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BY HORACE BUSHNELL,

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DISCOURSE,

DELIVERED ON THE

ANNUAL THANKSGIVING, 1846.

BY HORACE BUSHNELL,
Pastor of the North Congregational Church.

HARTFORD.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY ELIHU GEER.
MUCCCXLVI.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following discourse, hastily prepared,'is yielded to the
public, somewhat reluctantly, because of the difficulty some are
likely to find, in detecting the religious character, generally
required in a Sermon. Many, who have two distinct compart
ments in their souls, one for secular and the other for religious
matters, will probably hand it over to the surveyors of high
ways, as belonging specially to them. They, on the other
hand, who have learned to see religion interfused in all things,
and, by a secret presence, in the whole history of man, prepar
ing her great designs concerning him ; will assuredly feel that
the humble and earthly subject discussed conducts them to a
lofty and sacred eminence, where thrilling prospects open to
their view and God's best promises, about to be fulfilled, chal
lenge their devout worship and Thanksgiving. These, possibly,
will realize the truth that, for certain purposes, we get the best
view of a field, when we look on it from afar. B. B.

DISCOURSE, &c

m THE DAYS OF SHAMGAR THE SON OF ANATH, IN THE DAYS OF JAEL,
THE HIGH WAYS WERE UNOCCUPffiD AND THE TRAVELLERS WALKED
THROUGH BYE-WAYS. Judges v, 6.

I hope it will not be deemed a conceit, if I occupy
you, to-day, with a discourse on Roads. It certainly
will not, if I am able to collect about the subject those
illustrations, which are necessary to its social and
religious import.
The Road is that physical sign, or symbol, by which
you will best understand any age or people. If they
have no roads, they are savages ; for the Road is a
creation of man and a type of civilized society. If
law is weak and society insecure, you will see men
perched in castles, on the top of inaccessible rocks, or
gathered into walled cites, spending all their strength,
not in opening Roads, but in fortifying .themselves
against the access of danger. The draw-bridge is up,
the portcullis down, and sentinels are mounted on the
ramparts, carefully studying every footman or horse
man, that turns the corner of a wood, or gallops across
the distant plain. Wheeled vehicles are seldom seen,
and roads are rather obstructed than opened. Or if
you inquire after commerce, look at the Roads; for

Roads are the ducts of trade. If you wish to know
whether society is stagnant, learning scholastic, religion
a dead formality, you may learn something by going
into universities and libraries ; something also by the
work that is doing on cathedrals and churches, or in
them ; but quite as much by looking at the Roads.
For if there is any motion in society, the Road, which
is the symbol of motion, will indicate the fact. When
there is activity, or enlargement, or a liberalizing spirit
of any kind, then there is intercourse and travel, and
these require Roads. So if there is any kind of
advancement going on, if new ideas are abroad and
new hopes rising, then you will see it by the roads
that are building. Nothing makes an inroad, without
making a Road. All-creative action, whether in
government, industry, thought, or religion, creates
Roads. In the days of Shamgar and the Judges, there was
no law or security. Every one did what was right in
his own eyes, i. e. what was wrong in the eyes of every
body else. Gangs of robbers and marauders prowled
over the country, stripping every passenger, and rush
ing into the gate of every walled town, if they could
find it open. This middle age, continuing for two
hundred years, was also the dark age of Israel, and
was to that nation what the dark ages, so called, have
been to Christendom. As there was np security, there
was of course, no commerce or trade. The highways
therefore, were "unoccupied," i. e. unused; the pub
lic roads, such as they had, were blocked up and
made impassable, and the bridges torn down, to
prevent hostile incursions upon the towns. The
travellers therefore, or more literally, the footers, for
there was no travel, save on foot, walked through bye*

ways or crooked and obscure trails — picking out their
way across mountain passet, through glens and over
the fields. What a picture of society have we here —
the whole book of Judges in a sentence.
So things continued till the reign of law began to be
established under Samuel and David. This latter
finally went so far as to open a commercial treaty with
Hiram of Tyre ; and as the object of the treaty was to
procure timber for the temple, we see that a commer
cial road was opened leading down to Tyre. Another
must have been constructed, leading off to Lebanon.
When Solomon came to the throne, a new age was
dawning. He was, moreover, a liberal and cultivated
man himself, acquainted "with all the foreign courts
about him, and he went into relations of active inters
course with them. He opened a lively and lucrative
commerce with the East, with Egypt and the Red
Sea, and sent out his ships of commerce even to Spain.
He had also, fourteen hundred chariots of war, which
are also an indication that he had Roads leading in
every direction. I do not say that tnis was an age of
the highest civilization, or the greatest public happi
ness. Some mournful consequences were to be
produced, by this very activity of intercourse and
travel. Still it was the splendid age of Israel — the
age of new hope, excitement, wealth and power.
Therefore it was the age of Roads ; and Roads were
the type of the age; travel the spring of its activity.
Now it was that philosophy and learning of every
kind most flourished, now that architecture began to
be cultivated, now that religion displayed the greatest
zeal for expense, built its chief monument and enacted
its most public and gorgeous solemnities.
Could we restore the lost history of Egypt, we should

find that the splendid age of that buried realm of
splendor and power, the age of the pyramids, was an
age of Roads. The hundred gates, too, of Thebes
would be seen pouring out their vehicles of commerce
and travel, and their chariots of war, rolling up the
dust of the plain, till they are lost in the smoky horizon
on every side. Now, Egypt is more like Israel in the
days of Shamgar.
The splendid age of the Roman empire is known to
have been an age of Roads. The Appian Way, lead
ing off to Brundusium, on the south-eastern coast of
the peninsula, about four hundred miles, paved with
hexagonal blocks of stone laid in cement, was not the
only one. This was built Three hundred years before
Christ. As the empire grew in power and splendor,
Roads multiplied; till, in the age of the Antonines,
one might stand in the forum between highways
coming in from the north and the south, the east and
the west, and see travel pouring in from Scotland on
one side, and Antioch on the other. Mountains were
perforated, river* bridged, mile-stones set up, and the
roads themselves were hardened to a floor, macadam
ized before the time of McAdam, by sand, gravel and
cement. All the distant provinces and cities were
united, in this manner, and regular posts established.
Beginning at Scotland, the Roman could travel on by
post to Antioch, a distance of nearly four thousand
miles, interrupted only by the passage of the English
Channel and the Hellespont. And it is actually rela
ted, as one of the memorabilia of the age, that one Cae-
sarius went post from Antioch to Constantinople, six
hundred and sixty-five miles, in less than six days.
But the power of Rome was in its arms, and these
Roads were built rather as the bonds of conquest

