Still, it cannot be de- 
 nied that, under all these disadvantages, 
 God finds true worshippers within the 
 bounds of slavery, that many deeds of 
 Christian love are performed there, and 
 that there are not wanting examples of 
 eminent virtue. This is what I meant 
 to say. I am bound, however, to add, 
 that the more I become acquainted with 
 the slave-holding States, the more I am 
 impressed with the depraving influence 
 of slavery ; and I shall grieve if my 
 desire to be just to the South, and my 
 joy at witnessing virtue there, should 
 be construed as a negative testimony in 
 favor of this corrupting institution. 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT LENOX, 
 
 On the First of August, 1842, being the Anniversary of Emancipation 
 in the British West Indies. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 I HAVE been encouraged to publish 
 the following address by the strong ex- 
 pressions of sympathy with which it 
 was received. I do not, indeed, suppose 
 that those who listened to it with in- 
 terest, and who have requested its pub- 
 lication, accorded with me in every 
 opinion which it contains. Such entire 
 agreement is not to be expected among 
 intelligent men who judge for them- 
 selves. But I am sure that the spirit 
 and substance of the address met a 
 hearty response. Several paragraphs, 
 which I wanted strength to deliver, are 
 now published, and for these of course 
 I am alone responsible. 
 
 I dedicate this address to the men 
 and women of Berkshire. I have found 
 so much to delight me in the magnificent 
 scenery of this region, in its peaceful 
 and prosperous villages, and in the rare 
 intelligence and virtues of the friends 
 whose hospitality I have here enjoyed, 
 that I desire to connect this little work 
 with this spot. I cannot soon forget 
 the beautiful nature and the generous 
 spirits with which I have been privileged 
 to commune in the valley of the Housa- 
 tonic. LENOX, MASS., Aug. 9, 1842. 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 This day is the anniversary of one of 
 the great events of modern times, the
 
 908 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
 
 emancipation of the slaves in the British 
 West India Islands. This emancipation 
 began August ist, 1834, but it was not 
 completed until August ist, 1838. The 
 event, indeed, has excited little attention 
 in our country, partly because we are too 
 much absorbed in private interests and 
 local excitements to be alive to the tri- 
 umphs of humanity at a distance, partly 
 because a moral contagion has spread 
 from the South through the North, and 
 deadened our sympathies with the op- 
 pressed. But West India emancipation, 
 .though received here so coldly, is yet an 
 era in the annals of philanthropy. The 
 greatest events do not always draw most 
 attention at the moment. When the 
 "Mayflower," in the dead of winter, 
 landed a few pilgrims on the ice-bound, 
 snow-buried rocks of Plymouth, the oc- 
 currence made no noise. Nobody took 
 note of it, and yet how much has that 
 landing done to change the face of the 
 civilized world ! Our fathers came to 
 establish a pure church ; they little 
 thought of revolutionizing nations. The 
 emancipation in the West Indies, whether 
 viewed in itself, or in its immediate re- 
 sults, or in the spirit from which it grew, 
 or in the light of hope which it sheds 
 on the future, deserves to be commemo- 
 rated. In some respects it stands alone 
 in human history, I therefore invite to 
 it your serious attention. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to begin with some 
 apology for my appearance in this place ; 
 for I stand here unasked, uninvited. I 
 can plead no earnest solicitation from 
 few or many for the service I now ren- 
 der. I come to you simply from an 
 impulse in my own breast ; and, in 
 truth, had I been solicited, I probably 
 should not have consented to speak. 
 Had I found here a general desire to 
 celebrate this day, I should have felt 
 that another speaker might be enlisted 
 in the cause, and I should have held my 
 peace. But finding that no other voice 
 would be raised, I was impelled to lift 
 up my own, though too feeble for any 
 great exertion. I trust you will accept 
 with candor what I have been obliged 
 to prepare in haste, and what may have 
 little merit but that of pure intention. 
 
 I have said that I speak only from the 
 impulse of my own mind. I am the 
 organ of no association, the representa- 
 tive of no feelings but my own. But I 
 wish it to be understood that I speak 
 
 from no sudden impulse, from no pas- 
 sionate zeal of a new convert, but from 
 deliberate and long-cherished convic- 
 tion. In truth, my attention was directed 
 to slavery fifty years ago, that is, be- 
 fore most of you were born ; and the first 
 impulse came from a venerable man, 
 formerly of great reputation in this part 
 of our country and in all our churches, 
 the Rev. Dr. Hopkins, who removed 
 more than a century ago from Great 
 Barrington to my native town, and there 
 bore open and strong testimony against 
 the slave-trade, a principal branch of 
 the traffic of the place. I am reminded 
 by the spot where I now stand of another 
 incident which may show how long I 
 have taken an interest in this subject. 
 More than twenty years ago I had an 
 earnest conversation with that noble- 
 minded man and fervent philanthropist, 
 Henry Sedgwick, so well and honorably 
 known to most who hear me, on which 
 occasion we deplored the insensibility 
 of the North to the evils of slavery, and 
 inquired by what means it might be re- 
 moved. The circumstance which par- 
 ticularly gave my mind a direction to 
 this subject was a winter's residence in 
 a West Indian island more than eleven 
 years ago. I lived there on a plantation. 
 The piazza in which I sat and walked 
 almost from morning to night overlooked 
 the negro village belonging to the estate. 
 A few steps placed me in the midst of 
 their huts. Here was a volume on sla- 
 very opened always before my eyes, 
 and how could I help learning some of 
 its lessons ? The gang on this estate 
 (for such is the name given to a company 
 of slaves) was the best on the island, 
 and among the best in the West Indies. 
 The proprietor had labored to collect 
 the best materials for it. His gang had 
 been his pride and boast. The fine 
 proportions, the graceful and sometimes 
 dignified bearing of these people, could 
 hardly be overlooked. Unhappily, mis- 
 fortune had reduced the owner to bank- 
 ruptcy. The estate had been mortgaged 
 to a stranger, who could not personally 
 superintend it ; and I found it under 
 the care of a passionate and licentious 
 manager, in whom the poor slaves found 
 a sad contrast to the kindness of former 
 days. They sometimes came to the 
 house where I resided, with their mourn- 
 ful or indignant complaints : but were 
 told that no redress could be found from
 
 EMANCIPA TION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 
 
 909 
 
 the hands of their late master. In this 
 case of a plantation passing into strange 
 hands, I saw that the mildest form of 
 slavery might at any time be changed 
 into the worst. On returning to this 
 country I delivered a discourse on sla- 
 very, giving the main views which I 
 have since communicated ; and this was 
 done before the cry of abolitionism was 
 heard among us. I seem, then, to have 
 a peculiar warrant for now addressing 
 you. I am giving you, not the ebulli- 
 tions of new, vehement feelings, but the 
 results of long and patient reflection ; 
 not the thoughts of others, but my own 
 independent judgments. I stand alone ; 
 I speak in the name of no party. I 
 have no connection, but that of friend- 
 ship and respect, with the opposers of 
 slavery in this country or abroad. Do 
 not mix me up with other men, good or 
 bad ; but listen to me as a separate wit- 
 ness, standing on my own ground, and 
 desirous to express with all plainness 
 what seems to be the truth. 
 
 On this day, a few years ago, eight 
 hundred thousand human beings were 
 set free from slavery ; and to compre- 
 hend the greatness of the deliverance, a 
 few words must first be said of the evil 
 from which they were rescued. You 
 must know slavery to know emancipa- 
 tion. But in a single discourse how can 
 I set before you the wrongs and abom- 
 inations of this detestable institution ? I 
 must pass over many of its features, and 
 will select one which is at present vividly 
 impressed on rny mind. Different minds 
 are impressed with different evils. Were 
 I asked, what strikes me as the greatest 
 evil inflicted by this -system, I should 
 say, it is the outrage offered by slavery 
 to human nature. Slavery does all that 
 lies in human power to unmake men, to 
 rob them of their humanity, to degrade 
 men into brutes ; and this it does by 
 declaring them to be property. Here is 
 the master evil. Declare a man a chattel, 
 something which you may own and may 
 turn to your use, as a horse or a tool ; 
 strip him of all right over himself, of all 
 right to use his own powers, except 
 what you concede to him as a favor and 
 deem consistent with your own profit ; 
 and you cease to look on him as a man. 
 You may call him such ; but he is not 
 to you a brother, a fellow-being, a par- 
 taker of your nature, and your equal in 
 the sight of God. You view him, you 
 
 treat him, you speak to him, as infinitely 
 beneath you, as belonging to another 
 race. You have a tone and a look 
 towards him which you never use tow- 
 ards a man. Your relation to him 
 demands that you treat him as an in- 
 ferior creature. You cannot, if you 
 would, treat him as a man. That he 
 may answer your end, that he may con- 
 sent to be a slave, his spirit must be 
 broken, his courage crushed ; he must 
 fear you. A feeling of his deep inferi- 
 ority must be burnt into his soul. The 
 idea of his rights must be quenched in 
 him by the blood of his lashed and 
 lacerated body. Here is the damning 
 evil of slavery. It destroys the spirit, 
 the consciousness of a man. I care 
 little, in comparison, for his hard out- 
 ward lot, his poverty, his unfurnished 
 house, his coarse fare ; the terrible 
 thing in slavery is the spirit of a slave, 
 the extinction of the spirit of a man. 
 He feels himself owned, a chattel, a 
 thing bought and sold, and held to sweat 
 for another's pleasure, at another's will, 
 under another's lash, just as an ox or 
 horse. Treated thus as a brute, can he 
 take a place among men ? A slave ! Is 
 there a name so degraded on earth, a 
 name which so separates a man from his 
 kind ? And to this condition millions 
 of our race are condemned in this land 
 of liberty. 
 
 In what is the slave treated as a man ? 
 The great right of a man is, to use, 
 improve, expand his powers, for his 
 own and others' good. The slave's 
 powers belong to another, and are hem- 
 med in, kept down, not cherished, or 
 suffered to unfold. If there be an 
 infernal system, one especially hostile 
 to humanity, it is that which deliberately 
 wars against the expansion of men's 
 faculties ; and this enters into the 
 essence of slavery. The slave cannot 
 be kept a slave, if helped or allowed to 
 improve his intellect and higher nature. 
 He must not be taught to read. The 
 benevolent Christian, who tries, by 
 giving him the use of letters, to open 
 to him the word of God and other good 
 books, is punished as a criminal. The 
 slave is hedged round so that philan- 
 thropy cannot approach him to awaken 
 in him the intelligence and feelings of a 
 man. Thus his humanity is trodden 
 under foot. 
 
 Again, a man has the right to form
 
 910 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
 
 and enjoy the relations of domestic life. 
 The tie between the brute and his young 
 endures but a few months. Man was 
 made to have a home, to have a wife and 
 children, to cleave to them for life, to 
 sustain the domestic relations in con- 
 stancy and purity, and through these 
 holy ties to refine and exalt his nature. 
 Such is the distinction of a man. But 
 slavery violates the sanctity of home. 
 It ma'kes the young woman property, 
 and gives her no protection from licen- 
 tiousness. It either disallows marriage, 
 or makes it a vain show. It sunders 
 husband and wife, sells them into dis- 
 tant regions, and then compels them to 
 break the sacred tie, and contract new 
 alliances, in order to stock the plantation 
 with human slaves. Scripture and nature 
 say, " What God hath joined, let not 
 man put asunder ; " but slavery scorns 
 God's voice in his word and in the human 
 heart. Even the Christian church dares 
 not remonstrate against the wrong, but 
 sanctions it, and encourages the poor 
 ignorant slave to form a new, adulterous 
 connection, that he may minister to his 
 master's gain. The slave-holder enters 
 the hut of his bondsman to do the work 
 which belongs only to death, and to do 
 it with nothing of the consolatory, heal- 
 ing influences which Christianity sheds 
 round death. He goes to tear the wife 
 from the husband, the child from the 
 mother, to exile them from one another, 
 and to convey them to unknown masters. 
 Is this to see a man in a slave ? Is not 
 this to place him beneath humanity ? 
 
 Again, it is the right, privilege, and 
 distinction of a man, not only to be con- 
 nected with a family, but with his race. 
 He is made for free communion with 
 his fellow-creatures. One of the sorest 
 evils of life is to be cut off from the 
 mass of men, from the social body ; to 
 be treated by the multitude of our fel- 
 low-creatures as outcasts, as Farias, as 
 a fallen race, unworthy to be approached, 
 unworthy of the deference due to men ; 
 and this infinite wrong is done to the 
 slave. A slave ! that name severs all 
 his ties except with beings as degraded 
 as himself. He has no country, no pride 
 or love of nation, no sympathy with the 
 weal or woe of the land which gave him 
 birth, no joy in its triumphs, no gener- 
 ous sorrow for its humiliation, no feel- | 
 ing of that strong unity with those 
 around him which common laws, a com- 
 
 mon government, and a common history 
 create. He is not allowed to go forth, 
 as other men are, and to connect him- 
 self with strangers, to form new alliances 
 by means of trade, business, conversa- 
 tion. Society is every where barred 
 against him. An iron wall forbids his 
 access to his race. The miscellaneous 
 intercourse of man with man, which 
 strengthens the feeling of our, common 
 humanity, and perhaps does more than 
 all things to enlarge the intellect, is de- 
 nied him. The world is nothing to him ; 
 he does not hear of it. The plantation 
 is his world. To him the universe is 
 narrowed down almost wholly to the hut 
 where he sleeps, and the fields where 
 he sweats for another's gain. Beyond 
 these he must not step without leave ; 
 and even if allowed to wander, who has 
 a respectful look or word for the slave ? 
 In that name he carries with him an 
 atmosphere of repulsion. It drives men 
 from him as if he were a leper. How- 
 ever gifted by God. however thirsting 
 for some higher use of his powers, he 
 must hope for no friend beyond the ig- 
 norant, half-brutalized caste with which 
 bondage has united him. To him there 
 is no race, as there is no country. In 
 truth, so fallen is he beneath sympa- 
 thy that multitudes will smile at hear- 
 ing him compassionated for being bereft 
 of these ties. Still, he suffers great 
 wrong. Just in proportion as you sever 
 a man from his country and race he 
 ceases to be a man. The rudest sav- 
 age, who has a tribe with which he 
 sympathizes, and for which he is ready 
 to die, is far exalted above the slave. 
 How much more exalted is the poorest 
 freeman in a civilized land, who feels 
 his relation to a wide community ; who 
 lives under equal laws to which the 
 greatest bow : whose social ties change 
 and enlarge with the vicissitudes of life ; 
 whose mind and heart are open to the 
 quickening, stirring influences of this 
 various world ! Poor slave ! humanity's 
 outcast and orphan ! to whom no door 
 is open, but that of the naked hut of thy 
 degraded caste ! Art thou, indeed, a 
 man ? Dost thou belong to the human 
 brotherhood? What is thy whole life 
 but continued insult ? Thou meetest no 
 look which does not express thy hope- 
 less exclusion from human sympathies. 
 Thou mayest. indeed be pitied in sick- 
 ness and pain ; and so is the animal.
 
