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SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER
PAPERS

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Saint Bernard
And Other Papers

BY

THEODORE PARKER

EDITED WITH NOTES
BV
CHARLES W. WENDTE

BOSTON
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION
25 Beacon Street

Copyright, 1911
American Unitarian Association

EDITOR'S PREFACE
In the present volume, as well as in the eighth vol
ume, of this Centenary Edition of Parker's Works,
bearing the title, "The World of Matter and the
Spirit of Man," has been embodied new material here
printed for the first time in permanent form. Mr.
Parker's part in " The John Brown Campaign " is
bearing the title " The World of Matter and the
and literary executor, F. B. Sanborn of Concord.
The occurrence of the centenary of Theodore
Parker's birth (August 24, 1810), and the fiftieth
anniversary of his death (May 10, 1860) has been ob
served while this edition has been passing through the
press, not only in his native America but throughout
the civilized world, with more or less elaborate memorial
services, and by addresses and review and newspaper
articles. Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chi
cago were among the American ; London, Berlin, Buda
pest, Florence, and Tokio, Calcutta and Bombay,
among the foreign cities which thus celebrated his
memory and services. But we may be permitted to
express the opinion that no commemoration of this
great American preacher and social reformer has been
more appropriate, or will better preserve his name
and influence to succeeding generations, than the pres
ent reissue of his collected writings. It is sincerely
hoped by those who have had in charge this congenial,
if laborious, task that the timeliness, the handsome ap-

EDITOR'S PREFACE
pearance and inexpensiveness of this edition, super
added to the great and enduring merits of Theodore
Parker's writings, may lead to their increased circula
tion, not only among advanced and radical thinkers,
but still more among that great multitude of restless,
anxious inquirers after religious assurance to whom the
great Boston preacher, with his profound religious
ness, his unfaltering faith, his virile optimism, his fear
less testimony to the true and the right, his all-em
bracing love of humanity, may become a prophet,
teacher and redeemer.
Chables W. Wendte.

CONTENTS Page
I. The Life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux 1
II. Cudworth's Intellectual System .... 58
III. A Letter to the Boston Association of
Congregational Ministers Touching
Certain Matters of their Theology . 100
IV. )^. Friendly Letter to the Executive Com
mittee of the American Unitarian
Association Touching their New Uni
tarian Creed or General Proclamation
of Unitarian Views  117
V. The Law of God and the Statutes of Men 137
VI. The Conseq.uf.nces of an Immoral Principle
and False Idea of Life  163
VII. The Two Christmas Celebrations, A. D. I.
and MDCCCLV. : a Christmas Story for
MDCCCLVI  193
VIII. Theodore Parker to a Young Man . . 220
IX. A Letter Concerning a Plan of Reading 224
X. A New Lesson for the Day  229_
XI. The Aspect of Slavery in America . . 271
XII. The Effect of Slavery on the American
People  317
XIII. Parker's Indictment, and the Fugitive
Slave Cases  348
XIV. Parker in the John Brown Campaign . . 391
Notes  449

THE LIFE OF ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX *
A CHAPTER OUT OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, — his name carries us
back to the depths of the middle ages. We connect it,
in our associations, with scholastic theology x and mys
tical religion ; with activity almost unbounded in the
affairs of the Church. Austere monks, admiring
women, and long ranks of crusaders, come up in our
fancy when his name is mentioned. St. Bernard was
a great man in his time, and his day outlasted several
centuries; for after his death he made a mark on the
ages as they passed over his tomb, and the Church long
bore the impress of his gigantic spirit. A man who
oftener than once scorned to be archbishop; who dic
tated to kings, and wrote a manual for the " infallible
head of the Church; " who projected a crusade, uttered
prophecies, and worked miracles, even after his death,
— so his biographers affirm, — such a man was St.
Bernard in his day. Such is he now, by force of tradi-
* De MeUiflui devotique doctoris sacti Bernardi Abbatis clare-
vallensis cisterciesis ordinis opus preclarii suos copletes, ser-
mones de tempore; de Sanctis; et super cantica canticarum.
Aliosque plures ejus sermones, et sentetias nusq. hactenus
impressas. Ejusdem insuper epistolas ceteraque universa ejus
opuscula. Domini quoque Gilleberti Abbatis Do. Hoiladia in
Anglice prelibati ordinis super cantica sermones. Omnia sm.
seriem hie a sequeti pagella annotatam collocata vigilanter et
accurate super vetustissima clarevallis examplaria apprime cor-
recta. Johan Petit.
Veniidantur Parisiis in vice divi Jacobi sub Lilio aureo a
Johanne Parvo. (Paris, 1513, one vol. fol.)
1

2 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
tion, in the minds of many a true Catholic. It has
been said that he honored the year when he became
immortal, " and went to receive in heaven the reward
of his illustrious virtue and glorious fatigues." * He
was called in his own age, and after it, the " firm pillar
of the Church," the " fellow-citizen of the angels," the
" second interpreter of the Holy Ghost," and the " sec
ond child of the most holy Mother of God." f " The
salutiferous honey of moral instruction fell from his
lips and flowed everywhere," says a learned Jesuit, writ
ing many hundred years after his death.^ " The Bos-
suet of the twelfth century," his word shook the
Church, and made two great empires rock to their foun
dation. Yet this man is forgotten in less than eight cen
turies from his birth. His books, no man reads them ;
or only those scholars " who have folios in their li
brary," and graze with delight amid the frowzy pas
tures of old time, where the herbage is thick, and
matted together with ages of neglect. The Saint is
no longer appealed to in controversies; his works are
not reprinted, except in ponderous collections of the
Fathers, which the herd of scholars stare at and pass
by, in quest of new things, wondering at the barbarism
that could write, and the stupidity that can still read,
such works. But Bernard is eclipsed only because
brighter lights have gone into the sky. We are struck
with the wealth of thought there is in the world, when
we read, on the pages of the nations, those names which
genius and virtue have consecrated and forbid to die.
But the world's richness seems still greater, when men,
*Muratori, Annali d' Italia, etc. Tom. VI. p. 403, seq.
t Andres, dell' Origine progressi e Stato attuale di ogni Let-
teratura, Romo. 1817. Tom. VII. p. 219, seq. $ Ibid.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 3
like this mighty Bernard, are not deemed worth re
membering. But if he is thus quickly forgot, who of
modern great men can stand? What existing reputa
tion shall not be blown away as chaff, before the mystic
fan of time?
Saint Bernard belongs to that long list of middle-
age scholars, on whom the world has passed the bitter
doom of f orgetfulness and night. We would gladly
rescue much that it consigns to oblivion; but its de
cree is irreversible, and there is no higher court of ap
peal, save only " the pure eyes and perfect witness of
all-judging Jove." The works of these men stand in
old libraries, and fill goodly presses with forgotten
folios. Their ribbed backs, their antiquated dress,
eaten with worms and covered with dust as many gen
erations have passed by, — dust which no antiquarian
finger has disturbed, — these things frighten the loose-
girt student, and he turns away to read the novels of
Bulwer and Scott, or laugh at the illustrations of La
Fontaine's fables. Should he open the venerable tome,
the barbarism of the print, the contractions unnum
bered which defile its thousand folio pages, the uncouth
phraseology, the strange subjects which it treats, the
scholastic terms, the distinctions without a difference,
— all these repel the modern student. The gaunt
shadow of the monk, its author, seems to rise from its
coffin, and staring at the literary gentleman, to say,
" Why hast thou disturbed my repose, and brought
me to the day once more? Break not again my mystic
dream." These are the authors before whom Indus
try folds her hands, and gives up the task ; from whom
Diligence, with his frame of iron and his eye of fire,
turns away, disspirited and worn down. Yet were
these men lights in their day. They shed their luster

4 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
over many a land. The shadows they cast fall still on
us. Mankind looked hopeful as their light arose, and
saw it sink, doubting that another would ever arise and
equal it.
What a different spirit pervades the men of those
ages we call dark, — not dreaming that our age, — the
nineteenth century itself, — shall likewise one day be
called by the same name. Their spirit is not classic,
and it is not modern. You come down from Plato to
St. Bernard, for example, and feel that you have made
a descent. The high ideal of mortal life does not float
before the eyes of the Saint as before that great
hearted pagan. The character of these writings is
unique. They have not the majestic tranquillity of
the Greek literature, nor the tempestuous movement of
modern works. Here worship takes the place of pas
sion, and contemplation is preferred before action.
Their ideal life would be wretchedness to an American,
and Tartarus itself to a Greek, for fast and vigils are
thought better than alms-deeds and daily duty. The
senses are looked upon as legitimate inlets of pain,
and pain only. What austerity of discipline, — to
which the wars of antiquity and the commercial enter
prises of our day were pastime; what watching; what
fast and prayer; what visions and revelations, — the
natural result of their life, — conspired to form these
stout spirits.
You turn from the bustling literature of the nine
teenth century to the works of Bernard, and the change
of atmosphere is remarkable. You feel it in every
limb. It is as if you stepped at once from the hot
plains of Ethiopia to the very summit of the Moun
tains of the Moon. Or better, as if you were trans
ferred in a moment from the feverish heat of an August

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 5
noon to the cool majesty of an April night, when there
was frost in the air, and a rawness in the occasional
gusts of wind, come from what quarter they would;
when clouds of grotesque shape and threatening dark
ness mingled capriciously with the uncertain shining
of the moon and the mysterious twinkle of the stars ;
when you were uncertain what weather had preceded
or what would follow, but knew that a storm was not
far off, it might have been, or might yet come, for all
was organic and not settled. The difference between
this and the spirit of Greek literature, is the differ
ence between a forest, with its underbrush and wind
ing paths, leading no one knows whither, — a forest
full of shadows and wild beasts, — and a trim garden
of great and beautiful trees, reared with art, planted
by science, and arranged with most exquisite taste, —
a garden where flowers bloomed out their fragrant life,
fruits ripened on the stem, and little birds sang their
summer carol, to complete the harmony of the scene.
In the days of Bernard, a saint was a popular char
acter the great man of a kingdom. Men went in
crowds to see him. Women threw garlands on him
as he passed, and branches were spread in his way.
Rude peasants and crowned kings begged for his
blessing, though it were but a mere wave of his hand.
But we have changed all that, and more wisely confer
them and the like honors on men in epaulets, and
dancing girls. It is nature's law to pay men in kind.
It may be surprising to our readers, but it is still true,
that Saint Bernard, though lean as a skeleton almost,
was received with as much eclat wherever he chanced
to go, as the most popular modern statesman, or elec
tioneering orator. Nay more, men made long pil
grimages to see him; they laid the sick, that they

6 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
might he healed, in the streets where he walked, or be
neath the windows of the house in which he chanced
to pass the night, and the sick were cured, at least his
three monkish and contemporary biographers credited
the miracle. Rebellious dukes and a refractory em
peror were subservient to his will, and when at high
mass he elevated the host, the stoutest of heart fell on
his knees, and forgot his rebellion, becoming like a
little child. The bold deniers of the Church's author
ity, — bold even then, when it was dangerous to be bold,
— shrunk from the grasp of this nervous athlete of
the faith. Peter of Bruis, Henry of Lausanne, Gil
bert of Poictiers, even Abelard himself, with his net
of subtle dialectics, fine-meshed as woven wind, gave
up at last to him. He uttered prophecies which time
has not yet seen fit to fulfil, though the good Catholic,
no doubt, hopes they will yet come to pass. In what
follows, we shall rely chiefly on the lives of this great
man, which were written by several of his contempo
raries. Saint Bernard was born at Fontaines, in Burgundy,
not far from Dijon, in the year of our Lord 1091.
His father, Trecelin, a knight of an ancient family
of considerable fortune, spent most of his life in arms,
taking little pains about the education of his children.
This duty fell to the lot of his pious and intelligent
wife, Aleth, the daughter of Count Montbart, who dis
charged it with most exemplary fidelity. In old times,
we are told that supernatural signs preceded the birth
of men predestined to eminence, and swarms of bees,
or flocks of birds, or sheep with one horn in the middle
of the forehead, foretold the character and prowess
of the babe unborn, so that when he came into the
world he had nothing to do but realize the augury.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 7
The monkish historian, Abbot William, of St.
Thierry,* relates similar things of Bernard. To
Aleth, as to Hecuba, was foretold the character of
her son, with the same clearness in both cases. Aleth,
before the birth of her child, dreamed of a dog, " white
all over, but somewhat reddish on the back," and in
her dream the dog barked, as dogs often do. Ter
rified at this prodigy, she sought ghostly counsel of a
certain religious man. He, remembering that King
David wished " that the tongue of the dogs may be
dipped in the blood of the enemy," and being " filled
with the spirit of prophecy," foretold that the child
about to be born should bark loud and long at the
enemies of the Church. He should be an excellent
preacher of the word, and his tongue should have a
medicinal savor, and cure diseases of the soul. The
mother was comforted by this interpretation, which
coming events very kindly fulfilled, and proved he
could not only bark but bite also. Aleth, the mother
of Bernard, and of five other sons and one daughter,
was a religious woman, as religion was then under
stood. She declined the splendors which usually be
longed to her wealth and station; lived almost a mo
nastic life of prayer, fasting, and self-mortification.
She early dedicated her child to a monastic life, and
accordingly gave him an education suited to his des
tiny. He received some instruction in the church at
Chatillon. His contemporary and friend, the above-
named William, relates that in study he far surpassed
his fellow-students, but began his mortification of the
flesh, also, at the same time. Even in his youth he
gave signs of the excellent virtue that was in him, and
*Vita S. Bernardi Abbati, Leb. I. c. 1 — 3. Prefixed to
Bernard's Works.

8 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
by his remarkable greatness of soul foreshowed what he
was one day to become. Once he was violently af
flicted with a headache, and " a sorry little woman
was called in to cure him by the magic of songs.
But soon as she came in with the implements of her
art, which she used to delude the superstitious, he
cried out against her with great indignation, and
ordered the witch out of the house. He felt that vir
tue had come into him, and rising in the strength of
the Spirit, found himself free from all pain." This
is looked on as one of his earliest miracles. Exceed
ing grace was given to the youth even in his tender
years. " The Lord appeared to him, as to Samuel
at Shiloh, and manifested his glory." This took place
on Christmas night, as he sat waiting the event, be
tween sleeping and waking. " Jesus appeared to him,
like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber," and
then took the form of the word just incarnated in
the new-born babe, " beautiful above the sons of men."
After this, as he grew up and " increased in favor with
God and man," the great enemy spread in vain the
witchery of his most enticing nets, and the serpent
lay in wait to sting his heel. On one occasion, he
was so sorely pressed by the same temptation that over
came even St. Anthony, and has been thought irre
sistible, that he could find no relief, except by jump
ing into a pond of exceedingly cold water up to his
ears. Here he remained until similar temptations lost
all their power, and he nearly lost his life. But by
" virtue of divine grace " he was, ever after, " ice all
over" to such allurements. Those who are curious
in such matters may see, in the good monk's biog
raphy, how variously he was tempted by this pro
tean devil, transforming himself into an angel of light,

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 9
and how he yet kept whole, as a salamander in a bra
zier's fire. While a school-boy in the world, he be
came a soldier for Christ, and had " visions and reve
lations of the Lord." Bernard lost his mother at an
early age, and then his youthful companions sought
to seduce him from his pious vow, and lead him away
to their life of violence, and riot, and bloodshed.
In this period of the middle ages, the line of dis
tinction between noble and ignoble blood was drawn
with peculiar sharpness, as feudal society is based on
birth and birth only. For the ignoble there was open
the common lot of the poor and despised. They
served to flesh the swords of the nobles; to fight in
their wars, with the certainty of loss to themselves,
whether conquering or conquered. Slaves they were,
to till the soil for their masters, to build castles and
churches, at this day the proud monuments of gothic
and feudal grandeur. Men's heads were made to
think, but theirs to bear burdens. They were hewers
of wood and drawers of water for their superiors,
who should have borne their sorrows and upheld them
when they fell. God gives to a few more excellent
gifts of mind, or body, or social position, or wealth,
not that they may thereby oppress their brethren, but
that they may comfort and bless them. There are
but two scales in the balance of society, the rulers and
the ruled. As the one rises, the other falls. In that
age the world was far less rich in the comforts and
conveniences of life than it is now. Therefore when
we admire at the ruler's scale so well loaded, we are
to remember also the empty scale of the poor, who
could not tell their tale to other times, except by im
plication. When we admire the possessions of the
powerful, the castles and cathedrals of those days, it

10 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
may be profitable to remember how wretched were the
cabins in which the builders slept, and with what re
luctant and compulsory toil, with what privation, hun
ger, and wretchedness, this magnificence must have
been bought. The desires of the rich were fed with
the bread of the poor. Men were left naked and com
fortless, that grandeur might pile up its marble and
mortar.. The needy asked bread, and literally a stone
was given them. The name of a tyrant who harried
a province, and whose character was well imaged by
the ferocious beasts he bore on his scutcheon, comes
down to our times coupled with the epithet of Pious,
or Gentle, because, forsooth, he built a church, or en
dowed a convent, with the fragments of rapacity that
fell from his table; while the men who paid for it all
with pain and toil and bloody sweat, lie forgotten in
the ditches and fens where they had labored and died.
At that time the Christian maxim, " We that are
strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak," —
a maxim which meant something to Paul and Jesus,
as their lives attest, — was regarded far less than even
now. Such was the simple lot of the low-born and
poor ; their " puddle-blood " flowed at the mercy of
each noble or haughty head and rapacious hand. But
their prayers and the cry of their blood went up to
the God of justice, who answered in the peasant wars,
and similar convulsions, from the twelfth century to
the nineteenth. Such was their lot, a life of subjec
tion, hardships, and bondage.
But for the other and less numerous class, two
arenas were open, the world and the Church. There
seems to have been no middle ground between the life
of a nobleman and that of an ecclesiastic. Fortune
met well-born men at their entrance into being, and

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 11
said, " Choose which you will, the Church or the
world. I have no other alternative." The life of an
ecclesiastic, and the life of a noble ; the cloister and the
camp ; what a world lies between them ! On the one side
celibacy, fasting, and poverty, and prayer ; * on the
other, riot, debauchery, wealth, and sin in general.
Ambition pointed, and perhaps equally, to both, for
the cardinal was often greater than the king, and
the pope was second only to the Almighty. Every
lawyer in England, it is said, hopes one day to be lord
chancellor, or at least judge; and so, perhaps, every
priest in the twelfth century hoped to be pope, cardi
nal, or bishop at the very least. So young men of the
noblest families rushed into convents, just as others
rushed into camps. To the lasting praise of the Cath
olic Church, be it said that she knew nothing of differ
ence between rich and poor ; at least, nothing in theory,
though rich men daily bought and sold benefices, and
* It may be said, celibacy was not universal at this time
among the clergy, and it is certain the laws of that period are
conflicting on this point. In some countries, as Hungary and
Ireland, great freedom prevailed in this respect. Priests and
deacons, even bishops, had their wives. At the council of Gran,
1114, a singular decree was passed. "Presbyteris uxores — runs
the original — quas legitimis ordinibus accesserint, moderatius
habendas, praevisa fragilitate, indulsimus." Synod Strigonicus,
C, XXXI. p. 57, cited in Schroeckh's Kirchengeschichte, Vol.
XXVII. p. 203. (Leipzig, 1798. But Bernard complains bit
terly that men with wives, — viri uxorati, — had got into the
Church. Even the Hungarian clergy gradually lost their free
dom. Yet in 1273, Bishop Henry of Luttich had fourteen chil
dren born in a little less than two years. See in Schroeckh, 1. c,
the gradual progress of celibacy in the Church. But out of
this partial evil there grew a general benefit. When there was no
legitimate heir, there could be no spiritual aristocracy growing
up to usurp dominion over the Church, as the nobles had done
over the State. " The wrath of man shall praise thee," says the
Psalmist, " and the remnant of wrath thou wilt restrain."

12 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
that without concealment, in the pope's court. The
Church was the last bulwark of humanity in the dark
ages. She kept in awe the rude barons and barbarous
kings, and nestled the poor and forsaken comfortably
in her bosom. In her eyes every one born at all was
well born. Hence we find a cobbler in the chair of
St. Peter, and that cobbler Gregory the Seventh, of
whom all Europe stood in awe. The Church, thus
opening for the poor the road to wisdom and power,
unconsciously bettered their condition at large. For
bishops, cardinals, and popes, elevated from the servile
class, — having no legitimate issue to provide for, or
enrich with power and place transmitted to them, —
felt strongly the natural, instinctive love of their na
tive class, and watched over it with a jealous care.
The history of Thomas a, Becket and his sovereign,
is a striking instance of this kind, where each repre
sents a class.
The Church and the camp were the two fields open
before the wealthy and well-born. But in Bernard's
time, a new and distinct arena was also opened; that
of letters. A great enthusiasm for literature and
philosophy sprang up in the eleventh century, as the
world began to awake from its long sleep, and rub its
drowsy eyes. Its starting-point was the ancient
philosophy, and the Organum of Boethius. In the
twelfth century the brilliant success of Abelard was
both a cause and an effect of the new movement.*
With him the scholastic philosophy began, as M.
Cousin thinks.
After Bernard's companions found the camp had
*On the number of Abelard's pupils, and his influence, see
Ouvrages inedites d' Abelard, etc.; par M. Victor Cousin. Paris
1836. Introduction, p. ii. seq.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 13
no charms " to shake the settled purpose of his soul,"
they tried him with the life of letters, in which his
bright spirit found activity and joy. But this at
tempt also was fruitless. The image of his mother
soared above him, and forbade the unholy life. His
lively fancy brought her from the grave, in visions,
and in his waking hours ; she reminded him of her past
example, and seemed to chide him for his faltering
faith. Once, as he was traveling alone, to see his
brothers in the Burgundian camp at Grancy, this
thought came over him, and the image of his mother
filled his soul. He turned aside into a church to pray
for strength to keep his resolve and to be a monk. His
prayer was granted. A voice said to him, " Qui
audit dicat ' Veni.' " After this the difficulty was all
over. He persuaded others to follow his example.
Among these were his uncle Galdric, a rich and cele
brated man, and some of his own brothers. But
Guido, his oldest brother, mocked at Bernard's reso
lution, and called it frivolous. Guido, a distinguished
man, bound by wedlock, and more strongly rooted in
the world than the others, stoutly refused the monastic
life, when urged by the young enthusiast to accept
it. Well he might shudder at the thought, for his
married life seems to have been happy, and the change
proposed involved a separation from his wife and chil
dren, and imprisonment — such it really was — amid
monks as cheerless and stupid as they were supersti
tious. " Yet," says Abbot William, " at first hesi
tating, but weighing the matter continually, and think
ing it over and over, he consented to the change, on
condition that his wife were willing. But this con
tingency seemed scarcely possible to . a young woman
of noble birth, the mother of several daughters, at that

14 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
time of tender age." But Bernard, nothing daunted
at the difficulty, tenderly promised Guido, that " his
wife would soon consent, or die." To bring about
one of these pleasant alternatives, " the Lord gave
the husband this manly counsel, that he should ab
jure all he seemed to have in the world, lead a rustic
life, earning with his own hands the subsistence of him
self and wife, whom it was not lawful for him to
divorce against her will." This ingenious counsel, so
pleasantly attributed to the Holy Ghost, succeeded
like a charm. The wife very naturally fell sick, and
remembering the prediction, and finding " how hard
it was to kick against the pricks," begged Bernard's
forgiveness, and promised all that he required of her.
Accordingly she was separated from her husband, and
took the usual conventual vow, which she kept " until
this day," says the abbot ; for he wrote while she and
Bernard were both still living.
The other brother, Gerhard, still held out, " and
loved the world." " Nothing but suffering will ever
convince you," said Bernard. " But the day is com
ing," continued he, putting his finger on his brother's
side, " and it comes quickly, when the lance plunged
in your breast shall open to your heart a way for
my counsels, which now you despise." " No sooner
said than done," proceeds the biographer, " for after
a few days he was wounded in just the spot marked
by the priestly finger, and taken prisoner besides."
Then, fearing death, he exclaimed, " I am a monk,
a Cistercian monk." Bernard was sent for to com
fort him in prison. But he refused to go, saying he
"knew all this before, and the wound was not unto
death, but unto life." And " it was even so ; " for,
contrary to expectation, the wound healed of a sudden.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 15
However, he was still a captive, and kept closely in
ward. But one day, as he grew continually more and
more desirous of the monastic life, he heard a voice
more than mortal, as he lay wakeful in his dungeon,
saying to him, " This day shalt thou be set free," and
about nightfall, by accident as it were, he felt of his
chains, and they fell off his hands with a heavy clank ;
still the door was shut, and a crowd of beggars stood
before it, not to mention the guards. But the bar fell
back, and the door opened at his approach. The beg
gars, astonished at the prodigy, fled without speak
ing. It was the hour of evening prayers when he
drew nigh the church, walking slowly, for some of
the chains still clung to him. Bernard espied his
brother, and said, " Brother Gerhard, have you come?
There is still something left that you may hear."
But " his eyes were holden, so that he did not know
what was going on," until Bernard led him into the
church. " Thus was he freed from captivity and love
of the world."
After this, Bernard " went to and fro upon the
earth, and walked up and down in it," seeking to
bring souls into the monastic fold. He compelled
many to come in. His word was so taking, his elo
quence so persuasive, — for he knew the way equally
to the heart of the clown and the courtier, — that when
he was to preach in public or private, wise " mothers
shut up their sons at home ; wives kept back their hus
bands from hearing, for the Holy Ghost gave such
voice and power to his words, that scarce any tie could
restrain those who listened." All whom he converted
were like the first Christians, " of one heart and one
mind." *
*The monastic life was then held in very high esteem.

16 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
His biographer gives a glowing account of his
novitiate, and holds him up as an ideal of austerity,
to be looked up to and imitated by all tyros in the
convents. He not only resisted the desire of the senses,
but turned the senses themselves out of doors.
" When, with the interior sense, he began to feel the
sweetness of divine love breathe gently over him, he
feared lest the secret sense within should be darkened
by the senses from without, so he scarce gave them
enough to keep them in being. The ' breathings of
divine love ' were at first but a momentary impres
sion, but soon became a constant habit, and the habit,
at length, nature itself." Absorbed entirely in the
spirit, all his hopes directed inward to God, his mind
entirely occupied with spiritual meditation, seeing he
saw not, hearing he heard not; eating he tasted not;
and scarce felt anything with the corporeal sense.
After passing a year in the novitiate's cell, he hardly
knew when he went out whether it had a roof or not."
This was deemed the perfection of a monk's life. He
ate only to sustain the body, and knew not whether
he fed on bread or stones, or whether his drink was
water or wine. " He went to his dinner as to the
rack." Nemesis never sleeps even in a monk's cell, so
nature took sweet revenge, and racked him all his
life long in every limb of his attenuated frame. How
ever, he did two good things, and that daily. He
worked hard with his hands, and walked in the woods,
where he used afterwards to confess he found his best
Bernard calls it "a second baptism;" "it renders its professors
like the angels, and unlike men." It could wash out the deepest
sins. See Neander's Heilige Bernhard und sein Zeitalter, etc.
Berlin, 1813. p. 1, 42, note 2. But he mentions Norbert advising
Count Theobald of Champagne not to become a monk, because
he was already so useful to the poor and down-trodden.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 17
thoughts, and had no teachers but the birch-trees and
the oaks. " Trust my experience," he subsequently
wrote to Henry of Murdoch, a celebrated teacher of
speculative theology, " thou wilt find in the woods
somewhat more than in books; wood and stone shall
teach thee what thou canst not learn from masters." *
The cheerful though serious countenance of nature,
we should fancy, might shame even a monk into a ra
tional life; but man outgrows nothing so reluctantly
as the religious prejudice of his times, and it is given
to but few to take a single step in advance of their age.
But one day, while exhausted with very slight labor in
reaping, Bernard felt a natural shame^at the artificial
weakness of his body ; he turned aside, and " besought
the Lord for strength," which was given, miraculously,
as the abbot thinks, and he reaped before them all.
On entering the monastic state, he had not chosen,
as many did, a cloister, where the buxom ascetics rev
eled in everything but self-mortification. He chose
the cloister at Citeaux, a wild quarter of the bishopric
of Chalons sur la Saone. The number of monks in
creased so rapidly, through his efforts and austere
reputation, that the buildings of the establishment re
quired to be enlarged, and new ones erected. A new
cloister, also, was estabhshed in another place. This
was the celebrated cloister of Clairvaux, a wild, deso
late glen, formerly. named the Valley of Wormwood,f
* Boulau, Hist. Universitatis Parisiensis, Tom. II. p. 162,
cited in Neander, 1. c, p. 45.
t Nicolaus Hacqueville thus poetically celebrates its charms :
"Abdita vallis erat, mediis in montibus, alto
Et nemore, et viridi tunc adoperta rubo,
Hanc claram vallem merito dixere priores,
Mutarunt nomen vallis amara tuum," etc.
De Laudibus Bernardi, prefixed to his works, fol. 24, 1, of
this edition. XIV— 2

18 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
on account of a den of robbers in it, as some say;
but after the cloister was built, it was called Clairvaux,
— the fair valley. In three years from its foundation,
Bernard was appointed Abbot of Clairvaux, and or
dained to that office by the famous William de
Champeaux, whose skill in dialectics took nothing from
the jolly roundness of his face. The spectators
laughed, or admired, at the contrast between the
bishop and the monk. Established in his new office,
his example animated the whole cloister. " You
might see there a weak and languid man, solicitous
for all, but careless of himself; obedient to all in all
things, but scarce doing anything for himself. Not
deeming his own concerns of prior importance to
others, he strove chiefly to avoid sparing his own body.
So he made his spiritual studies the more rigorous.
His body, attenuated by various infirmities, was still
more worn down by fast and watching without inter
mission. He prayed standing day and night, till his
knees, weakened by fasting, and his feet, swollen with
extreme toil, refused to sustain his body. For a long
time, in secrecy he wore sackcloth next his skin, but
when the fact was accidentally discovered he cast it
off, and returned to his common dress. His food was
bread and milk ; water, in which pulse had been boiled,
or such thin water-gruel as men make for little chil
dren." * Physicians who saw him, or listened to his
eloquence, wondered at the strength in his emaciated
frame, as much as if they had seen a lamb drawing
the plough.
The monkish admirer relates that Gerhard was a
sort of butler in the establishment, and as winter be-
* Vita S. Bernardi, 1. c, Lib. I. c. viii.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 19
gan to set in, he naturally, in the way of his voca
tion, complained of the slender provision, both in
money and victuals, laid in for the season. To this
complaint Bernard returned no reply. But being
told that no less a sum than eleven pounds was abso
lutely needed, and that for the present emergency, he
sent away his brother and betook himself to prayer.
While at his devotion a messenger arrived, and said
that a woman stood at the gate, asking to see him.
She fell down at his feet, and gave him twelve pounds
to pray for her husband, then dangerously ill. " Go
in peace," said Bernard to the woman, " thou shalt
find thy husband safe and sound." She went home
and found as he had foretold. A similar case often
occurred, says William, and unexpected help came
from the Lord, whenever common means failed. It
is difficult to estimate the power of prejudice and
superstition to blind men's eyes, but each of the then
contemporary biographers of Bernard ascribes to him
a similar miraculous power, and relates the wonderful
cures he effected on men, women, and children.*
Weak as Bernard was in body, and secluded from
the world, in that remote valley, he yet took an active
part in all the great concerns of Church and State,
not only in France but out of it. He was present
at councils, and men journeyed from far to ask his
* Neander tells a singular story, illustrating this peculiarity
of the age. One Norbert, a rough, tempestuous, destructive
personage, was once riding in a hunting expedition, and a
violent storm came on. His horse was struck down by light
ning, and he lay senseless nearly an hour. When he recovered,
and saw how providentially he had escaped death, a shudder
came over him, at the thought of his past life, from which he
was so near being summoned to the bar of God. He resolved
to found a religious institution, kept his vow, and was one of
the most distinguished reformers of his age. L. c, p. 44, seq.

20 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
advice. He lifted his voice indignantly to rebuke the
wantonness and pride of the clergy; wantonness and
pride not surpassed by the nobles of the court of
Sardanapalus. He declaimed with the sternest
vehemence against the great, who trod the humble
down into the dust. He labored to extend his own
order, and still more to defend the Church from the
assaults of the temporal powers, — no light work, nor
lightly undertaken.
At this time the moral state of the clergy was bad,
very bad. Men of loose habits and no religion pressed
into the lucrative offices of the Church, through the in
fluence of some prince or count.
" Of other care they little reckoning took,
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest."
Their office was gain. The pope might make laws,
often as he listed, against simony, extravagance, licen
tiousness, and all other clerical sins of the age; cun
ning men found means to break them all, and live
unconcerned, or at least unmolested. The popes
themselves were partakers of their crimes. " The
stench of the Roman court," says William of Paris,
" rising from this dunghill of usury, robbery, and
simony, went up a hateful steam, to the very clouds."
The vice of the clergy reached its height about the
middle of the twelfth century. In England alone,
about that time, in the short space of ten or twelve
years, more than a hundred murders were committed
by priests. Bernard saw these monstrous evils, and
labored with great diligence to reform the clergy.
He censured the monks with the greatest severity.
But while engaged in this good work, if we may

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 21
trust his biographer, he did not neglect the minor gifts
of healing the sick, and casting out devils. We will
set down some of the miraculous works ascribed to
the Saint by his contemporaries. In a certain monas
tery, called Carus-Locus (Charlieu), he cured a boy,
who wept and wailed incessantly, with a kiss. For
when he had been weeping for several days, and found
no help from his physicians, our holy man advised
him to confess his sins. He did so, and with a serene
face asked Bernard to kiss him. This also was done,
and " the kiss of peace being received from the Saint's
face, he rested in perfect peace; the fountain of his
tears was dried up, and he went back rejoicing to his
friends, safe and sound."
A new oratory was to be dedicated at Fusniacum
(Foigny), and a great swarm of flies took possession
of it, so that their noise and buzzing was very offensive
to all who entered. There was no help to be had.
The holy Bernard said, " I excommunicate them," and
the next morning they were all found dead. This af
fair was so well known, that the curse upon the flies of
Foigny became a proverb.*
Once, however, Bernard himself fell sick of the in
fluenza, we should judge, and " his body failing on
all hands, he was brought well nigh to death's door."
" His sons and his friends came as it were to the funeral
of so great a father, and I also was present among
them," says William, " for his esteem for me gave me
a place among his friends. When he seemed about to
draw his last breath, as his soul was on the point of
leaving the body, he seemed to himself to stand be
fore the tribunal of the Lord. And Satan also was
present, attacking him with bitter accusations. When
•Vita S. Bernardi, 1. c, Lib. I. c. xi.

22 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
he had brought forward all his charges, and it was
time for this man of God to speak for himself, noth
ing daunted, or disturbed in the slightest degree, he
said, ' I confess that I am not worthy, nor can I, of my
own merits, obtain the kingdom of heaven. But my
Lord has obtained it for me, in two legitimate ways ;
namely, by inheritance from his Father, and by the
merit of his own suffering. He is satisfied with one,
and grants me the other claim. I claim it on the
ground of his gift, and shall not be confounded.'
At these words the enemy was put to shame ; the
meeting (before the tribunal of the Lord) broke up,
and the man of God came to himself." * His recov
ery was no less remarkable. " The blessed Virgin
appeared to him, with two companions, St. Laurentius
and St. Benedict; they laid their hands on him, and
by their pious manifestation assuaged the pain in the
most afflicted parts of his body; they drove off the
sickness, and all pain ceased."
Still further, to show to what length human credul
ity will go, William relates gravely a miracle Bernard
wrought on the historian himself. " Once upon a
time, when I had long been sick in our own house,
and my illness, long continued, had weakened and
worn me down to a great degree, Bernard heard of it,
and sent his brother, Gerhard, — a man of happy mem
ory, — directing me to come to Clairvaux, and prom
ising that I should be cured, or should die very soon.
I set out forthwith, though with great pain and
trouble, for I looked on this as an opportunity, di
vinely given, or at least offered, of dying with him,
or of living with him some time, and I don't know
which I should have then preferred. That was per-
*Vita S. Bernardi, 1. c, Lib. I. c. XI. XII.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 23
formed which had been promised, and, I confess it, as
I wished. My health was restored from this great and
dangerous infirmity, and my strength gradually re
turned. But, good God! what advantage did this in
firmity bring me! All the time of my illness with
him, his sickness wrought with my necessity, for he
also was sick at that time. We were both ill together,
and he talked all day about the spiritual physic of
the soul, and the remedial force of the virtues against
the weakening influence of the vices. Accordingly he
discoursed to me of the Song of Songs, as far as my
weakness allowed it." One day during his convales
cence, he abstained from his customary food, and suf
fered accordingly. His pains returned with such vio
lence that he despaired of life. Bernard came in, in
the morning, and learned the cause and the result.
" What would you advise me to do? " said William.
" Keep quiet," said he, " you shall not die this time,"
and went out. " And what shall I say? Immediately
all my pain vanished; the next day I was well again,
and recovered strength, and after a few days went
home, with the benediction of my kind host." *
We will now mention but one more miracle at
tributed to Bernard. On a certain time, " when that
blessed man was coming from Laviniacum, a noble
city in the bishopric of Meldis, a deaf and dumb girl,
nearly grown up, was brought to him. She was placed
on the neck of his horse, and he, looking up to heaven,
uttered a short prayer. Then he anointed her ears
* Beside the stories of his miracles related in the lives of
Bernard,— and his life was a favorite theme,— there is a dis
tinct treatise of his miracles. Narratio Herberti Abbatis
Coenobii Morensis de libro Miraculorum S. Bernardi; per insigne
miraculum servato. It may be found in Mabillon's Edition of
Bernard, Vol. II.

24 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
and lips with saliva ; blessed her, and commanded her
to call on the Holy Virgin.2 Immediately the damsel,
who had never before spoken a word, opened her
mouth and cried out, " Sancta Maria ! " There was
present one Roger, afterwards an ecclesiastic and
monk of Clairvaux, but then in the world; and seeing
this miracle wrought before his eyes, he was sharply
pricked in the heart, and as he has told me, this was
the chief cause that induced him to enter the cloister
at Clairvaux." *
In the year of our Lord 1130, died Pope Honorius
the Second, in the sixth year of his pontificate. " In
a city like Rome," says Neander, " where party spirit,
ambition, and intrigues had long prevailed, where
avarice, poverty, and wantonness stood side by side,
where a restless people and ambitious families strug
gled together, it was but natural the choice of a pope
should create the greatest discord and dissensions."
The deceased pope was not legally chosen, and trouble
and bloodshed were avoided only by the rare self-
denial of his rival, Cardinal Buccapecu. Honorius the
Second had been placed in the chair by the great fam
ilies of Rome, and especially by the Frangipani. At
his death there were two candidates for the papacy,
one the descendant of a rich Jewish usurer, who had
been converted to Christianity, and had taken the
name of Leo. Cardinal Gregory was supported by
the opposite faction, who appointed him the very night
Honorius died, pretending that such was his wish.
The new pope assumed the title of Innocent Second.
Leo was proclaimed pope by the other party, with
the title of Anaclete Second. Thus there were two
*Pragmenta ex Herberti libris de miraculis Cisterciensium
monachorum. C. 13, p. 1247, ed. Mabillon.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 25
popes at the same time. Innocent repeatedly dechned
the power that was offered him, and with many tears
threw off the pontifical robes, but was at last pre
vailed on to accept the office, when convinced that he
alone could insure the peace and prosperity of the
Church in these times of trouble. Roger of Sicily de
clared in favor of Anaclete. But Louis Sixth of
France, to whom Innocent had fled, declined at first
deciding between the two competitors, until he had
called a council of the bishops. Bernard was also
called to this council, and cheered by revelations and
visions on his way thither. His character and repu
tation gave great weight to his opinion.* The affair
before the council turned chiefly on the merit of the
two popes, for the question of a legal choice was
little regarded by either party. Bernard declared in
favor of Innocent, and by his eloquent and forcible
harangue, made such an impression on the council that
a unanimous vote was passed confirming the claims of
Innocent to the papal chair and its consequent infalli
bility. But as all the neighboring kingdoms did not
readily follow the example of France, Bernard was
despatched to England to persuade King Henry First
to declare for Innocent. But that acute investigator
doubted if the election were legal and regular in all
respects, and after Bernard had cleared up that point,
and found his representations were of no avail, he re
sorted to a device, as he often did when better weapons
failed him. " You fear that if you obey Innocent as
pope you shall bring a sin upon yourself. Let this
*Dupin is mistaken when he says the sole decision- of the
matter was left to him (Ecclesiastical History of the I2th
Century, ch. iv. p. 43, ed. Lond. 1698), and in making the pope
post hither (to France) with all diligence, after the king's
declaration. He went there before.

26 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
rather be your only concern, to answer before God
for all your other sins ; leave this sin to me, I will take
it upon myself." And the word of the venerable man
was sufficient to quiet his scruples.* Bernard then
accompanied the new pope in a journey through the
greater part of France, " strengthening the churches."
At this time Lothaire of Saxony, and Conrad of the
Swabian family, — so hateful to the popes, — were con
tending for the crown of Germany. The former pope
had acknowledged Lothaire, and both of the rival
popes, recognizing their predecessor's infallibility, de
clared in favor of Lothaire. He was indeed addressed
by the Roman friends of Anaclete, but took no notice
of their letter, for his chief bishops had already given
in their adhesion to Innocent. To quiet these diffi
culties, or rather to strengthen the papal hands, Inno
cent went to Germany. Bernard accompanied him,
serving the cause by his eloquence and activity. When
he preached, the audience was melted into tears, even
though they did not understand the language in which
he spoke. This event often happened. At Liittich
the pope and emperor first met, the latter surrounded
by his great men, " the lords spiritual and temporal."
He dismounted, walked through the assembly, took
the pope's horse by the bridle with one hand, and
holding in the other the staff of defense for the Church,
conducted the pontiff to the church. Here, after men
tioning the many evils the empire had borne for the
Church, he touched upon the right of investiture, so
long a subject of controversy between them, and of
course maintained his own claims. But Bernard set
forth in such glowing colors the injustice of his de-
* Vita S. Bernardi Auctore Ernaldo, etc., Lib. II., c. i. ; and
Neander, p. 72, seq.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 87,
mand, that he receded, leaving this important right
in the hands of the pope.* This signal service of
the holy abbot was never forgot. Innocent and
Lothaire separated in perfect harmony.f The next
year, after Bernard and the pope had passed through
several districts of France, had quieted the discon
tented, and reconciled the hostile, and held a council
at Rheims, Lothaire conducted Innocent to Rome, and
entering by violence into the city, was crowned by that
pope. But Anaclete's party was still strong in the
metropolis, and Innocent fled to Pisa, which was near
both to France and Germany, and where his friends
were powerful enough to protect him.
The letter of Bernard to the Pisans is a curious
monument of the spirit of the age. " May the Lord
bless you and remember the faithful service and pious
compassion and consolation which you have shown, and
still continue to show, toward the spouse of His Son,
in an evil time, and in the days of her affliction. This
is already in part fulfilled, and some fruit of my prayer
is already in our hands. A worthy recompense shall
soon remunerate you. God rewards thee for thy
works, O nation, whom He hath chosen as an heritage
to himself, an acceptable nation, zealous of good works.
Pisa is taken in the place of Rome, and is chosen out
of all cities of the earth, as the place of the apostolic
* See on this point an extract from Echart's Quaternis vet.
Monument, p. 46, in Gieseler's Eccles. History, Am. ed. Vol.
II. p. 182, note 1.
f Lothaire, it seems, was little better than a puppet for the
pontiff. He received his crown on his knees, as a feudal in
vestiture from the pope, , and so became the vassal of the
Church. The pope caused a painting to be made of this im
perial genuflection, with the following inscription beneath it:
Rex homo fit Papae. See Wolfgang, Menzel's Geschichte der
Deutschen, etc. 3rd ed. 1837, chap. 199, p. 284, seq.

28 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
seat. This has not happened by any human chance,
or counsel, but by the celestial providence and divine
favor of God, who loves those who love Him, and has
said to Christ, His friend Innocent (Christo suo In-
nocentio) : Dwell thou in Pisa, and blessing, I will
bless it. Inhabit there since I have chosen it. By my
counsel, the constancy of the Pisans yields not to the
wickedness of the Sicilian tyrant, nor is shaken by his
threats, nor corrupted by his gifts, nor circumvented
by his frauds. O men of Pisa ! men of Pisa ! God hath
done greatly for you ; we are made joyful. What city
does not envy you ! Keep what is committed to thee,
faithful city ; acknowledge the favor ; seek to be found
not ungrateful for the privilege. Honor the father of
thyself and all ; honor the chiefs of the world who are
in thee, and the judges of the earth whose presence ren
ders thee illustrious, glorious, famous." *
Bernard thus wrought diligently for the head of the
Church, both in person and by his many letters. The
inhabitants of Milan had been fast friends to Anaclete.
The city was one of his strongholds. It had espoused
the party of Conrad. And Anselm, the metropolitan
bishop, strenuously opposed Innocent, though some of
the clergy had taken his part. This disagreement
among the clergy led to many evils, and a certain time
was appointed by the magistrates to settle the matter
between the parties. On the day appointed, a large
body of men, dressed in coarse and undyed woolen gar
ments, their heads shaven in an unusual fashion, ap
peared in the place of meeting. They were men more
or less connected with the Cistercian order of monks,
and of course were friends to Bernard and Innocent.
"These men," said Anselm to the hostile bishops,
* Epist. 130. Ed. Mabillon.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 29
" these men are heretics." But it would not do ; the
people regarded them as angels of light, and he was
no longer looked on as the head and bishop of the dio
cese. Messengers were sent to Bernard himself, " the
last of the fathers," the great pacificator. He came;
the result was wonderful, and is thus described by a
contemporary. " When the inhabitants of Milan heard
that the well-beloved abbot was drawing nigh to their
borders, all the people went out to meet him seven miles
from the city. Noble and vulgar, horse and foot, rich
and poor, as if migrating from the city, left their
homes, and, arranged in regular order, received the
man of God, with incredible reverence. All were de
lighted to see him ; they judged themselves happy who
could hear him speak, and they kissed his feet. They
pulled threads out of his garments, and took whatever
thread they could from the hem of his garments (de
pannorum laciniis), as remedies for sickness, counting
as sacred whatever he had touched, and thinking that
they also should be made holy by using or touching any
of those things." *
Here he allayed all the strife and settled the diffi
culties as usual. Nor was this all. Landulf the
younger, an eye-witness, thus speaks of his work : " At
a nod from him all sorts of church apparel, that was
of gold or silver, — because disagreeable to the abbot,
— were shut up in presses. Men and women put on
garments of hair, or the coarsest wool; water was
changed into wine. Devils were cast out, and the sick
healed. The abbott loosed the bonds of the captives
taken by the Milanese, and restored them to freedom.
And by an oath he made them take, he bound this great
* Vita S. Bernard, 1. c, Lib. II. cap. ii.

30 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
people in love to the emperor Lothaire, and obedience
to the pope." *
" One day," continues Ernaldus, " the people know
ing that he obtained whatever he chanced to ask of the
Lord, brought to him, nothing doubting, a woman; a
woman known to all of them, and whom an unclean
spirit had vexed seven years, suppliantly asking him,
in the name of the Lord, to put the devil to flight, and
restore the woman to health." He blushed a little as
they persisted, but thought he might offend God if he
declined doing so good a work. Thinking within him
self, he concluded it would be a sign to the unbelieving,
" so he committed his enterprise to the Holy Ghost,"
and kneeling in prayer, put the devil to rout, in the
spirit of fortitude, and gave back the woman safe and
sound. " The noise of this affair soon went abroad,
and suddenly it filled all the city; and through the
churches, the camps (prastoria), and all the public
streets, they came thronging together. Everybody
was talking about the man of God. It was stated in
public, that nothing was impossible which he asked of
God. They say and believe, they preach and confirm
it, that the ears of God are open to his prayers. They
could not be satisfied with seeing and hearing him.
Some rushed into his presence; others took their sta
tions before the doors until he should go out. Men
left business and trade; all the city was in suspense
on this spectacle. They rush together ; they beg to be
blest, and some seem to have been healed by touching
him." f He healed a woman deaf, dumb, and blind,
and possessed of a devil, in the presence of a great mul
titude, by going up to the house with the Host in his
* Landulf, cited in Neander, p. 83, seq.
t L. c, c. ii.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 31
hand, and adjuring the devil, in the name of God, to
leave the woman.
We will not weary the patience of our readers with
more details. The few we have given mark an age of
credulity, when a sharp distinction was not made be
tween the miraculous and the natural ; when the effects
of imagination, of a strong will, or sensitive nerves,
were less understood than now, and when " wonders "
were expected of each very holy man. Where they are
expected, or looked for, they always come. The his
tory of trials for witchcraft might lead a philosopher
to ponder deeply the natural law of testimony. There
is no doubt that these monks believed Bernard wrought
surprising miracles.* No doubt he himself believed
that he wrought them, for he often mentions the fact,
but without any vain-glory. His biographer relates
with surprise that he never grew vain of his powers,
" never walked above himself in wonderful things, but
judging humbly of himself, thought he was not the
author of these venerable works, but only their minis
ter ; and when in the opinion of all he was the greatest,
in his own opinion he was the least." This latter state
ment is not strictly true, for the vice of pride had en
tered into his soul, and his ambition and love of power
knew no bounds. His hatred of those who stood in
his way was cruel and remorseless, as we shall soon see.
After he had finished his work in Italy, Bernard re
turned to Clairvaux. But the fame of his greatness
went before him. As he passed the Alps, " the herds
men and boors came down from their rocks to see him,
* Even Fenelon believed these miracles, and cites them as
proofs of the power of God. See his "Sermon pour la fete
de Saint Bernard," in his GEuvres. Paris. 1822. Tom. III.
pp. 196—219.

32 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
and after receiving his blessing, turned back joyful to
their rude dwellings." His monks received him with no
less joy. They fell down before him and embraced his
knees ; they rose up and kissed him, and in this manner
conducted him to the cloister. Here, during his long
absence from Clairvaux, " the Devil could effect noth
ing. No mildew had gathered on the pure minds
therein, and the house of God, founded on a rock, was
in no part shaken." " No quarrels had been kept for
his coming, and no long-nursed hatred broke out in
his presence. The young did not accuse the old of
austerity, nor did the old accuse the young of remiss
ness, " but they were all found of one accord, in the
house of God ; in holiness and peace ascending the lad
der of Jacob, and hastening up to look on God, whose
delectable countenance shone in the upper realm. The
abbot, not unmindful of him who said, ' I saw Satan
falling as lightning from heaven,' was the more humble
and submissive to God as he saw that God was pro
pitious to his desires. Nor did he rejoice because the
devils were subject to him, but rather he rejoiced in the
Lord, because he saw the names of his brethren were
written in heaven."
But the difficulties of the times would not suffer the
strong and active spirit of Bernard to remain idle or
contemplative at Clairvaux, " bewailing his own sins."
New troubles called him forth again. William the
Ninth of Aquitaine and Poictou, espousing the part of
Anaclete, deposed all the bishops of the province who
were hostile to him. Bishop Godfrey of Chartres went
with Bernard to visit the rebellious prince. He was a
rough layman, who knew no reason for following one
pope more than the other, but had taken a solemn oath
never to be reconciled with the degraded bishops.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 33
Bernard attempted for a long time to bring the baron
to reason ; but his efforts were fruitless. So he went
into the church to celebrate high mass. The prince,
who had been excommunicated, did not venture in, but
stood without at the door. Bernard consecrated and
transubstantiated the bread and wine ; gave his blessing
to the people, and then, with fiery countenance and
flaming eyes, and threatening look, " bearing on a
platter the bread just changed to the body of Christ,"
went out to the prince, and said to him, " in terrible
words " : " We have entreated, and you have despised
us. The multitude of God's servants united has be
sought you in two meetings, and you have mocked at
them. So now comes to you the Son of the Virgin, the
Head and Lord of the Church, which you persecute.
Here is thy Judge, at whose name every knee shall
bow, of things celestial, and terrestrial, and things un
der the earth. Here is thy Judge, into whose hands thy
soul will come. Will you despise Him also ? Will you
despise Him, as you have despised his servants? " The
prince was overcome; he fell like one lifeless on the
ground. His servants raised him up. Bernard or
dered him to rise upon his feet ; to be reconciled with the
bishops of Poictiers ; to give him the kiss of peace, and
yield to Pope Innocent. The humbled prince did as
he was commanded, and thus peace was restored to a
whole province. This event is characteristic of the
middle ages, — the presumption of the priest, and the
folly of the prince.
Bernard was the most powerful man in Europe;
though but an ecclesiastic, without money, or lands, or
soldiers, or powerful connections, by the might of his
spirit alone this emaciated monk kept the wide world in
awe. He tamed rough barons ; said to kings, thus far
XIV— 3

34 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
and no farther. It was mainly through his influence
that Innocent kept possession of the papal chair. He
reconciled Conrad with Lothaire. A third time he was
called to Rome, by the pope, whom German arms once
more established in the capital, though here he held only
divided empire. He attempted to reconcile the two
papal parties without loss of blood, and had a con
venient formula, wherewith to remove any oaths that
interfered with his plans : " Alliances hostile to the
law can never be confirmed by an oath, for God's law
renders them of no avail." He went to Roger, King
of Sicily, on the eve of a battle, hoping to divert that
prince from assisting Anaclete. This effort was vain ;
but after Roger had lost the battle he consented to de
cide between the two popes, on condition that their re
spective claims were laid before him. So on a set day
Roger arrayed himself in his robes of state, and sat
down to hear the conflicting parties. The cardinals of
the two popes appeared as counsel. On the side of
Anaclete, the chief speaker was Cardinal Peter, or Pisa,
a man well skilled in dialects and the canon law.
Bernard, of course, was the foremost in favor of Inno
cent. Bernard's chief argument was this: There is
no salvation out of the true Church ; the legal pope is
head of the true Church. Now almost all the western
Churches have declared Innocent to be that head, and
it is more likely they should be in the right, since they
all agree, than it is that Roger, a single layman, is
alone right; for God would not suffer so many to go
astray, and be damned eternally, while one only, and
he a layman, was saved. Cardinal Peter was convinced
by the logical skill and eloquence of his opponent, and
was soon reconciled to Innocent ; for it would be quite
unfair to suppose the offers of power and wealth,

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 35
thrown privately into the scales, had the slightest
weight in the dialectic balance of this cardinal, so well
versed in the canon law. Roger still held out, but
luckily Anaclete died soon after (1138), and when his
friends appointed Victor the Third his successor,
Bernard had the hardihood to beard the lion in his den,
and ask the new pope to renounce his budding honors ;
and still more, he had the address to succeed in the at
tempt. Victor went and fell down at Innocent's feet,
and did homage. Peace was thus restored to the
Church. Years of war and thousands of lives were
saved, by force of this poor monk. The public grati
tude did not loiter behind such signal merit. The
people received him everywhere with shouts. Men and
women escorted him in processions from place to place.
But, his work done, he returned again to the quiet re
pose and mystical devotion of Clairvaux, to retire into
himself, and to write letters to the ends of the world.
But the repose of this " Dog of the Church " was
never very deep, or of long continuance. The Church
was always in trouble. Bishops quarreled with one
another, or a priest took a wife, a lord sold a benefice,
or a monk went back to the cottage or the camp, and
the burden of the Church fell on Bernard. We must
pass over the troubles occasioned by nobles pressing,
uncalled for, into ecclesiastical offices, and by the wick
edness of the clergy, to come to the remarkable quarrel
between Bernard and Abelard.
So long as ignorance lowered dark and heavy on the
middle ages, there was no doubt of the Church's doc
trine. Then nothing opposed the ecclesiastical sway,
but the flesh and the devil, — ambitious and wicked men.
The Church was in advance of the world, and the little
light by which men walked came mainly from the

36 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Church itself. But there is no monopoly of the truth,
and least of all can the whole of wisdom be appropri
ated by a body of men, however pious and thoughtful,
who resolve to accept nothing which was not admitted
by their fathers centuries before. So when light began
to dawn on the world once more, and the clouds to with
draw their heavy folds, and the noble army of Greek and
Roman sages or poets to come out of their recesses,
men began to doubt, for the first time, whether all
moral, philosophical, and religious truth were contained
in the dogmas of the Church. These doubts came from
the wisest and best men of the age. Thus the Church
was assaulted not only by its old enemies, the flesh
and the devil, with whom it knew how to contend, but
also by the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, against whom
some new device was to be tried. Men, wiser and holier
than the Church itself, rose up, — often coming from
its own bosom, — and opened their dark sayings.
Hence arose two parties ; one stood on authority, and
adhered strictly to the old theological formulas, and
if they could not find expressed therein the sum of
wisdom which they sought, they found it by implica
tion. A few of the latter sort of this class, calling a
certain capricious mysticism to their aid, succeeded
marvelously with their work. They were the conserv-
atists of that time, and dealt out, with a lavish hand,
the thunders of the Church, and its fire and fagots
too, against all who dared to look forward. The other
party, few in numbers, but often mighty in talents,
relied on no authority, however great and good. They
referred all to the human soul, or rather to the spirit
of God in the soul of man. Hence they deduced their
doctrines, and hereby they formed the dogmas they ac
cepted. To them, philosophy was more than history.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 37
They might not disagree with the creed of the Church,
in whose bosom they sometimes continued all their life
long, but their starting point, their new method, their
spirit, differed entirely from that of the Church. This
party was inclined to rationalism, as the other was to
a vicious sort of mysticism. Yet there were genuine
mystics and religious men in either sect. It would be
instructive, as well as curious, to trace the gradual
growth of Protestantism in the middle ages, — coinci
dent as it was with the spread of light, — but we for
bear.* Abelard 3 would be prominent in any period of the
world's history; but in the twelfth century he towers
above his contemporaries like a colossus. He went
back to the human soul, and from that he attempted to
prove the truth of his doctrines, knowing well that
while men rested on truths that were elementary and
universal, even if they should doubt the Scriptures
and deny the Church, they would still be religious, use
ful to their fellows, and acceptable to God. Besides,
he saw credulity confounded with faith, and supersti
tion mistaken for vital piety. His aim was to unite
reason and religion. He denied that we can form an
adequate conception of God, or express His nature, in
words.f He attempted to explain the Trinity in a
manner sufficiently orthodox, if that mystery is to be
explained at all, and the profound truth it covers, but
too often conceals, also is to be pointed out and ex-
* Among those who contributed most powerfully, directly or
remotely, to this, may be named Scotus Erigena, Gerbert,
(afterwards Pope Sylvester II.), Berenger, or Berengarius, of
Tours. (See Lessing's Samtliche Werke, Vol. XX.), Lanfranc,
Roscelin, Anselm, and Abelard.
fTo judge from his remarks on this point, there seems to
be a striking similarity between him and Hegel.

38 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
plained. He denied free-will to God, in the sense we
apply that term to man, who, from his weakness and
wickedness, must decide between conflicting desires.
He found virtue, like Christian excellence, among the
heathen also, who, as well as the Jews, received revela
tions, and sometimes had power to work miracles. But
the doctrines of the Church forbid the free action of
his mind in this direction and so he concluded that
baptism was necessary to salvation and the forgiveness
of sins, though the man lived a life never so divine.
But he dwelt with great delight on the virtue of some
of the heathens, and with the obvious design of shaming
the hideous sin of the clergy in his own day. He
judged virtue by its motives, not by its actions; de
fined sin as voluntary action opposed to God's law.
He spoke with the greatest indignation against those
men who were frightened by fear of hell, and after a
life of sin, repenting on their death-bed, left money
got by crime, that priests, wicked as themselves, and
hypocrites besides, might say masses for their souls.
He denied the false or alleged miracles of his time,
though he admitted the Christian miracles in full.
Such a man could not want for opponents. His
philosophical opinions ; his Christian zeal, which some
times out-traveled his discretion; still more, his ten
dency to call sin, sin, and his violent invectives against
vice and hollowness, — raised up for him a host of
enemies. The timid feared; the wicked hated him.
But we are now concerned with Abelard only so far
as he comes into the history of Bernard. The first
persecution * of Abelard — and in which Bernard took
an active part — arose, like many others, from per-
*The opposition of Walter de Mauritania does not deserve
so harsh a name.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 39
sonal, and not ecclesiastical jealousy. Albric and
Lotulf, rival professors at Rheims, brought two
charges against him; the one, that he, a monk, en
gaged in secular studies; the other, that he taught
theology, which he had never learned " from the great
doctors of the age," and without a regular theological
education. Their complaints were brought before the
Council of Soissons (1121), where his obnoxious book
{De Theologia) was to be explained. The matter was
referred to a greater council, at Paris. Here, to quell
the alarm, Abelard threw his offensive book into the
fire, knowing well that this act would recoil upon his
enemies. He withdrew to a cloister. But the public
condemned his opponents, and he soon returned in tri
umph to Paris, and renewed his teachings and attacks
on the wicked lives of the monks. But, getting weary
of this work, — as hopeless as to pick up all the sands
of Sahara, — and desiring leisure to think far down
into the deep of things, he retired to solitude once
more. Here he lived in poverty and want. But pupils
came to be taught. The neighborhood was filled with
young men. A great enthusiasm, wide and deep, broke
out in his favor. His doctrines spread far and wide.
The watch-dog of the Church awoke from his brief
slumbers at Clairvaux, and began his threatening
growl. Bernard — the Napoleon of the twelfth cen
tury — was more formidable than all other opponents,
bishops, and councils. To escape the imminent dan
ger, Abelard accepted the post of abbot in Brittany.
But he could not be silent, and here likewise his hate
ful doctrines were taught, and rumors of Abelard's
fame went up like a cloud, and extended to Clairvaux.
Bernard " eyed him '* as " Saul eyed David." He
warned him, in letters, to change his " manner of the-

40 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ologizing," and on all occasions cautioned Abelard's
pupils against the poison of their master's doctrines.
He was not a man to sit quietly down and thus suffer
dictation, though from " the first man in the century."
He expressed a willingness to look Bernard in the face,
and argue the matter in the synod of Sens (1140),
before an assembly of the first men of the nation. He
called on his thousands of scholars to come and wit
ness his triumph. But Bernard declined entering the
lists with the first dialectitian of the age. He knew
what he was about, — the artful monk. So he cun
ningly wrote, — that precursor of the Jesuits, — he
would " not make the articles of faith matters of dis
pute." No. They rested on authority, which was
abandoned soon as he came down into a fair field. He
wished his opponent's doctrines to be compared with
the " standard " of the only infallible Church. Thus
the accused was condemned by implication, and with
out a hearing. But it is easy to gainsay such a swift
verdict of condemnation, and Abelard's reputation rose
higher even than before. His scholars boasted that
even Bernard dared not venture into the arena with
their master. So it became necessary for the Abbot
of Clairvaux to make a regular attack, and risk a
defeat, or else leave this rival master of the field. So
he came to the council. The king was present, and the
most eminent bishops, abbots, and clergymen in gen
eral; men over whom Bernard's authority was almost
despotic. Abelard knew a fair hearing would not be
allowed him. Bernard was resolved to give him no
chance for it, and laid before the council a list of
passages carefully culled from Abelard's works, and
flanked by the conflicting doctrines of the Church.
He then called on the accused to recant, or defend the

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 41
passages. Abelard was silent, and the council pro
nounced the obnoxious sentences heretical. But be
fore they could take the next step, and condemn the
man as a heretic, he appealed to the pope. No sooner
was this done, than Bernard wrote letters to> the pope
and the nobles of Rome, to prejudice their minds
against the alleged heretic. In these letters, as in the
statement made to the council, Bernard either intention
ally misrepresented or atrociously misunderstood
Abelard ; * charged upon him doctrines he never
taught, and twisted sentences into a form different from
the original. Bernard had great influence at the Ro
man court. The Church was afraid of philosophy.
The result was, that the passages obnoxious to Bernard
were judged heretical ; the author was pronounced a
heretic, and forbidden to teach the obnoxious doctrines.
All who adhered to them were excommunicated. Thus
was he condemned, through the jealousy of one man,
without any proof that the obnoxious passages were
contained in his writings, or that they would not bear
a different interpretation, and without asking if the
author could not reconcile them with the orthodox
faith. ATX his heretical doctrines were condemned, but
no care was taken to specify which were heretical.
Bernard's conduct in this affair justifies fully the sharp
and bitter censure of Bayle and others, whom he fol-
* See Epist. 187 — 194. He condemns the works of Abelard,
viz. Theologia, Liber Sententiarum, and Nosce Teipsum. He
calls his opponent many hard names, an Arian, a Pelagian, a
Nestorian, " a Herod at home, and a Saint John abroad." " In
all things that are in heaven above, etc., he sees only himself."
"A fabricator of lies." Epist 327—338. Abbot William
fears the treatise, Sic et Non, is "monstrous in doctrine as it
is in name." See also Bernardi Opuscula, especially the
" Tract concerning the errors of Peter Abelard," sometimes put
among his letters, as Epist. 190.

42 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
lows. " It is certain that he had very great talents,
and a great deal of zeal; but some pretend that his
zeal made him too jealous of those who acquired a
great name through the study of human learning, and
they held that his mild and easy temper rendered him
too credulous when he heard any evil reported of these
learned persons. It is difficult to imagine he was free
from human passions, when he made it his business to
cause all that seemed heterodox to him, to be over
whelmed with anathemas. But it is very easy to con
ceive that his good reputation and the ardor where
with he prosecuted the condemnation of his adversaries,
surprised the judges, and made the accused persons
sink under the weight of these irregular proceedings."
" They do not do him justice who call him only a
hound, or a mastiff-dog; he ought in some sense to be
compared to Nimrod, and styled a mighty hunter be
fore the Lord."
Abelard's scholars — especially the young and enthu
siastic part of them — defended their master, with the
keen wit and exquisite sarcasm for which the French
were remarkable even then. But the philosopher him
self, weary of conflict, worn down by repeated calam
ities, yielded to the tide of trouble, and became recon
ciled with the Argus of the Church. He offered to
strike out of his works whatever offended orthodox
ears, and to renounce both his school and his study.
This reconciliation- — as men call it' — was effected
by Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny, who received
Abelard into his establishment, where, and at the more
healthy cloister of Chalons sur la Saone, he spent the
brief and bitter remnant of his days, and ended a life,
at once the brightest and most sad that appears in the
middle ages. Few men have been so often misjudged

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 43
and abused as he. Fate seemed to pursue him with a
fiery sword, and the furies — Ambition, Hatred, Fear
— to scourge him with their bloody scorpion whip,
through life. Bernard rejoiced that he had reduced
that eloquent voice to silence, and restored tranquillity
to the Churches ! So the old Romans, after they had
desolated a province, " proclaimed peace, where they
had made only solitude." But though he went where
the wicked cease from troubling, his spirit passed into
the ages, and lives even now. It is an easy thing to
kill a man, or to shut him up in a cloister, especially
if he is old, or constitutionally timid. To burn a
heretic is no difficult matter, for the weakest princes
have, perhaps, burned the most. But to suppress
heresy, to stay thought, or to stop truth thereby, the
world has not found so easy. Bernard could cut off the
hydra's head; but others sprouted anew. What was
personal in Abelard died, or faded out of the public
mind. But the scorn of whatever is false ; the love of,
truth; the desire of a divine life, — burnt in many a
young heart, like a fire in a forest, and would not be
put down.
Arnold of Brescia was among these. The corrup
tion of the clergy ; the strife between the emperors and
the popes ; the increasing study of the Roman law ; the
general advance of knowledge, — all favored his de
sign of founding a true Church on the earth, which
could offer no bribes, and claim no secular power. He
fell back on primitive Christianity, and preached it
with a soul of fire. He held up to shame the conduct
and life of the clergy. At Bernard's suggestion he
was excommunicated and condemned to a cloister. He
refused to make his peace, as his master had done, and
finding few disposed to enforce the papal sentence,

44 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
went to Zurich, where even the bishop tolerated him.
Guido a Castelhs, though the pope's legate, received
him kindly, and took little heed to Bernard's admoni
tory letters. After the death of Innocent the Third,
Arnold repaired to Rome, and made " no small stir "
among the people. But we pass over all this, and the
troubles about the popes, and come down to the cru
sade, and the administration of Eugene the Third, —
the friend and pupil of Bernard.
Celestine the Second, the successor of Innocent, filled
the papal chair but four months. Lucian the Second,
the next pope, lived but a short time after his election ;
and when Eugene the Third was elected, the confusion
at Rome forced him to take refuge in Viterbo, where
he speedily excommunicated Arnold, no doubt to the
great satisfaction of his old persecutor. Bernard
wrote letters to the Romans, exhorting them to receive
Eugene as their father. But these falling fruitless to
the ground, he tried Conrad, his old enemy, exhorting
him to revenge the pope. " Gird on the sword. Give
to yourself, as Cassar, what is Cassar's, and to God,
what is God's." "God forbid," says he, "that the
power of the nation, the insolence of the rabble, should
hold out a moment before the eyes of the monarch."
Bernard exerted himself with all his might to sustain
his friend in the chair of the Church. Meantime, a
great event was gathering in the future, and coming
near at hand. The mountain once produced a mouse,
as the story goes; but here, several mice produced a
mountain. The occasion of a new crusade was as fol
lows. Louis the Seventh of France felt some natural
compunctions of conscience for the cruelties he had
been guilty of in the war against Theobold of Cham
pagne. He hoped to efface the old crime, by engag-

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 45
ing in a new war, at the command of the Church, and
thus wash the old blood from his hands, in the fresh
stream of so many lives. A crusade in the twelfth
century, — it stirred men's hearts, as a line of gas
packets to the moon would do in our day. We know
not who first proposed the new enterprise, but Bernard
caught readily at the idea, and called on the pope to
summon all Christendom to the work. Eugene the
Third knew as well as Lord .Chatham, that when a
brilliant war burns in the distance, men will not look
at grievances they suffer at home. So he readily fa
vored a plan which would strengthen his own hands.
At that day it was easy to raise armies. Especially
was it easy to raise armies for a crusade. There have
always been sinners enough in the world; sinners, too,
who wished their guilt might be wiped off all at once,
and they be cleansed of their old leprosy without trou
ble, by a single plunge into the Jordan. The pope
promised that all sins, however great, however numer
ous and deeply ingrained, should be all wiped out for
those who engaged in the crusade, on condition that
they repented, — which was easily done, and cost noth
ing, — and j oined the expedition with good motives.
A council was held on Easter-day. But the castle
at Bezelay, where it had met, would not hold the retain
ers of the Church militant. The assembly adjourned
to a field. Here the king appeared on a stage, with
the sign of the cross on his back. Bernard was beside
him, and addressing the multitude, he poured out such
a molten tide of words, eloquent and persuasive, that
the assembly yielded to his counsels, and shouted, till
all rung again, — To the Cross! To the Ceoss!
Meanwhile, — says the monkish chronicler, — the holy
abbot wrought miracles more plenteous than ever.

46 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Miracles became the order of the day, almost of the
. hour ; for not only was " no day without its miracle ; "
but " one day he wrought twenty." Men, blind from
their birth, received sight ; the lame walked ; men, with
ered up, became fresh again at his word ; the dumb
spake ; the deaf heard, — divine grace supplying what
nature lacked. Bernard's zeal burned like a rocket,
kindling as it rose. He declaimed with fiery eloquence,
and wrote letters, and preached, and watched, and
fasted, and prayed, to a degree almost exceeding be
lief. But the most attenuated body sometimes be
comes powerful under the pressure of a giant will. He
labored with good effect; for he soon writes in tri
umph to the pope: " The cities and castles are getting
empty, and seven women can scarcely find one man ;
wives are widowed while their husbands are yet alive ! "
A great assembly once demanded Bernard himself as
the leader of the host ; but the wily monk knew how to
make excuses : " It is too foreign to my holy office."
Precious scruple of a man who preached and got up
the whole affair! He journeyed through France, fan
ning the flame. In the neighborhood of the Rhine he
found one Ralph, an ignorant monk, who had excited
many to murder the Jews, thinking, no doubt, he did
great honor to Jesus by slaying the poor remnant of
that nation which produced the Bible, both Old Testa
ment and New Testament, and gave birth to the Sav
iour, and the "Mother of God." Bernard, to his
praise be it spoken, thought it better to convert the
Jews than to kill them; and really, monk as he was,
took sides with the oppressed race.
Conrad — the German emperor — was averse to the
crusade, and for the best reason. Bernard must at
tempt to bring him over; and here the greatness of his

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 47
influence and the triumph of his genius are seen in all
their luster. He had an interview with Conrad, and
the result was unfavorable. He gave up the attempt
for the moment, and waited his time. But on Christ
mas day, after settling some difficulties, and healing
some dissensions among the great men of Germany, he
exhorted the nobles and emperor to the work. Three
days later, in private, he advised the emperor to accept
so easy a penance, and wash out his many sins. Soon
after, he celebrated the mass before the court, and un
expectedly delivered a sermon relating to the crusade.
At the end of the ceremony he went to the emperor, in
the church. He addressed him as though he was a
private man ; described the last judgment, and the con
sternation of a man unable to give God an answer, if he
had not done his best. He spoke of Conrad's blessings,
his wealth, power, strength of body and mind. Conrad
burst into tears, and sobbed forth, " I am ready to
serve him. He himself exhorts me." A scream of joy
followed, from all who filled the church. Bernard took
a consecrated banner from the altar, and placed it in
Conrad's hands, and the work was done.*
After the crusade was fairly on its feet, and the
last straggler of the army was out of sight, Bernard
returned to his cloister, and his old work, hunting
heretics; and no English squire ever loved to unearth
an otter, better than the good abbot to scent a heretic,
and drive him out of the Church. He found no lack
* The following sentence, from his appeal to the German
nation, is curious, and a fair specimen of his style of ad
dress: "The earth trembles and quakes because the God of
Heaven is afraid He shall lose his land; his land, I say, where
the Word of the Heavenly Father was affianced for more than
twenty years, teaching and conversing with men, — his land,
glorified by his miracles, sanctified by his blood," etc.

48 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
of employment in this agreeable occupation. The
spirit of Abelard was not yet laid. It stood in the
background of the Church, and made mouths at the
crusade ; nay, at orthodoxy itself. Protean in its na
ture, it assumed all manner of forms, most frightful to
Catholic believers. The metaphysics of the Trinity
opened a wide field for philosophical inquiry and spec
ulation. The Cerberus of heresy bayed loud at the
Church. Nominalism, realism, and scholasticism,* all
were at feud, and each engendered its band of heretics.
Among these was Gilbert of Poictiers, — often called
Porretanus, — a man allied to Abelard by a kindred
love of philosophy, but differing widely from his con
clusions. Though a bishop, he was soon accused be
fore the pope, and Bernard was easily put upon the
scent. He accused Gilbert in a council at Paris, but he
found more than his equal, for Gilbert could " parry,
pass, and ward," and was well skilled in the dazzling
fence of dialectics. He would not be silent, like
Abelard ; he had all the weapons of logic at command ;
could quote councils and fathers readily as the pater
noster or decalogue, and, what was still more impor
tant in that crisis, his friends and pupils were great
men; some of them cardinals, who, however, were fear
ful of offending Bernard. The whole affair was re
ferred to the great council at Rheims. When the dis
pute had outlasted the patience of the pope and the
cardinals, the latter said, " We will now decide."
Whereupon Bernard, fearing the result, hastily col
lected his friends, telling them, that " Gilbert must be
put down." So they drew up a paper, condemning
him, and sent it to the pope, for whom it was a cake
of the right leaven. But the cardinals were very justly
offended because the pope had violated justice, and pre-

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 49
ferred the opinion of one man to the united council.
The head of the Church knew not which way to turn.
Bernard was called in to end the troubles. He recon
ciled Gilbert, who shook hands with his foes, and went
home in greater honor than ever before.
He who begins to pursue heretics, finds his work in
crease before him. In the twelfth century there were
men in no small number whom the Church could not
feed. They turned away from cold abstractions and
lifeless forms, to warm and living love for man and
God ; they shrunk away from the contaminating breath
of emaciated monks and ambitious cardinals, to fresh
and glowing nature, which still reflected the unfading
goodness of the Infinite. These were men who took
what was good where they could find it, and so found
manna even in the wilderness. They were content to
sit on the brink of the well of Truth, and watch the
large, silent faces of the stars reflected from its tran
quil deeps, which they did not ruffle, while they drew
life from its waters ; men whose inward eye, once
opened by the Holy Ghost, could never again be closed,
but ever looked upwards and right on, for light and
life. These men might be branded as heretics,
scourged in the market-place for infidelity, or burned
at high noon for atheism. The natural man does not
understand the things of the spirit. They had too
much religion to be understood by their contempo
raries; they were too far above them for their sym
pathy, too far before them for their comprehension.
No doubt these men were often mistaken, fanatical;
their minds overclouded, and their hearts filled with
bigotry. Still, it is in them that we find the religion
of the age. The veriest tyro in ecclesiastical history
knows that the true Hfe of God in the soul, from the
XIV-4

50 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
third century downwards, has displayed itself out of
the established Church, and not in it. It would be
both curious and instructive to trace the growth of
Protestantism from Paul down to Luther, and notice
the various phases it assumed, of mysticism or rational
ism, as the heart or the head uttered the protest, and
consider the treatment it met with from men of a few
good rules, of much ambition, and little elevation of
character. The mass of men is too often eager to
punish both such as loiter in the rear, and such as
hurry in the front, — especially the latter. Perhaps this
contagion of heresy, this epidemic of non-conformity,
like Christianity itself, came from the East, where
every religion that has taken a strong hold of the heart
has had its home. The Gnostics and Manicheans, and
men of more mystical piety, for whom the blind ortho
doxy of the Church offered little attraction, — these
men fattened the Christian soil with their blood, in the
fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. Their bones fell
still more abundantly in the two ages that followed.
But in countries where Christianity was newly intro
duced, the obnoxious sects took root and flourished.
The tumults of the tenth century brought them to
Italy, France, and Germany. Heresy spread like the
plague; no one knows how, or by whom it is propa
gated. Rather let us say, Truth passes, like morning,
from land to land, and men, who all night long have
read with bleared eyes by the candle of tradition, won
der at the light which streams through the crevice of
window and wall. In the eleventh century, these
" heretical doctrines " were still more common. The
headsman's ax gleamed over many a Christian neck.
But the neck of Heresy was not cut off; for in the
twelfth century there were still some to be done to

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 51
death. It is sad to reflect that every advance in sci
ence, art, freedom, and religion, has been bought with
the best hearts that ever beat, who have poured out the
stream of their hves, and thus formed a deep, wide
channel of blood, which has upborne and carried for
ward the ark of humanity, liberty, and truth, from the
dawn of things till this day. On every lofty path,
where man treads securely now, naked feet have bled,
as they trampled the flint into dust. How many fore
runners leave their heroic heads in a charger ; and even
the Saviour must hang upon the cross, before men can
be redeemed. In Bernard's time, these reformers came
to a world lying in wickedness; they came to priests,
still more wicked, who attempted to heal the world by
church ceremonies, theological dogmas, councils, and
convents, and " communion in one kind." There were
a few who wished to fall back on morality and re
ligion. They counted the Bible as the finite stream
that comes from the infinite source, and waters the gar
dens of the earth. They took their stand on primi
tive Christianity; when they spoke, it was from heart
to heart, and so the common people heard them gladly.
We lament to say that Bernard, great man as he
was, good and pious as we know him to have been, set
his face seriously against all these men, and thought he
did God service by hunting them to death. His gar
ments were rolled in the blood of these innocents. One
of his friends, Everwin of Steinfield, tells him he has
" written enough against the pharisaism of Christians ;
now lift up your voice against the heretics, who are
come into all the churches, like a breath from hell."
Among the most eminent of these reformers and here
tics were Peter of Bruis, founder of the Petrobrusians,
and Henry of Lausanne. Bernard signalized himself

52 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
in attacking these men, though with various success.
On a certain occasion some heretics were burned in a
remote district, and Everwin, writing an account of
the affair, and, as usual, throwing all the blame on the
people, wonders that these limbs of the devil, in their
heresy, could exhibit such steadfastness in suffering the
most cruel tortures, as was scarce ever found even
among pious orthodox Christians.* The monk's won
der is quite instructive. In one of his letters Bernard
thus complains of the desolations wrought by the
heretics. " The churches are shunned as if they were
synagogues; the sanctuary of God is no longer reck
oned holy ; the sacraments are not honored ; the festi
vals not celebrated. Men die in their sins ; their souls
are brought into the dreadful judgments of God, not
reconciled by penance, not confirmed by taking the
Last Supper." Yet, even among these heretics, Ber
nard was nearly all-powerful. He came to the city
Albigeois, the headquarters of these men, and did won
ders. The following anecdote exhibits the character
of the Saint, and the age. He once preached against
the heretics at Toulouse, and, finishing his sermon,
mounted his horse to ride off. In presence of the
crowd, one of the dissenters said, " Your horse, good
abbot, is fatter and better fed than the beast of our
master, much as you say against him." " I do not
deny it," said Bernard, with a friendly look ; " it is the
nature of the beast to be fat ; not by our horses, but
by ourselves, are we to be judged before God." He
then laid bare his neck, and showed, naked, his meager
and attenuated breast. This was, for the public, the
most perfect confutation of the heretic!
But we must, however unwillingly, hasten from these
* Neander, p. 244.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 53
scenes. In 1148, Pope Eugene visited Bernard in the
cloister at Clairvaux, and remained with him some time.
It was a beautiful homage from the conventional head
of the Church to a poor monk, whom piety, zeal, and
greatness of soul had raised above all the heroes of
convention. Bishop Malachias, who had done a great
work in Ireland, came to lay his bones at Clairvaux.
But bitter disappointment came at last upon Bernard.
The crusade for which he had preached, and prophe
sied, and worked miracles, and traveled over half Eu
rope, was a failure. Its ruin was total. Half -smoth
ered invectives and fierce denunciations arose against
him. All his predictions fell to the ground: the mira
cles he wrought, the vaunting boast and fiery words
he had uttered came back on the head of the poor monk,
mingled with the scorn of the nations. He had sophis
try enough to refer the calamity to the sins of the
crusaders. But this availed little, for he had promised
their sins should be forgiven, and expressly called no
torious sinners to the task. So he laid the blame upon
the Almighty, who had assigned him his mission, gave
him the promise, and " confirmed it by miracles."
Weary and disappointed, the poor abbot betook him
self to finish his greatest literary work, the celebrated
treatise De Consider atione, a sort of manual for the
popes, giving a picture of an ideal pope, a book of no
small merit. This was the latest work of his life, and
its concluding lines flowed forth from lips longing to
give up the ghost. His usefulness continued to the
last. His letters went on as usual; he exhorted his
friends and pupils. But the shadow of defeat was on
the man. It grew thicker and blacker each day. His
letter to Andreas, written shortly before his death,
shows how a monk can feel, and a man, whose word

54 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
then shook the world, can be overcome. All his life
long he had looked to the west and found no comfort,
as the rising luminary shed new day over the world.
But even on his death-bed, cast down as he was, he gave
proofs of that mysterious power the soul exerts over
those decaying elements which it gathers about itself,
a power remarkably shown in his whole life. While
sick almost to death, scarce any strength left in him,
Hillin, Archbishop of Friers, came to ask him to
mediate between the people of Metz and the nobility of
the neighborhood. Bernard arose from his bed; for
got his weakness; forgot his pain; forgot his disap
pointment. His body seemed sinewy and strong be
neath his mighty will. He met the delegates of the
two parties on the banks of the Moselle. The haughty
knights, flushed with victory, refused to listen to his
terms, and withdrew, " not wishing the sick monk fare
well." " Peace will soon come," said he. " It was
foretold me last night, in a dream ; for I thought I was
celebrating mass, and was ashamed because I had for
gotten the chant, Gloria in Excelsis; and so I sung
it with you to the end." Before the time arrived for
singing the chant a messenger came to say the knights
were penitent! His words had done the work in si
lence. The two parties were reconciled, and the kiss
of peace exchanged. He returned to Clairvaux, and
his strong spirit soon left the worn-out frame, where it
had long dwelt almost in defiance of the body's law.
He had lived sixty-three years, and his spirit was
mighty in the churches long after his death.
His biographer Alanus thus describes the last scene:
" About the third hour of the day (August 20, 1153),
this shining light of his age, this holy and truly blessed
abbot, passed away from the body of death to the land

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 55
of the living; from the heavy sobbings and abundant
tears of his friends, standing around him, to the chorus
of angels chanting continually, with Christ at their
head. Happy that soul which rises by the excellent
grace of its own merits ; which is followed by the pious
vows of friends, and drawn upwards by holy desire for
things above. Happy that transition from labor to
rest; from expectation to enjoyment of the reward;
from the battle to the triumph; from death to life;
from faith to knowledge; from a pilgrimage to his
own home; from the world to the Father."
In stature Saint Bernard was a little below the com
mon standard; his hair of a flaxen color: his beard
somewhat reddish, but both became gray as he grew
old. The might of the man was shown in his counte
nance. Yet his face had a peculiar cheerfulness, more
of heaven than of earth, and his eye at once expressed
the serpent's wisdom with the simplicity of the dove.
It was indifferent to him whether he drank oil, or wine,
or water. He was dead to the pleasures of the table,
and to all sensual delights. He could walk all day by
the lake of Lucerne, and never see it. In summing
up his character, we must allow him great acuteness of
insight ; a force of will, great and enduring almost be
yond belief, — a will like that of Hannibal, or Simeon
the Stylite, which shrunk at no difficulty, and held out
Promethean to the end. He was zealous and self-de
nying; but narrow in his self-denial, and a bigot in
his zeal. He was pious, — beautifully pious, — but
superstitious withal. In a formal age, no man loved
forms better than he, or clung closer to the letter when
it served his end. His writings display a masculine
good sense ; * great acquaintance with the Scriptures,
* His works are, 744 Letters ; numerous Sermons on all the

56 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
which he quotes in every paragraph, and with Augus
tine and Ambrose, " with whom he would agree right
or wrong." * He hated all tyranny but the tyranny
of the Church. Yet his heart was by nature gentle;
he could take pains to rescue a hen from the hawk;
but would yet burn men at the stake for explaining
the mystery of the Trinity. He was as ambitious
as Caesar ; not that he cared for the circumstance and
trappings of authority, but he loved power for itself,
as an end. All the wax of Hymettus could not close
his ears against this syren, not a whole Anticyra heal
his madness.5 He lived in an age when new light
Sundays and Festivals in the year; 86 Sermons on the Canticles;
a Treatise, in five books, De Consideratione; another, De Officio
Episcoporum, de Praecepto et Dispensatione; Apologia ad
Gulielmum Abbatum; this contains some of his sharpest re
bukes of the monks and clergy. De laude Novae Militae, i.e.
the new order of knights templars. De gradibus humilitatis
et superbiae, de gratia et libero arbitrio, de baptismo, de
erroribus Petri Abelardi. De Vita S. Malachiae, de Cantu.
Besides these, there are many works attributed to him, which
belong to others, known or unknown. Such are the famous
"Meditations of St. Bernard," which are sometimes printed in
English in the same volume with Saint Augustine's Medita
tions. No writer of the middle ages has been so popular as
Bernard. His works were read extensively before the art of
printing was invented, and have often been published since
then. The best edition is that of Mabillon, Paris, 1719, 2 vols.
folio. A new edition has recently been published (Paris 1838,
4 vols. 8vo), which we have not examined. Besides, he wrote
a Summa Theologiae not noticed by Mabillon, but commented
on by Gerson, whose book thereon is called Floretus, published
at Paris, 1494, 1 vol. 4to. This, by the way, is not in Dupin's
edition of Gerson, 1706, 5 vols. fol. It is noticed in Fleury,
Hist. Eccl. Vol. XIV. p. 444, ed. Nismes, 1779.
* His reverence for the authority of the Church was most
uncompromising. He thought it had power to change the
words of Scripture, and make the Bible better by the change:
"Cum in Scripturis divinis verba vel alterat, vel alternat, for-
tior est ilia compositio quam positio prima verborum." — Sermon
on the Nativity.

SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 57
came streaming upon the world. But he called on
men to close their shutters and stir their fires. Greek
and Roman letters, then beginning their glorious ca
reer in modern times, he hated as profane, and never
dreamed of the wonders they were to effect for art,
science, religion, yea, for Christianity itself. He was
a man of the eleventh century, not of the twelfth. Its
spirit culminated most beautifully in him. But he had
no sympathy for those who, grateful for their fathers'
progress, would yet carry the line of improvement
still farther on. He did nothing directly to promote
a pure theology, or foster philosophical views, and
thus to emancipate mankind from their long thraldom.
Yet he did much remotely. Frozen hands are best
warmed in snow. Bernard was a mystic,* and the
age was growing rational. But in his mystic nights
he does not soar so sublime as the Pseudo-Dionysius,
or Scotus Erigena, from whom his mysticism seems
derived. Still less has he the depth of Saint Victor,
Tauler, Eckart, and Nicolas of Basle, or the profound
sweetness of Fenelon, the best, perhaps of modern
mystical Christians.
His practical tendency was lead to the wings of
mystical contemplation, and the very strength of his
will prevented him from seeing truth as other mystics,
all absorbed in contemplation. Yet he was a great
man, and without him the world would not have been
what it is. Well does he deserve the praise of Luther:
" If there ever was a pious monk, it was Saint Ber
nard." *On his mysticism, see Ammon, Fortbildung des Christen-
thums, Vol. II. 2nd edition, p. 355, seq.; Heinroth, Geschichte
und Kritik des Mystieismus, p. 324, seq.; and Schmid, Der
Mysticismus der Mittelalter, etc., p. 187, seq.

II
CUDWORTH'S INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM J
Ralph Cudworth, the son of Dr. Ralph Cudworth,
was born at Aller in Somersetshire, in 1617. The
father died while the son was a small boy. The
mother married Dr. Stoughton, who educated young
Ralph with great care. In youth, he was remarka
ble for the same qualities which distinguished his riper
years. Is it not always true " The child is father of
the man "? The oak and the fern are oaks and ferns
as soon as they leave the parent seed. At thirteen he
was admitted a pensioner at Emmanuel College, Cam
bridge; six years after, was created Master of Arts,
" with great applause." Soon after he became an
eminent tutor at Cambridge, and at one time had
twenty-eight scholars under his charge, a great num
ber even for the largest colleges. After a short time
he was presented with a rectory that was worth about
£300 a year. In 1644, he became master of Clare
Hall, and the next year, professor of Hebrew. In
1651, the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred
on him; three years later one of his friends writes:
" After many tossings Dr. Cudworth is returned to
Cambridge, and settled in Christ's College, and by
his marriage more settled than fixed." He became
master of that college the same year, and continued
in that office during the rest of his life. A few years
later, he was consulted by a committee, appointed by
Parliament, " to consider of the translations and im
pressions of the Bible, and to offer their opinions
58

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 59
thereon." In 1662 he was presented to the vicarage
of Ashwell ; sixteen years after he was installed preben
dary of Gloucester. These later appointments brought
him, we trust, rather money than care. He died at
Cambridge, June 26, 1688, leaving one daughter be
hind him, the wife of Sir Francis Masham.
His first recorded publication was a discourse con
cerning the true notion of the Lord's Supper, issued
in 1642. The next, fifteen years later, a sermon
preached before the House of Commons. In 1658 he
designed to publish some Latin discourses in defense
of Christianity against the Jews; but we know not
what prevented him. In 1678, he published the True
Intellectual System in folio.* As might be ex
pected the book met with great opposition from the
courtiers of Charles the Second. But the first publi
cation against it proceeded from a Catholic, the year
after its appearance. Many of the less liberal clergy
abused him. Mr. Turner called him a tritheist;
others denounced him as an atheist ! a name easily ut
tered by the impure mouth, and which has sometimes
been bestowed on the devoutest of men, as all his
tories bear witness. We cannot forbear quoting the
words of Bishop Warburton, since they contain hints
applicable to all times, we fear; certainly to these
days. " The philosopher of Malmesbury was the terror of the last
age. . . . The press sweats with controversy, and every
young clergyman militant would needs try his arms in thunder
ing upon Hobbes's steel cap. The mischief his writings had
done to religion set Cudworth upon projecting its defense.
Of this he published one immortal volume; of a boldness very

*The True Intellectual System of the Universe; wherein
all the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is confuted, and
its Impossibility demonstrated.

60 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
uncommon indeed, but well becoming a man conscious of his
own integrity and strength. For instead of amusing himself
with Hobbes's peculiar whimsies, which in a little time were
to vanish of themselves, and their answers with them, which
are all now forgotten, from the curates to the archbishops,
he launched out into the immensity of the INTELLECTUAL
SYSTEM; and at his first essay, penetrated the very darkest
recesses of antiquity to strip ATHEISM of its disguises, and
drag up the lurking monster into day, where, though few
readers could follow him, yet the very slowest were able to
overtake his purpose. And there wanted not COUNTRY
CLERGYMEN to lead the cry, and tell the world THAT
UNDER PRETENSE OF DEFENDING REVELATION,
HE WROTE IN THE VERY MANNER THAT AN ART
FUL INFIDEL MIGHT NATURALLY BE SUPPOSED
TO USE IN WRITING AGAINST IT; that he had given us
ALL THE FILTHY STUFF THAT HE COULD SCRAPE
TOGETHER OUT OF THE SINK OF ATHEISM, AS A
NATURAL INTRODUCTION TO A DEMONSTRATION
OF THE TRUTH OF REVELATION; that with incredible
INDUSTRY AND READING he had rummaged all antiquity
for atheistical arguments, which he neither knew nor intended
to answer. In a word, that he was an atheist in his heart, and
an Arian in his book. But the worst is behind. These silly
calumnies were believed. The much injured author grew dis
gusted. His ardor slackened; and the rest, and far greatest
part of the defense never appeared, — a defense that would
have left nothing .to do for such as our author, but to read
it; and for such as our author's adversaries, but to rail at it."
— DIVINE LEGATION, etc. Preface to the First Edition of
Books IV., V. and VI. Vol. I. p. 650. London, 1837.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, M.
Le Clerc published copious extracts from the Intel
lectual System in his Bibliotheque Choisie, at that
time the most popular periodical in Europe. He com
mented upon it with singular felicity, in general,
though not without mistakes ; and the extracts he made
found favor with his readers, it seems, to judge from
the prefaces to several volumes of the Bibliotheque.
But he was involved in a controversy with Mr. Bayle,
touching the doctrine of a plastic nature, taught by

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 61
Dr. C., and which Bayle thought savored of athe
ism. We have no desire to speak of this controversy.
Cudworth's views of the Trinity drew on him
the invectives of some of the rigid orthodox
party. It is to be regretted that so little is known of the
personal history of this great man. How gladly would
we hft the curtain from his mind, and see how the grief
and gladness of this many-colored life acted upon him,
and how he reacted upon them. Would that some
friend had done for him even the feeble service which
Mr. Ward has rendered his contemporary, Dr. Henry
More.2 We wish to see how much of his lofty ideal
was made actual in his life. But we are merely told
when this star rose, and when it set; of its hourly
luster, as it sailed on through clearness and cloud, we
can only learn from its dim reflection in his printed
works. These afford but an inadequate idea of the
man, under the most favorable circumstances; for the
best thoughts are rarely uttered in books ; and the book
itself is never fully understood without the life of
its author. The artist's words are only the cinders
of the fire with which he wrought.
Dr. Cudworth was one of that circle of illustrious
men who contributed so much, in the latter part of the
seventeenth century, to redeem the character of the
clergy in England and sustain true religion there.
The celebrated act of conformity, requiring clergy
men of the Church to subscribe to the book of com
mon prayer, with all its doctrines, deprived the Church
of about two thousand of its worthiest servants;
"who" as Bishop Burnet says, "were cast out ig-
nominiously, reduced to great poverty, and provoked
by much spiteful usage." This circumstance with the

62 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
fines and forfeitures which fell into the lap of the
Church, brought great wealth into the hands of the
conforming portion of the clergy, — the successors of
those who had been deprived of their livings. " With
this great accession of wealth," says the same author,
" there broke in upon the Church a great deal of luxury
and high living, and with this overset of wealth and
pomp, that came on men in the decline of their parts
and age, they, who were now growing into old age,
became lazy and negligent in all the true concerns of
the Church. They left preaching and writing to
others, while they gave themselves up to ease and
sloth. In which sad representations, some few excep
tions are to be made; but so few, that, if a new set
of men had not arisen, of another stamp, the Church
had quite lost her esteem over the nation." * The
chief of these men were Drs. Whitchot, Cudworth,
Wilkins, More, and Worthington; all men of great
natural powers, surprising learning, and deep, living,
piety. They studied to awaken a deeper spirit in
young students than was usually found in those times.
So they abandoned the set forms of the schools, and
directed their pupils to such old writers as Plato,
Tully and Plotinus. " Cudworth carried this on with
a great strength of genius and a vast compass of
learning. He was a man of great conduct and pru
dence; upon which his enemies did very falsely accuse
him of craft and dissimulation." These men felt that
religion was something more than a conformity with
custom, or a sonorous reading of liturgy. They
drew it from the fountain of living water in the soul ;
not from the broken cisterns of tradition or conven-
* Burnet's History of his own Time. Vol. I. p. 105, fol.
edition, Dublin 1724.

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 63
tion. They saw that conscience was superior to the
law of the land; knew that morality is not one thing
at Corinth and another at Rome ; but is universal, the
same everywhere, is based on eternal principles of
justice and reproduced in each pure soul.
At that time England was filled with learned men;
but with all the Pocockes, and Waltons, and Clarkes,
and Castells, it had none more learned than Dr. Cud
worth. It was " rich in spiritual men ; but though
Milton, and Taylor, and Hooker, and Hall shone in
their luster, there were few more spiritual and pure
than Dr. Cudworth, and these " Latitude Men about
Cambridge," as they were called.3 They were meek
and lowly in religion, but the fervent faith of apostles
glowed in their breasts. These men were foes to
fanaticism, to irreligion, and to superstition. They
had a hard battle to fight, for they fell on evil
times, though glorious ; and evil tongues assailed
them. King Charles the Second was a model of irreligion
and profligacy. The manners of the court are well
known, and its licentiousness could not be concealed.
It is with manners as with streams of water, they run
downward; so the people aped the court. The phi
losophy of Hobbes 4 was a necessary emanation for
the great and aristocratic party of those times. His
system is well known. " Interest and fear," he says,
" are the bonds of society : selfishness, the only
principle and foundation of morals; the king's de
cree, the sole basis of religion." The world was his
God. A system of philosophy is, perhaps, never the
production of a single mind; its apparent author is
unconsciously the organ of many men. In this way,
Hobbes represents a large party. " He writ his book,

64 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
first, to favor absolute monarchy, but turned it after
wards to gratify the Republican party." *
The Latitude Men attacked the Hobbists, both the
speculative and practical, with spiritual weapons.
They were in the ranks of the conformists, for they
loved the liturgy and the Church, though they deemed
it " not unlawful to live without either." They
studied the old philosophers. Episcopius B was one of
their favorite authors. They overthrew the false
work of Hobbes, and attempted to erect immutable
morality and spotless religion on the ground, degraded
by sensuality and reverance for might. But as War-
burton says touchingly of himself : —
" All this went for nothing with bigots. He had departed
from the old posture of defense. His demonstration, say they,
could never make us amends for changing our posture of
defense and deserting our strongholds. ... I know not
how, — they betray the most woful apprehensions of Chris
tianity, and are frighted to death at every foolish book new-
written against religion. And what do our directing engineers
advise you to do in this exigence? . . . Keep within your
strongholds, watch where they direct their battery, and there
to your old mud-walls clap a buttress; and, so it be done with
speed, no matter of what material. If, in the meantime, one
more bold than the rest offer to dig away the rubbish that
hides its beauty, or kick down an awkward prop that discredits
its strength, he is sure to be called by these men, — a secret
* Such feats were not uncommon at that time. Walton
dedicated his Polyglot to Cromwell, with some adulation; but
Charles coming into power, he industriously plucked out the
old dedication, and inserted a new one, calling the king " most
temperate" and "very religious" while he pronounces Crom
well the " Great Red Dragon." He had his reward, — a bishop
ric; so delighted was the king to have the name of virtuous,
temperate and religious bestowed upon him without dreaming
of restraint or any denial. Some tell-tale copies still pre
serve the original dedication, to show there lived more than
one Hobbes at that day. But see, who will, a poor defense
of Walton in Todd's life of him.

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 65
enemy or an indiscreet friend. He is sure to be assaulted with
all the rude clamor and opprobrious names that bigotry is
ever ready to bestow on those it fears and hates."— War-
burton, etc. p. 649 et seq.
But they met the common reward of such men in
this our day. Men of narrow minds, — whose eyes are
opened, but wide enough to see a heresy in every new
thing, — called them Latitudinarians, though their
lives were spotless. Because they would " render a
reason for the hope that was in them," the papists
denounced them as Socinians, — even as atheists.
They published books to show there were no certain
proofs of Christianity, unless we took it " upon the
authority of the infallible Church."
It is said the character of the parent is oftener seen
in the child, than the child in the parent; and cer
tainly the teacher is often clearly discovered in pupils.
The Latitude Men raised up such scholars as John
Smith, Bishop Patrick, Lloyd, Tillotson, and Stilling-
fleet. Poisons and spices both flourish side by side
in nature; and so, out of this century, so strangely
conspicuous for harmony and discord in Church and
State ; for the din of war and the sound of revelry ;
for meanness in proud men, baseness in honorable
men, and littleness in great men; for perjury in kings,
and heroic fidelity in cottages ; out of the time of
Bacon and Hampden have risen the brightest stars,
yea constellations, that England reveres, in whose light
her greatest intellectual achievements have been
wrought. The design of the True Intellectual System is briefly
this: To expose in all their strength, all possible
forms of atheism; to show the falsity and hollowness
of all of them, and to bring forward proofs of the
XIV— 5

66 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
existence of God, so strong and convincing, that no
one hereafter could have a reasonable doubt of it, more
than of the axioms of geometry, or the sentiment of
esteem and love. To effect this, he sifts the writings
of all nations, and every age, to discover all the forms
of atheism. He states the atheistic arguments with
perfect freedom, and perfect fairness. If there is any
force in them, Dr. Cudworth exhibits the whole of it,
to the best advantage. Conscious of his own strength,
and the truth of his cause, he had no fear as to the
issue of the contest. The atheist must often be sur
prised to see his cause appear stronger in his op
ponent's hands, than in his own. After stating all
the reasons of atheism, he gathers his proofs around
him, girds himself for the battle ; completely, we think,
and triumphantly replies to every charge; confronts
every hostile argument, be it never so remote, and
fairly meets his antagonist, and drives him out of the
field of philosophy. All this is done with lawful
weapons, and in the spirit of kindness. A careless
reader thinks the work disorderly :
" He can no joints and no contexture find,
Nor its loose parts to any method bring."
He sees no plan in it. But looking fixedly, the
reader finds the exactest method pervades the work;
the truest logic unites the several parts of the argu
ment; and that little is wanting, though much is re
dundant. At first, he is bewildered with the array of
learning, the long and brilliant passages from the old
philosophers; the numerous allies drawn from Egypt,
Palestine, Greece, and Rome; from the schools of the
middle ages, the cells of monks, and the halls of the
Rabbins. He starts at names " that would have made

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 67
Quintilian stare and gasp." But soon he sees they
all serve under one banner, are marshaled in their
proper places and strike each a blow, though some
times, we fancy, on a dead enemy. But this is done
from no ostentation, as Falstaff (and many heroes of
the quill also, who have " an unbounded stomach " for
controversy, but think discretion the better part of
valor), hacked the lifeless Hotspur, while there were
Ivvnmg foes to encounter. But he does this ex abun-
danti, because he has more strength than he can hold.
The careless reader turns over these pages, and, see
ing the host of citations, pronounces outright the book
was written by some one who had read more than any
man could think, and so was fit only to make indices
to books, or at best, extracts from them. It is a
melancholy truth that some great readers have been
small thinkers. Men who have not reached giant-
hood heap Pelion upon Ossa, in their reading, hoping
to scale heaven thereby, and take wisdom by storm.
Even if they could enter by those means, they would
find no Divinity in the temple. But their pile of
learning, built without the foundation of a strong, mas
culine mind, topples over, and buries beneath it the
ambition of the student, and his small wit. Dr.
Faustus, says the legend, sold himself to the Devil;
and gaining certain privileges for a season, at last
lost his own soul forever. But Vengeance never
sleeps; he is the father of modern books, to which so
many men have sold their souls. Of what avail is it
to gain whole libraries, and lose one's own mind?
It is true many bright spirits are shut up in huge
tomes, like dried ferns in a botanist's herbal; but it
does not follow, because Cudworth was a great reader,
that he should not be a great thinker also. The world

68 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
has known many such. Such were Aristotle, Pliny
the Elder, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, among
the ancients; Leibnitz, Bayle, Taylor, and Richter in
later times, who read everything, and were yet the
brightest and most original of men. We could never
see why a seaman, who had been round the world again
and again, cannot pilot a boat across his native lake, as
well as one who had seen no other waters. Perhaps
M. Von Humbolt can find his way through the streets
of Goettingen as well after his travels as before.
But to return to Dr. Cudworth. The reader will
find in him an unusual discernment, an extraordinary
penetration combined with rare skill in the use of ma
terials his boundless erudition has furnished. What
is still better, the spirit of Christianity dwells in him.
You see that he has drunk from the fountain of hfe.
He can reason with an opponent, and yet not be
angry ; can reprove without harshness, and censure
without sarcasm. He is one of the few men who can
lawfully engage in controversy, for he hates no man,
not even an Hobbist.
In this article, only a brief summary can be af
forded of his arguments against atheism. At first, he
says, he had only designed to write a discourse against
the doctrine of fatalism, or necessity, which under
mines Christianity and all religions, by taking away
the distinction between good and evil, and to set forth
the true intellectual system which involves freedom
in man, and a discernment between right and wrong.
Afterwards, he thought it necessary to go behind this
doctrine of fatalism, and demonstrate the existence of
a self-conscious and intelligent God. Atheism is the
false intellectual system of the universe; but the true
one consists of three principles. 1. There is a self-

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 69
conscious God, ruling over all things. 2. God is
good, and there is an eternal distinction between good
and evil. 3. Men are free agents, and therefore ac
countable beings. The whole intellectual system was
designed to comprise I. A Treatise against Atheism.
II. One on Moral Good and Evil. III. A Treatise
on Liberty and Necessity. The present work com
prises only the first treatise, but it is perfect in it
self.* This work is divided into five chapters; the first
treats of the three forms of atheism, namely, that of
some " Neoteric Christians," that " contingent lib
erty is impossible;" that of Zeno (the Stoic) Chry-
sipus, and others that " all things are predestined
by the will of God " ; and the system of Democritus
and some modern atheists, that " there is no immaterial
or spiritual substance in existence," and, consequently,
all the actions of men are resolved into the mechanism
of senseless matter. He calls this last the Demo-
critical faith, from the founder of a famous atheist
sect in ancient times. But in opposing the system of
fatalism, the author admits the protective providence
of a God essentially good.
* The other works still exist in manuscript, at Cambridge,
except a small treatise on free-will, recently published, edited
by John Allen, London, 1839. The treatise on Good and Evil
consists of about one hundred pages in folio; and that on
Libebtt and Necessity: is of about the same size. We wish
the enterprising publishers of these volumes would procure a
copy of these manuscripts, and publish them here. Can there
be a doubt the public would reward their enterprise? There
is no hope they will find an English editor for centuries to
come. The English are too deeply engaged in railroads and
steamboats; in resolving mind into matter; commenting on
Jeremy Bentham; translating the Fathers; establishing the
infallibility of the Church, and making mouths at the invisible
event of German Philosophy, to think of publishing Dr. Cud
worth.

70 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
The Democritical fatalism, which denied the ex
istence of God, was built on a peculiar physiological
theory, called the Atomical System, because it made
matter consist of indivisible atoms. It regarded mat
ter as extended bulk, which has only these attributes,
accidents or qualities, namely: figure, divisibility, size,
position or impenetrability, and motion or rest.
These qualities explain all the phenomena of matter;
growth and decay being only addition or diminution
of atoms; and the sensible notions of cold and hot,
sweet and bitter, and the like, belong only to the ob
server, and not to matter.* Now it is commonly
thought the atomical system favors atheism, and was
the invention of Leucippus, Democritus, or Protag
oras, who were all atheists. However, it was the in
vention of no atheist, but of Moschus, a Phoenician,
who lived before the Trojan War; and it does not
favor atheism, for the old atomists affirmed the ex
istence of immaterial spirit and of God. Such was the
belief of Thales, Pherecydes the Syrian, Pythagoras,
Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and most of the atomists
before Democritus. They believed in the existence of
a God, in immaterial spirit, and in the immortality of
* This is the modern theory, which refers the primary qualities
to matter itself, and the secondary to the mind of the observer.
The one is supposed to be essential to matter, and to exist in
it; the other to belong entirely to the mind. But there appears
no reason for referring one to matter more than the other.
True, we cannot conceive matter without figure; but is not
the figure, strictly speaking, as much a subjective idea as that
of red-color? Are not both, primary and secondary qualities,
to be equally referred to the laws of the mind, and not im
posed on matter? The mind can shake off the law, so far as
the secondary qualities are concerned, but cannot rid itself of
the primary. Young Scriblerus could not conceive a Lord
Mayor without his gold chain. Are the primary qualities any
thing more than the robes in which the mind clothes matter?

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 71
the soul. Now theism and immaterialism * are not in
consistent with the atomical system ; for that arose
from discovering two things in nature, matter and
life, and from seeing the impossibility that matter,
which is necessarily senseless, could be the cause of
all movement, sensation and thought. So immaterial
substance is as much the result of observation as
material substance. Indeed, the distinction which
the atomists make between the primary or ob
jective, and secondary, or subjective quality of mat
ter, supposes there is an immaterial substance; for
since the primary belong to matter, the secondary
qualities must proceed from an immaterial spirit, other
wise something must come from nothing. Sensation
cannot result from the primary qualities of matter,
figure, divisibility, and the like ; still less can reason
and will be referred to that source, unless something
can. come from nothing. Sensation cannot result from
the primary qualities of matter, figure, divisibility, and
the like; still less can reason and will be referred to
that source, unless something can come from nothing.
So there must be an immaterial spirit. There is no
mind or life in the mechanism of matter, and to make
it the cause of mind and life is to make something
come from nothing. Therefore the old atomists be
lieved the immateriality and the immortality of the
soul, as the only hypothesis capable of solving the
phenomena of the world. But they believed also the
preexistence and transmigration of souls, declaring
the soul to be as old as the particles of the body, or of
any other matter.
* Theism, the worship of God, in opposition to atheism, the
denial of a God. Immaterialism or spiritualism, belief in the
existence of something distinct from matter; in opposition to
materialism and corporealism.

72 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
But the atomical system does not demand the pre-
existence of souls, for they must have been created
in time; and it is neither proved nor probable they
were all created at the same time.* Matter has only
one action, namely, local motion; and this can never
produce hfe or thought or will, unless something can
proceed from nothing.
Now succeeding philosophers, Democritus, Leucip-
pus, and others, took only the atomical part of this
old system, and denied the existence of immaterial
spirit, and even of a corporeal God. But they were
false to their principles; for they made all sense, life
and reason proceed from local motion, or from noth
ing. " If these atheists were the first inventors of this
philosophy they certainly were very unhappy and un
successful in it. Whilst endeavoring by it to secure
themselves from the possibility and danger of a cor
poreal God, they unawares laid the foundation for an
incorporeal one, and were indeed so far from making
up any such coherent frame as is pretended, that they
were forced everywhere to contradict their own prin
ciples." — Vol. I, p. 112, et seq.
The corporealist is not necessarily an atheist ; but if
* It may be said this would prove the immateriality and
immortality of animals' souls. But what then? Dr. Cudworth
quiets the scruples of men who wish to be the only immortal
spirits, by saying "Perhaps God will destroy that part of
animals which would otherwise have been immortal." He does
not say this is his own opinion. But it was the opinion of
most of the Fathers that animals are immortal; and Bishop
Butler says: "Nor can we find anything throughout the whole
analogy' of nature, to afford us even the slightest presumption
that animals ever lose their living powers. Much less, if it
were possible, that- they lose them by death." Anal. Pt. I. ch.
I. pp. 63, 68.

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 73
he believes the Atomical System also, he must be one,
or believe thought and will and life come from noth
ing. In the second chapter, he proceeds to state the va
rious objections made against Theism. The follow
ing are the principal grounds, relied on by the atheist.
No man can have an idea of God; (it is only a
name ) ; there can be no creation out of nothing ; and
no incorporeal substance. The world is not governed
by a living, spiritual power, for sense and reason nat
urally belong to our material organization ; there can
be no immortal being, (as God is alleged to be) —
for all are but concretions of atoms, and therefore,
mortal; and no self -originated or uncreated cause, for
the mover must himself have been moved by an out
ward force. So there is a chain of finite causes,
without beginning; all knowledge arises from percep
tion of the object of knowledge; now, a God, if there
were one, could not conceive of the world before it
was made, and therefore could not be its author. Be
sides, all things are so poorly made, and so mixed
with evils, that they cannot be the work of an in
finitely wise and good being; human affairs are all
tohu and bohu, without form and void. Again,
it is impossible for a God to govern and overrule all
things at the same time ; and if he could, it would ren
der him perplexed and unhappy. If there is a God,
why did he not make the world sooner? or later?
How could he make it at all? Finally, it is for the
interest, of all men in general, that there should be
no God, — for there then will be no retribution, — and
of kings in particular, for all society is held together
by fear alone; and if there is one greater than the
king, men will fear him. As the rod of Moses swal-

74 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
lowed up those of the Egyptians, so will fear of God
swallow up fear of the king, and destroy all society,
which is the artificial creature of policy, and has no
foundation in nature. This latter was the argument
of Hobbes, who adds, farther, that theism, by the
way of religion, introduces conscience, " which is con
tradictious to civil sovereignty; the allowance of a
private conscience being a dissolution of the body
politic." From all these arguments, the atheist con
cludes that mind and all things spring from senseless
nature and chance.
" Wherefore infinite atoms of different sizes and
figures, devoid of all life and sense, moving fortui
tously from eternity in infinite space, and making
successively several encounters, and consequently va
rious inflexions and intanglements with one another,
produced first a confused chaos of these omnifarious
particles, fumbling together with infinite variety of
motions, which afterwards, by the tugging of their
different and contrary forces, whereby they all hin
dered and abated each other, came, as it were, to be
conglomerated into a vortex of vortexes; when, after
many convolutions and evolutions, molitions and es
says, (in which all manner of tricks were tried, and
all forms imaginable were experimented) they
chanced in length of time, here to settle into this form
and system of things, which now is. . . . So
that senseless matter fortuitously moved, and material
chaos were the first original of things." — Vol. I, p.
152. The third chapter contains an account of the other
forms which Atheism has assumed, and is introduced
by an account of what he calls Hylozoic Atheism.
This makes matter consist of an infinite number of

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 75
atoms, each severally endowed with life, and power
of self-determination; so they can form themselves
into sensible animals, or reasonable men. This being
the case, no God is needed to create the world, or to
govern it. " It is so beautiful, it subsists by its own
harmony, and needs no outward cause." Hylozoism
makes hfe and capability of thought essential to mat
ter; while atomism calls it accidental, and is unable to
account for thought. The one requires corporealism,
and the other spiritualism, to make the system per
fect. Now the hylozoist is not always an atheist, for
he might believe there was a God who created these
wise atoms; but usually, the hylozoist believes in the
self -existence of his atoms; and so all taken together
constitute God, — who is therefore unconscious, and
devoid of reason, or there is no God to him.
This system is a monstrous paradox, for it supposes
each separate atom in a man's body, before it took
its present form, had a perfect knowledge of its abil
ity ; a perfect idea of the man's body and mind ; and
since the man himself has no such knowledge, each
particle in his system knows more than all the parti
cles, more than the whole man; yet it is not self-con
scious, " which is a piece of very mysterious non
sense." Besides, this conglomeration of infinitely
wise atoms has no head, and no common mind; but
each atom acts on its own account; there can be no
unity of consciousness therefore. Strato of Lampsa-
cus is thought to be the inventor of this system.*
A third kind of atheism was the system of Anaxi-
mander. He referred all things to senseless matter,
* Some think he was not an atheist; but the charge can be
proved against him. — See Ritter, Gesch. der Philosophic Vol.
III. p. 410, et seq.

76 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
maintaining that they arose from the fortuitous con
course of hot and cold, wet and dry particles.
The fourth kind is the stoical atheism, which de
clares the whole world to be one great plant, or animal
(it is doubtful which) with one common but uncon
scious life, or soul. All these four kinds of atheism,
the Atomical, the Hylozoic, the Anaximandrian and
the Stoical, agree in two things. That there is no
substance in existence but body, and that all life,
sense, thought, consciousness, and individuality, are
produced out of nothing, (for it is this in the last
analysis) and return to nothing again.*
These four are all the form atheism has ever as
sumed, and the author thinks no other is possible; for
all atheists are materialists. It is indeed a striking
fact, that none of the ancient idealists, none even who
affirmed the existence of Immaterial Spirit, doubted
the existence of God; Yet we see not why there has
been no system of atheism which admitted the ex
istence of Immaterial Spirit; for it might as well be
based on subjective idealism as on objective realism.
In the fourth chapter, he proceeds to the great work
of answering the objections and arguments of the
atheist. To the first, that there is no idea of God,
or no conception in man's mind answering to the name,
so that it is a mere word, he says, it is impossible all
nations should use a word and not connect the idea
with it, but the sound of the letters. If one denies
the improbability of this, it is not easy to confute
him ; for the most evident things are the least capable
of proof. But the atheist himself has an idea in his
mind when he denies the existence of God. Now, in
* In this chapter he makes a long digression. XXXVII. p.
208, et seq. to which we shall return.

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 77
fact, the idea of God. is that of a self -existent being,
self-conscious, infinitely wise, powerful, just, and
good; in a word, a being infinitely perfect. This
definition which, without limiting, distinguishes the
idea of God from all other ideas, — implies unity ; there
can be but one Infinite Being. Now there is one forci
ble objection to this idea, including unity as it does,
arising from the alleged fact that most philosophers
and nations have believed in many gods. The objec
tor takes the fact for granted; but the question must
be examined.
The author examines it at length, and proves that
the pagan deities were never considered as so many un
created, self -existent gods ; but were descended from
One who alone was self-existent. Such was the sys
tem of Hesiod, and of the Gnostic Valentinian. The
Manicheans came the nearest to polytheism; for they
maintained there were two principles, one good, and
the other evil. But it is doubtful if that was their
behef; for Zoroaster, the inventor of the system, and
the Persian theologians, who followed him, believed
only in one eternal, self-existent being. Even the
early Christians did not charge the heathen with the
belief of many uncreated and independent gods. Ex
cepting the one Supreme God, all the pagan deities
may be reduced to the following classes ; souls of dead
men; the powers and objects of nature personified,
e. g. faith, hope, wisdom, etc. ; and the several names
given to the one God, as He was conceived of in vari
ous relations. Thus, they believed in many gods, but
only in one Supreme God, who was the head of all
things.* Sometimes they called their deities eternal;
* Christians generally believe in various orders of angels,
and it would be quite as reasonable to charge them with poly-

78 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
but they likewise called matter eternal, though not un
created; for they, with the other Platonists, supposed
God was eternally creative, and therefore matter was
eternally creative. They did not ascribe the same
honors to the created as to the self -existent God.
Again, the opponents of Christianity, Celsus, Por
phyry, Hierocles, Julian, and others, were all mono-
theists. Their behef in one God was not a notion con
jured up for the occasion; for Zoroaster and Orpheus,
two of the most strenuous defenders of polytheism,
assert the existence of one Supreme Infinite God.
The following is from Orpheus, and is undoubtedly
genuine; for it is quoted in a work written before
Christ. " The high-thundering Jove is both the first and last; Jove
is both the head and middle of all things; all things were
made out of Jupiter; Jove is both a man and an immortal
maid; Jove is the profundity of the earth and starry heaven;
Jove is the breath of all things; Jove is the force of the un
tamable fire; Jove is the bottom of the sea; Jove is sun,
moon, and stars; Jove is both the original and the king of
all things; There is one power and one God, and one great
ruler over all." Vol. I. p. 404.
But Orpheus was no pantheist ; for in the celebrated
riddle, in the Orphic poems, the World-Maker asks
Night, " How can all things be one," and yet each have
a distinct being? " He said God passes through and
intimately pervades all things. He expressed himself
strongly on this point, as the Bible does, which says
God " is all in all," " quickens all things," and " in
theism as to charge many of the Greeks and Romans with
it. The common doctrine (?) of the agency of the devil is
equally polytheistic (or dualistic) with the speculations of
Plutarch and the Manicheans. The follies of the Zoroastrian
doctrine are not yet extinct. Are Schelling and Hegel less
polytheistic than Hesiod and Seneca?

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 79
Him we live, and move, and have our being." But
the author declares this is a " ticklish point," so we
will hasten from it to his conclusion that the " Greek-
ish pagans acknowledge one universal, and all com
prehending Deity, — one that was all."
The Egyptians were the most polytheistic of all
nations. Juvenal says, " Every clove of garlic was
a god " with them. But they taught the unity of
God, — this he shows from the writings of Trismegis-
tus, Plutarch and Jamblichus. But the Egyptians
said God was all, and worshiped the manifestations
of Him in all things, and called Him by the name of
every thing. " Call Him therefore by every name,
because He is one and all things ; so that of necessity,
either all things must be called by His name or He by
the name of all things."
"He is both the things that are, and the things that are
not; for the things that are He hath manifested, but the
things that are not He contains within Himself. He is all
things that are, and therefore He hath all names, because all
things are from one Father; and therefore He hath no name,
because He is the Father of all things. . . . What is God
but the Being of all things that yet are not, and the subsist
ence of things that are? . . . Is God invisible? Speak
worthily of Him, for who is more manifest than He? For
this very reason did He make all things, that thou mightest
see Him through all things. ... I will begin with a prayer
to Him, who is the Lord and Maker and Father and bound
of all things, and who being all things is one,— for the fulness
of all things is one, and in one." Vol. I. p. 462, et seq.
Such is the doctrine of the Trismegistic books.
The old Egyptian legend, that Osiris was torn to
pieces by Typhon and scattered abroad, shows how
men separated the Deity in fancy, — while He was
one in their reason ; for Isis, or true Knowledge, gath
ers up the scattered members and unites them into a
whole once more. Even the poets, who had so large

80 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
a share in forming the common phraseology respect
ing the gods, taught the existence of one Supreme,
and supposed all the others to be created beings. We
have not space for his extracts from Homer, Pindar
and Sophocles.
All the philosophers, he says, who were not atheists^
taught the existence of one God. Epicurus is no ex
ception to this assertion — for he was an atheist, and
pretended to conform to the polytheistic language of
the times. All the Eleatics (who were pantheists),
with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and their followers,
were monotheists.
But we must fly with a swift wing over the author's
arguments and extracts. The following hymn is from
Cleanthes, a disciple of Zeno, who flourished about
three hundred years before Christ. Our version as
pires to no merit but that of fidelity.
Noblest of the immortals, many-named, ever-omnipotent,
Jove, Ruler of Nature, who guidest all things with order,
All hail! Thou art ready to listen to all mortals,
For we are thine offspring, all of us mortals who live
And creep upon the Earth, and are but an image of thy voice;
Thee will I hymn in this, and thy power will ever praise;
Thee all this World, revolving round the Earth
Obeys. . . . And willingly is ruled by thee.
Within unwearied hands thou holdest
The obedient, twofold, fiery, ever-living Thunder,
All nature quivers underneath its stroke.
Alone thou art o'er all the King Supreme,
God, without thee, there is no deed upon the Earth,
Nor in the divine ethereal realm, nor on the Sea,
Save that alone, the wicked in their folly work.
Thou dost harmonize the unharmonious, the unlovely lovely is to
thee.
All that's good thou dost with evil fittingly join in one,
So that there ever is one universal law of all.
This all wicked, mortal men attempt to shun,
Ill-fated men, forever longing to possess the Good,
They neither see, nor hear God's universal law,

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 81
Obedient to which, in reason they a noble life would lead,
Bereft of this, blind, they rush on, this way the one, the other,
that,
Oh Jove inscrutable, giver of all, Lord of the thunderbolt,
From this sad folly, Jove, deliver men;
Forth from the Soul drive it afar. That wisdom
May they find, wherewith thou rulest all,
That we, honored thereby, to thee may honors pay,
Forever singing of thy works, as it becometh mortal men;
For greater glory cometh not, to men or gods,
Than to sing forth their universal law in never-ceasing songs,—
Vol. I. p. 573, et seq.
Saint Cyril says emphatically, —
" It is manifest to all, that among those who philosophize
in the Greek way, it is universally acknowledged that there is
one God, the maker of the universe, who is by nature above
all things; but that there have been made by him . . . cer--
tain other gods (as they call them) both sensible and intel
ligible."— Vol. I. p. 592.
This was not the opinion of the learned merely,
but of the people. This fact is admitted by Philo,
Josephus, and St. Paul. The latter says they " knew
God, but would not glorify him as God." " The in
visible things of him, from the creation of the world,
are clearly seen and understood by the things that are
made." He even tells the Athenians they worship
God devoutly, and he has only come to declare more
perfectly unto them the God they already worship.
The author next goes into a long enumeration and
account of the gods of the ancients, and concludes,
the heathen thought God was diffused throughout all;
permeated all ; acted upon all things. Some added he
was All. Even when they worshiped an inferior, it
was the one God they worshiped in that object. Some
regarded the world as the body of God; others, as
His temple. In both cases, all parts of the world
were to be honored. Some called it a second or third
XIV— 6

82 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
God, and honored a portion of Nature as the Son of
God. Since it was hard to understand God, they
worshiped Him piece-meal, according to the various
manifestations of himself.
He next goes into a long digression upon the Trin
ity, which he finds taught in Plato, and most of the
other philosophers, as distinctly as in the Bible, and
fancies the trinity of Plato was the same with that of
the early fathers. He thus concludes this portion of
his argument : —
" Hitherto, in way of answer to an atheistic objection against
the naturality of the idea of God, as including loneliness in it,
from the pagan polytheism, have we largely proved that, at
least, the civilized and intelligent pagans generally acknowl
edged only one sovereign Numen; and that their polytheism
was partly but fantastical, nothing but the polyonymy of one
Supreme God, worshiping of him under different names and
notions, according to his several virtues and manifestations;
and that though, besides this, they had another polytheism also;
yet this was only of many inferior or created gods, sub
ordinate to one supreme or uncreated.
" Which, notwithstanding, is not so to be understood, as if we
did confidently affirm, that the opinion of many independent
deities never to have entered into the mind of any mortal. For
since human nature is so mutable and depravable as that, not
withstanding the connate idea and prolepsis of God in the
minds of men, some unquestionably do degenerate and lapse into
atheism, there can be no reason why it should be thought ab
solutely impossible for any ever to entertain that false conceit
of more independent deities." — Vol. II. p. 30.
In the last chapter he attempts to confute all the
atheistic arguments. We can give an analysis of
only a small portion of this chapter, which is a mas
terpiece of reasoning and illustration. Some atheists
pretend that God is inconceivable, because He is in
comprehensible. But we can conceive of subjects we
cannot fully comprehend; few things are fully com
prehensible, for we know only of properties, and not

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 83
essences. Therefore, truth is always greater than
our minds. As we can touch a mountain which we
cannot clasp, so we can apprehend God, though we
cannot comprehend Him. But again; if He is not
comprehensible to us, we know more of Him than of
most beings ; but there is infinity to be known of Him,
therefore much is still not comprehended. Thus, the
sun has more visibility than any other sensible object,
but it dazzles our eyes.
Again, it is said infinity is not conceivable, and
God cannot be finite; so God is not conceivable. But
the old atheists said matter was infinite; and it is cer
tain something must be infinite, or the finite could not
exist; unless something could come of nothing. The
atheists contend against infinite power, which they
assert is inconceivable; for Descartes said God could
make twice two not four. But infinite power is
only perfect power; ability to do whatever is possi
ble, everything which implies no contradiction. The
term infinite is negative, but the idea is positive ; while
the idea of the finite is truly but a negation of the in
finite ; for, in the logical order, an idea of the perfect
precedes that of the imperfect. Infinity in one at
tribute includes infinity in all the others ; and thus, the
idea of God is not an arbitrary compilation of con
flicting attributes.
It is with reluctance we find ourselves constrained to
pass over his reply to the atheists, who derive the idea
of God from fear, ignorance of causes, and the policy
of rulers and legislators. To us it is perfectly satis
factory, though his appeal to a " plastic nature "
seems not philosophy, but a despair of philosophy.
The argument drawn from wonderful events, predic
tions, oracles and apparitions, is equally worthless;

84 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
but in his day men thought otherwise. However, he
lays little stress on this argument. He says well, —
" Although the existence of a God . . . cannot be demon
strated a priori, yet may we, notwithstanding, from our very
selves, — and from what is contained in our own minds, or
otherwise consequent from him, by undeniable principles of
reason, necessarily infer his existence. And whensoever any
thing is thus necessarily inferred from what is undeniable and
indubitable, this is demonstration that the thing is, though not
why it is. And many of the geometrical demonstrations are
no other." Vol. II. pp. 134, 135, et seq.
The ground on which the existence of God is to be
proved, is the fidelity of the human faculties. " What
soever is clearly and distinctly perceived in things ab
stract and universal, by any one rational being in the
whole world is not a private thing, and true to him
only that perceived it, but it is ... a public,
catholic and universal truth, that obtains everywhere,
and is extended through the vast ether, and through
boundless space." " Knowledge," says Origen, " is
the only thing in the world which creatures have, that
is, in its own nature, firm. Because sense is seeming
and fantastical, we have no cause to suspect the same
of all mental perception. It is no way congruous to
think that God Almighty should make rational crea
tures, so as to be an utter impossibility of ever attain
ing to any certainty of His existence; or of having
no more than an hypothetical assurance of it, — if our
faculties be true, then there is a God." Vol. II, pp.
138-140. He then gives the various metaphysical arguments
for the existence of God. Some of them will have
little value to all minds; for one man likes one argu
ment, another a different one.
1. The idea of God, or a perfect being, includes

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 85
necessary existence, therefore there is a God. This is
the argument of Descartes. Dr. Cudworth lays no
stress on it, but gives what may be said for and
against it.
2. Whatever involves no contradiction in it, is ac
tual or possible. The idea of God involves no contra
diction, so is possible. But if God is possible, He is
actual; therefore He is. He lays little stress on this
argument. 3. Something existed from eternity, without begin
ning; this could be none but a perfect being, or God.
In the controversy between theists and atheists, it is
taken for granted that something existed from eter
nity, without beginning; and something is also made,
or had a beginning. Is that which existed from all
eternity, and is the cause of all other things, a perfect
being? (i. e. God) or is it senseless and inanimate
matter; the most imperfect of all things? Now it is
certain the less perfect might proceed from the more
perfect; but the reverse is quite impossible, unless
something can come from nothing. Another question
at issue between them is this: Is mind (i. e. God)
unmade and eternal, or is it generated and made out of
senseless matter? If there had once been nothing at
all, there could never have been anything. If once
there had been no life in the universe, there could never
be any hfe ; and if once there had been no mind, un
derstanding, or knowledge, there could never become
any, unless something could come from nothing.
Mind can cause matter, but matter cannot cause mind.
4. There are eternal truths, (e. g. the axioms of
geometry, the conclusions of science, the principles
of morality, etc. — " for these are not things of to-day
or yesterday; but they ever live, and no man knows

86 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
whence they come,") and this fact supposes the ex
istence of an eternal mind, from whence they come,
and in which they reside. This can be no other than
the infinitely perfect being, comprehending its own
power ; all the possibilities of things, mind and knowl
edge in us, suppose the existence of an infinite mind.
We think Dr. Cudworth would have been more con
vincing if he had dwelt more on this argument, — and
that from consciousness. We feel there is a God ; and
when we attempt to legitimate the feeling in the court
of reason, or the understanding, we often use very
imperfect arguments, and rarely state the true ground
of our belief in a God. It is mainly, that we feel
this truth.* But the author was contending with men
who denied they felt this truth. Therefore, he made
use of arguments which do little to produce be
lief in God, though they are really incontrovertible,
and support and defend that belief when it is pro
duced. Was any man ever argued into belief in God?
Perhaps so. But pious David says " Taste and see
how good the Lord is " — find Him out by sentiment,
as it were by sensation, and not merely by specula
tion. * See some acute and valuable remarks on this point by
President Hopkins, in the "Specimens of Foreign Literature,"
Vol. I. p. 204, note. Dr. Cudworth himself laid little stress
on any or all these arguments for a Deity. "It will not fol
low from hence," says he, "that whosoever shall read these
demonstrations and understand all the words of them, must
therefore be presently convinced and put out of all manner
of doubt concerning the existence of God. Minds cleansed
and purged from vice may, without syllogistic reasonings, and
mathematical demonstrations, have an undoubted assurance of
the existence of God. Purity possesses men with an assurance
of the best things, whether this assurance be called divine
sagacity or faith, which is a certain higher and divine power
in the soul, that peculiarly correspondeth with the Deity."

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 87
Dr. Cudworth then comes to " the very Achilles of
the atheists " — the famous maxim that " nothing
comes from nothing." This means nothing can bring
itself out of non-existence into being; or, nothing
can be made without an efficient cause. This maxim
is true, and it follows therefrom, that something is
unmade, the cause of all other things, and is perfect ;
for the less perfect cannot produce the more perfect.
But the atheist says nothing can be created or made
which was not previously existing, though perhaps in
another form. Now if the axiom were true in this
sense, it would be no more hostile to theism than to
atheism, for the phenomena of the world would re
main inexplicable by either. But there is no difficulty
in supposing matter created from nothing. Is it not
as easy for the infinitely perfect being to create a
world, as for us to create a thought, or move an arm?
If such a being cannot create out of nothing,* then
all things must have existed from eternity, and be
self -existent and independent; but the atheist denies
the previous existence of the human soul, so it must
have been created.
Without a God, all things must come from nothing,
for there is no other efficient cause conceivable for
anything. Now the atheists believe this, for they are
willing to believe all things rather than believe a God.
Now if it were true that matter was the only unmade
thing, thought could not come from it ; for this would
be to bring something out of nothing. So then, all
things, including thought, reason, etc., must have
come from matter, — which is the same as coming from
* This language is sometimes used as if it were supposed God
made the world out of nothing, — as a cloak is made of velvet or
satin. The meaning is, it was created. He said " Be, and it
was-" He unfolded it out of himself.

88 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
nothing, without an efficient cause, — or have pro
ceeded from God. If there is no God, the idea of Him
as a perfect being, in our minds, must have proceeded
from nothing.
" In the first place, therefore, we shall fetch our beginning
from what hath been already often declared, that it is mathemat
ically certain, that something or other did exist of itself from
all eternity, or without beginning, and unmade by anything else.
The certainty of which proposition dependeth upon this very
principle, as its foundation, that nothing can come from noth
ing, or be made out of nothing, or that nothing, which once
was not, can of itself come into being without a cause; it
following unavoidably from thence, that, if there had been
once nothing, there could never have been anything. And
having thus laid the foundation we shall in the next place
make this further superstructure, that because something did
certainly exist of itself from eternity unmade, therefore is
there also actually a necessarily-existent being. For to suppose
that anything did exist of itself from eternity, by its own
free will and choice, and therefore not necessarily but con
tingently, since it might have willed otherwise, this is to sup
pose it to have existed before it was, and so positively to
have been the cause of itself, which is impossible, as hath
been already declared. When a thing therefore is said to be
of itself, or the cause of itself, this is to be understood no
otherwise, than either in a negative sense, as having nothing
else for its cause; or because its necessary eternal existence
is essential to the perfection of its own nature. That, there
fore, which existed of itself from eternity, independently upon
anything else, did not so exist contingently, but necessarily;
so that there is undoubtedly something actually in being, whose
existence is and always was necessary. In the next place, it
is certain also that nothing could exist necessarily of itself
but what included necessity of existence in its own nature.
For to suppose anything to exist of itself necessarily, which
hath no necessity of existence in its own nature, is plainly
to suppose that necessary existence of it to come from noth
ing; since it could neither proceed from that thing itself, nor
yet from anything else. Lastly, there is nothing, which in
cluded necessity of existence In its very nature and essence,
but only an absolutely perfect being. The result of all which
is, that God, or a perfect being, doth certainly exist; and that
there is nothing else, which existed of itself from eternity,

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 89
necessarily and independently: but all other things whatso
ever derived their being from him, or were caused by him,
matter or body itself not excepted." Vol. II. pp. 193, 194.
We pass over his reply to several atheistic objec
tions, drawn from the incorporeality of God, and ap
proach his argument from " the frame of things,"
which the atheist represents as disorderly and exceed
ingly imperfect. Here a couple of extracts will suf
fice: —
" But they, who, because judgment is not presently executed
upon the ungodly, blame the management of things as faulty,
and Providence as defective, are like such spectators of a
dramatic poem, as when wicked or injurious persons are brought
upon the stage, for a while swaggering and triumphing, im
patiently cry out against the dramatist, and presently condemn
the plot; whereas, if they would but expect the winding up
of things, and stay till the last close, they should then see
them come off with shame and sufficient punishment. The
evolution of the world, as Plotinus calls it, is aKriBiarepov irohj/ia,
a truer poem; — and we mere histrionical actors upon the
stage, who, notwithstanding, insert something of our own into
the poem too; but God Almighty is that skilful dramatist, who
always connecteth that of ours, which went before, with what
of his follows after, into good, coherent sense, and will at last
make it appear that a thread of exact justice did run through
all, and that rewards and punishments are measured out in
geometrical proportion.
" Lastly. It is in itself fit, that there should be somewhere
a doubtful and cloudy state of things, for the better exercise
of virtue and faith. For, as there could have been no Hercules,
had there not been monsters to subdue; so, were there no
such difficulties to encounter with, no puzzles and entangle
ments of things, no temptations and trials to assault us, virtue
would grow languid, and that excellent grace of faith want
due occasion and objects to exercise itself upon. Here have
we therefore such a state of things, and this world is, as it were,
a stage erected for the more difficult part of virtue to act
upon, and where we are to live by faith, and not by sight;
that faith, which is the 'substance of things to be hoped for,
and the evidence of things not seen;' a belief in the goodness,
power and wisdom of God, when all things are dark and
cloudy round about us. 'The just shall live by his faith.'

90 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
" God made the whole most beautiful, entire, complete and
sufficient; all agreeing friendly with itself and its parts; both
the nobler and the meaner of them being alike congruous
thereunto. Whosoever, therefore, from the parts thereof, will
blame the whole, is an absurd and unjust censurer. For we
ought to consider the parts, not alone by themselves, but in
reference to the whole, whether they be harmonious and agree
able to the same. Otherwise we shall not blame the universe,
but some of its parts only taken by themselves; as if one should
blame the hair or toes of a man, taking no notice at all of
his divine visage and countenance; or omitting all other ani
mals, one should attend only to the most contemptible of them;
or lastly, overlooking all other men, consider only the most
deformed Thersites. But that, which God made, was the whole
as one thing; which he that attends to may hear it speaking
to him after this. manner: 'God Almighty hath made me, and
from thence came I, perfect and complete, and standing in need
of nothing, because in me are contained all things; plants and
animals, and good souls, and men happy with virtue and in
numerable demons, and many gods. Nor is the earth alone in
me adorned with all manner of plants, and a variety of ani
mals; or does the power of soul extend at most no further than
to the seas; as if the whole air, and ether, and heaven, in the
meantime, were quite devoid of soul, and altogether unadorned
with living inhabitants. Moreover, all things in me desire good,
and everything reaches to it according to its power and nature.
For the whole depends upon that first and highest good, the
gods themselves, who reign in my several parts, and all animals,
and plants, and whatsoever seems to be inanimate in me. For
some things in me partake only of being, some of life also, some
of sense, some of reason, and some of intellect above reason.
But no man ought to require equal things from unequal; nor
that the finger should see, but the eye; it being enough for the
finger to be a finger, and to perform its own office.' . . . As
an artificer would not make all things in an animal to be eyes;
so neither has the Divine Logos, or spermatic reason of the
world, made all things gods; but some gods, and some demons,
and some men, and some lower animals; not out of envy, but to
display its own variety and fecundity. But we are like un
skilful spectators of a picture, who condemn the limner, be
cause he hath not put bright colors everywhere; whereas he had
suited his colors to every part respectively, giving to each such
as belonged to it. Or else are we like those who would blame
a comedy or tragedy, because they were not all kings or heroes
that acted in it; but some servants and rustic clowns introduced

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 91
also, talking after their rude fashion. Whereas the dramatic
poem would neither be complete, nor elegant and delightful,
were all those worser parts taken out of it."— Vol. II, pp.
837-340. ^F
He then answers several other objections, and con
cludes the work with this passage : —
" And now, having fully confuted all the atheistic grounds, we
confidently conclude that the first original of all things was
neither stupid and senseless matter fortuitously moved, nor a
blind and nescient but orderly and methodical plastic nature; nor
a living matter, having perception or understanding natural,
without animal sense or consciousness; not yet did everything
exist of itself necessarily from eternity, without a cause. But
there is one only necessary existent, the cause of all other
things; and this an absolutely perfect being, infinitely good,
wise and powerful; who hath made all, that was fit to be made,
and according to the best wisdom, and exerciseth an exact provi
dence over all; whose name ought to be hallowed, and separated
from all other things ; to whom be all honor, and glory, and wor
ship, forever and ever. Amen." — Vol. II, p. 360.
But criticism is not to point out the merits of a
work alone; its imperfections and faults must also be
stated. In attempting to explain the phenomena of
the world, he finds two methods pursued; one makes
God to act constantly, or interpose in each operation
of nature, in order to bring about their result; the
other makes the material objects in nature, acting me
chanically, produce the result without any such direct
action or interposition of God. Dr. Cudworth ob
jects to the latter, because it removes God from the
world, making all depend on " fortuitous mechan
ism : " and to the former, because it is inconsistent
with the dignity and character of God to interpose at
the formation of an acorn, or the generation of a
gnat. So he devises a third method, and interposes a
" plastic nature," as he calls it ; that is, he supposes
an unconscious power resides in nature, which works

92 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
blindly, without knowledge, — and yet for certain
definite purposes. Vol. I, pp. 209-254.
As it was said above, Le Clerc defended this doc
trine. But Bayle thought it led to atheism ; * for if
a senseless plastic nature could work intelligently for
ends, all things might be produced out of senseless
matter. But the author supposed this plastic nature
was created by God, to serve as a mediator between
him and nature. It was his instrument to act on the
material world, while Descartes and others supposed
the material world itself was his instrument. Dr.
Cudworth's hypothesis seems altogether unnecessary.
If it is necessary that an arm should strike out of the
clouds (so to say), from time to time, into the wheel-
work of the world, to make the hands move faster or
slower on the dial of time, then the universe is an
imperfect work. A watch that requires to be adjusted
or regulated every hour is not a good watch. If the
material universe is perfect, would it require direct
interposition or interference on the part of its Maker?
Is not the material, the moral, the religious system
of the world perfect? The laws of nature, of mo
rality, and religion — do they not bear their own
swords? Are they not their own rewarders when kept?
their own avengers when violated? To maintain the
opposite is to accuse the Infinite of inability to make
a perfect work; for the arm from the clouds could
only appear to remedy a mistake, or supply a defect,
as the engineer goes about his new machine, to oil a
bearing or tighten a nut. Probably the universe went
as well the first day of creation as now. This doctrine
* This suspicion was the more singular in Bayle, who was not
himself righteous overmuch, and confessed he had never read
the Intellectual System.

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 93
does not remove God from the creation. It makes
Him uniformly present in all parts of it. What are
the laws of nature, morality, and religion, but modes
of God's action? But they are constant modes which
never change, but give so striking a regularity to the
system, that men sometimes call it Fate, and seem
crushed beneath the perpetual presence of the Deity.
This doctrine attributes nothing to " fortuitous mech
anism " (indeed these two terms contradict each
other, fortuitous mechanism is a contrivance that came
by chance), but all to the action of perfect laws which
God has impressed upon matter, and through which
He works. It seems, therefore, to be unnecessary to.
conjure up this phantom to serve the phenomena of
nature withal. Besides, it is not consistent with a
legitimate induction, to suppose arbitrarily the ex
istence of something, because we find it convenient to
explain appearances. But after all, he states this doc
trine rather as an hypothesis, than a dogma.
The author thinks miracles were performed among
heathen nations, as well as among Jews, which modern
Christians, for the most part, indignantly deny. He
says " It is highly probable, if not unquestionable,
that Appollonius of Tyana was assisted by the powers
of the kingdom of darkness, for the doing of some
things extraordinary, to derogate from the miracles
of Christ." He believes also in apparitions of ghosts,
in witchcraft, and the like. But such a behef was
common in his time, — a weakness shared by almost
all the great men of that illustrious age. The errors
of wise men are said to be the glory of dunces ; and
some of that latter school solace themselves for their
follies by quoting the mistakes of sages. They have
illustrious precedents to support them. The hare one

94 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
day, says JEsop, was told that the lion always trem
bled when the cock crew. " Now I know," said she,
" why I am frightened when the dogs bark." But
Dr. Cudworth speaks more doubtfully of ghosts and
devils, than most men of his time. Many of his con
temporaries, some of the fathers of New England
among them, took pains to collect ghost stories and
accounts of " apparitions of the Dyvel " not to pre
pare a philosophy of ghosts and natural history of the
devil, but to gather proofs of the existence of God,
and the immortality of the soul. Strange it is that a
man who sees no sign of the Deity in a blooming
bush, could look for it in the appearance of a devil.
But was not that attempt as profitable as many
pursuits of this day? Was it less edifying than
" fabricating lies for newspapers and political ora
tions? "
Some readers complain of the Intellectual System
as a dull book; and the author does sometimes weary
the reader with proofs, with beautiful extracts, from
all sorts of writers, to prove what readers will take for
granted, without proof. But he wished the founda
tion to be sound and firm, and took more pains to be
ample than concise, knowing it easier for the reader to
pass over a passage when printed, than to search it
out when omitted. But no man knows better than
he how to condense and illustrate. We know of few
philosophical works so full of pertinent and beautiful
illustrations as this.
His frequent digressions, though valuable in them
selves, often break the argument. They would stand
better in an appendix. Again, it is said, he is not
choice in selecting his witnesses; and it is true that
some are not unexceptionable. But has he not pro-

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 95
duced testimony sufficient to establish all his positions ?
He follows Jambhchus, and other favorite Alexan
drians, (whom he quotes as famiharly as if they were
his table companions, at Christ's College) with more
faith than some modern scholars think them entitled
to. But who shall say he follows them too far, or
presses their testimony beyond a proper point? Even
Warburton, though not prone to flatter, calls him " the
accurate Cudworth."
Dr. Cudworth was a good critic, as well as a great
reader; and yet criticism was neither so common nor
so accurate in his time, as in ours ; but the tact with
which he separates the genuine from the spurious, is
remarkable. An instance of this may be found in the
long discussion upon the Orphic verses, in Vol. I, p.
394, et seq.
It may now be asked what, on the whole, are the
merits of this work? Did it deserve republication?
If it were regarded simply as a common-place book,
of choice extracts from writers little known, it were an
invaluable work to the general reader. But it is a
vast magazine of arguments for the defense of theism
and true religion. It is replete, from end to end, with
theological and philosophical truth. The careful and
intelligent scholar in these times is surprised to see the
discoveries of modern philosophy anticipated in this
old book, from a contemporary and countryman of
Locke. Scarcely is there a truth brought to light by
the modern philosophy, which may not be found, as a
doctrine, or a hint, in the writings of these Latitude
Men. Those truths, which most of all elevate the
soul; excite lofty aspirations after the good, the true,
the holy and the perfect; those that kindle a faith
which burns without consuming, and leads the soul to

96 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
an absolute trust in God, are thickly sown through
all the writings of that school. This work has its
full share of them. We often recur to it, and with
new pleasure. It dwells in our memory like an holy
and deep sound, heard in the sunny season of child
hood. Like the countenance of Moses, it beams with
light. The True Intellectual System of the Universe is
hke a large palace, with wide and lofty halls, broad
stairways, long galleries, and curious closets ; filled
with huge furniture of strange and various shape, —
this carved and gilded, that of rude simphcity ; a pal
ace filled with a motley multitude of all nations, and
every age; some spiritual, others worldly, and speak
ing the most various tongues. The stranger at first is
confounded. He stares and grows giddy. He sees
not the use of the fantastic arrangements about him.
He knows not whither the galleries conduct; is aston
ished at the mingling of magnificence and poverty ;
is dazzled by the lights and stunned by the din of
many voices, — opinion conflicting with opinion. In
the midst of all, the host moves royally about, has a
use for all his furniture, cumbrous though it seems.
He reconciles the opposing; has a word for every
guest ; brings them all to tell their own tales ; sifts the
truth from each, and beautifully sums up the result
he has gathered from all, — and in a voice of winning
softness announces the glad tidings, so welcome to
most. " There is the Infinite Father watching for
ever over each of His children. Fear not." Then the
stranger finds a clue to this tortuous labyrinth. He
sees there are no passages that lead to nothing; no
crypts filled with darkness; and no tables set for
show.

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 97
Dr. Cudworth was a disciple of the past, but he
was not its slave. He stood " on the conflux of two
extremities," with his face to the future, whence he
looked for light. Now truth comes to us in a great
tide down from its perennial fountain — God. As there
are uncounted stars, whose light has not yet reached
us, though winging its swift way ever since the dawn
of time; so there are truths in the future, yet to de
scend on man. Dr. Cudworth, asserting the birth
right of the scholar, looked to God for this portion of
truth. It came, and he was satisfied for himself.
But he had fallen on evil times ; other men would not
set face to the light and receive this truth. Their
faces, to use the figure of Plato, were nailed to the
ground. He desired to awake these souls who slum
bered like the seven sleepers, and so he told them the
truths he had seen and felt. But the great vulgar
turned in their sleep, and exclaimed, " Lo, a dreamer
of dreams," and the small vulgar as they nodded in
slumber, re-echoed " Lo, a dreamer of dreams." The
Christian see-er replies that " old men eloquent " have
seen the same things, and heard similar truths. If the
sleepers will not hear one, perhaps they will listen to
many and famous men. Therefore he awakes the
voices of the past, that they may confirm his truth.
The nightly shades of olden time leave cerement and
shroud, and confirm the sayings of the modern sage.
The vision he had seen, the voice he heard from the
future, were thus reflected and echoed by the past;
philosophy was confirmed by history, and faith justi
fied by experience. The genius of the future and the
past were both before him; one wearing the maiden's
bridal robe, the other, mournfully clad in the widow's
weeds of disappointment. A man of large discourse,
XIV— 7

98 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
looking before and after him, he asked counsel of
both. The maiden bade him hope; and the widow
read him the dear-bought experience of a bitter life.
Their united counsel made up his system of philoso
phy. The maid and the widow shook hands, and em
braced, and taught him, as he has taught others, that
what is not behind us is before us, and what is to be,
is better than what has been.
We hail the publication of this book, as one among
many good omens. It is a stupendous pile of learn
ing, and has few or no equals in this respect. But
to us, it is not the learning or the wisdom of the man
that is most striking. Others may equal him in erudi
tion, and in wisdom ; nay, he has many superiors. But
the candor which fairly estimates every argument, the
charity that radiates from every page, is most strik
ing and most admirable. He quarrels with no one.
He reproves without malice; confutes without tri
umph ; and never answers with a sneer. If ever a diffi
cult controversy was ably conducted, it was this. A
man must be charmed by the spirit, if not convinced
by the arguments. Ralph Cudworth! — We love to
dwell on the name, — a scholar without pedantry, a
logician without obstinacy, keeping his temper, and
shedding the light of love throughout a theological
controversy. [Note. — We ought to add that the celebrated
Mosheim translated the Intellectual System into Latin,
with several other works of Dr. Cudworth.6 The copy
in our hands is the 2d improved edition (Lug. Bat.
1743, 2 vols, 4 to.) It contains also a short account
of the author's works and life, several valuable pref
aces to the several treatises, and dissertations and
numerous notes, which often correct the mistakes of

CUDWORTH'S SYSTEM 99
the author himself. The present edition of the Intel
lectual System would have been still more valuable, if
a judicious selection from these dissertations and notes
had accompanied the text. J

Ill
A LETTER TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION OF
CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS TOUCH
ING CERTAIN MATTERS OF THEIR
THEOLOGY
Gentlemen :
The peculiar circumstances of the last few years
have placed both you and me in new relations to
the public, and to one another. Your recent actions
constrain me to write you this public letter, that
all may the more fully understand the matter at issue
between us, and the course you design to pursue.
You are a portion of the Unitarian body, and your
opinions and conduct will no doubt have some influ
ence upon that body. You have, I am told, at great
length and in several consecutive meetings, discussed
the subject of my connection with your reverend body ;
you have debated the matter whether you should expel
me for heresy, and by a circuitous movement, recently
made, have actually excluded me from preaching the
Thursday Lecture. I do not call in question your
motives, for it is not my office to judge you, neither
do I now complain of your conduct, public or private,
towards me during the last three years. That has
been various. Some members of your Association have
uniformly treated me with the courtesy common
amongst gentlemen; some also with the civilities that
are usual amongst ministers of the same denomination.
Towards some of your number I entertain an affec
tionate gratitude for the good words I have heard from
their lips in my youth. I feel a great regard for
100

TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION 101
some of you, on account of their noble and Christian
characters, virtuous, self-denying, pious, and without
bigotry. I cherish no unkind f eehngs towards the rest
of you; towards none of you do I feel ill-will on ac
count of what has passed. I have treated my oppo
nents with a forbearance which, I think, has not always
been sufficiently appreciated by such as have had the
chief benefit of that forbearance. However, I hope
never to be driven either by abuse from an opponent,
or by treachery of a pretended friend, to depart from
the course of forbearance which I have hitherto, and
uniformly, pursued.
But since you have, practically, taken so decided a
stand, and have so frequently discussed me and my af
fairs among yourselves, and have at last made your
movement, I think it important that the public should
have a distinct knowledge of your theological position.
I am searching for truth, however humbly, and I sup
pose that you are as desirous of imparting to others
as of receiving it from Heaven; therefore I shall pro
ceed to ask you certain questions, a good deal talked
of at the present day, to which I venture to ask a dis
tinct and categorical reply. But, by way of prelim
inary, I will first refresh your memory with a few
facts. Until recently the Unitarians have been supposed
to form the advance-guard, so to say, of the Church
militant; at least they have actually been the move
ment party in theology. It may hurt the feelings
of some men, now, to confess it, but I think it is true.
As such, the Unitarians have done a great work. As
I understand the matter, this work was in part intel
lectual — for they really advanced theological science
both negatively, by the exposure of errors, and posi-

102 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
tively, by the establishment of truths ; — but in greater
part moral, for they declared either directly, or by im
plication, the right of each man to investigate for him
self in matters pertaining to religion, and his right
also to the Christian name if he claimed it, and by his
character seemed to deserve it. They called them
selves " hberal " Christians, and seemed to consider
that he was the best Christian who was most like Christ
in character and hfe, thus making religion the essen
tial of Christianity, and leaving each man to determine
his own theology. They began their history by a de
nial of the Trinity, a doctrine very dear to the Chris
tian Church, of very ancient standing therein, common
alike to Catholics and Protestants, — a doctrine for
centuries regarded as essential to the Christian scheme,
the fundamental dogma of Christianity. For this de
nial they encountered the usual fate of the movement
party; — they were denied Christian fellowship, and
got a bad name, which they keep even now. I am told
that they are still called " infidels " by the Trinitarian
leaders, and that, you know, gentlemen, is a term of
great reproach in the theological world. It has been
asserted, I think, in some orthodox journal, that the
lamented Dr. Channing, whose name is now perhaps
praised by your Association oftener than his example
is followed, undoubtedly went to hell for his sin in de
nying that Jesus of Nazareth was the Infinite God.
Gentlemen, these things happened not a great many
years ago. I do not wonder at the treatment the Uni
tarians have received, and still receive, where they are
not numerous and powerful, for the Trinitarians main
tain that no one can be saved without a belief in cer
tain doctrines of their theology, which very doctrines
the Unitarians stoutly denied, and in public too. The

TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION 103
orthodox were consistent in what the Unitarians then re
garded as persecution, and, I doubt not, would have
used the old arguments, fagots and the ax — had not
the laws of the land rendered it quite impossible to re
sort to this ultimate standard of theological appeal,
which had been a favorite with many of the clergy for
more than fourteen centuries. The Unitarians com
plained of that treatment as not altogether Christian.
But now, gentlemen, it seems to me that some of
you are pursuing the same course you once complained
of, and if I rightly apprehend the theology of your
learned body — of which, however, I am not quite
sure — without the same consistency, having no war
rant therefor in your theological system. I say noth
ing of your motives in all this; nothing of the spirit
in which some of you have acted. That matter is be
yond my reach ; to your own master you stand or fall.
In 1841 I preached a sermon at South Boston, at an
ordination. That was soon attacked by the Rev. Mr*
Fairchild, and numerous other clergymen, of several
denominations, equally zealous for the Christian faith.'
Since that time most of you have refused me the min
isterial courtesies commonly shown to the ministers of
the same denomination. And yet, gentlemen, I think
these courtesies are not, in all denominations, withheld
when one of the parties has a moral reputation that is
at least ambiguous. Only five of your number I be
lieve have since exchanged with me, though compara
tively but few members of other Unitarian associations
have departed from their former course. I do not
complain of this ; — I simply state the fact.
Now, gentlemen, there is one matter on which you
will allow me to pause a moment. The Benevolent
Fraternity of Churches is, I suppose, virtually, though

104 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
not formally, under the direction of certain members
of your Association. Now that Fraternity has virtu
ally expelled from his office a minister engaged in a
noble and Christian work, and performing that work
with rare ability and success. You have thus expelled
him from his place, simply because he extended minis
terial fellowship to me in common with ministers of
several other denominations. The case of Mr. Sar
gent is peculiar, and I must dwell a moment on a few
particulars respecting it. If I rightly remember, his
family contributed largely to the erection and embel
lishment of the chapel out of which he is expelled. He
has himself spent freely his own property for the poor
under his charge, and has been untiring in his labors.
No shadow of reproach attaches to his name. He is
above suspicion of immorality ; but on the contrary,
is distinguished beyond his fellows by the excellence
of his character, and the nobleness of his life. A
righteous and a self-denying man, he went out into
the lanes and highways of Boston, gathering together
the poor and the forsaken, and formed a society which
prospered under his ministry, and became strongly at
tached to him. And yet, gentlemen, some of you have
seen fit, knowing all these circumstances, by demand
ing of him a pledge that he would never exchange with
me — to drive away from the field of his labors and
the arms of his parish this noble man — solely because
he extended the usual ministerial fellowship to me, and
yet I still continue a member of your Association ! I
think he has never been accused, perhaps not suspected,
of preaching in his pulpit, or even believing in his
study, the peculiar doctrines of my own theology, which
are so obnoxious to some of you, and apparently reck
oned worse than a grave moral offense. It may be

TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION 105
said that Mr. Sargent was minister over a vassal-
church and the Fraternity were his feudal superiors,
and this seems to be true. You will say, furthermore,
that the Boston Association, as a whole, is not responsi
ble for the acts of the Fraternity, and this is doubtless
the case, but as I think some of its members are ac
countable, to them let the above remarks apply. I
pass to another matter.
The Unitarians have no recognized and public creed.
It used to be their glory. At the Theological School
in Cambridge, I subscribed no symbolical books; at
my ordination I assented to no form of doctrines —
neither church nor council requesting it. When I be
came a member of your learned body, no one asked
me of my opinions, whether orthodox or heterodox.
No one even demanded a promise that I should never
change an opinion, or discover a new truth! I know
well, gentlemen, that I differ, and that very widely,
from the systems of theology which are taught, and
from the philosophy which underlies those systems. I
have no wish to disguise my theology, nor shelter it
beneath the authority of your Association. Let it
stand or fall by itself. But still, I do not know that
I have transgressed the limits of Unitarianism, for I
do not know what those limits are. It is a great glory
to a hberal association to have no symbolical books,
but a great inconvenience that a sect becoming ex
clusive should not declare its creed. I cannot utter the
shibboleth of a party till I first hear it pronounced in
the orthodox way. I shall presently proceed to beg
you to point out the limits of scientific freedom, and
tell the maximum of theological belief which distin
guishes you from the " orthodox " on the one side, and
the minimum thereof, which distinguishes you from
the " infidels " on the other side.

106 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Gentlemen, you refuse me fellowship; you discuss
the question whether you shall expel me from your
Association, and you actually, though indirectly, pro
hibit me, as I understand it, from preaching " The
Great and Thursday Lecture." Gentlemen, I wish to
know distinctly the ground you take in this matter. It
is not altogether plain why you put yourselves in your
peculiar attitude towards me. Mr. Sargent is expelled
for granting me ministerial fellowship. He was an
accessory after the fact in my alleged heresies — and
being but a vassal of the Fraternity, and therefore
within their power, is punished while the principal of
the mischief is allowed to go unscathed, and other
clergymen who exchange with me, but have no feudal
lords, retain their places as before. Here the issue is
obvious, and Mr. Sargent is expelled from his pulpit
for positive misprision of heresy, if I may make use
of such a term. Of course the same decree excludes
him from his pulpit and the Association. But I am
told that Mr. Pierpont was quite as effectually ex
cluded from the actual fellowship of your Association,
as even myself; for while three of the city members of
your Association have continued to extend ministerial
fellowship to me — Mr. Pierpont, Mr. Sargent, and
Mr. Clarke, — only three — Mr. Gannett, Mr. Sargent,
and Mr. Waterston — if I am rightly informed, have
actually extended that fellowship to him since the time
of the famed Hollis-street council, though Messrs.
Clarke and Bartol have offered exchanges! Yet I
think he is guilty of no heresy, — theological and spec
ulative heresy I mean, for in practical affairs it is well
known that his course is the opposite of that pursued
by most of his brethren in the city.
Still more, at a conference I had with the Associa-

TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION 107
tion, a little more than two years ago, the chairman of
the Association — the Rev. Dr. Parkman — declared
that my main offense was not my theological heresies,
they would have been forgiven and forgot, had it not
been for an article I published on the Hollis-street
council (printed in the Dial for Oct. 1842), in which,
as he alleged, I " poured scorn and contempt upon the
brethren." Yet others charge me with heresies, and
on account thereof, I am told, actually deny my right
to Christian fellowship from them, and even my title
to the Christian name.
In this intricate confusion, gentlemen, you will prob
ably see the necessity of saying a word to put all things
in a fair light, that I may know on what point you
and I are really at issue. Notwithstanding the re
marks of the Rev. Dr. Parkman, I am still inclined to
the behef that the charge of heresy is the main charge,
and as you have had the field of controversy entirely
to yourselves these several years, and as yet have not,
as a body, made a public and authorized statement of
your theological behef, I must beg you to inform me
what is orthodoxy according to the Boston Associa
tion. The orthodoxy of the Catholic Church I know
very well; I am not wholly ignorant of what is called
orthodox by the Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches;
but the orthodoxy of the Boston Association of Con
gregational Ministers is not a thing so easy to come
at. As I try to comprehend it, I feel I am looking at
something dim and undefined. It changes color, and
it changes shape ; now it seems a mountain, then it ap
pears like a cloud. You will excuse me, gentlemen, —
but though I have been more than seven years a mem
ber of your reverend body, I do not altogether compre
hend your theology — nor know what is orthodox.

108 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
You will do me a great service if you will publish your
symbolical books, and let the world know what is the
true doctrine according to the Boston Association of
Congregational Ministers.
I have defined my own position as well as I could,
and will presently beg you to reply distinctly, cate
gorically, and unequivocally to the following ques
tions. Gentlemen, you are theologians ; men of leisure
and learning ; mighty in the Scriptures. Some of you
have grown grey in teaching the world; most of you,
I think, make no scruple of passing judgment, public
and private, on my opinions and myself. It is there
fore to be supposed that you have examined things at
large, and been curious in particulars ; have searched
into the mysteries of things, deciding what is true,
what false, what Christian, and what not, and so have
determined on a standard of doctrines, which is to you
well known, accessible, and acknowledged by all. Some
of you can sling stones at a hair's breadth in the arena
of theology. You are many, and I am standing alone.
Of course I shall take it for granted that you have,
each and all, thoroughly, carefully, and profoundly
examined the matters at issue between us ; that you
have made up your minds thereon, and are all entirely
agreed in your conclusions, and that, on all points ;
for surely it were not charitable to suppose, without
good and sufficient proof, that a body of Christian
ministers, — conscientious men, learned and aware of
the difficulties of the case, — would censure and virtu
ally condemn one of their number for heresy, unless
they had made personal investigation of the whole mat
ter, had themselves agreed on their standard of ortho
doxy, and were quite ready to place that standard
before the eyes of the whole people. I beg that this

TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION 109
standard of Unitarian orthodoxy, as it is agreed upon
and established by the authority of the Boston Asso
ciation, may be set before my eyes, and those of the
public at the same time, and therefore, gentlemen, I
propose to you the following QUESTIONS
CLASS I.  SCHOLASTIC QUESTIONS RELATING TO THE
DEFINITION OF TEEMS FREQUENTLY
USED IN THEOLOGY.
1. What do you mean by the word salvation?
2. What do you mean by a miracle?
3. What do you mean by inspiration?
4. What do you mean by revelation?
CLASS II.— DOGMATIC QUESTIONS RELATING TO CER
TAIN DOCTRINES OF THEOLOGY.
5. In questions of theology, to what shall a man
appeal, and what is the criterion whereby he is to test
theological, moral, and religious doctrines; are there
limits to theological inquiry,— and if so, what are
those limits? is truth to be accepted because it is true,
and right to be followed because it is right, or for
some other reason?
6. What are the conditions of salvation, both theo
retical and practical, and how are they known?
7. What do you consider the essential doctrines of
Christianity ; what moral and religious truth is taught
by Christianity, that was wholly unknown to the hu
man race before the time of Christ? — and is there any
doctrine of Christianity that is not a part also of
natural religion?
8. Do you believe all the books in the Bible came

110 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
from the persons to whom they are, in our common
version thereof, ascribed? — or what are genuine
canonical Scriptures?
9. Do you believe that all or any of the authors of
the Old Testament were miraculously inspired, so that
all or any of their language can properly be called
the Word of God, and their writings constitute a
miraculous revelation? or are those writings to be
judged of, as other writings, by their own merits, and
so are to pass for what they are worth ; in short, what
is the authority of the Old Testament, and what rela
tion does it bear to man, — that of master or servant ?
10. Do you believe the law contained in the Penta
teuch, in all parts and particulars, is miraculously in
spired or revealed to man? — or is it, like the laws of
Massachusetts, a human work, in whole or in part?
11. Do you believe the miracles related in the Old
Testament, for example, that God appeared in a hu
man form, spoke in human speech, walked in the gar
den of Eden, eat and drank; that He commanded
Abraham to sacrifice Isaac ; and made the verbal dec
larations so often attributed to Him in the Old Testa
ment ; that Moses spoke with Him " as a man speaketh
with his friend ; " that the miracles alleged to have
been wrought for the sake of the Hebrews in Egypt,
the Red Sea, Arabia, and Palestine, and recorded in
the Bible, were actual facts; that the birth of Isaac,
Samson, and Samuel, was miraculous; that Balaam's
ass spoke the Hebrew words put into his mouth; that
God did miraculously give to Moses and others men
tioned in the Old Testament, the commands there as
cribed to Him ; that the sun stood still as related in the
book of Joshua ; that Jonah was swallowed by a large
fish, and while within the fish, composed the ode as-

TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION 111
cribed to him; and do you believe all the miracles re
lated in the books of Daniel, Job, and elsewhere, in
the Old Testament?
12. Do you believe that any prophet of the Old
Testament, solely through a miraculous revelation
made to him by God, did distinctly and unequivocaUy
foretell any distant and future event which has since
come to pass, and in special, that any prophet of the
Old Testament did thereby, and in manner aforesaid,
distinctly and unequivocally foretell the birth, life,
sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazar
eth, so that Jesus was, in the proper and exclusive
sense of the word, the Messiah predicted by the proph
ets, and expected by the Jews?
13. What do you think is the meaning of the
phrase, " Thus saith the Lord," with its kindred ex
pressions, in the Old Testament?
14. Do you believe that all or any of the authors
of the New Testament were miraculously inspired, so
that all or any of their language can properly be
called the Word of God, and their writings constitute
a miraculous revelation, or are those writings to be
judged of as other writings, by their own merits, and
so are to pass for what they are worth? in short, what
is the authority of the New Testament, and what re
lation does it bear to man — that of master or serv
ant? 15. Do you believe the Christian apostles were mi
raculously inspired to teach, write, or act, with such a
mode, kind, or degree of inspiration as is not granted
by God, in all time, to other men equally wise, moral,
and pious ; do you think the apostles were so in
formed by miraculous inspiration as never to need
the exercise of the common faculties of man, and

112 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
never to fall into any errors of fact and doctrine, or
are we to suppose that the apostles were mistaken in
their announcement of the speedy destruction of the
world, of the resurrection of the body, etc.?
16. What do you think is the nature of Jesus of
Nazareth; — was he God, man, or a being neither
God nor man, and how does he affect the salvation of
mankind; in what sense is he the Saviour, Mediator,
and Redeemer?
17. Do you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was mi
raculously born, as it is related in two of the Gospels,
with but one human parent; that he was tempted by
the devil, and transfigured, talking actually with
Moses and Elias; that he actually transformed the
substance of water into the substance of wine; fed
five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes ; that
he walked on the waters; miraculously stilled a tem
pest ; sent demons out of men into a herd of swine ;
and that he restored to life persons wholly and en
tirely dead?
18. Do you believe that Jesus had a miraculous and
infallible inspiration — different in kind or mode from
that granted to other wise, good, and pious men —
informing him to such a degree that he never made
a mistake in matters pertaining to religion, to theol
ogy, to philosophy, or to any other department of
human concern; and that therefore he teaches with
an authority superior to reason, conscience, and the
religious sentiment in the individual man?
19. Do you believe that it is impossible for God
to create a being with the same moral and religious
excellence that Jesus had, but also with more and
greater intellectual and other faculties, and send him
into the world as a man; or has Jesus exhausted

TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION 113
either or both the capacity of man, or the capability
of God?
20. Do you believe that from a state of entire and
perfect death, Jesus returned to a state of entire and
perfect physical life ; that he did all the works, and ut
tered all the words, attributed to him in the conclud
ing parts of the Gospels, after his resurrection, and
was subsequently taken up into heaven, bodily and
visibly, as mentioned in the book of Acts?
21. Do you believe that at the death of Jesus the
earth quaked, the rocks were rent; that darkness pre
vailed over the land for three hours; that the graves
were opened, and many bodies of saints that slept
arose, and appeared to many?
22. Do you believe that Jesus, or any of the writers
of the New Testament, believed in, and taught the ex
istence of a personal devil, of angels good or bad, of
demons who possessed the bodies of men ; and do you,
yourselves, beheve the existence of a personal devil,
of such angels and demons; in special, do you believe
that the angel Gabriel appeared to Zacharias, and to
the Virgin Mary, and uttered exactly those words as
cribed to him in the third Gospel?
23. Do you beheve that the writers of the four
Gospels, and the book of Acts, never mingled mythi
cal, poetical, or legendary matter in their composi
tions; that they never made a mistake in a matter of
fact; and that they have, in all cases, reported the
words and actions of Jesus, with entire and perfect
accuracy ?
24. Do you beheve the miracles related in the book
of Acts, — for example, the miraculous inspiration
of the apostles at Pentecost; the cures effected by
Peter, his vision, his miraculous deliverance from
XIV— 8

114 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
prison " by the angel of the Lord ; " the miraculous
death of Ananias and Sapphira; the miraculous con
version of Paul; that diseased persons were cured by
handkerchiefs and aprons brought to them from Paul ;
and that he and Stephen actually, and with the body's
eye, saw Jesus Christ, an actual object exterior to
themselves ?
25. Do you believe that Peter, in the Acts, cor
rectly explains certain passages of the Old Testament,
as referring to Jesus of Nazareth, his sufferings,
death, and resurrection ; that Jesus himself — if the
Gospels truly represent his words — in all cases, ap
plies the language of the Old Testament to himself
in its proper and legitimate meaning; was he never
mistaken in this matter, or have the passages of the
Old Testament many meanings?
26. Do you think that a belief in the miraculous
inspiration of all or any of the writers of the Old Tes
tament or New Testament ; that a belief in all or any of
the miracles therein mentioned; that a belief in the
miraculous birth, life, resurrection, and ascension of
Jesus ; that a belief in his miraculous, universal, and
infallible inspiration, is essential to a perfect Chris
tian character, to salvation and acceptance with God,
or even to participation in the Christian name? and
if so, what doctrine of morality or religion really
and necessarily rests, in whole or in part, on such a
belief? 27. Do you believe that the two ordinances, —
Baptism and the Lord's Supper, — are, in themselves,
essential, necessary, and of primary importance as
ends, valuable for their own sakes, or that they are
but helps and means for the formation of the Chris
tian character, and therefore valuable only so far as
they help to form that character?

TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION 115
28. Do you think it wrong or unchristian in an
other, to abandon and expose what he deems a popu
lar error, or to embrace and proclaim an unpopular
truth ; do you count yourselves, theoreticaUy, to have
attained aU religious and theological truth, and to have
retained no error in your own creed, so that it is wholly
unnecessary for you, on the one hand, to re-examine
your own opinions, or, on the other, to search further
for light and truth, or do you think yourselves com
petent, without such search, or such examination, to
pronounce a man an infidel, and no Christian, solely
because he believes many things in theology which
you reject, and rejects some things which you be
heve? Gentlemen, you have yourselves constrained me to
write this letter. I write to you in this open way,
for I wish that the pubhc may understand your opin
ions as weU as my own. I beg you wiU give your
serious attention to the above questions, and return
me a public answer, not circuitously, but in a straight
forward, manly way, and at your earliest convenience.
I have, at various times, as distinctly as possible, set
forth my own views, and as you have publicly placed
yourselves in a hostile attitude to me; as some of you
have done aU in your power to disown me, and as you
have done this, partly, on account of my alleged
heresies ; it is but due to yourselves to open the gospel
according to the Boston Association, give the public
an opportunity to take the length and breadth of
your standard of Unitarian orthodoxy, and teU us
aU what you reaUy think on the points above-men
tioned. Then you and I shall know in what we differ ;
there will be a clear field before us, and if we are

116 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
doomed to contend, we shaU not fight in the dark. I
have invited your learned attention to matters on
which it is supposed that you have inquired and made
up your minds, and that you are entirely agreed
among yourselves, and yet that you differ most widely
from me. I have not, however, touched the great
philosophical questions which lie at the bottom of all
theology, because I do not understand that you have
yourselves raised these questions, or consciously and
distinctly joined issue upon them with me. Gentle
men, you are men of leisure, and I am busied with
numerous cares; you are safe in your multitude of
council, while I have comparatively none to advise
with. But notwithstanding these advantages, so emi
nently on your side, I have not feared to descend into
the arena, and looking only for the truth, to write you
this letter. I shall pause, impatient for your reply;
and, with hearty wishes for your continued prosperity,
your increased usefulness, and growth ahke in aU
Christian virtues and every manly grace, I remain,
gentlemen, Your obedient servant,
Theodore Parker.
West Roxbury, March 20, 1845.