and means of mihtary subjection, than for the benefit
of industry or the social advancement of the empire.
Still they represent activity. When these Roads
are building, something is going on — it is no stag
nant age. It is also to be remarked, that while the
Roads consolidated the empire, they also assisted the
civihzation and conversion of the nations through
which they passed. Christianity went forth on the
Roads, as a traveller and a soldier, to consohdate her
empire. Again, it is known that the crusades gave birth to
modern commerce, and that commerce gave that
spring to wealth and refinement, which erected the
cathedrals of Flanders, Germany, France and England.
The cathedral age was an age of Roads and of travel.)
And it would be well, if those who boast the glory and'
religious grandeur of this wonderful age, contrasting it
with our shallow age of speed and trade and travel,
would remember that Roads built the cathedral. Pos
sibly we may have something to build, quite as admir
able as these, thdugh something certainly a little
different from these. i
For, now, it is clear enough that a new age of Roads
has come, and the world is waking up to do some
thing: The days of Shamgar the son of Anath are
ended, and the people of the walled towns and castles
are coming out to build Roads. They build not
merely Roads of earth and stone, as of old, but they
build iron Roads. And not content with horses of
flesh, they are building horses also of iron, such as never
faint or lose their breath, and go, withal, somewhat
faster even than the Roman post — not to speak of
the immense loads they whirl over mountains and
through them, from mart to mart and from one shore

3
to another. We have invented, too, another kind of
sail, which runs against ihe wind or away from it,
stemming tides and climbing currents, making Roads
through oceans, and changing the great inland sluices
of the world into paths of commerce and travel. And
where we cannot go bodily to speak ourselves, we
send out newspapers as the posts of thought, setting
every man to talking with every other, so that all
which the great good men are doing and planning is
known to every body, and all that oppressers and
knaves do, or would do, is exposed, execrated, and if
any shame is left, shamed vout of the world. Nor is
this all, we have produced still another new kind of
Road, which outstrips all the horses, whether of flesh
or of iron, a Road for Thought ; which when we get
complete, the world will become a vast sensorium,
spinning out its nerves of cognition and feeling, and
keeping the whole body apprized, in every limb and
member* of what the electric organ meditates. What
ever else we may think, or hope, or fear, it is quite
certain that this is an age of Roads. If the Shamgars
of conservatism', looking out of the loop-holes of
their walled towns and seeing so many people out
whirling through the air, are frightened by the sight,
fearing lest all the walls of stability and defence
are going to b eak way, still, the Roads will be built
and the motion will go on. Wise or unwise, the
world has taken it into its head to have Roads and
there is a destiny in it, against which remonstrance
is unavailable. Indeed, they need not go to their bat
tlements or loop-holes to see it ; for this destiny, good
or bad, has already broken through their walls. Many
a time, within the last year, have I seen the Rail Road
forcing the parapets and buttresses of walled cities and

sending in the iron horse of travel, in tliunder and
smoke, to its very centre. I never knew so well
before, what that word destiny means ; for here I have
seen the new age breaking through the old ; power
reversing all its intents; and human society, by some
fiat of God, compelled to unwrap the coil of its jeal
ousies and fears, to seek, as a good, what it repelled as
an evil ; and the children moved to cast away, for their
life's sake, what their fathers erected to save their
bodies. Acknowledging, then, that there is some destiny at
work in this matter of Roads and of travel, let us
study into it, a little, and see if we can gather what it
means. It is not, as ah history informs us, a socjal
accident, a something existing by itself It has its
causes and will have its consequences. It is the indi
cation of something existing, and of something to
come. Some will say that it indicates a mechanical
age ; an age of utility, destitute of great sentiment^
without genius, or faith, or reverence to the past,
hurrying on to a sordid, meagre end, in moral and
political anarchy, and atheistic barbarism. Doubtless
we are making abundance of cheap cotton cloth and
democracy, they will say, but where is that sense of
authority and fine courtesy, which prevailed in the
days of chivalry ; where, above all, that sublime reve
rence for religion, that genius consecrated to religion,
which casts its shadow on our degenerate heads, in the
noble structures of the middle age ? Now the tjruljh is
that these worshippers of authority, these :gothic-mad
moderns, who see nothing preparing, in our times,
but money and democracy^ would themselves have
resisted all which gave birth to the very monuments
they worship ; for, as I have already intimated, it was

10
a Road making age, that built them — an age of
revived activity and commerce. And the very struggle
of that day was to get the Roads ; for it was the want
of Roads, that constituted the chief obstacle to com
merce and delayed, so long, its appearance among the
European nations. They knew no other state than a
stale of seclusion. Commerce was even a thing not
yet conceived. Even the kings of England had their
garments made by women on their farms. And when
a certain ambassador, at the court of Otho, boasted
that the Lombard people had as fine clothes as the
Greeks, and it was ascertained that the Lombards
actually got them from their markets, through Venice
and Amalfi, they were greatly exasperated that for
eigners should presume to buy their clothes ! So little
conception had they of trade, that purchase was an
affront and sale a treason. At length, the nations
began to taste the benefits to be gained by commerce.
But it was, at first, a stolen taste, and was gotten
only by extreme hazard. In England and Germany,
for example, the nobles sallied out of their castles to
rob every traveller and merchant who would cross
their domain. These seats of chivalry were main
tained by robbery, and it was impossible to transport
merchandize, even for short distances, in safety. The
Hanseatic League, comprising the four commercial
cities of Germany, was organized for the very purpose
of securing the merchants against tliese land pirates
and putting an end to the days of Shamgar. Although
trade began to get a footing in England, and this kind
of robbery ceased, still every noble barbarian who had
a castle, being the owner of the Road on his domain,
carried on a robbery in the shape of tolls, at his borders,
his bridges and his market, which was nearly as bad

