AND 
 
 OTHER PAPERS 
 
 BY 
 
 THOS. STARR KING. 
 
 HON. RICHARD FROTHIXGHAM. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 TOMPKINS AND COMPANY, 
 
 25 COBNHILL. 
 
 1864.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1804, 
 
 BY TOMPKINS AND COMPANY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 OKO. O. BAND & AVERT, 
 TCBIOTTPERS AND P B 1 W T
 
 THE great work laid upon hia two-score years 
 Is done, and well done. If we drop our tears 
 Who loved him as few men were ever loved, 
 We mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan 
 With him whose life stands rounded and approved 
 In the full growth and stature of a man. 
 Mingle, O bells, along the western slope, 
 With your deep toll a sound of faith and hope 1 
 
 Wave cheerily still, O banner, half-way down, 
 
 ' . 4 
 From thousand-masted bay and steepled town! 
 
 Let the strong organ with its loftiest swell 
 Lift the proud sorrow of the land, and tell 
 That the brave sower saw his ripened grain. 
 O East and West, O morn and sunset, twain 
 No more forever! has he lived in vain 
 Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told 
 Tour bridal service from his lips of gold I 
 
 JOHN O. WBITTIIB.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.. . 13 
 
 I. 
 
 PATRIOTISM 29 
 
 II. 
 WASHINGTON, OE GREATNESS 65 
 
 III. 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION 79 
 
 IV. 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. . . . 100 
 
 V. 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY 113 
 
 VI. 
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS 164 
 
 V
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PM* 
 
 VII. 
 TRUE GREATNESS 181 
 
 VIII. 
 INDIRECT INFLUENCES 194 
 
 IX. 
 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT 207 
 
 X. 
 INWARD RESOURCES 222 
 
 XI. 
 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE 232 
 
 XII. 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY 241 
 
 XIII. 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION 880 
 
 XIV. 
 THE IDEA OF GOD AND THE TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 312 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE HARMONY OF OPPOSITE QUALITIES IN THE SAV- 
 IOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS J30 
 
 XVI. 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION 346
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE following pages are presented to the friends and 
 admirers of the late Rev. THOMAS STARR KING, under 
 circumstances of more than ordinary interest, and by the 
 promptings of a more than ordinary motive. 
 
 The event of the death of Mr. KING has so recently 
 transpired, that the first gush of grief which swayed the 
 public mind, throughout the land, and welled in the hearts 
 of those who knew and loved him best, on reception of 
 the sudden, and unlooked-for tidings of his decease, has 
 scarcely subsided, and left the mind sufficiently calm for 
 reflection. The heavy tide of sorrow which has rolled over 
 so many hearts, has not ebbed back its mighty and oppres- 
 sive waves ; and, of course, the time is not yet for that fitting 
 tribute to his memory, his genius., and his worth, which the 
 pen of affection and respect will ere long delight to bestow. 
 But even in advance of this, it has been thought that a 
 monument of enduring fame might be reared to his memory, 
 by gathering from the various quarters where they had been 
 strown, the scattered stones which his own hand had so ex- 
 quisitely polished, and using them in the rearing of a struct- 
 ure which may not only speak of him, but by him, in the 
 ages to come. 
 
 It is well known to many that the rare scholarship, and
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the rich literary taste of Mr. KING had often been employed 
 in the production of articles which, at the time, found but a 
 limited and transient medium in various periodicals which 
 have temporarily stored their wealth. The publications in 
 which they have appeared, too, it is equally well known, have 
 been sustained and read, principally, by the supporters of a 
 particular religious sect, and have not found their way to the 
 public generally ; while, from their nature and character, and 
 the truly catholic spirit which they have always breathed, 
 they have been well calculated to enrich the uiinds of all 
 classes. 
 
 Nothing, seeing the light, has ever emanated from the 
 pen of Mr. KING which has not been well adapted to add 
 to the treasures of human thought ; nothing which might not 
 be profitably pondered by the votary of any creed, Or the. 
 adherent to any party. While oftentimes gems of thought, 
 brilliant with the flashes of a powerful and fervid mind, have 
 been strown abroad with a lavish hand. From a soul charmed 
 with the profound lore of metaphysics, and the deep myste- 
 ries of the world of thought, they have been thrown out; 
 yet not crude, and dull, and uninviting. For his sentences 
 are not read as though the mind were compelled to toil amidst 
 the ruins of a cast-iron edifice to find them ; but they come 
 lucid, simple, and transparent in thought, while they are 
 profound in wisdom, woven in a richness of imageiy and a 
 wealth of diction which inspires an interest and admiration 
 wherever they are read. 
 
 While the recollection is deeply saddening to the soul, that 
 one so large in power, so gifted and versatile in talent, and 
 still so rich in promise, while so preeminently useful, should 
 be removed from the field of his labors and his love, at so 
 early a day, ere the meridian of life's sun had shed its efful- 
 gence upon his course, and when the past and present com-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 blned to inspire bright hopes of even greater good to come, 
 it is nevertheless profoundly gratifying that so large a labor 
 had been accomplished by him, and so much has been left 
 as the fruitage of his toil, which may so fully enrich the 
 minds of thoae who shall make a study of his efforts. 
 
 Each article found in this volume, we trust, will be ac- 
 knowledged worthy of a more enduring position, and a wider 
 circulation than it has hitherto attained, and to effectuate this 
 has been the main purpose of the compilation. 
 
 The articles have been drawn from the pages of the " Rose 
 of Sharon," from the " Universalist Quarterly," and some 
 of them from publications even far less enduring, all of 
 which were necessarily limited in their circulation. They 
 are now placed in a position, and we hope in form, which 
 will gain for the volume a place in many a library, and for 
 its treasures a place in many a mind which, otherwise, might 
 not even have been cognizant of their existence. 
 
 It might have been true of the writings of Mr. KING, as 
 it doubtless has been of many an author, that very much, of 
 great and permanent worth, should be lost to the general 
 mind, merely from the early attendant circumstances of their 
 production. For in this regard, sometimes, as well as from 
 considerations of a wider range, the poet's words are true, 
 
 " Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, 
 
 The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air ! " 
 
 So uncertain is FAME amid the world of letters, that 
 doubtless many of the treasures of literature now lie 
 buried in remediless obscurity ; while, on the other hand, 
 many of the golden thought-gleams, which now illumine the 
 pages of literature, in both prose and poetry, have come 
 to us only through the fissures which the throes of time have
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rent in the incrustations of the past ; while the names of 
 those from whose minds they have emanated, are entirely 
 forgotten to the world. And this simply through the 
 neglect of those whose privilege it might have been to con- 
 fer a benefit upon the race, and upon the authors' names a 
 lasting gratitude, by gathering them from their straying, 
 into a connected and enduring foraK 
 
 The thoughts and words of the good and gifted among 
 men often live, after their authors are no more, only through 
 the thoughtful care of those who appreciate their value, and 
 are faithful to the duties which circumstances devolve. 
 
 We attempt no criticism, nor comment on the various arti- 
 cles here presented, from the pen of Mr. KING. They will 
 speak for themselves in a power more convincing than any 
 sentences which we might frame ; and we are confident that 
 they will commend themselves to the favorable regard of the 
 intelligent of all classes, without the effort of extrinsic aid. 
 
 We offer no apology for the insertion in this volume of the 
 excellent article on the life, character, and death of Mr. 
 KING. It was written by one who knew his subject intimately ; 
 the young man passing from early youth to that rich maturity 
 which he attained in manhood's morning, under bis immediate 
 eye ; the observation of his course being prompted by a solici- 
 tude born of respect for the honored father of Mr. KING, which 
 could not but create both anxiety and pride, as his young friend, 
 wrestling with the difficulties and dangers of youth, passed 
 rapidly the period of adolescence to an early, a rich, and vigor- 
 ous mental and moral manhood. The tribute is just, and worthy 
 of its able and discriminating author. It will stand henceforth 
 among the noblest tributes paid to a mind which, in the midst of 
 an environment of difficulties, and embarrassments of no ordi-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 nary character, rose suddenly and securely to an eminence 
 and celebrity which few indeed are permitted to attain. 
 
 And here we would stop ; but we cannot lay down our pen 
 without the added remark, with reference to Mr. KING, cog- 
 nizant now, of those who knew him the most intimately, that 
 when his powers shall be analyzed it will be found that not 
 the bright promise of his manhood in youth ; not the quick, 
 leaping vigor of his intellect as it moved amidst coruscations 
 of emitted light ; not the rich and stately flow of his elo- 
 quence, which charmed to admiration wherever it was poured 
 out; not the power and purity, or even the sublimity of 
 his thoughts, alone or combined, constituted the chief grace 
 and glory of his character ; but that, beneath all these, and 
 many other qualities which, singly, might have made the 
 wealth of an ordinary mind, lay, as a base, that rich and 
 affluent mine of FILIAL AFFECTION AND DEVOTION, whose 
 treasures flowed from his young heart at the instant touch 
 of necessity, and, under Christian influence and guidance, 
 poured blessings upon a widowed and bereaved household, 
 deprived early of their ordinary support, which, besides 
 leaving a bright and endearing example to the young, could 
 not fail to draw down the approving benediction of Heaven ! 
 
 This single trait in the character of THOMAS STARR KING 
 leaves an example not only for youth to imitate, but for the 
 world to admire and honor. 
 
 Might we be permitted, we would fain dedicate this 
 volume to the bereaved mother and her children, as a self- 
 wrought monument of a worthy son and brother, whose 
 memory can live in their hearts only as a constant incentive 
 to gratitude for the gift and life of one whose untiring devo- 
 tion to their good ceased only with the latest pulsation of his 
 large and loving heart. 
 
 Invoking the blessing of Heaven upon this compilation of
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a portion of the works of one who has ascended to a higher 
 and mor3 radiant sphere, we commend it to the patronage 
 and study of the many brethren and friends in whose hearts 
 his memory is evermore enshrined, and to the general public, 
 who have received a benediction in the life of the author. 
 
 T. J. G.
 
 A BRIEF SKETCH OP THE HFE OP 
 
 THOMAS STARR KING,* 
 
 BT HON. RICHARD FROTfflNGHAM. 
 
 THE expression of sorrow at the death of Thomas 
 Starr King, both in this region where his days of 
 preparation and early service were passed, in places 
 where his varied labors made him known, and on the 
 Pacific shore, indicate a general sense of a public 
 loss ; and the feeling that one of uncommon gifts has 
 gone to his reward. He was ready to meet the Master, 
 to whose service, even as youth was budding, he con- 
 secrated the powers with which the Almighty had 
 endowed him. 
 
 This morning consecration this inner spring of 
 motive working in every outward phase developed 
 itself very early ; it lingered like a guardian angel ; 
 it was ever triumphant, and it is the key of this 
 remarkable and beautiful life. 
 
 Thomas Starr King was born in the city of New 
 York (1824), passed his early boyhood in Hudson 
 and Portsmouth, and at ten years of age, when a good 
 
 * From Boston Post, March 10, 1804. 
 18
 
 14 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 Latin and French scholar, was taken to Charlestown 
 (1835), when his father became the pastor of the 
 Universalist Society of that place. Thomas Far- 
 rington King was a genial, generous, noble-hearted 
 man, of a sympathetic nature, full of humor, and of 
 theological views which, much as he loved the order 
 to which he belonged, could not be narrowed to the 
 lines of creed or sect. Starr, as he was familiarly 
 called, was the oldest child ; and his father saw, with 
 all a father's pride, the unfolding powers and bent of 
 his gifted son, who took his place as a pupil in the 
 public schools and was constant at the Sunday school. 
 It was soon plain enough that Charlestown had no 
 institution that met the wants of this bright youth ; 
 and that the preparation for a collegiate course, 
 which his father designed, must be found elsewhere. 
 His bent was seen in a sermon which at the age of 
 thirteen while his father was absent at the West, 
 he wrote, and sent to a newspaper; and it ap- 
 peared in type. 
 
 In a year or two after this settlement, a long and 
 deep-seated disease sapped the vitality of the good 
 pastor, and at the age of forty-two (September, 
 1839) , death closed his labors. An impressive funeral 
 service in the church, a great procession of the peo- 
 ple, a gathering of thousands on the ancient burial- 
 ground of Charlestown, a spontaneous closing of 
 places of business, testified to the affection and re- 
 spect that bore the sacred remains to their resting- 
 place. On the evening of this funeral there was 
 preaching in the vacant pulpit by a young man and
 
 THOMAS STARR KING. 15 
 
 a stranger in the place. The theme selected was 
 Faith ; and, with the emblems of the recent mortal- 
 ity hanging about the church, the lesson was enforced 
 with uncommon effect. The manuscript was mostly 
 followed until near the close, when the preacher, 
 summoning the lesson of the passing hour for illus- 
 tration, left his notes, and abandoned himself to his 
 subject, his deep, rich voice, full of emotion, rising 
 and swelling organ-like into a pathos, and a power 
 which thrilled the great and breathless assembly. It 
 was eloquence, for it was an inspiration of soul. 
 The preacher was Edwin H. Chapin, who was the 
 successor of the deceased pastor, and the close, life- 
 long friend of Thomas Starr King. 
 
 The sickness and straitened circumstances of the 
 father defeated the plans for a-jcollegiate course for 
 Starr ; and, instead, a place temporarily had been 
 found for him in a dry goods store in Charlestown, 
 where he was the book-keeper. Now began that 
 filial and fraternal piety that gilds a purest ray serene 
 the whole of this extraordinary life ; for the lad of 
 fifteen was the main stay of his mother, and as a father 
 to the five younger children. Labor for such objects 
 was sacred. His genuine life, however, was not in 
 the accounts which he pored over ; for then he was 
 ministered to by his noble aspirations, his commun- 
 ings were with the great masters of thought, and as 
 he mused the fire burned. His efforts were never 
 turned from 'self-culture, nor his thought from his 
 mission. 
 
 It happened that the members of the school com-
 
 16 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 mittee of the town knew these circumstances, and a 
 place was made for Starr as an assistant teacher in 
 the public school which he first entered as a pupil, 
 the principal of which was Mr. Benjamin F. 
 Tweed, now a professor of Tufts College, and another 
 early and life-long friend of Starr. The young teacher 
 entered with a light heart on his new vocation, 
 brought to its tasks abundant resources, and soon 
 lived down whatever doubts were felt as to the judg- 
 ment of the selection. The calling, . as well as the 
 pursuits of his leisure hours, now helped on his 
 work of discipline. His hope for the future bright- 
 ened and strengthened as he grew in years. Only 
 those who heard him talk can tell, what a ministry 
 to his spirit were the affluence of utterance and the 
 companionship of his beloved pastor. 
 
 At length a vacancy in a Medford grammar school 
 (1842) made an opening for a higher position, be- 
 cause independent, and the young teacher applied 
 for the place. It seemed at the time to him and to 
 his friends, but the simple question of a wider field 
 of duty and a larger means of support for him and 
 his ; but, in the light of after events, it looks more 
 like Providence shaping his ends. This town then 
 enjoyed the blessing of the influence of Rev. Hosea 
 Ballou 2d, who became subsequently the president 
 of Tufts College, who was of child-like simplicity of 
 character, of varied and profound learning, wise and 
 good and great. He was a member of the school com- 
 mittee, interested himself successfully for the appli- 
 cant whose youth suggested doubts as to the expedi-
 
 THOMAS STARR KING. 17 
 
 eucy of the appointment ; and a few weeks after the 
 transfer, he said, that while Medford had gained a 
 competent and faithful teacher, he had found a rare 
 and precious friend. What love and confidence 
 between these gifted and kindred souls ! The one 
 of silver locks, rich in ancient and modern lore, the 
 other thirsty for knowledge, and scaling the heights 
 with a scholar's enthusiasm ; .and both of wit that 
 was quick, easy, of constant natural flow, elicited 
 by the commonest things, but diamond-like, sharp, 
 and sparkling. Nothing could exceed the admiration 
 which Dr. Ballou habitually expressed for the in- 
 tellectual gifts of his young friend, and no one ever 
 heard from the lips of Thomas Starr King aught but 
 love and gratitude for his Theological Father. The 
 correspondence between them, rich in the play of 
 the fancy and in the soundings of the depths, will 
 be a feature in the memorials of their lives. 
 
 While discharging the duties of teacher, there 
 went on a systemetic course of study with a view 
 to the ministry, under the direction of Dr. Ballou. 
 It was labor he delighted in. He was familiar with 
 the utterances t)f Channing, and had imbibed their 
 spirit ; indeed, he was ever quick to know things of 
 note in theology ; and no sooner did they appear than 
 he would have them in hand, either from the choice 
 storehouse of his pastor, or from elsewhere ; for 
 neither, if he could help it, would sleep without 
 knowing the last word from a real teacher. At this 
 period Professor Walker, of Harvard College, deliv- 
 ered his Lectures on Natural Religion before the
 
 18 SKETCH OP THE LIFE OF 
 
 Lowell Institute in Boston, which were of absorbing 
 interest to the young student, who came regularly 
 from Medford, not merely to listen to them, but to/ 
 bear them away in copious notes from which he wrote 
 out the lectures in full. He did more. He made the 
 great theme his study. He revolved over in his mind 
 the tough problems which they dealt with. He con- 
 sulted the authors to which reference was made in 
 them. His capacity for the subtleties of metaphys- 
 ics was wonderful. He threaded easily, as by intui- 
 tion, through intricacies of thought where others 
 had to rough-hew it to find their way. The ca- 
 pacity grew by what it fed on. He ascribed much 
 fixedness of opinion on important points to the study 
 and direction which these lectures gave him ; not 
 improbably they saved him from that experience of 
 doubt and unbelief which so many gifted minds 
 pass through. 
 
 While thus engaged, his friends were enabled to 
 tender him a desk (1843) in the naval storekeeper's 
 office in the CUarlestown navy yard, which prom- 
 ised to double his means of living and to multiply 
 his choice selection of books, the silent never-com- 
 plaining companions which he was lovingly gathering 
 in. It was accepted. This was a crisis period of his 
 life. Young as he was, lie had experienced the minis- 
 try of suffering in most of the forms that rive the 
 human heart. The struggle at times had been severe ; 
 but his high aim, his inner motive just the simple 
 truth enabled him to bear up and to press on ; 
 now the prospect ahead began to be a clear sea and
 
 THOMAS STARE KING. 19 
 
 halcyon sky ; and seldom is seen a happier soul, than 
 for two years was Thomas Starr King, as he still kept 
 steadily in the road of progress, that he might make 
 himself worthy to enter upon his father's vocation ; 
 for none could look with greater disfavor than he 
 certainly did upon unpreparedness, either in heart 
 or mind, for the ministerial work. He now paid close 
 attention to the German ; often he left the commu- 
 nion of his pastor to listen to discourses in this lan- 
 guage ; and far into midnight he would talk of Goethe 
 Schiller, and the divines of the school of Tholuck 
 and DeWette. He had long been familiar with Plato, 
 and so closely studied the father of the progressive 
 school of philosophy that he seemed to live with him. 
 On one occasion returning, from a season of com- 
 munion with his mentor, Dr. Ballou, his bright eye 
 had an uncommon sparkle and his countenance was 
 aglow with joy, at the judgment of this ripe scholar 
 on a manuscript essay which he had prepared on 
 knotty points of the Platonic works. This was not 
 flattery in one of the truest and sincerest of men ; 
 it was not vanity in a devoted explorer in the 
 realms of truth ; it was recognition by one having 
 authority of an intellectual triumph ; and joy in the 
 young enthusiast at another mark of progress up 
 heights which he felt necessary to attain, even though 
 he might .have the crowning qualification of the 
 Christian gifts ere he could be a worthy minister of 
 the Gospel. 
 
 His circle of friends was now widening. His 
 genial, generous, sympathetic nature, like magnetism,
 
 20 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 drew all hearts to him wherever he went ; for the natu- 
 ral gentleman was behind those brilliant conversational 
 powers that made him the delight of society. He 
 had much communion with ingenuous young men 
 of Harvard, who knew of " Starr King," sought his 
 acquaintance, and with some of whom, now stand- 
 ing high in their callings, who might be named, 
 he compared notes of progress. Of friends who 
 passed on before him, were John and Sarah Edgar- 
 ton, both of whom, with rare spiritual natures, 
 believed with the young student, that they had 
 an appointed work to do. Nothing but good influ- 
 ences grew out of such communions, which were as 
 free from anything like cant as they were ennobling. 
 The temptation is strong to linger on the simple 
 " Starr King," as his friends call him, when he 
 was about to step on manhood's threshold and respon- 
 sibilties, and before the public eye was fixed on him. 
 He did not dwell apart, a solitary, in severe contem- 
 plation, affecting ways of greatness ; but lived as a 
 true man of the world, interesting in what was going 
 on around him, a close observer of common life, 
 seizing witli zest passing incidents having touches of 
 humor in them and telling them with a right merry, 
 ringing laugh; and there was so much and such 
 heartiness in this, that a casual acquaintance might 
 suppose that, to tell stories, was his great ambition. 
 This would have been unjust. His real lifa con- 
 tinued to be the high spiritual communion that 
 strengthened his character and carried him nearer 
 to his goal. Of his literary friends of his own ago,
 
 THOMAS STARK KING. 21 
 
 perhaps there were none dearer to him than John 
 Edgarton, already named, a pure, quiet, undemon- 
 strative soul, but deeply religious, who died just 
 as he completed his collegiate course at Harvard. 
 Both had a like philosophical turn ; both aimed 
 for the clerical office and both were of singular 
 promise. His death, in the high hope of manly 
 youth, was a great bereavement ; another ministry of 
 suffering, quickening and deepening the wells of 
 sympathy in with him. 
 
 As he approached his majority, wise advisers in 
 the ministry judged him qualified to assume its 
 duties. Still it was with unaffected diffidence that 
 he delivered at Woburn (September, 1845), his first 
 sermon ; and he preferred that none of his intimate 
 friends should hear him. His services were accepta- 
 ble. His calls to supply pulpits were numerous, 
 perhaps more than he cared to answer ; for he 
 looked on study for a long time yet as a duty. It 
 now happened that Rev. E. H. Chapin felt it a duty 
 to accept (January, 1846) a call for a wider field of 
 labor in Boston ; his society sought to have the young 
 preacher for their pastor ; and a year after Mr. King 
 preached his first sermon, he was installed over this 
 society. The services were impressive. Rev. Hosea 
 Ballon 2d made the charge to the pastor, and the 
 sermon was by Rev. Edwin H. Chapin. 
 
 The young minister brought to his work a rare 
 combination of experience. He had mingled much 
 with the world. He had not, it is true, threaded the 
 dark paths, to study human nature ; he never had an
 
 22 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 eye for the rotten side of life ; but his warm and 
 sunny nature drew inspiration from the exhibitions 
 of duty in the humble Christian's walk and wherever 
 he met the good, the J;rue, and the beautiful. He 
 had, too, free contact with men and things, and a 
 large common sense. And, joining the lessons of the 
 practical, with the fruits of steady study, for two 
 years he poured forth wise, mature, profound utter- 
 ances that dropped like golden words from the desk. 
 Then in the round of pastoral duties, in the seasons 
 of joy and of sorrow, he drew from deep, inward 
 fountains of feeling, his own experience, and to 
 these he added unwonted outward grace and dignity. 
 He saw his labors prosper under his hand. 
 
 It was but natural, however, that he should meet 
 with obstacles ; that many should not have recog- 
 nized in his own land the prophet. No university 
 crowned him with its honors ; the circle of fashion 
 could hardly comprehend his glorious merit ; no 
 great patrons sounded his fame ; and it seemed to 
 many not possible that Saul could step from the local 
 counting-room, the grammar-school or the navy-yard. 
 Though all might well know that as man thinketh 
 in his heart, so is he, but few could really know the 
 great thought and inner motive power that nerved and 
 moved his soul ; and the index of it, his words what- 
 ever they might be, had to penetrate a thick crust of 
 prejudice, or of envy, or, harder than all, of conceit ; 
 and to get through this requires time and outside 
 help. The wonder is that so many saw and bowed 
 before the extraordinary gift.
 
 THOMAS STARR KING. 23 
 
 His frail frame reeled under the labors and anxiety 
 of the charge ; but a voyage to Fayal (1848) brought 
 to him renewed strength, and on his return, his spirit 
 was buoyant and he seemed in pristine vigor. This 
 year he accepted a call to fill the desk in Boston, in 
 Hollis Street, once occupied by a Holley. It cost 
 him a severe struggle to part with old friends and 
 the friends of his father ; and it grieved them to part 
 with him. He announced his purpose in a charac- 
 teristic note to his society, frank, warm, and beauti- 
 ful. It was just in his way his modesty of manner 
 and his under-estimate of himself to write (Sep- 
 tember) as to the course he felt compelled to take : 
 " It is but just to say what is sufficiently obvious, 
 that no cause of dissatisfaction has been furnished 
 by the. society, neither has any grown out of its cir- 
 cumstances or condition. Its prosperity is evident ; 
 and I have ever been treated by its members with 
 kindness and forbearance. They have been more 
 faithful to their duties than I to mine." 
 
 And here this tribute to this remarkable life may 
 appropriately stop. It is but a sketch of its prepar- 
 atory work and may be pronounced presumption to 
 have attempted to do this. There succeeded sixteen 
 years of labor, of service in Boston, over half the 
 kind, in California by the pen, in the desk, in 
 the lecture room, in the home. It hardly left the 
 required time for tt\p quiet progress of self-culture. 
 The demand was incessant for service, and this in 
 a certain sense is growth. The fruitage is too 
 well known to need enumeration. His new fields
 
 24 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OP 
 
 of labor won ever for him hosts of friends ; and 
 the ripe in years and the profound in learning, as ' 
 well as the unlettered and the young, bore ready 
 testimony to the charm of his varied gifts both in 
 public and private. When the time came for him 
 to part with his Hollis Street circle, there was 
 another struggle ; and the ministering brother whom 
 he invited to be with him in the last service in this 
 church, was a kindred spirit Rev. C. H. Leonard, 
 of Chelsea. " I know not how I can go through with 
 it," he said, as he was about to enter the desk. " You 
 cannot go through with it ; you will be carried 
 through," was the reply. 
 
 The work done in California the strengthen- 
 ing and even building up of a society the erection 
 of a noble church the gift of a magnificent organ 
 from the proceeds of lectures to say nothing 
 of a personation of the patriotism and loyalty of the 
 people in this crisis of country, rounded off this 
 remarkable life. The crowning of glory is the com- 
 plement of the morning consecration. His private 
 letters, for months, show how near the pastor's heart 
 was this whole field of labor. He wrote of the beauti- 
 ful Temple of Worship as his monument. He longed 
 to have it completed. He wished to see it free from 
 debt. At length it was finished ; but as his friends 
 were anticipating rest from labors that taxed heavily 
 his body and mind, he received the mysteriously 
 ordered summons hence. He was conscious to the 
 last. He said he was " HAPPY TO GO. " And while 
 the society who buried the father and welcomed the
 
 PATRIOTISM. 33 
 
 glory of his nation. Nobler than his military valor, 
 was the ambition that urged him to rouse the dor- 
 mant genius of his land, and to enshrine and cele- 
 brate its hallowed memories in odes and jubilant 
 hymns. From his heart, burst the gush of feeling 
 which the Christian Church now uses as the expres- 
 sion of a spiritual Patriotism, " Pray for the peace 
 of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee. 
 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy 
 palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I 
 will now say peace be within thee." And it is in 
 the Psalms that we read the touching lament, as 
 from the heart of Patriotism itself, " How shall we 
 sing the Lord's song in a strange land ? If I forget 
 thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cun- 
 ning -. . . let my tongue cleave to the roof of 
 my mouth ; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief 
 
 joy." 
 
 In the prophecies, too, the authority of God and 
 the evil of sin are blended inseparably with aspira- 
 tions for the glory of Israel. A prophet could not 
 brace his breast to denounce an impending woe, 
 without casting his eye farther on, and hailing the 
 light of future national eminence, which made his 
 heart swell with reverent pride, and in which the 
 darkness of the threatened judgment melted away. 
 Although the highest office of Revelation is to point 
 to, and prepare us for, the " better country, even the 
 heavenly," no one can rightly read the pages of the 
 Bible, without catching enthusiasm for his earthly
 
 34 PATRIOTISM. , 
 
 country, the land of his fathers, the shelter of his 
 'infancy, the hope of his children. . 
 
 Do we not read that even He whose love embraced 
 the whole race in its scope, the eternal and impartial 
 Love made flesh, who pronounced the parable of the 
 good Samaritan, and shed the warmth of that spirit, 
 through his life, into the frosty air of human senti- 
 ment, felt more keenly the alienation of his country- 
 men according to the flesh, than he felt the spear-point 
 and the nails, and paused over the beautiful city of 
 David to utter a lament whose burden swept away 
 the prospect of his own lowering destiny, "0 
 Je-rusalem, Jerusalem, . . . how often would I 
 have gathered your children together, even as a lien 
 gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
 not ! Behold your house is left unto you desolate." 
 
 When we say that the Bible justifies and encour- 
 ages patriotism, we virtually say that it is a senti- 
 ment subject to the sway of the moral law, requir- 
 ing, like all our natural instincts, guidance, Christian 
 light, and training. There are base theories about the 
 superiority of this sentiment to any Christian limita- 
 tions. There are base counterfeits of the sentiment 
 itself. It is not the pugilistic passion that estimates 
 glory solely by battle-fields, weighs national worth by 
 vigor of muscle, and culls the anthology of its bloody 
 traditions in a sort of " Pirate's Own Book," by which 
 its brutal appetite is nourished. It is not the sense- 
 less sentimentalism that so often with us, on public 
 occasions, finds literary expression in tawdry rhetoric, 
 flaccid apostrophes, and sophomoric gasconade, and
 
 PATRIOTISM. 35 
 
 which has sometimes raised the problem before sensi- 
 tive minds, whether on the whole, the service of our 
 national holiday to liberty compensates for its de- 
 bauching influence on literary taste. 
 
 The patriotism that is a virtue, and that ennobles 
 character, is a spirit of devotion to one's country, 
 from a purified instinct and for purposes of enlight- 
 ened benefit. It is nursed and hallowed by Chris- 
 tian principle and draws to its aid all the resources 
 of genius. It is a constructive quality, , quickening 
 the intellect by its love of country to zealous ambition 
 to improve it and raise it higher. It is an imaginative 
 sentiment. Imagination is essential to its vigor. It 
 comprehends hills, streams, plains, and valleys in a 
 broad conception, and from traditions and institutions 
 from all the life of the past and the vigor and 
 noble tendencies of the present, it individualizes the 
 destiny and personifies the spirit of its land, and then 
 vows its vow to that. So that it is of the very essence 
 of true patriotism to be earnest and truthful, to scorn 
 the flatterer's tongue, and strive to keep its native 
 land in harmony with the laws of national thrift and 
 power. It will tell a land of its faults, as a friend 
 will counsel a companion ; it will speak as honestly 
 as the physician advises a patient ; and if occasion 
 requires, an indignation will flame out of its love, 
 like that which burst from the lips of Moses when 
 he returned from the mountain, and found the people 
 to whom he had revealed the holy and austere 
 Jehovah, and for whom he would cheerfully have 
 sacrificed his life, worshipping a calf.
 
 36 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 The distinctive feature of true patriotism is that 
 it is pledged to the idea which one's native country 
 represents. It does not accept and glory in its 
 country merely for what it is at present, and has been 
 in the past, but for what it may be. Each nation has 
 a representative value. Each race that has appro- 
 "priated a certain latitude which harmonizes with its 
 blood, has the capacity to work out special good 
 results, and reveal great truths in some distinctive 
 forms. God designs that each country should wear 
 a peculiar ideal physiognomy, and He has set its 
 geographical characteristics as a bony skeleton, and 
 breathed into it a free life-spirit which, if loyal to 
 the divine intention, will keep the blood in health, 
 infuse vigor into every limb, give symmetry to the 
 form, and carry the flush of a pure and distinct ex- 
 pression to the'countenance. It is the patriot's office 
 to study the laws of public growth and energy, and 
 strive with enthusiastic love to guard against every 
 disease that would cripple the resources of the frame 
 and thus prevent the lineaments of vice and brutal- 
 ity from degrading the face, which God would have 
 radiant with truth, genius, and purity. 
 
 He was the be^st patriot of ancient Greece who had 
 the widest and wisest conception of the capacities 
 and genius of Greece, and labored to paint that ideal 
 winningly before the national mind, and to direct the 
 flame of national aspiration, fanned by its heroic 
 memories, up to the noblest possibilities of Grecian 
 endeavor. The truest patriot of England would be 
 the man whose mind should see in The English genius
 
 I. 
 
 PATRIOTISM. 1 
 
 IT has been questioned by some, whether there is 
 any such distinct virtue as Patriotism. Not a few 
 moralists have indulged suspicions as to the harmony 
 of such a passion with the soul's integrity. Many 
 Christians have openly denied its consistency with 
 the moral temper which the New Testament would 
 inspire ; while others have strenuously urged that it is 
 the very royal grace of character, and oversweeps all 
 virtues. There is a sliding scale of judgments as 
 to its' legitimacy and worthiness, from the declaration 
 of Dr. Johnson, that " Patriotism is the last refuge 
 of a scoundrel," to that of Cicero, that it is a duty 
 more sacred than the filial tie. 
 
 In abstract controversy we may dispute with some 
 plausibility the moral healthiness of the sentiment, 
 and may not be able to free it from all haze, and dis- 
 cern its disc ; but the living world braces the mind 
 and refutes its skepticism. History refuses to coun- 
 tenance the analytic ethics of spiritual dreamers. It 
 thrusts upon our notice, Leonidas, Tell, Camillus, 
 
 1 The substance of this article is from a discourse, delivered in Boston, 
 before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, on the occasion 
 of their two hundred and thirteenth Anniversary, June 2d, 1851. 
 
 29
 
 30 PATKIOTISM. 
 
 Hampden, Winkelried, Scipio, Lafayette, Ad.ams, 
 Bolivar, and Washington, in whom the sentiment has 
 become flesh, and gathered to itself the world's af- 
 fection and honors. An honest heart cannot help 
 feeling, when it reads their biographies, that their 
 line of greatness is as legitimate as that of poets, 
 philosophers, philanthropists, and priests. We can- 
 not be so sure that the principles which would ex- 
 punge their names from the world's honorable regard, 
 or throw suspicion upon their virtue, are right, as we 
 ought to be that the result is wrong and base, and 
 therefore, that the principles must be false. 
 
 The virtue of Patriotism has been provided for, 
 and is expected of us, by nature. Some moralists, 
 as we have already intimated, have condemned all 
 private and restricted affections, as inconsistent with 
 the law of universal love. They argue that our love 
 must be for being in general, and must be pcopor- 
 tioned by the moral worth of the object, without re- 
 gard to relationships, ties, and personal associations. 
 But they only argue against nature. The method 
 of Providence in invoking our spiritual sentiments 
 is always from particulars to generals. God " hath 
 set the solitary in families," and bound the families 
 into communities, and organized communities into 
 nations ; and he has ordained special duties for each 
 of these relationships, and inspired affections to 
 prompt those duties and to ennoble the character. 
 
 The law of love is the principle of the spiritual 
 universe, just as the force of gravity is the govern- 
 ing law of space. It binds each particle of matter
 
 PATRIOTISM. 31 
 
 every other particle, but it attracts inversely accord- 
 ing to the square of the distance, and thus becomes 
 practically a series of special and local forces, binding 
 'our feet constantly and irresistibly to one globe, and 
 allowing only a general unity, which the inind appro- 
 priates through science and meditation, with the far 
 off and kindred spheres. The soul that has most of 
 the universal Christian sentiment of love, will have 
 the most intense special affections. We cannot love 
 the whole world and nobody in particular. However 
 deep the baptism of the spirit in general good-will, a 
 man must look with a thrill of love that nothing else 
 can awaken, into the face of the mother that bore 
 him ; he cannot resolve the ties that bind him to 
 filial responsibilities and a brother's devotion ; and 
 so Providence has ordained that, out of identity of 
 race, a common history, the same scenery, litera- 
 ture, and laws, though in perfect harmony with a 
 sense of good-will to all men, the wider family feel- 
 ing, the distinctive virtue, Patriotism, should spring. 
 If the ancient Roman could believe that the yellow 
 Tiber was the river dearest to heaven ; if the Eng- 
 lishman can see a grandeur in the Thames which its 
 size will not suggest ; if the Alpine storm-wind is a 
 familiar home-song to the Swiss mountaineer ; if the 
 Laplander believes that his country is the best the sun 
 shines upon ; if the sight of our nation's flag in other 
 lands awakens sentiments that speed the blood, and 
 melt the eyes ; if the poorest man feels a proud con- 
 sciousness of property in the great deeds that glow 
 upon his country's annals, and the monuments of its
 
 32 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 power and glory ; let us confess that the heart of 
 man was made to contract a special friendship for its 
 native soil, its kindred stock, and its ancestral tradi- 
 tions, and that where the sentiment of Patriotism is 
 not deep, a sacred affection is absent, an essential 
 element of virtue is wanting, and religion barren of 
 one great witness of its sway. 
 
 I know it has been said that the Bible does not 
 justify and commend Patriotism, in any of its pre- 
 cepts. No, but it sanctions and illustrates it by 
 splendid examples. The prime instructions of the 
 Old Testament are Patriotism and the fear of God. 
 They blended in the heart of Moses. In the wilder- 
 ness he bore .the Hebrew people in his heart. Relig- 
 ious patriotism stimulated his genius, supported him 
 in perplexities, and made the desert gfeen. When 
 at last he stood upon Mount Pisgah, and looked upon 
 that rich landscape of Palestine, which his sand- 
 stained feet must not press, its loveliness wore a tinge 
 of beauty, which the sunbeams could not shed, from 
 the thought that there the ignorant people for whom 
 he had toiled should have a home, and begin their 
 mysterious mission among the nations of the earth. 
 
 The story of Samuel, whose heart, will, prayers, 
 wisdom, and virtue were for his countrymen, is a 
 lesson of Patriotism. Pointing to that name, the 
 Jew may now dispute with us, against the career of 
 Washington, for the honor of giving to the race the 
 model patriot. When we pronounce the name of 
 David, we think of the enthusiasm that wielded the 
 hero's sword, and touched the poet's harp, for the
 
 THOMAS STARR KING. 25 
 
 son, were listening in silence and in tears to touch- 
 ing words by his brethren in the ministry, in a Union 
 commemorative service, when lines of creed and 
 sect were forgotten, the noble society on the Pacific 
 shore were placing beneath the monument raised 
 by his own divine energies all that was mortal of 
 Thomas Starr King. 
 
 God tempers the wind to the shorn lambs off there ! 
 But let the sacred sorrow under the roof that filial 
 piety so long provided, light up with joy for a son 
 and a brother whose life was without a stain, and 
 whose name is among the immortals.
 
 PATRIOTISM, AND OTHER PAPERS.
 
 PATBIOTISM. 37 
 
 and geography, what it could do naturally and best 
 for humanity, and seizing on the traditional elements 
 that are in harmony with that possibility, use them 
 to enliven its own sympathies, and quicken the 
 nation's energy. A pure forward look is essential to 
 patriotism. The patriot must express the genius of 
 his land in miniature. 
 
 From this point we see the patriotism of Paul. His 
 countrymen denounced him. They said that he had 
 cut the ties which bound him to his race, because he 
 preached that Moses was not the highest and final 
 religious teacher. He slighted the temple-worship 
 and labored zealously for the new sect of Nazarenes, 
 and the Jews, wherever he travelled, echoed the cry 
 of the priestly party in Jerusalem, that he was a 
 traitor to the traditions of his fathers, and an enemy 
 of the Hebrews. But the noblest patriotic spirit was 
 in him. In that respect, he may be safely copied by 
 those who love their, country in every age. He saw 
 what was the mission of the Hebrew race. He read 
 clearly God's hieroglyphic message to them, written 
 over the face of their providential past. He. saw 
 that they were an organized hope, that they existed 
 to bear new religions from their bosom, and send 
 forth at last, the perfect faith that should sway and 
 mould the world. He saw that it was to be their 
 glory to lose themselves, in the benefit they carried 
 to the nations, as the snow upon the mountain-tops 
 melts into the rills that dispense fertility to many 
 meadows. Paul did not believe that he could im- 
 prove God's design in raising the chosen nation, or
 
 38 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 could permanently alter it. And in working for the 
 cause he adopted, in preferring the then despised 
 Messiah to the pomp of the ritual faith and the de- 
 crees of the Sanhedrim, he was in the line of sym- 
 pathy with the patriotism of the past. The Apostle 
 to the Gentiles in taking a course so radical, which 
 diverged so widely from the popular path, was the 
 purest Hebrew, in truth the very " Pharisee of 
 the Pharisees," for he was on the track which God 
 designed the whole nation 1 to take, and was laboring 
 to perfect for his countrymen the promises and aspi- 
 rations which, for ages, through prophets and poets, 
 had burst from the nation's heart. Paul was so 
 loyal to his people that he braved their ignorance and 
 bigotry in order to secure the fulfilment of the 
 national calling, and so attached to his blood and 
 race as to feel keenly his isolation from, their sympa- 
 thy, and to be willing to sacrifice himself, every- 
 thing but his country's mission, even to be 
 " accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen 
 according to the flesh." 
 
 We may well lament that so many counterfeits of 
 this noble virtue have brought the reality into suspi- 
 cion ; that those who have arrogated it have so often 
 shown only the qualities of the demagogue, and 
 under its sanction thrown off allegiance to truth and 
 righteousness ; for in our own land, hi this juncture 
 of human history, and especially in this crisis of our 
 own national experience, we need the virtue of 
 patriotism. We need it as an offshoot from the spirit 
 of reverence to God and of Christian consecration.
 
 PATRIOTISM. 39 
 
 We have everything in our position, our history, 
 our advantages and calling, to justify, stimulate, and 
 foster such a feeling. The old Jew could exclaim 
 proudly, even in times of calamity, " he hath not 
 dealt so with any nation," and could thank God 
 more fervently than for all more private mercies, 
 that he \vas born a Jew. If he travelled into any 
 other country, he went trailing the glory of a mirac- 
 ulous past, that dwarfed the visible magnificence 
 of the monuments amid which he stood, and with 
 the thrill of cheering prophecies in his breast. ' 
 
 Were we to select the two lines of history that 
 afford the most striking evidence of divine guidance 
 in the affairs of men, they should be, first, the 
 record of the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian 
 religions in their successive developments ; and, 
 secondly, the history of America from its discovery, 
 down through the persecution of the Puritans, the 
 life of Washington, the war of Independence, the 
 siege of Yorktown, and the treaty of Paris. The 
 Jewish race were guided and guarded, that a uni- 
 versal religion might -issue from their genius. Our 
 land seems consecrated to the office of bearing a 
 just and faultless polity that shall educate the world. 
 Step by step, we may parallel the providential mer- 
 cies of the one history by those of the other. The 
 ca^l of Araham to a new region, which God would 
 reclaim from barbarism and make the centre of 
 healthful and lasting influences upon humanity, has 
 its echo in the call of Columbus, in whose brain the 
 two hemispheres were welded into a globular idea.
 
 40 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 The leading of the Israelites through the Red Sea 
 has a counterpart in the division of the waves, to let 
 the little Mayflower, with its precious freight of 
 principles and souls, sail safely through the winter 
 storms. And the line of Hebrew heroes who fought 
 for a great hope, and of prophets who towered at 
 intervals from the landscape of the nation's life, and 
 sent up into literature the flame of the nation's aspi- 
 ration, are not dishonored, if we compare with them 
 the heroic men of our own history who labored for 
 a hope, and " builded better than they knew," and 
 the seers whose minds have glowed with the Ameri- 
 can idea. 
 
 Here we are, successors of noble men, heirs of a 
 providential past. Everything in our history incites 
 to patriotism. The winds would fan it into activity. 
 Every page of our annals preaches it. The man 
 who cannot thank God he was born an American, is 
 undeserving the blessing of such birth. That con- 
 sciousness, enlivening the sensibilities, should equal- 
 ize fortunes. The poor man should not feel poor 
 when he thinks that his humble roof and circum- 
 stances are sheltered by a canopy of ideas and senti- 
 ments, such as never before arched over any palace 
 of the world. If the humblest Catholic feels pride 
 in being one member of a community that stretches 
 from Andes to the Indus, and which has Christ ipr 
 its founder and heaven for its goal, the lowest citizen 
 of this land should feel it an immense enlargement of 
 his being, an enlargement which mere wealth 
 could never give, that he has partnership in the
 
 PATRIOTISM. 41 
 
 mission of a people, along whom God is pouring the 
 best life of the past, enriched with additional streams 
 of inspiration, solicited by our own genius, into the 
 future. For the tendrils of our blessings stretch far 
 out into the centuries, and twine around the most 
 precious elements of history to draw nourishment. 
 The human race is vitally one, and whatsoever is emi- 
 nent or best, in any line of social manifestation, is 
 somehow connected with other and distant portions 
 of the common body ; as the topmast branch of a tree 
 bears life, that is due, in part, to the health and fidel- 
 -ity of juices in the root, and as the wave that foams 
 upon the shore, discharges an undulation that began 
 far out upon the sea. 
 
 Our country is foremost in the line of public jus- 
 tice and orderly freedom, and therefore all the in- 
 fluences which, in distant lands and former centu- 
 ries, supported and quickened those principles, are 
 somehow represented in the social blessings we en- 
 joy. All that former thinkers have done to justify 
 the principle of freedom, and heroes have achieved 
 against the oppressions of despotism, and martyrs 
 have suffered for their perilous love of liberty ; all 
 the stimulus which religion, in the pasf, has given 
 to the heart's reverence for right, and the hand's 
 loyalty to truth ; all that eloquence has done to 
 make tyranny tremble-, and fan the popular sense of 
 justice to a flame ; all that literature has preserved, 
 in treatise, song, or_ drama, of past devotion to 
 liberty, and longing for its triumph, are related, and 
 have contributed to our success in the structure of
 
 42 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 a social polity. We may properly enjoy the pride, 
 if we will be faithful to the privilege, of bearing in 
 our institutions the best thought and life of the past, 
 concerning public justice and social welfare. 
 
 Well did our eminent statesman say in a public 
 address in Boston a few weeks since, " if a man is 
 living here who has not an American heart in his 
 bosom, let him tear it out." Surely if there is a 
 man in this land who deliberately slights the senti- 
 ment of patriotism,, and is conscious of no pride in 
 his country, as a distinct affection, no devotion to his 
 country, no feeling of deep interest in his country in 
 unsettled times and shadowed hours, no impulse to 
 sacrifice himself and all personal interest for his 
 country's benefit, he has a heart that needs to be 
 waked from paralysis and inspired with gratitude 
 by religion itself. 
 
 ' And it is a striking glory of our land that the 
 patriotism it asks for is of the highest stamp. The 
 sentiment must here be stripped of every quality 
 which has hitherto brought it into suspicion, or it 
 cannot be American. If a person is afraid of nar- 
 rowing his soul by cherishing any restricted affec- 
 tion, we offer him here a domain whose breadth is 
 from Aroostook to San Francisco, and its depth 
 from Minnesota to the reefs of Florida ; and if this 
 area is not large enough, and does not comprehend 
 needs and interests enough, to satisfy his affectional 
 hunger and exhaust the philanthropic resources of 
 his heart, he has a genius for love that would jus- 
 tify the description once given by a countryman of
 
 PATRIOTISM. 43 
 
 ours of the boundless aspirations of the soul, " We 
 wake in the morning with an appetite that could 
 take in the solar system like a cake ; we stretch 
 out our hand to grasp the morning star, and wrestle 
 with Orion." To a mind of ordinary capacity, the 
 extent of our territory and the various needs of 
 our population, furnish as fine a temptation, cer- 
 tainly, as can well be offered, for the exercise of 
 the sentiment of universal brotherhood. 
 
 And when we define Patriotism as the sentiment 
 of devotion to the idea which a nation is called to 
 typify, we strip American patriotism of every ele- 
 ment which makes it possible in a selfish dema- 
 gogue, or repulsive to the most sensitive Christian 
 mind. For three things are plainly indicated in 
 the characteristics and posture of our country, as 
 portion of the divine intention, and of the divine 
 instructions to us. First, God has placed us on a 
 fresh continent, separated by oceans from the ambi- 
 tion, plans, inteference, and diplomacy of the Old 
 World, with no enemy near us, in order that we 
 might read in our position the instruction to sheathe 
 the sword and live in peace. The war-spirit and 
 the patriotism that cherishes it, are denounced with 
 sufficient intensity for their barbartiy and shameless- 
 ness in other lands, by the temper of the gospel ; 
 but with us geography also denounces them, and 
 declares them to be the very idiocy of ruffianism. 
 As though sick of blood, and the order and civiliza- 
 tion it purchases, Heaven has colonized this land and 
 whispered to us solemnly, Let sundered Europe
 
 44 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 drench itself with gore, if it cannot learn the econ- 
 omy and beauty of friendship, but here the sword 
 should be unknown. Offensive war cannot be justi- 
 fied here on any pretence. You are strong enough 
 to be magnaminious in controversies, to appeal to 
 arbitration in complicated diplomacy, to suffer wrong 
 in cases of pecuniary and material interest, and ex- 
 hibit the grace of endurance and forgiveness. His- 
 tory will adjudge you guilty of the last abomination, 
 if you draw the sword and thus contribute to 
 debauch still further the code of honor among na- 
 tions in any other crisis than the final necessity 
 of self-defence against invasion, -and the call thus to 
 defend your commissioned ideas. 
 
 And secondly, the Almighty has given us a do- 
 main that may be the seed-field of the globe, mines 
 that may enrich all nations, and streams that should 
 fill the air with the hum of wheels, and thus has 
 sought to redeem us from the appetite for territorial 
 aggrandizement, and has consecrated us to every art 
 and all varieties of industry. He has written upon 
 every prairie, and enscrolled by the winds upon the 
 surface of every lake and river, the command to 
 beat swords into ploughshares, and spears into prun- 
 ing-hooks, and to turn all the genius that is capable 
 of being wasted in military art, to a scientific contest 
 with the rocks that bar the free communion of traf- 
 fic, and the inoiiiitains that interpose to make-ene- 
 mies of states. 
 
 And thirdly, God has entrusted to us the idea of 
 political equality, and of the citizen as superior to
 
 PATRIOTISM. 45 
 
 the state, for whose culture the state exists, and has 
 commanded us to unfold it, and exhaust its capa- 
 city of development in progressive institutions. 
 Peace , Industry, and cultured freedom are the warp 
 of our country's mission, and there can be no patri- 
 otism on these shores that does not acknowledge 
 them, seek to deepen the passion of our people for 
 them, extend their blessings, and confirm their sway. 
 The temper of our public spirit should benefit, by 
 its calmness, breadth, justice, and comprehensive- 
 ness, the scale of the land we represent and rule. 
 "To men legislating for the area between two oceans, 
 betwixt the snows and the tropics, somewhat of the 
 gravity of nature will infuse itself into the code. 
 It seems so easy for America to inspire and express 
 the most expansive and humane spirit, new-born, 
 fresh, healthful, strong, the land of the laborer, of 
 the democrat, of the philanthropist, of the believer, 
 of the saint, she should speak for the human race." 
 Patriotism is unselfish devotion to the idea of a 
 nation, its heaven-inspired soul, its representative 
 office and mission. And anything lower than this 
 form of it here, any interpretation of it equivalent 
 to a defence of every act of every administration, 
 even when that act does violence to the spirit of our 
 history and the providential pointings of our call, is 
 a disgrace to ourselves, an abuse of a noble word, 
 and an offence before God. If a country such as 
 ours is to raise no loftier, no more heroic type of 
 national virtue than that, our fertile zones will 
 indeed be barren of attractive fruit. Then we may
 
 46 PATBIOTISM. 
 
 say, here is America, but where are the Americans ? 
 Then, 
 
 " When we climb our mountain cliffs, 
 Or see the wide shore from our skiffs, 
 To us the horizon shall express 
 Mere emptiness and emptiness. 
 And to our eyes the vast skies fall, 
 Dire and satirical, 
 On clucking hens and prating fools, 
 On thieves, on drudges, and on dolls; 
 For Nature has miscarried wholly 
 Into failure, into folly." 
 
 Moreover, a lower type of patriotism than that of 
 insight into, and devotion to the representative, or 
 ideal country of which our land is the projection, 
 with us is little else than suicide. Never was there 
 a people whom it so behooved to be patriotic in the 
 highest sense ; for our patriotism is daily passing into 
 fact, and becoming part of the nation's substance. 
 We vote it, we speak it, we incarnate it in the men 
 we select to act for us. New States, almost while 
 we are reading these pages, are rising to have a 
 voice in the highest councils of the Republic, and 
 from their ideas of what this country is for, and from 
 the quality of their passion for it, the institutions 
 are springing which will mould, or powerfully con- 
 trol, the budding intellect that will soon be on the 
 stage. We are living for the future. It doth not 
 yet appear what we shall be. We can say only that 
 we are a mass of tendencies. And the sentiment 
 of patriotism that obtains is breathing year by year, 
 the life-element or the death-element into the struct- 
 ure of our land.
 
 PATRIOTISM. 47 
 
 We have said that the form of patriotism which 
 could harbor in the most Christian breast is called 
 for, and is the only one that is justified by the situ- 
 ation and the manifest destiny of our country. We 
 may also say that such a form of patriotism is 
 nourished and expected by the traditions upon 
 which the lower forms of patriotism usually feed. 
 It is a beautiful fact that the record and the mem- 
 ories of our revolutionary strife foster all grades of 
 the patriotic sentiment. They stir the blood and 
 the brain. They thrill the senses and satisfy the 
 imagination. The plain of Concord, where " the 
 embattled farmers stood," and the shaft that over- 
 looks the metropolis from a neighboring city, tell 
 a story that awakens a love of country in the 
 plough-boy, while they quicken the faith of the Chris- 
 tian and the philosopher in the reality of principles, 
 the influence of heroic self-sacrifice that counts no 
 cost, and the power of ideas. The non-resistant 
 peace-man, though his ear would throb with pain to 
 hear the roar of musketry, that disturbed the air 
 about us seventy-five years ago, loves the sweet, 
 bodiless echoes it has brought, and still awakens in 
 that depth of time. And while the passions of the 
 caucus in Middlesex have, doubtless, been often 
 stirred to the worst dregs, by appeals to what the 
 fathers did when the country was in danger, no 
 finer eloquence has vivified the air of the National 
 Senate Hall, than the simple exclamation, "There is 
 Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, and there 
 they will remain forever." The unreflective man is
 
 48 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 thrilled with the contagious enthusiasm of our an- 
 cestors, who would not be trampled on by tyranny, 
 and who put their lives in their hands to assert 
 their rights. The great thinker sees the meaning of 
 those three spots in the stormy history of the world, 
 and how ideas were liberated from the shock of steel 
 and the battle-smoke, which have since changed the 
 destiny of the world. And while we may catch the 
 physical enthusiasm from the determined spirit 
 with which, on the bloody fields, our fathers resisted 
 unto death, our patriotism must be inspired by the 
 ideas which redeem those fields from the insignifi- 
 cance of skirmishes and the depravity of butchery, 
 and must pledge itself to establish and unfold them 
 in our country, according to the new needs and in- 
 vitations of our age. 
 
 If the glory of the foundation of our land was in 
 the establishment of a principle, the glory of its his- 
 tory must consist in the unfolding of that principle. 
 True patriotism, therefore, which labors to keep a 
 nation faithful to its mission, cannot be satisfied 
 here unless the idea of human worth and privilege 
 that awakened and supported our political struggle, 
 ripen and produce their finest spiritual fruit. In 
 this respect the growth of our country should be 
 like that of an endogenous tree; the gradual de- 
 velopment of the life-principle at the centre mani- 
 festing itself in the nourishment of new products, 
 throwing the old results, year by year, farther out 
 into history, till the political effects of the Revolu- 
 tion become the gnarled root, and tall, hardy stem,
 
 PATRIOTISM. 49 
 
 which preserve and defend the active inward forces, 
 that now unfold in leaves and blossoms, and an- 
 nounce the harvest. In the peace movement, the 
 temperance reform, the judicious and practicable 
 schemes for the abolition of bondage, the attempts 
 to discover a more Christian organization of so- 
 ciety ; in every association and all effort that seek 
 the highest welfare of man, and prepare the way 
 for his free culture and rightful enjoyment, as a 
 creature of God, the American idea justifies itself 
 and culminates ; and by strengthening this tenden- 
 cy, and only thus, can Patriotism be faithful to its 
 law, and vindicate its nature. 
 
 Every mention of the ideas to which our land is 
 consecrated, and of the importance of its mission, 
 calls up the crisis which we have recently passed 
 through, and the danger with which, it is said, our 
 land was threatened. Patriotism has learned to 
 pronounce with emphasis the word Union. It is a 
 hallowed word to it. It does not like to hesitate in 
 uttering it. It has no desire that its tongue should 
 falter with it, or merely to lisp its utterance. But 
 there is danger in our reactionary eloquence that, 
 in eulogies of union and assertions that we must 
 have it, we overlook or too slightly estimate the 
 conditions of union. This country has an ideal 
 character, a representative value. Its mountains 
 were upheaved, its rivers were grooved, its prairies 
 unrolled, its night-skies bent, for the home of an 
 idea. Its glory cannot spring from vast extent, 
 populousness, power, and wealth, but from the un-
 
 50 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 questioned dominion -of an idea. If we are to be 
 one, we must have a great undying sentiment. 
 " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in- 
 separable ; " that is the marriage-vow, that alone 
 can be the marriage-bond. We cannot vote our- 
 selves together, we cannot keep ourselves together 
 merely by cultivating superficial, or commercial 
 good feeling. The unity of our nation the most 
 marvellous and splendid organism of history may 
 stand forever unshaken by the diversities of climate 
 which it includes, by the variety of material inter- 
 ests commerce, agriculture, industry which it 
 enfolds ; may indeed be all the stronger for the 
 twisting of so many strands : but though nature 
 made our vast landscape one ; though it be inter- 
 locked by rivers, railways, and canals ; though it 
 be vascular with myriad arteries of human skill; 
 though the geographer may find no place where he 
 can split our country, the strife of hostile ideas will 
 rend it as the valley yawns by the wrench of the 
 earthquake. It is the office of Patriotism to see 
 this and to say it, to say plainly and solemnly 
 that no political unity, no charter however wisely 
 concocted, or defended by the most stalwart mental 
 muscles, can stand before the fierce and equal com- 
 bat of two mutually destructive principles. There 
 is no treason no lack of patriotism in saying this, 
 unless it is unpatriotic to say that chemical wraths 
 will not combine, and that powder and fire will 
 not marry peaceably. 
 
 We need the feeling of brotherhood ; we need to
 
 PATRIOTISM. 51 
 
 be knit together in ties of cordial amity ; but no 
 amity can be manufactured where the laws of spirit- 
 ual affinity interpose a ban. Whatever peculiarities 
 of State institution, however wrong and heinous, 
 exist in the separate members of the confederacy, 
 let them keep, undisturbed by interference from 
 other States, till they choose to abolish them them- 
 selves. Whatever laws are demanded by a just and 
 strict construction of the central compact, let them 
 have, so long as we profess to have that charter, and 
 let them not be forcibly resisted. But, though the 
 sun now breaks through the recent cloudy screen, if 
 peace, harmony, and strength are to bless our nation, 
 there is one direction in which we must not go be- 
 yond the letter of the bond. The " pound of flesh," 
 but not a tittle more must be asked, not another 
 fraction can be granted, not so much as will " turn 
 the scale even in the estimation of a hair." What 
 is local must be local. The inward, vivifying prin- 
 ciple of our government must be sympathy with 
 liberty ; its attitude must be respect for liberty ; the 
 spread of its domain must be under the sanction 
 and for the ends of liberty, or the inspiring senti- 
 ment of union and the bond of unity, that which 
 filled the hearts and quickened the intellects of the 
 noble men who built our Constitution, that which 
 gives glory and renown to our charter, will wither 
 and die. 
 
 "Behold," said David, "how good and how 
 pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." 
 But if the tune is to come when a large section of
 
 52 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 our land insist that human bondage is to be sanc- 
 tioned and extended wherever our banner and our 
 eagles go ; that the haggard genius of oppression 
 must sit with equal privilege and honor with the 
 spirit of freedom in the exalted seats of our confed- 
 eracy, then I utter only the simplest lesson of 
 science then there can be no unity, for we shall 
 no more be brethren ; the gulf of antagonistic ideas 
 will divide us ; the nerve of patriotism, in the best 
 souls, will be shrivelled ; for the ideal beauty of our 
 nation will be expunged, its hovering genius will 
 flee, and there will be no America to serve ; and our 
 glory, whose auroral promise tinges our first annals, 
 and whose beams are now gilding the mountain-tops, 
 will be stained with blood, and finally pale. Then, 
 while he looks back and sees, as Paul saw in the 
 past of his nation, that unto us pertaineth the adop- 
 tion, and the glory, and the covenants, and the prom- 
 ise, and the fathers, and looks around to see the 
 fatal faithlessness of the children to the divine idea 
 and the providential intimations of the past, the only 
 utterance of patriotism that will be possible, from 
 the Christian breast, will be the sorrowful exclama- 
 tion of Paul, " I could wish that I were accursed 
 from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according 
 to the flesh." 
 
