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SINS AND SAFEGUARDS
OF SOCIETY

Sins and Safeguards of
Society

BY

THEODORE PARKER

EDITED WITH NOTES
BY
SAMUEL B. STEWART

!.i«!Msl.»Pmmm

BOSTON
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION
25 Beacon Street

EDITOR'S PREFACE
The sermons coUected in this volume are concerned
with certain phases of public morals and public educa
tion. The first two are virtually anti-slavery dis
courses, and their titles, being in general descriptive
of the aim and scope, give title to the volume. An
address on " The Public Education of the People" is
included; also a review of the reports of the commit
tees of the Pubhc Schools of Boston, and of the State
Board of Education.
As regards the sermons, there is Httle modern socio
logical phrasing, and they are more or less discursive
in matter and manner, the one great iniquity that
weighed most on Parker's soul haunting almost every
theme, diverting his attention and compelling from
him some side-thrust of rebuke. Sermons they are, —
not treatises of the sociological specialist, — and must
be judged as such. He had ranged, however, over the
wide fields of social science with patient study and knew
whereof he preached. His ideas of the means and in-
strumentahties of social reform and progress had not
crystalhzed into creedal form; it is doubtful if they
would have ever done so. What most concerns him is
the basic principles of a sound and healthy social struc
ture. Its architectural features must conform to the
endlessly developing needs and conditions of society.
He speaks, therefore, for his own time. But in the
rough, with his practical sense and philosophy of life,
he comes to conclusions in advance of public opinion
— conclusions that are being accepted, and worked
upon with more and more satisfactory results. The

EDITOR'S PREFACE
weeds and parasites of society continue to spring and
flourish and he would have been even more exercised
by the complexity of the situation to-day, but the es
sential principles of a more perfect social order on
which he discourses remain the same.
From his point of view and time, " The Chief Sins
of the People " were the slave-power at the South and
its subservient money-power at the North. Con
sideration of these matters is reserved for other vol
umes, and nothing need be said of them here save as
they are the occasion, in the anti-slavery sermons, of
an almost uncontrollable indignation and satirical in
vective. The literature of the anti-slavery crusade
contains little so fearfully eloquent. " The most illus
trious oratory " he says " thunders and lightens out
of some tempest which threatens ruin to the State.
The eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero came out of
the stormy cloud which bore ruin to Athens and to
Rome." Parker's eloquence flashed out of the black
cloud of slavery threatening the Republic. Address
ing the upholders of the Fugitive Slave Law, it is as if
he would thrust them among the tyrants and traitors
of the Inferno. For their sakes he would have inter
polated a canto. He promises " not to speak again of
Judas or the Judge, but they will come up before me,"
and, as the reader will see, to receive some new outburst
of invective.
Time, however, has laid a soft and forgiving hand
upon his scorching Hps. "The Safeguards of So
ciety " are righteousness in the people, in their laws and
institutions, and in the service of their public officers
— a sermon mainly for the enlightenment of those to
whose consciences the Fugitive Slave Law was a
stumbling block — a sermon of the higher law.

EDITOR'S PREFACE
He exalts democracy as most favorable to the or
ganization of justice and safety, and, especially, trial
by jury. The third point does not aim at political
corruption, or with the slightest suggestion of a civil
service system, but at the bad conscience of public of
ficials who felt constrained to see to the execution of the
Fugitive Slave Law.
The address and also the review on " Education of
the People " have intrinsic value. They present, also,
a striking contrast between the educational privileges
of American towns and cities sixty years ago and at
the present time. Parker is inspired by and gives sup
port to his contemporaries, the distinguished educators
George B. Emerson and Horace Mann, who were la
boring with the people and with the Massachusetts
Legislature for ampler provision for the education of
American youth and society. He urges the establish
ment of high schools, normal schools, girls' schools,
— the education and employment of female teachers, a
higher value set on teaching as an occupation and
larger compensation ; discountenances sectarian col
leges, suggests the university system ; insists upon
scientific and Hterary culture for women as well as for
men; points out the need of public Hbraries, the free
lecture system and other agencies of public education.
In his day these had scant existence, and it is interest
ing to see how the outline he sketches has been filled
in — by what enlightened public sentiment, what
generous legislative enactment, and by what wealth of
endowment. In one respect Parker was not an agitator of " The
Public Function of Women." The suffragettes
would be impatient of his sane and quiet discourse.
He esteemed the domestic functions of woman more

EDITOR'S PREFACE
highly than the public, but regarded her elevation as
" the greatest practical reformation of the people,"
and further says in his " Development of New Eng
land," " When she is recognized as the equivalent of
man in her individual, social, political, domestic and
ecclesiastical rights, most beautiful results will f oUow."
He knows no reason why woman " should not be a voter
and hold office and administer laws," but doubts " that
she will ever take the same interest as man in political
affairs, or find there an abiding satisfaction." What
ever question subsequent events may raise as to his
" doubt," the sermon is a prophecy of the freedom
and honor woman has attained, and the important
place she now occupies in literature, in humane and
philanthropic administration, and as an educator of the
people; it may be added as a factor in the direction
of public opinion on political matters, and as a voter.
The discourses on " The Moral Dangers of Pros
perity," "Hard Times" and "Poverty" show that
modern Socialism was in its infancy — the word does
not appear. The sermons reflect some of the eco
nomic conditions of the period, but with the exception
of a discussion of the main cause of " hard times " —
the panic of 1857, which he attributes to the evils of
" paper money," they are strictly homiletic and
practical. Capital and labor had not taken sides, as
now under the new civilization fostered by universal
education, a vast immigration, unparalleled discovery,
invention and industry, and the individual accumula
tion of fabulous wealth. For the best he has to say
on labor one must turn to his full and important papers
— " Thoughts on Labor " and " Education of the La
boring Class." He expresses an expectation of labor
organization, does " not know what will be done or

EDITOR'S PREFACE
how ;" also his belief that the " right to bequeath
enormous estates to individuals will be cut off." The
former has come to pass; the latter is yet far off.
" Poverty may be an essential element in human civili
zation;" even that he doubts, and optimistically be
lieves that, under the general advance of society, like
cannibalism, slavery, intemperance, and other vices and
barbarisms, it will disappear. At the same time, he
says " Calamity is not half so calamitous as constant
prosperity," " when it rains money, the world reaps
no great crops of men," and deals out the tonic of
stress and adversity, with abundant illustration from
the social and political history of New England.
Worship of the Almighty Dollar is America's great
danger, especially to the youth ; the luxurious life and
the striving for the prestige of the " abounding class."
He has no faith, however, in communistic schemes.
One finds here, also, a variety of suggestions, in
dicative of his practical benevolence and foresight, that
have become the commonplaces of modern charitable
organizations. The sermon on " War " was inspired by our trou
bles with Mexico. His hatred of war is based on the
usual ground of its barbarism as war of aggression,
and its wanton waste of a nation's vitality, all which
he supports with a mass of statistics ; the suffering and
burden of taxation it imposes upon the poor; and the
check it gives to the cultivation of the higher and
nobler interests of the people. The advocates of peace
were a feeble folk then, — " crying in the wilderness."
How the Hague Court and the twentieth century world-
engaging peace sentiment would have rejoiced his
heart! " Crime and its Punishment," though somewhat dis-

EDITOR'S PREFACE
cursive, expresses the saner, more humane feeling that
prevails in enlightened communities, not only as to the
causes of crime and the character of its punishment,
but the educational and redeeming1 influences that
should be brought to bear upon those who suffer the
penalties of the law. Whether the unpunished crimes
of the intelligent and the powerful are so extensively
responsible for the crimes of the poor and iU-condi-
tioned as he represents may be questioned. Capital
punishment he condemns. While its grosser features
are a disgrace to an enlightened community, the argu
ment for its abolition is not whoUy conclusive.
Especial interest attaches to the sermon " What Re
ligion may do for a Man," with which the volume
closes. It. was the last Parker was able to preach, the
last spoken word from his mount of vision. It was
spoken out of his unyielding will and unsurrender-
ing hope, but all the while the tides of physical
strength, as seen and watched by those who admired
and loved him, — and even at times, despairingly, by
himself, — were surely ebbing — and beyond return.
Samuel B. Stewart

CONTENTS Page
I. The Chief Sins of the People ... 1
II. The Three Chief Safeguards of Society 49
III. The Public Education of the People . 91
TV. Education of the People  139
V. The Public Function of Woman . . . 178
VI. Home considered in Relation to its
Moral Influence  207
VII. The Moral Dangers of Prosperity . . 220
VIII. Hard Times  247
IX. Poverty  263
X. War  288
XI. Crime and its Punishment  326
XII. What Religion may do for a Man . . 352
Notes  375

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE
My friends, this is a day of public humiliation and
prayer. We have one every year. It is commonly in
the city churches only a farce, because there is no
special occasion for it, and the general need is not felt.
But such is the state of things in the Union at this
moment, and particularly in Boston, that, if it were
not a custom, it would be a good thing, even if it
were for the first time in the history of our country,
to have such a day for humihation and prayer, that we
consider the state of the nation, and look at our con
duct in reference to the great principles of religion,
and see how we stand before God; for these are times
that try men's souls.
Last Sunday, I purposely disappointed you, and
turned off from what was nearest to your heart and
was nearest to mine, — a subject that would have been
easy to preach on without any preparation. Then I
asked you to go to the Fountain of all strength, and
there prepare yourselves for the evils that we know not
of. To-day, the governor has asked us to come to
gether, and consider, in the spirit of Christianity, the
pubHc sins of the community, to contemplate the value
of our institutions, and to ask the blessing of God on
the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed. I am glad
of this occasion ; and I will improve it, and ask your
attention to "A Sermon of the Chief Sins of this
People." I have said that these are times that try men's souls.
IX— 1 1

2 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
This is such an occasion as never came before, and, I
trust, never will again. I have much to say to you,
much more than I intend to say to-day, much more
than there are hours enough in this day to speak.'
Many things I shall pass by. I shaU detain you to;
day somewhat longer than is my wont ; but do not fear,
I will look out for your attention. I simply ask you
to be calm, to be composed, and to hear with silence
what I have to say.
To understand these things, we must begin somewhat
far off.
The purpose of human life is to form a manly char
acter, to get the best development of body and of
spirit, — of mind, conscience, heart, soul. This is the
end: all else is the means. Accordingly, that is not
the most successful hfe in which a man gets the most
pleasure, the most money or ease, the most power of
place, honor, and fame; but that in which a man gets
the most manhood, performs the greatest amount of
human duty, enjoys the greatest amount of human
right, and acquires the greatest amount of manly char
acter. It is of no importance whether he win this by
wearing a hod upon his shoulders, or a crown upon
his head. It is the character, and not the crown, I
value. The crown perishes with the head that wore
it; but the character lives with the immortal man who
achieved it; and it is of no consequence whether that
immortal man goes up to God from a throne or from
a gallows. Every man has some one preponderating object in
life, — an object that he aims at and holds supreme.
Perhaps he does not know it ; but he thinks of this in
his day-dreams, and his dreams by night. It colors
his waking hours, and is with him in his sleep. Some-

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 3
times it is sensual pleasure that he wants; sometimes
money ; sometimes office, fame, social distinction ; some
times it is the quiet of a happy home, with wife and
children, aU comfortable and blessed; sometimes it is
excellence in a special science or art, or department of
literature; sometimes it is a special form of philan
thropy; and sometimes it is the attainment of great,
manly character.
This supreme object of desire is sometimes different
at different times in a man's life, but in general is
mainly the same all through. For " the child is father
of the man," and his days bound each to each, if not
by natural piety, then by unnatural profaneness.
This desire may act with different intensity in the
active and passive periods, in manhood and in age. It
is somewhat modified by the season of passion, and by
the season of ambition.
If this object of special desire be worthy, so is the
character in general ; if base, so is the man. For this
special desire becomes the master motive in the man;
and, if strong, establishes a unity in his consciousness,
and caUs out certain passions, appetites, powers of
mind and conscience, heart and soul; and, in a long
Hfe, the man creates himself anew in the image of his
ideal desire. This desire, good or bad, which sways
the man, is writ on his character, and thence copied
into the countenance; and lust or love, frivolity or
science, interest or principle, mammon or God, is writ
on the man. StiU this unity is seldom whole and com
plete. With most men there are exceptional times,
when they turn off a little from their great general
pursuit. Simeon the Styhte comes down from his pil
lar-top, and chaffers in the market-place with common
folks. Jeffries is even just once or twice in his life,

4 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
and Wilkes is honorable two or three times. Even
when the chief desire is a high and holy one, I should
not expect a man to go through life without ever com
mitting an error or a sin. When I was a youngster,
just let loose from the theological school, I thought dif
ferently ; but at this day, when I have felt the passions
of hfe, and been stirred by the ambitions of Hfe, I
know it must be expected that a man wiU stumble now
and then. I make aUowances for that in myself, as I
do in others. These are the exceptional periods in a
man's life, — the eddies in the stream. The stream
runs down hill all the time, though the eddy may for
a time apparently run up.
Now, as with men, so it is with nations. The pur
pose of national Hfe is to bring forth and bring up
manly men, who do the most of human duty, have the
most of human rights, and enjoy the most of human
welfare. So that is not the most successful nation
which fills the largest space, which occupies the longest
time, which produces the most cattle, corn, cotton, or
cloth, but that which produces the most men. And,
in reference to men, you must count not numbers
barely, but character quite as much. That is not the
most successful nation which has an exceptional class
of men, highly cultured, well bodied, weU minded, weU
born, well bred, at the one end of society; and at the
other a mighty multitude, an instantial class, poor, iU
born, ill bred, ill bodied, and iU minded, too, as in Eng
land; but that is the most successful nation which has
the whole body of its people weU born, weU bred, well
bodied, and well minded, too ; and those are the best in
stitutions which accomplish this best; those worst,
which accomplish it least. The government, the so
ciety, the school, or the church, which does this work,

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 5
is a good government, society, school, or church ; that
which does it not, is good for nothing.
As with men, so with nations. Each has a certain
object of chief desire, which object prevails over others.
The nation is not conscious of it, — less so, indeed, than
the individual; but, silently, it governs the nation's
life. Sometimes this chief desire is the aggrandize
ment of the central power, — the monarchy : it was so
once in France; but, God be praised! is not so now.
Then devotion to the king's person was held as the
greatest national excellence, and disrespect for the
king was treason, the greatest national crime. The
people must not dare to whisper against their king.
Sometimes it is the desire to build up an aristocracy.
It was once so in Venice. It may be an aristocracy
of priests, of soldiers, of nobles, or an aristocracy of
merchants. Sometimes it is to build up a middle class
of gentry, as in Basel and Berne. It may be a mili
tary desire, as in ancient Rome ; it may be ecclesiastical
ambition, as in modern Rome ; or commercial ambition,
as in London and many other places.
The chief object of desire is not always the same in
the course of a nation's history. A nation now great-
ens the centripetal power, strengthening the king and
weakening the people ; now it greatens the centrifugal,
power, weakening the king and strengthening the peo
ple. But, commonly, you see some one desire runs
through all the nation's history, only modified by its
youth, or manhood, or old age, and by circumstances
which re-act upon the nation as the nation acts upon
them. This chief object of desire may be permanent, and so
govern the whole nation for all its history. Or it may
be, on the other hand, a transient desire, which is to

,6 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
govern it for a time. In either case, it will appear
prominently in the controlling classes; either in the
classes which control all through, or in such as last
only for a time. Thus the military desire appeared
chiefly in the patricians of old Rome, and not much in
the plebeians ; the commercial ambition appeared in the
nobles of Venice; the ecclesiastical in the priests of
modern Rome, where the people care little for the
church, though quite as much, perhaps, as it deserves.
As the chief desire of the individual calls out appe
tites and passions, which are the machinery of that de
sire, and reconstructs the man in its image; so the de
sire of a nation, transient or permanent, becoming the
master motive of the people, calls out certain classes of
men, who become its exponents, its machinery, and they
make the constitution, institutions, and laws to cor
respond thereto.
As with one man, so with the millions, there may be
fluctuations of purpose for a time. I cannot expect
that one man, or many men, will always pursue an ob
ject without at some time violating fundamental prin
ciples. I might have thought so once. But as I live
longer, and see the passion and the ambition of men,
see the force of circumstances, I know better. No ship
sails across the ocean with a straight course, without
changing a sail ; it frequently leaves its direct line, now
" standing " this way, now that ; and the course is a
very crooked one, although, as a whole, it is towards
the mark.
America is a young nation, composite, not yet uni
fied ; and it is, therefore, not quite so easy to say what
is the chief desire of the people ; but, if I understand
American history, this desire is the love of individual
liberty. Nothing has been so marked in our history as

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 7
this. We are consciously, in part, yet still more uncon
sciously, aiming at democracy, — at a government of
all the people, by all the people, and for the sake of all
the people. Of course that must be a government by
the higher law of God, by the eternal justice to which
you and I and all of us owe reverence. We all love
freedom for ourselves; one day we shall love it for
every man, — for the tawny Indian and the sable negro,
as much as for you and me. This love of freedom
has appeared in the ideas of New England, and New
England was once America; it was once the soul, al
though not the body of America. It appeared in its
political action and its ecclesiastical action, in the State
and in the Church, and in all the little towns. In gen
eral, every change in the constitution of a free State
makes it more democratic; every change in local law
is for democracy, not against it. We have broken
with the old feudal tradition, — broken for ever with
that. I think this love of individual liberty is the
specific desire of the people. If we are proud of any
thing, it is of our free institutions. I know there are
men who are prouder of wealth than of anything else :
by and by I shaU have a word to say of them. But in
Massachusetts, New England, in the North, if we
should appeal to the great body of the people, and
" poll the house," and ask of all what they were proud
est of, they would not say, of our cattle, or cotton, or
corn, or cloth; but it is of our freedom, of our men
and women. Leaving out of the calculation the
abounding class, which is corrupt everywhere, and the
perishing class, which is the vassal as it is the creature
of the abounding class, and as corrupt and selfish here
as everywhere, we shall find that seven-eighths of the
people of New England are eminently desirous of this

8 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
one thing. This desire will carry the day in any fifty
years to come, as it has done in two hundred and fifty
years past. The great political names of our history
are all on its side: Washington, the Adamses — both
of them, God bless them ! — Jefferson, Madison, Jack
son, these were all friends of liberty. I know the ex
ceptions in the history of some of these men, and do
not deny them. Other American names, dear to the
people, are of the same stamp. The national litera
ture, so far as we have any national literature, is dem
ocratic. I know there is what passes for American
literature, because it grows on American soil, but which
is just as far from being indigenous to America as the
orange is from being indigenous to Cape Cod. This
hterature is a poor, miserable imitation of the feudal
literature of old Europe.1 Perhaps it is now the prom
inent literature of the time. One day America wiU
take it and cast it out from her. The true American
literature is very poor, is very weak, is almost miserable
now; but it has one redeeming quality, — it is true to
freedom, it is true to democracy.
In the Revolution this desire of the nation was prom
inent, and came to consciousness. It was the desire
of the most eminent champions of liberty. At one
time in the history of the nation, the platform of speak
ers was in advance of the floor that was covered by the
people at large, because at that time the speakers be
came conscious of the idea which possessed the hearts
of the people. That is the reason why John Hancock,
the two Adamses, and Jefferson, came into great promi
nence before the people. They were more the people
than the people themselves ; more democratic than the
Democrats. I know, and I think it must be quite plain
in our history, that this has been the chief desire of the

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 9
people. If so, it determines our pohtical destination.
However, with nations as with men, there are excep
tional desires ; one of which, with the American nation
at present, is the desire for wealth. Just now, that is the
most obvious and preponderate desire in the conscious
ness of the people. It has increased surprisingly in
fifty years. It is the special, the chief desire of the
controlling class, — by the controlling class, I mean
what are commonly called " our first men." I admit
exceptions, and state the general rule. With them
everything gives way to money, and money gives way
to nothing, neither to man nor to God.
See some proofs of this. There are two ways of get
ting money; one is by trade, the other is by political
office. The pursuit of money, in one or the other of
these ways, is the only business reckoned entirely
" commendable " and " respectable." There are other
caUings which, are very noble in themselves, and deemed
so by mankind ; but here they are not thought " com
mendable " and " respectable," and accordingly you
very seldom see young men, born in what is called " the
most respectable class of society," engaged in any
thing except the pursuit of money by trade or by office.
There are exceptions ; but the sons of " respectable
men," so called, seldom engage in the pursuit of any
thing but money by trade or office. This is the chief
desire of a majority of the young men of talent, ambi
tion, and education. Even in colleges more respect is
paid to money than to genius. The purse is put be
fore the pen. In the churches, wealth is deemed better
than goodness or piety. It names towns and col
leges ; and he is thought the greatest benefactor of a
university who endows it with money, not with mind.
In giving name to a street in Boston, you call the

10 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
wealthy end after a rich man, and only the poor end
after a man that was good and famous. Money con
trols the churches. It draws veils of cotton over the
pulpit window, to color " the light that cometh from
above." As yet the churches are not named after men
whose only virtue is metallic, but the recognised piUars
of the churches are all pillars of gold. Festus does not
tremble before Paul, but Paul before Festus. The
pulpit looks down to the pews for its gospel, not up to
the eternal God. Is there a rich pro-slavery man in
the parish? The minister does not dare read a petition
from an oppressed slave, asking God that his " una
lienable rights " be given him. He does not dare to
ask alms for a fugitive. St. Peter is the old patron
saint of the Holy Cathohc Church. St. Hunker is the
new patron saint of the churches of commerce, Catholic
and Protestant.
Money controls the law as well as the gospel. The
son of a great man and noble is forgotten if the father
dies poor ; but the mantle of the rich man falls on the
son's shoulders. If the son be only half so manly as
his sire, and twice as rich, he is sure to be doubly hon
ored. Money supplies defects of character, defects of
culture. It is deemed better than education, talent,
genius, and character, aU put together. Was it not
written two thousand years ago, in the Proverbs, it
" answereth aU things ? " Look round and see. It
does not matter how you get or keep it. " The end
justifies the means." Edmund Burke, or somebody
else, said " Something must be pardoned to the spirit
of liberty." Now it is " Something must be par
doned " to the love of money, nothing " to the spirit
of liberty." We find that rich men will move out of
town on the last day of April, to avoid taxation on the

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 11
first day of May. That is nothing. It is very " re
spectable," very " honorable," indeed ! I do not be
lieve that there is any master-carpenter or master-
blacksmith in Boston who would not be ashamed to do
so. But men of the controlling classes do not hesitate.
No matter how you' get money. You may rent
houses for rum-shops and for brothels ; you may make
rum, import rum, sell rum to the ruin of the thousands
whom you thereby bring down to the kennel and the
almshouse and the jail. If you get money by that, no
matter : it is " clean money," however dirtily got.
A merchant can send his ships to sea, and in the
slave-trade acquire gold, and live here in Boston, New
York, or Philadelphia ; and his gold will be good sterl
ing gold, no matter how he got it. In political office,
if you are a senator from California or Oregon, you
may draw "constructive mileage," and pay yourself
two or three thousand dollars for a journey never
made from home, and two or three thousand more back
to your home. So you filch thousands of dollars out
of the public purse, and you are the " Honorable Sena
tor," just as before. You have got the money, no
matter how. You may be a senator from Massachu
setts, and you may take the " trust fund," offered you
by the manufacturers of cotton, and be bound as their
" retained attorney," by your " retaining fee," and
you are still the " Honorable Senator from Massachu
setts," not hurt one jot in the eyes of the controlling
classes. If you are Secretary of State, you may take
forty or fifty thousand dollars from State Street and
Wall Street, and suffer no discredit at all. At one end
of the Union they will deny the fact as " too atrocious
to be believed;" at this end they admit it, and say it
was " honorable in the people to give it," and " honor
able in the Secretary to take it."

12 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
" Alas ! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the master, but undoes the scribe."
It would sound a little strange to some people, if we
should find that the judges of a court had received
forty or fifty thousand dollars from men who were
plaintiffs in that court. You and I would remember
that a gift blindeth the eyes of the prudent, how much
more of the profligate ! But it would be " honorable "
in the plaintiffs to give it ; " honorable " in the judges
to take it !
Hitherto I have called your attention to the proofs
of the preponderance of money. I wiU now point you
to signs, which are not exactly proofs of this immediate
worship of money. See these signs in Boston.
When the old South Church was built, when Christ
Church in Salem Street, when King's Chapel, when
Brattle Square Church, they were respectively the cost
liest buildings in town. They were symbols of reli
gion, as churches always are: symbols of the popular
esteem for rehgion. Out of the poverty of the people,
great sums of money were given for these houses of
God. They said, like David of old, " It is a shame
that we dwell in a palace of cedars, and the ark of the
Most High remains under the curtains of a tent."
How is it now? A crockery shop overlooks the roof-
tree of the church where once the eloquence of a Chan
ning enchanted to heaven the worldly hearts of worldly
men. Now an hotel looks down on the church which
was once all radiant with the sweet piety of a Buck
minster. A haberdasher's warehouse overtops the
church of the Blessed Trinity ; the roof of the shop is
almost as tall as the very tower of the church. These
things are only symbols. Let us compare Boston, in
this respect, with any European city that you can

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 13
name ; let us compare it with gay and frivolous Vienna,
the gayest and most frivolous city of all Europe, not
setting Paris aside. For though the surface of life in
Paris sparkles and glitters all over with radiant and
iridescent and dazzling bubbles, empty and ephemeral,
3ret underneath there flows a stream which comes from
the great fountain of nature, and tends on to the ocean
of human welfare. No city is more full of deep
thought and earnest life. But in Vienna it is not so.
Yet even there, above the magnificence of the Herren-
gasse, above the proud mansions of the Esterhazys and
the Schwartzenbergs and the Lichtensteins, above the
costly elegance of the imperial palace, St. Stephen's
Church lifts its tall spire, and points to God all day
long and all the night, a still and silent emblem of a
power higher than any mandate of the kings of earth ;
ay, to the infinite God. Men look up to its cross over-
towering the frivolous city, and take a lesson. Here
trade looks down to find the church.
I am glad that the churches are lower than the shops.
I have said it many times, and I say it now. I am glad
they are less magnificent than our banks and hotels. I
am glad that haberdasher's shops look down on them.
Let the outward show correspond to the inward
fact. If I am pinched and withered by disease, I
will not disguise it from you by wrappages of
cloth; but I will let you see that I am shrunken and
shrivelled to the bone. If the pulpit is no nearer
heaven than the tavern bar, let that fact appear. If
the desk in the counting-room is to give law to the desk
in the church, do not commit the hypocrisy of putting
the pulpit desk above the counting-room. Let us see
where we are.
The consequence of such causes as are symbolized by

14 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
these facts must needs appear in our civilization. Men
tell us there is no law higher than mercantile. Do
you wonder at it? It was said in deeds before words;
the architecture of Boston told it before the politicians.
Money is the god of idolatry. Let the fact appear
in his temples. Money is master now, all must give
way to it,-— that to nothing : the Church, the State, the
law, is not for man, but money.
Let the son of a distinguished man beat a watchman,
knowing him to be such, and be brought before a jus
tice (it would be " levying war " if a mulatto had done
so to the marshal) ; he is bailed off for two hundred
dollars. But let a black man have in his pockets a
weapon, which the Constitution and laws of Massachu
setts provide that any man may. have, if he please, he
is brought to trial and bound over for — two hundred
dollars, think you ? No ! but for six hundred dollars !
three times as much as is required of the son of the
Secretary of State for assaulting a magistrate !
The Secretary of State publicly declared, a short
time since, that " the great object of government is
the protection of property at home, and respect and
renown abroad." I thank him for teaching us that
word! That is the actual principle of the American
government. In all countries of the world, struggles take place
for human rights. But in all countries there is a class
who desire a privilege for themselves adverse to the
rights of mankind: they are commonly richer and
abler-minded than the majority of men; they can act
in concert. Between them and mankind there is a
struggle. The quarrel takes various forms. The con
test has been going on for a long time in Europe.
There, it is between the aristocracy of birth, and the

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 15
aristocracy of wealth; for there it is not money, but
birth, that makes noble. In this struggle the aristoc
racy of birth is gradually giving way to the aristoc
racy of gold. A long and brilliant rent-roU makes up
for a short and obscure pedigree.
In that great movement for human freedom which
has lasted a thousand years, the city has generally rep
resented right in its conflict with might. So, in the
Middle Ages, the city, the home of the trader, of the
mechanic, of the intelhgent man, was democratic.
There freedom got organized in guilds of craftsmen.
But the country was the home of the noble and his vas
sals, the haughty, the ignorant, and the servile. Then
the country was aristocratic. It was so in the great
struggles between the king and the people in England
and France, in Italy and Holland.
In America there is no nobility of birth — it was the
people that came over, not monarchy, not aristocracy ;
they did not emigrate. The son of Guy Fawkes and
the son of Charlemagne are on the same level. I know
in Boston some of the descendants of Henri Quatre,
the greatest king of France. I know also descendants
of Thomas Wentworth, "the great Earl of Straf
ford ;" and yet they are now obscure and humble men,
although of famous birth. I do not say it should not
be so; but such is the fact. Here the controversy is
not between distinguished birth and money; it is be
tween money on the one hand, and men on the other;
between capital and labor; between usurped privilege
and natural right. Here, the cities, as the seat of
wealth, are aristocratic; the country, as the seat of
labor, is democratic. We may see this in Boston.
Almost all the journals in the city are opposed to a
government of all the people, by aU the people, for aU

16 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCLETY
the people. Take an example from the Free-soil move
ment, which, so far as it goes, is democratic. I am
told that of the twenty-one journals in Massachusetts
that call themselves " democratic," eighteen favor the
Free-soil movement, more or less ; and that the three
which do not are all in the cities. The country favors
the temperance movement, one of the most democratic
of all ; for rum is to the aristocracy of gold what the
sword once was to the aristocracy of blood ; the castles
of the baron, and the rum-shops of the capitalist, are
alike fortresses adverse to the welfare of mankind.
The temperance movement finds Httle favor in the
cities. In the country he who works with manly hands is
held in esteem; in the city, in contempt. Here labor
ing men have no political influence, and little confidence
in themselves. They have been accustomed to do as
they were told, — to do as their " masters " bidl
I call a man a Tory who, for himself or for others,
seeks a privilege adverse to the rights of mankind ; who
puts the accidents of men before the substance of man
hood. I ffiay safely say the cities, in the main, are
Tory towns ; that Boston, in this sense, is a Tory town.
They are so, just as in the Middle Ages the cities were
on the other side. This is unavoidable in our form of
civilization just now. Accordingly, in all the great
cities of the North, slavery is in the ascendant ; but, as
soon as we get off the pavement, we come upon differ
ent ideas ; freedom culminates and rises to the meridian.
In America the controlling class in general are su
perior to the majority in money, in consequent so
cial standing, in energy, in practical political skill, and
in intellectual development ; in virtue of these qualities,
they are the controUing class. But in general they are

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 17
inferior to the majority of men in justice, in general
humanity, and in religion — in piety and goodness.
Respectability is pub before right; law before justice;
money before God. With them religion is compHance
with a public hearsay and public custom; it is all of
religion but piety and goodness; its chief sacrament
is bodily presence in a meeting-house ; its only sacrifice,
a pew-tax. I know there are exceptions, and honor
them all the more for being so very exceptional: they
are only enough to show the rule.
In the main, this controUing class governs the land
by two instruments : the first is the public law ; the next
is public opinion. The law is what was once public
opinion, or thought to be; is fixed, written, and sup
posed to be understood by somebody. Public opinion
is not written, and not fixed; but the opinion of the
controUing class overrides and interprets the law, —
bids or forbids its execution. Public opinion can make
or unmake a law; interpret as it chooses, and enforce
or forbid its execution as it pleases.
Such being the case, and such being the chief tran
sient national desire just now, the controlling class con
sider the State as a machine to help them make money.
A great politician, it is said, once laid down this rule, —
" Take care of the rich, and the rich will take care of
the poor." Perhaps he did not say that, though he
did say that " the great object of government is the
protection of property at home, and respect and re
nown abroad." Such being the case, laws are made
accordingly, and institutions are modified accordingly.
Let me give an example. In all the towns of New
England, town money is raised by taxes on all the peo
ple, and on all the property. The rich man is taxed ac
cording to his riches, and the poor man according to
IX— 2

18 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
his poverty. But the national money is raised by tax
ation not in proportion to a man's wealth. A bach
elor in New England, with a million dollars, pays a
much smaller national tax than a carpenter who has no
money at all, but only ten children, the poor man's
blessing. The mechanic, with a family of twelve, pays
more taxes than the Southern planter owning a tract
of land as wide as the town of Worcester, with fifteen
hundred slaves to till it. This, I say is not an acci
dent. It is the work of politicians, who know what
they are about, and think a blunder is worse than a sin ;
and, sin as they may, they do not commit such blun
ders as that.
This controlling class, with their dependents, their
vassals, lay and clerical — and they have lay as weU as
clerical vassals, and more numerous, if less subservient
— keep up the institution of slavery. Two hundred
years ago, that was the worst institution of Europe.
Our fathers, breaking with feudal institutions in gen
eral, did not break with this ; they brought it over here.
But when the nation, aroused for its hour of trial, rose
up to its great act of prayer, and prayed the Declara
tion of Independence, all the nation said " Amen " to
the great American idea therein set forth. Every
Northern State re-affirms the doctrine that " all men
are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with
unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness." But in spite of this, and of
the consciousness that it is true, while the Northern
States have cast out this institution, the Southern
States have kept it. The nation has adopted, ex
tended, and fostered it. This has been done, notwith
standing the expectation of the people, in 1787, that
it would soon end. It has been done against the de-

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 19
sign of the Constitution, which was " to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tran
quillity, provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty ;"
against the idea of America, that " all men have an
equal and unalienable right to Hfe, Hberty, and the
pursuit of happiness ;" against all religion, aU human
ity, all right, — ay, and against the conscience of a
majority of the people.
WeU, a law was passed last September, that would
have been atrocious two hundred years ago; you all
know it. I have no words to describe it by. For the
last two hundred years, the English race has not in
vented an adjective adequate to describe it. The Eng
lish language is used up and broken down by any at
tempt to describe it. That law was not the desire of
the people: and, could the nation have been polled
North and South, three-fourths would have said
" No ! " to the passage of that law. It was not passed
to obtain the value of the slaves escaped, for in seven
months twenty slaves have not been returned! It was
not a measure looking to legal results, but it was a
political measure, looking to political results: what
those results will be, we shall see in due time.
In America the controlling' class is divided into two
great parties: one is the slave power in the States of
the South ; the other is the money power in the cities of
the North. There are exceptional men in both divi
sions — men that own slaves, and yet love freedom and
hate slavery. There are rich men in Northern cities
who do the same ; all honor to them. But in general it
is not so ; nay, it is quite otherwise. They are hostile
to the great idea of America. Let me speak with the
nicety of theological speech. These two divisions are

20 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
two " persons " in one " power ;" there is only one
*' nature " in both, one " will." If not the same na
ture, it is a like nature: homoi-ousia, if not homo-
ousia! The Fugitive Slave Law was the act of the
two " persons," representing the same " nature," and
the same " will." It was the result of a union of the
slave power of the South with the money power of the
North: the Philistines and the Hebrews ploughed with
the same heifer.
There is sometimes an excuse or a paUiation for a
wicked deed. There was something like one for the
" Gag Law," the " Alien and Sedition Law," although
there is no valid excuse for either of these laws, none
to screen their author from deserved reproach. There
is no excuse for the Fugitive Slave Law ; there was no
occasion for it.
You all know how it was brought about; you re
member the speech of Mr. Webster on the 7th of
March, 1850, a day set apart for the blessed martyrs,
Saints Perpetua and Felicitas. We all know who was
the author of that law. It is Mr. Webster's Fugitive
Slave Law ! It was his " thunder," unquestioned and
unquestionable. You know what a rapid change was
wrought in the public opinion of the controlling
classes soon after its passage. First the leading Whigs
went over. I will not say they changed their princi
ples, — God knows, not I, what principles they have;
I will only say, they altered their " resolutions," and
ate their own words. True, the Whigs have not aU
gone over. There are a few who still cling to the old
Whig tree, after it has been shaken and shaken, and
thrashed and thrashed, and brushed and brushed, by
politicians, as apple trees in autumn. There are still
a few little apples left, small and withered, no doubt,

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 21
and not daring to show their dishonored heads just
now, but stUl continuing some precious seeds that may
do service by and by. Whig journal after journal
went over ; politician after poHtician " caved in " and
collapsed. At the sounding of the rams' horns of
slavery, how quick the Whig Jericho went down! Its
fortresses of paper resolutions rolled up and blew away.
Of course, men changed only after " logical convic
tion." Of course, nobody expected a " reward " for
the change, at least only in the world to come. Were
they not aU Christians? True, on the 17th of June
last, seventy-five years after the battle of Bunker Hill,
Mr. Webster said in the Senate, that if the North
should vote for the Fugitive Slave Bill, a tariff was ex
pected. But that was of no moment, no more than
worldly riches to " the elect." Of course, a man has a
right to change his opinions every ten minutes, if he
has a good and sufficient reason. Of course, these men
expected no offices under this or any future president !
But presently the Fugitive Slave Law became a Whig
doctrine, a test of party fidelity and fitness for office !
You aU remember the " Union " meeting in Boston.
On that occasion, Democrats " of the worst kind " sud
denly became " respectable." The very Democratic
prince of devils was thought to be as good a " gentle
man " as any in the city.
It was curious to see the effect of the Fugitive Slave
Law on the Democratic party. Democrat after Dem-
crat "caved in;" journal after journal went over;
horse, foot, and dragoons, they went over. The Demo
cratic party North, and American slavery South, have
long been accustomed to accommodate themselves with
the same nag after the old fashion of " ride and tie."
In the cities, Democrats went over in tribes; entire

22 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Democratic Zabulons and Nephthalims, whole Galilees
of Democratic Gentiles, all at once saw great Whig
Hght ; and to them that sat in the shadow of freedom,
slavery sprang up.
That portion of the Whig party which did not sub
mit, became as meek, ay, became meeker even than the
beast which the old prophet in the fable is alleged to
have ridden : for, though beaten again and again —
because alarmed at seeing the angel of freedom, that
bars the way before the great Whig Balaam, who has
been bidden by his master to go forth and curse the
people of the Lord, — it dares not open its mouth and
say, " What have I done unto thee, that thou hast
smitten me these three times ? "
But when such a law is hostile to the feelings of a
maj ority of the people, to their conscience and their re
ligion, how shall we get the law executed? That is a
hard matter. In Russia, and in Austria it would be
very easy, Russia has. an_army five hundred or eight
hundred thousand strong"; and that army is ready.
But here there is no such army. True, the President
asked Congress to give him greater power, and the an
swer came from the slave party South, not from the
money party North, " No ! you have more now than
you know how to use." Failing in this attempt, what
was to be done that the law might be executed? Two
things must be done: a false idea must persuade the
people to allow it to be done ; base men must be found
to do it. A word upon each point.
I. The false idea is set on foot, that the people are
morally bound to obey any law which is made until it
is repealed. General Haynau2 wrote a letter, not
long ago, to the subalterns in the Austrian army, and
thus quoth he : — " You are bound to obey the law.

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 23
It is none of your business whether the law is constitu
tional or not ; that is our affair." So went it with our
officers here. We are told that there is " no such thing
as a higher law ;" " no rule of conduct better than that
enacted by the law of the land." Conscience is only
to tell you to keep the statutes. Religion consists in
" fearing God and serving the king." You are told
that religion bids you to " fear God and keep the com
mandments," no matter what these commandments may
be. No matter whether it be King Ahab, or King
Peter the Cruel : you are told, — " Mr. Republican,
what right have you to question the constitutionality
or justice of anything? Your business is to keep the
law." Religion is a very excellent thing, quotes Mr.
Webster, except when it interferes in politics; then it
makes men mad.
It is instructive to see the different relations which
religion has sustained to law, at different periods of the
world's history. At some other time I may dwell more
at length upon this ; now I will say but one word. At
bhe beginning, religion takes precedence of law. Before
there is any human government, man bows himself to
the source of law, and accepts his rule of conduct from
his God. By and by, some more definite rule is needed,
and wise men make human laws ; but they pretend to
derive these from a Divine source. All the primitive
lawgivers, Moses, Minos, Zaleucus, Numa, and the rest,
speak in the name of God. For a long time, law comes
up to religion for aid and counsel. At length law and
religion, both imperfect, are well established in so
ciety, rehgion being the elder sister ; both act as guard
ians of mankind. Institution after institution rises
up, all of them baptized by religion and confirmed by
law, taking the sacrament from the hands of each. At

24 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
length it comes to pass that law seeks to turn religion
out of doors. Politicians, intoxicated with ambition,
giddy with power, and sometimes also drunk with
strong drink, make a statute which outrages all the dic
tates of humanity, and then insist that it is the duty of
sober men to renounce religion for the sake of keeping
the wicked statute of the politicians. AU tyrants have
done so!
In the North, the majority of men think that the law
of man is subordinate to rehgion — the statutes of
man beneath the law of God; that as ethics, personal
morals are amenable to conscience, so politics, national
morals, are amenable to the same conscience ; and that
religion has much to do with national as with individual
life. Depend upon it, that idea is the safeguard of
the State and of the law. It wiU preserve it, purify it,
and keep it ; but it will scourge every wicked law out of
the temple of justice with iron whips, if need be. De
pend upon it, when we lose our hold of that idea, aU
hope of order is gone. But there is no danger; we
are pretty well persuaded that the law of God is a little
greater than the statute of an accidental president un
intentionally chosen for four years. When we think
otherwise, we may count our case hopeless, and give
up all.
But with the controlling class of men it is not so.
They tell us that we must keep any law, constitutional
or not, legal or not, just or unjust: first, that we must
submit passively, and let the government execute it;
next, we must actively obey it, and with alacrity when
called upon to execute it ourselves. This doctrine is
the theory advanced in most of the newspapers of Bos
ton. It is preached in some of the pulpits, though,
thank God ! not in all.

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 25
This doctrine appears in the charge of the judge of
the Circuit Court to the grand jury.3 I believe that
judge to be a good, and excellent, and honorable man ;
I never heard a word to the contrary, and I am glad to
think that it is so. I have to deal only with his opin
ions, not with his theoretic doctrines of law, of which
latter I profess to know nothing; but with the the
oretic doctrines of morality he lays down. Of morality
I do profess to know something.
He says some excellent things in his charge, which I
am glad were said. He is modest in some places, and
moderate in others. He does not think that a dozen
black men taking a fugitive out of court are guilty of
" levying war," and therefore should be hanged, drawn,
and quartered, if you can catch them. All honor to
his justice. He does not say, as the Secretary of State,
that we must suppress discussion and stop agitation.
He says we may agitate as much as we have a mind to ;
may not only speak against a law, but may declaim
against it, which is to speak strongly. I thank the
judge for this respect for the Constitution. But with
regard to the higher and lower law, he has some pecul
iar opinions. He supposes a case : that the people ask
him, " Which shall we obey, the law of man or the law
of God? " He says, " I answer, obey both. The incom
patibility which the question assumes does not exist."
So, then, here is a great general rule, that between
the " law of man " and the " will of God " there is no
incompatibility, and we must " obey both." Now let
us see how this rule will work.
If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law
that all the Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the
will of God that they should serve the Lord. Accord
ing to this rule of the judge, they must " obey both."

26 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
But if they served Baal, they could not serve the Lord.
In such a case, " what is to be done? " We are told
that Elijah gathered the prophets together; " and he
came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye?
If the Lord be God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then fol
low him." Our modern prophet says, " Obey both.
The incompatibility which the question assumes does
not exist." Such is the difference between Judge
Elijah and Judge Peleg.
Let us see how this rule will work in other cases ; how
you can make a compromise between two opposite doc
trines. The king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew
nurses, " When you do the office of a midwife to the
Hebrew women, if it be a son ye shaU kill him." I
suppose it is plain to the judge of the Circuit Court
that this kind of murder, killing the new-born infants,
is against " the will of God ;" but it is a matter of
record that it was according to " the law of man."
Suppose the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge
Sprague for his advice. He must have said, " Obey
both ! " His rule is a universal one.
Another decree was once made, as it is said, in the
Old Testament, that no man should ask any petition of
any God for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty
of being cast into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel
— I mean the old Daniel, the prophet — should have
asked him, " What is to be done? " Should he pray to
Darius or pray to God? " Obey both ! " would be the
answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray to
God. We know what Daniel did do.
The elders and scribes of Jerusalem commanded the
Christians not to speak or to teach at all in the name of
Jesus; but Peter and John asked those functionaries,
" Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken
unto you more than unto God, judge ye."

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 27
Our judge must have said, " There is no ' incompati
bility;' obey both!" What "a comfortable Scrip
ture " this would have been to poor John Bunyan !
What a great ethical doctrine to St. Paul ! He did not
know such Christianity as that. Before this time a
certain man had said " No man can serve two masters."
But there was one person who made the attempt, and
he also is eminent in history. Here was " the will of
God," to do to others as you would have others do to
you : " Love thy neighbor as thyself." Here is the
record of " the law of man :" " Now both the chief
priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment,
that, if any man knew where he [Jesus] were, he should
show it, that they might take him." Judas, it seems,
determined to " obey both," — " the law of man " and
the " wiU of God." So he sat with Jesus at the last
supper, dipped his hand in the same dish, and took a
morsel from the hand of Christ, given him in token of
love. All this he did to obey " the will of God." Then
he went and informed the commissioner or marshal
where Jesus was. This he did to obey " the law of
man." Then he came back, and found Christ, — the
agony all over, the bloody sweat wiped off from his
brow, presently to bleed again, — the Angel of
Strength there with him to comfort him. He was
arousing his sleeping disciples for the last time, and was
telling them, " Pray, lest ye enter into temptation."
Judas came and gave him a kiss. To the eleven it
seemed the friendly kiss, obeying " the will of God."
To the marshal it also seemed a friendly kiss, — obey
ing " the law of man." So, in the same act, he obeys
" the law of God " and " the will of man," and there is
no " incompatibility ! "
Of old it was said, " Thou canst not serve God and

28 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
mammon." He that said it has been thought to know
something of morals, — something of religion.
Till the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, we did not
know what a great saint Iscariot was. I think there
ought to be a chapel for him, and a day set apart in
the calendar. Let him have his chapel in the navy-
yard at Washington. He has got a priest there al
ready. And for a day in the calendar — set apart for
all time the 7th of March !
Let us look at some other things in that judge's ad
dress to the grand jury. " Unjust and oppressive laws
may indeed be passed by human government. But if
infinite and inscrutable wisdom permits political society
. . . to establish such laws, may not the same wisdom
permit and require individuals . . . to obey them?"
Ask the prophets, in such a case, if they would have felt
themselves permitted and required to obey them ! Ask
the men who were tortured, not accepting deliverance,
that they might obtain a better resurrection; who had
trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover
of bonds and imprisonment ; who were stoned and sawn
asunder ; who were slain with the sword ; who wandered
about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, destitute, afflicted,
and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy!
Ask the apostles, who thanked God they were counted
worthy to suffer shame in the name of Christ! Ask
Paul, who was eight times publicly beaten, thrice ship
wrecked; and in perils of waters, of robbers, of the
heathen, of false brethren — that worst of all peril!
Nay, ask Christ; let the Crucified reply, — whether,
when a wicked law is made, and we are commanded to
keep it, God means we should ! Ask the men who, with
their ocean-wearied feet, consecrated the rock of Ply
mouth for ever ! Ask the patriots of the revolution !

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 29
What do they say? I will not give the answer. Even
the martyred Jesuits say " No." Who is it that says
" Yes? " Judas and the judge. Let them go — each
" to his own place." Let me say no more of them.
This attempt to keep the people down by false doc
trine is no new thing. - But to say that there is no law
higher than what the State can make, is practical athe
ism. It is not a denial of God in His person ; that is
only speculative atheism. It is a denial of the func
tions and attributes of God; that is real atheism. If
there is no God to make a law for me, then there is no
God for me.
The law of the land is so sacred, it must override the
law of God, must it? Let us see if all the laws of the
United States are kept everywhere. Let a black man
go to South Carolina in a ship, and we shall see. Let
the British minister complain that South Carolina puts
British subjects in jail, for the color of their skin. Mr.
Secretary Clayton tells him, " We cannot execute the
laws of the United States in South Carolina." Why
not? Because the people of South Carolina will not
allow it !
Are the laws of Massachusetts kept in Boston, then?
The usury law says, " Thou shalt not take more than
six per cent, on thy money." Is that kept? There
are thirty-four millions of banking capital in Massa
chusetts, and I think that every dollar of this capital
has broken this law within the past twelve months ; and
yet no complaint has been made. There are three or
four hundred brothels in this city of Boston, and ten
or twelve hundred shops for the sale of rum. All of
them are illegal ; some are as well known to the police as
is this house ; indeed, a great deal more frequented, by
some of them, than any house of God. Does anybody

30 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
disturb them? No ! I have a letter from an alderman
who furnishes me with facts of this nature, who says,
that " Some of the low places are prosecuted, some
broken up." Last Saturday night, the very men who
guarded Mr. Sims, I am told, were playing cards in his
prison-house, contrary to the laws of Massachusetts.
In Court Square, in front of the Court House, is a rum
shop, one of the most frequented in the city, open at
all hours of the day, and, for aught I know, of the
night too. I never passed when its " fire was
quenched," and its " worm " dead. Is its owner pros
ecuted? How many laws of Massachusetts have been
violated this very week, in this very city, by the slave-
hunters here, by the very officers of the State? What
is the meaning of this? Every law which favors the
accumulation of money, must be kept ; but those which
prohibit the unjust accumulation of money by certain
classes — they need not be kept.
No doubt it would be a great pity to have the city
government careful to keep the laws of the city, — to
suppress rum-shops, and save the citizens from the
almshouse, the jail, and the gallows. Such laws may
be executed at Truro and Wellfleet ; but it is quite need
less for the officers of " The Athens of America," to
attend to the temperance laws. What a pity for the
magistrates of Boston to heed the laws of the State!
No ; it is the Fugitive Slave Law that they must keep.
II. A great deal of pains has been taken to impress
the people with their " moral duty to obey the Fugitive
Slave Law." To carry it out, government needs base
men ; and that, my brothers, is a crop which never fails.
Rye and wheat may get blasted many times in the
course of years; the potato may rot; apples and
peaches fail. But base men never fail. Put up your

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 31
black pirate flag in the market-place, offer " money
and office," and they will come as other carrion-vultures
to their prey. The olive, the fig, and the orange are
limited in their range; even Indian corn and oats will
not grow everywhere ; but base men are indigenous all
the world over, between the tropics and under a polar
sky. No bad scheme ever failed for lack of bad men
to carry it out. Do you want to kill Baptists and
Quakers in Boston? There are the men for you. To
hang " witches " at Salem? There are hangmen in
plenty on Gallows Hill. Would James the Second
butcher his subjects? He found his "human" tools
ready. Would Elizabeth murder the Puritans and
Catholics? There was no lack of ruffians. Would
bloody Mary burn the Protestants? There were more
executioners than victims. Would the Spanish Inquisi
tion torture and put to death the men for whom Christ
died? She found priests and " gentlemen," ready for
their office. Would Nero murder the Christians, and
make a spectacle of their sufferings? Rome is full of
scoundrels to do the deed, and teems with spectators
rushing to the amphitheatre at the cry of " Christians
to the Hons ! " all finding a holiday in their brothers'
agony. Would the high priests crucify the Son of
Man? They found a commissioner to issue the man
date, a marshal to enforce it, a commission to try him
by illegal process, — for the process against Christ was
almost as unconstitutional as that against Sims, — they
found a commissioner ready to condemn Christ, against
his own conscience, soldiers ready to crucify him. Ay !
and there was a Peter to deny him, and a Judas to be
tray; and now there is a judge, with his legal ethics,
to justify the betrayal! I promised not to speak of
Judas or the judge again, but they will come up before

32 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
me ! It is true that, if in Boston some judicial monster
should wish to seethe a man in a pot of scalding water,
he would find another John Boilman in Boston, as
Judge Jeffreys found one in England, in 1686.
The churches of New England, and the North, have
had their trials. In my time they have been tried in
various ways. The temperance reformation tried them.
They have had perils on account of slavery. The
Mexican War tried them ; the Fugitive Slave Law has
put them to the rack. But never, in my day, have the
churches been so sorely tried, nor done so weU as now.
The very letter of the New Testament on the one side,
and of the old Testament on the other, both condemned
the law ; the spirit of them both was against all slavery.
There are two great sects in Christendom, — the
churches of Christianity, and the churches of com
merce. The churches of Christianity always do weU:
they think that religion is love to God, and love to man.
But the churches of commerce, which know no higher
law, what should they do? Some of the ministers of
the churches of commerce were wholly silent. Why
so? The poor ministers were very modest all at once.
Now, modesty is a commendable virtue ; but see how it
works. Here is a man who has given his mind ten,
twenty, or thirty years to the study of theology, and
knows every Hebrew particle of the Old Testament,
and every Greek particle of the New Testament, as weU
as he knows the Lord's Prayer; every great work on
the subject of Christianity, from Nicodemus down to
Norton. Let him come out and say that the Old
Testament was written like other books ; let him say
that the miracles of the Old and New Testament are
Hke the miracles of the popish legends ; then, ministers
in their pulpits, who never studied theology or philoso-

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 33
phy, or pretended to study, only to know, the historical
development of religion in the world, — they will come
down instantly upon our poor man, call his doctrines
" false," and call him an " infidel," an " atheist." But
let a rich parishioner, or a majority of the rich parish
ioners, be in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law, and all
at once the minister is very modest indeed. He says to
his people, by silence or by speech, " I do not under
stand these things; but you, my people, who all your
lives are engaged in making money and nothing else,
and worship mammon and nothing else, you understand
them a great deal better than I do. My modesty for
bids me to speak. Let us pray ! "
Some ministers have been silent ; others have spoken
out in favor of the lower law, and in derision of the
higher law. Here is a famous minister, the very chief
of his denomination, reported in the newspapers to have
said that he would surrender his own mother to slavery,
rather than have the Union dissolved! I believe him
this time. A few years ago that minister printed, in
the organ of his sect, that the existence of God was
" not a certainty ! " He did not mean to say that he
doubted or disbelieved it, only that it was " not a cer
tainty ! " I should suppose that he had gone further
in that direction, and thought the non-existence of
God was " a certainty." But he is not quite original in
this proposed sacrifice. He has been preceded and out
bid by a Spanish Catholic. Here is the story, in Sefior
de Castro's " History of the Spanish Protestants,"
written this very year. I can tell the story shorter
than it is there related. In 1581, there lived a man in
Valladolid, who had two Protestant daughters, being
himself a Catholic. The Inquisition was in full blast,
and its fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than be-

34 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
fore. This man, according to the commandment of
the priests and pope, complained to the inquisitors
against his daughters, who were summoned to appear
before them. They were tried and condemned to be
burned alive, at his suggestion. He furnished the ac
cusation, brought forward the evidence, and was the
only witness in the case. That was not all. After
this condemnation, he went round his own estates, and
from selected trees cut down morsels of wood, and car
ried them to the city to use in burning his own daugh
ters. He was allowed to do this, and of course the
priest commended him for his piety and love of God!
Thus, in 1581, in Valladolid, a father, at noon-day,
with wood from his own estate, on his own complaint
and evidence, with his own hands, burned his two
daughters alive ; and the Catholic Church said, " Well
done ! " Now, in my opinion, the hidalgo of Vallado
lid a little surpasses the Unitarian Doctor of Divinity.
I do not know what " recompense of reward " the
Spanish hidalgo got for his deed; but the American
divine, for his offer, has been put into " one of the
priests' offices, that he might eat a piece of bread."
He has been appointed, as the newspapers say, a chap
lain of the navy at Washington. Verily he has his
reward. But there nave been found men in Boston to go a lit
tle further. Last Thanksgiving Day, I said it would be
difficult to find a magistrate in Boston to take the
odium of sending a fugitive back to slavery. I be
lieved, after all, men had some conscience, although
they talked about its being a duty to deliver up a man
to bondage. Pardon me, my country, that I rated you
too high ! Pardon me, town of Boston, that I thought
your citizens all men ! Pardon me, lawyers, that I

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 35
thought you had been all born of mothers! Pardon
me, ruffians, who kill for hire! I thought you had
some animal mercy left, even in your bosom! Pardon
me, United States' commissioners, marshals, and the
like, I thought you all had some shame ! Pardon me,
my hearers, for such mistakes. One commissioner was
found to furnish the warrant! Pardon me, I did not
know he was a commissioner; if I had, I never would
have said it.
Spirits of tyrants, I look down to you! Shade of
Cain, you great first murderer, forgive me that I for
got your power, and did not remember that you were
parent of so long a Hne! And you, my brethren, if
hereafter I tell you that there is any limit of meanness
or wickedness which a Yankee will not jump over, dis
trust me, and remind me of this day, and I will take it
back! Let us look at the public conduct of any commis
sioner who will send an innocent man from Boston into
slavery. I would speak of all men charitably; for I
know how easy it is to err, — yea, to sin. I can look
charitably on thieves, prowling about in darkness ; on
rum-sellers, whom poverty compels to crime ; on harlots,
who do the deed of shame that holy woman's soul ab
hors and revolts at; I can pity the pirate, who scours
the seas in doing his fiendish crimes — he is tempted,
made desperate by a gradual training in wickedness.
The man, born at the South, owning slaves, who goes
to Africa and sells adulterated rum in exchange for
men to retail at Cuba, — I cannot understand the con
sciousness of such a man; yet I can admit that by
birth and by breeding he has become so imbruted, he
knows no better. Nay, even that he may, perhaps,
justify his conduct to himself. I say I think his sin

36 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
is not so dreadful as that of a commissioner in Boston
who sends a man into slavery. A man commits a mur
der, inflamed by jealousy, goaded by desire of great
gain, excited by fear, stung by malice, or poisoned by
revenge, and it is a horrid thing. But to send a man
into slavery is worse than to murder him. I should
rather be slain than enslaved. To do this, inflamed by
no jealousy, goaded by no desire of great gain, — only
ten dollars ! — excited by no fear, stung by no special
malice, poisoned by no revenge, — I cannot compre
hend that in any man, not even in a hyena. Beasts
that raven for blood do not kill for killing's sake, but
to feed their flesh. Forgive me, O ye wolves and hye
nas ! that I bring you into such company. I can only
understand it in a devil !
When a man bred in Massachusetts, whose Constitu
tion declares that " All men are born free and equal ;"
within sight of Faneuil Hall, with aU its sacred mem
ories; within two hours of Plymouth Rock; within a
single hour of Concord and Lexington; in sight of
Bunker Hill, — when he will do such a deed, it seems
to me that there is no life of crime long enough to
prepare a man for such a pitch of depravity ; I should
think he must have been begotten in sin, and conceived
in iniquity, and been born " with a dog's head on his
shoulders;" that the concentration of the villany of
whole generations of scoundrels would hardly be
enough to fit a man for a deed like this !
You know the story of Thomas Sims. He crept on
board a Boston vessel at Savannah. Perhaps he had
heard of Boston, nay, even of Faneuil Hall, of the old
Cradle of Liberty, and thought this was a Christian
town, at least human, and hoped here to enjoy the
liberty of a man. When the ship arrived here, the first

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 37
words he spoke were, "Are we up there?" He was
seized by a man who at the court-house boasted of his
cruelty towards him, who held him by the hair, and
kept him down, seeking to kidnap and carry him back
into slavery. He escaped!
But a few weeks pass by : the man-stealers are here ;
the commissioner issues his warrant ; the marshals serve
it in the night. Last Thursday night — when odious
beasts of prey, that dare not face the light of heaven,
prowl through the woods, — those ruffians of the law
seized on their brother-man. They lie to the by
standers, and seize him on a false-pretense. There is
their victim — they hold him fast. His faithless knife
breaks in his hand ; his coat is rent to pieces. He is
the slave of Boston. Can you understand his feelings?
Let us pass by that. His " trial ! " Shall I speak of
that? He has been five days on trial for more than
life, and has not seen a judge ! A jury? No, — only
a commissioner! O justice! O repubhcan America!
Is this the liberty of Massachusetts?
Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do
such a deed, — do it in Boston? I will open the tombs,
and bring up most hideous tyrants from the dead.
Come, brood of monsters, let me bring you up from
the deep damnation of the graves wherein your hated
memories continue for all time their never-ending rot.
Come, birds of evil omen ! come, ravens, vultures, car
rion-crows, and see the spectacle! come, see the meet
ing of congenial souls! I will disturb, disquiet, and
bring up the greatest monsters of the human race!
Tremble not, women; tremble not, children; tremble
not, men! They are all dead! They cannot harm
you now ! Fear the living, not the dead.
Come hither, Herod the wicked. Thou that didst

38 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
seek after that young child's life, and destroyedst the
innocents ! Let me look on thy face ! No ; go !
Thou wert a heathen ! Go, lie with the innocents thou
hast massacred. Thou art too good for this company !
Come, Nero ! Thou awful Roman Emperor ! Come
up ! No ; thou wast drunk with power ! schooled in
Roman depravity. Thou hadst, besides, the example
of thy fancied gods! Go, wait another day. I wiU
seek a worser man.
Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada! —
Fathers of the Inquisition! Merciless monsters, seek
your equal here ! No ; pass by ! You are no com
panions for such men as these ! You were the servants
of atheistic popes, of cruel kings. Go to, and get you
gone. Another time I may have work for you, —
not now ; lie there and persevere to rot. You are not
yet quite wicked and corrupt enough for this com
parison. Go, get ye gone, lest the sun turn back at
sight of ye !
Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffreys !
— thy hands deep purple with the blood of thy mur
dered fellow-men! Ah, I know thee! awful and ac
cursed shade! Two hundred years after thy death,
men hate thee still, not without cause! Let me look
upon thee! I know thy history. Pause and be still,
while I tell it to these men.
Brothers, George Jeffreys "began in the sedition
line." " There was no act, however bad, that he would
not resort to, to get on." " He was of a bold aspect,
and cared not for the countenance of any man." " He
became the avowed, unblushing slave of the court, and
the bitter persecutor and unappeasable enemy of the
principles he had before supported." He " was uni
versally insolent and overbearing." " As a judge, he

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 39
did not consider the decencies of his post, nor did he so
much as affect to be impartial, as became a judge."
His face and voice were always unamiable. " All ten
derness for the feelings of others, all self-respect, were
obliterated from his mind." He had "a delight in
misery merely as misery," and "that temper which
tyrants require in their worst instruments." " He made
haste to sell his forehead of brass and his tongue of
venom to the court." He had " more impudence than
ten carted street-walkers;" and was appropriately set
to a work " which could be trusted to no man who rev
erenced law, or who was sensible of shame." He was
a " commissioner " in 1685. You know of the " bloody
assizes " which he held, and how he sent to execution
three hundred and twenty persons in a single circuit.
" The whole country was strewed with the heads and
limbs of his victims." Yet a man wrote that " a little
more hemp might have been usefully employed." He
was the worst of the English judges. " There was no
measure, however iUegal, to the execution of which he
did not devotedly and recklessly abandon himself."
" During the Stuart reigns, England was cursed by a
succession of ruffians in ermine, who, for the sake of
court favor, wrested the principles of law, the precepts
of religion, and the duties of humanity ; but they were
all greatly outstripped by Jeffreys." Such is his his
tory. Come, shade of judicial butcher! Two hundred
years thy name has been pilloried in face of the world,
and thy memory gibbeted before mankind ! Letms see
how thou wUt compare with those who kidnap men in
Boston! Go seek companionship with them! Go
claim thy kindred, if such they be ! Go tell them that
the memory of the wicked shall rot, — that there is a

40 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
God ; an eternity ; ay, and a judgment too ! where the
slave may appeal against him that made him a slave,
to Him that made him a man.
What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back?
These not thy kindred! Why dost thou turn pale, as
when the crowd clutched at thy life in London Street?
It is true, George Jeffreys, and these are not thy kin.
Forgive me that I should send thee on such an errand,
or bid thee seek companionship with such — with Bos
ton hunters of the slave ! Thou wert not base enough !
It was a great bribe that tempted thee ! Again I say,
pardon me for sending thee to keep company with
such men! Thou only struckst at men accused of
crime ; not at men accused only of their birth ! Thou
wouldst not send a man into bondage for two pounds !
I will not rank thee with men who, in Boston, for ten
dollars, would enslave a negro now ! Rest still, Herod !
Be quiet, Nero ! Sleep, St. Dominic, and sleep, O Tor
quemada! in your fiery jail! Sleep, Jeffreys, under
neath " the altar of the church," which seeks, with
Christian charity, to hide your hated bones.
" But," asks a looker on, " what is all this for? "
Oh ! to save the Union. " A precious Union which
needs a saving such as this ! And who are to rend the
Union asunder? " Why, men that hate slavery, and
love freedom for all mankind. " Is this the way to
make them love the Union and slavery, and hate free
dom for all mankind? " We know none better.
" What sort of a measure is this Fugitive Slave Law ? "
Oh ! it is a " peace measure." Don't you see how
well it works? how quiet the city? in the country not
a mouse stirring? There will not be a word against
the peace measure in all New England on this Fast
Day. Blessed are the peacemakers saith the Lord!