 EMANCIPA TION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 91 1 
 
 The deference due to a man, and which 
 keeps alive a man's spirit, is unknown 
 to thee. The intercourse which makes 
 the humblest individual in other spheres 
 partaker more or less in the improve- 
 ments of his race, thou must never hope 
 for. May I not say, then, that nothing 
 extinguishes humanity like slavery ? 
 
 In reply to these and other represen- 
 tations of the wrongs and evils of this in- 
 stitution, we are told that slaves are well 
 fed, well clothed, at least better than the 
 peasantry and operatives in many other 
 countries ; and this is gravely adduced as 
 a vindication of slavery. A man capable 
 of offering it ought, if any one ought, to 
 be reduced to bondage. A man who 
 thinks food and raiment a compensation 
 for liberty, who would counsel men to 
 sell themselves, to become property, to 
 give up all rights and power over 
 themselves, for a daily mess of pottage, 
 however savory, is a slave in heart. He 
 has lost the spirit of a man ; and would 
 be less wronged than other men if a 
 slave's collar were welded round his 
 neck. 
 
 The domestic slave is well fed, we are 
 told, and so are the domestic animals. 
 A nobleman's horse in England is better 
 lodged and more pampered than the 
 operatives in Manchester. The grain 
 which the horse consumes might sup- 
 port a starving family. How sleek and 
 shining his coat ! How gay and rich 
 his caparison! But why is he thus cur- 
 ried and pampered and bedecked ? To 
 be bitted and curbed ; and then to be 
 mounted by his master, who arms him- 
 self with whip and spur to put the ani- 
 mal to his speed ; and if any accident 
 mar his strength or swiftness, he is sold 
 from his luxuriant stall to be flayed, 
 overworked, and hastened out of life 
 by the merciless drayman. Suppose the 
 nobleman should say to the half-starved, 
 ragged operative of Manchester, " I will 
 give up my horse, and feed and clothe 
 you with like sumptuousness, on condi- 
 tion that I may mount you daily with 
 lash and spurs, and sell you when I can 
 make a profitable bargain." Would you 
 have the operative, for the sake of good 
 fare and clothes, take the lot of the 
 brute ? or, in other words, become a 
 slave ? What reply would the heart of 
 an Old England or New England la- 
 borer make to such a proposal ? And 
 yet, if there be any soundness in the 
 
 argument drawn from the slave's com- 
 forts, he ought to accept it thankfully 
 and greedily. 
 
 Such arguments for slavery are in- 
 sults. The man capable of using them 
 ought to be rebuked as mean in spirit, 
 hard of heart, and wanting all true sym- 
 pathy with his race. I might reply, if I 
 thought fit, to this account of the slave's 
 blessings, that there is nothing very 
 enviable in his food and wardrobe, that 
 his comforts make no approach to those 
 of the nobleman's horse, and that a 
 laborer of New England would prefer 
 the fare of many an almshouse at home. 
 But I cannot stoop to such reasoning. 
 Be the comforts of the slave what they 
 may, they are no compensation for the 
 degradation, insolence, indignities, igno- 
 rance, servility, scars, and violations of 
 domestic rights to which he is exposed. 
 
 I have spoken of what seems to me 
 the grand evil of slavery, the outrage 
 it offers to human nature. It would be 
 easy to enlarge on other fatal tendencies 
 and effects of this institution. But I 
 forbear, not only for want of time, but 
 because I feel no need of a minute ex- 
 position of its wrongs and miseries to 
 make it odious. I cannot endure to go 
 through a labored proof of its iniquitous 
 and injurious nature. No man wants 
 such proof. He carries the evidence 
 in his own heart. I need nothing but 
 the most general view of slavery to 
 move my indignation towards it. I am 
 more and more accustomed to throw 
 out of sight its particular evils, its de- 
 tails of wrong and suffering, and to see 
 in it simply an institution which deprives 
 men of freedom ; and when I thus view 
 it, I am taught immediately, by an un- 
 erring instinct, that slavery is an in- 
 tolerable wrong. Nature cries aloud 
 for freedom as our proper good, our 
 birthright and our end, and resents, 
 nothing so much as its loss. It is true 
 that we are placed at first in subjection 
 to others' wills, and spend childhood 
 and youth under restraint. But we are 
 governed at first that we may learn to 
 govern ourselves ; we begin with lead- 
 ing-strings that we may learn to go alone. 
 The discipline of the parent is designed 
 to train up his children to act for them- 
 selves, and from a principle of duty in 
 their own breasts. The child is not 
 subjected to his father to be a slave, 
 but to grow up to the energy, responsi-
 
 912 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
 
 bility, relations, and authority of a man. 
 Freedom, courage, moral force, effi- 
 ciency, independence, the large, gen- 
 erous action of the soul, these are the 
 blessings in store for us, the grand ends 
 to which the restraints of education, of 
 family, of school, and college are directed. 
 Nature knows no such thing as a per- 
 petual yoke. Nature bends no head to 
 the dust, to look for ever downward. 
 Nature makes no man a chattel. Nat- 
 ure has implanted in all souls the thirst, 
 the passion for liberty. Nature stirs 
 the heart of the child, and prompts it 
 to throw out its little limbs in restless- 
 ness and joy, and to struggle against 
 restraint. Nature impels the youth to 
 leap, to run, to put forth all his powers, 
 to look with impatience on prescribed 
 bounds, to climb the steep, to dive into 
 the ocean, to court danger, to spread 
 himself through the new world which 
 he was born to inherit. Nature's life, 
 nature's impulse, nature's joy is free- 
 dom. A greater violence to nature can- 
 not be conceived than to rob man of 
 liberty. 
 
 What is the end and essence of life ? 
 It is to expand all our faculties and 
 affections. It is to grow, to gain by 
 exercise new energy, new intellect, new 
 love. It is to hope, to strive, to bring 
 out what is within us, to press towards 
 what is above us. In other words, it 
 is to be free. Slavery is thus at war 
 with the true life of human nature. 
 Undoubtedly there is a power in the 
 soul which the loss of freedom cannot 
 always subdue. There have been men 
 doomed to perpetual bondage who have 
 still thought and felt nobly, looked up 
 to God with trust, and learned by ex- 
 perience that even bondage, like all other 
 evils, may be made the occasion of high 
 virtue. But these are exceptions. In 
 the main, our nature is too weak to 
 grow under the weight of chains. 
 
 To illustrate the supreme importance 
 of freedom, I would offer a remark 
 which may sound like a paradox, but 
 will be found to be true. It is this, that 
 even despotism is endurable only be- 
 cause it bestows a degree of freedom. 
 Despotism, bad as it is, supplants a 
 greater evil, and that is anarchy ; and 
 anarchy is worse, chiefly because it is 
 more enslaving. In anarchy all restraint 
 is plucked from the strong, who make a 
 nrey of the weak ; subduing them by 
 
 terror, seizing on their property, and 
 treading every right under foot. When 
 the laws are prostrated, arbitrary, pas- 
 sionate, lawless will, the will of the 
 strongest, exasperated by opposition, 
 must prevail ; and under this the rights 
 of person as well as property are cast 
 ! down, and a palsying fear imposes on 
 ' men's spirits a heavier chain than was 
 ever forged by an organized despot- 
 ism. In the whole history of tyranny 
 in France, liberty was never so crushed 
 as in the reign of terror in the Revolu- 
 tion, when mobs and lawless combina- 
 tions usurped the power of the state. 
 A despot, to be safe, must establish a 
 degree of order, and this implies laws, 
 tribunals, and some administration of 
 justice, however rude ; and, still more, 
 he has an interest in protecting industry 
 and property to some degree, in order 
 that he may extort the more from his 
 people's earnings under the name of 
 revenue. Thus despotism is an advance 
 towards liberty ; and in this its strength 
 very much lies ; for the people have a 
 secret consciousness that their rights 
 suffer less under one than under many 
 tyrants, under an organized absolutism 
 than under wild, lawless, passionate 
 force ; and on this conviction, as truly 
 as on armies, rests the despot's throne. 
 Thus freedom and rights are ever cher- 
 ished goods of human nature. Man 
 keeps them in sight even when most 
 crushed ; and just in proportion as civ- 
 ilization and intelligence advance he 
 secures them more and more. This is 
 infallibly true, notwithstanding opposite 
 appearances. The old forms of despot- 
 ism may, indeed, continue in a progres- 
 sive civilization, but their force declines ; 
 and public opinion, the will of the com- 
 munity, silently establishes a sway over 
 what seems and is denominated abso- 
 lute power. We have a striking exam- 
 ple of this truth in Prussia, where the 
 king seems unchecked, but where a 
 code of wise and equal laws insures to 
 every man his rights to a degree ex- 
 perienced in few other countries, and 
 where the administration of justice can- 
 not safely be obstructed by the will of 
 the sovereign. Thus freedom, man's 
 dearest birthright, is the good towards 
 which civil institutions tend. It is at 
 once the sign and the means, the cause 
 and the effect of human progress. It 
 exists in a measure under tyrannical
 
 EMANCIPA TION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 
 
 913 
 
 governments, and gives them their 
 strength. Nowhere is it wholly bro- 
 ken down but under domestic slavery. 
 Under this, man is made property. 
 Here lies the damning taint, the ac- 
 cursed, blighting power, the infinite evil 
 of bondage. 
 
 On this day, four years ago, eight 
 hundred thousand human beings were 
 set free from the terrible evil of which 
 I have given a faint sketch. Eight 
 hundred thousand of our brethren, who 
 had lived in darkness and the shadow 
 of death, were visited with the light of 
 liberty. Instead of the tones of abso- 
 lute, debasing command, a new voice 
 broke on their ears, calling them to 
 come forth to be free. They were un- 
 doubtedly too rude, too ignorant, to 
 comprehend the greatness of the bless- 
 ing conferred on them this day. Free- 
 dom to them undoubtedly seemed much 
 what it is not. Children in intellect, 
 they seized on it as a child on a holiday. 
 But slavery had not wholly stifled in 
 them the instincts, feelings, judgments 
 of men. They felt on this day that the 
 whip of the brutal overseer was broken ; 
 and was that no cause for exulting joy ? 
 They felt that wife and child could no 
 longer be insulted or scourged in their 
 sight, and they be denied the privilege 
 of lifting up a voice in their behalf. 
 Was that no boon ? They felt that 
 henceforth they were to work from their 
 own wills, for their own good, that they 
 might earn perhaps a hut, which they 
 might call their own, and which the foot 
 of a master could not profane, nor a 
 master's interest lay waste. Can you 
 not conceive how they stretched out 
 their limbs, and looked on them with a 
 new joy, saying, " These are our own " ? 
 Can you not conceive how they leaped 
 with a new animation, exulting to put 
 forth powers which were from that day 
 to be ' their own " ? Can you not con- 
 ceive how they looked round them on 
 the fields and hills, and said to them- 
 selves, " We can go now where we 
 will"? and how they continued to live 
 in their huts with new content, because 
 they could leave them if they would ? 
 Can you not conceive how dim ideas of 
 a better lot dawned on their long-dor- 
 mant minds ; how the future, once a 
 blank, began to brighten before them; 
 how hope began to spread her unused 
 pinions ; how the faculties and feelings 
 
 of men came to a new birth within them ? 
 The father and mother took their child 
 to their arms and said, ' Nobody can 
 sell you from us now." Was not that 
 enough to give them a new life ? The 
 husband and wife began to feel that 
 there was an inviolable sanctity in mar- 
 riage ; and a glimpse, however faint, of 
 a moral, spiritual bond began to take 
 place of the loose sensual tie which had 
 held them together. Still more, and 
 what deserves special note, the colored 
 man raised his eyes on this day to the 
 white man, and saw the infinite chasm 
 between himself and the white race grow- 
 ing narrower ; saw and felt that he, too, 
 was a man ; that he, too, had rights ; 
 that he belonged to the common Father, 
 not to a frail, selfish creature ; that, 
 under God, he was his own master. A 
 rude feeling of dignity, in strange con- 
 trast with the abjectness of the slave, gave 
 new courage to that look, gave a firmer 
 tone, a manlier tread. This, had I been 
 there, would have interested me espe- 
 cially. The tumult of joyful feeling 
 bursting forth in the broken language 
 which slavery had taught I should have 
 sympathized with. But the sight of the 
 slave rising into a man, looking on the 
 white race with a steady eye, with 
 the secret consciousness of a common 
 nature, and beginning to comprehend 
 his heaven-descended, inalienable rights, 
 would have been the crowning joy. 
 
 It was natural to expect that the slaves, 
 on the first of August, receiving the vast, 
 incomprehensible gift of freedom, would 
 have rushed into excess. It would not 
 have surprised me had I heard of in- 
 temperance, tumult, violence. Liberty, 
 that mighty boon, for which nations have 
 shed rivers of their best blood, for which 
 they have toiled and suffered for years, 
 perhaps for ages, was given to these poor, 
 ignorant creatures in a day, and given 
 to them after lives of cruel bondage, im- 
 measurably more cruel than any politi- 
 cal oppression. Would it have been 
 wonderful if they had been intoxicated 
 by the sudden, vast transition ? if they 
 had put to shame the authors of their 
 freedom by an immediate abuse of it ? 
 Happily, the poor negroes had enjoyed 
 one privilege in their bondage. They 
 had learned something of Christianity ; 
 very little indeed, yet enough to teach 
 them that liberty was the gift of God. 
 That mighty power, religion, had be-
 
 914 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
 
 gun a work within them. The African 
 nature seems singularly susceptible of 
 this principle. Benevolent missionaries, 
 whom the antislavery spirit of England 
 had sent into the colonies, had for some 
 time been working on the degraded 
 minds of the bondmen, and not wholly 
 in vain. The slaves, whilst denied the 
 rank of men by their race, had caught 
 the idea of their relation to the Infinite 
 Father. That great doctrine of the 
 universal, impartial love of God, em- 
 bracing the,, most obscure, dishonored, 
 oppressed, had dawned on them. Their 
 new freedom thus became associated 
 with religion, the mightiest principle on 
 earth, and by this it was not merely 
 saved from excess, but made the spring 
 of immediate elevation. 
 