 We conclude, then, by saying that patriotism is 
 not only a legitimate sentiment, but a duty. There 
 are countless reasons why, as Americans, we should 
 love our native land. We may feel no scruples, as 
 Christians, in welcoming and nourishing a peculiar
 
 PATRIOTISM. 53 
 
 affection for its winds and soil, its coasts and hills, 
 its memories and its flag. We cannot more effi- 
 ciently labor for the good of all men, than by pledg- 
 ing heart, brain, and hands to the service of keeping 
 our country true to its mission, obedient to its idea. 
 Our patriotism must draw its nutriment and derive 
 its impulse from knowledge and love of the ideal 
 America, as yet but partially reflected in our institu- 
 tions, or in the general mind of the Republic. Thus 
 quickened, it will be both pure and practical. The 
 agency of an overruling and friendly power is sug- 
 gested by the study of the critical seasons of our 
 past history. But our patriarchal and heroic periods 
 have passed. Having endowed us with the means 
 of our own development, the divine agency retreats 
 to leave the field for human responsibility. We can- 
 not rely for our honors or safety upon the past ; 
 with the principle we must reject the privileges of 
 primogeniture. We are here, by favor, to a vast and 
 noble work. " To whom much is given, of him will 
 much be required." We may feel, as we look upon 
 our territory, which exhibits every zone, and repre- 
 sents lands that invite all varieties of industry, that 
 God grooved our noble rivers, and stretched our 
 prairies on their level base, and unrolled our rich 
 savannahs, and reared the pomp of our forests, and 
 washed the long line of our coasts with generous 
 ocean waves, and wove all these diversities into one, 
 to be the home of no mean people, and the theatre 
 of no paltry destiny. The world waits to see the
 
 54 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 quality and energy of our patriotism. The book of 
 our country's history, preserved by human heroism 
 and providential care, is handed to us, that we 
 may inscribe there the records of its glory, or its 
 shame.
 
 II. 
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 
 
 MOST people love to look on a great man. It is 
 an epoch in the lives of persons, when they first be- 
 hold some of the greatest natural sublimities or beau- 
 ties of the material creation, such as the " White 
 Mountains," " Niagara," a " Storm at Sea," the 
 " Bay of Naples," or an " Italian Sunset ; " but there 
 is no landscape, or range of hills, that can afford so 
 clear a manifestation of the divine wisdom, good- 
 ness, and glory, as is revealed to us through the faces 
 and the works of the eminent men of the world. 
 " The word made flesh " takes rank of all the forms 
 of the word, as it is revealed in globe, or star, or sky. 
 I should like to look up 'to Mont Blanc, from the 
 valley of Chamouni, or stand under the shadow of 
 the Pyramids, or see the panorama that stretches be- 
 neath the summits of the Andes, but should prefer 
 of the two, to pass an hour with Plato, to study the 
 beauty of Milton's countenance, to have seen the ex- 
 pression of Shakspeare just as Hamlet was completed, 
 or to have stood among the circle that heard the 
 apostle Paul at Lystra, or that listened to his defence 
 before Agrippa in the city of Cesarea. 
 
 65
 
 56 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 
 
 Next to the sight of great persons, the ideal knowl- 
 edge of them is interesting and important, through 
 careful study of their careers. The way to keep up 
 our faith in virtue, if it flags, and to enlarge our con- 
 ception of greatness, if it shrivels, is to turn from 
 the small proportions of the souls about us, and our 
 own easy defeats, and go into the society of the emi- 
 nent servants of truth and right, whose devotion 
 cannot be questioned, and whose biographies are ]ike 
 suns in the firmanent of history. 
 
 We need continually to be refreshed as to the rela- 
 tions of the moral element, of goodness, to human 
 greatness. Every man was made to be a subject. 
 There is law in the universe, law for men as well as for 
 things ; and there is no majestic greatness or endur- 
 ing force except in the line of law. No piece of rock, 
 no gem, no river, no mountain, could have any beauty, 
 usefulness, or power, outside the laws of order that 
 entwine the globe. Let anything 'in nature set up 
 for itself and refuse to obey, and it is weak and good 
 for nothing. We hear a great deal said about instinct 
 self-reliance, and the virtue of impulse and disposi- 
 tion. It is true that the saintly goodness consists in 
 this, but it is a virtue that the soul attains and ends 
 with. Every man must apply a law to himself, be- 
 fore he can be a law to himself. Weeds are spontane- 
 ous, fruit is cultivated. It does not depend on a 
 man's virtues, whether he shall be distinguished, but 
 it does depend on them whether he is great. 
 
 We must make a clear discrimination, and keep it 
 ever in mind, between distinction and greatness.
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 57 
 
 Some persons have one power or faculty of our 
 nature, in greater prominence than the average of 
 of the world, and we call them great because of it. 
 One man has more strength, or more mechanical 
 skill, or more of mercantile sagacity, or more fluent 
 utterance, or a more fertile brain than ordinary 
 men. If there was no moral truth, or moral law in* 
 the world, we might decide the greatness of men, as 
 most persons do now decide it, not at all by the uses 
 to which men put their faculties, but simply by the 
 degree in which they possess certain powers. 
 
 Some men are distinguished also by a certain fine- 
 ness of quality ; their sensibilities and their brain 
 seem to be made of more delicate and subtile mate- 
 rial. Poets and artists are distinguished thus. 
 Others~ again, rise above the level of capacity, by the 
 quantity of their nature and attributes. They have 
 vastly more of the common qualities which other 
 men possess, such as prudence, steadiness, common 
 sense, and are eminent by their mass of substance. 
 But before the word " greatness " can be applied to 
 any of these, the question must be asked, " What do 
 they do with their qualities ? how do they rule them? 
 in what service are they employed ? " 
 
 In the light of these principles it is very easy to 
 see the line in which Washington was great. He 
 was not distinguished from others by the great pre- 
 ponderance of any one faculty. It is said of some 
 great men that' they would have been equally emi- 
 nent in many other careers. Thus Napoleon, or 
 Caesar, might have been a great orator, poet, mathe-
 
 58 WASHINGTON, OR GEEATNESS. 
 
 matician, engineer. But Washington would not in 
 any line have been a brilliant man. No culture prob- 
 ably could have brought any one power of his na- 
 ture into such distinction that it could be eminent 
 in a circle of the most gifted minds which his coun- 
 try or his age produced. As a speaker, a writer, a 
 scholar, he could have been faithful and respectable, 
 but not remarkable, not brilliant, and in no sense origi- 
 nal. Neither did he have the second element of dis- 
 tinction, that is, a peculiar fineness of quality or 
 organization. Of all that passes for genius in the do- 
 main of artistic creation, he was destitute. A subtile 
 thought, an acute distinction, a delicate perception, 
 a line and elusive emotion, anything connected 
 with the poet's sensibility or the poetic capacity, he 
 was debarred from by temperament. The distinc- 
 tion of Washington was the great bulk and compact- 
 ness of his practical powers, the solidity, the strength, 
 and the poise of those faculties, which we do not 
 usually associate with genius, but which are the spir- 
 itual substratum of every nature that is called effi- 
 cient and reliable for systematic and practical work 
 in society. The remark which Patrick Henry made, 
 after his return from the first Continental Congress, 
 to a person who asked him who was the greatest man 
 in that body, comes in play here. " If you mean 
 who is the greatest orator, Mr. Rutledge of South 
 Carolina is, no doubt, the most eloquent man ; but 
 for solid information and sound judgment, Col. 
 Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on 
 the floor." He was great, that is, distinguished from
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 59 
 
 other men, by the mass, gravity, and majesty with ' 
 which, by nature, the strong qualities of our human- 
 ity were aggregated in him. 
 
 But this does not define his greatness in the true 
 sense of that word, that is, in. the sense which every 
 Christian man should use it. With this large quan- 
 tity of being, Washington could not long have played 
 a subordinate or trivial part in practical life, but he 
 might have made his energy and power of influence 
 ministers of his own aggrandizement in startling 
 ways, and at the expense of general welfare. It is one 
 of the first elements of his greatness to be noted and 
 to be revered, that his powers were subjected to a 
 rigid rule. He had great passions, but he had iron 
 walls and reins of steel for them. Self-command 
 was his prominent trait. The lower flames of his 
 being beat in vain against the ramparts of his will. 
 And this self-command was not merely the discipline 
 of his lower properties, so that they should not inter- 
 fere with his success. Many men, doubtless, have 
 had the power to smother their flaming passions in 
 emergencies by a cool selfishness ; but in his case, 
 the will itself that ruled them was loyal to an idea of 
 right, and all the powers of his nature were subor- 
 dinated and systemized by the dominion over him 
 of the law of duty. He was a law-giver to himself. 
 Prom the date of his responsible years he rigidly 
 strove to put himself in harmony with moral truth, 
 learning to command by being commanded, and 
 through obedience aspiring to be free. 
 
 The proverb says, " He that ruleth his spirit is
 
 60 WASHINGTON, OR GBEATNESS. 
 
 better than ho that taketh a city." A vast propor- 
 tion of what the world calls greatness has been in 
 the line of the strong passions of our nature ; the 
 spring, the power-wheel of it, has been some one of 
 the unruled, riotous, and degrading forces of the 
 soul. Very seldom is greatness seen that is based 
 on, and grows out of, self-rule, and the antecedent 
 conquest of that portion of hell that is contained in 
 every human breast. If Washington's spirit had 
 been less orderly, he would doubtless have seemed 
 greater to a vast many who now see nothing very 
 remarkable in his nature, because he would doubt- 
 less have done many things that would have been 
 more startling and would have called forth more 
 applause. Take, for instance, the case of the two men 
 Caesar and Napoleon. In contrast with the brill- 
 iant story of their victories and their subjugation 
 of great nations to their will, the exploits of Wash- 
 ington look meagre enough. But their successes 
 were all stimulated by selfishness and ambition, and 
 were thus in the direction of passions, whose gale 
 they trimmed their sails to take. It is easy enough 
 to scud before the wind, but seamanship is oftener 
 displayed in beating into harbor against the breeze, 
 around the points, and among the shoals, than in a 
 quick run across the ocean. Who knows what brill- 
 iant achievements Washington could have surprised 
 men with, if his powers had been wildly dishevelled, 
 and his faculties put to the service of lust for 
 dominion and aggrandizement ? Who knows whether 
 the temptations to do just such things as have im-
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 61 
 
 inortalized the imperial geniuses, did not writhe in 
 his brain and swell his breast, to be wrestled down 
 and fettered ? If so, he was greater than Napoleon 
 or Alexander, by that rule of his spirit that made 
 him refuse such distinction as theirs. If the temp- 
 tation to be a despot conquered the genius of Bona- 
 parte, and was conquered by the soul of Washington, 
 all the splendors of the first man's success only show 
 that, in the region of morals, he was magnificently 
 weak, and the poverty of splendor in the second 
 man's achievements, prove him to be magnificently 
 strong. 
 
 The very word passion implies subjection and 
 submissiveness. No human strength is suggested by 
 the word, but the contrary. Where a passion is 
 violent, and speeds through the soul with irresistible 
 press, no matter what great records of brilliant con- 
 fusion it may leave in the outward world, the man 
 himself has been acted upon and swung as an instru- 
 ment. The law-giving, order-appointing faculty at 
 the centre of his' being, the will in which the like- 
 ness of the Infinite Ruler is reflected, has been con- 
 quered, so that the soul becomes a subject thing, 
 and not a monarchical lord of the forces in its own 
 realm. The horse hurries the rider in the paths it 
 likes ; the mob invades the deliberative silence of 
 the Capitol. . For this reason it is that " He that is 
 slow to anger is better than the mighty." 
 
 Surely then it is time that we made the most im- 
 portant discrimination between the distinction that 
 comes from lawless yielding to the currents of world-
 
 62 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 
 
 1-j temptation and passion, and the greatness that lies 
 in stemming these and working in the line of truth, 
 usefulness, and law. If Napoleon and Caesar had 
 been greater men, that is, truer, more loyal men, 
 they would surely have been less brilliantly distin- 
 guished men. They would not have jarred the globe 
 with the tread of their armies, they might not have 
 crowned the Alps with their banners and their 
 eagles, they would not have made so many homes 
 desolate and so many acres rich by the slaughter of 
 their foes, for they would probably have kept at 
 home, and labored to increase the blessings and im- 
 prove the civilization of their own people, and the 
 record of their battles would have been limited to 
 those fought to repel invasion, or to crush the out- 
 rageous tyranny of foreign despotism. If the pres- 
 ent ruler of France were a greater man than he is, 
 the world would have heard far less about him. It 
 would never have heard of the subtile and compre- 
 hensive brutality by which a nation's liberty has 
 been betrayed, and the sportive fiendishness that has 
 contrived to make the people themselves parties to 
 his conspiracy. Had he been a greater man, he would 
 have respected his oath, or, if forced by the desperate 
 condition of his country to save it from misrule by 
 momentary usurpation, he would have used his 
 power for the broad good of his land, and not to in- 
 crease, by stupendous rascality, the pomp of his own 
 state and name. I heard an eccentric but shrewd 
 man once remark that he never knew a person who 
 startled people very much, and for whom crowds
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 63 
 
 seemed willing to throw up their hats, that was not, 
 to a great extent, a humbug. There is much truth 
 in this, for it is often the case that if persons who 
 show brilliant and surprising qualities in the world 
 of action, speech, or thought, had more solidity or 
 good sense, their startling distinction would be less 
 prominent, because their wisdom and general vigor 
 of nature would be greater. 
 
 God strives in every way to make us see the great- 
 ness of all that is productive of peace and order. 
 The prairies waving with growing wheat, and forests 
 studded with swelling oaks, make no noise ; and 
 the electricity which roars in the thunder peal is 
 not a tithe so powerful as that which sleeps in the 
 light and holds the drops of a cup of water in their 
 liquid poise. The world's estimate of power gives 
 greater prominence to that which upheaves and 
 causes disorder. The eruption of a volcano, to 
 almost all minds, symbolizes more strength and 
 grandeur than the silent swing and radiance of a 
 planet. If there could be some splendid confusion 
 produced amid the serenity of the present universal 
 order, if some broad constellation should begin, 
 to-night, to play off from all its lamps, volleys of 
 Bengal lights, that should fall in showers of many- 
 colored sparks and fiery serpents, down the spaces 
 of the heavens, or if some blazing and piratical 
 comet should butt and jostle the whole outworks of 
 a system, and rush like a celestial fire-ship, destroy- 
 ing order, and kindling the calm fleets that sail 
 upon the infinite azure into a flame, how many
 
 64 WASHINGTON, OB GREATNESS. 
 
 thousands there are that would look up to the skies, 
 for the first time with wonder and awe, and exclaim 
 inwardly, " Surely there is the finger of God." 
 They do not see anything surprising or subduing in 
 the punctual rise and steady setting of the sun, and 
 its imperial and boundless bounty ; and yet there is 
 enough fire in the sun to spirt any quantity of flam- 
 ing and fantastic jets ; it could fill the whole space 
 between Mercury and Neptune with brilliant pyro- 
 technics and jubilee displays, such as children gaze 
 at and clap their hands. But the great old sun is 
 not selfish, and has no French ambition for such 
 tawdry glories. It reserves its fires, keeps them 
 stored in its breast, spills over no sheets of flame 
 from its huge caldron, but shoots still and steadily 
 its clean, white beams into the ether, that evoke 
 flowers from the bosom of every globe, and paint 
 the far-off satellites of Uranus with silver beauty. 
 
 It is a bad sign always for the permanence and 
 beneficence of any power, when there is much 
 clamor in it and excitement about it. Where a 
 school is governed by the frequent accompaniment 
 of loud talk and whippings, there is not nearly so 
 much power at work as in a school where, through 
 respect for the teacher, everything goes on quietly, 
 as it were without direction. So it is in homes ; 
 the more noise and scolding, the less parental 
 power. Activity and clamor of the tongue and 
 hand are brought in to supply the lack of that 
 steady, central strength which organizes peacefully. 
 In the same way it is the excess of the violent and
 
 V 
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GEEATNESS. 65 
 
 x 
 
 degrading passions which in their dominion re- 
 ally show the weakness of a man, and not his great- 
 ness that usually has made the fame and suprem- 
 acy of the leading geniuses. If a man is not too 
 great to be unscrupulous, he can, with a fair share 
 of force in him, make headway and considerable 
 noise in the world. There is more power in put- 
 ting the foot upon a passion, and being unknown 
 through that victory, than in surrendering to it, and 
 thus making a world-wide noise. We may conquer 
 the globe in the latter case, but in the former we 
 conquer the prince of this world. The passion for 
 money-getting, for reputation, for power, for a seat 
 in Congress, often acquires for a man the credit of 
 greatness, through his success, when he may have 
 neighbors that show themselves to be greater than 
 he, by refusing to let a passion absorb them, and are 
 restrained by the delicate bonds of refinement, 
 honor, and conscience, from the tricks, mean- 
 nesses, and questionable measures that must often 
 be used to be brilliantly successful in the world of 
 wealth and fame. 
 
 All true greatness is calm, has a large side of 
 silence, works in harmony with the still and modest 
 laws of truth, and shows symmetrical proportions 
 that prevent its majesty from producing its full im- 
 pression upon us until we study it carefully. I was 
 talking with a man, not long since, who said that he 
 could not see the remarkable greatness of Washing- 
 ton. " What new thing did he do ? " he asked ; as if 
 it were not a marvellous instance of greatness that,
 
 66 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 
 
 with such opportunities to do such new and brilliant 
 things as to be the founder of a line of kings on a 
 vast continent, he would not think of it ; as if he 
 did not show the very originality of his greatness 
 among the chieftains of history by lifting up the 
 common virtues of honesty, integrity, and regard 
 for the welfare of others, and wearing them instead 
 of a royal robe and princely crown, thus showing 
 that they were broad and ample enough to cover 
 him with majesty ; as if that letter by which, from 
 the impulse of honor and devotion to republican 
 truth, he refused the imperial office and name, and 
 rebuked the officer who wrote the temptation to 
 him, was not the most original page in the bloody 
 annals of revolution and war; as if it were an every- 
 day occurrence for a man, by the justness of his mo- 
 tives and the clearness of his sight, to insure liberty 
 for generations to half a hemisphere ; as though it 
 were something lightly to be estimated when the 
 devil takes a great nature, such as he has so often 
 conquered by his splendid baubles, up to a high 
 mountain, from which the extent of a nation is visi- 
 ble, and offers the landscape as the prize, if he will 
 kneel and worship, to hear the answer given that 
 echoes round the world, " Get thee behind me, Satan, 
 for I will serve only truth and my fellows, and the 
 Supreme God." 
 
 Mr. Carlyle has been led away by the same false- 
 ness or feebleness of sight to disparage the great- 
 ness of Washington. Because he gained no brill- 
 iant victories, because he made no startling and
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 67 
 
 melodramatic displays of arbitrary will, because 
 there were no meteoric moments and passages in his 
 career, he and many others, doubtless, have thought 
 him unworthy a place among the great heroes of 
 the time. " Good enough," they say ; " a very good 
 man, but over-estimated for greatness." Ah! 
 was it a small thing, to be turned off in that way 
 in our rhetoric, that there has been a man who lifted 
 up generalship from the low purposes and aims 
 which have degraded it, and in the height of power 
 showed the world the dignity there is in serving, 
 rather than lawless seizing ? We need not deny, or 
 detract from, the splendid abilities shown by the great 
 captains of history in their campaigns that gave or 
 upheld their despotic power. We see the brilliancy 
 of such achievements at 'once. They glare. But 
 bring them into comparison with the silent great- 
 ness of Washington in the first years of the Revo- 
 lution ! Look at those great leaders with their 
 mighty and well-appointed armies, full of enthusi- 
 asm for their chiefs, and eager for war, and then, 
 then think of Washington, in his humble camp, 
 so feebly and fitfully supplied ; invested with every 
 sort of difficulty that might dishearten a noble na- 
 ture ; denied the opportunity of doing anything brill- 
 iant in the way of battle ; compelled to counsel, 
 argue with, and inspirit the Congress that appointed 
 him and that watched him; obliged to use the 
 greatest art, often, to conceal the poverty of his re- 
 sources from his foes and from his own men ; seeing 
 his ranks thinned just when help was needed most ;
 
 68 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 
 
 doomed to have his head and heart pecked at by 
 jealousy, detraction, and infamous slander; com- 
 pelled to keep up courage in defeat, and to look 
 abroad for light in the thickest gloom; to cheer his 
 soldiers amid the frost and the famine of their win- 
 ter retreats, and to suppress their mutinies and keep 
 alive their patriotism, when their pay failed and 
 their prospects were black ; and yet in the midst of all, 
 to keep the same calm temper of endurance, and 
 the same deep love of freedom and serene faith in 
 success ; to feel " though persecuted not forsaken, 
 though perplexed not in despair, though cast down 
 not destroyed ; " and to come out of it all trium- 
 phant, and with the same majesty of joy in victory as 
 there was of trust in the night hours ; and then to 
 rule with the same steady justice in the cabinet, as 
 he had shown in the camp, is not this a greatness 
 that is only too original in the annals of the world's 
 warfare and straggle ? Where is the other great 
 genius that has been called to stand the strain of 
 such constant and exciting duties, the wear and 
 tear upon temper, hope, confidence, and the last re- 
 sources of the breast for years, with no absorbing 
 personal ambition to inspire him, but only a senti- 
 ment of duty, and the ardent desire to give freedom 
 to a land ? 
 
 In the silence and persistency of the breast of 
 Washington there was the noblest display of great- 
 ness. The spirit which ruled him was the highest 
 spirit ; and the qualities within him to be ruled thus 
 must have been massive and immense, or they never
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 69 
 
 could have done the organizing work which they 
 performed. Try to think of any other man, con- 
 nected with the armies or the councils of our revo- 
 lution, taking Washington's place, and he perform- 
 ing a subordinate part. We cannot do it. The 
 history of that period, and the fitness of things, 
 would be tortured by such an arrangement. We 
 might as well try to conceive the sun acting as 
 satellite to one of its dependent orbs. Great men, 
 noble men, brilliant men, there were belonging to 
 the camp and to the Capitol, but they show aright, 
 and to the best advantage, when disposed around 
 his Doric greatness. He was the man fitted and 
 made to uphold the banner of liberty on a conti- 
 nent, the colossal nature representing in his own 
 inward rule and repose the greatness of a nation 
 rising up to proclaim and illustrate liberty founded 
 on law. He towered from the level of the virtue 
 and patriotism of his countrymen, not by any dif- 
 ferent or more surprising qualities than theirs but 
 as the mountain rises by greater mass and gradual 
 slopes from the plains ; and he stood among the 
 cluster of large names that surrounded him and 
 supported the common cause, as the summit which 
 bears his name in the highlands of New Hampshire, 
 rises from the cluster of neighboring peaks, so ma- 
 jestic and supreme in its eminence that at the dis- 
 tance all the rest seem blended into its sublimity, 
 and it is its height that represents the grandeur of 
 the region, and guides the traveller from afar on 
 his way.
 
 70 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 
 
 Whenever we are grateful to divine Providence for 
 the freedom we enjoy, and the persistent heroism that 
 secured it, we ought especially to recognize and adore 
 the guidance that raised such a nature to be its sup- 
 port and head. Coming a generation before, or a 
 generation after, there would hardly have been on 
 this side the globe, the proper work for such a man, 
 and he would have been a discreet, successful, and 
 happy farmer at Mount Vernon. Many speak of the 
 indications of Providence in behalf of our land, 
 shown by the seemingly miraculous interpositions 
 that kept him, in his youth, from the service of a 
 foreign navy, and that guarded him, in forest skir- 
 mishes and open battle, from the skilful bullets of 
 his enemies. But it is wiser and more Christian to 
 study the comprehensive providence that organized 
 secretly such a soul in the settlement of Virginia, 
 and, when the time arrived that called for a leader, 
 able to conciliate differences, disarm prejudice, in- 
 spire confidence and courage, and give weight and 
 dignity to a popular cause, led forward the man 
 full-formed, competent to utter without heat the 
 radical opinions and determinations of an excited 
 people, and to invest rebellion with the calmness of 
 philosophy and the majesty of truth. Without 
 Washington, our revolution, if successful, would 
 have lost its chief grandeur. No brilliancy of mili- 
 tary genius in any other leader, could atone for the 
 loss of that brave manliness at the head of our 
 armies that collected and pious patience in reverses 
 and 'distress, that chastened and systematic enthu-
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 71 
 
 siasm which defeated, by wearing out, the haughty 
 hostility of a foreign cabinet and king, that serene 
 and stately wisdom from which has floated down to 
 us the parental counsels of that Farewell Address, 
 fitting close to a life of unfaltering devotion to duty 
 and a country's cause. The man to whom a whole 
 country looked for support, and on whose inward 
 resources they relied in war and peace, has not been 
 overrated for greatness, nay, has not been wisely 
 enough estimated as yet. Let us bless God for 
 Washington ! And if any man cannot see our in- 
 debtedness for his service by looking at the past, let 
 him turn towards Europe, and study what each op- 
 pressed and bleeding land is suffering, because, in 
 the spasmodic throes of its strength or despair it 
 has no such man as he to comprehend the justice of 
 its cause in his brain, and the sentiments of it in his 
 breast, and to excite in every thinker, in every lover 
 of God and religion, and in the cottages of every 
 village, a trust in the clearness of his sight, the 
 purity of his heart, the soundness of his judgment, 
 and the republicanism of his sword. When there 
 shall be fewer metaphysical declaimers and atheistic 
 brigands in the ranks of the leaders of the popular 
 cause in Europe, and a few men, yes, even one large 
 and well-poised nature, to whom manliness and 
 piety may look up without fear and without shame, 
 the prospects of liberty will not be so dark as they 
 are now. 
 
 I wish to speak nest of the morality of Washing- 
 ton's intellect. Without the due appreciation of tliis,
 
 72 WASHINGTON, OR GEEATNESS. 
 
 any estimate of his genius must be partial. As the 
 great powers of his nature were only the ordinary 
 qualities of good men enlarged and intensified, so 
 the greatness of his mind consisted in his tendency 
 and desire to see the single truth and justice in 
 every question that came before him for considera- 
 tion and for action. Somebody has finely said that, 
 if you seek the new, you will be likely to miss the 
 true, but if you seek the true you will probably find 
 the new. Simple standards are very severe ones for 
 the judgments of men. How few are there that, in 
 all their inquiries, seek only truth with their whole 
 heart, and in all their actions desire to do purely 
 what is best. Let the bigotries and prejudices, the 
 oppressions, the infidelity, the unfaithfulness of men 
 'answer for this ; for they exist simply because men 
 do not pursue truth with singleness of mind, and 
 strive to support in action what they know in medita- 
 tion to be the right. But there never was a nature 
 sounder to the core of its interest and its will, in 
 these respects, than Washington's. Sincerity and 
 truth-lovingness were in his blood. Morality shot 
 up into every fibre of his brain, and was alive in 
 each sinew of his hand. We cannot conceive of him 
 making any investigations to dress out a subject in 
 any other light than its own, or planning to serve a 
 party, or laboring in any course that did not seem to 
 promise the best results for all. Reference to what 
 is highest in the nature of things had been made a 
 habit so strong by his faithfulness, that it became an 
 instinct. A patriot he was in the highest sense, not
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 73 
 
 because he loved his country with a selfish love, but 
 because he loved justice on the broadest scale, and 
 believed that the cause of his country was that of 
 eternal justice ; and so when he spoke of resistance, 
 it was a command from the very spirit of loyalty, 
 saying " submit no longer," and when he drew his 
 sword, every Christian in the land might safely say 
 " Amen" So lofty was his nature, that he could 
 not stoop to selfish ambition, nor counsel anything 
 that would tamper with the public good, or did not 
 point directly to his country's benefit. If such a 
 spirit is the soul of greatness in whatever sphere, we 
 may see also the breadth of the nature in which that 
 spirit lived, when we consider how naturally we 
 think of Washington as a public man. There are 
 many very good men, reliable men, men as pure 
 in the spirit of their greatness as Washington, whom 
 we should instinctively consider out of place in any 
 large public capacity. And many who are called to 
 the national councils seem too small for the work 
 allotted to them, not less by the feebleness of their 
 powers than by the selfishness of their spirit. The 
 ample expanse and dignified associations of the 
 Senate Chamber dwarf them ; the Capitol does not 
 seem to enclose its masters when they are in it ; an 
 empire is too broad a background for their height 
 and bulk. "Pigmies are pigmies still, though 
 perched on Alps." But Washington was emphati- 
 cally a States-m&n. The home and the farm could 
 not keep him, although his heart was there. He 
 was made for the broad sphere of public action.
 
 74 WASHINGTON, OR GEEATNESS. 
 
 The swing of his arm ha,d momentum enough to 
 move a nation ; his presence was for the head-quar- 
 ters of an army, or for the palace of a people ; his 
 pen was made to transcribe treaties, and his voice to 
 be heard at the limits of a State. His writings have 
 the solemnity and majesty appropriate to the delibera- 
 tions and decisions of a congress, and nothing but a 
 nation, and a serious revolution for the maintenance 
 of right, could be competent to relieve the plain but 
 colossal proportions of his judgment, prudence, 
 integrity, and love of freedom. 
 
 And now, bring into the presence of such a 
 character thus seated upon the throne of justice 
 and a people's veneration such men as Caesar and 
 Bonaparte. We ought to bring them there ; it will 
 do us good to see how they look, and we ought to 
 know how they look, in the light which that brow 
 and that face shed upon them. Do they not look 
 smaller ? What right have we to judge any man, 
 however great, by any other standard than that of 
 the good ? If a man is a Colossus in genius, but is 
 a colossal criminal, why not always use the noun to 
 describe him, rather than the adjective ? Is it not 
 time to see that the standard of the just and good 
 flames over statesmen as well as over humble men, 
 and that if a man who cheats and conspires against 
 his neighbor's right in a small sphere is called a 
 knave, the man who cheats and robs and fetters his 
 country, by whatever brilliancy of achievement he 
 effects it, should be branded as a royal villain ? Let 
 not the purity of Washington's character be con-
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 75 
 
 sidered, as it too often is, an almost supernatural ex- 
 ception to what can be expected of mortals, but let it 
 be looked up to as the pattern of what humanity 
 may attain, and let it shine upon the reputation of 
 these men that are accounted great, that the splendor 
 of their battles may pale in the solemn brightness of 
 his integrity, and that the complexity of their genius, 
 which only offers so many channels for the selfish- 
 ness of our nature, may dwindle in its charm before 
 the great simplicity of his soul, that was translucent 
 with the immortal brightness of virtue and fidelity. 
 
 It is well for us to look up to the height and mass 
 and complexion of such a virtue. The anniversary 
 of his birthday does not come round too often for 
 us to devote some hour of it, whenever it returns, to 
 meditation upon him and to gratitude for his spirit 
 and his work. The Almighty has put him into his- 
 tory, as he put the soul of Samuel into the history 
 of Palestine, to show men the majesty of virtue, its 
 public relations, and to speak to the human sensibil- 
 ities and conscience through the incarnate eloquence 
 of a life. 
 
 The character of Washington is a buttress to every 
 pulpit of America ; for it is a character that is base- 
 less, if religion be not true. If men are mere 
 animals, if there is no law of God, no holy duty, no 
 eternal life, his life is a -sublime inconsistency. 
 There is a firmer fulcrum for the lever of the gospel 
 against the passions and the worldliness of men, 
 there is greater vigor in the eloquence that denounces 
 self-worship and enthrones loyalty to truth, there is
 
 76 WASHINGTON, OB GREATNESS. 
 
 more intensity in every appeal that calls men not 
 to be "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God," 
 because such a man has woven the tissue of his fideli- 
 ty into the half century of his earthly stewardship. 
 Such a life makes the greatness which the precepts 
 of Christianity present abstractly, a reality ; it 
 strengthens the laws, and adorns the landscape of 
 the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 The Saviour said that his apostles after their death 
 should " sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve 
 tribes of Israel." And every great character which, 
 out of the materials of human discipline, builds up 
 a shining greatness, rises after its death to a throne, 
 and by its eminence judges the world. And so our 
 subject mounts to a climax of moral authority, im- 
 pressiveness, and appeal. The character of Wash- 
 ington hangs in the moral atmosphere, for instruc- 
 tion and for judgment, over the statesmen of our 
 land. How can there be a timeserver, a demagogue, 
 a trifler with right and the true interests of his 
 country, a brutal scorner of the laws of virtue and 
 honor, in that Capitol founded by Washington, and 
 in which his marble counterfeit still strives to shed 
 dignity and truth ? The people of this land have 
 before them the incarnate ideal of what a statesman 
 should be, and they ought to hold the statesmen who 
 have read his life, and who meet in the city that, 
 bears his name, to the duty of laboring in a spirit 
 like his for the business and the interests of the great 
 estates they guard. It is our fault if his name shall 
 die away into a mere ornament of congressional and
 
 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 77 
 
 caucus rhetoric, and if it is suffered that business 
 shall be postponed, and the courtesies of life trampled 
 upon, and the supreme law of God made a byword 
 and -mockery, by puny men who sit in the high 
 places of an empire which his fidelity and religion 
 saved. If any man smiles at the idea of great virtue 
 being possible amid the temptations of public life, 
 and thinks that the standard of the pulpit is not for 
 the conflicts and rivalries and diplomacies of the 
 political arena, and fee.ls that the religion of Christ 
 is good enough outside the storms and stress of the 
 world, let him be pointed to Washington, who "went 
 clean and victorious through all, and who, " though 
 dead, yet speaks" to us, that the trouble in gaining 
 a great virtue is not in the strength of the world, 
 but in the feebleness of the soul. 
 
 And that character shines down upon all of us, 
 and searches the depths of our hearts to prove our 
 fidelity to truth and heaven. The greatest good- 
 ness is imitable and encourages aspiration. What is 
 there in the greatness of Washington that cannot in 
 spirit be revealed in us, and that is not applicable to 
 our circumstances and needed in our breast ? If 
 Washington had failed in fidelity to his call ; if he 
 had said " My circumstances are easy enough here 
 amid. my parks, and forests, and farms, and I will 
 not hazard my happiness upon the issue of a conflict 
 between my feeble country and the most powerful 
 empire of the world ; " or if, having taken the re- 
 sponsibility, he had used its means and power for 
 himself more than for the great duties to which it
 
 78 WASHINGTON, OR GREATNESS. 
 
 called, we should mourn when we read it, and view 
 it as another dark page in the history of the frailty 
 of human genius. And yet, in the sight of God, 
 what would it be but a record in larger type of the 
 practical infidelity and failure which so many men 
 are printing in smaller type upon their allowance of 
 time ? Every private soldier is required to be faith- 
 ful, as much as every officer who has charge of the 
 campaign. Every man is required to rule his passions 
 and to discipline his powers .as the great founder of 
 our freedom did ; and although every man is not 
 required to save a country, yet there is no one that 
 does not have a soul to save from darkness, deprav- 
 ity, the feebleness of sloth and luxury, and the 
 powers of hell. Some men say that the divine 
 character of Christ is too high for them, but what 
 man has done surely men may do ; and the affec- 
 tionate reverence which we feel and pay towards the 
 Father of his country, and the gratitude we confess 
 to Providence for placing his name foremost and 
 lustrous on the roll of our country's annals, call on 
 us, in the name of consistency and our own moral 
 aspirations, to examine ourselves and see if there is 
 in us, as there was in him, a love of the truth that 
 makes all falsehood infamous ; a devotion to the right 
 that keeps the ear away from the seductions of the 
 flesh and the world ; and that upward look to what 
 is best, which fosters in us the desire at all times to 
 be the servants of that and that only which is su- 
 preme and everlasting.
 
 III. 
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 WE propose in the present article to point out 
 a few elements of the relation that exists between 
 the perception of beauty and religious culture. Of 
 course, it will not be necessary for us to prove that 
 a desire for beauty, and a delight in its manifesta- 
 tions, are natural and legitimate passions of our 
 nature. This point may be assumed. Taking this 
 for granted, it is evident, on independent grounds, 
 that some relation must exist between the growth 
 of this faculty and the development of our relig- 
 ious feelings. Thero is an integrity in our intellect- 
 ual conformation that will not allow a dispropor- 
 tionate degree of cultivation to any of our powers ; 
 a secret selfishness at the centre of our being which 
 always appropriates something for general use, levy- 
 ing contributions upon the treasures of every fac- 
 ulty, and commanding the service of all the powers 
 of the soul. We cannot select a single organ of 
 the mind, any more than we can select a single 
 organ of the body, and, by any healthy process of 
 nourishment and training, increase its vigor and 
 develop its strength without also incidentally assist- 
 
 79
 
 80 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 ing every other power with which it is associated. A 
 central bond, a mysterious attraction, independent 
 of human will, binds together all our mental as 
 our physical powers, and by fine and secret ties 
 compels the growth of each to subserve the good 
 of all. 
 
 But especially is it true that this capacity of ap- 
 preciating beauty is connected with religion. This, 
 which is the central want and passion of the soul, 
 is developed and strengthened by every degree of 
 attainment in every line of mental culture. As the 
 laws of the natural world may be carried up at last 
 to a single law, of which they are the separate ex- 
 pressions, and in which they meet and blend, so, by 
 a beautiful analogy, the forces of our spiritual na- 
 ture would seem to be but instruments and servants 
 of religious growth. Towards this great reservoir, 
 our separate faculties, like confluent streams, are 
 ever bearing the treasures collected in their onward 
 flow. The last results of science are religious. 
 The physical inquirer tortures nature with his ap- 
 paratus, and by mathematical subtlety or logical 
 precision extorts the physical law inwoven in ma- 
 terial facts. The aim of all his studies and experi- 
 ments is to discover the relations between outward 
 objects, the rational ties hidden from the senses, 
 and revealed only to patient observation and labo- 
 rious thought. Facts are nothing to him, except as 
 he may dippose and classify them ; they are value- 
 less, if he be not capable of reducing them to order, 
 and of discovering the plan which they imply. He
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. * 81 
 
 would translate the hieroglyphics of the outward 
 world into the clear and simple language of the 
 intellect. It is evident, therefore, that the labors 
 of the scientific student do not end with the success 
 and progress of his own branch of study. Inci- 
 dentally, but really, religion is aided also. The 
 better portion of his discoveries is transferred di- 
 rectly to her immediate sphere. Our acquaintance 
 with the Deity is extended and enlarged by every 
 triumph of law over confusion ; purer conceptions 
 of his wisdom are awakened in us, as evidences of 
 design and skill are detected and unravelled in the 
 minutest facts of being. There is hardly a tenet 
 of the Christian Scriptures that has not been un- 
 folded or confirmed by the researches of science. 
 Copernicus, and Kepler, and Newton, and La Place, 
 by enlarging our views of the grandeur of the uni- 
 verse, have furnished us with something like a scale 
 for measuring the grandeur of the Deity. Modern 
 Astronomy has set at rest the question as to the 
 Unity of the First Cause, and has added an awful 
 significance to the sentence of the Saviour, ' God is 
 a spirit.' Modern Chemistry has proved the omni- 
 presence of the Eternal Mind ; and all the sciences 
 united, with an admirable harmony and common 
 friendship for religion, by the innumerable instan- 
 ces which they unfold of benevolent adaption and 
 arrangement in the forces of the world, point to the 
 testimony of nature for His goodness and His love. 
 Philosophy, too, like science, has aided us in 
 forming our conceptions of the nature and charac- 
 
 6
 
 82 " BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 ter of God. As the movements of human history 
 have been examined by a critical eye, it has been 
 found that there, also, are law and foresight and 
 benevolent design. The same grand despotism that 
 holds in check the .forces of physical nature, gov- 
 erns at the centre of the spiritual universe. We 
 cannot find a more splendid argument for the provi- 
 dence of God, than that revealed in the establish- 
 ment of the laws of the moral world. The meta- 
 physician and moralist, too, have discovered in our 
 inner nature, in the delicate 'mechanism of con- 
 science and our affections, proofs of a relationship 
 with God that trembles on the very verge of the 
 divine paternity. 
 
 Beauty is no exception to this general law of 
 mental cultivation. Progress in aesthetics leads to 
 the same result. Religion is still the summit to 
 which we rise by the severer road of truth, or 
 through the more pleasant and flowery paths of 
 taste. But the progress of assthetic culture seems 
 to be -more intimately associated with the health 
 and purity of our spiritual nature. Not only, as in 
 the case of science and philosophy, does our ac- 
 quaintance with the laws of beauty, and a familiar- 
 ity with its forms, react upon, and refine, and ex- 
 tend the sphere of religious ideas, but the very per- 
 ception of beauty is assisted and quickened by the 
 purity of religious feelings. This will be apparent 
 if we will consider, for a moment, in what the es- 
 sence of the beautiful consists. 
 
 Modern inquiry has greatly simplified this ques-
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 83 
 
 tion. The theory of a separate sense, to which the 
 impressions from external objects are addressed, 
 and which decides upon the degree of beauty re- 
 vealed in their construction, is now very generally 
 abandoned. The diversity of judgments, even 
 among refined critics, as to the existence of beauty 
 in the same class of objects, is fatal to it. If there 
 were an organ in the structure of our sensitive 
 nature, referring simply to objective elements of 
 beauty and specially adapted to that quality in 
 things, as the eye refers to light, and is adapted to 
 the laws of light, a greater uniformity of tastes 
 would inevitably result. At any rate, similar culti- 
 vation would tend to reconcile the primitive differ- 
 ences in the judgments of different minds. How- 
 ever the intensity or strength of the organ might 
 vary with age, or circumstances, or careful training, 
 still, like the optic nerve, its delicate fibres would 
 respond immediately to the presence of its exciting 
 cause. Yet we often see that an object beautiful 
 to one person is absolutely painful, or disgusting, 
 to another of equal cultivation. Our estimate of 
 beauty varies, too, with our states of mind, our bod- 
 ily health, or the circumstances of our present posi- 
 tion. Indeed, with respect to objects which elicit 
 from different temperaments, even, a common judg- 
 ment as to the presence of beauty, we may find the 
 widest disagreement as to the quality that makes 
 them beautiful, the evidence on which the separate 
 decisions rest. 
 
 For the same reason, it is found that the theory
 
 84 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 that refers the essence of beauty to certain mathe- 
 matical lines, or peculiar conformations of matter 
 and adjustment of parts, to delicacy of construction 
 or softness of coloring, cannot be sustained. It is 
 not warranted by sound induction. The theory is 
 not broad enough, and does not cover all the facts 
 in the case. It may gratify our love of system, but 
 it sadly perplexes a healthy logic. In the distribu- 
 tion of beauty, nature exhibits inexhaustible re- 
 sources and grand impartiality. If we define beau- 
 ty, and limit it to one line or form, she denies the 
 definition by presenting an opposite form which re- 
 veals the same magical essence. A flower is beau- 
 tiful, but so is a crystal ; a bird, and also a shaft of 
 granite ; a painting, and besides a proposition in 
 metaphysics. The standard of beauty can be noth- 
 ing less than { the entire circuit of natural forms, f 
 t\\Q totality of nature.' Any attempt to bind its es- 
 sence by sensual or mathematical bonds is worse 
 than useless. The essence is universal ; all defini- 
 tions must be particular, dogmatic, and exclusive. 
 Our theory of beauty must be more flowing and 
 flexible, offering no harsh obstructions to the varied 
 movements of the goddess, but bending to all the 
 caprices of her will, and revealing every posture of 
 her graceful form. 
 
 Such a theory we have in the Catholic doctrine, 
 now generally received among men of taste, that 
 beauty always is ideal, the expression of mental 
 qualities, the reflection of spiritual truths. The 
 contests of all partial sects with regard to its secret
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 85 
 
 essence, are reconciled by showing that every sect 
 is right, and all sects wrong ; right in what each 
 affirms, wrong in what all deny. Things are beau- 
 tiful which recall, suggest, or create a pleasing emo- 
 tion, in proportion as they are linked with the 
 affections or desires or hopes of the human heart. 
 That organic pleasure which the senses feel in pres- 
 ence of harmonious construction and symmetrical 
 arrangement is not the ultimate charm which inter- 
 ests and attracts the soul. These are the channels 
 of beauty, often the signs of its lurking presence, 
 but never the mystery itself. We cannot suppose 
 that the organs of the brute creation are charmed 
 before a well-porportioned temple, or a graceful 
 form, or the movements of a flying bird. The sen- 
 sible impression, in its integrity, addresses them 
 equally with us, but they do not possess the key to 
 unlock the secret treasure. This is the prerogative 
 of man. He is connected with the universe by 
 spiritual ties ; he alone is related to it by finer laws 
 than those of gravitation and chemistry and mag- 
 netism. That which we call beauty, depends solely 
 on the associations which cluster around objects in 
 our minds, thus dignifying them with intellectual 
 grace, and raising them to a relationship with human, 
 nature. As Coleridge has well expressed it, 
 
 " We receive but what we give, 
 And in our life alone does nature live." 
 
 Our spirits are the urns that sprinkle beauty on the 
 world. It is a sweet riddle which our purer nature
 
 86 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 must resolve. Young stated, with admirable pre- 
 cision, the true theory of beauty in those lines, 
 
 " Objects are but the occasion; ours th' exploit: 
 Ours is the cloth, the pencil, and the paint, 
 Which nature's admirable picture draws, 
 And beautifies creation's ample dome. 
 But for the magic organ's powerful charm, 
 Earth were a rude, uncolored chaos still. 
 Like Milton's Eve, when gazing on the lake, 
 Man makes the matchless image man admires." 
 
 It is plain, therefore, that, since the very perception 
 of beauty implies a spiritual nature, the exercise 
 and development of the taste for. beauty must, in a 
 great degree, react upon our spiritual condition. 
 If we owe the power to that inherent dignity that 
 separates us from the brutes, the growth of the 
 power must elevate us still higher in the scale of 
 being. And so we find that beauty leads us gently 
 to a purer sphere. Religion is aided and quickened 
 by every habit and association which strengthens 
 our spiritual relations and raises us above a sensual 
 view of the world in which we live. Beauty spirit- 
 ualizes the very objects of the senses, investing 
 them with a certain moral meaning. 
 
 " Fancy is the power 
 That first unsensualizes the dark mind, 
 Giving it new delights." 
 
 It raises the material universe to a higher power, 
 and makes the varied forms of nature hieroglyphics 
 of thought, petrified or incarnate truths. As science 
 has detected the presence of life in every atom of 
 the outer would, and proved that inorganic matter
 
 BEAUTY AND EELIGION. 87 
 
 * 
 
 is baptized in spiritual laws, so the imagination 
 has discovered that nature is also permeated with 
 a delicate significance that can be measured and 
 appreciated only by the affections of our hearts. 
 
 This intimate relation between beauty and our 
 religious nature will assist us to solve a difficult 
 question which has been raised among modern crit- 
 ics. It has been objected to the theory of the beau- 
 tiful stated above, that it destroys the existence of 
 an*y real beauty. By making it depend solely on 
 some individual associations, we take from it all 
 substantive character, and make it always relative 
 to the sensitive nature, the capricious disposition, 
 or unhealthy state, perhaps, of the percipient. Of 
 course, by the terms of that theory, we cannot ex- 
 pect unity of judgment upon the degree of beauty 
 in an object, as we expect unity upon a proposition 
 in Euclid, or a problem in algebra. But it does 
 not follow that, on this account, beauty is acciden- 
 tal and has no law. On the contrary, we believe 
 that it does obey an infallible law. Always, in its 
 present form, it is religious ; and the varying esti- 
 mates of different tastes are graduated according to 
 the purity of the religious conceptions involved. 
 In the last analysis, beauty is one with truth, and 
 both are written in cipher, which the religious sense 
 alone can interpret and resolve. The significance 
 of things is definite ; but it is revealed to us ac- 
 cording to a sliding scale, of which religious cul- 
 ture measures the degrees. It is, indeed, our light 
 thrown upon nature which interprets beauty ; but
 
 88 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 if that light be religious, finer elements will become 
 apparent, and beauty become more clear. It is 
 sympathy with the outward universe that unlocks 
 its treasures ; that sympathy is born of religion, 
 and is strengthened and deepened by every acces- 
 sion of spiritual life. To the mind of God, un- 
 doubtedly, every fact in the material world has a 
 fixed significance, a precise and definite value. The 
 universe is his art, and struggles to express the 
 crystallized and imprisoned thoughts which he has 
 written there. A delicate correspondence connects 
 every beast and bird and tree and flower with some 
 type of thought, or passion, or emotion, present in 
 the Creator's mind at their formation, and of which 
 they are the organized exponents. But we rise 
 towards, and appreciate so much of this infinite art 
 as the purity of our inner life can gauge. Likeness 
 to the divine nature only will admit us to the secrets 
 of the divine mind. The most stubborn matter is 
 plastic and ductile and fluid to the religious sense. 
 All the changing degrees of significance, which the 
 objective world assumes, from that feeling of health 
 and buoyancy and animal enjoyment which the 
 lowest minds experience in a clear and bracing 
 morning air, to the unfathomable inspiration of the 
 poet and the artist, are determined by its presence 
 and its purity. It is to cultivated religious minds 
 alone, that " the laws of moral nature answer to 
 those of matter as face to face in a glass." 
 
 The truth of this position cannot be shaken by 
 any seeming contradiction of experience or history.
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 89 
 
 Raffaelle may paint finer pictures than Channing, by 
 assiduous culture, could even imitate ; but the finer 
 sympathy with nature, the purer delight in her com- 
 panionship, and deeper suggestions from her in- 
 exhaustible stores of truth, will visit the soul of him 
 who has drunk deeper of the elements of moral life. 
 There are few of us that cannot verify this by our 
 experience. The growth of every spiritual mind 
 attests the fact that nature sympathizes with relig- 
 ious progress. Not while our souls remain steeped 
 in sensuality, or fettered by dull and sordid cares, 
 will come the revelations that are hidden in the 
 universe. The lilies of the field have no meaning 
 to the cold eye of avarice, but to the warm spirit of 
 Jesus, they reflect the doctrine of universal Provi- 
 dence. And so, with us, it is in moments of calmer 
 meditation, in seasons of quiet prayer, or after a 
 noble deed, that the awakened energies of our inner 
 life spontaneously interpret the oracles of nature. 
 
 " With an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
 We see into the life of things." 
 
 And thus, where we least expected it, we find that 
 law exists. Beauty always is relative to our state of 
 mind, and depends, to us, upon our state of mind. 
 But it has also a definite and objective existence 
 that reveals itself according to our piety and virtue. 
 There is a certain vagueness which accompanies 
 the purest perceptions of beauty that is intimately 
 associated with religious feelings, and is eminently
 
 90 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 calculated to foster and sustain them. In our better 
 moments, the inspiration we derive from nature 
 comes in the shape of suggestions and unfathoma- 
 ble intimations, and hints that are inexpressible in 
 the poverty of speech. And thus, by communion 
 with the outward world, the sentiment of reverence 
 is continually quickened and refreshed. While 
 standing before the sea, for instance, the dim 
 thoughts that rise, half-formed and vague within the 
 mind, and die before they are born in the clear light 
 of definite consciousness, suggest to us a grandeur 
 which the scene does not exhaust, of which it is 
 rather but a faint and momentary type. Logic 
 cannot estimate the significance of the ocean in its 
 periods of sublimer strength. The grandeur before 
 us carries us away in meditation on a more awful 
 power ; insensibly, from the sublime we are led up 
 to the infinite ; an unconscious instinct leads us to 
 muse upon Him in whom alone our ideas of gran- 
 deur find repose ; and thus w-e are elevated from 
 material forms to the home of eternal beauty in the 
 mind of God. There is the same indefinable, 
 untranslatable, and perpetually expanding meaning 
 in the stars. Astrology has sprung from it, and they 
 have been supposed to influence human life, and to 
 unlock the secret of human destiny. They have in- 
 spired every poet that has written, and yet their tale 
 is not half told. For every condition of spirit they 
 have a ready sympathy, and even in our day, they 
 remain our truest teachers. It is because " the blue 
 sky in which the private earth is buried, the sky
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 91 
 
 with its eternal calm, and full of everlasting orbs, is 
 the typo of reason." A man troubled with doubts, 
 or weary with thought, or faint at heart, has only to- 
 gaze upon the heavens in the midnight silence, and 
 a religious awe returns upon the soul, and a strength 
 refreshes every spiritual fibre that is akin to Chris- 
 tian faith. What is it on a moonlight night that 
 " inundates the air " with beauty, that thrills our 
 frame with emotions too fine for utterance, that 
 heaves our spirit with an inspiration before which all 
 words are weak ? The spell resides not in the light 
 or air ; it is the spirit of religion streaming through 
 material channels, and stirring with a quicker flow 
 the pulses of the soul. The silence of the summer 
 woods is burdened with the same mysterious power. 
 A solemnity broods over them, as though God had 
 preceded us in our walk, and our presence had 
 intruded on the intense and silent worship of the 
 trees. Even in human art, the same vagueness, the 
 same mystery connects beauty with the religious 
 sense. Persons of uncultivated taste instinctively 
 uncover in presence of a statue or a finished paint- 
 ing by a master. It is the unconscious confession of 
 our nature that the marble and the canvas are 
 organs and revelations ,of truths that belong to the 
 ideal world, before which it is profane to speak too 
 loud, or to stand with irreverent and idle curiosity. 
 Beauty, too, is linked with religion in another 
 way ; it is medicinal. The foe of guilt and sin, it 
 would ever win us back to purity and love. The 
 universe is in league with virtue. No man comes
 
 92 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 fresh from sin into the presence of the joyful fields, 
 or within hearing of the birds, who feels not rebuked 
 by a gentle influence that arouses the life of con- 
 science, and prompts him to repentance and return. 
 Calmly we listen, and yield our minds to the sooth- 
 ing charm, until 
 
 "we stand, 
 
 Adore, and worship, when we know it not; 
 Pious beyond the intention of our thought; 
 Devout above the meaning of our will." 
 
 Nothing but innocence can harmonize with nature, 
 and, to the guilty heart, she sends the eloquent warn- 
 ing and the balm of peace. 
 
 " Some souls love all things but the love of beauty, 
 And by that love they are redeemable ; 
 For in love and beauty they acknowledge good." 
 
 Seeing, thus, that beauty is connected by so many 
 ties with religious life, we are prepared to solve the 
 question as to its relation to Christianity. We have 
 only to study the history of literature and art to 
 discover that every form or theory of religion has 
 exercised a powerful sway over mental cultivation. 
 It would seem that the laws of national progress are 
 written always in the national faith. By the con- 
 ceptions of God and duty and providence and im- 
 mortality, the depth of all philosophy, the spiritu- 
 ality of all art, the soundness of all literature, can 
 alone be graduated. The beauties, the limits, and 
 the defects of the Greek religion were plainly written 
 in Grecian poetry and statuary and architecture. 
 Indian art and literature sprang, very evidently,
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 93 
 
 from the Brahmin philosophy and faith, the ideas of 
 which, however, they vainly struggled to reveal. The 
 massiveness and sullen grandeur of the Egyptian 
 temples is easily explained by studying the Egyptian 
 views of God and worship and human destiny. 
 Religion cannot relieve itself from the dignity, nor 
 from the obligation, of being the teacher of the race. 
 This pretension is found in Christianity. On every 
 page of the Christian revelation it is clearly written, 
 or implied, that our religion is final ; and it furnishes 
 'the true law of individual growth and the only code 
 of social progress and perfection. Its promise is, to 
 furnish for the world a system of ~ universal educa- 
 tion. Of course, in this scheme of training, the 
 essential element of beauty cannot be neglected. 
 Provision must be made for that, else the justice of 
 the claim is at once removed, its legislation becomes 
 partial, and an intestine war springs up between 
 the religious creed of Christ and the aesthetic wants 
 of man. 
 
 Christianity, we believe, has amply redeemed its 
 promise. A new age began with Jesus, of which 
 there are other signs than the calendar, deeper 
 records than the alteration of our dates. His holy 
 life changed something more than the religious 
 creed of the universe. Follow back all the streams 
 of modern cultivation through the gloom of ages, 
 and, in spite of seeming deviations, and the tempo- 
 rary divergence of their tortuous channels, they ap- 
 proach at last, and, mingling their separate currents 
 into one, lead us, with a silent and solemn and
 
 94 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 half-conscious instinct, to the foot of the cross. 
 Christ is at the head of modern philosophy and 
 modern literature and art. He refreshed the weary 
 imagination as well as the languid faith of the world. 
 How plainly can we trace the influence of the Chris- 
 tian system in unfolding the elements of ideal 
 beauty ! The fine arts in modern times may not 
 rival the ancient masterpieces in formal beauty, but 
 their sphere has been enlarged, and their inspiration 
 drawn from deeper sources. The passions and feel- 
 ings at the command of the ancient artist were few 
 and simple, for the most part belonging to the physi- 
 cal relations of mankind ; and to the narrowness of 
 his circuit, may, undoubtedly, be ascribed much of 
 his success. To modern painting and statuary have 
 been offered the nobler sentiments of piety and 
 faith and love ; affections that have a deeper signif- 
 icance, and which, by their very purity, and their 
 relations to the Infinite, are less easily subdued to 
 bonds of stone, or the finer slavery of colors. It 
 surely cannot be heresy to say that the Madonna 
 of Raffaele exhibits a higher and purer sense of 
 beauty than the face of the Venus ; or that Gothic 
 architecture, with its thousand faults, sprang from 
 a lower deep in human nature than the more perfect 
 symmetry of the Grecian temples. We can be just 
 to classic models, and the ancient taste, without 
 being unjust to the merits or meaning of modern 
 art. And such a judgment is only to say that 
 Christian feelings are higher than the sources from 
 which Grecian taste borrowed its ideas of grace ; it
 
 BEAUTY AND EELIGION. 95 
 
 is only to assert that spiritual beauty is purer than 
 regularity of features or symmetry of form ; it is 
 only to confess that heathen mythology is inferior 
 to the purity of our simple faith ; it is only to de- 
 clare that the face of the Apollo, the clearest reve- 
 lation of ancient moral beauty, that perfect incar- 
 nation of lofty scorn, a self-conscious elegance and 
 self-satisfied repose, is, after all, less elevating in its 
 influence upon the artist, and less inspiring to our 
 better nature, than the face of Jesus, refined by re- 
 ligious love, spiritualized by holy sorrow, lighted by 
 unshaken hope, and turned to heaven with a look, 
 not of haughty satisfaction and self-dependence, but 
 of serene and chastened confidence and humble 
 prayer. That face, as we all picture it in our im- 
 agination when we understand the real depths of 
 his nature and his character, is the modern ideal of 
 moral beauty. Elements of spiritual loveliness, 
 beyond the conception of the Grecian masters, are 
 collected and centred there. It is the rich endow- 
 ment of Christianity to the stores of imagina- 
 tion. s And, whatever destiny may be reserved for 
 modern art, it is evident that its productions refer 
 to a higher faith than the Greek religion, and that 
 for it, a mightier magician than the ancient priest, 
 has smitten the rock of humanity with a more po- 
 tent rod, unsealing its deepest springs of feeling and 
 religious life. 
 
 Especially may we see this in modern poetry. 
 For everything which gives it a distinctive charac- 
 ter, it is dependent on Christianity. The deeper
 
 96 BEAUTT AND RELIGION. 
 
 elements of modern tragedy have been borrowed 
 from the purer revelations of duty through the 
 Saviour, the new revelation which his religion 
 Brought of human destiny, and the higher sanctions 
 it imposed on virtue. Hamlet's restless longing, 
 and continually flying ideal of life, are Christian. 
 It is -by Christian light that we look down, with 
 such deep emotions of tragic delight, the ecstacy of 
 awe, into the ravines of human nature, the chasms 
 and abysses of human will opened to us in Mac- 
 beth. And even in that beautiful imitation of the 
 ancient models, faultless in diction, around which is 
 thrown such tragic horror, and yet such witchery of 
 grace, in Talfourd's Ion, we cannot help feeling that 
 the unities have, after all, been somehow violated ; 
 that a little of Christianity has crept into Argos before 
 the time ; and, that the finest passages were inspired, 
 not by Greek philosophy, but by the purer element 
 of Christian love. 
 
 And not alone by purifying moral beauty has 
 Christianity assisted the poetic art ; it has altered 
 the significance of nature. Between natural beauty 
 and our religion, there is a sympathy equally appar- 
 ent. The doctrines of Christianity were caught by 
 the Saviour from the outward world. His finer 
 sense appreciated its hidden meaning ; his ear was 
 bent in reverence, and caught the faintest whisper 
 from her mystic oracles. The flowers revealed their 
 doctrine of universal Providence ; he followed back 
 the rain to its source in the fountains of Divine be- 
 nevolence ; he analyzed the sunlight, and unravelled
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 97 
 
 from it the splendid truth of God's impartial love. 
 And ever since, has the spirit of Christianity been 
 drawing men into a nearer sympathy with nature 
 and a more intimate communion with her hidden 
 life. The perception of this spiritual sense in the 
 outward universe is now the surest gauge of poetic 
 inspiration. In vain shall we look for it in the elder 
 poets and dramatists. There are fine descriptions of 
 natural scenery in Homer ; splendid imagery in the 
 Greek tragedies ; and exquisite personifications of 
 physical forces ; but nowhere a perception of that 
 delicate bond that binds the outward world to man. 
 Between " Prometheus Vinctus " and the Prometheus 
 Unbound," there is all the difference that separates 
 two civilizations. Shelley was no professed believer, 
 he could not throw off the unconscious Christian- 
 ity that lay around his genius like the air, nourishing 
 his creations with different sustenance, and inform- 
 ing them with a deeper meaning than JEschylus could 
 draw from Greek mythology. The Christian reve- 
 lation has extended the feeling of brotherhood to all 
 the. powers that constitute the life of nature. It 
 would seem that the boldest speculations of modern 
 science, which tell us that men have risen by grad- 
 ual development from inorganic matter, are hinted 
 there, and therefore is it that, in our better mo- 
 ments we feel such intense and silent sympathy with 
 the fettered consciousness and imprisoned feeling of 
 our former state. This is the soul of the best mod- 
 ern poetry ; and it is wholly religious, wholly Chris- 
 tian. How have the best minds of our century 
 7
 
 98 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 
 
 striven to grasp the depth of natural beauty! 
 Wordsworth hears in the outward world 
 
 " The still, sad music of humanity." 
 
