u 
 
 History Repeating Itself. 
 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 Rev. CHARLES STANLEY LESTER, 
 
 Rector St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 
 
 HYDE PARK, 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
 
 Harvest Home Festival, 
 
 5 th October , 1879. 
 
 PRINTED BY REQUEST. 
 
“History Repeating Itself.” 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. CHARLES STANLEY LESTER, 
 
 Rector St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 
 
 HYDE PARK, 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
 
 Harvest Home Festival, 
 
 5th October , 1879. 
 
 PRINTED BY REQUEST. 
 
And all countries came into Egyyt to Joseph, for to buy corn .— 
 Genesis xli: 57. 
 
 History is repeating itself upon a grander scale, and the old old 
 story of corn in Egypt, whose tragedy and romance interested us 
 so greatly when we were children, is being lived over again upon 
 the broad arena of the wide, wide world. 
 
 Our modern romance is very like the old one, only that the 
 little details of a family story have become the grand features of a 
 nation’s life. In place of Egypt, we have a continent ; instead of 
 a single Joseph, a multitude of younger sons ; of men hated and 
 persecuted for conscience sake, of men sent into exile by the 
 tyranny of their elder brethren. 
 
 Instead of a few short years in a single life, we have two cen¬ 
 turies and more, before the romance of the history begins, and all 
 Europe awakes to the fact that the children’s children of those 
 who went out from her in poverty and sorrow, are holding the 
 storehouses of the food of the world. This is certainly romantic 
 history, and all the more romantic because it is so strangely true. 
 When generations yet to come, shall read the history of the won¬ 
 derful nineteenth century, the year 1879 will stand out in bold 
 relief upon its pages as the great year of the turning of the tide— 
 the year in which a great young nation, for centuries dependent on 
 its mother-world, reached its majority and found itself suddenly in 
 position to dictate the cost of living to its aged parent across the 
 sea. 
 
 What use will it make of its sudden prosperity and power ? 
 
 Will it deal justly and mercifully with men ? What influences 
 will go out with its wheat, lumber and pork ? What will it do 
 under its sudden rain of gold ? These are the questions that we 
 cannot help asking, while we praise God for the great harvest of 
 the year 1879. 
 
4 
 
 For however bare and hard and material the business of the 
 world may seem, we cannot separate spiritual from material things ; 
 we cannot divorce transactions from their influences, but must re¬ 
 gard the commerce of the world as a great magnetic fluid, which is 
 affecting the souls of men for good or evil. 
 
 The little camel train, which wound its slow, weary length across 
 the desert, to bring home its modicum of corn, has become a great 
 river, majestic in its strength, gathering its volume from the 
 thousand quick arteries of a nation’s life, and pouring into the 
 mighty ocean, to spread throughout the world the products and 
 manufactures, the methods and the faiths of a great nation. 
 
 When we see a train go by, with its heavy load of freight, there 
 are things going with that train not seen, things which do not ap¬ 
 pear in the invoice, and yet they are things which affect the souls 
 of men forever. And as each car load reaches its journey’s end, 
 these unseen things expend their subtle force to make or mar the 
 fortunes of the kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 There is a little strengthening of some one’s faith in the things 
 that abide forever, or one more shock to make men distrust our 
 human kind. 
 
 We cannot help seeing, therefore, how dependent the world is 
 for its growth in goodness, upon the faiths of men, in the great 
 centres of commercial life. The things which have influenced men 
 for good or evil have always radiated from great centres, and the 
 names of historic cities mean for us a thousand things more than the 
 mere localities they represent. When we speak of Jerusalem, or 
 Athens, Rome, or Paris, we scarcely think of places at all, but of 
 the influences which have gone out from them to make the history 
 of the world. 
 
 These four names alone seem to us more like synonyms or sym¬ 
 bols for religion, art, law and vanity. 
 
 It has taken centuries to associate certain influences with great 
 historic names, but what our modern cities lack in the prestige of 
 time, they more than make good by the rapidity of communication 
 and the larger circle through which their influences extend. 
 
s 
 
 When a city has grown old, its influence is a past settled fact of 
 history, but so long as it is young, it may make the influence what 
 it will. 
 
 There seems to be a responsibility then which has fallen upon 
 the shoulders of business men in the great cities of this country, 
 such has never been laid upon any men since the world began. 
 
