THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ^ 5 ^ 
 
 TiZs 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/sermonswithmemoiOOtagg 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 

SERMO 
 
 CHARLES MANSON TAGGART, 
 
 LATE COLLEAGUE PASTOR OF THE UNITARIAN CIIURCH 
 IN CHARLESTON, S. C. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY. 
 CHARLESTON: S. G. COURTENAY & CO. 
 LOUISVILLE: MAXWELL & CO. 
 NASHVILLE: W. T. BERRY & CO. 
 
 1 856 . 
 
 WITH A MEMOIR 
 
 BV 
 
 JOHN II. IIEYWOOD. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 185G, by 
 Crosby, Nichols, and Company, 
 the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 METCALF AND COMPANY. PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
1P2.V 
 
 TI2-S 
 
 CONTEN TS. 
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 RELIGION A LIFE, NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE 1 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, THE BEST RELIGION TO DIE BY .17 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY 
 
 32 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. — ADAM AND HIS POSTERITY. — THE DOC- 
 TRINE OF THE COVENANT WITH ADAM , . . 04 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE COMMON DOCTRINE OF 
 
 VICARIOUS ATONEMENT 80 
 
 687050 
 
IV 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN 96 
 
 DISCOURSE VIII. 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION 110 
 
 DISCOURSE IX. 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. — .TESUS AS JUDGE OF THE WORLD 125 
 
 DISCOURSE X. 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. — UNIVERSAL SALVATION. UNIVER- 
 SAL RESTORATION. — REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS . . 141 
 
 DISCOURSE XI. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS OR GOD AND THE 
 
 DEVIL 155 
 
 DISCOURSE XII. 
 
 USE AND MEANING OF THE TERMS DEVIL AND SATAN IN 
 
 SCRIPTURE 172 
 
 DISCOURSE XIII. 
 
 GOD AND NATURE 191 
 
 DISCOURSE XIV. 
 
 IS SUFFERING NECESSARY'? 206 
 
 DISCOURSE XV. 
 
 THOUGHTS CONNECTED WITH TIIE ORIGIN OF EVIL. — THE 
 
 OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE 
 
 220 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 V 
 
 DISCOURSE X Y I . 
 
 THE POWER OF MIND. — SOME GREAT THOUGHT 234 
 
 DISCOURSE X YI I . 
 
 CONFLICTS OF FAITH, — IN THE SOUL AND IN THE CHURCH 249 
 
 V 
 
 DISCOURSE XVIII. 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. — IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 262 
 
 DISCOURSE XIX. 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. — IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 277 
 
 DISCOURSE XX. 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. — IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 291 
 
 DISCOURSE XXI. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY 304 
 
 DISCOURSE XXII. 
 
 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, WITH REFERENCE 
 
 TO THE WORLD 318 
 
 DISCOURSE XXIII. 
 
 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, WITH REFERENCE 
 
 TO CHRISTIANITY 333 
 
 DISCOURSE X X I Y . 
 
 WIIAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? WHO IS A UNITARIAN ? 348 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 DISCOURSE X X Y . 
 
 TIIB MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. — DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 
 
 THE CHRIST AND WHAT IS CALLED CHRISTIANITY . . 371 
 
 DISCOURSE XXVI. 
 
 USES OF THE COMMUNION 384 
 
 DISCOURSE XXVII. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. — UNITY AND DIVERSITY. — 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF DENOMINATION 398 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 A brief sketch of the life of the writer of this 
 volume of Sermons may not be uninteresting to the 
 reader. 
 
 Charles Manson Taggart was born in the city 
 of Montreal, Lower Canada, October 31, 1821. The 
 greater portion of his childhood and youth was spent 
 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, to which city the family 
 removed while he was yet very young. His parents 
 belonged to the “ Old World.” Their early home 
 was in the county of Antrim, not far from Belfast, in 
 the North of Ireland. His mother he lost in early 
 childhood, and for a series of years he was under the 
 immediate care of his grandmother, a warm-hearted, 
 devout, excellent woman. When Charles was ten 
 years of age his father married again. Of her who 
 thus came to hold the mother’s place, he always 
 spoke with affection and respect, and by her his 
 memory is fondly, reverently cherished. Very beau- 
 tiful is the picture which she presents of him in his 
 childhood and youth, when, by his cheerful and con- 
 stant obedience, his thoughtful care for the younger 
 b 
 
X 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 members of the family, his self-control, his love of 
 peace, and his stainless purity, which never permitted 
 profane or vulgar words to soil his lips, he made his 
 presence a joy and a blessing to the home. Similar 
 testimony to hers is that borne by one of the dearest 
 companions of his youth and early manhood, Wil- 
 liam Getty, Esq., formerly of Pittsburg, now of Phil- 
 adelphia: — “ We were boys together. I think that 
 he was a year or so older than myself. We went to 
 school together when we were eight or nine years of 
 age, and from this time until the summer of 1846 we 
 were intimate friends. In his boyhood he was al- 
 ways kind, generous, and amiable ; he always had 
 full control of his feelings. I do not remember of 
 his ever striking a school-mate, or even coming 
 to harsh words. He was attentive to his studies, 
 and was never behind his class. At home he was 
 dutiful and obedient. Very early in life he lost his 
 mother, and her memory was ever dear to him. 
 Among his step-brothers and sisters he showed the 
 same even temper and kindness that characterized 
 him at a more advanced age. His affection for his 
 grandmother was very strong.” 
 
 From the dawn of his mental powers our friend 
 loved knowledge, and gladly availed himself of every 
 opportunity of intellectual improvement which was 
 afforded him. His father, a man of active mind and 
 a lover of learning, desired to have Charles thor- 
 oughly educated, but straitened pecuniary circum- 
 stances prevented him from giving to his son the 
 educational privileges which he would gladly have 
 given. The privileges enjoyed, therefore, were few, 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XI 
 
 being principally such as were afforded by the pub- 
 lic schools of Pittsburg. Fortunately, however, 
 mental progress and the acquisition of knowledge 
 are not necessarily nor exclusively dependent upon 
 the number or greatness of privileges enjoyed. The 
 mind intent on knowledge will obtain it. If it has 
 not opportunities offered, it will create them. We 
 commonly speak of men who have acquired valua- 
 ble information, or have developed their power of 
 thought without the enjoyment of the facilities pre- 
 sented in well-endowed institutions of learning, as 
 self-made men, in distinction from men who have en- 
 joyed these facilities. The term is not well applied ; 
 the distinction drawn is not just. The privileges 
 presented in an educational institution of high order 
 are by no means to be undervalued, but it is not the 
 possession of such privileges that makes the scholar 
 or the thinker. Every real thinker, every true scholar, 
 is essentially a self-made man, that is, a man who 
 by wise, faithful, constant use expands his powers, 
 and by persevering industry and profound medita- 
 tion makes the treasures of learning his own. Such 
 a man, above all others, appreciates and is grateful 
 for the aid which libraries and universities afford ; 
 but if he cannot enjoy their aid, he does, and does 
 well, without it. As certainly will he who has a 
 thirst for knowledge, the sacred instinct of thought, 
 find knowledge, as the bee will find the flower-con- 
 cealed honey. 
 
 This instinct our friend possessed in full measure. 
 He was a student by nature, and had keen delight 
 
Xll 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 in the exercise of thought and the pursuit of knowl- 
 edge. The companion, whose words have been al- 
 ready quoted, says : “ As he grew up to mature years, 
 his mind sought after literary attainments. When 
 quite a young man, he entered a wholesale grocery 
 store, and gave entire satisfaction to his employers ; 
 while thus engaged, his evenings were devoted to 
 study and to attendance at the meetings of the Mar- 
 shall Literary Institute, of which he was an active 
 member, and of the 1 Baldwin,’ of which he was an 
 honorary member. The exercises of these associa- 
 tions were well calculated to develop the talents of 
 their members, and our deceased friend stood in the 
 foremost rank. As a presiding officer he was calm 
 yet firm, and succeeded in maintaining good order ; 
 as a writer he was extremely careful, and his pro- 
 ductions always seemed finished ; as a debater he 
 could grow warm, and as the interest increased, he 
 became truly eloquent. His natural inclination was 
 for literary pursuits, — in these he excelled.” 
 
 The friend, who has given us this information in 
 regard to the intellectual tendencies and culture of 
 his beloved companion, speaks in a deeply interesting 
 manner of his religious experience. “ His religious 
 feelings were developed at a very early period of his 
 life. We were both brought up in the same church, 
 and attended the Sabbath school together. For a 
 long time we were members of a Bible class taught 
 on Sabbath evenings by Rev. J. R. Kerr, long since 
 deceased, for whom our departed brother cherished 
 the kindest feelings, and under whose ministry he 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 sat with great pleasure, and, I have no doubt,' much 
 profit. He took delight in religious things, and was 
 fond of theological discussions. We often differed 
 on doctrinal points. The natural turn of his thoughts 
 qualified him for controversy, and he engaged in it 
 with great relish ; yet throughout he ever showed an 
 even temper, never permitting himself to be led away 
 by the heat of discussion.” It is very delightful in 
 these days of sectarian narrowness and exclusiveness 
 to meet \Vlth a Christian who can cherish warm af- 
 fection and express profound respect for one whose 
 theological opinions differ widely, even radically, from 
 his own. Thus speaks the warm-hearted man in a 
 subsequent part of his valuable communication, and 
 his earnest, affectionate words do credit alike to his 
 own Christian spirit and to the spirit of his beloved 
 companion: — “Memory freshens as I think of the 
 past, and it seems all too like a dream. The inti- 
 macy at one time was almost as tender as that be- 
 tween man and wife. For months we were together, 
 talked with each other, wrote and counselled togeth- 
 er, and, as far as intercourse on earth is concerned, 
 we were as one. No brother was nearer or dearer. 
 My friend has gone, the friend of early days, when 
 the hearts of both were tender and susceptible of 
 good impressions. For his memory I cherish pro- 
 found respect. Although we differed on doctrinal 
 points, still I can only believe that he has gone up 
 higher, that he is among the throng that surround 
 the throne of the Lamb. May it be your lot and 
 mine to meet him there.” 
 b * 
 
XIV 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 Would that the spirit of piety and charity which 
 prompted the utterance of these touching words 
 were prevalent in the Christian world. Then the 
 soul-union for which the Saviour fervently prayed 
 would be effected and enjoyed among his followers, 
 and earth would have a foretaste of the peace and 
 bliss which belong to the world of candor and har- 
 mony, where all know as they are known, and where 
 perfect love casteth out all injustice, as well as all 
 fear. 
 
 The family of Mr. Taggart belong to the Presby- 
 terian Church. “ He was brought up,” to quote the 
 language of one of his relatives, a minister of that 
 church, u a Presbyterian of the strictest sect, and 
 his abandoning the religion of his fathers was a 
 source of unspeakable sorrow to all his friends.” 
 The writer probably intended to say, that his aban- 
 doning the theological system of his fathers was a 
 source of sorrow ; for it is not to be supposed that he 
 thought that one whose heart was full of reverence 
 and gratitude, and whose life attested his loyalty 
 to conscience and God, ever abandoned “ religion.” 
 It is unfortunate that, even in the carelessness of 
 common conversation or of epistolary intercourse, 
 “religion ” and theological or ecclesiastical systems 
 should be spoken of as identical. As well might we 
 seek to identify God’s infinite ocean-reservoir and 
 some petty cistern formed by human hands, as to 
 identify religion with any system which man has 
 devised or arranged. To depart from the theological 
 opinions of one’s fathers is one thing, to depart from 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XV 
 
 their religion is another and a very different thing. 
 That Mr. Taggart never abandoned the religion of 
 his fathers his life attests ; that he rejected their 
 theological system, is true ; and it is also true, that 
 he never was more faithful to the religion of his fa- 
 thers than when he gave up their theological system, 
 for he gave it up, because, as he conscientiously be- 
 lieved, reverence for the Divine word and obedience 
 to the Divine will commanded and compelled him so 
 to do ; and reverential obedience to the word and 
 will of God surely was the essential element in the 
 religion of his fathers, as it is in the religion .of all 
 devout Christians. 
 
 It is no light thing for a young man to depart from 
 the theological opinions in which he has been edu- 
 cated, and which have become almost sacred to him 
 through their association with the church and the 
 home. When and how was Mr. Taggart led to 
 adopt views widely different from those in which he 
 had been carefully instructed ? This is an interest- 
 ing question, and perhaps the best answer which can 
 be given is furnished in a brief extract from a let- 
 ter written by an uncle of Mr. Taggart, a venerable 
 minister of the Presbyterian Church, who, while he 
 frankly says, “ I cannot think that there is anything 
 in the Unitarian system, as far as I understand it, 
 that meets the wants of sinners dead in trespasses 
 and sins,” and “ I do not think that his writings 
 will advance the cause of true religion ” ; yet cheer- 
 fully attests to the “irreproachable moral character 
 from youth ” of his truth-loving, manly, outspoken 
 relative. 
 
XVI 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 The extract is as follows: — 44 In a letter to me, 
 dated July 16, 1846 (which was some time after he 
 went to study at Meadville, Pa.), he uses the follow- 
 ing words : 4 Ever since I have been capable of hold- 
 ing any views for myself, they have been the same 
 as now, only time, observation, and experience have 
 strengthened and confirmed them. True, I tried to 
 believe the Calvinistic system of dogmas, but the 
 very effort to do so, by examining for myself the 
 grounds on which they stood, convinced me of their 
 error.’ In speaking of his theological views in the 
 same letter, he says: 4 I held them long before I 
 deliberately concluded to state them to any one, nor 
 till by careful examination of the Scripture (and the 
 Scripture alone, for I had nothing else) I had satis- 
 fied my own mind.’ It appears, therefore, that our 
 friend, who has finished his course, never changed 
 his religious views ; he had tried to embrace other 
 4 dogmas,’ but failed in the attempt.” 
 
 The mental and religious history laid open to our 
 inspection in these few lines is deeply interesting. 
 Here is a young man, religiously inclined from child- 
 hood, a member of a family connected with a church 
 which holds the Calvinistic system of theology in all 
 its rigidness and stern severity, faithfully indoctri- 
 nated at home, in the Bible class, and at the church, 
 in the distinctive principle^ of that system, heartily 
 desirous of accepting the system if he can, and ear- 
 nestly, constantly, studying the Scriptures to find it 
 substantiated in them ; who, notwithstanding his de- 
 sires, his efforts, and his prayers, is unable to discern 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XVII 
 
 proof of its correctness in the sacred volume, and 
 who, unaided and alone, with no Unitarian books or 
 friends to bias his mind, after long-protracted and at 
 times agonizing study, — agonizing, for he shrank 
 from results which he knew must separate him wide- 
 ly from nearest and dearest friends, — came deliber- 
 ately to the conclusion, that the Bible presents views 
 utterly irreconcilable with the theological system of 
 John Calvin. Such studies and struggles, such reso- 
 lute acceptance of unwelcome conclusions, and calm 
 determination to avow them and abide by them, im- 
 ply, if not extraordinary mental power, extraordinary 
 mental independence, and heroic fidelity to truth. 
 The man who can thus think for himself, and who 
 has the courage thus to think for himself, who feels 
 that necessity is laid upon him to go wherever truth 
 may lead him, may be as far from the kingdoms 
 established by any sectarian chiefs or theological 
 sovereigns, as John Milton or the sturdiest republi- 
 can in Cromwell’s army was from the kingdom of 
 Charles Stuart; but he certainly is not far from the 
 kingdom of Him who said, “ I am a king. To this 
 end was I born, and for this cause came I into the 
 world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. 
 Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” 
 
 For a young man, ‘to whom thought and study 
 were so essential, and whose mind was, as his most 
 intimate friend states, for years “on one object, — 
 the ministry,” — a professional life would seem the 
 legitimate, almost the necessary life. But, as has 
 been already intimated, contracted pecuniary circum- 
 
XV111 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 stances prevented him from entering upon the course 
 to which all his mental and moral tendencies led him. 
 He accordingly at the age of seventeen entered a 
 wholesale store, in which he continued four years. 
 To the duties which then and there lay before him, 
 he devoted himself with conscientious fidelity. He 
 brought his intelligence, integrity, and habits of in- 
 dustry and perseverance to bear upon the work which 
 he had undertaken, and which, therefore, was accom- 
 plished to the entire satisfaction of his employers. 
 But though faithful to mercantile life while in it, he 
 never found it congenial to his tastes. His treasure 
 was elsewhere, and where his treasure was, his heart 
 was also. At the end of four years, therefore, he 
 gave up his situation, and for a period remained at 
 home, quietly pursuing his studies there. But this 
 course could not be continued long. His self-respect 
 and his thoughtfulness for others would not permit 
 him to be dependent upon relatives, who, however 
 kind, were not in a condition, as he felt, to justify 
 him in adding to their necessary expenses. He must 
 labor in some way to procure the means of support. 
 After stating his thoughts and feelings to his father, 
 he left home, to go he knew not whither, but in full 
 confidence that a kind Providence would open the 
 way of duty and direct his steps therein. He went 
 on board a steamboat at Pittsburg, and sailed down 
 the Ohio, with barely money enough in bis pocket 
 to defray his expenses, but with heart rich in hope. 
 In the course of a few days he reached Louisville, 
 Kentucky, where he engaged himself temporarily 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XIX 
 
 as clerk in a store. Here he remained for a few 
 months, and then, having obtained letters of intro- 
 duction to prominent merchants in New Orleans, he 
 sailed down the Ohio and Mississippi to that ever- 
 attractive, ever-disappointing city, where many find 
 fortunes and many find graves, but few find homes. 
 There he spent a few weeks, but not succeeding in 
 obtaining employment, he determined to go to St. 
 Lodis. There also his search was unsuccessful. 
 While there, he heard of a school in a small town 
 in Missouri, which was in need of a teacher. He 
 at once went on a boat bound up the Mississippi, 
 stopped at the landing nearest the place of his des- 
 tination, and, with carpet-bag in hand, walked to the 
 town, twenty-five miles distant. For three months 
 he remained there, faithfully discharging his duties 
 as teacher. At the end of this time, becoming wea- 
 ried with the monotony of his life, and seeing no 
 prospect of accomplishing anything for himself, 
 either pecuniarily, or, what was to him of infinitely 
 more importance, in the way of mental improvement, 
 he resigned his office, and, on foot again, made his 
 way to the river. He took passage on the first boat 
 that came, and went to Quincy, Illinois, in which 
 beautiful town — made sacred to hearts of Unitarian 
 Christians by the memory of that admirable man 
 and devoted pastor, George Moore — and its vicinity 
 he remained for a little while, in the hope of becom- 
 ing a teacher in a school, or of obtaining some other 
 congenial means of support. Not succeeding, he 
 determined to go to St. Louis again. For hours he 
 
XX 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 sat upon the bank of the Mississippi, waiting for a 
 boat, and as he waited meditating in seriousness, 
 but not in despondency, upon his past history and 
 his probable career in the future. At last a boat 
 draws near, and he gladly goes on board. Little 
 dreamed the officers of that boat of the deep thoughts, 
 the elevated purposes, which filled the mind and 
 sustained the heart of the unassuming man who 
 then became passenger on it. In St. Louis he re- 
 mained for a few days, and then took passage on a 
 boat bound up the Ohio. He stopped at the town 
 of Owensboro’, Daviess Co., Ky., where he at once 
 was engaged as teacher in the Seminary, and where 
 he met with fair success, having a good number of 
 pupils, and being well esteemed as an instructor. 
 
 It was in this town that my acquaintance with 
 this beloved brother began. In May, 1845, I spent 
 a few days there, and preached several times. In the 
 audience I observed a young man of intellectual 
 countenance, who appeared to listen with close at- 
 tention and deep interest. Struck with his appear- 
 ance and manner, I sought an introduction, and con- 
 versation only confirmed my impression. I made 
 inquiries of friends in Owensboro’, and learned from 
 them that the character of the teacher, as far as they 
 knew, was in harmony with his appearance. Soon 
 after returning to Louisville, I addressed a letter to 
 Mr. Taggart, in which I asked him if he would go 
 to Meadville and pursue a course of theological study 
 there. After due deliberation, he replied that he 
 would go. He said that at first he had hesitated 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XXI 
 
 about acceding to the proposition, because of the 
 pain which he knew the fact of his becoming a 
 preacher of views regarded as heretical and danger- 
 ous would cause his relatives, but that, on reflec- 
 tion, it seemed to him clearly his duty to what he 
 esteemed truth to prepare himself for an efficient 
 advocacy of it. 
 
 In September of that year he entered the Theo- 
 logical School, and, as he long afterwards told me, 
 with doubt and misgiving. Brought up among 
 those who considered it a duty to be exclusive in 
 matters pertaining to religion, who regarded liber- 
 alism as synonymous with latitudinarianism, and 
 viewed it with extreme aversion, not only as being 
 indicative of indifference to vital religion, but as be- 
 ing the very essence of irreligion, and who therefore 
 thought it right by creeds and formularies to fence 
 in religion ; educated in a community which held 
 most rigidly to the sternest doctrines, and which per- 
 mitted, or at least encouraged, mental freedom only 
 within certain prescribed limits, it was to him a 
 cause of surprise, an incredible thing, that any min- 
 ister and congregation of Christians could offer the 
 opportunity of theological education to a young man, 
 without requiring of him a promise or pledge that 
 he would become a preacher and advocate of the 
 opinions held by them. So 8eep-seated was his 
 conviction, not only of the improbability, but of the 
 impossibility, of any religious man or denomination 
 suffering the individual mind to pursue its inquiries 
 in perfect mental freedom, freedom restrained only by 
 
 c 
 
XXII 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 a sense of constant and direct accountability to God, 
 that for a year he anxiously and suspiciously scruti- 
 nized the letters which he received from me, and also 
 the actions of the Professors atthe Theological School, 
 to discover intimations of the plan which he was 
 sure we must have of entrapping him, and in some 
 way, indirectly if not directly, of interfering with his 
 mental and spiritual freedom, and making him, wheth- 
 er he would or no, an instrument for accomplishing 
 some sectarian end. Especially desirous was he to 
 discover the hidden motive which prompted me to 
 show an interest and place confidence in him, — a 
 stranger, — for he thought it an almost inconceivable 
 thing that gratitude for the enjoyment of educational 
 privileges and of liberal views of religion should be 
 of itself sufficient motive to prompt one to offer sim- 
 ilar privileges to any mind and heart which seemed 
 well fitted to appreciate them. But by the end of 
 the year he was convinced not only that no ulterior 
 motive had prompted the invitation to him to go to 
 Meadville, but that that institution was in reality 
 what it professed to be, and that its Professors, whom, 
 after becoming thoroughly acquainted with them, 
 he never ceased to regard with warm affection and 
 profound esteem, were perfectly true to the princi- 
 ples of Christian liberty which they avowed. 
 
 For four years he remained at Meadville, pursuing 
 his studies with an ardor that never abated, with a 
 perseverance which was never wearied. He was 
 born to be a student. He loved study for its own 
 sake. Difficulties only aroused him to new exertions. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XX111 
 
 He had keen enjoyment in the exercise of his own 
 powers, and he appreciated well the results which 
 other earnest thinkers reached in the exercise of 
 theirs. Of his life in the Theological School, of his 
 habits of study, of the impression which he made 
 upon his fellow-students, and the place which he held 
 in their esteem, the following letter from his beloved 
 friend, Rev. R. R. Shippen, pastor of the Unitarian 
 Church in Chicago, 111., presents a beauti di picture. 
 
 “My dear Friend: — 
 
 “ I gladly comply with your request to furnish a 
 chapter of Mr. Taggart’s preparation for the minis- 
 try at Meadville. Most happy am I to pay to his 
 memory that grateful tribute of affection. Yet our 
 uneventful student life furnishes little material of 
 interest to relate. Its interest was chiefly in our 
 friendly companionship, and” our studies, plans, and 
 hopes in common, investing it with a quiet and 
 peculiar charm that cannot be described. It all rises 
 before me now as a beautiful picture ; but rapidly 
 vanishing into the past as a delightful dream. 
 
 “ It was in the autumn of 1845 that Mr. Taggart 
 first came to Meadville. The Theological School 
 had been in existence only one year; so that there 
 were but two classes, and these were small. The 
 fresh novelty of its establishinenf in the quiet village 
 had not passed away. The coming of so many re- 
 ligious young men into a small parish was an im- 
 portant addition to the church, and infused new 
 spirit into our rather monotonous social life. Into a 
 
XXIV 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 few hospitable homes, all the students were cordially 
 welcomed, and admitted with little restraint and for- 
 mality. Beside this, the high anticipations of friends 
 abroad for the success of the School caused each 
 additional student to be hailed with joyful interest. 
 
 “ One other fact combined with these to make each 
 individual a marked man. It would be difficult, I 
 think, to collect together a band of twenty candi- 
 dates for the ministry of more heterogeneous mate- 
 rial than were assembled there. Our ages ranged 
 from sixteen to thirty-five. We came from every 
 quarter of the Northern States, from Maine to Illi- 
 nois. Even Germany, England, and Wales were rep- 
 resented among us. We had members of five dif- 
 ferent denominations. Our advantages of culture 
 and experience of life ranged from the privileges of 
 Boston schools and society down to zero. None 
 were graduates of any college, except of the great 
 American institution of practical life, the people’s 
 university. But in this no two had pursued the same 
 course, or had been drilled alike. One came from 
 the woods, and another from the prairies ; one from 
 a workshop, and another from his home in a New 
 England village. One had taught school, another 
 had been several years preaching with the gift of 
 tongues, if not of wisdom. Some had already had 
 rough encounters in the battle of life, others were 
 just starting, utterly unsophisticated and ignorant of 
 the world and its ways. Some had known nothing 
 but books and study all their days, and others could 
 not read or write a sentence of English without 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XXV 
 
 blundering. It was a motley group, full of intense 
 individuality. No affectation of eccentricity was 
 needed to distinguish any man from his comrades. 
 Every one rejoiced in his own original style of speech, 
 dress, manners, and type of manhood. Yet one com- 
 mon motive and aim filled all with kindred enthusi- 
 asm, and a hearty religious sympathy harmonized 
 all incongruities. It was beautiful to behold how 
 ready all were for mutual help, and how generously 
 each judged his brother’s faults and failings. A 
 genial laugh, never embittered by self-conceit or con- 
 tempt, was the only, but always effective, criticism. 
 Thus the varied experience and diverse characteris- 
 tics only imparted richness to our discussions, and 
 perennial freshness to all our intercourse. 
 
 “ Charles came among us as marked a character as 
 any in all the variety. No just comparison is pos- 
 sible ; yet all would admit that his talents and cul- 
 ture were of the first order. His early Calvinistic 
 education, with his change of views by his own in- 
 dependent study and personal conviction, — his few 
 months of school-teaching and study of law, giving 
 him superior mental discipline, — his wanderings in 
 the South and West, giving him an observation of 
 phases of life unknown to the rest of us, — all com- 
 bined in a contribution of original experience pecu- 
 liar to himself. In debate and conference-meeting 
 he immediately took high rank, as one of the most 
 interesting of our number. His early practice in a 
 young men’s literary society in Pittsburg enabled 
 him to express himself fluently, and with elegance 
 
 c 
 
XXVI 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 and precision, in extempore speech. Yet when any 
 part was assigned him, he always came prepared. 
 He never would speak against time, and always 
 manifested a restless impatience when others talked 
 only to occupy the hour. His extreme conservatism 
 brought him into perpetual antagonism and frequent 
 warm discussion with the radical reformers around 
 him. And when sometimes a criticism of Southern 
 institutions would blend the people in indiscriminate 
 denunciation, Mr. Taggart would rise in their de- 
 fence with a chivalric enthusiasm worthy of Clay or 
 Calhoun. This antagonism sometimes carried him 
 to the other extreme, and betrayed him into unquali- 
 fied praise. But none ever questioned his conscien- 
 tiousness, and I never knew him to transcend the 
 courtesies of debate, for an instant to lose his calm 
 self-possession, or to utter a hasty word that he could 
 wish to be recalled. Though he sometimes stood 
 alone, his courage never failed in maintaining his 
 own independence, or advocating the most unpopu- 
 lar opinion. Nor did his pleasant spirit ever suffer 
 the sharpest encounter to mar the prevailing har- 
 mony and peace. 
 
 “ During the first year, however, I saw but little of 
 him socially. The rest of the students boarded in a 
 club, near together and near the School. Charles 
 resided at a distance, in a family of Methodist friends 
 or relatives, and was thus brought little in contact 
 with us except in school hours. He came and went 
 directly and alone to the exercises, and home again, 
 and visited but little. He was studying hard. He 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 xxvn 
 
 would, as he afterwards told me, often study all 
 day, and for the better part of the night, and for 
 days never leave his room except for recitation. His 
 countenance was pale and sedate, and wore a grave 
 and anxious expression. The students thought him 
 cold and reserved, and little suspected the fund of 
 humor latent within him, and afterwards revealed. 
 He was often low-spirited, and suffered in a sense 
 of loneliness and want of sympathy, till it seemed as 
 if a morbid feeling approaching to misanthropy were 
 stealing over him. Whether it was the anxious 
 thoughts natural to the entrance on our high voca- 
 tion, or his loneliness with too severe study and 
 close confinement, or other causes that affected him 
 chiefly, I know not. But probably all these com- 
 bined, with mutual reaction. 
 
 “ It was in the year 1848-49, the last year of our 
 course, that I knew him best. We were then class- 
 mates and intimate friends. The year previous I 
 had been absent from home and the School; and in 
 the intimacy of frequent correspondence, in which he 
 gave unreserved expression to his deepest thoughts, 
 I first thoroughly learned the worth and wealth of 
 his spirit. His acquaintance had also extended in 
 the parish and among the students, bringing out his 
 varied talents, and giving free play to his wit and 
 humor, and warm social nature. He had boarded 
 for a time in my mother’s family, and continued in- 
 timate as one of our household. Our house was a 
 familiar resort for all the students in the evenings 
 and hours of leisure, and he was a frequent visitor, 
 
xx vm 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 so that I saw much of him in the most intimate 
 relations, and knew him thoroughly. He had be- 
 come a favorite with the children of the neighbor- 
 hood, joining them in their work or play, their gar- 
 dening, or fishing and nutting expeditions, and was 
 regarded by a large group of them as a familiar 
 friend. Indeed, with his genial, generous spirit, he 
 became a universal favorite in the School and the 
 parish, among old and young. There still his name 
 is familiar as a household word. Many felt sadly 
 when he left to return no more. They watched his 
 course with an affectionate interest and pleasure, 
 and when he died, many hearts there mourned him 
 as a brother. 
 
 “ During the previous summer he had been preach- 
 ing in Louisville. His flattering success, and the 
 generous warmth of his reception, which caused 
 him always after to speak of Louisville and Mead- 
 ville as his twofold home, had enlivened and bright- 
 ened his spirits, so that during that year he was 
 buoyant and joyous as a different man. A larger 
 number of students had by this time joined the 
 School, and among them several of more than the 
 average talent and culture. Many circumstances 
 conspired to make that winter peculiarly pleasant. 
 They who were there will never forget that charm- 
 ing year of our school life, nor fail to think of 
 Charles as one of the favorites in our pleasant 
 group. The beautiful hills of that charming valley, 
 so gorgeous in the rich and rare variety of its au- 
 tumnal foliage, and the graceful banks of the gentle 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 streams, invited us to many an afternoon ramble. 
 In our frequent walks, Charles was always a chosen 
 companion ; and in the evening parties, musical 
 meetings, and sleigh-rides of the later winter, he 
 was always a certain guest, — always, too, one of 
 the most merry and entertaining, with his ready 
 repartee and original sayings, his fund of anecdote, 
 and queer maxims of universal application. 
 
 “In school, also, he still held a high rank. He 
 studied faithfully, and rarely or never missed or 
 slighted an exercise or recitation. His mental dis- 
 cipline gave him such thorough self-command, that 
 he could write easily, fluently, and at any time. He 
 wrote with remarkable grace and beauty of expres- 
 sion, never transcribing and rarely correcting. He 
 was always punctual and prompt with themes and 
 sermons, having them written while others were 
 thinking about it. Indeed, he always retained the 
 rare gift of writing a sermon as readily on Monday 
 morning as on Saturday night. Though especially 
 fond of poetry and fiction, he spent no time in desul- 
 tory reading, and rambled little in any direction 
 from the straight line of study. Accustomed to 
 think much and digest thoroughly, he had his own 
 decided opinion on every question. He had also 
 learned the wisdom, rarely acquired except by prac- 
 tical experience in professional life, of studying by 
 subjects. He was indefatigable in his study of any 
 subject that interested him, pursuing his investiga- 
 tions with unyielding pertinacity through every 
 volume he could find that would afford him any 
 
XXX 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 light. Once, for instance, he becamo engaged in a 
 theological controversy by letter with some distant 
 Calvinistic friend. With his whole soul he entered 
 into it, studied every point thoroughly, as if prepar- 
 ing for the press or pulpit, and thus gain d a reser- 
 voir of knowledge on controversial points far beyond 
 that of most preachers of his years. In his visit to 
 Louisville, also, by conversation with the late Pro- 
 fessor Caldwell, and by reading his book, he became 
 interested in the question of the unity of origin of 
 the human race. When he returned to Meadville, 
 he diligently perused everything on the subject that 
 he could lay his hands upon, and sent abroad for 
 books. When Agassiz’s articles afterwards ap- 
 peared in the Christian Examiner, attracting pop- 
 ular attention and discussion, Mr. Taggart was 
 already familiar with everything that had been 
 written on both sides of the subject, and surprised 
 his friends in conversation, in a lecture and an ar- 
 ticle in the Southern Quarterly Review, with the 
 extent of his information on what seemed to many 
 a novel question. Thus, on such topics as interested 
 him, he had accumulated an amount of material, 
 and acquired a decision in his opinions, which gave 
 a consciousness of knowledge and a positive tone of 
 authority to his assertions, that commanded respect 
 and carried a weight of conviction with all the 
 words he uttered. In later years he read less and 
 thought more. The views he held were no second- 
 hand parrot repetitions of other men’s thoughts, but 
 his own independent conclusions, and largely the 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 fresh products of his own brain. This I think was 
 evident in his sermons, and gave them the charm of 
 freshness and force of originality. 
 
 u Of his sermons and preaching in the School I 
 can hardly speak. His aims were pure and his hopes 
 high in the ministry. But any conceptions of the 
 work, gained only by anticipations, were necessarily 
 vague. Our sermons written and delivered in the 
 School were very unsatisfactory samples of what 
 any one would do in real life. With no distinct 
 aim or object, they inevitably became broad and 
 commonplace generalities. They were either fiercely 
 controversial and combative, aimed with chivalric 
 enthusiasm at some imaginary windmill, or else 
 tame abstractions, covering the whole vineyard of 
 duty at once, broad and flat as a prairie, intended to 
 regenerate society generally, and no one in partic- 
 ular. Charles entered with very little spirit into 
 what seemed merely ministerial gymnastics and 
 sham preaching. For this reason I can but dimly 
 recollect a single sermon that he preached, except 
 one on the novel text, “Every man for himself,” and 
 once when he came forth gravely with a discourse 
 on the importance of having plenty of Tin , in which 
 he gave free play to his humor, and afforded much 
 entertainment to his hearers. 
 
 “ The tendency of his mind was toward broad 
 generalization. He was full of a comprehensive phi- 
 losophy of life, which existed not only as abstract 
 theory, but was expressed in definite practical views, 
 pervaded his spirit, and gave tone to his character, 
 
XXX11 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 His spirit was imbued with hearty trust in Divine 
 Providence, and he was fond of dwelling on the 
 thought that fidelity to-day is the best preparation 
 for to-morrow, wherever in all the universe to-mor- 
 row finds us, whether on this side of the grave or 
 the other. This made him ever prompt and faithful 
 to the duties at hand, gilding the present with all 
 the brightness of sunny enjoyment and noble work, 
 and little anxious for the future. It gave him a calm 
 hope that never failed, and lifted him into a perfect 
 serenity that nothing could disturb. Indeed, I never 
 knew any one who could fairly face the darkest pos- 
 sibilities of the future with more unfaltering calm- 
 ness and composure. It was so in all the uncertain- 
 ties of his school life and years of wandering, and 
 even to the last hour of his stay on earth. His spirit 
 was also remarkably cosmopolitan. This came 
 from his realizing sense of the Divine Providence 
 everywhere, making the whole world a fit sphere for 
 a high mission to the faithful soul. He saw, too, 
 that in every place there was noble work to be 
 done ; and he believed and cherished the faith that 
 there are pleasant people everywhere, among whom 
 the generous spirit would meet responsive sympathy, 
 and find or make friends and a home wherever the 
 lot might be cast. This faith made him cheerful 
 through all the wanderings of his later years, and 
 acting upon it, he made it true in his own* experi- 
 ence. 
 
 “ I think he heartily and thoroughly enjoyed his 
 last year in the School. Often afterwards he alluded 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XXX111 
 
 to it as a sunny portion of his life. When spring 
 came, he was prostrated for some weeks by a severe 
 illness. When school drew nigh the close, he was 
 weak and worn, pale and thin. Some friends 
 thought that they then perceived the indications 
 of permanent disease and certain decline, and feared 
 that his life must be brief. In his weak condition, 
 probably some natural perplexity as to his field of 
 labor troubled him. His inclinations led him to the 
 West, and his predilections were still stronger for 
 the South. He always declared his firm faith that 
 he could gather for himself a parish in any flourish- 
 ing place, declaring too his preference for a church 
 so formed. But that would involve a temporary 
 independence or guaranty of support which he did 
 not possess, and no place seemed open in the direc- 
 tion of his choice. Advised by the Faculty to take 
 a short journey to recruit his health, he visited the 
 societies in Rochester and Albany, whose pulpits 
 were then vacant. At the latter place, after preach- 
 ing but one Sunday, he was invited to settle. So 
 sudden an engagement seemed rash on both sides. 
 Yet the call was highly flattering to a young man, 
 and for the few remaining days of the term he was 
 buoyant and elated in spirits. He entered upon his 
 work with high hopes, and building many airy castles 
 of quick success. But the post was too difficult for 
 any young man, and utterly uncongenial to him, 
 with his Southern partialities, and he soon set him- 
 self afloat, with his face turned westward. 
 
 “ It is yours to relate the subsequent course of his 
 
 d 
 
xxxiv 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 brief career, and speak of his talents and character 
 and work in the ministry. His abilities were rated 
 as of superior order by his Meadville friends and 
 companions. We felt sure that he would make a 
 mark in the world, and, if his life were spared, take 
 a distinguished position among the members of his 
 profession. But it seemed his destiny to wander, 
 and spend his few remaining years in finding the 
 field for his appointed work. He had at last found 
 the congenial sphere which seemed the charming 
 realization of all his hopes and fancies, with opening 
 avenues of inviting usefulness, when, by a mysteri- 
 ous and inscrutable Providence, he was called away. 
 His wandering prevented any brilliant visible success. 
 Yet his life was not in vain, nor his mission unful- 
 filled. It is not the quantity of our words and deeds, 
 but the quality of our character, that makes deep and 
 abiding impression in the world. The impression 
 of his character, and the remembrance of his pure 
 and generous spirit, are left in many a heart. By 
 frequent letters I accompanied him in all his wander- 
 ing. What might have seemed discouraging failure 
 to a superficial observer, never disheartened him. He 
 was cheerful and hopeful through all change and 
 uncertainty, borne up by his cherished faith, to which 
 he was ever steadfast and loyal. Wherever he went, 
 he seemed to realize the majestic presence of a 
 superintending Providence, finding everywhere the 
 needed work and the cordial friends that his faith 
 anticipated, and caring little where the morrow 
 should find him, while living nobly and fulfilling 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 faithfully the duties of to-day. The lines of Festus, 
 of which he was so fond, may be most appropriately 
 applied to himself: — 
 
 ‘ We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 
 We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.’ 
 
 “ Affectionately your friend and brother, 
 
 “ Rush R. Shippen. 
 
 “ Chicago, April 10, 1855.” 
 
 Such was the life of our friend at Meadville. It 
 was life. He lived every hour which he passed 
 there, and when he left the institution, he bore with 
 him a mind trained to earnest, vigorous, consecutive 
 thought, and a high ideal of Christian usefulness. 
 During the summer of 1848, the summer previous 
 to that of his graduation, he preached for a series of 
 Sundays in Louisville. His manner of delivery at 
 that time was not adapted to do justice either to the 
 vitality or the power of his mind. Naturally fastid- 
 ious, and shrinking from everything that resembled 
 or seemed to resemble “ clap-trap,” he spoke in a 
 comparatively low tone, with little action and ap- 
 parently little animation. His articulation was not 
 then entirely distinct, so that many had, difficulty in 
 catching his words, often losing parts of sentences, 
 sometimes whole sentences. But notwithstanding 
 these drawbacks, his preaching was interesting, to 
 many persons intensely interesting. His sermons 
 then, as always, were characterized by freshness, 
 boldness, and originality. To minds of a certain 
 
xxxvi 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 class, minds which had been troubled with doubts, 
 his preaching was pre-eminently quickening and 
 helpful. They instinctively felt that he was one 
 who had sufficient clearness and comprehensiveness 
 of mind to appreciate the full force of any mental 
 difficulty, and, moreover, that he was one who, how- 
 ever strong his own faith might be, would never be 
 unjust to those who had passed or were passing 
 through the terrible ordeal of scepticism. To an- 
 other class of minds, also, his preaching was pecu- 
 liarly attractive, — to those who had suffered, as 
 he had suffered, from the depressing influences of 
 Calvinism. Persons who from childhood had had 
 bright and cheering views of Christianity, and knew 
 not from experience how deep and dark is the gloom 
 cast by the system of the stern Genevan, thought 
 his preaching too controversial. But not so thought 
 those who had themselves suffered. To them his 
 preaching was not too frequently nor too sharply 
 controversial, and they always enjoyed his oft-re- 
 peated and thorough dissections of that hard system 
 of theology. 
 
 Immediately after graduating, Mr. Taggart was 
 ordained as pastor of the Unitarian Church in Al- 
 bany, New York. The ordination services were 
 
 # 
 
 held on the evening of July 31, 1849. He entered 
 upon his work in that city with earnestness and 
 enthusiasm, and prosecuted it with diligence. His 
 residence, however, in Albany was brief. The 
 church was struggling under a load of debt, and 
 there were other circumstances which rendered the 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XXXV11 
 
 position a very trying one, especially to a young 
 minister. Our friend, after laboring earnestly for a 
 season, felt convinced that some other man, of more 
 years and larger experience, could be found better 
 fitted for the charge of the church there than himself, 
 and that its best interests, as well as his own, would 
 be promoted by his resignation. He accordingly 
 bade it farewell, though not without emotion ; for he. 
 had become interested in the church and the place, 
 and was very grateful to the friends who had earnest- 
 ly co-operated with him. 
 
 The feeling with which those friends regarded him 
 is manifested in the following extract from a letter 
 written by one who was accustomed to listen to his 
 preaching, but who is now himself earnestly engaged 
 in the work of the ministry, Rev. A. S. Ryder. 
 
 u I have been much grieved by the early death of 
 our beloved brother Taggart. I was intimately as- 
 sociated with him while he was settled in Albany, 
 and I soon learned to love him very much. At that 
 time Albany was a difficult place, but he entered 
 upon his work there with a cheerfulness seldom seen, 
 and a faithful application to the work before him, 
 worthy of imitation by all who enter the sacred call- 
 ing. He remained in Albany but ten months ; but 
 during that time I seldom met him except in his 
 study. He thought the pulpit his sphere of action 
 and influence far more than society, and all his labor 
 had express reference to his public services ; and even 
 then, though he had but just entered upon the duties 
 of his chosen profession, I heard it said of some of 
 d* 
 
XXXV111 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 his sermons, that they were creditable efforts, even 
 when compared with those of the celebrated preach- 
 er who had preceded him.” 
 
 Mr. Taggart left Albany, April 30, 1850. For a 
 few months he was not established in any place. 
 He travelled over a large portion of onr Southern 
 and Western country, and preached in many places, 
 •Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, Can- 
 nelton, Ind., New Orleans, Mobile, Wheeling, Wash- 
 ington, D. C., Charleston, S. C., and Augusta, Ga. 
 He preached at Charleston two Sundays, November 
 17th and 24th. During the services of the first Sun- 
 day an incident occurred of most affecting character. 
 After the morning service Mr. Taggart was intro- 
 duced to several persons, and among them to Daniel 
 Webb, Esq., a respected member of the church. 
 Near the close of the afternoon sermon, and when 
 Mr. Taggart was speaking in reference to dying 
 scenes, Mr. Webb died, passing instantaneously from 
 the seen to the unseen world. This event, so start- 
 ling and impressive, but served to render more prom- 
 inent two thoughts which were always vividly pres- 
 ent to the mind of our brother, and which he sought 
 to make equally vivid to the minds of others ; — that 
 each passing day is to be regarded as a complete ex- 
 istence of itself, and to be marked by the highest life, 
 both mental and spiritual, of which a man is capa- 
 ble ; and that the unseen world is not to be regarded 
 as far remote from the seen, but as near to it and 
 intimately connected with it. 
 
 A warm climate was congenial to Mr. Taggart’s 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 XX XIX 
 
 constitution, and he determined, if possible, to find 
 an abiding place, a home, somewhere in the Southern 
 States. He concluded at last to go to Nashville, 
 Tennessee, where he remained somewhat more than 
 two years, commencing his ministerial work there 
 February 9th, 1851, and ending it February 27th, 
 1853. 
 
 Here he gave himself up in earnestness to his life- 
 work ; here he manifested fully what he was capable 
 of being and doing. Years of life were those two 
 years, of true, intense life, both mental and spiritual ; 
 and never did two years of self-discipline, of intel- 
 lectual improvement, of religious consecration, lead 
 to greater development, produce more real results, 
 than those years led to and produced in the experi- 
 ence and character of our brother. He was no long- 
 er the mere student, though a more thorough, more 
 indefatigable student he never was at any period of 
 his life than then. Books he studied with profound 
 interest, but he also studied men. He mingled free- 
 ly in society, he entered into earnest, searching con- 
 versation. Those with whom he became intimate 
 opened their inmost thoughts to him. Men in every 
 stage of religious oij irreligious experience he met 
 with; — some who for fashion or family’s sake were 
 attending, and for years had been attending, churches 
 with whose doctrines they had no sympathy ; some 
 who had begun to doubt the accordance with Chris- 
 tianity of much of the popular theology ; some who 
 had found in the writings of Channing full expres- 
 sion of thoughts and feelings which had been awa- 
 
xl 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 kened in themselves, as they had privately meditated 
 upon the teachings of our Saviour and his Apostles ; 
 some whose hearts were filled to overflowing with 
 religious love and gratitude ; some who were troubled 
 with doubts as to the reality of religion ; and some 
 who had wandered far away into the dreary, arctic 
 region of atheism, utter non-belief in God and im- 
 mortality. Such were the elements which were 
 mingled in the audiences that from time to time 
 gathered around him. Our brother felt that he had 
 a great, a real, and a solemn work before him, and 
 to it he gave himself up with all the energies of his 
 being. He felt that no formal preaching would do ; 
 that doubts and difficulties could not be ignored or 
 slurred over, but must be met, fairly considered and 
 resolved, or removed in a manly, Christian way. So 
 he took up the great themes, God, Christ, immor- 
 tality, sin, death, belief, unbelief, as if they had 
 been presented to him for the first time in all their 
 grandeur and infinite importance. Upon these 
 themes he meditated in the silence of his room, 
 gratefully availing himself of whatever aid the wise 
 and good could give through the books in which they 
 live, but not relying upon them, — relying only upon 
 his own powers, concentrated in earnestness to the 
 pursuit of truth, and upon the gracious aid of God. 
 Not in vain did he rely. Great thoughts, thus might- 
 ily evoked, came majestically to him, and, being sent 
 forth in fulness and freshness from his mind, went 
 home with power to the minds of others. Old sub- 
 jects were invested with new and living interest. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 xli 
 
 Difficulties were removed, doubts were resolved. 
 Men felt that a genuine man was speaking to them, 
 and not from prescription or for form’s sake, but from 
 his own experience, and in obedience to the convic- 
 tions of an honest soul. 
 
 Wonderful was the effect of this earnest study, 
 this heroic search of truth, upon his own mind. It 
 was enlarged, expanded in all directions, invigorated. 
 It was elevated to a higher plane. Its aversion to 
 Calvinism never abated ; but that aversion found ex- 
 pression less in negation and more in affirmation, — 
 affirmation of the blessedness, the ennobling, ani- 
 mating, liberalizing influence, of what he regarded as 
 the genuine Gospel faith. 
 
 And all this while his spiritual was commensurate 
 with his intellectual growth. Called to visit the 
 mourner, sunk in deep sorrow, to sympathize with 
 the long-afflicted sufferer, he realized more and more 
 man’s dependence upon God, and appreciated more 
 and more the infinite blessedness of the religion 
 which comes with balm from on high. 
 
 Nor was this all the effect produced. His manner 
 in the pulpit was entirely changed. He spoke with 
 energy, with distinction, animation, and great power. 
 It was no longer the student of fastidious taste, 
 quietly reading his essay, but the earnest man, long- 
 ing to impart what he felt to be vital truth to his 
 brother-man. 
 
 Mr. Taggart felt that his life at Nashville was of 
 great service to him. He thus speaks, in his diary, at 
 the close of the year 1852 : “ To me an eventful and 
 
xlii 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 also a useful year. I have read, studied, written, 
 more than in any previous year of my life. I have 
 labored, as I had ability, in the cause of charity 
 and brotherhood, and what I regard as Christianity. 
 May the coming year be less harassing and more 
 useful.” That word, “ harassing,” used by one nev- 
 er wont to murmur, reveals much. His Nashville 
 experience was alike interesting and trying, and the 
 contemplation of it, while it fills the mind with ad- 
 miration for his noble qualities, touches the heart to 
 sadness. A few persons appreciated him and his la- 
 bors ; but the number was exceedingly small. His 
 audiences ranged from eight to one hundred and 
 fifty. For a long series of Sundays, his morning 
 congregation did not average more than twenty per- 
 sons. Nevertheless, and here we see our brother’s 
 spiritual integrity, and his stern, unfaltering fidelity 
 to his own mind and to the work to which he had 
 consecrated himself, he prepared his sermons, each 
 successive week, with as much thoroughness and 
 care as if he had known that multitudes would be 
 present to hear and admire. Any one can labor 
 with right good-will who is surrounded with troops 
 of friends, and whose labors are crowned with suc- 
 cess ; but to work on in comparative solitude, and 
 to work as well as if the eyes of a world were upon 
 him, — it takes a man, a Christian man, to do that. 
 
 But though the regular audience was never large, 
 there were men in it of profound and active minds, 
 and a few noble, devout women, who received im- 
 pressions which cannot be effaced while their minds 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 xliii 
 
 are in being, and who will always hold him, who 
 never failed to bring to the temple service pure in- 
 cense and beaten oil, in grateful remembrance as a 
 mental and spiritual benefactor. Our brother was 
 conscious that, notwithstanding his outward success 
 was small, he had not labored in vain ; but after two 
 years’ residence, he came to the conclusion that it 
 was not expedient for him to remain longer. His 
 friends regretted that he felt it his duty to leave, but 
 the reasons which presented themselves to his mind 
 were decisive to him, and he bade them farewell. 
 
 And now the world is again before him, and he 
 goes forth to labor wherever Providence may direct. 
 Though disappointed as to visible results in Nash- 
 ville, he is not despondent. The spirit which ani- 
 mates him is revealed in these words from his jour- 
 nal : “ So closes my last evening at Nashville. Two 
 years and one month since I came here; — time 
 spent laboriously, but profitably to me, and usefully 
 to others. Some good has been done, and a future 
 lies before me, should I live, as promising as at any 
 period of my life.” 
 
 After leaving Nashville, Mr. Taggart journeyed 
 for a while. He passed two Sabbaths at Louisville, 
 and two at Cincinnati, where he preached both in 
 the Unitarian and Universalist churches. He then 
 went down the Ohio, spent one Sabbath at Cannel- 
 ton, and thenyvent to St. Louis, where he attended, 
 with great interest, the second session of “ The West- 
 ern Conference of Unitarian Churches.” Thence he 
 returned to Louisville, passed up the Ohio to Pitts- 
 
xliv 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 burg, where he made a brief visit, then went to 
 Washington, D. C., and thence to Boston to attend 
 the anniversary meetings. He spent a few weeks 
 there, preached June 5th and 12th, and then went to 
 Charleston, S. C., in acceptance of an urgent invita- 
 tion to officiate in the Unitarian church during the 
 illness of its esteemed pastor, Rev. Hr. Gilman. On 
 June 19th, 1853, he commenced his services in the 
 city which was thenceforward to be his home. In 
 his previous visits his preaching had awakened great 
 interest, and the interest now felt in his ministra- 
 tions was so deep and so general in the congregation, 
 that, on the 23d of October, a cordial invitation 
 was given to him to become associate pastor. The 
 invitation was accepted, and he entered upon his 
 work with great earnestness. His preaching was 
 listened to with profound attention by that intelli- 
 gent and highly-cultivated congregation, and friends 
 gathered around him who were bound to him as by 
 hooks of steel. But alas ! disease had already 
 marked him for its own. 
 
 He had on the 24th day of November a violent 
 hemorrhage from his lungs. On the 28th, he .left 
 home for a brief visit to Nashville and Louisville, 
 in the latter of which cities he preached, Decem- 
 ber 4th, two powerful sermons, the one on u Retri- 
 bution,” the other on u Untimely Death.” He then 
 returned to Charleston, where he preached, De- 
 cember 18th, and where he continued to preach 
 once every Sunday until February 12th; and even 
 on that day he preached in the afternoon, though 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 xlv 
 
 a severe hemorrhage had compelled him to leave 
 the Sunday School in the morning. This constant 
 preaching was regarded by many of his friends as 
 imprudent; but he was firmly of the opinion, in 
 which he was confirmed by some physicians, that 
 speaking did not injure him. He concluded, however, 
 at the urgent solicitations of friends, to cease from his 
 labors for a while, and to visit the island of Cuba. 
 
 He sailed February 15th, 1854. His visit he en- 
 joyed exceedingly, notwithstanding his weak and 
 precarious condition. His mind was all alive. Noth- 
 ing of interest, within his reach, escaped his atten- 
 tion. One in the fulness of health could scarcely 
 have seen and learned more than he saw and learned, 
 in regard to the natural features of the island, and 
 also in regard to its social state. The following ex- 
 tracts from his journal not only disclose to us his 
 mental activity, but permit us to go behind the veil, 
 and see the pure, grateful, reverential feelings which, 
 like vestal virgins, ministered at the altar of his soul, 
 and kept the flame of devotion ceaselessly burning. 
 
 “ Wednesday, 22d, 7 A. M. Walked to ferry and 
 crossed the bay. Walked three quarters of a mile 
 back, and ascended a considerable eminence, from 
 which the whole city, and several miles of the 
 country on every side, were spread out before me 
 as a map. For the moment I felt devoutly and 
 profoundly grateful for my own existence, and for 
 the enjoyment of the glorious scene, in the midst 
 of which I stood. While in the distance I saw the 
 peasant working in his field, or sitting beneath his 
 e 
 
xlvi 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 fruit-laden palm-trees, on the other side appeared in 
 the clear sunlight the glistening walls, domes, towers, 
 and palaces of Havana, all protected by the mas- 
 sive fortifications of the Cabana and Moro Castle. 
 Among the ships, and along the shores of the bay, 
 and down far below me in this suburb of the city, I 
 could see moving thousands of human beings. Yet 
 here I stood alone , .with nature and God to hold 
 communion. This hour was one of the marked 
 hours of my life, into which immeasurable depths of 
 its enjoyment have been crowded. It appeared as 
 if the loveliest summer scene of Carolina had been 
 just presented, — the middle of February set forward 
 into the middle of June.” 
 
 “ Thursday, 23d. As yesterday morning, when 
 alone amidst the wild luxuriance of vegetation which 
 has overgrown the ruins of the old fortification on 
 which I stood, — as I there, under the cloudless sky, 
 involuntarily or irresistibly bowed my body to the 
 ground in deep emotion and unspeakable gratitude to 
 the Author of my life, and expressed my earnest de- 
 sire for a yet longer life of usefulness to my fellow- 
 man and virtuous labor in the cause of truth, — so 
 this morning, as fresher and more vigorous blood 
 seemed to circulate throughout my system, I again 
 bowed body and soul in gratitude and hope to the 
 Disposer of all things, and arose calmer, firmer, 
 and with stronger faith than for weeks before.” 
 
 And thus he speaks when on the steamship which 
 is to bear him home: — “March 21st. The view 
 from the deck of the Isabel was beautiful, and I 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 xlvii 
 
 experienced the most comfortable and refreshing 
 emotions at being once more on the vessel in which 
 I hope to return to home, and friends, and work, and 
 duty, and enjoyment. The view from the vessel of 
 the Alemada, the Caba'as, the vessels in the clear 
 waters of the bay, the American flags floating from 
 the Black Warrior, the Fulton, and other American 
 ships and steamers, the sun’s last rays gilding the 
 palm-crowned mountain-tops around the harbor, all 
 together formed a scene as beautiful as human eye 
 need wish to look upon. All was so calm, and 
 every object softened by the approaching twilight, 
 that it seemed more picture-like than real. It was 
 more worthy of the name than many of the scenes 
 which I have heard even from the pulpit described 
 as Heaven. Still I rejoiced at feeling that I was so 
 soon to leave it all behind me, most probably for 
 ever. There is some one place and one work for 
 each and every one of us. That place is our home , 
 that work constitutes our happiness, and our first 
 duty is to find that place and enter upon that work. 
 Heaven assist me to know my sphere, and to fulfil 
 faithfully its duties!” 
 
 And thus he gives utterance to his feelings, Wed- 
 nesday evening, March 22d : — “8 F. M. The night 
 is glorious, every star in the sky appearing distinctly 
 in its brightness, — Orion, the Pleiades, and other 
 constellations looking as calmly down upon our 
 speck of earth, as serenely, as when they looked 
 upon the Egypt of the Pharaohs, the Jerusalem of 
 Solomon, the Mount Nebo of Moses, the Athens 
 of Solon, or the Pome of Julius Caesar. 
 
xlviii 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 ‘ I love the stars, — their solemn light 
 Hath o’er my soul a mystic charm ; 
 
 ’T is not their splendor on the robe of night, — 
 
 Ah, no ! ’t is their eternal calm.’ ” 
 
 He reached home on March 25th. On the follow- 
 ing day he preached once. He took a very inter- 
 esting part in the dedication services of the new 
 church, April 2d. To avoid the sharpness of the 
 sea air, on the 17th of this month he went to Aiken, 
 where he spent two weeks, returning, however, on 
 Saturdays, to take part in the Sunday services. 
 Regarding it as his duty to avail himself of every 
 means which gave encouraging promise of resto- 
 ration, or even of relief, he sailed on the 19th of July 
 for New York, to try Hr. Hunter’s system of inha- 
 lation. While absent he visited Montreal, which 
 city had always had deep interest for him, but to' 
 which he now felt drawn by that powerful, mys- 
 terious magnetism which often attracts one to the 
 place of his birth when the hour approaches in 
 which he is to depart from earth. 
 
 On the 30th of August he sailed from New York 
 for home. He reached Charleston on Saturday, 
 September 2d, “ grateful and happy ” in his return. 
 He preached once on the next day, and once on 
 every Sunday, with one exception, until October 
 15th, when he entered the church for the last time. 
 On that day, to quote the words of a devoted friend, 
 H. S. Griggs, Esq., “ he was very feeble ; but in 
 obedience to duty, as he thought, he preached in the 
 afternoon an eloquent discourse, in which he re- 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 xlix 
 
 viewed a Report on Foreign Missions by some dis- 
 tinguished clergyman of the Orthodox Church, in 
 reference to the salvation of the heathen. It was a 
 bold, startling, and original discourse, and was de- 
 livered in a very loud tone of voice, though he in- 
 formed me on Friday morning last, when I watched 
 with him, that he was so weak when he rose in the 
 pulpit that he trembled from head to foot ; but, said 
 he, 4 after I had spoken a few minutes, Richard was 
 himself again, and I could have preached an hour 
 longer.’ Such was his indomitable will, when he had 
 determined on his purpose.” 
 
 During the following week he suffered keen pain, 
 and his strength diminished very rapidly. On Fri- 
 day he showed signs of delirium, on Saturday he 
 became unconscious, and continued so until a short 
 time before his death, when, to use again his friend’s 
 words, “ he had a convulsion. We then thought 
 it was the end ; he opened his eyes, which had 
 been all day covered with the film of death. In an 
 instant they became clear and bright, while his 
 face seemed mantled with that smile with which 
 he was accustomed to meet his friends. He looked 
 around from one to another of the friends he loved 
 so dearly, as one who had awaked from a dream ; 
 his eye finally rested on Mrs. G., then on me, and I 
 thought there was a look of recognition. Then he 
 closed them again, and so continued for about three 
 quarters of an hour, until without a struggle his spirit 
 passed into the unseen world of glory, Sunday, 22d 
 instant, at three quarters past five o’clock, P. M. 
 
 e 
 
1 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 “ Such was the closing scene of his brilliant and 
 brief life, ‘brief when counted by his years, but 
 how long when measured by his achievements!’ 
 Had he lived, he was destined to accomplish much 
 good, especially among that class of educated, think- 
 ing men who glide into the dark sea of infidelity, 
 because they never have anything but dogmatic 
 theology, with sterile, rigid, and cold deductions, 
 preached to them. 
 
 “ On Monday afternoon his remains were carried 
 to the church he so much loved, where his coffin 
 remained open until the funeral services were com- 
 menced, in order that his devoted friends might look 
 their last look upon that face which we shall see no 
 more on earth. Every demonstration of respect 
 was paid to his memory. His body was robed in 
 his gown, and laid in a coffin covered with black 
 broadcloth ; on the lid was a silver plate, inscribed 
 with his name and age. Around the plate, was a 
 votive wreath composed of white rosebuds and arbor- 
 vitae ; below this was a beautiful cross composed of 
 the same, both of them the offerings of woman, ‘ the 
 last at the cross and the first at the sepulchre.’ The 
 funeral anthem and hymns were exquisitely sung 
 and played. Dr. Gilman’s eulogy was chaste, 
 touching, and truthful, giving a fair estimate of 
 character and talents, and lamenting his premature 
 death. After the funeral service his body was borne 
 by his most intimate friends to the grave, where it 
 was deposited in a new brick vault, a few yards 
 from the chancel-door of the church. This spot will 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 li 
 
 ever be sacred to his friends. Here they will often 
 linger on the Sabbath, while memory sheds a tear 
 over departed worth.” 
 
 The estimation in which our brother was held by 
 the people to whom he ministered is shown in 
 
 “The Proceedings of the Unitarian Church in Charles- 
 ton, in Reference to the Death of Rev. Charles 
 
 Man son Taggart. 
 
 “ At a meeting of the congregation of the Unitarian 
 Church, held on Sunday morning last, after service, for the 
 purpose of giving expression to their sentiments in relation 
 to the death of their late lamented Junior Pastor, on motion, 
 Dr. James Moultrie was called to the Chair, and George 
 Wm. Logan, Esq. was requested to act as Secretary. 
 
 “ The Chairman introduced the proceedings by a few 
 appropriate remarks on the sad event which called them 
 together, whereupon the following Preamble and Resolu- 
 tions were offered by Henry S. Griggs, Esq. ; and being 
 seconded by Samuel Gilman, D.D.,they were unanimously 
 adopted, and ordered to be published in all the daily papers 
 of the city. 
 
 “ Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to remove from 
 the scene of his earthly labors our beloved friend and 
 brother, the Rev. Charles Manson Taggart, Junior Pastor 
 of this Church ; and whereas this congregation was deeply 
 impressed with a sense of his eminent ability, earnestness, 
 and holiness as a preacher and exponent of the truths of 
 Liberal Christianity, with his fervent piety as a Christian 
 minister, and with his purity of heart and conscientiousness 
 as a man : therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That, as a congregation of Unitarian Chris- 
 tians, we deeply lament his premature death, and humble 
 
lii 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 ourselves under this afflictive dispensation of Divine Prov- 
 idence, praying that this sad event may be sanctified to our 
 good as a Christian church. 
 
 “ Resolved , That, as an outward demonstration of our 
 sincere, heartfelt sorrow for his loss, the interior of our 
 place of worship be clad in mourning for the space of six 
 months. 
 
 u Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to 
 obtain a suitable plan for a monument to be erected over 
 the spot, in our cemetery, where his mortal remains repose, 
 and also for a tablet to be placed in the vestibule of the 
 church, and that the same committee receive the offerings 
 of the congregation towards these objects. 
 
 44 Resolved , That this Church will endeavor to carry out 
 the views expressed in the dying request of our lamented 
 friend, in regard to the publication of his sermons, not only 
 because it will afford us peculiar pleasure to gratify his 
 wishes, but because we believe that the eloquent lessons of 
 honor to God and love for our fellow-men with which these 
 effusions of his lofty and benevolent spirit abound, will tend 
 to hasten the coming of that blessed day, in the certain 
 advent of which he so confidently believed, 4 when,’ to use 
 his own forcible language, 4 God, our Father, shall be truly 
 worshipped, and man, our brother, shall be truly loved.’ 
 
 44 Resolved , That the Secretary of this Corporation for- 
 ward a copy of these proceedings to his relatives, with the 
 assurance of our sympathy and condolence in their bereave- 
 ment. 
 
 44 Resolved , That another copy of the same be sent to 
 the Meadville Theological School, at Meadville, Penn., of 
 which he was a graduate, with offerings of our condolence 
 for the early loss of one who, had his life been prolonged, 
 would no doubt have shed lustre on his Alma Mater.” 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 liii 
 
 The following is the inscription upon the tablet in 
 the vestibule of the church : — 
 
 This Tablet 
 
 is erected by the Congregation of this Church in 
 affectionate remembrance of the late 
 
 Rev.* CHARLES MANSON TAGGART, 
 their Junior Pastor ; 
 
 who was born in Montreal, Canada, Oct. 31, 1821, 
 and died in this city, on the 22d Oct. 1853, 
 at the early age of 33 years. 
 
 I 
 
 As a Minister of the Gospel, he was eminently 
 distinguished for the earnestness and eloquence with which 
 he advocated a system of practical and liberal 
 Christianity, based upon the simple, pure, 
 and beautiful teachings of Jesus of Nazareth — 
 the Christ — the anointed Messenger of God 
 the Father ; while at the same time he 
 evinced great originality and boldness in attacking the 
 narrow creeds of sectarianism, the 
 inventions of men. 
 
 As a Christian, he exhibited the most fervent 
 piety towards God, and the most comprehensive 
 charity for his fellow-men ; ever inculcating 
 in his public and private teachings the paternity of 
 God, and the brotherhood of man. 
 
 “ We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 
 He most lives 
 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.” 
 
liv 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 Thus early ended the life of this beloved brother, 
 a life of rare intensity, and one which has left in- 
 effaceable impressions upon many minds and hearts. 
 It was a life which had its full share of trials and 
 perplexities. But though our friend keenly felt the 
 saddening circumstances of his lot, — his early and 
 entire separation, as far as theological opinions were 
 concerned, from nearest relatives, — his compara- 
 tive isolation and want of sympathy, — he was not 
 an unhappy man. He did not gloomily brood 
 over the difficulties of his condition, he did not 
 stop to ask himself whether he was happy or not, 
 but earnestly gave himself up to the work before 
 him, and the accomplishment of that work became 
 more and more the great, engrossing purpose of his 
 being. His absorption in his work, the power which 
 he possessed of going at will into the realm of mind 
 and living there companionless, — no, not com- 
 panionless, for he had the presence of his own grand 
 thoughts, and the sublime thoughts of the wise and 
 good, a right noble company, — and his self-reliance, 
 the distinguishing characteristic of the bold and in- 
 dependent thinker, made him less dependent than 
 men of less originality upon external means of 
 happiness. And there were sources of happiness 
 open to him which more and more poured out 
 their rich stream. During the last few years, con- 
 stantly, as he came to be understood and appre- 
 ciated, friends increased around him and drew near 
 unto him. Firmer, more genuine friends man never 
 had ; for he employed no arts to gain friendship, but 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 lv 
 
 was always true to himself, and the friends who 
 came, came because of their respect for his intellect- 
 ual power, his loyalty to truth, and his unreserved 
 devotion to his great work. The love of those 
 friends moved his heart to its very depths, and for 
 those who, in the days of comparative friendlessness, 
 had had the privilege of extending to him the hand 
 of affection, he never ceased to express the warmest 
 gratitude. Happiness, too, he found, pure and abid- 
 ing, in his communion with the Heavenly Father, 
 towards whom his love and reverence daily grew in 
 intensity and in depth, and in the influence of the 
 religion of God’s well-beloved Son, whose words 
 were to him indeed words of eternal life, and whose 
 religion, in its purity and transparency, its freedom 
 from human alloy, its genuine piety, its heavenly 
 benevolence, its jealous regard for the liberty of the 
 individual mind, was to him man’s only hope for 
 the present world, his only guaranty of immor- 
 tality. 
 
 Such were the sources of mental and spiritual 
 happiness open to our friend, and we are not sur- 
 prised that, having these, he was not cast down in 
 sadness and gloom, even when the ominous cough 
 announced to him, at the time when the early 
 clouds had passed away, and life had become fairest, 
 most beautiful, that he must leave the place of his 
 earthly abode. Very pleasant was that place to 
 him, very enthusiastic the friendship which glad- 
 dened his heart and animated his hopes; intensely 
 interesting were the labors to which his whole being 
 
lvi 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 was consecrated, fast-coming and exhaustless the large 
 and noble thoughts which sought expression through 
 his lips and pen ; but too deep was his reverence for 
 the Lord of creation to permit a murmur when the 
 angel came to summon him hence. And so he 
 lived, labored, and preached up to the very end, his 
 life losing none of its intensity and earnestness until 
 he was prostrated on the dying bed ; and there, as 
 we have seen, he remained but for a few days, and 
 then passed on to that higher life for which his 
 earthly existence had been a constant preparation, 
 and which, he confidently believed, — regarding 
 death as but an incident in being, — would prove, 
 in all essential features, a continuation on a higher 
 plane, and with vastly greater opportunities and 
 powers of development, of the mental, moral, and 
 spiritual life begun and continued here. 
 
 Life is the manifestation of character. Such a 
 life as the one we are contemplating reveals a char- 
 acter of no ordinary kind. Our brother had a char- 
 acter of his own. It was marked by courage and 
 decision. The thinking for himself in early youth 
 upon subjects of deepest importance, the coming to 
 conclusions different from those held by the friends 
 whom nature had bound to him by closest ties, the 
 honesty which prompted him to avow those conclu- 
 sions, however painful the consequences of avowal 
 might be, the willingness to make his unaided way 
 through life, — all this indicates a character of rare 
 decision and independence. The independence so 
 early manifested characterized him to the close of his 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 lvii 
 
 earthly existence. He thought for himself, he acted 
 for himself. He acknowledged no responsibility for 
 his religious opinions to any body of men, to any 
 system of theology. He felt that he was responsi- 
 ble alone to God and Christ. Christian liberty, the 
 unfettered freedom of the mind, was to him of ines- 
 timable value. As St. Paul held fast to the glorious 
 liberty of the sons of God ; as he protested against 
 every endeavor of Judaizing believers to narrow the 
 Christian platform, to fetter the individual mind ; as 
 he would not for the sake of policy or of peace yield 
 an inch, even to St. Peter, when he seemed ready in 
 some measure to compromise the freedom where- 
 with Paul felt that Christ has made his followers 
 free ; so our brother clung with utmost tenacity to 
 the freedom in which his soul rejoiced, which he felt 
 that God designed as the birthright of every soul, 
 and in which alone Christianity could achieve its 
 perfect triumph. He came to the study of the Bi- 
 ble as a perfectly free man. He studied it for him- 
 self and by himself, and the conclusions which he 
 reached as to its teachings he expressed with perfect 
 openness, with entire unreserve. He never stopped 
 to ask whether his conclusions harmonized or not 
 with the popular theology, or even with the theology 
 of that class of Christians — the Unitarian — with 
 whom he was intimately associated, and whom he 
 warmly loved. Sufficient unto him was it, that he 
 believed them to be right, to be accordant with truth. 
 In the exercise of this mental freedom, he came to 
 conclusions on various points different from those 
 
 / 
 
lviii 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 commonly held; as, for instance, upon the original 
 unity of the race. So, too, upon the vexed question 
 of slavery, he held opinions not shared by a large 
 portion of his Unitarian brethren, some of whom 
 may have thought that a Southern residence had 
 unduly biassed his mind. Of course no finite mind 
 exists which may not unconsciously be influenced 
 by surrounding circumstances ; but the man never 
 lived w’ho was less inclined than our brother to trim 
 or modify opinions so as to make them acceptable 
 to the community in which he lived. His opinions 
 upon this, as upon every other subject, were his 
 own, honestly formed and candidly avowed. 
 
 As religious liberty, so Christian union, held a 
 high place in the mind of our brother, the first being 
 regarded by him as the pre-requisite, the essential 
 condition of the other. Without perfect liberty, he 
 felt that there could be no union, and no union did 
 he desire except the genuine, manly, honest union 
 in spirit of men who may differ widely in opinion. 
 The passage of Scripture which oftener perhaps 
 than any other was quoted by him, and which 
 he desired that every body of Christians might 
 adopt as its motto, was, “ The unity of the spirit 
 in the bond of peace.” Such seemed to him union 
 according to the apostolic, the Christian standard, 
 the only real and enduring union. Union upon any 
 other basis he thought as frail, as foundationless, as 
 the house built upon the sand. 
 
 It was because of its irreconcilableness with the 
 great ideas of Christian liberty and Christian union, 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 lix 
 
 as well as because of its dark and gloomy features, 
 that our brother regarded Calvinism with utter aver- 
 sion. It was to him' a cold, gloomy, terrible system. 
 By it the Universal Father was converted into a 
 stern, unjust despot, the embodiment of supreme 
 selfishness, who, arbitrarily and without regard to 
 the eternal distinction between right and wrong, 
 selected a portion of his creatures for ineffable bliss, 
 and doomed the other portion to ineffable and hope- 
 less woe. He felt that the system was directly at 
 variance with justice; that it confused and weakened 
 men’s sense of moral responsibility ; that it made 
 righteousness technical and artificial, instead of per- 
 sonal, to be thrown over man as a cloak rather than 
 to be formed within him, — the life of God in the soul 
 of man ; that it made retribution indiscriminating, 
 and therefore robbed it of power; that it was un- 
 favorable to the development of tender, affectionate 
 feeling; and that its influence upon the cause of 
 religion was disastrous in the extreme, causing 
 many sensitive, conscientious minds which received 
 it to become anxious and unhappy, and driving 
 many a bold spirit, which would not receive.it, to 
 irreligion and atheism. 
 
 Some of us, while our hearts beat in unison with 
 his, and while we heartily joined with him in reject- 
 ing Calvin’s stern system, felt that probably his 
 utter aversion to it had driven him to the far ex- 
 treme, and had led him somewhat to overlook or 
 not to attach full importance to that feature of the 
 Gospel which, to Augustine and all who like him 
 
lx 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 have had fearful conflicts with sin, is the characteris- 
 tic, distinguishing feature, and which has led them in 
 their theological systems to represent Christianity as 
 exclusively a remedial scheme, having reference alto- 
 gether and only to sin and pardon. But however this 
 might be, we knew that he was perfectly true to his 
 own convictions, and that he always spoke in regard 
 to the Calvinistic or any other system of theology 
 as he felt that Christianity bade him speak. 
 
 In proportion to the strength and depth of his 
 aversion to Calvinism was his love for that system 
 which presents religion with bright and winning 
 aspect. Through its influence, he felt that he had 
 been prevented from losing himself in the cheerless 
 region of distrust and disbelief. To him it was life 
 and light, freedom to his mind and hope to his 
 heart. It dispelled the cloud which had hidden the 
 divine loveliness from view, and revealed God as a 
 friend and Father. It filled his breast with love and 
 gratitude to the Saviour, and caused him to repose 
 with unwavering trust in the assurance of immor- 
 tality. It strengthened his conviction in the omnip- 
 otence of truth, and gave him heart and hope to 
 labor for its diffusion. Under its influence, his mind 
 put forth its noblest powers, his soul reverently went 
 to the throne of infinite love, and the warmest affec- 
 tions of his heart lovingly attended it there. “ How 
 he loved,” to quote again from the friend who has 
 given us the affecting account of the closing scenes, 
 “ to dwell upon the exalted themes of God’s eternal 
 love and justice, and of strict retribution for every 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 lxi 
 
 sin, thus awakening a sense of personal responsi- 
 bility ! How he loved to preach Jesus, to hold up 
 his spotless example for imitation ! How much he 
 dwelt upon the central point of true Christianity, — 
 charity, human brotherhood! How clearly defined 
 were his views of the future life, how vividly he 
 brought his arguments home to the comprehension 
 of his hearers, until it became no longer a specu- 
 lation, but a reality, separated only by the thin par- 
 tition of the event, — death ! How great was his 
 moral courage in defence of truth, sometimes, by 
 his enthusiasm, giving offence to those who differed 
 with him, while those who knew him best knew 
 that he plead the cause of humanity ; he had worn 
 the galling yoke, and now enjoyed that freedom 
 wherewith Christ had made him free, and his 
 anxiety to make others happy dictated his earnest- 
 ness in the cause of Liberal Christianity. How fer- 
 vent and childlike were his devotions, — no effort to 
 clothe his thoughts in language for the ear of the 
 critic, but the simple outpourings of the heart, lifting 
 his hearers with him on the wings of prayer, till they 
 felt themselves near, very near, the Father’s mercy- 
 seat! How often have I seen the large tears roll 
 down his cheeks while engaged in his devotions, his 
 own sufferings drawing him by the cords of sym- 
 pathy to the sufferer, when such needed the help of 
 Omnipotence ! ” 
 
 Grateful for the influence through which, as he 
 felt, dark and obscuring clouds had been removed, 
 and the Gospel had been permitted to shine in all its 
 
lxii 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 brilliancy, rejoicing in the light which illumined his 
 pathway, our brother longed with unutterable yearn- 
 ing to have others brought under the same influence 
 and enabled to enjoy the same heavenly radiance. 
 To this end he labored with an energy, a concen- 
 trated earnestness, which perhaps exhausted his 
 physical strength and facilitated the progress of 
 his disease, but which, for the time, seemed to hold 
 disease and death at bay, and made every hour, 
 almost to the closing, an hour of intense life, and 
 caused every word and every act to tell. Using the 
 term in no narrow or technical way, but giving to it 
 a broad and generous interpretation, we may say 
 that his was a proselyting spirit; for, while he held 
 sacred the freedom of other minds as well as of his 
 own, he regarded it as his duty on all fitting occa- 
 sions, and in every right way, to present with clear- 
 ness and explicitness the views which were dear to 
 him, and to advocate them with all his power. He 
 would have scorned himself had he shrunk in any 
 presence from avowing and defending his faith. 
 That faith was to him a heavenly friend, whose 
 cheering voice had animated his heart, whose 
 upward-pointing finger had guided his steps until 
 he had reached the high table-land where his eye 
 had unlimited range, and his soul exulted in the 
 liberty of the sons of God. To the service of that 
 faith he consecrated himself, in the spirit of Chris- 
 tian chivalry, living, thinking, acting, as became a 
 missionary of a liberal, and, in his estimation, a truly 
 evangelical Christianity. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 lxiii 
 
 Thus he lived and labored. He lived ! Heaven 
 be praised that we are permitted to say he is still 
 living, — living to God and Christ, living in the 
 enjoyment of that immortal existence for which his 
 life here was a constant preparation, and in which 
 his mind will be for ever advancing in all true knowl- 
 edge, and his soul will enjoy the companionship of 
 the spirits of the just made perfect, of all earnest, 
 faithful men, who, though widely separated on earth 
 in creed and form, had the law of truth in their 
 mouths, the love of truth in their hearts, and whom 
 the God of truth will accept and bless for ever and 
 ever! 
 
DISCOURSE I. 
 
 RELIGION A LIFE, NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 IF THE PROPHET HAD BID THEE DO SOME GREAT THING, 
 WOULDEST THOU NOT HAYE DONE IT? 2 Kings V. 13. 
 
 Afflicted with a disease which was probably- 
 regarded by the Syrian, no less than by the Hebrew, 
 as a special mark of divine displeasure, Naaman, 
 the Syrian officer, sought relief from Elisha, the 
 prophet, on the suggestion of a Hebrew maiden 
 who had been taken as a captive. Regarding the 
 leprosy as a judgment from some one of the Syrian 
 deities, offended by some acts of his own or of his 
 ancestors, Naaman probably expected some striking 
 display of power from the God of the Hebrews. 
 This expectation may have been founded on the 
 imagined hostility of the national God of the He- 
 brews to the national* or local deities of Syria. The 
 compliment which Naaman viewed himself as offer- 
 ing to the Hebrew Deity, he supposed would elicit 
 from Jehovah a special, instantaneous, and brilliant 
 display of divine favor in his behalf. His high- 
 wrought expectations were painfully disappointed, 
 1 
 
2 RELIGION A LIFE, 
 
 and he impatiently turned away, in contempt and 
 anger, when Elisha offered him the simple and nat- 
 ural direction, “ Go and wash in Jordan seven times, 
 and thou shalt be clean.” Natural laws were not 
 suspended ; the Hebrew Deity made no marked ex- 
 hibition of favor in his behalf ; he was only directed 
 to test the healing efficacy of the stream of Jordan. 
 
 “ Lo ! ” said the Syrian in his rage, “ I surely 
 thought this prophet would come forth to me, and 
 striking his hand upon me, heal me instantly, while 
 calling on the name of Israel’s God, Jehovah. Wash 
 me in the Jordan ! Are not Abana and Pharpar, 
 waters of Damascus, better than all the waters of 
 Israel ? If washing is to cleanse me, may I not 
 wash in them, and be healed of my leprosy?” But 
 as his wrath subsided, and a milder mood admitted 
 of reflection, a servant or friend sincerely interested 
 in Naaman’s welfare, drawing near, said, in a friend- 
 ly spirit : “ My father, if the prophet had bid thee do 
 some great thing , wouldest thou not have done it ? 
 how much rather then obey, when he only says, 
 
 1 Wash, and be clean’ ? ” This narrative of the Sy-* 
 rian leper may be viewed as illustrating in some 
 respects the opinions of many men with respect to 
 religion and life. 
 
 It is never gratifying to dwell upon the differences 
 among Christians, and the alleged importance of 
 each peculiar doctrine in the estimation of its spe- 
 cial friends. How pleasing would it be to gain the 
 assent of all to* some grand, controlling, practical 
 rule, which would smooth down all the roughnesses 
 of the way, along which, in this present and real 
 life, we are compelled to walk together, whether 
 
■f 
 
 / 
 
 NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 3 
 
 kindly or unkindly, as mutual helpers or mutual op- 
 ponents, retarding or promoting our common prog- 
 ress. Could the attention of nominal Christians be 
 attracted to, and concentrated upon, some catalogue 
 of obvious and acknowledged duties, — such duties 
 as demand immediate and entire attention, — sec- 
 tarian dissensions would soon cease, and society 
 would speedily assume another, a more gratifying 
 and more hopeful aspect. But human imagination 
 always has been active, and, when unrestrained by 
 immediate realities, it has usually tended to throw 
 the mind forward, beyond present realities, into that 
 which is unseen and only possible. 
 
 What seems most of all to be wanted in the 
 world is something which might be in reality, if 
 not in name, a Philosophy of pife, - — some principle 
 of general application, so clearly defined, so rational, 
 so solid, and so comprehensive, as to command at 
 once the assent of every sound and reflecting mind. 
 We have religions enough, doctrines enough, and 
 philosophies enough, but no one of them, nor all of 
 them combined, as yet has furnished a practical and 
 acceptable philosophy of life. We have natural 
 philosophies, and mental philosophies, and moral 
 philosophies, and all these, though valuable, and in- 
 dispensable in their respective spheres, do not sup- 
 ply the whole demand. We have philosophies of 
 the future life too, but these do not supply the 
 world’s present want. They all start with some 
 assumed original or primitive condition of man’s 
 spiritual nature, and, at one vast leap, they pass to 
 the final destiny of man’s spiritual nature, — leaving 
 the whole interval of real, active existence here in 
 
4 RELIGION A LIFE, 
 
 darkness unilluminated and mystery unexplained. 
 Then we have philosophies of human nature too ; 
 but these do not supply the want, for they are all 
 sectarian or theological. They are not philosophies, 
 but only theories, connected with, and a part of, some 
 theology. They originate in, and are based upon, 
 some proposition in some creed or catechism, — 
 some man’s or some church’s interpretation of the 
 Bible. They all ask, and they all attempt to an- 
 swer, these two questions : Whence came man ? 
 Whither does man go ? And the reply to both seems 
 only a conjecture, for there is no uniform and ac- 
 knowledged interpretation, either of nature or of 
 Scripture. Yet common observation proves, that 
 each and every particular interpretation is by the 
 intellect transformed into spiritual nutriment, and 
 the most fanciful theory appears to be converted by 
 faith into a spiritual reality; — showing the power 
 of mind to transmute poison into food, or at least 
 to extract the sweetness of honey from the bitter- 
 ness of aloes. 
 