 In his periods of deeper communion with nature, 
 he confesses the feeling of 
 
 " A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man." 
 
 Beauty reveals to him, besides the sensible impres- 
 sions, 
 
 " Authentic tidings of invisible things; 
 Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power, 
 And central peace, subsisting at the heart 
 Of endless agitation." 
 
 Shelley's refined and spiritual perception can only 
 catch 
 
 " The awful shadow of some unseen power 
 
 Floating unseen among us. 
 
 Dear and yet dearer for its mystery." 
 
 Mr. Bailey asks, in Festus, 
 
 " How can beauty of material things 
 So win the heart, and work upon the mind, 
 Unless like natured with them ? Are great things 
 And thoughts of the same blood f They have like effect." 
 
 And Mr. Emerson, despite the keenness of his 
 glance, which generally interprets the finest shades 
 of consciousness, waits for the coming of a greater
 
 BEAUTY AND RELIGION. 99 
 
 master, who shall express what he dimly feels, and 
 show " that the ought, that duty is one with science, 
 with beauty^ and with joy." Thus do we find that 
 Christianity accepts and sanctions the idea with which 
 we started, that beauty is associated with relig- 
 ious culture by the influence it has exerted in every 
 department of the sphere of taste, assisting us to 
 see more clearly that beauty is one with truth, and 
 that of both religion is the highest manifestation 
 and central bond.
 
 IV. 
 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 
 
 IT is a beautiful fact in the ethics of the gospel, 
 that great principles do not require great occasions 
 for their exercise and exhibition. The spirit of 
 Christianity teaches us, both by verbal precept and 
 through the embodied eloquence of the Saviour's 
 character, that it is the highest office of great prin- 
 ciples to- dignify the common experience of men : 
 they are manifested best in trifling acts ; they raise 
 the level of daily life to a higher elevation, and 
 reveal their active presence most completely in 
 homely and familiar duties. " Whosoever," said 
 Jesus, " shall give to drink unto one of these little 
 ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a 
 disciple, verily -I say unto you, he shall in nowise 
 lose his reward." We intend to follow out the 
 thought suggested in that passage into some of its 
 present applications to men. 
 
 It is not unusual, in our time, to hear complaints 
 of the meanness of 'modern life. There are many 
 who mourn that existence has become so dull and 
 mechanical. There is no charm, no healthy excite- 
 ment, no beauty in the common experience of the 
 
 100
 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES.' 101 
 
 world around us ; nothing to feel an aspiring, imagi- 
 native, poetic mind. Everything is prosaic now : the 
 spirit of business, omnipresent, all-active, and omnip- 
 otent, has reduced life to square and rule. Surprise, 
 romance, and heroism, have been banished from ex- 
 istence. The stern utilitarian tendencies of the 
 present have degraded life to a lower plane, and, by 
 connecting society in the simplest relations, and thus 
 bringing men Tinder the dominion of obvious and 
 easy duties, have made experience flat, monotonous, 
 and insipid. Those persons are not few, whose minds 
 are restless under the unpoetic aspect of the life we 
 live ; whose ideal is borrowed from novel pictures, 
 or from the dramatic side of history ; and who, if 
 their imagination is kept alive, lapse into melancholy, 
 sentimental languor, acquire a distaste for all the 
 burdens and duties of our daily existence, and 
 delude themselves with the idea, that they are above 
 their age, of finer mould than their coarse contem- 
 poraries, born out of season, ill-appreciated by their 
 dull companions. 
 
 All that looks attractive to such minds is seen in 
 the past, or is expected from the future. The pres- 
 ent is but a half-built bridge, loaded with the rub- 
 bish of degrading toil, which has drawn us away 
 from the Elysium behind, and not yet permitted us 
 to reach the Eden before. The time of Caesar, the 
 age of chivalry, or of the Refortnation, or of Shak- 
 speare ; the lives of men like Napoleon, or Washing- 
 ton, or Howard, who lived on a large scale, and 
 whose deeds arrest the attention and fill the eye by
 
 102 . GEEAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 
 
 their grandeur, seem to them the only desirable 
 epochs, the only true and worthy lives. Such eras 
 and such fortunes alone should satisfy the ambition, 
 the dignity, the ideal, of an aspiring mind. Beside 
 them, the scenes, the duties, the life o to-day, look 
 mean and barren. 
 
 We have the authority of the gospel to assure us 
 that such is a false estimate, a mistaken view of life. 
 It is vitiated by a double error. It is a false estimate, 
 in the first place, because it attributes an unreal 
 value to the kind of life by which it is so powerfully 
 charmed. The grandeur* and beauty of such a 
 seemingly poetic existence are much enhanced by 
 contemplating them at a distance. Nearness removes 
 most of the gorgeous hues ; the tinsel and glitter 
 would soon grow wearisome ; familiarity would make 
 all look poor and mean. It is the creative imagina- 
 tion that weaves the charm. Mountains in the dis- 
 tance, with the rich haze upon them, to soften and 
 spiritualize and refine their outlines, or when gilded 
 with the glory of the morning, or the luxury of the 
 evening light, look tempting and beautiful, fit for 
 the common residence of gods. But when we visit 
 them, the spell is broken ; they are rocky, rugged, 
 cold, and barren ; it tires our limbs to climb their 
 steep ascents ; we gladly escape from their uninvit- 
 ing sides, to thecommqn, customary comforts of our 
 less showy and poetic homes. And so with those 
 tempting circumstances for which so many sigh. 
 Once attained, we should be no more satisfied with 
 life. Habit would socn destroy the glossy lustre.
 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. , 103 
 
 The society of courts, daily intercourse with kings 
 and emperors and heroes would soon pall the spirit, 
 and convince it that a worthier, more noble existence 
 must be found to satisfy the craving, grasping soul. 
 And this romantic estimate of life is false, too, 
 not only because it overrates the charm of its favor- 
 ite mode, but radically false because it overlooks the 
 object and aim of life, the destiny of the soul. 
 Christianity advises us that we were placed in the 
 world to develop character, to unfold our powers, 
 to grow in moral strength. It is the final purpose 
 of the soul, not to be an ornamennt merely to some 
 great occasion, not to make a show, not to live on 
 the stage as an actor, dressed in ribbons and spangles, 
 but to be educated, to put forth its strength, to live 
 in accordance with the great principles of duty and 
 and right. Here lies the error in all poetic and 
 overwrought imaginative views of the world. Man 
 was not created for some dazzling end ; but for cul- 
 ture, continual, steady, moral power. The sun was 
 not placed in the heavens to inflame and awe the 
 imagination of men, to spout cataracts of fire, and 
 blaze fitfully, with a grand, poetic splendor, but 'to 
 radiate an even heat, and call forth continually the 
 energies of dependent planets, by the unvaried 
 bounty of its beams. It fulfils its destiny at every 
 moment, by a life of constant use. It is so with 
 man. The attainment of our destiny is not reached 
 by any particular form of life, but by continual 
 development and unwearied use. We were not 
 made for such or such a good, but for perpetual
 
 104 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 
 
 culture. We must not hope to live at some future 
 time, at some more favorable period, at the end of 
 the next week or the next year, when we have retired 
 from business, or have removed, perhaps, from the 
 city. There are no divisions of periods, no stopping- 
 places, where we may change our raiment and begin 
 to live. The existence is in each moment, however 
 and wherever it may find us ; the journey's end is in 
 every step of the road. 
 
 The moral beauty of Christianity is seen in this : 
 that it reveals the grandeur of common life and 
 humble virtues, that it throws an infinite value into 
 the smallest actions, that it transfers our gaze from 
 the scale of the deed to the spirit of the deed, that 
 it makes the circumstances of small account, and 
 the motive all ; showing us that a cup of cold water, 
 given in the name of a disciple, and from the im- 
 pulse of love, will bring the disciple's reward. It 
 shows us that great principles are tested best by the 
 performance of small duties, and that the spiritual 
 development, which is the real end of life, is bet- 
 ter attained by continual discipline, than by great 
 achievements. 
 
 We estimate life aright, we understand its dig- 
 nity and its toil, only when we judge it by this 
 Christian standard. The aim of the gospel is to 
 perfect character ; and a noble character is revealed 
 in little deeds, and is attained only by discipline 
 and triumphs in common, habitual trials. We 
 ought not to suffer moral judgments to be blinded 
 by the glare of circumstances and scenes. It is
 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 105 
 
 easier than we imagine to become a martyr ; to die 
 calmly in defence of right when the world is look- 
 ing on, when we are a spectacle to the crowded am- 
 phitheatre of the universe, to an audience of angels 
 and men, and when hope of escape is dead. It is 
 noble godlike, if you please to call it so to 
 triumph then ; but it is not the most unerring test 
 of greatness and strength of soul. That is the 
 purest greatness and the firmest strength which 
 overcomes the toughest obstacles to a lofty and holy 
 life ; and those obstacles, every practical Christian 
 will confess, are the little cares and trifling per- 
 plexities and incessant temptations of daily experi- 
 ence. These are the gnats that worry the sturdiest 
 virtue. Goliah was proof against a steel-clad ar- 
 ray, but not against the despicable weapon, David's 
 sling ; and many a moral giant has fallen before as 
 puny an attack. " The finest sense, the profoundest 
 knowledge, the mo^t unquestionable taste, often 
 prove an unequal match for insignificant irrita- 
 tions ; and a man whose philosophy subdues nature, 
 and whose force of thought and purpose gives him 
 ascendancy over men, may keep, in his own temper, 
 an unvanquished enemy at home." 
 
 It is easier to fulfil the greatest than the smallest 
 task. It is easier to perform the moral deed which 
 the world must witness than to crush the small 
 temptation which comes in our private hours, invit- 
 ing to a little sin which the world can never know. 
 He is the moral hero how few who can challenge 
 the title ! that can resist the almost harmless im-
 
 106 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 
 
 pulse of selfishness, like that which prompted the 
 miiid of Christ to turn the stones to bread ; who 
 can go through the day and feel that he has been 
 faithful to every call of every moment, and has 
 lived in Christian relations with every man whom 
 he has met. And, therefore, small duties are the 
 real test of power. You cannot know a man's tem- 
 per in company ; see him at home. You cannot 
 judge his piety at church ; observe him through 
 the business hours of a single day. You cannot 
 infer his benevolence from his public charities and 
 large subscriptions ; watch his intercourse with the 
 poor. It is the frequent gifts, yes, it is the manner 
 of giving, more than the charity, the sweet expres- 
 sion, the cordial sympathy, the tone of kindness, 
 which makes the penny of more value then the 
 coldly given pound ; it is these, and the frequency 
 of these, that determine the purity and love of a 
 person's soul. 
 
 The common complaints of almost every person, 
 our incessant quarrels with our fortune and lot, at- 
 test the value and difficulty of these small duties, 
 and show us that the performance of them alone is 
 the surest sign of moral vigor. " How gentle should 
 we be, if we were not provoked ; how pious, if 
 we were not busy ! the sick would be patient, only 
 he is not in health; the obscure would do great 
 things, only he is not conspicuous ! " It is the great 
 soul only which does not quarrel with its tools, but 
 relies upon its skill. It is the noblest character that 
 can be gentle in provocation, and pious in business,
 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 107 
 
 and patient in sickness, and faithful to the humble 
 duties of obscurity. Beauty of soul, like the beauty 
 of a statue, results from the complete symmetry 
 of the smallest parts ; and it is minute care and 
 perpetual discipline alone that can bring the' spirit 
 to that standard, and which reveal the Master's 
 hand. " Why waste time on such trifles ? " said a 
 friend to Michael Angelo, who consumed weeks in 
 the finish of a muscle and the form of an ear. " It 
 is these trifles that constitue perfection," replied 
 the artist, " and perfection is no trifle." 
 
 They have strangely mistaken life, then, who sigh 
 for propitious or more poetic circumstances, in or- 
 der to give it dignity. Let them endeavor to live a 
 single day in the privacy of their own homes, obe- 
 dient to the Christian law of life, and they will 
 learn how needless are all trappings to make a mar- 
 tyr or a hero. For the keenest intellect that ever 
 thought, for the finest genius that ever refreshed 
 the heart of the world, it is a virtue sufficiently ar- 
 duous, it is a moral triumph brilliant enough to 
 keep the hours true, to fulfil the obligations of 
 daily life, to refrain from slander, to be resigned in 
 sorrow, and to remember the poor. It was said of 
 the great orator and philosopher, Edmund Burke, 
 that a stranger could not stand under a shed with 
 him for five minutes, during a summer shower, with- 
 out knowing he was in company with a great genius. 
 The power of the man would reveal itself in his 
 casual talk. The die of his intellect was stamped 
 even on his insignificant coin. And so the purity,
 
 108 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 
 
 the power, of a trained and vigorous virtue, de- 
 pends not on the occasion, but will disclose itself in 
 the slightest and most trival act. We may not all 
 be Alexanders. His genius was no merit of his ; 
 but we may do what, with all that genius, he could 
 not do, and that is, keep sober and preserve an 
 even temper. We may not be gifted with the intel- 
 lect of Bacon ; but, nobler than Bacon, we may 
 keep our honor pure, and never betray a friend. 
 We cannot become Napoleons ; but, in the private 
 . walks of life, we may acquire strength to do what 
 the hero of Marengo and Lodi was unable to ac- 
 complish, always to tell the truth. Their genius 
 performed their miracles ; they fell before the plain 
 and simple demands of duty. Truly, Solomon -was 
 right : " He that is slow to anger is better than the 
 mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that 
 fcaketh a city." 
 
 We may learn a beautiful lesson on the moral 
 worth of small duties by observing the method of 
 nature, the wisdom of God in the outward 
 world. Perfection, in nature, is not measured on 
 the scale of magnificence, but by_ the quality of 
 the work. We cannot exhaust the analogies be- 
 tween nature and the gospel," they are so com- 
 pletely in harmony ; and we may say, that the 
 whole universe is the intellectual statement and 
 explanation of the morality of Jesus ; the value 
 of the trivial fact is an expression of the great 
 principle. Men of science are continually sur- 
 prised to find how the most astonishing results are
 
 CHEAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 109 
 
 crowded into and implied in the narrowest com- 
 pass. " The whole code of natural laws may be 
 written on the thumb-nail, or the signet of a ring." 
 Examine the structure and observe the growth of 
 a single wild violet, and it will be seen that every 
 force of the universe, and the vast mechanism 
 of the heavens, are necessary to the development 
 of its simple life. Astronomy and geology and 
 chemistry are all written in its fibres, buds, and 
 stem. The roots of it strike deeper into the heart 
 of nature 'than into the soil from which it springs. 
 It lives by the action of laws that are equally es- 
 sential to the existence of the great globe itself. 
 It is watered by rain, drawn from the treasures of 
 the ocean ; its nightly blessing of dew is distilled 
 from the atmosphere which supports all animated 
 life ; it is held firmly in its place by the all-per- 
 vading force that gives stability to the architecture 
 of the sky ; it is expanded into beauty by the 
 warm stream of life that weaves its tissue around 
 the solar system, burning on Mercury, and car- 
 rying his dim day to distant Saturn. And thus 
 the whole universe exists as an inference, a corol- 
 lary of one simple flower. 
 
 Dig a flint from the bosom of the mountain ; 
 and, when it is broken, its sides will reveal to the 
 microscope the fire which hardened it and the 
 waters through which it passed, the convulsions 
 and catastrophes it has known, and the fossil ani- 
 malcules which it holds ; showing us that the his- 
 tory of the great globe may be deduced from the
 
 110 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 
 
 experience and changes of that single pebble. 
 From a solitary scale of a fish, found petrified in 
 a stone, the naturalist has reconstructed its whole 
 frame, has announced that it belonged to a species 
 become extinct, has stated the kind and tempera- 
 ture of the waters in which alone it could have 
 lived, and so again has discovered, in that tiny 
 vestige, the secret of the geological epochs. If we 
 go to nature for our morals, we shall learn the ne- 
 cessity of perfection in the smallest act. Infinite 
 skill is not exhausted nor concentrated in the 
 structure of a firmament, in drawing the orbit of 
 a planet, in laying the strata of the earth, in rear- 
 ing the mountain cone. The care for the bursting 
 flower is as wise as the forces displayed in the roll- 
 ing star ; the smallest leaf that falls and dies un- 
 noticed in the forest is wrought with a beauty as 
 exquisite as the skill displayed in the sturdy oak. 
 All the wisdom of nature is compressed and re- 
 vealed in the sting of the bee ; and the pride of hu- 
 man art is mocked by the subtile mechanism and 
 cunning structure of a fly's foot and wing. How- 
 ever minute the task, it reveals the polish of per- 
 fection. Omnipotent skill is stamped on the in- 
 finitely small, as on the infinitely great. It is a 
 moral .stenography like this which we need in daily 
 life. We attain the summit of Christian excellence, 
 when we obey the instructions of nature, and learn, 
 in the common acts of every day, to manifest the 
 beauty of a spiritual character, to leave in 
 trifling duties the impress of a noble soul, tore-
 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. Ill 
 
 fleet on common life the radiance of a pure and 
 holy nature, to make a cup of cold water, daily 
 given to the suffering in the spirit of love, testify, 
 with eloquent emphasis, to the grace and health 
 and beauty of our general existence. 
 
 The lesson of Christianity, then, urged and en- 
 forced .by nature, is the inestimable worth of com- 
 mon duties, as manifesting the greatest principles ; 
 it bids us attain perfection, not by striving to do 
 dazzling deeds, but by making our experience di- 
 vine ; it tells us that the Christian hero will en- 
 noble the humblest field of labor ; that nothing is 
 mean which can be performed as duty ; but that 
 religious virtue, like the touch of Midas, converts 
 the humblest call of conscience into spiritual gold. 
 
 The Greek philosopher, Plato, has left an in- 
 structive and beautiful poetic picture of the judg- 
 ment of souls, when they had been collected from 
 the regions of temporary bliss and pain, and suf- 
 fered once more to return to the duties and pleas- 
 ures of earthly life. The . spirits advanced by lot, 
 to make their choice of the condition and form 
 under which they should reenter the world. The 
 dazzling and showy fortunes, the lives of kings 
 and warriors and statesmen were soon exhausted ; 
 and the spirit of Ulysses, who had been the wisest 
 prince among all the Greeks, came last to choose. 
 He advanced with sorrow, fearing that his favorite 
 condition had been selected by some more fortu- 
 nate soul who had gone before him. But, to his 
 surprise and pleasure, Ulysses found that the only
 
 112 GEE AT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 
 
 life which had not been chosen was the lot of an 
 obscure and private man, with its humble cares 
 and quiet joys ; the lot which he, the wisest, would 
 have selected, had his turn come first ; the life for 
 which he longed, since he had felt the folly and 
 meanness of station, wealth, and power. 
 
 In like manner, though in a far different spirit, 
 Christianity teaches us the beauty and dignity of 
 common and private life. It makes it valuable, 
 not as Plato did, for the cares from which it frees 
 us, but for the constant duties through which we 
 may train the soul to perfect symmetry and power. 
 It shows us that the humblest lot brings calls and 
 opportunities which require all the energies of the 
 most exalted virtue to meet and satisfy. It teaches 
 us that, " in the management and conquest of the 
 daily disappointments and small vexations which 
 befall every life, only a devout mind attains to any 
 real success, and evinces a triumphant might." It 
 impresses upon us the solemn truth, that life itself, 
 however humble its condition, is always holy ; that 
 every moment has its duty and its burden, which 
 Christian strength alone, the crown of power, can 
 do and bear ; and that the perfect character is the 
 character of Jesus, who fulfilled the greatest mis- 
 sion in the humblest walk, and showed to the 
 world that the simplest experience may become 
 radiant with a heavenly beauty, when hallowed by 
 a spirit of constant love to God and man.
 
 V. 
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 1 
 
 IT is our desire to define in this article, as fully 
 as our limits will allow, and as clearly as the nature 
 of the subject and our own ability will permit, the 
 views of Plato upon immortality, with particular 
 reference to his doctrine concerning the condition of 
 the soul in its disembodied state. It would seem 
 to be an important acquisition to our knowledge, 
 if we could understand thoroughly the faith, and 
 appreciate the hopes, of a mind like that of the first 
 among Greek philosophers, a mind which had 
 attained probably the perfection of heathen cul- 
 ture, and whose intellectual development may be 
 assumed, therefore, to be the goal and limit of 
 uninspired thought. But the difficulties are pro- 
 portioned to the interest of the task. We are not 
 acquainted with any exhaustive examination of the 
 question, and the conflicting results of commenta- 
 tors only perplex the mind, giving us no assurance, 
 
 1 The materials for the present article are mostly drawn from Cou- 
 sin's French Translation of Plato's Dialogues, in thirteen volumes, Paris 
 edition; a-:d the references, accordingly, are made to that work, as the 
 best mode.n version of the Greek philosopher, and probably the easiest 
 of access to those who are unacquainted with the original. 
 
 8 113
 
 114 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 
 
 and little valuable aid. Besides, few subjects offer 
 more perplexities to criticism than a complete anal- 
 ysis of the Platonic writings for the purpose of un- 
 folding a clear, dogmatic, symmetrical result. It is 
 exceedingly difficult even to give, in modern terms, 
 an accurate statement of the leading points of Pla- 
 tonism ; and -probably the variety of opinions in- 
 consistent and even contradictory, which learned 
 men have evolved from the words of Plato, can 
 only find a parallel in the variety of creeds and doc- 
 trines, which equally learned and honest critics 
 have unfolded from the Scriptures. According to 
 his commentators, Plato becomes a Kantian or an 
 Eclectic, a Gnostic or a Swedenborgian. His works 
 form a sort of philosophical kaleidoscope : turned by 
 one man, Plato appears a modern Orthodox ; shifted 
 again, he is a modern Transcendentalisl. Cold- 
 blooded men, like Mr. Norton, find nonsense in a 
 dialogue where warm-hearted, poetic spirits, like 
 the German Ackerman, detect delicate filaments of 
 the Christian faith ; so that it depends very much 
 on the position and relations of the reviewer, 
 whether we get a dissertation on Plato the sceptic, 
 or Plato the polytheist, or Plato the Christian, or 
 Plato the fool. Even the theory of ideas, which lay 
 at the base of his speculative system, which is at 
 once the corner and keystone of his philosophy, 
 has had almost as many interpretations as interpre- 
 ters, and remains, to-day, an unexhausted subject 
 for criticism and dispute. It must be an amusing 
 task for the spirit of Plato to observe the various
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 115 
 
 judgments of different thinkers ; to see his system, 
 as it passes through different minds, receiving from 
 each a subjective hue and form ; to range side by 
 side the motley group of Platonisms which the ages 
 have produced, from the dissertations of the Alex- 
 andrian school, who found a mystic sense in every 
 name, and a subtile meaning in the number of inter- 
 locutors, to Sewell, 1 who detects in the Republic a 
 dim instinct or nisus as it were of the Church of 
 England, and Mr. Tayler Lewis, 2 who grieves that 
 amid so much gospel doctrine of vindictive punish- 
 ment and eternal woe, he can find "nothing of that 
 great atonement which forms the basis of the Chris- 
 tian scheme." 
 
 The cause of this diversity certainly cannot be 
 attributed to any lack of precision in Plato's terms ; 
 for his diction is clear and pure, a transparent 
 medium of thought. The English critic, alluded to 
 above, finding a similar obscurity in the Scriptures, 
 takes occasion to hint, as a solution, that Plato pos- 
 sibly is inspired. If we are not disposed to acqui- 
 esce in this opinion, we may find a more probable 
 explanation in the nature and design of Plato's 
 works. Perhaps it is needless to inform our read- 
 ers that no definite, dogmatic statement of his phi- 
 losophy was ever given from Plato's pen. His writ- 
 
 1 Sewell's Introduction to the Dialogues of Plato ; a powerfully writ- 
 ten, and very amusing book. 
 
 2 Plato against the Atheists, or the Tenth Book of the Laws, with 
 notes, etc., by Tayler Lewis, L.L. D., the last classical development of 
 Orthodoxy.
 
 116 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMOETALITY. 
 
 ings were isolated, and form no organic developed 
 whole. They consist chiefly of dialogues upon 
 various topics of morality and religion, through the 
 most of which Socrates is introduced as the central 
 figure, for the purpose of controverting the opinions 
 of others ; himself examining and refuting proposi- 
 tions by the use of a rigorous analysis and dialecti- 
 cal skill, but rarely proposing positive opinions of 
 his own, or leaving a definite impression upon the 
 reader's mind. Plato never speaks in his own 
 person, or with a purely didactic aim. He loved 
 the dialogistic method ; he was the greatest artist 
 in composition, probably, that ever lived ; and tins 
 form offered a wider scope and less restraint to the 
 range of his taste and powers. When we consider, 
 therefore, that his dialogues amount to more than 
 thirty ; that many of them were written, seemingly, 
 for no other end than a display of logical acuteuess 
 or skill ; that, through their dramatis persona;, they 
 embody the opinions of almost every prior and con- 
 temporary school ; that some may be intended to 
 represent scenes from the history of Socrates, and 
 develop opinions which Plato did not indorse ; and 
 that they were composed at widely different periods 
 of life, some running back, probably, -to his early 
 youth, and others employing his dying moments in 
 their revision, we may well suppose that it is a task 
 of no ordinary difficulty to condense and arrange his 
 views into a consistent body of didactic statements 
 and opinions, nicely balanced and scientifically 
 evolved.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMOETALITY. 117 
 
 Besides, at the very outset of our researches into 
 the real nature of Plato's views, we are met and 
 staggered by the question, Have we any trusty 
 sources from which to draw his secret doctrines ? 
 Are his published writings authentic 'records of his 
 honest thought ? Has he imparted in his dialogues, 
 without reservation, the essence of his views as 
 they existed in his own mind, or as they were deliv- 
 ered to his pupils in the retirement and confidence 
 of his school ? This is a point which demands more 
 space for a thorough discussion than we can afford 
 for our whole subject ; but, as it is an essential 
 condition to critical success in any department of 
 his system, we must give a few words to it by way 
 of introduction. 
 
 From the circumstances of the time, from a few 
 passages of Plato himself, and from the spirit and 
 structure of many of his works, we are convinced 
 that while the great body of the dialogues indicate, 
 hint, and suggest the elements of his philosophy, in 
 no one of them, nor in all of them can we find an 
 entirely unreserved and honest expression of his 
 views. He lived among a people who certainly 
 had not shown a great attachment to innovations 
 on the popular creed. Anaxagoras had been ban- 
 ished and Socrates condemned, for the purity of 
 their speculations and the long-established feud 
 between philosophy and paganism had not suffi- 
 ciently subsided, to render it safe for any man to 
 evince extraordinary boldness in the domain of 
 morals. A wise prudence was the better rule of
 
 118 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 war ; and Plato had every warning in the fate of 
 his predecessors, to deter him at least from a rash- 
 ness which would have proved fatal to success. 
 The long life and quiet death of the philosopher 
 would seem themselves to indicate that he used 
 some policy in his public dealing with the popular 
 faith of the time. Moreover, we find in some of 
 his works expressions, which, if rigidly interpreted, 
 forbid us to expect any thorough exposition of his 
 philosophy in written disquisitions. In the Phae- 
 drus, for instance, Socrates makes a decided and 
 somewhat lengthy attack upon writing, as a me- 
 dium for imparting clear and solid knowledge. He 
 labors to show that severe dialectical discourse is 
 the only method of instruction. Written state- 
 ments can be moulded into any form, according to 
 the reader's mind ; they know not with whom to 
 speak, or with whom they should maintain silence ; 
 unjustly attacked, or misunderstood, they cannot 
 answer, but, like a weak child, constantly need 
 their father's aid ; and therefore the best written 
 compositions are useful merely to awaken reminis- 
 cence in the minds of those who know already the 
 subjects of which they treat. 1 The letters of Plato, 
 of which thirteen are left, would seem to be explicit 
 on this point. In the second and seventh he ex- 
 pressly declares that the deepest science cannot be 
 taught in words ; that after a pure life of medita- 
 tion it bursts forth like a spark, like gold becoming 
 pure only after long years and toil, and that every 
 
 1 Vol. vi. pp. 123, 124.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 119 
 
 man seriously occupied with things so serious, 
 should restrain himself from treating them fully 
 in writings intended for the public. 1 He confesses 
 that his writings are not without merit, but de- 
 clares that they do not contain that deep and pure 
 science which conversation and reflection alone can 
 bestow. It is proper to state that the genuineness 
 of these letters* has been questioned and severely- 
 tested by many modern critics. The whole evi- 
 dence of antiquity, however, is in their favor, and 
 they have been rejected mainly on account of those 
 passages that speak of an esoteric wisdom which 
 the dialogues do not convey. 2 
 
 If we take these declarations of Plato in the sense 
 which probably they require, namely, that no one of 
 his works contains a full and exhaustive treatment 
 of his system, and that in them are many accommo- 
 dations to popular prejudice and superstition, they 
 
 1 Vol. xiii. Letter 2, p. 61. Letter 7, pp. 96, 100. 
 
 * Cicero quotes from the fifth and seventh Letters, and in the Tuscu- 
 lan Questions remarks, " Est praeclara epistola Platonis ad Dionis pro- 
 pinquos; " also, Ad Atticum, I. xiii. mentions that a certain Hermodo- 
 rus was accustomed to publish the books of Plato. (See Tennemann's 
 Lehren der Sokratiker iiber Unsterblichkeit, page 22, note.) Plutarch 
 uses the seventh Letter very freely in his life of Dion ; quotes twice from 
 the fourth, and mentions the thirteenth. (See Langhorne's Translation 
 of Plutarch, vol. vii.. Life of Dion, pp. 144, 147, 149, and throughout.) 
 Cousin boldly rejects the Letters, although he includes them in his 
 translation of the Dialogues. As in many other cases of critical diffi- 
 culty, however, he cuts the knot without unloosing it, settling the ques- 
 tion by a bold French generalization, an eclectic leap.' He calls them 
 " more affected than profound," " superficially Alexandrine," etc. (See 
 Cousin's Plato, vol. xiii., note on page 229.) Boeckh regards the sev- 
 enth alone as genuine, which is the most important as connected with 
 our question.
 
 120 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 are certainly sustained by the evidence of the dia- 
 logues themselves. Most of these are plainly in- 
 tended to be guides and aids in the acquirement of 
 precise thinking, and the attainment of the dialectic 
 method of philosophy. They are admirable as hints 
 and suggestions of truth which they do not state. 
 They shine with what Heraclitus would call a humid 
 light. We can account for and exp'lain their artful 
 obscurity only by keeping in view the Acadamy 
 where they were more clearly unfolded, or the se- 
 verity of whose lessons they were perhaps intended 
 to recall. In different dialogues, opinions entirely 
 contradictory are unfolded, with seemingly equal 
 honesty. He speaks at times, too, of the popular 
 worship in terms of great respect, although the 
 whole was the antipodes of his own belief. Often 
 we are led through the most intricate avenues of 
 metaphysics in chase of a sophism, and frequently, 
 after tiresome discussions, and when the light seems 
 ready to break upon our vision, the curtain falls and 
 the discussion ends. The most important dialogues 
 close with gorgeous myths drawn either from tradi- 
 tion or the sources of his own rich mind, and through 
 these, as through a highly-colored transparency, he 
 throws his light upon the imagination of the read- 
 er, impressing by symbols upon the fancy what he 
 refused to do by words upon the reason. And no 
 reader, even now, can study his works without con- 
 fessing with Ast, that " the peculiarity of Plato's 
 compositions is that he has no peculiarity," that they 
 are valuable chiefly as exercises in mental gymnas-
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 121 
 
 tics, to train the mind to habits of patient thought, 
 hinting truths which they will not tell, leading us 
 up ideal heights and refusing at last to be our 
 guide, but pointing the way to higher progress, 
 making us feel indeed that the Platonism which 
 they teach is inferior to the Platonism which they 
 inspire. 
 
 Taking this view of the Platonic books, the only 
 one, we believe, capable of explaining them, it is 
 evident that mere verbal or textual criticism cannot 
 succeed as a method of interpretation. It finds it- 
 self confused at once with a thousand embarass- 
 ments. 1 The clew to the Cretan labyrinth, or the 
 solution of the Sphinx's riddle, were easy in com- 
 parison. The only proper and successful method is 
 a free, liberal treatment, with a single eye to Plato's 
 method and the general spirit of each piece. Like a 
 tangled skein they yield easily to a loose and patient 
 handling, but if forced or strained at all, become 
 knotted into an inextricable mass. 
 
 Especially must we bring this liberal and patient 
 spirit to an examination of Plato's views of the fu- 
 ture state. For it is over questions connected with 
 the nature and destiny of the soul that the greatest 
 obscurity is thrown. We might readily suspect it 
 would be so. Upon these points he was brought im- 
 
 1 An amusing instance of the beauties of this method may be seen in 
 Mr. Norton's expositions of Plato, scattered throughout vol. iii. of his 
 " Genuineness of the Gospels." The final cause of the spirit that wrote 
 the preface to the " Statement of Reasons " certainly was not to be the 
 expounder of the Greek Transcendentalist.
 
 122 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 
 
 mediately in contact with the popular religion, and 
 there was great temptation to a guarded and in- 
 complete publication of his opinions. Besides, Plato 
 had a highly poetic mind. He had determined in 
 early youth, previous to meeting Socrates, to devote 
 himself to poetry ; and throughout his works we dis- 
 cover a marked relish for allegories and myths, to 
 which he always turned with eagerness, not only as 
 a relief from the dryness of abstract discussion, but 
 as a medium through which to hint ideas which 
 reason could not grasp. Nothing was better fitted 
 to feed this poetic turn than speculations upon the 
 condition and fate of the dead. It was a question 
 removed beyond the boundaries of science ; revela- 
 tion had not dispelled the gloom and mystery which 
 lay around the future world ; it offered, therefore, a 
 fit field for the revels of a highly imaginative and 
 spiritual mind. The mythology of his country and 
 of the East, too, was rich in fables illustrative of 
 the future destiny of souls ; and therefore policy, 
 together with the severe temper of his scientific 
 method, compelled him to adopt that allegorical 
 and legendary dress for his speculations, which his 
 poetic genius so dearly loved to weave. The Pla- 
 tonic myths and stories are often contradictory with 
 each other, embracing materials which it is impos- 
 sible to harmonize by verbal criticism, and thus our 
 only method is a poetic abandonment of mind to the 
 influence of the pictures, rather than a microscopic 
 analysis of words. No two writers whom we have 
 ever consulted agree in their abstract of Plato's
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 123 
 
 views of immortality ; scarcely can one be found 
 who is entirely consistent with himself. The trouble 
 has generally arisen from a false or too rash method 
 of interpretation. It is a hopeless task to extort 
 the meaning of poetry by logic. " Spiritual things 
 are spiritually discerned." 
 
 In passing, then, to a direct consideration of his 
 views concerning the soul and its destiny, we must 
 remark that the writings of Plato form an epoch in 
 ancient philosophy. Socrates impressed a new ten- 
 dency on speculation. He brought into use the 
 psychological method. Before his time the philoso- 
 phy of Greece was conversant with little else than 
 physical inquiries, explanations of the origin of the 
 universe. It was entirely ontological. Speculation 
 seems to have been lawless, busying itself with the 
 mysteries connected with the genesis of things, un- 
 restrained and undirected by any rules of scientific 
 thought. Philosophers were mostly physicists; no 
 base had be'en laid for a moral system ; science was 
 dissipated into theories and hypotheses, based, how- 
 ever, on no facts, at the mercy of the next thinker, 
 and held together only by the speculative ingenuity 
 of the author's brain/ Socrates swept it all away. 
 He saw that it was aimless, profitless, and barren. 
 He brought back philosophy to its true starting- 
 point, the human soul. His motto, his method, 
 the Alpha and Omega of his system was " Know 
 thyself." He made psychology the portal to the 
 temple of science, and thus gave to speculation a 
 moral aim. Socrates left no works. His greatest
 
 124 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 legacy to the world was Plato's mind. The scholar 
 was thoroughly imbued with the master's method, 
 and in his Works for the first time do we find the 
 true canons of philosophy observed, and a rigorous 
 moral system raised upon the results of psychologi- 
 cal analysis, and induction from the facts of con- 
 sciousness and experience. 
 
 At first sight, we are struck with the spiritual 
 character of Plato's system. He has no compro- 
 mise, no sympathy with materialistic views. With 
 him man was a living soul, the body merely an 
 organ, instrument, and slave. The natural order of 
 things, reversed in most of the schools of Grecian 
 speculation, was restored by him. Spiritual interests 
 in his philosophy are always supreme. So far from 
 the spirit being dependent on material organization, 
 it existed before the body, sustains the body, and is 
 in its very essence immortal, indestructible. That 
 Plato held to the prior existence of the spirit, no 
 student of his philosophy can doubt. It is a funda- 
 mental point of his moral system. But when we 
 go beyond this fact, and seek to define his view of 
 its former state, and the manner of its passage into 
 an earthly form, we are embarrassed by a crowd of 
 contradictory statements entirely insoluble. " To 
 know the soul in itself," said he, " requires a divine 
 wisdom, and dissertations without end." Plato 
 seems clearly to have understood and recognized the 
 boundary line between science and speculation. His 
 mind was poetic but not mystic. Strange as it may 
 seem, we see proof of this in his treatment of the
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 125 
 
 question of preexistence ; and it is on this ground 
 alone, we believe, that the contradictions, so perplex- 
 ing to most commentators, can be explained. In 
 establishing the fact of preexistence and the superior- 
 ity of the soul, his method is scientific. He draws 
 his argument from the facts of our mental experience 
 and the laws of bodily organization. The sources 
 of this proof are found in the Phaedon and the Meno. 
 By an examination of the principal ideas of the 
 mind, such as the true, the good, the beautiful, equal- 
 ity, etc., Plato discovered that their characteristics 
 are such as to forbid the supposition of sensual origin. ' 
 They cannot be traced to sensible impressions ; they 
 are beyond the reach of our bodily organs. The 
 sight of material things awakens them immediately 
 in the mind ; and therefore, since their origin is not 
 in this state of existence, they come into conscious- 
 ness by reminiscence, and must have been acquired 
 in some former state, and brought with us here as 
 part of our mental furniture. 1 The ideas of science 
 and duty also, both demanding freedom of the spirit 
 from the ties of sense and matter, imply the inde- 
 pendence of the soul, and hence its priority. 2 The 
 evils of life, moreover, spring from too intimate 
 
 1 Vol. i., Phsadon, pp. 219T231. Vol. vi. Meno, pp. 174-191. In study- 
 ing the genesis and comparative anatomy of philosophical schools, rela- 
 tionships and affinities quite unsuspected may be brought to light. Thus 
 it was the existence in the mind of certain and super-sensuous knowl- 
 edge which led Plato into his theory of reminiscence and ideal realism' 
 Kant into his discovery of the categories of pure reason, and his system 
 of subjective scepticism, and Cousin into the doctrine of impersonal rea- 
 son, and the possibility of arriving at absolute, ontological science. 
 
 * Vol. i., Phaedon, pp. 200, 205.
 
 126 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 union of the soul with flesh, and moral order 
 is attained only as the soul acquires and feels its 
 native superiority to earthly bonds. 1 The soul also 
 is the principle and source of motion, and therefore 
 prior to material organization, which is merely the 
 channel and instrument of motion. The body 
 dissolves at death ; but dissolution is possible only 
 with the composite. The soul is formless, substan- 
 tive, and simple, hence indissoluble and superior to 
 all organization. 2 Neither can it be the harmony of 
 the body, a result of the arrangement of its forces, 
 dependent on matter like the music of a lyre upon 
 strings. A harmony has no substantive essence ; it 
 exists only in the conditioning elements ; while 
 the soul is conscious of substantive existence, can 
 distinguish and separate itself from bodily elements 
 and make war upon them. 3 Hence it is a prior 
 individual unity. 
 
 All these arguments are based on psychology. The 
 logic is wretched, but the method true. The fact of 
 preexistence, then, we believe to be a firmly estab- 
 lished element of Platonism. 4 But beyond this 
 mere fact, to the manner of preexistence, and the 
 worldly origin of souls, induction could not reach ; 
 
 1 Vol. i., Phsedon, pp. 209, 210. 2 Ibid, 283-300. s Ibid. 263-271. 
 
 * Coleridge (Biog. Lit. ch. xxii.'), in a note to Wordsworth's beautiful 
 " Ode on Immortality," referring to the doctrine of preexistence, hinted 
 *there, remarks, that a competent reader " will be as little disposed to 
 charge Mr. Wordsworth with believing the Plantonic preexistence, in 
 the ordinary interpretation of the words, as I am to believe that Plato 
 himself ever meant or taught it." If this refers to the mythic descrip- 
 tion of the soul's former condition, the remark is just; if applied, how-
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 127 
 
 then Plato designedly abandons himself to speculation 
 and hypothesis, sporting freely in a poetic element, 
 careless, of course, about the consistency and har- 
 mony of his fanciful plays. Accordingly, in the 
 gorgeous imagery of the Phaedrus, he shows us the 
 cars of the original souls, moving in the train of the 
 Deity, and borne around the heaven in contemplation 
 of ideas. In the Timaeus we see the elements of 
 human souls, at the command of Deity, mixed by 
 demi-gods from the remnant of the first creations, 
 and scattered upon the stars, where they first be- 
 come acquainted with ideas ; while, in the Philebus, 
 the souls are emanations from the great world-soul, 
 the first creation of the Almighty. 1 Plato founds, 
 however, no important doetrine on the tenet of pre- 
 existence, and in all the poetic passages as to the 
 circumstances of the soul's former state, he warns 
 the reader against receiving them as truths or as 
 anything more than fanciful guesses and badinage. 2 
 
 ever, to the fact of the priority of spirit to bodily forms, the scepticism 
 is too sweeping and indiscriminate. 
 
 Tenuemann, (System der Platonischen Philosophic, vol. iii., p. 109,) 
 makes a distinction between the hypothetical and mythical in Platonism, 
 which, he says, must not be overlooked. Thus, " when Plato admits 
 the preexistence of the soul, on account of super-sensuous knowledge, 
 it is an hypothesis ; when, however, he seeks to represent the condition 
 of preexisting souls, their dwelling in the stars, and their travels through 
 various bodily forms it is a myth." This hypothetical hypothesis does 
 not, we think, explain A\\ the allusions to preexistence in Plato so well 
 as our own theory, that the fact is scientific, the details mythical. 
 
 1 We have made no allusion to the Tenth Book of the Laws, because 
 there, evidently, the passages on preexistence refer to the general pri- 
 ority of mind to matter, and not to individual preexistence. 
 
 Vol. vi., Phsedrus, p. 96; vol. xii., Timaeus, pp. 118, 203-
 
 128 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Holding fast to the idea of preexistence, as a fact of 
 his philosophy, a wise criticism, instead of trying to 
 reconcile the irreconcilable, will transfer the details 
 of the soul's former state from the region of scien- 
 tific to that of poetic Platonism. 
 
 Passing from a consideration of the nature, to the 
 duration, of the soul, we may say, that Plato un- 
 doubtedly had firm and constant faith in immortal- 
 ity. It was with him, not merely a matter of specula- 
 tion, but .of science. The same arguments which 
 decided his faith in a preexistent state, were con- 
 clusive in favor of the soul's independence and 
 enduring life. We read him with perfect confidence. 
 There is no hesitation, no wavering, no insecurity of 
 faith betrayed in any of his dialogues, where men- 
 tion is made of immortality. The idea is involved 
 and connected by numberless nerves and fibres, with 
 the whole scientific structure of his philosophy. 
 For aught in his writings to the contrary, it was as 
 much a matter of certainty, as his belief in God, or 
 his confidence in present existence. To him belongs 
 the honor of first placing the idea of immortality on 
 a rational basis ; to him alone, throughout the ranks 
 of ancient philosophers, is due the praise of holding 
 to it firmly, as the only solution to the mysteries of 
 our moral nature, and the ever-present sanction of 
 the moral law. It is a difficult and^quite unwelcome 
 task to proceed to a critical analysis of his views, 
 concerning the future condition and destiny of the 
 soul. Could we collect and arrange the passages 
 that refer to the subject, which would be the proper
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 129 
 
 t 
 
 method for the treatment of most authors, and 
 thus present the tenor of his views in his own lan- 
 guage, we might hope for some success, notwith- 
 standing the mass of materials it would be necessary 
 to sift. But .this is impossible. There is no outward 
 unity or consistency in his statements. It would be 
 comparatively easy to work the vast Platonic mine, 
 and disclose to general view its rich veins of moral 
 speculation, if they ran in any order. But a strange 
 caprice governs their development. They break off 
 so suddenly, and branch out in so many directions, 
 and with such lawless irregularity, that there seems 
 to be no possibility of tracing unity or plan. The 
 impressions left upon the reader's mind, by a first 
 and hasty reading of Plato's various passages on 
 future life, are extremely confused and chaotic. Not 
 only are we perplexed by different treatments and 
 developments of one fundamental conception, as in 
 the case of preexistence, but different and entirely 
 hostile modes of future life, are posited with equal 
 freedom and seeming indifference. In attempting a 
 solution, we must bear in mind that it is this part 
 of his philosophy, probably, which Plato treated 
 with the greatest artistic liberty in his writings, re- 
 serving a clear and consistent development for the 
 retirement of his school. Although the same dis- 
 tinction between the scientific and poetic, to which 
 we referred in the remarks on preexistence, may be 
 equally applicable here, still there are m^ny incon- 
 sistencies and troublesome questions concerning 
 Plato's conception of the soul's final destiny, which
 
 130 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 we think, a patient examination can reconcile and 
 solve. At any rate, we are confident that it is possi- 
 ble to establish a negative, to show what he did not 
 believe, and thus to rescue his system from being 
 implicated with doctrines sometimes imputed to it, 
 but for which it is not at all responsible. 
 
 The first difficulty that presses on us, relates to 
 the tenet of metempsychosis, or transmigration of 
 souls. From many passages in his works, it would 
 seem, that he held to this theory as the mode and 
 form of eternal existence. The dialogues which 
 contain allusions to, or statements of, the doctrine 
 of transmigration, are the Phaedrus, Meno, Tim- 
 asus, Phsedon, the Tenth Book of the Republic, 
 and the Tenth Book of the Laws. In the Phaedon, 
 which contains the last conversation of Socrates 
 with his friends just prior to his decease, and where 
 the subject is, the soul and its destiny, we find it 
 alluded to in the following manner. After having 
 argued for the independent nature of the soul, 
 from conscience, the idea of science, etc., Socrates, 
 in passing to speak of its eternal duration, com- 
 mences 1 by referring to " the very ancient opinion, 
 that souls in quitting this world go to the unseen 
 state, and thence again come back to life after the 
 passage of death." This gives rise to a discussion 
 upon the law of contraries ; all tilings spring from 
 their opposites, as the colder from the warmer, 
 smaller from greater, quicker from slower, night 
 from day, etc. This ceaseless flow and change is 
 
 1 Vol. i., Phaedon, p. 213.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 131 
 
 the law of nature. Things are continually return- 
 ing into, and reissuing from, their opposites. Cir- 
 culus arterni mottis. Existence is an active circle, 
 whose extremities perpetually return upon them- 
 selves, and thus, in order to maintain the stability 
 of this universal order, death also must give place 
 to life, birth must be the compensating opposite to 
 dissolution, else all being would finally become stag- 
 nant and dead. 1 The natural complement and 
 climax of this argument, of course, should be, that 
 the number of souls is limited, that the series of 
 earthly lives is continually refreshed by the spirits 
 of the departed, and that natural birth in this 
 world is the immediate return of the spirit to ex- 
 istence. But Socrates, as if conscious of the ten- 
 dency of this theory, and recoiling from its logical 
 results, artfully breaks the discussion, and passes 
 immediately to the argument for the soul's inde- 
 pendence from reminiscence, and after settling that, 
 resumes 2 the consideration of its future condition. 
 But here the demands of his rigid law of contraries 
 are forgotten. The theory of metempsychosis has 
 itself experienced a metamorphosis from a scientific 
 necessity as before, to a moral condition of punish- 
 ment. " The v soul, which is immaterial, goes to an 
 abode like itself, pure, excellent, and immaterial. If 
 it pass pure, without dragging with it anything cor- 
 poreal, it returns to the divine, immortal, and wise, 
 and there is happy, delivered from error, folly, 
 fears, dissolute love, and all other human evils ; as 
 
 1 Vol. i., Phssdon, p. 218. 1 Ibid. p. 239.
 
 132 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 they say of the initiated, it passes, truly, eternity 
 with the gods. But if souls withdraw from the 
 body corrupted and impure, loaded with the bonds 
 of the material envelope, they fall, and, dragged 
 anew towards the visible world by terror of the im- 
 material ? and of that world without light which is 
 called hell, go wandering, as they say, among mon- 
 uments and tombs as a punishment for their first 
 wicked life, until the natural appetite of the cor- 
 poreal mass which follows them, leads them back 
 into a body, and then they reenter, probably, into 
 the same habits which made the occupation of their 
 first existence." 1 Those who were abandoned to 
 intemperance and sensual excess go into the bodies 
 of asses and like animals ; those who loved injustice 
 and tyranny, into wolves and hawks ; peaceable, 
 mild souls, undisciplined by philosophy, pass into 
 social and peaceful animals, as bees, wasps, and ants, 
 or perhaps return to human bodies and form good 
 men. But to attain the rank of the gods is per- 
 mitted only to the philosopher. 
 
 A careless reader, unacquainted with Plato's 
 method, and the license of his art, would at once 
 conclude from the above-cited passage, probably, 
 that the tenet of metempsychosis formed an element 
 of his creed. In fact, we have given the most per- 
 plexing passage first. Generally his allusions to 
 transmigration are veiled in mythic dress, and form 
 a rich embroidery, an ornamental fringe to his ab- 
 struser speculations, while here they seem to shoot 
 
 l Vol. i., Phaedon, substance of, pp. 239-248.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMOETALITY. 133 
 
 like a golden thread across his logic. A thorough 
 study of his works, however, is fatal to the theory. 
 Not only, as in the very instance of the discussion in 
 the Phaedon, does .he artfully elude an implication 
 of his argument with the natural consequences of 
 transmigration, but he is so entirely inconsistent 
 with himself in his different modes of representing 
 it, as to force upon us the conclusion that he used 
 it for an artistic embellishment, borrowed from his 
 favorite, Pythagoras, and as a convenient vehicle 
 through which to impress upon the imagination the 
 moral results of sin. A careful examination and 
 comparison of the passages where the theory is in- 
 troduced, we are confident, will substantiate our 
 position. In the Phsedon, as we have seen, no no- 
 tice is taken and no solution offered of the question, 
 how the souls are united at birth or reunited at 
 death with an earthly form. In the Phaedrus, the 
 most poetic unscientific, as well as one of the most 
 gorgeous and fascinating of the Platonic dialogues, 
 the first appearance of the spirit in a body is as- 
 cribed to sin. The soul in its preexistent, empy- 
 rean flight, becomes heavy and dull through forget- 
 fulness 'or vice, loses its wings and falls to the 
 earth. But it is forbidden to animate the body of 
 any beast at the first generation. The fallen spirits 
 consist of nine degrees, and make up, accordingly, 
 nine different ranks of human character ; the first 
 and purest rank entering philosophers and men 
 whose lives are consecrated to Love, Beauty, and 
 the Muses. The others are arranged in the follow-
 
 134 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ing order: just kings and warriors, statesmen, 
 athletes and doctors, priests, poets and artists, ar- 
 tisans, sophists and demagogues, and, lastly, tyrants. 
 After death, the souls return to the other world for 
 judgment, and, according to their improvement of 
 the first probationary state, are punished or reward- 
 ed for a thousand years. At the expiration of this 
 period, they make choice of a new earthly exist- 
 ence : each being free to select the condition which 
 it prefers, whether of beast or man. And only 
 through a circuit of ten lives and a disciplinary and 
 retributory punishment of ten thousand years, can 
 the souls regain their heavenly state ; except the 
 philosopher, who, after three successive virtuous 
 lives, and a discipline of three thousand years, may 
 recover his wings and resume his flight. 1 
 
 All other reasons set aside, this passage would be 
 valueless as a sober, trustworthy statement of Plato's 
 belief, from the fact that it occurs in a discourse 
 attributed to Stesichorus, a celebrated author of 
 lyrico-epic poems, which Socrates recites to Phaedrus 
 while seated upon the banks of the Ilyssus, and 
 yielding to the luxury of dreamy musing and con- 
 templation. In accordance with Plato's mimetic 
 art, the ideas and form of the address are suited to 
 the imaginary author, philosophic severity being 
 sacrificed to poetic license and consistency of char- 
 acter. No reader of Plato can fail to remark, be- 
 sides, the discrepancy between this statement as it 
 respects the fate of the philosopher, and his usual 
 
 1 Vol. vi., PhsBdrus, pp. 53, 54.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 135 
 
 dogmatic positions on that point. Always in his 
 dialogues and myths he allots to the lover of wis- 
 dom an immediate return to the life of the gods ; 
 while here he subjects him to a probation of three 
 worldly existences and a discipline of three thou- 
 sand years. The nine lives and return to purity 
 after the tenth cycle of punishment, shows us that 
 he is using a Pythagorean doctrine, under their 
 mystical veil of numbers. Almost all commenta- 
 tors are agreed that this is among the earliest, if 
 not the very first of Plato's written works, marked 
 by the luxuriance of youthful fancy, betraying 
 throughout a lack of art in subordinating properly 
 the poetic and mythical to the philosophical and 
 scientific elements, and so ill balanced that the au- 
 thor found it necessary to warn the reader against 
 an undue fascination with its form, with the twice- 
 repeated confession that it is a poetic myth, " a 
 kind of mythologic hymn to Love who presides over 
 beauty." 1 
 
 The work most commonly cited to substantiate 
 the theory of metempsychosis is the Timaeus, a 
 composition which pretends to give a solution of 
 the origin of things,, and to embody Plato's specu- 
 lations upon nature and the theory of the world. 
 Here, too, the details of the statement are entirely 
 different. After the creation of higher orders, the 
 souls of men were mixed by demi-gods from ele- 
 ments furnished by the Almighty, and were then 
 divided among the stars, one great soul to each 
 
 i Vol. vi., Pluedrus, pp. 96, 189.
 
 136 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 
 
 star. Before the first birth, which is the same to 
 all, the souls are made to mount upon a chariot, 
 " that they may see the nature of the universe, and 
 observe its inevitable decrees." After death, if the 
 soul has lived justly, it returns immediately to its 
 proper star. If it sin, it is changed into a woman 
 at the second birth, and if then it does not improve, 
 it passes through a lower round of change, corre- 
 sponding to its vices, until by discipline it becomes 
 worthy to recover its first and excellent condition. 
 The creation of lower animals is ascribed to this 
 degradation of human souls by sin ; each degree of 
 evil and debasement manifesting itself in the crea-' 
 tion of a new and appropriate bodily form. The 
 apparent freedom of the passages in the Timaeus 
 from any mythic mixture, and the dogmatic form 
 in which the doctrine is stated, have caused greater 
 stress to be laid upon it as authority for Plato's 
 faith in transmigration. Too much credit has been 
 given, however, to the Timaeus as an exposition of 
 Plato's sober views. The whole structure and form 
 of the work remove it from the category of his 
 severe scientific productions. It is not cast in the 
 dialogistic mould ; the dialectic method employed 
 in his other great works, such as the Thaeetetus, 
 Philebus, Gorgias, Phaedon, and Republic, and 
 which Plato declares to be the only medium for 
 conveying truth, is abandoned. Moreover, his usual 
 mouthpiece, Socrates, is thrown aiside ; and the 
 substance of the work is given as a long recital 
 upon nature, from Timaeus, a Locrian, and a cele-
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 137 
 
 brated teacher of the Pythagorean school. Consist- 
 ently with Plato's usual aim after dramatic propri- 
 ety, therefore, we discover in it much of a peculiar- 
 ly Pythagorean cast, and accordingly, as in the case 
 of the Phaedrus, we find that Plato introduces a 
 caveat, lest he be held responsible for the literal 
 statement of opinions, confessing that all which he 
 has said is a philosophical recreation, a wise and 
 moderate amusement for the mind when it lays 
 aside the study of what is eternal. 1 That the Timae- 
 us discloses many physiological views which Plato 
 really held, we have no doubt ; but its transcenden- 
 tal speculations bear all the incidental and positive 
 testimony that can be given to prove that they were 
 mere philosophic myths and jeux d'esprit. 2 
 
 1 Vol. xiL, Timaeus, pp. 118, 174, 203. The passages in this dialogue 
 which refer to metempsychosis may be found pp. 137-141, and 242, 243. 
 
 2 Mr. Norton (Evidences of the Gospels, vol. iii., p. 104) calls the 
 Timseus a mere work of imagination. Tennemann, noticing the incon- 
 sistency between the Phaedrus and the Timaeus relative to future life, 
 with a short-sightedness unusual in him, places greater stress on the 
 representations in the Timaeus as a riper and later book. The Timseus, 
 it is true, is a later book, but lateness has nothing to do with the verac- 
 ity of poetry. Afterwards, however, he refers to the Timasus for proof 
 that Plato held his speculations to be mere guesses upon questions re- 
 moved from knowledge. (" System der Platonischen Philosophic," vol. 
 iii., pp. 96, 97.) And further on (p. 124), speaking of Plato's statement 
 that the soul at its second birth enters a female form, he adduces evi- 
 dence from the Republic, where Plato allows an equal dignity to the 
 male and female natures, for proof that he did not affirm the doctrine 
 " in full earnest." Again, referring to the return of the wicked into the 
 souls of beasts, Tennemann contends that Plato " held it not as rigid 
 truth, but as a feasible mode of representing the moral condition of the 
 soul after death." (See his " Lehren der Sokratiker iiber Uusterbh'ch- 
 keit," p. 478.) 
 
 Stallbaum, a German editor of Plato's works, and who has been
 
 138 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 
 
 In the tenth book of the Republic, we have still 
 another. poetic statement of the theory of transmi- 
 gration, clothed in all the luxuriant drapery of 
 Plato's inimitable art. The details differ from those 
 of all the rest. According to the recital, the infor- 
 mation concerning the future state was communi- 
 cated by Er, an Armenian, who had been slain in 
 battle, but whose corpse was preserved from the 
 funeral pile until the twelfth day after his decease. 
 "When all preparations had been completed for his 
 obsequies he suddenly revived, and related what 
 
 called " one of the greatest living scholars in the Platonic writings," in 
 criticising the mythical passages relating to metempsychosis scattered 
 throughout the Phsedus, Phaedon, Timseus, and Republic, contends that 
 a serious study of them all easily demonstrates that they are mere plays 
 of fancy ; to use his own words, " Philosophum in hoc argumento 
 tractando ingenii lusui nonnihil indulsisse, ut in re quse mentis humanse 
 intelligentiam superaret." (See Cousin's Plato, vol. xii., p. 345, note.) 
 Cousin himself is not committed to any decisive opinion. His criti- 
 cism is remarkably eclectic, or rather synchretic. He touches both 
 sides. In his preface to the Phsedon, he hints the idea that the tenet 
 of metempsychosis may be only a symbolic envelope for the dogma of 
 the unity and incorruptibility of intellectual substance, (vol. i., p. 181.) 
 This opinion is still more decidedly advanced in the notes to the Mno, 
 (vol. vi., p. 480.) In the notes to the Timseus, however, he rejects Stall- 
 baum's view, and inclines to the opinion that it is neither a jeu (fesprit, 
 nor a doctrine Plato would be willing to indorse, but " a specious noted 
 opinion, more or less true, borrowed from his favorite Pythagoras, and 
 constituting his own mythology through which he addresses the imag- 
 ination and the soul, after having arrived at the limits which separate 
 the certain from the probable, and having exhausted rational demon- 
 stration," (vol. xii., p. 346.) It is hard to define the difference between 
 this view and Stallbaum's; and at the close of his notes on the Timseus, 
 Cousin protests against the tenet of animal transmigration in good ear- 
 nest, calling it mal a propos, and declaring that " we could very well 
 have spared an ornament which degrades instead of elevating the maj- 
 esty of Plato's ideas of the animal kingdom and the universe."
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 139 
 
 had been revealed to him in the other world. We 
 have not room to present even an outline of this 
 statement, the particulars of which would fill sev- 
 eral pages. The substance, however, is, that im- 
 mediately after death, all souls, according to their 
 characters, are despatched by different routs to the 
 abodes of the happy or the wicked. In these dwell- 
 ings they remain a thousand years, each soul receiv- 
 ing tenfold reward or punishment for the deeds of 
 its earthly life, and, at the end of this period, the 
 spirits are permitted to make choice of a new exist- 
 ence. In working out this gorgeous picture, one 
 of the finest gems of imagination which literature 
 contains, and upon which Plato seems to have be- 
 stowed more artistic labor than on any other, he 
 seems not to have restrained his fancy at all by the 
 desire to be consistent with his other statements, 
 but rather to have constructed it without reference 
 to them and from new resources. Accordingly, no 
 moral distinction is made between the value of an- 
 imal and human forms, as in the Phaedon and Ti- 
 maeus, and they are selected not in obedience to 
 spiritual necessity, but from considerations of con- 
 venience, or at the suggestion of arbitrary whims. 
 The spirit of Orpheus selected the soul of a swan, 
 from his hatred of women who had once caused his 
 death, not wishing to be dependent again upon that 
 sex for birth. Ajax, son of Telamon, disgusted 
 with human life, and remembering the judgment 
 which deprived him of the arms of Achilles, took 
 the nature of a lion. Agamemnon, too, averse to
 
 140 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMOETALITY. 
 
 the human race because of his past misfortunes, 
 selected the condition of the eagle. Ulysses, cured 
 of ambition by the memory of his severe reverses, 
 chose the tranquil lot of a private man, which the 
 other souls had disdainfully refused ; while Ther- 
 sites, very properly, concluded to reanimate the 
 body of a monkey. 1 No difference is posited be- 
 tween male and female as in the Timaeus, for sexes 
 are changed at will. Atalanta had a strong desire 
 to become an athlete, and Epeus, son of Panopeus, 
 returned into the lot of an industrious woman. 
 No peculiar fate is reserved for the philosopher, and 
 not a hint is dropped relative to the point whether 
 this return is part of a long system of purification, 
 as in the Phsedrus, or whether it is the general law 
 of earthly existence and reproduction. 2 The beau- 
 ty with which the whole myth is wrought out can- 
 not be surpassed; art everywhere shines through 
 the story, and we can imagine no more thorough 
 cure for a tendency to believe that Plato really 
 held the doctrine of metempsychosis, than a study 
 of this fiction in a proper attitude of mind. 8 
 
 1 Vol. x., Republic, Book Tenth, pp. 291, 292. 
 
 8 Cousin thinks, that the substance of the whole fable is Oriental, 
 embellished, but not originated, by Plato, (vol. x., p. 377.) 
 