 It is not alone the markets of the world that they are to con¬ 
 trol, the prices of the necessaries of life that they are to regulate, 
 but the faiths of men that they are to prescribe and the religion of 
 the future that they are to formulate. 
 
 We often talk about the farming population as constituting the 
 backbone of a country. But the country copies the cities and 
 follows in their wake. Its effect is not active influence, but dead 
 weight. 
 
 On the other hand, the original thinkers, the prophets of a land 
 are few. It is the business man, those who live in the hottest 
 of the strife, where the motives of life are generated, who digest 
 thought and transmute it into power. 
 
 Was ever an opportunity, then, like the present, to convert the 
 world, was ever a centre of influence more important for the faiths 
 and destinies of man than this great city of Chicago ? It is the 
 Egypt of a new era. All countries are flocking to it, to buy corn, 
 all roads lead to it, as once to Rome, and North and South and 
 East and West, across the continent and beyond the sea, must go 
 out from this focus of material things a tremendous influence upon 
 the morality and religion of the world. 
 
 It is not in material prosperity alone that this country has at¬ 
 tained its majority. It has acquired, also, the power of independent 
 thought. The old problems of mankind are to be thought over 
 again, and their new solutions may become the inspirations of a 
 better life throughout the world. 
 
 When we were young, as a nation, we imported our clothes, our 
 manners, our philosophy and religion from Europe, but out of the 
 strange amalgam of nationalities and traditions, of customs and 
 creeds, which has been gathering and seething in this country, 
 
6 
 
 there is slowly coming forth a distinctive race, which will make or 
 mar the world’s development, which will either deify material things 
 and make a fetish of prosperity, or else take a noble stride forward 
 in the evolution of a higher life, and out of the buried kernels of 
 Christian truth develop a grand simplicity of faith, which shall be¬ 
 come an abiding power in the daily lives of men. 
 
 We sometimes deplore the fact that we are an irreverent nation, 
 that we have little respect for persons or dignity, for places or tra¬ 
 ditions, and yet this very irreverence is one of the signs of the rude 
 shock which has freed us from the thraldom of the past. 
 
 We stand in no awe of precedents. Instead of following estab¬ 
 lished customs, we are making new ones for ourselves. Instead of 
 bowing to authority in church or state, we, the people of a great 
 nation, are the authority, and the respect once paid to principalities 
 and powers is turned into the individual consciousness of being ab¬ 
 solutely free. This personal freedom is a grand advance in the 
 evolution of the race, a step upwards for millions of human beings 
 towards the absoluteness of Almighty God. 
 
 And yet it may be a dangerous step. Unless the fulness of 
 time be come, when men are able to grasp the rudder of their own 
 lives and guide them by the compass of lawful destiny, there may 
 be war in Heaven and greater anarchy in a nation’s life than under 
 the old clumsy methods by which the powers of church and state 
 curbed the turbulence of men. 
 
 There must be law and order, there must be restraints and con¬ 
 trol, and if these be not imposed by powers without, they must be 
 the development of conscience in each individual soul, and the 
 eyes of the whole world are turned upon this country to see it 
 working at the great problem of self-control, to see whether the 
 time has yet come, when a great nation glorying in the strength of 
 its independent manhood, can be a law unto itself, or whether 
 yielding to the torrents of temptations which assail its youthful 
 life, it is to fall from its ambitious height and be engulfed in politi¬ 
 cal, financial and moral ruin. 
 
 This present year of a new prosperity is like the dawning of a 
 
7 
 
 new life after a long racking of pain and a weary prostration from 
 disease. Like a patient returning to consciousness after long weeks 
 of sickness, we look back and remember that we had a long and 
 dreadful war, whose convulsions threatened to tear the nation limb 
 from limb, and we can recall the visions of our aged relatives be¬ 
 yond the sea, sitting by the bedside and feeling the nation’s pulse, 
 waiting to see the breath go out, that each might write a letter 
 in the simple epitaph—“ America is dead.” 
 