 But in conjecturing something as to whence came 
 man’s life, and whither goes man’s life, the great 
 interval -is overlooked, leaving unpropounded and 
 unanswered the only determinable question, What 
 is man’s life ? 
 
 Would he be esteemed a judicious instructor, who 
 should teach his pupils that their principal duty is 
 to wonder, meditate, and speculate on what they 
 shall be, and how they shall feel, when they become 
 men ? Since, speculate and wonder as they may, 
 children never can foresee where they may be, nor 
 what may be their feelings, ten or twenty years in 
 
NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 5 
 
 advance of their actual experience, the obvious 
 duty of the teacher is, to develop in his pupils their 
 actual capacities, instructing them in a knowledge of 
 themselves, and the nature and use of things imme- 
 diately around them. This, not only because it 
 would be the very best means of fitting them for 
 virtue, success, and usefulness wheresoever they 
 might be in manhood, but because this would be 
 manifestly in harmony with the true design of their 
 youthful existence, — because such instruction and 
 knowledge would be the necessary means and in- 
 dispensable conditions of true enjoyment, even in 
 their youthful life, though they should never reach 
 the maturity of manhood. The child who is taught 
 to perplex himself in fancying where and what he 
 may be in the maturity of his years, however 
 favorably situated he may find himself on actually 
 attaining manhood, can find in this no recompense 
 for the time misspent, the anxiety endured, and the 
 happiness lost, during his earlier years, which were 
 passed in dreamy wonderings, profitless conjectur- 
 ings, and painful solicitudes as to the possibilities 
 of his position and employment in the years then 
 far before him. Why then should the mature man 
 neglect his mental culture, weaken his energies, and 
 diminish his actual happiness at present, by dwell- 
 ing on the possibilities of his locality or his employ- 
 ment in a remote and now necessarily incompre- 
 hensible eternity? We see how much of the pulpit 
 discourse, and most of the church ceremonies, tend 
 to disjoin religion from common life, as if religion 
 related to the soul only, in the futujre, and not more 
 directly to the whole man here in the present ; — as 
 1 * 
 
6 
 
 RELIGION A LIFE, 
 
 if religion were a gift from God, rather than a duty 
 of our own, — as if it were a thing to be received, 
 rather than a work to be performed, — as if it were 
 a belief to be professed, instead of an action to be 
 done, — as if religion were a mystery in God to be 
 adored, instead of a revelation in man to be enjoyed. 
 By chiefly looking forward to eternity, and over- 
 looking time, religion has come to be regarded as a 
 special divine grace, mysteriously wrought upon the 
 heart, with sole reference to a final destiny after 
 death. Thus the Church is sought by many, as Naa- 
 man sought the Hebrew prophet, in the hope that 
 some mighty agency may come forth, and by a 
 powerful and instantaneous operation transform the 
 soul from a condition of spiritual leprosy into a 
 condition of spiritual health. They seek temporary 
 excitements and extraordinary experiences. Impa- 
 tient, and even angry, they will turn away from the 
 suggestion of ordinary means to preserve or to re- 
 store spiritual soundness, — as if ordinary means 
 were less real or less divine than miraculous means. 
 “ What! ” say they, “ discharge our daily duties and 
 be religious ! Doing right ! is that religion ? Wash 
 and be clean! be wise! be true! be just! be chari- 
 table ! is this to be religious ? Why, then, seek the 
 Jordan of the Church ? The Abanas and the Phar- 
 pars of truth and holiness may flow through the 
 Damascus of our daily pursuits, and the efficacy of 
 these waters may be equal to that of all the waters 
 of the Sabbath Israel ! ” And they turn away in- 
 dignantly from the naturalness and simplicity of the 
 direction, “ Go tq the stream of Truth, wash in the 
 flowing waters of Virtue, and be cleansed from 
 moral leprosy.” 
 
NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 7 
 
 No ! divine as this is, it is not enough. Some 
 great thing must be done, some storm of emotion 
 must be raised, some astounding change must be 
 experienced, some amazing light must burst upon 
 the mind, or there can be no religion. Should God 
 require them to cross an ocean, or climb a moun- 
 tain, or fight a battle, they are ready. To support 
 a foreign mission, to build a costly church, by pray- 
 er and fasting to mortify the body, to do some 
 great thing, they are ready, — if by that a debt of 
 duty can be cancelled, or a catalogue of sins be 
 blotted out, or the approbation of God be purchased, 
 or a divine curse be averted, or a future heaven se- 
 cured. 
 
 Apart from all traditions of the past, and all spec- 
 ulations of the future, the plain injunction, “ Cease 
 to do evil and learn to do well,” is too simple, too 
 intelligible, too practicable. That cannot be re- 
 ligion. That is only washing to be clean, and every 
 man can wash. 
 
 “Ceasing wrong and doing right!” say they. 
 “ Why, there is no mysterious grace, no wondrous 
 plan, no amazing scheme, in that! Every man may 
 cease to do evil and learn to do well.” Yet the ex- 
 pediency of ceasing wrong and doing right, even the 
 necessity of this, as essential to immediate, personal, 
 true enjoyment, is universally admitted. But still 
 it is insisted on, that this is qnly morality, and not 
 religion. Whatever may be meant by morality, 
 nothing but a mind carefully instructed in some de- 
 fined system of religion could contend that this true 
 life of right-doing is not religion. It surely is the 
 Scriptural religion. The only sentence in the Bible 
 
8 
 
 •religion a life, 
 
 which literally describes religion is that of James, 
 who says, “Pure religion before God and the Father 
 is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their af- 
 fliction, and keep yourself unspotted from the world.” 
 In other words, to relieve the wants and promote the 
 welfare of others, and carefully preserve yourself from 
 moral evil, is pure and undefiled religion before God. 
 This is intelligible, direct, and personal. It is not 
 an act of instant submission to some suddenly re- 
 vealed authority ; it is not to receive some irresisti- 
 ble grace ; it is not to make some marked profession 
 of faith before men ; it is not at a given moment to 
 experience some overwhelming emotion ; it is not a 
 mere scrupulous performance of periodical religious 
 rites ; it is not to fight, injure, or destroy some fellow- 
 man, whom you decide to be a wicked enemy of 
 God ; it is not to do some great thing ; it is noth- 
 ing sudden, local, special, extraordinary, or astound- 
 ing. But it is the daily, regular, constant, and inva- 
 riable discharge of ordinary duties, in strict obedi- 
 ence to our moral sense, guided by all the divine 
 and human light we are able to obtain. In other 
 words, religion is ceaseless and useful activity, in 
 grateful love to God, and fraternal love to man. He 
 who thus reveres God and works righteousness, “ in 
 any nation,” be he Jew or Gentile, is emphatically 
 a religious man. The religion which confines itself 
 to Sunday and the Church, to preaching, praying, 
 Bible-reading, and compliance with external rites, is 
 a formal, imperfect, unproductive, and unhappy re- 
 ligion. 
 
 The grand design of Jesus, in the principles which 
 he propounded and the spirit which he breathed, 
 
NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 9 
 
 was to sanctify all life , to discover to all eyes the 
 divine beauty of perpetual holiness. Not chiefly as 
 a means of rescuing from any condemnation to 
 misery in a life hereafter, — not chiefly as a means 
 of securing happiness in a life to come, — but inde- 
 pendent of any possible suffering, joy, or any condi- 
 tion whatever in any life hereafter as a motive or an 
 object, — he inculcates truth, love, and strict, unde- 
 viating virtue, as the essentials of human, spiritual 
 enjoyment, here in this human life on earth. And 
 we are assured by the whole known or recorded ex- 
 perience of man, that these are the indispensable con- 
 ditions of all that a rational being can call happi- 
 ness. 
 
 It is just here, at the very starting-point, that I 
 object with emphasis to every church, system, cere- 
 mony, or doctrine, which directs the attention of 
 the human mind first and chiefly to another life, 
 another world beyond the grave. The more care- 
 fully I reflect, the more thoroughly convinced do I 
 become, that the chief end of man’s existence on 
 earth is not to receive something, feel something, 
 or discover something peculiar, with direct reference 
 to his possible condition after ceasing to be visible 
 on earth. There is not a law which Jesus an- 
 nounced, not a duty which he inculcated, not a 
 principle which he exemplified, not a rule which he 
 laid down for human guidance, which does not di- 
 rectly and expressly apply to the personal action or 
 life of the living mortal man on earth, even if whol- 
 ly separate from every idea of reward, punishment, 
 misery, or happiness, in the future, invisible, or spir- 
 itual state. 
 
10 
 
 RELIGION A LIFE, 
 
 I feel the importance of placing this point, if pos- 
 sible, most distinctly before your minds, that it may 
 stand out prominently at all times, as a primary 
 truth, relieving you from all obscure, confused, and 
 double meanings of theological phraseology. Jesus 
 did not propose to save any man from any eternal 
 misery to which he was naturally doomed. He did 
 not propose to secure to any man a right to any 
 eternal heaven from which he was naturally exclud- 
 ed. But he proposed, by his own principles, and 
 character, and spirit, proclaimed in all that he him- 
 self did, and all that happened to him, to teach man 
 how to live , truly, purely, peacefully, perfectly ; and 
 to live always so, leaving not only eternity, the fu- 
 ture, but even to-morrow, even the next hour, to take 
 care of itself, to come as it might, — assured that, in 
 the course of such a life, it could never come unsea- 
 sonably, never could come wrong. His teaching is, 
 Take no anxiety about to-morrow, but perform the 
 duty which lies immediately before you. Live in 
 truth, in love, loyal to your sense of right, now, to- 
 day, and leave to-morrow to make provision for 
 itself. The divinest wisdom marks this instruction. 
 It is the truest philosophy of action. A pure and 
 perfect life, lived and enjoyed to-day, is in fact the 
 completed preparation for every possible life which 
 may come to-morrow, whether it should come on 
 this side or the other side of death. 
 
 As to comfort merely in the hour of dissolution, 
 all observation proves that every religious faith, 
 Pagan, Jewish, or Christian, is equally efficacious. 
 Every class of religionists, sectarians, and theorists 
 actually finds a sustaining power in its peculiar doc- 
 
NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 11 
 
 trine or belief ; and some of every class imagine 
 they find evidence of truth in that comforting expe- 
 rience at death. What was I before I lived on earth ? 
 what am I to be when I shall cease to live on earth? 
 These are not the first and principal concerns to me. 
 These are not the inquiries demanding my imme- 
 diate thought. But, What am I now? what are 
 now my capabilities ? and how can these capabili- 
 ties be best improved ? These are the all-important 
 points to be determined. These determined correct- 
 ly, then as to the future all my solicitudes are at an 
 end. You are well aware, that Christianity is re- 
 garded by many of the good and wise who study it, 
 as a scheme, a plan, or expedient, having reference 
 originally and exclusively to the final condition of 
 human souls in another world. This I think is a 
 very sad mistake. The constant direction of the 
 mind towards the unseen existence occasions the 
 neglect of immediate duties, retards the present 
 mental and moral progress of the man, diminishing 
 greatly and unnecessarily the sum of present human 
 happiness, by painful anxieties which weaken the 
 moral energies, and which in any event cannot be 
 supposed to increase our qualifications for any con- 
 dition in eternity. He who gratefully regards this 
 world which he beholds, as now the important place 
 of his existence, and gives himself heartily to the 
 development of all his own faculties, laboring for 
 the amelioration of his fellow-men, — in that devel- 
 opment and effort finding cheerful, rational, and 
 pure enjoyment as he passes on, can be affected by 
 no fears of the future, save those implanted by early 
 miseducation, or reflected from a common supersti- 
 tion. 
 
12 
 
 RELIGION A LIFE, 
 
 “ He that humbleth himself as this little child,” 
 said Jesus, “the same is greatest among you.” 
 This expression embraces a vast depth of mean- 
 ing. The little child entertains no fear of death. It 
 knows no traditions of a fall , a curse, or an angry 
 Deity. Dissolution has no terrors for its spirit. Yet 
 in the present imperfect knowledge of the laws of 
 life among mankind the child often dies. It dies, 
 having complied with no special terms of faith, hav- 
 ing shown no special experience of grace, having 
 done no great thing. Its moral condition is that of 
 all of us at a corresponding period of life. Thus it 
 is manifest that we learn to do wrong, that we learn 
 to fear , as we grow in years, moulded by the theo- 
 ries which surround us, and, perhaps, living all our 
 lifetime under bondage to the fear of death. How- 
 ever angular and iron-bound their theology, however 
 their creeds may tyrannize over their intellects, but 
 few will dare to say that any child who dies is 
 doomed to a final misery in consequence of a fall 
 or act of Adam, or of any man, ages before the child 
 existed. Neither have we any ground for the pre- 
 sumption, that the child’s spirit is instantly trans- 
 formed, by omnipotent power, into that maturity 
 which would qualify it for the enjoyment of a heaven 
 adapted to the ripest intellects which pass from earth. 
 The only reasonable supposition, if* we must sup- 
 pose at all, is that, immediately following death, the 
 spirit of the child is still the spirit of a child. It is 
 not a man, nor an angel, nor a seraph, nor a cherub ; 
 but simply the unperverted, unstained, undeveloped 
 spirit of a child. In the spiritual state, it begins its 
 spiritual unfolding, at the stage from which it quit- 
 
NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 13 
 
 ted its bodily existence, and continues a progressive 
 life of purity, in obedience to divine laws of spirit- 
 ual being, — its enjoyment corresponding with its 
 true capacities. 
 
 Let man then restore himself as far as possible to 
 the condition of the little child, seeking only, and ex- 
 pecting only, truth, wisdom, and love, — unrestrained 
 and undepressed by traditions of a cursed and fall- 
 en nature, unembarrassed by groundless terrors and 
 empty speculations concerning remote and eternal 
 possibilities. Let him increase his knowledge of 
 himself, and of the great sphere of surrounding na- 
 ture, thus accomplishing the true object of his exist- 
 ence, by enjoying the happiness of a rational and 
 moral being. The mature man will then leave this 
 world tranquilly and fearlessly as the child leaves it, 
 and continue his spiritual existence according to his 
 spiritual development. Such, as I conceive, is the 
 childlike humility which Jesus inculcated, and not a 
 mere servile, cringing homage, which expects to con- 
 ciliate the all-perfect God by resigning itself to what 
 it may please to style “ the mysterious ways of Provi- 
 dence.” In such an energetic, truly humble career 
 on earth, there seems to be something like a philos- 
 ophy of life. 
 
 Let no one seek for remarkable experiences of 
 emotion, or mental excitement, as evidence of relig- 
 ious change, or divinely communicated grace. For 
 nothing is easier than to produce such experiences 
 by the use of common and well-known expedients. 
 Every church can produce them, and nearly every 
 form of faith does produce them, and actually fan- 
 cies that it finds in them divine confirmation of its 
 2 
 
14 RELIGION A LIFE, 
 
 peculiar creed. This presumption, therefore, can 
 only be regarded as a very sorrowful self-deception. 
 God never contradicts himself, truth never contra- 
 dicts itself. 
 
 Religion is never at war with common duties. 
 However you may distinguish, you never can sepa- 
 rate religion from morality. Every human being 
 has his course of duties to perform, however narrow 
 or extended may be the sphere in which he moves. 
 The exercise of many virtues is required in all our 
 commonest relations, and uniformly and truly to 
 exercise these virtues is to be religious. So essen- 
 tial are benevolent actions, honest purposes, and 
 pure affections, to our real temporal happiness, that 
 no special experience of religion, nor any creed or 
 faith which we can embrace respecting the soul’s 
 final destiny, can render them indispensable. You 
 may seek the man, (and he is not difficult to find, 
 for there are many such, both in society at large 
 and in the churches,) who, from conflicting and 
 shocking views of the future, or from any cause, 
 loses all faith in the existence of the soul at all, 
 after the event of dissolution, and with that man 
 every virtuous affection, virtuous purpose, and virtu- 
 ous action is just as essential to his personal im- 
 provement and temporal enjoyment, as it is to the 
 temporal happiness of the most undoubting believer, 
 not only in a future existence of the soul, but even 
 in eternal rewards and punishments. This is pre- 
 cisely what I would impress indelibly upon every 
 mind, namely, the universal necessity of a strictly 
 religious spirit, in all the relations and all the trans- 
 actions of a social being, as the only terms of per- 
 
NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 15 
 
 sonal progress and temporal enjoyment, apart from 
 every creed concerning man’s nature, and from every 
 theory concerning the final destiny of the soul. The 
 most decided disbelief in the soul’s existence after 
 death cannot alter in the least these immutable 
 conditions. So that it is obviously one of the plain- 
 est mistakes which a man can make, to suppose that 
 any creed he can adopt respecting hell or heaven 
 after death can either suspend or abrogate the natu- 
 ral laws of his present being, the invariable terms of 
 his physical and true mental enjoyment. Were this 
 simple truth more generally remembered, I appre- 
 hend there would be infinitely less anxiety to define 
 church creeds respecting the invisible state beyond 
 the tomb. A natural, just, and manly life, lived 
 here, would leave no room in any human bosom 
 concerning anything now hidden in the impenetra- 
 ble future. There is no more absolute necessity for 
 vice and wrong on earth, than there can be in any 
 heaven of which we have a reasonable conception. 
 There is no more absolute necessity for sin and suf- 
 fering on earth, than there can be in a future heaven. 
 
 Let us wash then, and be clean , — not seeking to 
 do or experience some great thing, but ceasing to do 
 evil, and learning to do well. Let each resolute 
 soul, whatever its measure of faith as to that which 
 lies in the unseen before it, find in this divine world 
 of God a blessing and a joy, a home, and something 
 of a heaven. The call then to another stage of the 
 eternal life, will never come at an unseasonable 
 hour ; the voice of death will never be discordant, 
 but will float like music to the ear of the listening 
 spirit. 
 
16 
 
 RELIGION A LIFE. 
 
 Surely a broader light is breaking on mankind, 
 and a more comprehensive knowledge is destined to 
 sweeten all the bitterness of life, expanding the 
 spirit of selfishness and jealousy into the breadth 
 and warmth of brotherly affection. A searching and 
 sanctified science is revealing the unity which exists 
 in nature’s diversity, the oneness of beauty which 
 arises from the multiplicity of forms, and the moral 
 unity of all human souls. Human freedom and the 
 capacities of mind are great and undeniable facts, 
 and as the great moral interests of man are more 
 and more seen to be similar and common, the flame 
 of fraternal sympathy will burn more brightly, — the 
 gloom which obscure and selfish theologies have 
 thrown round human life will vanish away, — the 
 grand harmonies of God’s beneficence will appear 
 to the eyes of the human understanding, and will 
 sound along through the experience of the soul. We 
 are all discovering that the indispensable condition 
 of present and all progress, of present and all true 
 and pure enjoyment, is the divine and essential ele- 
 ment of human love. 
 
DISCOURSE II. 
 
 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, THE BEST RELIGION TO 
 DIE BY. 
 
 BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM. Matt. vii. 20. 
 
 DELIVER THEM WHO THROUGH FEAR OF DEATH WERE ALL 
 
 their lifetime subject to bondage. — Hebrews ii. 15. 
 
 There is a singular attraction round a death-bed 
 at the last hour of a human being’s mortal existence. 
 The departing spirit may be one on whom success 
 has ever smiled, — one whose life has been like a 
 long summer day, only now and then interrupted by 
 passing clouds, leaving ever a brighter sky behind. 
 Or it may be one whose life may seem to have been 
 one great misfortune, one whose attendants appear 
 always to have been disappointment and depriva- 
 tion, toil and tears. But whether one or the other, 
 it is with intense interest, with thrilling anxiety, that 
 we linger round the struggling spirit, when about tc 
 leave the feeble, fainting body. We bend to catch 
 the last whisper, and to mark the last smile of rec- 
 ognition before the eye grows dim, and the lips be- 
 come motionless ; and never, never do we blot from 
 memory the pressure of the cold hand, as for the 
 2 * 
 
18 
 
 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, 
 
 last time it falls powerless from our own. These 
 are scenes of every hour’s, every moment’s occur- 
 rence. It is computed, and the computation is quite 
 within the truth, that every second, with every vibra- 
 tion of the pendulum, a spirit leaves its earthly body. 
 Every hour is the dying hour to many, every mo- 
 ment is to some the final moment here. 
 
 With deep interest we are prone to dwell on the 
 details of incidents which mark the dying hour of 
 those whom we revere, whom we esteem or love. 
 Indeed, a minute description of the last earthly mo- 
 ments of any human being seems to possess a 
 strangely fascinating power. Again and again do 
 we peruse such narratives, till we have fully realized 
 their truth, and then we wonder where - — where 
 the spirit is. What would we then give could we 
 but for an instant draw aside the veil that hangs 
 before the invisible world, and catch a glimpse, 
 the faintest glimpse, of that now unseen exist- 
 ence ! How impatient we become at times to 
 know what we all soon, very soon, shall fully un- 
 derstand ! 
 
 It is not surprising that we are so prone to as- 
 sociate the last moments of earthly existence with 
 the supposed present condition of the departed 
 spirit. The transition from this to that condition, 
 at its final stage, is to all appearance so easy, so 
 instantaneous, so complete, that it seems scarcely 
 possible to draw even an imaginary line between 
 them. This tendency of the emotions to lead us into 
 a region of pure conjecture has been indulged so 
 generally as to have become a serious abuse, which 
 sober reason rarely pauses to correct. The frequent 
 
THE BEST RELIGION TO DIE BY. 
 
 19 
 
 delineation of death-bed scenes, in sermons and re- 
 ligious writings of every kind, has led and still leads 
 to serious misapprehension. It appears to be an al- 
 most universal feeling, if not belief, that Religion 
 is something designed only for the dying, — a sort 
 of medicine prepared in heaven by Infinite Goodness, 
 to soothe the sufferings of men in the hour of their 
 departure. It is, not unfrequently, deemed conclu- 
 sive -of the value of a form of religious faith, to say 
 that “ it is a good religion by which to live, but a 
 poor religion by which to die.” The scenes of the 
 last hour of some distinguished professing Christian 
 are very frequently described, and urged as evidence 
 of the correctness of his religious views , and almost 
 as frequently urged as indisputable evidence of the 
 divinity of the Christian religion. 
 
 It is among the most remarkable of things, that 
 Christian writers and Christian ministers fail to 
 perceive the utter futility of all arguments of this 
 nature. For such arguments, if proof at all, prove 
 more, far more, than those who employ them may 
 at a superficial view imagine. Indeed, if they prove 
 anything, they will prove everything, as to religious 
 opinions. No testimony is less to be relied on, as 
 to a man’s real character and life, than the testimony 
 of a dying hour. 
 
 There have been Christians, and those who nev- 
 er pretended to be Christians, those who never 
 knew of Christianity, whose whole life may be 
 likened to a calm and brilliant day ; — its dawn clear 
 and mild, growing brighter and brighter to its ze- 
 nith, then growing milder and more varied in its 
 beauty, till its last golden light has stolen away, 
 
20 
 
 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, 
 
 and left survivors wondering at the silent grandeur 
 of its passage. But it is mournfully true, that 
 such lives, like such days, are very few and far be- 
 tween. 
 
 If, however, the serenity of a dying hour demon- 
 strates the correctness of a man’s religious views, 
 then the doctrines of every religion and of every sect 
 have been proved true, beyond any question. .Every 
 religion and every sect has had its martyrs. Here 
 in our own land, have we not beheld hundreds of 
 the followers of the sincere but visionary prophet 
 Miller, leave their business and their homes and 
 friends, to await the second advent of Jesus, and 
 when death summoned them before they could 
 behold the expected earthly glory, have they not 
 gone joyfully, to all appearance wrapt in ecstatic 
 spiritual visions of the future ? Have we not seen 
 the believers in the Book of Mormon dissolve the 
 most endearing relations, sacrifice their property, 
 forsake the homes of their childhood and the graves 
 of their friends, brave the ocean’s storms and a thou- 
 sand perils, only to lay their bodies among their 
 saints on the shores of the Mississippi ? 
 
 What experienced minister of any sect, Methodist, 
 Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or any other, 
 has not heard the last accents of his dying parish- 
 ioner expressing unshaken confidence in the faith 
 of his fathers? And when the voice has become too 
 feeble to utter words, the dying man has smiled in 
 satisfaction, and passed, apparently with unutterable 
 rapture, into the world of celestial joys. 
 
 Have not hundreds of Calvinists died rejoicing in 
 the faith that God would alike vindicate his glory 
 
THE BEST RELIGION TO DIE BY. 
 
 21 
 
 by the endless songs of the elect in heaven, and 
 by the endless groans of the condemned in hell? 
 And have not hundreds of Universalists died also 
 rejoicing in the faith that, by a direct exercise of the 
 divine power, all earth’s sorrows would soon be 
 blotted out, and every living soul unite in endless 
 hallelujahs of redeeming love ? 
 
 Have not thousands of Trinitarians died firmly re- 
 lying on what they called the merits of the Saviour’s 
 death or blood? And have not thousands of Uni- 
 tarians died rejoicing in the spirit of the Saviour’s 
 teachings, and cheered by the consciousness of hav- 
 ing endeavored to imitate the virtue of the Saviour’s 
 holy life ? 
 
 Have not myriads of Protestants died clasping the 
 Bible to their bosoms, and rejoicing in the ministra- 
 tions of the church which they have chosen? And 
 have not myriads of Roman Catholics died gladly 
 pressing the cross to their pale lips, and breathing 
 a last prayer to the u Blessed Virgin, Mgther of 
 God”? f 
 
 And what does all this prove as to the correctness 
 of their respective views ? As proof it is entirely 
 destitute of value, — for what equally proves all, 
 proves none, certainly, to be correct. 
 
 It is my own deliberately expressed conviction, 
 that no one thing has done more, no one thing 
 now does more, to create unnecessary suspicion, and 
 confirm groundless scepticism, than the continual 
 appeals of the pulpit to the death-bed scenes of in- 
 dividuals, as evidence of the truth of particular 
 religious views, or even as -evidence of the divine 
 authority of the Christian religion. 
 
22 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, 
 
 For numbers of intelligent men, who either have 
 not the inclination, or do not take the time, to dis- 
 tinguish between Christian truth and Christian 
 creeds, between the Christian spirit and the Christian 
 name, have common perception and common sense 
 enough to perceive that .all such arguments as death- 
 bed scenes present, are mere sound and words, signi- 
 fying nothing, either as to character, religion, or the 
 future. They have probably read accounts of the death 
 scenes of some of the most formidable enemies of 
 Christianity, (that is, of those who confounded Chris- 
 tianity with that around them which called itself 
 Christianity, and against which they contended, on 
 its own ground,) and they have seen men like Hume 
 and Gibbon, (names well known among the oppos- 
 ers of what called itself Christianity,) and others, 
 without Bible, without priest or prayer, without a 
 syllable about religion in their dying hours, in the 
 full possession of their faculties, with serene confi- 
 dence passing from the body, calmly as an infant in 
 its mother’s arms sinks into its evening slumbers. 
 To thoughtful men seeing, knowing all this, what 
 folly to say, as ministers so often do, “ Ah ! you 
 will see your error when you come to die ! ” 
 
 And moreover, it is no uncommon thing to see 
 Christians of any name, members of any church, 
 men who leave behind them an honored memory, 
 who have striven to live truly by their faith, and 
 who have left lasting monuments of truly Christian 
 excellence, — it is no uncommon thing to see such 
 departing in almost hopeless despondency of mind, 
 and fearful agony of body. 
 
THE BEST RELIGION TO DTE BY. 
 
 23 
 
 “ A man’s life may be all ease, and his death, 
 
 By some dark chance, unthought-of agony. 
 
 Or life may be all suffering, and decease 
 A flower-like sleep ; or both be full of woe, 
 
 Or each, comparatively painless.” 
 
 Do not the class referred to, — those who judge 
 of Christianity by the practice of its professors, — do 
 they not see Christian ministers offering prayers and 
 preaching sermons in honor of men who have fallen 
 on the field of battle, — some of whom (for it is 
 only just to say that it is not always so) have never 
 made pretensions to religion of any form, under any 
 name, but who spent their last breath in shouts of 
 triumph to urge their fellow-soldiers on to human 
 slaughter, to victory or death ? Do ministers pre- 
 sume men generally to be so obtuse in their percep- 
 tions, as not to discover the gross inconsistency of 
 preaching religion in the church, as something indis- 
 pensable by which to die , and at the same time be- 
 stowing the highest honors on the memory of men 
 who die in open disregard of all that these ministers 
 themselves call religion ? Do we not also see men 
 who are sentenced by the law for capital crime, dis- 
 daining to the last all religious counsel, ascend the 
 scaffold with an unfaltering step, with unmoved 
 countenance adjust the instruments of death, salute 
 respectfully the gazing throng, then, with perhaps a 
 lie upon their lips, pass from life with a heroic calm- 
 ness which puts to shame the unmanly indecision 
 and unchristian fears of men who have been ac- 
 counted saints within the church ? 
 
 Still more, — to go beyond the pale of Christen- 
 dom, — the Jew, to this day, in every land, still 
 hopes for the Messiah’s coming, and when he dies, 
 
24 
 
 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, 
 
 dies joyfully, in the faith that Jehovah will yet re- 
 store to his chosen Zion their long-lost Jerusalem. 
 The believer in the Koran, to this hour, when he 
 feels death’s chilling finger on his brow, turns his 
 countenance towards the pilgrim shrine of Mecca, 
 — with his fainting voice whispers, “ Allah is God 
 and Mahomet is his prophet,” — and without a 
 murmur his soul passes, as his sorrowing friends 
 believe, to eat of the fruit of the tree of Paradise, 
 in one of the seven heavens. Even the spirit of 
 the Pagan obeys without complaint the summons 
 of his many deities ; and while his widow, under 
 a sense of duty, ascends his funeral pyre, the ashes 
 of both are soon scattered by the whistling winds. 
 
 The aboriginal of our own continent, the noble 
 Indian, never shrinks from death, but rather courts 
 death than lose revenge, sweet revenge, for wrong 
 inflicted on his tribe. And often, when the spirit 
 has gone, surviving friends with songs of triumph 
 convey the body to its resting-place, leaving it with 
 its face turned towards the rising sun, whither the 
 soul has gone, as they conceive, to the land of the 
 Great Spirit, where no civilized race can drive him 
 from his hunting-grounds, or rob him of his home. 
 
 Do these incontestable facts prove that every re- 
 ligion is true, — equally true ? Unquestionably they 
 do, if the common use of such arguments be just. 
 The legitimate inference, on this principle, mani- 
 festly is, that every religion, and every dogma of 
 every religion, that administers comfort in a dying 
 hour, is true. 
 
 But here let us discern the great distinction be- 
 tween the nature of Christianity and that of the va- 
 
THE BEST RELIGION TO DIE BY. 
 
 25 
 
 rious systems of religion which have existed and do 
 yet exist. Every other religion has assumed that 
 man is sinful and must sin, and that religion is only 
 a plan or scheme to save him from the alleged effects 
 of sin, the wrath of an offended God, — implying the 
 essential imperfection of both man and deity. This 
 radical error of other religions was brought from their 
 respective systems by the early converts of every na- 
 tion, — especially the Roman and the Greek, — and 
 soon was incorporated with the dogmas of Chris- 
 tianity, — till it has become, and is at this hour, the 
 prevailing vital mistake of almost every Christian 
 sect, exclusive and liberal. A most serious mistake 
 certainly this is. 
 
 What is the true object of human existence ? If all 
 nature speak not falsely, if all experience deceive 
 us not, the whole physical, mental, and moral con- 
 stitution of man declares, in terms too emphatical 
 to admit of a single doubt, that the chief purpose 
 of his being is to educe, to unfold, and to perfect his 
 faculties. And all nature and all natural influences, 
 all society and all social influences, the heavens, 
 the earth, the air, all things above, beneath, and 
 around him, are the means, the instruments, by which 
 this purpose is here to be commenced and here to be 
 prosecuted. 
 
 The development of the man , the formation of char- 
 acter , is the great end of all human effort. What is 
 character, do you ask ? Character is the expres- 
 sion, the utterance, the exhibition of the soul, of the 
 governing spirit of the man, in the daily, hourly life. 
 The character is meritorious or censurable, good 
 or bad, as the life is virtuous or vicious, true or false. 
 3 
 
26 
 
 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, 
 
 Christianity, far from being a mere anodyne to 
 soothe the suffering of a dying hour, is a statement 
 of principles on which the character is to be formed, 
 
 — a statement of rules by which the life is to be 
 governed; and Jesus of Nazareth is not only the 
 propounder, but the living embodiment, of those prin- 
 ciples, — a living example, a complete illustration, of 
 the practicability of these rules. The first and most 
 important end of Christianity is, to teach us how 
 to live, not how to die. 
 
 Read all the teachings of Jesus himself, — follow 
 him through his Sermon on the Mount (fifth, sixth 
 and seventh chapters of Matthew, and the completest 
 summary of his teachings that we have left to us), — 
 and unquestionably, if there be a Christian sermon 
 in the world, it is the sermon of the Christ himself, 
 
 — and what do you find? Constant reference to 
 death or dying, constant representation that prepara- 
 tion for death is the origin, the end, or object of re- 
 ligion ? No, not a syllable of this kind ; but this 
 satisfactory and most comprehensive discourse of 
 Jesus is a compendium of doctrines, rules, and pre- 
 cepts for the daily life of man, without a word of 
 reference to death. Read that discourse, and you 
 will find that “ Do unto others as you would that 
 others should do unto you,” — “Love thy God and 
 love thy neighbor,” — are the sum and substance of 
 all the teachings of Jesus. And what gives to these 
 principles their peculiar power is this, that he proved 
 them to be practicable , he lived them fairly out, 
 he enforced them even at the sacrifice of present 
 life. 
 
 A man’s dying joyfully in any certain form of faith 
 
THE BEST RELIGION TO DIE BY. 
 
 27 
 
 cannot prove that faith to be correct. The whole 
 history of the world, as we have seen, testifies that 
 men may die, that men have died, calmly, heroi- 
 cally, and, in the common use of terms, gloriously, in 
 every faith, — Heathen, Mahometan, Jewish, and 
 Christian. It can be no credit to a religion that it 
 is good to die by, for any religion is good enough 
 for that ; but the religion to live by is the religion 
 the world wants. A man may become so pervaded 
 with a firm conviction of any religion, or may be so 
 destitute of all religion (as thousands on the battle- 
 field attest), or may be so sternly, stoically indiffer- 
 ent to all things, as to be sustained in a dying hour, 
 and enabled to bid adieu to earth without a murmur. 
 Even the victims of ungodly anarchy in France, with 
 the awful guillotine awaiting them, could write on 
 their prison walls, “ When trouble comes, it is easy 
 to despise death.” 
 
 The firm Roman never shrank from death, and 
 sometimes welcomed it with levity. It is said that 
 the Emperor Caligula had a dispute with Caius Ju- 
 lius, and, to cut the matter short, the Emperor said 
 to him : “ Do not flatter yourself, for I have ordered 
 you to be put to death.” Caius knew the certainty 
 of what the Emperor declared, and when the officer 
 came with a warrant for his immediate execution, 
 he was playing at a game of chess. Caius received 
 the summons with all imaginable indifference, and, 
 as he had to leave the game unfinished, only desired 
 the centurion to bear witness after his death that he 
 had the best of the game. Then, turning to some 
 friends, he took leave of them, saying : “ You here 
 are disputing about the immortality of the soul, 
 
28 
 
 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, 
 
 I am now going to be convinced of the truth ; if I 
 make any discovery on that point, you shall hear 
 of it.” 
 
 What a time is that to determine the truth of a 
 marts doctrine , or the reality of a man’s character, 
 when disease has racked his body, and unbalanced 
 his mind, and perhaps dethroned his reason ! 
 
 Do you ask, then, wherein consists the superiority 
 of Christianity ? I answer, the pre-eminence, the 
 grand feature, the great glory, of Christianity is, 
 that it is a body of principles and precepts of uni- 
 versal application, to direct and guard and aid man 
 all through life, and not a mere scheme to comfort 
 him in death; — that so far as it is a system, it is a 
 system of life made holy, and not a plan of death 
 made easy. 
 
 Death, — separation of body and spirit, — does this 
 terminate existence ? No ; what we call death is 
 not an end of life. It is only an event in life. Not 
 indeed an unimportant event. It is important, as 
 being the termination of one stage of being, — the 
 end of the first term of our existence, — a landing- 
 place an the eternal progress, — and the importance 
 of religion in connection with the circumstance of 
 death, whatever that importance may be, depends 
 entirely upon the relation of religion to the previous 
 life. 
 
 If the requirements of Christianity have been dis- 
 regarded through the whole life, all religious forms 
 and rites and ministrations are, in the hour of death, 
 nothing more than useless ceremonies, — or even 
 worse, as tending to aggravate the very evils they 
 are designed to mitigate. For the officious and 
 
THE BEST RELIGION TO DIE BY. 
 
 29 
 
 ill-timed anxiety of clergymen at the death-bed 
 often destroys both the peace of mind and repose 
 of body which the dying man otherwise would 
 have. 
 
 Paul coincides with Jesus in expressing the prac- 
 tical character of Christianity. “ Though I under 
 stand all mysteries,” he says, “ and all knowledge 
 and though I have all faith , so that I could remove 
 mountains, and have not love, I am nothing, it prof- 
 iteth me nothing.” 
 
 The only criterion of moral or religious character 
 that is at once Scriptural and reasonable, is this, 
 from the discourse of Jesus : “ By their fruits ye 
 shall know them.” 
 
 To determine the value of a tree, would you view 
 it only when its naked limbs are quivering in the 
 wintry blast, and the last withered leaf is just falling 
 to the ground ? Or would you trace it through its 
 budding and its blooming, and the fulness of its 
 foliage, till you reach the ripeness of its fruit ? So 
 in determining human character, — as far as human 
 judgment may determine, — we must take in our 
 hands the golden rule left to us by Jesus, and by 
 that rule measure a man’s deeds, through the whole 
 general tenor of his life ; instead of daring, — for 
 it is bold presumption, — by the last scene in the 
 last act of this earthly drama, to pronounce upon the 
 whole performance. 
 
 Though it might not, in any given instance, be 
 conclusive testimony as to absolute rectitude of pre- 
 vious life, yet it evinces a mind at ease, a desirable 
 serenity, to be able at the dying moment to say, 
 with the lately deceased chief magistrate of our 
 3 * 
 
30 
 
 A RELIGION TO LIVE BY, 
 
 country, H I have endeavored to do my duty, I fear 
 nothing, I am prepared.” 
 
 “ We live in deeds, not years, — in thoughts, not breaths, 
 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial ; 
 
 We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.” 
 
 The last expressions and acts of our dying friends, 
 it is true, possess to us peculiar interest as associated 
 with the last and tenderest remembrances of those 
 we love, and last words are often treasured as pre- 
 cious memorials. They may indicate to us the same 
 spirit that has pervaded and ruled the past life, — 
 they may exhibit the ruling passion strong in death. 
 But to the stranger they can afford no criterion for 
 judging of past character, and they can afford no 
 index, more than previous acts afforded, of the un- 
 seen future. 
 
 Let us but endeavor to study the precepts of Jesus 
 thoroughly, and to imbibe the spirit of Jesus deeply, 
 and to walk by the example of Jesus faithfully, and 
 it matters little how or where this earthly scene 
 shall terminate. In an instant, in the twinkling' of 
 an eye, we may be — as thousands are by the daily 
 accidents of life — hurled from the visible realities 
 of time into the now invisible realities of eternity ; 
 or, protracted, painful, withering disease may strain 
 every heartstring to its utmost tension, before the 
 last mortal cord be broken ; and howsoever it may 
 come, let but the fainting vision of the struggling 
 spirit be cheered by the retrospect of a conscientious 
 and generous activity, and death will be welcomed 
 by us as a heavenly escort to a higher sphere, where 
 the disencumbered soul may discern more clearly, 
 
THE BEST RELIGION TO DIE BY. 
 
 31 
 
 expand more freely, and advance more rapidly, — 
 while hosts of friendly spirits may greet us with a 
 long, inspiring burst of sympathetic joy, joy inex- 
 pressible and full of glory. 
 
DISCOURSE III. 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 PURE RELIGION, AND UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD AND THE 
 FATHER, IS THIS, TO VISIT THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS 
 IN THEIR AFFLICTION, AND TO KEEP HIMSELF UNSPOTTED 
 
 from the world. — James i. 27. 
 
 The term Religion is one of those terms which 
 are in universal, but vague and uncertain use. It 
 has become a technical, a professional term, and 
 yet it might be supposed, by one unfamiliar with 
 our language, that the term had and could have but 
 one obvious signification. Were the question pro- 
 pounded to those in daily employment of this term, 
 What is Religion ? thousands would find themselves 
 involved in unaccountable mystery, simply because 
 they supposed that they had always had a distinct 
 and satisfactory understanding of the term. Has a 
 man found religion, or obtained religion ? is a very 
 common inquiry. But, What is religion ? is a very 
 rare one. Does a man profess religion ? is an in- 
 quiry you may frequently hear made. But, Is that 
 man a “ religious man”? is a question seldom of- 
 fered for reply. 
 
RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 33 
 
 Has a man obtained religion ? implies that it is 
 some essence or substance, which is somehow to 
 come into a man’s possession, — a kind of treasure 
 which, when once found, is never to be lost, but to 
 be preserved as a sort of talisman or charm around 
 the person. Does a man profess religion ? implies, 
 that it is a creed or system of some sort, — a doctrine 
 or belief which is to be declared or professed, — this 
 profession constituting one a possessor of religion, 
 or in some way securing to him its benefits. 
 
 But both these ideas are incorrect, — they are es- 
 sentially defective ; for religion is not an essence 
 or a substance, which, like silver or gold, is to be ob- 
 tained and secured in a man’s possession. Neither 
 is religion a doctrine or belief to be professed, and by 
 such profession to secure some favors or privileges. 
 It is neither something to be procured, nor is it a 
 belief to be professed. Religion is a term expressive 
 of the quality of certain human actions, of certain 
 human characters, — just as purity or patience, gen- 
 tleness or goodness, describes the quality of certain 
 actions, or the quality of certain characters in man. 
 Religion is a word descriptive of certain relations 
 and certain duties of man. In strict propriety, no one 
 possesses purity, no one possesses patience, — that is, 
 he does not find or obtain them as he finds money or 
 obtains property ; but he may be a pure man, or a 
 patient man ; these terms simply describe his mental 
 or moral qualities. In strict propriety, no one ob- 
 tains or holds gentleness or goodness as a possession, 
 like a house or tract of land ; but he may be a gentle- 
 man or a good man, these terms being descriptive 
 of his personal characteristics. 
 
34 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 So is religion a word applicable to certain relations, 
 duties, actions, of a man, personally ; and it is not a 
 something material, a species of property to be ac- 
 quired. 
 
 There is no propriety, therefore, in asking whether 
 or not a man has obtained religion, or whether a man 
 has professed religion ; but there is a proper and all- 
 important question, namely, Is he a religious man ? 
 Are his actions and his life such as may be de- 
 scribed by the word religious ? For the word relig- 
 ious cannot describe a man’s person, a man’s body, 
 — it cannot describe his business or profession, — 
 it cannot describe his property, his houses or his 
 lands ; it can only describe his spirit and his life, 
 as manifested by his actions. To say that a man is 
 religious, is not to express a peculiarity of a single 
 act or series of acts at a given time and under pe- 
 culiar circumstances, but it is to express the whole 
 character, the uniform tenor, of a man’s life. He is 
 not logically, or necessarily, or strictly a religious 
 man who offers prayers, who hears sermons and 
 reads Bibles, who supports foreign missions and be- 
 longs to some society called a church. Religion 
 does not consist in doing these things except so far 
 as these are portions of a whole life, a uniform course 
 of actions in conformity with these. A man may 
 most cordially and liberally support a mission in 
 India, and at the same time be supporting a gam- 
 bling-house in his own vicinity. A man may be- 
 long to some church, and at the same time belong 
 to some association whose direct design is to de- 
 fraud and take advantage of his fellow-men. A 
 man may hear sermons most patiently, and read 
 
RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 35 
 
 the Bible most seriously, every Sunday, and at the 
 same time he may read the most immoral works, 
 and listen patiently to the most wicked plans, all 
 through the week. A man may every morning by 
 his bedside, or every evening at the prayer-meeting, 
 utter most fervent and hearty prayers, while at the 
 same time through the day little else than curses, 
 reproaches, and abuse may be uttered by his lips. 
 
 Now such a man — and there are such men — 
 may be profuse in his professions, and ardent in con- 
 fessing sinfulness ; he may be generous in support- 
 ing missions, and may be eloquent in prayer : he 
 maybe a faithful church-goer, and a diligent Bible- 
 reader ; he may be called a devout man and a pro- 
 fessor of religion ; — but whatever he is, he is very 
 far from being a religious man in any proper sense, — 
 in any Christian sense he is anything but a religious 
 man. One of the most unhappy distinctions, that is, 
 one of the most pernicious in its effects ever drawn, 
 whether by logicians or theologians, is that drawn 
 between religion and morality. Religion seems to 
 be understood as expressing only our relations and 
 duties toward God, and morality as only expressing 
 our relations and duties toward man. The grand 
 defect in all doctrinal systems or revelations pre- 
 ceding Christianity, and all beside Christianity, is, 
 that they undervalue or overlook one class of duties 
 in their scrupulous observation of another class. 
 They have been devised with relation to God only, 
 and not with relation to man also. So it has been 
 with every Pagan system or form of worship ; by 
 sacrifices and prayers and rites they have endeav- 
 ored to conciliate the various deities, and so to se- 
 
36 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 cure personal favor or exemption from some fancied 
 or real evil. The same defect was characteristic of 
 the Hebrew dispensation. Sacrifices and ceremo- 
 nies, burdensome rites and external worship, were 
 the means employed to win the favor and avert the 
 anger of the omnipotent, and, as supposed, offended 
 Jehovah. By the early converts, of whom the first 
 Christians were composed, from the various forms 
 of Paganism, as well as from the superior and more 
 spiritual form of Judaism, this essential error was 
 engrafted upon Christianity, and has been perpetu- 
 ated till this hour. Nothing is more common among 
 the churches of Christian denominations, than to 
 hear religion exalted and eulogized, as the inestima- 
 ble grace of God, and morality depreciated, as only 
 the filthy rags of righteousness of man. 
 
 Thus reverence for the Divine Being becomes all 
 in all, — beneficence to our fellow-man is little, or 
 even worse than nothing ; — as if God were but a 
 universal monarch, whose happiness consisted in 
 receiving confessions of humility from his subjects, 
 offerings of incense and songs of praise and words 
 of adulation, — all the more acceptable as man may 
 humble himself by acts of bodily homage, and forget 
 his fellow-man in devotion to his Sovereign, and 
 despise the world out of reverence for its majestic 
 Ruler. A most woful perversion of the whole spirit 
 of Christianity ! To remedy this defect of all pre- 
 vious forms of worship was a purpose of Jesus the 
 Anointed, the Divine Teacher, — prominent in his 
 whole career, — alike discernible in his precepts and 
 his example. u Peace on earth and good-will among 
 men,” are the words which describe his message. 
 
RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 37 
 
 “ He went about doing good, rejoicing with those who 
 rejoiced, and weeping with those who wept,” are the 
 words which describe his life. To show the futility 
 of sacrifices, ceremonies, rites, and external forms, 
 — except so far as these may be made beneficent 
 agents of man’s improvement, — was a design most 
 manifest in all his addresses to his Hebrew country- 
 men. 
 
 This passage of St. James is remarkable, as being 
 the only instance in the Bible in which religion is 
 literally defined. The word religion is never used 
 in the Old Testament, and except in this chapter is 
 but three times employed in the New Testament. 
 In all of these three instances it is used by St. Paul 
 in its most general sense, to signify the dispensa- 
 tion or religion, the mode of worship, in which he 
 was educated ; as we say, the Hindoo religion, the 
 Mohammedan religion, the Christian religion, not 
 alluding in detail to opinions, doctrines, or rites. 
 But in this solitary instance is the term religion 
 defined in its particular and practical signification. 
 St. James is advising Christians generally, and 
 naming certain practical tests of a true Christian 
 character; and having just declared in reference to 
 the man who seems to be religious, yet bridles not 
 his own tongue, as he expresses it, — does not speak 
 in charity and kindness, — that such a man’s relig- 
 ion is vain, that he deceives his own heart, probably 
 substituting some external observance for the exer- 
 cise of a fraternal spirit, then he makes this distinct 
 announcement : “ Pure religion, and undefiled be- 
 fore God and the Father, is this, To visit the father- 
 less and the widow in their affliction, and to keep 
 4 
 
38 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 himself unspotted from the world.” Now this un- 
 ambiguous description of religion, and the only one 
 in the Bible, is considered very defective if judged 
 by the doctrinal standards of our times. It an- 
 nounces no fundamental doctrines, not one of the 
 articles of faith which all church creeds declare to be 
 essential. It says nothing of any irresistible grace 
 to be received, it mentions nothing to be professed, 
 but something to be done. And that something, 
 moreover, is to be done to our fellow-man, the fa- 
 therless and the widow representing every other 
 human being who may require our aid, our sympa- 
 thy, consolation, or encouragement. This active 
 beneficence, with the preservation of the individual 
 himself unspotted from the world, that is, unstained 
 by the vicious influences operating in society, is relig- 
 ion according to St. James. Nothing is said of our 
 direct relation to God, our special duty to him ; but 
 the sacred writer places in bold relief our duties toward 
 our fellow-men and to ourselves, — implying clearly, 
 that in discharging these duties in the spirit of true 
 fraternity, we are acting in obedience to the require- 
 ments of God our Father. We are thus offering 
 him the highest homage ; our sacrifice is that of a 
 loving soul, the purest and noblest of all worship. 
 But this is only morality , say many systems and 
 teachers, — these are only moral duties, — these may 
 be performed without religion. But admit that these 
 duties toward our fellow-men and toward ourselves 
 may be measurably discharged without religion, the 
 converse of the proposition is the one before us, Can 
 there be a Christian religion , can there be a relig- 
 ious character, without the performance of these du- 
 
RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 39 
 
 ties ? This definition of St. James, says an exclu- 
 sive critic, is correct so far, that it implies religion, 
 — it is a part of religion, but not the whole. There 
 are essential doctrines not referred to. But is it not 
 truly singular that there should be in the Scripture 
 any definition of religion, and that a most direct 
 and literal definition, and the only one in all Scrip- 
 ture, and that definition make no allusion to any 
 one of the dogmas which the confessions declare to 
 be essential to salvation ? Of the inherent corruption 
 and total depravity of human nature, — ecclesiastical 
 and unscriptural phraseology, — there is nothing said 
 in James’s description of pure and undefiled religion. 
 Of the infinite merits of Christ, — another church, but 
 not Scripture phrase, — St. James says nothing. Of 
 faith in the blood of atonement, — another phrase 
 of the books , but not of the Bible, — St. James says 
 nothing. For none of these, nor any of their kindred 
 fundamentals, but simply an active and disinter- 
 ested benevolence toward our human brother, and 
 the preservation of our own purity, — this is before 
 God and the Father pure and undefiled religion. 
 
 The same tendency existed in the time of St. 
 James, only in a greater degree, to exalt belief or 
 faith, and to depreciate morality or good works ; and 
 he pointedly inquires in this same Epistle, “ What 
 doth it profit, though a man say he hath faith, and 
 have not works ? Can faith save him ? If a brother or 
 sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of 
 you say unto them, Depart in peace, be you warmed 
 and filled ; notwithstanding ye give them not those 
 things which are needful to the body ; what doth it 
 profit ? Show me thy faith without thy works, 
 
40 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 and I will show thee my faith by my works 
 
 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith 
 without works is dead also.” St. Paul expresses in 
 strongest language the same sentiment when he says, 
 “ Though I have all faith, so that I could remove 
 mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” Pe- 
 ruse carefully all that sermon by Jesus, on the mount, 
 — the only one of his recorded, — study every sen- 
 tence of the Lord’s prayer, the only form which Jesus 
 bequeathed to us, and you will not find even an allu- 
 sion to one of the dogmas concerning the divine na- 
 ture or human nature of the Messiah, which church 
 systems now proclaim as essential to the faith of 
 every human being who would be saved from severe 
 judgment and ceaseless suffering beyond the grave. 
 What then ! were all, Jesus and his disciples, teach- 
 ers of morality ? Yes, all ; to every system-framer I 
 give an emphatic and affirmative reply, Yes, Jesus 
 and his followers were all teachers of morality, you 
 being judge. To live a righteous, sober, and godly 
 life, was the sum and substance of all their teach- 
 ings, the chief end of all their efforts ; and this they 
 taught by their words and their deeds, their lives 
 and their deaths. So distinctly and emphatically is 
 this grand design declared, that every interpretation 
 of Scripture incompatible with this must be defec- 
 tive. Every obscure passage, every doubtful word, 
 all figurative language, must be construed to har- 
 monize with this great and manifest design, the 
 purity and elevation, the present and immortal prog- 
 ress, of man’s spiritual nature. This is Christian 
 Morality and this is Christian Religion. In exact 
 harmony with this is that explicit saying of Jesus, 
 
RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 41 
 
 “ If any man will do his will, he shall know of the 
 doctrine whether it be of God.” Reversing the com- 
 mon order of ideas, he places action before knowl- 
 edge, practice before principle, doing before doctrine. 
 This he means, — that there is in existence some 
 principle of duty, so general, so universal, that strict 
 adherence to that will afford to any man a safe and 
 conclusive practical test of all abstract truth, all ab- 
 struse speculative doctrine. Now what principle of 
 action is there so natural, so rational, that may be 
 so generally, so invariably recognized, as this by 
 which St. James defines “ pure and undefiled relig- 
 ion before God, even the Father,” — namely, to dis- 
 charge the duties of benevolence to our fellow-men , 
 and to resist every temptation to disobey our own 
 enlightened moral sense ? Jesus affords the corre- 
 sponding rule in his own language, which furnishes 
 the same practical test of the value of doctrine, and 
 is recognized as the Golden Rule , — “ As ye would 
 that others should do unto you, do ye even so unto 
 them.” Every doctrine, every interpretation of rev- 
 elation, at variance with the practice of this un- 
 equivocal rule, it is safe to reject, as unsound and 
 untrue. 
 
 St. John, the friend of Jesus, the beloved disciple, 
 expresses the same practical identity of virtue and 
 piety, religion and morality, in terms so forcible as 
 to startle us by their positiveness and abruptness : 
 “ If any man say I love God , and hateth his brother , 
 he is a liar ; for he that loveth not his brother, whom 
 he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath 
 not seen.” In other words, how can we discharge 
 our duty to God, but by the discharge of our duty 
 4 * 
 
42 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 to man ? How can there be religion without mo- 
 rality ? How can we love God but by loving God’s 
 creature, man ? How can we cherish, how can we 
 even know, the sentiment of love, but through par- 
 ents and friends, whom we have seen, and towards 
 whom our affections first open and expand, and 
 thence by gratitude extend to God, whom we have 
 not seen , but who is the author of these precious 
 gifts ? By God’s own appointment, the law of our 
 spiritual nature, our love is first awakened and 
 elicited by man, and passes through man to God, 
 through the seen to the unseen, through the visible 
 creature to the invisible Creator, through the mortal 
 child to the Immortal Father. How simple and 
 how sublime, how comprehensive and comprehen- 
 sible, the principles, the doctrines, of Jesus and his 
 Apostles, compared with the unintelligible and un- 
 satisfactory statements of the systems, articles, and 
 confessions of ecclesiastical councils ! How different 
 this Scriptural description of pure religion and unde- 
 filed, from those alleged essential doctrines concerning 
 church authority and church forms, — theories of the 
 divine nature, and theories of human nature, — theo- 
 ries of the nature of Jesus, and theories of the death 
 of Jesus, — certain professions of belief and certain 
 modes of baptism ! How these dwindle into insig- 
 nificance before the simple, sublime, heavenly, and 
 universal element and principle of love, — love of the 
 human, and love of the divine, — at once th q principle 
 and proof the fountain and the stream, the begin- 
 ning and the end, — without which all faith is vain, 
 by which every man may know his character, may 
 test his religion, may prove his doctrine ! 
 
RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 43 
 
 There is no more deplorable characteristic of much 
 of the preaching of Christendom than this which en- 
 tirely separates religion from morality. It has been, 
 and still is, a fruitful source of particular evils to in- 
 dividuals and churches, as well as general evil to the 
 cause of Christianity. 
 
 In the long catalogue of Sabbath complainings, 
 none is more prominent than that referring to the 
 absence of a consistent, virtuous life on the part of 
 those who, in the common phrase, 11 profess religion.” 
 What is it at which the incredulous and scoffing so 
 scornfully point, as their objection to Christianity, 
 their objection to Religion ? Is it not the want of 
 pure principle and upright action during the six-day 
 business life of those who are most patient, punctil- 
 ious, and devout on Sundays ? And yet what can 
 religious teachers expect, but that hearers will be 
 true to their Sabbath instructions, by which they are 
 informed that a very religious man may be very far 
 from being a moral man, by which they learn that a 
 strict morality is not the invariable attendant and 
 only testimony of true piety, — that indeed a “ man’s 
 righteousness ,” a man’s good works , are rather dan- 
 gerous, and to be deprecated, as tending to lead him 
 to attach importance to them ? So long as religious 
 teachers continue to reproach men for valuing per- 
 sonal righteousness, and apply to good works, to 
 virtuous acts, to daily morality, epithets so gross and 
 offensive as “ filthy rags,” “ worthless or worse than 
 worthless,” they will continue to complain of the 
 inconsistencies of their people, who profess religion 
 and practise religion as they are taught, but who do 
 not afford to society the only evidence of religion 
 
44 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 which society will accept ; that is, a pure morality, a 
 daily life of progressive virtue. 
 
 Men whom churches call pious or religious may 
 be satisfied with certain feelings and Sabbath exer- 
 cises as the fruits of piety, but society will know 
 nothing of such fruits, and reasonable, intelligent, 
 virtuous men, who make no professions of remarka- 
 ble experiences, can never be brought to credit the 
 soundness of any religion which does not prove it- 
 self by unquestionable morality. “ Men do not 
 gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles,” 
 Jesus teaches; and all men acknowledge the just- 
 ness of the rule, “ By their fruits ye shall know 
 them.” Professed experiences of grace will never 
 be accepted as substitutes for acts of goodness, by 
 the thoughtful, who judge of Christians from their 
 conduct. Men of irreproachable virtue, who will not 
 subscribe confessions, and who are often styled, re- 
 proachfully, u men of the world,” will never admit 
 the piety which can only declare itself by a mysti- 
 cal faith, instead of positive good works; visitations 
 of grace, instead of an excellent moral character; 
 waters of baptism administered in the church, in- 
 stead of honest dealings in the field, the storehouse, 
 and the street ; acknowledgments of the truth of the 
 Bible, instead of constant regard for truth in men’s 
 own words ; tears streaming from men’s eyes at the 
 sufferings pictured on Calvary, instead of streams of 
 human kindness flowing constantly from charitable 
 hearts. 
 
 Missionaries to foreign lands will still encounter 
 great obstacles, and meet with small success, so long 
 as the actions of those who bear the name of Chris- 
 
RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 45 
 
 tian preach louder than their words. The Heathen, 
 Mohammedan, or Hebrew sees the beam in the 
 Christian’s eye, as easily as he perceives the mote 
 that is in his own eye. They will not plant the Chris- 
 tian’s tree in their garden till they find it productive 
 of better fruit than their own tree. You cannot 
 allure the Heathen to Christianity by promise of a 
 far future heaven, — for his own religion offers him 
 the joys of a heaven as inviting to his eye as any 
 that the Christian can describe. You cannot intim- 
 idate him by terrors of a far future hell, so long as 
 he sees by their conduct that the dread of that hell 
 produces so little good effect upon Christians them- 
 selves. How truly we may mourn, and how earnest- 
 ly strive to remedy, the sad perversion of Christian 
 truth ! The very mission of Jesus, the very design 
 and proper tendency of Christianity, in contradistinc- 
 tion from all systems and superstitions, is to identify 
 pure morality with true religion, — to place duty to 
 man on the same platform with duty to God. Chris- 
 tianity teaches us not to crucify nature and despise 
 the world, but to develop nature and use the world ; 
 not to honor God by dishonoring his works, but to 
 employ his works as agents to his honor ; not to en- 
 hance the splendor of the divine by despising the 
 weakness of the human, but to elevate the human 
 towards the divine; not to worship the Almighty 
 with a servile fear, but to draw man the subject 
 nearer to God the Sovereign, to bring man the child 
 into a closer intimacy with God the Father, — “ God 
 was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself”; 
 not merely to escape the malignity of the Devil in a 
 distant world, but first to exclude by righteousness 
 
46 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 the accusing devil of guilt, which daily seeks a har- 
 bor in our own bosoms ; not to be saved only from 
 the flames and torments of hell in the unseen division 
 of human life, but to be saved first from the hell of 
 fear and suffering which sin and outraged con- 
 science always kindle in a guilty heart; not to win a 
 dreamy rest in sensuous happiness in the yet unseen 
 heaven, but by a patient, generous, and hopeful activ- 
 ity to keep our spirits continually in a heaven of 
 purity and peace, and joy and hope, like an exhaust- 
 less fountain, upward springing towards an everlast- 
 ing life. For so much and so far as it will exist, the 
 hell of that life will grow out of the hell which begins 
 in this life, and the heaven of this life will grow up 
 into the heaven of that now unseen part of the eternal 
 life which is the inalienable heritage of every soul. 
 
DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 GOD HATH NOT GIVEN US THE SPIRIT OT? FEAR, BUT OF 
 POWER, AND OF LOVE, AND OF A SOUND MIND. — 2 Tim- 
 othy i. 7. 
 
 These lucid and significant words of Paul may 
 justly be employed, not only by the Liberal Christians 
 of the times, as descriptive of their own condition, 
 but also as describing a characteristic of this coun- 
 try and this generation. It is true that much of the 
 religion existing around us is founded on the senti- 
 ment of fear. It is not gratitude, not reverence, not 
 the feeling of dependence expressing itself in wor- 
 ship. It is apprehension, or dread of some supposed 
 or possible evil, which is to be deprecated, and if 
 possible averted. 
 
 This remark is not intended as an assertion that 
 most of the external observances of religion are 
 made under the immediate influence of fear. This 
 would imply more direct reflection than is usually 
 given to each personal act. But on a close analysis 
 it will be ascertained, that the original motive of 
 
48 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 many, if not most persons, in acts which are called 
 religious, is an apprehension of some ultimate per- 
 sonal evil to themselves. Yet it is certain that, 
 among nominal Christians generally, the spirit of 
 fear is not predominant, whether as to the future of 
 what is called time^ or the future of what is called 
 eternity. Follow men out into their various voca- 
 tions, into the business of all professions, into the 
 daily and constant occurrences of domestic life, and 
 ascertain if possible how much the element of fear 
 enters into their immediate motives or feelings, 
 prompting them to action or restraining them from 
 action, impelling them to one course or restraining 
 them from another course. You will probably find 
 that fear is the very lowest in the scale of consider- 
 ations by which they are influenced. Fear neither 
 of God, of Satan, of hell, of suffering, or punish- 
 ment of any kind, temporal or eternal, is found to be 
 a powerful, ever-present motive, impelling to or de- 
 terring men from action. In the study of the stu- 
 dent, in the office of the lawyer, in the counting-room 
 or warehouse of the merchant, in the workshop of 
 the artisan, in the store, in the market, or on the 
 street, where is the man who pauses over every act, 
 and every transaction, and asks himself, What 
 evil may this possibly bring upon me, in a future 
 existence after death ? Where is the man who at 
 every act pauses and puts the question to himself, 
 What evil may this possibly bring upon me twenty, 
 ten, or five years after this, here in the present life ? 
 Can you find one such man ? It will scarcely be 
 deemed presumptuous to allege, that among the 
 three-and-twenty millions of this nation there is no 
 
SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 49 
 
 such man. No, — the spirit of fear , whether as to 
 temporal or eternal things, is not the spirit of our 
 people. It is not the characteristic of our age. In 
 this respect some old things have passed away, even 
 if all things have not become new. It is more than 
 probable, that, with a respectable portion of the relig- 
 ious world, the spirit of fear is predominant during 
 the worship hours of the first day of every week. But 
 among those who fear the most, even one day in 
 seven, the pulpit presents Christianity as a scheme 
 of redemption , which serves somewhat as an anodyne 
 to soothe their spirits, and gently and speedily to 
 dissipate their momentary apprehensions. Then 
 every Monday morning, most, if not all, enter upon 
 the routine of ordinary business, with hearts almost 
 free from every shadow of fear which annoyed them 
 for an hour on the previous day. Why is this 
 so ? Perhaps it is because of the increase and 
 prevalence of a spirit of power, of love, and of a 
 sound mind. 
 
 In the course of human progress, man has ac- 
 quired a larger knowledge of his own power, and 
 has a deeper confidence in his own capacities. The 
 discoveries in science by the few have developed the 
 faculties of the many, and man now finds revealed 
 what was always true, though unperceived, — the 
 great law of adaptation in the universe, and the 
 natural tendency of all things to good. Men now 
 perceive, with more or less distinctness, that all which 
 is called evil , is not inherent in things, — is not the 
 natural order of things, but is the result of restrain- 
 ing, perverting, or in some manner departing from 
 the divine order of nature. Even the proudest 
 5 
 
50 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 city of Greece in her most palmy days, with all her art, 
 philosophy, and elegant culture, referred everything 
 to gods, and found gods for everything. When 
 overtaken by calamities, in the spirit of fear they 
 erected an altar to the “ Unknown God.” They 
 seemed to regard each particular evil as the visita- 
 tion of some one of many conflicting deities ; and 
 lest the author of some special visitation should not 
 be numbered in their catalogue of known divini- 
 ties, the propitiatory altar to the unknown deity was 
 supposed to meet the exigency, and avert the divine 
 displeasure. God is not now believed in as a local, 
 national God, arbitrarily blessing one man or one 
 race, and arbitrarily cursing another man or another 
 race. The Deity is now worshipped as the sustain- 
 ing power and life of the universe, leaving man free 
 to bring joy or sorrow to himself by improvement 
 or misimprovement of his powers, yet in boundless 
 wisdom directing all things toward some grander 
 destiny than any now within our actual comprehen- 
 sion. Human knowledge is both more profound and 
 comprehensive now. Probably better than ever be- 
 fore are perceived the true relations of things, ani- 
 mate and inanimate, spiritual and material. The 
 practical application of this knowledge to human 
 wants and comforts indicates clearly the control 
 which man, or mind, may have over the material or 
 visible elements of nature. Man understands better 
 his just pre-eminence in the order of things, and the 
 spirit of love supersedes the spirit of fear, the spirit 
 of power supplants the spirit of superstitious servil- 
 ity. This spirit of power and spirit of Jove are now 
 the spirits in the Church. 
 
SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 51 
 
 Why then, do you inquire, does so much of the 
 external worship or religion of the times find its 
 support in the sentiment of fear ? This Sunday 
 fear is only the homage rendered to the images set 
 up by the instruction of early years, before we enter 
 into the commotion of life around us now, which 
 inculcates and enforces self-reliance, and inspires 
 with the spirit of power. The Church, with its mix- 
 ture of error and of truth, is associated with the 
 purest period of most men’s being, — the period when 
 with unquestioning trust they receive the tenets of 
 a mother’s faith, confirmed by first instructions from 
 the revered lips of teachers and of preachers. The 
 impressions thus made upon the plastic mind are 
 never easily effaced. But the man has developed, 
 while the Church has ceased development. The 
 man makes progress, while the Church regards prog- 
 ress in theology as dangerous, if not impossible. 
 The venerable institution still remains, and by force 
 of habit the footsteps of the early worshipper are 
 directed towards the altar venerated in his youth. 
 Though it has lost its power to instruct him, (I 
 speak of the Church in its popular or sectarian sense,) 
 its services still somewhat soothe and solace, while 
 they touch tenderly some memory of his earliest, 
 his home affections. 
 
 The Protestant churches of this day make a sim- 
 ilar mistake to that under which Rome has labored 
 for fourteen hundred years; namely, the presump- 
 tion, that all truth has been discovered; that religion 
 is and has been fully understood in all its relations, 
 and that the Church, as its organ, is infallible. 
 More than two centuries ago, when at Leyden some 
 
52 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 of our forefathers were about to embark and brave 
 the perils of the sea, that in this Western wilder- 
 ness they might find “ freedom to worship God,” 
 John Robinson, who was their devout and sagacious 
 pastor, gave them, as part of his farewell address, 
 this solemn charge. Said he : “I charge you before 
 God, that if God reveal anything to you by any 
 other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as 
 ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry, 
 for I am verily persuaded God hath more truth yet 
 to break forth from his holy word. For my part, I 
 cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Re- 
 formed churches, which are come to a period in relig- 
 ion, and will go at present no farther than the instru- 
 ments of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot 
 be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw, — what- 
 ever part of his will God revealed to Calvin, they 
 will die rather than embrace it; and the Calvinists, 
 you see, stick fast by that great man of God, who 
 yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to 
 be lamented, for though they were burning and shin- 
 ing lights in their times , yet they penetrated not 
 the whole counsel of God, but, were they now living, 
 would be as willing to embrace further light as that 
 which they at first received. I beseech you remem- 
 ber that it is an article of your church covenant, 
 that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall 
 be made known to you from the written word of 
 God” 
 
 But this sensible charge of a far-seeing mind has 
 long since been forgotten by many of the descend- 
 ants of those who heard it. They have fallen into 
 the error of the early Calvinists and Lutherans, who, 
 
SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 53 
 
 even in the lifetime of their leaders, seriously quar- 
 relled ; and what Robinson said of them may be 
 truly said of the existing churches of Protestantism, 
 — they have come to a period in religion, and will 
 go no farther than the limits prescribed by confes- 
 sions made at least three centuries since. 
 
 No profound reflection is needed to account for 
 the comparatively small influence which the church- 
 es now exert upon the principles and conduct of the 
 great mass of men, both within them and without. 
 The whole secret is, the churches and the times are 
 not in harmony. The churches are standing still, 
 while the world around them is in motion. The 
 world of mind, matter, reason, nature, is agitated, — 
 has disclosed and is disclosing God and man, the 
 life within and the life without, in new relations and 
 new forms. The church is unpractical and unpro- 
 gressive, the times are testing all things by the stand- 
 ard of utility, and compelling all things to advance 
 with them, or to go back and disappear entirely. 
 The old body which has been inhabited by the spirit 
 of fear, though it still remains, is outwardly respect- 
 ed and endured, — not even from remembrance of its 
 past services, but only because of its age and its 
 infirmities. All observing and reflecting minds per- 
 ceive, that if a church would perpetuate itself, if 
 there be a church at all, it must be a vigorous and 
 healthful body, inhabited by a spirit of power, of 
 love, and a sound progressive mind. When a church 
 decays and dies, its cold remains, like other dead 
 bodies, should be decently interred, and not kept to 
 endanger the health and progress of the living. If 
 the burial cost some tears, let them be shed, and let 
 5 * 
 
54 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 the mourners turn again with energy to the serious 
 work of life. 
 
 Of those who from force of habit most regularly at- 
 tend the Sunday ministrations, how many will frankly 
 tell you, that Sunday is the saddest and most unprof- 
 itable day of the seven ! After the driving business 
 and harassing cares of the week, they seek, and they 
 all need, some spiritual ministrations. But they 
 come away from the services of the church, with as- 
 pirations suppressed, rather than increased ; with ar- 
 dor dampened, rather than hope kindled ; with per- 
 plexities doubled, rather than burdens lightened ; with 
 minds confused, rather than doubts dissipated. Not 
 a bright ray has been thrown upon the dark coloring 
 of life, and, wearied with the dulness of the time, they 
 rejoice at the approach of Monday morning, to plunge 
 again into the whirl of their pursuits, and forget the 
 temporary shadows which the gloomy picturings of 
 the pulpit had thrown around them. 
 
 The fall and curse of the whole unborn world of 
 man, — original sin, — the plan of salvation by vica- 
 rious atonement, — the gracious gift of faith through 
 which some are to be profited by that atonement, — 
 the unutterable miseries of the eternally lost, — four 
 fifths of human kind in Pagan darkness, perishing 
 everlastingly for lack of knowledge, — these are the 
 same old strings which have been struck ever since 
 the first dissensions of Lutherans and Calvinists, 
 and they produce as dismal and discordant music 
 to-day, as they did when John Robinson bewailed 
 the condition of the Reformed churches. 
 
 There is as much need of reform and revival now, 
 as when Luther blew that “ blast from the iron 
 
SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 55 
 
 trumpet of his mother tongue, which shook Europe, 
 from Rome to the Orkneys.” Consider the dis- 
 putes which now convulse the churches, — whether 
 one minister or another is in the true succession, — 
 whether the Apostolic line came down through the 
 Church of Rome, or down by another way outside 
 of the Papal realm, — whether baptism is regenera- 
 tion, or only typical of regeneration, — whether a 
 handful of water in the font is sufficient, or whether 
 immersion is essential, — whether certain versions 
 of the Psalms, or certain hymns, should be sung in 
 public worship. Such as these are the topics of 
 discussion in this practical, inquiring, thinking nine- 
 teenth century, — varied with now and then a groan 
 or a tear over the millions of “ perishing souls who 
 have no interest in the blood of Christ.” Without 
 any protest, and as certainly with but little profit, 
 hundreds sit each Sunday and listen to these insipid 
 and interminable controversies. With like indiffer- 
 ence, they listen to denunciations, threatenings, and 
 lamentations over a graceless, God-forsaken, mam- 
 mon-loving world, not included in the pale of the 
 divinely constituted Church, which pulpit authori- 
 ties declare to be the sole agent of eternal salvation. 
 
 As a people, we may truly say of ourselves, as 
 did St. Paul of the early Christians who were re- 
 deemed from servile attachment to Hebrew, Greek, 
 and Roman ritualism, li God has given us, not the 
 spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound 
 mind.” With all the materialism of the times, with 
 all the money-loving characteristics of the acting 
 generation, there has never before been exhibited so 
 much of the power of a spirit of love. 
 
56 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 The thousands who on Sunday listen with appar- 
 ent patience to the clergy who deliberately divide 
 them off into saints and sinners, friends and enemies 
 of God, children of grace and children of wrath, — 
 these same thousands, when they pass without the 
 portals of the church, no longer recognize the author- 
 ity of their pulpit judges. They grasp each others’ 
 hands as cordially, transact business with each other 
 as freely, co-operate in benevolence as frankly, inter- 
 change the courtesies of domestic life as readily, and 
 devise and execute plans for the general prosperity 
 with as much harmony and mutual enjoyment, as if 
 they all repeated the same Shibboleth, — as if all 
 were alike saints and children of grace, — as if all 
 were alike the true sheep of the true Shepherd, des- 
 tined to places on the right hand of the Judge. The 
 actual visible advancement which has been made in 
 developing mind and matter, restraining influences 
 which degrade, and increasing influences which ele- 
 vate, has awakened in the world’s heart a conscious- 
 ness of power. It has made man to feel that he is 
 the rational creature and moral agent of God, and 
 not a corrupt and helpless thing, tossed to and fro 
 between an angry Deity and an angry Devil, as one 
 or the other may chance to gain the mastery in a 
 contest, continued ever since Satan, as Milton de- 
 scribes, “ raised impious war in heaven,” and was 
 
 “ Hurled headlong, flaming from the ethereal sky, 
 
 With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
 To bottomless perdition, there to dwell 
 In adamantine chains and penal fire.” 
 
 The immeasurable influence of a free press, famil- 
 iarizing all with the history and condition of the 
 
SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 57 
 
 races and nations of the earth, discovers to all ob- 
 servers, that whether one is a saint or a sinner, a 
 child of the church or a child of the world, depends 
 not so much upon special providences, supernatural 
 visitations, and gifts of grace, as upon the social 
 agencies which surround and seize upon the young 
 mind and body, training them up in the way they 
 should go, or in the way they should not. 
 
 In catechisms, books, sermons, and Sunday pray- 
 ers, the dogmas of original sin and total depravity 
 of nature may remain — and precious as they are 
 to those who retain them, they are only kept there 
 like the gold, silver, gems, and jewels which sur- 
 round the relics and bones of departed saints in the 
 convents and cathedrals of the Church of Rome — 
 only to be looked at, and believed in, but not to go 
 forth with men, in the spirit of power, to assist and 
 bless them in the practical affairs of life. The fact 
 of the existence of these doctrines, even in the old 
 creeds and the common sermons, is not wholly 
 harmless. They greatly retard, but they cannot 
 stop, the wheels of progress. The actual experience 
 of this energetic day, the social improvements and 
 common interests of the enlightened world, have 
 virtually destroyed the power and deadened the spirit 
 of these fundamental doctrines, framed by speculat- 
 ing and contending human councils, in an almost 
 semi-barbarous age. 
 
 In alleging that man is now, more than ever be- 
 fore, conscious of his real power, — that, as a moral 
 agent, man controls his own destiny, — I do not in- 
 tend to allege that man finds himself omnipotent. 
 Great as is his power, the resistless forces of destruc- 
 
58 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 tive elements, which as yet he has been unable to sub- 
 due, remind him of the limits of his present attain- 
 ments, of his dependence upon a power above him- 
 self, while at the same time it stimulates him to 
 more ceaseless activity in extending the boundaries 
 of his knowledge, in enlarging and confirming his 
 dominion over nature. Man lives and walks amid 
 innumerable mysteries, but at every step some- 
 thing before hidden is revealed to his observing eye, 
 encouraging his efforts and animating his hopes. 
 The contest between love and hatred, truth and 
 error, is not yet ended. With all the instrumental- 
 ities of benevolence, all the monuments of philan- 
 thropy, and all the combined and individual efforts 
 for the redemption of the world from sin and wrong, 
 there is still much ignorance, selfishness, and sad 
 indifference to human happiness and human dig- 
 nity, both in the Church and without the Church. 
 Through many a stout struggle, many a hard-fought 
 contest, truth has yet to pass, before she achieves a 
 final triumph. Long indulged and pampered super- 
 stition will contend as long as her organic life con- 
 tinues, for the “bad eminence” to which she has 
 been raised by spiritual ambition. But the throne of 
 the spirit of fear, has been gained by crafty usurpa- 
 tion, and craft must be conquered, for all injustice is 
 doomed and must perish. 
 
 The relinquishment of any effort for enlargement 
 of human intellect, the elevation of human hopes, 
 and achievement of spiritual freedom, — no matter 
 from what particular or local causes, — cools the en- 
 thusiasm, and shakes the otherwise growing confi- 
 dence of some in the progress of goodness, if not their 
 
SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 59 
 
 faith in divine beneficence itself. The spirit of fear 
 regains temporary ascendency over the spirit of love, 
 of power, and of a sound mind. Cracked-voiced big- 
 otry croaks its exultations, and, pointing back to its 
 inauspicious predictions, sets up its claims as a true 
 prophet divinely inspired. But the spirit of love has 
 a vital energy which can never be extinguished. The 
 seeds which it sows, though chilled by the frosts and 
 buried by the snows of ages, are sure one day to be 
 reached by some animating heat, and germinate and 
 spring forth in beauty to the light. The spirit of fear 
 can never prosper nor maintain its foothold, but by 
 calling to its aid a troop of spirits dismal as itself, like 
 avarice, envy, selfishness, and revenge. But the spirit 
 of love is in itself immortal, possessing an inherent 
 power which cannot be even temporarily subdued, 
 but by a malignant combination of hostile forces. 
 To the spirit of fear the spirit of love never surren- 
 ders in a fair fight. The spirit of fear, though nur- 
 tured in creeds for ages, and exhibited from pulpits 
 at this day, is mortal in its nature, for it is born of 
 error, — it is born of dust, and unto dust it must re- 
 turn. But the spirit of love is immortal and divine. 
 It is the spirit of divinity itself, — for nature re- 
 sponds to the written word, in declaring that “ God 
 is Love.” 
 
 Let no one, therefore, falter for an instant in his 
 faith, but observe the tendencies of the time, the 
 unfolding sympathies between man and man, the 
 melting down of every icy barrier before the warm 
 breath of human brotherhood, and he cannot fail to 
 see that ignorance, superstition, and ecclesiastical 
 authority are declining, withering, fading away, be- 
 
60 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 fore the spirit of power which has been roused into 
 consciousness in millions of bosoms of this enlight- 
 ened generation. 
 
 The activity of the age, the absorbing interests of 
 business, may leave multitudes but little time, and as 
 little inclination, to investigate the respective claims 
 of doctrines, rites, and churches. Many, therefore, 
 may still remain in a degree of servitude to the spirit 
 of fear, through silent assent to the old principle of 
 exclusiveness, of which the preacher is now the only 
 recognized embodiment. For out of the pulpit it 
 has but few representatives, and no champions. 
 The inconsistency between the Sunday worship of 
 such and their week-day practice, they themselves 
 may fail to detect. Nevertheless, that inconsistency 
 continues and increases, till one day they will find 
 that they have been insensibly and gradually un- 
 clasping their spiritual fetters, and now stand clearly 
 out in the fulness of a sound mind, armed with 
 moral power , under the inspiration of a spirit of love. 
 The apparently retrogressive movements in some 
 portions both of Church and State in Christendom, 
 as in England and France, and to some extent in 
 our own country, afford no argument against human 
 progress. These are but scattered and floating 
 clouds, obscuring the brilliance of the sun. The sun 
 of popular intelligence is already too high in the heav- 
 ens for its penetrating rays to be easily averted, or 
 its animating fervor to be easily cooled. 
 
 The mind of the acting and rising generation is 
 in motion, and it is not motion backward, nor mo- 
 tion in a circle, but it is motion onward. As Liberal 
 Christians, it remains for us who are unrestrained by 
 
SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 61 
 
 ecclesiastical dictation, who are under no half-bond- 
 age to early associations of external religion, who 
 are unalarmed by the spiritural terrors of early life, 
 to whom God has given, not the spirit of fear, but 
 the spirit of power and of love, — it remains for us, 
 without the smallest measure of self-complacency, 
 with reasonable and grateful humility, to remember 
 that our responsibilities are commensurate with our 
 advantages. Collectively, we may not be able to 
 accomplish all which the wants of the times appear 
 to demand. Yet each one in his place and at all 
 times can fearlessly and manfully speak the truth in 
 love. By his daily actions, if not by his words, each 
 one may bear testimony to the reality and power of 
 an inward faith, which not only as to an existence 
 beyond death, but as to the triumph of holiness, lib- 
 erty, and love, among men on the earth, “ is the sub- 
 stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen.” 
 
 The spirit of power and spirit of love which mark 
 the energy of the age, represent and enforce the 
 spirit of unity which is the true TJnitarianism ; — that 
 which unites men in heart and action, despite all 
 theoretic or speculative differences ; — that which re- 
 gards all names, rites, forms, and churches as noth- 
 ing in themselves, but as symbolic expressions, visi- 
 ble organs, or modes of declaration, all valuable 
 more or less, as means , as helps, but not as ends , — 
 the ends being integrity of life , a harmonious, intel- 
 ligent, and spiritual growth, to which all expressions, 
 forms, and words must be subservient, — and useful 
 only in proportion as they subserve these ends. Not 
 even forms and ceremonies which subserve these ends 
 6 
 
62 
 
 SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 should be despised. We should address the imagi- 
 nation as well as the understanding, and cultivate 
 taste as well as reason. We must collect and com- 
 bine the dispersed elements of truth, and consolidate 
 them into a substantial faith. Such appears to be 
 the tendency of the times. Such is the felicitous 
 consummation of an approaching period in the 
 world. Whatsoever occasion may appear at times 
 for discouragement to persons and personal exer- 
 tions, there is abundant ground for cheerful and 
 deepening trust in general progress, peaceful unity, 
 and the reign of fraternal love. Some timid souls, 
 wanting confidence in the power of faith to win its 
 way, feeling a new and stronger pulse throbbing in 
 the Church, are alarmed lest it should prove an un- 
 healthy symptom. They seem to fear some feverish 
 phase to which death itself may follow. Instead of 
 faith, this shows a sad distrust of the religion they 
 profess, — a want of confidence in God himself. 
 Some spirits in the Church are busy enough to re- 
 pair the breaches in the old walls by which the flocks 
 have been fenced in. But their zeal is unavailing, 
 for every moving train of steam-cars shakes down 
 as much brick and mortar as the Sunday preaching 
 builds. Every flash along ten thousand electric 
 wires rejoins and mends the threads of human sym- 
 pathy, as rapidly as ten thousand pulpits can con- 
 sume and separate them. 
 