IV

A FRIENDLY LETTER TO THE EXECUTIVE
COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN UNI
TARIAN ASSOCIATION TOUCHING
THEIR NEW UNITARIAN CREED
OR GENERAL PROCLAMATION
OF UNITARIAN VIEWS 1
Gentlemen : —
At the recent meeting of the American Unitarian
Association, on the 24th of last May, you submitted
to that body a " Report," containing certain matters
which lead me to address you this friendly letter. As
a life-member of long standing in the Association, I
feel caUed on to do this. For while in virtue of my
membership, I enjoy the privilege of receiving the
" tracts," published from time to time, I am aware
that I also owe certain duties consequent on my mem
bership, and on the enjoyment of that privilege. And
though the membership was conferred on me without
any action of my own, stiU I must look upon it in the
nature of a trust, as well as a benefit, and must dis
charge the duties it involves. It is, therefore, in my
capacity as a hfe-member of the American Unitarian
Association, that I write you this letter, though I con
fess I feel that I owe likewise a duty to some Unitarian
ministers younger than myself, and to the public at
large, which I think I cannot accomplish without writ
ing you this letter.
In " The Twenty-eighth Report of the American
Unitarian Association," you say the tracts of the As-
117

118 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
sociation " are carried to the remotest and least in
habited portions of our broad land, and are read with
avidity by the pioneer in our country's civilization ; "
and add, that " in many portions of our country, the
inquiry, 'What is truth?' has lost none of its signif
icance, and cannot be slighted, if we would be faithful
to the cause of our Master." StiU further you ask,
" Is not one of the pressing wants in all new societies,
that of weU-considered and clearly-defined opinions,
as to what the New Testament teaches, and what it re
quires? "
From these and other statements I infer that you
desire to make known, widely and rapidly, the pecu
liar doctrines of religion which you hold dear. You
say, —
" During the year we have been encouraged in our work by
witnessing in different sections of our body a deep-felt desire for
a closer alliance among those holding our common faith, a more
intimate union of our churches, a convention of their moral
forces in accomplishing appropriate Christian objects." (Re
port, p. 12.)
I rejoice with you in this encouraging aspect of
things, and share that desire.
You add, moreover, that a clergyman from one of
the Western States assured you
" That there were large numbers earnestly desiring a church
organization which would secure mental independence, and wait
ing to hear the Gospel interpreted more in harmony with the in
structions of enlightened reason, and the clearest dictates of our
moral nature." (p. 13.)
You express a desire, " not only to enter upon, but
largely to occupy this field of labor," — that is, if I
understand your language correctly, you wish to es
tablish church organizations, which will " secure men-

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 119
tal independence," and furnish a form of religion that
is perfectly in harmony with the instructions of en
lightened reason, and the clearest dictates of man's
moral nature. You declare that
" Long-established formulas have, to no small extent, ceased to
express the results of individual experience, and have lost much
of their power over the common mind." (p. 13.)
After stating that the receipts of money for the
purposes of the denomination " fail to indicate the
required fidelity to our trust, as stewards of divine
mercies in Jesus Christ," you " ask attention to the
present attitude of our body, the difficulties with which
it struggles, and the special duties incumbent upon it."
You say, —
"We find that there were in the so-called Unitarian Contro
versy three primary drifts of meaning and purpose. First, it
was a maintenance of the fullest right of individual freedom of
judgment in all matters of opinion, a protest of discriminating
consciences against the tyranny of church parties, tests, and
creeds. Secondly, it was an assertion of the right province of
reason in the interpretation of Scripture, and in the decision of
religious and theological questions — a protest of enlightened
understandings against the unnatural and repulsive points of the
prevailing theology. Thirdly, it was a claim for a more genial
and winning expression of the Christian character, a more hope
ful and elevating view of man and nature in their actual rela
tions to God — a protest of generous hearts against the stiff
and stern formalities of the Puritanical piety." (p. 15.)
You state the occasion of that controversy :
"Among the people here, the congregational system of church
government, established from the first, had fostered in a high
degree the spirit of liberty, personal freedom of thought and
speech. Their marked intellectual characteristics and admirable
educational system, had developed, to an uncommon extent, the
spirit of intelligence and inquiry. Their ancestral experience,
with its transmitted effects, had eminently nourished the spirit of
loyalty to individual convictions of truth. And the strong hu-

120 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
mane tendencies of the age had kindled the spirit of philan
thropy. Under these circumstances — eagerly interested, and
deeply versed, as both clergy and laity then generally were in
researches and discussions on all the mooted subjects of the
ology — a decided and somewhat extensive advance of rational
and liberal views could scarcely fail to result."
" Accordingly, the offensive forms in which the darker dogmas
of the common theology were at that time held, were emphatic
ally assailed by many, and really rejected by more. This led to
discussions, dissensions, bitter charges, and recriminations. The
exclusives demanded the expulsion of their liberal brethren from
fellowship. The liberals declared that the only just condition
of a right to the Christian name and fellowship, was acknowl
edgment of the revelation by Christ, and manifestation of a.
Christian character and life. Their opponents insisted on the
acceptance of the prevalent creeds in detail. By votes of ma
jorities, they made such a test and compelled its observance.
Precisely this assumption of human authority was the actual
cause of the final outbreak and division. The minority, refusing
to yield, were driven from the common fellowship of the
churches, and forced into a virtually distinct denominational ex
istence and attitude." (pp. IS, 16.)
You declare that the formation of the hberal, that
is, the Unitarian party, was " a necessary act of self-
del ense, to preserve intact from the tyranny of ma
jorities the right which they had always exercised here
of perfect individual freedom in matters of opinion."
" The only striking particular on which they all held
the same distinct view was in rejecting the Trinity,
and proclaiming the Unity of God."
But this belief of the unity of God, you are per
haps aware, was not pecuhar to the new sect; for
almost all the Trinitarians affirm the unity of God,
a denial of which, or an affirmation of the multiplicity
of gods, would be deemed a heresy, I take it, among
either Catholic or Protestant Trinitarians. If this
be so, then the new party were distinguished from
others by their disbelief in the Trinity. Their only

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 121
distinctive agreement, therefore, was in a negation.
StiU further you add:
"The new party in reality chiefly sought to efect the pro
tection of their personal religious freedom from ecclesiastical
encroachments, and chiefly desired to assert that Christianity is
a practical religion rather than a theoretical theology, and that
what makes a man acceptable or otherwise to God is not meta
physical truths or errors, but pure faith and love, piety and
good works, or their opposites." (p. 17.)
It seems to me that you do not overrate the actual
services of the Unitarian party, or the influence it has
had in the spiritual development of America. You
say, —
" In the first place, in co-operation with other causes, it has
led to this: that while forty years ago there were only about
twenty churches on the continent standing upon the Unitarian
platform, there are now more than three thousand agreeing with
us in nearly all essential doctrines, and entirely agreeing with us
in the catholic spirit in which we would have religion estab
lished and administered. In the second place, it has been princi
pally instrumental in securing an immense modification of all
the most inconsistent and revolting features of the established
theology and preaching, so that they are no longer to be com
pared with what they were." (p. 18.)
Yet you think that the Unitarian body does " not
possess the organized and operative power which we
ought to be wielding ; " and that " our views have not
acquired a tithe of the prevalence which they ought to
have reached ere now." (p. 18.)
You then " glance briefly at the causes of this undue
limitation of our progress." I will copy some of the
things you say respecting five of these causes, of which
you speak in detail.
I. ^_The liberal movement_was in its origin a negative act ot_
_self-defenser fTwas in ^regard to all detail vague and inde
terminate.'' But, you add, " it need no longer be so." " Now,
we are ready to define our position, and concentrate and direct

122 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
our energies, and invite the attention of the world to our aims
and our methods. Our movement is no longer a contingent,
local affair, but a broad and determined effort to purify our
r religion from the~metaphysical abstractions and historic corrup-
tions connected with it, and to diffuse a pure and rational Chris-
_ tianity among men." (pp. 1H, is).)
11. " Uur cause has been greatly hindered by the almost ex
clusively intellectual character it took at the commencement."
" It practically elevated pure morals and kindly charities among
men far above all passionate fervors of piety towards God. Its
intellectual isolation and quietude could not stir and win the
great masses of the people. But in this particular we are now,
and have been for several years, more and more improving.
Our preachers and our laity now recognize the necessity of
piety as well as of morality." (pp. 19, 20.)
III. " A very great obstacle to the general adoption of our
interpretations of Scripture, and conclusions in theology, is the
tremendous power of prejudices instilled by education, and
nourished by custom." (p. 20.)
IV. Another enemy "is the subtle power of social prestige.
Except in some parts of New England, and in a few other
places, the so-called best society, the wealth, fashion, power of
the Christian world, move in circles alien from our peculiar
views, and regarding them with undissembled horror. The im
mense and dishonorable power thus silently, but most effectually
wielded, is beginning to be felt even here, by means of the uni
versal intercommunication of the world. Elsewhere, in scores of
places, this influence is known by us to press with most unfair
and disastrous weight against the advance of our cause. One of
the saddest features of our times is this worldly and selfish in
fidelity to the light of knowledge, reason, and natural senti
ment. Our views will never spread according to their intrinsic
merits, until, by unflinching utterance of cogent argument, re
buke, and appeal, we have forced upon the consciences of men
a recognition of the sacred duty of public loyalty to private
convictions of truth under all circumstances." (p. 21.)
V. " One of the chief clogs impeding our numerical advance,
one of the principal sources of the odium with which we are
regarded, and consequently of the common neglect or uncandid
treatment of our arguments, has been what is considered the
excessive radicalism and irreverence of some who have nominally
stood within our own circle, and who have been considered by
the public as representing our household of faith. They have
seemed to treat the holy oracles, and the endeared forms of our
common religion, with contempt. They have offensively assailed

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 123
and denied all traces of the supernatural in the history of
Christianity, and in the life of its august founder. In this way,
shocking many pious hearts, and alarming many sensitive minds,
they have brought an unwarranted and injurious suspicion and
prejudice against the men and views that stood in apparent sup
port of them and theirs, and have caused an influential reaction
of fear against liberal opinions in theology. It seems to us that
the time has arrived, when, by a proclamation of our general
thought in this matter, we should relieve ourselves from the em
barrassments with which we as a body are thus unjustly en
tangled by the peculiarities of a few, and those few not belong
ing to us alone." (pp. 31, 22.)
Now, gentlemen, you will pardon me, if I ask you a
few questions, which I trust your desire to remove
" one of the principal sources of the odium with which
we are regarded," to stave off " unwarranted and in
jurious suspicion and prejudice," and to relieve your
selves from " the embarrassment with which, as a body,
we are thus unjustly entangled," — will induce you to
answer. I shall mainly follow the order of the sub
jects in your Report.
1. Who are the persons that " have nominally
stood within our own circle," and who " have offen
sively assailed and denied all traces of the supernat
ural in the history of Christianity, and in the life of
its august founder? " It seems important that the
names of all such should be given to the public in your
answer. For, as you wish to relieve yourselves from
the embarrassment with which you are entangled by
their standing nominally within your circle, it is nec
essary that both those persons and the public should
know who they are that have brought an " unwar
ranted and injurious suspicion and prejudice against
the men and views that stood in apparent support of
them and theirs; and have caused an influential reac
tion of fear against liberal opinions in theology."

124 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
2. What are the peculiar doctrines of these men
that wrought this mischief, and in what consists their
" excessive radicalism and irreverence " which you
complain of?
3. Are the doctrines of these men (whereof you
complain as radical and irreverent) in your opinion
true, and still offensive ; or is their falseness their sole
offense ?
4. What is the ultimate standard by which you de
termine what is true and what is false, what right
and what wrong, what religious and what not re
ligious ?
5. What do you propose to do with those persons
who have wrought this mischief to your success ; if
they chance to be members of your churches, or " As
sociation," — do you, as you say the " exclusives " did
with the " liberals," demand their " expulsion " "from
feUowship ; " and " their acceptance of the prevalent
creeds in detail ; " and " by votes of maj orities " to
make " a test," and compel " its observance ; " to deny
that they are " Christians," " Unitarians," or " liber
als; " to give them a bad name, and let them go?
You go on to say :
" The real facts in the case, as well as a due regard for the
interests of truth, require us, in the most emphatic manner, to
disavow any indorsement of that view which utterly denies the
supernatural in Christianity. \Ve desire, in a denominationaL
. capacity, to assert our profoundbeliefinthe Divine origin,,
""tile' Divine authority, the ' Divine sanctions, nf the religion
JgT~"3es us Chris L. This is the basis of our associated action."
(pT227J Here I must continue my questions:
6. What do you mean by the phrase " supernatural
in Christianity ; " and how do you distinguish it from
the " natural " in Christianity ; what by the " Divine

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 125
origin," the " Divine authority," the " Divine sanc
tions," of the religion of Jesus Christ?
You are aware that these words, " supernatural "
and " divine," are used in several different senses.
Thus, a very strong man is sometimes said to have
" supernatural " strength ; and " divine " often means
only excellent ; and in the sense of being derived from
God. I take it, the law of gravitation has " Divine
origin, Divine authority, and Divine sanctions." In
deed, you say in your Report, that you believe " the
divinely-ordained laws of the natural world." I wish
to know if you, individually as men, and profession
ally as the " executive committee," believe that the re
ligion of Jesus Christ had a miraculous " origin ; "
that it has " authority " separate from its truth and
fitness for its function ; that it has " sanctions " not
dependent on its character, and different in kind from
those which naturally attach to all true religion?
Still further you say, —
"We desire openly to declare and record our belief, as a
denomination, so far as it can be officially represented by the
American Unitarian Association, that God, moved by His own
love, did raise up Jesus to aid in our redemption from sin, did
by him pour a fresh flood of purifying life through the withered
veins of humanity, and along the corrupted channels of the
world, and is, by his religion, for ever sweeping the nations
with regenerating gales from heaven, and visiting the hearts of
men with celestial solicitations. We receive the teachings of
Christ, separated from all foreign admixtures and later accre
tions, as infallible truth from God. (pp. 21—23.)
Here, also, I must ask for further information:
7. Do you beheve that God " did raise up Jesus "
miraculously, in a manner different from that by
which he raises up other great and good men?
8. What is the meaning of " redemption from sin? "
In your use of this language, I do not know whether

126 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
you mean to say you believe that Christ aided in our
" redemption from sin " by the rehgion which he
taught, and the life which he lived, or by " his sacri
fice and intercession." The Unitarians have some
times been accused of using this and other damaged
phraseology in such a manner that it was not easy to
understand what was meant. I know you wiU rejoice
to escape from this ambiguity, for you say, —
"What we intend is a general proclamation of our Unitarian
views, as a guide to the inquirer who wishes to know reliably
what our chief opinions really are."
9. When you say that God, by Jesus, poured " a
fresh flood of purifying life," and is for ever " puri
fying the nations with renovating gales from heaven,
and visiting the hearts of men with celestial solicita
tions," do you mean that God does this only through
Jesus, and that God's action through him is different
in kind from His action through other men, — or is
the difference only in degree?
10. What is meant by " the withered veins of hu
manity ? " I understand this language in the mouths
of such as believe " the total depravity and helpless
ness of human nature, and the dogma of the disloca
tion and degradation of the material world, and the
causal introduction of physical death into it, by the
sin of the first man ; " but in those who " as a body
disbelieve " that dogma, and who declare their belief
in " the originally given and never wholly forfeited
ability of man to secure his salvation by a right im
provement of his faculties and opportunities, whether
in Christian or in pagan lands," it seems to me to re
quire a little explanation.
11. When you say, " We receive the teachings of

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 127
Christ as infallible truth from God," do you mean, in
general, that you believe that all the " teachings " as
cribed to Christ in the four Gospels, are " the infallible
truth of God," or do you pick over those Gospels, and
from the various " teachings " therein ascribed to
Christ, cuU out " the infallible truth of God? "
Since the Gospels are in some respects contradictory
to each other, and the fourth differs deeply and widely
in several weighty particulars from its three prede
cessors, how do you determine what are " the teach
ings of Christ," — and what are " foreign admix
tures and later accretions ; " and do you believe
these teachings merely because they seem to you true,
or because they are are " the teachings of Christ," —
that is, are you led to believe thus by your own " hu
man reason," or by his " divine authority? "
12. By what means do you know that all the teach
ings of Christ are the inf aUible truth of God ; — and
if you know a thing to be the " infallible truth of
God," does it acquire any additional value by being
also a teaching of Christ ; — and if so, whence, and
how, does it acquire this additional value; — and are
not all true " teachings " equally " the infallible truth
of God? "
In conclusion, I ask attention to a " subject of the
greatest practical importance." To the charge, " No
body can tell what Unitarianism is," you say : " We
can give, and ought to give, a candid answer to the
question, What is Unitarianism? which greets you on
all sides." So you offer such a statement as seems to
be demanded at your hands, adding, " If it be ac
cepted by the body whose servants we are, it will be a
record for authoritative reference ; " though you say
we do not propose " anything like a creed to be signed,

128 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
or to have authority over individual minds." I do
not know exactly what is meant by a document " for
authoritative reference," which is yet not designed to
"have authority over individual minds ; " but I will
not delay upon such minor matters.
You then proceed to make a " general proclamation
of our Unitarian views, as a guide to the inquirer
who wishes to know reliably what our chief opinions
really are;" and with that design you give a list of
dogmas which we, " as a body, disbelieve." If I un
derstand you, these are the articles of disbehef, which
I will number for convenience.
I. "The triune nature of God."
II. " All those commonly defended views of the principles and
results of the Divine Government, which appear to us to in
volve a vindictive character."
III. "The current dogmas of the total depravity and help
lessness of human nature, and the dogma of the dislocation and
degradation of the material world, and the casual introduction
of physical death into it by the sin of the first man."
IV. " The Deity of Christ."
V. " An infinite sacrifice vicariously expiating for, and pur
chasing the pardon of, the sins of mankind."
VI. " The arbitrary election of some to eternal bliss, and
condemnation of others to eternal torture."
VII. " The resurrection of the fleshly body at any future day
of judgment."
VIII. " That Christianity is any after-expedient devised for
the magical salvation of man."
IX. " That the Scriptures are plenarily inspired, that is, are
the literal composition of God." (pp. 24, 25.)
Here to understand what Unitarianism is, I must
ask a single question:
13. Do you deny that there is any vindictive ele
ment in God; that is, any element which would lead
Him to cause an absolute evil to any creature ; —
and do you not find vindictive actions and qualities as
cribed to God in the Bible?

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 129
Then you next state the things which " we as a body
do beheve," which I will restate, numbering the items
as before.
I. " In the unity and in the paternal character and merciful
government _pf God."
II. " In man's natural capacity of virtue and liability to sin,
and in the historic and actual mingled sinfulness and goodness
/Of all human character."
III. " In the divinely-ordained laws and orderly development
of the natural world, admitting the facts of imperfection and
the ravages of sin as incident to the scheme."
IV. " In the supernatural appointment of Christ as a mes-
senger from God."
V. " In the originally given and never wholly forfeited ability
of man to secure his salvation by a right improvement of his
faculties and opportunities, whether in Christian or in pagan
lands." VI. " In the immediate and unreturning passage of the soul,
on release from the body, to its account and reward."
VII. "In the remedial, as well as retributive, office of the
Divine punishments."
VIII. " We regard Christianity, not as in contradiction to,
but as in harmony with the teachings and laws of nature, — •
not as a gracious annulment of natural religion, or a devised
revision of it, or antidote to it, but as a Divine announcement
of its real doctrines with fulfilling completeness and crowning
authority, its uncertainties being removed, and its dim points
"illuminated, and its operative force made historic, through the
""teachings, life, character, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
of which we reverently receive the Jscriptures as furnishing an
authentic and reliable record, to be studied and discriminated
under the guidance of reason, in the light of learning, and by
the laws of universal criticism."
IX. "We believe in the absolute -Perfection of the £JJ£_J[3virig,
the only wise and true God.' We believe intne""* omniscient-
scrutiny of His providence, the unspeakable nearness of His
spirit, accessible to every obedient soul as the medium of re
generation and element of eternal life."
X. "We believe in the supernatural authority of Christ as a
Teacher, in his divine mission as a Redeemer, in his moral
perfection as an example."
XI. "We beheve in the Scriptures as containing the recorded
history of the promulgation of a revelation."
XIV— 9

130 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
XII. "We believe in the existence and influence of hereditary
evil, but hold that man is morally free and responsible, living.
under a dispensationof .justice ana mercy, wherein he is capable.
~bypiety, purity, love, and good works, of securing the apnnaal
\>t God, and fitting himself for heaven.1*
XIII. " In the all-transcending importance of a thoroughly
earnest religious faith and experience."
XIV. " We believe that in the immortal life, beyond the grave,
just compensations of glory and woe await us for what is left
incomplete in the rewards and punishments of the present state."
XV. " We conceive the essence of Christianity, as adequately
as it can be described in » few words, to be the historic and liv-
ingly-continued exertion of a moral power from God, through
Christ, to emancipate the human race from the bondage of evil: it
is the sum of intelligible and experimental truth and life incar
nated in and clothed upon the historic person of Christ, sealed by
the authority of his Divine commission, recommended by the
beauty of his Divine character, stealing into prepared hearts, and
winning the allegiance of the world.
" Such are the great essentials by which we stand." (pp. 25
—27.) Here, also, I must ask you a few questions, that by
your answers you may show the public how much you
differ from those who, as you say, " have nominaUy
stood within our own circle, and who have been con
sidered by the public as representing our household
of faith," but who " have offensively assailed and de
nied all traces of the supernatural in the history of
Christianity and the life of its Divine Founder."
14. Do you believe, as it seems to me to be implied, if
not distinctly stated in Nos. II. and V., that man has
a " natural capacity " and ability to find out and per
form his moral and religious duties, without a mi
raculous revelation, or other miraculous help from
God? 15. Do you believe the " laws of the natural world "
are " divinely ordained " in the same sense, and ethic
ally binding on man, in the same way, and to the

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 131
same degree, as the " doctrines of Christianity ; " and
if not, which is the superior, the divinely-ordained
laws of nature or the supernaturally authorized teach
ings of Christ?
16. In what sense is Christianity a " divine an
nouncement " of the real doctrines of natural religion ;
that is, what constitutes the divineness of the an
nouncement in Christianity; are the same doctrines
any more divinely announced, when taught by Jesus,
than when taught by another person of the same
purity of character; and if so, what is the test by
which you distinguish a " divine " from a human an
nouncement ; and does that " divine announcement "
make a truth any more true, and a religious obligation
any more obligatory, than a mere human announce
ment of the same truth and duty ?
17. You say Christianity is an announcement of the
doctrines " with fulfilling completeness and crowning
authority." Do you believe that Christianity, as it
was taught by Jesus of Nazareth, or his followers in
any age of the Church, is so complete as to be ex
haustive of natural religion, and to embrace the truths
thereof, so that it will never be possible for mankind,
or for any man, to have a religious truth which is not
contained in that Christianity?
18. Do you believe this " divine announcement " of
the real doctrines of natural religion gives them any
" crowning authority " which they had not before, or
do not have when announced by one not a Christian;
and if so, does that new authority come from God, the
Author of the divinely-ordained laws of the natural
world, or from Jesus, who announces them?
19. What " uncertainties " of natural religion have
been " removed," " through the teaching, life, charac-

132 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ter, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ," and by
what means have they made sure what was before un
certain ?
21. As you charge those who " have nominaUy
stood in our ranks," and have wrought such damage to
the Unitarian reputation, with having " seemed to treat
the holy oracles and the endeared forms of our com
mon religion with contempt," and as " the public have
considered them as representing our household of
faith," it becomes important that you should clearly
avow your doctrines concerning the Scriptures, in or
der to relieve yourselves " from the embarrassments,"
with which, you say, " we, as a body, are thus un
justly entangled."
That you may extricate yourselves from this special
difficulty I will ask you several questions.
In No. VIII. you say you receive the Scriptures as
furnishing an authentic and rehable record of " the
teachings, life, character, death, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ; " and again, in No. XL, " as containing
the recorded history of the promulgation of a revela
tion ; " and yet, once more you do, " in the most em
phatic manner, disown any indorsement of that view
which utterly denies the supernatural in Christianity."
(1.) Do you believe that the " revelation " of whose
" promulgation " you say the Scriptures contain " the
recorded history," was a miraculous communication
from God to man, or that it was a communication by
means of the ordinary human faculties ; and did it com
municate what man did not know ; what man could not
know without this " revelation " ?
(2.) Are all parts of the Scriptures " the recorded
history of the promulgation of a revelation " ?
(3.) Do you beheve that all, or any of the writers

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 133
of Scripture, had any inspiration which was super
natural and miraculous, either qualitatively in kind,
or quantitatively in degree, which distinguishes them
from aU other writers? If some, but not all, which
had it? Did their inspiration secure them from his
torical or dogmatic and other mistakes incident to men
writing with no such miraculous inspiration?
(4.) Do you believe all the accounts of miraculous
phenomena contained in the Scriptures of the Old Tes
tament and the New Testament?
(5.) And to be more specific, and to limit the ques
tion to the matters of which you seem to say the Scrip
tures furnish " an authentic and reliable record," do
you beheve that Jesus of Nazareth was born with no
human father, as it is distinctly related in the first and
third Gospels, and that he wrought all the miracles as
cribed to him in any or all of the Gospels? Do you
beheve the resurrection of Christ ; — that is, do you
believe that Jesus of Nazareth was entirely dead, and
returned to entire life, and appeared to the natural,
bodily senses of some of his disciples, and " did eat be
fore them"?
You then define your position in relation to other
parties : —
"We are distinguished, on the one extreme, from the sacer
dotal and the Calvinistic churches, by our disbelief in the magic
ally saving efficacy of sacramental forms or metaphysical
dogmas. In the mean, we are distinguished from the liberal
and growing body of our Universalist brethren, on this wise.
It is our firm conviction that the final restoration of all is not
revealed in the Scriptures, but that the ultimate fate of the
impenitent wicked is left shrouded in impenetrable obscurity, so
far as the total declarations of the sacred writers are con
cerned; and while we do generally hold to the doctrine of salva
tion as a consistent speculation of the reason, and a strong
belief of the heart, yet we deem it to be, in each case, a matter
of contingence always depending on conditions freely to be

134 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
accepted or rejected. Those of us who believe (as the large
majority of us do) in the final recovery of all souls, therefore,
cannot emphasize it in the foreground of their preaching as a
sure part of Christianity, but only elevate it in the background
of their system as a glorious hope, which seems to them a
warranted inference from the cardinal principles of Christian
ity, as well as from the great verities of moral science. On the
other extreme, we are disinguished from the ultra rationalists,
by devoutly acknowledging the supernatural origin and contents
of our faith, and taking a posture of lowly discipleship at the
feet of Christ our Master, owning him for the immaculate Son
of God."
22. Do you believe it consistent with the " absolute
perfection," the " paternal character " of God, and
" the omniscient scrutiny of His providence," to create,
directly or indirectly, any human being who shaU re
ceive eternal torment in the next life? If you do not,
and if the final recovery of all souls be " a consistent
speculation of the reason, and a strong belief of the
heart," and also " a warranted inference from the
cardinal principles of Christianity, as well as from the
great verities of moral science," why can you not " em
phasize it " " in the foreground " of your " preaching
as a sure part of Christianity " ?
23. You speak of Christ as " our Master," " own
ing him for the immaculate Son of God." In what
sense is Christ " our Master ; " that is, do you take him
as your " Master " absolutely, so that you accept his
word as perfect truth, his actions as perfectly right,
and do you subordinate your spirit absolutely to him,
or only use his special superiority as your help to re
ligious and other excellence ? In what sense is he " im
maculate ; " does this word refer to his " immaculate
conception and birth," or to some moral characteristic ;
do you believe that he was morally immaculate — that
is, that in all his life, from birth till death, he never
committed a sin, made no error, or mistake? If so,

TO THE UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 135
on what ground do you entertain this opinion? What
is the nature of Christ — human or not human?
You say : —
"We are not infidels, spurning God's word, deifying human
reason, and proudly relying on our own merits for admission
to heaven, but, with deepest sense of human frailty and sin,
we bow before every manifest token of God's will, and humbly
trust in His pardoning goodness, so eminently certified to us
through Christ, for salvation at last." (p. 26.)
24. What are " infidels," which you say " we are
not"? 25. If you have the ability to secure your salvation
by the right improvement of your faculties and oppor
tunities, and yet do not rely " proudly " on your " own
merits for admission to heaven," or on the " magically
saving efficacy of sacramental forms, or metaphysical
dogmas," what do you rely on for admission thither?
Do you not believe that a man's happiness in the next
world will depend on the faithfulness with which he
uses his powers and opportunities here on earth; and
if not, then on what other condition does it depend?
26. When, in describing your difference from the
" infidels," you say, " We bow before every manifest
token of God's will," do you mean any such token that
is " manifest " to you, or which is " manifest " to some
other person ; and if the former, do you not believe
that the " infidels," also, " bow before every token of
God's wiU " which is " manifest " to them?
27. Do you maintain that a faithful belief in the
creed you have published renders a man any more re
ligious and acceptable to God, than a faithful belief in
the truths of mere natural rehgion ; or, in other words,
do you maintain that a belief in the miracles related
in the Bible, or in the statement that they contain " the

136 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
recorded history of the promulgation of a revelation ; "
in " Christ as our Master," and the " immaculate Son
of God," and in the " supernatural in Christianity,"
is essential to a religious character and hfe on earth,
to acceptableness with God, and admission into heaven ;
or do you still, with the " liberal Christians," whom
you succeed, " assert that Christianity is a practical
religion rather than a theoretical theology, and that
which makes a man acceptable or otherwise to God, is
not metaphysical truths or errors, but pure faith and
love, piety and good works, or their opposites " ?
28. Do you beheve that your creed is entirely free
from error, and contains all religious truth, so that,
on the one hand, it is needless to try and remove mis
takes therefrom, and on the other, to look for further
truth? You have seen fit, gentlemen, to bring very serious
charges against some persons. It has been repeatedly
intimated that I am one of them, and, therefore, you
will see at once that I have a claim on you for a dis
tinct reply to the above questions, which your publica
tion has called out. In your Report you have said, —
" Not what they were brought up under, or what they love,
or what they would like, or what they think would work well,
but that which, after honest and adequate inquiry, they are con
vinced is true, must men accept and follow."
I know you have deeply at heart the welfare of the
denomination you represent; and sympathizing with
your desire to diffuse a pure and rational Christianity
among men, I shaU watch with interest for your joint
and official reply to my letter, and remain,
Your obedient servant,
Theodore Parker.
Boston, October 3, 1853.

THE LAW OF GOD AND THE STATUTES
OF MEN
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou
serve. Matt. iv. 10.
Last Sunday I spoke of trust in God, endeavoring
to show that it involved an absolute confidence in the
purposes of God, and an absolute confidence in the
means thereunto, and consequently the practical use
thereof. There is a matter of Very great consequence con
nected herewith, namely, this — the relation between
a man's rehgion and his allegiance to the Church and
the State. So this morning I ask your attention to a
sermon of our Duty to the Laws of God, and our
Obligation to the Statutes of Men. It is a theme I
have often spoken of ; and what I shall say this morn
ing may be regarded as occasional, and supplementary
to the much I have said, and printed, likewise, before.
In its primitive form, religion is a mere emotion;
it is nothing but a sentiment, an instinctive feeling;
at first vague, shadowy, dim. In its secondary stage
it is also a thought; the emotion has traveled from
the heart upwards to the head: it is an idea, an ab
stract idea, the object whereof transcends both time
and space, and is not cognizable by any sense. But
finally, in its ultimate form, it becomes likewise an act.
Thus it spreads over all a man's life, inward and out
ward too ; it goes up to the tallest heights of the phi
losopher's speculation, down to the lowest deeps of hu-
137

138 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
man consciousness; it reaches to the minute details of
our daily practice. Religion wraps all our life in its
own wide mantle ; takes note of the private conduct of
the individual man, and the vast public concerns of the
greatest nation and the whole race of mankind. So
the sun, ninety-six million miles away, comes every
morning and folds in its warm embrace each great and
every little thing on the round world.
Religion is eminently connected with the creeds and
the statutes of the people, wherein the nation comes to
the consciousness of itself and of its duty. To com
prehend the relation which it bears to these creeds and
statutes, let us look at the matter a little more nar
rowly, going somewhat into detail; and to understand
it the more completely, let us go back to the first prin
ciples of things.
There is a God of infinite perfection, who acts as
perfect cause and perfect providence of all things, —
making the universe from a perfect motive, of perfect
material, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect
means thereunto. Of course, if the universe be thus
made, there must be power and force enough of the
right kind in it to accomplish the purposes of God;
and this must be true of both parts of the universe, —
the world of matter, and the world of man. Else, God
is not a perfect cause and providence, and has not made
the universe from a perfect motive, of perfect ma
terial, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means
thereto. Now there are certain natural modes of operation
of these forces and powers which God has put in the
universe ; the natural powers of matter and of man are
meant to act in a certain way, and not otherwise.
These modes of operation I will call laws, natural laws ;

THE LAW OF GOD 139
they exist in the material world and in the human
world. They are a part of the universe. These laws
must be observed and kept as means to the end that is
proposed. In the world of matter these laws are always kept,
for the actual of nature and the ideal of nature are
identical; they are just the same. When this leaf
which I drop falls from my hand, it moves by the law
which the Infinite God meant it should fall by, and
keeps that exactly. In nature — the world of matter
— this always takes place, and the actual of to-day is
the ideal of eternity, — for there everything is accom
plished with no finite, private, individual will; all is
mechanism, the brute, involuntary, unconscious action
of matter passively obedient to the mind and will of
God. There God is the only actor; all else is tool:
He is the only workman ; nature is all engine and God
the engineer. Accordingly, in the world of matter
there is a harmony of forces; but not a harmony of
purpose, of will, of thought, of feeling, — because
there is only one purpose, will, thought, f eehng. God
alone is the consciousness of the material world; mat
ter obeys His laws, but wills not, knows not. The
ideal of nature resides in God's consciousness ; only its
actual in itself. The two are one; but the material
things do not know of that oneness ; only God knows
thereof. Nature knows nothing of God, nothing of
His laws, nothing of itself ; — because therein God is
the only cause, the only providence, the only conscious
ness. On the other hand, in the human world, man is an
actor as well as a tool; he is in part engine, in part
also engineer. The ideal of man's conduct, character,
and destination, resides in God; but thence it is trans-

140 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ferred to the mind of man by man's own instinct and
reflection ; and it is to become actual by man's thought,
man's will, man's work. The human race comes to
consciousness in itself, and not merely to consciousness
in God. So in virtue of the superior nature and des
tination of man, between him and God there is to be
not merely a harmony of forces, but a harmony of
feeling, thought, wiU, purpose, and thence of act.
Man is to obey the natural laws as completely as that
leaf obeyed them, falling from my hand. But, un
like the leaf, man is to know that he obeys; he must
will to obey. So he is to form in his own mind an ideal
of the character which he should observe, and then by
his own will he is to make that ideal his actual. This
is the dignity of man, — he is partial cause and provi
dence of his own affairs.
In general, man has powers sufficient to find out the
natural mode of operation of all his human forces, aU
the natural laws of his conduct, his natural ideal. Nar
row this down to a small compass, and take one por
tion of these powers, — the moral part of man, and
thereof this only, — that portion which relates to his
dealing with his feUow-men.
There is a moral faculty called conscience. Its
function is to inform us of the moral ideal; to trans
fer it from God's mind to our mind ; to inform us what
are the natural modes of operation, the rules of con
duct in our relation with other men. Conscience does
this in two ways.
First, by instinctive moral action. Here conscience
acts spontaneously and anticipates experience, acts in
advance of history, and spontaneously projects an
ideal which is derived from the moral instinct of our
nature. This is the transcendent way of learning the

THE LAW OF GOD 141
moral law. And let me add, it is the favorite way of
young and enthusiastic persons ; the favorite way,
likewise, of meditative and contemplative men, who
dwell apart from mankind, and look at principles,
which are the norm of action, more than at the immedi
ate or ultimate effect of special measures.
The other way is by reflective moral action. Here
we learn the moral laws by experiment; by observa
tion, trial, experience, we find out what suits the con
science of the individual and the conscience of man
kind. This is the inductive way, and it is the favorite
mode of the great mass of men, practical men who live
in the midst of affairs.
Each of these methods has its advantage, both their
special limitations and defects. We require both of
these, — the process of moral instinct which shoots
forward and forecasts the ideal, and the process of
moral induction which comes carefully afterwards and
studies the facts, and sees what conduct squares with
conscience, and how it looks after the act has been
done, as well as before.
In these two ways we learn the natural mode of op
eration and the natural rules of conduct which suit our
moral nature ; that is, we discover the moral laws which
are writ in the nature and constitution of man, and are
thence historically made known in the consciousness of
man. When they are understood, we see that they are the
laws of God, a part of the universe, a part of the pur
pose of God, a part of the means which He has pro
vided for accomplishing His purpose.
These laws are not of man's making, but of his find
ing made. He no more makes them than the black
smith makes the heaviness of his iron, or the astrono-

142 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
mer makes the moon eclipse the sun. A man may heed
these laws, or heed them not; make them, or unmake
them, — that is beyond his power.
Neither the individual nor the race acquires a con
sciousness of these moral laws all at once. It is done
progressively by you and me; progressively by the
human race, learning here a little, and there a little.
The natural moral ideal is not all at once transferred
from God's mind to man's. We learn the laws of our
moral nature like the laws of matter, slowly, — little by
little. A good man is constantly making progress in
the knowledge of God's natural moral laws ; mankind
does the same. The race to-day knows more of the nat
ural moral laws of our constitution than the human race
ever knew before. A thousand years hence, no doubt,
mankind will know a great deal more of this natural
moral ideal than we know to-day. Accordingly,
speaking after the events of history, the moral ideal of
mankind is continually rising. It may not be always
rising in the same man, who goes on for a while, then
becomes idle, or old, or wicked, and goes down: nor
always be rising in the same nation ; that also advances
for a while, then sins against God sometimes, and goes
down to ruin. But, take the human race as a whole,
the moral ideal of mankind is constantly rising higher
and higher.
The next thing is to obey these laws, consciously,
knowing we obey them; voluntarily, willing to obey,
and make the moral ideal the actual hfe for the indi
vidual and the race. This also is done progressively ;
not all at once, but by slow degrees. The moral ac
tual of the human race is constantly rising higher and
higher. Just in proportion as the ideal shoots up the
actual follows after it, though on slow and laborious

THE LAW OF GOD 143
wings. If you look microscopically at the condition
of mankind at intervals of only a hundred years, you
wUl see that there is a moral progress from century to
century; but separate your points of observation by
a thousand years instead of a century, the moral
progress of the race is so obvious that no unprejudiced
man can fail to see it when he opens his natural eyes
and looks. I will not say it is so with every special
nation, for a nation may go back as well as forward;
but it is so with the human race as a whole, so with
mankind. Religion, — which begins in feeling, proceeds to
thought, and thence to action, — in its highest form
is the keeping of all the laws which God writ in the
constitution of man : in other words, it is the service of
God by the normal use, discipline, development, enjoy
ment, and delight of every limb of the body, every
faculty of the spirit, every power which we possess over
matter or over mankind, — each in its due proportion,
aU in their complete harmony. That is the whole and
complete religion.
Now leaving out of sight for a moment the matter
of mere sentiment, in religion reducing itself to prac
tice there are two things, — to wit, first, intellectual
ideas, doctrines of the mind, things to be believed;
secondly, moral duties, doctrines of the conscience,
things to be done. Each man in his private individual
capacity, as Edwin or Richard, has his own inteUectual
ideas, things to be believed; his own moral duties,
things to be done. To be faithful to himself he must
believe the one and must do the other. It is a part of
his personal religion to believe the truths which he
knows, to do the duties that he acknowledges.
But man is social as well as solitary. So men, in

144 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
their coUective capacity as churches, towns, nations,
come to the conclusion that they have certain inteUec
tual ideas which ought to be believed, certain moral
duties which ought to be done. As an expression of
this fact, men assembhng in bodies for purposes caUed
religious, as churches, make up a collection of ideas
connected with religion which are deemed true. They
call this a creed. It is a collection of things to be
believed, and so it is also a rule of inteUectual conduct
in matters pertaining to rehgion.
They likewise assemble in bodies for a purpose more
directly practical, as towns, as nations, and make a
coUection of duties which are deemed obligatory.
They call this collection of duties a constitution or a
code of statutes.
I will use the word statute to mean what is com
monly called a law, made by men : that is to say, a rule
of practical conduct devised by men in authority. I
keep the word law to describe the natural mode of op
eration which God wrote in the constitution of material
or human nature, and the word statute for that rule of
conduct which man makes and adds thereunto.
This is a legitimate aim in making the creed, — to
preserve all known religious truth, and diffuse it
amongst men. But it is not legitimate to aim at hin
dering the attainment of new religious truth, or to
hinder efforts for the attainment of new religious
truth. This is a legitimate aim in making the statutes, to
preserve all known moral duty, and diffuse it amongst
men; and thereby secure to each man the enjoyment
of all his natural rights, so that he may act according
to the natural mode of operation of his powers. But
it is not legitimate to hinder the attainment of new

THE LAW OF GOD 145
moral duty, or efforts after that. The creed should
aim at truth, all truth, and should be a step towards
it. The statutes should aim at justice, all justice, to
insure all the rights of each, and should be a step in
that direction, not away from it.
Both the creeds and statutes may be made as fol
lows : —
First, they may be made by men who are far before
the people, men who get sight of truths and duties in
advance of mankind. Then these men set to mankind
a hard lesson, but one which is profitable for instruc
tion, for doctrine, for reproof, that the man of God may
be thoroughly furnished to every good work. In such
cases the creed or statute is educational; it is pre
pared for the pupU, set by a master.
Or, secondly, these creeds and statutes may be made
by men who are just on a level with the average of the
people. Then they are simply expressional of the
moral character and attainments of the average men.
They are educational to the hindmost, expressional to
the middlemost, and merely protectional to the fore
most, — of no service as helping them forward, only as
protecting them from being disturbed, interrupted,
and so drawn backwards by those who are behind.
Or, thirdly, these creeds and statutes may be made
by crafty men who are below the moral average of the
people ; made not as steps towards truth and justice,
but as means for the private personal ambition of such
as make the statutes or the creeds ; by men who are en
dowed with force of body, and rule over our flesh by
violence, or with force of cunning, and rule over our
minds by sophistry and fraud. In this case the creed
or statute is a step backwards, aims not at truth and
justice, but at falsehood and wrong, and is simply de-
XIV— 10

146 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
basing, — debasing to the mind and conscience. Here
it is not a teacher giving lessons to the pupil ; it is not
a pupil undertaking to set a lesson to another who
knows as much as he does ; it is a scoundrel setting a
lesson of wickedness to the saint and the sinner.
Laws may be made in any one of these three ways,
and no more ; the categories are exhaustive.
Now see the relation of each individual man to the
creed of his nation or church. By his moral nature
man is bound to beheve what to him appears true. His
mind demands it as intellectual duty, his conscience de
mands it as moral duty ; it is a part of his rehgion ;
faithfulness to himself requires this.
But he is likewise morally bound to re j ect everything
that to him seems false. He can close his mind and
not think about the matter at all, and so he may seem
to believe when he does not; or he can actually think
the other way, and he about it and pretend to beheve.
But if he is faithful, he must beheve what to him seems
true, and must reject what to him seems untrue.
If a man does this, the public creed of the people
or church may be a help to him, because while it em
bodies both the truths that men know and the errors
which they likewise suppose to be true, he accepts from
the creed what he deems true, and rejects what he
deems false. The false that he rejects, harms him
not; the true which he accepts is a blessing. But
there is this trouble, — the priest, who has made, in
vented, or imported the creed, claims jurisdiction over
the minds of men and bids the philosopher " Accept
our creed." " No ! " answers the philosopher, " I can
not! my reason forbids." "Then, down with your
reason ! " thunders the priest, " there is no truth above
our creed ! The priest and creed are not amenable to

THE LAW OF GOD 147
reason ; reason is amenable to them ! " What shall be
done? ShaU the philosopher submit, and seem to be
heve? Shall he think the other way, and yet pretend
to believe, and lie? or shall he openly and unhesita
tingly reject what seems false? Ask these prophets
of the Old Testament what we shall do ! ask Socrates,
Anaxagoras, Paul, Luther, Jesus ! ask the Puritans of
England, the Huguenots of France, the Covenanters
of Scotland, which we shall do ! whether we shall count
human reason amenable to the priest, or the priest
amenable to human reason. Sometimes a whole nation
violates its mind, and submits to the priest's creed.
The many mainly give up thinking altogether, — they
can do it and have done it ; the few think, but lie out
wardly, pretending belief. Then there comes the in
teUectual death of the nation; the people are cut off
from new accessions of truth, and intellectually they
die out. " Where there is no vision the people per
ish," says the Old Testament ; and there is not a word
in the Bible more true. Tear a rose-bush from the
ground and suspend it in the air, will it thrive? Just
as much will man's mind thrive when plucked away
from contact with truth. Do you want historic ex
amples? Look at Mahometan countries compared
with Christian. Whilst the Koran was in advance of
the Mahometans there was a progress in the nations
which accepted it. There arose great men. But now
when men have lived up to the Koran, and are forbid
den to think further, science dies out, all original lit
erature disappears, there is no great spiritual growth.
In the whole Mahometan world this day there is not a
single man eminent for science or literature; not a
great Mahometan orator, poet, or statesman, amongst
all the many millions of Mahometans on the round

148 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
world. Look at a Catholic in comparison with a
Protestant country. Compare Catholic Spain, Portu
gal, Italy, with England, Scotland, Germany, noble
Protestant countries, and see the odds. In the Cath
olic countries the priest has laid himself down at the
foot of the tree, and says, " Root into me, and you
shall have life." Compare Catholic Brazil with Prot
estant New England. Nay, in New England, go into
the families of private men, families where bigotry of
the various denominations, Nothingarian, Unitarian,
as well as Trinitarian — for there is also a " Noth
ingarian " bigotry — has put its cold, hard hand, and
forbidden freedom of thought ; — compare the chil
dren born and bred there with such as are born and
bred in families where freedom of thought is not only
tolerated but encouraged, and see the difference. The
foremost men of this country in science, literature,
statesmanship, are men who have spurned that Phar
isaic meanness, which chains a man's mind and fetters
his conscience.
It is as important to accumulate the thoughts of
many men, as to consolidate their property for build
ing a railroad, a factory, or a town. No single man
is so rich as the whole people of Massachusetts; and
though before all others in some specialty, no one man
is so rich in thought as mankind. To aggregate the
knowledge of a hundred men, each mastering some spe
cial subject, is of great value; it embodies the result
of very much thinking, which may thus be hoarded up
for future use. That is a good thing; and as each
truth is a means of power, it quickens other men and
helps them to think. Such is the effect of the scien
tific associations of Christendom, from the Boston So
ciety of Natural History to the French A-cademy, —

THE LAW OF GOD 149
perhaps the most learned and accomplished body of
men on earth. That is a legitimate function of bodies
of men coming together, each dropping his special wis
dom into the human treasury, for the advantage of the
whole. But, on the other hand, the consolidation of the
opinions of men who are not seeking for truth to lib
erate mankind, but for means to enthral us withal, will
embody falsehood and also retard the progress of
mankind by hindering free thought. This will be the
result wherever the actual creed is taken for total, —
embracing all truth now known ; as final, — embracing
aU truth that is to be known; and as unquestionable,
the ultimate standard of truth.
, I just said there was not a single eminent man of
science or letters in any Mahometan country; not a
great scholar, phUosopher, or historian. Yet there is
talent enough born into Mahometan countries, — as
much as in Christian nations of the same race ; but it
has not opportunity for development; the young Her
cules is choked in his cradle. Look at the Catholics
of the United States in comparison with the Prot
estants. In the whole of America there is not a single
man born and bred a Catholic distinguished for any
thing but his devotion to the Catholic Church : I mean
to say there is not a man in America born and bred
a Catholic, who has any distinction in science, litera
ture, politics, benevolence, or philanthropy. I do not
know one; I never heard of a great philosopher, nat
uralist, historian, orator, or poet amongst them. The
Jesuits have been in existence three hundred years ;
they have had their pick of the choicest intellect of all
Europe, — they never take a common man when they
know it, — they subject every pupil to a severe ordeal,

150 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
physical and intellectual, as well as moral, in order to
ascertain whether he has the requisite stuff in him to
make a strong Jesuit out of. They have a scheme of
education masterly in its way. But there has not been
a single great original man produced in the company
of Jesuits from 1545 to 1854. They absorb talent
enough, but they strangle it. Clipped oaks never
grow large. Prune the roots of a tree with a spade,
trim the branches close to the bole, what becomes of
the tree? The bole itself remains thin and scant and
slender. Can a man be a conventional dwarf and a
natural giant at the same time ? Case your little boy's
limbs in metal, would they grow? Plant a chestnut
in a tea-cup, do you get a tree? Not a shrub even.
Put a priest, or a priest's creed, as the only soil for a
man to grow in ; he grows not. The great God pro
vided the natural mode of operation : - — do you sup
pose He will turn aside and mend or mar the universe
at your or my request? I think God will do no such
thing. Now see the relation of the individual to the statutes
of men. There is a natural duty to obey every statute
which is just. It is so before the thing becomes a
statute. The legislator makes a decree ; it is a declara
tion that certain things must be done, or certain other
things not done. If the things commanded are just,
the statute does not make them just; does not make
them any more morally obligatory than they were be
fore. The legislator may make it very uncomfortable
for me to disobey his command when that is wicked;
he cannot make it right for me to keep it when wicked.
All the moral obligation depends on the justice of the
statute, not on its legality ; not on its constitutionality ;
but on the fact that it is a part of the natural law of

THE LAW OF GOD 151
God, the natural mode of operation of man. The stat
ute no more makes it a moral duty to love men and
not hate them, than the multiplication table makes
twice two four: the multiplication table declares this,
it does not make it. If a statute announces, " Thou
shalt hate thy neighbor, not love him," it does not
change the natural moral duty, more than the multipli
cation table would alter the fact if it should declare
that twice two is three. Geometry proves that the
three angles of a triangle are equal to two right an
gles : it does not make the equality between the two.
Now then, as it is a moral duty to obey a just stat
ute because it is just, so it is a moral duty to disobey
any statute which is unjust. If the statute squares
with the law of God, if the constitution of Morocco
corresponds with the constitution of the universe,
which God writ in my heart, — then I am to keep the
constitution of Morocco ; if not, disobey it, as a matter
of conscience.
Here, in disobedience, there are two degrees. First,
there is passive disobedience, non-obedience, the doing
nothing for the statute ; and second, there is active
disobedience, which is resistance, the doing something,
not for the statute, but something against it. Some
times the moral duty is accomplished by the passive
disobedience, doing nothing; sometimes, to accomplish
the moral duty, it is requisite to resist, to do something
against the statute. However, we are to resist wrong
by right, not wrong by wrong.
There are many statutes which relate mainly to
matters of convenience. They are rules of public
conduct indeed, but only rules of prudence, not of
morals. Such are the statutes declaring that a man
shaU not vote till twenty-one; that he shall drive his

152 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
team on the right-hand side of the street ; that he may
take six per cent, per annum as interest, and not sixty ;
that he may catch alewives in Taunton River on Fri
days, and not on Thursdays or Saturdays. It is nec
essary that there should be such rules of prudence as
these; and while they do not offend the conscience
every good man will respect them ; it is not immoral to
keep them.
The inteUectual value of a creed is, that while it em
bodies truth it also represents the free thought of the
believer who has come to that conclusion, either by him
self alone, or as he has been voluntarily helped thith
erward by some person who knows better than he. In
that case his creed is the monument of the man's prog
ress, and is the basis for future progress. It is to
him, in that stage of his growth, the right rule of in
tellectual conduct. But when the creed is forced on
the man, and he pretends to believe and beheves not, or
only tacitly assents, not having thought enough to
deny it, — then it debases and enslaves the man.
So the moral value of a statute is, that while it em
bodies justice it also represents the free conscience of
the nation. Then also it is a monument of the na
tion's moral progress, showing how far it has got on.
It is likewise a basis for future progress, being a right
rule for moral conduct. But when the statute only
embodies injustice, and so violates the conscience, and
is forced on men by bayonets, then its moral value is
all gone; it is against the conscience. If the people
consent to suffer it, it is because they are weak ; and
if they consent to obey it, it is because they are also
wicked. When the foremost moral men make a statute in
advance of the people, and then attempt to enforce

THE LAW OF GOD 153
that law against the consent of the majority of the
people, it is an effort in the right direction and is edu
cational; then I suppose the best men will try to exe
cute the law, and will appeal to the best motives in the
rest of men. But even in such a case, if ever this is
attempted, it should always be done with the greatest
caution, lest the leader go too fast for his followers,
undertaking to drag the nation instead of leading
them. You may drag dead oxen, drive living oxen;
but a nation is not to be dragged, not to be driven,
even in the right direction; it is to be led. A grown
father, six feet high, does not walk five miles the hour
with his child two years old ; if he does, he must drag
his boy; if he wants to lead him he must go by slow
and careful steps, now and then taking him over the
rough places in his arms. That must be done when
the lawmaker is very far in advance of the people ; he
must lead them gently to the right end.
But when a wicked statute is made by the hindmost
men in morals, men far in the rear of the average of
the people, and urging them in the wrong direction;
when the statute offends the conscience of the people,
and the rulers undertake by violence to enforce the
statute, then it can be only mean men who will desire
its execution, and they must appeal to the lowest mo
tives which animate mean men, and will thus debase the
people further and further.
The priest makes a creed against the mind of the
people, and says, " There is no truth above my creed !
Down with your reason! it asks terrible questions."
So the Catholic is always taught by authority. The
priest does not aim to convince the reason; not at all!
He says to the philosophers, " This is the doctrine of
the Church. It is a true doctrine, and you must be-

154 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
lieve it, not because it is true, — you have no right to
ask questions, — but because the Church says so."
The tyrant makes a statute, and says, " There is no
law above this." The subject is not to ask, " Is the
statute right? does it conform to the constitution of
the universe, to God's will reflected in my conscience? "
He is only to inquire, " Is it a statute-law? what does
the judge say? There is no higher law."
That is the doctrine which is taught to-day in al
most every political newspaper in this country, Whig
and Democratic ; and in many of the theological news
papers. But the theological newspapers do not teach
it as a principle and all at once ; they teach it
in detail, as a measure, telling us that this or that
particular statute is to be observed, say conscience
what it may. It is assumed that the legislator is not
amenable to the rules of natural justice. He is only
to be checked by the constitution of the land, not the
constitution of the universe.
See how the principle once worked. Pharaoh made
a statute that all the new-born boys of Hebrew par
entage should he kiUed as soon as they were born.
That was the statute; and instructions were given to
the nurses, " If it be a son, then ye shall kiU him."
Did it become the moral duty of nurse Shiprah and
nurse Puah to drown every new-born Hebrew baby in
the river Nile? Was it the moral duty of Amram and
Jochebed to allow Moses to be kiUed? It is only a
legitimate application of the principle laid down by
" the highest authorities " in America, — what are
called the highest, though I reckon them among the
lowest. King Darius forbade prayer to any God or man ex
cept himself. Should the worshipers of Jehovah hold

THE LAW OF GOD 155
back their prayer to their Creator? Daniel was of
rather a different opinion. A few years ago a min
ister of a " prominent church " in this city was told
of another minister who had exhorted persons to dis
obey the Fugitive Slave BiU, because it was contrary
to the law of God and the principles of right. " What
do you think of it? " said the questioner, who was a
woman, to the doctor of divinity. " Very bad ! "
replied he, " this minister ought to keep the statute,
and he should not advise men to disobey it." " But,"
said the good woman, " Daniel, we are told, when the
law was otherwise, prayed to the Lord! prayed right
out loud three times a day, with his window wide open !
Did he do right or wrong? Would not you have
done the same? " The minister said, " If I had lived
in those times, — I think — I should — have shut my
window." There was no higher law!
King Herod ordered all the young children in Beth
lehem to be slain. Was it right for the magistrates to
execute the order? for the justices of the peace to kill
the babies? for the fathers and mothers to do nothing
against the massacre of those innocents? The person
who wrote the account of it seems to have been of
rather a different opinion.
King Henry the Eighth of England ordered that no
man should read the English Bible. Reading the
Bible in the kingdom was made a felony, — punishable
with death, without benefit of clergy. Was it the duty
of Dr. Franklin's humble fathers to refuse to read
their Bibles? They did read them, and your fathers
and mine also, I trust. King Pharaoh, Darius, Herod,
Henry the Eighth, could not make a wrong thing
right. If a mechanic puts his wheel on the upper side
of the dam, do you suppose the Merrimac is going to

156 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
run up into New Hampshire to turn his mill? Just
as soon as the great God will undo His own moral work
to accommodate a foolish and wicked legislator.
Suppose it was not the king, a one-headed legis
lator, but the majority of the nation, a legislator with
many heads, who made the statutes, would that alter
the case? Once, when France was democratic, the
democracy ordered the butchery of thousands of men
and women. Was it a moral duty to massacre the
people? I know very well it is commonly taught that it is
the moral duty of the officers of government to execute
every statute, and of the people to submit thereto, no
matter how wicked the statute may be. This is the
doctrine of the Supreme Court of the United States
of America, of the executive of the United States ;
I know very well it is the doctrine of the majority of
the legislature in both houses of Congress; it is the
doctrine of the churches of commerce; — God be
praised, it is not the doctrine of the churches of Chris
tianity, and there are such in every denomination, in
many a town ; even in the great centers of commerce
there are ministers of many denominations, earnest,
faithful men, who declare openly that they will keep
God's law, come what will of man's statute. This is
practical piety; the opposite is practical atheism. I
have known some speculative atheists. I abhor their
doctrines; but the speculative atheists that I have
known all recognize a law higher than men's passions
and calculations ; the law of some power which makes
the universe and sways it for noble purposes and to a
blessed end.
Then comes the doctrine : — While the statute is on
the books it must be enforced: it is not only the right

THE LAW OF GOD 157
of the legislator to make any constitutional statute he
pleases, but it is the moral and rehgious duty of the
magistrate to enforce the statute ; it is the duty of the
people to obey. So in Pharaoh's time it was a moral
duty to drown the babies in the Nile; in Darius' time
to pray to King Darius, and him only; in Herod's
time to massacre the children of Bethlehem ; in Henry
the Eighth's time to cast your Bible to the flames.
Iscariot only did a disagreeable duty.
It is a most dreadful doctrine; utterly false! Has
a legislator, Pharaoh, Darius, Herod, Henry the
Eighth, a single tyrant, any moral right to repudiate
God, and declare himself not amenable to the moral
law of the universe ? You all answer, No ! Have ten
millions of men out of nineteen millions in America a
right to do this? Has any man a moral right to re
pudiate justice and declare himself not amenable to
conscience and to God? Where did he get the right
to invade the conscience of mankind? Is it because he
is legislator, magistrate, governor, president, king? a
right to do wrong !
Suppose aU the voluptuaries of America held a con
gress of lewdness at New Orleans, and said, " There is
no law higher than the brute instinctive passion of
lust in men," — then would the pimps, and bawds, and
lechers have the moral right to repudiate conscience and
crush purity out of the nation?
Imagine that all the misers, and sharpers, and cheats
held a convention of avarice at New York or Boston,
and made statutes accordingly, declaring, " There is
no law higher than covetousness," — would they have
the moral right to lie, and steal, and cheat, and " crush
out " all the honest men?
Fancy all the ruffians and man-killers assembled in

158 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
San Francisco, — it would be a fit place, for there were
twelve hundred murders committed there in less than
four years, — held a convention of violence, and sought
to organize murder, and declared, " There is no law
higher than the might of the lifted arm," — would they
have the moral right to kill, stab, butcher whomsoever
they pleased?
But that is supposing all this wickedness done with
out the form of an elected legislature. Then suppose
the actual legislatures of the nation should revise the
Constitution and delegate the power to those persons
to do that work and make statutes for the protection
of lewdness, fraud, and butchery, — would it then be
the moral duty of the rulers to enforce those statutes ;
and of the people to submit? Just as much as it is
the moral duty of men to enforce any wicked statute
made under the present Constitution of the United
States and by the present legislators. The principle
is false. It is only justified on the idea that there is
no God, and this world is a chaos. But yet it is
taught ; and only last Sunday the minister of a " prom
inent church " taught that every law must be executed,
right or wrong, and thanked the soldiers who, with
their bayonets, forced an innocent man to slavery.
No matter how unjust a statute is, it must be enforced
and obeyed so long as it is on the law book !
Human law in general is a useful and indispensable
instrument; but because a special statute has been
made for injustice, is it to be used for injustice?
Massachusetts has some thousands of muskets in the
arsenal at Cambridge ; but because they were made to
shoot with, shall I take them to kill my neighbors;
shall the governor order the soldiers to shoot down the
citizens? It is no worse to do injustice with a gun

THE LAW OF GOD 159
than to do injustice with a statute. It is not merely
the means by which the wicked end is reached that is
wicked, it is the end itself ; and if the means is a thing
otherwise good, the wicked end makes its use atrocious.
What is the statute in the one case but a tool, and the
gun a tool in the other case? The instrument is not
to be blamed, and the statute is no more to be used for
a wicked purpose than the gun; a State statute no
more than a State gun. Medicine is a very useful
thing. But will you, therefore, go into an apothe
cary's shop and take his drugs at random ? If you are
kiUed by a poison it is no better because called " medi
cine." But the notion that every statute must be enforced
is historically false. Who enforces the Sunday law
in Massachusetts? Every daily newspaper you will
read to-morrow morning violates the statutes of Mas
sachusetts to-day. It would not be possible to enforce
them. Of all the sixty millions of bank capital in
Massachusetts, within twelve months, every dollar has
violated the statute against usury. Nobody enforces
these acts. Half the statutes of New England are but
sleeping lions to wait for the call of the people; no
body wakes them up every day. Some have been so
long fast asleep that they are dead.
When the nation will accept every creed which the
priest makes, because it is made for them, then they
are tools for the priest, intellectually dead; and they
are fit to have Catholic tyrants rule over them in the
church. When the nation is willing to accept a stat
ute which violates the nation's conscience, the nation is
rotten. If a statute is right, I will ask how I can best
obey it. When it is wrong, I will ask how I can best
disobey it, — most safely, most effectually, with the

160 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
least violence. When we make the priest the keeper of
our creed, the State the master of our conscience, then
it is all over with us.
Sometimes a great deal of sophistry is used to de
ceive the consciences of men and make them think a
wicked law is just and right. There are two modes of
procedure for reaching this end.
One is to weaken the man's confidence in his own
moral perceptions by debasing human nature, declar
ing that " conscience is a most uncertain guide for the
individual," and showing that all manner of follies
and even wickedness have been perpetrated in its name.
So all manner of follies have been taught in the name
of reason, and foohsh undertakings have been set
a-going by prudent and practical men. But is that
sufficient argument for refusing to trust the science
of the philosopher and the common sense of practical
men? The other way is to pretend that the obnoxious
statute is " consistent with morality and religion."
Thus the most wicked acts have been announced in
the name of God. The Catholics claimed divine au
thority for the Inquisition; the Carthaginians alleged
the command of God as authority for sacrificing chil
dren to Melkarte. In the Law Library at Cambridge,
a copy of the English Bible in folio was once the first
book in the collection: a professor then used often to
point to the Bible and say, " That is the foundation
of the law. It all rests on the word of God ! " So
every wicked statute, each " ungodly custom become a
law," had a divine authority! The same experiment
is often tried with the Fugitive Slave Bill — it is de
clared " divine," having " the sanction of the law, and
the prophets, and the Gospel."

THE LAW OF GOD 161
With these two poisons do men corrupt the public
fountains of morality !
Religion is the only basis for everything. It must
go everywhere, into the man's shop, into the seam
stress' work-room, must steer the sailor's ship. Rev
erence for the Infinite Mind, and Conscience, and
Heart, and Soul, who is Cause and Providence of this
world, — that must go up to the highest heights of our
speculation, down to the lowest deeps of our practice.
Take that away, and there is nothing on which you
can depend, even for your money ; or for your liberty
and life. Without a reverence for the higher law of
God everything will be ruled by interest or violence.
The Church will coUapse into nothing, the State will
go down to ruin!
All around us are monuments of men who, in the
name of truth broke the priest's creed, defied the king's
statute in the spirit of justice. Look at them ! There
is a little one at Acton where two men gave their lives
for their country ; another at Concord ; one at Lexing
ton, — a httle pUe of dear old mossy stone, " Sacred
to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind ; " another at
West Cambridge; another at Danvers, — all commem
orative of the same deed; and on yonder hill there is a
great stone finger pointing to God's higher law, and
casting its shadow on the shame of the two sister cities.
All New England is a monument to the memory of
those men who trusted God's higher law, and for its
sake put an ocean three thousand miles wide between
them and their mothers' bones. It is this which makes
Plymouth Rock so dear. Our calendar is dotted all
over with days sacred to the memory of such men.
What are the First of August, the Twenty-second of
December, the Nineteenth of April, the Seventeenth of
XIV— 11

162 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
June, the Fourth of July, but bright red-letter days
in our calendar, marked by the memory of men who
were faithful to God, say the statutes of tyrants what
they may say? Nay, what else are these venerable
days, called Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the
Catholic saints' days throughout the Christian year?
There is one thing which this Bible teaches in al
most every page, and that is reverence for the higher
law of God. The greatest men who wrote here were
only men ; to err is human, we all learn by experiment,
and they were mistaken in many things ; but all teach
this, from the littlest to the greatest, from Genesis to
Revelation, — Religion before all other things,
reverence eor God ABOVE all ! It was that for
which Jesus bowed his head on the cross, and " sat
down at the right hand of God."
There is an Infinite God ! You and I owe allegiance
to Him, and our, service of Him is the keeping of every
law which He made ; — keeping it f aithf uUy, ear
nestly, honestly. That is religion, and to those who
do it, on every thundering cloud which passes over
their heads, He will cast His rainbow, girdling it with
sevenfold magnificence and beauty, and on that cloud
take them to His own kingdom of heaven, to be with
Him for ever and for ever.

VI
THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN IMMORAL PRIN
CIPLE AND FALSE IDEA OF LIFE
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap. — Galatians, vi. 7.
I ask your attention to a sermon of the Conse
quences which come from an Immoral Principle and
False Idea of Man's Duty and the Purpose of Human
Life. Man's moral, as his industrial progress, is by expe
riment. Many of the experiments fail; but by re
peated trials we hit the mark. America's mercantile
abihty to-day — her power of agriculture, mining,
manufactures, commerce — is the achievement of the
human race in the long history from the creation till
now. So America's spiritual abihty — her power of
wisdom, justice, philanthropy, and religion — is not
the product of this one nation, nor of this age alone,
but of aU time and all men ; it is a part of the net re
sult of human activity thus far. Vice, ignorance,
folly, injustice, bad institutions — they represent the
imperfect development of man's faculties, and con
sequent experiments badly planned, and so which needs
must fail. The most moral man in Boston did not
attain his exceUence all at once, but by repeated ef
forts, by continuous experiments; and a great many
of his efforts turned out mistakes. As he builds up
his fortune, so his character, by trial, by experiment ;
first failure, and then success. So out of this briar,
Failure, we pluck the honeyed rose, Success.
163

164 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
In the conduct of the best men there is a percent
age of abnormal action: that is, folly, injustice, error,
sin — if you choose to caU it so. Put all man's moral
misdemeanors together, and call them by one name —
Vice. They are most conveniently dealt with if put
into a basket with a single handle.
This amount of abnormal action, other things be
ing equal, will diminish in proportion to the correct
ness of the man's ideal of hfe; and in proportion to
the strength and earnestness of his efforts to make
his ideal the actual fact of his hfe: or it will in
crease in proportion to the falseness of his ideal; and
the feebleness of his efforts to make it the actual fact
of his life. Vice is a variable, capable of being en
larged or lessened.
In all nations, likewise, there is a variable percent
age of moral error — vice. Other things being equal,
this abnormal quantity will commonly depend on five
causes. First. On the amount of activity in the nation. A
people that goes is more likely to go wrong that one
that goes not; one which goes much, more than one
which goes little.
Second. On the amount of property ; for property
represents power over nature, and this may be abused,
directed wrong or right.
Third. On the difference in respect to property be
tween the rich class and the poor class. Where this
difference is immense, there is a vast quantity of vice ;
where the difference is small, the vice is little.
Fourth. On the ideas which men of genius, cul
ture, and station, spread abroad amongst the people
as their rule of life; on the institutions and laws.
Where these are good, vice will continually diminish;

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 165
where bad, progressively multiply. National institu
tions, conduct, character, resemble the popular ideas
as plants grow from the seed.
Fifth. On the pains taken to remove the causes of
wrong, — the circumstances which occasion it; an at
tempt to remove ignorance, alleviate want, cure drunk
enness, end prostitution; on the pains taken to com
fort, teach, and moralize mankind.
In France, England, part of Germany, and the free
States of America, great pains are taken to diminish
the amount of vice by removing some of its outward
causes. Wise social philosophers look upon aU this
abnormal action of a nation as a disease incident to
the childhood of mankind, and to exposure amongst
pernicious circumstances; not natural to man's con
stitution, but only native to certain conditions and
stages of development ; and these doctors of humanity
seek to help mankind remove the outward occasion,
and overcome the inward and transient impulse to this
wrong. Now, in these four countries, for fifty or a hundred
years past, there has been a progressive diminution of
vice. The amount of abnormal action first becomes
smaUer in proportion to the whole action, and to
the whole property, a smaller fraction of the total
action of the people. The amount of tare is dimin
ished. But next, the bad quality of vice also diminishes.
The old error of violence disappears ; the milder vices
take its place. The chief object of vicious attack
is not the substance of man, his person ; it is an acci
dent of man, his estate. Vices of violent instinct —
lust, revenge, diminish and shade off into vices of re
flective calculation — ambition, acquisitiveness, and
the like.

166 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Then, as a third thing, vice is getting confined to a
smaller class of persons. Once, it was almost uni
versal. Such vice was instantial, virtue the excep
tion. In the age before Homer, every Greek skipper
was also a pirate. Now, vice permanently infects but
a small body of persons: first, the perishing class,
whom poverty and its consequent ignorance makes
offenders; second, the professional viUains, not igno
rant, not necessarily poor, — for, in the division of
labor in modern society, general villany has become
a profession, whereof there are various specialties —
pickpockets, burglars, thieves, forgers, and the like;
the same spirit of viUany having divers manifesta
tions. So the general abnormal action is getting corrected.
First, the snow is getting thin everywhere; next, it
becomes less cold in all or most places; third, it gets
melted away from the open land, and only hes in a
few great heaps, covered up with dust, or is stretched
in long lines where the walls hide it from the sun.
Men are attacking also this residue of ice and snow,
carting it off to sunnier spots ; and so the world is
getting moralized; and though fresh snow falls on
the ground, yet the neck of vice's winter must be con
sidered broke. The moralization of mankind goes on
continually ; the proportionate quantity of vice is les
sened, and its quality bettered, in England, France,
part of Germany, and in free America.
In some of the other countries of Christendom, there
is one great cause which hinders man's instinct of
progressive development, and prevents the advancing
diminution of vice, namely: the institutional tyranny
exercised by the Church, by society, by the State, by
priests, kings, and nobles.' That cause retards the

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 167
normal action of the people in Russia, Turkey, Aus
tria, the other part of Germany, in Italy, Portugal,
and Spain, where the progress of man is far less rapid
than in those four other countries just named. This
tyranny retards also man's advance in riches, for des
potism is always costly; vice is a spendthrift, and,
other things being equal, a moral people will have the
most power over the material world, and consequently
be the richest, and advance in riches with the greatest
rapidity, — for wealth is an unavoidable accident of
man's development; the hoarded result of the past is
indispensable for future progress.
But here, in America, there is one cause which tends
to check the progressive diminution of abnormal ac
tion, and the advancing moralization of man, and
which actually is now leading to a frightful develop
ment of vice in most hateful and dangerous forms;
indeed, a cause which tends to demoralize the people
here, even more rapidly than tyranny itself is doing
in Russia, Austria, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, and
Spain. Here is the cause: it is the prevalence of an
immoral principle, a false idea of man's duty, boldly
set forth by men of great prominence, and within the
last few years very widely spread.
To understand this false idea the better, and see
how fatally it operates against us, look a little at the
circumstances of the nation, wherein we differ from the
other families of men. The old civilizations of Europe
had two distinctive characteristic marks.
First, they were oligarchic, having a government
of all, but by a few, and for the sake of a few.
Sometimes there was a theocratic oligarchy, — the rule
of priests over the people ; sometimes a monarchic

168 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
oligarchy, — the rule of kings over the subjects;
sometimes an aristocratic oligarchy, — the rule of the
nobility over the plebeian class; sometimes a despoto-
cratic oligarchy, — the rule of masters over their
slaves. In all these four cases, the mass of men were
deemed of no value except as servants to the oligarch.
He was " born to eat up the corn," to wear the flowers
in the garland round his brow ; the mass of men were
only born to create corn for him to eat, and rear flow
ers for him to wear. But if you " drive out Nature
with a pitchfork, still nevertheless she comes back."
And so the people tended to rebellion, casting off the
yoke of priest, king, noble, master. To check this
revolutionary spirit, the ruling power spreads abroad
the idea that such rebellion is the greatest offense
which man can commit; it is high treason. So in
the theocratic oligarchy, it was high treason to doubt
or deny the exclusive rule of the priest; in the mo
narchic, the exclusive rule of the king; in the aristo
cratic, the exclusive rule of the noble; and, in the
despotocratic, the exclusive rule of the master. It
was taught there was no natural right of man above
the conventional privilege of the priest, king, noble,
and master; no law of God above the enactment of
earthly rulers. This characteristic mark of the old
civilization is somewhat effaced in France and Eng
land; but still even there the handwriting is yet so
plain that he may read who runs.
That is the first characteristic. Here is the next.
Therein, civilization was military, not industrial; the
art to produce was put below the art to destroy. Pro
ductive industry was counted " an illiberal art ; " it
was despised: destructive fighting was "liberal"
work ; it was honored. Working was for the mass of

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 169
the people, and must be degraded ; fighting, the rulers'
business, and held honorable. " It is the business of
a man to fight, of a slave to work," quoth Homer.
Besides, fighting was indispensable for these unnat
ural rulers, not only to stave off a foreign foe, but
at home to keep the mass of the people down. This
characteristic mark of aU the governments of the Old
World is likewise somewhat effaced in mercantile Eng
land and France, but still writ in letters of fire, most
savagely plain. Such oligarchies do not rest on the
permanent moral nature of man, but only on the tran
sient selfishness incident to a low stage of develop
ment. Their support is not in the conscience of the
mass of men, but in the violence of the few who rule;
not in the consent of the Hungarians and Poles, but
in the cannons of the emperor and the czar. Military
violence is the complement of oligarchy: for the spe
cial privUege of the oligarch is held of his private
selfishness, and against mankind; not of his human
nature, and for all the people; it is a conventional,
not a natural incident of humanity. Hence is it also
insecure: for what wiU not even touch firm ground
with its feet must one day with its head.
Now the American civilization has two character
istics exactly opposite to these. First, it is not oli
garchic; it is a democracy, in theory, having a gov
ernment of all, for all, by all. Next, it is industrial,
and not military.
I. This democracy, in theory, rests on the idea that
the substance of manhood, the human nature in which
all are alike, is superior to any human accident wherein
all must differ. Manhood is more than priesthood,

170 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
kinghood, noblehood, masterhood. The qualitative
human agreement of nature is more than the quanti
tative difference between the genius and the clown;
more than the historic and conventional distinction
between noble-born and common-born, rich and poor.
So democracy can exist only on condition that this
human substance is equally respected in the greatest
and the least ; in man and woman ; in the largest ma
jority, and in the minority of one, that stands on
manhood. So the people is not for the ruler, but the
ruler for the people; the government is the creature
of the nation, not the nation of the government.
Each man's natural rights are to be sacred against the
wrong-doing of any other man, or of the whole na
tion of men — all protected against each, each against
all. That is the first point.
II. Then the American civilization is also indus
trial. Military power is to be exceptional, subordi
nate; the industrial is instantial and chief. Now,
industry aims at the production and enjoyment of
property ; for, in a word, industry is the art of making
material nature into human property. Property is
a natural accident of man, inseparable from his sub
stance. The first thing he does on coming into the
world is to acquire property; first food, then shelter.
The first thing the baby does is this ; the earliest gen
eration of babies, — baby men, — their first deed was
acquisition; food for existence, flowers for ornament.
Property is the material result and test of man's nor
mal activity. It is also the indispensable condition
of existence from day to day; much and permanent
property is the indispensable condition for the ad
vance and development of mankind, in mind and con-

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 171
science, heart and soul. It is an accident of more
value than all other external accidents — priestly,
kingly, nobilitary, and despotocratic. In the indus
trial state, money is the symbol of power, for the in
dividual and for the nation; it is worth more than
descent from priestly Moses, or Luther, from royal
Charlemagne, or protectorial Cromwell, or from any
nobihtary stem ; " All the blood of all the Howards "
is powerless, compared with the almighty dollar.
Democracy is not possible except in a nation where
there is so much property, and that so widely dis
tributed that the whole people can have considerable
education — intellectual, moral, affectional, and re
hgious. So much property, widely distributed, judi
ciously applied, is the indispensable material basis of
a democracy; as mihtary power is indispensable to
the existence of an unnatural ohgarchy — priestly,
monarchic, nobihtary, or despotocratic ; and as those
tyrannical rulers must have military power to keep
the people down, so in a democracy the people must
have property — the result ¦ of their industry — to
keep themselves up, and advance their education ; else,
very, soon there wUl be a government over all, but
by a few, and for the sake of a few; and democracy
will end in despotism. But it must be natural prop
erty resting on a basis of natural morahty, consisting
of what man may own and not violate his moral na
ture. There can be no natural property which vio
lates natural right, the constitution of the universe.
Accordingly, from the nature of such a govern
ment, it becomes necessary, in every industrial de
mocracy, to have one thing sacred: — the natural
rights of man, the substance of humanity. This is
the prime factor of all the national product. If the

172 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
natural rights of man be not respected, then the de
mocracy wiU perish, just as the oligarchy will come
to an end if the pretended privilege of king, priest,
noble, and master be denied and set at naught. The
natural rights of the individual must be secured from
violation by another man, or by the State. An at
tack on the natural rights of man is the most fatal of
all things to the industrial democracy, undermining the
foundation whereon its chief cornerstone is laid; for
rights are anterior to all social compacts, and the
earliest statutes of the oldest realm are inherent in our
nature, and therewith derived from God. Oligarchy
involves a denial of the generic rights of human na
ture; it depends on violence, and has no permanent
roots in the constitution of man ; while democracy is
only possible on condition of permanent respect for
those rights.
When the substance of man is thus respected, and
his rights in general duly honored, all special rights
are also safe: among these is the right to property,
an indispensable accident of man, quite easily secured
if man's substance be respected ; but if not, then prop
erty itself is as insecure in the industrial democracy
as freedom in a despotism. So, in a democracy, any
attack on the inalienable rights of man, or any class
of men, or any individual person, is an attack also on
each one of the accidents of man — on property, for
example; taking from beneath it the natural basis of
right, whereon it might rest secure, and substituting
therefor only permanent or fleeting violence. This
has not been known as science by philosphers, nor seen
as fact by the mass of men, but is yet fore-felt in the
instinctive consciousness of enlightened nations, and
partially acted on. We are wiser than we know, and

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 173
build better than we plan ; for the instinct of the peo
ple has told them that the substance of man must be
held sacred.
Now, an industrial democracy is not the creature of
man's caprice, which might be so or otherwise. It
is a reproduction of the law of human nature, and the
constitution of the universe ; and " other foundation
can no man lay than what is laid " eternally in the
nature of man. Arabesques of fancy may differ, as
Raphael Urbino or as Raphael Morgen paints them;
they are the creatures of voluntary caprice: but the
multiplication tables, made by Pythagoras or Bow-
ditch, must be exactly alike; for they represent, not
man's caprice, but a necessity of universal law and
rest thereon. So the industrial democracy can rest
only on the law of God, writ in the constitution of mat
ter and mind ; accordingly, the greatest of all political
errors, and the most fatal to the existence of democ
racy, to the rights of man, and to the security of
property, one of his indispensable accidents, is the idea
that man has no obhgation to respect the constitution
of the universe ; and the declaration that there is no
law above the statutes which men's hands have made.
Where that idea prevails, there is a blow struck at
every man's head, and at each dollar of property.
Tyranny may be provisional; justice alone is ultimate;
the point common to each and all, to man and God,
whereon aU rights balance.
Such is the difference between the theory of Ameri
can civilization and that of the old civilizations of Asia
and Europe : — ours is the theory of a society that is
only possible nineteen centuries after Christ ; nine cen
turies after it could not have been ; and nine centuries
before it could not have been dreamed of ; and such is its
foundation in man and the nature of things.

174 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
I have just said that, in virtue of certain causes,
there is a progressive diminution of man's abnormal
action, and a progressive moralization of mankind in
England, France, part of Germany, and the Free
States of America; but that in some other European
countries this natural diminution of wrong is retarded
by the crimes of the ruling power. Nay, even in Eng
land and France, man's moralization is largely re
tarded by the corruption and selfishness of the con
trolling classes of men, who spread abroad false ideas
of man's duty to himself, to his brother, and to his
God ; — sometimes doing it, purposely, but most often,
I have charity enough to think, doing it through mis
take. Still this diminution goes on in the manner set
forth. Now, in America, in direct opposition to this pro
gressive moralization of man, during the last few years
there has been a rapid increase of certain great vices,
which are also crimes ; transgressions not only of God's
law, but likewise of man's statutes, — vices of appall
ing magnitude. They are offenses not committed by
those two classes just mentioned as concentrating a
great amount of what is commonly called vice and
crime — the perishing class, whom poverty makes
thieves and robbers, and the professional villains, who
make rascality their vocation. Nor yet are they com
mitted under the transient and accidental stimulus of
strong drink, or temporary malice, or passion, that
springs upon the man, — causes which gender so many
brawls and murders. These offenses are committed by
persons of high standing in society, done deliberately,
the man knowing very well what he is about.
For convenience in my handling and your remember
ing, I will put these into three classes. First, offenses

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 175
against the property of individuals; next, offenses
against the life of individuals for the sake of getting
their property; and third, offenses against the prop
erty and the life of other nations. The first and second
are individual, — personal vices ; the last is national, —
a collective vice.
I. Here are some cases which I put in the first
class, offenses against property. I will not travel out
of America, nor go back more than twelve months.
Let me say at the outset: of the individuals who have
done the deeds I refer to, I would speak and judge with
the greatest delicacy and the most refined charity. It
is the deed itself on which I wish to fasten your con
demnation, not the man who did it ; for I want you to
look through the man, at the deed; through the deed,
at the cause of it, lying far behind, which I will pres
ently bring before your eye.
Here is the first in the first class. Mr. Crane, presi
dent of a New England railroad, deprived the company
of I know not how large a sum of money entrusted to
him. In this particular case there was much in the
man's character, and has been much in his conduct
since, — which, I am told, is, in general, manly and
upright, — to lead to a favorable judgment of him.
It is the deed I look at, and the principle which lies
behind the deed, which I condemn: for the man, I
have a woman's charity ; for the deed and the principle
behind it, a man's justice.
Here is the next case. Mr. Schuyler, at New York,
plundered the public of about two millions of dollars,
committing the largest fraud of the kind ever perpe
trated in America or Europe.
Here is the third. In California, Mr. Meiggs robbed

176 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
the public of one miUion six hundred thousand dollars.
As a fourth thing, in New York, the Ocean Bank
has robbed the public of one or two hundred thousand
dollars. As a fifth, you know in Boston the history of the
Metropolitan Insurance Company and of the Cochitu-
ate Bank, two bubbles of fraud that burst, swallowing
up the property of honest men.
In Ohio, banks and bankers have just now com
mitted frauds to the extent of, I think, not less than
two millions of dollars.
Then look at the conduct of the municipal govern
ments of New York and Boston, the manner in which
they squander the money of the people, veiling the uses
to which it has been appropriated, and thus wasting
the people's treasure. I need only refer to the rapid
increase of taxes in Boston, which every property-
holder knows and laments, — and I need not say there
is no honest explanation for the whole thing. You
all know it. Here, too, I would speak with all becom
ing charity.
II. Here are some cases of the next class. Not two
months ago, the steamship " Arctic," with about three
hundred and eighty passengers, was coming from Eng
land to New York. She had six boats, and if they
were crowded till the gunwale kissed the sea, they
would hold at the utmost only one hundred and eighty
persons; so in case of wreck there were two hundred
others with no chance of escape. This was the owner's
fault ; and dearly has he paid for it ! The ship, in a
fog so thick that a man could not see twice the length
of the vessel before him, drives through the darkness
at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, giving no warn-

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 177
ing sound of her ferocious approach. This was the
captain's fault ; and dearly has he paid for it ! When
the disaster happened, some thirty or forty men es
caped, — not a woman or child ! the feeble-bodied were
left to die. I wiU not caU this the fault of the men;
it was their disgrace and their sin ! If our fathers at
Lexington and Bunker HiU had thrown down their
muskets and turned their backs to the British, and been
shot down with a coward's wound, you and I would feel
disgraced till this day; but I think it would not have
been half so disgraceful to run from a red-coat as to
leave a woman and a baby to perish in the waters,
rather than hazard one's own life. I should be ashamed
to live if I had left a woman to sink in the ocean, and
escaped myself. It is rumored that a boat fuU of
women was purposely overturned by the crew — to
save their manly hves !
I beheve about three hundred and forty persons per
ished. I am speaking in a mercantile town, where if
life and justice be not valued, money is. Look then
at it as the destruction of human property only. In
Massachusetts, the official valuation of a man, whose
hfe is destroyed by a railroad company, is five thou
sand dollars. Three hundred and forty lives at five
thousand each, make the sum of one million seven hun
dred thousand dollars. That is the legal pecuniary
value of life dashed away through the cupidity of the
ship-owner and the recklessness of the ship-master!
With gentleness, judge you the men; look at the prin
ciple which lies behind !
Pardon me if I try to calculate the value of a hu
man hfe, estimating it at five thousand dollars ! If,
an hour before the " accident," some man had said to
these three hundred and forty persons, " I wiU place
XIV— 12

178 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
at your disposal all the riches of America, Europe,
and Asia, on condition you shaU sink yourselves to the
bottom of the sea ; " do you think there was one man
who would have said, " Let us take the wealth, and
leave it to our heirs, and ourselves atheisticaUy go
down "? No! all the wealth of the material universe
could not have purchased the sin. Men who would lay
down their life for a moral principle or a friend, would
never throw it away, for all the gold in California or
Austraha, or in the three continents of the earth be
sides. Pardon me for calculating in money the value
of human hfe.
A similar case, in its origin and in its conduct, took
place in the recent destruction of the " Yankee Blade,"
at Cahfornia. Then, scarce a week passes but some
railroad or steamboat company massacres men by the
wholesale, — sometimes, most commonly, through reck
less cupidity and lust of gold. I believe America com
mits more murders than all the rest of Protestant Chris
tendom; taking away Russia and Spanish America,
probably more than all Christendom, Protestant and
Catholic. But not to speak of the harvest of murders
we annually reap, there is no country in Christendom
where life is so insecure, so cruelly dashed away in the
manslaughter of reckless enterprise !
III. Here is the third class, — offenses against the
property and life of other nations. You may take the
whole history of the present national administration
for an instance. Look at the conduct of this gov
ernment for the last two years of its unhappy and dis
graceful life ; at the perpetual filibustering of the gov
ernment, now against Mexico, then against Hayti, then
against Cuba; at that murderous attack on Greytown,

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 179
not only wicked, but mean, cowardly, and sneaking!
not a Narragansett Indian but would have been
ashamed of such un-barbarous conduct! But it has
been commended, I know not in how many journals;
and one in this city declares it had " the entire appro
bation of the whole community." See how steadily
the administration seeks to tighten the chains on the
working class of the South: no Italian pope, no king,
nor priest, was ever more oppressive towards his sub
jects than the American industrial democracy towards
the three and a quarter miUions of men who do the
work of the South.
These three classes of cases are exceptions to the
progressive diminution of abnormal action, and to the
advancing moralization of the people. They are not
to be explained by the common causes of vice.
Look back a httle, and you will see the root out of
which all this monstrous crop of wickedness has grown
so swiftly up. I will omit aU reference to individuals
and speak impersonaUy. A few years ago three
axioms were pubhshed to the world as embodying the
fundamentals of the party then in power. They were
laid down as a programme of principles for the na
tion's future politics. Let it be remembered that this
political party has more hterary education, and more
hoarded money, than any other whatsoever in the land.
But the rival party affirmed the same principles, having
therewith unity of idea.
Here are the maxims.
The first, which I give in my own language, is this :
There is no law of God above any statute, however
wicked, which pohticians make.
The next, which is not in my words, is, " Religion

180 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
has nothing to do with politics; there it makes men
mad." The third is, " The great object of government is
the protection of property at home, and respect and
renown abroad."
Look at these maxims one by one.
I. " There is no higher law ! " That is the procla
mation of objective atheism; it is the selfish material
ism of Hobbes, Hume, of De la Mettrie, and Helvetius,
gone to seed. You have nothing to rely on above the
politicians and their statutes: if you suffer, nothing
to appeal to — but the ballot-box. The speculative
materialism of Comte resolves man into blood and bone
and nerves. The speculative atheism of Feuerbach
analyses Deity into the blind force of a bhnd universe,
working from no love as motive, with no plan as
method, and for no purpose as ultimate end. But
both of these, materiahstic Comte and atheistic Feuer
bach, bow them down before the eternal laws of matter
and mind : " These," say they, " we must keep always,
come what may." But the prominent pohticians of
America, — they mocked at the law of nature and the
constitution of mind ; they outdid the " French ma
terialism " of Comte, and the " Germanic atheism " of
Feuerbach. Pardon me for saying Germanic atheism !
He violated his nation's consciousness before he called
himself an atheist ; and then is not so in heart, only in
head ; it is the blood of pious humanity which runs in
his nation's veins. The sailor, the machinist, and the
farmer recognize a law of God writ in the matter they
deal with, whereto they seek to conform ; but the Amer
ican politician has no objective restraint. No God is
to check the momentum of his ambition.