11
as the more violent method. To secure an open Road
therefore, was still the problem of the age, and one of
the first laws passed by the parliament was a law to
excuse the merchant from going out of his way to pay
toll, when he could cross, at a ford, or in some nearer
way, to better advantage. At length, the Roads were
opened, trade flowed in, wealth increased, the public
mind was liberalized and a spirit Of taste and refine
ment grew up. And then, at last, the great cathedrals
began to lift their turrets unto the sky. Meantime
how many of the fine conservatives of that age, do
you suppose, were lamenting over it as a degenerate,
mercenary age, an age of merchandize and money,
raising up a class of upstarts to rival the fine old
nobility and destroy ancient precedence. Besides it
was setting a strong current toward democracy, which
was even worse. For, not only was Venice, at length,
forbidden by the Holy See to kidnap christian people
and sell them as slaves to the Saracens, in which her
trade begun ; not only did the Irish council determine
to import no more English children, as slaves, which
had been a regular trade before, but the serf on every
estate began to be looked upon as a man, labor rose to
higher price than it commands even now, and senti
ments began to work in the heart of the English
nation, which did not stay their action, till every trace
of serfdom was done away. Now in this former age
of Roads, (for I know not how to describe it by any
better epithet,) there is some looking towards utility
certainly, and also toward democracy ; and yet even a
better result than the cathedrals grew out of it, viz.
an elevation of character and virtue — a religious
elevation. There was more manhood, as there was
more humanity ; more piety as there was less robbery;

12
barbarism drew back, as comfort, wealth and virtue
multiplied ; genius came forth to make a thank offering
for its freedom, shot up its holy gratitude into vaulted
aisles and sky piercing pinnacles, and left the cathe
drals standing as so matty monuments of thanks*
giving for Roads !
An age of Roads, then, is not, of course, an age
of moral decay and dissipation, even though it has
some looking towards utility and equality. Possibly
it may not always end in gothic architecture, possibly
there may be other kinds of good, in the universe,
beside gothic architecture'. Pardon me, if I suggest
the possibility, that God may have something better
and nobler than this in store for the coming ages ; for
though some persons, gifted with a dull imagination,
are ever assuming that facts are the measure of God's
possibilities, and that no good is to be hoped for save
the good that has been, it is yet remarkable that new
kinds of good do appear in human history, and there
may be some yet to appear, which have not been.
I think, too, that we can detect several new elements
at work, in our age of Roads, which are not altogether
evil, or destitute of promise. Travel and motion of
every kind are signs of life, and life implies the quick
ening presence of new ideas; for a dead body can as
easily support a motion, as a dead idea. I shall be able
too, I think, to shew you, in a brief review, that, with
all other kinds of travel in this age, new ideas are
coming into action and travelhng also. Physical
improvement associates moral and moral stimulates
physical. There is a reciprocal action between
commerce and thought, thought and society, society
and religion. Improved Roads connect beneficent
inroads, and the subjugation of matter associates the

13
subjugation of social and political evil. Accordingly,
new ideas, such as these which follow, are waking
into life and pressing their way into the heart of the
world — peace between nations and a reciprocal inter
est ; religious and civil liberty ; man as man, to be
protected, educated, elevated by equal laws; Christian
light, unity, and beneficence.
An American sets off to travel, a few months/ in
Europe, and see what can be seen with his eyes.
His impressions will of course be superficial and, in
many respects, erroneous. He lands, we will sup
pose, in England. The first thing he discovers is that
England is a land of Roads, new Roads, and that
every body there, as here, is in motion. The whole
map of the island is covered with a fine net work of
rails and macadamized Roads, and yet Road-making is
but just begun. And, among all the English whirling
over these Roads, he meets, every few hours, one of
his own countrymen, till he begins to think that his
countrymen are waging a crusade of travel. In the
mail coaches, he travels ten or eleven miles an hour and
upon the Railroad from thirty to sixty. He goes into
Scotland, he pierces the highlands ; and here he hears
the rolling of the engine ; sweeps through the lakes in
steamboats ; skirts along their shores, round the peaks
and crags and across the glens, where Rob Roy and
the Campbells whistled their clansmen, on a broad,
smooth, macadamized Road. He remembers that he
is in the old world and he looks about for something
old. Occasionally he sees a ruined abbey, or castle,
or enters some ancient cathedral. But he is surprised
to find so general an aspect of newness, in the objects
he sees. Even old Chester, sufficiently marked by its
antique air, is most irreverently disturbed by two or

14
three Railroads digging into the walls and through the
town. London shows, indeed, a little patch or two of
the old city wall, as a curiosity, but, on the whole, ft
has the air of a fresh modern city. An immense work
of creation is going on every where, and a young
England is rising out of the old, full of power and
visibly stimulated by new thoughts. In the diplo
matic quarrel that is going on with his country, about
Oregon, he is compelled to observe the dignified and
healthful desire of peace that sways the mind of the
British people. England is doubtless under bonds, in
her debt and the immense wealth at stake in her
commerce, to keep the* peace. But a very strong
Christian feeling against war, is also gaining strength
every year. That insolent prejudice against other
nations, which is the disagreeable distinction of Eng
lishmen, and rises, in part, from their insular state, is
yielding, at length, to the possibility that there may be
something right and respectable, out of England. The
common people are moving; some of them have been
as far as to London, and many others have been out of
the town in which they were born, and returned with
enlarged ideas. And the fact that so many Roads are
prepared for their accommodation suggests, to many,
that they are worth being accommodated. In the corn-
law struggle, the landed aristocracy, it is well under
stood, lost the last hope of supremacy and suffered a
conclusive defeat. It is well understood also, that an
abatement of the laws of primogeniture and entail
must ultimately follow, and then, as a consequence,
a new distribution of property, which is the greatest
social want of the English nation. Meantime the
same spirit of humanity, which overthrew slavery, is
searching after some plan of common education for the