 The tree of human brotherhood, which Jesus trans- 
 planted from its narrow nursery in Palestine into 
 the unfenced garden of the world, — though by 
 mistaken husbandmen it has been tied down and 
 dwarfed, and the dew and sunshine shut out by ec- 
 
SPIRITS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 63 
 
 clesiastic coverings, — has still been growing, and 
 has now reached a growth so stately, that it cannot 
 be inclosed in the hot-house of a narrow church. Its 
 roots have deepened, and its trunk has strengthened, 
 and its boughs expanded, till it rejoices in the light 
 and heat and showers of heaven itself; sweet birds 
 are singing in its foliage, and men of every name 
 are gathering in its grateful shade, and beginning to 
 enjoy its delicious, unfailing, and immortal fruits. 
 
DISCOURSE V. 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. — ADAM AND HIS POSTERITY. — THE 
 DOCTRINE OF THE COVENANT WITH ADAM. 
 
 WHY EVEN OF YOURSELVES JUDGE YE NOT WHAT IS 
 right ? — Luke xii. 57. 
 
 Probably no one concise embodiment of doc- 
 trines is so well known, or read and remembered 
 by so large a number of both children and men, 
 as the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The 16th 
 question in that Catechism is, “ Did all mankind 
 fall in Adam’s first transgression ? ” The answer is, 
 “ The covenant being made with Adam, not only 
 for himself but for his posterity, all mankind de- 
 scending from him by ordinary generation sinned 
 in him, and fell with him in his first transgression.” 
 “ The covenant,” — these words suggest the first 
 inquiry. What evidence is there of any covenant 
 having been made with Adam ? A covenant is an 
 agreement, a contract, or bargain, between two par- 
 ties, who mutually pledge themselves to certain 
 conditions. Now what does the Genesis account 
 represent as having passed between Adam and his 
 
THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 65 
 
 maker ? In chap. ii. ver. 15, it is said : “ The Lord 
 God took the man, and put him into the garden of 
 Eden, to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God 
 commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the 
 garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree of 
 knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat 
 of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
 surely die.” This is the only language in this whole 
 account which can be made even a pretext for 
 this theory of a covenant. And every word in it is 
 at variance with every idea of a covenant. Instead 
 of an agreement between two parties, there is an 
 imperative command given in the most authoritative 
 manner by one party, without even a promise of obe- 
 dience by the other party. For anything the account 
 gives us to the contrary, Adam may, at the very 
 moment of hearing this command, have resolved to 
 exercise his own choice as to whether he would 
 obey or disobey. There is not a single instance, in 
 the whole Old or New Testament, where the term 
 covenant is used with reference to anything that oc- 
 curred at the creation, or this account of the crea- 
 tion or formation of man. And yet, as if expressly to 
 contradict this account and all that is said in Scrip- 
 ture on the subject, the 12th question of the West- 
 minster Catechism is, “ What special act of prov- 
 idence did God exercise toward man in the estate 
 wherein he was created ? ” The answer is, “ When 
 God had created man, he entered into a covenant of 
 life with him, upon conditions of perfect obedience ; 
 forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge of 
 good and evil upon the pain of death.” But there is 
 not a syllable of any such covenant, on any such 
 6 * 
 
66 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 condition, in the Bible ; only a positive command on 
 the part of God, implying capacity to obey or dis- 
 obey on the part of man. 
 
 “ The covenant being made not only for himself, 
 but for his posterity ,” says the Catechism. This 
 suggests the next inquiry. What is said about Ad- 
 am’s posterity in the Genesis account? You have 
 seen that, in the passage we have read, there is no 
 allusion whatever to posterity. “ Thou shalt not 
 eat,” — “ in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
 surely die,” — is the emphatic language, without al- 
 lusion to any other being than this man himself, — 
 not even to his wife ; and according to the account 
 it was after this — how many years after is not 
 stated — that the woman was formed from part of 
 this man’s body. 
 
 But perhaps you may suppose them to have been 
 directly referred to in what is called the curse, after 
 Adam had sinned. All that is represented to have 
 passed between God and Adam on that occasion is 
 stated in the next chapter in these words : “ Unto 
 Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto 
 the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of 
 which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat 
 of it, — cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow 
 shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life ; thorns 
 also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and 
 thou shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto 
 the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken ; for dust 
 thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” This is 
 all that God is represented as having declared to 
 Adam on that occasion, and you perceive that there 
 
THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 67 
 
 is not the remotest allusion to posterity ; and as to 
 anything that is said to have occurred between God 
 and Adam, the whole idea of posterity, good or 
 bad, is a gratuitous assumption. To the woman 
 God is represented as declaring that she should 
 become the mother of children, without a word 
 descriptive of the nature or character of the children, 
 whether good or bad, sinful or sinless. So obvious is 
 the utter groundlessness of this theory, as far as 
 Scripture is concerned. 
 
 But still further says the Catechism, 11 All man- 
 kind sinned in him, and fell with him in his first 
 transgression.” That is, all mankind sinned and 
 fell before a single human being had been born. 
 Deplorable condition of us all ! Every one of us 
 was guilty of sin, six thousand years ago. If we 
 were capable of guilt and sin so many centuries be- 
 fore we had existence, how melancholy are our 
 prospects now! infirm mortals, living here amidst 
 so many wrongs, temptations, and evil influences. 
 But not to insist upon Scriptural authority for this 
 doctrine, suppose a covenant had been made (ac- 
 cording to the creed) between God and Adam, is 
 it supposable for an instant that God would im- 
 pose such conditions? would make the guilt or 
 innocence, the ceaseless happiness or eternal sin 
 and pain and misery, of all the countless millions of 
 human beings that have lived, and do live, and may 
 yet live, depend on one act of one man, who is 
 said to have been so ignorant as not to know the 
 difference between good or evil, — one act of one 
 man, who was so weak as to be unable to resist what 
 was, as far as we know, the very first temptation 
 
68 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 that was offered to him ? Is it at all conceivable, 
 that heaven with all imaginable bliss, or hell with all 
 possible horrors, — peace, joy, and felicities eternal, 
 or wrath, agony, fire, and burnings everlasting, — to 
 Noah, Abraham, and Moses, John, Peter, and Paul, 
 and every human being besides, were suspended on 
 that one act of that one weak man ? This theory 
 reverses the whole order of nature and justice. If 
 there be any transfer of guilt at all, Adam should be 
 held responsible for every sin that we commit, and 
 the guilt of all of us, past, present, and to come, 
 should be heaped upon his devoted head, to weigh 
 down his dark, suffering soul through an eternity 
 of eternities. This could be only sufficient punish- 
 ment for presuming to enter into such a covenant, 
 and consenting to such conditions ; for of course 
 it could be no covenant, if he did not voluntarily 
 agree to the terms. If he were forced to stand 
 in that position, then it was no covenant, but an 
 act of omnipotent tyranny. If the supernal powers 
 saw Adam forced into that awful attitude, then 
 we could not wonder that, as Milton in his poetic 
 frenzy represents, Satan and his friendly hosts should 
 rebel against such monstrous oppression, but rather 
 we might wonder that a single angel, archangel, 
 cherub, or seraph should be content to remain in 
 heaven. We should wonder rather that they 
 should not all plunge down together with the 
 arch-fiend, with him exclaiming : — 
 
 “ Here at least 
 
 We shall be free : the Almighty hath not built 
 Here for his envy ; will not drive us hence ; 
 
 Here may we reign secure, and in our choice, 
 
 To reign is worth ambition, though in hell. 
 
 Better to reign in hell, than serve in [such a] heaven.” 
 
THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 69 
 
 But stop, says one; you are forgetting Paul; he 
 says (1 Cor. xv. 22), “ As in Adam all die, even so in 
 Christ shall all be made alive.” Yes, but be less hasty 
 in your reading, friend. Paul does not say, “ As 
 in Adam all sinned, even so in Christ shall all be 
 delivered from the effects of sin.” There is no allu- 
 sion in the passage to Adam’s sin, or any other 
 person’s sin. Still you say, u In Adam all die.” 
 True, but still you read too rapidly. Paul does not 
 say that “ in Adam all died,” — all did die, — but “ as 
 in Adam all die ” ; he speaks in the present tense. 
 Certainly if all men had died in Adam, no one 
 would be living now ; and had we all died six thou- 
 sand years ago in Adam, it would have relieved us 
 all of life’s vexations, for then we should never have 
 had existence. Besides, you must be careful not to 
 bring Paul into conflict with the other Scripture 
 writers, who tell us that both Enoch and Elijah 
 were translated, or removed from this world with- 
 out the agency of death. 
 
 Since the passage does not signify what you sup- 
 posed, what does it mean ? you ask. The passage 
 is one of many, which, like Jesus himself, have been 
 falsely accused, and nailed to the cross of theological 
 systems, and made to suffer exceedingly. It is sim- 
 ply a sentence used as a rhetorical illustration, in the 
 midst of an argument in support of existence after 
 what we call death. The preposition in being changed 
 to with , which it should be, the passage is clear 
 enough. Paul, being a Jew, goes back to the Jewish 
 writings for his illustration, and he says, “ As with — 
 in like manner with — Adam all men now die, even 
 so — in like manner — with the Christ shall all be 
 
70 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 made alive.” There is no reference to the condition 
 of the life, whether good or bad, happy or unhappy. 
 
 But then again do you remind me that Paul says, 
 “ By one man’s disobedience many were made sin- 
 ners , so by the obedience of one shall many be 
 made righteous.” Precisely so ; — but by the dis- 
 obedience of the one man to whom he refers, Paul 
 does not tell us how many were made sinners, he 
 only says many. And it is as true to-day as it was 
 when Paul wrote it, that the evil influence of one 
 man’s bad example is not easily limited, and who of 
 us has not had fall upon him the poisonous shadow 
 of some other one’s bad habits? Those who follow 
 the example of that one man, Adam, may rely upon 
 their becoming sinners ; and those who imitate that 
 other one, Jesus, may by righteous deeds become 
 conquerors over sin. But they who ^have never 
 heard of Adam, if they become sinners it cannot be 
 through his example ; and they who have never 
 heard of Jesus, however righteous they become, 
 must be unaided by the light of his example. 
 
 Still you say, God brought destruction on the 
 world because he “ saw that the wickedness of man 
 was great, and every imagination of his heart was 
 only evil continually.” In reply, I ask, are you to 
 interpret this, so as to make Moses contradict his 
 emphatic and unqualified declaration (Gen. vi. 9), 
 “ Noah was a just man and perfect in his genera- 
 tions, and Noah walked with God ” ? 
 
 David in his shame and grief exclaims concern- 
 ing himself, that he was “ conceived in sin and 
 brought forth in iniquity.” But because David 
 under a sense of personal guilt and self-abasement 
 
THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 71 
 
 spoke thus, — David, who had been even till manhood 
 one of remarkable purity and excellence, but with 
 his accession to power had become so perverted, that 
 he had grossly invaded the sacred sanctuary of domes- 
 tic virtue, and to his dark passions added the crime 
 of murder, till his hands bore “ smell of blood that all 
 the perfumes of Arabia would not sweeten,” — it 
 cannot be argued from his exclamations that he 
 either asserted or believed that every human being 
 “ is conceived in sin and bom in iniquity.” Because 
 he thought his own heart to be u deceitful above all 
 things and desperately wicked,” we are not to con- 
 tend, directly against our personal observation and 
 experience, that all hearts are, or that David thought 
 or intended to allege that all hearts are, naturally 
 deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. 
 If this were true of David’s heart, there is no good 
 evidence that it has been true of any other human 
 heart, either before or since the time of David. When 
 it is said, “ There is none that doeth good, no, not one,” 
 — you cannot understand it so as to contradict the 
 established facts of the world’s history, — facts which 
 show that the most depraved and cruel being that 
 ever lived has done some good, — you cannot so in- 
 terpret such general exclamations of David, as to 
 contradict the distinct declaration of Luke (i. 6), that 
 Zacharias and Elizabeth “were both righteous be- 
 fore God, walking in all the commandments and 
 ordinances of the Lord, blameless.” And Zacharias 
 and Elizabeth were not Christians either, but Jews. 
 They had no Westminster Confession and Cate- 
 chism, — they had no Thirty-nine Articles. They had 
 never dreamed or heard of total depravity, vicarious 
 
72 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 atonement, or any one of the doctrines or external 
 rites now regarded by so many as absolutely essen- 
 tial to salvation. Yet u they were both righteous 
 before God, walking in all the commandments 
 and ordinances of the Lord, blameless.” 
 
 The 26th question of the Larger Catechism says, 
 “ Original sin is conveyed from our first parents 
 unto their posterity by natural generation, so as all 
 that proceed from them in that way are conceived 
 and born in sin.” The answer to the next question 
 says, “ The fall brought upon mankind the loss of 
 communion with God, his displeasure and curse ; 
 so we are by nature children of wrath, bond-slaves 
 of Satan, and justly liable to all punishment in this 
 world, and that which is to come.” 
 
 As a fair offset to this, read this explicit language 
 of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel (xviii. 20): “ The son 
 shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall 
 the father bear the iniquity of the son ; the right- 
 eousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and 
 the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” 
 Now you may judge between the inventors of the 
 Westminster Catechism, and the prophet Ezekiel. 
 With which lies the weight of reason and authority? 
 
 But permit me to remind you, in quoting this 
 assertion that “ Original sin is conveyed from our 
 first parents unto their posterity by natural genera- 
 tion, — that we are conceived and born in sin, and 
 by nature bond-slaves to Satan,” — that it is not 
 the language of an effete and obsolete creed. Not 
 by any means. It is the creed of the whole Presby- 
 terian Church, Old and New School, of the Unit- 
 ed States, numbering thousands of the respectable 
 
THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 73 
 
 men and women of every State in the Union, — a 
 creed in which every minister, ruling elder, or 
 deacon of the Presbyterian Church is required, be- 
 fore ordination, to express his belief. This is 
 therefore the doctrine believed and taught by every 
 honest minister and elder (and we must suppose 
 them all sincere) in the Church. 
 
 But this is not all. I give you another section of 
 this same Confession now believed. I do not know 
 how many members of that Church — all of whom 
 are expected to know and believe, — I do not know 
 how many have read this, or how many who have 
 read it actually believe it. (Chap. X. sect. 3.) “ Elect 
 infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved 
 by Christ, through the Spirit, who worketh when, 
 and where, and how he pleaseth. So also are all 
 other elect persons, who are incapable of being 
 outwardly called by the ministry of the word.” 
 Then sect. 4 says : “ Others not elected, although 
 they may be called by the ministry of the word, and 
 may have some common operations of the Spirit, 
 yet they never truly come to Christ, and cannot 
 therefore be saved.” How many intelligent men 
 and women really know, from personal examination, 
 in what doctrines they are professing their faith, 
 when they subscribe to this Confession, by becom- 
 ing members of that Church ? 
 
 Here let me recall to your minds a passage from 
 the creed of the Andover Theological Seminary, 
 a creed which, by the terms of the founder of the 
 institution, every Professor in it is required ev- 
 ery five years to declare on oath that he believes. 
 The passage is this : — “ That Adam, the federal 
 7 
 
74 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 head and representative of the human race, was 
 placed in a state of probation, and that in conse- 
 quence of his disobedience all his descendants were 
 constituted sinners ; that by nature every man is per- 
 sonally depraved, destitute of holiness, unlike and 
 opposed to God, and that, previously to the renew- 
 ing agency of the Divine Spirit, all his moral actions 
 are adverse to the character and glory of God ; that 
 being morally incapable of recovering the lost image 
 of his Creator which was lost in Adam, every man 
 is justly exposed to eternal damnation.” This is 
 the creed which the Professors are bound by an oath, 
 renewed every five years, to believe and teach in a 
 Theological Seminary, which probably sends out 
 annually over the United States more ministers 
 than any other institution, except perhaps Prince- 
 ton. 
 
 We have now examined this common doctrine of 
 the covenant with Adam. We have found that 
 the account in Genesis, so far from declaring a 
 covenant made between Adam and God, says not 
 one word about a covenant between God and Adam, 
 or between Adam and any other being ; but simply 
 gives a command on the part of God, implying in 
 Adam the capacity to obey or disobey that com- 
 mand. Still further, we find that Adam, so far from 
 making a covenant not only for himself, but for his 
 posterity, had no posterity till after his sin, and that, 
 in all the consequences declared to follow upon 
 his sin, no posterity are in any way alluded to. 
 And we see, moreover, that the assertion that all 
 mankind sinned in him, and fell with him in his 
 first transgression, is untrue in fact, absurd in rea- 
 
THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 75 
 
 son, and impossible in the very nature of things. 
 No being could sin and fall, act and incur guilt be- 
 fore he is born ; and especially we at this day, six 
 thousand years at least from Adam, could not, so 
 long before we had existence, act and incur re- 
 sponsibility, and sin and become guilty. 
 
 Moreover, we see that, even on the supposition 
 that Adam had made a covenant involving all man- 
 kind in evil, it is reversing the whole order of nature, 
 propriety, and justice, for his descendants to be 
 deemed guilty for the evil he entailed upon them ; 
 for justice would require that he should bear the 
 guilt of all mankind, instead of mankind becoming 
 guilty for his sin ; that it would be as unjust and 
 cruel in God to punish all mankind for the acts and 
 guilt of Adam, as to punish Jesus for the acts and 
 guilt of all mankind. And we see that the partic- 
 ular passages from Paul’s writings, and the other 
 parts of Scripture, to prove this doctrine of all men 
 becoming sinners by the act or by the covenant of 
 one man, cannot be so interpreted without bringing 
 those passages into direct contradiction of other 
 passages of Scripture, which inform us in the clear- 
 est manner that Noah was just before God and per- 
 fect in his generation, that Enoch walked with God 
 and had this testimony that he pleased God, that 
 Zacharias and Elizabeth were righteous before God, 
 walking in all the commandments of the Lord 
 blameless, and that Nathanael was an Israelite with- 
 out guile; and because such an interpretation ex- 
 pressly contradicts the teaching of Jesus concerning 
 children, “ Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” 
 
 Moreover, we perceive that the common supposi- 
 
76 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 tion, that labor was a punishment or curse on Adam 
 for his sin, is utterly unfounded, positively contradict- 
 ed ; for long before, we know not how long before, his 
 sin, before the woman was formed, at his creation, it 
 is distinctly stated, he was placed in the garden to 
 dress it and keep it. So that labor was with Adam, 
 as it is with us, one of the ends of his existence, 
 the condition of his support and improvement, — 
 not a curse, but a blessing. 
 
 And we also see, that natural death was not a 
 curse or punishment on Adam for his sin, but, like 
 labor, was one of the conditions of his being. In 
 declaring that he should eat his bread by the sweat 
 of his face, till he should return to the ground from, 
 which he was taken, it is clearly implied, that he 
 would under any circumstances have restored his 
 body to the ground. The reason of his bodily death 
 is explicitly given, “ because dust thou art, and unto 
 dust thou shalt return.” Moreover, had it been a 
 curse, there is not a syllable to warrant the applica- 
 tion to any other than Adam himself; for all that is 
 said, is said to Adam alone, without reference to pos- 
 terity, and without reference even to Eve, his wife. 
 It is unnecessary, or I might furnish you a catalogue 
 of names of the most eminent scientific clergymen of 
 every denomination, Roman Catholic and Protes- 
 tant, who now repudiate the idea of death being a 
 curse on animals and men, because of Adam’s sin. 
 As these same men clearly show, the statements 
 of the Bible agree perfectly with the volume of 
 nature, in declaring by the strata of matter which 
 compose the earth, that millions of animals lived 
 and died ages before Adam had existence*, that 
 
THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 77 
 
 the very dust composing Adam’s body had probably 
 undergone a thousand transformations, and com- 
 posed the body of many an animal during the pre- 
 ceding ages; and that natural death, so far from 
 being a curse, a king of terrors, is a blessing, a heav- 
 enly messenger, disenthralling the soul from its ma- 
 terial tenement, from a decaying encumbrance, that 
 the freed spirit may rise to a spiritual, ever progress- 
 ing, immortal life. 
 
 Now, friends, I again urge you, with all the ear- 
 nestness of my soul, to submit these questions to 
 the most thorough examination. Prevailing systems 
 of doctrines concerning the nature of God, and con- 
 cerning human nature, are not founded on the ex- 
 plicit language of the Bible ; but on old and barba- 
 rous traditions, which have been brought by Chris- 
 tians from the several religions to which they origi- 
 nally belonged, and from which they were convert- 
 ed to Christianity. On this unscriptural theory of 
 the fall of all men, the guilt of all men, in and with 
 Adam, are based the doctrines of total depravity, 
 and of arbitrary election, and of vicarious atone- 
 ment. It is the corner-stone of the prevailing the- 
 ology. It is the fountain of evil from which have 
 been flowing streams of error, for century after cen- 
 tury, over the Christian world. 
 
 Certainly, if for a thousand years before the day 
 of Luther the whole Christian Church was immersed 
 in degrading superstition and vice scarcely supe- 
 rior to the darkest darkness of Paganism, — and he 
 then brought truth and virtue and righteousness 
 into a clearer light, — surely it is time now that we 
 all, in the determined spirit of Luther, should bring 
 7 * 
 
78 
 
 THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 truth into a still clearer light, and decide on the au- 
 thority or the groundlessness of this doctrine of the 
 origin of sin, — this doctrine of man’s guilt before 
 he is born, — which is now deemed a fundamental 
 doctrine. As much now as in the time of Luther is 
 needed an effectual shaking among the dry bones of 
 a theology, which has been framed and re-framed, 
 by councils of violent and angry church disputants, 
 to suit the times in which it was formed, but 
 which is unsupported by any rational interpretation 
 of the Bible, and refuted by the consciousness of 
 every intelligent being. It is full time, that reason 
 and science and history and experience should be 
 considered in the interpretation of Scripture lan- 
 guage, and that atheism and infidelity should not 
 for ever be permitted to point the finger of scorn at 
 the Bible, as a boot which they allege controverts 
 nature, and cannot therefore be from nature’s God, 
 for God never contradicts himself. Scripture and 
 nature harmonize completely, when reasonably com- 
 pared, and it is time this should be fully verified, 
 and men delivered from the bondage of distrust and 
 fear. But no, no, say churches and theologians ; 
 you sinned in Adam before you were born, sixty 
 centuries ago; your nature is corrupt; your reason 
 is depraved ; history is false, and experience is falla- 
 cious. 
 
 Yes, this is the tyranny this revolting doctrine 
 is practising on the world. It robs you of your di- 
 vine dignity, deprives you of the exerpise of reason, 
 and then dooms you to woe for your misfortune. 
 You seek for knowledge, and light, and truth ; but 
 it tells you that you are spiritually, naturally blind, 
 
THE FIRST SIN. 
 
 79 
 
 and could not know the truth if found by you ; that 
 your conscience cheats you, and your experience de- 
 ceives you, and you are a helpless, miserable wretch, 
 and you must submit yourself to the guidance of 
 the church, and obey the preacher who has been illu- 
 minated by the special grace of God. Be men , 
 worthy of your divine lineage , throw off the spirit- 
 ual yoke, and stand forth in the unobstructed sun- 
 light of divine love, communing freely with your 
 Father and your God. Obey the injunction of Jesus 
 himself \ “ Why even of yourselves judge ye not what 
 is right ? ” 
 
DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE COMMON DOC- 
 TRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 
 
 Men sometimes possess pictures, which they re- 
 gard as correct likenesses and admirable specimens 
 of art ; but they are suspended in drawing-rooms, 
 and are rarely looked at and seldom thought of, ex- 
 cept when some guest presumes to criticise, and 
 doubt their correctness and question the good taste 
 of their possessors. Men possess books, which per- 
 haps they once read, approve, and place upon their 
 shelves, to rest quietly in their owner’s library, unob- 
 served and perhaps unremembered, till- some visitor 
 and reader presumes to call in question the philos- 
 ophy of the book which has at one time received the 
 approbation of its owner. It is the same with sys- 
 tems of religious doctrines. Some men receive a 
 doctrine or a system of doctrines, perhaps submit it 
 to a cursory examination, perhaps to no examina- 
 tion, but receive it implicitly on the authority of 
 friends or teachers, approve it as no doubt logical 
 and Scriptural, and, having thus decided on a relig- 
 ious faith, go undisturbed about their ordinary pur- 
 
THE VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 
 
 81 
 
 suits, — their doctrines, their religion, remaining qui- 
 etly at home with the picture in the drawing-room or 
 the volume in the library, — the possessors of this 
 religious faith being governed in all the pursuits of 
 life by the laws, and rules, and usages, and influ- 
 ences, which control society. But scarcely any relig- 
 ious doctrine is entirely a dead letter, however great- 
 ly modified in its tendency by social influences. Of 
 the prevailing system of doctrines, no one is more 
 universally or frequently enforced, nor is there any 
 one more objectionable in its practical tendencies, 
 than the doctrine of vicarious atonement, in its va- 
 rious phases or theories of redemption, substitution, 
 and satisfaction. 
 
 First, it is objectionable because it tends to con- 
 fuse our minds, and degrade our conception of the 
 Supreme Deity. It represents one part of the God- 
 head as sacrificing or atoping to another. The 
 wrath of the Father is appeased, his justice satis- 
 fied ; but to the Son and Holy Spirit no satisfaction 
 has been made. And no atonement has been made 
 to God, for all of them make God ; one part has 
 made atonement to another, while a third part 
 neither gives nor receives satisfaction. One theory 
 degrades God by making him a mere combatant 
 of the Devil, who is represented as one of his own 
 creatures, who is contesting with the Almighty 
 the government of the universe ; and in the end, it 
 is to be difficult to know who is lord or victor, for 
 the enemy of God, notwithstanding all God’s plans 
 of salvation, is to be the eternal master of the great- 
 er part of God’s human creation. Another theory 
 degrades God by representing him as vindictive, 
 
82 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE 
 
 and inexorable, toward man ; that he has pro- 
 nounced a sentence against all mankind, and in his 
 vengeance is determined it shall be executed, unless 
 an equivalent is offered to him, and his anger is 
 bought off by a price. I may ask here, as has been 
 asked before, “ What real economy is there in the 
 transaction ? What is effected, save the transfer of 
 penal evil from the guilty to the innocent? If the 
 great Redeemer, in the excess of his goodness, con- 
 sents, freely offers himself to the Father, or to God, 
 to receive the penal woes of the world in his own 
 person, what does it signify, when that offer is ac- 
 cepted, but that God will have his modicum of suf- 
 fering somehow, if he lets the guilty go, — will yet 
 satisfy himself out of the innocent ? In which [pro- 
 ceeding] the divine government, instead of clearing 
 itself, assumes the double ignominy, first, of letting 
 the guilty go, and secondly, of accepting the suffer- 
 ings of innocence ! ” (Bushnell.) The practical 
 tendency of this degrading view of God is apparent, 
 now, in the preaching and worship of the churches. 
 Christian worshippers offer to God the worship of 
 fear, but to Jesus the worship of love. They seem 
 to shudder at approaching God as approaching an 
 enemy, while they seem with confidence to seek for 
 Jesus, as a friend. They worship God as an awful, 
 inexorable Sovereign, while they pray to Jesus as a 
 kind Mediator, a tender intercessor, interposing be- 
 tween human frailty and divine anger ; and not con- 
 tent with this, the majority of the Christian world, 
 at this hour, pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as 
 the Mother of God, to exercise her maternal influ- 
 ence, and avert the vengeance of her Son. Enter 
 
COMMON DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 83 
 
 the churches called Episcopal, everywhere, and when, 
 in repetition of the creed, the name of Jesus is ut- 
 tered, every head is bent in grateful homage, while * 
 not a muscle is moved at the august name of “ God 
 the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” 
 Such is the degraded conception of God which this 
 doctrine occasions in the minds of worshippers. 
 
 But further, the common doctrine of vicarious 
 atonement is objectionable, because of its immoral 
 tendency, in confusing all our ideas of justice , and 
 degrading the justice of God below the justice of 
 man. For no human government now existing 
 could act upon the principle involved in the doc- 
 trine of vicarious atonement, and exist for a single 
 month. Human governments on this theory are 
 stricter in their justice than the Divine government, 
 for they neither demand, nor will accept, the penalty 
 of the law from any other than the guilty person, 
 the offender. Let us see how this vicarious justice 
 would operate under human governments. The fifty 
 men who were so summarily despatched at Havana 
 were taken under circumstances which, to say the 
 least, might lead the Cubans to suspect hostile de- 
 signs on the part of these men. With some show 
 of justice, having tried and found them guilty, sen- 
 tence of death was pronounced. But instead of 
 executing these men, suppose the government had 
 said, We will acquit these men, provided we can ob- 
 tain a substitute of sufficient dignity to suffer and 
 satisfy the demands of our law. Suppose the Gov- 
 ernors of Louisiana and Florida to have been pres- 
 ent to intercede for the prisoners, and the government 
 should propose to accept them as substitutes for the 
 
84 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE 
 
 fifty prisoners, and as a last resort they generously 
 agree, and on these conditions the prisoners are dis- 
 charged, and the two Governors are taken out on 
 the public square and executed. Much as the world 
 might have admired the generous heroism of the 
 Governors, what would the world have said of this 
 act of the Cuban government? That it was fair 
 and just? Would not an exclamation of horror 
 have burst from every civilized nation of the globe 
 at this act of monstrous inhumanity ? Could any 
 human power have prevented thousands from rising, 
 in their irrepressible indignation, and with a stroke 
 sweeping that government from the face of earth ? 
 When during the Revolutionary contest Major Andre 
 was arrested as a spy, military justice pronounced on 
 him sentence of death. But suppose that, instead of 
 executing the sentence, Washington had accepted 
 General Lafayette as a substitute, and, discharging 
 Andre who had been pronounced guilty, had hung 
 Lafayette by the neck until he was dead. Would 
 this have been considered satisfying justice ? Would 
 not every soldier in the army have cursed Washing- 
 ton, as a monster of cruelty? Would they not at 
 once have unanimously deposed him from his com- 
 mand, and, instead of living for ever as the father of 
 his country, would not the name of Washington 
 have lived only in company with those of Nero and 
 Caligula, to have received the execrations of succes- 
 sive generations ? It is but a few months since two 
 negroes were legally tried in this city for the crime 
 of murder. The legal justice of the State pronounced - 
 them guilty. But instead of executing the sentence 
 of the law, suppose the Governor of Tennessee had 
 
COMMON DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 85 
 
 proposed to discharge the criminals, provided the 
 honorable chief magistrate of Nashville should suf- 
 fer the penalty pronounced on them ; and he, accept- 
 ing the proposal, had been executed on the gallows, 
 and the criminals released. Would this have been 
 regarded as satisfying' justice ? Or would not the 
 Governor, instead of retiring with distinguished hon- 
 or, have been driven in disgrace before the unani- 
 mous indignation of an outraged people ? Yet this 
 appalling cruelty in man is what this doctrine calls 
 satisfying the justice of God. And thus is the im- 
 mutable attribute of Deity changed from a ground 
 of human confidence into a cause of human terror. 
 For what human being can repose confidence in the 
 perfect justice of God, when the only idea he can 
 entertain of the justice of God is one of the most re- 
 volting cruelty? For the government of this State to 
 act on this idea of justice, and to be obedient to the 
 injunction of Jesus, “Be ye perfect even as your 
 Father in heaven is perfect,” the Governor should 
 persuade the wisest and purest among the dignita- 
 ries of the Commonwealth to satisfy the demands 
 of justice , endure the penalty pronounced against the 
 criminals of the state-prison, while they should be 
 released from confinement and discharged from obli- 
 gation. 
 
 But this doctrine of atonement is further objec- 
 tionable, because of its immoral tendency to foster 
 the spirit of dissension and of ivar. Jesus is styled 
 the Prince of Peace ; Christianity is called the re- 
 ligion of peace, and its chief design, it is declared, 
 is to bring peace on earth and to produce good-will 
 among men. But it is doubtful whether any relig- 
 8 
 
86 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE 
 
 ion that ever blessed or cursed the world has caused 
 more blood to flow by persecutions among its own 
 devotees, than what has called itself Christianity. 
 And this cruel, bloodthirsty, vindictive, and unfor- 
 giving spirit, among the professed believers of Chris- 
 tianity, in direct contradiction to the plainest teach- 
 ings of Jesus, is fairly attributable in a great degree 
 to this doctrine of vicarious atonement, — inexorable 
 divine vengeance demanding satisfaction, determined 
 to have blood, if not of the guilty, then the shed 
 blood of innocence. Can human beings be expect- 
 ed to be less resentful, more forgiving, than their 
 God ? If God will have his modicum of suffering, 
 if God will have his “ pound of flesh,” somehow, 
 from one or from another, from the wicked or the 
 righteous, then is it not unreasonable in the highest 
 degree to expect, feeble, irritable, passionate man to 
 love his enemies, and bless them that persecute him, 
 and do good to them that hate him? Surely, this is 
 expecting man to be superior to his Maker. A doc- 
 trine which makes God a Shylock, cannot expect 
 man to be an angel. 
 
 This hour, there are probably in the world called 
 Christian more weapons of death, more instruments 
 expressly invented and fabricated for the destruction 
 of human life, than in all the Mahometan and Pagan 
 world besides. And we have only to read the pages 
 of 'ecclesiastical history, to read the heart-rending 
 history of Christian men, and women and their chil- 
 dren, slaughtered by tens of thousands by Christian 
 men, because of a difference of opinion in the inter- 
 pretation of some words of this book called the Bi- 
 ble. It is not long since men were condemned and 
 
COMMON DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 87 
 
 burned ; but now and here our laws protect us from 
 the fire and sword. Still, what the laws permit 
 to be done is done, and here in this community, 
 within a few weeks, a minister and half a dozen 
 men constitute themselves a church tribunal, and 
 arraign one of their neighbors, a man of irreproach- 
 able character, refuse him the privilege which he re- 
 quests of silently withdrawing from their worship, 
 and, acknowledging that they find no fault in him, 
 brand him with what they regard as the reproach 
 of heresy, and suspend him, and threaten to ex- 
 communicate him, unless he retract, and change 
 his opinions ; his only sin being that he interprets 
 some language of Scripture differently from them. 
 It is thus that men, imitating their God, exact their 
 atonement and satisfy their justice. Thus man, 
 
 “ Dressed in a little brief authority, 
 
 Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven 
 As make the angels weep.” 
 
 Thus men assume the office of champions of God ; 
 and thinking his honor intrusted to their custody, 
 they feel authorized to fight God’s battles, and sub- 
 due his enemies. 
 
 One of the most eminent living clergymen of this 
 country declares that “ the great end of God is 
 war and conquest. The incarnate God is not chiefly 
 an educator, but a warrior. There is a God, and a 
 king and a kingdom to be destroyed, and he is the 
 great destroyer.” Such ministers may pray for a 
 reign of love and charity and peace ; but it is crying 
 Peace! peace! when there is no peace, and can be 
 none while the chief office of God is represented to 
 be that of a warrior, a mere combatant of the Devil, 
 
88 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE 
 
 who is regarded as his great enemy. Ministers may 
 exhort their auditors to shun resentful and vindictive 
 feelings ; but what avail such exhortations, when 
 accompanied with arguments to convince them that 
 God executes vengeance, and exacts the penalty to 
 the utmost, and that not only upon the sinful, but 
 upon the sinless ? Men desire not to be better, holier, 
 than their Deity. They do not aspire to such a su- 
 periority ; they are content to fall far short of such a 
 standard. There is too much truth in that remark 
 attributed to a British statesman, that, “inasmuch as 
 God has made man in his own image, man has re- 
 turned the compliment, and made God in his image.” 
 It is a melancholy fact, a standing reproach to the 
 profession, that among clergymen, as a class, towards 
 each other, there is less fraternal feeling, less social 
 intercourse, less delicate courtesy, less true gentle- 
 manly bearing, than among members of any other 
 profession or any other class of society. Each one, 
 with a haughty, frigid self-complacency, seems to 
 feel himself dignified as the special conservator of 
 divine truth, and so he passes by on the other side 
 from his clerical neighbor, thanking God that he is 
 not as other men, not even as that publican. Men 
 imitate the Deity they worship, and such a poison- 
 ous tree as that of vicarious atonement could only 
 produce such deadly fruit. 
 
 Still further, this doctrine is objectionable, because 
 of its immoral tendency to weaken the sense of hu- 
 man obligation. If Jesus assumed the obligations 
 of the world, if all their sins and guilt were antici- 
 pated centuries before their birth, and the full penal- 
 ty of infinite suffering paid, — and there cannot pos- 
 
COMMON DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 89 
 
 sibly be more than infinite suffering, — men, notwith- 
 standing the continual self-contradictory preaching 
 as to human duty, will argue that human agency 
 has nothing to do in the matter of their salvation. 
 What obligation are men under to God, when he 
 has exacted the full payment of their debt from an 
 indorser, who assumed their obligations before they 
 had existence, and discharged the whole debt in ad- 
 vance of its contraction ? Men feel that God is bound 
 to meet his engagement, and has no claim on them, 
 can justly exact nothing, their indorser having to 
 the very utmost met his inexorable demands. Men 
 feel that they owe God nothing, and it is unjust for 
 him to ask anything of them. Deity demanded sat- 
 isfaction, and satisfaction he has obtained, — what 
 more does he want ? This language is painful ; but 
 the subject demands it. But after describing the 
 dealings of the Infinite in the language of debtor 
 and creditor, and degrading the sublime death of 
 Jesus into a mere bloody signature to a certificate 
 of discharge from obligation, on the ground of uni- 
 versal bankruptcy, preachers continue to be singu- 
 larly amazed at the coldness and indifference of men 
 to the claims of the Gospel. Claims of the Gospel ! 
 By this theory, what claims can the Gospel have on 
 men ? Has Jesus failed to answer these claims to 
 the utmost for the world ? Or did he only answer 
 them partially, — only on conditions, — suffer infinite 
 wrath, equivalent to eternal misery, only to give man 
 a chance of doing as he pleased, a chance of attain- 
 ing endless felicity or securing his own damnation ? 
 What a tissue of absurdities and immoralities does 
 this doctrine place before us at every turn ! It is 
 8 * 
 
90 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE 
 
 useless for preachers to treat the repugnance of rea- 
 son and affection to this doctrine as the sign of a 
 depraved and graceless heart. It is nothing beyond 
 truth to say, as some one has said, that some men 
 feel, “ that to accept the offer of such a doctrine 
 would be unworthy of a noble heart; for he who 
 would not rather be damned, than escape through 
 the sufferings of innocence and sanctity, is so far 
 from the qualifications of a saint, that he has not 
 even the magnanimity of Milton’s fiends.” 
 
 Why should the clergy so deplore the unright- 
 eousness of men who profess Christianity, when 
 they themselves are daily teaching those men, that 
 righteousness is dangerous, that man’s righteous- 
 ness is worse than nothing, because he may rely up- 
 on his righteous deeds as the conditions of inward 
 peace and the grace of God, by which means his 
 good works become the means of his perdition? He 
 must repudiate all righteous deeds, as being wholly 
 valueless, and must rely solely on the merits of 
 Christ. It is dangerous in the extreme to have any 
 merit of our own. We must attach no merit what- 
 ever to any deeds of ours. 
 
 Too much, alas ! too much is this doctrine re- 
 duced to practice. It is not wonderful, but perfect- 
 ly consistent with the religious instructions which 
 many men receive, that we frequently see those who 
 are most devout on Sunday the most dishonest on 
 Monday; those who on Sunday sing loudest, and 
 pray longest, and groan deepest, and look gravest, 
 all through the week take the greatest advantage, 
 pay the least regard to truth, are everything but be- 
 nevolent, and scorn amiability as a weakness. Hon- 
 
COMMON DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 91 
 
 esty, truthfulness, good-will, and courtesy ! what 
 are these but morality ? and morality is dangerous, 
 says the preacher, and the hearer echoes it. It is 
 religion that is the essential thing. Religion with- 
 out morality is a whited sepulchre. Christian mo- 
 rality without religion is a contradiction in terms. 
 Merit! righteousness! you can have none, says the 
 preacher; you must rely solely on the merits and 
 righteousness of Christ; and the hearer echoes it, 
 and he lives so as to do something like justice to 
 the preacher’s teachings. Sins ! what has the man 
 to do with sins ? of course he sins, but Jesus is a 
 “ good legal tender” for his sins, and the account is 
 always kept square, — provided only — if sufficient 
 inconsistency be tolerated to have any provision 
 in the case — provided he have religion ; that is, 
 attends punctually to what the preacher calls the 
 “ means of grace,” goes to church promptly, listens 
 attentively, prays fervently in the prayer-meeting, 
 calls himself with great ardor “the very chief of 
 sinners,” and then on Monday morning proves the 
 truth of his acknowledgments, by showing that, if 
 not the very chief of sinners, it is his misfortune, 
 not his fault, for he does the best to make his con- 
 fession good. 
 
 Some years ago, the whole country was agitated 
 by what were termed revivals of religion. Hear 
 what Mr. Finney, one somewhat notorious among 
 revivalists, says now, at this distance of time look- 
 ing round upon the remains of those efforts. “ Where 
 are the proper results of the glorious revivals we 
 have had ? I believe they were genuine revivals of 
 religion, and outpourings of the Holy Ghost, that 
 
92 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE 
 
 the Church has enjoyed the last ten years. I be- 
 lieve the converts of the last ten years are among 
 the best Christians in the land. Yet, after all, the 
 great body of them are a disgrace to religion. Of" 
 what use would it be to have a thousand members 
 added to the Church, to be just such as are now in 
 it? Would religion be any more honored by it, in 
 the estimation of ungodly men ? Of what use is it 
 to convert sinners, and make them feel that there is 
 something in religion, and then, when they go to 
 trade with you, or meet you in the street, to have 
 you contradict it all, and tell them by your conform- 
 ity with the world, that there is nothing in it ? ” 
 
 Such are the issues of what he believes to be 
 “ genuine outpourings of the Holy Ghost.” But 
 what, in the name of reason, would such a preacher 
 expect, after having given to these converts assur- 
 ance that Jesus satisfied divine justice, and they are 
 relieved from the burdens of their guilt ? Their 
 whole debt being cancelled, and everything they 
 have being clear, unembarrassed capital, it is the 
 most natural thing in the world that they should 
 recommence business, open a new account in sin, 
 with the comfortable assurance of a similar acquit- 
 tal at another outpouring of the Holy Ghost. This 
 doctrine is immoral in its tendency, as unscriptural 
 and unreasonable in itself. 
 
 This doctrine of vicarious atonement is immoral, 
 I contend, in all its logical tendencies. Because it 
 degrades our conception of the Supreme Being, by 
 making one part of God submit to suffering and 
 murder in order to appease the wrath and satisfy 
 the justice of another part. It is immoral, because 
 
COMMON DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 93 
 
 it confounds all our ideas of justice, in making inno- 
 cence to suffer in the room of guilt, in discharging 
 the sinful, and punishing the sinless. It is immoral, 
 because it fosters the spirit of bigotry and of war, 
 by causing men to imitate its representation of God, 
 in resentment, vindictiveness, retaliation, cruelty, 
 bloodthirstiness, and by justifying intolerant and 
 uncharitable action. 
 
 This doctrine is immoral in its tendency, because 
 it weakens the sense of human obligation, by repre- 
 senting the entire burden of guilt to have been placed 
 on Jesus, by making him pay the whole debt of the 
 world’s sin. It thus becomes equivalent to a divine 
 certificate qualifying men for evil, — an indulgence 
 authorizing men to commit sin, — a system for cher- 
 ishing which Protestants so bitterly denounce the 
 Church of Rome. It is immoral, because it destroys 
 in men’s minds the necessary connection between 
 acts and their effects, — the invariable law, by which 
 wrong is followed by retribution ; it closes men’s 
 eyes to the very facts of hourly experience, and en- 
 courages men to look for a theory to exempt them- 
 selves from the effects of wrong, instead of a princi- 
 ple, and purity, and purpose, that will preserve them 
 from the commission of wrong. It is immoral, be- 
 cause it dissociates religion from morality, and piety 
 from the concerns of common life, by substituting a 
 mystical faith for actual beneficence, a mere belief 
 for positive good works, formal prayers for pure prac- 
 tices and outward rites for inward holiness. This 
 doctrine is immoral, because it tends to retard all 
 true social, intellectual, and moral progress, by de- 
 preciating human efforts, and undervaluing human 
 
94 
 
 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF THE 
 
 science, human wisdom, benevolence, and righteous 
 deeds. 
 
 In the thirty-nine articles which form the creed 
 of one of the large and respectable denominations of 
 this country, the thirteenth article says: “ Works done 
 before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of his 
 holy spirit are not pleasant to God.” The eighteenth 
 article reads : “ They also are to be had accursed 
 that presume to say, that every man shall be saved 
 by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he 
 be diligent to frame his life according to that law 
 and the light of nature. For holy Scripture doth 
 set out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ, 
 whereby we must be saved.” 
 
 The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which is 
 learned and repeated by probably ten thousand chil- 
 dren in the United States this day, says : 11 Christ 
 executeth the office of a priest in his once offering 
 up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice.” 
 Again : “ Christ’s humiliation consisted in his under- 
 going the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, the 
 cursed death of the cross.” Truth is worth search- 
 ing for, and when found richly does it repay the la- 
 bor it has cost. There is no doctrine more frequent- 
 ly enforced, in some one of its phases, than that of 
 vicarious atonement. Examine it fearlessly, analyze 
 it closely, trace it back to its origin, observe its ef- 
 fects, and follow it out in its tendency, and decide 
 upon its character. Decide upon its authority, de- 
 termine whether, by any rule, principle, or process of 
 interpretation, the Scripture, the Gospel record, is 
 even to be forced or distorted into the support of 
 such a doctrine. 
 
COMMON DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 95 
 
 Friends, I speak earnestly on this subject, for I 
 feel deeply. This is no question to be dismissed 
 from your minds, with your exit from this edifice to- 
 night. I stand not here to entertain you, to help to 
 kill the dulness of Sunday-time ; but, if possible, to 
 awaken thought and quicken consciences. The 
 truth on this question is of direct, personal, practi- 
 cal, and perpetual interest to every man, — as much 
 so as your statute-books, and day-books, and ledgers, 
 your stocks and your exchanges, your bills payable 
 and your bills receivable, your legislative business 
 and your office business, your store business and 
 your shop business, your home enjoyments, and your 
 most private, sacred, inward happiness. 
 
 Then if you have considered it, reconsider it, 
 and still again consider it; weigh it solemnly in all 
 its bearings, and, never presuming that you have 
 found all truth, continue in unceasing pursuit of 
 truth, and boldly, firmly, with more than the firm- 
 ness of your mountain rock, yet with the Christian 
 gentleness of a childlike spirit, hold fast ever to the 
 good ; for good, like God, is eternal. 
 
DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 WHEN HE WAS YET A GREAT WAY OFF, HIS FATHER SAW 
 HIM, AND HAD COMPASSION ON HIM. — Luke XV. 20. 
 
 IF WE CONFESS OUR SINS, HE IS FAITHFUL AND JUST TO 
 
 forgive us. — 1 John i. 9. 
 
 The more closely I observe, the more am I per- 
 suaded that nearly all controversies, discussions, and 
 even calm inquiries, might be narrowed down to a 
 definition of terms, — an explanation of the sense in 
 which we understand the words which we employ. 
 For men are constantly using the same words as if 
 they meant the same thing, when they differ widely 
 in their meaning; and, again, using the same words 
 as if attaching a different sense to them, while both 
 are using them in exactly the same sense. Forgive- 
 ness is a term frequently employed in Scripture, 
 and it is often employed in the common language 
 of life. There appears to prevail much confusion 
 of ideas in connection with it. On coming to ex- 
 amine closely the idea expressed by the term for- 
 giveness , there seems indeed to be a peculiar indefi- 
 niteness in the word itself, though it should stand 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 97 
 
 for a very definite idea. In a religious, or scriptural, 
 or theological sense, it is said that God forgives 
 man’s sins. Religion appears to be regarded by 
 many, perhaps by most persons, by most Christians 
 of every name, liberal and exclusive, as a plan, 
 means, or agency by which men may obtain par- 
 don, i. e. exemption from effects, entire justification 
 from the Deity, for the commission of sin. 
 
 That sinful acts are necessary appears to be as- 
 sumed, so far that the chief object of Christianity, 
 it is alleged, is to secure, in some way, pardon or 
 forgiveness from God for committing those neces- 
 sary acts; i. e. that the Supreme Ruler shall over- 
 look, or forget entirely, by some means, the wrong 
 which man does, and regard him with approbation, 
 as if no sin had been committed. In consistency 
 with this view, several things are taken for granted. 
 First, it is taken for granted that men must sin. 
 Next, it is taken for granted that God is personally 
 angry with men, and will punish them, not retribu- 
 tively, but vindictively, for sin. In the third place, it 
 is taken for granted that God can, if he will, over- 
 look, forget, or blot out, literally and entirely, the 
 remembrance of men’s sins, or, in other words, that 
 he can allow men to sin without allowing any evil 
 consequences whatever to result from sinning. And 
 finally, it is taken for granted, that, by the use of 
 some certain means, men may conciliate the divine 
 favor, induce God, or place him under obligation, to 
 turn away the consequences of sin, and secure that 
 which is expressed by the term forgiveness. 
 
 The subject is one of universal, profound, and en- 
 during interest, and worthy, therefore, of the most 
 9 
 
98 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 earnest consideration. This consideration let us en- 
 deavor to give to the subject in the simplest and 
 plainest language possible. 
 
 What is meant by forgiveness, either on the part 
 of God towards man, or as exercised by man towards 
 man ? To obtain something like a satisfactory reply 
 to this inquiry, we are not to assume that sin is ne- 
 cessary, that men must sin, and that to forgive is to 
 remove responsibility for sinning, to deliver from the 
 natural and just consequences of sinning. This would 
 be simply to take everything for granted, and leave 
 no room for inquiry. Further investigation would be 
 useless. What, then, is sin ? In the words of St. 
 Paul, sin is the transgression of law ; where there 
 is no law, there is no transgression. What law is 
 meant? In general terms, the law of our being, 
 which is the law of God ; the laws established by 
 the Creator for the government of man, and by 
 which our physical and intellectual and spiritual 
 existence and action must be ruled. 
 
 Of some of the principles or laws which the Cre- 
 ative Intelligence has established to govern our exist- 
 ence and action, we are, in a greater or less degree, 
 ignorant. With most of them, however, most men 
 are acquainted. By intuition, or by reason, or by 
 revelation, or by all combined, most men know when 
 they do wrong; most men know when they violate 
 the natural law, which, as proceeding from the Cre- 
 ator, is also the divine law, which should rule the 
 body, or the mind, or the spirit. But whether or 
 not men know, to search for, to discover, and sub- 
 mit to the principles or laws ordained by the Creator 
 for our welfare, appears to be the chief end of our 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 99 
 
 temporal or visible existence. And in such inquiry, 
 discovery, and submission consists our highest earth- 
 ly happiness, our true well-being. 
 
 And first, let us illustrate as to forgiveness be- 
 tween man and man. What is effected when one 
 person forgives another? A man with knowledge 
 and design wrongs you in property and person. 
 He thus occasions privation of outward comfort, 
 bodily pain, and mental agony. What then is meant 
 by your forgiving him ? Is it meant that the injury 
 which he has done ceases to be an injury, in con- 
 sequence of your pardon ? Does your forgiveness 
 cause what was wrong to be no longer a wrong, but 
 absolutely right, or blot it from existence and cause 
 it to be nothing? Certainly not. Does your for- 
 giveness of the injury restore to yourself your lost 
 property, or recover to yourself your lost comfort 
 and health ? Certainly not. But he may replace by 
 other property that which he has destroyed ; he may 
 measurably mitigate your pain of mind, and relieve 
 your pain of body. Then does your forgiveness 
 leave him innocent, as though he had never done 
 the injury ? Does the time in which he did the wrong 
 cease to be time ? does the property cease to be prop- 
 erty ? does the pain cease to be pain ? is the act no 
 longer an act? In a word, does your forgiveness 
 cause all that was real to be unreal? does it anni- 
 hilate fact ? does it make something to be nothing ? 
 This is impossible, absolutely, in the very nature of 
 things. 
 
 Then what is meant by the pardoning or forgiving 
 of that same wrong, by the Supreme Ruler? For 
 wrong, or sin, being the transgression of the laws of 
 
100 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 our being, whether the injury be immediately to our- 
 selves, or to another, is equally sin against God, the 
 author of those laws. 
 
 When one prays for pardon for his sins, does he 
 desire, and does he expect, that by forgiveness he is 
 to be absolutely innocent, and the same as though 
 he had never sinned? Does he desire and expect 
 that God will annihilate the time in which he did 
 wrong, and continue the thread of his existence as 
 though no such time had ever been ? Does he de- 
 sire and expect that forgiveness shall cause the fact 
 of his actions to be no longer fact ? Or, in fine, does 
 he desire and expect that by forgiveness God’s re- 
 membrance, and his own remembrance, of the fact or 
 identity of his act, shall at once and for ever perish ? 
 If so, I only ask, does he not desire and expect what 
 is against nature, against reason, against experience, 
 against revelation, which declares all shall receive for 
 the wrong they do, and against all that be himself 
 knows of the world, or of man, or of God ? Or does 
 he desire and expect either more or less than positive 
 annihilation of his own being, the loss of his iden- 
 tity? 
 
 The question still remains with undiminished in- 
 terest, What is meant by forgiveness ? Here we 
 have to confess, that we are limited on every side, 
 by the imperfection and ambiguity of human lan- 
 guage, — we fail to express in terms the realities of 
 thought and feeling. Let us here follow experience, 
 and listen to her voice, as far as it is capable of dis- 
 tinct enunciation, and bring the result to the inter- 
 pretation of Scripture language. 
 
 For an instance, — you are a parent; you desire 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 101 
 
 your child, under certain circumstances, to pursue a 
 course which you carefully prescribe. In your ma- 
 ture wisdom, you provide what you consider a suita- 
 ble rule or law, by which the child is to be governed. 
 Obedience to this law, on the part of the child, is to 
 secure his own comfort, and your gratifying appro- 
 bation. Disobedience is to bring injury upon him- 
 self, and perhaps discomfort and even pain to you. 
 Under the circumstances against which the law was 
 provided, the child violates, transgresses the law, 
 and brings upon himself the injury and pain which 
 you declared and indicated as the legitimate result, 
 in case of disobedience. 
 
 We now readily perceive the mental condition of 
 the child. He first experiences the bitterness of suf- 
 fering brought upon himself by his own wrong act ; 
 to this is superadded the thought of disobedience, — 
 the feeling of guilt. How shall he meet the parent 
 whom he has disobeyed, whose authority he has 
 disregarded, whose law he has violated ? He 
 shrinks from the look of reproach, he dreads the 
 pain of punishment. True, he remembers the un- 
 failing kindness of his parent ; but this remembrance 
 only aggravates his sense of guilt; he reproaches him- 
 self still more for his ungrateful disobedience. Still 
 he seeks the presence of his parent sorrowfully, ac- 
 knowledges his guilt, and implores forgiveness. You 
 as the parent meet him ; you discover instantly the 
 wrong that he has done ; you affectionately embrace 
 your disobedient child ; you mingle your tears of 
 compassion with his tears of anguish and repentance; 
 you assure him of your pardon, of your aid, of your 
 unabated love. He feels, he knows, that he is for- 
 9 * 
 
102 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 given ; he no longer looks for your word of reproach, 
 he no longer dreads to meet an angry countenance ; 
 in your tears and smiles he sees the bow of promise, 
 which gives him the fullest assurance of your par- 
 doning love. 
 
 But now that he is actually forgiven, does it cease 
 to be a fact, that he disobeyed his parent, violated 
 law, and brought suffering upon himself? While 
 his wounded body lives, will it not bear the mark of 
 the injury which he has inflicted on it? While 
 memory remains, can he wholly forget his disobe- 
 dience ? Can time be rolled back to cover the fact 
 of his wrong-doing? Can a portion be taken out 
 from the eternity of the past, and sunk into the dark- 
 ness of oblivion ? This is something of which the 
 mind can form no possible conception. Still he is 
 forgiven, and now, with increased love, with a great- 
 er debt of gratitude, he obeys and honors and re- 
 veres his forgiving parent. 
 
 Then for a parent to forgive a child is simply this, 
 namely, for the parent to assure the child that no 
 feeling of resentment is cherished, that he still loves 
 the child with the true affection of a parent, although 
 this assurance, this forgiveness, can never destroy the 
 fact of the child’s disobedience, — can never efface 
 from the child’s mind the capacity of remembering 
 the wrong with which it has once been justly charge- 
 able. . 
 
 Now we must be careful not to press too far the 
 analogy between the relation of a human parent to 
 his child, and the relation of the Infinite Father to 
 his earthly children. Neither can we press the lan- 
 guage of the Scriptures, which is adapted to our im- 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 103 
 
 perfect conceptions of infinite perfection. For our 
 view of God is only the view by a finite mind of a 
 Being who is absolutely infinite. God is repre- 
 sented in Scripture, now as being angry, now as 
 being pleased, now resolving and now repenting, as 
 now stretching out his hand, as now uttering his 
 voice, now walking abroad, and now sitting on his 
 throne. But these are all only the imperfect signs 
 of absolute perfection and of absolute truth. You 
 may be angry with your child, God cannot be angry. 
 It is not a passion belonging to his nature. You 
 may be pleased with your child, God cannot be 
 literally pleased by us. For God is immutable and 
 eternal. We literally can neither augment the pleas- 
 ure, nor diminish the happiness of the One Infinite 
 and absolutely Perfect. 
 
 Now without considering each particular incident 
 in the illustration by Jesus called the parable of the 
 Prodigal Son, the parable, as a whole, illustrates 
 forcibly, as it seems to me, the nature, conditions, 
 and results of forgiveness. In its parts, it was de- 
 signed to have a special signification to some of the 
 persons to whom it was immediately addressed, but 
 in the breadth of its spirit it affords a vivid repre- 
 sentation of the repentant man and the forgiving 
 God. The son, it is said, received his portion ; he 
 voluntarily surrounded himself with evil influences; 
 his resources were soon exhausted ; he found himself 
 in a destitute and miserable condition. By this he 
 was brought to reflection ; he remembered the kind- 
 ness of his parent ; he resolved to return to the home 
 of his childhood, to confess his guilt, implore forgive- 
 ness, and enter upon a new and virtuous career. 
 
104 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 He carried his resolution into effect ; he started for 
 the paternal mansion ; his parent discovered him 
 while yet at a great distance ; instantly the compas- 
 sionate father divined the condition of his delinquent 
 son; and, waiting for no confessions, asking no prom- 
 ises, demanding no satisfaction, he ran and met 
 him, and embraced him, assuring him at once of 
 forgiveness and of favor, and of true affection. 
 
 And now he is actually forgiven, i. e. he is assured 
 of his father’s love, and no longer expects frowns, re- 
 proach, and punishment; yet the health and time 
 and treasure he has lost and misspent and wasted, 
 are gone beyond all possible recovery. However he 
 may improve the time to come, and whatever new 
 health and treasure he may acquire, the evils he has 
 brought upon himself, the wrong that he has done, 
 can never cease to be facts, while the framework of 
 the world remains ; nor can he cease to remember 
 them, while he retains his personal identity. 
 
 Now for man’s relation to God. Does God change 
 towards man, or man towards God? Man received 
 from God his portion, his high endowments as a 
 moral being, for the improvement of which he is re- 
 sponsible. He misuses and injures the powers in- 
 trusted to him ; the consequences, sorrow, suffering, 
 and remorse, soon appear. With his imperfect view 
 of the Divine Being, he regards God as angry with 
 him and inflicting punishment. He now humbles 
 himself before the Great Intelligence, and while he 
 is yet a great way off, while he yet dimly appre- 
 hends the character of God, before he experiences 
 that God is and always has been love, the compas- 
 sion of the Heavenly Father meets him and comforts 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 105 
 
 him, by imparting to his troubled mind the assu- 
 rance that God is not angry, but is ever gracious ; 
 that God is not resentment, but is grace ; that God is 
 not only a stern Judge, but a loving Father. He 
 now feels that he is forgiven, but his forgiveness 
 does not restore his mutilated body, does not of 
 necessity strengthen his injured intellect, nor does it 
 recall his misspent time. 
 
 It is clear, then, that in the sense of entire exemp- 
 tion from, a complete obliteration of, the natural re- 
 sults of sin, the transgression of the laws of our being, 
 the common expectation of forgiveness is unfound- 
 ed. It is true, that, as in civil government, the oper- 
 ation of one law is modified and restrained by the 
 operation of another law ; so may the legitimate 
 consequences of the violation of one law of our 
 moral being be modified and restrained by the strict 
 observance of another. But this is no departure 
 from, but within, the established conditions of our 
 existence. For within the whole range of human 
 experience there is no warrant for the belief, there 
 is no instance where it has ever occurred, that actual 
 guilt has been converted into innocence, that wrong 
 has been converted into right, or that the natural 
 and legitimate consequences of the violation of the 
 law of being have been wholly obliterated by any- 
 thing called or understood to be forgiveness. The 
 grace of God, as Scripture declares, is given to us 
 that we may live soberly, righteously, and godly ; 
 not that we may live sinfully, and escape the results 
 of sin. 
 
 The very term forgiveness is an accommodation 
 to our imperfect conception of the perfect God. 
 
106 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 Accordingly, when we find in Scripture the phrase 
 “forgiveness of sins,” whatever it truly did signify 
 to the minds of those who wrote or uttered it, we 
 may not always clearly distinguish. But one thing, 
 unquestionably, it does not signify to us; it does not 
 signify complete exemption from the natural and 
 just consequences of sin. The fact of having sinned 
 can only perish with the individual himself. The 
 marks and remembrance of the wrong can only 
 cease with the person and the memory of the being 
 who commits the wrong. Time and truth and in- 
 nocence, once lost, can never, as all feel and know, 
 be recovered, howsoever the effects of their loss may 
 be moderated by time, and by subsequent fidelity to 
 truth and virtue. New truth and new innocence 
 may be acquired ; the lost innocence can never be 
 regained. 
 
 When we realize the natural result of sin, the vio- 
 lation of the laws which rule our being, it is so or- 
 dered, as one result of sin, that we regard God as 
 angry with us, and inflicting arbitrary punishment 
 upon us. In this frame of mind we seek relief in 
 humble confession of our guilt, in reflection on our 
 own misdeeds, and in contemplation of the Divine 
 character. By this examination of ourselves, and 
 contemplation of God, the mist which obscured our 
 moral vision disappears, and we perceive more dis- 
 tinctly the tenderness, the protection, the unceasing 
 love, of the Supreme Father. The frown which our 
 minds imagined on the countenance of the Deity 
 passes away ; we find relief ; and this experience, be- 
 cause no other words describe it, we call forgiveness. 
 For at that same instant that we experience this 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 107 
 
 sense of pardon, we are the more humbled, the more 
 profoundly reverent and grateful, because we remem- 
 ber the wrong which we have done, the evil we have 
 brought upon ourselves, the very marks of which we 
 still bear about upon our bodies, and within our 
 minds. The unchangeable God has not changed 
 in feeling or in action, but our relation and feeling 
 towards him have been changed by repentance and 
 reform. 
 
 Such are now, as far as we can discover, the na- 
 ture and conditions of forgiveness, here in this 
 world, and such, so far as we can discover them, 
 they will be in all worlds, so long as man may need 
 and call for forgiveness. Even for ever, if for ever 
 there should by any possibility be any souls needing 
 and calling for forgiveness, such will still be its na- 
 ture and conditions; namely, not God changed to- 
 ward us, but a restored consciousness in us of the 
 eternal compassion of God, a sense of alienation re- 
 moved, on condition of repentance, reform, confi- 
 dence, and love. 
 
 From these considerations, we perceive — as no 
 one man by pardoning another can annihilate the fact 
 of the injury which the other has done, nor efface 
 the rememberance of guilt from the other’s mind — 
 that by forgiveness, between man and man, we must 
 understand simply this ; namely, the assurance, on 
 the part of the one injured, that he will not retort 
 upon the injurer the wrong which has been done 
 by him ; that instead of anger, there shall be favor; 
 instead of indignation, there shall be compassion ; 
 instead of resentment, there shall be kindness ; in- 
 stead of retaliation, there shall be self-control. 
 
108 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 Whether from God towards man, or from man 
 towards man, a correct understanding of forgive- 
 ness, if a correct understanding be attainable, is a 
 concern of the most practical, continued, and univer- 
 sal moment, lest we persist in wronging others, or 
 indulging in the violation of the laws which should 
 rule our own nature, under the presumption that by 
 the expression of good-will, by the disinclination to 
 resentment, which we call forgiveness, guilt can 
 be converted into innocence, vice into virtue, sin into 
 holiness, and remorse into happiness ; — a presump- 
 tion unwarranted by revelation, without a shadow 
 of ground in reason, and against all human expe- 
 rience. There can be no substitution of persons, no 
 vicarious atonement, no annihilation of realities. It 
 was thus, by his living, his teaching, and his dying 
 for the truth, that Jesus proposed to save us from our 
 sins ; to point out the only way by which we should 
 work out our own salvation from the consequences 
 of sin, both temporally and eternally, by saving from 
 the sins themselves. 
 
 Fellow- Christians, worshippers, and searchers after 
 truth, let us earnestly endeavor not to darken the im- 
 age of the Deity within our own bosoms. Let us 
 not, by injustice, unkindness, inconsiderate passion, or 
 other voluntary wrong, stain the mirror of the soul, 
 which, when unimpaired, reflects truly the glory of 
 the attributes of God. But when, in our weakness, 
 we fall before temptation, let us hasten in humble 
 penitence to that prayerful meditation which shall 
 quicken our blunted spiritual faculties into a just 
 perception of the immutable love of the Divine 
 Father, which shall bind us all more closely, in bonds 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 109 
 
 of gratitude, to a life of more perfect purity. For 
 the pure in heart never lose the sense of a Divine 
 presence, never distrust the Infinite beneficence. 
 
 God forgives me when I sin, not by a miraculous 
 suspension of the natural operation of his laws, not 
 by reversing the conditions of my being and destroy- 
 ing my identity, — for he executes righteous judg- 
 ment, rendering to every man according to every 
 man’s own work, — but by affording to my imperfect, 
 sorrowing, and bewildered spirit the comforting as- 
 surance of his immutable goodness, infinite love, and 
 perfect justice. Sorrow, penitence, and prayerful 
 meditation are ministering angels to our troubled 
 minds. 
 
 “ How beautifully falls from human lips 
 That blessed word, Forgive ! 
 
 Thrice happy he whose heart has been so schooled 
 In the meek lessons of humanity, 
 
 That he can give it utterance : it imparts 
 Celestial grandeur to the human soul, 
 
 And maketh man an angel.” 
 
 10 
 
DISCOURSE VIII. 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT OF GOD ; WHO WILL RENDER TO 
 EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS. — Rom. ii. 5, 6. 
 
 The substance of this declaration is a number of 
 times repeated in the New Testament. Matthew 
 reports Jesus as saying, “ The Son of Man shall 
 come, and then shall he reward every man according 
 to his works.” St. Paul elsewhere frequently uses a 
 similar form of expression, saying, “ We must all 
 appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that 
 every one may receive the things done in his body, 
 according to that he hath done, whether it be good or 
 bad.” “ If there be first a willing mind, it is accept- 
 ed, according to that a man hath, and not according 
 to that he hath not.” “ Every man shall receive his 
 own reward, according to his own labor.” 
 
 Was this a new principle, a new Divine decree, 
 and thenceforth to be universally applied, because of 
 its freshly declared authority? Most manifestly it 
 was no new principle, which had just flashed in ce- 
 lestial light from the Divine mind. It was not true 
 only because St. Paul declared it, but St. Paul af- 
 
LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 Ill 
 
 firmed it because it was true, — always had been, and 
 always must be divinely true. It was now peculiar- 
 ly revealed and enforced, but it had been always 
 true as God is true. These words, in connection 
 with those other words, “ God is no respecter of 
 persons; but in every nation, he that feareth him, 
 and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him,” — 
 embody the grand truth of Christian revelation, the 
 grand principle of Christian life, and the grand idea 
 of Christian justice. For you remember St. Paul says 
 of other nations than Hebrews, — those who have 
 not a written or declared law, — that so far as they 
 do by nature the things contained in the law, they 
 are a law to themselves, having the work of the 
 law (that is, the requirements of the law) written on 
 their hearts, their consciences accusing or excusing. 
 This principle of strict equity is well termed by St. 
 Paul, “the righteous judgment of God.” What 
 other principle would be righteous, i. e. rigidly right 
 to each and every moral being, variously circum- 
 stanced, as each human being is, from his birthday 
 to his death ? 
 
 But how does this equitable principle comport 
 with the theologies which have been systematized 
 by ecclesiastical councils, during fifteen hundred 
 years of the Christian era ? No ; say the theologies. 
 God does not render to every man according to his 
 deeds, but according to God’s grace, or according to 
 the merits of Christ. Here the principle of equity 
 is emphatically denied, and a principle of substitu- 
 tion is adopted. Our idea of strict justice is utterly 
 confounded by the adoption of a vicarious theory. 
 Instead of order, law, and harmony, disorder, un- 
 
112 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 certainty, and confusion are asserted. The moral 
 government of God is then irregular, unsettled, lia- 
 ble, like human governments, to convulsions and 
 revolution. In other words, the moral administration 
 of God becomes a mere system of failures and cor- 
 rections; of mistakes and expedients; of painful exi- 
 gencies, and painful devices to meet the exigencies ; 
 of defects in the original arrangements, and plans 
 adapted to the supply of those defects. Christianity, 
 by this view, becomes a mere system of machinery, 
 designed to work out, to some limited extent, what 
 was to have been much more perfectly wrought out 
 by the original plan, had not the Divine intentions 
 been all deranged by the stealthy interference of a 
 heaven-born malicious enemy of God, a mighty 
 prince of evil. 
 
 In the face of this theology, what is the actual 
 experience of mankind ? and what has been the ex- 
 perience of every nation, race, and family, of which 
 we have historic knowledge? It is, that in the case 
 of every individual, from the first man or men cre- 
 ated to this hour, pain, privation, suffering, and all 
 the common ills of life, have been exactly propor- 
 tioned to the ignorant or wilful transgression of the 
 divinely appointed and irrevocable laws of nature ; 
 whilst enjoyment, peace, confidence, hope, and true 
 superiority to common evils, have been always, with 
 equal exactness, proportioned to the knowledge of, 
 and obedience to the knowledge of, those same di- 
 vinely appointed, unvarying conditions. But is 
 there not, inquires an objecter or doubter, has there 
 not always been, favoritism practised by nations ? 
 Does observation prove that all men are similarly 
 
LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 113 
 
 affected by similar acts of obedience or disobedience, 
 of ignorant or of wilful transgression ? Most cer- 
 tainly not. Let us beware of misinterpretation. 
 Nature, which is the expression of God, always acts 
 in harmony with itself. Nature has always preserved 
 its entire consistency, and justice has always been 
 administered by nature. Similar effects have not 
 appeared to follow similar acts, because no two act- 
 ors have ever been similarly constituted and simi- 
 larly situated. See the innumerable differences of 
 age, of capacity, of knowledge, of external circum- 
 stances of physical, mental, and moral constitution ; 
 and on reflection you at once perceive that the re- 
 tributive effects of similar actions must in equity cor- 
 respond, both in appearance and in fact, with these 
 countless shades of variation in man and his environ- 
 ments. 
 
 Here is a man of feeble physical and mental con- 
 stitution, who transgresses law ; shah there be a spe- 
 cial providence to supply him with vigor of body 
 and mind, so that the retributive operation of his act 
 shall manifest itself in the same manner as on one 
 of naturally superior strength ? This would only be 
 another form of the inequitable system to which we 
 object. Here, then, is another more powerfully con- 
 stituted, who is chargeable with a similar transgres- 
 sion ; shall there be a special providence to reduce 
 his natural state, so that the retributive operation of 
 his act shall, in his case, manifest itself in the same 
 way as on one of a much feebler constitution, and 
 differently situated ? This would only be a different 
 exhibition of that arbitrary interference and suspen- 
 sion of the order of nature, which we oppose as in- 
 10 * 
 
114 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 equitable and unjust. The effects of similar trans- 
 gressions are equal, but they are not similar; just as 
 we would expect the effects of firing a cannon-ball 
 from a gun of metal to appear very different from 
 those produced by the firing of the same ball from a 
 gun of glass. No, no ! men never, never have 
 brought good from evil, nor right from wrong, any 
 more than they have gathered grapes from thorns 
 or figs from thistles. As the summer follows the 
 spring-time, so the harvest succeeds the summer, 
 and whatsoever a man soweth, that, and not some- 
 thing else, shall he also reap, whether it be good, or 
 whether it be evil. 
 
 It is vain for theologians to persist in forcing 
 upon human judgment a system which outrages 
 man’s natural sense of justice, by representing God 
 as either demanding or receiving from innocence 
 and purity, sacrifice, and suffering, and infinite an- 
 guish, as an equivalent or satisfaction for a pen- 
 alty due to real offenders ; then, in order to give 
 plausibility to gross injustice, to represent God the 
 Infinite and Supreme as himself reduced to an ex- 
 tremity which rendered such a terrible alternative 
 necessary to preserve his own honor, to vindicate 
 his own character and conduct, and save his king- 
 dom from subversion by powers of darkness, called 
 the Devil and his angels. Diligently inculcated 
 from the earliest dawnings of intellect, many may 
 sincerely acknowledge such a theology as a dead 
 letter ; but by rational, enlightened minds, it is never 
 received as a living faith. Not only all the unper- 
 verted instincts of humanity, but the almost uni- 
 versal action of the world, repudiate and refute as 
 
LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 115 
 
 abhorrent and unjust the notion of wrath poured 
 out, and suffering inflicted, on one who is purely in- 
 nocent, as an equivalent or satisfaction for just retri- 
 bution to real guilt. To preserve any idea of jus- 
 tice, there must be, or appear to be, some proper 
 connection, both in kind and degree, between the 
 act of man and its consequence as cause and effect. 
 This relation and proportion is clearly preserved 
 by the Christian rule of rendering to every man ac- 
 cording to his deeds. 
 
 But all idea of relation or proportion is destroyed 
 by the theologies, which overlook entirely the facts 
 of life and law of retribution, as far as they are ac- 
 tually seen, and known, and felt. Prevalent the- 
 ology refers everything to the future beyond death, 
 or back to Adam ; makes no account of the differen- 
 ces of birth, capacities, and opportunities here, but 
 divides all men into two unchangeable classes, one 
 infinitely happy in heaven, and one infinitely wretch- 
 ed in hell, and both conditions alike immutable and 
 eternal. All idea of proper and just connection be- 
 tween a man’s life and a soul’s destiny is destroyed, 
 and, instead of having rendered to him according 
 to his deeds, each one finds himself arbitrarily dis- 
 posed of, according to something else than his deeds, 
 according to the merits of another person, the merits 
 of Christ, or the absolute pleasure, or, as it is styled 
 by systems, “the unmerited grace of God.” This is 
 virtual annihilation. It is not reward, for the soul 
 can see no proper connection between such an un- 
 changeable heaven, and the life which he had, as a 
 rational, moral agent, previously lived. It is not 
 punishment, for neither did the soul anticipate, nor 
 
116 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 can it then trace up, any relation between its pre- 
 vious existence and the miserable condition in 
 which it finds itself. All rational distinction has 
 been blotted out, an arbitrary line has been drawn, 
 and there is nothing to show where right ended 
 and wrong began, where knowledge incurred re- 
 sponsibility, or where ignorance exempted from re- 
 sponsibility, among those who in life, together, 
 seemed to stand as nearly as possible on the same 
 level, whether as to virtue or vice, righteousness or 
 sin. 
 
 Concerning persons whose bodily life is suddenly 
 destroyed, there is a very common manner of speak- 
 ing, both among exclusive and liberal Christians, 
 which is calculated to perpetuate erroneous impres- 
 sions both of the nature of God and the relation of 
 the human soul to God. Of persons executed, mur- 
 dered, or removed from visible life by accident, it is 
 common to say, that they were hurried into the 
 presence of their Maker. Without warning, they 
 were sent into the presence of their Judge. This 
 language tends to perpetuate the notion of a local 
 deity, an imperfect God, and also to degrade the 
 true dignity of the present world and human life. 
 Must a man die, to go into the presence of the Cre- 
 ator of the universe ? Is it only beyond the grave 
 that man stands before the bar of divine justice? 
 From this lax use of language on the part of many 
 Christians, one might suppose that each human 
 constitution, each united soul and body, is nothing 
 more than a little piece of machinery, a sort of clock- 
 work, wound up, set in motion, by the Deity ; and 
 while he turns aside to superintend the greater con- 
 
LAW OP RETRIBUTION. 
 
 117 
 
 cerns of his government, it is left to move on, till 
 death in some shape stops it, when it is again 
 brought into the presence of its Maker, who in his 
 infinite pleasure, or free grace, is then to decide, 
 whether it is to be set up again in a place of celes- 
 tial splendor, as an everlasting ornament, or to be 
 thrown aside as common rubbish, to be abused and 
 bruised and trodden under foot for ever. Thus it is 
 that life on this side of the grave is disjoined from 
 life on the other side of the grave, — that this world 
 is left without God, in order that those only who die 
 may be in his presence, — and there is no judgment 
 and retribution now, so that there may be a great 
 judgment away somewhere in the unseen, which 
 by way of distinction is termed eternity. Hence 
 men speak of religion as if it were only a prepara- 
 tion for death, and speak of being pious, only that 
 they may prepare to meet their God. What won- 
 der that the divinity of the soul is depreciated, and 
 the dignity of life lowered, and the sacrednesss of 
 this world denied ! So it must be, till men see and 
 feel that there is goodness, and beauty, and sanctity, 
 about this present life ; that, various and myste- 
 rious as nature and providence may seem, incompre- 
 hensible as those distant suns and shining stars, 
 and these complicate frames and throbbing hearts 
 may be, they are all still within the boundless em- 
 brace of the arms of the Omnipotent, the All-wise, 
 All-merciful, All-just; that there is not a planet which 
 rolls, nor a leaf which falls, nor a meteor flash, nor 
 a human breath, which is not seen and known by 
 the Supreme Sovereign ; that “ the eye of God is 
 on all, and hallows all”; that the smallest, feeblest 
 
118 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 human voice may in reverence and hope say, “ Thou, 
 God, seest me ; I am in thy presence ; thou art my 
 Creator, thou art my Father.” 
 
 Though nowhere visible in person, God is every- 
 where visible in power. But will some one freeze 
 up the fervor of my reverence, and darken the image 
 of my hope, by asserting that this all-embracing law, 
 including and controlling high and low, great and 
 small, the world seen and the world unseen, tangi- 
 ble and intangible, — that this is the law of nature 
 only, and not the law of God? Well, without con- 
 tending about words to no profit, let the stern the- 
 orist change the term God for Nature, and tell me 
 how much he has gained. See that order and sta- 
 bility, birth and preservation, life, death, and renova- 
 tion, which you would call the operation of the law 
 of nature, — is it any more explicable as the law of 
 nature than as the law of God ? Do you more 
 clearly comprehend Nature as the originator and 
 perpetrator of this ceaseless uniformity of vicissi- 
 tude, than you can comprehend God as its origin 
 and author ? Give me the new and clearer light, 
 which by this change of terms you throw upon the 
 universe, or upon life, or upon the human heart, give 
 me your illumination, or be silent and leave me to 
 my trust, and hope, and reverence, and worship. 
 
 But here is the truth which is overlooked and 
 where mistake is made. It is by law and not by 
 impulse, by order and not by confusion, that God 
 regulates worlds, and judges human actions. It is 
 not by special plans, and counter-plans, to circum- 
 vent the ingenuity of a mighty foe, an arch-fiend, 
 and prevent his empire from invasion and disrup- 
 
LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 119 
 
 tion, but by harmonious and universal regulations, 
 leaving man free, within limits, to decide on the tar- 
 diness or the rapidity of his own progress, the devel- 
 opment or the debasement of his own faculties, the 
 increase or the decrease of his own enjoyment. God 
 judges righteously, rendering to every man accord- 
 ing to his deeds, and not to any man according to any 
 other man’s deeds, nor according to any arbitrary or 
 impulsive pleasure of his own, which men call free 
 and unmerited grace. As to the varied allotments 
 of men externally, the history of every age and com- 
 mon observation unite to prove that they are not to 
 be regarded as the standard of human enjoyment. 
 It may be, as it often is, that the man who for to- 
 morrow has not the means of procuring food for his 
 appetite, or a garment for his body, may possess a 
 largeness and loftiness of soul, a serenity of thought, 
 a depth of repose, a firmness of trust, and a brillian- 
 cy of hqpe, to which the possessor of broad estates 
 and luxurious abundance is an utter stranger. 
 
 It is not in the number of acres a man owns, nor 
 the sums he has invested in profitable stocks, nor in 
 the spaciousness of his mansion, nor the costliness 
 of his surroundings, nor the sumptuousness of hi. 
 tables, that a man finds exemption from care, or 
 freedom from anxiety. It is not by satiating his 
 appetite, that a man can escape the pangs of re- 
 morse. It is not by sinking languidly amid the 
 downy cushions of his carriage or his palace, that a 
 man can escape from the searchings of his insulted 
 and offended conscience. No, let no sufferer among 
 the poor and unfortunate of earth raise his weary, 
 tear-moistened eyes, in envy or in execration of his 
 
120 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 opulent neighbor, thinking that God has been par- 
 tial, in permitting that neighbor’s path to be strewn 
 with flowers, and the air he breathes to be enriched 
 with perfumes. No, no, poor sufferer though you 
 be, who look upon that splendor, know that you 
 cannot reach the inner depths of that neighbor’s 
 being, or with compassion you might see beneath 
 those rich vestments a heart corroding with dark- 
 ness, or burning with bitter remorse, or festering 
 with foul passions, or writhing in the fetters of 
 shadowy fears or well-grounded apprehensions. For 
 the nature and degree of his retribution beyond 
 the event of death is known only to Him who exe- 
 cutes righteous judgment. True, the conscience 
 may sometimes be temporarily stunned, stupefied, 
 seared, and almost deadened, and what should be 
 the life of a noble man approximates to the life of a 
 senseless brute. But then I would ask any poor 
 one, who has peace, — any humble one, who has a 
 high, honest mind, — any landless, purseless body, 
 which is inhabited by a healthy, enlightened, world- 
 observing, and enjoying soul, — would you exchange 
 your poor, manly life, for that rich but sordid ani- 
 mal life ? Let no one then be rash, lest he misin- 
 terpret the externals of existence, in their relation 
 to the righteous retribution of the Supreme Ruler. 
 There are indeed those who are successful in life 
 because they are worthy of being successful. There 
 are men who are rich in worldly wealth, who feel 
 themselves to be stewards of God, to dispense bless- 
 ings to their fellow-men. They are centres of light, 
 and joy, and gladness. Honestly they have gained, 
 and freely they bestow, and like the meal and oil of 
 
LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 121 
 
 the widow in Sarepta, they find that their abun- 
 dance fails not. They give, and yet gain by giving, 
 having had faith enough to learn the heavenly les- 
 son that it is more blessed to give than to receive. 
 This surely is a happiness so exquisite and deep 
 and holy, as to be almost enviable. But even here 
 envy would be selfish ; for those who taste this joy 
 of pouring blessings on their fellow-men have fairly 
 earned it. It is theirs. God renders to them ac- 
 cording to their deeds. To all such we should 
 
 rather say, Peace be on you, and prosperity within 
 your walls ; may you be like God’s sun in the skies, 
 which loses nothing by long shining, and like the 
 clouds, which are not exhausted by repeated show- 
 ers. Let Fortune flood her favors round such men 
 while they live. 
 
 If others feel as I have felt, it must create con- 
 fusion, and painful questioning in the minds of 
 worshippers, to hear ministers in their prayers, one 
 moment adoring God for his perfections, the ful- 
 ness and completeness of all his attributes, es- 
 pecially for his infinite justice, and then in the 
 next breath thanking God devoutly, that he has 
 not been just to deal with them according to their 
 deeds ; or had he been just to mark their transgres- 
 sions, they would — and the world would — have 
 long since been in darkness and misery everlasting, 
 where hope and mercy can never enter. What can 
 this mean ? Is it meant by praise, by flattery, to win 
 his approbation, and so avert the wrath they may 
 inflame by insinuating the want of justice in the 
 Divine administration, — an absence of strict jus- 
 tice, by which the worshippers are to be great gain- 
 11 
 
122 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 ers? The more I reflect over it, the more surpris- 
 ing it appears that reasonable men can insist upon 
 interpretations of Scripture, and upon the necessity 
 of faith in substitutionary or vicarious doctrines, 
 which reduce them to the necessity, even in their 
 very prayers, of impugning and denying the strict 
 justice of God himself, the Creator and Ruler of all 
 worlds. Such seems always to be the .desire of 
 many to evade responsibility, and by some art or 
 scheme of salvation escape from exact and rigid 
 personal retribution. 
 