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 181
II. Here is the next axiom : " Religion has nothing
to do with politics." That is subjective atheism with
a political apphcation. If there be no law inherent in
mind and matter above any wicked statute of a tyrant,
still the instinctive rehgious sense of man looks up
with reverence, faith, and love, and thinks there is a
God, and a higher law. Materiahstic Comte and athe
istic Feuerbach, and those accomplished translators
who set such works over to the English soil, confess to
the natural religious emotions, give them sure place in
aU human affairs ; but in one of the most important
of human transactions, where the welfare of millions
of men is at stake, the American politicians declare
that " religion has nothing to do with pohtics ; it
makes men mad." Politic Felix trembled before Paul,
reasoning of self-command, righteousness, and God's
judgment to come; Festus told the magnificent apos
tle, " Much learning hath made thee mad ; " but the
heathen Roman did not venture to say, " Religion
makes men mad ! " Conscience makes cowards of men
who meditate their own destruction; nay, it sometimes
holds the murderer's hand. But the moral feeling, the
rehgious feeling, has nothing to do with politics !
No higher law ! Religion nothing to do with poli
tics ! See what it leads to. Come ! Puritan Fathers !
who, feeding on clams for three months at a time,
thanked God that they " sucked of the abundance of
the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sands ! " You
were mistaken ! " Religion has nothing to do with
politics ! " Bow to the Eighth Henry, to " Bloody "
Mary, and Elizabeth, scarce cleaner in the hand or
heart, to James the Stupid, and to Charles, whose head
the righteous ax shore off ! Come, Protestant martyrs !
whose bodies snapped and crackled in the Catholic fire,

182 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
but as the candle decayed, your soul still flaming more
ardent up to God! Come and submit! It was all a
mistake ! The priestly tyrants were right ! There is
no higher law ! Come, Glorious Company of the Apos
tles! Come, Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets!
Come, Noble Army of Martyrs ! Come, Jesus of Naz
areth — crowned with thorns, spit upon, scourged,
mocked at, and crucified ! It was all a mistake ! Your
cross was not your crown of triumph ; it was only your
shame ! The Scribes and Pharisees were right ! There
is no higher law ! " Religion has nothing to do with
politics ! "
Come, all ye tyrants of earth — Herods, Pilates,
Dominies, and Torquemadas! Your great enemy is
slain! There is no law above you! no sentiment in
the human heart which has a right to protest against
your iniquities! In matter, it is objective atheism;
in mind, subjective atheism. Religion has nothing to
do with politics ! Come, Americans ! tear down the
monuments you built at Bunker Hill, at West Cam
bridge and Concord and Lexington and Danvers, com
memorating the heroism of a few farmers and mechan
ics! It was aU a mistake! Nay, split to pieces the
Rock of Plymouth, and grind it to powder, and tread
it under foot of men! There is no heroism! The
Puritans were madmen, and the fire-tried Christians,
fools !
III. "The great object of government is the pro
tection of property ! " It is not to protect the rights
of man, to give all men their natural rights to " life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ! " It is not to
protect labor, but only property, the result of labor.
"The State — that is I!" said the French king.

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 183
There, at least, the 7, that called itself the State, was
human : here, it is the dollar that speaks : — God's law
is to vacate the world, religion to avoid the soil, man
to be turned out of the State, and the dollar to come in
— more than soul, more than man, more than God !
That is the programme of principles laid down in
1850 and '51. It struck at all religion, all morality,
all sound human policy. It affirmed the worst axioms
of the worst oligarchy — theocratic, monarchic, aris
tocratic, despotocratic. A late attorney general of
the United States, in a speech at New York, in 1851,
declared, " Law is liberty : not the means of liberty,
it is liberty itself." He applied his words in special
to the Fugitive Slave Bill —'"it is liberty ! "
See the measures which were the concrete applica
tion of these three axioms — for the atheistic Word
must also become flesh. According to the custom of
the industrial democracy of America, one man out of
every eight is considered and treated, not as human,
but material, as property. Now, according to that
programme of principles, there is no objective law in
the universe, in the nature of things or of God, which
overrides this custom, and has eminent domain over
American slavery ; there is no higher law. And there
is, moreover, no subjective law in man which has a
right to resist this slavery in politics, for, though the
religious element be there, " Religion has nothing to
do with politics." So nothing must be done or said to
oppose the turning of every eighth American into a
piece of human money.
But this class of property has one peculiarity which
distinguishes it from all other chattels, and that is, it
runs away! For, as the fire mounts up, and as the

184 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
water runs down, obeying the universal gravitation,
so man's mind and body hates and abhors bondage, and
seeks to escape therefrom ; and God has made mankind
so that every natural man seeks to aid the victim es
caping from torment, to comfort and shelter him. I
say every natural man. If a man is " regenerated,"
after the fashion of Mr. Adams, of this city, — not
Samuel or John, but the Reverend Nehemiah Adams,
who takes a " South-side view of slavery," — or of
President Lord, of Dartmouth College, who finds
slavery a sacred institution, — if a man is " regener
ated " after this sort, he will aid the slave hunters to
the fullest extent, and that with alacrity ; but men with
natural hearts aid him who flees. These things being
so, the property being obnoxious to flight on its own
limbs, and able to excite the instinctive sympathy of
whoso is most human, the government, whose great
domestic object is the protection of property at home,
must eminently protect this property in its special
peril. So government, resisting the great objective
law of God, which tends to moralize mankind, must
seek to extend and propagate slavery ; must oppose
also the special subjective law of humanity which in
clines us to help a man escaping from bondage. And
so the government must pass the Fugitive Slave Bill,
and re-kidnap the runaway, remanding him to slavery,
and put the sheltering philanthropist in jail, and fine
him a thousand dollars: thereto it must seek out the
vilest men ; not only the villains of the gutter, but also
the congenital scoundrels of the courts and the parlor,
and give them a legal commission to lay their hand on
any poor woman, and, if they send her back to slavery,
pay them twice as much as if they declare her free !
That programme of principles was posted all over

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 185
the land, and re-affirmed by prominent politicians,
Whig and Democratic; by two Baltimore conventions
of the people, unusually large and " very respecta
ble ; " by hundreds of political and commercial editors,
North and South ; by prominent merchants, — mer
chant traders and merchant manufacturers, — nine
hundred and eighty-seven of " our most eminent citi
zens " endorsing it aU. It was affirmed by judges on
the bench, one judge teUing the jury that if there was
a doubt in their minds, and a conflict between the law
of God and the Fugitive Slave Bill, then they must
." obey both; " God upwards and the devil downwards.
It was re-affirmed by prominent ministers of all de
nominations. AU these five classes said, " There is
no higher law ! " " Religion has nothing to do with
pohtics!" " Property is the great object of govern
ment ! " Some pulpits were silent ; a few spoke right
out for God and against atheism ; some ministers looked
up weeping, others warning, and uttered their words,
mildly, cautiously, yet with the might which comes
from virtue backed by the Eternal. Most of these
men had to smart and suffer. Some were driven from
their parishes, and the bread taken from their wives'
and children's mouths.
The programme of measures met a similar accept
ance. Fugitive Slave Bill meetings were held in aU
the great cities. Faneuil HaU rocked with the giddy
genius that screamed and thundered, teaching atheism
to the people, and its walls caught the scoff and scorn
and mow of the merchants of Boston, and their pur
chased clerks, hissing at conscience, at God, and the
higher law. Ministers in this city affirmed the princi
ple and supported the measures ; yea, at Philadelphia,
New York, Buffalo, New Haven, Andover, — all over

186 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
the land. There were exceptional men in all these five
classes, — I honor them! — but they were very few.
Judges, mayors, lawyers, mechanics, truckmen, minis
ters, merchants, they went for kidnapping. Soldiers
were called out in Boston, paid at our cost ; volunteers,
fifteen hundred strong, agreed to chattelize a man.
Twice Boston has endorsed this programme of meas
ures, and twice offered a human sacrifice on this two-
horned altar of objective and subjective atheism.
Twice the city of Cotton and Mayhew, the birthplace
of Franklin and Samuel Adams, offered a human sac
rifice — Thomas Sims and Anthony Burns. Is that
the end? There is a To-morrow after To-day; yea, a
Forever !
While the nation was in that
"  rank sweat of an enseamed bed,

Stewed in corruption,"
it chose a new administration. Look at them ! — the
President, the Cabinet, the present Congress, the for
eign ministers the Soules and the Belmonts, and their
coadjutors; at the United States judges appointed
within four years ; the government officers ; the mar
shal's guard, last June! Behold the first fruits of
atheism in politics ! Is that all ; is it not enough ? It
is the commencement of the beginning.
Now, in all the frauds which destroy the property of
the honest, in the recklessness which dashes away life
on railroads of iron, or on the ocean's watery floor, be
hold the early fruits of the doctrine that there is no
higher law; that religion has nothing to do with the
most prominent affairs of men; that property, and
not persons, is the great object of government ! When

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 187
the prominent men in business, in the State, in the lit
erature, and the Church of America, lay down this
dreadful programme of principles ; when the nation ex
ecutes such measures, spreading slavery over every inch
of federal territory, and arming twenty-one millions of
freemen to hunt down and enslave a single poor fugi
tive; when it plunders Mexico and Hayti, and lusts
for Cuba ; when a Boston judge of probate betrays the
wanderer, steals the outcast, and kidnaps a man in our
own streets; when the mayor iUegally puts the throat
of the town in the hands of a militia colonel, and fills
the streets with soldiers armed with the deadliest tools
of death, and turns them loose to smite and kill, —
and all that to steal a man accused of no crime but the
misfortune of his birth, in " Christian " America ; when
the soldiers of Boston volunteer to desecrate the laws
of God — while Nicholas, with his knout, must scourge
his Russian serfs to less ignoble tasks ; — while men
are appointed " judges " for services against man
kind, for diabolic skiU to pervert law to utter wicked
ness ; when a judge of the United States stabs at free
dom of speech in Faneml HaU; when such a judge,
using such creatures as appropriate tools of wicked
ness, seeks such vengeance on men, for such a work;
when the governor of the State compliments the illegal
soldiers because they violate the laws which he was
hoisted into his seat to enforce and keep ; when Amer
ica would thus exploiter man and God, do you wonder
that railroad and steamboat companies exploiter the
public, and swindhng goes on all round the land ! " No
higher law ! " " Religion nothing to do with poli
tics ! " " Property the great object of government ! "
The first line of plain reading my mother ever taught
me ran thus : —

188 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
" No MAN MAY PUT OFF THE LAW OF GOD."
I hope it has not faded out of the American speUing-
books yet; but it is writ plainly on the sky, on the
earth: plainer yet in words of fire in my heart. It
wiU be the last line I shall ever read, as it was the first :
I can never get beyond it.
" No MAN MAY PUT OFF THE LAW OF GOD."
At one extreme of society are politicians, ministers,
lawyers, mayors, governors, taking a " South-side
view " of every popular wickedness, longing for
money, office, and fame, — which will be their children's
loathed infamy, — teaching practical atheism as po
litical science, or patriotic duty, or as " our blessed re
hgion." At the other end are ignorant Americans and
Irish Catholics — houseless, homeless, heedless, famine-
stricken, and ignorant, a bundle of human appetites
bound together by a selfish wiU. These things being
so, do you wonder that crime against property and
person runs through society; that Irishmen make
brawls in the street ; that Meiggs exploiters San Fran
cisco, and Schuyler New York, and others Boston ; that
railroads take no heed of life, and steamboats sink
three hundred and forty men to the bottom of the sea?
Does not the nation exploiter three and a quarter mil
lions of American citizens, and pulpits justify the
deed? You can never escape the consequences of a
first principle.
Dream not that you have seen the end of this obvious
wickedness. There wiU be more " defalcations," great
and little; more swindlings, more Schuylers and
Meiggses. Reap as you sow — of the wind, the whirl
wind. Let the present commercial crisis continue, its

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 189
vortex deepening, its whirl more swift and wide ; let
employment be more difficult to obtain, winter cruel
cold, bread and fuel dear, and labor cheap, will the
almighty doUar be safe? The property of the rich
will be openly called " a robbery," and plundered from
such as honestly earned, and would generously use it.
The world has dreadful warnings to offer. " Protec
tion of property the great object of government!"
Bottom it on justice — it stands like the continent of
Asia; but put it on injustice — what then? It has
sometimes happened that an idol came to an end.
" Behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground
before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon
and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the
threshold ; only the stump of Dagon was left to him."
The official census gives America about seven thou
sand millions of dollars. Thirteen hundred millions
thereof is vested in the souls of three and a quarter
million men ! So one sixth of the nation's property has
no natural foundation; rests on no moral law; has no
conscience on its side : all religion is against it ; all that
property is robbery, unnatural property, inhumanly
got, also held only by violence. Now the prominent
men of both pohtical parties — merchants, manufac
turers, politicians, lawyers, scholars, ministers, — have
declared that this property in men is just as sacred as
value in corn and cattle; that I may as legally, con-
stitutionaUy, morally, religiously, own a man, as the
pen I write with or the bread I eat; that when Ellen
Craft took her body from her master in Georgia, and
fled hither therewith, and appropriated it to her own
use, in the eye of the law, the constitution, morality,
and religion, she committed an offense just as much as
Philip Marrett, when he took the money of the New

190 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
England Bank and appropriated it to his own use;
and that the nation is just as much bound to restore to
the Georgian slave-holder the woman who runs away
from bondage as to the stockholders their money plun
dered by the president of the bank; nay, that all who
aided in her flight are also robbers, partakers of the
felony, and merit punishment. The minister who shel
ters is a " receiver of stolen goods ! " When the Mil
lion is hungry, wiU it not one day take such men at
their word? Shall not licentious and expensive clerks,
who applauded a minister for his avowal of readiness
to send into bondage forever the mother that bore him ;
shall not covetous agents of factories, and speculating
cashiers and presidents of railroads and banks, say,
" It is no worse for me to steal money than for a fugi
tive slave to leap into freedom? Lawyers and minis
ters say so. One-sixth of the nation's property is
robbery, yet the loudest defended; is it worse for me
to steal a few thousand dollars than for America to
steal thirteen hundred millions? "
No higher law, is there ! So they said in Paris some
eighty years ago. " After us the deluge : " it came
in their own time. " No higher law ! Rehgion noth
ing to do with politics ! " said the " eminent citizens "
of France. "Down with the rich!" " Off with their
heads ! " " Ours be their money ! " That was the
Amen of the million to that atheistic litany of the
" enlightened." Whoso faUs on God's justice shall be
broken ; " but on whomsoever it shaU f aU, it will grind
him to powder ! "
Everywhere is God's law, boundless above me,
boundless beneath, every way boundless. The uni
verse is all Bible: matter is Old Testament, man New

AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE 191
Testament — revelations from the Infinite God. That
law — it is man's wisdom to know it ; his morality to
keep it ; his rehgion to love it and the dear God whose
motherly blessing breathes through and in it all. You
cannot segregate this Bible from the world of space;
you cannot separate a particle of it from the laws of
matter. The lesser attraction holds together the co
hesive particles of leather, paper, metal, which com
pose this Bible under my hand ; and the greater gravi
tation binds its attracted mass downwards to the
weighty world. Just so is it impossible to separate
man, or any one of his faculties, from the great all-
encompassing laws of God, the eternal decalogue which
He has writ. Break His law, put property above
person, the accident of man before the substance, de
clare that religion has nothing to do with man's chief
affairs, and that there is no law above the appetite
of the politican and the pimp, — and not a life is se
cure, not a doUar is safe! Subjective atheism is chaos
• in you, ob j ective atheism chaos on the outside ; the
rich State will end in a ruffianhood of thieves ; de
mocracy turn out a depotism, and its masters will be
the " marshal's guard," or the men who make and con
trol such things.
The chain which Boston sought to put round the
virtuous neck of Ellen Craft seemed short and light:
but suddenly it became a terrible serpent and undid
its iron coil, and twisted all round the court-house;
under it crawled the judges of the State, and caught
its hissing at God's law. Now it seeks to twist about
Faneuil Hall and choke the eloquent speech of Liberty
in her own cradle. The cannon appointed to shoot
down the manhood of poor Burns, is levelled also at
every pulpit where piety dares pray. The hundred

192 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
festal cannons which Boston "gentlemen" — jubilant
at the triumph of their own wickedness — fired to her
ald the Fugitive Slave Bill, poured hard shot against
every honest dollar in the town! Politicians and
lower-law divines look forward a great ways — don't
they! There is One who seeth the end from the be
ginning, and by His higher law is it imperishably writ
on every soul, — Though hand join in hand, the wicked
shall not prosper !
Shall we be warned by what we suffer? No, not
yet. The new political party seems likely to adopt
the worst principles of the old one. We must suffer
much more, I fear, before we learn that to be great
and permanently successful, the nation must be just
to all.
Be not deceived! God is not mocked; whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Four years
ago the nation sowed atheism; see what it reaps in
Boston, in New York, and San Francisco, in commer
cial frauds and peculation, in dashing away human
life on the land or on the sea. This is very far from
the end, — yet here may the dollar tremble !
But keep God's law; make the great object of gov
ernment the security of every right ; recognize that
there is a natural and unchangeable law of God which
has eminent domain over all human affairs ; re-enact
that into statutes ; remember that religion is the media
tor between man's desires and the highest, — and all
is well ; you have wrought after the law of God's spirit
of life ; your money is safe ; life will be respected ;
and the industrial democracy, rooted in the soil of
God's world, obedient to God's laws, will rise a strong
and flame-like flower, abundant beauty in its leaves
and blossoms, to bear fruit, and sow the world with
never-ending life, a blessed and abiding joy.

VII
THE TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS, A.D.
I. AND MDCCCLV. : A CHRISTMAS
STORY FOR MDCCCLVI.
A great many years ago, Augustus Caesar, then Em
peror of Rome, ordered his mighty realm to be taxed ;
and so, in Judea, it is said, men went to the towns where
their families belonged, to be registered for assess
ment. From Nazareth, a little town in the north of
Judea, to Bethlehem, another little but more famous
town in the south, there went one Joseph, the carpen
ter, and his wife Mary — obscure and poor people,
both of them, as the story goes. At Bethlehem they
lodged in a stable ; for there were many persons in the
town and the tavern was full. Then and there a little
boy was born, the son of this Joseph and Mary ; they
named him Jehoshua, a common Hebrew name, which
we commonly call Joshua ; but in his case we pronounce
it Jesus. They laid him in the crib of the cattle, which
was his first cradle. That was the first Christmas,
kept thus in a barn, 1856 years ago. Nobody knows
the day or the month ; nay, the year itself is not cer
tain. After a while the parents went home to Nazareth,
where they had other sons — James, Joses, Simon, and
Judas — and daughters also, nobody knows how many.
There the boy Jesus grew up, and, it seems, followed
the calling of his father ; it is said, in special, that he
made yokes, ploughs, and other farm tools. Little
is known about his early life and means of education.
XIV-13 193

194 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
His outside advantages were, no doubt, small and poor ;
but he learned to read and write, and it seems be
came familiar with the chief religious books of his
nation, which are still preserved in the Old Testa
ment. At that time there were three languages used in
Judea, besides the Latin, which was confined to a few
officials: 1. The Syro-Chaldaic, the language of busi
ness and daily life, the spoken language of the
common people. 2. The Greek, the language of the
courts of justice and official documents ; the spoken and
written language of the foreign traders, the aristoc
racy, and most of the more cultivated people in the
great towns. 3. The old Hebrew, the written and
spoken language of the learned, of theological schools,
of the priests ; the language of the Old Testament. It
seems Jesus understood all three.
At that time the thinking people had outgrown the
old forms of religion inherited from their fathers, just
as a little girl becomes too stout and tall for the
clothes which once fitted her babyhood; or as the peo
ple of New England have now become too rich and
refined to live in the rough log-cabins, and to wear the
coarse, uncomfortable clothes, which were the best that
could be got two hundred years ago. For mankind
continually grows wiser and better, and so the old
forms of religion are always getting passed by ; and
the religious doctrines and ceremonies of a rude age
cannot satisfy the people of an enlightened age, any
more than the wigwams of the Pequod Indians in 1656
would satisfy the white gentlemen and ladies of Boston
and Worcester in 1856. The same thing happens with
the clothes, the tools, and the laws of all advancing
nations. The human race is at school, and learns

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 195
through one book after another, going up to higher
and higher studies continually. But at that time cul
tivated men had outgrown their old forms of religion
much of the doctrine, many of the ceremonies ; and
yet they did not quite dare to break away from them,
at least in public. So there was a great deal of pre
tended belief, and of secret denial, of the popular form
of religion. The best and most religious men, it
seems likely, were those who had least faith in what
was preached and practised as the authorized religion
of the land.
In the time of David, many years before the birth of
Jesus, the Hebrew nation had been very powerful and
prosperous ; afterwards there followed long periods of
trouble and of war, civil and domestic ; the union of
the tribes was dissolved, and many calamities befell the
people. In their times of trouble religious men said,
" God will raise us up a great king like David, to de
fend and deliver us from our enemies. He will set all
things right." For the Hebrews looked on David as
the Americans on Washington, calling him a " man af
ter God's own heart," that is, thinking him " first in
war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his coun
trymen." Sometimes they called this expected deliv
erer the Messiah, that is, the Anointed One — a term
often applied to a king or other great man. Some
times it was thought this or that special man, a king,
or general, would be the Messiah, and deliver the na
tion from its trouble. Thus, it seems, that once it was
declared that King Hezekiah would perform this duty ;
and, indeed, Cyrus, a foreigner, a king of Persia, was
declared to be the Messiah, the Anointed One. But, at
other times, they who declared the deliverer would come
seem to have had no particular man in their mind, but

196 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
felt sure that somebody would come. At length the
expectation of a Messiah became quite common; it
was a fixed fact in the public opinion. But some
thought the deliverer, the redeemer, the second David,
would be one thing, some another; just as men now
call their favorite candidate for the Presidency a sec
ond Washington; but some think he will be a Whig,
and support the Fugitive Slave Bill ; some a Democrat,
and favor the enslavement of Kansas ; while others are
sure he will be a Republican, and prohibit the exten
sion of slavery ; while yet others look for some anointed
politician to abolish that wicked institution clear out
from the land.
When the nation was in great peril the people said,
" The Messiah will soon come and restore all things ; "
but probably they had no very definite notion about
the deliverer or the work he was to do.
When Jesus was about thirty years old he began
to speak in public. He sometimes preached in the
meeting-houses, which were called synagogues; but
often out of doors, wherever he could gather the people
about him. He broke away from the old-established
doctrines and forms. He was a come-outer from the
Hebrew Church. He told men that religion did not
consist in opinions or ceremonies, but in right feelings
and right actions; that goodness shown to men was
worth more than sacrifice offered to God. In short,
he made religion consist in piety, which is love to God,
and benevolence, which is love to men. He utterly
forbade all vengeance, and told his followers, " Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-
fully use you and persecute you." He taught that
the soul was immortal — a common opinion at that time

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 197
— and declared that men who had been good and
kind here would be eternally happy hereafter, but the
unkind and wicked would be cast " into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels." He did not rep
resent religion as a mysterious affair, the mere busi
ness of the priesthood, limited to the temple and the
Sabbath, and the ceremonies thereof; it was the busi
ness of every day — a great manly and womanly life.
Men were looking for the Anointed, the Messiah,
and waiting for him to come. Jesus said, " I am the
Messiah; follow me in the religious life, and all will
be well. God is just as near to us now, as of old
time to Moses and Elias. A greater than Solomon is
here. The kingdom of heaven, a good time coming,
is close at hand ! "
No doubt he made mistakes. He taught that there
is a devil — a being absolutely evil, who seeks to ruin
all men; that the world would soon come to an end,
and a new and extraordinary state would miraculously
take place, in which his followers would be abundantly
rewarded, and his twelve most conspicuous friends
would " sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes
of Israel." Strange things were to happen in this
good time which was coming. But, in spite of that,
his main doctrine, which he laid most stress upon, was
that religion is piety and benevolence ; for he made
these the chief commandments — " Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind; thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself."
He went about in various parts of the country, talk
ing, preaching, lecturing, making speeches, and ex
horting the people to love each other, and live a noble,
manly life — each doing to all as he would wish them

198 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
to do to him. He recommended the most entire trust
in God. The people came to him in great crowds, and
loved to hear him speak; for in those days nobody
preached such doctrines — or indeed any doctrines
with such power to convince and persuade earnest men.
The people heard him gladly, and followed him from
place to place, and could not hear enough of him and
his new form of religion — so much did it commend
itself to simple-hearted women and men. Some of
them wanted to make him their king.
But while the people loved him, the great men of
his time — the great ministers in the Hebrew Church,
and the great politicians in the Hebrew State — hated
him, and were afraid of him. No doubt some of these
ministers did not understand him, but yet meant well
in their opposition ; for if a man had all his life been
thinking about the " best manner of circumcision," or
about " the mode of kneeling in prayer," he would
be wholly unable to understand what Jesus said about
love to God and to man. But no doubt some of them
knew he was right, and hated him all the more for that
very reason. When they talked in their libraries, they
admitted that they had no faith in the old forms of '
religion; but when they appeared in public they made
broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the borders of
their garments ; and when they preached in their pul
pits, they laid heavy burdens on men's shoulders, and
grievous to be borne. The same thing probably took
place then which has happened ever since ; and they
who had no faith in God or man were the first to accuse
this religious genius with being an infidel.
So, one night, they seized Jesus, tried him before
daylight next morning, condemned him, and put him to
death. The seizure, the trial, the execution, were not

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 199
effected in the regular legal form — they did not oc
cupy more than twelve hours of time — but were done
in the same wicked way that evil men also used in Bos
ton when they made Mr. Sims and Mr. Burns slaves
for hfe. But Jesus made no resistance ; at the " trial "
there was no " defense ; " nay, he did not even feel
angry with those wicked men ; but, as he hung on the
cross, almost the last words he uttered were these —
" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do." Such wicked men killed Jesus, just as in Old
England, three hundred years ago, the Catholics used
to burn the Protestants alive; or as in New England,
two hundred years ago, our Protestant fathers hung
the Quakers and whipped the Baptists ; or as the
slaveholders in the South now beat an abolitionist, or
whip a man to death who insists on working for him
self and his family, and not merely for men who only
steal what he earns ; or as some in Massachusetts, a few
years ago, sought to put in jail such as speak against
the wickedness of slavery.
After Jesus was dead and buried, some of his follow
ers thought that he rose from the dead and came back
to life again within three days, and showed himself to
a few persons here and there — coming suddenly and
then vanishing, as a " ghost " is said to appear all
at once and then vanish, or as the souls of other dead
men are thought to " appear " to the spiritualists, who
do not, however, see the ghosts, but only hear and feel
them. Very strange stories were told about his com
ing to men through closed doors, and talking with
them — just as in our time the " mediums " say the
soul of Dr. Franklin, or Dr. Channing, or some great
man, comes and makes " spiritual communications."
They say that at last, he " was parted from them, and

200 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
carried up into heaven," and " sat on the right hand
of God."
His friends and followers went about from place to
place, and preached his doctrines, but gradually added
many more of their own. They said that he was the
Anointed, the Messiah, the Christ, who was foretold
in the Old Testament, and that did strange things
called miracles; that at a marriage feast, where wine
was wanted, he changed several barrels of water into
wine of excellent quality ; that he fed five thousand men
with five loaves, walked on the water, opened the eyes,
ears and mouths of men born blind, deaf, and dumb,
and at a touch or a word brought back a maimed limb.
They caUed him a Saviour sent from God to redeem
the Jews, and them only, from eternal damnation ;
next, said that he was the Saviour of all mankind —
Jews and Gentiles too ; that he was a sacrifice offered
to appease the wrath of God, who had become so angry
with his children that He intended to torment them all
for ever in hell. By and by his followers were called
Christians — that is, men who took Jesus for the Christ
of the Old Testament; and in their preaching they
did not make much account of the noble ideas Jesus
taught about man, God, and religion, or of his own
great manly life; but they thought his death was the
great thing, and that was the means to save men from
eternal torment. Then they went further, and de
clared that Jesus was not the son of Joseph and Mary,
but the Son of God and Mary — miraculously born;
next, that he was God's only Son, who had never had
any child before, and never would have another ; again,
that he was a God who had lived long before Jesus
was born, but for the then first time took the human
form; and at last, that he was the only God, the

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 201
Creator and Providence of all the universe, but was
man also, the God-man. Thus, gradually, the actual
facts of his history were lost out of sight, overgrown
with a great mass of fictions, poetic and other stories,
which make him a mythological character; the Jesus
of fact was well-nigh forgot — the Christ of fiction
took his place.
Well, after the death of Jesus, his followers went
from town to town, from country to country, preach
ing " Christ, and him crucified ; " they taught that the
world would soon end, for Jesus would come back and
" judge the world," raising the dead ; and then all who
had believed in him would be " saved," but the rest
would be " lost for ever ; " a new world would take the
place of the old, and the Christians would have a good
time in that kingdom of heaven. This new " spiritual
world " would contain some extraordinary things ; thus,
" every grape-vine would have ten thousand trunks,
every trunk ten thousand branches, every branch ten
thousand twigs, every twig ten thousand clusters, every
cluster ten thousand grapes, and every grape would
yield twenty-five kilderkins of wine."
But everywhere they recommended a life of sobriety
and self-denial, of industry and of kind deeds — a
life of religion. Everywhere the Christians were dis
tinguished for their charity and general moral excel
lence. But the Jews hated them and drove them away ;
the heathens hated them, and put many to death with
dreadful tortures; all the magistrates were hostile.
But when the common people saw a man or woman
come out and die rather than be false to a religious
emotion or idea, there were always some who said,
" That is a strange thing — a man dying for his God.
There must be something in that religion ; let us also

202 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
become Christians." So the new doctrine spread wide ;
not the simple religion of Jesus — piety and morality ;
but what his followers called Christianity — a mixture
of good and evil. In two or three hundred years it had
gone round the civilized world. Other forms of reli
gion fell to pieces, one by one. Judaism went down
with the Hebrew people, heathenism went down, and
Christianity took their place. The son of Joseph and
Mary, born in a stable, and killed by the Jews, was wor
shiped as the only God all round the civilized world.
The new form of religion spread very much as Spirit
ualism has done in our time, only in the midst of worse
persecution than the Mormons have suffered. At this
day there are some two hundred and sixty millions of
people who worship Jesus of Nazareth; most of them
think he was God, the only God. But a small num
ber of men believe that he was no God, no miraculous
person, but a good man with a genius for religion.
All the Christians think he was full of all manner of
loving-kindness and tender mercy. So all over the
world to-day, among the two hundred and sixty mil
lions of Christians, there is great rejoicing on account
of his birth, which it is erroneously supposed took
place on the 25th of December, in the year 1. They
sing psalms, and preach sermons, and offer prayers,
and make a famous holiday. But the greater part of
the people think only of the festival, and very little
of the noble boy who was born so long ago in a tavern-
barn in Judea. And of all the ministers who talk so
much about the old Christ, there are not many who
would welcome a new man who should come and do for
this age the great service which Jesus did for his own
time. But as, on the 4th of July, slaveholders, and
border ruffians, and kidnappers, and men who believe

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 203
there is no higher law, ring their bells, and fire their
cannons, and let off their rockets, making more noise
than all those who honor and defend the great princi
ples of humanity which make Independence Day fam
ous ; so on Christmas, not only religious people, but
scribes, and Pharisees, and hypocrites, make a great
talk about " Christ, and him crucified ; " when, if a
man of genius for religion were now to appear, they
would be the first to call out "Infidel!" "Infidel!"
and would kill him if it were possible or safe.
Well, one rainy Sunday evening in 1855, just
twelve days before Christmas, in the little town of
Soitgoes, in Worcester county, Mass., Aunt Kindly
and Uncle Nathan were sitting in their comfortable
parlor before a bright wood fire. It was about eight
o'clock, a stormy night; now it snowed a little, then
it rained, then snowed again, seeming as if the weather
was determined on some kind of a storm, but had not
yet made up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now
the wind roared in the chimney, and started out of her
sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on the rug
which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened
her yeUow eyes suddenly, and erected her smellers; but
finding it was only the wind, and not a mouse, that
made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and
yawned, and then cuddled her head down so as to show
her white throat, and went to sleep again.
Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kindly were brother and
sister. He was a little more than sixty; a fine, hale,
hearty-looking, handsome man as you could find in a
summer's day, with white hair, and a thoughtful, be
nevolent face, adorned with a full beard as white as
his venerable head. Aunt Kindly was five-and-forty,
or thereabouts; her face a little sad when you looked

204 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
at it carelessly in its repose, but commonly it seemed
cheerful, full of thought and generosity, and handsome
withal ; for, as her brother told her, " God administered
to you the sacrament of beauty in your childhood,
and you will walk all your life in the lovehness
thereof." Uncle Nathan had been an India merchant from his
twenty-fifth to about his fiftieth year, and had now,
for some years, been living with his sister in his fine,
large house — rich and well-educated, devoting his life
to study, works of benevolence, to general reform and
progress. It was he who had the first anti-slavery
lecture delivered in the town, and actually persuaded
Mr. Homer, the old minister, to let Mr. Garrison stand
in the pulpit on a Wednesday night and preach de
liverance unto the captives ; but it could be done only
once, for the clergymen of the neighborhood thought
anti-slavery a desecration of their new wooden meet
ing-houses. It was he, too, who asked Lucy Stone
to lecture on woman's rights; but the communicants
thought it would not do to let a " woman speak in the
church," and so he gave it up. All the country knew
and loved him, for he was a natural overseer of the
poor, and guardian of the widow and the orphan.
How many a girl in the Normal School every night
put up a prayer of thanksgiving for him; how many
a bright boy in Hanover and Cambridge was equally
indebted for the means of high culture, and if not so
thankful, why, Uncle Nathan knew that gratitude is
too nice and delicate a plant to grow on common soil.
Once, when he was twenty-two or three, he was engaged
to a young woman of Boston, while he was a clerk in a
commission store. But her father, a skipper from
Beverly or Cape Cod, who continued vulgar while he

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 205
became rich, did not like the match. " It won't do,"
said he, " for a poor young man to marry into one
of our fust families; what is the use of aristocracy
if no distinction is to be made, and our daughters are
to marry Tom, Dick, and Harry? " But Amelia took
the matter sorely to heart ; she kept her love, yet fell
into a consumption, and so wasted away ; or, as one of
the neighbors said, " She was executed on the scaffold
of an upstart's vulgarity." Nathan loved no woman
in like manner afterwards, but after her death went
to India, and remained years long. When he re
turned, and established his business in Boston, he
looked after her relations, who had fallen into poverty.
Nay, out of the mire of infamy he picked up what
might have been his nephews and nieces, and, by gen
erous breeding, wiped off from them the stain of their
illicit birth. He never spoke of poor Amelia ; but he
kept a httle locket in one end of his purse ; none ever
saw it but his sister, who often observed him sitting
with it in his hand, and hour by hour looking into the
fire of a winter's night, seeming to think on distant
things. She never spoke to him then, but left him
alone with his recollections and his dreams. Some of
the neighbors said he " worshiped it ; " others called it
" a talisman." So indeed it was, and by its enchant
ment he became a young man once more, and walked
through the moonlight to meet an angel, and with her
enter their kingdom of heaven. Truly it was a talis
man ; yet if you had looked at it, you would have seen
nothing in it but a little twist of golden hairs tied to
gether with a blue silken thread.
Aunt Kindly had never been married; yet once in
her life, also, the right man seemed to offer, and the
blossom of love opened with a dear prophetic frag-

206 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ranee in her heart. But as her father was soon after
struck with palsy, she told her lover they must wait
a little while, for her first duty must be to the feeble
old man. But the impatient swain went off and pinned
himself to the flightiest little humming-bird in all Soit
goes, and in a month was married, having a long life
before him for bitterness and repentance. After the
father died, Kindly remained at home ; and when
Nathan returned, years after, they made one brotherly
and sisterly household out of what might else have
gladdened two connubial homes. " Not every bud be
comes a flower."
Uncle Nathan sat there, his locket in his hand, look
ing into the fire; and as the wind roared in the chim
ney, and the brands crackled and snapped, he thought
he saw faces in the fire ; and when the sparks rose up in
a little cloud, which the country children call " the peo
ple coming out of the meeting-house," he thought he
saw faces in the fire ; they seemed to take the form of
the boys and girls as he had lately seen them rushing
out of the Union School-house, which held all the chil
dren in the village ; and as he recognized one after the
other, he began to wonder and conjecture what would
be the history of this or that particular child. While
he sat thus in his waking dream, he looked fixedly at
the locket, and the blue thread which tied together
those golden rays of a summer sun, now all set and
vanished and gone, but which was once the morning
light of all his promised days ; and as his eyes, full of
waking dreams, fell on the fire again, a handsome
young woman seemed to come forth from between the
brands, and the locks of her hair floated out and
turned into boys and girls, of various ages, from baby
hood to youth ; all looking somewhat like him and also

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 207
like the fair young woman. But the brand rolled over,
and they all vanished in a little puff of smoke.
Aunt Kindly sat at the table reading the Bible. I
don't know why she read the Gospels, for she knew
them all four by heart, and could repeat them from
end to end. But Sunday night, when none of the
neighbors were there, and she and Nathan were all
alone, she took her mother's great square Bible and
read therein. This night she had been reading, in
chapter xxxi. of Proverbs, the character of a noble
woman; and, finishing the account, turned and read
the 28th verse a second time — " Her children rise up
and call her blessed." I do not know why she read
that verse, nor what she thought of it; but she re
peated it to herself three or four times — " Her chil
dren rise up and call her blessed."
As she was taking up the venerable old volume to
lay it away for the night, it opened by accident at
Luke xiv., and her eye fell on verses 12, 13 — "But
when thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy
friends nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen nor thy
rich neighbor, lest they also call thee again, and a
recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a
feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind;
and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense
thee." She sat a moment recollecting that Jesus said,
" Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven ; " and
had also denounced woe on all such as cause these little
ones to offend, and declared that in heaven their angels
continually behold the face of the Father.
After a few minutes she turned to Nathan, who had
replaced the brands in hopes to bring back the vision

208 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
by his " faculty divine," and said, " Brother, I wonder
if it would not be better to make a little change in
our way of keeping Christmas. It is a good thing to
call together the family once a year — our brothers
and sisters and nephews and nieces; we all of us love
the children so much, and have a good time. I would
not give that up. The dinner is very well; but the
evening goes off a little heavy ; that whist playing, we
both dislike it — so much talk about such trifles.
What if we should have a children's festival on Christ
mas night, and ask all the little folks in the town to
your nice new hall — it will be done before that time,
won't it ? It will be a good christening for it ; and Mr.
Garrison, whom you have asked to speak there on New
Year's day, will like it all the better if baptized by these
little ones, who are ' of the kingdom of heaveru.' Sure
ly little children may run before the great liberator."
" Just what I was thinking of," said Uncle Nathan ;
" as I looked at the sparks of fire, I was saying to
myself, ' I have not quite done my duty to the boys
and girls in Soitgoes.' You and I," said he, rather
sadly, putting the locket in his purse, and pressing the
gold ring gently down on it, " you and I have no chil
dren. But I sometimes feel like adopting all the boys
and girls in the parish; and when I saw that great
troop of them come out of the school-house last week,
I felt a little reproach, that, while looking after their
fathers and mothers, I had not done more for the
children." " I am sure you gave the town that great new
school-house," said Kindly.
" Yes, that's nothing. I furnished the money and
the general idea ; Eliot Cabot drew the plan — capital
plan it is, too; and Jo Atkins took the job. I paid

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 209
the bills. But how will you arrange it for Christ
mas ? "
" Well," said Kindly, who had an organizing head,
" we'll have a children's party. I'll ask all under fif
teen, and if some older ones come in, no matter; I
hope they will. Of course the fathers and mothers are
to come and look on, and have a real good time. We
will have them in the new hall. I wonder why they call
it the new hall ; there never was any old one. We wiU
have some plain cake and lemonade, music, dancing,
little games, and, above all, a Christmas tree. There
shaU be gifts on it for aU the children under twelve.
The people who are well-to-do will give something
to buy the gifts for children of their own standing,
and you and I will make up what is wanting for the
poor ones. We'll have little games as well as a dance.
Mrs. Toombs — Sallie Wilkins that used to be — the
minister's wife, has a deal of skill in setting little
folks to play; she has not had much use for it, poor
thing, since her marriage, six or seven years ago.
What a wild romp she used to be ! but as good as Sun
day all the time. Sally wiU manage the games; I'll
see to the dancing."
" The children can't dance," said Uncle Nathan ;
" you know there never was a dancing-school in town."
" Yes, they can," said Kindly. " The girls will
dance by nature, and the boys will fall in, rather more
clumsily, of course. But it will do well enough for us.
Besides, they have all had more practice than you
think for. You shall get the pine-tree, or hemlock,
and buy the things — I'll tell you what to-morrow
morning — and I will manage aU the rest."
The next morning it was fine, bright weather; and
the garments blossomed white on the clothes-lines all
XIV— 14

210 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
round the village ; and with no small delight the house
wives looked on these perennial hanging-gardens,
periodically blooming, even in a New England winter.
Uncle Nathan mentioned his sister's plan to one of
his neighbors, who said, " Never '11 go here ! " " But
why not ? " " Oh, there's Deacon Willberate and
Squire Allen are at loggerheads about the allusion to
slavery which Rev. Mr. Freeman made in his prayer
six months ago. They had a quarrel then, you know,
and have not spoken since. If the Deacon likes it,
the Squire won't, and vice versa. Then Colonel
Stearns has had a quarrel and a lawsuit with John
Wilkinson about that little patch of meadow. They
won't go ; each is afraid of meeting the other. Half
the parish has some miff against the other half. I be
lieve there never was such a place for little quarrels
since the Dutch took Holland. There's a tempest in
every old woman's teapot. Widow Seedyweedy won't
let her daughters come, because, as she says, you are
a temperance man, and said at the last meeting that
rum made many a widow in Soitgoes, and sent three
quarters of the paupers to the almshouse. She de
clared the next day that you were ' personal, and in
jured her feelings; and 'twas all because you was rich
and she was a poor lone widow, with nothing but her
God to trust in.' "
" Oh, dear me," said Uncle Nathan, " it is a queer
world — a queer world ; but, after all, it's the best
we've got. Let us try to make it better still."
Aunt Kindly could not sleep much all night for
thinking over the details of the plan. Before morn
ing it all lay clear in her mind. Monday afternoon
she went round to talk with the neighbors and get all
things ready. Most of them liked it ; but some thought

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 211
it was " queer," and wondered " what our pious fa
thers would think of keeping Christmas in New Eng
land." A few had " religious scruples," and would do
nothing about it. The head of the Know-nothing
lodge said it was " a furrin custom, and I want none
o' them things; but Ameriky must be ruled by
'Mericans; and we'll have no disserlutions of the
Union, and no popish ceremonies like a Christmas tree.
If you begin so, you'll have the pope here next, and
the fulfilment of the seventeenth chapter of Revela
tions." Hon. Jeduthan Stovepipe also opposed it. He was
a rich hatter from Boston, and a " great Democrat " ;
who, as he said, had lately " purchased grounds in
Soitgoes, intending to establish a family." He
" would not hke to have Cinderella Jane and Edith
Zuleima mix themselves up with Widow Wheeler's chil
dren — whose father was killed on the railroad five or
six years before — for their mother takes in washing.
No, sir," said he ; " it will not do. You have no
daughters to marry, no sons to provide for. It will do
well enough for you to talk about ' equality,' about
' meeting the whole neighborhood,' and that sort of
thing ; but I intend to establish a family ; and I set
my face against all promiscuous assemblages of dif
ferent classes in society. It is bad enough on Sun
days, when each man can sit buttoned up in his own
pew ; but a festival for all sorts and conditions of
children — it is contrary to the genius of our repub
lican institutions." His wife thought quite differ
ently ; but the poor thing did not dare say her soul was
her own in his presence. Aunt Kindly went off with
rather a heavy heart, remembering that Jeduthan was
the son of a man sent to the State Prison for horse-

212 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
stealing, and born in the almshouse at Bankton Four
Corners, and had been bound out as apprentice by the
selectmen of the town.
At the next house, Miss Robinson liked it; but
hoped she would " not ask that family o' niggers —
that would make it so vulgar " ; and she took a large
pinch of Scotch snuff, and waddled off to finish her
ironing. Mrs. Deacon Jackson — she was a second
wife, with no children — hoped that " Sally Bright
would not be asked, because her father was in the State
Prison for passing counterfeit money; and the exam
ple would be bad, not friendly to law and order."
But as Aunt Kindly went out, she met the old Deacon
himself — one of those dear, good, kind souls, who
were born to be deacons of the Christian religion,
looking like one of the eight Beatitudes; and as you
stopped to consider which of that holy family he most
resembled, you found he looked like all of them.
" Well," said he, " now ma'am, I like that. That will
be a Christian Christmas — not a heathen Christmas.
Of course you'll ask all the children of * respectable
people ' ; but I want the poor ones too. Don't let any
body frighten you from asking Sip Tidy's children.
I don't know that I like colored folks particularly,
but I think God does, or He would not have colored
'em, you know. Then do let us have all of Jo
Bright's little ones. When I get into the State Prison,
I hope somebody '11 look after my family. I know
you will. I don't mean to go there ; but who knows ?
' If everybody had his deserts, who would escape a
flogging? ' as the old saying is. Here's five dollars
towards the expenses; and if that ain't enough, I'll
make it ten. Elizabeth will help you make the cake,
etc. You shall have as many eggs as you want.

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 213
Hens hain't laid well since Thanksgiving ; now they do
nothing else."
Captain Weldon let one iron cool on the anvil, and
his bellows sigh out its last breath in the fire and burn
the other iron, while he talked with Aunt Kindly about
it. The Captain was a widower, about fifty years old,
with his house fuU of sons and daughters. He liked
it. Patty, his oldest daughter, could help. There
were two barrels of apples, three or four dollars in
money, and more if need be. " That is what I caU
the democracy of Christianity," said the good man.
" I shall see half the people in the village ; they'll be
in here to get their horses corked before the time
comes, and I'll help the thing along a little. I'll bring
the old folks, and we'll sing some of the old tunes ; all
of us will have a real old-fashioned good time."
Almira, his daughter, about eighteen years old, ran
out to talk with Kindly, and offered to do all sorts of
work, if she would only tell her what. " Perhaps Ed
ward will come too," said Kindly. " Do you want
him? " asked Almira. " Oh, certainly ; want all the
lovers," replied she, not looking to see how her face
kindled, like a handsome morning in May.
One sour old man, who lived off the road, did not
hke it. 'Twas a popish custom ; and said, " I always
fast on Christmas." His family knew they did, and
many a day besides; for he was so covetous that he
grudged the water which turned his own mill.
Mr. Toombs, a young minister, who had been set
tled six or seven years, and loved the commandments
of religion much better than the creed of theology,
entered into it at once, and promised to come, and not
wear his white cravat. His wife — Sally Wilkins that
used to be — took to it with all her might.

814 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
So all things were made ready. Farmers sent in
apples and boiled chestnuts ; and there were pies, and
cookies, and all manner of creature comforts. The
German who worked for the cabinet-maker decorated
the hall, just as he had done in Wittenberg often be
fore ; for he was an exile from the town where Martin
Luther sleeps, and his Katherine, under the same slab.
There were branches of holly with their red berries,
winter-green and pine boughs, and hemlock and
laurel, and such other handsome things as New Eng
land can afford even in winter. Besides, Captain Wei-
don brought a great orange tree, which he and Susan
had planted the day after their marriage, nearly thirty
years before. " Like Christmas itself," as he said,
" it is a history and a prophecy ; full of fruit and
flowers both." Roses, and geraniums, and chrysanthe
mums, and oleanders were there, adding to the beauty.
AU the children in the village were there. Sally
Bright wore the medal she won the last quarter at the
Union School. Sip Tidy's six children were there,
and all the girls and boys from the poor-house. The
Widow Wheeler and her children thought no more
of the railroad accident. Captain Weldon, Deacon
Jackson and his wife, and the minister were there ; all
the selectmen, and the town clerk, and the schoolmas
ters and school ma'ams, and the Know-nothing repre
sentative from the south parish; great, broad-shoul
dered farmers came in, with Baldwin apples in their
cheeks as well as in their cellars at home, and their
trim, tidy wives. Eight or ten Irish children came
also ; Bridget, Rosanna, Patrick, and Michael, and Mr.
and Mrs. O'Brien themselves. Aunt Kindly had her
piano there, and played and sang.
Didn't they all have a good time? Old Joe Roe,

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 215
the black fiddler, from Beaver Brook, Mill Village,
was over there; and how he did play! how they did
dance! Commonly, as the young folks said, he could
play only one tune, " Joe Roe and I " ; for it is true
that his sleepy violin did always seem to whine out,
" Joe Roe and I, Joe Roe and I, Joe Roe and I."
But now the old fiddle was wide awake. He cut capers
on it; and made it laugh, and cry, and whistle, and
snort, and scream. He held it close to his ear, and
rolled up the whites of his eyes, and laughed a great,
loud, rollicking laugh; and he made his fiddle laugh
too, right out.
The young people had their games, — " Boston,"
" Puss in the Corner," " Stir you Must," " Hunt the
Squirrel round the Woods," " Blind Man's Buff," and
" Jerusalem." Mr. Atkins, who built the hall, was a
strict orthodox man and a Know-nothing, got them
to play " Break the Pope's Neck," which made a deal
of fun. The oldest people sung some of the old New
England tunes, in the old New England way. How
well they went off! in particular —
" How beauteous are their feet
Who stand on Zion's Hill;
And bring salvation on their tongues,
And words of peace reveal."
But the great triumph of all was the Christmas
tree. How big it was! a large stout spruce in the
upper part of the hall. It bore a gift for every child
in the town. Two little girls had the whooping-cough,
and could not come out ; but there were two playthings
for them also, given to their brothers to be taken home.
St. Nicholas — it was Almira Weldon's lover — dis
tributed the gifts.
Squire Stovepipe came in late, without any of the

216 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
" family " that he was so "busy in " establishing," but
was so cold that it took him a good while to warm up
to the general temperature of the meeting. But he
did at length, and talked with the Widow Wheeler, and
saw all her well-managed children, and felt ashamed
of his meanness only ten days before. Deacon Will-
berate saw his son Ned dancing with Squire Allen's
rosy daughter, Matilda ; for the young people cared
more for each other than for all the allusions to slav
ery in all the prayers and sermons too of the whole
world; and it so reminded him of the time when he
also danced with his Matilda — not openly at Christ
mas celebrations, but by stealth — that he went
straight up to his neighbor. " Squire Allen," said he,
" give me your hand. New Year's is a good day to
square just accounts; Christmas is not a bad time to
settle needless quarrels. I suppose you and I, both
of us, may be wrong. I know I have been, for one.
Let by-gones be by-gones." " Exactly so," said the
Squire. " I am sorry, for my part. Let us wipe out
the old score, and chalk up nothing for the future but
good feelings. If a prayer parted, perhaps a bene
diction will unite us ; for Katie and Ned look as if
they meant we should be more than mere neighbors.
Let us begin by becoming friends."
Colonel Stearns took his youngest daughter, who
bad a club-foot, up to the Christmas tree for her
present, and there met face to face with his enemy's
oldest girl, who was just taking the gift for her young
est brother, Robert, holding him up in her bare arms
that he might reach it himself. But she could not
raise him quite high enough, and so the Colonel lifted
up the little fellow till he clutched the prize ; and when
he set him down, his hands full of sugar-cake, asked

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 217
him, "Whose bright little five-year-old is this?
What is your name, blue eyes ? " " Bobbie Nilkison,"
was the answer. It went right to the Colonel's heart.
" It is Christmas," said he ; " and the dear Jesus him
self said, ' Suffer little children to come unto me.'
Well, well, he said something to us old folks, too : ' If
thy brother trespass against thee,' etc., and ' If thou
bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember that
thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy
gift before the altar ; first be reconciled to thy brother,
and then come and offer thy gift.' " He walked
about awhile, thinking, and then found his neighbor.
" Mr. Wilkinson," said he, " it is bad enough that you
and I should quarrel in law, but let us be friends in the
gospel. As I looked at your little boy, and held him
up in my arms, and found out whose son he was, I
felt ashamed that I had ever quarreled with his fa
ther. Here is my hand, if you think fit to take it."
" With all my heart," said Wilkinson. " I fear I was
more to blame than you. But we can't help the past ;
let us make amends for the future. I hope we shall
have many a merry Christmas together in this world
and the next. Perhaps Uncle Nathan can settle our
land-quarrel better than any jury in Worcester
county." Mr. Smith, the Know-nothing representative, was
struck with the bright face of one of the little girls who
wore a school-medal, and asked her name. " Bridget
O'Brien, your honor," was the answer. " Well, well,"
said he, " I guess Uncle Nathan is half right : ' it's
all prejudice.' I don't like the Irish, politically. But
after all, the pope will have to make a pretty long
arm to reach round Aunt Kindly, and clear through
the Union School-house, and spoil Miss Bridget — a
pretty long arm to do all that."

218 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
So it went on all round the room. " That is what
I call the Christian sacrament," said Deacon Jackson
to Captain Weldon. "Ah, yes," replied the black
smith, " it is a feast of love. Look there ; Colonel
Stearns and John Wilkinson have not spoken for
years. Now it is all made up. Both have forgotten
that little strip of beaver-gray meadow, which has cost
them so much money and hard words, and in itself is
not worth the lawyers' fees."
How the children played! how they all did dance!
and of the whole sportive company not one footed the
measure so neat as little Hattie Tidy, the black man's
daughter. " What a shame to enslave a race of such
persons," said Mr. Stovepipe. " Yet I went in for
the Fugitive Slave Bill, and was one of Marshal
Tukey's ' fifteen hundred gentlemen of property and
standing.' 1 May God forgive me ! " " Amen," said
Mr. Broadside, a great, stout, robust farmer ; " I stood
by till the Nebraska Bill put slavery into Kansas, then
I went right square over to the anti-slavery side. I
shall stick there for ever. Dr. Lord may try and ex
cuse slavery just as much as he likes. I know what
all that means. He don't catch old birds with chaff." 2
Uncle Nathan went about the room talking with the
men and women; they all knew him, and felt well
acquainted with such a good-natured face; while
Aunt Kindly, with the nicer tact of a good woman,
introduced the right persons to each other, and so
promoted happiness among those too awkward to ob
tain it alone or unhelped. Besides this, she took spe
cial care of the boys and girls from the poor-house.
What an appetite the little folks had for the good
things! How the old ones helped them dispose of
these creature comforts ! while such as were half-way

TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 219
between were too busy with other matters to think
much of the eatables. Solomon Jenkins and Katie
Edmunds had had a falling out. He was the miller
at Stony Brook ; but the " course of true love never
did run smooth " with him ; he could not coax Katie's
to brook into his stream ; it would turn off some other
way. But that night Katie herself broke down the
hindrance, and the two little brooks became one great
stream of love and flowed on together, inseparable;
now dimpling, deepening, and whirling away full of
beauty towards the great ocean of eternity.
Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kindly, how happy they
were, seeing the joy of all the company! they looked
like two new redeemers — which indeed they were.
The minister said, " Well, I have been preaching char
ity and forgiveness and a cheerful happiness all my
life, now I see signs of the ' good time coming.'
There's forgiveness of injuries," pointing to Colonel
Stearns and Mr. Wilkinson ; " old enemies reconciled.
All my sermons don't seem to accomplish so much as
your Christmas festival, Mr. Robinson," said he, ad
dressing Uncle Nathan. " We only watered the
ground," said Aunt Kindly, " where the seed was long
since sown by other hands ; only it does seem to come
up abundantly, and all at once." Then the minister
told the people a new Christmas story ; and before they
went home they aU joined together and sang this hymn
to the good tune of Old Hundred :
"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
Blessings abound where'er he reigns;
The prisoner leaps to loose his chains;
The weary find eternal rest,
And all the sons of want are bless'd."

VIII
THEODORE PARKER TO A YOUNG MAN
Boston, 7th July, 1851.
My dear Friend, — Your mother told me that you
are soon to leave her and aU the tender ties of home,
and go out to seek your fortune in the world. She
wished me to say a word of counsel to you at this time.
I am glad to do so, as I remember well the time when
I first left my father's house, to find a home elsewhere.
I was younger than you are, and went to teach a little
village school. Let me say a few words to you, which
my own experience suggests.
I suppose you wish to be rich. Most young men
have a longing for riches ; and most old men, too. I
don't think riches desirable. I should be sorry to have
inherited wealth. But a competence is very desirable,
is indispensable. Well, the way to get it is by fore
thought to plan, industry to execute,, and prudence
to keep the earnings of your work. I should always
wish to get what I earned, but never to take more than
I had honestly, fairly, really earned. I am sure that
with forethought, industry, and prudence you cannot
fail to get a competence. All that you get more than
a sufficient fortune is commonly a misfortune. A com
petence is not hard to get.
But the best thing which you can get in life is not
money, nor what money brings along with it. A
great estate is not worth so much as a good man.
You are here in this world to become a good man, — a
wise man, a just man, an affectionate man, a religious
220

TO A YOUNG MAN 221
man. This is the one thing you will carry out of this
world, and into the next. Money will make you ac
ceptable to man; manhood — I mean wisdom, justice,
aff ectionateness, and religion — will make you wel
come to God, and blessed by Him forever. Your busi
ness is one help to obtain that manhood, but business
alone wiU not give it to you. You must work for
your manhood as much as for your money, and take
as much pains to get it, and to keep it, too. The first
thing, then, is to keep clear of certain vices. As yet,
you hardly know the temptations which will come upon
you. But there are three things which you must set
your face against at once and forever, intemperance,
gambling, and licentiousness. These three vices ruin
thousands of young men every year. To some per
sons, perhaps to most young men, the temptation to
some one of these is very powerful. Resist these three,
and you will do pretty well in this period of life.
Now, I would not recommend you to be gloomy and
sour and stiff. I hope you will be cheerful, lively,
even gay and mirthful, all that belongs to your period
of life. But you can be all this, without sin; you
need not put a sting in your heart to torment you for
ever. Trust me, there is little real pleasure in anything
which your conscience forbids. -
Then you want to cultivate your mind. This you
can do in part by reading valuable books, as you have
leisure and opportunity. I have always found a good
deal of time for it at sea. Forethought, industry, and
prudence will help you here as much as in getting
money. I used to find it a profitable thing to keep
a journal, in which I wrote down what I saw that was
remarkable, what I read, what I thought. I believe
you will find this pleasant and profitable, too. Es-

222 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
pecially, if you visit foreign countries, — where every
thing is remarkable to a stranger, — you wiU find ad
vantage in this. In regard to reading, I should wish
to be familiar with the history of America, with the
lives of its great men ; then, with the history of Eng
land, and the lives of its great men; and, next, with
the writings of the best authors in English and Ameri
can literature. AU this you can accomplish in the
course of a few years, — before you are thirty, — and
not encroach on your proper business or your proper
•pleasure, and not injure your health.
One thing more I must say: I think there is no real
and satisfactory happiness in life without religion.
I am not a sour, mahgnant man, wishing to cloud over
the morning of life. But I wish to prolong its sun
shine forever. I am not at all superstitious. For
this very reason, I think more of the value of religion.
It is a restraint from doing wrong, an encouragement
to do right, and a great comfort at all times of life.
I do not mean by religion a certain form of belief,
nor a certain ritual, joining a church or anything of
that sort. But I do mean a respect for your own
nature, and obedience to its laws. I mean a love of
truth, a love of justice, a love of man as yourself, and
of God with all your mind and conscience and heart
and soul.
You can easily cultivate your religious nature, as
easily as your mind. One of the best helps that I
know is this, — to set apart a few minutes of every
day to commune with yourself and with your God.
Suppose it is at night before you sleep or in the morn
ing before you go to work. Then it is well to review all
the actions of the day, — the deeds, the words, even
the thoughts and feelings, — and ask if they are such

TO A YOUNG MAN
as God can approve. If not, then resolve to do such
things no more, and in your prayer to ask the help
of God for the future. Trust me, this will be of
great avail. No man can faithfully pursue this course
without great growth in manly excellence. You will
never repent the pains you take to be a great, a good,
and a rehgious man.
The prayers of your father and mother will go with
you in your new enterprise. Absent from their sight,
you wiU still hve in their heart of hearts; and their
highest earthly wish wUl be that you may prove your
self a noble man.
With a desire for your prosperity and success in
hfe, beheve me Truly your friend,
Theodore Parker.

w?

IX
A LETTER CONCERNING A PLAN OF
READING
Newton Corner, (near Boston),
25th July, 1857.
Dear Sir : — I thank you for the letter that came
yesterday. I love to meet a fresh young spirit, full
of zeal to do good. I know the ministry is no bed of
roses; if it were, you would not wish to lie on it and
go to sleep. But there was never a time when an
earnest, vigorous man was so much needed in the min
istry, or would be welcomed so warmly, or find so ad
mirable an opportunity to proclaim the true religion.
I know no better position than the minister's to move
the nation. Dos moi pou stow, says the young man,
kai ton kosmon kineso. I say, take it in the pulpit,
for thus you have access to their conscience, their af
fections, their religious faculty. They let no politi
cian in beyond the mere intellect. Men are sick of the
worship of the pulpit, its sophistry, its superstition, its
conscious lies ; but they long for noble, generous men
to look facts in the face, and repeat truth.
Dartmouth College is a good place to get vigor,
diligence, fire, and self-reliance. Harvard gives
more elegance, nicety, and delicacy of scholarship.
********
In respect to reading I would make two rules.
1. To read no poor, worthless books.
2. To read thoroughly the great masters, in their
own tongue if possible ; they are not too numerous to
224

A PLAN OF READING 225
know. I mean the great poets, historians, philoso
phers, and men of literature.
You will want to know the history, likewise, of hu
man thought and human action. Let me set down
some of the books, not in a very systematic manner,
as I don't know what store of languages you have at
command. I will put the English first, and rely chiefly
on that.
1. Metaphysical, Locke, Reid, (Hamilton's edition
is best), Stewart, Hamilton, Hickok. Cousin, Kant,
Hegel. Combe's works are of great value.
2. Ethical, Miss Cobb's Intuitive Morals, 2 vols.,
1856-1857. Paley, Combe, Mackintosh, Hist. Eth
ical Science. Aristotle's Ethics, Seneca, Rothe's Ethik,
(German,) Cudworth (Harrison's edition has Mos-
heim's notes.)
3. Relating to the History of Thought, Hallam,
History of Literature, Lewis, Biographical History of
PhUosophy ; a little work on the history of philosophy
in Harper's Family Library, 2 vols. Morell's His
tory of PhUosophy. Erdmann's History of Philoso
phy (will be published next year.) Cousin's intro
duction to the History of Philosophy is of great value.
So are all of his historical works, and Damiron's.
Then you will want the histories of literature. Of
English, there are Warton, and Knight. Of Greek,
Mure, and R. 0. Muller ; both in English. Of Latin,
Bahr and Bernhardy, (ed. of 1856 is best.) Of Ital
ian, Tiraboschi is best, but voluminous. Of Spanish,
Ticknor. Of French there are many, and quite com
mon, in that tongue. Of German, Gervinus surpasses
all. Then there are writers of special departments of
thought. Whewell's History of the Inductive Sci-
XIV— 15

226 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ences, (ed. of 1857.) Baden Powell, History of
Science, (I am not quite sure of the title), a work of
great value. Guizot, History of Civilization in
France. Eichhorn and Klemm's Geschichte der Kul-
tur are of much service. Here, perhaps, should come
the History of the Christian Church. I think Gieseler
the best, if you read but one, but Hase is of great
value; Mosheim, (Murdock's translation); Neander,
(Torry's translation;) Ranke is invaluable; all these
are in English: The history of the doctrines of the
Church you must go to the Germans for. Meunscher,
von Kolln, De Wette, (Biblische Dogmatik) Strauss,
are perhaps the best for doctrines in general, but Dor-
ner's History of the Doctrine of a Redeemer, and
Baur's, of the Trinity, are inestimable for the histor
ical learning they contain. If you wish to go deeper
into Church history, Dupin, Fleury, and Tillemont,
with their voluminous works, (in French,) will be of
service. I would read the great poets of all countries in their
own tongue, at least these : Greek, Homer, Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes. Latin, Lucretius,
Virgil, Horace, Catullus. Italian, Dante, Ariosto,
Tasso. France has little poetry, except dramatic —
Corneille, Racine, Mohere, (Scribe, now living, is val
uable.) English, you know the great authors; Shak-
speare, Milton, Chaucer, etc. Such works as Camp
bell's, Hazlitt's, and Southey's Selections, are valuable.
I rank Wordsworth higher than any poet of this cen
tury. The great German poets Goethe, Schiller,
Heine, etc., deserve a place in all libraries.
4. You will wish to know the histories of the most
important countries. Greece, Rome, Italy, France,
Germany, Holland, England, United States. I need

A PLAN OF READING 227
hardly mention the authors here: Grote, Finlay, Ar
nold, Niebuhr, Gibbon, Sismondi, Prescott, Robertson.
I hardly dare say who is the best historian of Germany.
Davis and Motley treat the best periods of Dutch His
tory. The English and American historians need no
mention. You will wish to know something of the laws
of our own people; Blackstone and Kent, Hallam,
(Constitutional History of England, are the authors
for you. There is no good history of English or
American law, as of Roman, French, Spanish, etc., but
Crabbe's httle book is better than nothing.
5. I have said nothing about the natural sciences,
but I would not neglect Physiology, either animal or
human, Botany, or Astronomy, or Geology.
It strikes me that it is well to pursue a systematic
course of study, and at the same time to read freely
and without system, such other books as you take a
fancy to. Then you have the discipline of one, and
the ease of the other course. I would read the best
novelists ; Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, etc.
I have not mentioned any religious writers. It is
difficult to find good books which treat of religion.
Most writers on that theme are so narrow and bigoted.
But I have found help in Jeremy Taylor, William
Law, Dr. Channing, Henry Ware, Scougal. The
mystical writers have been my great dehght, and they
did me no smaU service.
A good deal depends on the proper arrangement of
the faculties. Locke on the Conduct of the Under
standing is a priceless little volume. (Andrew Combe's
little book is to the body what Locke is to the mind.)
Descartes has two little works on the Direction of the
Understanding, in vol. XL, of Cousin's edition of
Descartes. I also found much help from his Medita-

228 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
tions and Discourse on Method. I would read care
fully Bacon's great work, Advancement of Knowledge,
De Augmentis, and Novum Organum; these three made
but one book — as well as his Essays. Plutarch's
moral writings, Montaigne, Emerson, Carlyle, I would
by no means omit.
I have written much more than you asked, or I de
signed; as I write far from my library I have per
haps omitted what I might else refer to. But I am
sure I have recommended no poor or idle books.
Emerson and Shakspeare are the most valuable writers
in English — as I think — for you to study, taking
neither as master, but each as servant. If you study
theology you may find some help at Cambridge, which
is the most liberal, (or the least illiberal), theological
school in New England. I shall always be glad to
hear from you. Yours truly,
Theo. Parker.

X
A NEW LESSON FOR THE DAY
1856
The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are
exalted. — Psalm xii. 8.
On the last Sunday of May, 1854, which was also the
beginning of Anniversary Week, I stood here to preach
a Sermon of War. In 1846, at the beginning of the
Mexican trouble, I spoke of that national wickedness,
and again, at the end of the strife, warned the country
of that evil deed, begun without the people's consent.
When the next great quarrel broke out, in 1854, and
Russia, Turkey, England, and France were engaged
in a war which threatened to set all Europe in a flame,
I prepared an elaborate sermon on the causes and most
obvious consequences of that great feud, an account of
the forces then in the field or on the flood, and tried to
picture forth the awful spectacle of Christian Europe
in the hour of battle. I spent many days in collecting
the facts and studying their significance. But, while
I was computing the cost and the consequence of for
eign wickedness, a crime even more atrocious was get
ting committed under our own eyes, in the streets of
Boston; and, when I came to preach on the Russian
attack against the independence of a sister State, I
found the sermon wholly out of time: for the Boston
judge of probate had assaulted a brother man, inno
cent of all offense, poor, unprotected, and apparently
friendless. The guardian of orphans — a man not
marked by birth for such a deed, but spurred thereto
229

230 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
by cruel goads — had kidnapped an American in our
streets, clapped him into an unlawful jail, watched him
with ruffians, the offscouring of the town, and guarded
him with foreign soldiers, hired to rend and kill whom
soever our masters set them on. Without hearing the
evidence, this swift judge had already decided to de
stroy his victim, and told the counsel to put no " ob
stacles in the way of his going back, as he probably
will." The whole Commonwealth was in confusion.
Boston was in a state of siege. A hundred and eighty
foreign soldiers filled up the court-house. There had
been an extemporaneous meeting at Faneuil Hall, an
attempt to rescue the kidnapper's victim, an attack on
the court-house, then unlawfully made a barracoon for
our Southern masters to keep their slaves in. One of
the volunteers in man-stealing had been slain, and ten
or twelve citizens were in jail on charge of murder.
So, when I stood here, and looked into the eyes of the
great crowd which filled up these aisles, I saw it was
no time to treat of the Russian War against liberty;
and my discourse of that wickedness turned into a
Lesson for the Day, touching the new Crime against
Humanity. Since then, no occasion has offered for
treating of that dreadful conflict of the European na
tions. Now, when the Russian War is all over, the treaty
of peace definitely settled, I thought it would be worth
while to examine that matter: for the cloud of battle
has lifted up, and we can look back, and learn the
causes of the conflict; look round, and see the dead
bodies, the remnants of cities burned, of navies sunk ;
can look forward, and calculate what loss or gain
thence accrues to mankind ; and so get possibly a little
guidance, and a great deal of warning, for our own

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 231
conduct. So, to-day, I had intended to preach a calm
and philosophical sermon of the late war in Europe;
examining at length its cause, process, and results, for
the present and the future, and its relation to the
progress and welfare of mankind. I meant to look at
that transaction in the light of modern philosophy,
and of that rehgion which is alike human and Christian.
But now, as before, a new crime against humanity has
been committed. I must therefore lay by my specula
tions on that distant evil, and speak of what touches
the sin at our own doors. So, this morning, I shall
ask your attention to A New Lesson for the Day, in
which I shall say a little about the Russian War and
European affairs, — yet enough to give a tone of warn
ing, and so likewise of guidance, — and shall have
much to offer touching affairs in our country ; a little
of the Russian War, much of the American. This dis
course may be profitable: it is not pleasant to speak
or hear.
When an important event occurs, I have felt it my
duty, as a minister and public speaker, to look for its
causes, — which often lie far behind us, wholly out of
sight, — and also for its consequences, that are equally
hidden in the distance before us. Accordingly, to
some, who only look round them in haste, not far back
or forth, what I say often seems improper and out of
season. Thus, in 1846, when I treated of the Mexi
can War, many critics said, You must wait till we have
done fighting, before you preach against its wrong!
And when I reviewed the life and conduct of Mr. Web
ster, — the greatest understanding New England has
borne in her bosom for a whole generation, — they
said again, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, — You had bet-

SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ter put off your criticism for fifty years ! But at that
time neither you nor I wiU be here to make or profit
by it. Some men will also doubtless condemn what I
offer now. Wait a little, before you judge. A few
years, perhaps a few days, will justify the saddest
things I have to say. I wish to mount a great lesson
on this fleet occasion.
The events of the last week at Washington have
caused a great heat in this community, not excessive at
all ; it is too little, rather than too much. They have
not heated me in the smaUest; my pulse has not beat
quicker than before; and, though a tear may some
times spring to my eye, my judgment is as calm and
cool as before: for this assault on Mr. Sumner is no
new thing. I have often talked such matters over with
him, and said, I know you are prepared to meet the
reasoning of the South when it is tendered in words;
but her chief argument is bludgeons and bullets; are
you ready for that? And our senator was as cool
about it as I am : he also had looked the matter in the
face. It excites no surprise in him, none in me.
When the iron is hot, it is just as weU that the black
smith should be cool.
First look at the Russian matter, then at the Amer
ican. Look at the amount of evil in that Russian War.
It did not last two years; yet see what vast sums
of money it has cost ! Here are the figures : they are
partly conjectural, but wholly moderate; they are the
estimates of some of the great European journals.
France and England have paid four hundred and
eighty millions of dollars, Turkey a hundred and
forty millions, Austria a hundred millions, Russia three
hundred millions. Here, then, ten hundred and twenty

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 233
millions of dollars have been eaten up by a war not
twenty-four months long. Now, that sum of money
is more than seven times as great as the entire property,
real and personal, of " the great State of South Caro
lina." That is the direct cost to the governments of
the five nations: it does not include the damage done
to their forts and ships (and, in a single night, Russia
destroyed a larger navy of her own vessels than the
United States owns, — burnt and sunk it in the harbor
of Sebastopol) ; it does not embrace the diminution of
military and naval supplies, or the pensions hereafter
to be paid ; it makes no account of the injury to indi
viduals whose property has been consumed, or the great
cost to the other powers of Europe. When all the
biUs are in, as they will be a hundred and fifty years
hence, then I think it will appear that that two years'
fight cost Europe two thousand millions of doUars.
That is the amount of the real and personal estate of
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
Here are the figures representing the deaths of sol
diers. England has lost fifty thousand, France a
hundred and seventy thousand, Turkey eighty thou
sand, and Russia four hundred thousand; making
seven hundred thousand men, who have perished in the
prime of life. This does not include those who will
yet die of their wounds, nor such as perish by the worst
of deaths, — the slow heart-break of orphans and wid
ows, or those who meant to be wives, but are widows,
though never married. Put it all together, and the
two years' war has cost at least a million of lives.
Such a spendthrift is war, both of money and men.
Now look at the causes of this amount of evil, which
are quite various. Some of them lie on the top.
First, there is the despotism of the Russian gov-

SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ernors, who rule their subjects with an iron rod.
There is no freedom of industry in Russia, none of
religion ; and freedom of speech is also cut off. They
attack and despoil other nations more civilized than
themselves. The Russian Government has long been
the great filibuster of Christendom. Turkey was fee
ble, Russia strong; each was despotic; and the big
despot would eat up the little. Russia was Christian,
— theologically Christian, not morally, — Turkey was
Mahometan; and the Christian wished to tread the
Mahometan under foot. The Emperor said, " Tur
key is a sick man ; let us kill him, that the inheritance
may be ours." This was the first obvious cause, the
despotism of Russia, — the cause initiative.
But other rulers had a kindred spirit. The other
great powers of Europe are Prussia, Austria, France,
and England. Prussia and Austria are despotic gov
ernments. A small class of oligarchs domineer over
the people. They are closely joined to Russia by na
ture and aim; by alliances, matrimonial or diplomatic.
The governments of Russia, Austria, and Prussia are
a national brotherhood of thieves. In the eighteenth
century, they plundered Poland; in the nineteenth,
other nations; and in both their own subjects contin
ually. This judgment seems rather harsh. I do not
speak of the people, only of the oligarchy which rules
the hundred and twenty miUions who make up these
three nations.
France has established a military despotism, with the
picture of " universal suffrage " painted on the can
non. The farce of a Republic is every year enacted
by soldiers and government officers, — administration
officials. She also longs for conquest, — witness Al
giers and Rome, — and in idle vanities consumes the

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 235
people's wealth, — spends eighty thousand dollars to
christen a little baby, an imperial doll.
Alone of all these great powers, England respects
the rights of the people, and has institutions progres
sively democratic. She purposely advances towards
freedom. But she, too, shares the instinct to conquer,
and, after Russia, is the most invasive power in Eu
rope. Witness her conquests all round the world. She
owns a sixth part of the earth's surface, — controls a
fifth part of the population. Besides that, this brave
Anglo-Saxon nation is ruled by an hereditary aris
tocracy of kings, nobles, and priests, who, though the
best perhaps in Europe, yet tread the people down,
though far less than anywhere else in Europe. Cer
tainly, for the last three hundred years, England has
been the great bulwark of human freedom ; and, just
now, she is the only European nation that allows lib
erty of speech on matters of religion, politics, science,
every thing. In Europe, freedom can only be de
fended in the English tongue.
Now, in common with Austria, Russia, and France,
the English Government had longed for the spoils of
Turkey, — also counting the sultan a sick man, and
wanting his inheritance. But these great powers could
not agree as to> the share that each should take ; other
wise the sultan had died twenty years ago.
All Europe is ruled by an affiliated oligarchy of
kings, nobles, and priests, who have unity of idea and
aim, to develop the power of the strong and to keep the
people down, and unity of action in all great matters.
But in England there is such a mass of thoughtful
men, men of property too, such a stern love of indi
vidual liberty, that the foot of despotism is never se
cure, nor its print very deep, on that firm Saxon soil.

236 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Just now the Anglo-Saxon nation in Europe presents
a very grand spectacle. She opens her arms to the
exile from every land : despots find a home there, with
none to molest nor make them afraid ; and patriots are
welcome to the generous bosom of England, which
bore our fathers. Though she once, and wickedly,
fought against us, she respects and loves her sons, per
haps not the least noble portion of herself.
Second, the spirit of despotism in the other gov
ernments of Europe, kindred to the invasive despotism
of Russia, was the next cause of that war, — the cause
co-operative. The reputation of France and England for ancient
mutual hate, led the Russian emperor to believe they
would not oppose his rapacity. Neither was strong
enough alone; and they could not join. So he reached
out his hand to snatch the glittering prize. Of course
he began the robbery with a pious pretense : he did not
wish for Turkish soil, only " to protect the Chris
tians," to " have access to the holy places where our
blessed Lord was born and slain, and buried too ; " so
that all Christian people might fulfil the prophecy, and
" go up to the mountain of the Lord." The Latin
proverb says well, " All evil begins in the name of the
Lord." This was no exception.
This brief quarrel, which costs mankind two thou
sand million dollars and ten hundred thousand lives,
was a war of politicians, not at all of the people. It
began only with despots : there was no ill blood between
the nations. Had Nicholas asked the Russians, " Will
you go and plunder Turkey in the name of Jesus of
Nazareth?" the people would have said, "Not so;
but we will stay at home." The war came from no
sudden heat. Nicholas had foreseen it, planned it,

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 237
and in secret made ready at Sebastopol the vast array
of means for this wicked enterprise ; had laid his gun
powder plot long years before ; and, at the right time,
this imperial Guy Faux fired the train which was to
blow up an ancient empire, and open his way to the
conquest of the western world. No more liberty, if
that scheme succeed! Yet the statesmen of France,
Austria, Prussia, England, were privy to the inten
tions of this reactionary, who sought to put back the
march of humankind: they were accessory to the pur
pose, though they knew not the hidden means. The
war was the result of causes long in action, which pro
duced this waste of life and its material — the proxi
mate formation of men — as certainly as grass-seed
comes up grass.
Here are the practical maxims of all despotism:
No higher law of God above the selfish force of the
strong ; no natural rights of the weak ; all belongs to
the violence of power!
In open daylight, two things went before this Eu
ropean waste of life: (1.) The corruptions of the rul
ing class : one of the most learned men in Christendom
declares, that, since the downfall of the Roman State
in the fourth and fifth centuries, Europe's controlling
men have never been so corrupt, so mean and selfish,
as are now the kings, nobles, and priesthood. (2.)
The servility of the class next below the high aris
tocracy, who tolerate and encourage the inflicted
wrong, hoping themselves to share the profit that it
brings. Still more, all this wickedness is the work of very few
men. If a hundred politicians in Europe had said,
" There shall be no war," there would have been no
war; nay, if ten men in Europe had distinctly said,

238 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
" There shall be no war against Turkey," there would
have been none ; if two men in the Cabinets of each of
the five great powers had said so, aU this immense out
lay would have been spared.
Such are the causes. On so narrow a hinge turns
the dreadful gate of war!
Look now at the results. Some are good. The
intervention of France and England has shown that
national hatred can be overcome; that difference of
religion does not separate the Turk from Christian
sympathy. The bloody valor of France and England
has checked the westward and southward progress of
Russian despotism for the next fifty years; and that
filibustering nation is weakened in her purse, her army,
and her navy, and restrained from immediate encroach
ment on other European States. She will now turn
her immense power to develop the material resources
of her own territory. And let me say, that the Rus
sian people have grand and magnificent qualities ; and
whoso stands here three hundred years hence will tell
a history of them which few sanguine scholars would
dare prophesy at this day. The Russian Government
is another matter; of that I do not wish to say any
thing. That is the first good that has been done; it
was done wholly by France and England. You do
not forget the perfidious conduct of Austria.
Then, the war has led Russia to open her ports, and
establish free trade with all the world; and that will
not only increase the material riches of Russia, but it
will be in some measure a guaranty against future
wars between her and other nations. For those for
tresses which at this day most effectually keep war
from a nation are not built of stone and earth: they
are the warehouses in the great commercial streets,

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 239
bales of goods, boxes of sugar, money on deposit in
the great cities of the world. Free trade will help
that. Again, Turkey is delivered from her worst foe ; and
a secret treaty between Austria, England, and France,
guarantees the independence of that State. It seems
the allies, for once, stole a march on the Russian, and
negotiated this treaty in the dark.
Besides, Turkey agrees to respect the Christians who
have delivered her from the enemy. She has agreed
to set a lesson of toleration ; and it is a little striking
to see, that, just at the time when Turkey offered free
dom of religion to the Christians and all others, Cali
fornia was doubting whether she should allow the Chi
nese to set up a temple to Buddha, which even Amer
icans think should not be suffered. But I thank God
that every form of religion, old as the Buddhistic or
new as the Mormon, can find a place in our land. I
would not ask the Chinese to let our missionaries into
their country, and refuse the Chinese missionary a cor
responding privilege. Just now, Christianity is more
free in Turkey than in Russia, Austria, or the home of
the Reformation itself. Another Arius or Athanasius
might teach at Constantinople; while neither would
be allowed in a pulpit at Vienna, Moscow, or Witten
berg. Moreover, the treaty makes a desirable change in
the law of nations. Privateering is abolished; a neu
tral flag protects enemy's goods, while the hostile flag
does not imperil neutral goods ; there can be no paper
blockades. This is a great step in civilization.
But all those things might have been done without
drawing a sword or shedding a drop of blood. Had
the controlling class been humane men ; nay, had the

240 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ten I speak of insisted on these few things, the whole
would have been done, and not a bullet fired. But
the people must have leaders ; and the hereditary rulers
in Europe seem hardly wiser than the elected in Amer
ica. A born deceiver is no better than a deceiver
chosen and sworn in ; and, if the wicked lead the ig
norant, the latter are sure to fall into the ditch. The
crimes of statesmen are written in the people's blood.
Some of the effects are only evil. There is a great
debt entailed on the nations, to be paid by millions
not yet born. The yoke of bondage is more firmly
fixed than before, for the standing armies are increased
aU over Europe; and they are the tools of tyrants.
France and England have become stronger by their
union. To balance that increase of power, the Aus
trian emperor has made a concordat with the pope;
and those two are likewise at one. In all the Austrian
territory, the Romish priest controls the public wor
ship, the public education, the printing and selling and
reading of books. Thus a long step is taken back
wards towards the dark ages.
Besides, there has been a considerable demorahzation
of the people in the greater part of Europe, caused
by those deeds of violence, the spectacle and report
of such national murder, which it will take years to
overcome. AU the good, it seems to me, might have been ef
fected with no war; all the evil saved, had only the
leading statesmen of Europe had noble hearts, as well
as able heads and high political rank. That vast sum
of misery is to be set down to the account of a small
number of men. Nicholas of Russia seems most of
all to blame ; next, mankind must charge this waste of
property and life on the corruption and selfishness of

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 241
the ruling class in Europe, and the servility of those
just below them in social rank and public power. Re
member all this when you come to think of America;
and this old Hebrew oracle not less : " Righteousness
exalteth a nation; but sin is the ruin of any people."
The sin of the ruler is the destruction of the people.
So much for Europe. Now a word of our own
country. America is now in a state of incipient civil war;
in Kansas houses are burned, others are plundered,
blood is shed. A few months ago, two worthy men
from Kansas, Judge Conway and Gen. Pomeroy, were
worshiping here with us. They were often at my
house. They have violated no constitutional law, no
legal statute. But the newspapers report that both
are in jail: if they are at large, it is through their
skill in escaping from lawless foes. Governor Rob
inson, who was also here but a few weeks ago, is now
in jail, on the charge of treason. The border ruffians
will hang him, if they dare. His crime is obedience
to the law of his land, and hatred to slavery. Mr.
Tappan, a young man known to many of you, a mem
ber of this congregation, went to Kansas with the first
company of emigrants : a worthy man, but guilty of
respect for the self-evident truths of the Declaration
of Independence. If he is not in jail, his freedom
is due to his own adroitness, not the justice of the
" authorities." The usurping government strikes at
those men because they love justice. Lawrence has
been sacked; property destroyed, one states to the
amount of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars;
and I know not how many men have been murdered.
I shall not speak of the violence to women. These are
acts for which the general government is responsible,
XIV— 16

242 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
committed by its creatures, who have been set upon
the honest inhabitants of Kansas.
We also have a despotic power in the United States.
There is a Russia in America, a privileged class of
three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders, who
own three million five hundred thousand slaves, and
control four million " poor whites " in the South.
This despotism is more barbarous than Russia; more
insolent, more unscrupulous, more invasive. It has
long controlled all the great offices in America. The
President is only its tool. It directs the national policy,
foreign and domestic ; sympathizes with every foreign
tyrant ; and at home wages war on all the best institu
tions of the country. Impudent and consolidated, it
governs the American Church and State. It says to
the Tract Society : " Not a word against slavery ; "
and the Tract Society bends its knees, — so limber to
men, so stiff against God, — and answers : " Not a
word against slavery: we will take a South-side view
of all popular wickedness. It is true, the North pays
us the money ; and so it is proper that the South should
tell how it must be spent. Not a word against slav
ery." It comes up to the Bible Society, and thunders
forth : " Don't give the New Testament to the slaves ! "
And the Bible Society says : " Not a New Testament.
Slavery is Christian. If Jesus of Nazareth were on
earth, he would open a commissioner's office in Boston,
and kidnap men. Judas is the beloved disciple. We
never will disturb slavery." It tells the Northern
courts, legislatures, governors, " Steal men for us ;
kidnap your own fellow-citizens of New England, and
deliver them up to be our bondsmen for ever, and then
yourselves pay the costs !" And the Northern courts
legislatures, governors, citizen-soldiers, are ready:

A LESSON FOR THE DAY
they volunteer to steal men, and then pay the price,
not only of blood, but of money, and that " with
alacrity." In Kansas, on a large scale, this Russia in America,
this privileged class of despots in a democracy, wages
war against freedom. It burns houses, destroys
printing-presses, shoots men. There it was Missouri
ruffians, some of them members of Congress, an ex-
senator or so, United States soldiers, Southern immi
grants, whom it furnishes with weapons, adorns with
a legal collar, and then sets upon the people. Just
now, the House of Representatives asks what force
the government has in Kansas, and what instructions
have been given. The answer is, There is only a lieu
tenant-colonel's command there, — half a regiment ;
the officer is ordered not to enforce the laws of the
territorial legislature. This does not tell the whole
story. The United States marshal does the bidding
of the unlawful legislature which the Missourians
elected : he calls out his posse comitatus, and the United
States Government furnishes them with weapons and
authority. They are the provisional army in this civil
war which the government wages against the people.
Look at this fact: slaveholders have hired immigrants
to go from Alabama and South Carolina to Kansas,
and fight the battle of slavery. When Col. Buford's
party, three or four hundred strong, arrived at Law
rence, they were too poor to pay for their first break
fast. What shall be done with them? They are
draughted into the posse of the sheriff; and, in the
service of the government, they burn the property
and shoot the sons of New England ! I need not dwell
on these things. Every mail brings tidings of fresh
wickedness committed in that ill-fated territory.