 Little did I imagine that the emanci- 
 pation of the slaves was to be invested 
 with holiness and moral sublimity. Lit- 
 tle did I expect that my heart was to be 
 touched by it as by few events in his- 
 tory. But the emotions with which I 
 first read the narrative of the great gift 
 of liberty in Antigua are still fresh in 
 my mind. Let me read to you the story ; 
 none, I think, can hear it unmoved. It 
 is the testimony of trustworthy men, 
 who visited the West Indies to observe 
 the effects of emancipation : 
 
 "To convey to the reader some account 
 of the way in which the great crisis passed, 
 we here give the substance of several ac- 
 counts which were related to us in different 
 parts of the island by those who witnessed 
 them. 
 
 "The Wesleyans kept 'watch-night' in 
 all their chapels on the night of the 3151 
 July. One of the Wesleyan missionaries 
 gave us an account of the watch-meeting 
 at the chapel in St. John's. The spacious 
 house was filled with the candidates for 
 liberty. All was animation and eagerness. 
 A mighty chorus of voices swelled the song 
 of expectation and joy ; and, as they united 
 in prayer, the voice of the leader was 
 drowned in the universal acclamation of 
 thanksgiving and praise and blessing and 
 honor and glory to God, who had come 
 down for their deliverance. In such exer- 
 cises the evening was spent until the hour 
 of twelve approached. The missionary 
 then proposed that, when the clock on the 
 cathedral should begin to strike, the whole 
 congregation should fall upon their knees, 
 and receive the boon of freedom in silence. 
 Accordingly, as the loud bell tolled its first 
 note, the immense assembly fell prostrate 
 on their knees. All was silence, save the 
 
 quivering, half-stifled breath of the strug- 
 gling spirit. The slow notes of the clock 
 fell upon the multitude ; peal on peal, peal 
 on peal, rolled over the prostrate throng, 
 in tones of angels' voices, thrilling among 
 the desolate chords and weary heart-strings. 
 Scarce had the clock sounded its last note, 
 when the lightning flashed vividly around, 
 and a loud peal of thunder roared along 
 the sky, God's pillar of fire, and trump 
 of jubilee ! A moment of profoundest si- 
 lence passed, then came the burst, 
 they broke forth in prayer ; they shouted, 
 they sung ' Glory ! ' ' Alleluia ! ' they 
 clapped their hands, leaped up, fell down, 
 clasped each other in their free arms, cried, 
 laughed, and went to and fro, tossing 
 upward their unfettered hands ; but high 
 above the whole there was a mighty sound 
 which ever and anon swelled up ; it was 
 the utterings, in broken negro dialect, of 
 gratitude to God. 
 
 " After this gush of excitement had 
 spent itself, and the congregation became 
 calm, the religious exercises were resumed, 
 and the remainder of the night was oc- 
 cupied in singing and prayer, in reading the 
 Bible, and in addresses from the mission- 
 aries, explaining the nature of the freedom 
 just received, and exhorting the free people 
 to be industrious, steady, obedient to the 
 laws, and to show themselves in all things 
 worthy of the high boon which God had 
 conferred upon them. 
 
 " The first of August came on Friday, 
 and a release was proclaimed from all work 
 until the next Monday. The day was chiefly 
 spent, by the great mass of negroes, in 
 the churches and chapels. Thither they 
 flocked in clouds, and as doves to their 
 windows. The clergy and missionaries 
 throughout the island were actively en- 
 gaged, seizing the opportunity in order to 
 enlighten the people on all the duties and 
 responsibilities of their new situation, and, 
 above all, urging them to the attainment 
 of that higher liberty with which Christ 
 maketh his children free. In every quarter 
 we were assured that the day was like a 
 Sabbath. Work had ceased ; the hum of 
 business was still ; and noise and tumult 
 were unheard in the streets. Tranquillity 
 pervaded the towns and country. A Sab- 
 bath indeed ! when the wicked ceased from 
 troubling, and the weary were at rest, and 
 the slave was freed from the master ! The 
 planters informed us that they went to the 
 chapels where their own people were as- 
 sembled, greeted them, shook hands with 
 them, and exchanged most hearty good 
 wishes."* 
 
 Such is the power of true religion on 
 the rudest minds. Such the deep foun- 
 
 * See " Emancipation in the West Indies," by 
 Thome and Kimball.
 
 EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 915 
 
 tain of feeling in the African soul. Such 
 the race of men whom we are tramp- 
 ling in the dust. How few of our as- 
 semblies, with all our intelligence and 
 refinement, offer to God this overflow- 
 ing gratitude, this profound, tender, 
 rapturous homage ! True, the slaves 
 poured out their joy with a child-like 
 violence ; but we see a childhood full 
 of promise. And why do we place this 
 race beneath us ? Because nature has 
 burnt on them a darker hue. But does 
 the essence of humanity live in color ? 
 Is the black man less a man than the 
 white ? Has he not human powers, hu- 
 man rights ? Does his color reach to 
 his soul ? Is reason in him a whit 
 blacker than in us ? Have his con- 
 science and affections been dipped in an 
 inky flood ? To the eye of God are his 
 pure thoughts and kind feelings less 
 fair than our own ? We are apt to think 
 this prejudice of color founded in nature. 
 But in the most enlightened countries in 
 Europe the man of African descent is 
 received into the society of the great 
 and good as an equal and friend. It is 
 here only that this prejudice reigns ; 
 and to this prejudice, strengthened by 
 our subjection to Southern influence, 
 must be ascribed our indifference to the 
 progress of liberty in the West Indies. 
 Ought not the emancipation of nearly a 
 million of human beings, so capable of 
 progress as the African race, to have 
 sent a thrill of joy through a nation of 
 freemen ? But this great event was re- 
 ceived in our country with indifference. 
 Humanity, justice, Christian sympathy, 
 the love of liberty, found but few voices 
 here. Nearly a million of men, at no 
 great distance from our land, passed 
 from the most degrading bondage into 
 the ranks of freedom with hardly a wel- 
 come from these shores. 
 
 Perhaps you will say that we are 
 bound to wait for the fruits of emanci- 
 pation, before we celebrate it as a great 
 event in history. I think not so. We 
 ought to rejoice immediately, without 
 delay, whenever an act of justice is 
 done, especially a grand public act, sub- 
 verting the oppression of ages. We 
 ought to triumph, when the right pros- 
 pers, without waiting for consequences. 
 We ought not to doubt about conse- 
 quences, when men, in obedience to 
 conscience, and in the exercise of their 
 best wisdom, redress a mighty wrong. 
 
 If God reigns, then the subversion of a 
 vast crime, then the breaking of an un- 
 righteous yoke, must in its final results 
 be good. Undoubtedly an old abuse 
 which has sent its roots through society 
 cannot be removed without inconven- 
 ience or suffering. Indeed, no great 
 social change, however beneficial, can 
 occur without partial, temporary pain. 
 But must abuses be sheltered without 
 end, and human progress given up in 
 despair, because some who have fattened 
 on wrongs will cease to prosper at the 
 expense of their brethren ? Undoubt- 
 edly slavery cannot be broken up with- 
 out deranging in a measure the old 
 social order. Must, therefore, slavery 
 be perpetual ? Has the Creator laid on 
 any portion of his children the neces- 
 sity of everlasting bondage ? Must 
 wrong know no end ? Has oppression 
 a charter from God, which is never to 
 grow old ? What a libel on God, as well 
 as on man, is the supposition that so- 
 ciety cannot subsist without perpetuat- 
 ing the degradation of a large portion of 
 the race ! Is this, indeed, the law of 
 the creation, that multitudes must be 
 oppressed ? that states can subsist and 
 prosper only through crime ? Then 
 there is no God. Then an evil spirit 
 reigns over the universe. It is an im- 
 pious error to believe that injustice is a 
 necessity under the government of the 
 Most High. It is disloyalty to princi- 
 ple, treachery to virtue, to suppose that 
 a righteous, generous work, conceived 
 in a sense of duty, and carried on with 
 deliberate forethought, can issue in mis- 
 ery, in ruin. To this want of faith in 
 rectitude society owes its woes, owes the 
 licensed frauds and crimes of statesmen, 
 the licensed frauds of trade, the continu- 
 ance of slavery. Once let men put faith 
 in rectitude, let them feel that justice is 
 strength, that disinterestedness is a sun 
 and a shield, that selfishness and crime 
 are weak and miserable, and the face of 
 the earth would be changed, the groans 
 of ages would cease. We ought to 
 shout for joy, not shrink like cowards, 
 when justice and humanity triumph over 
 established wrongs. 
 
 The emancipation of the British Is- 
 lands ought, then, to have called forth 
 acclamation at its birth. Much more 
 should we rejoice in it now, when time 
 has taught us the folly of the fears and 
 the suspicions which it awakened, and
 
 916 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
 
 taught us the safety of doing right. 
 Emancipation has worked well. By 
 this I do not mean that it has worked 
 miracles. I have no glowing pictures 
 to exhibit to you of the West Indian 
 Islands. An act of the British parlia- 
 ment declaring them free has not 
 changed them into a paradise. A few 
 strokes of the pen cannot reverse the 
 laws of nature, or conquer the almost 
 omnipotent power of early and long-con- 
 tinued habit. Even in this country, 
 where we breathe the air of freedom 
 from our birth, and where we have 
 grown up amidst churches and school- 
 houses, and under wise and equal laws, 
 even here we find no paradise. Here 
 are crime and poverty and woe ; and can 
 you expect a poor ignorant race, born to 
 bondage, scarred with the lash, unedu- 
 cated, and unused to all the motives 
 which stimulate industry, can you ex- 
 pect these to unlearn in a day the les- 
 sons of years, and to furnish all at once 
 themes for eloquent description ? Were 
 you to visit those islands, you would 
 rind a slovenly agriculture, much igno- 
 rance, and more sloth than you see at 
 home ; and yet emancipation works well, 
 far better than could have been an- 
 ticipated. To me it coirld hardly have 
 worked otherwise than well. It ban- 
 ished slavery, that wrong and curse not 
 to be borne. It gave freedom, the dear 
 birthright of humanity ; and had it done 
 nothing more, I should have found in it 
 cause for joy. Freedom, simple freedom, 
 is "in my estimation just, far prized 
 above all price!" I do not stop to ask 
 if the emancipated are better fed and 
 clothed than formerly. They are free ; 
 and that one word contains a world of 
 good, unknown to the most pampered 
 slave. 
 
 But emancipation has brought more 
 than naked liberty. The emancipated 
 are making progress in intelligence, 
 comforts, purity : and progress is the 
 great good of life. No matter where 
 men are at any given moment ; the great 
 question about them is, Are they going 
 forward ? do they improve ? Slavery 
 was immovable, hopeless degradation. 
 It is the glory of liberty to favor prog- 
 ress, and this great blessing emancipa- 
 tion has bestowed. We were told, 
 indeed, that emancipation wa to turn 
 the green islands of the West Indies 
 into deserts ; but they still rise from the 
 
 tropical sea as blooming and verdant as 
 before. We were told that the slaves, 
 if set free, would break out in universal 
 massacre ; but since that event not a 
 report has reached us of murder perpe- 
 trated by a colored man on the white 
 population. We were told that crimes 
 would multiply ; but they are diminished 
 in every emancipated island, and very 
 greatly in most. We were told that the 
 freed slave would abandon himself to 
 idleness ; and this I did anticipate, to a 
 considerable degree, as the first result. 
 Men on whom industry had been forced 
 by the lash, and who had been taught to 
 regard sloth as their master's chief good, 
 were strongly tempted to surrender the 
 first days of freedom to indolent indul- 
 gence. But in this respect the evil has 
 been so small as to fill a reflecting man 
 with admiration. In truth, no race but 
 the African could have made the great 
 transition with so little harm to them- 
 selves and others. In general, they re- 
 sumed their work after a short burst of 
 joy. The desire of property, of better- 
 ing their lot, at once sprang up within 
 them in sufficient strength to counter- 
 balance the love of ease. Some of them 
 have become proprietors of the soil. 
 New villages have grown up under their 
 hands ; their huts are more comfortable ; 
 their dress more decent, sometimes too 
 expensive. When I tell you that the 
 price of real estate in these islands has 
 risen, and that the imports from the 
 mother country, especially those for the 
 laborer's use, have increased, you will 
 judge whether the liberated slaves are 
 living as drones. Undoubtedly the 
 planter has sometimes wanted workmen, 
 and the staple product of the islands, 
 sugar, has decreased. But this can be 
 explained without much reproach to the 
 emancipated. The laborer, who in sla- 
 very was overtasked in the cane-field 
 and sugar-mill, is anxious to buy or hire 
 land sufficient for his support, and to 
 work for himself, instead of hiring him- 
 self to another. A planter from British 
 Guiana informed me, a few weeks ago, 
 that a company of colored men had paid 
 down seventy thousand dollars for a 
 tract of land in the most valuable part of 
 that colony. It is not sloth, so much as 
 a spirit of manly independence, which 
 has withdrawn the laborer from the 
 plantation ; and this evil, if so it must 
 be called, has been increased by his un-
 
 EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 
 
 917 
 
 willingness to subject his wife and 
 daughter to the toils of the field which 
 they used to bear in the days of slavery. 
 Undoubtedly the colored population 
 might do more, but they do enough to 
 earn a better lot than they ever enjoyed, 
 and the work of improvement goes on 
 among them. 
 
 I pass to a still brighter view. The 
 spirit of education has sprung up among 
 the people to an extent worthy of admi- 
 ration. We despise them ; and yet there 
 is reason to believe that a more general 
 desire to educate their children is to be 
 found among them than exists among 
 large portions of the white population 
 in the slave States of the South. They 
 have learned that their ignorance is the 
 great barrier between them and the white 
 men, and this they are in earnest to pros- 
 trate. It has been stated that, in one 
 island, not a child above ten years of 
 age was unable to read. Human history 
 probably furnishes no parallel of an 
 equal progress in a half-civilized com- 
 munity. 
 