 This earth is not a distant outpost, barely within 
 the remote jurisdiction of the Almighty, but it is 
 for ever under the Omniscient eye, it is filled and is 
 sacred with his presence. Let us make no such 
 mistake, then, as to suppose that we are left here 
 for a period, only to prepare ultimately to meet our 
 God. Let us not fancy that it is only death which 
 ushers us into the presence of the Supreme Disposer 
 of things, the Infinitely Just. Prepare to meet our 
 God ! What is the import of that one of the beat- 
 itudes of Jesus, “ Blessed are the pure in heart, 
 for they shall see God,” and of his declaration, 
 “ The kingdom of God is within you,” but that the 
 incorrupt and unsullied bosom shall here, in propor- 
 tion as it is incorrupt, see God in the wisdom and 
 beauty and beneficence of his works ? “ He that 
 
 dwelleth in love,” says the beloved disciple, “ dwell- 
 eth ” — not merely shall dwell, but now dwelleth — 
 “in God.” 
 
 Our great object is not to prepare for death. 
 We are here first and chiefly, and it is the most 
 solemn and noble thing, to prepare to live, — to live 
 
LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 123 
 
 well. For our living well is the only just prepara- 
 tion for death, and for every conceivable vicissitude. 
 Life is not incidental to death, but death is an inci- 
 dent in life. Death performs no miracle, destroy- 
 ing moral distinctions, but introduces man into the 
 spiritual state of being at the precise point where 
 as a moral agent he quitted this mortal state. Men 
 speak of bringing the soul into eternity. Why, 
 when does eternity begin ? Does eternity begin 
 only when the last breath has expired from the 
 body ? What is this life to you, to me, from the 
 first dawn of our existence, but a portion of the 
 eternal life which is allotted to us ? God, by the 
 presence of his power and his justice, is as much in 
 the birth-chamber and the sick-chamber, as in the 
 death-chamber or the grave. Engaged in our pur- 
 suits, in our most active hours, amid the busiest 
 throng, it is still 11 in Him we live, and move, and 
 have our being,” as much as when the eye has 
 been shut in death and closed down in the darkness 
 of the tomb. 
 
 Let us with scrupulous caution avoid even the 
 use of words which, either in ourselves or others, 
 may tend to imbue us with low views of the real 
 dignity of the soul; to degrade the standard of 
 excellence, which should be perpetually before us; 
 to rob life of its sanctity, and reduce this world 
 in our esteem to a mere nursery or school-house, 
 a work-shop, or an inn on the way-side to the in- 
 visible portion of our eternal life. Let this be to 
 us divine and beautiful, a world of God ; to all of 
 us, the beginning and an important portion of eter- 
 nity ; a world in which it is a high, and sublime, and 
 
124 
 
 LAW OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 solemn thing to live ; assured that now and always, 
 here and everywhere, in the world visible and the 
 world invisible, God is no respecter of persons, but 
 his judgment is righteous judgment, and he renders 
 to every man according to his deeds. 
 
DISCOURSE IX. 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING.— JESUS AS JUDGE OF THE 
 WORLD. 
 
 There is much fallacious reasoning among men 
 on almost every topic. As parties, sects, and indi- 
 viduals, we have each some point or posture to de- 
 fend, and any process of reasoning which supports 
 or gives countenance to our cherished cause, we 
 eagerly accept without strictest scrutiny. With 
 many, time is so engrossed by ordinary pursuits, 
 by business life, that plausibility is readily mistaken 
 for proof, especially on metaphysical or religious 
 questions. 
 
 The acutest perceptions are obtuse enough, and 
 the widest range of actual thought is incompre- 
 hensive enough, in any given instance, to expose 
 man to the danger of fallacious reasoning. Yet it 
 becomes us to subject to the severest ordeal every 
 proposition involving an article of religious faith. 
 For though it is possible to hold a doctrine firmly, 
 as an article of mere belief, exerting the least con- 
 ceivable influence on our character, still every doc- 
 trine concerning the nature, character, and purposes 
 11 * 
 
126 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 of God, every doctrine concerning the nature, ca- 
 pacities, and destiny of man, every doctrine con- 
 cerning the nature, character, and offices of Jesus, 
 wili have its practical effect, in some measure, in the 
 formation of individual character, in coloring the 
 thoughts and influencing the actions. And this is 
 all that gives importance to particular doctrines, and 
 theories, and religious speculations. 
 
 If the rules of practical life were all so distinct and 
 manifest, — if the principles which should govern 
 human action in all the social relations were so 
 obvious as to be recognized and adopted by all, in- 
 dependent of all conflicting systems and doctrines, 
 of religions or of churches, — then it would matter 
 little how perfect or imperfect were a man’s reason- 
 ings on theology. Were universal rules and prin- 
 ciples invariably embraced for the transaction of 
 daily business, and the enjoyment of social inter- 
 course between man and man, it would matter little 
 what sectarian denomination one man or another 
 man might bear. Were creeds all merely things 
 to be read in books, to be thought of and talked of, 
 and speculated over in leisure hours, and not in any 
 way affecting the attitude of one person towards 
 another in the common affairs of every day, it would 
 be a concern of small consequence what creed one 
 man or another kept in his book, or what title he 
 should give that book, or what theologian he should 
 regard as its legitimate expounder. Were the im- 
 pulses of the heart, were the affections, so naturally 
 and universally developed among men, that the 
 same words would at all times be pronounced true 
 and worthy and beautiful, and their opposites at all 
 
FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 127 
 
 times untrue, unworthy, and repulsive, and the same 
 actions universally pronounced unkind, unmanly, and 
 unjust, and their opposites at all times generous, hu- 
 mane, and just, it would then be of little moment 
 where one man or another should spend two hours 
 of every Sunday, or what should be the ritual of his 
 church, or the theology or the philosophy or meta- 
 physics of his ministers. 
 
 But unhappily for the general good, as well as 
 for individual comfort, this is not the common rela- 
 tion of theory and practice, of doctrine and of action. 
 There are, indeed, exceptions. There are many in- 
 stances where theoretical believers in a scheme of 
 doctrine, and scrupulous observers — not hypocriti- 
 cally, but sincerely, honestly, scrupulous observers — 
 of external religion, and Sunday ceremonies, and 
 church enterprises, never permit their sentiments of 
 respect, or their feelings of attachment to friends or 
 acquaintances, to be changed or modified, or in any 
 measure influenced, by the fact that those friends or 
 acquaintances entertain different religious views, or 
 attend some other form of worship, or express no 
 particular views and encourage no particular sect. 
 But where such relations exist between a rigid ad- 
 herent of one sect and a rigid adherent of another, 
 or between a scrupulous religionist and an unsec- 
 tarian, a liberal man, there is implied a general ob- 
 servation of the world, a large experience of life, or, 
 over and above religious training, a clear, acute, 
 practical, and philosophic mind. Either the heart 
 overrules the head, the intellect being in subjection 
 to the affections, or both mind and heart exercising 
 their proper influence over all the departments and 
 
128 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 concerns of human life, they are at the same time 
 indifferent and uninquiring as to all religious specu- 
 lations, taking their theology on trust, incurious, 
 unquestioning faith according to the training of 
 early life, or to the first religious associations into 
 which they have been thrown. In hundreds of in- 
 stances, in our day, as every observer must per- 
 ceive, this is the actual position of church-members. 
 Still, this is far from being universally descriptive of 
 sectarians. Were the ties of early association the 
 only ties which bind men to exclusive churches, 
 there would be ground for a more speedy reconcile- 
 ment of profession and of practice, and generous 
 action would become the fruit of active, generous 
 principle. But the theologic lines continue to be 
 drawn round little circles, by those who, instead of 
 compassionating and seeking out and warmly en- 
 treating others, who by their neighbors’ creed are 
 consigned to untold woe, as the enemies of God, 
 actually pass them by with coldness, if not with 
 scorn. This is the fruit of holding a system of doc- 
 trines as essential to the Divine favor ; and though 
 much is usually said, by those who thus constitute 
 themselves the favorites of God, of a certain inde- 
 finable faith, and much to the depreciation of human 
 reason, yet in every such instance it will probably 
 be found, on close inquiry, that the indefinable faith 
 which proves itself by such unamiable, unsocial, and 
 unbrotherly works, is invariably founded on, or sup- 
 ported by, fallacious reasoning, together with forced 
 and partial interpretation of certain passages or 
 words of Scripture. So obvious is this, generally, 
 that, as evil communications corrupt good manners, 
 
FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 129 
 
 even the earnest and active liberal Christian is some- 
 times betrayed into a similar scornful and unfra- 
 ternal sentiment toward his self-satisfied exclusive 
 brother. And as the Baptist says to the Methodist, 
 Stand off, I am holier than thou, — as the Methodist 
 says to the Episcopalian, and the Episcopalian says 
 to the Presbyterian, and the Presbyterian says to the 
 Roman Catholic, Stand off, I am holier than thou, 
 — so even the liberal Christian, in a sort of indigna- 
 tion, is perhaps betrayed into the expression of a 
 similar unworthy sentiment, exclaiming, like the 
 haughty Pharisee, “ Thank God, I am not as other 
 men, not even as these foolish sectarians.” And 
 thus he falls, too, into the inconsistency of retorting 
 in coldness and scorn, as if he were the favorite of 
 Heaven, in view of his superiority to sectarian tram- 
 mels, his more extensive knowledge, and liberality of 
 faith. This, I apprehend, is no very remarkable pic- 
 ture of liberal Christians, and it should cause us to 
 beware of that perilous and unlovely point at which 
 extremes often meet. 
 
 As already said, wherever any doctrine derived 
 from interpretations of Scripture language is main- 
 tained as absolutely essential to the favor of God 
 and the ultimate welfare of man, narrowness, self- 
 righteousness, and exclusiveness, if not unkindness 
 and violence, under the pretext of pious zeal, are the 
 legitimate results. 
 
 But my purpose at this moment is to consider 
 briefly at least one instance of fallacious reasoning, 
 in support of what is termed an essential doctrine ; 
 I mean the argument for the Supreme Deity of Je- 
 sus, founded on his appointment as Judge of man- 
 
130 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 kind. As a theory, it matters little whether Jesus be 
 regarded as God or the reverse ; and I do not propose 
 to discuss the question now, which I have frequently 
 discussed at length, whether the Scriptures teach 
 that Jesus was God, or whether they teach the op- 
 posite of this. But as those who maintain essential 
 articles of belief search diligently for reasons, and 
 offer reasons and interpretations in their support, 
 these reasons invite, and are entitled to, the most 
 rigid examination. Here is the argument commonly 
 offered : Jesus is the Judge of the world ; in order to 
 judge the world, Jesus must be omniscient; therefore 
 Jesus must be the Supreme God. Let us analyze 
 the logic of this argument. In order to be judge 
 of earth and of mankind it is necessary that Jesus 
 should be omniscient. What is it to be omniscient? 
 To be omniscient literally signifies to have an un- 
 derived and absolute knowledge of all things, objects, 
 beings, thoughts, words, and actions, past, present, 
 and future, perpetual and eternal. What is this 
 world? Does it embrace the centre and circumference 
 of creation ? Is this the only abode of intelligent 
 beings ? All earth is no more than an atom float- 
 ing in the immeasurable space, only a grain of sand 
 on the shore of the boundless and invisible. To 
 man himself, who by aerial conveyance may rise 
 some distance in the atmosphere, earth diminishes, 
 at the distance of only a few miles, into the merest 
 point; all the sounds of land and ocean leave the 
 stillness of the upper air unbroken, and we, bustling 
 mighty lords, with all our most immense perform- 
 ances, become less than the ants in the little mounds 
 which we may crush beneath our feet. We know 
 
FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 131 
 
 our sphere to be but a smaller sphere in a single 
 system, which is itself, as the telescope reveals, but 
 one of myriads of systems of the inconceivable, the 
 infinite universe. Nothing could be more presump- 
 tuous than the fancy that this atom of a globe is 
 the only habitable or inhabited portion of the ma- 
 terial, the illimitable universe. As the microscope 
 reveals it to our astonished sense, the globule is an 
 ocean, and the mote a world of countless animated 
 beings. We cannot, therefore, for a moment enter- 
 tain the thought, that the innumerable majestic 
 spheres, of which in the starry skies we catch some 
 feeble glimpse, are mere passive balls of dead mat- 
 ter, sparkling through space. But as the distance 
 from the molecule to the man is marked by succes- 
 sive series of existences, so may we reasonably sup- 
 pose that rank upon rank of various intelligences 
 have their abode on the innumerable vast spheres 
 which science has brought within the range of even 
 our confined knowledge. • 
 
 To suppose, then, a knowledge of all the beings 
 and things, and of all the thoughts and actions, of 
 all on or in this earth, in all time past and time to 
 come, is to suppose a knowledge as far short of ab- 
 solute omniscience, as we can possibly conceive of 
 distance of the finite from the infinite. Jesus, there- 
 fore, might have conferred on him knowledge suf- 
 ficient to qualify him for present, or perpetual, or 
 eternal Judge of earth, and, besides earth, of a thou- 
 sand other spheres of an hundred times the magni- 
 tude of earth, and still remain at the greatest con- 
 ceivable distance both in nature and attributes from 
 the Supreme God. The fallacy is obvious. Power 
 
132 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 or capacity to judge the earth or all mankind does 
 not, of necessity, imply omniscience, nor scarce a 
 conceivable approach to omniscience. Jesus might 
 even be supposed to be personally present in not 
 only fifty places on our globe, but also in fifty other 
 and greater worlds beside, and still this would not by 
 any means imply absolute omnipresence ; for there 
 might be millions of wprlds remaining, of which he 
 would have not even the remotest knowledge. 
 
 Admitting Jesus, therefore, to be judge of all man- 
 kind, to infer thence that he must be the Supreme 
 God is most inconclusive, illogical, fallacious rea- 
 soning. This obvious fallacy extends itself into the 
 interpretation of Scripture, leading to the plainest 
 disregard of the most explicit language. 
 
 There is but a single passage which refers fully 
 and distinctly to this point, and an examination, a 
 bare perusal, of the passage causes amazement, at 
 the facility with which the theorist can close his eyes 
 upon the most unambiguous terms, which are not 
 only at variance with his dogma, but as clearly op- 
 posed to it as if written expressly for its refutation. 
 Here is the passage (Acts xvii. 31) : “ He (God) hath 
 appointed a day, in which he will judge the world, 
 in righteousness, by that man whom he hath or- 
 dained.” Here it is not only not declared to be 
 necessary to be God in order to judge the world, 
 but it is expressly affirmed, that Jesus is simply the 
 ordained agent or minister of God in judging the 
 world ; and even admitting the theory which is now 
 maintained of two natures in Jesus, God and man, 
 in one person, then it is not even the God or di- 
 vine nature which is the ordained judge, but the 
 
FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 133 
 
 human nature, the man, — that man who, as St. Luke 
 states, increased in stature, and in knowledge, and in 
 favor, — that man who rejoiced and wept, who hun- 
 gered and slept, who suffered and died. God will 
 judge the world by that man whom he hath ordained. 
 So, by this unequivocal statement, even suppose Je- 
 sus to have had two or any number of natures, sup- 
 pose him to have been at the same time the supreme 
 God, still, so far from omniscience, omnipresence, 
 being necessary to constitute him judge of the world, 
 it is affirmed in the plainest manner that the or- 
 dained man is made the judge. 
 
 Nothing but the strongest attachment to a previ- 
 ously imbibed doctrine could induce religious men, 
 in the face of this most distinct New Testament 
 language, to persist in declaring it necessary that 
 Jesus should be God, in order to be judge of this 
 world. You know I have been accustomed to illus- 
 trate the language of Scripture writers by similar or 
 analogous language in use in our own day. Let me 
 give you now an instance in point, of much stronger 
 and less qualified terms in describing the influence 
 of a modern jurist, or writer on international law, 
 than any terms in the New Testament applied to 
 Jesus as a judge. This illustration derives addi- 
 tional consequence from the fact, that its author is 
 a clergyman, who himself, with reference to Jesus, 
 would employ this fallacious reasoning which we 
 have just considered. In an oration on Human His- 
 tory I find this passage : — 
 
 “ Go now with me to one of the Italian cities, and 
 there you shall see, in his quiet retreat, a silent, 
 thoughtful man, recording with a visible earnestness 
 12 
 
134 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 something that deeply concerns the world. In the 
 silence of his study he stretches forth the sceptre of 
 law over all potentates and people, defines their 
 rights, arranges their intercourse, gives them terms 
 of war and terms of peace, which they may not dis- 
 regard. In the days of battle, too, when kings and 
 kingdoms are thundering in the shock of arms, this 
 same Hugo Grotius shall be there in all the turmoil 
 of passion and the smoke of ruin, as a presiding 
 throne of law, commanding above the commanders, 
 and, when the day is cast, prescribing to the victor 
 the terms of mercy and justice, which not even 
 his hatred of the foe, or the exultation of the hour, 
 
 may dare to transcend On the sea and on the 
 
 land, on all seas and all lands, he shall bear sway. 
 This is the man to give law to all the nations of 
 mankind in all future ages.” 
 
 Here, you perceive, a minister of the Gospel, 
 without any conception of impropriety, without any 
 thought of being misunderstood, affirms of a distin- 
 guished jurist who lived several generations since, 
 that he shall bear sway on all seas and all lands, 
 that he shall give law to all the nations of mankind 
 in all future ages. Now does not this imply omnis- 
 cience ? and must not he who can thus bear sway 
 over sea and land, and give law to all nations of 
 mankind in all ages, — must not he be God ? Can 
 any being less than the Supreme Deity perform such 
 an office? Still more: he says, that “when kings 
 and kingdoms are thundering in the shock of arms, 
 this same Hugo Grotius shall be there, as a presid- 
 ing throne of law, commanding above the command- 
 ers, prescribing to the victor the terms of mercy and 
 
FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 135 
 
 justice.” Must not the great jurist be omnipresent, 
 and therefore God, when in the midst of conflicts, 
 ages after his death, he is still present, command- 
 ing and prescribing terms ? 
 
 These inquiries are needless. Your good judg- 
 ment and corpmon sense at once recognize the beau- 
 ty, propriety, and truthfulness of the description of 
 the moral power of the principles laid down by 
 Hugo Grotius. And were the same faculties ration- 
 ally exercised in construing the language of Scrip- 
 ture, most of the obscurity and mysticism thrown 
 around it would disappear at once and for ever. 
 “ Lo, I am with you always,” skid Jesus, “ unto the 
 end of the world ” ; and this is true in precisely the 
 same sense in which it is true of the Dutch lawgiv- 
 er, who is present in all nations commanding and 
 prescribing terms of justice. Jesus is present in the 
 power of his principles, and in no instance more 
 strikingly than this of the power of law. 
 
 Hugo Grotius was a Christian ; he had all his life 
 been drinking at the fountain of Christian truth, and 
 ' his rules for the adjustment of difficulties, the govern- 
 ment of nations, are only applications of Christian 
 principles of justice and mercy; and thus it is in re- 
 ality Jesus who is present, giving law, command- 
 ing nations, and prescribing terms. Thus is Jesus, 
 through the agency of others, present in every age ; 
 and will be till the end of time. Not Jesus himsejf, 
 but the truth which he expressed, — his word, as he 
 terms it, — is the judge of men. These are the terms, 
 as St. John records them (xii. 47, 48) : “ If any man 
 hear my words and believe not, I judge him not ; for 
 I came not to judge the world. He that rejecteth 
 
136 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judg- 
 eth him : the word that I have spoken, the same shall 
 judge him.” In the same conversation he says, 
 “ Now is the judgment of this world ; now shall the 
 prince of this world be cast out ” ; intimating clearly, 
 that whensoever and wheresoever men hear and rec- 
 ognize his teachings, those teachings, that doctrine, 
 will be the judge ; approving or condemning the life 
 and conduct. The enlightened conscience will judge 
 the character, always approving righteousness and 
 disapproving wrong. And by the phrase, “ If any 
 hear my words and believe not,” he implies that those 
 who do not hear his words are not judged by his 
 words, but by their fidelity to their opportunities, 
 their own consciences, as St. Paul observes, accusing 
 or excusing them. Having not the Christian law, 
 they may do by nature the things contained in the 
 law, and are thereby a law to themselves. Those 
 not born nor instructed in Christian countries, not 
 hearing of Christian principles, are not Christians in 
 name ; they do not live by Christian rules, their 
 character is not formed on Christian principles, their 
 conduct is not regulated by Christian precepts, and 
 they are not judged as we are judged, but in strict 
 justice, according to their works ; their moral condi- 
 tion being determined by the improvement or misuse 
 of their moral powers and their opportunities, neither 
 the life, the teachings, nor the death of Jesus having 
 any direct relation to them nor bearing on them, 
 whether for evil or for good, except so far as Chris- 
 tian principles are universal principles. 
 
 The conception of one great day hundreds of cen- 
 turies distant, when the water, air, and earth, and 
 
FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 137 
 
 rocks and trees, shall be transformed into living hu- 
 man bodies, to appear in one grand assembly to be 
 judged and sentenced to ceaseless ecstasy or endless 
 woe, raises again the question, Where, in the vast 
 interim of unknown centuries, are the unnumbered 
 millions of human souls ? Do they sleep ? Are 
 they annihilated ? Are they without a resurrection, 
 without judgment, without sentence, — preserved 
 through ages in some unlocated, undescribed and 
 indescribable, temporary heaven and temporary hell? 
 These are inquiries not to be overlooked or slighted. 
 That temporary existence, or non-existence, whatever 
 it may be, is itself an eternity compared with the 
 longest earthly life ; and it becomes those who hold 
 to a distant day for the judgment of the whole uni- 
 verse of human beings, to give some satisfactory 
 and consistent account of the condition or abode of 
 human souls, who are to exist, if they exist at all, 
 unsentenced, unjudged, for hundreds and myriads of 
 ages. These questions are never met, but are always 
 avoided, as if ignorance were bliss, and it were folly 
 to be wise. They must be fairly answered, or anoth- 
 er more rational and consistent view must be taken 
 of what the judgment is, and a corresponding inter- 
 pretation given to the New Testament language. 
 
 But my purpose at this time has been to afford 
 you an instance of the fallacious reasoning so com- 
 monly used in support of theological doctrines de- 
 clared to be essential. 
 
 You perceive how easily the acutest natural per- 
 ceptions become blunted by attachment to an early 
 learned and strongly inculcated system of theology. 
 Minds thus biassed assume, as necessary, proposi- 
 12 * 
 
138 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 tions which are not only destitute of evidence, but 
 which in themselves are illogical, and at war with 
 all common sense and direct knowledge of mankind. 
 Here you find it boldly affirmed that Jesus must be 
 omniscient and be God in order to be the judge of 
 earth ; while the fallacy of the argument is obvious 
 on a moment’s reflection, when you remember that 
 this earth is but a speck in the great creation, and 
 therefore that capacity to be judge of this, and an 
 hundred other and superior worlds, would not neces- 
 sarily imply omniscience, or proper Deity, for thou- 
 sands of worlds might remain of which the judge of 
 earth would have no personal knowledge. And this 
 fallacious reasoning is practised by those who loudly 
 declaim against all reason. 
 
 Yet further, you discover that attachment to al- 
 leged essential doctrines also leads to the most ob- 
 vious disregard of the plainest statements of Scrip- 
 ture, and a defiance of all just rules of interpretation. 
 You have seen how, in this very instance, the only 
 passage which fully and distinctly refers to the ap- 
 pointment of Jesus as judge of earth, declares ex- 
 pressly that he is appointed as the minister of God. 
 “ He hath appointed a day in which he will judge 
 the world by that man whom he hath ordained.” 
 Yet in the very face of this unequivocal declaration, 
 the victim of a creed inculcated from infancy will 
 assert that the judge of earth, Jesus, must therefore 
 be omniscient and be. God. What I desire to im- 
 press upon your minds is the perversion of Scripture 
 and the fallacy in reasoning presented in the argu- 
 ment which we are examining; for, even admitting 
 that Jesus might be omniscient, and might be the Su- 
 
FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 139 
 
 preme Deity, yon perceive that no proof to this effect 
 can be derived from the fact that he judges the in- 
 habitants of earth ; while all that is revealed in the 
 New Testament on this point is strong testimony 
 against the popular presumption as to the nature of 
 Jesus. You see, moreover, the confusion of thought 
 which arises from the earnest defence of certain 
 doctrines as essential to the favor of God ; a want 
 of acuteness and comprehensiveness, in consequence 
 of which men constantly speak of death and judg- 
 ment, and entrance upon eternal existence, as si- 
 multaneous events, and at the same time will con- 
 demn you as heretical and unregenerated, should 
 you fail to believe that the only resurrection and 
 judgment are events not to occur at death, but 
 hundreds, millions, or myriads of years hereafter, 
 they being unable to furnish you a single clear or 
 reasonable idea of the condition of existence, or non- 
 existence, of human souls during this vast interval 
 of time. 
 
 As we remarked in the opening of this discourse, 
 it is not a subject of grateful reflection, that so many 
 men hold religious doctrines as they hold articles of 
 ornamental furniture, to be believed in, to be looked 
 at, but never to be used; — their character being 
 formed not by their theological faith, but in despite 
 of that faith ; their conduct in the relations of life 
 being determined by observation and common sense, 
 while their creed is held in a book, to be used on 
 Sundays, and then only to be regarded in an indis- 
 criminating faith, as one regards or believes in a 
 volume written in a language which he does not 
 understand. Truth, a love of truth, enthroned as 
 
140 
 
 FALLACIOUS REASONING. 
 
 sovereign over our noblest passions, — without this 
 we must ever remain bondmen to unfounded preju- 
 dices and indefensible doctrines. A love of truth 
 supreme over all our affections, — to the divine 
 sovereignty of which we can yield the fondest illu- 
 sion of our intellectual life, — a love of truth which 
 will melt our obstinacy into the surrender of the 
 most finely cherished sentiment, and inspire us with 
 a manly courage to walk fearlessly in accordance 
 with her high behests, — without this it is in vain that 
 we attempt to appropriate the priceless possession 
 of a peaceful mind, — an unshaken soul, on whose 
 brow sits the serene image of divinity, as it moves 
 joyfully on through all the vicissitudes, commotions, 
 and convulsions of the world. 
 
DISCOURSE X. 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. — UNIVERSAL SALVATION.— 
 UNIVERSAL RESTORATION. — REWARDS AND PUN- 
 ISHMENTS. 
 
 CHARGING THEM, THAT THEY STRIVE NOT ABOUT WORDS 
 to NO PROFIT. — 2 Tim. ii. 14. 
 
 Many of the controversies which now vex the 
 world, many of the sorrowful dissensions among 
 theologians especially, might be easily obviated by 
 a careful examination and a simple and natural 
 definition of the terms employed in the propositions 
 which are the subjects of division or dispute. It not 
 unfrequently occurs, after a protracted and warm 
 discussion, that the disputants by the merest acci- 
 dent make the mutual discovery, that a previous ex- 
 planation of the words of the proposition which has 
 been the subject of difference, would have obviated 
 the need of most, if not all, of their discussion. 
 Their real difference has been a misunderstanding, 
 which a verbal definition would have satisfactorily 
 explained. They have been using the same words 
 in a different sense, or each has been ascribing to the 
 
142 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 other an understanding of terms very far from the 
 correct one ; both, as they find on verbal definition, 
 understanding the same terms in precisely the same 
 sense. 
 
 It is of the highest importance, therefore, to exam- 
 ine and explain at the outset the terms or words of 
 a proposition, that all misunderstanding may be 
 avoided. Many of the fiercest quarrels have origi- 
 nated in mutual misapprehension, when the slightest 
 preliminary inquiry would have made all clear and 
 comprehensible, averting the direst calamities, and 
 • preserving peace, concord, and happiness. Let us 
 illustrate by the consideration of some instances. 
 
 Universal Salvation, Universal Restoration, Future 
 Rewards and Punishments, — these are phrases in- 
 volving ideas of the most general interest. The 
 words themselves are only signs of ideas ; let us see 
 what ideas they are understood to signify. 
 
 Do you believe in universal salvation? is a ques- 
 tion very easily propounded ; but it is not so easily 
 nnswered, without a mutual understanding of what 
 salvation signifies. In popular theological usage, 
 salvation unquestionably is meant to signify a rescue 
 or deliverance from an infinite misery after death, a 
 condition to which, it is supposed, all are condemned 
 by nature. The myriads wfio entertain this view 
 plainly understand by universal salvation a univer- 
 sal deliverance from a universal misery after death, 
 to which mankind are naturally condemned; whilst 
 one who professes a faith in universal salvation may 
 mean this, or may mean some very different thing, 
 by salvation. The term salvation may mean de- 
 liverance from hell or suffering, in another world ; 
 
TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 143 
 
 or it may mean deliverance from the effects in anoth- 
 er world of sin in this world, or from the effects in 
 this world of sin in this world ; or it may mean de- 
 liverance from the habit of sin itself. 
 
 Now, in no one of these senses can universal sal- 
 vation be understood as literally true. It cannot 
 mean universal deliverance from hell and suffering 
 in another life, for it never can be shown that uni- 
 versal man, that all human beings, were ever cursed 
 or doomed to, or in danger of, eternal hell and suffer- 
 ing after death. It cannot mean universal deliver- 
 ance from the effects in another world of sin in this 
 world, for a majority of human beings who enter 
 this world never sin. Sin being the transgression of 
 law, and transgression of law implying knowledge 
 of law, probably a majority of mankind leave this 
 mortal life in childhood, before any capacity of sin 
 has been developed, before any voluntary act of 
 moral agency has been performed ; consequently 
 they never sinned, and they need no salvation, 
 whether in this or any other life, from the effects of 
 sin. It cannot mean universal deliverance in this 
 world from the effects of sin committed here, for we 
 observe continually, and know from actual experi- 
 ence, that there is no such thing as universal deliv- 
 erance from the natural effects of voluntary wrong. 
 "What these legitimate effects are, we cannot always 
 certainly determine ; but we see that there is not, there 
 never has been, universal deliverance from them. 
 It cannot mean universal deliverance from the habit 
 of sin itself, for we see that, up to this hour, nearly 
 all — perhaps all — mankind who reach the age of re- 
 sponsible action do actually commit more or less of 
 
144 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 sin. Thus we discover, on close examination, that 
 the phrase universal salvation is destitute of any 
 definite and satisfactory meaning. For if salvation 
 signify deliverance from actual evil, suffering, or dan- 
 ger, there can be no real meaning in universal sal- 
 vation, unless it can be shown that there has actu- 
 ally been a universal suffering or curse from which 
 there has actually been a universal deliverance. 
 Neither Scripture, nature, nor human experience has 
 yet demonstrated any such universal evil, suffering, 
 or curse, requiring any such universal deliverance. 
 To the interrogatory propounded, therefore, I should 
 be forced to reply : I am no believer in universal 
 salvation, nor am I a disbeliever. For the phrase 
 itself conveys to my mind no distinct idea ; it ap- 
 pears to be simply a misuse or misapplication of 
 words, frequently confusing the minds of those who 
 suppose it to express their belief, and equally mis- 
 leading those who suppose themselves to be contend- 
 ing against that belief. 
 
 The next phrase, universal restoration , is this 
 more clear and comprehensible than the other ? To 
 restore signifies to recover or replace something 
 which has been removed or lost, to reinstate some- 
 thing, or some person, in a condition which has be- 
 fore belonged to the same thing or person. Univer- 
 sal restoration is usually understood to signify the 
 universal reinstatement of mankind in a condition 
 of holiness and happiness. When were all mankind 
 removed from a condition of holiness and happiness? 
 When did all mankind ever fall from or lose such a 
 condition ? When were all mankind ever in pos- 
 session of such a condition ? Here we observe the 
 
TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 145 
 
 misapplication of two additional terms, the words 
 holiness and happiness. Both these words express 
 intelligence, consciousness, and action ; they both 
 imply personal moral agency. Holiness expresses a 
 conscious condition of goodness, or piety, or moral 
 purity. Happiness also expresses intelligent enjoy- 
 ment, a knowledge or experience of bliss, of felicity. 
 Millions, therefore, of the human race, who leave 
 this world in infancy, have never been conscious of 
 either holiness or happiness, as they never have of 
 the opposite conditions of guiltiness or misery. A 
 condition then which they never enjoyed, they never 
 could fall from, — they never could lose ; and there 
 is neither reason nor propriety in the idea of their 
 being restored to a condition which they never pos- 
 sessed. Whatever may be the idea conveyed to the 
 minds of those who employ these phrases, universal 
 salvation and universal restoration , to express what 
 they regard as their religious faith, others, who 
 object to the doctrines thought to be conveyed by 
 these terms, without much question, associate the 
 phrases with the idea of a primitive fall of mankind 
 through Adam, accompanied with a universal curse, 
 or sentence of condemnation. Both the phrases 
 universal salvation and universal restoration are 
 understood by theologians, and the generality of 
 nominal Christians, to express deliverance of man- 
 kind from that original curse, or final restoration to 
 the primitive condition, or what is supposed to have 
 been the primitive condition, of innocence, holiness, 
 and happiness, belonging to the man Adam. 
 
 But the term salvation never has such a reference 
 in Scripture, and the phrase universal salvation can 
 13 
 
146 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 with no propriety be so understood, till it can be 
 clearly and conclusively proved, that all mankind 
 had both physical and moral connection with the 
 man Adam, that such a universal curse was actually 
 pronounced, and that a corresponding deliverance 
 from that curse has been, or will be, finally effected. 
 Such a physical and moral connection with the man 
 Adam is not asserted by Scripture, it is unsupport- 
 ed by reason, and is refuted by the general experi- 
 ence of the world. Neither Scripture nor science 
 proves that all men are descended from the man 
 Adam, or any other one man. Neither revela- 
 tion, reason, nor all the history of human kind, 
 favors or warrants the idea of any such original 
 curse pronounced upon the unborn world of man. 
 Examine the Scriptural account in Genesis, and 
 you will find that no covenant was ever made 
 between God and Adam, nor between any other 
 persons ; that there was no curse pronounced upon 
 Adam. There was a curse pronounced on the ground, 
 and that is all which is represented as passing be- 
 tween Adam and God ; there is not the remotest 
 allusion to posterity, one way or the other. Were 
 there, at all events, a possibility of transfer or impu- 
 tation of sin, guilt, or curse from one person to 
 another, there would at least be some appearance 
 of justice in causing the parent to endure the pen- 
 alty of his children’s misdeeds, because he exposed 
 them to the dangerous influence of his pernicious 
 example. But the common theology reverses the 
 whole order of this apparent justice, and unreason- 
 ably causes the unborn child to be guilty, cursed, 
 and condemned to ceaseless woe, for the wicked act 
 
TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 147 
 
 of his parent or ancestor, ages before the child’s ex- 
 istence. 
 
 The condition of the man Adam previous to any 
 sinful act may be perhaps described by the terms 
 holy and happy , because he was a mature, free, in- 
 telligent, moral being. But these terms cannot de- 
 scribe the condition of the thousands of human beings 
 who through countless ages have daily departed from 
 this life, in infancy and childhood, before they were 
 conscious of any action good or bad, — before they 
 could possibly be in a condition of either holiness or 
 happiness, guiltiness or misery. They entered upon 
 life, and they passed from mortal being, with no 
 moral character whatever, but simply in a state of 
 innocence ; they were neither righteous nor unright- 
 eous, for they were not responsible. And this is all 
 that can be said of them. Their whole moral and 
 spiritual nature was undeveloped here, and to be 
 developed in the state into which they passed 
 through death. 
 
 All mankind, then, are not to be finally saved 
 from the wrath of God and eternal woe, because it 
 cannot be shown that all mankind were ever sub- 
 jected to any such terrible calamity. All mankind 
 are not to be finally saved hereafter, from the 
 effects of sins committed here, for it is morally cer- 
 tain that millions of human beings have lived and 
 died who never did sin here. All mankind are not 
 saved, now in the present life, from the effects of 
 sins which they commit, and universal experience is 
 the unquestionable proof. All mankind are not 
 saved from sin itself, for all history to this hour bears 
 witness, that nearly every human being who has 
 
148 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 lived to years of responsible action has committed 
 sin, though a period may come, and is devoutly to 
 be desired, when many souls shall reach maturity 
 and pass through life, of whom it may be said, as it 
 is recorded of the great teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, 
 that they were “ in all points tempted, yet without 
 sin.” 
 
 It is not improbable that both the phrases univer- 
 sal salvation and universal restoration are most gen- 
 erally misunderstood by those who oppose them, 
 and as greatly misapplied in many instances by 
 those who favor and employ them. What universal 
 calamity is it, from which there is to be universal 
 salvation ? What universal blessing has been lost, 
 to which there is to be universal restoration ? By 
 propounding these inquiries, and endeavoring to an- 
 swer them, it is seen at once, that neither the one 
 phrase nor the other conveys to the mind any dis- 
 tinct and satisfactory idea, or they imply conditions 
 of universal sin, and universal happiness, which are 
 groundless, imaginary, and never have existed. 
 Mankind cannot be saved from an evil to which 
 they have never been exposed, nor restored to a hap- 
 piness which they never have possessed. How much 
 uncharitable and profitless discussion might be avoid- 
 ed, by clearly defining the original terms of a propo- 
 sition, so that the purport of each separate word 
 might be distinctly understood ! 
 
 Future rewards and punishments , — let us bestow 
 a moment of consideration on this phrase. The term 
 reward is manifestly used and understood to signify 
 a requital, or equivalent, or mark of favor, hereafter 
 to be given by God, in return for certain good ac- 
 
TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 149 
 
 tions of man in this present life. At the same time 
 it is an essential doctrine of the popular theology, 
 that man is fallen and lost, and can never possibly 
 perform any meritorious action ; that future heaven 
 is not a reward or equivalent for any good done by 
 man, but a free, unmerited gift, to which no human 
 being is or can be in any way entitled, but is be- 
 stowed by the pure grace of God. Both of these 
 views cannot be, and perhaps neither of them is, 
 correct. 
 
 The word reward is frequently used in Scripture, * 
 but it is never used to signify heaven or happiness 
 in a future world, whether paid as an equivalent, or 
 bestowed freely, without merit, as a gift. In ordi- 
 nary speech the term reward is used to express both 
 the idea of a payment and the idea of a gift. We 
 describe a man as rewarded, who receives something 
 as a requital or compensation for something which 
 he does. Money, property, office, honor, or enjoy- 
 ment, received in return for some service done, we 
 call a reward, and we do so properly. Sometimes 
 it is used to signify a gift or present, bestowed as a 
 mere mark of respect, and not as an equivalent for 
 any service which has been performed, and without 
 the expectation of anything to be given in return. 
 In this sense the term reward is not used with strict 
 propriety. The word itself, in its true sense, means 
 something received in lieu of something given. 
 
 Both these ideas of payment and of present ap- 
 pear to be singularly blended and conveyed without 
 discrimination by religionists, who use the word re- 
 ward to signify heaven or happiness in a future life. 
 Heaven is described as a place and condition of eter- 
 13 * 
 
150 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 nal bliss, to be bestowed as a free gift from God ; 
 and almost invariably it is described, in the same 
 breath, as a reward hereafter which is sure to all 
 who perform certain righteous actions. The unkind, 
 uncharitable, and vicious man, through a long life of 
 eighty years, complies with certain conditions an 
 hour before his death, and he receives the heaven of 
 eternal bliss as a reward. The virtuous, pure, and 
 pious youth, through only a short life of twenty 
 years, complies with certain prescribed conditions, 
 and he receives the same heaven of endless joy as 
 his reward. The little child, who never performs 
 an act either virtuous or vicious, and who neither 
 complies nor refuses to comply with any conditions, 
 opens its eyes in wonder on this world, then moves 
 away, through the door of death, into the same 
 heaven of eternal happiness, as his reward. There 
 is nothing but confusion in this use of the word re- 
 ward with reference to the life beyond the grave. 
 To use it in all these cases in the sense of a be- 
 stowal, a free gift, unmerited, adds nothing to its 
 distinctness, but leaves it as indefinite as ever. I do 
 not hesitate to assert, that no satisfactory idea can 
 be conveyed by the word reward , associated with 
 heaven as an unchangeable and eternal condition 
 after death. Such an idea of heaven and such a 
 use of the word reward , either as a payment or a 
 gift, are totally irreconcilable, in view of the differ- 
 ent circumstances under which men die, and these 
 terms leave the innumerable variations of this pres- 
 ent life involved in impenetrable darkness. Still 
 more, I do not hesitate to say, that until a clear 
 and satisfactory idea can be expressed by the word 
 
TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 151 
 
 reward , it should never be employed to express the 
 condition of enjoyment or existence in a future life. 
 
 The word punishment is used with as much 
 vagueness and obscurity as the word reward. Some- 
 times it is used to signify an arbitrary infliction of 
 pain or suffering, as a satisfaction for some wrong 
 done. Sometimes it is used to mean arbitrary chas- 
 tisement or discipline, not for the satisfaction of the 
 person who inflicts the suffering, but for the correc- 
 tion and warning of the person who endures the suf- 
 fering. But in both cases it is usually understood 
 as being arbitrary, without any invariable law, but 
 at the mere pleasure of the one who inflicts the suf- 
 fering. It may be much or little, for a long period 
 or a short period, according to his pleasure at the 
 moment ; whether inflicted vindictively for his own 
 satisfaction, or only as a proper correction and warn- 
 ing for the sufferer. 
 
 In both these senses the word punishment is used 
 by religionists with reference to the future life. By 
 one, God is represented as consigning all the wicked 
 of every degree, old and young, civilized and savage, 
 to an eternal and unmitigated hell of misery, and 
 this is called the expression of God’s anger, his 
 wrath, his vengeance, satisfaction for offending by 
 the transgression of his holy law. By another, God 
 is represented as subjecting all the wicked, who die 
 without penitence and reform, to a suffering for dis- 
 cipline, for correction or preparation, after which they 
 shall be transferred to the place and companionship 
 of the virtuous and holy. To describe this condition 
 as well as the other, the word punishment is used, 
 implying that chastisement or correction is arbitrary 
 
152 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 also, — much or little, long or short in its duration, 
 according to the pleasure of God, — only that it will 
 ultimately terminate, and then the soul be trans- 
 ferred to the place of unbounded and everlasting fe- 
 licity. The word punishment almost invariably con- 
 veys to every mind the ideas of wrath, vindictiveness, 
 ideas which never can with any propriety be asso- 
 ciated with the attributes and character of the Su- 
 preme Being. God is love, and infinite love ; and 
 God is infinite and unchangeable in every perfection. 
 Unless the word punishment can be used and always 
 understood as dissociated entirely from every idea 
 of wrath or vindictiveness, it never should be used 
 to express the action of God, whether with reference 
 to the condition of souls beyond the grave, or the 
 condition of human beings in this present mortal 
 life. 
 
 After this examination of these several phrases, 
 you will easily understand how one may say, with 
 the greatest propriety, I am no believer in universal 
 salvation, no believer in universal restoration, no be- 
 liever in rewards or in punishments in a future life, 
 nor in rewards and punishments in this present life. 
 For as they are commonly used and commonly un- 
 derstood in religious speech, in theological and pulpit 
 phraseology, no one of these phrases conveys any 
 reasonable, consistent, or satisfactory idea to the 
 mind. 
 
 Of the author of such a declaration you might 
 inquire, What then do you believe? That you 
 might weigh it carefully, and test its reasonableness, 
 its consistency, and its reality, he might give you 
 this plain reply : I believe that there is but one life 
 
TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 153 
 
 of the soul, which begins at the soul’s beginning or 
 its birth, and continues on for ever ; a life of freedom, 
 of development, of retribution and progression,— 
 death being but a single event in the soul’s life, — an 
 event which relieves it from the restraints, propensi- 
 ties, and peculiarities of a fragile and decaying frame, 
 — the moral character of the spirit being the same 
 a moment after death which it was a moment before 
 death, only that the soul finds itself in a new and 
 larger sphere, ready to proceed in the unfolding of 
 its spiritual life from the exact moral point at which 
 it left this mortal existence. 
 
 This one life of the soul is a life of retribution. 
 There is no partiality, no favoritism ; there are no 
 elect ones as the recipients of anything called sal- 
 vation. God rules the whole material world by a 
 uniform and established order. He also rules the 
 whole moral world, the whole world of mind or 
 spirit, by uniform and unvarying laws. The most 
 enlightened man in the most enlightened Christian 
 country, who through ignorance or wilfulness trans- 
 gresses a natural or moral law, must and does ex- 
 perience similar effects to those experienced by the 
 Pagan or barbarian, on the opposite side of the 
 globe, who transgresses the same natural or moral 
 law. In both cases, if the transgression be one of 
 ignorance, the natural effects must follow, but it is 
 no sin. And in both cases, should the transgression 
 be wilful, the effects must follow, and the transgres- 
 sion is a sin. The difference in both cases between 
 the transgression which is sin, and that which is 
 not sin, is in the moral effects upon the mind or 
 conscience. So that every human being each day 
 
154 
 
 TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 
 and hour, in the exercise of free will, forms its own 
 moral character. Each action of every being reacts 
 in some way and to some extent upon himself, for 
 good or evil, and not only upon himself but on oth- 
 ers, and this reaction is retribution. This is what I 
 mean by a life of retribution. Each being at the 
 event of death continues its existence and develop- 
 ment, from the moral life which it had formed up to 
 that moment for itself, and proceeds in the spiritual 
 state, enjoying happiness according to its own moral 
 capacities ; and this is what I mean by a life of pro- 
 gression. 
 
 Thus we discover the necessity of a clear idea of 
 words. And the words salvation , restoration , re- 
 ivards and punishments , should never be used, un- 
 less they can be separated in the mind entirely from 
 the ideas of wrath, vindictiveness, or any arbitrary 
 action on the part of God, whether favorable or un- 
 favorable to man. 
 
 God is no respecter of persons in this life, nor in 
 any other. He appoints laws to regulate the whole 
 of man’s nature, and leaves man free to learn, un- 
 derstand, and experience the effect of those divine 
 and universal laws, to increase enjoyment or reduce 
 his capacity for enjoyment in proportion as he obeys 
 or disobeys them. 
 
DISCOURSE XI. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS ; OR GOD 
 AND THE DEVIL. 
 
 THOU THOUGHTEST THAT I WAS ALTOGETHER SUCH AN ONE 
 
 as thyself; but i will reprove thee. — Psalm 1. 21. 
 
 Though there may be occasionally found among 
 us a stranger who is a Mahometan or Pagan wor- 
 shipper, and though numbers of Jewish worshippers 
 are frequently found, yet our civilization is called 
 Christian. We are said to live in Christian society. 
 Most men directly encourage the external offices 
 of religion, and nearly all pay more or less regard 
 to religious observances. But among those who 
 encourage the external offices of religion directly, 
 many appear to regard only its externals. Their re- 
 ligion appears to be unexpressed by any controlling 
 principles regulating their general transactions ; it 
 appears to be expressed by no uniform spirit pervad- 
 ing their whole lives, manifest in their words, acts, 
 and whole deportment, by characteristics correspond- 
 ing with what are agreed by all to be the peculiar 
 features of the religion to which they avow their 
 
156 BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 
 
 adherence, — the Christian religion. This class of 
 persons may be rarely absent from the churches on 
 occasions of public worship, and they are prompt in 
 meeting all obligations originating in the temporal 
 or business concerns of the congregations with which 
 they worship. Having done this, they appear to 
 think their part performed. 
 
 Why this immediate unprofitableness of religion, 
 this practical unproductiveness of Christianity, is an 
 inquiry at once just and pertinent. That in a very 
 considerable degree it originates in prevailing mis- 
 conceptions of the character of the Deity, will be 
 obvious on a careful examination of facts. Whilst 
 it is reasonable that the barbarous or unenlightened 
 mind, untaught entirely with reference to God, 
 should form a conception of the Deity compatible 
 with its own character and condition, it is just as 
 true that those who receive all their views of the 
 Deity from the dogmatic systems and teachings of 
 others, as an almost universal rule, accept the views 
 of God in which they are instructed, their own con- 
 duct taking its coloring and character from their 
 conception of Deity. The man untaught concern- 
 ing any Deity, but left to frame his own, frames a 
 Deity corresponding with his own characteristics. 
 The man instructed from the first in certain views 
 of Deity is likely to frame his own character on 
 principles corresponding with the character which 
 he has learned to be that of God. 
 
 Let us see, then, how far an observation of facts 
 may exhibit this analogy between human conduct, 
 human character, and the prevailing conception of 
 the character of God. Inquire of Christian wor- 
 
BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 157 
 
 shippers generally, whether or not the Deity is the most 
 unresentful, unretaliating, forbearing, and beneficent 
 of beings, and you will probably receive a univer- 
 sal affirmative reply. But notwithstanding this, the 
 prevailing theological systems and confessions, the 
 generality of books, sermons, and preaching in 
 Christian society, represent God so as necessarily 
 to imply that, while he is the most powerful and 
 majestic, he is at the same time the most irritable, 
 unforbearing, resentful, and vindictive being in the 
 universe. The prevailing representations of the De- 
 ity among Christians imply that he is imperfect 
 and unfortunate, sorrowing, suffering, angry, and 
 jealous, sometimes forbearing, sometimes petulant 
 and inexorable, always fighting or contending, either 
 with man, or angel, or devil, — in his conflicts with 
 Satan, his arch-enemy, sometimes victorious and 
 sometimes defeated, sometimes triumphing and 
 sometimes mourning. 
 
 I might here appeal to the personal knowledge of 
 every one accustomed to the common representa- 
 tions of Christian doctrine, in the weekly ministra- 
 tions of the various churches. You hear the frequent 
 allusions to God and to Satan, the two great oppos- 
 ing beings, engaged in open and unceasing warfare, 
 of which man is the poor, feeble, disabled, and un- 
 happy subject. You hear of the devices to which 
 Satan resorts, to retain every human being under his 
 subjection; and you hear of the councils held in 
 heaven by persons of the Godhead, and the wonder- 
 ful plan, the ingenious and never sufficiently to be 
 applauded scheme, by which the Deity checks the 
 triumphant career of his inveterate and mighty foe, 
 14 
 
158 BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 
 
 and accomplishes the rescue of a few of the unhap- 
 py human victims of Satan’s cunning', cruelty, and 
 unmitigated enmity to God. 
 
 But the theological literature of the age assumes 
 a more permanent form, and is likely to be more 
 general and lasting in its influence. I might cite 
 articles and confessions and catechisms, but, passing 
 by these for the time, I ask you to examine a few 
 passages from the writings of one of the most dis- 
 tinguished religious writers of the generation just 
 passing from the stage of active life. I mean Dr. 
 Chalmers, most of whose writings have been given 
 to the world within the short time since his decease. 
 He was, during his life, one of the most noted of the 
 Calvinistic or Presbyterian ministers in England and 
 Scotland, and his writings have been extensively cir- 
 culated wherever the English language is vernacular. 
 
 In the passages I am about to cite to you, several 
 great doctrines of the system which he supported 
 are assumed. You will perceive that he takes for 
 granted the existence of an Almighty Deity, and of 
 an only less than almighty demon. He takes for 
 granted that man is the subject, and this earth is the 
 theatre, of a great fight, an awful contest, which has 
 been carried on for six thousand years or more, be- 
 tween these two inveterate foes, God and the Devil. 
 His purpose is then to exhibit the immense interests 
 at stake, and the spirit and sentiments which con- 
 tribute to render the warfare worthy of the two 
 powerful combatants. 
 
 In meeting the objections of the more or less scep- 
 tical, who suggest that the earth, in comparison with 
 the universe, is but an insignificant field, and that 
 
BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 159 
 
 man, in comparison with the worlds and ranks of 
 intelligences, is but an insignificant subject of a con- 
 test so amazing, he illustrates the considerations 
 which arise to give weight to the conflict as it pro- 
 ceeds, by supposing a battle between two great na- 
 tions. This illustration he closes in these notable 
 words : — 11 But other principles are animating the 
 battle, and the glory of nations is at stake, and a 
 much higher result is in the contemplation of each 
 party than the gain of so humble an acquirement as 
 the primary objects of the war, and honor, dearer to 
 many a bosom than existence, is now the interest 
 on which so much blood and so much treasure is 
 expended, and the stirring spirit of emulation has 
 now got hold of the combatants ; and thus, amid all 
 the insignificancy which attaches to the material 
 origin of the contest, do both the eagerness and the 
 extent of it receive from the constitution of our na- 
 ture their most full and adequate explanation.” 
 
 He then applies the illustration of interests which 
 become involved in a national contest, to the strug- 
 gle between higher natures, or God and Satan. He 
 does it in these notable terms : — 
 
 u Now, if this be also the principle of higher 
 natures ; if, on the one hand, God be jealous of 
 his honor, and on the other there be proud and 
 exalted spirits, who scowl defiance at him and 
 his monarchy; if, on the side of heaven, there 
 be an angelic host rallying around the standard 
 of loyalty, who flee with alacrity at the bidding 
 of the Almighty, who are devoted to his glory, 
 and feel a rejoicing interest in the evolution of 
 his counsels ; and if, on the side of hell, there be a 
 
160 
 
 BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 
 
 sullen front of resistance, a hate and malice inextin- 
 guishable, an unequal daring of revenge to baffle the 
 wisdom of the Eternal, and to arrest the hand and 
 to defeat the purposes of Omnipotence, — then let 
 the material prize of victory be insignificant as it 
 may, it is the victory in itself which upholds the im- 
 pulse of this keen and stimulated rivalry. 
 
 “ If, by the sagacity of one infernal mind, a single 
 planet has been seduced from its allegiance and 
 been brought under the ascendency of him who is 
 called in Scripture ‘ the god of this world,’ and if the 
 errand on which our Redeemer came was to destroy 
 the works of the Devil, then let this planet have all 
 the littleness which astronomy has assigned to it, — 
 call it what it is, one of the smaller islets which float 
 on the ocean of vacancy, — it has become the theatre 
 of such a competition as may have all the desires 
 and all the energies of a divided universe embarked 
 upon it. It involves in it other objects than the sin- 
 gle recovery of our species. It decides higher ques- 
 tions. It stands linked with the supremacy of God, 
 and will at length demonstrate the way in which he 
 inflicts chastisement and overthrow upon all his ene- 
 mies. 
 
 “ I know not if our rebellious world be the only 
 strong-hold which Satan is possessed of, or if it be 
 but the single post of an extended warfare that is 
 now going on between the powers of light and of 
 darkness. But be it the one or the other, the parties 
 are in array, and the spirit of the contest is in full 
 energy and the honor of mighty combatants is at 
 stake, and let us therefore cease to wonder that our 
 humble residence has been made the theatre of so 
 
BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 161 
 
 busy an operation, or that the ambition of loftier 
 natures has here put forth all its desire and all its 
 strenuousness.” 
 
 Presented in this way, and for the purpose for 
 which I now cite it, this language no doubt appears 
 strange and peculiar, as referring to the Christian 
 Deity, and as exhibiting the nature of Christian reve- 
 lation. But its apparent peculiarity is only in the 
 manner in which it is now presented to your consid- 
 eration, for language equivalent to this, and frequent- 
 ly almost verbally the same, is common in pulpit dis- 
 courses every Sunday. You hear man spoken of as 
 the lost, sinful, ruined, and helpless victim of the 
 Devil’s artifice, at the time of his supposed conversa- 
 tion with the wife of the man Adam, though not one 
 human being had then, as far as we are informed, 
 been born into the world. You hear God spoken of 
 as being irritated and angry with the Devil for his 
 cunning and cruel deception, and with the woman 
 for being deceived by the Devil, and with man for 
 being persuaded by the woman. Then you hear 
 God spoken of as declaring war against this power- 
 ful enemy, who is represented as one of God’s former 
 subjects, who rebelled against Divine authority, and 
 was expelled from the Divine abode for his audacity, 
 and who has ever since been filled with burning ha- 
 tred against the Almighty and all that pertains to him. 
 
 Chalmers here represents God as being moved by 
 the passions which characterize the human duellist 
 and soldier. He represents both God and his ene- 
 my as losing sight of the original insignificant issue, 
 and, by the impulse of a keen and stimulated rivalry, 
 contending for victory itself. He says the contest 
 14 * 
 
162 BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 
 
 has arrived at a stage where more than the single 
 recovery of our species is at stake ; that it involves 
 higher questions, because it is linked with the su- 
 premacy of God, who is jealous of his honor, and is 
 resolved not to be outdone by the sagacity of an in- 
 fernal mind, who with other proud spirits scowl de- 
 fiance at him and his monarchy, endeavoring to baffle 
 the wisdom of the Eternal, and defeat the purposes 
 of Omnipotence. 
 
 But Chalmers does not stop at this. When he 
 comes to expatiate upon the grand expedient, the 
 blood of atonement, he indulges in this strain, so 
 strikingly resembling the delineations of human bat- 
 tles, military tactics, and grand generalships : — 
 
 “ It was only in that plan of recovery of which Jesus 
 Christ was the author and the finisher, that the great 
 adversary of our species met with a wisdom which 
 overmatched him. It is true that he had reared, in 
 the guilt to which he seduced us, a mighty obstacle 
 in the way of this lofty undertaking. But when the 
 grand expedient was announced, and the blood of 
 that atonement by which sinners are brought nigh 
 was willingly offered to be shed for us, and the Eter- 
 nal Son, to carry this mystery into accomplishment, 
 assumed our nature, then was the prince of that 
 mighty rebellion, in which the fate and history of our 
 world are so deeply implicated, in visible alarm for 
 the safety of all his acquisitions : — nor can the rec- 
 ord of this wondrous history carry forward its narra- 
 tive, without furnishing some transient glimpses of 
 a sublime and a superior warfare, in which, for the 
 prize of a spiritual dominion over our species, we 
 may dimly perceive the contest of loftiest talent, and 
 
BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 163 
 
 all the designs of heaven in behalf of man, met at 
 every point of their evolution by the counter-work- 
 ings of a rival strength and a rival sagacity. 
 
 “ Surely, it is no more than being wise up to that 
 which is written, to assert, that, in achieving the re- 
 demption of our world, a warfare had to be accom- 
 plished ; that upon this subject there was among the 
 higher provinces of creation the keen and the ani- 
 mated conflict of opposing interests ; that the result 
 of it involved something grander and more affecting 
 than even the fate of this world’s population ; that 
 it decided a question of rivalship between the right- 
 eous and everlasting Monarch of universal being, and 
 the prince of a great and widely extended rebellion.” * 
 
 This is the carrying out of that idea of which you 
 hear so much in Christian theology from the various 
 pulpits, — of a council, in which expedients were dis- 
 cussed, and a plan devised to alarm and conquer, if 
 possible, the prince of that mighty rebellion in which 
 the fate of our world is so deeply implicated. Here 
 the supreme Spirit and beneficent Father of the uni- 
 verse is represented as inflamed by ambition to car- 
 ry on a sublime and superior warfare for the prize 
 of a spiritual dominion over our species, met as he 
 is at every point by the counter-workings of a rival 
 strength and a rival sagacity. This contest is repre- 
 sented as a keen and animated conflict of opposing 
 interests; yes, it becomes a personal quarrel be- 
 tween the combatants, involving, as this writer’s 
 excited imagination declares, something grander and 
 more affecting than even the fate of this world’s 
 
 * Sixth Astronomical Discourse, on Colossians ii. 15. 
 
164 
 
 BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 
 
 population; for it decided a question of rivalship 
 between the everlasting Monarch of universal being, 
 and the prince of a great and widely extended rebel- 
 lion. 
 
 This is a Christian minister’s description of the 
 Christian’s God; — a Deity moved by ambition, rival- 
 ry, jealousy, and revenge; a Deity characterized by 
 every base and degrading and ignoble passion, which 
 the principles of Christianity, as taught by Jesus, 
 pronounce unjust, improper, and unnecessary, even 
 in frail and erring humanity. And this, moreover, is 
 no extreme and peculiar case ; the same description 
 of the Deity, his actions and character, in terms more 
 or less distinct, is given in thousands of churches 
 from week to week. The whole doctrine of the sub- 
 stituted suffering of Jesus, or vicarious atonement, as 
 the systems term it, is predicated on the idea that 
 Dr. Chalmers presents so vividly, — the presumption 
 that God permitted himself to be by one of his own 
 creatures entrapped into an almost inextricable dif- 
 ficulty, — a difficulty so great, that, in order to relieve 
 or justify himself, and to prevent his eternal purposes 
 from being wholly defeated, it taxed the utmost in- 
 genuity, or, as it is styled, the rival sagacity, of the 
 Divine mind to devise a plan, which is so frequently 
 admired as the scheme of salvation ; — a scheme for 
 the discovery of which almost every prayer that is 
 offered and every sermon that is preached by thou- 
 sands of clergymen is replete with flattery, congrat- 
 ulations, and compliments to the Almighty. 
 
 A very common thing it is for ministers, in com- 
 parison with the work of redemption, as it is styled, 
 to depreciate the work of creation. To command 
 
BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 165 
 
 into existence not only sun and moon and planets, 
 but the system upon system of worlds which form 
 the universe, and bid them roll in silent grandeur 
 through the realms of space ; to create ranks of intel- 
 ligent beings ; to form this mortal frame, so fearfully 
 and wonderfully made ; to inspire these minds which 
 surmount, subdue, and measure the objects and 
 events of time, and look forward to an eternity of life 
 beyond this sphere, — all this is considered a small 
 affair, an unimportant work, compared with the 
 amazing ingenuity which devised a scheme to wrest 
 and save from the malicious arts of Satan a few 
 human souls, a fraction of the number of human be- 
 ings whom Satan has continued to deceive and 
 tempt and steal away from the Creator, — from the 
 Supreme Being to whom Satan himself, as it ap- 
 pears, owes his existence. Thus do expounders of 
 the Christian faith compliment the skill of God, and 
 measure the relative importance of his acts and pur- 
 poses. But this contest between Deity and demon, 
 Creator and creature, has not yet terminated, as it 
 seems. That plan by which God, under the appear- 
 ance of a man, i. e. the Christ, contended with and 
 vexed and circumvented Satan, was imperfect, and 
 the warfare still continues. Here let me cite the de- 
 liberate expression of a noted Calvinistic minister of 
 our own day, Dr. Edward Beecher of Boston, who 
 describes God as a mighty warrior, and declares that 
 the great end of God is to fight and conquer and 
 destroy. 
 
 “ According to the Bible, the system of this world 
 is an exception to all that precedes it and all that 
 follows it. It is the great, singular, anomalous dis- 
 
166 BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 
 
 pensation of the universe. Time was when sin did 
 not exist. Time will be when its power will be 
 subdued. All between is one great moral conflict, 
 and thrice blessed is he who in this conflict shall 
 overcome. The human race is a peculiar race. Of 
 their own kind they had no predecessors, they have 
 no contemporaries in other worlds, they will have no 
 successors (the confident assertions of Swedenborg 
 to the contrary notwithstanding). The whole sys- 
 tem implies the contrary. The great end of God 
 now is not education and development according to 
 fixed and eternal laws, but war and conquest. The 
 incarnate God is not chiefly an educator, but a war- 
 rior. There is a God, a king, and a kingdom to be 
 destroyed, and he is the great destroyer. For this 
 end, he reigns and wields universal power. For this 
 end, angels and principalities and powers are subject- 
 ed unto him. And he will reign till all enemies are 
 put beneath his feet : then cometh the end. Then a 
 new and immutable system of the universe shall 
 take the place of that which now is, and shall en- 
 dure for evermore.” * 
 
 Here, in order to maintain his theory of God as a 
 warrior and unrelenting enemy of the great spirit of 
 evil, he assumes what science will not warrant, and 
 what is without foundation in Scripture; namely, 
 that this world is an exception to all that precedes 
 and all that follows it. Indeed, he alleges that noth- 
 ing can follow it. He assumes that the human race 
 is a peculiar race, that they had no predecessors, that 
 
 * Article on “ The Incarnation,” in the Biblical Repository and 
 Classical Review for January, 1850. 
 
BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 167 
 
 they have no contemporaries in other worlds, and 
 that they will have no successors. This is an extent 
 of knowledge which never before has been ascer- 
 tained or positively asserted, as far as I have ever 
 known ; and you will observe that Beecher directly 
 conflicts with Chalmers, who regards other worlds 
 and other species as having interests at stake in 
 this magnificent battle between God and Devil. 
 
 There is one singular inconsistency prominent in 
 this. In saying that time was when sin did not ex- 
 ist, and time will be when the power of sin shall be 
 subdued, and that all between these times is one 
 great moral conflict, and thrice blessed is he who 
 in this conflict shall overcome, he implies that 
 man is himself engaged in this warfare, and that his 
 being blessed depends upon his proving victor. At 
 the same time, the chief purpose of the writer is to 
 demonstrate that the great end of God’s exertions is 
 to fight and conquer his arch-enemy, Satan, and to 
 destroy his kingdom, man being entirely silent and 
 inactive. To this end, he says, God reigns and 
 wields universal power. 
 
 There is another remarkable difficulty. God 
 wields universal power, yet so nearly equal in 
 power is the great enemy and rebel against heaven, 
 that it is as much as the Deity can do to keep his 
 crown and throne, the “ forces ” and cunning and 
 “ rival sagacity ” of heaven and hell being so nearly • 
 equal. There seems to be less disparity between 
 the power of the two combatants than between 
 any two warriors of earth ; for the warfare has been 
 waged for six thousand years, and to all appearance 
 has thousands of years to continue before the issue 
 
168 BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 
 
 can be seen, and even then, by this same theory, it 
 could scarcely be determined in favor of God, since 
 his enemy is to carry away into his dominions for 
 ever far the greater number of captives. Man is rep- 
 resented as the weak, passive, and helpless subject 
 of the contest between the two great powers, and 
 yet his blessedness is to depend on his coming off 
 conqueror over an antagonist whom the Almighty 
 himself, as it appears from the theory, is to leave in 
 possession of a power so great that the larger num- 
 ber of those concerning whom the war was declared 
 are to be subject to his fiendish malice and cruelty 
 eternally, God having retired more than half defeated 
 from the contest. 
 
 Nowhere, except in the history of the passions and 
 disputes of pagan deities by Homer and Virgil, — no- 
 where else could a parallel be found to these views 
 by Christian ministers of the Christian Deity. And 
 what must be the effect of such representations ? 
 While God himself, the first and best of beings, is a 
 warrior, jealous of his honor, at ceaseless enmity 
 with his powerful antagonist, is it reasonable to ex- 
 pect man to see aught objectionable in the human 
 battle-field, or to regard the passions of jealousy and 
 enmity as wrong ? 
 
 Whilst Christians are taught that the supreme 
 God is moved by low ambition to conquer a wicked 
 • and fearful enemy, whilst the very existence of God 
 appears as a contest to decide a question of rivalship 
 between him and another being, and that one of his 
 own creatures, how can Christians be expected to 
 mean anything by peace and forbearance and love, 
 but warfare and retaliation and undying hatred ? 
 
BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 169 
 
 Here Jesus himself loses his character of a bearer of 
 glad tidings from the Eternal Father to his erring, 
 toiling, hoping, and aspiring children. Jesus, the di- 
 vine messenger, by this theory dwindles away into 
 an emissary or agent of an omnipotent warrior, or 
 even worse, the omnipotent warrior himself, dis- 
 guised as a sort of spy, that by some stratagem he 
 may defeat the plans of his vigilant arch-enemy. 
 Are mere mortal beings expected to be superior to 
 the God whom they adore ? How can Christian 
 ministers thus representing the Creator expect the 
 people who rely on them for religious instruction to 
 regard forbearance or charity as a virtue, or to culti- 
 vate the arts of peace as blessings, whilst the high- 
 est virtue in God himself is resentment, and the 
 great object of his existence is war and conquest? 
 
 Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, 
 is the injunction of Jesus ; and this, if it mean any- 
 thing in consistency with the common representa- 
 tions of God and the Devil, means, Be the most per- 
 fect warriors, and foster the most unrelenting enmity 
 toward every one that may oppose you ; for if the 
 Creator himself is always engaged in a hateful and 
 jealous conflict, with a being of his own creation, 
 surely we feeble creatures are expected to gratify our 
 sordid passions, and cease to retaliate only with the 
 extermination of each other. Read the history of 
 Christian lands ; visit the thousand battle-fields en- 
 riched by the blood of Christians who have destroyed 
 each other ; see the altars and the walls of Christian 
 churches crimsoned with the current from murdered 
 Christian hearts ; see the red hands of Christian 
 priests and people, Roman Catholic and Protestant, 
 15 
 
170 
 
 BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 
 
 from the time of Constantine to this time of Pius the 
 Ninth, opening the Gospel to read of peace with 
 stained swords hanging at their sides, — and how 
 and when can we expect the nominal disciples of 
 Jesus to beat their swords into ploughshares and their 
 spears into pruning-hooks, and learn war no more ? 
 When shall there be peace on earth and good-will 
 among men, if God himself is unable even to con- 
 quer a peace from his fiendish adversary ? 
 
 God must reign supreme in the world’s heart, not 
 sharing sovereignty with an omnipresent being who 
 is his sworn and eternal foe. God must be received 
 as a Father, infinite in power and goodness and love, 
 before each man shall see in each his brother, and by 
 gentle deeds and pure and holy speech shall ear- 
 nestly labor to make the kingdoms of this world 
 truly the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ. 
 
 By examination, we have found that the prevailing 
 view of the relation subsisting between God and the 
 Devil implies that the Deity is as imperfect in some 
 respects as he is perfect in others ; that he is moved 
 by rivalry, jealousy, hatred, and revenge, and never 
 ceases his bitter hostility to one whom he regards as 
 his uncompromising enemy. We find that it is im- 
 plied in the common theory of Christianity, that the 
 Devil is a being who is wholly wicked, without any 
 redeeming quality ; that while in some respects in- 
 ferior, he is in some all-important particulars supe- 
 rior to God, inasmuch as he first opposed and de- 
 ceived God ; that he so far prevents God from re- 
 covering what he had lost, that he defies God, and is 
 still waging war with him, and that finally he is to 
 triumph by defeating the benevolence of God toward 
 
BATTLE OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS. 171 
 
 his creatures, the vast majority of God’s creatures 
 becoming the irrecoverable captives of God’s invet- 
 erate enemy. And we have seen that, by this same 
 common theory of religion, man is esteemed a mere 
 football, tossed to and fro between these two mighty 
 antagonists; that we are wretched, helpless, de- 
 praved, and wicked worms of the dust, so trifling that, 
 as Chalmers says, the two almighty warriors lose 
 sight of us in their terrific contest, which merges into 
 a fight for the honor alone, the supremacy, of the 
 two parties. And so all this representation in Scrip- 
 ture, of man as akin to angels ; as a being crowned 
 with glory and honor, the image of God, the lord of 
 creation, an heir of God and joint heir with Jesus; 
 as a being with powers so exalted that he may raise 
 himself to a heaven of progress and felicity, or sink 
 himself to a hell of remorse and fear, — all this, on 
 this view of religion, becomes mere mockery, tanta- 
 lizing us with dreams and fancies never to be real- 
 ized, and u this world is all a fleeting show, for man’s 
 illusion given.” All enlightened conscience, enlight- 
 ened reason, and human experience unite in pro- 
 nouncing these views of God, of man, of Christian- 
 ity, and of the world, unjust, unworthy, and untrue. 
 
 A question remains to be answered. These words, 
 Satan and Devil, are found in Scripture. Can we 
 reconcile what we know to be true with the use of 
 these terms in Scripture? This question I will en- 
 deavor to answer in my next Discourse. 
 
DISCOURSE XII. 
 
 USE AND MEANING OF THE TERMS DEVIL AND 
 SATAN IN SCRIPTURE. 
 
 We have seen by a brief examination the views 
 that have been entertained and are still taught by 
 many theological and religious writers, respecting the 
 relation alleged to exist between God and Satan, — 
 between the Supreme Deity and an almost .supreme 
 Devil. If, as we supposed, this common view of 
 Deity and Devil, as two great antagonistic pow- 
 ers, two mighty persons necessarily and eternally 
 hostile to each other, waging an interminable war, 
 unless it be terminated, as many allege it will, by a 
 surrender on the part of God to Satan of an im- 
 mense majority of the human family, thus closing 
 the contest by crowning the Devil conqueror, — if 
 this view be, as we supposed, incompatible with 
 every reasonable view of the attributes of Supreme 
 Deity, if intellect, affections, and conscience unite 
 with all external nature in pronouncing against this 
 conception of the Creator, then we properly inquire, 
 What is the signification of the terms found in the 
 Bible, holding the Scriptures, as we all do, to contain 
 
THE TERMS DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 173 
 
 the highest, best, and sufficient record of truth and 
 duty to mankind ? What is the use and what the 
 meaning of the terms Satan and Devil in the Scrip- 
 tures ? 
 
 It would be impossible in a single Discourse to con- 
 sider all the passages in which these terms are found. 
 But we may examine some of them, and endeavor 
 to do something to elucidate the subject. First, as 
 to the word Satan. This is a Hebrew word, and 
 wherever found in Scripture is to be regarded as a 
 Hebrew word, not translated. Many superficial 
 readers no doubt suppose this word, being Hebrew, 
 to be very frequently used in the Old Testament, 
 and will probably be surprised to find that it is only 
 used seven or eight times in all our English transla- 
 tion of the Old Testament. It is frequently used, 
 however, in the original Hebrew, and this fact assists 
 us in determining its use and signification. In these 
 seven or eight instances, it is used as a name or per- 
 sonification, that is to say, as if applied to a par- 
 ticular being or person. And concerning some of 
 these passages there is considerable diversity of 
 opinion, among critics calling themselves orthodox, 
 as to whether the personage referred to was an evil 
 or a good personage. For instance, the difficulties 
 arise in this way. 1 Chron. xxi. 1, it is said, “ Satan 
 stood up against Israel, and provoked David to 
 number Israel.” Referring to the very same trans- 
 action, Samuel (2 Sam. xxiv. 1) says, “ The anger 
 of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he 
 moved David against them to say, Go, number Is- 
 rael and Judah.” The writer of Chronicles says it 
 was Satan provoked David to this act; Samuel 
 15 * 
 
174 
 
 USE OF THE TERMS 
 
 says it was God provoked David to this act. Hence 
 some, desiring to reconcile the statements, say this 
 Satan must be a good angel, and not a being hostile 
 to Jehovah, but one acting by the direction of the 
 Lord, so that the Lord himself and Satan, his good 
 angel, may be said to have done the same act. 
 
 Again, in the second chapter of Job, it is said, 
 “ There was a day when the sons of God came to 
 present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came 
 also amongst them.” Here the critics are perplexed 
 again to determine whether this Satan denotes a ma- 
 lignant spirit, an enemy of God and man, or a faith- 
 ful but suspicious servant of Jehovah, one of the 
 sons of God here spoken of. Eichhorn, Herder, and 
 other eminent critics defend this view ; for otherwise 
 they cannot well account for the presence of the Devil 
 in heaven amongst the angels of God, and he especial- 
 ly holding a conversation and argument with God. 
 This view may find some support from the fact that 
 the angel of God is in another place in the original 
 expressly called Satan. Numbers xxii. 22, alluding 
 to Balaam who went to curse Israel, it is said, “ Be- 
 cause he went, the angel of the Lord stood in the 
 way for an adversary (Satan) against him.” 
 
 Here we begin to receive some light when we 
 come to the meaning of the word Satan. It literal- 
 ly signifies an adversary, enemy, or opposer, and it 
 is so translated in every instance in which it is 
 translated, and in every case except the few disput- 
 ed instances already referred to, and where it remains 
 untranslated, it alludes to human beings without 
 any doubt. 
 
 I mention a few instances. 1 Kings xi. 23, 25, it 
 
DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 175 
 
 is said, “ God stirred him up another adversary (or 
 Satan), Rezon, the son of Eliadah ; and he was an 
 adversary ( Satan) to Israel all the days of Solomon.” 
 Again, 1 Samuel xxix. 4, the Philistines say of David, 
 “ Make this fellow return, lest in the battle he be an 
 adversary (or Satan) to us.” 1 Kings v. 4, Solomon, 
 alluding to the wars which had prevented David from 
 building a temple, says, “ But now the Lord hath 
 given me rest on every side, so that there is neither 
 adversary (or Satan) nor evil occurrent.” From these 
 passages it is clear that in Hebrew usage whatever 
 was an obstacle, an enemy, or adversary, whether 
 personal or impersonal, was called Satan. 
 
 But how does it happen that, in the few instances 
 in which the term is left untranslated, it is employed 
 as a name, or personal substantive ? This is readily 
 understood when we remember that Chronicles, Job, 
 and Zechariah, the books in which the word is 
 found, were all written after the return of the He- 
 brews from captivity, or within 500 years before 
 Christ, that is to say, 3,500 years, according to com- 
 mon chronology, after the events referred to in Gen- 
 esis. Eichhorn and other critics (called orthodox) 
 regarded the belief in the Devil as having no exist- 
 ence among the Jews till after their captivity in 
 Babylon, having acquired this idea from the good 
 and evil deities of the Babylonians. But whether 
 these critics are correct in supposing that the Jews 
 believed in a personal Satan, an evil deity, any more 
 after than before the captivity, we need not be anx- 
 ious to determine. For agreeably with the use of 
 language at that day with them, as with us at this 
 day, it was natural and rhetorical for them to per- 
 
176 
 
 USE OF THE TERMS 
 
 sonify evil, and designate every person, object, or in- 
 fluence that was inimical, adverse, or opposed to 
 them, as a Satan, an opponent. 
 
 The term is obviously employed in the same sense 
 in the New Testament, as in Rev. ii. 9, where it is 
 said of the church in Smyrna, “ I know thy works, 
 and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich,) and 
 I know the blasphemy of them which say they are 
 Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” 
 Here the persons of Jews are called “the syna- 
 gogue of Satan.” And still more distinctly is the 
 Jewish use of the term apparent in the reply of Jesus 
 to Peter, when, Peter rebuking Jesus, Jesus turned 
 (Matt. xvi. 23) “and said unto Peter, Get thee be- 
 hind me, Satan ; thou art an offence unto me,” — al- 
 most the very words which Matthew (iv. 10) repre- 
 sents Jesus as saying to the Devil in what is called 
 the temptation : “ Get thee hence, Satan.” This is a 
 most expressive illustration of the real signification 
 of this term Satan. An obstacle, an opposition or 
 adverse influence, an offence, was termed a Satan, 
 the word being used as a proper name, as if desig- 
 nating a person. Jesus called Peter Satan, because 
 he offended or opposed him. More abstract and 
 logically accurate as our language is, it is not sin- 
 gular to meet with the same use of terms among 
 ourselves. We say of a man who pertinaciously 
 opposes another’s prosperity, that he is Satan to 
 that man, and in an excited state of mind we would 
 in addressing such a man say, Begone, thou Satan, 
 from our presence. 
 
 We now come to the term Devil. This word is 
 entirely confined to the New Testament. It is 
 
DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 177 
 
 never used in the Old Testament. The plural, devils , 
 is found three or four times in the Old Testament ; 
 but in every instance it plainly refers to gods instead 
 of evil spirits, — it refers to images, idols, satyrs, 
 nymphs, or forest gods. For instance, Levit.xvii. 7, 
 the Israelites having sacrificed in the open fields 
 to pagan deities, it is said, “ They shall no more 
 offer sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have 
 gone.” Deut. xxxii. 17, Moses, referring to the de- 
 fections of the Jews, says, “ They sacrificed unto 
 devils, to gods whom they knew not, to new gods, 
 whom your fathers feared not.” And, 2 Chron. xi. 
 15, it is said that Jeroboam “ ordained him priests 
 for the high places, and for the devils, and for the 
 calves which he had made.” These are different 
 Hebrew words from those which are so translated 
 in the New Testament, and are the names of divin- 
 ities in the nations around the Hebrews, and should 
 all have been translated deities , instead of devils. So 
 we discover the term Devil is never used in the Old 
 Testament. Our inquiry, therefore, is necessarily 
 confined to the New Testament. 
 
 There are two words which are indiscriminately 
 translated devil or devils ; one is daipoviov, the other 
 5m/3oXos. The pertinent questions here are these : Are 
 these terms, or is either of them, always applied to 
 one and the same being? Does either of these terms 
 invariably apply in Scripture to a malignant, spirit- 
 ual, invisible being, or are they both applied various- 
 ly to beings living and dead, to human beings and 
 inanimate objects? We must answer by an exam- 
 ination of some passages. 
 
 First, as to the term daifiovia. 1 Corinth, x. 20, 21, 
 
178 
 
 USE OF THE TERMS 
 
 Paul, addressing a church of Greek converts to' Chris- 
 tianity, says, “ The things which the Gentiles sacri- 
 fice, they sacrifice to devils (daifioviois), and not to God ; 
 and I would not that ye should have fellowship with 
 devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the 
 cup of devils ; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s 
 table and of the table of devils.” Referring to this 
 passage, an eminent theologian of the Presbyterian 
 Church of Scotland says : “ Considered abstractly, the 
 pagan worship and sacrifices were not offered to 
 God, whom they knew not. But as little were they 
 offered to that being whom Christians or Jews call 
 the Devil or Satan, with whose character or history 
 they were equally unacquainted.” Again, speaking 
 of a similar passage (Rev. ix. 20), he says : “ It is 
 equally manifest here that the word rendered devils 
 ought to have been demons (or gods) ; nor is it less 
 manifest that every being who is not the one true 
 God, however much conceived to be superior to us, 
 whether good or bad, hero or heroine, demigod or 
 demigoddess, angel or departed spirit, saint or sin- 
 ner, real or imaginary, is in the class comprised 
 under the name demons , and the worship of them is 
 as much demonolatry as the worship of Jupiter, 
 Mars, and Minerva. A great part of the heathen 
 worship is confessedly paid to the ghosts of departed 
 heroes, of conquerors and potentates, and of the in- 
 ventors of arts, whom popular superstition, after dis- 
 guising their history with fables and absurdities, had 
 blindly deified. Now to all such beings they them- 
 selves, as well as the Jews, assigned the name 
 daimonia .” 
 
 The correctness of these remarks as to the use of 
 
DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 179 
 
 the Greek term is demonstrated by the fact, that the 
 translators have actually rendered the same word 
 gods instead of devils. Acts xvii. 18, some of the 
 Greeks at Athens say of Paul, “ What will this 
 babbler say? He seemeth to be a setter forth 
 of strange gods (dai^ovl(ov). ” These considerations 
 as to the word sometimes translated devils and 
 sometimes gods in the New Testament, assist us in 
 understanding the same word when applied to the 
 men and women said to have been possessed of 
 devils. Speaking of these instances in which devils 
 (8ai[xovia) are said, to have been in or cast out of 
 persons, the same Presbyterian writer referred to 
 says : “ Though we cannot discover with certainty 
 from all that is said in the Gospel concerning pos- 
 session, whether the demons were conceived to be 
 the ghosts of wicked men deceased, or lapsed an- 
 gels, or (as was the opinion of some early Christian 
 writers) the mixed descendants of certain angels 
 (whom they understood by the sons of God men- 
 tioned in Genesis vi. 2) and of the daughters of men, 
 it is plain they were supposed to be malignant spir- 
 its. They are exhibited as the causes of the most 
 direful calamities to the unhappy persons whom they 
 possess, — dumbness, deafness, madness, epilepsy, 
 and similar affections.” Dr. Jahn, the able Roman 
 Catholic archaeologist, in presenting the arguments 
 to be offered against a real possession by a malig- 
 nant devil, says: “Jesus and his Apostles teach us 
 that all things, even the most minute, are under the 
 direction of God. They could not therefore for a 
 moment suppose that so great miseries were inflict- 
 ed by demons (whether the spirits of dead men or 
 
180 
 
 USE OF THE TERMS 
 
 other evil spirits), or that God would be accessory to 
 such evils by permitting them to exist in such a 
 way. They would not countenance such an opin- 
 ion the more especially, because it had its origin 
 among nations which were given to idolatry. It 
 was a common belief among such nations, that the 
 celestial divinities governed the world by proxy, in- 
 trusting it to inferior deities and to the spirits of the 
 dead.” * 
 
 Now as to the other Greek word, &d0oXoy, let us 
 ascertain how this is employed. Like Saifioviov, it is 
 also applied to men and women, to diseases and evil 
 influences ; though it is always understood in a bad 
 or malignant sense, and never as referring to gods, 
 both good and evil, as the word ba^xoviov does. Aid/SoXor, 
 applied to men and women, is translated in our Eng- 
 lish version, sometimes as slanderer, sometimes as 
 false accuser, and sometimes as devil. 1 Tim. iii. 11, 
 Paul says, “ Even so must their wives [the wives of 
 deacons] be grave, not slanderers (BiaficXovs) ” ; and, 
 2 Tim. iii. 3, he says, there shall be evil men “ with- 
 out natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers 
 (Sm^oXot).” And Jesus himself is represented as call- 
 ing Judas devil (didpoXos). John vi. 70: “Jesus an- 
 swered, Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of 
 you is a devil (&d/3oXos).” But not only is this word 
 applied to women and men of a bad moral character, 
 but in general terms to classes of sick persons, as 
 appears by the fact that the removing of these devils, 
 or of this influence of the devil, is called healing the 
 persons. Acts x. 38, Peter, in a sermon he was preach- 
 
 * Jahn’s Archaeology, 3d ed., Section 197. 
 
DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 181 
 
 ing to a crowd, says, “ God anointed Jesus of Naza- 
 reth with the Holy Ghost and with power ; who went 
 about doing good, and healing all that were oppres- 
 sed of the devil (roG &a/3oXou) for God was with him.” 
 From this, says Dr. Jahn, the Roman Catholic writer 
 already mentioned, u it clearly appears that, in the 
 view of the sacred writers, to be a sick person, and 
 to be a demoniac, or vexed with the devil, were 
 only different expressions for the same thing. The 
 sacred historians frequently say that the demoniacs 
 were made whole or restored, which is an intima- 
 tion at least that they were previously diseased. If, 
 moreover, Luke, who was a physician, uses such ex- 
 pressions as these, viz. to heal, to be healed from 
 spirits, to heal those oppressed with a devil, — if he 
 uses such expressions in reference to demoniacal 
 possessions, it is clear we are to understand posses- 
 sions in his language to mean the same with dis- 
 eases, and nothing more.” (Sect. 196.) 
 
 During their captivity of seventy years, the He- 
 brews were familiarized with the Persian idea of two 
 principles, the evil principle and the good, by which 
 they accounted for the good and evil of the world, 
 good things being created by the good deity, and 
 evil things by the evil deity. Two generations of 
 Jews growing up in the midst of those who enter- 
 tained this doctrine, they naturally came to use the 
 same method of expression, though not to convey the 
 same ideas. They began to employ the Hebrew word 
 Satan as a name, a personification, which, as their 
 writings show, they never had done during thepre- 
 vious three thousand years. It at once appeared a 
 strong and forcible manner of expressing an adverse 
 16 
 
182 
 
 USE OF THE TERMS 
 
 or opposing influence to call it a Satan. And the 
 same of a person. An enemy, a spy or informer, they 
 designated Satan; and so, as we have seen, Jesus 
 himself calls Judas &d£oXos (devil), because Judas was 
 a spy or betrayer, as he had before called Peter Sa- 
 tan. This was according to his uniform custom, 
 using the common language to give strong expres- 
 sion to his own ideas ; and there was no misunder- 
 standing on the part of those who heard him. In- 
 deed, the same use of speech is not remarkable 
 among ourselves. We do not misunderstand a 
 speaker when he says of a notoriously vicious man, 
 that he is the very devil, that he is a perfect Satan. 
 Nor do we misconceive when it is said of a man 
 repeatedly unfortunate, severely tried, that his evil 
 genius, his demon, seems to drive him, — the devil 
 thwarts and vexes him. The term is often poetically 
 applied to men, and we find the great dramatist, 
 speaking of hypocrites, say : 
 
 “ They clothe their naked villany 
 With old odd ends, stolen forth of holy writ, 
 
 And seem as saints when most they play the devil.” 
 
 In the first centuries of Christianity the sect of 
 Gnostics and Manichaeans introduced this very doc- 
 trine of good and evil principles, good and evil dei- 
 ties, the one creating and controlling darkness and 
 evil, the other controlling light and good. 
 
 A theological historian tells us of a sect of Chris- 
 tians called Satanians, “ a branch of the Messalians, 
 who appeared about the year 300. It is said, among 
 other things, that they believed the Devil to be ex- 
 tremely powerful, and that it was much wiser to re- 
 spect and adore, than to curse him.” 
 
DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 183 
 
 Thus far in our inquiry we have seen that the 
 word Satan is a Hebrew word, and that it is applied 
 in the Hebrew Scriptures to Rezon, son of Eliadah, to 
 King David, and other human beings, and to war, — 
 to any thing or influence that may be called an 
 enemy or opposer; and that in the New Testament, 
 Jesus, according to the then common use of lan- 
 guage, distinctly applies this term to Peter, calling 
 him Satan, and the words three or four times trans- 
 lated devils in the Old Testament should be trans- 
 lated deities or gods, and that the word devil is never 
 used in the Old Testament. 
 
 And coming to the New. Testament, we have 
 found that the word daifiovia, generally translated 
 devils , is sometimes also translated gods, as when 
 Paul is called “ a setter forth of strange gods ” ; that 
 the same word is applied to satyrs, forest gods, im- 
 ages of wood or stone, good deities and bad deities, 
 and also to men and women, to sick and insane per- 
 sons ; and we have given you the testimony of most 
 eminent Presbyterian and Roman Catholic theolo- 
 gians, that Jesus himself employed the term in this 
 sense, as did also the Gospel historian, Luke. 
 
 And we have found that the term didfioXos, ren- 
 dered the devil most generally, is by St. Paul ap- 
 plied to both men and women, translated by our 
 English version sometimes by the word slanderer , 
 sometimes false accuser, and sometimes devil, as 
 when Jesus said of Judas, u I have chosen you 
 twelve, and one of you is a devil ” ; and that, agree- 
 ably to the testimony of Dr. Jahn, the same term 
 (8cd/3oW as well as Satpmoi/) is applied to insane 
 and diseased persons, as when Peter says, “ God 
 
184 
 
 USE OF THE TERMS 
 
 anointed Jesus, who went about doing good, and 
 healing all that were oppressed of the devil.” We 
 have found that the word Satan is used as a name 
 or personification only in the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment written subsequent to the captivity, i. e. within 
 500 years before Jesus, and that while in captivity 
 the Jews became familiar with the Persian doctrine 
 of two principles or deities, — one creator and ruler 
 of evil, and the other creator and ruler of good ; 
 and that the Jews used their own word Satan, mean- 
 ing adversary or opposer, to express the Persian idea 
 of the evil principle or deity ; and that this was a 
 natural use of language, not misunderstood by them- 
 selves, and not implying that they had adopted the 
 doctrine of an evil, as well as a good, deity. 
 
 This much is established beyond all question, that 
 these terms, Satan and Devil, are not always in Scrip- 
 ture applied to angels or spirits, or invisible beings 
 of any name, evil or good ; but that by the Hebrew 
 writers, by St. Paul and by Jesus, both these terms are 
 applied to men and women, and diseases, influences, 
 and inanimate objects. And whether or not the ex- 
 istence can be proved of such a person as the being 
 commonly meant by the words Satan and Devil, — a 
 person who, like God, is omnipresent and invisible, — 
 who is at the same time present in every quarter of 
 the world, instigating human hearts to evil passions, 
 and human hands to evil deeds, — who is the eternal 
 enemy of God, and is at war with the Almighty as 
 much as he is with human beings, and who is to defy 
 God, and before his face to carry away, eventually, 
 most of God’s creatures, to torture them for ever, — 
 whether or not the existence of such a person, or 
 
DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 185 
 
 deity, or devil, can be demonstrated, this much w^ 
 have now established from the words of the prophets, 
 and apostles, and Jesus, that the words Satan and 
 Devil (Satan and dia(3o\os ), in the Old and New 
 Testament, do not teach, at least do not establish, 
 the being and authority of such a person. Or should 
 it still be insisted on, that these terms do prove the 
 existence and power of such a person, it must also 
 be accepted as a logical and necessary inference, that 
 the disciple Peter was Satan, and the disciple Judas 
 was Sta/3oXo?, and this on the incontestable author- 
 ity of Jesus himself, who calls the one Satan and the 
 other Devil, so that both Satan and the Devil are hu? 
 man beings, and, if they are distinct persons, were 
 both disciples of Jesus ; or if identical, then he seemed 
 to deceive the Great Teacher, by appearing in two 
 characters, one of which Jesus detected in his base- 
 ness, and the other of which remained undetected, 
 and became one of the great preachers of the Gos- 
 pel, so that Satan, the Devil, becomes the author 
 of two of the Epistles of the New Testament. 
 
 But keeping in view the literal signification of the 
 term, namely, opposed to, contrary, adverse, spy, in- 
 former, and keeping in view the fact, that the word 
 Satan is always employed in the Hebrew books 
 written previous to the captivity to signify a human 
 enemy or adversary, or an opposing influence of any 
 kind, as we have shown by several examples, we 
 conceive that it cannot be difficult to understand 
 how naturally the Hebrew writers who had become 
 familiar with the heathen doctrine of two creat- 
 ing and ruling principles, the evil and the good, 
 should employ their own term to personify every hos- 
 16 * 
 
186 
 
 USE OF THE TERMS 
 
 tile being or agency, whether hostile to good or to 
 evil purposes of theirs. And as naturally the Greek 
 term fim/3oAos, by which the Hebrew Satan is trans- 
 lated, appears as a similar personification in the New 
 Testament writings. As James (iv. 7) says, “ Resist 
 the devil (fita/3oAoy), and he will flee from you,” — an 
 obvious personification of temptation or evil, — i. e. 
 resist evil, and you will conquer it. And only by this 
 use of the term fit dfioXos as a personification can we 
 perceive the significancy and appropriateness of that 
 passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ii. 14, 15, “ that 
 through death he might destroy him that had the 
 power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them 
 who through fear of death were all their lifetime sub- 
 ject to bondage ” ; — a virtual declaration that wher- 
 ever the principles and spirit of Jesus are brought 
 into contact with wrong or evil, they will subdue 
 and destroy it, thus delivering man from that moral 
 death, — death to truth, goodness, love, and peace. 
 The devil here is obviously a personification, signify- 
 ing everything inimical, adverse, or opposed to, the 
 true welfare and enjoyment of man, every evil 
 thought or evil passion. Otherwise, on the com- 
 mon understanding of the terms, the unequivocal 
 declaration must be admitted, that the design of the 
 death of Jesus was to destroy this person, fiia/3oAos, 
 the devil , and it is vain to attempt any longer to 
 alarm the world by pointing them to the remains of 
 a destroyed and dead devil. 
 
 In Scripture language we find almost every princi- 
 ple, virtue, and sentiment personified. When we find 
 wisdom personified, as in Proverbs i. 20, “ Wisdom 
 crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, 
 
DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 187 
 
 she crieth in the chief place”; Proverbs vii. 4, “ Say 
 unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call under- 
 standing thy kinswoman”; Proverbs viii. 2, “ She 
 standeth in the top of high places ” ; — when we find 
 patience personified, as by James i. 4, “ Let pa- 
 tience have her perfect work ” ; — when we find char- 
 ity personified, as by Paul, (1. Cor. 13,) “ Charity suf- 
 fereth long, charity envieth not, seeketh not her own, 
 is not easily provoked ” ; — when we find sin person- 
 ified, as when Paul (Rom. vii. 8, 11, 17) says, “ Sin, 
 taking occasion, wrought in me all manner of con- 
 cupiscence ; sin deceived and slew me ; now it is no 
 more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me ” ; and 
 this personification of sin is strikingly similar to the 
 use of the term Devil ; — when we find every book of 
 Scripture abounding with personifications like these, 
 can we be perplexed to understand such injunctions 
 as this from St. Paul (Eph. iv. 26-31): “Let 
 not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give 
 place to the devil; let all bitterness and anger and 
 evil-speaking be put away from you.” The devil 
 here can mean no mighty invisible and omnipresent 
 being, for it is clearly implied that it is something 
 that man possesses power to oppose, and the phrases, 
 “ neither give place to the devil,” and, “let all anger 
 and evil-speaking be put away from you,” are ob- 
 viously only different ways of expressing the same 
 thing. 
 
 With this natural and reasonable view of the 
 Scripture use of these terms, a personification of ev- 
 ery trying or opposing influence, tempting thoughts, 
 suggestions, passions, and by applying it to the in- 
 stance of the word Satan in the trial of Job, and of 
 
188 
 
 USE OF THE TERMS 
 
 the word Devil as employed by Matthew and Luke 
 in narrating what is called the Temptation of Jesus, 
 we may discern a depth of meaning and a force and 
 beauty of illustration which are utterly lost on the 
 application of the common theory, which only pre- 
 sents these narratives as strange and unintelligible 
 combinations both of ideas and of words, neither 
 profitable nor instructive, natural nor beautiful. Both 
 these narratives, especially that called the Tempta- 
 tion of Jesus, afford valuable illustrations of truth, 
 experience, and duty, which cannot now, for want of 
 time, be noticed. 
 
 In seeking for an interpretation of these terms of 
 Scripture, which may render them intelligible and 
 bring them into harmony with consciousness, expe- 
 rience, and nature, let no one imagine that he dis- 
 covers a desire to escape from, or weaken the im- 
 port of, that strong Scripture language which repre- 
 sents the inevitable results of voluntary wrong, ha- 
 bitual and cherished sin. By no scheme, plan, or 
 atonement can any man evade a righteous retribu- 
 tion. The hourly observation of human life may 
 sufficiently admonish us, that the Supreme Father, 
 infinitely merciful and just, requires no such agent 
 as an omnipresent and malignant being to carry into 
 execution his retributive laws. A ubiquitous Devil, 
 full of unmitigated malice, and a roaring hell of 
 material flames, attended by the satellites of Satan, 
 have long ago lost their charm, even with those who 
 think they believe in their existence. Such delinea- 
 tions do not much alarm the most ignorant and de- 
 praved. Unprincipled, dishonest, and immoral men, 
 however firmly they believe in the Devil, dread a 
 
DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 189 
 
 constable or a sheriff much more than they do Satan 
 or the Devil ; they are more alarmed at the thought 
 of a county jail or state prison, than they are at the 
 thought of a hell of fire and brimstone. 
 
 Do we not all know, have we not all experienced 
 or discerned, something of that fearful inward sense 
 of desolation attendant upon wrong ? To every wil- 
 fully vicious and habitually wicked man, there is, in 
 the loss of reputation, in the loss of sympathy, in the 
 loss of self-respect, in the loss of spiritual enjoyment, 
 in present remorse, and in gnawing fear of the in- 
 visible future, in which all the capacities of discern- 
 ing the present and reviewing the past may be so 
 unspeakably enlarged and quickened, — in all this, to 
 such a man, there is a deep, burning hell, more real 
 and more awful than any hell of fire and flames and 
 angry devils. There is such a capacity of deep an- 
 guish in the human heart, as may crowd eternity into 
 an hour, or stretch an hour into eternity. And still 
 more, in denying that our Creator and Father shares 
 his sovereignty with a great, eternal, and wicked 
 spirit, who now mars God’s happiness, and is ulti- 
 mately to defeat the Almighty in his loftiest pur- 
 poses, — in repudiating this, I would not be under- 
 stood to dogmatize, and to deny the existence of all 
 invisible spiritual agencies, whether evil or good. 
 There may be permitted in some sense evil spiritual 
 agencies. And not for beds of pearls, not for mines 
 of gold, would I lose the soothing, sacred influence 
 of the impression that the pure spirits of departed 
 loved ones are still the servants of the Holy One, by 
 gentle ministrations, unseen but not unfelt, warning 
 and encouraging us, shedding over our hearts a 
 
190 USE OF THE TERMS DEVIL AND SATAN. 
 
 heavenly peace, and inspiring ns with heavenly hope 
 of a heavenly reunion. And I cannot close this Dis- 
 course without remarking that, in the prosecution of 
 this interesting inquiry, to already all-sufficient evi- 
 dence I find added superabundant testimony, that 
 this revered Book is a rich and exhaustless treasury 
 of truth, of human experience and history, indicating 
 and illustrating with power and beauty the sublimest 
 principles of human action, the highest standard of 
 human duty, and the purest and most lasting source 
 of human enjoyment. A time is dawning, is at 
 hand, when, by a reasonable, scientific, natural in- 
 terpretation, these long honored and much pervert- 
 ed Scriptures will be rescued from the ridicule of 
 thoughtless ignorance, from the scoffs of the incred- 
 ulous but uninquiring, and from the scorn of cold- 
 hearted infidelity, and become an ever-flowing foun- 
 tain of spiritual life, from which toiling, hoping 
 human hearts shall drink, and find peace and joy in 
 holiness of spirit. 
 
DISCOURSE XIII. 
 
 GOD AND'NATURE. 
 
 HAYING NO HOPE, AND WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD. — 
 
 Eph. ii. 12. 
 
 Were yon to exhaust thought in attempting to 
 frame a fitting description of a rational being who 
 has found his residence on our globe, and who is 
 the living embodiment of moral gloom, unmitigated 
 sorrow, and deep, unutterable woe, no language 
 could you find more concisely expressive or more 
 thoroughly complete than this thriliingly descriptive 
 sentence, “ without God and without hope.” This 
 is a description to which it must be trusted that no 
 human being could be found to answer. Yet it 
 should not be disguised, it cannot have escaped the 
 observation of any close observer, that in not a 
 few, in many instances, there appears a tendency 
 towards such a condition of spiritual desolation. In 
 our day, restless, indefatigable Science is extending 
 her researches in every quarter, as if affording assur- 
 ance of a literal realization of those Scriptural words, 
 “ There is nothing covered that shall not be re- 
 vealed, nothing hid that shall not be made known,” 
 
192 
 
 GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 bringing “ to light the hidden things of darkness, 
 and making manifest the counsels of the heart.” 
 
 As with a thousand hands she is opening a thou- 
 sand hitherto unopened pages in this stupendous 
 volume of nature, discovering new facts, new opera- 
 tions, new laws, or, if not new, facts, operations, and 
 laws hitherto unknown or unobserved. But wisdom 
 does not always increase in a corresponding ratio 
 with knowledge, as appears from the momentary" 
 exultation over every fresh development. With 
 every slight discovery, some voices are heard echoing 
 the Eureka ! of the Greek philosopher. “ I have found 
 it! I have found it! The world’s mystery is ex- 
 plained ; the problem of the universe is solved.” As 
 if they had eaten of the tree in the Eden of the Mo- 
 saical cosmogony, they seem to be conscious of veri- 
 fying the serpentine prediction in having become 
 gods, knowing both good and evil ; but unhappily for 
 themselves, and sometimes unhappily for the world, 
 they do not, as to their intellectual being, make that 
 other discovery which the two occupants of Eden 
 made, as described in this concise language : “ They 
 knew that they were naked.” Though not always, 
 yet the poet’s apothegm is sometimes true, that “ a 
 little learning is a dangerous thing.” But peril is 
 the true element of progress, and every slight in- 
 crease of knowledge, with all the dangers it may 
 bring, is preferable to the most blissful security of 
 ignorance. The sagacity, however, which in our 
 day has detected a few of the latent properties of 
 light, and heat, and electricity, and steam, fails in a 
 just improvement of its discoveries, when it assumes 
 a haughty and scornful attitude, and with a self- 
 
GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 193 
 
 complacent pride affects to despise the paternal roof 
 under which it was nurtured, and to which it is in- 
 debted for its present expansion and maturity. Con- 
 tempt and ingratitude are as ungraceful features in 
 the character of science, as they are in that of igno- 
 rance. Pride goeth before a fall, is not only a He- 
 brew proverb, but it is the expression of a fact which 
 all history attests. Superstition, as she becomes 
 proud, ambitious, and despotical, weakens confi- 
 dence and awakens foes ; and just in proportion as 
 Science assumes an air of haughtiness, and scorns 
 the steps by which she rises, she too will weaken 
 confidence in her own worth, and retard her own 
 advancement; for all experience testifies that men 
 prefer old tyrants to new ones, and if it be only a 
 change of masters they are to have, they will more 
 respect the superstition which is hallowed by their 
 earliest and tenderest associations, than the unwar- 
 rantable presumption of a new-born science, which 
 rudely shocks all that their pure childhood has held 
 dear and holy. Our human nature is indeed great 
 in its capacities, but it is yet small in its acquire- 
 ments. The wisest of our nature who have passed 
 from earth, and the wisest of our nature who now 
 live, are standing only on the sandy and wreck- 
 strewn shore of the boundless sea of knowledge. 
 Ever and anon a swelling wave casts up some weed 
 or shell, unfolding to us some new beauty and sug- 
 gesting to us some fresh thought, but the inestima- 
 ble treasures which lie deep down in that ocean’s 
 bed are only intimated by the little we observe. 
 And is it not often cited as an evidence of Newton’s 
 greatness, as the richest gem that sparkles in the 
 17 
 
194 
 
 GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 diadem that crowns his memory, that he deemed 
 himself, even in the zenith of his fame, but as a little 
 child playing with a few pebbles on the shore, while 
 the illimitable sea of truth lay before him still undis- 
 covered ? I would not presume to say that this 
 manly humility, this ingenuous spirit, which is not 
 ashamed to recognize the boundaries which circum- 
 scribe its knowledge, — I would not presume to say 
 that this is no characteristic of our day. Indeed, the 
 vast extent of elements still unexplored is not only 
 admitted, but urged by the most unspiritual as a 
 plea for the most unrestrained inquiry and incessant 
 effort. Yet strangely incompatible with this is the 
 degree of dogmatism which marks the infidelity of 
 our time. In much of the scepticism of this gener- 
 ation there is an arbitrary positiveness, which is as 
 repulsive as the authoritative claims of superstition. 
 As to respect, I frankly confess that I respect as 
 much the honest doubt of the sceptic, as I respect 
 the honest ^faith of the devotee. But it is neither 
 the doubt of the one nor the faith of the other that I 
 respect, it is only the honesty of both ; and if there 
 be any merit, it is that only which has merit in one 
 case or the other. When scepticism becomes intol- 
 erant and disrespectful, it is no more to be admired 
 than superstition. A harsh and scornful infidelity 
 can no more win our love, than can a threatening 
 and domineering faith ; — spiritual despotism is 
 the same, whether an unbeliever or a fanatic sway 
 the iron sceptre. The yoke of the superstitious ty- 
 rant is as easily worn as the yoke of the sceptical 
 tyrant. 
 
 Man, with mind developed and with large acqui- 
 
GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 195 
 
 sitions of science, stands at this day on this little 
 speck of earth, and, raising his telescope towards the 
 star-studded skies, through the vast space catches 
 glimpses of faint light from worlds so distant that 
 no ray of theirs has ever reached the earth. He 
 gazes on, till conscious that he is standing only on 
 the threshold of the great temple of the universe. 
 Through the slightly open door he has caught some 
 faint reflection of the ineffable splendors beyond the 
 reach of mortal vision ; and while his eyes are yet 
 dazzled with the mere conception of the incompre- 
 hensible grandeur of countless worlds, he will ven- 
 ture without a qualifying syllable to pronounce the 
 decision of his wisdom, and declares as with author- 
 ity, “ This is nature, and there is no God.” Then he 
 looks down into the slime and sand beneath his feet, 
 and observes the ceaseless vicissitude of life and 
 growth and decay and death ; and with his proud 
 positiveness confirmed, he contemns the world’s ig- 
 norance, and declares, u Yes, I know this is law ; 
 there is no God.” 
 
 Without a reproachful word, and without a tone 
 of harshness, but calm in the confidence that truth 
 and love must triumph, must reign and be eternal, I 
 would say, “ Pause in your rash decision, child of 
 earth ! pause and ponder. If you can feel no rever- 
 ence, at least exercise some humanity. In order to 
 have God thrust from the universe, will you crush 
 man to nothing ? Will you rob man of trust in a 
 beneficent Ruler, in order to gain trust in a theory 
 which you can never prove? What conceivable 
 advantage do you expect by attempting to deprive 
 mankind of the solace which they find in recogniz- 
 
196 
 
 GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 ing the disposing power of a Supreme Intelli- 
 gence ? ” 
 
 You ask me in return, perhaps, to prove there is a 
 God. Prove there is a God ! No, I never wrote a ser- 
 mon, and cannot think I ever shall write one, to prove 
 there is a God. As well might I attempt to prove my 
 own existence. Read the metaphysics of four thou- 
 sand years, and see the bungling logic and the end- 
 less circle in which human thought revolves in fruit- 
 less efforts to prove its own existence, wherever it 
 begins and wherever it ends, taking for granted the 
 very thing that it would prove. “ I think, therefore 
 I am,” says one ; “ I am, therefore I think,” says 
 another ; amounting to this, “ I am, because I know 
 I am,” and u I know I am, because I am.” u There 
 is no God; it is only nature.” Well, mighty mind, 
 thou who but yesterday wast a helpless infant, a 
 small, unreasoning handful of breathing dust, sob- 
 bing on a mother’s bosom, how much wiser and 
 better, tell me, will the world be, when you have 
 taught it there is no God, but only nature ? What 
 is nature ? teach us this wisdom. Nature ! Nature 
 is what is, — what is, is nature. Whatever is, is, — 
 and whatever is, is nature. Such is the resplendent 
 light which bursts upon us, in exchanging God for 
 nature. Then what is law ? shall I inquire. You 
 answer, Law is the principle on which nature acts, 
 the rule by which nature controls her motions. 
 Nature acting by principles ! Nature controlling 
 herself by rules ! Principles, rules, without intelli- 
 gence, without cause, without origin ! Action and 
 control without life ! The stability of nature implies 
 intelligence, or it is intelligence. The uniformity 
 
GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 197 
 
 you call law implies of necessity a controlling power 
 which gives that uniformity. 
 
 I stand with you before the complex machinery of 
 the huge engine, as its thousand parts harmoniously 
 move. We stand securely and gaze on admiringly. 
 I turn and ask you, What is this? This, this, 
 you reply, is nature. And this motion ? I still further 
 ask. This motion ! this is law, the law of nature, 
 you reply. Shall I ask you to prove that this mo- 
 tion is simply law, to prove that this complex, har- 
 monious mass is nature ? When you prove to me 
 that it is nature, — simply, only nature, — then I 
 may undertake to prove to you that there is a God. 
 Till then I stand in silence. I stand securely too, 
 amidst these elements of fire and earth and air and 
 water. I stand admiringly, and from this frame so 
 fearfully and wonderfully made, to yonder sun on 
 whose brilliant face I cannot look, but only catch 
 reflected rays, — from the mysterious fragrance rising 
 from the delicate petal of the blushing rose, to the 
 mysterious light that beams from the innumerable 
 worlds far off in yon illimitable space, — from this 
 mysterious thought, which grows and expands with 
 this growing frame from helpless infancy, to that 
 mysterious death, which in an instant severs the 
 connection and leaves this form to crumble back to 
 dust and reappear in other forms, — before all this I 
 stand in a silence which itself is adoration, amidst 
 all this I stand safely, fearlessly, and I seek no proof. 
 I ask no mortal to prove that there is a God, as I 
 ask no mortal to prove to me that I myself exist. 
 
 Superstition, indeed, has represented God as the 
 most revolting and monstrous of all beings ; and in- 
 17 * 
 
198 
 
 GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 asmuch as we can only yield affection to that which 
 is congenial, can only love that which is lovely, — 
 since we cannot for itself love disease or deformity, — 
 since we cannot for itself love either pain or peril, — 
 it is not amazing and inexplicable that, in preference 
 to a God so unjust, vindictive, and monstrous, 
 some have felt willing, some are willing, to have a 
 world, and are seeking to prove that there is a world, 
 without God, even on the condition that it be a 
 world without hope. But because frail human sys- 
 tems defame God, would you deny God ? Because 
 human systems rob the world of justice, need you 
 deprive the world of hope? Because warped and 
 mistaught minds presume without authority and 
 without cause to threaten you with a distant and 
 possible evil, need you strive to bring upon your 
 fellow-man a present and real calamity ? Hope is 
 well styled the anchor of the soul. Take God, the 
 thought of God, from the world, and you leave the 
 soul without its anchor ; for a world without God is 
 a world without hope. I supposed that you stood 
 before, that we together stood before, the majestic 
 proportions of a harmoniously moving engine. Stand 
 again there as a parent, with your little loved one, 
 the child of your affection, and as you point out the 
 beauties of this remarkable production of nature, a 
 rapidly revolving wheel attracts the garments of the 
 little listener, and ere you have time for thought drags 
 him beyond your reach. Round and round goes on 
 the resistless wheel; an instant more, and a few 
 scattered fleshy fragments are all that remain to you 
 of the object of your tenderest love. Shall I soothe 
 then your agony by whispering, “ This is only nature ; 
 
GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 199 
 
 be at peace and dry up your tears, for there is no 
 God ; this is law, it is nature’s law ” ? Shall I seek 
 to comfort you then with the terms of your own phi- 
 losophy ? Shall I say, “ Shudder not, nor weep, fond 
 parent ; your dear one is not so lovely in its aspect, 
 but it is there, there it is before you ; it is only mat- 
 ter, and matter is eternal. Your child is immortal, 
 for you believe in the eternity of matter ” ? But, 
 sobbing through your tears, you say, “ The little 
 bright intelligence, the spark of innocence, so pure, 
 so beautiful, so full of promise and of hope ! ” “ O 
 
 no, friend! shake off your superstition ; be manly, and 
 revive your courage ; innocence is a fancy, beauty is 
 a dream, and hope is but a shadow ; there can be no 
 hope, for there is no God. Accident is unlimited, 
 there is no bound to chance ; why may not nature 
 re-collect the mutilated fragments? Wait, look^ a 
 little while, perhaps some law may restore the form 
 of beauty, and reanimate the body, and return your 
 dear one to your bosom.” Is this the consolation 
 you desire? Is it for this that you cultivate the 
 sweet affections, and guide the opening mind, and 
 direct the rising thought, and guard the unstained 
 soul from peril, from the discord that may mar its 
 joy, through all this present life ? There is no obli- 
 gation, no responsibility, no wrong, no evil; all is 
 nature. O no! nature is sublime, and so is law; 
 but this is rather more nature than you need, this is 
 an exhibition of law that you do not seek, this is a 
 manifestation of eternal matter that you do not 
 want. 
 
 Again I say, If you have no reverence, do not 
 sacrifice humanity. Do not deprive our nature 
 
200 
 
 GOB AND NATURE. 
 
 of its highest and only real consolation. Do not 
 wrong yourself by ignoring your own experience, 
 by attempting to extinguish the only sun that sheds 
 light on your own path. To deprive a spirit of the 
 thought of God, is indeed to shroud the world in 
 gloom, and to extinguish hope. You may talk of 
 nature, but what is nature ? You can only answer, 
 It is what is. The volcano belching forth fiery lava 
 is as much nature as the field of waving grain or 
 blushing fruit. Law! what know we of law? Law 
 has neither instinct nor intelligence, and it may be law 
 that the land of to-day shall be the sea of to-morrow. 
 Who decides that war is not nature, as well as 
 peace ? Who tells us that ignorance is not nature, 
 as well as knowledge ? If ignorance is bliss, is it 
 not folly to be wise ? True, there are poverty and 
 misery, injustice and cruelty, and groans and tears ; 
 but why not find comfort in the thought that this is 
 nature ? Go to the child ministering to a suffering 
 parent, and the mother bending over the couch of a 
 dying child, and tell them it is nature, it is only law, 
 there is no God ; and see if, by leaving them without 
 God, you will not leave them without hope. Go to 
 the myriads in the crowded cities of the world, the 
 myriads of starving, sick, degraded, outcast, suffer- 
 ing poor, and, godless as many no doubt wish the 
 world to be, convince them there is no God, and their 
 condition is nature, and see how much you will add 
 to their comfort, how much you will increase their 
 virtue, how much you will reconcile them to their 
 place, how much you will improve the welfare of 
 society. And see whether, in relieving them from 
 superstition, as you think, you do not also relieve 
 
GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 201 
 
 them of virtue and honor and integrity and hope, 
 and degrade them in many cases to the level of the 
 brute ; for with no intelligence, no ruling, no dispos- 
 ing power, no God, what stimulus, what motive, to 
 rise or to advance ? Nature’s greatest good to-day 
 may to-morrow be her direst evil. This hour’s min- 
 ister of pleasure, nature’s laws may make the next 
 hour’s minister of misery. Nature is only accident, 
 chance. Nature is only a fortuitous combination of 
 matter, and life is only a concatenation of events. 
 Why then toil or strive or hope, for there is no God 
 to control ? But it is nature itself that declares itself 
 the agent of a power supreme. It is law itself that 
 bears testimony to the fountain of law. 
 
 Great as man is, he knows not the past, he knows 
 not the future. Beyond the hour when but the 
 other day you became conscious of existence, what 
 know you of the past? Nothing. Beyond this 
 present moment, what know you of the future ? 
 Nothing. What is 
 
 “ This spot of earth we press, 
 
 This speck of life in time’s great wilderness ? 
 
 A narrow isthmus, ’twixt two boundless seas, 
 
 The past, the future, two eternities.” 
 
 This life is all we surely have, all we positively 
 know. Take then from this present life, this world, 
 the thought of God, and you divest it of its dignity. 
 The past is not even a dream, the future is not even 
 a phantom ; and nature ! who then knows what 
 nature is, jvhat nature was, what nature will be ? 
 
 It is only that the eye of God is on it all, and hal- 
 lows all, that it has worth or beauty, that we have joy 
 or hope. It is only because we feel God lives, that we 
 
202 
 
 GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 live, that we are above the beasts, who, while they 
 live, yet live in death, for they know not that they 
 live. Remove the thought of an all-ruling power, 
 directing all, light and darkness, good and evil, joy 
 and sorrow, past and present, towards some end 
 beneficent, all- wise, — take away this thought, and 
 you leave the earth a body without a soul. “ Dark- 
 ness above, despair beneath, around it flame, within 
 it death : — our origin a mystery, our life an enigma, 
 our end a tragedy.” With no intelligence originat- 
 ing and executing law, no power above controlling 
 nature, nature is only accident, only chance, and the 
 law of to-day may be confusion to-morrow. The 
 life which you call nature this hour, may be death 
 and darkness the next hour. Now go even to the low- 
 est of human society, whose only inheritance is pov- 
 erty, and whose only employment perhaps is crime, 
 and if they have a reasoning power at all, if they 
 have a ray of light above the animal, — go to those 
 who are not superstitious, who have little reverence 
 for churches and Sundays and Bibles and priests, — 
 go to them and find what reconciles even them in 
 any measure to their sad condition, and you will 
 find it is consciousness of a power above, a God. 
 Were it not for this, why should they live ? But 
 they live in it may be an unuttered, but a conscious 
 hope of better things, — hope that the controlling 
 power, that God, somehow, some time, — to-morrow 
 or next week or next year, in life or after life, — will 
 in some way better their condition. And though the 
 word faith they never heard, yet this is faith ; this is 
 to them a faith which is the substance of things 
 hoped for. And who dare say this may not be to 
 
GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 203 
 
 them a sustaining, a saving, a redeeming faith ? 
 Would you convince them, if you could, that there 
 is no God ? O how cruel, how unkind, to throw 
 them godless upon themselves, heartless upon so- 
 ciety, and hopeless upon the future, — to rob them 
 of the only precious sparkling jewel which they hide 
 beneath their rags and wretchedness, their poverty 
 and profanity ! 
 
 In kindness I say to the believer in nature as su- 
 preme, Be content, if you can, to live amidst the 
 blind forces round you ; if you can, be at peace and 
 await the chance or fate that must dispose of you ; be 
 content, and hope, even be happy if you can ; but do 
 not doom other hearts who feel their ignorance, weak- 
 ness, and dependence, — do not overwhelm them 
 with the desolation of spiritual orphanage. Leave 
 us not like little helpless children, who, being left 
 an inheritance of wealth, are ignorant or know lit- 
 tle of its value and its uses, bereft of parentsv and 
 with no father’s wisdom to direct them. Let us 
 rather cheer and sustain ourselves with the convic- 
 tion, that 
 
 “ From God we spring, to God we tend, 
 
 Path, motive, guide, original and end.” 
 
 The honest believer in atheism is not an unbe- 
 liever. He does not believe there is a God, but he 
 does believe that there is no God ; the one is a belief 
 as positive as the other. Do you reply, that you do 
 not believe in God, because you cannot believe in a 
 God without a cause ? What is this but an ex- 
 change of terms ? You believe in nature, and you 
 are as ignorant of the cause of nature as of a cause 
 of God. How can you believe in nature without a 
 
204 
 
 GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 first cause? You only deify nature, and worship 
 that, believing nature has no cause, instead of ador- 
 ing God above nature, believing that God has no 
 cause. 
 
 The atheist does not believe in the reality of God, 
 but he does believe in the reality of nature. He does 
 not understand how the little inert and lifeless seed, 
 buried in the soil, should have a principle of life, 
 which bursts from its confinement, and shoots above 
 the ground, and rises and hardens into wood, and 
 spreads out its hundred arms, and puts on its ver- 
 dant robe of beauty, and lives, and grows, ancLrepeats 
 itself through countless generations. And just as 
 little does he understand the light that shines at mid- 
 day ; he knows not whether the sun is a great globe 
 of fire, or whether, like the moon, it is only a sphere 
 reflecting rays from some greater, but remote and 
 invisible orb. He only believes that it is nature, while 
 another, who believes that it is nature, believes also 
 that nature is but the expression of God ; and while 
 the one stands lost in mystery and silent reverence 
 before incomprehensible but blind nature, the other 
 stands in mystery and reverence and confidence 
 and gratitude before incomprehensible but intelli- 
 gent God, rejoicing to believe, with the German 
 poet, Leopold Schafer, — 
 
 “ All that God owns he constantly is healing, 
 
 Quietly, gently, softly, but most surely : 
 
 He helps the lowliest herb with wounded stalk 
 To rise again. 
 
 Deep in the treasure-house of wealthy nature 
 A ready instinct wakes and moves, 
 
 To clothe the naked sparrow in the nest, 
 
 Or trim the plumage of an aged raven. 
 
GOD AND NATURE. 
 
 205 
 
 Yea, in the slow decaying of a rose, 
 
 God works, as well as in the unfolding bud, — 
 
 He works, with gentleness unspeakable, 
 
 In death itself, a thousand times more careful 
 Than even the mother, watching by her sick child.” 
 
 In the most kind and brotherly manner, for the 
 comfort and peace of his own mind, as well as for 
 the comfort of those around him, I would say to the 
 sincere sceptic or disbeliever, Be mild in your man- 
 ner, and beware of harsh epithets. You can exhibit 
 as much bigotry and show as much fierceness of 
 spirit in defending your heterodox creed, as the most 
 abject devotee in contending for his doctrine. Tol- 
 erate the superstitious faith of your church brother, 
 even should he condemn you for your faith of scep- 
 ticism. And, above all, be cool and cautious that 
 you do not confound a rational and fraternal relig- 
 ious faith with the fiery zeal of persecuting secta- 
 rians. Do not mistake the extravagances of men 
 who profess a form of religion for the fruits and 
 spirit of religion itself. Search and try ; receive what 
 you can receive; live lovingly, and die peacefully 
 and fearlessly, if not hopefully. 
 
 r 
 
 18 
 
DISCOURSE XIV. 
 
 IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 perfect through sufferings. — Hebrews ii. 10. 
 
 Suffering ! Who has not experienced suffering? 
 Who has not, at some hour, been led in thought to 
 ask the cause of suffering, — to venture a specula- 
 tion as to the good of suffering? We are prone to 
 form theories, and who has not some theory of suf- 
 fering ? The element of suffering enters largely into 
 human experience, though by no means so largely 
 as many, as most persons, will be found to imagine. 
 Enjoyment, or the opposite of suffering, at least the 
 absence of suffering, greatly preponderates in the 
 experience of ninety-nine in a hundred of the human 
 family. But I am not now about to consider the 
 extent of suffering, nor, except incidentally, the uses 
 of suffering, but only the question, “ Is suffering ne- 
 cessary ? ” 
 
 In these times, perhaps more especially in these 
 times, and even among the more liberal of religion- 
 ists, there is a tendency to frame a philosophy of 
 suffering, by which, as it would seem, to vindicate 
 
IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 207 
 
 the Creator. Wherever there is a theory of any 
 kind to be supported, men are prone to become 
 champions of the Deity. One class of Christians, 
 holding one theory of the final destiny of human 
 beings, seems to regard the justice of God as com- 
 mitted especially to its defence. Another class, de- 
 claring a different theory of human destiny, claims 
 for itself the special defence of God’s boundless 
 mercy. It is possible that in either case the cham- 
 pionship of Deity is alike gratuitously assumed, 
 and that the Divine character is not dependent, in 
 any great degree, on the vindication by one of his jus- 
 tice, or by the other of his mercy. There is a great 
 disinclination among men to let that alone which 
 they are not likely to improve. It is a rare thing to 
 find a man willing to take things as they are, and 
 endeavor to make the best of them, without perplex- 
 ing himself sadly as to the best apology he can make 
 for the Supreme Wisdom, in permitting to exist 
 some things which, it is thought, might be easily 
 dispensed with. 
 
 We may hear not a little said of the necessity of 
 suffering in the world. We may be told that it is 
 necessary man should sometimes suffer, that he may 
 know the better to enjoy; that without sickness 
 he might not appreciate health. Now, this is very 
 far from proving a necessity for suffering ; it is no 
 elucidation of the problem ; it throws no light upon 
 the subject; it is simply assuming, that because suf- 
 fering is, therefore it is necessary. This is only 
 arguing after the fact, and the argument may as well 
 be reversed, — suffering is necessary because there is 
 suffering. Why not contend as well, that cruelty 
 
208 
 
 IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 and dishonesty and hypocrisy are necessary, because 
 without them we might not appreciate kindness, 
 honesty, and piety ? This reasoning would, in this 
 case, be quite as logical and forcible as in the other, 
 so far as it is designed to vindicate the Supreme 
 Being. Is it necessary to find an apology for the 
 Deity in permitting the existence of suffering ? Then 
 is it any less needful to apologize for his permission 
 of falsehood, fraud, and cruelty. If men, in their 
 wisdom, must defend the Deity by showing a neces- 
 sity for suffering, they should remember that they are 
 only placing the difficulty a step farther back, with- 
 out in any way reducing its dimensions. If a de- 
 fence be at all essential, why not begin the defence 
 at the right place, and, instead of begging the ques- 
 tion by alleging or illustrating the necessity of suffer- 
 ing, defend the Almighty for permitting the exist- 
 ence of such a necessity ? 
 
 Some, in past times, and probably not a few in 
 our own times, have thus apologized for the Deity, 
 till either for themselves or for others they have 
 apologized the Supreme Being out of existence en- 
 tirely, leaving the world godless and themselves 
 without God in the world. And then, when they 
 have enthroned that which they chose to designate 
 as nature, what have they gained in knowledge, and 
 how great is the addition to their comfort ? Does 
 nature need no champions ? In what respect is the 
 relation of things changed -by the substitution of 
 nature for God ? What flood of light then breaks in 
 upon their minds as to the existence of suffering, or 
 the existence of anything ? I would appeal directly 
 to the experience of any mind which may have found 
 
IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 209 
 
 itself a worshipper of nature as the only God. I 
 would ask, were such a one before me, How much 
 farther now have you penetrated into the cause or ten- 
 dency of things, — into the origin or destiny of man, 
 of yourself, your own being ? Tell me, if you know 
 more of what nature is, and how nature operates, 
 than your neighbor knows of what God is, or how 
 God operates ? When you have looked upon your 
 own body, and thought upon your own mind, and 
 traced back your own experience, and asked the 
 whence and the why of your own existence, have 
 you not felt the twilight pass suddenly into starless, 
 moonless, rayless night ? Have you not felt the 
 darkness round you deepen into a blackness palpa- 
 ble and impenetrable ? You who would depose God, 
 and enthrone nature, and worship law, what are you 
 but a weed, or the merest drift floating on the stream 
 of life ? You have come into conscious being, you 
 know not how ; you are passing along, for you know 
 not what ; to go whither, you cannot tell ; or to dis- 
 appear for ever, you know not when. You may any 
 instant become the helpless victim of blind but some- 
 how antagonistic forces, which blot you from being 
 or crush you into dust ; and not a trust can you have 
 in anything, not a hope can you have for anything. 
 
 Men should be very cautious about constituting 
 themselves keepers of God’s attributes. God needs 
 no such gratuitous championship. Does it not 
 always betray an amazing arrogance in man to 
 stand before his fellow-men in the attitude of an 
 attorney who has the Creator for his client, as if he 
 had committed to this puny mortal the guardianship 
 of his interests and the vindication of his honor? 
 
 18 * 
 
210 
 
 IS SUFFERING NECESSARY? 
 
 And yet what is more common than for men, sin- 
 cere, religions men, to tell us of the necessity of cer- 
 tain plans on the part of God, in order to support 
 the honor of his name and the integrity of his gov- 
 ernment ? It is passing strange that man, wise as 
 he may be, yet conscious of the rudimental character 
 of his attainments, has not learned to be satisfied 
 with declaring facts within his positive knowledge, 
 instead of declaring necessities of which he can pos- 
 sibly know nothing. To declare that God was under 
 the necessity of adopting certain plans to accom- 
 plish certain results, and that because certain events 
 transpire around us, is only to abolish all distinc- 
 tions between right and wrong, good and evil ; for 
 then everything is right, because it is, every event is 
 necessary, because it occurs. Even on the supposi- 
 tion that he was so, yet if it was necessary, as we 
 hear frequently alleged, that Jesus should be the 
 Almighty God, and that he, as both God and man, 
 should suffer and die, and that necessity be argued 
 from the facts that Jesus did suffer and did die, — what 
 is this, but confounding every conception that we have 
 of either right or wrong, obliterating all distinctions, 
 and paralyzing all exertion ? for then, with equal 
 certainty, all suffering is necessary, because of the 
 fact of its existence. Vice and virtue, kindness and 
 crime, falsehood and truth, are alike necessary, be- 
 cause they exist. But then an objector interposes : 
 It is revealed, — this necessity is revealed in Scripture ; 
 therefore it is to be believed, however it may con- 
 found our conceptions or controvert our observation. 
 Here is just the place for difference of sentiment. 
 When, not content with acknowledging the fact of 
 
IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 211 
 
 that suffering, you allege such necessity to be re- 
 vealed in Scripture, you should add, By my inter- 
 pretation ; for, in reply to such objector, I state em- 
 phatically that I find no such necessity of God re- 
 vealed in Scripture. This is your induction, your 
 inference from certain words, and no more. How- 
 ever such necessity might be predicated of man, how 
 can it be presumed of God ? The Infinite Ruler, 
 because an infinite ruler, could be reduced to no 
 extremity. The honor of God could not be exposed 
 to any peril ; the stability of God’s government was 
 dependent on the adoption of no peculiar plan. As 
 concerning Jesus, suffering occurred ; it is ours to 
 discern and appropriate its uses ; but when man as- 
 serts its necessity, he transcends his knowledge. 
 
 But leaving this particular instance, what do we 
 know of human suffering, its origin and nature, its 
 conditions and results ? Is it something entirely be- 
 yond the control, independent of the agency, of man ? 
 Certainly not. And yet, to prove suffering necessary, 
 it must be shown to be, in whole and in part, utterly 
 beyond all human knowledge and control. In what 
 sense soever it may be necessary, there can be no ques- 
 tion as to the facts, that suffering has been, and may 
 often be, averted, — may be mitigated, — may be, as in 
 many instances it is, removed by certain precautions 
 and applications. This much we know of its nature. 
 On certain concurrences of circumstances, on the 
 personal disregard of certain established regulations, 
 suffering ensues. This much we know of its condi- 
 tions. As to its effects, suffering sometimes subdues 
 and sometimes excites, sometimes softens and some- 
 times irritates ; we are sometimes admonished and 
 
212 
 
 IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 sometimes alarmed, sometimes injured and some- 
 times profited by suffering. This much, at least, we 
 know of its results. At one time, suffering declares 
 a mail’s misfortune ; at another, it declares his fault. 
 One time it is an evidence of ignorance, and, again, it 
 is an evidence of sin. Either an infant who has never 
 reasoned, or a mature and accomplished man, may 
 in any one of a thousand ways ignorantly contra- 
 vene the regular and proper law which pertains to 
 things, and so bring suffering upon himself. This 
 we may term misfortune or evil. Again, one may 
 voluntarily disregard his actual knowledge of the 
 quality and tendency of things, and by his own act 
 bring pain and sorrow to himself, and then he sins 
 and is conscious of his guilt. In either case, the 
 suffering is no less suffering, but its moral relation 
 in one case is very different from its moral relation 
 in the other. But then, when suffering is expe- 
 rienced, will you console its subject by arguing its 
 necessity? You would only console him, then, by 
 argument against all reason ; for you are yourself 
 assured, that by a little knowledge in the one case 
 the misfortune could have been averted, and in the 
 other, by a slight effort of the will, an effort which 
 he was abundantly capable of making, the sin might 
 have been avoided, i. e. the event would not have 
 occurred, and neither would the suffering attend- 
 ing it. 
 
 The uses of suffering are unquestionable. Some- 
 times K sweet are the uses of adversity.” It has 
 been true, as the world’s history demonstrates, that 
 obstacles have been the steps up which the sons of 
 men have climbed to knowledge, power, and place, 
 
IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 213 
 
 and even moral excellence. Who are the sages 
 whom the world admires ? They who, by persever- 
 ing research, and by protracted thought, foregoing 
 ease and health, have opened doors which were long 
 closed, and revealed mysteries long undiscovered. 
 Who are the heroes whom the world honors ? Those 
 who have resolved and acted, removing obstructions, 
 surmounting obstacles, bravely encountering, and 
 proudly vanquishing, numerous opposing forces ; se- 
 curing peace, or property, or liberty, or all of them. 
 Who are the martyrs whom the world reveres ? 
 They who, through persecution and hatred, through 
 tortures and fires, through tears and blood, and 
 pain and death, at the stake or on the cross, have 
 witnessed a sublime loyalty to duty and to truth, as 
 they esteemed it ; who, with unfaltering fidelity to 
 their convictions, have shown the power in man to 
 forfeit even life rather than to forfeit rectitude. Such 
 are the facts, in all past history, of human experience. 
 Historically, suffering has been, and in fact is, one, 
 but only one, powerful agent in the formation of 
 human character, in developing the noblest virtues 
 and the sweetest graces. The highest perfection yet 
 attained has, perhaps, been a perfection attained 
 “ through suffering.” Yet, after all this, it would be 
 neither good reasoning nor true philosophy to insist, 
 that because there has been suffering, and because it 
 has been overruled, so as to be instrumental in the 
 development of character, in the cultivation of hu- 
 man virtues, it is therefore a necessity, a univer- 
 sal and inevitable law, or a special ordination of 
 God. First, consider other questions. Is there no 
 reality of enjoyment without a reality of suffering ? 
 
214 
 
 IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 Must we always endure in order to enjoy ? Con- 
 sider facts again. A swelling flood in one country, 
 or one neighborhood, sweeps away a habitation and 
 destroys a human life, whilst it irrigates and renders 
 fruitful many miles of land ; but are not whole king- 
 doms or states equally irrigated and made fruitful at 
 the same time, without the destruction of a single 
 dwelling or a single being ? As to the development 
 of human virtues, men are very differently affected. 
 One man loses the accumulations of hard-hearted 
 avarice, and becomes generous only as he becomes 
 poor. Another man acquires wealth by his exer- 
 tions, and grows generous only as he grows rich. 
 So far from suffering being a necessity in his devel- 
 opment of virtues, one man is haughty and cruel in 
 his power, and grows kind and gentle as he feels his 
 power passing from his hands. Another is unsocial 
 and forbidding in his poverty and obscurity, and he 
 grows agreeable as he grows eminent, and his virtues 
 keep pace with his riches and honors. One man ac- 
 quires great knowledge, and benefits his race only at 
 the sacrifice of comfort and of health. Another gains 
 equal knowledge and confers equal benefits upon the 
 world, gaining in ease as he gains in knowledge, and 
 growing healthier as he grows wiser. 
 
 Many men now, as in the days of St. Paul, may 
 exclaim with him, “ We glory in tribulation, know- 
 ing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience 
 experience, and experience hope.” It is most true that 
 tribulation has wrought patience, and experience 
 hope. St. Paul declared then a truth, which may be 
 echoed now as truth ; but St. Paul did not, and we 
 now need not, announce this as a divine decree, a 
 
IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 215 
 
 universal and inevitable law of God ; for it is just as 
 true that there have been among men great patience, 
 great experience, and great hope, without the endur- 
 ance of great tribulation. 
 
 Whenever men have defined theories of religion to 
 maintain, verbal systems to defend, they are in dan- 
 ger of giving to every subject a narrow and super- 
 ficial examination. They are likely to turn their 
 faces and pursue researches in one direction, whilst 
 above them, and behind them, and on every side, are 
 wonders of truth, as broad and high and everlasting 
 as that which engrosses their attention. In fortifying 
 theories, we are always in danger of ignoring facts ; 
 in speculations on what may be, we usually over- 
 look what is ; in supporting a doctrine, we may neg- 
 lect a duty ; and by anxiety to establish a possibility, 
 we often lose the enjoyment of a grand reality. 
 
 What then ? do you inquire. Am I not attempt- 
 ing to demolish some one theory, only to win spoils 
 to enrich and adorn some other ? No ! most assuredly 
 no ! I have not been avoiding the whirlpool only to 
 be dashed upon the rock. Standing on the shore of 
 a broad and rapid stream, with sand and soil, and 
 shell and rock, and tree and shrub, around me, and 
 but a single day to learn something of their nature 
 and their uses, and communicate that knowledge, 
 should I spend my time and exhaust my strength 
 only in heaving my line and lead, to gratify a mor- 
 bid curiosity as to whether the sands in the bosom 
 of the stream’s dark depths correspond with those 
 beneath my feet ? 
 
 Speculation up to the acknowledged limits of our 
 knowledge is proper, and should be useful ; but too 
 
216 
 
 IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 brief, at longest, is human life, to waste it in pro- 
 tracted and dreamy conjecturings as to the possible 
 origin of suffering, or its possible design. Your 
 apologies or mine are unneeded to preserve untar- 
 nished the lustre of divine attributes. Our vindica- 
 tions of the Deity are wholly gratuitous. The char- 
 acter of the Infinite and Supreme, whether for justice 
 or for mercy, is not likely to suffer in the absence of 
 our defence. Here we are, in the midst of this brief 
 passage of existence, with its vicissitude of joys, sor- 
 rows, regrets, and anxieties, its learnings and its 
 labors. As the world is, the best of us must expe- 
 rience our share of goods and evils, disappointments 
 and successes, enjoyments and sufferings. Why can 
 we not be so truly wise, so truly philosophical, so 
 truly Christian, so apostolic and so Christ-like, as to 
 accept the world as it is, and, during the brief period 
 for which it is our field of action, avail ourselves of 
 actual knowledge justly to improve that which is 
 obviously within our reach, and gratefully enjoy that 
 which we improve, using this world as not abusing 
 it ? Man is great, — great in his nature, great in his 
 capacities ; his duties are great, and great is the des- 
 tiny before him ; yet, withal, he is only relatively 
 great. On every side we perceive the confines of 
 our knowledge. Ignorant of the hidden forces which 
 may every hour combine in the atmosphere around 
 us ; unable by our most piercing vision to penetrate 
 one inch below the surface of the earth beneath our 
 feet ; unable to foresee or distinguish the elements 
 of nutriment or destruction, life or death, which we 
 inhale in our momentary breathings ; unable to look 
 through this thin casement of flesh and read the 
 
IS SUFFERING NECESSARY? 
 
 217 
 
 heart of a single human being, as to whether it 
 throbs with hatred or with love ; unable in our pro- 
 foundest wisdom to comprehend the formation of a 
 single bud, or leaf, or seed, the most diminutive ; — 
 in such comparative ignorance of the very objects, the 
 material objects, immediately before our eyes and 
 beneath our hands, shall we bring down the Infinite 
 Life? Shall we arraign the Creative Power and 
 Supreme Disposer before the court of our puny, 
 trembling judgment ? Shall we, who cannot see one 
 hour before us, — shall we challenge the controlling 
 Power which moves myriads of worlds, and judge 
 God for his deficiencies, — pronounce to be imperfec- 
 tions in God’s work, the merest vicissitudes within 
 our narrow observation? The instinct of common 
 modesty alone would pronounce these the most un- 
 reasonable pretensions of a reasonable being. As to 
 corporeal suffering, the fact of its existence is unde- 
 niable ; but these other facts must also be acknowl- 
 edged, namely, that by proper precautions much 
 suffering may be averted, and by proper applica- 
 tions most suffering may be mitigated, and much of 
 it removed. All vindications of Providence, all de- 
 fences of Deity, therefore, on the ground of the ne- 
 cessity of suffering, are unreasonable, as they are 
 gratuitous, alike unbecoming to the philosopher, the 
 man, or the Christian. We perceive that the occa- 
 sion of suffering is either our ignorance or our sin, 
 our want of knowledge or our wilful disregard of 
 knowledge, except in case of voluntary pain for 
 others’ relief, and even then it is disregard. Though 
 the proportion of suffering in the world is very small 
 to that of enjoyment or the absence of suffering, yet 
 19 
 
218 
 
 IS SUFFERING NECESSARY? 
 
 there is enough to enlist our attention for its allevia- 
 tion, and both the brevity of human life and the nar- 
 row limits of human knowledge forbid all dreamy 
 and profitless conjecture as to its possible origin or 
 design. By lightning-rods we avert the lightning, 
 with the destruction and suffering which it might 
 occasion. By precaution we actually avoid much 
 disease, and by medicine we actually remove much 
 disease and the suffering it brings. These facts, 
 then, that suffering may be, to a great extent, avoid- 
 ed or alleviated, are those which most concern us, 
 which demand all the time and thought and aid, 
 which, as moral agents, we have to render. True, 
 suffering has its uses ; it sometimes incidentally leads 
 to health, and develops character, and elicits virtues. 
 So cold winter leads to genial spring, and revival 
 follows decay, and life proceeds from death. But it 
 would be presumptuous indeed to deny that all the 
 good which actually follows human suffering could 
 not, in the natural order of Providence, be equally 
 effected by other agencies, in the entire absence of 
 corporeal pain or mental anguish. It would be as 
 reasonable to allege that man cannot enjoy health 
 without first a course of sickness, or enjoy food 
 without a previous period of starvation ; that man 
 could not be innocent or virtuous without first being 
 guilty or vicious. We now know something — let 
 us diligently study and know more — of the occasions 
 of human suffering ; and by enlarging the boundaries 
 of our knowledge, by quickening the acuteness of 
 our perceptions, by deepening our sympathies and 
 stimulating our energies, we may elevate ourselves 
 and do much toward accomplishing one of the no- 
 
IS SUFFERING NECESSARY ? 
 
 219 
 
 blest ends of our individual existence, in ameliorat- 
 ing the present condition, and thus increasing eter- 
 nally the aggregate happiness, of mankind. In lov- 
 ing, we become godlike, for God is love. Blessed 
 are the pure in heart ; for pure-heartedness, integrity 
 of soul, unoffending conscience, — these alone con- 
 stitute now, and shall eternally constitute, that king- 
 dom of Heaven in which suffering can achieve no 
 victories, for death itself only opens the door to the 
 full glory of its infinite riches. 
 
DISCOURSE XV. 
 
 THOUGHTS CONNECTED WITH THE OKIGIN OE EVIL. 
 
 THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 CAN I DISCERN BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL? — 2 Samuel xix. 35. 
 
 / 
 
 In meditating on the original design of things, 
 and the adaptation of means to ends, the reflecting 
 mind is led to inquire whether all that we call evil 
 and all that we call good, all we regard as mis- 
 fortune and all we regard as prosperity, may not be 
 justly described as a matter of knowledge, more or 
 less, — all things being good with a true knowledge 
 of their capacities and uses, and all evil in propor- 
 tion to our want of knowledge and consequent 
 misuse of things. 
 
 Does not all past history of human action strongly 
 indicate that the object of human life is simply to 
 acquire and to improve, and, as we acquire and im- 
 prove, to appropriate and enjoy ? Every faculty of 
 our human nature, as far as we can discern, is 
 adapted to ends which we recognize as good. Why 
 then is there not a correspondence between each 
 faculty and each one of its operations ? May we 
 
THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 221 
 
 not determine that every instance and degree of 
 want of correspondence testifies to the absence of a 
 true knowledge of the faculty employed and its true 
 uses ? Shall I not, then, by constant observation 
 and by protracted experience, enlarge my knowledge 
 of each faculty and its adaptations, and by the just 
 exercise of every organ, already understood to some 
 extent, enlarge its powers and continue to acquire 
 and to enlarge, and so fulfil the true design of 
 being? Want, sorrow, disappointment, disease, 
 death, — these are what we call evils. This much 
 ordinary experience has taught us all, — that these 
 evils, as we term them, are occasioned or increased 
 by our want of knowledge, and in individual cases 
 are reduced or diminished in proportion to a com- 
 prehensive knowledge of the nature and laws of 
 men and things. At least each of these, and every 
 form of evil, is magnified to our perception by our 
 inability to discover with accuracy how it arises, 
 how it makes progress or is sustained, when and 
 what will be its termination. The circumstance of 
 an individual’s birth is one over which he can have 
 no control, and yet it is one which, more than any 
 other, perhaps, determines all the other events which 
 form his character and make up his life, for evil or 
 for good. Why one should enter upon life an heir 
 to poverty and ignorance, perhaps to the shame and 
 disgrace of vicious parents, and another enter upon 
 life an heir to affluence and intelligence, and to the 
 honor of distinguished and virtuous parents, not 
 only affords room for meditation on the varied al- 
 lotments of human existence, but occasions fre- 
 quent murmurings against the apparent partiality 
 19 * 
 
222 
 
 THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 of the creating Power, the ruling Providence. But is 
 there here in reality any partiality or favoring of one 
 above another ? Is there in the varied allotments of 
 life any proof of departure from established condi- 
 tions, natural and universal laws of being, — of the 
 relations of things? Could we in any given in- 
 stance trace up the history of a human being, not 
 only through its own but through a parent’s life, we 
 might discover that whether poverty or disease, suf- 
 fering or sorrow, be the apparent evil in the case, 
 it is the natural and necessary result of voluntary 
 action on the part of some one ; a consequence 
 which could not, according to any natural order of 
 things, — which could not without a miraculous in- 
 terposition of power, — have been averted. Such is 
 the essential relation we sustain to each other as so- 
 cial beings. To inquire why the Supreme Power 
 permits one to begin existence under circumstances 
 so different from those under which another begins 
 it, — is it not asking why the Creator rules by-laws, 
 instead of interfering miraculously to rectify each 
 particular error, each and every departure from the 
 natural order of things ? Is it not asking why it is 
 that, when a parent by ignorance, improvidence, or 
 habitual vice brings upon himself want, disease, and 
 suffering, the Supreme Ruler does not suspend the 
 operation of natural law, which connects parent and 
 child as social beings, and secure to the child, mi- 
 raculously, comfort and health and enjoyment from 
 the moment of its birth ? Is it not simply asking 
 why God does not destroy the connection between 
 cause and consequence ? For we certainly cannot 
 conceive of all at birth beginning life under equally 
 
THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 223 
 
 favorable circumstances, without supposing all par- 
 ents to be of like physical and moral qualities, and 
 in an exactly similar state both as to temporal and 
 spiritual concerns. 
 
 But why permit evil to exist at all ? is probably 
 the next inquiry. Is this anything more than asking- 
 why we are not made machines instead of men, things 
 instead of souls, unintelligent instead of rational 
 beings ? It is only the possession of will under the 
 control of understanding and reason which distin- 
 guishes man from the mere animal, and we cannot 
 well conceive of a rational being with the exercise of 
 free will, yet without the capacity to discern and to 
 choose either what we term good or what we term 
 evil. God might have made us to vegetate and 
 decay like trees, or to crystallize and^ dissolve like 
 minerals, or to form and breathe and die and perish 
 like brutes ; but trees, or minerals, or brutes, we 
 should then have been, and not men, not souls, — ra- 
 tional or accountable beings we could not be. I do 
 not affirm that there cannot be rational and account- 
 able beings without any power to choose one way 
 from another, one thing from another, — without 
 power either to know a rule and to act by that rule, 
 or to disregard that rule, — without power to perform 
 a wrong act as distinct from a right one, to choose 
 either evil or good ; but this I affirm, that we cannot 
 possibly conceive of such a being, we can form no 
 conception of a free, accountable agent, without 
 both reason and will to perceive and choose what 
 we call right and what we call wrong, what we call 
 good and what we call evil. But perhaps you are 
 sceptical, in the common acceptation of that term, 
 
224 
 
 THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 and you like not the term God. You believe there 
 is no God because there is evil. Well, you being 
 earnest, permit me in like earnestness to inquire, 
 and ponder the inquiry with deliberation, What is it 
 that you gain, how much clearer is your thought, 
 what mystery do you solve, by denying God and 
 attributing all to nature ? for we must suppose you 
 to exchange God for nature. How much more dis- 
 tinct and satisfactory are your apprehensions of evil 
 as permitted by nature than as permitted by God ? 
 By nature you do not understand intelligence, but 
 fate, chance, a fortuitous concurrence of atoms or 
 events. Does not the mystery then become doubly 
 mysterious ? Can you any better explain this fact 
 of one class of beings, human beings, distinct from 
 all others, the only rational, accountable, and indefi- 
 nitely progressive beings ? Then the evil and the 
 good, the endurance and enjoyment, do these be- 
 come more explicable than before ? Why should 
 nature be thus partial in her gifts and her arrange- 
 ments? Why should nature, blind, unintelligent 
 nature, thus operate at all, as the fact is undeniable, 
 by laws ? How comes connection between cause 
 and effect, this stability, uniformity, regularity, this 
 distinction between things and beings, between 
 various classes of beings? No intelligence, blind 
 chance, a fortuitous concurrence of things, — is not 
 this the most mysterious of all mysteries, the most 
 incomprehensible of all incomprehensibilities ? Is it 
 not more terribly wonderful than God himself? 
 
 Still, in inquiring mind, you may return and ask 
 how I can tell that the animal creation — what we 
 style the inferior orders of being — are wholly irra- 
 
THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 225 
 
 tional and unaccountable? With frankness I reply, 
 I do not know that the inferior orders of creation are 
 wholly destitute of reason and sense of obligation. 
 They may have reason, they may have will, they 
 may have a law of duty, with capacity to regard or 
 disregard; but this much is obvious, namely, that 
 between them and man there is a line distinct and 
 broad, — a line so uniform, invariable, and universal, 
 and, as far as we can see, perpetual, that to account 
 for this by chance, by accident, by mere blind force, 
 by any fortuitous commotion of unintelligent mat- 
 ter, by anything you can call nature, is to exer- 
 cise credulity and to defy reason to an extent un- 
 equalled by the blind, unquestioning belief of the 
 most superstitious devotee of a perverted religion. 
 Such a believer in nature may well afford to believe 
 in anything, for as to credulity he is unsurpassed by 
 the most unscrupulous worshipper of a wholly su- 
 pernatural faith. Certainly he has no room for a 
 syllable of boasting over Mohammedan, Jew, Ro- 
 manist, or Protestant ; for not one iota more of rea- 
 son can he furnish for his faith in these operations 
 of nature, than can the devoutest religionist on 
 earth for his faith in his God, whatever his God 
 may be. It is only a change of terms, and the one 
 adores nature with as blind a trust as the Moham- 
 medan or the Jew adores Allah or Jehovah. I can 
 easily perceive how some, indignant at the follies of 
 mankind, and mystified by what are called the evils 
 of the world, fearlessly and sincerely deny a God ; 
 but the facts of the world and man and life remain, 
 and remain the same ; so, to be consistent, they 
 should deny nature too. Why repudiate God and 
 
226 
 
 THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 go about to build a temple to an abstraction you 
 call nature or law ? No, if on the ground of life and 
 its evil you depose God, do not without shadow of 
 reason enthrone nature or law, but consistently and 
 boldly assert there is no God, no nature, no law. 
 Whatever is, is, and whatever is, is right. This is 
 the beginning and the end of all we know or can 
 know ; and this we do not know, for we are sure of 
 nothing and can be sure of nothing. This is the 
 only consistent ground for one who denies the exist- 
 ence of a Supreme Intelligent Power. 
 
 But to return to the question of the evil of the 
 world. Is it not so, that what to one would be en- 
 durance, suffering, intense pain, is to another not 
 pain, not suffering, not even endurance ? Poverty 
 and want, and even disease, and much that we call 
 evil, — are not these very different things to different 
 persons ? In one case, all of these combined may 
 not be an evil, in the sense of causing pain or an- 
 guish. In another case, any one of them may be 
 a serious evil, producing deep suffering of mind or 
 body. Constitution, temperament, habit, and asso- 
 ciation determine the character of these circum- 
 stances. There is vastly less of actual evil than 
 probably any of us suppose, and what are called 
 evils, — are they not the soil ofttimes from which the 
 sublimest virtues spring, to nourish the truest human 
 enjoyment? Who can define evil ? Who can with 
 confidence assert that 
 
 “ All nature is not art, unknown to thee, 
 
 All chance, direction which thou canst not see, 
 
 All discord, harmony not understood, 
 
 All partial evil, universal good ” ? 
 
THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 227 
 
 “ Ask of the learned the way, the learned are blind : 
 
 This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind ; 
 
 Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, 
 
 Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.” 
 
 This recalls the question, Are want and disap- 
 pointment and disease things necessarily pertain- 
 ing to human society, or are they anything more 
 than proofs of our imperfect knowledge, our unde- 
 veloped faculties? Here we must view the subject 
 from another stand-point. In one sense our igno- 
 rance itself must be deemed an evil. As being the 
 occasion of the evil, it is the evil. In other words, 
 we may deem it a misfortune that we do not have 
 sufficient knowledge to avoid or obviate the ordi- 
 nary ills of life. Yet there must be conflicting forces, 
 or we can perceive no moral achievement; there 
 must be restraint and obstacles, or we can see no 
 ground for exertion ; there must be imperfection, or 
 we can see no room for development. But specula- 
 tion ceases on this point. These facts are beyond all 
 controversy : our nature is but partially developed, — 
 there are obstacles to be overcome, exertions must 
 be made, — we must acquire, we must advance, we 
 must achieve. This is the law, the universal law, 
 of life and true enjoyment, and these conditions of 
 being can neither be ignored, nor altered, nor de- 
 stroyed, whether the author of this law be called 
 nature or called |God. Here we are brought back 
 to the proposition with which we began, that good 
 and evil may be only other terms for knowledge 
 and a want of knowledge, faculties developed and 
 faculties undeveloped, — all things being good with 
 a true knowledge of their capacities and uses, and 
 
228 
 
 THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 all evil in proportion to our want of knowledge, and 
 consequent misuse of things, — nothing being evil in 
 itself, but evil being only a term descriptive of good 
 misunderstood, or good perverted. From which 
 proceeds again this other proposition, that, as indi- 
 cated by all present observation and all past history 
 of human action, the true object of human life is 
 simply to develop, acquire, and improve, and, as we 
 develop, acquire, and improve, to appropriate and 
 enjoy. Our life, therefore, our development, ac- 
 quirement, and enjoyment, have no special reference 
 to the past, nor any special reference to the future ; 
 for these conditions would be unaltered though we 
 had no knowledge of the past and no conception of 
 the future. I am to seek to-day all just means to 
 improve, acquire, appropriate, and enjoy, not that I 
 may avoid pain or secure happiness beyond the 
 grave, but to live thus to-day because this is the law 
 of my being, the true condition of a true life, and 
 there is not a single circumstance within the range 
 of human wisdom to show me that it would be in 
 any wise different, were this day the only day of 
 life I should ever have in this or any other world. 
 Hell or no hell after death, heaven or no heaven 
 after death, this law of improvement and enjoyment 
 here, from all that we can possibly discover, is and 
 would be absolutely universal, unchanged, and un- 
 . changeable. Religionists of every name, including 
 most Christians of every sect, have made, and still 
 represent, the chief ground of duty and chief object 
 of life as pertaining to the invisible state beyond 
 the present. Yet, with a singular inconsistency, 
 many Christians of every sect regard the condition 
 
THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 229 
 
 of that future state, whether happiness or the re- 
 verse, as something which is neither to be avoided, 
 averted, bought, bribed, or won, or in any measure 
 shunned or obtained, by any act of theirs, by any- 
 thing which they can do on earth. They insist that 
 the happiness of that state is to be procured, for 
 those who shall enjoy it, by some sacrifice, atone- 
 ment, arrangement, or plan, devised and executed by 
 the Deity himself, so that all — as they appropriate 
 certain phraseology to express it — all will be of grace 
 and not of works. And still, in the face of this dis- 
 dinctly delineated theological device, which is pro- 
 claimed and defended continually by thousands, by 
 these same defenders all men are daily entreated 
 and exhorted with earnestness and zeal to believe 
 and perform that which will secure them heaven 
 and happiness, and not to believe and perform that 
 which will insure them hell and misery in the invis- 
 ible world ; • — all of those referred to thus seeming to 
 agree in these two propositions first : that the great 
 object of human life and exertion is, by some means 
 or management, to avoid misery and secure heaven 
 beyond the grave ; and second, that, by reason of 
 their entire sinfulness or helplessness, nothing they 
 possibly can do in this life can either obviate the 
 one condition or secure the other in the future and 
 eternal state. These two clashing propositions, the 
 one completely neutralizing the other, embody the 
 sum and substance, the theory and practice, of the 
 religion of the greater part of the Christian world. 
 
 And what is the result ? The result, as far as it 
 is apparent, is this. The one proposition impresses 
 and takes strongest hold on some minds, and the 
 20 
 
230 
 
 THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 other proposition impresses and takes strongest hold 
 on other minds. For both cannot be entertained 
 and adopted as principles of action by the same 
 person. The lives of some, therefore, — those im- 
 pressed most deeply with the proposition that the 
 grand object of all human exertion is to avoid mis- 
 ery and secure heaven, — are characterized by more 
 or less effort to correct and improve themselves, in 
 view of the great end to be attained finally. While 
 as to those most impressed with the other proposition, 
 — that by reason of natural sinfulness they are entire- 
 ly helpless, either as to avoiding misery or securing 
 happiness hereafter, — we may find their lives less 
 marked by any moral exertion, development, or prog- 
 ress. Having no faith in their own nature, they live 
 in conformity, to some extent, with their want of faith. 
 But neither of these appear to conceive of develop- 
 ment, acquirement, progress, and enjoyment as form- 
 ing and comprising the true and complete objects of 
 human life, human life including death as part of its 
 experience, death not being the end, but only an im- 
 portant but natural vicissitude in the life of the soul, 
 which life begins not at dissolution, but at birth, or 
 when the soul began to be. 
 
 All experience establishes beyond reasonable ques- 
 tion, that the conditions of our present existence and 
 enjoyment are invariably and universally the same, — 
 effort, progress, virtue. Find one whose trials have 
 been neither few nor small, one who long has been a 
 son of sorrow and has borne a heavy burden, whose 
 path in life has been both rough and thorny, — find 
 such a son of earth, and comfort him if possible with 
 the description of a peace and joy and glory in re- 
 
THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 231 
 
 serve for him hereafter, — assure him of happiness 
 and heaven in the remote and unseen future, — and 
 when you have done this, how much will you have 
 done to explain the mystery of his present trials ? 
 What ray of light will you have shed upon the dim- 
 ness of the dusty road which he has travelled ? How 
 much will you have done to explain the fact of his 
 present suffering, sad, and weary existence ? Either 
 to vent his own complainings, or to test the depth of 
 your comforting philosophy, he may turn and exclaim, 
 in reply to your well-intended consolations : “ Peace 
 and joy hereafter, do you tell me? happiness and 
 heaven my reward beyond the grave ? What can you 
 mean by this ? There is my nearest neighbor, whose 
 sky through life has scarcely ever known a cloud ; sor- 
 row has scarcely visited his door, and scarcely a bur- 
 den has he been called to bear through all the years 
 that he has walked on earth. How then ? are there not 
 also peace and joy and glory in reserve for him here- 
 after ? Is not his assurance of future heaven and hap- 
 piness equal quite to that which you have given me ? ” 
 How then, tell me, would you answer him ? Where- 
 in would be the special value of your consolation ? 
 How could you make a future heaven appear in any 
 way a reward or compensation for the trials of this 
 present earth ? How much would your promises of 
 possible and invisible joys reconcile him to his actual 
 experience of real sorrows ? Now, I know that men 
 do find and take comfort in these hopes of rewards 
 and heaven and happiness hereafter, and the fact 
 bears witness to the disposition we ever have to em- 
 brace and dwell upon even the prospect of a good, 
 and to overlook and leave out of Sight even a present 
 
232 
 
 THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 real evil. It bears witness to the affinity of the soul 
 for what is bright and promising, rather than for 
 what is dark and threatening. But it is strange still, 
 that mankind have so long been satisfied with this, — 
 content to bind up their wounds, and in the hour of 
 weakness and helplessness to soothe themselves with 
 a sort of selfish dream of glorious rewards or gracious 
 gifts bestowed, — of unspeakable and heavenly joys 
 in another and unseen world beyond the grave. They 
 seem to be content with the philosophy, that 
 
 “ Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; 
 
 Man never is, but always to be, blest.” 
 
 This may be poetry, but it is not truth. The senti- 
 ment is as unworthy as it is untrue. Man is — man 
 oftentimes is greatly blest, and knows it too ; and 
 more, O how much more blest might he still be 
 than he is ! 
 
 I would detract nothing from the most ardent fancy 
 of felicities in a future world. I would cherish the 
 clearest convictions of a future heaven, which a firm 
 and ever-growing faith can give ; but I would not 
 have the strongest convictions concerning the future 
 silence my earnest inquiries as to my own present 
 welfare. We wilfully close our eyes, or we must 
 see that no theory of an unchangeable hell or heaven 
 in the future explains, resolves, and reconciles the 
 varied and nameless differences, troubles, and evils 
 of this present life. May not the sum of human joys 
 on earth be greater? May not the magnitude of 
 present evils be diminished, and the number of pres- 
 ent evils be reduced ? May not the standard of 
 human comfort, and of human aspirations here, be 
 elevated ? May not the vast aggregate of human 
 
THE OBJECT OF HUMAN LIFE. 233 
 
 enjoyment in this present life be greatly, indefi- 
 nitely increased ? These are no fanciful inquiries. 
 These are questions of deep, direct personal con- 
 cern to every human being. And no creed, theory, 
 or doctrine concerning a future world should ever 
 be permitted to overshadow or drive these ques- 
 tions from our earnest thoughts. For surely, by 
 elevating the condition of this life, we cannot be 
 degrading the condition of that which is to come. 
 Surely, by multiplying the true joys of earth,, we 
 cannot be detracting from the true joys of heaven. 
 And when, by submitting to the closest scrutiny all 
 the faculties and all the organs of our nature, we find 
 each and every one, in common with every object in 
 creation round us, adapted to beneficent uses, de- 
 signed by nature in every case for good, we are not 
 without reason to believe that the mystery of evil 
 yet may be explained, and the tears be wiped from 
 the cheek of earth’s sorrowing children, and the pres- 
 ent woes of our world be found only in the records 
 of human history. 
 
 20 * 
 
DISCOURSE XVI. 
 
 THE POWER OF MIND. — SOME GREAT THOUGHT. 
 
 AS DYING, AND, BEHOLD, WE LIVE ; AS CHASTENED, AND NOT 
 KILLED ; AS SORROWFUL, YET ALWAY REJOICING ; AS 
 POOR, YET MAKING MANY RICH; AS HAYING NOTHING, 
 AND YET POSSESSING ALL THINGS. — 2 Cor. vi. 9, 10. 
 
 “ Give me some great thought,” were the last 
 words of a great author to his weeping friends 
 around his bed. And this is what every mind is long- 
 ing for, not only in a dying hour, but in every hour 
 of weariness, or doubt, or trial, or mental darkness. 
 As something to lean on, something to repose on 
 for relief, the mind seeks for some great thought ; — 
 something which may task the highest powers, draw 
 them out, and raise them up above the vexations of the 
 hour ; — something which seems to be commensurate 
 with the mind itself, corresponding with the soul’s 
 dignity. When the common cares of life annoy us, 
 and seem to draw us down and tie us fast as cap- 
 tives to their littleness, do we not feel an indescrib- 
 able sense of shame, a sort of degradation, as if in a 
 place which is unworthy of us ? We feel as if strug- 
 gling to throw off some vast weight, which, in spite 
 of ourselves, oppresses us. We feel something within, 
 
THE POWER OF MIND. 
 
 235 
 
 which tells us we are made for something higher, 
 nobler, better, than this which we endure, — which we 
 resist, but are unable wholly to repel. There must 
 be, I think, times of such consciousness, such expe- 
 rience, to all of us. The mind feels itself dishonored 
 by submission to these perplexities and trials, and 
 yet it sees that submission is inevitable. Still it does 
 not see that these painful and prostrating effects are 
 wholly inevitable. It has an impression that it may 
 live in earth’s cares, and yet live above them ; that it 
 may move among them, and yet not be of them ; that 
 there is an inner life, which, if it may not destroy the 
 outer life, may triumph over it. The majesty of the 
 mind may assert itself, and declare its supremacy 
 over the body and all material things, over disap- 
 pointment and all contingencies. This is the state 
 of mind of which St. Paul speaks, — as dying, yet 
 living; as chastened, not killed; as sorrowful, yet 
 always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as 
 having nothing, yet possessing all things. 
 
 But what was there in the circumstances of Paul 
 explanatory of these paradoxes ? Who was St. Paul ? 
 He was one who had been among the fiercest of the 
 Pharisaic Jews. His Jewish piety had led him to 
 the most implacable intolerance. And though Jesus 
 was himself a Jew, and his followers principally 
 Jews, yet so entirely obnoxious did he regard Jesus 
 as a teacher, so utterly at variance with the Hebrew 
 expectation of a Messiah or Deliverer from national 
 bondage to Rome, that he persecuted those followers 
 with unmitigated severity. He even hired himself 
 to the high-priests, that he might obtain the privilege 
 of seizing on all, regardless of age or sex, on the way 
 
236 
 
 THE POWER OF MIND. 
 
 to the city of Damascus, and bring them down bound 
 to Jerusalem, where pretext might be found for their 
 punishment. But on his way to Damascus, a mid- 
 day vision changed entirely the purposes of the man, 
 and the faith which once he would have destroyed 
 he now preached. Though the views, principles, and 
 object of the man were now changed, his tempera- 
 ment, his nature, was unchanged. He was the same 
 ardent, fearless, zealous man. He regarded himself 
 as the chosen Apostle to the Gentiles, — that is, of 
 the heathen nations, Greeks, Romans, and all beneath 
 the Roman sway, — rather than as the Apostle to 
 the Jews. He brought with him into his new work 
 all his native energy and per-severing industry. This 
 appears in the fact, that he is the writer of full half 
 of the New Testament, or more than twice as much 
 of it as any other of the writers ; — while no doubt a 
 much larger number of his letters were never circu- 
 lated beyond the churches to which they were ad- 
 dressed, than the whole of those which have been 
 transmitted to this day. 
 
 The threatenings and slaughter which it is said 
 he breathed out against the disciples were now ex- 
 changed for a determined zeal, which led him to 
 hazard threatenings and slaughter in defence of what 
 he deemed the truth. His ardor supported him 
 through every vicissitude, and, as he himself de- 
 scribes, he learned both how to be abased and how 
 to abound, how to enjoy and how to suffer need. 
 He was in perils by sea, in perils by land, in perils 
 among false brethren ; yet through all he was borne 
 triumphantly, by a tranquil, trustful, earnest, and 
 ever-active spirit. A similar spirit was strikingly 
 
SOME GREAT THOUGHT. 
 
 237 
 
 manifest in most of his fellow-disciples of the new 
 religion. The exigencies of the time demanded such 
 a spirit, and the demand was answered. The hos- 
 tility of the Hebrew was deep and ardent, while the 
 rage of the Roman and Greek was easily aroused. 
 To profess interest in the new faith, was to subject 
 one’s self to privations and afflictions of every form, 
 and even to endanger life. Yet feeling assured there 
 was something superior to popular approbation, 
 something better than bodily comfort or even bodily 
 life, — a knowledge of duty discharged, a sense of 
 rectitude adhered to, a love of truth, and a life of 
 peace within, — they went on, waited on, worked 
 on, with cheerful, trustful hearts, which raised them 
 above all depression from the appalling perils to 
 which they were exposed. This was the condition 
 which St. Paul described as dying, yet living ; sor- 
 rowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many 
 rich; having nothing, yet possessing all things. 
 