 3 The mythic passages in the Meno hardly require a passing notice. 
 This dialogue, as we have before stated, is one of the chief sources for 
 the doctrine of reminiscence and preexistence. Before the discussion 
 is introduced upon the question that all knowledge is merely memory, 
 Plato weaves in, as a sort of poetic preclude and preface, "the opinion 
 of Pindar, and many other men skilful in divine things, that the soul is 
 immortal, sometimes becoming eclipsed, sometimes reappearing, but 
 never becoming totally extinct. For Proserpine, at the end of nine
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 141 
 
 These inconsistencies in working out the details 
 of the soul's future condition, and the poetic li- 
 cense everywhere betrayed in the treatment of the 
 separate myths, seem sufficient to condemn them as 
 expositions of Plato's views. For surely he would 
 have evinced more care, and would have shown 
 more anxiety about the consistency of the outline 
 and form of his pictures, although he might be ar- 
 bitrary as to his materials, if he really intended to 
 convey through them his decisive views as to the 
 future state of souls. But it may be objected, that, 
 although Plato might not have intended the myths 
 to be clear and accurate expositions in detail of his 
 religious views, and, therefore, in his treatment of 
 them, very properly subordinated scientific precis- 
 years, returns to the light of the sun those souls who have paid to her 
 the debt of their ancient sins ; and from these souls spring illustrious 
 kings, celebrated for their power, and men remarkable for their wis- 
 dom," vol. vi., pp. 170, 171. The passage is left thus in its poetic 
 form, the latter portion quoted, being, probably, a fragment of some 
 lost ode of Pindar, and the scientific investigation into the nature of 
 knowledge begins. The whole bears marks too plainly stamped to be 
 mistaken, that it is poetic embellishment, an artful management of 
 the transition in discourse, and a relief of dialogistic skill. 
 
 In the ninth book of the Laws, (vol. viii., p. 185,) occurs another allu- 
 sion to metempsychosis, unimportant, however, in our examination, 
 since it is a reference to the doctrine of the Eleusinian mysteries, and 
 is introduced for illustration. Plato, in speaking of the proper punish- 
 ment for the crime of murder, and in a preamble to his legislation upon 
 that point, remarks, that it is proper to include in it the doctrine of the 
 mysteries, which many men religiously believe, that in hell are reserved 
 punishments for these murders, and that the guilty man, commencing a 
 new life, is condemned to undergo the same punishment, and thus ter- 
 minate his days by the hand of another, and by the same kind of death. 
 The design of the allusion, of course, is to strengthen the force of the 
 law, by adding to it the sanctions of the popular religion.
 
 142 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ion to imaginative freedom, still they may be au- 
 thoritative as expressions of his faith in the funda- 
 mental fact of metempsychosis, on which they rest, 
 and which they reveal. That the myths may be 
 received as hints of a progressive and ceaseless 
 activity of spirit in its freer life, and that under 
 the picture of continual changes, he may have 
 intentionally vailed the theory of a moral cycle of 
 conditions in the soul's future history, is a some- 
 what plausible, though we think an indemonstrable 
 hypothesis. The allusions to future life in the 
 Tenth Book of the Laws would seem to favor it. 
 For there, a gradual progress of souls towards 
 higher degrees of happiness, or lower degrees of 
 misery, is hinted as the result of the experience 
 " of this life, and of all the deaths we successively 
 undergo." It is impossible, that a single soul can 
 escape the established order of heaven, " were it 
 small enough to penetrate into the recesses of 
 earth, or great enough to soar even to the sky ; but 
 it must bear the punishment awarded by the gods, 
 either on earth, or in hell, or in some other and 
 still more frightful abode." 1 The theology and 
 theodicy of the laws, however, present so many in- 
 consistencies between the principles and the details ; 
 they are adulterated by so much that is palpably 
 exoteric, that it is not safe to draw a conclusion 
 upon such a point from their testimony alone. 2 But 
 
 1 Vol. viii., pp. 266, 267. 
 
 8 The Tenth Book of the Laws is a perfect riddle. No person can read 
 it without feeling elevated by its noble views of God's omnipresence,
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMOETALITY. 143 
 
 that in such a cycle, a return to earthly life under a 
 bodily vesture was not really included, we think is 
 evident on other grounds. A mind so critical as Pla- 
 to's would not have entirely overlooked the physio- 
 logical question suggested by transmigration, name- 
 ly, how is the return to mortal life effected, and 
 what connection exists between departed souls and 
 human generation ? Even if no solution should be 
 hinted in scientific form,' a myth might easily have 
 suggested to the mind some probable explanation. 
 But Plato is entirely silent on this point. In the 
 Republic and Laws, he treats at length of marriage 
 and the true method of sexual union ; and it would 
 hardly seem possible that, holding such a theory 
 of birth as must necessarily be involved in metemp- 
 sychosis, he should not even allude to it in such 
 a treatise. On the contrary, all his directions and 
 laws are hostile to the view of transmigration ; 
 the two theories cannot be reconciled ; and since 
 in such passages we may, of course, presume that 
 
 and the moral providence which reaches all men, and which is never 
 withdrawn for an instant from the soul. The imagery often recalls pas- 
 sages from the Psalms and Isaiah ; and the statement seems at tunes as 
 clear and pure as the language of Paul. In its fundamental principles, 
 the book is a complete system of Optimism; and recalls at once the 
 Theodicy of Leibnitz. -And yet before it closes, the popular worship is 
 sanctioned ; the evils of life are assumed to be greater than the goods, 
 just the reverse of what had before been definitely proved; and the 
 hypothesis of two souls is introduced to account for evil, when the 
 , whole preceding argument had been directed to exhibit the complete 
 and ceaseless agency of God in the government of human life, to show 
 that " He, who directs all things, has- disposed them for the preservation 
 and good of the whole ; that each part experiences or does only what it 
 is fitting it should experience and do."
 
 VJ 
 
 144 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Plato unfolds his honest views, his silence with re- 
 spect to metempsychosis may be taken as decisive 
 evidence against the supposition that he held the 
 theory as a scientific dogma. 1 
 
 As yet, however, we have left the main argument 
 against metempsychosis untouched. It is not in- 
 cluded in some of the most elaborate myths. In 
 the two which form the conclusion of his severest 
 moral dialogues, the Phsedon and the Gorgias, . 
 the idea of transmigration is not admitted. The 
 mythical elements of the picture at the close of the 
 Phsedon, although artistically treated, are borrowed 
 from the popular faith. The common distinctions 
 between the realm of the blessed and Tartarus are 
 affirmed ; punishments are expiatory, except for 
 offenders of the last degree ; and philosophers are 
 reserved for a purer life, entirely bodiless, in dwell- 
 ings more beautiful than those allotted to innocent 
 but less cultivated souls. Socrates closes his de- 
 scription with the politic warning to his friends, that 
 although things may not occur precisely as he de- 
 scribed, still, the only wisdom is in piety during 
 life ; " for the prize of the combat is beautiful, while 
 the hope is grand." 2 At the close of the Gorgias, 
 wliich is the loftiest, the best sustained, and the 
 
 1 Schleiermacher, who seems to hold to the tenet of metempsychosis 
 as a Platonic fact, mentions this difficulty in his notes to the Republic, 
 and says, " We cannot suppose it escaped Plato." He attempts a solu- 
 tion of it, which is quite ingenious as a German hint, how the matter 
 might have been reconciled, but which, unluckily, has no foundation in 
 the Platonic books. 
 
 * Vol. i., Phffldon, pp. 312, 318, 314.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 145 
 
 most terrible of all his works, the same facts are 
 used as a basis for a myth. Nothing can exceed 
 the sublimity of the scene into which Plato intro- 
 duces the disembodied soul. The chief topic of dis- 
 cussion in the dialogue had been justice, and its re- 
 lation to. rhetoric. It is a masterly attack on the 
 ethics of the time. Socrates, in a personal conver- 
 sation with three distinguished rhetoricians, had 
 completely riddled the morality of the sophists and 
 pleaders, and had shown that their whole art was 
 false, having no relation to the moral wants of men. 
 Justice, he showed to be the greatest good, and its 
 administration disciplinary, and therefore the un- 
 kindest act which a wise man could commit would 
 be to save his friend from a punishment which he 
 deserved. And at last, to prove the final impotence 
 of the sophist's office, he shows, that if it be able to 
 protect from righteous retribution in this life, it is 
 powerless with the terrible judges of the lower 
 world. The soul nor the body at the moment of 
 separation says he is different from what it was 
 as a living man. The body preserves its character, 
 the well-marked vestiges, both of the care it has re- 
 ceived and the accidents that have befallen it. If 
 a person in life possessed a great frame, the gift of 
 nature or the result of training, his corpse is large. 
 If he were fleshy, his corpse is so. If he delighted 
 in the cultivation of his hair, many locks remain. 
 If, living, he bore upon his body scars of the lash, 
 or any other wound, all will be found there after 
 death. If any member were broken or dislo- 
 10
 
 146 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMOETALITY. 
 
 cated in life, when dead these failings are still visi- 
 ble. And so with regard to the soul ; when It is 
 disrobed of the body,it preserves evident marks of 
 its character, and of the accidents it experienced in 
 consequence of the life which it embraced. When, 
 therefore, men arrive before their judge, he examines 
 the soul of each without knowing who he is ; and 
 often, having in charge the great king or some other 
 potentate or monarch, and discovering nothing heal- 
 thy in his soul, but seeing it all cicatrized with per- 
 juries and injustice by the stamps which each action 
 has engraven there ; here the windings of falsehood 
 and vanity, and nothing symmetrical, because it had 
 been nourished away from truth ; there monstrous 
 deformities, and all the ugliness of absolute power, 
 ememinacy, licentiousness, and debauchery ; seeing 
 it thus, he sends it ignominiously to prison, where 
 it will no sooner have arrived than it will undergo 
 fitting chastisement. This punishment is propor- 
 tioned to the oifence, and sinners of the deepest die, 
 who cannot be reformed, are used as warnings for 
 the rest, and condemned to eternal pains. 1 The 
 whole picture, which seems a dramatic transpar- 
 ency, lighted by the fires of the abyss, reveals no 
 hint of the metempsychosis ; punishment prepares 
 the soul for more spiritual life, and the scene is 
 closed without any reference to a return to bodily 
 form and worldly state. 
 
 With regard to the much vexed question of trans- 
 migration, then, the whole facts are these : The 
 
 1 Vol. iii. pp. 408, 408.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 147 
 
 theory is developed in a mythical form, dressed in 
 the drapery of imagination ; or it is introduced as 
 an ancient opinion, in accordance with the usual 
 license of Plato's dialogistic art, which induced him 
 at times to quote Homer and Hesiod, as authority 
 for moral truths ; of it is communicated through 
 the lips of some poet or Pythagorean, from whom 
 it proceeds with dramatic propriety, and accompan- 
 ied by a warning from Plato to the reader, against 
 receiving it as anything more than a probable state- 
 ment, devoid of scientific value. It is inconsistent 
 in its details ; is unsupported by any allusions to it, 
 or any provision for it, in his physiological system ; 
 and is, moreover, entirely absent from equally elab- 
 orate myths, which are introduced to reveal the 
 future condition of the soul. Besides, it is never 
 connected, for a moment, with the idea of a pre- 
 existent, bodily life on earth, as is said to have been 
 the case with Pythagoras. 1 Many discrepancies in 
 the Platonic dialogues have been reconciled by refer- 
 ence to the time of composition ; statements, in the 
 earlier and less severely constructed works, being 
 made to yield, very properly, to the more authorita- 
 tive and careful passages of the later writings. But 
 this solution is denied to us in the present instance ; 
 for the Phsedon and Gorgias, whose myths contain 
 no allusion to transmigration, are universally classed 
 
 1 Mr. Norton in the third volume of his " Genuineness of the Gospels," 
 attributes this opinion to Plato. He quotes no passages, however, and 
 makes no allusion to any ; but nowhere have we discovered a trace of 
 such a doctrine.
 
 148 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 with the most trusty sources of his philosophy. 
 Keeping in view, therefore, the great freedom in the 
 scope of the Platonic dialogues, remembering the 
 poetic character of Plato's mind, and his artistic as 
 well as scientific aim, and balancing, with an even 
 hand, the testimony of all the sources, an impartial 
 criticism must decide that the theory of transmi- 
 gration borrowed from the East and from Pythago- 
 ras, together with the details of the popular my- 
 thology of his country, were indifferent to Plato as 
 poetic materials for the clothing of his views, and 
 that he used both with a license which his followers 
 could easily interpret, as media for impressing upon 
 the imagination, by over-statements and highly- 
 wrought pictures, ideas which reason and dialectics 
 could not clearly establish or convey. 1 
 
 1 Ritter, in his History of Philosophy, vol. ii., p. 373, throws his in- 
 fluence in favor of metempsychosis, as a clear and decided opinion of 
 Plato, and not a merely figurative or mythical exposition of the soul's 
 life after death. He thinks it in accordance with Plato's physical sys- 
 tem. But he takes the details of transmigration entirely from the 
 Timseus, without attempting to reconcile the conflicting forms of the 
 hypothesis, and without previously settling the claims of that dialogue 
 to credit as a scientific work. Moreover, in order to harmonize the 
 theory, as stated in the Timasus, with what he calls Plato's physical 
 system, Ritter is obliged to deny a fundamental, ethical position of Pla- 
 tonism, viz., that the soul of the philosopher may expect an entirely in- 
 corporeal existence, and return to immediate communion with the 
 divine. The license of criticism, which allows him to reject that, isnot 
 required to dissipate the whole theory of transmigration as a dogmatic 
 element of Platonism. Fries, on the contrary (Geschichte der Philoso- 
 phic, vol. i., p. 329), contends for the symbolical treatment, and, with- 
 out reference to Ritter, since his work was written first, asserts that 
 there is no physical background for it in the Timasus. 
 
 No point of Ritter's exposition of Plato is more unsatisfactory than 
 tho pages on the future state. He fails as a critic of Plato, by reason
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 149 
 
 In criticising a system like Plato's, in which the 
 scientific and poetic are so closely blended, consid- 
 erable importance should be attached to the har- 
 mony of a tenet with the general moral spirit of the 
 whole. Applying this canon to the two forms in 
 which he has left his speculations on the future 
 state, we should at once conclude in favor of that 
 which speaks of a final, future condition, entirely 
 separate from earth, and should therefore be in- 
 clined to accept the mythical statements of the Gor- 
 gias and the Phaedon as the truer sources of his re- 
 ligious creed. It is rather dangerous, we know, to 
 rely too confidently on such a rule ; but the mysti- 
 cism, which could hold honestly the tenet of trans- 
 migration, would be very apt to betray itself in 
 moral speculation ; and therefore the clearness, the 
 severity, the admirable purity of Plato's ethical 
 code, furnish strong collateral testimony against his 
 faith in a literal succession of bodily forms. Pres- 
 
 of that quality of mind which fits him for an admirable exponent of 
 Aristotle, r a lack of imagination, and too exclusive reliance on words, 
 without appreciating the former spirit of a piece, which the words do 
 not exhaust, but which pervades them magnetically, and gives them 
 form. Platonism, in Bitter's pages, is like beauty anatomized, the flesh 
 and bones and nerves all there, but the beauty gone. From a note of 
 Cousin's, (vol. vi. p. 480), it would seem tkat Ritter, in a separate his- 
 tory of the Pythagorean philosophy, indorsed the view that the metemp- 
 sychosis in Platonism was merely a symbolical statement of the per- 
 sistence of intellect under the mutability of forms. We have never seen 
 that work; but in Ritter's exposition of Pythagoreanism, (Hist of Phil., 
 vol 1,) he intimates that with Pythagoras the theory was a holy myth, 
 " much of it obscure, and indicative only of the soul's immortality. It 
 is a queer freak of criticism to attribute the theory as a myth to Py- 
 thagoras, and as a dogmatic tenet, to Plato.
 
 150 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 ent to the mind of an impartial judge, acquainted 
 with Christianity, but ignorant of Christian parties, 
 the three parables, the prodigal son, the rich man 
 and Lazarus, and the sheep and goats, and it would 
 not require much critical rashness to decide their 
 comparative value as expressions of the moral spirit 
 of the gospel. The two last mentioned would be 
 accepted, of course, as equally appropriate with the 
 first to the object they -were designed to illustrate ; 
 still the first is immeasurably superior as an expo- 
 sition of the central idea of Christianity, the love 
 of God, while the others contain elements designed 
 merely for a local application, and are given in a 
 form suited only to the culture of the time. And 
 we cannot but feel that the same injustice is done 
 to the symmetry of Platonic ethics, by fastening 
 upon it the tenet of transmigration, as would be 
 done to the purity of Christian theology, by literally 
 applying the imagery of Abraham's bosom, and the 
 impassable gulf, and the details of the judgment to 
 the eternal world. 
 
 Great value too, in an examination of this kind, 
 must be attributed to incidental allusions, and side- 
 way hints, and unconscious intimations, with re- 
 spect to the future state. For in these we are more 
 apt to detect the real opinions, the stable faith of a 
 mind like Plato's, than in more labored artistic pas- 
 sages. We observe his mind in its undress, when it 
 is not taking attitudes for display. And these allu- 
 sions, which are very numerous throughout his 
 works, are hostile to the view of transmigration.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 151 
 
 They refer always to a coming state of continued, 
 but severer discipline. The form in which these 
 allusions are conveyed belongs to the popular my- 
 thology, but the ke*y-note to the whole is, the de- 
 clared belief of Socrates in the Phaedon, that " there 
 ,is a destiny reserved for men hereafter, and which, 
 according to the ancient faith of the race, must be 
 better for the good than for the wicked." l In the 
 discussion in the Gorgias, too, it is stated that " the 
 greatest of misfortunes is to pass into the other 
 world with a soul loaded with crimes."- 2 The allu- 
 sions to the future world in the " Apology of Soc- 
 rates," all imply a disembodied being, 3 and in the 
 Phsedon, previous to the introduction of " that 
 ancient opinion," as to metempsychosis, Socrates 
 speaks of the occupations of the spiritual state 
 when, " freed from the follies of the body, we shall 
 converse, I hope, with free men like ourselves, and 
 shall know, by ourselves, the essence of things." * 
 In the eleventh book of the Laws, also, the souls of 
 the departed are spoken of as " taking still some 
 interest in human affairs ; " and in the twelfth book, 
 speaking of the soul, he says that the body is its 
 temporary image, its simulacrum, and that it passes 
 at death into another state, to find other judges, 
 and, " as tradition says, to render an account of 
 its actions, an account as cheering to the good as 
 it is frightful to the wicked." 5 
 
 1 Vol. i., p. 198. * Vol. iii., p. 403. 
 
 8 Vol. i., pp. 118, 119. * Vol. i., p. 206. 
 
 6 Vol. viii., pp. 310, 876. See also Epinomis, vol. xiii., p. 2; Republic, 
 book i., p. 9; Book iii., pp. 122 et seq.; Book vi., p. 33; Timseus, p.
 
 152 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Our excuse for dwelling so long upon the point 
 of transmigration must be the strange diversity in 
 the judgment of commentators respecting it, the 
 fact that no thorough examination of all the passa- 
 ges referring to it has ever fallen under our notice, 
 and a desire to rescue the moral system of Plato 
 ' from the stain of a doctrine so absurd, and so for. 
 eign to Plato's honest thought. As the review of 
 this question has brought out nearly all the allusions 
 in the dialogues to the future state, the nature of 
 Plato's views relative to man's final destiny may be 
 readily anticipated. We have no data to warrant 
 the positive assertion that he held to the final pu- 
 rification of all souls from sin. It will be readily 
 
 143. We cannot refrain from alluding, in this connection, to a celebrated 
 passage in the seventh letter of Plato, which is hostile to the idea of 
 transmigration. As the letters have been suspected by many critics, 
 and rejected by some as spurious, we have hardly been willing to 
 strengthen our argument by giving great prominence to their testimony. 
 Our own opinion is in favor of their genuineness, and as we have before 
 stated, Boeckh has thrown his ballot for the authenticity of the seventh, 
 which is the only one we quote. The testimony of this document, if 
 received, is the more valuable, as we may fairly presume that opinions 
 expressed'in the frankness of social correspondence may be more safely 
 trusted as an honest expression of Plato's views. " Inanimate beings," 
 says he, " can experience no good or evil ; but every soul must expe- 
 rience them, both during its union with the body, and after it shall be 
 separated from it. We must confide in the holy doctrine that the soul 
 is immortal; that after its release from the body it finds judges who are 
 strict, and punishments severe, and consequently, that it js q, more 
 trifling evil to suffer than to commit injustice. ..... Unhappiness 
 
 is inseparable from all injustice, and a fatal law condemns the unjust 
 soul to draw with it this impiety wherever it may sojourn in this 
 world, and during its wandering courses under the earth, providing for 
 it, everywhere, the most shameful and miserable experience," (vol. xiii., 
 letter 7, pp. 88, 89.)
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 153. 
 
 seen, from the tenor of the passages we have intro- 
 duced, that future conscious existence was not only 
 with him a speculative belief founded on pyscholog- 
 ical analysis, but also a demand of our spiritual na- 
 ture, to satisfy the claims of the moral law. Under 
 whatever forms, or with whatever poetic license he 
 depicted the circumstances and fixed the details of 
 the' soul's future condition, that condition itself was 
 never arbitrary in his thought, but always a neces- 
 sary result of the soul's moral development. The 
 severity of his ethical views involved the idea of 
 immortality as indispensable, not indeed to restore, 
 but to perfect the order seemingly violated here. 
 He looked upon the spiritual life of men as a circle, 
 of which the present state is but an arc, but whose 
 full sweep requires and includes the progressive ex- 
 perience of futurity. 
 
 It has been charged upon Plato that he held to 
 the immediate efflux of all souls from God, and to 
 a reabsorption of spirit into the divine essence. 
 We do not know a single passage which gives even 
 plausibility to such a view. Everywhere the future 
 life is posited as a state of spiritual development, as 
 personal age'nts, either in an upward or downward 
 course. 1 This is the soul of his moral system ; and 
 
 1 Mr. Norton asserts (Gen. of the Gospels, p. 109, note,) that "as re- 
 gards the generality of men, Plato's scheme was wholly inconsistent 
 with a belief in their personal immortality." This is the most mon- 
 strous perversion of Platonism that can possibly be framed. There is 
 no justification for the remark in the letter, or the spirit, of a single dog- 
 matic or mythical passage throughout the range of Plato's works. In 
 fact, the very next passages of Mr. Norton's note are inconsistent with
 
 154 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 it was to express this fact that the metempsychosis 
 and the imagery of the popular mythology were 
 used with such poetic freedom and complete indif- 
 ference. Accordingly, whenever they are intro- 
 duced, no matter what sacrifices may be made to 
 the demands of dramatic propriety or to elegance 
 of form, the idea of retribution and of continuous 
 moral development is preserved as the central and 
 stable fact. Neither can it be denied that generally 
 he affirmed the punishments of the coming state to 
 be disciplinary. His view of the relation between 
 this life and the future was not that of modern or- 
 thodoxy. Nothing is farther removed from the 
 spirit of his philosophy than the idea that life is a 
 probationary state, and that the experience of the 
 future is to the guilty an unalterable penalty for 
 sin. Under the veil of transmigration, in the suc- 
 cessive manifestations through forms, the cycles of 
 whose changes would at last restore the soul to pu- 
 rity and spiritual freedom, was hidden Plato's view 
 of the future as a disciplinary state. This reappears 
 in every myth ; and in the Gorgias and Phsedon es- 
 pecially he shows the efficacy of punishment in re- 
 claiming the great majority of souls to a life of pu- 
 
 the statement. Plato held firmly to the personal immortality of every 
 soul, and to a graduated scale of disciplinary punishments, applied to 
 individual sinners according to the nature of their crimes. Many other 
 instances of misapprehension might be quoted from the allusions to 
 Plato in-the third volume of " The Genuineness ot the Gospels." Mr. 
 Norton, though apparently well read in the Platonic writings, very 
 rarely seizes the spirit of Platonism, and, on the whole, is one of the 
 least trustworthy of Plato's commentators.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 155 
 
 rity. But, in the last-mentioned dialogues, he speaks 
 of some who are too far gone to be reclaimed, and 
 whose punishment is continued, not with the hope 
 of benefiting them, but as a warning to other of- 
 fenders. It is somewhat singular that it is tyrants 
 mostly who are thus delivered over by Plato's jus- 
 tice to eternal woe as incurable. " I think," says 
 he, " that the greater part of those thus used for 
 spectacles, are tyrants, kings, rulers, and politicians. 
 For it is they who, by reason of the power with 
 which they are clothed, commit actions the most 
 unjust and impious. Homer, too, is on my side. 
 Those whom he represents as tormented eternally 
 in* hell, are kings and potentates, like Tantalus and 
 Sysiphus." l In the Phaedrus, too, as we have seen, 
 the ninth and last degree of fallen souls become ty- 
 rants ; and in the tenth book of the Republic, those 
 whose crimes are remediless and who are tormented 
 by devils, are said to be Ardys, and others, " of 
 whom the most part were, like him, tyrants." 2 
 When we bear in mind the frequent accommodations 
 to the prevailing religious conceptions of the time, 
 which are scattered throughout the Platonic dia- 
 logues, it is somewhat difficult to decide the value 
 of the few passages that speak of eternal punish- 
 ment. The theory of transmigration, certainly, is 
 more favorable to the idea of universal restoration ; 
 for in the mythic forms under which that is con- 
 veyed, although no picture is presented of a com- 
 plete return, the language is generally favorable to 
 
 1 Vol. iii., Gorgi'as, pp. 408, 409. * Vol. x., p. 283.
 
 156 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 the hypothesis, and no degree of corruption is spoken 
 of as too stubborn to be cured. The idea involved 
 in the metempsychosis is the one expressed in the 
 Thnasus, that condemnation to successive animal 
 forms " will not cease till, governing by reasoning 
 its grosser nature, the soul renders itself worthy to 
 receive its first and excellent conditions." * The 
 power to amend is given to the soul even in its most 
 degraded state, and a fair inference from the general 
 language used in stating the theory of transmigra- 
 tion, would be that a return to virtue will finally be 
 effected. Accordingly, it may be doubted whether 
 since punishment in the coming life is so generally 
 stated to be disciplinary the exception in the 
 case of tyrants, while it was necessary in order to 
 preserve the consistency of the myths, as represen- 
 tations of the popular belief in eternal woe, may 
 not have been intended to express Plato's horror at 
 unjust and arbitrary government as the most hei- 
 nous and least expiable of crimes. 
 
 And, certainly, if Plato really held the doctrine 
 of utter perdition, there is a dissonance, an insoluble 
 discord, between the outward artistic form and the 
 inward moral spirit of his philosophy. Looking at 
 his religious principles when abstractedly stated, they 
 are pure and lofty, above, we must say, much of 
 the theology of the Church to-day. Good, in Plato's 
 system, is the fundamental quality, the essential 
 character of God. He is the author solely of good. 
 
 In his model state, Plato would permit no poets' to 
 
 * 
 
 1 Vol. xiii., Tim. p. 189
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 157 
 
 ascribe the misfortunes and calamities of men to the 
 design of Deity, unless they should maintain that 
 chastisement is no misfortune, and that punishment 
 has turned to the advantage of the criminal. 1 All 
 natural phenomena are so ordered as to subserve 
 some purpose of good. " There is a Providence 
 which extends to all men. Thyself, mean mortal, 
 insignificant as thou mayest be, art of some account 
 in the general order, and related to it incessantly. 
 If thou murmur, it is from lack of knowledge how 
 thy private good is related at once to thyself and to 
 the all, according to the laws of universal exist- 
 ence." 2 To a mind animated with such views of 
 Deity, of course the problem of evil must have pre- 
 sented itself as a knotty subject of speculation. 
 There is abundant evidence, in the dialogues, that 
 it troubled Plato exceedingly, and that he grappled 
 with it often, anxious to obtain a- clear solution. 
 His explanations of it are various ; many of them 
 visionary (such for instance as the myth of " the 
 Statesman,") and destitute, doubtless, even to his 
 own mind, of scientific value. But he always clung 
 with invincible tenacity to the entire freedom of the 
 human will. He is ultra, uncompromising on this 
 point ; and in no dialogue has he, to our knowledge, 
 attempted to show the consistency of this entire 
 freedom with a controlling Providence. It is always 
 stated in the boldest form. Plato's piety would not 
 suffer the character of Deity to be implicated for a 
 
 moment with the question of evil. " God leaves to 
 
 i 
 
 1 Vol. ix., Rep., p. 113. t Vol. viii., Laws, p. 263.
 
 158 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 
 
 the disposition of our will the causes on which the 
 quality of each depends." * " Virtue has no master ; 
 it cleaves to him who honors it and abandons him 
 who rejects it. Each is responsible for his choice. 
 God is guiltless." 2 And with this responsibility was 
 connected the dignity of the soul. "No man," said 
 he, " is willingly evil." This is a fundamental and 
 continually recurring point of Platonic ethics. He 
 borrowed it from Socrates, and was faithful to it 
 throughout. 
 
 No man desires to be subject to evil. The end 
 of every volition is not the act committed ; but that 
 for the sake of which the act is committed, and this 
 in every undertaking is ultimate good. 3 In the last 
 analysis, the true and the good are one. Evil, there- 
 fore, is moral ignorance ; and since the soul is essen- 
 tially reason, it cannot voluntarily be subjected to 
 ignorance, and is not therefore voluntarily wicked. 4 
 The virtuous man is the true artist who has his 
 aim and can attain it ; and vice must be attributed, 
 not really to the will, but to lack of art. 5 The 
 only consistent theory of eternal punishment then, 
 for Plato, is eternity of sin, which is itself contra- 
 dictory to the last-mentioned view of the harmony 
 of the soul with virtue. We see, therefore, that 
 the idea of eternal punishment as depicted in the 
 Gorgias and the Phaedon, is entirely hostile to 
 Plato's declared views of God and man, and moral 
 
 1 Vol. viii., Laws, p. 265. a Vol. 10, Rep., p. 287. 
 
 8 Vol. vi., Meno. Vol. xi., Sophist. ^ 
 
 Vol. iv., The Second Hippias.
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 159 
 
 order. It is contrary to his views of God ; for he 
 must not be charged with the commission of any 
 evil, but arranges all things for the best; of man, 
 since the very essence of the soul is free causality 
 and natural harmony with good ; of moral order, 
 since to suppose that God removes from the soul 
 this freedom, or that it loses this love of good, 
 would not only violate his scheme of human nature, 
 but would destroy the very principle which solved 
 for Plato the origin of evil. Olympiodorus, one of 
 the Alexandrian commentators of Plato, takes up 
 the passage in the Gorgias which teaches eternal 
 punishment, and attempts to account for its intro- 
 duction there. " Punishment," says he, " cannot 
 be eternal ; much better to say that the soul is per- 
 ishable. An unending pain can do no good, for it 
 is useless. But God and nature do nothing in 
 vain." He accounts for the passage by contending 
 that Plato used the word eternal with reference to 
 the order of the heavenly spheres. The moral cycle 
 of the world corresponds to the motions of the 
 planets, and when the whole system shall have re- 
 turned to the same relative positions from which 
 they started with respect to each other and the sun, 
 a new period will commence. The cycle includes 
 many thousand years, and it is to this period that 
 Plato refers in his use of the term everlasting. The 
 criticism does honor to the benevolence of the com- 
 mentator, who, with all the Alexandrine school, we 
 believe, rejected the doctrine of eternal woe. 1 But 
 
 
 
 1 See the whole commentary quoted by Cousin in the notes to hia
 
 160 PLATO'S VIEWS OP IMMORTALITY. 
 
 it is entirely fanciful as a solution of the passage in 
 question, and we must fall back upon the inconsist- 
 ency of the tenet with Plato's ethics and theology 
 as affording reasonable proof that, like the whole 
 myth in which it occurs, it was borrowed from pop- 
 ular superstition, and was preserved, in obedience to 
 the law of artistic consistency, as an embellishment 
 to the severe moral discussion of the Gorgias. 
 
 translation of Plato, vol. iii., Gorgias.- We cannot help contrasting this 
 view of the ancient philosopher with the glee which inspires a modern 
 Christian critic Dr. Tayler Lewis in detailing the facts of Plato's 
 myths. He seems quite delighted with the aid which Plate brings to 
 his theology, and more than once forces him into the field against " mod- 
 ern semi-infidels and neologists." We doubt -whether Plato would be 
 elated with the honor of a doctorate in Calvinistic divinity ; at any 
 rate, when modern orthodoxy shall become Platonic, Christianity will 
 have occasion to rejoice over her freedom from many n theological 
 excrescence; and the world of woe, at least, may expect to be visited 
 and cheered by some Tays of mercy from the throne of Love. Dr. 
 Lewis's admiration seems almost equally divided between Plato and the 
 Bible. He defends some of Plato's wildest flights of fancy by the letter 
 of Scripture, as in the case of tho animation of the heuvenly bodies. 
 Plato at times seems to imagine that the planets had souls and are intel- 
 ligent beings, which Dr. Lewis considers a very plausible idea, and seeks 
 to defend from the Old Testament. " The Bible teaches us," says he, 
 ' that even the ordinary courses of physical events are tinder the con- 
 trolling agency of angelic beings. 'He maketh his angels winds, his 
 ministers a flaming fire. Why not an angel of the sun, of the moon, 
 and of each planet? Was it simply a sublime personification, when it 
 was said, He bringeth out their host by number, he calleth them all by their 
 name f or when we are told that, at the creation of our earth, THE 
 STARS OF THE MORNING sang together, and all the sons of God shouted 
 for joy?" And yet with all Plato's orthodoxy, Dr. Lewis's mind seems 
 not entirely at ease upon the question of his salvation. Could he trace 
 anything of the doctrine of the atonement " in the lives or writings of 
 Plato and Socrates," he should " indulge more hope of their salvation 
 from it than from any of those moral lessons truly beautiful and sub- 
 lime as they are which have been left to us in their immortal dia-
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 161 
 
 It may easily be seen, from the rapid survey we 
 have taken of Plato's passages on immortality, that 
 the task of criticism is no pastime. And so far as 
 results in plain black and white, in dogmatic sen- 
 tences, are concerned, it certainly is unsatisfactory. 
 " Myths," says Cousin, " can never b'e translated." 
 It is almost impossible to convey by analysis the 
 fresh impressions produced by the perusal of an 
 author like Plato. He is an artist. In his dia- 
 logues, as in his mind, tlie philosophic and the 
 poetic, the beautiful and true, unite and blend. 
 No 'author is less likely to be appreciated, or more 
 likely to be misunderstood by a cold, severe, and 
 unimaginative thinker. He must be read by an 
 eye that can look beneath the words ; he must be 
 criticised by a spirit hi sympathy with the author's 
 aim, and which can resign itself to the influence 
 of the dialogues, often trusting to feeling as its 
 guide, rather than to a microscopic analysis of sen- 
 tences. Such a mind, while from the diversity of 
 the materials, and the various poetic developments 
 of the thought, it feels the difficulty of stating with 
 precision the form of Plato's views, will rise from 
 the study of them impressed with their power and 
 elevated by their purity. It will no more impute 
 to Plato the literal views developed in many of his 
 gorgeous philosophic poems, than it would judge 
 the theology of Phidias by his head of Jove, or the 
 faith of Goethe by his picture of Mephistophiles. 
 The results to which a criticism fitted to disen- 
 tangle the Platonic dialogues would arrive, as to 
 11
 
 162 PLATO'S .VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 their doctrine of immortality, would be immeasu- 
 rably more accurate, we believe, as they would be 
 more noble than could be developed by any textual 
 harmony. It would grant that concerning every- 
 thing coimected with the soul and man's spiritual 
 nature, Platonism is vastly superior to any other 
 form of ancient, we may almost add, even of mod- 
 ern speculation. For Plato never faltered in his 
 spiritual view of man. The superior principle and 
 governing agency of the universe was one infinite, 
 controlling Mind, entirely independent of material 
 forms. And so the spirit in man, with him, was 
 superior to its fleshly envelope, an indivisible, eter- 
 nally subsisting entity. The proofs brought to estab- 
 lish this point may seem futile to modern logic ; but 
 the moral end and aim of existence, the relation of 
 the soul to duty and the moral law, everywhere 
 implied in Plato's system, compel us to rank it 
 next to, though far enough removed from, the 
 ethics of the gospel. Plato keeps the soul ever in 
 the light of eternity. His theory of life is based 
 upon a consciousness of the enduring nature of the 
 spirit and its nearer relation-, in its disembodied 
 state, to eternal justice, the discipline and retribu- 
 tion of impartial wisdom. The limit which divides 
 the abstract theology of Platonism from the ab- 
 stract theology of Christianity is the boundary line 
 which separates the intellectual principle of justice 
 from the higher quality of love. 
 
 Looking about in modern times for some man 
 with whose views to compare Plato's theories of the
 
 PLATO'S VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY. 163 
 
 future state, we should say that it has a nearer 
 affinity with the speculations of Swedenborg than 
 with those of any other thinker ; inasmuch as the 
 central idea of most of the Platonic myths would 
 seem to be that the soul creates its own objective 
 ^circumstances according to its inner character, 
 with the difference, however, that, with Sweden- 
 borg, the condition of the soul in future life is 
 fixed and final from the beginning, while with 
 Plato there is a constant development of life, the 
 successive cycles of its discipline promising at last 
 to restore the soul to good. The man who reads 
 Plato, expecting to find logical arguments for im- 
 mortality, applicable to the present state of science, 
 will certainly be disappointed. There is no danger 
 that the Christian will be anxious to exchange the 
 grounds of his belief for the supports, of philosophy 
 alone. Still, no man can become thoroughly im- 
 bued with the spirit of Plato's views, without being 
 better able to appreciate the simplicity and purity 
 of the gospel ; and it is a valuable and inspiring 
 truth which Platonism sufficiently reveals, that the 
 human mind, in proportion as it becomes more 
 spiritual, and learns to live within itself, feels a 
 witness of its dignity and destiny, and is elevated 
 to a sense of certainty as to its enduring life, which 
 logic, though it may not be able satisfactorily to' 
 establish, is utterly unable to weaken or remove.
 
 VI. 
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 
 
 I 
 
 ST. PAUL has said, " The things which are seen 
 are temporal ; but the things which are not seen 
 are eternal." And, apart from, the special reference 
 of the passage to the superior stability bf spiritual 
 interests and treasures, a consideration of it may 
 lead us to alter our general estimate of what is 
 truly transitory and what permanent in life. It 
 represents the relations between spirit and matter, 
 between the ideal and impalpable, and the gross and 
 sensual ; between thought and things. 
 
 The common philosophy of the world ascribes 
 true permanence and substantial persistence to the 
 objects of our senses, to the whole outward universe, 
 to what we see, hear, and feel. Thoughts, senti- 
 ments, perceptions of right and beauty and truth, 
 the soul and affections, systems of philosophy, liter- 
 atures, views of religion ; these are abstractions, 
 they are fleeting and variable ; they are ghostly, 
 speculative, unreal; while houses and estates, the 
 stomach and brain, armies and money, the visible 
 deeds of men, and whatever we can discover of the 
 world by the aid of our eyes and our instruments ; 
 these are impregnable /ac/s, about which there can 
 
 164
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 165 
 
 be no mistake, stubborn and solid as the stones that 
 pave the streets. A piece of rock in the hand is 
 felt by any one to be a poetty substantial thing ; to 
 institute a comparison between it and a perception 
 of truth and beauty, as to real power and durability, 
 would be taken by a majority of people as an evi- 
 dence of insanity. 
 
 Without denying now the correctness of this es- 
 timate of material nature, and the sensual side of 
 life, we affirm that it is not so real, so substantial, 
 in the highest sense, as the realm of thoughts and 
 feelings and abstract principles. For, when we 
 study rightly, we shall see that all outward and 
 material nature, and all the facts and appearances 
 of life, are but the manifestations and forms through 
 which hidden, subtile, abstract thoughts and forces 
 are revealed. We must not think to determine true 
 reality and strength by weight and measure. The 
 stream of fire that splits the oak is hardly a ponder- 
 able thing. That is the most durable and real, we 
 will all, I think, allow, which moulds and causes and 
 creates, which subjects other things to its influence, 
 and determines their character and form. Now, 
 the side of nature which seems to the senses so firm 
 and enduring is not the causal side, but only the 
 passive side, the effect the product, the transitory 
 case or shell of deep, underlying, active, permanent 
 powers. It is the veil of a more delicate, refined, 
 but greater presence, the obedient body of a subtile, 
 indwelling soul. What we see is temporal ; it is
 
 166 THOUGHT 'AND THINGS. 
 
 the unseen always that possesses the essential life, 
 and is permanent and eternal. 
 
 The subject may be illustrated on the broadest 
 scale by reference to the outward universe itself as 
 presented to us by modern astronomy. How sub- 
 blime is the spectacle revealed to the imagination 
 by the physical glories with which space is filled ! 
 I will not attempt to convey, by words, a picture of 
 the magnificence of the visible universe. The effort 
 would be futile. And yet the whole scene is only 
 the picture of ideas, the imagery of thought, the 
 hieroglyphic record of the art and meditation of the 
 Deity. There is not a planet that wheels a tiny 
 circle around its controlling flame ; not a sun that 
 sheds its steady radiance upon the dark depths of 
 neighboring space ; not a comet that rushes through 
 its eccentric track ; not a constellation among all 
 that burn like fantastic chandeliers upon the dome 
 of heaven ; not a firmament that hangs like a rag- 
 ged fringe of light upon the confines of infinity, that 
 is not merely the visible statement of a conception 
 or wish which dwells in the mind of God, from 
 which it was born, and to which alone it owes its 
 present' form and being. It was the thought of the 
 Almighty that first gave meaning to universal chaos. 
 Darkness hung over the deep of things till the spirit 
 of God moved over it, and infused its essence into 
 nature ; and it was in answer to the silent will of 
 the Invisible, that light burst like a wave of glory 
 over an orderly creation. 
 
 Science impresses deeply on the student the les-
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 167 
 
 son that there is a causal force, a stability in the 
 ideal world, of which the material is only the tran- 
 sitory show. The curves and circles and ellipses, 
 which the planets cut in space are the geometry of 
 God. The oscillations which at times disturb and 
 threaten to destroy the stellar harmonies, reveal the 
 intricate method of eternal order, when we see them 
 compensating each other and mutually controlled 
 into the most stable concord. The chemic, electric, 
 magnetic forces that preserve the universe in con- 
 stant activity and sustain its life, are nothing else 
 than the immediate agency of the spirit that is 
 hidden in its frame. Take these away from our 
 conceptions of the outward world, and what would 
 be left? The sensualist feels the ground to be 
 solid beneath his feet, and calls that substantial. 
 And yet we tread only on a subtile, invisible force. 
 What is it that makes the earth compact, and binds 
 the hardest rock into its firm consistence ? Noth- 
 ing but the forces of cohesion and gravitation. 
 Withdraw these from matter and instantly it be- 
 comes a mist of finest sand ; it crumbles and dissi- 
 pates into motes smaller than an animalcule's eye, 
 it flies off into nothing. And these laws and powers 
 are God's will and thoughts ; we tread on abstract 
 principles. It is overwhelming, the revelation which 
 modern science gives of the impalpable and spiritual 
 forces that underlie, surround, and enclose us all. 
 Strike the ideal element from nature and the whole 
 frame of things would dissolve and die. The golden- 
 fretted roof of night was stretched by an omnipo-
 
 168 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 
 
 tent thought ; the suns are but points and lines of 
 splendid diagrams ; the planets, beads rolled in the 
 grooves of law ; the beauty of nature, which so 
 . haunts and inspires the poet's soul, is the struggling 
 of matter with a hidden meaning which will rise in 
 subtile exhalations from its bonds ; the solidity of 
 matter is the continuance of a divine resolution. 
 Everything we touch or see is but the shape and 
 color of a mental force that lies behind. Let the 
 pleasure of the Almighty or his thought change, 
 and the universe will instantly, and by necessary 
 response, change its order, hue, and form. The 
 things which are seen are merely the temporal, 
 accidental manifestations of secret, intellectual 
 powers, which are unseen but eternal. 
 Shelley has finely said, 
 
 " Earth and ocean, 
 
 Space, and the isles of life and light that gem 
 The sapphire floods of interstellar air, 
 This firmament, pavilioned upon chaos, 
 With all its cressets of immortal fire, 
 With all the silent or tempestuous workings 
 By which they have been, are, or cease to" be, 
 Is but a vision ; 
 
 Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor less 
 The future and the past are idle shadows 
 Of Thought's eternal flight they have no being; 
 Nought is but that it feels itself to be." 
 
 And so in outward nature there is but one sub- 
 stance, God, a spiritual force of which all ap- 
 parent being is the emanation and form. 
 
 And history also reveals the same law ; the work- 
 ing and persistence of ideas and spiritual principles
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 169 
 
 behind the outward facts wliich strike the eye. If 
 we look behind us, upon the nations that have oc- 
 cupied and ruled the world, we shall learn how im- 
 potent are all the material implements and appli- 
 ances of strength, if there be not a groundwork of 
 right and ideal power as the support of greatness. 
 The fortunes of the chief nations of the past seem 
 like camera shadows thrown upon the mists of time, 
 chasing each other rapidly across the scene, and 
 melting at last into the dark. Nineveh, Babylon, 
 Persia, Meroe, Egypt, Macedon, none of these ob- 
 tained a rooted being. In history, they appear like 
 a dream. As we read their annals under the light 
 of a chronology in which the philosophy of history 
 must always be studied, and in which centuries are 
 the hours of a providential cycle, they all ' come 
 like shadows, so depart.' Physical power they 
 had, impregnable cities, splendid palaces, countless 
 weajth, powerful armies, and yet there were no 
 elements of permanence and firmness. They were 
 only massive forts thrown up in nature, but ungar- 
 risoned by ideas, which the elements played with as 
 they would. They had no hidden moral and men- 
 tal life, no abstract existence that dwelt in them 
 like a guiding soul. Not that they were generated 
 by accident, without a cause ; but, like gigantic 
 mushrooms, they were animated only by a feeble, 
 feverish, quickly-expended life, and therefore sprang 
 up full-formed in a night, to perish in a night. The 
 solemn political lesson to which history points us, 
 written on the tombstones of kingdoms that are
 
 170 THOCGHT AND THINGS. 
 
 buried in the sands of time, declares that truth, 
 courage, genius, integrity, temperance, self-denial, 
 all intangible, spiritual, unseen elements, are the 
 only bonds arid bulwarks of nations. Where these 
 fail in the mightiest physical monarchy, it is like 
 severing the living, fibrous sap-roots of a giant tree, 
 and drying the sap within its bark. A blight will 
 fall upon it. The process of decay will rapidly go 
 on. Its leaves look sickly, its branches shrink and 
 wither. It can no longer wrestle proudly with the 
 storm. A passive subsistence is all that remains, 
 and it depends only on the pleasure of God whether 
 it shall fall, crashing before the angry blast, and 
 uprooted from the soil of time, or rot and moulder 
 into oblivion by the more silent and terrible visita- 
 tion of the worm. It is not by wealth, or walls, or 
 muscles, that a nation can intrench itself securely, 
 but by enterprise devoted to some mental and mor- 
 al culture, by free absorption of the unseen, spirit- 
 ual elements of health and vigor. It is not the area 
 of political freedom, but the spirit of moral freedom 
 on which a state can build secure. History preach- 
 es continually to understanding ears the phrase, 
 " the things that are seen are temporal and transi- 
 tory ; it is the ideal and unseen that endures." 
 
 Do we need a more impressive revelation of the 
 fact that truth and thought alone are permanent, 
 than the bare conception of the fortune of the beings 
 that have inhabited this globe ? A thousand mill- 
 ions of intelligent forms now people our planet, 
 with busy hands and scheming brains. -While we,
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 171 
 
 
 
 too, are active on the scene, life seems something 
 quite secure ; we do not realize how busy is the 
 scythe of death. Every fifty or sixty years, like a 
 vast array of ghosts, they flit, these myriads, over 
 the stage of life, almost with an audible wail over 
 their unsubstantial vanity, and vanish, we know not 
 where. How few from among this spectral array 
 of our fellows, leave any record of their being to 
 remain in the memory of the world ? And who 
 are those few ? Not the wealthy, the haughty, the 
 despots who ruled by force. Scarce one of these, ex- 
 cept it be for the scorn and execration of posterity. 
 Those who pass away to leave behind an earthly 
 immortality, are they who brought into the world 
 more of the enduring elements of spiritual power. 
 A Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Burns, poor, un- 
 titled, and obscure, sends forth from a spirit fine- 
 ly organized, a thrill of melody, sweet, sad, or cheer- 
 ing, in response to the experience that has swept 
 over his heart, and the bodiless tone goes down the 
 ages when the creative soul has fled, rising above 
 the noise of wars, the crash of falling empires, and 
 the harsh discord of a conqueror's fame. From the 
 mind of a David or Isaiah gushes a lyric psalm or 
 gorgeous prophecy of good ; and those die not, 
 though all traces of the Hebrew state, and the rich 
 pomp of the ceremonial worship, the grand temple 
 structure, and the millions who bowed within its 
 courts, have gone into a common grave. RafFaelle 
 and Angelo, during their earthly stay, caught gleams 
 of a more than earthly beauty, and left slight sketch-
 
 172 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 
 
 , . 
 
 es of it in color or in stone ; Mozart and Beethoven, 
 with finer ears, reported symphonies which had 
 never before been published in this grosser world ; 
 Bacon and Newton pointed to the method, and shed 
 over the race the radiance of higher and sublimer 
 truth ; Washington and Howard yielded their hearts 
 to the guidance of perfect principle and holy love ; 
 and thus out of the thousands of myriads of spirits 
 that are driven across the stage of being like snow- 
 flakes before the storm, some half a score from every 
 century endure because they have caught the ele- 
 ments of permanence from the ideal forces of nature 
 into which they had baptized their souls. 
 
 We may draw some useful instruction from his- 
 tory also, concerning the greater stability of thought 
 compared with things, by observing how the inward 
 life of every people its ideas and aspirations 
 reveal themselves in its outward institutions, and 
 create its outward institutions. Precisely as the 
 thought of God expresses itself in the order of na- 
 ture, in the harmonies of space, and the plan and 
 parts of the material universe, does the genius of a 
 nation reveal itself in its government, its laws, its 
 schemes of conquest, its poetry, its religion, its art. 
 
 " And what if Trade sow cities 
 Like shells along the shore, 
 And thatch with towns the prairie broad, 
 With railways ironed o'er? 
 They are but sailing foam-bells 
 Along Thought's causing stream, 
 And take their shape and sun-color 
 From him that sendsthe dream."
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 173 
 
 The institutions of no two nations are the same, 
 because the intellectual structure and the prominent 
 ideas of no two nations are the same. When the 
 historian observes the outward complexion and 
 forms of life of different kingdoms so unlike as Hin- 
 dostan and France, China and England, Greece and 
 Persia, he knows that it is not by accident, but by 
 necessity ; he sees that the superficial dissimilarity 
 is but the sign of a difference in the moral life and 
 spiritual structure of the people, and he seeks to 
 know the habits, feelings, religion, aims of the na- 
 tion ; because then only can he understand its true, 
 essential character. These visible forms are but the 
 casing of ideas, the fibrous wood and bark that en- 
 close the living organic currents that flow within, 
 and from which the case is generated. " The things 
 which are seen are temporal." It is from the in- 
 tangible, permanent, ideal elements that the out- 
 ward appearances are born. 
 
 I have often, in standing upon one of the bridges 
 that connect the city of my residence with the me- 
 tropolis of Massachusetts, and while reflecting Upon 
 the scene there presented to the eye, felt the force 
 of the motto which was written by Paul. A little 
 more than two centuries ago, no foot of any repre- 
 sentative of the present possessors of the soil had 
 trod the surrounding shores. The river flowed in a 
 beautiful, broad current to the sea, unbroken, except 
 by the sea-bird's wing, or the swift, noiseless motion 
 of the picturesque canoe. The stillness of prime- 
 val nature rested in benediction over the scene.
 
 174 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 
 
 Year after year the morning dawned upon a mo- 
 notonous landscape, while the setting sun gilded 
 the smoke that rose from humble cabins, and the 
 deepening twilight gave a sombre gloom to groves 
 and forests that enclosed the homes of the simple, 
 unaspiring, dusky tenants of the soil. They were 
 content, and nature remained undisturbed. And 
 so it would have remained . forever ; but another 
 people, with a deeper, more creative inward life, 
 are directed to its shores ; and the powerless 
 natives melt in their path, quickly trodden down 
 into forgotten graves. And now see how a magic 
 ideal wand changes the whole aspect of the picture ! 
 Before their strong ideas, the forests fall as if swept 
 away by a resistless flame. Institution after insti- 
 tution springs up amid the solitudes, to answer an 
 inward want in the new dwellers' breasts. Their 
 emotions of worship dot the scene with temples, each 
 consecrated to some slight difference in the ideas of 
 God and Heaven ; the river is bridged by their skill ; 
 their enterprise lines the shores with masts, and 
 whitens the water with sails that are to take the 
 breezes of every sea ; from one summit looks down 
 the dome that represents their justice, government, 
 and law ; from the blood-stained soil of another 
 shoots the shaft that bears witness to their patriotism 
 and heroic valor ; on a third is set the shrine of 
 learning, where the principles of freedom may be 
 perpetuated in cultivated minds ; where the deer 
 roamed undisturbed, the university springs forth in 
 obedience to an intellectual call ; towns grow popu-
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 175 
 
 lous along the track of the steam-car, the splendid 
 triumph of their restless, cunning labor ; and from 
 a thousand points arise the structures that proclaim 
 the existence of refinement, health, luxury, and an 
 ever-active Christian love. What an organic revela- 
 tion is such a panorama presented every day to the 
 dwellers in American cities, teaching the causal 
 power and creative energy of ideas, and feelings, 
 and faith, and aspiration. These are the permanent 
 forces of being, the substantial base of things. All 
 history has been pliant to their moulding, leavening 
 power. They work in the centre of empires ; they 
 heave up the embankments of social and political 
 existence ; often they shake, with a sudden earth- 
 quake throe, the rotten thrones of kings and the hol- 
 low pillars of licentious palaces into ruin ; and at 
 times, when the pressure of force and fraud and 
 falsehood becomes too desperate, they burst through 
 some yawning revolution, rend all the strata of con- 
 ventional resistance, and send forth a volcanic, fiery 
 stream to overwhelm the obstacles which have too 
 long restrained their natural and peaceful play. 
 
 The eternal, permanent side of nature is always 
 unseen ; all force is spiritual ; causal, creative, en- 
 during power resides only in abstract things : in 
 truth, virtue, emotions, thought. When we would 
 prophesy in relation to the prosperity or downfall of 
 a kingdom, our calculation is always founded on the 
 moral and intellectual vigor that is in it. This, 
 rightly directed, will hold it up ; when this begins 
 to fail, we know that the nation begins to die.
 
 176 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 
 
 Our whole civilization, too, is nothing but a net- 
 work of invisible, spiritual, but most potent bonds 
 which preserve society from anarchy. The power of 
 law, what is it but the respect for law? Sturdy 
 patriotism, what is it but personal love of free- 
 dom? Refinement of manners, what is it but a 
 practical feeling of the beauty of courtesy and the 
 dignity of man ? Social order is built on these sub- 
 tile elements. Should they fail, civilization itself 
 would crumble. 
 
 The process of reform, also, is nothing but an ex- 
 pulsion of degrading sentiments by the infusion of 
 a purer spirit. If the philanthropist would stifle in- 
 temperance, he must plainly inspire the popular 
 heart with a nobler self-denial, or an affection f<5r a 
 higher than sensual gratification. He labors to 
 smother wars. Could an entire reverence for the 
 Christian law of life possess the hearts of rulers, 
 armies might be disbanded, and navies used for com- 
 merce. He struggles against the horrible enormity 
 of slavery. If a divine miracle could but infuse a 
 proper sense of justice, a hearty recognition of the 
 fact of brotherhood into the South to day, to-mor- 
 row's sun would not set upon a single bondman. 
 
 Wherever a higher idea, a worthier principle goes 
 forth, it goes to renovate and conquer and reform. 
 And all those events and epochs of time that are con- 
 nected with the birth and development of a greater 
 truth, are the important epochs, the immortal events. 
 The salient vital periods in history have not been 
 the times of widest tumult, the wars of Napoleon,
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 177 
 
 the crusades, the great political storms, and social 
 convulsions, and temporary anarchy. It is astonish- 
 ing how soon, when no great principle is involved in 
 them, when it is mere brute struggle, these pass 
 away without a trace from history, and leave the 
 surface calm again. 
 
 Great epochs begin with the birth of a new truth, 
 with a new discovery, with the development of a 
 higher character. When the idea of the printing- 
 press dawns on a mechanic's mind ; when Columbus 
 fancies the round shape of the globe ; when Luther 
 utters an impregnable principle ; then the fortunes 
 of the race are gently turned into a different channel 
 by the mild pressure of necessity. 
 
 It is the great conceptions of noiseless birth, not 
 the rearing effervescence, that change the face of 
 things. " The meek, silent light can mould, create, 
 and purify all nature ; but the loud whirlwind, the 
 sign and product of disunion, of weakness, passes 
 on and is forgotten." 
 
 The most notable period of the ages was that when 
 a Galilean peasant utteretl by the way-side, and in 
 humble homes, to artless listeners, to dull disciples 
 and wondering ears, his simple, winning thoughts. 
 He trusted his words to the air, to the memory of 
 his hearers, to the providence of God. He knew 
 they would not die. Tliey were feeble sounds, 
 articulated in a decaying language, but in no fact 
 seems his spirit greater than in his serene confidence 
 that they could not die. " Heaven and earth," said 
 he, " shall pass away, but my words shall not pass 
 12
 
 178 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 
 
 away." What a calm statement is this of the supe- 
 rior permanence of a fleeting thought, if it be a truth, 
 over all material nature. No, they have not passed 
 away. They are still stronger than all the resistance 
 of the world. They are the chart of life, the cement 
 of society, the pillars of our welfare, the hope of the 
 race. 
 
 If we study life aright, we shall never sneer at 
 abstractions at speculative or ideal principles 
 as visionary and unreal. If they are false, they are 
 unsubstantial as the coruscations in the northern 
 sky. If true, they are permanent, omnipotent as 
 God. " Solid as a rock," is a common proverb 
 among men ; a more expressive sentiment would 
 be " solid as truth," " impregnable as principle," 
 " resistless as right." 
 
 These thoughts are religious teachers. If it is 
 ideal and mental forces only that are permanent, 
 then the spirit within us, when rightly educated, is 
 the most substantial fact in nature. If rightly 
 educated, for the lesson which our subject teaches is, 
 that there is just so muclt substance to us as there is 
 truth, virtue, spiritual life within. The soul is ideal; 
 all there is of us is ideal. A man may have as much 
 soul as he pleases. By culture and discipline it will 
 grow as the muscles harden and the flesh grows firm 
 by healthful food and exercise. And Justin propor- 
 tion as he believes in the permanence of ideal things, 
 and endeavors to build an inward temple of them, 
 does he become a solid fact, a stubborn something 
 among these transitory shadows. If he neglects this
 
 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 179 
 
 work he is a ghost, an airy apparition, long before 
 he dies. The world is filled with these spectral men, 
 with lean, lank, hazy spirits, which have become thin 
 and unsubstantial by neglect. We see it in the 
 common aims of life, in the kind of ambition that 
 fires the popular heant, in the temper of the market, 
 the etiquette of the exchange, and the morality of 
 the crowd and the Congress hall. The all-engross- 
 ing care of the body, the absorbing desire of wealth, 
 the craving for a life of easy and superficial show, 
 the sensualism entrenched behind every phase of 
 society, betray the fact that we are animated bodies 
 only, that we have little faith in the greatness of in- 
 ward sentiments, in the wealth of cultivated affec- 
 tions, in the bliss of devotion and self-sacrifice. 
 