 To this must be added their interest 
 in religious institutions. Their expen- 
 ditures for the support of these are such 
 as should put to shame the backward- 
 ness of multitudes in countries calling 
 themselves civilized. They do more than 
 we, in proportion to their means. Some 
 of them have even subscribed funds for 
 the diffusion of the gospel in Africa, 
 an instance of their zeal, rather than 
 their wisdom : for they undoubtedly 
 need all they can spare for their own in- 
 struction. Their conceptions of religion 
 are, of course, narrow and rude, but their 
 hearts have been touched by its simpler 
 truths ; and love is the key to higher 
 knowledge. To this let me add, that 
 marriage is acquiring sanctity in their 
 eyes, that domestic life is putting on a 
 new refinement, and you will see that 
 this people have all the elements- of 
 social progress. Property, marriage, 
 and religion have been called the pillars 
 of society, and of these the liberated 
 slave has learned the value. 
 
 The result of all these various im- 
 provements is what every wise friend of 
 humanity must rejoice in. Their social 
 position is changed. They have taken 
 rank among men. They are no longer de- 
 graded by being looked on as degraded. 
 They no longer live under that wither- 
 ing curse, the contempt of their fellow- 
 
 beings. The tone in which they are 
 spoken to no longer expresses their in- 
 finite and hopeless depression. They 
 are treated as men ; some of them en- 
 gage in lucrative pursuits ; all the paths 
 of honor as well as of gain are open to 
 them ; they are found in the legislatures ; 
 they fill civil offices ; they have military 
 appointments ; and in all these con- 
 ditions acquit themselves honorably. 
 Their humanity is recognized ; and with- 
 out this recognition men pine and had 
 better be left to perish. 
 
 I have no thought of painting these 
 islands as Edens. That great ignorance 
 prevails among the emancipated people, 
 that they want our energy, that the deg- 
 radation of slavery has not vanished 
 all at once with the name, this I need 
 not tell you. No miracle has been 
 wrought on them. But their present lot, 
 compared with slavery, is an immense 
 good ; and when we consider that as yet 
 we have seen comparatively nothing of 
 the blessed influences of freedom, we 
 ought to thank God with something of 
 their own fervor for the vast deliverance 
 which he hath vouchsafed them. 
 
 We commemorate with transport the 
 redemption of a nation from political 
 bondage ; but this is a light burden 
 compared with personal slavery. The 
 oppression which these United States 
 threw off by our revolutionary struggle 
 was the perfection of freedom, whert 
 placed by the side of the galling, crush- 
 ing, intolerable yoke which bowed the 
 African to the dust. Thank God, it is 
 broken ! Thank God, our most injured 
 brethren have risen to the rank of men ! 
 Thank God, eight hundred thousand 
 human beings have been made free ! 
 
 These are the natural topics suggested 
 by this day ; but there are still higher 
 views, to which I invite your attention. 
 There are other grounds on which this 
 first of August should be hailed with 
 gratitude by the Christian. If I saw 
 in the emancipation which we celebrate 
 only the redemption of eight hundred 
 thousand fellow-creatures from the great- 
 est wrong on earth, I should, indeed, re- 
 joice ; but I know not that I should 
 commemorate it by public solemnities. 
 This particular result moves me less 
 than other views, which, though less 
 obvious, are far more significant and 
 full of promise. 
 
 When I look at West Indian emanci-
 
 918 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
 
 pation, what strikes me most forcibly 
 and most joyfully is, the spirit in which 
 it had its origin. What broke the slaves' 
 chain ? Did a foreign invader summon 
 them to his standard, and reward them 
 with freedom for their help in conquer- 
 ing their masters ? Or did they owe 
 liberty to their own exasperated valor ; 
 to courage maddened by despair ; to 
 massacre and unsparing revenge ? Or 
 did calculations of the superior profit of 
 free labor persuade the owner to eman- 
 cipation, as a means of superior gain ? 
 No ! West Indian emancipation was 
 the fruit of Christian principle acting 
 on the mind and heart of a great people. 
 The liberator of those slaves was Jesus 
 Christ. That voice which rebuked dis- 
 ease and death, and set their victims 
 free, broke the heavier chain of slavery. 
 The conflict against slavery began in 
 England about fifty years ago. It 
 began with Christians. It was at its 
 birth a Christian enterprise. Its power 
 was in the consciences and generous 
 sympathy of men who had been trained 
 in the school of Christ. It was resisted 
 by prejudice, custom, interest, opulence, 
 pride, and the civil power. Almost the 
 whole weight of the commercial class 
 was at first thrown into the opposite 
 scale. The politician dreaded the effects 
 of abolition on the wealth and revenue 
 of the nation. The king did not disguise 
 his hostility ; and I need not tell you 
 that it found little favor with the aristoc- 
 racy. The titled and proud are not the 
 first to sympathize with the abject. The 
 cause had nothing to rely on but the 
 spirit of the English people ; and that 
 people did respond to the reasonings, 
 pleadings, rebukes of Christian philan- 
 thropy as nation never did before. The 
 history of this warfare cannot be read 
 without seeing that, once at least, a 
 great nation was swayed by high and 
 disinterested principles. Men of the 
 world deride the notion of influencing 
 human affairs by any but selfish mo- 
 tives ; and it is a melancholy truth, that 
 the movements of nations have done 
 much to confirm the darkest views of 
 human nature. What a track of crime, 
 desolation, war, we are called by history 
 to travel over ! Still, history is lighted 
 up by great names, by noble deeds, by 
 patriots and martyrs ; and especially in 
 emancipation we see a great nation put- 
 ting forth its power and making great 
 
 sacrifices for a distant, degraded race of 
 men, who had no claims but those of 
 wronged and suffering humanity. Some, 
 and not a few, have blamed as superflu- 
 ous the compensation given by England 
 to the planter for the slaves. On one 
 account I rejoice at it. It is a testimony 
 to the disinterested motives of the na- 
 tion. A people groaning under a debt 
 which would crush any other people bor- 
 rowed twenty million pounds sterling, a 
 hundred million of dollars, and paid it as 
 the price of the slaves' freedom. This 
 act stands alone in the page of history ; 
 and emancipation having such an origin 
 deserves to be singled out for public 
 commemoration. 
 
 What gave peculiar interest to this 
 act was the fallen, abject state of the 
 people on whom freedom was conferred 
 at such a cost. They were not English- 
 men. They had no claim founded on 
 common descent, on common history, 
 or any national bond. There was 
 nothing in their lot to excite the im- 
 agination. They had done nothing to 
 draw regard. They weighed nothing in 
 human affairs. They belonged to no 
 nation. They were hardly recognized 
 as men. Humanity could hardly wear 
 a more abject form. But under all this 
 abjectness, under that black skin, under 
 those scars of the lash, under those 
 half-naked bodies put up at auction and 
 sold as cattle, the people of England 
 saw the lineaments of humanity, saw 
 fellow-creatures, saw the capacities and 
 rights and immortal destinies of men, 
 and in the spirit of brotherhood, and 
 from reverence for humanity, broke 
 their chains. 
 
 When I look at this act, I do not 
 stop at its immediate results, at the 
 emancipation of eight hundred thousand 
 human beings, nor do I look at the act 
 as standing alone. I look at the spirit 
 from which it sprung, and see here a 
 grand and most cheering foundation of 
 human hope. I see that Christianity 
 has not come into the world in vain. I 
 see that the blood of the cross was not 
 shed in vain. I see that the prophecies 
 in the Scriptures of a mighty change in 
 human affairs were not idle words. It 
 is true that Christianity has done little, 
 compared with these predictions. The 
 corruptions of our age who is so blind 
 as not to see ? But that a new prin- 
 ciple, derived from Christianity and
 
 EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 919 
 
 destined to renovate the earth, is at 
 work among these various elements ; 
 that, silently, a new spirit of humanity, 
 a new respect for human nature, a new 
 comprehension of human rights, a new 
 feeling of brotherhood, and new ideas 
 of a higher social state, have been and 
 are unfolding themselves under the in- 
 fluences of Christian truth and Chris- 
 tian civilization, who can deny ? Society 
 is not what it once was. Amidst all the 
 stir of selfish passion, the still voice of 
 Christianity is heard ; a diviner spirit 
 mixes, however imperfectly, with the 
 workings of worlclliness ; and we are 
 beginning to learn the mighty revolution 
 which a heavenly faith is to accomplish 
 here on earth. 
 
 Christianity is the hope of the world, 
 and we ought to regard every conspicuous 
 manifestation of its spirit and power as 
 an era in human history. We are daz- 
 zled by revolutions of empires : we 
 hope much from the rise or fall of 
 governments. But nothing but Chris- 
 tianity can regenerate the eartli ; and 
 accordingly we should hail with joy 
 every sign of a clearer comprehension 
 and a deeper feeling of its truths. 
 Christianity, truly understood, has a 
 direct tendency to that renovation of the 
 world which it foretells. It is not an 
 abstract system, secluding the disciple 
 from his kind ; but it makes him one 
 with his race, breaks down all barriers 
 between him and his brethren, arms him 
 with a martyr's spirit in the cause of 
 humanity, sends him forth to be a saviour 
 of the lost ; and just as far as Chris- 
 tianity is thus viewed and felt by its 
 followers, the redemption of the world 
 draws nigh. These views of religion 
 are making their way. They dawn upon 
 us, not only in emancipation, but in 
 many other movements of our age : not 
 that they have ever been wholly ob- 
 scured ; but the rank which they hold 
 in the Christian system, and the vast 
 social changes which they involve, have 
 not until the present day been dreamed 
 of. 
 
 All the doctrines of Christianity are 
 more and more seen to be bonds of close, 
 spiritual, reverential union between man 
 and man ; and this is the most cheering 
 view of our time. Christianity is a 
 revelation of the infinite, universal pa- 
 rental love of God towards his human 
 family, comprehending the most sinful, 
 
 descending to the most fallen, and its 
 aim is to breathe the same love into its 
 disciples. It shows us Christ tasting 
 death for every man, and it summons us 
 to take his cross, or to participate of 
 his sufferings, in the same cause. Its 
 doctrine of immortality gives infinite 
 worth to every human being ; for every 
 one is destined to this endless life. 
 The doctrine of the " Word made flesh " 
 shows us God uniting himself most 
 intimately with our nature, manifesting 
 himself in a human form, for the very 
 end of making us partakers of his own 
 perfection. The doctrine of grace, as 
 it is termed, reveals the Infinite Father 
 imparting his Holy Spirit the best gift 
 he can impart to the humblest human 
 being who implores it. Thus love and 
 reverence for human nature a love 
 for man stronger than death is the 
 very spirit of Christianity. Undoubtedly 
 this spirit is faintly comprehended by 
 the best of us. Some of its most strik- 
 ing expressions are still derided in 
 society. Society still rests on selfish 
 i principles. Men sympathize still with 
 ! the prosperous and great, not the ab- 
 ! ject and down-trodden. But amidst this 
 I degradation brighter glimpses of Chris- 
 I tianity are caught, than before. There 
 | are deeper, wider sympathies with man- 
 kind. The idea of raising up the mass 
 of human beings to intellectual, moral, 
 and spiritual dignity is penetrating many 
 minds. Among the signs of a brighter 
 day perhaps the West Indian emancipa- 
 tion is the most conspicuous ; for in this 
 the rights of the most despised men 
 have been revered. 
 
 There are some among us at the 
 present moment who are waiting for the 
 speedy coming of Christ. They expect, 
 before another year closes, to see him 
 in the clouds, to hear his voice, to stand 
 before his judgment-seat. These illu- 
 sions spring from misinterpretation of 
 Scripture language. Christ in the New 
 Testament is said to come, whenever his 
 religion breaks out in new glory, or 
 gains new triumphs. He came in the 
 Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. 
 He came in the destruction of Jerusa- 
 lem, which, by subverting the old ritual 
 law, and breaking the power of the 
 worst enemies of his religion, insured to 
 it new victories. He came in the Refor- 
 mation of the church. He came on this 
 day, four years ago, when, through his
 
 920 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
 
 religion, eight hundred thousand man 
 were raised from the lowest degradation, 
 to the rights, and dignity, and fellowship 
 of men. Christ's outward appearance is 
 of little moment, compared with the 
 brighter manifestation of his spirit. 
 The Christian, whose inward eyes and 
 ears are touched by God, discerns the 
 corning of Christ, hears the sound of 
 his chariot-wheels and the voice of his 
 trumpet, when no other perceives them. 
 He discerns the Saviour's advent in the 
 dawning of higher truth on the world, in 
 new aspirations of the church after per- 
 fection, in the prostration of prejudice 
 and error, in brighter expressions of 
 Christian love, in more enlightened and 
 intense consecration of the Christian to 
 the cause of humanity, freedom, and 
 religion. Christ comes in the conver- 
 sion, the regeneration, the emancipation 
 of the world. 
 