 This state of mind was not peculiar to St. Paul, 
 nor even to the early Christians. There always have 
 been those who by exalted views of duty have cre- 
 ated round themselves an atmosphere so inspiring 
 and life-giving, as to keep them raised above the de- 
 pressions so frequently attending the common dis- 
 appointments and trials of life. Sometimes, indeed, 
 the true inspiring principle has been based on unreal 
 dangers. Men have shown the highest courage, and 
 performed admirable deeds, in order to avert some 
 imaginary evil, or to achieve some uncertain good. 
 Very much of the privation and suffering heroically 
 endured by martyrs to a creed or church, has been 
 heroically endured not so much from unwavering 
 
238 
 
 THE POWER OF MIND. 
 
 attachment to truth, not so much because they felt 
 that they must adhere to principle and obey the 
 voice of right which spoke within, as because of the 
 ultimate evil it might avert from themselves, or the 
 approbation it might win from God. It was not 
 duty, it was not principle, but it was an honest and 
 sincere, though misguided, selfishness. Many of those 
 who have devoted and are devoting themselves now 
 with earnestness to the work of missions, — who leave 
 home and friends, — who, like St. Xavier in India, or 
 Father Marquette in our country, bravely encounter 
 every form of endurance, — with lofty spirits are car- 
 ried on in their zealous work, never wearying in ef- 
 fort, never turning back discouraged by small results, 
 never sinking under disappointment, resisting and 
 repeatedly overcoming hunger, thirst, sickness, by 
 the force of a determined will, till the exhausted 
 corporeal nature can finally resist no longer, and they 
 die, — and all, not because they simply, clearly felt it 
 to be right, and that they must do right, but because 
 of their compassion for souls; — not from a desire to 
 enlighten the minds, improve the actual condition, of 
 savages and heathens, — to give more elevated views 
 of their own nature, and advance them as intellect- 
 ual beings, — but simply to save their souls from the 
 eternal wrath of God. They see, as they conceive, 
 a cursed, fallen, and perishing world. They do not 
 stop to answer the Scriptural inquiry, “ Can a mor- 
 tal man be more just than God ? ” but they feel that 
 on their feeble efforts, — such is their view of God’s 
 justice, — on their faint and limited exertions, God 
 has made to depend the salvation of many of these 
 souls from an eternal misery to which they were 
 
SOME GREAT THOUGHT. 
 
 239 
 
 doomed from the beginning of the earth, — for ages 
 before they had existence. On the mere choice of 
 their will, whether they go or stay, these Christian 
 men can persuade themselves to believe the alterna- 
 tive of eternal happiness or eternal misery to pa- 
 gans is suspended. They are more just, they are 
 more merciful, than the Infinitely Good, the Author 
 of nature ; and away they hasten, and fearlessly do 
 they contend and perseveringly labor to save some 
 perishing souls from the endless fury of an unrelent- 
 ing Deity. In this life, this labor, this sacrifice, suf- 
 fering, and premature death, these enthusiasts rejoice. 
 By the all-conquering power of will, they rise above 
 the fear of ordinary trials. They feel that, though 
 poor, they are making others rich; for they are secur- 
 ing to accursed and ignorant pagan souls salvation 
 from the ceaseless anger of the Christian’s God. 
 They feel that, although having nothing, they yet 
 possess all things, as being themselves secure of eter- 
 nal happiness ; and in their zeal they can despise the 
 wealth, power, and distinctions of this life, for they 
 possess all things in possessing a triumphant faith in 
 themselves as chosen, elect of God. We thus see 
 how men can, through the most unreasonable and 
 offensive proposition when embraced as a conviction, 
 draw out from within a spiritual force, which, like 
 strong wings, bears them up above the power of dis- 
 appointments, depressions, and pains; and though 
 sorrowful for others perishing, yet they are always 
 rejoicing in themselves ; though dying, they yet live, 
 for they fear not, they defy, death. If such narrow 
 and shocking views of the character of God, and des- 
 tiny of ignorant and helpless souls, can be made the 
 
240 
 
 THE POWER OF MIND. 
 
 basis of a sustaining power so great, so inestimable 
 to the human mind, what might we reasonably sup- 
 pose to be the sustaining, inspiring, life-giving in- 
 fluence of a profound, firm trust in the infinite good- 
 ness and perfect justice of God, the author and ruler 
 of all, and an equally firm trust in the certain value, 
 efficiency, and power of every effort on the part of 
 man to be right and to do good, — to preserve himself 
 from wrong and to promote the purity and progress 
 of others ? This trust was the source of St. Paul’s 
 superiority to the vexations and perplexities of life. 
 It was not because he felt that he was more com- 
 passionate than the Almighty ; not that he believed 
 he would himself do more for souls of Gentiles than 
 the Creator of souls would do ; not that he be- 
 lieved the eternal destiny of Greeks and Romans to 
 depend upon the courage with which he or any 
 other should go forth and offer to them a plan, a 
 scheme of escape from the universal and eternal 
 curse of that Being whom Jesus had taught his fol- 
 lowers to call “ Our Father.” No, not at all. But 
 because he became alive to the true dignity of man, 
 the inherent power of the human soul, the superiority 
 of mind as the representative of God and sovereign 
 of earth, and felt it dishonorable in man to bow and 
 sink in despondency before the evils and sorrows inci- 
 dental to this visible stage of his existence. He was 
 conscious of a power within, by which he might en- 
 joy a high and serene condition, neither 
 
 “ Thrown into tumult, raptured, nor alarmed, 
 
 By aught this scene can threaten or indulge.’’ 
 
 Not that he was to become stoically indifferent to 
 the pains, pleasures, joys, sorrows, or sufferings of 
 
SOME GREAT THOUGHT. 
 
 241 
 
 others. This was not the case with St. Paul. The 
 many epistles of the New Testament of which he 
 was the author, bear abundant witness to his indus- 
 try and energy. His superiority to common afflic- 
 tions was no fatalism, deadening his zeal, and in its 
 tendency destructive of real progress. He was al- 
 ways rejoicing, yet he was sorrowful. Like him, we 
 are to be sorrowful over the ignorance and selfish- 
 ness which dry up the fountains of charity and dis- 
 turb the peace of the world, the brotherly fellowship 
 of man with man. Like him, it is for us (each in 
 his own sphere and in his own way) to exert our- 
 selves for the amelioration of society. And, like him, 
 we may always rejoice in the unwavering faith, that, 
 limited as may be our means* imperfect as may be 
 our efforts, imperceptible as may be results, still we 
 may do our duty, and the almighty, eternal, and 
 beneficent Power who directs and overrules all will 
 permit nothing truly good, nothing well intended, to 
 be wholly vain, to be entirely lost. Without this 
 faith, it is not wonderful that many grow indifferent 
 to their own and to the world’s condition, it is not 
 wonderful that zealous hearts grow languid, and 
 eyes, which for a time looked hopefully, come to 
 look with coldness and despondency upon the evils 
 and trials of this life. In some minds, rejoicing, as 
 used by St. Paul, may mean more than he meant. 
 It was not designed to signify a self-complacent 
 spirit of exultation, resulting from any feeling of 
 personal safety or personal superiority. It was no 
 outburst or expression of rapture or ecstasy in view 
 of an eternal heaven. By rejoicing, St. Paul meant 
 an enduring tranquillity of mind, an inward, spiritual 
 21 
 
242 
 
 THE POWER OF MIND. 
 
 repose, a deep, trusting peacefulness, which, though 
 more or less disturbed it might be, could never be 
 destroyed. But, like the spreading circles caused 
 by the momentary agitation of still water, the tran- 
 sitory depressions caused by personal endurance 
 would soon cease and fade away from sight, and all 
 be still and deep and bright again, — the serene 
 soul, like the still water, reflecting the eternal bright- 
 ness of the stars, or the deep blue sky in sunlight, 
 glorious as a smile from the face of God. Such real, 
 inward tranquillity is true rejoicing. He who is in 
 possession of this mind may in a literal sense be 
 poor, yet in a true sense making many rich. What 
 a sad, sad thing it would be, if current coin, or stocks, 
 or deeds of real estate, were the only wealth, the 
 only things in which a human being could be rich ! 
 How few then who could help their fellow-man! 
 how few then who could scatter blessings where 
 they go ! But no one need live in himself, no one 
 need live for himself. Advice, counsel, comfort, 
 encouragement, are often the most precious gifts 
 which a human being can bestow. Every one who 
 has an eye to look a kind look, every one who has 
 a hand to give a friendly grasp, every one who has a 
 countenance to wear a smile, every one who has a 
 voice to speak comfort or to speak sympathy, to in- 
 form, to warn, to instruct, to encourage, — every 
 such one, though poor in houses, lands, or coin, 
 has a fund of wealth the true worth of which he 
 cannot estimate. It is not only inexhaustible, but 
 it grows by use, and the more you give away, the 
 more you have remaining ; every such one may 
 make many rich. Nothing is further from my pur- 
 
SOME GREAT THOUGHT. 
 
 243 
 
 pose than to depreciate the actual need and real 
 power of substantial, material wealth, as the means 
 of outward comfort, the support of physical life. 
 Very far from this. It is one of the trials of those 
 who can manage to subsist, and who are yet poor 
 in the world’s goods, that a word or look, advice or 
 encouragement, is frequently all that they have to 
 give, while they feel that it does not meet all the 
 want, — that more than this is needed. Sentiment 
 has its place, but sentiment cannot always supply the 
 place of substance. There are times when neither 
 sympathy nor advice is needed, but when one feels 
 compelled to say : “ I see that what you want is not 
 counsel, not comfort, but clothing, or food, or a 
 home, or the means of providing yourself with them 
 by your own labor, and none of these have I to give 
 you. You must trust in God, and trust in your own 
 exertions to succeed, to live ; and as you best can, 
 you must wait and seek for opportunities.” Still, 
 what sorrow and poverty and unrewarded toil the 
 inquiring spirit of our times discloses to us, which 
 might be greatly mitigated by inspiring in the minds 
 of sufferers a true sense of human dignity, by call- 
 ing out the real power of human will, by kindling 
 in the soul “ some great thought.” How many who 
 have labored and hoped, and been unceasing in 
 their industry, and yet, through defective mental 
 training, through injudicious management, or un- 
 foreseen contingencies, have been unfortunate, and 
 become sad and weary of the world and of life, who 
 sink into a listless feeling that they do not care and 
 are not cared for, — who neither hope much nor fear 
 much, — who look for little better in this life or in any 
 
244 
 
 THE POWER OF MIND. 
 
 life, — who scarcely think clearly enough to think 
 whether there are good men, or whether there is a 
 good God or any God, — but who just do what they 
 can, and take what they can get, and live on till they 
 die ! How many such might be warmed up into en- 
 joyment, something more like the existence of a hu- 
 man being, less like the existence of an unreasoning 
 animal, by remembering some great thought, by 
 being made sensible of the majesty of mind, by feel- 
 ing that the soul, the spirit-power, the vital, thinking 
 man, is not of necessity dependent on externals, — 
 that the life of a man does not consist in the abun- 
 dance of things which he possesseth ! How many 
 widowed mothers and orphan daughters, and, besides 
 widows and orphans, those born in lowly life, to toil 
 through all their days, — how many such in our large 
 cities, who with eyes dimmed by tears in day-time, 
 and dimmed by feeble lamplight in night-time, sew 
 and sob and work for a mere pittance, which employ- 
 ers give them grudgingly, — how many poor weepers 
 and workers are there like these, who literally make 
 others rich, in whose breasts some great thought 
 might be kindled which would burn there perpetu- 
 ally, illuminating all their pathway here, down to 
 the grave, and even there throwing its rays far over 
 into the spirit- world ! 
 
 Even the unfortunate, the poor, who are not closed 
 up in cities, confined in dark and narrow rooms, — 
 who walk abroad where open skies are over them, 
 and fields and hills and forests round them, — even 
 these, if intelligent, observing, thoughtful, might yet 
 be possessing all things, though having nothing. 
 For no earthly proprietor, selfish as he might be or 
 
SOME GREAT THOUGHT. 
 
 245 
 
 might wish to be, can shut up in his enclosures the 
 sunbeams and the stars, the hills and streams and 
 rocks and trees, and the humblest observer, though 
 having them not, can yet appropriate and enjoy 
 them all. Yet few, very few, perhaps, even of those 
 who live surrounded by this exhaustless wealth of 
 nature, truly observe or truly enjoy it. The little 
 world of vexations, of small wants and wishes of the 
 person, selfish and absorbing passions of the moment, 
 contract their vision, blunt their perceptions ; and the 
 countless glories round them, soliciting their inspec- 
 tion, their admiration, are unheeded. But without 
 even the opportunity of observing and enjoying na- 
 ture are thousands, who live and die in hovels, garrets, 
 and cellars, in all our populous communities, or who 
 spend their time on the thronged streets, eagerly 
 watching for something to occur to favor them. They 
 need to be inspired with some great, elevating, sustain- 
 ing thought, with some high resolve, — the power of a 
 strong, clear purpose, — a will to maintain their intel- 
 lectual sovereignty even in their heaviest misfortune, 
 — never to surrender to despair ! But alas ! how diffi- 
 cult is it to reach them ! They are kept so constantly 
 looking down and thinking how they are to live at 
 all, that they rarely look up to seize a glimpse even 
 of the pure skies which may be seen from the pave- 
 ment of the narrow streets on which they walk. 
 Ministers or city missionaries may sometimes search 
 some of them out, and give them Bibles, and tell 
 them to read,* and whisper a word about another 
 and a better world than this, — a heaven in which 
 they will feel themselves rewarded for all present 
 trials. But when do they find time to read the Bible 
 21 * 
 
246 
 
 THE POWER OF MIND. 
 
 which is given to them ? Should they open it, their 
 eye may fall perchance upon some paradoxical and 
 obscure passage, over which for ages theologians 
 have wrangled ; and after looking till their eyes 
 grow dim, perhaps they feel uncomforted and unim- 
 proved, and they lay it away as something which 
 does not meet their wants. Then as to heaven, 
 even that is a mysterious thing ; for they can see no 
 heaven which they are to enjoy which will not be 
 equally enjoyed by the good, but fortunate, prosper- 
 ous ones, who have never in this life experienced 
 their sufferings. No, if possible they must be made 
 to feel a divine element within them now, — a will 
 not to be crushed and degraded utterly, and a pow- 
 er to execute that will ; — a trust in goodness and 
 in God now, — not that some time God will be, but 
 that God is now, — and that every human spirit is a 
 reflection of God, and not a mere motive-power to 
 flesh and blood and bones. 
 
 This is what we all require. Sorrow we must 
 have, for we are social, sympathetic beings, and can- 
 not, if we would, be indifferent to the griefs and 
 pains, the disappointments or the joys, of others. 
 Yet we may always have a background of rejoi- 
 cing, an abiding, inward sense of spiritual dignity, a 
 firm trust that what is seen, what is visible, is not 
 all of us ; that there is a power, a will, which raises 
 us above common depressions, — a power which 
 cannot be destroyed. 
 
 Be the legal proprietor or possessor of what we 
 may, there are times when sickness, suffering, or 
 some gi;eat bereavement comes, and the knowledge 
 of any possession extrinsic to the mind, the soul, 
 the inner man itself, is valueless. We want then 
 
SOME GREAT THOUGHT. 
 
 247 
 
 the might of a great purpose, — a high resolve 
 not to be borne down, not to sink and despond, 
 and shut our eyes and see no light. We want a 
 strong will then, to look up and say, “ The heav- 
 ens are mine”; to look abroad and say, “The 
 earth is mine ” ; to feel that, while having noth- 
 ing, we are possessing all things; that all things 
 are ours, and yet we are above, superior to all things. 
 We want a great thought, which lifts up and en- 
 larges the soul, as if bringing it closer to its foun- 
 tain, to God, that we may adopt and appreciate 
 that other saying of St. Paul to the early Christians : 
 “ Let no man glory in men, for all things are yours ; 
 whether the world, or life,- or death, or things pres- 
 ent, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are 
 Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” None of us are 
 without some sense of this majesty of mind. We 
 have all felt that “’T is the mind which makes the 
 body rich.” In times when we have yielded to 
 temptation, or sunk under affliction, even at the 
 very moment of our weakness, have we not felt an 
 inborn dignity of soul reproaching us, and telling of 
 a latent power and purpose by which we might 
 throw off the burden, and rise up in majesty? 
 
 Let us indulge no vague dreams of reaching every 
 soul, even of our age, and kindling up the divine 
 consciousness within it, but resolve to draw out 
 more of the soul’s power, and live in a higher realm 
 ourselves, raising the light of our example to shine 
 down upon the way of others. Living in tran- 
 quil self-command, “ neither raptured nor alarmed,” 
 yet active, energetic, subduing selfish passions by 
 a lofty purpose, a pure, powerful will, to others let 
 us be as 
 
248 THE POWER OF MIND. 
 
 “ A beacon, shining o’er a stormy sea, 
 
 A cooling fountain in a weary land, 
 
 A green spot on a waste and burning sand, 
 
 A rose that o’er a ruin sheds its bloom, 
 
 A sunbeam smiling o’er the cold, dark tomb.” 
 
DISCOURSE XVII. 
 
 CONFLICTS OF FAITH, — IN THE SOUL AND IN THE 
 CHUKCH. 
 
 I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT. — 2 Tim. IV. 7. 
 
 In this one, no doubt among the last, of his let- 
 ters, Paul’s peculiar style and illustrations are ap- 
 parent. He is accustomed to represent the Christian 
 life — the true life of the man — as a race, a battle, 
 in some sense a contest ; and now, near the close of 
 his own career of singular vicissitude, he declares, — 
 not perhaps in a spirit of exultation, but in a spirit 
 of satisfaction, of contentment, — “I have fought a 
 good fight.” As he now stood near the summit of 
 life’s mountain, and reviewed the devious and rugged 
 path by which he had ascended, he enjoyed the tran- 
 quil satisfaction of feeling, that, taking his life as a 
 whole, he had, as he elsewhere expresses the same 
 idea, come off conqueror. 
 
 One of the best descriptions of human life is that 
 in which he presents it as a conflict. It matters lit- 
 tle what names some may like or dislike : facts are 
 not altered by the names which men choose to give 
 
250 
 
 CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 or to withhold. You may call it accident or design, 
 chance or law, — you may call it nature, or you may 
 call it the appointment of God, — it is none the less 
 fact, confirmed by all human history, that improve- 
 ment is the result of effort ; that most of what man 
 calls good in life is the attendant of exertion ; that 
 success is to follow toil. And not only so, but im- 
 provement, success, good, even when achieved, are 
 only preserved by continued exertion and unwearied 
 vigilance. Thus, in an important sense, life, every 
 life, is a fight ; and in every case it is, or it is not, 
 a good fight. There is, in many, a propensity to in- 
 dolence, which shrinks from effort, because it finds 
 nothing worth contending for. Possessing an inher- 
 itance, or through the abundance and liberality of 
 friends, or by some concurrence of happy accidents, 
 they contrive to live, — they live on, making no sign, 
 and, dying, leave, for good, no mark behind them. 
 But it is not only a constitutional or acquired pro- 
 pensity to indolence, — it is sometimes a theory 
 of life deliberately adopted, which deems nothing 
 worth contending for ; and so some, adhering to a 
 theory, pass through the whole period of existence, 
 doing nothing positively, but leaving the effects of 
 a sad example. First religious views frequently 
 give a gloomy coloring to the whole world. Human 
 history then appears but a tale of sorrow or of crime. 
 Human destiny appears before their minds in no 
 other light than that of a terrific tragedy, and they 
 feel themselves to be the sport of a resistless fate. 
 They do nothing, or little, but obey the impulses of 
 nature, which force them to some activity; and they 
 float along like drift on the fluctuating current of 
 
CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 251 
 
 events, till by some eddy in the stream of time they 
 are abruptly and for ever whirled from sight ; and 
 these, like the others, leave no footprints to mark 
 the path which they have trodden. These are the 
 victims of a blind, unquestioning faith. But there is 
 a soured scepticism which tends to the same result. 
 Perceiving the abject superstition which controls so 
 many, they become suspicious of all belief but be- 
 lief in unbelief ; and this belief they accept so heart- 
 ily, that they become victims of their own morbid- 
 ness, as complete as those of unquestioning belief. 
 They keep themselves in as much uneasiness, if not 
 wretchedness, by reflecting on the ignorance and fol- 
 lies of mankind around them, as the devotee who 
 makes himself miserable in contemplating the woful 
 destiny of the majority of human kind, and the un- 
 certainty which, at times, he feels to hang around 
 his own final fate. Effort, indeed, strenuous effort, is 
 not always crowned with what is called success. But 
 whatever the measure of success in seeking wealth, 
 or knowledge, or power, it is the attendant of exer- 
 tion, in the general order of events. This is the 
 rule, the law of things, whatever exception there 
 may be. A man strives through years, the best 
 years of his life, the vigor of his days, for wealth, 
 and he obtains wealth, though his passion is apt to 
 increase as he acquires, and when some infirmity of 
 body or of mind admonishes him, he begins to seek 
 enjoyment of what he has procured. But then, per- 
 haps, it is too late ; the door of enjoyment has been 
 shut; he has lived the creature of habit, and the crea- 
 ture of habit he must die. He has fought, but not 
 a good fight; he has been conquered, — shamefully 
 
252 
 
 CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 defeated. It is so oftentimes in the strife for power. 
 Not content with power, and no small power for 
 good, he grasps and stretches forth for more, till he 
 loses his balance; and when the highest point he 
 longed for is just within his reach, he falls, worn, 
 exhausted, by his protracted exertion. He has con- 
 tended, but did not pause in time to conquer. 
 
 It is so with knowledge, — even here, where too 
 much knowledge can never be obtained. There is 
 a knowledge which is profitable, and there is a search 
 for knowledge which is only weariness ; for the com- 
 bined experience of the world attests that mere 
 speculation, which leaves out of sight our actual life, 
 is not the knowledge which is power for good. 
 That only which recognizes persons, facts, and things, 
 — which studies these, and applies the fruits of that 
 study as it goes, — a strife for knowledge guided by 
 this rule, is alone successful. 
 
 But nothing is truer, — concerning nothing can 
 there be less dispute than this, — that every val- 
 uable, every durable attainment, material or spirit- 
 ual, intellectual or moral, is a conquest, — in some 
 sense an achievement, the result of a good fight. 
 We long for peace, but we must “ conquer a peace.” 
 This phrase, as far as I remember, was brought into 
 being by certain features of the war from which our 
 own government has so recently emerged. However 
 peculiar and problematical may have been its use, in 
 connection with the events in which it originated, it 
 is certainly a very significant and expressive phrase. 
 
 Once, at the rebuilding of the temple, it is said, 
 the Jews labored with the sword always at their 
 side ; or rather the implement of labor in one hand, 
 
CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 253 
 
 and the sword in the other. This represents the at- 
 titude morally and spiritually of every man aiming 
 at excellence or advancement. We must conquer a 
 peace. As society, as the world, is now, — as it has 
 been, — it is true in every sense, negatively as well 
 as positively, that no man liveth to himself. He is 
 born, he grows up, he lives, a social being; and there 
 are social influences for evil, no less than good, which 
 render his quiescence impossible. Every man, if not 
 sensible of, certainly experiences, social tendencies 
 which repress and retard his moral growth, and 
 which must be met and conquered, or they will con- 
 quer. In every man’s field of life there are tares 
 scattered, by the social organization of which he 
 is a part, among the wheat which nature has sown 
 with an abundant hand. And there is this differ- 
 ence between the individual and society in such 
 case. In society they may be allowed to grow to- 
 gether till some certain harvest period, but in the 
 individual there are certain tendencies which must 
 be checked as they appear, — the one must be eradi- 
 cated, or the other will be choked. 
 
 There is a state of restlessness, of suspicion, of 
 distrust, a stage or phase through which, probably, 
 every active and inquiring mind must pass, or in 
 which it must remain. In our day, more especially, 
 we see change of personal position, of ecclesias- 
 tical relations in the religious world. Of these two, 
 the Roman Catholic and the Protestant divisions 
 of Christendom, neither can boast of much re- 
 pose. Many Protestants are passing over into the 
 Church of Rome, and many in the latter are tak- 
 ing their position among Protestants. The former 
 22 
 
254 
 
 CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 are seeking rest, the latter are seeking for sympathy 
 in action. The mistake — if one may venture to 
 suggest — the mistake on both sides appears to be, 
 that they regard religion as a belief, instead of a life. 
 Hence they are searching for the right something 
 to be believed, instead of ascertaining the right thing 
 to be done. 
 
 Supposing Christianity to be a plan or system 
 of faith to be believed, the Protestant is kept in a 
 perpetual unrest ; for every one of twenty sects or 
 churches prescribes to him a different system or faith 
 for his belief. Each one of these is plausibly de- 
 fended by its advocates, and all the others made to 
 appear objectionable and deficient. In this dilemma 
 the Protestant becomes vexed and wearied in spirit, 
 and he breathes a prayer for relief from this warfare, 
 — anything for repose. The Church of Rome offers 
 him repose from thought, and all curious question- 
 ings, assuming at once and entirely the burden of 
 what is called his salvation, that is, his destiny here- 
 after and eternally ; and he embraces the offer, and 
 for a time at least he finds the repose for which he 
 longed, in the splendid ritual and mysterious doc- 
 trine of the Roman Catholic Church. He retires 
 from the contest of life, satisfied that the fight of 
 doctrines and sects is not a good fight ; he hastily con- 
 cludes there is no good fight, and the heaven he seeks 
 is peace, — relief from mental action. On the other 
 hand, many nurtured in the Church of Rome are 
 finding her monotonous rites and dead uniformity of 
 verbal faith at variance more or less with the count- 
 less activities, the material improvements, and the 
 social changes of the enlightened world. Every new 
 
CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 255 
 
 leaf turned in the great volume of creation — nature 
 below and nature above us — is discovering to the 
 active mind the Infinite Power and Wisdom in new 
 relations. The old words are insufficient ; the old 
 forms, the old ceremonies, can no longer express all 
 they see and feel of the Divine, of God. No old 
 organization, they feel, can longer contain God’s 
 greatness, nor constitute itself the only medium of 
 divine development; they seek for greater scope for 
 these longings, — for unbounded freedom to their 
 intellectual activities; and, hoping for sympathy in 
 their spiritual recognitions, they fly from the Romish 
 Church into the unfettered air, which stirs the ever- 
 moving sea of Protestantism, trusting, unhappily, 
 like the others, to find some system of belief answer- 
 ing more directly to their special wants. 
 
 These secessions from Protestantism on the one 
 side, and from Romanism on the other, direct our 
 attention to the two grand classes into which all the 
 intelligent of this country and age may be divided ; 
 namely, those who, as St. Paul styles it, fight the good 
 fight, and those who fight, but do not fight the good 
 fight. Than mental tranquillity, peace of mind, 
 there is nothing more desirable ; but between intel- 
 lectual tranquillity and intellectual death, between 
 peace of mind and mental deadness, there is an 
 immeasurable difference. Pray without ceasing, Re- 
 joice evermore, Be diligent in business, — these are 
 Christian injunctions, all implying incessant activity. 
 Mental inaction is mental death, and to seek rest 
 from thought is to seek to be a living dead man. Such 
 a rest may be termed faith, but it is a faith which 
 stands, or rather waits, ready to worship every Deity 
 
256 
 
 CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 which may exalt itself. Every beast and creeping 
 thing, and every degrading object, which possesses, or 
 seems to possess power, may command the homage 
 of such a faith. 
 
 There is another faith, distinct from this, a living 
 and active faith, which never wearies. Regarding 
 the highest knowledge yet attained by man as but 
 the alphabet of truth yet uncomprehended, the truly 
 enlightened and hopeful spirit seeks no rest from 
 thought, no final stage or stopping-place, but finds 
 the truest tranquillity in believing that the appar- 
 ent imperfections of creation round it are not real 
 and inherent, but the evidences of our feeble facul- 
 ties, our obtuseness of perception, our narrowness of 
 vision. This mind finds rational repose in a firm 
 faith, that even on earth, even in this mortal or mate- 
 rial life of man, there will yet be developed an extent 
 of knowledge, boundless compared with that which 
 the wisest living have yet acquired. This faith is 
 widely different from that contracted faith which 
 builds itself upon some point, and then regards itself 
 as the centre of all truth, and bemoans the darkness 
 and wickedness of the world, which prevents all the 
 moral elements of earth from combining and crys- 
 tallizing round this narrow point. The one leads to 
 despondency and scepticism. For, waiting long, 
 and calling loudly, and praying earnestly, that all 
 men may come and see its glory, and recognize its 
 authority, this immutable and unprogressive belief, 
 finding the world’s ears closed, and the world’s eyes 
 shut, falls into a gloomy despondency. Never doubt- 
 ing of its own divinity, never imagining that the 
 fault or imperfection may lie within itself, it comes 
 
CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 257 
 
 to do nothing but lament the desperate condition 
 and woful destiny of a world now lying in wicked- 
 ness, and going down to a more miserable and en- 
 during fate. Or, what is perhaps equally sad, it 
 begins to distrust itself; it continues to doubt; it per- 
 ceives itself in error, and, seeing no fair and reason- 
 able path of safety but retracing directly its own 
 steps, it reviews the mistakes and follies of its own 
 career at every stage, and ultimately contracts a pro- 
 pensity to suspicion, which believes nothing satis- 
 factorily, examines nothing impartially, concludes 
 on nothing deliberately. One by one it shakes off 
 every tender and hallowed association, and comes at 
 last to believe that all belief is weakness, that all 
 men are fools, and all the world’s wisdom is folly, 
 and lives without hope and without God ; or rather 
 makes itself a God, becomes its own deity, its own 
 altar, and its own worshipper. Both these condi- 
 tions are the legitimate result of a narrow, unchang- 
 ing, unadvancing faith, which finds in a creed a rest, 
 a cessation of active thought. The victims of this 
 gloomy superstition, and those of this soured scep- 
 ticism, meet each other on the common ground of 
 unhappiness in themselves and despair of mankind. 
 Theirs has not been a good fight. See the sad cir- 
 cumstances under which superstition and scepticism 
 meet. When the hour of bereavement or the mes- 
 sage of death arrives, the imbittered sceptic, who 
 had unhappily been led to view the best of his fel- 
 low-men with contempt for their ignorance, shuts 
 his eyes for the last time, without one gratifying 
 hope for the coming time of earth ; for all is chance 
 or fate, and what chance has not done in time past, 
 22 * 
 
258 
 
 CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 there is no ground for expecting chance to do in 
 time to come. When the same hour comes to the 
 victim of superstition, he looks down shivering into 
 the cold grave, bewailing the fearful doom of a lost 
 world ; and even the visions of celestial glory in re- 
 serve for him are shaded by the smoke of torment 
 and groans of suffering which appear to him to come 
 up from the woful abodes of his own lost relatives 
 and friends, among the eternally damned. These 
 are no mere fancy pictures. The closing scenes in 
 many a life too painfully realize them in their worst 
 features. 
 
 But there is another faith, as we have seen. This 
 faith leads neither to sad superstition nor bitter scep- 
 ticism. In local indifference, in temporary disap- 
 pointment, it finds only occasion for renewed and 
 more persevering exertion. In the moral contest 
 with constantly opposing influences, it does not lay 
 down its arms, deciding that there is nothing worth 
 fighting for, but continues to toil and hope, finding 
 in the exercise itself an unceasing enjoyment, and 
 reaping, as the proper fruit, a richer harvest of fair 
 and well-founded hopes. This striver in life’s con- 
 flict finds some meaning in that poetic idea which 
 describes 
 
 “ The web of life as mingled yarn, 
 
 Good and ill together : our virtues would be 
 Proud if our faults whipped them not, and our 
 Crimes would despair, if they were not 
 Cherished by our virtues.” 
 
 He who expects to fight a good fight, expects to 
 live ever with his armor on. Mere bodily repose, or 
 mere mental rest, in a defined and immutable belief, 
 
CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 259 
 
 is what he neither finds nor searches for. He finds 
 the very aliment of life, the mind’s true tranquillity, 
 in constant activity for good, in ceaseless aspira- 
 tion toward enlarging knowledge and loftier moral 
 heights. In time, this indeed becomes the rule and 
 habit of his existence. His opposition to what is 
 unworthy and inimical to justice and to generosity 
 becomes natural and habitual. The atmosphere in 
 which he breathes purifies itself from the element of 
 storms, and with an active fortitude he moves on, 
 and hopes on, in ceaseless conflict, yet increasing 
 ease, inspiring a serener air each day ; and as he pass- 
 es out through the tomb into that other now unseen 
 portion of the life eternal, he looks back as he closes 
 the door of the grave behind him, and the last words 
 left floating on the mortal air are these of Paul : 
 “ I have fought a good fight,” — “I am ready to de- 
 part.” It is thus we should all “take the instant 
 by the forward top,” for it is true that 
 
 “ We are old, and on our quickest steps 
 The inaudible and noiseless foot of time 
 Steals before we can complete them.” 
 
 Of these two, the one who fights awhile, but sur- 
 renders in the conflict, concluding that there is noth- 
 ing worth contending for, and the other who fights 
 on to the very end, and passes from the scene with 
 the reflection that he has fought a good fight, the 
 Roman Catholic Church and the Unitarian Catholic 
 Church will long continue the respective symbols. 
 The one proposes relief from mental effort, and a 
 dreamy, un progressive rest of unquestioning faith, 
 deeming the earth nothing more than a place of 
 penitence, and all the world’s events as trials or 
 
260 
 
 CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 temptations, to be left out of sight in view of the 
 repose of the paradise which the Church promises. 
 The other proposes constant inquiry and indefatiga- 
 ble action. The weapons of moral conflict are to 
 be kept bright by continual use. It recognizes the 
 universal law by which nature imposes the necessity 
 for effort, as the invariable condition of knowledge 
 and peace and life itself. It sees that God has or- 
 dained that man shall plant for the fruit, and sow 
 for the harvest, and dig for the mineral, and dili- 
 gently observe to read the language of the varied 
 world around and the starry skies above him, and 
 that man is thus to labor as he goes, and find rest 
 in his labor, making earth but a vestibule or an ante- 
 room of heaven. 
 
 Such, on the one hand, is the Roman Church 
 Catholic, and such, on the other hand, is the Liberal 
 United Church Catholic. In the one or the other 
 will each man find his place. There is no neutral 
 ground, nor any consistent stopping-place between. 
 Those tossed by sectarian disputes, confused and 
 troubled and seeking an outward or a nominal rest, 
 will embrace the refuge which the Romish Church 
 offers them. Those who regard the highest knowl- 
 edge yet attained as only rudimental compared with 
 that still to be discovered, and who find in the pur- 
 suit of wisdom their real enjoyment, — who find true 
 peace in constant progress, — will take their place in 
 the Unitarian Catholic Church, and will there fight, 
 and fight on to the end of life the good fight, 
 seeking and desiring no rest but the rest which 
 arises from a knowledge of improvement, a sense of 
 constant progress. 
 
CONFLICTS OF FAITH. 
 
 261 
 
 Let us be careful never to lose courage, but keep 
 on our journey, each day of life turning over some 
 new page of truth for our study, and of beauty for 
 our admiration, rejoicing to drink at new fountains, 
 from time to time discovered. As we advance, find- 
 ing strength in our exercise, and health in our toil, 
 and tranquillity in duty, and this life now itself a 
 joy, whatever joy in the unseen life may follow this. 
 Such are the conflicts of faith in the Church, and 
 such are the conflicts of faith in the soul’s life. 
 
 Through storm to calm ! and though his thunder-car 
 The rumbling tempest drive through earth and sky. 
 
 Good cheer ! good cheer ! that elemental war 
 Tells that a blessed healing hour is nigh. 
 
 Through strife to peace ! and though with bristling front 
 A thousand frightful deaths encompass thee, 
 
 Good cheer ! good cheer ! brave thou the battle’s brunt 
 For the peace march and song of victory. 
 
 Through death to life ! and through this vale of tears, 
 
 And through this thistle-field of life, ascend 
 To the great home, in that world whose years 
 Of bliss unfading, cloudless, know no end. 
 
DISCOURSE XVIII. 
 
 FUTURE LIFE.— IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN? — Job xiv. 14. 
 
 This inquiry, regarding it as a direct question 
 separate from its context, and from any probable 
 opinions of the Hebrew author in whose writing it 
 is found, connects itself with all which is important 
 in human action. It involves the great question of 
 the design of man’s existence. What is the grand 
 object of human exertion? What are the truest 
 motives and incitements to human effort? For 
 what does man live? These are the momentous 
 questions which are suggested to all reflecting 
 minds by these words from the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 The inquiry associates itself with the profoundest 
 investigations which have ever engaged the human 
 understanding, and with the strangest theories which 
 have ever been the fruit of human imagination. 
 Among every people who have made any advance 
 in the arts of civilized life, wherever the intellect has 
 been active and thought has been encouraged, the 
 future, the unseen, has been a problem which the 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 263 
 
 first and ablest minds have been solicitous to solve. 
 It has lost none of its interest to this day. Not only 
 have the devotees of every religion, Pagan, Moslem, 
 Hebrew, and Christian, had their theories, but every 
 sect almost of every religion has had its peculiar 
 creed ; and even now among Christians in our most 
 enlightened communities scarcely two minds can be 
 found to coincide in their views of what we call the 
 future life, — though probably a large majority of all, 
 within churches and without, have never seriously 
 questioned or permitted themselves to entertain a 
 doubt as to the existence of that portion of our na- 
 ture which we call the soul, beyond the event which 
 we call death. But the innumerable variations of 
 opinion regarding the condition of the unseen, or, as 
 we are all accustomed to express it, spiritual world, 
 bear conclusive witness to the mystery in which all 
 that relates to the future is involved. Among the 
 large majority of Christians, the only point of agree- 
 ment which appears as to the future beyond death 
 is that it is a state of rewards and punishments, 
 while as to the nature and duration of either those 
 rewards or punishments there appears scarcely to be 
 anything which can be called a uniform or general 
 belief. Among the minority, a considerable body of 
 Christians make it a chief article of faith that the 
 future beyond death is not even a state of rewards 
 and punishments, they believing that the New Tes- 
 tament Scripture clearly teaches the strict confine- 
 ment of all that is meant by rewards and punish- 
 ments to this present mortal life, and that the future 
 is a state exclusively of everlasting happiness to all 
 human souls and all ranks of beings. So that there 
 
264 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 is but this one point concerning which there appears 
 to be anything like a universal agreement among 
 professed Christians, namely, that there is an exist- 
 ence of the human soul after the change called death. 
 
 Still even this does not imply that all Christians 
 agree in believing in the necessary immortality of 
 the soul, that is to say, the eternal existence of the 
 soul in the future. There are some Christians 
 believing the future to be a state of retribution, or 
 rewards and punishments, who also believe that the 
 souls of those who reach a certain point of sinful- 
 ness or wilful wrong in this life, and dying so, 
 having no power of recovery from a downward and 
 destructive tendency, continue in the future to lose 
 their moral power, or suffer the loss of one faculty 
 after another, till finally there is no more to lose, 
 and the soul has literally perished, lost all con- 
 scious existence, being no more now than before 
 they began to be. This they think justice requires, 
 as they can conceive of nothing to be gained either 
 to God or to the souls themselves, no reasonable 
 end to be accomplished, in preserving souls in an 
 eternal existence of suffering or punishment, while 
 they conceive that there may be some justice and 
 some reason in leaving souls in that life to work out 
 their own literal and complete destruction, even as 
 in this mortal life men are left free to accomplish 
 if they will the literal destruction of their bodily or 
 organic life. While urtable myself to adopt this 
 view, I cannot hesitate to say that in the New Tes- 
 tament Scripture there is much more to warrant this 
 opinion, than to sustain the common doctrine of in- 
 finite arbitrary and eternal misery. For while nei- 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 265 
 
 ther of these phrases, eternal happiness or eternal 
 misery, is found at all in Scripture, the New Testa- 
 ment abounds in the antitheses or contrasting terms, 
 life and death, live and destroy, live and perish, life 
 and destruction. But the signification of these 
 various terms is a mere question of interpretation or 
 verbal criticism, which it is not the purpose of this 
 Discourse to consider. 
 
 We return to the simple inquiry, If a man die, 
 shall he live again ? May the principle or element 
 we call the soul be immortal ? Can it have a con- 
 scious existence, after dissolution with the decaying 
 body ? In view of the great difference of sentiment 
 among nominal Christians and among all professed 
 believers in a future state, as to the object, nature, 
 or conditions of that state, it is not altogether a 
 matter of surprise, that some of the most honest and 
 earnest minds, applying to the subject some at least 
 imperfect analogies, have been led to doubt, and 
 sometimes to lose every reason and ground for be- 
 lief in, any conscious existence beyond the moment 
 of mortal dissolution. They can find no evidence 
 sufficient to support a faith in any future life. It is 
 an easy matter to talk of wicked unbelief, and to 
 indulge in offensive language, to employ such terms 
 as heretic, sceptic, infidel, and similar opprobrious 
 epithets. But I have never in all my observation 
 of discussion and controversy known the first in- 
 stance in which any man has been converted from 
 his opinions, or convinced of other views, by the 
 force of such epithets as these. It is not diffi- 
 cult to talk of zeal for the faith, but the value 
 of a faith is proved by its fruits, and that is a mis- 
 23 
 
266 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 taken zeal, if not a defective faith, which requires 
 or justifies abuse or unkindness towards our fellow- 
 man. St. Paul’s rule for himself is applicable to all 
 of us : “ All faith and knowledge of all mysteries 
 without charity are nothing. Of these three, faith, 
 hope, charity, the greatest is charity .” Long since 
 I have decided, as a rule for my own guidance, that 
 any belief which is important enough to be sincerely 
 entertained by any reasonable and inquiring human 
 mind, is too important for contempt, and is impor- 
 tant enough at least for my candid and careful con- 
 sideration. Between discussion and denunciation, 
 between kind controversy and coarse condemna- 
 tion, there is a wide difference ; may I never be 
 so unfortunate as to lose sight of the distinction. In 
 approaching this momentous subject, however, I in- 
 dulge in no presumptuous expectation that I can 
 add much, if anything, to the amount of evidence or 
 distinctness of thought which has been elicited in its 
 investigation by the most thoughtful and inquiring 
 minds among the human family. 
 
 This is one of a few subjects on which I have 
 long and often meditated, but have felt like post- 
 poning their public discussion to some period of 
 less urgent professional duty, when greater leisure 
 would afford the opportunity of devoting to them 
 the close attention and thorough study to which 
 their importance justly entitles them. But feeling 
 the subject press upon my mind, since the circum- 
 stances of a recent interesting and impressive occa- 
 sion in my professional experience, I approach it 
 now, even at the hazard of imperfect expression and 
 immaturity of thought. I have attended the last 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 267 
 
 hours and closing scene in the life of one who, after 
 long thought and as much investigation as his op- 
 portunities and attainments would permit, deliber- 
 ately and sincerely adopted the belief that the cir- 
 cumstance of bodily death is the last, the final scene 
 in the brief drama of man’s existence, and who, firm 
 in that belief, expired as calmly as a child falls into 
 sleep. Seeing him more perfectly in possession of 
 all his faculties than any person I had ever seen in 
 a dying hour, more than ready to converse with me, I 
 reminded him of some of our previous conversations, 
 and within a few minutes of his departure I request- 
 ed him, if his views were entirely clear upon the 
 subject, now that he was in full view of death, with 
 but a few seconds more to breathe, to say whether 
 his views and feelings had undergone any change. 
 With a feeble but distinct voice he reaffirmed his pe- 
 culiar faith. He said : “ My mind is perfectly clear on 
 that subject. I believe there is no more after death, 
 — it is the end. I fear nothing, have no anxiety, and 
 nothing to regret ; but I would like to live yet for 
 them,” — as he pointed towards the adjoining room, 
 where he heard the sobs of his weeping family. He 
 then called the members of his family to his side, 
 and with a few words of appropriate advice, and a 
 desire that they would remember him, bade them a 
 clear and affectionate farewell ; and after a few 
 minutes more of slow breathing there was silence, 
 and I closed the motionless eyelids which were 
 never more to open, and soon after performed the 
 last solemn rites over the remains of the departed. 
 Greater consciousness and more serenity of mind in 
 a dying hour I have never witnessed. Besides this, 
 
268 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 within the range of my acquaintance in this com- 
 munity there are several persons of intelligence and 
 high respectability, as well as great moral worth, and 
 some of them members of established churches 
 which regard themselves as evangelical and orthodox, 
 who in private conversations with me frankly com- 
 municate their inability to believe in the existence 
 of the soul after physical death. They either believe 
 that death terminates for ever all conscious being, 
 both of soul and body, or they see nothing to sus- 
 tain a different belief. The consideration of the 
 subject, therefore, is not the suggestion of an idle and 
 unmeaning curiosity. It is not merely to speculate 
 upon a point concerning which there is no real 
 diversity of sentiment. The facts now mentioned in- 
 vest the question with a deep and peculiar interest. 
 
 It would be most unreasonable to suppose that 
 any virtuous person of well-informed and reflecting 
 mind could embrace this view of the soul’s extinc- 
 tion merely from blind, wilful unbelief, or as a cloak 
 to cover selfish and wicked aims. Yet such has 
 frequently been the assumption of those who defend 
 man’s spiritual immortality. Even Dr. Young, in 
 his well-known “ Night Thoughts,” stoops to this 
 unsound and unworthy argument against the be- 
 liever in the spirit’s death ; as if disputing a man’s 
 sincerity, and denying his virtuous purposes, could 
 convert him to a belief in immortality. He says : — 
 
 “ Rewards and punishments make God adored, 
 
 And hopes and fears give Conscience all her power. 
 
 As in the dying parent dies the child, 
 
 Virtue with Immortality expires. 
 
 Who tells me he denies his soul ’s immortal, 
 
 Whate’er his boast, has told me he *s a knave ; 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 269 
 
 His duty ’t is to love himself alone, 
 
 Nor care, though mankind perish, if he smiles. 
 
 Who thinks erelong the man shall wholly die, 
 
 Is dead already ; naught but brute survives.” 
 
 Such assertion as this may do for creeds, or it may 
 do for poetry, but we must doubt all testimony, dis- 
 trust our very senses, and deny the plainest facts, if 
 we admit the truth of such unqualified assumption. 
 Such defence of truth is an injury to truth ; for we 
 see men whose sincerity and integrity we cannot 
 question, any more than we can question our own 
 integrity, who yet are unable to find a weight of 
 evidence sufficient to convince them of the spirit’s 
 immortality ; and these are men who are not only 
 willing, but anxious, to believe it, and who are rest- 
 less and persevering in pursuit of testimony to es- 
 tablish what they really desire to be true. 
 
 Is there a future eternity of suffering to be avoided? 
 It certainly is as much the interest of one man as 
 another to escape such a calamity. Is there a fu- 
 ture eternity of happiness to be secured ? It certainly 
 is no less the interest of one than of another to se- 
 cure such an endless happiness. So that the charge 
 of wilful unbelief, as an excuse for mere selfish en- 
 joyment, manifestly defeats itself; for the lowest 
 motive of self-interest would induce an unprincipled 
 man to believe or profess belief in a future existence, 
 if by such belief or profession, or desire to believe, 
 he could escape so great an evil and secure so great 
 a blessing. I would prefer, therefore, to prepare the 
 mind of any reasonable and virtuous man for a can- 
 did, dispassionate, and unprejudiced consideration 
 of the question, by conceding freely to him all the 
 sincerity, honor, and integrity which I would claim 
 23 * 
 
270 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 for myself, in entertaining a very different opinion. 
 It becomes me also to be equally candid in admit- 
 ting all that is known respecting the opinions which 
 have prevailed on this question, at different ages and 
 among different nations of the world. 
 
 I am well aware that passages from the Old Tes- 
 tament writings are frequently quoted, both in sup- 
 port of retributions in a future life and of unlimited 
 happiness in that life. I always feel some surprise 
 in seeing or hearing this done, by any theologian. 
 There is, as far as I have been able to ascertain, very 
 little diversity in the views of Biblical scholars of 
 all ages and of every church, Protestant and Roman 
 Catholic, as to the opinions of the ancient Hebrews, 
 and especially of the several writers of the Old Tes- 
 tament. Dr. Jahn, the most eminent of Roman 
 Catholic critics, speaking of this book of Job, says : 
 “ The sentiment of Job, who is declared by the Deity 
 to have spoken more than the others, was the senti- 
 ment of the author, — that good men might be af- 
 flicted to the end of life, and that, for inscrutable but 
 still equitable causes, God had so determined. It is 
 therefore evident that the author was on the point of 
 perceiving the doctrine of future rewards and punish- 
 ments; but his views did not penetrate quite so far, 
 as neither did the authors of the Psalms, who discuss 
 the same subject.” Dr. Turner, of the Episcopal 
 Church of this country, speaking of a much disputed 
 text (xix. 25) in this book of Job, u I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter 
 day upon the earth,” agrees with others in translat- 
 ing it as in reply to the false charges of his friends, 
 who pronounced him a wicked man punished for his 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 271 
 
 sins. Job answers : “ I know that my vindicator 
 lives, and ultimately will stand upon the earth ; and 
 though my skin and body are now wasting away, 
 my flesh shall yet be restored, and I shall see God 
 (or the goodness of God), in sound health.” Dr. 
 Turner says, that, u according to the usages of lan- 
 guage and the intention of the author, this text can- 
 not be explained in reference to the resurrection of 
 the dead ; but it expresses Job’s wish and hope that 
 God would bear testimony to his innocence in the 
 present life. It is indeed very possible that Job in- 
 tended nothing more than that God would interfere 
 to rescue him from the accusations of his calumnia- 
 tors, and by some visible manifestation vindicate 
 the character of his servant.” Such is the view of 
 the Episcopalian Dr. Turner. The Roman Catholic 
 Dr. Jahn, alluding to a passage in the book of Wis- 
 dom, — a book rejected by the Protestants, but in the 
 Roman Catholic version, — says : “ Wisdom is rec- 
 ommended to all, especially to kings, in order that 
 they may labor to acquire it with the more earnest- 
 ness, in proportion to the facility of securing it, and 
 to the abundance of the recompense with which it 
 rewards those who seek it. Even if they should 
 happen to be oppressed with adversity in the present 
 life, yet in the future, wisdom will render them hap- 
 py, while, on the contrary, foolish and wicked men 
 are miserable now, and will be more so hereafter. 
 This is the first time that a life of happiness or 
 misery is expressly mentioned.” It is unnecessary 
 to multiply citations. It is obvious that none of the 
 Old Testament writers refer directly to retribution 
 in another life, except this apocryphal writer, who 
 
272 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 wrote at a very late period, probably about or very 
 near the time of Jesus, a pbriod at which the opin- 
 ions of the Jews had undergone much change, in 
 many respects. 
 
 The view of Biblical critics generally is this, — 
 that a large class of the ancient Hebrews believed 
 in the existence of spirits of the departed, in Sheol, 
 or the under-world, but not in a state of reward or 
 of punishment, neither misery nor happiness, but 
 simply existence in silence and darkness for ever, ap- 
 proaching very near to annihilation ; while the Sad- 
 ducees, a large sect, prominent, as the New Testa- 
 ment shows, even as late as in the time of Jesus, 
 were distinguished by their belief that there is no 
 existence whatever beyond the tomb, that the soul 
 and body die together, and that there is no other 
 spiritual being, good or bad, than God himself. 
 
 As to the several Old Testament writers, it is the 
 common opinion of theological scholars, that while 
 some of them refer to the existence of spirits in 
 Sheol, or the under-world, none of them, from Moses 
 to Malachi, refer to a future life of retribution, or of 
 rewards or punishments; that none of them allude 
 to such future conditions as a motive to right or 
 warning from wrong in the present world, but base 
 their appeals and exhortations to a right life entirely 
 upon the temporal good or evil consequences of hu- 
 man action. 
 
 Among the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Ro- 
 mans, many of the ablest minds, as Socrates, Plato, 
 Zoroaster, Cicero, and Cato, had a belief in the 
 continued existence of the soul, a conscious exist- 
 ence of man beyond death, as clear and satisfactory 
 as that of many now among Christians. 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 273 
 
 That St. Paul, who is the principal writer of the 
 New Testament, believed and taught the continued 
 existence of man’s spiritual nature, and the immortal- 
 ity of that spiritual nature, there can be no doubt 
 whatever. But the various and conflicting interpreta- 
 tions of St. Paul’s writings, and the theories thence 
 inferred as to the conditions and nature of that future 
 life, have occasioned, in many minds, a doubt as to 
 St. Paul’s correctness in teaching any future existence. 
 This tendency is not diminished by the fact, that there 
 are but a few passages in all that is recorded as the 
 teachings of Jesus himself, which are interpreted as 
 referring to the future existence of man ; besides the 
 fact that none of the Gospel records of the resurrec- 
 tion and subsequent completion of the career of Jesus 
 mention anything said by him with reference to the 
 nature of that unseen condition of the spirit. These 
 facts, and especially thi& one, that as to the nature of 
 the invisible life, the locality and condition of spirits, 
 though he was a traveller returned from that myste- 
 rious bourne, yet not a single recorded syllable is left, 
 as uttered by Jesus, subsequent to his resurrection, 
 which adds anything whatever to the general sum of 
 human knowledge, nothing being established by the 
 resurrection beyond this, namely, that man may or 
 shall continue to exist after the circumstance of death, 
 — all these combine to leave some minds still in se- 
 rious doubt of any existence of the soul beyond the 
 event of dissolution. The inquiry therefore remains 
 to many in all its magnitude, and mystery, and so- 
 lemnity, u If a man die, shall he live again ? ” 
 
 Those who earnestly insist upon the inquiry, not 
 regarding the New Testament writings as necessa- 
 
274 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 rily conclusive evidence on their own behalf, must 
 have the question answered, as it best can be, by the 
 voice of nature, of reason, and experience. In this 
 light, therefore, entirely apart from Scripture, I pro- 
 pose to consider it. The undiminished and profound 
 interest with which the v question is still propounded, 
 by earnest searchers for every ray of truth, entitles it 
 to our very gravest consideration. 
 
 Human aspirations now are similar to human 
 aspirations in the days of Job. The same sun 
 which illumined earth in the time of Zoroaster or 
 the Persian Magi, now illumines the same earth on 
 which we tread. The same stars which shone in 
 silence over the birthplace of Jesus, shine as silently 
 upon the birthplace of the child which begins its 
 breathing life to-day. Down in the same cold, noise- 
 less bed which received the remains of the remotest 
 generations, we lay the inanimate remains of the 
 wise or great, the low or high, the infant or the sage, 
 who ceases to move among us now. 
 
 The variations of human experience are the same 
 as in long-past centuries. The last utterance of one 
 before the lamp of life expires is a dread apprehen- 
 sion of an unspeakably awful calamity, in the un- 
 seen sphere he is approaching. The last accents of 
 another, as he stands upon the utmost verge of life, 
 express an unbounded trust in felicities unutterable 
 in a spirit-world of immortality. The last calm as- 
 surance of another is that he feels himself passing 
 away into the undisturbed repose of a dreamless 
 and everlasting sleep. The curtain drops, and our 
 mortal vision cannot pierce it, to follow any one of 
 them, to test the truthfulness of his convictions or 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 275 
 
 the reality of his hopes. It only remains for us to 
 interpret the indications which surround us in our 
 present complex life. 
 
 We can pursue the inquiry, observing the analogy 
 of life, and endeavoring to determine what message 
 nature and conscience bring to us, bearing on its 
 page the stamp of reason, and in its onward life we 
 may yet, in reasonable faith, see 
 
 “ The spirit, trace its rising tract, 
 
 Even where the farthest heaven had birth ; 
 
 Its eye shall roll, through chaos, back, 
 
 Before creation peopled earth.” 
 
 Each one, with the eye of reasonable trust, may 
 see enough to say, with a joyful and holy assurance, 
 I die, but it is only a part, not all of me, which dies. 
 
 “ I die not all, for a myriad things 
 That will live and think and do 
 Have felt my life in its secret springs, 
 
 And will feel it their being through. 
 
 “ We die not all : we shall live on earth 
 In the words and deeds of the past, 
 
 And death to the soul is a glorious birth, 
 
 Where no seeds of decay are cast.” 
 
 Mathematical demonstration cannot be expected. 
 I cannot prove to you the existence of God. I can- 
 not even prove to you my own present existence, 
 and not any more can I prove the soul’s continued 
 existence after dissolution. But the closer the ex- 
 amination, the clearer does it seem to me that each 
 one of these propositions — the existence of God, 
 the soul’s existence now, and its continued existence 
 beyond the change of death — is equally susceptible 
 of illustration or proof, amounting to a moral cer- 
 tainty, — a certainty investing death with no dread, 
 
276 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 and the grave with no gloom, but an impression 
 which fills the mind with the serene vision of soft- 
 ened splendors, — 
 
 “ Like light through summer foliage, 
 
 Shedding a glow of such mild hue, 
 
 So warm and yet so shadowy too, 
 
 As makes the very darkness there 
 More beautiful than light elsewhere.” 
 
DISCOURSE XIX, 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. — IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN? — Job xiv. 14. 
 
 “ Can storied urn or animated bust 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
 
 Can honor’s voice provoke the silent dust, 
 
 Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? ” 
 
 “ For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 
 
 This pleasing, anxious being e’er resigned, 
 
 Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
 
 Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind 1 ” 
 
 So instantaneous and complete is the transition 
 at death from the known and seen to the unknown 
 and unseen, from warm, intelligent life to cold, dull 
 deadness, that no one can be entirely indifferent to 
 the possibilities of the invisible. Though no testi- 
 mony may be found sufficiently weighty and con- 
 clusive to convince some minds of the reality of any 
 existence beyond that which is seen and certain, yet 
 no one can be supposed to leave the warm light of 
 present being without casting one longing, lingering 
 look behind. 
 
 Aside from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, 
 
 24 
 
278 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 we have no other resources of knowledge on this great 
 subject than those common to the more enlightened 
 among the ancients, the pages of nature, experience, 
 and consciousness interpreted by the light of reason. 
 We have found that Christian critics of every name 
 appear to coincide in the opinion, that the Hebrew 
 Scriptures furnish no explicit revelation, nor even 
 any direct statement, as to the immortality of the 
 human soul. We also have found that among the 
 men who now inquire, in the spirit of the ancient 
 Hebrew, “ If a man die, shall he live again ? ” there 
 are those by whom the teachings of St. Paul and 
 the New Testament writers are not regarded as dis- 
 tinct, authoritative, or final. It is probably the nu- 
 merous and conflicting expositions of the Christian 
 writings which have induced many to lay the New 
 Testament entirely aside, as a witness on this ques- 
 tion of futurity ; and it is neither just, manly, nor 
 philosophical to turn away from such, bestowing on 
 them the ungracious epithet of sceptic or unbeliever. 
 This will neither convert them, nor establish truth. 
 It was in no such scornful spirit that Paul reasoned 
 with Felix, proving all things, and holding fast the 
 good. As' we are not permitted by the objector to 
 cite the New Testament as conclusive authority, 
 the question obviously becomes one of probabilities. 
 Are the probabilities opposing greater than the 
 probabilities favoring a continued existence of man’s 
 spiritual nature ? 
 
 One of the objections urged with greatest force is 
 the apparent decay of mind simultaneously with the 
 decay of body, or sometimes previous to physical 
 decay. To say the most of this, it is only a pre- 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 279 
 
 sumptive argument. It is true that instances occur 
 in which each mental power appears to decline, suc- 
 cessively, before there is much physical declension. 
 But instances of the reverse are probably more fre- 
 quent, — each bodily organ weakening, till, in a state 
 of almost utter helplessness, the mind seems preter- 
 naturally vivid, sound, and active, as in most perfect 
 health. One limb after another, foot, hand, arm, 
 may be amputated, and even eyesight lost, nothing, 
 perhaps, but the diseased trunk and mutilated head 
 remaining, and still the mental powers all appear 
 undiminished, if not invigorated. The simultaneous 
 decay of mind and body, therefore, in a minority, or, 
 if it were so, even in a majority of cases, could be 
 nothing like evidence against the continued exist- 
 ence of the spiritual element or essence. Nothing 
 but a universal occurrence of the mutual decline of 
 bodily and mental powers could be anything like 
 proof of the mind’s destruction. The probabilities 
 are all the other way. Moreover, the frequent re- 
 covery of mental power after the restoration of dis- 
 ordered bodily organs, is a strong presumption in 
 favor of the idea, that to our feeble perceptions, the 
 mind expressing itself only through the agency of 
 visible bodily organs, the derangement of those 
 bodily organs renders them more or less unsuited to 
 the uses of the mind, and the mind only ceases to 
 employ them, — the mind still existing in undimin- 
 ished force.' The body may be only the instrument 
 of wonderful and complicated structure, through 
 which the spirit expresses itself to our present im- 
 perfect and limited observation. Therefore, as by 
 disease or violence one bodily organ after another is 
 
280 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 disordered, the spirit ceases to employ its agency, 
 but acts by invisible agencies, while, a general de- 
 rangement and debility of the physical system ren- 
 dering it wholly unlit for the agency of mind, the 
 mind withdraws from it entirely ; and this is what 
 we call death. 
 
 We detect some intimations of this relative con- 
 nection of mind and body in our sleeping life. The 
 body becomes passive, powerless, unconscious of the 
 presence of any object, good or evil, while at the 
 same moment, in a dream-life, the mind is active 
 still as ever, if not even more vivid than when ex- 
 pressing itself through the bodily organs. When 
 the physical lethargy wears off, and the body re- 
 sumes its activity, one mental power, that of mem- 
 ory, still preserves and reports the dream-life, and 
 we recall the fair skies, and beautiful lands, and 
 lovely scenes, and rich enjoyments, which were ours 
 in a brief hour of that life, — in which we traversed 
 continents, and crossed oceans, and saw myriads of 
 strangers, and heard myriads of voices, from storms 
 and thunders to the soft melody of entrancing mu- 
 sic. As to the enjoyment this affords, it is as much 
 a real part of our experience as the most obvious 
 realities in the routine of our daily lives. 
 
 Do not these phenomena of our sleeping life afford 
 us some presumption in favor of the idea, that the 
 mind is not necessarily dependent on the use of 
 bodily organs, that the mind’s ceasing to express it- 
 self through parts of the physical system is no evi- 
 dence of the mind’s destruction, and that the cessa- 
 tion of life in the body does not prove the cessation 
 of the mind’s or soul’s existence ? 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 281 
 
 This argument from the integrity of mind, despite 
 the feebleness of body, was not forgotten as I re- 
 cently sat by the dying man to whom I before re- 
 ferred, who saw nothing but the depths of eternal 
 sleep from the verge of mortality. The clearness 
 and soundness of his mind, a few minutes before the 
 close of life, — when the hand could no longer raise 
 itself to the parched lips, — almost induced me to 
 ask him if the argument had no weight in his mind; 
 but I forbore. I feared the result of the effort it might 
 give him to reply, and I felt that it was useless to 
 attempt to disturb the repose which he had just ex- 
 pressed, in his most sincere conviction that the soul 
 is mortal, as the body, and ceases all consciousness 
 for ever. 
 
 Another objection to the continued existence of 
 the soul is the apparent fact of its growth and de- 
 velopment coeval with the body. It begins with the 
 body in infancy, says the objector, it grows and is 
 cultivated with the growth of the body, and is so 
 necessarily connected with it, that with the body it 
 expires. This seems to me the only formidable ob- 
 jection which is raised, and I admit that it is not 
 without some force. Yet its force appears to be fully 
 met by the comparative, the earthly immortality of 
 the fruits or products of the mind. Is it possible that 
 the mind creates that which is so infinitely superior to 
 itself, as to survive it ages upon ages, indefinitely ? 
 Is the creature of mind greater than the creative 
 mind itself? See the sculptured marble, the splen- 
 did and life-like painting, the immense and magnifi- 
 cent monuments of architectural design, — have all 
 these survived the spirit which created them, which 
 24 * 
 
282 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 gave them their enduring form and beauty ? Here 
 are the very thoughts of the wise and great come 
 down to us through hundreds and thousands of years. 
 Here this day on the written page are “ thoughts 
 that breathe and words that burn,” from Caesar and 
 Socrates, and Cicero and Plato, and Homer and 
 Virgil, and Zoroaster and Confucius, come down to 
 us from China and Persia, and Rome and Greece, 
 by which we are moved to reflection, to action, to 
 emotion, perhaps to tears. We enjoy a communion 
 with them ; we feel that they speak to us, and to 
 our living spiritual sight they are before us. We 
 behold their forms, we hear their voices, we know 
 their thoughts ; our hearts swell within us, and ages 
 and centuries, and thousands of years, vanish away, 
 like mist, before the divine magnetism of spiritual 
 sympathy. There seems to be a transfusion of 
 their spirits through the medium of the written 
 page, and our hearts bow before them to do them 
 reverence. And is it all a dream ? Are their very 
 words and thoughts still here, almost eternal like 
 the stars, and are they themselves in darkness and 
 silence, dead and senseless as the dust of their 
 decaying frames, which centuries since has floated 
 in the “ viewless winds,” or been petrified in the 
 deep mountain rock? The thought seems to in- 
 volve impossibility. Xenophon might well say: 
 “ When I consider the boundless activity of our 
 minds, the remembrance of things past, our foresight 
 of what is to come, — when I reflect on the noble 
 discoveries and vast improvements by which those 
 minds have advanced arts and sciences, — I am en- 
 tirely persuaded, and out of all doubt, that a nature 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 283 
 
 which has in itself a fund of so many excellent 
 things cannot possibly be mortal.” But may not 
 this objection to the continued existence of the soul 
 be converted into an argument in support of the 
 spirit’s immortality? On the very principle of its 
 development and growth, may death be anything 
 more than an event in its progress, similar to a new 
 birth into a larger life? This idea is vividly and 
 beautifully expressed in the brief sonnet of Blanco 
 White, which Coleridge is said to have pronounced 
 “the most grandly conceived in the English lan- 
 guage.” The words are these : — 
 
 “ Mysterious Night ! when our first parent knew 
 Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name, 
 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue? 
 
 Yet, ’neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 
 Hesperus with the host of heaven came, 
 
 And lo ! creation widened in man’s view. 
 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ! or who could find, 
 
 Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, 
 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind ? 
 
 Why do we then shun death, with anxious strife ? 
 
 If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? ” 
 
 A most forcible reply this exquisite illustration 
 offers to the objection, that we discern nothing, there 
 is nothing positively seen by us, beyond the curtain 
 which death drops between us and the spirits we 
 have known and loved. Imagine a first-formed 
 man, gazing in deep, unutterable delight upon the 
 varied splendors of mountain, stream, field, forest, 
 moving beast, and flying bird, — the pebble, the 
 flower, the leaf, the insect, and a thousand beauties 
 
284 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 which stood revealed to his own wondrous and won- 
 dering eye, all canopied by the lovely deep blue 
 heavens. How well might his visage change, and 
 his frame tremble, as the revolving sphere for the 
 first time rolled round towards darkness, and a heavy 
 shadow gathered over all the countless forms of 
 earth, robbing them of all their brilliancy and wrap- 
 ping all in sombre blackness ! In awe, in agony, he 
 might have thus soliloquized, “ And is this all? Is 
 this the end ? A day so brilliant and so brief, and 
 now silence, death, unbroken night! O mysterious 
 existence! so tantalizing, so deceiving!” But even 
 as he murmurs, lo ! a thousand sparkling lights 
 break forth upon his upward gaze, and what he 
 thought the loss of one world below was but the 
 revelation of a myriad of worlds above. The glaring 
 light, which had disclosed the minuteness of objects 
 at his feet, had blinded him to the grandeur and 
 majesty of innumerable spheres. Who could have 
 thought that such darkness lay concealed within the 
 bright beams of the noonday sun, dazzling the fee- 
 ble eye, and excluding rays from a throng of greater 
 and more distant orbs ! 
 
 “ If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? ” 
 
 Why with so much dread shun death ? May not 
 this brief glare of life only hide from the spirit’s eye 
 ten thousand greater glories, and death be only 
 the vicissitude which shall widen creation in man’s 
 view, disclosing to the liberated soul the grand re- 
 alities now hidden from our imperfect, immature, 
 and undeveloped spiritual powers, and while the de- 
 caying frame sinks back to its kindred earth, the 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 285 
 
 immortal principle, the divine element, rise into the 
 realm of an eternal progress ? We see how well said 
 and true it is that 
 
 “Man makes a death which nature never made, 
 
 Then falls on the point of his own fancy, 
 
 And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.” 
 
 Recent casualties on the great waters of our coun- 
 try have been greatly destructive of human life. 
 Now twenty, now a hundred, now three hundred, 
 beings have been swept almost instantaneously from 
 the midst of activity and health into silence and 
 death, with the deep lake or the flowing stream for 
 their last sepulchre.* 
 
 In those hundreds of minds, what thoughts were 
 cherished! In the minds of young and aged, the 
 enlightened and the good, what plans, purposes, 
 hopes, and aspirations were indulged ! What re- 
 sources of knowledge, courage, purity, and love 
 were there! Is it possible that all these resources, 
 and virtues, and minds, perished in an hour for ever 
 and entirely ? Alluding to a similar disaster some 
 years since, (the burning of the Lexington on Long 
 Island Sound, in 1840,) and having referred to some 
 of the distinguished, enlightened, and worthy persons 
 whose mortal career was finished there, a living au- 
 thor asks, with force : “ Does any one believe that 
 this freight of transcendent worth, all this sorrow, 
 and thought, and hope, and moral greatness, and 
 pure affection, was burnt and went out with flame 
 and cotton smoke? Sooner would I believe that 
 
 * Allusion is here made to the loss of the Atlantic on Lake Erie, 
 the Franklin on the Mississippi, and the Henry Clay and the Reindeer 
 on the Hudson. 
 
286 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 the fire consumed the less everlasting stars! Such a 
 galaxy of spiritual light and order and beauty is 
 spread above the elements and their powers, and 
 neither heat can scorch it, nor cold water drown. 
 The bleak wind which swept in the morning over 
 the black and heaving wreck, would moan in the ear 
 of sympathy with the wail of a thousand survivors; 
 but to the ear of wisdom and of faith would sound 
 as the returning whisper and requiem of hope.” He 
 is not then suggesting a mere fancy, he is not ex- 
 pressing a groundless hope, who says that “the cor- 
 poreal frame is but the mechanism for making 
 thoughts and affections apparent, the signal-house 
 with which God has covered us, the electric tele- 
 graph by which quickest intimation flies abroad of 
 the spiritual force within us. The instrument may 
 be broken, the dial-plate effaced ; and though the hid- 
 den artist can make no more signs, he may be rich 
 as ever in the things signified. Fever may fire the 
 pulses of the body, but wisdom and sanctity cannot 
 sicken, be inflamed, and die.” 
 
 Now, as a question of probabilities, let the candid 
 and reflecting answer, if the probabilities are not 
 largely against the simultaneous death of the hu- 
 man body and the human soul, — against the de- 
 struction of the mind of man. 
 
 We see that among all people, civilized and sav- 
 age, wheresoever we can reach the minds of the 
 great body of the thinking class, there is an impres- 
 sion more or less distinct of the capacity of man’s 
 higher nature, his vital force or intangible powers, 
 for a continued existence after the decay of the out- 
 ward man. Pope justly describes the aspiration of 
 the untaught native of our Western world : — 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 287 
 
 “ Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutored mind 
 Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind ; 
 
 His soul proud science never taught to stray 
 Far as the solar walk or Milky Way.; 
 
 Yet, simple nature to his hope has given, 
 
 Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven ; 
 
 Some safer world, in depth of woods embraced, 
 
 Some happier island in the watery waste. 
 
 To be, contents his natural desire; 
 
 He asks no angel’s wings, no seraph’s fire ; 
 
 But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
 
 His faithful dog shall bear him company.” 
 
 This fancy of the untutored child of nature is 
 only an intimation of the universal aspiration after 
 a more complete and satisfactory existence than 
 that which thus far in earth’s history has belonged 
 to the mortal man. All admit that this desire for a 
 higher and more enduring state is reasonable ; all 
 admit that there is an imperfection or immaturity 
 about this state, which renders a continued life de- 
 sirable; and all admit that no natural impossibility 
 of such futurity can be proved. 
 
 It is only that some minds sincerely doubt; they 
 seek conviction by more positive, if possible by con- 
 clusive evidence. We have considered the objection 
 based on the apparent decay of mind or soul at the 
 same time with decay of body. But we see this 
 more than overbalanced, in the fact that the mind, in 
 more numerous instances, retains its vigor, and even 
 develops and acquires, while the body obviously de- 
 dines ; and even in the moments of dissolution, when 
 the body is almost incapable of affording any expres- 
 sion to the mind, every faculty remains full and 
 sound till the very event of dissolution. We see it 
 also answered in our dream-life, the most active 
 
288 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 portion of the spirit’s being, while it does not em- 
 ploy the body as its medium of expression, but by a 
 faculty of soul the memory subsequently reports to 
 the waking body the active experience of the spirit 
 while the body slept. We have considered the ob- 
 jection based on the growth and expansion of the 
 spirit in connection with the body. But we see this 
 overbalanced by the immortality of the work of mind. 
 The acts, the thoughts, the very motives and impulses, 
 of great and good minds who lived centuries and 
 ages since, address us and move us now, awakening 
 admiration of the great, abhorrence of the mean, 
 eliciting our sympathies, and kindling us to action. 
 Can the thoughts of mind survive the mind itself? 
 Can the less produce the greater ? Can the creature 
 survive the creator? Can the soul, which acts 
 strongly for an hour and perishes for ever, produce 
 effects which live for countless generations ? Is not 
 the probability immensely greater, that the mind it- 
 self, though no longer directly manifest through visible 
 mediums, still exists, in a progressive life ? The ob- 
 jection that we cannot follow the soul with our cor- 
 poreal senses, and positively see some reality beyond 
 death, loses all its force, when we see the analogy of 
 nature, in which the brilliancy of sunlight, which 
 discloses the minutiae of this one world around us, 
 actually excludes from our view countless orbs, and 
 more glorious worlds, in the remoter realms of the 
 universe, — worlds grander than the sun itself. 
 
 In this age and land of intellectual energy, when 
 the expansiveness, progressiveness, and unlimited 
 capacity of mind are so morally demonstrable, it 
 does appear to me that no mind could well desire, 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 289 
 
 or seek to prove true, the simultaneous destruction of 
 body and soul, — a proposition so at variance with 
 memory, which carries up the past into the present, 
 and imagination, which brings the future to the pres- 
 ent, and reason, which dignifies and distinguishes 
 man by standing in the present and reconciling 
 with it both the future and the past. Would any 
 desire to prove true the extinction of these powers 
 of mind, if it were not that they feel oppressed by 
 the severities of superstition, and feel it better the 
 soul should die, than live the unreasonable future 
 life defined by the unwarrantable dogmatism of 
 church theologies ? Death is natural as birth, and 
 should be as little the cause of apprehension or of 
 dread. But men feel it were better the soul should 
 die for ever, than live here in servile bondage to the 
 perpetual u dread of something after death.” The 
 great poet-master of our language represents this ap- 
 prehensiveness in those well-remembered words : — 
 
 “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; 
 
 To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; 
 
 This sensible warm motion to become 
 A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit, 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or-to reside 
 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; 
 
 To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 
 
 And blown with restless violence round about 
 The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst 
 Of those that lawless and uncertain thoughts 
 Imagine howling ! — ’t is too horrible ! 
 
 The weariest and most loathed worldly life, 
 
 That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
 Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
 To what we fear of death.” 
 
 Yes, to what we fear of death, and not to death 
 itself. Are not these vague, unwarrantable theories, 
 25 
 
290 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 — for they are all theories of what lies after death, — 
 are not these the occasion of most or all the inclina- 
 tion to disprove the immortality of the soul, the con- 
 tinued existence of the human spirit? 
 
 Thus far we have considered the question apart 
 from all theologies and all church systems, and we 
 shall continue so to consider it in the Discourse with 
 which we will conclude the more direct reply to the 
 inquiry, “ If a man die, shall he live again ? ” In that 
 Discourse I will present an argument which to me 
 appears direct and forcible, and with that argument 
 I will submit this momentous subject to your heart 
 and to your judgment. 
 
DISCOURSE XX. 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. — IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN? — Job xiv. 14. 
 
 In considering, on former occasions, the prevail- 
 ing doctrine of rewards and punishments, I have ob- 
 jected to the doctrine of one unchangeable state of 
 eternal happiness and one unchangeable state of 
 eternal misery, that it cannot account for, and is 
 irreconcilable with, the countless natural differences 
 and moral inequalities of this mortal state. 
 
 If this existence be preparatory to an immutable 
 state of happiness and an immutable state of misery, 
 into one or the other of which every soul at death 
 must pass, then the clearest dictate of reason, and 
 the only idea of strictest justice, imperatively require 
 that all human beings should enter upon responsi- 
 ble existence with precisely equal capacities and 
 exactly similar opportunities, — that every soul, start- 
 ing from the same point, might fairly and justly, in 
 the exercise of moral freedom, entitle itself to the 
 one condition of eternal enjoyment, or subject itself 
 to the other condition of eternal suffering. Such a 
 
292 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 theory of future rewards and punishments of neces- 
 sity requires the suspension of the natural law which 
 connects parent with child, and brings every one of 
 a million of human souls into being under circum- 
 stances so widely dissimilar. One begins responsi- 
 ble action amid the comforts of affluence, another 
 amid the discomforts of deepest poverty ; one amid 
 intelligence and refinement, another amid rudeness 
 and the grossest ignorance ; one with a system fair 
 and healthy, another with a system deformed and 
 diseased ; one with intellect vigorous and active, 
 another with intellect feeble and sluggish ; one from 
 the first moment to develop under the most salu- 
 tary influences, another from the first moment to 
 develop under the most pernicious examples. Now 
 all these differences strict justice requires should be 
 completely obviated by miraculous power, if every 
 soul is to procure for itself one of two fixed and eter- 
 nally contrasting conditions from the hour of death. 
 
 Supposing two such unchangeable states, into one 
 or the other of which all souls do actually pass, there 
 is, manifestly, the most arbitrary, partial, and cruelly 
 unjust arrangement in the present allotments of hu- 
 man life ; for, as far as we can determine, no two 
 of all the throngs of human souls begin their moral 
 being with exactly equal capacities, and, in all re- 
 spects, equally favorable opportunities. Moreover, 
 as we see, an immense proportion of souls leave this 
 life before reaching any sense of responsibility. 
 Now, in either case, whether these innumerable in- 
 fant souls are all removed to the eternally blessed 
 or the eternally cursed condition, it is equally unjust 
 to those who survive ; for either all should be brought 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 293 
 
 with equal powers to a period of responsible action 
 or moral probation, or all should be transferred be- 
 fore the period of moral agency to the same eternal 
 state, and not a large proportion left to linger out 
 this life, exposed to perils, to the danger of ruining 
 themselves and insuring their own perdition. To 
 me this appears an argument of resistless force 
 against the doctrine, that this life is a probationary 
 state for an unchangeable future heaven, or an un- 
 changeable future hell. 
 
 Such a final allotment of human souls leaves the 
 endless vicissitudes of this present life involved in 
 inexplicable disorder, and wrapped in impenetrable 
 gloom. We can see nothing but an arbitrary power 
 forcing us irresistibly into a confused, mysterious, 
 often uncertain and miserable existence, and then, 
 whether permitted to remain till childhood, or youth, 
 or manhood, or old age, at once checking all the or- 
 dinary laws of our being, and by a supernatural 
 force, at death, transferring us at once into unspeak- 
 able and endless bliss, or into unutterable and end- 
 less woe. 
 
 Now what I desire you to perceive is this, — that 
 this argument from the varied allotments of our 
 present life, against such an unchangeable destiny 
 of death, operates with all its tremendous moral force 
 against the doctrine of the destruction of the soul at 
 the same time with the death of the body. 
 
 Is death to the body death also to the soul ? 
 Then this mortal life is our eternal life ; for it is all 
 our life, and is as arbitrary, partial, and unjust, as 
 the prevailing view of immutable happiness and im- 
 mutable suffering hereafter. No soul has the choice 
 25 * 
 
294 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 of its birthplace, or of the circumstances under which 
 it begins its active being. No soul has choice of its 
 parents, its companions, or the good or evil influences 
 which first surround it, and give direction to its char- 
 acter. Go to the back streets and narrow alleys in 
 hundreds of our crowded cities, in the very centres of 
 our Christian civilization, and there, in the polluted 
 atmosphere of low cellars and filthy corners, you find 
 hundreds of souls brought into being, who are born 
 to poverty, ignorance, vice, crime, and moral dead- 
 ness. The first dawnings of their intellect are 
 watched by the degraded and corrupt, to poison and 
 to brutalize. From infancy to childhood, to youth, 
 to manhood, to old age, they pass, the victims of a 
 thousand influences, which, like coils of a deadly ser- 
 pent, tighten round them every moment. Fostered 
 and unguided passion becomes habit, and forges 
 chains stronger than steel around them, and with no 
 helping hand to release them, no pure love to revive 
 their fainting virtue, no kind voice to rekindle their 
 expiring moral courage, or to point them to any bow 
 of promise, or any star of hope, they die , — neglected 
 in miserable dens, or amid diseased wrecks of hu- 
 manity in crowded hospitals, or amid wretched crim- 
 inals in dismal prisons. Now can it be, — is this 
 death their end? Do these souls sink into the si- 
 lence of eternal night ? Is the divine spark which 
 struggled and flickered amidst noxious vapors here, 
 eternally extinguished ? To conceive of this, — is it 
 not to thrust God from the universe, and leave all to 
 the incalculable chances of unintelligent fate, and 
 blind, lawless forces of soulless matter ? 
 
 How could a Supreme Intelligence of infinite per- 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 295 
 
 fection thus mock and tantalize and trifle with his 
 creatures, such as we see they are, — making them 
 half human, half divine, with bodies bound to earth, 
 but spirits, like caged birds, yearning, struggling, to- 
 wards the skies ? Would God implant boundless 
 hopes, never to be realized, — awaken lofty aspira- 
 tions, only to be mocked, > — enkindle glorious imag- 
 inings, only to vanish like momentary shadows, — 
 then, chain this complex and wondrous being down, 
 to grovel amidst degradation, and creep amid cor- 
 ruption through all the brief years of his existence, — 
 and then, at last, with the iron heel of an omnipo- 
 tent necessity, crush him into a handful of shape- 
 less dust, and extinguish his consciousness for ever ? 
 Would God permit this to be the destiny of thou- 
 sands, while thousands more enter a bark of life 
 which is laden with luxuries, and glide smoothly 
 along the stream of time, fanned by breezes of sweet- 
 est fragrance and charmed with the rich music of 
 tenderest affections, and even at the close are sweetly 
 deceived by illusory dreams of a still happier and 
 immortal state to follow this ? One, whether in pain, 
 disease, ignorance, and pollution, or in peace, health, 
 refinement, and purity, living through a prolonged 
 life of eighty, sixty, or forty years, — another only 
 preserved through twenty, ten, or five years, — and 
 many only for a day of breathing anguish, or of soft 
 repose, before sinking back into the mysterious noth- 
 ingness from which, for an instant, they were called, 
 — are such the varied and strange beginnings, and is 
 such the common and eternal end, of this living prin- 
 ciple we call the human soul ? Then deep darkness 
 settles down upon this world, leaving undiscoverable 
 
296 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 any grand design, leaving us utterly unable to de- 
 tect any intelligible purpose or beneficent tendency 
 or universal law by which the vicissitudes of human 
 experience may be explained, or by which the ap- 
 parent contradictions of this actual life may be 
 reasonably reconciled. Explicable or reconcilable 
 these countless inequalities of earth must be, or man, 
 of all other things, is the most deceived and self- 
 deceiving, the most incomprehensible and unmean- 
 ing thing in all the universe. Look back, then, 
 through the confused lights of past history, look 
 round upon the ceaseless vicissitudes of actual ex- 
 perience, and look in upon your own profoundest 
 thought, and discover, if you can, any explaining or 
 reconciling principle, except that of the continued 
 existence of the soul in a state of spiritual progres- 
 sion. 
 
 Is there any intimation of such universal law dis- 
 coverable in the government of this life, of human 
 action now ? The existence and operation of such 
 a law is the very basis of all human calculation. 
 The universal law of development and progression 
 is the basis of all intelligent exertion and all mor- 
 al action. In the order or the disorder of life, we 
 see alike the operation of this law ; we see it rec- 
 ognized and obeyed, or unrecognized and dis- 
 obeyed, and in either case producing its natural 
 effect, harmony or confusion, — when thwarted pro- 
 ducing disorder, when regarded producing order. It 
 is impartial in its operation, never suspended in 
 favor of innocence and goodness, any more than of 
 guilt and vice. This moral law is ceaseless in its 
 action, and if obstructed long in its channel, like a 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 297 
 
 stream checked in its natural course, it rises and 
 overflows and spreads destruction in its path, until it 
 finds its operation natural, unrestrained. Whether by 
 the ignorant or wilful perversion of this great moral 
 law of life, physical death comes alike to the inno- 
 cent ,child and the unjust man, to the youthful and 
 to the aged, to the healthy and to the diseased; and 
 when the misfortune has come and passed, we often 
 see and understand how easily all could have been 
 obviated, by observing the universal law of natural 
 development and progression. Thus we see how 
 necessarily, by the great divine law, child is con- 
 nected with parent and parent with child, friend 
 with friend, neighbor with neighbor, and each, even 
 the humblest member, with the good or evil, the im- 
 provement or injury, of a whole community. This 
 universal law actually explains or accounts for all 
 the inequalities and differences of human experience, 
 as far as we can see its operation ; tSat is, till the 
 death of the body, when our material organs of ob- 
 servation, so limited in their power, can trace the 
 operation of the mind’s development no farther. 
 But can this explanation be enough ? It is only an 
 explanation at all, on the supposition that the soul 
 or vital principle of man continues to exist under the 
 operation of the same grand law of development, 
 until the soul, free from all outward pressures, can 
 live, improve, and enjoy in the exercise of its free 
 moral agency. 
 