 Men feel and know that pain is a fact, although 
 it is unseen ; they need to learn that peace of mind 
 is a fact, and comes by a well-ordered soul ; that 
 reverence is a fact, and brings us near to God ; that 
 elevated sentiment is a fact, and raises us into a 
 higher society than earth ; that sober faith is a fact, 
 and gilds the horizon of our being with a heavenly 
 glory. In the absence of this faith we read the 
 barrenness of soul there is in the world. 
 
 We read it too hi the prevailing, lurking, practical 
 scepticism in immortality, a scepticism that " haunts 
 with fiend-like stare the uplifted eye of faith and 
 love." I do not wonder at this scepticism. The 
 body weighs us. down ; we are contented prisoners in 
 it ; we forget our native realm, and so easily believe 
 that the grave is the goal.
 
 180 THOUGHT AND THINGS. 
 
 Every argument for immortality that can be 
 brought is of little avail ; even the resurrection of 
 Christ is a wonderful story merely, to a thorough 
 sensualist whose aspirations have never reached be- 
 yond pleasure and the present, whose meditations, 
 sent forth like doves from the floating ark of life, 
 have never brought back a green and budding prom- 
 ise of that solid land. To feel a conviction of im- 
 mortality we must live for it. Let any one firmly 
 believe that the soul is permanent, and live from 
 that belief, and soon existence will seem permanent 
 too ; the world becomes the veil of a brighter glory 
 that lies behind it ; the condemnation of unbelief is 
 lifted off, since the mind, conscious of its own rooted 
 being, does not wait for immortality, " but is passed 
 from death unto life."
 
 VII. 
 TRUE GREATNESS. 
 
 IT is recorded by Matthew that the disciples 
 once went to Jesus with the question, " Who is 
 the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven ? " and to- 
 day the world needs to be enlightened in regard to- 
 the elements of true greatness. Greatness may be 
 predicated of mental or moral qualities. A man 
 may be great because of natural abilities, or on ac- 
 count of vast acquirements. There is the greatness 
 of gifts, and of energy ; of splendid genius, and of 
 ardent faithfulness. 
 
 If we ask who is the greatest as & poet, one an- 
 swer will be appropriate ! It is he who has easiest 
 access to the richest treasures of imagination, whose 
 perception of beauty is keen, and who knows how 
 to entrance the human heart by the magic of his 
 creations, and the music of his lines. Do we in- 
 quire who is greatest as a preacher ? The defi- 
 nition should be, he who can enlighten most clearly 
 the minds of men in regard to duty, thrill them 
 with a conviction of responsibility, and draw them 
 by the sweetest persuasion to the love of God and 
 to purity of life. Would we know who is greatest 
 as a statesman ? Evidently, he whose mind is broad 
 
 181
 
 182 . TRUE GREATNESS. 
 
 enough to comprehend great interests, the struct- 
 ure of society and governments, and the precise 
 bearing of projected measures upon the welfare 
 and glory of a whole nation ; while his mental re- 
 sources, vigor of will, and suppleness of temper,- 
 are equal to the necessities, perplexities, and dan- 
 gers of any crisis in the State. Who is greatest as 
 a farmer ? He who has complete mastery over the 
 tractable elements of nature. Who as a mechanic ? 
 The man of most cunning brain and responsive 
 hand. 
 
 But these are only fragmentary answers to the 
 question we are considering. We do not ask who 
 is chief or preeminent among different kinds of 
 men, but, who is the greatest man,? What is cen- 
 tral or total greatness of soul? The answer, of 
 course, depends upon the standard which rules our 
 judgment. 
 
 There is the. world's standard, which has always 
 been partial. Its test has been power, influence, 
 splendid abilities, worldly success. It has judged 
 the claims and capacities of men by the mental 
 qualities they possess, and the force of these quali- 
 ties has been gauged by the outward and dazzling 
 results which they have wrought, without any ref- 
 erence to the inward mastery of those qualities, 
 and their stern subordination to a noble aim. 
 
 Strictly speaking, the world has never had any 
 idea, or complete ideal, of a great man. Its only 
 estimate of greatness is the possession of conspic- 
 uous qualities. Its great men have been great in-
 
 TEUE GEEATNESS. * 183 
 
 struinents merely, and their relative rank has been 
 determined by their comparative efficiency for cer- 
 tain visible ends. If a person exhibits some one 
 quality in sufficient brilliancy to throw that qual- 
 ity of others in the shade, the world immediately 
 awards the palm of greatness. In its vocabulary 
 the term great is merely the equivalent of noticea- 
 ble. Hence the heroes of the world are the most 
 remarkable warriors, artists, poets, statesmen, law- 
 yers, etc., those who can most easily win a battle, 
 carve a statue, write a drama, control a kingdom, 
 and save a desperate cause. Now this is just the 
 method to gauge the force and degree of special 
 qualities, and therefore, the list and rank of the 
 chief poets, warriors, scholars, etc., of the world 
 need little revision. But there is a vast difference 
 between a conspicuous quality and a great man. 
 Alexander was an organized military quality, but 
 he was not a great man. Byron was a brilliant 
 poetic faculty, but not a great man. Lord Bacon 
 was a consummate intellectual energy, but not a 
 great man. 
 
 We cannot construct a complete definition of 
 greatness without including a moral and spiritual 
 element. The chief characteristic of man is, that 
 he has a soul, and possesses privileges and incurs 
 responsibilities by reason of this endowment. And 
 if the soul be the distinguishing trait of manhood, 
 the exercise of the privileges and recognition of the 
 responsibilities which this trait imposes and bestows 
 must be at least one part, if not the chief part, of
 
 184 TRUE 'GREATNESS. 
 
 the constitution of true manliness. To leave these 
 out of the estimate is to slight the noblest gift and 
 function of humanity, in a description of humanity 
 in its highest form. The comprehensive definition 
 of greatness should be, the highest exercise of all 
 our powers in their true order and harmony. , He 
 is the greatest man who is most of a man, and 
 he is the most of a man who faithfully cultivates in 
 due proportion all the distinctive qualities and force 
 of his being. A great man, therefore, is not one 
 prodigious element, which acts as a single instru- 
 ment, but a concordant congress of powers, all 
 working with a composite unity to a noble end. 
 And so we must look in at his hidden life, as well 
 as outward at his special work, to test the merits of 
 a man. 
 
 It is an indispensable requisite to true and total 
 greatness, then, that a clear and accurate perception 
 of the real aim of life be present to the mind, and 
 that all the faculties bend steadily and strongly to 
 the attainment of it. And here a religious element 
 is directly involved. For it is the province of relig- 
 ion to introduce a supreme, disposing element into 
 the heart. Greatness as a man is impossible till 
 this supreme principle is recognized as an idea, 
 and when it has been recognized, greatness is impos- 
 sible till whatever genius or talent or endowment 
 we have obeys it, and becomes its minister. " The 
 faculties and affections of the single mind are no 
 democracy of principles, each of which in the de- 
 terminations of the will is to have equal suffrage
 
 TRUE GBEATNESS. 185 
 
 with the rest, but an orderly series, in which every 
 member has a right divine over that below." 
 " Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that 
 taketh a city." The great man's soul is a " realm 
 of order." The will drives all the faculties in har- 
 ness towards a changeless -goal. He rules, and is 
 not ruled by his genius. The whole man will not 
 be a mere lever to work some peculiar quality. If 
 he feels the ability to be artist, poet, statesman, 
 scholar, he will not let his special ability run away 
 with him, and present itself as the whole business 
 of life, nor exhaust the energies of his nature, but 
 will keep it in strict subjection and easy service to 
 the supreme end. Relatively to each other, those 
 men seem great who dazzle the sight, and attract 
 most notice. Content with seeing the glare, we do 
 not think to inquire how strong and productive is 
 their dominion over their gifts, and how proportion- 
 able is the development of their being. We are all 
 only partially developed, and can hardly appreciate 
 wholeness of manhood, and so he who is most brill- 
 iantly partial carries the day. But in the view of 
 God, before whose infinite reason the distinctions 
 of mere human genius are of no account, greatness 
 is measured by a proper standard, and means the 
 dedication of the whole nature to the service of 
 right, and the harmonious labor of all the powers 
 to make that service valuable. The men whom 
 this test brings out from the background of human 
 life, form the class of great men of the world, be- 
 cause there is most of merit and most of man in
 
 186 TRUE GREATNESS. 
 
 them. He who is preeminent in this class, is " the 
 greatest of the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 It may be objected that, by the definition we have 
 given, greatness is reduced to mere goodness, since 
 genius, brilliant properties, and strong powers are 
 left entirely out of the account. If it were so, the 
 definition would be fatally partial. What we wish 
 to establish is, that greatness is something distinct 
 from mere brilliancy and power, and embraces the 
 idea of inward self-rule, faithfulness, and spiritual 
 culture. A man may be remarkable for brilliancy, 
 and eminent for power, but if he merely displays 
 these qualities without any inward order of spiritual 
 life, an order generated by a faithful will, if his 
 eminence consists solely in the possession of these 
 qualities and their natural play; if they be not 
 constituent parts of a proportional breadth of char- 
 acter, and are not used as implements of a com- 
 manding sentiment enthroned in the soul, that 
 man is only an exaggerated faculty ; he is not truly 
 great. This is a necessary result from the principles 
 of Christianity. 
 
 But it by no means follows that all good men are 
 equally great. There is room for all differences and 
 degrees of greatness in Christianity. It puts no 
 iron rule upon human nature. It is not a levelling 
 system. It is generally supposed to be so, but it is 
 a pernicious misapprehension of the gospel to sup- 
 pose so. We often talk as though the unlearned 
 Christian, the humble and faithful widow, and the 
 exalted sage, are on the same level iu the school of
 
 TRUE GREATNESS. 187 
 
 Jesus. We must not think so. If they are equally 
 Christian, the spirit of their greatness is the same, 
 but its degree varies with the richness of their gifts. 
 " One star diflereth from another star in glory." 
 Though genius alone is not greatness, but only good 
 fortune, the greatest genius can still be the greatest 
 in Christianity, and keep its natural bent. The 
 hasty, passionate Peter, the blunt, plain-spoken 
 James, the mild and loving John, preserved their 
 individuality uninjured by their devotion to Chris- 
 tianity. One found a sphere for his impetuosity, 
 another for his calm, reflective powers, and John for 
 his serene insight and sweet meditations in the ser- 
 vice of Christ, and they were his three chosen friends. 
 Each was great; he was greatest whose genius 
 blended most beautifully with his character, and 
 who had the most genius to use in his Master's 
 cause. 
 
 Goodness can employ far-reaching thought, in- 
 tense ambition, vigorous will, and splendid abilities 
 of every kind. They are its natural allies ; it needs 
 them all. There is no reason why a great poet 
 should not be the greater, if he be a Christian, and 
 because he is a poet. He may make his taste for 
 beauty subservient to culture of character ; it may 
 become, besides refinement of perception, refinement 
 of virtue ; and his genius may not only help him to 
 appreciate the works, but to serve the will, of God. 
 It has been the curse of poets that they have wor- 
 shipped their poetic faculty, have considered it their 
 chief distinction, have been slaves to it, and suffered
 
 188 TRUE GREATNESS. 
 
 its development to be lawless and wild, if only it 
 could be brilliant. For this reason, so much of our 
 finest poetry is cold, barren, or licentious. It has 
 come imcousecrated from men who have recognized 
 no orbit to their career, who have not sought to 
 make their poetic power 'one element of a grand 
 and healthy life, who have not felt their responsibil- 
 ities for genius, and put no rein upon it, but have 
 prostituted faculties given to be the allies of heaven, 
 to the service of hell. What sight more sickening 
 or painful than splendid gifts unregulated by prin- 
 ciple, or sold to the profane and willing service of 
 iniquity. It is time that the deeper insight of the 
 world made a distinction between showy qualities 
 and greatness of soul. Let us look more for a com- 
 plete development of manhood, in those so bounte- 
 ously endowed, and not praise the beauty of the 
 mermaid's face, while we say nothing of the mon- 
 strous, disgusting shape from which it grows. Let 
 genius be tried before the full bench of human 
 faculties, for its manhood as well as its intellect. 
 Genius should be the adjective, and character the 
 noun that describes men. When Byron's brow is 
 honored with the richest wreatli as a testimony of 
 his poetic powers, let him be branded as a spiritual 
 dwarf. There is 110 reason why genius should lose 
 any of its inspiration, because it is the minister of 
 goodness and of God. Must the inventive mechanic 
 prove his skill by the construction of infernal ma- 
 chines ? Literature shall vindicate itself before the 
 moral sense when its great high priest shall come,
 
 TRUE GREATNESS. 189 
 
 he who shall disdain to seek the inspiration of in- 
 temperance, or gild the rottenness of profligacy, 
 and whose praises of virtue shall be dictated by the 
 glowing experience of his heart. Nay, has it not 
 been already shown that vast acquirements and 
 gorgeous abilities are not cramped by the control of 
 integrity, purity, and truth ? The world has seen 
 6ne spectacle of brilliant and solid powers incorpo- 
 rated into vigorous character. It was in the case 
 of Milton, who considered all his powers mortgaged 
 to the support of freedom and right, Milton, 
 whose youth was spotless, whose pen, in the full fire 
 of his fancy, never soiled a page with a licentious 
 line, whose virtue was beyond temptation, as his 
 genius was without a mate, the prime of whose 
 years was devoted to the service of his districted 
 country, and his hours of age, neglect, and blind- 
 ness given to the composition of his lofty poem, 
 and who, after a most checkered life, all spent " as 
 ever in his great Taskmaster's eye," died in poverty 
 and worldly disgrace, leaving to his country the 
 glory of his unappreciated greatness, and to poster- 
 ity the assurance, not merely of a poet and a politi- 
 cian, but of a Christian and a man. 
 
 So should it be with genius, whatever may be its 
 field. Whether the opportunity of service in public 
 life is afforded or denied, be its possessor, artist, his- 
 torian, novelist, pleader, he may rule his faculties, 
 may make them the ministers to goodness, the cause 
 of God and man, and thus earn the meed of great-
 
 190 TRUE GKEATNESS. 
 
 ness, by the self-development of his powers in their 
 proper order and natural proportion. 
 
 A statesman needs forfeit none of his reputation 
 for great abilities by being a Christian. In fact, if 
 he has ixot Christian principles, if his integrity, 
 his purity, and the establishment of the right, bo 
 not the highest aim with him, to which his abilities 
 are made to bend, he may become celebrated as an 
 insidious, wilj r politician, but he- cannot be honored 
 as a great man. If anything could justify misan- 
 thropy, it would be the spectacle of the intellectual 
 grandeur set off against the moral hollowness and 
 barrenness of life in those who have ruled the world. 
 Who can read the shameful annals of diplomacy, or 
 look in upon the trickery of council-rooms, or mark 
 the relations between the highest dignitaries of the 
 earth, or observe the under-current of private jeal- 
 ousies, malignant motives, selfish expectations, that 
 seem to guide the stream of national affairs, or gaze 
 upon the solemn foppery of courts and palaces, and 
 repress with ease the rising sneer at the meanness 
 and depravity of our kind ? If this be the height, 
 and such be the haunts, of greatness and power, 
 where virtue, honor, friendship, and the highest 
 interests of life are slighted, perilled, shipwrecked 
 for forms, ambition, pleasure, self, who can help 
 questioning whether it is right for the Almighty any 
 longer "to glut the innocent space" with so poor an 
 article as man ? This is not greatness. We abuse 
 the word when we apply it to such characters. 
 Would that we could see a Christian statesman,
 
 TRUE GREATNESS. 191 
 
 one who could feel his humility and obligations 
 rather than his human station and his gifts, and 
 who would sit in the cabinet as in the presence of- 
 conscience and God. What a display of greatness 
 would such a spectacle present ! The wide theatre 
 of his action, and the great interests with which he 
 dealt, would seem to be the natural field and proper 
 work for the exercise and grasp of such a soul. He 
 would not look like a pigmy on a tower, but, like 
 the lofty pedestal of a colossal statue, his place 
 would be the fitting setting of his powers. His judg- 
 ment would not be prepledged, nor his opinions 
 pawned to party, but with religious accuracy they 
 would be formed and swayed by right and evidence 
 alone. The mind of such a man, spurning the nar- 
 row track of ordinary legislation, and fired by the 
 generous hopes of a Christian heart, would be filled 
 with noble constructive schemes for the elevation of 
 his fellows, and a better progressive organization of 
 the social world. His sense of right could make no 
 distinction between public criminality and private 
 turpitude. The light of heaven would fall on his 
 state-papers, and make a falsehood of the pen, or a 
 trickery of phrase, as black and heinous as a false- 
 hood of speech, and a paltering in words. He would 
 shrink from war as from the encouragement of pri- 
 vate murder, and would feel that national honor 
 could never be compromised in shunning it, till it 
 became the only method of vindicating a vital prin- 
 ciple, or a present necessity of self-defenca. Pas- 
 sion, feeling, interest, would never dare profane the
 
 192 TRUE GREATNESS. 
 
 sacred shrine of conscience by their treacherous 
 counsels, but intellect, energy, ambition all the 
 resources of brain and breast would be consecrat- 
 ed to the duties of his position, the service of God 
 and man. Could not Napoleon have found free 
 scope for his Titanic powers on the field of Euro- 
 pean politics, if he had been a Christian statesman ? 
 Could he not have applied his Herculean energy to 
 the work of human melioration, and proved a genius 
 equally vast, yes, infinitely more grand, by pledging 
 his abilities to the service of right, and sweeping 
 away from Europe its rotten tyrannies only to or- 
 ganize a deeper justice and establish a healthier 
 freedorn ? Would not his work, instead of fading 
 away like the smoke of his artillery, have acquired 
 the perpetuity of truth, and his name have become 
 immortal as the giant benefactor, rather than the 
 disturber of mankind ? An approach to this ideal 
 our own country saw in the character of Washing- 
 ton, and perhaps again in the political patriarch 
 whom our own State still deplores. And wherever 
 exhibited, such is true greatness ; it is devotion of 
 vast abilities to proper ends ; it is such culture of 
 soul that total manliness, while it is aided by, yet 
 envelops and governs genius. 
 
 Let us banish the thought, then, that Christianity 
 has brought a lower standard of greatness, or has 
 banished its degrees. We must beware, too, lest 
 we enthrone some one quality, such as charity, pu- 
 rity, meekness, as the Christian measure of its exist- 
 ence in the soul. It is not a quality, but the righi
 
 TRUE GREATNESS. 193 
 
 development of thi whole nature, and its consecra- 
 tion to the holy, pure, and true. 
 
 God demands not only purity, but greatness of 
 us all. There is not a person so humble or so fee- 
 bly gifted that the call is not to him or her. If we 
 have few qualities that can influence, and but a 
 narrow sphere to fill, still we have ourselves to de- 
 velop, and ourselves to rule. We have the inward 
 realm lo put in order, so that, whatever we do, be 
 it never so humble a deed, shall be an instrument 
 to limit the evil of the world, and advance the king- 
 dom of heaven among men. And when the feel- 
 ings, thoughts, and powers of the least gifted soul 
 by private faithfulness are thus attuned to concord- 
 ant action for right and truth, the conditions of 
 greatness and the call of God are answered. And 
 then, let us not be sceptical as to our value in the 
 universe. . Such greatness will be felt. It will 
 reach some soul. It will preach to some charmed 
 auditor. In the press and throng of life, though it 
 be unassuming and obscure, virtue will go out from 
 it, as from the hem of Jesus' robe, to heal some 
 fraction of the world's disease. 
 
 13
 
 VIII. 
 
 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 
 
 THE objects of the physical world continually 
 exert indirect influences upon each other. Each 
 tree, shrub, flower, and spire of grass reacts upon 
 the quality of the air, and in that way affects other 
 trees and flowers, and thus, finally, the health of 
 animals, and of the men and women of the globe. 
 The carbonic acid with which our breathing floods 
 the atmosphere, to-morrow will be speeding north 
 and south, and striving to make the tour of., the 
 world. The date-trees that grow round the foun- 
 tains of the Nile will drink it in by their leaves ; 
 the cedars of Lebanon will take it up to add to their 
 stature ; the cocoanuts of Tahiti will grow riper 
 upon it; and the palms and bananas of Japan 
 change it into flowers. The oxygen we are now 
 breathing was, in part, distilled for us, some short 
 time ago, by the magnolias of the South, and the 
 roses and myrtles of Cashmere ; and, in part, for- 
 ests older than the flood supplied it. 
 
 Every particle of matter, by reason of the various 
 laws of mechanical and chemical influences, exerts 
 unseen and undetected influences upon other par- 
 ticles. The smallest planet, or satellite, in the solar 
 
 104
 
 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 195 
 
 system has some effect upon the orbit and motion of 
 huge Jupiter and far-distant Neptune ; and so nice 
 is the adjustment of the celestial forces, that, if 
 these indirect and humble services of the lesser 
 orbs should be lost from the mechanism, the poise 
 of the system would be disturbed, and the motions 
 that now produce such beneficent harmony, would 
 drift towards wreck and ruin. The physical order, 
 stability, and beneficence we behold, are not the 
 result of a few glaring and easily-comprehended 
 arrangements, but the products of a myriad indirect 
 contributions and intricate influences, which deep 
 and patient study discloses to the scientific mind. 
 
 In the structure of society, also, the most power- 
 ful agencies for good are indirect, afld seldom con- 
 sciously recognized. What a complex thing is that 
 which we call civilization ! Of how many delicate 
 and different influences is it compounded ! There 
 are times when we are able to see, for an instant, 
 what terrible passions smoulder in the bosom of our 
 Christian society, what savage feelings can be started 
 beneath the placid order of common life, and how 
 coarse the temper and moral sensibility of large 
 portions of our community really are. And yet 
 all this 'is generally restrained from destructive 
 fury by subtile influences which are intertwined 
 so skilfully, that the whole strength and pressure of 
 them are no more seen than we see the power and 
 momentum of the wind. The fierce elements of 
 human nature are controlled by civilization,, as a 
 lion is entrapped by a net, each line of which is
 
 196 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 
 
 but a straw in . f comparison with his strength, but 
 whose knots and meshes bind every muscle, and 
 entangle his feet, and distract his energy, so that 
 his vigor is soon exhausted, and he is no longer a 
 dangerous foe. The best government is that which 
 seems to govern least ; whose power and motives and 
 control reach us indirectly, and press upon us as 
 steadily and unconsciously as the weight of the air. 
 
 That which we call the power of conservatism in 
 society, and which gives permanence and force to all 
 institutions, to many that are bad, is an indirect 
 power. All institutions and customs have many 
 and wide relations with the feelings, habits, and 
 hearts of the people among whom they exist. They 
 throw out nil? tendrils into the soil of the senti- 
 ments, which we do not like to have disturbed. 
 And hence it is that, after the upper leaves of some 
 great institution have begun to die, and its trunk 
 has rotted, and it is seen by the sharpest eyes to be 
 a cumberer of the ground, and even after the 
 storm has madly despoiled it, and the hot bolt of 
 intellectual indignation has smitten and shivered it, 
 it will stand in some semblance of worth and 
 majesty, because of the unseen and indirect sup- 
 port that is yet afforded from the tap-roots that 
 strike down into the subsoil of feeling, and the 
 fiLres that are twisted in some corners of the social 
 heart. 
 
 So much for the broad law, and the general man- 
 ifesta^ons of it. Let us notice, next, some of the 
 indirect influences which, as individuals, we are
 
 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 197 
 
 continually receiving from society, and from our 
 companions and friends. We cannot tell how much 
 we derive in this way. A great part of what we 
 know and of what we learn of our opinions and 
 general views the tone of our judgments, etc. 
 coin.es to us and is formed through the spontaneous 
 action of our faculties upon the materials thrown in 
 our way, and the experience which the world forces 
 upon us, rather than by the deliberate reflection and 
 intentional activity of the intellect. We are but 
 slightly conscious, at the time, of the complicated 
 influences that surround us, the various motives 
 that besiege us, or impel us, and the diverse materi- 
 als that help to build up and draw out our charac- 
 ters. Society is continually acting upon us, not 
 only through our voluntary absorption, but through 
 all the pores of our spiritual nature. 
 
 Past ages have an indirect effect upon us, through 
 the institutions they have bequeathed and the gen- 
 eral spirit of the civilization they have helped to 
 form. The author of " Euthanasy " and " Mar- 
 tyria " has finely and truly said, " In my character 
 there are the effects of Paul's journey to Damascus, 
 and of the meeting of King John and the barons at 
 Rtmnymede. There is hi my soul the seriousness 
 of the many conflicts, famines, and pestilences of 
 early English times. And of my enthusiasm, some 
 of the warmth is from fiery words which my fore- 
 fathers thrilled to, in the times of the Common- 
 wealth and of the Reformation. There is in me 
 what has come of the tenderness with which moth-
 
 198 INDIKECT INFLUENCES. 
 
 ers nursed their children, ages ago; and there is 
 that in me which is holy, and which began from a 
 forty days' fast in a wilderness in Judea, now eigh- 
 teen hundred years since." Every man we meet, 
 every emergency in which we are thrown, leaves its 
 impress, slight or palpable, upon the soul. Just as 
 every particle of food we take, and every breath we 
 inhale, contributes something to the nourishment or 
 injury of the frame ; just as we are unconscious of 
 the play of the lungs, the flow of the blood, and of 
 the operation of the forces that digest and assimi- 
 late our food ; so our characters derive some ele- 
 ments for healthy or unhealthy growth from each 
 of the occasions of life ; arid all these are digested 
 and worked into our spiritual substance by forces 
 that play without our knowledge, and independent 
 on the control of our will. 
 
 The most precious parts of education are those 
 which men do not deprive from books, and which 
 they cannot tell how they acquired. Take that 
 practical wisdom which we say comes from experi- 
 ence, and how is it acquired ? or take that faculty 
 which we term a shrewd and solid common- sense, 
 and how is it developed ? Not by books, academies, 
 and the apparatus of study, so much as by inter- 
 course with society, and the training of every-day 
 life, the indirect culture and discipline which the 
 street, the exchange, the market, the church, and 
 constant communion with the many-sided world, 
 pour sideways, as it were, into the intellect and 
 heart.
 
 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 199 
 
 And looking at the subject in a more exclusively 
 religious light, how many indirect influences are 
 experienced by us in favor of virtue and Christian 
 goodness ! There is the moral law, there are the 
 abstract principles of right ; we hear them often 
 expounded and enforced, and our souls recognize 
 their truth and authority. But who can tell how 
 they are interpreted, fortified, and recommended by 
 the conduct of those who are honest, disinterested, 
 and Christian ? Who can tell how the glory and di- 
 vinity of Jesus' religion are impressed upon us, and 
 how our reverence for virtue is deepened by all that 
 we witness and hear of the beneficence, self-sacrifice, 
 purity, and devotion of the true men and women in 
 society ? or by what we see and know of the sen- 
 sual, selfish, and depraved persons with whom we 
 come in contact ? Conscience, and the moral sensi- 
 bilities, and our moral ideas are quickened, refined, 
 and confirmed, silently and unconsciously, by the 
 indirect influences of experience, full as much as by 
 conscious and self-directed efforts to train them. I 
 know not that it would not be safer to strike down 
 all the pulpits of the land, and to blot out the influ- 
 ences of the sanctuary from society, than to lose the 
 secret instruction and circuitous support which the 
 integrity of noble merchants, the charities of good 
 Samaritans, and the radiant sanctity of unques- 
 tioned saints afford, or to be deprived of the impres- 
 sive sermons, which a thousand spectacles are ever 
 printing upon our eyes, of the peril and misery of 
 the broad and slippery way. Certainly, rather than
 
 200 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 
 
 lose these, we could afford to spare all the critical 
 and philosophical defences of Christianity which the 
 libraries of the world contain. 
 
 We may sleep under the proclamation of the 
 verbal gospel ; but here is the incarnate gospel. We 
 may question the logic, and slight the preaching of 
 Sunday and the church ; but here is the preaching 
 of fact, the eloquence of week-days and of the world. 
 Men respect realities, and will not quarrel with 
 them. We cannot see good characters and bad 
 characters ; we cannot observe the beauty of virtue, 
 the peace of goodness, the nobility of integrity, and 
 contrast them with the repulsiveness of vice, the 
 meanness, of avarice, and the downward tendency of 
 unrestrained pleasure, without feeling the difference 
 in the principles they reveal, and acknowledging 
 that they are enforced by eternal sanctions, and are 
 as wide apart as heaven and hell. Thus every 
 good act preaches ; every pure and true word is a 
 sunbeam ; every Christian life is a rampart against 
 evil ; and all the virtue which is visible and mani- 
 fested among men going to make up the sum of 
 influences that undulate over the whole surface of 
 society is an indirect but powerful emphasis to all 
 the eloquence and the arguments that would win 
 them to goodness and warn them from sin. 
 
 The amount and value of a man's influence, for 
 good or evil, upon the world, will generally depend 
 upon the character of his indirect and unconscious 
 influence. Personal perfection, the Christian re- 
 finement of feelings and sentiments, faithfulness to
 
 INDIEECT INFLUENCES. 201 
 
 all the duties of the more private relations we sus- 
 tain, are inexorably demanded by the Almighty, 
 and by the spirit of Christ's gospel ; and demanded 
 the more rigorously because the effect of such fidel- 
 ity does not end with ourselves, but goes forth, and 
 wins results that are precious in the sight of Heaven, 
 ^and which we may never know. The spirit of a per- 
 son's life is ever shedding some power, just as a flow- 
 er is steadily bestowing some fragrance upon the air. 
 Do you think that a pure and earnest prayer, in the 
 sacred privacy of home, does not steal through the 
 walls and vivify the atmosphere beyond ? Do you 
 doubt that a word of sympathy and a gift of charity, 
 in a desolate chamber, publish a sweet influence 
 upon the frosty air of human selfishness ? Such 
 things reveal and confirm character, and make the 
 power of the person's presence who performs them 
 more intense and beneficial. 
 
 Indirect and spontaneous influences always reveal 
 the measure and spirit of character. One man may 
 discourse to me most eloquently and impressively, 
 in words, of virtue and duty, and I attend with 
 listless ears and untouched breast ; and yet my soul 
 will glow with love of truth and duty, and a thou- 
 sand new impulses will struggle and burn in me, 
 when I am in the society of some choicer spirit, 
 while his calm eye sheds serenity, and his conver- 
 sation on ordinary themes is saturated with a relig- 
 ious tone. 
 
 Influence depends less on our activity than on the 
 qualities that lie behind our activity ; as the planet
 
 202 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 
 
 attracts, not by its motion, but by its weight. If 
 we but lived as we ought to live, and as we might 
 live, a power would go out from us that would make 
 every day a lyric sermon, that should be seen and 
 -felt by an ever-enlarging audience. 
 
 A living English poet Mr. Browning has por- 
 trayed the indirect, unintended, and unknown influ- 
 ences which pure goodness, even though obscure, 
 exerts, in a singular poem, or drama, called, "Pippa 
 passes." It represents one day a New Year's holi- 
 day in the life of a young girl who worked in an 
 Italian silk-mill. She is a sweet singer, and deter- 
 mined to pass her day of rest in strolling through 
 her native city, seeing its sights and singing her 
 songs. Early in the day, she goes slowly by a pal- 
 ace where a murder has just been committed for 
 gain and unholy love. The murderer and his female 
 accomplice are endeavoring to support each other's 
 spirits, when the closing lines of the silk girl's song 
 are heard in the darkened room. The man-s ear 
 catches the lines, 
 
 " God's in His Heaven . 
 All's right with the world." 
 
 The singer passes ; but something in the sweet, fresh 
 melody sends that thought " God's in his heaven," 
 into the polluted man's soul, startles his conscience, 
 chills his vile passion, and compels him to renounce 
 the objects for which he had stained his hands with 
 blood. 
 
 Soon she loiters near a splendid garden, in which
 
 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 203 
 
 a mother is striving to dissuade her noble son from 
 joining a party of patriots, who have vowed to rid 
 their country of oppression. The young man has 
 been brought to doubt and pause, when a timely 
 song from the silk girl, as she passes, rallies his 
 courage, and sends him away at the only moment 
 when success would be possible. And twice again 
 do her songs produce effects as striking upon persons 
 whom she knows not, who, as she " passes," are just 
 in the crisis of important emergencies, and are in- 
 spirited by her notes to do what is right and noble. 
 
 At last the day is spent, and at night the poor, 
 tired girl, as she sinks to rest, wonders how near she 
 may ever approach the great people she has thought 
 of during the day, " approach them so as to touch 
 them, move them, do good or evil to them in some 
 slight way." She did not know that she had reached 
 them more powerfully than any of their equals could 
 do ; that her melodies had been woven into the 
 fabric of spiritual and political destinies ; that her 
 artless songs had risen to the office of prophet, 
 monitor, and friend ; and that her nature had shed 
 sunlight into the deepening darkness of breasts, into 
 whicli she could not have dared to dream that any 
 direct influence from her could enter. 
 
 Who then can estimate the uses and agencies of 
 one true word, or of an humble, holy life ? To God 
 it is precious, and with men it is more powerful than 
 we believe. $\)r the indirect influence of small 
 things is often much more important, for wide and 
 lasting good, than the direct influence of what we
 
 204 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 
 
 suppose are the important things. A wise man once 
 said, " Let me write the popular ballads of a nation, 
 and any statesman may indite the laws." Who that 
 thinks of the subject carefully will not confess that 
 the homes of a people - the spirit nurtured there, 
 the graces that bloom 'there, the duties that are dis- 
 charged there exert a more powerful effect upon 
 their prosperity, power, and destiny than the senate- 
 house or the capitol ? And no strong mind will have 
 to reflect long, in order to be convinced that the 
 ministry of childhood the indirect influence of 
 little children in softening the nature and refining 
 the characters of men and women, and in preparing 
 them for higher influences is an infinitely more 
 efficient ally of Christianity than all presbyteries 
 and synods and Episcopal councils and evangelical 
 leagues. It is as true of empires as of individuals, 
 " He that despiseth small things shall perish little 
 by little." 
 
 We may carry our subject to its highest expression, 
 and exhibit the truth of it in its most impressive and 
 triumphant form, by calling attention to the indirect 
 influence of the character of Jesus upon the world. 
 When he was on the earth he produced the deepest 
 effect upon his disciples, less perhaps by what he 
 said (for they could not always comprehend the 
 depth and spirituality of his instructions) than by 
 the inexplicable charm of his presence, and the efflu- 
 ence from his ripe and fragrant graces. And even 
 now, the proportion of the Christian world that study 
 his career, and see the height and depth of his
 
 INDIKECT INFLUENCES. 205 
 
 character, and reverently propose the spirit of his 
 life as the ideal of effort, is very small. But the 
 blessed ministry of his life is not confined to these. 
 Some gleam of its beauty streams through the rifts 
 of the most beclouded and benighted soul. Some 
 tone of its pathos steals across the discords of the 
 foulest breast, ^ome whisper of its pleading, in 
 hours of unusual silence or unusual agitation thrills 
 the nobler chords of natures that have long wandered 
 astray. The sight of human suffering enforces its 
 appeal to selfish hearts by the sanction of his com- 
 passion. The most heinous guilt pleads for mitiga- 
 tion of a cruel judgment by the great authority of 
 his pity and hope. If men have a large idea, or a 
 comprehensive project of philanthropy to urge, they 
 instinctively seek the shelter and the commendation 
 of his name. Millions who know nothing of the 
 foundations of right, or of the nice shades of obliga- 
 tion, feel no perplexities about duty when the picture 
 of his career is called up by their fancy. And even 
 children appreciate the spirit of religion, and feel 
 the finer sensibilities warm and expand in the light 
 of his radiant and lovely perfection. The oppressor 
 is uneasy when he hears of Christ's sympathy with 
 the people, and his estimate of the human soul. 
 The slave-dealer, whose conscience is barricaded 
 against arguments that deny the right of property in 
 man, must feel the infamy of his traffic, if the vision 
 of the cross is ever painted on his dreams, and the 
 pale, blood-spent brow that crowned a life of toil for 
 the redemption, not only of men of every Jme, but
 
 206 INDIRECT INFLUENCES. 
 
 even of souls that are most deeply stained with the 
 black leprosy of sin. It is by the blessed contagion 
 caught from the character of Christ that the law of 
 duty keeps its hold in some way upon all hearts, 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self. ' ? The 
 indirect influence of Jesus' life, feebly as we have 
 obeyed it, is the hope of modern civilization. He 
 reveals the deep hues of our sin by the radiance of 
 his spotlessness, and the light of divine goodness he 
 casts upon it ; he prompts and encourages to good 
 and holy works for humanity by the constant and 
 gentle pressure of his recorded life upon the con- 
 sciences and sympathies of men ; and through the 
 ordinances that commemorate him, in the lull of 
 worldiness, and the sacred silence of communion, he 
 sheds comfort and strength and faith and peace 
 into hearts that are wounded, and bosoms that long 
 for help.
 
 IX. 
 
 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 
 
 JESUS, in the Sermon on the Mount, asked the 
 question of his disciples, "Is not life more than 
 meat and the body than raiment ? " 
 
 The answer of most of the world to this question 
 is, No! A great portion of mankind cannot live for 
 anything much above physical wants, and a majority 
 of those who can, do not. Is it not sad to think, 
 that of the myriads born every generation upon the 
 globe, most are under the doom of the animal na- 
 ture by their birth and social circumstances, and 
 are compelled to drudge for material food and rai- 
 ment ? But it is a sadder truth that the interest 
 of the favored classes of the world is so largely 
 expended upon meat and raiment. 
 
 Even in the most literal sense, how much of hu- 
 man effort and aspiration is so expended, for ap- 
 petite and fashion, for what is eaten and worn! 
 What a force in the world is the dinner-table! 
 We may almost say that commerce, which spots the 
 seas with sails, is the purveyor of human taste, and 
 keeps its fleets of naval bees sweeping across the 
 latitudes, and roving from port to port, to gather 
 the honey of the climates, and enrich the^ dishes on 
 
 207
 
 208 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 
 
 which fastidious hunger feeds. How many thou- 
 sands are there who, if the feast were stricken from 
 their day, and they were compelled to nourish them- 
 selves on homely and wholesome fare, would feel 
 that the great attractions of life were blotted out; 
 would miss the seasons and the solace which enno- 
 ble and adorn their time. So intensely is it true 
 with many that meat is life, that they live to eat 
 instead of eat to live. And as to raiment, how 
 many thousands who have leisure and every oppor- 
 tunity for deepening an inward life, reckon the value 
 of existence by the dress and jewelry with which 
 they may captivate superficial admiration, and daz- 
 zle in the atmosphere of show and pride ! Does not 
 the Saviour's language have a solemn 1 cadence in 
 this nineteenth century since its primal utterance, 
 when we think of the hosts of spirits delicately 
 formed, and in an age, too, when the rights and the 
 true position of woman are so earnestly discussed, 
 who would find life empty of charm and stimulus if 
 they were compelled to dress like Quakeresses ; if 
 the ambitions and rivalries of fashion and personal 
 ornament were stricken from their experience ; and 
 who, so far as any great objects of living are prac- 
 tically entertained, might as well be the figures in a 
 milliner's window, compounds of wood and wax, 
 made to show, the pattern of a silk, the tracery of a 
 lace, the style of a bonnet, the artistic folding of a 
 shawl, and to rotate before a crowd which is gazed 
 upon, through days and weeks, with the same 
 painted smile ?
 
 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 209 
 
 And when we turn from these extreme and most 
 literal illustrations, to the- numberless inhabitants of 
 Christendom who live in some way for pleasure, 
 self, and external things, we are impelled by sorrow 
 to the question, " Is not life more than meat ? " 
 Is there no wide recognition of what human life is ? 
 Let us look at this more minutely. Physical exist- 
 ence the play of the animal organs in the frame, 
 the flow of the blood, the sensitiveness of the nerves, 
 the capacity of sensation is not life only the 
 background or possibility of human life. The Cre- 
 ator made us for the exercise of the great capacities 
 of our humanity, each of which brings us into com- 
 munion with some sphere of his wisdom or good- 
 ness ; and if we neglect any of these we fail, to just 
 that extent, of the possession of life. In fact life, 
 everywhere, is a matter of degrees ; it depends on 
 the number and the dignity of the functions that 
 are exercised. The elm has more than the flag of 
 the marsh, because it has more vegetable forces 
 at work upon the treasury of nature. The lion 
 more than the elm, because he has more endow- 
 ments still, and vastly higher ones. So that life, as 
 a privilege and a power, rises, through a series of 
 stages, from the plant whose unintelligent vitality 
 appropriates the materials of earth and air, to the 
 shell-fish that has merely gained the boundaries of 
 sensation, and thence, along the ascending scale of 
 animal development, to the soul of man, which is 
 open to infinite truth, thrills to the charm of eter-
 
 210 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 
 
 nal beauty, and may inspire something of the grace 
 of the all-pervading God. 
 
 We ought, therefore, to feel that life is more than 
 meat, in this sense ; that the privilege of life out- 
 weighs all the circumstances that may attend our 
 existence. Such a sentiment is essential to any 
 religious estimate or improvement of our being. 
 When a parent places a son in a university, what 
 wise man thinks of estimating the youth's good for- 
 tune by the elegance with which his room is fur- 
 nished, or the costly and delicate meals provided for 
 him ? These are slight incidents, well enough if 
 they do not absorb interest ; disadvantages if they 
 do. The great privilege o'f being there lies in the 
 vast means that may be brought to bear upon the 
 intellect, and make a man eminent in the world of 
 truth. That privilege is for all who enter there. 
 No differences among the students are important or 
 substantial but those of faculty and advancement. 
 Is it not so in a still higher sense with regard to our 
 position in this universe ? Are not all differences 
 of social position, money, fame, and luxury abased 
 before the fact that we are in the universe, en- 
 dowed with great faculties, set amid the mysteries 
 of God's being, overhung with starry immensities, 
 capable of conversing with infinite truth, of loving 
 the right, and of giving birth to hopes that travej 
 out into eternal vistas? Though you are a king 
 and lose your throne and crown, though you are 
 lord of a palace and lose your proud estate, what 
 a slight misfortune has befallen rou, so long as you
 
 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 211 
 
 are still a living soul in God's everlasting realm, 
 under the dome of his boundless cathedral, glori- 
 fied yet by his image, endowed with his eternity ? 
 Though you are poor, and may be lifted to opulence 
 and power > how slight the change when set against 
 the fact that, at any rate, you are rich with the 
 blessing of conscious and spiritual existence, and 
 that no money can give you a new faculty, no 
 earthly power make you anything higher than a 
 child of God ! 
 
 The moment we look at it religiously we see that 
 the great common privilege life reduces all con- 
 ventional distinctions to insignificance. The glory 
 of the oak is that it can root itself in the soil, ap- 
 propriate the air, and feed upon the sun ; and the 
 humblest shrub, each yellow buttercup, has the 
 same birthright, and rejoices in it equally. An East- 
 ern sage once said, " God, pity the wicked ; for 
 thou hast done everything for the good in having 
 made them good." So a 'deeply wise man might 
 say that God has done everything for his children in 
 having given them being. And if a true prayer 
 could go up to God to-day, from every spirit of the 
 myriads on this globe, the form and hue of each 
 would betray the differences of circumstances and 
 trial and sorrow that distinguish our mortal ca- 
 reers ; but the common spirit and burden would 
 be, the point in which they would intermix into 
 one dialect of gratitude, "I thank thee, thou 
 Lord and Father of souls, for the gift and glory of 
 life in thy creation ; life lender the equity of thy
 
 212 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 
 
 government and the light of thy love ; life more 
 precious than the wealth bestowed upon me, or the 
 earthly good denied ; life whose privilege over- 
 balances adversity, sickness, sorrow, and distress; 
 life the opportunity of growth and goodness, and 
 the promise of joy and progress forevermore." 
 
 We may measure the defect of religion as a fun- 
 damental sentiment by the prevalent poverty of this 
 estimate of existence. So few of us prize it for 
 what it essentially is, so great a majority of us for 
 its incidental, external, temporary, conventional 
 prizes and acquisitions ! 
 
 The Bible asks, with serious emphasis, " Why 
 should a living- man complain?" as though no 
 burden can be loaded upon the soul heavy enough 
 to crush the secret sense of privilege and the great 
 hope that life should feed. And yet, those of us do 
 complain of life who slight its central benefaction 
 and count its common opportunity nothing. Those 
 complain of it who ask and strive for excitement to 
 make the days acceptable. They complain of it, 
 who labor for gold as the sole thing worth having. 
 They complain of it, who count their existence a 
 a failure if they do not gain the position and the 
 means to gratify earthly appetites and vanities. 
 They complain of it, who fret and repine inwardly 
 under ordinary hardships and sorrows incident to" 
 our lot, and see no vast preponderance of good 
 established in the very fact that souls remain to 
 them, powers of thought, love and service, and hope 
 that may invade the sky.
 
 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 213 
 
 But we have wandered somewhat from the point 
 I would keep most prominent, namely, that the re- 
 ality and depth of our life must be measured by the 
 number and eminence of the faculties that are ac- 
 tive. That nature in which none of the high pow- 
 ers are exercised, no thought, no taste, no aspira- 
 tion, no reverence, no love, can only be said to 
 exist, it does not live. It has no actual life that 
 is more than meat and raiment. It might be turned 
 into a plant if only sensation could be continued 
 to it without any conscious irreparable loss ; it 
 might be lowered into an animal, without any seri- 
 ous protest from a spiritual quarter, if perfect phys- 
 ical satisfaction be guaranteed. 
 
 Just as much life is there in us, higher than that 
 which comes from meat and raiment, as there are 
 faculties in exercise that import intellectual, moral, 
 or religious sustenance into our being. Those are 
 our days of true vitality, those our experiences of 
 human life when we gain a new truth; think a 
 noble, exalting thought ; receive a better motive ; 
 cherish a more generous, catholic, or devout senti- 
 ment ; feel our mental horizon widen by acquaint- 
 ance with a good book or conversation with a wiser 
 soul ; thrill with admiration of some master-piece of 
 genius ; form or encourage an aspiration for more 
 wisdom, virtue, and charity. 
 
 No matter in what splendor of circumstances we 
 are placed, everything about us is only the show of 
 existence, not the symbol of a rich, human life if 
 some of the faculties that ,are related to the Infinite
 
 214 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 
 
 world are not awake and active. And when we 
 think of the wonderful endowment of powers which 
 heaven has made upon us, is it not sad to put in 
 contrast with them our estimate of their worth, the 
 amount of our fathfulness in their discipline, the 
 results that have come from them? If we could 
 listen to the honest prayers, that is, to the deep and 
 steady desires that rise to God from the most favored 
 souls on this planet, how seldom should we hear 
 those that express a longing for more of the sub- 
 stance of life, more knowledge, more reverence, 
 more love ; and of the satisfaction and thankful- 
 ness which human hearts are conscious of, and which 
 God regards, how constant would the expression of 
 it be for the attainment of some accident, related 
 only to the surface of our nature, a little more 
 money, an increase of luxury, a position somewhat 
 more eminent, a competitor for some earthly prize 
 distanced and defeated ; and only here and there 
 a psalm of gladness from a soul that God has created 
 it in his image, and opened to it, in the worlds of 
 nature and revelation, such a treasury of satisfaction 
 and delight. 
 
 And yet there is a call to such gladness and 
 thankfulness, not only that we have the privilege of 
 a life that is more than meat and raiment, a life 
 intellectual, virtuous, and spiritual, but also that 
 there are such free and ample opportunities for gain- 
 ing and enjoying it. It is easier to secure the good 
 that belongs to substantial life than that of the 
 senses and the -superficial nature. If the energy
 
 LIFE MOEE THAN MEAT. 215 
 
 that is now expended in the interest of avarice, or 
 for show, or excitement, or reputation, or a fleeting 
 power, were expended for any line of real good, 
 in the stimulus and enlargement of any of our im- 
 mortal faculties, what might not human nature be ! 
 It is hard to heap up a great fortune, to get an offi- 
 cial position that will not be insecure, to win a long 
 lease of sensuous pleasure; how many are baffled 
 in their efforts, sick at heart by their defeat, and 
 how many more sick at heart in finding how little 
 comes of even brilliant success, how great the 
 array of means and labor to insure what will not 
 satisfy as it promised to, what looks attractive in 
 the distance but pales and dwindles in the actual 
 grasp ! But whoever heard of toil for truth being 
 without result, or the appetite for wisdom turning 
 to weariness and disgust, or any effort at the culture 
 of a faculty being fruitless, or pure taste for beauty 
 disturbing human peace, or intercourse with nature 
 yielding no satisfaction, or the soul returning unfed 
 and disappointed when it has swept off into the 
 great fields of wonder and mystery ? 
 
 There is no uncertainty of success in the region 
 of true life, and that region is open to all alike. 
 An earnest thought will go out from a small house 
 as from a splendid one, and bring back its blessings 
 to the mind. The power to love, to meditate, to 
 aspire, is not dependent on the scale of our living. 
 Titled and fashionable people may not visit us if 
 our sphere is humble, our purse small, and our 
 name unfamiliar to the world's lips, but God will
 
 216 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 
 
 visit us if we invite him ; the great deeps of truth 
 arch over our roof as- over the palace, and any ex- 
 ercise of any faculty will as surely be successful 
 there in deepening our life, as if it was made in a 
 princely abode. The phrase is often Tised in fash- 
 ionable society of persons approaching their major- 
 ity, that they are going into life, that they are about 
 to see what, life is, meaning by this that they are 
 to begin a personal acquaintance with the gayeties, 
 amusements, superficial strifes, rivalries, shows, and 
 scandals, which break like elegant and empty foam 
 on the solemn sea of human experience. But 
 every young person really begins to enter life, and 
 to have part in it, when the mind begins to develop, 
 the taste to refine, the conscience to grow sensitive, 
 the heart to enlarge, the soul to aspire and grow 
 reverent, and the whole nature conscious of its di- 
 vine relationships and of some portion of that peace 
 that flows in from the infinite. The life of show, 
 of meat and raiment, parties and balls, may begin 
 in a demonstrative, dazzling, and costly way, but 
 real life beings thus silently and inwardly, and in- 
 dependent on any scale of wealth and fashion. 
 
 It is inspiring to think" how freely the opportuni- 
 ties for true living are oifered to all of us. Not 
 only is nature free and open, not only are the splen- 
 dors of the morning and the pomp of the sunset, 
 the gush of beauty in the spring, and the solemn 
 magnificence of midnight, given equally to the poor 
 and the wealthy, the lowly and the great, but it 
 is really strange to think how the best things of the
 
 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 217 
 
 human world travel to all. How many gifted crit- 
 ics have exercised the subtlety of analysis and the 
 resources of eloquence in sounding and celebrating 
 the greatness of Shakspeare and the rich benefaction 
 of his genius to mankind. And yet Shakspeare may 
 be owned by everybody. -Very little is asked by 
 the genius of traffic for the privilege of his society, 
 the best talk of his oceanic mind and the acquaint- 
 ance of the characters with which he has enriched 
 humanity. Milton, too, may be a guest in every 
 house, and recite his sonorous fable of the angelic 
 rebellion and the loss of Paradise. For a trifle, 
 Homer and Dante will repeat their verses to the 
 poor man who cares to ask them, after his day of 
 toil ; or Newton and Herschel will come and tell 
 him of the scale of creation, its mighty forces, 
 and accurate laws. And when a great gift of elo- 
 quence is imparted to a statesman, the large halls 
 must be open for him that the people may freely 
 hear. Great geniuses do not have a long line of 
 children to perpetuate a copyright and inherit their 
 fame, for it is meant for the world to own them and 
 rejoice ,m them. Luxuries, fine dresses, the enter- 
 tainment of senses and the pampering of pride are 
 costly ; but the topmost literature of the world r 
 the fountains and inspiration of all thought can 
 be owned for fifty dollars, and the wondrous Bible, 
 museum of history, poetry, philosophy, and rev- 
 elation, goes to the meanest hut, introducing Isaiah 
 and David and Job and Paul, to say nothing of the 
 highest name if the door will be open to it with-
 
 218 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 
 
 out money and without price. The best things of 
 the world, the resources of inward life, are so 
 cheap that we may almost say they can be had for 
 the asking. 
 
 When I have reflected upon the wonderful results 
 of human power and genius that are represented 
 in a great city, I have* thought of the beneficent 
 laws that assured everybody, the poor as well as 
 the rich, the highest advantages that are to be de- 
 rived within its walls. The organic life of Boston, 
 for instance, the civilization that has accumulated 
 from the generations since the Puritans, the social 
 order and good government that are maintained, 
 are for the humble, as for the high. The schools, 
 with every advantage which .private institutions 
 offer, are for the children of the poorest ; and 
 long may it be before priestly subtlety shall be suf- 
 fered, here or anywhere, in our land, to break down 
 the great bulwark of freedom, a common unsec- 
 tarian education assured by law. The best archi- 
 tecture, Gothic or Grecian, will feed any eyes that 
 choose to look upon it. The most glorious grounds, 
 infinitely superior to any rich man's estate in the 
 vicinity, where the crimsom pomp of evening dis- 
 plays itself, when " the sun wraps his robes about 
 him, Caesar-like, to die," is truly a Common. Private 
 sculptures and paintings may be shut out from our 
 sight, but a quarter of a dollar will introduce any 
 eyes to works of genius in colors and stone which 
 no man is rich enough to own. A great master- 
 piece of Handel or Hay den, worthily interpreted
 
 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 219 
 
 by voice, chorus, and instruments, may be listened 
 to for the price of a common meal, or on a winter 
 afternoon a symphony of Beethoven and gems from 
 other masters are offered to thousands for a trifling 
 coin. -Suppose that all these were privileges of op- 
 ulence, high birth, and fashion, how glorious we 
 should consider it would be to be partakers of them ! 
 But that which is highest in the life and opportuni- 
 ties of the city cannot be monopolized ; it is free, 
 or at least cheap enough, for the poor. It is thus 
 God would abase and eradicate the spirit of envy, 
 by showing us that the best is for all. Everything 
 that may feed our faculties and deepen our true 
 human life everything but luxury of show and 
 pride is almost without cost, in order that we 
 may not blame Providence if our minds and souls 
 are barren, but praise nim for his bounties while 
 we take the discredit of our shallow living to 
 ourselves. 
 
 And now, having seen that life consists in the play 
 of our deeper faculties, that it is higher than meat, 
 more substantial and cheaper than the gratification 
 of worldly appetites and the strife for show, let me 
 say, in conclusion, that life is more than meat and 
 raiment in the sense of compensation. Men should 
 be judged by the kind of life they inwardly are con- 
 scious of and enjoy, not by the scale and station of 
 their career. This is the point from which God re- 
 gards them, and from that point more order is visible 
 in the world than we sometimes believe in. The ine- 
 qualities are very much slighter than they seem. Do
 
 220 LIFE MOEE THAN. MEAT. 
 
 you point to differences of wealth, reputation, and 
 ease in proof of serious injustice in the world? 
 What do they amount to, think you, in the estimate 
 of God, in comparison with the development of those 
 powers that were kindled from his life ? So far - as 
 difference of circumstances enables one, and for- 
 bids another, to cultivate his moral, mental, and 
 religious powers, there is disturbance of order, but 
 no farther. 
 
 To know how fortunate a rich man is, we ought 
 to ask as higher natures ask not how splendid 
 is his abode, but how much domestic love and hap- 
 piness, which make the human home, does he mani- 
 fest or receive ? not how much glitter surrounds 
 him, but what grade of faculties bloom upon his 
 nature, and are fed from everlasting realities? 
 not how many parties can Tie give, but how friendly 
 is his intellect, or heart, with the giants of genius, 
 or the saints of faith? not how spacious and 
 beautiful is his country estate, for the magnificence 
 and mystery of nature are for everybody, but 
 how much pure taste for beauty has he, how deep a 
 serenity of heart, how peaceful a conscience, how 
 vital a faith that goes out beyond this world, lays 
 hold of eternity and appropriates in a filial joy the 
 great Paradise as the home of the soul ? Within, 
 within is the seat of order. Meat and drink the 
 incidents and accidents of existence are unequally 
 distributed, but the meat and drink of the soul, the 
 life that is more than raiment, life such as great
 
 LIFE MORE THAN MEAT. 221 
 
 natures have enjoyed it, and which they have prized 
 supremely, these are independent of circumstances, 
 they come from our faculties, depend upon our 
 inward culture, purity, and reverence, and decide 
 whether if rich, we are to be congratulated, whether 
 if poor, our state is to be coveted and honored.
 
 X, 
 
 INWARD RESOURCES. 
 
 CHRISTIAN strength consists in the possession of 
 internal stores which will enable us, in a measure, 
 to maintain an independence on outward circum- 
 stances for happiness. 
 
 And first, let me speak of the need that men 
 should have some mental possessions which they 
 have stored away by the activity and fidelity of their 
 minds. I do not say that a man cannot be a Chris- 
 tian unless he is educated. The Christian life and 
 character is determined by our loves, our aspirations, 
 the state of our hearts, not by our intellectual 
 development and acquisitions. But the more men- 
 tal culture a man has, other things being equal, the 
 more resources he will have in himself, and the 
 nobler will be his life. 
 
 God did not give us this exquisitely ordered rea- 
 son as a toy. He has not surrounded us with the 
 riches and mysteries of his wisdom that we might 
 be indifferent to them. He would have us cultivate 
 our mental gifts, and inquire into the majestic 
 methods of his infinite reason, and ennoble our 
 spirits by an acquaintance with the beauty and order, 
 the skill and goodness, -which the sky and the sea, 
 
 222
 
 INWARD RESOURCES. 223 
 
 the depths of the earth, the vaults of air, and the 
 sweep of his moral providence, enfold. When the 
 mental faculties are awake and vigorous, if the 
 heart is consecrated by a Christian temper, the char- 
 acter is more massive and complete. It is more in- 
 dependent ; it has deeper and fuller communion 
 with God. A man has more stores in his own na- 
 ture. The strength of two strands is greater than 
 that of one ; and when God gives us a noble faculty, 
 we may be sure there is no danger in training it to 
 the utmost, if we but keep it in subjection to the 
 true spirit, and dedicate 'its activity to the highest 
 end. (> 
 
 Some of the most inspiring suggestions and pic- 
 tures of history are those which teach us the power 
 of the mind of man to conquer adverse circum- 
 stances, and vindicate its royalty over fortune. 
 Poor and blind Homer ! What mental stores had 
 he as a foundation against the neglect of men. 
 And how liberally, with a Christian spirit that 
 moved him to return the richest good for evil, has 
 he blessed the world that slighted him, from that 
 intellectual treasury which poverty could not drain, 
 nor scorn impair ! How noble a picture, too, is that 
 of Washington, upheld in adversities, and uphold- 
 ing the spirits of a nation in times of utter darkness, 
 by his inward store of plans, hopes, and visions of 
 brighter hours ! And shall we forget the experience 
 of him, the great Christian poet, who sang of the 
 lost, and of the better paradise ? The outward
 
 224 INWARD RESOURCES. 
 
 world was shut out from him. With sad, sweet 
 melody did he sing, 
 
 " Seasons return, but not to me returns 
 Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, 
 Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
 Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; 
 But cloud instead, and ever-during dark 
 Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men 
 Cut off, . . . ... 
 
 And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." 
 
 But his soul was filled with the riches of thought 
 which he had stored away. Penury, disgrace, and 
 blindness did not leave him without resource, 
 could not prevent his feeding " on thoughts that 
 voluntary move harmonious numbers." Swarms of 
 glorious, majestic visitants were with him, since his 
 aspiration was answered, 
 
 " So much the rather thou celestial light 
 Shine inward, and the Mind through all her powers 
 Irradiate ; there plant eyes, all mist from thence 
 Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 
 Of things invisible to mortal sight." 
 
 No character is complete that has not some 
 mental treasures on which it may draw during the 
 treachery of fortune. It is a mournful spectacle, 
 morally mournful, to see a person retiring from the 
 world with treasures of wealth, or one who has per- 
 haps been shipwrecked by the chances of trade, or 
 an old man whose bodily faculties have failed before 
 his energy, either restless or melancholy, or listless 
 and unhappy, because the customary excitement of 
 activity, or the fashionable position, or the sight of
 
 INWARD RESOURCES. 225 
 
 the crowd is denied to them, to see that no love 
 of truth, in a world so full of wisdom, no taste, m 
 a universe so full of beauty, no mental appetites, 
 where nature offers to them such bountiful repasts, 
 have been quickened during a long life of constant 
 toil ; and therefore, that when the horn of plenty 
 runs over, or when luck plays false, or the limbs 
 fail the stronger mind, there is no independent man- 
 liness to assert its proper majesty, no inward re- 
 sources to attest an educated soul. By every con- 
 sideration of noble self-interest, and gratitude to 
 God for the gift of reason, every person is called 
 upon to lay up some store of knowledge, and to 
 form some pure mental tastes, as a foundation 
 against the evil fortunes that may lurk in the time 
 to come. 
 