 You here see why it is that I rejoice 
 in the great event which this day com- 
 memorates. To me this event does not 
 stand alone. It is a sign of the triumph 
 of Christianity, and a presage and her- 
 ald of grander victories of truth and hu- 
 manity. Christianity did not do its last 
 work when it broke the slave's chain. 
 No ; this was but a type of what it is to 
 achieve. Since the African was eman- 
 cipated the drunkard has been set free. 
 We may count the disenthralled from 
 intemperance by hundreds of thousands, 
 almost by millions, and this work has 
 been achieved by Christian truth and 
 Christian love. In this we have a new 
 proof of the coming of Christ in his 
 kingdom ; and the grand result of these 
 and other kindred movements of our 
 times should be to give us a new faith 
 in what Christianity is to accomplish. 
 We need this faith. We are miserably 
 wanting in it. We scarcely believe what 
 we see of the triumphs of the cross. 
 This is the most disastrous unbelief of 
 our times. I am pointed now and then 
 to an infidel, as he is called, a man who 
 denies Christianity. But there is a sad- 
 der sight. It is that of thousands and 
 millions who profess Christianity, but 
 have no faith in its power to accomplish 
 the work to which it is ordained, no faith 
 in the power of Christ over the passions, 
 prejudices, and corrupt institutions of 
 men, no faith in the end of his mission, 
 in the regenerating energy of his spirit 
 and truth. Let this day, my friends, 
 
 breathe into all our souls a new trust in 
 the destinies of our race. Let us look 
 on the future with new hope. I see, in- 
 deed, numberless obstructions to the 
 regeneration of the world. But is not a 
 deep feeling of the corruptions of the 
 world fermenting in many breasts ? Is 
 there not a new thirst for an individual 
 and social life more in harmony with 
 Jesus Christ than has yet existed ? Can 
 great truths, after having been once de- 
 veloped, die ? Is not the human soul 
 opening itself more and more to the 
 divine perfection and beauty of Christ's 
 character ? And who can foretell what 
 this mighty agency is to accomplish in 
 the world ? The present day is, indeed, 
 a day of distrust, complaint, and anxious 
 forebodings. On every side voices of 
 fear and despondency reach us. Let us 
 respond to them with a voice of faith 
 and hope. Let us not shut our eyes un- 
 gratefully on the good already wrought 
 in our times ; and, seeing in this the 
 pledge of higher blessings, let us arm 
 ourselves with manly resolution to do or 
 suffer, each in his own sphere, whatever 
 may serve to prepare the way for a 
 holier and happier age. It may be, as 
 some believe, that this age is to be pre- 
 ceded by fearful judgments, by " days of 
 vengeance," by purifying fire ; but the 
 triumphs of Christianity, however de- 
 ferred, are not the less surely announced 
 by what it has already achieved. 
 
 I have now given the more general 
 views which belong to this occasion ; 
 but I cannot close this address without 
 coming nearer home, and touching, how- 
 ever slightly, some topics of a more per- 
 sonal character, and in which we have a 
 more particular interest. 
 
 I am a stranger among you ; but, 
 when I look round, I feel as if the sub- 
 ject of this address peculiarly befitted 
 this spot. Where am I now pleading 
 the cause and speaking the praises of 
 liberty ? Not in crowded cities, where, 
 amidst men's works and luxuries and 
 wild speculations and eager competi- 
 tions for gain, the spirit of liberty often 
 languishes ; but amidst towering moun- 
 tains, embosoming peaceful vales. 
 Amidst these vast works of God the 
 soul naturally goes forth, and cannot 
 endure the thought of a chain. Your 
 free air. which we come to inhale for 
 health, breathes into us something bet- 
 ter than health, even a freer spirit.
 
 EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 921 
 
 Mountains have always been famed for 
 nourishing brave souls and the love of 
 liberty. At Thermopylae, in many a 
 fastness of Switzerland, in the gorges of 
 mountains, the grand battles of liberty 
 have been fought. Even in this country 
 slavery hardly sets foot on the moun- 
 tains. She curses the plain ; but as soon 
 as you begin to ascend the highlands of 
 the South slavery begins to disappear. 
 West Virginia and East Tennessee are 
 cultivated chiefly by the muscles of free- 
 men ; and could these districts be 
 erected into States, they would soon 
 clear themselves of the guilt and shame 
 of enslaving their brethren. Men of 
 Berkshire ! whose nerves and souls the 
 mountain air has braced, you surely will 
 respond to him who speaks of the bless- 
 ings of freedom and the misery of 
 bondage. I feel as if the feeble voice 
 which now addresses you must find 
 an echo amidst these forest-crowned 
 heights. Do they not impart something 
 of their own power and loftiness to 
 men's souls ? Should our Common- 
 wealth ever be invaded by victorious 
 armies, freedom's last asylum would be 
 here. Here may a free spirit, may rev- 
 erence for all human rights, may sympa- 
 thy for all the oppressed, may a stern, 
 solemn purpose to give no sanction to 
 oppression, take stronger and stronger 
 possession of men's minds, and from 
 these mountains may generous impulses 
 spread far and wide ! 
 
 The joy of this occasion is damped 
 by one thought. Our own country is, 
 in part, the land of slavery : and slavery 
 becomes more hideous here than any- 
 where else by its contrast with our free 
 institutions. It is deformity married to 
 beauty. It*is as if a flame from hell 
 were to burst forth in the regions of the 
 blessed. No other evil in our country 
 but this should alarm us. Our other 
 difficulties are the mists, dimming our 
 prospects for a moment. This is a dark 
 cloud, scowling over our whole land ; 
 and within it the prophetic ear hears 
 the low muttering of the angry thunder. 
 We in the free States try to escape the 
 reproach which falls on America by 
 saying that this institution is not ours, 
 that the foot of the slave never pressed 
 our soil ; but we cannot fly from the 
 shame or guilt of the institution as long 
 as we give it any support. Most unhap- 
 pily, there are provisions of the Consti- 
 
 tution binding us to give it support. 
 Let us resolve to free ourselves from 
 | these. Let us say to the South, " We 
 shall use no force to subvert your sla- 
 very ; neither will we use it to uphold 
 the evil." Let no temptations, no love 
 of gain, seduce us to abet or sanction 
 this wrong. There is something worse 
 than to be a slave. It is, to make other 
 men slaves. Better be trampled in the 
 dust than trample on a fellow-creature. 
 Much as I shrink from the evils inflicted 
 by bondage on the millions who bear it, 
 I would sooner endure them than inflict 
 them on a brother. Freemen of the 
 mountains ! as far as you have power, 
 remove from yourselves, from ou.- dear 
 and venerable mother, the Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts, and from all 
 the free States, the baseness and guilt 
 of ministering to slavery, of acting as 
 the slave-holder's police, of lending him 
 arms and strength to secure his victim. 
 I deprecate all political action on sla- 
 very except for one end, and this end is 
 to release the free States from all con- 
 nection with this oppressive institution, 
 to sever slavery wholly from the national 
 government, to make it exclusively the 
 concern of the States in which it exists. 
 For this end memorials should be poured 
 in upon Congress to obtain from that 
 body such modifications of the laws, and 
 such propositions to amend the Consti- 
 tution, as will set us free from obligation 
 to sanction slavery. This done, politi- 
 cal action on the subject ought to cease. 
 We shall then have no warrant to name 
 slavery in Congress, or any duty to per- 
 form with direct reference to it, except by 
 that moral influence which every man is 
 bound to exert against every form of evil. 
 There are some people here, more 
 kind than wise, who are unwilling that 
 any action or sensibility on the subject 
 of slavery should spring up at the North 
 from their apprehensions of the danger 
 of emancipation. The danger of eman- 
 cipation ! this parrot-phrase, caught from 
 the South, is thought by many a sufficient 
 answer to all the pleas that can be urged 
 in favor of the slave. But the lesson of 
 this day is, the safety of emancipation. 
 The West Indian Islands teach us this 
 lesson with a thousand tongues. Eman- 
 cipation can hardly take place under 
 more unfavorable circumstances than it 
 encountered in those islands. The mas- 
 ter abhorred it, repelled it as long as
 
 Q22 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
 
 possible, submitted to it only from force, 
 and consequently did little to mitigate 
 its evils, or to conciliate the freed bond- 
 man. In those islands the slaves were 
 eight or ten times more numerous than 
 the whites. Yet perfect order has fol- 
 lowed emancipation. Since this event 
 the military force has been reduced, and 
 the colored men, instead of breaking 
 into riot, are among the soldiers by 
 whom it is to be suppressed. In this 
 country, the white population of the 
 South exceeds in number the colored ; 
 and who that knows the two classes can 
 apprehend danger from the former in 
 case of emancipation ? Holding all the 
 property, all the intellectual, the civil, 
 the military power, and distinguished by 
 courage, it seems incredible that the 
 white race should tremble before the 
 colored, should be withheld by fear from 
 setting them free. If the alarm be real, 
 it can be explained only by the old ob- 
 servation, that the injurious are prone 
 to fear, that men naturally suspect and 
 dread those whom they wrong. All 
 tyrants are jealous, and persuade them- 
 selves that, were they to loosen the 
 reins, lawlessness, pillage, murder, would 
 disorganize society. But emancipation 
 conferred deliberately and conscien- 
 tiously is safe. So say facts, and rea- 
 son says the same. Chains are not the 
 necessary bonds of society. Oppression 
 is not the rock on which states rest. To 
 keep the peace, you need not make the 
 earth a province of Satan : in other 
 words, you need not establish wrong 
 and outrage by law. The way to keep 
 men from cutting your throats is, not 
 to put them under the lash, to extort 
 their labor by force, to spoil them of 
 their earnings, to pamper yourselves out 
 of their compelled toil, and to keep them 
 in brutal ignorance. Do not, do not 
 believe this. Believe, if you will, that 
 seeds of thistles will yield luxuriant 
 crops of wheat ; believe that drought 
 will fertilize your fields ; but do not 
 believe that you must rob and crush 
 your fellow-creatures, to make them 
 harmless, to keep the state in order and 
 peace. Oh, do not imagine that God 
 has laid on any one the necessity of 
 doing wrong ; tliat He, who secures the 
 blessed harmony of the universe by wise 
 and beneficent laws, has created a world 
 in which all pure and righteous laws 
 must be broken to preserve the show of 
 
 peace ! I honor free inquiry, and will- 
 ingly hear my cherished opinions ques- 
 tioned ; but there are certain truths 
 which I can no more doubt than my own 
 existence. That God is just and good, 
 and that justice and goodness are his 
 laws, and are at once the safety and 
 glory of his creatures, I can as little 
 question as that the whole is greater 
 than the part. When I am told that 
 society can only subsist by robbing men 
 of their dearest rights, my reason is as 
 much insulted as if I were gravely taught 
 that effects require no cause, or that it 
 is the nature of yonder beautiful stream 
 to ascend these mountains, or to return 
 to its source. The doctrine that vio- 
 lence, oppression, inhumanity, is an es- 
 sential element of society, is so revolting, 
 that, did I believe it, I would say, let 
 society perish, let man and his works 
 be swept away, and the earth be aban- 
 doned to the brutes. Better that the 
 globe should be tenanted by brutes than 
 brutalized men. No! it is safe to be 
 just, to respect men's rights, to treat our 
 neighbors as ourselves ; and any doc- 
 trine hostile to this is born of the Evil 
 One. Men do not need to be crushed. 
 A wise kindness avails with them more 
 than force. Even the insane are dis- 
 armed by kindness. Once the madhouse, 
 with its dens, fetters, strait-waistcoats, 
 whips, horrible punishments, at which 
 humanity now shudders and the blood 
 boils with indignation, was thought just 
 as necessary as slavery is now deemed 
 at the South. But we have learned, at 
 last, that human nature, even when 
 robbed of reason, can be ruled, calmed, 
 restored, by wise kindness ; that it was 
 only maddened and made more desperate 
 by the chains imposed to keep it from 
 outrage and murder. Treat men as 
 men, and they will not prove wild beasts. 
 We first rob them of their humanity, 
 and then chain them because they are 
 not human. What a picture of slavery 
 is given by the common argument for its 
 continuance ! The slaves, we are told, 
 must be kept under the lash, or they 
 will turn murderers. Two millions and 
 a half of our fellow-creatures at the 
 South, we are assured, have the seeds 
 of murder in their hearts, and must be 
 stripped of all human rights for the 
 safety of their neighbors. If such be a 
 slave-country, the sooner it is depopu- 
 lated the better. But it is not true. A
 
 EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 923 
 
 more innocent race than the African 
 does not exist on the earth. They are 
 less given to violence and murder than 
 we Anglo-Saxons. But when did wrong 
 ever want excuse ? When did oppres- 
 sion ever fail to make out a good cause 
 in its own eyes ? 
 
 The truth is, that slavery is perpetu- 
 ated at the South, not from the fear of 
 massacre, but from a stronger principle. 
 A respected slave-holder said to me not 
 long ago, "The question of slavery is 
 a question of property, and property is 
 dearer to a man than life." The master 
 holds fast his slave because he sees in 
 him, not a wild beast, but a profitable 
 chattel. Mr. Clay has told us that the 
 slaves are worth in the market, I think, 
 twelve hundred millions of dollars, 
 and smiles at the thought of calling 
 men to surrender such a mass of prop- 
 erty. It is not because they are so 
 fierce, but so profitable, that they are 
 kept in chains. Were they meek angels 
 from God's throne, imprisoned for a 
 while in human frames, and were they 
 at the same time worth twelve hundred 
 millions of dollars in the market, com- 
 paratively few, I fear, would be suffered 
 to return to their native skies, as long 
 as the chain could fetter them to the 
 plantation. I know that there are gen- 
 erous exceptions to the spirit of slavery 
 as now portrayed ; but this spirit in the 
 main is mercenary. I know that otber 
 considerations than this of property, 
 that considerations of prudence and 
 benevolence, help to confirm the slave- 
 holder in his aversion to emancipation. 
 There are mixed motives for perpetu- 
 ating slavery, as for almost all human 
 actions. But the grand motive is gain, 
 the love of money, the unwillingness to 
 part with property ; and were this to 
 yield to justice and humanity, the dread 
 of massacre would not long retard 
 emancipation. 
 
 My friends, your compassion is often 
 called forth by predictions of massa- 
 cre, of butchered children, of violated 
 women, in case of emancipation. But do 
 not waste your sympathies on possible 
 evils, which wisdom and kindness may 
 avert. Keep some of your tears and 
 tenderness for what exists ; for the poor 
 girl whose innocence has no protection ; 
 for the wife and mother who may be 
 widowed and made childless before 
 night by a stroke of the auctioneer's 
 
 hammer : for the man subjected to the 
 whip of a brutal overseer, and hunted, 
 if he flies, by blood-hounds, and shot 
 down, if he outstrips his pursuers. For 
 the universe, I would not let loose mas- 
 sacre on the Southern States, or on any 
 population. Sooner would I have all 
 the slaves perish than achieve their 
 freedom by promiscuous carnage. But 
 I see no necessity of carnage. I am 
 sure that to treat men with justice and 
 humanity is not the way to turn them 
 into robbers or assassins. Undoubtedly 
 wisdom is to be used in conferring this 
 great good. We ask no precipitate 
 action at the South ; we dictate no mode 
 of conferring freedom. We ask only a 
 settled purpose to bring slavery to an 
 end ; and we are sure that this will 
 devise a safe and happy way of exercis- 
 ing justice and love. 
 