 Were death to the body also extinction to the 
 soul, so far from any such inexorable law of develop- 
 ment reconciling us, by its explanation, to the moral 
 inequalities of actual life, we should be tempted to 
 
298 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 charge injustice and cruelty on the source of a law 
 so rigidly and invariably enforced. At the very best, 
 we should be overwhelmed in mystery, amazement, 
 and terror. Life being so short at longest, and 
 oftentimes so full of sorrow, suffering, and anguish, 
 every human sense of mercy and justice would 
 impel us to ask, Why should God permit the opera- 
 tion of a law which, unrestrained, must produce 
 these sad effects ? Why not interfere miraculously, 
 and with an arm of omnipotent power arrest the 
 natural order of events, which brings human souls 
 into this brief life under circumstances so widely 
 different? Why should not the Supreme Sovereign 
 declare, in the exercise of his infinite pleasure, that 
 all souls, despite all natural laws, shall begin exist- 
 ence with equal chances and capacities for freely 
 securing improvement and happiness, through the 
 whole of their brief being, which begins and ends on 
 earth ? This 1 we should feel, and this every human 
 sense of justice would expect, were it not that there 
 is an almost universal natural conviction that death 
 itself is only an event in a progressive spiritual life, 
 in the continuance of which the immortal soul shall 
 find room for improvement, unburdened by the in- 
 evitable restraints of this exceedingly imperfect ma- 
 terial condition. This general conviction of the con- 
 tinued life of the human spirit is all that satisfac- 
 torily explains to us the moral inequalities of earth, 
 and it is all that can reasonably reconcile the appar- 
 ent moral contradictions in our experience, — it is all 
 that does reconcile us to the endurance of what we 
 call life’s evils. On any other supposition, we never 
 could feel reconciled to suffer daily and hourly as 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 299 
 
 we do, for the ignorance as well as for the wicked- 
 ness of our fellow-men, whether only our fellow- 
 citizens or our dearest friends. On any other sup- 
 position, life might appear an enigma, and death a 
 tragedy. The heavens might seem as if eternally 
 hung in black, and earth as a revolving cemetery of 
 open graves, into which at every step we were liable 
 to fall and be buried out of sight for ever. Were the 
 grave the end of all that is human, we reasonably 
 feel that God would restrain the operation of natu- 
 ral law, and forbid human freedom of volition and 
 action, so as to equalize more the moral condition of 
 man in his short career, to correct the errors and 
 obviate the innumerable sorrowful disasters of our 
 mortal experience. 
 
 This argument for the immortality of soul, as you 
 perceive, rests entirely upon the undeniable fact of 
 the great moral disparities of human life, and not 
 upon any feelings of repugnance which may be 
 entertained at the idea of spiritual extinction. Such 
 repugnance, as we plainly see, is far from being 
 universal, and therefore can prove nothing as to the 
 future. 
 
 The argument rests on much higher ground than 
 any supposed instinctive dislike to annihilation, 
 namely, on the indubitable fact of the immense 
 moral inequality of souls at their entrance upon 
 moral agency. That, on the whole, there is in the 
 present life more of good than evil, I most cheerfully 
 admit. That, with a vast majority of human beings, 
 real enjoyment and virtue and hope immensely pre- 
 ponderate over vice, suffering, and fear, in their actual 
 experience, is one of the most cherished principles of 
 
300 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 my religious faith. Should, therefore, a divine reve- 
 lation, well attested, direct and irresistible and un- 
 ambiguous, be made to universal man, that the soul 
 is mortal, and perishes at death, I could submit and 
 thank the creative power, in humble and awful grat- 
 itude for the blessings I now enjoy. Though I 
 could neither explain nor reconcile the general phe- 
 nomena of life, still I could serve, I could adore, the 
 Supreme Power, whose ways were so utterly inscru- 
 table to human eyes. I might look abroad on the 
 fair face of nature, from the star-studded, glorious 
 heavens to the richly variegated scenes of earth, and 
 with an humble, if not a fearful gratitude, I might 
 feel that 
 
 “ For me kind Nature wakes her genial power, 
 
 Suckles each herb and spreads out every flower ; 
 
 For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings, 
 
 For me, health gushes from a thousand springs, 
 
 Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise, — 
 
 My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.” 
 
 This might be my language, as it might be my 
 experience. Still, as I might look into the many 
 wretched abodes of vice and ignorance and crime, 
 and hear the wail of mourning, bleeding, crushed, 
 and desponding, suffering hearts, I should feel that 
 an awful, impenetrable shade of mystery enveloped 
 human life; — so strangely different, so widely dif- 
 ferent from beginning to the end, and all so brief! 
 Multitudes diseased and deformed, in body and in 
 mind, so hapless and so hopeless ; multitudes in 
 idiocy, insanity, imbecility, groping their way 
 through the blackness of a moral night, scarce 
 knowing enough to bless or curse their own exist- 
 ence, their pale flame of life so soon expiring, they 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 301 
 
 so soon stumbling into the abyss of eternal oblivion, 
 to be for ever nothing! I should feel overwhelmed 
 with solemn and unutterable wonder, half fearing 
 every moment that the curtain of death would fall 
 and extinguish my own dim light, and half hoping 
 that some wonderful display of divine beneficence 
 would lift the cloud of sorrow from the world, and 
 leave all souls here, brief as their being might be, in 
 a paradise of unbroken peace and purity and love. 
 But without such undoubted and universal revela- 
 tion as to the extinction of the soul at death, every 
 emotion of my spirit, every voice of nature, every 
 groan and wail of sorrow-stricken hearts, and every 
 voice from a million graves of the departed, seem to 
 unite in exclaiming, with one joyous sound, The 
 soul lives ! the soul never dies ! but from the mo- 
 ment of dissolution with the mortal frame lives in 
 an eternally progressive life, of eternally expanding 
 beauty, proportioned with the exactest precision to 
 the actual capacities and moral improvement of 
 each and every human spirit, as it lived and left this 
 earth. 
 
 Now, in closing, as I have not dogmatized, nor 
 offered any creed upon this point as essential to 
 your belief, — for the truth does not depend either 
 upon your belief, or disbelief, or unbelief, — permit me 
 to remind you that the adoption of any one opinion, 
 as to the existence or non-existence of the soul in 
 the unseen future, does not of necessity change in 
 the smallest measure the terms of your true happi- 
 ness now in this life, the reality of which you cannot, 
 do not deny. 
 
 Your faith, or want of faith, in a futurity, leaves 
 
 26 
 
302 
 
 FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 the terms of your true enjoyment here to-day un- 
 changed and still unchangeable. An upright, man- 
 ful career of fidelity to your moral sense, a life of 
 truth, justice, and fraternal affection, ever have been, 
 and are now, the indispensable terms of the soul’s 
 dignity and happiness on earth, even though your 
 soul should expire with the last breath of your de- 
 caying mortal frame. Whatever else is true, this is 
 all-important to our remembrance. The stability of 
 the laws of life, confirmed by all revelation, human 
 and divine, gives us the firmest assurance of this 
 truth. Let us live then, that at its close we may 
 look back and say this life has been a blessing, even 
 on the supposition that no spirit should survive be- 
 yond the tomb. By living well, doing justly, loving 
 mercy, and walking humbly, extending our knowl- 
 edge, quickening the intellect, expanding the heart, 
 and taking the wide world into the embrace of our 
 spiritual affections, — this life itself may be an in- 
 expressible blessing, calling for our profoundest grat- 
 itude. Thus shall we attest, and be more sensible 
 of, the worth, the dignity, the divinity of our nature, 
 whether or not we find a firm faith in the spirit’s 
 immortality. But for the reasons which I have 
 assigned, and without a most explicit and universal 
 revelation to that effect, I cannot believe that death 
 extinguishes the human soul. The design of human 
 existence seems only to be discoverable ; the amaz- 
 ing and countless disparities of earth seem only to be 
 explicable ; and our minds can be reconciled to ex- 
 isting vicissitudes only by regarding this as an eter- 
 nal life, — to you begun when you began, to me 
 begun when I began, and continuing on past all 
 
FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 303 
 
 that is now visible, death being a change, and but a 
 change, of mere environments, — violence breaking, 
 or ignorance deranging, or old age impairing, the 
 material organism, in consequence of which the soul 
 withdraws, and leaves the frame to return to its 
 kindred elements, to recombine and perform the 
 same office for yet other souls, bom to people im- 
 mortality. 
 
 “ When coldness wraps this suffering clay, 
 
 O whither strays the immortal mind ? 
 
 It cannot die, it cannot stay, 
 
 But leaves its darkened dust behind. 
 
 “ Eternal, boundless, undecayed, 
 
 A thought unseen, but seeing all, 
 
 All, all in earth or skies displayed, 
 
 Shall it survey, shall it recall. 
 
 “ Each fainter trace that memory holds, 
 
 So darkly, of departed years, 
 
 In one broad glance the soul beholds, 
 
 And all that was, at once appears. 
 
 “ Above all dread, hope, hate, or fear, 
 
 It lives, all passionless and pure ; 
 
 An age shall fleet like earthly year, 
 
 Its years as moments shall endure. 
 
 “ Away, away, without a wing, 
 
 O’er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly, — 
 
 A glorious and eternal thing, 
 
 Forgetting what it was to die.” 
 
DISCOURSE XXI. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME. — 2 Cor. vi. 2. 
 
 SHALL MORTAL MAN BE MORE JUST THAN GOD ? — <Job iv. 17. 
 
 As to the future, whether or not there is a life 
 succeeding this, or, if there be, what is probably its 
 nature and design, — and what relation this mortal 
 existence may sustain to that, — there are doubtless 
 many who are wholly indifferent, if we may judge 
 from observation. But many more, and probably a 
 majority of those who are brought up under the in- 
 fluences of what is commonly called Christianity, 
 are anxious and troubled as to that great unknown, 
 that great unseen, which we call the future life, and 
 this anxiety is so continual as to impart a gloomy 
 shade to the w T hole character. They become, as one 
 of the New Testament writers expresses it, “ through 
 fear of death, all their lifetime subject to bondage.” 
 
 Of these two classes of persons, each may be sub- 
 divided into two other classes. Of those who exhibit 
 an indifference to everything relating to the future, 
 some are indifferent because of their almost com- 
 plete ignorance, their incapacity for anything like 
 
DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 305 
 
 continuous thought, their entire absorption in the la- 
 bors or pursuits of the moment. Their struggle for 
 the necessaries of life, or for comfort and luxury, if 
 perchance they aspire to comfort and luxury, de- 
 mands all their energies ; they live for to-day, or per- 
 haps for to-morrow, or perhaps they look forward to 
 next year. When sickness and death enter their 
 circle, it is not to awaken alarm, it is scarcely to 
 suggest a great or serious thought. For a moment 
 there is a shock to the feelings, — some affections are 
 rudely severed, — there is a disarrangement of some 
 plans, there is a temporary feeling of disappointment ; 
 but even this is perhaps relieved by the reflection, 
 that there is more room for the survivors, and that 
 there are fewer obstacles in the way of the exertions 
 of those who remain. Then others are indifferent, be- 
 cause for a time they have dwelt too entirely upon 
 the future. So desirous have they been of determin- 
 ing the nature of that future, and their possible des- 
 tiny therein, that they have overlooked present duty, 
 present enjoyment, and everything temporal. Hav- 
 ing taken one point of view, and determined to look 
 towards one object, their views and reflections have 
 all been one-sided, their speculations have all flowed 
 in one channel, and still they have arrived at no 
 satisfactory conclusion. The curtain dividing them 
 from the invisible world remains impenetrable as 
 ever, and finally, being suddenly aroused to the ne- 
 cessities of the present, they have all N at once dis- 
 missed the future from their thoughts, thrown off all 
 anxiety, and become groundlessly sceptical of every- 
 thing relating to another existence. 
 
 Of the second class of persons, — those who are 
 
 26 * 
 
306 
 
 DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTUHITY. 
 
 continually troubled as to another world, — the un- 
 easiness of one portion, by much the larger, origi- 
 nates in their views of the nature of God and of 
 religion. Having no doubts of the existence of the 
 Deity and of religious obligation, they take for grant- 
 ed the truth of their first-taught doctrines. They 
 regard all men as naturally guilty, being born sinful 
 and wicked in consequence of the first sin of one 
 man, thousands of years ago. Regarding every hu- 
 man being born into the world as doomed to a miser- 
 able and endless perdition, unless there be a direct 
 supernatural intervention, and believing there has 
 been such an intervention of which some are to en- 
 joy the advantage, but still being unable to decide 
 who they are who are to enjoy the advantage, they 
 are naturally perplexed between hope and fear as to 
 their own eternal destiny. Strong as may be their 
 faith, and high as may be their hopes, there is still 
 an uncertainty which interferes essentially with all 
 their present enjoyments. 
 
 The difficulties of another portion of this class 
 are purely of a speculative character. These persons 
 are not much troubled as to their own eternal des- 
 tiny, at least. They love to speculate and theorize 
 concerning the future. Perhaps they persuade them- 
 selves into the belief of a theory on the subject, 
 which theory they are so desirous of propagating 
 that they are inattentive to the immediate duties of 
 their social relations, which inattention diminishes 
 their influence among their neighbors and fellow- 
 citizens, and renders themselves, their character, and 
 their theory obnoxious to reproach, however sincere 
 they may be, and however logical and just may be 
 their theory of a future life. 
 
DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 307 
 
 There is another class, less numerous probably 
 than either of the other two ; namely, a class who 
 are neither too indifferent nor too solicitous regard- 
 ing the future world, or the final destiny of human 
 beings. If it be possible to be so absorbed in the 
 immediate duties of daily life, so intent upon the 
 employment of agencies around us for improving 
 and securing the health, education of the physical 
 and mental powers we now possess, and so engaged 
 in the performance of every possible office of be- 
 nevolence toward our fellow-beings, as to leave the 
 invisible, the unexplored and unexplained future en- 
 tirely in the hands of the supreme disposing Power, 
 — if such a condition be possible, it is a condition 
 greatly to be desired. Such a condition would cer- 
 tainly be the perfection of earthly enjoyment in the 
 existing state of human society. 
 
 It is told of an eminent philanthropist, who de- 
 voted his whole time, talents, and wealth to the pro- 
 motion of the welfare of needy and unenlightened 
 fellow-men, supplying their wants and cultivating 
 their hearts and minds, that when some one whose 
 religion was less disinterested, less self-forgetful, in- 
 quired of him whether, in his constant activity for 
 the welfare of others, he secured the welfare of his 
 own soul, he replied, “ Why, in truth, sir, I have been 
 so absorbed in providing for the comforts of the bod- 
 ies and souls of others, that I have forgotten that I 
 had a soul.” This expression is of course to be un- 
 derstood in the generous spirit in which it was ut- 
 tered, in the common freedom of language ; for no 
 better evidence could be desired of the true life of a 
 true spirit, than that afforded by such self-forgetful 
 and generous activity. 
 
308 
 
 DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 Too much self-consciousness, here is the misfor- 
 tune, — an activity creating self-forgetfulness, here is 
 the corrective. That many more would attain to 
 this desirable condition cannot be questioned, could 
 minds but grow to a rational maturity unbiassed by 
 pre-established theories concerning a future world. 
 But some theory respecting the eternal destiny of 
 human souls is one among the first impressions 
 which parents and teachers regard it as a duty to fix 
 on the infant mind. Everything relating to the un- 
 seen and future is received without qualification and 
 without suspicion by the child, especially when im- 
 parted by those toward whom its first affections are 
 developed. It is rare, indeed, that the mind finds 
 itself enabled to throw off this early impression, even 
 when the mature reason has become convinced that 
 the opinion itself is untenable and erroneous, and 
 that the affection which taught it was uninformed 
 and misguided. 
 
 But sometimes a vigorous understanding rises 
 above all impressions that cannot be sustained by 
 unimpassioned reason, and in the majesty of its 
 might stands forth free and unfettered, solicitous only 
 to discern the way of duty now , — anxious only to 
 perceive how it may best develop its energies to- 
 day ; and as the methods and means of benevolent 
 activity multiply before it, the mind finds its powers, 
 and the heart its affections, expanding in a corre- 
 sponding ratio. The curtain that divides the material 
 from the immaterial, or, to speak more intelligibly, 
 the visible from the invisible, may remain as impen- 
 etrable as before; but every cloud that seemed to 
 hang threateningly or repulsively around it rolls 
 
DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 309 
 
 away, and leaves a horizon as fair, as bright, as 
 beautiful and inviting, around the grave of manhood, 
 or the tomb of age, as round the slumber of child- 
 hood or the sleep of youth. 
 
 There is a point at which there is probably 
 an entire unanimity of sentiment. It is this, that 
 the man who employs his whole time, from the 
 period of his individual responsibility, in the com- 
 bined duties of preserving and promoting his own 
 health of body and of mind, endeavoring by every 
 proper method to ameliorate the condition of his ^ 
 fellow-man, meeting disappointments calmly, en- 
 during trials bravely, laboring on indefatigably, 
 and hoping on while life remains, — -such a human 
 spirit, whatsoever may be its theory, or whether 
 it have any theory regarding the eternal destiny 
 of souls, can have no reasonable ground for appre- 
 hension ; it is scarcely possible that he can enter- 
 tain a sentiment of fear as to the future. Indeed, 
 intelligent and well acquainted as he may be with 
 the conjectures of metaphysicians or theologians, he 
 is undisturbed as to the issue, concerning which all 
 reasoning and all speculation must at the best ter- 
 minate in conjecture. That saying of Peter, “ In 
 every nation he that feareth God, and worketh right- 
 eousness, is accepted with him,” meets with a uni- 
 versal and cordial response from every human intel- 
 lect and heart. Such a man as we have supposed, 
 who is engaged in working righteousness, that is, in 
 unceasing activity for good in every sphere he occu- 
 pies, however confined or however extended, whether 
 it be for his home, his neighbor, his country, or the 
 world, — such a man cannot fail to reverence the 
 
310 
 
 DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 Deity, the source and perfection of all beneficence. 
 His labor is his worship, his deeds are his perpetual 
 prayer. So that all the conditions are fulfilled in 
 him. It can matter little to him in what land, or 
 under what institutions, he may live, — it can matter 
 little what ritual may be administered in churches, 
 or what systems of theology may be compiled in 
 libraries, or expounded in pulpits. His ritual is every 
 agency, whether out of the church or in it, which com- 
 mends itself as an instrument for promoting good ; 
 and like the insect which extracts the honey unmixed 
 with poison from every flower, he detects as by a 
 spiritual instinct what is heavenly and humane in 
 every system, whilst he leaves untouched the severe 
 dogmas, the iron weapons, and human framework 
 of them all, to decay and perish under the corroding 
 influence of time, and before the sunlight of eternal 
 truth. 
 
 Here again appears what seems to me to be the 
 prevailing misconception of the nature and design of 
 Christianity. I mean by Christianity the precepts 
 and principles exemplified by the spirit and life of 
 Jesus. For the most part, all of these precepts, 
 principles, spirit, and life of Jesus are disregarded, 
 and one event, the single circumstance of his death, 
 made to appear as the great and supernatural agent, 
 and evidence, and completion of a plan devised with 
 reference to the destiny of human souls in another, 
 the unseen and eternal world. Not for an instant 
 would I have one lose this noble hope of another, a 
 higher and enduring life ; but better, far better, to 
 most men would it be, could they be taught the rules 
 and principles of a Christian life, that is, of the life of 
 
DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 311 
 
 the human being here, now, every day ; better far, 
 could most men be taught and imbued with these, 
 entirely separate from all reference to another world ; 
 better far, that men should never hear of theories 
 concerning heaven and hell, rewards and punish- 
 ments in a state beyond the grave, until the works 
 of God and the word of God, and their own con- 
 sciences, and their own experience of the world 
 about them, should awaken them to reflection, and 
 to unbiassed reason. More active, purer, and hap- 
 pier would be the mortal existence of most men if 
 left in this condition as regards the invisible world, 
 than to be imbued from infancy with some idea con- 
 cerning the eternal destiny of souls which makes 
 this existence appear brief, toilsome, and miserable, 
 and which keeps them all their days subject to bond- 
 age through fear of death. 
 
 I would not adopt the saying, that, u if ignorance 
 is bliss, ’t is folly to be wise ” ; for the sorrows of wis- 
 dom are better than even the bliss of ignorance. But 
 whilst there is so much to be done now that is prac- 
 ticable, and so much to be acquired that is attain- 
 able, it is not the mark of wisdom to diminish the 
 enjoyment and abridge the number of our days by 
 vague conjectures and fretful apprehensions as to 
 what may be the fate of the spirit a thousand years 
 after its separation from this mortal body. It is as 
 unmanly as it is illogical and untrue, to allege, as it 
 sometimes is alleged, that only the rewards of a fu- 
 ture heaven and the punishment of a future hell can 
 impel us to rectitude and deter us from vice, can al- 
 lure us to the good and alarm us from the evil. The 
 child, who from sympathy rejoices in the smile and 
 
312 
 
 DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 is saddened by the sorrow of its mother, lives and 
 enjoys life, unincited by the idea of a future heaven, 
 and undismayed by the terrors of a future hell. It 
 is no thought of reward in a future life that in- 
 duces the child or youth to obey and venerate and 
 love its parents. It is the kind look, the approving 
 word or gentle act, of the tender mother, or the fond 
 father, which is at once the incentive and reward of 
 the uncorrupted and unperverted child. It is the 
 consciousness that disobedience, or unkindness, or 
 violence, or thoughtlessness, inflicts pain or sorrow 
 on the affectionate parent, — it is this that deters the 
 child from wrong purposes and words and acts. No 
 promise of happiness and no threatening of pain in 
 a world beyond the grave, can do much to affect the 
 children of a faithful and indulgent parent. All ar- 
 guments relating to a spiritual existence in another 
 world fall unheeded on the ears of children, and have 
 but little influence in forming the character and di- 
 recting the actions of most persons in early life. 
 That law which Paul speaks of as written on the 
 heart of all men, which furnishes to all in some kind 
 and degree an instinctive perception of right and 
 wrong, determines almost every act of our earlier 
 years, before religious prejudices have become fixed, 
 and sectarian theories settled in the mind. And thus 
 it would be through life with most men, if left en- 
 tirely uninfluenced by either fears, or hopes, or opin- 
 ions, as to the eternal destiny of souls. 
 
 They disregard both facts and reason, who assert 
 that they would not avoid vice and crime, were it 
 not from fear of the wrath of the Deity, and an in- 
 fernal abode with fiends for ever. There are fami- 
 
DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 313 
 
 lies and tribes of men, as well as children and unin- 
 formed deaf and dumb persons, — i. e. uninstructed 
 with reference to any other than the life they see, — 
 who have a consciousness of right and wrong, and 
 who strive to perform the one and avoid the other, as 
 scrupulously as the most dogmatical believer in the 
 rewards and punishments of another existence. To 
 the human being who has never learned of life be- 
 yond the present, who has been uninfluenced by a 
 single promise or a single threatening referring to 
 the future, vice is no less vice, and virtue is no less 
 virtue, the immediate effect of vice is no less certain, 
 and the immediate effect of virtue is no less sure, 
 than to the man who ponders every utterance and 
 act to ascertain its bearing on his condition in eter- 
 nity. To the man who has never had any concep- 
 tion of a future life, or who becomes persuaded that 
 Deity and demon, heaven and hell, happiness and 
 misery, all relating to an existence beyond the pres- 
 ent, are only dreams of the imagination, beginning 
 and ending only in our own conceptions, — to that 
 man’s present comfort it is just as essential that his 
 relatives, friends, neighbors, and fellow-citizens should 
 be truthful, and just, and enlightened, and courteous, 
 as to his who lives in constant view of an eternal 
 world. A confirmed fatalist or atheist may be your 
 nearest neighbor, and it is just as essential to your 
 enjoyment that you should both be honorable, gen- 
 erous, true, and kind, as if you were both confirmed 
 in the faith of a Christian immortality. 
 
 The only all-important concern of a man, then, is 
 to be good and do good, to seek for the best and 
 do for the best, now, to-day, to-morrow, and al- 
 27 
 
314 
 
 DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 ways, and to be so absorbed in this, that thoughts 
 of the future shall have little opportunity to obtrude 
 themselves upon us, and then never in an offensive 
 form, but only as a bright conjecture or a brighter 
 hope. Present, perpetual activity is the only safe 
 defence against undue solicitude. Labor is the true 
 life, and labor is the true rest. 
 
 “ Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us, 
 
 Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, 
 
 Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, 
 
 Rest from world-Sirens that lure us to ill. 
 
 Work, — and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ; 
 
 Work, — thou shalt ride over care’s coming billow ; 
 
 Work with a stout heart and resolute will. 
 
 Work for some good, be it ever so slowly 3 
 Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly 3 
 Labor, — all labor is noble and holy ; 
 
 Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to God.” 
 
 In such diligent activity, in such unceasing worship 
 now, is the only true repose from perplexing anxiety 
 to know the future, the invisible, the bourne whence 
 no traveller returns with messages to satisfy our won- 
 derings. 
 
 Wide as may be the differences of opinion among 
 sects of Christians, there will probably be no dispute 
 on this point, — that he who lives such a life of 
 humble, self-forgetful benevolence can have little to 
 apprehend from the change which men call death ; 
 his faithfulness over the few and small things makes 
 him ruler over many and great things ; and it is a 
 small concern what may be the theory entertained by 
 such a human being concerning the eternal world, or 
 whether he may have framed any theory. 
 
 But this, just and reasonable as it is, does not, it 
 
DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 315 
 
 may be said, meet the case of the world as it is. 
 Death is certain. Daily, hourly, it removes friends 
 and neighbors and fellow-beings from our presence. 
 The wise and the illiterate ; the honorable and the 
 mean ; the benevolent and the heartless ; the man 
 who loses sight of every selfish consideration in the 
 immediate discharge of duty, and the man who 
 never loses sight of some personal end, who buys 
 and sells and prays and worships only to benefit 
 himself, — dissolution is an event common to them 
 all. Each day, each hour, the eye of some is grow- 
 ing dim, and the blood growing cold, and the spirit 
 leaving its mortal habitation. As the moment of 
 separation approaches, mingled emotions of hope 
 and fear agitate most minds. Should reason, im- 
 agination, and memory remain unimpaired, or 
 should they be quickened to preternatural activity, 
 the retrospect of the past and the anticipation of the 
 future are likely to meet ; and where the retrospect 
 exhibits a life marked by many mistakes, many blem- 
 ishes, many faults, perhaps some grievous crimes, 
 remorse for the past is most likely to be blended with 
 fear as to the final fate of the soul. At such a time 
 it is natural, as it is common, to summon the min- 
 ister of religion. It is his province to endeavor to 
 administer consolation, to elicit the expression of 
 penitence, and to inspire hope. 
 
 Now, to make it a direct and practical question, 
 am I asked what I would say, or recommend, or do, 
 under such circumstances ? I might say : “ Sir, you 
 have painful regrets as to the past, and you have 
 doubts and fears as to the future. Have you a friend 
 who, though resembling you in no point of charac- 
 
316 
 
 DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 ter, yet is thoroughly familiar with your past life, — 
 who has been fully apprised of your motives and 
 principles of action, who has been a close observer of 
 your deeds, your faults, your infirmities, your virtues, 
 and your crimes ? To this honest, intelligent, pure- 
 minded, and generous friend, who has frequently ad- 
 vised, warned, compassionated, and endeavored to 
 reform you, — to this friend would you hesitate, now 
 that you are about to separate from your earthly 
 interests, to leave property, family, all that has been 
 dear on earth ? and, anxious still that all should be 
 carefully, kindly, and justly disposed of, would you 
 hesitate to leave all, freely, unconditionally, — prop- 
 erty, family, — all in the Care, under the entire con- 
 trol, of this true friend ? ” I cannot doubt the answer. 
 I might then go further, and say to the dying man : 
 “ Sir, you are filled with remorse and sorrow in rec- 
 ollection of your unhappy life ; you are fearful of the 
 unseen and unknown future that lies before you, — 
 the ultimate fate of your sin-stained spirit awakens 
 apprehension. Again I ask, would you, were it 
 possible, hesitate to leave even that final and eternal 
 fate in the hands of your human friend, — with all 
 your imperfections, errors, and vices well known to 
 him, — would you hesitate to leave in his hands the 
 decision of your fate for an eternity?” There can 
 be little doubt as to the reply. He would answer in 
 the affirmative, — willingly, joyfully would he com- 
 mit his whole fate for time or eternity to the decis- 
 ion of his pure, virtuous, and just human friend. I 
 might then reply: “ Shall mortal man be more just 
 than God ? Shall mortal man be more merciful 
 than God ? Should not the best and the worst pre- 
 
DEATH, LIFE, AND FUTURITY. 
 
 317 
 
 fer to exclaim, with David, Let me fall into the 
 hands of God, and not into the hands of man ? 
 Shall I be ready to commit my destiny to the de- 
 cision of a mortal friend, whose most piercing vision 
 cannot penetrate beneath this veil of flesh, — who 
 can only know me by the few expressions of word and 
 act, of which he may chance to be the witness, — 
 and shall I hesitate an instant, — shall I in the dying- 
 moment have a single lingering doubt of that all-wise 
 Father, who sees the most hidden springs of thought, 
 before whom every impulse is revealed, who knows 
 not only my errors and my faults, but who knows 
 the temptations long resisted, the evil promptings 
 overcome, the hours and days of patient endurance 
 and inward conflict, and who can weigh each word 
 and act, each thought and motive, in the scale of the 
 exactest justice ? Would I commit my faith to an 
 earthly parent’s keeping, and shall I pause an in- 
 stant to intrust the soul for ever to the disposal of a 
 Father whose tenderness transcends the tenderness 
 of an earthly parent, as boundless love transcends 
 the affection of the mortal, — a Father who is him- 
 self the infinite embodiment of every perfection ? ” 
 
 27 
 
DISCOURSE XXII. 
 
 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, WITH 
 REFERENCE TO THE WORLD. 
 
 YE ARE A PECULIAR PEOPLE, CALLED OUT OF DARKNESS 
 
 into marvellous light. — 1 Peter ii. 9. 
 
 Who can tell all the influences of which he is the 
 recipient, or of which he is the radiating centre ? If 
 a man is a world in miniature, in a still broader sense 
 is a nation a world in miniature. It becomes a peo- 
 ple to know, if possible, the history, condition, pros- 
 pects, and tendencies of the institutions which con- 
 trol them. 
 
 What, then, are the moral aspects and relations, 
 and what appears to be the moral mission , of our 
 country ? 
 
 Never, at any previous period of the world’s ad- 
 vancement, was the mutual dependency of nations 
 so obvious as now. The numerous civilizing agen- 
 cies of the last century have been gradually, yet rap- 
 idly, uniting and blending the great interests of the 
 governments of the enlightened world. Every promi- 
 nent measure, affecting, favorably or otherwise, the 
 welfare of the people of any government, is observed, 
 
THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY. 319 
 
 if not felt in its operations, by the whole circle of 
 civilized nations. Commerce, in this later age, has 
 been at once the incentive and the agent of scientific 
 research, by which such arts have been invented as 
 change essentially the relation of every people to 
 every other. 
 
 As a result, we discover an activity of mind and 
 desire for progress, to which nothing similar can be 
 found in the annals of the world. On every side 
 there is commotion, and in many quarters fear and 
 trembling. Great experiments are in contemplation, 
 and the wisest of the wise dare venture no prophe- 
 cies as to the complexion which affairs will assume 
 during a coming generation. 
 
 To know our own moral position, we must ob- 
 serve that of the nations of Christendom. Look, for 
 a moment, at the present attitude of Europe. Brit- 
 ain, whose possessions extend around the globe, with 
 her extremes of prodigious wealth and wretched pov- 
 erty, her nobles and her beggars, her charities and 
 her oppressions, her glory and her shame, gradually 
 adapting her government to the demands and in- 
 creasing power of an enlightened people, still retains 
 her stupendous military force, and scarcely seems to 
 know whether her authority is strengthening or 
 weakening, whether her throne is more stable, or 
 whether public opinion is not daily undermining its 
 foundations. 
 
 Russia and Austria, by a vast military power 
 holding in subordination the Polish and Hungarian 
 elements of revolution, have millions of serfs and 
 subjects ready to enter upon every bold and hazard- 
 ous experiment, which may offer to relieve them from 
 
320 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 an oppression which strives to reduce them to the 
 veriest barbarism. 
 
 Italy, with Rome, once the seat of the mightiest 
 power on earth, now only relieved from revolution or 
 anarchy by the overshadowing force of a foreign gov- 
 ernment, and the Pontifical throne still sitting over 
 the crater of a social volcano, liable every hour to 
 burst forth in burning fury and consume every sym- 
 bol of spiritual and monarchical authority. 
 
 France, for a moment silent under the fierce frown 
 of a daring usurper, but with restless millions eagerly 
 awaiting some fresh moving of the waters, when they 
 may embark upon any sea of troubles rather than 
 wear the chains now imposed upon them by a ty- 
 rant. Temporary repose may be secured ; but all is 
 uncertainty and fear. Permanent peace is not ex- 
 pected. Change must soon occur ; but what change 
 it is impossible even to imagine. 
 
 Such is the picture of European affairs at this 
 day. A vast population struggling and trembling 
 after the passage of successive revolutions, with the 
 prospect of still successive revolutions, now hoping 
 and now fearing, and scarcely knowing whether 
 most to hope or most to fear. 
 
 Look then at our own condition, and contrast it. 
 For three quarters of a century we have been steadily 
 increasing in territorial extent, in population and 
 commercial influence. There being few or no re- 
 straints on the diffusion of knowledge, science has 
 been exploring, art inventing, wealth accumulating, 
 and facilities daily multiplying for intercommunica- 
 tion, — and this almost bloodlessly, peacefully, and 
 with popular intelligence constantly augmenting. 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO THE WORLD. 
 
 321 
 
 Yet. while enjoying peace, we are not to overlook 
 the fact, that, while extending from a few thinly set- 
 tled States, along the Atlantic, into a united family 
 of populous commonwealths, covering the continent 
 from one great ocean to the other, we have passed 
 through the ordeal of two wars, — which, though 
 brief, may, perhaps, be termed fierce and sanguinary 
 wars, — one with our mother-land, and one with our 
 neighboring republic in the Southwest. 
 
 On the whole, we have abundant cause for con- 
 gratulation, and for gratitude, having enjoyed bless- 
 ings unequalled by those of any people on the globe. 
 We might justly take up the Hebrew prophet’s ex- 
 clamation : “What nation is there so great? He 
 hath not dealt so by any people.” 
 
 But whilst we are duly grateful, it becomes us 
 not to be vainly boastful. While encouraging most 
 ardent hope, let us not indulge blind confidence. 
 
 I am well aware it is expected that the preacher is 
 to search out the dark side of every subject, in order 
 that he may find a topic for pious exhortation. But 
 it is indulging no mere pulpit cant to declare, as a 
 principle, that, as all that gives permanent value to 
 individual character is moral excellence, so the only 
 true basis of national greatness is moral power. 
 
 All that can give stability to the best devised civil 
 institutions is moral character and moral worth. 
 This is the only reasonable deduction from philoso- 
 phy and history, as well as the divine dictate of the 
 Christian religion. 
 
 In our day we say much of missions. We make 
 the term mission one of marked significance. We 
 say every man has a mission ; every institution has 
 
322 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 a mission ; every government has a mission. Let 
 us inquire what is the moral mission of our country ? 
 In view of the extent of our territory, the productions 
 of our soil, the variety of our climate, our inexhausti- 
 ble resources, and the freedom of our institutions, it 
 seems to be the mission of our country to furnish to 
 mankind an example of moral power and moral prog- 
 ress , — peaceful power and peaceful improvement. 
 
 Yet some, and not wholly without cause, doubt 
 our capacity to fill this sublime mission. They ap- 
 prehend that we do not improve in wisdom as we 
 improve in wealth ; that we do not increase in virtue 
 as we increase in influence ; that patriotism does not 
 keep pace with party spirit ; that religion does not 
 keep pace with railroads ; that moral worth does not 
 keep pace with magnetic wires ; and they are ready 
 to adopt the warning words, “ We must educate ! 
 we must educate! or we must perish by our own 
 prosperity.” This suggests a truth entitled to pro- 
 found reflection ; namely, that what is needed is not 
 simply to educate , but to educate into manly inde- 
 pendence of thought, — to educate into the universal 
 duty of self-knowledge and self-reliance. For we 
 know and see that men may be educated into the 
 defence of illiberality, persecution, and despotism. 
 Men may, with the most abundant appliances of 
 mental culture, refinement, and taste, be educated 
 with no comprehensiveness of thought, and no en- 
 largement of the affections. With all the means of 
 mental accomplishment, men may be educated as 
 the most contracted and virulent partisans, or the 
 most intolerant and unrelenting bigots. 
 
 But, not pursuing this idea now, let us inquire, 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO THE WORLD. 
 
 323 
 
 What is there to be feared or hoped for, at present, 
 from the prevalence of party spirit ? In our country 
 political influences affect every man, in some measure, 
 in all his relations. They affect him as an individual 
 and a social being ; they have a bearing upon, and 
 perform a partin developing, the intellectual, moral, 
 and religious character of all interested in them. 
 
 The history of nations testifies that party spirit 
 has occasioned great calamities. On this point there 
 would be ground for apprehension among us, were 
 there in operation no corrective tendencies, neutral- 
 izing and overruling evils. Some seem to fear that 
 we may lose both the spirit and the institutions of 
 our fathers by the increasing distance between our 
 times and the times which “ tried men’s souls.” 
 
 Whilst anxieties like these are not entirely un- 
 founded, we discover that there exists still a strong 
 sentiment of reverence for the fervent patriotism and 
 self-sacrificing devotion of the early fathers of the 
 republic. 
 
 Not long since, you will remember, an eloquent 
 patriot, who, escaped from the tyranny of Austrian 
 and Russian power, was welcomed as the guest of 
 our people. He appealed to their principles and their 
 sympathies, their devotion to liberty, and their indig- 
 nation against despotism. In breathing thoughts 
 and burning words, he told the sad story of his coun- 
 try’s woes. He endeavored to lead our government 
 to the adoption of a new policy, which would have 
 involved us in the present revolutions and impending 
 battles of Europe. Indeed, no effort was spared to 
 weaken the attachment of our people to a pacific 
 policy, — to enlist their sympathies, to secure their 
 
324 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 aid, and almost to stir up the fierce, the revengeful, 
 the more ungovernable of human passions. 
 
 But all failed to shake the popular reverence for 
 the purest, holiest sentiments of Christian brother- 
 hood, inculcated by our fathers. Neither govern- 
 ment nor people has been willing to descend from the 
 lofty moral eminence which our nation has gradually 
 gained. True, we have sorrow for the oppressed of 
 every land in Europe. We have sympathy for their 
 sufferings, a home for the refugees, bread for the 
 starving, and wide arms to give a welcome embrace 
 to all who seek an asylum on our broad, free, blessed 
 shores. 
 
 But our government and our people have virtually 
 said: We hear your appeals, we are not blind to 
 
 your trials ; we have helped, we do help, we are help- 
 ing you now, even more than you imagine ; but we 
 cannot descend from our high place of universal ob- 
 servation to become the warlike champion of one na- 
 tion. We are not living for ourselves ; but, encom- 
 passed with a cloud of witnesses, we are the polar 
 star in the political heavens to guide the laboring 
 barks of a hundred nations. Our mission is a moral 
 mission, and we must use moral weapons. We are 
 speaking courage to the world’s ear, and awakening 
 courage in the world’s heart. 
 
 For four thousand years the world has been wait- 
 ing, hoping, and longing with anxious soul, for an ex- 
 ample of self-government, universal intelligence, free 
 conscience, and moral power, — giving stability to 
 character, and inspiring the human family with faith, 
 — and we believe that it is ours to offer that example. 
 
 Help do you ask ? Have we not aided you ? 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO THE WORLD. 
 
 325 
 
 What voice was it that stirred the first impulse in 
 your bosoms, and kindled the patriotic flame on the 
 altar of your hearts ? Was it not the voice of 
 American liberty? 
 
 What moved Poland and Greece to struggle to be 
 free ? Was it not the sunlight of our institutions 
 beaming over on their shores ? What agitated Aus- 
 tria ? What preserves bright hope in Italy ? What 
 has impelled France in her repeated efforts and re- 
 peated failures, and what now is the sole beam of 
 light which breaks through the gloom of her tempo- 
 rary depression ? What but the example of the 
 American Union, — the moral sun which God is 
 holding up to illumine and guide the nations to 
 freedom, to knowledge, and to peace ? 
 
 The rich islands on our own hemisphere, in the 
 Caribbean Sea, — where do they look for relief from 
 their burdens, but to the resistless moral power of 
 our example ? The'whole sisterhood of God-blessed 
 but man-cursed nations in South America, — where 
 is their hope of ultimate deliverance but in the pros- 
 pect of our permanency and progress, — by the ex- 
 tension of our commerce carrying the golden line of 
 enlightened liberty around through the nations of 
 the globe, and along that line one day to send an 
 electric current which shall dissolve the iron of every 
 crown, and sceptre, and throne for ever ? 
 
 We are Americans, but we are also Christians. 
 We are republicans, but we are also brothers of 
 mankind. We are living not only for ourselves, for 
 a nation, or for the present only ; we are living for 
 posterity, for the future, for all our race who may 
 succeed us on the earth. The existing nations of 
 28 
 
326 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 the earth, — we love them all ; but we cannot, by 
 ' becoming the special champion of one, weaken our 
 resources for the world’s help. True, we have once 
 been crucified, but we have been crucified for the 
 world’s salvation. We have once been buried in 
 sorrow, and tears, and blood, but we have risen to 
 be the resurrection and the life*to the nations of the 
 earth. 
 
 This is the voice which our government and peo- 
 ple have uttered, and which testifies at once to the 
 existence of regard for justice, a patriotic devotion 
 to our own institutions, and a philanthropic regard 
 for the welfare of mankind. It testifies to the ex- 
 istence of a moral sentiment, and the consciousness 
 of our moral mission . Easily as the people may at 
 times be agitated, and violent as party spirit may at 
 times become, there are always some calm, judicious 
 Mentors, unaffected by extraneous commotions, who 
 raise their word of warning, and whose voices are 
 not unheeded. Three quarters of a century have 
 now passed since the signing of what has been 
 styled “ the most important document ever issued 
 by uninspired men ” ; and yet their memory, with 
 that of the great, virtuous, and world-renowned 
 Washington, is embalmed among the holiest recol- 
 lections of the living generation. 
 
 By all these encouragements, by recalling consid- 
 erations which mitigate existing evils, I am not pre- 
 tending to allege that there is no greater room for 
 improvement, and that there are not occasions for 
 some anxiety. Notwithstanding the ordeals through 
 which our institutions have passed, and from which 
 they have emerged, like gold from the crucible, 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO THE WORLD. 
 
 327 
 
 purer for the trial, yet the exalted moral eminence 
 we occupy in the observation of the world, the real 
 grandeur of our moral mission to the nations of 
 mankind, are by no means appreciated and remem- 
 bered as they should be. 
 
 We have perils to encounter, and we must neither 
 conceal nor disguise' them ; and while such vital in- 
 terests are involved, where are we to look for a 
 dispassionate, paternal, reconciling, and admonitory 
 voice, if not to the altars of our Christian religion, — 
 the altars of human love and universal peace? We 
 have individual ambitions, sectional jealousies, party 
 strifes, and sectarian divisions ; we have misguided 
 zeal and morbid conscience. These are some of the 
 evils we must encounter, and of the perils we must 
 guard against. 
 
 Our own confidence in ourselves furnishes no in- 
 fallible warrant of national immortality. Neither 
 faith in our past success, nor our inherent vitality, 
 can secure the permanence of our institutions. All 
 human history furnishes no more striking instance of 
 unfaltering faith, than that which the Hebrews had 
 in their own stability. That their national institu- 
 tions, their temple and religion, should stand and 
 triumph, and reign unrivalled in the earth, they did 
 not for a moment doubt. Yet the exact spot on 
 which their temple stood cannot be determined now, 
 so completely has that monument of their power 
 been swept away. The Mohammedan crescent 
 now glistens over the dome from which once float- 
 ed the royal banners of Judah, and the remnants 
 of the race are found on every continent, in every 
 nation. 
 
32S THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 It is the same with Pagan nations, and the same 
 with Christian nations. There are allusions in the 
 New Testament, and other Christian records, to 
 Christian communities once existing, where, as far 
 as we can determine, Pagan or Mohammedan au- 
 thority now sways an undisputed sceptre, leaving no 
 vestige of the faith of the crucified Nazarene. 
 
 We are, the wisest and best of us, but men, and 
 neither angels nor gods ; and all our achievements, 
 like ourselves, must bear the mark of fallibility. In- 
 stitutions we have, social, political, and religious, of 
 the value, the necessity, and expediency of which, 
 there is, and of necessity must be, difference of opin- 
 ion. But, as minds vary with bodies, as mental ca- 
 pacities vary with physical features, why may, not 
 all opinions be entertained with undoubted honesty, 
 and be presented with earnest, manly modesty, and 
 be considered calmly, in the spirit of just concession? 
 Why may not every improvement and experiment 
 be suggested freely, if possible tried fairly, and the 
 result, successful or unsuccessful, be acknowledged 
 generously ? Why may not all, on every side, listen 
 patiently, examine candidly, act honestly, and con- 
 cede manfully? Then, action being in every in- 
 stance squared and regulated by that well-styled 
 golden rule, “ Do to others even as ye would that 
 others should do to you,” there need be no discord 
 which may not be harmonized, no clashing senti- 
 ments which may not be reconciled, no various ex- 
 periments which may not co-operate. 
 
 Acting in such a spirit, the result would and must 
 be change where change is needed, improvement 
 where improvement is required; and in all and over 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO THE WORLD. 
 
 329 
 
 all, individuals and institutions, natural Christian 
 development, progress, and enjoyment. Patience 
 there must be, both in thought and action ; and 
 without patience, concession, peace and improve- 
 ment are alike impracticable and impossible. 
 
 Could the conscript fathers, the illustrious framers 
 of that solemn declaration, the proclamation of 
 which to-morrow will commemorate, — could they 
 have pierced the dim vista of the future, and, looking 
 forward, have foreseen the glory of our country, — 
 could they with the seer’s eye have discerned the 
 passions and jealousies which now exist and jeop- 
 ard the grand national union, which is the great 
 anomaly in the history of nations, and the admira- 
 tion of the enlightened world, — they would have re- 
 corded a rich testament of precious words, to be 
 opened now and read by the assembled nation. 
 Appealing solemnly to our common memories, trials, 
 enjoyments, and hopes, they would remind us of the 
 just concessions and reasonable compromises which 
 they made, and also of the conflicting opinions, prej- 
 udices, and interests which they reconciled. They 
 would recallus to sacred memories, — memories reach- 
 ing back to the period when our common ancestors 
 braved the perils of the ocean, the savage, and the 
 wilderness, to find “ freedom to worship God,” — hal- 
 lowed memories of that hour when they pledged to- 
 gether, life, fortune, and sacred honor, in a cause 
 which demanded and which received the sacrifice of 
 peace, of property, and blood. They would appeal 
 to us by our common language, common laws and 
 interests, — interests extending over our continent, 
 connecting with the nations of the civilized globe, 
 28 * 
 
330 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 and looking forward to remote posterity. They 
 would appeal to us as reverential children, and as 
 loving brothers, to remain united in one unbroken 
 circle of linked liberty, and trust, and love. 
 
 It is a solemn and fearful responsibility which we 
 incur. Let each man persist — as some reformers 
 and theorists of our age do — in exalting self-con- 
 science, which is often nothing more than self-inter- 
 est, prejudice, and pride of judgment, — let each one 
 exalt this rule of imperfectly enlightened individual 
 conscience as an infallible standard by which to test 
 the civil and social institutions of our country, and 
 how soon may the ruins of our government lie scat- 
 tered round us, and we be ready to take refuge from 
 the horrors of anarchy in tyranny or barbarism ! 
 The political sun which now illuminates the world 
 would then be eclipsed for ever. On the stormy sea 
 of life, mankind would then be left without a bow of 
 earthly promise, or an anchor of earthly faith. Simi- 
 larity of interests, community of laws, of language, 
 and of religion, all these could then afford no criteria 
 for the future. For in the possession of all these in- 
 comparable blessings to an unparalleled degree, we 
 should then have perished, and the dark pall of obliv- 
 ion would shroud together our national memory and 
 man’s earthly hopes. Consider the immense stream 
 of humanity pouring in upon us from the four quar- 
 ters of the globe, from poor, downcast, famine-strick- 
 en Ireland on the west, to wall-surrounded, mind- 
 fettered China on the east, of the other hemisphere. 
 These strangers, yet human brothers, are spreading 
 by tens of thousands over our broad and goodly land, 
 to find the blessings of knowledge, liberty, and peace. 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO THE WORLD. 
 
 331 
 
 It is ours, in this fruitful and heaven-adorned asy- 
 lum, to receive them all with a brother’s welcome, 
 and share with them all the common heritage of 
 God our Father, till their own lands shall cease to 
 be prisons, and become peaceful abodes of Christian 
 men. 
 
 We are truly “ a peculiar people, called out of 
 darkness into marvellous light.” We now see some- 
 thing of the true grandeur of our moral mission as a 
 people. The religion of the future is looking up to 
 us, and the liberty of the future is looking up to 
 us. Poor, wounded, groaning Liberty is now looking 
 toward ps with yearning heart and tearful eyes, as 
 the exile looks towards the home of his love. Poor, 
 priest-wronged, church-bound, crucified Religion is 
 now looking up to us, as the suffering saint looks 
 towards the tomb, as the gateway of immortal glory. 
 
 Let us guard well our sublime and holy trust. 
 Should the unrighteous hands of political ambition 
 or religious bigotry ever for a day succeed in re- 
 moving the ark of our covenant of civil and religious 
 freedom, may worse than Assyrian calamities afflict 
 the plunderers, till our heavenly treasure be restored. 
 Should the genius of human liberty ever be driven 
 from our shores, like Noah’s dove, may she find no 
 rest for the sole of her foot, till she return and find a 
 glad people ready to receive, to cherish, and to love 
 her. The rule conservative of all good may be 
 summed up in a single sentence. Let each one, as 
 an American, as a man, and as a Christian, be true 
 to himself, that is, to his knowledge and his privi- 
 leges. He who is thus true to himself will be true 
 to his fellow-man, his country, and his God. 
 
332 
 
 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 Let us live thus truly ; for we see 
 
 “ There is a mighty dawning on the earth 
 Of human glory ; dreams unknown before 
 Fill the mind’s boundless world, and wondrous birth 
 Is given to great thought. 
 
 On every side appears a silent token 
 Of what will be hereafter, — when existence 
 Shall become a pure and sacred thing, 
 
 And earth sweep high as heaven/’ 
 
DISCOURSE XXIII. 
 
 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, WITH REF- 
 ERENCE TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 STAND FAST IN THE LIBERTY WHEREWITH CHRIST HATH 
 
 made us free. — Galatians v. 1. 
 
 As to every intelligent being, so to every nation, 
 the Creator appears to assign some work, and to 
 grant to each the incentives and means to discover 
 and perform that work. 
 
 Among other problems which appear to be given 
 us to solve, — the mission of our country and govern- 
 ment being a moral mission, — is that of union and 
 liberty in religion. 
 
 Can there be liberty of conscience, freedom of 
 speech, and unity of action in religion ? 
 
 In no nation yet, as the records of seventeen cen- 
 turies demonstrate, has entire liberty of conscience 
 been found to coexist with unity of action among 
 nominal disciples of Christianity. From the fact 
 that government has recognized no preference of 
 one over another, the necessity of mutual toleration 
 among the sects — for it has only been toleration, 
 and not charity — has led some in other countries 
 
334 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 to attribute to us as a people much more virtue 
 than is justly ours. 
 
 A well-known British writer, himself a theologian, 
 in speaking of our institutions, says : “ It is hardly 
 possible for any nation to show a greater superiority 
 over another, than the Americans in this particular 
 have shown over us. They have fairly, completely, 
 and probably for ever extinguished that spirit of per- 
 secution, which has been the employment and curse 
 of mankind for four or five centuries; — not only that 
 persecution which imprisons and scourges for opin- 
 ions, but the tyranny of incapacitation, which, by 
 disqualifying from civil offices, and cutting a man 
 off from the lawful objects of ambition, endeavors to 
 strangle religious freedom in silence, and to enjoy all 
 the advantages, without the blood and noise and 
 fire, of persecution.” 
 
 Partially true as this is, you readily perceive how 
 far it is overdrawn. Place by its side the following 
 declaration from a late number of a Homan Catho- 
 lic periodical, published in our own country : “Re- 
 ligious tolerance is a heresy, and no Catholic can for 
 an instant tolerate it. Every Catholic must profess 
 religious intolerance or cease to be a Catholic. The 
 essence of this religious intolerance is expressed in 
 this article of faith : ‘ Out of the Church there is no 
 salvation.’ It follows, therefore, that where religious 
 intolerance must always and everywhere be right, 
 civil tolerance may be proper to-day and not to- 
 morrow, right in one country, and wrong in an- 
 other.” The same writer then proceeds to show 
 where unlimited toleration may be advantageous 
 to the Church, — namely, where the government 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 335 
 
 professes atheism, paganism, or a false religion. 
 In China, England, or the United States, where a 
 false religion prevails, it may be beneficial to the 
 Church that there should be unlimited toleration. 
 On the other hand, where the true religion, that 
 is, the Roman Catholic, controls the government, as 
 in Italy or Spain, “ intolerance on the part of the 
 state becomes a religious duty,” for “ the advocacy 
 of new doctrines would disturb the public peace.” 
 
 You perceive from this doctrine, openly advocated 
 at this day, in our own country, by a religious com- 
 munity equalling in numbers any one of the various 
 churches, how far our government is from extin- 
 guishing completely and for ever that spirit of per- 
 secution which has so long been the dishonor of 
 Christian sects. We perceive that the liberal spirit 
 of our civil institutions has not by any means extin- 
 guished, but, by protecting all in the exercise of 
 their religious sentiments, thus far, has only re- 
 strained , the spirit of persecution. 
 
 Indeed, though liberalizing influences have dif- 
 fused among the people a liberal spirit, yet many of 
 the clergy of Protestant churches, the leaders or 
 guides of denominations, as far as their actual pro- 
 ceedings will warrant an opinion, are as destitute of 
 genuine charity, as intolerant of religious opinions 
 varying from their own, as in any previous period of 
 Christian history. In many of our social circles, the 
 lines of exclusion are drawn on sectarian principles; 
 and not unfrequently, in some of our communities, 
 certain religious sentiments are made the ground of 
 political action, in electing candidates to office. 
 
 No one who reads the weekly publications of the 
 
336 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 religious press, can easily mistake what sort of spirit 
 actuates its directors. The uncharitableness of the 
 religious press is a by-word even among political 
 partisans. 
 
 Lawyers, physicians, and opposing politicians 
 have always been accustomed, more or less, to 
 meet, consult, deliberate, and act together. But a 
 few years since, a number of clergy of several Prot- 
 estant denominations assembled in London, to 
 form what they styled an Evangelical Alliance. 
 The world was moved at the amazing spectacle, and 
 it was thought by some that the “ kingdom of 
 Heaven ” was indeed “ at hand.” Yet what was 
 the first act of that world-surprising assembly? It 
 was to frame a creed excluding from the Alliance 
 not only more than half of all Christendom, namely, 
 the Roman Catholic Church, but also, in express 
 terms, excluding several Protestant denominations, 
 embracing probably one fourth of the Protestant 
 world. 
 
 But what has been the issue of that assembly and 
 that platform ? Almost ever since that time, or for 
 three or four years past, we hear nothing of the 
 Evangelical Alliance. It has died a natural death, 
 expired almost as soon as born, and Bishop Hughes, 
 had he recalled the fact, might have enumerated this 
 among the evidences of what he styles “ the decline 
 of Protestantism.” 
 
 But praise to the Supremely Good, all ^ truth is 
 not enclosed by the walls of Roman Catholic 
 churches, nor confined in Protestant creeds. There 
 are other agencies operating than religious partisans 
 and sectarian denominations. And it is here, under 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 337 
 
 the protection of our government, under the guid- 
 ance of our civil institutions, as all appearances 
 conspire to indicate, that the problem of religious 
 liberty is to be solved, that theoretical and prac- 
 tical religion are to be reconciled. It is for our 
 country and our citizens to prove practicable, entire 
 liberty of conscience and entire unity of action, free- 
 dom of judgment and unity of spirit. 
 
 As in the name of liberty the sternest tyrants 
 have mounted to the throne of despotism, so in the 
 name of religion, through ages, have been perpe- 
 trated the most inhuman and ungodly deeds. In 
 the name of zeal for the Christian faith have been 
 performed enormities which would be deemed cruel 
 even among barbarians. It can then scarcely be a 
 matter of astonishment, if some be found who will 
 express their serious doubts as to Christianity having 
 been a blessing to the world. But we see that mind 
 itself, that which allies the creature to the Creator, • 
 and is in man the image of the Deity, may be dis- 
 torted into the image of coarse brutality. Talent, 
 genius, the loftiest faculties of man, may be per- 
 verted into instruments of the lowest, basest, and 
 most unmanly uses. Christianity has been both 
 misapprehended and misused. Can Christianity in- 
 culcate the most godlike mercy, the most unlimited 
 benevolence, and the most universal brotherhood, 
 and still lead practically to intolerance, hatred, and 
 barbarous cruelty? The indisputable facts afford 
 conclusive evidence of some fundamental misunder- 
 standing or misapplication. 
 
 Need we travel far, or speculate profoundly, to 
 detect the essential mistake ? Is it not obvious 
 29 
 
338 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 enough that the point of misunderstanding has 
 been that of striving for a uniformity of belief which 
 man should never have expected, and which Chris- 
 tianity does not contemplate ? 
 
 Churches have made the chief requirement an 
 agreement of interpretation, instead of purity of 
 character and the practice of benevolence. They 
 have made Christianity only a scheme adapted to an 
 exigency in the remotest past, and a contingency in 
 the remotest future, instead of principles adapted to 
 the present, and to every condition and every action 
 of every rational being. It is thus that Christianity 
 has become an external and dead form, rather than 
 an internal and living spirit, diffusing itself through, 
 and extending itself over, modifying, transforming, 
 and regenerating all things which require to be 
 changed, transformed, or regenerated. 
 
 But many changes have occurred ; transformations 
 numerous are in actual progress. During the seventy- 
 seven years since that memorable day of which to- 
 morrow will be the anniversary, we have spread the 
 myriad wings of commerce, and, visiting every clime 
 and every race, we have returned laden with the 
 treasures of fraternal charity, as well as the luxuries 
 demanded by an affluent civilization. We have 
 discovered that there are, as St. Peter declares, “ in 
 every nation, those who fear God and work right- 
 eousness,” and that “ God is no respecter of per- 
 sons.” Still more, by the vast facilities of intercom- 
 munication, we see our government, like the great 
 orb of day, spreading the shield of its protection 
 over the most opposing religions among men. 
 
 Some few are startled from their sectarian com- 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 339 
 
 posure, by learning that a heathen temple, contain- 
 ing its heathen gods, is erected on our Western 
 coast; — there being now, as variously estimated, 
 from thirty to fifty thousand Chinese in the State of 
 California, where they have erected an edifice for 
 their own worship. 
 
 Thus, under our protecting laws, stand in equal 
 freedom, side by side, the Christian Church, the 
 Jewish Synagogue, and the Heathen Temple. Shall 
 we utter complaints or indulge fears? Where then 
 is our faith in the divine truth and subduing power 
 of our religion ? Is Christianity endangered by the 
 proximity of an idolatrous worship ? We despatch 
 missionaries to subvert the religion of the Pagan, 
 and shall we dread results, when, instead of shrink- 
 ing from us, the Pagan comes to us and challenges 
 investigation ? It is true our Christian brother of 
 Britain sends the Gospel to China, but he enforces 
 it with guns. He offers them Bibles with the alter- 
 native of bullets, and sends them preachers accom- 
 panied with powder. He invites them to the king- 
 dom of Heaven, but the foretaste of its glories he 
 gives in the ecstasies produced by opium and rum. 
 He tells them of Christian saints, and gives them 
 examples in drunken sailors and brutal soldiers. 
 The Chinese Emperor had learned something of 
 Christian history when he said, “ I want no Chris- 
 tianity in my empire, for these Christians whiten 
 the soil with human bones wherever they go.” It 
 should not be amazing if his Majesty had deemed it 
 his duty to send us some missionaries to teach us, 
 according to his view, some lessons of charity, and 
 convince us of the virtues of humanity and peace. 
 
340 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 Some of the sternly disciplined leaders of secta- 
 rianism, who exercise a feeble faith in the inherent 
 power of truth, appear to dread this latitude of civil 
 liberty, which protects, even in a Christian land, the 
 practice of a heathen worship. But the multitudes 
 have less distrust of goodness and of God. They 
 feel that in Christianity there is a divine element of 
 truth which can never suffer by comparison with 
 heathen error, and they see that our government, 
 thus far in its operation, is like the Deity, who causes 
 his sun to shine on the ignorant and the wise, the 
 evil and the good. The mass of men, though at- 
 tached to the systems and churches of their child- 
 hood, are yet interested, as all observation testifies, 
 as much in the advancement of society as in the or- 
 ganism of their church. They love man more than 
 they love their creed ; they study universal truth more 
 than their prescribed doctrines ; and they labor more 
 for the advancement of Christian liberty than for 
 their sectarian success. 
 
 As a nation, we experience an unexampled de- 
 gree of material prosperity, and it is true that in the 
 multiform activities we do not always find a due 
 regard to religious agencies and religious principles. 
 But this indifference is not enmity, — it is not even 
 opposition. Railway companies may build cost- 
 ly depots rather than splendid churches, but they 
 are strengthening the principle of united social ac- 
 tion. They may increase the percentage of their 
 dividends, but they are also increasing the sympa- 
 thies of a divided people, and blending the interests 
 of separated communities. Every car rushing over 
 city and county lines, and recognizing no State 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 341 
 
 limits, is a herald of good tidings, a harbinger of 
 peace, a proclaimer of good-will. The lines of iron 
 network, far and wide extending through the atmos- 
 phere, are electric nerves by which the whole nation 
 thrills to the same impulse and vibrates to the same 
 touch, and through which millions may sympathize, 
 from Occident to Orient, from the Pole to the 
 Equator. 
 
 These inventions of art, and material agents, are 
 not enemies of religion. They are mighty moral 
 forces. For by extinguishing distances we are de- 
 stroying differences ; by bringing people nearer to 
 each other, we obliterate the lines which have divid- 
 ed them ; by joining their social sympathies, we 
 weaken their religious prejudices. 
 
 To men and women who daily enter the same 
 doors, travel in the same cars, reside in the same 
 hotels, and sit at the same tables, the rumblings of 
 pulpit thunder soon loose their terrors, and priestly 
 denunciations are soon regarded as harmless out- 
 bursts of venerable fretfulness, — the complainings 
 of a spirit of restless exclusiveness, declining of old 
 age, and unhappy even in its departing hours, as a 
 righteous retribution for making others miserable 
 while it lived. I would not be understood as pre- 
 dicting the speedy advent of a millennium of na- 
 tional love and brotherhood and glory. I would 
 neither overlook nor underrate the obstacles yet to 
 be surmounted by the benevolent spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. For there is still existing, as we have seen, 
 a domineering spirit of church authority, Protestant 
 as well as Romanist, which, if armed with civil 
 power, would soon stifle all free thought, and check 
 29 * 
 
342 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 all outward progress which might be deemed incom- 
 patible w T ith religious tyranny. 
 
 Still more, there is a servility to public prejudice, 
 an obsequiousness to fashion, and a timeserving 
 dread of popular shadows, which must be displaced 
 by the inspiration of a strong sense of human 
 dignity, a free, firm consciousness of manly inde- 
 pendence, before permanent and rapid progress can 
 be made in the real liberty of the Gospel. 
 
 But, with a republican government well estab- 
 lished, and now growing venerable by years, — with 
 liberty of conscience and liberty of speech unre- 
 strained by violence, — with foreign commerce and 
 domestic enterprise, — with a common language, a 
 common literature, and a free press, — with benev- 
 olent unions of every form, having in view no polit- 
 ical or sectarian designs, but moral objects, social 
 improvement, and mutual aid, uniting men of all 
 parties, classes, sects, and religions, — with all these, 
 potent agencies in free and successful operation, 
 spiritual tyranny and church exclusiveness cannot 
 hope for immortality. Their days are numbered, 
 and union and brotherhood must triumph. 
 
 In the rapid and sanguinary revolutions of Eu- 
 rope, from despotism to liberty, then back from 
 republicanism to monarchy, many of the unhappy 
 millions may be distrustful and discouraged in the 
 cause of truth. They may be unable to determine 
 whether the present aspect of affairs is but one of 
 the vicissitudes of an eternal revolution, which, in 
 the history of nations, must always mark the chang- 
 ing fortunes of mankind, or whether it is only the 
 precursor of a mighty convulsion which shall shake 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 343 
 
 the continent; — a solemn calm, with darkly gather- 
 ing clouds, before the eruption of volcanic fires, now 
 burning and gathering strength in the bosom of the 
 people, but which, in a devouring torrent, shall one 
 day sweep away every vestige of venerable tyran- 
 nies, preparatory to the renovation of the social 
 heavens and social earth, for a new, better, and more 
 enduring condition of the European race. 
 
 But with our peaceful security, unparalleled free- 
 dom, general intelligence, commercial relations, and 
 lofty position before the world, we clearly see that 
 our mission is a moral mission. If to any people on 
 earth is indicated by Providence a work to do, it is 
 clearly ours, to solve the problem of religious liberty 
 and Christian union. To embody and exemplify 
 the alliance of religion and morals, to reconcile prac- 
 tically and for ever the two great commandments, 
 duty to God and duty to man, — love to our Father 
 and love to our brother, — Divine worship and 
 human fraternity. 
 
 The final conflict between spiritual authority and 
 spiritual freedom has not yet been fought. The vic- 
 tory of free thought has not yet been secured. To 
 some of its auxiliaries in our land and age, we have 
 now adverted. Church despotisms, both Romanist 
 and Protestant, feel the reins of power over human 
 conscience gliding rapidly from their reluctant hands, 
 and in voice of lamentation they are bewailing the 
 ungodliness of the age. It is only an age of doubt, 
 they tell us, — an age of faithlessness, an age of 
 gross impiety. But I would tell them that, having 
 eyes, they see not, because of their own stolid infatua- 
 tion ; that this is an age of unexampled energy, 
 
344 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 and benevolence, and beneficence, and faith in the 
 power of goodness, rather than of plans, schemes, 
 articles, and confessions ; that the world is moving 
 while they stand still, and that the motion of the 
 time is not backward, but onward, and pacific, and 
 humane ; that the watchwords of our country are 
 union and brotherhood, — the very heart of the Chris- 
 tian philosophy, the very standard from the sacred 
 lips of Jesus : “ By this shall all men know that ye 
 are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 
 
 Yes, it is here that the Sun of righteousness is to 
 reach the zenith of its earthly glory. If not here, in 
 this land, where every religion is protected, where 
 every conscience is held sacred, — where no rack, 
 no stake, no scaffold, can intimidate, — where no 
 church, no creed, priest, or preacher can interpose 
 earthly authority between the soul and its Creator, 
 — if not here, then explore the globe and tell 
 me where. Consider the present and presage the 
 future, and tell me when and where the problem 
 of religious liberty can be resolved ? Tell me 
 when and where opinion unrestrained, and co- 
 operation in unity of spirit, can be practicable or be 
 possible. The truth has been declared, the decree 
 has gone forth. The angel of a free faith stands 
 with one foot upon the land and one upon the sea 
 of this last-born hemisphere, and affirms in the name 
 of God, and of human welfare, that the terrors of 
 religious tyranny shall be here no longer. 
 
 It is said of the brave Reformer of the sixteenth 
 century, that he then blew a blast which shook all 
 Europe. But that blast was blown for only a par- 
 tial emancipation of the soul from spiritual chains. 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 345 
 
 For by his own hostility to his laboring brethren, the 
 Reformer soon discovered that, with all his bold advo- 
 cacy of private judgment, he meant by freedom no 
 more than a change of masters ; and from that day 
 till this, the Reformation, though leading indirectly 
 to the best aspects of the present, has been directly 
 little else than an exchange of Roman pontiffs for 
 Protestant popes. Luther was only the Moses to 
 lead to the confines of Canaan, which he saw from 
 Pisgah, but not the Joshua to conduct Israel up fully 
 into the rich land of promise. 
 
 In the way of independent investigation of Chris- 
 tian truth, there is a tyranny of Protestant church 
 systems extending its hideous arms into the most 
 sacred privacy of social relations, which is as for- 
 midable to the timid and unheroic searcher, as the 
 racks of a Roman inquisition, which so effectually 
 extinguish the evil of heresy. But, superior to the 
 spirit either of Romanism or of Protestantism, there 
 is a spirit of Christianity, whose heavenly aspect 1 
 would gladly recognize in the heart of any human 
 brother, whether found in a Romanist cathedral or a 
 Protestant prayer-meeting. 
 
 We see now some of the potent forces which are 
 at work, destroying divisions, and harmonizing sec- 
 tions, societies, and the interests of individuals. 
 The only method remaining to perpetuate relig- 
 ious exclusiveness is to stop steam-cars, take down 
 telegraphs, silence the press, and destroy the news- 
 paper. For every observer must perceive that rail- 
 roads, electric wires, a free press, and a free litera- 
 ture are the natural, necessary, uncompromising, and 
 eternal enemies of self-complacent and uncharitable 
 sectarianism. 
 
346 THE MORAL MISSION OF OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 This day completes seventy-seven years since our 
 patriot fathers proclaimed the charter of civil free- 
 dom, under which, at this hour, we live and prosper. 
 But we have yet to hear proclaimed the declaration 
 of the world’s religious disenthralment. Give us but 
 the pacific policy, the material prosperity, the scien- 
 tific discoveries, beneficent inventions, and harmo- 
 nizing Christian researches of seventy-seven years 
 more, under the protection of our independent g ov* 
 ernment, and the work is done. In this hemisphere 
 spiritual tyranny will have perished, sectarianism 
 will have died, its history will have been recorded, 
 its epitaph written, the human mind will be free, 
 and God will reign supreme sovereign of the soul. 
 Three quarters of a century more of a pacific policy! 
 Yes, it must be, if at all, — it must be in peace that 
 the problem of religious liberty is to be resolved. War 
 disorders all, revolution confuses everything. Liter- 
 ature, sculpture, painting, music, all the harmoniz- 
 ing, refining, and elevating arts are unpatronized, 
 suspended, often crushed, in war. The resources of 
 the nation are then turned in a wrong direction, and 
 employed to uncivilize society. Our own country, 
 directly or indirectly, within the last twelve years, 
 has expended in war a sufficient amount of money 
 to have purchased all the territory she has acquired, 
 and besides this to have built a college in every city, 
 perhaps in every county, of this broad Union, afford- 
 ing each a handsome perpetual endowment, by which 
 every child now living in this land might, as far as 
 capable, have been liberally educated, to say nothing 
 of the loss of human life and human happiness, 
 which no words can describe, and no figures cal- 
 
WITH REFERENCE TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 347 
 
 culate. Such are the painful trials to which we are 
 subjecting our Christian faith, the peculiar message 
 of which proclaims peace on earth and good-will 
 among men. Both the war and the expenditure 
 may have been necessary and inevitable ; yet, in this 
 nineteenth century of enlightened Christianity, all 
 such expenditure appears to indicate the passing 
 strange short-sightedness of human action. The 
 religious mission of our country, the power of our 
 religion itself among ourselves, manifestly depend 
 upon our peaceful policy. 
 
 Surely there is a glorious day yet to come, and 
 though we may not, the generations who follow us 
 will see and enjoy it. Let us cherish grateful mem- 
 ories this day of the noble deeds and virtues of our 
 departed fathers, as we would be gratefully remem- 
 bered by those who shall succeed us. 
 
 Now may each of us, and all, enjoy the benedic- 
 tion of the God of our fathers, who is our God, and 
 the God of the eternal future. 
 
DISCOURSE XXIV. 
 
 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? WHO IS A 
 UNITARIAN ? 
 
 YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE 
 
 you free. — John viii. 32. 
 
 THAT THEY MAY BE ONE, EVEN AS WE ARE ONE. — John 
 xvii. 22. 
 
 ENDEAVORING TO KEEP THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE 
 BOND OF PEACE. — Eph. iv. 3. 
 
 A name is inevitable. Some, it is said, “ are born 
 great, some achieve greatness, and some have great- 
 ness thrust upon them.” So it seems to be, in some 
 sense, with names. A name is voluntarily chosen, 
 or it is imputed. Some seem to be born with names, 
 some achieve names, and some have names thrust 
 upon them. 
 
 It is the same with bodies of men as with indi- 
 viduals. And neither can any name be adopted 
 voluntarily, nor any assigned involuntarily, without 
 liability to misconstruction. Names are descriptive 
 usually, or are designed to be descriptive, in some 
 particular or particulars, of the persons or communi- 
 ties which adopt or receive them. All names being 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 349 
 
 liable to misconstruction, it frequently occurs that 
 a name is regarded as describing those who bear it 
 in some certain particulars in which it does not de- 
 scribe them. Sometimes a name is understood in a 
 sense too confined, and sometimes in a sense too 
 extended. 
 
 No name among Christians has for half a century 
 been more misrepresented, nor is any now more mis- 
 understood, than that of Unitarians. For three cen- 
 turies, the names Roman Catholic and Protestant 
 have designated two great divisions, the one, as its 
 name indicates, claiming universal obedience to the 
 Pontiff of Rome ; the other, as its name indicates, 
 standing opposed to, or protesting against, the Roman 
 Catholic claims. The Protestant, or protesting di- 
 vision, is subdivided into Episcopal and Presbyte- 
 rian, Methodist and Baptist, and innumerable other 
 divisions. They all alike resemble the Roman Cath- 
 olic in this respect, — that each division and sub- 
 division prescribes some article of faith concerning 
 God or man, time or eternity, or some external rite 
 or ceremony, as an essential or prerequisite to admis- 
 sion among them, — to the enjoyment of what they 
 are pleased to style Christian fellowship, by which is 
 to be understood fellowship with their party. In 
 this respect the term Unitarian expresses a peculi- 
 arity distinct from both the Protestant and Roman 
 Catholic. Seeing that no article of faith, that no 
 external rite, produces the unity of belief which it is 
 designed to produce, we propose that men shall not 
 be Protestant Christians with a Protestant creed, not 
 Roman Catholic Christians with a Roman Catholic 
 creed, nor Presbyterians with a Presbyterian creed, 
 30 
 
350 
 
 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 nor Episcopalians with an Episcopalian creed, nor 
 any peculiar sect with a sectarian creed, but that we 
 all shall be united or Unitarian Christians, aside from 
 all creeds and all rites, each mind being fully per- 
 suaded for itself, adopting its own creed, and express- 
 ing that faith by such outward rites as it may re- 
 gard as Scriptural, reasonable, just, and proper, — no 
 church, no organization, no minister, no confession, 
 no ceremony, presuming to interpose between the 
 human soul and God ; — acknowledging the claim of 
 every man who makes it to the name of Christian, 
 and deciding his title to that name solely by his daily 
 and uniform deportment, by his practical obedience 
 to Christian precepts and principles, by his invariable 
 conduct towards man and his reverence towards 
 God, and not by any one public profession, nor 
 any one outward ceremonial ; — at the same time 
 leaving every man, agreeably to his own sense of ob- 
 ligation, so far as he does not trespass on the con- 
 science or liberty of another, to make such public 
 profession, and adopt such ritual observances, as he 
 may deem conducive to his own moral and spiritual 
 advancement. 
 
 The source of the common misapprehension is 
 obvious. So thoroughly are minds in the world of 
 Christendom imbued with the idea that all fellow- 
 ship must be founded on some verbal statement of 
 belief, that they understand the term Unitarian in a 
 narrow and sectarian sense, as referring only to a 
 certain theory of the nature of God, — that God is 
 one instead of three, — that the term Unitarian des- 
 ignates only a sect, based on antagonism to the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity. That God is, in his being, ab- 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 351 
 
 solutely one, — one nature, one person, — most of 
 those who are known as Unitarian Christians do 
 hold, as their individual opinions; but not all. In 
 this sense I myself am a Unitarian ; but when I 
 speak of Unitarian Christians, I employ a term de- 
 scriptive of them as Christians, and not descriptive 
 of God as a person. When I say I believe in the 
 strict personal unity of God, this is one thing and 
 easily understood ; but when I speak of Unitarian 
 Christians, I express a character of the men, the 
 Christians themselves, and not of the God they wor- 
 ship. Although I find no such term as Trinity in 
 Scripture, although I find no such phrase in the Bible 
 as God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost, — or the 
 divine nature, or the human nature, of Christ, — yet 
 to question any man who chooses to worship at 
 the same altar with me, whether he believes in the 
 theory expressed by these phrases of the creeds, is 
 no right, is no concern of mine, except so far as we 
 may desire to compare our opinions personally. He 
 may hold to the Trinity in the Divine nature, and all 
 its kindred doctrines; yet if, so far from regarding 
 these as essential doctrines, he unites with me in 
 worship, and in Christian benevolence and effort to 
 live the Christian life, he is a Unitarian Christian. 
 He may be at the same time a nominal member of a 
 Roman Catholic church, or a Protestant church of 
 any sect, and still, if, so far from regarding the creed 
 and observances of that church as essential to the 
 Christian name, or essential to my present or eternal 
 welfare, he concede to me the Christian name, and 
 grant that, however true his creed to him, he does 
 not assume infallibility, or pronounce it essential to 
 
352 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 my welfare, — then I regard him, and every such 
 man, as a Unitarian Christian. Ecclesiastical his- 
 tory abundantly testifies, that concerning the nature 
 and person of God, and the nature and rank of Jesus 
 the Christ, no creed was established, no opinion was 
 exacted, no verbal statement was prescribed by the 
 churches or congregations, for three hundred years 
 after the time of Jesus. During the third and fourth 
 centuries, every species of speculation became ram- 
 pant; Greek converts with their Greek philosophy, 
 — Roman converts with the lingering vestiges of 
 Roman polytheism, — Hebrew converts with their 
 Hebrew ceremonies and traditions, — Egyptian and 
 other converts with their several prejudices, — each 
 striving to modify Christianity, both as to rites and 
 doctrines, by his former and original peculiarities. 
 Contest arose on almost every agitated question* 
 concerning God, man, Jesus, as well as on the forms 
 and manner of worship. Then the word Trinity 
 was for the first time used. The word is nowhere 
 in the Bible, and was never found in any book or 
 writing of Christians till used in the third century 
 by Theophilus, a bishop of Antioch. 
 
 As to the nature and rank and offices of Jesus, 
 every variety of opinion existed - ; but the dispute as 
 to the strict unity of God’s person, on the one hand, 
 and the trinity of persons, on the other hand, be- 
 came so violent, that it had to be settled by the votes 
 of a General Council. All parties have prominent 
 men or leaders, and in this contest Arius was chief 
 in defending the strict unity of God’s person, while 
 Athanasius advocated a trinity of persons in God, 
 insisting that Jesus and the Holy Spirit, though dis- 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 353 
 
 tinct persons, were each one God, as well as the Su- 
 preme Father and Creator, and yet that there were 
 not three Gods but one God. The Emperor Con- 
 stantine endeavored to settle the dispute by calling a 
 Council, which, after fierce discussion, in the year 325, 
 decided by vote that Jesus was also God, and yet that 
 there were not two Gods, but one. Thus 318 bishops 
 by their votes decided what should be the world’s creed. 
 Another Council, however, fifty-six years after, ter- 
 minated the contest by voting that the Holy Spirit 
 was also God, and yet that there were not three 
 Gods, but one. Both these parties, you perceive, ac- 
 knowledged — or at least there was no alternative 
 to the minority — the authority of the Council, 
 the church and state, in this decision. Taking the 
 names of the leaders, the two parties were known as 
 Athanasians and Arians. They did not style them- 
 selves Trinitarians and Unitarians. These terms 
 were not employed in those days. 
 
 Although these Councils decided what opinions 
 should be publicly taught, they could not decide what 
 men should think. Consequently, twelve hundred 
 years after, as soon as the change called the Reforma- 
 tion took place, the same contest revived, as soon as 
 men were allowed to express their thoughts ; and the 
 first martyr burned at the stake by Protestants, for his 
 opinions, was Dr. Servetus, whom John Calvin had 
 burned in the streets of Geneva, because he would 
 not acknowledge belief in the Trinity. At this time 
 Socinus was a prominent teacher, who held to the 
 strict unity of God, and those who entertained the 
 same or similar sentiments were reproachfully called 
 Socinians ; but they themselves took the name of 
 30 * 
 
354 
 
 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 Unitarian, referring only to their belief concerning 
 God. 
 
 Then, sixty years ago, when the same contest oc- 
 curred in this country, in the New England States, 
 the two parties bore the name of Trinitarian and 
 Unitarian, referring more especially to the question 
 in dispute concerning the person of Jesus and the 
 nature of God. Most of the Unitarians then were 
 disposed to continue to worship with their Trinita- 
 rian brethren ; they had no desire to separate them- 
 selves, to build new churches, or form a new sect. 
 But those who held the doctrine of the Trinity re- 
 garded it as essential to the Christian name and to 
 the eternal welfare of man, and they expelled the 
 Unitarians as heretics, unbelievers, — sometimes de- 
 nominating them Infidels. A new issue therefore 
 arose. The truth or the untruth of the doctrine of 
 the Trinity became a point of minor importance, and 
 the real question then became this: Has any church, 
 or body of men, a right to exclude, condemn, stig- 
 matize and pronounce judgment on other men, for 
 a difference of opinion, — for a different understand- 
 ing of words of Scripture ? 
 
 The Unitarians then became the representatives 
 and champions of entire freedom of mind and con- 
 science, repudiating all ecclesiastical authority, and 
 defending liberty of thought in religion, no less than 
 in politics, — insisting on the principle of progress 
 in religious science, no less than in natural science. 
 And such is the position now occupied by those 
 who take the name of Unitarian Christians, i. e. 
 united or union Christians, — just as these are Unit- 
 ed or Unitarian States of America. They claim the 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 355 
 
 right of every society of worshippers to organize so 
 far, and in such manner, as those composing it may 
 deem expedient, for the advancement of liberal prin- 
 ciples and virtuous lives; — to adopt such modes of 
 worship, such rites and ceremonies, as may seem best 
 adapted to promote their individual good, and the 
 general welfare of society, — each congregation and 
 each individual being responsible to established gov- 
 ernment for the observance or disobedience of its laws. 
 A study of mental phenomena, the faculties and op- 
 erations of the human mind, — a study of human his- 
 tory in all past ages, — a careful observation of socie- 
 ties and institutions, churches, and their observances, 
 — satisfy us that perfect coincidence of opinion or 
 doctrine never has existed, and does not exist; that 
 no such verbal or doctrinal concurrence is contem- 
 plated by Christianity ; that it is morally impossible, 
 and therefore never to be expected. 
 
 What therefore remains, but to seek for such agree- 
 ment and co-operation as is entirely practicable ? 
 And what this is, Scripture happily joins with ex- 
 perience and observation in indicating to mankind. 
 The true unity is described in Scripture as “ unity 
 of spirit in the bond of peace.” This unity is 
 that which we, as Unitarian Christians, are striving 
 to attain ; and so far have we been successful, that, 
 while fifty years ago not five congregations, nor per- 
 haps five hundred persons in the United States, could 
 be found to take this open, independent attitude, 
 now more than a million of the intelligent population 
 of our country openly declare themselves, in senti- 
 ment and practice, Unitarian Christians. As to 
 Antitrinitarians, or Unitarians in a mere dogmatic 
 sense, there are upwards of three millions. 
 
356 
 
 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 We are confirmed in the truth and propriety of 
 our position, when we now see that the most arbi- 
 trary verbal statements fail to unite men who sub- 
 scribe to the same articles. For churches holding 
 the same creeds, and the same form of organization, 
 separate and oppose and denounce each other, as 
 perverters of the truth, each claiming to defend the 
 same written formula. 
 