 But America did not die. Young nations do not die so easily ; 
 but throwing off the dread attack, she was left sore and weak, 
 exposed to all the maladies which float in the pestilential at¬ 
 mosphere of war. The measles of ring-frauds broke out in a 
 dreadful rash all over the land. The yellow fever of corruption 
 attacked her vitals in local boards, in legislatures, in the capital its- 
 self. The high fever of fictitious values threw her into the wild 
 delirium of speculation. And then came the sudden collapse of 
 her over-strained energies, the dead surplus of production, the 
 stagnation of trade, the paralysis of commerce and the question 
 whether the nation’s sufferings had not left her a hopeless, shattered 
 w r reck. But slowly and surely she has been nursing herself back to 
 life, saving her strength, recruiting her energies, throwing off her 
 encumbrances and biding her time, until now she finds herself 
 ready to begin again the real work and warfare of life, in a time like 
 the grand days of Solomon, when “ silver is accounted as nothing, 
 by reason of the plentifulness of gold.” 
 
 Would that she might adopt a new motto and blazon it in her 
 halls of congress, and write it large in her boards of trade, and 
 print it on her commercial note, and sink it deep in each man’s 
 heart — “ Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee.” 
 
 And how shall we, as a nation, be saved from our sins ? By 
 faith only ! Not the old interpretation of this historic phrase, by 
 which men thought that a certain theological belief would enable 
 them to reap what they had not sown, but the actual belief by 
 business men that certain things are better worth living for than 
 certain other things, that there is a higher law than the civil code 
 
or selfish policy, and that the first and noblest duty of man is not 
 to make money or to gratify himself, but to help in the evolution 
 of the race. 
 
 We have this much in our favor to start with. By far the 
 largest part of the business men have a most profound respect for 
 integrity and patience, for perseverance and faithfulness. But 
 what they do not realize, and what they ought to believe, is that 
 these things are copies in some degree of the attributes of God, 
 that the men who manifest these things are Godlike, and so are 
 lights and leaders of the race in its grand development towards the 
 perfection of its Father in Heaven. Men need to believe that these 
 are not the evanescent virtues of a human life, but the things that 
 abide forever and make the form and features of a character for 
 eternity. 
 
 Men are greatly fascinated with the new philosophy of evolu¬ 
 tion, but under the hands of its apostles it bids them look back¬ 
 wards, not forwards. It draws its inspiration from monstrosities 
 and dead bones and jelly fish, and the last link in its chain is the 
 present human life. But Christianity adds another link, and bids 
 us to forget those things that are behind, while we press forward 
 towards the infinite heights that are yet before us in the evolution 
 of mankind, bids us work for the incarnation into our human lives 
 of the life of God, and for the transformation into flesh and blood 
 of the things that are pure and honorable, and true, and of good 
 report. 
 
 Here is a faith that is not dark and mysterious, a faith that 
 carries with it inspiration and power, a faith that transforms the 
 motives and ambitions of life, a faith that saves men from their sins 
 by making them seek first, in all things, the glorious fulfillment of 
 their human destiny. 
 
 This is the kind of faith which this country needs to-day ; a 
 faith by which men live, and not a faith flaunted before the world 
 in the stock phrases of cant; a bright and glorious living power, 
 which takes to itself form and feature in the business transactions 
 of the business world, and makes the ledger, and the brokers’ board, 
 
9 
 
 the press, the telegraph and the mail its ministers to preach through¬ 
 out the world its Gospel of righteousness and truth. It is the business 
 men and not the clergy who are to preach this faith. They are to 
 preach it not in words, in dogmas or in creeds, but in faithfulness to 
 the noblest motives of the soul, faithfulness which makes sacra¬ 
 ments of common things, and turns every transaction, whether 
 small or great, into an outward and visible sign of an inward and 
 spiritual power that goes out on its mission to purify and elevate 
 and redeem the souls of men. 
 
 The influences of the clergy in the world to-day, compared with 
 the influences of business men, seems to me like the little cloud 
 which floats across the clear summer sky. Multitudes do not see it, 
 other multitudes do not heed it, but all men know that the day is 
 fine. 4 
 
 A clergyman drops his little pebbles into the quiet mill-pond 
 before his cottage door, and the ripples dance for a moment in the 
 sunshine of peace and friendliness, but the men who move the 
 great levers of the machinery of trade are dropping ponderous 
 stones into the ocean of humanity, and the ripples go rolling on in 
 ever-widening circles, until they spend their force upon the shores 
 of eternity. 
 