15
people. The barbarous rigors of penal law are disap
pearing. Commissioners are raised, every year, to
inquire into the miseries of the laboring classes and
laws are passed to improve their comfort. The moun
tain loads of scorn and oppression, which have so
long lain upon them, are beginning to heave. A more
enlarged, indeed, I may say, a truly enlarged humanity
and fellow feeling actuates public men, in the high
offices of state. In the great debate on the corn-law
question, it was a kind of triumph, to an American, to
observe that every speaker felt it necessary to be on
the popular side, and that every thing was made, by
the opposing parties, to hang on showing what was
the interest of the people, the laboring people. Reli
gion is a greater subject and closer to the English mind
than it has been for centuries. Old ideas are returning
as new, and new ideas are starting into fife to assault
and strangle the old. On one side, the establishment
is yielding to apostacy. On the other, its existence,
as an establishment, is assaulted by a force, which
is daily gathering vigor and assuming a more con
densed form of action. The clergy perceive that a
change must sooner or later come. The government
is inquiring, meantime, whether it may not possibly
strengthen the establishment, by establishing also the
Catholic Church of Ireland ? but fears to offend the
known bigotry of its two established religions, by the
equal recognition of a third. Some of the more
judicious and pure minded, in the Anglican establish
ment, are beginning to question whether its spiritual
good would not be promoted, if it were separated from
the state and from all connection with state patronage.
Others are the more exasperated, the more they see of
danger, and spare no act of insult or oppression against

16
the dissenters, that will sufficiently vent the disturb
ance they feel. Every month repeats some instance
of the, kind and that adds fuel to the fire already
kindled. The English mind moves slowly, but the
issue, though distant, is not doubtful. The new age
must come. The, law of truth, of equal right, and,
above all, of Christian purity must prevail. Or, if it
be a question, as solme will say, between Roads and
Cathedrals, which, in one sense, it certainly is, what
chance have the dead against the living ?
Arming himself now, with road-books, a conven
ience unknown to Herodotus in his Egyptian travels,
and another evidence or indication of our Road-
making habit — providing himself with these, which
facilitate all the purposes of travel, as much as the
Roads do travel itself; conducting him to comfort, and
Opening all the gates of knowledge before him, so that
he may pass directly to that, which, coming as a
stranger, it would take weeks or years to discover — the
traveller sets off for the continent. He lands, we will
say, in Belgium — at the terminus of a Raikoad, of
course. He sees on the engine, quite likely, a name
which indicates American manufacture, and, in com
pany with this and other Americans, for they are every
where, he commences his journey towards the Rhine.
Belgium is the ancient Flanders, the mother of English
manufactures and commerce and the cock pit, in all
ages, of the European armies. The old towns throw
up their cathedrals, at short distances, studding the
sky, monuments all of ancient commerce; a commerce
which the Roads, sweeping by, have come, if possible,
to resuscitate — not without some slight signs of effect
These Roads too plough their way across the old battle
grounds, memorable in history— -peace rushing over

17
the fields of war, with a glory as much brighter as her
victories are nobler. One monument towers above
the plain where Napoleon bowed, at last, to the fortune
of arms ; a mound of earth two hundred feet or more
in height, surmounted not by the British but the Belgic
lion, boasting no victory, but standing to commemorate,
in silence, the birth time of peace. New ideas are at
work in Belgium. The priests are jealous of com
merce and commerce growls at the priests. The king,
I believe, does what he can for his people, and the
Roads do more. Free sentiments are springing up
and signs of quickening are visible, though the coun
try is* over populated and the masses are greatly
depressed by superstition. When the traveller enters
the great cathedral, at Ghent, and looks upon the:
elegant carved group which supports the pulpit — Truth
holding her open volume to the dazzled eyes of Time,
inscribed — " Awake thou that sleepest and arise from
the dead and Christ shall give thee light" — he thinks of
the present degenerate Belgic race, before whom truth
has shut her volume and the fight of Christ is hid, not
without hope that they will sometime find a prophecy,
in what their fathers left them. At all events, the
Roads are coming, and, without doubt, are bringing
something of consequence with them — what that
something may be, time will show.
We come upon the Rhine at Cologne, which is the
Rome of the North. This old city, which thirty years
ago, was crumbling under a doom of decay, is now
reviving, as are most of the old cities of Germany,
and showing signs of creative action. The mind of
Germany, so long active within itself and in the
universities, has caught the spirit of the age and is
turning to relieve itself in works of physical improve-

18
me nt, — building Roads of course — sixty thousand
men at work building Roads — from Cologne in the
west, to Berlin in the east; from Hamburg and Bremen
in the north, to Vienna in the south ; also to Frankfort,
Dresden, Munich and I know not where beside. In
a few years, probably less than five, the steam car will
rush from the English Channel, through Austria, to
Trieste ; and, in less than fifty, to St. Petersburg and
thence onward, through Tartary, to China and the
Eastern Ocean; by which time, another will have
crossed the Rocky Mountains to Oregon, opening a
line of travel, by which the complete ckcuit of the
globe may be made, in less than two months. * The
Black Sea will soon be connected with the Baltic,
through Moscow and St. Petersburg ; and the work that
is begun will not stop till the vast plains of Russia are
spanned throughout with rails of iron and the whole
empire rings under the rushing wheels of travel —
rings, of course, with new ideas equally stirring and
powerful. But we return to Germany. The spirit of
thought and inquiry, which pervades the Protestant
half of Prussia, is already breaking into the cities and
universities of the Catholic portion, and thousands
released from the superstitions of Rome, are with
drawing also from their allegiance. A still more rapid
intercourse, produced by new facilities of travel, such
as will bring all parts of the kingdom into sensible
contact with each other, will either require a thorough
reformation of the German Catholic church, or deter
mine its extinction. Meantime the government, as
honest and well meaning probably as any in the world,
though, unaccustomed to the modern popular ideas of
liberty, is proving its beneficence by a bold attempt to
educate the people. Power is thus accumulating in