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 41
" But you have great warrant for such deeds? " Oh,
yes, the best in the world, — the example of Washing
ton. He also " saved the Union." So men blaspheme.
Let me tell you a little of that great man. Shortly
after the passage of the law of 1793, a favorite female
slave of Washington's wife ran away from the Presi
dent of the new republic, and went into New Hamp
shire. She lived at Portsmouth. Washington wrote
to Mr. Whipple, a United States' marshal, I think, or,
at any rate, an officer of the United States, saying that
he should Hke to have the woman sent back to him, if
it could be done without tumult, and without shocking
the principles and the feelings of the people. He
added that the slave was a favorite of his wife. Mr.
Whipple wrote back, and said, " It cannot be done
without tumult, nor without shocking the principles
and feelings of the people." Washington said no
more. The woman died at a great age, a few years
ago, at Portsmouth. That was the example of Wash
ington, — a man who at his death freed his slaves!
Would to God he had done it before ! But they that
come at the eleventh hour shall never be cast out from
my charity.
See what is the consequence of this measure ! See
what has been the condition of Boston for the past
week! Read the mingled truth and lies in the news
papers ; look at men's faces in the street ; listen to their
talk ; see the court-house in chains ; see one hundred
policemen on guard, and three companies of military
picketed in Faneuil Hall; behold the people shut out
from the courts — I will not say of justice! See the
officers of Massachusetts made slave hunters — against
the law; constitutional rights struck down — against
the law ; sheriffs refusing to serve writs — against the

42 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
law; see the great civil rights our fathers gained five
hundred years ago, the trial by jury, by our " peers,"
by the " law of the land," all cloven down ; the writ of
" personal replevin " made null — no sheriff daring to
execute a law made to suit such a case as this, made but
eight years ago ! Where is your high sheriff? Where
is your governor? See the judges of Massachusetts
bend beneath that chain; see them bow down, one by
one, and kneel, and creep, and cringe, and crouch, and
crawl, under the chain ! Note the symbol ! That was
the chain on the neck of the commonwealth, visible on
the necks of the judges as they entered the Bastile of
Boston, — the barracoon of Boston ! A few years ago,
they used to tell us, " Slavery is an abstraction ; we at
the North have nothing to do with it." Now liberty
is only an abstraction ! Here is a note just handed me
in the pulpit : —
"Marshal Tukey told me this morning that his orders were
not merely to keep the peace, but to assist the United States'
marshal in detaining and transporting the slave; that he knew
he was violating the State law, as well as I did; but it was not
his responsibility, but that of the mayor and aldermen. I
thought you might like to know this."
Well, my brethren, I know Boston has seen sad days
before now. When the Stamp Act came here in our
fathers' time, it was a sad day; they tolled the beUs
all over town, and Mayhew wished " they were cut off
that trouble you." It was a sad day when the tea came
here, although, when it went down the stream, all the
hills of New England laughed. And it was a sadder
day still, the 17th of June, 1775, when our fathers
fought and bled on yonder hill, all red from battle at
Concord and Lexington, and poured sheeted death
into the ranks of their enemies, while the inhabitants of

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 43
this town lifted up their hands, but could not go to
assist their brethren in the field: and when, to crown
all their sadness, they saw four hundred of the houses
of their sister town go up in flames to heaven, and
could not lend a helping hand. A sadder day when
they fired one hundred guns in Boston for the passage
of the Fugitive Slave Law. It was the saddest day
of all, when a man was kidnapped in Boston by the
men of Boston, and your court-house hung with chains.
It was not from the tyrants of the other side of the
world that this trouble came.
If you could have seen what I have this morning, at
sunrise, one hundred of the police of this city, contrary
to the laws of the State, drilling with drawn swords, to
learn to guard a man whilst he should be carried into
bondage ! And who do you suppose was at their head?
A man bearing an honorable name — Samuel Adams!
Tell it not in Massachusetts ; let not your children hear
of this, lest they curse the mothers that bore them. It
is well that we should have a day of fasting and hu
miliation and prayer, when such things are done here.
Well, my brethren, these are only the beginning of
sorrows. There will be other victims yet ; this will not
settle the question. What shall we do? I think I am
a calm man and a cool man, and I have a word or two
to say as to what we shall do. Never obey the law.
Keep the law of God. Next, I say, resist not evil with
evil ; resist not now with violence. ' Why do I say this ?
Will you tell me that I am a coward? Perhaps I am ;
at least I am not afraid to be called one. Why do I
say, then, do not now resist with violence? Because
it is not time just yet; it would not succeed. If I
had the eloquence that I sometimes dream of, which
goes into a crowd of men, and gathers it in its mighty

44 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
arm, and sways them as the pendent boughs of yonder
elm shall be shaken by the summer breeze next June,
I would not give that counsel. I would call on men,
and lift up my voice like a trumpet through the whole
land, until I had gathered millions out of the North
and the South, and they should crush slavery for ever,
as the ox crushes the spider underneath his feet. But
such eloquence is given to no man. It was not given
to the ancient Greek who " shook the arsenal and ful-
mined over Greece." He that so often held the nobles
and the mob of Rome within his hand, had it not. He
that spoke as never man spake, and who has since
gathered two hundred millions to his name, had it not.
No man has it. The ablest must wait for time! It
is idle to resist here and now. It is not the hour. If
in 1765 they had attempted to carry out the Revolu
tion by force, they would have failed. Had it failed,
we had not been here to-day. There would have been
no little monument at Lexington " sacred to liberty
and the rights of mankind," honoring the men who
" fell in the cause of God and their country." No
little monument at Concord; nor that tall pile of elo
quent stone at Bunker Hill, to proclaim that " resist
ance to tyrants is obedience to God." Success is due
to the discretion, heroism, calmness, and forbearance
of our fathers: let us wait our time. It will come —
perhaps will need no sacrifice of blood.
Resist, then, by peaceful means ; not with evil, but
with good. Hold the men infamous that execute this
law; give them your pity, but never give them your
trust, not tiU they repent. Then swiftly forgive.
Agitate, discuss, petition, and elect to office men whom
you can trust; not men who never show their face in
the day of darkness and of peril. Choose men that
are men.

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 45
I suppose that this man will be carried back to
slavery. The law of the United States has been cloven
down; the law of Massachusetts cloven down. If we
have done all that we can, we must leave the result to
God. It is something that a man can only be kid
napped in Boston by riding over the law, and can only
be tried in a court-house surrounded by chains, when
the crouching judges crawl under the iron of slavery to
enter their house of bondage ; that even on Fast Day
it is guarded by one hundred police, and three com
panies of military are picketed in Faneuil Hall — the
" Sims Brigade ! "
The Christians saw Christ crucified, and looked on
from afar; sad, but impotent. The Christians at
Rome saw their brethren martyred, and could not help
them: they were too weak. But the blood of martyrs
is the seed of the church. To-day is St. Bademus'
Day : 4 three hundred and seventy-six years after
Christ, that precious saint was slain because he would
not keep the commandment of the king. By crucified
redeemers shall mankind be saved. If we cannot pre
vent crucifixion, let us wait for the redemption.
Shall I ask you to despair of human liberty and
rights? I believe that money is to triumph for the
present. We see it does in Boston, Philadelphia, New
York, and Washington: see this in the defense of
bribery ; in the chains of the court-house ; in the judges'
pliant necks ; in the swords of the police to-day ; see it
in the threats of the press to withdraw the trade of
Boston from towns that favor the unalienable rights
of man !
Will the Union hold out? I know not that. But,
if men continue to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law, I
do not know how soon it will end; I do not care how

46 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
soon the Union goes to pieces. I believe in justice
and the law of God ; that ultimately the right wiU pre
vail. Wrong will prevail for a time, and attract ad
miration. I have seen in a haberdasher's shop-window
the figure of a wooden woman showily arrayed, turning
round on a pivot, and attracting the gaze of all the
passers-by ; but ere long it is forgotten. So it will
be with this transient love of slavery in Boston; but
the love of right will last as long as the granite in
New Hampshire hills. I wiU not tell you to despair of
freedom because politicians are\false; they are often
so. Despair of freedom for the black man! No,
never. Not till heaven shakes down its stars ; nay, not
till the heart of man ceases to yearn for liberty; not
till the eternal God is hurled from His throne, and a
devil takes His place ! All the arts of wicked men
shall not prevail against the Father; nay, at last, not
against the Son.
The very scenes we have witnessed here, — the court
house in chains, — the laws of Massachusetts despised,
• — the commonwealth disgraced, — these speak to the
people with an eloquence beyond all power of human
speech. Here is great argument for our cause. This
work begets new foes to every form of wrong. There
is a day after to-day, — an eternity after to-morrow.
Let us be courageous and active, but cool and tranquU,
and full of hope.
These are the beginning of sorrows ; we shall have
others, and trials. Continued material prosperity is
commonly bad for a man, always for a nation. I think
the time is coming when there will be a terrible contest
between liberty and slavery. Now is the time to spread
ideas, not to bear arms. I know which will triumph:
the present love of thraldom is only an eddy in the

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE 47
great river of the nation's life ; by and by it will pass
down the stream and be forgot. Liberty will spread
with us, as the spring over the New England hills.
One spot will blossom, and then another, until at last
the spring has covered the whole land, and every moun
tain rejoices in its verdant splendor.
O Boston! thou wert once the prayer and pride of
all New England men, and holy hands were laid in
baptism on thy baby brow ! Thou art dishonored
now; thou hast taken to thy arms the enemies of men.
Thou hast betrayed the slave ; thy brother's blood cries
out against thee from the ground. Thou art a stealer
of mankind. In thy borders, for long years, the
cradle of liberty has been placed. The golden ser
pent of commerce has twined its snaky folds about it
all, and fascinated into sleep the child. Tread lightly,
soldiers: he yet may wake. Yes, in his time this child
shall wake, and Boston shall scourge out the memory
of the men who have trodden her laws under foot, vio
lated the dearest instincts of her heart, and profaned
her religion. I appeal from Boston, swollen with
wealth, drunk with passion, and mad against freedom
— to Boston in her calm and sober hour.
O Massachusetts, noble State ! the mother that bore
us all ; parent of goodly institutions and of noble men,
whose great ideas have blessed the land! — how art
thou defiled, dishonored, and brought low! One of
thine own hired servants has wrought this deed of
shame, and rent the bosom which took him as an
adopted son. Shall it be always thus? I conjure
thee by all thy battle-fields, — by the remembrance of
the great men born of thee, who battled for the right,
thy Franklin, Hancock, the Adamses — three in a sin
gle name, — by thine ideas and thy love of God, — to

48 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
forbid for ever all such deeds as this, and wipe away
thy deep disgrace.
America, thou youngest born of all God's family of
States ! thou art a giant in thy youth, laying thine
either hand upon thine either sea ; the lakes behind thee,
and the Mexique Bay before. Hast thou too forgot
thy mission here, proud only of thy wide-spread soil,
thy cattle, corn, thy cotton, and thy cloth? Wilt thou
welcome the Hungarian hero, and yet hold slaves, and
hunt poor negroes through thy land? Thou art the
ally of the despot, thyself out-heathening the heathen
Turk. Yea, every Christian king may taunt thee with
thy slaves. Dost thou forget thine own great men, —
thy Washington, thy Jefferson? forget thine own
proud words prayed forth to God in thy great act of
prayer? Is it to protect thy wealth alone that thou
hast formed a state? and shall thy wealth be slaves?
No, thou art mad. It shall not be. One day thou wilt
heed the lessons of the past, practise thy prayer, wilt
turn to God, and rend out of thy book the hated page
where slavery is writ. Thy sons who led thee astray
in thy madness, where shall they appear?
And thou our God, the Father of us all, Father and
Mother too, Parent of freemen, Parent also of the ,
slave, look down upon us in our sad estate. Look down
upon thy saints, and bless them ; yea, bless thy sinners
too ; save from the wicked heart. Bless this town by
Thy chastisement ; this State by Thine afflictions ; this
nation by Thy rod. Teach us to resist evil, and with
good, till we break the fetters from every foot, the
chains from every hand, and let the oppressed go free.
So let Thy kingdom come; so may Thy wiU be done
on earth as it is in heaven.

II
THE THREE CHIEF SAFEGUARDS OF
SOCIETY
Righteousness exalteth a nation. — Phovehbs xiv. 34.
This is the first Sunday after the anniversary of the
national birth-day. It seems proper, on this occasion,
to go beyond matters merely personal, and affecting
us only as individuals. I will speak of the duties of
man in a wider sphere; of political affairs. So I ask
your attention to " A Sermon on the Safeguards of
Society." I choose this subject because some men
profess a fear that American society is in danger, and
because some persons are busily teaching doctrines
which seem hostile to the very design of society itself.
I shaU not speak of politics as economy, but as mo
rality, and look at the affairs of state from a religious
point of view.
We are often told, that human society is of divine
appointment; society meaning the mass of men living
together in a certain fellowship. If this means that
man is by nature a social being, and in their progress
ive development men must unite and form societies,
then, it is true, society is of divine appointment. But
so is a farm; for man is by nature and position an
agricultural being, and in their progressive develop
ment men make farms and practise agriculture. Agri
culture is as necessary as society. But it does not fol
low from this, that the Egyptian, the Flemish, or the
American mode of agriculture is of divine appoint
ment, and men bound by God to practise that, or to
IX-4 49

50 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
limit themselves thereto; and it no more follows that
the Egyptian, the Flemish, or the American mode of
society is of divine appointment, and men bound by
God to limit themselves to it. It would be thought ri
diculous to claim divinity for Dutch farming, or any
other special mode of farming; but it is just as ridicu
lous to claim divinity for Dutch society, or any other
society. The farm and the society are alike and
equally the work of men.
Then we are often told, that human government is of
divine appointment, and men morally bound to submit
to it; government being used as a collective term to
include the political, ecclesiastical, and social establish
ments of a people, and the officers who administer them.
If this means, that, at a certain stage of man's pro
gressive political development, it is necessary to have
certain political, ecclesiastical, and social establish
ments, such as a monarchy or an aristocracy, with per
sons to administer them, then it is true, and govern
ment is of divine appointment. But the fence of a
farm is just as necessary to agriculture, at a certain
stage of agricultural development, as government to
society. However, it does not follow from this, that a
stone wall or a rail fence is of divine appointment ; and
it no more follows that a monarchy or an aristocracy
is of divine appointment. It would be thought ridicu
lous for a farmer to claim divinity for his fence: it
is just as absurd for a politician to claim it for his gov
ernment. Both are alike and equally the work of men.
Again it is said that human statutes are of divine
appointment, and therefore binding on the conscience
of men. If this means, that, at a certain stage of
social and political development, men must form cer
tain rules for social and political conduct, then it is

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 51
true, and human statutes are of divine appointment.
But rules for agricultural conduct are just as neces
sary for the farm and the garden as political rules for
society and the state, and so equally divine. But it
does not follow from this, that the agricultural rules
for the farm and the garden laid down by Columella
the Roman, or Cobbett the Briton,1 are of divine ap
pointment; and it no more follows that the political
rules for society and the state laid down by the men
of New England or the men of New Holland — by
men " foreordained " at birth to be lawgivers, or by
men " elected " in manhood to make laws — are of di
vine appointment. It would be thought ridiculous for
a British farmer to claim divinity for Tusser's " Five
Hundred Points of Good Husbandry;" but it is just
as absurd for a British politician to claim divinity for
the British Constitution, or the statutes of the realm.
Rules for farming the land and rules for farming the
people are ahke and equally the work of men.
StiU further, it is said that human officers to execute
the statutes, administer the government, and sustain
society, are also of divine appointment ; and hence we
are morally bound to employ, honor, and obey them.
If this means that at a certain stage of man's social,
pohtical, and legal development, it is necessary to have
certain persons whose official business it shall be to exe
cute those statutes, then it is true, and human officers
are of divine appointment. But it is just as necessary
to have certain persons whose official business it shall be
to execute the rules for farming the land; and so the
agricultural officers are just as much of divine appoint
ment as the political. But it does not follow that
ploughman Keith and reaper Gibson are such by the
grace of God, and therefore we are morally bound to

62 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
employ, honor, and obey them ; and it no more follows
that King Ferdinand or President Fillmore are such
by the grace of God, and we morally bound to employ,
honor and obey them. It would be thought ridiculous
for Keith and Gibson to claim divinity for their func
tion of ploughman or reaper; but it is equally absurd
for FiUmore and Ferdinand to claim divinity for their
function of president or king. The farm office and
the State office are alike and equally the work of men.
Yet it is often taught that society, government,
statutes, and officers, are peculiarly and especially of
divine appointment, in a very different sense from that
mentioned just now; and therefore you and I are
morally bound to respect all the four. We are told
this by men who would be astonished if any one should
claim divine appointment for farm-fences, rules of hus
bandry, for ploughmen and reapers. This is some
times done by persons who know no better.
In conformity with that fourfold claim of divinity
for things of human appointment, we are told that the
great safeguard of man's social welfare is this: entire
subordination of the individual to the community, sub
ordination in mind and conscience, heart and soul ; en
tire submission to the government; entire obedience to
the statute ; entire respect for the officer ; in short, the
surrender of the individual to the State, of his mind to
the public opinion, of his conscience to the public
statute, of his religion to some bench of attorneys, and
his will to the magistrate. This fourfold subordina
tion of the individual is demanded, no matter what the
community, the government, the statutes, or the officers
may be. Let us look a little more narrowly into this
matter, and see what is the purpose, the end, and aim
of individual human life, and of social human Hfe;

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 53
then we may be the better able to determine what are
the safeguards thereof.
What is man here on earth to accomplish? He is to^-
unfold and perfect himself, as far as possible, in body
and spirit; to attain the full measure of his corporeal
and spiritual powers, his intellectual, moral, affectional,
and religious powers; to develop the individual into a
complete man. That, I take it, is the purpose, the
end, the scope, and final cause of individual Hfe on
earth. Accordingly, that is the best form of indi
vidual life which does this most completely ; that worst
which does it least. He is the most fortunate man
who gets the greatest development of his body and his
spirit in all their several and appropriate functions:
all else is means thereto, and this the end thereof.
Ease, wealth, honor, fame, power, and all the outward
things men wish for, and aU such things as are valu
able, are means to this end, no more. Wise men do not
account him lucky who comes into the world born to
riches, distinction, thrones of power ; but him who goes
out of it wise, just, good, and holy.
Accordingly, all else is to be subordinated to the at
tainment of this purpose ; this to nothing. But what
faculties of the individual are to rule and take preced
ence? The highest over the lowest; the lasting over
the transient; the eternal over the perishing. I will
wound my hand to save my head, subordinating the
less to the greater. Not barely to Hve, but to live
nobly, is my purpose. I wiU wound or sacrifice my
body to save the integrity of my spirit, to defend the
rights of my mind, of my conscience, of my affections,
of my religious faculty — my soul. Conscience, when
awakened, commands this. Prophets of the Old Testa
ment, and apostles of the New Testament, martyrs

54 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
of all the churches under heaven, are historical
witnesses to this instinct of human nature. Mil
lions of soldiers have been found ready to sacrifice
the Hfe of their body to the integrity of their spirit :
they would die, but not run.
Man is social by nature : gregarious by instinct, he is
social with self-conscious will. To develop the individ
ual into the perfect man, men must mix and mingle.
Society is the condition of individual development.
Moses or Newton, hving aU alone, would not have at
tained the human dignity of a clown or a savage ; they
would never have mastered articulate speech: the gre
garious .elephant, the lonely eagle, would surpass these
men, born to the mightiest genius. Society, compan
ionship of men, is both a necessity and a comfort, a
good in itself, a means to other good.
As the great purpose of human life is to develop the
individual into the complete and perfect man in body
and spirit, so the purpose of society is to help furnish
the means thereto; to defend each, and furnish him
an opportunity and aU possible help to become a com
plete and perfect man. Individuals are the monads,
the primitive atoms, of which society is composed: its
power, its perfection, depend primarily on the power
and perfection of the individuals, as much so as the
weight of a pendulum or of Mount Sheehallin depends
on the primitive atoms thereof. Destroy the individ
uality of those atoms, human or material, aU is gone.
To mar the atom is to mar the mass. To preserve
itself, therefore, society is to preserve the individuality
of the individual.
Such is its general purpose : this involves several par
ticulars. One is purely negative in its form, to pre
vent men from hurting one another. In early ages

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 55
that was the chief business of society which men had
become conscious of. Society was recognized as an in
strument to help accomphsh two things: first, to de
fend itself against other societies or collections of
men, and so preserve the integrity of the mass. This
was done by means of armies, forts, fleets, and aU the
artillery of war. The next thing was, within itself, to
defend the many feeble from the few that are strong,
or the few strong from the many weak ; to preserve the
integrity of the individuals, the atoms which compose
the mass. This was done by statutes of prohibition,
declaring, " Thou shalt not." ' This defense from for
eign or domestic harm involves two things: first, the
protection of the person, the substance of the com
munity or the individual ; and, next, the protection of
the property, the accident of the social or individual
person. All this may be comprised in one term as the
negative function of society, appearing in two modes,
as it protects from foreign or domestic hurt. This
function is performed consciously : one community says
to other communities, " You shaU not hurt me," and
to its own members, " You must not hurt one another,"
and knows what it is about in so doing. Some of the
nations of Europe have scarcely got beyond this ; their
government seems to acknowledge no function but this
negative one.
Then comes the positive function of society ; that is,
to furnish opportunities for the mass, as such, to de
velop itself; and the individual, as such, to develop
himself, individually and socially, and exercise aU his
faculties in his own way, subject only to this rule,
that he hurts nobody else. See how this is done
abroad between society and society. This community
agrees with others, that they, mutually, shall not only

56 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
not injure each other, but positively help one another.
" Protect my citizens by your statutes whilst in your
land, and I will do the same with yours," says Belgium
to France. That is agreed upon. " Let my ships
into your harbors," says England, " come whence they
may, and with what they may bring, and I wiU do the
same by yours." America says, " Agreed," and it
is so to the good of both. Thus each Christian nation
secures for itself opportunities for development in all
other Christian countries, and so helps the person and
also his property. This is done by treaties; and each
nation has its ministers and consuls to live abroad, and
help accomplish this work. This is the foreign part
of the positive function of society, and is destined to a
great expansion in times to come.
See how it is done at home, and the whole furnishes
positive helps to the special parts. Society estabHshes
almshouses, hospitals, schools, colleges, churches, and
postoffices; coins money as a standard measure of aU
values; builds roads of earth, of water, or of iron;
carries letters ; surveys the land ; prints books telling of
its minerals, plants, and Hving things that swim, or
creep, or fly, or walk ; puts lighthouses along the coast,
and breakwaters to protect a port. Thus society fur
nishes its members a positive help for the mind, body,
and estate ; helps the individual become a complete and
perfect man, by affording him facilities for the de
velopment of his substance and the possession of his
accidents. This is the domestic part of the positive
function of society. Some men, as the Socialists in
France, wish to extend it much further, making the
government patriarchal to bless — not, as of old, des
potic to curse. This also is done with a distinct self-
consciousness of the immediate end and the means
thereto.

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 57
But the greater part of this positive work is done
with no such distinct consciousness thereof; it is
brought about by the men living together ; is done, not
by government, but by society. The presence of num
bers increases the intellectual temperature, so to say,
and quickens the social pulse. Machines are invented,
science extended, new truths in morals and rehgion are
found out, Hterature and art create new loveliness, and
men become greater and more noble, while society takes
no heed ; and so all are helped. The government often
only checks this work.
By most subtle contrivances, though not of you and
me, a provision is made for the great. Without will
ing it, we prepare a cradle for every giant, ready to
receive him as soon as he is born. A young woman has
a rare genius for music: no legal and constitutional
provision has been made for her, society having no in
stinctive and prophetic consciousness of such an ad
vent; but men with music in their souls, and spell
bound by their ears, are drawn together, and encourage
her sweet soul into aU the wildest, sweetest, and most
bewildering witchery of song. If some lad of mar
velous genius is born in the woods, men seek him out,
and train him up with the accumulated wisdom of ten
thousand years, that this newest diamond from the mine
of God may be appropriately set. So it is with a
thousand other things; and thus society caUs out the
dainties of the cook, the machine of the inventor,
the orator's persuasive power, the profound thought of
the thinker, the poet's vision and his faculty divine, the
piety of the highest saint God sends. Thus, spite of
all the Herods in Jerusalem, a crown is got ready for
him that is born King of the world; wise men are al
ways waiting for the star which goes before the new-

58 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
born Son of God ; and, though that star stand stiU over
a stable, they are ready on the spot with their myrrh,
their frankincense, and their gold. Society has its
shepherds watching their flock, and its angels to pro
claim the glad tidings of great joy to aU mankind.
While society, in its positive function, thus helps
the strong, it provides also for the weak, and gives
them the benefit of the strong man's protection; thus
the individuality of the ablest and the most feeble is
defended at the same time. This is done in part by
private charity, in part also by the organized public
charity. The sick, the poor, the crazy, the lame, the
bhnd, the deaf, are sacredly cared for. Even the fool
is not left in his folly, but the wisdom of society
watches over his impotent and wretched brain. Thus
the two extremes of the human race are provided for :
the man of vast genius and a tough body gets his cul
ture and his place, and, from his station in the senate,
the pulpit, or the closet, sends out his thunder, his
lightning, or his sunshine, over all the land, to save the
people and to bless; while the lame man, the lunatic
woman, the blind boy, the poor and sickly little girl
born with the scrofulous worm feeding on her cheek,
all have the benefit of the manifold power of society.
The talent of a Webster, the genius of an Emerson,
the frailty of an unacknowledged child left on the
door-stone at night, to die next month in the almshouse,
all have their place in the large cradle of society, whose
coverlet wraps them all — the senator, the poet, and
the fool. Attend a meeting of the alumni of Harvard
College, of the heads of the railroads or factories of
New England, a convention of merchants, naturalists,
metaphysicians, of the senate of the nation; you see
how society gives place and protection to the best heads

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 59
in the State. Then go to some house of industry, and
see the defense afforded for the worst; you see what
a wonderful contrivance society itself is. I say a
contrivance, yet it is not the contrivance chiefly of
Solon or Charlemagne, but of Almighty God; a con
trivance for three things — to prevent men from hurt
ing one another in person or property; to give the
strong and the weak the advantage of living together ;
and thus to enable each to have a fair chance for the
development of his person and the acquisition of prop
erty. The mechanism of society, with its statical and
dynamical laws, is the most marvelous phenomenon in
the universe. Thereby we are continuaUy building
wiser than we know, or rather the providence of the
Father builds by us, as by the coral insect of Pacific
seas, foundations for continents which we dream
not of.
These three things are the general end of society,
and indispensable to the purpose of life. To attain
them there must be a certain amount of individual va
riety of action, a certain amount of social unity of ac
tion ; and the two must be to a certain degree balanced
into equilibrium. The larger the amount of individual
variety and social unity of action, the more complete
the equilibrium of the two, the more completely is the
purpose of individual and social life accomplished and
attained : the atom is not sacrificed to the mass, nor the
mass to the atom; the individual gains from being a
citizen, the citizen from his individuality; aU are the
better for each, and each for all.
To accomplish this purpose, men devise certain es
tablishments — institutions, constitutions, statutes —
human machinery for attaining the divine end in the
individual and the social form. But here is the condi-

60 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
tion of existence which all these establishments must
conform to. Everything in nature has a certain con
stant mode of action : this we call a law of nature.
The laws of nature are universal, unchangeable, and
perfect as God, whose mind they in part express. To
succeed in anything, we must find out and keep the
natural laws relating thereto. There are such laws for
the individual — constant modes of action which be
long to human nature, writ therein by God. My mind
and conscience are the faculties by which I learn these
laws. Conscience perceives by instinct: mind sees af
terwards by experiment. There are also such laws for
society, constant modes of action, which belong to hu
man nature in its social form. They are also written
in the nature of man. The mind and conscience of
the individuals who make up the society are the faculties
by which these laws likewise are found out. These
laws, constant modes of individual or social action, are
the sole and exclusive basis of human establishments
which help attain the end of individual and social life.
What conforms to these natural rights is caUed right ;
what conforms not, is wrong. A mill-dam or a monu
ment must conform to the statical laws of matter, or
not serve the purpose it was meant for: a mill or a
steam-engine must conform to the dynamical laws of
matter, or it is also useless. So all the social establish
ments of mankind, designed to further the positive or
negative functions of society, must conform to the
laws of human nature, or they will fail to achieve the
purposes of individual and social life.
As I come to individual self-consciousness, I give
utterance to these natural laws, or my notion of them,
in certain rules of conduct which I make for myself.
I say, " This will I do, for it is right ; that will I not

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 61
do, for it is wrong." These are my personal resolu
tions, personal statutes. I make them in my high act
of prayer, and in my common life seek to conform
thereto. When I rise higher, in another act of prayer
which has a greater experience for its basis, and so
represents more life, I shall revise the old rules of con
duct, and make new ones that are better. The rules
of conduct derive all their objective and real value
from their conformity with the law of God writ in
my nature; aU their subjective and apparent value,
from their conformity to my notions of the law of
God. The only thing which makes it right, and an in
dividual moral duty, for me to keep my resolutions, is,
that they themselves are right, or I believe them so.
Now, as I see they are wrong, or think I see it, I shall
revise or change them for better. Accordingly, I re
vise them many times in my life: now by a gradual
change, the process of peaceful development ; now by a
sudden change, under conviction of sin, in penitence
for the past, and great concern of mind for the future,
by the process of personal revolution. But these rules
of conduct are always provisional — my ladder for
climbing up to the purposes of individual life. I will
throw them away as soon as I can get better. They
are amenable subjectively to my notion of right, and
objectively to right itself — to conscience and to God.
As the individuals, aU, the majority, or some con
trolling men, come to social self-consciousness, they
express these natural laws, or their notion thereof, in
certain rules of social conduct. They say, " This shaU
all men do, for it is right ; that shall no man do, for it
is wrong." The nation makes its social resolutions,
social statutes, in its act of prayer; for legislation is
to the State what prayer is to the man — often an

62 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
act of penitence, of sorrow, of fear, and yet of faith,
hope, and love. When it rises higher it revises and
makes better rules of conduct: they derive aU their
objective and real value from their conformity with the
law of God; all their subjective and apparent value
from their conformity with the nation's notion thereof.
The only thing which makes it right, and a social
moral duty for society, or any of its members, to keep
these social statutes, is that they are right, or thought
so. In the progress of society, its rules of conduct
get revised a good many times: now it is done by
gradual, peaceful development — now by sudden and
stormy revolutions, when society is penitent for the
sin of the past, and in great anxiety and concern of
mind through fear of the future. These social stat
utes are only provisional, to help men climb up to the
purpose of social Hfe. They are all amenable sub
jectively to the notidn of right; objectively to right
itself — to the conscience of the individuals and to
God. Then society appoints officers whose special conven
tional function is to see to the execution of these social
rules of conduct. They are legally amenable to the
rules of conduct they are to carry out, socially amen
able to the community that appoints them, individu
ally amenable to their own conscience and to God.
To sum up all this in one formula: officers are con
ventionally amenable to society; society, with its offi
cers and its rules of conduct, amenable to the purpose
of society; the design of individual Hfe, to the indi
viduals that compose it; individuals, with their rules
of conduct, amenable each to his own conscience; and
all to the law of the universe, to the eternal right,
which represents the conscience of God. So far as so-

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 63
ciety is right, government right, statutes right, offi
cers right, all may justly demand obedience from each:
for though society, government, statutes, and officers,
are mere human affairs, as much so as farms, fences,
top-dressing, and reapers, and are as provisional as
they; yet right is divine, is of God, not merely pro
visional and for to-day, but absolute and for eternity.
So, then, the moral duty to respect the government, to
keep the statutes, to obey the officers, is all resolvable
into the moral duty of respecting the integrity of my
own nature, of keeping the eternal law of nature, of
obeying God. If government, statutes, officers, com
mand me to do right, I must do it, not because com
manded, but because it is right; if they command me
to do wrong, I must refuse, not because commanded,
but because it is wrong. There is a constitution of the
universe : to keep that is to preserve the union between
man and man, between man and God. To do right
is to keep this constitution: that is loyalty to God.
To keep my notion of it is loyalty to my own soul.
To be false to my notion thereof is treason against
my own nature: to be false to that constitution is
treason against God. The constitution of the universe
is not amenable to men : that is the law of God, the
higher law, the constant mode of action of the Infinite
Father of all. In that He lives, and moves, and has
His being.
It is now easy to see what are the safeguards of so
ciety, the things which promote the end and aim of
society — the development of the body and spirit of
all men after their law — and thus help attain the pur
pose of individual Hfe. I will mention three of these
safeguards, in the order of their importance.
First of all is righteousness in the people: a re-

64 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Hgious determination to keep the law of God at all
hazards ; a sacred and inflexible reverence for right ; a
determined habit of fidelity each to his own conscience.
This, of course, implies a hatred of wrong ; a religious
and determined habit of disobeying and resisting ev
erything which contradicts the law of God — of dis
obeying what is false to this and our conscience.
There is no safeguard for society without this. It
is to man what impenetrability, with the other primary
qualities, is to matter. All must begin with the inte
gral atoms, with the individual mind and conscience;
all be tried by that test, personal integrity, at last.
What is false to myself I must never do — at no time,
for no consideration, in nowise. This is the doctrine
of the higher law; the doctrine of allegiance to God;
a doctrine which appears in every form of rehgion
ever taught in the world; a doctrine admitted by the
greatest writers on the foundation of human law, from
Cicero to Lord Brougham. Even Bentham comes
back to this. I know it is nowadays taught in the
United States, that, if any statute is made after the
customary legal form, it is morally binding on all men,
no matter what the statute may be; that a command
to kidnap a black man and sell him into slavery is as
much morally binding as a command for a man to pro
tect his own wife and child. A people that wiU prac
tically submit to such a doctrine is not worthy of lib
erty, and deserves nothing but law, oppressive law,
tyrannical law, and will soon get what it deserves. If
a people has this notion, that they are morally bound
to obey any statute legally made, though it conflict
with public morals, with private conscience, and with
the law of God, then there is no hope of such a people,
and the sooner a tyrant whips them into their shameful

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 65
grave, the better for the world. Trust me, to such a
people the tyrant will soon come. Where the carcass
is, thither will the vultures be gathered together. Let
no man put asunder the carrion and the crow. So
much for the first and indispensable safeguard.
The next is derivative therefrom: righteousness in
the establishments of the people. Under this name I
include three things — namely, institutions, constitu
tions, and statutes. Institutions are certain modes of
operation, certain social, ecclesiastical, or political
contrivances for doing certain things. Thus, an ag
ricultural club is a social institution to help farming;
a private school is a social institution for educating
its pupils ; a church is an ecclesiastical institution for
the promotion of religion ; an aristocracy is a political
institution for governing aU the people by means of a
few, and for the sake of a few ; a congress of senators
and representatives is a legislative institution for mak
ing statutes ; a jury of twelve men is a judicial institu
tion to help execute the statutes ; universal suffrage is
a democratic institution for ruling the State.
Constitutions are fundamental rules of conduct for
the nation, made by the highest human authority in the
land, and only changeable thereby, determining what
institutions shall be allowed, how administered, by
whom and in what manner statutes shall be made.
Statutes are particular rules of conduct to regulate
the action of man with man, of individuals with the
State, and of the State with individuals.
Statutes are amenable to the constitutions ; the con
stitutions to the institutions; they to the people; all
subjectively to the conscience of the individual, and
objectively to the conscience of God.
Establishments are the machinery which a people
IX— 5

66 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
contrives wherewith to carry out its ideas of the right
or the expedient. In the present state of mankind
they are indispensable to accomplish the purpose of
individual Hfe. There are indeed a few men who, for
their good conduct, after they are mature, require no
human laws whatever. They regulate themselves by
their idea of right, by their love of truth, of justice, of
man and God. They see the law of God so clear that
they need no prohibitive statutes to restrain them from
wrong. They will not lie nor steal, though no statutes
forbid, and all other men both lie and steal ; not if the
statutes command falsehood and theft. These men
are saints. The wealth of Athens could not make
Aristides unjust. Were all men like Jesus of Naza
reth, statutes forbidding wrong would be as needless as
sails to a shark, a balloon to a swallow, or a railroad to
the lightning of heaven. This is always a smaU class
of men, but one that continually increases. We all
look to the time when this will include all men. No
man expects to find law books and courts in the king
dom of heaven.
Then there is a class who need these statutes as a
well-known rule of conduct, to encourage them to do
right, by the assurance that aU other men will likewise
be made to do so, even if not willing. They see the
law of God less clear and strong, and need human helps
to keep it. This class comprises the majority of man
kind. The court-house helps them, though they never
use it; the jail helps them, though never in it. These
are common men. They are very sober in Connecticut,
not very sober in California.
Then there is a third class, who wiU do wrong unless
they are kept from it by punishment or the fear
thereof. They do not see the law of God, or will not

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 67
keep it if they do. The court-house helps them; so
does the jail, keeping them from actual crime whUe
there, deterring while out of it. Take away the out
ward restraints, their seeming virtue falls to pieces like
a barrel without its hoops. These are knaves. I think
this class of men wiU continually diminish with the ad
vance of mankind; that the saints wiU grow common,
and the knaves get scarce. Good establishments pro
mote this end; those of New England, especially the
schools, help forward this good work, to convert the
knaves to common men, to transfigure the common men
to saints. Bad establishments, like many in Austria,
Ireland, and South Carolina, produce the opposite ef
fect: they hinder the development of what is high and
noble in man, and call out what is mean and low; for
human laws are often instruments to debauch a nation.
If a nation desires to keep the law of God, good es
tablishments will help the work ; if it have none such, it
must make them before it can be at peace. They are
as needful as coats and gowns for the body. Some
times the consciousness of the people is far in advance
of its establishments, and there must be a revolution to
restore the equilibrium. It is so at Rome, in Austria,
and Prussia. All these countries are on the brink of
revolution, and are only kept down by the bayonet. It
was so here seventy-five years ago, and our fathers
went through fire and blood to get the establishments
they desired. They took of the righteousness in the
people, and made therefrom institutions, constitutions,
and statutes. So much for the second and derivative
safeguard. The third is righteousness in the public officers : good
men to administer the establishments, manage the insti
tutions, expound and enforce the constitutions, and exe
cute the statutes, and so represent the righteousness of

68 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY «
the people. In the hands of such men as see the pur
pose of social and individual life, and feel their duty
to keep the integrity of their conscience and obey the
law of God, even bad establishments are made to work
well, and serve the purpose of human life ; because the
man puts out the evil of the institution, constitution, or
statute, and puts his own righteousness in its place.
There was once a judge in New England who some
times had to administer bad laws. In these cases he
told the jury, " Such is the law, common or enacted;
such are the precedents; such the opinions of Judge
This and Judge That; but justice demands another
thing. I am bound by my oath as judge to expound
to you the law as it is : you are bound by oath as jurors
to do justice under it ; that is your official business here
to-day." Such a man works well with poor tools ; with
good ones he would work much better. By the action
of such men, aided by public opinion, which they now
follow and now direct, without any change of legisla
tion, there is a continual progress of justice in the es
tablishments of a nation. Bad statutes are dropped
or corrected; constitutions silently ameliorated; all in
stitutions made better. Thus wicked laws become obso
lete. There is a law in England compelling all men to
attend church. Nobody enforces it.
Put a bad man to administer the establishments, one
who does not aim at the purpose of society, nor feel
bound to keep the higher law of God, the best institu
tions, constitutions, statutes, become ineffectual, be
cause the man puts out the good thereof, and puts in
his own evil. The best establishments will be perverted
to the worst of purposes. Rome had all the machinery
of a commonwealth; with Caesar at the head it became
a despotism. In 1798 France had the establishments
of a republic ; with Napoleon for first consul you know

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 69
what it became: it soon was made an empire, and the
constitution was trodden under foot. In 1851 France
has the institutions of a democracy ; with Louis Napo
leon as chief you see what is the worth of the provisions
for public justice. What was the constitution of Eng
land good for under the thumb of Charles I. and James
II.? What was the value of the common law, of the
trial by jury, of Magna Charta, " such a fellow as will
have no sovereign," with a George Jeffreys for judge,
a James II. for king, and such juries as corrupt sher
iffs brought together? They were only a mockery.
What were the charters of New England against a
wicked king and a corrupt cabinet? Connecticut went
out of the court and into the Charter Oak for self-
preservation. What were all the institutions of Chris
tianity when Alexander VI. dishonored the seat even of
the pope?
Put a saint, who feels his duty to keep the law of
God, in office, even bad rules will work well. But put
a man who recognises no law of God, not into a jail,
but in a great office; give him courts and courtiers,
fleets and armies — nay, only newspapers and " Union
committees " to serve him, you will see what will be
done. The resolute determination of the people to
obey the law of God, the righteousness of their estab
lishments, wiU be of small avail, frustrated by the wick
edness of the men in power. The English Parliament
once sent a fleet to aid the Huguenots at Rochelle.
King Charles I. gave the admiral secret orders to sur
render his ships to the enemy he was sent to oppose!
The purpose of all human Hfe may be as foully be
trayed by wicked men in a high place. In a monarchy
the king is answerable for it with his neck ; in a repub-
Hc there is the same danger ; but where all seems to pro-

70 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
ceed from the people it may be more difficult to do jus-
tic to a wicked officer. So much for the third safe
guard, also derivative from the first.
To make a good house, you want good materials —
solid stone, sound bricks, sound timber — a good plan,
and also good builders. So, as safeguards of society,
to achieve its purpose, you want good material — a
righteous people, who will be faithful to their own con
science, and obey God, .and reverence the law of nature ;
a good plan — righteous establishments, institutions,
constitutions, statutes conformable to the laws of God ;
and you want good builders — righteous officers to rep
resent the eternal justice of the Father. You want
this threefold righteousness.
How are we provided with these three safeguards
just now? Have we this righteousness in the people
which is the first thing? Perhaps there is no nation
with a higher reverence for justice, and more desire to
keep the law of God; at least we have been told so,
often enough. I think the nation never had more of it
than now ; never so much. But here are whole classes
of men who practically seem to have no reverence for
God's law; who declare there is no such thing; whose
conduct is most shamefully unrighteous in all political
matters. They seek to make us believe there is no law
above the caprice of man. Of such I will speak by
and by.
It is plain there is not righteousness enough in the
people to hinder us from doing what we know is con
trary to the law of God. Thus, we keep one-sixth part
of the people in. a state of slavery. This we do in vio
lation of our own axiom, declared to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator
with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pur-

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 71
suit of happiness. We have here three millions of
slaves : if things go on as now, there will be twelve mil
lions before the century ends. We need not say we
cannot help it. Slavery in America is as much our
work as democracy, as free schools, as the Protestant
form of religion. At the Declaration we might have
made the slaves free ; at the time of the Confederation ;
at the formation of the Constitution. But no ! there
was not righteousness enough in the people to resist
the temptation of eating the bread which others earn.
American slavery has always been completely in the
power of the American people. We may abolish it any
time we will. We might have restricted it to the old
States, which had it before, and so have kept it out of
Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,
Florida, and all that mighty realm west of the great
river. No ! we took pains to extend it there. We
fought with Mexico to carry slavery into the " halls of
the Montezumas," whence a half-barbarous people
drove it away. We long to seize on Cuba, and yet
other lands, to plant there our " American institution."
We are indignant when Austria unjustly seizes an
American in Hungary, and hales him to prison; but
have nothing to say when slave States systematically
confine the colored freemen of the North, or when Geor
gia offers a large reward for the head of a citizen of
Boston. We talk of the " pauper labor of Europe."
It is pauper labor, very much of it. I burn with in
dignation at the men who keep it so. But it is not
slave labor. Paupers spin cotton at Manchester, and
at Glasgow, say the Whigs. Who raises cotton at
South Carolina and Mississippi? The spoil of the
slave is in our houses. We are a republic, but the only
nation of the Christian world whose fields are tilled by

72 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
chattel slaves. To such a degree has covetousness
blinded the eyes of the whole nation. In saying aU
this I will not say that we are less righteous than other
nations. No other people has had the same temptation.
It has been too great for America. Slavery is loved as
well in Boston as in New Orleans. The love of liberty
is strong with us ; but it is Hberty for ourselves we love,
not for our brother man whom we can oppress and en
thrall. This vice is not confined to the South. I look
on some of the clergymen of the North as only chap
lains of the slave-driver.
Look at the next safeguard of society. Setting aside
the institution of slavery, and the statutes relating
thereto, I think we have the most righteous establish
ments in the world. By no means perfect, they pro
duce the greatest variety of action in the individuals,
the greatest unity of action in society, and afford an
opportunity to achieve the purpose of social and indi
vidual life. Here is the great institution of democracy,
the government of all, by all, and for all, resting on the
American idea that all men have natural rights which
only the possessor can alienate, that all are equal in
their rights, that it is the business of government to
preserve them all for each man. Under this great insti
tution of a free State, there naturally come the church,
the school, the press — all free. In politics, and all
depending thereon, we are coming to recognise this
principle, that restraint is only to be exercised for the
good of all, the restrainer and the restrained.
Let me single out two excellent institutions, not
wholly American : the contrivance for making laws, and
that for executing them. To make laws, the people
choose the best men they can find and confide in, and
set them to this work. They aim to take all the good

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 73
of past times, of the present times, and add to it their
private contribution of justice. Each State legislature
is a little political academy for the advancement of
jural science and art. They get the wisest and most
humane men to aid them. Then after much elabora
tion the law is made. If it works well in one State it
is soon tried in others ; if not, it is repealed and ceases to
be. The experience of mankind has discovered no bet
ter way than this of popular legislation, for organizing
the ideal justice of the people into permanent forms.
If there is a man of moral and political genius in the
community, he can easily be made available to the pub
Hc. The experiment of popular legislation has been
eminently successful in America.
Then, stiU further, we have officers chosen by the
people for a limited time, to enforce the laws when
made — the executive ; others to expound them — the
judiciary. It is the official business of certain officers
to punish the man who violates the laws. In due and
prescribed form they arrest the man charged with the
offense. Now, two things are desirable: one to pro
tect society, in all its members, from injury by any one
acting against its just laws ; the other is, to protect the
man complained of from being hurt by government
when there is no law against him, or when he has not
done the deed alleged, or from an unjust punishment,
even if it be legal. In despotic countries little is
thought of this latter; and it goes hard with a man
whom the government complains of, even if there is no
positive statute against the crime charged on him, or
when he is innocent of the deed alleged. Nothing can
screen him from the lawful punishment, though that be
never so unjust. The statute and its administration
are a rule without mercy. But in liberal governments

74 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
a contrivance has been devised to accomplish both
these purposes — the just desire of society to execute
its laws ; the just desire of the individual to have jus
tice done. That is the trial by a jury of twelve men,
not officers of the government, but men taken for this
purpose alone from the bosom of the community, with
all their human sympathies and sense of responsibility
to God about them. The jury are to answer in one
word, " Guilty " or " Not guilty." But it is plain
they are to determine three things: first, Did the pris
oner do the deed alleged, and as alleged? next, if so, Is
there a legal and constitutional statute forbidding it,
and decreeing punishment therefore? and then, if so,
Shall the prisoner for that deed suffer the punishment
denounced by that law?
Human statutes partake of human imperfections.
See the checks against sudden, passionate, or unjust
legislation. We choose legislators, and divide them
into two branches, a Senate and a House of Represen
tatives, each to aid and check the other. If a bill pass
one house, and seem unjust to the other, it is set aside.
If both approve of it, a third person has still a quali
fied negative; and if it seems unjust to him, he sets it
aside. If it passes this three-fold ordeal, it becomes a
statute of the land. See the checks in the execution
of the laws which relate to offenses. Before they can
be brought against any man, in any matter beyond a
trifle, a jury of his peers indict him for the offense.
Then, before he can be punished, twelve men of his
peers must say with one accord, " You shaU inflict the
penalties of the statute upon this man."
This trial by jury has long been regarded as one of
the most important of the secondary safeguards of
society. It has served to defend the community

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 75
against bad citizens, and the citizens against an evil
establishment — bad institutions, bad constitutions,
bad statutes ; against evil officers — bad rulers, bad
judges, bad sheriffs.1 If the community has much to
fear from bad citizens, here is the offensive armor, and
the jury do not bear the sword in vain. If its citizens
have much to fear from a wicked government, oppres
sive, grasping, tyrannical, desirous of pretending law
where there is none, declaring " ship-money " and
other enormities constitutional, or pressing a legal stat
ute beyond justice, making it treason to tell of the
wickedness of officers — here is the defensive armor,
and the jury do not bear in vain the shield of the citi
zen. Sometimes the citizens have more to fear from
the government than from all other foes. Louis XIV.
was a great robber, and plundered and murdered more
of his subjects than all the other alleged felons in the
sixteen millions of Frenchmen. The honest burghers
of Paris had more to fear from the monarch in the
Tuileries than from the murderer in the Faubourg St.
Antoine, or the cut-purse in the Rue St. Jacob.
Charles I. was a more dangerous enemy to our fathers
in England and America than all the other thieves and
murderers in the realm. What were all the Indians in
New England, for peril to its Christian citizens, com
pared to Charles II. and his wicked brother? What
was a foot-pad to Henry VIII.? He plundered a
province, while the robber only picked a pocket.
The trial by jury has done manly service. It was
one of the first bulwarks of human society, then bar
barous and feeble, thrown up by the Germanic tribe
which loved order, but loved justice too. It is a line
of circumvallation against the loose, unorganized wick
edness of the private ruffian; a line of contravallation

76 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
also against the organized wickedness of the public
government. It began before there were any regular
courts or written laws, and ever since it has done great
service when corrupt men in high places called a little
offense "treason;" when corrupt judges sought to
crush down the people underneath oppressive laws, to
advance themselves ; and when corrupt witnesses were
ready to " enlarge " their testimony so as to " de
spatch " the men accused ; yea, to swear black was
black, and then, when the case seemed to require it,
swear white was black. Any man who reads the history
of England under the worst of kings, the worst of min
isters, the worst of judges, and with the worst of wit
nesses, and compares it with other nations, will see the
value of the trial by jury as a safeguard of the people.
The bloody Mary had to punish the jurors for their
verdict of acquittal before she could accomplish her
purposes of shame. George III., wishing to coUect a
revenue in the American colonies, without their consent
or any constitutional law, found the jury an obstacle
he could not pass over. Attorneys might try John
Hancock for smuggling in his sloop " Liberty ;" no
jury would convict. The tea, a vehicle of unjust tax
ation, went floating out of Boston Bay in a most iUe-
gal style. No attempt was made to try the offenders :
the magistrates knew there was a jury who would not
convict men for resisting a wicked law. Men must
be taken " over seas for trial " by a jury of their
enemies before the wicked laws of a wicked ministry
could be brought upon the heads of the resolute men of
America. It is of great importance to keep this institution
pure; to preserve its spirit, with such expansion as
the advance of mankind requires. Otherwise, the laws

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 77
may be good, the constitutions good, institutions
good, the disposition of the people good; but with a
wicked minister in the cabinet, a wicked judge on the
bench, a wicked attorney at the bar, and a wicked wit
ness to forswear himself on the stand — and all these
can easily be had — you can purchase your wicked
witnesses ; nay, sometimes one will volunteer and " en
large his testimony " — a man's life and liberty are
not safe for a moment. The administration may
grasp any man at will. The minister represents the
government ; the judge, the attorney, all represent the
government. It has often happened that all these had
something to gain by punishing unjustly some noble
man who opposed their tyranny, and they used their
official power to pervert j ustice and ruin the State, that
they might exalt themselves. The jury does not repre
sent the government, but " the country ;" that is, the
justice, the humanity, the mercy of mankind. This is
its great value.
Have we the third safeguard, righteous officers? I
believe no nation ever started with nobler officers than
we chose at first. But I think there has been some
Httle change from Washington down through the
Tylers and the Polks to the present administration.
John Adams, in coming to the presidency, found his
son in a high office, and asked his predecessor if it
were fit for the President to retain his own son in
office. Washington replied, " It would be wrong for
you to appoint him, but I hope he will not be dis
charged from office, and so the country be deprived of
his valuable services, merely ' because he is your son ! ' "
What a satire is this on the conduct of men in power
at this day ! We have had three " second General
Washingtons " in the presidential chair since 1829 ;

78 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
two new ones are now getting ready, " standing like
greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start," for
that bad eminence. These three past and two future
" Washingtons " have never displayed any very re
markable family likeness to the original, who left no
descendant in this particular. I pass over the general
conduct of our executive and judicial officers, which
does not seem to differ much from that of similar func
tionaries in England, in France, in Italy, Austria,
Turkey, and Spain. But I must speak of some
special things in the conduct of some of these per
sons — things which ought to be looked at on such
a day as this, and in the light of religion. Attempts
have lately been made in this city to destroy the juror's
power to protect the citizen from the injustice of gov
ernment — attempts to break down this safeguard of
individual liberty. We have seen a judge charge the
grand jury, that, in case of conflict between the law
of God and the statutes made by men, the people must
" obey both." Then we have seen an attempt made
by the government to get a partial jury, who should
not represent the country, but should have prejudices
against the prisoner at the bar. We have seen a man
selected as foreman of the jury who had previously,
and before witnesses, declared that all the persons en
gaged in the case which was to come before him
" ought to be hung." We have seen a man expelled
from the jury, after he had taken the juror's oath,
because he declared that he had " a general sympathy
with the downtrodden and oppressed here and every
where," and so did not seem likely to " despatch " the
prisoner, as the government desired. This is not all;
the judge questions the jurors before their oath, and
refuses to allow any one to be impaneled who doubts

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 79
the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law.
Even this is not the end: he charges the jury, thus se
lected, packed, picked, and winnowed, that they are to
take the law as he lays it down; that they are only
judges of the fact, he exclusively of the law; and if
they find that the prisoner did the deed alleged, then
they must return him " guilty " of the offense charged.
I am no lawyer : I shall not speak here with reference
to usages and precedents of the past, only with an
eye to the consequences for the future. If the court
can thus select a jury to suit itself, mere creatures of
its own, what is the use of a jury to try the fact? See
the consequences of this decision, that no man shall
serve as juror who doubts the constitutionality of a
law, and that the jurors are not judges of the law it
self as well as the fact. Let me suppose some cases
which may happen. The Constitution of the United
States provides that Congress shall not prohibit the
free exercise of religion. Suppose that Congress
should pass a law to punish any man with death who
should pray to the " Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
The government wishes to punish an obnoxious ortho
dox minister for violating this " form of law." It is
clearly unjust; but the judge charges the grand jury
they are to " obey both " the laws of God and the
statutes of men. The grand jury indict the man.
He is brought for trial. The law is obviously uncon
stitutional, but the judge expels from the jury all who
think the law is unconstitutional. He selects the per
sonal enemies of the accused, and finds twelve men
foolish enough or wicked enough to believe it is con
stitutional to do what the Constitution declares must
not be done, and then proceeds to trial, selecting for
foreman the man who has said, " All men that thus

80 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
pray ought to be hung ! " What is the value of your
Constitution? The jury might convict, the judge sen
tence, the President issue his warrant, and the man be
hanged in twenty-four hours, for doing a deed which
the Constitution itself allows, and Christendom daily
practises, and the convictions of two hundred million
men require !
It is alleged the jury must not judge of the law,
but only of the fact. See the consequences of this
principle in several cases. The Secretary of State has
declared the rescuing of Shadrach was " treason;" and,
of course, punishable with death. Suppose the court
had charged the jury that, to rescue a man out of the
hands of an incompetent officer — an offense which in
Boston has sometimes been punished with a fine of five
dollars — was " levying war " against the United
States, and they were only to find if the prisoner did
the deed, and, if so, return a verdict of guilty. Sup
pose the jury are wicked enough to accept his charge,
where is the protection of the citizen? The govern
ment may say, to smuggle goods into Boston harbor
is " levying war," and hang a man for treason who
brings on shore an ounce of camphor in his pocket
without paying duties! Is not the jury, in such a
case, to judge what the law makes treason — to de
cide for itself?
There was once a law making it felony without
benefit of clergy to read the Bible in the English lan
guage. Suppose, the government, wishing to make
away with an obnoxious man, should get him indicted
next term for this offense, and the judge should de
clare that the old law is still in force. Is the jury
not to judge whether we live under the bloody Mary
or the constitution of Massachusetts — whether what

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 81
was once law is so now? If not, then the laws of
King Darius or King Pharaoh may be revived whenever
Judge Hategood sees fit, and Faithful must hang
for it.
Suppose the judge makes a law himself, declaring
that if any one speaks against the justice of the court,
he shall be whipped with forty stripes save one, and
gets a man indicted under it and brought to trial — is
the jury not to judge if there be such a law? Then
we might as well give up all legislation, and leave all
to the " discretion of the court."
A judge of the United States Court was once dis
placed on account of mental imbecility. Was Judge
Simpleton to determine what was law, what not, for a
jury of intelhgent men?
Another judge, not long ago, in Boston, in his place
in court, gave an opinion in a most important affair,
and was drunk when he gave it. I do not mean he
was horizontally drunk, but only so that his friends
feared " he would break down in court, and expose him
self." Was the opinion of a drunken judge to be
taken for law by sober men?
Suppose the judge is not a simpleton nor a drunk
ard, but is only an ordinary lawyer and a political
partisan, and appointed to his office because he is a
fawning sycophant, and will interpret the law to suit
the ambition of the government — a thing that has
happened in this city. Is he to lay down the law for
the jurors, who aim only to live in honorable morality,
to hurt no one, and give every man his due?
Suppose the attorneys at the bar know the law bet
ter than the attorney on the bench — a thing that
daily happens — are not the jurors to decide for them
selves? IX— 6

82 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
I have chosen fictitious cases to try the principle.
Extreme cases make shipwreck of a wicked law, but are
favoring winds to bring every just statute into its
happy harbor at the last. Will you say we are not
likely to suffer from such usurpation? You know
what we have suffered within three months past. God
only knows what is to come. But no man has ever to
seek for a stick if he wishes to beat a dog, or for a
cross if he would murder his Saviour. The only way
to preserve liberty is by eternal vigilance: we must be
jealous of every president, every minister, every judge,
every officer, from a king to the meanest commissioner
he appoints to kidnap men. You have seen the at
tempts made to sap and undermine one of the most
valuable safeguards of our social welfare — seen that
it excited very little attention ; and I wish to warn you
of the danger of a false, principle. I have waited for
this day to speak on this theme. Executive tyranny,
with soldiers at its command, must needs be open in
its deeds of shame. It may waste the money of the
public which cleaves to the suspected hands of its offi
cers; it is not so easy to get the necks of those it
hates; for we have no Star Chamber of democracy,
and here the executive has not many soldiers at com
mand, must ask before it can get them. It did ask,
and got " No " for answer. Legislative tyranny must
needs be public, and is easily seen. But judicial tyr
anny is secret, subtle, unseen in its action ; and all ex
perience shows it is one of the most dangerous forms of
tyranny. A corrupt judge poisons the wells of hu
man society. Scroggs and Jeffreys are names deserv
edly hated by mankind, and there are some American
names likely to be added to them. The traditionary
respect entertairied here for an office which has been

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 83
graced by some of the noblest men in the land, doubles
our danger.
But an attack is made on another safeguard of so
ciety, yet more important. We have been told that
there is no law higher than a human statute, no law
of God above an Act of the American Congress. You
know how this doctrine of the supremacy of the lower
law has been taught in the high places of the State,
in the high places of the Church, and in the low places
of the public press. You know with what sneers men
have been assailed who appealed to conscience, to re
ligion, and said, " The law of God is supreme, above
all the enactments of mortal men." You have been
witness to attempts to howl down' the justice of the
Almighty. We have had declamation and preaching
against the law of God. It is said the French As
sembly, some fifty or sixty years ago, voted that there
should be no public worship of God; that there was
no God to worship ; but it was left for politicians and
preachers of America, in our time, to declare that there
is no law above the caprice of mortal men. Did the
French " philosophers " decree speculative atheism?
The American " wise men " put it in practice. They
deny the function of God. " He has nothing to do
with mankind." This doctrine is one of the foulest
ever taught, and tends directly to debauch the con
science of the people. What if there were no law
higher than an act of Parliament? What would be
come of the Parliament itself? There is such a thing
conceivable as personal, speculative atheism. I think
it is a very rare thing. I have never known an atheist :
for with all about us speaking of God, all within us
speaking of Him; every telescope revealing the in
finite mind in nebulae resolved to groups of systems of

84 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
suns; every microscope revealing the infinite Father,
yea, Mother of the world, in a drop of water, a grain
of perishing wood, or an atom of stone; every little
pendulum revealing His unchanging law on a small
scale; and this whole group of solar systems, in its
slow and solemn swing through heavenly space, dis
closing the same law on a scale which only genius at
first can comprehend — it is not easy to arrive at per
sonal, speculative atheism. It would be a dreadful
thing, the stark denial of a God. To say there is no
infinite mind in finite matter, no order in the universe,
in providence only a fate, no God for all, no Father
for any, only an inextinguishable nothing, that fills the
desert and illimitable ether of space and time, the
whence and whither of all that are — such a belief is
conceivable ; but I do not believe that there is a single
atheist Hving on the whole round world. There is no
general* danger of personal, speculative atheism.
When M. Lalande declared that he saw no God through
his telescope, though he meant not to deny the real
God of nature, the world rang with indignation at an
astronomer undevout and mad. But practical, political
atheism has become a common thing in America, in
New England. This is not a denial of the essence of
God and His being, but of His function as Supreme
Ruler of the Church, of the State, of the people, of
the universe. Of that there is danger. The devil of
ambition tempts the great man to it ; the devil of covet-
ousness, the little man. Both strike hands, and say,
" There is no higher law ;" and low men lift up their
mean foreheads in the pulpits of America, and say,
" It is the voice of a God, and not of a man. There is
no higher law." The greatest understanding of this
land, with haughty scorn, has lately said, " The North

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 85
Mountain is very high, the Blue Ridge higher stiU,
the Alleghanies higher than either; and yet this
' higher law ' ranges further than an eagle's flight
above the highest peaks of the Alleghanies." 2 The
impious taunt was received with " laughter " by men
who have long acted on the maxim that there is no law
of God, and whose State is impoverished by the at
tempt to tread His law under foot. I know men in
America have looked so long at political economy that
they have forgotten political morality, and seem to
think pohtics only national housekeeping, and he the
best ruler who buys cheapest and sells dearest. But
I confess I am amazed when statesmen forget the les
sons of those great men that have gone before us, and
built up the social state, whose " deep foundations have
been laid with prayer." What! is there no law above
the North Mountain, above the Blue Ridge, higher
than the Alleghanies? Why, the old Hebrew poet
told us of One " which removeth the mountains, and
they know not; which overturneth them in His anger;
which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth
upon the waves of the sea. Lo ! He goeth by me, and
I see Him not ; He passeth on also, but I perceive Him
not." Yes, there is One — His law " an eagle's
flight above the Alleghanies " — who humbleth Him
self to behold the things that are in heaven, whose
strong hand setteth fast the mountains ; yea, One who
hath weighed the mountains in scales ; before whom '
all nations are as a very little thing. Yes, Father in
heaven! before the mountains were brought forth, or
ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. Yea,
Thou hast been our dwelling-place in aU generations.
Thy name alone is excellent, Thy glory above the earth
and heaven.'

86 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
No higher law for States than the poor statutes they
enact ! " Among the assemblies of the great
A greater Ruler takes his seat;
The God of heaven as Judge surveys
These 'gods of earth' and all their ways:
'Why will you frame oppressive laws?
Or why support the unrighteous cause?
When will you once defend the poor,
That foes may vex the saints no more?'
They know not, Lord, nor will they know;
Dark are the ways in which they go:
Their name of ' earthly gods ' is vain,
For they shall fall and die like men."
It would be a great calamity for this nation to lose
all of its mighty riches, and have nothing left but the
soil we stand on. But in seven or eight generations
it would all be restored again; for all the wealth of
America has been won in less time. We are not two
hundred and fifty years from Jamestown and Ply
mouth. It would be a great misfortune to lose all the
foremost families of the nation. But England lost
hers in the War of the Roses ; France, in her Revo
lution. Nature bore great men anew, and fresh fam-
iHes sprung up as noble as the old. But if this gen
eration in America could believe that there was no law
of God for you and me to keep — say the Acts of
Congress what they might say — no law to tame the
ambition of men of mountain greatness, and curb the
eagle's flight of human tyranny, that would be a ca
lamity which the nation would never recover from.
No ! then religion would die out, affection fall dead ;
conscience would perish, intellect give up the ghost,
and be no more. No law higher than human will ! No
watchmaker can make a long pendulum vibrate so
quick as a short. In this very body there is that law.

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 87
I wake, and watch, and will: my private caprice turns
my hand, now here, now there. But who controls my
breath? Who bids this heart beat all day long, and
all the night, sleep I, or wake? Whose subtle law
holds together these particles of flesh, of blood, and
bone, in marvellous vitality? Who gives this eye its
power to see, and opens wide the portal of the ear?
and who enchants, with most mysterious life, this won
drous commonwealth of dust I call myself? It is the
same Hand whose law is " higher than the Blue Ridge,"
an " eagle's flight above the Alleghanies." Who rules
the State, and, out of a few stragglers that fled here to
New England for conscience' sake, built up this
mighty, wealthy State? Was it Carver and Winthrop
who did aU this, Standish and SaltonstaU? Was it
the cunning craftiness of mightiest men that con
sciously, weU knowing what they did, laid the founda
tions of our New England State and our NeW England
Church? Why, the boys at school know better. It
was the eternal God, whose higher law the Pilgrim and
the Puritan essayed to keep, not knowing whereunto
the thing would grow. Shall the fool say in his heart
there is no God? He cannot make a hair grow on his
head but by the eternal law of his Father in heaven.
WiU the politician say there is no law of God for
States? Ask the sorrowing world: let Austria and
Hungary make reply. Nay, ask the Southern States
of America to show us their rapid increase in riches,
in civilization; to show us their schools and their
scholars, their literature, their science, and their art!
No law of God for States! It is writ on the iron
leaf of destiny, " Righteousness exalteth a nation : but
sin is a curse to any people." Let the wicked hand of
the South join with the Northern wicked hand, iniquity

88 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
shaU not prosper. But the eye of the wicked shaU
fail; they shall not escape; their hopes shall be as
giving up the ghost; because their tongue and their
doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of
His glory. Their root shall be as rottenness, and
their blossom shall go up as dust, if they cast away the
law of the Lord, and despise the word of the Holy
One. In America the people are strongly attached to the
institutions, constitutions, and statutes of the land.
On the whole, they are just estabhshments. If not,
we made them ourselves, and can make them better
when we will. The execution of laws is also popular.
Nowhere in the world is there a people so orderly, so
much attached to the law, as the people of these
Northern States. But one law is an exception. The
people of the North hate the Fugitive Slave Law, as
they have never hated any law since the Stamp Act.
I know there are men in the Northern States who Hke
it — who would have invented slavery, had it not ex
isted long before. But the mass of the Northern
people hate this law, because it is hostile to the purpose
of all just human law, hostile to the purpose of so
ciety, hostile to the purpose of individual life ; because
it is hostile to the law of God — bids the wrong, for
bids the right. We disobey that for the same reason
that we keep other laws, because we reverence the law
of God. Why should we keep that odious law which
makes us hated wherever justice is loved? Because
we must sometimes do a disagreeable deed to accom
plish an agreeable purpose? The purpose of that
law is to enable three hundred thousand slaveholders
to retake on our soil the men they once stole on
other soil! Most of the city churches of the North

THE SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 89
seem to think that is a good thing. Very well: is it
worth while for fifteen million freemen to transgress
the plainest of natural laws, the most obvious instincts
of the human heart, and the plainest duties of Chris
tianity, for that purpose? The price to pay is the
religious integrity of fifteen milhon men: the thing to
buy is a privilege for three hundred thousand slave
holders to use the North as a hunting-field whereon
to kidnap men at our cost. Judge you of that bar
gain. But I must end this long discourse. The other day
I spoke of the vices of passion : great and terrible evils
they wrought. They were as nothing to the vices of
calculation. Passion was the flesh, ambition the devil.
There are vices of democracy, vices of radicalism ; very
great vices they are too. You may read of them in
Hume and Alison. They are painted black as night
and bloody as battle in Tory journals of England
and the more vulgar Tory journals of America.
Democracy wrought terrible evils in Britain in Crom
well's time, in France at her Revolution. But to the
vices, the crimes, the sins of aristocracy, of conserva
tism, they are what the fleeting lust of the youth is to
the cool, hard, calculating and indomitable ambition
of the grown man. Radicalism pillaged Governor
Hutchinson's house, threw some tea into the ocean;
conservatism set up its Stamp Act, and drove America
into revolution. Radicalism helped Shadrach out of
court: conservatism enacted the Fugitive Slave Bill.
RadicaHsm sets up a republic that is red for six
months; conservatism sets up a red monarchy covered
with blood for hundreds of years. Judge you from
which we have the most to fear.
Such are the safeguards of society, such our con-

90 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
dition. What shall we do? Nobody would dare pre
tend to build a church except on righteousness; that
is the rock of ages. Can you build a state on any
other foundation — that house upon the sand? What
should you think of a minister of the Church who got
his deacons together, and made a creed, and said,
" There is no higher law, no law of God. You laymen
must take our word for your guidance, and do just
as we bid you, and violate the plainest commands of
conscience ? " What would be atheism in a minister
of the Church, is that patriotism in a minister of the
State? A bad law is a most powerful instrument to
demoralize and debauch the people. If it is a law
of their own making it is all the worse. There is no
real and manly welfare for a man without a sense of
religious obligation to God ; none in a family, none in
a church, none in a state. We want righteousness in
the people, in their establishments, in their officers. I
adjure you to reverence a government that is right,
statutes that are right, officers that are right ; but to
disobey everything that is wrong, I entreat you, by
your love for your country, by the memory of your
fathers, by your reverence for Jesus Christ, yea, by the
deep and holy love of God, which Jesus taught, and
you now feel.