244 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
At Washington, on a small scale, this despotic power
wages war against freedom. There it uses an arm
of a different form, — the arm of an honorable ruffian,
a member of Congress, a (Southern) "gentleman,"
a " man of property and standing," born of one of the
" first families of South Carolina," a nephew (by mar
riage) of Senator Butler. He skulks about the pur
lieus of the Capitol, and twice seeks to waylay his
victim, honorable, and suspecting no dishonor. Rut,
failing of that meanness, the assassin, a bludgeon in
his hand, pistols in his pocket, attended by his five
friends, armed also with daggers and pistols, watches
in the Senate chamber till his enemy is alone, then
steals up behind him as he sits writing, when his
arms are pinioned in his heavy chair and his other
limbs are under the desk, and on his naked head strikes
him with a club loaded with lead, until he falls, stunned
and bleeding, to the floor, and then continues his cow
ard blows. South Carolina is very chivalrous! If
an Irishman in Cove Place should strike another Irish
man after he was down, it would be thought a very
heinous offense amongst Irishmen. If Patrick had
Michael down, and then beat him, (pardon me, forty
thousand Irishmen in Boston, that I suppose it possi
ble !) it would be thought a great outrage. Cove Place
would hoot him forth with a shout of contemptuous
rage. But when a son of South Carolina beats a de
fenseless man over the head, after he has stunned him
and brought him to the ground, it is very chivalrous!
South Carolina applauds it, and gets up a testimonial
to do it honor. All the South will commend the mode
as well as the matter of the deed.
This American oligarchy means to destroy all our
Democratic institutions. Russian despotism is not

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 245
more hostile to liberty in Europe than the slave power
to freedom here. But the slaveholders are not alone.
American and Russian despotism have the same allies,
— the corruption of many controlling men, such as
direct the politics of the North, and to a great ex
tent also its large commerce. Since the settlement of
the country, the great mass of Northern men have
never been so well educated and so moral. But the
controlling class of men, who manage the high com
merce and fill the political offices, have never been
so corrupt, so unpatriotic, so mean and selfish. Will
you say I am mistaken? Then the error is of long
standing; a judgment formed after careful study of
the past, and a wide knowledge of the present. Look
at Massachusetts, the State officials, the United States
officials, the United States court in New England: can
the past furnish a parallel since Andros was commis
sioner, and papal James II was king? The Hutchin-
sons and the Olivers of revolutionary times would
blush to be named with men whose brow no wickedness
can shame. It would be cruel to Benedict Arnold to
compare him with certain other sons of New England
now in high official place.
Be not surprised at this attack on Mr. Sumner. It
is no strange thing. It is the result of a long series
of acts, each the child of its predecessor, and father of
what followed, not exceptional, but instantial, in our
history. Look with a little patience after the cause
of those outrages at Kansas and at Washington. You
will not agree with me to-day: I cannot convince four
thousand men, and carry them quite so far, all at once.
Think of my words when you go home.
Look first at the obvious cause of the blows dealt
that fair senatorial head by the Hon. Mr. Brooks, of

246 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
South Carolina. It is the ferocious disposition of
the slaveholder. I know the cruelty of that despotism
only too well, and am not thought very sparing in
my words. You know what I utter ; God, what I
withhold. Much, both of fact and feeling, I have
always kept in reserve, and still keep it. What I
give is quite as much as any audience can carry or
will take.
This ferocious despotism has determined on two
things :
First, slavery shall spread all over the land, into
the territories, into the (so-called) free States.
Second, freedom of speech against it shall not be
allowed anywhere in the territories, in the free
States, or in the Capitol, any more than in South
Carolina. Proof of each is only too plentiful and plain. As
a sign of the times, look at a single straw in the stream
of slavery: it is a poison-weed in a muddy, fetid
stream, but it shows which way its pestilential waters
run. A few days since, a man, holding an important
office under the United States Government in Boston,
told one of my friends, " It won't be three years be
fore a man will be punished for talking Nigger ( speak
ing against slavery) in Boston, as surely as he now
is in Charleston, S. C." This " unterrified Demo
crat" has now gone to the Cincinnati Convention,
whereof he is a worthy member, to organize means to
attain that end. I shall not tell you his name, — that
is hateful enough already ; but turn your wrath against
the ferocious despotism which uses him to bark and
bite. That is the obvious cause, the cause initiative, of
which I have much more to tell, only not now.

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 247
Look next at the secondary causes, not quite so
plain, but as fertile in results.
The North aUows the South to steal black men, and
men not much darker than you and I, if born of
swarthy mothers; it allows the South to sell them at
will, brand them as cattle, mutilate them as oxen, beat
them, not seldom to death, burn them alive with green
fagots, for the sport of a mob of " very respectable
gentlemen," a " minister of the Gospel " looking on
and justifying the deed as " Christian." The North
allows all this : it is only " an incident of slavery,"
the shadow of the substance. New England allows
it. Boston has no considerable horror at any of these
things, — I mean a part of Boston. Up to this time,
Boston has defended slavery with her " educated in-
teUect," and by means of many of her " citizens of
eminent gravity." Hitherto the controlling men of
Boston have been the defenders of slavery; this day
they are not its foes.
Now, if the South may thus ruin one black man,
so it may aU white men whom it can master. Color
is an accident to> man as to these roses ; it determines
neither genus nor species ; it is of the dress, not the
person. There is only one genus of man, one species,
¦ — the human genus, human species. The right to en
slave one innocent man is the right to enslave all inno
cent men. One-seventh part of the Federal House is
painted black, the rest white: do you believe you can
set the black part on fire, and not burn down the white,
not scorch it, not crack the boards, nor smoke the
paint? You may say, "Thus far, but no farther: "
will the fire heed you? I rather think not: I believe
the experience of mankind tells another story. If
you sustain the claim of South Carolina to beat black

248 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
men at Charleston, you need not be surprised if she is
logical enough to beat a white man at Washington,
as soon as she dares. And her daring will be just in
proportion to your forbearance. It is a very cour
ageous State, its chivalry bravely attacking defense
less persons.
A portion of the North — of New England, Mas
sachusetts, Boston, those portions deemed best edu
cated, and, in general, most " orthodox " and " Chris
tian " in the Church, most respectable in society —
have all along made mouths at everybody who com
plained that slavery was wicked, was cruel, even that it
was unprofitable. We were told, " It is none of your
business; you have nothing to do with slavery: let
it alone. Besides," they said, " it is not cruel
nor unprofitable. It is true, we should not like
it for ourselves ; but it is good enough for black men :
it is a very Christian thing." You do not forget,
surely, that there is a doctor of South-side divinity in
the city of Boston, a most thoroughly " respectable
man." He has not lost a hair of " respectability "
from his clerical head by perverting the Bible to the
defense of slavery. When the United States court
opens its session, it asks him to come and pray for a
blessing on the Court of Kidnappers in the city of
Boston. It is very proper. And he represents the
opinion of a large class of men, who are bottomed on
money, who have a good intellectual education, and
very high social standing.
When South Carolina shut up colored sailors of
Massachusetts in her jails at Charleston, and made the
merchants of Boston pay the bill, the State sent one
of her eminent men to remonstrate, and take legal
measures to secure the constitutional rights of her citi-

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 249
zens. But Mr. Hoar was ignominiously driven out of
the State; and it was only the handsome presence of
his daughter that saved him from a fate far worse than
what befell Mr. Sumner. Massachusetts bore it all.
Boston capitalists were angry if a man complained
above his breath at this indignity ; but, when they came
to be tired of paying the bills, they got up a petition
to Congress, very numerously signed, asking Con
gress to abolish that nuisance, and secure the constitu
tional rights of Massachusetts men. The petition
was put into the hands of the senator from Boston * ;
but he " lost it ; " he " put it into his hat, and, some
way or other, it fell out." But the sagacious mer
chants had kept a duplicate, and the senator had an
attested copy sent him. He lost that too. He never
dared to offer the petition of Boston merchants against
an outrage which had no color of constitutional plea
to stand under. Freedom of speech was struck dumb
on the floor of the Senate more than ten years ago.
Even the almighty dollar could not find a tongue.
But, when Rufus Choate returned to Boston, his " re-
spectabihty " was not harmed in the least : he was still
the " Hon. Mr. Choate." Suppose it had been a pe
tition to increase the duty on cottons and woolens fifty,
per cent, and he had " lost that out of his hat " ?
Why, when he returned to Boston — I will not say he
would have lost his head from his shoulders, but it
would have been worth very little upon them.
Long ago, the South said the North should not dis
cuss the morality of slavery ; that was their business.
Well, the controlling men of Boston obeyed. They
said, "No: the North shall not discuss the subject of
slavery." The lips of yonder college were sewed up
* Rufus Choate.

250 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
with slavery's iron thread: I hope they will open now.
Slavery put its thumbs into the ears, and its fingers
over the eyes, of Boston respectability; and it sewed
up the mouth of commerce, fashion, politics, — I was
going to say religion ; but it did not : it sewed up the
mouth only of the ministers and churches, — a quite
different thing.
It is not twenty-five years since the governor of
Virginia asked Mayor Otis, of Boston, to put a stop to
the efforts of the abolitionists; and, after three days'
search, the police of Boston found the " Liberator "
who was making all this mischief. His office was in
a garret ; and his " only visible auxiliary," quoth Mr.
Otis, " was a negro boy." Mr. Otis wanted to ferret
out anti-slavery and put the heel of the Hartford Con
vention upon it.
It is not twenty-one years since a governor of Mas
sachusetts, in his annual message, recommended the
legislature to inquire if some law should not be made
to suppress the freedom of speech. It is not yet quite
twenty-one years since there was a meeting in Faneuil
Hall to denounce the discussion of this very matter.
Here is what a distinguished man said; he was not a
young man then : " I would beseech them " [the abo
litionists] " to discard their dangerous abstractions,"
[the abstractions that " all men are endowed with cer
tain inalienable rights, among which is the right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,"] " which
they adopt as universal rules of conduct,
which darken the understanding, and mislead the judg
ment." He would advise them to consider the precepts
and example of their Divine Master. He found slav
ery, Roman slavery, an institution of the country in
which he lived. Did he denounce it? Did he attempt

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 251
its immediate abohtion? Did he do any thing, or say
any thing, which could, in its remotest tendency, en
courage resistance and violence? No: his precept
was, Servants (slaves), obey your masters! It
was because he would not interfere with the administra
tion of the laws of the land. If the " Divine Master "
was Jesus of Nazareth, then no such word is given to
us in this Bible. It was only the gospel according to
Peleg Sprague. Boston honored it. The hall rang
with applause when he invented a Bible to suppress
discussion. Since that time he has had his reward:
he is a judge of the court of the United States.
It is not twenty-one years since a mob of well-
dressed " gentlemen of property and standing," in this
very city, broke up a prayer-meeting of women, where
a Quaker lady presided, because they came together
to discuss slavery. It is not quite twenty-one years
since the great advocate of freedom for all men was
forced to take shelter in the stone jail of Boston, to
secure him from the fury of a mob, — the only place
in Boston where he could be secure from the hands of
the property, the education, the fashion, the respecta-
bUity, of this town. It is not twenty-one years since,
at night, a gallows was erected before his house, with
an appropriate motto on it, meaning, " If you don't
hold your peace, we will take your life ! " You know
what insults, private as well as public, were heaped
upon Dr. Channing, as soon as he spoke in behalf of
freedom. He lost his influence ; he hurt his reputation.
If a minister said a word in behalf of the slave, that
minister was an object of scorn in his own parish, and
in the whole town also. No man took an interest in
promoting the cause of humanity but he lost all his
" respectability." Personal qualities stood him in no

252 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
stead; birth from a distinguished line was of no con
sequence ; even money did not save him. " Decency "
dropped him out of its ranks. Freedom of speech was
assaulted with violence in Boston long before the ex
periment was tried on the senatorial head of Mr. Sum
ner. Mr. Brooks, in Washington, only does in 1856
what Mr. Sprague, in Boston, encouraged twenty years
before, — he puts down discussion.
When the slave power wanted Texas annexed, to
spread bondage over two hundred and thirty-seven
thousand square miles of land, the controlling men of
Boston were anxious for that measure. Even the in
dignant voice of Mr. Webster could not make a public
opinion against that extension of wickedness. " How
ever bounded " was the cry !
When the Mexican War broke out, by the act of the
slave despotism, how feebly did Boston oppose the
crime ! Nay, its representative voted for the war and
the falsehood which laid the blame on the feebler na
tion. How few ministers dared speak against the evil
deed! The Peace Society turned its secretary out of
office because he spoke against that war. It struck its
own flag as soon as slavery gave command.
Alas ! how sad a gift is memory ! You cannot for
get the year 1850, the Fugitive Slave Bill, the discus
sions on it at Boston and at Washington. It is dread
ful to bring up the terrible speech in the Senate House
on the 7th of March, when that mighty power of elo
quence shook the land, so loud did it cry for the exten
sion and perpetuation of slavery ! You remember the
nine hundred and eighty-seven men of Boston, who
thanked the recreant son of New England for his
treason to humanity, told him he had pointed out " the
path of duty, convinced the understanding, and

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 253
touched the conscience, of a nation ; " nay, expressed
their " entire concurrence in the sentiments of that
speech," and gave him their " heartfelt thanks for the
inestimable aid it afforded to the preservation of the
Union." You cannot forget the speech from the steps
of the Revere House on the 29th of April, — the decla
ration from those senatorial lips that " discussion " on
the subject of slavery, in Congress and out of it, must
" in some way be suppressed." You remember that
Massachusetts was to " conquer her prejudices " in
favor of justice and the law of God, to " do a disa
greeable duty," and kidnap her own citizens. How
many controlling men of Boston said " Aye," we will
conquer those " prejudices," do that " disagreeable
duty"! Political and commercial journals, ministers
in their pulpits, — they went for the Fugitive Slave
Bill ! I wish I could forget it all. May God forgive
them for the atheism they preached, and the dreadful
woe springing up in our future path from the seed
they cast abroad! But there were honorable excep
tions, commercial and ecclesiastical, — a few !
Mr. Eliot voted for the bill (I had hoped better
things from a man with so much good in him, which
no wickedness, past or future, shall blot from my
book) ; and, when he returned, the prominent citizens
of Boston called upon him, and one by one, in public
places, they grasped his hand, and said, " We thank you
for all this; it was just what we wanted you to do;
you have represented the feeling, not of all Boston, but
of the property, the talent, the piety, of Boston."
When the first kidnappers came here, you will easily
call to mind the indignation of the controlling men,
because William and Ellen Craft could not be taken
and made slaves. You will not forget the Union meet-

254 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ing in Faneuil Hall, the resolutions, the speeches of
Mr. HaUett and Mr. Curtis. From the senator who
had lost the petition out of his hat came the triple ad
monition, "REMEMBER, Remember, Remember."
Let us keep it in recollection.
When the country towns, like Lynn and Worcester,
said, " We will not kidnap men," what did the great
political and commercial journals say? " We will cut
off their trade ; we will starve them out. If they do
not mean to sustain that law, Boston will not deal with
them: it won't sell West India goods and calicoes to
Lynn and Worcester." You know what the most dis
tinguished men of Boston said of the Free-soilers about
that time. S°me men 0I" high social standing, large
talent, great character, inherent nobleness of spirit,
said : " We will have nothing to do with slave-hunting.
That bill is a bill of abominations: we tread it under
our feet." One of the most conspicuous men of Bos
ton called these men " a nest of vipers," 1 — said they
" broke their teeth gnawing a file : " how many echoed
the word all round the town! Charles Sumner be
longed to this " nest of vipers " in 1851.
When Shadrach was rescued, you know how the
newspapers mourned over it, and the ministers of Bos
ton made public lamentation.
When the mayor of Boston was kidnapping Thomas
Sims, to gratify the desire of a certain family of Bos
ton, Marshal Tukey drilled the police in Court
Square, teaching them " military duty." A man
laughed at the evolutions of the " awkward squad,"
and, for that offense, was imprisoned in the lockup. A
woman was threatened with the same punishment, for
the same offense; but the Quakeress laughed it down.
" Fifteen hundred gentlemen of property and stand-

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 255
ing " volunteered their armed help to deliver the poor
boy into the bondage which now wears his wretched life
away. What respectable and affluent joy lit up both
the parlors and the churches of commerce and politics
when Boston bore the first-fruits of the Fugitive Slave
Bill ! How blessed was the brig " Acorn," which
cradled Thomas Sims in its shell!
Men of shortest memory can reach back to Anni
versary Week, 1854, and recollect Anthony Burns, a
Baptist minister, " ordained " a slave by Commissioner
Loring, — fore-ordained, as the sentence was given
without waiting for the " trial." I hope you remem
ber the kidnapper's counsel on that occasion. I know
you will recall the soldiers in Court Square, who loaded
their muskets with powder and ball. I think you have
not forgotten the cannon, filled with canister-shot at
that time, in Court Square. I am sure some of you
remember the charge of the United States judge on
the 7th of June, 1854; the indictment, in October,
1854, against Wendell PhiUips. He had made a fatal
mistake; he did. not know that freedom of speech was
to be " crushed out " of Massachusetts. So, in the
" Cradle of Liberty," he had spoken such words as he
always speaks, straight out from the heart of hu
manity, and with a tongue of such persuasion as never
before his time has rung through New England ; and,
depend upon it, when that ceases to be mortal, God
will not create such eloquent lips again in any haste.
He had spoken, at Faneuil Hall, against kidnapping.
Messrs. HaUett and Curtis had him indicted for a mis
demeanor; and he was held to bail in fifteen hundred
doUars. The punishment was to be a fine of three
hundred dollars, and imprisonment in jail for twelve
months. That was the state of things at that time.

256 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Look at Boston now. The judge of probate, who
sent Anthony Burns into bondage, is still the guardian
of orphans. He holds the same office he held before,
though a law of Massachusetts has been made ex
pressly forbidding it. That law of Massachusetts is
trodden under foot; the governor treads it under his
feet; the judge of probate, the House of Representa
tives, the Senate, the press of Boston, tread it under
their feet. The city authorities of Boston must have
some one to deliver an oration on the birthday of Amer
ican independence. Do they invite Mr. Sumner? Not
at all. Mr. Phillips? They would sink the State
rather than have him. No : it must be one of the kid
napper's counsel in 1854. A very proper man to
preach a sermon to the people on the Fourth of July,
with the Declaration of Independence for a text ! He
can go back two years, and find an illustration of it.
The argument he used in the kidnapper's court, in
May, 1854, would be very convenient for him to in
troduce on the Fourth of July, 1856. The Declara
tion of Independence must be read. I suppose that
will be done by George Ticknor Curtis, Benjamin
Franklin HaUett, or some other of that excellent fra
ternity of kidnappers who are appointed to rule over us.
The legislature of last winter (1855) was the green
est legislature we ever had: it had less legislative ex
perience than any other. It was the poorest in point of
property : none ever represented so small a ratio of the
wealth of Massachusetts. It was the most uneducated :
none ever had so little of the superior culture which
falls to the lot of lawyers, doctors, and ministers. But
no legislature, since I have known lawmakers, ever
showed so much honesty, humanity, and justice. It
cleared the Massachusetts statute-book of obnoxious

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 257
laws, and passed an exceUent law, making kidnapping
impossible on the soil of Massachusetts. That was a
legislature which contained the better portion of what
is called the " American party." The present legis
lature contains a. large portion of that other part of
the American party, which is more properly called
Know-nothing, which required no inauguration for
membership; and you know what this legislature pro
poses to do. It would repeal the Personal Liberty
Law. Nothing but the assault on freedom in Wash
ington will save it. It is laid over until next Tues
day, when it receives its final judgment. What that
judgment shall be, I will not now say.
Now put all these six or seven things together, and
see what they amount to. The slaveholders under
stand this perfectly well. They know that when they
strike at the head of Charles Sumner in the Senate of
the United States, they attack a man whom the " re
spectability " of Boston called one of a " nest of
vipers," whom it seeks to put down.
Put all these things together, and you see the sec
ondary cause of this wickedness, — the cause co-op
erative. Corrupt men at the North, in New England,
in Boston, have betrayed the people. They struck at
freedom before South Carolina dared lift an arm. The
slaveholders know these things, — that, as often as they
have demanded wickedness, Boston has answered the
demand: they piece out their small bit of lion's skin
with the pelt of many a Northern fox. They are in
earnest for slavery : they think New England is not in
earnest for freedom. Do you blame them for their
inference? A few years ago, Mr. Sumner spoke in
Boston on " The True Grandeur of Nations," a lofty
word before the City Fathers, on the Fourth of July,
XIV— 17

258 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
1845. An argument against war, a plea for peace.
As two of our most distinguished citizens came from
listening, one said to the other, " Well, if this young
man is going to talk in that way, he cannot expect
Boston to hold him up." Since then, this young man
has spoken even nobler words. Boston has not held
him up; nay, the controlling part of it has sought to
strike him down, — counted him one of " a nest of
vipers," — done nothing to support, all to overthrow
him. Why? Because he was the continual defender
of the inalienable rights of man. Slaveholders are not
fools: they know all this. The South never struck a
Northern advocate of a tariff, or a defender of the
Union. She knew the North would " hold up " the
champions of the Union and the tariff. It attacks
only the soldiers of freedom, knowing that the con
trolling power of the North also hates them. I know
men in Boston toi-day who would long since have
struck Mr. Sumner, had they only dared, — nor him
alone. Last week, there were two remarkable spectacles in
the United States. One at the State House, in Boston :
it was the legislature, stimulated by the enemies of
freedom, proceeding to repeal the Personal Liberty
Law, and seeking to restore kidnapping to Massachu
setts. I need not tell here who it was — a very few
men — that plotted the wickedness, nor how much they
expected to gain by it. On the same day, not far
from the same hour, in the nation-house at Washing
ton, there was another spectacle. A representative of
slavery, with a bludgeon, knocks our senator to the
ground, — strikes him twenty or thirty blows after he
is down. They are two scenes in the same tragedy.
Both blows were dealt by the same arm, — the slave

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 259
power; both aimed at the same mark, — the head of
freedom; each came from the same motive, which I
need not name.
My friends, I am not sorry to see you thus excited.
I am too old to look on such scenes with astonishment.
I entertain no sudden heat. Pardon me that I am cool
to-day. To me, Massachusetts is the twelve hundred thou
sand persons in it; or, more emphatically, it is the
thoughtful, it is the moral, it is the religious, people
of Massachusetts. To me, Boston is the one hundred
and sixty thousand men within her limits ; or, more
properly speaking, it is the moral and religious part
of them. I am proud of Massachusetts: it is the
grandest State in the world, I think. I am proud also
of Boston. I respect and venerate her manifold ex
cellence. I know her past history, and look for a
future far more glorious than the deeds of Pilgrim or
Patriot Fathers have rendered days gone by. For this
reason, I tell Boston her faults ; whereof the noble
city is not conscious, else had she never done those
deeds of shame. I do not hesitate to expose this wick
edness to you, who easily understand it all ; and even to
men not familiar with such thoughts, whose disap
proval was most grateful unto me, — such men could
not believe that our Boston was an accomplice with
Carolina in this foul work. I say I am proud of Bos
ton, — not of those controlling men, who darkly mis
rule its pohtics, whose Machiavelian craft is like the
Venetian poisons of old time, which destroyed sight,
hearing, feeling, every noblest sense, and only left the
vegetative hfe : I am ashamed of them. I do not hate
them; I shall never belittle their excellence; I do not
scorn them. I may be allowed to have pity for them,

260 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
— not the pity of contempt, but the pity of charity
and love. I am not proud of them ; but of the sober,
moral part of Boston, I am proud, — thereof is New
England proud. It is the grandest city in this world ;
it is the humanest city, the most thoughtful city, on
this continent; it is the furthest advanced in its hu
manity. But the Boston which the South knows, listens to,
and respects, is a very different city. It is a Boston
that consists of some twenty or thirty persons, per
haps a hundred, " men of property and standing ; "
and some two or three thousand flunkies, — I do not
know exactly how numerous they are. That is the
Boston which the South knows. Now, that Boston,
which the South knows, hates freedom, hates democ
racy, hates religion. In 1835, it put down a woman's
prayer-meeting. In 1844, it annexed Texas. In
1846, it liked the Mexican War. In 1850, it indorsed
the Fugitive Slave Bill. In 1851, it sent back Thomas
Sims to bondage. In 1854, it " restored " Anthony
Burns. In 1856, it chooses the kidnapper's counsel
to discourse to the people on the Fourth of July. The
South understands that that Boston hates Mr. Sum
ner, — hates him because he loves liberty; hates Mr.
Wilson and Mr. Banks ; and hates the memory of
Washington, and, whenever it mentions him, it dissem-
bowels him of his noblest humanity before it dares to
praise. Last night, at Faneuil Hall, there was much
official talk about freedom of speech. Some of it was
honest ; but how much of it was only " sound and fury,
signifying nothing"? Study the history of the
speakers, — it is not a long task, — and then judge.
The ghastly evils which Southern despotism has
brought on us in ten years' time are to be charged to a

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 261
few persons. I could mention ten men in Boston who
might have saved us all this woe. In 1844, if they
had said, No such annexation of Texas, — her hand
red with Mexican blood, her breath foul with slavery,
— the slave power would have yielded before us. In
1850, had they said, There shall be no Fugitive Slave
Act, Mr. Mason's BiU had slept the sleep of death.
Even after Mr. Webster had spoken against the best
instincts of his nature, which I still love to think was
generous, they might have forbid the evil which came.
Had they said the word, no kidnappers had profaned
the grave of Hancock and Adams. In April, 1851,
if they had said, Mr. Sims is not to be a slave hence
forth, the family of man-stealers would suddenly have
" caved in." In the winter of 1854, when Mr. Doug
las wished to spread slavery into Nebraska, had these
men heartily said, It shaU not be, it would not be.
In the May of that year, if they had declared, We
have had enough of man-stealing for Boston ; nay, if
only four of them had entered the court-house, and
spoken to Mr. Burns, given him the public sign of
their sympathy, — depend upon it, we should not have
been a second time tormented with that hideous sin.
Commissioner Loring was not born for a kidnapper:
that once kindly and now suffering heart took such
wickedness by collateral infection, not hereditary taint.
But those ten men wanted this iniquity brought about,
wanted slave-ridden Texas in '44, wanted the Fugitive
Slave BiU in '50, kidnapping in '51, and again in
'54. They protested against the " abrogation of the
Missouri Compromise," but in such language that the
South knew it meant, " Do as you like ; we will not
prevent you." So it has been continually, " On the side
of the oppressor there was power."

262 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Where are such men now? Recall the platform of
last night. Where were the citizens of most " eminent
gravity," where the great fortunes, the great offices,
the judges of the courts, the great "reputations"?
Not one of them was there. Of the Boston which the
South cares for, I saw not a man. Why not? You
shall answer that question.
In Boston, there are three men of senatorial dig
nity : they have been in the Senate of the United States,
and have all left it. They are men of large talent,
good education, high social standing. They are all
pubhc orators, and seek occasions on which to address
the people; and, to one of them, speech is as the
breath of his nostrils. Last night, there was a meet
ing to express the indignation of Boston at the outrage
on Mr. Sumner. These three men were asked to go
and speak: not one of them was there. Twice the
committee waited on Mr. Winthrop and Mr. Everett,
and twice solicited the ex-senators to come and speak ;
and twice was the labor thrown away. Did Mr. Ev
erett, once a minister of this city, remember that he
refused to present in the Senate the petition of three
thousand New England ministers against the enslave
ment of Kansas? Did he recollect that a whole gener
ation since, he volunteered to shoulder his musket, and
march from Bunker Hill to Virginia to put down any
attempt of the slaves to regain their natural and in
alienable right to liberty? At a generous word, Mas
sachusetts, who never forgets, would have rejoiced
anew in the bounteous talents, in the splendid scholar
ship, of the man, — would have recalled every public
service he has done, and dropped a tear on his failures
and evil deeds. But it was not in him ! Mr. Win
throp inherits a name dear- to all New England, —

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 263
connected with her earliest history, stitched into the
cradle-clothes of American liberty. Could not he add
a personal leaf to the ancestral bough, — a merit to an
accident? Or did he, who' called Mr. Sumner one of
a " nest of vipers," think Mr. Brooks was that
prophetic " seed of the woman," who was to " bruise
the serpent's head " ? Let us honor every public serv
ice of such men with generous gratitude, but not for
get how they fail us in an hour of need, — never, till
they repent : then let the dead bury their dead, and let
us manfully forgive.
There is great talk about the freedom of speech:
how much of it is sincere? Last night, at the indigna
tion meeting, — which had a low platform, — there
were two speakers, who, as a hearer said, " had got
the hang of the school-house," and knew what to say ;
but, with these exceptions, the speaking was rather
duU, and did not meet the feelings of the people. To
wards the end, the audience, seeing the well-known face
of that man whose eloquence never fails him, because
it is eloquence that comes out of so brave a heart,
called for him : " Phillips ! Phillips! Phillips ! PHIL
LIPS ! " What said the platform? " Phillips shan't
be heard ; " and they dismissed the meeting, — a meet
ing caUed to vindicate freedom of speech in Massa
chusetts; and the one speaker of Massachusetts
— who would have gathered that audience as I hold
up in my hand these sweet lilies-of-the-valley, and
have raised them towards heaven, and then brought
them down for common duty — must not speak, though
the audience calls for him! The South understands
us perfectly weU.
Blame me as much as you please for what I say:
ten years hence you will know that I am right. But,

264 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ere I go further on, let me do an act of gratitude and
justice. In all those dark days behind us, there have
been found faithful men, who risked their political
prospects, the desires of honorable ambition, their so
cial standing, nay, the esteem of their nearest relatives,
and were faithful to truth and justice. What treat
ment have they met with in the parlor, in the forum,
in the market, in the church? One day, their history
must be writ; and some names now hated will appear
like those which were the watchwords of the Revolu
tion, and are now the heavenly sounds that cheer the
young patriot in this night of storms. In such men,
no city is so rich as this. Daughter of nobleness, she
is its mother too. I hope to live long enough to do
public honor to their high worth.
Be not surprised at the attack on our senator. Vio
lence at Washington is no new thing. You have not
forgot the threat to assassinate John Quincy Adams.
I knew men in Boston who said they wished it might
be executed. But, not to go back so far, see what has
happened this present year. Mr. William Smith, for
merly governor of Virginia (Extra Billy), knocked
down an editor in the House of Representatives. Mr.
Rust, of Arkansas, with equal cowardliness, attacked
another editor in the street, — Mr. Greeley. Some
Boston newspapers justified the outrage: a man who
ventures to say a word against a " distinguished slave
holder must expect to be knocked down." Alabamian
Mr. Herbert shoots a waiter ; the House takes the mat
ter into consideration, and will not expel him: the
Democratic party vote against it; not a Southern
Democrat, and but one Northern Democrat, I think,
saying otherwise. The Know-nothing part of the
American party go in the same direction : all the South

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 265
justify the deed. It is a country in which there is only
one class of men, and freedom of rehgion is secure!
But it is of no consequence if an Irish Catholic, who is
a waiter, is shot down by an Alabamian !
Charles Sumner is the next victim. One thing I
must tell you, which you do not understand. There
was a plot laid among these " chivalrous gentlemen "
to do the deed. When the Senate adjourned, several
distinguished Southern senators staid: it was noticed
by some persons, and one said, " I wonder what is in
the wind now." Mr. Wilson has not the reputation
of a non-resistant; he is a mechanic, and a soldier, —
a general. He carried his pistols to Washington, and
caused it to be distinctly understood that he had not
the common New England prejudice against shooting
a scoundrel. He has not been insulted, and he will
not be. That day he had some business with Mr.
Sumner. He came and spoke a word to him as he sat
and wrote at his desk. Those ruffians, Mr. Brooks and
Mr. Keitt, had come into the Senate: they did not
advance, but sat down and waited until Mr. Wilson
had withdrawn. The only ally of Mr. Sumner was
then gone; not a friend stood near him. Then the
Southern " chivalry " gathered around, and Mr.
Brooks came and assaulted him.
Now, do you know the seed whence came the
bludgeon which struck that handsome and noble head?
It was the " Acorn," in whose shell Boston carried
back Thomas Sims in 1851 ; and on the 19th of April,
on the seventy-sixth anniversary of the battle of Lex
ington, she took him out of that shell and put him in
a jail at Savannah, where he was scourged till a doc
tor said, " You will kill him if you strike him again ! "
and the master said, " Let him die ! " That was the

266 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Acorn whence grew the bludgeon which struck Charles
Sumner.
Here is a letter from him, written but a day before
beginning his speech : " Alas ! alas ! " he says, " the
tyranny over us is complete! Will the people sub
mit? When you read this, I shall be saying in the
Senate, they will not. I shall pronounce the most
thorough philippic [against slavery] ever uttered in
a legislative body." He kept his word: it was the
most thorough philippic against slavery ever uttered
in an American Parliament. Nay, Wilberforce and
Brougham, and their famous peers, never surpassed it
in the British House. The, talent, the learning, the
eloquence of Mr. Sumner never went further. The
composure, the respectful dignity, of this man, who is
a gentleman amongst gentlemen, was never more
decorous and manly than at that time. He gave an
argument: the South has answered it with a bludgeon
cut from a tree whose seed was sown in Boston, — Mr.
Pearson's Acorn. Two years before this assault,
Judge Loring was kidnapping Mr. Burns. That very
day, the Know-nothing legislature, stimulated thereto
by men well known, was attempting to re-establish kid
napping in Boston, by destroying the Personal Liberty
Law. It was not my Boston that wanted such wick
edness; it was the slave-hunter's Boston that wanted
it, — a few men, idiotic in conscience, heart, and soul.
I keep the coat of Thomas Sims ; it is rent to tat
ters. I wish I had also the bloody garment of Charles
Sumner, that I might show it to you ; and I would ask
Boston, " Knowest thou whether this be thy son's coat
or no ? " And Boston would answer, " It is my son's
coat : an evil beast hath devoured him." And I would
say, " The evil beast is of your own training."

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 267
When Mr. PhiUips was indicted for freedom of
speech, the bail was fixed at fifteen hundred dollars.
Mr. Brooks is arrested for beating a man to an extent
which may cause his death: the bail was fixed at five
hundred dollars. The crime is only one-third so great.
In 1851, when a Pennsylvania Quaker, a miller with a
felt hat, rides to his neighbor's house on his sorrel
horse, and the colored people, resisting a kidnapper,
cheer him, he is indicted for high treason against the
United States, and spends months in jail; but Mr.
Brooks goes at large. Passmore Williamson was
charged with contempt, — not for the United States,
not for its laws, but only for Judge Kane; and he
spends months in jail; and Mr. Representative Brooks
goes at large aU this time.
Now, I am not surprised at this. They who sow
the wind must expect to see the whirlwind come up in
time. It is very pretty work sowing the wind broad
cast ; light and clean to the hand, very respectable :
but when you come to eat the harvest of whirlwinds,
when the bread of storms is broke on your table, then
you remember that " righteousness exalteth a nation,
and sin is the ruin of any people." When the vilest
of men are exalted, you must expect the wicked will
" walk on every side." Remember the cause of this
wickedness in Washington, Kansas, all over the land, —
the ferocious disposition of the slaveholders, their fixed
determination to spread bondage over the whole coun
try, to " crush out " all freedom of speech. Remem
ber the allies of that ferocity, — corrupt men in the
midst of us who have promoted this wickedness, who
still encourage it. Remember the general servility of
the Northern people, who tread down the black man
that the white might gain money from the oppressor.

268 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Do not think this is the act of a single person.
Mr. Brooks is a representative man, more decorous
and well-mannered than most men of his section or his
State. He was but the agent of the slave power: all
the South will justify his deed. Already South Car
olina sends him a " testimonial " of its gratitude, — a
pitcher and a cane. Of course, there are honorable
men in the South, who abhor this cowardly violence;
but they will not dare to speak aloud.
Do not think the blow was struck at Mr. Sumner
alone. It was at you and me and all of us, — a blow
at freedom of speech. Violence must begin some
where, and he happened to be there. Now threats are
uttered against all others who oppose the enslavement
of the people : your masters say that Seward, Wilson,
Wade, and Hale shall next take their turn.
It is encouraging to see the effect of this outrage
on the people at the North. Nothing has so stirred
men before. Each new stroke of the slave-driver's
whip startles some one. Whenever slavery is driven
through our Northern cities, it breaks up the pavement
a little; the stones are never replaced: by and by, the
street will be impassable for that tumbril. The Fugi
tive Slave Bill opened some Northern eyes ; others were
unstopped by its enforcement here. Some recovered
their conscience when the Nebraska iniquity was first
proposed; the blows in the Senate House waken yet
more; the fall of the buildings at Lawrence startle
other men from deadly sleep. " Let bygones be by
gones : " if a man comes into the field at the eleventh
hour, to honest work, let not those who have borne
the burden and heat of the day grudge him his place
and his penny. If a man stand with his back leaning
against the public whipping-post in Charleston, South

A LESSON FOR THE DAY 269
Carolina, but looks Northward, and loves freedom, and
will do any thing for it, let us give him our thanks
and our help.
The crime which the slaveholders have now commit
ted against our senator is very small compared to the
sin of Boston against two of its inhabitants. Which
is worse, for Mr. Brooks at Washington to beat an
unarmed senator with a heavy bludgeon, taking him
unawares, or for Commissioner Curtis and Commis
sioner Loring to kidnap Mr. Sims and Mr. Burns?
What are a few blows, to slavery for hfe? what the
Southern " testimonial," compared to the " fifteen hun
dred gentlemen " who volunteered for the first kidnap
ping, and the citizen soldiers who so eagerly took part
in the last one? Will Massachusetts ask the House
of Representatives to expel the assassin? Who is
judge of probate in Suffolk county? Two years ago,
with the sword of Boston, the slaveholders cut and
wounded peaceful citizens of our own town, and in
vain do they besiege the courts of our own State for
redress ! Mr. Brooks obeys the law of honor among
ruffians, Messrs. Curtis and Loring the Fugitive Slave
Bill: which is the better of the two, — the law of bul
lies, or of kidnappers? If Mayor Smith had a right
to tread down the laws of Massachusetts, and smite
and stab men with the sword, that he might steal a
negro, why may not Mr. Brooks beat a senator who
speaks against the great crime of the nation?
I rejoice in the indignation which this outrage has
caused. Boston is stirred as never before. Does she
know that Mr. Sumner was wounded for her transgres
sion, and bruised for her iniquity? Let us lay these
things sorrowfully to heart. The past cannot be re
called ; but we may do better in the future, — remove

270 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
the causes of this evil; may root slavery out of the
land, " peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must."
In the country, I expect great good from this wick
edness. New England farmers cover the corn they
plant with a prayer for God's blessing: this year they
will stamp it also with a curse on slavery. The mat
ter will be talked over by the shoemakers, and in every
carpenter's and trader's shop. The blacksmith, hold
ing the horse's hoof between his legs, will pause over
the inserted nail, and his brow grow darker while the
human fire burns within. Meetings will be held in
fifty towns of Massachusetts, nowhere with a platform
so tame as that last night.
There is a war before us worse than Russian. It has
already begun: when shall it end? "Not till slavery
has put freedom down," say your masters at the South.
" Not till freedom has driven slavery from the conti
nent," let us say and determine.
I have four things to propose : First, ask Mr. Sum
ner to come to Boston on the 4th of July, and, in this
place, give us an oration worthy of the day, worthy
of Boston, and worthy of himself. If he is too sick,
ask Wendell Phillips; and, depend upon it, he will be
well. Second, make Mr. Sumner senator next time,
and let those men who talk about a " nest of vipers "
understand that Massachusetts knows who has got
poison on his tongue.1 Third, make a man President
who is not a knave, not a dunce. Fourth, reverence
the higher law of God in politics and in every thing
else ; be not afraid of men ; do not be afraid of God,
but afraid to violate any law which He has writ on
your soul ; and then His blessing will be upon you, and
His peace will be with us for ever and ever.

XI
THE ASPECT OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA *
1858
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : — I shall
not hold you long to-night. There are others to
speak after me who have better claims to your atten
tion — the one (Mr. Remond) for his race, the other
(Mr. Phillips) for the personal attributes of eloquence
which, in America, have never reached a higher height,
or exhibited themselves in so fair a form. The hand
of the dial shall pass round once, and I leave this spot,
to be fiUed more worthily. During these sixty min
utes, I ask your attention to some thoughts on the
present aspect of slavery in America, and the immedi
ate duty of the North.
In some respects, our experiment is simpler than
the great attempts at freedom made before us in the
Old World ; in some others it is more complex and dif
ficult. All the old forms of civilization were based
on unity of race. It was so with the Romans, Greeks,
Persians, Hebrews, Egyptians, East Indians. The
same holds good of the Moors, who mark the transition
from ancient to modern times. AU the medieval at
tempts at improvement had the same character — in
Spain, Italy, France, Germany, England itself. Civ
ilization hitherto has belonged only to the Caucasian
race. The Africans have remained strangers to it in
all times past; they could not achieve it for them
selves at the time, hitherto never rising above the sav-
271

272 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
age or the barbarous state; no other people brought
it to them, or them to it, save in small numbers.
It was left for America to begin a new experiment
in the history of civilization — to bring divers races
into closest contact. The Catholic Spaniard began
the experiment: he mixed his blood with the red man,
whose country he subdued; he brought hither also the
black man. Thus the African savage, the American
barbarian, and the civilized Caucasian of Spain, be
came joint stockholders in this new coparceny of races.
The Protestant Briton continued what his Catholic
predecessor had begun ; and, while the Puritan was
painfully, voyaging to Plymouth, in the wilderness
seeking an asylum where the apocalyptic woman might
bear her manchild to grow up in freedom, other Saxons
were bringing a ship-load of negroes to the wilderness,
to become slaves for ever. Thus the African came to
British and Spanish America. Out of the 60,000,000
inhabitants of this continent, I take it about 9,000,-
000 are of this unfortunate race.
In the United States to-day, four of the five great
races live side by side. There are some 60,000 or
80,000 Mongolian Chinese in California, I am told;
there are 400,000 American Indians within our bor
ders ; perhaps 4,500,000 Africans; and 26,000,000
Caucasians. The union of such diverse ethnological
elements makes our experiment of democracy more
complex, and perhaps more difficult than it would oth
erwise be.
The Mongolians are few in numbers, and so transient
in their stay that nothing more need now be said of
them. It is plain where the red man will go. In two hun
dred years, an Indian will be as rare in the United

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 273
States as now in New England. Like the bear and
the buffalo, he perishes with the forest, which to him
and them was what cultivated fields, towns, and cities
are to us. Our fathers tried to enslave the ferocious
and unprogressive Indian ; he would not work — for
himself as a freeman, nor for others as a slave: he
would fight. He would not be enslaved — he could not
help being killed. He perishes before us. The sin
ewy Caucasian laborer lays hold on the phlegmatic
Indian warrior; they struggle in deadly grasp —
naked man to naked man, hand to shoulder, knee to
knee, breast to breast; the white man bends the red
man over, crushes him down, and chokes him dead.
It is always so when the civihzed meets the savage, or
the barbarian — naked man to naked man : how much
more fatal is the issue to the feeble when the white man
shirted in iron has the smaUpox for his ally, and rum
for his tomahawk! In the long run of history, the
race is always to the swift, and the battle to the strong.
The Indian will perish — utterly and soon.
The African is the most docile and pliant of all the
races of men; none has so little ferocity: vengeance,
instantial with the Caucasian, is exceptional in his
history. In his barbarous, savage, or even wild state,
he is not much addicted to revenge; always prone to
mercy. No race is so strong in the affectional instinct
which attaches man to man by tender ties; none so
easy, indolent, confiding, so little warlike. Hence is
it that the white men have kidnapped the black, and
made him their prey.
This piece of individual biography tells us the sad
history of the African race. Not long since, a fugi
tive slave told me his adventures. I will caU him John
— it is not his name. He is an entire negro — his
XIV— 18

274 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
grandfather was brought direct from the Congo coast
to America. A stout man, thick-set, able-bodied, with
great legs and mighty arms, he could take any man
from this platform, and hurl him thrice his length.
He was a slave — active, intelligent, and much con
fided in. He had a wife and children. One day his
master, in a fit of rage, struck at him with a huge club,
which broke both of his arms; they were awkwardly
set, and grew out deformed. The master promised to
sell the man to himself for a large sum, and take the
money by instalments, a little at a time. But, when
more than half of it was paid, he actually sold him to
a trader, to' be taken further South, and there dis
posed of. The appeals of the wife, the tears of the
children, moved not the master whom justice had also
failed to touch. As the boat which contained poor
John shot by the point of land where he had hved,
his wife stood upon the shore, and held her babies up
for him to look upon for the last time. Descending
the Mississippi, the captain of the boat had the river
fever, lost his sight for the time, and John took the
command. One night, far down the Mississippi, he
found himself on board a boat with the three kidnap
pers who had him in their power, and intended to sell
him. They were asleep below — the captain still blind
with the disease — he watchful on deck. " I crept
down barefoot," said John. " There they lay in their
bunks, all fast asleep. They had money, and I none.
I had done them no harm, but they had torn me from
my wife, from my children, from my liberty. I stole
up noiselessly, and came back again, the boat's ax in
my hand. I lifted it up, and grit my teeth together,
and was about to strike: and it came into my mind,
' No murderer hath eternal life.' I put the ax back

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 275
in its place, and was sold into slavery. What would
you have done in such a case? " I told him that I
thought I should have sent the kidnappers to their
own place first, and then trusted that the act would
be imputed to me for righteousness by an all-righteous
God! I need not ask what Mr. Garrison would do in
hke case. I think his Saxon blood would move swift
enough to sweep off his non-resistant creed, and the
three kidnappers would have started on their final jour
ney before he asked, " Where shall I go? "
John's story is also the story of Africa. The
stroke of an ax would have settled the matter long ago.
But the black man would not strike. One day, per
haps, he will do what yonder monument commends.
At this moment, we have perhaps 4,500,000 men of
African descent in the United States; say 4,000,000
slaves, 500,000 free. They are with us, are of us ;
America cannot be rid of them if she would. Shall
they continue slaves, or be set free? What conse
quences will follow either result? This is the great
question for America. It is the question of" industry,
of morals, of religion ; it is the immediate question of
politics. It does not concern the 4,000,000 slaves
alone, but also each of the 26,000,000 Caucasian free
men. On it depends the success or the failure of
our experiment of democracy. The bondage of a
class may continue in a despotism ; there it is no con
tradiction to the national idea. It is different in a
democracy which rests on the equality of all men in
natural rights. So here the question of slavery is
this : " Shall we have an industrial democracy, or a
military despotism? " If you choose slavery, then
you take the issue of slavery, which can no more be
separated from it than cold from ice. No nation can

276 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
escape the consequences of its own first principle of
politics. The logic of the idea is the " manifest des
tiny " of the people. If slavery continues, democracy
goes down; every form of republicanism, or of con
stitutional monarchy, will perish; and absolute
military despotism take their place at last. From
despotism, as seed reared in the national garden, comes
despotism, as national crop, growing in the continental
field. This question of slavery does not concern America
alone; all Christendom likewise is party to the con
test. To all men it is a question of industry, com
merce, education, morals, religion ; to the civihzed
world, it is the great question of civihzation itself.
Shall this great continent be delivered over to ideas
which help the progress of mankind, or to those which
only hinder it?
Every year brings America into closer relations with
the rest of mankind. Our slavery becomes, therefore,
an element in the world's politics. See, then, for a
moment, how the various Christian nations stand af
fected towards it.
Just now, there are but five great national powers
in the civilized or Christian world. Spain, Italy, and
Greece pass for nothing — they have no influence in
the progressive movements of mind, are no longer a
force in the world's civilization. They are not wholly
dead; but so far as they affect other peoples, it is
only by the thought of past generations, not the pres
ent. I pass those three decaying nations by, and look
at the live peoples. There is (1) the Russian power
— a great Slavic people holding Mongolians in sub
jection; (2) the French power — a great Celtic peo
ple variously crossed with Basque, Roman, and

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 277
Teutonic tribes ; (3) the German power — a great Teu
tonic people, in many nations or States, with Slavic
and Celtic elements mixed in; (4) the English power
— a great Saxon-Teutonic people, with Celtic annex
ations ; and ( 5 ) the American power — a great Eng
lish-Saxon-Teutonic people, with diverse mixtures from
the rest of mankind. All the four act on the fifth,
and influence our treatment of this question of slavery.
I. Russia is mighty by its vast territory, its great
natural resources, its immense population, its huge
army — appointed and commanded well — its strong
central government, its diplomatic talent, and the peo
ple's ability to spread. The government is despotic,
but yet one of the most progressive in Christendom.
With the bondage of Africans, Russia has no direct
concern ; she has much to do with that of white Cau
casians. She is rapidly putting an end to slavery in
her own borders. Not many years ago, the late Em
peror Nicholas emancipated the serfs he had inherited
as his own private property. They amounted to more
than 7,500,000 men; he established over 4,000 schools
for the education of their children. Alexander, his
son, had not been in the imperial seat three years before
he published a decree for the gradual and ultimate
emancipation of all the serfs in the empire. Their
number must exceed the entire population of the United
States. Here is the decree, dated the 20th of last
November — the 2nd of December by our New Style
calendar. The proprietors of two large provinces —
St. Petersburg and Lithuania (containing nearly three
milhon souls) some weeks since asked permission to
emancipate their serfs at once. Yesterday's steamer
brings also the welcome news that the proprietors of
Nishni-Novogorod have just done the same. This

278 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
province is as large as Virginia, with a population of
1,500,000, and, with the exception of the capital and
its environs, is the richest and most intellectual part
of the empire. It abounds with manufactories ; every
year, 300,000 strangers from Asia and elsewhere trade
in its fairs. You would expect the most enlightened
population to1 demand the immediate freedom of the
serfs. Russia has become an ally on our side. Her
example favors freedom.2 So you will find a change in
the Southern newspapers, and in the American Gov
ernment, which they direct and control. In the
Crimean war, when Russia fought for injustice, they
sustained her as the ally of their own despotism, and
fought against England as their foe. All that will
soon change; and already Southern papers denounce
the enfranchisement of the Russian serf : " The exam
ple is dangerous ; " " the condition of the British West
Indies, and of Hayti, might have taught Alexander
a better lesson."
II. The French are powerful through the charac
ter of the people — the most military in the world —
their science, letters, art, the high civilization of the
land. France has had a long and sad connection with
African slavery. Once she was the most cruel of cruel
masters. In her first Revolution, of 1789, the chain
was broken, but its severed links united again. In the
last Revolution, of 1848, at the magic word of La-
martine, expressing the revolutionary thought of the
people, the fetters were not only broken off, but cast
into the sea. France, for a moment, was the ally of
freedom — and of course encountered the noisy wrath
of the Southern States. But the Celtic French, the
most fickle people in the world, revolution their nor
mal state, perpetually turning round and round, have

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 279
elected a tyrant for their master, and now worship
the emperor. He has " crashed out " freedom from
the French press as completely as our own Mr. Cush-
ing wished to do in America. The new tyrant at
tempts to revive the African slave trade, and has
already made arrangements for kidnapping 5,000 sav
ages in Africa, and sending them as missionaries to
Christianize the West Indies ! 3 What wiU come of
this scheme, I know not. But just now the political
power of France is hostile to freedom everywhere.
When the emperor has padlocked even the French
mouth, no wonder he finds it easy to chain the negro's
hands. No doubt the intellectual and moral power of
France are on our side as before; but both are silent
and of no avail. The French emperor is the " little
Napoleon " of the African slave trade. Great is the
j oy thereat in the Southern States ; already their news
papers glorify the " profound policy," " the wise and
humane statesmanship of the great emperor."
" A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind."
III. The Germans are of our blood and language
— bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh — with the
same blue eyes, the same brown hair and ruddy cheek,
and instinctive love of individuality. The people
which began the civilization of modern times by in
venting the press, and originating the Protestant Ref
ormation, can it ever be false to freedom? Ger
many acts on mankind by thought — by great ideas.
What France is for war, England for commerce, and
Russia for the brute power of men, that is Germany
for thought. The Germans have had connection
with African slavery, but have ended it. Sweden be
gan the work some years ago ; then Denmark followed ;

280 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
now, within the last few months, Holland has finished
it. Here are the documents. Soon the last footsteps
of German oppression will be covered up by the black
man rejoicing in his freedom. Though their rulers
are often tyrants, our German kinsfolk are on our side
— God bless them !
IV. England has great influence by her political
institutions, her army and navy, her commerce and
manufactures, her power of practical thought, her
large wealth, her mighty spread. She and her chil
dren control a sixth part of the globe, and nearly a
fourth part of its people. No tribe of men has done
such service for freedom as the Anglo-Saxons, in Brit
ain and America. England has had connection with
African slavery, her hand has been dyed deep in the
negro's blood. She planted it in her provinces
throughout the Continent and its many islands; the
ocean reeked with the foul steam of her slave-ships.
She was a hard master, and men died by miUions under
her lash. But nobly did the dear old mother put this
wickedness away. She abolished the slave trade, mak
ing it piracy ; at length, she repudiated slavery itself,
and in one day threw into the sea the fetters of 800,-
000 men. Well did Lord Brougham say — it was
"the greatest triumph ever won over the foulest
wrong man ever did against man." England need
not boast of Agincourt, Cressy, Poitiers, and many
another victorious fight, at Waterloo, Sebastopol, or
Delhi; the most glorious victory her annals record
was achieved on the 1st of August, in the first year
of Victoria, when justice triumphed over such giant
wrong. Nobly has she contended against the slave
trade, rousing the tardy conscience of Brazil, and not
quite vainly galvanizing Spain into some show of hu-

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 281
manity. She has shamed even the American Govern
ment — and I think we have a sloop-of-war on the
African coast, which we yearly hear of in the annual
appropriation biU!
But this nobleness is exceptional even in England;
the world had seen no such example before. That
emancipation was not brought about by the privileged
class, the royal and nobiliary, who officially reign, or
the commercial class, who actually govern the nation;
but by the moral class, whose conscience stirred the
people, and constrained the government to do so just
a deed. Of course a reaction must follow. We see
its effect to-day. There is a party which favors
African slavery. Mr. Carlyle is the heroic repre
sentative thereof. Personally amiable, in his ideas
he is the Goliath of slavery.4 Just now, the London
Times appears to favor this reactionary movement,
and its powerful articles are reprinted with great
jubilation in the American newspapers, which hate
England because they love the slavery which she has
hated so long.5 There is no time to inquire into the
cause of this reaction. It affects the political class,
and still more certain commercial classes to whom
" Cotton is king." Great is the delight of the South;
the slave power sings Te Deums to its God. A bill
was before the Senate, not long since, appropriating
$3,750 to pay the masters for twelve slaves who ran
away and were carried off by the British in the War
of 1812, whom the captors, even then, refused to de
liver up to " democratic bondage." Mr. Hale op
posed the bill, because it recognised the doctrine that
there may be property in human beings, declaring
that neither by vote nor by silence would he ever
recognise so odious and false a doctrine. Mr. Seward

282 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
joined in the opposition. But Mr. Fugitive Slave
BiU Mason came to the rescue; and after referring
to the anti-slavery opinions of the British, declared
he was " gratified to see those opinions are rapidly
undergoing a change." What signs of such a rapid
change he may have seen, I know not ; nor what sym
pathies with the slave power the accomplished British
minister, new in this field, may have expressed to him :
" Diplomacy is a silent art." But I think Mr. Mason
greatly mistakes the British public, if he believes they
will be fickle in their love of right. The Anglo-Saxon
has always been a resolute tribe. I believe John Bull
is the most obstinate of all national animals. When
his instinctive feelings and his reflective conscience
command the same thing, depend upon it he will not
lack the will.
There may have been a change in the British Gov
ernment, though I doubt it much; there has been in
the London Times. In the " cotton lords," I take it,
there is no alteration of doctrine, only an utterance
of what they have long thought. The opinion of the
British people, I think, has only changed to a yet
greater hatred against slavery. The anti-slavery
party in England has immense power — not so much
by its numbers, or its wealth, as by its intelligence, and
still more by that justice which, in the long run of
time, is always sure of the victory. At the head of
this party I must place Lord Brougham,6 now draw
ing near the end of a long and most laborious life,
not without its eccentricities, but mainly devoted to
the highest interests of the human race. Within the
four seas of Britain, I think there lives no man who
has done so much to proclaim ideas of justice and
humanity, and to diffuse them among the people. If

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 283
he could not oftener organize them into law, it was
because he took too long a step in advance of public
opinion; and he that would lead a child must always
keep hold of its hand. Nearly fifty years ago (June
14, 1810) he fought against the slave trade, and drew
on him the wrath of men " who live by treachery,
rapine, torture, and murder, and are habitually prac
tising the worst of crimes for the worst of purposes."
Long ago he declared — " There is a law above all
the enactments of human codes — the same through
out the world, the same in aU times ; it is the law writ
ten by the finger of God on the heart of man ; and by
that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise
fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they will
reject the wild and guilty phantasy that man can hold
property in man." When the little tyrant of France
revives the slave trade, the great champion of human
right roused him once more for battle, and the British
Government has taken the affair in hand. The Brit
ish love of justice will triumph in this contest. Why,
the history of England is pledged as security there
for. Such to-day is the opinion of the four great na
tions of Christian Europe. What if the despotic
power of the French emperor be against us ; what if,
for a moment, the cotton lords of England lead a few
writers and politicians to attempt the restoration of
bondage? The conscience of England and her history,
the intelhgence of France and Germany, the example
of Russia are on our side. Yes, the teachings of uni
versal human history. All these come with their ac
cumulated force to help the moral feeling of America
sustain the rights of man.
Since we met last the Federal Government has com
mitted two outrages more.

284 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
I. The first is the Dred Scott decision. The Su
preme Court is only the dirty mouth of the slave
power, its chief function to belch forth iniquity, and
name it law. Of the decision itself, I need not speak.
It is the political opinion of seven partisans appointed
to do officially that wickedness which their personal
nature also no doubt inclined them to. That court
went a little beyond itself, — out-Heroding Herod.
Two Northern judges, only two, McLean and Cur
tis, opposed the wrong. I think nobody will accuse
me of any personal prejudice in favor of Judge
Curtis, or any undue partiality towards him. His
conduct on other and trying occasions has been justly
condemned on the anti-slavery platform, and is not
likely to be soon forgot, nor should it ever be. But
I should do great injustice to you and him, and still
more to my own feelings, if I let this occasion pass
without a word of honest and hearty praise of that
able lawyer and strong-minded man. He opposed the
" decision," with but a single Northern judge to sup
port him, with two Northern judges to throw technical
difficulties in his way and oppose him by coward
treachery. With five Southern judges openly attack
ing and browbeating him, with both the outgoing and
incoming administration to oppress and mock at him,
with subtle and treacherous advisers at home to beguile
his steps and watch for his halting, did Judge Curtis
stand up at Washington, amid those corrupt and
wicked judges, and in the name of history which they
falsified, of law which they profaned, of justice which
they mocked at, with a manliness which Story never
showed on such occasions, he pronounced his sentence
against the wicked court. I remember his former
conduct with indignation and with shame; but no

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 285
blackness of the old record shall prevent me from
turning over a new leaf, and with golden letters writ
ing there — In the Supreme Court Judge Curtis de
fended ONCE THE HIGHER LAW OF RIGHT.
I am truly sorry his manhood did not stay by him
and continue his presence in that court. The defense
of his resignation is found in the inadequacy of the
salary. It was $4,500 when he took it, $6,000 when
he left it. A pitiful reason — by no means the true
one. Samuel Adams was a poor man ; I do not think
he would have left his seat in the revolutionary Con
gress because more money could be made by the cod-
fishery or by privateering.
II. The Dred Scott decision was the first enormity.
The next is General Walker's filibustering expedition.7
I regard this as the act of the government. " What
you do by another, you do also by yourself," is a
maxim older than the Roman law which preserves it.
I am not inclined generally to place much confidence
in Walker's word, but he sometimes tells the truth.
In a recent speech at Mobile, he says he had an inter
view with the President, last summer, and declared his
intention of returning to Nicaragua: his (filibuster
ing) letter was published with the President's consent.
A member of the Cabinet sought a confidential inter
view with him, told him where he might go with safety,
and added, " You wUl probably sail in an American
vessel, under the American flag. After you have
passed American limits, no one can touch you but by
consent of this government." A cabinet minister told
one of Walker's friends, if he made an alliance with
Mexico, and attempted the conquest of Cuba, " means
shall not be lacking to carry out the enterprise."
Walker says the government arrested him, not because

286 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
he attacked Nicaragua, but because he did not attack
Mexico! I hold the Federal Government responsible
alike for the conduct of Walker and the Supreme Court.
But omitting particulars, looking only at the general
course of the government, you find it favors slavery
with continued increase of intensity.
Let not this rest on my testimony alone, or your
judgment. Here is " An Address delivered before the
Euphemian and Philomathean Literary Societies of
Erskine College, at the Annual Commencement,
Wednesday, August 12th, 1857, by Richard Yeadon,8
Esq., of Charleston, S. C." Mr. Yeadon is a repre
sentative man, editor of the Charleston Courier, and a
stanch defender of the peculiar institution. He tells
us he comes " rather to sow the good seed of truth,
than to affect the arts or graces of oratory ; to teach
the lessons of history, and impress the deductions of
reason, than to twine the garlands of science, or strew
the roses of literature ; " he would " combine the
didactic in large measure with the rhetorical." He
discusses the character of the Federal Government and
its relation to slavery, " on which rest the pillars of
the great social fabric of the South." He attempts to
show that the Constitution was so framed as to uphold
slavery and check freedom ; and that the Federal Gov
ernment has carried out the plan with such admirable
vigor, that now slavery can stand by its own strength.
But you must have his own words : —
"The new Constitution not only recognised, sanctioned, and
guaranteed it [slavery] as a State institution, sacred within
State limits from Federal invasion or interference, but also so
far as to foster and expand it, by Federal protection and
agency, wherever it was legalized, within State or territorial
limits; to uphold it by Federal power, and the Federal arm
against domestic violence or foreign invasion; and, to make

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 287
it an element of Federal organization and existence, by adopt
ing it as a basis of Federal representation, and a source of
Federal revenue."
" From that day to this, the institution of domestic slavery,
within the several States, has been regarded and held sacred as
a reserved right, exclusively within State jurisdiction and be
yond the constitutional power of Congress or of the general
Government, except for guarantee, protection, and defense; it
being one and the chief of those ' particular interests ' which
the Convention had in view, as enhancing the difficulty of their
work. The wildest fanatics' of abolitionism, of the Parker and Gar
rison school, acknowledge that their atrocious crusade against
the South can only achieve its unhallowed aims by trampling
as well on the Constitution of their country, as on the oracles of
God." He has admiration for one Northern man who has
been remarkably faithful to the ideas and plans of
the slave power. He says it is the duty of the General
Government to protect slavery by suppressing insur
rectionary movements, or attempts at domestic vio
lence, and to turn out the whole force of the Republic,
regular and militia : —
" It was in contemplation of such a contingency, such a
casus foederis, that the eloquent, accomplished, and gifted
Everett in his maiden speech as the representative in Congress
of the city of Boston, in 1826, then fresh from the pulpit, in
honorable contrast with the dastardly Sumners and bullying
Burlingames of the present day, thus patriotically and fer
vently spoke — ' Sir, I am no soldier. My habits and education
are very unmilitary; but there is no cause in which I would
sooner buckle a knapsack on my back, and put a musket on
my shoulder, than that of putting down a servile insurrection
in the South.' "
The newspapers say, with exquisite truth, that Mr.
Everett is " the monarch of the platform," the " great
est literary ornament of the entire continent of Amer
ica." So he is : but to Mr. Yeadon, he is also a great
hero, the iron man of courage, unlike the " dastardly

288 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Sumners," and " the dishonored and perjured mis
creants, Seward, Sumners, et id omne genus, who ad
vocated the ' higher law doctrine.' "
He thus sums up the whole of our history : —
" The American Union ... has been the great bulwark of
. . . Southern slavery, and has, in fact, nursed and fostered
it, from a feeble and rickety infancy, into a giant manhood and
maturity, and self-sustaining power, able to maintain itself
either in the Union or out of the Union, as may best comport
with the future policy and welfare of the Southern States."
"Finally, to crown all, comes, in august majesty, the de
cision of the Supreme Judicatory of the United States in the
case of Dred Scott, pronouncing the Missouri restriction uncon
stitutional, null and void, and declaring all territories of the
Union, present and future, when acquired by purchase or con
quest, by common treasure or common blood, to be held by the
General Government, as a trustee for the common benefit of
all the States, and open to every occupancy and residence of
the citizens of every State, with their property of every de
scription, including slaves, reposing under the a;gis of the Con
stitution." " The cheering result, then, is, that the Southern States stand
now on stronger and higher ground than at any previous period
of our history; and this, under the progressive and constitu
tional action of the General Government, blotting out invidious
lines, establishing the broad platform of State equality, demol
ishing squatter sovereignty, retrieving the errors of the past,
and furnishing new securities for the future."
" The number of slave-holding States has been increased to
fifteen, out of an aggregate of thirty-one States, with a fair pros
pect of further increase in Texas, and in other territory, ac
quired or to be acquired from Mexico, in the Carribean Sea, and
still further South."
The slave States, he says, are no longer " conceding
domestic slavery to be a ' moral, social, and political
evil,' any more than any other system of menial and
praedial labor, but able ... to defend it as con
sistent with scriptural teachings, and as an ordinance
of Jehovah for the culture and welfare of the staple
States, and the civilization and Christianization of

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 289
the African." To them he says, " Cotton is king,
and destined to rule the nations with imperial sway."
The slaveholders feel stronger than ever before.
This privileged class, the " Nobility of Democracy,"
counts only 350,000 in all. Feeble in numbers, the
slave power is strong in position — holding the great
federal offices, judicial, executive, and military,
stronger in purpose and in will. " The hope, the
courage of assailants, is always greater than that of
those who act merely on the defensive." At the
South, it rules the non-slaveholders, as at the North
it has had also the Democratic party under its thumb.
There is a secret article in the creed of that party
which demands unconditional submission to the infalli
bility of the negro-driver. Senator Toombs has no
slaves in Georgia who yield to his will more submis
sively than to the whim of the Southern master
crouches Hon. Mr. Cushing, whose large intellectual
talents, great attainments, and consummate political
art, in this hall, so fitly represent the town of New-
buryport. It is the glory of the Northern Demo
cratic party that it has been the most cringing slave
to the haughtiest and unworthiest master in the world.
All individuality seemed " crashed out," to use Mr.
Cushing's own happy phrase. Within eight months
every Northern State has had a State Democratic Con
vention, each of which has passed resolutions endors
ing the Dred Scott decision. This act implies no in
dividuality of thought or of will. The Southern
master gave command to each Northern squad of
Democrats — " Make ready your resolutions in sup
port of the Dred Scott decision!" They "make
ready." " Consider resolutions ! " They " consid
er." " Vote aye ! " They " vote aye."
XIV— 19

290 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
The slave power, thus controlling the slaves and
slaveholders at the South, and the Democratic party
at the North, easily manages the government at Wash
ington. The Federal officers are marked with dif
ferent stripes — Whig, Democrat, and so on. They
are all owned by the same master, and lick the same
hand. So it controls the nation. It silences the
great sects, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nullitarian: the
chief ministers of this American Church — threefold
in denominations, one in nature — have naught to
say against slavery ; the Tract Society dares not re
buke the " sum of all villanies," the Bible Society has
no " Word of God " for the slave, the " revealed re
ligion " is not revealed to him. Writers of school-
books " remember the hand that feeds them," and
venture no word against the national crime which
threatens to become also the national ruin. In no na
tion on earth is there such social tyranny of opinion.
In Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, Italy, and Spain,
the despotic bayonet has pinned the public lips to
gether. The Democratic hands of America have
sewed up her own mouth with an iron thread — that
and fetters are the only product of the Southern mine.
In Washington not a man in the meanest office dares
open his lips against the monster which threatens to
devour his babies and his wife. No doctor allows
himself a word against that tyrant — his business
would forsake him if he did. In Southern States,
this despotism drives off all outspoken men. Mr. Un
derwood, of Virginia,9 made a speech against the ex
tension of slavery into Kansas, — he must take his
life in his hand, and flee from his native State. Mr.
Helper, of North Carolina, writes a brave, noble
book, ciphering out the results of freedom and of

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 291
bondage, — even North Carolina is too hot to hold
him. Mr. Strickland, at Mobile, sells now and then
an anti-slavery book, — the great State of Alabama
drives him out, scares off his wife, and will not allow
him to collect his honest debts! At the North, you
know the disposition of men who hold office from the
Federal Government, or who seek and expect it: the
Federal hand is raised to strangle Democracy. They
never give the alarm : it would be to " strike the hand
that feeds them." Nay, they crouch down and " lick
the hand just raised to shed our blood." Even at
Washington, slavery has sewed up the delegated
Northern mouth, else so noisy once. It is nearly two
years since a Southern bully, a representative man
of South Carohna, stole upon our great senator, with
coward blows felled him to the ground, and with his
bludgeon beat the stunned and unconscious man. He
meant to " silence agitation : " he did his work too
well. Excepting the discussion which followed that
outrage, do you remember an anti-slavery speech in
the Senate since Charles Sumner's, in May, 1856?
Can you think of one in the House? If such have
been spoken, I have not heard either, though I have
listened all the time. Now and then some one has
made an apology for the North, promising not to
touch slavery in the part most woundable. But I be
lieve there has been no manly anti-slavery speech in
House or Senate till Mr. Hale broke the silence with
a noble word. The slave power dealt the blows upon
one Northern man, and nearly silenced all the rest!
" The safer part of valor is discretion ! " The South
has many slaves not counted in the census. Ought
they to. represent the North?
The slave power is conscious of strength, and sure

292 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
of victory. It never felt so strong before. Look at
this: the Treasury Department has just instructed
the collectors not to permit a free negro to act as
master of a vessel, — he is not a citizen of the United
States ! See what the Southern States are doing. A
bill has been reported in the Senate of Louisiana, au
thorizing that State to import five thousand African
slaves. If it becomes a law the government will not
prevent the act ; our worst enemy, the Supreme Court,
is ready to declare unconstitutional the law which
forbids the African slave trade. The South may im
port as many slaves as she likes ; the government is
for her wickedness, not against that — only against
justice and the inalienable rights of man. Another
bill is pending before the Virginia legislature to
banish or enslave all the 75,000 free colored persons
in that State, where more than one President has been
the father of a mulatto woman's child. The law to
enslave them all may pass; the Federal Government
cares nothing about it. African Rachel may mourn
in vain for her first-born, and refuse to be comforted,
because the Virginian Jacob chains the parti-colored
Joseph that she bore to him ; let her mourn ! What
does the Federal Herod care that in all Virginia there
is a voice heard of lamentation, and weeping, and
great mourning from the poor Rachel of Africa?
Stronger than ever before, at least in fancy, and
yet more truly impudent than fancied strong, the
slave power proposes two immediate measures : —
I. To pass the Lecompton Constitution through
Congress, and force slavery into the laws of Kansas,
against the oft-repeated vote of the people.
II. To add seven thousand men to the standing
army of the United States. They are nominally to

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 293
put down the polygamous Mormons in Utah — Satan
contradicting the lies he is the father of ! — but really
to support the more grossly polygamous slavehold
ers ; to force the Lecompton Constitution upon Kan
sas with the bayonet; in all the North, to execute the
Fugitive Slave Bill, and the Dred Scott decision, al
ready made, and the Lemmon decision, about to be
made, and establish slavery in each free State; and
also to put down any insurrection of the colored peo
ple at the South. The Mormons are the pretense no
more; the army is raised against the Democracy of
Massachusetts, not the polygamy of Utah.
Ladies and gentlemen, both of these measures will
pass the Senate, pass the House. If it were the end
of a presidential term, I should expect they would
be defeated. But men worship the rising sun, not
the setting, who has no more golden light for them.
A Boston merchant, with but $87,000, could bribe
men enough to pass his tariff bill ! The new President
has more than $87,000,000 — offices for three years
to come. The addition to the army will cost at least
$5,000,000 a year, and the patronage that gives will
command votes enough. I know how tender are the
feelings of Congress ; I know how politicians reject with
scorn the idea that money or office could alter their
vote ; but we all know that a President, his pocket full
of public money, his hands full of offices, can buy
votes of honorable senators and honorable representa
tives just as readily as you can buy peanuts of the
huckster down stairs. I need not go from this hall,
or its Eastern neighbor, I need not go back seven
years to find honorable members of the " Great and
General Court of Massachusetts " who were bought
with a price. I shall tell no names, though I know

294 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
them only too well. Peter did repent and Judas may
— I will give him a chance. I expect, therefore, that
both these measures will pass. Then you will find the
Northern " Democracy " supporting them ; future
conventions will ring with resolutions in favor of the
Lecompton Convention, and a great standing army
will be one of the acknowledged " principles " of the
Democratic party — a toast on Independence Day.
When the two immediate measures are disposed of,
there are three others a little more remote, which are
likewise to be passed upon.
I. The first is to establish slavery in aU the Northern
States — the Dred Scott decision has already put it
in all the territories. The Supreme Court will make
a decision in the Lemmon case, and authorize any one
of the Southern masters of the North to bring his
slaves to any Northern State, and keep them as long
as he pleases. Colored men " have no rights which
white men are bound to respect " — so says the Su
preme Court, which is greater than the Constitution;
and if that be true generally, everywhere, then it will
be true specially in Massachusetts. I have no doubt
the Supreme Court will make the decision. We have
no Judge Curtis to sit in that Court, and give his
verdict for law and justice; his place is occupied by
Hon. Nathan Clifford — a very different man, if I
am rightly informed. When his nomination was be
fore the Senate, Mr. Hale opposed it, and said Mr.
Clifford was not reckoned a first class lawyer in his
own district — which comprises the greater part of
New England; nor in his own State — the State of
Maine; nor in his own county; nor even in his own
town! Then, after Mr. Hale had reduced this vulgar frac-

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 295
tion of law to his lowest terms, the Senate added it to
the sum of the Supreme Court. He is strong enough
for his function — to create new law for slavery.
His appointment must needs cause a judgment against
him, but let us give him a fair trial. When the court
has given the expected decision in the Lemmon case,
then this new article will be voted into the apostolic
creed of the Democratic party, published by author
ity, and appointed to be read in caucuses and conven
tions. It may be " said or sung," as follows : —
" I believe in the Fugitive Bill ; I believe in the Kan
sas-Nebraska Bill ; I believe in the Dred Scott de
cision; I believe in the Lemmon decision. As it was
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world with
out end. Amen."
II. The next measure is to conquer Mexico, Central
America, and all the Northern continent down to the
Isthmus; to conquer Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, all the
West India Islands, and establish slavery there. This
conquest of the islands might seem rather a difficult
work — it might require some fighting ; but the late
Hon. Senator Butler, of South Carohna, was very
confident it would be done. You remember how he
spoke of those islands in a rambling speech that he
once made, which was truth-telling, because drunken.
You smile; but if in vino Veritas be good Latin, a
fortiori is it good American to say, there is more
truth in whisky, which is stronger. In one of his
fits of " loose expectoration," that distinguished sena
tor, a representative man, like Bully Brooks, instantial
and typical of his State, spoke of " our Southern
Islands," meaning Cuba, San Domingo, Jamaica,
Trinidad, St. Thomas, and the rest. He called them
our islands, not that they were so then, or because he

296 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
had any personal knowledge that they ever would be;
but " being in the spirit " (of slavery), and the spirit
(of whisky) being also in him — imperium in imperio
— by this twofold inspiration (of slavery from with
out and whisky from within), and from this double
consciousness (out of the abundance of the stomach
the mouth also speaking), he prophesied (this medium
of two spirits), not knowing what he said.
That is the second measure, — to re-annex the West
Indies and the Continent.
III. The third measure is to restore the African
slave trade.10 Now and then the South puts forth a
feeler, to try the weather; the further South you go
the more boldly are the feelers put out. South Caro
lina and Louisiana seem ready for this measure; and
of course the Supreme Court is ready. You must not
be surprised if yet another article be added to the
Democratic creed, and we hear Mr. Cushing, deacon
off this new Litany of Despotism, with — "I believe
in the African slave trade."
To carry all these measures, the slave power de
pends on the Federal Government. But it never pes
ters the government with petitions on paper; it sends
its petitions in boots. They are not referred to com
mittees in House or Senate ; the petitions in boots are
themselves the committee of House and Senate. Gen
tlemen, the slave power has got the Federal Govern
ment, especially the Supreme Court — a constant
power. It relies also on the Democratic party North for its
aid in this destruction of Democracy. Gentlemen, it
has got that party — will it keep it? Heretofore the
two have seemed united, not for better but for worse,
" so long as they both do live." Witness the arguments

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 297
of Mr. Cushing, yesterday, in this hall, against the
personal liberty law ; and he faithfully and consistently
represents the Northern Democratic party as it was.
The slave power depends on the four great commer
cial cities of the North — Cincinnati, Philadelphia,
New York, and Boston. Gentlemen, it has the sup
port of these four cities, and will continue to have it
for some time to come. If the two immediate and the
three remote aggressive measures I have just men
tioned were to be passed on by the voters of these four
towns, I think they would vote as the slave power told
them. They did so for the Fugitive Slave Bill, for
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill ; — they will vote for the
Lecompton Bill, the Army BiU; and when their help
is wanted for the Americanization of the rest of the
continent, by filibustering; for the Southernization of
the North, by the Lemmon decision ; for the Africani
zation of America, by restoring the African slave
trade, they wiU do as they are bid.
If these five measures were left to the voters of
Boston alone, the result might be doubtful, — nay, I
think it would be adverse to the South. But look at
the matter a little more nicely. Divide the Boston
voters into1 four classes : — the rich — men worth
$100,000 or more ; the educated — men with such cul
ture as pupils get at tolerable colleges; the poor —
the Irish, and all men worth but $400 or less ; the mid
dling class — the rest of the male citizens. If the
question were submitted to the first three, I make no
doubt the vote would be for the South, for the de
struction of Democracy. The educated and the poor
would do as the rich commanded them — they would
not " strike the hand that feeds them," for they know
how

298 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
" To crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning."
I speak of the general rule, and do honor to the ex
ceptions. I hope you think me harsh in this judg
ment. Many of you, I see, are members of this
House, and do not know exactly the city you are
strangers in. I believe it the best city in the world;
but it has some faults which warrant my conjectural
fear. Two things have happened, Mr. President,
since our last annual meeting, which show the pro
clivity of the controlling class in Boston to support
slavery. The first took place on the 17th of June.
One or two haberdashers and the hotel-keepers of
Boston were anxious to celebrate the eighty-second an
niversary of the battle of Bunker Hill. The State
and the city united in that good work. There was a
Committee of the Massachusetts legislature, joined
with a Committee of the City Council. Here is the
book, " printed by authority," giving an account of
some of the proceedings. The Committee invited dis
tinguished champions of slavery to come and conse
crate the statue of Warren. Here is the reply of
Governor Wise, of Virginia. It contains an admira
ble hint. He hopes the Revolutionary times will re
turn. So do I.
The Committee invited the author of the Fugitive
Slave Bill to partake of their festivities. Yes,
they invited the Hon. Mr. Mason, of Virginia,
the most insolent man in the American Senate,
the most bitterly and vulgarly hostile to the Dem
ocratic institutions of the North, the man who had
treated your own senator with such insolence and
abuse ; Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, also should have
been included ! I shall not now speak of the men who

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 299
outraged the decency of New England by asking
such a man to such a spot on such a day, — they were
types of a class of men whom they too faithfully
serve. But on that occasion, " complimentary flun
keyism " swelled itself almost to bursting, that it
might croak the praises of Mr. Mason and his coad
jutors. When the coward blows of Mr. Brooks — one of
that holy alhance of bullies who rule Congress — had
brought Charles Sumner to the ground, and he lay
helpless between life and death, you know the people of
Boston proposed to have a meeting in Faneuil Hall to
express their indignation. A committee, appointed at
a previous meeting, had the matter in charge. They
invited Hon. Mr. Winthrop to attend. " No," he
" could not come." They asked Mr. Everett. " No,"
he too was " unable." xl It was reported at the time,
and I thought on good authority, that when the com
mittee asked Hon. Mr. Choate, he asked " if blows on
the head with a gutta-percha stick would hurt a man
much? " These three were ex-senators. They all re
fused to attend the meeting and join in any expression
of feeling against the outrage upon Mr. Sumner.
Gentlemen, I respect sincerity, and I was glad that they
were not hypocrites on that occasion. Twice the com
mittee waited on the first two gentlemen, offering the
invitation, which was twice refused. But Mr. Win
throp and Mr. Everett were both at Charlestown to
pay that feudal homage to Mr. Fugitive Slave Bill
Mason, which Northern vassals owe the slave power.
With their " flunkeyism," they tainted still worse the
air of that town which has a proverbial repute and
name. Then was fulfilled that celebrated threat of Senator

300 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Toombs, of Georgia. On the eighty-second anni
versary of New England's first great battle, at the
foot of Bunker Hill monument, the author of the
Fugitive Slave BiU, the most offensive of all his tribe,
called over the roll of his slaves ; and men, their names
unknown to fame, their personalities too indistinct for
sight, at least for memory, with the City Government
of Boston, the authorities of Harvard College, two ex-
senators, one ex-governor, the governor of Massachu
setts (spite of the " certainty of a mathematical dem
onstration," now also an ex), answered to their
names ! 12
That was not all. The next day, at the public cost,
in a steamboat chartered expressly for the purpose,
the City Government took Mr. Mason about the har
bor, showing to him the handsome spectacle of Nature,
the green islands, then so fair; and you saw, a hideous
sight, the magistrates of this town doing homage to
one of the foulest of her enemies, who had purposely
incited a kindred spirit to deal such blows on the hon
ored head of a noble senator of this State.
Nor was that all. The next night, one of the pro
fessors of Harvard College, both a learned and most
genial man, but at that time specially representing the
servility of his institution, better even than his accom
plishments generally represent its Greek scholarship,
invited the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill to an en
tertainment at his house.
So the magistrates of Boston, the authorities of
Harvard College, the " respectabilities of the neighbor
hood," the Committee of the Legislature, the Gov
ernor of the Commowealth, and its ex-senators said in
their acts, and their words too, " Thus shall be done
unto the man whom the slave power delighteth to
honor."

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 301
Here is the other act. Mr. Alger, a young Uni
tarian minister of this town, had been invited to deliver
the annual Fourth of July address before the city au
thorities ; and he, good honest man, in the simplicity
of his heart, like Horace Mann and Charles Sumner,
long before, thought that one day in the year was con
secrate to Independence, and an orator might be par
doned if, on Independence Day, he said a word in be
half of the self-evident truths of the old Declaration,
and spoke of the natural and inalienable right of all
men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Mr. Alger's grandfather fought in the battle of Bun
ker Hill, and it was not surprising that the " spirit of
'75," speaking through such a " medium," should be
a little indignant at the spirit of '57 ! He spoke as
he ought. The city government refused to print his
speech — which, however, printed itself. The act was
consistent. They who had crouched to Senator Ma
son, and answered at the roll-call of his slaves, how
could they publish a manly speech rebuking their
" complimentary flunkeyism !"
These two acts may make you doubt what would be
the fate of the slave power's measures if left to Bos
ton alone ; but they make me sure what it would be if
left to the three classes I have just now named.
But will these measures succeed, even with such help ?
If I had stood in this spot on the 29th of January,
1850, and foretold as prophecy what is history to-day,
would you have believed me, Mr. President? Ladies
and gentlemen, you could not credit it: that Mason's
Bill, proposed the week before, would become a law;
that Boston would ever be the haunt of man-stealers,
her court-house a barracoon, Faneuil Hall crammed
with soldiers hired to steal a negro boy ; that her judge

302 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
of probate would forego the benevolence of his nature,
or at least of his office, and become a kidnapper, and
even a pretended anti-slavery governor keep him in of
fice still ! No, you could not believe that Wendell Phil
lips would ever be brought to trial for a " misdemean
or," because, in the " Cradle of Liberty," he declared
it wrong for a judge of probate to turn kidnapper!
No, you would not hear the prediction that the Mis
souri Compromise would be repealed, the Kansas-Ne
braska Act be passed, and the military arm of the
United States, lengthened out with border ruffians,
would be stretched forth to force slavery into Kansas
with the edge of the sword. You would have said,
" The Dred Scott decision is impossible ; the Supreme
Court cannot declare that no colored man is a citizen
of the United States, — that the Constitution itself
puts slavery into every territory, spite of local legisla
tion, spite of Congress itself, spite of the people's
will ! Should they attempt so foul a wrong, the next
convention of the Northern Democrats would rend the
court asunder ! Caleb Cushing would war against it ! "
What have we seen abroad ; what do some of you hear
in this hall, day out, day in ? On the 29th of January,
1858, is it more unlikely that the Federal Government
will decree these three new measures, — to establish
slavery in all the North, to conquer and enslave the
Southern part of the continent, to restore the slave
trade? The past is explanation of the present, as the
present also of the past.
There are two things you may depend on: the im
pudent boldness of your Southern masters; the thor
ough corruption of their Northern slaves. These two
are " sure as death and rates."
But opposition is made against slavery, — some of it

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 303
is quite remarkable. I begin with mentioning what
comes from quarters which seemed least promising.
1. A Northern Democrat enters on the stage, — an
unwonted appearance. But it is no " infant phenom
enon," no stripling, " who never appeared on any
stage before," making his first essay by venturing on
an anti-slavery part. It is an old stock actor — the
little giant of many a tragedy. Mr. Douglas has
broken with the administration ; the author of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act is now undoing his own work ;
the inventor of " squatter sovereignty " (or, if Cass
be the inventor, Douglas has the patent) turns round
and strikes the hand that fed him with honors and ap
plause. He has great personal power of work, of en
durance, immense ability to talk ; all the arts of sophis
try are at his command; adroit, cunning, far-sighted,
for an American politician — no man, I think, better
understands the strategy of politics, and no man has
been more immoral and shameless in its use. He has
long been the leader of the Northern Democracy, and
knows its instincts and its ideas ; his hand is familiar
with the strings which move the puppets of the party.
Amongst men not clerical, I have heard but one
speaker lie with such exquisite adroitness, and make
the worse appear the better reason. He is a senator,
still holding his place on important committees ; he
is rich, in the prime of life, ambitious of power: he
has abandoned drunkenness, and his native strength re
turns to his stout frame once more. Let us not dis
guise it, — no mere politician in America can do the
slave power such harm.
But I have no more confidence in Mr. Douglas 13
now than in 1854. The nature of the man has not
changed, nor can it change ; even his will is still the

304 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
same. No man has done us such harm. You know
his public measures, his public speeches — the news
papers report aU that ; but his frauds, his insolent de
meanor, his brow-beating and violence towards the Re
publican senators, you do not know — only the actual
spectators can understand such things. Do you re
member that, after Mr. Sumner had made his last great
speech, Mr. Douglas said, — " Does the senator want
us to kick him? " You have not forgot that when
Brooks made his attack upon Sumner, Douglas also
was there, and did not interfere to prevent a continu
ance of the blows. He also was a part of that out
rage. The man has not changed. If he were Presi
dent, he would do as Buchanan does, only more so.
If he were sure of his senatorial office for six years to
come, I think we should hear no words from him in be
half of Kansas. But his term expires in March, next
year. He knows he cannot be re-elected, unless he
changes his course. So he alters his measures, and
provisionally favors freedom ; not his principles, which
are the loaves and fishes of power. I am sorry to hear
Republicans express their confidence in him, and give
him praise which leaves nothing to add to such men
as Hale, Seward, and Chase. I know it is said, " Any
stone is good enough to throw at a dog ; " but this is
a stone that will scale in its flight, veer off, and finally
hit what you mean not to hurt, but to defend. Yet it
is unexpected to find any individuality of conduct or
opinion in the party. It is pleasant to see what a
train of followers he has already, and to think that
Democracy is not quite dead among Democrats. He
is fighting against our foes — that is an accident ; he
is not fighting for us, but only for Stephen A. Doug
las, and if he wins that battle, he cares not who his
allies are, nor who' his foes.