 Again, and here we approach the spiritual ele- 
 ments of our subject, every person should have 
 within a store of moral power, affections, principle. 
 Every man whose virtue is secure must possess a 
 fund of moral strength which is more than equal 
 to all the demands upon his will. It is not enough 
 to establish the purity of any soul that it can just 
 rub and go, in keeping clear of sin. It must have 
 stores of spiritual force upon which it is not com- 
 pelled to draw. God would have our triumph over 
 evil an easy conquest, one which does not fret and 
 wear our hearts away by keeping them always at 
 their toughest strain. It is a bad sign if we have 
 to wrestle long with ordinary temptations. A man 
 ought to feel, not only that he is equal to ordinary 
 
 15
 
 226 INWARD RESOURCES. 
 
 trials, but superior to them, equal to the greatest 
 trial that may come, yes, superior to that. Not 
 that a good man will be or ought to be proud of his 
 strength ; not that there should ever be a haughty 
 and complacent self-reliance in his breast. The in- 
 finite richness of his resources should lie in pure 
 affections that seek, and love, and are attracted to, 
 and live in, the right and good. His experience of 
 virtue should be so deep, his holiness so vital, his 
 piety so constant, that goodness and holiness become 
 the food of his spirit. His reliance, therefore, will 
 not be on granite strength of resolution and Titanic 
 vigor of will ; he never will cherish a spirit of bra- 
 vado, and desire to play the pugilist with evil ; his 
 resources should be so vast that base suggestions 
 will pass by him without leaving a soil upon his 
 heart, or finding any chance to-hold parley with his 
 will, pass by him as a temptation to sinful indul- 
 gence would have flitted before the upraised eye of 
 Christ, without disturbing the serenity of his prayer. 
 The good man's resources of power, like his mental 
 stores, are cultivated faculties, right instincts that 
 naturally seek the good, holy affections abiding ever 
 in his heart ; and which, by their positive attrac- 
 tions, do away, at last, the necessity of any vigorous, 
 visible, or conscious conflict with sin. 
 
 And such inward resources, thus founded, form 
 the good man's support in seasons of trial and suf- 
 fering for virtue. He is sustained, then, by the 
 treasures of his heart. The internal resources of 
 power which would not suffer him to be false to
 
 INWAED RESOURCES. 227 
 
 duty, become resources of support and pleasure in 
 the crisis and the need. The spirit of sacrifice, 
 wherever found, or in what manner soever shown, 
 is always a spirit of illumination. Stephen and 
 Peter, and the prophets, and the great missionaries 
 of the church, have found their support, not in a 
 miraculous grace, but hi that grace which insures 
 to every faithful spirit a treasury arid foundation of 
 solace and strength, which " moth and rust cannot 
 corrupt." It was the buoyant inward stores, de- 
 veloped by long faithfulness to conscience, that 
 made the bearing of Socrates so serene before his 
 judges, and filled his prison with the mystic light 
 of immortality ; it was Paul's earnestness, his con- 
 sciousness of a well-spent life, the long and glad 
 devotion of his will to the service of a higher law, 
 which whispered that grand assurance of immor- 
 tality to his dying spirit, and made him welcome 
 the axe as the friendly instrument that should re- 
 lease his spirit from its prison, and permit it to seek 
 the society above. 
 
 In order to impress us most deeply with the fact 
 that holiness is the highest good of life, God never 
 bestows any richer blessing upon faithful hearts 
 than their own holiness. He never draws any 
 nearer to the spirit, or by any other medium, than 
 in and through its holiness. He has appointed so 
 that goodness shall be our joy in cloudless times, 
 and our strength and comfort when the sky is dark ; 
 and there are no other resources to uphold a 
 wronged and persecuted good man in his seeming
 
 228 . INWARD RESOURCES. 
 
 desertion by 'Providence itself, and he needs no 
 other, tha*n the good treasure of his heart." 
 
 A good man, too, has treasures in him of memory 
 and hope. It is a beautiful and beneficent ordi- 
 nance of God that we love to remember only the 
 good and holy. No person does or can take pleas- 
 ure in recalling or dwelling in meditation upoil the 
 evil, the base, the vile. . The pleasures of memory 
 spring only from the recollection of something 
 noble, worthy, and pure. And it is a universal law 
 of souls, that what seems unpleasant and arduous 
 when we have to face it and resolve to do it, looks 
 delightful when contemplated as a treasure of mem- 
 ory, a fact of our past existence. In prospect and 
 retrospect, good alone looks winning and delightful. 
 Say to any man that next week he will perform 
 some splendid heroic deed, some act that will thrill 
 the hearts of men, and win the approbation of God, 
 and it will delight and inspire him. Prophesy that 
 he will do some mean, selfish, treacherous deed, 
 however profitable in a worldly view, and he will 
 recoil from it, and prefer, before the terrible temp- 
 tation comes, that it should be otherwise. We give 
 to holiness the vote of our aspirations, as we con- 
 template it ; we condemn vice by the judgment of 
 our regrets and shame, when we look back upon it. 
 Can you conceive such an anomaly as a memory 
 delighted or happy in the recollection of its once 
 pleasant misdeeds ? Ah ! we would throw a pall 
 a pall as of midnight darkness over the un- 
 faithfulness and unhallowed pleasures of the past.
 
 INWARD RESOURCES. 229 
 
 We would make the miserable moments of those 
 once welcomed joys a blank in our being ; we would 
 hail with rapture the spell that could wipe them 
 forever from the tablets of the brain. Go ask the 
 satiated sensualist what he would give if the foul 
 blots upon his soul's history could be exchanged 
 for acts of purity and honor, if his past years, 
 so spotted with infamy, conld unroll themselves 
 before the eye of meditation, filled with winning 
 pictures of useful, holy deeds ; ask the murderer, 
 whosp passion for vengeance has been quenched in 
 the blood of a victim, what he would give could 
 the memory of his crime be blotted from his spirit, 
 could his dreams and musings be void of spectres, 
 and he be enabled to look back upon an injury /or- 
 g-iven, not revenged ; ask the gambler, even the old, 
 successful, wealthy gambler, if such a one was 
 ever known, how much of his treasures of hell he 
 would pay for a past life ennobled by honor and 
 useful industry, and the annihilation of a retro- 
 spect from which he cannot fly ; ask the unde- 
 tected knave what he would give for an unpolluted 
 heart, an unflawed conscience, the sweet sleep of 
 innocence, and the rich glow of satisfaction, which 
 a sense of 'steady integrity sheds over the retreating 
 landscape of our earthly life, and they will tell 
 you with passionate tears, if you unlock their deep- 
 est confidence, " We would give all else we have." 
 They would exclaim in words, as they often ex- 
 claim in spirit, Oh, come back to us, sunlit, quiet 
 days of innocence, that lie in such serene beauty in
 
 230 INWARD RESOURCES. 
 
 the far-distant depths of memory ; extend like a 
 line of rich hills- and checkered vales along the 
 burning wastes of years, on which our eyes now 
 fall ; let our past be dotted with objects that may 
 charm our backward vision, and gratify our self- 
 respect, and win the approbation of conscience and 
 God, and not mock us, as now, with such a spec- 
 tacle of moral desolation ; let us but be able to 
 look with unshamed spirits and inward satisfaction 
 on the past, and we will abandon, willingly and 
 forever, all the pleasures, gains, and honors of ini- 
 quity. Remorse is a guilt-laden memory, pressing 
 heavily on an awakened conscience that teaches us 
 too late the folly of sin. It is from memory that 
 the fiends arise which haunt and lash the guilty 
 breast. It is from memory that the angels of light 
 are born which gladden with their society and com- 
 panionship the faithful soul. 
 
 And the good man has also resources of hope. 
 It is the tendency of goodness to inspire and foster 
 hope, founded on confidence in man and trust in 
 God. To the intellectual sensualist and cold- 
 hearted scoffer, the world presents a sad, cheerless 
 problem. Such natures see only the sin, wrong, 
 error, selfishness of men. They have no generous 
 aspirations, no enlivening anticipations, no cheering 
 prophecies of good. Theirs is the philosophy of in- 
 difference or despair. But among the treasures of 
 a religious heart is a buoyant, animating confidence 
 in truth and right, and the better part of human 
 nature. A good man feels that goodness is the
 
 INWARD RESOURCES. 231 
 
 I 
 
 great fact in the universe rather than evil; that 
 providence is more powerful than the finite obstruc- 
 tions and disturbances which it encounters ; that 
 divine law is mightier than the anomalies which the 
 feeble senses see ; that wrong and evil waste them- 
 selves, and that the deepest instincts and undying 
 sympathies of man seek and desire the holy and 
 the true. And so the clouds are tipped and tinged 
 with a golden richness, from the bright light behind, 
 and the harmonies of providence and eternity absorb 
 the discords of the moment and of earth. The 
 philanthropist who is brought in constant contact 
 with vice and degradation never loses his confidence 
 in man ; the martyr never doubts God's goodness ; 
 the reformer enjoys a premonitron of the triumph 
 of his cause. Out of the good treasure of their 
 hearts hearts in sympathy with holiness and prov- 
 idence come prophecies of the triumphs of holi- 
 ness and heaven.
 
 XI.- 
 
 I AM amazed, often, in reflecting upon the appar- 
 ent listlessness with which most of us entertain the 
 testimony of the visible universe for God's provi- 
 dence over men. Is not the argument unanswer- 
 able and irresistible ? We cannot find a single ob- 
 ject in the physical world which is not encircled by 
 laws that are sleepless and perfect. The orbit of 
 every asteroid is defended against dangerous intru- 
 sion by an art from which no resource is absent. 
 The path of every filmy comet is so appointed that 
 it shall not be dissipated by the sun which it brushes 
 with vapor, nor lost in the cold depths of the outer 
 darkness which it stains. The line of order is stretch- 
 ed from firmament to firmament. The harness of 
 mathematics is laid upon every sun that draws his 
 mighty load through the spaces of the sky. The 
 invisible animalcule has a function and a sphere 
 which cannot be invaded. Thousands of explorers 
 the most gifted of the earth's intellects are 
 ever studying, and are printing in countless vol- 
 umes reports and demonstrations of the skill and 
 wisdom which is subtile enough to enfold the mote 
 kindly in its coil, and which plays with Sirius as 
 
 232
 
 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE. 
 
 with a toy. Nature is order. There is 110 chance. 
 There is no finger-breadth of chaos in the whole cir- 
 cumference, sprinkled with star-dust, which the 
 telescope has swept. 
 
 And why, as a mere matter of science, will you 
 isolate humanity from this web of wisdom ? Sci- 
 ence discovers that every arrangement of the phys- 
 ical realm, from the anatomy of a beetle to the 
 jagged oscillations of a planet in its orbit, and the 
 curve in which a constellation drifts, is the best pos- 
 sible arrangement which the human intellect can 
 conceive. What right have we, as cool mental ex- 
 plorers, to suppose that man is overlooked, or un- 
 cared for, in this domain of which every atom rises 
 to attest not only a providence, but a perfect provi- 
 dence? If we apply the induction of nature to 
 man, the highest fact of nature, we shall believe at 
 once in a spiritual providence ; and I see not how 
 we can reject that conclusion unless we give up the 
 hypothesis of God. 
 
 But to come down from the general argument to 
 a particular instance of it, and the particular con- 
 clusions it suggests. If it seems strong in the broad 
 presentation of it, it is more so in a more minute 
 inspection. Christ himself has called us to consider 
 the lilies of the field ; and let us do so. He, him- 
 self has put the argument in this form : "If God 
 so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is and 
 to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much 
 more clothe you?" Under the light of modern 
 science it is still more impressive.
 
 234 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE. 
 
 If you should fix your eye upon a wild violet, 
 which the return of this creative season has evoked 
 into life, or upon any common vegetable of the for- 
 est, and couid comprehend at once all the mechan- 
 ism and "all the foresight that are implied in its 
 growth, you would be overwhelmed with wonder. 
 Indeed, scarcely any intellect would be equal to the 
 task. It grows there in the field, seemingly as a 
 matter of course ; a chance seed, dropped by the 
 winds, found lodging in the soil, and the mystery, 
 we think, is solved. But stop. That seed was 
 swollen in the ground by the warm moisture, and 
 the first effort of vital force began. As soon as that 
 began, however, the rest of the seed, by a subtile 
 chemical process, changed into sugar, to nourish 
 the infant life, too delicate as yet to grapple with 
 the coarse ground. This, of course, was provided 
 for. The tender root strikes down and finds the 
 soil pliant to its first feeble energies ; a delicate 
 blade starts up and finds the sun ready to tinge it 
 with a tint of green. The little fibres beneath the 
 soil begin to draw chemical drops from the ground, 
 and the blade inspires gases from the air, which they 
 send up and down through tiny cells, until, by va- 
 rious processes of combination, a stem, a twig, a 
 leaf are formed. 
 
 But the wonder is, that, as each new necessity 
 appears, the new provision is at hand. The soil 
 is friendly to the plant at every stage. It has just 
 the elements that are necessary for its growing 
 needs, not too abundant, not too scanty. The air,
 
 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE. 235 
 
 too, has just materials enough in its treasury, and 
 yields them with just the requisite freedom to 
 the feeble stranger. The attraction of the earth 
 is necessary to hold its minute fibres, and strength- 
 en its stalk. But its attraction is not strong enough 
 to prevent the juices from rising through its cells 
 to carry life to its leaves, so that the all-pervading 
 law of gravitation, which is at once the floor and 
 the pillars of the universe, was appointed so as to 
 befriend the meek violet of the meadow. The air 
 needs to be freshened in order to furnish pure ma- 
 terial for its leaves to inspire, and so there must 
 be winds and lightnings ; but how seldom is there a 
 tempest that destroys the life of the wild-flower ! 
 There must be rains to nourish it. But the ocean 
 does not evaporate moisture fast enough to flood it, 
 nor slowly enough to leave it long without its 
 draught of life. It must have dews; and the night- 
 skies weep upon it with a pity just equivalent to its 
 want of sympathy. It needs so many hours of light 
 and so many of gloom; and the huge earth spins 
 just fast enough to alternate fitly its seasons of work 
 and rest. It requires a certain change of seasons ; 
 and the globe beats about its vast orbit to afford it, 
 in right proportions, the spring-time, the summer, 
 the autumn, and winter. It needs not only light, 
 but heat, and not only heat, but also a certain prin- 
 ciple of vitality which is neither one nor the other; 
 and lo ! the sun-ray holds all three ; and hi the 
 spring-time sheds one most freely, in the summer 
 the second, and in the autumn the third ; and sel-
 
 286 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE. 
 
 dom does it shine so powerfully as to scorch it or 
 so faintly as to blight. 
 
 St. Augustine, fifteen centuries ago, reasoned 
 against the polytheism of his time by showing that 
 if one deity (as was said) presided over every func- 
 tion of nature, it would take a hundred goddesses 
 to weave a flower, so complicated was its struc- 
 ture. What would he say if all the mysteries of 
 modern science that cluster around a single plant 
 were opened to him ? The adaptations are so vari- 
 ous, so subtile, so complicated ; the relations of all 
 other forces and elements are so nicely balanced and 
 adjusted to its welfare, that one might almost sup- 
 pose, looking at it alone, that the sun, the air, the 
 ocean, the globe with its inclined axis and annual 
 revolution, were created and set to work as God's 
 immense factory for the weaving of a flower. 
 
 The growth and protection of a violet or a tuft 
 of grass could not have been better provided for, if 
 it alone had been the object of the Almighty in the 
 creation ; if the sun had been placed at the exact 
 distance, and the air so mixed, and the globe so 
 weighed, and the ocean so measured, and the clouds 
 so marshalled, and the storms so tempered, and the 
 seasons so graduated, as best to evoke it into life, 
 and tint its clothing, and sustain its existence. This 
 is one leaf of the gospel of science. This is the 
 result of its obedience to the Saviour's bidding, 
 " Consider the lilies how they grow." And must 
 not the practical result be equally forcible, as science 
 looks up from a flower to a man ? "If God so clothe
 
 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE. 237 
 
 the grass of the field, shall he not much more clothe 
 you ? " 
 
 " Much more ! " " Much more clothe you" 
 What a lamentable scepticism in the soul is that 
 which allows a man to think that the wi'sdom which 
 does so much for a plant, has no solicitude for that 
 which can think and love and serve the right ! The 
 plant exists for a year. Its highest function is to 
 drink the dew and adorn the landscape with its hues 
 and sprinkle the breeze with fragrance. . But here is 
 that which studies this wisdom which the lily 
 preaches, and apprehends the beauty which it 
 wears, yes, and comprehends the order of the sky ; 
 here is that which globe and firmament cannot 
 satisfy ; which sends its aspiration beyond them, and 
 cries, " Where art thou, that didst make these won- 
 ders, and canst not be bounded by thy creation ? " 
 here is a being capable of feeding its faculties on the 
 glories of the infinite Creator, feeling so akin to 
 him, that, at times, it pants for a fuller knowledge 
 of his spirit, " as the hart panteth for the water- 
 brooks ; " and yet it stands in doubt before this 
 wild-flower, which lives by the love of God ; stands 
 in doubt, amid this universe, to all of which he 
 is infinitely superior, whether God really cares for 
 him, and oversees with wise and tender interest the 
 current of his experience ! The mere statement 
 of such an anomaly should be enough to blast the 
 doubt. The amazement we should feel at hearing 
 the difficulty uttered is the only logic that is worthy 
 to scatter it.
 
 4 
 
 238 NATDEAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Do you look into the night-sky, my brother, as an 
 atheist, or as a believer in God ? Do you view the 
 returning spring-time as a doubter in God's exist- 
 ence, or as convinced of his presence ? If as an 
 atheist, you 'are absolved from the dignity and com- 
 fort of faith in providence ; if as a believer of God, 
 for the credit of your mind, as well as for the peace 
 of your bosom, be ready to see and to accept all that 
 nature teaches, and to say, as the sufficient and final 
 proof of providence, If God so clothe the grass of 
 the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into 
 the oven, shall he not much more clothe us, the 
 highest creatures of his power ? 
 
 I remember once reading a most impressive practi- 
 cal commentary upon the words we are considering. 
 The celebrated traveller, Mungo Park, relates that, 
 in his first remarkable visit to ulterior Africa, to 
 trace back the river Niger to its source, after unpar- 
 alleled fatigues, trials, and reverses, he was one day 
 robbed in the forest by some black banditti. His 
 compass was taken from him, and with only a few 
 coarse clothes he was left alone, alone in unexplored 
 and savage Africa, five hundred miles from any 
 settlement, amid wild beasts, and men as pitiless. 
 Seeing no prospect but to lie down and perish, his 
 mind became unnerved and despondent. As he 
 threw himself upon the ground, a small and pecul- 
 iar moss met his eye, whose root, leaves, and cap- 
 sule were so curious as to excite his attention. He 
 examined it carefully, and forgot his forlorn condition 
 for a moment in his admiration of it. As he gazed
 
 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE. 239 
 
 upon it, the thought arose in his mind, he tells us, 
 " Can that Being who planted, watered, and brought 
 to perfection, in this obscure region of the world, a 
 thing which appears of so small importance, look 
 with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of 
 his spiritual offspring ? " This thought cheered him, 
 rekindled his courage, and through the efforts it in- 
 spired, he was saved, and enabled to publish the fact 
 as a lesson to the world. 
 
 Well may we say, then, to the doubters of a spir- 
 itual providence, as an exclamation of wonder, al- 
 most of reproach, " O ye of little faith ! " And 
 yet, this objection, no doubt, will arise in some 
 minds, " Why urge men to such a passive trust in 
 providence, when it can do no good and may do 
 harm ? Say what you may, God does not and will 
 not clothe men as he does the flowers of the field. 
 We must work and do things for ourselves, and the 
 statement of the text is false." 
 
 Of course, Jesus did not mean that God would 
 literally clothe men, if they trust in him. Neither 
 is that the kind of providence which he teaches us 
 to believe in ; for God does not clothe the lilies in 
 that way. They work for their existence and their 
 beauty. They toil not and spin not in human ways; 
 but God does not paint them as a man paints wood. 
 They are active ; they absorb ; they put forth all 
 their inward energies ; and it is when they do that, 
 and on condition that they do thus much, that the 
 other forces of nature become friendly, and the 
 dew, the globe, the air, and sunshine, protect and
 
 240 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PROVIDENCE. 
 
 nourish and paint them. The providence that 
 maintains the flower is shown in the disposition of 
 all the other forces of the universe, so that the 
 flower can have its place, and will not be crushed. 
 When the flower works, uses all the force God has 
 given it, a path is open for it ; everything works in 
 harmony with it, and gives it a welcome and a joy- 
 ous existence in the world of matter. God feeds 
 the ravens only as they are obedient to their in- 
 stinct, and seek their food. The doctrine of the 
 Saviour's illustration is that God cares more deeply 
 and tenderly for the spiritual creation that bears 
 his image than for the material creation that is a 
 trophy of his art. It does not urge us, or encour- 
 age us, to rely passively on God's goodness, arifl 
 expect special material blessings from it, food, 
 wealth, and clothing ; but incites us to work, to put 
 forth all the spiritual force that is in us, assuring 
 us that then he will work in harmony with us, as 
 in the lower sphere he works in unison with the 
 faithfulness of the flower, that all his laws will be 
 friendly to us, and that existence, whatever its for- 
 tunes, will afford us inward peace.
 
 XII. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 DURING the last few years, our community has 
 manifested a lively interest in philosophical pursuits. 
 We can trace very plainly the effects of that taste 
 which the importation of French and German liter- 
 ature, a few years ago, has served to awaken. Be- 
 sides her historians, her poets, and her artists, New 
 England has now, at least, one philosopher. Jour- 
 nals, devoted to philosophy and kindred pursuits, 
 are conducted by men of different schools, and find 
 a fair support among us. American translations 
 and reprints of the works of distinguished philo- 
 sophical writers hi Europe, meet with a ready sale ; 
 and in our universities the study of speculative 
 philosophy has been entrusted to the direction of 
 our soundest thinkers. The habits of thought, 
 formed by a study of some philosophical system, may 
 be detected in every department of the literature of 
 the country, the elements of Kantianism in history, 
 transcendentalism in poetry, eclecticism in religious 
 literature and reviews. It is not difficult even to 
 interest " a popular audience " in the discussion of 
 tenets belonging to speculative philosophy. Some 
 of our readers perhaps may remember the crowded 
 
 16 241
 
 242 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 assemblies that listened to the lectures of a cele- 
 brated professor, a few winters since, before a liter- 
 ary institution of this city. 
 
 This tendency is not surprising. "We have ar- 
 rived at a point in our intellectual culture which 
 must come to every nation. Philosophy is a natural 
 want of the human mind. Without it, the cycle of 
 its development is not complete. It has sprung 
 from the intellectual soil of every people. There is 
 implanted in human nature a tendency which can- 
 not be satisfied without speculative coherence in its 
 views of the universe. The mysteries which the 
 contemplation of nature perpetually presents to us 
 possess a charm that has always allured the keenest 
 intellects, and brought into action the noblest powers 
 of the soul. If we would seek the commencement 
 of the history of philosophy, we must go back to the 
 early twilight of civilization. The priests of Egypt 
 had their esoteric doctrines ; the Persians, their so- 
 lution of the origin of evil ; while in India the 
 judgment of immobility, which seems to have ar- 
 rested the development of all the active powers of 
 the soul, could not hold back the tendency to spec- 
 ulation. Almost all the phases of modern philoso- 
 phy were represented there under Indian forms, and 
 from an Indian point of view. The restless activity 
 of the Grecian mind was not more strongly mani- 
 fested in its various governments, and its thirst for 
 conquest, than in its wealth of philosophical theories, 
 and in the rapid development of schools which ex- 
 hausted the capacity of progress, in that line, for a
 
 PHILOSOPHY" AND THEOLOGY. 243 
 
 thousand years. The national life was equally in- 
 carnated in Plato and Pericles, in Aristotle and 
 Alexander. Even in the middle ages, under the 
 jealous eye of the church, heresies springing from 
 opposition to the dominant pliilosophy continually 
 needed to be checked. With regard to the present 
 rank of philosophy in the republic of letters, we 
 need hardly speak: It is placed at the summit of 
 mental cultivation. The importance which, since 
 the Reformation, it has attained, among the culti- 
 vated nations of Europe, seems to justify the remark 
 of a German writer, that " In the new hierarchy of 
 the understanding, the philosophical is the apostolic 
 chair, and philosophers are the cardinals." 
 
 It becomes an interesting and important question, 
 then, What is the effect of this tendency to philoso- 
 phy upon religious truth ? or, in other words, What 
 is the connection between philosophy and religion ? 
 We cannot expect, within the limits of one article, 
 to do anything more than to point out the general 
 features of this relation, .without stopping to ex- 
 amine the question in all its details. In the first 
 place, then, we may remark that whatever increases 
 the general cultivation of the mind improves our 
 sensibility to religious impressions, and enlarges our 
 capacity for religious ideas. None of our readers, 
 probably, will dispute this proposition with us, and 
 it hardly needs illustration. The progress of sci- 
 ence has always added strength to the religious con- 
 victions of the devout spirit, and developed, in a 
 clearer light, the characteristics which reason and
 
 244 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 revelation ascribe to the Deity. We have, for in- 
 stance, an idea of' the infinite. It is a necessary 
 judgment of the intellect, is implied in our reason- 
 jngs, and is indispensable to our conception of God. 
 It is not, however, an idea which we can completely 
 comprehend. It exists as a mere sign, a barren 
 affirmation, until it is brought out clearly into con- 
 sciousness, and strengthened by the aid of some pos- 
 itive conceptions of the finite, with which it may be 
 contrasted. How powerfully has astronomy done 
 this ! It is when the magnificent conception of the 
 immensity and grandeur of the material universe is 
 awakened in us ; when we become acquainted with 
 the vast scale upon which this system of nature is 
 constructed ; when thought endeavors to seize the 
 boundaries of that expanse in which the solar sys- 
 tem is but a speck, which no figures can express, 
 and beyond which no instruments can reach : it is 
 then, and by contrast with this finite which science 
 has explored, and at the grandeur of whose discov- 
 eries the imagination is overpowered, that the intel- 
 lect feels oppressed, and bows with religious awe 
 before the idea of the infinite. So, also, with our 
 conception of the omnipotence of God. Every one 
 feels conscious of such an idea. It is from a neces- 
 sity of our intellectual nature that we ascribe it to 
 the Deity. Without' it, he would not be God. Yet 
 who comprehends the significance of the term till 
 he has formed some conception of the stupendous 
 force that has disposed worlds into systems, and that 
 moves and guides and governs all the complicated
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 215 
 
 4 
 
 machinery of the universe ! Again ; how has our 
 idea of the wisdom of the Deity been extended and 
 enlarged by an acquaintance with the simplicity of 
 arrangement exhibited by the geometry of the 
 heavens, and the nice adjustment between the forces 
 that sustain the universe, or by the innumerable in- 
 stances of skill and adaptation, furnished by physi- 
 ology and natural history ? Whatever has increased 
 our knowledge of the works of the Creator has 
 deepened and added strength to our conceptions of 
 his nature and his attributes. Such is the intimate 
 and beneficial relation which science sustains to re- 
 ligion. But the same reasons that we have urged 
 to prove this position may we think, with equal 
 force, be urged in behalf of the claims of philosophy. 
 First, however, to guard against misapprehension, 
 let us define what we mean by speculative philoso- 
 phy. Many, we are persuaded, look upon it as 
 merely a dry system of metaphysics, a mass of base- 
 less speculations, concerned with inquiries, for in- 
 stance, as to the nature of spirit, the cause of mo- 
 tion, or the medium of connection between the soul 
 and the outward world. So far, however, is this 
 from being the case, nothing has tended more to 
 banish such questions from the learned world than 
 the progress of philosophy. We define philosophy, 
 the complete science of human nature, the resolu- 
 tion of all human experience to order. Its ultimate 
 aim is to explain the human mind, to define its 
 powers, determine its tendencies, and unfold its 
 laws. This is no barren study. It demands, not
 
 246 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 only an examination of consciousness, but also an 
 acquaintance with the whole circle of science. We 
 cannot completely know the powers of the mind 
 till we have some definite conception of the products 
 of its energy. In fact, a compl'ete criticism of the 
 laws of thought, itself, cannot be reached by a pure 
 psychological analysis, by an examination of the 
 thinking subject alone. Our theories, to be entitled 
 to the claim of scientific accuracy, must be framed 
 with reference to the developments of thought in 
 some department of knowledge. No dispute, for 
 instance, has more deeply agitated the philosophical 
 world than the question as to the origin of many 
 of our ideas. We have no intention of raising that 
 question here, but only wish to remark, that a com- 
 plete discussion of it is possible, only on condition 
 of carefully examining the characteristics of those 
 ideas, as they form part of the structure of many of 
 the sciences. It is clearly in this way alone, that 
 those peculiarities, which are the subjects of discus- 
 sion, can be fully "brought to view. 
 
 But a complete science of human nature must 
 develop something more than a theory of ideas. All 
 the phases of social, moral, and political life, are the 
 outward expression of some tendency of the soul, 
 and of course furnish materials for philosophical 
 science. The ultimate aim of philosophy, then, is 
 to elevate the science of human nature into uni- 
 versal science. The field of its research includes 
 the whole domain of history, poetry, and art. Phi- 
 losophy, then, is not any particular science ; it does
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 247 
 
 not deal with that mass of details, a complete and 
 searching study of which is indispensable to estab- 
 lish a separate science. It is only concerned with 
 the laws of scientific progress, with those intellectual 
 conceptions which may be detected hi the funda- 
 mental propositions upon which science is founded, 
 and that ideal element which, although necessary to 
 the very structure of science itself, forms also a por- 
 tion of the philosophy of the human mind. The 
 relation of philosophy to religion is, in principle, 
 similar to the relation it bears to science. We un- 
 derstand by it a full examination of the religious 
 element hi human nature, a complete exhibition of 
 the laws of its development, and a view of the har- 
 mony of its doctrines, with the conclusions drawn 
 from other provinces of scientific thought. The 
 philosophy of religion, then, no less than the phi- 
 losophy of science, is indispensable to a thorough 
 acquaintance with the laws and capacities of. our 
 nature. The spheres of the philosopher and the 
 theologian cannot be completely disjoined. The 
 one, engaged in a profound study of thought and of 
 the human faculties, cannot rest satisfied till he has 
 attained an idea of the highest objects of thought 
 to an idea of God and duty and eternal order, 
 thus giving to philosophy a theological aim ; while 
 the other cannot consider his science as completely 
 established until he has discovered, in the very con- 
 stitution of the human mind, a capacity for religious 
 ideas and a necessity for religious cultivation, thus 
 giving to theology a philosophical basis.
 
 248 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 It will be our desire, in the remainder of this 
 article, to exhibit those points where the convergent 
 lines of philosophy and theology meet and blend ; 
 and the influence which must be exerted by philo- 
 sophical study upon theological speculations. 
 
 In the first place, we wish to speak of the influence 
 of philosophy in reconciling faith and knowledge. 
 Religion springs from a primary and indestructible 
 want of human nature. In its original character 
 it is, if we may so express it, a spiritual instinct in 
 the soul. Its foundation is a sense of dependence 
 on a higher powep ; its central principle is faith. 
 Side by side with its spiritual want, exists another 
 element, which gives the mind a reflective ten- 
 dency, which impels it to know, or, in other words, 
 to account to itself for its ideas and its faith. 
 This latter tendency, felt in some degree by every 
 man, can only be satisfied when religion is raised 
 from its primitive state as an instinct, and estab- 
 lished as an idea. Now, until the demands of both 
 these indisputable tendencies of the soul are satis- 
 fied, the growth and development of the mind is 
 not complete. Of what use could be a belief in 
 God, if reason discovers it to be nothing but a 
 phantasm raised by human weakness ? What sup- 
 port could be drawn .from faith in Providence, if- it 
 be found to depend on a necessity of our sensitive 
 nature ; or what efficacy would there be in prayer, 
 if it be felt that the object of our supplications is 
 not a real being, capable of understanding and sat- 
 isfying our wants, but merely a law of the soul ?
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 249 
 
 " Rather, would not the world, with its thousand 
 contradictions, strike us with astonishment, if we 
 could not see the eternal light glimmer through all 
 its phenomena, and feel, from all around, an inti- 
 mation of the great, first, and enduring Cause ? " 
 The repose of the soul upon its religious nature 
 imperiously demands, then, not only that this uni- 
 versal tendency to worship shall be shown to be 
 an innate element of its nature, but it requires also 
 a demonstration of the reality of the object of wor- 
 ship. Not only must we be conscious of a sense of 
 obligation imposed by a moral law, but reason must 
 discover grounds for faith in that eternal order 
 towards which all things tend, and from which the 
 moral law derives its sanction. Besides that " long- 
 ing after immortality," which we recognize as a 
 primitive instinct in our constitution, we must feel 
 that everything which we know of our capacities, 
 everything which, by the light of nature, reason 
 can discover as to our destiny, awakes in us an idea 
 of eternal life, and confirms the spontaneous proph- 
 ecy of the soul. Religion grounded in mere feel- 
 ing may, in periods of excitement, when under the 
 influence of a luxuriant flow of spirits, and when 
 the voice of the intellect is still, be completely satis- 
 factory to us. But a religion, upon which we may 
 rely, in every state of mind, which can cheer us in 
 despondency, and console us in seasons of gloom, 
 must be ever before us a firmly-founded law, rest- 
 ing not merely on.the uncertain basis of sensibility, 
 but established on a foundation as immovable as
 
 250 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 our surest ideas. Let us not be understood by 
 these remarks to undervalue the argument for relig- 
 ion drawn from its satisfying the instinctive wants 
 of our constitution. A religion purely rational, 
 which should aim to reach the heart only through 
 the head, would fail of accomplishing the end for 
 which it is designed. What we contend for, is, 
 that religion should satisfy all the cravings of our 
 nature; that it must be able to subdue the intellect, 
 as well as engage the heart, that it must be shown 
 to have, so to speak, its objective as well as subjec- 
 tive side. Now to do this is, in part at least, the 
 work of philosophy. 
 
 Perhaps, however, we shall be able to see more 
 clearly into the subject, by attending to the influ- 
 ence which must be exerted upon theology by our 
 theory concerning the origin of knowledge. This 
 is, in every system of philosophy, the all-important 
 point. D'Alembert called it the " terrible question 
 of metaphysics." No problem which we can raise, 
 in the whole circle of science, has such important 
 corollaries depending upon its solution. Among 
 other consequences, it involves the question as to 
 the capacity of the mind for religious ideas. If we 
 look back through the whole history of philosophical 
 speculation, we shall find that its direction towards 
 spiritualism, or materialism, has been determined 
 according to its account of the foundation and ori- 
 gin of knowledge. The solution that has been uni- 
 formly offered by one party among philosophers, is, 
 that all our ideas aro resolvable into sensations.
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 251 
 
 According to them the mind is purely passive in the 
 acquisition of knowledge. It is a mere susceptibil- 
 ity to impressions from without, destitute of any 
 inherent tendencies, without primarily any distinc- 
 tive nature. According to this view, it could 
 scarcely be said that there is any principle belong- 
 ing to our nature that can combine the scattered 
 impressions of sense into a harmonious whole, and 
 thus give unity to our consciousness. All our ideas 
 are transformed sensations ; the very capacities of 
 mind itself, but internal modifications of our sensi- 
 tive nature. Reflection, attention, memory, the 
 power of generalization, are not faculties of the 
 intellect, existing independent of experience, and 
 employed by the mind as instruments in the forma- 
 tion of new ideas ; but these faculties are them- 
 selves the result of sensations ; they are more re- 
 fined internal affections of the sensibility ; the 
 recurrence, in a more sublimated state, of some 
 former impressions upon the organs of sense. This 
 is not too strong a statement. We have* before us, 
 at this moment, the original statement of these 
 principles, in terms as strong as we have used. 
 Now, it needs no very severe logic to draw, from 
 these premises, the conclusions which they contain 
 as to the sphere and limits of knowledge. If " every 
 idea is chimerical that cannot attach itself to its 
 sensible archetype," if "every expression which 
 cannot find an external and sensible object to which 
 it can establish its affinity is destitute of significa- 
 tion " (we use the precise words of an exponent of
 
 252 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 this system), what foundation have we for the idea 
 of God ? The senses acquaint us only with finite ex- 
 istence ; what room, then, is there in such a system 
 for an idea of the infinite ? By impressions upon 
 our senses from the material world, we acquire a 
 notion merely of appearances, of changes, of ante- 
 cedents, and consequents ; how then, in such a 
 system, can we acquire the idea of a cause ? we do 
 not say of a first and eternal cause merely, but of 
 any cause. How is the conception of a cause possi- 
 ble ? If human nature be a mere blank capacity, 
 and is, previous to education, as susceptible of one 
 impression as another, what reason have we for the 
 conception of a moral law, to which all intelligences 
 are subject, that has'a right to command our alle- 
 giance ? There is no possible way, if we start from 
 such a view of the origin of knowledge, to recon- 
 cile our logic with religion. No modification of 
 this materialistic philosophy can harmonize with 
 the faith which religion demands of us. Before we 
 can admit- any idea which belongs to the sphere of 
 religion within the circle of knowledge, we must 
 adopt some element into our reasoning which can 
 be drawn from a spiritual philosophy alone. Take, 
 for instance, the argument from design, -to demon- 
 strate the existence of God. The argument, as it 
 has often been conducted, fails in an essential point. 
 Leaving out of view the fact, that, upon the rigid 
 principles of the philosophy of sensation, it is im- 
 possible to attain the abstract idea of cause ; even 
 granting that, from the various exhibitions of wis-
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 253 
 
 dom and intelligence in the construction of the uni- 
 verse, we may arrive at the conclusion that the 
 designer of this admirable order must have pos- 
 sessed intelligence ; still we cannot prove his unity 
 or infinity. The system of nature, so far as we 
 are acquainted with it, is finite, and we cannot 
 reason from a finite effect to an infinite cause. But 
 any argument which fails in demonstrating the in- 
 finity of the cause of nature, must fail in demon- 
 strating his self-existence ; and, consequently, wo 
 cannot prove that there has not been a series of 
 dependent causes, each in turn derived from a pre- 
 ceding cause. The only remedy for this radical 
 defect in the proof from design, taken exclusively, 
 is the introduction into the argument of an a priori 
 principle, drawn from the laws and constitution of 
 the intellect itself. A severe examination of the 
 laws of thought discovers to us that the self-exist- 
 ence and infinity of the power that sustains the 
 universe is a postulate reason. It is an idea of 
 which the clear statement is sufficient, the truth of 
 which is seen by intuition, and which cannot be 
 strengthened by any ratiocination. It is, if we may 
 so speak, a form of our thought, when applied to 
 the argument as to the first cause. 
 
 Whatever hypothesis we adopt as to the origin 
 or primal cause of the universe, we cannot rid our- 
 selves of this necessary law of reason. We must 
 predicate self-existence and infinity of something. 
 If we take up the atheistic theory, and deny an in- 
 telligent cause, we must still admit that nature, the
 
 254 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 material universe, is self-existent and infinite. Now 
 introduce this fundamental conception of reason 
 with the argument from design, and it becomes 
 complete and satisfactory. It will then rest on the 
 very nature of reason, as well as on the testimony 
 of experience. But this conception, so essential to 
 the validity of the proof, is at utter variance with 
 the whole fabric of the philosophy we are consider- 
 ing. In its vocabulary there is no meaning to the 
 term, d priori laws of reason ; for prior to experi- 
 ence, the intellect is a mere blank, a capacity alone 
 for receiving whatever may be conveyed through 
 the senses. There is no necessity of multiplying 
 instances to prove the weakness of its philosophy in 
 establishing the validity of our religious notions. 
 Religion deals entirely with questions "beyond the 
 reach of the senses, and, consequently, before the 
 inexorable law of the philosophy of sensation, every 
 question with which religion is concerned must be 
 banished into the region of chimera and supersti- 
 tion. Let it not be said, however, that this point is 
 of no practical importance ; that it affects merely 
 the manner of stating the argument for religion, 
 but cannot weaken any person's religious convic- 
 tions. There are many, no doubt, who do not need 
 the results of reflection to strengthen their faith. 
 " They never feel the burden of doubt, nor need 
 the aid of philosophy to explain the mysteries of 
 their being. On their virgin souls no blight can 
 fall, and they will pass upward unstained by the 
 breath of unbelief." The world, however, is not
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 255 
 
 made up of such as these. There are those of colder 
 temperaments, who feel the spontaneous impulses 
 of a common nature less, and distrust them more, 
 and who, of course, can repose only on the conclu- 
 sions of their intellect. And it i they who need to 
 be preserved from the influence of a philosophy 
 before which they will surely fall. We are at no 
 loss for instances to establish this point. The the- 
 ory of knowledge which Hume adopted, necessarily 
 resulted in his scepticism. He applied, with un- 
 sparing rigor, the laws of evidence, with which his 
 philosophy furnished him, to all the departments 
 of thought ; and of course concluded, to use his 
 sarcasm, that " Our most holy religion is founded 
 on faith, and not on reason." Had Gibbon been 
 under the influence of a nobler philosophy, his pages 
 would have been free from many of those sneers at 
 
 virtue and disinterestedness, and that calm con- 
 
 -< 
 
 tempt of religion, with which they are now defiled. 
 The whole literature of the age of Louis XIY. and 
 XV. was poisoned by a false philosophy. The tone 
 of thought among the higher orders may be gath- 
 ered from a remark of Madame Du Deffand, in 
 a letter to Voltaire, upon learning that he was 
 engaged in a discussion on the existence pf God : 
 "Do not weary yourself, my dear Voltaire, with 
 metaphysical reasonings upon unintelligible mat- 
 ters. Can we communicate or can we entertain 
 any ideas which we do not receive through our 
 senses ? " 
 
 At whatever period of the world we find this sys-
 
 256 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 tern obtaining sway, the evidences of its blighting 
 influences may be discovered in every department 
 of literature. Under its domination, art can only 
 attain a stunted growth, and poetry is deprived of 
 its sweet and mysterious faith. Its religion may be 
 seen in the " System of Nature ; " its morality in 
 the Maxims of Rochefoucauld, and in Helvetius's 
 " Sur 1'Esprit." The dignity of human nature is 
 sacrificed before it. When Helvetius contended that 
 pleasure was the sole motive of all actions, and 
 that the sense of touch was so necessary to the 
 education of the human faculties that the species 
 would have been still wandering in the forest had 
 man been created with hoofs instead of wrists, Vol- 
 taire declared that he told the secret of all the 
 world. Cicerp long ago remarked, that in the 
 schools of Epicurus, in his day, the names of Ly- 
 curgus and Solon, of Miltiades and Epaminondas, 
 were never mentioned ; so terrible a fact is heroism 
 and disinterestedness for the contemplation of sen- 
 sualism. 1 And nothing, perhaps, illustrates better 
 the utter degradation of morals that characterized 
 the period preceding the downfall of the Roman 
 republic, than the general deification of Epicurus, 
 whose image, according to Cicero, was preserved not 
 only in pictures, but engraven on the cups and rings 
 of the household servants. 2 A very just compari- 
 son between the moral tone of this philosophy and 
 that of some of the ancient pagans has been drawn 
 by Addison. " It is impossible," says he, " to read 
 
 1 De Fin. lib. i. 2 De Fin lib. v. ; see also Niebuhr, iv. p. 201.
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 257 
 
 a passage in Plato, or Tully, and a thousand other 
 ancient moralists, without being a greater and a 
 better man. On the contrary, I could never read 
 any of our modish French authors, or those of our 
 own country who are the imitators and admirers of 
 that nation, without being for some tune out of 
 humor with myself and at everything about me. 
 Their business is to depreciate human nature, and 
 to consider 'it under the worst appearances ; they 
 give mean interpretations and base motives to the 
 worthiest actions. In short, they endeavor to make 
 no distinction between man and man, or between 
 the species of man, and that of brutes." l We do 
 not say, that all who have adopted the ultra premi- 
 ses to which we have alluded are atheists, or indif- 
 ferent to religion ; such, at least, have not been 
 their professions, and we know that many of the 
 warmest partisans of this philosophy have been dig- 
 nitaries of the church. But, in many cases, it is 
 to be feared that the palpable inconsistency has 
 been relieved by a belief that the essence of religion 
 consists in mystery, and is therefore incomprehen- 
 sible by human faculties. The only reconciliation 
 that can be effected between such a man and his 
 religion, must be obtained by some such position as 
 this ; for it is useless to talk of a mail's holding 
 one truth in philosophy on grounds which his rea- 
 son approves, and assenting to an entirely different 
 one in religion. The spheres of philosophy and 
 religion are so intimately connected that false 
 
 1 Tatler, 108. Stewart, vi. 103. 
 17
 
 258 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 premises in the one must produce false conclusions 
 in the other ; and the manner in which the princi- 
 ples we adopt in either department must affect our 
 conclusions in the other province, furnishes a cri- 
 terion by which we may judge of the truth or sound- 
 ness of those principles themselves. 
 
 We have seen to what result the theory of knowl- 
 edge, which has heen supported by a large class of 
 philosophers, must inevitably tend. A sensual and 
 materialistic system of philosophy, selfishness, and 
 utilitarianism in morals, and, if the principles be 
 rigidly adhered to, scepticism in religion, are the 
 logical development of the position that the senses 
 are the only source of knowledge. Change that prop- 
 osition, and the whole complexion -of the theories of 
 morals and philosophy and religion, will be changed 
 also. If, after a cautious and profound analysis of 
 our ideas, we assume, as the starting-point, that ex- 
 perience is the occasion, instead of the cause, of all 
 of our knowledge, that the mind itself has faculties 
 the operation of which is implied in our fundamen- 
 tal ideas, that sensible impressions are only the ex- 
 citing causes which call these faculties into action, 
 the prospect of the whole field of knowledge will 
 be changed as if the wand of a spiritual magician 
 had been waved over it. The whole tendency of 
 thought is directed to spiritualism. The icy grasp 
 of materialism, which freezes all the pulses of feel- 
 ing, yields to a genial warmth. A system of phi- 
 losophy may, then, be logically raised, in which man 
 may be viewed as superior to nature ; the inspira-
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 259 
 
 tions of poetry and art, as something more than im- 
 pressions upon the outward sense ; and religion, in- 
 stead of being considered a mere chimera unworthy 
 a place in the domain of science, be looked upon as 
 a development of the highest faculties of the soul. 
 The recognition of the double origin of knowledge 
 as the fundamental truth in philosophy affords the 
 only basis sufficiently broad for the harmonious de- 
 velopment of every principle of our nature. A man 
 may then be master of all his ideas. His logic 
 will not be the implacable foe of his faith. He 
 may face his convictions with a calm eye, and feel 
 assured that they rest upon a foundation as immov- 
 able as the very laws of his being. Under the di- 
 rection of those laws of thought which materialism 
 jwesents, reason may demand of religion its passport 
 to belief, may desire to know the sense to which its 
 evidence is addressed ; but a philosophy founded on 
 a correct theory of knowledge, reverses this unnat- 
 ural order. It shows that religion resides in us, 
 not only as an ineradicable feeling^ but that the 
 great ideas which it supposes, are implied in every 
 exercise of -thought; that all around us is the in- 
 finite ; that we cannot think, without an implied 
 recognition, of something absolute, some indepen- 
 dent law on which the exercise of intellect depends ; 
 that every question we raise, every thought we 
 create, leads at last to the great mystery of the uni- 
 verse, before which it is the highest office of reason 
 to bow and adore. Under such a system, religion 
 may become rational, because reason itself may be-
 
 260 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 coine religious. No attempts are needed to bridge 
 the chasm between what we know, and what we 
 feel. Religious ideas have their root in reason, and 
 religious feeling in the nature of the soul ; and 
 they can be displaced only by that " consistent scep- 
 ticism " which strikes at the root of all certainty 
 and all knowledge. 
 
 But, it may be urged that the importance of cor- 
 rect opinions in philosophy may be necessary where 
 the light of nature is our only guide, but that the 
 question becomes unimportant when revelation is 
 taken into the account. We need noi speculate 
 upon religion ; we know ; truth is revealed to us. 
 We do not want philosophy ; we have Christianity. 
 This of course, opens the question as to the relation 
 between philosophy and revealed religion. \%e 
 might reply, in the first place, that the possibility of 
 any religion at all is a question preliminary to the 
 consideration of revelation. And this, as we have 
 shown, is a problem which is intimately affected by 
 our philosophical views. The man who, on philo- 
 sophical grounds, denies that religious ideas can 
 form a portion of knowledge, cannot be reached 
 with arguments drawn from the sublimity of the 
 truths which revelation exhibits, nor from their har- 
 mony with the wants of his nature. He admits no 
 such principle of reasoning. You might as well talk 
 to him of the objects of a sixth sense. His intellect, 
 encased in the armor of sensualism, is impervious 
 to such weapons. He can only be convinced of the 
 truths of revelation by the historical evidence of
 
 PHILOSOPHY, AND THEOLOGY. 261 
 
 its founder ; the truth of his miracles, and the prob- 
 ability that his doctrines have been transmitted to 
 us in their original purity ; a mode of defending the 
 gospel in which, when addressed to such minds, we 
 have little confidence. Hume has shown that, in 
 such cases, it is much easier to attack the credibility 
 of miracles than to yield conclusions drawn from a 
 study of the human mind. At least then, so far as 
 scepticism is concerned, a false philosophy must be 
 disarmed with its own weapons before the claims of 
 Christianity can be successfully advanced. But we 
 think we can show that, besides being necessary for 
 the defence of revelation, philosophy has an im- 
 portant connection with our views of revelation 
 itself. There are some points, of course, where the 
 teachings of revelation are ultimate. We cannot 
 go beyond them. The great truth, for instance, of 
 the paternal character of God, is an idea which the 
 unassisted reason could never have attained. No 
 induction, from any facts within our knowledge, 
 could have reached it. The strong light of revela- 
 tion must first be thrown upon nature, before natu- 
 ral facts can be seen to bear the impress of divine 
 love. Philosophy, before the Saviour, had attained 
 a dim and unsteady conception of the goodness of 
 God. Plato exhausted all the richness of his fancy 
 and the loftiness of his diction to prove that God 
 was the Supreme Good. But between this concep- 
 tion and the truth that God is the universal Fa- 
 ther there- is all the difference that exists between 
 Plato and Jesus, between the loftiest philosophy and
 
 262 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 the purest religion. We admit, then, that in reve- 
 lation philosophy has been helped over problems 
 which, by its own strength, it could not solve ; but 
 what we contend for is the conception we form of 
 the meaning of the truths of revelation, depends in 
 a great measure on our cultivation of mind, or, in 
 other words, on our peculiar philosophical views. 
 The doctrines of Christianity are stated in words ; 
 but the mere reading of those words does not give 
 a man clear conceptions of the depth and meaning 
 of the truths themselves, any more than the mere 
 reading of the words of Newton's Principia, or La- 
 place's Mecanique Celeste, would give him correct 
 conceptions of the magnitude and importance of 
 the mathematical propositions demonstrated there. 
 Why is it that we believe that Christianity, as a re- 
 ligion, can never be superseded ? Because we be- 
 lieve that the system of morality it teaches, and the 
 worship it demands, are the ideas of worship and 
 morality for all ages. To whatever degree of intel- 
 lectual or spiritual advancement we may attain, we 
 can never exhaust, and never get beyond, the sub- 
 lime and simple truths revealed by the Saviour. His 
 religion was a system of principles capable of the 
 widest application, and of indefinite expansion. It 
 assists the growth of the mind, grows with it. 
 At the very time that it furnishes the elements of 
 human progress, we distinctly see that with all the 
 increased capacities resulting from progress, we can 
 never exhaust the materials contained in -Christian- 
 ity. A thorough conviction of this truth is of infi-
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 263 
 
 nite importance in strengthening our religious con- 
 victions, and our faith in revelation. And the dis- 
 covery of this very truth is the work of philosophy, 
 It is not a doctrine of revelation itself, but is drawn 
 from an acquaintance with the laws of progress. It 
 is the humble confession of reason to revelation, 
 that the highest office of philosophy is to increase 
 our susceptibility to religion, and that its loftiest 
 ambition is satisfied with bringing the light of its 
 researches to bear upon the interpretation of that 
 truth, of which the Son was the appointed messen- 
 ger. 
 
 Our philosophy then will be, to a great extent, 
 the interpreter of Christianity. It will translate the 
 words of revelation in harmony with the conclu- 
 sions which we may form of the human mind, its 
 wants, and its capacities. Whether, in the first in- 
 stance, we derive the foundation of our philosophi- 
 cal views from Christianity, or from reason, still the 
 same tendency exists in the mind to reconcile the 
 teachings of revelation with the developments of 
 this philosophical creed. Take the doctrine of sal- 
 vation, for instance. Christianity, one would think, 
 is explicit upon this point. And yet, about no 
 question in theology, is the church more divided 
 than about the teaching of Scripture in relation 
 to it. There is every modification of opinion as to 
 its meaning, extent, and mode. And every one of 
 the various hues and shades of the belief, respect- 
 ing it, is dependent upon, or connected with, some 
 system of philosophy, of which this view forms a
 
 264 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 component part. Let a man, through the preju- 
 dices of education, derive from Scripture the notion 
 of original sin, with its satellites, a corrupted na- 
 ture, a vicarious atonement, and an angry God, and 
 he cannot adopt, in perfect good faith, a spiritual 
 philosophy in its full extent. He cannot believe in 
 the freedom of the will ; he cannot conceive the 
 possibility of drawing a system of ethics from the 
 study of a sinful consciousness ; he cannot consist- 
 ently see, in a depraved nature, the germs of wor- 
 ship and faith in God. On the other hand, no man 
 who, from the study of the will, of consciousness, 
 and of the original instincts of human nature, has 
 arrived at a faith in freedom, at a conception of 
 moral obligation, and a belief that religion is found- 
 ed on a law of the soul, can see in revelation a doc- 
 trine which sets at naught all the conclusions of his 
 intellect, to say nothing' of the sensibilities of his 
 heart. Men are never wilfully illogical or inconsist- 
 ent in their opinions; and 'surely no man in his 
 senses would attempt to reconcile propositions so 
 fundamentally incongruous. Before Pelagius and 
 Augustine can agree, Pelagius must abandon his 
 philosophy, or Aiigustine must give up his faith. 
 But this fundamental difference as to the nature of 
 salvation affects also the question as to the mode. 
 And here again, the influence of philosophy is in- 
 volved. The corollary of the first view we have 
 mentioned, is, that salvation is instantaneous and 
 supernatural, affected upon man, not in him, and by 
 himself; a work in which he is an instrument not
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 265 
 
 an agent ; in which he is passive, not active. If 
 salvation is thus instantaneous and final, where is 
 the room for progress ? Where is that intimate har- 
 mony between virtue and religion which philosophy 
 sees intuitively, and which Christianity implies on 
 every page ? If the essence of salvation does not 
 consist in heing formed in the image of Jesus, that 
 is, in the practice of the loftiest virtue, where is the 
 incentive to take him as our pattern ? and what 
 hope may we indulge of ever attaining to his per- 
 fection, if we must view him as the Infinite Father ? 
 The philosophy which the spirit of Christianity in 
 the world has helped to form, and the conclusions 
 to which the study of man, as he has been affected 
 by Christianity, has led, rise in rebellion against 
 such a construction of the words of revelation. 
 They cannot harmonize. Between them there is a 
 great gulf fixed. 
 
 If we reflect, too, upon our conception of the Deity 
 himself, we shall find that our interpretation of the 
 Scripture teachings as to his character and attributes 
 is greatly modified by the tone of our philosophy. 
 Much of the purity of thought upon the other essen- 
 tial points of Christian doctrine depends upon our 
 fundamental conceptions of God himself. We are 
 taiight in the New Testament that " God is a spirit ; " 
 but how few are there whose views of the nature of 
 the Divine Being are not formed after the idea of 
 the Old Testament, whose conceptions attach them- 
 selves to the qualities of gross power and material 
 force ; and who consequently never pass through
 
 266 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 the Jewish, and attain a Christian idea of God. One 
 of the most difficult things which the mind has to 
 contend against, in forming a definite notion of the 
 nature of the Deity, is the conflict between the 
 senses and the reason. The senses always tend to 
 anthropomorphism, to some limitation- of form, and 
 some precise idea of place ; views which the cultivated 
 reason, of course, rejects with abhorrence. The 
 root of this difficulty lies in the constant association 
 of the philosophical ideas of substance and being, 
 with matter and organization, and can be eradicated 
 only by such a discipline of mind as will enable us 
 to entertain these ideas wholly separate from each 
 other. The noble conception which Plato developed 
 of the nature of God, necessarily sprang from 
 philosophical habits of thought. He could not have 
 held an anthropomorphic notion of the Supreme 
 Good, till he had reconstructed his theory of virtue 
 and the powers of the soul. They were inseparably 
 intertwined. On the other hand, the phantom gods 
 of Epicurus differed from the ardent fire which the 
 stoics conceived to be the vesture of the Deity, pre- 
 cisely because the whole tone of the philosophy of the 
 former was gro veiling and mean, and of the latter 
 lofty and ennobling. Gassendi, who, although a 
 Catholic priest, was a very strong advocate of the 
 doctrine that all our ideas originate exclusively in 
 sensible impressions, and who may be considered the 
 founder of that school in modern times, maintained 
 that " we must conceive God under the image of a 
 venerable old man," that being the noblest form
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 267 
 
 under which a sensible conception could be enter- 
 tained by the imagination. And are there not now 
 large bodie^ of Christians whose ideas of God are 
 drawn from the imagery of Daniel and the Apoca- 
 lypse, the great white throne, and garments of 
 snow, and the chariot of fire, rather than from a full 
 realization of the meaning of those sublime words 
 of the Saviour, " God is a spirit, and they that wor- 
 ship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" ? 
 Let it not be said that this point is of little impor- 
 tance. Connected with our views of the nature of 
 God as our ideas of his providence and omnipresence 
 must necessarily be, we cannot err in the one and 
 be sound in the other. And here, of course, the 
 question becomes vitally practical. Faith in the 
 Christian doctrine of universal providence of course 
 demands a belief in the intimate and abiding pres- 
 ence of God in his works. He must be viewed as 
 the life of the universe, the present cause of all 
 things, the all-pervading essence which supports and 
 maintains and directs the phenomena of nature. 
 "Without this constant recognition of the omnipres- 
 ence of God in its strictest sense, nature to us is a 
 machine whose movements are governed by a pre- 
 established harmony, not a manifestation of the 
 constant presence and prevading activity of an all- 
 wise agent. God is separate from his works, provi- 
 dence is the law of fate, prayer a foreordained and 
 component element in the working of a vast spiritual 
 mechanism. 
 
 We are taught in Scripture that the hairs of our
 
 268 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 heads are numbered, and that not a sparrow falls to 
 the ground without the notice of the Almighty. But 
 the theory of providence we see revealcid in these 
 words must % form a component part of our rational 
 views of the nature of God, and of his relation to 
 the moral world. It is in the light of these concep- 
 tions that we interpret the meaning of the verbal 
 relation itself. The signification of the terms ex- 
 pands with the breadth and extent of our spiritual 
 ideas. Certainly, when science has unveiled to us 
 its exalted view of God's omnipresence, and rqvealed 
 his intimate nearness in the action of every natural 
 force, the Christian view of providence may be 
 accepted in its most literal sense, and partakes of the 
 precision and extent and certainty of our scientific 
 conceptions. The very simplicity of the gospel is 
 linked with the discoveries of science and the depth 
 of our philosophical ideas. . But there is another 
 point where our independent speculative views exer- 
 cise an important influence on the interpretation of 
 revealed religion ; I mean in the connection we 
 establish between the finite and the infinite, between 
 God and his works. The immense diversity of 
 opinion that has been entertained by Christians upon 
 this question proves that revelation lacks sufficient 
 precision to preclude the necessity of personal reflec- 
 tion. And here the danger to be apprehended does 
 not consist solely nor chiefly in the adoption of a 
 narrow and gross system of philosophy, as in many 
 of the cases we have named, but in most cases 
 springs from an opposite tendency, from spiritualism
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 269 
 
 itself become ultra and exclusive. Men, starting 
 from a conception of the infinity, omnipresence, and 
 spirituality of the Deity, have seen only him in the 
 universe ; fixing their view exclusively on the eter- 
 nal substance, they have looked upon man merely 
 as an accident, or mode of that substance ; accus- 
 tomed to direct their thoughts to the efficacy of the 
 Infinite Agency alone, they have seen in man no 
 central and self-determining power, 110 inherent and 
 personal force. A spirit completely saturated with 
 such a view may be religious, but its religion is dis- 
 eased. Religion, to be healthy and strong, must in- 
 clude a view of human liberty, as well as of Divine 
 power ; it must see that we have nobler relations 
 to the Deity than that of absolute dependence. 
 The piety which Christian Pantheism inspires in 
 man is a dreamy quiescence, a losing of self in con- 
 templation of the Infinite. All the powers of the 
 soul are absorbed in meditation upon the awful ideas 
 in which the Deity is revealed to us, till an unnatural 
 humility ends by sacrificing the noblest elements of 
 human nature upon the altar of faith. The funda- 
 mental vice of this view of the relation of the Creator 
 and his creature may be, and has been, manifested 
 in a variety of forms, and has tainted almost every 
 doctrine of Christianity. 
 
 Revelation warns us of the influence of jsense and 
 passion ; and mysticism, seizing upon this point of 
 duty exclusively, has driven men to cloisters and 
 solitudes, that they might yield themselves to the 
 luxury of unobstructed meditation. We are com-
 
 270 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 manded to recognize the claims of duty before those 
 of society and kindred ; and a rigid asceticism, trans- 
 lating this command into the language of its favorite 
 views, has condemned the exercise of every social 
 feeling as sinful, and placed the perfection of virtue 
 in the infliction of exquisite self-torture. 
 