19
them, and, as intelligence increases, so also does the
free spirit. A constitutional form of government must
follow, in which the popular will shall, in some way,
limit the throne. Engaged in political struggles and
duties on one side, and in physical improvement on
the other, the German mind will cease, at length, to
ferment in theories and become practical. Having
emptied all the stores of learning, and tried all forms
of thought, and uttered all the dreams and visions of
which souls are capable ; in a word, having opened
Roads into every corner of the kingdoms, both of truth
and of error, it will begin to settle on some practical
results, worthy of the magnificent preparations it has
made. German theology is a great terror to many, and
it has certainly made strange havoc with the scriptures
and with all received opinions. But I think I detect a
law in its eccentricities, by which it is seen, in them
all, to be moving towards a certain final results — a
result in which Christ and the Christian Church have
an interest as much greater than they had in the
cathedrals of the former age, as truth is more divine
than stone, and her temple more magnificent than any
that is made with hands. Certain it is, that, if any
thing can provide a menstruum which is able to dis
solve the about equal bigotry of Protestantism and
Romanism and bring them out into the open field of
truth, to search after truth in its own evidence, and flow
together, at last, into the unity of the truth, it is this
German activity. Having done this, and nothing more,
it will have accomplished a good sufficiently magnifi
cent to compensate for all its aberrations ; for, without
this, somehow accomplished, it is manifest that the
Christian Church can never make the attainment, or
achieve the destiny for which she hopes.

20
Returning from this wide excursion, our traveller
ascends the Rhine — by steam of course; for the
Steamboats are plying on this rapid stream, almost as
industriously as On the Hudson. Every bend of the
river opens a vista of deserted and ruined castles,
crowning the summits of the mountains and the isola
ted peaks that overhang the river. The poetaster sighs
over the decay of so much chivalry and grandeur, but
the man of sense, knowing that these were all so many,
abodes of land pirates and toll-gatherers, who subsisted
on the prey of commerce, thanks God that finally a
Road is opened for honest men to pass and do the
honest business of their life. The grey old castles,
crumbling under a curse have a harmless, stupid look,
over which Time grins in mockery — he laughs him
self at the sorry figure they make. Or, if some of
them were built for purposes of personal security, in a
lawless and violent age, regarding them only with
reverential pity, as monuments of the days of Sham-
gar, he glories not in them, but in the new age of law
which has at length descended on the world; knowing
that law is now the grand castle of man, a castle as
much more magnificent, as it is more comprehensive ;
as much firmer and nobler, as justice and truth are
more unassailable and of a nature more august, than
walls of stone.
Our traveller breaks into Switzerland through the
city wall of Basle, under the smoke of a locomotive ;
for what else can open a path through the walls of
fortified cities? Here in Switzerland he finds also
new Roads, the best that can be made, but leaves
Railroads, for the present, behind him. All the world
are travelling in Switzerland, except the Swiss, and
they are beginning to climb over the Alps after loads of

21
American cotton, which they manufacture and carry
back to the transalpine markets. The Swiss are a
fine people ; honest, simple-minded republicans — only
they do not understand what hbertv is. They think it
is liberty in the canton Vaud, to compel Christian min
isters to read their state proclamations against them
selves, and do the bidding of the state in all respects.
But the. ministers think otherwise, and having taken
their stand with the noble Vinet at their head, incur
ring silence, suspension, want and even the fear of
death, they are some of them learning in their trials,
what spiritual religion is — which they did not know
before. Their persecutors, too, who are strangely
enough called the radical party, are now rioting against
the Jesuits and for their expulsion, which is just as
bad in principle. But religion is reviving ; the Swiss
mind is at work ; true liberty is feeling out its way.
For long ages, this little nation of republicans, lay
locked within their mountain fastnesses, shut away
from the living world ; but now, the gates are open ;
the living World has come, and they feel its quickening
power. The valleys are threaded with fine, broad
Roads; the lakes fronted by palaces, built for hotels
— the only palaces known to. the Swiss; Raikoads
are projected ; and some even think it possible that a
steam car may sometime be heard thundering through
the Alps, and making its appearance in Italy, on the
other side.
But, for the present, we must go over, and not
through them. Here, again, we find four stupendous
Roads, all virtually new, chmbing over these everlasting
hills ; spanning chasms, plunging through promonto- i
ries of rock, skirting gulfs* shedded with stone arches,
here and there, for the avalanches to slide over; pass-

22
ing, at the summit, between peaks of eternal ice ;
smooth, wide, easy of ascent and descent ; northern
Europe pouring over into southern, Protestantism into
Popery, and Popery back into Protestantism ; new
ideas and old travelling back and forth, and passing
on thek way ; and commerce, with its heavy loaded
teams, rolling securely over these icy ramparts, in
attempting which, a Hannibal lost three-fourths of his
army. Climbing over one of these passes, that we
will say of the Simplon, the traveller is made to feel,
possibly for the first time in his life, what is in a Road ;
how much it means, what victories it signifies ; what
myrmidons of thought, more powerful than armies,
are pouring over it, daily and nightly, from nation to
nation. Meditating thus, a strange power rushes upon
him, as if he had somehow fallen, for once, into the
high-road of destiny itself. Is it that Napoleon, whom
some have called the man of destiny, is represented in
this work ? Is it, that a force is every where displayed,
which mocks the sternest frowns of nature, and
tramps across her wildest gulfs of terror ? Or, is it,
rather, that he pictures the fierce soldier, storming
these icy solitudes, not, as he thought, to open a way
for his armies, but a way, rather, wherein the new
future of Italy shall descend upon her? Here it is, if
never before, that he conceives the moral import of a
Road He reaches Milan, and first of all, he notices, with a
smile, that they are here also visibly thinking of
motion, having torn up the rough, old pavement of
their streets, to lay down smooth fines of floor, in the
tracks of the wheels, for easing and expediting thek
motion. Noting this, as a symptom, he is not sur
prised to see that this ancient, and many times ruined