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 305
2. The next help comes from a slave State. Here
is the valuable speech of Hon. F. P. Blair, from Mis
souri. " The civilized world," says he, " is at war with
the propagation of slavery, whether by fraud or by
the sword ; and those who look to gain political ascen
dency on this continent by bringing the weight of this
system, like an enormous yoke, not to subject the slaves
only, but their fellow-citizens and kindred of the same
blood, have made false auguries of the signs of the
times." Significant words — doubly important when
coming from a slave State.
3. Here is something from Republican members of
Congress. Not to mention others from New England,
or elsewhere, here is a speech from Hon. Eli Thayer,
ironical, sometimes, I take it, but plain and direct in
substance. He would have the free States send set
tlers to Northernize the South — already he has a col
ony in Virginia — and New Englandize Central Amer
ica ! " The Yankee," says Mr. Thayer, " has never
become a slaveholder, unless he has been forced to it
by the social relations of the slave State where he
lived; and the Yankee who has become a slaveholder
has every day of his life thereafter felt in his very
bones the bad economy of the system." " Why, sir,
he can buy a negro power in a steam-engine for ten
dollars, and he can clothe and feed that power for one
year for five dollars ; and are we the men to give $1,000
for an African slave, and $150 a year to feed and
clothe him?"
This is an anti-slavery argument which traders can
understand. Mr. Thayer is not so much a talker as
an organizer; he puts his thoughts into works. You
know how much Kansas owes him for the organization
he has set on foot. One day will he not also revolu-
XIV— 20

306 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
tionize Virginia? There is a to-morrow after to
day.14 Here is a speech from Hon. John P. Hale. I think
it is the ablest he ever made, — the first any one in Con
gress has made, I think, since the discussion caused by
the assault on Mr. Sumner. It relates to Kansas and
the Dred Scott decision. Hear what he says of the
latter : —
"If the opinion of the Supreme Court be true, it makes the
immortal authors of the Declaration of Independence liars before
God and hypocrites before the world; for they lay down their
sentiments broad, full, and explicit, and then they say that
they appeal to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the recti
tude of their intentions; but, if you believe the Supreme Court,
they were merely quibbling on words. They went into the
courts of the Most High, and pledged fidelity to their principles
as the price they would pay for success, and now it is at
tempted to cheat them out of the poor boon of integrity; and
it is said that they did not mean so; and that when they said
all men, they meant all white men; and when they said that the
contest they waged was for the rights of mankind, the Supreme
Court of the United States would have you believe that they
mean it was to establish slavery. Against that I protest, here,
now, and everywhere; and I tell the Supreme Court that these
things are so impregnably fixed in the hearts of the people, on
the page of history, in the recollections and traditions of men,
that it will require mightier efforts than they have made or
can make, to overturn or to shake these settled convictions of
the popular understanding and of the popular heart.
" Sir, you are now proposing to carry out this Dred Scott
decision by forcing upon the people of Kansas a constitution
against which they have remonstrated, and to which there can
be no shadow of doubt a very large portion of them are op
posed. Will it succeed? I do not know; it is not for me to
say; but I will say this: if you force that — if you persevere
in that attempt — I think, I hope, the men of Kansas will fight.
I hope they will resist to blood and to death the attempt to
force them to a submission against which their fathers con
tended, and to which they never would have submitted. Let
me tell you, sir, I stand not here to use the language of intimi
dation or of menace; but you kindle the fires of civil war in
that country by an attempt to force that Constitution on the

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 307
necks of an unwilling people; and you will light a fire that all
Democracy cannot quench — aye, sir, there will come up many
another Peter the Hermit, that will go through the length and
the breadth of this land, telling the story of your wrongs and
your outrages; and they will stir the public heart; they will
raise a feeling in this country such as has never yet been raised;
and the men of this country will go forth, as they did of olden
time, in another crusade; but it will not be a crusade to redeem
the dead sepulchre where the body of the Crucified had lain
from the profanation of the infidel, but to redeem this fair
land, which God has given to be the abode of freemen, from
the desecration of a despotism sought to be imposed upon them
in the name of ' perfect freedom ' and ' popular sovereignty.' "
This is a little different from the speeches made in
Congress last winter. There is nothing apologetic
and deprecatory this time. Mr. Seward said,
long ago, " The time for compromises has passed
by." Mr. Sumner's chair is vacant still — and yet it
speaks with more power than any senator can bring to
defend slavery with. In the long line of men Massa
chusetts has sent to do service in the halls of Con
gress, there has been none nobler than Charles Sum
ner, none more faithful. I know how dangerous it is
to praise a living man, especially a politician ; to-mor
row may undo the work of half a century. But here
I feel safe ; for, of all the men I have known in political
life, he is the only one who has thereby grown stronger
in the noblest qualities of a man. Already his integ
rity has been tried in the severest ordeal ; I think here
after it will stand any test. Massachusetts has had
three great Adamses — Samuel, John, John Quincy.
In their graves, they are to her what " the three Tells "
are to Switzerland. Here is a man equally noble, per
haps with a nicer culture than any of them. He has
now the same firmness, the same integrity — faithful-

308 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ness to delegated trust, allegiance to the higher law
of right. His empty chair is eloquent.
4. Then there are Republicans out of Congress, in
official station, who are at work. All the New England
States, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Wis
consin, have governors and legislatures, I think, hostile
to slavery — after the " Republican " way. The elec
tion of Mr. Banks was a triumph in Massachusetts. In
fifty years past, no Northern State has sent a man to
the House of Representatives, who in twenty-five years
acquired as great influence there as Mr. Banks in four.
He has many qualities which fit him for eminence in
American politics — if he only be faithful to the right.
I hear loud condemnation of him from anti-slavery
men, because, say they, " He will do wrong by and by."
Our sentence will be in season if it comes after the
crime ; and the actual offenses of Republican politicians
are so numerous that I will not condemn conjectural
felonies before they are committed. I hear it said he
will not remove Judge Loring. Wait and see. But
to exchange his predecessor for him seemed a triumph
of freedom in 1857; I hope it will prove so in years
to come.
The Republican party has done considerable service,
but it does not behave very well. It is cowardly ; a
little deceitful ; " making / dare not wait upon /
would." Colored waiters at public festivals say, " The
Democrats treat us better than the Republicans."
Events have clearly shown that the party did not de
serve to gain the Federal power in 1856 ; that it would
have been ruinous to the party could they then have
taken the great offices, and disastrous to the cause of
freedom, which they would compromise. Yet, as it
is the best political party we have, I would not be over-

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 309
nice in criticising it. I like not to pick holes in the
thin spots of the only political coat we have in this
stormy weather. I know the difficulties of the party,
and have pity for its offenders — none for its mere
hunters after place.
I have spoken of the services of . these classes of
political men. There is one trouble which disturbs all
four. They are liable to a certain disease of a peculiar
nature. I have a good copy of Galen, but he does
not mention it; the last edition of Hippocrates, but
neither he nor his commentator, though both well-let
tered men, makes any reference thereto. Hence I sup
pose it is a new disease, which, though not exactly a
doctor of medicine, perhaps I am the first to describe.
So I will call it the Presidential fever; or, in Latin,
Typhus infandus Americanus.* I will try to describe
the specific variety which is endemic in the Northern
States, the only place where I have studied the dis
ease. I may omit some symptoms of the case, which
other observers will supply. At first the patient is
filled with a vague longing after things too high
for him. He gazes at them with a fixed stare;
the pupils expand. But he cannot see distinctly ;
crooked ways seem straight ; the shortest curve he
thinks is a right angle; dirty things look clean,
and he lays hold of them without perceiving their
condition. Some things he sees double — especially
the number of his friends ; others with a semi-vision,
and it is always the lower half he sees. All the time he
hears a confused noise, like that of men declaring votes,
State after State. This noise obscures all other
* It may be the same Herod is said to have died of. From
Sallust's description, it would seem that Catiline had a slight
touch of it.— Bell. Cat. ch. i.

310 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
sounds, so that he cannot hear the still small voice which
yet moves the world of men. He can bear no " agita
tion ; " the word " slavery " disturbs him much ; he
fears discussion thereof as a hydrophobiac dreads water,
Yet he is fond of the " rich brogue " of the foreign
population. His sense of smell is so morbid that an
honest man is unbearably offensive. His tongue is
foul, but he has an irresistible propensity to lick the
hands of those he thinks will give him what he seeks.
His organ of locality is crazed and erratic in its ac
tion ; the thermometer may stand at 20° below zero —
even lower, if long enough- — the Mississippi may be
frozen over clear down to Natchez, Hellgate be im
passable for ice, and the wind of Labrador blow for
months across the continent to the Gulf of Mexico —
still he can't believe there is any North! Combative-
ness is irregularly active ; he fights his best friends and
clings to his worst enemies. Destructiveness is intense ;
he would abolish the negroes, enforce the Fugitive
Slave Bill, and hang the abolitionists. Benevolence is
wholly inert. Causality has become idiotic; he looks
into the clockwork of the State, and everywhere finds
" a little nigger has got into the machinery," which
he would set right by " crushing out " the intruder.
Ideality fills him with the foolishest of dreams. The
organ of self-esteem swells to a monstrous size — like
a huge wen on the top of the head, " a sight to be
hold." He talks about himself excessively, ad
nauseam; and " makes a noise town-meeting days,"
and is always " up " in the legislature. Vanity is im
mense ; he would be before the people continually ; no
place is too small, if only public ; he lives in the eye
of the people, greedy of praise. Hope is in a state
of delirious excitement; no failure disconcerts him, no

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 311
fall abates desire to rise. Veracity is in a comatose
state ; " he will lie like Governor  ." 15 Consci
entiousness has " caved in," and in its place there is
" a hole in his head." He knows no higher law above
his own ambition, for which all means seem just. He
often speaks of " the Father of his Country," but never
tells his noblest deeds. His reverence is delirious in its
action ; he worships every graven or molten image that
faces South, and lies prostrate before the great ugly
idol of Slavery, rending his garments, and cries, " Baal
help us ! Baal help us ! " Disease incurable ; yields
to no medicine ; not hellebore enough in all Anticyra to
affect the case.
I need not speak of the old Anti-slavery Society. It
is not necessary I should criticise their action — I have
done that often enough before. If we deserve any
praise, let others give it, or give it not, as suits them
best. There has been a great change in the people of the
North — else, Mr. President, we were not here to
night. You remember the legislatures of 1850, 1851,
1852 — what if you had asked them for this hall ! In
1851, even Faneuil Hall could not be had for a con
vention of fifteen hundred as respectable and intelli
gent men as ever assembled in the United States, with
Horace Mann at their head. We are here to-night by
the will of the people of Massachusetts. For many
years we have come up before the legislature of this
State; it has always heard us patiently, and I think
at length has always done what we asked. Former
legislatures have done all in their power to remove the
only Massachusetts judge of probate that ever kid
napped a man. I make no doubt this legislature will
as faithfully represent the conscience of the State.

312 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
I say there has been a great change in the people.
Compare the old Daily Advertiser with the new, which
I think one of the humanest as well as ablest newspa
pers in New England.
I recall the fate of the Northern men who voted for
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. There were thirteen North
ern senators who did so. The official term has ex
pired for ten of them. Nine of the ten lost their elec
tion — veteran old Mr. Cass at their head ; the Cam
den and Amboy Railroad sent back Mr. Thompson to
represent their rolling-stock. Stuart of Michigan,
Jones of Iowa, and Douglas of Illinois, abide their
time. Forty-two Northern representatives were equally
false to Democracy. Thirty-nine of them have gone
to their own place, only three returned to their seats:
J. Glancey Jones and T. B. Florence of Pennsylvania,
and W. H. English of Indiana, alone remain.
If the South is more confident of victory than ever,
the North is also more determined to conquer. The
late elections show this: that of Mr. Banks is a very
significant sign of the times. The " rebellion " of Mr.
Douglas, so his old masters call it, is popular at the
North. He could be elected to the Senate to-morrow
by a vote of the people of Illinois. I do not say I
would vote for him ; that State will. AU the West is
on his side. See how many tender-footed Democrats
there are who cannot walk over a majority of legal
voters in Kansas ten thousand strong, and force slavery
on that State, even at the command of the old master.
Soon there will be conscience Democrats, as once con
science Whigs. The administration party may carry
their measures ; it will be as of old, " the counsel of
the froward is carried headlong." In 1860, the

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 313
Northern Democratic party will be where the Whig
party was in 1856. There will be a pack of men about
the Federal offices in all the great towns, united by
common desire for public plunder; but the party will
be as dead as Benedict Arnold. If Mr. Cushing wiU
" crush out " all individualism from the Democracy he
will leave no life there!
Such is the aspect of slavery now. It is clear what
duty the North has to do. She must choose either
freedom of the black man, with an industrial Democ
racy gradually spreading over all the continent, dif
fusing everywhere the civilization of New England ; or
else the slavery of the black man, with a military des
potism certainly overspreading the land and crushing
down the mass of men, white and black, into Asiatic
subjection. The choice is between these two extremes.
There are 18,000,000 in the North, all free. The
power of numbers, wealth, industry, education, ideas,
institutions, all is on our side. So are the sympathies
of the civilized world, the hopes and the primal in
stincts of mankind ; " the stars in their courses fight
against Sisera." The Federal Government is against
us — we might have had it on our side if we would.
The last Presidential election showed who in the
North were the allies of the South. They dwell
mainly in the four great cities, and in that debatable
land which borders on the slave States, a strip of terri
tory 200 miles wide, reaching from New York harbor
to the Mississippi. I trust the Anti-slavery Society
will send out its missionaries to arouse and instruct the
people in that border land. There is a practical work
to be done — to be attempted at once.
Slavery is a moral wrong and an economical blun
der ; but it is also a great political institution. It can-

314 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
not be put down by political economy, nor by ethical
preaching; men have not only pecuniary interests and
moral feelings, but also political passions. Slavery
must be put down politically, or else militarily. If
not peacefully ended soon, it must be ended wrathfuUy
by the sword. The negro will not bear slavery for
ever ; if he would, the white man will not.
If the Repubhcan party behave wisely, there wUl
never be another inch of slave soil added to the national
domain, nor another slave State admitted to the Union :
but slavery will be driven out of all the territories.
Look at this fact. There are now fifteen slave States,
sixteen free. Minnesota and Kansas will soon be ad
mitted, Washington and Oregon ere long — four new
free States. Missouri may abolish slavery within four
years. Then, in 1864, we shall stand twenty-one free
States to fourteen slave States. Nay, perhaps Utah
will repudiate both forms of polygamy, the voluntary
and the forcible, and be an ally in our defense. It is
easy to conquer the Southern part of the continent;
it is not easy to establish African slavery there, in the
midst of a population made up of Africans or Indians
ready to shelter the slave, and also much more dense
than that in the Gulf States from Georgia or Florida
to Texas.
If the North is wise and just, we shall choose an anti-
slavery President in 1860, and on March 4th, 1861,
incorporate the principles of the Declaration of Inde
pendence and of the Constitution's Preamble into the
Federal Government itself. And on the 4th of July,
1876, there will not be a slave within all the wide bor
ders of the United States ! For that service, we do not
want a man like Colonel Fremont, who has had no po
litical experience; we want no Johnny Raw for the

SLAVERY IN AMERICA 315
most difficult post in the nation. It must not be a man
broken down with the Presidential fever.
But much is to be done before that result is possi
ble. The whole policy of the Republican party must
be changed. We must attack slavery — slavery in
the territories, slavery in the district, and, above all,
slavery in the slave States. Would you remove the
shadow of a tree? Then down with the tree itself!
There is no other way. To get rid of the accidents
of a thing, you make way with its substance. Does
not the Constitution guarantee a Repubhcan form of
government to every State? South Carolina has a
Republican form of government, has she? We must
be aggressive, and kill the trunk, not maim the
branches. When you attempt that, depend upon it
the South will know you are in earnest. The Su
preme Court is our worst enemy. I should attack it
carefully by regular siege. Conquer and re-con
struct it.
If I were Republican governor of Massachusetts,
or a senator of the State, I should make it a part of
my duty to attend every anti-slavery convention, and
to speak there. Such men go to Cattle Shows, and
Mechanics' Fairs, and meetings of Bible Societies, to
show that they are at least officially interested in
farming, manufacturing, and religion. So would I
go to the other place, to show that I really took the
deepest, heartiest interest in the great principles of
Democracy, and wished to see justice done to the
humblest of human kind.
The Daily Advertiser gives us good counsel. In
the editorial of the 26th, I find these words : " The
enemies of slavery and its extension have hitherto
occupied too exclusively a defensive attitude; its

316 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
friends, by venturing on bold courses of aggression,
have continually been gaining ground. If they did
not carry their whole point, they always gained some
thing by compromise. It is right to learn from one's
enemy, and it will be fortunate if our friends in Con
gress have really learned the valuable lesson of re
fusing to be kept on the defensive."
I know how anxious men are for office. I take it
there are 20,000 candidates for the Presidency now
living. I wish they were enumerated in the census —
they might come after the overseers of slaves. Cer
tainly no man is too small for the place. The ex
perience of Europe shows that little men may be born
to high office ; America proves that they can be chosen
— and Democratic election is as good as royal fore-
ordination. But no man is hkely to gain that high
office by compromise. Webster tried it, and failed;
Clay also failed. If Seward, Chase, or Banks attempt
the same thing, they also will come dishonored to
the ground. It is always hard to ride two horses.
What if, as now, both be swift, and North runs one
way, and South the other? Anti-slavery is a move
able stone — he that falls on it will be broken ; but on
whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

XII
THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY ON THE
AMERICAN PEOPLE
1858
There are three great events in American history.
The first is the Discovery of the Continent ; the second,
the Landing of the Pilgrims in New England, who
brought the Teutonic seed of a new form of civiliza
tion ; the third, the Declaration of Independence, when
new ideas of government were clearly set forth, des
tined to have a great influence on the development of
mankind. This is not only the national anniversary :
it is the birthday of whole families of republics that
we know not of as yet ; for it must have a future more
glorious than the past or the present.
Let you and me make the highest religious use of
this great day. Religion includes all duties, individ
ual and social — the self -protection that I owe to my
own person, the philanthropy due to my kind, and
patriotism, the virtue I owe my nation. Each man
has a human character, general elements common to
mankind; an individual character, special elements pe
culiar to himself; and a national character not less.
Patriotism is a great religious duty : it is philanthropy
modified by the need of the hour, and intensified to
wards one special people — not that we love mankind
less, but our country more. It is the application of
justice to our own nation.
The Americans are making a new experiment in
317

318 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
human history. The discovery of the continent was
not more strange in 1492 than the American Republic
is now. This, also, is a New World amongst the
governments of the earth. Great abstract truths be
come great facts in the institutions of the people ; the
word becomes flesh; what at first is a great thought is
at last to be miUions of men, their character molded
by the institutions.
On this great day, remembering that we are all
Americans, each having his stake in the common fence,
religiously owing great patriotism to our common
country, let us look at our special duty as citizens
of this new republic; and so I ask your attention to
some thoughts on the Effect of Slavery on the Ameri
can People. I shall say much of principles, ideas, and
facts ; of individual men very little.
To understand the matter fully, and see the effect
of slavery, look a minute at some of the chief pe
culiarities of our political institutions.
In the middle ages, throughout the greater part of
Europe, there prevailed a form of government which
looks strange to you and me. Vicariousness was the
general rule in religion and politics: neither Church
nor State was amenable to the people.
First, the clergy were responsible for the religion
of the people ; that is, one man in three or four thou
sand was thought answerable for the future welfare
of all the rest. The clergy made an ecclesiastical
theology, and called it divine revelation; they estab
lished ecclesiastical ceremonies, which they named the
ordinances of God. The people were only to believe
the one and practise the other, and their calling and
election were made sure; for the priest claimed to
speak with authority superior to human consciousness.

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 319
" Beheve " and " Obey " were his two commands :
" Trust our office, and not your own soul ! "
Second, the king and the aristocracy were respon
sible for the pohtics of the people: they made, ex
pounded, and administered the statute laws, claiming
authority above the collective interests or collective
conscience of the people. The magistrate's statutes
were a finality: the people's need and right were none.
The official did not propose statutes; he made them,
and enforced. Then the Church and State were both
accounted divine — that is, the final and ultimate au
thority. The priest, king, or noble, all claimed to
hold of God, not of mankind; they were feudatories
under Him, responsible to God, not to man. The
ecclesiastical or political ruler had all the command
and right ; only obedience and duty belonged to the
ruled. The king or noble was the State, the priest the
Church. This royal vicariousness went through all society;
the title to office and land all ran from the king or noble,
not from the individual possessor, or the collective
mass of men.
This sacerdotal vicariousness likewise ran through
aU society. No church-doctrines held under human
ity, either of reason or instinct, individual or collect
ive; all held under the priesthood, which had eminent
domain over human consciousness. Salvation de
pended on the Church, not on the faith or works of
saint or sinner. The priest opened and shut the gates
of heaven: tickets of entrance were to be bought at
his office, and could not be had elsewhere, either of man
or God.
Such was once the theory of the divine State and
divine Church, the twofold kingdom of God on earth.

320 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
It was the best thing men had in those days: let us
not grumble. Man is honest always, and does the
best he knows how. You and I were as faithful when
we stumbled and babbled, as to-day when we talk and
go alone. Mankind was a baby once — a stupid boy,
it seems to you and me — but he turns out a pretty
promising child. Let us not quarrel with the hole in
which our fathers once burrowed, nor the rude wigwam
which they built over it and named the Divine Church
and State. Each was once the best of its kind on
earth ; and if our building be better, it is because theirs
was worse and came earlier.
So much for these vicarious institutions.
Now in America we have somewhat changed that
state of things. The political and ecclesiastical func
tionary is the servant, the people master, now. Yet
it is true that here and there in religious affairs some
ecclesiastical man still claims divine right to dictate to
the people, setting his authority above their reason,
and magisterially telling what they must take for
piety, theology, and morality. But he does it with
such self-distrust and painful fear, he is so afraid of
disturbing any powerful wickedness, that it is plain he
thinks the popular stream, fed by all the rains of
heaven, is stronger than the ecclesiastical dam said to
be built as miraculously as the Neptunian walls of
Troy divine. Nay, he fears lest by some freshet of
humanity, caused through the breaking up of winter,
or the melting of distant and time-honored snows,
thought everlasting, it may be swept off, carried out
to sea, and whelmed for ever in the ocean, nor ever
heard of more. So the man hoists the gate of the
churl's dam, and lets the stream run free. This
sacerdotal vicariousness will not last long in America.

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 321
In the State the political man counts himself serv
ant, not master. Let President Voted-in say in his
proclamation to the people, " Gentlemen, I am your
superior, and you are my servants; you are to do a9
I say ; " if he should try to act thereon, there would be
a state of things presently. The people alone are
primitive and final, the magistrate derivative, pro
visional, and responsible. The American legislative,
judiciary, or executive, is only an attorney of the
manifold and thirty-million-headed people; a servant
hired expressly to make, expound, and administer cer
tain statute laws, which are amenable to the people
and reversible thereby. Magistrates are " select men,"
not the town which " selects " them. Mr. Banks 1 is
the hired man of Massachusetts, set to do the govern
ing of the Commonwealth, responsible to his employ
ers not less than if he were still the hired man of Mr.
Strikeandblow, and set to do blacksmithing. The
President and Vice-President, the two-and-thirty gov
ernors, the judges, chief and puny, all the honorable
members of Congress, three hundred of them, all of the
State legislators, about six thousand by my counting
— these are all servants, operatives in that great na
tional mill which is owned by Mr. American People*
a respectable gentleman who is rather a new comer
on this continent, though of pretty ancient family.
He has some personal property, three million square
miles of real estate, well fenced on the east and west
by a natural ditch, pretty distinctly bounded on the
north by the grounds of his father, old Mr. English
People, a very respectable gentleman and a rich, not
to be meddled with in haste, a citizen of very eminent
gravity. On the south the border line is not less clear,
but more variable: there Mr. People abuts on his poor
XIV— 21

SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
relations, whom he respects not, because he fears not,
and so he turns his cows into their pastures, and sends
his naughty boys to rob their hen-roosts, and steal
their watermelons, and commit manifold waste and
damage. I say all these functionaries are but servants
in the great mill where Mr. American People is trying
to manufacture welfare. Ministers abroad are his bag
men, runners, drummers, and other factotums, whom
he sends off on his public business. Generals and com
manders, with epaulettes on their shoulders, and plumes
in their bonnets, and red coats on their backs, and
tinkling ornaments all about them, with their manifold
subordinates, are only the sea and land police, to prowl
about this great national mill, and see that no stranger
comes to steal or kill. Let them wear their finery with
what pride they may, and strut their hour, and talk
big: he holds them all to strict account, and to the
chiefest of them, every four years, says, " Depart thou
hence : thou must be no longer steward. Give place to
a more honorable man than thou." In the State aU
this vicariousness is gone ; office is a trust, not a right ;
the selectman is a servant, the selecting people master.
For personal conduct and reputation each man is amen
able to the common humanity of all, for personal char
acter amenable only to God. But each official opera
tive in the national mill for conduct and character must
answer not only to his God, but to the people, the mill-
owner. Theocracy, the priest power; monarchy, the one-
man power ; and oligarchy, the few-men power — are
three forms of vicarious government over the people,
perhaps for them, not by them. Democracy is direct
self-government over all the people, for all the people,
by all the people. Our institutions are democratic:

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY
theocratic, monarchic, oligarchic vicariousness is all
gone. We have no divine vicar who is responsible to
God for our politics and religion ; only a human attor
ney, answerable to the people for his official work.
The axis of rotation has changed: the equator of the
old civihzation passes through the poles of the new.
This makes some change in the geography of both
Church and State.
Then the American government is industrial as well
as democratic. The nation is not organized to plun
der, but to earn. The people are not military, dis
posed to fight, but yet have great fighting power.
Such is the individual variety of action, your and my
personal freedom, such the national unity of action,
compacting all to one great body, that the people will
prove terrible fighters whenever the worst comes to the
worst; and in this stage of civilization I think the
ploughman is not safe unless he have a sword as well
as a share. Yet the Americans are not military, dis
posed to kiU and plunder, but industrial, inclined to
create and earn; hence, in power for present welfare
and future progress, we have an immense superiority
over other nations of the world.
All human property is the result of toil, which is
hand-work, and thought, which is head-work. In the
industrial democracy wealth is rated proportionally
higher than in the vicarious governments of ancient
and modern Europe ; for here it is not balanced by any
corresponding weight. There the father bequeathed his
irresponsible office as family estate to his son or daugh
ter, who were held royal, noble, gentle, because they.
inherited more than the mass of men. Here no man
bequeathes office, honor, title — only money, which
represents power to buy all marketable things, and in

324 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
America there are few things not marketable. Hence
money is valued not simply as personal and immediate
power of use and beauty, but also as the power of
powers, future abihty to determine the social rank of
the next generation.
In a New England town, within forty years, four
men — each poor at first, rather mean and dishonor
able, with great mercantile talent for acquisition, the
hungry eye of covetousness, and the iron fist of ac
cumulation — have died and left some eight millions of
dollars: their children now occupy the foremost social
positions in that town. So long as the hve money is
above ground and circulating, nobody counts them
dishonored by the humble station or pecuniary vices of
the dead covetousness beneath. If they have money,
wit is imputed : when the money fails, the respectability
will slide with it. In the industrial democracy money
is proportionally more powerful than elsewhere, for
" it answereth all things." Hence it is the chief ob
ject of ambition with the hopeful youth, and the chief
object of veneration with servile men, young or old.
This is better than of old time: it is better that we
worship the dollar, which represents creative toil, than
the sword, which is the symbol of destruction and vio
lence. Property is created by toil and thought. In the
free States it is commonly easy for the industrious,
forecasting, and temperate man to obtain a generous
competence ; but great fortunes are made only by using
the toil and thought of many men. In the North great
fortunes are commonly made in trade. The merchant
is a trader: he buys to sell, and hires to let. If hon
est, he thereby injures no one; but if also successful,
he grows rich through help of the toil and thought of

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 325
other men, who are stimulated and served by him as
much as he by them. Yet the prizes are few, and not
too great for the risk. In the North the trading class
is held in great honor. It is industrial, and so in har
mony with our institutions. It is likely to become rich,
and so possessed of the object of youthful ambition
and servile veneration. Here it is what the priests are
in Italy, what the high soldiers are in Russia and
France, and the nobility and gentry in England. The
ablest practical talent does not go to science, literature,
politics, but to trade.
This scheme of government works pretty well for
us : it leads to welfare now, and promises progress for
the future. I will not say that our industrial democ
racy secures aU the advantages of each other form of
government, and escapes from all their ills. It is a
new experiment, not complete nor perfect. Its pres
ent form, even in the most enlightened State, is quite
imperfect. What the steam-engine and printing-press
were fifty years ago, compared with what they are now,
that is the industrial democracy of this day, compared
with its future glories. But two things are indis
putable : —
First, it thrives best where it is purest, least mixed
with any aUoying element ; and so in the North it pro
duces more welfare and progress than in the South.
Second, it produces its most beneficial results where
it has been longest at work. This appears by com
paring the old States of New England with the new
States of the West ; for here the higher results of de
mocracy appear in the form of science, literature,
art, philanthropy, better developed character. All
these things require time, for they are plants of slow
growth.

326 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
So much for the general institutions of America,
which distinguish our government from others.
Now see the effect of slavery on the people under
these peculiar institutions.
Slavery is an exceptional institution, which we have
taken or kept from old time. It belongs to that rule
of vicariousness, or rather to> a time of barbarism be
fore that. It is wholly foreign to a democracy, hos
tile to its fundamental principle. Slavery is property
in man. By nature each man is a unit of human sub
stance, having all the primitive, natural rights of hu
manity. By slavery he is reduced to a fraction, with
none of the primitive, natural rights of humanity. He
is bound to do the duties his master sets, and not only
has no remedy, but no right.
In America slavery is mainly limited to such as have
African blood in their veins, though this is sometimes
pretty well mixed with Saxon blood. The influence
of slavery appears in two forms; first, as it affects
the colored man ; and next, as it affects the white man.
I. Of its effects upon the colored man. All com
pulsory toil is not necessarily degrading. Farmer
Hillside has two lazy-bodied sons : he makes them work
and earn ; else they get neither breakfast, nor dinner,
nor supper, only a hard, cold bed. It is for their
good, not their harm, nor merely through his selfish
ness, that he does so. Professor Blackboard has two
lazy-minded daughters : he makes them study and learn,
for their sakes more than his. It does the girls good:
by and by they will be thankful for it. Grim neces
sity forces the human race to toil and think: mankind
is not degraded, but elevated, by this compulsion of
the Infinite Father, who in our flesh enacts this be
nignant law, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 327
bread." Toil and thought are alike an honor and a
dignity to mankind. But slavery degrades its victims,
worsens and belittles them in the qualities of man. I
do not deny that to the bondmen slavery teaches certain
special things which they would not have learned so
soon in Africa, perhaps not at all ; things, too, which,
under other circumstances, had been a virtue and an
elevation: now they are forced on them, not only
against their wiU, but for their masters' good, and
meant for the slaves' hurt.
1. Slavery degrades the slave. It aims to pervert
his nature. It is the excellency of the slave that
he repudiates his own individualism, is pliant before
his master's foreign wiU. It is the excellency of the
man that he keeps his individualism at the utmost cost,
and holds himself rigid and impenetrable against all
foreign will. In order that every man may be able to
do this, God gives us this terrible power of wrath, such
a defense even to feeble men, and such a terror to the
invasive and usurping will, even when it is of the
strongest sort. Slavery emasculates all virile individ
ualism away. This is the maxim of humanity : " Re
bellion to tyrants is obedience to God." This is the
maxim of slavery : " Submission to tyrants is obedience
to God."
This degradation is not an accident of slavery, it
is essential to it. It is a function of its prime quality.
It does that as certainly as fire burns. By its acci
dents slavery may improve the bondman in many
things: nothing can compensate for thus unmanning
him. If the 4,000,000 slaves were to-day set down in
Africa, in many special things they might surpass their
kinsfolk there; in agriculture and the mechanic arts,
in their idea of comfort and beauty, in comprehensive

328 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
power of thought and toil; but in general manhood,
in self-respect, they would be exceedingly inferior. No
finery in dress, no mechanical skill, no art, no litera
ture, no science, no power to sing Methodist hymns
and pray Methodist prayers, can ever make up for
the loss of that substantial manhood which cringes to
none, but looks each man in the eye, and says to the
invader, " I also am a man, and if not a brother whom
you will respect, then at least an enemy whom you shall
fear." Man subdues other animals, transfigures their na
ture by the process, and makes a new creature. The
dray-horse, the house-dog, the domestic sheep, are the
works of man, almost as much as the printing-press, or
these roses, which have departed so slowly from their
primitive parent. He does them no wrong, for they are
his natural servants ; his natural food when a wild man,
and his property when civilized — not for abuse and
cruelty, but for kind and honest use. He does them
no damage : their welfare is not thereby necessarily in
jured in bulk or in kind. The farmer's horse is as
happy as the horse of the wilderness. But yet all
these wild animals repudiate this alteration of nature,
counting it as high treason. Turn a domestic buU into
a herd of wild cattle, or a tame crow among his savage
kinsfolk, and they tear him to pieces forthwith; even
their brutal instinct repudiates this transformation.
Now, when a man enslaves his brothers, he does them
a damage, by personally worsening both the amount
and kind of their welfare; he does them a wrong, by
perverting their nature and hindering their progress
in the qualities of men. The obedient slave, content to
be property, differs frOm the natural man, civilized or
savage, more than the lapdog or the turnspit differs

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 329
.from the wild dog of the Siberian or Canadian woods.
What if my father had kept me always a boy, that he
might dandle me on his knees ; or my mother had forced
me to be always a baby, that she might cradle me in
her bosom? In its mildest form, from its very nature,
slavery makes dwarfs of what would be men, and might
be giants. In the most brutal population of London
there are women who steal the children of honest folk,
put out their eyes, and then use them as the instru
ments of their idle avarice. What the beggar, in the
rarest of examples, does to the child she steals, that the
slaveholder, as a general rule, does to his bondmen : he
puts out the eyes of their manhood; and though he
burn them out with the gentlest of hot irons, he makes
them not less bhnd. It has long been known that
slavery itself was a degradation, that in making the
slave it unmakes the man. " The first day of bondage
takes half the man away," said Ionian Homer 3,000
years ago. The contempt which all men, even the
anti-slavery philanthropists, feel for the contented
slave, is mankind's testimony against this high treason
towards humanity. The fact itself begins to be com
prehended in America. Once this was a common argu
ment : " Slavery is bad in itself, good in its uses : it
elevates the human savage, and makes him a man, even
a Christian." Now this is abandoned by economists
and politicians, and is left only for that class of min
isters 'Whose neck-cloth white 2
Is black at night."
See the changes in the slaveholder's idea of a slave.
In 1776 he was a man unjustly held in bondage
against the law of nature, but held transiently and pro-

330 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
visionally.. Next, a man held permanently, but wrong
fully ; an inferior kind of man held as an apprentice to
a superior: certain rights aUowed him; his gain of
welfare greater than his loss of freedom. Now he is
declared to be an " animal incapable of civilization ; "
he has " no rights which white men are bound to re
spect." 3 A popular Southern writer says, " Hay is
good for horses, bad for hogs ; so liberty is good for
white men, bad for negroes : " he does not know whether
they " have any souls or not." The Supreme Court
of Virginia has just decided that a slave has no legal
power of assent or dissent. The general public opinion
of the South now is, that the white man has the same
natural right to enslave an African as to tame a horse !
2. Slavery degrades also the free colored man in
the eyes of his neighbors, and, still worse, in his own
eyes. White men in America change their names to
get rid of being associated with disgraceful relatives.
If I had a brother hanged for an infamous crime, my
own self-respect would be greatly lessened, not before
God, but certainly before men. The position of the
free colored man in America is of all others the most
unhappy. The poorest Spaniard our filibusters war
against can point to his European home, and boast of
the magnificent exploits of his nation, that discovered
the New World. The humblest German, who has
nothing but his tobacco, his lager-beer, and his kaud-
erwelsch, the patois of some httle district he was
cradled in, has behind him the noblest of earth's
noble nations : all the generous glories which have
accumulated, from fighting Arminius down to thought
ful Von Humboldt, weave a halo round the head
of Fritz and Gretchen, cradled in the poorest Ger
man home. The rudest Irishman comes from a

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 331
country which is rich in great names. Every O'Brien
claims to be a descendant from Brennus, who smote
Rome to its very foundations. Once Irishmen led
Western Europe in civilization, and bought fair-haired
Saxon girls of Britain for their own slaves. When
New England was poor, old Ireland sent books for yon
der college, and bread for this town. No nation has
been so despised as the Hebrews ; but in the worst ages,
in the darkest persecution, hated, outcast, smitten, de
spised, their venerable beards spit upon by every Chris
tian, the Jew looked back to darker days, and saw the
pillar of fire, with Moses walking underneath and lead
ing the world's civilization ; he read his Hebrew Bible,
full of sublimest poetry, and bethought him that Judea
was one of the queens of civilization when all Europe
was a wilderness, save a little fringe of more than
Cytheraan beauty wrought round the borders of the
midland sea. He turned to the Mahometans with
their scimetar in their hand and said, " Three-quarters
of your religion is only Old Testament ; all that is good
for anything comes from us ; the commonplaces of a
Hebrew poet are the inspiration of your prophet."
Did the Christians mock? The Hebrew said, " Your
Saviour was nothing but a Jew : ' God in heaven ' is
he? A few hundred years ago he was a Jewish car
penter at Nazareth, doing job work, making ploughs
and ox-yokes for the farmers." To-day at Constanti
nople the Jew, an exile from Spain, is poor — nowhere
else in the whole globe of lands ; even his thrift for
sakes him there; despised by the Christian and the
Turk, he opens Isaiah or the Psalms, and remembers
that he comes from a line of men who, two or three
thousand years before, bore in their ark the treasure
of humanity, and he feels an inward self-respect which

332 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
neither Christian nor Turk can ever insult. But the
poor negro has no history to look back upon ; no sci
ence, no arts, no literature, not even a great war, no
single famous name! He looks round him, and his
race is enslaved. I do not wonder at his despair, es
pecially amid a tribe of men who are stirred with such
intensity of national pride as has marked the Saxon,
the Teuton, since he first crossed swords with Roman,
Slavonian, and Gaul.
The effect of slavery on the colored men, bond or
free, is evil, perhaps only evil. I know the wrong
which they suffer awakens very little sympathy with
the mass of men, who in their rudeness reverence
strength and not justice. But the colored men are
one-seventh part of our population, and America does
not rise as the negro falls; you and I go down with
him ; for if one-seventh of the people be degraded it is
the nation that is debased. Would you feel safe if
every seventh house in Boston was full of the yellow
fever, and every seventh man was dying of it? There
is a moral degradation which is contagious not less than
the plague.
There is a solidarity in mankind. You lift your
selves up by your attempts to elevate your neighbor.
The New Englander sends a missionary to India: he
does more good in New Haven, in Boston, in Andover,
than ever in Beloochistan or Siam. You enslave your
selves when you enslave your brother man.
I just now said no nation is safe without the power
to fight. In case of war with England, of the four
million slaves at least three millions would take sides
with the enemy ; most of the free blacks would spon
taneously do the same. Would you dare to blame them
and then look at yonder monument? Did not our

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY
fathers draw the great and terrible sword against our
own mother nation that had injured us, and yet but
little? Revenge is natural to savage bosoms; God en
throned it there, that when the tyrant trembled at noth
ing else, he might quake at the f oeman's lifted arm and
the fear of assassination.
Napoleon has put down open resistance, and is not
afraid of that; there is nothing left for the people
but what Italians and Frenchmen have been trained to
love — the assassin's dagger — and he trembles at that.
If America keeps the slave from developing the noblest
quality of his nature, then he falls back on the lowest.
The power of wrath never fades out from human bones ;
the animal instinct is older than the spiritual cultiva
tion. Wise rulers do not hke to have in any community
a class of men who are not interested in its welfare and
progress, for such are always ready for rebellion, and
care not who breaks through the hedge they have not
a stake in. Even carpenters in their shops have the
shavings carefully swept up at night, lest a spark
should burn their riches down. But no nation has so
dangerous a class of proletaries as America. Paris has
her Faubourg St. Antoine, and the forts have their
cannon so planted that they can play upon it, and
make it spring into the air with their perpendicular
or horizontal shot. London has its St. Giles's, a double
police guarding it through the day and twofold lant
erns illuminating it by night. But our Faubourg St.
Antoine extends over fifteen States in America; there
are four millions of paupers in our St. Giles's. No
carpenter's shop is so littered with inflammable ma
terial as America. Why, a loco-foco match thrown by
a Democratic hand might fire these shavings of hu-

334 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
manity which we have planed off from the African
tree, and then where are we? Be sure of it, unless we
amend, one day there will be a San Domingo 4 in
America, and worse wrongs will be requited worse.
So much for the effect of slavery on the colored
man. II. As the feeling for four or five million of colored
men is so weak that the politician despises it, counting
it not one of the forces that sway the popular opinion ;
as the fear of outbreak or invasion is so small that no
Northern man is troubled at it, look at the effect of
slavery on the white man. To understand it thor
oughly look briefly at some of its details.
The chief work of mankind may be thus lotted out.
First, there is the industrial activity, which aims at
property, command over the forces of nature. This is
represented by business ; its result is wealth in aU its
forms. The second is the literary and scientific activity
which aims at knowledge — to acquire and distribute
thought. This is represented by the press and the
school; its result is popular intelligence, education in
all its forms.
The third is the religious activity which aims at rest
in God, completeness and perfection of character. This
is represented by the Church ; and the results are noble
character, noble life, individual and social, in the fam
ily, in the community, in the State, and in the world.
The fourth is the political activity which aims at
sociality, companionship of man with man, the enjoy
ment of all individual and social rights. This is repre
sented by the State ; its highest result is national unity
of action, all working as one, and individual variety of
action, each having his personal freedom.

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 335
I have so often and so long spoken of these things,
that to-day I need not say much thereof.
First. Slavery degrades the industrial activity, and
hinders the creation of wealth. No doubt it enriches
the slaveholders, but it impoverishes the community.
So piracy is profitable to pirates, though ruinous to
the merchant who falls into their hands, and perilous
to trade in general. Slavery degrades work, makes
men despise it, as the business only of bondmen.
Looked at economically, it is a poor tool for the work
of productive industry. See how the facts look in
figures. In 1850 the fifteen slave States had 850,000 square
miles of land; the sixteen free States but 612,000
square miles. But the actual valuation of the slave
land was only $130,000,000, while the free land went
up to $2,440,000,000, 240,000 square miles less was
worth $1,100,000,000 more.
In 1856, the total value of the slave States was
$2,500,000,000 ; the total value of the free States was
$5,700,000,000, So the North could buy up all the
land and goods which the South possesses, and then buy
the whole population at $300 a head — black and
white, bond and free.
The effect of slavery on the industrial activity of the
country, its business and wealth, is terrible. It de
grades labor, it impoverishes the people. It concen
trates their riches into the hands of a few, who, like
Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, call American
workingmen slaves, and like him add their sons
and daughters to the assessable property of their es
tates. Slavery is the great enemy of the laboring man who
is not a slave. The New England thinker makes a

336 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
steam shovel which takes up two and a half tons weight
at a lift, and strikes four times in three minutes, and
with four men to attend it does the work of ninety-six
more. This elevates labor, it improves the condition of
the working man; it promotes also his education, by
mixing thought with his toil : while the common digger
gets but a dollar a day, the thoughtful man who can
manage a steam-engine gets from three to four doUars.
Great inventors are the evangelists and apostles to the
Gentiles, who announce a new kingdom of God, which
is a kingdom of righteousness, the reign of peace on
earth and good-will amongst men. But he who kid
naps a man and forces him to work, degrades labor
itself, and commits high treason against the industrial
democracy. I know the Catholic Irishman's right eye
is put out by the priest, and his left eye is covered up
by the thumb of the American demagogue; but, with
both his eyes treated thus, I should think he would yet
have human instinct enough to know that whoever en
slaved a negro, degraded likewise every working Irish
man. But yet not only Irishmen do not know it; a
quarter part of the American working men, native born,
are not aware of this most obvious fact.
Second. Then slavery degrades literary and scientific
activity. It hinders the education of the people. Look at
this. In 1850, the South had but 18,000 public
schools, the North, 62,000; the South had 19,000
teachers, the North 73,000 ; the South had 700,000 pu
pils in schools, academies and colleges, the North
2,900,000 — 2,200,000 more than all the South. In
1854, Virginia paid $70,000 for educating her poor;
$73,000 for a public guard to keep the slaves from
rising up and saying, Sic semper tyrannis. One day

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 337
$73,000,000 will not do it. Sic semper tyrannis will
be the slave's motto as it is his master's now.
Out of a white population of less than 6,000,000,
the South has 500,000 native white inhabitants who
cannot read the word Buchanan ; while out of a white
population of 13,500,000, the North has not quite a
quarter of a million natives who cannot read the New
Testament all through, and the Declaration of Inde
pendence besides.
Whence come the practical inventions patented at
Washington? Eleven-twelfths of them come from a
Northern brain, and the one-twelfth which has ema
nated from the Southern mind is hardly worth the
parchment which records it.
Whence comes the literature of the nation — its his
tories, essays, romances, poems, plays, great sermons?
AU from the North. For fifty years the South has
not produced a great writer who has even a national
reputation; no historian, no philosopher, no poet,5 no
moralist, even no preacher.
Whence comes the nation's science? From the same
quarter. Yet I do know two eminent men of science 6
of whom Virginia may well be proud that she gave
them birth, as Massachusetts that she gave them each
a home ; but their parents were Scotch, married in Scot
land ; the children were only born in Virginia. It was
the Scotch egg of freedom which was brooded over only
in the Virginia nest of slaveholders — and it was not a
slaveholder which brooded that.
Slavery strikes the Southern mind with palsy; the
people cannot be educated there. Talent enough, no
doubt, is born there ; it cannot be bred. If the star of
genius stands still over a Southern home, yet the " de
sire of all nations," whose birth it heralds, is stifled
XIV— 22

SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
by the asses that bray around the young child's cradle,
and seek its life.
But the influence of slavery extends beyond the
South, and poisons also the literature of the Northern
men who support it. Look at the newspapers of the
slave editors of the North — some of you read them
every day ; listen to the orations of slave orators — you
can hear enough of them to-morrow; hearken to the
sermons of the slave preachers — you may hear such
to-day; and learn the ghastly effect of slavery on the
literary activity of the people. Nay, look at the
school-books composed by such men, and see how the
slave power, afar off, can debauch even a Northern
mind. More than thirty years ago, Von Humboldt,
the grandest scholar of all Christendom, wrote a po
litical essay on the Island of Cuba. It circulates in
the court of every tyrant of Europe ; it is welcome in
Spain, translated into that sonorous tongue. He tells
the tale of the black man's wrong, and the woe which
may one day spring out of the ground which has been
fattened by his sweat and reddened by his blood. But
an American Democrat translates the book into Eng
lish, leaves out the magnificent philanthropy of Mr.
Humboldt, and puts in his own twaddling partisanship
sustaining slavery, and declaring that free society is a
mistake. I do not wonder the indignation of the old
man, almost four score and ten years venerable, is
stirred within him when he learns the disgraceful fact.
Third. Then slavery degrades the religious activity
of the people. At the South it is only the least en
lightened sects which prevail; such as have the lowest
ideas of man and God, and their relation to each other.
Southern men are proud of this, and make it their boast
that " there are no Unitarians of the South ; " that is,

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY
none who preach an intelligible, rational idea of the
oneness of God. They are proud that they " have no
Universalists " — none who think that God is too good
to damn even a slaveholder for ever and ever. Nay,
they declare that heresy rends not asunder the seamless
veil of the pro-slavery church, behind which the slave
holder and the slave-hunter stand. They make it their
boast that there are no Tylerites nor Taylorites, no
Bushnellites nor Beecherites among them, but that all
equally accept the faith once for all delivered to the
saints for the enslavement of the negro and the salva
tion of the slaveholder, the slave-hunter, the slave-
driver, the slave-trader, the slave-breeder, not out of
his sins, but in his sins. For eighty years the South
ern church has contributed nothing to the theology
of America; not a new thought worth the nation's
hearing, no great truth on any theological, religious,
or moral theme. Nay, there is not a single hymn sung
by a Southern voice that finds its way into a Northern
church. Then, too, consider the cruelty. Remember that the
South solemnly burns alive, with green wood, crim
inals from the humblest class of society, as sport to
the " gentlemen " of the land. Remember that when
an assassin dealt your noble senator a coward's blow,
more bitter than death, remember that all the South
ern religion said it was a good thing! Thus see the
effect of slavery on your own brothers, in their own
churches, called after Christ, with the same Gospel be
fore them, out of which the grand truths of humanity
so preach themselves to you and me.
How slavery degrades the churches of the North!
Some men it silences, and they dare not speak of the
great outrage against the democratic institutions of

340 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
America, against the natural rights of man, the law of
God. Other men it makes madmen or idiots in their
religious faculty, and they boldly proclaim that this
great crime against mankind is a " revelation from
Almighty God."
My ears are not preternaturally delicate, yet from
childhood up I could not hear profane words pro
fanely spoke without a shudder; but no swearing of
the lowest men I ever encountered in an Ohio railroad
car, or met in an Illinois bar-room, has ever filled me
with such horror as the profanity of ministers in their
pulpits, out of this Bible which they caU God's
Word, in the name of Jesus whom they affect to wor
ship as God, attempting to justify the foulest wrong
which man ever does to man. The State makes
slavery a measure, but the Church baptizes it as a
principle. Look at the Bible Society, counting its money by
millions, which has not a New Testament for a slave.
Look at the Foreign Missionary Society ; where are its
Evangelists to preach the " acceptable year of the
Lord " unto American heathen, who fill up whole Gali-
lees of Southern Gentiles? Look at the American
Tract Society; it has not a word against the great
wickedness of a nation which enslaves one-seventh part
of the people, and imperils the rights of all the rest.
Then you see how slavery debases the holiest thing it
lays its hands upon.
Finally, it degrades the political activity of the
American people in their industrial democracy.
At the South, it rears up a privileged class — 350,-
000 slaveholders — who monopolize all the education
— and do not get much — who monopolize the money,
respectability, and the political power. They are the

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 341
masters of the bondmen whom they own, and of the
" poor whites " whom they control. So in the midst
of our industrial democracy there grows up a class who
despise the industry which feeds and clothes them.
Not a Southern State has a " republican form of gov
ernment." These men are seeking to revive that old
vicariousness of the dark ages, and that in its worst
form. See how they degrade the mass of the people,
hindering their education, their religion, their self-re
spect ; hindering even their industry. The greatest in
tellect of the South runs to politics, and yet, in the
last thirty years, the South has not produced one single
great statesman. Over her head there hangs a peril
more disastrous and more imminent than impends over
Italy, over Spain, over France, even over Turkey, and
yet, in that democracy of the South, not a single poli
tician has risen up and dared to cope with this giant
ill, and warn his nation against it.
There is no great political talent developed at the
South — no statesmanship. Power of intrigue, power
to take the lumps of dough which we send from the
North, and fashion them to vessels of dishonor, and fill
them with the shame they are only fit to hold — this is
the extent of the South's political talent.
This slave power has its vassals all over the North.
They abound in the great cities — Cincinnati, Phila
delphia, New York, Boston. Read their journals, lis
ten to their orations, hear what they propose for laws,
and see the baneful influence of slavery on the political
development of the North.
But this privileged class, this oligarchy of slave
holders, slave-hunters, and slave-breeders, has long con
trolled the politics of the nation. Once it ruled the
Whig party ; then the Know-nothing party : the Dem-

342 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ocratic party it has controlled for a long time. See its
measures: the Fugitive Slave Bill, the Dred Scott de
cision ; the spread of slavery into Kansas and other ter
ritory; the acquisition of new territory to spread it
into ; the reopening of the African slave-trade, to fill
the South with men whose masters shall force them to
work, and degrade still further the labor of every Irish
man, German, or American born to the soil ! Take the
last three administrations — include, if you will, the
present ; study their great acts ; look at their repre
sentative men ; consider the principles they lay down,
and the measures they thereon build up. Compare
these with the three first administrations — of Wash
ington, Adams, Jefferson. Try them by the two texts
of this morning's sermon — the Golden Rule, which
is now a maxim of humanity; the noble word of our
fathers, also a self-evident truth — and then you see
the effect of slavery on American politics.
The slave power violates the conscience of the Amer
ican people, and then seeks to muzzle the mouth. In
the South there must be no discussion of slavery. Min
isters are mobbed, tarred and feathered, and driven off.
Even a bookseller is not allowed to retail his liberal
wares in Alabama, which Mr. Clay, its representative
senator in Congress, says is a " model slave State."
So indeed it is! This is the test of institutions: can
they bear to be looked at in the daylight, and talked
about by every tongue? Napoleon and the pope say
tyranny cannot be looked at : the South says the same.
Has the North any institution that it is afraid to have
looked at and talked about? Senator Hammond says,
" We will send our missionaries to the North, to talk
about the wrongs of the people ! " The wrongs of the
Northern people ! where a shoemaker turns into a sena-

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 343
tor, and nobly fills the place — far better than the ac
complished scholar, who but trod on it before; where
we turn blacksmiths into governors, and have colleges
for the people by every valley, and beside every little
stream that runs among the hills! Mr. Hammond's
father, a native of this State, went to the South in a
humble capacity, to seek his fortune, and found it by
marrying a plantation ; and from that wedlock has this
Senator Hammond sprung, who says that the working
people of the North are " the mud-sills of society,"
" essential slaves," only not so well paid and cared for
as his own ! While he was uttering this, the valuation
of all the lands and goods in South Carolina was not
quite $148,000,000, but the valuation of assessable
property in Boston was $258,000,000. The "mud
sills," the " slaves " of the North, in a single city, had
$110,000,000 more of property than the whole
great State of South Carolina, and her senator thrown

in

Such are the effects that slavery has on the indus
trial, intellectual, religious, and political development
of the people. It is a fourfold curse upon the master,
not less than upon the slave.
Look at New England! She has 60,000 square
miles of land; and what is it? Some of you have
tilled it ; I also for many a year. The soil is thin and
poor, the chmate ungenial, the summers short, the win
ters long and terribly severe. Timber, granite, ice,
are our natural staples, wherein yet we have no monop
oly. Virginia has 63,000 square miles ; she has 3,000
more than New England, with an admirable soil, and
" the finest climate in the world." Her surface bears
everything, from tropic cotton in the southern valleys
to arctic moss on the mountain top. The earth teems

344 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
with most valuable minerals. Her coast has the best of
harbors; her great rivers are a static power for in
ternal navigation, her small ones a dynamic force for
manufactures. She had been settled twelve years while
New England had no man but the red Indian. Now,
New England has 3,000,000 people, all free ; Virginia
a million and a half, and 500,000 of them are slaves.
New England has 3,600 miles of railroad, which have
cost $120,000,000; Virginia 1,200 miles, which have
cost $23,000,000. The value of the land in Virginia,
in 1850, was $252,000,000; in New England, $690,-
000,000. The whole property of Virginia, in land
and goods, in 1856, was $330,000,000; of New Eng
land, $1,220,000,000. In 1858 Boston only lacks
$72,000,000 to be worth as much as all the lands and
goods of the great State of Virginia, with 1,500,000
people and 63,000 square miles of land. By nature
how poor New England ; Virginia how rich : by art how
poor Virginia; how rich New England! Whence the
odds? Here is freedom: every avenue to wealth, to
honor, office, fame, is open to all. There is slavery;
and as men sow, thus shall they reap — New England,
wealth of her freedom; Virginia, from her bondage,
poverty. The exports of New England are the products
of her toilsome hand and thinking brain ; they are
books, manufactured articles: New England's hand
goes through every land. The exports of Virginia
are her sons and daughters, bred as slaves, to be sold
as cattle. Virginia has 78,000 children at school and
college ; New England, 676,000. From the Aroostook
to the Housatonic, from the day of the Pilgrims until
now, New England has been covered all over with the
footprints of human freedom. The poor little school-
houses dot the land everywhere, and the meeting-house

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 345
lifts its finger to heaven as the index of God's higher
law, His self-evident truths, the inalienable right of
man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
While New England opens her ten thousand schools
to all children — Saxon, German, Irish, African — in
Virginia the arm of the State shuts a woman in jail
because she taught a colored girl to read the New Tes
tament. While Massachusetts turns with scorn a
judge of probate out from his office because he kid
napped a man, Virginia shuts a Northern sea captain
for forty years in her penitentiary because he aided
$4,000 worth of human property to become free men,
who beheve sic semper tyrannis. That is the effect
of slavery !
Nothing can save slavery. It is destined to ruin.
Once I thought it might end peacefully : now I think
it must fall as so> many another wickedness, in violence
and blood. Slavery is in flagrant violation of the in
stitutions of America — direct government, over all
the people, by all the people, for all the people. It is
hostile to the interests of industrial democracy : it les
sens wealth — weakening the growth of creative power,
toil and thought. It lies in the way of all religion.
There is one great maxim of morality, older than Jesus
of Nazareth, common to the Chinese, Buddhistic,
Classic, Mahometan and Christian religion, " What
soever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye
even so to them." Measure slavery by the Golden
Rule, and where is it ? It conflicts with the self-evident
truths of human reason so clear to our fathers, and
first promulgated eighty-two years ago this day. It
stands in the way of that automatic instinct of progress
which is eternal in the human race and irresistible in
human history.

346 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Democracy is the stone which the builders rejected:
in due time it is hoisted up with shouting, and made
the head of the corner. It was not the work of wise
men, who knew what they did. " It is the Lord's
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes ; " not your fore
cast, but the Divine Providence that works by us, and
through us, without our wiU.
Slavery must go down. The course of trade is
against it; the course of thought; the course of re
ligion ; the course of politics ; the course of history.
All the Caesars could not save paganism when the Sun
of Christian righteousness shone in the Roman sky.
No Julian the Apostate can turn back the eyes of free
men to love that vicariousness of government which
our Pilgrim Fathers fled from with devout prayers, and
which our Patriot Fathers declared against and put
down with devout swords. Meetings of Southern plan
ters to restore the slave-trade, assemblies of North
ern capitalists and their flunkeys to suppress agitation
and enforce kidnapping, conventions of national poli
ticians to put down the principles of democracy and
the Christian religion — can these things save slavery
from its fate? No more than a convention of grizzly
bears in the Rocky Mountains can protect the savage
woods from the ax, or stay the tide of civilized man,
which will sweep across the continent, and fill the howl
ing wilderness with farms and villages, and cities of
Christian men, instead of grizzly bears. Let Presi
dents and Cabinets do their possible, mankind will
tread slavery underneath their feet.
You and I, American men and women, we must end
slavery soon, or it rains our democracy — the sooner
the better, and at the smaller cost. And if we are
faithful, as our Patriot Fathers and our Pilgrim

THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY 347
Fathers, then, when you and your children shaU assem
ble eighteen years hence to keep the one hundredth
birthday of the land, there shaU not be a slave in all
America ! T

XIII
PARKER'S INDICTMENT, AND THE FUGI
TIVE SLAVE CASES *
Slavery will never be contented so long as there is an
inch of free soil in the United States! Mr. Toombs
has declared to the noble advocate of justice and de
fender of humanity, John P. Hale, that, " before
long the master wiU sit down with his slaves at the
foot of Bunker HiU monument." But one thing dis
turbed our masters at the South, — the slaves would
ran away. The law of 1793 was not adequate to keep
or catch these African Christians who heeded not the
Southern command, " Slaves, obey your masters."
The decision of the Supreme Court in the Prigg case,
showed the disposition of the Federal Government,
and took out of the hands of the individual States
the defense of their own citizens. Still the slaves
would ran away. In 1849 there were more than five
hundred fugitives from Southern Democracy in Bos
ton — and their masters could not catch them. What
a misfortune! Boston retained $200,000 of human
property of the Christian and chivalric South ! Surely
the Union was " in danger." In 1850 came the Fugi
tive Slave Bill. When first concocted, its author, — a
restless politician, a man of small mind and mean char
acter, with " plantation manners," — thought it was
" too bad to pass." He designed it not for an actual
law, but an insult to the North so aggravating that
she must resist the outrage, and then there would be
* His own words. 348

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 349
an opportunity for some excitement and agitation at
the South — and perhaps some " nullification " in
South Carolina and Virginia ; and in that general fer
mentation who knows what scum would be thrown up !
Even Mr. Clay " never expected the law would be en
forced." " No Northern gentleman," said he, " will
ever help return a fugitive slave." It seemed impos
sible for the bill to pass.
But at that time Massachusetts had in the Senate
of the nation a disappointed politician, a man of great
understanding, of most mighty powers of speech, —
" Created hugest that swim the ocean stream," —
and, what more than all else contributed to his success
in life, the most magnificent and commanding personal
appearance. At that time — his ambition nothing
abated by the many years which make men vener
able, — he was a bankrupt in money, a bankrupt in
reputation, and a bankrupt in morals — I speak only
of his public morals, not his private, — - a bankrupt in
political character, pensioned by the Money Power of
the North. Thrice disappointed, he was at that time
gaming for the Presidency. When the South laid
down the Fugitive Slave Bill, on the national faro-
table, Mr. Webster bet his aU upon that card. He
staked his mind — and it was one of vast compass ;
his eloquence, which could shake the continent ; his
position, the senatorial influence of Massachusetts ; his
wide reputation, which rang with many a noble word
for justice and the rights of man ; he staked his con
science and his life. Webster lost aU he could lose, —
his conscience, his position, his reputation; not his
wide-compassing mind, not his earth-shaking eloquence.
Finally he lost his life. Peace to his mighty shade!

350 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
God be merciful to him that showed no mercy ! The
warning of his fall is worth more than the guidance
of his success. Let us forgive ; it were wicked to for
get. For fifty years no American has had such op
portunity to serve his county in an hour of need.
We know the story of William and EUen Craft.
They were slaves in Georgia ; their master was said to
be a very pious man, " an exceUent Christian." EUen
had a little baby, — it was sick and ready to die. But
one day her owner — for this wife and mother was
only a piece of property — had a dinner party at his
house. Ellen must leave her dying child and wait
upon the table. She was not permitted to catch the
last sighing of her only child with her own lips ; other
and ruder hands must attend to the mother's sad priv
ilege. But the groans and moanings of the dying
child came to her ear and mingled with the joy and
merriment of the guests whom the mother must wait
upon. At length the moanings all were stiU — for
Death took a North-side view of the little boy, and
the born-slave had gone where the servant is free from
his master and the weary is at rest, — for there the
wicked cease from troubling. Ellen and WiUiam re
solved to flee to the North. They cherished the plan
for years; he was a joiner, and hired himself of his
owner for about two hundred doUars a year. They
saved a little money, and stealthily, piece by piece,
they bought a suit of gentleman's clothes to fit the
wife; no two garments were obtained of the same
dealer. Ellen disguised herself as a man, William
attending as her servant, and so they fled off and came
to Boston.
EUen and William lived here in Boston, intelligent,
respected, happy. The first blow of the Fugitive

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 351
Slave BiU must fall on them. In October, 1850, one
Hughes, a jailer from Macon, Georgia, a public
negro-whipper, who had once beaten Ellen's uncle " al
most to death," came here with one Knight, his at
tendant, to kidnap William and Ellen Craft. They
applied to Mr. HaUett for a writ. But Mr. HaUett (in
1850) appeared to have too much manhood to kidnap
a man. He was better than his reputation with
Knight and Hughes, and would not (then) steal Mr.
and Mrs. Craft. I took Ellen to my own house, and
kept her there so long as the (Southern) kidnappers
remained in the city. For the first time I armed my
self, and put my house in a state of defense. For two
weeks I wrote my sermons with a sword in the open
drawer under my inkstand, and a pistol in the flap of
the desk, loaded, ready, with a cap on the nipple.
Commissioner Curtis said " a process was in the hands
of the marshal . . ." in the execution of which,
he might be called upon to break open dwelling-houses,
and perhaps to take life, by quelling resistance actual
or " threatened." I was ready for him. I knew my
rights. I went also and looked after William Craft. I in
spected his weapons; his powder had a good kernel,
and he kept it dry ; his pistols were of excellent proof ;
the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy, the
caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his
poignard; the blade had a good temper, stiff enough
and yet springy withal; the point was sharp. After
the immediate danger was over and Knight and
Hughes had avoided the city, where they had received
such welcome from the friends of this court, such was
the tone of the political newspapers and the commer
cial pulpit that William and Ellen must needs flee from

352 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
America. Long made one by the wedlock of mutual
and plighted faith, their marriage in Georgia was yet
" null and void " by the laws of that " Christian
State." I married them according to the law of Mas
sachusetts. As a symbol of the husband's peculiar re
sponsibility under such circumstances, I gave WiUiam
a sword — it lay on the table in the house of another
fugitive, where the wedding took place — and told him
of his manly duty therewith, if need were, to defend
the life and liberty of Ellen. I gave them both a
Bible, which I had bought for the purpose, to be a
symbol of their spiritual culture and a help for their
soul, as the sword was for their bodily life.
On the 14th of October there was a meeting at
Faneuil Hall — the Free-soilers came that time. The
old flame of liberty burnt anew in Charles Francis
Adams, who presided. Perhaps some of you remem
ber the prayer of the venerable Dr. LoweU which
lifted up our souls to the " Father of all men ! " I
proposed the appointment of a " Committee of Vig
ilance and Safety " to take such measures as they shall
deem just and expedient to protect the colored people
of this city in the enjoyment of their lives and liber
ties. I was appointed one of the committee, and sub
sequently chairman of the executive committee of the
Vigilance Committee; a very responsible office. At
that meeting I told of a fugitive from Boston, who
that day had telegraphed to his wife here, asking if
it was safe for him to come back from Canada. I
asked the meeting, " Will you let him come back ; how
many will defend him to the worst? " " Here a hand
vote was taken," said the newspapers, " a forest of
hands was held up."
All this you might easily have known before. Here

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 353
is something you did not know. That meeting, its
resolutions, its speeches, its action, were brought up in
the Cabinet of the United States and discussed. Mr.
Webster, then Secretary of State, wished to have Mr.
Adams, president of the meeting, presented to the
grand-jury and indicted for treason! But the majority
thought otherwise.
The operation of the Fugitive Slave Bill subverts the
purposes of the Constitution, destroys justice, disturbs
domestic tranquillity, hinders the common defense and
the general welfare, and annihilates the blessings of
liberty. It defies the first principles of the Declaration
of Independence, — think of the Fugitive Slave Bill
as an appendix to that document ! It violates the idea
of democracy. It contradicts the very substance of the
Christian religion — the two great commandments of
love to God, and love to man, whereon " hang all the
law and the prophets." It makes natural humanity a
crime; it subjects aU the Christian virtues to fine and
imprisonment. It is a lettre de cachet against philan
thropy. The Fugitive Slave BiU is unconstitutional. I need
not argue the matter ; it is too plain to need proof.
February 15th, 1851, a colored man named Shadrach
was arrested under a warrant from that commissioner
who had been so active in the attempt to kidnap Mr.
and Mrs. Craft. But a " miracle " was wrought :
" where sin abounded grace did much more abound,"
and "the Lord dehvered him out of their hands."
Shadrach went free to Canada, where he is now a useful
citizen. He was rescued by a small number of colored
persons at noonday. The kidnapping commissioner
telegraphed to Mr. Webster, " It is levying war — it
is treason." Another asked, "What is to be done? "
XIV— 23

354 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
The answer from Washington was, " Mr. Webster was
very much mortified."
On the 18th, President Fillmore, at Mr. Webster's
instigation, issued his proclamation calling on aU well
disposed citizens, and commanding all officers, " civil
and military, to aid and assist in quelling this, and all
other such combinations, and to assist in recapturing
the above-named person " Shadrach. General orders
came down from the Secretaries of War and the Navy,
commanding the military and naval officers to yield all
practicable assistance in the event of such another " in
surrection." The city government of Boston passed
resolutions regretting that a man had been saved from
the shackles of slavery; cordially approving of the
President's proclamation, and promising their earnest
efforts to carry out his recommendations. At that
time Mr. Tukey was marshal; John P. Bigelow was
mayor; Henry J. Gardner, a man equaUy remarkable
for his temperance, truthfulness, and general integrity,
was president of the Common CouncU.1 It was not
long before the city government had an opportunity
to keep its word.
On the night of the 3d of April, 1851, Thomas Sims
was kidnapped by two police officers of Boston, pre
tending to arrest him for theft. He was on trial nine
days. He never saw the face of a jury, a judge only
once — who refused the habeas corpus, the great
" Writ of Right." That judge — I wish his succes
sors may better serve mankind — has gone to his own
place; where, may God Almighty have mercy on his
soul ! You remember the chains round the court-house ;
the judges of your own supreme court crawling under
the Southern chain. You do not forget the " Sims
Brigade " — citizen soldiers called out and billeted in

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 355
Faneuil Hall. You recollect the " Cradle of Liberty "
shut to a Free-soil convention, but open to those hire
lings of the slave master. You will never forget the
pro-slavery sermons that stained so many Boston pul
pits on the Fast-day which intervened during the mock
trial! Mr. Sims had able defenders, — I speak now only of
such as appeared on his behalf, others not less noble
and powerful, aided by their unrecorded service — Mr.
Sewall, Mr. Rantoul, men always on the side of liberty.
But of what avail was all this before such a commis
sioner? Thomas Sims was declared " a chattel per
sonal to aU intents, uses, and purposes whatsoever."
After it became plain that he would be decreed a slave,
the poor victim of Boston kidnappers asked one boon
of his counsel : " I cannot go back to slavery," said he,
" give me a knife, and when the commissioner declares
me a slave I wiU stab myself to the heart, and die be
fore his eyes ! I will not be a slave." The knife was
withheld! At the darkest hour of the night Mayor
Bigelow and Marshal Tukey, suitable companions, ad
mirably joined by nature as by vocation, with two or
three hundred pohcemen armed, some with bludgeons,
some with drawn swords and horse pistols, took the poor
boy out of his cell, chained, weeping, and bore him over
the spot where, on the 5th of March, 1770, the British
tyrant first shed New England blood; by another spot
where your fathers and mine threw to the ocean the
taxed tea of the oppressor. They put him on board
a vessel, the " Acorn," and carried him off to eternal
bondage. My ministry deals chiefly with the laws of God, ht
tle with the statutes of men. My manhood has been
mainly passed in studying absolute, universal truth,

356 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
teaching it to men, and applying it to the various de
partments of hfe. I have little to do with courts of
law. Yet I am not now altogether a stranger to the
Circuit court room of the United States, having been
in it on five several occasions before.
1. A Polish exile,* — a man of famous family, an
cient and patrician before Christendom had laid eyes on
America; once also of great individual wealth, a man
of high rank alike acquired and inherited, once holding
a high place at the court of the Czar, — became a fugi
tive from Russian despotism, seeking an asylum here;
he came to the Circuit court room to lecture on the
Roman law. I came to contribute my two mites of
money, and receive his wealth of learning.2
2. The next time, I came at the summons of Thomas
Sims. For a creature of the slave-power had spon
taneously seized that poor and friendless boy and thrust
him into a dungeon, hastening to make him a slave, — a
beast of burden. He had been on his mock trial seven
days, and had never seen a judge, only a commissioner,
nor a jury ; no court but a solitary kidnapper. Some
of his attendants had spoken of me as a minister not
heedless of the welfare and inalienable rights of a
black man fallen among a family of thieves. I went
to the court-house. Outside it was belted with chains.
In despotic Europe I had seen no such spectacle, save
once when the duU tyrant who oppressed Bavaria with
his licentious flesh, in 1844, put his capital in a brief
state of siege and chained the streets. The official
servant of the kidnapper, club in hand, a policeman of
this city, goaded to his task by Mayor Bigelow and
Marshal Tukey, — bade me " get under the chain."
I pressed it down and went over. The judges of our
* Count Gurowski.

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 357
own Supreme Court, they went under, — had gone out
and in, beneath the chain ! How poetry mingles with
fact! The chain was a symbol. Within, the court
house was full of armed men. I found Mr. Sims in a
private room, iUegally, in defiance of Massachusetts
law, converted into a jail to hold men charged with no
crime. Ruffians mounted guard at the entrance, armed
with swords, fire-arms, and bludgeons.
The door was locked and doubly barred besides. In
side the watch was kept by a horrid-looking fellow,
without a coat, a naked cutlass in his hand, and some
twenty others, nauseous with tobacco and reeking with
half -digested ram paid for by the city. In such com
pany, I gave what consolation rehgion could of
fer to the first man Boston ever kidnapped, — consola
tion which took hold only of eternity, where the serv
ant is free from his master. I could offer him no com
fort this side the grave.
3. I visited the United States court a third time. A
poor young man, Shadrach, had been seized by the same
talons which subsequently griped Sims in their deadly
clutch. But that time, wickedness went off hungry, de
feated of its prey ; " the Lord delivered him out of their
hands," and Shadrach escaped from that Babylonish
furnace, no smell of fire had passed on him. But the
rescue of Shadrach was telegraphed as " treason." The
innocent lightning flashed out the premeditated and
legal lie, — " it is levying war ! " The modern coun
trymen of the African Shadrach, charged with some
great crime, were haled into this court to be punished
for their humanity! I came to look on these modern
Angels of the Deliverance; to hear counsel of Mr.
Dana, then so wise and humane, and to listen to the
masterly eloquence which broke out from the great hu
man heart of my friend, Mr. Hale.

358 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
4. The fourth time, a poor man had been kidnapped,
also at night, and forced into the same illegal jail. He
sat in the dock — an innocent man, to be made into a
beast. The metamorphosis had begun; — he was al
ready in chains and his human heart seemed dead in
him ; sixty ruffians were about him, aiding in this drama,
hired out of the brothels and rum-shops for a few days,
the lust of kidnapping serving to vary the continual
glut of those other and less brutal appetites of un
bridled flesh. While that " trial " lasted, whoredom
had a Sabbath day, and brawlers rested from their toil.
Opposite sat the Boston judge of probate, and the Bos
ton district attorney, — the Moses and Elias of this in
verted transfiguration; there sat the marshal; two
" gentlemen " from Virginia, claiming that a Boston
man was their beast of burden, owing service and labor
in Richmond ; two " lawyers," " members of the Suffolk
bar," pistols in their coats, came to support the alle
gation and enforce the claim. Honorable men stood
up to defend him.
After Commissioner Loring had kidnapped Anthony
Burns, I attended a meeting at Faneuil HaU, and spoke.
I did not finish the speech I had begun, for news came
that an attack was made on the court-house, and the
meeting was thrown into confusion. I did not speak
in a corner, but in the old " Cradle of Liberty." Here
is the report of the speech which was made by a pho-
nographer, and pubhshed in the newspapers of the
time — I have no other notes of it.
" Fellow-subjects of Virginia — [Loud cries of
* No,' ' no,' and ' You must take that back ! '] Fel
low-citizens of Boston, then — ['Yes,' 'yes,'] —
I come to condole with you at this second disgrace

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 359
which is heaped on the city made illustrious by some of
those faces that were once so familiar to our eyes.
[Alluding to the portraits which once hung conspicu
ously in Faneuil HaU, but which had been removed to
obscure and out-of-the-way locations.] Fellow-citizens
— a deed which Virginia commands has been done in
the city of John Hancock and the ' brace of Adamses.'
It was done by a Boston hand. It was a Boston man
who issued the warrant; it was a Boston marshal who
put it in execution ; they are Boston men who are seek
ing to kidnap a citizen of Massachusetts, and send him
into slavery for ever and ever. It is our fault that it
is so. Eight years ago, a merchant of Boston ' kid
napped a man on the high road between Faneuil Hall
and Old Quincy,' at 12 o'clock, — at the noon of day,
— and the next day, mechanics of this city exhibited
the half -eagles they had received for their share of the
spoils in enslaving a brother man. You called a meet
ing in this haU. It was as crowded as it is now. I
stood side by side with my friend and former neighbor,
your honorable and noble chairman to-night [George
R. Russell, of West Roxbury], [Loud cheers,] while
this man who had fought for liberty in Greece, and
been imprisoned for that sacred cause in the dungeons
of Prussia, [Dr. Samuel G. Howe,] stood here and in
troduced to the audience that ' old man eloquent,' John
Quincy Adams. [Loud cheers.]
" It was the last time he ever stood in Faneuil Hall.
He came to defend the inalienable rights of a friend
less negro slave, kidnapped in Boston. There is even
no picture of John Quincy Adams to-night.
" A Suffolk grand- jury would find no indictment
against the Boston merchant for kidnapping that man.
[' Shame,' ' shame.'] If Boston had spoken then, we

360 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
should not have been here to-night. We should have
had no Fugitive Slave BiU. When that biU passed,
we fired a hundred guns.
" Don't you remember the Union meeting held in
this very hall? A man stood on this platform, — he
is a judge of the Supreme Court now, — and he said' —
When a certain ' Reverend gentleman ' is indicted for
perjury, I should like to ask him how he will answer
the charge? And when that ' Reverend gentleman' *
rose, and asked, ' Do you want an answer to your ques
tion? ' Faneuil HaU cried out, — ' No,' ' no,' — ' Throw
him over ! ' Had Faneuil HaU spoken then on the side
of truth and freedom, we should not now be the subjects
of Virginia.
" Yes, we are the vassals of Virginia. She reaches
her arm over the graves of our mothers, and kidnaps
men in the city of the Puritans; over the graves of
Samuel Adams and John Hancock. [Cries of
' Shame ! '] ' Shame ! ' so I say ; but who is to blame?
' There is no North,' said Mr. Webster. There is none.
The South goes clear up to the Canada line. No, gen
tlemen, there is no Boston to-day. There was a Bos
ton once. Now, there is a North suburb to the city of
Alexandria, — that is what Boston is. [Laughter.]
And you and I, fellow-subjects of the State of Vir
ginia — [Cries of 'No,' 'no.' 'Take that back
again.'] — I will take it back when you show me the
fact is not so. — Men and brothers, (brothers, at any
rate,) I am not a young man; I have heard hurrahs
and cheers for Uberty many times ; I have not seen a
great many deeds done for liberty. I ask you, are we
to have deeds as weU as words ? [' Yes,' ' yes,' and
loud cheers.] * Parker himself.

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 361
" Now, brethren, you are brothers at any rate,
whether citizens of Massachusetts or subjects of Vir
ginia — I am a minister — and, fellow-citizens of Bos
ton, there are two great laws in this country; one of
them is the law of slavery; that law is declared to
be a ' finality.' Once the Constitution was formed ' to
estabhsh justice, promote tranquillity, and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'
Now, the Constitution is not to secure liberty ; it is to,
extend slavery into Nebraska. And when slavery is
estabhshed there, in order to show what it is, there
comes a sheriff from Alexandria, to kidnap a man in
the city of Boston, and he gets a judge of probate, in
the county of Suffolk, to issue a writ, and another Bos
ton man to execute that writ ! [Cries of ' Shame,'
' shame.'] " Slavery tramples on the Constitution ; it treads
down State rights. Where are the rights of Massachu
setts? A Fugitive Slave Bill commissioner has got
them aU in his pocket. Where is the trial by jury?
Watson Freeman has it under his marshal's staff.
Where is the great writ of personal replevin, which
our fathers wrested, several hundred years ago, from
the tyrants who once lorded it over Great Britain?
Judge Sprague trod it under his feet ! Where is the
sacred right of habeas corpus? Deputy Marshal
Riley can crush it in his hands, and Boston does not
say any thing against it. Where are the laws of Mas
sachusetts forbidding State edifices to be used as pris
ons for the incarceration of fugitives? They, too,
are trampled underfoot. ' Slavery is a finality.'
" These men come from Virginia, to kidnap a man
here. Once, this was Boston; now, it is a northern
suburb of Alexandria. At first, when they carried a

362 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
fugitive slave from Boston, they thought it was a dif
ficult thing to do it. They had to get a mayor to help
them ; they had to put chains round the court-house ;
they had to call out the ' Sims Brigade ' ; it took nine
days to do it. Now, they are so confident that we are
subjects of Virginia, that they do not even put chains
round the court-house; the police have nothing to do
with it. I was told to-day that one of the officers of
the city said to twenty-eight policemen, ' If any man
in the employment of the city meddles in this business,
he will be discharged from service, without a hearing.'
[Great applause.] Well, gentlemen, how do you
think they received that declaration? They shouted,
and hurrahed, and gave three cheers. [Renewed ap
plause.] My friend here would not have had the honor
of presiding over you to-night, if application had been
made a little sooner to the mayor. Another gentleman
told me that, when that man (the mayor) was asked to
preside at this meeting, he said that he regretted that
all his time to-night was previously engaged. If he
had known it earlier, he said, he might have been able
to make arrangements to preside. When the man was
arrested, he told the marshal he regretted it, and that
his sympathies were wholly with the slave. [Loud ap
plause.] Fellow-citizens, remember that word. Hold
your mayor to it, and let it be seen that he has got a
background and a foreground, which will authorize
him to repeat that word in public, and act it out in
Faneuil HaU. I say, so confident are the slave agents
now, that they can carry off their slave in the daytime,
that they do not put chains round the court-house;
they have got no soldiers billetted in Faneuil Hall, as in
1851. They think they can carry this man off to
morrow morning in a cab. [Voices — ' They can't do
it.' ' Let's see them try.']

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 363
" I say, there are two great laws in this country.
One is the slave law. That is the law of the President
of the United States ; it is the law of the commissioner ;
it is the law of every marshal, and of every meanest
ruffian whom the marshal hires to execute his behests.
" There is another law, which my friend, Mr. Phil
lips, has described in language such as I cannot equal,
and therefore shall not try ; I only state it in its plain
est terms. It is the law of the people when they are
sure they are right and determined to go ahead.
[Cheers and much confusion.]
" Now, gentlemen, there was a Boston once, and you
and I had fathers — -brave fathers ; and mothers who
stirred up those fathers to manly deeds. Well, gentle
men, once it came to pass that the British Parliament
enacted a ' law ' — they called it law — issuing stamps
here. What did your fathers do on that occasion?
They said, in the language of Algernon Sydney,
quoted in your resolutions, ' That which is not just is
not law, and that which is not law ought not to be
obeyed ' — [Cheers.] They did not obey the Stamp
Act. They did not call it law, and the man that did
caU it a law, here, eighty years ago, would have had a
very warm coat of tar and feathers on him. They
caUed it an ' act,' and they took the commissioner who
was here to execute it, took him solemnly, manfully, —
they didn't hurt a hair of his head ; they were non-re
sistants, of a very potent sort, [Cheers,] — and made
him take a solemn oath that he would not issue a single
stamp. He was brother-in-law of the governor of
the State, the servant of a royal master, ' exceedingly
respectable,' of great wealth, and once very popular;
but they took him, and made him swear not to execute
his commission; and he kept his oath, and the Stamp

364 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Act went to its own place, and you know what that was.
[Cheers.] That was an instance of the people going
behind a wicked law to enact absolute justice into their
statute, and making it common law. You know what
they did with the tea.
" Well, gentlemen, in the South there is a public
opinion, it is a very wicked public opinion, which is
stronger than law. When a colored seaman goes to
Charleston from Boston, he is clapped instantly into
j ail, and kept there until the vessel is ready to sail, and
the Boston merchant or master must pay the bill, and
the Boston black man must feel the smart. That is
a wicked example, set by the State of South Carolina.
When Mr. Hoar, one of our most honored and re
spected fellow-citizens, was sent to Charleston to test
the legality of this iniquitous law, the citizens of
Charleston ordered him off the premises, and he was
glad to escape to save himself from further outrage.
There was no violence, no guns fired. That was an
instance of the strength of public opinion — of a most
unjust and iniquitous public opinion.
" Well, gentlemen, I say there is one law — slave
law; it is everywhere. There is another law, which
also is a finality ; and that law, it is in your hands and
your arms, and you can put it in execution, just when
you see fit.
" Gentlemen, I am a clergyman and a man of peace ;
I love peace. But there is a means, and there is an
end; liberty is the end, and sometimes peace is not
the means towards it. [Applause.] Now, I want to
ask you what you are going to do. [A voice —
' Shoot, shoot.'] There are ways of managing this
matter without shooting anybody. Be sure that these
men who have kidnapped a man in Boston, are cow-

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 365
ards, every mother's son of them ; and if we stand up
there resolutely, and declare that this man shall not
go out of the city of Boston, without shooting a gun
— [cries of ' That's it,' and great applause,] — then
he won't go back. Now, I am going to propose that
when you adjourn, it be to meet at Court Square, to
morrow morning at nine o'clock. As many as are in
favor of that motion will raise their hands. [A large
number of hands were raised, but many voices cried
out, ' Let's go to-night,' ' Let's pay a visit to the slave-
catchers at the Revere House,' etc. ' Put that ques
tion.'] Do you propose to go to the Revere House
to-night, then show your hands. (Some hands were
held up.) It is not a vote. We shall meet at Court
Square, at nine o'clock to-morrow morning."
[What happened before the morrow morning can
best be read in the words of others than Theodore
Parker. But here, rather fully told, is the story of
Shadrach's arrest and rescue.]
THE SHADRACH AFFAIR, 1851
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
I, Patrick Riley, of Boston, in the said county, Counsellor at
Law, having been duly sworn, depose and say, that I am, and
have been, for fourteen years past, the principal deputy of the
United States Marshal for the District of Massachusetts: —
That on Saturday morning, February 15th, 1851, about 20
minutes before 8 o'clock, A. M., I was called upon at my resi
dence by Frederick Warren, one of the U. S. Deputy Mar
shals, who informed me that there was a negro man, an al
leged fugitive, to be arrested at 8 o'clock, who was supposed to
be at Taft's Cornhill Coffee House, near the Court House, and
desired to know where the negro should be put in case he
should be arrested before I reached the office. I told him
to place him in the United States Court Room — and that
I would come to the office immediately, — I came down almost
immediately to the office, where I arrived shortly after 8
o'clock, and there found Mr. Warren, who informed me that

366 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
the negro was unknown to Mr. Charles Sawin, Deputy Mar
shal, to whom the warrant was handed on the night previous,
as I have been informed, though no notice of it had been given
to any occupant of the Marshal's office — and that the negro
was unknown to anyone of the Marshal's Deputies or assistants,
— that Mr. Warren informed me that Mr. Sawin had gone to
find the man, who, by previous arrangement was to point out
the negro, and who had not shown himself as agreed; that I
remained in the court-house giving directions and making prep
arations to secure the negro when arrested, and awaiting the
return of Mr. Sawin, — that I saw him after ten o'clock, and
he informed me that he had seen the parties in interest, and
that it had been arranged not to attempt the arrest until 11
o'clock. I told him that it should not be delayed one moment,
and directed him to notify the man who was to point him
out to come instantly, — that he left for that purpose, and
at ten minutes before 11 returned and said that the parties
were about Taft's Coffee House, and that the men engaged were
also in readiness in that neighborhood. I went immediately
with Mr. Warren, Mr. John H. Riley, and other deputies, to
the said Coffee House, and there found all our men, nine in
number, stationed in and about the place — that there were
several negroes in and about the house, and I inquired for the
man who was to point out the alleged fugitive, and was in
formed that he had not arrived. Mr. Warren and myself
went immediately into the dining hall at the Coffee House, and
to avoid suspicion, ordered some coffee, and were waited upon
by a negro, who subsequently proved to be the alleged fugitive.
Not hearing anything from our assistants, we took our coffee,
rose to go out and learn why we had not heard from them,
— then the negro went before us to the bar-room, with the
money to pay for the coffee, and in the passage between
the bar-room and hall, Mr. Sawin and Mr. Byrne came up,
and each took the negro by an arm, and walked him out of the
back passage-way through a building between the Coffee-House
and the square beside the Court House to the Court Room, as
by me directed.
I immediately, while he was entering the Court House,
went to the office of the City Marshal, in the City Hall, in
the same square with the Court House, and there saw Mr.
Francis Tukey, the City Marshal, told him what had been done,
and stated that as there would probably be a great crowd,
his presence with the police would be needed to preserve order,
and keep the peace in and about the Court House, which is
owned by the city, and in which all the Courts of the Common-

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 367
wealth for Suffolk County are held. Mr. Tukey stated that
it should be attended to,— I told him I should notify the
Mayor instantly, and proceeded up stairs to the Mayor's office,
where I found Hon. John P. Bigelow, Mayor of the city, and
made the same communication and request to him which I
had made to Mr. Tukey, to which the Mayor said— "Mr. Riley,
I am sorry for it." I then left the office, at which time it was
just half past 11 o'clock.
I went immediately to the Court-House, and found the
negro in the United States Court Room, with the officers, and
found all the doors closed, and was admitted by the usual inside
entrance, — George T. Curtis, Esq., the United States Com
missioner, was called, and came, and the claimant's counsel were
sent for. All the doors were kept closed excepting the usual
entrance, which was kept guarded by officers, — the Commis
sioner informed the fugitive, who was named " Shadrach "
in the warrant, of the character of the business, and asked
him if he wanted counsel, to which he said that he did, and
that his friends had gone for counsel. While waiting for
the counsel to come, the room began to be filled with negroes
and whites, — the counsel for the prisoner appeared, and
claimed a delay, to give them an opportunity to consult with
their client, pending which I desired Mr. Warren the Deputy
Marshal, to go to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, about two
miles distant, and ask Commodore Downes whether, should a
delay or adjournment take place, the Navy Yard might be used
as a place of detention, the United States not being permitted
by the law of the State to use the jails, and having none of
their own. The examination proceeded, and after the reading
of certain documents presented by the claimant's attorney,
and some discussion, the Commissioner decided to grant the
delay until Tuesday following, the 18th inst. The counsel
for the prisoner asked of the Commissioner if they might
not remain and hold consultation with their client, and ex
amine with him the papers presented, to which the Commis
sioner assented, — then the court room was ordered to be cleared,
and was cleared of all save some fifteen officers, being all the re
liable men whom we had been able to collect, the counsel, and
some newspaper reporters. Mr. Warren, at this time, which
was about half past 12, returned from the Navy Yard, and
informed me that he had seen Commodore Downes, who said
he could not grant my request, — then I despatched what of
ficers I could spare, to ask such of their friends to remain as
would assist, and to procure all the additional force possible,
intending to use the Court House as a place of detention.