 What a responsibility ! What an inspiration ! 
 
 Ought not the men upon whom the ends of the world are come 
 to feel themselves called of God and consecrated as the apostles of 
 a new and living faith ? Ought not the priests who minister at the 
 altars of trade to be clothed with righteousness, and as the leaders 
 in the war for a new emancipation of mankind, to put on the 
 whole armor of God ? 
 
 To-day is their grand opportunity, not only to profit by the re¬ 
 vival of industry and trade, but to work nobly for the revival 
 throughout this land of faith in the things that abide forever. 
 
 The responsibility and the opportunity increase with the im¬ 
 portance of the centre from which influence goes out. Most nota¬ 
 bly, then, is this very city of Chicago the place for the preaching 
 of a new Gospel, for the rallying to a new crusade, for laying again 
 
IO 
 
 the old foundation stones of righteousness and truth, made bright 
 and clean from the clinging vines of bigotry and the old mosses of 
 tradition. There are other cities in this land, older and more beau¬ 
 tiful, with more culture and music, and art and wealth, but there is 
 no place which is to-day exerting so great an influence upon the 
 faiths and methods, the deeds and destinies of men, as the city of 
 Chicago. Down in the region between Water Street and Jackson, 
 between the river and the lake, is the great throbbing heart of a 
 new life for the world, a heart that is sending its pulsations 
 throughout this land, and across two oceans, making the future re¬ 
 ligion of America, and moulding the lives of men in France and 
 Germany, in China and Japan. 
 
 Everyone knows that the centre of population in this land must 
 be the Mississippi Valley, and what the future millions of this 
 valley shall believe, and live and do, depends upon the light that 
 is shining from the great metropolis of the West. 
 
 The farmers and the little dealers down in Illinois and through¬ 
 out the great Northwest, will be the kind of men that the mer¬ 
 chants of Chicago make them. They will be honorable and faith¬ 
 ful and true, they will believe in immortality and God, or they will 
 be cunning and grasping, and tricky and contemptible and mean. 
 And the reputation of Chicago’s dealings will be known far and 
 wide ; what she says will be a synomyn for truth ; what she prom¬ 
 ises, a guarantee of fulfillment ; what she does, the outward, 
 comely form of a faithful spirit ; or she will be known among the 
 nations as a place where none but the wise and prudent dare come 
 to trade. 
 
 She believes in herself. Would that she might realize her in¬ 
 fluence and power. Would that some one gifted with persuasive 
 eloquence might take each of her merchants by the hand and bid 
 him — “O, sir, I pray you believe in some of these eternal things, 
 some of the truths which you do not touch, nor taste, nor see ; 
 I pray you, live by this faith, and so help to kindle in Chicago the 
 bright shining of a light that shall lighten the nations of the earth 
 along the highway of life, towards the perfection of God.” 
 
But the overwhelming thought comes to us here to-day— 
 What are we among so many ? Five barley loaves and a few small 
 fishes. Yet these once fed the multitude. It is the leaven that 
 leaveneth the lump. It is the unseen springs which multiply into 
 torrents of power. It is the single mountains which help to make 
 the mountain chain, and no man who lives so near the center of 
 the world’s activities as you and I, can begin to measure the influ¬ 
 ence of a single life. Look you to yourselves, therefore, and not to 
 your brethren. Look well to your own faith. Govern your own 
 life thereby, and honestly believe that the little seeds of hidden 
 things that you are planting day by day, are the seeds of righteous¬ 
 ness and life for the city, the country and the world. 
 
 Joseph was but a single man sold into slavery, and yet by the 
 faith and faithfulness of that one life, multitudes of lives were 
 saved, and the current of the history of the world was changed. 
 
 Our opportunities are grander than his. It is not one country, 
 or a few camel trains, but the whole wide world that is flocking 
 hither to buy corn, and let every man, therefore, who glows with 
 the inspiration of Chicago’s gigantic trade, feel the noble inspira¬ 
 tion of her influence, and look upon his own life as big with influ¬ 
 ence that is going out from him in a constant stream of 
 mould the destinies of this country and to formulate the 
 of the world. 
 
 vith influ- 
 power, 
 
 ic 
 
 4