 Am I asked what is the duty of the 
 North in regard to slavery ? On this 
 subject I have lately written : I will only 
 say I recommend no crusade against 
 slavery, no use of physical or legislative 
 power for its destruction, no irruption 
 into the South to tamper with the slave, 
 or to repeal or resist the laws. Our 
 duties on this subject are plain. First, 
 we must free ourselves, as I have said, 
 from all constitutional or legal obliga- 
 tions to uphold slavery. In the next 
 place, we must give free and strong ex- 
 pression to our reprobation of slavery. 
 The North has but one weapon, moral 
 force, the utterance of moral judgment, 
 moral feeling, and religious conviction. 
 I do not say that this alone is to subvert 
 slavery. Providence never accomplishes 
 its ends by a single instrument. All 
 social changes come from mixed mo- 
 tives, from various impulses, and slavery 
 is to fall through various causes. But 
 among these a high place will belong to 
 the general conviction of its evils and 
 wrongs. Opinion is stronger than kings, 
 mobs, Lynch laws, or any other laws for 
 repressing thought and speech. Who- 
 ever spreads through his circle, be it 
 wide or narrow, just opinions and feel- 
 ings in regard to slavery, hastens its fall. 
 There is one point on which your moral 
 influence may be exerted with imme- 
 diate effect. Should a slave-hunter ever 
 profane these mountainous retreats by 
 seeking here a flying bondman, regard 
 him as a legalized robber. Oppose no 
 force to him ; you need not do it. Your
 
 - 
 
 924 ADDRESS ON EMANCIPA TION IN THE WEST INDIES. 
 
 contempt and indignation will be enough 
 to disarm the " man-stealer " of the un- 
 holy power conferred on him by unright- 
 eous laws. 
 
 I began this subject in hope, and in 
 hope I end. I have turned aside to 
 speak of the great stain on our country 
 which makes us the by-word and scorn 
 of the nations ; but I do not despair. 
 Mighty powers are at work in the world. 
 Who can stay them ? God's word has 
 gone forth, and "it cannot return to 
 him void." A new comprehension of 
 the Christian spirit, anew reverence 
 for humanity, a new feeling of brother- 
 hood, and of ail men's relation to the 
 common Father, this is among the 
 signs of our times. We see it ; do we 
 not feel it ? Before this all oppressions 
 are to fall. Society, silently pervaded 
 
 by this, is to change its aspect of uni- 
 versal warfare for peace. The power of 
 selfishness, all-grasping and seemingly 
 invincible, is to yield to this diviner 
 energy. The song of angels, " On earth 
 peace," will not always sound as fiction. 
 O come, thou kingdom of heaven, for 
 which we daily pray ! Come, Friend 
 and Saviour of the race, who didst shed 
 thy blood on the cross to reconcile man 
 to man, and earth to heaven ! Come, 
 ye predicted ages of righteousness and 
 love, for which the faithful have so long 
 yearned ! Come, Father Almighty, and 
 crown with thine omnipotence the hum- 
 ble strivings of thy children to subvert 
 oppression and wrong, to spread light 
 and freedom, peace and joy, the truth 
 and spirit of thy Son. through the whole 
 earth !
 
 I NDEX 
 
 TO 
 
 CHANNING'S WORKS. 
 
 ABOLITIONISTS, characterized, 731. Their fanat- 
 icism, 732. Narrowness and bitterness, 732. 
 Bravery and firmness, 744. Violence against 
 them, 745. Charge of stirring up insurrection 
 at the South, 746. And of endangering the 
 Union, 746. Their intolerance, 747. Oppos- 
 ers, 748. Errors, 816. 
 
 Age, the present, earnestness of, 272. Scepti- 
 cism, 273. Greatness, 159. Tendency to ex- 
 pansion, 159. Seen in science, 160. In litera- 
 ture, 161. In the fine arts, 162. In education, 
 162. In public speaking, 163. In religious 
 movements, 163. In government, 165. In in- 
 dustry, 165. Perils, 166. Great movements 
 of, not dangerous, 167. Love of property con- 
 servative, 1 68. Needs improvement, 170. Dis- 
 cord, 170. A better age coming, 171. A 
 mighty age, 171. 
 
 Alexander the Great, a great robber, 674. 
 
 Ambition, the crime of, 551. 
 
 America, greatness of, 870. Freedom her glory, 
 871. Hope of, 905. Political corruptions, 
 905. Her leading feature is human rights, 888. 
 Respect for the individual man, 889. Destiny 
 of, 776. 
 
 Aristocracy, in this age, provokes to anarchy, 55. 
 
 Asceticism, origin of, 5. 
 
 Associations, prevalence of. united effort now, 
 139. Facilities of intercourse favor co-opera- 
 tion, 139. Arguments for, 139. Natural and 
 artificial, 145. Inferiority of the artificial illus- 
 trated, 145. True principle, 147. Criterion, 
 147. Tendency to crush individual liberty, 148. 
 Danger of sectarian associations, 148. Atone- 
 ment, the, 379, 395-398, 402. 
 
 BENEVOLENCE, 120. The true spirit and glory 
 of Christianity, 164. 
 
 Bible, the, what it is, 367. The most obvious 
 meaning of a passage often false, 333. Lead- 
 ing principle of interpretation, 368. Need of 
 reason, 368. An improved version needed, 151. 
 Value of Bible societies, 150. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, Scott's Life of defects, 
 522. Impartiality, 522. Importance of a true 
 estimate of his character, 522. Early influences 
 under which it was formed, 523. First cam- 
 paign in Italy, 523. Usurpation in Italy, 525. 
 Expedition to Egypt, 525. Self-exaggeration, 
 
 525, 538. Claim to the character of a prophet, 
 525. The massacre of Jaffa, 526. Usurpation 
 and tyranny in France, 526. Employment of 
 leading men of all parties, 527. Means for 
 giving stability to his power, 527-530. Energy 
 displayed in crossing the Alps, 527. His sys- 
 tem of espionage, the police, 528. Fettering 
 the press, 528. The terror spread by his sever- 
 ity, 528. Attempt to re-establish the Catholic 
 religion in France, 529-530. The Republic 
 abolished and the Empire established, 531. 
 Grandeur of his public works, 530. Praised for 
 his new code of laws, 530. His project of univer- 
 sal empire, 531. Want of sagacity, 532. Force 
 and corruption his great engines, 533. His vul- 
 garity, 535. The retreat from Moscow, 535. 
 His fall, 535-536. Rapidity of thought, 537. 
 Ambition, 537. Love of fame, 537. Lack of 
 moral sensibility, 539. Thirst for praise, 540. 
 The love of power consumed him, 540. His 
 greatness only of the third order, 541. At St. 
 Helena, 542. His fall a blessing to the world, 
 
 544- 
 
 Books, good and worthless, 51. Multiplication 
 of, a great blessing, 24. Diffusion, 161. Re- 
 ligious, commonly dull, 559. Their poverty 
 caused by the suppression of freedom, 561. 
 Productions of the Church of England, 560. 
 
 Brotherhood of man, grounds of, 7, 68. Equality, 
 69, 693. 
 
 CABOT, GEORGE, the leader of the Federal party, 
 640. 
 
 Calvinism, concise statement of, 461. Inconsist- 
 ent with the Divine perfections, 461. Not 
 Christianity, 467. Its foes, 468. Softening of, 
 461, 468. 
 
 Catechisms, bad for children, 450. 
 
 Catholic Church, Roman, her great names, 563. 
 
 Spiritual tyranny, 564. Keeps alive the idea of 
 
 ic Chu 
 438. 
 
 a true Catholic Church, 436. Sectarianism, 
 
 Catholicism, fears of its spread, 471. Its foe the 
 progress of society, 471. Flexibility of, 472. 
 How to be successfully opposed, 473. 
 
 Channing, childhood of, at Newport, 421. Last 
 prophetic words, at Lenox, 924. 
 
 Character, perfection of, 343. Greatness of, ac- 
 
 cessible, 311.
 
 926 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cheverus, Bishop, benevolence and worth of, 563. 
 
 Children, duty of, to parents, 489. Spiritual con- 
 dition, 448. Christianity suited to, 448. How 
 religion should be taught to, 449. The end 
 parents should propose, 582. 
 
 Christ, character of, an evidence of his religion, 
 302. First appearance and teaching, 303. Orig- 
 inal, 304. Origin not in imposture, 304. Sub- 
 limity, 304. Reality, 305. Origin not in en- 
 thusiasm, 305. Calmness and self-possession, 
 306. Lowliness, 307. Humanity, 308. Sym- 
 pathy, 219, 308. Imi table, 313. Greatness, 
 
 3'5- 
 
 Christ, Divinity of, 401. 
 
 , Love to, founded in our nature, 317. Not 
 
 dependent on views of his person, 317. Grounds 
 of his claim to, 317. The knowledge of him 
 necessary, 318. His benevolence, 319. Self- 
 sacrifice, 320. Perfect goodness, 321. Blessed- 
 ness, 322. Low and defective kinds, 324325. 
 
 , Example of, power, 311. Happiness in 
 
 following it, 315. 
 
 , Preaching, what? 329. His religion, 329. 
 
 Narrowness in the way it is done, 330. Why 
 to be preached, 331. 
 
 , Saviour, the greatest function of, 247. 
 
 Christianity, breadth of, 330. A religion of free- 
 dom, 208. The great purpose of, 246. Ele- 
 vates and enlarges the soul, 250. Harmony of 
 its truths, 239. With external nature, 240. 
 With the soul, 241. Universality, 242. Calm- 
 ness, 243. Imperfect without Christ, 323. 
 What it is to do for civilization, 63. Means 
 of promoting, 254-257. The hope of the 
 world, 919. Its triumph, 920. Its history the 
 grandest historical theme, 561. See " Evidences 
 of." 
 
 Church, the, 428. Undue importance attached 
 to, 429. No definite plan laid down by Christ, 
 429. Early forms have passed away, 430. 
 Beautiful features of the early, 431. True idea 
 and purpose, 431. The only essential thing, 
 432. Same spirit in different forms, 432. Not 
 essential to salvation, 433. The true influence 
 of, found in all, 432. Character, not ordination 
 of the minister, 433. Character of the mem- 
 bers, 434. The Church universal, 435. All 
 real Christians in it, 436. Great names in all, 
 438. Rites and ceremonies secondary, 440. 
 Claims of exclusive churches, 439. The noblest 
 of all associations, 442. Variety in unity, 444. 
 Worldliness of, 837. Dedication, 384, 400. 
 
 Cities, why men are gathered into them, 578. 
 Unhappiness of their separation into classes, 
 579. The glory and happiness of, 580. Man 
 the greatest thing in, 580. A brotherhood of 
 temptation and danger, 582. Intelligence and 
 virtue better than population and prosperity, 
 584. The ministry at large, 584. 
 
 Civilization, benefits and perils of, 178. De- 
 mands religion, 178. 
 
 Clay, Henry, letter to, 752. 
 
 Clarke, Samuel, a Unitarian, 407. 
 
 Colonization Society, 784. 
 
 Columbia, District of, slavery national in, 879. 
 
 Commentaries, use of, 452. 
 
 Commerce, a noble calling, 165. Spirit of, tends 
 to guilt, 892. 
 
 Confession, noticed, 475. 
 
 Conscience, needs the intellect, 43. 
 
 Constitution, American, and slavery, 873. The 
 spirit of, freedom, 874. Open to change, 880. 
 
 Country, love of, 686. Prayer for, in danger, 
 
 685. 
 Courage, false and true, 658. In times of trial, 
 
 687. 
 
 Creeds, extracts from a letter on, 486. 
 Creole, the, 854. 
 Crime, prevention of, 184, 581. How far society 
 
 is chargeable, 581. 
 Crucifixion, self, a great error when carried too 
 
 far, 567. Of the mind, a -crime, 568. Of the 
 
 body, to be limited, 568. 
 
 Cuba, unparalleled severity of slavery in, 833-835. 
 Culture, for all, on the ground of manhood, 19. 
 
 Benefit to laborers, 32. 
 Scientific, blindness of, 81. In harmony 
 
 with religious, 82. 
 
 DEMOCRACY, false notions of, 895. The noblest 
 
 form of government, 895. What it is, 895. 
 
 Instability the great evil to be feared, 895. 
 
 Checks necessary, 897. 
 Depravity, total, 244. 
 Despotism, military, the curse of, 526. 
 Dickens, Charles, his broad sympathy, 162. 
 Discussion, free, the right of, 784. 
 Disunion. See " Union." 
 Duty, the greatest thing in conduct, 688. The 
 
 foundation of human rights, 698. 
 
 EARNESTNESS, power of, in self-culture, 33. In 
 a minister, 273. 
 
 Economy, importance of, to the laboring classes, 
 59- 
 
 Education, influence of parents on, 117. Foolish 
 economy in, 118. Narrow views of, 121. Of 
 laborers' children, 62. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, noticed, 285. 
 
 Emancipation, 821-853. In the West Indies, a 
 social revolution, 828. Shame of judging the 
 measure by its influence on the crops, 829. 
 The spirit of industry survived, 830. Signs of 
 improvement in the negroes, 831. Christianity, 
 the great emancipator, 835. Ministers at the 
 South supporters of slavery, 836. Timidity of, 
 at the North, 837. Testimony to the noble 
 elements in the negro's character, 837. Duty 
 of individuals, 841-844. Woman's duty, 844. 
 Duty of the Free States, 844-852. The boon 
 of, in the West Indies, 913. Moral sublimity 
 of, 914. Watch-night scene in a chapel, 914. 
 Why it had no hearty welcome here, 915. Did 
 not make a paradise, 916. Negroes started on 
 a career of improvement, 916. The fruit of 
 Christian principle, 918. 
 
 Enemies, duties to, 688. 
 
 England, Anti-slavery in, 904. Her justice and 
 Christianity in abolishing slavery, 869. Misery 
 of her lower classes, 869. Her greatness, 870. 
 Seen in the destruction of slavery, 763. 
 
 Episcopacy, a bulwark against Romanism, 473. 
 
 Errors, how best expelled, 275. 
 
 Everett, Edward, struggle in the Senate to con- 
 firm his nomination as minister to England, 
 882. 
 
 Evidences of Christianity, the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of, 226. Origin of Christianity not in 
 human nature, 226. Character of Christ not 
 formed by the spirit of the age, 227. His con- 
 ception of a universal religion, 227. His station 
 in life, 227. Confident of accomplishing his
 
 INDEX. 
 