Ill
THE PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE
Education is the developing and furnishing of the
faculties of man. To educate the people is one of the
functions of the State. It is generally allowed in the
free States of America, 'that the community owes each
child born into it a chance for education, intellectual,
moral, and religious. Hence the child has a just and
recognised claim on the community for the means of
this education, which is to be afforded him, not as a
charity, but as a right.
The fact indicates the progress mankind has made
in not many years. Once the State only took charge
of the military education of the people; not at all of
their inteUectual, moral, or religious culture. They
received their military discipline, not for the special
and personal advantage of the individuals, Thomas and
Oliver, but for the benefit of the State. They re
ceived it, not because they were men claiming it in
virtue of their manhood, but as subjects of the State,
because their military training was needful for the
State, or for its rulers who took the name thereof.
Then the only culture which the community took pub
lic pains to bestow on its members, was training them to
destroy. The few, destined to command, learned the
science of destruction, and the kindred science of de
fense ; the many, doomed to obey, learned only the art
to destroy, and the kindred art of defense.
The ablest men of the nation were sought out for
military teachers, giving practical lessons of the
91

92 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
science and the art ; they were covered with honor and
loaded with gold. The wealth of the people and their
highest science went to this work. Institutions were
founded to promote this education, and carefully
watched over by the State, for it was thought the com
monwealth depended on disciplined valor. The sol
dier was thought to be the type of the State, the arch-
type of man; accordingly the highest spiritual func
tion of the State was the production of soldiers.
Most of the civilized nations have passed through
that stage of their development : though the few or the
many are still taught the science or the art of
war in all countries called Christian, there is yet a
class of men for whom the State furnishes the means
of education that is not military; means of education
which the individuals of that class could not provide
for themselves. This provision is made at the cost of
the State ; that is, at the cost of every man in the State,
for what the public pays, you pay and I pay, rich or
poor, willingly and consciously, or otherwise. This
class of men is different in different countries, and
their education is modified to suit the form of govern
ment and the idea of the State. In Rome the State
provides for the public education of priests. Rome
is an ecclesiastical state ; her government is a theocracy
— a government of all the people, but by the priests,
for the sake of the priests, and in the name of God.
Place in the Church is power, bringing honor and
wealth ; no place out of the Church is of much value.
The offices are filled by priests, the chief magistrate
is a priest, supposed to derive his power and right to
rule, not democratically, from the people, or royally,
by inheritance, — for in theory the priest is as if he
had no father, as theoretically he has no child — but
theocratically from God.

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 93
In Rome the priesthood is thought to be the flower
of the State. The most important spiritual function
of the State, therefore, is the production of priests ; ac
cordingly the greatest pains are taken with their edu
cation. Institutions are founded at the public cost,
to make priests out of men; these institutions are the
favorites of Government, well ordered, well watched
over, well attended, and richly honored. Institutions
for the education of the people are of small account,
ill endowed, watched over but poorly, thinly attended,
and not honored at all. The people are designed to be
subjects of the Church, and as little culture is needed
for that, though much to make them citizens thereof,
so Httle is given.
As there are institutions for the education of the
priests, so there is a class of men devoted to that work ;
able men, well disciplined, sometimes men born with
genius, and always men furnished with the accom-
phshments of sacerdotal and scientific art; very able
men, very well disciplined, the most learned and ac
comphshed men in the land. These men are well paid
and abundantly honored, for on their faithfulness the
power of the priesthood, and so the welfare of the
State, is thought to depend. Without the allurement
of wealth and honors, these able men would not come
to this work ; and without the help of their ability, the
priests could not be well educated. Hence their power
would decline; the class, tonsured and consecrated but
not instructed, would fall into contempt; the theoc
racy would end. So the educators of the priests are
held in honor, surrounded by baits for vulgar eyes;
but the public educators of the people, chiefly women
or ignorant men, are held in small esteem. The very
buildings destined to the education of the priests are

94 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
conspicuous and stately ; the colleges of the Jesuits, the
Propaganda, the seminaries for the education of
priests, the monastaries for training the more wealthy
and regular clergy, are great establishments, provided
with libraries, and furnished with all the apparatus
needful for their important work. But the school-
houses for the people are small and mean buildings, iU
made, ill furnished, and designed for a work thought
to be of little moment. All this is in strict harmony
with the idea of the theocracy, where the priesthood
is mighty and the people are subjects of the Church;
where the effort of the State is toward producing a
priest. In England the State takes charge of the education
of another class, the nobility and gentry; that is, of
young men of ancient and historical families, the no-
biHty, and young men of fortune, the gentry. Eng
land is an oligarchical state ; her government an aris
tocracy, the government of aU by a few, the nobihty
and gentry, for the sake of a few, and in the name of a
king. There the foundation of power is wealth and
birth from a noble family. The union of both takes
place in a wealthy noble. There, nobihty is the blos
som of the State; aristocratic birth brings wealth, of
fice, and their consequent social distinction. Political
offices are chiefly monopolized by men of famous birth
or great riches. The king, the chief officer of the
land, must surpass all others in wealth, and the pomp
and circumstance which comes thereof, and in aristoc
racy of birth. He is not merely noble but royal ; his
right to rule is not at all derived from the people, but
from his birth. Thus he has the two essentials of aris
tocratic influence, birth and wealth, not merely in the
heroic degree, but in the supreme degree.

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 95
As the State is an aristocracy, its most important
spiritual function is the production of aristocrats ; each
noble family transmits the full power of its blood only
to a single person — the eldest son; of the highest
form, the royal, only one is supposed to be born in a
generation, only one who receives and transmits in
full the blood royal.
As the nobility are the blossom of the State, great
pains must be taken with the education of those per
sons born of patrician or wealthy families. As Eng
land is not merely a military or ecclesiastical State,
though partaking largely of both, but commercial,
agricultural, and productive in many ways; as she
holds a very prominent place in the politics of the
world, so there must be a good general education pro
vided for these persons; otherwise their power would
decline, the nobility and gentry sink into contempt,
and the government pass into other hands, — for
though a man may be born to rank and wealth, he is
not born to knowledge, nor to practical skill. Hence
institutions are founded for the education of the aris
tocratic class : Oxford and Cambridge, " those twins of
learning," with their preparatories and help-meets.
The design of these institutions is to educate the
young men of family and fortune. The aim in their
academic culture is not as in pagan Rome, a military
state, to make soldiers, nor as in Christian Rome, to
turn out priests ; it is not, as in the German universities,
to furnish the world with scholars and philosophers,
men of letters and science, but to mature and furnish
the gentleman, in the technical sense of that word, a
person conventionally fitted to do the work of a com
plicated aristocratic State, to fill with honor its various
offices, military, political, ecclesiastical or social, and

96 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
enjoy the dignity which comes thereof. These univer
sities furnish the individual who resorts thither with
opportunities not otherwise to be had; they are pur
chased at the cost of the State, at the cost of each man
in the State. The alumnus at Oxford pays his term-
bills, indeed, but the amount thereof is a trifle com
pared to the actual cost of his residence there; man
kind pays the residue.
These institutions are continuaUy watched over by
the State, which is the official guardian of aristocratic
education; they are occasionally assisted by grants
from the public treasury, though they are chiefly en
dowed by the voluntary gifts of individual men. But
these private gifts, like the public grants, come from
the earnings of the whole nation. They are weU en
dowed, superintended well, and richly honored; their
chancellors and vice-chancellors are men of distin
guished social rank; they have their representatives in
Parliament ; able men are sought out for teachers, pro
fessors, heads of houses ; men of good ability, of mas
terly education, and the accomphshments of a finished
gentlemen ; they are well paid, and copiously rewarded
with honors and social distinction. Gentility favors
these institutions ; nobility watches over them, and roy
alty smiles upon them. In this threefold sunlight, no
wonder that they thrive. The buildings at their serv
ice are among the most costly and elegant in the
land; large museums are attached to them, and im
mense libraries; every printer in England, at his own
cost, must give a copy of each book he publishes to
Cambridge and Oxford. What wealth can buy, or
artistic genius can create, is there devoted to the cul
ture of this powerful class.
But while the nobility and gentry are reckoned the

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 97
flower of the State, the common people are only the
leaves, and therefore thought of small importance in
the pohtical botany of the nation. Their education
is amazingly neglected ; is mainly left to the accidental
piety of private Christians, to the transient charity of
philanthropic men, or the " enlightened self-interest "
of mechanics and smaU traders, who now and then
found institutions for the education of some smaU
fraction of the multitude. But such institutions are
little favored by the Government, or the spirit of the
dominant class; gentihty does not frequent them, nor
nobility help them, nor royalty watch over to foster
and to bless. The Parhament, which voted one hun
dred thousand pounds of the nation's money for the
queen's horses and hounds, had but thirty thousand to
spare for the education of her people. No honor at
tends the educators of the people ; no wealth is heaped
up for them; no beautiful buildings are erected for
their use; no great libraries got ready at the public
charge; no costly buildings are provided. You won
der at the coUeges and collegiate churches of Oxford
and of Cambridge; at the magnificence of public edi
fices in London, new or ancient — the Houses of Par
liament, the Bank, the palaces of royal and noble men,
the splendor of the churches — but you ask, where are
the school-houses for the people? You go to Bride
well and Newgate for the answer. All this is con
sistent with the idea of an aristocracy. The gentle
man is the type of the State; and the effort of the
State is towards producing him. The people require
only education enough to become the servants of the
gentlemen, and seem not to be valued for their own
sake, but only as they furnish pabulum for the flower
of the oligarchy.
IX— 7

98 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
In Rome and England, great sums have been given
by wealthy men, and by the State itself, to furnish the
means of a theocratic or aristocratic education to a
certain class ; and to produce the national priests, and
the national gentlemen. There public education is the
privilege of a few, but bought at the cost of the many ;
for the plough-boy in Yorkshire, who has not culture
enough to read the petition for daily bread in the
Lord's Prayer, helps pay the salary of the Master of
Trinity; and the swine-herd in the Roman Campagna,
who knows nothing of religion, except what he learns
at Christmas and Easter by seeing the Pope carried on
men's shoulders into St. Peter's, helps support the
Propaganda and the Roman CoUege. The privileged
classes are to receive an education under the eye of the
State, which considers itself bound to furnish them the
means of a public education, partly at the individual's
cost, chiefly at the cost of the public. The amount of
education depends on three things : — on the educa
tional attainments of the human race; on the wealth
and tranquillity of the special nation, enabling it to
avail itself of that general attainment; and on the
natural powers and industry of the particular individ
ual in the nation. Such is the solidarity of mankind
that the development of the individual thus depends
on that of the race, and the education of a priest in
Rome, or a gentleman in England is the resultant of
these three forces, — the attainment of mankind, the
power of the nation, and the private character and
conduct of the man'himself. Each of these three is a
variable and not a constant quantity. So the amount
of education which a man can receive at Oxford or at
Rome fluctuates, and depends on the state of the na
tion and of the world ; but as the attainments of man-

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 99
kind have much increased within a few years, as the
wealth of England has increased, and her tranquillity
become more secure, you see how easy it becomes for the
State to offer each gentleman an amount of education
which it would have been quite impossible to furnish in
the time of the Yorks and the Lancasters.
In America things are quite other and different. I
speak of the free States of the North ; the slave States
have the worst features of an oligarchy, combined with
a theocratic pride of caste, which generates continual
unkindness ; there the idea of the State is found incon
sistent with the general and public education of the
people ; it is as much so in South Carolina as in Eng
land or Rome ; even more so, for the public and general
culture of all is only dangerous to a theocracy or aris
tocracy while it is directly fatal to slavery. In Eng
land, and still more in Catholic Rome, the churches —
themselves a wonderful museum of curiosities, and
open all the day to all persons — form an important
element for the education of the most neglected class.
But slavery and education of the people are incom
mensurable quantities. No amount of violence can be
their common measure. The republic, where master
and slave were equaUy educated, would soon be a red-
republic. The slave-master knows this, and accord
ingly puts education to the ban, and glories in keep
ing three million barbarians in the land, and, of course,
suffers the necessary degradation which comes thereof.
But in the free States of the North the government is
not a theocracy or an aristocracy ; the State, in theory,
is not for the few, not even for the majority, but for
all; classes are not recognised, and therefore not pro
tected in any privilege. The government is a democ
racy, the government of all, by all, for all, and in the

100 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
name of all. A man is born to all the rights of man
kind; all are born to them, so all are equal. There
fore, what the State pays for, not only comes at the
cost of all, but must be for the use and benefit of all.
Accordingly as a theocracy demands the education of
priests, and an aristocracy that of the nobility and the
gentry, so a democracy demands the education of all.
The aim must be, not to make priests and gentlemen of
a few, a privileged class, but to make men of all ; that
is to give a normal and healthy development of their
intellectual, moral, affectional and religious faculties,
to furnish and instruct them with the most important
elementary knowledge, to extend this development and
furnishing of the facilities as far as possible.
Institutions must be founded for this purpose — to
educate all, rich and poor, men well born with good
abilities, men ill born with slender natural powers. In
New England, these institutions have long since been
founded at the public cost, and watched over with pa
ternal care, as the ark of our covenant, the palladium
of our nation. It has been recognised as a theory,
and practised on as a fact, that all the property in the
land is held by the State for the public education of
the people, as it is for their defense; that property is
amenable to education as to military defense.
In a democracy there are two reasons why this the
ory and practice prevail. One is a political reason.
It is for the advantage of the State ; for each man that
keeps out of the jail and the poor-house, becomes a
voter at one-and-twenty ; he may have some office of
trust an.d honor ; the highest office is open before him.
As so much depends on his voting wisely, he must have
a chance to qualify himself for his right of electing
and of being elected. It is as necessary now in a

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 101
democracy, and as much demanded by the idea thereof,
that all should be thus qualified by education, as it
once was in a military state, that all should be bred up
soldiers. The other is a philosophical reason. It is for the
advantage of the individual himself, irrespective of the
State. The man is a man, an integer, and the State
is for him ; as well as a fraction of the State, and he
for it. He has a man's rights ; and, however inferior
in might to any other man, born of parentage how
humble soever, to no wealth at all, with a body never
so feeble, he is yet a man, and equal in rights to any
other man born of a famous line, rich and able; of
course he has a right to a chance for the best culture
which the educational attainment of mankind, and the
circumstances of the nation render possible to any
man ; to so much thereof as he has the inborn power
and the voluntary industry to acquire. This conclu
sion is getting acted on in New England, and there are
schools for the dumb and the bhnd, even for the idiot
and the convict.
So, then, as the idea of our government demands the
education of all, the amount of education must depend
on the same three variables mentioned before; it must
be as good as it is possible for them to afford. The
democratic State has never done its political and edu
cational duty, until it affords every man a chance to
obtain the greatest amount of education which the at
tainment of mankind renders it possible for the na
tion, in its actual circumstances, to command, and the
man's nature and disposition render it possible for him
to take.
Looking at the matter politically, from the point of
view of the State, each man must have education enough

102 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
to exercise his rights of electing and being elected. It
is not easy to fix the limits of the amount ; it is also a
variable continually increasing. Looking at the mat
ter philosophically, from the point of view of the in
dividual, there is no limit but the attainment of the
race and the individual's capacity for development and
growth. Only a few men will master all which the cir
cumstances of the nation and the world render attain
able ; some will come short for lack of power, others
for lack of inclination. Make education as accessible
as it can now be made, as attractive as the teachers of
this age can render it, the majority will still get along
with the smallest amount that is possible or reputable.
Only a few will strive for the most they can get.
There will be many a thousand farmers, traders, and
mechanics in their various callings, manual and intel
lectual, to a single philosopher. This is also as it
should be, and corresponds with the nature of man and
his function on the earth. Still all have the natural
right to the means of education to this extent, by ful
filling its condition.
To accomplish this work, the democratic education
of the whole people, with the aim of making them men,
we want public institutions founded by the people,
paid for by the public money; institutions weU en
dowed, well attended, watched over well, and propor
tionately honored; we want teachers, able men, well
disciplined, well paid, and honored in proportion to
their work. It is a good thing to educate the privi
leged classes, priests in a theocracy, and gentlemen in
an aristocracy. Though they are few in number, it is
a great work; the servants thereof are not too weU
paid, nor too much held in esteem in England, nor in
Rome, nor too well furnished with apparatus. But the

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 103
public education of a whole people is a greater work,
far more difficult, and should be attended with corre
sponding honor, and watched over even more carefully
by the State.
After the grown men of any country have provided
for their own physical wants, and insured the needful
physical comforts, their most important business is to
educate themselves still further, and train up the rising
generation to their own level. It is important to leave
behind us cultivated lands, houses and shops, railroads
and mills, but more important to leave behind us men
grown, men that are men ; such are the seed of material
wealth, — not it of them. The highest use of material
wealth is its educational function.
Now the attainments of the human race increase with
each generation ; the four leading nations of Christen
dom, England, France, Germany, and the United
States, within a hundred years, have apparently, at the
least, doubled their spiritual attainments; in the free
States of America, there is a constant and rapid in
crease of wealth, far beyond the simultaneous increase
of numbers; so not only does the educational achieve
ment of mankind become greater each age, but the
power of the State to afford each man a better chance
for a better education greatens continually, the educa
tional abihty of the State enlarging as those two fac
tors get augmented. The generation now grown up,
is, therefore, able and bound to get a better culture
than their fathers, and leave to their own children a
chance still greater.
Each child of genius, in the nineteenth century, is
born at the foot of the ladder of learning, as com
pletely as the first child, with the same bodily and spir
itual nakedness ; though of the most civilized race, with

104 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
six, or sixty thousands of years behind him, he must
begin with nothing but himself. Yet such is the union
of all mankind, that, with the aid of the present gen
eration, in a few years he will learn aU that mankind
has learned in its long history ; next go beyond that,
discovering and creating anew ; and then draw up to
the same height the new generation, which will presently
surpass him.
A man's education never ends, but there are two
periods thereof, quite dissimilar, the period of the boy,
and that of the man. Education in general is the de
veloping and instructing the faculties, and is, there
fore, the same in kind to both man and boy, though it
may be brought about by different forces. The edu
cation of the boy, so far as it depends on institutions,
and conscious modes of action, must be so modified as
to enable him to meet the influences which will sur
round him when he is a man; otherwise, his training
will not enable him to cope with the new forces he
meets, and so will fail of the end of making him a
man. I pass over the influence of the family, and of
nature, which do not belong to my present theme. In
America, the public education of men is chiefly influ
enced by four great powers, which I will call educa
tional forces, and which correspond to four modes of
national activity : —
I. The political action of the people, represented
by the State.
II. The industrial action of the people, represented
by business.
III. The ecclesiastical action of the people, repre
sented by the Church.
IV. The literary action of the people, represented
by the press.

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 105
I now purposely name them in this order, though I
shaU presently refer to them several times, and in a
different succession. These forces act on the people,
making us such men as we are ; they act indirectly on
the child before he comes to consciousness; directly,
afterwards, but most powerfully on the man. What is
commonly and technically called education — the de
velopment and instruction of the faculties of children,
is only preparatory ; the scholastic education of the
boy is but introductory to the practical education of
the man. It is only this preparatory education of the
children of the people that is the work of the school
masters. Their business is to give the child such a
development of his faculties, and such furniture of
preliminary knowledge, that he can secure the influ
ence of all these educational forces, appreciating and
enhancing the good, withstanding, counteracting, and
at last ending the evil thereof, and so continue , his
education; and at the same time that he can work in
one or more of those modes of activity, serving himself
and mankind, politically by the State, ecclesiastically
by the Church, literally by the press, or, at any rate,
industrially by his business. To give children the
preparatory education necessary for this fourfold re
ceptivity, or activity, we need three classes of public
institutions :
I. Free common schools.
II. Free high schools.
III. Free colleges.
Of these I will presently speak in detail, but now,
for the sake of shortness, let me call them all collec
tively by their generic name — the school. It is plain
the teachers who work by this instrument ought to un
derstand the good and evil of the four educational

106 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
forces which work on men grown, in order to prepare
their pupils to receive the good thereof, and withstand
the evil. So then let us look a moment at the char
acter of these educational forces, and see what they
offer us, and what men they are Hkely to make of their
unconscious pupils. Let us look at the good quahties
first, and next at the evil.
It is plain that business, the press, and politics all
tend to promote a great activity of body and mind.
In business, the love of gain, the enterprising spirit of
our practical men in all departments, their industry,
thrift, and forecast, stimulate men to great exertions,
and produce a consequent development of the faculties
called out. Social distinction depends almost wholly
on wealth; that never is accumulated by mere manual
industry, such is the present constitution of society,
but it is acquired by the higher forms of industry, in
which the powers of nature serve the man, or he avails
himself of the creations of mere manual toil. Hence
there is a constant pressure towards the higher modes
of industry for the sake of money; of course, a con
stant effort to be qualified for them. So in the indus
trial departments the mind is more active than the
hand. Accordingly it has come to pass that most of
the brute labor of the free States is done by cattle, or
by the forces of nature — wind, water, fire — which
we have harnessed by our machinery, and set to work.
In New England most of the remaining work which re
quires little intelligence is done by Irishmen, who are
getting a better culture by that very work. Men see
the industrial handiwork of the North, and wonder;
they do not always see the industrial head-work, which
precedes, directs, and causes it all; they seldom see the
complex forces of which this enterprise and progress
are the resultant.

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 107
There is no danger that we shall be sluggards.
Business now takes the same place in the education of
the people that was once held by war; it stimulates
activity, promotes the intercourse of man with man,
nation with nation ; assembling men in masses, it ele
vates their temperature, so to say ; it leads to new and
better forms of organization; it excites men to inven
tion, so that thereby we are continually acquiring new
power over the elements, peacefully annexing to our
domain new provinces of nature — water, wind, fire,
lightning — setting them to do our work, multiplying
the comforts of Hfe, and setting free a great amount
of human time. It is not at all destructive ; not merely
conservative, but continually creates anew. Its crea
tive agent is not brute force, but educated mind. A
man's trade is always his teacher, and industry keeps a
coUege for mankind, much of our instruction coming
through our hands ; with us, where the plough is com
monly in the hands of him who owns the land it fur
rows, business affords a better education than in most
other countries, and develops higher qualities of mind.
There is a marked difference in this respect between the
North and South. There was never before such in
dustry, such intense activity of head and hand in any
nation in a time of peace.
The press encourages the same activity, enterprise,
perseverance. Both of these encourage generosity;
neither honors the miser, who gets for the sake of get
ting, or " starves, cheats, and pilfers to enrich an
heir;" he does not die respectably in Boston, who dies
rich and bequeaths nothing to any noble public char
ity. It encourages industry which accumulates with
the usual honesty, and for a rather generous use.
The press furnishes us with books exceedingly cheap.

108 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
We manufacture literature cheaper than any nation
except the Chinese. Even the best books, the works
of the great masters of thought, are within the reach
of an industrious farmer or mechanic, if half-a-dozen
families combine for that purpose. The educational
power of a few good books scattered through a com
munity is well known.
Then the press circulates, cheap and wide, its news
papers, emphatically the literature of men who read
nothing else; they convey intelligence from aU parts
of the world, and broaden the minds of home-keeping
youths, who need not now. have homely wits.
The State also promotes activity, enterprise, hardi
hood, perseverance, and thrift. The American Gov
ernment is eminently distinguished by these five quali
ties. The form of government stimulates patriotism,
each man has a share in the public lot. The theoc
racies, monarchies, and aristocracies of old time have
produced good and great examples of patriotism, in
the few or the many; but the nobler forms of love of
country, of self-denial and disinterested zeal for its
sake, are left for a democracy to bring to Hght.
Here all men are voters, and all great questions are,
apparently and in theory, left to the decision of the
whole people. This popular form of government is a
great instrument in developing and instructing the
mind of the nation. It helps extend and intensify the
intelligent activity which is excited by business and the
press. Such is the nature of our political institutions
that, in the free States, we have produced the greatest
degree of national unity of action, with the smallest
restriction of personal freedom, have reconciled na
tional unity with individual variety, not seeking uni
formity; thus room is left for as much individualism

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 109
as a man chooses to take; a vast power of talent, en
terprise, and invention is left free for its own work.
Elsewhere, save in England, this is latent, kept down
by government. Since this power is educated and has
nothing to hold it back; since so much brute work is
done by cattle and the forces of nature, now domes
ticated and put in harness, and much time is left free
for thought, more intelligence is demanded, more ac
tivity, and the citizens of the free States have become
the most active, enterprising, and industrious people
in the world; the most inventive in material work.
In all these three forms of action there is much to
stir men to love of distinction. The career is open to
talent, to industry; open to every man; the career of
letters, business, and politics. Our rich men were poor
men ; our famous men came of sires else not heard of.
The laurel, the dollar, the office, and the consequent
social distinction of men successful in letters, busi
ness, and pohtics, — these excite the obscure or needy
youth to great exertions, and he cannot sleep ; emula
tion wakes him early, and keeps him late astir. Behind
him, scattering " the rear of darkness," stalk poverty
and famine, gaunt and ugly forms, with scorpion whip
to urge the tardier, idler man. The intense ambition
for money, for pohtical power, and the social results
they bring, keeps men on the alert. So ambition rises
early, and works with diligence that never tires.
The Church, embracing all the churches under that
name, cultivates the memory of men, and teaches rever
ence for the past ; it helps keep activity from wander
ing into unpopular forms of wickedness or of unbelief.
Men who have the average intelligence, goodness, and
piety, it keeps from slipping back, thus blocking to
rearward the wheels of society, so that the ascent

110 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
gained shall not be lost; men who have had less than
this average it urges forward, addressing them in the
name of God, encouraging by hope of heaven, and
driving with fear of heU. It turns the thought of the
people towards God ; it sets before us some facts in the
hfe, and some parts of the doctrine, of the noblest One
who ever wore the form of man, bidding us worship
him. The ecclesiastical worship of Jesus of Naza
reth is, perhaps, the best thing in the American church.
It has the Sunday and the institution of preaching '
under its control. A body of discipHned men are its
servants ; they praise the ordinary virtues ; oppose and
condemn the unpopular forms of error and of sin.
Petty vice, the vice of low men, in low places, is sure of
their lash. They promote patriotism in its common
form. Indirectly, they excite social and industrial
rivalry, and favor the love of money by the honor they
bestow upon the rich and successful. But at the same
time they temper it a little, sometimes telling men, as
business or the State does not, that there is in man a
conscience, affection for his brother man, and a soul
which cannot live by bread alone ; no, not by wealth,
office, fame, and social rank. They tell us, also, of
eternity, where worldly distinctions, except of ortho
dox, and heterodox, are forgotten, where wealth is of
no avail ; they bid us remember God.
Such are the good things of these great national
forces ; the good things which in this fourfold way we
are teaching ourselves. The nation is a monitorial
school, wonderfully contrived for the education of the
people. I do not mean to say that it is by the fore
thought of men that the American democracy is at the
same time a great practical school for the education of
the human race. This result formed no part of our

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 111
plan, and it is not provided for by the Constitution of
the United States ; it comes of the forethought of God,
and is provided for in the constitution of the universe.
Now each of these educational forces has certain de
fects, negative evils, and certain vices, positive evils,
which tend to misdirect the nation, and so hinder the
general education of the people ; of these, also, let me
speak in detail.
The State appeals to force, not to justice; this is its
last appeal ; the force of muscles aided by force of
mind, instructed by modern science in the art to kill.
The nation appeals to force in the settlement of affairs
out of its borders. We have lately seen an example
of this, when we commenced war against a feeble na
tion, who, in that special emergency, had right on her
side, about as emphatically as the force was on our
side. The immediate success of the enterprise, the
popular distinction acquired by some of the leaders,
the high honor bestowed on one of its heroes, — all this
makes the lesson of injustice attractive. It may be
that a similar experiment will again be tried, and
doubtless with like success. Certainly there is no na
tion this side of the water which can withstand the en
terprise, the activity, the invention, industry, and per
severance of a people so united, and yet so free and
intelligent. Another successful injustice of this char
acter, on a large scale, will make right still less re
garded, and might honored yet more.
The force we employ out of our borders, might op
posed to right, we employ also at home against our
brethren, and keep three millions of them in bondage ;
we watch for opportunities to extend the institution of
slavery over soil unpolluted by that triple curse, and
convert the Constitution, the fundamental law of the

112 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
land, into an instrument for the defense of slavery.
The men we honor politically, by choosing them to
offices in the State, are commonly men of extraordinary
force, sometimes, it is true, only of extraordinary luck,
but of only ordinary justice; men who, perhaps, have
mind in the heroic degree, but conscience of the most
vulgar pattern. They are to keep the law of the
United States when it is wholly hostile to the law of
the universe, to the everlasting justice of God.
I am not speaking to politicians, professional repre
sentatives of the State ; not speaking for political ef
fect ; not of the State as a political machine for the
government of the people. I am speaking to teachers,
for an educational purpose ; of the State as an educa
tional machine, as one of the great forces for the
spiritual development of the people. Now, by this
preference of force and postponement of justice at
home and abroad, in the selection of men for office,
with its wealth, and rank, and honor, by keeping the
law of the land to the violation of the law of God, it
is plain we are teaching ourselves to love wrong; at
least to be insensible to the right. What we practise
on a national scale as a people, it is not easy to think
wrong when practised on a personal scale, by this man
and that.
The patriotism, also, which the State nurses, is little
more than the Old Testament patriotism which loves
your countrymen, and hates the stranger ; the affection
which the Old Testament attributes to Jehovah, and
which makes Him say, " I loved Jacob, and I hated
Esau;" a patriotism which supports our country in
the wrong as readily as in the right, and is glad to
keep one-sixth part of the nation in bondage without
hope. It is not a patriotism which, beginning here,

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 113
loves all the children of God; but one that robs the
Mexican, enslaves the African, and exterminates the
Indian. These are among the greater evils taught us by the
political action of the people as a whole. If you look
at the action of the chief political parties, you see no
more respect for justice in the politics of either party
than in the politics of the nation, the resultant of both ;
no more respect for right abroad, or at home. One
party aims distinctively at preserving the property al
ready acquired; its chief concern is for that, its sym
pathy there; where its treasure is, is also its heart.
It legislates, consciously or otherwise, more for ac
cumulated wealth than for the laboring man who now
accumulates. This party goes for the dollar; the
other for the majority, and aims at the greatest good
of the greatest number, leaving the good of the smaller
number to most uncertain mercies. Neither party
seems to aim at justice, which protects both the wealth
that labor has piled up, and the laborer who now
creates it; justice, which is the point of morals com
mon to man and God, where the interests of all men,
abroad and at home electing and elected, greatest num
ber and smallest number, exactly balance. Falsehood,
fraud, a willingness to deceive, a desire for the power
and distinction of office, a readiness to use base means
in obtaining office — these vices are sown with a pretty
even hand upon both parties, and spring up with such
blossoms and such a fruitage as we all see. The third
political party has not been long enough in existence
to develop any distinctive vices of its own.
I shall not speak of the public or private character
of the politicians who direct the State ; no doubt that
is a powerful element in our national education; but
IX— 8

114 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
as a class, they seem no better and no worse than mer
chants, mechanics, ministers, and farmers, as a class;
so in their influence there is nothing peculiar, only
their personal character ceases to be private, and be
comes a public force in the education of the people.
The churches have the same faults as the State.
There is the same postponement of justice and prefer
ence of force; the same neglect of the law of God in
their zeal for the statutes of men ; the same crouching
to dollars or to numbers. However, in the churches
these faults appear negatively, rather than as an af
firmation. The worldhness of the Church is not open,
self-conscious, and avowed; it is not, as a general
thing, that human injustice is openly defended, but
rather justice goes by default. But if the churches
do not positively support and teach injustice, as the
State certainly does, they do not teach the opposite,
and, so far as that goes, are allies of the State in its
evil influence. The fact that the churches, as such,
did not oppose the war, and do not oppose slavery, its
continuance or its extension — nay, that they are often
found its apologists and defenders, seldom its oppo
nents; that they not only pervert the sacred books of
the Christians to its defense, but wrest the doctrines of
Christianity to justify it; the fact that they cannot,
certainly do not, correct the particularism of the polit
ical parties, the love of wealth in one, of mere major
ities in the other; that they know no patriotism not
bounded by their country, none co-extensive with man
kind; that they cannot resist the vice of party spirit
— these are real proofs that the Church is but the ally
of the State in this evil influence.
But the Church has also certain specific faults of its
own. It teaches injustice by continually referring to

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 115
the might of God, not His justice ; to His ability and
will to damn mankind, not asking if He has the right.
It teaches that in virtue of His infinite power, He is
not amenable to infinite justice and to infinite love.
Thus, while the State teaches, in the name of expe
diency and by practice, that the strong may properly
be the tyrants of the weak, the mighty nation over the
feeble, the strong race over the inferior, that the Gov
ernment may dispense with right at home and abroad
— the Church, as theory in Christ's name, teaches that
God may repudiate His own justice and His own love.
The churches have little love for truth, as such, only
of its uses. It must be such a truth as they can use
for their purposes ; canonized truth ; truth long
known ; that alone is acceptable, and called " religious
truth;" all else is " profane and carnal," as the reason
which discovers it. They represent the average intel
ligence of society; hence, while keeping the old, they
welcome not the new. They promote only popular
forms of truth, popular in all Christendom, or in their
special sect. They lead in no intellectual reforms ; they
hinder the leaders. Negatively and positively, they
teach, that to beheve what is clerically told you in the
name of religion, is better than free, impartial search
after the truth. They dishonor free thinking, and
venerate constrained believing. When the clergy
doubt, they seldom give men audience of their doubt.
Few scientific men, not clerical, believe the Bible ac
count of creation, — the universe made in six days, and
but a few thousand years ago, — or that of the forma
tion of woman, and of the deluge. Some clerical men
still believe these venerable traditions, spite of the sci
ence of the times; but the clerical men who have no
faith in these stories not only leave the people to think

116 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
them true and miraculously taught, but encourage men
in the belief, and calumniate the men of science who
look the universe fairly in the face, and report the facts
as they find them.
The Church represents only the popular morality,
not any high and aboriginal virtue. It represents not
the conscience of human nature, reflecting the univer
sal and unchangeable moral laws of God, touched and
beautified by His love, but only the conscience of
human history, reflecting the circumstances man has
passed by, and the institutions he has built along the
stream of time. So, while it denounces unpopular
sins, vices below the average vice of society, it de
nounces also unpopular excellence, which is above the
average virtue of society. It blocks the wheels rear
ward, and the car of humanity does not roll down hill ;
but it blocks them forward also. No great moral
movement of the age is at aU dependent directly on
the Church for its birth; very little for its develop
ment. It is in spite of the Church that reforms go
forward ; it holds the curb to check more than the rein
to guide. In morals, as in science, the Church is on
the anti-liberal side, afraid of progress, against move
ment, loving " yet a little sleep, a little slumber ;"
conservative and chilling, like ice, not creative, nor
even quickening, as water. It doffs to use and wont;
has smaU confidence in human nature, much in a few
facts of human history. It aims to separate piety
from goodness, her natural and heaven-appointed
spouse, and marry her to bigotry, in joyless and un
profitable wedlock. The Church does not lead men to
the deep springs of human nature, fed ever from the
far heights of the Divine nature, whence flows that
river of God, full of living water, where weary souls

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 117
may drink perennial supply. While it keeps us from
falling back, it does little directly to advance mankind.
In common with the State, this priest and Levite pass
by on the other side of the least developed classes of
society, leaving the slave, the pauper, and the criminal
to their fate, hastening to strike hands with the thriv
ing or the rich.
These faults are shared in the main by all sects ; some
have them in the common, and some in a more eminent
degree, but none is so distinguished from the rest as to
need emphatic rebuke, or to deserve a special exemp
tion from the charge. Such are the faults of the
Church of every land, and must be from the nature of
the institution ; Hke the State, it can only represent the
average of mankind.
I am not speaking to clergymen, professional repre
sentatives of the Church, not of the Church as an
ecclesiastical machine for keeping and extending cer
tain opinions and symbols; not for an ecclesiastical
purpose; I speak to teachers, for an educational pur
pose, of the Church as an educational machine, one of
the great forces for the spiritual development of the
people. The business of the land has also certain vices of its
own ; while it promotes the virtues I have named before,
it does not tend to promote the highest form of char
acter. It does not tend to promote justice and hu
manity, as one could wish; it does not lead the em
ployer to help the operative as a man, only to use him
as a tool, merely for industrial purposes. The aver
age merchant cares little whether his ship brings cloth
and cotton, or opium and rum. The average capitalist
does not wish the stock of his manufacturing company
divided into small shares, so that the operatives can

118 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
invest their savings therein and have a portion of the
large dividends of the rich; nor does he care whether
he takes a mortgage on a ship or a negro slave, nor
whether his houses are rented for sober dwellings or
for drunkeries; whether the State hires his money to
build harbors at home, or destroy them abroad. The
ordinary manufacturer is as ready to make cannons
and cannon-balls to serve in a war which he knows is
unjust, as to cast his iron into mill-wheels, or forge it
into anchors. The common farmer does not care
whether his barley feeds poultry for the table, or, made
into beer, breeds drunkards for the almshouse and the
jail ; asks not whether his rye and potatoes become the
bread of life, or, distilled into whisky, are deadly
poison to men and women. He cares little if the man
he hires becomes more manly or not ; he only asks him
to be a good tool. Whips for the backs of negro
slaves are made, it is said, in Connecticut, with as
little compunction as Bibles are printed there ;
" made to order," for the same purpose — for
the dollar. The majority of blacksmiths would
as soon forge fetter-chains to enslave the innocent
limbs of a brother man, as draught-chains for oxen.
Christian mechanics and pious young women, who
would not hurt the hair of an innocent head, have I
seen at Springfield, making swords to slaughter the
innocent citizens of Vera Cruz and Jalapa. The ships
of respectable men carry rum to intoxicate the savages
of Africa, powder and balls to shoot them with; they
carry opium to the Chinese ; nay, Christian slaves from
Richmond and Baltimore to New Orleans and Galves
ton. In all commercial countries the average vice of
the age is mixed up with the industry of the age, and
unconsciously men learn the wickedness long intrenched

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 119
in practical life. It is thought industrial operations
are not amenable to the moral law, only to the law of
trade. " Let the supply follow the demand," is the
maxim. A man who makes as practical a use of the
golden rule as of his yard-stick, is still an exception in
aU departments of business.
Even in the commercial and manufacturing parts of
America, money accumulates in large masses; now in
the hands of an individual, now of a corporation. This
money becomes an irresponsible power, acting by the
laws, but yet above them. It is wielded by a few men,
to whom it gives a high social position, and consequent
political power. They use this triple form of influ
ence — pecuniary, social, and pohtical — in the spirit
of commerce, not of humanity, not for the interest of
mankind ; thus the spirit of trade comes into the State.
Hence it is not thought wrong in politics to buy a
man, more than in commerce to buy a ship ; hence the
rights of a man, or a nation, are looked on as articles
of trade, to be sold, bartered, and pledged ; and in the
Senate of the United States we have heard a mass of
men, more numerous than all our citizens seventy years
ago, estimated as worth twelve hundred millions of
dollars. In most countries business comes more closely into
contact with men than the State, or the Church, or the
press, and is a more potent educator. Here it not
only does this, but controls the other three forces,
which are mainly instruments of this ; hence this form
of evil is more dangerous than elsewhere, for there is
no power organized to resist it as in England or Rome ;
so it subtly penetrates everywhere, bidding you place
the accidents before the substance of manhood, and
value money more than man.

120 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Notwithstanding the good qualities of the press, the
books it multiplies, and the great service it renders, it
also has certain vices of its own. From the nature of
the thing, the greater part of literature represents only
the pubhc opinion of the time. It must therefore
teach deference to that, not deference to truth and jus
tice. It is only the eminent literature which can do
more than this; books, which at first fall into few
hands, though fit, and like the acorns sown with the
mulleins and the clover, destined to germinate but
slowly, long to be overtopped by an ephemeral crop,
at last, after half a hundred years, shaU mature their
own fruit for other generations of men. The current
literature of this age only popularizes the thought of
the eminent literature of the past. Great good cer
tainly comes from this, but also great evil.
Of all literature, the newspapers come most into
contact with men — they are the Hterature of the peo
ple, read by such as read nothing else; read also by
such as read all things beside. Taken in the mass, they
contain little to elevate men above the present stand
ard. The political journals have the general vice of
our politics, and the special faults of the particular
party ; the theological j ournals have the common fail
ings of the Church, intensified by the bigotry of the
sects they belong to ; the commercial j ournals represent
the bad qualities of business. Put aU three together,
and it is not their aim to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, nor to promote justice, the
whole of justice, and nothing but justice. The popu
lar literature helps bring to consciousness the senti
ments and ideas which prevail in the State, the Church,
and business. It brings those sentiments and ideas in
timately into connection with men, magnetizing them

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 121
with the good and ill of those three powers, but it does
little directly to promote a higher form of human
character. So, notwithstanding the good influence of these four
modes of national activity in educating the grown men
of America, they yet do not afford the highest teach
ing which the people require, to realize individually the
idea of a man, and jointly that of a democracy. The
State does not teach perfect justice; the Church does
not teach that, or love of truth. Business does not
teach perfect morality; and the average literature,
which faUs into the hands of the million, teaches men
to respect public opinion more than the word of God,
which transcends that. Thus, these four teach only
the excellence already organized or incorporated in the
laws, the theology, the customs, and the books of the
land. I cannot but think these four teachers are less
deficient here than in other lands, and have excellences
of their own, but the faults mentioned are inseparable
from such institutions. An institution is an organ
ized thought; of course, no institution can represent
a truth which is too new or too high for the existing
organizations, yet that is the truth which it is desir
able to teach. So there will always be exceptional
men, with more justice, truth, and love than is repre
sented by the institutions of the time, who seem there
fore hostile to these institutions, which they seek to
improve, and not destroy. Contemporary with the
priests of Judah and Israel were the prophets thereof,
antithetic to one another as the centripetal and cen
trifugal forces, but, like them, both necessary to the
rhythmic movement of the orbs in heaven, and the even
poise of the world.
In Rome and in England the idea of a theocracy

122 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
and an aristocracy has become a fact in the institu
tions of the land, which accordingly favor the forma
tion of priests and gentlemen. The teachers of the
educated class, therefore, may trust to the machinery
already established to do their work, only keeping off
the spirit of the age which would make innovations;
and such is the respectability and popular esteem of
the institutions, that this is done easier than men think,
by putting an exceptional book in the index at Rome,
or in the academical fire at Oxford. But here, the
idea of a democracy is by no means so weU estabhshed
and organized in institutions. It is new; and, while
a theocrat and an aristocrat are respected everywhere,
a democrat is held in suspicion; accordingly, to make
men, the teacher cannot trust his educational machin
ery, he must make it, and invent anew as weU as turn
his mill.
These things being so, it is plain the teachers in the
schools should be of such a character that they can
give the children what they will most want when they
become men; such an intellectual and moral develop
ment that they can appreciate and receive the good
influence of these four educational forces, and with
stand, resist, and exterminate the evil thereof. In the
schools of a democracy, which are to educate the peo
ple and make them men, you need more aboriginal
virtue than in the schools of an aristocracy or a the
ocracy, where a few are to be educated as gentlemen
or priests. Since the institutions of the land do not
represent the idea of a democracy, and the average
spirit of the people, which makes the institutions, rep
resents it no more, if the children of the people are to
become better than their fathers, it is plain their
teachers must be prophets, and not priests merely ;

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 123
must animate them with a spirit higher, purer, and
more holy than that which inspires the State, the
Church, business, or the common literature of the
times. As the teacher cannot impart and teach what
he does not possess and know, it is also plain that the
teacher must have this superior spirit.
To accomplish the public education of the children
of the people, we need the three classes of institutions
just mentioned: free common schools, free high
schools, and free colleges. Let me say a word of each.
The design of the common school is to take children
at the proper age from their mothers, and give them
the most indispensable development, intellectual, moral,
affectional, and religious; to furnish them with as
much positive useful knowledge as they can master,
and, at the same time, teach them the three great scho
lastic helps or tools of education — the art to read,
to write, and to calculate.
The children of most parents are easily brought to
school, by a httle diligence on the part of the teachers
and school committee; but there are also children of
low and abandoned, or at least neglected parents, who
Hve in a state of continual truancy ; they are found on
the banks of your canals, they swarm in your large
cities. When those children become men, through lack
of previous development, instruction and familiarity
with these three instruments of education, they cannot
receive the fuU educational influence of the State and
Church, of business and the press; they lost their
youthful education, and therefore they lose, in conse
quence, their manly culture. They remain dwarfs,
and are barbarians in the midst of society ; there will
be exceptional men whom nothing can make vulgar;
but this will be the lot of the mass. They cannot per-

124 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
form the intelligent labor which business demands,
only the brute work; so they lose the development
which comes through the hand that is active in the
higher modes of industry, which, after all, is the great
est educational force. Accordingly, they cannot com
pete with ordinary men, and remain poor ; lacking also
that self-respect which comes of being respected, they
fall into beggary, into intemperance, into crime ; so,
from being idlers at first, a stumbling-block in the way
of society, they become paupers, a positive burden
which society must take on its shoulders ; or they turn
into criminals, active foes to the industry, the order,
and the virtue of society.
Now if a man abandons the body of his child, the
State adopts that body for a time ; takes the guardian
ship thereof, for the child's own sake; sees that it is
housed, fed, clad, and cared for. If a man abandons
his child's spirit, and the child commits a crime, the
State, for its own sake, assumes the temporary guard
ianship thereof, and puts him in a jail. When a man
deserts his child, taking no concern about his educa
tion, I venture to make the suggestion whether it
would not be weU, as a last resort, for the State to as
sume the guardianship of the child for its own sake,
and for the child's sake. We allow no one, with ever
so thick a skin, to grow up in nakedness; why should
we suffer a child, with however so perverse a parent,
to grow up in ignorance and degenerate into crime?
Certainly, a naked man is not so dangerous to society
as an ignorant man, nor is the spectacle so revolting.
I should have less hope of a State where the majority
were so perverse as to continue ignorant of reading,
writing, and calculating, than of one where they were
so thick-skinned as to wear no clothes. In Massachu-

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 125
setts, there is an Asylum for juvenile offenders, estab
lished by the city of Boston; a Farm School for bad
boys, established by the characteristic benevolence of
the rich men of that place ; and a State Reform School
under the charge of the Commonwealth: all these are
for lads who break the laws of the land. Would it not
be better to take one step more, adopt them before they
offended, and allow no child to grow up in the bar
barism of ignorance? Has any man an unalienable
right to live a savage in the midst of civilization ?
We need also public high schools to take children
where the common schools leave them, and carry them
further on. Some States have done something towards
estabhshing such institutions ; they are common in New
England. Some have established normal schools, spe
cial high schools for the particular and professional
education of public teachers. Without these, it is
plain there would not be a supply of competent edu
cators for the public service.
Then we need free colleges, conducted by public
officers, and paid for by the public purse. Without
these the scheme is not perfect. The idea which lies
at the basis of the pubHc education of a people in a
democracy is this: every man, on condition of doing
his duty, has a right to the means of education, as
much as a right, on the same condition, to the means
of defense from a public enemy in time of war, or
from starvation in time of plenty and of peace. I say
every man, I mean every woman also. The amount
of education must depend on the three factors named
before, — on the general achievement of mankind, the'
special ability of the State, and the particular power
of the individual.
If all is free, common schools, high schools, and col-

126 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
leges, boys and girls of common abihty and common
love of learning, will get a common education; those
of greater ability, a more extended education; and
those of the highest powers, the best culture which the
race can now furnish, and the State afford. Hitherto
no nation has established a pubhc college, wholly at
the public cost, where the children of the poor
and the rich could enjoy together the great na
tional charity of superior education. To do this
is certainly not consistent with the idea of a
theocracy or an aristocracy; but it is indispens
able to the complete realization of a democracy.
Otherwise the children of the rich will have a monopoly
of superior education, which is the case with the girls
everywhere — for only the daughters of rich men can
get a superior education, even in the United States —
and with boys in England and France, and of course
the offices, emoluments, and honors which depend on a
superior education; or else the means thereof wiU be
provided for poor lads by private benefactions, charity
funds, and the like, which some pious and noble man
has devoted to this work. In this case the institutions
will have a sectarian character, be managed by narrow,
bigoted men, and the gift of the means of education
be coupled with conditions which must diminish its
value, and fetter the free spirit of the young man.
This takes place in many of the collegiate establish
ments of the North, which, notwithstanding those de
fects, have done a great good to mankind.
The common schools, giving their pupil the power
of reading, writing, and calculating, developing his
faculties, and furnishing him with much elementary
knowledge, put him in communication with all that is
written in a common form in the English tongue; its

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 127
treasures lie level to his eye and hand. The high
school and the college, teaching him also other lan
guages, afford him access to the treasures contained
there; teaching him the mathematics and furnishing
him with the discipline of science, they enable him to
understand aU that has hitherto been recorded in the
compendious forms of philosophy, and thus place the
child of large abihty in connection with all the spirit
ual treasures of the world. In the mean time, for all
these pupils, there is the material and the human world
about them, the world of consciousness within. They
can study both, and add what they may to the treas
ures of human discovery or invention.
It seems to me that it is the duty of the State to
place the means of this education within the reach of
all children of superior ability, — a duty that follows
from the very idea of a democracy, not to speak of
the idea of Christianity. It is not less the interest of
the State to do so, for then youths well born, with good
abihties, will not be hindered from getting a breeding
proportionate to their birth, and from occupying the
stations which are adequately filled only by men of su
perior native abilities, enriched by culture, and de
veloped to their highest power. Then the work of
such stations wiU fall to the lot of such men, and of
course be done. Eminent ability, talent, or genius,
should have eminent education, and so serve the nation
in its eminent kind; for when God makes a million-
minded man, as once or twice in the ages, or a myriad-
minded man, as He does now and then, it is plain that
this gift also is to be accounted precious, and used for
the advantage of all.
I say no State has ever attempted to establish such
institutions; yet the government of the United States

128 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
has a seminary for the public education of a few men
at the pubhc cost. But it is a school to qualify men
to fight; they learn the science of destruction, the art
thereof, the kindred art and science of defense. If
the same money we now pay for military education at
West Point were directed to the education of teachers
of the highest class, say professors and presidents of
colleges ; if the same pains were taken to procure able
men, to furnish them with the proper instruction for
their special work, and give them the best possible gen
eral development of their powers, not forgetting the
moral, the affectional, and the religious, and animating
them with the philanthropic spirit needed for such a
work, how much better results would appear! But in
the present intellectual condition of the people it would
be thought unworthy of a nation to train up school
masters! But is it only soldiers that we need?
All these institutions are but introductory, a pre
paratory school, in three departments, to fit youths
for the great educational establishment of practical
life. This will find each youth and maiden as the
schools leave him, molding him to their image, or
molded by him to a better. So it is plain what the
teachers are to do; — besides teaching the special
branches which faU to their lot, they are to supply
for the pupils the defects of the State, of the Church,
of business, and the press, especially the moral defects.
For this great work of mediating between the mother
and the world, for so furnishing and fitting the rising
generation, introducing them into practical life, that
they shall receive aU the good of these public educa
tional forces with none of the ill, but enhance the one
while they withstand the other, and so each in himself
realize the idea of man, and all, in their social ca-

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 129
pacity, the idea of a democracy — it is also plain what
sort of men we need for teachers: we need able men,
weU endowed by nature, well disciplined by art; we
need superior men — men juster than the State, truer
and better than the churches, more humane than busi
ness, and higher than the common literature of the
press. There are always men of that stamp born into
the world ; enough of them in any age to do its work.
How shall we bring them to the task? Give young
men and women the opportunity to fit themselves for
the work, at free common schools, high schools, normal
schools, and colleges; give them a pay corresponding
to their services, as in England and Rome ; give them
social rank and honor in that proportion, and they
will come: able men will come; men well disciplined
wiU come; men of talent and even genius for educa
tion wiU come.
In the State you pay a man of great political talents
large money and large honors ; hence there is no lack
of abihty in politics, none of competition for office.
In the Church you pay a good deal for a " smart min
ister," one who can preach an audience into the pews
and not himself out of the pulpit. Talent enough
goes to business; educated talent, too, at least with a
special education for this, honor, and social distinc
tion. Private colleges and theological schools often
have powerful men for their professors and presidents ;
sometimes, men of much talent for education; com
monly, men of ripe learning and gentlemanly accom
plishments. Even men of genius seek a place as
teachers in some private college, where they are under
the control of the leaders of a sect — and must not
doubt its creed, nor set science a going freely, lest it
run over some impotent theological dogma — or else
IX— 9

130 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
of a little coterie, or close corporation of men selected
because radical or because conservative; men chosen
not on account of any special fitness for superintend
ing the superior education of the people, but because
they were one-sided, and leaned this way in Massachu
setts and that in Virginia. Able men seek such places
because they get a competent pay, competent honors,
competent social rank. Senators and ambassadors are
not ashamed to be presidents of a college, and submit
to the control of a coterie, or a sect, and produce their
results. If such men can be had for private establish
ments, to educate a few to work in such trammels and
such company, certainly it is not difficult to get them
for the public and for the education of aU. As the
State has the most children to educate, the most money
to pay with, it is clear, not only that they need the best
ability for this work, but that they can have it as soon
as they make the teacher's calling gainful and re
spectable. In England and Rome, the most important spiritual
function of the State is the production of the gentle
man and the priest; in democratic America it is the
production of the man. Some nations have taken
pains with the military training of all the people, for
the sake of the State, and made every man a soldier.
No nation has hitherto taken equivalent pains with the
general education of all, for the sake of the State and
the sake of the citizens ; — " the heathens of China "
have done more than any Christian people, for the
education of all. This was not needed in a theocracy,
nor an aristocracy; it is essential to a democracy.
This is needed politically; for where all men are
voters, the ignorant man, who cannot read the ballot
which he casts — the thief, the pirate, and the murderer

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 131
— may at any time turn the scale of an election, and do
us a damage which it wiU take centuries to repair.
Ignorant men are the tools of the demagogue; how
often he uses them, and for what purposes, we need
not go back many years to learn. Let the people be
ignorant and suffrage universal, a very few men will
control the State, and laugh at the folly of the ap
plauding multitude whose bread they waste, and on
whose necks they ride to insolence and miserable fame.
America has nothing to fear from any foreign foe ;
for nearly forty years she has had no quarrel but of
her own making. Such is our enterprise and our
strength, that few nations would carelessly engage in
war with us ; none without great provocation. In the
midst of us is our danger; not in foreign arms, but in
the ignorance and the wickedness of our own children,
the ignorance of the many, the wickedness of the few
who wiU lead the many to their ruin. The bulwark of
America is not the army and navy of the United States,
with aU the men at public cost instructed in the art
of war ; it is not the swords and muskets idly bristling
in our armories ; it is not the cannon and the powder
carefully laid by; no, nor is it yet the forts, which
frown in all their grim barbarity of stone along the
coast, defacing the landscape, else so fair ; these might
all be destroyed to-night, and the nation be as safe
as now. The more effectual bulwark of America is
her schools. The cheap spelling-book, or the vane on
her school-house is a better symbol of the nation than
" the star-spangled banner ;" the printing-press does
more than the cannon ; the press is mightier than the
sword. The army that is to keep our liberties — you
are a part of that, the noble army of teachers. It is
you who are to make a great nation greater, even

132 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
wise and good, — the next generation better than their
sires. Europe shows us, by experiment, that a republic
cannot be made by a few well-minded men, however
well-meaning. They tried for it at Rome, fuU of en
lightened priests; in Germany, the paradise of the
scholar, but there was not a people well educated, and
a democracy could not stand upright long enough to
be set a-going. In France, where men are better
fitted for the experiment than elsewhere in continental
Europe, you see what comes of it — the first step is a
stumble, and for their president the raw republicans
chose an autocrat, not a democrat ; not a mere soldier,
but only the name of a soldier; one that thinks it an
insult if liberty, equality, and fraternity be but named !
Think you a democracy can stand without the edu
cation of all; not barely the smallest pittance thereof
which will keep a live soul in a live body, but a large,
generous cultivation of mind and conscience, heart and
soul? A man, with half an eye, can see how we suf
fer continually in politics for lack of education among
the people. Some nations are priest-ridden, some king-
ridden, some ridden of nobles; America is ridden by
politicians, a heavy burden for a foolish neck.
Our industrial interests demand the same education.
The industrial prosperity of the North, our lands
yearly enriching, while they bear their annual crop;
our railroads, mills, and machines, the harness with
which we tackle the elements, — for we domesticate
fire and water, yes, the very Hghtning of heaven — aU
these are but material results of the intelligence of the
people. Our political success, and our industrial pros
perity, both come from the pains taken with the educa
tion of the people. Halve this education, and you

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 133
take away three-fourths of our political welfare, three-
fourths of our industrial prosperity; double this edu
cation, you greaten the political welfare of the people,
you increase their industrial success fourfold. Yes,
more than that, for the results of education increase by
a ratio of much higher powers.
It seems strange that so few of the great men in pol
itics have cared much for the education of the people ;
only one of those, now prominent before the North,
is intimately connected with it. He,1 at great per
sonal sacrifice of money, of comfort, of health, even
of respectability, became superintendent of the com
mon schools of Massachusetts, a place whence we could
ill spare him, to take the place of the famous man he
succeeds. Few of the prominent scholars of the land
interest themselves in the public education of the peo
ple. The men of superior culture think the common
school beneath their notice; but it is the mother of
them all.
None of the States of the North has ever given this
matter the attention it demands. When we legislate
about public education, this is the question before us:
— Shall we give our posterity the greatest blessing
that one generation can bestow upon another? Shall
we give them a personal power which will create wealth
in every form, multiply ships, and roads of earth, or of
iron; subdue the forest, till the field, chain the rivers,
hold the winds as its vassals, bind with an iron yoke
the fire and water, and catch and tame the lightning
of God? Shall we give them a personal power which
wiU make them sober, temperate, healthy, and wise;
that shall keep them at peace, abroad and at home, or
ganize them so wisely that all shall be united, and yet,
each left free, with no tyranny of the few over the

134 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
many, or the little over the great? Shall we enable
them to keep, to improve, to double manifold the po
litical, social, and personal blessings they now possess ;
shall we give them this power to create riches, to pro
mote order, peace, happiness — all forms of human
welfare, or shall we not? That is the question. Give
us intelligent men, moral men, men well developed in
mind and conscience, heart and soul, men that love
man and God, — industrial prosperity, social pros
perity, and political prosperity, are sure to follow.
But without such men, all the machinery of this three
fold prosperity is but a bauble is a child's hand, which
he will soon break or lose, which he cannot replace
when gone, nor use while kept.
Rich men, who have intelligence and goodness, wiU
educate their children, at whatever cost. There are
some men, even poor men's sons, born with such native
power that they will achieve an education, often a
most masterly culture; men whom no poverty can de
grade, or make vulgar, whom no lack of means or
culture can keep from being wise and great. Such
are exceptional men ; the maj ority, nine-tenths of the
people, will depend for their culture on the pubhc in
stitutions of the land. If there had never been a
free public school in New England, not half of her
mechanics and farmers would now be able to read, not
a fourth of her women. I need not stop to tell what
would be the condition of her agriculture, her manu
factures, her commerce ; they would have been, per
haps, even behind the agriculture, commerce, and man
ufactures of South Carolina. I need not ask what
would be the condition of her free churches, or the re
publican institutions which now beautify her rugged
shores and sterile soil ; there would be no such churches,

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 135
no such institutions. If there had been no such
schools in New England, the Revolution would yet re
main to be fought. Take away the free schools, you
take away the cause of our manifold prosperity;
double their efficiency and value, you not only double
and quadruple the prosperity of the people, but you
will enlarge their welfare — political, social, personal
— far more than I now dare to calculate. I know
men object to public schools; they say, education must
be bottomed on religion, and that cannot be taught un
less we have a State religion, taught " by authority "
in all our schools ; we cannot teach religion, without
teaching it in a sectarian form. This objection is
getting made in New York ; we have got beyond it in
New England. It is true, all manly education must be
bottomed on religion; it is essential to the normal de
velopment of man, and all attempts at education, with
out this, must fail of the highest end. But there are
two parts of religion which can be taught in all the
schools, without disturbing the denominations, or
trenching upon their ground, namely, — piety; the
love of God; and goodness, the love of man. The
rest of religion, after piety and goodness are removed,
may safely be left to the institutions of any of the
sects, and so the State will not occupy their ground.
It is often said that superior education is not much
needed; the common schools are enough, and good
enough, for it is thought that superior education is
needed for men as lawyers, ministers, doctors, and the
like, not for men as men. It is not so. We want men
cultivated with the best discipline, everywhere, not for
the profession's sake, but for man's sake. Every man
with a superior culture, intellectual, moral, and reli
gious, every woman thus developed, is a safeguard and

136 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
a blessing. He may sit on the bench of a judge or
a shoemaker, be a clergyman or an oysterman, that
matters little, he is still a safeguard and a blessing.
The idea that none should have a superior education
but professional men — they only for the profession's
sake — belongs to dark ages, and is unworthy of a
democracy. It is the duty of all men to watch over the public
education of the people, for it is the most important
work of the State. It is particularly the duty of men
who, hitherto, have least attended to it, men of the
highest culture, men, too, of the highest genius. If
a man with but common abilities has attained great
learning, he is one of the " public administrators," to
distribute the goods of men of genius, from other times
and lands, to mankind, their legal heirs. Why does
God sometimes endow a man with great intellectual
power, making, now and then, a million-minded man?
Is that superiority of gift solely for the man's own
sake? Shame on such a thought! It is of little
value to him unless he use it for me; it is for your
sake and my sake, more than for his own. He is a
precious almoner of wisdom; one of the public guar
dians of mankind, to think for us, to help us think for
ourselves ; born to educate the world of feebler men. I
call on such men, men of culture, men of genius, to
help build up institutions for the education of the peo
ple. If they negject this, they are false to their trust.
The culture which hinders a man from sympathy with
the ignorant, is a curse to both, and the genius which
separates a man from his fellow-creatures, lowlier born
than he, is the genius of a demon.
Men and women, practical teachers now before me,
a great trust is in your hands; nine-tenths of the

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 137
children of the people depend on you for their early
culture, for all the scholastic discipline they will ever
get; their manly culture will depend on that, their
prosperity thereon, all these on you. When they are
men, you know what evils they will easily learn from
State and Church, from business and the press. It is
for you to give them such a developing, and such a
furnishing of their powers, that they will withstand,
counteract, and exterminate that evil. Teach them to
love justice better than their native land, truth better
than their church, humanity more than money, and
fidelity to their own nature better than the public
opinion of the press. As the chief thing of all, teach
them to love man and God. Your characters will be
the inspiration of these children; your prayers their
practice, your faith their works.
The rising generation is in your hands, you can
fashion them in your image, you will, you must do
this. Great duties will devolve on these children when
grown up to be men; you are to fit them for these
duties. Since the Revolution, there has not been a
question before the country, not a question of constitu
tion or confederacy, free trade or protective tariff,
sub-treasury or bank, of peace or war, freedom or
slavery, the extension of liberty, or the extension of
bondage — not a question of this sort has come up
before Congress, or the people, which could not have
been better decided by seven men, honest, intelligent,
and just, who loved man and God, and looked, with a
single eye, to what was right in the case. It is your
business to train up such men. A representative, a
senator, a governor may be made, any day, by a vote.
Ballots can make a president out of almost anything;
the most ordinary material is not too cheap and vulgar

138 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
for that. But all the votes of all the conventions, all
the parties, are unable to make a people capable of
self-government. They cannot put intelligence and
justice into the head of a single man. You are to
do that. You are the " Sacred Legion," the " The
ban Brothers " to repel the greatest foes that can in
vade the land, the only foes to be feared; you are to
repel ignorance, injustice, unman liness, and irreligion.
With none else to help you, in ten years' time you can
double the value of your schools; double the amount
of development and instruction you annually furnish.
So doing, you shall double, triple, quadruple, multiply
manifold the blessings of the land. You can, if you
will. I ask you if you will ? If your works say, " Yes,"
then you will be the great benefactors of the land,
not giving money, but a charity far nobler yet, —
education, the greatest charity. You will help fulfil
the prophecy which noble men long since predicted of
mankind, and help found the kingdom of heaven on
earth ; you will follow the steps of that noblest man of
men, the Great Educator of the human race, whom
the Christians still worship as their God. Yes, you
will work with God himself; He will work with you,
work for you, and bless you with everlasting life.