 We see that those adhering to the same rite as 
 essential, such as baptism, and to the same mode of 
 administration, such as immersion, separate and 
 denounce each other as heretical. Hence we have 
 Presbyterian Old School and New School, and other 
 varieties, subscribing to the same confession, yet refus- 
 ing Christian fellowship with each other. We have 
 High-Church and Low-Church Episcopalians, sub- 
 scribing the same articles, yet condemning each party 
 the other in the bluntest terms. We see Episcopal 
 Methodists, and Protestant Methodists, and Wesley- 
 an Methodists, and other Methodists, holding the 
 same fundamental doctrines, yet carrying on a cease- 
 less internal warfare. We see Missionary Baptists, 
 and Anti-missionary Baptists, and other varieties of 
 Baptists, agreeing in the same essential rites, yet 
 opposing each other with a violence that would dis- 
 credit the partisans of political controversy. Amidst 
 all this din, and dust, and confusion of sectarian 
 warfare, we discern the only path of repose and 
 safety, not in unity of organizations, not in unity of 
 rites and ceremonies, not in unity of doctrines and 
 written articles, not in a professed unity of faith, not 
 in a supposed unity of inward experiences ; but sim- 
 ply in unity of spirit in the bond of peace. As we 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY? 357 
 
 differ in bodily conformation, and yet peacefully re- 
 side in the same house, just as universally and en- 
 tirely are we to differ in our perceptions of truth and 
 its relations, and yet peacefully co-operate in the same 
 offices of benevolence, meet in the same temple, and 
 unite in the same expressions of grateful reverence 
 to God, discussing every topic of faith and duty, of 
 doctrine and practice, with the largest liberty of 
 thought, implying no obligation on the part of any 
 hearer to adopt the sentiments of the speaker, ex- 
 cept so far as they commend themselves to his judg- 
 ment and his conscience, and with no implied obli- 
 gation on the part of the speaker to conform himself 
 to the opinions of his hearers. 
 
 But lest you may regard my use of the term Uni- 
 tarian as wholly arbitrary and singular, let me refer 
 you to an illustration of the same use of the term 
 in a political sense. In an article from a London 
 periodical (the London Leader) on “ Parties in Italy,” 
 the writer speaks in these terms : — “ Monarchism as 
 a positive element, as a source of life and progress, 
 never entered into the historical tradition of Italy. It 
 has ever been an icy incubus, stopping the beatings 
 of the nation’s heart. It has during three hundred 
 years hermetically kept down the tombstone over all 
 
 collective movement, and Unitarian aspirations 
 
 Italy is essentially republican, essentially Unitarian. 
 She is so by all her tradition and her instincts, — 
 she is so by her solidarity with Europe.” * Here 
 you observe that the political spirit of Italy, her col- 
 lective movement, is called Unitarian aspiration, — 
 and by her instincts and traditions, by her solidarity 
 
 * See Christian Inquirer of January 31, 1852. 
 
358 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 with Europe, she is styled by the writer essentially 
 republican, essentially Unitarian. Unity of thought 
 or of action, unity in some respect, is always regard- 
 ed as a desirable and important characteristic. The 
 Church of Rome has always greatly prided itself on 
 its unity, but its unity is only a unity of authority, 
 a unity of organization, a ritual unity. Whence 
 have come all the sects and subdivisions of the Prot- 
 estant world, at which she points so scornfully ? 
 They have all proceeded from the bosom of what 
 she chooses to style her unity. She hooped and 
 pressed her several parts so strongly, that the mate- 
 rial could be pressed no longer; and repeated explo- 
 sions have occurred, scattering into fragments her 
 mere outward unity. 
 
 A want of the true unity, the only reasonable 
 unity, unity of a peaceful spirit, — the want of this 
 among the churches, among religionists of every 
 kind, is very plausibly and fairly made a plea for the 
 existence and support of the various mutual benevo- 
 lent associations of our day and of our country. In 
 an address delivered some time since at an annual 
 celebration of one of the existing benevolent orders 
 of our country, I find this plea offered in these very 
 words. The speaker says : u At the present day, the 
 multiplicity of religious sects into which Christen- 
 dom is divided, justifies the establishment of some 
 common ground where the parties may forget their 
 feuds, and unite their efforts in discharging the re- 
 ciprocal duties of this life. While they individually 
 maintain the faith by which their religious com- 
 munion is distinguished, this association, so far from 
 working evil, will produce mutual respect and esteem, 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 359 
 
 and by unity of benevolent action pave the way to 
 unity of faith. The tendencies of our order,” con- 
 tinues this writer, “in a political point of view, may 
 be estimated by the harmonizing influence it exerts 
 over the angry passions and discordant dispositions 
 of our nature, and the wide dissemination of that 
 moral virtue which is the true cement of our civil 
 institutions.” Now this indicates exactly the defect 
 of the churches of Christendom, and the want which 
 we as Unitarian Christians propose to meet, the de- 
 mand which we believe can be supplied. We pro- 
 pose to effect, not only unity of a spirit of benevo- 
 lence, but also unity of a spirit of religion. 
 
 Is this thought to be — is it alleged to be — im- 
 practicable ? You have only to recall the fact, that 
 the Jews were divided into sects differing in opinion 
 as widely as the remotest sects of Christians, and yet 
 they, for the whole nation, had but one great temple, 
 at which the whole people joined in worship. So 
 various were their sentiments, that, while one part 
 believed in a future existence, others believed in no 
 future existence, good or bad. Still -they worshipped 
 by the same priesthood, and in the same church. 
 Impracticable ! why, unity in diversity, co-operation 
 without compromise of individual sentiment, is the 
 grand feature of our times, our social life, our pro- 
 gressive civilization. Is it not by united or Unitarian 
 companies that we build railways across states and 
 nations? Is it not by Unitarian companies that we ex- 
 tend electric telegraphs between the remotest points, 
 bringing the word and spirit of man into contact 
 with the word and spirit of man ? Is it not by Uni- 
 tarian companies that the great manufacturing pro- 
 
360 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 cesses are carried on, the great commercial enter- 
 prises undertaken, and the facilities and agents of 
 our whole material and intellectual civilization cre- 
 ated and carried into operation ? What are cities 
 themselves but Unitarian communities, living har- 
 moniously under the same municipal regulations ? 
 
 Then as to moral enterprises, how is it that in the 
 halls of the various benevolent associations are found, 
 seated side by side, men of the most discordant sen- 
 timents, — men from every party in politics and from 
 every sect in religion ? How is it that in this ca- 
 pacity, and feeling no concession of individual right, 
 no compromise of personal opinion, they each ad- 
 dress the other fraternally by the sacred name of 
 brother? Is there no significance in this ? 
 
 Yes, it speaks, and in tones loud enough to startle 
 every church from its torpidity. It tells us that the 
 very instincts of human nature demand sympathy, 
 benevolent sympathy, — and unity, a spiritual unity. 
 And still more, it should teach the churches that this 
 sympathy is attainable, and this unity is practicable. 
 Up from the churches, it is true, comes a continual 
 strain of lamentation over the divisions and desola- 
 tions of Zion. But what remedy are they proposing 
 for the evil? They pray, and they hope for union ; 
 but how much nearer are they now, than ever before, 
 to the consummation of their hopes ? Where is their 
 physician to prescribe, and their balm of Gilead to 
 heal the malady ? 
 
 Every year, almost every month, some new schism 
 occurs ; a fresh dispersion, a new subdivision, a new 
 sect, appears. Alike each old one with the new 
 bears aloft its party banner, its exclusive motto, its 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 361 
 
 divine and essential creed, and generation after gen- 
 eration leaves the field ; each successive standard- 
 bearer lives and dies, and passes from earth, shouting 
 the old watchwords ; and each church wonders at 
 the obstinacy and depravity of men, that the whole 
 world does not rush into its particular fold, and re- 
 peat its shibboleth, and bear its superscription. Each 
 alike infatuated in devotion to its system, they all 
 fail to learn from history, they all fail to profit by ex- 
 perience. All the while they fail to perceive that 
 man is solving the problem of human progress with- 
 out their aid. Unlike Belshazzar in his revelry, they, 
 in the intoxication of their zeal, or the blindness of 
 their superstitious faith, do not perceive the hand- 
 writing on the very wail above their altars, recording 
 their fate: 11 Your kingdom is divided; ye are weighed 
 in the balance and found wanting.” So ardently 
 engaged are they in word-wars, and metaphysical 
 discussion, and hair-splitting distinctions, and cold 
 criticisms, and internal experiences of grace, and 
 frenzied exclamations of glorious visions, and extrav- 
 agant professions of guilt and penitence, they do 
 not perceive that the golden thread of human lovefis 
 passing silently from hand to hand, through all the 
 churches, and that those who touch it are electrified 
 and attracted, and, discovering latent and slumbering 
 in every bosom the great vivifying principle of be- 
 nevolence, are turning their backs upon the con- 
 tracted precincts of sectarianism, are ascending to 
 the broad, high, heavenly platform of humanity, 
 are discovering the new commandment of Chris- 
 tianity, that “ye should love one another,” and 
 are silently unfolding the grand central principle of 
 31 
 
362 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 Christian fraternity, the divine revelation of human 
 brotherhood. 
 
 The sublime idea of spiritual unity is taking pos- 
 session of the world, and nothing but the infatuating 
 power of religious prejudice can account for the as- 
 tounding obtuseness of religious leaders to the fact 
 that members of all their exclusive communions are 
 evincing their determination to develop the fraternal 
 element in their nature, their fixed resolve to seek 
 out and detect the smothered embers of virtue in 
 every human breast, — to find out every point of 
 human sympathy, and every means of virtuous co- 
 operation. 
 
 Hundreds of every church are virtually saying to 
 their priesthood : “ You may classify us on Sundays 
 into saints and sinners, friends and enemies of God, 
 but you cannot prevent us on Mondays from uniting 
 to recognize the universal paternity of the Almighty. 
 As Roman Catholics or Protestants, as Presbyteri- 
 ans or Baptists, you may deny us intercourse in the 
 churches, but as Masons, and Odd Fellows, and 
 Sons of Temperance, you cannot deprive us of in- 
 tercourse in the lodge-rooms. As church-members 
 you may separate us one day in the week, but as 
 Christian men we will unite our hearts and hands, 
 our words and deeds, for the remaining six days of 
 the week.” I am not a member of any of these so- 
 cieties, but to me, as to all men, this is their lan- 
 guage, the loud language of human action, which 
 the clergy in the Babel confusion of their controver- 
 sies do not hear. The author of the address to 
 which I have already alluded, partakes of the com- 
 mon error of separating faith from works, and re- 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 363 
 
 ligion from morality. In defending his order from 
 the allegation of a tendency to supplant or come 
 in conflict with the Church, he says of it: “It has 
 no religious creed. It does not profess to teach 
 original truth, but it simply unites men to practise 
 those duties which are universally admitted to be 
 right and proper. If it invaded the functions of the 
 Church by daring to teach a religious system, it 
 would long since have been discovered by thousands 
 who delight to do it honor, and, in place of defend- 
 ing, they would have been found fighting, shoulder 
 to shoulder, with the foremost of our opposers.” 
 
 So this advocate of the secular order announces 
 that it has no religious creed, but simply unites men 
 to practise those duties which are universally admitted 
 to be right and proper. The function of the Church, 
 echoes the minister from the pulpit, is to teach a 
 religious system. So that teaching a religious sys- 
 tem, it appears, is one thing, and putting to practice 
 the duties universally acknowledged to be right and 
 proper, is another and different thing. And the secu- 
 lar order, in discharging its' functions, does not in- 
 vade the functions of the Church. Here is the great 
 error the Church is still committing, — she separates 
 teaching from acting, — she substitutes believing for 
 doing, — she preaches, but does not practise. Does 
 the sectarian tell me that religion is for another, a 
 future and eternal world ? I tell him religion is for 
 this present and temporal world too, and no less than 
 for a future. Does he tell me religion is a divine 
 plan to save the soul ? I tell him it is a divine prin- 
 ciple to save the soul and body also. Does he tell 
 me that Christianity is a scheme to save the soul 
 
364 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 from the consequences in an eternal world of sin in 
 this world? I tell him Christianity is not a scheme, 
 but a spirit and a truth, to save the soul from sin it- 
 self, in this world and in all worlds, just as far as 
 that truth and spirit are embraced. And it is be- 
 cause men want such a religion, such a spirit, and 
 such a truth, and because they do not find it in the 
 teachings and the creeds and the ceremonies of the 
 churches, that they testify the existence of the di- 
 vine nature and tendency within them, by seeking 
 elsewhere, in other associations, by other methods, 
 for a recognition of this divine communion. These 
 societies all profess to develop Christian principles, 
 to practise Christian virtues, — thereby virtually de- 
 claring, and declaring truly, that the churches fail to 
 develop and practise the Christian virtues. But is 
 the Church the embodiment and exponent of Chris- 
 tian principles, and should she not do all that these 
 societies are designed to do? Should not Christians, 
 as Christians, do all that these members of societies 
 do as members of these societies ? I thank God for 
 these societies, since churches divide men rather than 
 unite them ; but is it not the golden rule and funda- 
 mental precept of Christianity, to do to others as we 
 would that they should do to us ? Christians can 
 unite, — they will unite, — they must unite, before 
 Christianity can perform its mission. But the effi- 
 cient unity can never be a verbal unity ; it can be 
 neither doctrinal unity nor ritual unity. The whole 
 history and present aspects of the world afford evi- 
 dence amounting to demonstration, that a peaceful 
 unity, a Unitarian spirit, is essential, and is entirely 
 practicable, among Christians. There is a platform 
 broad and strong enough for all. 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 365 
 
 We all believe in God, the omnipotent Creator, 
 the just Ruler, the moral Governor, the beneficent 
 Father of the universe; and beyond the revelation 
 of Scripture and the revelation of nature, we require 
 no creed to make this declaration. We all acknowl- 
 edge the necessity of obedience to the law of God, 
 which governs our corporeal, our intellectual and 
 spiritual nature ; and we require no written formula 
 to declare this. We all acknowledge the two com- 
 mandments of Jesus of Nazareth, love to our God, 
 and love to our fellow-man, as comprehending the 
 all-sufficient and only means of obedience to the 
 laws of God ; and beyond the New Testament teach- 
 ings, we require no written creed to declare this. 
 
 Here, then, every essential truth, every essential 
 principle, is admitted by all claiming to be Chris- 
 tians. The churches are like prisms, separating the 
 rays of divine light ; but hope, truth, and love form 
 the great lens which is to collect the scattered rays 
 of truth reflected from all human hearts, and blend 
 them into one harmonious picture of benevolence 
 and peace. 
 
 Sometimes we hear the largest liberty commend- 
 ed where it is not greatly practised. Not long since, 
 in one of the most prominent Presbyterian periodi- 
 cals in our country, the New York Evangelist (June 
 14, 1849), in an article on the words “ The Church 
 and our Church,” I find the following description 
 of the model church. The writer says : “ If any 
 church would establish itself as a model church, let 
 it adopt these Christian principles. Let it proclaim 
 that it is not laboring for a polity, for an ordinance, 
 for a name, for a sectarian creed born from some old 
 31 * 
 
366 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 philosophy, but simply to disseminate the Gospel, to 
 promote all human improvement. Let it not there- 
 fore seek to multiply its works of denominationalism 
 by multiplying denominational institutions ; but let 
 it seek to distinguish itself from all others by its 
 charity and generosity, by its readiness to throw 
 aside unimportant differences, and by setting forth 
 clearly and prominently the great truths and duties 
 of the Church, and by daring to base itself upon 
 them. We should like to see a denominationalism 
 arise from a struggle to promote the unity of all the 
 disciples of our Lord. We should like to see a 
 church marking its revival and progress, not by ef- 
 forts simply to build up itself, by giving a new im- 
 pulse to all its sectarian machinery, but by entering 
 into so broad a movement of Christian love, that it 
 would avoid at every point the renewal of those im- 
 practicable controversies and conflicts, which have 
 not always brought enlargement to our Church, 
 while they have invariably inflicted wounds upon the 
 Church.” 
 
 Such is this Presbyterian’s description of the 
 model church. Such is the church he would like to 
 see arise from a struggle to promote the unity of all 
 Christian disciples. Let him rejoice and say with 
 Simeon, “ Behold, mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” 
 Such is the platform on which we stand. Such is 
 the work in which we offer him a place and a posi- 
 tion, with the sacrifice of none of his opinions ; he 
 may retain them all. Our object is to promote all 
 human improvement, and the unity of all Christian 
 disciples. We are therefore Unitarian Christians, — 
 we are entering into a broad movement of Christian 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY? 367 
 
 love. With any movement narrower than this, — • 
 whether under the name of Trinitarian or Unitarian, 
 I acknowledge no identity, I profess no connection. 
 
 In God the Creator and Ruler and Father of man, 
 and in man as the child of God, we believe. In 
 man as capable of indefinite and perpetual improve- 
 ment, and capable of unspeakable debasement, we 
 believe. In Jesus as the representative of divine 
 goodness, to reveal truth and enforce it by his own 
 example, we believe. In the adaptation of the truths 
 he taught, and' the principles he exemplified, to warn 
 man of error, to guard him from sin, to preserve him 
 from wrong, to correct him when in error, to rescue 
 him when in vice, to reform him towards virtue, to 
 promote his present, continual, and highest welfare, 
 and inspire the loftiest hopes, in this we believe. 
 And on these broad principles, without prescribing 
 them in any written form, we unite to worship God, 
 and to labor for our own and the world’s good, — 
 leaving all doctrines of God’s nature, or of the rank of 
 Jesus, — in a word, all interpretations of Scripture, 
 all abstract theories and outward rites, — to be de- 
 termined by the individual soul, responsible to no 
 human tribunal, but to the Infinitely Righteous. 
 
 But am I asked how we try, how we discipline, 
 how we dispose of a man who outrages all principle, 
 defies all obligation, and persists in notorious wick- 
 edness ? I reply, that we experience no difficulties 
 of this nature, we have the strongest security against 
 them. We leave every such man to try, to adjudge, 
 and to dispose of himself; and, standing as he does 
 before the bar of conscience, of society, of public 
 sentiment, it requires no long time for him to pro- 
 
368 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 nounce his own sentence, and find his own place. 
 We leave such men, for you, his fellow-men, and 
 God, his maker, to try and adjudge. With us as a 
 worshipper, no less than with the public as a citizen, 
 we expect every man to stand upon his dignity as a 
 man, upon his honor as a gentleman, and his own 
 integrity, his own sense of duty, as a Christian ; and 
 in this perfect freedom, in this appeal to every man’s 
 dignity and honor and integrity, — in this we find the 
 very strongest security, the most satisfactory warrant, 
 for sincerity and purity of purpose. I would put no 
 man out of any community and stigmatize him, as 
 long as I could keep him in and make him better. 
 Creeds ! Disciplines ! Baptisms as professions of 
 religion ! Does not all history and daily observation 
 teach us that there is no creed which a hypocrite 
 will not subscribe to promote his own advantage, — 
 that there is no rite which a dishonorable man will 
 not submit to, to shield himself from obloquy, — 
 that there is no profession which an unprincipled 
 man will not make to cloak roguery with religion ? 
 While good men may rightly use all these means, 
 bad men, we see, abuse them. They can be no stand- 
 ards. We offer no man such temptations to hypoc- 
 risy. We offer no man such a shelter from the eye 
 of public scrutiny. We ask for no man’s doctrines, 
 but we look for his virtues ; we ask for no man’s 
 creed, but we observe his life. We admit the pro- 
 priety of every man’s profession of religion ; but we 
 look for its reality in his daily conduct. In doc- 
 trines, the truest union results from the fullest free- 
 dom. It is truly said : u Religion, like poetry, is 
 a life, a spirit, that must find its own form from de- 
 
WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 369 
 
 velopment from within, and cannot be moulded by 
 external constriction ; and the larger freedom you 
 have courage to allow, the less will you have to re- 
 gret irregularity and distortion, for it has inherently 
 a tendency to order and to beauty, only determined, 
 not by authoritative mechanism, but by the rhythm 
 and symmetry of the affections themselves.” * Ex- 
 perience has demonstrated to us, as Unitarian Chris- 
 tians, the truth of this description, the value of this 
 freedom. 
 
 Now, friends, if any here present remain unen- 
 lightened as to what I understand to be Unitarian 
 Christianity, then I can only reply, that I despair of 
 being able to make myself understood. We unite 
 to differ. We agree to disagree. We seek unity 
 with diversity. We look forward to uniformity of 
 mind, no more than to uniformity of body, and by 
 imposing no restrictions, we find the strongest con- 
 junction. 
 
 This is the unity of spirit that we seek, — this is 
 the Unitarian Christianity we would develop. We 
 seek the unity of natural science with religious 
 science. We seek the unity of Nature’s revelation 
 with Christian revelation. We seek the unity of 
 week-day religion with Sunday religion. We seek 
 the unity of all persons and objects, which may 
 conduce to the grand design of perpetual human 
 progress. The spirit of Unity, Love, the Unitarian 
 element, we would diffuse through the whole world 
 of existences. The small, the local, the fugitive in- 
 terests of life, may continue to divide men into par- 
 
 * J. Martineau on “ Church of England.’ 
 
370 WHAT IS UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 ties, and separate them in sentiment. But the great, 
 the universal, and enduring interests of men are 
 the same, and must unite them. Our present wants 
 and real enjoyments are the same; our hopes of the 
 future, and our aspirations upward, are one, all one. 
 Blinded by their zeal, religious sects and churches 
 may continue to build the Babel towers by which 
 their elect ones think to wind their way to celestial 
 felicities reserved for them. But he, whose eyes are 
 open to read the signs of the times, and to interpret 
 the moral commotions of the world, may see that 
 powerful and time-honored structures are crumbling 
 and wearing away, and men are flying out from their 
 tottering walls into the open atmosphere, and finding 
 refuge in the protecting embrace of God, — whose 
 bosom of boundless love can welcome all. The 
 prayer of Jesus, “ That they may be one, even as we 
 are one, — I in them, and thou in me, that they may 
 be made perfect in one,” — is now realizing itself in 
 every invention of art, every discovery of science, 
 every grand movement of Christian civilization. 
 
DISCOURSE XXV. 
 
 THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. — DIFFERENCE BE- 
 TWEEN THE CHRIST AND WHAT IS CALLED CHRIS- 
 TIANITY. 
 
 LET THIS MIND BE IN YOU, WHICH WAS ALSO IN CHRIST 
 
 jesus. — Phil. ii. 5. 
 
 The author of this injunction had just referred to 
 the characteristics which he summed up in the term 
 mind. u Let nothing be done through strife or vain- 
 glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other 
 better than themselves. Look not every man on his 
 own things, but every man also on the things of 
 others.” These qualities constitute what he signifies 
 by the mind of Jesus, advising those whom he ad- 
 dressed to imitate this mind. 
 
 A quite different aspect might Christendom have 
 now worn, had societies and churches bearing the 
 Christian name made it the chief object of their re- 
 searches and efforts to ascertain and imitate this 
 mind of Jesus. But it is with a heavy heart that 
 every lover of peace and truth must turn to the 
 pages of ecclesiastical history. The early Christians 
 being Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, each division 
 retained more or less of its theology, and each en- 
 
372 
 
 THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 deavored to bring the others to a regard for its pecu- 
 liarities, as to times, places, and modes of worship. 
 In order to secure the desired consideration, they be- 
 gan to arrange and systematize their peculiarities, 
 both of modes and opinions, of forms and of faith. 
 As nominal Christians increased in number, and be- 
 came allied with civil government, each system of 
 opinions and forms, more or less perfected, sought 
 after a legal and unrivalled pre-eminence ; and thus 
 the unholy and unbrotherly strife has continued cen- 
 tury after century, leaving the volumes of Church his- 
 tory, for ages, down to this hour, little more than a 
 mournful record of divisions, wars, persecutions, cen- 
 soriousness, and enmity among those, who, in com- 
 mon, claimed to be the special conservators and 
 teachers of a religion of peace, fraternity, and love. 
 Even now, in this very noontide of intelligence, — 
 throughout many portions of enlightened Christen- 
 dom, — what is the burden of daily, weekly pulpit 
 proclamations? Is it the practicability, the duty, 
 and the excellence of lowliness of mind, of doing 
 nothing through strife and vainglory, each esteem- 
 ing other better than himself? Is it to this mind 
 of Jesus, that the old, the young, and the whole 
 thinking, acting world of mankind, are perpetually 
 pointed ? 
 
 So far from this, it is still to the necessity of faith 
 or belief in certain schemes of redemption, or plans 
 of salvation, or means of grace, prescribed by va- 
 rious, varying, and contending sects and churches. 
 
 Let us ascend to the highest accessible point of 
 observation, and survey impartially the condition of 
 what is called the religious world. What does the 
 
THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 373 
 
 beholder witness ? Is it a spacious field of unwea- 
 ried industry, of varied and harmonious exertion, — 
 some surveying highways and removing obstacles 
 in the way of general advancement, — some eradi- 
 cating useless growths, and preparing soil for culti- 
 vation, — some sowing seeds, and fostering tender 
 plants, — some arranging, some training, and some 
 pruning valuable trees, — some gathering and pro- 
 tecting mature, rich, precious, and life-sustaining 
 fruits for the general enjoyment, — each one in his 
 sphere laboring successfully, and all without conflict 
 co-operating peacefully toward individual and gen- 
 eral good ? 
 
 What scenes soever may yet in coming time await 
 the observer so favorably situated, certain it_is, that 
 no such gratifying and inspiring scene now salutes 
 his longing vision. Painful as it sometimes is to 
 perceive the truth, it becomes us to acknowledge and 
 to utter it, though it be as much in sorrow as in 
 love. It is a melancholy sight, which the observer 
 sees in the religious world to-day. 
 
 Noble spirits there are, moved by noblest impulses, 
 in every party, sect, or circle ; — large hearts there 
 are, with ever-enlarging sympathies, toiling and hop- 
 ing for the world’s welfare, despite the restraints 
 which associations throw around them. But, justly 
 excepting these, the beholder witnesses a line of 
 sects, churches, and religious circles, each with its 
 own tent pitched and its own banner flung to the 
 breeze, proclaiming hostility to all the others, — each 
 ignoring common interests, and declining common 
 efforts, — each drawing lines around itself, except 
 where it contemplates aggression, invasion, and con- 
 32 
 
374 
 
 THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 quest, — each fortifying itself behind points, and 
 pickets, and fiery darts, and flaming swords, as if all 
 the others were declared and uncompromising foes, 
 — each endeavoring by intimidation, or promise, or 
 purchase, or perchance by stratagem or force, to mul- 
 tiply its numbers by weakening the ranks of its op- 
 ponents, — each striving to concentrate within its 
 narrow precincts the light, and heat, and dews and 
 rains of heaven, — and, in a word, each virtually or 
 directly claiming to monopolize the Infinite God, as 
 its patron, its friend, the declared champion of its pe- 
 culiar standard, — and, greatest anomaly of all, each 
 one placing high upon its warlike banners the name 
 of the pure Prince of Peace, the greatest teacher 
 of brotherhood and love, who enjoined that nothing 
 should be done through strife and vainglory, but in 
 lowliness of mind, each esteeming other better than 
 himself. 
 
 With such theoretical misconception, and such 
 practical misapplication of the Gospel, so open, pal- 
 pable, and undeniable to the close observer, it is cer- 
 tainly not surprising, but natural and reasonable, 
 that the superficial and undiscriminating observer, 
 who hastily judges of principles themselves by the 
 practices of those who profess them, should raise this 
 question, and earnestly demand its consideration : 
 “ What advantages would accrue to mankind gen- 
 erally, and the working classes in particular, by the 
 removal of Christianity, and the substitution of secu- 
 larism in its place ? ” This, as some of you are no 
 doubt aware, is the question now openly raised by 
 thinking and earnest men in England, and which, 
 challenging the church and clergy, has been publicly 
 
THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 375 
 
 discussed before crowded and deeply interested con- 
 gregations. 
 
 Before a great, practical, fundamental, and com- 
 prehensive question like this, the petty points of sec- 
 tarian dispute, over which churches have been tor- 
 turing each other in fruitless controversy, dwindle 
 and shrink, and shrivel into dust and smoke, and 
 vanish away like vapor. Yet this, and such as this, 
 are all-important inquiries, which churches must 
 come bravely up to meet and answer, in this age of 
 fiery trial, and nothing but truth can stand the flam- 
 ing ordeal. It is not only beyond the Atlantic, but 
 here among ourselves, in every enlightened com- 
 munity, that such questions must be met and dis- 
 cussed and answered. There are already indications 
 that our church disputants, blinded as they have 
 been by protracted word- wars, are beginning to ap- 
 preciate the real issue. 
 
 One of the most ably conducted of the religious 
 publications claiming to be peculiarly Puritanic, 
 Evangelical, and Orthodox, is “ The Independent ” 
 of New York. Only a few weeks since (August, 
 1853), it contained a significant article on u Modern 
 Scepticism.” The writer goes so far as to express 
 his belief, judging from his own observation, that as 
 many as four fifths of all the thinking young men of 
 our country are utterly sceptical of u the great his- 
 torical facts of Christianity,” — that, with them, the 
 prevailing church doctrines are not only objects of 
 doubt, but of dislike and disgust. And he does not 
 allude to ultraists and fanatics, but to men of calm, 
 well-balanced minds, with whom the foundations of 
 all religious belief are rotten and trembling, and 
 crumbling into nothing. 
 
376 
 
 THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 For this sad condition of increasing scepticism, he 
 assigns some reasons, as they appear to him. The 
 chief cause he describes briefly, in these plain, strong 
 words : “ The curse to the American mind, as we be- 
 lieve, has been the aspect presented, in a portion of 
 our theology, of Deity. The God of some of our the- 
 ologians is not a Being whom the human heart can 
 either respect or love. Men have ascribed acts and 
 feelings to him, which they would utterly revolt at 
 in themselves or their fellows. We are not over- 
 stating. We know those with whom the memory 
 of family prayer, early religious teaching, and Sab- 
 bath sermons, is so entwined with the picture of 
 a hateful and repellent Deity, that they loathe and 
 reject in consequence the whole religion of their 
 childhood.” He proceeds then to speak of “ the for- 
 malism and cant ” prevailing in the churches, as 
 other causes of this alarming scepticism. 
 
 It is possible that, as to the numbers of which he 
 speaks, this writers statements may be somewhat 
 overdrawn. But whether or not, here is the unques- 
 tionable fact of nominal Christianity. After all the 
 enormities which through centuries have been per- 
 petrated in its name, — after all the streams of tears 
 and rivers of blood which its contending and mis- 
 guided advocates have caused to flow, — after all 
 the monstrous cruelties, and gross hypocrisies, and 
 selfish practices, and beastly passions, and glaring 
 inconsistencies, of those who have professed to rec- 
 ognize and to be governed by it, — here still remains, 
 under various forms and names, the aspect of a re- 
 ligion purporting to find its origin in the teachings 
 of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 377 
 
 After being associated for successive generations 
 with a prodigious burden of inconsistencies, immo- 
 ralities, and vices, sufficient, apparently, to crush into 
 nonentity any system or doctrine which is mortal 
 and destructible, here still rise and tower around us, 
 and over kingdoms and continents, myriads of tem- 
 ples, sanctuaries, and altars to the one Great God 
 Invisible, the worshippers in all revering the words 
 and honoring the memory of Jesus the Christ, and 
 bearing the common designation Christian. 
 
 How do we account for this ? Where is its ex- 
 planation ? Where is the secret of this nominal ex- 
 istence, — this external vitality ? Why is it, that, 
 despite all the superstitions, persecutions, and en- 
 mities of professed disciples and followers, tens of 
 thousands of the most earnest, the best and most 
 hopeful of our race, still fondly cherish and revere 
 the name and memory of that one meek and lowly 
 person, Jesus? While ponderous volumes have 
 amplified the horrors of narrow-minded bigotry bear- 
 ing the name of Christian, why is it that the plain 
 words, the memory and name of Jesus, are still found 
 fast upon the world’s heart, and associated with the 
 loftiest and holiest aspirations of human minds and 
 souls ? 
 
 Is the fact to be explained by the recorded mira- 
 cles which he performed? No, this will not explain 
 it ; for every miracle which he performed finds its 
 counterpart in the history of miracles wrought by 
 the Hebrew prophets who lived ages before his ad- 
 vent. The mightiest miracle performed by him was 
 raising of the dead, and that, according to the Hebrew 
 Scripture, not only had living prophets done, but even 
 32 * 
 
378 
 
 THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 the dead body of Elisha is said by its very touch to 
 have transformed the fleshless bones lying in a sepul- 
 chre into a vigorous, living man ; and yet not only the 
 prophet himself, but these wondrous deeds of his, are 
 only remembered by their place in the Bible history. 
 
 Will sympathy with the circumstances of his death 
 explain it ? No, this will not explain it ; for not only 
 the Hebrew records, but the annals and traditions of 
 races and nations, back to the time of the mur- 
 dered Abel, were burdened with the experience of 
 sufferers, — sufferers who for loyalty to truth and 
 goodness were subjected, frequently for months and 
 even years, to all the refinements of physical torture 
 which ingenious cruelty and human malice could 
 devise. And yet these great sufferers, who sacri- 
 ficed health, peace, and even life, for human good, 
 are only remembered on occasions when we curiously 
 turn to peruse the sad histories of human infirmity, 
 illumined by the occasional light of heroic virtue. 
 
 But if neither his miraculous works nor the event 
 of his death can explain the fact, that nations 
 and races, and the enlightened world, not only of 
 Christians, but of all religions, refer at least with 
 admiration to the name of Jesus, will the recorded 
 event of his resurrection solve the problem ? No, 
 even this will not explain it ; for all Christendom, 
 generation after generation, has read with reverence 
 the Bible record of Enoch, who “walked with God,” 
 and, without even tasting death, was borne away 
 into the splendors of the invisible and everlasting life ; 
 and of Elijah, who was not, like Jesus, subjected to 
 the shroud and the sepulchre, — not even for an hour, 
 — but, in the midst of life and vigor, was translated 
 
THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 379 
 
 before the wondering gaze of his fellow-man, as in a 
 chariot of flame, and, amid the resplendent glories of 
 a celestial escort, taken up to realms of everlasting 
 light in reservation for the good and true. And yet 
 the names of Enoch and Elijah are so far from being 
 cherished and honored through the world, that even 
 by Jews and Christians they are unremembered, save 
 when reference is made to the earliest incidents 
 handed down to us through Hebrew Scripture. 
 
 Thus, neither the history of his miracles, nor the 
 circumstances of his death, nor the record of his res- 
 urrection, will account for the place which Jesus holds 
 in the affections of the world. But there is a simple 
 and satisfactory explanation, and that explanation 
 is found in the personal character of Jesus, — not his 
 nature nor his rank, but that belonging to his per- 
 son, which we call character, — in the precepts, the 
 principles, the words, the deportment, the daily life, 
 all that may be summed up in this expressive phrase, 
 “ the mind of Jesus.” The simple narrative of the 
 four canonical historians, in the brief and familiar 
 manner in which they describe his thoughts, his 
 emotions, his utterances, the spirit which pervaded 
 and ruled his whole unobtrusive and unostentatious 
 life, present a picture so harmonious in its pro- 
 portions, so graceful and perfect in its symmetry, 
 so beautiful, so good, so immaculate in its moral 
 purity, that every mind, whose sanity is unimpaired, 
 and every heart, whose affections are not deadened 
 by rude contact with vice, pause instinctively be- 
 fore it, recognizing and admiring the grandest and 
 divinest model of moral excellence, towards which 
 unperverted humanity always has aspired. It is not 
 
380 
 
 THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 mere knowledge or belief in those of his works called 
 wonderful, nor those of his words called wonderful, 
 nor any circumstance connected with him called 
 wonderful, supernatural, or miraculous, which wins 
 and keeps ever circling round the name of Jesus the 
 admiration and the love of millions through succes- 
 sive generations, — millions embracing almost every 
 conceivable variety of religious form, and faith, and 
 sentiment. It is but the one perpetual wonder of 
 the just, true, noble, lofty, yet devout, serene, tender, 
 gentle spirit, which informed his common and con- 
 tinual and unprecedented life. It was an unprece- 
 dented life, — while, as we see from Hebrew Scrip- 
 ture, neither as to miracles, nor sufferings, nor amaz- 
 ing events equivalent to, or even more astounding 
 than, a resurrection, was his career unprecedented. 
 But there was no precedent to the character, the life, 
 or, as St. Paul expresses it, the mind of Jesus. From 
 Moses and the preceding patriarchs there had been 
 great miraclenvorkers, and great prophets, and great 
 leaders. From Confucius and Zoroaster, to Plato 
 and Cicero, there had been great sages, great teach- 
 ers, and great heroes ; but while the world honored 
 them, and rung with their renown, and still retains 
 their immortal memory, there was behind all this, in 
 the universal consciousness of humanity, a want 
 which had not been supplied, — a void which had 
 not been filled. 
 
 Not only through all the vicissitudes and formal- 
 isms of the Hebrews, but through all the supersti- 
 tions of Egypt, through all the luxurious corruptions 
 of Syria and Persia, through all Roman ambition, 
 through all Grecian science and speculation, through 
 
THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 381 
 
 all the art and literature of every nation, through the 
 rise, the decline, or fall of every people, through 
 every stream of religious error, social vice, or moral 
 corruption, which has undermined institutions, over- 
 swept kingdoms, or cursed or ruined human races, — 
 through them all might have been traced the exist- 
 ence of an ideal, — an ideal of a true life on earth, a 
 true, possible, practicable, real life, which had not 
 been realized, — a life which should not only be a 
 history or a picture, but a true life of a true soul 
 which should be an example, a model, a moral force, 
 and so a preservation and a redemption, — a redeem- 
 ing power, redeeming from selfishness and sin where 
 redemption was required, and a preserving power 
 where preservation was most needed. That true life 
 has been lived , and Jesus lived it. In the fulness of 
 time the earth has rolled round, and the Sun of 
 Righteousness has risen, the true light of perfect day 
 has dawned upon awakened humanity, now rising 
 from the unsubstantial dreams of a long spiritual 
 slumber. 
 
 In the living — the words, the spirit, the life 
 — of Jesus, a new element has been introduced 
 among the moral forces of the world. It is rec- 
 ognized as soon as seen. Indifferent, effeminate, 
 or vicious as a people may be, — superstitious, pas- 
 sionate, selfish, or cruel as a people may be, — no 
 sooner are their eyes turned to look upon the life of 
 Jesus, than they behold the reality, the embodiment, 
 of that idea, which, like a ray of light, has in every 
 age, by every generation, been seen glimmering 
 through the darkest clouds of human thought, or the 
 fiercest storms of human passion. 
 
382 
 
 THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 The life of Jesus stands not merely as a picture or 
 a statue, challenging criticism or admiration. Its 
 power is not the power of harmonious colors and 
 exquisite proportions, but it is a living power, a 
 power of soul acting upon soul; and when once 
 fairly seen, it becomes a second conscience, cease- 
 lessly rebuking and reproving wherever it does not 
 reform or preserve or purify. He who would de- 
 prave his nature, deaden conscience, and petrify his 
 heart, must refuse even to look upon the life of 
 Jesus ; for if he looks long enough, the crust of his 
 depravity will crumble, and his dying conscience 
 will revive, and his frozen heart will dissolve, and a 
 gushing fountain of blessed sympathies will sweep 
 away the frail ruins from his presence. 
 
 Many, indeed, confine their knowledge or study 
 of Jesus to a few only of the incidents or circum- 
 stances of his career. They see, or perhaps are 
 taught to see, only the crown of thorns, the tumult, 
 the tears, and blood on Calvary, and the cold sepul- 
 chre of Jesus; and for all practical concerns their 
 selfishness is untouched, their conscience is un- 
 quickened, and their hearts unsoftened, for the life of 
 Jesus is a blank to them. They study nothing but 
 his death as part of a scheme or plan. The living, 
 acting, blessing, loving Jesus has never been made 
 attractive to their minds, nor ever been the object of 
 their contemplations. 
 
 Now, seeing that all other considerations fail to 
 explain it, do we not in the personal life and char- 
 acter of Jesus find a sufficient explanation of that 
 deep, and deepening, and ever-widening admiration, 
 which, through the contradictions and corruptions, 
 
THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS. 
 
 383 
 
 the vicissitudes and vices, of successive ages, has 
 been associated with his name and memory? His 
 character realized the world’s ideal, an ideal always 
 raised by that indefinite phrase used to describe our 
 nature in perfection, “ the image of Gocl.” That 
 image he presented in all respects in which the 
 visible can be the image of the invisible, or the 
 finite be the image of the infinite. The involun- 
 tary homage of the world to Jesus is the sponta- 
 neous tribute which the divine element in human 
 nature always pays to the really pure, the faithful, 
 and the good, testifying that in all real conflicts 
 goodness only can be ultimately triumphant, that 
 truth only can be eternal, that moral deformities 
 must fade away and die before the immortal beauty 
 of holiness. 
 
 “ Let this mind be in you, which was also in 
 Christ Jesus.” 
 
DISCOURSE XXVI. 
 
 9 
 
 USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 THEY MADE READY THE PASSOVER. AND WHEN THE HOUR 
 WAS COME, HE SAT DOWN, AND THE TWELVE APOSTLES 
 WITH HIM. AND HE TOOK BREAD, AND GAVE THANKS, AND 
 BRAKE IT, AND GAVE UNTO THEM, SAYING, THIS IS MY 
 BODY, WHICH IS GIVEN FOR YOU : THIS DO IN REMEM- 
 BRANCE OF ME. LIKEWISE ALSO THE CUP AFTER SUPPER, 
 SAYING, THIS CUP IS THE NEW TESTAMENT IN MY BLOOD, 
 
 which is shed for you. — Luke xxii. 13, 14, 19, 20. 
 
 Though Jesus was a religious reformer, and a pro- 
 pounder of principles designed ultimately to subvert 
 the ceremonial religion of his nation, yet he was al- 
 ways a respectful observer of the customs and time- 
 honored emblematic rites and appointments of that 
 religion. Thus we find, that among the very last 
 acts, previous to his violent death, is that described 
 in these simple words : “ They made ready the pass- 
 over. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and 
 the twelve Apostles with him.” There is nothing in 
 his language on this occasion, which indicates his 
 design either to abolish, or essentially to change, the 
 manner of observing this Hebrew celebration of grate- 
 ful memory. He says nothing as to the day of the 
 
USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 385 
 
 week, or the place, or the number of times this rite 
 or supper should be observed. All these have been 
 determined by the subsequent consent and custom 
 of the early Christians. 
 
 He designed, evidently, to associate this supper in 
 their minds with other events than those in which 
 it originated. These new associations, constituting 
 all the change which he proposed, he summed up 
 in these simple, but comprehensive and expressive 
 words, “ This do in remembrance of me.” Not once 
 every year, not once every month, not once every 
 week, not only on the seventh day, nor on the first 
 day of the week, — time or place he did not specify, 
 — but, “as oft as ye do it,” — where, or whensoever 
 ye do it, — “ do it in remembrance of me.” 
 
 It forms no part of my present purpose to enu- 
 merate the various and strange opinions which may 
 have existed, or may now exist, as to the significa- 
 tion of this observance, commonly designated the 
 Lord’s Supper. To give a history of its past uses 
 and abuses, through eighteen centuries, would ex- 
 haust your patience, without compensating by any 
 valuable information. It has, from an early period 
 in the Church, been styled a Sacrament. Looking 
 over past Church history, it is much to be regretted 
 that this term has become in so many pious minds 
 devoutly associated with this observance. Sacra- 
 ment is a wholly unscriptural term, and originally 
 refers to the oath of allegiance taken by Homan 
 heathen soldiers to their emperor or sovereign. 
 While it may, though a heathen term, be metaphor- 
 ically appropriated by Christians, and employed to 
 signify a pledge of loyalty or fidelity to Christian 
 33 
 
386 
 
 USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 truth, yet such have been its sad misuses, and the 
 misapprehensions to which it has conducted, that I 
 cannot but regard it as a most serious misfortune to 
 Christendom and Christian truth, that the Latin 
 converts to Christianity ever introduced the word 
 into Christian theology. 
 
 Whilst in a figurative sense this observance may 
 be, and while to some perhaps it is, and should be, 
 a sacrament, a repeated or perpetual pledge of loy- 
 alty or allegiance to Christianity, or the Sovereign of 
 Christianity, yet its primary, most proper and com- 
 prehensive meaning, as it appears to me, is expressed 
 by the simple word communion , or, as the New Tes- 
 tament still more simply expresses it, a “ breaking 
 of bread.” By the breaking of bread, and tasting 
 from the cup, together, is signified a communion, — a 
 communion of memory and of hope, — a communion 
 of faith and sympathy; — memory of the past, hope 
 of the future, faith in truth, and sympathy in benev- 
 olence. It is thus that we respond to the tender 
 and touching request of Jesus, “ This do in remem- 
 brance of me ” ; — remembrance of his character and 
 his teachings, remembrance of his principles and pre- 
 cepts, remembrance of his life and of his death, con- 
 summating in its results his beneficent and heavenly 
 ministry to man. 
 
 But how completely, throughout a large portion 
 of the Church, for ages, has the naturalness and 
 beautiful tenderness of this sentiment of remem- 
 brance been submerged in a sea of speculative mys- 
 ticism! What should have been the recognition of 
 ever-enduring and world-embracing truths, revealed 
 to the mind and heart of man, has been changed into 
 
USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 387 
 
 the inexplicable mark of an awful and profound 
 mystery. That which should have been a perpet- 
 ual bond of union to the whole great brotherhood 
 of Christendom, has been changed into a badge 
 of sectarian, doctrinal, and personal distinctions. 
 That which should always have been the emblem- 
 atic, but simple, expression of fraternal sympathy, 
 has been changed into an expression of divine fa- 
 voritism, a rite of repulsion, and a cause of disaffec- 
 tion and estrangement. When we view the small 
 proportion, even of the regular worshippers of Chris- 
 tian congregations, who participate in this observ- 
 ance, the inquiry is irresistible : Why should this be 
 more repulsive or more mysterious, or why should 
 it be less inviting and less useful, than other celebra- 
 tions or occasional observances, which are commem- 
 orative, sympathetic, and suggestive ? 
 
 Moved by the Christian spirit of humanity and 
 progress, you dedicate a seminary for the instruction 
 and education of human minds. And why ? In what 
 consists the general interest of the occasion ? It is 
 a fresh starting-point for effort and improvement, — 
 a new centre of ceaselessly widening influences for 
 human good. And who are present to celebrate the 
 occasion ? Only the few’ who designed and contrib- 
 uted to the erection of the structure ? No ! But 
 all who are interested in the development of mind, 
 the intellectual elevation of society, and the moral 
 welfare of the world. You found an asylum for the 
 bereaved, the destitute, and the unfortunate, and 
 publicly dedicate it to its benevolent uses. And 
 why this celebration ? Because you wish to express 
 gratitude, and hope, and sympathy. Each annual 
 
388 
 
 USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 return of that occasion brings a fresh celebration, and 
 who are present, who are invited to rejoice in it? 
 Only those who prepared the plan, or who contrib- 
 uted to establish the institution? No! but all who 
 feel the common infirmities of our mortal nature ; 
 all who are exposed to the common vicissitudes of 
 life ; all who have sympathizing hearts, and who 
 desire to mitigate the sorrows of suffering humanity. 
 You build a monument to perpetuate the virtues of 
 a nation’s benefactor, and publicly celebrate the day 
 of its completion, because you would not — no! you 
 will not — permit the memory of excellence to fade 
 away, nor of goodness to die. An annual offering 
 of grateful recollections marks the anniversary of the 
 birth of one known as the saviour of his nation, the 
 father of his country. Who celebrate the occasion? 
 The inhabitants of a city, or the citizens of a state ? 
 A whole vast people commemorate the day, a thrill 
 of sympathy vibrates through the nation. Not a 
 few rejoice, but all, — all who admire patriotic de- 
 votion, who love incorruptible integrity, who honor 
 self-sacrificing magnanimity. The old delight in 
 recollections of the past, and the young are pointed 
 to the obelisk, or tower, or pyramid, which speaks of 
 the great man’s excellence, and they read new les- 
 sons, inspire fresh courage, and breathe lofty resolu- 
 tions. 
 
 Now, fellow-worshippers, and lovers of all that is 
 good and true, momentous and enduring, does this 
 simple Christian celebration recall a less important 
 character, and does it commemorate less important 
 events in the world’s history, than those to which we 
 have referred ? Is the occasion less inspiring in its 
 
USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 389 
 
 suggestions, or less comprehensive in its spirit? Is 
 its value less obvious, or is it of interest to a smaller 
 number ? O, with what sorrow must we confess it 
 to be the lasting reproach of sects, denominations, 
 and churches, bearing in common the Christian 
 name, that they have transformed this beautiful 
 pledge and expression of pure memories, pure enjoy- 
 ments, and pure hopes into the embodiment of repul- 
 sive and unintelligible dogmas, — into the stamped 
 passport of bittetest sectarianism, — into the mys- 
 tical dark signature of heart-hardening bigotry, and 
 the shadowy cloak of soul-deadening hypocrisy. * 
 
 The chief mistake has evidently been, and still is, 
 in regarding it as the consummation, instead of the 
 auxiliary, of belief or faith or truth. In making it 
 the final proof, instead of the common aid to virtue ; 
 in other words, making it the end instead of the 
 means to an end. 
 
 Must you be a Christian before you express the 
 desire to be a Christian? Must you exhibit the 
 result, before you employ the means to produce the 
 result? The Scripture, the Sunday, the church, and 
 all its rites and observances, are only means, not 
 ends. Aids, encouragements, they are and should 
 be, but ends they are not. Their strictest observ- 
 ance is designed to contribute to good ends ; but 
 they are not tests or proofs, their employment can 
 prove nothing definite as to the character of persons. 
 The tree is known, so far as known at all, only by 
 its fruits, — not by its branches, nor its bark, nor 
 its odor, nor the color of its foliage, but only by its 
 fruits. Among the twelve who sat down at that 
 first supper of remembrance, one was selfish and 
 33 * 
 
390 
 
 USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 avaricious, a hypocrite and a traitor ; and Jesus had 
 observed and well knew his character, — yet he was 
 not excluded. Jesus left him to apply good means 
 to his own reformation, or to time and conscience, 
 — time and conscience, the sure retributive agents 
 of that Infinite Justice which administers the moral 
 government of the world. 
 
 Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners, 
 to repentance ; not the pure, but the vicious, to 
 reform. It is not thu whole, said he, but the sick, 
 who need a physician. Wheresoever this observ- 
 ance is established, either as a standard of doctrine 
 or a standard of piety, the legitimate tendency is 
 to self-deception, and even to insincerity and hypoc- 
 risy. It ceases then to be a feast of memory and 
 of sympathy ; it ceases to be a moral power, a spirit- 
 ual influence. Call it Sacrament or what you may, 
 it is no longer a communion, a Christian commun- 
 ion, — it cannot be; for between the false and true, 
 between light and darkness, there can be no com- 
 munion. There may, among communing worship- 
 pers, be error, weakness, sorrow, hope, and humble, 
 trembling aspiration ; between these there can be 
 sympathy, and such is the true communion of long- 
 ing, laboring, earnest, fallible, human hearts, humbly 
 and constantly striving towards the perfection of a 
 Christian life. It is strange that even experience, as 
 a teacher, is so often powerless. For all observation 
 testifies to the utter futility of this observance as a 
 standard of doctrine, and its utter worthlessness as a 
 standard of piety. For where it has been offered as 
 such, unprincipled men have used it, and do use it, 
 to profess every doctrine, whilst in churches which 
 
USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 391 
 
 make it a standard of piety, no candid observer can 
 fail to perceive that not a few attempt to gloss their 
 moral rottenness by accepting it as a test, whilst the 
 truly conscientious wisely and justly shrink from 
 raising a standard so ambiguous or unmeaning. 
 
 You still, perhaps, more directly inquire, Whom 
 do you regard as proper participants in this cele- 
 bration of sacred remembrance? The answer has 
 been implied and conveyed in the remarks already 
 offered. But more explicitly I reply: Every one 
 believing himself to be, or claiming himself to be, a 
 Christian, or every one earnestly desiring to live a 
 Christian life, and desiring to employ this as a 
 means to such an end. Not only those who claim 
 or desire to be Christian, in the sense in which I or 
 you, or any other private or public expounder, may 
 interpret and understand Christianity, but every one 
 who claims or desires to be Christian, according to 
 his own interpretation and understanding of Chris- 
 tianity, however widely he may differ from you or 
 me, or from the wisest and best among us. To 
 God and his own soul, and not to us, is he respon- 
 sible. As for the sincerity of his purposes, the 
 purity of his intentions, he stands, whether com- 
 muning or not communing, as we all stand, sur- 
 rounded by the same “cloud of witnesses,” our 
 fellow-men, who read character according to their 
 own judgment; and the non-communicant has no 
 advantage over the communing worshipper as to 
 the rule by which society esteems and judges him. 
 
 Yet there are some who, perhaps, would still reply, 
 We do seek the proper means to virtuous ends, we 
 do employ outward aids to promote our inward 
 
392 
 
 USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 growth, we do use the social helps to individual 
 progress ; we attend the church twice every Sunday, 
 passing full two hours, and perhaps as much as three 
 hours, there every week ; we attend respectfully to 
 the ministrations of the pulpit, and we contribute 
 annually to the support of public worship. 
 
 Well, all this done, how much of real communion 
 of mind, how much of actual, open, visible, frater- 
 nal, Christian sympathy does observation show to 
 exist commonly among the regular worshippers in 
 churches? Not only for days, weeks, or months, 
 but for successive years, do we not — very few con- 
 gregations of any name can be excepted — do we 
 not see the men and women pass in together, and sit 
 down and raise their voices in praise together, and 
 listen to the same words together, and have their 
 minds and affections moved and swayed by the same 
 thoughts and feelings, and receive the same solemn 
 benediction, and, with their very garments in contact 
 with each other, pass out again with lips as motion- 
 less, and countenances as cold, as though all were 
 moving marble statues ? — hundreds of such wor- 
 shippers neither knowing nor desiring even to know 
 each other’s names, but families and individuals 
 bearing themselves with deportment as dignified 
 and distant as though they were utter strangers, for 
 the first time assembled from distant continents or 
 opposing poles. How could the real stranger, stand- 
 ing at the doors of Christian churches, and witness- 
 ing the freezing, fashionable coldness, — how could 
 he exclaim, u Behold those Christians, how they love 
 one another ! ” 
 
 It is neither needful, desirable, nor possible that 
 
USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 393 
 
 all who assemble together for public worship shall 
 every day associate on terms of friendly, personal 
 intimacy. The daily necessary pursuits and vicis- 
 situdes of life render this alike inexpedient and 
 impossible; and the poor no more than the rich, the 
 illiterate no more than the learned, the obscure no 
 more than the eminent, desire any such nominal 
 and constrained terms of social intercourse. But let 
 there be at least one place always hallowed to 
 human sympathy, one place where the hollowness 
 and coldness of social conventionalisms shall be per- 
 vaded and softened by the warm, celestial atmos- 
 phere of Christian brotherhood. 
 
 Let the church, which is dedicated to a God who 
 is love, to a God who is no respecter of persons, but 
 who, in divine compassion, sends his sunshine and 
 rain on the just and the unjust, the evil and the 
 good, — let the church be ever sacred to real sym- 
 pathy, whether in faith, in benevolence, or in com- 
 passion ; and let this sympathy be expressed, let it 
 not be latent, slumbering in our hearts, but ( let it be 
 expressed in words, in looks, in actions, and in our 
 whole deportment. O for one place where, for at 
 least one day in seven, the emptiness of etiquette, 
 and the coldness of custom, and the formalities 
 of fashion, shall be together buried in one common 
 sentiment of filial reverence, and we may all feel 
 ourselves to be children of that Holy One whom we 
 have learned to call “ Our Father,” — our Everlast- 
 ing Father. It is not only a reproach, it is a shame, 
 a burning shame, that Christians, ay, Christian 
 worshippers under the same sacred roof, even when 
 their hearts are glowing, when they feel that their 
 
394 
 
 USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 very nerves are restless to express their brotherly 
 and sisterly affection, should almost forcibly withhold 
 their hands, and turn away their faces, and pass out 
 and separate without so much as one word or look 
 of true communion. I know not, but God knoweth, 
 and thou knowest, if any such are here. If there 
 are any such present, if any one of you now hears 
 the voice of conscience whispering, “ Thou art the 
 man,” “ Thou art the woman,” obey the voice, re- 
 solve, and with the noblest courage, this very hour, 
 before you repass yon entrance, wipe out the blot, 
 and let it be a reproach no more for ever. 
 
 As to the administration of a true Christian com- 
 munion in the Church, my idea would be this, — 
 though, since no man liveth to himself, and each one 
 must in some degree recognize the forms of institu- 
 tions round him, I never expect to see it realized, — 
 but my idea of a true Christian communion would be 
 something like this. I would divest it of every mys- 
 tical and unintelligible purpose, I would remove from 
 it every repulsive thought, and separate it from every 
 gloomy association. Then, be it annually, or month- 
 ly, or weekly, as it might, in every assembly of Chris- 
 tian worshippers, I would prepare an ample literal 
 table, with seats for all. I would garnish that table 
 with the freshest, most beautiful, and fragrant flowers, 
 — the poetry of God’s creation, — that they might 
 enrich the air with their sweetest incense. I would 
 fill the edifice with sounds of rich and swelling 
 music, the very notes of heaven, bringing mortal 
 feelings into harmony with immortal hopes. And 
 when that music paused, I would say to every heart 
 capable of pure affections, to every mind aspiring 
 
USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 395 
 
 toward high attainment, and to every spirit longing 
 after holiness of life, — I would say, Come with quiet 
 joy, come with serene dignity, come with radiant 
 countenance and hopeful heart, come the youthful 
 beside the aged, the sons and daughters beside the fa- 
 thers and the mothers. And while the simple plate 
 of bread and cup of wine should pass from hand to 
 hand, like the electric links of a chain of love binding 
 them in one, I would say, Do this in remembrance 
 of Him; and leave all to silent meditation, — to 
 meditation on the most perfect character which has 
 ever adorned the world, the most lofty truths ever 
 offered to the study of man, the purest precepts ever 
 given for the government of human action, the sub- 
 limest life and the sublimest death in the history of 
 earth ; and I would say, Study these truths, contem- 
 plate this character, till you find yourselves assimi- 
 lating to that character in holy aspirations, and then 
 rise and go forth, clothed and armed in pure and 
 firm resolve to resist the temptations, endure the 
 trials, enjoy the blessings, and mitigate the sorrows, 
 of human existence. 
 
 Now, friends, if there be one, or ten, or twenty 
 here, who, in the spirit of such a true communion, 
 may feel a pure and serene, yet strong, impulse to 
 express that spirit of communion, remain with us for 
 the moments when we break this bread and taste 
 this cup of sacred memories and sacred hopes. We 
 ask from you no prescribed and verbal declaration of 
 opinions, and your act is itself a sufficient declara- 
 tion of your purpose and desire, — -the only declara- 
 tion which either the Church or the world has any 
 right to claim from any moral being. 
 
396 
 
 USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 We would obliterate every narrow line that 
 human intolerance may draw, we would remove 
 every unauthorized barrier which human prejudice 
 may erect, and, asking you to dismiss every false 
 fear which selfishness may suggest, invite all, who 
 feel an earnest inclination, to remain, and for a 
 moment express with us a communion of joys and 
 hopes, flowing, as in one unbroken stream of grati- 
 tude, to the God and Father of us all, and towards 
 Jesus, the teacher, the friend, the example and bene- 
 factor of us all. Though you never before, by any 
 outward act, expressed this sentiment, yet that you 
 have experienced it, and longed for its expression, 
 there can scarcely be a doubt. If such be your 
 experience and inclination, at this moment, now, — 
 resist no longer. Because others round you pass 
 forth with the words of benediction, do not feel con- 
 strained to follow, but resume your place ; for once, 
 if needful, be courageous with the truest courage. Be 
 not governed by the low thought, “ What will some 
 one say ? ” but be decided by the lofty and heroic 
 thought, u What is right for me to do, I will do ” ; 
 and act, act before your good resolution trembles 
 and faints, and before your now glowing heart is 
 cooled again by the chilling breath of shadowy fears 
 and false social customs. For, in view of the per- 
 petual uncertainty of all things human, now — not 
 next month, nor to-morrow, which may never come 
 to you on earth — but now is the accepted time, now 
 is the only time for duty. Those silent marble 
 teachers without these walls recall many who, in 
 the memory of those present, sat where you now sit, 
 passed to each other these same plates, and tasted 
 
USES OF THE COMMUNION. 
 
 397 
 
 from these same cups, expressed their spirit of com- 
 munion, bore their testimony to their love of truth, 
 and then passed on, as some and all of us shall 
 soon pass on, to bear a better testimony and cele- 
 brate a loftier communion. 
 
 Come, then, to communion with your fellow- 
 worshippers of the same God, with your fellow- 
 laborers in the same life, your fellow-inquirers after 
 highest truth, and your fellow-heirs to an eternity 
 of being. Then come to communion with not only 
 Jesus, and the exalted, great, and wise and good of 
 all past time, but also, with the spirits of the hum- 
 bler near and loved ones, on whose faces we have so 
 often and affectionately looked, but who have gone 
 from sight, and left these corruptibles to put on in- 
 corruption, and these mortals to put on immortality. 
 Then come to communion with the boundless Pres- 
 ence, the Holy One who has called us into being, 
 and crowned us, as lords of the creation, with glory 
 and with dignity, and so let us bring our vexed and 
 troubled finite souls into peaceful harmony with the 
 Infinite Soul, which pervades the universe, which 
 lives and reigns undisturbed for ever in the eternal 
 beauty of holiness. 
 
 34 
 
DISCOURSE XXVII. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. — UNITY AND DIVER- 
 SITY.— THE SPIRIT OF DENOMINATION. 
 
 As it is always pleasing, and sometimes profitable, 
 to leave the bustling throng and narrow streets and 
 petty cares, and inhale a purer air, and enjoy the 
 quiet beauty of nature in the forest or on the moun- 
 tain-side, in the bright sunlight or the mild radiance 
 of a summer morn, so is it refreshing, at times, to 
 escape from the arena of sectarian conflict and theo- 
 logical warfare, into a superior region of thought, 
 where fierceness subsides into gentleness, where our 
 human nature, perverted by contending interests, re- 
 covers its right mind, and man finds himself at some 
 point in harmony with man, and every spirit finds 
 itself, in recognizing some great principle, some grand 
 and vital truth, in sympathy with every other spirit. 
 The diversities of the material world we do not de- 
 plore. You never meet with one who laments that 
 the world is not all a level, unbroken plane, without 
 mountains, hills, and valleys. You hear no one sor- 
 rowing that flowers are not all of the same hue, and 
 trees all of the same species and the same dimen- 
 sions ; no one regrets that the skies are variegated 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 399 
 
 by countless, everchanging passing clouds, instead of 
 one spacious and cloudless and changeless canopy of 
 azure. 
 
 Neither do we have deep sorrowings over the di- 
 versities of intellectual tendencies and tastes, or 
 social employments and social habits. No one de- 
 plores the fact, that every man does not prefer the 
 same trade, art, or profession. No one mourns over 
 the varied opinions and discussions of men of sci- 
 ence. No one is sorry that every book does not ex- 
 press the same sentiment, or that all books are not 
 printed with the same type, or finished with the 
 same binding. It would be rare to find one who de- 
 plores the existence of more than one party in poli- 
 tics, and no one thinks it a calamity that all do not 
 invariably support the same measures and the same 
 men. No one apprehends great evil because every 
 State, city, and town is not regulated by one and 
 the same law. No, it is in the social and intellect- 
 ual as in the natural world. From diversity there 
 is unity, — from variety there is beauty, — and sep- 
 arate lines of action contribute to produce one har- 
 monious result. 
 
 But you observe the difference when theology and 
 religion are concerned. You may hear the ministers 
 and defenders of each particular community or de- 
 nomination in sad strains deploring the ignorance or 
 wickedness of men who fail to coincide with them. 
 They do not think it deplorable that all men do not 
 agree with them on points of scientific interest, that 
 all their neighbors do not coincide with them in lit- 
 erary tastes or in political opinions ; but a dreadful 
 evil is it, that friends, neighbors, and the world do 
 
400 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 not join with them in attaching the same importance 
 to certain articles of faith, certain outward rites, and 
 certain forms of worship. Now, this obviously in- 
 dicates a partial warping of the judgment, a partial 
 biassing of the mind in one direction. For the same 
 observation of diverse physical and intellectual ca- 
 pacity and culture, by which we are led not to ex- 
 pect human countenances to wear the same expres- 
 sion, nor minds uniformly to agree in politics, liter- 
 ature, or science, would naturally, reasonably, and by 
 a logical necessity, lead us not to expect all minds, 
 nor many minds, to perceive religious truth in the 
 same relations, to coincide in theological doctrines or 
 religious forms. Nothing but protracted, persevering, 
 diligent, and impressive instruction, could so blunt 
 the perceptions of a rational mind, as to expose it to 
 such inconsistency. It is plain enough, that no well- 
 balanced mind, symmetrically developed, would ever 
 make the future and eternal welfare of human souls, 
 the favor or displeasure of God, depend upon be- 
 lieving or agreeing to the same theological doctrines, 
 any more than upon believing or agreeing to the 
 same scientific or political doctrines. For in the one 
 case no more than in the other does the belief de- 
 pend upon mere effort of the will. No mind can be- 
 lieve, nor can any mind disbelieve, what and when 
 it may choose or please. But however minds may be 
 contracted or partially distorted in one direction, by at- 
 tachment to religious institutions which exercise a 
 narrowing influence from infancy through every stage 
 of growth, still, whenever this bending power of doc- 
 trine or church is for a time weakened or forgot- 
 ten, leaving the mind to evince its native tendency, 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 401 
 
 and the heart’s affections free to flow in their native 
 channel, we find the most ardent champions of es- 
 tablished systems of exclusive theology conceding 
 and advocating the right to unlimited liberty of 
 thought, and indulging aspirations toward a natu- 
 ral unity of spiritual freedom, a Christian unity of 
 love, independent of all, or rather compatible with 
 all reasonable diversity of doctrine, and all necessary 
 diversity of mental perceptions. My design at this 
 time is to demonstrate this, by a few out of many 
 illustrations which might be given. I solicit your 
 attention to the words in a few brief passages from 
 two or three distinguished deceased, and as many 
 living theologians, Roman Catholic and Protestant. 
 The words of these men are entitled to earnest 
 attention ; for in these instances they are speak- 
 ing in their calmer moments, free from the excite- 
 ment of controversy, showing that the sentiments of 
 the most devoted champions of a cause, when they 
 speak as men, are manly and humane, and showing 
 the ground that sectarians would stand on were they 
 unconfined by the fetters of religious institutions or 
 organisms, — the ground which they will occupy 
 hereafter, as exclusive church associations relax or 
 lose their iron hold upon the hearts and minds of 
 men, and leave them free as the Creator formed them. 
 
 And, first, the renowned President Edwards, a bold- 
 er champion of Calvinism than Calvin himself, says 
 (I cite but a few words, not designing to lay your pa- 
 tience under’ tribute) : “Old men seldom have any 
 advantage from new discoveries, because they are 
 beside a way of thinking which they have long been 
 used to. If ever I live to years, I will be impartial 
 34 * 
 
402 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 to hear reasons of all pretended discoveries, and re- 
 ceive them if rational, how long soever I may have 
 been used to another way of thinking.” Such is the 
 sober second-thought of one among the fiercest de- 
 fenders of a religious system that the world has ever 
 seen. 
 
 Still more direct, if possible, are the following 
 words of an eminent Presbyterian, Dr. Maxcy, once 
 President of South Carolina College, and after- 
 wards of Brown University. He says: “The only 
 thing really essential to Christian union is love or 
 benevolent affection. It is, therefore, with me a 
 fixed principle to censure no man, except for immo- 
 rality. An entire coincidence in sentiment even in 
 important doctrines is by no means essential to 
 Christian society, or the attainment of eternal felicity. 
 Shall these great theological champions (Edwards 
 and Hopkins) engross heaven, and shout hallelujahs 
 from its walls, while a Priestley, a Price, and a Win- 
 chester, merely for a difference in opinion, though 
 pre-eminent in virtue, must sink into the regions of 
 darkness and pain ? Perfect union in opinion will 
 not take place till all men possess not only the same 
 kind of temper, but the same degree of capacity. 
 Candor and forbearance ought always to mark the 
 character of Christians. Nothing derogates more 
 from their true dignity, than to censure or neglect 
 others for difference of sentiment.” Here a dis- 
 tinguished Presbyterian declares, that “ entire coin- 
 cidence in sentiment, even in important doctrines, is 
 by no means essential,” and holds it as “ a fixed 
 principle to censure no man except for immorality.” 
 
 Wesley, the great founder of Methodism, gives ut- 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 403 
 
 terance to his liberality in this way : “ A catholic 
 spirit is not an indifference to all opinions, nor an in- 
 difference to public worship, nor an indifference to 
 all congregations. A man of a catholic spirit is one 
 who gives his hand to all whose hearts are right with 
 his heart; all, of whatever opinion or worship or con- 
 gregation, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 love God and man, who, rejoicing to please and fear- 
 ing to offend God, are careful to abstain from evil, 
 and are zealous of good works.” Such was Wesley. 
 May all of that denomination, who venerate his 
 name, imbibe his spirit. 
 
 On Christian moderation, the eminent Bishop 
 Hall of the Church of England expressed himself 
 in these words : “ There is nothing/ in the world more 
 wholesome and more necessary to learn, than the 
 gracious lesson of Christian moderation, without 
 which, in very truth, a man is so far from being a 
 Christian, that he is not himself. This is the centre 
 wherein all, both divine and moral philosophy meet, 
 the rule of life, the governess of manners, the silken 
 string that runs through the pearl chain of all virtues, 
 the very ecliptic line under which reason and religion 
 move without any deviation, and therefore most 
 worthy our best thoughts and careful observation.” 
 
 In addition to this of Bishop Hall, I give this char- 
 acteristic illustration from the old English writer, 
 Jeremy Taylor. He says : “ Plutarch reports that 
 4he Tyrians tied their gods with chains, because cer- 
 tain persons did dream that Apollo said he would 
 leave their city and go to the party of Alexander, who 
 then besieged the town, and Apollodorus tells us of 
 some who tied the image of Saturn with bands of 
 
404 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 wool upon his feet. So some Christians. They 
 think God is tied to their sect, and bound to be of 
 their side, and the interest of their opinion, and they 
 think he can never go to the enemy’s party, so long 
 as they chain him with certain forms of words or 
 disguises of their own.” 
 
 The last of the departed great among the exclu- 
 sive churches to whose chaVitable sentiments I will 
 now refer, is the illustrious Fenelon, Roman Catho- 
 lic Archbishop of Cambray. When he was tutor in 
 the palace of Louis XIV., he on one occasion is re- 
 ported to have said to the prince : 44 Liberty of 
 thought is an impregnable fortress which no human 
 power can force. Violence can never convince, it 
 only makes hypocrites. When kings take it upon 
 them to direct in matters of religion, instead of pro- 
 tecting it, they bring it into bondage. You ought 
 therefore to grant to all a legal toleration, not as ap- 
 proving everything indifferently, but as suffering with 
 patience what God suffers, endeavoring in a proper 
 manner to restore such as are misled, but never by 
 any measures but those of gentle and benevolent 
 persuasion.” Such are the magnanimous and Chris- 
 tian counsels of a Roman Catholic Archbishop to 
 one high in authority, — counsels as pertinent now 
 as they were then, and as much needed, not only by 
 princes, but by Protestant ministers and people. 
 
 To me it is always an agreeable task to seek out 
 and exhibit the virtues and charities and liberal 
 thoughts of men of every name and every faith. As 
 a fitting sequel to these sentiments of theologians, 
 whose words and whose memory alone remain on 
 earth, listen for a moment longer to sentiments of 
 
THE CHULCH OP THE FUTURE. 
 
 405 
 
 two or three living divines of our own country, of 
 different denominations. And, first, I will recall to 
 your attention the following words of one of the 
 best known Presbyterian periodicals in our country, 
 “ The Evangelist.” The writer says : w If any church 
 would establish itself as a model church, let it adopt 
 these Christian principles. Let it proclaim that it 
 is not laboring for a polity, for an ordinance, for a 
 name, for a sectarian creed born from some old phi- 
 losophy ; but simply to disseminate the Gospel, to 
 promote all human improvement. Let it not, there- 
 fore, seek to multiply itself, by multiplying its works 
 of denominational institutions ; but let it seek to 
 distinguish itself from all others by its charity and 
 generosity, by its readiness to throw aside unimpor- 
 tant differences, and by setting forth clearly and 
 prominently the great truths and duties of the church, 
 and by daring to base itself upon them.” Thus does 
 the public organ of the Presbyterian Church, by de- 
 scribing the want and the character of a new church, 
 describe the consciousness of defect in its own 
 church, just in the particulars to which reference is 
 made. 
 
 In the Methodist Church, Dr. McClintock, now 
 resident in New York, an able writer, and editor of 
 the Methodist Quarterly Review, gives expression to 
 regrets and hopes in this way. He says : “ The free, 
 joyous course on which the human mind entered at 
 the era of the Reformation, was rapidly checked by 
 the dogmatic strictness which soon prevailed. Even 
 in Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and Beza, there are 
 traces of this spirit, but in their successors it domi- 
 neered over everything else. If one is always on the 
 
406 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 look-out to find proof-texts for his creed, he will not 
 be likely to form honest views of the meaning of 
 holy writ. A man may — must have a theory of re- 
 ligion, but he should hold it with the conviction that 
 he, as other men, may err.” Thus does Dr. McClin- 
 tock’s Methodism of to-day accord with that of Wes- 
 ley in a past generation. 
 
 Next, in the Episcopal Church, men feel the need 
 of fuller freedom. Dr. Tyng, a living clergyman of 
 some note in New York, though a defender of his 
 church, expresses his own appreciation of spiritual 
 liberty in these terms, in an address before the Ameri- 
 can Bible Society. “ But there is still another form 
 of hostility to the Bible, sacred in its origin, but 
 baneful in its results. It is that which seeks to block 
 it up in catechisms, and forms, and creeds, and plans 
 of man’s device. I will take the creeds of my own 
 church on the grounds which that church decides, 
 so far as to me they are in accordance with the Sa- 
 cred Scriptures, and no farther. The connection be- 
 tween the Bible and the men who immediately suc- 
 ceeded the period of inspiration, is between infallible 
 and fallible. However I may reverence the men, I 
 can acknowledge no authority in them beyond the 
 word of God. When I go to that book, God speaks 
 to me. I need no succession ; I go at once to the 
 fountain-head. It is not man that speaks, it is God 
 who speaks, and he speaks to me as if there were but 
 one single Bible on the earth, and that Bible an angel 
 had come down and bound upon my bosom.” Thus 
 does the resolve of intellectual liberty utter its living 
 voice in the Episcopal Church of our own day. 
 
 The only other voice for freedom of thought which 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 407 
 
 I shall now bring to your notice, is from the Baptist 
 Church, and uttered only a short time since by Dr. 
 Fuller of Baltimore. He says : “ Everywhere around 
 us we see people who condemn the Roman Catholic 
 doctrine, that the Church is the sole proprietor of the 
 word of God, and who yet adopt the same error. 
 What is it but Protestant Romanism, when the peo- 
 ple are required to receive humanly framed creeds, 
 and articles, and confessions? when, instead of being 
 exhorted to search the Scriptures for themselves, they 
 are expected to surrender their consciences to their 
 pastors, and to take on credit the dogmas of a 
 church? It is a singular fact, with reference to 
 creeds, that they have almost always overlooked 
 holiness, and made piety consist in an assent to ab- 
 stract and often most metaphysical dogmas. Why 
 have not councils framed confessions of morals as 
 well as of faith? And who can doubt that much of 
 the false religion in the churches is to be traced to 
 this fact, that theology, and not piety, the reception 
 of certain abstruse tenets, and not the reception of 
 Christ, has been made the test of conversion and the 
 bond of fellowship? It is the privilege, as it must 
 be the delight, of every Christian, to go directly to 
 Jesus and learn of him ; and whether it be priest 
 or church or creed that dares to interfere, he ought 
 to spurn the usurpation. It is the substitution of 
 human articles for the word of God, which has 
 darkened the counsels of heaven, and still perpetu- 
 ates party spirit, and strife, and confusion.” Here 
 now we perceive that on every side is felt, not only 
 the impolicy, but the injustice, of imposing restraints 
 upon perfect liberty of religious thought. Against 
 
408 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 intolerance, and favoring the largest charity, you have 
 the combined voice of some of the most powerful 
 minds in every prominent church organization, both 
 Protestant and Roman Catholic. The Protestant 
 bishop and the Roman Catholic bishop, — the Pres- 
 byterian, the Methodist, and Baptist, — unite in pro- 
 nouncing mental liberty and universal charity the 
 essentials of a Christian faith, and all restraints as 
 tending to perpetuate ignorance, hypocrisy, and im- 
 morality. 
 
 We discover that whatever men say as sectarians, 
 whatever they do as champions of systems, or de- 
 fenders of organizations, whose authority they have 
 been taught from infancy to recognize, when men 
 speak as men , their voice is one, their sympathies, 
 their hearts are one. When unbiassed and forgetful 
 of associations, we see those of every church and 
 creed, both by their utterances and their acts, testify- 
 ing to the consciousness of a common nature, of 
 common wants, common efforts, and common hopes, 
 all declaring a common relationship, children of the 
 same Father, worshippers of the same God. 
 
 Is nothing signified by this kind and degree of 
 unity ? Does it amount to nothing, that the most 
 devoted and distinguished advocates of opposing 
 theories .and denominations, when speaking freely, 
 unfettered by prejudice, their individual sentiments, 
 stand upon one platform, proclaiming with an un- 
 broken voice the right of individual thought, the re- 
 sponsibility of the mind for its convictions to the 
 Creator, the Supreme, alone, — has this no meaning ? 
 
 Does it indicate nothing, that when they forget 
 their several churches, and the fixed limits of their 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 409 
 
 creeds, we find men, ministers of every sect, Prot- 
 estant and Roman, defending the same spiritual 
 freedom, toiling for the same spiritual knowledge, 
 and longing for the same spiritual sympathy ? From 
 all this is there nothing to be inferred ? 
 
 These unquestioned and unquestionable facts are 
 not destitute of meaning. They point us back- 
 ward to the errors of the past, and they lead us 
 forward hopefully toward a brighter future. They 
 point us backward to the history of religions, 
 wherein we discover that one of the first duties — 
 for it has been esteemed a duty — of parents and 
 teachers has been, not to place the child’s mind in 
 a position and under influences, simply to develop 
 the powers with which God has endowed it, — to ed- 
 ucate, draw out its faculties, leaving them as far as 
 possible free to seize upon and appropriate whatever 
 might be congenial to its constitution, necessary to 
 its growth and life, — but to indoctrinate it, and in- 
 struct it in forms and faiths, essential, as it was 
 taught, to its eternal welfare ; and, having unfolded 
 and impressed the mind thus far, to treat it like a 
 pet lamb, or a pet bear, — tie it with a string or 
 chain, as the strength of the one or the other might 
 be needed, and keep it for ever perambulating in the 
 circle which its chain described. Sometimes the pet 
 has drawn and drawn to its utmost limits, till the 
 string has snapped, or the chain has broken, and, the 
 centrifugal being so much stronger than the centripe- 
 tal motion, it has passed utterly beyond the reach of 
 its first friends, into a chaos of rayless, moonless 
 scepticism, naturally avoiding, with scrupulous care, 
 the orderly prison from which it has escaped, — 
 35 
 
410 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 wandering coldly, suspiciously, and alone, not even 
 seeking for the orderly freedom and sympathy which 
 it might enjoy. 
 
 But the facts of common thought and feeling, 
 which we have been regarding, refer us not only 
 backward, — they also point us forward to a better 
 time to come. These longings after common free- 
 dom of the mind have been blown abroad on every 
 wind, till the very air is pregnant with their influ- 
 ence. These common longings after spiritual sym- 
 pathy have given themselves shape, and taken to 
 themselves an abode in the current literature of the 
 age and the enlightened world. A sense of kindred 
 interests and kindred hopes — despite all efforts, and 
 these are neither few nor feeble, to keep them divid- 
 ed and distrustful — is drawing men closer to each 
 other. 
 
 The churches indeed are busy enough in repair- 
 ing the breaches in the old walls by which the flocks 
 have been fenced in ; but it avails little, — for every 
 train of steam-cars shakes down as much stone and 
 mortar as the Sunday-preaching builds. Every flash 
 along ten thousand electric wires rejoins and mends 
 the threads of the cord of human sympathy as rapid- 
 ly as the fires of ten thousand pulpits can consume 
 and separate them. 
 
 No, no; the letter has had its day, and still has 
 power ; but it has swayed a kingly sceptre long 
 enough, and the spirit now takes its seat too upon 
 the throne. The little bodies baptized with the 
 Christian name have had their period of sovereignty, 
 and now the earth-wide, heaven-born soul of Chris- 
 tianity is to have its day of power. The Catholic 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 411 
 
 Christian Spiritual Church has its foundations al- 
 ready laid, its broad and beautiful proportions are 
 just rising into view, attracting the attention of ob- 
 servers. The Church of the Future is born, and, in a 
 healthy infancy, is growing well beneath the mater- 
 nal care of the humane and liberal spirit of the age. 
 
 Yes ; the Church of the Future, which is to hold in 
 its wide embrace all true spirits, with every natural 
 diversity of mind, as necessary as the natural diver- 
 sities of body. The same law recognized in material 
 is to be recognized in spiritual things. The same 
 element by which men are joined in promoting the 
 general outward comfort, is joining men in the pro- 
 motion of inward religious sympathy. Men can co- 
 operate in the cultivation of benevolence, and every 
 generous emotion, and they begin to feel that, after 
 all, this is co-operation in unfolding the religious 
 sentiment. The natural sun shines down, as they 
 perceive, on every variety of soil, and every variety 
 of bodily formation, and a similar vapory sacrifice 
 ascends from all ; and men begin to feel that the same 
 spiritual sun shines down, upon human souls as va- 
 ried, — and a spontaneous warmth may send up a 
 similar incense of grateful worship to the Fountain 
 of life and the Centre of all good. It is true that 
 among the less hopeful and less liberal in all the 
 church divisions now, may be discerned a more stren- 
 uous opposition to free thought and common sym- 
 pathy than has been witnessed for a generation past. 
 But this only evinces the consciousness of a new 
 element which has found its way into the systems, 
 a new tendency at variance with the old order. 
 
 The tree of human brotherhood, which Jesus trans- 
 
412 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 planted from its narrow nursery in Palestine into the 
 unfenced garden of the world, though by mistaken 
 husbandmen it has been tied down and dwarfed, 
 and the dew and sunshine of love shut out by ec- 
 clesiastic coverings, has still been growing, and now 
 has reached a growth so stately, that it can no longer 
 be kept in the hot-house of a single church ; its roots 
 have deepened, and its trunk has strengthened, and its 
 boughs expanded, till it rejoices in the light and heat' 
 and showers of heaven itself, and sweet birds are 
 singing in its foliage, and men are beginning to en- 
 joy its refreshing and delicious fruits. 
 
 The triumph coming is not to be a triumph of 
 your, nor of mine, nor of any man’s opinions, — not 
 the domination of a party or a creed ; but a reign of 
 the same harmonious spirit in religious life which 
 now reigns in social life. This faith rests on no fanci- 
 ful foundation, it is no theory, but, as we have seen, 
 the only reasonable induction from indisputable facts ; 
 the sentiments and aspirations which we see exist- 
 ing, and have found expressed, by the best minds of 
 every sect, must be embodied. They must be real- 
 ized. 
 
 The religious world to come is to resemble the 
 natural world now, united in diversity. The Church 
 of the Future is to resemble God’s creation of the 
 present. In the natural temple for God’s worship, 
 we see united and prospering together, trees of every 
 species, leaves of every shape, and petals of every 
 hue, and voices of every tone, — each and all pro- 
 tected by the same capacious dome, and adorned by 
 the same celestial drapery. 
 
 In the future of Christianity, the Church to come 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 413 
 
 will be found embracing and protecting minds of 
 every capacity, men of every prople, perceptions 
 of every variety, the individuality of each preserved, 
 every one making up the complement of all, diver- 
 sity perfecting unity , every heart grateful in its own 
 powers, and every voice in its own tone joining in 
 the great harmony of eternallworship. 
 
 THE END. 
 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBAN A 
 
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