 Christianity is replete with expressions of the 
 grandeur and holiness of the Deity ; and Calvinism, 
 from an exclusive view of the divine majesty, has 
 placed a false estimate upon human agency, and 
 resolved all morality into considerations for the glory 
 of God. It was with a view to these instances of 
 the corruptions of Christianity, that -Channing pro- 
 foundly remarked, " 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." Al- 
 though the spirit of quietism of which we have 
 spoken is foreign to the tone of modern civilization, 
 still, under its practical influence, we may trace the 
 working of the same views with a different form. A 
 false transcendentalism has seduced some of the 
 noblest minds in our very midst. We open their 
 works, and read of the ideal in religion, of the 
 manifestation of God in the instincts of the soul, 
 and of uniting our life with the universe in the per- 
 ception of eternal beauty. Such theories are pretty ; 
 that, however, is not our objection to them ; they are 
 enervating. There is nothing in them to stimulate
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 271 
 
 that substantial virtue which is the morality of ' 
 Christianity. We do not object to art ; we object to 
 the theory of the identity of art and religion ; to 
 that philosophy which would substitute poetic reverie 
 for the practical duties which Christianity enjoins as 
 the exhibition and proof of sound religious life. The 
 existence of Christ in human form, by giving us 
 at once a definite conception of the perfection of 
 humanity, and a full revelation of the nature and 
 will of God, is a perpetual rebuke to that dissipation 
 of the human faculties and that sickly hue of 
 thought which is the inevitable result of every mod- 
 ification of Pantheism. 
 
 The most remarkable instance, however, of the 
 effect of philosophical systems in modifying the doc- 
 trines of revelation, may be detected in the struc- 
 ture of the theology of the Catholic Church. It is 
 developed there on a colossal seals. In the Middle 
 Ages two great and rival schools contended for the 
 empire of the intellectual world Realism and Nom- 
 inalism. The seal of authority was given to the 
 former. The realists contended that all knowledge 
 was deducible from abstract ideas of the mind ; the 
 testimony of experience was distrusted as unworthy 
 the confidence of a philosopher, and reality was at- 
 tributed only to the general notions of the intellect. 
 Their system was a compound of Platonism and 
 Aristotelianism, of Platonic ideas under an Aristo- 
 telian form. Its great maxim was, " Invisibilia non 
 decipiunt ; " things invisible never deceive. Nomi- 
 nalism, on the contrary, denied the validity of gen-
 
 272 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 eral notions unless verified by the testimony of ex- 
 perience ; and thus in a dark age was the prophet 
 of the modern scientific method. It is curious to 
 observe the facility with which a false philosophy 
 lent itself to the service of the Catholic faith. All 
 the theories of the Church were cast in the mould 
 of the dominant philosophical system. The doc- 
 trines of the eucharist and the Trinity, of predesti- 
 nation and grace, bristled with philosophic formu- 
 lae. As early as the ninth century, the testimony 
 of the senses was officially impeached to obviate ob- 
 jections to the doctrine of the real presence. Here- 
 sies were met with more subtile distinctions, and a 
 finer analysis of the subject and predicate of Scrip- 
 ture propositions. It was as if a solemn incantation 
 had shrouded nature and revelation in an obscurity 
 which Aristotle's system alone had power to dispel. 
 The schoolmen saw everywhere, and in everything, 
 but the outward symbol of an Aristotelian truth. 
 The doctrine of the Trinity was a scientific view of 
 the principle of causation. The dignity of Aristotle 
 was blended with that of Jesus in the papal chair. 
 The Son was the principle of intelligence, and was 
 generated from the Father, as thought is generated 
 from mind. The Spirit is the love of God to his 
 creation, and proceeded merely -from the Father. 
 The terms diversity, difference, separation, distinc- 
 tion, disparity, division, applied to God, became 
 heresy, as they were inconsistent with the great 
 Stagirite's view of substance, according to which 
 God must exist as a Unity of essence under a Triu-
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 273 
 
 ity of forms. The prevalent theories of justification, 
 of original sin, and of free-agency, were all explained 
 by the physical and moral speculations of Aristotle 
 upon creation, and the relation of the Deity to his 
 works. But the points in which the Church re- 
 ceived the most efficient aid from philosophy, may 
 be found in the defence of the Catholic view of the 
 Sacrament and Transubstantiation. The problem 
 was to satisfy reason, and reconcile the theory with 
 common sense. According to the physical theory 
 of the schoolmen, nature was conceived to be a vast 
 system of powers secretly directed by the sovereign 
 will. All the forms of existence could be analyzed 
 into substance and accidents ; substance being the 
 last point to which analysis can attain, the secret 
 ground and support of all appearances, and acci- 
 dents including everything which does not enter 
 into a rational conception of the being or nature of 
 the thing denned. Of course, in accordance with 
 the fundamental doctrine of Realism, substance and 
 accident being clear and distinct ideas of the mind, 
 must have distinct and separate existence in nature, 
 and therefore may not always be conjoined in the 
 actual world. Now, hi the mystical consecration 
 of the elements in the eucharist, the form of the 
 sacrament, that is, the official ceremony conducted 
 by the priest, partaking of the creative energy of the 
 Divine word, changes the distinctive substance of 
 the elements, and infuses the Divine substance of 
 Christ himself. The accidents, such as the form, 
 the taste, the color, and dimensions of the elements, 
 
 18
 
 274 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. . 
 
 still remain, not existing in Christ as their substance, 
 but as simple phenomena divorced from all ground 
 of support. The vicious character or forgetfulness 
 of the priest, at the moment of consecration, could 
 not affect the efficacy of the form, as the priest repre- 
 sented no individual authority, his personality being 
 resolved into the abstract individuality of the Church ; 
 and it was the general intention of the Church that 
 was manifested in the sacramental ceremony. Real- 
 ism here became an effectual means of power. " It 
 was an admirable expedient of ecclesiastical policy 
 thus to rest the power of the church on the purity 
 and indefectibility of an abstraction. Religious 
 imagination was sustained on the picture of the 
 church as the great mother of the faithful, cher- 
 ishing her beloved children in her pure bosom ; 
 whilst her many-handed agents in the world were 
 securing their hold on the consciences of men by 
 that prerogative of veneration which they enjoyed 
 in her person." 1 This connection between the logi- 
 cal philosophy of the schoolmen and the Catholic 
 religion were not accidental. It is upon the princi- 
 ples of that philosophy alone that the theology of 
 Rome can be defended now. Luther, who was, 
 according to Melancthon, a strenuous partisan of the 
 sect of Nominalists, declared that a reform of the 
 church would be impossible until the whole scho- 
 lastic philosophy, theology, and logic should be erad- 
 icated. The study of physics cured Bayle of 
 Catholicism ; and Gibbon has left a record of the 
 
 1 Hampden's Bampton Lectures, p. 824.
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 275 
 
 raptures he experienced when the important and 
 recondite truth flashed upon his mind that the 
 doctrine of the real presence is attested only by 
 the sense of sight, which receives the impressions 
 of Scripture texts, while it is disproved by three 
 senses, the sight, the touch, and the taste. Ca- 
 tholicism has always opposed philosophical innova- 
 tion. When Descartes, with his principle of uni- 
 versal doubt, and his distinction of substances into 
 material and thinking, broke the spell of the Middle 
 Ages, an angry controversy was at once excited 
 upon the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which 
 drove the partisans of the new system to the most 
 subtile artifices in order to maintain the show of 
 cougruity between their views and the dominant 
 theology. The revival of an ideal philosophy in 
 France in modern times, occasioned an outbreak of 
 Jesuitical bigotry, owing to fear for the doctrines of 
 the church ; and, in our own country, we have 
 lately seen a distinguished theorist, remarkable for 
 severity of his logic and the consistency, for the 
 time being, of his opinions, after having been led, 
 by a metaphysical formula, into the bosom of the 
 Catholic Church, turn and decry the whole ten- 
 dency of modern thought and cultivation, and speak 
 in the most exalted terms of the wisdom and depth 
 of the philosophy of the Middle Ages. 
 
 In the history of modern philosophy, too, the re- 
 action of the opinions of every school upon theology, 
 admonishes us of the inseparable connection be- 
 tween these separate pursuits. The peculiar views
 
 27G PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 of Kant, as to the powers of the mind and the laws 
 of science, necessarily led to a peculiar theory of 
 revelation. He aspired to show, d priori, what, 
 from the nature of the human mind, revelation 
 must contain, and the evidence it must adduce in 
 support of its authority. Soon, the influence of 
 his system called forth theologians like Paulus, and 
 Rohr, and Krug, and Wegscheider, and a host of 
 others, who swell the ranks of German rationalism. 
 The dreamy and poetic spirit of Schelling's philoso- 
 phy of nature, added to the Catholic influence some 
 of the most celebrated names which German litera- 
 ture in the nineteenth century can boast. Hege- 
 lianism embodied its religious results in Strauss's 
 life of Jesus, and the theological opinions and spirit 
 of Schleiermacher and De Wette were allied with a 
 criticism of the human faculties and a theory of 
 knowledge, which found a scientific form in the 
 philosophy of Fries. And. in our midst it is easy 
 to trace the influence which the general philosoph- 
 ical spirit, the belief in the absolute agency of man, 
 and the dignity of human nature, among the Uni- 
 tarians, has had in moulding the form of their the- 
 ology, and in determining their views of revelation. 
 A full discussion of the points of difference between 
 them and their opponents involves at the outset the 
 justness of their conception of human power. 
 
 Among us, it is evident that the topic of which 
 we have been treating is a new one. Obliged as 
 our denomination has been to maintain an antago- 
 nistic position, in order to support its existence, it is
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 277 
 
 no wonder that it has not meddled with questions 
 which demand more leisure, a higher cultivation, 
 and different habits of thought. Perhaps, too, it is 
 to this polemic tendency that we must ascribe a cer- 
 tain distrust of such pursuits as visionary and un- 
 certain, too often built on abstractions that are the 
 dreams of a distempered imagination, or the crea- 
 tions of a disordered brain. Many of our reasoners, 
 so long accustomed to decide all questions by an ap- 
 peal to Scripture, seem to have become unfitted for 
 the discussion of questions where the subject is the 
 human mind, and the requisites a delicate analysis 
 and subtile discrimination. They want the positive- 
 ness of authority, and suspect the soundness of con- 
 clusions drawn by unassisted reason. They are 
 fearful, moreover, that the simplicity of the gospel 
 may be corrupted ; forgetting that mysticism may 
 revel in fanciful constructions of the sacred writings, 
 and sophistry lurk under a rigid collation of Scrip- 
 ture texts. But, be this as it may, the wants of a 
 higher cultivation are beginning to be seriously felt 
 among us, and, as a help to attain this cultivation, 
 a philosophical training is not only desirable, but 
 necessary. The laws of the human mind are not 
 suspended nor reversed in behalf of religious sci- 
 ence. It requires training and discipline and severe 
 reflection, to reach the highest walks in theology, as 
 much as it requires them to reach the highest walks 
 in any intellectual pursuit. There are questions at 
 this moment pressing upon the attention of the 
 American theologian, to which he must bring a mind
 
 278 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 versed in history and science, and trained to habits 
 of patient and untiring thought. Disputes as to 
 the authenticity of the Scriptures, the^ reality of 
 miracles, and the nature of inspiration, however 
 we may regret that they have been raised, cannot 
 be settled by the dogmatism of common sense, or 
 charmed away by the contempt of indifference. 
 Neither, of course, can they be laid by appeals 
 to Scripture. Philosophy, by examining into the 
 grounds upon which faith is built, has raised them ; 
 and it is to enlightened philosophy alone that we 
 must look for those principles of historical criticism 
 which can conduct to a satisfactory solution. 
 
 This relation of religion to philosophy, let it here 
 be observed, is not peculiar. A man who is not 
 penetrated with a philosophic spirit cannot attain 
 to eminence in any intellectual pursuit. All the 
 provinces of thought are under the dominion of 
 philosophy. It is the air from which they draw the 
 sustenance of a lofty or a stunted growth. The 
 study of history has been revolutionized by modern 
 philosophy ; its aim has been changed, its sphere 
 enlarged. Underneath minute events it looks for 
 the spirit of the people, the manners and life which 
 determine national character, and searches for facts 
 in order to attain the ideas by which they may be 
 interpreted. Beyond history now lies the philoso- 
 phy of history, which is the creation of the modern 
 intellect, and the noblest product of modern culti- 
 vation. Science, too, lias received its laws from 
 philosophy ; and, like a dutiful child, returns to its
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 279 
 
 parent the fruit of its researches, to be used as the 
 material of still wider progress. Literature and art 
 spring from the inne'r life of the times, and always 
 exhibit, in a form a little obscure, the tone and di- 
 rection of thought and cultivation. Philosophy, 
 then, is indispensable to critical syid exact scholar- 
 ship, and is at once the basis and summit of a thor- 
 ough education. 
 
 Before closing this article, however, we wish to 
 say a few words upon the objections which have 
 been brought against modern philosophy. With 
 some, the terms in which it deals afford an insuper- 
 able obstacle. They are so uncouth, nonsensical, 
 and absurd, as to provoke laughter and disgust. 
 But distinct and different ideas require peculiar 
 forms of expression, and, in fact, one of the great 
 obstacles which has obstructed the progress of the 
 science of the human mind, has been the employ- 
 ment of terms borrowed from material operations, 
 and suggesting material analogies. "We do not ad- 
 mire the euphony, nor defend, in all cases, the pro- 
 priety, of the philosophical nomenclature ; but we 
 cannot see the justice of condemning a pursuit for 
 the precision of its terminology, any more than of 
 condemning a mechanic- for the sharpness of hi? 
 tools. When such criticisms shall be applied to^, 
 botany or chemistry or physiology, they will at 
 least acquire the merit of consistency. Again ; the 
 variety of philosophical opinions and schools, has 
 been considered a weighty objection to the useful- 
 ness and value of the pursuit itself. But religion
 
 280 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 exhibits the same variety of opinion, and the same 
 diversity of sects. In fact, the apparent multiplicity 
 of philosophical schools is delusive, and does not 
 really exist. The great central ideas which are the 
 nucleus around which philosophical systems are 
 formed, will be found to be very few and simple. 
 They may, without any violence to facts, be reduced 
 to four ; and we think a rigid analysis might resolve 
 these into two : Sensualism and Idealism. The 
 most comprehensive and minute survey of the his- 
 tory ol philosophy cannot find, we will venture to 
 say, another idea as the basis of an additional clas- 
 sification ; and certainly this is as near an approach 
 to unity as theology can boast. But this objection, 
 like the last, proceeds, in too many instances, from 
 a weakness of mind or a narrowness of spirit that 
 pretends to decide upon what it does not know, and 
 cannot comprehend, and only proves the necessity 
 of the very cultivation it decries. Some, however, 
 object to speculative philosophy, that it is visionary 
 and unscientific, its method too rash, and its results 
 not valid. To a certain extent this objection may 
 be well founded, and it leads us naturally to con- 
 sider some of the faults of modern speculation. 
 The great errors of modern philosophy have been 
 a hasty generalization, and too great confidence in 
 the power of the human intellect. The limits of 
 knowledge have not been clearly defined. Philoso- 
 phers have forgotten the rules of philosophy, and 
 have endeavored to pluck from the universe the 
 " heart of its mystery." Speculation has attempted
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 281 
 
 to reach, without patient toil, results which patient 
 induction alone could promise ; it has desired to 
 wear, without winning, the*crown of science. Such 
 attempts, of course, must fail. When men attempt 
 to express in one formula the secret laws of the 
 universe, and the reason of all things, they may ex- 
 pect to see their splendid generalizations turn to 
 " splendid follies." Every endeavor to penetrate 
 beyond the power of the mind to know, has over- 
 thrown the system it was intended to adorn, and 
 men are beginning to see that the perfection of reason 
 consists in the recognition of mystery that underlies 
 the whole. This tendency of modern philosophy 
 may be easily explained ; it is a reaction against the 
 laws by which, in the eighteenth century, it was con- 
 fined. Reason, set free from its narrow limits, 
 would tolerate nothing but itself, and consequently 
 has overlooked the importance of the affections and 
 feelings, and aimed too much after a colder, lifeless, 
 and purely rational view of nature. These are 
 faults of philosophers, not of philosophy ; and the 
 remedy must be sought in a rigid adherence to true 
 philosophic method. All the great discoveries in 
 mental science, like the discoveries in the material 
 sciences, have resulted from a patient and exhaust- 
 ive analysis of the facts of consciousness and his- 
 tory, in order to attain a thorough classification, and 
 to construct a legitimate and valid theory. The 
 method of the student of philosophical history is not 
 different from that of the astronomer ; the same
 
 282 PHILOSOPHY AND THEO'LOGY. 
 
 speculative laws which the botanist observes are 
 equally applicable to the pursuits of the philologist. 
 Finally the great argument, with some, against 
 philosophical pursuits, is that of irreligious tendency. 
 That some philosophers have been sceptics cannot 
 be denied. But Laplace was a sceptic ; and is 
 astronomy injurious ? Shellpy was an atheist ; do 
 we estimate the moral tendency of poetry by his 
 belief? Paine was an infidel; but are the principles 
 of common sense to be distrusted, because he pro- 
 fessed to be governed by them ? Moreover, a thor- 
 ough theologian would desire to understand the 
 nature of the attacks against his system ; and if 
 they come in a philosophical form, how shall he re- 
 fute them ? Must he abandon the ground to athe- 
 ists, and thus tacitly admit that the advancing cul- 
 tivation of the age has outrun theology ? Old Je- 
 rome applied himself to study, in order to improve 
 the tone of sacred literature, and that Christians 
 might be able to reply to heathens, who despised 
 them as infants in learning and ineloquent in style. 
 And Tholuck, recently, after avowing his belief that 
 theology and speculative philosophy cannot be sepa- 
 rated, declared, with reference to the present ten- 
 dency of philosophy in Germany, that he should 
 not feel that he was discharging his duty as an aca- 
 demical teacher, did he not struggle to become 
 master of a system which is striking its roots so 
 deep into the spirit of the age. Those are the most 
 dangerous sceptic's, who are continually fearing the 
 effect of intellectual progress upon religion. What
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 283 
 
 would have been the influence if, a few years since, 
 geology had been abandoned 'to the opponents of 
 religion, and the whole array of theological force and 
 skill, clinging to a rigidly literal interpretation of 
 Scripture, had set against it ? Would the progress 
 of science have been impeded ? Or rather, would not 
 religion have lost a most useful ally and defender ? 
 But it is for others to make this plea of irreligious ten- 
 dency against philosophy. If we will not give it our 
 countenance, still let us not be plaintiffs. Modern 
 philosophy and modern cultivation, in every depart- 
 ment, are leagued with liberal Christianity. This 
 is a sign of hope. The dogmas of a narrow theol- 
 ogy cannot breathe the air of philosophy or science ; 
 it is* too pure. Who can rise from a study of the 
 exquisitely perfect and simple mechanism which 
 every branch of science unfolds, in every corner of 
 the universe, and assent to the theological doctrine 
 of the Trinity ? The ethical system of Stewart or 
 Jouffroy is not the ethical system which flows from 
 the doctrines of total depravity and predestination ; 
 neither can the works of Combe find fellowship in 
 the theory of vicarious sacrifice and atonement. 
 All those arts which spring from the finer feel- 
 ings of the soul condemn them. What music 
 would satisfy the genius of Calvinism ? what would 
 be its ideal of art, but the " writhing agonies of 
 Laocoon ? " Shall we, then, be behind the parti- 
 sans of these very systems in cultivating the sources 
 of sound literature ? Orthodox theologians are 
 daily making themselves familiar with German Bib-
 
 284 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 lical critics and German literature, and, conse- 
 quently, with German philosophy. If the experi- 
 ment will level their theology to the level of Ger- 
 man orthodoxy, the friends of religion will have 
 cause to rejoice. Everything in the tendencies of 
 the age is favorable to the progress of liberal Chris- 
 tianity. Moral and intellectual philosophy, science, 
 literature, and art, are in harmony with it and are 
 moved by its spirit. The implements are prepared, 
 if theologians will use them. We have nothing, of 
 course, to fear from atheism, and, least of all, from 
 the progress of knowledge. The great question 
 which, from recent developments, bids fair to agi- 
 tate the higher circle of theologians, is a question 
 between rationalism and supernaturalism. In' the 
 discussion of this point, a thorough examination of 
 the grounds of religion will of course be involved. 
 The spiritual and elevated character of modern 
 speculation is a pledge for a satisfactory solution. 
 Any apparent hostility between religion and philos- 
 ophy will be reconciled by a simple decision. Phi- 
 losophy does not want supernaturalism as the start- 
 ing-point ; religion does not want rationalism as a 
 goal. Both will be satisfied with supernaturalism 
 grounded in rationalism, with Christian faith as the 
 crown of human reason.
 
 XIII. 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION, 
 
 THE object proposed in the present article is this : 
 to point out the relations and the reciprocal in- 
 fluence between natural and revealed religious 
 truth ; between those ideas of God, the spiritual re- 
 lations of men, and human destiny, which inquiry, 
 research, and reflection have attained, and those 
 ideas which are unfolded with authoritative clear- 
 ness in the Bible. It does not come within the 
 scope of our plan to refer at all to the preliminary 
 question, so widely agitated in our tune, whether 
 the Bible itself contains a revelation, in our com- 
 mon understanding of that term, or whether its 
 truths are merely the highest discoveries as yet 
 attained by the religious nature in its natural and 
 ordinary development. Standing on the commonly 
 recognized Christian ground, without reference to 
 that point, we wish to trace the connection between 
 the religious truths of the Bible, as they are clearly 
 unfolded, whether supernaturally revealed or not, 
 and the development of philosophical and scientific 
 researches in the same field. 
 
 And, in the first place, we must remark that the 
 distinction between the two provinces of natural 
 
 285
 
 286 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 and revealed religion is founded, not in a differ- 
 ence between things, but in the relation which cer- 
 tain truths bear to the laws and limits of human 
 knowledge. By the terms " natural " and " re- 
 vealed," we do not distinguish different kinds of 
 religion, separate fields of investigation essentially 
 distinct; we do not intend an intellectual-^partition 
 such as, in the realm of science, is conveyed by 
 the terms astronomy and geology, chemistry and 
 mathematics. Evidently, there can be but one 
 religion, one absolute system of spiritual truth, as 
 there can be but one science of geometry, or one 
 theory of light and of mechanic forces. And this 
 absolute religion remains true, independent of hu- 
 man thought and culture, entirely unaffected by 
 the faith or the ignorance 01 men. The difference 
 marked and conveyed in common speech by the 
 terms we have used, is a difference of relations 
 solely ; it implies, not a generic separation, but re- 
 fers to a diversity in the methods of attainment, and 
 the character of the evidence adduced. To the do- 
 main of natural religion belong all the features of 
 this universal truth which human reason in its 
 highest elevation can attain. It includes all those 
 discoveries which, in accordance with the natural 
 adaptation between our finite intellect and the laws 
 of mental light, flow in upon us from the infinite 
 depths of being ; while, revealed religion, supply- 
 ing a higher instrument, and collecting and concen- 
 trating the rays into a powerful focus, intensifies 
 to use that word our natural knowledge, at the
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 287 
 
 same time that it extends the range of our acquaint- 
 ance with the universe, and brings within the circle 
 of our vision vast relations, which must forever have 
 been denied to the most ardent researches of the 
 unaided eye. The distinction in the terms reposes, 
 then, not on objective peculiarities in truths, but on 
 subjective powers of discovery. 
 
 Reasoning d priori, we cannot discover that, in- 
 dependent of the pleasure of the Deity, there need 
 be, to us, any natural connection between the evi- 
 dences for these two divisions. The infinite cannot 
 exhaust itself by any revelations, and there would 
 seem to be no necessary relationship between the 
 actual manifestations of the Deity in the mechanical 
 arrrangements of nature and the powers of the 
 mind, and any further communications which he 
 might choose to make directly through an accred- 
 ited agent, and by super-ordinary means. It was 
 within tlie option of the Deity to rest revelation on 
 independent evidence entirely overwhelming ; to 
 introduce- it into the world like light borne suddenly 
 into the midst of total darkness ; to strengthen it 
 with evidence that should command the belief of 
 all times, not at all by the harmony of its truths 
 with known or observed or supposed principles of 
 divine agency and action, but by the crushing exhi- 
 bitions of supernatural interference which establish, 
 beyond all cavil, the communicated facts. Nature 
 might have been constructed so meaningless, or the 
 intuitive energies of the mind might have been so 
 dull, that, for any practical knowledge of the char-
 
 288 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 acter and will of the Almighty, we should be obliged 
 to rely entirely on definite statements, indorsed by 
 evidence addressed to the senses, evidence which 
 should always consist of historical and material 
 proof. Beyond any attainable depths "a lower 
 deep " still opens in the infinite ; and, as the scale 
 of revelation, through common or uncommon means, 
 is solely the arbitrary pleasure of the Deity, we can 
 discover no necessary tie, which, in the nature of 
 things, binds the truths of the two departments into 
 mutual relationship and dependency. 
 
 But this, although it might have been the order 
 of providence, is not the order of fact. It will not 
 be pretended by any we think not by the blindest 
 zealots against human reason that there is no 
 connection subsisting between these separate ranges. 
 It is the plan of the Infinite Wisdom not to over- 
 power the mind by certainty, but to lead it along 
 the path of analogies and correspondences and prob- 
 abilities, to faith. Nature is neither so empty of 
 moral significance, nor the mind so devoid of heav- 
 enly attractions and spiritual instincts, nor is the 
 dogmatic and extraordinary evidence of revelation 
 so irresistible, when examined by itself, as to require, 
 on the one hand, or to permit on the other, the in- 
 troduction of a set of truths claiming to be a reve- 
 lation, and yet entirely beyond the range, and in- 
 dependent of the confirmation and support which 
 are given by the dim testimony of the outward uni- 
 verse and the soul of man. And thus, while we 
 affirm a' radical distinction between natural and re-
 
 ' NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 289 
 
 vealed religion, relatively to the powers of the mind, 
 which must not be confounded, neither the actual 
 weakness of the one nor the admitted strength of 
 the other will allow us to deny that they do, in 
 some way, mutually imply and sustain each other. 
 
 If the supernatural proofs of revelation be not 
 assumed to be in themselves entirely overwhelming, 
 so as to repel the possibility of collateral aid, we 
 may state, in the first place, that the truths of 
 revelation must be connected with natural relig- 
 ion, at least to this extent ; they must be in har- 
 mony with it ; they must not contradict it. For, 
 with the present constitution of human reason, it 
 can hardly be entertained as possible that any pre- 
 tended revelation could win a general belief, even 
 though seemingly indorsed by miraculous aid, if it 
 contained a theory of God- and Nature entirely op- 
 posed to the researches of science, and if it unfolded 
 a system of morals from which the finest sensibili- 
 ties of conscience spontaneously recoiled. Reason 
 will not entertain the question of supernatural testi- 
 mony, if it be vitiated by an association with absurd- 
 ities. Men could easily evade any testimony to a 
 miracle ; they would distrust their senses if they 
 saw a miracle wrought in support of a revolting 
 scheme. Such a system, besides miraculous testi- 
 mony, would find it necessary to induce a miracu- 
 lous change on human reason, and as an indispen- 
 sable preliminary reverse the laws of the intellect. 
 And thus, with the present structure of the human 
 mind, the possibility, not indeed of a revelation's 
 
 19
 
 290 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION/ 
 
 being given, but of its gaining credence, involves 
 the necessity of its being in harmony with the gen- 
 eral laws, and what we believe to be the possibilities 
 of nature. 
 
 Farther than this, moreover, we may assert that 
 natural religion is so far the basis of revelation that 
 it supplies the antecedent probability that further 
 and higher communications from the Deity will be 
 made. The argument for a system of revealed truth 
 is essentially weakened when no hints and no prob- 
 abilities can be detected in the world and in the 
 wants of man, which that system meets and con- 
 firms. The defences of revelation are left open to 
 the inroads of scepticism when the outposts of nat- 
 ural analogies and confirmed anticipations have 
 been stormed and beaten down. Before the full 
 weight of miraculous evidence even can be appre- 
 ciated, a certain prior purity in our conceptions of 
 the unity and goodness of the Almighty is almost 
 indispensable. Although we cannot excuse the wil- 
 ful enmity of the Pharisees to Jesus, still, had the 
 Jewish notions of God's unity been sufficiently pre- 
 cise to have excluded their belief in the power of 
 demons and the hostile agency of Beelzebub, the 
 miracles of Christ would have exercised a greater 
 power over their unbelief. Wherever miraculous 
 proof is obliged to meet this faith in the duality of 
 agencies which control the powers of nature, there 
 must be some circumstances connected with the 
 miracle or its author or its purpose, which deter- 
 mine the mind from its prior natural associations,
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 291 
 
 to ascribe to it either to the one or the other of its 
 preconceived deities. And accordingly as these cir- 
 cumstances harmonize with the supposed proper 
 agency of the benevolent or malignant power, will 
 the revelation be accepted. And it was, perhaps, 
 to the purity of the Jewish notions of the power 
 and goodness of the Deity, and to the harmony of 
 his own works and words with those higher views, 
 that Christ appealed as an argument for the validity 
 of his claims in that language, " Ye believe in God, 
 believe also in me." 
 
 If we extend our inquiries beyond the field we 
 have already occupied, into the connection between 
 the doctrines of Christianity and natural religion, 
 we find ourselves perplexed with many embarrassing 
 problems. The truths of the Christian revelation 
 were above the attainments and capacity of the age 
 in which they were given. There was nothing in 
 the history or the tendencies of religious and philo- 
 sophical speculations that seemed to point to or 
 promise them. Besides, they came with authority 
 in a different way and with higher sanctions than 
 truths attained by unassisted human culture. And 
 thus they are forever separated from the same facts 
 if they should be developed by moral evidence 
 alone. This cordially granted and firmly believed, 
 the question of the exact relation between the doc- 
 trines of the gospel and of natural religion is still 
 a question of speculative, if not of practical inter- 
 est, but one which, from the difficulties which at- 
 tend it is, in our opinion, almost if not entirely in-
 
 292 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 soluble. To receive a satisfactory answer, evidently 
 we should first understand the limits of intellectual 
 power in the domain of religion. We must go back 
 to the time when revelation was given, and compre- 
 hend not only what men had learned of God and 
 nature, and not only what .they seemed likely to 
 learn, but also what, by the sole aid of thought and 
 culture, they could ever learn. We must see not 
 merely the relation of the new doctrines to human 
 attainment thus far, but also to the possible capac- 
 ity of reason. We must understand the extent to 
 which human reason uninfluenced by the Bible, can 
 go in the construction of a religious creed, and then 
 look into the schedule of revelation and note the 
 difference. No other method can be effectual. The 
 mind of Christ was above his time ; but we have 
 no authority for asserting that, in the course of cen- 
 turies, some spirit could not naturally arise who 
 should discover and reveal by the power of spiritual 
 intuition and in a philosophical form many of the 
 truths which Christ revealed by authority and as a 
 religion. We can never prophesy the exact limits 
 of intellectual power. History warns us against 
 doing so. The genius of Plato was naturally evolved 
 from the capacities of the Pelasgic race. But who, 
 in Homer's time, could have conceived the pos- 
 s.ibility of Platom'sm ! It would have been a rev- 
 elation strange enough in the heroic age. Cul- 
 tivation prepares the way for him, however, and 
 Plato comes, the perfection of Grecian genius, and 
 by a singular law, at the declining moment of Gre-
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 293 
 
 cian inspiration. It would have been unwarranta- 
 ble presumption in the time of Copernicus, or even 
 of Hipparchus, to have denied the possibility of an 
 intellect like Newton's. Every genius is an impos- 
 sibility till he appears. There are never facts 
 enough in human experience ^to serve as a basis for 
 safe induction as to the mental capacity of men. 
 We cannot reach the law that governs the develop- 
 ment of genius. Two centuries before his time 
 Shakspeare was a poetic miracle ; he is ~a poetic 
 wonder still. From the average powers of boys at 
 ten, it would seem monstrous that there should be 
 heads like those of Zera Colburn and young Saf- 
 ford. They appear like new planets taking a wider 
 sweep in the universe of mind ; and the limits of 
 human nature are carried out. And so it is now 
 impossible to determine how far the doctrines alone, 
 of Christianity, separate from their proofs and the 
 circumstances of the teacher, were merely anticipa- 
 tions of possible discoveries. 
 
 It may be urged, however, that the results of in- 
 quiry, the developments of research, since the intro- 
 duction of Christianity, have extended the range of 
 natural religion ; and, therefore, a comparison of 
 the results of the two systems now may aid us in 
 settling the question of mutual influence. But 
 here we are met by another difficulty. In order 
 that this method should be effective, it would be 
 necessary to assume that revelation has had no in- 
 fluence in aiding this culture and unfolding these 
 results. If Christianity has not been entirely inop-
 
 294 NATURAL AND EEVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 erative as an intellectual aid, we can no more con- 
 clude from the after tendencies and triumphs of 
 thought what the real extent of natural religion is, 
 than from the former weakness and failures of 
 thought we could properly have concluded what its 
 limits must be. 
 
 "We cannot stop to discuss the question, whether 
 revelation has aided the discoveries of science ; but 
 we think it is evident on philosophical grounds, that 
 the religious value of those discoveries has been 
 powerfully affected by the truths of the gospel. 
 And now, if this be so, instead of possessing the 
 pure results of natural religion on the one side, and 
 of revelation on the other, we have both blended. 
 The union is so intimate that no analysis can sepa- 
 rate and hold the elements apart, even as an exper- 
 iment. "We have no moral prism to divide the rays. 
 Like a current formed by the junction of two 
 streams, the waters have mixed until it is a hope- 
 less task to distinguish the drops, and refer each 
 one accurately to its original source. 
 
 Physiology, for instance, and an acquaintance with 
 the mutual dependence of physical laws throughout 
 the universe, have unfolded and confirmed the idea 
 of God's goodness, and have transferred it to natu- 
 ral religion. But unless that conception had been 
 supplied beforehand so purely by the gospel, the con- 
 clusion could not be reached with so much ease, nor 
 would it lie in the mind with so much certainty. 
 The notion itself was ready, deeply impressed upon 
 the faith of men, and applied to the facts to be tried,
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 295 
 
 not reached from the facts alone as a purely induc- 
 tive result. The force of the gospel was in it as a 
 Christian conception when given : it lies in it after 
 it is established seemingly on scientific grounds 
 alone. The idea of God's spirituality and omnipres- 
 ence lias been immensely supported by inquiries 
 into the essence of the laws of nature, and by the 
 revelations of chemistry and astronomy. But they 
 were pure ideas, present at hand to be interpreted by 
 science, offered as hypotheses immediately to natural 
 religion ; they were not really the suggested notions 
 after the facts were all revealed, the key proposed 
 by the guess of some shrewd thinker to explain the 
 scientific phenomena. We must constantly remem- 
 ber that the Christian mould is ever ready to give 
 the facts their form. Modern philosophy has drawn, 
 from a profound investigation of the phenomena of 
 evil, a. beautiful, and it should seem impregnable 
 argument, in confirmation of the unity and the 
 goodness of the Creator. In this respect the natural 
 religion of our times is incomparably higher than 
 the general spirit of the speculations in the ancient 
 classic world. For, however our faith may still be 
 disturbed at times by the sudden and violent irrup- 
 tion of the thoughts of evil upon the mind, the ques- 
 tion of a duality of agencies, or any pure malignity 
 in nature, is finally set at rest by the discovery that 
 seeming evil grows out of the same root with good, 
 is always the incidental, never the necessary develop- 
 ment of the same law, and that it thus points to the 
 intentional agency of One who has included it in
 
 296 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 the plan of human discipline, and inwoven it in the 
 web of being for some design, inexplicable as yet 
 it may be, of ultimate perfection. Who can doubt 
 that this discovery has resulted naturally from the 
 pressure upon the mind of the sublime doctrine 
 of Christianity, that God is the Father, a doctrine 
 which has become so intimately a part of our religious 
 cultivation, and which lies in the soul with such 
 authoritative power, that the mind has felt impelled 
 to probe the secrets of nature to their last hiding- 
 places, in order to reconcile its cheering faith with 
 the gloomy show of facts ? The pure, unceremonial 
 theory of worship too, in Christianity, its ritual of 
 deeds, is powerfully supported by the unfolded 
 grandeur of the universe ; that is, all which we have 
 learned of nature is in harmony with such a view 
 of God and piety. But we cannot know that the 
 piety required by St. John the law of love as the 
 highest worship would have been evolved from 
 the facts which now give to it additional force. 
 Christian cultivation and Christian views of the 
 world have infused themselves into the whole frame- 
 work of education. Under Christian civilization, 
 natural science, instead of being obliged to encounter 
 the hostile influence of a degraded and impure 
 system of religion, instead of being fettered by 
 anthropomorphic and physical notions of the Deity, 
 established by a theological training from which it 
 must work itself free, is aided by ideas so lofty and 
 spiritual that they cannot be surpassed. And it is 
 these ideas, commented on arid unfolded by science,
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 297 
 
 of which, for the most part, natural theology now 
 consists. "For, strictly speaking, induction cannot 
 reach to the attributes of God and the elements of 
 a religion. These can be Known only from a com- 
 plete survey of nature, from a knowledge of all the 
 evidence furnished in her realm. But induction can 
 never deal with more than a partial, limited range of 
 facts. And thus, what is claimed in modern times 
 to be natural religion exclusively, is merely a por- 
 tion of Christianity given as hypotheses, and then 
 translated into the language of nature, and inter- 
 preted by the facts of natural research. 
 
 We would insist upon this point as one of vital 
 importance in the discussion of our present question. 
 Every student of philosophy, and of the laws of 
 scientific discoveries, knows that a vital portion of 
 the process of discovery consists in the d priori 
 application of the idea which is appropriate to the 
 facts under investigation. The mind does not work 
 mechanically, even in observing the rigorous rules 
 of induction. With Columbus, the causal step was 
 taken in his prophetic and firmly held conception 
 of the roundness of the globe. The failures of 
 Aristotle, and the fundamental error of all Greek 
 physical speculation, consisted not solely, we cannot 
 say chiefly, in a false scientific method, in a lack of 
 sufficient observation and patient classification, but 
 rather in the reference of facts to inappropriate ideas. 
 In mechanical science, the fundamental idea upon 
 which all discoveries rest is the conception of force 
 as the cause of motion ; but Aristotle, in attempting
 
 298 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 the solution of mechanical problems, refers to 
 geometrical instead of mechanical ideas. Hence 
 his whole system is confused, and even his correct 
 conclusions unscientific and accidental. Had Kepler 
 distinctly conceived the mechanical character of 
 the problem to be resolved, he would perhaps have 
 worn Newton's laurels as the first discoverer of 
 universal gravitation. The great obstruction in the 
 way of the further progress of the sciences of biol- 
 ogy is, as scientific men inform us, the confusion of 
 ideas relative to the principle of life, and a lack of 
 clearness in the conceptions of assimilation, secretion, 
 and voluntary motion. The possibility of any theol- 
 ogy depends on the despotic demands of the idea 
 of cause, which will not suffer the mind to rest till 
 it has solved the question of creation. And any 
 one can see that an essential alteration, or a lack of 
 clearness in the idea of skill, would disturb mate- 
 rially the domain and alter the value of natural 
 theology. Seeing that every science is constructed 
 of intellectual and a priori elements, as well as of 
 materials given by experience, a modern philosopher, 
 Mr. Whewell, has proved at length, in his " Philoso- 
 phy of the Inductive Sciences," that the advance of 
 knowledge depends as much on the clear " explica- 
 tion of conceptions," as on the proper " collegation 
 of facts." 
 
 And thus, on rigid principles of science, we see 
 the aid which Christianity has extended to Natural 
 Religion. It has furnished to it those pure concep- 
 tions which have thrown light on nature, while in
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 299 
 
 turn they have been strengthened by the evidence 
 from nature. In no case can it be claimed that the 
 evidence of science has gone one jot beyond the 
 proper interpretation of gospel theology. Strike 
 out the doctrine of universal moral providence from 
 the record of Christ's teachings, and, destitute of the 
 prior, unconscious aid of that conception, modern 
 research would find it hard to restore it. The 
 revelations of science, by showing us God's action 
 to be seemingly omnipresent in outward nature, give 
 to it the strong support of analogy, and help us to 
 conceive it in its simple beauty. But they go no 
 farther ; and they go thus far by the aid of the idea 
 of universal providence, supplied in advance from 
 the Bible itself. And even here, we may say tliat 
 the essence of the argument was anticipated by 
 Christ's figure of the lilies, and in his allusions to 
 the esoteric theology of the sunshine and rain. 
 
 At all points, in the development of what is called 
 natural religion, the truths of Christianity have 
 served as categories of our spiritual nature, which, 
 by their positive influence, have assisted in the crea- 
 tion of natural religion. As, in intellectual philos- 
 ophy, the ideas of cause and substance and relation 
 are furnished from the mind as part of the struct- 
 ure of knowledge, so the doctrines of providence 
 and immortality and omnipresence have been fur- 
 nished from the gospel, as the cement of rational 
 theology. They are the unconscious forms, the 
 divine die, impressed upon the facts offered by sci- 
 ence, and imparting to them a significance which
 
 300 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 they might never have acquired. Thus we see the 
 utter impossibility of following the two provinces 
 into any parallel developments for the purpose of 
 comparing their value and unfolding their relations. 
 The demand upon natural religion should be to fur- 
 nish her positive and independent doctrines as to 
 God, providence, and destiny ; when, in reality, the 
 conclusions of another system have been interwoven 
 and used as aids in unfolding the testimony of her 
 facts. The two systems, to-day, are inextricably in- 
 volved. And so long as we have no moral calculus 
 through which we can reason mechanically, by signs, 
 upon questions which baffle the analysis of simple 
 thought, we cannot hope to answer the question of 
 their relation with much precision. 
 
 Of course, we must not forget that, so far as evi- 
 dence for the truth of the gospel is concerned, this 
 concurrent and corroborative testimony of science is 
 of great importance. It should be a matter of the 
 deepest joy to every Christian believer. It furnishes 
 a powerful weapon against scepticism, and valuable 
 assistance to a failing faith. The significance of 
 revelation itself, doubtless, expands in proportion to 
 our acquaintance with the mysteries of , the world. 
 So that, other things being equal, the best Christian 
 may be he who has drunk deepest at the fountain of 
 wisdom, and who has seen the harmony between 
 God's works and word. Science, also, may be val- 
 uable to correct errors which had arisen from a mis- 
 * construction of revelation. And, as we said before, 
 if the results of science positively contradicted the
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 301 
 
 statements of revelation, it would be impossible to 
 preserve our faith. All this does not affect our po- 
 sition. We are seeking to determine, not precisely 
 the religious value of the discoveries of science, nor 
 what might have occurred had they been different, 
 but how far they may claim to be the trophies of 
 unaided reason. And so long as the truths of nat- 
 ural religion do coincide, so far as they go, with the 
 truths of Christianity, it is improper, seeing the in- 
 fluence of revelation in disclosing them, that they 
 be attributed to the original creative power of the 
 mind. 
 
 Setting aside, then, the endeavor to determine 
 the exact relations between Christianity and natural 
 religion as hopeless, we would define the general 
 relations thus : that it is one office of revelation 
 to aid human reason, and assist it to see for itself. 
 It does not follow, because the Almighty communi- 
 cates a set of truths by supernatural means, at a 
 time when the world is waiting for a new impulse 
 in its march, that it was his intention those truths 
 should always remain above the capacity and be- 
 yond the reach of reason. It does not follow that 
 reason, once quickened and assisted, may not think 
 up to them, at least, so far as to see their natural 
 harmony. Revelation we believe to be a benevolent 
 condescension of the Deity to the weakness of the 
 race. It is intended not only to relieve a present 
 darkness of mind, but also, in that process, to infuse 
 greater strength of mind for the future. It is spir-* 
 itual food to the famishing soul, appeasing want,
 
 302 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 and also strengthening the fibres for a greater vigor. 
 Thus many of the truths supernaturally revealed to 
 the Jews are perfectly simple to us. To them, 
 Christ's theory of spiritual worship, his doctrines 
 that the Sabbath was made for man, and that all 
 men are brethren, were new and startling. They 
 were not only above their reason, but they shook 
 their reason. They were blasphemous, for they con- 
 tradicted the laws of Moses. To our cultivated 
 minds they seem plain and natural : the influence 
 of the truths has purified and refined our spiritual 
 nature until, to a Christian of to-day, these propo- 
 sitions seem religious axioms, hardly demanding the 
 support of any proof. One great office of a revelation, 
 one law of its coming, seems answered and fulfilled 
 when the faculties which it has awakened by their 
 expanding growth embrace its leading truths, and 
 make them part of the constitution of natural theol- 
 ogy. A constant accommodation of the teachings of 
 the Deity to the demands and capacities of the race 
 is one of the plainest lessons unfolded in the Scrip- 
 tures. Eevelation is for human assistance, as well 
 as for human satisfaction. Men thought up to the 
 patriarchal dispensation ; it assisted the piety of 
 the aged patriarchs, but, as a whole, failed to satisfy 
 the demands of reason and the necessities of a 
 denser population ; and the patriarchal dispensation 
 melted into the dawning light of the Mosaic econ- 
 omy. Men thought up to Judaism ; its spiritual 
 nutriment became absorbed until, in a large party, 
 the advanced spiritualists of the Saviour's time, the
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 303 
 
 Simeons and Annaus of Israel, a want was created 
 which Judaism, with its spiritual commentary, the 
 prophetic dispensation, could not satisfy ; and al- 
 though it had been given from God's own hand to 
 Moses, Judaism was withdrawn with a signal mani- 
 festation of the sanction of the Deity. It was with- 
 drawn, not in the sense of being overthrown, but by 
 being fulfilled, carried up to a higher law. Chris- 
 tianity we believe to be a final religious dispensation, 
 not because it is a Revelation, but because it con- 
 tains within itself an expansive power as a revela- 
 tion, able to quicken the capacities of the humblest 
 mind, to satisfy the deepest spiritual desires which 
 it calls forth, to aid the energies of the intellect, 
 itself expanding with the discoveries of science, 
 keeping ever in advance of the soul, and filling the 
 loftiest mind with its ideal of excellence and its 
 views of God. Making allowance for the necessary 
 difference in the nature of the case, we should say 
 that revelation has done for theology what Newton 
 did for science. It has introduced and established 
 principles which were, and perhaps would always 
 have remained, above the capacity of the intellect, 
 but which, once developed, may aid the mind, at 
 last, to see and comprehend their reasonableness 
 and force. Strike the Bible from the hearts of men, 
 erase the memory of it forever from their minds, 
 leave them the cultivation it has infused, and though 
 on far less satisfactory evidence, many of the tenets 
 of Christian theology would be reconstructed. The 
 light which the gospel has kindled in the mind
 
 304 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 would reveal a vast significance in nature and in 
 man. 
 
 Not comprehending this one office of revelation 
 as the educator of the race, many in our time use 
 the fact of the education as an argument against the 
 necessity of supernatural aid from God. They can- 
 not see its value, and deny the fact. But they 
 stand in the unfortunate position of denying it, by 
 virtue of the very assistance which from it they 
 have insensibly received. To their enlarged capac- 
 ity of mind the speech of nature is sufficient. Her 
 language is articulate to them, and they can under- 
 stand it. But their enlarged capacity of mind for- 
 gets to recognize the cause of its enlargement. 
 They inherit the power by which they see. It is an 
 endowment of the very revelation whose value they 
 decry. They transfer their own capacity of com- 
 prehension back to the time when revelation was 
 given, and imagine that men could easily have orig- 
 inated what they now so clearly comprehend. Be- 
 cause revelation has, for them, fulfilled a portion of 
 its office by aiding them to see the reasonableness 
 and simplicity of- all its doctrines, they talk of the 
 intuitions of the soul, and wonder that men can be 
 so credulous as to admit the former need of any 
 revelation. By a too frequent ingratitude they for- 
 get, in their pride of power and place, the friend to 
 whom they owe their elevation. While light is re- 
 flected back to them in some one of its varied hues 
 from every object in the universe, while the whole 
 air is inundated by a general flood of brilliancy,
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 305 
 
 they calmly turn to their less philosophic neighbors, 
 and, brandishing their torches, themselves kindled 
 from the bounty of a Divine Prometheus, cry, 
 " Foolish men, to think that, amidst this all-embrac- 
 ing splendor, the- radiance of our rush-lights, we 
 need that distant sun ! " Is it not as if school-boys, 
 because, with their limited faculties and untrained 
 thought, they can understand something of the 
 symmetry, and take in the vast proportions of the 
 universe, should, therefore, while they stand upon 
 their shoulders, decry the value and revile the use- 
 less labors of Newton and La Place ! 
 
 Since our last article was written we have met 
 with such a calm and vigorous statement from the 
 pen of Dr. Neander, of the truth which, in the last 
 few pages, we have endeavored to present, that we 
 cannot resist the temptation to transcibe it here. 
 " Although Christianity can be understood only as 
 something which is above nature and reason, some- 
 thing communicated to them from a higher source, 
 yet it stands in necessary connection with the es- 
 sence of these powers and with their mode of devel- 
 opment ; otherwise, indeed, it could not be fitted to 
 elevate them to any higher stage; otherwise it would 
 not operate on them at all. And accordingly, we 
 see the evidence of this connection whenever we ob- 
 serve how human nature and reason do, by virtue 
 of their original capacity, actually strive in flieir 
 historical development towards this higher principle 
 which needs to be communicated to them in order 
 to their own completion ; and how, by the same 
 20
 
 306 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 capacity, they are made receptive of this principle, 
 and conducted onward till they yield to it, and 
 become moulded by its influence. It is simply be- 
 cause such a connection exists, because in all cases 
 where, through the historic preparation, the soil has 
 been rendered suitable for its reception, Christianity 
 enters readily into all that is human, striving to as- 
 similate it to its own nature, and to interpenetrate it 
 with its own power, that on a superficial view it ap- 
 pears as if Christianity itself were only a product 
 resulting from a combination of the different spirit- 
 ual elements it had drawn together ; and the opin- 
 ion has found advocates, that it could thus be 
 explained." * 
 
 We return, then, to the idea that there is but one 
 religion, by whatever means its truths be attained. 
 So far as they are developed by the natural opera- 
 tion of the mind, it is natural religion ; so far as 
 they are supplied by a higher power in advance of 
 the capacity of the soul, it is revealed ; while so far 
 as the elements of it are established or strengthened 
 by physical and natural evidence, after the truths 
 have been supernaturally communicated, it is the 
 common product of revelation and reason, and can- 
 not be considered to be exclusively either. 
 
 From what has now been said, it will be seen 
 that an exact determination of the extent of natural 
 religion, compared with Christian theology, cannot 
 be attained. We cannot know how far the mind 
 
 1 Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, recent 
 Boston edition, page 2 of the Introduction.
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 307 
 
 of Christ, in its authoritative disclosures, merely 
 anticipated the future power of speculative reason, 
 and thus foreclosed the possibility of their original 
 and natural development. We cannot say in what 
 degree the religious results of science have been 
 produced by the influence of Christian perceptions, 
 applied to and aiding the discoveries of the mind. 
 What might have been had Christianity been with- 
 held, precisely what has been done because it was 
 given, we are equally unable to unfold. Enough, 
 however, can be seen not only in the apparent in- 
 fluence which the gospel has exerted on the world, 
 but also in the effect and the fortunes of former re- 
 ligious communications, to confirm the belief that it 
 is one great office of Christianity to quicken reason 
 and assist its growth, to aid it in seeing for itself 
 the natural grounds on which its doctrines rest. 
 And thus it seems to be the mission of Christianity 
 to efface the distinctive line which separates natu- 
 ral religion, as an independent system, from its own 
 revelations. The gospel is continually absorbing it 
 into its own sphere. What is called natural relig- 
 ion to-day, whether founded on scientific or moral 
 research, on inquiries into the world of nature or 
 the world of man, is but the demonstration, on other 
 grounds, of Christian truths, the commentary and 
 exposition of the spiritual aphorisms of the Saviour. 
 We talk of the moral evidence afforded by the 
 satisfaction which the gospel gives to the deepest 
 wants of the soul. One of the strongest natural 
 arguments for Christianity is, that in proportion as
 
 308 NATUKAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 we rise in spiritual excellence, and live in a higher 
 sphere, a stronger sense of certainty in regard to its 
 foundation lakes possession of the heart. This is 
 right. But we must remember, also, that the gospel 
 has created many of those wants ; it refines the spir- 
 itual capacities of the mind, and then satisfies them 
 by its purity ; it elevates us into the very sphere 
 from which we derive this influx and inspiration of 
 spiritual peace. Christianity is " a well of water, 
 springing up into everlasting life." Although it be 
 true as an evidence, " If ye do his will ye shall know 
 of the doctrine whether it be of God," it is the Reve- 
 lation of the nature of the will which is the real 
 condition of the promised proof. To the piety of 
 Fenelon no doubts may come ; but it is Christian 
 education which nourishes and refines that piety. 
 The overflowing compassion, the boundless love of 
 the gospel, may be satisfactory proof of its Divinity 
 to the benevolent soul of Howard ; but Christian 
 culture had much to do with preparing in his heart 
 the capacity for that satisfaction. The mind of 
 Newton, filled with the simplicity and grandeur of 
 Creative Wisdom, may be sustained and strength- 
 ened greatly in its faith by the purity of the Chris- 
 tian ritual ; but it was partly owing to the prior and 
 elevating effects of that purity upon his religious 
 nature that he was enabled to see its harmony with 
 the universe. And thus in the moral, as in the 
 material world, Christianity has supplied the very 
 means, which in their operation, have returned so 
 many proofs ; it has planted the seeds which have
 
 NATURAL AND EEVEALED RELIGION. 309 
 
 rewarded the sower with such 'an abundant har- 
 vest. 
 
 It is a sign of hope, for the permanence of the 
 gospel, that it sustains this relation to what is 
 termed natural religion. For it is owing alone to 
 the complete harmony between the statements of 
 revelation and the discovered testimony of nature 
 that it becomes so difficult to analyze and separate 
 them. Christianity furnishes the key by which to 
 read the cipher of the world. The solution is fitted 
 to all the difficulties of the enigma, else the elements 
 would not yield so consistently to the interpretation. 
 From the domain of natural religion is echoed back 
 the voice of revelation; an echo so distinct that it 
 has been taken for an original tone. Were there a 
 dissonance, not only should we hear it, but it would 
 disturb the security of our firmly-rooted faith. 
 
 And it is not to be forgotten, besides, that this 
 sympathy between the doctrines of science and 
 Christianity, although complete in many instances, 
 does not at all lessen the value and the continual 
 need of the assurances of the gospel. Let Chris- 
 tianity quicken the faculties and exalt the energies 
 of our nature as it may, it cannot discharge itself 
 completely into the reason of man. At every stage, 
 in the great academy, the authority of the teacher 
 is needed still. ' On many points, and those too of 
 the deepest interest, it is and must always be our 
 only available instructor. Nature gives no definite 
 proof that God is the Father, and so far as mere 
 science is concerned, it removes objections to rather
 
 310 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 than furnishes arguments for a future life. By the 
 strong confirmation it lends to other points of Chris- 
 tian theology, it strengthens our confidence in the 
 truth of these, and thus leads the mind so far on 
 the way of analogy as to give foundation for a faith 
 that, could more be known of nature, they might 
 easily be discovered there. It prepares us, in a word, 
 to listen with deeper reverence to the prayer of 
 Jesus, and to hear with greater joy the language, 
 "/ am the resurrection and the life." 
 
 And if, as the teacher of much of the natural re- 
 ligion we have, we discover the superiority of Chris- 
 tianity to the whole scheme, we must also add, that 
 the evidence which the gospel brings removes it yet 
 farther and higher. However we may legitimate the 
 miraculous proof, when once heartily received, it 
 gives us a repose different from the common results 
 of moral probability. Let us feel that a truth is 
 spoken from God, by his special sanction, and, al- 
 though that sanction does not make the truth truer, 
 it gives it greater intensity and force with our own 
 minds. Men will not worship mathematics, and 
 whatever religious ideas stand entirely upon the 
 skill and logic of the intellect, are so vitiated by an 
 association with the weaknesses of our nature as 
 to stand as a system of philosophy alone. So that, 
 whether it be honorable or derogatory to men, it is 
 a principle of our constitution, dispute about it as 
 we may, that when we have satisfactorily established 
 the fact by reason, that an idea comes from God, 
 we have given it greater force than when', by simple
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 311 
 
 demonstration, we end with the discovery that it is 
 true. In some way the mystery of the Infinite hallows 
 it, while science and logic give to it only a clear, 
 cold, icy lustre. This sanction which lends such a 
 religious authority to truths, which quickens and 
 impels the conscience to fulfil the moral obligations 
 which they imply, natural religion cannot be ex- 
 pected ever to acquire. The halo which encircles 
 the head of Jesus will never radiate, in the imagi- 
 nation of the world, from the sharp outlines of a 
 metaphysician's face. The force, too, which the 
 life of Christ has exercised over men as a revelation 
 of duty, and of the beauty of Christian life, must 
 forever remain a distinct peculiarity of the gospel. 
 And thus, in many ways, the revelation in Chris- 
 tianity, from its peculiar nature and evidence, is 
 placed above and beyond tlie reach of natural re- 
 ligion. Received in faith, it is the key published 
 with authority, containing the answers to the prob- 
 lems of creation, duty, and destiny. And though 
 science and philosophy may go on, furnishing their 
 demonstrations and their solutions on natural 
 grounds, it cannot fail to give their answers addi- 
 tional weight, when we may look into the key, and 
 find that they coincide with the solutions offered 
 there.
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE IDEA OF GOD AND THE TRUTHS OF 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 THERE are two roads to a satisfactory faith in 
 Christianity, cultivation of the higher feelings, 
 and education of the mind. Men belong in differ- 
 ent classes, and arrive at truth in different ways, 
 according as spiritual sympathies or a critical under- 
 standing gives the tone or temper to their nature. 
 Some become conscious of faith by what is called 
 intuition, the quick and uncoinprehended response 
 of their souls to a given doctrine or principle ;" others 
 are led to faith by the gradual perception of its logi- 
 cal legitimacy. A weight may be attracted and held 
 up by a loadstone, or it can be suspended on a hook ; 
 and we may say that one class of minds are brought 
 in contact with truth in a manner analogous to the 
 first of these methods, another class in a manner 
 analogous to the last. In the souls of one class 
 truth exists rather as a deep sympathy ; they feel it 
 more warmly, and utter it with greater force ; in the 
 minds of another class, it dwells rather as a clear 
 idea ; having attained it by clear reflection, they 
 see it more distinctly, and present it more method- 
 ically to others. 
 
 312
 
 THE IDEA OF GOD, ETC. 313 
 
 What is stated thus as a general principle is pe- 
 culiarly applicable to the evidences of Christianity. 
 The heart may become so pure and all the moral 
 affections so refined that Christian principles shall 
 be acknowledged intuitively to be the natural laws* 
 of the soul, and the character of Christ shall be 
 accepted spontaneously as the model of our nature ; 
 and, on the other hand, the intellect may be so 
 trained and applied that the proofs for the truth 
 and claims of Christianity will exercise an over- 
 whelming force. To minds of a certain order, the 
 natural door to Christian faith is through the head ; 
 Christianity as a whole is set before them as a prob- 
 lem for solution, and their reason is determined 
 toward assent or scepticism by the historical or phi- 
 losophical arguments which can be adduced in its 
 behalf. And there are other minds that never think 
 to inquire into the scientific claims of the gospel as 
 a system, who yet rely with undisturbed assurance 
 on the satisfaction and peace which faithfulness to 
 Christian laws infuses into the soul. The former 
 examine Christianity, and find that all the condi- 
 tions of belief are fulfilled in the evidences which 
 may be presented, and therefore they cannot doubt ; 
 the latter are not prompted to examine, and never 
 doubt, because they naturally believe. 
 
 We may assume, I think, that among the disciples 
 of the Saviour, John was a type of the last-named 
 order of natures, and Thomas of the first. In the 
 language of Jesus, too, we find allusions to this 
 difference in the structure of men's souls. To one
 
 314 THE IDEA OF GOD 
 
 class of Jews he said, " Ye believe not, because ye 
 are not of my sheep; " their natures had seemingly 
 no affinities with his doctrines and demands ; while 
 he affirmed the same principle in a positive form in 
 the passage, " all that are of the truth hear my 
 voice." Upon another class he urged the propriety 
 of believing " for the very work's sake," because 
 the argument for his supernatural mission was too 
 strong to be resisted. And in all ages of the church 
 has this distinction been apparent. The faith- of 
 Fenelon, and the faith of Chillingworth, when ana- 
 lyzed, reveal the power of different methods to in- 
 duce conviction. Refined sentiment, through the 
 spiritual insight which it quickens, and the attrac- 
 tions which it brings into play, and rigorous logic, 
 the power of persuasion which it may exert upon 
 the reason, will equally generate a healthy confi- 
 dence in the truth of the great features'" of the gos- 
 pel. The soul may be lifted into an instinctive 
 assurance ; the mind may be coerced into a lagging 
 assent. 
 
 The proofs of Christianity which may be brought 
 to satisfy reason are of two kinds. We may pre- 
 sent the historical argument which establishes the 
 facts of the gospel narratives, or we may urge the 
 harmony which the truths of Christianity manifest 
 with the religion of nature, and trace the probabili- 
 ties that follow from an adequate idea of God. 
 
 Of the two departments of evidence for the 
 divine authority of the gospel, the first or practical 
 argument is undoubtedly the highest, and induces
 
 AND THE TEUTHS OP CHRISTIANITY. 315 
 
 in sensitive and cultivated hearts the most secure 
 and cheerful faith. It cannot be questioned, either, 
 that the historical evidences may be so arrayed that 
 a sceptical mind cannot evade, and must acknowl- 
 edge their strength. It is the design of this article, 
 however, to consider particularly the last division 
 of the logical defences of Christianity, to show 
 by a rapid survey, and such suggestions as our re- 
 stricted limits will enable us to present, how natu- 
 rally the principles of the New Testament theology 
 evolve themselves from- the conception which we 
 are obliged to form of God. Such an argument 
 should be often urged in this day, we believe, since 
 it is calculated to meet the state of mind of many 
 in our time who give little attention to the historical' 
 proofs of Christianity, and who are afflicted with a 
 lurking scepticism. 
 