23
city, is reviving once more. He pursues his way
towards Venice, passing the once splendid cities of
Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, Vincenza, Padua, on a fine,
broad, macadamized Road constructed by the Austrian
viceroy. The signs of improvement are few and
sometimes display the marks of a people only half
awake. On this magnificent Road, for example, the
diligence will have, for its outfit, a conductor and two
postilions, one for each span of horses. But the pos
tilions cannot agree, whether to ride fast or slow, they
stop every mile or two, the hindmost disconnects the
horses of the foremost, and he, in turn, wheels into the
path, that the other may not proceed without him;
they threaten and storm at each other, and the con
ductor swears at both, and thus the magnificent Road
comes, at last, in the practical result, to a very sorry
figure, not at all relieved by the liveries, which connect
the official dignity of the government with such an
exhibition of mock enterprize. Such, now, is the
beginning of life in Austria. When Austria is covered
with Railroads, and quickened throughout by com
merce, when private enterprize has come into power
ful action, then will a single man do the work of
these three ; and doing it for himself, it will be well
done, done with so much of character, that, without
either jackboots or feathers, or the official horn hung
under his shoulder, the deficient livery will not be
missed. At Peschiera, a famous military pass, where the
Mincio issues from the Lago di Garda, the road passes
through an enormous fortification, whose cannon bris
tle in the face of the traveller, as he crosses the moats
and winds round the buttresses. Towards this fort
cannon are trailing and troops marching ; for the Aus-

24
trian government has just heard that there is another
outbreak in the Roman States, and knows not what
will come of it — a sign which has much meaning in
it. At old Padua, he finds a Raikoad leading down
to the coast, off Venice. And here, the Venetians are
just finishing a viaduct, on high stone arches, through
the sea, six miles in length, over which the locomotive
is to be rolled dkectly into old Venice— that same
Venice which was thrown, like a stranded vessel, on a
mud shoal, out at sea, to escape the robbers from the
land, and obtain a safe mart for merchandise. Every
year it was married, in a public pomp, to the sea ; now
it is married, in bands of kon, to the land. When
too, this Road is extended to Milan, as it soon will
be, commanding all the commerce of Lombardy and
Switzerland, Venice will revive again, and will proba*
bly become more prosperous even, than when it was
called Queen of the Sea, and had the commerce of
the world. Already it. begins to show a new ak of
life, and, what is truly characteristic of the age, it is
building Roads within itself, or, what is the same, span
ning with bridges, here and there, its numerous water
alleys, to facilitate communication. And so, old Ven
ice, having the " Bridge of Sighs " walled up, lighted
with gas, made a free port of entry, and married to the
land, looks up, as a bride again, and smiles. That new
ideas are also in Venice, which promise more than all
mere physical benefits, it is hardly necessary to affirm.
The traveller now crosses the Appenines, we will
suppose, to Florence — much of the way on a new
and excellent Road. He passes Bologna, a city of the
Roman states, on his way. Here many signs of fresh
creation are visible, and, as every body knows and
might know before hand, there is something of unea-

25
siness, in this creative spkit. The Bolognese have
wants, and, sometime or other, will have liberty to
speak of their wants. Florence is a neat, vigorous
looking city ; and Tuscany, generally, wears a look Of
comfort. Here are law and justice, and the old spirit
of liberty is still visible, in the character of the people.
Nowhere, beyond the Alps, is the Roman government,
or that of the Pope, so thoroughly despised. Florence,
the old enemy, the deadly rival and scourge of Pisa, is
now just about to be married to Pisa, by a Raikoad ; it
being now discovered that Both cities can exist together,
and will, in fact, only assist the prosperity one of the
other. Alas, that so much blood, and fire, and wrath
should have been expended on a mistake, so easily
seen in this age of commerce and Roads. »
We pass on to the States of the Church. And here
the people are growling, with a half stifled voice, for
something which they cannot get. Why this ill na
ture ? What is it they want ? Why, they want Roads,
and the Holy Father will not consent. And why do
they want Roads? have they not all the Roads they
ever had, and these in good order, some of them newly
paved, for many miles, and almost as nicely as the
Appian Way itself? Have they not a good new Road to
Naples also ? Assuredly something new, some dim
hope of something better has got into the heads of the
people, which mars thek content. At length, the Holy
Father dies and immediately a soft smile relaxes their
faces. - Regarding him, as the very representative of
God, thek mourning over Him takes on yet an invol
untary smile; — because now they will have Roads!
But Roads were not all they wanted, it was only safer
to speak of Roads ; they had some want of law, per
sonal safety, freer marts of trade, tribunals clear of

26
bribery. Well the new Pope enters on his office, and
he says, yes, let there be Roads, Railroads, one to
Civita Vecchia, one to Ancona on the other shore, one
to Florence in the north, one to meet the Naples Road
in the south. He will endeavor, also, to do something
for education, he will secularize the tribunals of law,
and the bureaus of state, and take off the enormous
duties, which had thrown all commerce into the hands
of smugglers. He may not be able to do all this ; for
it is already clear that the priests are against him and
they are Legion, both in name and nature. But the
Roads will be built, the robbers will lose their occupa
tion, trade will spring up, the English travellers, who
have created, at length, these new wants in the people,
will pour in more copiously than ever, bringing new
ideas still, and the very locomotives, rushing into the
eternal city, and rolling their smoke over St. Peter's,
will come as new ideas and types of modern power.
No man could well understand the age of Shamgar,
without a visit to the Roman states. It is soon to be
over. The dark middle age of the Judges is coming
to an end. Now, most assuredly, comes light, educa
tion, justice, and with all these, liberty, religious and
civil liberty.
We return to France, where our excursion closes.
France, as you well know, is also building Roads. She
had fine Roads, many of them, paved with squared
stone before ; these were not enough to satisfy her
commercial and manufacturing activity; for France,
if I do not mistake, is improving more rapidly than
any country in Europe. The great estates of the nobles
and the abbeys were broken up, in the violence of the
Revolution and under the reign of Napoleon, so that
now the landed property of France is well distributed,