 927 
 
 design, 228. His benevolence, 228. Character 
 made up of contrasts, 228. Not an invention, 
 229. Why Christianity could not have been of 
 human origin, 229. Adapted to the most ad- 
 vanced stages of society, 230. Direct evidence 
 of miracles, 230. The marks of truth and 
 reality in the Christian records, 231. Adapta- 
 tion of Christianity to our nature, 232. The 
 time when it arose, known, 197. What it was 
 
 ' at first, known, 198. Came from God, 204- 
 206. Cannot be accounted for by human mo- 
 tives, 206. Attested by miracles, 210-218. 
 Importance of the internal evidence, 466. 
 
 Evil, how to be viewed and used, 707. Two 
 kinds of, 348. 
 
 FRATERNITY, Benevolent, of Churches, formed, 
 587. 
 
 Federalist party, purity of, 640. Why it failed, 
 640. Lack of courage, 640. 
 
 Fenelon, his freshness and freedom, 562. Knowl- 
 edge of the heart, 562. Views of human nature 
 too dark, and why, 562. Views of God, 566. 
 Of human perfection, 567. 
 
 Follen, Dr. Charles, character, 614. Heroism, 
 615. Appalling death, 617. 
 
 Freedom, national, how to be won, 546. Civil, 
 the chief good of, 175. Of action, the great 
 right, 830. Natural cry for, 911. Importance 
 of, 912. Spiritual freedom, its meaning, 173- 
 175. Religion gives it, 178. See "Liberty." 
 
 Free trade, absolute, desirable, 635. The duty 
 and interest of the race, 166. 
 
 French Revolution, whence came it? 169. 
 
 Fugitive slaves, surrender of. 873. 
 
 Future life, the, 359. Value of Christ's resur- 
 rection, 359. Clearer views of the future state 
 sought, 360. Communion with Jesus, 361. 
 Joint workers with him, 362. Interest of the 
 departed in this world, 362. Have they present 
 knowledge of it? 363. The nature of heavenly 
 happiness, 364. The society of heaven, 364. 
 See " Immortality." 
 
 GALLISON, JOHN, memoir of, 618-625. 
 
 God, our Father, 296, 416-418. 
 
 , Knowledge of, through our own nature, 293. 
 
 From the universe, 294. The sublimest posses- 
 sion, 248. Real, but limited, 463. His attri- 
 butes intelligible, 463. We learn the mind of 
 God as we do the character of men, 464. Not 
 presumptuous to judge concerning God, 464. 
 Our duty so to judge, 465. 
 
 , Likeness to, 291. What, 291. Through 
 
 it we enjoy God, 291. Also the universe, 
 292. 
 
 , Love to, is the love of virtue, 572. How 
 
 we rise to it, 572. We need to love the All- 
 perfect, 573. 
 
 , Man.festation of, to what end, 249. The 
 
 too steady contemplation of, crushes the soul, 
 2. This common in religion, 3. In the Ori- 
 ental world, 3. Pantheism the result, 3. Des- 
 potism also, 3. In Calvinism, 4. The habit 
 of contrasting man with, a source of errors, 2. 
 
 Good and evil, mingled in states, 891. The good 
 must bear with the evil, 891. 
 
 Gospels, the, genuineness of, discussed, 199-204, 
 302. 
 
 Government, individual freedom the end of, 552. 
 
 Good of, chiefly negative, 556. Does little to 
 produce virtue, 556. Through schools, can do 
 much for intelligence, 557. On the production 
 of wealth chiefly negative, 557. Has a spiritual 
 end, 181. The organ of civil society, 182. How 
 it may promote moral elevation, 182. Has the 
 right of war, 674. Duty of respect and obedi- 
 ence to, 6So. Resistance to, 68 1. Difficulty of 
 forming, 894. The most perfect, 700. Not 
 the measure of right, 697. National, the prin- 
 cipal benefit of, 633. Importance of simplicity, 
 633. Should be general and impartial, 634. 
 
 Grace and works, 404. 
 
 Greatness, moral, the highest, 541. Intellectual, 
 541. Active, 541. The real, 549. Inward 
 and inherent, 12. A conviction of Christ, 309. 
 
 , National, the highest evidence of, 124. 
 
 False estimates of, 125. 
 
 Gurney, J. J., visit to America, 821. His " Fa- 
 miliar Letters to Henry Clay," 821. His views 
 of free labor in the West Indies, 822-828. 
 
 HAYTI, condition of, 832. 
 
 Health, ignorance of, depresses the laboring 
 classes, 59. 
 
 Heathen world, its religious condition when Christ 
 came, 205. 
 
 Heaven, the common apprehension of, 252. 
 
 Hero-worship, 68. 
 
 Holy Spirit, the nature and work of, 297. 
 
 Hopkins, the Rev. Dr., description and reminis- 
 cences of, 423, 425. 
 
 Human agency in religion, disparagement of, by 
 Christians, 251. 
 
 Human life, a profound book, 52. All studies 
 should bear on, 50. Trials of, 346. Bravery 
 and strength needed in moral danger, 750. 
 
 Human nature, greatness of, i. Capacities, 768. 
 Susceptibleness of improvement, 277. Dig- 
 nity, 292, 298. The preacher should appeal to 
 it, 300-301. 
 
 Human rights, false speculations concerning, 697. 
 Rights by nature, 697. The right to exercise 
 one's own powers, 698. Various rights, 698. 
 Not surrendered to society, 699. Do they yield 
 to the exigencies of real life ? 702. 
 
 Humanity, the law of, 899. 
 
 IDEAS, great, often come without direct teaching, 
 49- 
 
 Immortality, a discovery of Christianity, 354. 
 Yet also a dictate of nature, 354. Doubt of, 
 from material decay, 354. Crime does not de- 
 stroy the conviction, 357. Guilt speaks of a 
 future life, 357. Only one real objection to, its 
 greatness, 358. Offered to all, 358. See " Fut- 
 ure Life." 
 
 Inability, natural and moral, a distinction without 
 a difference, 460. 
 
 Individuality, necessity of, 141. Development of, 
 in childhood, isi. Of man, 49. 
 
 Infidelity, not guilt in every case, 189. Unbelief 
 in itself has no moral quality, 190. How to be 
 judged, 190. Rejection of Christianity in some 
 forms a virtue, 191. Words to unbelievers, 192. 
 Lenity to unbelief not treachery to Christianity, 
 192. 
 
 Intemperance depresses the laboring classes, 58. 
 See " Temperance." 
 
 Intolerance, now, 180.
 
 928 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 JEWS, the narrowness of their religion, 303. 
 
 Judiciary, the, high estimate of, 558. National 
 importance of, to the Union, 637. The con- 
 servative power in the government, 896. Should 
 be impartial and independent, 896. 
 
 LABOR, a school of justice, 25. Of benevolence, 
 25. Gives a high impulse to the mind, 26. 
 A great blessing, 38. Dignified by thought, 46. 
 Increasing respect for, 61. 
 
 Laboring classes, the elevation of, 37-66. Signs 
 of, 37. What is it? 38. Not escape from 
 labor, 38. Not rising into a higher rank, 40. 
 Not seizing political power as a class, 41. It is 
 elevation of soul, 42. Gained through contact 
 with matter, 42. What it is, 43. Force of 
 thought, 43-50. Objection that it cannot be 
 realized, 51-60. Hopeful circumstances, 60-64. 
 Improvement compatible with labor, 56. Hopes, 
 63. Fears, 64. Growing movement toward, 
 767. Jealousy of the rich, 169. 
 
 Land, the passion for, in America, 760. 
 
 Lands, the public, should be used for education, 
 
 3 1 - 
 
 Lardner, Dr. Nathaniel, a Unitarian, 407. 
 
 Law, the one expression of the sovereignty of 
 the people, 735. The higher law, 874. 
 
 Learning, a little, not a dangerous thing, 53. 
 
 Lectures popular, 1 59. 
 
 Legislature, importance of the division into two 
 branches, 896. 
 
 " Lexington," the steamer, burned, 613. 
 
 Liberty, use and value of, 125. Deep attachment 
 to, 7. An infinite good, 9. Personal far more 
 important than political, 830. See " Free- 
 dom." 
 
 Literature, needs the inspiration of religion, 575. 
 Influence of religion upon it, 576-578. Popular 
 for laborers, 61. Of this age, its earnestness, 
 272. Expansion, 161. 
 
 , National, what? 124. American, meagre, 
 
 127. Regrets that so little has been done, 127. 
 Causes of our deficiencies, a tendency to in- 
 tellectual mediocrity, 128. The cry for useful 
 knowledge, 128-130. Too great dependence on 
 foreign scholars, 130. Advantages of our posi- 
 tion, the tmer views of man here, 133. The 
 newness of the country, 134. Means, 135. 
 Exalts the character of a nation, 1 26. The 
 
 - handmaid of religion, 126. Literary activity 
 produces intellectual force, 131. Power of 
 style, 132. Influence of true religion upon, 
 136. 
 
 Locke, a Unitarian, 406. 
 
 MAN, true idea of, 48. Honor due to all men, 
 67-72. Christianity has awakened a new feel- 
 ing of respect, 67. Something to honor must 
 be found, 67. Grounds of the obligation, 69. 
 
 Manners, refinement of, needed, 55. 
 
 Matter and mind, differences between, 354-356. 
 
 Matthew, Father, his grand temperance labors, 
 584. 
 
 Meekness, Christian, 344. 
 
 Mexico, injustice of the cry for war with, 900. 
 
 Military talent, not the highest, 524. Compared 
 with poetic and philosophic genius, 525. 
 
 Milton, John, poet and scholar, 496. Breadth of 
 his intellect, 496. Variety of his acquisitions, 
 497. His estimate of poetical genius, 497. 
 
 of Satan, 500. Paradise delineated, 501. Har- 
 mony of his versification, 502. Heathful seri- 
 ousness, 502. Milton's prose, 502-507. Style, 
 503. Controversial asperity, 503. Loftiness 
 of his mind, 504. Moral qualities, 507-510. 
 Magnanimity, 507. Fervent love of liberty, 
 508. Greatness in adversity, 509. Contrasted 
 with Dr. Johnson, 509. The "Treatise on 
 Christian Doctrine" reviewed, 510-521. View 
 of God, 511. Of Christ, 512. An Anti-Trini- 
 tarian, 513. A Broad-Churchman, 513. Views 
 of creation, 514. An advocate of polygamy, 
 515. View of redemption, 516. View of the 
 Church and ministry, 518. Value of the Trea- 
 tise not great, 520. 
 
 Mind, the highest reality in the universe, 247. 
 Science of, how to be studied, 47. The master 
 of nature, 57. Minds all of one family, 313. 
 
 Minister, the, should look through outward dis- 
 tinctions, 93. End of his work, 94. Should 
 be a student, 284. Books for, 285. Should 
 discover truth for himself, 285. Value of in- 
 ward experience, 285. Greatness of his office, 
 289. Character, not ordination, the real thing, 
 433. Religious experience for, 285. 
 
 Ministry, the, what a young minister should seek, 
 469. The chief danger, want of life, 470. The 
 most important calling, 269. The demands of 
 the age upon, 269. Intelligence, 269-271. 
 Talent, 270. Earnestness, 272-273. Ability 
 to meet the scepticism, 273. And to cope with 
 the corruption of the time, 276. Is armed with 
 great power, 277. The great qualification, 
 power, 257. Not priestly power, 258. The 
 power of terror to be renounced, 258. Defini- 
 tion of true power, 259. Utmost power de- 
 manded, 259. To rouse the conscience, 260. 
 To act on the heart, 261. Should dispense a 
 healthy religion, 261. Should rouse men to 
 battle with sin, 262. Should confirm the con- 
 viction of immortality, 262. 
 
 to the poor, 90. They must be loved, 90. 
 
 The domestic affections should be inculcated, 
 91. The work should be honored, 91. 
 
 Miracles, the feeling that they are incredible, 221. 
 Whence the scepticism? credulity, 221. The 
 fixed laws of nature, 222. Reasons for the 
 Christian miracles, 223. Hume's argument 
 against, 224. Repugnance to miracles founded 
 in a lurking atheism, 226. Objections to, an- 
 swered, 211-215. See "Evidences." 
 
 Missionary efforts, depravity of Christian nations 
 the great hindrance, 256. 
 
 Mobs, 735-736. Mob law, 813. 
 
 Mott, Lucretia, tribute to, 813. 
 
 Morality, charge against Unitarians for preacliing, 
 404. 
 
 Mountains, the home of freedom, 920. 
 
 Mysteries, 339. 
 
 NATIONS, have leading ideas, 888. 
 
 National honor, 66 1. Sensibility respecting, 900. 
 
 Glory, 66 1. 
 
 Nature, should be known by workmen, 46. 
 Negro race, fine qualities of, 838. 
 New England, vindication of, 738. 
 Newspapers, how to choose and read, 29. Press 
 
 fettered by dependence upon subscribers, 750.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 929 
 
 Newton, Isaac, a Unitarian, 406. 
 Non-resistance, 648. 
 North-east Boundary question, 901. 
 North and South, peculiarities of character in, 
 850, 893. 
 
 PANTHEISM, 4. 
 
 Peace, promotion of, 648. Spreading just views 
 of the glory of nations, 649. Turning admira- 
 tion from military courage, 650. Exhibiting 
 the pacific spirit of Christianity, 651. Ten- 
 dency toward, 655. See "War." 
 
 inward, 574. 
 
 People, the, their intelligence and self-respect 
 now, 35. Can understand the highest views 
 of religion, 299. 
 
 Petition, the right of, denied in Congress, 883. 
 
 Philanthropist, the, 599. Jesus the first, 599- 
 602. 
 
 Piety, not measured by opinions, 467. 
 
 Poetry, the finest expression of man's aspiration 
 for the ideal, 497. In aim, identical with Chris- 
 tianity, 498. Wars against earth-born prudence, 
 498. Refines and elevates society, 498. The 
 vehicle of truth, 499. The foe of an epicurean 
 life, 499. 
 
 Politics, claims of, on all classes, 29. Political 
 rule not the highest sphere, 555. Tends to 
 corruption, 556. Moral laxity of public life, 
 677. Politics and morality, 871. Religion the 
 master and judge of, 872. Ennobling as well 
 as degrading, 777. 
 