IV
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE
Education, in the wide sense of the word, is the har
monious development of all the natural powers of man,
— of the body, of the mind, conscience, affections,
will, and religious sentiments. The general means to
that end are twofold — the world of matter and the
world of man. Leaving the former out of account, the
latter may be considered under four several forms, as
constituting so many educational forces, which in
fluence the development of the rising generation in
this country. There is —
I. The political action of the people, represented
by the State;
II. The material action of the people, represented
by business ;
III. The literary and scientific action of the people,
represented by the press;
IV. The ecclesiastical action of the people, repre
sented by the churches.
Now these four, the State, business, the press, and
the churches, are the educational forces which most
powerfully affect the intellectual and moral develop
ment of the people, modifying the original tendency
of each generation as it rises. This is so from the
very nature of man and the constitution of society.
But subordinate to these general educational forces,
there are likewise special institutions, whose design is
to prepare the child, and put him in communication
with these general influences. The more completely
139

140 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
they do that, the more completely are they commonly
thought to do their work ; and for this purpose schools
and colleges have mainly been established — to put
the youth in connection with these forces, and thus
enable them to do the duties and receive the instruc
tion which the State, business, the press, and the
churches may demand or afford him. He who has
learned to read, to write, and to calculate, has got
possession of the three most important educational
tools or helps ; and by the use thereof receives the aid
of these great general educators. He who learns,
also, a foreign language, letting alone other advan
tages of that study, may thereby receive the instruc
tion which the State, business, press, and churches of
another land have likewise to offer him.
Were these great and general educational forces of
a higher or a lower character than now with us, their
influence would be modified accordingly. It is the
duty of a wise educator to appreciate the kind and
degree of influence which these forces actually exert
on the young, and act with or against it, as the case
may require. The State, by its actions, may teach
men to reverence the eternal right, or only the power
of armies and commerce. The business of the nation
may teach respect for honesty and manly usefulness,
or only the omnipotence of the dollar. The press may
direct men to honor justice, truth, and manliness, may
fill them with noble ideas and sentiments, or teach them
to be mean and little, taking public opinion as their
standard. The churches may instruct men to love
God and to love man, as the supreme objects of ideal
or practical affection, or they may teach men to com
ply with public sins, to believe a lie, and for a pre
tense make long prayers, hypocritically affecting a be-

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 141
Hef in all manner of absurdities and contradictions.
It is the duty of such as direct the public education of
the people to understand the character and influence
of all these. It will be hard work for the teacher to
make his pupil ascend, though by his proper motion,
while these forces are contending to drive him down.
But when these forces act in the right direction, it is
difficult for the youth to go wrong. However, it is
not our task at present to criticize these educational
forces, and inquire what they actually teach in America
at this day, — what good they promise, what ill they
threaten, for the future ; — we wish rather to look
at the subordinate institutions for the public education
of the people, whose aim is to furnish the youth of
our land with the rudiments of learning.
After a nation has provided for the common ma
terial wants of protection, food, shelter, clothing, and
the Hke, the most important work is to educate the ris
ing generation. To do this is not merely a duty which
the father owes to his own child, but which society, in
virtue of its eminent paternity, owes to every child
born in its bosom. The right of the State to control
alike person and property, is continually set forth,
till it often comes to be considered as superior to reason
and conscience ; but the duty of the State to watch
over the culture of its children is too often forgot.
But this duty is co-extensive with the right, and both
grow out of the relation of sovereignty which the State
holds over the individuals that compose it.
It has always been acknowledged that society owes
something to each person subject to its power. In the
rudest ages of social existence it is felt to be the duty
of the State to protect, as far as possible, the lives of
its citizens from the violence of a public enemy from

142 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
abroad, or a private enemy at home. Next it becomes
recognized as a natural duty to protect also the
property of each man, as well as his person: then the
State admits its obligation to aid all its citizens or sub
jects in their religious culture, and so, in some form
or other, provides for the public worship of the God
of the State. There is no government in Europe
which does not admit all these obligations. AU have
established armies, jails, and churches, with their ap
propriate furniture, to protect the persons and prop
erty of their subjects, and do something to advance
their religious culture. At a period of social progress
considerably more advanced, the State first admits it is
a public duty of the sovereign power to defend a man
from want, and save him from starvation, not only
in times of famine and war, but in the ordinary state
of things. At a period of progress still more recent,
it is also recognized as a public duty to look after the
education of all the children of the State. This duty
rests on the same foundation with the others. At this
day it is admitted by all civilians, that each citizen
has a right to claim of his State protection for prop
erty and person; food enough, likewise, to keep him
from perishing — on condition that he does what he
can to protect himself. In New England and most
of the enlightened States of the world, it is also ad
mitted that each child has a right, likewise, to claim
of the State an opportunity of acquiring the rudi
ments of education. But how far ought the State to
carry this education, which is to be placed within the
reach of all? The answer to this question we will at
tempt to give in another part of this article, only
premising here, that in a progressive people the zero
point of education is continually rising : what was once

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 143
the maximum of hope, one day becomes the minimum
of sufferance.
In New England it has long been admitted in prac
tice, though not proclaimed in our political theories,
that the State owes each child in it a chance to obtain
the average education, so far as schools can secure that
attainment. Our scheme of public education of the
people is one of the most original things in America.
In Hterature and science America has hitherto shown
little invention, and has achieved little worth mention
ing. In business the nation is eminently creative, and
in politics we are the most original of nations, both in
respect of ideas and the forms in which they become
actual. With these exceptions, the New England
scheme of public education, now extended over most
of the free States, it is the most original thing which
America has produced. Take New England as a
whole, with the States which have descended from her
— her public free schools are the noblest monument of
the character of the people; of their industry, their
foresight, their vigorous and thrifty manhood. New
England has been complimented for her ships, her
roads of earth and iron, her factories, her towns, and
her shops ; she has often looked with pride on her
churches, once the dweUing-place of such piety, and
long the bulwark of civil freedom in the new world:
but she has far more reason to be proud — if aught
human may be proud — of her common schools.
These are more honorable to her head and heart, than
even the great political and legal institutions which
have grown around them, and above them, often, but
always out of the same soil.
Democracy is the government of all the citizens for
the sake of all the citizens, and by means of them aU.

144 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Of course, it is only possible on condition that it is
itself conducted by the eternal laws of justice, which
man has not made, but only found made; otherwise it
will not be for the sake of all, but hostile to the welfare
of some. Such a democracy is of course only an
ideal as yet. But the prevalent sentiments of America,
especially of New England and her descendant States,
are democratic ; her ideas are democratic ; her institu
tions, in the main, democratic, — all progressively tend
ing towards that ideal. The public schools of New
England have grown out of these democratic senti
ments and ideas, — their growth as unavoidable as
that of lichens and mosses on Monadnock.
Democracy is the ideal of America. But is an ideal
which can never be realized except on the conditions
that the people, the whole people, are well educated,
in the large sense of the word. There may be a mon
archy — despotic or constitutional, or an aristocracy,
without any considerable culture on the part of the
mass of the people ; but a democracy under such cir
cumstances cannot be. A nation of ignorant savages
may be governed: it is only a wise people that can
govern themselves. The very political constitution of
New England, therefore, demands a degree of culture
in the people hitherto unknown in the most advanced
nations of the world. Thus in America there is not
only the general duty of society to educate all its
members, but also the special duty of a democratic
government — which thereby is fulfilling the most im
perative conditions of its existence.
At the first settlement of America, it was not pos
sible for the infant State, struggling for existence, to
spend much time in the education of the children ; yet,
considering all things, the ideal set up in New England,

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 145
in the seventeenth century, was exceedingly high, and
the achievement, likewise, greater than a sanguine man
would have dared predict. At this day, the intel
ligence of the mass is much enhanced, and the wealth
thereof is prodigiously increased. The zero point of
public education has also risen.
This may be laid down as a maxim — that it is the
duty of society to afford every child born in it a
chance of obtaining the best education which the
genius of the child is capable of receiving, and the
wealth of intelligence of society are capable of bestow
ing. It seems to us, from the very nature of man and
of society, that each child has just as good a claim
for this as for protection from violence or starvation.
Much, doubtless, will be possible in the way of educa
tion a hundred years hence, not thought of now; but
now much is possible which is not attempted — much
not even hoped for. When the opportunity for ob
taining even a liberal culture is afforded to all, is there
danger that men will leave the laborious callings of
life, and rush to what are called the educated profes
sions? Quite the contrary. There will always be five
hundred good carpenters to one good philosopher or
poet. There are but few men who have an innate
preference for being lawyers, ministers, and doctors,
rather than farmers, shoemakers, and blacksmiths.
Many are now in the professions solely because these
offered a chance for some liberal culture which the
trade did not afford, though otherwise far more at
tractive. When education is thought equally neces
sary for the farmer and the lawyer, and all honest and
useful callings equally honorable, there is more danger
that the office be neglected than the field ; we may safely
count on more corn and less litigation.
IX— 10

146 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
The process of education at this day consists of two
distinct things.
I. The acquisition of certain positive knowledge,
namely of the facts of science and the facts of history,
— including also the ideas of science and history.
II. The development of the faculties of the learner,
so that he may also effectually possess aU his natural
powers, and act originally for himself. At present
the common schools do a Httle of both ; the high schools
and coUeges a little more. But in the common schools,
taken as a whole, so far as we know — far too little is
attempted in the way of an original development of
the faculties themselves. Memory and imitation are
the chief faculties which are cultivated. The reason
of this is too plain to need showing.
Now the foundation of the public education of the
people must be laid in the common schools. Take the
whole population of any Northern State, perhaps not
more than an eighth part of the people receive any in
struction from any private school. The faults, then,
of the common schools will show themselves in the
character of the people, and that in a single genera
tion. The common schools, therefore, are the most im
portant institutions of New England. If there had
been none such for two hundred years past, the mass
of men would have been unable to read, and write, and
calculate ; those attainments would be the monopoly of
a few men of superior wealth or superior natural
ability. As the natural consequence, agriculture would
have been in a poor state ; commerce in a poor state ;
manufactures a hundred years behind their present
condition. There would not be the signs of life, ac
tivity, thrift, of continual progress, visible all over

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 147
the New England States. The crowds which in Bos
ton now attend the lectures of the Lowell Institute,
and other means of instructive or refined amusement,
would seek their entertainment in a bull-fight, or a
bear baiting; perhaps in a man-fight of bruisers in a
ring, or a soldier-baiting on the common. PubHc
lectures would be as rare in Boston, as in Montreal,
Halifax, or even New Orleans and Naples. The gov
ernment would not be a democracy, getting more and
more democratic, but a despotism in the form of a
monarchy or aristocracy; a government over all, but
by a few, and against the interest of the many. The
few and the strong would own the bodies of the weak
and the many in New England, as well as in South
CaroHna and Morocco. There would not be a hun
dred churches in Boston, filled by intelligent men of
more than a hundred different ways of thinking on
religious matters — each claiming freedom of con
science; but three or four magnificent and costly
temples, in which the ignorant and squalid people,
agape for miracles, ridden by their rulers, and worse
ridden by their priests, met to adore some relic of a
saint — the pocket-handkerchief of the mother of God,
and the nail from the cross, or from the horse the
Queen of Sheba did not ride, a hair from Saint Joseph's
beard, or perhaps the seamless coat of Christ ! The
city would swarm with monks dedicated to ignorance
and filthiness, and religiously fulfilling at least that
part of their vow. There would be slaves in New
England, not black slaves alone, but white; freedom
would be in few hands ; land in few hands ; education in
few hands ; power in few hands ; comfort and virtue in
few hands. New England might then be the heaven
of the rich and the noble, the purgatory of the wise

148 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
and the good, but the hell of the poor and the weak.
If there had never been any public schools for girls
in New England, then the majority of women would
have had the monopoly of ignorance. They would
be the slaves of the men ; not their companions. The
hardest and most revolting work, in the streets, the
scows, and the drains, would be performed by the
hands of sisters, wives, mothers. Woman would be
the victim of lust, of intemperance, of every crime —
trod down into the dust, but poisoning stiU the oppres
sive foot.
On the other hand, if the public schools could have
been better — could have been as good and weU at
tended in 1748 as now, New England would have
gained, perhaps at the least, fifty years. Where would
have been the intemperance, the pauperism, the crime,
which now prey on society? We should not need so
many jails, and five thousand magistrates of the pohce
in Massachusetts. We should not have a nation with
so little shame and so much to be ashamed of ; a press
so corrupt and debasing. Business would be marked
by an activity wiser and yet greater, and by its purer
morals; the churches would be far other than what
now they are ; the amount of intelligent activity might
be tenfold what it is now, and that tenfold activity
would show itself in all departments of human concern
— in a tenfold morality, comfort, order, and welfare in
general. There are several causes which prevent the common
schools from doing the service which is needed of
them; we will mention only the two chief. All the
children from five to sixteen do not attend regularly.
From a fourth to a third part are always absent. Mr.
Mann complains of this as " an enormous loss."

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 149
" The most frugal and thrifty community in the world
here plays the spendthrift and prodigal." The State
can do Httle directly to repair this evil. To make at
tendance compulsory would be inconsistent with the
spirit of American institutions, and perhaps produc
tive of little good. Teachers, school committees, and
the clergy, can doubtless do much to check this evil.
The next cause is found in the inferior character of
the teachers employed. Far be it from us to find fault
with these persons; — there is no class in the com
munity for whom we feel a more profound respect, or
regard with a deeper sympathy. " Madam," said Dr.
Johnson to a lady who grumbled about her servants,
" Madam, you cannot expect all the celestial virtues
for three shillings a week." Eminent ability does not
naturally flow towards the master's desk in the common
schools. Take two thousand five hundred of the men
of Massachusetts most marked for general ability, and
probably not ten of them would be found among the
teachers of public schools in that State; certainly not
seeking there a permanent resting-place. There is no
honor connected with the calling ; the pay is miserably
little. Massachusetts rewards her teachers better, we
think, than any other State ; but on the average, after
deducting the expense of board, pays the male teacher
less than twenty-five dollars a month, and the female
but eight dollars and seven cents! In Vermont it is
but twelve dollars a month for males, and four dollars
and seventy-five cents for females. The celestial vir
tues are seldom to be had so cheap. Such a stipend
is not likely to attract men of superior energy; they
will fl^e from a calling which can offer no inducement
but the vow of poverty. Men of inferior ability have
hitherto had little encouragement to fit themselves for

150 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
the duties of a teacher. Indeed, there have been no
means hitherto placed within their reach. There have
long been establishments for the training of lawyers,
physicians, clergymen, and soldiers, — until lately none
for the education of teachers. There are even now
few good works treating either of the art or the science
of teaching. There is no college, we think, in the
United States^ in which lectures are given on this art
or science, thoiigh it is necessary for every parent to
practise the art, and to understand it belongs to the
very profession of the teacher. The normal schools
have already done something to remedy this evil.
Teachers' institutes, lectures by accomplished men, the
production of books treating the art and science of
teaching, will also do good.
But all this will not reach the root of the evil.
Martyrs may always be found to go on the forlorn
hope of humanity, but no State ever relied on a whole
army of martyrs — to man its forts and its fleets, to
form the rank and file of the very militia! A more
mundane argument must be resorted to than the hope
of eternal rewards in heaven. Superior talent wiU
always be attracted towards wealth and social rank —
in no country more certainly than in America. A
Christian minister was once sure of a competent sup
port for his natural life; sure, also, of a high social
rank. Then men of masculine ability and superior
culture came to that calling and did it honor, represent
ing the superior thought of the nation. Circumstances
changing, the minister's salary becoming uncertain in
its continuance, or comparatively small, his social rank
in reality far less — that masculine ability and su
perior culture seek other channels of usefulness, and
only by exception flow through the pulpit, and

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 151
then to the amazement and consternation of the
Church, long wonted to the drowsy tinkle of an hum
bler stream.
Now it is entirely in the power of the people to
command that superior talent, cultivation, and skiU,
solely by paying its price. Some men are born with
a genius for teaching ; many with a talent for it. Of
fer a sufficient pay, and they wiU come, and the results
will appear in the character of the next generation.
It is not difficult for colleges to obtain men of fine
abihty and culture for their service, because, though
the salary is not large compared with the income of a
thrifty grocer or a master mason in a large town —
yet a certain honor and respectability, as weU as per
manency, is connected with the post of professor.
Give the same reward to the teacher of the common
schools, and a similar result will foUow.
Now the State demands its ablest men for judges,
senators, and the like, and easily obtains them. The
business of educating the whole generation of youth in
the land between four and sixteen is one of the first
importance; on which the destinies of the nation de
pend. Common sense demands, then, a class of men
with superior powers, with a generous development
of aU their faculties, and especially masters of the
science and art of education. Soon as the people are
satisfied of this, they can have such a body of men at
their disposal. Until this is done, the State must suf
fer. It is easy to be penny-wise and pound-foolish,
and it seems to us that the system of small salaries for
schoolmasters hitherto pursued, even in New England,
is like sacrificing a whole cloak of velvet to save the
end of a farthing candle.
Compare the attainments of a child of fourteen,

152 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
trained in one of the common schools say of Boston,
and another of equal age and capacity trained under
the care of the most judicious and skilful teachers of
that city, and what a difference; a difference not
only in the amount of positive knowledge acquired,
but still more in the actual development of faculties.
The one is ten times better educated than the other;
the difference arising solely from the fact that one
has had the discipline of a superior person, and
the other not. Yet it is possible to make every public
school in the land better than the best private school
now in it; the people have never done their duty until
this is attained. It were a bad thing that the children
of the rich should grow up with little knowledge, little
possession of their faculties: but it is worse still that
the children of the poor grow up in this state, for in
adult years they cannot command for themselves the
educational resources so easy of access to the man who
has enough of both time and money, which commands
also the time of other men.
The services of women cost less than men; educa
tional ability, also, is more common amongst women,
and therefore it is easier to obtain for the common
schools eminent educational talent in the female teacher
than in the male. The community is wisely availing
itself of this advantage, and the number of female
teachers advances more rapidly than the males. But
here, too, is a difficulty. The idea has commonly pre
vailed, that woman was inferior to man — not deserv
ing of superior culture. Her business was
"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer."
Her education, therefore, need not go beyond the
merest rudiments, to qualify her for these functions.

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 153
Like father Hke son — the rude boy inheriting this
traditional notion of woman, refuses to submit to fe
male government at school, and the father thinks he
is more than half right. Besides, woman has not
counted herself the equivalent of man, but tamely ac
cepted the place assigned her ; and now, too, it is diffi
cult to find women of competent culture to assume
their natural position, and educate the aspiring youth
of the land, and so the country school is poorly taught,
by men of little natural or acquired fitness for the
work, and taught, Hkewise, but few months ; while the
same money would better pay the services of a com
petent woman for the whole year.
But the common schools must be occupied mainly
with the rudiments of education. Some scholars will
wish to obtain more than these offer. The number of
such is continually increasing. To meet their wants
there is needed a class of high schools, to take boys
and girls where the common schools leave them, and
advance them yet further. The law provides for the
establishment of such schools in large towns; but even
there the want is but ill supplied, and in the small towns
it is stiU severely felt. If several smaller towns would
unite and establish such a high school in some conven
ient place, the evil would be remedied in part; at any
rate such a scheme would work better than anything
which is now offered to the public. In such a school
ancient and modern languages might be taught;
mathematics, the natural sciences, ethics, and meta
physics. At present, for their higher culture, children
must repair to the numerous private academies which
testify to the want of such public institutions, rather
than supply it. The money now paid to the private
academies for the education of a few would be more

154 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
than sufficient to establish such public schools as might
better teach all the hopeful youth who would avail
themselves thereof. At present, these private acad
emies, with a few honorable exceptions, do their work
but poorly, as we think. They are not under the vigi
lant supervision of a committee appointed by the
public, and responsible to them ; there is seldom a regu
lar and systematic course of studies prescribed; still
more rarely a wise and vigorous method of education
pursued, by which the pupil's mind is well disciplined.
Much of the quackery of education, we fear, takes
refuge in the private schools. Besides, the private
academies are often so sectarian' in their character
that much of the good they might do is prevented, and
much time is wasted in teaching the child what he will
slowly and painfully unlearn in later years, or else be
blighted all his life by a barbarous theology, forced
upon him when he was too feeble to resist the baneful
imposition. We will not pretend to mention all the details which
ought to be considered in establishing such high
schools as are hinted at above, but this, at least, seems
possible — for two or three small towns to unite, or,
if it were needful, all the small towns in a county, and
establish such an institution. We see not why it would
not work as well as the normal schools, which already
have done so much to advance the education of the
people. Such schools should provide for the youth of
both sexes. Originally the public schools of New
England were open only to the boys. The Hebrew
notion has long prevailed that man was created for his
own sake, woman only for man's sake, because it was
" not good that the man should be alone." She has
been considered as inferior to man, and, therefore, not

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 155
entitled to any considerable culture. This barbarous
notion still prevails; as proof of which we need only
look at the one hundred and nine colleges in the United
States, and ask what analogous provision has been
made for the superior education of young women.
Boston has done much for the public education of her
children, and thereby been honorably distinguished
above the other cities of the Western or the Eastern
world. Her Latin and English high schools would be
an ornament and honor to any city in the world. But,
even in Boston, there are no public schools for girls
at aU corresponding to those excellent institutions for
boys. Why not?
Perhaps nothing would give so direct and powerful
an impulse to popular education in New England, as
the establishment of free schools for girls in Boston,
analogous to the Latin and English high schools for
boys. Rich men can give their daughters a superior
culture; some of them will do it, at any cost. But
nine-tenths of the girls must depend on the public
schools alone. There is no reason in the nature of
things, or the duty of the State to its citizens, why
superior education should be confined to the rougher
sex. In the higher seminaries and the first class of the
grammar schools, few boys are found from the hum
blest ranks of the people ; — their services are so valu
able that their needy parents will not allow the boy to
attend school. Now, to the man of small means the
daughter's time is not worth so much as the son's.
She, therefore, could attend school much longer were
there any superior school for her to attend. Such,
too, is the demand for active young men, and the gen
eral hurry of the times, that young men rush from the
schools and colleges into active life long before they

156 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
are prepared. Young women, less needed in active
Hfe — finding, indeed, few caUings to fill — could re
main longer at school, and would gain a superior cul
ture. In such schools there would come many daugh
ters out of the humblest portion of the people, and
getting well educated, they would become the mothers
of men of no humble class ; would diffuse an ennobling
influence wherever they were, and elevate that class
which is now a burden and a reproach to the young
democracy. Further still, the presence of a body of highly-edu
cated young women would stimulate the other sex more
than any amount of appeals from the press or the
pulpit. A coarse and ignorant young man — foppish
and conceited, his head filled with nothing better than
the newspapers and play-bills, who abhors thought as
nature a vacuum — he hates nothing so much as to be
found inferior to the women he constantly meets.
While the majority of women have a very inferior cul
ture, their heads even more scantily furnished than the
young men's ; while they are iUiterate, ignorant, inca
pable of all serious thought, even of attention enough
to understand a common lecture and report it faith
fully, it is no wonder that men, who have had a better
culture, though still coarse and ignorant, conceited
and foppish, should think women their inferior. When
such men meet a woman of really superior culture, they
only mock and call names, looking on her as a curi
osity, almost as a monster. Were there many such
women, were the majority of women of such a char
acter, our ignorant young man, finding himself in a
minority, would become seasonably ashamed, would
give over calling names, and, finding that his boasted
superiority of nature only made him ridiculous, would

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 157
betake himself to diligent culture of his better faculties,
and would end by becoming something of a man.
It need not be said the expense of such establish
ments could not be afforded, for all experience of pub
lic education shows that it costs less to educate the
whole at public charge than to educate the select por
tions who now occupy the private seminaries. We
think it could soon be shown, that the sums now paid
for the education of two or three hundred young women
at private schools in Boston, would more than suffice for
the superior education of the thousand who would avail
themselves of such an education, were it possible.
Were there a thousand young women furnished with
the best culture which this age could afford, scattered
about in society, as wives and mothers, it is easy to see
the change which they would soon effect in a single
generation. Nay, it is not easy to see all the change
they would effect. Their influence would soon appear
in the churches, in the newspapers, the theatres, in all
our Hterature, — yes, in the State itself, — and produce
effects by no means anticipated now. The establish
ment of such an institution would in a very few years
doubt the number of persons who have a superior edu
cation, and every such woman is not only an ornament,
but a blessing, to society.
To crown the whole system of pubhc education, a
public college would seem necessary, founded by the
State, watched over by the State, and by the State pre
served from all sectarian and partisan influence; a col
lege with libraries and lectures open to all who were
able to understand their use. Our scheme of public
education is exceedingly incomplete until this also is
established. At present, many young men of superior
talent are debarred from a generous education solely

158 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCLETY
by their inability to meet the expenses of a coUege
course. They suffer for lack of culture, and society
suffers for lack of their services. Inferior men, but
born of parents thriftier or more fortunate, obtain the
culture and occupy the more elevated posts of society,
which can only be filled by men born with superior gifts
not less than well-bred.
Everywhere we see signs that a free public college is
needed and desired. Amongst them are the rise of
cheap colleges, which only express the want which they
cannot satisfy; the numerous lyceums and courses of
lectures ; the Mercantile Library Association, the Asso
ciation of Mechanics' apprentices, and the like, in Bos
ton. It would be easy for any one of the free States
to establish such a public college in one of its principal
cities, offering gratuitous instruction to all who could
pass such an examination as would show they were
capable of appreciating the instruction offered. We
will not go into the details of such a scheme, wishing
only to invite public attention to the subject. Such
institutions would soon furnish a large body of men
with a superior education, and free us from one of the
troubles of American society — professional men ig
norant of their profession; lawyers, doctors, minis
ters, whom it would be flattery to call half -educated,
but who are yet not to be blamed, having all the cul
ture they could get. Still more, it would diffuse a
liberal education amongst all classes of society, and the
advantages of that we have not time to point out. It
is no mean reproach to us that the Prussians, the Sax
ons, and the French have done far more for the supe
rior education of the people than we have thought
proper even to attempt. Massachusetts has taken the
lead in many important movements of the nation. We

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 159
wish she would set the example of a public coUege;
for surely, no State is so competent, for various rea
sons, to make the experiment, and perhaps none so
much feels the need of it. Every man of superior edu
cation, so far as that goes, is a blessing to society, not
less than an ornament. He gives dignity and honor
to his calling, not it to him. He may sit on the bench
of a judge, or on the bench of a shoemaker, be an up
holsterer, or a clergyman, that is of small account ; his
thought, his wisdom, his character, do their work in
society. As things now go, we get rich faster than
we get intelligent, and as a nation deserve the reproach
of being material and vulgar. Aristotle said in his
day, the mass of laboring people should not be " of a
character too elevated." A democratic government
demands for all the best education which it is possible
for all to receive ; the superior education of as many as
possible. In all the large towns of Massachusetts, men and
women have associated together, established lyceums,
and secured to themselves courses of lectures every
winter. This movement shows the want of something
more than schools, colleges, and churches have hitherto
afforded. The effect of these lyceums with their lec
tures is excellent in many ways, intellectual, moral, so
cial. But as yet little is accomplished by them in com
parison with what may easily be done. No system is
pursued by such institutions; lectures come pell-meU
after one another, without order. There is no suffi
cient body of men well trained for the business of pop
ular lecturing. Brilliant and showy men serve for an
hour's amusement, but fail of accomplishing the great
work which waits to be done. It seems to us that the
lyceums of several towns might combine together, and

160 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
have regular and systematic courses of lectures deliv
ered in each by the same person. In this manner men
of ability and suitable education might easily be well
paid for the labor of preparing valuable lectures, and
the people receive the advantage of instruction from
the best minds in the land. The business of a popular
lecturer might soon become as important as that of a
judge; his social rank as high, and his salary still
more. In this manner some of the best talent of the
State might be applied to its most appropriate work —
the education of the people. Lectures might be de
livered treating of the facts of nature, or science in its
various departments ; the facts of man, his history, lit
erature, laws, and the like; — lectures on facts, and
lectures, also, on ideas.
A few years ago, in Boston, one of her sons founded
an Institute for the better education of the people by
means of lectures, and thereby did a greater service to
that town, as we think, than any American has ever
done to his native place. Education, in its large sense,
is the greatest charity which can be bestowed on a
town or a city. We refer to the Lowell Institute. Its
usefulness is now only beginning. There the services
of some of the most able men of America and of Eu
rope have been wisely obtained for the purpose of in
structing the people. The experience of that Insti
tute shows that superior talent and culture can easily
be commanded for this great work whenever the pecu
niary means are provided. A combination of numer
ous lyceums, though individually poor, can also secure
the services of men of superior ability for their pur
pose, as soon as they will. The apparatus most im
portant in education is men, — able men. The influence
of lectures Hke those of Agassiz and Walker at the

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 161
Lowell Institute, of Emerson at the various lyceums
and elsewhere, it is not easy to calculate. Not only do
those men give positive information, but they stimulate
aU their ingenuous hearers to desire a yet nobler cul
ture, and suggest the intellectual and other methods by
which it may be won.
In New England there is no public or even social
amusement — recognized as such. The old and bar
barous sport of military exhibitions has long been un
popular, and is now ridiculous. The amusement of
getting drunk is rather old-fashioned, and though still
the only pastime of the wretched, is not likely to revive
amongst intelligent or even merely respectable men.
Politics and theology may serve for awhile in place of
amusement — this for the men, that for the women;
but they wiU not do the work. This absence of amuse
ment, and the somewhat unsocial character with which
America has been reproached, render it the more desir
able that lyceums and public lectures should be pro
vided, to meet numerous wants, and, while they culti
vate the mind, cultivate, also, social feelings amongst
all. Public libraries, also, will powerfully aid this work.
We think there is not a public library in any large
town in the United States, — a library to which all
persons have access. The land is full of books ; valu
able books, even, are now becoming more and more
common. True, the " yellow literature," the literary
trash that is hawked about at the railways, indicates a
low taste in the manufacturers and consumers of such
miserable productions. The school-books in most
common use, we regret to say, are poor and low ; such
as relate to science often poorly constructed, and de
void ahke of scientific principles and scientific method.

162 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
It is commonly thought that an ignorant man may
write for the ignorant ; if he wishes to keep them so, he
had better. But the most skilful physicians are needed
by the sickest men. Still, in spite of the increase of
these ephemeral works, and the spread of that yellow
fever of literature, the taste for really valuable books
has increased with astonishing rapidity. The want of
public libraries in most of our large towns is beginning
to be felt. The establishment of social libraries, which
are not so often merely domestic as heretofore, — of
district school libraries, the libraries of the various in
stitutes, associations, athenaeums, lyceums, and the like,
is only an indication of the want, not adequate pro
vision to meet it. It is a remarkable fact, that in the
city of Paris there are more books thrown open to the
public every day than are contained in all the coUeges
and state libraries of this country. There we have
seen, with republican and Christian delight, a pro
fessor from the Sorbonne and a teamster in his blouse
of blue cotton, sitting at the same table, diligently
studying works which neither of them, perhaps, could
afford to own. We are glad to learn, while writing
these pages, that attempts are seriously making in
Boston to found such a library. The generosity of
the wealthy men of that city is well known, and seems
to have almost no Hmit ; but we think their wealth has
seldom been directed to a nobler object than this work
of educating the people.
The Lawrence Scientific School in the University at
Cambridge, recently established, will doubtless afford
valuable aid in promoting the solid education of the
people. A want has long been felt of some institution
which should afford a culture somewhat different from
that of our better colleges, not less severe and scientific,

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 163
but more so, if possible, only less monastic and medi
eval. We see it suggested by the distinguished Presi
dent of Harvard University, that something is perhaps
to be done " with a view to the formation of accom
plished teachers for classical schools and colleges;"
and hope that some provision may soon be made there
or elsewhere for instruction in the science of education
— what the Germans call padagogik. Apart from
the art of teaching there is a science of education, as
distinct from the practical business of instruction as
geometry is from the art of surveying land or making
an almanac. This, also, is a liberal science, to be
cultivated in part for itself, as an end, and therefore
should have a place in every liberal scheme of educa
tion, as well as ethics and metaphysics ; and is a means,
also, and wiU prove useful in practice, as most men
come at length to have the charge of forming and
developing the characters of others, at the most tender
age, committed to their care. The English language
is singularly deficient in works which treat of this sub
ject, though the German is sufficiently rich, at least so
far as quantity is concerned.
We come now to speak, though briefly, of the works
named at the head of our article.1 No. 1 contains the
reports of two sub-committees of the Boston School
Committee. The first is the Report of the " annual
examination of the Grammar department of the Gram
mar and Writing Schools." The second, of the " an
nual examination of the Writing department of the
Grammar Schools." The first is a plain statement of
the results of the examination of each particular
school. The reading in the upper divisions of the
first class is pronounced admirable, as that class is un
der the direction of the head masters. But the three

164 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
lower classes, including more than four-fifths of all the
children in the schools, are under the care of subor
dinate teachers, with much smaller salaries, and prob
ably with inferior qualifications. The author, Mr.
G. B. Emerson,2 thinks a considerable majority of all
the children never reach the first class, and therefore
do not partake directly in the advantages of the best
instruction provided for the schools. Some children
have been two years in the grammar schools, who yet
have not advanced at all since they entered them.
Something ought to be done to remedy this injustice.
There is a considerable deficiency in the furniture of
the schools, but in special there is a great want of
libraries. There are not two thousand volumes in all
the grammar schools in the city! The author thinks
libraries should be provided; that the study of physi
ology should be introduced into all the schools as soon
as possible, and recommends, also, that the art of draw
ing should likewise be taught in all, and geometry in
the schools for boys. The Report also mentions the
want of schools for ignorant adults; a want deeply
felt, and now but imperfectly supplied by the benev
olence of a few private persons. Many ignorant for
eigners come yearly amongst us; many, also, from
" woodsy " places in New Hampshire and Vermont,
where there are no schools accessible — who cannot
even read. It is hard to leave these men to the irreg
ular care of private benevolence, which already finds
more than enough to do; it is unjust to neglect them,
leaving them in their ignorance. The little which
would be required to establish such schools would per
haps be a gain to the city in the end.
The Report of the other committee is a literary curi
osity. A document so ill-written we have seldom seen,

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 165
and know not which is the most remarkable, the con
fusion of thought or of speech. Speaking of the
Hawes School, the author says, " The teacher has had
no philosophical apparatus to illustrate or interest the
pupils in." In the Winthrop School, he says, " No
permitted books are used." The tenth question in
natural philosophy laid before the pupils at the exam
ination was as follows : " Is the North Pole of the
earth and the North Magnetic Pole in the same part of
the earth's surface? " But we forbear from giving
any more specimens of the style of the Report. The
committee recommended, as it seems to us very justly,
that plain sewing should be taught in all the girls'
schools. To some this wiU doubtless seem a trifling
matter, while in reality it is one of great importance.
But the committee also recommended that algebra and
geometry should be discontinued in the writing schools,
that " boys should be educated only by men," and that
medals should be distributed to the most excellent
scholars. We trust the city will not take three steps
backward in compliance with these suggestions.
We wish the Boston Examining Committee had rec
ommended the appointment of a general superintend
ent of all the schools in the city, to look after teachers
and pupils both. The School Committees, from their
very nature, can at best do their work but imperfectly,
as their Reports show. It would be easy for each town
with ten thousand inhabitants to appoint a superin
tendent of public schools, who should make it his whole
business to look after their welfare ; and we think that
in a few years most beautiful results would follow.
The School Committees have seldom much time to de
vote to their work ; they are yet more rarely men who
understand the science or the art of education so weU

166 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
as the teachers themselves. The result is, that the
teachers become substantially irresponsible, adopt in
ferior methods of instruction, or attempt to teach with
no method at all ; and much of the time of the children
and the money of the people is thereby wasted.
No. 2 contains a large amount of valuable informa
tion and important suggestions offered by the inde
fatigable Secretary of the Board of Education. His
Report will doubtless be extensively circulated, and
therefore we say but little of its contents. The most
important part is the section which treats of " the
power of common schools to redeem the State from
social vices and crimes." He thinks that more than
half of the bodily debility and disease, of the pains
and expenditures of sickness, of all cases of death
before the age of seventy years, are the consequence of
sheer ignorance, and therefore, can easily be avoided.
He gives the testimony of eight distinguished friends
of popular education, all of them believing in the natu
ral depravity of the human heart, to show that the
common schools may be made to " expel ninety-nine
hundredths of all the vices and crimes under which
society now mourns and agonizes." " The crowning
beauty of the whole is," he continues, " that Christian
men of every faith may cordially unite in carrying
forward the work of reform, however various may be
their opinions as to the cause which has made that
work necessary; just as all good citizens may unite in
extinguishing a conflagration, though there may be
a hundred conflicting opinions as to the means or the
men that kindled it."
He thinks the most generous public education is the
best economy for the State. " What is ingulfed in
the vortex of crime, in each generation, would build a

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 167
palace of more than oriental splendor in every school
district in the land; would endow it with a library be
yond the ability of a lifetime to read ; would supply it
with apparatus and laboratories for the illustration
of every study, and the exemplification of every art,
and munificently requite the services of a teacher wor
thy to preside in such a sanctuary of inteUigence and
virtue." He contrasts the cost of war and its preparations
with the cost of education.
" Since the organization of the Federal government,
in 1789, the expense of our military and naval estab
lishments and equipments, in round numbers, is $700,-
000,000. Two of our ships of the line have cost
more than $2,000,000. The value of the arms accu
mulated, at one time, at the arsenal in Springfield, in
this State, was $2,000,000. The Military Academy
at West Point has cost more than $4,000,000. In
our town meetings, and in our school district meetings,
wealthy and substantial men oppose the grant of $15
for a school Hbrary, and of $30 for both library and
apparatus; while, at West Point, they spend $50 in
a single lesson at target-firing, and the government
keeps a hundred horses, and grooms and blacksmiths
to take care of them, as an indispensable part of the
apparatus of the Academy. The pupils at our nor
mal schools, who are preparing to become teachers,
must maintain themselves; the cadets at the Academy
receive $28 a month, during their entire term, as a
compensation for being educated at the public expense.
Adding bounties and pensions to wages and rations,
I suppose the cost of a common foot-soldier in the
army cannot be less than $250 a year. The average
cost of female teachers for the public schools of Mas-

168 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
sachusetts last year, was only $13.60 a month, inclu
sive of board ; or, at the rate which would give $163.20
for the year ; but the average length of the schools
was but eight months, so that the cost of two com
mon soldiers is nearly that of five female teachers.
The annual salary of a colonel of dragoons in the
United States army is $2,206; of a brigadier-general,
$2,958; of a major-general, $4,512; that of a cap
tain of a ship of the line, when in service, $4,500 ;
and even when off duty, it is $2,500! There are but
seven towns in Massachusetts where any teacher of a
public school receives as high a salary as $1,000 ; and,
in four of these towns, one teacher only receives this
sum." He might have added, that the annual cost of a sin
gle regiment of dragoons in the United States service
is $700,000, more than $30,000 greater than the an
nual cost of the public education of the people of
Massachusetts. There are now in service three such
regiments, costing yearly $2,100,000; a sum greater
than the cost of all the colleges of New England. No
boy can waste his cake and have it too.
" It being proved, if all our children were to be
brought under the benignant influences of such teach
ers as the State can supply, from the age of four years
to that of sixteen, and for ten months in each year,
that ninety-nine in every hundred of them can be res
cued from uncharitableness, from falsehood, from in
temperance, from cupidity, licentiousness, violence,
and fraud, and reared to the performance of all duties,
and to the practice of all the kindnesses and courtesies,
of domestic and social life, — made promoters of the
common weal instead of subtractors from it; — this
being proved, I respectfully and with deference sub-

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 169
mit to the Board, and through them to the Legislature,
and to my fellow-citizens at large, that every man is
poor, in an educational sense, who cannot both spare
and equip his children for school, for the entire period
above specified; and that while he remains thus poor,
it is not only the dictate of generosity and Christian
ity, but it is the wisest policy, and profoundest states
manship, too, to supply from the public treasury —
municipal or State, or both, — whatever means may be
wanted to make certain so glorious an end. These
principles and this practice, the divine doctrines of
Christianity have always pointed at, and a progressive
civilization has now brought us into proximity to them.
How is it, that we can call a man poor because his body
is cold, and not because his highest sympathies and
affections have been frozen up within him, in one polar
and perpetual winter, from his birth. Hunger does
not stint the growth of the body half so much as ig
norance dwarfs the capacities of the mind. No wound
upon the limbs, or gangrene of vital organs, is a
thousandth part so terrible as those maladies of the
soul that jeopard its highest happiness, and defeat the
end for which it was created."
We should not perform our duty did we omit all
mention of the movements recently made in this State
for the improvement of popular education. The con
dition of our public schools in 1836 and for some years
previous, is well known. The State raised annually
less than $400,000 for educational purposes. There
were no public seminaries for teachers; many of the
teachers themselves were incompetent to a degree almost
exceeding belief. Little interest was felt in the public
education of the people, either by the mass of men or
the classes most favored with culture and with wealth

170 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
— the natural guardians of society. A few noble
men, generously feeling for the common good of man
kind, formed the brilliant exception to the general and
melancholy rule. By the efforts of a few men, the
Board of Education was established in 1837. At that
time Horace Mann was President of the Massachusetts
Senate, with a fair prospect of advancing his political
career. He had abundant talents; good men of aU
parties gave him their confidence. He was also a law
yer, with a reputation rapidly increasing, and a pro
fessional income of about $3,000 a year. Some one
was needed to take the office of Secretary of the Board
of Education, and toil for the common good of the
people of Massachusetts. Mr. Mann accepted that
arduous post. He gave up his chance of pohtical
preferment — so dazzling to the greedy aspirant for
noisy fame; gave up his profession, with the certainty
of wealth which it offered. He became Secretary of
the Board of Education, with a pitiful salary of fif
teen hundred dollars a year, and the chance that even
that would be reduced one half by a vote of the legis
lature in a year or two. He knew he must toil far
harder than ever before, and that, too, with the cer
tainty of being abused by each lazy and incompetent
schoolmaster coveting a sleepy supervision of his
work; by every demagogue who could get up the in
sane cry of " expense," and talk of the folly of Mas
sachusetts paying fifteen hundred dollars for a man
to look after the common schools ; yes, by every sec
tarian bigot from Provincetown to Williamstown, who
feared nothing so much as education wide spread
amongst the people. Such was the prospect. Many
thought him a fool for taking the office, and some said
so. But one good man, soaring far above the heads

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 171
of his contemporaries, thanked him for his heroism,
and bade him God speed. That man long since ceased
to be mortal, and needs no praise of ours. A single
guess would solve the mystery, — it was Dr. Channing.
The ends which could so easily have been foreseen
soon came to pass. The penny wisdom of the State
was appealed to by the proud foolishness thereof, and
the talk was of the expense — the great cost of the
Board of Education; fifteen hundred dollars in one
year actually paid to the Secretary ! Truly, the Com
monwealth was in danger. The demagogues, also,
took their turn, attacking the Board and its Secretary,
not with success, but not without effect. Sectarians
were true to their ruthless craft, and raised the old cry
of " Infidelity," and " Church in danger," till the land
rang again. But if the ears of the people tingled at
that cry, we think other ears, also, smarted at the re
tort, and its echo loud and long. " Suspicions, polit
ical and denominational, were excited and widely dif
fused ; " " dark insinuations, imputing sinister and
ulterior designs, were clandestinely circulated, and
they worked longer and more efficiently for working
beneath the surface." Even the schoolmasters, or a
part of them, joined also in the battle, excited we know
not whence or how, and fought with fierceness if not
with science and with skill. Even now we fear the
battle is not over.
The normal schools got established, a single man
thereby doing much for education, that greatest char
ity; much in public, though as green a growth still
marks the unseen windings of that same stream of pri
vate bounty flowing towards the same end.
By means of this movement — by the Board of
Education, by the normal schools, and still more, as

172 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
we think, by the able efforts of the Secretary, matters
are rapidly getting mended; the education of the peo
ple goes forward rapidly, and yet more certainly.
Bigots are losing their influence; demagogues their
power. But it is getting Hght. When the day
dawns wild beasts lie down in their dens, and bats
and owls are not seen nor heard. If we were asked for
the man who in the last ten years has done the greatest
service to his State, we should not hesitate to name the
Secretary of the Board of Education, who will doubt
less blame us for writing of him who hides himself be
hind his work. He has had the reward always given
to such services, — not riches, and not rank, not honor,
— but a crown. Not a crown of gold or of laurel, by
grateful men pressed upon an honored brow, but a
crown of thorns, put there by quite other hands and
for purposes somewhat unlike.
We cannot forbear saying a word on the causes
which impede the public education of the people
amongst us. One is the effect of habit. It has never
been the habit of any State to demand a wide culture
of its citizens, or to use the public wealth for the
public education. Said the present emperor of Aus
tria, a few years ago, to the assembled students of the
University of Vienna, — " Austria wants not so much
accomplished students as obedient subjects." The
money which built Versailles and the Tuileries — what
colleges and common schools might it not have
founded! What sums are squandered by England,
France, Prussia, the United States, on armies, navies,
fortifications, which would easily educate those nations !
True, a cannon speaks with a loud voice, yet a school
master can be heard the furthest. The hundred mil
lion dollars already spent, it is said, in the Mexican

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 173
War, would found one hundred and twenty -five free col
leges, each as costly as Harvard University, — library,
professorships, Scientific School, and all. Yet no
body thinks it very strange that the public book money
and school fund are taken to buy powder and ball!
Even the churches, which certainly have played an
important part in the general education of the human
race, are doing little directly to advance the intel
lectual culture of mankind. They have favored that
by God's providence, not their own design; — uncon
scious ministers of a good they knew not. At this
day, in many instances, the clergy actually retard the
education of the people — counting reason as carnal,
forbidding thought, mocking at science, " now hawk
ing at geology and schism," now justifying ignorance,
pauperism, slavery, war — out of the Bible itself tak
ing pains to establish unity of belief in some miserable
tradition, rather than that independent wisdom which
takes old things if good, and new ones, likewise, if also
true. We wish such men may be found the excep
tions ; — yet we blame not the Church or the State,
doubting not that the leaders of both walk by such
light as they have. We only take their walking as the
index of their Hght.
It has not been the habit of the people to look on
Church and State as two keepers of a dame's school for
mankind, and therefore the nation has not held them
to that work. Yet it is, if thoughtfully looked at,
their highest function. Pope Pius IX. and Louis
PhiHppe are but larger schoolmasters. The people
themselves think little of education; make it consist
of a very few things, a poor use of these three educa
tional tools ; a knowledge of their calling, so as to get
along without many blunders — of a few good rules,

174 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
but not in a generous culture of mind, conscience,
affection, and the religious sentiments.
In every community there is a class caUed educated.
Their knowledge is their power ; " the one-eyed man is
lord among the bhnd." But the educated class even
here have taken far too little pains to educate the
multitude ; have rather laughed at the toiling mass, as
incapable of culture, and often made the matter worse
than they found it. Certainly they are not doing
what Christianity, or even patriotism, demands of
them. With the exception of that small but ambi
dextrous class, hard-headed, hard-bodied, who support
themselves at school and college, every man, rich or
poor, who gets a superior education, is a charity-
scholar of society, for others earned his bread while
he was at school. He owes, therefore, for his school
ing ; the least he can do in payment is to help the edu
cation of all. When such a man sneers at the igno
rance of the public, calling them incapable and
unwashed, it reminds us of a beggar abusing the man
who fed, clad, and gave him a house. The staple
literature of the nations has seldom been written in
the interest of mankind — only of a class. One great
excellence of the New Testament is, that it is written
in the interest of the human race; that is one reason
why it is the book of the people, and will long continue
such; one reason also why, in Catholic countries, it
has been withheld from them. An eloquent writer,
Rev. H. W. Beecher, says, " Men become scholars that
they may become benefactors." " The body of edu
cated men should stand so far above the level of
society as shall give them scope to exert their greatest
attractive force. If privileged at all, it is as the
clouds are privileged to rain in gracious showers that

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 175
they have gathered up; as the sun's satellites are, to
reflect Hght."
Then from our very circumstances there is an exces
sive demand for practical men. It is not merely brain
that is wanted, but brain in the hand. We turn all
things to some immediate and economic use; would
put Homer to lead the singing in some village church ;
set Raphael to paint the faces of silly women and sil
lier men, or, that failing, to daub sign-boards and
make arabesques for cahcoes: Michael Angelo and Da
Vinci we should employ on a railroad, or place them
with the sappers and miners in the army, and put New
ton at the head of some annuity office. High intellect,
accomplished with high culture, goes to the Church,
the forum, or the bar, and finds itself above the
market. Superior ability, therefore, in America, finds
its most fitting sphere in common business, where
superior talent provokes no jealousy while it wins its
gold.2 Such being the case, the general aim in education is
not to get the most and the best, but the least one can
get along with. It is counted the means, not the end,
and is taken as a maid-servant, as help, its demands
granted with a grudge ; not taken as a wife, for itself.
Education is valued, as it helps to make men able to
serve as tools in the great workshop of society. This
man is an agricultural implement; that a tool of the
court-house ; another a piece of ecclesiastical furniture.
The farmer must have a little culture for his special
work on the soil, less for his general work as a man;
the merchant a little more, special and general; the
lawyer, minister, and doctor, a little more yet. But
even in the learned professions it is rare to find men
of large general culture; the special absorbs the gen-

176 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
eral; the whale of the profession swallows down the
prophetic man, and makes away with him for ever.
The title of Doctor of Law, Medicine, and Divinity,
has sometimes seemed to be a misnomer, for which it
would be well to substitute Mechanic at Law, Medicine,
and Divinity. Many professional men seem not edu
cated, but wonted to their profession, as the miU-horse
to his narrow beat, and have scarcely more saliency of
intellect than the beast. How many lawyers and min
isters are there who are only parts of their profession !
You look for a man in the calling of the attorney or
minister, and find only a limb of the law, or a slip of
divinity. We have few scholars ripe and good; each
man gets a taste of education, some a mouthful, but
nobody a meal. Such being the case, then how much
less can we expect a good and general education to be
sought after and won by the laboring mass of man
kind. Yet one fact is encouraging and prophetic:
each man, as a general rule, is better educated than his
father. The reason of this neglect of the higher education
in the educated class, of all but the rudiments in the
humbler class, lies deep. We take mean views of Hfe,
of man and his possibility, thinking the future can
never be made better than the past. We think the end
a man is to live for is this: wealth, fame, social rank.
Genius, wisdom, power of mind, of heart and soul, are
counted only as means to such an end. So in the hot
haste to be rich, famous, respectable, many let man
hood slip through their fingers, retaining only the
riches, fame, and respectability. Never till manliness
is thought the end of man, never till education is valued
for itself, can we have a wide, generous culture, even
among the wealthiest class. Not till then in the mass

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 177
of men shall we find a scheme of education worthy of
the American people and the great ideas given them
to unfold in life. But day teaches day, and experi
ence offers wisdom if she does not give it.

IX— 12

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN
That our daughters may be as cornerstones. — Psalm cxliv. 12.
The domestic function of woman, as a housekeeper,
wife, and mother, does not exhaust her powers. Wom
an's function, like charity, begins at home ; then, like
charity, goes everywhere. To make one-half of the
human race consume all their energies in the functions
of housekeeper, wife, and mother, is a waste of the
most precious material that God ever made.
I. In the present constitution of society there are
some unmarried women to whom the domestic function
is little, or is nothing ; women who are not mothers, not
wives, not housekeepers. I mean those who are per
manently unmarried. It is a great defect in the Chris
tian civilization, that so many women and men are
never married. There may be three women in a thou
sand to whom marriage would be disagreeable under
any possible circumstances ; perhaps thirty more to
whom it would be disagreeable under the actual cir
cumstances — in the present condition of the family
and the community. But there is a large number of
women who continue unmarried for no reason in their
nature, from no conscious dislike of the present domes
tic and social condition of mankind, and from no dis
inclination to marriage under existing circumstances.
This is a deplorable evil, alike a misfortune to man
and to woman. The Catholic Church has elevated
celibacy to the rank of a theological virtue, consecrat
ing an unnatural evil: on a small scale the results
178

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 179
thereof are writ in the obscene faces of many a priest,
false to his human nature, while faithful to his priestly
vow ; and on a large scale in the vice, the infamy, and
degradation of woman in almost all Catholic lands.
The classic civilization of Greece and Rome had the
same vice with the Christian civilization. Other forms
of rehgion have sought to get rid of this evil by
polygamy, and thereby they degraded woman still fur
ther. The Mormons are repeating the same experi
ment, based not on philanthropy, but on tyranny, and
are thereby still further debasing woman under their
feet. In classic and in Christian civilization alone has
there been a large class of women permanently unmar
ried — not united or even subordinated to man in the
normal marriage of one to one, or in the abnormal
conjunction of one to many. This class of unmarried
women is increasing in all Christian countries, espe-
ciaUy in those that are old and rich.
Practically speaking, to this class of women the
domestic function is very little ; to some of them it is
nothing at all. I do not think that this condition is to
last — marriage is writ in the soul of man, as in his
body — but it indicates a transition, it is a step for
ward. Womankind is advancing from that period
when every woman was a slave, and marriage of some
sort was guaranteed to every woman, because she was
dependent on man ; woman is advancing from that to a
state of independence, where she shall not be subor
dinated to him, but the two co-ordinated together.
The evil is transient in its nature, and God grant it may
soon pass away.
II. That is not all. For the housekeeper, the wife,
and the mother, the domestic is not the only function
— it is not function enough for the mother, for the

180 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
human being, more than it would be function enough
for the father, for the man. After women have done
all which pertains to housekeeping as a trade, to house
keeping as one of' the fine arts, in their relation as
wife and mother — after they have done aU for the
order of the house, for the order of the husband, and
the order of the children — they have still energies to
spare, a reserved power for yet other work.
There are three classes of women: —
First, domestic drudges, who are wholly taken up in
the material details of their housekeeping, husband-
keeping, child-keeping. Their housekeeping is a
trade, and no more; and after they have done that,
there is no more which they can do. In New England
it is a small class, getting less every year.
Next, there are domestic dolls, wholly taken up with
the vain show which delights the eye and the ear. They
are ornaments of the estate. Similar toys, I suppose,
will one day be more chiefly manufactured at Paris
and Nuremberg, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and other
toy-shops of Europe, out of wax and papier-mache,
and sold in Boston at the haberdasher's by the dozen.
These ask nothing beyond their function as dolls, and
hate all attempts to elevate womankind.
But there are domestic women who order a house,
and are not mere drudges, adorn it, and are not mere
dolls, but women. Some of these — yes, many of
them — conjoin the useful of the drudge and the beau
tiful of the doll into one womanhood, and have a great
deal left besides. They are not wholly taken up with
their function as housekeeper, wife, mother.
In the progress of mankind, and the application of
masculine science to what was once only feminine work
— whereby so much time is saved from the wheel and

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 181
the loom, the oven and the spit — with the consequent
increase of riches, the saving of time, and the intel
lectual education which comes in consequence thereof,
this class of women is continually enlarging. With us
in New England, in all the North, it is already a large
class. Well, what shall these domestic women do with their
spare energies and superfluous power? Once a mali
cious proverb said, " The shoemaker must not go be
yond his last." Every shoemaker looks on that prov
erb with appropriate contempt. He is a shoemaker;
but he was a man first, a shoemaker next. Shoemak
ing is an accident of his manhood, not manhood an
accident of his shoemaking. You know what haughty
scorn the writer of the apocryphal book of Eccle-
siasticus pours out on every farmer, " who glorieth in
the goad,"" every carpenter and blacksmith,, every
jeweller and potter. " They shall not be sought for,"
says this aristocrat, " in the public councils ; they shall
not sit high in the congregation; they shall not sit in
the judges' seat, nor understand the sentence of judg
ment; they cannot declare justice." Aristotle and
Cicero thought no better of the merchants: they were
only busy in trading. Miserable people! quoth these
great men, what have they to do with the affairs of
State — merchants, mechanics, farmers? It is only
for kings, nobles, and famous rich men, who do no
business, but keep slaves ! StiU, a great many men at
this day have just the same esteem for women that
those haughty persons of whom I have spoken had
for mechanics and for merchants. Many sour prov
erbs there are which look the same way. But, just
now, such is the intellectual education of women of the
richer class in all our large towns, that these sour

182 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
proverbs will not go down so well as of old. Even in
Boston, spite of the attempts of the city government
to prevent the higher public education of women —
diligently persisted in for many years — the young
women of wealthy families get a better education than
the young men of wealthy famihes do; and that fact
is going to report itself presently. The best-educated
young men are commonly poor men's sons; but the
best-educated young women are quite uniformly rich
men's daughters.
A well-educated young woman, fond of Goethe, and
Dante, and Shakspeare, and Cervantes, marrying an
iU-educated young man, who cares for nothing but his
horse, his cigar, and his bottle — who only knows how
to sleep after dinner, a " great heap of husband,"
curled up on the sofa, and in the evening can only
laugh at a play, and not understand the Italian words
of the opera, which his wife knows by heart — she, I
say, marrying him, will not accept the idea that he is
her natural lord and master ; she cannot look up to him,
but rather down. The domestic function does not
consume all her time or talent. She knows how to
perform much of her household work as a manufacturer
weaves cotton, or spins hemp, or forges iron — with
other machinery, by other hands. She is the house
keeping head; and after she has kept house as wife
and as mother, and has done all, she has still energies
to spare.
That is a large class of women: it is a great deal
larger than men commonly suppose. It is contin
ually enlarging, and you see why. When all manu
factures were domestic, when every garment was made
at home, every web woven at home, every thread spun
at home, every fleece dyed at home ; when the husband

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 183
provided the wool or the sheepskin, and the wife made
it a coat; when the husband brought home a sack of
corn on a mule's back, and the wife pounded it in a
mortar, or ground it between two stones, as in the
Old Testament — then the domestic function might
well consume all the time of a very able-headed woman.
But nowadays, when so much work is done abroad;
when the flour-mills of Rochester and Boston take the
place of the pestle and mortar and the hand-mill of the
Old Testament; when Lowell and Lawrence are two
enormous Old Testament women, spinning and weav
ing year out and year' in, day and night both;
when so much of woman's work is done by the
butcher and the baker, by the tailor, and the cook,
and the gas-maker, and she is no longer obliged to dip
or mold with her own hands every candle that "goeth
not out by night," as in the Old Testament woman's
housekeeping — you see how very much of woman's
time is left for other functions. This will become yet
oftener the case. Ere long much lofty science will be
applied to housekeeping, and work be done by other
than human hands, in the house, as out of it. And
accordingly, you see that the class of women not
wholly, taken up by the domestic function will get
larger and larger.
III. Then there is a third class of women, who have
no taste and no talent for the domestic function. Per
haps these are exceptional women; some of them ex
ceptional by redundance — they have talents not
needed in this function ; others are exceptional by de
fect — with only a common talent, they have none for
housekeeping. It is as cruel a lot to set these persons
to such work, as it would be to take a born sailor and
make him a farmer ; or to take a man who is born to

184 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
drive oxen, delights to give the kine fodder, and has a
genius for it, and shut him up in the forecastle of a
ship. Who would think of making Jenny Lind noth
ing but a housekeeper? or of devoting Madame de
Stael, or Miss Dix, or a dozen other women that any
man can name, wholly to that function?
IV. Then there is another class of women — those
who are not married yet, but are to be married. They,
likewise, have spare time on their hands which they
know not what to do with. Women of this latter class
have sometimes asked me what there was for them to
do. I could not tell.
All these four put together make up a large class of
women, who need some other function beside the do
mestic. What shall it be? In the Middle Ages, when
the Catholic Church held its iron hand over the world,
these women went into the Church. The permanently
unmarried, getting dissatisfied, became nuns, often
calling that a virtue which was only a necessity;
making a religious principle out of an involun
tary measure. Others voluntarily went thither. The
attempt is making anew in England, by some of the
most pious people, to revive the scheme. It failed a
thousand years ago, and the experiment brought a
curse on man. It will always fail; and it ought to
fail. Human nature cries out against it.
Let us look, and see what women may do here.
First, there are intellectual pursuits — devotion to
science, art, literature, and the like.
In the first place, that is not popular. Learned
women are met with ridicule; they are bid to mend
their husbands' garments, or their own; they are
treated with scorn. Foolish young man number one,
in a liquor shop, of a morning, knocks off the ashes

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 185
from the end of his cigar, and says to foolish young
man number two, who is taking soda to wash off the
effect of last night's debauch, or preparing for a
similar necessity to-morrow morning — in the pres
ence of foohsh young man number three, four, five, six,
and so on indefinitely — " I do not like learned young
women: they puzzle me." So they do; puzzle him
very much. I once heard a silly young man, full of
self-conceit and his father's claret, say " I had rather
have a young woman ask me to waltz, than to explain
an allusion in Dante." Very likely: he had studied
waltzing, and not Dante. And his mother, full of
conceit and her own hyson, said, " I perfectly agree
with you. My father said that women had nothing
to do with learning." Accordingly, he gave her
none, and that explained the counsel.
Then, too, foolish men no longer young say the
same thing, and seek to bring down their wives and
daughters to their own poor mediocrity of wit and in
feriority of culture.
I say this intellectual calling is not popular. I am
sorry it is not; but even if it were, it is not wholly
satisfactory — it suits but a few. In the present
stage of human development there are not many men
who are satisfied with merely intellectual calling; they
want something practical, as well as speculative.
There are a thousand practical shoemakers to every
speculative botanist. It will be so for many years to
come. There are ten thousand carpenters to a single
poet or philosopher, who dignifies his nature with song
or with science. See how dissatisfied our most eminent
inteUectual men become with science and literature.
A professor of Greek is sorry he was not a surveyor
or engineer; the president of a college longs to be a

186 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
member of Congress; the most accomphshed scholars,
historians, romancers, they wish to be coUectors at
Boston, consuls at Liverpool, and the like, longing
for some practical calling, where they can make their
thought a thing. Of the intellectual men whom I
know, I can count on the fingers of a single hand all
that are satisfied with pure science, pure art, pure
literature. Woman, like man, wants to make her thought a
thing; at least, wants things to work her pattern of
thought upon. Still, as the world grows older, and
wiser, and better, more persons will find an abiding
satisfaction in these lofty pursuits. I am rejoiced to
see woman thus attracted thitherward. Some women
there are already who find an abiding satisfaction in
literature: it fills up their leisure. I rejoice that it
is so.
Then there are, next, the various philanthropies of
the age. In these the spare energies of woman have
always found a congenial sphere. It is amazing to
see how woman's charity, which " never faileth," pal
liates the injustice of man, which never has failed yet.
Men fight battles: women heal the wounds of the
sick : — "Forgot are hatred, wrongs and fears:
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man" —
and does not ask if foe or friend. Messrs. Pinchem
and Peelem organize an establishment, wherein the
sweat and tears and blood of the poor turn the wheels ;
every pivot and every shaft rolls on quivering human
flesh. The wealthy capitalists —
"Half-ignorant — they turn an easy wheel,
Which sets sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel."

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 187
The wives and daughters of the wealthy house go out
to " undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed
go free ; " to heal the sick and teach the ignorant,
whom their fathers, their husbands, their lovers, have
made sick, oppressed and ignorant. Ask Manchester,
in Old England and in New, if this is not so; ask
London, ask Boston.
The moral, affectional, and rehgious feelings of
woman fit her for this work. Her patience, her gen
tleness, her power to conciliate, her sympathy with
man, her trust in God, beautifully prepare her for
this; and accordingly, she comes in the face of what
man calls justice as an angel of mercy — before his
hate as an angel of love — between his victim and
his selfishness with the self-denial of Paul and the self-
sacrifice of Jesus. Look at any tillage in New Eng
land and in Old England, at the Sacs and Foxes, at
the Hottentots and the Esquimaux, it is the same
thing: it is so in all ages, in all climes, in all stages
of civilization; in all ranks of society, the highest
and the lowest; in all forms of religion, all sects of
Christianity. It has been so, from Dorcas, in the
Acts of the Apostles, who made coats and garments
for the poor, down to Miss Dix, in our day, who
visits jails and houses of correction, and coaxes Pres
ident Fillmore to let Captain Drayton out of jail,
where he was placed for the noblest act of his life.
But these philanthropies are not enough for the
employment of women; and if all the spare energies
of womankind were set to this work — to palliate the
consequences of man's injustice — it would not be ex
actly the work which woman wants. There are some
women who take no special interest in this. For
woman is not all philanthropy, though very much:

188 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
she has other faculties which want to be developed
besides the heart to feel. Still more, that is not the
only thing which mankind wants of woman. We
need the justice which removes causes, as well as the
charity that palliates effects ; and woman, < standing
continually between the victim and the saber which
would cleave him through, is not performing her only
function, not her most important: high as that is, it
is not her highest. If the feminine swallow drives
away the flies from a poor fox struggling for life,
another set of flies light upon him, and suck every re
maining drop of blood out of his veins, as in the old
fable. Besides, if the fox finds that a womanly swal
low comes to drive off the flies, he depends on her
wing and not on his own brush, and becomes less of a
fox. If a miser, or any base man, sees that a woman
constantly picks up the man whom he knocks down
with the left hand of usury, or the right hand of
rum, he will go on with his extortion or his grog,
because, he says, " I should have done the man harm,
but a woman picked him up, and money comes to my
pocket, and no harm to the man ! " The evils of
society would become worse and worse, just as they
are increased by indiscriminate almsgiving. That is
not enough.
Then there are various practical works left by
common consent to woman.
First, there is domestic service — woman working
as an appendage to some household; a hired hand, or
a hired head, to help the housekeeper.
Then there is mechanical labor in a factory or a
shop — spinning, weaving, setting type, binding
books, making shoes, coloring maps, and a hundred
other things.

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 189
Next, there is trade in a small way, from the bas
ket-woman, with her apples at every street corner, up
to the confectioner and haberdasher, with their well
filled shops. In a few retail shops, which venture to
brave popular opinion, woman is employed at the
counter. As a fourth thing, there is the business of public
and private teaching in various departments.
All these are well; they are unavoidable, they are
absolutely necessary; they furnish employment to
many women, and are a blessed resource.
I rejoice that the field work of the farmer is not
done by woman's hand in the free portions of America.
It imbrutes women in Ireland, in France, and in Spain.
I am glad that the complicated machinery of life fur
nishes so much more work for the light and delicate
hand of woman. But I confess I mourn that where
her work is as profitable as man's, her pay is not half
so much. A woman who should teach a public school
well would be paid four or six dollars a week; while
a man who should teach no better would be paid two,
three, four, or six times that sum. It is so in all de
partments of woman's work that I am acquainted with.
These employments are very well, but still they are
not enough.
Rich women do not engage in these callings. For
rich women there is no profession left except marriage.
After Tschool time, woman has nothing to do till she is
married: I mean almost nothing; nothing that is ade
quate. Accordingly she must choose betwixt a husband
and nothing, and sometimes that is choosing between
two nothings. There are spare energies which seek
employment before marriage and after marriage.
These callings are not all that the race of woman

190 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
needs and requires. She and man have the same hu
man nature, and, of course, the same natural human
rights. Woman's natural right for its rightfulness
does not depend on the bodily or mental power to as
sert and to maintain it, on the great arm or the great
head; it depends only on human nature itself, which
God made the same in the frailest woman as in the
biggest giant.
If woman is a human being, first, she has the nature
of a human being ; next, she has the right of a human
being ; third, she has the duty of a human being. The
nature is the capacity to possess, to use, to develop,
and to enjoy every human faculty; the right is the
right to enj oy, develop, and use every human faculty ;
and the duty is to make use of the right, and make
her human nature human history. She is here to de
velop her human nature, enjoy her human rights, per
form her human duty. Womankind is to do this for
herself, as much as mankind for himself. A woman
has the same human nature that a man has, the same
human rights — to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness — the same human duties ; and they are as
inalienable in a woman as in a man.
Each man has the natural right to the normal devel
opment of his nature, so far as it is general human,
neither man nor woman, but human. Each woman has
the natural right to the normal development of her
nature, so far as it is general human, neither woman
nor man. But each man has also a natural and in
alienable right to the normal development of his pecul
iar nature as man, where he differs from woman.
Each woman has just the same natural and inalien
able right to the normal development of her peculiar
nature as woman, and not man. All that is unde
niable.