27
compared wfth almost any country in Europe. Hope
dawns on labor, and industry opens a new era in phys
ical advancement. Akeady a Railroad penetrates the
old city of Nismes, so mournfully distinguished in the
history of the Huguenots. Another will shortly connect
Marseilles with Avignon, and the walls of the old
inquisition, where the noble Rienzi perished a martyr
to liberty, will shake at the sound of the engine and
the coming of a renovated age. So there are Rail
roads spinning out of Paris, in every direction, and
enough are already projected to cross nearly every
department of the nation. France' also deskes peace ;
for she well knows the import of war, and though
she glories in Napoleon, she does not care to risk all her
commerce and her growing prosperity, for the chance
of seeing another. Meantime she talks, in her parlia
ment, of a more equal and complete christian liberty.
And, what is better still, many hearts are beginning to
yearn, in all parts of the nation, for some better light,
some more spkitual religion, such as meets the wants
of their being. Old superstitions are breaking down ;
atheism akeady old is shaking with decrepitude.
Philosophers talk of religion, with such kind of wis
dom as they can ; hamlets, and villages, here and there,
turn upon thek priests as impostors, and many signs
of a great reUgious renovation appear. Sufficient proof
have we here, that our age of utility, and of Roads,
is not, of course, losing the sense of religion and not
likely to end, in the meagre way, which many predict.
Most of the facts included in this brief sketch or
review, it is well understood, were known to you be
fore. But it has not been my object to instruct you
in regard to facts, so much as to hold them before you,

2S
in thek moral connections, as symbols of*the age and
of what God is workmg, in the age. In proposing a
discourse on Roads, I did it in the hope that I should
thus be able to give you a more distinct apprehension,
than in any other way, of your age and its characteris
tics — its relation to past ages, its future prospects, and
the methods by which it is reaching after results of use,
of common beneficence and common humanity. In
no other way can you understand so well what is going
on in the world, and what is preparing, and what kind
of ideas are at work, whether new or old, malignant
or hopeful, as simply to note that this is a Road build
ing age. The dark age built castles, on the inaccessi
ble peaks of mountains, to get away from enemies, we
build cottages, on public Roads, which we like to have
as perfect as possible, to facilitate access and motion.
The Egyptians built pyramids over the dead, we build
Roads to give life and swiftness to the living. The
Chinese erect a wall to shut themselves in ; we open
Roads and ports and span the ocean itself with float
ing bridges, that we may go every where and behold
the coming of all people.
And what is specially remarkable, this Road build
ing movement is the first example, in the history of
mankind, where all the great nations of the world
have moved together, and been actuated by a com
mon aim. One has given itself to commerce, another
to arms and conquest, another to art, another to the
sea, another to agriculture. Now, all are for com
merce, interchange, travel and motion together. And,
what is yet more sublime and hopeful, they all are
feeling the pressure of the same great moral ideas,
peace, liberty, education, religious light, and unity.
The desire of physical improvement holds a natural

29
and philosophic connection with all these great ideas,
moral and religious. In our physical improvements,
we seek ends of beneficence, such as the ease and
cheapness of production, the convenience of a market,
the facihty of intercourse between the masses of
society, and thus we pass over to think of intellectual
and moral results, peace, knowledge, liberty, holy
virtue, heavenly unity — our ideal of beneficence,
allows no fimitation ; it associates every thing good, by
virtue of its own goodness ; and accordingly, it will be
found, much as we hear of the sordid spirit of this age
of utility, that the very thought which moves us, in our
universal Road building, is one that cannot be satisfied,
till every thing included in beneficence, as an ideal, is
fulfilled. What is to come? That is a question opening
visions of future good, which, though we cannot
prophecy, we cannot but indulge.
Undoubtedly a new era of wealth is at hand. Com
merce never has failed to bring wealth to any nation,
and it can enrich all as easily as one. Nay, one, the
more easily, that it is permitted to enrich all. It fol-
. lows, of necessity, that the population of the world
will be vastly increased.
Wars, it will also be seen, cannot, if they occur, be
as long as they have been heretofore. Where it is
possible to transport an army, with all its supplies and
munitions, a thousand miles in three days, pouring one
nation into the bosom of another,, almost at will, it is
evident that wars must come to their issue, in the fall
of one party or the other, in a very short time. This
will create an indisposition in the nations to engage in
war. The conviction, too, that nations have a natural

30
interest in each other and are not natural enemies, as
was once the current maxim of the world; the advan
tages also of commerce and the noble triumphs of
peace, will all conspire to create a common opinion,
at length, against war. The absurdity of war, too, will
have been abundantly shown and its disagreement
with the great principles of Christianity. The appeal
to arms therefore, as a means of redress for injuries,
will be classed with the old method of trial by combat,
and will disappear, we may hope, in the same manner.
Prophecy will thus fulfil her holy vision — the nations
Avill learn war no more.
Another promise will follow in the train ; for as
many run to and fro, knowledge will be increased.
I am fully sensible, as you know, to the dangers
which beset an age of travel and motion. Every good
brings its dangers with it. And did we not see a
deske of universal education every where attending
and keeping company with the extension of facilities
for travel, we might well fear, lest so much of running
to and fro, will end in a general destruction of all sober
habits ; producing, at last, a state of society, which is
made up only of surfaces, emptied of every solid prin
ciple. But the schools, we observe, are spreading, as
the Roads are extending ; and the hope of attaining to
a better social state is in fact the common stimulus of
both. The governments of Christendom, are every
where consenting to the fact, that they exist for the
good of all who live under them. And this thought,
shaping their policy, gives them an interest in the
masses under them, makes them protectors of industry,
and prepares them to assist and encourage industry,
by favoring such a distribution of property, as will best
effect an object so worthy. Having it for their prob-