 When we talk with intelligent persons on relig- 
 ious topics, such as piety, providence, prayer, a 
 future life, etc., we are often met by the remark : 
 " I believe in a Supreme Being, an overruling 
 agency, but farther than that I am very ignorant, 
 it is all uncertain and dark." This is either the po- 
 lite way in which many persons intimate their scep- 
 ticism to clergymen, or the natural mode in which 
 it unconsciously breaks out. Every minister knows 
 that there is a large class of men who will readily 
 confess, when their intimate confidence is secured, 
 that they have no staunch, firm faith in the teach- 
 ings of the gospel, that they cannot pretend to that 
 serene conviction which induces general equanimity
 
 316 THE IDEA OP GOD 
 
 of soul. And yet they are very earnest in asserting 
 unwavering belief in God. They are perfectly con- 
 fident of his existence, but their creed contains no 
 other article of faith, and here their confession ends. 
 Now this is the state of mind for which there is 
 the least possible excuse. Setting aside the histor- 
 ical and practical evidences of the gospel, a Chris- 
 tian can easily show the folly of this narrow, barren 
 deism which contents itself with a confession of 
 the existence of a Deity, and declares its ignorance 
 of all other elements of religion. If a man does 
 not believe more ; if his religious faith does not ex- 
 tend a good deal farther than the proposition there 
 is a God, the trouble is that he does not 'firmly 
 believe that, or does not have a worthy conception of 
 the God of nature. For no person with a healthy 
 mind, it seems to us,, can have an enlightened faith 
 in God, without seeing that the main elements of 
 Christian theology are involved in that belief, and 
 must be accepted with it. The alternative for 
 every fair logical mind is, atheism or a broad Chris- 
 tian theory of life. There is no middle ground on 
 which the intellect can stand. It is a characteristic of 
 every system of simple truth that the whole scheme 
 is implied in each position, as the whole structure 
 of an animal or fish may be constructed from a 
 fossil tooth or scale. And Christianity has the un- 
 answerable argument in its favor, that all its doc- 
 trines seem to be the natural evolution of our high- 
 est conception of God. The pure deist is the most- 
 illogical of all men ; and the language of Jesus to
 
 AND THE TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 317 
 
 his disciples states with fine simplicity the force of 
 the natural argument for his religion : " Let not 
 your heart be troubled ; you believe in God, believe 
 also in me." 
 
 Let us see how natural it is for an unprejudiced 
 mind to hold a simple, abstract, fruitless faith in a 
 mere existence of Deity. 
 
 Of course, if one believes in an overruling power, 
 that power must be intelligent. The ultimate 
 ground and cause of all things, too, must be infi- 
 nite and eternal, and therefore the Creative Spirit, 
 which is the object of faith, must be an infinite, self- 
 existent Intelligence. So far the first step in rea- 
 goning carries us, or rather, so much the very condi- 
 tions of reason necessitate. 
 
 Now if the universe be the work of an Infinite 
 Creative Spirit, whatever characteristics and quali- 
 ties are found clearly impressed upon and exhibited 
 in the world, must be supposed to exist fully and 
 perfectly as attributes and characteristics of the 
 Deity. The appearance of any intelligent trait in 
 the structure of nature is the hint that such a trait 
 exists in perfection as a feature of the Creative 
 Spirit. We discover in nature, in the widest and 
 most contracted sphere, numberless, overwhelming 
 traces of a foresight and adaptation fertile in re- 
 sources, simple in plan ; and from these the mind 
 irresistibly ascribes to the Creator a wisdom that is 
 perfect, and an exquisite skill. We see, too, that 
 all the arrangements of this natural mechanism 
 point to and promise good, so that, when they are
 
 318 THE IDEA OF GOD 
 
 not thwarted by wilfulness and vice, happiness, en- 
 joyment will prevail in the world ; and of course, 
 since the natural action of things would produce 
 good alone, benevolence, goodness, must be a dis- 
 tinctive feature of the creative mind. 
 
 Neither can our conception of the qualities of 
 the Deity stop here. The principles which we have 
 laid down develop further results. Looking into 
 the intelligent creation, we discover a law of duty 
 which reigns supreme over the souls of men ; we 
 find in every breast a conscience which conveys the 
 warning of a mysterious power, and which no one 
 can with impunity, reject. All the ranks of con- 
 scious spirits feel naturally the despotic claims of 
 truth, holiness, and virtue, as a myriad of needles 
 point, with regular convergence and tremulous ac- 
 curacy, to a common pole. Whence is the origin of - 
 this dread law ? what the sanction of this authori- 
 tative principle which dignifies the most ignorant 
 and the meanest, which abases the most powerful 
 and cultivated of our race ? Our religious instincts 
 answer and logic confirms the reply : Its home is 
 the nature of the Deity ; its sanction is the char- 
 acter and pleasure of the Most High. It can be 
 nowhere else. As skill in nature proves a wise, 
 designing mind ; as pleasure points to goodness in 
 the creative Spirit, so the instructive voice of moral- 
 ity and conscience in the human heart points to a 
 nature infinitely holy, a God all pure. 
 
 And now we are urged another step onward in 
 the path we have taken. When we reflect that
 
 AND THE TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 319 
 
 space is boundless and time is infinite, and when 
 we consider that science reveals no limits to the 
 physical creation , but shows us every spot of nature 
 which the eye can penetrate and all the regions 
 which telescopic power has explored, alive with the 
 energy of forces that sustain the present order of 
 the universe ; and since from what we know of our 
 own souls, we are compelled to believe that spirit is 
 a subtile, impalpable, formless essence ; reason can 
 rest in no other view of the Deity but the belief 
 that he is an Omnipresent," all-pervading principle 
 of life and order, vivifying and encircling the world. 
 He is not only the Creator, but the supporter of all 
 things ; " in him' we live and move and have our 
 being." 
 
 If a man believes in a God, if his recognition of 
 a higher power be not merely the instinctive, un- 
 trained feeling of dependence which moves alike 
 the savage and philosopher, if reason clearly con- 
 ceives the idea of God as an item of faith, it must 
 hold it in some form, with certain definitions ; and 
 in the light of modern thought and culture, we are 
 obliged, by the very considerations that lead us to a 
 belief in a Supreme Being, and through the very 
 process which establishes it as a certainty, to believe 
 also that the Deity is good, wise, and holy, and that 
 he exercises an omnipresent providence over the 
 whole creation. If we do not believe that these 
 qualities form part of the Deity, it is because we do 
 not reason on the question at all, it is because we 
 do not have a conviction, but only a dim instinct
 
 320 THE IDEA OP GOD 
 
 that there is a God ; for these qualities goodness, 
 wisdom, holiness, omnipresence necessarily flow 
 from, or rather they must go to make up, the idea 
 of God which the mind acquires. And these are 
 precisely the attributes which distinguish Christian 
 theology, which underlie and vivify the religion of 
 the New Testament. So far the deist must recog- 
 nize the same elements of faith with the Christian, 
 and to this extent the injunction of the Saviour is 
 enforced, "Ye believe in God, believe also in 
 me." 
 
 There is no point of religion, probably, about 
 which there is more concealed or practical scepti- 
 cism than the idea of immortality. This is always 
 supposed to be a distinctive tenet of Christianity, 
 and to be so connected with the New Testament 
 theology that it falls to the ground when once the 
 gospel is denied. And yet enlightened faith in De- 
 ity necessitates this point. On natural, independent 
 grounds, the idea of God suggests and establishes 
 the belief that the human soul has a higher destiny 
 than is attained, or than can be attained on earth. 
 If we attempt to interpret life in the full blaze of 
 the truth that it is ruled by a wise, holy, omnipres- 
 ent will, we are impelled to the hypothesis that the 
 present is the initiatory stage of a nobler scene. 
 No man who has an adequate conception of the 
 Deity can disbelieve his immortality ; and the wide- 
 spread practical scepticism on this point only reveals 
 the fain tn ess and haziness of our faith in a Supreme 
 Intelligence. A wise, benevolent, and holy governor
 
 AND THE TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 321 
 
 must have a: purpose in the creation of intelligent 
 and moral beings ; if he be perfect and infinite, 
 that purpose must be the noblest and most benevo- 
 lent we can conceive, whicli is spiritual develop- 
 ment, education, progress. Now this is precisely 
 what man, when we study the structure and laws 
 of his nature, seems to be created for ; and this 
 goal cannot be reached in the present life, for two 
 reasons : 1st. There are obstructions, trials, and 
 mysteries here which must often impede our prog- 
 ress and even degrade our aims, if this life be all 
 our destiny. There is not area or time enough for 
 the plan of spiritual culture to vindicate itself in 
 this finite state. And, 2d. Spiritual excellence is 
 of such a nature that the more one acquires the 
 more capacity is generated to acquire ; it is the only 
 work in which the soul cannot get exhausted, 
 and where the field widens as the feet press on ; 
 attainments expand the power to go on ; " it is a 
 well of water " within him, and therefore, the very 
 statement " We are made for spiritual excellence " 
 implies and includes the tenet that we are to be 
 immortal, since immortality is the indispensable 
 condition of reaching the goal or of unfolding the 
 expansive energies enveloped in our nature. Inde- 
 pendently then of the Christian revelation, the skill, 
 holiness, and providence of God all the qualities 
 that make up our conception of the Deity are 
 pledged to the truth of our eternal being; human 
 immortality is a necessary sequence from such prem- 
 ises ; if such be not our destiny, the idea of God 
 21
 
 322 THE IDEA OF GOD 
 
 which all other departments of nature suggest to 
 us, is overthrown by the phenomena of the intelli- 
 gent universe ; and the alternative is presented to 
 accept the tenet of immortality or to throw away 
 the attributes which all nature ascribes to the Most 
 High. 
 
 Thus far, we have spoken only of the abstract 
 principles of theology. We see that mere belief in 
 a God, under the light of modern culture, forces 
 upon the mind a system of religion, a system cor- 
 responding to the essential principles of Christian- 
 ity, and that BO man can say, " I believe in a great 
 first cause, but farther than that I cannot go." In 
 believing' that he must, to be consistent, go a great 
 deal farther. He must believe in some kind of a 
 Divinity, and the only conception of the Infinite 
 which reason in eur time is able to approve, ne- 
 cessitates a train of conclusions parallel with the 
 revealed theology of the gospel. 
 
 And not only does the idea of God include these 
 speculative- tenets which form a religious creed, but 
 duties grow out of faith in a supreme intelligence. 
 No man who firmly believes in a Deity can excuse 
 himself from cherishing and manifesting a class of 
 religious emotions or sentiments similar to those 
 enjoined and educated by Christianity. Is not 
 gratitude a natural sentiment, obligatory in appro- 
 priate circumstances upon all men by the laws of 
 our nature ? Nay, do we not brand him who is 
 habitually and coolly faithless in this respect, as un- 
 worthy the name of man ? What claims for grati-
 
 AND THE TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 323 
 
 tude can be so great as that which grows out of 
 our existence, the benevolent laws that surround us 
 here, and the countless means of enjoyment sup- 
 plied so liberally -at every hand ? Can the fact that 
 the Giver works unseen cancel the demand, if we 
 firmly believe that the Giver exists ? . Is not rever- 
 ence, too the blending of awe and love an in- 
 stinctive affection of the soul, whenever it meets 01 
 contemplates a union in some man of the highest 
 mental and moral qualities justice, purity, mercy, 
 and wisdom ? And shall not faith in a Being per- 
 fectly pure, holy, and wise, of whom conscience is a 
 feeble representative in our own bosoms, excite and 
 sustain the feeling of reverence as a deep, vivifying, 
 consecrating affection of the heart ? 
 
 And we maintain that trust too, the highest of 
 the pie'tistic sentiments, is a natural disposition of ' 
 the soul, and is aroused and sanctioned by a worthy 
 conception of a God. The very intellectual percep- 
 tion of an omnipresent essence of skill, holiness, 
 and love, from which we were born and by which 
 we are upheld, and this is the form in which, as 
 we have seen, we are forced to conceive the Al- 
 mighty, invites the heart to trust, suggests the 
 propriety, even the necessity of such a feeling ; and 
 where the proposition is believed and the affection 
 is not exhibited, there is an inconsistency between 
 the mental and moral life. Thus there is a piety 
 appropriate to natural religion growing out of, and 
 enforced by, the idea of God. If a person's reason 
 be healthy, and be applied to the subject, he cannot
 
 324 THE IDEA OF GOD 
 
 escape the obligations which belief in a Deity 
 imposes on his heart ; and the theory of worship 
 which Christianity enjoins humility, reverence, 
 love, and prayer is equally approved by a scientific 
 faith in a Supreme Intelligence. 
 
 There are other considerations, also, flowing from 
 a sufficient and exhaustive idea of God, which are 
 fatal to a barren deism, and which invite the mind 
 to confidence in Christianity. The qualities which 
 study of the universe leads us to ascribe to the 
 Almighty, naturally suggests the probability of a 
 clearer moral revelation of himself. Can we con- 
 ceive it possible that a Being perfectly wise and 
 good, will refuse to communicate with his creatures, 
 or can refrain from such a communion ? It is the 
 tendency of complete goodness and wisdom to pub- 
 ' lish, to manifest itself as widely and clearly as pos- 
 sible. No person, even though he be indifferent in 
 practice to the truths of religion, will deny that 
 the knowledge of a benevolent, infinite protector 
 would be one of the greatest blessings for humanity. 
 How then, if his mind believes in a wise and merci- 
 ful divinity, can he, on natural grounds, resist the 
 probability that he would, or has, declared his 
 character and the more secret counsels of his provi- 
 dence to his children ? To believe that revelation 
 would be a most valuable blessing, and to believe in 
 a perfectly wise and merciful Deity who has not re- 
 vealed himself, is practically to say that our own 
 minds can conceive a good which we do not believe 
 Infinite benevolence is prompted to bestow. The
 
 AND THE TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 325 
 
 tendency to reveal himself seems, therefore, to be 
 part of the conception of a perfect Deity. The 
 mind, too, feels deeply the need of revelation. It 
 needs it to enlighten conscience, to educate piety, 
 to inspire strength, assurance, and serenity in afflic- 
 tion, adversity, and gloom. Now the wisdom of 
 the Creator has been so provident and watchful, 
 that not a single native, healthy want of our struct- 
 ure, bodily, mental, or affectional, has been left un- 
 supplied. We feel hunger and there is food ; thirst, 
 and there is drink ; taste, and there is beauty ; de- 
 sire for knowledge, and there is truth ; sympathies, 
 and there is society ; love, and there are objects for 
 love. This wide-spread, exquisite adaptation, never 
 failing in any instance of deep native need, indi- 
 cates the truth that the Governor of nature is per- 
 fectly wise and good. How then, with the whole 
 mechanism of the universe to support and urge the 
 argument, in the light of such continual divine in- 
 terference for our benefit, can the deist resist the 
 conclusion that perfect wisdom has considered this 
 abiding moral want of the soul, and has answered 
 it, as it only can be answered, by an authoritative 
 voice, conveyed through some agent to the waiting 
 world ? Can reason believe that God would create 
 intelligent creatures for development and spiritual 
 excellence, as he evidently has done, and then 
 leave them destitute of the highest means of educa- 
 tion, means which only could be supplied by a dis- 
 closure of his nature to meet and satisfy, and to 
 inspire and quicken them ? This is equally incon-
 
 326 
 
 sistent with divine skill and divine benevolence, and, 
 as at other points we saw that the idea of God sug- 
 gested doctrines analogous to those of revelation, so 
 on this point we find that the idea of God prompts 
 the expectancy of revelation itself. Therefore, since 
 on every hand the tenets of natural religion and 
 Christianity harmonize, and confirm each other, 
 fresh meaning breaks from the Saviour's language, 
 and we feel from another side the force of the prin- 
 ciple " Let not your heart be troubled; you be- 
 lieve in God, believe also in me." 
 
 It seems to us, also, that the obstacles which in 
 our time often lie in the way of a grounded and 
 secure faith in Christianity, will easily be removed 
 by a clear and adequate conception of the Deity. 
 Many persons, whose minds assent to the native 
 probability of a revelation, and who are attracted to 
 the doctrines and spirit of the gospel, feel repelled 
 by the miraculous agency connected with it, and 
 cannot reconcile their intellects to the occurrence 
 of such violations of natural law. Tliey confess the 
 propriety and spiritual beauty of the Christian mir- 
 acles, allow that they are worthy of God, and if 
 once confirmed, furnish solid and consoling evidence 
 of the gospel's authoritative character, but they are 
 unable to conceive how they were possible, being 
 contrary to the custom of the universe. Now a 
 pure and firmly-grasped conception of a God does 
 away this reluctance, by. dissipating the prejudice on 
 which it rests. When we realize that God must be 
 omnipresent, the sustaining power of the world, and
 
 AND THE TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 327 
 
 immediate cause of every event, as the soul sustains 
 the body and directs its motion, we see that nature 
 is only the manifestation of the successive volitions 
 of a hidden spirit in its frame, we discover that 
 there are no laws of matter established for inde- 
 pendent action, and thus are led to perceive that a 
 seeming miracle is as natural and credible as any 
 other occurrence, if the Creator but pleases that it 
 should be wrought. Nothing is more needed to in- 
 spire a correct understanding of the kind of uni- 
 verse we live in, than a constant recognition that 
 God is omnipresent in it, as the source of life and 
 action. All mechanical theories fade before this 
 view, and miracles, which to thousands are the only 
 stumbling-blocks in the path of Christian faith, 
 seem in themselves no more marvellous than the 
 rising of the sun, or bodily death. And thus, if we 
 can perceive the fitness, force, and need of the won- 
 derful agencies recorded in the gospel, as proofs in 
 a sensual age of the divine mission of Jesus, all 
 natural objection to them, all prejudice against 
 them, is dissipated by the spiritual view under 
 which God must be recognized as the sole source 
 of power. 
 
 We have endeavored thus to intimate the vital 
 connection between a firm belief in God and the 
 truths of the Christian religion. The idea of a su- 
 preme intelligence naturally expands into the prin- 
 cipal tenets of theology, while it leads us to antici- 
 pate a clearer revelation, indorses the doctrines of
 
 328 THE IDEA OF GOD 
 
 the gospel and dispels the only antecedent hin- 
 drances to its acceptance by the mind. 
 
 It is not very marvellous that there should be 
 sceptical tendencies generated from the feverish ma- 
 terialism of modern life. Opportunities for special 
 culture or religious meditation are either too rare, 
 or are too steadily slighted, to allow the purity, 
 grandeur, and harmony of the gospel to attract, 
 vivify, and uplift the heart into an appreciation of its 
 symmetrical, inspiring truth. From all the sources 
 of evidence which spring up in a serene and mellow 
 heart, the very highest and most satisfactory of 
 all proofs of its divinity, by the fretful, seething 
 sensualism of modern life we have been almost en- 
 tirely debarred. Amid the roar of the machinery 
 of our artificial, unhealthy, contentious existence, 
 the charming influence of Christianity which falls 
 upon the ear in gentle tones and invitations, sweet 
 as the voice of birds or the melodies of reviving 
 nature, can hardly, by any possible means, be felt. 
 To acquire the saintly assurance the point where 
 belief rises into insight we must reach the saintly 
 excellence, the rest and calm of more natural and 
 simple experience. Hence the greater necessity of 
 maintaining firm the bulwark against scepticism on 
 the side of thought. If faith may not yet be estab- 
 lished beyond the possibility of question, by means 
 of sentiments Christianized and refined, it is a more 
 binding duty to take care, that unbelief makes no 
 irruptions into the enclosure of the intellect, and 
 that we preserve the reason untainted by a doubt.
 
 AND THE TRUTHS OP CHRISTIANITY. 329 
 
 This may easily be done. We may be Christian 
 philosophers if we may not, because of the poverty 
 of our hearts, attain the Christ-like conviction which 
 only rewards a consecrated life. And so long as a 
 man holds to and confesses faith in God it can only 
 be weakness of logic or intellectual disease that can 
 excuse any insecurity or hesitation with regard to 
 the primary principles of Jesus' theology. Atheism 
 is more consistent than a cold, unchristian, naked 
 deism. Let any man who has any tendency to scep- 
 ticism upon the great themes of human interest, and 
 who would discipline his mind to repel its ingress 
 and refute its force, fall back upon the idea of 
 God ; let him reflect upon all that is implied in that 
 belief, and he shall find that it is the basis and but- 
 tress of a vast system of theology which enlightens 
 the mysteries of the world, hallows the most soaring 
 hopes, and imposes the most solemn obligations on 
 the heart and will. Though we slight the historical 
 claims of Christianity to our regard, it has still an 
 ally in reason and the teachings of nature, which 
 we cannot silence by contemptuous unconcern. 
 With calm assurance the gospel addresses the intel- 
 lect of the world in the language, " You believe in 
 God : believe also in me." Its logical foundations 
 are secure so long as faith in an overruling power 
 shall endure, and that can only fail when the struct- 
 ure of the human reason shall be radically changed.
 
 xy. 
 
 HARMONY OF OPPOSITE QUALITIES IN THE 
 SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 
 
 THERE are great differences among men, in respect 
 of comprehensiveness of character. We often see 
 a person who appears to be the embodiment of one 
 thought or one passion. So narrow and intense is 
 his life that you can readily tell what he will do, 
 and almost prophesy what he will say, in any cir- 
 cumstances, even in a peculiar emergency. There 
 is only one side to his soul ; it can show but one 
 phase, and take but one attitude ; and any fair 
 description of him will seem to be a caricature. One 
 person of this class may be ruled by the passion for 
 money getting, and never can be betrayed into 
 momentary generosity of hand or lip ; another is 
 incarnate pride ; another is concentrated foppish- 
 ness ; another is organized gossip ; another is the 
 slave of some special study or profession. 
 
 And, on the other hand, there are some persons 
 whose characteristic quality it would be hard to tell. 
 They are many-sided men. Their resources are 
 rich and deep ; they have great practical wisdom ; 
 and when they pronounce a judgment, it is from 
 
 830
 
 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 331 
 
 thorough insight, and when they act, they do not 
 reveal any chronic peculiarity, but suit their action 
 to the circumstances which called it forth. All great 
 genius, such as Shakspeare's and Homer's, has this 
 many-sidedness. The best judges can never agree 
 whether they excel in pathos or humor or sublim- 
 ity or description ; nor can they determine what 
 kind of characters they draw most powerfully. It 
 would give any man fame if he could excel in any 
 one line of literary excellence as they easily excel 
 in all. 
 
 The greatest practical men, such as Csesar and 
 "Washington, are equally comprehensive. Who can 
 tell the distinguishing trait of Washington's charac- 
 ter ? His virtue is the poise of many qualities ; he turns 
 a new phase as we view him from different points ; 
 and all we can say is, that many moral elements, by 
 their marriage, make up the pure patriot, the wise 
 statesman, the courageous, humane, disinterested 
 and unstained soldier. 
 
 And, in the Saviour's nature we discover a most 
 wonderful breadth and complexity. The narratives 
 of his life embrace but a small portion of his deeds 
 and conversations ; but they show plainly that all 
 forms and phases of virtue blended in his character. 
 Indeed, the richness of his nature shows itself in 
 seemingly opposite qualities, jarring opinions, and 
 discordant acts ; so that, if many of Jesus' sayings, 
 deeds, and characteristics should be put abstractedly 
 before us, we should be apt to say that they could 
 not be harmoniously united, so as to compose a sim-
 
 332 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 
 
 pie and symmetrical life. And yet this union shows 
 the fulness and power of the Saviour's nature. In 
 his short career he swept the whole orbit of duty, 
 and shed light along every segment of its curve. 
 
 In the first place, we may notice the two-sidedness 
 of which we speak, if we study the relations of 
 Christ with respect to formalism and spiritualism. 
 The New Testament teaches us that piety is a spirit, 
 is of the heart, that it must not be confounded with 
 formal rites of devotion, that " the true worshippers 
 worship the Father in spirit and in truth" Ultra 
 spiritualists, antagonists of all forms, anti-sabbath 
 men, come-outers, all shelter themselves behind the 
 words and examples of Jesus. And to this extent 
 that a mere form of devotion is not necessarily 
 worship, and that a person can possibly be pious 
 without joining in the consecrated and customary 
 rites by which men seek to foster and express their 
 piety the language and spirit of Jesus will per- 
 mit any one to go. But these protests against the 
 excesses of formalism do not fully portray the 
 Saviour's position. They give us only half the truth. 
 The Saviour's example, when we see the whole of it, 
 is against these ultraists. We find that he was 
 baptized, that he had such respect for the solemnity 
 and propriety of that rite as to insist on receiving 
 it from an humbler hand. He observed the ritual 
 of the passover, and engrafted upon it another form 
 which he perpetuated by an affectionate command 
 among his first followers. And notwithstanding 
 his insight into the spirituality of devotion, it is
 
 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 333 
 
 written that, " as his custom was, he went into the 
 synagogue on the Sabbath-day." Superior as he was 
 to any preacher he could hear, we must believe that 
 the chants and psalms and spirit of the place were 
 delightful, beneficial, and almost necessary to his 
 nature. 
 
 So, too, Jesus taught that it is the inward light 
 which illumines us, and that he who believeth " hath 
 the witness in himself." Yet he frequently appealed l 
 to his miracles as convincing and authoritative proofs 
 of his Messiahship, and bowed with deep reverence 
 before the written Scripture ; for he supported -his 
 own threatened virtue, and silenced Satan, with " It 
 is written, thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God." 
 
 Christ, too, went through cornfields on the Sabbath 
 day, and took occasion to perform many merciful 
 miracles on that day, when he knew that the sensibili- 
 ties of the ritual Jews would be shocked by his free- 
 dom. See, therefore, it is said, how Jesus walked 
 rough-shod over the superstitions of his age ; and 
 a class of men now find warrant in this phase of his 
 ministry for the most rabid hostility to Sunday-laws, 
 and the most freely-uttered contempt for the notion 
 that one day should be accounted more sacred than 
 another. But look at the reverse side of the picture. 
 Christ was a formalist. As if with the intention to 
 balance his character upon this point, his biographers 
 have recorded his driving the money-changers out 
 of the court of the temple. Gentiles, we know, 
 were permitted to worship in the outer court of the 
 temple, and the Jews had no objection to the traders
 
 334 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 
 
 occupying those spaces, and selling articles that were 
 required for offerings or incense. But Jesus saw 
 that the place where Gentiles or partial proselytes 
 regularly worshipped was a holy place, and he could 
 not bear that it should be polluted by any secular 
 uses ; and he banished the brokers with the rebuke, 
 " Make not my Father's house a house of merchan- 
 dise." 
 
 * There is a great difference between spiritualism 
 and anti-formalism. Jesus was a spiritualist, and 
 because he was a wise and thorough spiritualist he 
 wa, of necessity, a wise and strenuous formalist. 
 Whoever sees that religion is a vital and glowing 
 principle or spirit will see clearly the use and power 
 and indispensableness of forms ; for wherever in 
 nature or society a vital principle, a quickening 
 spirit appears, it clothes itself instantly with, and 
 manifests itself through, a form. God's wisdom is 
 announced to human senses through forms, and a 
 fixed and stable ceremonial. 
 
 The sky enfolds a magnificent revelation of arrested 
 order and materialized geometry. That old celestial 
 institution stands ; our souls are educated by it ; and 
 the Almighty is not too spiritual to suffer his thought 
 and feeling to take substance, and be bound to the 
 observance of despotic rules. For ages, in the great 
 cathedral of the universe, roofed with hazy firma- 
 ments, and lighted with brilliant constellations, 
 planets have swung before him like censers of incense, 
 and worship is offered before him in the obedient 
 sweep, and constant harmony of suns, satellites, and
 
 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 335 
 
 systems. Every flower, too, is a, form of God's art, 
 a tiny ritual of beauty, conducted by stem and 
 leaves and petals and hues. And all the great 
 institutions of the world, the senate, the throne, 
 the court, the asylum, the school, and every poem, 
 and every painting and statue and treatise and 
 machine, are forms of human thought, justice, art, 
 and love. Paul has said, " There is one spirit and 
 one body" and wherever there is a spirit there will 
 be a fitting body. A body without the spirit is dead ; 
 and a spirit without a body, a form, is a ghost, and 
 cannot live in the busy daylight of the world. 
 "Wherever a person is found so spiritual as to de- 
 spise all forms and never to use any, it is a pretty 
 sure sign that his spiritualism is ghostly, ghastly, 
 and nebulous ; not too pure to pollute itself by a 
 ritual, but too shadowy to be able to find a body, too 
 feeble to condense itself into fact. 
 
 Christ saw that the forms of worship were a 
 mockery, if a living spirit in the heart did not fill 
 them with meaning, and therefore he revealed and 
 attacked the mockery. And he saw, too, that a liv- 
 ing spirit of devotion in the heart needs, and must 
 find, some form of revealing itself, and some forms 
 that will educate it when it flags, and therefore he 
 used, recommended, and established forms. He 
 saw that his religion required a new and different 
 ceremonial, as the planted acorn unfolds into a dif- 
 ferent form from that which a planted plum assumes. 
 And so he said, No man putteth new wine into old 
 bottles, lest the bottles burst and the wine be spilled ;
 
 33G THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 
 
 but new wine must be put into new bottles. That 
 is, we must have the bottles or the forms that 
 we may save the wine, or the spirit. 
 
 With respect to the question of conservatism and 
 reform, and the relative value of the past and the 
 present, ,we notice a similar two-sidedness. How 
 radical his thoughts and speech in the Sermon on 
 the Mount, when he says, " Ye have heard that it 
 hath been said by them of old time ... an eye for 
 an eye, . . . but I say unto you that yo resist not 
 evil ; " thus announcing the principle of progress in 
 revelation, introducing a deeper and more searching 
 spiritual law in the place of the Mosaic morality. 
 Yet, at another time, we hear him saying, " Think 
 not that I am come to destroy the law or the proph- 
 ets ; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil." 
 " Not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law till all 
 be fulfilled." How can these things be reconciled ? 
 How can one mind stand in these two attitudes ? 
 The reason is, that Jesus' mind reposed at the cen- 
 tre of truth where conservatism and radicalism run 
 together, and are reconciled. He was a wise con- 
 servative, because he was a wise reformer. He read 
 the law by which truth expands in the world, 
 that it spreads, not by conquest, but by develop- 
 ment. 
 
 God never snaps and hacks away the live cords 
 and arteries of society, never creates a wholly new 
 moral world in which truth shall find institutions 
 perfectly adapted to it ; but ordains that truth shall 
 swell and develop gradually and easily from one
 
 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 337 
 
 ' set of institutions to another, so that society shall 
 bo jarred as little as possible. The Saviour saw 
 that there is an organic life in the race, flowing 
 down from Adam through history into every man ; 
 he saw that the conquests of truth were like the > 
 growth of a tree, and that there must be new 
 boughs, and leaves, and twigs, and wider circles 
 forming in the trunk, in a word, that the tree 
 must change, season by season, and become differ- 
 ent, because it is the same living tree. In accord- 
 ance with this principle, he put away Judaism by 
 ripening it, by quickening the germ of truth that 
 lay in it, so that its imperfect form might be thrown 
 off, and. a perfect one bo gained. All Judaism was 
 in Christianity, as the life of the caterpillar is in 
 the butterfly ; its coarse skin was shed, and it was 
 taken up into a new and winged life. Christ's 
 truth was inconsistent with Moses' teaching and 
 destroyed it, just as the apple destroys the apple- 
 blossom, and as the sunrise destroys the morning 
 twilight. It was a destruction in which Moses' 
 system was more honored than if it had been let 
 alone ; for if it had been let alone it would have 
 died ; but in Christ's thought it found its resurrec- 
 tion into a celestial body, and put on immortality 
 in a glorious and perfect form. 
 
 We know how sharp is the dispute at the present 
 day between the partisans of natural religion and 
 of revealed religion,-^ the naturalists and the su- 
 pernaturalists. One party contends that the teach- 
 ings of nature and the intimations of the soul are 
 
 22
 
 338 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 
 
 sufficient to instruct us in the truths of religion, of 
 our duty and destiny. The other party contends 
 that nature and the soul give us very little light, 
 and that we owe all our stable knowledge, all our 
 possible peace of mind and heart, and all redeeming 
 influences, to a supernatural grace, granted in a 
 special communication of truth, which we call 
 Christianity. But, strangely enough, both these 
 parties appeal to Christ ; each maintains that it 
 alone conceives his history most accurately, and in- 
 terprets him most fairly. And certainly, if we look 
 through the Gospels, we shall see that Jesus hon- 
 ored nature, and trusted deeply in the affections 
 and instincts of the soul. He tried to lead his dis- 
 ciples to deeper sympathy with nature ; he enforced 
 many of his distinctive and most important doctrines 
 by the testimony of naturo ; he evidently had the 
 keenest sympathy with the material universe, and 
 delighted to interpret the special meaning it en- 
 closed. He also said, " the pure in heart see God." 
 He made the human affections the interpreters of 
 God's love, and the parental relation suggest the 
 nature of the Divine Paternity, and showed that 
 love is the fulfilling of the law. 
 
 Christ was a naturalist, the priest and apostle of 
 natural religion. And yet he affirmed revelation, 
 the absolute necessity of supernatural instruction 
 and aid. He said, " Without me ye can do nothing." 
 " 1 am the way," "I am the vine," "I am the 
 door," " I am the bread of life ; " " no man cometh 
 to the Father but by me." These apparent contra-
 
 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 339 
 
 dictions are both true. Christ was the supernatural 
 interpreter of nature. What he read in nature, he 
 read by reason of his extraordinary faculties. It 
 was one of his offices, as a supernatural and miracu- 
 lous teacher, to tell us what nature means, and pour 
 light upon us from that quarter. It was one promi- 
 nent office of 'revelation to restate and reinforce 
 simple truths, what seem to be the simplest of all 
 truths. Thus we owe what we call the. teachings of 
 nature and the human heart, to Christ, as much as 
 we owe the teaching of the resurrection and the 
 confirmation of immortality, to Christ. And we owe 
 other blessings, besides these interpretations of na- 
 ture, to Jesus, influences and attractions to good- 
 ness, declarations of God's pardoning mercy, and 
 his own spotless character, which lift the race out of 
 bondage to evil, and are the redeeming influences 
 of society; and these, so great is our indebtedness 
 to them, more than justify the' other class of pas- 
 sages, that declare his supernatural relations to the 
 soul. We have only to look deep, enough, and we 
 see these surface contradictions reconciled, and dis- 
 cover that they bear testimony to the breadth and 
 comprehensiveness of the Saviour's thought and 
 mission. 
 
 Again, we find both sides of the perplexing con- 
 troversy about foreordination and free-will, God's 
 sovereignty and man's moral freedom, recognized by 
 the Saviour. The fatalists and their opponents can 
 both appeal to him. He was continually striving to 
 impress men with a sense of their sinfulness, and
 
 340 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 
 
 presenting motives to make them seek a nobler life ; 
 thus assuming man's freedom and responsibility. 
 And yet he said, "Not a sparrow falleth to the 
 ground without your Father ; " " the very hairs of 
 your head are all numbered ; " "no man can come 
 unto me, except the Father which hath sent me 
 draw him." Jesus never attempted to reconcile 
 these seeming contradictions, and it is a revelation 
 of his greatness and wisdom that he did not. For 
 no human intellect can bring them together and 
 marry them. To our minds they seem hostile 
 truths, but both are truths. They blend somehow 
 to the eye of God, as the centripetal and centrifugal 
 forces of nature blend ; but the process we cannot 
 fathom. So long as man has a conscience, he will 
 feel his spiritual responsibility, will know that he is 
 free, and in his highest moods will say, " Lord, be 
 merciful to me a sinner ! " So long as ho has 
 an intellect, he will see that God " ruleth in the 
 armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the 
 earth ; " and so long as he has a heart, he will trust 
 in Providence, feeling that it is wiser than our rea- 
 son, and in seasons of sorrow will say, " Father, 
 thou dost appoint our discipline ; we have faith that 
 thou doest all things in mercy and love ; and that 
 goodness and order will one day triumph in thy 
 realm." 
 
 With respect to the value of good emotions and 
 good works, we find the same two-sidedness. 
 Throughout the gospel of John, religion is recog- 
 nized, chiefly, as indwelling spiritual life, a sense of
 
 THE SAVIOUK'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 34t 
 
 union with God, a feeling that naturally expresses 
 itself in prayer, meditation, inward discipline, and 
 retired" exercises of mystical pietism. But Christ 
 had no sympathy with a weak, pale, sickly, hot- 
 house piety. He wanted it-to-be robust and prac- 
 tical. He insisted that it should bo rich in outward 
 fruits of beneficence and moral faithfulness. The 
 parable of the talents tells us this ; and in his terri- 
 ble picture of coming to judge the world, the accept- 
 ed are those who have done something, even trivial 
 acts of mercy in his name. His mind held both 
 facts, saw their equal necessity, and was able to 
 poise them. In his own experience he blended per- 
 fectly the active and the mystic virtues. " Behold 
 a friend of publicans and sinners," said his foes ; 
 while Matthew tells us that, " when he had sent the 
 multitudes away, he retired into the mountain 
 apart, to pray, and when the evening was come, he 
 was there alone." 
 
 At times, also, we find the Saviour recognizing 
 the law of expediency, and extricating himself from 
 dilemmas by the exercise of a keen prudence and 
 sagacity. What a fine worldly wisdom is revealed 
 in his reply to the Pharisees, when they asked him 
 if it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar ! How skil- 
 fully he confounded the crafty malice of his foss, 
 and taught them a religious lesson, too, by his eva- 
 sion of the point where they hoped to entrap him ! 
 And he who accepted calmly the lot of crucifixion, 
 and refused to call angels to his aid, often requested 
 those whom he healed to refrain from telling tho
 
 342 THE SAVIOUE'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 
 
 priests and elders ;, and when John the Baptist was 
 beheaded, consulted his personal safety by leaving 
 Judea, and dwelling in Galilee. What gentleness 
 and meekness of spirit distinguished him in his in- 
 tercourse with the world ; what warm sympathy 
 with the penitent ; what tenderness towards the 
 guilty ; what forgiving love to his most cruel foes ! 
 Yet it was he of whom it is written that, " when he 
 was reviled he reviled not again," who showed by 
 the most scathing denunciation, which the literature 
 of rebuke cannot surpass, the rottenness of heart 
 in the Pharisees, and called them hypocrites and 
 vipers and whited sepulchres. 
 
 We can readily see, moreover, that dignity and 
 grandeur of presence were united strangely in his 
 character with familiarity, ease, and condescension. 
 He " came eating and drinking ; " he was the friend 
 of publicans and sinners ; he passed most of his 
 life in constant and social contact with the vile and 
 the outcasts ; yet the record always implies that his 
 companions were awed by his very mercy ; and he 
 lost nothing of that personal sway and imposing 
 mien which commanded the veneration of Nicode- 
 mus and the ruler Simon, and overawed the soldiers 
 who came to lead him to his death. So, too, we 
 find in Jesus great calmness and great enthusiasm ; 
 an enthusiasm that manifested itself in intense 
 calmness, as the spinning-top whirls swifter when it 
 is motionless and sleeps. " He was a man of sor- 
 rows and acquainted with grief;" "he was made 
 perfect through suffering ; " yet he speaks of his joy
 
 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 343 
 
 being full ; and truly we may believe that, under all 
 the hardships of his discipline, his breast was open 
 to currents of bliss, which the prosperous worldling 
 cannot conceive. He had friends, and yet was 
 alone ; he loved the world, and yet he overcame the 
 world ; he was the opposite of an ascetic, and yet he 
 was the only perfect saint. 
 
 This same contradictoriness, enclosing both poles 
 of truth, attaches even to his words. He, who said, 
 " The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, 
 but to save them," said also, " I came not to bring 
 peace, but a sword." At one time, he instructed 
 his disciples not to take weapons with them on their 
 missionary tour ; at another, he told them to sell 
 their scrip and buy a sword. Once, he said, "I 
 and my Father are one," " He who hath seen me, 
 hath seen the Father ; " and again, " My Father is 
 greater than I ; " " No man hath seen God at any 
 time." 
 
 We have called attention to these peculiarities of 
 the Saviour's nature, because by insight into the 
 structure of his character, we gain new light upon 
 the glory and fulness of his system. Christ and 
 Christianity, in a certain sense, are one. " The 
 Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," that 
 the grandeur of God's truth might be commended 
 to the eyes and hearts of men. And, moreover, 
 every instance of greatness, every intricate mani- 
 festation of breadth and harmony ,in the nature and 
 office of Jesus, which can be pointed out, confirms 
 the proof of the reality of his mission, and increases
 
 344 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 
 
 the impossibility of believing that we owe the records 
 of him to the tricks of deceivers, or the accidental 
 symmetry of myths. 
 
 We are also taught by the theme we have consid- 
 ered that truth always presents two aspects. It is 
 an honest double-dealer. Duty branches out into 
 seemingly opposing forms. The most contradictory 
 qualities run together, and come to identity in living 
 principle. At bottom, there is no difference between 
 true formalism and spiritualism, between proper 
 self-reliance and dependence on God, between 
 healthy trust in the inward light and trust in a writ- 
 ten revelation, between necessity and free-will, be- 
 tween the doctrine of faith and the doctrine of 
 works. Narrow minds take in one phase, and are 
 fierce partisans, always logical and consistent with 
 their premises, and always false, because their prem- 
 ises are too narrow ; great minds see both phases, 
 and are calm and catholic, and their speech is often 
 charged with inconsistency. But their inconsistency 
 is only consistency with both hemispheres of truth. 
 Christ saw deep enough to be a reconciler, to hold 
 both poles of nature in his mind, to be inconsistent 
 as life and the thought of God. 
 
 And, at bottom, too, there is no difference between 
 justice and love, humility and strength, gentleness 
 and dignity, true expediency and principle, com- 
 plete self-sacrifice and the sweetest self-indulgence. 
 Christ's soul was.so faithful, and so permeated with 
 spiritual life, that all these qualities were united in 
 him ; and the manifestations of his virtue, when we
 
 THE SAVIOUR'S CHARACTER AND TEACHINGS. 345 
 
 study them separately, seem inconsistent, because 
 his character, when we look at its essence, was so 
 harmonious and so rich, that it could not be confined 
 to one form of life, but must flower out into every 
 possible element of spiritual power and grace. 
 
 As we stand before the massive structure of tho 
 Saviour's character, so complex, yet so simple, per- 
 vaded by a great law of unity and harmony, that 
 reconciles all its parts, it is like standing before some 
 gothic minster where each niche and turret and 
 pointed window conspire to the simplicity of impres- 
 sion, and its grandeur results from its myriad details 
 of grace. It is like listening to a symjliiony by 
 some great master, in which various movements, 
 and a thousand melodies, and occasional discords 
 even, contribute to the sublime and inspiring effect. 
 That life is God's greatest gift to us ; it enfolds the 
 fulness of truth.
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 
 
 THE points' which have generally interested peo- 
 ple most in relation to religious things are, What 
 shall we have, if we take up the denials and bur- 
 dens of a Christian life ? or, what shall we lose, if 
 we remain as we are, and do not take them up ? 
 Take Christendom through, and we think it will be 
 found that a true life, harmonious in its spirit with 
 that Jesus led, is presented to men in the light, and 
 urged by the motives of a low and earthly interest. 
 The animus of Peter's question is still dominant in 
 countless hearts, " Behold, we have forsaken all 
 and followed thee ; what shall we have, therefore ? " 
 
 We do not propose to spend much time in criti- 
 cising this method of presenting religion, and in 
 showing the folly of it. It has its root in truth. 
 We all know how frequent is the appeal to the ter- 
 rors of perdition, and, on the other hand, to the 
 glories of the saintly world, as influences to keep 
 men from sin, and .to bind them to God's service. 
 'These appeals have their root in truth. There is 
 terrible reality at the foundation of the coarsest 
 denunciations of fire and wrath ; for the evil effects 
 of sin, however inaccurate may be the forms of our 
 
 846
 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF EELIGION. 347 
 
 conception of them, can never be too powerfully 
 impressed. And the joys of heaven cannot be more 
 attractively depicted than the reality deserves. 
 
 But still we have no right to use these, or to feel 
 these, as motives to reverent and righteous living, 
 until we have a proper sense of a motive that is 
 higher and nobler than both ; and cannot really see 
 and appreciate the dangers of sin and the rewards 
 of duty, until we have a central sense of something 
 which makes a religious life more binding than 
 either those terrors or those rewards. For, if we 
 look at it close enough, we shall see that there is 
 nothing in the idea of hell alone, or of heaven 
 alone which makes a religious call appeal to the 
 spiritual and infinite part of our nature. An angel 
 may come down and tell me that if I do not live in 
 a certain way henceforth, I shall burn for it here- 
 after, and that if I do, I shall be lifted to everlasting 
 joys ; but if he does not tell me something more, 
 although this may be all true, he has not said any- 
 thing which makes that life binding 1 on my soul ; he 
 has not touched the immortal core of my being ; 
 he has not made me look up and revere law, and 
 aspire to goodness, and adore God. If I walk in 
 the way he marks out, for the reasons he prescribes, 
 I walk as an earthly being, from dictates of interest, 
 and without the nobility of any spiritua.1 motive 
 behind my action. 
 
 There is, then, a preliminary question to the 
 inquiry, " What shall we have, or what shall we 
 lose, as the consequence of our faith or our worldli-
 
 348 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 
 
 ness ? " The strong motive, the steady impulse to 
 a Christian life should flow from that feature of it 
 which makes it binding upon men ; that view of 
 it which makes it a disgrace and a shame for a man 
 to be indifferent to it ; that view of it which makes 
 one less a man when he does not possess it, and 
 truly and only a man when he is crowned by it. 
 
 Religion, when truly conceived, has vital analogies 
 with all other vital relations which the human soul 
 sustains, and may perhaps be most powerfully pre- 
 sented in the dress of those analogies. Let us use 
 therefore, for a few moments, this form of unfolding 
 the thought we desire to impress. 
 
 Imagine the case of a man afflicted with some disor- 
 der, that drains his vitality, allows his best organs but 
 a feeble play, and so imposes on him a languid and 
 miserable life. A person skilled in the treatment 
 of such a disorder goes to him, and lays before him 
 a course of treatment for his consideration, which 
 will restore him to health. But it will require 
 great care, strict and long-continued obedience to 
 the bodily laws, exercise that may be painful, reso- 
 lute resistance of the temptations to sloth and sleep. 
 And, often, medicines must be taken that are repul- 
 sive to the taste. What, now, if the man believing 
 what the physician says, believing that he can be 
 cured by, such means, should fix his attention on 
 the hardships and the long, painful discipline con- 
 nected with the remedy, and should ask, " What 
 shall I have if I submit to this process ? what rec- 
 ompense can you promise for these sufferings ? "
 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL OP RELIGION. 349 
 
 "Would not such a question be an indication that the 
 malady had affected his mind, as well as his body ? 
 that it had withered his manliness as well as his 
 muscles ? 
 
 The physician, it is true, might eloquently portray 
 to him the sadness of his. sickly state, and point out 
 the evils to which he will be surely doomed in 
 future, if his disorder is not rooted out ; but, would 
 not anybody expect that the great motive which 
 would strive with the sick man, and lead him to 
 adopt such a treatment, would be the desire to be 
 well? And if any argument was needed, if any 
 address or stimulus was required to arouse him, 
 should we not suppose that enough would be found 
 in that one word, health ? Should we not think that 
 the most joyful speech the man could listen to 
 would be, " You can have health again ; your blood 
 may flow "with pleasure, and your step be strong; 
 you shall be able to enjoy the fresh air and delight 
 in the glories of nature ; you shall be able to do 
 your work as a man, and as a member of society, 
 and the food earned by toil shall be nutritious, and 
 the sleep that refreshes your limbs for duty shall be 
 sweet ? " Should we not suppose that any drugs, 
 any regimen, any hardships, that should bid fair to 
 bring a man to such a state, would be welcome, 
 because of that state ? Should we not be amazed, 
 if the man required any other impulse, any bribe, 
 any promise of a good unconnected with such a 
 return of health, to bring him to the adoption of 
 those means ?
 
 350 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 
 
 This analogy is important, and the truth it points 
 to more important. Let us take another instance 
 that the force of the principle may be more clearly 
 seen. What if one should go to a blind man with 
 the news that, at the price of certain unpleasant con- 
 ditions, his lost faculty could be regained ! Would 
 any other inducement be necessary to insure an 
 eager attention ? Would he not say, " Fix any 
 conditions, within the limits of honor, and they will 
 be a trifle to the joy of having my eyes again ? Let 
 me undergo anything, if only this thick darkness 
 this unnatural night can be broken, so that the 
 sun shall shine for me again, "and the faces of my 
 friends be visible, and the world be painted with 
 the glory of the rising and setting sun." Would 
 you think it anything less than insanity if the man 
 should ask for any other inducement to the adop- 
 tion of the proposed cure even though that cure 
 might require the most painful surgical operation 
 than the thought that his eyes could be restored to 
 him ? 
 
 Or, again, suppose the case of an ignorant man, 
 who has a strong mind and a capacity of being em- 
 inent as a student, perhaps a capacity to rank as 
 high in the. realm of acquired truth as Newton. 
 You offer him all the means of instruction. But 
 he sees that the path of study is laborious ; that the 
 acquisition of principles and the steps of advance 
 are toilsome ; that the price to be paid is conse- 
 cration and systematic drilling and patient applica- 
 tion and contentment with slow progress. Suppose,
 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 351 
 
 therefore, he should ask you, " What shall I have, 
 if I continue in the line marked out ? What rec- 
 ompense shall I find if, at all this expense of disci- 
 pline I attain a cultured intellect, and rise to be fel- 
 low with Newton, Herschel, and Humboldt ? " Could 
 you present anything that would be a more stimulat- 
 ing motive than the prospect of arriving at such a 
 state ? Would you not strive to make him see that 
 such a hope could not be abased to a secondary 
 place ? You might talk of the power which knowl- 
 edge gives; of the station, dignity, wealth, enjoy- 
 ments that often follow in its train ; but you would 
 tell him that all these are of less account than the 
 possession of knowledge and wise faculties ; that 
 the supreme. thing is to know the treasures of God's 
 wisdom and the riches of human nature, and that 
 the glorious reward of culture is to be wise and 
 wealthy in the mind. 
 
 It is a great pity that the analogy of religion with 
 other subjects belonging to human life and human 
 interests is not more clearly seen. We should be 
 saved from a world of follies, and should feel the 
 appeal and the authority of religion more intensely, 
 if we felt that there are these analogies, and if they 
 always shed their light upon what we call the inter- 
 ests of Jhe soul. Just as the highest thing which you 
 can propose to a sick man is health, just as the most 
 excellent boon which you can offer to a blind man 
 is his eyesight, just as the most desirable tiling 
 which you can propose to the mind of the untutored 
 man is knowledge, so the most precious tiling
 
 352 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 
 
 which can be set before the aspirations of a spirit- 
 ual baing is goodness, holiness, a Christ-like life. 
 The great motive that should stimulate our affec- 
 tions and brace pur will must flow down to us from 
 the objects themselves that are offered to the ambi- 
 tion of our heavenly nature. 
 
 But we need not say that this is not the way in 
 which men generally regard the subject, or have it set 
 before them. The absorbing question with a great 
 many people seems to be, not whether the law of 
 Christ is true, not whether the claim of conscience 
 and the call of God are right, but what if we don't 
 follow them ? And the most fervent Christian elo- 
 quence seems to flow in showing that God has infi- 
 nite power to enforce his laws, and an eternity to 
 do it in. So that the costs, risks, and sacrifices of 
 a Christian life are commended on the ground of 
 the loss that attends the failure to make them. Let 
 us not object that the penalties of wrong living 
 should be set before men ; the more vividly the bet- 
 ter, if truthfully done. But should not the first ques- 
 tion of every fair mind be this : " Is a law true ; is 
 the Christian life the highest life for a being that 
 has a soul ? " Independently of the question of 
 penalties or hardships, of what it will" cost if we 
 neglect, or of what it will come to if we honor re- 
 ligious principles, is not the first question the 
 question which should decide a man's course 
 simply this, " Is a religious career the right career ? 
 And should not that preaching be called the most 
 wholesome, searching, powerful, and evangelical,
 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 353 
 
 which scatters and burns up all mists that lie be- 
 tween the soul and the truth of things, so that a 
 hearer must go away from it speared through the 
 brain and conscience with the conviction that an 
 unconsecrated life is falsehood and moral idiocy ? 
 Countless subsidiary and additional appeals and in* 
 fluences of course, in all great preaching, will be 
 brought to bear to invest this truth with charm, 
 with pathos, with sweetness, to kindle the emo- 
 tions of penitence, and to nourish the seeds of 
 grace ; but this must be the granite basis of any 
 healthy dealing with human nature in respect of 
 religion. 
 
 If some one should come to you with a proposi- 
 tion which he wished you to believe, and which it 
 was important that you should believe, would you 
 think of asking him first, " What shall I gain by 
 attending to it, or what shall I lose by disbelieving 
 it?" Would you think of looking to any other 
 sources than the evidence he could bring -for the 
 proposition ? Would you imagine that any bribe 
 or any threat could effect the real merits of the 
 subject a hair, or deserve to be thought of a mo- 
 ment by an honest mind ? Can you conceive such 
 a thing as refusing to believe it if the evidence is 
 sufficient to establish it ? Now a question of ac- 
 tion, set before the moral nature, is precisely analo- 
 gous to a question for belief set before the mind. 
 The all-important thing is, whether it is right or 
 not. To refuse to do it, if it is right, because it 
 runs counter to some of our pleasures, is as mon- 
 
 28
 
 354 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 
 
 strous a thing as to refuse assent to a demonstrated 
 doctrine, because it runs counter to some of our 
 prejudices. The idea of gilding a moral truth or 
 a Christian call with anything different from it- 
 self, as a temptation, is like the idea of bribing a 
 'judge to bend his opinion. Just think of setting 
 up a Christian virtue with a necklace around it or 
 any ornament upon it to make the soul aspire toward 
 it, and choose it. It is true, as the hymn says, 
 
 " Wisdom has treasures greater far 
 
 Than east or west unfold, 
 And her rewards more precious are 
 Than all their gems of gold." 
 
 But spiritual wisdom has no treasure and no reward 
 so precious as itself. The moment we bring some- 
 thing foreign from Christian goodness, as a control- 
 ling motive to the choice of goodness, even though 
 it may be a joy or an honor that naturally results 
 from being good, we practically set something above 
 a true life ; we practically say that there is some- 
 thing in the universe of greater worth than holi- 
 ness, to which a true life is the path. This is a 
 profanation of Christianity ; however serious the 
 preaching sounds that deals with such implements, 
 it commends worldliness in spiritual guise. The 
 Saviour, in- the beatitudes, promised certain rewards 
 to certain dispositions, the inheritance of the 
 earth to the meek, and the kingdom of heaven to 
 the persecuted ; but the preciousness of the highest 
 states of mind he placed in those states themselves.
 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL OP RELIGION. 355 
 
 He said, " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall 
 obtain mercy ; blessed are they which hunger and 
 thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled; 
 blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
 
 If a man asks, therefore, " What will be the con- 
 sequences to me if I remain in sin ? " we may an- 
 swer, " The very worst possible consequence will 
 surely be your doom, the possession of a sinful 
 love, contentment in sin ; and the more placidly look 
 around you for extraneous consequences to warn 
 you from such a state, the more deep is the judg- 
 ment of that state now upon you. Extraneous con- 
 sequences, and bitter enough, will doubtless coil 
 around you, as the years roll off, but in the sight 
 of God, the direst punishment that besets you is the 
 state that you are in. The feeling that rules you is 
 the architect of the hell you suffer; every fiery 
 wave that will ever roll in upon you will be the in- 
 fernal creation of that temper, *a terrible parody, 
 by the spirit of evil, of the first creative fiat of di- 
 vine goodness saying, ' Let there be darkness and 
 torment,' as the holy word first said, ' Let there be 
 light.' And the spirit that rules you will be as 
 much more dreadful than the consequences of it as 
 the black, billowy turmoil in the breast of Satan, 
 when he tumbled from heaven into the pit, was 
 more awful than the sullen heat of the burning marl 
 that awaited his frame." 
 
 If a man asks, " What shall I have, if, in obedi- 
 ience to the calls of x religious truth, I conquer diffi- 
 culties, and walk in ways that the worldly nature
 
 356 THE CHIEF APPEAL OP RELIGION. 
 
 does not love ? " We may answer, " You will have 
 the divine quality, the inward nobleness, the con- 
 scious fellowship of God's spirit, which such a walk 
 brings. Other things you will have, peace, satis- 
 faction, heaven, as the consequence, but nothing So 
 valuable or so glorious as the thing itself, which 
 generates every consequence." Would you think 
 of expecting anybody to reward you in external 
 ways for being just, or for loving your child ? 
 Would you think of carrying any account to the 
 eternal bar setting forth, " So much is due me for 
 helping a sufferer with a coin that might have pur- 
 chased pleasure for me at the theatre ? " The just 
 and lovely disposition is its own recompense. God 
 does not and cannot pay for it in guineas and soft 
 climates, any more than you can sell your attach- 
 ment and respect to another for gold. If the pul- 
 pit could make men see the intrinsic excellence of 
 goodness as a Christian state of heart ! God would 
 have us see that, and feel the impulsive motive that 
 comes from seeing it. It was for this that the 
 Christ was clothed in flesh, and made our humanity 
 translucent with the divinest charm. 
 
 We all of us have souls, we all of us have infinite 
 natures, and they cannot find their objects their 
 food, their exercise, except in the sphere of things 
 with which religion invests us. The worth of piety 
 to the spirit is like the worth of health to the body ; 
 the importance of religious truths to the best part 
 of us is like the value of light, and the colored glo- 
 ries of nature to the eye. If we do not have a
 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 357 
 
 pious spirit within us, we are diseased ; and nothing 
 can express the dreadfulness of our state more than 
 the simple declaration that we are in that state. If 
 we do not live amid those objects we are blind ; and 
 nothing further that can be said can add anything 
 to the description of the misery of our condition. 
 The buildings in which people gather to listen to 
 pulpit words are not more firmly founded on their 
 corner-stones than the church and its doctrines are 
 based on the needs of human nature and the truth 
 of things. 
 
 The most solemn and efficient sanction of the 
 gospel is this, that we are absent from truth in our 
 falsehood to religious law and claims ; that we scorn 
 things which are in themselves the highest and most 
 valuable things, as health is the best thing for the 
 body, sight for the eye, and science for the mind. 
 And here the subject becomes impressively practical. 
 It springs of itself from an essay into a sermon. 
 What person will not say, what person does not often 
 say, that a Christian life is better than a selfish one, 
 the highest condition of the soul ? What person 
 will not say that humble dependence upon God is 
 not a higher state than proud self-reliance, that a 
 sincere, filial prayer, every morning, is not a better 
 way to begin the day than thoughtlessness or ingrati- 
 tude ? Who does not believe that doing good to 
 others is a better work than bending every hour to 
 his own enjoyment ? that practical faith in God is 
 a higher spirit than practical unbelief? that a 
 sweet, forgiving, charitable disposition is more de-
 
 358 THE CHIEF APPEAL OF RELIGION. 
 
 sirable than a harsh and coarse and self-seeking spirit? 
 Who will not say that a man of probity and holiness 
 and deep usefulness is not infinitely more worthy 
 than a man of mere wealth and avarice? Bring 
 together all the typical characters of history the 
 warrior, the statesman, the artist, the monarch, the 
 pleasure-seeker, the man of money, and who is there 
 that will not deliberately place such a character as 
 Jesus ajbove them air', as alone worthy the heart's 
 deepest reverence and love, and as showing more 
 gloriously tho worth of man ? Who is there that 
 does not pay this homage of his judgment and 
 approval - to religious principles and a Christian 
 character ? 
 
 What more powerful call, what more urgent 
 motive, can appeal to any person, to go higher up 
 the Christian life, or to begin a Christian life, than 
 this worship of it by every inmost soul ? We have 
 heard something of the eloquence of revivalists in 
 their calls to men to forsake sin and serve God, but 
 we know nothing in their most gorgeous pictures of 
 hell, or their most fascinating fancies of heaven, that 
 has a tithe of the weight, as a motive, which the 
 fact ought to bring with it, that a religious life is 
 indorsed as the best possession, in the centre of every 
 heart. " This is the condemnation," said Jesus, in 
 a, passage whose meaning will never be exhausted 
 while a sinner lives in the universe, " that light is 
 come into the world, and men love darkness rather 
 than light because their deeds are evil." Yes, dam- 
 nation is the choice of that which we know is not
 
 THE CHIEF APPEAL. OF RELIGION. 359 
 
 worthy of choice. Hell is a life in that which is not 
 true, and which our own souls condemn. The devil 
 is the father of lies, the arch-falsehood, and his chain 
 is on all spirits, and his stamp seared into their fore- 
 head, who obey what they confess is not deserving 
 obedience, who dream of finding good in what the 
 heart refuses to revere as best. Deep down below 
 all hells, the root of hell, is the feeling of satisfac- 
 tion in what conscience condemns. High up above 
 all heavens, the very sun-source of the radiance of 
 heaven, is the splendor of holy virtue in itself; and 
 the fountain of its power, and its most authoritative 
 appeal to the human heart, lie in the fact that it is 
 the highest truth and the highest good.
 
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