368 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Mr. Curtis also left; crowds of negroes and others began
to gather about the court room and in the passage-ways lead
ing to the Court House, — then I went to one of the messengers
who had charge of the building, and desired him to have all
the Court House doors closed as soon as possible which were not
necessary for use.
At or before one o'clock, Mr. Ebenezer Noyes, the messenger
of the United States Court, was despatched to the City
Marshal, whom he informed that the United States Mar
shal wanted every man he could send to keep the peace in and
about the Court House; to which the City Marshal replied that
he had no men in, but would send them over as they came
in. That at about two o'clock all the counsel had left, except
Mr. Charles G. Davis and a reporter, who I learned was Elizur
Wright, one of the editors of the Commonwealth newspaper;
as the door was opened for them to leave, which opened
outwardly, the negroes without, who had filled the passage-way
on the outside, took hold of the edges of the door as it opened,
and then a struggle ensued between the holders of the door
within and those without. Mr. Warren, the deputy, imme
diately ran to the City Marshal's office, but not finding him
in went to the Mayor's office, and was informed that the
Mayor had gone to dinner. He then stated to those in his
office that there was a mob in and about the Court House,
and called upon them to send men to help to disperse it.
That he then returned to the City Marshal's office, found him in
his private room, informed him of the trouble in the Court
House, and asked him to send all the men he could furnish,
and whether he (Mr. Warren) could aid him in getting his
men, to which he said that Mr. Warren could not assist him in
the matter.
Meanwhile, the struggle at the door continued for some
minutes, and the crowd of negroes finally succeeded in forcing
the door wide open, rushed in in great numbers, overpowered
all the officers, surrounded the negro, and he was forced by
them through the door, down the stairs, and out of the side
door of the Court House, and thence through the streets to
the section where most of the negroes of the city reside, —
then officers were despatched in pursuit, but have not succeeded
in finding his present abode.
That from the time of the first notice to the Mayor and City
Marshal, immediately after the arrest, as heretofore stated, to
the giving of this deposition, neither -the Mayor nor the City
Marshal has appeared, nor has a single officer under their di
rection appeared, or aided in attempting to disperse the mob,

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 369
or in keeping the peace; and, in my opinion, it was the pre
determined purpose of both not to do their duty in keep
ing the peace in and about their Court House; for the City
Marshal, when requested by Henry S. HaUett, Esq., to disperse
a similar mob, which had collected about the office of his father,
a United States Commissioner, during the excitement in the
" Crafts " case, said that he had orders not to meddle in the
matter, as I am informed by the said Hallett, — and that the
City Marshal gave a similar answer to Watson Freeman, Esq.
who asked him, at about the same time, why he did not dis
perse the mob, as I am informed by the said Freeman.
Charles Devens, Jr. Esq. the United States Marshal for
this district, was at the time of the arrest, returning from
Washington, where he had gone on imperative official business —
and it is proper to state that here neither the Marshal nor his
deputy is authorized by law to employ a permanent force suffi
cient to resist a mob; and that he has no authority to call to
his aid the troops of the State or of the United States. P. RILEY.
U. S. Deputy Marshal, Massachusetts District,
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Suffolk County, February 17,
1851. Then personally appeared the above-named Patrick
Riley, and duly swore that the foregoing deposition by him
subscribed is true, as to facts stated to be within his personal
knowledge — and that he believes that the statements therein
given as made to him by others are true.
Hoeatio Woodman, Justice of the Peace.
A Card. I feel it my duty to notice a deposition of the
acting U. S. Marshal, which appeared in the morning papers.
On Saturday last, between the hours of 11 and 12 o'clock,
Mr. Riley came to my office in the City Hall, and said to me
— "We have got a negro, and I thought I would call and let
you know." I received the information as a kindly hint to
look out for street disturbances. He made no request what
ever for assistance, nor did he intimate in any way that he
wanted any, or that he had any apprehension of a rescue.
After a few unimportant remarks he retired.
I immediately sent for the City Marshal, and directed him to
preserve order around the Court House to prevent obstructions
to proper communication therewith, of course including (as
all such orders do,) the protection of officers in charge of
prisoners, while getting to or from the building. I remained
in my office for an hour and a half, after giving these di-
XIV— 24

370 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
rections, but received no further communication on the subject
from any one.
The Police, within my knowledge, have never been called
upon to attend the Courts of the State or United States, and,
as I have already stated, no request was made to me for
such assistance in the present case. Knowing that the Mar
shal of the United States has his own officers, and that he is
authorized to appoint as many deputies, or call to his as
sistance as many individuals as the occasion may require —
knowing, also, that the Sheriff, together with deputies and
constables, are stationed in the Court House, I had not the
shadow of suspicion that Mr. Riley was wanting in ample means
to retain his prisoner against unarmed assailants.
Mr. Riley makes an ungenerous use of a casual remark which
I intended for kindness. He was agitated; appeared to speak
with great inconvenience to his lungs, and remarked that he
had great difficulty in catching his breath. I answered that I
was " sorry for him."
I annex a statement of the City Marshal. John P. Bigelow.
City Hall, Feb. 17, 1851.
In confirmation of what Mayor Bigelow here said,
we have this statement from City Marshal Tukey:
Sir, — In answer to the letter of P. Riley, allow me to state,
that on the 15th, at half-past 11 o'clock, A. M., he came into
my office and said, " We have got a nigger. I merely notify
you, so that if they make trouble you may be about." These
were his exact words, and all he said. I immediately consulted
with you, and you directed me to prevent any breach of the
peace outside of the Court House, and I took measures ac
cordingly. I sent out officers from time to time to see that all
was quiet.
At about 1 o'clock, P. M., Mr. Noyes came to my office,
saying the U. S. Marshal wanted all the spare officers I had. I
had none. I wanted all I had to execute your orders. At
about 10 minutes to 2 o'clock, I sent an officer to the Court
Room, and found the door taken care of; and the officer I sent
was denied admission — the person having charge saying the
U. S. Marshal told him to admit no one. He returned. In
a few moments afterwards another person came, and said that he
was afraid the negroes would break open the Court Room. I
immediately started, but before I had got out of the City Hall,
I learned the fugitive had been rescued.

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 371
I learn, and believe it to be true, that Mr. Riley said he did
not want any others than those he had employed, to remain
in the court room, and added that "we can take care of the
man," and also at the time the rush was made, he was walking
backwards and forwards across the court room, and made
no resistance whatever at the door, or as the negroes passed
by him.
In conclusion, allow me respectfully to say that in the Or
dinance creating the office of City Marshal, I do not find that
he is to do the work of the United States Marshal, and if it is
the wish .of the City Government to have me do it, they have
only to pass the order, and I will arrest the fugitives, and keep
them, or I will resign. Respectfully yours,
Francis Tukey,
City Marshal.
To Hon. John P. Bigelow, Mayor of Boston. Feb'y 17, 1851.
The history of the Burns case, briefly given by
Parker in his " Defense," is as follows :
On Tuesday, the 23d of May, 1854, Charles F. Sut-
tle of Virginia, presented to Edward Greeley Loring,
Esquire, of Boston, Commissioner, a complaint under
the Fugitive Slave BiU — Act of September 18th, 1850
— praying for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony
Burns. The next day, Wednesday, May 24th, Commissioner
Loring issued the warrant: Mr. Burns was seized in
the course of the evening of that day, on the false pre
text of burglary, and carried to the Suffolk county
court-house, in which he was confined by the marshal,
under the above-named warrant, and there kept impris
oned under a strong and armed guard.
On the 25th, at about nine o'clock in the morning,
the commissioner proceeded to hear and decide the case
in the circuit court room, in which were stationed about
sixty men serving as the marshal's guard. Seth J.
Thomas, Esquire, and Edward Griffin Parker, Esquire,
members of the Suffolk Bar, appeared as counsel for

372 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Mr. Suttle to help him and Commissioner Loring make
a man a slave. Mr. Burns was kept in irons and sur
rounded by " the guard." The slave-hunter's docu
ments were immediately presented, and his witness was
sworn and proceeded to testify.
WendeU Phillips, Theodore Parker, Charles M. EUis,
and Richard H. Dana, with a few others, came into
the court room. Mr. Parker and some others, spoke
with Mr. Burns, who sat in the dock ironed, between
two of the marshal's guard. After a little delay and
conference among these four and others, Mr. Dana
interrupted the proceedings and asked that counsel
might be assigned to Mr. Burns, and so a defense al
lowed. To this Mr. Thomas, the senior counsel for the
slave-hunters, objected. But after repeated protests
on the part of Mr. Dana and Mr. Ellis, the commis
sioner adjourned the hearing until ten o'clock, Satur
day, May 27th.
On the evening of Friday, May 26th, there was a
large and earnest meeting of men and women at Faneuil
Hall. Mr. George R. RusseU, of West Roxbury, pre
sided ; his name is a fair exponent of the character and
purposes of the meeting, which Dr. Samuel G. Howe
called to order.
Speeches were made and resolutions passed. Mr.
Philhps and Mr. Parker, amongst others, addressed
the meeting. While this meeting was in session there
was a gathering of a few persons about the court
house, the outer doors of which had been unlawfully
closed by order of the marshal ; an attempt was made
to break through them and enter the building, where
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts was sitting en
gaged in a capital case ; the courts of this State
must always sit with open doors. In the strife one

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 373
of the marshal's guard, a man hired to aid in the slave-
hunt, was kiUed — but whether by one of the assailing
party, or by the marshal's guard, it is not yet quite
clear. It does not appear from the evidence laid be
fore the public or the three grand- juries, that there
was any connection between the meeting at Faneuil
HaU and the gathering at the court-house.
Saturday, 27th, at ten o'clock, the commissioner
opened his court again, his prisoner in irons before
him. The other events are well known. Mr. Burns
was taken away to slavery on Friday, June 2d, by an
armed body of soldiers with a cannon.
On the 7th of June, Judge Curtis gave to this
grand- jury his charge. In that he spoke of the en
forcement of the Fugitive Slave Bill; and he charged
the jury especially and minutely upon the statute of
the United States of 1790, in relation to resisting offi
cers in service of process as follows, —
That not only those who are present and actually
obstruct, resist, and oppose, and aU who are present
leagued in the common design, and so situated as to be
able in case of need, to afford assistance to those actu-
aUy engaged ; but aU who, though absent, did procure,
counsel, command, or abet others to commit the offense ;
and all who, by indirect means, by evincing an express
liking, approbation, or assent to the design, were
liable as principals. And he added, " My instruction
to you is, that language addressed to persons who im
mediately afterwards commit an offense, actually in
tended by the speaker to incite those addressed to com
mit it, and adapted thus to incite them, is such a coun-
seUing, or advising to the crime as the law contem
plates, and the person so inciting others is liable to be
indicted as a principal," and it is of no importance that

374 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
his advice or directions were departed from m respect
to the time, or place, or precise mode, or means of com
mitting it.
That jury remained in session a few weeks: pains
were taken to induce them to find bills against the
speakers at Faneuil HaU; but they found no indict
ment under the law of 1790, or that of 1850, and
were discharged.
On the 22d of September, venires were issued by
order of the court for a new grand- jury; and, on the
16th of October, twenty-three were returned by Mar
shal Freeman, and impaneled.
This grand- jury was not charged by the judge upon
the statute of 1790, or 1850, but was referred to Mr.
Hallett, the attorney, for the instructions previously
given to the jury that had been discharged, namely,
for his charge of June 7th, already referred to. Mr.
William W. Greenough, brother-in-law of Judge Cur
tis, was one of the jury. They found the following
indictment against Mr. Parker, — in the final clause :
"That on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, at Boston, in
said District, the said Theodore Parker, with force and arms,
did knowingly and wilfully obstruct, resist, and oppose one
Watson Freeman, who was then and there an officer of the
said United States, to wit, the Marshal of the United States
for the said District of Massachusetts, in serving and at
tempting to serve and execute a certain legal process which be
fore that time, to wit, on the 25th day of May, in the year of
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, had been
duly issued under the hand of Edward G. Loring, who was
then and there a Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the
United States for the said District of Massachusetts, and arms
assaulted the said Freeman as such officer, and knowingly and
wilfully obstructed, resisted, and opposed him in the discharge
of his lawful duties in manner and form aforesaid, against the
peace and dignity of the said United States, and contrary to
the form of the statute in such cases made and provided. And

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 375
the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do further present
that the said Theodore Parker was first apprehended in said
District of Massachusetts, after committing the aforesaid of
fense against the peace and dignity of the said United States,
and contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and
provided. A true bill.
(Signed) ENOCH PATTERSON, Je., Foreman.
B. F. HALLETT, United States Attorney for the
District of Massachusetts."
Similar indictments were found against Mr. Phillips,
Martin Stowell, Rev. T. W. Higginson, John Mor
rison, Samuel T. Proudman, and John C. Cluer. Mr.
Parker was arraigned on Wednesday, November 29th,
and ordered to recognize in bonds of $1,500 for his
appearance at that court, on the 5th of March, 1855.,
His bondsmen were Messrs. Samuel May, Francis Jack
son, and John R. Manley ; his counsel were Hon. John
P. Hale, and Charles M. Ellis, Esq. The other gen
tlemen were arraigned afterwards at different times.
After considerable uncertainty about the engage
ments of Hon. Justice Curtis, Tuesday, April 3d, was
fixed for the commencement of the trials. At that
time there appeared as counsel for the government,
Hon. Benjamin F. HaUett, District Attorney, and
Ehas Merwin, Esq., formerly a law partner of Judge
Curtis ; on the other side were Hon. John P. Hale, and
Charles M. EUis, Esq., for Mr. Parker ; Wm. L. Burt,
Esq., John A. Andrew, Esq., and H. F. Durant, Esq.,
counsel for Messrs. Phillips, Higginson, Stowell,
Bishop, Morrison, Proudman, and Cluer.
Mr. Hale, as senior counsel, stated to the Court that
the counsel for the defendants in several of the cases
had conferred, and concluded — on the supposition
that the court and government would assent to the plan
as most for their own convenience, as well as that of the

376 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
defendants' counsel — to file the like motion on the
different cases; and, instead of each counsel going
over the whole ground for each case, to divide the mat
ter presented for debate, and for each to discuss some
particular positions on behalf of them all. This was
assented to ; and motions were filed in the several cases,
— to quash the indictments.
Mr. Burt commenced the argument of the motions,
and presented several of the points. He was followed
by Mr. C. M. Ellis, J. A. Andrew, and H. F. Durant,
who severally discussed some of the grounds of the
. motions. Elias Merwin, Esauire, and Mr. Attorney HaUett,
rephed. The Court stated that they did not wish to hear Hon.
John P. Hale, who was about to rejoin and close in
support of the motion, and decided that the allegation,
on the indictment, that Edward G. Loring was a com
missioner of the Circuit Court of the United States for
said district, was not a legal averment that he was
such a commissioner as is described in the bill of 1850,
and therefore the indictments were bad. The Court
said they supposed it to be true that Mr. Loring was
such a commissioner, and that his authority could be
proved by producing the record of his appointment;
that they did not suppose the absence of this averment
could be of any practical consequence to the defend
ants, so far as respected the substantial merits of the
cases; and it was true the objection to the indictment
was " technical ; " but they held it sufficient, notwith
standing the averment that the warrant was " duly
issued," and ordered the indictment against Stowell to
be quashed. On every other point, save that that the
Court could properly construct the jury roster and

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 377
return the jury from a portion of the district, the
judge said they would express no opinion.
Mr. HaUett insisted on his right to enter a nolle
prosequi in the other cases ; and the judges decided
that, though aU the cases had been heard upon the
motion, yet as it could make no difference whether an
entry were made that this indictment be quashed, or an
entry of nolle prosequi, the attorney might enter a
nolle prosequi if he chose to do so then, before the
Court passed any order on the motions. Mr. HaUett
accordingly entered a nolle prosequi in all the other
cases, and the whole affair was quashed.
[No trial was therefore had and no defense needed,
but Parker had diligently prepared a defense which
he summed up thus.]
I. The Question of Fact. Did I do the deed
charged, and obstruct Marshal Freeman while in the
peace of the United States, and discharging his offi
cial duty? This is a quite complicated question.
Here are the several parts of it : —
1. Was there any iUegal obstruction or opposition
at all made to the marshal? This is not clear. True,
an attack was made on the doors and windows of the
court-house, but that is not necessarily an attack on
the marshal or his premises. He has a right in cer
tain rooms of the court-house, and this he has in virtue
of a lease. He has also a right to use the passage
ways of the house, in common with other persons and
the people in general. His rights as tenant are sub
ject to the terms of his lease and to the law which de
termines the relation of tenant and landlord. Marshal
Freeman as tenant has no more rights than Freeman
Marshal, or John Doe, or Rachel Roe would have un
der the same circumstances. Of course he had a legal

378 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
right to defend himself if attacked, and to close his
own doors, bar and fortify the premises he rented
against the iUegal violence of others. But neither his
lease nor the laws of the land authorized him to close
the other doors, or to obstruct the passages, no more
than to obstruct the square or the street. No lease,
no law gave him that right.
Now there have been three secret examinations of
witnesses relative to this assault, before three grand-
juries. No evidence has been offered which shows that
any attack was made on the premises of the marshal.
The Supreme Court of Massachusetts was in session
at the moment the attack was made on the court-house ;
the venerable chief justice was on the bench; the jury
had retired to consider the capital case then pending,
and were expected to return with their verdict. The
people had a right in the courtroom, a right in the
passage-ways and doors which lead thither. That
court had not ordered the room to be cleared or the
doors to be shut. Marshal Freeman closed the outer
doors of the court-house, and thus debarred men of
their right to enter a Massachusetts Court of Justice
solemnly deciding a capital case. You are to con
sider whether an attack on the outer doors of the
court-house is an illegal attack on the marshal who
had shut those doors without any legal authority. If
you decide this point as the government wishes, then
you will proceed to the next question.
2. Did I actually obstruct him? If not, then the
inquiry stops here. You answer " Not guilty." But
if I did, then it is worth while to consider how I ob
structed him. (1.) Was it by a physical act, by ma
terial force; or, (2.) by a metaphysical act, immaterial
or spiritual force — a word, thought, a feeling, a wish,

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 379
approbation, assent, consent, " evincing an express
liking." 3. Was Marshal Freeman, at the time of the ob
struction, in the peace of the United States, or was
he himself violating the law thereof? For if he were
violating the law and thereby injuring some other man,
and I obstructed him in that injury, then I am free
from aU legal guilt, and did a citizen's duty in ob
structing his iUegal conduct. Now it appears that he
was kidnapping and steahng Anthony Burns for the
purpose of making him the slave of one Suttle of Vir
ginia, who wished to seU him and acquire money
thereby ; and that Mr. Freeman did this at the instiga
tion of Commissioner Loring who was entitled to re
ceive ten doUars if he enslaved Mr. Burns, and five
only for setting him free. It appears also that Mar
shal Freeman was to receive large, official money for
this kidnapping, and such honor as this administra
tion, and the Hunker newspapers, and lower-law di
vines can bestow.
Now you are to consider whether a man so doing
was in the peace of the United States. He professes
to have acted under the Fugitive Slave Bill which au
thorizes him to seize, kidnap, steal, imprison, and carry
off any person whatsoever, on the oath of any slave
holder who has fortified himself with a piece of paper
of a certain form and tenor from any court of slave
holders in the slave States. Is that biU constitutional?
The Constitution of the United States is the people's
power of attorney by which they authorize certain
servants, caUed legislative, judicial, and executive of
ficers, to do certain matters and things in a certain
way, but prohibit them from doing in the name of the
people any thing except those things specified, or

380 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
those in any but the way pointed out. Does the Fugi
tive Slave Bill attempt those things and only those, in
the way provided for in that power of attorney; or
other things, or in a different way ?
To determine this compound question you will look
(1.) at the ultimate purpose of the Constitution, the
end which the people wanted to attain; and (2.) at
the provisional means, the method by which they pro
posed to reach it. Here of course the purpose is more
important than the means. The preamble to this
power of attorney clearly sets forth this purpose
aimed at : here it is, " to form a more perfect Union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquilhty, provide
for the common defense, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty." Is the Fugitive
Slave Bill a measure tending to that end?
To answer that question you are to consult your
own mind and conscience. You are not to take the
opinion of the Court. For (1.) it would probably
be their purchased official opinion which the govern
ment pays for, and so is of no value whatever; or (2.)
if it be their personal opinion, from what Mr. Sprague
and Mr. Curtis have said and done before, you know
that their personal opinion in the matter would be of
no value whatsoever. To me it is very plain that kid
napping a man in Boston and making him a slave, is
not the way to form a more perfect Union, estabhsh
justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, or se
cure the blessings of liberty. But you are to judge
for yourselves. If you think the Fugitive Slave Bill
not a means towards that end, which this national
power of attorney proposes, then you wiU think it is
unconstitutional, that Mr. Freeman was not in the

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 381
peace of the United States, but acting against it;
and then it was the right of every citizen to ob
struct his illegal wickedness and might be the duty of
some. But not only does the Fugitive Slave Bill contravene
and oppose the purpose of the Constitution, it also
transcends the means which that power of attorney
declares the people's agents shall make use of, and
whereto it absolutely restricts them. The Constitution
prescribes that " the judicial power shall be vested in
one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the
Congress may ordain and establish." " The judges
shaU hold their offices during good behavior,
and shaU . . . receive a compensation which shall
not be diminished during their continuance in office."
Now the Commissioner who kidnaps a man and de
clares him a slave, exercises judicial power. Commis
sioner Loring himself confesses it, in his remonstrance
against being removed from the office of judge of pro
bate. You are to consider whether a commissioner
appointed by the judge of the court as a ministerial
officer to take " bail and affidavits," and paid twice as
much for steahng a victim as for setting free a man,
is either such a " supreme " or such an " inferior
court " as the Constitution vests the " judicial pow
ers " in. If not, then the Fugitive Slave Bill is un
constitutional because it does not use the means which
the people's power of attorney points out. Of course
the inquiry stops at this point, and you return " Not
guilty." 4. It is claimed that the Fugitive Slave Bill is sus
tained by this clause in the Constitution, " No person
held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence

SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from
such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim
of the party to whom such service or labor may be
due." But if you try the Fugitive Slave Bill by this
rule, you must settle two questions. (1.) Who is
meant by persons " held to service or labor? " and
(2.) by whom shall they " be delivered up on claim? "
Let us begin with the second.
(2.) By whom shall they "be delivered up?"
Either by the Federal Government, or else by the gov
ernment of the State into which they have escaped.
Now the Federal Government has no constitutional
power, except what the Constitution gives it. Gentle
men, there is not a line in that power of attorney by
which the people authorize the Federal Government to
make a man a slave in Massachusetts or anywhere else.
I know the Government has done it, as the British Gov
ernment levied ship-money, and put men to the rack,
but it is against the Constitution of the land.
Gentlemen, you will settle these constitutional ques
tions according to your conscience, not mine. But if
the Fugitive Slave Bill demands the rendition of men
from whom service is not justly due — due by the law
of God, or if the Government unconstitutionally aims
to do what the Constitution gave it no right to do —
then the marshal was not " in the peace of the United
States." Your inquiry stops at this point.
5. But, if satisfied on all which relates to this ques
tion of his being in the peace of the United States, you
are next to inquire if Mr. Freeman, at the time of the
obstruction was " Marshal of the United States," and
" in the due and lawful discharge of his duties as such
officer." There is no doubt that he was Marshal ; but
there may be a doubt that he was in the " lawful dis-

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 383
charge of his duties as such officer." See what you
must determine in order to make this clear.
(1.) Was Commissioner Loring, who issued the war
rant to kidnap Mr. Burns, legally qualified to do that
act? Gentlemen, there is no record of his appoint
ment and qualification by the form of an oath. No
evidence has been adduced to this point. Mr. Loring
says he was duly appointed and qualified. There is
no written hne, no other word of mouth to prove it.
(2.) Admitting that Mr. Loring had the legal au
thority to command Mr. Freeman to steal Mr. Burns,
it appears that stealing was done feloniously. The
marshal's guard seized him on the charge of burglary
— a false charge. You are to consider whether Mr.
Freeman had legally taken possession of his victim.
(3.) If satisfied thus far, you are to inquire if he
held him legally. It seems he was imprisoned in a
pubhc building of Massachusetts, which was by him
used as a jail for the purpose of keeping a man
claimed as a fugitive slave, contrary to the express
words of a regular and constitutional statute of Mas
sachusetts. If you find that Mr. Freeman was not in the lawful
discharge of his duties as marshal, then the inquiry
stops here, and you return a verdict of " Not guilty."
II. The Question of the Application of the
Law to the Fact. To determine this question you
are to ask : —
1. Does the law itself, the act of 1790, apply to
such acts, that is, to such words, thoughts, wishes,
feelings, consent, assent, approbation, express liking,
and punish them with fine and imprisonment? If not,
the consideration ends: but if it does, you will next

384 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
2. Is it according to the Constitution of the United
States — its purpose, its means — thus to punish such
acts ? If not satisfied thereof, you stop there ; but if
you accept Judge- Curtis's opinion then you wiU next
inquire : —
3. Is it expedient in this particular case to apply
this law, under the circumstances, to this man, and
punish him with fine and imprisonment? If you say
" Yes " you will then proceed to the last part of the
whole investigation, and will ask : —
4. Is it just and right? that is, according to the
natural law of God, the constitution of the universe?
Here you will consider several things.
(1.) What was the marshal legally, constitutionally,
and justly doing at the time he was obstructed? He
was stealing, kidnapping, and detaining an innocent
man, Anthony Burns, with the intention of depriving
him of what the Declaration of Independence calls his
natural and inalienable right to liberty and the pur
suit of happiness. Mr. Burns had done no wrong or
injury to any one — but simply came to Massachu
setts, to possess and enjoy these natural rights.
Marshal Freeman had seized him on the false
charge of burglary, had chained him in a dungeon
contrary to Massachusetts law, — there were irons on
his hands.
It is said he was a slave: now a slave is a person
whom some one has stolen from himself, and by force
keeps from his natural rights. Mr. Burns sought to
rescue himself from the thieves who held him ; Marshal
Freeman took the thieves' part.
(2.) Was there any effectual mode of securing to
Mr. Burns his natural and inalienable right except the
mode of forcible rescue? It is very clear there was

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 385
none at all. The laws of Massachusetts were of no
avail. Your own Supreme Court, which in 1832, at
the instigation of Mr. Charles P. Curtis, sent a little
boy not fourteen years old into Cuban slavery to grat
ify a slave-hunting West Indian, had in 1851, volun
tarily put its neck under the Southern chain. Your
chief justice, who acquired such honorable distinction
in 1836 by setting free the little girl Med from the
hands of the Curtises, in 1851 spit in the face of Mas
sachusetts, and spurned her laws with his judicial foot.
It was plain that Commissioner Loring did not design
to aUow his victim a fair trial — for he had already
prejudged the case; he advised Mr. Phillips to make
no defense, put no " obstruction " in the way of the
man's going back, " as he probably will," and, before
hearing the defense sought to settle the matter by a
sale of Mr. Burns.
Gentlemen, the result showed there was no chance
of what the United States law reckons justice being
done in the case — for Commissioner Loring not only
decided the fate of Mr. Burns against law, and against,
evidence, but communicated his decision to the slave-
hunters nearly twenty-four hours before he announced
it in open court ! No, Gentlemen, when a man claimed
as a fugitive is brought before either of these two
members of this family of kidnappers — who run now
in couples, hunting men and seeking whom they may
devour — there is no hope for him : it is only a mock-
trial, worse than the star-chamber inquisition of the
Stuart kings. Place no " obstructions in the way of
the man's going back," said the mildest of the two,
" as he probably will." Over that door, historic and
actual, as over that other, but fabulous, gate of Hell
should be written : —
XIV— 25

386 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
"Through me they go to the city of sorrow;
Through me they go to endless agony;
Through me they go among the nations lost:
Leave every hope, all ye that enter here ! "
The only hope of freedom for Mr. Burns lay in
the limbs of the people! Anarchy afforded him the
only chance of justice.
(3.) Did they who it is alleged made the attack on
the marshal, or they who it is said instigated them to
the attack, do it from any wicked, unjust, or selfish
motive? Nobody pretends it — Gentlemen, we had
much to lose — ease, honor — for with many persons
in Boston it is a disgrace to favor the inalienable rights
of man, as at Rome to read the Bible, or at Damascus
to be a Christian — ease, honor, money, liberty — if
this Court have its way, — nay, hfe itself ; for one of the
family which preserves the Union by kidnapping men,
counts it a capital crime to rescue a victim from their
hands, and Mr. HaUett, when only a Democratic ex
pectant of office, declared " if it only resists law and
obstructs its officers . . . it is treason
and he who risks it must risk hanging for it." No,
gentlemen, I had much to lose by my words. I had
nothing to gain. Nothing I mean but the satisfaction
of doing my duty to myself, my brother, and my God.
And tried by Judge Sprague's precept, " Obey both,"
that is nothing ; or by Judge Curtis's " standard of
morality " it is a crime ; and according to his brother
it is " treason ; " and according to, I know not how
many ministers of commerce, it is " infidelity " —
" treasonable, damnable doctrine."
No, gentlemen, no selfish motive could move me to
such conduct. The voice of duty was terribly clear:
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 387
English is the only tongue in which Freedom can
speak her political or rehgious word. Shall that
tongue be silenced; tied in Faneuil Hall; torn out by
a slave-hunter? The Stamp Act only taxed commer
cial and legal documents ; the Fugitive Slave Bill makes
our words misdemeanors. The Revenue Act did but
lay a tax on tea, threepence only on a pound: the
slave-hunters' act taxes our thoughts as a crime. The
Boston Port BiU but closed our harbor, we could get
in at Salem; bilt the judge's charge shuts up the
mouth of aU New England, not a word against man-
hunting but is a " crime," — the New Testament is
full of " misdemeanors." Andros only took away the
charter of Massachusetts ; Judge Curtis's " law " is a
quo warranto against humanity itself. " Perfidious
General Gage " took away the arms of Boston ; Judge
Curtis charges upon our soul; he would wring all re
hgion out of you, — no " standard of morality "
above the Fugitive Slave BiU.
The Slave Power aims at a despotism which is worse
for this age than the Stuarts' tyranny for that time.
Behold what it has done within ten years. It has made
slavery perpetual in Florida; has annexed Texas, a
slave State as big as the kingdom of France; has
fought the Mexican War, with Northern money, and
spread bondage over Utah, New Mexico, and Califor
nia; it has given Texas ten millions of Northern dol
lars to help slavery withal; it has passed the Fugitive
Slave Bill and kidnapped men in the West, in the Mid
dle States, and even in our own New England; it has
given ten millions of doUars for a little strip of worth
less land, the MesiUa valley, whereon to make a slave
railroad and carry bondage from the Atlantic to the
Pacific ; it has repealed the prohibition of slavery, and

388 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
spread the mildew of the South all over Kansas and
Nebraska. Ask your capitalists, who have bought
Missouri lands and railroads, how their stock looks just
now ; not only your hberty but even their money is in
peril. You know the boast of Mr. Toombs. Gentle
men, you know what the United States courts have
done — with poisoned weapons they have struck deadly
blows at freedom. You know Sharkey and Grier and
Kane. You recollect the conduct of Kidnappers'
courts at Milwaukee, Sandusky, Cincinnati, Philadel
phia — in the HaU of Independence. But why need
I wander so far ? Alas ! you know too weU what has
been done in Boston, our own Boston, the grave of
Puritan piety. You remember the Union meeting,
Ellen Craft, Sims, chains around the court-house, the
judges crawling under, soldiers in the street, drunk,
smiting at the citizens; you do not forget Anthony
Burns, the marshal's guard, the loaded cannon in place
of justice, soldiers again in the streets smiting at and
wounding the citizens. You recollect all this — the
19th of April, 1851, Boston delivering an innocent
man at Savannah to be a slave for ever, and that day
scourged in his jail, while the hirelings who enthralled
him were feasted at their inn ; — Anniversary Week
last year — a Boston judge of probate, the appointed
guardian of orphans, kidnapping a poor and friend
less man ! You cannot forget these things, no, never !
Can I kidnap my own parishioners? It is no part
of my Christianity to send the mother that bore me
into eternal bondage. Do you think I can suffer
Commissioner Curtis and Commissioner Loring to steal
my friends, — out of my meeting-house ? Gentlemen,
when God bids me do right and this Court bids me do
wrong, I shall not pretend to " obey both." I am

PARKER'S INDICTMENT 389
willing enough to suffer all that you will ever lay on
me. But I will not do such a wrong, nor aUow such
wickedness to be done — so help me God ! How could
I teach truth, justice, piety, if I stole men; if I al
lowed Saunders, Jeffreys, Scroggs, or Sharkey, Grier,
Kane, or in one word, Curtis, to steal them? I love
my country, my kindred of humanity ; I love my God,
Father and Mother of the white man and the black;
and am I to suffer the hberty of America to be trod
under the hoof of slaveholders, slave-drivers ; yes, of
the judicial slaves of slaveholders' slave-drivers? I
was neither born nor bred for that. I drew my first
breath in a httle town not far off, a poor little, town
where the farmers and mechanics first unsheathed that
revolutionary sword which, after eight years of hew
ing, clove asunder the Gordian knot that bound Amer
ica to the British yoke. One raw morning in spring
— it wUl be eighty years the 19th of this month —
Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that
Great Dehverance, were both at Lexington; they also
had " obstructed an officer " with brave words. Brit
ish soldiers, a thousand strong, came to seize them and
carry them, over sea for trial, and so nip the bud of
freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring.
The town militia came together before daylight " for
training." A great, tall- man, with a large head and
a high, wide brow, their captain, — one who had " seen
service," — marshaled them into line, numbering but
seventy, and bade " every man load his piece with
powder and baU." " I will order the first man shot
that runs away," said he, when some faltered ; " Don't
fire unless fired upon, but if they want to have a war, —
let it begin here." Gentlemen, you know what fol
lowed : those farmers and mechanics " fired the shot

390 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
heard round the world." A httle monument covers
the bones of such as before had pledged their fortune
and their sacred honor to the freedom of America, and
that day gave it also their lives. I was born in that
little town, and bred up amid the memories of that day.
When a boy my mother lifted me up, one Sunday, in
her religious, patriotic arms, and held me while I read
the first monumental line I ever saw : —
Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind
Since then I have studied the memorial marbles of
Greece and Rome in many an ancient town ; nay, on
Egyptian obelisks have read what was written before
the Eternal roused up Moses to lead Israel out of
Egypt, but no chiseled stone has ever stirred me to
such emotions as those rustic names of men who f eU
In the Sacred Cause of God and their Country
Gentlemen, the spirit of liberty, the love of justice,
was early fanned into a flame in my boyish heart.
That monument covers the bones of my own kinsfolk ;
it was their blood which reddened the long, green grass
at Lexington. It is my own name which stands chis
eled on that stone ; the tall captain who marshaled his
fellow farmers and mechanics into stern array and
spoke such brave and dangerous words as opened the
War of American Independence, — the last to leave the
field, — was my father's father. I learned to read out
of his Bible, and with a musket he that day captured
from the foe, I learned also another religious lesson,
that Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God
I keep them both, " Sacred to Liberty and the
Rights of Mankind," to use them both " In the Sacred
Cause of God and my Country."

XIV
PARKER IN THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 4
By F. B. Sanborn
Speaking in 1850, after the Webster speech of
March 7 in that year, when the great orator of New
England went over definitely to the pro-slavery side,
seeking not merely to postpone the emancipation of the
slaves and the restoration of the freemen of the North
to their proper share in the government of their own
States and of the nation, but giving a tacit consent to
the perpetual existence of negro slavery ; at that crisis
Parker said:
" By and by there will be a political party with a wider basis
than the Free-soil party, who will declare that the nation itself
must put an end to slavery in the nation; and if the Consti
tution of the United States will not allow it, there is another
Constitution that will. Then the title of 'Defender and Ex
pounder of the Constitution of the United States ' will give way
to this, — 'Defender and Expounder of the Constitution of the
Universe'; and we shall reaffirm the ordinance of Nature, and
re-enact the will of God. You may not live to see it, nor I live
to see it; but it is written on the iron leaf that it must come;
come, too, before long. Then the speech of Mr. Webster will be
a curiosity, the conduct of the Whigs and Democrats an amaze
ment, and the 'peculiar institution' a proverb amongst all the
nations of the earth."
Of that party Parker became one of the wisest of
leaders, and Webster soon proved himself one of the
feeblest of opposers. John Brown was the champion
and forlorn hope of this new party, to which in 1862
the whole armed force of the loyal part of the Union
391

392 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
joined itself, chanting, as it marched to the restoration
of the Union by force, that immortal folk-song,
" John Brown's body is moldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on."
Brown had then been dead but three years ; Parker less
than two years; and before three years had passed
over Parker's Florentine grave, every slave in the old
Union was legally free, by the unquestionable edict of
Abraham Lincoln, the disciple, not of Webster, but of
Parker. This being so, it is well to let Parker explain himself
in this, his last great service to the people, — the pro
motion of Brown's forlorn hope, leading the assault for
the destruction of slavery by force. Parker had seen
argument and persuasion tried for years. Franklin,
Jefferson, Henry Clay, the Quakers and Methodists,
Webster and Garrison, Phillips and Emerson, and Park
er himself had pleaded in vain. Slavery, instead of
approaching extinction, seemed to be strengthening
itself both South and North, both East and West. In
1855, when Parker, in his impassioned " Defense " was
exhibiting the rapid onward movement of pro-slavery
sentiment in Massachusetts, Lincoln, not yet brought
into acquaintance with Parker by his law-partner,
Herndon, was expressing to a Kentuckian his fear
that the monstrous usurpation of negro slavery would
invade Illinois and gain control of the whole nation.
Mr. GiUespie, the friend with whom Lincoln talked,
thus reports him:
"Slavery was the only question on which Abe would become
excited. I recollect meeting him once at Shelbyville, when he
began by saying, —
' Something must be done, or slavery will overrun this whole
country. There are in Kentucky about 600,000 non-slavehold-

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 393
ing whites and only about 33,000 slaveholders. In the late con
vention there it was expected the delegates would appear in
something like that ratio; but when they came together there
was not a single representative of the 600,000; every one was in
the interest of the slaveholders. The cursed thing is spread
ing like wildfire over this country; in a few years we in Illinois
will be ready to accept it, and perhaps the whole nation will
adopt it. I asked a Kentuckian the other day what caused this
change in public opinion. He answered; 'Why this, — you
may have any amount of land, bank stock, money in your
pocket or in bank, and while you travel round nobody is the
wiser for it; but if you have a darkey trudging at your heels,
everybody sees you are rich enough to own a slave. 'Tis the
most glittering, ostentatious and displaying property in the
world. If a young man goes courting nowadays the first ques
tion is: How many slaves does he own? how many niggers has
the young lady got?'
'That is so; the love of slave-property is swallowing up the
taste for every other possession; its ownership betokens not
alone wealth, but that you are a gentleman of leisure, above
labor of any sort, and scorning it. All this is highly seductive
to thoughtless youths, who learn to look on work as vulgar and
ungentlemanly.' " By this time Mr. Lincoln was really excited, and said with
much earnestness, ' This spirit ought to be met and checked, if
it is not too late to check it. Slavery is a great and crying
injustice, an enormous national sin, and we must not expect to
escape punishment for it.' I asked him how he would go to
work to check it? He said, ' I do not see my way clearly; but
I have made up my mind to oppose slavery actively.' He
always maintained that no man had any right to a slave except
what brute force might give him; that 'twas singular the courts
will hold that a man never loses his right to property that has
been stolen from him; but instantly loses his right to him
self if a man steals him. The cheapest way to get rid of
slavery, he thought, was for the nation to buy the slaves and
set them free."
That would have been Parker's way too, as it was
Emerson's, and might once have been Brown's; but
the old Puritan had learned that the only way available
in 1855 was force; and he went out to Kansas pre
pared to fight the slaveholders and their tools in that

394 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
prairie land, as he did, with success and fame. When
he came to Boston the next winter (January, 1857), I
took him at once to Parker's Exeter Place house, where
he was ever afterward welcome. Parker had followed
his course in Kansas, knew well his wealthy friend, Ger-
rit Smith, and was ready to aid Brown in his scheme of
1857 to raise an armed band of mounted men, a hun
dred in all, well armed, as his smaller bands had been in
1855-56, to patrol the Missouri border, and protect the
Kansas farmers from any more invasions. Parker
heard Brown's plea for this, gave money towards it, and
fully sanctioned that form of resistance. John Brown
had heard Parker preach at the Music Hall as early
as 1853, and admired his warm piety, popular elo
quence and devotion to liberty, although in their the
ology they were far apart. Early in April, 1857,
Brown had withdrawn from public notice in Bos
ton, upon intimations that the same United States mar
shal who had seized Anthony Burns, and afterwards
(in 1860) sent his son, young Watson Freeman, to
kidnap me in Concord, was watching to arrest him.
His . place of refuge was Judge Thomas Russell's
abode, and concerning what he said and did there, his
constant friend, Mrs. Mary Stearns of Medford, a
niece of Parker's early patron, Dr. Convcrs Francis,
has given an interesting account. She wrote me in
1885 :
"In April, 1857, Brown was keeping very quiet at Judge
Russell's in Boston, partly on account of a warrant issued in
Kansas for his arrest, and partly because he was ill with fever
and ague, and a chilling easterly storm had prevailed for some
days. One Saturday he expressed a wish that I should go to
see him, wishing to consult me about a plan he had. I drove
at once to Judge R.'s house, found Brown there, and he pro
ceeded to say that he had been amusing himself by preparing

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 395
a little address for Theodore Parker to read to his congrega
tion the next morning, which he wished to consult me about.
He then produced a paper 'Old Brown's Farewell,' and read
it to me. The emphasis of his tone and manner I shall never
forget. When he finished reading, he said, 'Well now, what
do you think? shall I send it to Mr. Parker?' 'Certainly' I
said, 'by all means send it. He will appreciate every word,
for it rings the true metal he likes. But I have doubts about
his reading it to his congregation; a few of them would under
stand it; the rest, I fear would not. Send it to Mr. Parker,
and he will do what is best with it.' This Brown did, and he
also gave me a copy."
This was the first written communication from Brown
to Parker, and was found among Parker's papers in
Boston in 1860. It is as follows :
" Old Brown's Farewell to the Plymouth Rocks, Bunker Hill
Monuments, Charter Oaks, and Uncle Tom's Cabins.
" He has left for Kansas : was trying since he came out of the
territory to secure an outfit, or in other words, the means of
arming and thoroughly equipping his regular minute men who
are mixed up with the people of Kansas. And he leaves the
States with a feeling of deepest sadness, that, after exhausting
his own small means, and with his family and his brave men
suffered hunger, cold, nakedness, — and some of them sickness,
wounds, imprisonment, cruel treatment, — and others death; that
after lying on the ground for months in the most sickly, unwhole
some and uncomfortable places, with sick and wounded, desti
tute of any shelter, and hunted like wolves: sustained and
cared for in part by Indians; that after all this, in order to
sustain a cause (which every citizen of this 'glorious Republic'
is under equal moral obligation to do, and for the neglect of
which he will be held accountable to God) in which every man
woman and child of the entire human family has a deep and
awful interest; that when no wages are asked or expected, he
cannot secure (amid all the wealth, luxury and extravagance of
this 'Heaven exalted' people) even the necessary supplies of
the common soldier.
"Boston, April, A. D. 1857. John Brown."
In Mrs. Stearns's copy Brown added to this appeal
a list of what articles he needed; many of which were
supplied to him by the Stearnses and other friends.

396 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Parker raised money for him in his large congrega
tion, and, on the morning when he received this unique
appeal, he wrote to Thomas Russell : 2
" Sunday Morning.
" My dear Judge, — If John Brown falls into the hands of the
marshal from Kansas, he is sure either of the gallows or of
something yet worse. If I were in his position, I should shoot
dead any man who attempted to arrest me for those alleged
crimes; then I should be tried by a Massachusetts jury and
acquitted. "Yours truly, " T T3 "
" P. S. I don't advise J. B. to do this, but it is what I should
do." Brown departed for Iowa soon after this, and in
September following he wrote this letter to Parker:
Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa, Sept. 11, 1857.
"My Dear Sir, — Please find on the other side first number of
a series of tracts lately gotten up here. I need not .say I did
not prepare it; but I would be glad to know what you think
of it, and much obliged for any suggestions you see proper to
make. My particular object in writing is to say that I am in
immediate want of some 500 or 1,000 dollars, for secret service
and no questions asked. I want the friends of Freedom to
'prove me now herewith.' Will you bring this matter before
your congregation, or exert your influence in some way to have
it or some part of it raised, and placed in the hands of Geo L.
Stearns, Esq., Boston, subject to my order? I should highly
prize a letter from you, directed on the envelope to Jonas Jones,
Esq., Tabor, Fremont Co., Iowa. Have no news to send by let
ter. "Very respectfully your friend,
"John Brown."
Similar letters were sent to me, to Dr. S. G. Howe,
and a few others, and some money was raised and sent
to Brown, but to what use he was to devote it, he did
not then inform us. Soon after, Brown's English
drill-master at Tabor, Hugh Forbes, a Garibaldian
colonel in Italy of yore, began writing letters, abusive

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 3-97
of Brown, to Dr. Howe, myself and others, and per
haps to Parker ; the import of which none of us under
stood, having had httle or no knowledge of Col. Forbes,
hitherto. We therefore wrote to Brown for an ex
planation; and his answer was a request for some of
us to meet him at Gerrit Smith's mansion in Peter
borough, N. Y. The letter to Parker is as follows :
"Rochester, N. Y., Feb. 2, 1858.
" My Dear Sir, — I am again out of Kansas, and am at this
time concealing my whereabouts, but for very different rea
sons, however, than those I had for doing so at Boston last
spring. I have nearly perfected arrangements for carrying out
an important measure, in which the world has a deep interest,
as well as Kansas, and only lack from 500 to 800 dollars to
enable me to do so. (The same object for which I asked for
secret-service money last fall). It is my only errand here, and
I have written some of our mutual friends in regard to it, but
none of them understand my views so well as you do, and I
cannot explain without their first committing themselves more
than I know of their doing.
" I have heard that Parker Pillsbury and some others in your
quarter hold out ideas similar to those on which I act; but I
have no personal acquaintance with them, and know nothing
of their influence or means. Cannot you, either by direct or
indirect action, do something to further me? Do you not know
of some parties whom you could induce to give their abolition
theories a thorough practical shape? I hope this will be the
last time I shall be driven to harass a friend in such a way.
Do you think any of my Garrisonian friends either at Boston,
Worcester or in any other place, can be induced to supply a
little 'straw' if I will absolutely make 'bricks'? I have
written George L. Stearns Esq. of Medford, and Mr. F. B. San
born of Concord, but I am not informed as to how deeply-dyed
abolitionists these friends are, and must beg you to consider
this communication strictly confidential, unless you know of
parties who will feel and act, and hold their peace. I want
to bring the thing about within the next sixty days. Please
write N. Hawkins, care William J. Watkins Esq, Rochester, New
York. "Very respectfully your friend,
"John Brown."

398 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Mr. Parker evidently considered me as a person an
swering to Brown's description; for he communicated
this letter to me, and we compared notes, literally, —
since I had a letter briefer, but to the same effect, as
Wentworth Higginson, then living in Worcester, had.
A subsequent letter urged us, with Dr. Howe and Mr.
Stearns, to meet Brown at Gerrit Smith's villa in Peter
borough, not far from Rochester, where Brown had
been boarding with Frederick Douglass, the Maryland
fugitive, for some days, at the date of the above
letter. The February letters of Brown afforded suspicion
that he was moving for an attack on slavery, but how
or where was unknown. I wrote to Higginson, (Feb.
11): " I should not wonder if Brown's plan contemplated an up
rising of slaves, though he has not said as much to me. The
Union is evidently on its last legs, and Buchanan is laboring
to tear it in pieces. Treason will not be treason much longer,
but patriotism."
What was meant was that treason to negro slavery
was to be changed into allegiance to the Union, and
anti-slavery was to be recognized as patriotism.
As none of the friends addressed could conveniently
take the long winter journey, I was deputed to repre
sent them at Peterborough, where I had visited for a
week in the preceding summer ; and I was at the place
appointed on the evening of Washington's birthday,
February 22, 1858. Brown had been there for some
days, and had communicated the substance of his plan
to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, in confidence. Douglass him
self remained in Rochester, where he was editing a
weekly emancipation journal, and was the center of a
wide correspondence, but then at variance, politically,

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 399
with the Garrisonian non-voting and non-resistant
abohtionists. At this time Brown considered Parker and Smith
nearer his own scheme of forcible assault on slavery,
than any of his other Eastern friends, whom he cau
tiously sounded before entrusting them with his dan
gerous secret.
Before taking this journey, I had shown to Parker,
whom I then saw every few days, some correspondence
Brown had with Higginson, who had suggested to him
that it might be the Underground Railroad, in which
he was concerned, — that line being long in active op
eration in Kansas, Brown replied (Feb. 12, 1858):
" Railroad business on a somewhat extended scale is the
identical object for which I am trying to get means. I have
been connected with that business, as commonly conducted, from
my boyhood, and never let an opportunity slip. I have been
operating to some purpose the past season; but I now have
& measure on foot that I feel sure would awaken in you some
thing more than a common interest if you could understand it.
I have just written my friends G. L. Stearns and F. B. San
born, asking them to meet me for consultation at Peterborough.
I am very anxious to have you come along, certain as I feel
that you will never regret having been one of the council."
February 13th I wrote inviting Brown to visit Bos
ton, and offering to pay his traveling expenses. To
this Brown replied, February 17:
" It would be almost impossible for me to pass through Al
bany, Springfield, or any of those parts, on my way to Boston,
and not have it known; and my reasons for keeping quiet are
such that when I left Kansas I kept it from every friend there;
and I suppose it is still understood that I am hiding somewhere
in the territory; and such will be the idea until it comes to be
generally known that I am in these parts. I want to con
tinue that impression as long as I can, or for the present. I
want very much to see Mr. Stearns, and also Mr. Parker, and
it may be that I can before long; but I must decline accepting
your kind offer at present, and, sorry as I am to do so, ask

400 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
you both to meet me by the middle of next week at the fur
thest. I wrote Mr. Higginson, of Worcester, to meet me also.
It may be he would come on with you. My reasons for keeping
still are sufficient to keep me from seeing my wife and chil
dren, much as I long to do so. I will endeavor to explain when
I see you."
Two days before my arrival in Peterborough, alone
(for Higginson did not join me at Worcester, as I had
hoped), Brown had written to his son this letter:
"Peterborough, N. Y., Feb. 20, 1858.
" Dear son John, — I am here with our good friends Gerrit
Smith and wife, who, I am most happy to tell you, are ready
to go in for a share in the whole trade. I will say (in the
language of another), in regard to this most encouraging fact,
' My soul doth magnify the Lord.' I seem to be almost
marvelously helped; and to His name be praise! I had to-day
no particular thing to write, other than to let you share in my
encouragement. I have been looking for a letter from you to
be forwarded from Rochester; and may get one to-day. When
I get one, will write you further. I do not expect to remain
here long, but shall be glad to have you write me here. Jason
and family well on the 8th.
"Your affectionate father, John Brown."
" Feb. 22.
" I have still need of all the help I can possibly get, but am
greatly encouraged in asking for it. Mr. Smith thinks you
might operate to more advantage in New England, about Boston,
than by going to Washington, — say in the large country towns.
I think he may be right. Do as you think best.
"Yours ever, J. B."
In the evening of the 22nd, while Brown was ex
plaining to me and my college classmate, Edwin Mor
ton of Plymouth, the scope and details of his plan, at
Morton's room in the third story of the viUa, Gerrit
Smith, to whom this had been said before, was some
times with us and sometimes not, — having other guests
in the house to whom he must give some attention. He
did not retire at his usual early hour, but sat with us
till after midnight, hearing and taking part in the dis-

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 401
cussion. Brown read to us his constitution, drawn up
by him in Rochester, and afterwards captured at the
Kennedy Farm and published, — a singular document,
intended for the government of his small force (one
hundred armed men) and such territory as they might
occupy in the slave States. Its provisions were consid
ered and explained, the proposed movements of his men
were indicated, and his methods of fortification and
habitation were shown. The middle of May was indi
cated as the time of attack, but the precise place was
not mentioned, and was believed by me to be far west of
Harper's Ferry. To begin this hazardous adventure
Brown modestly asked for but eight hundred dollars,
and would think himself rich with a thousand dollars.
His scheme was duplicate, — to remain in the South if
possible, and establish a colony of f reedmen, with lands
under cultivation, in some mountain region where de
fense would be easy from the nature of the coun
try ; and if this were found impossible, then to retreat
through the North with his corps of freedmen. He
also dwelt much on the way such an invasion and
emancipation would be received by the country at
large, and he desired from us, his friends, a patient
hearing, a candid opinion concerning his plan, and,
if that were favorable, then such aid in money and
support as we could give him. We listened until after
midnight, proposing objections and raising difficulties;
but nothing could shake Brown's purpose. Every
difficulty had been foreseen and provided against ; the
grand difficulty of aU, — the manifest hopelessness of
undertaking anything so vast with such slender means,
— was met with the text of Scripture: " If God be
for us, who can be against us? " He had made his ar
rangements: he had so many men enlisted, so many
XIV— 26

402 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
hundred weapons ; all he now wanted was the small sum
of money. With that he would open his campaign in
the spring, and he had no doubt that the enterprise
" wouldj?^," as he said.
The next day the discussion was renewed, and, as
usually happened when he had time enough, Cap-
" tain Brown began to prevail over the objections of
his friends. They saw that they must either stand
by him, or leave him to dash himself alone against the
fortress he was determined to assault. To withhold
aid would only delay, not prevent him ; noth
ing short of betraying him to the enemy would do that.
As the sun was setting over the snowy hills of the re
gion where we met, I walked for an hour with Gerrit
Smith among those woods and fields (then included in
his broad manor) which his father had purchased of
the Indians and bequeathed to him. Brown was left at
home by the fire, discussing theology with Charles
Stewart, an old captain under Wellington, who hap
pened to be visiting at the house. Mr. Smith restated
in his eloquent way the daring propositions of Brown,
whose import he understood fully; and then said in
substance : " You see how it is ; our dear old friend
has made up his mind to this course, and cannot be
turned from it. We cannot give him up to die alone ;
we must support him. I will raise so many hundred
dollars for him. You must lay the case before those
friends whom Brown designates in Massachusetts, who
perhaps will do as much or more. I see no other way."
I had come independently to the same conclusion, and
I then engaged to bring the scheme at once to the
knowledge of Theodore Parker, T. W. Higginson and
Dr. Howe, who had sometimes favored action almost
as extreme as that proposed. Brown had himself sug-

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 403
gested Howe as worthy of confidence and good for
advice in revolutionary matters. I afterwards asked
Brown if I should communicate his plan to Wendell
Phillips, an intimate of Parker's, and who, though non
voting, like Garrison, was not non-resistant, and had
given a hundred dollars in Dr. Cabot's first subscrip
tion for Sharp's rifles for the pioneers of Lawrence
in 1855. Brown's answer was negative, and his reason
was pecuhar. He did not even consider the question,
but said to me, " I have noticed that men so eloquent
as Mr. Phillips are seldom men of action, and it is only
men of action that I would have involved with me in
the movement." " How, then about Mr. Stearns ? "
I inquired. " I expect to be in Boston soon, after vis
iting New York, and I will talk with friend Stearns
myself." He did in fact reach Boston earlier than
he expected, and from the American House in Han
over Street, which was then Emerson's favorite Boston
hotel, Brown wrote as follows to Parker :
"American House, Boston, March 4, 1858.
" My Dear Sir, — I shall be most happy to see you at my room
(126) in this house, at any and all hours that may suit your
own convenience, or that of friends. Mr. Sanborn asked me to
be here by Friday evening (the 5th), and as I was anxious to
have all the time I could get, I came on at once. Please call
by yourself or with friends as you can. Please inquire for
Mr. (not Captain) Brown of New York.
"Your friend, John Brown."
Parker was one of the first who called during this
short visit to Boston, which Brown then supposed would
be his last until he should have struck his great blow.
I had come directly from Peterborough to Parker's
house, where I often spent the night, and had com
municated Brown's plan to Parker, to Higginson and
Howe. All received it favorably and agreed to raise

404 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
money for it. Parker favored it as one of several at
tacks of the sort, which he expected to see made before
the final emancipation, either by force or by pohtical
agreement. Of the ultimate freedom of the slaves he
had no doubt, though he scarcely expected to hve to
see it. He was then in failing health, and died in a
little more than two years after.
Brown did not think it prudent to show himself at
Parker's Sunday-evening reception, on the 7th of
March, as he had done when in Boston the year before ;
and therefore he wrote Parker a letter, which I carried
to him that afternoon. Brown to Theodore Parker
" Boston, Mass., March 7, 1858.
" My dear Sir, — Since you know I have an almost countless
brood of poor hungry chickens to 'scratch for,' you will not
reproach me for scratching even on the Sabbath. At any rate,
I trust God will not. I want you to undertake to provide a
substitute for an address you saw last season, directed to the
officers and soldiers of the United States Army. The ideas
contained in that address I of course like, for I furnished the
skeleton. I never had the ability to clothe those ideas in lan
guage at all to satisfy myself; and I was by no means satisfied
with the style of that address, and do not know as I can give
any correct idea of what I want. I will, however, try.
" In the first place it must be short, or it will not be gen
erally read. It must be in the simplest or plainest language,
without the least affectation of the scholar about it, and yet be
worded with great clearness and power. The anonymous writer
must (in the language of the Paddy) be ' afther others,'
and not 'afther himself at all, at all.' If the spirit that com
municated Franklin's Poor Richard (or some other good spirit)
would dictate, I think it would be quite as well employed as
the ' dear sister spirits ' have been for some years past. The
address should be appropriate, and particularly adapted to the
peculiar circumstances we anticipate, and should look to the
actual change of service from that of Satan to the service of
God. It should be, in short, a most earnest and powerful ap
peal to men's sense of right and to their feelings of humanity.
Soldiers are men, and no man can certainly calculate the value

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 405
and importance of getting a single ' nail into old Captain Kidd's
chest.' » It should be provided beforehand, and be ready in ad
vance to distribute by all persons, male and female, who may
be disposed to favor the right.
" I also want a similar short address, appropriate to the pe
culiar circumstances, intended for all persons, old and young,
male and female, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, to be sent
out broadcast over the entire nation. So by every male and
female prisoner on being set at liberty, and to be read by them
during confinement. I know that men will listen, and reflect
too, under such circumstances. Persons will hear your anti-
slavery lectures and abolition lectures when they have become
virtually slaves themselves. The impressions made on prisoners
by kindness and plain dealing, instead of barbarous and cruel
treatment, (such as they might give, and instead of being
slaughtered like wild reptiles, as they might very naturally ex
pect,) are not only powerful but lasting. Females are suscepti
ble of being carried away entirely by the kindness of an intrepid
and magnanimous soldier, even when his bare name was but a
terror the day previous. Now, dear sir, I have told you about
as well as I know how, what I am anxious at once to secure.
Will you write the tracts, or get them written, so that I may
commence colporteur? "Very respectfully your friend,
" John Brown."
" P. S. If I should never see you again, please drop me a line
(enclosed to Stephen Smith, Esq., Lombard Street, Philadel
phia), at once, saying what you will encourage me to expect.
You are at liberty to make any prudent use of this to stir
up any friend. "Yours for the right, "J. B."
After the revelations made at Peterborough, the
intimate friends of Brown readily saw the merit of
his hazardous scheme for making slavery unsafe. It
required but a few days in Boston for him to convert
Parker, Howe and Stearns to the support of Brown's
measures. On March 8 I wrote to Higginson, who
had come to Boston to see Brown a few days before:
"Brown left Boston to-day for Philadelphia. A thousand
dollars is to be raised, and |500 of it is to come from Stearns,

406 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Howe, Parker, Higginson and Sanborn;" adding, "Dr. Samuel
Cabot knows something of the speculation, but not the whole, —
not being quite prepared to take stock. No others have been ad
mitted to a share, though George R. Russell has been consulted."
The last-named was an intimate friend of both Park
er and Howe, and before the blow was struck in 1859,
a little of his large wealth was given to Brown by his
wife, Mr. RusseU himself being then a paralytic.
Brown returned from Philadelphia with a few subscrip
tions, and on March 21 I wrote to Worcester, —
"Mr. Stearns is our treasurer; he has paid $100 and prom
ises $100 more; Parker has paid $100 and promised more; San
born and Higginson are limited to $100 each." (April 20).
"Of the $500 promised, $410 has been given to Brown. Hig
ginson has paid his hundred; Sanborn is delinquent for $30
and Howe for $50."
The arrears were soon made good, but it was found
that $500 more was needed, and before June it was
raised, — Stearns advancing some of it and waiting for
reimbursement. Gerrit Smith gave in this year (1858)
between four and five hundred dollars. The whole
sum contributed before Brown returned to Kansas in
July, 1858, was something like $1,500.
Brown was not aware how hard was the task im
posed by his masterly directions in the art of writing.
Parker, then overweighted with work, never undertook
to write the tracts desired, nor were they written by
any one else; but he sent Brown from his library on
this Sunday the report of General McClellan on the
European armies, which was then a new book, and was
thought likely to be of service to Brown. At the same
time Brown praised Plutarch as a book he had read
with great profit for its military and moral lessons, and
he particularly mentioned the life of Sertorius, the
Roman commander who so long carried on a partisan

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 407
warfare in Spain. He wished much to get a few cheap
copies of Plutarch for his men to read in camp. On
the preceding Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, March
5, 6, and 7, Brown saw Parker, Howe, Stearns, Hig
ginson and two or three other persons ; but to none of
us did he disclose the exact place of his proposed at
tack, and only to me did he mention Harper's Ferry
as a possible place of onset and capture. To Doug
lass in 1847, at Springfield, where he was then hving,
and to Theodore Thomas, a Maryland free negro, he
had disclosed his plans more fully; but those were by
1858 much changed. Douglass, years afterward, and
perhaps with some reinforcement of his memory by
what happened in 1859, gave this account of Brown's
plans :
" They did not, as some suppose, contemplate a general rising
among the slaves, and a general slaughter of the slavemasters :
an insurrection, he thought, would only defeat the object;
but his plan did contemplate the creating of an armed force
which should act in the very heart of the South. He was not
averse to the shedding of blood, and thought the practice of
carrying arms would be a good one for the colored people
to adopt, as it would give them a sense of their manhood. No
people, he said, could have self-respect, or be respected, who
would not fight for their freedom. ' The mountains,' he said,
' are the basis of my plan. God has given the strength of the
hills to freedom; they were placed here for the emancipation
of the negro race; they are full of natural forts, where one
man for defense will be equal to a hundred for attack; they
are full also of good hiding-places, where large numbers of
brave men could be concealed, and baffle and elude pursuit
for a long time. I know these mountains well, and could take
a body of men into them and keep them there, despite of
all the efforts of Virginia to dislodge them. The true object
to be sought is, first of all, to destroy the money-value of slave
property; and that can only be done by rendering such prop
erty insecure. My plan, then, is to take at first about twenty-
five picked men, and begin on a small scale; supply them arms
and ammunition, and post them in squads of five on a line
of twenty-five miles. The most persuasive and judicious of them

408 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
shall then go down to the fields from time to time, as oppor
tunity offers, and induce the slaves to join them, seeking and
selecting the most restless and daring.' Only the most con
scientious and skilled should be sent on this perilous duty;
with care and enterprise he thought he could soon gather a
force of a hundred hardy men, who would be content to lead
the free and adventurous life to which he proposed to train
them. When these were properly drilled, and each man had
found the place for which he was best suited, they would begin
work in earnest; they would run off the slaves in large num
bers, retain the brave and strong ones in the mountains, and send
the weak and timid to the North by the ' Underground Rail
road ; ' his operations would be enlarged with increasing num
bers, and would not be confined to one locality. When I asked
him how he would support these - men, he said emphatically
he would subsist them upon the enemy. Slavery was a state of
war, and the slave had a right to anything necessary to his free
dom." Brown's Kansas expeditions and escapes had modi
fied this old plan in some respects, and his success in
the f oUowing winter, of emancipating slaves by force
and removing them a thousand miles to Windsor in
Canada, had given him, when he finally entered Vir
ginia, increased confidence that he was under Divine
guidance and protection. He adhered to this behef
when captive and convict, and when, as it. proved, he
had won that " last victory of Samson " which he fore
saw in 1858 as a possible finish to his long campaign.
From Gerrit Smith's house, the day I departed for
Boston, Brown wrote to me one of those touching and
prophetic letters which so seldom flowed from his pen,
and which I have cherished as the most complete evi
dence of his confidence in my friendship and unison
with him : —
John Brown to F. B. Sanborn
"Peterborough, N. Y., Feb. 24, 1058.
" My Dear Friend, — Mr. Morton * has taken the liberty of say
ing to me that you felt half inclined to make » common cause

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 409
with me. I greatly rejoice at this; for I believe when you
come to look at the ample field I labor in, and the rich harvest
which not only this entire country but the whole world during
the present and future generations may reap from its success
ful cultivation, you will feel that you are out of your element
until you find you are in it, an entire unit. What an incon
ceivable amount of good you might so effect by your counsel,
your example, your encouragement, your natural and acquired
ability for active service! And then, how very little we can
possibly lose! Certainly the cause is enough to live for, if
not to  for. I have only had this one opportunity, in a life
of nearly sixty years; and could I be continued ten times as
long again, I might not again have another equal opportunity.
God has honored but comparatively a very small part of man
kind with any possible chance for such mighty and soul-sat
isfying rewards. But, my dear friend, if you should make up
your mind to do so, I trust it will be wholly from the prompt
ings of your own spirit, after having thoroughly counted the
cost. I would flatter no' man into such a measure, if I could
do it ever so easily.
" I expect nothing but to ' endure hardness ; ' but I expect to
effect a mighty conquest, even though it be like the last vic
tory of Samson. I felt for a number of years, in earlier life, a
steady, strong desire to die; but since I saw any prospect of
becoming a 'reaper' in the great harvest, I have not only
felt quite willing to live, but have enjoyed life much; and am
now rather anxious to live for a few years more.
"Your sincere friend, "John Brown."
This letter was received by me soon after my return
to Concord. On my way through Boston I had com
municated to Theodore Parker (at his house in Exeter
Place, where Brown met Mr. Garrison and other
abolitionists) the substance of Brown's plan; and upon
receiving the letter I transmitted it to Parker. He
retained it, so that it was out of my possession in Oc
tober, 1859, when I destroyed most of the letters of
Brown and others which could compromise our friends.
Some time afterward, probably in 1862, when Parker
had been dead two years, my letters to him came back
to me, and among them this epistle. It has to me an

410 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
extreme value, from its association with the memory of
my best and noblest friends; but in itself it is a re
markable utterance. That it did not draw me into the
field as one of Brown's band was due to the circum
stance that the interests of other persons were then too
much in my hands and in my thoughts to permit a
change of my whole course of life.
It afterward appeared that Brown, even in Boston,
was thinking seriously of Harper's Ferry as the point
of first attack, for on March 4, writing from the
American House to his son John in Ohio, he said:
"As it may require some time to hunt out friends at Bed
ford, Chambersburg, Gettysburg, Hagerstown, Md., or even
Harper's Ferry, Va., I would like to have you arrange your
business so as to set out very soon, unless you hear to the con
trary from me right away. Have pretty much concluded not
to have you go to Washington. I have but little ' trust in
princes ' myself; still I have no doubt but something might be
done there. I expect to go from here to Philadelphia with
our Rochester friend in three or four days."
March 6, he wrote again from Boston:
"My call here has met with a most hearty response, so that
I feel assured of at least tolerable success. I ought to be
thankful for this; all has been effected by quiet meetings of
a few choice friends, it being scarcely known that I have been
in the city. I go from here to Philadelphia, to be there by
the 10th instant. I want you to meet me there, if possible,
on or before the 15th, as I will wait until then to see or learn
from you. (Day before yesterday, when I wrote, I did not
fully understand what my success would be here.) "
Hugh Forbes in 1858-9
Up to April 8, when Brown was in Canada raising
recruits, he was firm in the project of beginning the
campaign in May or June ; but by that time his treach
erous drill-master, Forbes, was revealing some features
of the scheme to senators at Washington, and clamor-

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 411
ing to be himself put at the head of the armed force.
May 2, 1858, Parker was consulted by Dr. Howe,
Stearns and myself, as to the course to be pursued un
der this change of conditions. I wrote the result of
this conference to Higginson at Worcester, May 5, as
follows :
" It looks as if the project must, for the present, be deferred,
for I find by reading Forbes's epistles to the doctor that he
knows the details of the plan, and even knows (what very few
do) that the doctor, Mr. Stearns, and myself are informed of
it. How he got this knowledge is a mystery. He demands that
Hawkins (Brown's alias) be dismissed as agent, and himself or
some other be put in his place, threatening otherwise to make the
business public. Theodore Parker and G. L. Stearns think the
plan must be deferred till another year; the doctor does not think
so, and I am in doubt, inclining to the opinion of the two
former." On the 7th of May Gerrit Smith wrote me : " It
seems to me that in these circumstances Brown must
go no further, and so I write him. I never was con
vinced of the wisdom of his scheme. But as things
now stand, it seems to me it would be madness to at
tempt to execute it. Colonel Forbes would make such
an attempt a certain and most disastrous failure. I '
write Brown this evening." On the 9th of May, Hig
ginson wrote to Parker a brief note from Brattleboro,
protesting against delay. " I regard any postpone
ment," he said, "as simply abandoning the project;
for if we give it up now, at the command or threat of
H. F., it wiU be the same next year. The only way is
to circumvent the man somehow (if he cannot be re
strained in his malice). When the thing is well
started, who cares what he says? " He soon after
wrote more fuUy to Parker, giving many arguments
against delay. Parker replied : " If you knew all
we do about ' Colonel ' Forbes, you would think differ-

412 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ently. Can't you see the wretch in New York? " At
the same time Dr. Howe wrote to Higginson : " T.
P. will tell you about matters. They have held a dif
ferent view from the one I have taken, which agrees
mainly with yours. I think that the would-be traitor
is now on the wrong track, and he will probably
be bungling about in the dark, and hesitating until
the period for his doing harm has passed." A few
days after this Dr. Howe also admitted that the enter
prise must be postponed. I was in almost daily com
munication with him and with Parker, and on May 18
I wrote to Higginson : " I place myself f uUy on the
side of Parker, Stearns and Dr. Howe."
Higginson and Brown were averse to any postpone
ment on account of Hugh Forbes and his partial dis
closures. On May 7, 1 had written to Higginson, using
Latin and Greek phrases to disguise the meaning, in
case the letter was opened by a postmaster :
"Actum est de lana (hand caprina) in prmsenti. H. F. is
Hugh Forbes, an Italico-English hothead, whom N. Hawkins,
last year, in an evil hour, admitted to his counsels. He has now
quarreled with our Poimen laon, and knowing his plans, he
threatens to expose them, if our Boston friends allow the
flock to be turned out. He wrote this in so many words to
our Hellenophilos, and in much the same terms to me; and he
is now at Washington, where he can do great harm. I thought
you knew of this man, but I wish I were as ignorant of him
as you are. He is either a madman or a villain, and in either
capacity can, and is inclined to do much mischief. Altogether,
he has made things so uncertain that Stearns, Howe and Parker
have written to Hawkins to say the matter must stop for the
present." Against this Higginson strenuously protested, as
stated above; and I then wrote him, (May 11) sending
G. Smith's letter of the 7th, and said:
" I enclose a letter from G. S. whose view of the matter
agrees with that of our Boston friends. There is much force

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 413
in your arguments, but I cannot quite yield to them, though
I wish I could. Forbes has it in his power to remove the
terror of the thing by a complete exposure of the small re
sources of the Graf im Bart, and thus it would lose its main
strength. Whether he is base enough to do this I still doubt,
but the risk is too great to run. A year hence we may get
him over the water, where he will know less of movements here,
and have less means to inspire confidence, while he may be in
duced to believe that all has been thrown up, — and so put off
the track of discoveries. But his peaching now would, spoil
the scheme forever, since every similar movement would be sus
pected and watched closely. I am glad you stand so strongly
for the other side, for the matter will thus be fairly argued,
— -but I think when Hawkins comes to see F.'s letters, and
knows how minute his information is, he will attach more im
portance thereto than he did on the 5th May, when he wrote
me, — saying that he would go on if supplies did not fail him.
"But the opinions of Parker, Howe and Stearns, and of
G. Smith, who are such large stockholders, will prevent their
raising money now: and the rest of us can do little in that
way. The personal liability does not weigh a pin's head with
any of us, I fancy; having stepped so far in, it is too late to be
nice. T. P. may be kept in Boston (from Philadelphia) by
the death of friends. But do find out Forbes if you can;
inquire of Hyatt, Cheever, Greeley etc. If our Justus et tenax
propositi vir makes up his mind to go on in spite of all, I
for one mean to stick by him, si fractus illabatur orbis."
AU this did not persuade Higginson that the ma
jority were right in postponing the scheme till 1859 ;
he wrote to Parker, May 16, with some chagrin:
" The more I think of it, the more amazed I am at the view
which you and the two S.'s have taken, (Smith and Stearns).
Sanborn has a theory that Forbes can injure the speculation
by disclosing the smallness of its resources. He seems to for
get that, by the original programme, it was to be regarded at
first as a mere local flurry, with no resources at all. Besides,
if he puts the resources low, fame and fear will exaggerate
them. How is Forbes to know that the resources have not
been greatly enlarged within the last few weeks? . . . All
this is true, supposing F. to be a skilful villain. But Charles
A. Dana assures me that this view of him is absurd: that he
is probably honest, certainly a blundering blockhead. Grant
ing even the last half of the statement, it would be disgraceful

414 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
for us to be out-maneuvered by such a fellow. . . . If I
had the wherewithal, I would buy out the other stockholders,
and tell our veteran to go on. As it is, I can only urge it to
the extent of my investment."
These citations show how fully the matter had been
discussed. Early in May, 1858, when Hugh Forbes had been
blundering along with his half-disclosures at Wash
ington of John Brown's plans, (which Parker had been
aiding, after he became fully apprised of them in early
March of that year), Parker, who for several years had
been a frequent correspondent of Senator Hale of New
Hampshire, wrote to him the following letter concern
ing Forbes, whom it thus appears he had seen, — as
neither Dr. Howe nor I had done, then or since :
" Boston, 11th May, 1858.
" My Dear Hale, — I want to write you a word touching one
whom I know little good of, and think much ill, — i. e. Capt.
Hugh Forbes. I have seen some quite abusive letters from him
to various friends of yours and mine, which are utterly un
just. I just saw one in which he speaks of telling Senator
Seward what he says Mr. S. did not want to know, — and then
fastening himself on you. Let me say of him two things:
" I. In general: I have no confidence in him, his motives or his
plans. I never had any from the time I first set eyes on his
sinister face. II. In special, (1) He has no claim, legal or
moral, on any body of men, here in New England: his repre
sentation to the contrary is words, words, — no more. It may be
that Captain Brown promised more than he has fulfilled; thereof
I know nothing. (2) He has had more for his services in
Kansas than almost any other man who has volunteered to work
there. But he has used his money to publish a book, which
nobody will buy or even read.
" I don't know what he knows about any plans of Capt. Brown,
nor what he fancies and relates. I know little about Capt.
B. of late; all that I do know is good. The charge which Forbes
brings against certain men here seems to me wholly unfounded.
I know that they have urgently advised Capt. Brown to go to
Kansas, and help the present election. If you will show this
letter to Mr. Seward and then burn it, I will be glad."

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 415
" May 12.
"Let me say a word about Forbes, Captain or Colonel.
It is rumored that the man is crazy. Madness is all that can
save his reputation. I think if he has any knowledge of any
enterprise of anybody, he would sell it to the United States
Government, or the Russian Government, or wherever it would
feed his wrath to dispose of it."
In this same letter to Hale of May 12, Parker went

" Now a word about Kansas. There are two modes of action
for Kansas: I. The Political Course, — to accept the Lecomp
ton Constitution with its bribes: organize under it but with
free State men for officers. Then they are in the Union.
Next, repudiate that constitution and make a new one. I find
that recommended; but I object to it, — 1. It is fraudulent. 2.
It cannot succeed: there are seven chances against it to three
in its favor. (The Government will declare the slavery-men
elected, etc. etc.) 3. It is false to the friends of Kansas.
" II. The Moral Course, to accept the new Leavenworth Con
stitution; organize under it; repudiate the Lecompton and all
its works; drill their soldiers, cast their bullets, shoot at tar
gets, with Lecompton on them, painted either as Old Nick or
Old Buck, — and be ready. There will be no fighting, or need
of it, — only need, to be ready to fight. Then Kansas will not
come into the Union in 1858, nor in the winter of 1859. But
next autumn a new house of representatives must be chosen;
the Lecompton men of the North must go where the Kansas-
Nebraska men went in 1854-56; the defeated and outgoing ad
ministration will not have the means to bribe as in 1857-8.
So Kansas may be in the Union before Christmas, 1859. She
must say ' No ' to the old lecher who wants to add her to his
harem; 'Yes' to the young man whom she loves, and who loves
her. She will have fortune enough by and by. I meant to
have said that in a speech at New York but rheumatism pre
vented." This forecast was not exactly fulfilled ; but the sug
gestion was carried out ; and John Brown, by his pres
ence in Kansas in the last two years of his life, ma
terially aided in the final result. The great enemy of
free Kansas for several years, Douglas of Illinois, had

416 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
been seen and heard by Parker in the presidential cam
paign of 1856. Writing to Senator Hale from Gales-
burg, 111., October 21, 1856, Parker said:
" I heard your opponent this afternoon, — Douglas. He was
considerably drunk, and made one of the most sophisticated and
deceitful speeches I ever listened to. It was mere brutality in
respect of morals, and sophistry for logic, and the style and
manner of a low blackguard. His enemies said he seldom or
never did so ill. But there is a good deal of rough power in
his evil face. I never saw him before."
THE SECRET COMMITTEE
It so happened that Gerrit Smith, who seldom vis
ited Boston, was to do so late in May, 1858, to give an
address at the anniversary of the Peace Society. He
came and took rooms at the Revere House, where, on the
24th of May the secret committee of Smith, Parker,
Howe, Higginson, Stearns and Sanborn, (organized
in March, soon after Brown's visit) held a meeting to
consider the situation. It had already been decided to
postpone the attack, and the arms once belonging to
the State Kansas Committee, but then the property
of Mr. Stearns, had been placed under a temporary
interdict, so that they could only be used for the pres
ent in Kansas. It was the ambiguous aspect of this
transfer of the arms, to Stearns and to Brown, which
seems to have decided Dr. Howe to favor a delay in the
attack. The six of us had all served on Kansas com
mittees except Parker, who had largely contributed
for Kansas; we had given amongst us from $20,000
to $25,000, and believed we had a right to devote some
part of our gifts to the enterprise of Brown, — hav
ing already expended in Kansas more than had been
given us by others. We had, therefore, no scruples
of conscience in that matter, but deemed it right that

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 417
the affair should be so arranged as not to have the
aspect of bad faith. So far as Henry Wilson and the
public knew, the rifles were still the property of our
Kansas committee, though really made over to Mr.
Stearns to satisfy a committee debt to him for over
advances of his own funds. This ambiguity must be
cleared up, as it soon was by action of the committee,
jointly with Mr. Stearns.
Following up Parker's hint, but without being able
to meet Forbes in New York, Higginson wrote to him
a letter which after a time found him out, and to which
Forbes rephed from Philadelphia, June 6, — some days
after Brown had definitely agreed to the postponement,
and had left New England for Kansas. The letter
was long and rambling, and reads more like the epistle
of a lunatic than the proposition of a military leader,
such as Forbes professed to be.
Of the six members of the committee only one (Hig
ginson) was absent, on May 24th; and as this was the
only occasion when Smith acted personally with his
associates, who met in his chamber at the Revere House,
he was made chairman of the meeting. It was unani
mously resolved that Brown ought to go to Kansas
at once.
As soon as possible after this, Brown visited Boston
(May 31), and while there held a conversation with
Higginson, saying that he was full of regret at the
decision of the Revere House council to postpone the
attack tiU the spring of 1859, when the secret commit
tee would raise for Brown two or three thousand dol
lars ; " he meantime to blind Forbes by going to Kan
sas, and to transfer the property so as to relieve the
Kansas committee of responsibility, and they in future
not to know his plans. On probing Brown," Higgin-
XIV— 27

418 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
son goes on, " I found that he . . . considered
delay very discouraging to his thirteen men, and to
those in Canada. Impossible to begin in the autumn ;
and he would not lose a day [he finally said] if he had
three hundred dollars; it would not cost twenty-five
dollars apiece to get his men from Ohio, and that was
all he needed. The knowledge that Forbes could give
of his plan would be injurious, for he wished his op
ponents to underrate him ; but still . . . the in
creased terror produced would perhaps counterbalance
this, and it would not make much difference. If he
had the means he would not lose a day." He com
plained that some of his Eastern friends were not men
of action ; that they magnified the obstacles. Still, it
was essential that they should not think him reckless,
he said ; " and as they held the purse, he was power
less without them, having spent nearly everything re
ceived this campaign, on account of delay, — a month
at Chatham, etc." Higginson notes down a few days
later that Dr. Howe told him Brown left Boston, June
3, with five hundred dollars in gold, and liberty to re
tain all the arms, and that " he went off in good spir
its." He visited North Elba, Ohio, and Iowa, on his
way to Kansas, and finaUy reached Lawrence, June
25, 1858.
The secret committee of Brown's friends sep
arated in May, 1858, two weeks after the letter to Hale
above quoted was written, and never aU met again.
Early in the following February (1859), Theodore
Parker and Dr. Howe sailed for Cuba together, and
there said farewell to each other. Gerrit Smith, who
had been an invalid for some years, though active in
his special ways, and often journeying with his family,
broke down completely at the news of Brown's foray

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 419
and capture, and for some months was in the neighbor
ing State hospital for the insane at Utica.
By the 20th of April Brown had received $410 of
the $500 we had guaranteed him in Massachusetts, of
which Parker had contributed his full share, and he
continued so to contribute so long as he remained at
home. But in the winter of 1858-59, his health failed
completely, and he left Boston and America,
never to return. He was kept informed by me and
others, of the course of events in Kansas and
elsewhere, and was ready to give more had it been need
ful. Frank Merriam, who gave the last sum (six
hundred dollars in gold), which went into Brown's
camp chest, and was partly captured with Brown when
he fell, mortally wounded, as was supposed, on the
bloody armory floor, was the son of a parishioner of
Parker, and the grandson of his old friend, Francis
Jackson, who wrote him particulars in November, 1859,
of the deeds of Brown, and the fate of his grandson,
who had escaped and returned to Boston, but was sent
back to Canada from my Concord house, under the es
cort, as far as Acton, of Henry Thoreau, driving Emer
son's horse and wagon. Mr. Jackson, whose letters are
before me, informed Parker, then at Rome, of the cler
ical utterances in Boston respecting John Brown, es-
peciaUy those made at the November Thanksgiving
Day, — a time for political sermonizing from early
days in New England. Thus on November 7, 1859,
Mr. Jackson wrote, —
"The Harper's Ferry insurrection has electrified the country;
it has been the all-engrossing topic for the last two weeks.
John Brown has had a slaveholders' trial, and been sentenced to
be hung on the 2nd of December. Mrs. Child says the affair
will prove the Concord Fight of an impending Revolution, and
that Bunker Hill will surely follow. J. F. Clarke preached a

420 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
brave sermon yesterday about Harper's Ferry, — it will be pub
lished." (Nov. 39). "Rev. A. A. Miner preached on the Dan
gers of Slavery, the great national injustice. Of Captain Brown
he said,— 'On what ground can the South stand to punish him?'
He recited her iniquitous and insulting acts of outrage, and ex
horted the friends of liberty to rally. Rev. A. L. Stone of
Park Street said of Brown's onset at Harper's Ferry,— 'Call
it madness and failure if you will; it is the madness that is most
instructive, » failure that teaches with pregnant hints. Well-
nigh every voice, North or South, that names the staunch old
veteran, names him with respect and admiration. Before court
and jury, bench and bar, soldiery and chivalry, he towers up,
the truest man of them all.' Rev. Arthur B. Fuller 5 at Water-
town entirely disapproved of John Brown's attempt at libera
ting slaves, — • and then went on to praise him, — a ' true old hero
and a noble Christian man ' ; complimented him for ' refusing
the spiritual counsels of a slaveholding minister.' Rev. Dr.
Gannett spoke of Brown as one who ' though misled, had ad
dressed to the court sentiments that would live forever, —
ideas that are immortal.' "
To this parishioner, Parker sent this letter which was
at once widely printed, and showed that Parker not
only admired Brown, but stood with him in his main
purpose.
JOHN BROWN'S EXPEDITION
Letter to Francis Jackson
Rome, Nov. 24, 1859.
My Dear Friend, — I see by a recent telegraph,
which the steamer of Nov. 2nd brought from Boston,
that the court found Capt. Brown guilty, and passed
sentence upon him. It is said Friday, Dec. 2nd, is
fixed as the day for hanging him. So, long before this
reaches you, my friend will have passed on to the re
ward of his magnanimous public services, and his pure,
upright private life. I am not well enough to be the
minister of any congregation, least of all to one like
that which, for so many years, helped my soul whUe it

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 421
hstened to my words. Surely the 28th Congregational
Society in Boston needs a minister, not half dead, but
ahve all over; and yet, while reading the account of
the affair at Harper's Ferry, and of the sayings of
certain men at Boston, whom you and I know only too
well, I could not help wishing I was at home again to
use what poor remnant of power is left to me in de
fense of the true and the right.
America is rich in able men, in skilful writers, in
ready and accomplished speakers. But few men dare
treat pubhc affairs with reference to the great princi
ples of justice, and the American Democracy : nay, few
with reference to any remote future, or even with a
comprehensive survey of the present. Our public writ
ers ask what effect wUl this opinion have on the Demo
cratic party, or the Republican party ; how will it affect
the next presidential election? what will the great
State of Pennsylvania or Ohio, or New York say to it ?
This is very unfortunate for us all, especially when
the people have to deal practically, and that speedily,
with a question concerning the very existence of Dem
ocratic institutions in America ; for it is not to be de
nied that we must give up Democracy if we keep
slavery, or give up slavery if we keep Democracy.
I greatly deplore this state of things. Our able
men fail to perform their natural function, to give
valuable instruction and advice to the people; and at
the same time they debase and degrade themselves.
The hurrahs and the offices they get are poor compen
sation for falseness to their own consciences.
In my best estate, I do not pretend to much political
wisdom, and still less now while sick ; but I wish yet to
set down a few thoughts for your private eye, and, it
may be, for the ear of the Fraternity.6 They are, at

422 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
least, the result of long meditation on the subject; be
sides, they are not at all new nor peculiar to me, but
are a part of the pubhc knowledge of all enlightened
men. 1. A man held against his will as a slave has a natural
right to kill every one who seeks to prevent his enjoy
ment of liberty. This has long been recognized as a
self-evident proposition, coming so directly from the
primitive instincts of human nature, that it neither re
quired proofs nor admitted them.
2. It may be a natural duty of the slave to develop
this natural right in a practical manner, and actually
kill all those who seek to prevent his enjoyment of lib
erty. For if he continue patiently in bondage : First,
he entails the foulest of curses on his children; and,
second, he encourages other men to commit the crime
against nature which he allows his own master to com
mit. It is my duty to preserve my own body from
starvation. If I fail thereof through sloth, I not only
die, but incur the contempt and loathing of my ac
quaintances while I live. It is not less my duty to do
all that is in my power to preserve my body and soul
from slavery; and if I submit to that through cow
ardice, I not only become a bondman, and suffer what
thraldom inflicts, but I incur also the contempt and
loathing of my acquaintance. Why do freemen scorn
and despise a slave? Because they think his condition
is a sign of his cowardice, and believe that he ought to
prefer death to bondage. The Southerners hold the
Africans in great contempt, though mothers of their
children. Why? Simply because the Africans are
slaves; that is, because the Africans fail to perform
the natural duty of securing freedom by killing their
oppressors.