31
lem to make every man as valuable as possible, to
himself and to his country, and becoming more and
more inspired, as we may hope, by an aim so lofty,
every means will be used to diffuse education, to fortify
morals, and favor the holy power of religion. This
being done, there is no longer any danger from travel.
On the contrary, the masses of society, will by this
means, be set forward continually in character and
intelligence. As they run, knowledge will be increased.
The roads will themselves be schools ; for here they
will see the great world moving and feel themselves
to be a part of it. Their narrow, local prejudices will
be ,worn off, their superstitions will be forgotten. Every
people will begin to understand and appreciate every
other, and a common light will be kindled in all bosoms. '
The effects which are to result, in matters of religion,
from the universal interchange of travel, in our age of
Roads, are a subject of yet graver import Man lives
for religion. Human society exists for religion. And
it is remarkable how all the great movements of society
for the last fifty years, the wars; diplomacies, and even
the public wrongs of the world, have tended, univer
sally and even visibly, to favor the extension of Chris
tian truth, and invigorate the efforts of Christian love.
Observing a fact so palpable in all the external doings
of the nations, who can withhold a suspicion that a
correspondent aim penetrates the internal work of soci
ety, and, of course, that our age of Roads has some
holy purpose of God fulfilling, in its social revolutions,
which connects with the coming reign of Christ on
earth ?
Manifestly freedom of thought and opinion is soon
to be universal, and this will throw all truth upon the
d ecision of evidence. Then, force being no longer em-

32
ployed to constrain men's opinions, the false antago
nism of fear and passion will no longer disturb the bal
ance of the christian mind as now, and truth will rule by
her own right in her own field. Opinion^, being deter
mined only by argument and evidence, will naturally
approximate. The christian mind, liberalized by inter
course; will suffer a more enlarged charity, and the
charity of forbearance will be followed by the charity
of love. The boundaries of nations, spanned by bands
of iron, crossed and re-crossed, many times a day, as
freely as the bkds of the ak fly over them and as swiftly,
will cease at length to be felt. The Roads of inter
course will create vital bonds of unity between nations,
and a common circulation, like that of the ducts of the
body, will make the members one, as by a common
life. Meantime, there is an assimilating power in inter
course, which cannot be over estimated. So great is
this power, that every new Road of travel, which expe
dites intercourse between the older and newer portions
of our country, is to be regarded as a great moral ben
efit Let the North and' the South, the East and the
West, from Maine to Oregon, be connected with Roads
of iron, as soon as possible. The greatest danger,
which threatens us now, is not Romanism, but barba
rism ; that wildness, lawlessness, and violence, which
* result' from distance and isolation. Let distance, if
possible, be annihilated, let speed have a race with
emigration^ and every straggler of the woods be held
in close proximity with civilization, law and religion ;
and then the assimilating power, which resides in the
better forms of society, will pervade and shape the
whole mass into itself It seems also to be the mag
nificent purpose of God* in our age of Roads, to set

33
this same power of mutual assimilation at work, on a
yet broader scale, and so as to include all the churches
and nations of Christendom — so that one part may
give to another what it wants, and every church and
nation find its complement in every other. A feehng
of approximation, or a feeling after approximation is
already evident. What was it, in fact, but a lively and
free intercourse, which prompted a desire of union so
remarkable as that which was manifested by the late
convocation at London? In that fact, which twenty
years ago .was not in the conception, of man, you may
see the first fruits of Roads. More and greater will
appear in due time ; for God, I am persuaded, is pre
paring results of vaster compass than have yet appear
ed. In government, we have, as yet, nothing perfect,
and yet we have all something good to contribute.
Thrown together, by perpetual intercourse, and having
it for our ideal to advance society and man, we shall
naturally be assimilated most, to that which most
commands our respect ; and thus we shall mutually
contribute what we have, and receive what we want.
In government, for example, England may contribute
the element of prescriptive order and legal energy ;
Prussia that of system and complete, scientific distri
bution; Rome that of divine authority, by which law
becomes the ordinance of God — an element which,
with us, is well nigh lost ; France, that of theoretic
law; the United States that of abstract equal right.
Thus, all contributing and all receiving, all will be
enriched. Nor let this pass for a mere fancy, or an
unpractical dream. We are receiving from each other,
by a silent influence, in just this manner, now ; only
not as consciously and with as much depth of impres
sion, as we may hereafter, when livelier and more

34
extensive intercourse has brought us into a closer sym
pathy and travels and discussions have exhibited the
points most worthy of respect, in the institutions of all.
So in religion, the church of England may contribute
impressions favorable to some kind of liturgical order.
Germany may offer scripture learning and all possible
views of Christian doctrine. Rome may come into
the assimilating process, to infuse a solemn conviction
of the need of catholic unity, in the Christian family.
France, if she returns to religion, may contribute an
exterior mold of social grace and Christian refinement.
The United States may pour in the element of spiritual
simplicity and practical activity.
God is wiser than we, and carries vaster purposes
in His bosom, and broader truths, I am persuaded,
than our childish thoughts have comprehended, or
conceived. Therefore, doubtless, it would be much
for us to gain, in this matter of religion, if we could
yield the possibility that we are none of us infalli
ble, or perfectly wise, in every thing, and suffer the
hope that He is now pouring the nations together, in
these last days, that He may assimilate thek views and
fill out the glorious orb of christian truth and beauty ;
and thus unite all Christendom, in a common effort,
to fill this world of sin, with the light of EmmanueL '
Such, briefly, are the magnificent hopes that are now
set before us, in the prospect of the coming ages.
What forms of social beauty may be reahzed, what
structures of art may be raised, what works of genius
created, by the renovated wealth, intelligence, and piety
of the world, I will not stop to conceive. Enough to
know what transcends all such conjectures, and rises
on the mind as the summit of all grandeur and sub
limity, that Christ the Lord shall ascend into his throne

35
and reign, in the moral majesty of peace and right
eousness, over the admiring nations. Seeing then the
nations moved, for the first time, by a common im
pulse, and preparing to embrace, in the ways described,
we will not fear to view a fact so wonderful, as a fore
runner of the Son of Man. We will re-apply the fit
words of prophecy, and say — "Prepare ye the way of
the Lord make his paths straight. Every valley shall
be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought
low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the
rough ways shall be made smooth, and — all flesh
SHALL SEE THE SALVATION OF GoD."

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