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 191
Now see what follows. Woman has the same in
dividual right to determine her aim in life, and to fol
low it; has the same individual rights of body and of
spirit, of mind and conscience, and heart and soul ; the
same physical rights, the same intellectual, moral, af
fectional, and religious rights which man has. That
is true of womankind as a whole: it is true of Jane,
EUen, and Sally, and each special woman who can be
named. Every person, man or woman, is an integer, an in
dividual, a whole person, and also a portion of the
race, and so a fraction of humankind. The rights of
individualism are not to be possessed, developed, used,
and enjoyed by a Hfe in solitude, but by joint action.
Accordingly, to complete and perfect the individual
man or woman, and give each an opportunity to pos
sess, use, develop, and enjoy these rights, there must
be concerted and joint action: else individuality is
only a possibility, not a reality. So the individual
rights of woman carry with them the same domestic,
social, ecclesiastical, and pohtical rights as those of
man. The family, community, Church, and State, are
four modes of action which have grown out of human
nature in its historical development. They are all
necessary for the development of mankind — machines
which the human race has devised, in order to possess,
use, develop, and enjoy their rights as human beings,
their rights also as men.
These are just as necessary for the development of
woman as of man; and as she has the same nature,
right, and duty as man, it follows that she has the
same right to use, shape, and control these four in
stitutions for her general human purpose and for her

SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCLETY
special feminine purpose, that man has to control them
for his general human purpose and his special mascu
line purpose. All that is as undeniable as anything
in metaphysics or mathematics.
So, then, woman has the same natural rights as man.
In domestic affairs she is to determine her own sphere
as much as man, and say where her function is to
begin, when it shall begin, with whom it shaU begin;
where it shall end, when it shall end, and what it shaU
comprise. Then she has the same right to freedom of industry
that man has. I do not believe that the hard callings
of life will ever suit woman. It is not Httle boys who
go out as lumberers, but great men, with sinewy,
brawny arms. I doubt that laborious callings, like
navigation, engineering, lumbering, and the like, will
ever be agreeable to woman. Her feminine body and
feminine spirit naturally turn away from such occupa
tions. I have seen women gathering the filth of the
streets in Liverpool, sawing stone in a mason's yard
in Paris, carrying earth in baskets on their heads for
a railway embankment at Naples; but they were ob
viously out of place, and only consented to this
drudgery when driven by Poverty's iron whip. But
there are many employments in the departments of me
chanical work, of trade, little and extended, where
woman could go, and properly go. Some women have
a good deal of talent for trade — this in a small way,
that on the largest scale. Why should not they ex
ercise their commercial talents in competition with
man? It is right for woman to be a domestic manu
facturer in the family of Solomon or Priam, and of
every thrifty husband, and wrong for her to be a
pubhc manufacturer on her own account? She might

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 193
spin when the motive power was a wheel-pin of wood
in her hand: may she not use the Merrimac and the
Connecticut for her wheel-pin? or must she be only
the manufacturing servant of man, never her own
master? Much of the business of education already falls to
the hands of woman. In the last twenty years there
has been a great progress in the education of women
in Massachusetts, in all New England. The high
schools for girls — and, still better, those for girls
and boys — have been of great service. Almost all
the large towns of this Commonwealth have honored
themselves with these blessed institutions. In Boston
only the daughters of the rich can possess such an
education as hundreds of noble girls long to acquire.
With this enhancement of culture, women have been
continuaUy rising higher and higher as teachers. The
State normal schools have helped in this movement.
It used to be thought that only an able-bodied man
could manage the large boys of a country or a city
school. Even he was sometimes thrust out at the door
or the window of " his noisy mansion " by his rough
pupils. An able-headed woman has commonly suc
ceeded better than men merely able-bodied. She has
tried conciHation rather than violence, and appealed
to something a little deeper than aught which force
could never touchi The women-teachers are now
doing an important work for the elevation of their
race and all humankind. But it is commonly thought
woman must not engage in the higher departments
thereof. I once knew a woman, wife, and mother,
and housekeeper, who taught the severest disciplines
of our highest college, and instructed young men
while she rocked the cradle with her foot, and mended
IX— 13

194 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
garments with her hands — one of the most accom
plished scholars of New England.1 Not long ago
the daughter of a poor widowed seamstress was seen
reading the Koran in Arabic.2 There was but one
man in the town who could do the same, and he was
a " learned blacksmith." Another young woman,3 also
a mechanic's daughter, in a town adjoining this, the
New England Ariadne, has threaded all the intricate
windings of that mathematical labyrinth, Laplace's
"Mecanique Celeste," for which few men have ever
had the lengthy clue! The most accomplished phi
lologist of Boston had also a feminine name.4 The
God of poetry likewise has bequeathed his most golden
lyre to a woman's hand. Women not able to teach
in these things! He must be rather a confident pro
fessor who thinks a woman cannot do what he can. I
rejoice at the introduction of women into common
schools, academies, and high schools ; and I thank God
that the man who has done so much for public educa
tion in Massachusetts is presently to be the head of
a college in Ohio, where women and men are to study
together, and where a woman is to be professor of
Latin and Natural History. These are good signs.
The business of public lecturing, also, is quite im
portant in New England, and I am glad to see that
woman presses into that, not without success.
The work of conducting a journal, daily, weekly, or
quarterly, woman proves that she can attend to quite
as decently, and as strongly too, as most men.
Then there are what are caUed the professions —
medicine, law, and theology.
The profession of medicine seems to belong pecul
iarly to woman by nature ; part of it exclusively. She
is a nurse, and half a doctor, by nature. It is quite

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 195
encouraging that medical schools are beginning to
instruct women, and special schools get founded for
the use of women; that sagacious men are beginning
to employ women as their physicians. Great good is
to be expected from that.
As yet, I believe, no woman acts as a lawyer. But
I see no reason why the profession of law might not
be followed by women as by men. He must be rather
an uncommon lawyer who thinks no feminine head
could compete with him. Most lawyers that I have
known are rather mechanics at law than attorneys or
scholars at law; and in the mechanical part woman
could do as well as man — ¦ could be as good a con
veyancer, could follow precedents as carefully, and
copy forms as nicely. And in the higher departments
of legal work, they who have read the plea which
Lady Alice Lisle made in England, when she could
not speak by attorney, must remember there is some
eloquence in" woman's tongue which courts find it
rather hard to resist. I think her presence would
mend the manners of the court — of the bench not
less than of the bar.
In the business of theology, I could never see why
a woman, if she wished, should not preach as weU as
men. It would be hard, in the present condition of
the pulpit, to say she had not intellect enough for
that! I am glad to find, now and then, women
preachers, and rejoice at their success. A year ago
I introduced to you the Reverend Miss Brown, edu
cated at an orthodox theological seminary: you
smiled at the name of Reverend Miss. She has since
been invited to settle by several congregations of un
blemished orthodoxy, and has passed on, looking fur
ther.

196 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
It seems to me that woman, by her peculiar con
stitution, is better qualified to teach religion than any
merely intellectual discipline. The Quakers have al
ways recognized the natural right of woman to per
form the same ecclesiastical function as man. At this
day the most distinguished preacher 5 of that denomina
tion is a woman, who adorns her domestic calling as
housekeeper, wife, and mother, with the same womanly
dignity and sweetness which marks her pubhc deport
ment. If woman had been consulted, it seems to me the
ology would have been in a vastly better state than it
is now. I do not think that any woman would ever
have preached the damnation of babies new-born; and
" hell, paved with the skulls of infants not a span
long," would be a region yet to be discovered in
theology. A celibate monk — with God's curse writ
on his face, which knew no child, no wife, no sister,
and " blushed that he had a mother " — might weU
dream of such a thing: he had been through the pre
liminary studies. Consider the ghastly attributes
which are commonly put upon God in the popular the
ology ; the idea of infinite wrath, of eternal damnation,
and total depravity, and aU that — why, you could
not get a woman who had inteUect enough to open
her mouth to preach these things anywhere. Women
think they think that they believe them, but they do not.
Celibate priests, who never knew marriage, or what pa
ternity was, who thought woman was " a pollution,"
they invented these ghastly doctrines ; and when I have
heard the Athanasian Creed and the Dies Irae chanted
by monks with the necks of bulls and the lips of don
keys, why I have understood where the doctrine came
from, and have felt the appropriateness of their bray-

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 197
ing out the damnation hymns : woman could not do it.
He shut her out of the choir, out of the priest's house,
out of the pulpit ; and then the priest, with unnatural
vows, came in, and taught these " doctrines of devils."
Could you find a woman who would read to a congre
gation, as words of truth, Jonathan Edwards's Ser
mons on a Future State — " Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God," " The Justice of God in the Damna
tion of Sinners," "Wrath upon the Wicked to the
Uttermost," " The Future Punishment of the Wicked,"
and other things of that sort? Nay, can you find a
worthy woman, of any considerable culture, who will
read the fourteenth chapter of Numbers, and declare
that a true picture of the God she worships? Only
a she-dragon could do it in our day.
The popular theology leaves us nothing feminine in
the character of God. How could it be otherwise
when so much of the popular theology is the work
of men who thought woman was a " pollution," and
barred her out of aU the high places of the Church?
If women had had their place in ecclesiastical teach
ing, I doubt that the " Athanasian Creed " would ever
have been thought a " symbol " of Christianity. The
picture and hymns which describe the last judgment
are a protest against the exclusion of woman from
teaching in the Church. " I suffer not a woman to
teach, but to be in silence," said a writer in the New
Testament. The sentence has brought manifold evil
in its train.
So much for the employments of women.
By nature woman has the same political rights that
man has — to vote, to hold office, to make and admin
ister laws. These she has as a matter of right. The
strong hand and the great head of man keep her

198 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
down, nothing more. In America, in Christendom,
woman has no political rights, is not a citizen in fuU;
she has no voice in making or administering the laws,
none in electing the rulers or administrators thereof.
She can hold no office — cannot be committee of a
primary school, overseer of the poor, or guardian to a
public lamp-post. But any man, with conscience
enough to keep out of jail, mind enough to escape
the poor-house, and body enough to drop his ballot
into the box, he is a voter. He may have no char
acter, even no money, that is no matter — he is male.
The noblest woman has no voice in the State. Men
make laws disposing of her property, her person, her
children ; still she must bear it " with a patient shrug."
Looking at it as a matter of pure right and pure
science, I know no reason why woman should not be
a voter, or hold office, or make and administer laws.
I do not see how I can shut myself into political priv
ileges and shut woman out, and do both in the name
of inalienable right. Certainly, every woman has a
natural right to have her property represented in the
general representation of property, and her person
represented in the general representations of persons.
Looking at it as a matter of expediency, see some
facts. Suppose woman had a share in the munic
ipal regulation of Boston, and there were as many
Alderwomen as Aldermen, as many Common Council-
women as Common Councilmen — do you beheve that,
in defiance of the law of Massachusetts, the City Gov
ernment, last spring, would have licensed every two
hundred and forty-fourth person of the city to sell
intoxicating drink ? — would have made every thirty-
fifth voter a rum-seller? I do not.
Do you believe the women of Boston would spend

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 199
ten thousand dollars in one year in a city frolic, or
spend two or three thousand every year, on the Fourth
of July, for sky-rockets and fire-crackers; would
spend four or five thousand dollars to get their Cana
dian guests drunk in Boston harbor, and then pretend
that Boston had not money enough to establish a
high school for girls, to teach the daughters of me
chanics and grocers to read French and Latin, and to
understand that higher things which rich men's sons
are driven to at coUege? I do not.
Do you believe that the women of Boston, in 1851,
would have spent three or four thousand dollars to
kidnap a poor man, and have taken all the chains which
belonged to the city, and put them round the court
house, and have drilled three hundred men, armed with
bludgeons and cutlasses, to steal a man and carry him
back to slavery? I do not. Do you think, if the
women had had the control, " fifteen hundred men of
property and standing " would have volunteered to
take a poor man, kidnapped in Boston, and conduct
him out of the State with fire and sword? I believe
no such thing.
Do you think the women of Boston would take
the poorest and most unfortunate children in the town,
put them altogether into one school, making that the
most miserable in the city, where they had not, and
could not have half the advantages of the other chil
dren in different schools, and all that because the un
fortunates were dark colored? Do you think the
women of Boston would shut a bright boy out of the
High School or Latin School because he was black in
the face?
Women are said to be cowardly. When Thomas
Sims, out of his dungeon, sent to the churches his pe-

200 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
tition for their prayers, had women been " the Chris
tian clergy," do you beheve they would not have dared
to pray?
If women had a voice in the affairs of Massachu
setts, do you think they would ever have made laws
so that a lazy husband could devour all the substance
of his active wife, spite of her wish ; so that a drunken
husband could command her bodily presence in his
loathly house ; and when an infamous man was divorced
from his wife, that he could keep aU the children? I
confess I do not.
If the affairs of the nation had been under woman's
joint control, I doubt that we should have butchered
the Indians with such exterminating savagery, that, in
fifty years, we should have spent seven hundred million
dollars for war, and now, in time of peace, send twenty
annual millions more to the same waste. I doubt that
we should have spread slavery into nine new States,
and made it national. I think the Fugitive Slave BiU
would never have been an Act. Woman has some re
spect for the natural law of God.
I know men say woman cannot manage the great
affairs of a nation. Very well. Government is po
litical economy — national housekeeping. Does any
respectable woman keep house so badly as the United
States? with so much bribery, so much corruption, so
much quarrelling in the domestic councils?
But government is also political morality, it is na
tional ethics. Is there any worthy woman who rules
her household as wickedly as the nations are ruled?
who hires bullies to fight for her? Is there any woman
who treats one-eighth part of her household as if they
were cattle and not creatures of God — as if they were
things and not persons? I know of none such. In

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 201
government, as housekeeping, or government, as
morality, I think man makes a very poor appearance,
when he says woman could not do as well as he has
done and is doing.
I doubt that women will ever, as a general thing,
take the same interest as men in political affairs, or
find therein an abiding satisfaction. But that is for +
women themselves to determine, not for men.
In order to attain the end — the development of
man in body and spirit — human institutions must
represent aU parts of human nature, both the mascu
line and the feminine element. For the well-being of
the human race, we need the joint action of man and
woman in the family, the community, the Church, and
the State. A family without the presence of woman
— - with no mother, no wife, no sister, no womankind —
is a sad thing. I think a community without woman's
equal social action, a Church without her equal ecclesi
astical action, and a State without her equal political
action, is almost as bad — is very much what a house
would be without a mother, wife, sister, or friend.
You see what prevails in the Christian civilization
of the nineteenth century : it is force — force of body,
force of brain. There is little justice, little philan
thropy, little piety. Selfishness preponderates every
where in Christendom — individual, domestic, social,
ecclesiastical, national selfishness. It is preached as
gospel and enacted as law. It is thought good polit-%
ical conduct for a strong people to devour the weak na
tions — for " Christian " England and America to
plunder the " heathen," and annex their land ; for a
strong class to oppress and ruin the feeble class; for
the capitalists of England to pauperize the poor white
laborer; for the capitalists of America to enslave the

202 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
poorer black laborer ; for a strong man to oppress the
weak man; for the sharper to buy labor too cheap,
and sell its product too dear, and so grow rich by mak
ing many poor. Hence nation is arrayed against
nation, class against class, man against man. Nay,
it is commonly taught that mankind is arrayed against
God, and God against man; that the world is a uni
versal discord ; that there is no solidarity of man with
man, of man with God. I fear we shall never get far
beyond this theory and this practice, until woman
has her natural rights as the equal of man, and takes
her natural place in regulating the affairs of the
family, the community, the Church, and the State.
It seems to me God has treasured up a reserved
power in the nature of woman to correct many of those
evils which are Christendom's disgrace to-day.
Circumstances help or hinder our development, and
are one of the two forces which determine the actual
character of a nation, or of mankind, at any special
period. Hitherto, amongst men, circumstances have
favored the development of only intellectual power
in all its forms, chiefly in its lower forms. At present,
mankind, as a whole, has the superiority over woman
kind, as a whole, in all that pertains to intellect, the
higher and the lower. Man has knowledge, has ideas,
has administrative skill; enacts the rules of conduct
for the individual, the family, the community, the
Church, the State, and the world. He applies these
rules of conduct to life, and so controls the great af
fairs of the human race. You see what a world he has
made of it. There is male vigor in this civilization,
miscalled " Christian " ; and in its leading nations
there are industry and enterprise which never fail.
There is science, Hterature, legislation, agriculture,

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 203
manufactures, mining, commerce, such as the world
never saw. With the vigor of war, the Anglo-Saxon
now works the works of peace. England abounds in
wealth — richest of lands; but look at her poor, her
vast army of paupers, two million strong, the Irish
whom she drives with the hand of famine across the
sea. Martin Luther was right when he said, " The
richer the nation, the poorer the poor." America is
" democratic," " the freest and most enlightened peo
ple in the world." Look at her slaves: every eighth
woman in the country sold as a beast; with no more
legal respect paid to her marriage than the farmer
pays to the conjunctions of his swine. America is
well educated; there are four millions of children in
the school-houses of the land: it is a State's prison
offense to teach a slave- to read the three letters which
speU God. The more " democratic " the country, the
tighter is bondage ironed on the slave. Look at the
cities of England and America. What riches, what
refinement, what culture of man and woman too ! Ay ;
but what poverty, what ignorance, what beastliness of
man and woman too ! The Christian civilization of
the nineteenth century is well summed up in London
and New York — the two foci of the Anglo-Saxon
tribe, which control the shape of the world's com
mercial ellipse. Look at the riches and the misery;
at the " religious enterprise " and the heathen dark
ness ; at the virtue, the decorum, and the beauty of
woman well born and well bred, and at the wild sea
of prostitution, which swells and breaks and dashes
against the bulwarks of society; every ripple was a
woman once!
O, brother men, who make these things, is this a
pleasant sight? Does your literature complain of it,

204 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
of the waste of human life, the slaughter of human
souls, the butchery of women? British literature be
gins to wail in " Nicholas Nickleby," and " Jane
Eyre," and " Mary Barton," and " Alton Locke," in
many a " Song of the Shirt ; " but the respectable
literature of America is deaf as a cent to the outcry
of humanity expiring in agonies. It is busy with
California, or the Presidency, or extolling iniquity in
high places, or flattering the vulgar vanity which buys
its dross for gold. It cannot even imitate the phil
anthropy of English letters : it is " up " for California
and a market. Does not the Church speak? the Eng
lish Church, with its millions of money, the American,
with its millions of men, both want to bay the moon
of foreign heathenism. The Church is a dumb dog,
that cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to
slumber. It is a Church without woman, believing in
a male and jealous God, and rejoicing in a boundless,
endless hell!
Hitherto, with woman, circumstances have hindered
the development of intellectual power in all its forms.
She has not knowledge, has not ideas or practical skiU
to equal the force of man. But circumstances have
favored the development of pure and lofty emotion
in advance of man. She has moral feeling, affectional
feeling, religious feeling, far in advance of man; her
moral, affectional and religious intuitions are deeper
and more trustworthy than his. Here she is eminent,
as he is in knowledge, in ideas, in administrative skill.
I think man will always lead in affairs of intellect —
of reason, imagination, understanding — he has the
bigger brain ; but that woman will always lead in af
fairs of emotion — moral, affectional, religious; she
has the better heart, the truer intuition of the rightr

THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN 205
the lovely, the holy. The literature of women in this
century is juster, more philanthropic, more religious
than that of men. Do you not hear the cry which,
in New England, a woman is raising in the world's ears
against the foul wrong which America is working in
the world? Do you not hear the echo of that woman's
voice come over the Atlantic, returned from European
shores in many tongues, French, German, Italian,
Swedish, Danish, Russian, Dutch? How a woman
touches the world's heart! because she speaks justice,
speaks piety, speaks love. What voice is strongest
raised in continental Europe, pleading for the op
pressed and down-trodden? That also is a woman's
voice !
WeU, we want the excellence of man and woman
both united; intellectual power, knowledge, great
ideas — in Hterature, philosophy, theology, ethics — ¦
and practical skill; but we want something better, the
moral, affectional, religious intuition, to put justice
into ethics, love into theology, piety into science and
letters. Everywhere in the family, the community,
the Church, and the State, we want the masculine and
feminine element co-operating and conjoined. Woman
is to correct man's taste, mend his morals, excite his
affections, inspire his religious faculties. Man is to
quicken her intellect, to help her will, translate her
sentiments to ideas, and enact them into righteous
laws. Man's moral action, at best, is only a sort of
general human providence, aiming at the welfare of a
part, and satisfied with achieving the " greatest good
of the greatest number." Woman's moral action is
more like a special human providence, acting without
general rules, but caring for each particular case.
We need both of these, the general and the special, to
make a universal human providence.

206 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
If man and woman are counted equivalent, equal
in right through diverse powers, shall we not mend
the literature of the world, its theology, its science,
its laws, and its actions too? I cannot believe that
wealth and want are to stand ever side by side as
desperate foes ; that culture must ride only on the back
of ignorance; and feminine virtue be guarded by the
degradation of whole classes of ill-starred men, as in
the East, or the degradation of whole classes of ill—
istarred women, as in the West; but while we neglect
the means of help God puts in our power, why, the
present must be like the past ; " property " must be
theft ; " law " the strength of selfish will ; and " Chris
tianity," what we see it is, the apology for every pow
erful wrong.
To every woman let me say, Respect your iiature
as a human being, your nature as a woman ; then re
spect your rights; then remember your duty to pos
sess, to use, to develop, and to enjoy every faculty
which God has given you, each in its normal way.
And to men let me say — Respect — with the pro-
f oundest reverence respect — the mother that bore you,
the sisters who bless you, the woman that you love,
the woman that you marry. As you seek to possess
your own manly rights, seek also by that great arm,
by that powerful brain, seek to vindicate her rights
as woman, as your own as man. Then may we see bet
ter things in the Church, better things in the State, in
the community, in the home. Then the green shaU
show what buds it hid; the buds shall blossom; the
flowers bear fruit, and the blessing of God be on us all.

VI
HOME CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO ITS
MORAL INFLUENCE
God setteth the solitary in families.— Psalms lxviii. 6.
Home is the oldest of all human institutions. It is
foreordained in the nature of man's body and his
soul. It represents an indestructible want, and satis
fies that want. Legislators make and modify the
Church and the State. Comparatively they are tran
sient things, for in a certain period of human de
velopment long since passed by, there was no Church,
no State ; and in another stage of human development,
by no means reached, but truly conceivable, there may
be again no Church and no State; a time when or
ganized governments shall cease to be, because each
man governs himself, and when organized churches
shall be no more, for all shall seek the Lord, and men
that are native teachers, prophets born, shall take their
proper place so long usurped by such as were not
born to teach, nor anointed by God for that work.
But even then, that older institution, home, will be
found permanent, for this springs from what is ever
lasting in man. The birds do not more instinctively
build a nest, than he a home. This is begun in the
permanent relation of one to one, surrounded with
other persons, and woven about with flowers of affec
tion, beautiful as love that weaves them together, last
ing as life, unfading as the soul.
We love to organize our thoughts. If a man gets
a new notion of farming, he wishes to represent that
207

208 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
notion on his land, and thus give an outness to what
is in him. So it is with the affections. They create
a home; make it the sunniest spot in winter, and in
summer the shadiest which the world knows, — a green
bower in the heat, perfumed with living fragrance, and
decked with romantic flowers; the purple blossoms of
life. A man's home — it is to him the most chosen spot
of the earth. It affords him a rest from the toils
of Hfe. Here he can lay off the armor wherewith he
is girt for the warfare of this world. Here are the
objects most dear to his heart, the wife he has chosen
out of all the women with whom he has been jostled
about in the world; she who once gave a throbbing
life to his bosom, such as earth never promised before ;
who made Hfe seem a holiday, but all other persons
poor, foolish, and impertinent. Here too are his chil
dren, those heralds of holiness, prophets of new
things, " perpetual Messiahs," as some one calls them,
sent to preach the gospel of innocence again, and
baptize mankind anew to single-heartedness and love;
the children who come to waken what is purest and
best in mortal bosoms, animating the clod of vulgar
selfishness with celestial fire.
In his home, the man looks back to the time when
he and his began together the little drama of their
mutual existence, thinking, perhaps, the world would
be all sunshine and purple clouds, like the gorgeous
dreams of their first love. Here he looks forward
to the grave contentment and peaceful season of age,
when the crown of years shall wax silvery and thin
on his temples; when his limbs, old in manly work,
shall crave rest, and he with his staff, shall knock
gently, but with trembling hand, at the door of earth
and say, " Dearest Mother ! come, let me in ! "

HOME AND ITS MORAL INFLUENCE 209
This is the spot hallowed by the man's daily prayers,
his resolutions, hopes, dearest affections. In youth,
we went up and down the world, " lodging where the
night overtook us," gathering the primrose where it
grew. In manhood, we sit down in our home. It is
for this, and such as nestle there, that the man strives
in the striving of the weak. But here he forgets this
strife, and all the hardness which the world demands
of him, living quietly once more. His habitual re
straint and self-concealment, acquired by sad inter
course with the selfish, are here laid aside. He can
speak as he thinks, and think as he feels, not fearing
to be misunderstood and censured, " all his faults ob
served, learned and conned by rote, to cast into his
teeth." The effect of common toil, of intercourse
with the business of men, as both are now managed,
taken by itself, tends often to harden the man and
make him selfish. The sweet influence of home is just
the reverse. The hardness is softened ; the selfishness
is changed. Confidence awakens confidence, sympathy
tempts out the finer feelings, and the more beautiful,
as May mornings the birds of spring. Here too, the
union of husband and wife has the finest effect on the
character. Here is the most perfect friendship en
riched by the permanence of the relation, and en
hanced by the difference between the two, — one soul
in two diverse bodies. That affection, which once
transformed most common things into a world of fairy
and romance, with subdued magic, now sheds an uni
form but steadily deepening Hght along the path of
daily life, where she, who was once honored as an
angel, but now loved as a friend, — cheers, strengthens
and inspires us for our duty and delight.
Such is the ideal of the home to a man who builds
IX— 14

210 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
it up about him, and out of his heart. I do not say
all our actual homes are such — far enough from
that! But that such it is in a man's fancy, and the
youth's day-dreams.
Now to the child, home is the most sacred of
places. Here we were born. Here our father first
took us in his arms. His affection watched over us
day by day. Here a mother's smile first beamed upon
our face. Here she taught our hearts the idea of
prayer. Here we first learned of duty, conscience,
and God. Here she told us of His goodness ; opening
to our eye with the first blossom of spring; smiling
to us in the last lingering flowers of autumn, but to
her, brightening and deepening through all the year,
in summer's leafy wildness, in winter's severity of
snow. Here she repressed the sallies of childish pas
sion, teaching us self-command. Here, too, she told
us of the calm region of eternal realities, — the realm
of truth, goodness and love ; " aUured to brighter
worlds and led the way." This spot witnessed our
determination to lead a life of manliness and rehgion ;
that, saw us break our resolution, resolve and re-
resolve, and conquer at last. To go back in manhood,
to the old familiar home — what a crowd of recollec
tions come up around us, things past, pleasant and
mournful, but dear as life, to the heart. Here we
once shed blissful tears ; there we put forth, years
long, our youthful prayers, which seem lingering now
in the air of that enchanted spot, and warming our
hearts anew. Here we gathered flowers for our
grandsire; there read the Bible to him in our childish
voice. Here when day was drawing to its close, a
mother's piety kindled our new-born soul to prayer,
and we felt the goodness of Him whose angels, to our

HOME AND ITS MORAL INFLUENCE 211
fancy painted the evening clouds, and sat over holy
children as they slept. And here, when Sunday shed
a stillness over the scene, and the cares of day were
finished and forgot, the same mother told us of the
wonderful child once born at Bethlehem of Judea,
and laid in the ox's crib ; of his beautiful life, heavenly
even in childhood; of his temptations, his death, and
his triumph. Here too we met our earliest disap
pointments. Death saddened and overpowered us, as
some friend or brother, or sister went down, cold and
straightened, to the tomb. Here we have had our
lives, and fears and hopes, that burnt in us till our
heart could scarce hold them. Here we have bid fare
well to father and mother, as their spirits, ripe in
years, or old in weU-doing, shook off the body, leav
ing the clay to the clods, and going itself a soul, to
the sphere of souls.
What recollections of hope are connected with the
home of our childhood; what thoughts preserved in
the amber of memory and cherished forever; the re
membrance of its endearments ; its trials, its labors
of piety and aspiring love, when our hearts were
tender; when we fell down, and kissed with blessed
tears, the first anemone of spring, for we thought in
that snowy blossom God whispered a kind word to
the world; when we saw Him in the rounded clouds
of a June day, but trembled when the thunder spoke.
But to pass from this part of the theme, let a
word be said touching the influence of home as it
should be, on the men and women who build it up, and
on the child born in it. The sphere of a man's daily
business, as things commonly go, is but a place for
the exercise of his understanding, shrewdness and skill.
It often sharpens the lower quahties of the mind to a

212 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
high degree. It does not make the same demands on
his affections, on the loftier and better sentiments of
his nature. These he finds not necessary to attain
his private ends; they have nothing to do with his
bargains or his crops. True, a good man finds there
demands on his affection, or charity, and all that is
beautiful or divine in the heart ; but one who is rather
a pupil in religion than a master does not find in his
daily calling a school for affection and kindly sympa
thy. Home affords this. Its business is affection ;
its success is mutual love, and mutual help. Sacrifice
for one beloved is no self-denial, but a service wherein
we enjoy the incense which we offer. Here we learn
the great lesson of affection, gentleness, tenderness ; to
yield our will to another's wish, not through his force
but our own fondness. Here a man learns to trust
another, without fear; unity of heart makes unity
of mind. Nothing so calls forth the better powers of
a man as the presence of a genial spirit who feels as
you feel; will not chide your mistakes, or harshly re
buke your inconsistencies; who does not look on the
wrong side of the tapestry you are weaving; who
understands you by the heart, if not by the head.
This has a beautiful influence on any man. It gives
him what the business of village, or city, or college or
senate never can give. In respect to this, home may
be likened to a little conservatory or glass house, so
formed as to keep in the sun and to keep out the cold,
and create a milder atmosphere, where delicate plants
may grow into hardihood, till they can bear the bleak
exposure of the common field. No place is more
favorable than this for awakening and cultivating the
religious faculties of man. Love of God is near
akin to love of man, for all love is the same in kind,

HOME AND ITS MORAL INFLUENCE 213
differing but in quantity and direction. Begin to
cultivate the tender sympathies of life in your home,
you find you have woven ties that bind you gently,
but indissolubly, to all men that are — ties that unite
you unconsciously to your God. Discharge lovingly
the duties owed to wife and child, by and by you shall
wonder how your heart beats with men afar off, for
the wrongs of red men, black men, man everywhere.
Discharge these, you shall one day marvel how your
piety grows apace, and you knew it not, and you find
the Father of all is nearer than you deemed it possi
ble before. " He that loveth is born of God," saith
an Apostle of great depth of mystical experience in
religion, in love of both man and God.
Most men are one-sided; a man's business, if sedu
lously and exclusively pursued, as it often is, fash
ions the man after itself; makes him in its image.
This man is aU muscle, and that all cunning. Here
is one who knows all about the railroads in New Eng
land, but has no more perception of what is right and
true than the railroads themselves ; his conscience dead
as iron. That man has clap-boards and wainscoting
in his very look. You know by the other man's step
that he has fat oxen in his stall. Here is a man
who is a bill, payable at sight, in the human shape ;
another who is quills and copy-hand all over. The
business of life, exclusively pursued, gives this one
sided development to a man. Now the duties of home,
its pleasing prattle, sympathy, its repose, affections,
the unbending of the mind, the concern for our chil
dren, the intercourse with our friends — all these have
a tendency to arrest this one-sidedness, to give a seri
ous and healthful growth to qualities which our daily
calling does not exercise.

214 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
In the ancient statues of the gods, such as Jupiter
and Apollo, there is great breadth of character. You
do not see one particular trait made prominent; there
is a general development of all human qualities, with
only a slight emphasis given to any special trait, to
mark the stations of each, yet the individuality of
each is well preserved. In statues of men, ancient or
modern, as in men themselves, almost every one has a
great particular development, and little of the gen
eral qualities of a man; an intense narrowness has
taken the place of the divine breadth in the statues
of the gods. Thus Socrates is all thought; Wash
ington all command; Napoleon looks Hke Moscow,
expeditious ; and Bliicher is a type of his watchword
— " forward." Now the influence of home, if made
as it should be, arrests this evil. Its human or gen-
eraHzing power may be seen in the character of
woman, on whom most of its cares, duties and pleasures
too, as things now are, seem to devolve, as her sphere
is home. You find in woman much more of this
general expansion, and much less of this specialness of
ability, this one-sidedness of culture. Hence comes
the popular reproach, " Most women have no charac
ters at all," which is true, if by character is meant a
disproportionate growth of one single quality of mind ;
but utterly false if it mean a certain individuality
attended with a uniform expansion of many qualities
of mind. Almost every man can understand one thing
surprisingly well; besides that he knows little, cares
for Httle, and obstinately refuses to Hsten or to look
beyond it. With women it is often just the reverse;
they may know little of any one thing ; but will under
stand immediately many things out of the reach of
men whose special culture is far superior to theirs.

HOME AND ITS MORAL INFLUENCE 215
Hence a new thing is, in general, sure of a more
candid examination from women than from men.
Hence the great moral enterprises of this day so
often find favor with women, when they are mocked
at by men whom business trains to look only at the
profitable side of old abuses. Hence, too, when the
Son of man revealed his glad tidings of great joy,
while priest and Pharisee refused to listen, the word
of life found a welcome and a home in the less preju
diced heart of woman, whose mind the domestic sym
pathies had nourished and enlarged.
Such is the influence of home on adult men; on
children it is greater still; that of a bad home worse,
of a good one better. They have not, in either case,
the same power, or the same circumstances wherewith
to resist its settled and continuous action. A child
born and bred in a home where father and mother
are high-minded, pure, noble, religious ; where all the
environment of its tender years is that of holiness and
love; where association with the impure, the low, the
selfish, the cunning and the gross, does not sully his
innocent mind, where he hears religion in precept and
sees it in practice ; where the relation of his parents to
one another is that of mutual confidence and mutual
love ; where the relation of both to him is that of ten
der sohcitude, of a wise carefulness to render him
good and true; where all that is heard and all that is
seen, invites him to the real duties and the real satis
faction of life, — how can such a child become cor
rupt? What shall forbid him to grow up a man, his
mind active, his heart rich with goodness, and the senti
ments and principles of religion, exhibited before his
sight and beautified to his eyes through early asso
ciation, to become the habitual principles and senti-

216 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
ments of his daily life? The principles and practices
of home — we carry them with us, knowingly or un
consciously through our life. Our father's follies
have blinded our eyes; but their virtues, enhanced by
our affection, shine, to> our sight, as a colossus of
Parian marble, heightened and embellished by the light
of the rising sun. We at first unconsciously repeat
the practices of our parents ; at length they are habits,
fixed and fastened upon us, to be shaken off only with
vehement efforts. Happy is that man whose habits
learned in childhood, are such as rehgion pronounces
right before God. He needs waste no strength in
retracing with penitence the ground he once passed
over in the madness of intemperance, or the tremblings
of superstition.
I know to some men, perhaps to some women, all this
seems idle, only talk; this that is said of the influ
ence of a good home, on man and child. They have
their dreams of ambition, of wealth, or finery and dis
play, or sloth, and intemperate indulgence of low
appetites, and so they will care little about the moral
influence of home. I would exhort such to pause a
moment, and ask if it be not the duty of each child of
God to aim at surrounding himself with such influences
as shall help subdue what is rebellious in him, and make
him a man in the image of God, able to do right, think
right, feel right. Who shall say no?
I know to some men, perhaps to some women, it will
seem a very little thing to attempt to surround their
children with the means of moral and religious educa
tion. They give them bread and clothes; perhaps
water, air and exercise. They train them up in habits
of economy and diligent thrift; they send them to a
school where their intellectual culture is somewhat

HOME AND ITS MORAL INFLUENCE 217
looked after. That is well. But is that all? all that
is to be done for training and developing the innocent
immortal, whose destinies are, in some measure, con
fided to your care? Yet what a power the subtle
magic of home exerts over a child ! You see some bad
man, not fearing God, not regarding man; sacrificing
man and woman to his momentary caprice, or settled
passion. You wonder whence came that awful disre
gard of right, that abandonment of what is good and
true. You trace him back, through manhood, youth,
childhood ; how often do you find the seeds of his char
acter sown in his home; his spirit poisoned in his
parents' arms. " The child is father of the man ; " —
alas, then, for him who causes " one of these little ones
to offend."
You see some great examplar of a man, moving in
affairs of State, or life's common business, erect as a
palm tree, and in all the mistrust of friends, the hos
tility of foes, keeping the even way of justice, hating
none, and scorning none ; superior to fortune, equal to
duty, ready alike for either fate, to succeed or fail.
You wonder whence came that exquisite manliness,
which conquered every foe, or died with equal triumph,
invincible of wrong. You penetrate the cloud which
hides it all ; you trace him back to the green home of
his childhood, and you find a father's example sus
tained him in his trials ; and amid all the storms of time,
he looks back to the mild presence of his home, and the
remembrance of his mother's piety, — her trust in
God and the very echo of her prayer in childhood
poured upon his mind, — comes through all the trouble
about him, as the vesper bell in southern climes comes
gently swelling o'er the deep, whereat the wearied boat
man drops his oar, and folds his hands, and lifts his
soul to God.

218 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
This power of home is subtle, not easily escaped;
it follows us everywhere. A happy home, where good
sense, and good manners, and good feelings, have their
place; where benevolence dwells forever; where reli
gion hallows and pacifies and blesses each with a sweet
winsomeness all its own — such a home, why it is
heaven upon the earth. Let a man ask the greatest
of outward blessings — he will ask this. All cannot
be rich. Beautiful things to please the eye, as affairs
go, must hang on few men's waUs, purchased with
years of toil, costly oracles that speak deep things to
deep-thoughted men. But what is better far than all
the refinements of wealth, better than all the treasures
of art — a happy home — cannot the poorest man
have that? The lowliest roof, and the narrowest walls,
are high enough and wide enough for that. But it
does not come by chance, " through wisdom is a home
builded." Such a house is not established by a few
rash efforts, as some men " make a fortune." The
form of your home comes out of the character of such
as dweU there. It cannot help coming from such a
source. Yet how little pains are taken to build up a pleasant,
a religious home ! Men resolve to be rich, to be cele
brated, to rule the affairs of the nation, or the viUage ;
— that, the ambition of the " great " man, this, of the
little man. How few make resolutions to create a happy
home with what means they have, getting more as they
get on. Foolish man ; you take superfluous trouble to
crowd your house with food and furniture, the work
of looms and shops; so little pains to enrich it with
ideas, with goodness, patience, holiness and peace. He
who seeks the true good, seeks this, and seeking shall
he not find? We look on the world, its social evils, its

HOME AND ITS MORAL INFLUENCE 219
sins, its sufferings; we would help our brothers come
up to the estate of man. To you and me, it is not
given to reach many ; yet it is clearly in our power to
attempt to build up a peaceful home, whence supersti
tion and bigotry, folly and sin shall flee off forever;
but where goodness, wisdom and love, shall dweU con
tinually, to cherish our virtue, to protect our manhood,
to comfort our age, to bless our children, and through
them mankind.

VII
THE MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY
Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. —
Psalm lv. 19.
By prosperity I mean the present success of schemes
which we form for our material purposes. The ambi
tious man wants power; the acquisitive, money; the
vain, admiration; the nation wants numbers, riches,
wide territory, commercial and military power. When
they succeed in these desires, they attain prosperity.
It is the effect of this condition of success on the for
mation of a moral character which I ask you to con
sider. The human race does not thrive very well under
circumstances where nature does too much for us : man
becomes an animal, or a plant; not also to the same
extent a self -directing spirit, with the power to do, to
be, and to suffer what becomes a man. In physical
geography, there are two extremes equally unfavor
able for the higher development of man; namely, the
equatorial region, where nature does too much; and
the polar region, where she does too little. No high
civilization adorns the equatorial day; none such
blooms in the polar night. And so there are two anal
ogous extremes in the geography of human condition ;
polar misfortune, equatorial prosperity. To the eye of
man, very little lofty manhood ever comes from the
frozen ring wherein are hedged the beggar and the
thief, where

220

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 221
— "To be born and die
Makes up the sum of human history."
And little comes also from the tropic zone of excessive
affluence. I say it is so to the mind of man; but the
mind of God takes in alike the circumstances of both,
and allows for such as perish on hills of gold, or hills
of snow, and doubtless has a compensation somewhere
for all that is anywhere suffered by success or by dis
appointment. It is a very wise prayer, in the Book of Proverbs —
suiting either latitude — " Give me neither poverty nor
riches ; feed me with food convenient for me ; lest I be
fuU, and deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest
I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in
vain." It seems comparatively easy to understand the peril
of want, of distress, of cold and hunger. Yet it is
difficult, adequately, to appreciate all these — the
squalidness of want, the misery of human life, when
reduced to its lowest terms of physical misfortune and
material barrenness. But that is far easier than to
calculate the effects of continual success. Prosperity
is not a good schoolmaster to produce the higher forms
of character. For that end life must be discipline
even more than it is delight. Give a man all that he
asks for, and he ruins himself. So under God's provi
dence we are often thwarted and checked by the mate
rial and the human world, while we learn the use and
beauty of both. Contrary to the wishes of the town
and the family, some angel is always troubling the
water, that impotent folk may be healed thereby. If
continually successful, we grow rash, heedless, vain
glorious, and over-confident. It is stormy seas which

SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
breed good sailors, who in stout ships outride the tem
pest. What a sad world it would be if there were no
winter, never a storm! Man would be a mere butter
fly, and no more. Adam was turned out of Eden, says
the Hebrew mythology, and the Christians mourn
thereat. It was his first step towards heaven. He
" fell through sin," did he? He fell upward, and by
his proper motion has been ever since ascending in
laborious flight. It was the tree of spiritual life,
— " Whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe."
It is amazing how much we need the continual check
of failure and disappointment. When the body is
over-fed, leanness devours the soul; there is sleekness
of flesh, but no great growth of character ; the mouth
stops the mind. With too many favors we are not
thankful. Gratitude is one of the rarest of virtues;
the boy does not think so ; the man knows it. She
comes rather late to the feast of Christian graces, after
all that sweet sisterhood have sat down to meat. Grati
tude is a nice touch of beauty added last of all to the
countenance, giving a classic beauty, an angelic loveli
ness, to the character. But in our present stage of
growth, gratitude to men for their services is by no
means common; and thankfulness to God is oftener
expressed by the fasting than the feasted. We have a
lively sense of favors to come, but humanity is not yet
rich enough, nor well enough bred, to be very thankful
for what we have in hand. It is only when the well is
dry that we appreciate the worth of water, and the
first return thereof brings thanks, — which soon dry
up and perish. How grateful we should be if we could
get the bird in the bush; that in the hand is an old

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY
thing not wortK. thinking of. In jail, Pharaoh's chief
butler courts Joseph ; but when restored to honor, it is
written, " Neither did the chief butler remember Jo
seph; but forgat him." The boy at college — pros
perous, high in his class, welcomed to the society of
rich men's sons, and often associating with their daugh
ters — soon forgets the plain-clad sister at Manches
ter or Lowell, whose toil gave the poor boy his scanty
outfit; he feels small gratitude for that tender hand
which pushed his little shallop from the shore, and set
him afloat on the academic sea, whether her nightly
prayer and daily toil attend his now thoughtless voy
aging. But when sick, deserted by the gilded, fickle
butterfly, which drew his puerile eyes and idle thought,
he faUs back on the sisterly heart which beats so self-
denyingly for him. The Hebrews, settled in their
land of hiUs and vaUeys, forgot the high hand and out
stretched arm which brought them forth from the
house of bondage in Egypt, whose unleavened bread
and bitter herbs were a healthier sacrament than Ca
naan's milk and honey. How strange it seems! but
look through any village or family, and you see in
brief what the world's history has writ on its vast
pages, blazoned in luxury and in war.
Man is so little advanced, as yet, in his higher cul
ture, that he must be fed with the utmost caution. A
hearty draught of prosperity turns our head; and so
God feeds us as yet with milk, and not with strong
manly success; else we should perish. One day the
average life of man wiU be a hundred years, I doubt
not, and "fcever and ague, jaundice and catarrh,
The grim-looked Tyrant's heavy horse of war,

224 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY.
And apoplexies, those light troops of Death,
That use small ceremony with the breath,"
will be put to rout, and early death be as strange to
men as nakedness and famine are to you and me. But
we cannot bear it now. If the average life of man
were all at once lengthened only twenty years in this
present generation ; if what it costs us ten hours' sore
toil to accomplish could now all at once be achieved in
a single hour, or " miraculously " given, it would be
a misfortune to mankind; our heads would be
giddy, and we should perish. " Neither yet now are
ye able," quoth Paul to his new converts ; " I have fed
you with milk, and not with meat ;" and the great God
does the same to His Httle children here below.
The savage in the tropics contents him with the
spontaneous products of nature. He is filled with the
earth's fruits and satisfied with her beauty ; he goes no
further. Wherever nature is an indulgent mother,
she finds man a slothful and a lazy son.
The successful man, in general, cultivates only the
easy virtues which come mainly of their own accord;
nay, he often welcomes the easier vices which we are so
swift to learn. Samson need not fear the Philistines ;
it is in Delilah's lap his head is shorn of its crispy
strength; her amorous fingers are more terrible to him
than all the gods of Philistia, " the thunder of the cap
tains, and the shouting." It is often the soft hand
which wounds to death. With the winter to oppose
him, Hannibal stormed the Alps, and carried them;
but with the summer for his ally, his " invincible Car
thaginians " and elephants fell and perished in wealthy
Capua. How many a Sir John Franklin has gone to
pieces, made shipwreck and perished, amid the delicate

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 225
luxuries of London, Paris, Boston, New York, and no
exploring expedition, no adventurous Captain Kane,
was sent out after him ; in vain his wife has spent the
last farthing of her estate, and found no trace of the
man who had perished in. the city's worse than snow.
It is a thin soil which bears the richest grapes ; men
make it poorer, covering the surface with slate stone
" to draw the sun." Peru yields silver and gold ; it is
a poor country. New England bears nothing but
granite, timber, and ice, which we make into men; it
is the richest of aU lands the sun shines upon. Free
dom grows in poor Wisconsin, in cold New England;
but in the fat plains of Mississippi and Alabama, slaves
and slave-masters only mingle and multiply and rot.
Sons of rich men very seldom get the best of even
mere intellectual education. It is said that, for four
generations, no man in England, who has inherited
two hundred pounds a year, has become eminent as a
lawyer or physician. Money commands the college,
libraries — " tall copies " and " best editions " of costly
books — time, and tutors ; but poverty commands in
dustry, and she is the mother of culture. Nay, well
born genius is the child of time and misfortune ; the
star which heralds his birth goes before the wise men,
and when it stops, " stands still over a stable." The
great God knows best what cradling to give his child,
and it is easier for the sun of the soul to climb over
mountains of ice than to transcend the little hills of
gold and silver. Apollo, so the old myth relates, was
inimically sold as a slave to King Admetus, who set
him in hard service to tend the sheep and cows and
swine, whereat his goddess-sister mourned. If his foes
had wished to take the soul of poetry out of him, they
had done better to have set him in a palace,
IX— 15

226 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
"To sport with Amaryllis, in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neasra's hair,"
and the young god would have dwindled to a wealthy
clown. How often have you and I longed for some special
thing — fortune, position, honor — but afterwards
found that, could we have obtained it, it would have
been our ruin! In my own life, I have set my heart
on five special things, seeking therefore with earnest
ness and self-denial. None of them is mine ; and as
one by one they fell from my hands, or slipped away
from my hopes, I mourned bitterly at the " lack of
success ; " but already I am old enough to be thankful
that four of them were impossible. The race was
worth a great deal more than the prize I ran after.
And is it not so with each of us? I only share the
usual fortune, and am the one mouth which utters the
experience common to most before me. Do we not
all thank God for many a failure, a great many sor
rows — so once they seemed !
"When summer's sunny hues adorn
Sky, forest, hill, and meadow,
The foliage of the evergreens,
In contrast, seems a shadow.
"But when the tints of autumn have
Their sober reign asserted,
The landscape that cold shadow shows
Into a light converted.
"Thus thoughts, that frown upon our mirth,
Will smile upon our sorrow,
And many dark fears of to-day,
May be bright hopes to-morrow."
Disappointment is often the salt of life. Sometimes
we must warm our hands at a fire, sometimes in the

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 227
snow. It is air condensed by cold which best warms
the healthy blood. The greatest political services are
always rendered by the minority. Men of large mili
tary reputation, — Hannibal, Gustavus Adolphus,
Frederick, Napoleon, — 'have done their noblest works
when hard pressed by misfortune. The greatest ex
ploits of Washington were achieved when he had the
heaviest odds against him. The most illustrious ora
tory always thunders and lightens out of some tem
pest which threatens ruin to the State, — and the in
dividual speaker. The far-shining eloquence of De
mosthenes and Cicero came out of the stormy cloud
which bore ruin to Athens and to Rome. In the pip
ing times of peace they had reared no great flocks of
oratory. It is the weight of a nation's fall which
presses such sad prophetic wisdom from Kossuth's
mighty heart. The best age of England was the time
of her greatest calamity. That hundred years which
saw the Spanish Armada on the coast, the scaffold
of King Charles in London, and witnessed the exile
of his son, saw also Bacon, Harvey and Hobbs,
Hooker and Taylor, Fox and Bunyan, Hampden and
Vane, Spenser, Herbert, Shakspeare, Milton, Jonson,
and the long line of England's noble sons ; saw Blake
on the water, Cromwell on the land, and Newton in the
heavens. Her greatest literature, science, and char
acter, came from that century of storms. And when
her own heart bled with the world's oppression, she
reached to the Alps, and protected the Waldenses whom
the Pope was treading under his foot. It was in such
an age that England bore her fairest bud, which sor
row broke off from the Saxon tree and planted in this
land, with no hedge of shelter but the wild woods, no
husbandry save that of beasts and savage men. Yet

228 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
New England grew by neglect, and prospered in spite
of pains to kill. The little Puritan bud looked up to
heaven, and God, " who holds creation as a rose-bush
in his hand," smiled, and it opened into rath prophetic
bloom. The best age of the Christian Church came before
" the fatal dower which the first wealthy pope re
ceived;" it was when all the world opposed her, and
heathenism bared its sword and struck at Christian-
dom's young neck. What an age it was when the
Christian Church was bordered with the red flowers of
martyrdom on the outskirts of her every province;
nay, when the metropolis of Christendom bloomed
only scarlet ! No " lower-law divines " in that day.
What an age it is when the Catholic Church has no
blossom more radiant than the cardinal's hat — its
only passion-flower! The great plants of humanity
grow in that little rocky belt of land between the ocean
and the fertile soil ; and they bloom maturest when
they drink the salt spray of oceanic storms. Then
and there grow the warriors, lawgivers, orators, phi
losophers, poets, prophets, saints, patriots, and mar
tyrs, who form a chaplet of beauty which adorns the
heroic brows of man. Harrow the land with revolu
tion and civil war, and there spring up great crops
of men. When it rains money, the world reaps no
such harvest!
" How do you suppose I could injure my boy? "
asked a mother of a friend; and the austere answer
was, " Give him all he wants, and he is ruined."
Where the city shoots the offal of the streets, there
mushrooms, toadstools, and puffballs come up ; every
morning you find them, rank and worthless; but in
the clefts of the Swiss mountains, on the edge of New

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 229
Hampshire rocks, where the artist can hardly lay his
pencil safe, there gleams the Alp-bloom, the mountain
gentian, the hare-bell — clean as daylight and fair
as blue-eyed Lyra's topmost star.
The individual man finds the period of excessive
prosperity one of the great perils to his moral char
acter. " What a bitter lot is yours and father's ! "
said a thoughtful boy once to his mother ; " we are
hard pushed all round. How many of my sisters have
died already ! Some one of us is always sick ; and
then our poor relations hang on us a heavy load. But
our cold-hearted neighbors over the hill there, beyond
the great tree, they have had no trouble since I was
born. Surely it is a very unjust and wicked God to
let things go on so badly." The deep-souled mother
cleared her eye with her apron, and took her boy in
her bosom, and said, " If it be so, it is our neighbors
who have most cause to complain, and not we. They
have had nothing but prosperity; they are rich, and
getting richer only too fast. They have no old grand
mother to help on in life, no poor relations to cling
to their skirts and draw them back, no one of them is
ever sick, no near friend has died; but because they
have no changes they fear not God. They are cold-
hearted, they are worldly and irreligious. I often
pity them, and have said so to your father. It is we
that have had the best chance in this world. They
will doubtless have their opportunity also in the next.
My boy, there is a gain for all this loss that you
speak of, for wicked thoughts and actions are the only
bad things which no man can profit by."
I sometimes see a man with whom all is prosperous.
What the flesh wants, Mr. Gliickselig has it all. He
seems to have been born beneath a lucky planet. He

230 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
began poor, and now is rich. He is cautious, and
never loses; far-sighted, and lays out his plans with
masterly skill; administrative, and executes admirably.
His life for twenty years has been what, in the streets,
they call a " splendid success." He is an " eminent
citizen," high on the assessors' books, and in the opin
ion of the newspaper where he advertises. I know
him very well; he has a most successful walk, and I
know that all his ventures prosper when I see him afar
off. He has a " high, prosperous voice," and some
what loftily utters his opinion on all matters, whereof
he has thought nothing. But his poor relations he
never recollects; his successful acquaintances never
speak of them to him. His house is a show-box of his
estate — a tavern for the flesh, where the confectioner,
the upholsterer, and the vintner have done their best.
His wife is a show-woman, yet meant for a better pur
pose, poor thing! His children are show-children —
" babes in the wood " of civilization — left more hope
less than those other babes described in the ballad,
for, look wistful as they may, they shall never see " the
man returning from the town." His religion is only
decorum; he has the richest of Bibles, the costliest
pew ; his real God is the dollar, and in a sacrament of
copper, of silver, and of gold he communes with the
earth. There is a threefold metallic cord, which his
soul has now not force enough to snap. He has no
elevation of character. Blameless in his mercantile
business, his word is good; no man doubts it; his
judgment is admirable, his plans never miscarry ; he is
" respectable," and no more. He is all of this world,
and, if there were no soul, and no heaven, and no ab
solute justice, and no great manhood, he would be the
model man. No great sentiment throbs in his bosom,

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 231
no lofty idea is welcomed beneath his roof ; his daugh
ter must sit on the door-step to read the one great
book printed in her life-time. His hands turn not the
machinery of noble deeds. " Let the poor take care
of themselves," says he, " as I also have taken care
of myself." "The negroes ought , to be slaves; it is
good enough for them." He sneers at the " law of
God," which is above the covetousness of the market
and the statutes of the politician and the customs of
the parlor. And so he goes on, " from greater to
greater," as the newspapers say, but as a wise man
knows, from worse to worse. Above his daily life he
sees no " primal virtues shine aloft as stars ;" no
" Charities that soothe and heal and bless
Are scattered at his feet like flowers."
But one day a commercial panic, which even that
masterly understanding could not foresee, shears off
the half of his estate, rending the other half to
shreds. Sickness shakes the costly door of his house ;
all the well-compacted windows rattle at the earth
quake of misfortune; child after child drops through
the wealthy floor, and perishes in the unseen night
beneath; a lone and neglected kinswoman, no longer
" a distant connection of the family," has just
cradled his dying babe in her friendly bosom. Where
now is his f orgetf ulness of his poor relations ? Where
is the pomp and pride of his riches ? His " high,
prosperous voice " has shrunken down to a modest,
yet manly tone; that fool's bolt of brittle opinion
which he delivered so readily just now, is shot no
more at vanity's low mark; and arrogance has faded
off from that humiliated brow. The show-wife and
the poor residue of his show-children are real enough

232 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
now. Sorrow has raised the human heart which pros
perity had deeply buried up. The cloud of vanity
comes down in a cold, thin patter of rain, which yet
starts new greenness in the thirsty soU, and there
spring up virtues which else were strangers in that
ground — parched with being too near the sun. It
is the real God he communes with now; the Infinite,
whom no prosperity could ever drive away. We close .
our eyes against the great God, but His never slumber
nor sleep. The show Bible lies there as idle as be
fore, on its cushion, but the old plain Book, thumbed
all over with his mother's piety — who has long since
gone where she can be wise without study, and pious
without Bibles — or by his own youthful touch, the
old Bible comes back to his bosom, and David and
John and Jesus speak comfort to his newly awakened
soul. Through the rents in his estate there come in
"The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless."
and above the ruins of his fortune, his eye, delighted,
sees " The primal virtues shine aloft as stars."
Nay, gratitude gives its blessing now on his cheap
and daily bread. " We had been lost if we had not
been ruined," quoth the real woman to the husband
now freed from the worldly devil.
In soils too rich, the grain runs all to stalk, and
there is no corn; the Egyptian farmer must mingle
sand with the surface of his ground, which else the
Nile enriches over much. The fat greyhound, housed
in parlors, the girl's plaything, loses alike his power
of scent and speed. It is so with men. Honor too
easily or early got is a curse. " More than a fortune
is misfortune," says a wise man.

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 233
There are exceptions, — men whom prosperity does
not injure; whose gratitude greatens with their suc
cess, and their charity enlarges with each increase of
means. They are the rarest of men, uncommonly well
born, or bred with such painstaking as few mortals
find. Yet I have known such.
There are others whom adversity itself does not
teach. The full horror of avarice and lust are not
commonly seen in the summer of life, when leaves and
flowers and youthful fruit hide the ugly naked limbs ;
but when autumn has shaken down the fruit and torn
the leaves away, and winter exhibits all its grim anat
omy, it is then you know the hatefulness of avarice
and lust. The full baseness of mean men is not seen
in their success but in their sorrow. Their tears are
melted iron. I have known those whom prosperity
maddened, but whom adversity did not sober. They
feU, but fell only bruised and broken, never softened
nor mellowed by the fall. These also are rare men.
They must " wait the great teacher Death," before
they can adore their God. There are grapes of so
poor a stock that the summer's sun but sours them,
and the autumnal frost, which beautifies their leaves,
only embitters the fruit; and when the winter's wind
brings them to the ground, the all-devouring swine
devours them not, but therefrom turns in disgust away.
Sad sight, which the dear, motherly God must needs
pity, and so should loving men.
Continual success commonly hardens the heart, and
almost always enervates the character. The politician
whose office is not contested, the merchant who has a
monopoly, the minister without a rival, the farmer
with acres too wide and more fertile than is enough, all
these are in peril. So are such as acquire money with

234 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
too rapid swiftness, and every man to whose house
sorrow does not now and then come in to wish him
good morning. Excess of good fortune is our un
doing. A benevolent man whom I knew, very famihar with
the hearts of men, was on his way, one morning, to
ask a charity of a wealthy citizen of the town, when
he learned that in the three months just passed by, that
merchant had added the tenth part of a miUion of dol
lars to his fortune. My friend said, " I go on a fool's
errand," and turned back and asked not the charity.
Religion does not enter at the golden gate of a
man's house ; she comes in some other way — comes
with the doctor or with the sheriff. " He went away
sorrowful," says the New Testament, " for he had
great possessions." A man reputed a milhonaire, in
a large trading town of America, four or five years
ago, used to make a mock of religion. He never en
tered a meeting-house for many a year. Charity did
not open his crowded purse, nor his shrivelled heart.
But a commercial crisis made him a bankrupt, and
then religious emotions broke from their golden fet
ters, and he sought his God again. An underground
railroad conducted this slave of money to a large place
where there was room for his soul, and by the law of
the spirit of life, he also was made free from the
bondage of the flesh. In his native town men mocked
when they saw him again at the old parish meeting
house, in his mother's long-forgotten seat. It was a
foolish laugh; they should have known that the blind
man had received his sight. Was it not to such a
one that the greatest of teachers said, " Go and sell
all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and then shalt
thou have treasure in heaven? "

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 235
You see the same thing in a town or nation. Virtue
does not grow very tall, nor flower very fair in an
over-prosperous State. In the time of success a na
tion is never well ruled; the people choose low men
with low aims; sorrow, distress, and fear are better
counsellors. How soon a rough wind blows the hu
man chaff out of office ! No ninnies for rulers then !
On a summer festival, or election-day in winter, or on
a time consecrated to Christian martyrs, when, to glut
the covetousness and lust for power of the meanest
things which ever barked against humanity in New
England since she shook Arnold from her robe —
when wealthy Boston sends an innocent man into
bondage for ever — boys padded with cotton — sub
stitute for body as for conscience ! — men's red coats
upon their backs, marching to gay and costly music
— play at soldier ; and they think : " How many eyes
look on us, and how our pretty cousins will admire
at the spectacle ! " But when war blows its horn, such
boys go home to their mothers, and bearded, manly
men bring the firelock to the shoulder, and only to
fife and drum wheel into column and steadfastly march
away, thinking of the fight before them and the
hearts breaking at home.
In her poverty and sadness, in her fear and peril,
in the name of God, America made Washington her
President; but strong, impudent, rich, she declared
there was " no higher law," and put in her chief offices
the mean things which we know. America in peril,
poor, weak, oppressed, bore great men — the Revolu
tionary family; now strong, rich, tyrannical, she fills
her offices with men of such stuff and stamp as we
behold. She puts base men in her cabinets, to make
foolishness the national council; base men also in her

236 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
judicial seats, to execute wickedness as law ; base men
in diplomacy, " to lie abroad " for their own behoof.
In 1776, with no ally, in poverty, the two million
freemen of America fell back on the universal rights
of humanity, and appealed to the Supreme Judge of
the world for the rectitude of their intentions. In
1850, the twenty miUion denied every rule of morality,
every precept of religion, made atheism the first prin
ciple of their government, and enacted the Fugitive
Slave Bill, with the consent of Boston, and the North's
consent; re-enacted it the next year, Boston a second
time giving her vote. The nation has enforced it
ever since, Boston voluntarily offering her unlawful
hand. Poor America, in 1776, asks Canada to come and be
free with us, and sends an army to help ; but rich
America, in 1854, seeks to enslave Cuba and Hayti.
In 1771, while Great Britain was clutching at our
liberty, Governor Hutchinson, a son of Boston, the
avaricious creature of the throne, — money and power
the gods of his idolatry, — made a Proclamation of
Thanksgiving, and gave as reason for gratitude, that
" civil and religious liberties are continued." The
Boston ministers came together, and considered and
refused to read it — all but Mr. Pemberton, the gov
ernor's priest, and when he began it the patriots of
the congregation turned their backs on the smug of
ficial, and left the polluted spot. All the rest refused
to read the proclamation but, instead, agreed to " im
plore of Almighty God the restoration of lost liber
ties." Where then, was " lower-law divinity ? "
Then, Boston was poor ; she had only sixteen thousand
men, not four millions of money. In 1851, from his
iUegal dungeon in the chained court-house, Thomas

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 237
Sims sent round his petition to the churches of Boston
for prayer in his behalf ; but of all the incumbents of
the Boston pulpit, the fourscore successors of the
Mayhews and the Coopers of old time, not six could
read an unoffending black man's prayer, that he might
be restored to his inalienable rights. When an ex
ceptional man spoke of the higher law of God in his
meeting-house, indignant parishioners turned their
backs on the minister, — turned Christianity out of
the house, — fulfilhng the Scripture, that the disciple
shall suffer with his Lord. Now, Boston is rich, with
a hundred and sixty thousand men in her bosom, and
two hundred and twenty-five milhon dollars in her
purse. In 1765, Boston made a stamp officer resign his
post, and swear under the Liberty Tree never to is
sue a single stamp. In 1850, when the Fugitive
Slave Bill passed Congress, the citizens of Boston, —
wealthy Boston, — fired a hundred guns, in token of
rejoicing, on the great green of the city. Long since
the Tories cut down Liberty Tree to build a " Union
Hall " on its ruins.
In 1769, the farmers and mechanics of Lexington
would " drink no more tea " till the unlawful tax was
taken off ; and, in 1773, poor Boston, with the country
to help her, threw into the ocean that taxed herb which
was the vehicle wherein tyranny hoped to ride across
the land. Your and my fathers, after solemn delib
eration, did it, when we were poor, in spite of King
and Church, and Lords and Commons. But, in 1850,
Boston held a " Union Meeting " in Faneuil Hall, and
resolved that the stealers of men should pursue their
craft in the city of Hancock and Adams and Mayhew
and Cooper.

SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
In 1770 the British Commissioner of Revenue could
not tarry in Boston, but must retreat to the castle on
an island. But in 1854, the men-stealers in Boston
are more safe than the most estimable citizens; they
are welcome.
In 1766, Boston sought the "total abolishing of
slavery;" six years later even the burgesses of Vir
ginia covenanted with each other to import no slaves,
and buy none brought over ; in 1773, the town of Med-
field — only a hamlet then — wanted a " final period
put to that most cruel, inhuman, and unchristian prac
tice, the slave-trade ;" and Massachusetts remonstrated
against the sale of slaves and the condition of slavery.
But, in 1850, the meanness and the money of Boston
assembled at a Union Meeting, in Faneuil Hall, to as
sure the slaveholders that a man might safely be kid
napped in Boston! Nay, a famous Doctor of Di
vinity 1 publicly declared in a lecture, that, to " save
the Union," he " would send into bondage the child of
my affections, the wife of my bosom, nay, the mother
that bore me ! " The audience answered with ap
plauses loud and long; only one great, honest soul,
cried out " Damnation ! " In 1854, the South de
mands the restoration of the African slave-trade; and
a Boston minister,2 — too orthodox to reckon a man a
Christian who denies that Mary's son is also God, —
hints his cowardly approval of the scheme.
In time of peril, Boston had for her agent in Eng
land America's foremost man, her own son, who began
his career by filling the molds in a tallow-chandler's
shop, and ended by taking the thunder from the cloud,
and the scepter from tyrants; and Boston sustained
him in his bravest word. But, in 1854, the leading
political and commercial newspapers of the same Bos-

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 239
ton addressed the only anti-slavery senator which Mas
sachusetts has had in Congress since the days when
Colonel Pickering held his seat, asking him to resign,
— for the friend of humanity " belonged to no healthy
political organization."
1 In 1769, oppressed Boston advocated the right of
free speech ; a town meeting declared that " a legal
meeting of the town of Boston is an assembly where
a noble freedom of speech is always expected and
maintained — where men think as they please, and
speak as they think." " And such an assembly," adds
patriotic poor little Boston, " has been the dread and
often the scourge of tyrants." In 1850, Boston shut
up Faneuil HaU, and forbid all freedom of speech;
there must be " no agitation." In 1854, the Supreme
Court of the United States seeks to procure an in
dictment and inflict a fine of three hundred dollars
and imprisonment for twelve months on men who, in
the same Faneuil Hall, stirred up the minds of the
people to keep the precepts of Christianity, and de
fend the inalienable rights of man.
In 1768, the British Government sought to prose
cute the printers of a patriotic paper in Boston, but
the grand jury refused a bill. In 1851, in the same
Boston, fifteen hundred citizens thereof, one for each
illegal grog-shop, then officially known to be in the
city, entered into a solemn compact, and gave their
names to the City Marshal; volunteering to escort to
eternal bondage a poor, friendless negro boy.
In 1774, the British tyrant shut up the port of poor
Boston, and the adjoining towns opened their harbors
and said, " Use our wharves without cost, ye that suf
fer!" In 1851, when Lynn, Worcester, Marblehead,
and New Bedford declared they would keep the com-

240 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
mandments of Jesus of Nazareth and the New Testa
ment's golden rule, and no fugitive slave should be
torn from their municipal bosom, the leading pohtical
and commercial newspapers of Boston called on her
merchants to refuse to trade with these four Christian
towns. Once, Boston and America appealed to the law of
nature and nature's God. It was when Boston and
America were poor. In 1851, 1852, 1853, and 1854,
Boston and America declared there was no law of God
above the Fugitive Slave BiU.
When America was poor, a single colony in the
wilderness, owning but a single " Mayflower," with
nothing but clams for their food, those stern Calvinistic
fathers of the land lifted up their hands and thanked
God that " we are permitted to suck of the abundance
of the seas and treasures hid in the sands," and sought
to establish freedom all over this western wilderness.
Now, America, with five-and-twenty miUions of people,
with five milhon tons of shipping white-blossoming on
all the seas, with more than seven thousand million
dollars of property, is longing to encircle with chains
the whole American commonwealth of freemen, and
spread the curse of bondage from the Gulf of Mexico
to the most northern lakes ; nay, to plant this upas
by the borders of the Amazon that it may reach far
as the Andes, and drop its lecherous distillment all
over the South American continent.
In 1636, when Massachusetts was poor, not a set
tlement twenty miles in the interior, not a shore-line
fifty miles long, she established Harvard College, and
therefore once levied a tax of a peck of corn, or twelve
pence, on each householder in the province. But now,
in fourteen States of the affluent Union, it is a felony

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 241
to teach one of the laboring classes to read and write ;
nay, for a mulatto mother to teach her daughter to
read the golden rule of Jesus in the New Testament.
This very year, Mrs. Douglass has been jailed thirty
days for teaching free black children to read !
In 1772, even the burgesses of Virginia wished to
abolish the slave-trade. Jefferson and Patrick Henry,
noble sons of the afflicted colony, sought to emancipate
all her slaves. The author of the Declaration of In
dependence trembled for Virginia when he remembered
that God is just. In 1854, Virginia counts " negroes
as the connecting hnk between man and the brute crea
tion." In 1778, the Articles of Confederation be
tween the revolutionary colonies aUowed the slave to
escape from State to State ; no compact authorized the
master to go over the border for his prey. But, in
1850, the one-and-thirty wealthy States authorized
the master to pursue his fugitive at the expense of
the Federal Government, in every State, and tread
down its law: nay, if a man gives but a cup of cold
water to the hunted fugitives, he is to be fined a thou
sand doUars and put in jail for six months for each
offense. Only last week a Fugitive-Slave-Bill judge
fined a man three thousand dollars for aiding three
fellow Christians to keep their freedom in the " Demo
cratic State " of Michigan ! America puts a penalty
on aU the Christian virtues.
Just before the Revolution, Boston was so noble
in defense of the rights of her citizens, that in the
Parliament of corruption her conduct was despotically
stigmatized as a " defiance of all legal authority ;"
her " inhabitants must be treated as ahens ! " Mas
sachusetts could not be governed unless, said an organ
of the ministry, " the laws shall be so changed as to
IX— 16

242 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
give to the kings the appointment of the council, and
to the sheriffs the sole power of returning juries."
Mayhew wrote : " God gave the Israelites a king in his
anger, because they had not sense enough to hke a
free commonwealth." But, in 1850, Boston invited
and welcomed a decree of her masters, dictated at the
Capitol, which drove more than five hundred of her
innocent citizens into exile; nay, in her zeal to make
a man a slave, she put chains around her own court
house, and the judges of Massachusetts crawled under
on the way each " to his own place ! " The ministers
— there were a few noble exceptions — preached,
Down with God and up with the Fugitive Slave BiU !
— preached it and lived it.
The minions of power arrested our own John Han
cock, in 1768. The Governor of Massachusetts, —
appointed by the Crown — the good old State elected
no such enemies of freedom then, — with his Chief-
Justice and other tools of the king, wished " to take
off the original incendiaries," and send Samuel Adams
over seas " for trial," that is, for execution. Edes and
Gill, the patriotic printers, " trumpeters of sedition,"
and others now of famous memory, authors of " trea
sonable and seditious writings," were to share the
same fate. But such was the force of a righteous
public opinion in all New England, that the counsel
of the ungodly was carried headlong, and the crafty
taken in their own net. Look at Boston now ; remem
ber the attempts of the Fugitive-Slave-Bill judge last
summer to construct a " misdemeanor " out of speeches
made in Faneuil Hall against the attempt of his kins
men to kidnap a man in our own streets ! Where is
the ancient love of justice and the rights of men which
brought our Puritan mothers here, and fired our fa-

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 243
thers for the greatest of revolutions? Wait and see!
These are the perils of prosperity. God be merci
ful to us! We are not only wicked and cowardly in
our conduct and character ; we are mean and vulgar.
Our fathers lived in times of trouble which tried men's
souls. We are exposed to a sadder trial which more
dangerously racks the man. For forty years the na
tion has had no outward peril, no war, no famine,
nothing to fear from abroad. We have increased
amazingly in numbers and riches. Now the nation
is drunk with power and nauseous with wealth. We
are like the savages in the neighborhood of the Rocky
Mountains, who, when the green corn came, sat down
to eat and rose up to play, and ate till their health
went from them: every tenth man died. I suppose a
prophet, who was as sternly merciful .as Jesus of Naz
areth, would pray for some great affliction, some
famine, some pestilence, some war, some bankruptcy,
that the nation might recover its soberness once more,
and also remember its God.
When the Hebrews were rich and easy, they re
lapsed into the licentiousness of the Tyrians or Chal
dees, the Philistines or Egyptians. With what savage
rods did Isaiah and Jeremiah scourge their own peo
ple! But when war came, when the temple smoked,
the exiles hung their harps on the willows of Babylon,
and thought of Mount Zion and the Jehovah who
had brought them out of the iron house of bondage.
It was at such times that there sprung up, in the re
ligious corner of their heart, the hopes of a Messiah
and a " kingdom of heaven."
I know not what is before us. Some calamity: for
no doubt America, like other nations, must have her
time of trouble; a day of sickness when she also will

244 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
sit with ashes on her head, and pray to the God of
the red men we have slain, and the black men we have
enslaved, and then find mercy.
Calamity is not half so calamitous as constant pros
perity. When the prodigal, in riotous living is wast
ing his substance with dice, and wine, and harlots, he
thinks not of his father; but when the husks are re
fused him, he then says, " How many hired servants
of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and
I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my
father, and ask that I may be made, not his son, but
only one of his hired servants."
It is under such circumstances that you and I are
living, and are to work out our redemption and achieve
our character. Great success is a great temptation.
It was a wise Roman poet who said, " It is a hard
thing not to betray your morals to your riches, and
when you become many a Croesus in wealth, to be a
single Numa in your virtue."
In prosperity consider that, after all, the great
thing in life is man's soul, his highest powers, their
delight and their duty.
There runs an old story, I know not how old, of
John, the son of Zebedee, richest of Galilean fisher
men. " Come and follow me," said Jesus to the
young man, in his father's ship, mending the nets.
Pleased with the attention, and greedy of honor and
power, John forsook all and followed him, not know
ing what manner of spirit he was of. As they went
up to Jerusalem, the Samaritans would not let Jesus
enter their village, and John asked if he should com
mand fire to come down from heaven and consume
them. Jesus replied, " The Son of man is not come
to destroy, but to save."

MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY 245
John was wroth, but said nothing. As they drew
nigh to Jerusalem, that " son of thunder " thought
the kingdom of heaven should presently appear: he
himself desired to take it by force ; and he asked Jesus,
" Let me drink of thy cup, and be baptized with thy
baptism ; let me sit at thy right hand, and be lord over
aU the eleven."
Jesus answered, " The lofty seat it is not mine to
give ; but thou shalt drink of my cup, and be baptized
with the baptism that I am baptized with."
And John's foolish heart was gladdened in him,
for he said, " Surely his cup is delight, and his bap
tism the sacrament of power."
But that night John saw Jesus in his agony, yet
only dimly perceived the angel that came and strength
ened him. He beheld the " marshal's guard " seize
the world's great prophet; and, fearful lest the of
ficers should seize him also, he shrank into the crowd,
crouching amid the maidens about Herod's palace.
He sat down afar off, and looked on the crucifixion;
and when Jesus cried, " My God ! My God ! why hast
thou forsaken me? " and gave up the ghost, John's
weak heart failed in him and he fainted, and women
helped him.
But presently he fled into Galilee, and there his
townsmen mocked him : " Ha ! ha ! thou that wouldst
sit at the right hand of the Messiah ! " The magis
trates set their eyes on him — " This fellow was also
with Jesus! a persistent man like his master; but we
will bring him to his senses ! " And they cast him
into prison. Death looked through the bars of his
grate, and his shadow fell thick and ugly on the
prison floor, and John was ready to perish. Then he
tasted the cup of his Master.

246 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Escaping from the jail, he was driven from city to
city, and then he was also baptized with the baptism
of Christ. But that great angel who had been with
the Hebrew children in the Babylonian furnace, and
brought them out unharmed, no smell of fire on their
garments' hem; who had been also with Jesus alike
in his temptation and his agony, came likewise to
John and touched his eyes, speaking in the stiU small
voice to his innermost soul, and the " son of thunder,"
declared, " God is love, and he that dwelleth in love
dwelleth in God, and God in him ! " When an old man,
his companions took him, at his request, on his couch,
and carried him to the assembly of Christians at
Ephesus, that he might bid them a last farewell; and
he said, " Little children, love one another ! " and
passed on.

vni
HARD TIMES
In the day of adversity consider. — Ecclesiastes vii. 14.
It is the duty of men of science to interpret the
world of matter to other men, and tell the meaning
and use of things ; it is the duty of the astronomer to
report of the heavenly bodies, telling mankind the facts
connected therewith, their use for man's material busi
ness, their meaning for his spiritual development and
delight; it is the duty of the botanist to deal with
those bodies which grow out of the ground, the water,
the air, learn what they are good for, and how they
grow; it is the duty of the doctor to study human
bodies, learn their structure, set forth the conditions
of health and long life, and warn men against what
will shorten their days. All men of science make
mistakes, observe wrongly, analyze imperfectly, reason
amiss, and so fail of truth, though aiming at it, but
their very errors are steps towards it, and if they
stumble, they fall forwards and upwards. So the min
ister is to study the phenomena and essential nature
of the human spirit. He should use all things to en
large the amount of such knowledge as is useful in the
conduct of human life, and to deepen the conscious
ness of duty. He should show the use of all great
events for man's material business, and their meaning
for his spiritual development; should point out the
eternal law, the providential purpose in transient af
fairs. He too, should post mankind on passing events,
247

248 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
and give them a cast forward in the great journey
of human life; should translate the brute facts of
history into the ideas of philosophy, bring them to
human consciousness, and thereby teach men pru
dence for their material business, wisdom for their
spiritual conduct, and so help a large development of
mind and conscience, heart and soul, in the community
wherein the lines of his lot are cast, and which gives
him his daily bread. As the Rocky Mountains take
hold of every cloud which the Pacific sends thither,
and wring the water out of it to moisten their own
soil, and fertilize the valleys below, so to-day they
would take hold of this commercial cloud which comes
up from the great Pacific Ocean of American busi
ness, wring the meaning out of it, learn its whence and
whither, its use for their daily business, its lesson for
their religious development.
In connection with the subject, I shaU have to speak
of some things not often spoken of on Sundays in
the pulpit, but very often thought of in the pews.
We are in a state of great commercial prosperity.
There is no foreign war to waste the mind, body, or
estate of the people. There is no domestic war, ex
cept what the slave power is carrying on in Kansas,
by the show of the ballot-box and the reality of con
cealed bayonets. There is no pestilence; births bear
a large ratio to the deaths, and emigration enlarges
our numbers still more ; there is no famine — an abun
dant harvest is gathered, or waits for the sickle; we
have no great foreign commercial debt, which must
be paid, and so consume the harvest gathered from the
soil, the mines, and the sea, or manufactured thence.
The imports of 1856 were $360,000,000, but the ex
ports were $2,000,000 more, and if $69,000,000 were

HARD TIMES 249
of gold, it should be remembered that this is as much a
staple of American productive industry as coal is to
England. If we manage rightly, it is no more loss for
us to export our superfluous gold than it is for Sweden
to export her superfluous iron, Brazil her hides, China
her teas and silks. Take America as a whole, and the
demand for labor is greater than the supply. This is
shown at the South by the constant increase in the price
of slaves, and at the North by the continual increase of
wages, and our anxiety to make such machines as, in a
short time and cheaply, shall do the work that else
would require the costly toil of human hands to achieve.
America was never so rich as to-day, in men, women,
and children, cultivated land, good roads of earth,
wood, stone, and iron; in ships, houses, shops, fac
tories, tools, the useful metals and minerals ; and never
so well supplied with food, clothes, furniture, car
riages, schools, books and all manner of things for use
and beauty.
Yet in spite of all this general abundance, there is
a great crisis in the money market ; there is distress in
all commercial circles, from Maine to Louisiana. All
the departments of commerce and business are dis
turbed. Money, which is commonly worth from six to
eight per cent, a year is now hard to get at even eigh
teen or twenty-four per cent. Men pay a famine price
for gold and silver. Houses of the first respectability
fail, or else suspend payment for a time, leaving others
to pay. Men of handsome estates, even of great for
tune, find that their property is all gone. In whole
cities, in whole States, banks suspend specie payments,
— violate their contracts solemnly made, and pay in
promises to pay — not in certificates of property,
but certificates of debt. Mills shut down their gates,

250 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
and men are turned out of employment by the hun
dred or thousand, with the prospect of immediate idle
ness and remote hunger.
Money lenders who are always dipping into the
stream of commerce and ladling out what thence they
may, now refuse to lend on any terms, on what was
once considered the best security. Our own city's
" promise to pay," fails to command the needed coin.
What is the cause of this trouble? I should very ill
discharge my duty as a philosophic thinker and teacher
of religion if I did not try to point it out. It is
true, I am not a business man, but for many years I
have studied the history of commerce, and, living
among trading men, have had my eyes open to what
they think and do, what they suffer and feel. I do
not, however, pretend to speak with authority. Com
monly, I can say, " I know this is true." To-day I
can only say, " I think it is true."
To understand this present commercial trouble and
to be prepared to make use of its consequences, it
is necessary to look deeper than the surface, at some
things which lie a great way off and far down. AU
man's conscious activity is at first an experiment — an
undertaking of which the result is not known until
after a trial. All experiment is liable to mistake.
There are many ways of doing a thing, but only one
way of doing it best; and it is not likely that every
individual of the human race will hit the right way the
first time trying. What succeeds we keep, and it be
comes a habit of mankind. All the experiments ever
made, however ruinous to the actual man, to the hu
man race have been worth all they cost; and it was
not possible for the human race to have learned at a
cheaper school than that dear one which experience
has taught.

HARD TIMES 251
In the military period of man's history, war was the
chief business; the great families were founded by
" sons of thunder," and kept up by war ; the great
estates got by robbery; aristocracy was dyed blood-
red. Now this is all passing away ; the military period
is giving place to the industrial. Germany, France
and England are the European leaders in this indus
trial civilization, but they keep the old titles — Baron,
Lord, Duke. Here we have an industrial democracy;
the doUar, not the sword, is the badge of aristocracy.
Great families are founded by trade ; great estates are
got by buying and selling, and social rank commonly
depends on money, the only bequeathable excellence.
Nobody asks, " What ancestors have you got in the
grave?" but, "What money in your vault, what
houses, lands, stocks ? " Hence property is sought,
not only for the comfort and luxury which it brings,
but also for the social distinction it confers. It takes
the place of all the virtues. It is in American society
what " imputed righteousness " is in the Church —
the social salvation of man. Titles are nothing. No
American Mr. Macaulay would care to be made a
Baron, Lord or Duke ; every penny-a-liner from Maine
to Nicaragua would laugh at him. Money is here
what title is in England — a patent of nobility. It
can " ennoble fools and sots and cowards." So it
is the only object of American desire. Of course, all
men are eager to get it, and so rush into trade, the
favorite business of America. Business here is en
tirely free from old restraints, political, ecclesiasti
cal, social, and there is a wide field for new commercial
experiments. On the whole, our American experiment
of industrial democracy succeeds very well. The in
crease of property and of population is enormous. In

252 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
1500 years, France only doubled her population twice.
What was 5,000,000 in the year 150, under Antoninus
Pius, was only 20,000,000 in 1650 under Louis XIV ;
while in sixty years America has doubled her pop
ulation four times, and what was 3,000,000 in 1790
was more than 24,000,000 in 1850. In some
States the growth seems fabulous. In 1830, Algiers
became a French province, and the Government sought
to stimulate emigration thither; but in 1837 there were
not 125,000 Europeans in Algiers; while in ten years,
the State of Wisconsin has gone up from nothing to
900,000 men. The increase of taxable property is
quite as remarkable. Fifty-seven years ago Massachu
setts was only worth $97,000,000 of taxable prop
erty ; to-day she is worth more than ten times that
amount — her annual earnings being $300,000,000.
Our experiment has been pretty successful. Thought
ful men, eager to be rich, and leave distinction
to their children, buy up lands in advance of pop
ulation, build railroads, and in the old States seize the
great rivers and develop manufactures, perhaps a little
faster than the state of the nation in its present pe
cuniary embarrassment would justify. Still more
within a few years, mines of gold have been discovered
in California and Australia, whose products are not
yet comprehended. It has affected the price of all
things, and as no one knows what quantity of gold is
to be obtained, nobody knows how high the prices will
go ; very sanguine men suppose they will rise a great
way above their present value, and many buy for a
future market. Hence comes extravagance of specu
lation in grain, sugar, coal, and especiaUy in land.
This, I suppose, is unavoidable, one of the incidents of
our success.

HARD TIMES 253
All this is very encouraging, it is a step forward
and upward; but it is attended with certain evils,
which, collectively, are the causes of the present dis
tress. There is great extravagance of expenditure.
Perhaps no minister is less severe on indulgence in
luxuries than I, because I see the function they per
form ; besides I never see a house too comfortable for
men and women, nor dresses too elegant, though I
have seen a great many houses and dresses too costly
for the wearer's means. Look at the general style
of dress among women, its exceeding costliness,
not only among our rich but everywhere, except
among the very poor, who would dress but cannot.
The fault is not with the women, who bear all the
blame, and are the butts alike for the satirist's wit and
the minister's dullness. If men wished women to be
clad in sack cloth it would be done before to-morrow
night ; for though woman has a greater love of deco
ration than man, it is far less than her desire to please
him. And, indeed, the very love of dress is with her
more a love of pleasing others than it is a feeling of
self-satisfaction. Then comes the increase of the cost of ships, houses,
shops, banks, offices, and the like, which renders the
transaction of business more costly. Then the in
creased expenses of city, town and State governments,
and the foolish and wicked waste of municipal money.
Though the property of Massachusetts has increased
ten fold within a few years, the ratio of taxation has
doubled, and in some cases trebled. And there are
the idlers. In the town of Somewhere lives Mr.
Manygirls. He is a toilsome merchant, his wife a
hard working housekeeper. Once they were poor,
now ruinously rich. They have seven daughters

254 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY i
whom they train up in utter idleness. They are all
do nothings. They spend much money, but not in
works of humanity, not even in elegant accomplish
ments, in painting, dancing, music, and the like, so
paying in spiritual beauty what they take in material
means. They never read nor sing; they are know-
nothings, and only walk in a vain show, as useless as a
ghost, and as ignorant as the block on which their
bonnets are made. Now, these seven " ladies " (as the
newspapers call the poor things, so insignificant and
helpless) are not only idle, earn nothing, but they con
sume much. What a load of finery is on their shoul
ders and heads and necks! Mr. Manygirls hires
many men and women to wait on his daughters' idle
ness, and these servants are withdrawn from the pro
ductive work of the shop or the farm and set to the
unproductive work of nursing these seven grown-up
babies. On the other side the Hon. Manyboys has seven
sons, who are the exact match of the merchant's
daughters, rich, idle, some of them dissolute — de
bauchery coming before their beard — all useless,
earning nothing, spending much and wasting more.
Their only labor is to kill time, and in summer they
emigrate from pond to pond, lake to lake, having a
fishing line with a worm at one end and a fool at
the other. Their idleness is counted pleasure. Six of
these sons will marry, and five, perhaps, of Mr. Many
girls' daughters ; and, with the families they will found,
live on the toil of their grandfathers' bones, until a
commercial crisis, or the wear and tear of time has
dissipated their fortunes, and they are forced re
luctantly to toil!
Besides, there is an enormous waste of food, fuel,

HARD TIMES 255
clothing, of everything. We are the least economical
civiHzed people on the earth. Of course the poor are
wasteful everywhere. They do not know how to econ
omize and they have not the means. They must live
from hand to mouth, and half of what is put into
the hand perishes before it reaches the mouth. So
likewise are the rich wasteful who have inherited money
— almost never such as have earned it. The great
mass of the people are not economical, but wasteful —
it is the habit of the whole country.
The next cause is the rashness of experiment,
leading men to engage in enterprises not well formed,
and which turn out ill; cost much, and come to little.
Hence come attempts to develop new forms of indus
try, or old forms in new places; the building of rail
roads in advance of population, or in advance of busi
ness, and the great increase of shipping. But this is a
failing that " leans to virtue's side."
Then the spirit which prevails in our trade is not a
very honest one. I would not say that we are worse
than other nations; I am sure we are better, juster,
more honest than our fathers were a hundred years
ago. The wealthiest merchant who did business in this
city fifty years ago would not be tolerated on
" 'Change " a single day. But look at the defalca
tions of men entrusted with public funds. Look at the
great swindlings by the officers of railroads and banks.
Remember how lightly all these things are passed over,
and how very seldom the great thief gets punished at
all. Remember that men fail in trade leaving one-half
a miUion of debt and one-tenth of a million to dispatch
the debt. Remember how the Pacific Company put
$1,600,000 in gold of other men's property, and six
hundred of their living bodies into a ship, with only

256 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
six boats, and no pump that could throw water, — a
ship that had so bad a reputation that she could not be
kept afloat without changing her name, making the
"George Law" the "Central America," — then you
see what the spirit is in our trade.
Our system of buying and selling is very bad. It
encourages extravagance by putting off pay day; it
makes the transaction of business more expensive by
necessitating a greater number of clerks ; it gives op
portunity to temptation and fraud; it produces a gen
eral unsoundness in trade, and so increases the cost of
every pound of bread we eat, every inch of cloth we
wear, every brick we pile into our walls, and every slate
which roofs our houses. It seems to be cheap, it turns
out to be dear.
Here is another cause, — the great and controlling
one. We make money out of what has no intrinsic
value, out of paper. All property is the .product of
labor. To distribute from the producer to the con
sumer there must be trade. For that, there must be
money, which is simply the instrument of trade, a labor-
saving machine to promote buying and selling. After
much experimenting mankind has taken gold and silver,
and therefore made money the instrument of trade, the
medium of commerce. Gold and silver are property,
and so represent the labor requisite to acquire them;
they are transferable property, and of course subject
to the laws of property ; they rise and fall in value and
no legislation can prevent that, any more than it can
prevent rise and fall in the value of iron or tin; yet,
commonly they fluctuate less than any other substance
that could be chosen. They are condensed property.
And not only are they the medium by which debts are
-paid but they are the standard measures of all value.

HARD TIMES 257
Gold or silver made into 'coin has no more value than
before. At the mint the Government puts a stamp
upon it, which is simply a national certificate that it
has a certain purity, or comes up to a certain weight.
It is a certificate of value, not a creating of value.
Now, in America, we make factitious money out of a
piece of paper which contains somebody's promise to
pay a dollar, and this becomes an instrument of trade
by which debts are paid, and also the standard measure
of value. Unlike the metallic dollar, the paper dollar
has no intrinsic worth, it is not property, only the
lawful representative of property. We have chartered
some twelve or thirteen hundred banks in the United
States to manufacture this substitute for metallic
money on condition that when the paper is brought
back they shall pay a metallic dollar for it. A bill,
which is a promise to pay, is taken in payment of
debts, said to be as good as gold ; a certificate of debt
is taken instead of a certificate of property. As there
is little demand for metallic money, that is carried off.
Like all other merchandise, it brings the highest price
where it is needed and used the most. It is not to be
denied that there is a certain convenience in this, espe
cially attending large transactions; but in using it in
small sums, . there is great inconvenience. As paper
costs Httle labor, and is yet taken for the representative
of value, and as a certificate of labor done, it is multi
plied to a great extent. Then money is cheap and
prices go up. The farmer gets two dollars for his
bushel of corn, that is, he gets the promise to pay two
metallic dollars. Wages rise; the laborer gets more
paper money for his work, but his corn, cloth, coal, also
rise, and he gets no more value than before. Accord
ingly, as prices rise it costs more to manufacture than
IX— 17

258 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY;
before, and so we import the products of labor from
abroad, where there is little paper money and prices
are low.
As we feel rich, because money is plenty and all men
say it is as good as gold, we import largely articles of
comfort and luxury and send abroad our raw materials
in payment to be brought back manufactured goods.
But by and by the raw material is not quite adequate
to pay our foreign debts, for our paper money is good
for nothing abroad ; our foreign goods, sold at paper
prices, must be paid for in metallic money, and specie
runs out of the country. Then the banks, not having
the actual metallic money to pay, refuse to circulate
their bills ; money becomes " short," " tight " ; there
is a pressure in the market ; money is worth more than
before, goods are worth less; merchants who have
bought goods on credit, and sold them on credit, can
not meet their payments, and accordingly must seU
their permanent property to meet their payment, or
else pay enormous rates of interest, — for money is
merchandise and when scarce, like bread in a besieged
city, it goes up to famine prices. Stocks faU in value
ten, twenty, thirty, forty, even fifty per cent. Capi
talists become distrustful, and even refuse to loan at
all. Traders fail and give up their permanent prop
erty to creditors; it is sold at a reduced value, the
trader loses half, but the creditor is only half paid.
The inheritance of birth, the earnings of a long life
are at once swept away. In his old age the thrifty
merchant is left with nothing. Timid men withdraw
their money from circulation; it lies still, and an idle
dollar is just as useless as an idle spindle, or an idle
axe. Great enterprises stop. Men are thrown out of
employment. Hunger looks through the windows of

HARD TIMES 259
a thousand homes, making ugly mouths at wives and
babes. We take great pains to prevent this evil. We try
legally to fix the value of this paper money we have
created and threaten to punish every man who loans it
at more than six per cent. We might as well say that
water should not run down hill. We have tried to
make that money which is no money, which represents
no labor done, and we cannot escape from the conse
quences of our first false principle. We wonder that
specie does not stay in the land ; it is because we think
paper money is just as good, and France and England
do not. It rains gold, and we hold out our dish bot
tom upwards, of course it is empty. We complain
that there is lack of specie in this country. In the last
twelve months we have exported more than sixty-nine
millions of gold from this very land.
Other causes had their influences, but the main trou
ble, as it seems to me, comes from this — that we trust
in paper money. The immediate consequence of this
state of things is very painful. Some men lose their
estates ; a few great properties are scattered at once ;
many little competencies go to nothing. Sometimes
this happens to the best of men in the country — men
with liberal ideas, with habits of generosity. You all
know what has recently befallen one of the most hon
orable, generous and Christian men in this town, who,
as a thriving merchant said, has done more for the
rising generation of Boston than any ten churches that
could be named. You all deplore the misfortune of
this honorable philanthropist. Now and then a chance
shot strikes a coward in his tent, but commonly it is the
brave soldiers who get shot in battle. There is a " for
lorn hope " in the battle of productive industry not

260 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
less than the battle of war, and I look at the honest
merchant who turns out bankrupt, as I look on the
wounded soldier, covered all over with honorable scars,
got in front, manfully confronting the foe. He has
suffered, but it was in the cause of God and his coun
try; just now we are in a Balaklava battle and some
body has blundered. Let us do honor to the " six
hundred," remembering that they " rode away " mean
ing right.
In conclusion, there are duties devolving upon hon
orable and Christian men in this time of trouble and
distress; forbearance towards solvent debtors as long
as possible; the avoidance of all waste of articles of
food and clothing, for we have a hard winter before us,
and shall want all we have got. Yet it is not manly or
Christian to make large retrenchments in these tinies,
when a man can afford his previous expenditures, for
by so doing, he simply shifts the burden to another
man's back. Charity should be remembered, for much
of that will be needed before the winter is half through.
We should be humanly generous to such as fall
through mistake, humanly just against defrauders,
swindlers, cheats, of whatever name; charitable to the
follies of the weak, the errors of the wise, but stern
against the culprits who meditate weakness and conceal
crime. The remoter duties are to reform the whole
monetary system, make gold and silver the medium of
business and depart from the habit of buying and sell
ing on credit to so great an extent. When the potato
rots in the ground, it tells us it is not fit to be a na
tion's bread. It is the voice of God crying out of the
ground, " Beware ! beware!" Cholera, yellow fever,
typhoid, the plague, leprosy, they also have a warning,
telling us what will follow if we violate the conditions

HARD TIMES 261
of life and health. They also, through our brother's
blood, are God's voice, crying, " Beware ! beware ! the
spot whereon you stand is unholy ground. Make clean
your cities, breathe pure air ; turn ye, for why will ye
die ? " And when a commercial distress hke this oc
curs in a nation, full of plenty, and wealth, and indus
try, and wisdom, surely it tells us that we have made a
mistake ; that the experiment does not succeed ; that
paper money is a tool that does not work well; that
extravagant expenditure, waste, the importation of
luxuries, dishonesty in trade, are not wise. Besides
have we not made a mistake which lies deeper, nearer,
likewise, to the business of the pulpit? Have we not
thought a little too much of property, fine houses,
gaudy steamboats, New York hotels, costly silks? It
is not worth while to hold the raiment above the body
and the meat more than the soul which should consume
it. The millionaire is not the highest product of hu
man civilization. A rich man, a rich city, does not
necessarily possess all the Christian virtues. " Money
answereth all things," says the Bible proverb ; but it
cannot answer for honesty, it will never do for virtue ;
it cannot take the place of confidence in Thy higher
law, Thou Father of earth and heaven! Is our trade
conducted on fair, just principles? Does the Golden
Rule He on the merchant's desk, measuring out between
men and men the rule of the market? Have we not
forgotten God's higher law? Certainly, we over-rate
wealth to-day, just as our fathers thought too much
of fighting. The great end of business is not the accu
mulation of property, but the formation of character.
" He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall
gather them," says the Psalmist; the great virtues,
prudence, wisdom, justice, benevolence, piety, these

262 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
may be gathered from your trade ; they are not uncer
tain riches, but imperishable, undefiled, and which fade
not away.
" In the day of adversity consider." America will
learn her lesson from this commercial distress, this
scarcity of money, lack of work, temporary hunger,
transient fear. Let us be thankful that our teacher
comes with such a mild face. If we do not learn by
this, then the lesson is to be taught us, not only with
mercantile failure, but likewise with the thunder of
cannon. When God spoke to England through the
jingling dollars, she did not heed Him; but she hears
when He speaks through the Crimean cannon and one
hundred and fifty millions of men in rebellion on the
other side of the world.
But we will learn, and then shall the light break
forth out of the darkness, and the solid blessings of
prosperity shall attend thankful, industrious, forecast
ing people, who remember the inevitable law of justice
which God has written on every metallic dollar and
every paper promise to pay, as he has written it on
these fair flowers of the field. Then, not putting our
trust in uncertain riches, we shall count it the great end
of human life so to do the duties of time as to secure
the reward of eternity ; and for each of us there shall
be a treasure " imperishable, undefiled, and which
f adeth not away."

IX
POVERTY
The destruction of the poor is their poverty. — Proverbs x. IS.
By poverty, I mean the state in which a man does
not have enough to satisfy the natural wants of food,
raiment, shelter, warmth, and the like. From the ear
liest times that we know of, there have been two classes
of men, the rich who had more than enough, the poor
who had less. In one of the earliest books which treats
of the condition of men, we find that Abraham, a rich
man, owns the bodies of three hundred men that are
poor. In four thousand years, the difference between
rich and poor in our part of America is a good deal
lessened, not done away with. In New England prop
erty is more uniformly distributed than in most coun
tries, perhaps more equally than in any land as highly
civilized. But even here the old distinction remains
in a painful form and extended to a pitiful degree.
At one extreme of society is a body called the rich,
men who have abundance, not a very numerous body,
but powerful, first through the energy which accumu
lates money, and secondly through the money itself.
Then there is a body of men who are comfortable.
This class comprises the mass of the people in all the
callings of life. Out of this class the rich men come,
and into it their children or grandchildren commonly
return. Few of the rich men of Boston were sons of
rich men; still fewer grandsons; few of them perhaps
will be fathers of men equaUy rich; still fewer grand
fathers of such. Then there is the class that is miser-

264 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
able. Some of them are supported by public charity,
some by private, some of them by their toil alone —
but altogether they form a mass of men who only stay
in the world, and do not live, in the best sense of that
word. Such are the great divisions of society in respect to
property. However, the lines between these three
classes are not sharp and distinctly drawn. There are
no sharp divisions in nature ; but, for our convenience,
we distinguish classes by their center, where they are
most alike, and not by their circumference, where they
intermix and resemble each other. The Hne between
the miserable and comfortable, between the comfortable
and rich, is not distinctly drawn. The center of each
class is obvious enough, while the limits thereof are a
dissolving view.
The poor are miserable. Their food is the least that
will sustain nature, — not agreeable, not healthy ; their
clothing scanty and mean, their dweUings inconvenient
and uncomfortable, with roof and walls that let in the
cold and the rain — dwellings that are painful and un
healthy; in their personal habits they are commonly
unclean. Then they are ignorant ; they have no time
to attend school in childhood, no time to read or to
think in manhood, even if they have learned to do
either before that. If they have the time, few men
can think to any profit while the body is uncomfort
able. The cold man thinks only of the cold; the
wretched of his misery. Besides this, they are fre
quently vicious. I do not mean to say they are wicked
in the sight of God. I never see a poor man carried
to jail for some petty crime, or even for a great one,
without thinking that probably, in God's eye, the man
is far better than I am, and, from the State's prison or

POVERTY 265
scaffold will ascend into heaven and take rank a great
way before me. I do not mean to say they are wicked
before God; but it is they who commit the minor
crimes, against decency, sobriety, against property and
person, and most of the major crimes, against human
life. I mean that they commit the crimes that get
punished! by law. They crowd your courts; they
tenant your jails ; they occupy your gallows. If some
man would write a book describing the life of aU the
men hanged in Massachusetts for fifty years past, or
tried for some capital offense, and show what class of
society they were from, how they were bred, what in
fluences were about them in childhood, how they passed
their Sundays, and also describe the configuration of
their bodies, it would help us to a valuable chapter in
the philosophy of crime, and furnish mighty argument
against the injustice of our mode of dealing with of
fenders. Poverty is the dark side of modern society. I say
modern society, though poverty is not modern, for an
cient society had poverty worse than ours, and a side
still darker yet. Cannibalism, butchery of captives
after battle, frequent or continual wars for the sake of
plunder, and the slavery of the weak — these were the
dark side of society in four great periods of human
history, — the savage, the barbarous, the classic, and
the feudal. Poverty is the best of these five bad things,
each of which, however, has grimly done its service in
its day.
There is no poverty among the Gaboon negroes.
Put them in our latitude, and it soon comes. Nay, as
they get to learn the wants of cultivated men, there will
be a poorer class even in the torrid zone. Poverty pre
vails in every civilized nation on earth; yes, in every

266 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
savage nation in austere chmes. Let us look at some
examples. England is the richest country in Europe.
I mean she has more wealth in proportion to her popu
lation than any other in a similar climate. Look at her
possessions in every corner of the globe ; at her armies,
which Europe cannot conquer; at her ships, which
weave the great commercial web that spread aU round
about the world; at home what factories, what farms,
what houses, what towns, what a vast and wealthy
metropolis; what an aristocracy — so rich, so culti
vated, so able, so daring, and so unconquered.
But in that very English nation the most frightful
poverty exists. Look at the two sister islands : this the
queen, and that the beggar of all nations ; the rose and
the shamrock; the one throned in royal beauty, the
other bowed to the dust, torn, and trampled under foot.
In that capital of the world's wealth, in that center of
power far greater than the power of aU the Caesars,
there is the most squalid poverty. Look at St. Giles's
and St. James's — that the earthly hell of want and
crime, this the worldly heaven of luxury and power!
Put on the one side the stately nobility of England,
well born, well bred, armed with the power of manners,
the power of money, the power of culture, and the
power of place, and on the other side put the beggary
of England, the two million paupers who are kept
wholly on public or private charity; the three million
laborers who formerly fed on potatoes, God knows
what they feed on now, and all the other hungry sons
of want who are kept in awe only by the growling lion
who guards the British throne ; and you see at once the
result of modern civilization in the ablest, the foremost,
the freest, the most practical, and the richest nation in
the old world.

POVERTY 267
Even here in New England, a country not two hun
dred and fifty years old, a little patch of cleared land
on the edge of the continent, we hear of poverty which
is frightful to think of. It is a serious question, what
shall be done for the poor? There are few that can
tell what shall be done with them, or what is to become
of them. Want is always here in Boston. Misery is
here. Starvation is not unknown. What is now seri
ous will one day be alarming. Even now it is awful
to think of the misery that lurks in this Christian town.
New England in fifty years has increased vastly in
wealth, but poverty increases too. There has been a
great advance in the productiveness of human labor;
with our tools a man can do as much rude work in one
day as he could in three days a hundred years ago. I
mean work with the ax, the plough, the spade ; of nicer
work, yet more; of the most delicate work, see what
machines do for him. The end is not yet; soon we
shall have engines that will whittle granite, as a gang
of saws cleaves logs into broad smooth boards. Yet
with all this advance in the productiveness of human
toil, still there is poverty. A day's work now will
bring a man greater proportionate pay than ever be
fore in New England. I mean to say that the ordi
nary wages for an ordinary day's work will support
a man comfortably and respectably longer than they
ever would before. On the whole, the price of things
has come down and the price of work has gone up.
Yet stiU there are the poor ; there is want, there is mis
ery, there is starvation. The community gives more
than ever before ; a better public provision is made for
the poor, private benevolence is more active and works
far more wisely — yet still there is poverty, want,
misery, unremoved, unmitigated, and, many think, im
mitigable ! <* —

268 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Now I am not going to deny that poverty, like other
forms of suffering, plays a part in the economy of the
human race. If God's children will not Work, or wiU
throw away their bread, I do not complain that He
sends them to bed without their supper — to a hard
bed, and a narrow, and a cold. " Earn your break
fast before you eat it," is not merely the counsel of
Poor Richard, but of Almighty God; it is a just coun
sel, and not hard. But is poverty an essential, sub
stantial, integral element in human civilization, or is it
an accidental element thereof, and transiently present ;
is it amenable to suppression? For my own part, I
believe that all evil is transient, a thing that belongs
to the process of development, not to the nature of
man, or the higher forms of social life towards which
he is advancing. If God be absolutely good, then only
good things are everlasting. This general opinion,
which comes from my religion as well as my philoso
phy, affects my special opinion of the history and de
sign of poverty. I look on it as on cannibalism, the
butchery of captives, the continual war for the sake of
plunder, or on slavery; yes, as I look on the diseases
incidental to childhood, things that mankind live
through and outgrow; which, painful as they are, do
not make up the greatest part of the entire life of
mankind. If it shall be said that I cannot know this,
that I have not a clear inteUectual perception of the
providential design thereof, or the means of its re
moval, still I believe it, and if I have not the knowl
edge which comes of philosophy, I have still faith, the
result of instinctive trust in God.
Let us look a little at the causes of poverty. Some
things we see best on a large scale. So let us look at
poverty thus, and then come down to the smaller forms
thereof.

POVERTY 269
I. There may be a natural and organic cause. The
people of Lapland, Iceland, and Greenland are a poor
people compared with the Scotch, the Danes, or the
French. There is a natural and organic cause for
their poverty in the soil and climate of those countries,
which cannot be changed. They must emigrate before
they can become rich or comfortable in our sense of the
word. Hence their poverty is to be attributed to their
geographical position. Put the New Englanders there,
even they would be a poor people. Thus the poverty
of a nation may depend on the geographical position
of the nation.
Suppose a race of men has little vigor of body or of
mind, and yet the same natural wants as a vigorous
race; put them in favorable circumstances, in a good
climate, on a rich soil, they will be poor on account of
the feebleness of their mind and body; put them in a
stern climate, on a sterile soil, and they will perish.
Such is the case with the Mexicans. Soil and climate
are favorable, yet the people are poor. Suppose a
nation had only one-third part of the Laplander's abil
ity, and yet needed the result of all his power, and was
put in the Laplander's position, they would not live
through the first winter. Had they been Mexicans
who came to Plymouth in 1620, not one of them, it is
probable, would have seen the next summer. Take
away half the sense or bodily strength of the Bushmen
of South Africa, and though they might have sense
enough to dig nuts out of the ground, yet the Hons
and hyenas would eventually eat up the whole nation.
So the poverty of a nation may come from want of
power of body or of mind.
Then if a nation increases in numbers more rapidly
than in wealth, there is a corresponding increase of

270 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
want. Let the number of births in England for the
next ten years be double the number for the last ten,
without a corresponding creation of new wealth, and
the English are brought to the condition of the Irish.
Let the number of births in Ireland in like manner
multiply, and one-half the population must perish for
want of food. So the poverty of a nation may depend
on the disproportionate increase of its numbers.
Then an able race, under favorable outward circum
stances, without an over-rapid increase of numbers, if
its powers are not much developed, will be poor in com
parison with a similar race under similar circumstances,
but highly developed. Thus England, under Egbert,
in the ninth century, was poor compared with England
under Victoria, in the nineteenth century. The sin
gle town of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, or
even Sheffield, is probably worth many times the wealth
of all England in the ninth century. So the poverty
of a nation may depend on its want of development.
Old England and New England are rich, partly
through the circumstances of climate and soil, partly
and chiefly through the great vigor of the race, with
only a normal increase of numbers, and partly through
a more complete development of the nations. Such
are the chief natural and organic causes of poverty on
a large scale in a nation.
II. The causes may be political. By political, I
mean such as are brought about by the laws, either the
fundamental laws, the constitution, or the minor laws,
statutes. Sometimes the laws tend to make the whole
nation poor. Such are the laws which force the in
dustry of the people out of the natural channel, re
stricting commerce, agriculture, manufactures, indus
try in general. Sometimes this is, done by promoting

POVERTY 271
war, by keeping up armies and navies, by putting the
destructive work of fighting, or the merely conservative
work of ruling, before the creative works of productive
industry. France was an example of that a hundred
years ago. Spain yet continues such, as she has been
for two centuries.
Sometimes this is done by hindering the general de
velopment of the nation, by retarding education, by
forbidding all freedom of thought. The States of the
Church are an example of this when compared with
Tuscany; all Italy and Austria when compared with
England; Spain, when compared with Germany,
France, and HoUand.
Sometimes this is brought about by keeping up an
unnatural institution — as slavery, for example.
South Carolina is an instance of this, when compared
with Massachusetts. South Carolina has many advan
tages over us, yet South Carolina is poor while Massa
chusetts is rich.
Sometimes this pohtical action primarily affects only
the distribution of wealth, and so makes one class rich
and another poor. Such is the case with laws which
give all the real estate to the eldest son, laws which al
low property to be entailed for a long time or for ever,
laws which cut men off from the land. These laws at
first seem only to make one class rich and the others
poor, and merely to affect the distribution of wealth in
a nation; but they are unnatural, and retard the in
dustry of the people, and diminish their productive
power, and make the whole nation less rich. Legisla
tion may favor wealth and not men — property which
is accumulated labor, rather than labor which is the
power that accumulates property. Such legislation
always endangers wealth in the end^ lessening its quan
tity and making its tenure uncertain.

272 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Two things may be said of European legislation in
general, and especially of English legislation. First,
that it has aimed to concentrate wealth in the hands of
a few and keep it there. Hence it favors primogeni
ture, entails monopolies of posts of profit and of honor.
Second, it has always looked out for the proprietor and
his property, and cared little for the man without
property; hence it always wanted the price of things
high, the wages of men low, and, in addition to natural
and organic obstacles, it continually put social im
pediments in the poor man's way. In England no son
of a laborer could rise to eminence in the law or in
medicine, scarcely in the Church; no, not even in the
army or navy.
These two statements will bear examination. The
genius of England has demanded these two things.
The genius of America demands neither, but rejects
both; demands the distribution of property, puts the
rights of man first, the rights of things last. Such are
the political causes, and such their effects.
III. Then there are social causes which make a
nation poor. Such are the prevalence of an opinion
that industry is not respectable; that it is honorable
to consume, disgraceful to create; that much must be
spent, though little earned. The Spanish nation is
poor in part through the prevalence of this opinion.
Sometimes social causes seem only to affect a class.
The Pariahs in India must not fill any office that is well
paid. They are despised, and of course they are poor
and miserable. The blacks in New England are de
spised and frowned down, not admitted to the steam
boat, the omnibus, to the school-houses in Boston, or
even to the meeting-house with white men ; not often
allowed to work in company with the whites; and so

POVERTY 273
they are kept in poverty. In Europe the Jews have
been equally despised and treated in the same way, but
not made poor, because they are in many respects a
superior race of men, and because they have the ad
vantage of belonging to a nation whose civilization is
older than any other in Europe; a nation specially
gifted with the faculty of thrift ; a tribe whom none but
other Jews, Scotchmen, or New Englanders, could out
wit, overreach, and make poor. No Ferdinand and Isa
bella, no inquisition could so completely expel them
from any country, as the superior craft and cunning
of the Yankee has driven them out of New England.
There are Jews in every country of Europe, every
where despised and maltreated, and forced into the cor
ners of society, but everywhere superior to the men who
surround them. Such are the social causes which pro
duce poverty.
Now, let us look at the matter on a smaller scale, and
see the cause of poverty in New England, of poverty in
Broad Street and Sea Street. From the great mass let
me take out a class which are accidentally poor. There
are the widows and orphan children who inherit no
estate; the able men reduced by sickness before they
have accumulated enough to sustain them. Then let
me take out a class of men transiently poor, men who
start with nothing, but have vigor and will to make
their own way in the world. The majority of the poor
still remain — the class who are permanently poor.
The accidentally poor can easily be taken care of by
public or private charity ; the transient poor will soon
take care of themselves. The young man who lives on
six cents a day while studying medicine in Boston, is
doubtless a poor man, but will soon repay society for
the slight aid it has lent him, and in time will take care
IX— 18

274 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
of other poor men. So these two classes — the acci
dental and the transient poor — can easily be disposed
of. What causes have produced the class that is perma
nently poor? What has just been said of nations, is
true also of individuals.
First, there are natural and organic causes of pov
erty. Some men are born into the midst of want, igno
rance, idleness, filthiness, intemperance, vice, crime;
their earliest associations are debasing, their compan
ions bad. They are born into the Iceland of society,
into the frigid zone, some of them under the very pole-
star of want. Such men are born and bred under the
greatest disadvantages. Every star in their horoscope
has a malignant aspect, and sheds disastrous influence.
I do not remember five men in New England, from that
class, becoming distinguished in any manly pursuit, —
not five. Almost all of our great men and our rich
men came from the comfortable class, none from the
miserable. The old poverty is parent of new poverty.
It takes at least two generations to outgrow the per
nicious influence of such circumstances.
Then much of the permanent poverty comes from
the lack of ability, power of body and of mind. In
that Iceland of society men are commonly born with
a feeble organization, and bred under every physical
disadvantage ; the man is physically weak, or else runs
to muscle and not brain, and so is mentally weak. His
feebleness is the result of the poverty of his fathers,
and his own want in childhood. The oak tree grows
tall and large in a rich valley; stunted, small, and
scrubby on the barren sand.
Again, this class of men increase most rapidly in
numbers. When the poor man has not half enough to

POVERTY 275
fill his own mouth, and clothe his own back, other backs
are added, other mouths opened. He abounds in noth
ing but naked and hungry children.
Further still, he has not so good a chance as the com
fortable to get education and general development. A
rud« man, with superior abilities, in this century, will
often be distanced by the well-trained man who started
at birth with inferior powers. But if the rude man
begin with inferior abilities, inferior circumstances, in
cumbered also with a load becoming rapidly more bur
densome, you see under what accumulated disadvan
tages he labors all his life. So to the first natural and
organic cause of poverty, his untoward position in
society; to the second, his inferior ability; and to the
third, the increase of his family, excessively rapid, we
must add a fourth cause, his inferior development. An
ignorant man, who is also weak in body, and besides
that, starts with every disadvantage, his burdens an
nually increasing, may be expected to continue a poor
man. It is only in most extraordinary cases that it
turns out otherwise.
To these causes we must add what comes therefrom
as their joint result: idleness, by which the poor waste
their time; thriftlessness and improvidence, by which
they lose their opportunities and squander their sub
stance. The poor are seldom so economical as the
rich ; it is so with children, they spoil the furniture, soil
and rend their garments, put things to a wasteful use,
consume heedlessly and squander, careless of to-mor
row. The poor are the children of society.
To these five causes I must add intemperance, the^
great bane of the miserable class. I feel no tempta
tion to be drunken, but if I were always miserable, cold,
hungry, naked, so ignorant that I did not know the

276 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCffiTY
result of violating God's laws, had I been surrounded
from youth with the worst examples, not respected by
other men, but a loathsome object in their sight, not
even respecting myself, I can easily understand how
the temporary madness of strong drink would be a
most welcome thing. The poor are the prey of the
rum-seller. As the lion in the Hebrew wilderness
eateth up the wild ass, so in modern society the rum-
seller and rum-maker suck the bones of the miserable
poor. I never hear of a great fortune made in the
liquor trade, but I think of the wives that have been
made widows thereby, of the children bereft of their
parents, of the fathers and mothers whom strong drink
has brought down to shame, to crime, and to ruin.
The history of the first barrel of rum that ever visited
New England is well known. It brought some forty
men before the bar of the court. The history of the
last barrel can scarcely be much better.
Such are the natural and organic causes which make
poverty. With the exception of laws which allow the sale of
intoxicating drink, I think there are few political causes
of poverty in New England, and they are too incon
siderable to mention in so brief a sketch as this. How
ever, there are some social causes of our permanent
poverty. I do not think we have much respect for the
men who do the rude work of Hfe, however faithfully
and well — little respect for work itself. The rich
man is ashamed to have begun to make his fortune with
his own hard hands; even if the rich man is not, his
daughter is for him. I do not think we have cared
much to respect the humble efforts of feeble men ; not
cared much to have men dear, and things cheap. It
has not been thought the part of political economy, of

POVERTY 277
sound legislation, or of pure Christianity, to hinder the
increase of pauperism, to remove the causes of poverty ;
yes, the causes of crime — only to take vengeance on it
when committed !
Boston is a strange place ; here is energy enough to
conquer half the continent in ten years; power of
thought to seize and tame the Connecticut and the Mer
rimac ; charity enough to send missionaries all over the
world; but not justice enough to found a high school
for her own daughters, or to forbid her richest citizens
from letting bar-rooms as nurseries of poverty and
crime, from opening wide gates which lead to the alms
house, the jail, the gallows, and earthly hell!
Such are the causes of poverty, organic, political,
social. You may see families pass from the comfort
able to the miserable class, by intemperance, idleness,
wastefulness, even by feebleness of body and of mind;
yet, while it is common for the rich to descend into the
comfortable class, solely by lack of the eminent thrift
which raised their fathers thence, or because they lack
the common stimulus to toil and save, it is not common
for the comfortable to fall into the pit of misery in
New England, except through wickedness, through
idleness, or intemperance.
It is not easy to study poverty in Boston. But take
a Httle inland town, which few persons migrate into,
you will find the miserable families have commonly been
so for a hundred years ; that many of them are de
scended from the " servants," or white slaves, brought
here by our fathers; that such as fall from the com
fortable classes are commonly made miserable by their
own fault, sometimes by idleness, which is certainly a
sin: for any man who will not work, and persists in
living, eats the bread of some other man, either begged

278 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
or stolen — but chiefly by intemperance. Three-
fourths of the poverty of this character is to be at
tributed to this cause.
Now there is a tendency in poverty to drive the ablest
men to work, and so get rid of the poverty ; and this I
take it is the providential design thereof. Poverty,
like an armed man, stalks in the rear of the social
march, huge and haggard, and gaunt and grim, to
scare the lazy, to goad the idle with his sword, to tram
ple and slay the obstinate sluggard. But he treads
also the feeble under his feet, for no fault of theirs,
only for the misfortune of being born in the rear of
society. But in poverty there is also a tendency to
intimidate, to enfeeble, to benumb. The poverty of
the strong man compels him to toil ; but with the weak,
the destruction of the poor is his poverty. An active
man is awakened from his sleep by the cold; he arises
and seeks more covering; the indolent, or the feeble,
shiver on till the morning, benumbed and enfeebled by
the cold. So weakness begets weakness ; poverty, pov
erty ; intemperance, intemperance ; crime, crime.
Everything is against the poor man ; he pays the
dearest tax, the highest rent for his house, the dearest
price for all he eats or wears. The poor cannot watch
their opportunity, and take advantage of the markets,
as other men. They have the most numerous tempta
tions to intemperance and crime ; they have the poorest
safeguards from these evils. If the chief value of
wealth, as a rich man tells us, be this — that " it ren
ders its owner independent of others," then on what
shall the poor men lean, neglected and despised by
others, looked on as loathsome, and held in contempt,
shut out even from the sermons and the prayers of
respectable men? It is no marvel if they cease to re
spect themselves.

POVERTY 279
The poor are the most obnoxious to disease; their
children are not only most numerous, but most un
healthy. More than half of the children of that class
perish at the age of five. Amongst the poor, infec
tious diseases rage with frightful violence. The mor
tality in that class is amazing. If things are to con
tinue as now, I thank God it is so. If Death is their
only guardian, he is at least powerful, and does not
scorn his work.
In addition to the poor, whom these causes have
made and kept in poverty, the needy of other lands
flock hither. The nobility of old England, so zealous
in pursuing their game, in keeping their entails un
broken, and primogeniture safe, have sent their beg
gary to New England, to be supported by the crumbs
that fall from our table. So, in the same New Eng
land city, the extremes of society are brought together.
Here is health, elegance, cultivation, sobriety, decency,
refinement — I wish there was more of it ; there is pov
erty, ignorance, drunkenness, violence, crime, in most
odious forms — starvation ! We have our St. Giles's
and St. James's ; our nobility, not a whit less noble
than the noblest of other lands, and our beggars, both
in a Christian city. Amid the needy population, mis
ery and death have found their parish. Who shall
dare stop his ears, when they preach their awful de
nunciation of want and woe?
Good men ask, " What shall we do ? " Foreign pov
erty has had this good effect ; it has shamed or fright
ened the American beggar into industry and thrift.
Poverty will not be removed till the causes thereof
are removed. There are some who look for a great
social revolution. So do I; only I do not look for it
to come about suddenly, or by mechanical means. We

280 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
are in a social revolution, and do not know it. While
I cannot accept the peculiar doctrines of the Associa-
tionists, I rejoice in their existence. I sympathize
with their hope. They point out the evils of society,
and that is something. They propose a method of
removing its evils. I do not believe in that method,
but mankind will probably make many experiments
before we hit upon the right one. For my own part,
I confess I do not see any way of removing poverty
wholly or entirely, in one or two, or in four or five
generations. I think it will linger for some ages to
come. Like the snow, it is to be removed by a general
elevation of the temperature of the air, not all at once ;
and will long hang about the dark and cold places of
the world. But I do think it will at last be overcome,
so that a man who cannot subsist will be as rare as a
cannibal. " Ye have the poor with you always," said
Jesus; and many who remember this, forget that he
also said, " And whensoever ye will ye may do them
good." I expect to see a mitigation of poverty in this
country, and that before long.
It is likely that the legal theory of property in Eu
rope will undergo a great change before many years ;
that the right to bequeath enormous estates to indi
viduals will be cut off; that primogeniture will cease,
and entailments be broken, and all monopolies of rank
and power come to an end, and so a great change take
place in the social condition of Europe, and especially
of England. That change will bring many of the
comfortable into the rich class, and eventually many of
the miserable into the comfortable class. But I do not
expect such a radical change here, where we have not
such enormous abuses to surmount.
I think something will be done in Europe for the

POVERTY 281
organization of labor, I do not know what; I do not
know how ; I have not the ability to know, and will not
pretend to criticize what I know I cannot create, and
do not at present understand. I think there will be a
great change in the form of society ; that able men will
endeavor to remove the causes of crime, not merely to
make money out of that crime ; that intemperance will
be diminished; that idleness in rich or poor will be
counted a disgrace ; that labor will be more respected ;
education more widely diffused ; and that institutions
will be founded, which will tend to produce these re
sults. But I do not pretend to devise those institu
tions, and certainly shall not throw obstacles in the
way of such as can or will try. It seems likely that
something will be first done in Europe, where the need
is greatest. There a change must come. By and by,
if it does not come peaceably, the continent will not
furnish " special constables " enough to put down hu
man nature. If the white republicans cannot make a
revolution peacefully, wait a little, and the red repub
licans will make it in blood. " Peaceably if we can,
forcibly if we must," says mankind, first in a whisper,
then in a voice of thunder. If powerful men will not
write justice with black ink, on white paper, ignorant
and violent men will write it on the soil, in letters of
blood, and illuminate their rude legislation with burning
castles, palaces, and towns. While the social change
is taking place never so peacefully, men will think
the world is going to ruin. But it is an old world,
pretty well put together, and, with all these changes,
will probably last some time longer. Human society
is like one of those enormous boulders, so nicely poised
on another rock, that a man may move it with a single
hand. You are afraid to come under its sides, lest it

282 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
fall. When the wind blows, it rocks with formidable
noise, and men say it will soon be down upon us.
Now and then a rude boy undertakes to throw it over ;
but all the men who can get their shoulders under,
cannot raise the ponderous mass from its solid and
firm-set base.
Still, after all these changes have taken place, there
remains the difference between the strong and the
weak, the active and the idle, the thrifty and the
spendthrift, the temperate and the intemperate; and,
though the terra poverty ceases to be so dreadful, and
no longer denotes want of the natural necessaries of
the body, there will still remain the relatively rich and
the relatively poor.
But now something can be done directly to remove
the causes of poverty, something to mitigate their ef
fects; we need both the palliative charity, and the
remedial justice. Tenements for the poor can be
provided at a cheap rent, that shall yet pay their
owner a reasonable income. This has been proved by
actual experiment, and, after all that has been said
about it, I am amazed that no more is done. I will
not exhort the churches to this in the name of reli
gion — they have other matters to attend to ; but if
capitalists will not, in a place like Boston, it seems to
me the city should see that this class of the popula
tion is provided with tenements, at a rate not ruinous.
It would be good economy to do it, in the pecuniary
sense of good economy ; certainly to hire money at
six per cent., and rent the houses built therewith at
eight per cent., would cost less than to support the poor
entirely in almhouses, and punish them in jails.
Something yet more may be done, in the way of
furnishing them with work, or of directing them to it ;

POVERTY 283
something towards enabling them to purchase food
and other articles cheap.
Something might be done to prevent street beggary,
and begging from house to house, which is rather a
new thing in this town. The indiscriminate charity,
which it is difficult to withhold from a needy and im
portunate beggar, does more harm than good.
Much may be done to promote temperance; much
more, I fear, than is likely to be done ; that is plainly
the duty of society. Intemperance is bad enough with
the comfortable and the rich ; with the poor it is ruin
— sheer, blank, and swift ruin; The example of the
rich, of the comfortable, goes down there like light
ning, to shatter, to blast, and to burn. It is mar
velous, that in Christian Boston, men of wealth, and
so above the temptation which lurks behind a dollar,
men of character otherwise thought to be elevated,
can yet continue a traffic which leads to the ruin and
slow butchery of such masses of men. I know not
what can be done by means of the public law. I do
know what can be done by private self-denial, by
private diligence.
Something also may be done to promote religion
amongst the poor, at least something to make it prac
ticable for a poor man to come to church on Sunday,
with his fellow-creatures who are not miserable — and
to hear the best things that the ablest men in the
Church have to offer. We are very democratic in our
State, not at all so in our Church. In this matter the
Catholics put us quite to shame. If, as some men
stiU beheve, it be a manly calling and a noble to preach
Christianity, then to preach it to men who stand in the
worst and most dangerous positions in society ; to take
the highest truths of human consciousness, the loftiest

284 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
philosophy, the noblest piety, and bring them down
into the daily life of poor men, rude men, men obscure,
unfriended, ready to perish; surely this is the noblest
part of that calling, and demands the noblest gifts,
the fairest and the largest culture, and the loftiest
powers. It is no hard thing to reason with reasoning men,
and to be intelligible to the intelligent; to talk ac
ceptably and even movingly to scholars and men well
read, is no hard thing, if you are yourself well read
and a scholar. But to be intelligible to the ignorant,
to reason with men who reason not, to speak accept
ably and movingly with such men, to inspire them
with wisdom, with goodness, and with piety, — that is
the task only for some men of rare genius who can
stride over the great gulf betwixt the thrones of cre
ative power, and the humble positions of men ignorant,
poor, and forgot! Yet such men there are, and here
is their work.
Something can be done for the children of the poor
— to promote their education, to find them employ
ment, to snatch these little ones from underneath the
feet of that grim poverty. It is not less than awful
to think, while there are more children born in Boston
of Catholic parents than of Protestant, that yet more
than three-fifths thereof die before the sun of their
fifth year shines on their luckless heads. I thank God
that thus they die. If there be not wisdom enough
in society, nor enough justice there to save them from
their future long-protracted suffering, than I thank
God that Death comes down betimes, and moistens
his sickle while his crop is green. I pity not the
miserable babes who fall early before that merciful
arm of Death. They are at rest. Poverty cannot

POVERTY 285
touch them. Let the mothers who bore them rejoice,
but weep only for those that are left — left to ig
norance, to misery, to intemperance, to vice that I
shall not name; left to the mercies of the jail, and per
haps the gallows at the last. Yet Boston is a Chris
tian city — and it is eighteen hundred years since one
great Son of man came to seek and to save that which
was lost!
I see not what more can be done directly, and I see
not why these things should not be done. Still some
wiU suffer; the idle, the lazy, the proud who will not
work, the careless who will voluntarily waste their
time, their strength, or their goods — they must suffer,
they ought to suffer. Want is the only schoolmaster
to teach them industry and thrift. Such as are merely
unable, who are poor not by their fault — we do
wrong to let them suffer ; we do wickedly to leave them
to perish. The little children who survive — are they
to be left to become barbarians in the midst of our
civilization ?
Want is not an absolutely needful thing, but very
needful for the present distress, to teach us industry,
economy, thrift, and its creative arts. There is na
ture — ¦ the whole material world — waiting to serve.
" What would you have thereof? " says God.
" Pay for it and take it, as you will ; only pay as
you go ! " There are hands to work, heads to think ;
strong hands, hard heads. God is an economist; He
economizes suffering; there is never too much of it in
the world for the purpose it is to serve, though it often
falls where it should not fall. It is here to teach us
industry, thrift, justice. It will be here no more when
we have learned its lesson. Want is here on suffer
ance; misery on sufferance; and mankind can eject

286 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
them if we will. Poverty, like all evils, is amendable
to suppression.
Can we not end this poverty — the misery and
crime it brings? No, not to-day. Can we not lessen
it? Soon as we will. Think how much ability there
is in this town — cool, far-sighted talent. If some
of the ablest men directed their thoughts to the re
form of this evil, how much might be done in a single
generation; and in a century — what could not they
do in a hundred years? What better work is there
for able men? I would have it written on my tomb
stone : " This man had but little wit, and less fame,
yet he helped remove the causes of poverty, making
men better off and better;" rather by far than this:
" Here lies a great man ; he had a great place in the
world, and great power, and great fame, and made
nothing of it, leaving the world no better for his stay
therein, and no man better off."
After all the special efforts to remove poverty, the
great work is to be done by the general advance of
mankind. We shall outgrow this, as cannibalism,
butchery of captives, war for plunder, and other kin
dred miseries have been outgrown. God has general
remedies in abundance, but few specific. Something
will be done by diffusing throughout the community
principles and habits of economy, industry, temper
ance; by diffusing ideas of justice, sentiments of
brotherly love, sentiments and ideas of religion. I
hope everything from that — the noiseless and steady
progress of Christianity; the snow melts not by sun
light, or that alone, but as the whole air becomes
warm. You may in cold weather melt away a little
before your own door, but that makes little difference
till the general temperature rises. Still, while the air

POVERTY 287
is getting warm, you facilitate the process by break
ing up the obdurate masses of ice, and putting them
where the sun shines with direct and unimpeded light.
So must we do with poverty.
It is only a Httle that any of us can do — for any
thing. Still we can do a little; we can each do by
helping towards raising the general tone of society:
first, by each man raising himself; by industry, econ
omy, charity, justice, piety ; by noble life. So do
ing, we raise the moral temperature of the whole world,
and just in proportion thereto. Next, by helping
those who come in our way ; nay, by going out of our
way to help men. In each of these modes, it is our
duty to work. To a certain extent each man is his
brother's keeper. Of the powers we possess we are
but trustees under Providence, to use them for the bene
fit of men, and render continually an account of our
stewardship to God. Each man can do a little di
rectly to help convince the world of its wrong, a little
in the way of temporizing charity, a little in the way
of remedial justice; so doing, he works with God, and
God works with him.