 Poor, the, outward condition compared with that 
 of the rich, 73. The blessings they have, 74. 
 Evils, 75-78. Moral and religious culture their 
 great need, 78. The highest culture attainable 
 by them, So. What should be done for them, 
 84. The ministry for, 84. 
 
 Poverty, due chiefly to intemperance, 590. 
 
 Power, the love of, 548. When good, 548. When 
 evil, 550. The ruin wrought by it, 553. Chris- 
 tianity opposed to this passion, 553. Its diffu- 
 sion and danger in a Republic, 554. Abhor- 
 rence of, 8. Should be crushed, 8. Restraint, 
 
 9- 
 
 Post-office, influence on the union, 636. 
 
 Prayer, daily, 495-496. 
 
 Preaching, the blunt and direct styles, 460. The 
 place of, partly taken by reading, 475. The 
 end, 331. The defect, not breathing a gener- 
 ous spirit, 332. Should be rational, 332. To 
 the heart, 334. Should be various as our nat- 
 ure, 334. Moral perfection the great idea of, 
 283. Aim, to awaken moral energy, 284. The 
 great instrument, the truth, 284. How to 
 communicate that, 286. Plainness and sim- 
 plicity, 286. Earnestness, 287. Fear from 
 feeling of inferiority, 289. Conceit and pre- 
 sumption, 289. Extemporaneous compared 
 with written, 470. 
 
 Presidency, the American, real character of the 
 office, 637-639. The insane ambition for, 638. 
 
 Press, the freedom of, 682. License, 683. Lib- 
 erty secured by using it wisely, 747. 
 
 Priestley, Dr., notice of, 407. 
 
 Property, idea of, 866. Grounds of, 866. An 
 exclusive right, 694. 
 
 Protestantism, divisions in, its strength, 472. 
 
 Psychology, the basis of theology, 462. 
 
 Punishment, 185. Future, the denial of irrational 
 and unscriptural, 350. 
 
 READING, wise and foolish, 51. 
 
 Reason, necessity of, in the interpretation of the 
 Bible, 368. How used, 369. Used by all 
 Christians, 369. Dangers, 369. Greater dan- 
 ger from its renunciation, 369. What it is, 
 233-235. The pride of, 238. 
 
 Reform, vehemence in, 733. Individual action, 
 734. Fervent zeal sanctioned, 734. The sys- 
 tem of agitation, 733. Love better than passion- 
 ate zeal, 734. Reverence for man, the fountain 
 of, 7. 
 
 Religion, claims upon the first minds, 574. True 
 nature, 296. How it ennobles man, 298. How 
 it is made to depress men, 248. Grounds on 
 which it rests, 249. Relations to common life, 
 298. Gives elevation and strength to the mind, 
 177. Tyranny of sectarian, 179. Founded in 
 our nature, 410. Early and gradual develop- 
 ment, 410. Not to be taken on human author- 
 ity, 53. Importance to society, 187-188. An 
 inward life, 441. Emotion in, 344. Excite- 
 ment, 297. 
 
 Responsibility, moral being the essence of, 696. 
 Is individual, 872. 
 
 Revelation, not at war with nature, 193. The 
 interpreter of nature, 193. Agreement with the 
 course of Providence, 194. Discloses our future 
 life, 195. Only meets the deep needs of our 
 nature, 195. Specially adapted to conscience, 
 196. Founded on the authority of reason, 235. 
 The evidence of, submitted to reason, 235. 
 Needs reason as its interpreter, 237. Not our 
 earliest teacher, 235. 
 
 Revivals overwhelm the mind with foreign influ- 
 ences, 144. 
 
 Revolution, the French, why it failed, 545. Com- 
 pared with the American, 5-15. 
 
 Rights, human, 697-699. Right of man to him- 
 self, 694. Right involves obligation, 695. 
 
 SABBATH, the, remarks on, 151. Not the Lord's 
 day, 152. Design of, rest, 153. Not a Chris- 
 tian institution, 153. Obligation of, disowned 
 by the Christian world, 153. See "Sunday." 
 
 Salvation, low views of, 251. 
 
 Schools, Theological, end of, to train ministers of 
 power, 257. Means, free investigation, 263. 
 Love of truth, 264. Fostering a devotional 
 spirit, 265. Faith, 265. A spirit of reform, 
 266. An independent spirit, 267. A spirit of 
 self-sacrifice, 267. 
 
 Science, now diffusive, 160. 
 
 Scott, General, tribute to, 666. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, his fine broad sympathy, 162. 
 
 Sectarianism, viewed with grief and shame, 476. 
 Desire to escape, 246. Softening, 275. 
 
 Self-culture, possible, 14. We can form ourselves, 
 15. The idea of, unfolded, 15-19. Is moral, 
 15. Religious, 16. Intellectual, 16. Social, 17. 
 Practical, 18. Esthetic, 18. Power of utter- 
 ance, 19. Means to be fastened on as our 
 great end, 20. Faith, 20. Self-control, 22. 
 Intercourse with superior minds, 23. Inde- 
 pendence, 24. Occupation, 25. Hardship, 26. 
 Politics, 26. Christianity, 30. Time for, 33. 
 Gives pleasure, 34. 
 
 Self-denial, not of the reason, 337. But the appe- 
 tites and passions, 340. For they tend to en- 
 largement, 340. 
 
 Self-love, dangers, 568. Not to be crushed, 
 568. The principle that controls it, 569. 
 
 59
 
 930 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sin, what, 347. Evil of, according to the Script- 
 ures, 348. As seen in the retrospect of life, 
 349. The fountain of human misery, 349. 
 Followed by misery in the future, 350. Greater 
 than now, 351. 
 
 Slavery, sensitiveness to discussion, 689. Should 
 be wisely discussed, 689. Philosophical interest 
 of, 690. Moral, 691. Property in man, argu- 
 ments against, 692-697. Violates human 
 rights, 697-704. Guilt of slaveholders consid- 
 ered, 704-707. Evils, 707-722. Moral influ- 
 ence of, 707-710. Intellectual, 710. Domestic, 
 711-712. Political, 716-718. Influenceonthe 
 master, 715-716. The Bible argument for, 723- 
 725. Means for removing, 725-731. Duties, 
 737-739. Slave labor compared with free, 768. 
 Abolitionism, 731-737. That the slave suffers 
 less than the free laborer, 792. Cruelty, 794. 
 Kindness of the masters, 796. Amalgamation, 
 800. The war prophesied, 806. Vehemence 
 of Northern opposition, 893. Unmakes men, 
 
 909. Burning the Hall of Freedom in Philadel- 
 phia, 812. The New Testament on, 887. 
 Slaveholder's character, 794-796. Slave-trade, 
 relations of this country to, 902. Search of 
 vessels, 903. 
 
 Smith, Gerrit, 817. 
 
 Society, true value of, 140. Means of knowledge, 
 140. Chief danger of, 142. Tyranny, 142. 
 Benefit of wide social intercourse, 143. Does 
 not abrogate human rights, 699. Can be im- 
 proved, 583. Proof of, 583. Man's right to, 
 
 910. Justice never dangerous to, 921-922. 
 Soul, the starting-point of all religion, 6. Growth, 
 
 314. Gradual, 315. 
 
 South, the angry passions of, under Northern 
 rebuke, 892. 
 
 Speech, freedom of, violated in Congress, 883. 
 Power of, desirable, 19. 
 
 State, the, rights of, 699. Restrained by the 
 moral law, 699. " The general good " not the 
 supreme law, 700. Moral good the supreme 
 end, 700. Danger from putting prosperity 
 above rectitude, 701. Man's relation to, exag- 
 gerated, 872. Good and evil mingled in, 891. 
 The good must bear with the bad, 891. Rep- 
 resentative not the tool of his constituents, 896. 
 
 Stiles, the Rev. Dr., notice of, 423. 
 
 Suffering, great amount in life, 607. God intends 
 it, 608. Our native susceptibility to pain, 609. 
 Compatible with the goodness of God, 610. 
 Pleasure more abounding than pain, 611. 
 Brings out human worth, 612. 
 
 Sunday, view of, 155. Labor to be discounte- 
 nanced, 155. The mails, 156. Travelling, 
 156. How to use well, 157. Not more holy 
 than other days, ic8. 
 
 Sunday school, the principle of, 447. The object, 
 449. What should be taught, 450. How it 
 should be taught, 456. The great danger, 450. 
 The Gospels the true text-book, 451. Christ 
 to be taught, 452. Features of Christianity 
 suitable, 453. Life in the teacher, 455. 
 
 TARIFF, protective, considered, 634. Objections 
 
 to, 635. 
 
 Taxation, direct and indirect, 635. 
 Teacher, the school, qualifications, 119. The 
 
 office the most important, 119. Requires great 
 
 ability, 120. Has to govern as well as teach, 
 
 122. Able and wise, need of, 62. 
 
 Temperance, address on, 99. Rooted in Chris- 
 tianity, 99. Essential evil of intemperance, i oo. 
 Poverty, 100. Temptations, 101-10-;. Causes 
 care and toil, 103. Intellectual depression, 
 104. Sensuality, 104. Want of self-respect, 
 104. Remedies moral strength, 105. Social 
 intercourse, 106. A higher education, 106. 
 Christian instruction, 109. Innocent amuse- 
 ments, no. Discouraging the use of ardent 
 spirits, 113. Prohibiting the sale of, 114. 
 
 Texas, criminality of the revolt, 753. Annexa- 
 tion, 752-779. A moral question, 752. 
 
 Thacher, the Rev. S. C., memoir of, 625-628. 
 
 Thought, stirred up by the universe, 44. Force 
 of, for the acquisition of truth, 45. To be ex- 
 erted on matter, 46. On mind, 46. What, 
 44. Not the monopoly of a class, 52. 
 
 Trinity, the, objections to, 371. Protest against, 
 
 371. Not clearly stated in the Bible, 372. Not 
 found in the earliest controversies of the Church, 
 
 372. Not favorable to devotion, 372. Irra- 
 tional, 243. 
 
 Trinitarianism, objections to carries confusion 
 into the nature of God, 387. Materializes the 
 conception of God, 388. Bewilders the mind 
 in worship, 390. Degrades the character of 
 God, 390. Is contrary to nature, 392. Throws 
 gloom over God's works, 393. Obscures the 
 character and weakens. the work of Christ, ^14. 
 Obscures the mercy of God, 396. Contradicts 
 and degrades the reason, 399. See " Unitari- 
 anism." 
 
 Truth, the love of, 45. 
 
 Tuckerman, Joseph, 585-595. Idleness of his 
 youth, 585. His heart the strongest part of 
 him, 586. Failure of health, 586. Began his 
 ministry to the poor, 586. His love for the 
 poor, 587. Breathed new life into the ministry 
 to the poor, 587. How he labored, 588. Secret 
 of his success, 589. Improvement in preach- 
 ing, 589. Interest in children, 589. Visit to 
 Europe, 591. .A martyr to his cause, 594. 
 
 UNION, the American, chief good of, 630. Evils 
 of disunion, 630. Hatred and hostility, if 
 broken up, restless activity of the people, 
 630. Possession of a common language, 631. 
 Subserviency to Europe, 631. Intense party 
 spirit, 631. Union an inestimable good, 891. 
 Natural duty of the States, 899. 
 
 Unity of God, 371, 387, 389. See " Trinity." 
 
 Unitarian Christianity, views of God ; his moral 
 perfections, 376, ^90. Justice, 376. Parental 
 character, 377. Spirituality, 388. Views of 
 Christ; unity of person, 373. Dual being, 373. 
 Not found in the Bible, 373. Strictly one~be- 
 ingi 374- Distinct from God, 374. New 
 Testament evidence, 374. Christ not more 
 interesting on the Trinitarian hypothesis, 375. 
 His mission, 378; 394. Objections to, con- 
 sidered, 401-408. See "Trinitarianism." 
 
 Unitarianism most favorable to piety, 384. Illus- 
 trations, 387-399. Contrasted with Trinitarian- 
 ism, 387-399. Why prized, 400. 
 
 Unitarians, persecution of, 480. Why denied the 
 name and rights of Christians, 478. 
 
 Utilitarianism blights national life, 129. 
 
 VETO of the President, importance of, 896. 
 Virtue, the idea of, 552. Christian, nature of, 
 
 380. 
 Vocations, dignity of different, 32.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 931 
 
 WAR, rouses energy of mind, 524. Miseries and 
 crimes, 643-646, 654. Picture of a recent bat- 
 tle-field, 643. The soldier's trade, 644. Influ- 
 ence on the community, 644. Sources of love 
 of excitement, 646. Passion for power, 647. Ad- 
 miration for display, 647. Remedies, 648-651. 
 Arguments in favor, 652. Glory, 655. Honor 
 associated with, 656. Motives to a military life, 
 656. False estimate of physical courage, 657. 
 When war is necessary, 661. What will justify 
 it, 662. Rectitude required, 662. The chief 
 evil, 667. The only remedy, 670. Causes of 
 the prevalent insensibility to, 673. Declaration 
 of, 675. Duty of the citizen when called to 
 fight, 675. Splendor of uniform a bad thing, 
 678. Government has the right of, 674. How 
 it should be exercised, 674. 
 
 Warfare, moral, 341. 
 
 Washington, his great moral qualities, 546. 
 
 Wealth, the passion for, in America, and its dan- 
 gers, 890. 
 
 Whittier, John G., tribute to, 813. , 
 
 Woman, her sphere and mission, 844. As a re- 
 ligious teacher, 164. 
 
 Worcester, Noah, D.D., the philanthropist, 602. 
 Early struggles, 603. Theology, 603. A peace- 
 advocate, 605. 
 
 Wordsworth, universal sympathy in his poetry, 
 161. 
 
 Work, only one of man's interests, 832. See 
 1 ' Labor. ' ' 
 
 Worship of God, the purpose of, 249. Origin of, 
 410. Different forms, 411. The one object 
 of , 4 1 2. J esus directed all worship to the Father, 
 413. The homage given to Jesus on earth not 
 worship, 413. God to be worshipped in his 
 parental character, 414-418. The true worship, 
 419. The spirit of, in daily life, 420. The 
 worship in spirit, 425. 
 
 Yo-XTNG men, their need of religion, 619. 
 
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