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 423
3. The freeman has a natural right to help the
slaves recover their liberty, and in that enterprise to do
for them all which they have a right to do for them
selves. This statement, I think, requires no argument or
illustration. 4. It may be a natural duty for the freeman to
help the slaves to the enjoyment of their liberty, and
as means to that end, to aid them in killing all such as
oppose their natural freedom.
If you were attacked by a wolf, I should not only
have a right to aid you in getting rid of that enemy,
but it would be my duty to help you in proportion to
my power. If it were a murderer, and not a wolf, who
attacked you, the duty would be still the same. Sup
pose it is not a murderer who would kill you, but a
kidnapper who would enslave, does that make it less
my duty to help you out of the hands of your enemy?
Suppose it is not a kidnapper who would make you a
bondman, but a slaveholder who would keep you one,
does that remove my obligation to help you?
5. The performance of this duty is to be controlled
by the freeman's power and opportunity to help the
slaves. (The impossible is never the obligatory.) I
cannot help the slaves in Dahomey or Bornou, and
am not bound to try. I can help those who escape
to my own neighborhood, and I ought to do so. My
duty is commensurate with my power; and as my
power increases, my duty enlarges along with it. If
I could help the bondmen in Virginia to their freedom
as easily and effectually as I can aid the runaway at
my own door, then I ought to do so.
These five maxims have a direct application to
America at this day, and the people of the free States

424 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
have a certain dim perception thereof, which, fortu
nately, is becoming clearer every year. Thus, the
people of Massachusetts feel that they ought to pro
tect the fugitive slaves who come into our State.
Hence come first the irregular attempts to secure their
liberty, and the declarations of noble men, like Timothy
Gilbert, George W. Carnes, and others, that they wiU
do so even at great personal risk; and, secondly, the
statute laws made by the legislature to accomphsh
that end. Now, if Massachusetts had the power to
do as much for the slaves in Virginia as for the runa
ways in her own territory, we should soon see those
two sets of measures at work in that direction also.
I find it is said in the Democratic newspapers that
" Capt. Brown had many friends at the North, who
sympathized with him in general, and in special ap
proved of this particular scheme of his ; they furnished
him with some twelve or twenty thousand doUars, it
would seem." I think much more than that is true of
us. If he had succeeded in running off one or two
thousand slaves to Canada, even at the expense of a
little violence and bloodshed, the majority of men in
New England would have rejoiced, not only in the end,
but also in the means. The first successful attempt
of a considerable number of slaves to secure their free
dom by violence will clearly show how deep is the sym
pathy of the people for them, and how strongly they
embrace the five principles I mentioned above. A
little success of that sort will serve as priming for
the popular cannon ; it is already loaded.
Of course I was not astonished to hear that an at
tempt had been made to free the slaves in a certain
part of Virginia, nor should I be astonished if an
other " insurrection " or " rebellion " took place in

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 425
the State of  , or a third in •  , or a fourth in
Such things are to be expected; for they do
not depend merely on the private will of men like Capt.
Brown and his associates, but on the great general
causes which move all human kind to hate wrong and
love right. Such " insurrections " will continue as
long as slavery lasts, and will increase, both in fre
quency and in power, just as the people become in-
teUigent and moral. Virginia may hang John Brown
and all that family, but she cannot hang the human
race; and until that is done, noble men will rejoice
in the motto of that once magnanimous State — " Sic
semper Tyrannis! " " Let such be the end of every
oppressor." It is a good anti-slavery picture on the Virginia
shield : — a man standing on a tyrant and chopping
his head off with a sword; only I would paint the
sword-holder black and the tyrant white, to show the
immediate application of the principle. The Ameri
can people wiU have to march to rather severe music,
I think, and it is better for them to face it in seasom-
A few years ago it did not seem difficult first to check
slavery, and then to end it without any bloodshed.
I think this cannot be done now, nor ever in the fu
ture. All the great charters of humanity have been
writ in blood. I once hoped that of American De
mocracy would be engrossed in less costly ink; but
it is plain, now, that our pilgrimage must lead through
a Red Sea, wherein many a Pharaoh will go under
and perish. Alas ! that we are not wise enough to be
just, or just enough to be wise, and so gain much at
smaU cost!
Look, now, at a few notorious facts :
I. There are four milhon slaves in the United States

SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
violently withheld from their natural right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, they are
our fellow-countrymen — yours and mine, just as
much as any four million white men. Of course, you
and I owe them the duty which one man owes another
of his own nation — the duty of instruction, advice,
and protection of natural rights. If they are starving,
we ought to help feed them. The color of their skins,
their degraded social condition, their ignorance, abates
nothing from their natural claim on us, or from our
natural duty toward them.
There are men in aU the Northern States who feel
the obligation which citizenship imposes on them —
the duty to help those slaves. Hence arose the Anti-
Slavery Society, which seeks simply to excite the
white people to perform their natural duty to their
dark fellow-countrymen. Hence comes Capt. Brown's
Expedition — an attempt to help his countrymen en-
joy their natural right to life, hberty, and the pur
suit of happiness. He sought by violence what the
Anti-Slavery Society works for with other weapons.
The two agree in the end, and differ only in the means.
Men like Capt. Brown will be continually rising up
among the white people of the free States, attempting
to do their natural duty to their black countrymen —
that is, help them to freedom. Some of these efforts
will be successful. Thus, last winter Capt. Brown
himself escorted eleven of his countrymen from bond
age in Missouri to freedom in Canada. He did not
snap a gun, I think ; although then, as more recently,
he had his fighting tools at hand, and would have used
them, if necessary. Even now the Underground
Railroad is in constant and beneficent operation. By
and by it will be an overground railroad from Mason

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 427
and Dixon's line clear to Canada: the only tunnelling
wiU be in the slave States. Northern men applaud
the brave conductors of that locomotive of liberty.
When Thomas Garrett was introduced to a meeting
of political Free-soilers in Boston, as the man who had
" helped 1800 slaves to their natural liberty," even
that meeting gave the righteous Quaker three times
three. All honest Northern hearts beat with admira
tion of such men; nay, with love for them. Young
lads say, " I wish that Heaven would make me such
a man." The wish will now and then be father to
the fact. You and I have had opportunity enough,
in twenty years, to see that this philanthropic patriot
ism is on the increase at the North, and the special
direction it takes is toward the liberation of their coun
trymen in bondage.
Not many years ago Boston sent money to help the
Greeks in their struggle for political freedom (they
never quite lost their personal liberty), but with the
money she sent what was more valuable and far more
precious, one of her most valiant and heroic sons, who
staid in Greece to fight the great battle of humanity.
Did your friend, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, lose the esteem
of New England men by that act? He won the ad
miration of Europe, and holds it still. Nay, still
later, the same dear old Boston — Hunkers have never
been more than rats and mice in her house, which
she suffers for a time, and then drives out, twelve
hundred of them at once on a certain day of March,
1776, — that same dear old Boston sent the same Dr.
Howe to carry aid and comfort to the Poles, then
in deadly struggle for their political existence. Was
he disgraced because he lay seven-and-forty days in
a Prussian jail in Berlin? Not even in the eyes of

428 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
the Prussian king, who afterwards sent him a gold
medal, whose metal was worth as many dollars as that
philanthropist lay days in the despot's jail. It is said,
" Charity should begin at home." The American be
gan a good way off, but has been working homeward
ever since. The Dr. Howe of to-day would and ought
to be more ready to help an American to personal hb
erty, than a Pole or a Greek to mere political freedom,
and would find more men to furnish aid and comfort to
our own countrymen, even if they were black. It would
not surprise me if there were other and well-planned
attempts in other States to do what Captain Brown
heroically, if not successfully, tried in Virginia.
Nine out of ten may fail — the tenth will succeed.
The victory over Gen. Burgoyne more than made up
for all the losses in many a previous defeat ; it was the
beginning of the end. Slavery will not die a dry
death, it may have as many lives as a cat; at last, it
will die like a mad dog in a village, with only the
enemies of the human kind to lament its fate, and they
too cowardly to appear as mourners.
II. But it is not merely white men who will fight
for the liberty of Americans; the negroes will take
their defense into their own hands, especially if they
can find white men to lead them. No doubt the Afri
can race is greatly inferior to the Caucasian in gen
eral intellectual power, and also in that instinct for lib
erty which is so strong in the Teutonic family, and just
now obvious in the Anglo-Saxons of Britain and Amer
ica ; besides, the African race have but little desire for
vengeance — the lowest form of the love of justice.
Here is one example out of many: In Santa Cruz
the old slave laws were the most horrible I think I
ever read of in modern times, unless those of the

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 429
Carolinas be an exception. If a slave excited others
to run away, for the first offense his right leg was to
be cut off ; for the second offense, his other leg. This
mutilation was not to be done by a surgeon's hand;
the poor wretch was laid down on a log, and his legs
chopped off with a plantation ax, and the stumps
plunged into boihng pitch to stanch the blood, and
so save the property from entire destruction; for the
live torso of a slave might serve as a warning. No
action of a court was requisite to inflict this punish
ment; any master could thus mutilate his bondman.
Even from 1830 to 1846, it was common for owners
to beat their offending victims with " tamarind rods "
six feet long and an inch in thickness at the bigger
end — rods thick set with ugly thorns. When that
process was over, the lacerated back was washed with
a decoction of the manchineel, a poison tree, which
made the wounds fester, and long remain open.
In 1846, the negroes were in " rebellion," and took
possession of the island; they were 25,000, the whites
3,000. But the blacks did not hurt the hair of a white
man's head; they got their freedom, but they took
no revenge! Suppose 25,000 Americans, held in
bondage by 3,000 Algerines on a little island, should
get their masters into their hands, how many of the
3,000 would see the next sun go down? No doubt it
is through the absence of this desire of natural venge
ance that the Africans have been reduced to bondage,
and kept in it.
But there is a limit even to the negro's forbearance.
San Domingo is not a great way off. The revolution
which changed its black inhabitants from tame slaves
into wild men, took place after you had ceased to call
yourself a boy. It shows what may be in America,

430 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
with no white man to help. In the slave States there is
many a possible San Domingo, which may become actual
any day ; and, if not in I860, then in some other year
of our Lord. Besides, America offers more than any
other country to excite the slave to love of liberty,
and the effort for it. We are always talking about
" liberty," boasting that we are " the freest people
in the world," declaring that " a man would die rather
than be a slave." We continuaUy praise our fathers
" who fought the Revolution." We build monuments
to commemorate even the humblest beginning of that
great national work. Once a year we stop aU ordi
nary work, and give up a whole day to the noisiest
kind of rejoicing for the War of Independence. How
we praise the " champions of liberty ! " How we
point out the " infamy of the British oppressors ! "
" They would make our fathers slaves," say we, " and
we slew the oppressor — Sic semper Tyrannis! "
Do you suppose this will fail to produce its effect on
the black man, one day? The South must either give
up keeping " Independence Day," or else keep it in
a little more thorough fashion. Nor is this all: the
Southerners are continuaUy taunting the negroes with
their miserable nature. " You are only half human,"
say they, " not capable of freedom." " Hay is good
for horses, not for hogs," said the philosophic Ameri
can, who now " represents the great Democracy " at the
court of Turin. So, " hberty is good for white men,
not for negroes." Have they souls? " I don't know
that — non mi ricordo." " Contempt," says the prov
erb, " will cut through the shell of the tortoise." And,
one day, even the sluggish African will wake up under
the threefold stimulus of the Fourth of July cannon,
the whip of the slaveholder, and the sting of his

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 431
heartless mockery. Then, if " oppression maketh wise
men mad," what do you think it wiU do to African
slaves, who are familiar with scenes of violence, and
aU manner of cruelty? Still more: if the negroes
have not general power of mind, or instinctive love
of liberty, equal to the whites, they are much our
superiors in power of cunning, and in contempt for
death — rather formidable qualities in a servile war.
There already have been several risings of slaves in
this century; they spread fear and consternation.
The future wiU be more terrible. Now, in case of an
insurrection, not only is there, as Jefferson said, " no
attribute of the Almighty " which can take sides with
the master, but there wiU be many white men who will
take part with the slave. Men like the Lafayettes
of the last century, and the Dr. Howes of this, may
give the insurgent negro as effectual aid as that once
rendered to America and Greece ; and the public opin
ion of an enlightened world will rank them among its
heroes of noblest mark.
If I remember rightly, some of your fathers were
in the battle of Lexington, and that at Bunker Hill.
I beheve, in the course of the war which followed,
every able-bodied man in your town (Newton) was in
actual service. Nowadays their descendants are
proud of the fact. One day it will be thought not
less heroic for a negro to fight for his personal liberty,
than for a white man to fight for political independ
ence, and against a tax of threepence a pound on tea.
Wait a little, and things will come round. ; r
III. The existence of slavery endangers all our
Democratic institutions. It does this if only tolerated
as an exceptional measure — a matter of present con
venience, and still more when proclaimed as an in-

432 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
stantial principle, a rule of political conduct for aU
time and every place. Look at this : In 1790 there
were (say) 300,000 slaves; soon they make their first
doubling, and are 600,000 ; then their second, 1,200,-
000 ; then their third, 2,400,000. They are now in
the process of doubhng the fourth time, and wiU soon
be 4,800,000; then comes the fifth double, 9,600,000;
then the sixth, 19,200,000. Before the year of
our Lord nineteen hundred there may be twenty milhon
slaves !
An Anglo-Saxon with common sense does not like
this Africanization of America ; he wishes the superior
race to multiply rather than the inferior. Besides,
it is plain to a one-eyed man that slavery is an irre
concilable enemy of the progressive development of
Democracy ; that, if allowed to exist, it must be allowed
to spread, to gain political, social, and ecclesiastical
power; and all that it gains for the slaveholders is
just so much taken from the freemen.
Look at this — there are twenty Southern repre
sentatives who represent nothing but property in man,
and yet their vote counts as much in Congress as the
twenty Northerners who stand for the will of 1,800,-
000 freemen. Slavery gives the South the same ad
vantage in the choice of President; consequently the
slaveholding South has long controUed the Federal
power of the nation. Look at the recent acts of the
slave power! The Fugitive Slave BiU, the Kansas-
Nebraska BiU, the Dred Scott decision, the filibuster
ing against Cuba (till found too strong), and now
against Mexico and other feeble neighbors, and, to
crown all, the actual re-opening of the African slave-
trade !
The South has kidnapped men in Boston, and made

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 433
the judges of Massachusetts go under her symbolic
chain to enter the courts of justice ( !) She has
burned houses and butchered innocent men in Kansas,
and the perpetrators of that wickedness were re
warded by the Federal Government with high office
and great pay! Those things are notorious; they
have stirred up some little indignation at the North,
and freemen begin to think of defending their liberty.
Hence came the Free-soil party, and hence the Re
pubhcan party — it contemplates no direct benefit to
the slave, only the defense of the white man in his
national rights, or his conventional privileges. It will
grow stronger every year, and also bolder. It must
lay down principles as a platform to work its measure
on ; the principles wiU be found to require much more
than what was at first proposed, and even from this
platform Republicans wiU promptly see that they
cannot defend the natural rights of freemen without
destroying that slavery which takes away the natural
rights of a negro. So, first, the wise and just men
of the party wiU sympathize with such as seek to lib
erate the slaves, either peacefully or by violence ; next,
they wiU declare their opinions in public; and, finally,
the whole body of the party wiU come to the same
sympathy and the same opinion. Then, of course, they
wiU encourage men like Capt. Brown, give him money
and aU manner of help, and also encourage the slaves
whenever they shaU rise to take their liberty, at all
hazards. When called to help put down an insurrec
tion of the slaves, they will go readily enough and do
the work by removing the cause of insurrection —
that is — by destroying slavery itself.
An anti-slavery party, under one name or another,
will before long control the Federal Government, and
XIV— 28

434 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
will exercise its constitutional rights, and perform
its constitutional duty, and " guarantee a Republican
form of government to every State in the Union."
That is a work of time and peaceful legislation. But
the short work of violence will be often tried, and
each attempt will gain something for the cause of hu
manity, even by its dreadful process of blood.
IV. But there is yet another agency that will act
against slavery. There are many mischievous persons
who are ready for any wicked work of violence. They
abound in the city of New York (a sort of sink where
the villany of both hemispheres settles down, and gen
ders that moral pestilence which steams up along the
columns of the New York Herald and the New York
Observer,1 the great escape-pipes of secular and eccle
siastical wickedness) ; they commit the great crimes
of violence and robbery at home, plunder emigrants,
and engage in the slave-trade, or venture on filibuster
ing expeditions. This class of persons is common
in all the South. One of the legitimate products of
her " peculiar institutions," they are familiar with
violence, ready and able for murder. Pubhc opinion
sustains such men. Bully Brooks was but one of their
representatives in Congress. Nowadays they are
fond of slavery, defend it, and seek to spread it. But
the time must come one day — it may come any time
— when the lovers of mischief will do a little filibuster
ing at home, and rouse up the slaves to rob, burn,
and kill. Prudent carpenters sweep up aU the shav
ings in their shops at night, and remove this food of
conflagration to a safe place, lest the spark of a
candle, the end of a cigar, or a friction-match should
swiftly end their wealth, slowly gathered together.
The South takes pains to strew her carpenter's shop

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 435
with shavings, and fill it full thereof. She encour
ages men to walk abroad with naked candles in their
hands and lighted cigars in their mouths; then they
scatter friction-matches on the floor, and dance a
filibustering jig thereon. She cries, "Well done!
Hurrah for Walker!" "Hurrah for Brooks!"
" Hurrah for the bark ' Wanderer ' and its cargo of
slaves ! Up with the bowie-knife ! Down with justice
and humanity ! " The South must reap as she sows ;
where she scatters the wind, the whirlwind will come
up. It will be a pretty crop for her to reap.
Within a few years the South has burned alive eight
or ten negroes. Other black men looked on, and
learned how to fasten the chain, how to pile the green
wood, how to set this hell-fire of slavery a-going.
The apprentice may be slow to learn, but he has had
teaching enough by this time to know the art and
mystery of torture; and, depend upon it, the negro
will one day apply it to his old tormentors. The
fire of vengeance may be waked up even in an African's
heart, especiaUy when it is fanned by the wickedness
of a white man: then it runs from man to man, from
town to town. What shall put it out? The white
man's blood!
Now, slavery is a wickedness so vast and so old, so
rich and so respectable, supported by the State, the
press, the market, and the Church, that aU those agen
cies are needed to oppose it with — those, and many
more which I cannot speak of now. You and I pre
fer the peaceful method ; but I, at least, shall welcome
the violent, if no other accomplish the end. So wiU
the great mass of thoughtful and good men at the
North; else why do we honor the heroes of the Revo
lution, and build them monuments all over our blessed

436 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
New England? I think you gave money for that of
Bunker HiU : I once thought it a f oUy ; now I recog
nize it as a great sermon in stone, which is worth not
only all the money it cost to build it, but all the blood
it took to lay its corner-stones. Trust me, its lesson
will not be in vain — at the North, I mean, for the
logic of slavery wiU keep the South on its lower
course, and drive it on more swiftly than before.
" Capt. Brown's expedition was a failure," I hear
it said. I am not quite sure of that. True, it kUls
fifteen men by sword and shot, and four or five men
by the gallows. But it shows the weakness of the
greatest slave State in America, the worthlessness of
her soldiery, and the utter fear which slavery genders
in the bosoms of the masters. Think of the condi
tion of the city of Washington while Brown was at
work! Brown will die, I think, like a martyr, and also hke
a saint. His noble demeanor, his unflinching brav
ery, his gentleness, his calm, religious trust in God,
and his words of truth and soberness, cannot faU to
make a profound impression on the hearts of North
ern men ; yes, and on Southern men. For " every hu
man heart is human." I do not think the money
wasted, nor the lives thrown away. Many acorns must
be sown to have one come up ; even then, the plant
grows slow; but it is an oak at last. None of the
Christian martyrs died in vain; and from Stephen,
who was stoned at Jerusalem, to Mary Dyer, whom
our fathers hanged on a bough of " the great tree "
on Boston Common, I think there have been few spirits
more pure and devoted than John Brown's, and none
that gave up their breath in a nobler cause. Let the
American State hang his body, and the American

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 437,
Church damn his soul; stiU, the blessing of such as
are ready to perish will faU on him, and the universal
justice of the infinitely perfect God will take him wel
come home. The road to heaven is as short from the
gaUows as from a throne ; perhaps, also, as easy.
The sad tidings from America — my friends in
peril, in exile, in jaU, kiUed, or to be hung — have
fiUed me with grief, and so I faU back a little, in
health ; but hope to get forward again. God bless you
and yours, and comfort you!
Ever affectionately yours,
Theodore Parker.
In writing to his friend and traveling companion,
Joseph Lyman, December 10, Parker spoke again on
this tragic subject, as he did to several of his corre
spondents. To Joseph Lyman of Boston
"All the details of the Harper's Ferry affair are soon made
known to us, and we see how the slaveholders hold their Bloody
Assizes in Virginia. Well, — the worse they behave, the better
for us and for ours. This is the beginning of birth-pains;
the end is far enough away. How often have I wished that
I was in my old place, and at my old work! But I too, should
have had to 'straighten a rope,' or else to flee off, no doubt;
for it is not likely I could have kept out of harm's way in
Boston. I sent a letter to Francis Jackson touching the mat
ter. Wendell (Phillips) said brave things, but also some rash
and foolish ones, which I am sorry for. But the whole was
noble. Beecher » is faithful to his clerical instinct of cunning, —
not his personal, of humanity, I read his sermon with disgust,
and Furness's with pain. Noble, brave Garrison is true to him
self, as always; and says, J:
" ' I am a non-resistant, Sid would not pull a trigger to free
four million men. But Captain Brown in his fighting is faith
ful to his conscience, as I to mine, and acted as nobly as
Cromwell or Washington, — yes nobler, for his act was pure
philanthropy. All honor to the fighting saint, now he is also
a martyr.'

438 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
"That is the short of what the Liberator says. I did not
quite like Howe's letter; one of the detective police would read
in it that Howe was deeply implicated in both of Brown's ex
peditions. I wonder if I shall see him here before winter is
over? I hope Sumner is at work in Congress, and sound and
well. Who is there except him to say a brave word in Wash
ington? Only Seward and Adams. But let these things pass
now. I feel about Brown as you do; perhaps we both have
the same reason for it, and it made me sleepless and sick to
think of his fate, and that, more difficult to bear, of the
women who suffer most in this matter. How grandly the brave
old man bore himself! what a deportment at the attack on
the arsenal, at the trial, in the jail, on the scaffold! It is not
once in many ages we get sight of such a spectacle. No
American has such a chance for fame, — for mere earthly im
mortality. It was good, too, that he came of such a lineage,
right out of the heart of New England; a plain man with a
common education, hard-working and intelligent, very thoughtful
and a little silent; not talking out but working out his great
schemes, and descended from a Revolutionary captain and a
Pilgrim in the 'Mayflower.' That is to come of the aristocratic
blood of New England.
" How admirably our best men have behaved, — Garrison,
Emerson, Wendell Phillips, — surpassing himself, the noble man,
— and dropping all extravagance at just the time when even a
plain statement seems excessive panegyric to an outsider. How
well Wheelock spoke at the Music Hall ! "
Francis Jackson wrote to Parker, February 24, of
his son's testimony before the Senate committee which
took the evidence of Howe, Stearns and Andrew, but
lacked several witnesses who were much desired, but
did not go before them. Jackson said:
"You ask if it will be wise for you to return before the
adjournment of Congress, lest you might be summoned to
Washington to testify? If you will tell me the naughty things
you have done, and the horrid secrets you may have to dis
close, I should be more able to advise. My son James, being
the legal attorney of my grandson, F. J. Meriam, he telegraphed
to James from Baltimore, four days before the outbreak, to
send him $600 in gold, immediately. He did send it by ex
press, and sent a message over the wires that he had sent.
The slaveholders examine messages at that end of the wires;

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 439
they saw that James Jackson of Boston had sent Meriam
money, therefore James was summoned to tell who furnished
the money. He went to Washington about four weeks since,
and I will quote some portions of his letter to me from Wash
ington: " ' On arriving at Washington, I called on Senator Sumner,
spent an hour with him at his room, found him in good health,
pleased to see me, and very communicative. I advised with
him about my appearance before the committee, and he gave
me a letter to Senator Doolittle, one of the committee. I called
on him; found him a very pleasant and agreeable person, mid
dle-aged and fine-looking; he questioned me and advised. I then
called on the sergeant-at-arms, and told him what I was there
for: he conducted me to the committee-room.
" ' Senator Mason asked me if my name was James Jackson?
Yes. What relation do you bear to F. J. Meriam? I am his
uncle. He then approached me with a small-sized Bible in
his hand, holding its title to my view, and asked me to swear
that I would tell the whole truth, etc. I felt deep indignation
at being thus confronted and insulted by the author of the
Fugitive Slave Bill. The tyrant then began to question me.
"Did you send money to Meriam in Baltimore? How much?
In bills or gold? How came you to send it? Where did you
get it? Whose money was it? Did you know how Meriam was
going to use it? Do you know James Redpath? How long
since you saw him, and where? Do you know Lewis Hayden?
Did he have any of Meriam's money?"
" ' He kept questioning me for upwards of half an hour, but
got nothing material from me whatever. "The money was
Meriam's own, bequeathed to him in his father's will; he was
of age, and I his legal attorney, obeying his directions, etc."
Senator Mason's personal appearance is no wise attractive; he
is large, burly and coarse-looking, has a well-formed head with
thin grey hair. . He is a good personification of a tyrant. The
clerk of the committee gave me a check for $98.20 which he
said was the amount of my claim; this I thought was most
ample, as I had been in Washington only two days and a half.
Sumner told me that it cost the government nearly two thousand
dollars to get Richard Realf 9 here from Texas; and that they
are using up an enormous amount of money in their examina
tions.' "
No doubt Parker would have been summoned to
testify if he had been at home, and in condition to
endure the fatigue of examination. He was aware

440 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
that he had compromised himself with the pro-slavery
men in many ways, and he had as much knowledge
of Brown's general plans as I had. His allusion
to Dr. Howe's letter published in November, 1859,
calls for a brief explanation. It was unfortunate, for
it was sure to be misunderstood, and to require an
explanation: silence, which his associates adopted,
would have been much better. Howe's own explana
tion, in a letter to Parker of January 22, I860, was
this: "After careful consultation with friends of the cause, I
concluded that a public disclaimer by me of knowledge of the
Harper's Ferry affair would rather help Brown than other
wise; because if he were shown to be an isolated individual,
acting for himself, and not the agent of others, the affair
would be less formidable, and the desire of vengeance less
strong. I meant, of course, to convey only the impression that
I was not party to nor privy to the raid; but did not mean
that it should be taken for an entire disclaimer of my former
relations with Brown. I meant that, so far as it had any
effect, it should increase the chances of Brown's escape; and
I still believe that if others could have followed my example,
— could have repressed any public manifestation of sympathy,
and shown, so far as they could truthfully do it, that they
had no part in or knowledge of the old man's plans, — that his
head alone planned the enterprise, his energies gathered the
men, and his arm struck the blow and all without the knowledge
or sympathy of any but a trio or quartette of friends, — if
this could have been done, (and it might have been done with
out violation of truth) Brown might have been now alive.
I am very sorry that my card seems to have conveyed an
impression stronger than I meant it to do, — that of a total
disclaimer. . . . There are reasons for my wishing to testify
in some formal way about Brown. I want to express the ad
miration and respect I feel for the old hero, and I think I
ought to do it."
Accordingly Howe went to Washington and testi
fied before Mason's committee, and there the matter
should have rested. The truth is that Dr. Howe, a

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 441
man of genius, if ever there was one, and of that
highest type of genius, which made him the " servant
of humanity," as his biographers have caUed him, had
also the defects of genius, and could not reason very
logically. Young persons of much inferior genius,
like myself, but with greater caution and logical fac
ulty, could see that the philanthropic impulse of
Howe, aided, I must think, by the advice of persons
who had the fears of the politician in mind, could
not, even by miracle, have saved the life of Brown in
the manner above indicated. Nothing but a forcible
rescue from his Virginia prison would save his heroic
hfe, — and that he refused to have attempted. He
saw, and reasoned more clearly than Howe, that his
death on the scaffold was the best service he could
then render to the cause for which he had all his hfe
contended. Time has justified his faith in that re
spect; his hfe if saved, might have extended the life
of slavery for twenty years ; his death and its in
spiring results brought slavery to its foreordained end
in less than six years.
Before Parker knew accurately the facts concerning
Gerrit Smith, and while he was anticipating that Dr.
Howe, and perhaps myself, might join him in Italy,
he wrote as follows to Smith, whom he knew well.
The copy came to me in Mrs. Parker's clear hand
writing, along with the mass of manuscripts she be
queathed to me at her own death in 1875.
"Rome, 16th Feb., 1860.
"My Dear Me. Smith, — It is with great pain that I have
heard of the illness which the recent distressing events have
brought on your much-enduring frame, which was so shattered
by illness before. When I saw you last* I did not think that
* This was at the Revere House, Boston, May 24, 1858, at a
conference about John Brown.

442 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
my next letter would be from such a place or for such a
purpose. But such is the uncertainty of all mortal things.
Some of the rumors relate that you will perhaps come to
Europe for health. If this be so, I trust I shall have the
good fortune to meet you somewhere. We have many Ameri
cans at Rome, — two or three hundred, it is said, — of whom
about forty are from Boston, not to mention the permanent
inhabitants. So you see one need not lack companionship. Be
sides, here are many more from Massachusetts and New Eng
land. " I feel great anxiety about the immediate future of America;
the remote future I have no doubts about. We must see much
darker hours before it is daylight, — darker and also bloody, I
think; for nations seldom settle their difficulties without passion
— and so without what comes of passion. The slaveholders are in
great wrath. I am waiting for the Supreme Court of the
United States, (in the Lemmon case), to decide, as it must,
that a master may take his slaves in transit through a free
State, and keep them in it a reasonable time, subject not only
to his own caprice, but defiant of the laws of that State. Cer
tainly, the slaveholders must have eminent domain over the free
States and bondage must exercise right of way in New York
and New England. — Next year, or the year after, it must de
cide for the African slave trade ! ' There is one general griev
ance,' said Oliver Cromwell in the House of Commons, 'and
that is the law!'
" But I did not mean to worry you with a long letter, so
with heartiest sympathy for your sufferings and profound re
spect for your character and services, believe me,
" Faithfully and truly yours,
" Theodoee Paekee."
Writing to Dr. Flint of Boston at the end of that
fatal year, 1859, Parker said:
"Well, the Harper's Ferry affair is over. The effect is not
over, — nor ever will be. Brown's little spark was not put out
till it had kindled a fire which will burn down much more than
even far-sighted men look for. The Northern sky is full of
lightning long treasured up; Brown was one bright clear flash
into the Southern ground; the thunder rattles all over the
Union now. There will be other strokes by and by. These
things are only the beginning of sorrows; but they are the
birth-sorrows of freedom, not the pains of death. Really I
think the Twenty-eighth Society may be thankful their minister

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 443
fell into a consumption a year ago, for I believe they would
rather lose me by a cough than a halter."
Writing to Dr. Howe (Feb. 14, I860,) Parker
said: "Our political affairs look very ill, but all the more hopeful
for that reason; they must be much worse before they can be
at all better. The ' Irrepressible Conflict ' comes on ; and when
the North, in the multiplicity of its interests, looks at the
one great fundamental matter, which concerns the existence of
freedom, and shows its teeth, — then the slaveholders will yield
to the superior force that is brought against them. Still I
think we shall see bloodshed before we get through. It is a
dreadful problem before us. . . . Certainly the most de
structive weapon with which to smite the American Democracy
is the negro-slave. Take that tool away from the hands of
Mason, Wise, and their fire-eating coadjutors, at the South, and
their dirt-eating vassals at the North, and they are as power
less as any other old hens, clucking to prevent the sunrise. But
so long as the despots in America have got 4,000,000 of these
black missiles to shoot at us, Republicanism will be in great
danger, and may go to the ground. . . ." (March 23.) " I like
not the look of things in the Republican party. Seward's speech
came to-day, but I expect not much satisfaction from it, more
from Abraham Lincoln at the Cooper Institute. Once gov
ernors, senators, representatives, etc., were the leaders of the
rank and file, whom they instructed, directed and commanded.
The people looked up to Sam. Adams and John Adams for
counsel and direction. Now these functionaries are servants
to obey the rank and file; they give little counsel, are seldom
in advance thereof; but as they have not wholly lost the tradi
tional notion of old time, they refuse to obey the better por
tion of their constituency. ' It will offend the slaveholders ; it
will injure the party' etc.''
Thus did Parker forecast the period immediately
foUowing, or just preceding, the election of Lincoln;
and thus did he intimate his latent distrust of Seward,
and his confidence in Abraham Lincoln, whom he had
learned to know through his six years' correspondence
with Herndon. From the same source, and from his
own observation, Parker formed the most unfavorable

444 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
opinion of Senator Douglas of Illinois, and in the fa
mous contests of 1856 and 1858, had admired Lin
coln's modest strength and proved capacity, and de
spised the policy of Greeley and Henry Wilson, who
hoped to make a good Republican out of Douglas.
He had written to Herndon in August, 1858:
" I read the speeches, the noble speeches of Mr. Lincoln with
enthusiasm. I never recommended the Republicans to adopt
Douglas into their family. I said in a speech last winter,
'He is a mad dog'; just now he is barking at the wolf which
has torn our sheep; but he is himself more dangerous than
the wolf. I think I should not let him into the fold. Greeley
is not fit for a leader; he is capricious, crotchety, full of whims
and wrong-headed. He is honest, I think, but pitiably weak,
for a man in such a position. But he is quite humane, and
surrounds himself (in the Tribune) with some of the best
talent in the country." (Sept. 9, 1858). "You say right; an
attempt is making to lower the Republican platform. Depend
upon it, this effort would ruin the party; it ruined the Whig
party, 1840-48. Then Daniel Webster stood on higher anti-
slavery ground than Lincoln now. Greeley's conduct is base; I
had never any confidence in him. He has no talent for a leader.
If the Republicans sacrifice their principles for success, they
will not be lifted up, but blown up. I trust Lincoln will
conquer." He did not in 1858, but he and his friend Trumbull
prevented lowering the party standard in Illinois, and
thus made victory possible in 1860, though Parker did
not live to witness it. Webster himself lowered the
standard in 1850; Lincoln held it up in 1858-60.
He was the antipodes of Webster, and as deadly an
opponent of slavery as Parker, or John Brown him
self. Late in March, 1860, feeling himself slowly dying,
Parker wrote as foUows, — and though the tone
of the letter is pessimistic, the acute perceptions of
this political philosopher seemed only sharpened by his
increasing feebleness:

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 445
" I have studied the philosophy of Roman history more min
utely than before, and think I have 'got the hang' of the
people and their institutions. They were coarse, material, war
like but energetic and full of will. They invented nothing.
What Virgil makes Anchises say is true.
Excudent allii spirantia mollius aera, etc.
Mneid, VI. 848.10
I wish what follows were as true, —
Hoe tibi erunt artes, — pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.
This they never did. It is instructive to see how all their
political troubles followed as the logical necessity of their first
principles. It is just so in the United States to7day. When
the Federal Government undertook to capture fugitive slaves
by its own arm in 1793, it acknowledged the right of man to
own property in man, as much as in land and things; and as it
did not offer to recover other runaway property, it actually
declared this peculiarly worthy of executive protection. From
this first principle all subsequent slave legislation has proceeded
with inevitable logic. In January I began to write you (J.
Lyman) a long elaborate letter on the great problem of Amer
ican politics, — to establish an Industrial democracy with its
two questions, immediate, proximate and ultimate. That is,
(1) Shall the party that claims man can be the property of
man, continue to wield the Federal power? (2) Shall that
doctrine be allowed to develop itself in any individual State?
But I shall never be well enough to do it ! "
These two questions were taken up practically by
the American people, in the year of Parker's death,
when his friend Lincoln was chosen President, in spite
of Douglas. The second question was settled on the
basis of Brown's revolutionary action in Virginia;
man's property in man could not be allowed in any
State, — the compromises of the Constitution to the
contrary notwithstanding. The Union must be re
constituted, as John Quincy Adams had foreseen,11 on
the basis of emancipation by force, — which was
Brown's doctrine, and became Lincoln's. All this was
decided in the five years after Parker wrote as above.
He then went on to say:

446 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
"Seward's speech (of February 1860) is able, statesman
like, wide-looking; but it shows two things: (1) he is satisfied
the Republicans have fallen back since 1858; (2) that he will
accommodate himself to that low standard, to gain votes for the
Presidency." This remark shows that Parker was losing faith in
Seward, who was defeated in the Chicago Convention
by the more radical and sincere Lincoln. For him
Parker, John Brown and Herndon had cleared the
ground of many obstacles, before the first emancipa
tion proclamation of 1862 ; which was opposed by the
same Bostonians and Cambridge and Andover pro
fessors who had supported Webster in his pro-slavery
declarations of March, 1850.
John Brown, upon his defeat and martyrdom in
1859, became one of the accepted heroes of the Ameri
can people and of the civilized world, — a fact which
was evident in our Civil War, when millions of our
soldiers fought to restore the Union which Brown's
action had tended to preserve, although its first effect,
both in Kansas and Virginia, had been to destroy that
confederation which admitted what Brougham called
" the wild and guilty fantasy that man can hold prop
erty in man." That evil root of discord once plucked
out, there was no reason why a real Union, on the basis
of the Jeffersonian Declaration of 1776, so cordiaUy
supported by Lincoln, should not exist and be per
petual. But those few men who had heard Brown's
secret purpose, and had aided it with their money
and their prayers, have still some need, apparently, to
justify their action and his, in making the continu
ance of negro slavery impossible. Parker was one of
these men; he never regretted his action, nor dis
owned his comrades, nor doubted what the final result
of such action must be.

THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN 447
It would have been hard to find in the whole na
tion four persons of mature years who had served
their country and civilization longer and better, with
less regard to their own prosperity and safety, than
Gerrit Smith, John Brown, Dr. Howe and Theodore
Parker. All were men of ideas and of practical
affairs ; each had managed his own scheme of life
with fidelity, and fair success ; three of them were
men of wide influence, always exerted for the good
of mankind. Their associates, of less note, showed
afterwards by their uniform conduct, that they
sought the good of others more than their own
ease or riches. All were firmly persuaded, long before
the mass of the people saw the danger, that negro
slavery was to be the ruin of the Republic which their
ancestors had founded in the name of liberty. They
therefore determined to do what they could to remove
that curse, and they either died in the full confidence
that it had received its death blow, or lived to see it
completely uprooted, and the mass of the people, now
grown to nearly a hundred millions, rejoicing in its
overthrow. Other evils are now prominent; none so
poisonous, so insidious or so arrogant, as was slavery
while it controlled our national pohcy, foreign and
domestic. The few survivors of the band that stood by
John Brown, of whom Parker was one of the most
eminent, retain the opinion with which he and they
took their unproclaimed course in 1855-60 ; namely,
that negro slavery was a plague to be removed by any
means that would first destroy its vitality; and that
such a man as Brown had shown himself to be, should
be assisted to wound its vital parts, whatever the stat
utes might say or omit. The safety of the people,

448 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
the maintenance of hberty, and obedience to divine
command were law enough for them. Caring httle
for their reputation among men, they now find them
selves in agreement with the great majority of good
citizens, whose fathers and grandfathers once viewed
with disfavor any effort to remove an acknowledged
evil by violence. They acted with premeditation and
deliberately, and though the result surprised them by
its swiftness, it was in essence what Parker had an
ticipated, and the coming of which he had constantly
predicted, if the Repubhc itself was to continue.

NOTES

NOTES I
THE LIFE OF ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
This " chapter out of the middle ages " is included
in Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's CoUected Works,
Vol. IX, pp. 76-119. It is characteristic of the thor
oughness with which Parker prepared his critical
papers that before writing this review article on " The
Life of St. Bernard " he read everything attainable
which had been written on the subject in ancient or
modern times; besides the writings of Bernard and
Abelard, the works of Dupin, Mabillon, Fenelon, Er-
naldo, Cousin, Schroekh, Neander, Heinrot, Amnion,
etc. Page 1, note 1. Scholasticism was the phil
osophical and theological movement dominant in Eu
rope during the middle ages, and marked especiaUy
by its application of classical logic and philosophy to
the support and interpretation of theological dogmas
and the authority of the Church. The latter, as the
universal legatee of the Roman Empire and the Chris
tian Revelation, claimed absolute dominion over the
souls of men and the social order. Outside of her
pale there was no salvation and no assured knowledge.
Her dogmas were the absolute truth. They were
therefore not to be investigated or criticized. The
office of philosophy was only to explain them, to prove
their rationality and demonstrate their truth. Phi
losophy as it is understood to-day, in the sense of an
independent search for truth, was accounted heresy.
Little by little, during the period between the 11th and
16th centuries, this union of philosophy and theology,
in the service of the latter, constituted itself.
451

452 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
Scotus Erigena may be accounted the founder of
Scholasticism. Lanfranc, St. Anselm, Abelard, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus
were its most illustrious representatives. " Scholasti
cism," says Hegel, " was modern science in an embry
onic state. It was the philosophy of European na
tions developing itself in the maternal bosom of the
Church under the form of theology." It had its
period of youthfulness, of virile manhood, and its
decadence. In its earlier history it was under the in
fluence of Platonic idealism and the Aristotelian logic.
After that it was characterized by a full adaptation
of the Aristotelian philosophy. It wasted itself at the
end of the 14th century in the strife between the Real
ists and Nominalists, and sank into mere puerilities of
discussion. At the close of the 15th century the grad
ual emancipation of the human intellect, the growing
denial of the authority of dogma and of the Church,
and the liberal reaction inaugurated by the era of the
Renaissance, put an end to the influence of Scholasti
cism. No longer an intellectual power, it has taken
refuge in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church,
of which it is to-day the official phUosophy ex
pounded and taught in her seminaries.
Page %h note 2. St. Bernard's devotion to
Mariolatry should be adduced in describing his career
and services. While he resisted the doctrine of her
immaculate conception he was one of the most ardent
worshipers of the Virgin as the mediatress of humanity
before the throne of Christ and God. From an his
torical and critical point of view this exaltation of the
peasant mother of Jesus of Nazareth is mistaken and
unjustifiable; But sentimentally and in the imagina
tive' life of the soul it has its aspects of beauty and
tenderness. This poetic idealization of motherhood, its
purity, sympathy and affection, humanized both the
worship and creed of the medieval church, and pro-

NOTES 453
f oundly influenced the feelings and manners of Western
Christendom. As Chaucer tells us
" — in reference of the hevenes Queen
We ought to worship all women that beene."
Mariolatry belongs to the realm of poetry and legend,
not of fact and truth, and with the decay of the ideals
of ancient chivalry and different and higher concep
tions of true womanhood, the worship of the Virgin
Mother has largely lost its charm and efficacy. It has
hardened into a dogma and degenerated into a super
stition. Thus Pope Pius X writes of Mary as a " Co-
Redeemer " with Christ. But in Bernard's day it was
a development of Catholic doctrine to be welcomed and
treasured. No one did more to advance it than St.
Bernard. Therefore in Dante's immortal poem Ber
nard appears in the final scene and commits the poet
to the care of the Virgin, fervently praying her to
purge the poet's eyes that he may look on the Divine
Light. (Paradise XXXI, XXXII.) The best biog
raphies of Bernard in English are the translation of
Neander's German work which appeared in London in
1843; J. C. Morison's, London, 1863 (new edition
revised 1884), and an eloquent and discriminating
sketch by Richard S. Storrs, 1892.
Page 37, note 3. Peter Abelard was born near
Nantes, France, in 1079, and listened at Paris to the
lectures of WiUiam of Champeaux, the most skilful dis
putant of his day. Breaking with his master, whose
indignation had been aroused by the presumptuous
criticism of his utterances by his brilliant pupil, Abelard
withdrew from the university, and, in his 22d year,
opened a school at Melun. A reconciliation with
Champeaux brought him back to Paris again, where
he thenceforth taught with unparalleled success.^ A
victim to the rancor of the Canon Fulbert, whose gifted
niece he had betrayed and afterwards married, holding

454 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
that an ecclesiastic without pastoral functions was not
bound by the vow of celibacy, he was compelled to
retire from Paris. He entered the Abbey of St. Denis,
but soon left it in disgust at its profligacy. Heloise
took the veil at the Convent of Argenteuil. Abelard
occupied himself during his retreat in writing his
treatise De Trimtate, and in so doing brought down
upon himself the thunderbolts of the Church. At
Soissons he was compelled, in 1122, to deliver up his
own work to the flames. At Nogent-sur-Seine he now
founded an oratory, which he dedicated especially to
the paraclete, the Holy Spirit. But when later on,
Heloise and her sister-nuns were driven by the cupidity
of a prelate from their sanctuary at ArgenteuU,
Abelard relinquished the paraclete to her, and himself
became Abbe of St. Gildas du Ruys. At this period
he was again denounced as a heretic, St. Bernard being
his chief accuser. The story of his trial and con
demnation to death by the sword, forms an unedifying
chapter in the career of St. Bernard, whose unfairness
and bitterness disclosed not only his horror of heresy,
but the harsher aspects of his character. The two men
may be said to have typified the two opposing tenden
cies of their day. St. Bernard represented what was
best in medieval piety, its reverence and obedience, its
self-renunciation, its austere virtues and reforming
spirit, its love of God and yearning sympathy for hu
man souls. But he also shared the hmitations of his
age, and holding heresy as the greatest of sins, his
desire for its extirpation led him into exercises of
fanatic cruelty.
Abelard was the thinker, the innovator of his day.
He was inteUectually much superior to his persecutor.
His subtle and keen understanding, his dialectic skill,
his eloquence and wit far surpassed St. Bernard's. He
was devout also, in his own way. But his was a dry
intellect, destitute of spiritual warmth or moral en-

NOTES 455
thusiasm. He was vain of his abilities, desirous of the
praise of men, and singularly wanting in sanity and
balance of judgment. Most of his misfortunes must
be attributed to his own impulsiveness and indiscretion.
Yet we must recognize in his premature revolt against
the dogmas and authority of the church of his day
the dawning of that spirit of free inquiry and indi
vidual independence which was the forerunner of
Protestantism and of modern historical and critical
science. Abelard was the keenest, bravest and most
independent of the Schoolmen. Respectful towards the
Church he does not hesitate on occasion to incur its
displeasure. He dares to speak of " the credulous
presumption which accommodates itself more and more
to the doctrine which is offered it before having ex
amined whether it is worthy of belief." " Doctors of
the Church should be read, not with the compulsion
to believe, but with liberty to judge." He speaks with
admiration of the Greek philosophers, and finds in
them all the essential doctrines of Christianity, — God,
the Trinity, the Incarnation, — and asks whether eter
nal felicity is to be refused such thinkers simply be
cause they have not known Christ. The Gospel, he
says, is nothing else than the reform of natural law,
legis naturalis reformatio. The three persons in the
Trinity he explains as three attributes — proprietates
non essentiae — of the Divine Being, namely Power,
Wisdom, Goodness. Separately these three are
naught; together they constitute the absolute perfec
tion — tota perfectio boni. The Trinity is the Being
who can do what he wishes, and who wishes that which
he knows to be the best. Abelard was also the first
to attempt to frame a system of morality apart from
dogma. The outcome of the trial was the condemnation of
Abelard, but he was spared the execution of the sen
tence pronounced against him. In Peter the Ven-

456 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
erable, Abbot of Clugny, he found an unlooked-for
protector. St. Bernard's wrath was appeased and
Abelard was permitted to end his days in this monastic
retreat in peace. Worn out by controversy and strife
he died in 1142. Besides his work on the Trinity his
other notable publications were his Letters, his Intro-
ductio ad theologiam and his Theologia Christiana, his
Ethics, the " Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew
and a Christian," and his treatise Sic et Non.
Abelard exercised a great influence and his thought
leavened the next three hundred years. Of his pupils
twenty-five are said to have become cardinals, includ
ing Pope Alexander III., and fifty bishops. His dis
ciple, Arnold of Brescia, carried his ideas into the
political realm and sought to establish an ideal Chris
tian Commonwealth.
Page 48, note 4. Realism and Nominalism con
stituted two opposing schools of thought in the
scholastic philosophy of the middle ages. The under
lying problem of scholastic speculation was concerning
the real and independent existence of general or gen
eric concepts called " Universalia " or Universals, and
whether, if real, they necessarily involve substantial
being. The Realists maintained the affirmative of this
proposition. They held that logical genera and spe
cies are real things existing independently and apart
from our conceptions of them or names for them, and
are the real objects of thought when names are used.
Following Plato they affirmed that Universals exist
before the individual concrete object, and are creative
types, exemplars in the Divine Mind. The Aristotehan
Realists held that Universal concepts exist in phenom
ena as their essence.
Opposed to this school were the Nominalists who
taught that Universals, or general conceptions, have
no antecedents or independent existence. They are
mere names, — nomina, — and are derived from a com-

NOTES 457
parison of individual things and their qualities. Ob
servation of many individual things yields the abstract
conceptions we call general or universal ideas.
These speculative questions receive little attention in
our day, but were regarded as most important in the
middle ages, and assumed practical value when applied
to such doctrines as the Trinity, the Atonement and
Original Sin.
Page 56, note 5. Hymettus, a mountain three
miles from Athens, famous for its colonies of bees, its
wax and honey.
Anticyra, the name of a city of Ancient Greece
known for its heUebore, which was held to be a curative
herb of singular power. Hence the city was much
resorted to, especially by those suffering from mental
derangement. This circumstance gave rise to a num
ber of proverbial expressions. II
CUDWORTH'S INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM
Page 58, note 1. This article appeared in the Chris
tian Examiner, Vol. XXVII, p. 289, January, 1840,
as a review of the following volume: The True In
teUectual System of the Universe, wherein all the Rea
son and Philosophy of Atheism is confuted, and its
Impossibility demonstrated. A Treatise on Immutable
Morahty ; with a Discourse concerning the True Notion
of the Lord's Supper ; and two Sermons on I John ii,
3, 4, and I Cor. xv, 57. By Ralph Cudworth, D.D.
First American Edition ; with References to the several
Quotations in the Intellectual System ; and an Account
of the Life and Writings of the Author; by Thomas
Birch, M. A., F. R. S., 2 vols., 8vo., 1838. Andover:
published by Gould & Newman.
Page 61, note #. Dr. Henry More was born in
1614, and educated at Eton and Cambridge, where

458 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
he was the contemporary and friend of Cudworth and
other of the divines and scholars later known as Lati
tude Men. He was a zealous scholar, possessed an
acute mind and lovable disposition, and was profoundly
pious. His natural tendency to mysticism was fed by
his study of the Platonic writers. His first literary
efforts were poems of mystical import. Such was his
" Psychozoia, the Life of the Soul." " He had," says
his biographer, " a wonderful sense of God," saw all
His perfections reflected in the visible world, and de
cided to make it the object of his life to demonstrate
the principles of natural and revealed religion, and to
recommend the practice of morality and virtue — the
Christian or divine life, to his fellowmen. He was
learned in the Greek philosophies, in the Scriptures,
the Jewish Kabbala, and the mystics of the ages, and
had also studied the science of his day. Inheriting a
comfortable estate he settled down as a fellow of
Christ's CoUege, never married, and gave himself to
study, meditation and literary production. With a
more nimble mind than Cudworth, he wrote a larger
number of books, and his writings, more readable than
those of his contemporary, enjoyed in his day a con
siderable popularity. Their stories of witches and
devils and his mystical notions and scholastic whims,
pleased the public of that day; still more his gentle,
loving spirit, his pure and devout enthusiasm and
profound faith. For the most part his works now
gather dust in the libraries, yet the recent publication
of certain of his writings shows that he has not been
entirely forgotten. He died in 1687.
Theodore Parker was greatly interested in the lib
eral-minded and mystical writers of the 17th century.
In a letter he says : " The mystical writers have been
my great delight, and they did me no small service."
Parker contributed to the Christian Examiner, Vol.
XXVL, March, 1839, a review article on " The Life

NOTES 459
of the Learned and Pious Dr. Henry More," and a
second on " The Writings of Henry More, D. D.,"
which appeared in the Examiner in September, 1839.
Page 63, note 3. "The Latitude Men about
Cambridge," so-called, were a group of scholars and
divines, graduates of the University of Cambridge, and
mostly of Emmanuel College, the Puritans' Alma
Mater. Because of their liberal and progressive
tendencies they may be termed the Broad Churchmen
of the 17th century. They marked the reaction
of the higher mind of England against the dog
matism, contentiousness and intolerance of the warring
sects of the Puritan Commonwealth on the one hand,
and the materialistic doctrines and accommodating
worldliness of popular philosophic writers like Hobbes
on the other. Whichcote, Cudworth, Henry More,
Bishop Patrick, John Smith, Worthington, Tillotson,
StiUingfleet, and Wilkins of Oxford were all men of
great intellectual power, profound learning and genu
ine piety. In that wonderful century, with its sur
prising contrasts and conflicting aims, side by side with
the narrow-minded and controversial zeal of the Puri
tan worthies and the luxuriousness and profligacy of
the Romanizing Stuarts and their court, these cham
pions of a religion of the spirit and a truly catholic
church, together with their great contemporaries, Mil
ton, Taylor, Hooker, Hall, Pocock, Walton, Locke and
Clarke, strove for sound learning, intellectual free
dom, tolerance and kindliness towards opposing opin
ion, and a Christianity of the spirit and the life. They
sought to restore the dilapidated Church of England
to unity of counsels, a milder temper and a more com
prehensive policy. Their endeavor was to ref ound the
great central principles of religion — God, Duty, and
Immortality, on the immutable primitive intuitions of
the soul, — on the inward revelations of reason, con
science and the affections, rather than on the dogmatism

460 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
of an external traditional authority, or the dubious
speculations of the current naturalistic and sensational
philosophy. The Latitude Men had their hmitations and weak
nesses. They were often timid and conforming, when
courage and independence would have better served the
interests of truth. Their thought was often obscure
and involved, and burdened with too great an accumu
lation of learned rubbish and pedantry. Their mystic
tendencies led them into fanciful and speculative ex
tremes. They were frequently lacking in historical
and critical judgment, maintaining opinions sadly at
variance with their better information and principles.
Thus a Cudworth could uphold the truth of the witch
craft delusion.
But their services to their own and succeeding ages,
even if we may not accept in full the extravagant esti
mate of them by W. E. H. Lecky, in his " History of
Rationalism in Europe," were undeniably great. Fol
lowing Rev. John Tulloch, in his book on " Rational
Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the
17th Century," which is perhaps the best presentation
of this school of thought^ we may affirm their merits
to have been that: 1. They upheld against the pre
vailing demand for dogmatic uniformity and authori
tative standards of belief the rights of free discussion
and " the liberty of prophesying," maintaining that
religious faith and dogmatic opinion belong to differ
ent spheres. 2. They taught with persuasive elo
quence and infectious example that religion is a life,
and not a creed or form of worship ; that in its essence
it is Godliness; that a pure, good and beautiful life
can only exist in the Divine, and that the Divine thus
becomes real in humanity. 3. They strove for a com
prehensive, inclusive church, with just latitude to rea
sonable varieties of thought and worship, a church
based on the disposition of the heart towards God and

NOTES 461
man, abounding in good works, and remembering ever
that the greatest of Christian virtues is charity.
To attain these ends the Latitude Men sought first
of all to re-interpret Christianity to their contempo
raries, and to found it on a pure and spiritual philoso
phy in harmony with the instincts of the soul and the
eternal spiritual needs of mankind. They opposed
with every faculty and knowledge they possessed the
empirical philosophy of their day, with its mechanical
interpretations of nature, its denial of any intuitive
faculties in man, or the possibility of a higher spiritual
revelation of the Divine will and purpose. That they
should do this in the terms and according to the prin
ciples of the Greek idealistic philosophy was inevitable,
and this Platonic revival thus became the latest of the
many attempts to blend philosophy with Christianity.
The most celebrated of this school of Cambridge
Latitudinarians was undoubtedly Dr. Ralph Cudworth.
He was their most systematic, most learned and force
ful writer. His greatest work, " The True Intellectual
System of the Universe," was written as a reply to the
brilliant treatises of Thomas Hobbes, De Cive, and
" Leviathan," works which had commended themselves
to the cultured classes in their day through their
plausible solution of the great problems of the intel
lectual hfe, their strong support of the existing order
in State and Church, their acute and comprehensive
reasoning, and the fascinations of their style. Cud
worth was lacking as a writer in many of the qualities
which made his adversary popular. He was often un
clear in thought and discursive in method. His chap
ters are overloaded with antiquarianism and discussions
which lead nowhere. He sometimes falls into mystical
extravagances, and shows a clumsy deference to au
thorities of little decisive import. And yet, as Princi
pal Tulloch remarks, his book, " taken as a whole, is a
marvelous magazine of thought and learning, and re-

462 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
mains one of the most undoubted monuments of the
philosophical and theological genius of the 17th cen
tury." Thepdore Parker found in Cudworth a kindred
spirit. He delighted in his great stores of learning,
his metaphysical and speculative abilities, his mystical
tendencies, and above all in his deep and fervent piety.
In Parker's writings in defense of the intuitive faculties
of man's nature and the principles of a theistic faith
he not infrequently harked back to the arguments and
proofs of the great English divine, and even meditated
the editing of a new edition of this greatest of his
books. Dr. James Martineau in his profound work, " Types
of Ethical Theory," devotes a chapter to Cudworth
(Vol. II., pp. 395—424), which is the most luminous
and comprehensive estimate of his career and philo
sophical opinions, especially in their ethical values, ever
written. An interesting fact, which Parker does not refer to,
is the friendship of Cudworth's widow, and especially
of his daughter, Lady Masham, with the philosopher
John Locke. At Lady Masham's house, the last-
named thinker spent the closing years of his life, and
there he died in 1704. She was herself a woman of
high culture, and seems to have inherited the meta
physical ability of her father, as, among other testi
monies, a published treatise " Concerning the Love of
God " bears witness.
Page 63, note 4. Thomas Hobbes was born near
Malmesbury, England, in 1588. He studied at Ox
ford, and in 1608 traveled on the Continent. On his
return he came into personal relations with Lord Bacon.
On later visits to the Continent he saw Galileo, and
was in close contact with thinkers of the School of Des
cartes in Paris. His Philosophy, covering the three
subjects of Body, Man and Society, was in the mean-

NOTES 463
time elaborated. He was in France during the whole
period of the Civil War in England. His treatise
De Cive was published in 1645, and his most im
portant work, the " Leviathan," in which his theories
are most fully developed, in 1651. While popular at
court and among the aristocracy, the clergy and plain
people were greatly offended by his published opinions.
In 1666 license to print was refused him by Parliament,
and his later works were published in Amsterdam.
Hobbes died in England in 1679, at the age of 91.
He may be regarded as the principal exponent of
the negative and materialistic philosophy of the 17th
century. His successors were Rousseau, Holbach,
Helvetius, Comte, and others. The principal charac
teristics of his philosophy were — mentally, the insti
tution of metaphysical entities, especially Nature for
God; ethicaUy, the doctrine of self-interest as the
foundation of social and moral life; politically, the
complete subordination of spiritual to temporal power,
and the demonstration that government, whatever its
form, rests on force.
All these opinions were accompanied, incidentally, by
important contributions to metaphysical thought and
scientific method, and have led to a juster valuation
of the sphere and service of empiricism in philosophy.
Page 64, note 5. Episcopius (the Latinized form
of the Dutch name Bisschop), born in Amsterdam, in
1583, was an eminent and learned theologian, a man
of admirable spirit, the successor of Arminius, whose
principles he elaborated and advocated with dialectic
skill and eloquent address. Graduating in 1606 from
the University of Leiden, where he had listened to
Gomarus and Arminius, he speedily became prominent
in the theological controversies of that day, which dealt
largely with the topic of predestination and free-will.
Soon after, he succeeded Gomarus at Leiden. In 1610
he defended the so-called Remonstrants, who, in the

464 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
interests of spiritual freedom, had addressed a remon
strance against certain implications of the Calvinistic
System to the States General of Holland and West
Friesland. In 1618 Episcopius was chief spokesman
at the Synod of Dort for the Arminians, whose theo
logical head he was henceforth recognized to be. For
these services to religious enlightenment and a spiritual
Christianity he was bitterly denounced and persecuted,
and finally banished from the country. The years of
his exile, spent in Antwerp, Paris, and elsewhere, were
fruitful in literary production, and his writings found
a large circulation, not only in his own country but in
France, Germany and England. To them was due in
no small degree the " Arminian Clergy " of Great
Britain. One of the results of the refusal of the ultra-Cal-
vinistic party to entertain reformatory proposals with
respect to the accepted creed was the formation of a
number of independent Remonstrant congregations,
which still exist in Holland, and have ever been noted
for the learning, piety and eloquence of their minis
ters, and the virtues and good citizenship of their laity.
They have grown more radical with the lapse of the
centuries and are sometimes called the Unitarians of
HoUand. Theological acrimony having softened, Episcopius,
returning to his own country in 1626, became the min
ister of the Remonstrant Congregation in Rotterdam
and rector of the new college established by that de
nomination. Controversial and literary activities con
tinued to occupy much of the remainder of his life,
which came to an end in 1643.
Page 98, note 6. Under date of Boston, 6th of
May, 1858, Theodore Parker writes to his Canadian
correspondent, Rev. E. T. Senkler : " You ask about
Cudworth. We Americans printed 1,500 copies in
1836 or 1837, and sold them all in five or six years!

NOTES 465
The American edition is difficult to find and not worth
buying now. The mistakes were not rare. Mr. Har
rison has made an edition which leaves nothing to be
desired. This is in three volumes, 8vo., published in
London, 1845. I think it cost 45 shillings, but I got
my copy in Boston for $4.50. I think it may be had
at Burnham's in Boston for that price now. Mr. C.
pubhshed his original in one volume. It abounds with
extracts from Greek and Latin authors but he did not
tell where the passages might be found in his author.
Dr. Mosheim1, that most laborious man of the most
laborious nation, read through all the authors C. had
quoted, and made reference to every passage in Cud-
worth's book. He translated the original into Latin,
added notes, dissertations, prolegomena, indices, etc.,
and published it in two volumes 4to. Le Clerc intro
duced Cudworth to the Continent in his courtly and
generous way, and then Mosheim taught him the man
ner and language of the learned, and he acquired a
distinction in Germany, Holland and France he did
not have in England itself. The next edition had
Mosheim's references. When I was a youth at coUege
I wanted to get out an American edition of C. with aU
of his apparatus ; a bookseller had it under favorable
consideration, when lo ! the other publishers announced
theirs in press ! My scheme fell to the ground. But
Harrison has done like a man what, I fear, I might
have done like a boy."
It may be added that in 1706 Thomas Wise published
an abridgement of Cudworth's Intellectual System,
which though still extending to two quarto volumes,
made this book more accessible to large circles of read
ers.

466 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS

III
A LETTER TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION OF CON
GREGATIONAL MINISTERS TOUCHING CER
TAIN MATTERS OF THEIR THEOLOGY
This letter is included in Miss Cobbe's edition of
Parker's CoUected Works, Vol. XII, pp. 177-189.
IV
A FRIENDLY LETTER TO THE EXECUTIVE COMMIT
TEE OF THE AMERICAN UNITARIAN
ASSOCIATION
Page 117, note 1. This letter was addressed to
Rev. Samuel K. Lothrop, D.D., Rev. Calvin Lincoln,
Isaiah Banks, Esq., Hon. Albert Fearing, Rev. Henry
A. Miles, D. D., Rev. Geo. W. Briggs and Rev.
William R. Alger, late " Executive Committee " of the
American Unitarian Association, Boston, October 3,
1853. It appeared in pamphlet form in two editions,
and also in Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected
Works, Vol. XII, pps. 235-251. Diligent search of
the records of the Board of Directors of the American
Unitarian Association fails to show that it was pre
sented to or acted upon by them.
V
THE LAW OF GOD AND THE STATUTES OF MEN
This sermon was preached at the Music Hall, in Bos
ton, on Sunday, June 18, 1854. It appeared in pam
phlet form in 1854 and is included in Miss Cobbe's
edition of Parker's CoUected Works, Vol. V, pp. 225-
244.

NOTES 467

VI

THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE
AND FALSE IDEA OF LIFE
This sermon was preached at the Music Hall in
Boston, on Sunday, November 26, 1854. It appeared
in pamphlet form in 1854 and is included in Miss
Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected Works, Vol. VI,
pp. 192-214. VII
THE TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS, A.D. I. AND
MDCCCLV.: A CHRISTMAS STORY FOR
MDCCCLVI.
This Christmas story is included in Miss Cobbe's edi
tion of Parker's CoUected Works, Vol. VIII, pp. 199-
219. Page 218, note 1. When the Fugitive Slave Bill
was executed in Boston, and Thomas Sims was sent
back to slavery on the 12th of April, 1851, City Mar
shal Tukey was prominent on that occasion in helping
to execute the law, and 1500 " gentlemen of property
and standing," so-caUed, volunteered their assistance
to escort the fugitive out of the State.
Page 218, note 2. Dr. Nathan Lord, President of
Dartmouth College, held a " South-side view of slav
ery," and was its stanch supporter. He approved the
Fugitive Slave Bill and its execution in Boston. In
two pamphlets published in 1854—55, he maintained
that slavery was a divine institution, according to
natural and revealed religion, that it was a wholesome
institution which ought to be extended, that it should
be introduced into the Northern States and territories,
and said that he himself would cheerfully own slaves
if it were convenient or necessary.

468 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
VIII
LETTER TO A YOUNG MAN
This letter appeared in the Christian Register.
IX
LETTER ON A COURSE OF READING
This letter was published in the Christian Register.
It has never before been included in any edition of
Parker's works. X
A NEW LESSON FOR THE DAY
This sermon was preached at the Music HaU, in
Boston, on Sunday, May 25, 1856. It is included in
Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected Works, Vol.
IV, pp. 279-311.
Page 270, note 1. The person who thus designated
Charles Sumner and his friends, Dr. Howe, Horace
Mann, Parker, H. Wilson (afterwards Vice-President),
John A. Andrew (afterwards Governor), F. W. Bird
and others, was Robert Charles Winthrop, of Boston,
a descendant of the first governor of Massachusetts,
and a Harvard graduate of 1828. He had been a
Boston congressman, and for a short time a senator
from Massachusetts; his pohtical future was extin
guished by the election of Sumner to the Senate in
1851, and his subsequent leadership in the State. This
fact would excuse some wrath and bitterness in a person
naturally polite and humane, but who, like Webster,
could not conceive of an American Union without
slavery. He long outlived Parker and Sumner, and in
his later years took a far more favorable view of Sum
ner's character. The two senatorial persons classed

NOTES 469
with him by Parker were Edward Everett and Rufus
Choate. XI
THE ASPECT OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA
This speech was delivered in the haU of the State
House, before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Conven
tion, on Friday, January 29, 1858. It is included in
Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected Works, Vol.
VI, pp. 287-323.
Page 271, note 1. The occasion of the speech of
January, 1858, a month before the plans of John
Brown were explained by me to Parker, was the un
usual assembling of the Garrisonian abolitionists at
the State House, where Gen. Banks had just been in
augurated governor, and where the legislature, then
in session, was strongly Republican. Banks had left
the speakership of the national House of Representa
tives, where he had won much distinction, and had
definitely abandoned both the Democratic and the
" American " parties, to become a Repubhcan. In the
new Congress, Buchanan being President, Senator
Douglas was at variance with him on the " popular
sovereignty " issue, and was also seeking a re-election
as senator from Illinois, where the candidate against
him (whom Parker heartily supported) was to be Abra
ham Lincoln. The Whig party, to which Lincoln had
belonged, was virtually dead, and its leaders in Massa
chusetts, Everett, Choate, Winthrop, etc., had
mostly gone over to the pro-slavery Democrats, headed
in Massachusetts by Generals Cushing and Butler. It
was at this time that Charles Congdon, in the N. Y.
Tribune, defined an " old Whig " as " a gentleman who
takes his bitters regularly, and votes the Democratic
ticket occasionally." Although Judge Curtis, whom
Parker here compliments for his dissenting opinion

470 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
in the Dred Scott case, had been a Whig, and was fol
lowed in his dissent by many other old Whigs, yet
many of that defunct party supported the pro-slavery
decision of Taney, as the bulk of the Democrats did.
General Cushing was a member of the Legislature from
Newburyport, and had there made pro-slavery speeches,
and had been soundly rebuked by John A. Andrew in
a famous speech. Sumner had been re-elected senator,
practically without opposition, a year before, in Janu
ary, 1857. In 1856 Parker had heard Douglas at
Galesburg. Page 278, note 2. Parker here well describes the
early steps towards the freedom of the Russian serfs;
the final emancipation occurred under Alexander II.
after Parker's death. My friend, Mrs. William
Barnes of Albany (daughter of Thurlow Weed), be
ing in Petersburg after our Civil War, went out
shopping one morning. In one large establishment,
the merchant, learning that she was an American, paid
her much attention, and taking her into his own office,
showed her there two " aye-remaining lamps " burn
ing before the icons of his two American saints, John
Brown and Abraham Lincoln. He had been himself a
serf, and emancipated.
Page 279, note 3. The opening of the slave-trade
under State protection had been advocated by a
Charleston newspaper as early as 1856. The interest
of the slave-breeding States, like Virginia and Mary
land, was against it, and the Southern Confederacy
never authorized it. The administrations of Pierce
and Buchanan had done little that was effective against
the ocean slave-trade.
Page 281, note 4. In 1843-4 Parker had called
on Thomas Carlyle in Chelsea, and found him in the
evening brewing whiskey punch and sipping it with
his brother, Dr. Carlyle. The conversation turning
on negro-slavery, Carlyle began to scold about

NOTES 471
Quashee," in the vein afterwards so familiar. Par
ker earnestly objecting, and denouncing slavery, Car
lyle said, "WeU, mon, our good friend Emerson
thinks joost as I do about that." This Parker nega
tived, and on his return to America had the pleasure,
as he told me, of sending to Carlyle Emerson's elo
quent anti-slavery address at Concord, August 1,
1844. Page 281, note 5. The London Times, without
openly favoring slavery, printed in 1859 a violent
leader denouncing John Brown for his attack on
slavery in Virginia. Forty years later, when the
Times was daily awaiting news from South Africa that
Jameson and Cecil Rhodes, and the American John
Hays Hammond, had overthrown President Kruger, it
began the publication, in its weekly issue of a serial
novel, " For Freedom's Sake," of which Brown was
the admired hero.
Page 282, note 6. Although this energetic orator
deserves what is here said of him, and is better known
in America by the passage here quoted than by any
other saying, his eccentricity showed itself after our
war, in the criticism he passed upon our management
of the slave-problem. In acknowledging his election
as an honorary member of the American Social Science
Association, in a letter to me as Secretary, he indulged
in the gratuitous remarks mentioned, — unwilling, ap
parently, that anything political should occur any
where in which he should not have a voice.
Page 285, note 7. This was a pro-slavery cham
pion from the South who attempted in Nicaragua
what had been so successfully done in Texas by Hous
ton and others during Jackson's Presidency, who fa
vored the scheme for making Texas a slave State of
our Union. Walker enlisted some of the Southerners
who had tried to force slavery on Kansas (among them
a certain wounded and captured Col. Titus, for whom

472 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
TitusvUle in Florida was named) ; and I think that
roving Englishman, Laurence Ohphant, was with him ;
but his expedition was a fiasco. No doubt he had the
secret support of Buchanan's administration, always
in the interest of negro slavery, even more than Gen.
Pierce's had been.
Page 286, note 8. Richard Yeadon here men
tioned is the same who visited Parker with his friend
Dawson, and held a long conversation in Exeter Place
with Garrison, Parker, etc., which is elsewhere men
tioned. Page 290, note 9. This Mr. Underwood, oppos
ing the concerted treason of Virginia at the outbreak
of the Civil War, when Lee went over to the disunion-
ists, and even the loyalty of Gen. Thomas was sus
pected by the sorely tried Lincoln, and persisting in
his attachment to the Union, was after a few years
made provisional governor of what remained of Vir
ginia under the stars and stripes, and was acting gov
ernor in Richmond when I was there in June, 1865.
He was not a very able or conspicuous person, but he
stood by his colors when Lee and so many more aban
doned them. H. R. Helper was the author of a val
uable book attacking slavery in the interest of free-
labor. To have recommended his book, before the
war, was to commit the unpardonable sin in the eyes
of the slave-masters.
Page 296, note 10. The slave trade at this time
was already secretly established and many negroes
fresh from Africa were to be found in South Carolina,
Georgia, and Alabama. See also Note 3.
Page 299, note 11. The incident here mentioned
occurred as described, but probably neither Mr.
Everett nor Mr. Winthrop took the same view of it
that Parker did. It is curious that for some weeks
in 1861 this same Senator Mason, of Virginia, was
taken again down the harbor, to be imprisoned at

NOTES 473
Fort Warren until the case of his capture at sea by
Admiral Wilkes could be settled between England and
the United States. On that occasion Mr. Sumner fa
vored giving up Mason to the English government,
rather than punish him in Boston for his manifest
treason. He was on his way to London, where in
1864—5, he made tentative proposals to Lord Palmer
ston for emancipating the Southern slaves, in return
for the recognition by England of the Southern Con
federacy. Lord Palmerston sorrowfully replied, it
was too late.
Page 300, note 12. The famous saying ascribed
to Toombs of Georgia rests for authority on a letter
of Senator Hale to Parker, dated December 23, 1856,
and running as foUows:
" Senator Toombs of Georgia said to me in private
conversation (not of a confidential character) that the
discussions at the North on the subject of slavery,
instead of having weakened the institution had a di
rectly contrary effect on the public mind, both North
and South; that the examination which had been
induced by this anti-slavery agitation had the effect to
strengthen in the minds of Southerners the rightful
ness and propriety of the institution ; and the same,
he had no doubt, was true of the North. It was in
connection with the growth of public opinion at the
North, favorable to slavery, that he remarked that I
should see the slaveholder and his slaves on Bunker
Hill. This is the substance of the conversation."
Mr. Toombs was a good observer; the change no
ticed by him in the opinions of commercial and politi
cal men at the North was a real one, and had so
deeply impressed Lincoln in 1855 that he expressed
the fear that slavery might be introduced in Illinois.
Of this change the dereliction of Webster was one of
the evidences, and also an indication that the com
mercial class, whom he always represented, and by

474 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
whom he was often subsidized, were no longer hostile
to negro slavery. This was the fact; and it took the
shock of disunion to bring that class into the anti-
slavery ranks: they seem now (1910) to be sliding
back into their old subservience to the South.
See also p. 348.
Page 303, note 13. The correspondence between
Parker and Herndon has been published at Cedar
Rapids in Iowa while these pages are going through
the press. In Mr. Herndon's letters the true char
acter of Senator Douglas is set forth, and in Parker's
reply his permanent opinion of Douglas is given.
The volume in which these letters appear was edited
by Rev. J. F. Newton, a Texan, educated in Kentucky,
but now preaching to an independent congregation
in Iowa. Its title is, " Lincoln and Herndon," and
it is published at the Torch Press. It throws much
light on the relation between Abraham Lincoln and
the anti-slavery men on one side, and the tolerators
of slavery on the other. Mr. Herndon was a thor
ough abolitionist, though a Kentuckian; Mr. Lincoln,
though a Kentuckian born, was a determined opponent
of slavery, and ready to abolish it whenever the power
should be given him under the Constitution, — as he
did in 1863.
Page 306, note 14. Eli Thayer was a well-known
Yankee from Worcester county, Mass., who for a
time, with Yankee shrewdness, tried to abolish slavery
by colonization, and had much to do with the early
settlement of Kansas by free State men from New
England. I knew him well, and co-operated with
him, as he did with John Brown, for a year or two.
But he was a hasty, violent and capricious person,
and when sent to Congress from the Worcester dis
trict, so disappointed his Republican electors that they
refused to re-elect him. Some years after he went
over to the Democratic party and became one of the

NOTES 475
most malignant traducers of John Brown and his
friends. Finally, he published a volume in which he
seemed to claim that he and not Lincoln was the real
destroyer of negro slavery; but few persons have
agreed with him in this unexpected claim.
Page 311, note 15. It is probable that the blank
after " Governor " was intended to be filled with the
word " Gardner," who as a candidate and as governor,
exposed himself to serious charges affecting his
veracity. He intrigued to succeed Senator Sumner
whUe suffering from his wound given by Brooks, but
found httle support among the people of Massachu
setts. XII
THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY ON THE AMERICAN
PEOPLE
This sermon was preached at the Music Hall, Bos
ton, on Sunday, July 4, 1858. It is included in Miss
Cobbe's edition of Parker's Collected Works, Vol.
VIH, pp. 132-157.
Page 321, note 1. At this time N. P. Banks, who
had served in Congress and had been nominated for
President by the American party, but had joined the
Republicans, was serving as governor in succession to
Henry J. Gardner. He justified the expectation of
Parker as congressman and governor, but was not
a successful military officer. In 1872 he supported
Horace Greeley for President against General Grant,
which Parker if living probably would not have done ;
although he admired Greeley as editor he had no con
fidence in him as a politician.
Page 329, note 2. The rhyme quoted was one of
Judge Thomas RusseU's parodies on the childish
verses in the New England Primer. Russell is after
wards mentioned in connection with his friendship
with John Brown, and his visits from Brown in Bos-

476 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
ton, and to Brown in prison. His wife was a daugh
ter of Father Taylor, the eloquent sailor-preacher at
the North End of Boston; she accompanied her hus
band to Charlestown, West Virginia, and has related
her interview with Brown in his prison. Russell was
afterwards ambassador to Venezuela, and railroad
commissioner of Massachusetts, a man of much wit and
eloquence, who was faithful to his early anti-slavery
principles, when many Harvard graduates fell away,
and followed Webster and Winthrop.
Page 330, note 3. The frequent repetitions by
Parker in these successive speeches were natural in a
public speaker, addressing different audiences, and
needing to give emphasis to his words by repeating
them. They are preserved here in several places as
parts of the earnest oratory of the times.
Page 334, note 4- The revolt of the slaves in the
French colony of San Domingo, in the early years of
the French Revolution of 1788, was attended with
lamentable abuses which became familiarly known in
the United States from the fact that many of the
French planters took refuge in the Southern States,
and particularly in Louisiana, which was still a French
colony, until Napoleon as First Consul sold it to the
United States, in 1803, abandoning thus his first pur
pose of making it a rival to our young republic and
of sending over a French army to hold it, and extend
its boundaries. There was also a considerable trade
between San Domingo and New England, and several
Boston merchants had mercantile connections there.
The slaves were many of them native Africans brought
over in the active slave-trade, which no nation had
then put down; and they had by no means the mild
ness of the American slaves, who, even in revolt, would
never have committed what it was customary to call
" the horrors of San Domingo." But this quality in
our slaves was not then known to exist, and both the

NOTES 477
friends and the foes of slavery sincerely believed that
negro insurrection in Virginia and Carolina would
follow the example of West Indian massacres and
burnings. Experience has shown that this was an un
founded fear; with every opportunity to commit these
abuses in the Civil War, the slaves, while befriending
the captured soldiers of the Union armies, for the
most part stood loyaUy by their masters and mis
tresses, and suffered more injuries from them than they
inflicted. Page 337, note 5. Parker here is too sweeping.
One poet even at that time had made himself known
and admired, — Poe, who, though born in Boston, was
distinctively Southern, and is now widely read in Eu
rope as well as in America.
Page 337, note 6. These two professors bred in
Virginia, were Henry D. Rogers and William Barton
Rogers, of whom the latter married, lived, and died
in Boston, and was the founder of the famous Insti
tute of Technology. They were sons of one of Jef
ferson's imported professors in his University of
Virginia, and both were intimate friends of Parker in
Boston, where I often met them in Exeter Place.
Page 347, note 7. Parker here predicts, as he
often did, slave-emancipation in the 19th cen
tury and fixes its probable date as 1876, " the hun
dredth birthday of the land." He was one of the
few Americans who, as early as 1858, had imagination
enough to conceive of the United States without ne
gro-slavery. John Quincy Adams had a like concep
tion as early as 1820, as we know from his diary, and
John Brown had formed the same conviction as early
as 1835, and adhered to it so long as he lived, — his
faith growing stronger while he lay in prison await
ing death. Emancipation actually came in 1863, and
was fuUy established before 1870.

478 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS

XIII
PARKER'S INDICTMENT AND THE FUGITIVE
SLAVE CASES
Page 354, note 1. In these extracts from Par
ker's volume, called " Defense," the story of the fugi
tive slave captures and rescues, already much men
tioned, is told more consecutively than elsewhere, and
in them he dwells on the persons concerned, and names
many names. The three here given are of persons al
most forgotten, who were active politicians in 1851—54.
Bigelow was then mayor of Boston, having under
his orders Francis Tukey, who aspired to be the Vidocq
or Fouche of Boston, and was in fact an effective
police captain, when he chose to be. In this case he
had no inclination to support the slave-catchers, as
he had formerly done, neither had Mayor Bigelow.
Gardner was soon afterwards chosen governor of
Massachusetts, in that singular overturn in State poh
tics which brought the " Know-Nothings " into power.
They called themselves Native Americans, and opposed
the political power of immigrants in the great cities;
but the mass of them wished mainly to terminate the
leadership of the men at the head of two chief parties,
Whig and Democratic. Gardner was a young man
of wealth, but of no particular principle or character,
who was secretly nominated by a sort of impromptu
free masonry, and held the position for three years.
By the same organization Mr. Banks of Waltham was
sent to Congress and Henry Wilson to the Senate, and
both of them became active Republicans when that
new party was formed in 1855—56.
Page 356, note 2. Count Gurowski long outlived
his friend Parker, and was connected with the New
York Tribune, and with other journals occasionally.
He was a Polish exile, learned, aristocratic and wilful,

NOTES 479
who insisted on proclaiming extreme opinions, in Eng
lish rather pecuhar; and many good stories are told
of him during his American hfe. He died in Wash
ington after the Civil War. XIV
THE JOHN BROWN CAMPAIGN
Page 391, note 1. The first biographer of Par
ker, John Weiss, knew little concerning the relation
of Parker to John Brown, and therefore gave a dis
connected and imperfect account of the remarkable
facts growing out of that relation. Consequently
those hke Dr. Lyman Abbott, in the Outlook, who de
pend on Weiss for their information concerning this
important transaction of Parker's last three years,
misconceive and are apt to misrepresent it. As I was
the person who first introduced Brown to Parker, and
was cognizant, from my position on the Kansas com
mittees, of all the following events and transactions,
it has seemed a duty to tell the story as it really was.
None of Parker's efforts against slavery was begun
and carried on more deliberately and earnestly than
this ; and none of those who furnished Brown with the
sinews of war, whether in Kansas or elsewhere, had
greater faith in his integrity and efficiency than Par
ker continued to have. He did not expect immediate
and definite results, but he knew, as the rest of us
knew, that an enterprise so audacious, in the hands
of a man so courageous and discreet as Brown, could
not fail to shake the hold of negro-slavery on the
nation. His foray and his conduct between his cap
ture and his execution converted more men and women
to the cause of emancipation than had been proselyted
by Garrison, Phillips, Parker, Mrs. Stowe, and the
other agitators for it, in the 30 years preceding.
Much of the correspondence bearing on these three

480 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
years was destroyed by myself and others, in order to
protect persons who might otherwise have suffered or
been annoyed by the proceedings of the pro-slavery
party ; but enough remains, and is cited here to show
the main facts. The secrecy which such a plot re
quired must necessarily be kept up after its culmina
tion ; and must not be held to imply fears for personal
safety in the secret committee. It would be difficult
to find six men who had shown by their conduct before
and since less concern for their ease and safety than
those on this committee, and all of them lived to see
the iniquity against which they conspired exterminated
beyond recall.
Page 396, note 2. See a previous note on Judge
Russell. I remember distinctly this incident and was
myself present at the Music Hall on this particular
Sunday. " Old Brown's Farewell " was extensively
circulated in the newspapers, but did not succeed in
furnishing Brown with much money. He was at this
time engaging in the manufacture of a thousand pikes
for his negro soldiers, to be executed at Colhnsville in
Connecticut, and needed money to pay on this con
tract. He had also agreed to pay Hugh Forbes $600
for drilling his white men in western Iowa, — the same
Englishman who is mentioned farther along in the
text. I believe Parker was acquainted with Brown's
plan for the use of pikes in defensive warfare.
Page 405, note 3. This refers to an old Yankee
superstition that Kidd, the pirate, had buried large
treasures somewhere along the New England coast;
and that whoever could find the chest and get a nail
in it would prevent Satan from flying away with the
treasure. This is merely an European superstition
imported by the Puritans, and handed down to Brown
by his forefathers. William Kidd was a legendary
character for a century or two, and concerning him
the ballad was written commencing

NOTES 481
" My name was William Kidd, as I sailed."
Page 408, note 4. Edwin Morton, mentioned here
and elsewhere, was a descendant of George Morton,
one of the Pilgrim Fathers, who settled in Plymouth
a few years after Peter Brown, ancestor of John
Brown, landed there in the " Mayflower." He was a
graduate of Harvard in the Class of 1855, and soon
after became private tutor of Gerrit Smith's son, liv
ing in Smith's viUa at Peterborough, and acting oc
casionally as private secretary to Mr. Smith. In this
way he became acquainted with John Brown and his
secret plan; and he went to Europe in November,
1859, to avoid testifying against his friends in the
investigation which was sure to follow. He returned
to Plymouth in 1860 and for several years co-oper
ated with me in collecting material for a life of Brown,
which was not pubhshed until 1878. In 1875 he sailed
from California for Japan and India, and from there
went on to Italy, where he became so seriously ill
that he took refuge at a water-cure at the Swiss Baden,
where he remained some eight years. He then re
moved to Morges in the Canton of Vaud, where he
spent the rest of his hfe, dying in 1900, after a long
period of invalidism, and never returned to America.
I met him at Morges twice, in 1890 and 1893, on
both occasions consulting with him about the affairs
of Parker, Smith, and Brown.
Page 420, note 5. Arthur Fuller was one of three
or four brothers of Margaret Fuller, and edited her
writings after her death. He died himself as a chap
lain in the Civil War.
Page 421, note 6. The Parker Fraternity was
founded by the young men of Parker's parish in Bos
ton, for the purpose of aiding his work and carrying
it on after his death. For this purpose it built and
owned a considerable edifice in Boston, but soon ceased
to be active. One of its founders was Mr. Haynes,

482 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS
at whose expense this edition of Theodore Parker is
published. Page 4&4* note 7. The newspapers of 1859 in
the great cities were apt to take the side of the slave
holders. Particularly was this true of the New York
Herald and the Presbyterian religious newspapers,
like the New York Observer, and weekly papers far
ther south and west. Parker's description of the two
New York journals, though humorous, is perfectly
just. Page 437, note 8. Henry Ward Beecher, though
an admirable preacher, and a friend of Parker, some
times offended him and other anti-slavery men by
dodging the main question now and then. It was
Brown's opinion that he did this conspicuously in
his sermon on Brown in prison; and in this censure
Parker at Rome, reading an abstract of the sermon,
seems to have agreed.
Page 4&9, note 9. Richard Realf was a young
Englishman who for a while was patronized by Lady
Noel Byron, the widow of the poet ; but involving him
self in some love-affair in England, he came to Amer
ica, went to Kansas, and there became an admirer and
soldier of John Brown. In 1858 Brown sent him on
some errand to England ; but when he returned he had
changed his fickle mind and deserted Brown's cause.
Living in Texas at the time of the senatorial inquiry,
he was summoned as a witness, brought to Washing
ton, and testified, — rather more to Brown's credit
than to his discredit. He then remained in the North,
became a soldier in the Union army, and afterward an
editor in Pittsburgh. His life was disfigured by vices,
which he regretted but could not reform. He was a
minor poet, who has left some stirring verses.
Page 445, note 10. The passage in Virgil here
quoted is well known, — a compliment to the Roman
people, and may thus be translated:

NOTES 483
" Let Greece with grace the lifelike bronzes mold,
Or carve in marble gods and heroes old;
Plead causes better, or in upper sky
Map out the stars that shine for every eye;
Roman! 'tis thine, where others toil, to reign;
With peace enforced the warlike to restrain;
Spare the submissive ! make Pride bow the knee !
These are imperial arts, — and worthy thee."
The original in the visit paid by iEneas to his father
in Elysium, where Virgil borrows from Plato, is fa
miliar Latin, and runs thus : —
"Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera,
Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus;
Orabunt caussas melius, coelique meatus
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent;
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane! memento:
Hae tibi erunt artes, — pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."
Page 445, note 11. John Quincy Adams in Feb
ruary, 1820, had a conversation with John C. Calhoun,
both being members of President Monroe's Cabinet;
in which Calhoun intimated that the South might secede
on the slavery question and form an alliance with
England. Commenting on this in his diary, Adams
predicted that the Union might be dissolved on this
issue, and be reconstructed on the principle of eman
cipation, as was actually done in the period, 1860-
1870. Seldom has an American statesman of presi
dential rank been so prophetic

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