WAR
The Lord is a man of war. — Exodus xv. 3.
God is love. — 1 John iv. 8.
I ask your attention to " A Sermon of War." I
have waited some time before treating this subject at
length, till the present hostilities should assume a defi
nite form, and the designs of the Government become
more apparent. I wished to be able to speak coolly,
and with knowledge of the facts, that we might un
derstand the comparative merits of the present war.
Besides, I have waited for others in the churches, of
more experience to speak, before I ventured to offer
my counsel ; but I have thus far waited almost in vain.
I did not wish to treat the matter last Sunday, for
that was the end of our week of Pentecost, when cloven
tongues of flame descend on the city, and some are
thought to be full of new wine, and others of the
holy spirit. The heat of the meetings, good and
bad, of that week, could not wholly have passed away
from you or me, and we ought to come coolly and
consider a subject like this. So the last Sunday I
only sketched the background of the picture, to-day
intending to paint the horrors of war in front of that
" Presence of Beauty in Nature," to which, with ite
meanings and its lessons, I then asked you to attend.
It seems to me that an idea of God as the Infinite
is given to us in our nature itself. But men create
a more definite conception of God in their own im
age. Thus a rude savage man, who has learned only
288

WAR 289
the presence of power in nature, conceives of God
mainly as a force, and speaks of Him as a God of
power. Such, though not without beautiful excep
tions, is the character ascribed to Jehovah in the Old
Testament. " The Lord is a man of war." He is
" the Lord of hosts." He kills men, and their cattle.
If there be trouble in the enemies' city, it is the Lord
who hath caused it. He will " whet his glittering
sword, and render vengeance to his enemies. He will
make his arrows drunk with blood, and his sword shall
devour flesh ! " It is with the sword that God pleads
with all men. He encourages men to fight, and says,
" Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from
blood." He sends blood into the streets ; he waters
the land with blood, and in blood he dissolves the
mountains. He brandishes his sword before kings,
and they tremble at every moment. He treads na
tions as grapes in a wine-press, and his garments are
stained with their life's blood.
A man who has grown up to read the older Testa
ment of God revealed in the beauty of the universe,
and to feel the goodness of God therein set forth, sees
Him not as force only, or in chief, but as love. He
worships in love the God of goodness and of peace.
Such is the prevalent character ascribed to God in the
New Testament, except in the book of Revelation.
He is the " God of love and peace ;" " our Father,"
" kind to the unthankful and the unmerciful." In
one word, God is love. He loves us all, Jew and
Gentile, bond and free. All are His children, each of
priceless value in His sight. He is no God of battles ;
no Lord of hosts ; no man of war. He has no sword
nor arrows; He does not water the earth nor melt
the mountains in blood, but " He maketh His sun to
IX— 19

290 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on
the just and the unjust." He has no garments dyed
in blood; curses no man for refusing to fight. He is
spirit, to be worshiped in spirit and in truth! The
commandment is : Love one another ; resist not evil with
evil; forgive seventy times seven; overcome evil with
good ; love your enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do
good to them that hate you; pray for them that
despitefully use you and persecute you. There is
no nation to shut its ports against another, all are
men ; no caste to curl its lip at inferiors ; all are
brothers, members of one body, united in the Christ,
the ideal man and head of all. The most useful is
the greatest. No man is to be master, for the Christ
is our teacher. We are to fear no man, for God is
our Father.
These precepts are undeniably the precepts of
Christianity. Equally plain is it that they are the
dictates of man's nature, only developed and active ;
a part of God's universal revelation; His law writ on
the soul of man, established in the nature of things ;
true after all experience, and true before all experi
ence. The man of real insight into spiritual things
sees and knows them to be true.
Do not believe it the part of a coward to think so.
I have known many cowards ; yes, a great many ;
some very cowardly, pusillanimous, and faint-hearted
cowards; but never one who thought so, or pretended
to think so. It requires very Httle courage to fight
with sword and musket, and that of a cheap kind.
Men of that stamp are plenty as grass in June. Beat
your drums, and they will follow; offer them but
eight dollars a month, and they will come — fifty
thousand of them, to smite and kill. Every male

WAR 291
animal, or reptile, will fight. It requires little courage
to kill ; but it takes much to resist evil with good, hold
ing obstinately out, active or passive, till you over
come it. Call that non-resistance, if you will ; it is the
stoutest kind of combat, demanding all the manhood
of a man.
I will not deny that war is inseparable from a low
stage of civilization; so is polygamy, slavery, can
nibalism. Taking men as they were, savage and vio
lent, there have been times when war was unavoidable.
I will not deny that it has helped forward the civiliza
tion of the race, for God often makes the folly and the
sin of men contribute to the progress of mankind. It
is none the less a folly or a sin. In a civilized nation
like ourselves, it is far more heinous than in the 0 jib-
ways or the Comanches.
War is in utter violation of Christianity. If war
be right, then Christianity is wrong, false, a lie. But
if Christianity be true, if reason, conscience, the re
ligious sense, the highest faculties of man, are to be
trusted, then war is the wrong, the falsehood, the He. I
maintain that aggressive war is a sin; that it is na
tional infidelity, a denial of Christianity and of God.
Every man who understands Christianity by heart, in
its relations to man, to society, the nation, the world,
knows that war is a wrong. At this day, with all the
enlightenment of our age, after the long peace of the
nations, war is easily avoided. Whenever it occurs,
the very fact of its occurrence convicts the rulers of a
nation either of entire incapacity as statesmen, or
else of the worst form of treason : treason to the peo
ple, to mankind, to God ! There is no other alterna
tive. The very fact of an aggressive war shows that
the men who cause it must be either fools or traitors.

292 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
I think Hghtly of what is called treason against a
government. That may be your duty to-day, or mine.
Certainly it was our fathers' duty not long ago ; now
it is our boast and their title to honor. But treason
against the people, against mankind, against God, is
a great sin, not lightly to be spoken of. The polit
ical authors of the war on this continent, and at this
day, are either utterly incapable of a statesman's work,
or else guilty of that sin. Fools they are, or traitors
they must be.
Let me speak, and in detail, of the evils of war. I
wish this were not necessary. But we have found our
selves in a war ; the Congress has voted our money and
our men to carry it on ; the governors call for volun
teers ; the volunteers come when they are caUed for.
No voice of indignation goes forth from the heart of
the eight hundred thousand souls of Massachusetts ;
of the seventeen million freemen of the land how few
complain ; only a man here and there ! The press is
well-nigh silent. And the Church, so far from pro
testing against this infidelity in the name of Christ,
is little better than dead. The man of blood shelters
himself behind its wall, silent, dark, dead, and emblem
atic. These facts show that it is necessary to speak
of the evils of war. I am speaking in a city whose
fairest, firmest, most costly buildings are warehouses
and banks; a city whose most popular idol is Mam
mon, the god of gold; whose trinity is a trinity of
coin! I shall speak intelligibly, therefore, if I begin
by considering war as a waste of property. It par
alyzes industry. The very fear of it is a mildew upon
commerce. Though the present war is but a skirmish,
only a few random shots between a squad of regulars
and some strolling battalions, a quarrel which in Eu-

WAR 293
rope would scarcely frighten even the pope — you see
the effect of it upon trade. Though the fighting be
thousands of miles from Boston, your stock falls in the
market; the rate of insurance is altered; your dealer
in wood piles his boards and his timber on his wharf,
not finding a market. There are few ships in the
great Southern mart to take the freight of many ; ex
change is disturbed. The clergyman is afraid to
buy a book, lest his children want bread. It is so
with all departments of industry and trade. In war
the capitalist is uncertain and slow to venture, so
the laborer's hand wiU be still, and his child ill clad
and hungry.
In the late war with England, many of you remem
ber the condition of your fisheries, of your commerce ;
how the ships lay rotting at the wharf. The dearness
of cloth, of provisions, flour, sugar, tea, coffee, salt;
the comparative lowness of wages, the stagnation of
business, the scarcity of money, the universal sullen-
ness and gloom — all this is well remembered now.
So is the ruin it brought on many a man.
Yet but few weeks ago some men talked boast-
ingly of a war with England. There are some men
who seem to have no eyes nor ears, only a mouth;
whose chief function is talk. Of their talk I will say
nothing; we look for dust in dry places. But some
men thus talked of war, and seemed desirous to pro
voke it, who can scarce plead ignorance, and I fear
not folly, for their excuse. I leave such to the just
resentment sure to fall on them from sober, serious
men, who dare to be so unpopular as to think before
they speak, and then say what comes of thinking.
Perhaps such a war was never likely to take place, and
now, thanks to a few wise men, all danger thereof

294 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
seems at an end. But suppose it had happened —
what would become of your commerce, of your fishing-
smacks on the banks or along the shore ? ' what of
your coasting vessels; doubling the headlands all the
way from the St. John to the Nueces? what of your
whale-ships in the Pacific? what of your Indiamen,
deep freighted with oriental wealth? what of that
fleet which crowds across the Atlantic sea, trading with
East and West, and North and South? I know some
men care little for the rich, but when the owners keep
their craft in port, where can the hands' find work, or
their mouths find bread? The shipping of the United
States amounts nearly to 2,500,000 tons. At $40 a
ton, its value is nearly $100,000,000. This is the
value only of those sea-carriages ; their cargoes I can
not compute. Allowing one sailor for every twenty
tons burden, here will be 125,000 seamen. They and
their families amount to 500,000 souls. In war, what
will become of them? A capital of more than
$13,000,000 is invested in the fisheries of Massachu
setts alone. More than 19,000 men find profitable em
ployment therein. If each man have but four others
in his family, a small number for that class, here are
more than 95,000 persons in this State alone, whose
daily bread depends on this business. They cannot
fish in troubled waters, for they are fishermen, not pol
iticians. Where could they find bread or cloth in time
of war? In Dartmoor prison? Ask that of your
demagogues who courted war !
Then, too, the positive destruction of property in
war is monstrous. A ship of the line costs from
$500,000 to $1,000,000. The loss of a fleet by cap
ture, by fire, or by decay, is a great loss. You know
at what cost a fort is built, if you have counted the

WAR 295
sums successively voted for Fort Adams in Rhode Is
land, or those in our own harbor. The destruction
of forts is another item in the cost of war. The cap
ture or destruction of merchant ships with their
freight, creates a most formidable loss. In 1812 the
whole tonnage of the United States was scarce half
what it is now. Yet the loss of ships and their freight,
in the late war, brief as it was, is estimated at
$100,000,000. Then the loss by plunder and military
occupation is monstrous. The soldier, like the savage,
cuts down the tree to gather its fruit. I cannot cal
culate the loss by burning towns and cities. But sup
pose Boston were bombarded and laid in ashes. Cal
culate the loss if you can. You may say, " This could
not be," for it is as easy to say No, as Yes. But
remember what befell us in the last war ; remember how
recently the best defended capitals of Europe, Vienna,
Paris, Antwerp, have fallen into hostile hands. Con
sider how often a strong place, like Coblentz, Mentz,
Malta, Gibraltar, St. Juan d'Ulloa, has been declared
impregnable, and then been taken ; calculate the force
which might be brought against this town, and you
will see that in eight and forty hours, or half that
time, it might be left nothing but a heap of ruins smok
ing in the sun ! I doubt not the valor of American
soldiers, the skill of their engineers, nor the ability
of their commanders. I am ready to believe all this is
greater than we are told. Still, such are the con
tingencies of war. If some not very ignorant men
had their way, this would be a probability and perhaps
a fact. If we should burn every town from the
Tweed to the Thames, it would not rebuild our own
city. But, on the supposition that nothing is destroyed,

296 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
see the loss which comes from the misdirection of pro
ductive industry. Your fleets, forts, dockyards, ar
senals, cannons, muskets, swords, and the like, are pro
vided at great cost, and yet are unprofitable. They
do not pay. They weave no cloth; they bake no
bread; they produce nothing. Yet, from 1791 to
1832, in forty-two years, we expended in these things
$303,242,576, namely, for the navy, etc., $112,703,-
933 ; for the army, etc., $190,538,643. For the same
time, all other expenses of the nation came to but $37,-
158,047. More than eight-ninths of the whole rev
enue of the nation was spent for purposes of war. .In
four years, from 1812 to 1815, we paid in this way,
$92,350,519.37. In six years, from 1835 to 1840,
we paid annually on the average $21,328,903; in all,
$127,973,418. Our Congress has just voted $17,-
000,000, as a special grant for the army alone. The
175,118 muskets at Springfield are valued at $3,000,-
000 ; we pay annually $200,000 to support that arse
nal. The navy-yard at Charleston, with its stores,
etc., has cost $4,741,000. And, for all profitable re
turns, this money might as well be sunk in the bottom
of the sea. In some countries it is yet worse. There
are towns and cities in which the fortifications have
cost more than all the houses, churches, shops, and
other property therein. This happens not among the
Sacs and Foxes, but in Christian Europe.
Then your soldier is the most unprofitable animal
you can keep. He makes no railroads ; clears no land ;
raises no corn. No, he can make neither cloth nor
clocks ! He does not raise his own bread, mend
his own shoes, make his shoulder-knot of glory,
nor hammer out his own sword. Yet he is a costly
animal, though useless. If the President gets his

WAR 297
fifty thousand volunteers, a thing likely to hap
pen — for though Irish lumpers and hodmen want
a dollar or a dollar and a half a day, your free
American of Boston will enlist for twenty-seven cents,
only having his livery, his feathers, and his glory
thrown in — then at $8 a month, their wages amount
to $400,000 a month. Suppose the present Govern
ment shall actually make advantageous contracts, and
the subsistence of the soldier cost no more than in
England, or $17 a month, this amounts to $850,000.
Here are $1,250,000 a month to begin with. Then,
if each man would be worth a dollar a day at any pro
ductive work, and there are 26 work-days in the
month, here are $1,300,000 more to be added, mak
ing $2,550,000 a month for the new army of occupa
tion. This is only for the rank and file of the army.
The officers, the surgeons, and the chaplains, who
teach the soldiers to wad their muskets with the leaves
of the Bible, will perhaps cost as much more ; or, in
all, something more than $5,000,000 a month. This
of course does not include the cost of their arms, tents,
ammunition, baggage, horses, and hospital stores, nor
the 65,000 gallons of whiskey which the Government
has just advertised for. What do they give in re
turn? They will give us three things, valor, glory,
and — talk; which, as they are not in the price cur
rent, I must estimate as I can, and set them all down
in one figure = 0 ; not worth the whiskey they cost.
New England is quite a new country. Seven gen
erations ago it was a wilderness ; now it contains about
2,500,000 souls. If you were to pay all the public
debts of these States, and then, in fancy, divide all
the property therein by the population, young as we
are, I think you would find a larger amount of value

298 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
for each man than in any other country in the world,
not excepting England. The civilization of Europe
is old; the nations old, England, France, Spain, Aus
tria, Italy, Greece; but they have wasted their time,
their labor, and their wealth in war, and so are poorer
than we upstarts of a wilderness. We have fewer
fleets, forts, cannon, and soldiers for the population,
than any other Christian country in the world. This
is one main reason why we have no national debt ; why
the women need not toil in the hardest labor of the
fields, the quarries, and the mines; this is the reason
that we are well fed, well clad, well housed; this is the
reason that Massachusetts can afford to spend $1,000,-
000 a year for her public schools. War, wasting a
nation's wealth, depresses the great mass of the peo
ple, but serves to elevate a few to opulence and power.
Every despotism is established and sustained by war.
This is the foundation of all the aristocracies of the
old world, aristocracies of blood. Our famous men
are often ashamed that their wealth was honestly got
by working, or peddling, and foolishly copy the sav
age and bloody emblems of ancient heraldry in their
assumed coats of arms — industrious men seeking to
have a griffin on their seal ! Nothing is so hostile to
a true democracy as war. It elevates a few, often
bold, bad men, at the expense of the many, who pay
the money and furnish the blood for war.
War is a most expensive folly. The Revolutionary
War cost the general Government, directly and in
specie, $135,000,000. It is safe to estimate the di
rect cost to the individual States also at the same sum,
$135,000,000 ; making a total of $270,000,000. Con
sidering the interruption of business, the waste of time,
property and life, it is plain that this could not have

WAR 299
been a fourth part of the whole. But suppose it was a
third, then the whole pecuniary cost of the war would
be $810,000,000. At the beginning of the Revolu
tion the population was about $3,000,000 ; so that war,
lasting about eight years, cost $270 for each person.
To meet the expenses of the war each year there would
have been required a tax of $33.75 on each man,
woman, and child.
In the Florida War we spent between $30,000,000
and $40,000,000, as an eminent statesman once said,
in fighting five hundred invisible Indians. It is es
timated that the fortifications of the city of Paris,
when completely furnished, will cost more than the
whole taxable property of Massachusetts, with her
800,000 souls. Why, this year our own grant for the
army is $17,000,000. The estimate for the navy is
$6,000,000 more ; in all $23,000,000. Suppose, which
is most unlikely, that we should pay no more, why, that
sum alone would support public schools, as good and
as costly as those of Massachusetts, all over the United
States, offering each boy and girl, bond or free, as
good a culture as they get here in Boston, and then
leave a balance of $3,000,000 in our hands ! We pay
more for ignorance than we need for. education. But
$23,000,000 is not all we must pay this year. A
great statesman has said, in the Senate, that our war
expenses at present are nearly $500,000 a day, and the
President informs your Congress that $22,952,904
more will be wanted for the army and navy before
next June !
For several years we spent directly more than $21,-
000,000 for war purposes, though in time of peace.
If a railroad cost $30,000 a mile, then we might build
700 miles a year for that sum, and in five years could

300 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
build a railroad therewith from Boston to the further
side of Oregon. For the war money we paid in forty-
two years, we could have had more than 10,000 miles
of railroad and with dividends at seven per cent., a
yearly income of $21,210,000. For military and na
val affairs, in eight years, from 1835 to 1843, we paid
$163,336,717. This alone would have made 5,444
miles of railroad, and would produce, at seven per
cent., an annual income of $11,433,569.19.
In Boston there are nineteen pubhc grammar-
schools, a Latin and English High school. The build
ings for these schools, twenty in number, have cost
$653,208. There are also 135 primary schools, in
as many houses or rooms. I know not their value, as
I think they are not all owned by the city. But sup
pose them to be worth $150,000, then all the school-
houses of this city have cost $803,208. The cost, of
these 156 schools for this year is estimated at $172,-
000. The number of scholars in them is 16,479.
Harvard University, the most expensive college in
America, costs about $46,000 a year. Now the ship
" Ohio," lying here in our harbor, has cost $834,845,
and we pay for it each year $220,000 more. That is,
it has cost $31,637 more than these 155 school-houses
of this city, and costs every year $2,000 more than
Harvard University, and all the pubhc schools of
Boston !
The military academy at West Point contains 236
cadets ; the appropriation for it last year was $138,-
000, a sum greater, I think, than the cost of all the
colleges in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Mas
sachusetts, with their 1,445 students.
The navy-yard at Charlestown, with its ordnance,
stores, etc., cost $4,741,000. The cost of the 78

WAR 301
churches in Boston is $3,246,500 ; the whole property
of Harvard University is $703,175; the 155 school-
houses of Boston are worth $803,208 ; in all, $4,752,-
883. Thus the navy-yard at Charlestown has cost al
most as much as the 78 churches and the 155 school-
houses of Boston, with Harvard College, its halls,
libraries, all its wealth, thrown in. Yet what does it
teach? Our country is singularly destitute of public libra
ries. You must go across the ocean to read the his
tory of the Church or State ; all the public libraries in
America cannot furnish the books referred to in Gib
bon's " Rome," or Gieseler's " History of the Church."
I think there is no public library in Europe which has
cost three doUars a volume. There are six: the Vati
can, at Rome ; the Royal, at Paris ; the British Mu
seum, at London; the Bodleian, at Oxford; the Uni
versity Libraries at Gottingen and Berlin — which
contain, it is said, about 4,500,000 volumes. The re
cent grant of $17,000,000 for the army is $3,500,000
more than the cost of those magnificent collections.
There have been printed about 3,000,000 different
volumes, great and little, within the last 400 years. If
the Florida War cost but $30,000,000, it is ten times
more than enough to have purchased one copy of each
book ever printed, at one dollar a volume, which is
more than the average cost.
Now all these sums are to be paid by the people,
" the dear people," whom our republican demagogues
love so well, and for whom they spend their lives, —
rising early, toiling late; those self-denying heroes,
those sainted martyrs of the republic, eating the bread
of carefulness for them alone ! But how are they to be
paid? By a direct tax levied on all the property of

302 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
the nation, so that the poor man pays according to his
little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, each
knowing when he pays and what he pays for? No
such thing; nothing like it. The people must pay,
and not know it ; must be deceived a little, or they would
not pay after this fashion! You pay for it in every
pound of sugar, copper, coal, in every yard of cloth ;
and if the counsel of some lovers of the people be fol
lowed, you will soon pay for it in each pound of
coffee and tea. In this way the rich man always pays
relatively less than the poor; often a positively smaller
sum. Even here I think that three-fourths of all the
property is owned by one-fourth of the people, yet
that three-fourths by no means pays a third of the
national revenue. The tax is laid on things men can
not do without, — sugar, cloth, and the like. The con
sumption of these articles is not in proportion to
wealth, but persons. Now the poor man, as a general
rule, has more children than the rich ; and the tax being
more in proportion to persons than property, the poor
man pays more than the rich. So a tax is really laid
on the poor man's children to pay for the war which
makes him poor and keeps him poor. I think your
captains and colonels, those sons of thunder and heirs
of glory, will not tell you so. They tell you so !
They know it! Poor brothers, how could they? I
think your party newspapers, penny or pound, will not
tell you so ; nor the demagogues, all covered with glory
and all forlorn, who tell the people when to hurrah, and
for what ! But if you cipher the matter out for your
self you will find it so, and not otherwise. Tell the
demagogues, Whig or Democrat, that. It was an old
Roman maxim, " The people wished to be deceived ; let
them." Now it is only practised on ; not repeated — in
public.

WAR 303
Let us deal justly even with war, giving that its due.
There is one class of men who find their pecuniary
advantage in it. I mean army contractors, when they
chance to be favorites of the party in power ; men who
let steamboats to lie idle at $500 a-day. This class of
men rejoice in a war. The country may become poor,
they are sure to be rich. Yet another class turn war
to account, get the glory, and become important in
song and sermon. I see it stated in a newspaper that
the Duke of Wellington has received, as gratuities for
his military services, $5,400,000, and $40,000 a year
in pensions!
But the waste of property is the smallest part of
the evil. The waste of life in war is yet more terrible.
Human life is a sacred thing. Go out into the lowest
street of Boston ; take the vilest and most squalid man
in that miserable lane, and he is dear to some one. He
is called brother ; perhaps husband ; it may be, father ;
at least, son. A human heart, sadly joyful, beat over
him before he was born. He has been pressed fondly
to his mother's arms. Her tears and her smiles have
been for him ; perhaps also her prayers. His blood
may be counted mean and vile by the great men of the
earth, who love nothing so well as the dear people, for
he has no " coat of arms," no liveried servant to at
tend him, but it has run down from the same first man.
His family is ancient as that of the most long-de
scended king. God made him ; made this splendid uni
verse to wait on him and teach him; sent His Christ
to save him. He is an immortal soul. Needlessly to
spill that man's blood is an awful sin. It will cry
against you out of the ground — Cain ! where is thy
brother? Now in war you bring together 50,000 men
like him on one side, and 50,000 of a different nation

304 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
on the other. They have no natural quarrel with one
another. The earth is wide enough for both; neither
hinders the sun from the other. Many come unwil
lingly; many not knowing what they fight for. It is
but accident that determines on which side the man
shall fight. The cannons pour their shot — round,
grape, canister; the howitzers scatter their bursting
shells; the muskets rain their leaden death; the sword,
the bayonet, the horse's iron hoof, the wheels of the
artillery, grind the men down into trodden dust.
There they lie, the two masses of burning valor, extin
guished, quenched, and grimly dead, each covering
with his body the spot he defended with his arms.
They had no quarrel: yet they lie there, slain by a
brother's hand. It is not old and decrepid men, but
men of the productive age, full of lusty life.
But it is only the smallest part that perish in battle.
Exposure to cold, wet, heat; unhealthy climates, un
wholesome food, rum, and forced marches, bring on
diseases which mow down the poor soldiers worse than
musketry and grape. Others languish of wounds, and
slowly procrastinate a dreadful and tenfold death.
Far away, there are widows, orphans, childless old
fathers, who pore over the daily news to learn at ran
dom the fate of a son, a father, or a husband. They
crowd disconsolate into the churches, seeking of God
the comfort men took from them, praying in the bit
terness of a broken heart, while the priest gives thanks
for " a famous victory," and hangs up the bloody
standard over his pulpit !
When ordinary disease cuts off a man, when he dies
at his duty, there is some comfort in that loss. " It
was the ordinance of God," you say. You minister
to his wants ; you smooth down the pillow for the ach-

WAR 305
ing head; your love beguiles the torment of disease,
and your own bosom gathers half the darts of death.
He goes in his time, and God takes him. But when
he dies in such a war, in battle, it is man who has
robbed him of Hfe. It is a murderer that is butchered.
Nothing alleviates that bitter, burning smart.
Others not slain are maimed for life. This has no
eyes ; that no hands ; another no feet nor legs. This
has been pierced by lances, and torn with the shot, till
scarce anything human is left. The wreck of a body
is crazed with pains God never meant for man. The
mother that bore him would not know her child.
Count the orphan asylums in Germany and Holland;
go into the hospital at Greenwich, that of the invalids
in Paris, you see the " trophies " of Napoleon and
Wellington. Go to the arsenal at Toulon, see the
wooden legs piled up there for men now active and
whole, and you wUl think a little of the physical hor
rors of war.
In Boston there are perhaps about 25,000 able-
bodied men between eighteen and forty-five. Suppose
them all slain in battle, or mortally hurt, or mown
down by the camp fever, vomito, or other diseases of
war; and then fancy the distress, the heart-sickness,
amid wives, mothers, daughters, sons, and fathers,
here! Yet 25,000 is a small number to be murdered
in " a famous victory ;" a trifle for a whole " glorious
campaign " in a great war. The men of Boston are
no better loved than the men of Tamaulipas. There
is scarce an old family, of the middle class, in all New
England, which did not thus smart in the Revolution ;
many, which have not, to this day, recovered from the
bloody blow then falling on them. Think, wives, of
the butchery of your husbands ; think, mothers, of the
murder of your sons !
IX— 20

306 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Here, too, the burden of battle falls mainly on the
humble class. They pay the great tribute of money ;
they pay also the horrid tax of blood. It was not
your rich men who fought even the Revolution ; not
they. Your men of property and standing were
leaguing with the British, or fitting out privateers
when that offered a good investment, or buying up
the estates of more consistent Tories ; making money
out of the nation's dire distress. True, there were
most honorable exceptions; but such, I think, was the
general rule. Let this be distinctly remembered, that
the burden of battle is borne by the humble classes of
men; they pay the vast tribute of money, the awful
tax of blood. The glory is got by a few; poverty,
wounds, death, are for the people.
Military glory is the poorest kind of distinction, but
the most dangerous passion. It is an honor to man to
be able to mold iron ; to be skilful at working in cloth,
wood, clay, leather. It is man's vocation to raise corn,
to subdue the rebellious fiber of cotton and convert it
into beautiful robes, full of comfort for the body.
They are the heroes of the race who abridge the time
of human toil and multiply its results; they who win
great truths from God, and send them to a people's
heart; they who balance the many and the one into
harmonious action, so that all are united and yet each
left free. But the glory which comes of epaulets and
feathers; that strutting glory which is dyed in blood
— what shall we say of it? In this day it is not hero
ism ; it is an imitation of barbarism long ago passed by.
Yet it is marvelous how many men are taken with a
red coat. You expect it in Europe, a land of soldiers
and blood. You are disappointed to find that here
the champions of force should be held in honor, and

WAR 307
that even the lowest should voluntarily enroll them
selves as butchers of men !
Yet more: aggressive war is a sin; a corruption of
the public morals. It is a practical denial of Chris
tianity ; a violation of God's eternal law of love. This
is so plain, that I shall say little upon it to-day. Your
savagest and most vulgar captain would confess he
does not fight as a Christian — but as a soldier; your
magistrate calls for volunteers — not as a man loving
Christianity, and loyal to God; only as governor, un
der oath to keep the constitution, the tradition of the
elders; not under oath to keep the commandment of
God. In war the laws are suspended, violence and
cunning rule everywhere. The battle of Yorktown
was gained by a lie, though a Washington told it. As
a soldier it was his duty. Men " emulate the tiger ;"
the hand is bloody, and the heart hard. Robbery and
murder are the rule, the glory of men. " Good men
look sad, but ruffians dance and leap." Men are sys
tematically trained to burn towns, to murder fathers
and sons ; taught to consider it " glory " to do so.
The Government collects ruffians and cut-throats. It
compels better men to serve with these and become cut
throats. It appoints chaplains to blaspheme Chris
tianity ; teaching the ruffians how to pray for the de
struction of the enemy, the burning of his towns; to
do this in the name of Christ and God. I do not cen
sure all the men who serve: some of them know no
better ; they have heard that a man would " perish
everlastingly " if he did not believe the Athanasian
creed ; that if he questioned the story of Jonah, or the
miraculous birth of Jesus, he was in danger of hell-
fire, and if he doubted damnation was sure to be
damned. They never heard that such a war was a

308 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
sin ; that to create a war was treason, and to fight in it
wrong. They never thought of thinking for them
selves ; their thinking was to read a newspaper, or
sleep through a sermon. They counted it their duty
to obey the Government, without thinking if that Gov
ernment be right or wrong. I deny not the noble,
manly character of many a soldier — his heroism, self-
denial, and personal sacrifice.
Still, after all proper allowance is made for a few in
dividuals, the whole system of war is unchristian and
sinful. It lives only by evil passions. It can be de
fended only by what is low, selfish, and animal. It
absorbs the scum of the cities — pirates, robbers, mur
derers. It makes them worse, and better men like
them. To take one man's life is murder; what is it to
practise killing as an art, a trade; to do it by thou
sands? Yet I think better of the hands that do the
butchering than of the ambitious heads, the cold, re
morseless hearts, which plunge the nation into war.
In war the State teaches men to lie, to steal, to kUl.
It calls for privateers, who are commonly pirates with
a national charter, and pirates are privateers with only
a personal charter. Every camp is a school of pro
fanity, violence, licentiousness, and crimes too foul to
name. It is so without sixty-five thousand gallons of
whiskey. This is unavoidable. It was so with Wash
ington's army, with Cornwallis's, with that of Gus
tavus Adolphus, perhaps the most moral army the
world ever saw. The soldier's life generally unfits a
man for the citizen's. When he returns from a camp,
from a war, back to his native village, he becomes a
curse to society and a shame to the mother that bore
him. Even the soldiers of the Revolution, who sur
vived the war, were mostly ruined for life — debauched,

WAR 309
intemperate, vicious, and vile. What loathsome crea
tures so many of them were ! They bore our burden :
for such were the real martyrs of that war, not the
men who fell under the shot ! How many men of the
rank and file in the late war have since become respect
able citizens?
To show how incompatible are war and Christianity,
suppose that he who is deemed the most Christian of
Christ's disciples, the well-beloved John, were made a
navy chaplain, and some morning, when a battle is
daily looked for, should stand on the gun deck, amid
lockers of shot, his Bible resting on a cannon, and ex
pound Christianity to men with cutlasses by their side !
Let him read for the morning lesson the Sermon on
the Mount, and for text take words from his own
Epistle, so sweet, so beautiful, so true : " Every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God, for God
is love." Suppose he teUs his strange audience that
all men are brothers ; that God is their common father ;
that Christ loved us all, showing us how to live the life
of love ; and then, when he had melted all those savage
hearts by words so winsome and so true, let him con
clude, " Blessed are the men-slayers ! Seek first the
glory which cometh of battle. Be fierce as tigers.
Mar God's image in which your brothers are made.
Be not Hke Christ, but Cain who slew his brother!
When you meet the enemy, fire into their bosoms ; kill
them in the dear name of Christ ; butcher them in the
spirit of God. Give them no quarter, for we ought not
to lay down our Hves for the brethren ; only the mur
derer hath eternal life ! "
Yet great as are these threefold evils, there are
times when the soberest men and the best men have
welcomed war, coolly and in their better moments.

310 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Sometimes a people, long oppressed, has " petitioned,
remonstrated, cast itself at the feet of the throne,"
with only insult for answer to its prayer. Sometimes
there is a contest between a falsehood and a great
truth; a self-protecting war for freedom of mind,
heart, and soul ; yes, a war for a man's body, his wife's
and children's body, for what is dearer to men than
Hfe itself, for the unalienable rights of man, for the
idea that all are born free and equal. It was so in the
American Revolution; in the English, in the French
Revolution. In such cases men say, " Let it come."
They take down the firelock in sorrow; with a prayer
they go forth to battle, asking that the right may tri
umph. Much as I hate war, I cannot but honor such
men. Were they better, yet more heroic, even war of
that character might be avoided. Still, it is a colder
heart than mine which does not honor such men,
though it believes them mistaken. Especially do we
honor them, when it is the few, the scattered, the
feeble, contending with the many and the mighty ; the
noble fighting for a great idea, and against the base
and tyrannical. Then most men think the gain, the
triumph of a great idea, is worth the price it costs, the
price of blood.
I will not stop to touch that question, If man may
ever shed the blood of man. But it is plain that an
aggressive war like this is wholly unchristian, and a
reproach to the nation and the age.
Now, to make the evils of war still clearer, and to
bring them home to your door, let us suppose there
was war between the counties of Suffolk, on the one
side, and Middlesex on the other — this army at Bos
ton, that at Cambridge. Suppose the subject in dis
pute was the boundary line between the two, Boston

WAR 311
claiming a pitiful acre of flat land, which the ocean at
low tide disdained to cover. To make sure of this,
Boston seizes whole miles of flats, unquestionably not
its own. The rulers on one side are fools, and trai
tors on the other. The two commanders have issued
their proclamations; the money is borrowed; the
whiskey provided; the soldiers — Americans, negroes,
Irishmen, all the able-bodied men — are enlisted.
Prayers are offered in all the churches, and sermons
preached, showing that God is a man of war, and Cain
his first saint — an early Christian, a Christian before
Christ. The Bostonians wish to seize Cambridge,
burn the houses, churches, college-halls, and plunder
the library. The men of Cambridge wish to seize
Boston, burn its houses and ships, plundering its
wares and its goods. Martial law is proclaimed on
both sides. The men of Cambridge cut asunder the
bridges, and make a huge breach in the mill-dam,
planting cannon to enfilade all those avenues. Forts
crown the hill-tops, else so green. Men, madder than
lunatics, are crowded into the asylum. The Bos
tonians rebuild the old fortifications on the Neck ; re
place the forts on Beacon Hill, Fort Hill, Copps HiU,
leveling houses to make room for redoubts and bas
tions. The batteries are planted, the mortars got
ready ; the furnaces and magazines are all prepared.
The three hills are grim with war. From Copps Hill
men look anxious to that memorable height the other
side of the water. Provisions are cut off in Boston;
no man may pass the lines; the acqueduct refuses its
genial supply; children cry for their expected food.
The soldiers parade, looking somewhat tremulous and
pale; all the able-bodied have come, the vilest most
willingly; some are brought by force of drink, some

312 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
by force of arms. Some are in brilliant dresses, some
in their working frocks. The banners are consecrated
by solemn words. Your church towers are military
posts of observation. There are Old Testament
prayers to the " God of Hosts " in all the churches of
Boston; prayers that God would curse the men of
Cambridge, make their wives widows, their children
fatherless, their houses a ruin, the men corpses, meat
for the beast of the field and the bird of the air. Last
night the Bostonians made a feint of attacking
Charlestown, raining bombs and red-hot cannon-balls
from Copps Hill, till they have burnt a thousand
houses, where the British burnt not half so many.
Women and children fled screaming from the blazing
rafters of their homes. The men of Middlesex crowd
into Charlestown.
In the meantime the Bostonians hastily repair a
bridge or two ; some pass that way, some over the
Neck ; all stealthily by night ; and while the foe expect
them at Bunker's, amid the blazing town, they have
stolen a march and rush upon Cambridge itself. The
Cambridge men turn back. The battle is fiercely
joined. You hear the cannon, the sharp report of
musketry. You crowd the hills, the housetops; you
line the Common, you cover the shore, yet you see but
Httle in the sulphurous cloud. Now the Bostonians
yield a little, a reinforcement goes over. All the men
are gone; even the gray-headed who can shoulder a
firelock. They plunge into battle, mad with rage,
madder with rum. The chaplains loiter behind.
" Pious men, whom duty brought,
To dubious verge of battle fought,
To shrive the dying, bless the dead ! "
The battle hangs long in even scale. At length it

WAR 313
turns. The Cambridge men retreat, they run, they
fly. The houses burn. You see the churches and the
colleges go up, a stream of fire. That library —
founded amid want and war, and sad sectarian strife,
slowly gathered by the saving of two centuries; the
hope of the poor scholar, the boast of the rich one —
is scattered to the winds and burnt with fire, for the
solid granite is blasted by powder, and the turrets fall.
Victory is ours. Ten thousand men of Cambridge lie
dead; eight thousand of Boston. There writhe the
wounded; men who but few hours before were poured
over the battle-field a lava flood of fiery valor — fa
thers, brothers, husbands, sons. There they lie, torn
and mangled ; black with powder ; red with blood ;
parched with thirst ; cursing the load of life they now
must bear with bruised frames and mutilated limbs.
Gather them into hasty hospitals — let this man's
daughter come to-morrow and sit by him, fanning
away the flies ; he shall linger out a life of wretched
anguish, unspoken and unspeakable, and when he dies
his wife religiously will keep the shot which tore his
limbs. There is the battle-field! Here the horse
charged; there the howitzers scattered their shells,
pregnant with death; here the murderous canister and
grape mowed down the crowded ranks ; there the huge
artillery, teeming with murder, was dragged o'er heaps
of men — wounded friends, who just now held its
ropes, men yet curhng with anguish, like worms in the
fire. Hostile and friendly, head and trunk are crushed
beneath those dreadful wheels. Here the infantry show
ered their murdering shot. That ghastly face was
beautiful the day before — a saber hewed it half way.
"The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay must cover; heaped and pent,
Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent."

314 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Again it is night. Oh, what a night, and after what
a day! Yet the pure tide of woman's love, which
never ebbs since the earth began, flows on in spite of
war and battle. Stealthily, by the pale moonhght, a
mother of Boston treads the weary miles to reach that
bloody spot ; a widow she — seeking among the slain
her only son. The arm of power drove him forth re
luctant to the fight. A friendly soldier guides her
way. Now, she turns over this face, whose mouth is
full of purple dust, bit out of the ground in his ex-
tremest agony, the last sacrament offered him by earth
herself; now she raises that form, cold, stiff, stony,
and ghastly as a dream of hell. But, lo! another
comes; she too a woman, younger and fairer, yet not
less bold, a maiden from the hostile town to seek her
lover. They meet, two women among the corpses ;
two angels come to Golgotha, seeking to raise a man.
There he lies before them; they look. Yes, it is he
you seek ; the same dress, form, features, too ; it is he,
the son, the lover. Maid and mother could tell that
face in any light. The grass is wet with his blood.
The ground is muddy with the life of men. The
mother's innocent robe is drabbled in the blood her
bosom bore. Their kisses, groans, and tears recall the
wounded man. He knows the mother's voice; that
voice yet more beloved. His lips move only, for they
cannot speak. He dies ! The waxing moon moves
high in heaven, walking in beauty amid the clouds, and
murmurs soft her cradle-song unto the slumbering
earth. The broken sword reflects her placid beams.
A star looks down, and is imaged back in a pool of
blood. The. cool night wind plays in the branches of
the trees shivered with shot. Nature is beautiful — •
that lovely grass underneath their feet; those pen-

WAR 315
dulous branches of the leafy elm ; the stars, and that
romantic moon lining the clouds with silver light ! A
groan of agony, hopeless and prolonged, wails out
from that bloody ground. But in yonder farm the
whippoorwill sings to her lover all night long ; the ris
ing tide ripples melodious against the shores. So
wears the night away, — nature, all sinless, round that
field of woe.
" The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth contained no tomb,
And glowing into day."
What a scene that morning looks upon ! I will not
turn again. Let the dead bury their dead. But their
blood cries out of the ground against the rulers who
shed it, — " Cain ! where are thy brothers ? " What
shall the fool answer ? what the traitor say ?
Then comes thanksgiving in all the churches of
Boston. The consecrated banners, stiff with blood
and " glory," are hung over the altar. The minister
preaches and the singer sings : " The Lord hath been
on our side. He treadeth the people under me. He
teacheth my hands to war, my fingers to fight. Yea,
He giveth me the necks of mine enemies ; for the Lord
is His name ;" and " it was a famous victory ! " Bos
ton seizes miles square of land; but her houses are
empty ; her wives widows ; her children fatherless.
Rachel weeps for the murder of her innocents, yet
dares not rebuke the rod.
I know there is no fighting across Charles River, as
in this poor fiction ; but there was once, and instead of
Charles say Rio Grande; for Cambridge read Mata-
moros, and it is what your President recommended;

316 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
what your Congress enacted; what your Governor is
sued his proclamation for; what your volunteers go
to accomplish: yes, what they fired cannon for on
Boston Common the other day. I wish that were a
fiction of mine !
We are waging a most iniquitous war — so it seems
to me. I know I may be wrong, but I am no partisan ;
and if I err, it is not wilfully, not rashly. I know the
Mexicans are a wretched people ; wretched in their ori
gin, history, and character. I know but two good
things of them as a people — they abolished negro
slavery, not long ago ; they do not covet the lands of
their neighbors. True, they have not paid all their
debts ; but it is scarcely decent in a nation, with any
repudiating States, to throw the first stone at Mexico
for that !
I know the Mexicans cannot stand before this terri
ble Anglo-Saxon race, the most formidable and power
ful the world ever saw ; a race which has never turned
back ; which, though it number less than forty millions,
yet holds the Indies, almost the whole of North Amer
ica ; which rules the commerce of the world ; clutches at
New Holland, China, New Zealand, Borneo, and, seizes
island after island in the furthest seas ; the race which
invented steam as its awful type. The poor, wretched
Mexicans can never stand before us. How they per
ished in battle! They must melt away as the Indians
before the white man. Considering how we acquired
Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, I cannot forbear thinking
that this people will possess the whole of the continent
before many years; perhaps before the century ends.
But this may be had fairly; with no injustice to any
one; by the steady advance of a superior race, with
superior ideas and a better civilization ; by commerce,

WAR 317
trade, arts; by being better than Mexico, wiser, hu-
maner, more free and manly. Is it not better to ac
quire it by the schoolmaster than the cannon? by ped
dling cloth, tin, anything rather than bullets? It may
not all belong to this government, and yet to this race.
It would be a gain to mankind if we could spread over
that country the idea of America — that all men are
born free and equal in rights, and establish there polit
ical, social, and individual freedom. But to do that,
we must first make real these ideas at home.
In the general issue between this race and that, we
are in the right. But in this special issue, and this
particular war, it seems to me that we are wholly in
the wrong; that our invasion of Mexico is as bad as
the partition of Poland in the last century and in this.
If I understand the matter, the whole movement, the
settlement of Texas, the Texan revolution, the an
nexation of Texas, the invasion of Mexico, has been
a movement hostile to the American idea, a movement
to extend slavery. I do not say such was the design
on the part of the people, but on the part of the poli
ticians who pulled the strings. I think the papers of
the Government and the debates of Congress prove
that. The annexation has been declared unconstitu
tional in its mode, a virtual dissolution of the Union,
and that by very high and well-known authority. It
was expressly brought about for the purpose of ex
tending slavery. An attempt is now made to throw the
shame of this on the Democrats. I think the Demo
crats deserve the shame ; but I could never see that the
Whigs, on the whole, deserved it any less; only they
were not quite so open. Certainly, their leaders did
not take ground against it, never as against a modifi
cation of the tariff ! When we annexed Texas, we of

318 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
course took her for better or worse, debts and all, and
annexed her war along with her. I take it everybody
knew that ; though now some seem to pretend a decent
astonishment at the result. Now one party is ready to
fight for it as the other! The North did not oppose
the annexation of Texas. Why not? They knew
they could make money by it. The eyes of the North
are full of cotton ; they see nothing else, for a web is
before them; their ears are full of cotton, and they
hear nothing but the buzz of their mills ; their mouth
is full of cotton, and they can speak audibly but two
words — tariff, tariff, dividends, dividends. The tal
ent of the North is blinded, deafened, gagged with its
own cotton. The North clamored loudly when the
nation's treasure was removed from the United States
Bank ; it is almost silent at the annexation of a slave
territory big as the kingdom of France, encumbered
with debts, loaded with the entailment of war ! North
ern governors call for soldiers; our men volunteer
to fight in a most infamous war for the extension of
slavery! Tell it not in Boston, whisper it not in
Faneuil Hall, lest you waken the slumbers of your
fathers, and they curse you as cowards and traitors
unto men! Not satisfied with annexing Texas and a
war, we next invaded a territory which did not belong
to Texas, and built a fort on the Rio Grande, where,
I take it, we had no more right than the British, in
1841, had on the Penobscot or the Saco. Now the
Government and its Congress would throw the blame
on the innocent, and say war exists " by the act of
Mexico ! " If a lie was ever told, I think this is one.
Then the " dear people " must be called on for money
and men, for " the soil of this free republic is in
vaded;" and the Governor of Massachusetts, one of

WAR 319
the men who declared the annexation of Texas un
constitutional, recommends the war he just now told us
to pray against, and appeals to our " patriotism,"
and " humanity," as arguments for butchering the
Mexicans, when they are in the right and we are in
the wrong ! The maxim is held up, " Our country,
right or wrong ;" " Our country, howsoever bounded ;"
and it might as well be " Our country, howsoever gov
erned." It seems popularly and politically forgotten
that there is such a thing as right. The nation's neck
invites a tyrant. I am not at all astonished that North
ern representatives voted for all this work of crime.
They are no better than Southern representatives ;
scarcely less in favor of slavery, and not half so open.
They say: Let the North make money, and you may
do what you please with the nation ; and we will choose
governors that dare not oppose you, for, though we
are descended from the Puritans, we have but one
article in our creed we never flinch from following,
and that is — to make money, honestly, if we can ; if
not, as we can !
Look through the action of your Government, and
your Congress. You see that no reference has been
had in this affair to Christian ideas; none to justice
and the eternal right. Nay, none at all! In the
churches, and among the people, how feeble has been
the protest against this great wrong. How tamely
the people yield their necks — and say : " Take our
sons for the war — we care not, right or wrong."
England butchers the Sikhs in India — her generals
are elevated to the peerage, and the head of her Church
writes a form of thanksgiving for the victory, to be
read in all the churches of that Christian land. To
make it still more abominable, the blasphemy is

SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
enacted on Easter Sunday, the great holiday of men
who serve the Prince of Peace. We have not had
prayers in the churches, for we have no political arch
bishop. But we fired cannon in joy that we had
butchered a few wretched men half -starved, and forced
into the ranks by fear of death ! Your peace societies,
and your churches, what can they do? What dare
they? Verily, we are a faithless and perverse genera
tion. God be merciful to us, sinners as we are !
But why talk for ever? What shaU we do? In
regard to this present war, we can refuse to take any
part in it ; we can encourage others to do the same ; we
can aid men, if need be, who suffer because they refuse.
Men will call us traitors: what then? That hurt no
body in '76! We are a rebellious nation; our whole
history is treason; our blood was attainted before we
were born ; our creeds are infidelity to the mother-
church ; our Constitution treason to our fatherland.
What of that? Though all the governors in the
world bid us commit treason against man, and set the
example, let us never submit. Let God only be a mas
ter to control our conscience !
We can hold public meetings in favor of peace, in
which what is wrong shall be exposed and condemned.
It is proof of our cowardice that this has not been
done before now. We can show in what the infamy of
a nation consists ; in what its real glory. One of your
own men,1 the last summer, startled the churches out of
their sleep, by his manly trumpet, talking with us, and
telling that the true grandeur of a nation was justice,
not glory ; peace, not war.
We can work now for future times, by taking pains
to spread abroad the sentiments of peace, the ideas of
peace, among the people in schools, churches — every-

WAR 321
where. At length we can diminish the power of the
national Government, so that the people alone shall
have the power to declare war, by a direct vote, the Con
gress only recommend it. We can take from the Gov
ernment the means of war, by raising only revenue
enough for the nation's actual wants, and raising that
directly, so that each man knows what he pays, and
when he pays it, and then he will take care that it is
not paid to make him poor and keep him so. We can
diffuse a real practical Christianity among the people,
till the mass of men have courage enough to overcome
evil with good, and look at aggressive war as the worst
of treason and the foulest infidelity.
Now is the time to push and be active. War itself
gives weight to words of peace. There will never be
a better time till we make the times better. It is not a
day for cowardice, but for heroism. Fear not that
the " honor of the nation " will suffer from Christian
movements for peace. What if your men of low de
gree are a vanity, and your men of high degree are a
He? That is no new thing. Let true men do their
duty, and the lie and the vanity will pass each to its
reward. Wait not for the churches to move, or the
State to become Christian. Let us bear our testimony
like men, not fearing to be called traitors, infidels;
fearing only to be such.
I would caU on Americans, by their love of our
country, its great ideas, its real grandeur, its hopes,
and the memory of its fathers — to come and help to
save it from infamy and ruin. I would call on Chris
tians, who believe that Christianity is a truth, to lift
up their voice, public and private, against the foulest
violation of God's law, this blasphemy of the holy
spirit of Christ, the worst form of infidelity to man
IX— 21

322 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
and God. I would call on all men, by the one nature
that is in you, by the great human heart beating alike
in all your bosoms, to protest manfully against this
desecration of the earth, this high treason against both
man and God. Teach your rulers that you are Ameri
cans, not slaves ; Christians, not heathen ; men, not
murderers, to kill for hire! You may effect little in
this generation, for its head seems crazed and its heart
rotten. But there will be a day after to-day. It is
for you and me to make it better: a day of peace,
when nations shall no longer lift up sword against
nation ; when all shall indeed be brothers, and all blest.
Do this, you shall be worthy to dwell in this beautiful
land ; Christ will be near you ; God work with you, and
bless you for ever!
The present trouble with Mexico may be very brief;
surely it might be even now brought to an end with no
unusual manhood in your rulers. Can we say we have
not deserved it? Let it end; but let us remember that
war, horrid as it is, is not the worst calamity which
ever befalls a people. It is far worse for a people to
lose all reverence for right, for truth, all respect for
man and God; to care more for the freedom of trade
than the freedom of men; more for a tariff than mil
lions of souls. This calamity came upon us grad
ually, long before the present war, and will last long
after that has died away. Like people like ruler, is a
true word. Look at your rulers, representatives, and
see our own likeness! We reverence force, and. have
forgot there is any right beyond the vote of a Con
gress or a people ; any good beside dollars ; any God
but majorities and force. I think the present war,
though it should cost 50,000 men and $50,000,000,
the smallest part of our misfortune. Abroad we are

WAR
looked on as a nation of swindlers and men-stealers !
What can we say in our defense? Alas! the nation is
a traitor to this great idea, — that all men are born
equal, each with the same unalienable rights. We are
infidels to Christianity. We have paid the price of
our shame.
There have been dark days in this nation before now.
It was gloomy when Washington with his little army
fled through the Jerseys. It was a long dark day
from '83 to '89. It was not so dark as now; the na
tion never so false. There was never a time when re
sistance to tyrants was so rare a virtue; when the
people so tamely submitted to a wrong. Now you can
feel the darkness. The sack of this city and the
butchery of its people were a far less evil than the
moral deadness of the nation. Men spring up again
Hke the mown grass ; but to raise up saints and heroes
in a dead nation corrupting beside its golden tomb,
what shall do that for us? We must look not to the
many for that, but to the few who are faithful unto
God and man.
I know the hardy vigor of our men, the stalwart
inteUect of this people. Would to God they could
learn to love the right and true. Then what a people
should we be, spreading from the Madawaska to the
Sacramento, diffusing our great idea, and living our
religion, the Christianity of Christ! O Lord! make
the vision true ; waken thy prophets and stir thy peo
ple till righteousness exalt us! No wonders will be
wrought for that. But the voice of conscience speaks
to you and me, and all of us : the right shall prosper ;
the wicked States shall die; and history responds her
long amen.
What lessons come to us from the past ! The Genius

324 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
of the old civilization, solemn and sad, sits there on
the Alps, his classic beard descending o'er his breast.
Behind him arise the new nations, bustling with roman
tic life. He bends down over the midland sea, and
counts up his children — Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Car
thage, Troy, Etruria, Corinth, Athens, Rome — once
so renowned, now gathered with the dead, their giant
ghosts still lingering pensive o'er the spot. He turns
westward his face, too sad to weep, and raising from
his palsied knee his trembling hand, looks on his
brother genius of the new civilization. That young
giant, strong and mocking, sits there on the Alle
ghanies. Before him lie the waters, covered with
ships ; behind him he hears the roar of the Mississippi
and the far distant Oregon — rolling their riches to
the sea. He bends down, and that far ocean mur
murs pacific in his ear. On his left are the harbors,
shops, and mills of the East, and a fivefold gleam of
light goes up from Northern lakes. On his right
spread out the broad savannahs of the South, waiting
to be blessed; and far off that Mexique bay bends
round her tropic shores. A crown of stars is on that
giant's head, some glorious with flashing, many-col
ored light; some bloody red; some pale and faint, of
most uncertain hue. His right hand lies folded in his
robe; the left rests on the Bible's opened page, and
holds these sacred words — All men are equal, born
with equal rights from God. The old says to the
young, " Brother, beware ! " and Alps and Rocky
Mountains say, " Beware ! " That stripling giant, ill
bred and scoffing, shouts amain : " My feet are red
with the Indian's blood; my hand has forged the ne
gro's chain. I am strong; who dares assail me? I
will drink his blood, for I have made my covenant of

WAR 325
lies, and leagued with hell for my support. There is
no right, no truth; Christianity is false and God a
name." His left hand rends those sacred scrolls, cast
ing his Bibles underneath his feet, and in his right he
brandishes the negro-driver's whip, crying again, —
" Say, who is God? and what is right? " And all his
mountains echo — " Right." But the old Genius sadly
says again: "Though hand join hand, the wicked
shall not prosper." The hollow tomb of Egypt,
Athens, Rome, of every State, with all their wander
ing ghosts, rephes, " Amen."

XI
CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT
They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are
sick. — Matthew ix. 12.
Just now the wrath of a large and excellent class of
the community is excited against such as commit great
crimes of violence, and there is much talk of the neces
sity of going backwards in law-making, to revive the.
barbarous punishment of death, to restore the gal
lows with its swift and public hanging. Not only
rash and cruel men incline this way, and that spon
taneously; but many sober, discreet and humane per
sons, on cool reflection, come out for the gallows. So
let us look the matter fairly in the face and see what
the facts are, and our consequent duty. Accordingly,
this morning I lay aside the subject I should else more
gladly have treated, and ask your attention to some
thoughts on crime and its punishment.
Certain things are naturally right, just, or fair;
that is, they have the approbation of the moral faculty
within us, when it acts soberly. This happens as we
declare that certain things are true because they cor
respond to the intellectual faculty when it acts soberly.
Thus it is right to give each man his just due; it is
true that two and two are four. We are certain that
the one is absolutely right, and the other is absolutely
true ; nobody doubts either. The conscience tells us
what is right, the intellect what is true. The abso
lute right is the natural ideal rule of conduct for man
kind. The private conscience is to declare it for John
326

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 327
and Jane; the public conscience, the aggregate moral
sense of all, is to declare it for Massachusetts, Amer
ica, England, the human race. By their moral nature
all mankind are amenable, primarily each to his own
conscience, and secondarily all to his ideal rule of con
duct, to justice, the natural law of God; for the func
tion of conscience is to make the constitution of the
universe into the common law and daily practice of all
mankind, to make the universal law of God the private
law of John and Jane, of Massachusetts, America,
England, of all mankind.
But as man is finite, — with limited power to know
and to do, — and individually and collectively progress
ing, advancing from babyhood to the high excellence
of manhood, and also partially free, directed by his
own personal will, which acts independent of circum
stances, or at least superior to them, it is plain he may
err in two ways. First, he may fail to know the right,
through lack of moral perception ; or, second, he may
fail to do the right he knows, through lack of moral
will and power to perform the right. This two-fold
failure happens to each man that was, is, or will be,
and in all our relations in Hfe. There never has been,
and there never will be, a man who does not sometimes
make both these mistakes, now failing to see the right,
and then failing to do the right he has seen. John
and Jane will now and then make mistakes individually
in their small sphere, America and England nationally
in their large domain, and mankind humanly, will thus
err in its mundane sweep and compass. All commit
errors; indeed, the history of the individual, the na
tion, the race, is that of progress by experiment,
wherein many experiments fail. Men make mistakes
in their speculative attempt to learn the absolute right,

326 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY'
the ideal rule of conduct; and also in their practical
experiments, the endeavor to learn the concrete right,
the most profitable way of making the ideal rule of
conduct the actual fact of daily life. God has made us
so that our progress is by experiment, but likewise so
that we advance, even by means of the experiment
which fails, for that shows us the wrong which we are
to shun, and indicates to us where we are to look for
the right we should do.
Now by our common nature there is such a solidarity
of the whole human race that the superior individual
can help the moral development of the mass, and the
moral development of the mass that of the inferior
individual. Thus a man of moral genius, — like
Moses, Solon, Minos, Numa, Jesus, Fenelon, Frank
lin, Garrison, Emerson, — can show the mass of men
the right he knows which they know not ; or he can tell
them how to do the right which they already know
but cannot yet profitably execute ; and the mass of men
thus doubly helped can control the hindmost man, both
by showing him what is right to do, encouraging him
thither, through hope of reward, and by pointing out
the wrong and deterring him thence through fear of
punishment. Thus the foremost man may inform and
lead the great mass to moral excellence, and the great
mass itself constrain the hindmost man towards some
decency of virtue. So in any army there is a leader
who directs the special march, pioneers to go in front
preparing the way, and also a vanguard to bring up
the stragglers, the halt and lame. Nay, in each New
England cotton mill there is not only a head man to
plan and conduct the enterprise, but some one also
appointed to look after the waste, gathering up the
fragments that nothing be lost. '

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 329
As there is this solidarity of each and all, men make
statutes, that is, conventional rules for the community
to obey, and provide punishments for such as break
the statutes. In New England, so far as the statute
is made, not by the general government, but by the
six States, commonly it comes out from the conscience
of the people, and represents the actual moral sense of
the community, nay, sometimes of the most eminent
moral guides, and is designed to promote the general
welfare of all the people. I say this is commonly so ;
it is not always, for sometimes vengeance, or more
often covetousness, enacts a particular statute, a
selfish rule of conduct not meant for the welfare of
all, but for some " Fifty Associates," or a larger or
smaller number, who desire a special favor for them
selves, come what may to the rest of mankind. But in
nine cases out of ten I think the New England law
makers mean right; yet of course their statutes are
sometimes wrong, spite of the good intention, for
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont may make mis
takes just as easily as Abraham, Isaac or Jacob.
" To err is human ;" the liability to mistake belongs
to man individually and collectively. Each statute is
morally amenable to the individual conscience of
John and Jane, and also to the conscience of God,
the constitution of the universe, the absolute right;
for the conventional statute, which is only tentative
and provincial, has moral power no further than it
coincides with natural practice, that higher and unre
peatable law which alone is final. And yet, in conse
quence of their social position in the community, all
men are bodily subject to the statute, be it what it may.
Each man is held liable to keep it, or else to endure
the punishment it provides.

330 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
A violation of the statutes is what is called a crime,
and if they be just, the crime is also a wrong, an of
fense against the constitution of the universe. And as
I am to speak to-day chiefly of statutes that are just,
it is also of crimes which are likewise wrongs that I
speak. To secure obedience to the statute law-makers pro
vide a punishment for such as break it. This punish
ment is intentionally of two kinds: the first is a hurt
inflicted on the criminal's property, the second a hurt
to his body. But there is also, though perhaps unin
tentionally, a third kind of punishment, a certain dis
grace, a hurt inflicted on the spirit of the criminal
who suffers the legal harm in his property or person.
Punishment is older than conventional rules of con
duct — omitting cases of immediate resistance against
a wrong, and it comes about in this way: John
strikes Thomas, and Thomas strikes John back again
in revenge. That is the earliest step in legislation ; fist-
law is the oldest law of all. Next, many Thomases,
or some great Thomas, make a statute forbidding that
kind of wrong for the future, and denouncing a cer
tain kind of punishment against it ; that seems to be
the second step in legislation.
It is interesting to study man's treatment of crime.
I find three distinct periods therein. At first the mo
tive which led to the infliction of punishment was an
instinctive desire of revenge; and that seems to be
the earliest moral impulse of man in his wild state, as
it is of every baby in his cradle to-day. The whole of
human history is compacted into the brief compass of
a single individual, and whoso studies the cradle may
understand the progressive development of mankind
which is condensed in that abridgement of humanity.

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 331
I take it that revenge for the wrong we suffer is
older than remorse for the wrong we do, older than
gratitude for the favors we receive. Indeed, it is in
dispensable that it should be so, as the instinct of self-
preservation which it grows out of comes into bearing
earlier than the instinct of self -purification, whence at
a later day both remorse and gratitude will also be
gathered. If not so writ in books, it is so wrought in
facts. The more you think of this, the more you will
admire and reverence the wisdom of that Divine Provi
dence which makes it so. Life, the foundation, must
be secure ere aught is built thereon. In man as in
nature all things are bottomed well.
In a rude stage of man's development the only
motive for punishment seems to be vindictive ; it is to
revenge a wrong that has been done, it is wholly retro
spective. But the providence of God acts through
the instincts of man for ends that we know not till
they appear. It is by and by found out that the
punishment which was meant only as vengeance
against a wrong already done has a tendency to pre
vent such wrong for the future. Man acts on this
discovery, makes statutes and decrees punishments.
Then the second motive for punishment appears ;
it is also a desire to prevent crime for the future, as
well as to revenge a wrong already done in the past.
The first is the vindictive motive; vengeance is the
aim. The second is the repressive, economic motive,
where the aim is to prevent future wrong, not to
revenge the past; and as speedy and painful hurt in
public seems to deter men from crime, so the most
awful punishments are inflicted on the wrong-doer, for
the punishment is not revengeful and retrospective,
and so proportioned to the kind and quantity of the

SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
wrong, but. is suppressive, economic, prospective, and
intended to prevent future crime and so designed to
achieve that end. Thus in England the statute puts a
man to death for stealing property to the amount of
five shillings, not because so small a theft required so
large a forfeit, but because theft was the common
crime, and death was thought the most likely to put
an end to pilfering. The rich man made the repres
sive statutes and said, " Stealing must be put down
any way, and so we must resort to such means as will
stop the thief."
I need not, however, go so far back to find an exam
ple. To-day Virginia, with most of the other Southern
States, has a law which provides that the crime of
teaching a colored person to read the Lord's Prayer
or anything else shall be punished by imprisonment for
various periods from six months to seven years. In
this case the legislators did not inquire if the punish
ment was an adequate retaliation for teaching poor
children to read ; they only said, " The slaves must be
kept from knowing anything which will develop their
humanity, convince them of their natural rights, and
incite them to desire their freedom; and accordingly
we must visit all humane men with such penalties as
will deter them from teaching the alphabet to the
colored child."
Alas, I need not go to Virginia to find examples of
disproportionate punishment, a worse statute hangs
its penalty over your heads in Boston. The Fugitive
Slave Bill provides that if any one shaU aid a fugitive
slave to have his natural and unalienable right to hfe,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, he shall be fined
a thousand dollars and shut up in jail twelve months.
The law-makers did not think that obedience to the

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT
golden rule of the Christian religion was so great a
wrong that it could not be partly revenged by any
smaller hurt to the Christian's body or estate ; but they
wanted to prevent the escape of the men they had
stolen and held in chains.
But by and by other emotions, nobler than revenge,
more disinterested than self-protection, are excited.
Man feels philanthropy, the instinct of his kind, re
membering that he is not only bound to his particular
person and his family, but also closely allied to the
human race; and then he extends his love even to the
class of criminals. This new feeling affects the stat
ute-maker and controls the punishment he denounces;
so a third motive for punishment appears, namely,
philanthropy, a desire to do good to the wrong-doer.
Then the thought of vengeance is gone. The kind man
would not smite the smiter, for the sake of giving
him as iU as he sent, nor merely to prevent a future
blow, but only to do good to whoso has done ill ; not to
give him as bad as he sent, but to do him the greatest
good by checking the vicious propensity in him and
developing the good of his nature. The vindictive
and repressive design yields to the corrective. Phil
anthropy as motive is more economic than that which
precedes it, for it would prevent the effects of wrong
by removing the cause of future wrong from the
criminal himself.
Philanthropic men arise no doubt even in savage
times, and protest against the wrong of the criminal,
and the vindictive or repressive wrong of the com
munity which punishes him. I doubt not that even
amongst the revengeful red men of our own country
there were women full of loving kindness and tender
mercy, whose presentient souls kindled some philan-

334 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
thropic fire amid the darkness of those times, and made
a little morning of humanity in some poor, cold
wigwam. Christendom has not yet come to the high height of
philanthropy, only some words of Jesus went up so
far; and now and then a noble man, or more com
monly a noble woman, moves in that direction. We
must not scold; Christendom is advancing towards it,
and New England has in general got a good way on,
with the promise that she will yet go farther still.
See how mankind has treated other classes of men.
Once all who were born feeble-bodied, lame, blind,
deaf, foolish, were either killed outright, or else left
to perish, man consciously doing what the bees in
stinctively do, who kill the needless drones when winter
sets in. Insane persons were likewise simply got rid
of in the same way or else shut up to prevent them
from doing mischief. But at length all these unfortu
nate persons are adopted by the State, protected, ed
ucated, and developed, so far as their nature can re
ceive the education of the age. See what New England
is doing to-day! Nobody grudges the money which
Massachusetts pays for the blind, the crazy, and the
idiotic. In respect of them philanthropy prevails,
and the State institutions for their protection and wel
fare are even grander monuments of New England
excellence than yonder tall column of stone which also
points to God's higher law. I reverence that bloody
finger which in darkness and in day, year out year in,
on Bunker Hill, from out our father's graves con
tinually points up to that eternal justice, unaltered,
inseparable, from old, from new, whereto their spirits
whom it led and blesses now seem to look forth and
say,

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 335
" Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and
strong."
But still more do I reverence the lunatic hospital, the
blind asylum, the idiot school. The column, which so
ornaments the heroic ground, tells of the valor of men
undisciplined who could fight for their own fortunes.
They had great earthly virtue which that cheap stone
commemorates — I sometimes wonder that such
cowards bear their names ; but these houses of charity
show that the children of such valiant sires can deny
themselves, and pay large money, and nice science,
too, for the protection of the most unfortunate class
of creatures born into our rich and happy northern
homes. Be thankful for that courage ' and bravery
of flesh, " primal virtues," which once shone " aloft as
stars;" and also that now
"the charities which soothe, and heal, and bless
Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers."
At this time all these three motives affect our treat
ment of criminals ; punishments are designed to re
venge, repress, correct. But the nobler motive con
tinually and progressively obtains over the meaner,
and it is but rarely that the desire for revenge appears
in the moral feehng of the people of New England.
I remember but here and there an instance. Once,
when a professor of Harvard College committed that
ghastly crime, which will always be known as " the
great Boston murder." Desire of revenge comes over
even cool, thoughtful, and religious men, for such a
terrible crime as that stirred the revengeful instinct,
which commonly slumbers in such bosoms, covered
over with the peaceful ashes of our quiet hearths.
But commonly the more generous motives so far pre-

336 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
vail over the mean and selfish that in forty years we
have swept many a ghastly statute from the law-book
of Massachusetts ; and are unconsciously revising the
whole system of penal law. We have lessened the vin
dictive element and developed the repressive into wiser
forms; and the philanthropist has advanced to a
much greater extent than ever before, here or else
where. The Legislature of 1855, the first Know-noth
ing x Legislature, as it was called, was severely laughed
at in consequence of its simplicity of heart; but it
did great service in this direction, as well as in various
other matters, and I think performed a grander serv
ice for the State than any which ever sat since the
majority of us were born. When hanging was put
off for a year it seemed as if put off forever. It did
seem then as if Massachusetts would cut down the gal
lows-tree, and no new shoot would come up from the
savage stump of vengeance.
The instinctive moral feeling of the community
inclines men to abolish the punishment of death; but
their prudential reflection makes them doubt if it be
quite safe to remove this safeguard of savage times,
while the theologic notion that God is malignant, vin
dictive, and demands life for life, bids some men let
the gallows stand. The result is clear, only the time
uncertain; this moral instinct of the people is but the
harbinger of day; it will at length clear the night
away, and the hearts of the hurt will gather them
selves together and lay them down in their dens, and
man will go forth to such labor as is seemly for the
day. I know not how long the twilight shall con
tinue, only this: day is before us, night behind, 'tis
twilight of the morn. But after the late elections I
thought the gallows would not live through another

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 337
winter, but would soon be cut off and cast to its own
place. Latterly, however, two murders have been com
mitted in the State Prison itself by convicts, and under
circumstances of peculiar atrocity; committed upon
estimable men, who, so far as the public knows or now
suspects, had given no provocation for these offenses.
So now for a moment the public feeling turns back to
the gallows, and seeks to rest under the shadow of that
awful tree. I have heard men say that the neighbors
at Charlestown ought to have seized the murderer and
hanged him upon the first beam they could find; and
cool men on sober reflection say, first, it is not right
to allow murderers to go unhanged, it is " mistaken
philanthropy " and " mawkish sentimentalism " to let
them live ; they must have a punishment equal to their
crime, life for life. The savage instinct for venge
ance is roused again even in these men, who yet are
conscientious and do not wish to do wrong but only
right. Secondly, they say " It is not safe to allow the
murderer to live, for if spared in jail, first, his im
prisonment does not operate in public and so di
minish crime ; and next, as he is not amenable to any
further punishment, he will mock at law and justice,
and kill his keepers ! Accordingly, we must retain
the gaUows, and bid it strike swiftly and in public ! "
I have heard this from several moderate men of intel
ligence and humanity; nay, from kind and thought
ful women too. I suppose they represent the present
feelings of a large part of the community.
Certainly, the case is very difficult, for we have not
only our own native criminal class to deal with, but
a great army of foreigners, many of whom are the
off-scouring from the streets of a civilization filthier
than ours. The worst of the emigrants stop in the
IX— 22

338 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
great towns, linger about the rum-shops of the me
tropolis, — so flies always swarm in the dirtiest streets,
— while the better portion go to the interior, where
there are attractions for industrious and honest people.
Nay, in thf nineteenth century beggars and criminals
are purposely sent to New England from Europe, as
once in the seventeenth century they were sent to Vir
ginia. The number of foreigners in Boston is quite
large. In the four years from 1851 to 1854 only
4,816 American women were married in Boston, and
6,596 foreign women, of whom 5,002 were Irish. In
the five years from 1850 to 1854, 8,300 children were
born here of American mothers, and 17,702 from
foreign mothers, whereof 14,438 were Irish women.
Thirty pairs of twins were born in Boston of Irish
mothers the last year!
You trace this foreign stream in the annals of
poverty and crime; thus of 238 boys in the Boston
House of Reformation in 1856, only 13 were Ameri
cans, while 225 were of foreign parents, 203 of Irish
origin ; of the 426 inmates of Deer Island and of
the Boylston Asylum on the 31st of last March only
155 were of American origin, while 216 were directly
of Irish extraction ; of the 1,089 sentences to our
House of Correction in 1856, 251 were Americans and
838 foreigners, 689 of them from Ireland. Out of
the 17,500 persons arrested by the Boston police last
year, 13,500 were foreigners! Honest men, seeing
the effect which an ancient inundation of beggary and
crime has had on the South, begin to fear lest here
after Massachusetts shall teem with such men as some
of " the first families of Virginia " are now composed
of, and who sell their own children into the absolute and
eternal bondage. Some say, " If the mixed multi-

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 339
tude which peopled Virginia two hundred years ago
could gender such a population as now occupies that
State, why may not similar beggars and thieves also
ruin our own New England? Let us discourage them
from settling here, or if they will come, let us have
stern, swift, and bloody punishments to deter the
rascals from crime ! " So already they propose to re
peal the law which allows the criminal a year of grace
between his sentence and the gallows.
I know the difficulty, but do not hope to escape it
so directly. We cannot overcome crime, more than
madness, idiocy, and blindness, by the gallows alone.
To get rid of a criminal is one thing — a single blow
with an ax will do that, — but to finish the race of
criminals, and get rid of crime, is quite a different
thing. I find three distinct causes of crime, which dis
tinguishes so many classes of offenders.
The first and most obvious cause is purely personal,
the free wiU of the individual controlling his action.
Man is indeed partially free and self -directed ; yet his
freedom is not absolute, but dependent on a complica
tion of circumstances ; and if you study the psychology
of a hundred cases of crime you find that the indi
vidual volition was the smallest part of it. The
wicked deed did not gush out from a single spring, the
offender's personal wiU; but oozed forth from the
whole mountain side of material and social circum
stances. Men of strong will are not often criminals in
this way. Punishment is designed to affect man's free
will by furnishing a new terror to vice. No doubt the
certain knowledge that crime will be foUowed by hurt
to property, person or honor is a powerful means of
preventing the crime itself in men of strong will, and
a wholesome stimulus to persons of weak wills.

340 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
The next cause is organic. There is a malforma
tion of the material frame, the constitution inclining
the man to some special wrong. Some men are so born
that they are disposed to murder, in the same way as
the wolf, only not in the same degree. There is such
a man in the Lunatic Asylum at Taunton, sent from
the State Prison. He is afflicted with what is called
murderous insanity, and is organized in his osteology
to be a murderer. All of you have seen pictures of the
heads of murderers, and noticed the peculiarity so
clearly pointed out by phrenologists. This is born in
the bones of some men, for as some are born blind
or deaf or idiotic, so are others born with an inherent
disposition to various crimes. But this class is small,
not larger than the class of blind, deaf, dumb or
idiotic persons ; and this malformation is a part of the
evil which the vices of old times have entailed upon us.
The third cause is social, the general disposition of
the community or nation, the general tone of society.
This is the great circumstance which controls the char
acter of nine persons out of ten, making them Chris
tian or Mahometan, Protestant or Catholic, Unitarian
or Trinitarian, just as their surroundings incline them.
This social cause, the vice of society, affects men of
weak will and feeble moral perception and organic ten
dency to crime.
Those who commit offenses against the person are
commonly born in low places, surrounded by evil cir
cumstances; they are commonly weak-minded men who
are easily affected by the general current of evil in
society ; for as the strong winds blow heaviest on great
tall trees which stand high up on hill-tops and moun
tain-sides, so the wickedness of the community or na
tion falls most heavy in the lowest places, on the weak-

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 341
est men. To him who by birth or education has
great moral talents, the vice of society gives yet more,
for it stimulates him to manly efforts of philanthropy
to put down the evil; but to him who by birth or
education has Httle virtue, this vice of society takes
away that which he seemed to have. There are few
persons, I suppose, who at present would originate the
scarlet fever; but every child may catch it by bodily
touch or the infection in the air. And so it is with
many crimes, which the lowest class in the community
take by infection or contagion, but would not origi
nate. Now see what social causes there are to vitiate the
character of this class of men who are born with feeble
moral forces and weak will, yet with a structure in
clining them to various kinds of vice — causes which
induce men to commit great crimes against property
and person.
Look at the conduct of American society in respect
to property. I wiU take a conspicuous example,
known to everybody. A few years ago the State of
Florida repudiated her debt of three millions of dol
lars, and the constitution of the State, which was ac
cepted by Congress, forbids the payment of this great
sum of actual indebtedness. Again, for twenty years
the State of Mississippi has refused to pay the in
terest on a lawful debt of two and a half millions of
dollars, and she utterly repudiates another of five mil
lions more ; but her assessed property is more than
two hundred and fifty millions of dollars. Arkansas
pays no interest on her debt of two and a half millions
of dollars ; she can, and will not. The United States
refuses to pay the honest debt which the government
owes to persons who suffered from French spoliation
fifty or sixty years ago.

SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Look at the conduct of municipal bodies in their
disposition of public money. Look at the public
wickedness of the authorities of New York, whose
plunder is by wholesale. But I need not go out of
Boston to find examples enough to show that puritanic
honesty has not been perpetually present for four or
five years past in the management of our municipal
money. You know the reputation of our own city
government under several previous administrations.
Why do such things excite no more stern indignation
amongst men? Because they are not so very excep
tional as we sometimes profess.
Besides this, recall the great swindhng operations in
Boston which have gone unpunished. You know the
way in which some great estates have been got in
Boston, and how the reputation of the gatherers was
enhanced by the increase of their money, obtained in
a way not less dishonest than if the men had com
mitted downright and open burglary.
Need I mention other frauds? Take a single ex
ample in which you and I are alike interested. Every
body reads books, everybody writes, the quality and
cost of paper is a matter which concerns us all. Pa
per is estimated partly by its surface — it must be
smooth, and partly by its weight. Now to ensure a
smooth surface, and at the same time secure adequate
weight, the paper-makers of New England have found
the art of mixing clay with their materials, by which
they secure a glossy surface and the requisite weight,
but the paper is far less valuable; it wears out the
printer's type and the writer's pen, and will not en
dure long. A single house informed me that they
were cheated out of fifteen hundred dollars by the
paper-makers in publishing a single book. Do you

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 343
wonder, these things being so, that crimes of violence
against property are so common amongst low and
poor persons? We must reap as we sow.
Look at American society in respect to crimes
against the person. Remember what the United
States did to Mexico. We plundered her with the
armed hand, and slew forty thousand of her citizens.
She had committed but one offense; she had a mil
lion and a half i square miles of land that we wanted.
So Ahab wanted Naboth's vineyard; no, it was Jeze
bel, who forced her weaker husband into the scheme.
You know how they wickedly got possession of it, and
you remember the prophecy against Ahab, " In the
place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall
dogs lick thy blood, even thine," and " The dogs shall
eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel."
You recollect what the American Government has
done to Kansas, what burning, what robbery, what
rape and what murder the American Government has
committed against honest people there. It was only
the Sharpe's rifles of New England which kept the
Government from establishing slavery there. The
general Government appointed bullies to high office
there, and from first to last not an outrage against
the free-state settlers has been punished. Recollect
also what we are now doing in Nicaragua. I think
the invasion of this place, though not done with the
ordinary public formalities, is just as much the act
of the American people as the election of the presi
dent. Consider what we propose against Cuba, to
seize it with the hand red with the blood of peaceful
men, to perpetuate slavery there. One of the favorite
projects of the day is the restoration of the African
slave-trade. The merchants like it, and there are

344 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
plenty of ministers who encourage it as a means of
evangelizing Africa. Remember that fifty-seven mem
bers of the House of Representatives voted for it —
a small vote, yet remember that the trade is carried
on, and the American Government only makes a pre
tense of preventing it ; and when a vessel was fitted out
from Boston for this purpose, the city authorities got
into a steeple with a spyglass and looked at it, and
did not send to arrest the slave-trader till it was miles
away and had passed the light-house. Remember that
another branch of the slave-trade is carried on from
Boston, the trade in white men, kidnapped in China,
and sold in South America; and the men who engage
in the traffic lose nothing of reputation in church or
society here in Boston. Remember that four millions
of men are seized and plundered by the United States,
their babies taken away from the women, and their
earnings from the men. Remember also that in 1851
a conspicuous merchant in Boston declared that if
anybody would murder Wendell Phillips, and he stood
as foreman of a jury to try the murder, he would re
turn a verdict of justifiable homicide, — served him
right !
In Virginia there are 54,333 free colored persons,
and in that State, whose gentry are descended from
those thieves sent out from England, that I just spoke
of, it has been publicly proposed to seize these men and
sell them at four hundred dollars apiece for slaves, and
thus put twenty-one millions of dollars into the ex
hausted treasury of the State. Why should that strike
you with horror? Is there not a law in Massachu
setts to-day which authorizes a man to steal a black
man? Is not the Fugitive Slave Bill recognized as
law? and is it any worse for Virginia to steal these

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 345
fifty-four thousand men than for Boston to steal a
free man? Remember the barbarities practised in the
slave States themselves. In the first four months of
1856, they burned four men alive, partly for venge
ance, partly for sport ; in the last month they shot or
hanged some forty slaves, on suspicion that they were
intending to rise and secure their freedom, and two
more they whipped to death — thus with scorpions
ending the year, which they began with sticks of green
wood, making a holocaust of their Christmas, and fill
ing up the whole Christian year with their murderous
agony. AU this is instantial, not the exception, all de
fended at the North and in Boston. Recollect that
duelling is a common practice in more than half the
land. Remember that last year an honorable Southern
member of Congress in the street beat a Northern
editor with a club, and went unpunished ; and another
honorable representative to Congress with a bludgeon
beat and maimed a noble senator of Massachusetts,
and not only went with no punishment, but was wel
comed with new honors all over the South, had gifts
showered on him by the men and kisses by the women ;
one of your own representatives called him a brave
man, and one of your own city council declared that
he was sorry that Mr. Brooks had not killed Mr. Sum
ner. Remember that a third Southern member of
Congress in the breakfast room of a hotel murdered
a black man and had no punishment. Recall the con
duct of Boston for six years; remember the Union
meeting when Democrats and Whigs came together and
determined to steal EUen Craft. Remember the
kidnapping of Shadrack, Thomas Sims, and Anthony
Burns; remember the Boston judge of probate, the
Boston military, the mayor, the United States soldiers

346 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
with sabers, muskets, cannons ; remember the men struck
and wounded; recollect that no man has ever been
punished for all these wicked deeds, and the man who
drew the illegal writs still holds his office against law,
that the men who with swords slashed the heads of
peaceful citizens have never felt the weight of Mas
sachusetts justice, and never will. And when all these
things take place, are you astonished that a miserable,
ill-born, ill-bred convict in the State Prison kills his
keeper, an honest and very estimable man, without any
provocation? Reap as you sow! Remember that
when Boston was kidnapping Anthony Burns, one of
your most enlightened ministers exclaimed, " It is only
a single man, and what is the liberty of one man com
pared to the peace of Boston for a day ? "
Remember that these things have been justified by
the highest authorities in America, legislative, judicial,
and executive ; and also that the tall pulpits, bottomed
on money, have declared that there is no higher law,
and then how will you affect to wonder that the convict
kills his keeper? When a minister in country lyceums
and city societies is applauded because he says that to
save the Union he would send his own mother into
slavery, are you astonished that the convict criminal
kills his victim with a knife? Years' ago men laid
down the atheistic principle, there is no law of God
higher than the ambition of the office-seeker ; and years
ago did I warn men against the consequences of the
atheistic principle, and remind them that they who sow
the wind must reap the whirlwind. Well, it is fair
just now to say that all this murderous evil comes from
a mistaken philanthropy? Think of all Massachu
setts in the act of prayer and fasting, confessing her
sins and saying, " O Lord, we have erred in putting

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 347
away the gallows and leaving hanging undone, and
we have sought to reform and Christianize men, when
we ought to have murdered them. Help us to hang
the murderer, 0 Lord ! " Picture to yourself Boston
on her knees, nay, standing before the seven golden
candle sticks, and saying, " Lord, I thank thee that I
am not as other towns ! My police report that I have
three thousand rum-shops, open all day and Sunday
too ; pardon me that I have but a single gallows. If
thou wilt be my Lord, I will build thee up a new
gallows, fifty cubits high." Is that the confession
Boston is to make? Go to now! Massachusetts must
make a very different shrift.2
We are corrupt inwardly, and our sins break out,
and robberies and murders are only the public toad
stools which have sprung from that dung-hill which
the Church and State have nourished. We are too
far civilized, and have too much respect for the name
Christian, to consciously kill murderers for vengeance.
We know too well also, that we have no right to kill
the little offenders when we let the great ones escape.
Think of Boston hanging a man for murder when she
has the sin of three kidnappers on her head, and her
heart has not repented of it yet. If you hang a man
you simply have got rid of him, not of the crime for
which he suffered. I think there was not a man in
New England who had seen so many hangings and
guillotinings, or who so well understood that form of
death, as that great Boston murderer whom I spoke
of. In his younger days he was in the habit of hang
ing cats and dogs, to the horror of the students of
Harvard College.
I say such things check a few by terror, they will
not check many, they will cause new crime ; the blood

348 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
of a man executed only fattens the ground. I think
the hanging of Washington Goode — a poor, miser
able, weak-minded negro, half mad with jealousy, and
half crazed with rum, has caused more murder than
the most active gallows can prevent in fifty years.
If you keep a man in jail fifty years perhaps you
will not do him any good. The first time I preached
on this subject, the very hour that I was preaching,
the property of some of you was being plundered, and
that too by men who had been convicted of several
crimes. That the robbery was committed by them
there is no material doubt ; by the cunning and crafti
ness of lawyers the criminals escaped. The inside of
a jail is no more powerful to reform men than the
outside. Hard labor in the week, and Calvinism on
Sunday, are not means of grace calculated to touch
these men, born with Httle moral sense, whom the vice
of society has encouraged to crime. To send such
men back on society while their character is bad as
before, is a great wrong to society itself. A plague
hospital keeps its inmates, who are only sick, tiU they
are cured of their infection. Shall a jail do worse
with its convicts? We shall have a fresh crop of
criminals for some time to come. Think of a single
gallows to stop up the door of three thousand rum-
shops !
I should advise these things: first, to retain the
criminals tiU they are healed. Distinguish convicts
into two classes, such as become so by their will, and
such as are organized for crime. The dangerous ones
I should expect to keep forever, as I should insane
men; I do not mean to confound insanity with vice.
I would make their condition comfortable and educa
tional, as far as possible, but not costly. They might

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 349
be made to support themselves and have an oppor
tunity to contribute something to their families or
their friends, or add some creature comforts to their
own condition. I know the difficulties of the matter ;
but I know that they can be overcome. I would have
religious instruction also in all places of detention.
That is the first thing.
Next, we must mend the whole community, and so
cut off the causes of crime. When the dishonest
trader, the kidnapper, the dealer in coolies, the slave-
trader, the man who corrupts the people with his open
lies, disappears from the place of public favor and
confidence, then will murder vanish from your streets,
not till then. It is not prudent to expect the grog
shop and brothel to be better than the parlor and the
church. It is not quite just to expect a higher mo
rality amongst convicts at Charlestown than Con
gressmen at Washington. Would you hang Cato
from New Hampshire and continue Herbert in his
seat at Washington? If you would hang convicts,
what are you to do with kidnappers, who commit a
worse crime? For the present crisis I would rather
shut up the three thousand rum-shops than build a new
gaUows. I would appoint firm men for prison-keepers, not
men of mawkish sensibihty; but men of stern philan
thropy ; and I should not ask of a candidate what his
politics were, whether he was a Whig, a Democrat, a
Know-nothing or a Republican, only if he was a man
fit for the post ; and when I found such a one I would
keep him forever, if there was money enough in the
State to pay him.
I would have religious instruction there, and for
that I would not take a minister with mere book re-

350 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
ligion, but a man with piety of heart and life; not a
priest who thinks man is a little weak devil by nature,
and God a great strong devil by will; but a man who
knows the Infinite God by heart, and has the humanity,
the self-respect and the divinity of love. To preach
the religion of fear, which makes man a worm, and
God a devil with fiery foot forever treading on that
worm, is bad enough in a meeting-house, full of rich
men, who can afford to sleep. But the theology of
damnation is still worse when preached in a jail, for
there the poor wretch has no shelter to screen him from
the hail of eternal torment which the minister pours
down on him from the windows of inverted hell. The
gospel of love would not be wasted anywhere ; in a
jail it would be the good physician among the sick.
There is always power enough among mankind for
large crises, especially in such an age and nation as
this; men with just the elements to organize jails fitly,
keep the criminals safe, and to make them better.
But I rely most on great general causes — the school,
the press, good men and good women. Our whole
scheme of education is radically wrong in this, that
we omit to cultivate the conscience, the affections and
the soul. We take great pains to educate the under
standing, the economic faculty of man, and train it to
acquire power over matter and over man, not equaUy
to use that power with justice, love, and piety. So
we have a rich New England, an intellectual New
England, not a moral, affectional, and religious New
England to correspond. What if we took as much
pains with the higher faculties as with the lower. I
imagine Massachusetts with the higher faculties de
veloped — twelve hundred thousand men as moral,
affectional and religious as they are now well developed

CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT 351
in understanding, and then think of the proposition
to revive the gallows as a means of preventing crimes !
But we shall live through this crisis. The oldest
among you remember to have seen naked women
scourged in State Street ; the gallows will go where the
whipping-post has gone before, and by moral forces
we shall at length overcome the immorality which is in
man. It was said of old by the divine soul that you
cannot cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of
devils, but by the finger of God we cast them out, and
angels shaU come to take their place.

XII
WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN
Friend, go up higher. — Luke xiv. 10.
It is New-year's Sunday to-day — when men become
thoughtful, as they look back on the irretrievable past,
or forward to the uncertain future. Let us use, there
fore, the occasion of the day, and so this morning I
ask your attention to some thoughts on " What Re
ligion may do for a Man, a Sermon for New Year's
Sunday." In religion there are always three things which make
up that complex of consciousness. First, there are
feelings, the emotional part; second, ideas, the intel
lectual part ; and third, there are actions, the practical
part. These three, I take it, are the essentials of all
conscious religion, and you actually find them in all
the different forms thereof which prevail, either
amongst us or the rest of mankind.
But see what difference there may be in what is
called religion, — in respect to these various elements
of this complex consciousness.
1. The idea may be that man is a miserable wretch,
totally depraved, no good thing in his body, his mind
incapable of learning truth by its own power, his con
science good for nothing, and his affections " deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked." It may be
that God is a snake, a crocodile, a bull, a white ele
phant, a consuming fire — Moloch, Zeus, Jupiter, Wo
den, Thor, Jehovah, a Hebrew peasant, or the eccle
siastical triune God who created the world for his own
352

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 353
glory, and means to torment the majority of its in
habitants for ever, for his own good will and pleasure.
So the relation between man and God may be thought
to be ever-enduring wrath — almighty hate on the one
side, and the most helpless prostration on the other.
2. The feeling may be such as comes unavoidably
from this idea of man, God, and their relation. It
may be fear, waxing into sheer and utter despair and
hopelessness of all good, both now and hereafter.
3. The action may be such as comes from these
emotions: it may be killing an only son, as a sacrifice
to Jehovah, making the male children pass through
the fire unto Moloch, sacrificing a daughter unto
Artemis, consecrating a monk to Jesus of Nazareth,
or a nun to the " Virgin Mother of God." It may
be a deed of Jews crucifying Jesus, or of Christians
massacring the Jews by the million ; it may be the act
of Simeon the Stylite standing for six-and-forty years
on a pillar-top in the market-place, or of an Indian
devotee throwing himself before the car of his idol
god; it may be that of the Catholic inquisitor tearing
men to pieces with his Spanish or Italian rack, or of
the Protestant inquisitor burning Servetus at Geneva,
or hanging a Quaker woman from the great elm on
Boston common.
All these ideas, feelings, actions have prevailed, and
have been called religion, and that too amongst earnest
and self-denying people.
On the other hand these three things may be en
tirely different.
1. The idea of man may be that he is the crown of
creation, with a noble nature, and a grand destination
here on earth, and hereafter, we know not where, with
powers proportioned to his destination, and certain to
IX— 23

354 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
develop themselves in such manner as to secure this
ultimate welfare. The idea of God may be that of
infinite perfection — power almighty, wisdom aU-know-
ing, all-righteous justice, and all-embracing love.
The idea of the relation between the two may be
that God is a perfect Creator and a perfect Provi
dence, making all from love — the highest possible
motive, for infinite welfare — the highest possible pur
pose, and in the material and the human world furnish
ing the adequate means to go between his motive, and
his purpose and so secure the end.
2. The feeling may be the natural one which springs
up at the thought of such a God and the consciousness
of such a nature in us, and the certainty of such a
relation of the Infinite Father and Mother to all man
kind. It may be a feeling of reverence, of that per
fect love which casts out every fear, of confidence in
God's motive, purpose, means — all passing into a
perfect and absolute trust in God, in his world here
and all his worlds hereafter.
3. The action may be the normal use of every limb
of the body and every faculty of the spirit, obedience
to the natural laws which God writes on the body and
in the soul, a life of manly toil and thought and the
natural enjoyment of all reasonable things — works
of industry, of wisdom, justice, affection, philan
thropy, all growing like a flower from this seed of ¦
piety within the soul.
All these conflicting and hostile ideas, feelings, and
actions have prevailed as religion. What a difference
between the two ! What I named first, I will call false
religion, for it comes from a mistaken and perverted
action of the human powers. The other, let me caU
true religion, for it comes from the normal and healthy

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 355
action of the same powers. The odds between the
two is the difference between lust and love — between
the ghastliest sickness and the fairest and handsomest
health. Each form of religion is thought of infinite value by
its devotee — the false and unnatural, not less than the
fit and true. The Spanish Inquisitors, as an act of
faith, tearing a woman to pieces with their rack, the
half frantic Christians in a prayer-meeting asking
God to confound some humble minister, put a hook
in his jaws, or else remove him from the world ; all of
these are as earnest and devoted as those noble women
who show their love to God by justice and charity to
needy men, and with blessed feet write out the gospel
of love, in the hovels of the poor, in the pestilence of a
camp, in the ceU of the maniac and the criminal, or
stooping down, on the ground write " freedom " as
a guide-board to the slave. But let not this identity
of name make you and me for a moment doubt the
odds between such opposites.
A bigoted minister, superstitious, ignorant of God
and man and true religion, spiteful, and yet devout,
hanging a Quaker woman because she believes in the
free inspiration of the human soul ; a thoughtful wife,
trusting in God, loving her children and their father,
ruling her household with discretion, industry, reli
gious love, and living kindly toward all mankind, —
what an odds there is betwixt the two ! Yet he values
his religion as much as she. So the filthiest squaw
who rots in her California subterranean den values
her mode of life as highly as Von Humboldt the
science that he learns and sends abroad to bless the
world. Against the false form of religion I have spoken,

356 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
perhaps, less than I should, but certainly far more than
I would, for I never think of it without a shudder at
the ghastly horrors it has produced, and stiU sows the
world withal.
All round me do I see its wicked work ; for as the
forehead of a groaning man is grimly wrinkled by the
bitter draughts he swallows through mistake, whereat
his palate quivers still, and his throat turns rough
while the poison begins to work him fatal ill below —
so with earnest and self-denying believers of those bit
ter doctrines which they too have swaUowed also by
mistake, do their sad looks, distorted mouth, belittled
brow, their doleful voice and ghastly prayers, attest
the unkindness of that religion which so wars against
the soul. It is this odious thing which has been op
posed, hated, and scorned by some of the most philo
sophical and humane men who ever lived. They spoke
against that religion whose emotion is fear and de
spair before God, and hate before men; whose ideas
are that man is a worm, and God a great ugly boot,
lifted up to tread him down with endless crush of
misery ; whose actions are unmanly, unjust, and wicked,
watering the earth with blood, and sowing it with
seeds of woe. It is against these things that Grecian
Epicurus, and Lucretius the Roman, his pupil, hea
thens both, with many more, waged a continual war;
it is against false religion that many a noble man and
woman since have lifted up their voices, and won a bad
name in the Christian Church, and come to a bloody
end from Christian hands. But do you ever find a
philosopher who speaks against the other form of re
ligion, — against infinite perfection in God, — against
emotions which are trust, and love, and charity, —
against actions which are honor, wisdom, justice,

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 357
mercy, loving-kindness towards men? Yes, I know
you do find, here and there, such as speak against all
this, but it is those who have been first corrupted by
that false religion, which consists in the opposite of
those good things. What natural man ever prefers
sickness to health, sickness, and its miserable weak
ness, to strong and handsome health? We send a sec
tarian form of rehgion to heathens, and they laugh it
to scorn. Half a million Bibles have been published
in Siam, and scattered amongst the heathens there, and
there are not three dozen Christians in all Siam!
They took the Bibles, — they rejected the doctrines
which the missionaries taught. But did you ever hear
of a nation of heathen men rejecting justice, integrity,
charity, and saying, " We will have no such things
amongst us! kill every just man! let us burn with
slow fire every man who loves his kind ! " No, you
never heard that; savage human nature does no such
thing. Now see what the true religious emotions and ideas
can do for men.
I. In our early life we find developing in us certain
great strong, instinctive appetites, those which tend to
support the individual frame, — both those which ally
us with others, and those wrathful passions whose func
tions it is to defend us from other men. All these are
good in themselves, each indispensable to human wel
fare, for the life of the individual, and the life of the
race. But we see how easily they all run to excess;
before we know our danger we are often thereby driven
down to our ruin.
Every man must fight a battle between the reflective
personal will and the instinctive animal appetites.
Most men bear the scars of this conflict all their days,

358 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
and grim recollections of the struggles which in their
hearts went on unseen. What a story many an honest
man and woman I now look upon, might tell of this
conflict. Here and there the animal appetite conquers,
and the man never walks afterwards upright and free,
but goes bowed as a slave all his hfe. The thoughtful
old man looks on the lads in a college, on the boys and
girls in a great school, and bethinking himself of his
own internal life, and the struggles within him — de
sire drawing one way, and conscience pointing another
— a little tear springs into his manly and experienced
eye, half hope and half fear. I knew a woman once,
rather a cold and worldly one, but strong-minded and
experienced well, and tender-hearted still, who never
heard the little boys pattering about their cradle, but
she sighed inwardly at the thought of the rough ways
those little feet must tread before they rested in calm,
victorious, and virtuous manhood.
Now, if a youth or maiden be trained up to know
there is an infinitely perfect God, who made man of the
best possible material, in the best possible ways, for the
best possible purpose — a God who plans all for the
good of each, and placed in us that spark of his spirit
which we call conscience ; — if they were trained up to
trust this infinite God — to feel love and reverence for
him, and a most sacred desire to keep every command he
writes in their consciousness; if they were thoroughly
taught that the true service of Him is to listen to that
still small voice of conscience and obey its sure and
gentle word — why, what a safeguard this would be!
If they were taught that the laws of God, with benef
icent function, worked as irresistibly as gravitation,
fthat no deed, no thought, no automatic instinct, ever
escapes their righteous jurisdiction — then what a mo-

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 359
tive would the young people have to live a clean, pure
life, free from the immoral violence and heats of pas
sion, which destroy the welfare of so many men !
There is a paradise of joy whereto all youths and
maidens have a birthright of entrance. Through the
automatic instincts, nature calls, " Come up hither, O
young man, O young maid! Come up hither, and be
blessed ! " But there is only one gate which opens
and lets in, and that is the gate of duty; thereto
through the wilderness of life there is only one guide,
and that is conscience — the true Emmanuel, or God-
with-us. I see how strong are these various appetites, what
excesses they lead to, what ruin they often end in.
Look at the drunkard, the glutton, the debauchee —
men who are slaves to the baser part of their appetites,
and yet do not get the manly delight which even those
parts of us were meant to afford.
But in forming man, God provided us with a power
to rule aU these passions, and make every appetite not
only secure its own special satisfaction, but serve like
wise the general welfare of the whole, and promote the
development of the highest faculties of the spirit.
Man's body and his soul are a unit, and there is not
a passion in the body but the soul needs it all, and
needs its normal satisfaction.
To this end, to harmonize those appetites and pas
sions, I know no help Hke true ideas of religion and the
natural emotions thereof; they lead unavoidably to
noble actions.
How we misjudge the value of common things!
" What a fortunate young man is Augustus," said the
men and women of Boston many years ago, " he in
herits so much money, — and of course so much social

360 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
respectability, which is the function of money, — born
in one of the first families," — that is, the richest, —
" and inheriting such an estate ; what a fortunate
man ! " "I wish I had his lot," said the young men ;
" I wish I could give such a fortune to my children,"
said the old ones. Ah me ! the fortunate man is he
who starts in life with the true religious ideas of man,
of God, of His providential care for you and me, and
aU mankind ; with the true religious feelings of rever
ence, gratitude, trust, love, and the unconquerable will
to keep his every command. The culture which brings
about this is not always costly, it must be precious, and
that for ever.
II. But the great battle of life is not over when
we have put down wrath, lust, and drunkenness, and
have got through the wild land of the appetites.
There are vices of conscious reflection not less than of
instinctive passion. In New England I fear these are
the greatest dangers, for few men warn you against
them. Nay, what in a commercial and political town
is called a great success in life is commonly the great
est defeat of the manliest thing which is in you.
The subtler vices are love of approbation, often de
generating into mere vanity, which is to honor what
the froth is to the sea, — the scum it genders in chafing
with the world ; ambition, the excessive love of power ;
covetousness, the intemperate love of money: these
often make a dreadful ruin of a man. How many
wealthy wrecks do I see, floating all the week in the
streets, and drifted, perhaps, for an hour into some
meeting-house of a Sunday. A man may be a mil
lionaire in dollars, and yet a bankrupt in manhood.
Bears and frogs and various other creatures hiber
nate a part of every year ; they He still, seemingly un-

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 361
conscious ; their powers all live, but the functions are
suspended; nothing is wholly dead, aU is sleeping.
How many men do I know, who undergo a partial hi
bernation, and that for long years ! Their conscience
has " denned up," as the bears in winter ; their humani
ties are all torpid as the frogs who now lie buried in
the mud. Yet these men walk about, all their higher
faculties winter-quartered in their heart. Men salute
them, " Good morning, sir ! a happy new year ! "
They sit on platforms and are called by honorable
names. Ministers preach- to those hibernal souls as
vainly as to a winter congregation of Russian bears.
Nay, worse; hibernant ministers hold forth to a hi
bernating pack of " worshipers." So, in the cata
combs of Egypt, you shall find the ancient priest amid
his ancient congregation, mummies aU.
A few years ago, in Boston, an ambitious religious
society built a meeting-house more costly than they
could pay for, or keep; so they were forced to leave
it; the steeple turned the church out of doors. I
never knew but one instance of this kind. Societies
are wiser. But how often do I find that some respect
able vice — covetousness, vanity, or ambition — has
turned the man out of his own body. Politics have
twisted that man's neck; fine dress exposes the shame
of this civilized Adam and Eve, so fearfully clothed,
that they are not ashamed while they yet for ever seek
to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord God,
always walking in every garden, at the cool or the heat
of day, with eyes that travel through eternity. Here
the shop unhouses the man; this is crushed by an
avalanche of domestic goods ; and this has bottled his
soul along with his drink; there the pulpit, with its
snow-white halter, chokes the life out of the minister.

362 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Zeal for a false religion has slowly changed Dr. Ban-
baby into a practical atheist, all the theological funeral
bells are tolling the knell over his humanity, while they
mean to ring a joyous peal for his accession of di
vinity. Miss Seemly had a lithe, trim figure, white teeth and
rosy cheeks, eyes that if seldom brilliant were always
sharp; a slender fortune and a stain on her family.
At marriage she became Mrs. Seemly-Worldly; wed
lock only added to her name ; it did not change her
character, which, in joy and sorrow, she has fiercely
developed ever since. With a temper which, if not
sweet, was at least a pleasant sour, in youth she com
mitted no sin of instinctive passion, neither of at
tractive love nor of repulsive wrath; she was too de
corous, nay, perhaps too conscientious, for either.
The marriage was a bargain, — the Worldlys were a
" great family," distant relations of the Seemlys too.
Mrs. Seemly-Worldly, for still she keeps her maiden
name, thought wealth was worth far more than love.
She was devoted to her husband; for the lowlier pur
poses of life she was a convenient mate. She chose
her religion, as her marriage bonnet, for its conven
tional fitness to the hour, — neither held an unfashion
able feather ; it was the religion of worldhness. Now,
she aims at two chief things, to make a fashionable and
ecclesiastic show, so demure at prayers, so jaunty at a
ball; and to transplant her daughters into soft, rich
soil. Oh, Mary Magdalen, and all ye other scriptural
Marys, is there a patron saint for the abandoned
woman only of the street, is the only prostitution
theirs? The Seemly-Worldlys are older than Jerusa
lem, and in the midst of such it were no wonder, if to
a woman taken in adultery, clear-sighted Jesus reaUy

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 363
said, " Neither do I condemn thee. But go thou and
sin no more." And to the Seemly-Worldlys of this
time, how bravely did he say, " The publicans and the
harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before you! "
An old story teUs that Actaeon, a famous hunter,
kept many hounds, and they ended by eating him up.
Actaeon is an old name; it is Greek besides. How
many Actaeons do you and I know — men eaten up by
their own dogs ! I know men who damage their body
by their business; so do you. The other Sunday I
spoke of them — a sermon meant likewise partly for
myself; I hope we shall all heed it. Many more I
know, who break down their conscience, their affec
tions, their higher manhood. Mechanics sicken of
their craft ; painters have lead-colic ; tailors and shoe
makers are pale and dyspeptic-looking; printers go
off in consumption, which they have caught from
breathing ink and type-metal. Is that the worst? I
know men whose ambition, whose vanity, whose cov
etousness, has wrought them worse mischief — a con
sumption of the mind, a numb palsy of the affections,
gout in the conscience, a general dyspepsia of their
humanities. When Mr. Successful first came to Boston, " with
nothing but his hands," he was a sufficiently generous
young man. When he began his housekeeping, a Httle
string of money, only one hundred and fifty dollars
long, went clean round his annual expenses; the ends
met and tied, and he had still a penny for the poor.
When he was comfortably rich, his heart was still hu
man and needed small prompting for kind deeds. He
lit the fire on a poor widow's hearth, and the blessing
of such as were ready to perish came, the sweetest bene
diction on his modest daily meal, or the annual sump-

364 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
tuous feast of thanksgiving, when his grateful eye
fell on the unbroken ring of domestic jewels graduaUy
twined by his own and his fond partner's hands. Now
Mr. Successful is very rich, awfully rich, wealthy be
yond hope ; he talks in a " high prosperous voice " at
the bank; in the council of hard faces you turn off
from his; law is his only conscience now. It would
take his right hand a great while to find any alms
which his left hand ever does. So great is the load of
gold on his shoulders, he cannot lift either hand to his
lowliest pocket; once charity was wont to come, he
heard her gently tapping at his wooden door; now all
day she shall vainly beat against his gate of gold, and
he will not hear that dear angel of humanity. His
ears are full of money, he hears but one sound, chink,
chink, chink. Theology tells us of stony hearts ; they
may be broken and managed then. But God save us
from a heart of gold, which only beats like the mint-
hammer to make coin, and circulates nothing but
money, sending it out arterial, and taking it back dark-
colored and venous. In Bunyan's wonderful poem, as
the pilgrim draws nigh the end, his burden lightens,
and at length falls off, leaving him to walk upright and
joyous, a free man. But Mr. Successful has a huge,
deep, wide-mouthed pannier fastened to his back, and as
he trudges through this storm of money, it so rains gold
thereinto that his burden greatens continually, and
with bended back, and out-pressed eyes, knock-kneed,
he staggers on his way, ere long to fall beneath his
load, dead and buried under his pannier full of gold.
On his gravestone let it be writ, He coined his heart,
and turned his conscience into dollars; his human
sympathies became eagles.
You sigh over the human ruins cast ashore on in-

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 365
famous places, stranded in jails, or caught upon the
gallows, and so exposed to public shame; kind souls
take interest in their cruel fate, however so well de
served ; " there breaks not a heart but leaves some to
grieve." Beneficent lawyers sometimes try to defend
these poor creatures, and save them from their fate,
and gentle-hearted- ministers would intercede. Nay,
the State has forecasting care for such as are like to
be whelmed under in that perilous sea of crime ; builds
her breakwaters, and artificial harbors, calhng them
" Reform School," Industrial School," and other
Christian names. But men are ruined otherwise; how
many an ambitious craft encounters total wreck while
saihng for the Presidency, for the governor's chair,
or some political port far less renowned! The shore
of Congress is lined with the fragments of shipwrecked
men, wherewith, also, the coast of every State is pain
fully deformed. What argosies yearly go under, all
their virtuous wealth spilled out among the heedless
waves !
The saddest human ruin now conspicuous in Amer
ica is no wretch in the State Prison, no lunatic at
Worcester or Taunton ; he will never be hung on any
gibbet. It is a man uncommonly well gifted, well
educated too ; his praise is in all the newspapers. Pah !
let us not look at him again ; it is New-year's Sunday,
turn we to more pleasant things.
Terrible are these vices of reflective calculation. I
know of nothing which so enables a man to correct
them, and to keep his hounds to hunt for him, not
eat him up, as true religious ideas, true religious
feelings. These put you in harmony with the uni
verse around you, and with God who is everywhere.
They set your little miU where the stream of hfe falls

366 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
on its wheels and the great forces of the universe come
and grind for you all day, all night, year out, year
in. If you want to heap up more money than you
can ever earn, or either wisely spend, or manfully can
keep, I would advise you to renounce true religion ;
give it all up, and go into business with your whole
soul — nay, with your whole body and mind. Aaron's
calf of gold will serve your turn better than Moses'
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, immensely better
than the universe's God of infinite perfection. If you
wish to be very popular with very popular men, or
with cold, hard, cruel persons, who often control so
ciety for their special use, I would advise you to make
yourself into a practical atheist, ringing with loud
professions of ecclesiastical religion, noisy as brass,
but like brass destitute of all love for the Infinite God
of the world, and all charity towards men ; that is the
card for such a game. But if you wish to be a man,
or a woman, and enjoy all your human rights, wel
fares, hopes, joys, and those dear, heartfelt delights,
which are to happiness what well earned daily bread,
and nightly sleep, are to health; why, I would advise
you before all things, to heed that " still, small voice,"
which spoke once, at least, in the heart of the worst
of us, and still comes to mankind, gently pleading,
" Friend, come up higher ; come up higher, friend ! "
I would advise you to seek that religion whose ideas
are of the infinite perfection of God, whose feelings
are reverence, and trust, and love, and whose actions
are the natural morality of this body and this soul.
There are times of temptation. They come to us
all, the passionate earlier, the ambitious later; some
times both together. Alas me ! which way shall I turn?
Here is an internal guide which God has given to watch

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 367
over me, and keep me, and bear me up in his hands,
lest at any time I dash my foot against this twofold
stone of stumbhng and rock of offense. Has not
every man felt the temptation? Who has not some
times likewise yielded when desire from within leagued
with occasion from without, and both were too much
for us ? And, while plucking the forbidden fruit, have
we not all been stung by that bee of remorse which
mercifully lurks therein? Some have eaten the for
bidden fruit so long that remorse troubles them no lon
ger with pain; they are so paralyzed they know no
more the sweet delights of life which virtuous lips
alone can taste. In these times, the true idea of re
ligion comes back to men, the infinitely perfect God,
man so noble in nature, conscience so true, will so
strong, human destination so fair and wonderful —
and deep religious emotions spring up again, reverence
for God and his unchanging law of right. Then we
say to the tempter, " Get thee behind me ! — who am
I to debase my nature and sully my soul? " Many a
noble youth has thus tottered on the sharp and perilous
edge of ruin till true religion flashed her early light
upon his road, and he turned and crept back safely.
Many a noble man has been worse tempted, and by
the same guide has been led through a wilderness hotter
than the Arabian.
The stain of vice is on us ; we have yielded to the
temptation; we have broken with conscience, and
marred the integrity of our own soul. Then, too, the
true religion comes to us with marvelous healing
power. There is hope: for the God all-mighty and
all-righteous is all-loving too; and He has provided
me ways of return. In the sickliest frame there is
always a recuperative struggle, an effort to expel the

368 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
disease and return to the normal type. But the body
is mortal, meant to last only a few score years: so its
power of recovery has limits never far off ; a fever soon
burns down this six-foot tenement; a drowning child
pulls a stout man after it into the fatal stream — the
dead baby-hand strangling a vehement and full-grown
life ; a short fall breaks our precious urn — 'twas only
earthenware — and men gather up the fragments to
bury them out of their sight, while its precious balm
ascends to heaven, filling the neighborhood with its
sweetness. But there is no spiritual death — only
partial numbness, never a stop to that higher life.
The soul's power of recovery from wickedness is in
finite: its time of healing is time without bounds.
There is no limit to the vis medicatrix of the inner, the
immortal man. To the body death is a finality ; but
the worst complication of personal wickedness is only
one incident in the development of a man whose life
is continuous, an infinite series of incidents all planned
and watched over by absolute love. " One day shalt
thou be with me in paradise," is what Jesus might say
to each penitent thief : — aye, to the red-handed re
morseful murderer gnawing his own heart; yes, to the
New England kidnapper, not yet gnawing his own
heart, still prowling about the courts, licking his jaws
and hungering for other prey. The providence of
God is infinite, and his love embraces the wickedest of
men, not less than the best. In the world of matter
and of man, He has provided an infinite means to rouse
the self -restoring energy of the sin-sick soul — painful
means no doubt they may be to us, but blessed in their
motive, and oh! how joyous in their end! I think
there is not in the Old Testament, or the New, a single
word which tells this blessed truth that penitence here-

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 369
after shall do any good, or that the agony which men
shall suffer never so many years shall wipe out one sin
gle scar of wickedness. But the universe is the revela
tion of God, and it tells you a grander truth, — in
finite power and infinite love, time without bounds for
the restoration of the fallen and the recovery of the
wicked. In all the family of God, there is never a son
of perdition.
This true religion is to be preached also in jails, and
the hands of the murderer will then be lifted up in
penitence and aspiration when he finds that there is an
Infinite Mother who looks even upon him, and through
the blood on his soul beholds the heavenly child and
loves him still.
There are also times of prosperity. The little olive-
plants are green with prophecy. Not a pearl has
faUen from our chain of affection twined by loving
hands about the neck; our cup runneth over. Then
the man of true religious ideas and emotions feels his
brotherhood to all mankind. " Who am I," quoth he,
"but one of God's children? Did He make me
stronger than they? Then the powers that He has
given, and the fruits of my gathering thereby, are they
only for myself? Are they not also for other men?
Should I not help men more, as I am abler than they?
Am I only a hand to gather for myself, and keep ? only
a mouth to consume in selfish greed? Am I not also
much rather a hand to uphold the honest man who yet
is weak and goes tottering; to distribute my power to
those, who though earnest and honest, yet need? Am
I not a mouth to instruct and warn ; to heal, and soothe,
and bless ? " There can be Catholics who are mean and
selfish in the use of all their faculties ; such men may be
Protestants just as well — Trinitarians, Unitarians.
IX— 24

370 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Methodists, Baptists, nay, Christians after the fashion
of the Christian Church ; believing all the creed blame
less, and hoping " salvation through Christ " from
" the wrath of the dreadful God." But such men can
not have the true religion. He who has its ideas and
emotions, perforce must have its actions ; for every tree
bears fruit after its own kind, not another's kind.
What joy does this religion add to prosperity!
Who, think you, is richest in welfare — the miser, that
gripes his four million dollars with lean, tenacious
hand, which only opens at the touch of death, to litter
his money on the ground, where he goes dust to dust;
or that wise, kind man, who is contented with enough,
and with his mercy cheers the cold fireside of some lone
woman, where virtue and poverty sit down continual on
her hearth? I do not underrate riches. I think I am
one of the few New England ministers who duly honor
wealth, who preach the natural gospel of industry, of
comfort, of enjoyment, of riches also when fairly
gained. But I would rather have the Warren Street
Chapel in my heart, and shining out of my face, than
all the hoarded money of the Rothschilds in my hand.
How we misjudge of values; if some inspired Diog
enes should light his lamp and seek the richest man in
Boston, he might find him possessed of a great estate;
he might find him with a very little one, so small that
the assessors never found it out, nor levied a property-
tax upon him. How we misrate things ! The material
wealth is outward, and the spiritual is inward. Happy
the man who has the spiritual ; blessed also, if he have
likewise the material, wherewith to lengthen his arm, ¦
and spread good thereby !
There are likewise times of sorrow. The world's
tide is against us ; riches vanish ; some commercial crisis

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 371
sweeps off a competence ; we are too old for new hope ;
the faces of our dear ones have changed, and they are
sent away. How handsome was the urn of love that
held our jewels! Now it is broken; the diamonds and
rubies are aU trodden into dust ! fragments only litter
the floor of life. How full of heart-breaks is our
earthly day ! It is seldom difficult to die for ourselves,
but to leave those who make life worth the living, to
feel the treasures of our affection slip through our
hand so eager and yet so impotent, this is the bitterness
of death. Silent the young wife sits by her husband's
side, — it is the better part of her which is soon to be
shorn away ; the memory of youthful courtship comes
back, hopeful and fragrant as a morning in May, when
the apple trees have also put their nuptial glory on : she
brings again the bridal's throbbing joy, and re-collects
the scattered bliss of aU the following years. She
looks on that forehead, once so fair, and full, and
smooth, the throne of many a kiss, but roughened now,
ploughed over and harrowed too with various pain.
Their two right hands are clasped in private now, as
once, when both were conscious, they were publicly
made one ; but his drops from her, it is only the wife's
palm that warmed the husband's hand. She is made a
widow while the joy of her bridal and the scattered bliss
of all the following years became new consecrate to
her. In hours like this what shall sustain our heart? Only
the certainty that there is an Infinite Power, all-wise,
all-good, that loves us, loves them, and if He change
their countenance, it is only from the mortal into the
immortal glory, brightening and brightening for ever.
If this certainty does not wipe every tear from the eye
of youth or age, it yet turns it into a telescopic glass

372 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
wherewith they see the expanded souls of their dear
ones. Therein the mother beholds the baby whom
death painfully delivered of the flesh, now become a
child in heaven, already blessed with power and virtue
which quite surpass its living parents here. There the
widowed heart of man or woman beholds the dearest
transfigured into human glory, which mortal flesh could
never put on, nor even wear upon the earth.
"Who would have thought my shrivelled heart
Could have received greenness? It was gone
Quite under ground, as flowers depart
To see their mother-root when they are blown —
Where they together,
All the hard weather,
Hid from the world, keep house unknown."
This religion at all times of life, I think is the chief
treasure of human achievement. But if it be wise in
such matters to speak of what a man has not inly expe
rienced, and so known by heart, then I should say I
think true religion is not quite whole and mature in
childhood, youth, or manhood ; that it takes old age to
make it complete in all its parts, and perfect in each
detail. Childhood has its bud, growing from the germ
which none notice in babyhood ; youth has its flower, —
how fair and sweet a thing it is ; in manhood comes the
full foliage, and the expanding fruit falling, apple by
apple, as it gets ripe; but in old age, only, appears I
think the full harvest, when the very leaves turn into
beauty ere they die, and the full ripe apples hang hand
some on the tree, or, falling, clothe the ground with
their sweet loveliness, each one a fruit historic, point
ing back, also a seed prophetic of another, spring whose
sun rises not on us here; we have its dawning, not its
day.

WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN 373
Yesterday we took each other by the hand, and wel
come smiled in mutual eyes as we gave each other good
wishes. Children rose early, their limbs half clad, and
ran with pattering feet to their father's and mother's
door, or to a more venerable generation, and lisped out
their " Happy New Year ! " To grave and thought
ful men what does it mean? The cause of greatest and
perennial happiness is the true religious ideas, right
religious feelings, manly religious deeds. What better
thing would you? what greater could you? Let us
wish this, each to himself, all to our brother men.
The old year ended a day and a half ago. The In
finite Providence bends over the cradle, or the play
ground, or the school-room, or the workshop of her
children, and wishes us all a happy new year. But the
wise Mother leaves us somewhat to ourselves, to work
our weal or woe, and though she holds the tether, and
never lets us stray beyond recall, she holds it something
loose, and lets us run and choose our way. Which
will you, — the meaner or the nobler life? You may
have the worst thing, or the best thing, and call either
your " rehgion ! " Over your head and my head there
hovers the ideal self that we know we ought to be.
It points to years happier than we yet have known, and
calls with cheery voice, — " Friend, come up higher !
Come up higher, friend ! " Let you and me not be dis
obedient unto that heavenly vision.

NOTES

NOTES I
THE CHIEF SINS OP THE PEOPLE
On April 3, 1851, Thomas Sims, a fugitive slave
pursued by kidnappers, was arrested in Boston for
some misdemeanor while endeavoring to defend himself.
He was brought before United States Commissioner
George T. Curtis, who, after brief examination, re
manded him, by virtue of the Fugitive Slave Law, to
his claimant. It was the first instance in Massachu
setts of the execution of this oppressive law. Boston
was thrown into intense excitement. A week later, on
Fast Day, April 10, Sims not yet deported and still in
jail, Parker preached at the Melodeon this memorable
sermon. Charles Sumner wrote him, " May you live a thou
sand years, always preaching the truth of Fast Day !
That sermon is a noble effort. It stirred me to the bot
tom of my heart, at times softening me almost to tears,
and then again filling me with rage. I wish it could be
read everywhere throughout the land. You have
placed the commissioner in an immortal pillory."
After preaching it Parker wrote a friend — " Men
in the street look long-favored at me as I go by.
Nevertheless the good God lets the skies rain on me, and
the sun shine (I saw my shadow to-day), and I am al
lowed to ride on the cars and walk on the sidewalk."
This sermon was published in pamphlet form in Bos
ton the same year and is included in Frances Power
Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected Works, Vol. VII.
pp. 257-295.
Page 8, note 1. Parker's career as the preacher
of a new gospel of humanity and a new interpretation
of Christianity, was contemporaneous with a new birth
377

378 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
of American literature. The " miserable imitation of
the feudal literature of old Europe " was passing.
The rapidly increasing facilities of intercourse with
foreign nations, putting us in closer touch with their
literatures, instead of stifling was fostering originality.
The growth of liberal educational institutions and the
vast expansion of a democratic press had the same in
fluence. Our greater poets were in the maturity of
their production. Historians had made a great begin
ning. A new imaginative literature, to which woman
was soon to become a large contributor, was growing.
Parker himself was surrounded by men with the genius
of new vision, — essayists, orators, statesmen and
scholars. The germs of an indigenous literature were
alive and active, the roots of appreciation and criticism
springing. A tide of enthusiasm for a purer intel
lectual culture and scholarship had set in.
Parker's acquaintance with the world's best literature
and its best scholarship was exceptional, consequently
he was the more impressed by America's crudeness and
deficiencies. No one better than he knew all that was
doing, yet he could not know that the seeds and plants
that were springing round about him were the seeds and
plants of a truly national or indigenous literature, and
one that would so soon mature into a rich and luxuriant
fruitage. Page 22, note 2. Julius Jacob Van Haynau, the
Austrian general, was in command during the Hun
garian revolution of 1848-9. He was without a con
science for humanity. After the defeat of the Hun
garians, being commissioned with absolute authority,
he exercised it wantonly by condemning Hungarian
nobles to long terms of punishment, the confiscation of
the estates of the rich, enforcing a vigorous censor
ship of the press, subjecting an impoverished country
to the rapacity of merciless officials and other cruelties.

NOTES 379
Page 25, note 3. Parker notes that the judge here
referred to was Peleg Sprague.
Page 45, note 4' A Saints' Calendar hung in a con
spicuous place in Parker's memory. He knew it by
heart. It was characteristic of him to associate Saints'
days and Saints' names with events and themes on
which he was preaching. Nothing significant of the
piety and heroism of the ages escaped him.
II
THE THREE CHIEF SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
This sermon was preached at the Melodeon July 6,
1851, and was printed in pamphlet form the same year.
It is included in Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's
Collected Works, Vol. VIII. pp. 55-88.
Page 51, note 1. These old-time authors, Colu-
meUa, Tusser, Cobbett, whom he elsewhere alludes to — ¦
were farmers and farmers' sons, and their books on
agriculture a kind of classic. Parker, a farmer's son,
loved the soil, its flowers and its fruits, and whatever was
appreciatively written of their cultivation interested
him, however obsolete. In fact he loved the neglected
nooks and corners of literature, whatever the subject,
the age, or the language.
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella was a con
temporary of Seneca, was born in Spain, and held es
tates there, but lived in Rome, and was a traveller.
He wrote in prose and verse on the cultivation of
cereals and vegetables, trees, flowers and the vine.
Thomas Tusser, an Englishman of the sixteenth cen
tury, according to Fuller's " Book of Worthies," was
" a musician, schoolmaster, serving man, grazier, hus
bandman, poet, more skilful in all than any vocation."
Yet he made a book on " A Hundredth Good Points of
Husbandrie " that went through a score of editions, and
put him in literary companionship with Varro and

380 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Columella, though StiUingfleet thinks he " would
rather compare him to old Hesiod."
Wilham Cobbett, the brilliant and erratic English
satirist (1762-1835) and author of Peter Porcu
pine's hundred or more volumes both laudatory and
damnatory of English and American politics and pol
iticians, wrote, also as a practical farmer, on " Agricul
ture and Horticulture," though it is said he " did not
in any way advance the practice of agriculture, either
by precept or example, but he adorned the parts that
have been mentioned by his homely knowledge of the
art, and most agreeable delineation."
Page 85, note 2. See Webster's speech at Capon
Springs. Ill
THE PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE
This address was delivered before the Onondaga
Teachers' Institute, at Syracuse, New York, October
4, 1849.
It was pubhshed in Boston in pamphlet form in
1850. It is included in Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's
Collected Works, Vol. VII., pp. 180-216.
Page 133, note 1. Horace Mann, (1796-1852),
was the first Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of
Education, established in 1837. Through his in
fluence and efforts important reforms in the public
school system were brought about, educational conven
tions held, and legislation secured for the establishment
of normal schools. A new impulse was given to the
interests of public education throughout the State.
Mann's addresses and reports gave him national dis
tinction as an educator. He was also a rugged abo
litionist, and, later, in Congress, put up a vigorous
fight against the extension of slavery, the Fugitive

NOTES 381
Slave Law, and Mr. Webster. These services in behalf
of education and humanity led to an intimacy between
him and Parker, and more or less correspondence.
Parker often pays him tribute, and especially in the
following paper on Education. Elsewhere he has said
— " I think there is but one man in America who has
done the nation so much service — that is Garrison."
It is well worth recording here what a contemporary,
Wendell Phillips, says in a Fraternity lecture delivered
in Boston, in 1859 — the subject " Idols " — " Within
her bosom (Massachusetts) rests the dust of Horace
Mann, whose name hundreds of thousands of children
in western prairies, looking up to Massachusetts
teachers, learn to bless. He bears the scepter of Mas
sachusetts influence to the shores of the Pacific. When
at the head of our Normal School, a colored girl was
admitted, and the narrow prejudice of Newton closed
every door against her — " Come to my table, let my
roof then be your home," said Mr. Mann.
Antioch College staggered under $60,000 debt.
One, bearing the form of a man, came to its president,
and said " I will pay one sixth, if you will promise me
no negro shall enter its haUs." " Let it perish first,"
was Horace Mann's reply.

IV
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE
This paper was originally published without signa
ture in the Massachusetts Quarterly Review for March
1848 and included in Frances Power Cobbe's edition
of Parker's Collected Works, Vol. IV. pp. 263-292.
For an account of the Massachusetts Quarterly Re
view see a note on page 505 of volume VIII. of this edi
tion of Parker's Works, entitled the American Scholar.
Page 163 note 1. This paper was originally a re-

SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
view of : I. City Document, No. 40 — Reports of the
Annual Visiting Committees of the Public Schools of
the City of Boston, 1847: Boston, 1847, 8vo., pp.
124 and 92. II. Eleventh Annual Report of the
Board of Education, together with the Eleventh An
nual Report of the Secretary of the Board: Boston,
1848, 8vo., pp. 136 and IX.
Page 164, wote 2. Massachusetts is indebted to
George B. Emerson for important labor in behalf of
education and its institutions. A graduate of Har
vard, he received from the College in 1857 the degree
of LL.D. Until his retirement from professional life
in 1855, he conducted a private school for girls in Bos
ton for over thirty pears, and was previously principal
of the Boston High School. He was one of the organ
izers and also president of the Boston Society of Nat
ural History, was instrumental in securing legislation
for the geological survey of the State, and in the
establishment of the State Board of Education; wrote
and lectured on educational matters, and was a member
of many learned societies.

V
THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN
This sermon was preached at the Music Hall, March
27, 1853. It was phonographically reported by J. M.
W. Yerrinton and Rufus Leighton, and published in
pamphlet form at various times, 1853-1855 in Boston ;
included in American edition of Parker's Works, Addi
tional Speeches, Vol. II.
It is included in Frances Power Cobbe's edition of
Parker's Collected Works, Vol. VIII. pp. 88-110.
Page 194, note 1. Probably Sarah Alden Bradford,
daughter of Captain Gamaliel Bradford, and the wife
of Rev. Samuel Ripley. She was born in Boston, July

NOTES 383
31, 1793, and died in Concord, Mass., July 26, 1867.
" Her hands," it is said, " were often busy with some
household task while her Virgil or Homer was set up
open before her. She seemed to know it by heart, and
always set us right without interrupting the sewing and
the shelling of peas. It soon happened that students
from Cambridge were put under her private instruction
and oversight."
Page 194, note 2. Parker's reference seems to be
the only record of the " daughter of a" poor widowed
seamstress " who shared with Elihu Burritt the ability
to read the Koran in Arabic.
Page 194, note 3. Maria Mitchell, the astronomer,
lived at one time in Lynn, which explains the phrase
" in a town adjoining this." She was born in Nantuck
et, in 1818. Her father, more than a mechanic, was
devoted to mathematical and astronomical studies ; was
an Overseer of Harvard College, and chairman of the
committee to visit the Observatory.
Maria, early in life, did much original astronomical
work. She discovered a comet in 1847, and was hon
ored with a gold medal by the King of Denmark. She
was engaged some years on the American Nautical Al
manac. During a visit at the observatories of Great
Britain and the continent, she was received by Sir John
Hershel, LeVerrier, Humboldt and other distinguished
astronomers and scientists. Dartmouth and Columbia
gave her an LL.D. For more than thirty years she
was Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College.
Page 194, note 4- Without doubt, Mary Lowell
Putnam, sister of James Russell Lowell. She died at
great age in 1898. She was a linguist. The Slavic
languages were among her accomplishments.
" Margaret Fuller was certainly not the most accom
plished philologist at Boston," says a venerable contem
porary. And Mrs. Julia Ward Howe modestly dis
claims the honor, though she says she used to borrow

384 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
Parker's Hebrew Lexicon, for she loved the language of
the Psalms.
Page 196, note 5. This reference was presumably
to Lucretia Mott.

VI
HOME
CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO ITS MORAL INFLU
ENCE
This sermon appears in Parker's scrap-book journal
under date of 1843.

VII
THE MORAL DANGERS OF PROSPERITY
This discourse was preached at the Music Hall, in
Boston, November 5, 1854. It was phonographically
reported by Mr. Rufus Leighton, and published in Bos
ton, 1855. It is included in Frances Power Cobbe's
edition of Parker's Works, Vol. VIII., pp. 111-131.
Page 238, note 1. This traditional charge, founded
on an unhappy outburst of feeling in the heat of con
troversy, is reiterated again and again in slightly vary
ing words. It is sufficient to quote from a note, p. 256,
in Chadwick's " Theodore Parker." See also Mr. Cook's
note, " Matter and Spirit," p. 410. " Dr. Dewey's re
mark was on*; of those which Parker never tired of
worrying. He insisted on its grossest form, and wrote
in his journal that Dr. Dewey would have done what
he said. This showed his ignorance of the man, whose
unfortunate expression was simply an hyperbole spon
taneously caught up to express Dr. Dewey's sense of the
evils that would attend the disruption of the Union.
It was my privilege to know Dr. Dewey well in his old

NOTES 385
age and I do not believe that he would have given over
a fugitive to the slave-catcher any sooner than Parker,
whatever might happen to the Union of these States."
Page 238, note 2. This refers to Nehemiah Adams,
for forty-four years (1834-1878) minister of the
Essex Street Congregational Church, Boston, and fa
mous for his theological orthodoxy and as an apologist
for slavery. A graduate of Harvard and Andover, he
was prominent in denominational affairs, and author of
several books. His " South Side View of Slavery,"
1854, made him a target for the abolitionists, and
stirred up a deal of controversy, which was revived by
the " Sable Cloud — a Southern Tale, with Northern
Comments." Another book, " Scripture Argument for Endless
Punishment," brought him under the fire of the liberal
denominations. VIII
HARD TIMES
This discourse was given at Music Hall, October 4,
1857, and reported the following day, October 5, by
the Boston Daily Bee. Some slight but necessary
changes have been made in the reporter's phrasing.
IX
POVERTY
This sermon was preached at the Melodeon, January
14, 1849, and published in the Daily Chronotype for
January 26, 1849. It is included in Frances Power
Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected Works, Vol. VII.,
pp. 94-113. IX— 25

386 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
X
WAR
This sermon was preached at the Melodeon, June 7»
1846. It was published in Boston in pamphlet form in at
least three editions within the year 1846. It is included
in Frances Power Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected
Works, Vol. IV., pp. 1-31.
" This was the first," says Chadwick, in " Theodore
Parker," " or one of the first, of those sermons in which
the massing of statistics was a striking part."
Page 320, note 1. This reference is to Mr. Charles
Sumner.
XI
CRIME AND ITS PUNISHMENT
This sermon is now published for the first time. No
information concerning the date of delivery appears
upon the manuscript ; internal evidence, however, shows
it to have been made after the attack on Sumner.
Page 336, note 1. The American Party was a polit
ical body in existence during the administrations of
Fillmore and Buchanan, in the 50's and organized as
a secret society or fraternity. As its members usually
professed ignorance of what was doing in their meet
ings, it got the name of the " Know-nothing " party.
Its aim, similar to that of the shorter lived " Native
American " party of the preceding decade, was to keep
the government in the hands of native-born Americans.
As to slavery it was non-committal, a position a good
many people regarded as the only safe and practical
one for themselves and the nation in its disturbed state.
The party was obnoxious to Roman Catholics and the
abolitionists. It gained control, however, of several

NOTES 387
State legislatures, North and South, but suffered a
crushing defeat when it nominated Fillmore for a sec
ond term. Its principles were too weak to gain any
considerable constituency, and so opposed to the liberal
policies and increasing moral fervor of the North, that
it soon died out.
Page 347, note 2. In his journal, May 28, 1845,
Parker notes attending " all anti-capital punishment
meetings," nothing remarkable but as a sign of the
times. Soon this sin of judicial murder will be over.
Notice the remarkable variety of persons ; all conditions
were represented there. XII
WHAT RELIGION MAY DO FOR A MAN
This sermon was delivered at Music Hall, Boston,
January 2, 1859.
It was published in pamphlet form, 1859. It is
included in Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected
Works, Vol. III., pp. 301-319.
This was the last sermon preached by Theodore
Parker. His anxious and painful apprehensions are
voiced in his journal of the previous evening.
"January 1, 1859. This Saturday night, eve of
the first day of the New Year. I have finished my ser
mon for to-morrow and I have nothing to do but
indulge my feelings, and gather up my soul. This is
the first New Year's day that I was ever sick. Now I
have been a prisoner almost three months, living in my
chamber or my study. I have been out of doors but
three times since Sunday last. It looks as if this was
the last of my New Year's days on earth. I felt so
when I gave each gift to-day ; yet few men have more
to live for than I. It seems as if I had just begun a
great work. Yet if I must abandon it I will not com
plain."

388 SINS AND SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY
During the following week he prepared another ser
mon, but early Sunday morning, January 9, he was
attacked with a hemorrhage of the lungs. In a brief
pencil note of explanation of his absence, read to the
congregation, he says, " I intended to preach on ' The
Religion of Jesus and the Christianity of the Church ;
of the Superiority of Good-Will to Man over Theolog
ical Fancies.' I hope you will not forget the contribu
tion for the poor, whom we have with us always. I
don't know when I shall again look upon your welcome
faces, which have so often cheered my spirit when my
flesh was weak " — the note closing with his affection
ate benediction.

J '«